Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow thieves,

That’s something that always bothered me when playing my thief, when comparing it to most of the classes, we really lack variety when it comes to weapon selection.

Some other classes also get a few weapon sets, engineers and elementalists for example, but this is compensated by their ability to swap kits / switch attunements (even if I think the engineer could maybe use one more weapon, but well, another debate.)

Right now, we have :

Main-hand : sword / dagger / pistol
Off-hand : pistol / dagger
Two hands : shortbow

I know we are supposed to have the “duel wielding” ability, but it still feels underwhelming to me.

So, here is a simple question, do you think we could use maybe one or two more weapons in our actual selection, or do you think that it’s fine as it is right now?

Longbow / Rifle for single target ranged abilities.
Off-hand sword.
Off-hand focus? Giving us some supportives abilities, focusing on the ‘shadow & smoke mage’ aspect of the thief?

Would be nice to have rifle or longbow, but I doubt that giving a long range ST dps weapon to a stealthy/mobile class is going to happen anytime soon.

Off-hand sword would be nice, but doing what? blocks and parry?
We have blinds and interrupts with OH pistol, dmg and stealth with OH dagger…
D/S would look quite funny… Like a left-handed thief…

I hope focus and other magic weapons stay out of the thief options. IMO, dark arts magic is the necro area…

I’d actually like to see Thief with some more focus type objects in her off hand, like the Torch, or a Chain, or a Fan … things that would do specialized types of effects to reflect the idea that the Thief is a “think on your feet” type. The Steal skill does this to a point, sure, and I love Steal – but I’d like a more specific offhand utility item(s) as well.

Engineer and elementalist have access to more weapon bar abilities in one spec than any other profession.

Necro says hi

Hi Necro, I know that feel. As I said, their swapping abilities largely compensate. And that’s what I regret most when playing my thief instead of my engineer.

I know other classes need more skills as well, and I still think that to be restricted to 5 skills by weapon set, without the possibility to customise them is stupid.

Overall, we need more skills customisation, I think.

About the off-hand sword, it could have a parry ability, and maybe a disengaging ability? Could synergise well with the shadowstep of the main-hand sword.

I agree about the fact that D/S would look kinda wonky, but it could still be done, I guess.

About the focus, it was just an idea to gives us more support skills.

I’d like to see a two-handed spear or staff of some sort, along with a rifle for long range.
Offhand sword, torch, and maybe even a buckler (a small shield) would all be pretty cool. Only problem with some of those is that Anet would have to introduce a whole new weapon set, make new skins, put them as options in quests, etc.

I think the swapping between weapons is the main restriction for the thief. As a thief/“assasin” I feel like you not only should be able to burst out lots of skills (initiative mechanic) but also use a wide range of weaponry in rapid combo’s. Shoot your bow → throw a dagger → thrust with your sword in a matter of seconds.

Being not only acrobatic in movement, but also in using weapons!

You’re Thief, not an universal soldier-assassin.

I grew fond of the way how Flanking Strike works, you get a buff which changes your third weaponskill to another one.
To add more choices for thiefs, I think that this could be extended to all thief weaponskills, so you get additional effects on all of your skills on every weaponset, after using a dualwield skill.

To give a rough example:
You use flanking strike and now you got the lacerous buff, now you weaponswap to D/D and do a deathblossom. Since you have still the lacerous buff, you steal boons from every person you hit with Deathblossom.
Now since you used Lacerousblossom (or howevery you want to call it) the lacerous buff fades away.
Or you use heartseeker and instead of stealing a boon, you let some boons explode at your target.

I just took lacerous as example, but that way Anet could give some weaponsets a more specific role like the current S/D, which is used against boons.
D/D and deathblossom could give you some additional condition effects as buff and with that D/D would be more condition focused.

I think rifle could be cool with a thief. If they made it like a sniper rifle, the farther away you are the more damage it does, or something like that. The skills could focus on scope and precision…headshot?

Keep in mind that thieves want weapons that allow them to be agile so rifles or longbows are out of question.
I would like to see them with something like a quarterstaff though, would be interesting.

HERE IS MY SOLUTION!

Offhand light (aka no offhand weapon) replaces off hand skills as well. These offhand skills should be based on the mainhand weapon as well.

Zacchary.6183:

HERE IS MY SOLUTION!

Offhand light (aka no offhand weapon) replaces off hand skills as well. These offhand skills should be based on the mainhand weapon as well.

This would give you less stats though. Since 2h weapons give more stats. It’s somewhat wierd since it would thief-specific and what could you do with one dagger that you can’t do with two, for example? Doesn’t sound all too inovating but that’s me.

Y U NO TORCH?!?!?

T_T

Zephyric Reaper.3049:

Zacchary.6183:

HERE IS MY SOLUTION!

Offhand light (aka no offhand weapon) replaces off hand skills as well. These offhand skills should be based on the mainhand weapon as well.

This would give you less stats though. Since 2h weapons give more stats. It’s somewhat wierd since it would thief-specific and what could you do with one dagger that you can’t do with two, for example? Doesn’t sound all too inovating but that’s me.

Simple – the main-hand weapon would be increased to a 2h stat equivalent, whether that’s automatic or via a trait, perhaps replacing Improvisation or something.

Also, using one weapon leaves the other hand free for more agile moves, for example, using only Dagger main-hand can leave the other hand to be used for more acrobatic purposes eg. using it to flip away, towards or over an opponent for direct damage versions of Death Blossom, evasive jumps or agile techniques like intercepting attacks by avoiding the initial hit, catching the attacker’s arm and holding them still while you counter with your main weapon. I can see Pistol/Light having some interesting skills like #3 being a Western-style, bleeding version of Unload with the free-hand pulling the hammer back, channeling for as long as you can keep it active (draining initiative slowly as you fire it), and the off-hand skills focusing on slowing the opponent down eg. knocking them back with a swift uppercut at point-blank range. Sword would result in more of a fencer style, with dirty tactics from the free hand when an enemy gets too close for comfort.

I am all for the idea and made a thread about something like this a while back now.

A class I miss most in my MMO past is the Mage Assassin. I would like to see the Thief get a staff or scepter. Since this class lacks the 1200 range weapon option, it could fill this niche.

Personally, I would LOVE to see a melee staff, but the staff and rifle idea have been discussed before. Would be a nice acrobatic addition to thief weaponry.

Given that we have access to 3 primary hand weapons but have only 2 choices for offhand, I believe that a new offhand should be made available to thief.

I have 2 suggestions:
Torch: I feel that the torch suits the thief profession. Skill names could be stylised as arsonist skills to maintain the ‘thief’ motif. e.g. ‘slash and burn’ or ‘smoke out your enemies’. The skills could apply burning or boons, niches that are not filled at this point for the thief. Alternately, this weapon set could account for the lack of AOE within the profession (with the exception of cluster bomb).

Focus: In GW1, the assassin had access to a number of half-range spells that could make some awesome ‘mage-assassin’ builds. Given this, giving thieves focus as an offhand choice would fit stylistically with thieves. Additionally, this could allow for more support skills skills and offhand skills that add increase mobility. e.g. more shadowsteps to account for the loss of stealth through offhand dagger/ pistol, or the ability to apply stealth/boons to an ally at range.

Either of these additions could allow for more synergy in group play and less reliance on stealth-heavy builds, two aspects of the thief that could use addressing.

Edit: Also, another weapon choice would add some more variation to the thief and be generally awesome.

Doomdesire.9365:

Y U NO TORCH?!?!?

T_T

Offhand torch w/ ability to apply burning and blinds + Trait revamp that includes blind synergy in Trickery = All the thief utility/build diversity.

A focus with access to a “Silence” field (1s daze every 1s?) would be a really neat way to go with the thief as well.

I’m not in favor of a rifle though, just because everyone would insist that it be a sniper rifle, and it’d push thieves even more into a one-big-crit ambush role. Warriors already got the giant aimed rifle shot thing on lock anyways. If they want to do something more creative with it then by all means…

I would LOVE Torch for the Thief.

Pistol/Torch would be incredible and maybe a Dagger/Torch Mightstacking build.

Four or five primary weapons seems to be the default. Thief has four primaries and three offhands. Mesmer has four primaries and four ofhands… but because two of the primaries are two-handed weapons, they don’t have much choice when it comes to combining their offhand with a primary weapon. Necromancer has four primaries and three offhands. Ranger has five primary weapons and four offhands, but three of their primaries are two-handed weapons.

It’s guardian and warrior that are special by having lots of weapon choices, while engineers and elementalists have the ability to have more than two weaponsets’ worth of skills available in one build. Thieves are pretty much around the default – not to say that they couldn’t use more, but they’re not really in a deficient state. They’re close to the median. (From a practical perspective, there’s also the consideration that a new mainhand or offhand weapon would require a new set of dual skills, and the more that are added, the more new skills will be needed for each new weapon in the other category.)

Of the suggestions, I’d probably go with a rifle first. Yes, sniping is a less acrobatic style, but a true sniping-focused weapon could be an interesting addition to their skillset if it’s done right (stealth skill being a sniping shot, and you could have a skill in there to set it up that blinds any foe within a certain range, and grants you stealth if and only if it doesn’t hit any enemies (so an enemy player can stop you from stealthing in this fashion if they can keep close to you). You could also have a skill in there to help snipers jump around on rooftops – maybe the thief uses the rifle as a pole-vault – a snare, and… hrrrrmn. For the sake of keeping a distinct difference from the warrior rifle, I’d probably suggest the regular autoattack be white damage (for a shot on the run, the thief doesn’t have much opportunity to do anything fancy – you could even call it Snap Shot) while the remaining skill could be a boon remover or stealer.

Orrrr… there could be a skill called “Scope the Target” (or something similar), which increases the range and critical chance of your next projectile.

Thinking on Tulisin’s comment, an interesting alternative way to have sniping work without it being yet another one-big-crit effect could be for the shot from stealth not to have extra damage, but to apply Confusion instead, to represent the startling effect of a sniper’s bullet coming out of nowhere.

Thus, the full list of skills could be:

Snap Shot: Shoot your foe for moderate damage
(Stealth) Snipe: Shoot your foe for moderate damage and applying Confusion.
Scope the Target: Carefully line up your shot, granting your next projectile fired within 2 seconds +300 range and a bonus to critical chance.
Kneecapper: End your target’s dreams of being an adventurer by Crippling them with a bullet to the knee.
Vault: Leap forward up to 600 units by vaulting over your rifle. Any enemy you come into contact with along the way ends your movement, and takes low damage and is knocked back by your flying kick.
Smoke and Mirrors: Blind any nearby enemies. If Smoke and Mirrors hits no enemies, it grants stealth to nearby allies.

In terms of other weapon options:

A non-magical quarterstaff I could get behind (and would be another candidate for vaulting). Outright magical weapons I’m leery of – the thief obviously uses some magic, but I think it’s better if it remains relatively minor, or it’ll start bleeding into the mesmer.

Torch seems a bit off due to not really being compatible with stealth. Offhand sword… I can understand the appeal, but on the other hand, I can also see why ArenaNet has limited offhand swords to professions focused solely on physical mastery (warriors) and professions that use the sword simply as an alternative magical focus (mesmers). Dual-wielding two full-sized swords is easier said than done.

I’m all for the rifle.
While I can understand the argument that a rifle would make the thief rather stationary which doesn’t go along with the acrobatic design, neither does torch to be honest. “Hey look at me, I am a stealthed thief. So wait, don’t look at me, cause I am stealthed. But I have this super bright torch giving away my position! So yes look at me!”

Incidentally, thinking of ‘no offhand’ skills…

…I could see it working. Stat bonuses for 2H weapons are roughly double those as for 1H weapons, so you could just make the stat bonuses for a lone 1H weapon count double for thieves using an empty offhand. It could also make for a possible “melee only” set of weaponskills that is currently lacking on the thief – due to the requirements of offhands being useful for either mainhand, OH dagger and pistol currently are designed so that they’re useful both at range and in melee, which means they aren’t really optimised for either role. This has tactical advantages, especially for a skirmishing character like the thief, but while the shortbow provides a ranged-only option, the thief currently has no melee-only option, and expanding single-hand fighting styles would be one way of providing that. (As would, incidentally, a two-handed melee weapon like a fighting staff.)

RoterFuchs.9216:

I’m all for the rifle.
While I can understand the argument that a rifle would make the thief rather stationary which doesn’t go along with the acrobatic design, neither does torch to be honest. “Hey look at me, I am a stealthed thief. So wait, don’t look at me, cause I am stealthed. But I have this super bright torch giving away my position! So yes look at me!”

The problem with that line of reasoning is that mobility is innate to the thief but stealth is not. Stealth is a play style choice, and one that a couple weapon sets are already ineffective at. More weapon sets that don’t choose stealth is a good thing for the profession and increases the options and variety available to thieves. Stuff like Burning application to make condition builds more viable, a fire field for Might stacking synergy, etc are things that will increase the thief’s utility and build diversity and get thieves away from the exclusively “stealth + high-damage ambush” role and play style that is so prevalent.

I’m not even against another low-mobility weapon set like P/P is, but “Torch would be bad at stealth” is a point in favor of the idea, not against it.

draxynnic

Incidentally, thinking of ‘no offhand’ skills…

…I could see it working. Stat bonuses for 2H weapons are roughly double those as for 1H weapons, so you could just make the stat bonuses for a lone 1H weapon count double for thieves using an empty offhand. It could also make for a possible “melee only” set of weaponskills that is currently lacking on the thief – due to the requirements of offhands being useful for either mainhand, OH dagger and pistol currently are designed so that they’re useful both at range and in melee, which means they aren’t really optimised for either role. This has tactical advantages, especially for a skirmishing character like the thief, but while the shortbow provides a ranged-only option, the thief currently has no melee-only option, and expanding single-hand fighting styles would be one way of providing that. (As would, incidentally, a two-handed melee weapon like a fighting staff.)

This idea has come up before, and I like it, but it does have some itemization issues, particularly the lack of two weapon sigils. This could maybe be offset by some impressive single-weapon-only traits or skills, but it’d make the weapon options a bit tougher to balance.

Tulisin.6945:

RoterFuchs.9216:

I’m all for the rifle.
While I can understand the argument that a rifle would make the thief rather stationary which doesn’t go along with the acrobatic design, neither does torch to be honest. “Hey look at me, I am a stealthed thief. So wait, don’t look at me, cause I am stealthed. But I have this super bright torch giving away my position! So yes look at me!”

The problem with that line of reasoning is that mobility is innate to the thief but stealth is not. Stealth is a play style choice, and one that a couple weapon sets are already ineffective at. More weapon sets that don’t choose stealth is a good thing for the profession and increases the options and variety available to thieves. Stuff like Burning application to make condition builds more viable, a fire field for Might stacking synergy, etc are things that will increase the thief’s utility and build diversity and get thieves away from the exclusively “stealth + high-damage ambush” role and play style that is so prevalent.

I’m not even against another low-mobility weapon set like P/P is, but “Torch would be bad at stealth” is a point in favor of the idea, not against it.

How can you say that mobility is innate and stealth is not? Mobility is also a playstyle choice. I can go fullstealth D/D with stealth utilities only. The only skills that come remotely close to mobility in this setup is Heartseeker and Steal. The latter can be traited for stealth.
On the other hand I can go full mobility and ignore stealth as much as possible. And yet depending on your build you might still encounter some stealth elements.
Both are innate. I haven’t counted, but I would almost bet that there are more ways / skills to gain stealth than movement.

Just because you would like to see thief going in a less stealthy direction doesn’t mean it’s right. A low mobility set like P/P or potentially a rifle – with the first being also low stealth – might just be as right as a torch which would totally neglect stealth.

What I wanted to say: a thief is by definition quick and sneaky. He mustn’t attract attention. Guess what a torch does. A sniper rifle on the other hand means a (probably) silent kill. But it’s less mobile.

MrForz.1953:

You’re Thief, not an universal soldier-assassin.

Nice one, cheers!

Most of all; Assassins were quite good with Longbows in GW1, and even NPC Assassins used them. Kinda odd that they didn’t add them to Thief.

I want more off-hand weapons such as Shields for counters like our underwater spear, Focus/Torch for Magic related Dual Attacks (they did say they wanted to give us burn condition in interview), and Sword for obvious reasons.

Then there’s Main and Offhand Claws/H2H in my dreams. :<

RoterFuchs.9216:

Just because you would like to see thief going in a less stealthy direction doesn’t mean it’s right.

This mentality is the main problem. There’s no “going in a direction” in GW2, professions don’t need to conform to a single archetype because different weapons offer such vastly different combat doctrines. It is extremely obvious that thieves are supposed to be able to conform to assassin, trickster, pirate, and duelist archetypes, among others, yet the thief community will spend hours insisting to one another that their way of playing the thief is the only legitimate one.

The fact is that the stealth/assassin/ambush archetypes are already extremely well supported and effective, the thief should be fleshed out in other ways as opposed to trying to consolidate a base of effectiveness in one role.

What I would like to see is a torch off-hand with these skills.

Number 4 skill 4: Initiative
Sweep your torch across your foe’s eyes dazing them. Burn them instead if you attack from behind.
Damage: 151
Daze: 2s
Burning: 3s
Range: 130

Number 5 skill 6: Initiative [ground targeted]
Throw your torch and create a cloud of smoke.
Duration: 6s
Radius: 240
Combo Field: Smoke
Range: 900
Unblockable

I’m not sure about a torch personally because not only has it been created mainly as a magical weapon in the game, but a thief illuminating his location seems to defeat the object of remaining hidden.

Why not just give us an Axe main hand to give is more of a bandit-like option? We can already style ourselves like pirates, why not the rougher land-type as well?

Rifle might work as well but we already have P/D, P/P and SB as ranged options. An Axe just seems to fit the bandit bill to me. It could also lend itself to more front-line build where brute force and a thuggish style win the day.

Doggie.3184:

Most of all; Assassins were quite good with Longbows in GW1, and even NPC Assassins used them. Kinda odd that they didn’t add them to Thief.

I want more off-hand weapons such as Shields for counters like our underwater spear, Focus/Torch for Magic related Dual Attacks (they did say they wanted to give us burn condition in interview), and Sword for obvious reasons.

Then there’s Main and Offhand Claws/H2H in my dreams. :<

The counterpart to the bow assassin is the shortbow thief (especially since, IIRC, the bow assassin mostly used Barrage-type skills, and Trick Shot is a closer match to GW1 Barrage than GW2 Barrage is).

Thinking on it, I’m coming around to torch – the thief/rogue working his or her way into a dark tomb by torchlight is a classic image, and to be honest I’m a bit jealous of the NPC mercenaries we keep seeing with pistol/torch (although that combination could also work with engineer). All they’d really need is to make it so the torch gets doused when you’re stealthed, and I suspect mesmer may already be doing that with the Prestige.

Or would, if the torch was actually a mesmer weapon rather than there being an elaborate mirage making us think it was. :P

Shields I consider being completely out of sync with the thief combat style. Such a defensive option would, I think, be a better match for an offhand sword, if that is to be added. Contrary to popular imagery, most historical warriors who fought with two weapons used the second weapon mostly for parrying – such a style for the thief could work, and it would make more sense for something akin to Nine-Tailed Strike to come from an offhand sword rather than an offhand shield.

I am somewhat leery of anything that could create a dagger mainhand-sword offhand weaponset, though.

lLobo.7960:

I hope focus and other magic weapons stay out of the thief options. IMO, dark arts magic is the necro area…

From a lore point of view we use the same branch of magic used by Mesmers which is “denial” magic. I see no reason that we couldn’t get some sort of shadow step and stealth on an off-hand scepter, although it could be pretty OP with IS on main hand sword and a shadow step on off hand scepter… just a thought though.

I want shuriken.

Incurafy.6329:

lLobo.7960:

I hope focus and other magic weapons stay out of the thief options. IMO, dark arts magic is the necro area…

From a lore point of view we use the same branch of magic used by Mesmers which is “denial” magic. I see no reason that we couldn’t get some sort of shadow step and stealth on an off-hand scepter, although it could be pretty OP with IS on main hand sword and a shadow step on off hand scepter… just a thought though.

TBH, I’m not sure what people think Shadow Refuge is if thieves don’t have some level of shadow magic manipulation. Some fun shadow magic stuff for a focus or sceptre could be:

-As mentioned above, a “Silence” field that doesn’t allow activation of utilities/non-main weapon skills inside of it.
-Location swap skill that switches the location of yourself and your target via shadowsteps.
-“Forced return” skill that has a 3-5 second countdown before shadowstepping your target to the location where they were when it was used.
-Offensive stealth ability that stealths your target while applying ticking blind, cripple, and heavy bleeding (would be particularly painful vs. other thieves by screwing their stealth rotation)

It’s a specialised form of the same branch of magic that mesmers use, coupled with gadget use (second only to engineers) and a greater focus on acrobatics and martial techniques.

I’m quite leery of adding spellcasting weapons – sceptre, focus, traditional staff – for this reason. Currently, thief is a fighter that uses a little bit of Denial magic in order to augment their natural stealth and agility, while the mesmer is the magical specialist whose other skills are basically just enough to support what the magic can do. There’s the potential for overlap, but the different attitudes keep them seperate.

Start making the thief into a primary caster, and thief and mesmer are likely to start losing their distinctiveness from one another.

There is plenty of room to advance thieves magic like abilities, shadow type magic if you will. Without stepping on mesmers clones/confusion at all. All sorts of different shadow hexes, Tulisin pointed out a few interesting ideas as well. a focus offhand would fit thief pretty well IMO. And i’m all for rifle simply because predator is one of the best legendary weapons, and i’d like to have a serious legendary instead of my little pony bow and carebear pistol

Staff – 1200 yard range weapon.

1. - Shadowbolt: Shoot a lance of frost at the target. Loose a second lance of frost at the target. Fire a third, more powerful lance at the target and chilling them for 2 seconds. From stealth, Chilling Shadows: Lance of frost that explodes on contact chilling the selected target for 6 seconds but dealing no damage. Deals 2x damage to up to 5 targets around the selected target. Very fast attack speed but low damage

1. - Venom Bolt: Throw a slow moving bolt at the target that deals moderate damage and drops a poison field on the ground. Deals 2x damage if the target is chilled and 3x damage if the target is dazed.

1. - Shadow Mantle: Wear a mantle of shadows blinding anyone who strikes you (internal cooldown). Any time you’re struck gain might.

1. - Steal Breath: Channel a beam into your target hitting them plus up to 2 additional targets. All targets are dazed while the skill is channeled and they take damage. High damage. Unable to move while channeling.

1. - Shadow Touch: Swap places with your target. Target can only move toward you up to 600 yards. You may move toward them up to 900 yards. If used within 300 yards, deals high damage, if used within 600 yards deals low damage, if used 600-1200 yards, deals no damage.

Just boredome setting in at work while I watch these stupid training videos…

I’d love to see a melee staff with traits down the acrobatic line (animations like Darth Maul)
and also a Torch off-hand for burning, more smoke and possibly a fear condition skill (set hair on fire and they run around trying to put it out).