Guild Wars 2

Elementalist : warhorn
Engineer: hammer
Guardian: longbow
Mesmer: shield
Necro: greatsword
Ranger: staff
Warrior: torch
Revenant: doesn’t count. It’ new
And what’s left for thief? Rifle or focus….
A 1200 range or an off hand weapon to concentrate thief energy and let him unleash his power to gain stability while damaging multiple targets or porting through shadows to give stealth and protection to his allies.

#1: It’s Staff.

Daendur.2357:

Elementalist : warhorn

Revenant: doesn’t count. It’ new

#2: It’s new is rather weak argument don’t you think.

#3: It’s Staff.

this entire supposition seems based on a bunch of assumptions which are shaky at best

Due to the devs having only all of their time set aside to work on more Thief content [/sarcasm] Our new weapon will likely only be one we can wield in a single hand (main or off-hand), that way they only need to make ~5 weapon skills for it.

But there’s little reason we can’t have Axe or Mace (go-go team night-stick) and still fit into the idea of a shadowy brawler. If we go with focus (and if the devs did, I would 100% support double handing foci to make the profession look even less intimidating) we would probably go in more of a necromancer direction, and there’s already a working profession in that direction, the devs wouldn’t do that.

Arcane Thief with Focus…gogo

Overworld.9613:

Due to the devs having only all of their time set aside to work on more Thief content [/sarcasm] Our new weapon will likely only be one we can wield in a single hand (main or off-hand), that way they only need to make ~5 weapon skills for it.

except…

Main hand:

• 1 skill
• 2 skill
• 3 no-offhand skill
• 3 with pistol skill
• 3 with dagger skill
  (5 skills)

Off hand:

• 4 skill
• 5 skill
• 3 with sword skill
• 3 with dagger skill
• 3 with pistol skill
  (5 skills)

2-hand:

• 1 skill
• 2 skill
• 3 skill
• 4 skill
• 5 skill
  (5 skills)

and on top of this, main and off-hand weapons would need balanced with the other weapons’ skills in mind, while a 2-handed weapon only needs balanced with itself.

so it’d be less work to do a 2-handed weapon than a 1-handed weapon…

Why not scepter or shield instead?

Gray.9041:

Overworld.9613:

Due to the devs having only all of their time set aside to work on more Thief content [/sarcasm] Our new weapon will likely only be one we can wield in a single hand (main or off-hand), that way they only need to make ~5 weapon skills for it.

except…

Main hand:

• 1 skill
• 2 skill
• 3 no-offhand skill
• 3 with pistol skill
• 3 with dagger skill
  (5 skills)

Off hand:

• 4 skill
• 5 skill
• 3 with sword skill
• 3 with dagger skill
• 3 with pistol skill
  (5 skills)

2-hand:

• 1 skill
• 2 skill
• 3 skill
• 4 skill
• 5 skill
  (5 skills)

and on top of this, main and off-hand weapons would need balanced with the other weapons’ skills in mind, while a 2-handed weapon only needs balanced with itself.

so it’d be less work to do a 2-handed weapon than a 1-handed weapon…

one-hand or two-hand weapons will have to balance the same number of skills — 5.

one-handed:
3 dual wield skills (skill #3 from main-hand weapons)
2 off-hand skills

two-handed:
5 skills

I don’t see the problem.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

one-hand or two-hand weapons will have to balance the same number of skills — 5.

one-handed:
3 dual wield skills (skill #3 from main-hand weapons)
2 off-hand skills

two-handed:
5 skills

I don’t see the problem.

they also have to make sure that a skill on the 1-handed weapons isn’t too weak or too strong when combined with other 1-handers. what works decently on Sword/Focus might be useless/OP on pistol/focus

Gray.9041:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

one-hand or two-hand weapons will have to balance the same number of skills — 5.

one-handed:
3 dual wield skills (skill #3 from main-hand weapons)
2 off-hand skills

two-handed:
5 skills

I don’t see the problem.

they also have to make sure that a skill on the 1-handed weapons isn’t too weak or too strong when combined with other 1-handers. what works decently on Sword/Focus might be useless/OP on pistol/focus

They only balance dagger and sword anyway and never care about pistol main hand, which means there’ll be less skills for them to balance compare to a 5-skills 2-handed.

I’d rather have a scepter than a focus personally.

I think an offhand is more likely in the sense that 2h would mean steal gets transformed into something else, and since steal mechanic is only 2 ( only 1 in reality) abilities It will be quite lacking compared to other transformed spec. Also off hand can provide 3 skills (dual skill depending on main hand). So assuming an offhand makes more sense at this point, a focus can provide more utility/defense than an offhand sword ( judging from other focus skills tha other classes got already). So yeah i think a focus could be a strong candidate.

On the other hand, a 2H means they can just throw five skills on there and not worry about how a 1H weapon would combine with others in terms of balance, dual skills, etc. Replace Steal with some half-baked mechanic and you’re done!

Yeah but I don’t want to accept the less workload for anet argument as valid for obvious reasons :P.

If ArenaNet choose a 2-handed weapon, then it is telling that they really don’t care enough for the profession — it’s an opt-out.

If they choose an off-hand, then it will show that they do care about the profession that they are willing to work with new mechanics that are outside the DPS box. That they are willing to improve the profession instead of giving it another boring DPS weapon.

Focus, shield, and torch would bring a lot of diversity in builds because none of these weapons is considered offensive weapons — they are more support or defensive than offensive. The possibility of Thief as a decent support profession can only be accomplished by using one of these weapons.

Thief with staff, rifle, or greatsword might look cool, but any of these weapons will only result into a boring DPS skill set that will not improve the profession what so ever in terms of both strategical and tactical.

With focus, as I have suggested before, they can create an Arcane Thief that not only steals random items, but also an expert at stealing buffs or disabling certain enemy skills. A control oriented Thief that lurks in the shadows. The PvP, PvE, WvW possibilities of this choice makes the Thief more versatile. In PvP, they can actually have the tools they need to defend a node after capping — instead of running away. Mobility will no longer be the only factor in choosing a Thief.

I strongly believe that an Arcane Thief using Focus is the best shot at improving this profession…however the likelihood of this happening really depends on the expertise of the game designer who should have at least several hours in successfully playing a Thief. Alas, this is not the case in ArenaNet so it is more than likely that we’ll get another boring DPS weapon.

While I agree with your rationale—and think some kind of Spellthief Elite would be awesome—it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they chose Rifle. As of HoT, Thief is the only profession in the game without a 1200 range option, after all. Even Guardian has one!

Amante.8109:

While I agree with your rationale—and think some kind of Spellthief Elite would be awesome—it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they chose Rifle. As of HoT, Thief is the only profession in the game without a 1200 range option, after all. Even Guardian has one!

Thus i shall put my vote in for off-hand rifle, it’s skills can be utility or something or there can be a trait to fix the stat issue. But if the thief os supposed to be ingenious and creative in a devilish way, why not one-handing a two handed weapon?

Alternatively aggressive forced shadowstepping our enemies with off-hand focus is a cool sounding idea, then we can force the 1v1 fights we’re designed for.

i want a new offhand or main hand slot

pepper.6179:

i want a new offhand or main hand slot

As found earlier, just a main-hand or just an off-hand weapon requires 5 skills (the breakdown is somewhere up there) which in addition to the heal, 3 utilities and elite seems like their decided limit on hard skills. If they gave us a weapon that could be in either hand the number of weapon skills they need to make multiplies (probably by 2) and so would the assumed attention the class would have garnered, and from years of observation, only the Warrior profession is allowed majority attention by the developers.