Why do thieves get the short straw?
well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.
Gungnir Grimm – 80 Thief
Gungnir Aurus – 80 Guardian
[AUX] Isle of Janthir
Gungnir Aurus – 80 Guardian
[AUX] Isle of Janthir
well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.
Initiative is just another way of playing the game. It isn’t like shatters or attunements that add so much more to the class. It is just a different way to manage skills.
Edit: And as for spamming skills : Blowing away one’s initiative with a single predictable move repeatedly hasn’t been a problem since a couple of weeks after launch.
And okay, lets say that the steal traits other than mug get used often, is the CD reduction for going into trickery on one skill justified? And how effective is traiting for steal? You get the effects every 45-30ish seconds on one skill while eles fly through attunements, mesmers shatter relentlessly, ranger pet skills constantly barrage you, etc.
(edited by Turbo Whale.1738)
well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.
^ Mostly this, but also:
IMO u have two F1’s. You steal. Then u have a bundle.
Rangers have two “F1’s as well imo”. They have their F2 active ability on both pets. Their F1 and F3 is more cheap and easy way to control a bad A.I
Warriors also have two F1’s. They have two burst skills.
Just be glad you have the initiative system as well as your “two” f1’s.
The initiative system is so much better than the steal mechanic:
While it is just another way to manage skills – it means your choices are always open. Someone casting a powerful ability/heal? Daze them. If they try something else like that – just daze them again!
Of course it means you can’t spam skills – but if you manage initiative properly it means that that clutch Head Shot or CnD can always be up for you to use (this is an oversimplification)
So it’s not just another way to manage skills – it adds a lot of depth to the gameplay. Unlike steal which is just a stun break and another possibly useless ability.
Someone posted a similar thread earlier and I will give him/her credit for the idea when I find who it is. I feel like they touched on the subject but I want to go further into it.
Mesmers get 4 different shatters.
Elementalists get 4 different attunements
Engineers get 4 different skills based on their utilities
Guardians get 3 virtues which become life saving when traited properly.
Necros get a second HP bar and 4 new skills.
Rangers get a wide range of abilities with pets and their abilities. I’ve seen tanky rangers burst for 7k damage with their pet in sPvP.Thieves get a shadow step that gives a nice skill also. Great. This is good.
But, we have a whole trait line dedicated to reducing the cooldown on this ONE skill.
We have many traits scattered everywhere dedicated to improving this ONE skill (only Mug gets chosen, which further shows how traiting deep for just one skill is useless).
Not to mention this skill doesn’t really add anything unique or interesting to the thief other than the handful of skills it offers.
What’s the point of all of the traits and CD reduction and yadda yadda yadda just to affect one skill that isn’t nearly as effective as the simple attunement swap of an ele or the 4 amazing shatter skills a mesmer has.
The person who posted the original thread thought it would be a good idea to remove deceptions from the game and make them a thief’s F1-4 skills. Many people said this would be overpowered because it is like giving thieves 3 free utilities. But, what if in some alternate universe, mesmer shatters were utility skills but they only kept mindwrack for F1 and had to use utilities for the others? Or if elementalists had only one attunement but had to slot the others in utilities? So what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t look at possibly giving all of the deception skills to a thief as F1-F4 as overpowered because they were once utilities when you can imagine if a mesmer or an ele was in the same spot as us.
Please give feedback and post. Thanks for reading.
i tried to say this too if u read it. just thief haters hating . whats that? we ahve 3 less skills than everyone else? oh no we cant have the same as everyone else or we are overpowered….whats that we cant have defense? or blocks? or burns? or f2 f3 f4? or confusion? or ice? or protection? or stability? oh wait we get like 30% more dmg on average than everyone else? oh ok yeah i guess thats cool? oh whats that we also get this skill that for 3-4 secs we are hard to hit but take same dmg? oh i guess that makes up for the rest since it helps me escape rather than kill .
you are 100% right about what you say. steal…alone…kinda sux….well i do like whirl… that one is actually beneficial. the rest i usually just throw away to get rid of real quick so i can get stealw back asap. especially at 45 secs bc the trickery line of traits is just horrendous.
post on brotha!
well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.
every GOOD build uses MUG. unless running condi and venom share then they run other stuff but thats a support build. like use sb and stay the FK back. and 2 skills kills ALL of our intiative so we can SPAM skills. with d/p we can do 3 skills then wait for regen then do like 2 MAYBE 3 more. but thats not spamming. eles spam 2-5 for hours…days…weeks without stopping…this is a fact. lil off on that comment but it seems like we always haveosmethign to use. d/d uses everything in 2 secs and d/p evenly s[paces it out.
sunflowers/swickhobo were on the other posts as non thief ….thief haters. they will blow this up with hate bc they cant play against thieves bc they arent very good.
funny thing i just fought a guardian i couldnt beat. i also couldnt lose bc i didnt attack him directly. he had a full burning/retal build. Power condi toughness build with splash of vitality. i had 22.5k and he got me to half and barely hit me. im like wtf? oh he must have the defense armor on . couldnt attack for shiiiiit. but yeah confusion/retal is slightly too strong. if its up…and you ahve lots of power…and heals…u cant win. u have to Knock them down/remove retal. prolly a good job for mesmers/necros.
The initiative system is so much better than the steal mechanic:
While it is just another way to manage skills – it means your choices are always open. Someone casting a powerful ability/heal? Daze them. If they try something else like that – just daze them again!
Of course it means you can’t spam skills – but if you manage initiative properly it means that that clutch Head Shot or CnD can always be up for you to use (this is an oversimplification)
So it’s not just another way to manage skills – it adds a lot of depth to the gameplay. Unlike steal which is just a stun break and another possibly useless ability.
this is a very good point. alot of non thieves have a misconception about this. intiative management is very important other than in d/d BS burst
well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.
^ Mostly this, but also:
IMO u have two F1’s. You steal. Then u have a bundle.
Rangers have two “F1’s as well imo”. They have their F2 active ability on both pets. Their F1 and F3 is more cheap and easy way to control a bad A.I
Warriors also have two F1’s. They have two burst skills.
Just be glad you have the initiative system as well as your “two” f1’s.
i agree with this but i will contribute one thing. all but like 1 or MAYBE 2 of those are good bundles…..warrior whirl and consume plasma……everything else we just get rid of so we can have steal back when its ready. sometimes i even just get rid of it bc steal is better than whirl in most fights bc i can whirl and take dmg for 4-5 seconds during that whirl! too dangerous……especially if they attack attack attack attack and then do a 3 sec immobilize right at the end then attack attack attack again. kinda like other games the could make an F2 and steal does what it does but f2 becomes a random skill of the opponents or random WEEAPON not some crappy gunk that nobody stands in….and you can use it/have it do dmg according to whatever you have traited. either way you look at it we are the class with the worst F……untraited of course. if u add in mug then its one of the top few. but untraited is what you ahve to account for bc not all builds can use mug. i run 0 20 30 20 0 on s/d and d/p mix so i cant :P
Initiative has at least as many problems as benefits.
A huge example is weapon swapping.
Other classes can blow through all attacks, then swap weapons and do it all again.
Thieves don’t even have enough Initiative to blow through every attack once on a single weapon set, and even if they could it would take far longer to “recharge” than other classes.
Initiative has at least as many problems as benefits.
A huge example is weapon swapping.
Other classes can blow through all attacks, then swap weapons and do it all again.
Thieves don’t even have enough Initiative to blow through every attack once on a single weapon set, and even if they could it would take far longer to “recharge” than other classes.
wow very well said. our 2nd weapon set should come with its own intiative bar! great idea! bc when ur a thief u really only have 1 set with a few extra skills basically that u cant use.
Stealing is fine. It’s pretty good to have an instant shadow step that is generally available even when other skills are not.
Trickery is a great trait line, which has some great initiative management traits in Hastened Replenishment, Initial Strike, Preparedness, and Kleptomaniac.
I like that Steal can be traited in other lines, and the cooldown reduction is useful as you trait Steal to do more things. You usually don’t need to do EVERYTHING you can trait Steal to do all at one time, but you can use it to do a very wide variety of things.
For my build personally, I go with 20 into Trickery and trait Mug, Thrill of the Crime, and sometimes Bountiful Theft. So, combined with the shadowstep effect and the +3 initiative on steal, it’s pretty useful in a lot of different ways.
I find it far more active and engaging than any Ranger, Guardian, Warrior, or Necromancer class mechanic’s use and Steal + Initiative are the difference-making class features that make it my favorite character by far.
Armond Sinclaire – Human Guardian
Milloy – Human Thief
Blademaster Karo – Sylvari Warrior
Milloy – Human Thief
Blademaster Karo – Sylvari Warrior
Have you considered that other professions need to spread their traits according their profession mechanic and they also have traits that they do not want or traits that they want/need but that are not in optimal trait line.
- Elementalist need to juggle attunements and do combos with his/her own fields to do max dps. It is not option, it is what you need to do. And you also need to be able to adapt to the situation not just roll trough attuments and spam 1-5.
- Mesmer needs to keep producing clones to feed shatters (btw, shatters are pretty much mesmers only real form AoE dps) and their shatters are useless if AoE keeps breaking clones. They also need to sacrifice their phantasms (max dps illusions) for shatters.
But these things just define how professions plays… they are different ways of play. We don’t want every profession to be same with different names (see what happened for wow classes, that is not good). Thief may have only one button and initiative but our steal can serve many purposes even if we don’t sink any trait points into the mechanic.
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Firstly, Steal is a stun-break. There are a lot of mobs in PvE that enjoy knocking you down and keeping you down in stun-lock. Steal enables us to break-stun absolutely freely. No wasted utility slots, no wasted initiative. Get out of Jail free card. Wonderful.
Another great thing about Steal is the fact that the cooldown initiates the second you activate Steal. So you press F1, you acquire an item, you can keep this item for the whole duration of the cooldown, use said item and then use Steal again straight after. Obviously this has it’s advantages, specifically when dealing with a tricky set of mobs.
Whenever you acquire an item from Steal don’t use it directly. If it’s a good one like Feathers or Cyclone Axe save it for later as opposed to wasting it.
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Then there is the initiative system, that is the one you usually need to think when you select your traits as thief.
From the devs point of view the initiative system means that you need to balance the Thief’s ability to spam the same ability multiple times, against the fact that it’s the only class that has all it’s abilities sharing a cooldown system. The former requires that you tone down the ability’s potency, so a Thief can’t just instantly spam kill things; while the latter pushes you towards increasing an ability’s potency because the Thief’s options drop significantly faster compared to other classes. These are two juxtaposing needs which need to be balanced very carefully.
Other thing affecting to the initiative system is that there are several situations in which you are not activating skills at all, i.e. dodge rolling, using your 1-chain, being in stealth, being dazed/stunned/knocked down, being not in range of somebody at all for an attack, using utilities, dagger storming, stomping/reviving, etc.
This game isn’t about a Warrior and a Thief standing toe to toe and spamming abilities until one of them runs out of cooldowns and loses WoW-style. Breaking it down like that makes it seem like Elementalist is easily the best class in the game and there’s no point playing anything else simply because they have 20 moves to fire off in rapid succession.
Necromancer | Elementalist | Mesmer | Thief || Gandara
(edited by Defora.3694)
What if now just what if we also got a f2 profession ability called something like “move through shadows” which when activated basically gives us a huge stealth but in the shadows and we can then sort of jump/teleport/shadow step from shadow to shadow. It would sorta be like the necro lich form for the look and the cool down. And we can’t attack from it. This would gives us a defensive bonus making us more “slippery” like anet is wanting to make us and wouldn’t be to op because we can’t backstab from it. The range for the shadow step from shadow to shadow would be like 900 and b4 needing to call down the ability would last for 7-10 seconds
well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.
Yep. We’re actually in a pretty good place balance wise based on role (in-combat mobility and burst) except in high end tournaments. When they nerf Mug and burst we’re up the creak.
EDIT: played a lot of warrior and ranger the last few days. Coming back to thief isn’t a bad experience after that. Have to say though, on both those classes I seek out thiefs to kill… has spvp seen a new influx of brand new thieves or something?
Tiger
I wouldn’t mind additional F2+F3+F4utilites, but as a 10/30/0/0/30 S/D Thief here, I’m definately more than happy about my F1.
My Steal gives:
+900ranged unit insta gap closer even if I’m cc’ed
+3 Ini
+big Mug dmg
+Might 10s (party)
+Swiftness 10s (party)
+Fury 10s (party)
+Vigor 10s (party)
+strips 2 boons
+Daze 1s (2s para sigil)
Only F1 yea. I feel that’s super balanced for 30s cd.
Skysap & Qaju & Juqa -VILE- Desolation
I hope you all know the only reason we have Steal as our class mechanic is to justify our class name right. It’s the cooldown and sporadic stolen items that need work.
I remember someone making a thread with a good idea of stealing items and saving them for later use up to a certain number could be saved on f2,f3,f4 etc.
Have you considered that other professions need to spread their traits according their profession mechanic and they also have traits that they do not want or traits that they want/need but that are not in optimal trait line.
- Elementalist need to juggle attunements and do combos with his/her own fields to do max dps. It is not option, it is what you need to do. And you also need to be able to adapt to the situation not just roll trough attuments and spam 1-5.
- Mesmer needs to keep producing clones to feed shatters (btw, shatters are pretty much mesmers only real form AoE dps) and their shatters are useless if AoE keeps breaking clones. They also need to sacrifice their phantasms (max dps illusions) for shatters.But these things just define how professions plays… they are different ways of play. We don’t want every profession to be same with different names (see what happened for wow classes, that is not good). Thief may have only one button and initiative but our steal can serve many purposes even if we don’t sink any trait points into the mechanic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Firstly, Steal is a stun-break. There are a lot of mobs in PvE that enjoy knocking you down and keeping you down in stun-lock. Steal enables us to break-stun absolutely freely. No wasted utility slots, no wasted initiative. Get out of Jail free card. Wonderful.Another great thing about Steal is the fact that the cooldown initiates the second you activate Steal. So you press F1, you acquire an item, you can keep this item for the whole duration of the cooldown, use said item and then use Steal again straight after. Obviously this has it’s advantages, specifically when dealing with a tricky set of mobs.
Whenever you acquire an item from Steal don’t use it directly. If it’s a good one like Feathers or Cyclone Axe save it for later as opposed to wasting it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then there is the initiative system, that is the one you usually need to think when you select your traits as thief.From the devs point of view the initiative system means that you need to balance the Thief’s ability to spam the same ability multiple times, against the fact that it’s the only class that has all it’s abilities sharing a cooldown system. The former requires that you tone down the ability’s potency, so a Thief can’t just instantly spam kill things; while the latter pushes you towards increasing an ability’s potency because the Thief’s options drop significantly faster compared to other classes. These are two juxtaposing needs which need to be balanced very carefully.
Other thing affecting to the initiative system is that there are several situations in which you are not activating skills at all, i.e. dodge rolling, using your 1-chain, being in stealth, being dazed/stunned/knocked down, being not in range of somebody at all for an attack, using utilities, dagger storming, stomping/reviving, etc.
This game isn’t about a Warrior and a Thief standing toe to toe and spamming abilities until one of them runs out of cooldowns and loses WoW-style. Breaking it down like that makes it seem like Elementalist is easily the best class in the game and there’s no point playing anything else simply because they have 20 moves to fire off in rapid succession.
Just to keep misinformation from drowning the forums, steal is NOT a stun break. It is an instant cast ability. It is not the only ability that can be used in such situations but is not a stun break, ie blinding powder. You can use it when knocked down, but it does NOT break the knockdown, just puts you at your enemies feet, still on the floor.
Why would the cooldown not start when you use the ability? Is there a skill out that that doesnt go on cd when you use it? As example shadowstep goes on cd when first used, not when you return, so this seems pretty consistent, nothing special about steal.
Initiative is wonderful, but its not a genuine class mechanic as it comes with its own drawbacks. Yes we can use whatever skill we need at the time, but we are able to use far far less skills overall, and our skills are much weaker. As an example, our signature damage move, backstab, does the same damage as a warriors axe autoattack (3rd strike)
I wouldn’t mind additional F2+F3+F4utilites, but as a 10/30/0/0/30 S/D Thief here, I’m definately more than happy about my F1.
My Steal gives:
+900ranged unit insta gap closer even if I’m cc’ed
+3 Ini
+big Mug dmg
+Might 10s (party)
+Swiftness 10s (party)
+Fury 10s (party)
+Vigor 10s (party)
+strips 2 boons
+Daze 1s (2s para sigil)Only F1 yea. I feel that’s super balanced for 30s cd.
1. Your still cc’d after
2.Used as an opener, this is wasted
3.Big damage? same as sword auto attack, much LESS than warrior axe auto attack
4-7. Very small radius, great if your whole party stacks up so one aoe wipes you
8.awesome trait, too bad its stuck so deep into the condi line
9.30pt grandmaster trait for 1s daze on a 32-45sec cd? when i can get a 3sec daze every 5 seconds with sword? or use offhand pistol for anytime interrupt.TERRIBLE trait
and its a min cd of 32 not 30
Initiative is wonderful, but its not a genuine class mechanic as it comes with its own drawbacks.)
If that’s the case, then Attunements aren’t a genuine class mechanic because they prevent the ele from being able to swap ranges by bringing different weapons.
Death Shroud isn’t a genuine class mechanic because it’s cruel to minion builds because it destroys them.
Pets aren’t a genuine class mechanic because they draw unwanted aggro and are cause for all the ranger’s dps to be lowered on the expectation that that kitteny AI will make up for it, while that same kitteny AI gets them slaughtered most of the time.
Just because there are drawbacks doesn’t mean it’s not a class mechanic.
Ele can carry all weapons and change weapons just like everyone else
death shroud isnt required, minion masters can avoid if they so choose, a thief cannot avoid initiative.
I’ve seen pets in Tpvp do more damage than backstab, so clearly up for dps
Class mechanics are the Function bar skills, check the wiki
The problem with a lot of these suggestions is that they put stealth on an F1-4 skill, which makes stealth a primary profession mechanic (something you are), instead of a secondary profession mechanic (something you choose).
Stealth should continue to be an optional thief mechanic, just like signets, traps, or venoms.
Firstly, Steal is a stun-break.
No it isn’t. It’s as much of a stun-break than “For Great Justice!” is.
We thives got 3 profession specific mechanic.
- F1 Steal that gives us another target dependent skill
- Initiative bar instead of cooldowns on weapons
- Stealth skill that replaces weapon #1
I don’t think we are that bad compared to other classes really.
After reading through this thread I’ve noticed a few complaints popping up consistently about steal.
1. The trait line doesn’t do enough for it
2. Thieves don’t have enough skills
3. Bundles aren’t useful
4. Initiative restricts spam (this one I disagree with completely, initiative does the opposite)
So what about if steal was reverted to its classic image? Steal a weapon that you can swap to. This was originally removed because the dev’s thought that adding more skills was too confusing, however I think it could breathe new live into the thief, it could add a lot more utility. Also, having these bundles’ skills operate on normal cd’s rather than initiative would give them a useful place, if you burn your initiative, switch to the bundle.
Another thing that could be considered is changing steal cd rate in trickery to stolen bundle damage, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
4. Initiative restricts spam (this one I disagree with completely, initiative does the opposite)
I agree, initiative doesn’t restrict spam. What it does do, however, is compartmentalize weapon capabilities. Most professions don’t have the dilemma of a weapon skill being sub-par because they’re almost always going to do something more useful than auto attacking, so you might as well burn the CDs. Thief skills, on the other hand, are directly comparable since they all draw from the same resource, almost like a shared CD. This is why something like Body Shot, which would be decent for any other profession with cooldowns, is viewed very unfavorably by thieves. It is a certifiable opportunity cost in initiative that means any benefit derived from it must be directly compared to the benefit of spending a similar amount of resources using another skill.
Initiative, while a unique mechanic, ultimately makes thief playstyles and builds more repetitive and specialized. This completely different combat dynamic makes thieves more difficult to balance and balance measures they do take tend to diminish build variety, instead of building it up. Every time they try to reduce the effectiveness of a specialized tactic, the ripples of the change serve to kill one or two less specific playstyles. The end result is that the “undesirable” (according to ANet) tactics remain, if blunted, some of the only viable options to play effectively.
I agree, initiative doesn’t restrict spam. What it does do, however, is compartmentalize weapon capabilities. Most professions don’t have the dilemma of a weapon skill being sub-par because they’re almost always going to do something more useful than auto attacking, so you might as well burn the CDs. Thief skills, on the other hand, are directly comparable since they all draw from the same resource, almost like a shared CD. This is why something like Body Shot, which would be decent for any other profession with cooldowns, is viewed very unfavorably by thieves. It is a certifiable opportunity cost in initiative that means any benefit derived from it must be directly compared to the benefit of spending a similar amount of resources using another skill.
I agree that initiative makes the decision to use a skill a more complicated one than other classes because of the shared use of initiative. But this moves the question away from whether or not initiative works well towards how balanced the weapon skills are. Basically thief weapon skills need to be less about which skill is stronger than another and more about which skill is useful for what purpose. Though I agree that some weapon skills don’t satisfy the criteria of having a particular use.
I wouldn’t mind additional F2+F3+F4utilites, but as a 10/30/0/0/30 S/D Thief here, I’m definately more than happy about my F1.
My Steal gives:
+900ranged unit insta gap closer even if I’m cc’ed
+3 Ini
+big Mug dmg
+Might 10s (party)
+Swiftness 10s (party)
+Fury 10s (party)
+Vigor 10s (party)
+strips 2 boons
+Daze 1s (2s para sigil)Only F1 yea. I feel that’s super balanced for 30s cd.
1. Your still cc’d after
2.Used as an opener, this is wasted
3.Big damage? same as sword auto attack, much LESS than warrior axe auto attack
4-7. Very small radius, great if your whole party stacks up so one aoe wipes you
8.awesome trait, too bad its stuck so deep into the condi line
9.30pt grandmaster trait for 1s daze on a 32-45sec cd? when i can get a 3sec daze every 5 seconds with sword? or use offhand pistol for anytime interrupt.TERRIBLE trait
and its a min cd of 32 not 30
You either misread my whole post or didn’t think it through enough.
I’m a S/D. I get potential 2700range instant jump burst capability: Shadowstep 1200-> Infiltrator strike 600 -> Steal 900.
My Ini pool is 15. Reduced by 3 from that sword #2 IS which I get em back from steal.
Mug deals a lot more damage than sword or axe a/a. Mug deals more dmg than Crippling strike and Cloak&Dagger who deal more damage than Slash/Slice, so what the f?
Like I said I’m S/D so I already daze 3s with every reveal, but you get an additional source of daze to cover up your sword daze downtime.
I never said Steal removed any cc. I also lost track of amount of opponents I downed from Stealing into while I was cc’ed.
Skysap & Qaju & Juqa -VILE- Desolation
(edited by Kajin.5301)
Ele can carry all weapons and change weapons just like everyone else
death shroud isnt required, minion masters can avoid if they so choose, a thief cannot avoid initiative.
I’ve seen pets in Tpvp do more damage than backstab, so clearly up for dps
Class mechanics are the Function bar skills, check the wiki
eles are rangelocked regardless of what they do, unlike every other profession in the game, because their weapon can’t be switched in combat, and all the attunements of a weapon have the same effective range.
And you’re arguing that a game mechanic that is exclusive to one class and is always a part of that class no matter what they choose to bring with them is not a class mechanic.
Mug is 504 dmg base, Backstab at 808, the third chain in warriors axe combo is 858, which one is greater? Crippling strike is 437, so mug does slightly more damage than a thief auto attack, but considerably less damage than a warrior AA. I run s/d also, though i dont put 30 points into the condition line for a weapon that has no damaging conditions. I still saying spending 30 trait points for at best a 2 second daze on a 32 second cooldown is a terrible trait
I’m not arguing gimmethegepgun, I’m reading. goto the arenanet website, read the description of thief, goto the wiki, read the part about profession mechanics, no where is init listed as a thief mechanic. its not an argument, you are wrong.
Mug is 504 dmg base, Backstab at 808, the third chain in warriors axe combo is 858, which one is greater? Crippling strike is 437, so mug does slightly more damage than a thief auto attack, but considerably less damage than a warrior AA. I run s/d also, though i dont put 30 points into the condition line for a weapon that has no damaging conditions. I still saying spending 30 trait points for at best a 2 second daze on a 32 second cooldown is a terrible trait
its 1.5 secs at best :P and the tactical strike is a 3 sec at best with proper increases
(edited by Travlane.5948)
From my experience the combat systems always rounds stun (daze counts as stun) up. so when you use sigil of para which is only a 15% increase on the natural 2 second daze from tac strike, it becomes 3 seconds, when i experimented with the daze from steal, it seemed to get bumped to 2 seconds. but i could be wrong.
prolly felt like 2. but naw
well, for we also have initiative as our class mechanic. we are the only class that can spam abilities, if all the complaints about how op HS spam is have escaped you. we can do things like evasion spam with certain builds that other classes have no hope of doing because of our flexible resource system. the problem comes when people ignore initiative because it is in the background. if you main a thief it is far less obvious than other mechanics, but no less powerful. also, as for modifying steal “only mug gets chosen” is full of crap. I know of several builds that take bountiful theft and/or thrill of the crime. honestly the only steal trait I never see is the daze on steal from 30 points into trickery.
^ Mostly this, but also:
IMO u have two F1’s. You steal. Then u have a bundle.
Rangers have two “F1’s as well imo”. They have their F2 active ability on both pets. Their F1 and F3 is more cheap and easy way to control a bad A.I
Warriors also have two F1’s. They have two burst skills.
Just be glad you have the initiative system as well as your “two” f1’s.
i agree with this but i will contribute one thing. all but like 1 or MAYBE 2 of those are good bundles…..warrior whirl and consume plasma……everything else we just get rid of so we can have steal back when its ready. sometimes i even just get rid of it bc steal is better than whirl in most fights bc i can whirl and take dmg for 4-5 seconds during that whirl! too dangerous……especially if they attack attack attack attack and then do a 3 sec immobilize right at the end then attack attack attack again. kinda like other games the could make an F2 and steal does what it does but f2 becomes a random skill of the opponents or random WEEAPON not some crappy gunk that nobody stands in….and you can use it/have it do dmg according to whatever you have traited. either way you look at it we are the class with the worst F……untraited of course. if u add in mug then its one of the top few. but untraited is what you ahve to account for bc not all builds can use mug. i run 0 20 30 20 0 on s/d and d/p mix so i cant :P
Even if your holding a bundle, steal will still continue to cool down. So you can hold that ecto for a minute use it, and instantly have steal up again. If your dropping a bundle just so steal can recharge your doing it wrong.
I personally like all the skills that you can steal, at least in PvP.
Warrior: Whirling Axe: Huge Damage, and reflects projectiles (tooltip fails to mention that for whatever reason)
Guardian: Mace Head Crack: 4 Second daze at base duration. Incredibly powerful. If u can rupt a heal with this its pretty much a GG from there.
Ranger: Healing Seed: This once is either really useful, or really bad depending on the situation. Its a water combo field. Which makes spamming heartseaker or better yet cluster bomb. A good way to heal you or your team respectfully. Also removes conditions.
Engineer: Throw Gunk: This is the only subpar one IMO. Its strong for Death blossom spam builds and D/P but other then that its quite worthless.
Thief: Blinding Tuft: An extra stealth is never a bad thing and makes a great initiator.
Elementalist: Ice stab shard: Completely underrated. A 10 second chill is exceptionally strong against any opponent.
Mesmer: Consume Ectoplasm: All boons for 10 secs. Nuff said.
Necromancer: A long duration fear, long cast time, but brutal if landed. Quite strong as well.
The only bundle that needs any kind of changing is throw gunk. Maybe a 1 sec immobilize upon impact.
I’m not arguing gimmethegepgun, I’m reading. goto the arenanet website, read the description of thief, goto the wiki, read the part about profession mechanics, no where is init listed as a thief mechanic. its not an argument, you are wrong.
If you scroll down a little you’ll notice the very first titled section of the Thief page on guildwars2.com is “Initiative”. Above Steal, in fact.
And using wiki as an argument is pointless since it can be modified by anyone and isn’t written by the devs.
Rangers get a wide range of abilities with pets and their abilities. I’ve seen tanky rangers burst for 7k damage with their pet in sPvP.
ROFL
please link to a vid of a tank ranger ‘bursting’ 7k dmg
zerk rangers/ 30 beastmaster builds wont even hit that with jaguar
You have stealth every 4 seconds…with NO guaranteed way of pulling you out of it.
Any thief who is decent and with half a brain has complete control over every fight they instigate or get thrown in to. Watch videos of thiefs taking on groups of 10+ people….stealthing…2 shotting… rinse and repeat.
Show me a vid of another class doing that (besides ele).
Thief in the hands of any good player is the most unbalanced class in any game ive ever seen.
I cant believe people who main thiefs have the nerve to come here and kitten and moan about being UP.
Sorry to say, but stealth needs a complete rework to something similar to wow, and other classes need abilities to counter stealth…besides the obvious building all tank only to counter the thief gibs and sacrificing the rest of your build.
I’ll gladly trade you my crap AI, ranger pet thats always dead, for non counterable stealth every 4 seconds.
Keep running, thiefs…..
Ignore him. The only thing that really makes a thief powerful IMO is how stealth works in general. I’ve fought thieves without them using stealth before, and while the fight wasn’t easy, it wasn’t painstakingly hard either. Add stealth into the mix though, and the fight gets thrown in favor of the thief easily. So you fix how stealth functions, possibly with all evaded and blocked attacks forcing you out of stealth, and with out of range attacks and missed attacks that were not caused by an evasion not take you out of stealth, and you fix the problem. Too bad that’s probably a coding nightmare…
[hS]
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald
Ignore him. The only thing that really makes a thief powerful IMO is how stealth works in general. I’ve fought thieves without them using stealth before, and while the fight wasn’t easy, it wasn’t painstakingly hard either. Add stealth into the mix though, and the fight gets thrown in favor of the thief easily. So you fix how stealth functions, possibly with all evaded and blocked attacks forcing you out of stealth, and with out of range attacks and missed attacks that were not caused by an evasion not take you out of stealth, and you fix the problem. Too bad that’s probably a coding nightmare…
actually, with the way that venoms and such work, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to do it. however with the buggy past of venoms, and anets speed of bug fixing, it could potentially break the thief for a few weeks.
Gungnir Grimm – 80 Thief
Gungnir Aurus – 80 Guardian
[AUX] Isle of Janthir
Gungnir Aurus – 80 Guardian
[AUX] Isle of Janthir
+Daze 1s (2s para sigil)
Only F1 yea. I feel that’s super balanced for 30s cd.
So if i use para sigil my P/w 1/2 stun should go to 1 seconds? holy kitten.