Showing Posts For Ixa.6523:
By and large, theives don’t have enough aoe damage to even be remotely close to highest dps. And being melee, they do pretty poor single target dps against things like champions.
After 4-5 skills your initiative is gone and while every other class has 10 skills all working their way off cooldown, you can only use 1 skill every 4-5 seconds as initiative permits. Long story short, theives should never be highest dps. Either against large groups or bosses/champions.
I would like to discuss here what improvements the Thief needs other than simple nerfs, and hopefully bring them to the attention of ANet in the process.
Thief’s could use another venom or two. That would give us more variance in our builds and open up more underwater options. However cooldown for all venoms should be moved up to 60 seconds. Too much build diversity.
Lastly, if they removed all weapons and offhand combinations from the thief except dagger/dagger I feel everyone would be less disappointed in the number of broken skills and overall less confused with what exactly it is they want us to do besides dagger/dagger.
Of all the classes, Thief’s get the absolute most out of completely dedicating themselves to one aspect.
The class is just simply designed that way. I’m not saying there is no “inbetween” builds. Just that if we build entirely for 1 hit, then we really have nothing to follow that hit up with. It’s easily 45 seconds before we can do it again.
If I want to backstab someone to death, then my entire character has to be devoted to that concept in order for it to work. If it takes just a second or two longer, then that requires another stealth, which requires us to use more initiative then we actually have. And since we don’t have enough, then that results in us standing out in the open with nothing but auto attacks and no defensive options what-so-ever.
We don’t have bunker options. We have to run/stealth/shadowstep away. Even a full toughness/vit build can’t stand around.
Unlike the other low armor classes (ranger, elementalist, mesmer, ect…) we don’t have viable ranged damage…. Pistol #2, 3 and 4 all need work(As in complete overhaul), and Pistol #5 isn’t worth it’s initiative cost for no damage and a single blind… unless the players are bad enough to just stand in it(But is the game really being balanced around the worst of the worst players?). And ShortBow is a far cry from viable, most thief’s only use #3 for the dodge/mobility and the #5 for moving between points before swapping to an actual weapon, the #1 feels nice, but without good initiative spending options, the bow just comes off weak.
So we are are practically forced to use melee options. However unlike the other melee classes(guardian, warrior) we don’t have armor, aegis, block, ect… so we rely on stealth for defense, which doesn’t even mitigate damage against good players.
I fully understand backstab is overpowered, and it does need to be brought in line (especially if the rendering thing can’t be readily fixed). But the reason so many people use backstab builds isn’t because it’s overpowered. It’s because it actually works and we are a class with a lot of skills/mechanics that just don’t work for pvp.
Depends on the situation, but I can definitely say that in the vast majority of PvE situations I get >150 hits per minute, which is the stated break-even point for SoM’s passive and HiS active.
I feel like I get very similar numbers, between the fast attack of d/d and bleeds+poison or the ability to hit multiple targets with the sword I just feel like SoM is better overall for PvE healing.
SoM all the way here. 15 second cooldown compared to 30 seconds? Yes please.
I can heal twice for every one time from a HiS user.
With my build, I’d have to get ~75 hits for the SoM passive to be equal to one HiS.
You do realize you just compared the passive effect of SoM to HiS?
Are you trying to say that SoM passively does a comparable amount of healing as HiS does actively?
Edit:
Sounds like you dropped below 25%, which triggered Last Refuge, then because you were in stealth Shadow’s Embrace triggered and removed moa.
@Ixa – Yeah because stealing a legendary weapon would cause 0 rage. Yup.
You’re probably right. It was originally a toned down version of my previous idea.
Which was “identity theft” which would log the targeted player out, remove their character entirely from their account and transfer it to an empty character slot on your account all gear and items included.
However the only problem with that idea is you might accidentally target a poorly geared player or an elementalist. And then you would just end up with something you didn’t want on your account for 45 seconds.
Steal should remove a random item in targets inventory with a low chance to remove an equipped piece of armor or a weapon off your target.
It would then place that item in your inventory, un-soulbound. You could then sell, equip, vendor, or do whatever with it.
I said haste while stomping. Not quickness while stomping.
Haste gives quickness
Quickening Zephyr gives quickness
Frenzy gives quickness
ect…
Quickening Zephyr =/= Frenzy =/= Haste
They are different skills. If I shoot someone with Headshot and then someone says the ranger skill Concussion Shot is the same skill because they both have a daze component, that doesn’t make it true.
You mean other than all the other classes that also have abilities that give quickness, like a Mesmer’s Timewarp, a Warrior using Frenzy, an Engineer using Elixir U or a Ranger using Quickening Zephyr?
Other classes do have ways to get quickness but they don’t have access to the skill haste. I didn’t say stomping people with quickness, I said stomping people with haste.
Haste while stomping
should be removed from thief… other classes dont get anything this nice. Its guaranteed to get you the stomp no matter what.
Yah, you two knew exactly what I was thinking.
Just some initiative to spice up the gameplay and add incentive to actually use the swap mechanic.
Right now it’s practically a useless mechanic. Once in a long while I will swap in combat to my bow for a quick shadowstep, but that’s really it. And most of the time I don’t even do that since when I need the escape I don’t normally have 6 initiative to spare.
Sure there could be people that just use 2 sets of daggers, and abuse it a little(even that could be eliminated by something like you only get the initiative if it’s a different weapon your swaping to), but if it’s only “some” initiative then it’s really not that bad.
Just out of curiosity. Why does weapon swap not refill initiative?
I know with 30 points into acrobatics you can get a trait that refills 3 whole initiative on swap, but it seems like it should be innate.
If I am playing my ranger, say, axe/warhorn and shortbow I can…
pop my fury/might/swiftness buff,
stack on some bleed and chill with my #2 and 3,
call down some birds with my #4,
and then swap to my bow and poison/cripple them. Still have my daze for when it’s needed and still have my retreating shot available.
On my theif, if I’m say shortbow and d/d, I can…
Drop choking gas,
Fire off a couple clusters for damage and area weakness,
Swap to d/d and…. auto?
Seems like when you swap you should have some initiative to work with. Maybe not all of it, sure. But something would be good.
My original though was it would be nice if the primary weapon combo and secondary could have separate initiative pools that regen independantly?
If other classes can have their secondary weapon’s skills coming off cooldown while it’s not active, I don’t see why our initiative(which is suppose to be an alternative to cooldowns) has to not experience the same benefit other classes get.
What do you guys think?
Considering you have to completely trait and equip your thief to specifically be good at backstab, and then having your entire character completely countered by someone simply standing with their back against the wall. I think it’s fine.
Just find a wall. This is especially easy in spvp.