Guild Wars 2

Like the title asks, should Rangers have access to ‘on-demand’ Stealth (like a utility skill on a 30-45s cooldown) coupled with a ‘from Stealth’ attack?
Much like Backstab/Tactical Strike/Sneak Attack.

I raise this question because it seems that regardless of build, Rangers seriously lack in the spike damage available to every other class in the game. I’m sure that I’m preaching to the choir, but I would ask ArenaNet how this would in anyway fall outside of the perceptible “theme” of the Ranger (i.e. someone who has spent nearly their entire life hunting in the wilds of Tyria) and if not, how could this be implemented effectively without throwing class balance totally out of the window (ironic statement coming from a Thief player, I’m sure.)

What do you think?

Well, for your consideration:
If your intent is to help in mass fights, be evasive and have access to stealth (if you’re not getting focused, you’re effectively mitigating damage) I’d suggest a D/D Conditions build.

AC gear can still accomplish this “out of the box” (CD/T/P set) with Knight’s / Carrion jewelry. I could see the logic behind the Signet of Malice for a static tanker- but then having Vigorous Renewal meant that you’d have 12s windows where you’d be missing out on the entire reason for taking SoM to begin with (heal per hit).

So, try this one: (intothemists is laughing at my jobs’ out of date IE9, lol)
0 Deadly Arts
0 Critical Strikes
10 Shadow Arts – Shadow’s Embrace
30 Acrobatics – Vigorous Recovery + Quick Recovery + Assassin’s Reward
30 Trickery – Uncatchable + Bountiful Theft + Hastened Replenishment

Dagger + Dagger / Shortbow
Heal:
-Withdraw (now granting 10s Vigor and +4 Initiative)
Utility:
-Caltrops
-Shadow Refuge
-Roll For Initiative
Elite:
-Thieves Guild or Dagger Storm (your personal preference, really. Situationally, either can be “clutch”.)

Sword + Pistol can’t use (abuse) Stealth in the same way that off-hand Dagger users can, and Sword + Dagger suffers in direct damage “burst” as a trade off for more control/stable pacing.

By taking Withdraw and RoI, (with Feline Grace minor, too) you effectively have 5 on-demand evade windows that don’t eat into your initiative.

With Bountiful Theft, you strip two boons and gain 19.5s of Vigor from Steal (which is on a 31.5s cooldown for this build) so you’re effectively running Vigor for 20s every 30s.
You’re dodge-rolling till your eyes bleed… well, I mean, until your enemies bleed.
Which will be a lot because each time you dodge roll you put down a field of caltrops that Cripples and Bleeds (field lasts about 1s after it hits the ground, but it’s free for dodging).
Not to mention that Death Blossom applies 3 stacks of some of the longest duration bleeds in the game. (not the longest, but close-ish.) Couple that with it’s evade window and disorienting movement effect, people will have a hard time keeping track of you- let alone hitting you. (Unless they get tired of your acrobatic bullkitten and just pew pew you do death).

Furthermore, you’ll have almost Perma-Vigor from alternating between your Heal Skill and Steal.
Shadow Refuge can be used to “cover” your Caltrops field- and those uppity Warriors/Guardians will run into the AoE of your Refuge trying to hit you while you’re Stealthed and kitten themselves by applying a boat-load of bleed stacks onto themselves because they are also standing on top of your Caltops.

Then Thieves Guild for the pandemonium it can cause in a zerg v. zerg scenario
Or Dagger Storm for the same reason. ( I just don’t usually take DS, as it’s damage seems far too unpredictable and effectively ‘RNG’, whereas the summoned Thieves will attack your target, switching targets when you do.)

I hope that helps, and if it doesn’t my apologies.

It looks like it’s emulating a playstyle/role which I’m sure would be better filled by:
1.) Mesmer
2.) Warrior
3.) Guardian

I hate to be that guy, but it does seem like you’re trying to make a “porsche become a F350” if you’ll excuse the motor-trend metaphor.

What is the specific intent of this build, “in action”.
Hypotheticals, you know.

mickers.2715:

It isnt free though, you need to spent 6 initiative to stealth yourself to get the good bleed ability. And anyway EVERY class has some from of degen on one weapon set’s auto attack.

Elementalists scepter causes a burn on autohit while attuned to fire, and a bleed when attuned to earth.

Guardians burn every 5 hits

Warriors rifle bleeds

Necros scepter

engineer pistols

Mesmers staff

Also most pistol thiefs lack a good stun breaker so just stun and destroy them. Or necro aoe degen works well too. and most tournament teams have lots of degen removal + itsonly single target. In my opinion thiefs could use a piercing talent like other range classes so they can bleed more than one target at a time.

Not to mention that the Engi pistol AA proc’s Area bleeding.

Einzelganger.4152:

Because I am a critical thinker, MAYBE intitiative cost (at small amounts per vital shot of course) should take effect if condition points reach a certain figure (character stat wise). I.E. If I have 800 condition stat points or more utilizing the pistol in my main hand, then ‘vital shot’ will cost .5 to 1 to 1.5 initiatve or whatever the number is to balance out this gameplay mechanic of spamming vital shot with excessive stacks on bleeds and condition damage. Not sure if this can be programmed or how difficult it would be to program but it is worth a look and discussion.

No, it’s not.
You’re talking about making a single target, 4s base bleed cost 1 initiative.
Just imagine the implications for the scale that you’d be setting for Death Blossoms’ cost.
Don’t be so narrow minded, “critical thinker”.

Rissou.7213:

Haha OP you make me laugh, “easiest fix for arenanet” is to make auto attack cost initiative. Wow, just wow, the only reason why Pistol/dagger is so strong and killing everyone is because the render issue that occers on stealth. Man you need to do some research before making accusations.

If you even fought one pistol/dagger thief you know that they go into stealth then you see his sneak attack and he will still be invisible and continuing attackign you while you cant see him, when hes finally visible for 1-2 seconds he goes back into stealth.

Only a noob would die from a thief trying to run around 900range with auto attack mwahah.

And it’s not like you can’t see the bullets in this game.
Regardless of Culling, Sneak Attack gives away the Thief’s general position when the opponent isn’t a horrible baddy.

Einzelganger.4152:

I use this build most of the time Mr. Aervius, the non-thinker. P/V/T gear head to toe socketed with Runes of the Wolf Pack or whatever those are. Berserker weapons with bloodlust sigils and Berserker accessories. My traits are 0-30-30-10-0 and I always crit and regen life in stealth. Offhand I know I have 33% increased speed in stealth along with stealthing as a result of stealing, both traited. Best kitten build I have found that is durable and allows me to mix up weapon swapping with both daggers and both pistols together. Utilities include blinding dust, refuge and shadow step. Again, culling issues is not very friendly to my opponents.

Then your gripe is against culling not vital shot, Mr. “I’m going to try and chastise someone clearly more perceptive than I by saying he doesn’t think”.

I swear to god some of you dipkitten vote.

Eviscera.9703:

First it was pistol whip build that was OP, then Sword/Dagger, Then Dagger/Dagger and now Pistol/Dagger ? Holy kitten…. what is wrong with people ?

They’re used to companies like Blizzard/EA catering to their every plea to make their gameplay experience ‘more fun’ (i.e. “nerf what I don’t like so that I alone will be king”).

Spoiled and entitled adults are spoiled and entitled.

Madvangogh.4169:

Honestly I have read alot of the replys, played every character in GW2 and I must say ..that the Theif is a totally discriminated character: If I swap weapons , or in the case of elementals and engineers swap tools or element… I get the skill sets new, which allows me to actually continue the fight. The Theif however has this ridiculous thing called initiative (who and why thought that up) when its low, there is no use changing weapons to renew a skill…… it’s not useable, the initiative is still too low. Every character I play I can compete easily with a veteren at my level …. the theif I cannot. It is the most frustrating character in the game..and I have given up.. No more thief, it is an utterly useless character. Perhaps one day, a duel…pvp situation 1 on 1 will show the discrimination clearly. Either speed up this ‘initiative’ (it still makes me laugh) or give it heavy armor…. too many early deaths… too many overdrawn fights… too much frustration with an empty initiative tank…I give up

Welcome to the ugly side of playing a Thief. But now that you’re aware that Initiative is a Global Cooldown Mechanic, you can choose to augment your playstyle to that which is required of an “Assassin Class” or pick one of the other classes and enjoy the hell out of it.

Either way, it’s sometimes very easy to overlook the sort of drawback that Initiative can be – but in certain situations, I’d rather have Initiative over static cooldowns per weaponset.

It’s situational, and I find those two words to define the success of the Thief very aptly.
People who get blown up by a burst build met a thief who had all of their Utility/Elite skills up. (i.e. perfect situation, for the Thief)
People who destroy same thief 20 seconds later found a Thief with no initiative and next to no escape ability. (i.e. deadly situation for the Thief)

Arsenic Touch.7960:

This has to be a troll thread. You pick the weakest attack a thief has and you want to nerf it? and you don’t even get the mechanics of the skill right (there is no stealth for vital shot?)

This.

Einzelganger.4152:

Also Aervius, do me a favor and look up the word ‘hypocritical’. You oviously did not read my stance on what I wrote. I do use this mechanic, but do I think it is a game changer or broken? Does ANET think it is fair? For the time being you and I can utilize what ever we want to gain an advantage or disadvantage in this game, knowing or not knowing the ins and outs of the mechanics at hand. I have experimented with every piece of armor and mixed up the trait points, runes, sigils, accessories and utilities so much it might make your head spin, as it did mine. I am calling it as I see it, that is it and that is all.

I’m perfectly aware of the definition of hypocritical, but clearly you aren’t:
“I play a thief and I play a thief that requires more skill than those thieves out there that utilize condition builds, eventhough at times I will use this build that I am about to expose.”
“(paraphrased) nerf Vital Shot”
What the hell are you smoking, bro?

Einzelganger.4152:

Lol, let us be REAL here folks. It is broken. High condition damage on a skill that utilizes ZERO initiative (at a distance) PLUS stealth. LMFAO. LET US BE REAL. As I stated Aervius, I use this build too. Might want to reread that part in the beginning and the end. The initiative cost should be small as not to destroy the mechanics but only hamper the spamming of something so broken when coupled with high condition. Look, we already can gain 2 initiative when triggering a stealth skill or we can gain initiative quicker when in stealth, if we have these traited. And I bet my bottom dollar you do!

Hold the phone- Vital Shot STEALTHS?

And wait, I thought you (by your own words, no less) used “a condition build that requires more skill” and yet here you are talking about the easymode/IWINbutton-ness of your build?

What are you, high, mentally handicapped, Elementalist or all three?

But, to be fair, I do spec 30 into Shadow Arts- but I’m a direct damage build.
In fact, you can find my exact build in the stickied thread if you want to see what I run.

Kurow.6973:

MichaelArchangel.7251:

I’m running a 26k health lvl 80 warrior with dolyak signet, carrying almost 2.9k in armor, specced into toughness….. and I’m getting burned down

“You’re full of it.”

I was thinking the exact same thing.

So, because P/D can easily apply A condition to it’s target with it’s auto-attack- you want it to cost initiative?
kitten?
If you are “a thief […] but I believe in fairness” you’d realize how asinine this sounds and how hypocritical your suggestion really is.
That is, if you “believe in fairness”.

I’m a D/D 10/30/30/0/0 build, so I’m not personally invested in Pistol / Dagger and I still think that sounds like a horrible idea.

Clark Skinner.4902:

This thief up against a guild party + some pugs.

It lasted for like 6 minutes and we just could not kill the thief because of stealth.

I have asked on here about how to deal with stealth thieves before and all people said was “use AoE”. Well I’m an ele and I put down everything I could all over the place, but the damage wasn’t enough to get him lower to 50% health (with the help of the other 7).

It was fairly ridiculous. Like this player was superman and we were the goons in striped shirts he was making fools of.

Eventually they chased him down as he ran and I let them because I realized there was more important stuff to do in WvW than make a kill. Eventually they killed him because of the XP pop up.

I can’t imagine this is what the designers had in mind when designing the class.

Are you on Sorrow’s Furnace / Anvil Rock by chance?
Because I may know this Thief who clowned a group of invaders in WvW who were sitting near this point in the BPBL.
Foghaven Supply Camp, if I’m not mistaken.
Wait, it could be the group that I worked near Askalion Hills fort.
And if you are from either of those servers and you are part of the groups I’m referring to, the +xp gain you got wasn’t from me
But two things working against you in those situations if it was:
1.) You had about 3 people who were up-leveled and clearly in horribly low level gear / insanely low toughness.
2.) None of you were actively spamming “Target Nearest Enemy > Call Target”. If you aren’t in a group, call target won’t work- but I can assure you, I can’t do kitten against people in the same group for that exact reason. The crosshairs stay on the thief, disappearing when I stealth, yet reappearing immediately when I come out right over my head- completely negating whatever advantage culling would give me.

ASP.8093:

Daecollo.9578:

For PvE, Thief is ranked Lowest Class, even under Ranger.

Man, what?

I hate to beat the “l2p” drum, but anyone who says this is mistaken. Thieves can take on really big numbers and come out unscathed.

Comparatively speaking, in the right hands any class can dominate multiple bads simultaneously.

It’s a 900 range instant cast shadowstep, if absolutely no trait investiture- it’s still a worthwhile ability- especially when you steal from a Mesmer.
Thief’s version of “Save Yourselves!”

Nemo.6295:

Jefzor.7145:

We have plenty of ways to get out of danger, so I don’t think we need 1200 range. It’d, be convenient, but not necessary.

It’s mostly for WvW, sure there are other places where it can be useful but the lack of a 1200 range weapon becomes most evident there.

And speaking of necesity then please tell me how are both long bows and rifles necessary for a warrior? Just saying.

Warrior Longbow is only 900 range, minus Combustive Shot which is 1,200.
We don’t really “need” a weapon set that has a 1,200 unit range, but I’d certainly be in favor of adjusting the “Powerful Shots” Major trait to increase Shortbow range to 1,200.
At least that way Thieves might actually choose to slot it.

Implying the classes in this game aren’t homogenized enough as is.

Krato.4729:

I’m a big fan of portals. They’re like a loot bag delivery service. Learn to counter.

Yeah, like blow up the lone Mesmer running into the middle of your group.
Dead mesmers can’t lay portals.

Here’s a recap of GW2 PvP Forums so far:
Aug. 25th: IMO, Heartseeker is ruining this game.
Sep. 25th: IMO, Backstab is ruining this game.
Oct. 25th: IMO, C&D spammers are ruining this game.
Nov. 25th: IMO, combat stealth / culling is ruining this game.

Do people just refuse to analyze the situations in which their build/playstyle is deficient?
Because it couldn’t possibly be user error, right?

Target Nearest Enemy + Mark Target is an active counter to Culling issues, and the bane of my existence.
Hell, I’d frankly prefer that everyone kittening about culling just be stuck with it- but since all the QQ’ing on the forums has lead to 6 successive patches of Thief nerfs, I’ll throw the bads a bone.

Tip: Works on portal culling too.

It’s not like Thieves don’t fight other Thieves in WvW.
It’s easy, really.
“Target Nearest Enemy” > “Mark Target” > Stomp Cull’d Thief > ??? > Profit.

brogarn.8723:

I like to siege, but I also like to just get on, run around, take camps, kill yaks, run from groups/zergs (while chuckling at them chasing me), and 1vX. I currently play a Mesmer and it works well enough, although I’ve made myself entirely too squishy and can’t afford to change that right now. Well, I could, but badges drop at such a low rate… but I digress.

Anyways, I’m getting a little bored. I’m also very tired of Thiefs. Fights with them either end with them just running away as they please, stealthing whenever they want (Revealed debuff? HAH! Lies.), killing me in the time it takes me to blink, or we have a 5 to 10 minute fight that can go either way.

So, I’m looking to try out some other classes. I want to be able to roam. I want to be tough enough to stand up to whatever and put out DPS enough to kill whatever. Swiftness close to perma would be a necessity. Being able to gtfo of dodge would be a requirement or my repair bill would suck. Being able to melt a Thief’s face would be a bonus. Even bigger bonus would be something unique and unexpected. I’m looking at Necro, Engineer and maybe D/D Ele right now. The latter being a little daunting with the learning curve and not exactly unique at the moment.

Anyways, am I deluded? Am I stuck with either playing a Thief myself (Which ain’t happenin. Too many of them as it is and I hatess them. Other than my occasional duo partner <3.) or just sticking with my Mesmer?

Thanks in advance.

Hammer – Sword Shield Warrior
(Matale has some videos up on YouTube showcasing a build a lot like this if you want to see it’s playstyle used to it’s utmost effect).

http://bit.ly/YEhZ19

It gets points for:
-Stunlock potential (how hard do you need to burst if your enemy can’t run/do anything?)
-Awesome escape (45s Swift on a 48 sec cooldown +5 sec swift on Heal use = perma swiftness w/o trait allotment/RNG reliance) + Sword 600 Leap is an awesome gap closer-opener depending on how you want it.
-Invuln windows for daaaaaaaaaaaaaays.
AoE CC is a lifesaver in and of itself when fighting multiple opponents or dealing with adds.

link for build in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hCCpq7e624

Thobek.1730:

Phoenixfudge.5290:

5 thieves and you will never be overrun by a noob zerg.

^ this. 5 thieves will destroy any other party.

Especially when your group gets coordinated to the point that you can do “Sync-Stabs”.
Watching 5 people drop to downed simultaneously will never get old. NEVER.

My guild usually runs
2x Thief
1x Warrior
1x Guardian
1x Mesmer / Elementalist / Ranger depending on who’s on.

The bedrock is the ability to choose our fights, and a class (or two) that can provide group Swiftness / Fury are simply a must.

Fraeg.9837:

Meh really need a subforum for small scale kittens.

Had some great small scale fights out there, some kitten 3v3s (we were a ranger, elem, necro trio). We gave some, and we got some quick trips back to the Victory Circle (code for: We Died).

It makes this aging jaded gamers heart blip in something that might resemble happiness to see the growing late night small scale pvp.

I raise my glass to all you small scale pvpers, whether it be 1v1, 3v3, 5v5, or what have you.

Cheers!

Concur’d.

As I led an abysmal defense of HoD’s overlook, I think I’m going back to small unit fights. Let the big guilds handle the strategic points, [NEX] will get back into the “Behind-Enemy-Lines” clandestine work. I miss the 8v8’s from DAoC something fierce.

It wasn’t until gw2 dropped that I stopped considering dusting off my Pac/Mend Healer hahaha.

Teabaker.9524:

(and ofc remove mug. Mug is broken anyway).

Anet was willing to nerf C&D instead of Mug, apparently their “design philosophy” doesn’t line up with yours. Hell, I don’t agree. Considering it is a long cooldown regardless of the Trickery reduction, I think the burst is worth the wait, tbh.

Daecollo, no offense but you seem to want to change almost everything about the Thief, you’ve posted almost 5 threads that I’ve seen proposing off-the-wall changes that display almost a complete lack of interest in the Thief “as-is”.

Maybe this isn’t the class for you?

Like most of the other replies are suggesting, it largely comes down to a “hit-and-run” playstyle. However, there’s always the incredibly boring (and largely useless) option of sitting in Shortbow and spamming Clusterbomb/Choking Gas (the latter especially useful if you have the minor trait “Lotus Poison” which applies Weakness when you apply Poison, which CG applies every second to mobs in it’s field. That certainly helps your overall survivability tremendously.

Dagger Pistol is good for dungeons, you just have to be mindful that the “Defiant” buff on all the bosses means that Blind will only have a 10% chance to cause the target to miss, drastically diminishing it’s effectiveness.

However, with most trash mobs, Black Powder should be plenty of survivability (as long as the mob isn’t consuming the blind condition faster than the Smoke field is applying it, i.e. Ascalonian Warriors/Rangers tend to burn through attacks pretty quickly, and the latters traps don’t seem to be effected by blind at all).

As with all things Thief, Stealth is your friend, and I’ve noticed that in most Exp Mode dungeons (minus Fractals) C&D is just as- if not more effective than Black Powder. However, this also depends on what your group make up is, and if you can get away with being purely D/D or S/D. Speaking of Sword Dagger, the free Daze on Tactical Strike is definitely worth considering as you can burn through the stacks of Defiant rather quickly and get a real form of CC off on the boss (when used properly, this can make most runs a breeeeeeeze).

Hope this helps

Nemo.6295:

PW is weak mostly due to the fact that the damage difference between the auto-attack and PW itself is too small considering the fact that you are rooted plus the intiative consumption. We know that PW was nerfed because of PVP when what really had to be nerfed was Quickness. Personally, I think PW needs to be looked at, or totally removed.

Exactly, imo I wouldn’t mind if active Quickness was removed from the game entirely.
It should be limited to RNG instances, or reduced to a +50% increase in attack/animation speed, not +100%. As it is right now, Quickness is effectively God-mode derps for 4seconds, and considering the classes who have access to it are in no way lacking in sources of burst potential, it seems like overkill.

Drunge.4035:

Some points need a change. Thiefs arent weak but they arent perfect either.
- Basilisk Venom shouldnt be an elite or the duration should be raised. There is no point to this. I use it sometimes but only for troll purposes, a good player will break stun it easily and makes it useless. Some class got better stuns and they are not elite skills.
- Dagger Storm is kinda underpowered now.
- Flanking Strike is a joke. The animation is really too slow. Any player who use his two hands can avoid it and a sigil is much better to dispell boons. The time needed for this skill to land and the damage it does are ridiculous.
- Body shot is useless. Really.
- Headshot is a good skill but since we need to spam unload to make damage, what’s the point ? I really think vital shot should do some more damage so we wouldnt have to spam unload and use other skills.
- Pistol Whip is good right now, not too OP but i still think the stun animation should be reduced.
- Death blossom deals too much with a bleeding build.
- Dancing Dagger is a joke since its damage got nerfed. At least, it should cost less initiative.
- Last Refuge, as it stands, should be rename “Kill me faster please”. I think it’s the point who really need attention.
- Venom are great but they shouldnt be consumed everytime we land an auto-attack..
- Power shots has nothing to do in Shadow Arts. It’s a bow passive skill. The bow is the only thief weapon who really doesnt need stealth 90% of the time..

-Basilisk should be an elite, but I personally feel that for a 1-hit (consumed on whiff) venom, the stun duration should be 2s base. Especially with a 1s cast time, it’s not like you’re using it mid-melee without seriously risking your life in the process.

-I wouldn’t say that it’s “underpowered” but for 90s Elite, it sure is incredibly situational at best. I’d take Basilisk Venom any day over Dagger Storm, removing stability and just making it an 8-sec channeled evade.

-Body Shot should be on similar damage scaling as HS’s first tier. It’s not like P/D or P/P Thieves don’t have access to far better sources of raw damage, and a paltry 5% boost in damage (that can be removed) is worth the three initiative when P/P could wait 2 seconds and drop another Unload, P/D another C&D+SA.

-I think that’s the reason it costs 5 Initiative, though. And it’s only dealing 400 damage a second over a decade with a high condi damage build. I just wish it didn’t have such a flimsy animation- replace Twisting Fang’s animation with DB and retain the evade window / 3x stacks of Bleed and it’d be perfect. I guess some condi thieves would disagree, however.

-Completely agree. 4 Initiative is much better spent on waiting on a C&D or another HS for a gap-closer. I’ve also noticed that it seems to be rendering “Out Of Range” errors in WvW quite often lately. A cost reduction or restoration of initial hits’ damage is definitely in order.

-Again, I completely agree. Last Refuge’s effect should ignore Revealed debuff and late projectile damage that break the Stealth, however the Thief should be locked in the Stealth for the full duration, or the HP percentage should be increased to 50%. Or hell, remove it entirely and give us a better minor trait in exchange. Something like a passive 1-initiative per 2 seconds while stealthed trait.

-Meh, I don’t think their charges should be consumed on a Miss or Out Of Range. It should be a “Hit”/“Block”/“Evade” that consumes a venom charge. Especially considering their considerable cooldown durations.

-Considering you can’t even stealth with the SB skills, it does seem rather pointless that the trait is in Shadow Arts of all places. I’d think it’d make more sense if it were in Trickery, tbh. My proposal would be drop it all together, however and give the Shadow Arts line a broad “initiative-cost reduction” trait, like “Seasoned Assassin: Reduces the cost of all Initiative-based skills by 1 Initiative.”

naphack.9346:

Aervius.2016:

Bad idea.
Shadow Refuge on no cooldown would mean perma-stealthed Thief (+4 allies) not to mention that a SA spec’d Thief regens a LOT of ini with Infusion of Shadow.

It would basically mean that any thief player with a brain would take nothing but Stealth skill Utilities so as to offset the cost of the skills.

Cooldowns are fine as is.
Like many people have already said, it would effectively take an entire redesign of the Thief class to balance it.

1) not like permastealthing impossible right now
2) I’d rather spam blinding powder over shadow refuge. Allies can walk freely and you keep blinding opponents. Shadow refuge just asks a necromancer to throw all his marks and wells in it.

Well, in my defense I never claimed that it was impossible, but few Thieves (at least on BP) are spec’d to pull it off with just utilities.
Shadow Refuge regens 10 initiative in 4 seconds with Infusion of Shadow, so even if Shadow Refuge cost 10 Initiative, a SA build thief could perma-stealth indefinitely.

Second, that’s also assuming that a Necromancer is in the vacinity and carrying a staff, which admittedly most good ones will be, but there are bads in every profession.

Simple:
-Replace “Unload” with “Double Tap”, firing 2 quick successive shots- the first shot applying 5s Weakness and the second applying a 1/2s Daze. Deals Unloads’ cumulative damage split between both rounds. 1s “cast”. 5 initiative.
-Black Powder causes AoE blind in a 240 radius, but Stealths the Thief and allies in the radius instead of creating a smoke field. (Giving P/P initiative-based Stealthing, also giving more Stealth utility to off-hand Pistol builds.) 1s “cast” 6 initiative.

IMHO, with those two changes, P/P would be lightyears ahead of it’s current state and would drastically improve the viability of other off-hand pistol builds to boot, giving the Thief more options with such a limited selection of weapon sets.

Nemo.6295:

As the title says, a 1200 weapon is needed. Stealth is not as effective so it could be claimed that thieves don’t need a 1200 weapon. It has been suggested that they give theves rifles, which, in my personal opinion, would be the best thing.

I’m not sure what Thief build you’re playing, but I don’t think we need the firepower of Warrior/Rangers with the same reach too, I believe that may in fact be a designed limitation.

Brtiva.9721:

Hey, thanks for all the replies!
I found a better pistol in a drop.

So, basically drops alone should keep me geared ok?

I may very well prefer dagger/pistol or pistol/dagger to other weapon sets… I am just too new to know. Last night I switch to pistol in main. I am now lvl 6…but my character info says “effective level 5”. I assume is this due to my gear.

So simply by continuing to explore and defeat enemies and do quests, I can be geared OK?

“Effective Level” means you’re in an area that’s lower level than you are- explore a little further from where you are and you should find an uncompleted “Heart Quest” that should be around level 6. In the top right of your screen you’ll see the level of the Heart Quest in “(_)” near the name of the quest.

Keep exploring, and welcome to the Thieves Guild ;D

Backstab animation on Asura Thief = Headstab.

And you’re a member of a race that is effectively a mix of Tyrion Lannister and Meerkats. What’s not to love?

Gratz on the legendary Wild Bill!
Too bad it sounds like a bubble-gun

Also: Good vid, you showcase the abilities of the pistol dagger / venom build very well and you certainly make use of your arsenal very well.
10/10 imo.

Daecollo.9578:

…. if it had a built in shadowstep.. what would be the point of infiltrator’s strike?

A shadowstep “animation” to replace the exaggerated evade animation.
It would still be melee ranged (130), just using more class fluff instead of useless acrobatics.

To be perfectly honest, Dagger + Pistol is amazing for solo leveling.
Black Powder + Heartseeker = Damage + Stealth for a Backstab combo.
Not to mention if you’re the Smoke field reapplies Blind every second for 4 seconds.
It’s effectively the Thief’s version of a shield in PvE.

Granted, if dagger isn’t your style the trading post usually has some decently priced weapons if you want to try a different playstyle.

I went 1-80 with D/P and loved it the whole way.

Zunhar.4079:

Aervius.2016:

Zunhar.4079:

On second thought, just remove a Thief’s ability to stealth in combat, and replace it with a permanent stealth that only breaks when we deal damage.
Sound fair?

Only if:
1.) Stealthing only requires the Thief to stop attacking for 3-4 seconds.
2.) Channeled abilities / Pet+NPC AI will automically interrupt the instant the target Thief gains Stealth.
3.) Recieving damage while Stealthed does not break Stealth.
4.) Shadow Refuge and Blind Powder mechanics remain unchanged.
5.) Cloak and Dagger is restored to pre-nerf damage but is changed to a Riposte/Protector’s Strike “Parry” mechanic, dealing it’s damage in an AoE.
2.5 – 3s Channel, if no attack is blocked, the Thief gains 10s of Swiftness and Fury.
6.) Heartseeker is restored to it’s pre-nerfed-into-oblivion state, +66%/-66%/33%
and restored to it’s original damage scale.
7.) Dancing Dagger has it’s pre-nerf damage restored AND initiative cost reduced to 3.
8.) Pistol Whip restored to pre-nerf damage and the stun is increased to match the duration of the evade window (w/o the use of Haste).
9.) Pistol Auto-Attack build time is reduced to 1/8s.
10.) Flanking Strike’s damage is consolidated into 1 hit, causing 10x Vulnerability to the target. Animation of Flanking Strike changed to a Shadowstep-based positioning shift, not some agonizingly long eliptical dodge roll.
11.) Unload changed to “Double Tap”, dealing the consolidated damage of the current P/P dual skill, but reducing the number of shots fired to 2. First shot causes weakness, second shot causes 1/2s daze. 5 Initiave cost. 3/4s channel time.

If those conditions are met I’d sign the permastealth petition, if not- forget it.

It was a joke man, chill. I much prefer the active- short duration- stealth then the be invisible forever kind of stealth.

I am, however, all in favor of buffing underplayed builds, like P/P and S/D.

My reply was a joke too :P Hence, the excessive nature of the stipulations- most of those would completely destroy class balance in favor of the Thief.

dank.3680:

Kardiamond.6952:

Steal is an incredible mecanism.

Creslin, about using the F1-F4, It would be cool yeah, but so much work and balancing. 3 more abilities is huge, 3 more per steal is very huge.

Steal give thief an unique abilities depending of the foes they are fighting. It’s awesome.

You also have Stealth attack, that is also unique to thief. And initiative. That’s a lot of class specific abilities.

Just take Necro as an exemple. They only have the same Death Shroud, all the time. The same 4 situational abilities. Nothing else.

:)

He’s saying you would have the option from 4 skills depending on the class you stole from, but you would only be able to use one of them and all would reset.

I think it’s a pretty nifty idea myself.

That’s actually what Steal was in Alpha-Early Beta, and I promise you it became far too problematic with balancing.

I would say, however, that the Thief should have some additional tricks up their respective sleeves (or lack thereof if you’re the Order of Whispers type).

How about:
F1 – Steal (unchanged, minus homogenized PvE steals from mobs. 1x 1m duration melee bleed is garbage, Anet. GARBAGE.)
F2 – Dirty Tricks (70s cooldown) pulsing 240 radius AoE blind, 4s duration, centered on Thief. (like the Thief version of Plague, but the Thief can still use 1-5 skills, but Utilities and Elites are disabled for the duration.)
F3 – Determination (120s cooldown) for 3 seconds you take no damage. Functionally identical to Endure Pain, just shorter duration on a much longer cooldown.

F2 & F3 cooldowns are reduced per point of Trickery, just like Steal, but it removes the RNG factor from the Thief playstyle to some degree while enhancing the overall depth of the class.

Bad idea.
Shadow Refuge on no cooldown would mean perma-stealthed Thief (+4 allies) not to mention that a SA spec’d Thief regens a LOT of ini with Infusion of Shadow.

It would basically mean that any thief player with a brain would take nothing but Stealth skill Utilities so as to offset the cost of the skills.

Cooldowns are fine as is.
Like many people have already said, it would effectively take an entire redesign of the Thief class to balance it.

IMHO, Flanking Strikes’ primary issue is it’s pointlessly long animation.
If it were changed to a shadowstep that dealt it’s damage in two hits that happen simultaneously I’d bet that it’s effectiveness would effectively double.

Something like,
“You shadowstep behind your target, striking with both weapons. The first attack removes 1 boon.”

I’d doubt that even if they removed the evade window that most S/D Thieves would really care as that build seems more oriented to Daze locking anyway. The supplimentary damage would just be what the weapon combination would need imo.

Eledran.8731:

A thief complaining about a glass cannon Ele, now I’ve seen it all.
Useless drivel about Scepter/Dagger Ele’s thinking they are using the best weapon set for burst damage
FYI, I’m not even sure why it isn’t fine for the class in the game that has the least health, the least native armor and the most complex basic rotation, while lacking “get out of jail free” cards like stealth, to have some decent burst (after they set it up and the opponent is too dim-witted to escape it).

Let me spell it out for you:
1. Dual dagger is your burst set.
2. 1-5 skills are no more complex than any other classes “rotation”.
3. Attunements effectively gaurantee that you will always have the right ability for the right moment.
4. Cantrips aren’t all stun breaks + damage soaks (+10s of Regen and Vigor for 10 points in Water)? Huh, those tooltips and Elementalist tourney videos must all be deceiving me… and the rest of the community. Glad we have you around to clarify that for us.
*LF = 900 range “slow-mo” teleport. Breaks stun. 244 base damage, melee ranged AoE.
*MF = 3 INVULNERABILITY window. Breaks stun.
*AoEarth = 6s Protection/Stability. Breaks stun.
*Cleansing Flame = 3 conditions removed. Breaks stun. 3s AoE Burning.

What “get out of jail card” are you claiming that Ele’s don’t have?

The problem isn’t the Thiefs capabilities, the problem is you don’t understand your Elementalist as well as you claim to.
Proof.
More proof.
Lemon-squeeze for that cut.
You shoud get the point by now.

poe lyfe.5879:

im playing a theif and i feel they do way too much damage for the amount of damage they can avoid. eles cant hide and dont have extra dodge skills. theifs arent perfect the way they are accept it. i regularly run into groups and spam death blossom and usually make it out without taking a hit granted i dont usually kill anything but i do heavily damage them and leave them with bleeding damage. their spike is unforgiving and needs to either lower their life so that they can be killed just as fast by the other player or not be able to kill a warrior in 4 seconds.

Really?
Man, I should really learn how to be as pro as you are with that 30/30/30/30/30 build.
Given that anyone who’s actually played a Thief (not rolled one and trolled the golems in the HoM’s, but you know, actually invested time and patience into learning the nuances of the class) will know that you are flat out lying, it’s safe to say you’re a buttmad GS+Rifle warrior who got kitten on by a Backstab OR Condition Thief.

Zunhar.4079:

On second thought, just remove a Thief’s ability to stealth in combat, and replace it with a permanent stealth that only breaks when we deal damage.
Sound fair?

Only if:
1.) Stealthing only requires the Thief to stop attacking for 3-4 seconds.
2.) Channeled abilities / Pet+NPC AI will automically interrupt the instant the target Thief gains Stealth.
3.) Recieving damage while Stealthed does not break Stealth.
4.) Shadow Refuge and Blind Powder mechanics remain unchanged.
5.) Cloak and Dagger is restored to pre-nerf damage but is changed to a Riposte/Protector’s Strike “Parry” mechanic, dealing it’s damage in an AoE.
2.5 – 3s Channel, if no attack is blocked, the Thief gains 10s of Swiftness and Fury.
6.) Heartseeker is restored to it’s pre-nerfed-into-oblivion state, +66%/-66%/33%
and restored to it’s original damage scale.
7.) Dancing Dagger has it’s pre-nerf damage restored AND initiative cost reduced to 3.
8.) Pistol Whip restored to pre-nerf damage and the stun is increased to match the duration of the evade window (w/o the use of Haste).
9.) Pistol Auto-Attack build time is reduced to 1/8s.
10.) Flanking Strike’s damage is consolidated into 1 hit, causing 10x Vulnerability to the target. Animation of Flanking Strike changed to a Shadowstep-based positioning shift, not some agonizingly long eliptical dodge roll.
11.) Unload changed to “Double Tap”, dealing the consolidated damage of the current P/P dual skill, but reducing the number of shots fired to 2. First shot causes weakness, second shot causes 1/2s daze. 5 Initiave cost. 3/4s channel time.

If those conditions are met I’d sign the permastealth petition, if not- forget it.

Dacromir.6207

Edited that post, and this is the video I meant to post.

And people are kittening about Thief burst.
2 second TTK and all of it is Area of Effect.
Basilisk Venom? Single Hit/Target. 45s cooldown. Elite Slot used.
Steal? Single Target. 45s cooldown.
Cnd? Single Target. 6 initiative (40% of our pool at 15 Initiative)
Backstab? You guessed it, Single Target. (4s Revealed cooldown, Requires Stealth, Requires positioning to the Rear 90° arc)

Burning Speed – AoE Blast damage, 15s cooldown.
Ring of Fire – AoE “Field Creation” damage, Fire combo Field, Applies burning. 15s cooldown.
Fire Grab – 300 Range Conical Area of Effect. 45s cooldown.

Why did Thieves get nerfed again? Oh right. Because we do it with a dagger and not fire.

I want my pre-nerf Cloak and Dagger damage back now, thank you. That elementalist didn’t have to blow a single utility skill or elite to hit that kind of burst and landed a kill just as fast as a far more frail Thief could do at the risk of being nearly useless until Steal/BV are up.

Galandil.9641:

Well it’s as much unreasonable as being downed due to a channeled skill (or pet) which goes on in hitting us after 2-3 seconds that we enter stealth.
How about that?

This.
A million Basilisk Venom vials for you, sir.

Elowin.9078:

[Edited]

No one mentioned Pistol Whip? Sounds like I should invest in better daggers and move back to them and the bow?

So totally up all six entries into Traits gives me 10 / 60 / 150 / 105 / 85. So far I have assigned nn / nn / 30 / 20 / 10 with 10 points undecided…

30 Shadow’s Embrace / Cloaked in Shadow / Shadow’s Rejuvenation
20 Descent of Shadows / Fleet of Foot — Does Descent of Shadows include getting knocked down by foe or only when knocked off ledge?
10 Uncatchable

If I put nothing into the first two traits am I still being effective offensively with Death Blossom and Caltrops?

I tested Descent of Shadows during beta and I felt like I was wasting a trait slot, to be honest. Unless you’re taking a lot of needless falling damage (intentionally) to exploit a free Stealth mechanic, it’s really not worth it. You’d most likely get far more mileage out of Power of Inertia (Might on dodge roll) / Fleet with either Assassin’s Reward/Quick Recovery. However to directly answer your question Descent of Shadow’s will proc whenever you take falling damage (observing the internal cooldown of course), regardless of why/what caused you to take it.

I’d recommend the last 10 points into Trickery for Bountiful and the extra +3 to your initiative pool. Especially if you’re not taking Quick Recovery.

Jefzor.7145:

And let’s be honest, how often do you want to cripple 4 enemies when you could just focus on increasing your own mobility to instead.

Exactly. 4 Initiative for a pathetic ranged snare with inane damage.
or
3 Initiative for a 450 Leap finisher with awesome damage.

Hmm… tough choice.