Guild Wars 2

Plasma is by far the most op think we could have. I would hide this post from Anet if I were you.

We are like bad kids asking for gifts, and they are capable of nerfing plasma.

ˆ^ He is right.
Smoke Field + Blast Combo = Area Stealth.

Kyori.6091:

All of these are pretty specific gimmicks/tricks that require a specific build and even then are only situational, and even at that point spamming all your skills for a small “burst” effect like that is not really recommended as a mesmer in any situation. Beside maybe double mass invis and so on sometimes. But that’s how the skill is supposed to function.

While I do think mesmer has overran thief in a lot of places and needs some toning down in the correct places, this video gives hardly anything to the real problems.

And we haven’t seen thief speci yet so….

Neat tricks, but that’s all they really are. At max i can see these being used in pve.

Not to mention a lot of cooldowns are used to attain them.

Don’t really get how this is a “Mesmer is taking thief’s place” problem.

I completely disagree with you there mate.
Let me start with your CD argument being long enough… Unlike the thief, the mesmer is bound to CDs, but it be should be logical to say that if they pop their CDs to meet their goals, then it’s safe to say it was worth it. Let me give you a few example.

. If they pop their CDs to get 16 seconds of quickness and their goal was to kill a thief? then GG.
. If they pop their CDs to get their team of 8 pass a zerg safely with 52 seconds of stealth? then GG.

My point is CDs don’t really matter as long as you meet your goal. Drawbacks aren’t that serious (a little bit more than a 1 minute cooldown) and benefits are huge.

I want to point out that my real issue is that fact that they have the OPTION to do those great things. No trying to nerf them or anything.

If a mesmer get 16 seconds of quickness on me, i will have no choice but to shadow refuge and retreat. As a matter of fact, retreating is by far my best option . So there it is, this is my problem.

You mentioned we still don’t have our Elite Spec revealed yet so we can’t complain.
Again, it doesn’t matter. Not everybody is gonna go for the Elite Specs as a matter of fact some will completely hate it. So that’s is not a compelling argument at all.

Thief is stuck with very little options. and I hope they are actually taking their time to fix us WHILE coming up with the new Elite Spec.
I cannot guarantee the group safety and safe passage trough a zerg cause I have max 25 secs of stealth.

It’s almost obvious that if ordinary trait specs are broken, adding the new elite spec will become a nightmare for all us.

Again, I am pretty much QQing, saying “look at all things they could possibly do” and also
saying “Look at all those things, we can’t do.”

How I feel right now:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

“Our elite Spec better be fire.”
No, our core specs better get buffed. If only our elite spec is worth competing with all the other elite specs, people who don’t buy the expansions would be screwed. The expansion was suppose to give “more options” and not “stronger options” which would ruin pvp balance.

You are right. Elite spec performance is directly correlated to core traits and specs.

A Blast Combo into a Dark Field give invisibility. The more you blast that field, the longer you will remain invisible.

Video isn’t long and self-explanatory.

Our elite Spec better be fire.

reinforever.8902:

Kocoff.7582:

I need to ask, what do you consider, WvW wise a satisfactory crit chance and power?

I feel like full zerk jewelry with full valk armor set is an ideal stat. According do a build editor, it could leave me at 15k HP, 2.5k power with 40% crit chance without food.

What do you think?

I think that is a very viable baseline for stats. What runes are you planning on running also?

I got Pack Runes.

I need to ask, what do you consider, WvW wise a satisfactory crit chance and power?

I feel like full zerk jewelry with full valk armor set is an ideal stat. According do a build editor, it could leave me at 15k HP, 2.5k power with 40% crit chance without food.

What do you think?

reinforever.8902:

(I was sitting on about 23k hp with guard stacks) but on the other hand all of my non stealth skills were critting a lot less than I would have liked.
[…]
I think a baseline HP number you should try to go for is 17.5k at least

I have exactly 14.2k HP for WvW so I am definitely under the bar, and I don’t think my damage is all that.

stof.9341:

Let’s be honest here. The effort needed to craft a new ascended armor set is huge. I’d go 100% zerk and any survivability/tweaks would be done with jewelry, starting with rings.

And what jewelry would you suggest? Cause I would like some decent HP.. Would anything tankier than Valk be pushing it?

thanks for the feedback guys. I hope i get more people to share their experience.

Good day to you, my cunning thieves,

I finally hit lvl 500 leatherworking today. This means it’s time to start taking my gear to the ascended level. It’s going to be a long quest all in itself. So I am here to get everybody’s opinion.

I am looking for ideal stats balance, and by “ideal”, I mean a little more aggressive than sustain. 55% aggressive 45% survivability kind of balance.

I currently have 4/6 exotic Valkyrie with 2/6 Berserker, and I want to change it up a notch.

What type and mix of armor should I get for my ascended set?
Please share your own ascended stats and strategy.

Important note my jewelry and weapon sets are entirely ascended berseker btw.
I avoid conditions stats at all costs.

Thank you

We need to understand that as Thieves… We steal VERY LITTLE and what we currently steal has such little impact on the overall fight. I want the thief to be a High Risk High Reward profession. I Want the thief to be such a risk that ,you never really know what you are gonna steal. Is it terrible heal skill? is it a weird stolen elite skill? oh well time to deal with it. kleptomania should know no bounds.

Compared to us thieves, other professions have some serious damage output and survivability (especially survivability). Yes, Anet can fix a lot of things traits and make us happy again. However, I really think it’s time to do a serious rework.

We shouldn’t settle by asking Anet to JUST fix traits. They should have done that a while ago, and I think Sparkz did it well by going beyond and go for complete reworks of mechanics and skills.

Very interesting thread and I hope people get involved in this one. Most importantly I hope people agree with what you said.

I agree with you on the fact that a thief should be an obnoxious opponent that focus on stealth, and serious CC. I like comparing the viability of profession with real life.

The only way a thief would kill a warrior in real life, it would have to be with a serious amount of crippling, daze, and disorientations. Most importantly, it should be as fast as possible. If the warrior manages to survive the first onslaught, the thief is dead. plain and simple.

I think you set out the crippling, obnoxious, disorientation theme of the thief quite well.

Steal
When I first started playing the thief, I was expecting Steal to be sort of disarming mechanism. Stealing gw2, and especially in real life, should have very serious disabling consequences and I completely agree with this mechanism. I like the smoke field aspect of it. But I am affraid I will have to fight against the Steal CD to 15. I think 20 seconds is just fine.

Sword
Sword #2 suggestion is great. knockdown replacement of immobilize is good.

Dagger
dagger #5 I think everybody will agree that C&D needs blind instead of vul..

Healing skill
I like this one a lot. Stealing should be more done often than just everytime steal is available. Moreover, Thieves should be able to steal just about anything, and a healing skill just prooves that.
Now.. what about stealing more a thief who has Idle Hands or stealing from Warrior with healing signet? the regen probably won’t benefit the thief as much. I guess that’s a risk a thief is willing to take. I love the idea.

Stolen Items
I am glad you mentioned the change in stolen items, I started the Useless Stolen Items and I wish it had involved more people than it did.
I agree with all the stolen items sugesstions you put up.

Elite Skill
So Copy Cat is basically an Elite Steal. ME GUSTA.

I completely approve this message.

“9/10. This guy gets it” IGN

RapidSausage.4620:

Kocoff.7582:

RapidSausage.4620:

So the thief is supposed to be this master of traveling through the mists

Pretty sure that’s the Revenant. Like the name suggest, the Thief is supposed to be the master of stealing. That’s it.

Come on man. I just read shadowstep on Cloak & Dagger, now this suggestion is Shadowstep on AA with 1 to 2 second reveal… ?

Not only it’s pretty ridiculous but it won’t even make the thief any more fun, or viable.
We need a lot of fixing or moderate suggestions. this is plainly outrageous and even if it was implemented, other professions will complain so much, we ll get hit by a harder nerf.

Just no. We have plenty of gap closers, make sure you use them efficiently. we steal. we don’t travel through the mist. that never happened.

Shadowstepping IS traveling through the mists.

Says who?

Last time I checked "Shadowstep"is a term used in a lot of video games and it’s just another term for teleportation. It just happens to fit the secretive and cunning playstyle of the thief.

Stepping through the shadows, literally.

RapidSausage.4620:

So the thief is supposed to be this master of traveling through the mists

Pretty sure that’s the Revenant. Like the name suggest, the Thief is supposed to be the master of stealing. That’s it.

Come on man. I just read shadowstep on Cloak & Dagger, now this suggestion is Shadowstep on AA with 1 to 2 second reveal… ?

Not only it’s pretty ridiculous but it won’t even make the thief any more fun, or viable.
We need a lot of fixing or moderate suggestions. this is plainly outrageous and even if it was implemented, other professions will complain so much, we ll get hit by a harder nerf.

Just no. We have plenty of gap closers, make sure you use them efficiently. we steal. we don’t travel through the mist. that never happened.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Bought final rest when it was cheap.

I just looked up Final Rest… yes siiirrrr. It’s time to invest quick before the market turns us into poor stupid thieves.

I don’t take PvE seriously at all. I just farm Silverwaste during the weekdays, so idk if my opinion counts.

I use p/p, with Spider, Skale, and Basilik Venom with Venomous Aura. Sharing makes everybody’s job easier.

But xxburningemberxx is right, p/p is quite terrible with multiple adds. Just 4-5 Mordrem Wolves and it’s gonna take days to take them out.

So i tried it for almost 3 hours I believe. For some reason I ran into EVERY condi build, mesmer, thief, necro, warrior. I really like condi cleaning aspect of hit but the damage…. the damage is so slow. I even added sigil of rage for the quickness effect wich worked wonders, but still… I spend the whole fight on defensive, just cleaning myself to death.

Man it made me miss S/D, idk if it’s the damage, me completely sucking (currently used to D/P, but i played a lot of S/D before the Fire Nation attacked) , but wow. No wonder so many people complain about acrobatics and S/D. RIP.

Since NOBODY excepts Scorpion Wire anymore, this skill does wonders. every 16 sec, a condi clean (traited), and knockback/daze.
Anyways, Build is good, well thought out. However, broken S/D remains broken S/D.

xXBurningEmberXx.6085:

Kocoff.7582:

I am hoping for:

- Shadow clones as a utility NOT ELITE
- Reflect projectiles with a nice staff kungkittenmaneuvering skill. grants retalialiation or something.
- a spear #3 style block and retaliate attack or a knockback.
- Auto-Attack with Daze. I don’t see a staff that causes bleeding or poison… very op tho.
- a gap closer. HeartSeeker type.

a way to go stealth… but i don’t see that with stealth. that would be too perfect.

i know this is a christmas list but i have faith, ANET WON T DO US LIKE THAT.

edit: to really differentiate from Mesmer, I would want the Shadow Clones to only do 1 attack. It appears makes one move and vanishes, leaving a blind condition or something.

Maybe for the daze aa it could be in a chain like daggers. It would take like 2.5 seconds to cast. It’d make people not just spam a line of 1 attack (heartseeker) then sit in aa since people would have to cast a spell to prevent the 2.5s cast time, and when you need it you’d let the chain go off. Might be hard to implement but idk.

Yeah I don’t want to be completely OP. I agree with the chain, just a dagger AA with lotus strike inflicting poison at the end. Except it’s just daze.

I have run into 1 mesmer like earlier today and I could not beat her. The fight lasted long enough for my to have use Shadow Refuge 4 times (No improvisation), a real pain these guys are.I am going to try this immediately, it sounds promising.

I will try mine with Shadow Refuge Scorpion Wire and Shadowstep.

Anet can’t do us like this. keep your head up. Robert Gee said he will definitely fix professions soon. He did admit to the fact that was a serious imbalance.

For those of you who dropped the Thief for a mesmer or anything else………………………………………………………………

…………………

Somebody has to do it you know.

I am hoping for:

- Shadow clones as a utility NOT ELITE
- Reflect projectiles with a nice staff kungkittenmaneuvering skill. grants retalialiation or something.
- a spear #3 style block and retaliate attack or a knockback.
- Auto-Attack with Daze. I don’t see a staff that causes bleeding or poison… very op tho.
- a gap closer. HeartSeeker type.

a way to go stealth… but i don’t see that with stealth. that would be too perfect.

i know this is a christmas list but i have faith, ANET WON T DO US LIKE THAT.

edit: to really differentiate from Mesmer, I would want the Shadow Clones to only do 1 attack. It appears makes one move and vanishes, leaving a blind condition or something.

HOLD HANDS MY BROTHERS.

TOMORROW IS THE DAY OF RECKONING. May the thief be forever deadly and swift with his new weapon.

UMBASA

TOMORROW GUYZ.

LET S HOLD HANDS AND WAIT FOR THE RESULTS.

The banana scythe is an actually weapon in GW1. So i don’t know what she really meant by that.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Banana_Scythe

Can anyone who has been there since GW1 wth this weapon is? were scythes used by assassins or something?

In other words, you want them to behave like signets.

I see the thread is very divided when it comes to their opinions on Throw Gunk. It’s quite interesting really. The argument were definitely compelling on both side.

as for Ice Shard Stab. If I fight a skillful ele, I know i’ll spend the entire time missing a stupid Ice Shard Stab, and if by miracle I make it ( a lucky Daze + F2), it’s not going to have any impact on the fight whatsoever.

I just wish the Stolen items were more generalized and had compelling consequences on the ennemy like mentioned earlier such as: whirl axe on warrior, sun on guardian, fear on necro.

I just don’t see that impact on ele and engis. It’s almost as if, we they get stolen 5 times in a row, they will still be like “meh”.

Edit: Also guys, let’s keep it PvP and on topic. thank you.

NinjaEd.3946:

Executioner gives you that added boost that makes thief noticeable on the team. Executioner alone doesn’t make thief but without it a lot of your damage can be neglected against moderately tanky builds that will just recover.

I always chose executioner to put me ahead of builds like that. The quicker the fight the quicker I can gtfo before someone comes and turns that 2v1 to a 2v2 and focus fire me.

I just tried out executioner in WvW. I always set up my build with Improv and I can say Executioner is a lot more reliable. with 20% extra damage, I get in, I get out.Quite simple and straightforward.

I just realized when you are against a player, as a thief, the point is to make the fight last as LITTLE as possible, and Improvisation does the exact contrary.

We often forget what our true purpose and role is : quick and dirty assassinations with little exposure.

Improvisation => survivability.
Executioner => Quick and clean kills =>survivability.

They both lead to the same result, but Executioner gets the job done fast enough to be ready for the next unfortunate victim.

Maugetarr.6823:

I mean, if they’re gonna give us a melee staff, just let us use spears on land. That way we’d have a bunch of good skins. I’d also settle for OH sword. or really anything except torch and mace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghp8-KKdwNc

ah man that Fate/Stay scene just makes me want to get a staff/spear now.

penelopehannibal.8947:

We seem to be beating a dead horse with a melee staff now. I wish ArenaNet would get the [Reveal] over and done with, whichever weapon it is. >.<

Yeah we are…. Let’s hope this week is our turn. Cause i can’t handle it anymore.

well I am pretty sure we are bound to get both weapons eventually. Point here was to see wich one would come first. I mean, it would take another year or even more for that second weapon to make an appearance. lol

Taobella.6597:

just pointing out how strong gunk can be

https://youtu.be/BeTmSGt3pFU

That’s my point exactly. When your target is gonna stand there and take all those stacks with a smile on his face, let me know.

babazhook.6805:

Throw Gunk is hardly useless. With up to 2 stolen one can load significant confusion stacks on using whirl. . If I whirl over using d/d db i load bleeds confusion poison all at once. Using Daggerstorm you can load on bleeds cripples confusion. I would extend duration of the field by one second as this would allow a bit more time to take advantage of it and or make the field a bit larger.

I also use it to load area chaos armor on teammates using a blast finisher. It can be hard to pull off because duration low.

I also use chill a lot and see no issues with it. Again the double use is what counts and added to that it not required you use it against that Elementalist. It too would favor a condition build over power simply because in a condition build one is looking to apply as many total conditions as possible so as to make them burn those cleanses. As well when an enemy DOES take an extra cleanse or trait just to deal with potential chill (such as stop drop and roll) it another trait they might want that they can not take.

I would like every thief stolen skill to be used in a general sense. You mentioned that using Ice Stab ON THE CONDITION that the thief has improv. Obviously not every thief is using that trait, so your argument is too conditional and too specific to actually be of any use.

Chill WILL get cleansed in a matter of seconds.

Look:
-You steal from a Thief? that’s an extra 4 seconds – and possibly 8 seconds- of invisibility.
That is crucial in any thief vs thief fight. 4 seconds is enough to get you killed and anything could happen.

-You steal from a warrior? that warrior better ready to avoid a HUGE amount of damage.
- You steal from Guardian, those stuns could easily lead to his death.
- You Steal from a Necro, those seconds of fears could interrupt so much of his rotations.

I don’t see those dangerous implications I mentioned above with Throw Gunk & Ice Shard Stab.

I hope you reconsider.

I think it’s nice also, but I think they should add an immobilize effect on it, because the max you’ll get is 2 stacks, other than that it’s pretty useless.

It shouldn’t take long to find a stolen item to replace Throw Gunk.That’s how bad it is imo.

@hihey you made a good point talking about Landing that Ice stab.

Jana.6831:

Kocoff.7582:

I suggest they add a trait to allow us to diminish direct AoE damages (not conditions) while stealthed or something. Maybe in the famous Shadow Arts, I know it’s already a buffed up trait line but it wouldn’t make sense anywhere else.

Ok, so SA is “buffed up”… why didn’t I know that?
Well yeah, for D/P thieves it’s great.

I just had a feeling somebody would make that remark.

Sorry mate. You pretty much described a Necromancer with that list. A thief you can’t attack from stealth isn’t a thief. plain and simple.

However I like the staff skill, blocking grants stealth. Me gusta.
Hidden Killer isn’t OP.

Some of them are seriously terrible and useless, I wish Anet would change those. Especially PvP wise.

Right now I am thinking about:

1. Ice Shard Stab stolen from the Elementalist.

I would rather have a lightning attack that could maybe stun or daze at the very least. Chilling is kind of useless for a thief.

2. Throw Gunk, stolen from the Engineer,

Even Panick strike won’t put them in place long enough to have an effect. A part from the Chaos Armor I would get from leaping into it, It’s not worth it. Could they replace Throw Gunk with : a. Rusty Scrap Strike, cause bleed,poison and weaken or b. Shoot Rifle, launching both of you backwards in the opposite direction, but leaving your target vulnerable.

Opinions?

Yeah I don’t think we are meant to have any viable AoE but I completely agree with you, 90% of the times where i get downed is because of some random AoE shredding me to pieces.

I suggest they add a trait to allow us to diminish direct AoE damages (not conditions) while stealthed or something. Maybe in the famous Shadow Arts, I know it’s already a buffed up trait line but it wouldn’t make sense anywhere else.

I also have this dilemma often. I still value survivability over kills.

Improv. does a wonderful job, magically making you survive a fight against a bunker you had no chance against. Plus i don’t think you should tailor your build against specifically bunkers. That would not only just reduce your utility in a team, but also your survivability.

On the contrary. There should be lots of fights, hand picked fights. cause watching a whole game gets very boring without music. You still want people be entertained, you don’t want them to feel like they are taking a class.

I know you want to do your own style, and no disrespect from that, buy you will get a good idea if you look up on “Yishis commentary” on youtube.

- don’t make a 25 minutes video, you could have explained it all in 10 minutes.
I would only watch a 25 minute video of an outnumbered Thief ownage session.

- Thank you for showing all the place Infiltrator’s Arrow could work. Pretty sure it also works when teleporting when downed.

- I think people understand better if you do live commenting of 1v1 fights on WvW. Spvp is so crowded it can be complicated for new thieves to understand.

I don’t have much to say about the build. it’s balanced and normal. You move a lot more than I do, so that’s good. I don’t use the Shortbow much.

Keep your head up, you got this.

Black Frog.9274:

I guess I’m blind or something. Is this artwork currently in the game, somewhere on the trait tab? Or maybe in teh beta? Could you point me to it?

No sir it’s not. It has been datamined somewhere, so these are just concepts that still have not made it in the game yet. Designers need to make draft about those the next professions may/will look like, and that’s one of those drawings. Although it does look like it has been polished enough to fit into a trait portrait.

you are going to be revealed for days if this happens.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Thieves will always be OP vs. bad players.

So much truth in one sentence. Spoken like true thief.

Sandrox.9524:

it could be rifle with bayonet charging :P

cannot unsee stop killing the moment Sandrox!

Warriors have litteraly an kitten nal at their disposal. Because of that they are good at what they do, they have access to the rifle, but you see barely anybody of them with it.

Having access to it doesn’t necessarily mean that we need it, and we really don’t.

It would be better to have a staff because it would expand what we do better, CLOSE RANGE swift kills.

A rifle would make people QQ even more , sniping while invisible is kind of an intense idea that would quickly get nerfed. I mean look at how Anet is treating us already.

as Thieves, more CC , survivability, more trickiness and more complexity would improve us dramatically. and I don’t see those perks coming with a rifle. Only the staff could save the day. (with a lot of Anet fixes)

As im talking about it, i get anxious like crazy. They better not kitten us up guys.

Tyr.6097:

Black Frog.9274:

I’m curious about where the picture comes from. It looks like it’s part of a bigger picture and I’d like to see the rest.

No, it’s one of the images that are used in the background in traitlines. Same size as other background images.

I didn’t think about that Tyr. It makes sense.

Staff. we don’t need 1200 range. let’s keep it up close and personal, this time with a metal stick.

Why is it such an issue to be the only class not to have access to long range weapon? We got all these teleports to facilitate the assassination, no need to shoot people from far with a snipe.

Staff is the solution.

@Lady
This is clearly not a revenant.
we can clearly see a ninja gear so it must be medium armor. Plus this is not a blindfold, we can clearly see the character’s red eyes underneath it. It’s just a simple headband.

You don’t have to know much about ninjas to know that some of them have metal casing around their hood for extra protection.

It just couldn’t be a Revenant. The physique of the characters suggest medium armor, weak but cunning looking.

Personally, I get the idea of sneakthief, and i feel like this set may be an advanced version of it.

I also agree with what you said about Artwork. MH Ele rumors was such bad disappointment to them. At least we know they are thinking about staff thief.

gotta keep that faith.

This picture seems pretty serious to me.

http://i.imgur.com/xA8qvVk.png

Opinions?

that’s exactly what I have been saying yesterday!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Hiding-in-plain-sight-HoT/first#post5328631 .

but People don’t think so :/