Dagger Mainhand
Dagger/Dagger shifts its focus towards hit volume and quick condition dispersal; the single-target counterpart of the necromancer, but with the added danger of being in close combat. Death Blossom is a survival skill instead of a bleed dispenser, since the autoattack combo performs that role much better, and Heartseeker is phased instead as a high-direct-damage Confusion stacker.
Dagger/Pistol has the choice of remaining a powerful direct-damage Assassin, with some added utility and a higher cash-in damage potential, or a versatile damage/conditions hybrid attacker with dangerous mobility.
1 [Autoattack]
Double Strike layers two 5s Bleeds, Wild Strike adds one 10s Bleed, and Lotus Strike finishes the combo with 4s of Poison.
Range: 130
In stealth, the autoattack becomes…
Spinal Tap: Stab the target. Deal massive damage and Immobilize the enemy for 1/2s if striking from behind.
Range: 130
2 [Mobility]
Keening Frenzy: Dash to an enemy and unleash three dire strikes, stacking 3s of Confusion each.
Range: 450
Initiative Cost: 3
Combo Finisher: Leap
In stealth, Keening Frenzy becomes…
Burning Veil: Add 1s of Chill and 1s of Burn to each strike, as well as a black-veiled graphical effect.
Range: 600
Initiative Cost: 4
Combo Finisher: Leap
NOTE: Only the initial dash is a Leap finisher. Casting Keening Frenzy through a Smoke Combo Field results in Burning Veil + the Revealed debuff.
3 [Dagger Offhand]
Death Blossom: Perform an evasive leap over an enemy while shredding nearby targets with three flying strikes, stacking three 2s Bleeds and 2s of Cripple per hit.
No stealth form.
Range: 130
Initiative Cost: 4
3 [Pistol Offhand]
Hook and Line: Fire a grappling wire towards an opponent, Crippling them for 6 seconds and sealing off your Pistol Offhand skills. Within the next 6 seconds, you may pull yourself to their location and hit them with a powerful dagger strike.
Sinker: This reckless backhand slash removes all conditions from the target and deals 2% bonus damage for each condition removed this way, restoring the use of your Pistol Offhand skills.
No stealth form.
Range: 600
Initiative Cost: 5
Combo Finisher: Large Projectile, Leap
NOTE: Like Heartseeker, Sinker is a Leap finisher. Casting Sinker through a Smoke Combo Field puts you in stealth.
Dagger Offhand
4
Dancing Dagger: Throw a dagger towards your opponent that glances weakly between enemies, with a total of 4 targets. A successful hit transfers one condition to the enemy and steals one boon.
No stealth form.
Range: 600
Initiative Cost: 6
Combo Finisher: Large Projectile
5
Cloak and Dagger: Strike with a precise stab, inflicting 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 5s. Drop a cloud of nerve gas to enter stealth and cover your escape, inflicting 5s of Weakness per second.
No stealth form.
Range: 130
Initiative Cost: 6
Combo Field: Poison, 2s
I’ve played the Thief class since Beta, and I enjoy it.
It’s powerful, it isn’t overpowered (unless you’re a grunt in 8v8 hotjoins, and the rules don’t really apply there), and it’s effective at playing the role of the Assassin: namely, delivering a mortal blow to an enemy that your team couldn’t normally kill. We pull it off without much effort.
But that’s the thing. Once the routine of port-prep-backstab-port has been established, it gets dull and non-skill-intensive. There’s no effort.
And that’s all we CAN do. We can’t solo. We can’t bunker points, and we certainly have issues with playing support.
I’m not saying that we ought to be able to do all of these at the same time, or even that we should have those options available to us. A Thief is a Thief, after all.
But the fact remains that we’ve been pigeonholed into a role… a role we excel in, for sure, but one that’s caused me and many others like me to drift slowly away from this game we know and love. We want to play, we want to be tested, we want the rush of danger and the thrill of victory.
Not just the boring eternity of Steal > CnD > Backstab > Heartseeker > wash, rinse, repeat, or one of the other clonespecs that produces the same result and lends to the same Thief mentality.
Because of the versatility issues that Thieves face, I propose a change in the roles of certain weapons in the Thief repertoire. We need more choices, without being overpowered, and a significant change in our weapon skillset is the perfect way to enforce this.
I’m no game developer, but I understand the balance within this game after months of PvP experience. I speak with the best intent for the future of this game and its build diversity, and I think ANet’s done good. But with a bit of community involvement and your capable hands, we can do better.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the show =)
Watched the whole thing, liked some parts, disliked some, too.
I found the “Quickness 100 Blades” example quite disturbing, because the way Jonathan talked about it left the impression that the devs don’t see burst as a big problem, more as a L2P issue. Is it a L2P issue having to have a stunbreaker equipped and off CD and press it in a split second or just die? If a profession has trouble being competitive without instagibbing then by all means give it the tools it needs and remove the binary BS.
I also remember Anet guys saying during development that they do not want GW2 to be about twitch gameplay etc.. Well, it sure is a lot about that currently.
But maybe I’m misinterpreting things here and the comment about “bringing everything more in line” also included over the top burst, because if burst is toned down (and respectively bunkers), then all of a sudden many more builds will become viable that right now have a negative answer to the “Does it live through spam and burst before it starts working?” question.Besides burst and spam, Downstate is my least favorite part about GW2 PvP. Why? Because I’m not playing in an organized team, nor do I want to. What was said about Downstate in the video left the impression that the primary goal is to make it work well in organized high level 5v5 tPvP play, and in these circumstances DS might actually be a fun mechanic. Too bad that it severely cripples much of the rest of PvP that’s going on: Looking good in a group fight in WvW despite being outnumbered? Tough luck, cause all the damage, interrupts and quickness stealth executes in the world are not enough to avoid endless near instant resses. Do you happen to have enganged in a 1v2 and are you actually having chances of winning? Better have that quickness stability stealth execute ready! Or are you just merely about to win a normal 1v1 battle, which might have been going on for a few minutes, just to have a random team mate of your opponent walk up and finish you off while you deal with the other guy’s DS damage, immunities and interrupts, which can take longer than most fights, and /snap, the guy you just took minutes to take down stands up as if nothing had happened, and you gain nothing but feeling like an idiot wasting his time.
My tone might be a bit harsh sometimes and I really do believe that you devs work hard all day to get things right and fun, but as a burned out former WoW PvP maniac I really really wanted (and still want) GW2 to be the next game that provides the tools for skill-based PvP, but Downstate, too much burst and spam, and sPvP maps that prevent tactical play through arena-style hyper-vulnerable cap points and very short travel paths keep it from being that.
/opinion
As someone who plays a bunker, a squishy sustained-DPS bunkerbreaker, and one of the suspect haste-burst builds (namely Haste/Pistolwhip) in equal proportions, I can confidently say that avoiding a burst is really a matter of skill.
That, and Assassin specs like the 100b Warrior and the Backstab or Pistolwhip thieves are designed inherently to destroy squishies or die trying. In higher-level tournament play, it’s almost impossible to land a nasty burst like that effectively, which is why the results are so rewarding.