Guild Wars 2

Ghotistyx.6942:

Geiir.7603:

I miss it tbh. Seeing a Headshot bounce three times was hilarious! Same with Unload and lucky rng against a ranger.

Ricochet never bounced to a previously hit target, so I’m not sure why the ranger is significant.

Thieves are so weak that we actually have to worry about Ranger Pets, unlike literally everyone else. Stunning them both was nice.

I am a Sword-Pistol Thief.
I have 3 weapon interrupts, a blind, and a teleport engage/escape+cleanse

On my skill bar, my regular world PvE skillset has skills that are interrupts, escapes and blinds—Withdraw, Scorpion Wire, Haste, and Signet of Shadows.
Respectively, that’s an escape+heal, an interrupt, a self-buff, and an instant blind.

My Steal is also traited with Sleight of Hand to be an interrupt.

That’s two escapes, 5 interrupts (6 if you count the stealth attack), two blinds, one of which is instant.

And none of this keeps me alive, because all the interrupts as dreadfully short stuns with no serious purpose, as interrupts don’t really DO anything for Thieves.
The blinds are easily shed with a single auto-attack, and the only thing that really helps at all is the escapes, which means I get to be good at… running away. Only.

The Daredevil tries to address this with the trait for Pulmonary Impacts, but… as awesome as that is, it doesn’t help when tons and tons of enemies in the new content have break bars, so they can’t be interrupted, making the trait worthless. Worse still, the stuns are all so short that they do nearly nothing to the break bars either!

I just want to know why I’m not allowed to play a Sword-Pistol Thief and do what Sword-Pistol is all about.
I want to be a brawler who doesn’t let people get a shot in because I can skillfully pre-empt it. That’s the defense I want.

As it is, that defense doesn’t work in PvP or PvE, and there is no toughness in the Thief to survive without it.

Agemnon.4608:

Won’t need multi-box, just Teamspeak and ask guildies for a premade with engis. Maybe not even that. Lots of people will wanna get in on that OP goodness.

I expect it to happen a lot in WvW though.
I remember running into a team of identical clone Mesmers once. There were three or four of them.
It was… very confusing, to say the least. They moved in perfect formation outside of combat, but once combat started they all warped to different places, then didn’t move until I’d try to pin one down—at which point he’d Decoy.

It was silly.

I’ll probably just switch to Rev, since it’s swords, heavy armor, and actually decent health pool just make it a Better Thief in every way.
With Reaper on the way, I’ll probably play my Necromancer more as well, since I rather enjoy it and she’s got a pretty snazzy look planned out. Just need to grab one or two more skins to put it on lock.

I’ll probably see if I can’t convince Anet to switch the full bag slot unlocks I’ve paid for to the Rev, but I doubt it. I guess my Thief will just become a mule.

Something else has also just occurred to me.

If RNG is bad, why is Improvisation a thing?
I’ve never even heard of anyone using it, on any build, because it’s too unpredictable to be useful.

I mean, I get that it’s on-theme for Improvisation to be a bit strange and off-the-wall, but it doesn’t jive with the stated mechanical goal of removing RNG.
What makes this RNG better than the Ricochet RNG?

I look forward to the people multi-boxing Engineers so they move in a formation trio, constantly rotating Stealth for 100% uptime and being able to constantly heal one another and alternate their super speed so they never have to slow down.

Not to mention the Orbital Strikes in perfect unison on a single target.

Amante.8109:

or all three choices are awful and you’re trying to find the least awful of them.

This.
I have this problem with Deadly Arts, where I’m just trying to find anything sorta useful to me.
I have Panic Strike just because I don’t use Traps or Stealth.

Shogun.7401:

I have to get out of thief class before I go ballistic.

You can try to go ballistic, but pistols suck.
It won’t really do anything.

Chapell.1346:

Slowmelt.8547:

Chapell.1346:

Baseline is neat, although effects per Grandmaster traitline could be more nasty on Thief core. To add something up: Hidden Killer put some tiny red lightning while in stealth outside or inside the shadowy part.

So much more to add, if only the thief community will help

visual alterations to Shadowsteps

I like this idea, you sir is gold. Maybe some improvise Lightning flash animation/sound effect to spice something up.

Welp, I think some of us misunderstood the purpose of this. I would buy all this fancy UI on gemstore at reasonable price if need be, you kno just to make my Thief more appealing to play on.

…Is that an attempt to trick Anet into caring about Thieves?

Honestly, I’d rather see the different traits get their own fluff.
I mean, my Thief has a really buffed up Steal with a heap of secondary effects. It damages, buffs me, heals me, poisons the target… I think it also causes Weakness or something.

If I’m going to Mug someone, I’d like to see a bunch of coins go flying everywhere. The effect already exists, I think. I’m sure I’ve seen it. Likewise, if I’m going to be poisoning them, maybe a little shadowy burst effect, or a little poisonous ‘splat’

It’s really not just because it’s cool, either. It’s also nice visual feedback so people know it’s happening. That both helps them, and helps me, since I enjoy using it to bait peoples’ Cleanse in PvP.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Slowmelt.8547:

Zodryn.4216:

We need counterplay.

This.

Counterplay already exists, it’s called Revealed Training.

I’m not that kind of Thief.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Raven.9603:

lets be real about revealed.

• rangers slot sic ’em, mostly because mesmer population needs to be countered somehow.
• engies barely exist, and they dont slot goggles, EVER. also, new stealth elite is not a good choice for PvP next to elixir X or supply drop. For large WvW, new stealth elite provides a much needed group role for clearing mesmers out of keeps, but is not as strong as mortar. for roaming, it might be a good choice, but that will depend on cooldown, and if its taken it will be for escapability, and it will be a tough choice over elixir and supply drop which do way more to actually win the fight.
• guardians …there is little indication guardians have ANY interest in speccing traps. the general concensus is, DH is absolute garbage, traps are garbage, the bow has potential for zergs but not PvP or roaming.

am i missing anyone? did revenants get something?

thats just one class that would commonly carry the counter, and thats probably reasonable.

“discuss”

Revenants get one with Glint. 20s cd, stunbreak, blind, not sure how crippling the cost is but they get it from ending a perma-fury stance.

It’s extra silly because a Rev can get 40% crit on Fury.
If they add in the Mallyx trait line whose name I forget and just a few pieces of Precision-heavy gear, they’ll be able to hit 30% crit… with Fury uptime all the time that’s 70%
Then in combat, any time they don’t get a crit it goes up by 10% every second.

I didn’t bother to do the math since I could just try it in BWE, but that combo basically made the Rev able to crit as well as my Thief with no gear investment, for a couple of traits… which means they can get all power gear and do absurd damage.

Zenith.7301:

I don’t like the implications for power block either (and hell, now Distracting Daggers).

My preferred weapon set on my main is Sword-Pistol Thief.
I have 3 interrupts on my weapon skills and 2 on my utility bar—it’ll be 3 when HoT hits—and none of them are worth a single kitten.

When I began playing GW2, I was promised that Thieves were hard to master but highly rewarding because they can do fun things with weakness, blind, interrupts… a predatory playstyle that made them different from anyone else.

It has not lived up to the hype, I’ll be honest.

In terms of the break bar specifically, my Mesmer didn’t fare any better over the beta weekend for the same reason: Interrupts being used to keep a squishy character alive in melee is impossible now.
Skill-based play is getting ever more difficult, while Warriors and Guardians can still facetank things all day… and Elementalists too. Soon, so will Engineers and Necromancers.

Why no love for the trickster classes anymore?

Tasao.4623:

Are you guys noticing engis are also getting more stability and might? And that it synergizes with Flamethrower? Which is the best weapon to use to catch a Thief in stealth with Lock On, which Reveals stealthed enemies for 6s and gives them 10 vuln at a 1200 range? And that engineers regen health “rapidly” with swiftness and have a popular trait that gives them swiftness every time they use a kit?

So you’re looking at perma-stability, effortless might stacking, swiftness, multiple regeneration sources, mobility, stuns, dazes, not one but TWO good stealth detectors, etc etc.

Have fun with that. :p

“Arenanet hates Thieves” isn’t news or anything, so…

Zodryn.4216:

We need counterplay.

This.

Kolly.9872:

I don’t think they will implement something like totally negate death shroud on steal.

Not that I think it’ll work mechanically at the moment, but I kind of like the idea of being able to literally grab a Necromancer by the collar and pull them out of their shroud.
Show those nerds who the real masters of shadows are.

Actually, a “Dispelling Steal” trait might not be a half bad idea, though it’s exact mechanics probably need more thought than “crap on the other classes”

Though I agree Revealed is dumb

Chapell.1346:

Baseline is neat, although effects per Grandmaster traitline could be more nasty on Thief core. To add something up: Hidden Killer put some tiny red lightning while in stealth outside or inside the shadowy part.

So much more to add, if only the thief community will help

For that sort of thing, it’d actually be rather nice if we could get visual alterations to Shadowsteps and similar

I’d call it unlikely that we get anything though.
They’re even giving our dodge fluff to the Better Thief
Oh, sorry, I mean “Revenant”

Kadin.2356:

bwillb.2165:

I just wish they’d fix the terrain to not block shadowstepping so much…

EoTM has a REAL problem with this. Try warping anywhere near the ends of the collapsible bridges. I am fearful that the new borderlands map is going to be rife with crap like this.

The game as a whole has a real problem with this.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten the “No valid path” error when there was absolutely a valid path… in a straight line to the target.
Something about how it’s calculated badly needs fix.

A shadow effect on stealth baseline would be kinda neat.

I’m not sure what else you could make work.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I reflect Spoj’s concerns on this.

My primary focus is the PVE interrupt mesmer. While it isn’t the best PVE build, it is still pretty good. Vulnerability on daze, vulnerability on interrupt, quickness in interrupt, weakness on interrupt, etc. Once the chronomancer releases, I’ll be able to get slow on interrupt, too. Now, this was all balanced around the fact that, against mobs with defiance I have to actually time my interrupts well to get an effect.

But after HoT, everything is going to have a break bar. Against sub-champion mobs this is a massive nerf to the interrupt build. Even against champions, I now have less fine control over interrupts, since the bar will constantly be ticking down and regenerating. This will make the PVE interrupt build dead once HoT launches.

Interrupts tend to be really short duration, as well.
Being reliant on interrupts means you will do effectively squat against a break bar, in my experience, though I did not try to rebuild my Mesmer for the beta weekend proper, and only tried it out a bit without diving into Verdant Brink.

Amante.8109:

Cynz.9437:

I am just wondering one thing: if i put slow on revenant, would his relentless assault (?) grant him longer evade frame? Also, i see big problem with it because atm i can double dodge/withdraw through sowrd 3 and maybe stay alive, if the spell is slower however i would need like 5 dodges to avoid absurdly high dmg from that spell. Frankly i don’t see how this specific stolen spell is actually useful vs revenant in particular.

That’s a good point, as I’m pretty sure Slow does increase Evade frames.

If I understand it right, it does.
That means Slow makes the Rev sword 3 better, not worse, since we’d have to blow 3 evades just to survive it—and would take a few hits between as well. Against a power-based Rev that may still be enough to down us in one go.

Xovian.8572:

Slowmelt.8547:

Xovian.8572:

Won’t happen. Weapon Swap Sigils would easily be abused by this.

See:

The only problem with that is on-weapon-swap abilities, and they can just be given a reasonable ICD easily enough.

It’s really easy to fix.

And something else they wont waste time doing.

Making the Thief better is not a waste of time… not even if Arenanet seems to think so.

spoj.9672:

Slowmelt.8547:

Lendruil.9061:

This is bad news, because it’s a pretty huge nerf to classes like engineer or necromancer. And it makes a full set of conditions more or less useless.
Making some of the new raid-bosses immune to soft-cc and implementing some fractal-instabilities that make those conditions weaker would be a cool variation, but just removing the effect of those soft-ccs completely is a big step into the wrong direction.

You didn’t read it at all, did you?
Soft CC with be a Damage Over Time effect for the Break Bar because it is easier to apply as a rule and can melt entire bars in seconds.

And how is that useful with all the abundant hard CC in the game? All this is is a bandaid to allow trait procs to continue working after they decided to make everyting affect the breakbar. It doesnt change the fact that its just rendered all debuff conditions completely useless. It would have been better to have ignored those early suggestions (i assumed it was obvious they were bad ideas and the devs wouldnt implement them) and kept cripple, chill etc separate from breakbars.

And its not even limited to bosses. Veterans and trash mobs are getting breakbars. So where does this leave soft CC?

I suggested another solution in the necro forums if the devs are adamant on making it easy to balance bosses by using this. Make tiered breakbars so veterans, elites, trash mobs and less bosses have different breakbars. Certain tiers would allow certain soft cc’s to work fully without affecting the breakbar. And so on.

Please, tell me of your woes, oh non-Thief who can actually do damage to break bars.
Tell me about your high health pool, and how you definitely don’t have to try and survive against a target immune to Blind and Weakness who can two- or three-shot you without even being a Veteran. Tell me about how your needing to use DoT on a break bar is a travesty. I will just be over here with my 1/4 second Daze that does nothing, making due as best I can, as Thief mains always must.

The Reaper is GREAT. The core Necromancer is pretty good too.
Don’t be so negative. At least you get love from the devs.

Straegen.2938:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htHRErZM7QM

Lets hope this type of video isn’t needed for the thief class.

Not sure I’m okay with Hitler being a player of the same class I am even for the sake of a joke, but the point that we’re basically going to need to use goofy comedy to get anyone to notice our kampf is just sad.

Sagat.3285:

Daendur.2357:

Since 80% of our play time is in downed mode, I think it’s fair to steal a downed skill.

Thief is the new necro.

Does that mean that in about two years we’ll get an Elite Spec that makes us super fun and powerful?
Because somehow I find that hard to believe.

Xovian.8572:

Won’t happen. Weapon Swap Sigils would easily be abused by this.

See:

The only problem with that is on-weapon-swap abilities, and they can just be given a reasonable ICD easily enough.

It’s really easy to fix.

Lendruil.9061:

This is bad news, because it’s a pretty huge nerf to classes like engineer or necromancer. And it makes a full set of conditions more or less useless.
Making some of the new raid-bosses immune to soft-cc and implementing some fractal-instabilities that make those conditions weaker would be a cool variation, but just removing the effect of those soft-ccs completely is a big step into the wrong direction.

You didn’t read it at all, did you?
Soft CC with be a Damage Over Time effect for the Break Bar because it is easier to apply as a rule and can melt entire bars in seconds.

Black Frog.9274:

Random idea: some sort of Quick Draw ability that reduces swap time.

Honestly? It’s dumb that we even HAVE swap time.
Because of the way Initiative works, if you consider both weapon sets, other professions are actually LESS limited than we are by the cooldown system. The only thing Initiative does for us is being able to spam a single ability over and over… and that leads to our having one spammy damage ability and a bunch of almost-never-used situational crap on almost every weapon set.
At the very least, if we’re going to have all these situational abilities, we should get a minor somewhere that makes weapon swap no-cooldown.

Trickery is a good place for that, actually. The extra Initiative becoming baseline and Trickery giving a fast swap would be nice.

The only problem with that is on-weapon-swap abilities, and they can just be given a reasonable ICD easily enough.

MakubeC.3026:

Make us blink out of Stealth for 1/4 of a second every two or three seconds.
Kind of like Predator does in the movies right before revealing himself out of his camouflage.

Discuss.

While the sarcasm of this is funny to us, you have to be careful.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Anet actually did that.
Only for Thieves though, because Mesmers obviously use magic so it “wouldn’t make sense.”

Seabreeze.8437:

Skill #5 – Vault: One of the very few new animations, yet this is the skill I have the most to talk about. Firstly, as the name implies, the character should plant his staff into the ground and actually vault from it. That would be much more visually exciting than the instantaneous take-off leap they currently do. Secondly, I feel that the crazy backwards corkscrew triple flip is a little too awkward and doesn’t feel right for a move where you typically propel yourself forward. One or two front flips would give the move a better feel in my opinion.
Finally, the landing. Currently, your character drops straight down, bringing his staff down with the power of Thor, slamming it into the ground with such force that the resulting earth-cracking shock wave damages foes. I feel this completely detracts from the theme of the daredevil. For a spec that’s supposed to be nimble and swift, a brutish slam like what we currently have just feels out of place and more suitable for warriors and guardians. Instead, I propose that the character whirls the staff above his head as he’s falling, following up with a sweeping radial strike the moment he lands.

All of this should really apply to the leaping dodge as well.
I’d love to have it finish with a broad sword sweep with a nice thick weapon trail.

godmoney.6025:

So how do you feel when fighting other thieves whilst playing your alts?

babazhook.6805:

Slowmelt.8547:

babazhook.6805:

Here an off the wall suggestion which some thieves might not like.

The way I see it we can only really play around with the first three skills. #2 and #3 are prime candidates for a change in effects.

Now Unload the heavy hitter but what if….

Number two was called “Lock and focus”. Vulnerability removed and put on Unload with “50 percent chance to load vulnerability on hit” under unload trait.

Number two gains this effect in addition to the immob and damage. Lock to your target. For the next 6 seconds range of all pistol shots to that target increased to 1200. All shots will hit that target even if stealthed.

So… you want it to be an ability that is arbitrarily a prerequisite to using any of the other Pistol abilities?
All that means is that Pistol will be useless half of the time and the other half of the time will be well below average because an entire skill is wasted on just making it average for a little while.
Not to mention it’d be a pointless Initiative sink.

Plus, it’s not the design paradigm, so it’s unlikely anything like that will happen outside of a Utility.
Weapon skills in GW2 all physically DO something so they feel rewarding.

Err no you did not read what i said. All pistol traits will work as they do now. Unload will get boosted. All that the suggestion does is mark a taregt so that target can be hit at a longer range and hit if it stealths. There is no need to use it unless you want the Immob. Few use body shot in any case.. As to pointless I am thinking of mesmers and stealth in particular. mark him unload on him. His stealths and clones do not remove him as the target. same with cloaking on engie. Mark him unload on him through stealth. No current ability is removed and something is added.

So the ability that is already a pointless initiative sink should become a pointless initiative sink you have to use to unlock the buffs that Pistol/Pistol badly needs.
Instead, we need a baseline range increase and a real mechanical improvement… not a finicky, complicated, situational and difficult-to-use anti-stealth measure.

babazhook.6805:

We have the same complaints about Gunk being useless when i find it one of the better stolen skills.

If ever there was a sign that someone’s statement should be disregarded, the words “Gunk” and “better” is probably that sign.

In what way is it better than… literally anything else in the entire game, actually?

Silverkey.2078:

Slowmelt.8547:

I actually found it rather strange in the last BWE that, between playing a Reaper and playing a Thief of any stripe, I could accidentally drop an entire break bar in a few seconds on Reaper but as a Thief I could hardly make a dent in most of them—I don’t even mean bosses, just the Mordrem Guard with the Hammers couldn’t really be stopped with any of the abilities a Thief brings to the table unless I dumped my entire Initiative bar into two or three Headshots, which momentarily stops a single target doing a single attack.

The amount of break bar “damage” depends on the duration of the hard CC. Headshot is 0.25s which is really nothing… It is probably linear, so you will need 20 head shots to get the same effect as one “deep freeze” from elementalists (actually with the added chill of deep freeze it is probably even worse).

It seems ice bow will still be as broken as it is now…

That’s what I figured…
Meaning, of course, that it’s useless. I really should just give up on Thief already, but I’ve spent so much effort getting all those bag slots and nice gear…

Nike.2631:

Karl McLain.5604:

Ricochet in its previous implementation is not slated to return at this time.
When the trait system was condensed, the standard was set in that each weapon set could only have one trait. Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.
I will say though that pistols are something we’ll be looking to improve, being as they feel under-tuned at the moment.

-Karl

While there’s only room for exactly one “specific weapon trait” per weapon, we’ve seen traits that interact with multiple weapon types…

Could we get a “Ricochet” put back in if it added a random chance for an additional bounce to pistol, off-hand dagger #4, and shortbow? Then it wouldn’t be a “specific weapon trait” but instead modifies all our ranged weapons .

Wouldn’t need to be a random chance. For an entire trait, a certain extra bounce would put it at a level where it’s just a bit worse in every way than a Mesmer trait, which seems to be how Thieves work.

Daendur.2357:

Since 80% of our play time is in downed mode, I think it’s fair to steal a downed skill.

I laughed, then I felt sad because it’s true.

On a related note: Just what’s up with all sorts of events having huge, undodgeable, always-on AoEs that stack conditions? This started with the Toxic Offshoots but now the Mordrem events seem to do it a lot too, and it’s just impossible to deal with as a Thief.
Hell, we can’t even properly attack from outside that range. Pistol and Shortbow are both pretty mediocre weapons.

babazhook.6805:

Here an off the wall suggestion which some thieves might not like.

The way I see it we can only really play around with the first three skills. #2 and #3 are prime candidates for a change in effects.

Now Unload the heavy hitter but what if….

Number two was called “Lock and focus”. Vulnerability removed and put on Unload with “50 percent chance to load vulnerability on hit” under unload trait.

Number two gains this effect in addition to the immob and damage. Lock to your target. For the next 6 seconds range of all pistol shots to that target increased to 1200. All shots will hit that target even if stealthed.

So… you want it to be an ability that is arbitrarily a prerequisite to using any of the other Pistol abilities?
All that means is that Pistol will be useless half of the time and the other half of the time will be well below average because an entire skill is wasted on just making it average for a little while.
Not to mention it’d be a pointless Initiative sink.

Plus, it’s not the design paradigm, so it’s unlikely anything like that will happen outside of a Utility.
Weapon skills in GW2 all physically DO something so they feel rewarding.

Nike.2631:

Decked.8274:

So you took the time to make new animations for the Monkey King Tonic but use recycled ones for Daredevil?
I realy hope the animations we have now are just placeholders.

Wait… They made new animations that only needed to work for one exact body-type, bulk, and height and didn’t for 3 entirely separate body-types (human, charr, assura) that have variable bulk and height?

I’m shocked. Really.

I agree they could have and probably should have done better, but lets not compare apples and plastic fruit that vaguely looks like apples. Because the two things aren’t even as similar as apples and oranges.

The point is reasonable.
The amount of time spent making a tonic that maybe 5% of the player population might ever SEE, never mind OWN, could be spent making one third of the animation needed for having the Daredevil actually FEEL like a martial character who is good at what s/he does.

Karl McLain.5604:

Ricochet in its previous implementation is not slated to return at this time.
When the trait system was condensed, the standard was set in that each weapon set could only have one trait. Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.
I will say though that pistols are something we’ll be looking to improve, being as they feel under-tuned at the moment.

-Karl

If I may, I have a proposal:
Bring back Ricochet as part of the auto of the pistol.
With the new tech that allows a shot to bounce to targets behind the initial target, it could be made a lot more stylish, and the angle restriction would make up for having a certain second target.
For that matter, why not something to the tune of a bounce with Pistol 2 and 3 when you’re targeting stunned or blinded targets on other pistol attacks? It’d make Pistol 4 and 5 feel more valuable by far, since as it is, with P/P there’s really very few reasons to use them in the average fight—blinds and stuns are useless against big bosses, and right now you’re just plain better off avoiding and kiting enemies instead of skirmishing with them, which is what 4 and 5 are useful for.
That change would give pistols the boost they need right now, bring back the stylish fun of bouncing shots, and make two abilities that are currently a waste of initiative when used on P/P have a purpose without needing to change offhand pistol for other weapons.

Edit: It’s worth mentioning, part of this idea is that pistols would never get more than a single bounce, which I think is a reasonable balance between awesome and practical. If that isn’t enough, one could always set up ricochet to be an effect on Vulnerable targets, since that’s probably the most reasonable condition for a target that is set-up.
Then you could have shots bounce off of every vulnerable target, but never hit the same target twice—effectively making it an AoE that only hits Vulnerable targets, and can be blocked as a projectile. That seems like a reasonable tradeoff, and it would make the pistol a really interesting, high-skill weapon.

I actually found it rather strange in the last BWE that, between playing a Reaper and playing a Thief of any stripe, I could accidentally drop an entire break bar in a few seconds on Reaper but as a Thief I could hardly make a dent in most of them—I don’t even mean bosses, just the Mordrem Guard with the Hammers couldn’t really be stopped with any of the abilities a Thief brings to the table unless I dumped my entire Initiative bar into two or three Headshots, which momentarily stops a single target doing a single attack.

I’ve been playing a Sword-Pistol Thief since the game launched. I always liked the idea that I didn’t have to be “that kind of Thief” and could stand toe-to-toe with larger, tougher foes and keep them off-balance so they can’t hurt me with interrupts, blinds, and weakness… and now none of those things work in any game mode.

It’s nice that break bars are trying to address the issue in PvE, but even slamming that bar all the way to zero doesn’t really stop a Thief from getting a dirt nap.

My point is, I guess I don’t understand why a successfully empty break bar doesn’t just make the creature vulnerable to CC, and I don’t understand why I can’t be good at the thing I’m specialized in anymore.

My proposed solution is this: Make it so that in a circumstance where a Daze would have successfully interrupted an attack, it should do a significantly larger amount of damage to the Break Bar, or do it’s damage and apply a DoT to it.
It would bring back skillful play and make me useful for a few seconds before I die. Not keep me alive, because I’ve long since lost hope of that, but at least let me help before I’m dead.

Al Shamari.7234:

Another thing I think many people would like address besides the animations is the fact that this specialization requires a Grandmaster Trait, simply to unlock our specialization mechanic. Tempests don’t need to “unlock” overload with a Grandmaster, Berserkers don’t need to “unlock” rage with a Grandmaster, Revenants don’t need to unlock their elite legend with a Grandmaster, etc – so on and so forth. Dodge is not more “powerful” than any of these mechanics. When many players pointed out that it was unbalanced that Revenants could not access weapon swapping, that it kitten the profession regardless of having access to two utility bars, the developers listened and made the right change. This is a similar scenario, yet we’re not seeing it addressed. Not having access to a true Grandmaster really hinders the specialization, and puts it far, far beyond every other specialization that doesn’t require the same to be done.

The thing I never understood here is why it needs to be this way in the first place.
Theoretically, giving us an F3 button that lets us swap dodges on the fly as the situation demands would be a lot more interesting and reinforce the style of a slippery, evasive combatant.
It also seems really obvious to me… I mean, surely this was thought in development, since this is meant to be our profession mechanic ‘thing’ right?
Giving us two of the three and letting us hot-swap between them would be great for build variety too—the Lotus dodge is nice for my Pistol-Pistol, but doesn’t help me at all for my Sword-Pistol where the Leap or Dash makes a lot more sense.
Is this not being done for tech reasons? I feel like being adaptable is something a tricky combatant like a Thief should be able to do, but right now that is firmly held above us, where we cannot reach.

Al Shamari.7234:

We’d at least like these two points addressed in some way or another – even if it’s “This is what we’re doing, and it won’t be changing”. Because, at least then, those of us who are waiting on this being addressed can move on.

Meridya.9352:

Kocoff.7582:

WOW THAT ELITE.

" Ennemies struck with this ability are finished"

goodbye basilik V.

Ummmm…

You’re missing something essential there. It only works on “Downed” enemies. It’s just an alternate way of finishing opponents and takes about the same amount of time to do the whole chain of skills as it does to just press ‘F’ and finish them like normal. The only time it will be faster is when the second skill in the chain causes the enemy to go into the downed state.

Wouldn’t be so sure.
I suspect that, like an autoattack, it’ll have a decent hold time.
I am hoping I can use the knock-up to start a Pistol Whip flurry.
It would also be an ideal time to apply a quick Blind before setting up a palm strike.
When that puts them down, the last strike can finish them instantly, letting you Shadowstep in, burst someone to pieces, finish them, then disengage.

Orpheal.8263:

Changes to the Healing, Utility and Elite Skills I’d do:

The Skirmisher receives not “Physicals”, he receives as Utility Skill Type “Initial Moves”, that are their own form of Physicals, which are based on martial artistic multi string skills all

= Healing Skill =

Energetic Charge > Distraction > Fulminant Discharge
You Heal for a static amount of Health based on 10% of your Max Health and you lose per pulse 1 Endurance Bar, then you have for the while that the Skill is on Cooldown 30% increased Endurance Regeneration and your Attacks will have for each Endurance Bar that you then regain back an increased Damage of +5% and you gain also +5% Critical Hit Rate for each regained Endurance Bar in that time.
The Skill turns while on Recharge into Distraction, that becomes useble as long your Risk Sense has at least Tier 1.
Distraction is a Risk Breaker, which lets you quickly Shadow Walk to a Location, while Shadow Walking you will avoid all incoming Melee Attacks, but ranged attacks will deal increased damage. On higher Risk Sense Tiers will give you Distraction also an AoE Blind Field on Movement at Tier 2 and weakens foes at Tier 3
If you have Tier 3 Risk Sense at the last 5 Seconds of Recharge, you are able to perform the Skill Fulminant Discharge in that time window, which is a Block Skill, that counters any incoming attack with a ranged Energy Attack through a whirling thrown Staff, that turns through that Energy into a large Shuriken, which will hit all foes in line and again when it returns to you like a boomerang. So its a skill, that rewards positioning alot to hit multiple targets twice, using practicalyl the skill mechanic of the Elementalists Phoenix Skill…just that the skill animation is a large energetic shuriken instead with the whriling thrown staff being its base, so that the Class gets a healing skill, that can work also at the same time as a ranged attack, while waiting on it, that the heal recharges, if your willing to take the risk at the moment to sacrifice your Risk Sense Tier 3 and the buffs you get with that then.

= Utilities =

Skirmisher’s Defense > Reflexive Strike > Pressure Point Thrust
Block the next incoming Attack, stun break and gain Protection if you have Risk Sense Tiers which increases in Duration per Tier.
While Skirmisher’s Defense recharges can you perform Reflexive Strikes if you have at least Tier 1 of Risk Sense. Performing Reflexive Strikelets you perform an unblockable Attack that removes Boons and lets you gain them, if the foe has more Health than you.
If the recharge is on the last 5 seconds, you become able to use Pressure Point Thrust, which is a quick thrust attack to your target to knock the foe down. This Skill will also put the enemies Healing Skill on Recharge, or increases the Cooldown Time, if it was on recharge of the enemies Healing Skill.

Fist Flurry > Palm Strike > Pulmonary Impact
Stays for now as it is, as this skill is the best prime example for the Combat Moves, just only, that Palm Strike and Pulmonary Impact here would get in line with the linked mechanic to the Risk Sense System, that the last two Skills become only useable, when you have at least 1 Tier of Risk Sense and the last one on the last 5 seconds of Recharge from the so called “Initial Moves”

Distracting Daggers > Toxic Daggers > Merciless Daggers
You throw 3 Daggers that weaken hit foes. While the Initial Move is on Recharge, you are able to throw Toxic Daggers, which torment foes and give them Hallucinations (Screen Blur Effect and seeing Clones of you if you Stealth). At the last 5 seconds of Recharge with Tier 3 of Risk Sense, you can perform Merciless Daggers, which deal 5% increased Damage for every Boon a foe has and convert conditions from you to your target.

Spider Bite Slash > Turtle Defense > Monkey Fist
Perform a Leap Attack that Poisons enemies and counts if you do that with a Venom active as local Venom Share to nearby Allies.
While on Recharge with at least Risk Sense 1, you can perform Turtle Defense, a Block Counter, which slows your enemy and gives based on your Risk Sense also Torment.
On the last 5 seconds of recharge, you can perform Monkey Fist, an energetic Staff Attack, that will stun foes for 2 seconds, while you regain Endurance back, if the attack hits.

= Elite =

Impact Strike/Impact Lunge (Underwater) > Sweeping Tail /Enchaining Counter (Underwater) > Finishing Blow/Finishing Thrust (Underwater)
Strike your target with an leap attack, that dazes, while you evade incoming hits.
if the enemy uses at the same time a skill, that would evade attacks, Impact Strike/Lunce cancels for the enemy this effect, unless its also an Impact Strike, then both sides will block each other.
When the Skill is on recharge, you can perform with at least Risk Sense 1 the Skill Sweeping Tail, which is a line of sight knock down attack.
At full Risk Sense you can perform Finishing Blow, when you perform this Skill, you will gain Stability, Resistance and Protection and will finish downed enemies.
If this Attack hits a just knocked downed enemy which isn’t in downed state, then this skill will put the enemies Elite Skill on recharge or increase the recharge of it, by xx seconds when it was already on cooldown. Recharge Time increased from 40 to 50s
—-
In regard of underwater Combat changes only the effect of Sweeping Tail, while it is on land a line of sight knockdown, Enchained Counter is instead a line of sight sinking, by putting heavy weighting chains onto the enemy.

All incredibly over-designed.
Simplify.

Amante.8109:

Blind – Okay at applying it, but less strong than it used to be, and too much of it is tied up in one weapon set.
Vulnerability – Very Thiefly and supposed to be one of “our” conditions but we suck at applying it.
Torment – We should be so much better at this. Glad to see it on one of the leaked dodge traits, at any rate.

Blind is good for us.
Vulnerability is what the Revenent does now, it’s been taken from us.
Torment has always been sort of a rare condition, really. I’d be interested in being able to do more with it.

Alex.9268:

The auto attack is pretty underwhelming though.

Look again—it has a lot of potential.
The first two strikes are relatively quick, and the third is 4 Vulnerability stacks and a Whirl finisher.
With Shadow Refuge, you can do a lot with the staff and many of these abilities.

arenta.2953:

Slowmelt.8547:

Maugetarr.6823:

arenta.2953:

Slowmelt.8547:

arenta.2953:

Slowmelt.8547:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Blunt weapons are not significantly better against heavy armor, that is a common misconception. Rapiers are specially made against heavy armor. A well-made rapier can even pierce a heavy armor, otherwise the wielder will try to find weak points on the armor and exploit it — which mean, it can deal critical damage.

Blunt weapons, on the other hand, can only stop the heavy armored target by knocking the target down — not necessarily dealing damage — critical or otherwise. Critical hits from blunt weapons are only possible against non-heavy armor target.

Instead of a full response, I will simply provide you a link to a video of an untrained, unfit man with a cheap hammer turning both historical and modern helmets into scrap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CZEAcTaogVY#t=161

Blunt weapons of various types were specifically used to counter armor because armor padding provides very little aid when the armor crumples in on you.
More importantly, staves used properly can strike just as hard as hammers.

until the staff breaks in half cause its wood

and the hammer continues smashing cause its metal

You really ought not underestimate wood as a material.
It is very stern stuff.

sure its sturdy…..but it doesnt last as long as metal.

and if you wack it against hard stuff like rocks or armor. its going to cause less dmg than a warhammer or mace.
and break before the warhammer or mace. (while warhammer and mace will mostly just get a few dents)

Wouldn’t metal endpieces (like those shown on the artwork) solve that problem?

They absolutely would.
A metal-shod staff is typical of a melee-type staff with a few exceptions.
The issue is that people are thinking of Eastern-styled martial arts, and not how Staves were used in the West… which was a lot heavier and more damaging.

He wasn’t wrong about the tripping and such, however. They were also used for that.

it would still snap in half long before a mace or warhammer while causing less dmg.

keep in mind the weight of the weapons. warhammer is designed to bring all that weight down on the blow.

while staff has balanced weight throughout it. hence the impact being alot less effective (its easy to do multiple hits though. but each individual hit will be minor compared to a single hit from the warhammer)

Technically yes, but the length provides a stronger swing and more leverage, leading it to balance out for the most part—provided you are not discussing a maul or lucerne hammer, which are other discussions entirely.

That said, it’s entirely non-relevant to the topic at hand.

The point is that attempting to claim that Thieves should not be allowed to critically hit with a weapon is patently absurd.

Maugetarr.6823:

arenta.2953:

Slowmelt.8547:

arenta.2953:

Slowmelt.8547:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Blunt weapons are not significantly better against heavy armor, that is a common misconception. Rapiers are specially made against heavy armor. A well-made rapier can even pierce a heavy armor, otherwise the wielder will try to find weak points on the armor and exploit it — which mean, it can deal critical damage.

Blunt weapons, on the other hand, can only stop the heavy armored target by knocking the target down — not necessarily dealing damage — critical or otherwise. Critical hits from blunt weapons are only possible against non-heavy armor target.

Instead of a full response, I will simply provide you a link to a video of an untrained, unfit man with a cheap hammer turning both historical and modern helmets into scrap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CZEAcTaogVY#t=161

Blunt weapons of various types were specifically used to counter armor because armor padding provides very little aid when the armor crumples in on you.
More importantly, staves used properly can strike just as hard as hammers.

until the staff breaks in half cause its wood

and the hammer continues smashing cause its metal

You really ought not underestimate wood as a material.
It is very stern stuff.

sure its sturdy…..but it doesnt last as long as metal.

and if you wack it against hard stuff like rocks or armor. its going to cause less dmg than a warhammer or mace.
and break before the warhammer or mace. (while warhammer and mace will mostly just get a few dents)

Wouldn’t metal endpieces (like those shown on the artwork) solve that problem?

They absolutely would.
A metal-shod staff is typical of a melee-type staff with a few exceptions.
The issue is that people are thinking of Eastern-styled martial arts, and not how Staves were used in the West… which was a lot heavier and more damaging.

He wasn’t wrong about the tripping and such, however. They were also used for that.

Maugetarr.6823:

Slowmelt.8547:

Maugetarr.6823:

So is the name daredevil or enforcer?

Daredevil is likely the name.
Enforcer Training is likely more for the sake of linking them back to a criminal theme.
An “Enforcer” really would be the type of criminal to use a staff or club.

For that reason I think I could get behind enforcer more easily. We’ll see tomorrow I guess.

The Daredevil name was never a problem to me, but I was somewhat skeptical of the concept.
It has grown on me, however. The idea of many of the datamined abilities have kindled some hopeful enthusiasm in me.

arenta.2953:

Slowmelt.8547:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Blunt weapons are not significantly better against heavy armor, that is a common misconception. Rapiers are specially made against heavy armor. A well-made rapier can even pierce a heavy armor, otherwise the wielder will try to find weak points on the armor and exploit it — which mean, it can deal critical damage.

Blunt weapons, on the other hand, can only stop the heavy armored target by knocking the target down — not necessarily dealing damage — critical or otherwise. Critical hits from blunt weapons are only possible against non-heavy armor target.

Instead of a full response, I will simply provide you a link to a video of an untrained, unfit man with a cheap hammer turning both historical and modern helmets into scrap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CZEAcTaogVY#t=161

Blunt weapons of various types were specifically used to counter armor because armor padding provides very little aid when the armor crumples in on you.
More importantly, staves used properly can strike just as hard as hammers.

until the staff breaks in half cause its wood

and the hammer continues smashing cause its metal

You really ought not underestimate wood as a material.
It is very stern stuff.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Blunt weapons are not significantly better against heavy armor, that is a common misconception. Rapiers are specially made against heavy armor. A well-made rapier can even pierce a heavy armor, otherwise the wielder will try to find weak points on the armor and exploit it — which mean, it can deal critical damage.

Blunt weapons, on the other hand, can only stop the heavy armored target by knocking the target down — not necessarily dealing damage — critical or otherwise. Critical hits from blunt weapons are only possible against non-heavy armor target.

Instead of a full response, I will simply provide you a link to a video of an untrained, unfit man with a cheap hammer turning both historical and modern helmets into scrap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CZEAcTaogVY#t=161

Blunt weapons of various types were specifically used to counter armor because armor padding provides very little aid when the armor crumples in on you.
More importantly, staves used properly can strike just as hard as hammers.

Maugetarr.6823:

So is the name daredevil or enforcer?

Daredevil is likely the name.
Enforcer Training is likely more for the sake of linking them back to a criminal theme.
An “Enforcer” really would be the type of criminal to use a staff or club.