Short dash to target (say 300 range or so).
Also, Stealth on activation, not successful strike. If you whiff and fail, you should at least still get the Stealth.
Needs more base dmg. And a better animation.
I don’t like the fact that if you are running when you use it, the character stops in place for a split second, and also when she lands – it would be better if you could do the move in one entirely fluid motion that doesn’t stop forward momentum at all.
hybrids and thieves dont walk together like other classes do
we have low base armor and health so we just cant hybrid to be effectivebelieve me i tried it
Agreed.
That’s what I’m saying here, I WANT this build to be effective, but it’s NOT.
try this if you like the death blossom
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQRAoY4YlcmCO3ey8E+5EBXBn694rjNsdP4qWrKA-jEDBYiEZ0IOQ0CQUgJjkGg+I05RFRjt2uIas6ZER16jYmbCyWcKrSBYuyK-wcan go solo or group fight and spam, dodge, evade like crazy
Yeah – I built this build to based around Healing Power and lots of procs – the DB is about spamming as many heals as I can get – with at least three targets, DB can heal about 5% (maybe a little more, I haven’t actually done it fully geared yet, as I am still gearing up) of my total health.
With lots of initiative gain, and the increased initiative pool, I can spam a lot of DB – and that’s a lot of Healing.
The build is an attempt to make the Thief a sustainable combatant.
The biggest problem with it is that there is very little dmg.
I was hoping that it would be a good hybrid build – a little condition dmg, a little crit dmg – a lot of healing through aggression.
What I actually need is an armor set that doesn’t exist yet – Healing Power/Precision/CritDmg
I’m going for apothecary for the moment, because it’s the best option available, but I hope Anet creates new armor sets for diverse builds.
Edit: Also, DB needs some buffs to it’s white dmg.
(edited by ipan.4356)
Maybe this game just has far too much condition spamming across all professions.
Cleansing wouldn’t be as important, and central to every build, if there weren’t as much condition spamming to begin with.
What about removing some of it?
Agree/Disagree?
I tried that very build. The issue was conditions. They killed you dead. I could not get enough CnD off to deal with all the conditions.
There’s a bunch of stuff I put in for cleansing:
Sigil of Generosity (seemed a no brainer, since it’s a crit-proc build)
Shadow’s Embrace
Instinctual Response (which is there to trigger Shadow’s Embrace)
Runes of Antitoxin
I play S/W and I have a ton of fun doing it.
Actually, because other Thief traits are lackluster – it was just sort of a default decision – and since it’s a crit based proc build, the crit sig fit, and of course move speed is always handy on a profession that is supposed to be based on movement.
I wanted to use Scorpion Wire, but it’s terrible.
The build is meant to heal through dmg, particularly by spamming DB. The initiative gain traits are for keeping up DB spam, with the occasional CnD for condition removal (not so much BS).
My biggest problem is too little dmg to be a threat.
I actually see this as a problem of gear sets more than traits – ideally, I need gear that has Healing Power (primary), Precision and Critical Dmg. (secondary).
(edited by ipan.4356)
Start as a Warrior, Necromancer, Mesmer, or Guardian first.
The point is to use the active to burst down the remaining 15% of health or so that a target has remaining – presumably, because after the target is down, you can wait for the signet to recharge.
The problem is, in most situations, you need some kind of sustainable strategy – the battle isn’t over after one kill, so in almost all situations it’s better not to activate your signet – unless you’re going to die anyway, and it gives you that tiny chance that killing your opponent first will allow you to survive.
I’d like to see a CD reduction across the board on all signets (of every class).
For Thief signets specifically, I’d love to see a trait that gives signet reset on some condition, kind of like Guardian virtues (like resetting courage on kill).
Assassin’s Signet: CD is reset when you do 10% of your targets health in a single strike.
Signet of Agility: 5% chance to reset CD on critical strike
Signet of Shadows: Reset CD when you successfully evade an attack.
Infiltrator’s Signet: Reset CD when initiative reaches full (???)
I want this build to be viable in WvW:
I’m not going to PvP with my Thief – I also play Necro, Warrior and Mesmer – Thief will be for overland PvE only until they make it viable in PvP.
This is what multiple character slots are for – I only feel bad for the people that are so monomaniacal that they can only play 1 toon.
I have 8 slots, and 1 of each class already. Two of them are 80, and 3 more are very close.
My Thief was the first to reach 80 because I’ve always liked the feel of their fighting style – high evasion, mobility, etc. – but I have no problem switching to my Necro or Warrior or Mes for PvP over the next year or two while they work on the Thief.
Can always come back later.
Signet of Shadows should be changed to:
Passive: Grants 30% increase in movement speed
Active (Cast time instant): Evade backwards, or in whichever direction you are currently moving (basically, an extra dodge roll for a utility slot).
Distance: 600
CD: 10 sec.
Infilitrators Signet:
Passive: Regenerate 1 extra initiative every 5 seconds.
Active (instant): Shadowstep (ground targeted, breaks stun)
Range: 1000
CD: 15 sec.
Signet of Agility:
Passive: Increased Precision and Crit Dmg
Active: Refills endurance and cures a condition for every two (three?) pts. of remaining initiative you have.
CD: 20 sec.
Assassin’s Signet:
Passive: Grants increased power and condition duration
Active: 3Might (15 sec)
CD: 30 sec.
New Elite:
Signet of the Nemesis:
Passive: 10% chance on crit to trigger 1/4 sec. evade.
Active: 50% chance to evade any attack for 10 sec.
CD: 60 sec.
(edited by ipan.4356)
Solo archetypes work great in WvW. Your job just changes — you’re the sneaky, mobile guy working way behind the lines, disrupting supply, picking off stragglers and scouting enemy positions. I play mine like a U-Boat working the mid-atlantic in 1940. It’s a fun playstyle. Not nearly as rewarding as riding the karma train, but you make a difference.
I agree with you that the playstyle is fun – even small, 2-3 (wo)man groups are fun doing this – I don’t think this is as effective as it sounds.
Other classes can “roam” as well – what makes the Thief particularly good at it? Nothing.
Also, the majority of players are highly social – this lone ranger kind of style only appeals to a very small player base – which is fine in and of itself, but I wouldn’t design an entire class around it, rather I’d make a few small specialty builds within a couple classes that can do it better than others.
I play all 8 classes.
I found Mesmers, Necros and Warriors to be very strong.
The Thief feels so weak to me, that outside of gimick builds – i.e. permastealth – the Thief is almost unplayable.
Why would I stand in the aoe ? To defend a node maybe ?? If I lose the node , I lose at least 15pts while fighting in and out of combat . A class that can’t sustain a fight has no place in PvP . And if I go in stealth , I lose the point aswell.
I will wait till anet decides to do something about thieves, until then I"ll facerolll on my warr. And I never said if you do WvW you are bad , it’s just not the same situation in PvP. Wvw thieves can pretty much kill anything with 110% crit dmg \food\buffs . It may even be too strong in wvw. But in PvP nope, the only good build is S\D and it’s based on evades\teleports only. They need to make more traits and weapons for stealthless thieves.
If thieves are bad taking AOE damage is fine for me and for others.
Maybe the role of the thief is not made to cap, maybe it is focused to decap and kill fast.
Maybe the problem is that there only one game mode in SPVP.
Maybe the beautiful thing about MMO professions is that they are different and people can select what are they going to good at.
This thing that people has that want their profession to do all the other does.
Is the same in WvW when people QQ because a thief stealth and scapes. Is the only one thing that is actually good at and they still complain.
The problem is that the Thief won’t really do anything well – any conceivable role you can think of, is better filled by another class.
I will repost this from before (edited a bit)…
So the thing is…
People don’t want to be dropped in 3 seconds, regardless of what it means for the person that’s killing them (or the over-all/global context). They want to fight, and feel like the fight is fair.You brought up (GW1) assassins, remember BoA/Shadow Prison assassin? Here’s a video of an average BoA assassin day
The nice part about that video, is that it’s not a montage, meaning it shows what happens to the assassin AFTER they killed their target or failed to do so. You can kind of see that it’s sort of iffy when you will take down a target if you don’t use proper judgment. You can see that really, if he killed 1 person it was good, if he made it out live it was just amazing (then proceeded to run around waiting for CDs). Some planning/judgment does need to take place to decide who to jump and who not to jump.
Despite all this, people cried that the build was OP, and it was eventually nerf-ed (rendering it completely useless).
Assassin type builds will NEVER exist, where their sole purpose is to drop one guy and gtfo or be killed.Stealth in this game, on some levels I have to agree that it’s badly handled only because the enemy can’t force* a thief out of stealth or detect the thief in stealth. WoW’s rogues when they came too close too you (touching you pretty much), you would see them, hunters could put up flares that revealed stealth within a certain area…. In LoL there’s oracles, there’s wards (if you don’t use them it’s your fault)… I believe in most games where there’s stealth the enemy gets a way to reveal stealthed units.
Combine “no way for the enemy to detect stealth” issue with “wanting a fair fight”…. tada! you got a problem.
And so, when Dec. 10th does go through, and a thief build manages to 1v1 people, and it becomes a build/flavor of choice for 1v1/roaming/scouting, people will complain once more, calling it OP/broken/abusive.
Elaborate a bit further on wanting a fair fight… or the term fight in general. Most of my friend’s (in real life, yes I have those) understanding of a fight is what you would see on UFC. While I agree that that is fighting, but to a certain extent it’s also not. In UFC they get points for dominating/controlling the ring, points for doing this and that… there’s rules set in place so that not too much harm is done between the two fighters. And they’re view (my friends) is limited to that and just a little beyond that… My concept of fighting can range from anything UFC like and even more restrictive – to – no rules (sand in eyes/kick to crotch), anything goes (use of objects), last person standing/alive is the “winner” (hey, we’re animals after all, look at them). Yes the extreme is that fighting can lead to death. Clearly you can say, and it’s proper to say, wars were “fought” between X and Y. That being said, the same can be applied to fights within a game, or people’s concepts of fighting in games.
This is why the Rogue archetype is a solo character – and doesn’t really belong in an MMO.
Every Rogue class I’ve played in an MMO (WE’s in WAR were the longest for me) suffered from exactly the same problem.
They don’t have a place in group combat.
By their very nature, the Rogue is a Solo – more fitting for a single player RPG, like Thief, rather than an MMO.
Anet will not solve this fundamental dilemma, because they believe that the problem lies in small tweaks to traits and balancing skills.
The Thief isn’t a group archetype – it’s a Solo class.
RIP Thief
Thief needs some passive evasion, and maybe some more evasion built into skills across all weapon sets.
Thief will remain broken for at least another year.
Thief is a solo class.
It would be ok if we had more natural evasion.
Each skill would have to have a CD relative to how powerful the skill was – but I think I love this idea.
They won’t balance Thieves before a newer, better game comes out.
By the time pet AI is advanced enough, there will be a much newer game on the market.
For the time being, unless they give Ranger’s the capability to be independent of their pets, then this game has two classes which are strictly PvE only (and not even great for dungeons, but they do ok):
Thief and Ranger.
PvP is still loads of fun if you actually use one of six viable classes.
Just shelve your Rangers and your Thieves when you go do PvP.
They give you 5 character slots for a reason.
I agree that Steal is lame – in fact, it’s the worst class mechanic in the entire game, 2nd being Pets.
But I don’t like your alternative idea at all. Far too complex. And for what?
I’d rather see Steal become an interrupt – perhaps stealing the very skill that you use it to interrupt?
Nerf’s to permastealth are a good idea.
Problem is, if you take that away, Thief doesn’t have anything left.
Anet is taking away on obviously abusive mechanic (or, toning it down so it’s no longer abusive, I should say) – but they’re NOT REPLACING IT WITH ANYTHING VIABLE.
Work on putting more evasion baked into weapon skills.
I have 8 slots, and I play 1 of each class.
My Thief is 80, my Mesmer is 80, my Necro is close to 80, and I just started my Warrior, who is just past 30.
Although each type of gameplay is different, PvP, PvE, WvWvW, etc., you can tell a lot about the class simply from how the skills play, no matter where you’re using them.
I pay a lot of attention to flow and timing and cadence – and less to math and min/max.
The Thief and the Ranger are the two worst classes in the game (as predicted during beta).
The Thief is a gimicky, melee glass cannon. By gimicky, I mean what most people mean by ‘high risk/high reward’.
The Thief should be able to kill faster than any other class – precisely because they can be killed faster than any other class.
The Thief has no natural defenses, aside from Stealth and Evasion, and once permastealth is removed, the Thief doesn’t have enough defense.
I would suggest that Anet focus on integrating both Stealth and Evasion more tightly into the weapon skills – the utility skills that have these two abilities (such as Roll for Initiative) already function just fine.
But the Thief, who relies on a unique resource management system, needs their primary defense (Stealth and Evasion) to be a more integral part of our basic weapon skills.
To an extent, you see this already in skills like Death Blossom (with it’s small evade), and Cloak and Dagger (Stealth).
They need to do more in that direction.
Cleanse on evade would be a good start. More passive stealth triggers (stealth when hit – stealth at threshold, etc.) Passive evades (evade on hit, evade on threshold, etc.)
Once this is done, then Anet needs to look at their DPS output and balance that according to their defense.
The Thief is useless until their defense is fixed.
Thief isn’t my only 80 – so I’ll simply retire her until Anet wakes up and realizes what’s actually going on.
Until then, I have an 80 Mesmer and nearly an 80 Necro too to play around with in PvP.
I’d love to see a set of armor with Healing Power (primary) and Precision and Crit Dmg (secondary) stats for my Thief build.
If you’re trying to push in with the zerg as a Thief, you’re gonna have a bad time.
See that upper level off to the right of his zerg? Kill him
Its your job to find the staff Elementalist in the back and drop her sorry kittens, before her buddies know what happened to their water fields!
Its your job to pick at the heels of a zerg before they collide with your allied zerg.
Its your job to herd those kittens into a false sense of security, to put them so off-balance, to make them so focused on you that they don’t see the Warrior coming up on their blindside to smash them into the dirt!
All of that would be awesome if the Thief excelled at it, but it doesn’t.
We would need a lot more move speed and evasion for that to work consistently.
Don’t know if you guys played GW1 and remember BoA (Burst of Aggression) build on Assassins (errr… yeah Assassin – sin) prior to it’s nerf(s) … but that build was pretty well defined for an assassin/assassination… it worked along the lines of: the sin would pick a target (ele), engage them with some form of a shadow step (which returned them back to the starting position after the target died), drop the target in ~3 seconds, when the target dies the sin is returned to their starting position and has a stupid “long” CD (on BoA i think it was) of 45 seconds, for the 45 seconds the sin is relatively useless/harmless (usually meaning they would disengage or DIE).
So the problem was (a bit of calibration to the damage), the sin would drop medium and light armor targets in ~3 seconds and would half heavy armor targets (making it OP)… when it probably should drop light targets in ~3 seconds, half medium targets and scratch heavies. The CD might have been a bit too low too (depending on context). But all in all, they did what they were named to do and that is to assassinate (and then gtfo or die like a proper assassin). Another problem is that people don’t really want to be assassinated by said assassins, rather they want to fight (and not be dropped in ~3 seconds). Those people that didn’t want to be killed like that also didn’t understand that the sin, when running that build, was ONLY meant to do that (and if he’s average he would get 1 kill per death).
(TL/DR:) Guess what I’m trying to say is…
People don’t want to be dropped in 3 seconds, regardless of what it means for the person that’s killing them (or the over-all/global context).
Say, the thief was redesigned to be an assassin. Let’s allow them to drop light armor targets in 3 seconds, at the expense that they need to strike medium targets twice while also not being able to kill heavy targets, and they can only do that every 60 seconds (during the 60 seconds “CD” they’re very harmless). So when zergs enage and thieves jump on eles/mesmer/necs and insta-gib (drop/kill) them, then in the 60 seconds CD most likely get trampled to death by warriors/guards/rangers/enginees/other-thieves, the eles/mesmers/necs will complain on the forums (“thieves OP, they drop me in a blink”) regardless of context or what happened to the thief after.
Also… :| a bit of smart-kitten -ier.
:D A thief is a thief, they steal things, maybe hurt/kill things along the way. Assassins, assassinate.Now… i would totally love to play that assassin style thief, but they WILL be called OP.
:D found a video of that gw1 build:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKAiodYdUbQ
For some reason I thought it was BoA… guess not, maybe it was a variant. Anyways, it’s not a montage it’s just an AB match… sometimes he underestimated/shouldn’t have go in… but hey, it’s OP when it works… right?
Fully agree.
This is what makes this kind of class inherently unstable in any MMO – and sheds a very clear light on the current Thief problems.
A class like this is meant to be OP – if it isn’t then it fails in every other regard, and hence we get the “Roll a Warrior” comments.
Makes perfect sense.
Dancing Dagger should apply 2 stacks of Torment and Swiftness to the target
I have three ideas for Venoms:
Make them toggled on and off – when a Venom is turned on, you get a chance to apply it’s effect on any hit – this is more like a permanent passive buff. The CD occurs when you toggle a different Venom (making it similar in ways to Ele’s attunements).
Issues: Venom effects will have to be completely reworked. People running a single Venom will have the benefit of never going into a CD (since they aren’t switching to another Venom) – but don’t receive as much benefit from Venom enhancing traits (since they are only slotting one), so that’s a trade off right there.
2nd suggestion:
Increase the number of applications to be closer to Conjurations. Adjust the abilities power and CD to compensate. One of the biggest drawbacks to Venoms is the small number of applications – you have to be 100% sure you want to use it, and it’s going to be a long time before you get another shot if you aren’t sure.
3rd suggestion:
Make Venoms work like Engi kits – Thieves have the fewest number of weapon sets available for any class in the game, and that means the fewest number of possible skills to choose from. Why not increase this a little by making Venom Kits, that offer an alternative 5 skills (or, not even 5 skills per Venom – each Venom could be 1 or 2 skills, perhaps an offensive/defensive skill per Venom)? This would add some versatility and diversity to the Thief’s skill set.
@Cynz
Yep.
Notice how the majority of the ‘roles’ you talk about for Rogues involve killing people very quickly (much more quickly than other classes – we are Assassins, and the closer we get to one shot one kill, the better we are doing our job).
The problem with that, which you mention, is that other people HATE US when we are actually doing what we are supposed to – GANKING people. This is purely psychological – people just hate losing this way. Even if, statistically you only get the same number of kills as other classes, on average, people hate it simply because it feels so violent to get taken out by a Rogue.
If we don’t gank, then we die too quickly. If we do gank, then everyone else despises the class and screams for nerfs – also, the other proble with ganking is that you get a whole group of Rogues together who can basically instagib entire groups by getting the jump on them and using all their burst – with cd’s or initiative, if an entire party or guild is doing this, then they can burst down anyone, and be refreshed when the respawns come back>
So, you either get nerfed into nothingness – or the class slowly becomes a doppelganger of another class – or they let us remain OP.
Being OP is the Thief’s CLASS MECHANIC.
I wish developer would get this from the get go – and either decide NOT to include the class who must be OP to survive – or explain to everyone up front that this is simply how the class has to be.
I played the Witch Elf in WAR forever, and it’s exactly the same bs.
(edited by ipan.4356)
i would really love to hear from devs where they see thieves role
they can’t defend points in pvp
they can’t capture them (unless point is empty or very bad players are defending it, but you don’t need to be thief for it…)
they contribute little to group fights
in pve they are overshadowed by warriors/mesmers (mesmers for stealth etc.)
in wvw a ranger can scout as effective except they contribute more to fightswhat are thieves for in this game? for roleplaying a ninja?
i think it would really help if devs would set on certain role for thieves and would balance them around that role instead throwing nerfs around just because non-thieves don’t know how to handle stealth
The problem is, that the Rogue playstyle is always a SOLO playstyle, by nature.
Gimicky-ness IS THE PLAYSTYLE. What I mean is, nothing you do is sustainable – you hit fast and kill, and then run.
Or you hit from the shadows – and then RUN.
Or, you stunlock and kill – then run.
Or, you jump and dodge and spin and roll so much that you can’t be hit.
Whatever you do, it isn’t going toe to toe with anything (except maybe another Thief).
Your role, by it’s very definition, makes you a solo character (or, at best, support for a small group of adventurers/dungeon runners).
Prob is, Anet has to balance them for grand melee (i.e., WvW and sPvP) – and this is precisely where the Thief does not fit in, and never will.
To be fair, it isn’t entirely Anet’s fault – this same problem crops up in every multiplayer game that attempts to incorporate such a gimciky class.
There’s a reason other games stick to single-player RPG’s when they allow the Rogue class.
The more the Thief gets patched, it will either be nerf stomped into the ground, or it will be made far too similar to another class, most likely Warrior and everyone will just wonder why not roll that class instead.
Rogues simply don’t belong in multiplayer games like MMO’s – and if you think I’m wrong, then I challenge you to come up with a single major MMO where this hasn’t happened, because in every MMO I’ve ever played, this exact scenario plays out with this class every single time.
With weapon swap, I rarely have a character that doesn’t have something (other than autattack) up by the time I run through the full cycle.
With Thief, it’s like you’re getting about 1/2 as many attacks (autoattack aside) as other classes.
I play all 8 classes, and while I’ve only played Thief to 80 (I’m almost there with Mesmer, and Necro and Ranger not far behind – just started Warrior and Engi) – I can say that this is probably the worst class in the game, while Ranger is a close second.
The Thief needs to be redesigned from the ground up – it’s an absolute mess.
Which is unfortunate, because conceptually at least, it’s my favorite.
As a melee glass cannon, the Thief relies upon two things to survive: evasion and stealth.
While permastealth is getting nerfed because it’s too gimicky (and probably a good thing too…..), I don’t think much thought has been put into compensating the Thief’s survivability in other ways.
This post is partly inspired by the Mesmer main hand sword Skill 2, Blurred Frenzy (I also run a Mesmer).
While leveling my Mesmer, I got hooked on sword main hand entirely because of this skill, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome the Thief would be if it had something similar.
All the talk about nerfing and survivability has revived my thoughts on this subject, and I propose that some evasion be worked into most Thief weapon sets, but especially melee weapons.
DB already does this, but DB’s damage is so terrible, it’s generally considered a bad skill (a separate issue – but there it is).
More skills, perhaps even autoattacks, need to do this so that the Thief has a baseline of evasion based defense.
Maybe the main hand dagger autoattack chain can evade for 1/4 sec on the second strike?
Or Heartseeker evades while the Thief is in the air. Or Dancing Dagger might be accompanied by a very short dodge roll (working exactly like a regular dodge roll, only half the time).
In general, I’m in favor of adding really short evades to all autoattacks – this simply makes evade a baseline defense, no matter what build your running, but this is just a suggestion – only playtesting would reveal precisely where these evades should be placed.
The Ranger must be combined with the Thief profession.
What one lacks, the other has.
This way, both will be fixed.
Anet wants a trixy, skirmishing class? So do I, this happens to be my favorite playstyle.
I hit on the perfect solution to fixing Thieves a minute ago:
They must be combined with the Ranger.
Where the Thief lacks in surviveability, can be made up with much of what the Ranger does – and where the Ranger lacks in trixy gimix, the Thief can provide.
These two professions can only survive if they become One.
Rogues are an inherently solo class.
In order to be effective, they have to be ‘gimicky’ – this is how the current perma-stealth gimick build came about.
Think about it: Warriors and Guardians are ‘steady’ – they can sustain a fight with damage mitigation – and give as much as they can take. They can toe to toe.
Ranged classes are glass cannons – they will mow you down as long as you can’t reach them, but they fall over at a sneeze.
The Thief – melee glass cannon – is a gimick. They also fall over at the slightest hint of retaliation, but they’re supposed to hit so hard and fast, and be so uncatchable, that this rarely happens.
In actual practice though, you can’t work this into a stable PvP class – because one of several things will happen over time:
Thieves get shunted into a highly specialized, rarely used role (where only they can cap an objective effectively, but this objective is peripheral, or rarely used – or they have one highly specific ‘station’ to watch over, like ganking people around a particular bend or corridor, but nothing else).
They have a single (or perhaps double) effective build that is extremely gimicky and destroys build diversity – like permastealth. Other players hate it – because when it works, it’s highly frustrating to them (can’t touch the Thief – feels like instagib), and Thieves hate it too because they feel pigeonholed, and have no other options.
The Thief gets modified – over time – to resemble other classes (like the Warrior or Ranger) – and then everyone wonders why bother, if the class resembles something else.
You can’t balance a SOLO class around group mechanics.
This is why Rogues are best for single player RPG’s – because when you slit the throat of an NPC and one shot them – no one gets mad.
When you stealth through an entire level, avoiding all obstacles, taking no damage, to stand on the piled corpses of your enemies laughing – no one screams “OP!” because it’s just computer controlled opponents.
The Thief MUST be OP to function at all – otherwise it’s a sub-par Warrior (with less armor).
Being OP is the very heart and soul of any class which must rely on GIMICK just to survive.
I bet my entire gaming career that Anet will not, can not, ever get this right.
(edited by ipan.4356)
I’m going 30/30/10/0/0 with S/W and LB and so far, having a great time.
I largely ignore the fact that I have a pet (I treat them more like minis).
For utilities – I use Viper’s Nest, Call Owl, and a Signet (either regen or speed).
It would be cool if there were more bird oriented utilities and an elite – so we could play a Hawker Ranger.
Dancing Dagger should inflict 1 stack of Torment in addition to cripple. Call it Tormenting Dagger.
Not much to explain – Add 1 stack of bleed to the first part of the D/D chain.
If you’re trying to push in with the zerg as a Thief, you’re gonna have a bad time.
See that upper level off to the right of his zerg? Kill him
Its your job to find the staff Elementalist in the back and drop her sorry kittens, before her buddies know what happened to their water fields!
Its your job to pick at the heels of a zerg before they collide with your allied zerg.
Its your job to herd those kittens into a false sense of security, to put them so off-balance, to make them so focused on you that they don’t see the Warrior coming up on their blindside to smash them into the dirt!
All of that would be awesome if the Thief excelled at it, but it doesn’t.
We would need a lot more move speed and evasion for that to work consistently.
Currently, I don’t see this as a possibility given the available skills and traits.
I would like to see this kind of build in the future.
I assume that people know what I mean by ‘Slice n’ Dice’.
I’ve tried to make this build given the current setup, but there’s nothing I know of that actually makes it work.
The Warrior with dual Swords (and Greatsword) is a better slice n’ dicer than the Thief.
But, if anyone knows how to make this build in the current game (or, after Dec. 10), could you please link me to the build?
I made two prediction during beta, and I’ve been right about both:
The Ranger and the Thief would be the worst classes, Ranger because pet AI stinks, and Thief because Steal is stupid (and Rogues are always the hardest to balance class in an MMO).
Right on both counts.
Torment on Hornet Sting would be the bees knees.
Also, I typically only use the 1st attack in the attack chain, since most of my other cd’s are up again and I don’t need to do the full chain (so I actually turn the autoattack off).
The Thief should actually do more of what the Warrior does – the problem is simply that whoever designed these classes got them mixed up.
The Warrior should do something else – I don’t know what.
But after playing a Sword/Sword Warrior to 25 – I now understand what the Thief is missing in general.
Watching what the Thief is going through in GW2 reminds me exactly of what every other Rogue has gone through in MMO’s past.
In particular, I played a Witch Elf in WAR for the longest time – same story.
In the end, I don’t think that Rogues make good classes for MMO’s – we are inherently a solo class – and PvP is a group activity.