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[LoreChief]

WARNING: This will be a long post, containing lots of text.

Good day to you fellow players.  What I will be writing in this post is a list (with descriptions) of complaints I have about the Thief class, in addition to areas for improvement, and suggestions for fixes to the complaints I'm presenting (or re-presenting since I'm sure most hardcore Thief fans have made their own shortcomings known).  I ask that any responses be constructive - and if you disagree with me, please give a detailed reason why!

PART 1: Traits

For starters, I'm going to address an issue that I have with ANet's mentality on Traits.  With every Profession, not just Thief, there are many traits that don't really do anything fun for characters, as well as traits that are literal 'must haves' for certain skill trees.  In the end, traits should be the customization of your playstyle to a variety of effects and specializations, not additional flack to throw in a dmg calculator.  The former traits are things like '+5% dagger damage', whereas the latter traits are things like 'reduces cooldown on greatsword skills by 20%'.  To use some examples of what I consider 'good traits', I'm going to reach into the Engineer tree for some of my personal favorites.  

Grenadier:  Throw grenades 25% farther, and throw an additional grenade with each grenade kit skill.

Explosive Descent:  Take 50% less falling damage, and release a barrage of grenades upon landing.

These two both cater towards grenades, and have two important criteria by which I judge the appropriateness of traits; they allow you to specialize in a playstyle and they are noticeable to enemies/allies as well as yourself.

Many traits (engineers have them too) aren't discernible to anyone but yourself; no one notices your reduces cooldown on 'X' skill, or that you're doing 5% more damage with a certain weapon type.  Additionally, they don't effect your playstyle - they quite literally drain the uniqueness out of, and add monotony to what would otherwise be an enjoyable fight.

Now that you know what I'm looking for, I'll begin lampooning our trait tree for all its worth, the results are listed below:

Deadly Arts:

• Combined Training: Dual skills deal 5% more damage.
  
• Dagger Training:  Deal 5% more damage with daggers.
  
• Quick Venoms: Venoms recharge 20% quicker.
  
• Panic Strike: When you strike a foe with less than 25% health, you immobilize them for 2 seconds (60-sec cooldown).

Okay, here's the first thing; a lot of traits would be better suited to minor trait positions, rather than major.  Likewise, a lot of minor traits would be better as majors - as they help nail-down a specific type of build; such as Serpent's Touch (10 seconds of poison for target you steal from).  Why would a ranged thief go into Deadly Arts when the second bonus they're going to get applies to thieves who steal - ranged doesn't want to steal, it puts them right next to the enemy!  However, for a melee thief that wants to steal, this is perfect.

I've chosen Panic Strike for elimination simply because it's too niche, too complicated for what it does - and it's a grandmaster trait no less!  Firstly, it only procs once every 60 seconds, and only under the condition that the enemy is below 25% health - and you'll never get to /choose/ to use it.  Compare this trait to its counterpart, Residual Venom (1 extra venom strike) and you begin to blur the lines between what is playstyle-defining, and what's extra nonsense thrown into a mix of other random-happenings.

Suggestions for Deadly Arts:  Quick Venoms should be a minor trait, Dagger Training is useful to anyone who uses daggers, so just roll the 5% extra damage into daggers, or remove this entirely.  Combined Training, similarly to Dagger Training, should either be factored into overall damage for all Thieves, or be removed.  Panic Strike should be replaced with a trait that suits the tree, I'm thinking Venomous Aura (Applying poison to your weapon does so for all your nearby allies as well) should be moved here.



Critical Strikes:

• Keen Observer:  While HP = 90%+, 5% increased crit rating
  
• Critical Haste: 10% chance to get quickness (2 seconds) on critical hit (30 second cooldown)
  
• Executioner: +10% damage when enemy has less than 25% HP.
  
• Combo Crit Chance:  +5% dual-skill crit chance
  
• Fast Signets: 20% signet cooldown reduction...
  
• Hidden Killer: 50% crit chance while stealthed
  
• Pistol Mastery: +5% pistol damage

Suggestions for Critical Strikes: I think the grandmastery traits in this tree aren't that bad to be honest - but on the whole, this tree is full of bloated traits.  Let's start with the minor trait Keen Observer.  Even the name doesn't make sense.  It's supposed to imply that you're scoping out combat and will make a hit at a weak-point in the enemy.  Let's do it one better; Your first attack when entering combat is a critical hit.  Put it at the second tier of the critical strike tree, in place of Opportunist (crits = 20% chance to restore 1 init).

Let's face it, the only skill that Thieves have that benefits overly from swiftness is Dagger Storm, which has a long-ass cooldown.  You've already reduced the Critical Haste trait to 10% of our crits, which on a good day means once every 15.6 hits, possibly.  You don't need the internal cooldown here.  Executioner doesn't fit with the critical strikes tree; make it +10-15% crit rate on an enemy with 25% HP instead.  Combo Crit Chance should do this; "When using a dual skill, your crit chance is increased by 10% (doesn't stack with itself) for 3 seconds (no cooldown)".  There, now it's interesting!  Fast Signets gets rolled into signet skills in general because their active effects aren't really that strong.

Hidden Mastery is a bit of an issue; because it doesn't do anything if you are above 50% crit chance naturally - so it's a nerf in a lot of cases.  Well, now I'm making it a grandmaster trait, and its 100% crit while stealthed.  Ankle Shots is now a master tiered trait instead.  Pistol mastery, pistol mastery, pistol mastery - give it to every pistol, or remove it entirely.



Shadow Arts:

• Reviver's Deception***: Grant 2 seconds of stealth to you and your ally when you revive them. (Special Note for this)
  
• Shadow's Embrace: Remove 1 condition for every 3 seconds you're in stealth.
  
• Master of Deception: Deception skills recharge 20% faster.
  
• Power Shots: +5% damage with harpoon and shortbow
  
• Venomous Aura (now missing from this tree due to change to Deadly Arts)

***It's a bit funny that we're choosing a trait which rewards teamwork/support, when that should be inherent in pretty much every playtype (PvE, SPvP and Wuvwuv).  Shouldn't teamwork be rewarded for every player?  We've got downed skills, which vary depending on the profession, and I also think we should have bonuses such as Reviver's Deception, that are based off of every profession.  I know a lot of other professions have a bonus like this, I'm just recommending we make it inherent in the profession instead.

Suggestions for Shadow Arts: Shadow's Embrace won't remove for more than 1 condition for most stealth skills.  I suggest making the first part of this proc immediately after using stealth, that way going into stealth, and waiting the whole 3 seconds - will give you 2 condition removals.  Master of Deception needs to be a minor trait.  Power Shots, give it to everyone - or remove it.  To replace Venomous Aura, I suggest a trait I'll call.. Back Into Shadow: When using a heal skill at 20% HP or less - your character stealths for 3 seconds and shadowsteps backwards about 900. for 3 seconds.  Unlike Hard To Catch, this skill doesn't need to incur a trait-specific cooldown because it's based off of how much HP you have, as well as the cooldown of your heal skill.



Acrobatics:

• Fleet Shadow***: +33% speed in stealth
  
• Master Trapper: Trap cooldowns reduced by 20%
  
• Pain Response: Gain 10s of regeneration and remove bleeding, poison, and burning when struck and health is below 75% (45 second cooldown)
  
• Hard To Catch: Shadow Step away and gain Swiftness (12s) when disabled in combat (60 second cooldown)

***I don't think ANet has done a good job screening their traits and abilities; as a lot of them don't stack properly with each other.  Take Fleet Shadow for instance, which gives +33% movement speed while stealthed.  It doesn't stack with Signet of Shadows (Passive: +25% movement speed) due to the cap for swiftness being 33-35%.  It's gotta go!

Suggestions for Acrobatics:  Master Trapper - why is this in the acrobatics tree?  What is this I don't even...  How about, Puppet-Shadow:  When you evade, you stealth and create a mirror image of yourself (think Mesmer, AND DON'T GET UPSET!) that persists for 2 seconds before disappearing (or being popped by the enemy).  Pain Response and Hard To Catch fall into that same category of overly complex traits with crazy requirements - Pain Response now provides Aegis (block next attack) when you reach 80/50/20% HP (no cooldown).  This will allow thieves to not be so damned squishy, while not having crazy cooldown/criteria requirements.  Hard To Catch, becomes Come Closer: When hit by a ranged attack while out of combat, you shadowstep to the enemy in question.  This is more fitting of an acrobat, as well as a grandmaster trait.



Trickery:

• Kleptomaniac: Stealing gives you 3 initiative (move to major trait)
  
• Flanking Strikes:  +5% damage from behind
  
• Instinctual Response:  Blind enemy and stealth when you take more than 20% HP in one shot (60 second cooldown)
  
• Long Reach: Stealing range goes from 900 -> 1200
  
• Merciful Ambush:  Create an ambush trap when reviving an ally.
  
• Ricochet: 5% bounce chance to pistol shots.
  
• Trickster: 20% cooldown reduction on tricks.
  
• Sleight of Hand: Stealing dazes your target for 1 second.

Suggestions for Trickery: Trickster and Kleptomaniac swap places (klepto is major trait now, trickster is minor).  Flanking Strikes... you stabbed the enemy in their back and only did 5% more damage?  You're a shitty Thief! Flanking Strikes should do something like... "ignore 30% of the enemies toughness" or something.  This is too good for a tier 1 trait though, put it at tier 2 at least.  Long Reach doesn't need to exist, just make Steal (you know.. our only real class mechanic /skill/) have 1200 range by default.

Instinctual Response now resembles too much of my Back Into Shadow trait, now it does this; "Blind the enemy, pop up behind them, and gain Protection for 8 seconds (no cooldown, because losing that much health at one time *ing sucks no matter the traited benefit!).  Merciful Ambush now becomes; Cover Me: "When finishing off an enemy or reviving a teammate, summon a fellow Thief (ala ambush trap but without requiring a trigger).  No more than 1 thief out at a time in this manner."  This is now a grandmaster trait.  Likewise, Sleight of Hand becomes an adept trait - because using a daze once every 45 seconds is straight up crap.  Ricochet having 5% chance to bounce is shitty - make it 25-30% or expect no one to ever get this.  Also, Ricochet is now an adept trait too.


Part 2: Weapons

HOLY CRAP!  Who survived that bitch session huh?  I'm full of complaints and put most of the people on gw2guru to shame right?  Keep reading!  Because I'm not done dissecting this Profession!

Right now Thieves have access to the following weapons:
-Sword (main hand)
-Dagger (both hands)
-Pistol (both hands)
-Shortbow

Wow, being a masterful assassin, or a Thief having to survive on the streets must be tough when you are apparently lacking upper arm strength and possibly the ability to.. I don't know.. ADAPT TO SITUATIONS?  Herdeederrr, I can hold a friggin lop-ended pistol in my other hand, but a sword is just too much?  Okay now I sound like an *, let's move on!

I would like to see the following weapon choices available:
-Sword (both hands)
-Dagger (both hands ((and maybe one in my mouth!?)))
-Pistol (both hands)
-Shortbow
-Longbow
-Torch
-Warhorn

It's really not that much, and I'll explain why!  Swords currently have... 0 combo potential, which is different from every other weapon in the Thief set.  Another sword would give them the option to add this needed utility to an otherwise inconsistent set of sword skills.

Shortbow should REALLY be a longbow, based on its skill set.  It's a pretty pitiful sight when you see a ranger, a warrior and a thief on top of a tower wall trying to pick off people from a range.  Only one of these classes can't hit anyone thats not directly below them - want to take a guess?  ...Exactly.  I would even go so far as to say that if ANet would move all the shortbow skills to a longbow, they could just scrap the shortbow in general.

Torch is pretty simple.  As far as role-play goes, a Thief can use a torch in their offhand to blind enemies in the dark, to create diversions, and of course - to hurt people.

Warhorn; I really just think this would be appropriate as a means for a non-slot skill/trait way of summoning a fellow thieves guild member... that's really my only justification here.

Part 3: Class Mechanics

Part 2 was pretty short, this one might be a bit longer.  Basically, there is a lot of contention about our class mechanics - specifically with Steal.  Is it good? Is it bad?  Could it be better?  Would anything else make it OP?  Who knows!  Here's what I know though:

1. It has the longest cooldown out of any class mechanic
2. It's the only class mechanic that needs to be traited (sometimes heavily) in order to be effective.
3. It has a random outcome (Thief = Gambler class?).
4. It doesn't work with half of the Thief playstyles (shortbow and pistol builds).

Addressing these one by one, and we'll see if we can come up with something more like a class mechanic.

1. We used to have a trait to lower the cooldown on steal, it's gone - and even then it was still 30 seconds on a shadowstep that grabbed a random item.  Steals cooldown needs to be 30 by default, possibly even 25.

2. They have attempted to make Steal "okay" by putting traits all over the page for how to make it better.  This includes; poisoning the enemy, increasing the range, providing AoE buffs to your party, dealing damage, dazing the enemy, stealthing you, and regenerating initiative.  Maybe I missed the memo that said "Thieves aren't supposed to initiate combat (haha initiative...)", but it seems a bit weird to me that we'd be applying poison, dazing the enemy, regenerating initiative at the START OF A FIGHT where it's the least effective.  What I would like to see is that when you use 'Steal' you actually end up BEHIND the enemy (who would pick pockets directly in front of a person?)

3.  A lot of people (myself included) think that a lot of stolen items are pretty good, even though they're random.  A lot of people hate it, because it's never the item they wish they stole.  My idea here is simple; the item you steal from the enemy is something that can directly counter them.  With elementalists maybe its a silence or confusion item, warriors could get knocked on their ass or stunned, necromancers get feared, etc.

4. Steal should have a different effect with ranged weapons in the main hand (not necessarily offhand because dagger/pistol also likes to be close to the enemy).  I'm trying to think of something stealthy/thievey/assassiny about a long ranged variant to Steal... Drawing a blank though (HELP ME OUT HERE PEOPLE!).  The only thing I have is that you throw a Link-style boomerang at the enemy and steal the item from them (a special RANGED item perhaps?)

So in the end we'll have this form of Steal:
-25-30 second cooldown (maybe 20 with full trickery points)
-Steal items are counters to the classes they are stolen from, rather than grabbag items
-Stealing puts you behind the enemy (lines up for trait bonuses, makes more sense overall)
-Long range variant to be determined since ranged Thieves don't want to use steal.  Maybe a loot-a-rang.

BUT WAIT! That's not all!

Shadow-stepping is arguably a Thief only skill.  Additionally, we'll probably never see an actual all-out 'Assassin' character in the game (they rolled it all into Thief).  That makes Thieves the conglomeration of Buccaneers, Thieves, Rogues, and Assassins.  Now it all makes sense right?  The daggers, the stealths, the vanishing powder, backstabbing, wearing an eye-patch, yada yada...  Hey hold on a sec, I can poof into a void of shadows and reappear behind my enemy - but.. only if I don't have to magically do so over a hole?

I argue this almost weekly it seems - Thieves should be able to shadowstep over gaps (including infiltrators arrow).  Steal, Shadowstep, Infiltrators Strike, Infiltrators Arrow, Shadowtrap, Shadow Strike, Ink Shot, Shadowshot and Infiltrator's Signet are all methods that Thieves have for shadow-stepping.  You vanish in a puff of black smoke, and reappear at the target location (for infiltrators arrow its wherever the arrow lands.. supposedly).  Yet it seems that in 95% of the situations where this would be USEFUL - it doesn't work properly.  You fire an arrow over a ledge only to reappear at the same spot on the ledge, or you shadowstep from ledge to rooftop, only to shadowstep to the ground beneath the rooftop (direcltly in front of a wall usually...).

Going slightly off topic for a second here.  It was addressed by ArenaNet in an AMA they did on Reddit, that the Guardians Scepter skills were being re-addressed.  The problem was that it was their only 'ranged' weapon, and that it wouldn't go over gaps.  It turned out that the skills were designed to travel along ground, and not in the air as every other projectile is.  They corrected this, and now Guardians have a long range weapon.  What I'm asking, is for our shadow-step skills to get the same treatment.  We're the projectile, and should not be restricted to land on which to travel.  But that's not all I'd like to see.

Going back to Steal.  You shadow-step to your target when you use it.  The same goes for Shadowshot, Infiltrator's Signet, and Infiltrator's Strike.  Of these skills, all but Infiltrator's Strike has the range required to do something such as.. reaching an enemy that's up a wall.  I argue then, that using these skills should allow you to reach an enemy on a wall, and bring you up to them.  This would give Thieves a definite place in WvW, that currently exists as "not as good as a warrior at melee combat, not as good as a ranger at ranged combat, not really good at anything in wuvwuv in general actually".  That's it, thats our official spot in wuvwuv.  Thief translates to "Bring something else" in wuvwuv.  Being able to attack enemies up a wall is paramount to strategizing anything in wuvwuv aside from "attack the gate en masse until it comes down".  It doesn't guarantee a successful tower siege, it doesn't even guarantee a kill - but it does guarantee that Thieves will have a valuable place in wuvwuv - which arguably has a place for everyone else (AoE'ers, tanks, long-ranged, etc).

Part 4: Stealth/Invisibility

It's long been argued that Thieves are NOT Assassins.  Thieves are NOT Rogues.  Thieves shouldn't get stealth, Thieves shouldn't get permanent stealth, it's impossible to balance, blah blah blah.  However to this, I bring up the argument;  What is a Thief?

Some say that a Thief is a highway-man, a thug, a mercenary, a pickpocket.  They just try to get by, and do so by being unethical/immoral street urchins.  While this is no doubt a big part of being a Thief, it isn't the end-all of the Profession in Guild Wars 2.  Thieves fill a number of roles, largely due to eliminating the need for separate classes somewhere down the line.  We have pistols, because they don't want to make a pirate class.  We have stealth, because they don't want to make an assassin class.  We have shortbows, because they don't want to make a rogue class.  Everything we are, and everything that we can ever be - is in our concept, our design, our potential.

Stealthing is a sensitive subject in every MMO.  How should it be implemented though, always varies.  In WoW we had permanent invisibility - it was on until we were discovered or decided to not be in it anymore.  DAoC had temporary invisibility, 30 seconds or so on a long cooldown.  

My personal favorite stealth though, is the 'Spy', from Team Fortress 2.  You have a certain amount of time to stealth, and when it runs out it has to recharge.  You can use it whenever you want, but you have to be quick about it because it doesn't last long.  I believe that it is within this incarnation of invisibility, that we'll find the desired middle-ground of Guild Wars 2 Thief stealth mechanics.

Mechanic #1 of Thieves, Steal.  Mechanic #2 of Thieves, Initiative.  Mechanic #3 of Thieves, Strategic Invisibility.

*NOTE* This is NOT permanent invisibility.  It is VERY LIMITED in Combat.

It has it's own bar, that has enough time in it to be stealthed for 30 seconds.  It takes 1 minute out of combat to regenerate all 30 seconds.  In combat, it only regenerates at 1 second per 3 seconds of combat (90 seconds to fully recharge).  Additionally, while in combat you can ONLY use Strategic Stealth when it is at a FULL BAR.  If you CHOOSE to use this full bar of stealth in combat, the entire bar will be drained and you will ONLY get 5 seconds worth of stealth (cancelled upon normal circumstances such as choosing to use an attack).

This incarnation of stealth is literally a strategy and survival skill.  You only use it outside of combat when you want to set up an opening/initiate.  You only use it inside of combat when you want that extra backstab/whatever, or want to run away.  It's a get out of jail free card that will require skill to utilize properly, and will not guarantee a victory or a kill.

This is my proposition for stealth, and this entire article is my proposition for re-working Thieves.  I've got similar ideas for most all of the classes I've played, but alas I am not an ArenaNet developer, and I can only pitch ideas.

Let me know what criticisms you have of this, and keep in mind that I would expect the same re-work treatment of every class, especially the culling of shitty traits.

Thank you for reading, if you managed to get this far!  It means a lot to me !

Edited by LoreChief, 13 August 2012 - 07:19 PM.

[Engel Jorgenson]

Wonderful post! Well done and an interesting reading too. I quite like your ideas. Keep the good job!

[Shamadamun]

I think you got alot of solid ideas here, the only problem is we're so close to release I don't see much of this happening. I think every profession could use a tweak here and there, some more than others, but it'll be awhile before we see professions being as close to 'perfect' as they can be.

[LoreChief]

Shamadamun, on 13 August 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

the only problem is we're so close to release I don't see much of this happening. I think every profession could use a tweak here and there, some more than others, but it'll be awhile before we see professions being as close to 'perfect' as they can be.

I agree, that IS the reality we're facing here.  I can dream though !

[Slai]

If Steal isnt valuable for half the builds (ranged), why not just make a stealth mechanic our class skill instead? All builds benefit from that. I l like your stealth suggestion, seems to fit nicely, though even without that change, a normal "go into stealth for X seconds" with Y seconds CD seems far more useful than Steal is, when you consider the fact that ranged builds have 0% use for it.

[Terra]

Minor correction, critical haste offers 2s of quickness not switfness, hence the 30s cd.

[LoreChief]

Terra, on 13 August 2012 - 07:01 PM, said:

Minor correction, critical haste offers 2s of quickness not switfness, hence the 30s cd.

I've corrected that spot, you're right I had the wrong one.  However, my justifications for removing the cooldown were based on quickness not swiftness.  If you only get 2 seconds worth for 1 out of 16 attacks, it still doesn't need a 30 second cooldown.

Slai, on 13 August 2012 - 06:46 PM, said:

If Steal isnt valuable for half the builds (ranged), why not just make a stealth mechanic our class skill instead? All builds benefit from that. I l like your stealth suggestion, seems to fit nicely, though even without that change, a normal "go into stealth for X seconds" with Y seconds CD seems far more useful than Steal is, when you consider the fact that ranged builds have 0% use for it.

I would like to see both personally.  Steal is but one skill, whereas engineers get 4, mesmers get 4, warriors changes depending on the weapon, guardian gets 3, necro gets god mode + 4, etc etc.

[Terra]

LoreChief, on 13 August 2012 - 07:21 PM, said:

I've corrected that spot, you're right I had the wrong one.  However, my justifications for removing the cooldown were based on quickness not swiftness.  If you only get 2 seconds worth for 1 out of 16 attacks, it still doesn't need a 30 second cooldown.

You can hit 16 times in 3s with 3 unloads but lets pick say a sword auto-attack. 16 hits would take around 10s. Lets add 5s because people don;t sit still and let you land every hit plus you won't be only spamming 1. You'd expect critical haste to therefore trigger once every 15-20s. That's potentially 6s quickness every 60s. But the haste utility only offers 4s every 60s with endurance penalties.

I know haste allows you to better time with things like unload and PW but if there was no internal cd something more game breaking would happen. Multi-hitting moves like unload and PW would result in the quickness proc being triggered to often - it's already one of the strongest skills in game. End result, people could potentially get 2 or more hasted PW/ unloads in under 30s.

Whether or not they should include the trait is one thing but removing the 30s cd would overpower it. Remember the frenzy sigil is on a 45s cd too.

[Devire]

In my opinion, I am fine with almost the entire thief profession right now.  Though it may not always be noticeable, I enjoy the extreme amount of viable build combinations with the trait setup.  Sure, I wish some of the crap traits were eliminated, but I can live with it.

I also like steal.  I agree that it is the only class mechanic that is considerably useless if not traited, but I feel it can be the very most useful mechanic of all if traited!  Even if you choose to only spend a single trait on it then it's useful; whether it's a large damage boost through mug or boons to all allies. I also find steal to be great for using it as a "teleport" out of a mob of enemies with my P/P+Shortbow build.

I have not done enough testing with stealth builds to comment on that.

But there's one thing I VERY much agree with you on:

LoreChief, on 13 August 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

Part 2: Weapons

HOLY CRAP!  Who survived that bitch session huh?  I'm full of complaints and put most of the people on gw2guru to shame right?  Keep reading!  Because I'm not done dissecting this Profession!

Right now Thieves have access to the following weapons:
-Sword (main hand)
-Dagger (both hands)
-Pistol (both hands)
-Shortbow

Wow, being a masterful assassin, or a Thief having to survive on the streets must be tough when you are apparently lacking upper arm strength and possibly the ability to.. I don't know.. ADAPT TO SITUATIONS?  Herdeederrr, I can hold a friggin lop-ended pistol in my other hand, but a sword is just too much?  Okay now I sound like an *, let's move on!

I would like to see the following weapon choices available:
-Sword (both hands)
-Dagger (both hands ((and maybe one in my mouth!?)))
-Pistol (both hands)
-Shortbow
-Longbow
-Torch
-Warhorn

It's really not that much, and I'll explain why!  Swords currently have... 0 combo potential, which is different from every other weapon in the Thief set.  Another sword would give them the option to add this needed utility to an otherwise inconsistent set of sword skills.

Shortbow should REALLY be a longbow, based on its skill set.  It's a pretty pitiful sight when you see a ranger, a warrior and a thief on top of a tower wall trying to pick off people from a range.  Only one of these classes can't hit anyone thats not directly below them - want to take a guess?  ...Exactly.  I would even go so far as to say that if ANet would move all the shortbow skills to a longbow, they could just scrap the shortbow in general.

Torch is pretty simple.  As far as role-play goes, a Thief can use a torch in their offhand to blind enemies in the dark, to create diversions, and of course - to hurt people.

Warhorn; I really just think this would be appropriate as a means for a non-slot skill/trait way of summoning a fellow thieves guild member... that's really my only justification here.

Thief weapons are infuriating.  If you include engineer's 7 kits and conjured weapons, we have the very least weapon choices of any class. And even if you don't include those we have as many weapons as an elementalist and just one more than engineer? And you get to switch between weapon sets, WHAT VARIETY! You can use all but one weapon possible on a thief at any given time, that's just absurdity.

Now lets talk about the balance of the weapons:  We have AoE skills, but 2/3 of them are on a single weapon?  There's almost no reason not to be using a shortbow in open world PvE.  On the opposite end, sword is utter trash.  The damage is FAR outclassed, the leaping is easily countered by anyone in PvP and hardly helps in PvE.

LoreChief, on 13 August 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

-Longbow
-Torch
-Warhorn

I don't know if I agree with warhorn (thief doesn't really seem like the rally type of class, especially since it's a stealthy/secretive  based companionship with fellow thieves not a loud one like that of warriors).  However, I have wondered since BWE1 why we don't have longbows or torches.

I love my thief, but I DESPERATELY hoping it gets more weapons .  It's selection is absolutely pitiful.

Edited by Devire, 13 August 2012 - 07:56 PM.

[LoreChief]

Terra, on 13 August 2012 - 07:42 PM, said:

You can hit 16 times in 3s with 3 unloads but lets pick say a sword auto-attack. 16 hits would take around 10s. Lets add 5s because people don;t sit still and let you land every hit plus you won't be only spamming 1. You'd expect critical haste to therefore trigger once every 15-20s. That's potentially 6s quickness every 60s. But the haste utility only offers 4s every 60s with endurance penalties.

I know haste allows you to better time with things like unload and PW but if there was no internal cd something more game breaking would happen. Multi-hitting moves like unload and PW would result in the quickness proc being triggered to often - it's already one of the strongest skills in game. End result, people could potentially get 2 or more hasted PW/ unloads in under 30s.

Whether or not they should include the trait is one thing but removing the 30s cd would overpower it. Remember the frenzy sigil is on a 45s cd too.

I don't think any of the bouncing skills trigger on-hit effects, only the initial hit.  Using all of your initiative on 3 unloads would be unwise, as it's setting yourself up for failure in many cases.  If you've used up all your initiative, you would be wasting a good quickness buff on.. your '1' attack, I guess.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the full unload itself takes about 2-2.5 seconds to unload all the way doesn't it?

Devire, on 13 August 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

In my opinion, I am fine with almost the entire thief profession right now.  Though it may not always be noticeable, I enjoy the extreme amount of viable build combinations with the trait setup.  Sure, I wish some of the crap traits were eliminated, but I can live with it.

I also like steal.  I agree that it is the only class mechanic that is considerably useless if not traited, but I feel it can be the very most useful mechanic of all if traited!  Even if you choose to only spend a single trait on it then it's useful; whether it's a large damage boost through mug or boons to all allies. I also find steal to be great for using it as a "teleport" out of a mob of enemies with my P/P+Shortbow build.

I have not done enough testing with stealth builds to comment on that.

But there's one thing I VERY much agree with you on:

Thief weapons are infuriating.  If you include engineer's 7 kits and conjured weapons, we have the very least weapon choices of any class. And even if you don't include those we have as many weapons as an elementalist and just one more than engineer? And you get to switch between weapon sets, WHAT VARIETY! You can use all but one weapon possible on a thief at any given time, that's just absurdity.

Now lets talk about the balance of the weapons:  We have AoE skills, but 2/3 of them are on a single weapon?  There's almost no reason not to be using a shortbow in open world PvE.  On the opposite end, sword is utter trash.  The damage is FAR outclassed, the leaping is easily countered by anyone in PvP and hardly helps in PvE.


I don't know if I agree with warhorn (thief doesn't really seem like the rally type of class, especially since it's a stealthy/secretive  based companionship with fellow thieves not a loud one like that of warriors.  However, I have wondered since BWE1 why we don't have longbows or torches.

I love my thief, but I DESPERATELY hoping it gets more weapons .  It's selection is absolutely pitiful.

I'm unfamiliar with how you would use steal to get out of a pack of mobs, unless there is another conveniently located single monster on the outside of the pack.  We've packed all the ranged AoE onto shortbow, which doesn't have the range to make effective use of it in the (as you stated non-PVE situations) wuvwuv or SPvP.  Even infiltrator's arrow has such a short reach that the time it takes to set up the target location, skill animation, and actually getting to the other point - more than equates to over half of the distance you're porting in the first place.  AND it costs 5 init!  An extra 300 range and a faster animation would make it much more effective.

[Devire]

LoreChief, on 13 August 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

I'm unfamiliar with how you would use steal to get out of a pack of mobs, unless there is another conveniently located single monster on the outside of the pack.  We've packed all the ranged AoE onto shortbow, which doesn't have the range to make effective use of it in the (as you stated non-PVE situations) wuvwuv or SPvP.  Even infiltrator's arrow has such a short reach that the time it takes to set up the target location, skill animation, and actually getting to the other point - more than equates to over half of the distance you're porting in the first place.  AND it costs 5 init!  An extra 300 range and a faster animation would make it much more effective.

In my experience of situations with large numbers of enemies, there is usually an enemy long range attacker somewhere you can escape using a steal to.  I used it especially in Ascalonian Catacombs to give myself an extra few moments for Initiative regen or for a utility/elite/heal cooldown to end.

On the point of the shortbow; I miscounted, there are 5 mobbing skills (Slots 1/2/4/5 on shortbow and 3 for D/D, slot 5 shortbow is AoE blindness and not damage). And notice anything about those 5 mobbing skills? All but one of them is condition based and the one that is not is the weaker spammable skill. Unless you're condition built, you're missing out on the maximization on the conditions these mobbing skills give, but you're still forced to use them if you want any sort of decent mobbing.  It hurts the balance of the class with itself;  It's not poisons that needs to be nerfed more, it's the weapon sets that need to be better balanced to suit the range of thief builds.  Great, we have a condition based AoE, can we have a control or straight DPS AoE?  How about a close range weapon as strong as Pistol/Pistol?

EDIT: And it doesn't even need to be an "AoE" just something that hits multiple enemies that has more than a 5% chance of happening (Pistol Trait).

Edited by Devire, 13 August 2012 - 08:12 PM.

[ShezuTsukai]

I like all of your points and want to commend you on articulating some really good fixes/direction for the thief, except stealth.

Stealth is the hardest to balance of all the thief abilities. The OP or up potential is huge. But I think Anet has done a good job of allowing multiple play styles/choices with it. ie It's a heal, dagger move, on steal (with trait but your point on this was super), and with combo. No matter your style you can get some use out of stealth as it is.

[The Shadow]

ShezuTsukai, on 13 August 2012 - 08:18 PM, said:

Stealth is the hardest to balance of all the thief abilities. The OP or up potential is huge. But I think Anet has done a good job of allowing multiple play styles/choices with it. ie It's a heal, dagger move, on steal (with trait but your point on this was super), and with combo. No matter your style you can get some use out of stealth as it is.

Stealth is weak. Cause people are narrow-minded and like to whine a lot.

[LoreChief]

ShezuTsukai, on 13 August 2012 - 08:18 PM, said:

I like all of your points and want to commend you on articulating some really good fixes/direction for the thief, except stealth.

Stealth is the hardest to balance of all the thief abilities. The OP or up potential is huge. But I think Anet has done a good job of allowing multiple play styles/choices with it. ie It's a heal, dagger move, on steal (with trait but your point on this was super), and with combo. No matter your style you can get some use out of stealth as it is.

I believe ANet is being overly conservative on their implementation of stealth.  I know they are drawing on the disdain of perma-invisibility that Assassins had in GW1 - but the direction they've taken it is purely short-form.  They've implemented it in such a way that it's practically a gimmick.  Backstab and some of the other invis-based skills are certainly powerful - but they've jumped the shark not only by restricting stealth abilities to 3 or 4 seconds, but they've even added the "Revealed" debuff which takes away any fluid combat provided by stealth in the first place.

The Shadow, on 13 August 2012 - 08:29 PM, said:

Stealth is weak. Cause people are narrow-minded and like to whine a lot.

Unfortunately and fortunately, when people whine a lot - ANet listens.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, even though it's disadvantages us in regards to Stealth.  I agree with Shezu that you need to be careful with implementing stealth, but if they are attempting to build it from the ground up (severely limited stealth), then we just need to do like everyone else, and make our voices heard.

[Slai]

Personally I never saw a huge problem with how stealth itself was implemented with rogues in WoW vanilla. Nor did plenty of wpvpers of any class that I knew.

[Hosp]

This close to release and with the leaked patch notes the thief is looking up.. Personally I feel your changes are little ambitious. I don't think the class is in that shit of state if the leaked notes go through... You bring up a lot of good ideas though.

As for torch/horn I don't think either fit the class at all.. Longbow isn't needed, as shortbow fits better with the theme of thieves being skirmishers (and is actually very good at the moment).

I dunno..

[LoreChief]

Slai, on 13 August 2012 - 09:50 PM, said:

Personally I never saw a huge problem with how stealth itself was implemented with rogues in WoW vanilla. Nor did plenty of wpvpers of any class that I knew.

The problem in WoW was that stealth was permanent.  Players could hang out entire battles in stealth, just waiting for that perfect opening (and otherwise doing nothing but watching their team die if the moment wasn't completely perfect).  This sounds like it was the same issue with Assassins in GW2.  My proposed stealth implementation will give you time to set up that first attack, but not give you all the time you would need to hang out/hide/run away from helping your own team if it was required.

Hosp, on 13 August 2012 - 10:05 PM, said:

This close to release and with the leaked patch notes the thief is looking up.. Personally I feel your changes are little ambitious. I don't think the class is in that shit of state if the leaked notes go through... You bring up a lot of good ideas though.

As for torch/horn I don't think either fit the class at all.. Longbow isn't needed, as shortbow fits better with the theme of thieves being skirmishers (and is actually very good at the moment).

I dunno..

The range on shortbow is just too small.  It offers AoE's, but most of the situations where you want ranged AoE is in wuvwuv - where these barely reach the ground, let alone the collective masses.  As far as torch and horn - it was merely for additional flavor that I'd want them to be implemented.  We just lack a lot of weapon options in the first place, and rather than joke about thieves wielding greatswords or rifles (rifles are still arguable.. but not that much) - it was easier to select two weapons that were a higher possibility.

[Slai]

LoreChief; the suggestion with the TF2 method is something I personally really like, as it gives it a tactical edge without being fairly useless as an ability in its own right.

The problem of people hanging around in permastealth wasnt a real problem in wpvp, as it was wpvp and what you did/didnt do was completely up to you anyways and didnt affect anyone else, but in organized pvp it could be a problem I guess.

As it is right now, it "feels" like its... well... fairly useless. It certainly doesnt feel like stealth :| .

As I said; I never saw a big problem with permastealth as it was in vanilla. VERY slow movement as the tradeoff for protection and surprise. Dont participate and you dont get rewards seems fair enough to me, its just a matter of punishing inactivity by rewarding activity, Id guess?

Edited by Slai, 13 August 2012 - 10:25 PM.

[The Shadow]

I just think stealth needs to last longer, around 7 seconds, not 3. I don't want to sit there forever waiting for an opening, I just want a little head-start when running away, or a little more time to position a back-stab, instead of rushing and making mistakes

Would 5-10 second stealth honestly be game-breaking? No of course not, but little kids would cry about how op it is when of course it really wouldn't be at all.

People have complained about Thief being UP since BWE1 and all Anet has done is nerf it with relentless passion. I highly doubt the leaked patch notes will make it to release, and even if they do, they are only a small stepping stone in the right direction, the Thief does need more than that though. Pff, Anet selectively listen to the people who wine alot as opposed to the ones who actually make sense and contribute logic.

At the end of the day, it's all about catering to the majority. Sadly the majority are a bunch of un-educated, whiny brats. I may come across as being somewhat biased, I'm just not particularly impressed with the sad state of affairs so close to release. Not because of the game, just because of balance issues which are particularly bad for both the Thief and Necro, but ah well

[Resolve]

Interesting, you clearly put some thought into that. I really disagree that the Thief needs reworking but some of your suggestion would be great especially with the traits where as you pointed out, some are utterly useless.

A lot of your points are concerning "Ranged" Thieves and how steal doesn't work with them. This is mentioned a lot and isn't really true imo. A ranged Thief would be using Shortbow, Pistol/Pistol and/or Pistol/Dagger yes? if you look at these weapon sets you can see they aren't purely ranged abilities and have probably had Steal usage taken into account when they were designed.

Pistol/Dagger - 3. stabs the enemy and then teleports you away. 5. Stabs and stealths you
Shortbow -  3. Rolls you backwards and cripples. 5. Shadowsteps you anywhere. This also blinds nearby foes so it can be assumed it's meant to be used to put you in melee situations like Steal does despite being a ranged weapon.
Pistol/Pistol - 5. A close range aoe blind.

P/P's synergy with Steal is the weakest but it's still there. And you have two weapon sets so there will always be a way to make Steal work. SB is perfect for it though. Complaining about Steal on a ranged build just feels like a really weak excuse for not using our skill set to its best potential. I get that it has problems but not being viable for ranged isn't one of them.

Weapon sets - Don't add dual swords, that's silly. Longbow would be nice, Guardian got the scepter changed so there's hope here. Add another dual weapon, maybe more support focused? I'm just not sure if Torch and Warhorn really fit with the class. Either Torch or something new I guess.

LoreChief, on 13 August 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

Steal

1. It has the longest cooldown out of any class mechanic
2. It's the only class mechanic that needs to be traited (sometimes heavily) in order to be effective.
3. It has a random outcome (Thief = Gambler class?).
4. It doesn't work with half of the Thief playstyles (shortbow and pistol builds).

1. Yeah this would be a good change
2. It's effective without traits. The traits just improve it, just like traits from other classes improve their mechanic.
3. F1 = Offensive Item F2 = Defensive item. Or just make it one item per class, picking the best one currently available and buffing where it's needed.
4. As explained above, this isn't really true.

LoreChief, on 13 August 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

Longer stealth time

I prefer stealth to have a shorter duration. Stealth is almost always a problem in games and it usually ends with the class getting nerfed heavily because of it. It's not that fun to fight against either

[Unkownvariable]

Traits have been improving, which is nice. However, the lack of weapons to choose from as a thief is the most depressing feeling ever. Which is also probably why arenaNet cannot perfect the traits. They have to cater to a few builds, yes, but this means they are constantly making sure these few builds stay with in reason, and then throw in some filler traits that make 0 sense. If we had a few extra weapons, one even........ We would have a much healthier trait selection. One or two more weapons would be a huge help in completing the thief. However, I doubt we will see this until an expansion of some sort =/

[ShezuTsukai]

I don't have the means to get a video of it but I picture GW2 stealth/shadow step fighting of the thief like Nightcrawler in "XMEN 2: XMEN United". If you haven't seen the movie I strongly recommend it.

Any way in the opening sequence Nightcrawler is infiltrating the White House to assassinate the President. He defeats all of the Secret Service by shadow stepping and attacking from stealth over and over. His use of these two skills produces a masterful 1v∞ victory.

This is why I play a S/D thief, tons of movement and multiple stealths with init management.

The changes in the leaked update will benefit this style of play and weapon set a great deal. But the OP's re-treatment of the class as a whole would benefit it even more. I hope Anet takes at least a few of your suggestions.

[Tyridius]

I kinda like the way stealth works now, maybe if it lasted a default 5-6 seconds I'd be happier with it. Other than that, I like all your other ideas and thank you for taking the time and posting this! I'll contribute later when I got more time~

[Swickster]

Sorry bro, but half the ideas you suggested actually make the thief worse then they are now, and the other half make him beyond overpowered. Its also filled fill a ton of constant inconsistencies. For example when discussing the traits you say "Okay, here's the first thing; a lot of traits would be better suited to minor trait positions, rather than major.  Likewise, a lot of minor traits would be better as majors - as they help nail-down a specific type of build; such as Serpent's Touch (10 seconds of poison for target you steal from).  Why would a ranged thief go into Deadly Arts when the second bonus they're going to get applies to thieves who steal - ranged doesn't want to steal, it puts them right next to the enemy!  However, for a melee thief that wants to steal, this is perfect."
But later on you suggest that we place Quick venoms in the minor trait slot when not everyone runs venoms... Yet every thief, ranged and melee alike, has a constant access to steal whether they choose to use it or not. Same with trickster and Kleptomaniac. An example of you making some traits overpowered would be your idea to remove the eternal cooldown on Critical Haste, sure its only 10%, but with no CD i'd stack my crit up to 90%, and spam multi hit attacks as often as i could to maintain perma Quickness. It needs the CD period.

For your point on weapons, i understand where your comming from and i wouldn't be against a few extra weapon sets, but we do have access to 21 different weapon combinations which isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

I'm not gonna get into a huge argument about steal, but reducing its CD by that much would make it OP. At the very most steal cannot get below 30 seconds without being a bit much (counting the 30% reduction from Trickery) I'll leave it at that cause im tired of arguing about steal.

I kinda like stealth in its current state, but this is just my opinion on the matter. I think its great for setting up a spike, letting your initiative tick up a notch or two, or just popping in and out of it for a couple good sneak attacks. I don't think we need to walk around with stealth to give it a stealthy feel. Also 1 minute of stealth could be abused in PvE to commune with skill point locales, skip every non boss mob in a Dungeon, ect ect.

[Sol1]

Some great suggestions in there and some that I also dont agree with; mainly the ones where you want them all incorported into the class.  This create homogenized builds that really dont offer variety or make other builds OP as you get your cake and eat it too.

I do however agree 100% that 'increases damage by X%' are just unimginative traits.  Mists of Pandaria have really come through with the goods imo for talent selection as every choice is meaningful and creates variety.  No I won't be playing it but I definitely like the direction they are heading and think it's currently the best critical choice system there is.  I would love GW2 to take a leaf out of their book in that aspect alone.

I presonally like the current stealth system as I too believe that anything longer becomes very hard to balance.  I would just like a few more weapons to have skills that grant stealth.

All in all good read and hopefully there are some items the devs can think on in there.

[Neb]

Rifle seems like it'd make more sense than a longbow.

Would like to see dual swords, it seems silly that it isn't an option.

Edited by Neb, 14 August 2012 - 02:36 AM.

[LoreChief]

ShezuTsukai, on 14 August 2012 - 12:37 AM, said:

I don't have the means to get a video of it but I picture GW2 stealth/shadow step fighting of the thief like Nightcrawler in "XMEN 2: XMEN United". If you haven't seen the movie I strongly recommend it.

Any way in the opening sequence Nightcrawler is infiltrating the White House to assassinate the President. He defeats all of the Secret Service by shadow stepping and attacking from stealth over and over. His use of these two skills produces a masterful 1v∞ victory.

This is why I play a S/D thief, tons of movement and multiple stealths with init management.

The changes in the leaked update will benefit this style of play and weapon set a great deal. But the OP's re-treatment of the class as a whole would benefit it even more. I hope Anet takes at least a few of your suggestions.

I have seen that X-Men movie, and it is a very nice fighting style (which his father Azazel incorporates slightly in the First Class movie as well).  My biggest issue with swords aside from being unable to DW them, is that they have 0 combo abilities :\  Kind of goes against the rest of the profession.

Swickster, on 14 August 2012 - 01:05 AM, said:

Sorry bro, but half the ideas you suggested actually make the thief worse then they are now, and the other half make him beyond overpowered. Its also filled fill a ton of constant inconsistencies. For example when discussing the traits you say "Okay, here's the first thing; a lot of traits would be better suited to minor trait positions, rather than major.  Likewise, a lot of minor traits would be better as majors - as they help nail-down a specific type of build; such as Serpent's Touch (10 seconds of poison for target you steal from).  Why would a ranged thief go into Deadly Arts when the second bonus they're going to get applies to thieves who steal - ranged doesn't want to steal, it puts them right next to the enemy!  However, for a melee thief that wants to steal, this is perfect."
But later on you suggest that we place Quick venoms in the minor trait slot when not everyone runs venoms... Yet every thief, ranged and melee alike, has a constant access to steal whether they choose to use it or not. Same with trickster and Kleptomaniac. An example of you making some traits overpowered would be your idea to remove the eternal cooldown on Critical Haste, sure its only 10%, but with no CD i'd stack my crit up to 90%, and spam multi hit attacks as often as i could to maintain perma Quickness. It needs the CD period.

For your point on weapons, i understand where your comming from and i wouldn't be against a few extra weapon sets, but we do have access to 21 different weapon combinations which isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

I'm not gonna get into a huge argument about steal, but reducing its CD by that much would make it OP. At the very most steal cannot get below 30 seconds without being a bit much (counting the 30% reduction from Trickery) I'll leave it at that cause im tired of arguing about steal.

I kinda like stealth in its current state, but this is just my opinion on the matter. I think its great for setting up a spike, letting your initiative tick up a notch or two, or just popping in and out of it for a couple good sneak attacks. I don't think we need to walk around with stealth to give it a stealthy feel. Also 1 minute of stealth could be abused in PvE to commune with skill point locales, skip every non boss mob in a Dungeon, ect ect.

Actually, the Warrior has access to 21 different weapon combinations.  We have access to.. 9 (http://wiki.guildwar...om/wiki/Weapons).  I'm of the mindset to disagree with you on what you've stated about the inconsistencies of my trait alterations.  But you are correct, neither the Steal trait nor the CDR trait make sense in the tree as it would then not fit with any possible build accessing that tree.  My reasoning behind the swap though, if you were interested - is due to the inherent 'theme' of the various trait trees.  Not every Thief goes with poison, but that is arguably what the Deadly Arts tree is for (well, 1/3rd of the traits directly apply to poisons).

In regards to the Critical Haste - you could have 100% crit rate (which I believe is still an impossibility, especiailly in SPvP) - and you would still only get 2 seconds of quickness on 1/10 of your attacks.  Like someone else mentioned, that could be triggered frequently with a skill like Unload - but then if you waste all your init on Unload, you wouldn't be making much use of quickness afterwards in the first place.  That's my reason for saying there should be no CD associated with it.

Your last point might have been a misunderstanding.  I've never stated that stealth should last for a minute (that's the recharge time I'm proposing for recharging stealth after it's been drained).  The total time I've proposed is 30 seconds (while out of combat, in combat it's only 5 and incredibly limited on use).  The current implementation of Stealth has tied our tubes off at the nuts (which is what I now associate our Thief emblem with!).  Our stealth has no balls - not because of the short duration or lack of middle-length alternatives, but because of the "Revealed" debuff.  It's an awful idea in my humble opinion, and doesn't have a place in a skill set where stealth itself only lasts between 2-4 seconds.

Sol1, on 14 August 2012 - 01:57 AM, said:

Some great suggestions in there and some that I also dont agree with; mainly the ones where you want them all incorported into the class.  This create homogenized builds that really dont offer variety or make other builds OP as you get your cake and eat it too.

I do however agree 100% that 'increases damage by X%' are just unimginative traits.  Mists of Pandaria have really come through with the goods imo for talent selection as every choice is meaningful and creates variety.  No I won't be playing it but I definitely like the direction they are heading and think it's currently the best critical choice system there is.  I would love GW2 to take a leaf out of their book in that aspect alone.

I presonally like the current stealth system as I too believe that anything longer becomes very hard to balance.  I would just like a few more weapons to have skills that grant stealth.

All in all good read and hopefully there are some items the devs can think on in there.

The biggest bane of my existence in the talent trees, are the worthless talents, and the talents that you HAVE to take.  You can't be a Flamethrower Engineer and NOT grab the +15% FT damage or +20% FT CDR traits.  They are a must.  That's not what traits are supposed to be about - it's supposed to be about variety (and as a result; FUN).  The point you're making on MoP I believe is exactly what Blizzard was doing around the time Cata launched.  They went on an Inquisition of sorts to remove the 'necessary' traits, as well as the 'doesn't add any value to the character' traits.  I agree, ANet could learn a thing or two about this; not because it's something Blizzard did, but because it's the ONLY THING Blizzard ever really did to make the game more 'FUN' to its players.  Before anyone decides to flame me for this commment - I played WoW for 4 years, I know what the Hell I'm talking about.

Neb, on 14 August 2012 - 02:35 AM, said:

Rifle seems like it'd make more sense than a longbow.

Would like to see dual swords, it seems silly that it isn't an option.

I personally wouldn't care if they chose Rifle over Longbow - but the fact that we don't have a long range option is what kills me.  Something's gotta give, and by give I mean 1200+ range - for Christmas.

[Sol1]

LoreChief, on 14 August 2012 - 04:58 AM, said:

The biggest bane of my existence in the talent trees, are the worthless talents, and the talents that you HAVE to take.  You can't be a Flamethrower Engineer and NOT grab the +15% FT damage or +20% FT CDR traits.  They are a must.  That's not what traits are supposed to be about - it's supposed to be about variety (and as a result; FUN).  The point you're making on MoP I believe is exactly what Blizzard was doing around the time Cata launched.  They went on an Inquisition of sorts to remove the 'necessary' traits, as well as the 'doesn't add any value to the character' traits.  I agree, ANet could learn a thing or two about this; not because it's something Blizzard did, but because it's the ONLY THING Blizzard ever really did to make the game more 'FUN' to its players.  Before anyone decides to flame me for this commment - I played WoW for 4 years, I know what the Hell I'm talking about.

The problem with incorporating the +20% damage to FT traits into the kit itself means that anyone, regardless of speciality can pick up the flame thrower and do excllent damage with it.  Unfortunately with the addition of so many weapons and kits, you need to be able to choke damage off somehow and make it only viable for certain builds, otherwise OP specs start popping up because people no longer need to actually take any specific traits to get excellent damage of of a random weapon they have picked up.

WoW has no need of this, because skills remain the same, regardless of weapon choice.  As such, I think it's almost impossible for them to remove certain damage increasing tratis in this game as people will just have the best of everything, without needing to specialise.  WoW is not a great example to use and I actually regret it because GW2 offers a completely different level of customisatoin through weapon choice that is actually designed to work extremely well with X% damage increasing talents.  It provides specalist roles and restricts people from getting the same damage potential, no matter what build.

Those 'must haves' as you have put it are not acutally required imo.  Weapons hit like a truck with the right amulet/rune set up.  The added +x% damage traits are designed for those that want to specifically specialise in that weapon for the most damage possible.

Personally, I generally do not take them unless I'm going for a full glass build.  I acutally like the choice I need to make between extra damage vs utility.

That said, they are terribly unimaginative traits but I jsut see them as a necessary evil in this game when everything is taken into consideration.

Edited by Sol1, 14 August 2012 - 05:32 AM.

[Swickster]

LoreChief, on 14 August 2012 - 04:58 AM, said:

Actually, the Warrior has access to 21 different weapon combinations.  We have access to.. 9 (http://wiki.guildwar...om/wiki/Weapons).  I'm of the mindset to disagree with you on what you've stated about the inconsistencies of my trait alterations.  But you are correct, neither the Steal trait nor the CDR trait make sense in the tree as it would then not fit with any possible build accessing that tree.  My reasoning behind the swap though, if you were interested - is due to the inherent 'theme' of the various trait trees.  Not every Thief goes with poison, but that is arguably what the Deadly Arts tree is for (well, 1/3rd of the traits directly apply to poisons).

In regards to the Critical Haste - you could have 100% crit rate (which I believe is still an impossibility, especiailly in SPvP) - and you would still only get 2 seconds of quickness on 1/10 of your attacks.  Like someone else mentioned, that could be triggered frequently with a skill like Unload - but then if you waste all your init on Unload, you wouldn't be making much use of quickness afterwards in the first place.  That's my reason for saying there should be no CD associated with it.

Your last point might have been a misunderstanding.  I've never stated that stealth should last for a minute (that's the recharge time I'm proposing for recharging stealth after it's been drained).  The total time I've proposed is 30 seconds (while out of combat, in combat it's only 5 and incredibly limited on use).  The current implementation of Stealth has tied our tubes off at the nuts (which is what I now associate our Thief emblem with!).  Our stealth has no balls - not because of the short duration or lack of middle-length alternatives, but because of the "Revealed" debuff.  It's an awful idea in my humble opinion, and doesn't have a place in a skill set where stealth itself only lasts between 2-4 seconds.

Weapon Combos meaning 2 sets
S/P-S/D S/P-P/D S/P-D/P S/P-P/P S/P-D/D S/P-Shortbow
S/D-P/D S/D-D/P S/D-P/P S/D-D/D   S/D-Shortbow
P/D-D/P P/D-P/P P/D-D/D P/D-Shotbow
D/P-P/P D/P-D/D D/P-Shortbow
P/P-D/D P/P-Shortbow
D/D-Shortbow

21 set's I don't even wanna think about how many possibilities the warrior has. lmao

I understand you were going for the "theme" of the tree, but that's only one reason people go into that tree for. I personally always grab mug regardless of my build. At least then the poison does something for me, the venom would not. Also some people just go down the trait line for the base stat. Also the trickery trait line is more or less based on Steal more so then "tricks" ironicly enough. No saying all your suggestions were bad, i personally hate the passive x% damage for x build. They're just fillers and are annoying. But giving them to us passively is a bad idea, cause we'd get the added benefit, then we'd also get traits to replace those which would almost be like giving us double the amount of traits in a round-a-bout kinda way. Also pain response may be bad, but it's the only traited condition removal we have, don't steal that from me.

100% crit rate isn't impossible if you include fury and sigils but you would be extremely squishy, but thats neither here nor there. If you had 100% crit, and activated your haste the following would happen.
Lose 5 initiative- Fire 8 shots, 20% chance to gain 1 initiative per crit so one. So 4 initiative for 8 shots @ 100% crit. You have 15 initiative not counting the regen we'll round to 16 for a nice even number.

So ~4 unloads till your out of initiative (4x4=16) 4x8=32 shots so about 3 triggers of 2 seconds of quickness, as your initial haste would have lasted for the 1st 4 unloads. You now have 6 additional seconds of quickness, no other class can get quickness for that long (except mesmer elite) This of course doesn't count +Buff duration or Initiative regen's apart from the base. (You could Roll for initiative, and use 4 signets and a heal for 18 additional initiative, which would give you even more quickness) It's just to much bro. Should the CD be reduced to 10 seconds, maybe. 15? that'd be fair. But no CD would be waaay to crazy.

Yes it was a misunderstanding, but the same thing applies 30 seconds is a long time and would cause huge problems in PvE and Anet is open to seperate PvP and PvE buffs, so you might have a chance, but i just don't see it happening. Your WvWvW idea would also make thieves extremely powerful as no1 would be able to attack you from the walls with just a few thieves. Scorpion Wire is reason enough to bring a thief.

Edited by Swickster, 14 August 2012 - 06:04 AM.

[LoreChief]

Sol1, on 14 August 2012 - 05:24 AM, said:

The problem with incorporating the +20% damage to FT traits into the kit itself means that anyone, regardless of speciality can pick up the flame thrower and do excllent damage with it.  Unfortunately with the addition of so many weapons and kits, you need to be able to choke damage off somehow and make it only viable for certain builds, otherwise OP specs start popping up because people no longer need to actually take any specific traits to get excellent damage of of a random weapon they have picked up.

WoW has no need of this, because skills remain the same, regardless of weapon choice.  As such, I think it's almost impossible for them to remove certain damage increasing tratis in this game as people will just have the best of everything, without needing to specialise.  WoW is not a great example to use and I actually regret it because GW2 offers a completely different level of customisatoin through weapon choice that is actually designed to work extremely well with X% damage increasing talents.  It provides specalist roles and restricts people from getting the same damage potential, no matter what build.

Those 'must haves' as you have put it are not acutally required imo.  Weapons hit like a truck with the right amulet/rune set up.  The added +x% damage traits are designed for those that want to specifically specialise in that weapon for the most damage possible.

Personally, I generally do not take them unless I'm going for a full glass build.  I acutally like the choice I need to make between extra damage vs utility.

That said, they are terribly unimaginative traits but I jsut see them as a necessary evil in this game when everything is taken into consideration.

Here's the thing, it's kind of the point of what I'm saying about traits in the first place.  Going back to referencing FT - if you go Flamethrower, and don't get the 20% cool down reduction, or the 15% increased damage - you haven't actually specialized in FT - you're just a random person wearing the less powerful version of flamethrower.  Either the FT functions properly without those traits or it doesn't - and if it doesn't the traits need to be incorporated into it.  If it does, then great! Those traits don't need to exist.  But you're saying that if they don't exist, then anyone wielding a flamethrower is the same, and that's OP... What I'm suggesting (not that I did a review of Engi traits in this thread) is that traits like 20% CDR and +% dmg either be fully incorporated OR removed, and are instead replaced with actual OPTIONS.  Make the player choose between one thing or the other, maybe between a trait like Juggarnaut (+200 toughness and stability -50% movement speed while wielding FT) or Pyromaniac: "Enemies on fire catch their nearby allies on fire as well."  Now you get to choose how you specialize into a weapon kit, instead of going to for the "I'll be gimped without these" traits.

There are no necessary evils in a game like GW2 - we have very creative people with amazing ideas cranking out all sorts of non-evils, and certainly if they put as much thought into the skill trees with a mindset on creating a variety of fun/articulate builds, they could.  Hell they're halfway there, I'm just pointing out here that "HEY LOOK! There's still shitty traits that should go away!".

Swickster, on 14 August 2012 - 05:33 AM, said:

Weapon Combos meaning 2 sets
S/P-S/D S/P-P/D S/P-D/P S/P-P/P S/P-D/D S/P-Shortbow
S/D-P/D S/D-D/P S/D-P/P S/D-D/D   S/D-Shortbow
P/D-D/P P/D-P/P P/D-D/D P/D-Shotbow
D/P-P/P D/P-D/D D/P-Shortbow
P/P-D/D P/P-Shortbow
D/D-Shortbow

21 set's I don't even wanna think about how many possibilities the warrior has. lmao

I understand you were going for the "theme" of the tree, but that's only one reason people go into that tree for. I personally always grab mug regardless of my build. At least then the poison does something for me, the venom would not. Also some people just go down the trait line for the base stat. Also the trickery trait line is more or less based on Steal more so then "tricks" ironicly enough. No saying all your suggestions were bad, i personally hate the passive x% damage for x build. They're just fillers and are annoying. But giving them to us passively is a bad idea, cause we'd get the added benefit, then we'd also get traits to replace those which would almost be like giving us double the amount of traits in a round-a-bout kinda way. Also pain response may be bad, but it's the only traited condition removal we have, don't steal that from me.

100% crit rate isn't impossible if you include fury and sigils but you would be extremely squishy, but thats neither here nor there. If you had 100% crit, and activated your haste the following would happen.
Lose 5 initiative- Fire 8 shots, 20% chance to gain 1 initiative per crit so one. So 4 initiative for 8 shots @ 100% crit. You have 15 initiative not counting the regen we'll round to 16 for a nice even number.

So ~4 unloads till your out of initiative (4x4=16) 4x8=32 shots so about 3 triggers of 2 seconds of quickness, as your initial haste would have lasted for the 1st 4 unloads. You now have 6 additional seconds of quickness, no other class can get quickness for that long (except mesmer elite) This of course doesn't count +Buff duration or Initiative regen's apart from the base. (You could Roll for initiative, and use 4 signets and a heal for 18 additional initiative, which would give you even more quickness) It's just to much bro. Should the CD be reduced to 10 seconds, maybe. 15? that'd be fair. But no CD would be waaay to crazy.

Yes it was a misunderstanding, but the same thing applies 30 seconds is a long time and would cause huge problems in PvE and Anet is open to seperate PvP and PvE buffs, so you might have a chance, but i just don't see it happening. Your WvWvW idea would also make thieves extremely powerful as no1 would be able to attack you from the walls with just a few thieves. Scorpion Wire is reason enough to bring a thief.

100% crit rate from what I've seen isn't possible.  On my Thief, with all the crit rate traits, and all the "Eagle" sigils on my gear, and all the crit rate weapon sigils AND Fury buff, I capped out at 64%.  On top of that you're referencing the Opportunist trait which has a 1 second internal cooldown (I never said that cooldown wasn't a good idea) - so even using unload you would only be able to get back 1 init.  That being said I sort of see your point on it - though I'd rather see how it functions without the internal CD before adding one back - even then maybe 5 seconds would be enough to stop people from going on killing sprees with it if that was the result.

As I was saying to Sol1 - I hate the +% dmg traits, and they EITHER need to be incorporated into the weapons themselves, or be removed - ALL of them.  If they are too OP WITH the traits, then get rid of them.  Some classes have such high %'s that they're a requirement ((such as +15% flame thrower damage or +10% Greatsword damage (AND it gives +20% CD Redux on greatsword skills too?  Yeah, they MADE it a requirement))).