Thief Elite Spec Suggestion - Guildlord

I was playing around on my thief and was thinking. Almost all of the professions have a dps or support based build except thieves. While I'm aware that boon or venomshare thieves are a thing, even in raids, thieves cannot truly compete with the levels of support other professions can provide. A thought that occurred to me was "Thieves Guild". It's a decent skill, gives thieves the support they need in a pinch, but it's just one elite skill--the rest of the time a thief, daredevil, or Dead Eye run solo. So what if a thief could sacrifice his personal initiative (DPS) to help allies? (Some Am Fah/Jade Brotherhood influences)

Guild Lord - F3-F5 summons a Guild Mate who costs some Initiative and locks it out (IE. that initiative used for the Guild Mate cannot be used until Guild Mate is dismissed/defeated), but stays until defeated. Guild Mates are first downed, then defeated. If defeated, restores Initiative spent. If dismissed, does not restore Initiative. Pulses boons in 360 Unit range for up to 5 allies (Guild Mates are not counted towards this limit).

F3 - 2 Initiative. Summons Healer. Pulses 1 second Regeneration every 1 second. Provides extra 84 Health/Second for Guild Mates & Guild Lord permanently. 12 Second Cooldown if Defeated.

• Idea behind this is an ongoing heal. Having the extra minion running around already takes a bit of heat away from the thief, and 2 Initiative isn't going to be widely missed. The additional healing helps top up what the regeneration doesn't, with its effectiveness increasing with great boon duration. The drawback is obviously less damage due to Initiative.

F4 - 3 Initiative. Summons Fighter. Pulses 2 second of 5 Might every 1 second. Provides 0.5 seconds Fury for Guilds Mates & Guild Lord every 1 second. 20 Second Cooldown if Defeated.

• Idea behind this is increasing strength. Again, weight of numbers is key for defense, but provides ongoing boons and damage for the thief to try and recoup. The semi-perma-fury is intended as the tradeoff so less Precision is needed for nearly 100% critical hits (dependent on boon duration). Less initiative but every hit you land is stronger. The 2 seconds of Might is intended so you're always starting up with 10 might in a fight (after a couple seconds)--because you have only 1/4th of your normal Initiative, you have to rely on power/crits to make up the deficit.

F5 - 3 Initiative. Summons Assassin. Pulses 1 second Vigor every 1 second. Provides 0.5 seconds Quickness for Guild Mates & Guild Lord. every 1 second. 30 Second Cooldown if Defeated.

• This one I hummed and hawed about. Dodging has always been a Thief special for defense. It's integrated into various traits, skills, and an entire Elite Spec is based around it. This Guild Mate doesn't provide much to the rest of the Guild, but helps out with the Thief and player allies. The secondary effect is the bread and butter. Thieves' autoattacks are pretty decent, and quickness helps us shore up when we run low on Initiative. So, pulsing 0.5 seconds of initiative every 1 second lets us keep a decent amount of damage up while having less Initiative. If you go for boon duration, you're sacrificing Power/Prec/Fero, which is the tradeoff for perma-quickness.

The skills of the Guild Lord would be Shouts. These affect a decent number of allies, are quick to pop off, and are pretty good for support from other classes.Heal Skill - Rallies all Guild Mates currently active. Restores 2500 Health.

• Since Guild Mates are first downed, this heal skills trades personal healing for supporting your guild (and your allies by the boons the guild provides). By keeping your Guild Mates in the fight longer, you're providing better boon support for your party as well as personally keeping yourself safe by having minions keeping the enemies distracted.

(Edited)Utility 1 - 1/2 Second Cast Time, 30 Second Recharge. For 15 Seconds, regain 84 hp per hit by Guild MatesUtility 2 - 1/4 Second Cast Time, 45 Seconds Recharge. Gain Protection 12 Seconds.Utility 3 - 1/4 Second Cast Time, 3 Charges, 5 second Charge Recharge Time, 30 Second Full Recharge. Damage Enemies & Gain Might and Swiftness.

Elite - "For the Undercity" - 3/4 Second Cast Time, 90 Second Recharge. For 15 Seconds, unlock & regain all Initiative & all skills cost only 1 Initiative.

• This skill is your burst, allowing thieves to suddenly burst out an obscene amount of personal damage. There's no tradeoff beyond it costs an Elite Skill slot, and it's designed so that a Thief goes from sacrificing personal DPS to suddenly being a whirlwind of activity. While it might not seem like a lot, suddenly being able to trounce out 12 Heartseekers in a row would be an insane burst.

Traits - Undetermined; figured some that allows the 2nd effect of each Guild Mate to apply to allies (up to 5), reducing the Initiative Cost of each guild mate, increasing the Guild Mates personal DPS/survivability, or increasing boons/boon duration.

Just thoughts as I was driving home from work. Any ideas on Traits or reworking what's mentioned above?

A functional thief support spec (DE with ally fury/might doesn't count, never seen it used and it's awful) would be amazing. I've been trying to make a support thief for a while (helped some by shadow arts changes, but eh).

I like this idea, but it would have to accompany reworks to Rev's Kalla. Else this is just Kalla but with boons (aka Kalla but better).

Add some damage mitigation per guild member out to traits and we might actually get a thief build that can teamfight effectively at some point, which would also be nice.

Lastly, I like how the benefits aren't just 'there' - there's counterplay (probs most prominently in the form of mass AoE)

Kalla's summoned spirits are untargetable as well as a time-based summon on a CD/energy cost. The idea of these Guild Mates would be that they can be targeted--think a cross between a minion and a pet. Minion in that it's summoned when killed, pet in that it can be rallied and provides buffs to "master", and both in that it has its own skill bar and actions.

Counterplay would indeed be mass AoE; I thought pets/minions got a damage reduction in an earlier patch? Was trying to factor that in so that these wouldn't be OP. The whole idea of it is taking away the "personal initiative" of the thief to trade out for helping the group at large.

Glad you're intrigued by the idea! If we do end up in Cantha with more Elite Specs I'd hope it'd be something like this for the Thief. Would give that whole "Factions" vibe if every profession gained a quasi-MM feel because then we're not just fighting alone anymore. And they'd be able to really ramp up the difficulty of zones by swarming it with enemies (pocket raptors?) so that either you need to be tanky, dpsy, or have a gang of your own backing you up.