Unkittening the Thief

[Kageseigi.2150]

It's common knowledge that virtually every Thief requires the Shortbow to remain viable in PvP due to one single skill: Shortbow 5 (Infiltrator's Arrow).As such, the Thief as a whole seems to be balanced around the mobility of this single skill (which is only accessible by taking the Shortbow as one of the two weapon sets).So any Thief that opts out of taking the Shortbow is severely handicapped in performing what "roles" it has been assigned in PvP.In order to allow greater freedom in viable Thief build diversity, I would suggest the following changes...

• Move Shortbow's mobility to the Thief's baseline capability.

• Replace Infiltrator's Arrow with a new non-mobility skill.

For the first change, it's a simple matter of how. For the second, it's a question of what the replacement should be.

---

1. Baselining Mobility

I believe it's important to mimic the mechanics of Infiltrator's Arrow so Thief players will maintain the sense of familiarity, so everything should function nearly identically.

• The new skill will be a simple F3 function that is available to all Thieves. It will cost 6 initiative to activate, and will have no cooldown.Aesthetically, instead of shooting an arrow, a Thief will simply cast a shadow projectile from its hand.

Optional Changes:

• The first possible change would be to simply drop the Blind portion of Infiltrator's Arrow. The whole concept is about mobility, and the Shortbow's replacement skill can retain the Blind if decided to do so.

• The second possible change is more about the "channel/delay" of the skill. If baselining the skill is found to need more "counterplay," the skill could gain a universal channel time (approximately 1/2 second from beginning of cast to teleport regardless of distance), allowing the Thief's teleport to be interrupted.

---

2. Replacing Shortbow 5

Infiltrator's Arrow is the Shortbow's saving grace. Its replacement must be strong enough to make the Shortbow still worth choosing. But in what manner? The Shortbow is much more utility-based than damage-based. So here are some possible skill replacements (appropriate initiative costs and durations would apply)...

• Smoke Bomb Arrow: This skill would shoot an arrow that would create a large AoE smoke field wherever it lands. It would pulse Blind for its duration. Although the Thief already has Black Powder and Smoke Screen skills, this new skill would allow the Thief to Blind many foes at a distance, which would be more effective against ranged targets and also to support team fights from range. It would also allow Shortbow skills to grant Stealth through its own combos (even if the duration of the smoke field needs to be shortened because of this).

• Flaming Arrow: This skill would shoot an arrow that would create a large AoE fire field wherever it lands. It would pulse Burning for its duration. Not only would this give the Thief access to the elusive Burning condition, but it would also allow Might stacking through Shortbow combos, turning the Shortbow into a more combat effective weapon.

• Water Bomb Arrow: This skill would shoot an arrow that would create a large AoE water field wherever it lands. The initial "strike" would cleanse a condition for nearby allies, and every pulse would provide a slight heal. This would give the Thief more support ability by allowing it to heal itself and allies through Shortbow combos.

• Ice Arrow: This skill would shoot an arrow that would create a large AoE ice field wherever it lands. It would pulse Chilled for its duration. This would allow the Thief to hinder the enemy's ability to apply pressure and also limit the enemy's mobility through the Chilled condition as well as increasing sustain for itself and allies through Frost Armor gained by Shortbow combos.

These are, of course, just a few possibilities. Outside of replacing the one skill, I would also suggest slight improvements to two other Shortbow skills...

• Disabling Shot (3): Make this skill a leap finisher.

• Detonate Cluster (2b): Make this skill a whirl finisher where the detonation takes place.

Those two improvements will make the Shortbow stronger in general, especially with a new combo field skill. You will have access to every type of finisher with this change: blast, leap, whirl, and projectile.

---

3. Payoff

If the above changes happened, what would Thief players gain? I'd say three different advantages in particular...

• The biggest, most important improvement would be the ability for Thief players to choose a second combat weapon set while maintaining the mobility and viability of the current Shortbow. Imagine the combinations that would actually become viable! Sword/Dagger and Sword/Pistol for evasion and interrupts. Sword/Dagger and Dagger/Pistol for evasion and Stealth. Melee set plus Pistol/Pistol for ranged damage without losing mobility. Dagger/Pistol and Rifle for mobile Deadeyes.

• The next improvement the Thief would gain is combat mobility. No longer would you be locked out of your combat weapon set for 10 seconds if you just need to port up to a platform or need that one extra gap closer. That in itself would give a huge boost to Dagger/Dagger by allowing it to enter and stay in melee range without reliance on Steal and Infiltrator's Signet. It would also allow Pistol/Pistol and Pistol/Dagger to maintain distance much easier. Basically, it means that a Thief can maintain more pressure on the target.

• The last improvement would be specifically for Shortbow users. They would still maintain their current mobility because it would be baseline. But they would actually gain a new, useful skill on top of that mobility.

---

So here are some questions for you...

Would you baseline the mobility in a different way specifically?

Do you have a different idea for a new Shortbow 5 skill?

If these changes were made, what weapon set combinations would you choose and why? Or would you stick with the improved Shortbow?

[Sindrener.1592]

I like the idea about F3 as sb#5 quite a lot.

Another idea i had that is something else: merge daredevil elites into 1 trait and make it F1, F2, F3 it also adds complexity imo.

[dDuff.3860]

Infiltrator's arrow as F3 would buff deadeye so hard, you don't want to see it.

[Yannir.4132]

A Staff/Staff DrD with the mobility of Sb...oh boi..Jokes aside, I would like this. Having an extra use for Ini raises the skill level a bit as well. You really have to manage your Ini properly to not drain all of it before you even get to a fight. Breaking thiefs reliance on Sb for mobility is something I've wanted for a long time.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Because this would add build deversity, complexity and flavor anet will never approve unfortunately, but great ideas non the less.

[kash.9213]

At a glance that sounds really powerful but it's the same resource pool as stuff like Death's Retreat so it's not just doubling up and couple with the smoke bomb arrow that can combo with the blast and projectile, shortbow would remain a good choice and not just be shelved. And ya, that's about exactly what I've wanted whenever playing dagger/dagger. I like sending a Bound dodge and some other stuff down range with Inf arrow and having it separate from a weapon would open up more combos and sequences without having to switch out gear. It also shouldn't hamper the intended drawback of Swipe range since it still cost Initiative.

[Alatar.7364]

While I somewhat like the idea and can definitely see where this is coming from I still have to say that this would be too much of a buff.Also while you are not wrong about Sb#5 largely defining Thief it is still not the only "main" reason, it simply goes more in depth. It is years of false assumptions, enforced identities and adoption of wrong mindsets just because they've been vocally exercised for a while. Sb#5 just happened to be there to support all that s***. But ye, it is definitely one of the larger parts of the problem.

[UNOwen.7132]

The thing thief needs is a way to get away from the SB5 playstyle forced on it, not double down on it. As long as SB5 exists, thief will be a decap and +1 bot that cannot 1v1 or fight in teamfights properly.

[Ensign.2189]

Actually as long as SB5 exists there is a useful lever to make thief 1v1 or team fight reasonably - mechanics that make dual combat sets more meaningful on thief.

Sticking the mobility on F3 would mean rebalancing (nerfing) around having 2 combat sets but comparable combat capabilities to what you get now. Not good.

So the question is...what would weapon swapping, or a 2nd weapon set, need to do for you to drop short bow in spvp?

[Kageseigi.2150]

@"bluri.2653" said:Another idea i had that is something else: merge daredevil elites into 1 trait and make it F1, F2, F3 it also adds complexity imo.

I'm all for anything that gives the Thief more flexibility to adapt to any given situation at a moment's notice. I get really jealous of the Elementalist's Attunements and the Engineer's Tool Belt (giving 5 new skills depending on what's selected). That type of functionality seems much more thematically fitting for a sly Thief, using all his dirty tricks to gain an edge. While those professions may be limited to only one weapon set, as long as the Shortbow's mobility is so vital, the Thief suffers a lot from that issue also.

I am rather sad when Anet fixes old "bugs" that gave the Thief options and flexibility. The first example being the ability to control the distance of Heartseeker by moving the camera. The second being the ability to catch fleeing targets much easier by jump-Infiltrator's Strike. Yet, they never fixed the pathing issue of Shadow Trap, and still have not fixed the reliability of Scorpion Wire. However, the most annoying one to me is not refunding 6 initiative if an Infiltrator's Arrow shoots, but has no valid path to target when it lands.

But yes, giving the Daredevil the ability to choose what dodge is needed at what moment seems like a good step in the right direction :-)

Compared to you and several others in this forum, I'm just a casual/newbie Thief, so my perspective is extremely limited. I do love playing the Thief so much. It just seems that there is something... slightly lacking in its gameplay/mechanics. Maybe something simple or even arbitrary. Maybe all that is needed is adding more flexibility or, as you say, complexity... or removing a limitation or two (such as requiring the Shortbow for mobility).

@dDuff.3860 said:Infiltrator's arrow as F3 would buff deadeye so hard, you don't want to see it.

Yes, I was thinking that baselining the mobility could be 100% for Core Thieves, but the Elites could have it scaled back (such as Swipe's range was halved) in order to balance it out. However, I also figured that doing that would extremely handicap those Elite builds who do use the Shortbow for mobility... because the Shortbow would no longer have the mobility. And that is rather counterproductive in this attempt to break the Thief's reliance on the Shortbow for mobility. I suppose the alternative would be to make the change for Core Thieves, leave Shortbow 5 as is, and just not allow Deadeyes (Daredevils?) to have the new F3 skill. As long as Shortbow 5 and F3 both use the same initiative cost/pool, it shouldn't really affect the maximum mobility of the Core Thief, correct? However, it would make Shortbow 5 very redundant, and it wouldn't make the Shortbow a very strong contender as a second weapon set for Core Thieves.

It just seems that every tweak that makes one thing usable makes another thing broken.

@"Alatar.7364" said:While I somewhat like the idea and can definitely see where this is coming from I still have to say that this would be too much of a buff.Also while you are not wrong about Sb#5 largely defining Thief it is still not the only "main" reason, it simply goes more in depth. It is years of false assumptions, enforced identities and adoption of wrong mindsets just because they've been vocally exercised for a while. Sb#5 just happened to be there to support all that s***. But ye, it is definitely one of the larger parts of the problem.

If I may ask, what do you believe is another "main" issue(s) that plagues the Thief? And how can those assumptions/identities/mindsets be fixed? It seems quite daunting, unfortunately.

Also unfortunate, even if such a change is too much of a buff (and that is certainly not the intention), I don't know what a better alternative would be (including leaving things as is). I wish I knew of a better suggestion. I just see the Thief's over-reliance on the Shortbow simply for viable mobility as a fatal flaw... the Achilles heel, if you will.

There are other issues, of course. Such as the reliance on Trickery/Preparedness. But the (vertical) mobility of Shortbow 5 just seems to loom above everything else.

Maybe spreading mobility across other weapons would be another alternative? But just thinking of how to do that would give me a headache. I fear Anet wouldn't want to suffer that either.

It's just that the Thief has several good weapon sets crying out to be used. But it's like we have to choose only one of them... because the second is already chosen for us. And that one weapon choice we have changes with any given meta. If the Shortbow wasn't a requirement, then that would open up a slot for personal preference instead of necessity. And instead of choosing a secondary weapon set that complements the first, we are "choosing" one that simply allows us to be viable. Basically, if the mobility were made baseline, every Thief would become "viable" to a certain degree, and the weapon choices would be enhancing that viability instead of deciding it.

But yeah, you know all this. It's just mainly a vent from a frustrated Thief (and I apologize for that) :-P

@UNOwen.7132 said:The thing thief needs is a way to get away from the SB5 playstyle forced on it, not double down on it. As long as SB5 exists, thief will be a decap and +1 bot that cannot 1v1 or fight in teamfights properly.

@"Ensign.2189" said:Actually as long as SB5 exists there is a useful lever to make thief 1v1 or team fight reasonably - mechanics that make dual combat sets more meaningful on thief.

Sticking the mobility on F3 would mean rebalancing (nerfing) around having 2 combat sets but comparable combat capabilities to what you get now. Not good.

I don't disagree with those sentiments. All I know is this... that currently, that Shortbow 5 is an arbitrary requirement for the Thief. With it, you have the needed mobility to be successful. Without it, you don't have the needed mobility. However, every Thief weapon set is already balanced around having the mobility of Shortbow 5.

So the primary achievement of baselining the needed mobility to the Thief itself is gaining a second combat weapon set. Since they are already balanced around that mobility, they don't become any more lethal. But instead of lethality, the Thief gains flexibility/versatility in how it fights...

Personally, I've always been a fan of playing Dagger/Pistol with Sword/Dagger. Neither is that powerful in itself, but combined, they allow a complete change in fighting style mid-fight, going from deceptive Stealth with Blinds to evasion with boon-stealing. If one set isn't effective against a certain target, the other may be.

So the end result is a better fighting Thief, not because it is more lethal, but because it has more tools and options on hand to adapt. And as such, it could fight in more situations and against more varied opponents than it can now.

So the question is...what would weapon swapping, or a 2nd weapon set, need to do for you to drop short bow in spvp?

Unless you give other weapon sets (vertical) mobility, I'm guessing they'll need a lot more lethality, sustain, and/or utility. Without the mobility, the Thief is going to have to be a lot more powerful or durable to have any purpose: Attack, Defend, or Support.

Unfortunately, as UNOwen said, as long as Shortbow 5 exists, any Thief will have the option to choose it to become mobile, so no weapon set can become as powerful as it needs to be in order to remain viable without the Shortbow's mobility. In other words, as long as the Shortbow remains a choice, there will be no other viable choice of purpose for the Thief other than to remain mobile.

Recently, I was playing around with a rather silly concept. I tried to build a "troll" Thief using both Dagger/Pistol and Sword/Dagger, taking the defensive traitlines Shadow Arts (for D/P) and Acrobatics (for S/D). I took Deadeye and might runes so I could actually have a hope to kill something. It was fun to play around with, and I could stick around a fight for a while. Unfortunately, it was just too slow to be taken seriously. Sadly, that seems to be the case with nearly any non-Shortbow build. Even with Swiftness and mobility runes and a pure glass cannon setup, Shortbow 5 just adds too much ability and survivability to go without.

[Alatar.7364]

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:If I may ask, what do you believe is another "main" issue(s) that plagues the Thief? And how can those assumptions/identities/mindsets be fixed? It seems quite daunting, unfortunately.

You fix all that by removing Shortbow#5 all together without any compensation, then revert the old Dagger and Sword AA dmg nerf + make Preparedness baseline, then rework Dagger/Dagger #3 and adjust Sword #2 also incorporate Block in to Staff (either at cost of Staff #3 or #4).

The moment people will stop having Shortbow #5 as a reason to completely prevent Thief from exploring/using other builds without compensating it with the same mobility you'll suddenly see pretty viable builds with different roles pop all over the place while due to Stealth, Shadowstep, Portal and Swiftness uptime (if taking DrD) thief will still have the option to be a better decapper/+1er than other professions if he chooses to be and not because it's thiefs only choice.If you just moved Sb#5 to F3 slot people would still want Thief just as a decapper, that's the mindsets I was talking about, the thief community would simply be prevented from evolving itself, what I mean by that is; while now it seems that Thief can't 1v1 I can almost guarantee there would quickly pop some good 1v1 (or other roles) build the moment people would stop spitting on any thief that didn't que as a meta deccaper/+1er and didn't enforce their non-thief experience on thieves. You can take a look at Mirage, every time something was nerfed, something broken emerged all the same despite everyone claiming that the pre-nerf was the only possible viable build in existence ever since the very first cancer Mirage build.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@Alatar.7364 said:You fix all that by removing Shortbow#5 all together without any compensation, then revert the old Dagger and Sword AA dmg nerf + make Preparedness baseline, then rework Dagger/Dagger #3 and adjust Sword #2 also incorporate Block in to Staff (either at cost of Staff #3 or #4).

Very interesting. I wasn't expecting that answer... to get rid of Shortbow 5 mobility altogether! :-D

Do you think those changes would be enough to make the Thief strong enough to compete in today's game?

I remember when I first started to focus on PvP, it was a bit before the time of the big trait system change before HoT. I was rather stubborn, and basically refused to take the Shortbow. So instead, I took Traveler's runes for the speed. I would take Dagger/Pistol and Sword/Dagger, and the equivalent of DA/CS/T for fighting potential. I was always way too aggressive as a fighter, but that's the reason I started PvP... to become a better fighter for WvW. Anyway, even back then without all of the elites and power creep, I had a lot of trouble as a duelist. I know I was a newbie, but the scales still seemed to be weighted against me as a purely combat-focused Thief relative to other professions. Even now that I'm a much improved fighter compared to back then, I'd still be nervous to lose the mobility when going against today's power creep and elites especially, even with my AA damage back. I mean, I still do it by choice for fun occasionally, but I always end up going back to Shortbow if I really want the best chance to win the match.

I won't say I hate the Shortbow (it can be fun and useful)... but I do despise the over-reliance on it simply for mobility.

If I may ask one more question. I understand that as long as the Shortbow 5 mobility exists (whether on Shortbow or F3), non-Thief players will want the Thief to be the +1/decapper. However, if the mobility was baselined on F3, do you think Thief players themselves would continue to have that mindset? Or do you think they would begin to expand their capabilities and roles with their new flexibility?

Ps. You may have said it elsewhere, but what changes would you make to D/D 3 and Sword 2? Thanks! :-D

[Ensign.2189]

Unfortunately, as UNOwen said, as long as Shortbow 5 exists, any Thief will have the option to choose it to become mobile, so no weapon set can become as powerful as it needs to be in order to remain viable without the Shortbow's mobility. In other words, as long as the Shortbow remains a choice, there will be no other viable choice of purpose for the Thief other than to remain mobile.

Sure, but it's not about how to make one weapon set competitive, but how to make two in combination competitive.

Short bow exists because of how initiative works. Not just because how how it enables spammy skills like IA, but because it decreases the value of a second combat set; it isn't like you get a second set of cooldowns. If you did, taking short bow would be a pretty big liability.

Is there anything along those lines that would be reasonable?

[rowdy.5107]

Great thread and some great ideas for short bow!1 thing tho. A thief doesn't HAVE to use a sb to be viable in a match. My guildies and I were doing some experiments with thief the other day. We noticed that if you use acro trait and gain swiftness when you dodge, in a race you will only lose to a traditional sb 5 thief from point to point in literally a fraction of a second. You also have ways to get a shadow step as well. So a sb is yes, AMAZING for a thief. But it is not a requirement to be mobile. You could easily free up your utility slot for something else if you want to use another weapon.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Alatar.7364 said:

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:If I may ask, what do you believe is another "main" issue(s) that plagues the Thief? And how can those assumptions/identities/mindsets be fixed? It seems quite daunting, unfortunately.

You fix all that by removing Shortbow#5 all together without any compensation

You don't have to remove it altogether, just make it require a target.

[alain.1659]

I would really love this to be a real thing. As far as I remember this idea was first proposed in 2014 in the forums and we loved it. I love sb but I also love pistols, sword, staff etc. So maybe this would bring some freshness to thief. But some skills may need a rework after this

[Alatar.7364]

@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:You fix all that by removing Shortbow#5 all together without any compensation, then revert the old Dagger and Sword AA dmg nerf + make Preparedness baseline, then rework Dagger/Dagger #3 and adjust Sword #2 also incorporate Block in to Staff

(either at cost of Staff #3 or #4)

.

Very interesting. I wasn't expecting that answer... to get rid of Shortbow 5 mobility altogether! :-D

Do you think those changes would be enough to make the Thief strong enough to compete in today's game?

Well, yes and no. While it would make thief better even in today's game it is still mostly just a set-up for when other professions get de-powercrept. (I mean if they do, which they should)

I remember when I first started to focus on PvP, it was a bit before the time of the big trait system change before HoT. I was rather stubborn, and basically refused to take the Shortbow. So instead, I took Traveler's runes for the speed. I would take Dagger/Pistol and Sword/Dagger, and the equivalent of DA/CS/T for fighting potential. I was always way too aggressive as a fighter, but that's the reason I started PvP... to become a better fighter for WvW. Anyway, even back then without all of the elites and power creep, I had a lot of trouble as a duelist. I know I was a newbie, but the scales still seemed to be weighted against me as a purely combat-focused Thief relative to other professions. Even now that I'm a much improved fighter compared to back then, I'd still be nervous to lose the mobility when going against today's power creep and elites especially, even with my AA damage back. I mean, I still do it by choice for fun occasionally, but I always end up going back to Shortbow if I really want the best chance to win the match.

Exactly. That's why, in my opinion, the very best way for Thief to become equally good and to gain multiple roles/builds is to get minor buffs/adjustements and completely de-powecreep other professions - mostly their expansion specs. This would have to involve quite a bit of nerfing of DE if other specs got their deserved nerfs, since with its stealth and 15k DJ it would be the very definition of powercreep.

I won't say I hate the Shortbow (it can be fun and useful)... but I do despise the over-reliance on it simply for mobility.

If I may ask one more question. I understand that as long as the Shortbow 5 mobility exists (whether on Shortbow or F3), non-Thief players will want the Thief to be the +1/decapper. However, if the mobility was baselined on F3, do you think Thief players themselves would continue to have that mindset? Or do you think they would begin to expand their capabilities and roles with their new flexibility?

I think that Thief players themselves do not actually have that mindset that they must go for decap/+1 builds, they just know everyone else does and we all know what it looks like in both team chat and whispers when a Thief doesn't go for those builds, but I can't speak for everyone, for example I do not have that mindset but when I got AFKers since before the start of the match when they saw I was not using S/D or D/P or whatever then I still spend majority of my games on those decap/+1s just to avoid those reactions, often people are like that even in Unrank and that alone speaks for itself.

Ps. You may have said it elsewhere, but what changes would you make to D/D 3 and Sword 2? Thanks! :-D

Regarding D/D #3 in my opinion it is an old, outdated spam skill that rewards mindless spam in exactly the same way it rewards good timing. If you take a look at D/D it is somewhat of a hybrid weapon however it still is mostly on the power/burst side of the spectrum. So since it has no mobility/chase skills (I hesitate to call Heartseeker a mobility skill/let alone chase one) then D/D #3 should become movement/chase skill, sort of a directional dash that keeps most of its current properties (evades, combo finisher, maybe some condi), while its initiative would increase to 5 so it can not be spammed (the dmg of the skill would have to be adequate to initiative spent), it would be similar to D/P Shadow shot only in this case it would not be a port but a movement.

About Sword #2 that one should be left alone until other professions are nerfed, what I had in mind regarding this would probably result in a somewhat of a nerf in current game otherwise. So, I think it should have immobilize removed and replaced with Cripple + Slow (or blind instead of slow both not longer than 2 seconds, in case of Slow probably even 1 second would be more than enough) and its return range reduced from 1200 to 900.

[Alatar.7364]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:If I may ask, what do you believe is another "main" issue(s) that plagues the Thief? And how can those assumptions/identities/mindsets be fixed? It seems quite daunting, unfortunately.

You fix all that by removing Shortbow#5 all together without any compensation

You don't have to remove it altogether, just make it require a target.

I am not sure if that would make sense though. Why would a Thief want to port to an enemy using IA? That would result in almost terrible waste of whole lots of Ini for one blind and a port that is already on most weapons for less Ini, more dmg and utility. Either Thief has a better port on a different weapon, or he wants to burst therefore can't go in with Shortbow or he wants to use Steal to get in, in case Steal is on CD then it is likely Thief doesn't want to port in at all.

[Fueki.4753]

Remove Stealth from the game, then we can talk about doubling down on the already insane mobility of Thieves.

Thieves does not need even more mobility on top of the perma stealth potential.

[kash.9213]

@Fueki.4753 said:Remove Stealth from the game, then we can talk about doubling down on the already insane mobility of Thieves.

Thieves does not need even more mobility on top of the perma stealth potential.

What would you replace them with? Thieves at least need to keep some of their signature features like Initiative which could get crazy if a thief can sustain where they'd normally stealth or reposition. What are you saying should happen there instead and why do you, as a thief, believe it should be this new thing over what we have?

[Fueki.4753]

@kash.9213 said:What would you replace them with?

Despite Thieves already having over-the-top mobility, OP wants to give Thieves even more mobility while freeing the second weapon set from Shortbow, without a downside.Removing Stealth would be my proposal to be said downside.

[kash.9213]

IT's> @Fueki.4753 said:

@kash.9213 said:What would you replace them with?

Despite Thieves already having over-the-top mobility, OP wants to give Thieves even more mobility while freeing the second weapon set from Shortbow, without a downside.Removing Stealth would be my proposal to be said downside.

It would still cost 6 initiative, most we're getting away with is having more builds out there that would likely steer further away from the problem thief builds everyone complains about.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Thief has a lot of ports to ambush from range so along as they kept those I'd take these changes at the cost of stealth or better yet turn all stealth abilities into a shadow cloak where when in shadow form u gain increased evasiveness decreasing dps taken by thief by 50% for its duration. Than leave 1 utility skill giving thief 8 sec of stealth for variety. This keeps all thief builds from perma stealthing. More times than not the thief will be visible to the enemy but can give itself spike sustain to deal with sustain issues being squishy. DE gets a predetor type cloak.I think thief would still retain its sneaky identity while removing perma stealth.Man stealth seems like a big issue over here in gw2 lol u don't want see my nightblade that gets 3 sec of stackable stealth at a press off a button that's on a zero CD and runs of a resource bar lmao, way less annoying than this jumping thru smoke fields and using a bunch of utilities on CD to stack stealth. I'm sure if some reveals were incorporated into some utilities on each class stealth would be fine as is.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Alatar.7364 said:

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:If I may ask, what do you believe is another "main" issue(s) that plagues the Thief? And how can those assumptions/identities/mindsets be fixed? It seems quite daunting, unfortunately.

You fix all that by removing Shortbow#5 all together without any compensation

You don't have to remove it altogether, just make it require a target.

I am not sure if that would make sense though. Why would a Thief want to port to an enemy using IA? That would result in almost terrible waste of whole lots of Ini for one blind and a port that is already on most weapons for less Ini, more dmg and utility.

lol, with 120 radius, it can only blind one target unless multiple target are on top of each other. It is already a waste of Init when used without a target.

[Alatar.7364]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

@Alatar.7364 said:

@"Kageseigi.2150" said:If I may ask, what do you believe is another "main" issue(s) that plagues the Thief? And how can those assumptions/identities/mindsets be fixed? It seems quite daunting, unfortunately.

You fix all that by removing Shortbow#5 all together without any compensation

You don't have to remove it altogether, just make it require a target.

I am not sure if that would make sense though. Why would a Thief want to port to an enemy using IA? That would result in almost terrible waste of whole lots of Ini for one blind and a port that is already on most weapons for less Ini, more dmg and utility.

lol, with 120 radius, it can only blind one target unless multiple target are on top of each other. It is already a waste of Init when used without a target.

But IA currently serves only as a movement skill that's the most crucial skill in current pvp thief builds, that's definitely not a waste to use it as its currently required to be used.