Your stolen skill rankings?

[Tridentuk.1625]

Was wondering if people had their opinions about stolen skill and their rankings in terms of usefulness?So let's say it looks something like this:Very Useful-

1. Iceshard Stab : 6 seconds of chilled (jesus), makes it really easy to land skills and adds 4 seconds to their CDs, and obviously if someone is running away it's game over.
2. Consume Plasma: 2nd just cos of ease of use, can be used in stealth or before initiating at no real inconvenience.
3. Blinding Tuft: free stealth and blind, what's not to like? gives me an extra burst on pd or backstab on dp
4. Mace Head Crack: can be used before shadowstrike pd, or after backstab on dp, always kinda useful.Situational
5. Skull Fear: up to 2 second fear, can make it easier to land skills and useful impactful dense teamfight situations
6. Healing Seed: heal is pretty minimal but can be useful against conditions if in teamfightsVery Situational / Rubbish
7. Essence Sap: 0.5 sec casttime for 1 sec slow... can see how it could be useful for very niche outplays but currently I don't even bother with it
8. Whirling Axe: can see it being situationally useful for power thieves but it's just going to be too underwhelming to bother on my condi
9. Throw Gunk: Not even close to worth 0.5 sec casttime for very minimal damage even on my condi

[kash.9213]

I don't have an order, I fish for the one I want to set up something with in group fights, and I might sit on one for a long time if there's no need to use it yet.

The Fear is maybe the one I search for the most. It's fast and on top of multiple targets feared, it's possibly multiple interrupts for a lot of life leech if you have that. I also like to grab a fear and port behind a group or flanking a choke point or something to scramble a few at the right time.

I like to fish for Essence Sap when I want to mess with a squad or group drivers pocket support before trying to pull or spread out a few before hitting someone for a take down. Usually that Essence Sap can quietly cause a cascade.

Throw Gunk is awesome, it lands where you want pretty easily and you can blast it or shoot or whirl for confusion. I Steal for Confusion also and like to time a small stack sometimes.

[Tridentuk.1625]

@kash.9213Thanks,this is why I made this, cos there are mechanics I don't know / didn't think about yet.Throw Gunk is actually sick now that I looked up the finishers haha

[DeceiverX.8361]

Depends heavily on the context of the fight.Since the nerfs to Sap which used to be my favorite just for its damage alone, I generally favor Tuft and Seed the most since I don't run DA to really make use of Plasma anymore. Seed is damned good since it's a leap finisher heal which you can spam HS in + condition cleanse.

Axe is my go-to if there's a soulbeast around since it reflects, which is pretty frequently. It's also a safe stomp on a warrior in a duel you down them since it'll reflect their hammer downed skill.

The fear's okay for duels into core necro or scourge sometimes, but a good reaper can counter it, and in group engagements/supported damage dealer scenarios it's often useless since there's so much shared stab. I prefer MHC because it's fast enough to interrupt with in brief windows of an enemy lacking stab.

Since I play power, gunk is useless (but amazing for condi P/D) and I only use it for down stomps like guard, ranger, and warrior since it applies blind after a few ticks.

Since I play D/D Ice Shard is pointless since honestly, if they use a mobility skill, they're getting away regardless.

[saerni.2584]

Core/DD Stolen Skills are all potentially good depending on what they are combo'd with/situationally. As mentioned, throw gunk is a great skill with projectile finishers. The outliers are the ones like tuft or plasma that add significantly to sustain. Others depend heavily on XvX scenarios where you can use, for example, spinning axe against a ranger or DH ranged burst.

As a reminder there are also Deadeye Stolen Skills, which can give you stealth, and which individually include some nice gems:

• (Rev) and (Necro) are additional damage condition application.
• (Ranger) applies Immobilize and gives you Superspeed.
• (Mesmer) gives you Quickness.
• (Guardian) gives you Aegis.

In that sense you can think of Deadeye Stolen Skills as a hybrid between condi application and a mini plasma that only grants one boon but can also function as a tuft at or above 5 malice. That makes all of them more useful in most situations but somewhat less individually impactful as one of the Core skills.

[Yasai.3549]

Whirling Axe hands down.

Thief is pretty vulnerable to any sort of Ranged pressure because it forces the Thief to spend resources for gap closing.

Being able to reflect projectiles like this can instantly negate or deter any form of Ranged suppression.

My most memorable usage of this was when some Gunflame Zerker was being gungho and pulled me off my mount for a cheap attempt to Signet > Burst me but I just Stole to him and Whirling Axe in his face and he offed himself.

[Shroud.2307]

Ah, good times.

[foste.3098]

Whirling axe, it is by far the most versatile stolen skill but you need to be smart on how to use it otherwise it will do next to nothing.However when you use it at an opportune moment the skill just does allot of things for you: it can negate all targeted ranged damage thrown at you, it can make you untouchable in melee if you spin in a smokefield, it can do massive damage if you spin in a lightning field, and it is amazing at raw damage & cleaving when you are not under focus.The 2nd best skill from my experience is mace head crack, it just turns off a player for 3 seconds and deals decent damage; simple and effective.

[cyberzombie.7348]

It mostly depends on what build I'm on but here's my general ranking

1. Healing seed: Free regen even if I'm not in the aoe and when I am, I spam combo finishers to help facetank or heal others.
2. Whirling axe: Although the damage is point blank its devastating to be hit by it. Plus I can use it defensively with a smoke field along with reflecting shots.
3. Gunk: I never used it at first but I learned the ethereal field is pretty useful to get chaos armor since it can grant protection and regen if hit, while giving out confusion on projectile finishers.
4. Blinding tuft: Free blind and invis.
5. Plasma: Although its a completely selfish skill, its a life saver at times with the defensive boons it gives.
6. Essence Sap: It's good for extra damage and slow if I have enough cc to consistently interrupt
7. Mace: Its a good cc and even better with mesmer runes but its telegraphed, point blank, and negated by stability so hitting someone with it feels like a craps shoot.
8. Ice shard: Much like the mace its good when it hits but its telegraphed and point blank although the deadeye variant is much more reliable.
9. Skull fear: It's good in conjunction with other soft like cripple or chill but unless I have full fear duration and time to cast it, it's a really situational skill.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@"Tridentuk.1625" said:Was wondering if people had their opinions about stolen skill and their rankings in terms of usefulness?So let's say it looks something like this:Very Useful-

1. Iceshard Stab : 6 seconds of chilled (jesus), makes it really easy to land skills and adds 4 seconds to their CDs, and obviously if someone is running away it's game over.
2. Consume Plasma: 2nd just cos of ease of use, can be used in stealth or before initiating at no real inconvenience.
3. Blinding Tuft: free stealth and blind, what's not to like? gives me an extra burst on pd or backstab on dp
4. Mace Head Crack: can be used before shadowstrike pd, or after backstab on dp, always kinda useful.Situational
5. Skull Fear: up to 2 second fear, can make it easier to land skills and useful impactful dense teamfight situations
6. Healing Seed: heal is pretty minimal but can be useful against conditions if in teamfightsVery Situational / Rubbish
7. Essence Sap: 0.5 sec casttime for 1 sec slow... can see how it could be useful for very niche outplays but currently I don't even bother with it
8. Whirling Axe: can see it being situationally useful for power thieves but it's just going to be too underwhelming to bother on my condi
9. Throw Gunk: Not even close to worth 0.5 sec casttime for very minimal damage even on my condi

Very Useful:

Tuft/Plasma

Useful:

Mace/Whirling/Seed/Skull/Ice Shard/Gunk*

Not Useful:

Essence sap.

*Leap in gunk field for chaos armor to push weakness to dps holos.

7. Essence Sap: 0.5 sec casttime for 1 sec slow... can see how it could be useful for very niche outplays but currently I don't even bother with it

Also this is 4 seconds

[Chips.7968]

@"Shroud.2307" said:

Ah, good times.

Got that number with guild group only a few months ago - it's still possible.

I think they're all useful, in their circumstances. Throw gunk is under valued, the amount of condi spam if you do a daggerstorm (without even being a condi build) is great (though I play core S/D so no condi dmg).

The one I possibly find least useful is whirling axe... but only because while it's a free reflect against warriors thrown axe/sword, as a source of just doing dmg, it's borderline useless. The reason? You're in melee range - easy for warrior to stun/rush and pretty much 1shot you. If I use it in a fight with warrior it's as a reflect or have to cancel if used aggressively within a fraction of a second to avoid the inevitable opening they're about to exploit.

With offhand pistol to whirl the smoke field I may rank it differently, but I don't play D/P.

Sad plasma gives only 1s stab now though - it's so short that its gone before the animation really finishes.

[Shroud.2307]

@Chips.7968 said:

@"Shroud.2307" said:

Ah, good times.

Got that number with guild group only a few months ago - it's still possible.

I think they're all useful, in their circumstances. Throw gunk is under valued, the amount of condi spam if you do a daggerstorm (without even being a condi build) is great (though I play core S/D so no condi dmg).

The one I possibly find least useful is whirling axe... but only because while it's a free reflect against warriors thrown axe/sword, as a source of just doing dmg, it's borderline useless. The reason? You're in melee range - easy for warrior to stun/rush and pretty much 1shot you. If I use it in a fight with warrior it's as a reflect or have to cancel if used aggressively within a fraction of a second to avoid the inevitable opening they're about to exploit.

With offhand pistol to whirl the smoke field I may rank it differently, but I don't play D/P.

Sad plasma gives only 1s stab now though - it's so short that its gone before the animation really finishes.

Wow, I'm surprised to hear it's still possible. Although I don't play Thief anymore, most times I only see it hitting 3 - 4k tops from watching streamers or when I'm hit by it myself. It was nerfed quite hard so I imagine getting numbers as high as the screen cap (which I took very shortly before it was nerfed in late 2020) you'd need the stars to align.

I definitely still think it's a good skill though, and still my favorite of the Stolen skills just because it's so fast to throw, does good damage, and 3sec Slow can be brutal at times.

[Chips.7968]

@Shroud.2307 said:Wow, I'm surprised to hear it's still possible. Although I don't play Thief anymore, most times I only see it hitting 3 - 4k tops from watching streamers or when I'm hit by it myself. It was nerfed quite hard so I imagine getting numbers as high as the screen cap (which I took very shortly before it was nerfed in late 2020) you'd need the stars to align.

Ah, if it was very late then... maybe not.

I thought it was nerfed ages ago. My screenie is dated Sept 2020 - so my apologies :(It was such a huge value I took a screenie of it. We were mid blob fight mind, so just assumed I had a shared 25 stacks of might and they probs had 25 vuln :)

[PeerlessArch.6547]

@Yasai.3549 said:Whirling Axe hands down.

Thief is pretty vulnerable to any sort of Ranged pressure because it forces the Thief to spend resources for gap closing.

Being able to reflect projectiles like this can instantly negate or deter any form of Ranged suppression.

My most memorable usage of this was when some Gunflame Zerker was being gungho and pulled me off my mount for a cheap attempt to Signet > Burst me but I just Stole to him and Whirling Axe in his face and he offed himself.

Lol yeah. The times that warriors have jumped me, I steal, throw down blackpowder, and whirling axe away as they get blinded, downed, then stomped. Very satisfying.

[Cynz.9437]

@cyberzombie.7348 said:It mostly depends on what build I'm on but here's my general ranking

1. Healing seed: Free regen even if I'm not in the aoe and when I am, I spam combo finishers to help facetank or heal others.
2. Whirling axe: Although the damage is point blank its devastating to be hit by it. Plus I can use it defensively with a smoke field along with reflecting shots.
3. Gunk: I never used it at first but I learned the ethereal field is pretty useful to get chaos armor since it can grant protection and regen if hit, while giving out confusion on projectile finishers.
4. Blinding tuft: Free blind and invis.
5. Plasma: Although its a completely selfish skill, its a life saver at times with the defensive boons it gives.
6. Essence Sap: It's good for extra damage and slow if I have enough cc to consistently interrupt
7. Mace: Its a good cc and even better with mesmer runes but its telegraphed, point blank, and negated by stability so hitting someone with it feels like a craps shoot.
8. Ice shard: Much like the mace its good when it hits but its telegraphed and point blank although the deadeye variant is much more reliable.
9. Skull fear: It's good in conjunction with other soft like cripple or chill but unless I have full fear duration and time to cast it, it's a really situational skill.

Your lists nearly matches mine. I would add that i like condi cleanse from healing seed - REALLY useful when burning guards and necros are in dominating pvp.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@cyberzombie.7348 said:It mostly depends on what build I'm on but here's my general ranking

1. Healing seed: Free regen even if I'm not in the aoe and when I am, I spam combo finishers to help facetank or heal others.
2. Whirling axe: Although the damage is point blank its devastating to be hit by it. Plus I can use it defensively with a smoke field along with reflecting shots.
3. Gunk: I never used it at first but I learned the ethereal field is pretty useful to get chaos armor since it can grant protection and regen if hit, while giving out confusion on projectile finishers.
4. Blinding tuft: Free blind and invis.
5. Plasma: Although its a completely selfish skill, its a life saver at times with the defensive boons it gives.
6. Essence Sap: It's good for extra damage and slow if I have enough cc to consistently interrupt
7. Mace: Its a good cc and even better with mesmer runes but its telegraphed, point blank, and negated by stability so hitting someone with it feels like a craps shoot.
8. Ice shard: Much like the mace its good when it hits but its telegraphed and point blank although the deadeye variant is much more reliable.
9. Skull fear: It's good in conjunction with other soft like cripple or chill but unless I have full fear duration and time to cast it, it's a really situational skill.

Your lists nearly matches mine. I would add that i like condi cleanse from healing seed - REALLY useful when burning guards and necros are in dominating pvp.

I'm tempted to put Blinding Tuft at #1 spot. Blind + stealth is ALWAYS useful, in nearly every situation conceivable, plus you can get an added daze from Pommel Attack and added dps from Backstab.

I'd also put Whirling Axe at #2 because Healing Seed is sort of 'you're already losing = lose less' -type of skill. It is definitely a life-saver at times, but so is Whirling Axe. Axe in general has more options and is, again, more useful in a wider range of scenarios.

A fine point about Mace, but you can oftentimes strip that stab w/ Bountiful Theft and/or Larcenous Strike. If you add Mace on top (x2 if sword main), that's locking a bunker down right there. So in my books Mace > Sap.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@saerni.2584 said:Core/DD Stolen Skills are all potentially good depending on what they are combo'd with/situationally. As mentioned, throw gunk is a great skill with projectile finishers. The outliers are the ones like tuft or plasma that add significantly to sustain. Others depend heavily on XvX scenarios where you can use, for example, spinning axe against a ranger or DH ranged burst.

As a reminder there are also Deadeye Stolen Skills, which can give you stealth, and which individually include some nice gems:

• (Rev) and (Necro) are additional damage condition application.
• (Ranger) applies Immobilize and gives you Superspeed.
• (Mesmer) gives you Quickness.
• (Guardian) gives you Aegis.

In that sense you can think of Deadeye Stolen Skills as a hybrid between condi application and a mini plasma that only grants one boon but can also function as a tuft at or above 5 malice. That makes all of them more useful in most situations but somewhat less individually impactful as one of the Core skills.

Another one;The DE thief stolen skill applies blind and hits the thief as long as he's in range, regardless of stealth. Taking improv and using this after a DD enters stealth can really shift a DE vs DD matchup by denying the backstab, forcing him to burn initiative to clear the blind, or making him rely on shadow shot instead, which means you have a range advantage, better ini regen through mercy/M7 and an easy blind cleanse in rifle 4.

[saerni.2584]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@saerni.2584 said:Core/DD Stolen Skills are all potentially good depending on what they are combo'd with/situationally. As mentioned, throw gunk is a great skill with projectile finishers. The outliers are the ones like tuft or plasma that add significantly to sustain. Others depend heavily on XvX scenarios where you can use, for example, spinning axe against a ranger or DH ranged burst.

As a reminder there are also Deadeye Stolen Skills, which can give you stealth, and which individually include some nice gems:

• (Rev) and (Necro) are additional damage condition application.
• (Ranger) applies Immobilize and gives you Superspeed.
• (Mesmer) gives you Quickness.
• (Guardian) gives you Aegis.

In that sense you can think of Deadeye Stolen Skills as a hybrid between condi application and a mini plasma that only grants one boon but can also function as a tuft at or above 5 malice. That makes all of them more useful in most situations but somewhat less individually impactful as one of the Core skills.

Another one;The DE thief stolen skill applies blind and hits the thief as long as he's in range, regardless of stealth. Taking improv and using this after a DD enters stealth can really shift a DE vs DD matchup by denying the backstab, forcing him to burn initiative to clear the blind, or making him rely on shadow shot instead, which means you have a range advantage, better ini regen through mercy/M7 and an easy blind cleanse in rifle 4.

It also should be noted that with a crit the skill hits 1-1.5k. If you use both skills (Improv) or have extra Stolen Skills from Cantrips trait you will be able to hit someone multiple times even while they are in stealth.