Hi all, just had a few ideas for thief's next specialization that I feel like sharing. Disclaimer: I'm mostly a WVW player and a slight bit of PvP, so these ideas tend to be competitive oriented. I apologize if these skills don't apply to PVE that well, and I welcome any feedback.
So we all know that thieves have a heavy lack in team support capacity. To that end, I'll like to share a support focused specialization: The Night Mother, a specialization that brings a new strategic imperative to the current meta, introduces a new playstyle for thieves, all the while conserving the thieves' flavor and identity. Most viable thief builds we see are all have a similar theme, strong single target damage potential that requires precision, timing, and positional awareness to pull off, and I feel that a support thief should echo this sentiment in a similar way. This spec will introduce a couple of new mechanics for thieves: Shadow Whispers (thief's unique version of shout) and a drastic change in their Steal mechanic.
Shadow Whispers: This is the mechanic that will fuel the thief's supportive prowess in this specialization. Characteristically, a shadow whisper skill will grant strong defensive support at the cost of applying conditions to allies and will have tremendous range compared to regular shouts, maybe around 1.5k range (Ironic I know haha, I like this kind of stuff) under unique conditions. And here's how it works:
Upon joining a squad (not party), all members of the thief's squad (thief must have night mother spec) will receive a buff named: "Shadow's Child". Members with this buff will be able to receive a shadow whisper effect from the casting thief at 1.5k range. Allied players without this buff (typically outside of the thief's squad) will only be able to receive this buff at a very short range (130 range, typical melee range) and bear in mind that players with the "Shadow's Child" buff will receive priority in obtaining the buff. Here are a couple of examples of how a shadow whisper will be like:
- Shadow Whisper "See No Evil": Protect your child from the evil sights. Apply 1 stack of blindness to allies , and grant allies a buff: . Target ally's next 3 attacks pulses AOE blindness centered around the target.
- Shadow Whisper "Do No Evil": Protect your child from evil deeds. Apply an AOE centered around allies that pulses weakness/daze condition to both target ally receiving the buff and surrounding enemy players for 3 seconds (1 pulse per second). Allies receiving the buff is healed at each pulse.
All shadow whispers will affect the casting thief too.
New steal mechanic: steal changed to -> Night's Embrace (15s cd)
- Player can no longer steal to enemies.
- Player can now steal to allies
- Steal now has 1.5k range
- Upon stealing to target ally, convert all conditions on self and target ally to boons.
This aspect of the new steal synergizes well with shadow whispers by converting negative effects of shadow whispers to boon(s) on an ally, creating a huge momentum shift in combat, albeit to a single target. It will also synergize well with thief's other existing specializations that affect steal, like serpent's touch from the deadly arts tree. Such a steal will apply poison to an ally, and then convert it to a regeneration boon, all in one steal.
- Target ally receives the buff "Embraced by night" (10s cd). While target has this buff, all heals received by self and target ally are applied to the other at 50% rate. This will provide heavy sustain for both target ally and self, and synergizes well with other thief traits such as Shadow savior (currently heavily under utilized trait) and mug.
- While target ally has both the "Embraced by night" and "Shadow's Child" buff, the casting thief's next shadow step will shadowstep target ally to casting thief's new shadowstep location. "Embraced by night" buff will be consumed upon shadow step.
Well you know how other classes are always complaining about thief's disgusting mobility? One good way is to shut them up is just share our mobility with the rest of them. One key thing to note is that the presence of "Shadow's Child" buff mechanic is crucial here. Since only members of the squad will have this buff, this will prevent random trolling thieves outside the squad from suiciding their allies into enemy lines. If there is such a thief in the squad, just kick it out and things will be back to normal.
New Weapon: Focus
So thematically I've been pondering between a having a focus or warhorn as thief's new weapon. But as a warhorn seems pretty stupid on a thief, and since the night mother spec is more defensive in nature, I suppose a focus will be more suited in this case. Potential new skill for the Thief Focus wep:
Shadow purge: After a 2 second channel, removes and terminates the next enemy AOE that the thief is affected by. This is a very powerful and unique defensive ability that can help the thief perform it's support role better, and improves the survivability of its team mates. (I acknowledge that this skill can be pretty strong, so I'll recommend it to come at a high initiative cost, at least 8-10 to prevent overspamming).
And of course, focus should be able to be dual wielded with other thief weapons to grant new dual wield skills. But I'm too lazy to think of anything related to that so use your imaginations haha.
Afternote:
This what I envision in a support orientated thief, and this is how I feel it will impact WvW and PvP.
WvW: If you guys noticed, this spec will probably not take thief to become the number 1 choice in the current ZvZ Boon Ball/Mass orgy meta that is arguably the strongest tactic in WvW. But being part of a boon ball is not the primary goal of this spec. It's primary purpose is to help 2 other play styles to become more viable in ZvZ. One is to enable small squads to independently bomb boon-balls at a more effective level (being able to shadowstep allies in or out of battle with minimal preparation), and also to enable zerg fights to become more spread out (due to long range support), rather than just 2 two teams hugging their own tag commanders desperately. Imagine as a thief, you're able to zip around the entire enemy frontline with decent sustain, turning pockets of fights around with your shadow whispers, delivering fresh squad members into the thick of the fight, and pulling weakened one to safer positions all in a few moments. Think that will be pretty cool. Of course, all these comes at the cost of heavily reduced offensive prowess (primarily due to the change in steal), but this is an alternate playstyle after all. I believe that the boonball will always be one of the strongest tactics available in WvW ZvZ due to how majority of the skills function, but I believe the playstyle that this spec introduces can supplement the main ZvZ boon ball well, and provide a greater variety of tactics on the WvW battlefield.
PvP: Thief's current role in Pvp is to +1 and decap, and it seems like Anet likes thief's role be remain that way. You know what's gonna make thief even more insane in such a role? With this spec, thieves can now +2!!! by shadowstepping an ally and itself across the map with minimal setup (unlike shadow portal), albeit again at a cost of its own kill potential. I'm not sure how viable this sort of strategy will be, but it will definitely shake up the meta.
PvE: Sorry guys, I don't PvE much, so I'm really not sure how viable this spec will be in PvE. Any ideas are welcomed.
Just a few random ideas I had that I felt like sharing, to give thief a support playstyle in a very thief-like way, and to bring thief into the limelight in competitive play. What do u guys think?
