[Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Thief]

-

[Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Thief]

• although this was introduced as hybrid weapon I can only see synergy with condi damage, power damage is mediocre at best, besides a/p 3
• dual skill with pistol doesn't even have the shadowstep/teleport which ironically feels better.
• as mentioned already super clunky, projectiles are missing a lot, respond time/fly back speed of the axes from skill 3 is a joke
• no intrinsic leap/blast finisher to get good combo with black powder, so the "power" option relying on DD spec.
• stealth attack doesnt feel "worth it" in both setups
• skill 2 needs to be in melee range to deal any significant amount of damage to single target which still falls short to dagger, AoE damage is worse than shortbow.
  
  Long term short, currently I dont see any real reason besides "flavor" to play axe at all thief needed another off-hand or cleave like new revenant scepter.
  Can someone at Anet please get in touch with this profession?

[Stealth hate]

17 hours ago, Dopamine.6324 said:

well many other mmos had tradeoffs for being stealth, be it lower movement speed/footsteps shown if running/detect if close enough/dmg,dot breaks it

and mostly is infinite, as long as it doesnt break by mechanic or by attacking. The tradeoff in GW2 for having real invisibility instead of common stealth is the duration. You are free to argue if that is fair, but ita not like there is no tradeoff in comparison to other games

[Nov 28 Thief Balance]

On 10/28/2023 at 3:14 PM, Eugenides.1274 said:

I wasn't really expecting anything going into this and my immediate reaction was "That's it...?".

13 bulletpoints
7 of them only have some minor number changing
2 of them basically just swapping an effect
1 of them is just the second part of Debilitating Arc so I don't count it separatly

• Bountiful Theft: This trait now grants additional might to allies when stealing from a target with no boons.

That is the only change that affects every thief player, and let's be honest that is nice but nothing to be excited about, which i would also say about the pistol changes.

If thats everything we get after half a year each time, I have lost any kind of hope and copium.

So here is a sneakpeak of the next upcoming balance changes:

• Impact Strike: This skills evades has been decreased by 0.25 seconds. Decreased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 27 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Scorpion Wire: Has now a count recharge of 19,5 seconds from 20 seconds. Power-coefficient has been increased from 0.01 to 0.1 in PvP and WvW only 
• Surprise Shot: Increased the immobilize from 2 seconds to 2,25 seconds in PvE only
• Pressure Striking: Decreased the duration of torment from 8 seconds to 5 seconds, now applies 3 stacks of torment instead of 2

And that's it see you in Fall 2024 for more minor and useless changes

[Thief is dead.]

you forgot to mention psionic thief!

Or what most people on the forum would like to see the stealthless thief

[Alright Arenet designers.. lets square up!!]

3 hours ago, cyberzombie.7348 said:

Yeah, its basically a blinding powder but with 1/5 of the utility.

its not taking a valuable utility slot, thats the only positive, which is a sad statement to make nevertheless 

[Exposed weakness and Premeditation need to be capped]

5 hours ago, Szymon.5369 said:

I mean they didn't even state anything about competitive in context of recent Deadeye tuning, it was pretty explicitly because they wanted QDE lower. Also ANet doesn't need to worry about Thieves oneshotting people in competitive modes, reliance on Trickery (and Shadow Arts) somewhat prevents Thieves from taking Deadly Arts + Critical Strikes and doing actually meaningful damage anyway

power dmg traits being separated within two trait lines is one of the deeper issues with thief in my opinion. 

to some degree this is also against their communicated philosophy to have clear purposes of weapons and traitlines  - maybe it will be reviewed later but as long as the balancing focus is centered around alac and quickness those points will never be adressed

[Exposed weakness and Premeditation need to be capped]

20 hours ago, Funky.4861 said:

The problem is that it seems anet can't do skill-splits anymore. If they are worried about thieves one-shotting people in competitive modes, apply the nerfs there. The funny thing about that though is that many classes can 'one-shot' and they are not touched. I don't see what the issue is with having high single-target damage (which requires outside influence to maximise) in pve, especially when other classes can achieve the same or higher and offer more (in terms of buffs or utility).

Just because of stealth thief isn’t allowed to one-shot.

It is considered unfun by anet to get critted out of stealth, being arrow barraged at 1500 range by soulbeast is fine, because you see the projectiles flying in your face before hitting the ground as a fresh comp player. 

while this sounds like a sarcastic rant, i genuinely think some of those lines aren’t far-fetched.

[Exposed weakness and Premeditation need to be capped]

I could imagine that those traits a la get + power when using weapon x and also those percentage increases will be vanishing sooner or later and replaced with more interactive stuff, like they already did to some degree with acro and shadow arts (yes i know swindlers is still there) they just don’t have the time to do it all in one go.

But yeah could also be not the case, who knows.

[Proposed Change to the Stealth Support Traits]

in pve most of the times stealth isn’t even a benefit for others than thief.

in pvp/wvw it is troublesome and a symptom of hatred ever since.

I think making a new smoke field combo (smoke aura) is something anet could consider which than is the buff you provide as a thief for others with the likes of shadow refuge, blinding power etc.

An effect of that aura could be projectile block and blind on attack - which would be a nice support option regardless of the mode you are playing, but you may discuss other possible effects.

 

[Why couldn't SoO give off-hand Axe for Thief too?]

1 hour ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Not sure what you mean. I just want a bug fixed that has existed for many years and about to spread to Scepter and Axe next. Bounding Dodger needs to have the same combo priority as Heatseeker and always use our personal combo field first over ally's. As long as this bug exists we can't use it in parties for stealth. P/P condi builds entirely revolve around Black Powder > Dodge combo as it's only attack causing me to fly solo at all times as I'm totally locked out of it once 1 single ally throws a combo field on enemy. I'm forced to flee from my ally and use it in distance losing a big chunk of my combo since I can't land Bound on enemy and can't put my leech+blind field on top of them. All Offhand Pistol DD builds, outside of Dagger Mainhand since it has a it's own leap, are anti-social causing your allies to severely kitten you. No skill design should punish the user for having allies.

Once Scepter/Pistol Daredevil is a thing it will be super important for gaining Shadowsquall access and finally give us a good zerg build~ but if we can't use our own combo field because the whole battlefield is covered in them from allies the whole thing's ruined.

oh sorry, I wasnt even aware that this bug was actually in the game. I thought you meant the „way to easy smoke combo“ as a point of criticism.

[How to make Daredevil an actual specialization with the "lowest effort" changes]

3 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I'm not even sure why they're so against rounding out Teef specs with an F3. Like for Deadeye too; the remarking mechanic of Mercy should be an F3 and not a Utility, it makes me feel like Mark is just missing part of it's function and you need to waste a Utility slot to fix it.

Daredevil just straight up gets steal-fails, like getting Tufts of Fur when you're wielding a Staff and Bow~ it has completely no use against a PvE boss as the Stealth attacks don't do anything if you're not using a Rifle or Dagger.

marking a target with steal (workout the bonus effects) and lets say 3 malice points could actually be implemented as a basic mechanism for thief and it would make any build more interesting, mercy as f3 is a really nice idea, i like that 👍🏻

maybe bow and staff can have certain changes to their skills so that malice points are not just triggered by the stealth attack but f.e. also by vault and by cluster bomb.

[Why couldn't SoO give off-hand Axe for Thief too?]

On 7/11/2023 at 9:51 PM, Doggie.3184 said:

Yeah I was actually pretty crushed when I saw DoubleTap running around PvE a bunch on Specter with an Anet tag and was like 'omg Anet on Thief outside of training dummy zone' and then Balance Patch came out with literally 1 line of text for Specter and then nothing for the next. I was like 'how is this possible?' XD Honestly only takes a few moments to see how flawed and limited it's design is, and weapon training brings that further into the light.

There's truly a serious management problem going on in development if one single specific class is completely 100% cut out of balance patches despite having tons of unresolved bugs and issues spanning across years~ clearly Thief needs extra help like a new hire. For example the simple Black Powder > Bounding Dodge bug I keep spamming about cuz it's gamebreaking entire Daredevil builds for several years and about to ruin potential really fun ones in future with Scepter/Pistol and whatever Axe/Pistol will provide. We have a broken Offhand and don't even get a new Offhand weapon to skip it for a different, hopefully not bugged, playstyle. And Deadly Aim trait being probably bugged/designed incorrectly and forgotten about for several years as well.

How many people are even working on these 9 classes total? From the impression I'm getting from communication I'd assume only two. Is that actually true?

I think it is not just black power plus bounding dodge but every combo that grants stealth due to black powder having no cd. 

But else i agree, as long as this combo is available thief cant be buffed otherwise in pvp or wvw which is holding it back in a stupid way.

[How to make Daredevil an actual specialization with the "lowest effort" changes]

2 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

I didn't say "low effort" but "lowest effort" (which basically means the minimum required to make daredevil an actual specialization xD)

This playstyle would come close to outlaw rogues (if you know what I'm talking about), and integrates stolen skill as an important part of the kit and rotation, instead of a worthless mechanic that is useful 20% of the time and useless for the remaining 80% (not to mention that it is non-gameplay-defining 100% of the time);

This rework just aims at making steal and stolen skills gameplay defining, part of rotation/utility kit (depending on the situation).

Why don't you think this wouldn't change the gameplay enough? (tell me what you think please)

I do like your approach, i was just thinking that if a "rework" will be on the table at Anet, i assume it will be something else entirely. 
if it is currently not on their radar I only meant that there are "core" issues that should be resolved first before looking into Daredevil (or Deadeye) if it is more than just their current change-design, if you know what I mean.

2 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

I don't think that the problem of thief weapons comes from them being hybrid (maybe the opposite actually, with rifle and staff being 100% power damage and sceptre 100% Condi damage the possible combinations immediately shrink), but I agree that staff, sceptre and rifle are too reliant on their trait line.

The problems with Thief currently (IMO):

• Fully power or fully condi weapons reduce the number of possible new builds with weapon master training. If you think about it, hybrid weapons, if well balanced can easily work with both condi and power build (see d/d daredevil, d/d deadeye);

I do think that those two topics are somewhat related and holding all the specs back.

A condi Daredevil and a power Deadeye are using the same weapon set, while technically this is a good thing it comes down you spamming either death blossom, or clock n dagger plus backstab (51111 meme). this might not be bad numberswise but it is certainly a boring playstyle to "spam" only certain abilities of your set. This is what i mean that it would be better to have dedicated weapon sets for these purposes.

Imagine to actually use initiative not only for one skill but being able to adjust depending on the situation, not only with the offhand weapons.

Maybe their main-hand axe will kinda solve this. If it is a condi weapon maybe dagger will be pushed even more into power. if it is a power weapon maybe dagger gets pushed into more condi - both ways would be good it just depends on personal preference which way you would like more.

this is also something that the traitlines suffer from - which to be fair doesnt really is an issue for the elite specs - those have clear structure - its more about core traitlines.

2 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

• Staff, Scepter and Rifle are very reliant on their trait lines. In order I'd say
  • Rifle: requires stealth access and malice for one of its strongest abilities (death judgement)
  • Scepter, because deals torment damage mostly, full condi (torment modifiers are all on Specter traits)
  • Staff, is a good power weapon, works with DD and DE, and could work with Specter if they added a damage modifier trait and increased shroud power dmg)

fully agree here.

2 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

• Introducing torment with Specter when they could give poison and bleeding to sceptre making weapons like pistol/dagger and dagger/dagger an easy fit for Specter builds;

good comment.

2 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

• Many dual-wield Thief skills are meant for PvP (d/p, s/d, s/p), and they still decided to add a main hand weapon instead of an off-hand, that could have solved these problems (adding more strong dual-wield PvE options)

this is why many want another offhand because you are mostly "locked" into certain sets, where you might only use one ability regulary while ignoring the other one(s) because they do not fit the build - again i think this can be also viewed as an issue due to a lack of clearity of purpose for those weapon sets (which i meant be the hybrid comment) not only hybrid on condi or power but also on pve and pvp oriented.

2 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

• Lack of balance for many weapons in PvE (p/p and bow for example are terrible weapons in PvE)

Yes indeed those two need help - shortbow has its place but it boils down to an escape weapon and spreading posion on downed targets

2 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

I think these problems are the ones that should be prioritized for sure, but looking at the future of professions and specializations, I feel the need for Thief specializations to play differently and support varied builds and playstyles.

I understand that reworking DD isn't a priority for Anet, that's why I explained (in "expectations") that since they are not going to develop any new elite specs, they could rework the poorly designed ones, maybe as a feature of expansion 5 (even tho I'd really want this a lot sooner)

 

Again fully agree, Daredevil isnt really promoting an other sytle of gameplay. As @Doggie.3184 said you can argue that the change of gameplay is to use dodges aggressive , but this is really it and it isn't a good design as well.

But if for example dagger would be committed to be a full condi melee weapon maybe condi daredevil would also play nicer as a result, as long you are bound to press "3" all over, i dont think in the end  we'll be happy even if steal is done better for that spec. maybe i didnt express myself here good enough, sorry for that.

[How to make Daredevil an actual specialization with the "lowest effort" changes]

as we drifted into this already in another post, i agree that steal and stolen skills a in a need of a redesign but that is certainly not a „low effort“ change. And if Anet ever decides to do something about it I really hope it won’t be a „quick and dirty fix“.

Don’t get me wrong here but while your idea might be good, I thing it does to little of a change to justify putting focus on it at the moment.

In my opinion all thief specs suffer from the same root, our core weapons and traitlines are all some kind of a „hybrid“ compared to other professions where those are more lets say designated. this is also the reason why we won’t get much out of the new access to the espec weapons (as they are to reliant on the corresponding traits and the provided gameplay mechanics besides maybe staff) at least thats how i feel about it currently.

So while my first statement still stands i think the latter is of more importance and requires sooner attention than steal.

[Specter has no access to granting alac in WvW?]

even if shadestep would also give alac in competitive you would most likely get bursted out of shroud before acutally given mich of alac to beginn with.

I think protection is somewhat better for the sustainability but i got the feeling that shroud combined with thief low health pool isn‘t really gonna make it worth in wvw. For small scale pvp on the other hand I can imagine it is really good, but thats only a guess 

[Why couldn't SoO give off-hand Axe for Thief too?]

1 hour ago, TheThief.8475 said:

They really need. Thief is a super bad spot design wise with some specs (DD especially), it looks like they can't figure out how to design around no cooldowns and initiative.

I think they should revisit how steal works in DD (or in core thief also tbh), for example they could add a F3 slot where you choose which of the stolen skills you want to equip and always have that one available for use (with a cooldown or initiative cost), while F1 and F2 stays the same.

F3 would be a new and fundamental part of the kit, as opposed to F2, which is a random ability that you can't integrate in your build and playstile since it is "rng".

F3 could also interact with weapon skills / initiative to create interesting gameplay and rotations (as opposed to our current 2-2-2-2-2-2 rotation).

If it would be too much to add a new slot, I'd just replace the F2 with this new mechanic. Rng stolen skills can be kinda fun in OW, but they are completely useless in 99% of the scenarios.

Let me know what you guys think

i would like the idea that steal actually „steals“ something so maybe boons (baseline without trickery) or even some stats for a specific time. maybe create something new like disarm so you are stealing the weapons of course it needs to be adjusted, right now it is an overloaded shadowstep but nothing you can’t really call a class mechanic compared to others.

changing the interaction with the equiped weapons is something i really like I also think the spamm of the most efficient skill is getting really boring in PvE and even in PvP or WvW there are not many situations where you alter between all 5 weapon skills.

[Why couldn't SoO give off-hand Axe for Thief too?]

7 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

They really should just hire someone already. A Thief specialist.

every class needs someone in the balance team who is actually familiar with that profession to a specific depth, in the best case also within multiple game modes.

And those guys needs to be visible at the forums and communicate openly, or at least their ideas needs to be openly discussed by someone from the balance team like roy cmc or even grouch so that we know our concerns are taken in by someone who can rely on our issues

[The beginning of the end]

Anet in 2010: „i swing a sword, i swung it again“ - is uncool, every player should be in control of his/her own healing and utility. So every player is responsible on their own and we don’t want a holy trinity so players aren’t pigeon holed into roles so individual skill matters

Anet in 2023: „i click button x for a boon, and i do it again“ that is my only purpose for the group to increase overall dps oh and there is now dedicated healers because we need roles and pigeon hole people to do specific things. so we have a holy trinity now (we just got rid of tanks and filled it with other essentials)

[Why couldn't SoO give off-hand Axe for Thief too?]

54 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

A specter-themed magic axe that inflicts torment in a similar way to mirage axe would probably go a long way toward making specter more fun to play.

oh please no. specter is already the least „thief-ish“ elite spec. i really hope the is no focus around that besides fixing and tuning whats already there.

If a new weapon get introduced i rather have a „new“ playstyle instead of a better version of x or y

[It's time for new balance devs. Again.]

On 7/1/2023 at 10:12 PM, Garrick.3150 said:

This is actually a really interesting take I haven't seen many people bring up.

You're seeing two popular yet contradictory opinions floating around the community. On the one has people are decrying the loss of class/elite spec identity, and on the other they're so excited that they'll now have access to every weapon in the game. Everyone having access to the exact same weapons is a loss of identity and eventually the "is that a Holosmith with a hammer," schtick is going to wear off in my opinion. The balance implications of such a change are something we're only starting to realize in this patch.

It's funny because the popular narrative currently is that Anet would never have implemented boons in the way that they did if they knew what it would snowball into today, and yet we seem to be going down a similar path right now with few people really discussing it because new shiny stuff.

It's no wonder they're being so conservative with changes given that upcoming weapon change alone will break the game, and honestly there's just going to be some classes/elite specs that leave others in the dust. If we thought June's boonpocalypse patch was confusing, imagine what SotO will be like.

Regardless, it currently feels like we're in a state of limbo and I do think it's reasonable to fault the devs for that. Our access to end game content and overall enjoyment of the game is being affected far ahead of the new patch. That's not how it should be. Why should we be wondering which way to go with our builds for this long when SotO doesn't come out for another month and half. It's just prolonged suffering without a plethora of new content to get us through it.

in my opinion the issue with making every espec weapon baseline is not the loss of identity but a big issue of balance. while some professions will get god-like combinations that might break the game again other gain basically nothing or only mediocre choices.

i genuinely think the corner they drove themselves into with elite specializations is something they can’t fix on a short notice.

[Why couldn't SoO give off-hand Axe for Thief too?]

2 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Well if their "we want to fill the missing roles" is anything to go by then it would be a toss up between power mid range and condi close range as these are the only two options left. Personally I find the former more fitting for axe and for the later one there would still be mace.

yeah tomahawk style would be cool, i like that idea

[Thief in WvWvW]

I don’t think thief is either overpowered or underpowered at the moment, sure there is more potential in roaming than in zerking, but what i don’t like personally is that it is actually „rewarding“ and also at the moment feels like the only valid way is spamming black power leaps or, if using sword, spamming Infiltrators Strike.

thats also why i felt the statement „thief is in a good spot“ as such a false one. Just because its in the middle of the pack doesn’t mean there isn't anything wrong about it. And certainly thief is in the need of some changes, not numberswise but design- and gameplay wise.

People will always complain about being killed while not being able to comprehend what exactly killed them and to some degree that’s understandable but also that is the exact essence of a thief and why it isn’t a rev or a warrior.

[Maximum possible stealth duration build]

On 6/29/2023 at 4:14 AM, Antrix.4512 said:

Wow, wow, wow, wait a minute. Let me clarify just in case... we're talking about the Thief right now, am I right? I didn't get the profession forum section wrong? We are currently discussing the Thief, whose fundamental concept is built around stealth? So... and other classes can literally stay stealthed longer than a Thief? This is just unbelievable 🤣. What the? What's wrong with this game? Why does everything have to be upside down in GW2? Meh.. too many questions. I can't understand why I'm still playing this.

If anyone from the 'balancers' team is reading this - delete all classes and mechanics, leave only open-world jumping puzzles. At least there will be less chance for you to break something. I've heard that the administration is very touchy about such words addressed to them, but I generally don't care.

UPD: Today I managed to squeeze almost two minutes out of Mesmer (38 seconds right after pressing all abilities and then refreshing abilities as the cooldown resets).

this guy is asking the kitten right question Anet, listen to him 😂

black power stealth spamming is the reason why all stealth abilities of thief got nerfed time and time again, while the real issue (smoke combo) wasn’t actually addressed because it would also effect other professions, we don’t know when somebody at the balance team is finally able to see through that and suggest to adjust this but until that we have to „abuse“ our smoke fields to get some kind of mediocre invis uptime.

ps: i still miss my 7sec Hide in Shadow

[Weaponmaster Training Beta Feedback: Thief]

57 minutes ago, ZerFrost.3542 said:

They need offhand sword, or give them GS. Every class with a GS is a slow hitter, thief could be that one class where they could hit fast with it. Also people syaing thief doesnt need gs doesnt make sense, im thinking off Sephiroth and washingpole, Bleach.

I might step on many toes but i don’t see the idea of sword offhand besides from the looks, what should it actually providing?

in the thief arsenal sword is kinda the cc and utility weapon, both our offhands provide this already.

A block could fit into sword offhand but a block has no synergy as thief’s defense is more focused around dodge movement and stealth.

so in order to have a place, it would have to be a pure damage offhand to fit also thematically and i doubt this will be an interesting addition to be honest, but thats just my take on that.