Weaponmaster Training Beta Feedback: Thief

[LyraOrpheo.8450]

10 hours ago, Szymon.5369 said:

Generally I agree, the damage will likely be very underwhelming, but comparing to go-to ranged pvp options (shortbow) it gains higher range and ST damage while keeping a movement skill on that weapon set, and even gets to have a projectile block in that deal. I see some trolling potential on Daredevil.

You'll get that outcome with every single ranged option given that Shortbow's kit is massively outdated 

[sanguigasm.1325]

I just want to say can you guys fix the tooltips? Some are totally too long and expanding beyond the screen. I can't even read what's the malicious skill for scepter

Edited June 29, 2023 by sanguigasm.1325
Typo

[Zacchary.6183]

I tried rifle DD and while the extra mobility is nice, the damage was underwhelming. I suspect its because rifle is better with more stealth access and the malice mechanic.

[Nomad.4301]

Sadly I can't really test Condi DE with scepter properly because it's bugged and combo skills scepter skills don't give malice, because it's the only one I see potential in, since shadowsquall gives 25% poison duration per stack so you get over 30s of poison, which can stack up pretty high... if you could generate malice with anything other than Dagger4... the staff "malicious" attack is just 0.75 seconds of quickness per stack, which is basically useless in group content and not worth taking over rifle in solo content either (it's basically 4 seconds with all 7 malice).

I see no point in using anything other than scepter with specter due to the baseline initiative reduction as well as specter being nearly 100% condi focused and staff and rifle being exclusively power.

Rifle on DD also seems lackluster due to no longer having the mark mechanic or being able to gain stealth by dodging (unless you put down smoke and leap..) making it a subpar option, I mean.. Why use a sniper rifle without the sniper spec..? *going to edit in here and mention that Death's Judgement does less damage then a (non kneeling) rifle 3 when you use it on a un-marked target which is ALWAYS when using rifle on a non-deadeye*. I haven't tested scepter on DD yet but i can't imagine it being any better for condi then the already existing D/D 3 spam.

Overall impressions of "weaponmaster" on thief is about what I expected a Meh/10.

*edit - There is a potential WvW (PvP?) application for Daredevil I tried with Sc/D, that is a very troll'ish Cele build with high mobility and ranged attacks that spams evades and Twilight Combo, but if anything I would count that as a point against the weaponmaster system as this build is obnoxious as hell.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Nomad.4301

[SlayerXX.7138]

11 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

I tried rifle DD and while the extra mobility is nice, the damage was underwhelming. I suspect its because rifle is better with more stealth access and the malice mechanic.

Rifle needs unlimited imitative for rifle 3 and malice for judgment if you want to do any damage. You can stealth with Rifle 4-> bound, but Judgment without malice isn't a real skill. Cool stuff, but unlocking Elite weapons seems to be mostly a fun upgrade.
 

[Eleandra.4859]

Quick test but so far the new options do nothing for me.

The new weapon combinations do not change the trait line feeling, they do not add anything interesting.

Specter seems to not work well without scepter, DE is a power spec that relies on high damage stealth attacks which both scepter and staff do not offer.

Perhaps I will try again but I am not sure. I think I will check out more passionate tester's results and reserve my judgement but if this "beta test" was meant to generate pre-orders, Anet will not get one from me.

[Meridian.9103]

Sadly, it appears that Weapon training is a non-feature for thief players

Edited June 29, 2023 by Meridian.9103

[SoftPup.3048]

1 hour ago, sanguigasm.1325 said:

I just want to say can you guys fix the tooltips? Some are totally too long and expanding beyond the screen. I can't even read what's the malicious skill for scepter

If you go into stealth and control click the skill it'll post the tooltip in chat. That's the only way to see it 🤨

[Eleandra.4859]

5 minutes ago, Meridian.9103 said:

Sadly, it appears that Weapon training is non-feature for thief players

"Thief is in a good spot." - CMC, 2023 🤡

[Batalix.2873]

Thief could really use an OH weapon in addition to MH axe, especially since we never got an OH espec to change up dual attacks (which are largely underutilized with just dagger and pistol compared to the variety of extra attacks Mirage, Weaver, Untamed, and Berserker get). Give it OH axe or sword in addition to axe please thx.

 

(But also replace Necro OH sword with shield please. Give the OG healer/shielder/planter scholar a defensive OH.)

Edited June 29, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[sky.6420]

Bug: Specter's Shadow Shroud Haunt Shot doesn't use legendary weapon's projectiles.

[TheThief.8475]

2 hours ago, sanguigasm.1325 said:

I just want to say can you guys fix the tooltips? Some are totally too long and expanding beyond the screen. I can't even read what's the malicious skill for scepter

True and super annoying. 

[TheThief.8475]

1 hour ago, Eleandra.4859 said:

Quick test but so far the new options do nothing for me.

The new weapon combinations do not change the trait line feeling, they do not add anything interesting.

Specter seems to not work well without scepter, DE is a power spec that relies on high damage stealth attacks which both scepter and staff do not offer.

Perhaps I will try again but I am not sure. I think I will check out more passionate tester's results and reserve my judgement but if this "beta test" was meant to generate pre-orders, Anet will not get one from me.

Thief is possibly the most doomed class for this update, and it's because we've got 2handed weapons for 2 times in a row, and also they really do only work with their elite spec equipped. 

Rifle is designed to be used with malice and is worthless if you don't have malice (stealth attck dmg has a +25% dmg for each malice point, base dmg is very low) and it's rotation relies on initiative regen from M7, stealth acces is given by DE utilities, or the trait that gives stealth when you dodge while using a rifle.

Daredevil dmg depends on trait line modifiers (+240 powe with staff, +15% when no endurance, + 8% dmg from bound), may work with DE because of extra initiative generation with M7, or with a similar rotation to current daredevil with "be quick or be killed" that provides + 200 power and precision when you have quickness. Malicious staff stealth attack gives quickness, so it doesn't open up new playstyles since current QDE can do quickness on full berserker with a damage similar to full dps build (yes it will be nerfed, but still a very good build and no reason to use staff over d/d, since it's more boring)

I tried to run power alac specter with staff since this would be good for encounters that favor power like T4 Cm 99 and 98, but i'm stuck at around 20kdps, probably min maxer can bring it to a lot higher, maybe 28k but would still be a kitten build compared to all other options.

Also a quick reminder to Anet that core Thief utilities are dogshit for pve, no utility for allies except for specter wells and shroud.

Could not try scepter DE but tbh, scepter is my least favourite weapon by far. It's clunky and fully single target, condi dmg is slow to stack making it terrible in :

• - solo gameplay
• - fights with a lot of phases (cause condi does not have time to ramp up and result in super low dps)
• - wherever cleave is needed
• - killing trash mobs

Basically the definitive trash weapon. I don't think i'm ever going to enjoy it without a full rework of twilight combo. I don't even know how it was possible that i liked it at the beginning. Probably the 5 years with no changes and my optimist obscured the truth.

Edited June 29, 2023 by TheThief.8475
Added details

[Strutter.2719]

As others have said, this beta makes it really clear that thief elite spec weapons are incredibly reliant on the traits for their respective specs, to such an extent that they appear to always be pretty underwhelming (or bordering on useless) on another elite spec or with core thief. 

From what I can see so far this seems to be the case to a decent extent to all classes but particularly for thief. I would suspect that in the expansion you will rarely if ever see a thief using this feature, which would be a real shame because I think the general idea is wonderful.

I think in order to make this work, a lot of the elite specs will need to be reworked so that weapons can function well on other specs and aren't completely reliant on their traits to work. 

I'm no expert here, so any critique is welcome but here are some thoughts:

Spectre has too little initiative for either rifle or staff - which is a shame becuase the idea of couple them with shroud sounds really cool

Rifle is not a good weapon without malice and stealth on dodge - again a shame because rifle daredevil is a cool concept, juggling mobility of staff with reduced mobility and stealth of rifle

Staff doesn't really work on deadeye either because it's not a consistent initiative spender or stealth weapon - which is a shame because staff is already very singular in purpose

Sceptre I'm just not sure why it would be useful on anything but spectre.

Core thief - well for the reasons above it just doesn't feel like there would be any reason to use any elite weapons.

As a thief main since the stress test, this essentially means what I'd consider to the the main feature of the new expac (and something I've wanted for a long time as a replacement for new elite specs) is rendered entirely irrelevant.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Strutter.2719
adding more

[Strutter.2719]

2 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Thief could really use an OH weapon in addition to MH axe, especially since we never got an OH espec to change up dual attacks. Give it OH axe or sword in addition to axe please thx.

 

(But also replace Necro OH sword with shield please. Give the OG healer/shielder/planter scholar a defensive OH.)

Agree! Mainhand axe is okay but I think I'd be far more interested in the idea of dual axes and combining axe with existing mainhand and offhand weapons. The fact that thief has had 0 offhand weapons with elite specs makes this not that exciting. If Ranger, Necro and Guardian are getting both offhand and mainhand, there is no excuse not to make up for thief elite specs avoiding one of the unique features of the profession (dual skills) in both HoT and PoF. 

OR, and it's almost certainly too late for this, finally give me greatsword please! I know that contradicts everything I'm saying here but I don't care, I just want it.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Strutter.2719

[Batalix.2873]

2 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Ignore

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Eddie.9143]

shadow sap and shadow swap is currently bugged, hitting for 12k and 15k back to back, needs a hotfix QUICK so we can enjoy this weekend!

[xellink.7568]

2 hours ago, Strutter.2719 said:

Sceptre I'm just not sure why it would be useful on anything but spectre.

Core thief - well for the reasons above it just doesn't feel like there would be any reason to use any elite weapons.

Spectre is reliant on vitality. Core is not. I can see this work with condi low expertise setups and focus on single condition like torment on scepter spam. This allows you to increase condi damage via sinister armor sets.

This set up is also used by condi willbender as they focus on single condition (burning).

[DeceiverX.8361]

4 hours ago, Meridian.9103 said:

Sadly, it appears that Weapon training is a non-feature for thief players

I mean Daredevil is just better than core thief in every regard from a traits point of view, and rifle is only playable with DE, so yeah.

You're going to see this a lot on classes which have very weak core traitlines until core is buffed and the elites are nerfed appropriately to distribute that power.

By extension, any classes which have hard dependencies on their elite spec weapon when combined with their traits/mechanics for one reason or another will also feature little to improve upon.  Reaper is a good example which needs GS for life force management which will in effect make for huge core necro sustain buffs.

Things get interesting for stuff which isn't pigeonholed, and it's no ANet to manage that.

To be determined if they can, though history says it's unlikely lol.

[Mixchimmer.7230]

4 hours ago, TheThief.8475 said:

Also a quick reminder to Anet that core Thief utilities are dogshit for pve, no utility for allies except for specter wells and shroud.

This is one of the largest problems, and why Heal Specter will never ACTUALLY compete with any of the other healers.  The utility on offer for core thief is just terrible, and tying some of the support to shadow arts and stealth is entirely too clunky.

[xlalax.4821]

Give thief a Great-sword instead of an Axe... with both Condi and malice generation.

Edited June 30, 2023 by xlalax.4821

[Slartibartfast.5416]

With Deadeye scepter, I notice that more often than not, unless it's REALLY flat ground, when I use the Malicious Shadowsquall skill I just get "Obstructed" spam and not one of them hits.  So probably a kink or two there to work out.

[Padra.1678]

Useing "Twilight Combo" as a deadeye does not generate malice against a marked target. please fix this.

[troy.3257]

I tried out Staff on Deadeye ( with quickness traited) its a dps machine .

[Venport.3925]

Yeah I agree with most everyone in this thread, I tried making a thief and swapping profession weapons just kinda felt meaningless at best. Thief has been locked to 2h for a while and those 2h weapons aren't great outside of the specs holding them up so when you go to swap you just see that you're losing value to use a weapon that already has support somewhere else.

Kinda boring and disappointing.