Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Thief

[zLofty.4837]

I think the design behind the weapon is good but needs some tweaks. I'm bias to WvW my primary game mode where I have wanted thief to have a ranged cleave option for zvz for a very very long time that isn't shortbow. This has the potential to be very good in zvz but all the projectile hate in the game makes the damage completely unreliable. maybe adding unblockable on Axe/Pistol 3rd skill if you have 6 stacks could do it? or limiting the amount of projectiles all the projectile hate skills do would make some of the new projectile based specs viable? very solid theory from my pov but needs some reliability as right now its underwhelming at best and useless at worst. I don't mind how clunky the weapon is as long as it gets to be reliable. I haven't asked for much Anet but just this once give my zvz daredevil a break. Very solid job on the new weapons as a whole though.

Edited November 29, 2023 by zLofty.4837

[DarkLancer.1902]

Well, this turned out exactly how I knew it would. Axes flung by the thief fly out to their maximum range, and stay there, spinning and inflicting damage. Except they don't. Because they are spinning in empty air. Doing nothing. Thus it is impossible to use this kit to its full potential. At least the parts that DO work don't lack for damage.

6/10 overall. Don't know how to fix it.

 

[ArcanistSeven.8720]

i think it would be cooler to have skill 2 be a ground target ability where you throw the axe and it spins there and have skill 3 be a ground target ability that moves the axes.

or

if we got axe offhand too you could have skills 2, 4, and 5 be ground target skills that drops 1 slightly bigger axe then it flips to let us recast it to relocate the axe to a new position. if axe is offhand you could have skill 3 toggle it between condi and damage .

this is only my opinion and i think this would be more fun to play but sadly we dont get axe offhand.

[Meridian.9103]

5 hours ago, HeliosMagi.9867 said:

Why is everyone ignoring how good the AoE is? Axe 2 and 3 can hit up to 15 targets,  that's amazing! One of Thief's biggest weaknesses in PvE was a lack of cleave for add phases or swarms of trash mobs, and Axe fills that niche quite nicely.

I didn't find the aoe that impressive tbh, because the enemies basically have to stand all on the exact same spot to really get a lot of damage on all of them.

And besides, this doesn't change the fact that axe just feels terrible to use right now. By the time your first axe reached an enemy, other classes already chunked half of its hp.

[nopoet.2960]

The dual skills are disconnected from their offhand weapons.  For me this makes axe not have the right feel.  My suggestions:

1. Axe/Pistol 3 - Should be, shoot your pistol at the target (hopefully with an explosive round) and the axes are pulled to that target

2. Axe/Dagger 3 - Should be, shadowstep and stab your target (inflicting torment).  The spinning axes would shadowstep with you then radiate back (striking enemies on the way) to their original resting positions where they vanish.  So kind of reverse of what's happening now but also making the shadowstep make sense because it would be a full on melee attack and not the weird hybrid it is right now. 

I had the most fun with DD and Shadow Arts (blinding traits) using Bounding Dodger/Black Powder for stealth.  I was trying to figure out if I could get more than explosive axes on the ground but no luck.  It would be cool there was a way to make that work.

Edited November 29, 2023 by nopoet.2960

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

guys = play it not like 900 ranged weapon but instead as an 1800 unit weapon.
plant the field then send it

great with deadeye

[Khandarus.2738]

The real question is. Why bother leaving feedback at all? No matter what we say anet just go plugs their ears and does what they want

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

3 minutes ago, Khandarus.2738 said:

The real question is. Why bother leaving feedback at all? No matter what we say anet just go plugs their ears and does what they want

were not developers so the feedback is to sorta sway not guarantee we get what we want, players are ignorant to what goes into balance as well as the coding issues. to change a trait it has to be removed then made fresh for example

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Hard to set up close ranged Stealth attack with extra axes when Axe/Dagger 3 consumes them before you can use Dagger 5 to stealth.

[Laosduude.1690]

Doing WvW, way too slow velocity, setting up the axes is cumbersome with how the terrain is and then if u move so far so fast, u have to set up the axes in the world again to think about pressing #3 lol, and legendary axes leave no spinning model in world, kinda meh.

Drop axe entirely, should of gotten a sword offhand, greatsword, or like focus offhand.

[Amycus.4170]

The absolute worst weapon a thief has ever received. Uselessly slow, zero utilization in pvp. Total disappointment Anet. Why don't you like the thief? 

[cezat.9754]

Really bad weapon implementation, you can double tap skill 3 and waste all initiative, first skill ever on thief that works against it's core mechanics, the skill does nothing, withouth having axes up, axes are clunky to use, how do the game decide which 6 axes to keep , what are theyr effects etc. Weapon does some high dps on target dummies cuz you won;t hit anything else(lol), but even that is prone to nerf 100%, also is a pve only weapon that is not even good on all pve encounters. Novel idea, remove the auto atack from it, make it a off hand, and keep 2 as skill 4, and 3 as 5 + a gimmick to dual skills and say that it is a condition  offhand.

Edited November 29, 2023 by cezat.9754

[TheDasktragon.5279]

2 hours ago, Khandarus.2738 said:

The real question is. Why bother leaving feedback at all? No matter what we say anet just go plugs their ears and does what they want

Is that really true? ;-;
I hear a lot of comments saying that devs don't really take feed back but how so?

[Khandarus.2738]

2 minutes ago, TheDasktragon.5279 said:

Is that really true? ;-;
I hear a lot of comments saying that devs don't really take feed back but how so?

Unfortunately, when it comes to the thief it is. This entire thing with the axes should drive the point home, but if you want more just go look through the forum about how many people have asked for reworks, and bug fixes that have plagued the thief since day 1

[Burial.1958]

1 hour ago, TheDasktragon.5279 said:

Is that really true? ;-;
I hear a lot of comments saying that devs don't really take feed back but how so?

Yep. Thief Community is fighting since 4 ever that Anet would once for all take the feedback serious. I mean look thief still has no viable Zerg Builds etc. It is pigeonholed in 1 role, same in Spvp. It is only viable with alot of stealth abuse in Spvp/WvW. In PvE all the thief does other classes do better and often also easier.

What does Anet? They rls another Weaponset for the very same role which is also one no real thief main asked for. All peeps i know say we want a new Offhand weapon and best would be Sword because IT DOES FIT the class thematically. Even a GS would be cooler. Axe on thief feels like a ranger and does maybe appeal some open world PvEers. And it is now since PoF the 3the ranged or ranged styl weapon we got.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, cezat.9754 said:

Really bad weapon implementation, you can double tap skill 3 and waste all initiative, first skill ever on thief that works against it's core mechanics, the skill does nothing, withouth having axes up, axes are clunky to use, how do the game decide which 6 axes to keep , what are theyr effects etc. Weapon does some high dps on target dummies cuz you won;t hit anything else(lol), but even that is prone to nerf 100%, also is a pve only weapon that is not even good on all pve encounters. Novel idea, remove the auto atack from it, make it a off hand, and keep 2 as skill 4, and 3 as 5 + a gimmick to dual skills and say that it is a condition  offhand.

Stealth attack axes have the highest priority, followed by venomous axes. Autoattack axes always make way. Which actually looks to be a problem for power builds.

23 minutes ago, Burial.1958 said:

What does Anet? They rls another Weaponset for the very same role which is also one no real thief main asked for. All peeps i know say we want a new Offhand weapon and best would be Sword because IT DOES FIT the class thematically. Even a GS would be cooler. Axe on thief feels like a ranger and does maybe appeal some open world PvEers. And it is now since PoF the 3the ranged or ranged styl weapon we got.

I was somewhat excited about the prospect of something like mirage axe. This... I'll try to formulate more constructive thoughts later, but it kind of feels like someone came up with an interesting idea for a weapon mechanic, but hasn't really considered which role it should play or how it fits with the existing elite specialisations. There's potential, but there are definitely changes needed.

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

In general I like the axe and the skills. Some problems are mentioned above.

But Skill 2 is a little bit weird, because of the "ranged" mentality of the weapon. To get maximum benefit from this skill, you have to stay in front of the enemy. Maybe a change from "spreading axes" to "short after another thrown axes" would help here.

[Stx.4857]

1) Axe skills feel so slow to cast.  It feels sluggish.  I don’t know if it’s the cast time, a hidden aftercast, or what.  
 

2) Axe/dagger 3 seems to be giving me the revealed debuff making it impossible to stealth after using it.  I can’t figure out what is causing this.  I was playing with panic strike which applies poison on immobilize, and axe/d 3 immobilizes with full spinny axes.  But I was trying to do a basic rotation on deadeye playing m7, and I couldn’t easily re-enter stealth because of getting the revealed debuff after using axe 3.  It seemed to be happening on the second strike of axe3 after the shadowstep.  

[PaulPottwal.7239]

52 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

1) Axe skills feel so slow to cast.  It feels sluggish.  I don’t know if it’s the cast time, a hidden aftercast, or what.  
 

2) Axe/dagger 3 seems to be giving me the revealed debuff making it impossible to stealth after using it.  I can’t figure out what is causing this.  I was playing with panic strike which applies poison on immobilize, and axe/d 3 immobilizes with full spinny axes.  But I was trying to do a basic rotation on deadeye playing m7, and I couldn’t easily re-enter stealth because of getting the revealed debuff after using axe 3.  It seemed to be happening on the second strike of axe3 after the shadowstep.  

Most likely you are activating stealth before all your recalled axes have hit the target. If a recalled axe hits the target after you're stealthed you get revealed. So wait till all your axes did their damage and then stealth

[Stx.4857]

Just now, PaulPottwal.7239 said:

Most likely you are activating stealth before all your recalled axes have hit the target. If a recalled axe hits the target after you're stealthed you get revealed. So wait till all your axes did their damage and then stealth

But I’m getting the revealed debuff before I’m even hitting cloak and dagger…

[PaulPottwal.7239]

5 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

But I’m getting the revealed debuff before I’m even hitting cloak and dagger…

Aaahhh, just tested it on the golem and you are right. Sometimes it reveales you for no reason. Bug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Doggie.3184]

On 11/29/2023 at 10:45 AM, Kydar Schattendolch.6879 said:

In general I like the axe and the skills. Some problems are mentioned above.

But Skill 2 is a little bit weird, because of the "ranged" mentality of the weapon. To get maximum benefit from this skill, you have to stay in front of the enemy. Maybe a change from "spreading axes" to "short after another thrown axes" would help here.

There's a few option to fix that like having it throw a wall of three Axes in a rectancle path AoE, with overlapping hitboxes that allow targets in center of the AoE to be hit by all three. 

Here; I made a 'highly advanced' diagram on how that would look: https://i.imgur.com/sBOcXEw.jpg This would allow it a chance to benefit from all three hits at long range as well as at close range.

Or just redesign the weapon to copy Kanaxai fully. Axe 2 Being a wide hitbox ground target Thrown Axe skill that spins in place doing damage and can be recalled when you feel like it, and probably ditch the AA spawning spinny axes and maybe 3 being another type of buzzsaw so we can beyblade people between 2 and 3. XD Cuz is the clunky 6 really nessasary when we could just have 2 Kanaxai sawblades with more effectiveness than 6 tiny axes?  (Axe Offhand included😄)

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

18 hours ago, HeliosMagi.9867 said:

Why is everyone ignoring how good the AoE is? Axe 2 and 3 can hit up to 15 targets,  that's amazing! One of Thief's biggest weaknesses in PvE was a lack of cleave for add phases or swarms of trash mobs, and Axe fills that niche quite nicely.

6 axes max - each axe pierces up to 5 targets = 30 enemies

 

[Kris Knives.8513]

I though the axe was fun and well designed.

Negatives:
1.)  It was very easy to move out of range of the axes.   I feel like the pull range should be a bit larger.

2.)  Doesn't seem very strong as a power weapon even though this was stated to be an intended option.

Positive:
1.)  Synergized very well with the initiative mechanics giving me reasons to use all my skills.  I loved this element of it.

2.)  Love the shadow step on 3, giving me and easy way to trigger my shadowstep traits.

3.)  I liked the various pressures the weapon applied forcing me to move around and use several different skills depending on the situation.

Overall:
I like the Axe and it seems very well thought out in the context of the Imitative mechanic.  Seems viable on Daredevil and Specter but a poor fit for Deadeye.

[Pockethole.5031]

A lot of animations with new weapons felt somewhat underwhelming, save for Revenant which was slightly over the top but that's kind of also what the game needs because that would be funny if a raid of Rev players were shaking their scepters together. Guardian was fine, Ranger was too leafy... too many leaves. Not as much variety as I'd hoped. I hope every effect gets an update! More flashiness!

ESPECIALLY THIEF. Spectral flying axes in different colours...? It was the most underwhelming thing to look at. Painful. Scepter is where it's at! And then look at axe. It's a sad weapon visually. Where are the cool effects? Some kind of darkness stuff? Maybe the axes could be bigger or like, the same skin as what the thief is wielding? With darkness effects? If I played thief more I'd be really sad about this weapon.