Does anyone here want a Healer/ Support Thief?

[Fueki.4753]

@"BunjiKugashira.9754" said:I don't think a support thief would work without some major trait reworks of the core lines. All professions that currently have a successful support spec also have two core trait lines that go well with it. The only healer traits I could find on Thief are Shadow Savior and the rez trait. While thief does have plenty traits providing healing, all of them are selfish.

Arenanet could rework Shadow Arts into a trait line about defense and support, rather than over-loading Stealth.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@"BunjiKugashira.9754" said:I don't think a support thief would work without some major trait reworks of the core lines. All professions that currently have a successful support spec also have two core trait lines that go well with it. The only healer traits I could find on Thief are

Shadow Savior

and the rez trait. While thief does have plenty traits providing healing, all of them are selfish.

Arenanet could rework Shadow Arts into a trait line about defense and support, rather than over-loading Stealth.

bruh...http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/monk:shadow oh yeah...stealth, shadow casting monk of darkness

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Support Thief is literally the last spec I'm waiting for.

The big problem right now is while they can heal, cleanse, buff, and stealth allies, for some reason all those builds are exclusive to each other and can't be used together as a pocket healer like on other classes. For example, to heal allies effectively you need a whole bar of Venom skills, which then don't even use your own Healing Power unlike the leeching skills of Necro and Renegade which use the caster's heal scaling.

And that leaves very little room for stealth abilities for quick & safe revives, or Cantrips for Might stacking, etc. Or utilities that need to be taken for cleansing due to the lack of access to Light fields for generic cleanses.

You also can't readily take projectile hate at the same time either, despite Thief having some of the best skills for it.

I tried very hard to make an effective support build, but there just wasn't any way to bring everything together like I could on Chrono, Druid, Firebrand, Scrapper, or Tempest. So while Thief has excellent support capabilities, until the various aspects of it can be used together simultaneously they'll never be an effective support class, just provide the occasional stealth ress or such, and that's unfortunate.

But Thief has always been this way, I think. The master of one or two aspects of their builds, and lacking versatility everywhere.

[Leo G.4501]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:There is no honor among thieves, they endure and are experts in their own survival and if the death of their target benefits others than so shall it be but they care little for the support of others. A support thief is a contradiction.

Noble thieves exist although sometimes it is a mere illusion in their own minds.

Taking from those with more worth and giving it to those with less is the epitome of acceptable thievery supported by the standard RPG alignment system...but is it true to Thief? That could be a dichotomous mechanic built into the spec itself. Would the Thief allow itself to be confined for its morals or act on initiative to steal more things? It could be the most selfishly benevolent profession to steal anything not nailed down.

In fact, that could be it's unique buff: Nailed down. Boons it provides cannot be stolen, removed or corrupted.

[MisterDizzy.4713]

I would love it. A Skald/bard with axe/axe or something would fit perfectly.

[Bovan.9481]

At this point I'd rather have them tone down all existing condi traits and get a proper condi build (as in, one with an interesting rotation) for PvE. If we were to get that Daredevil can have a slight repurpose to be more geared towards survivability, and Deadeye can use some adjustments to fit the power role.

I'm in no way against heal Thief or any kind of other version of support. But the current PvE situation is a disaster.

[TwiceDead.1963]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:The need to rework traitlines that support the thief to also affect allies or IT WILL NOT WORK.

Thief is a selfish class by design, they have a few shareables, but they ain't feeding the party.

Up to this point, nothing remotely resembles a support, and the shadow medics you see are absolutely pathetic.

Being screen clutter in wvw blob does not count as "successful".

I don't think that is necessarily true. When it comes to traits, thief seems kinda as much selfish as ranger and they got a support elite spec with druid that largely enhanced their supportive features.

Thief already has 2 supportive trait lines to pair such an elite spec with: trickery and shadow arts.

I don't think that's true, and I think Crab Fear is right.

Trickery is just about mandatory for thieves for the initiative management, sure the occasional scrub might get some boon scraps thrown here and there if the thief is within spitting vicinity, but people don't take trickery give party advantages, it primarily helps the thief. Besides, swiftness and fury are just about everywhere when boon-share is concerned, you don't bring a thief for that. I'll give that more initiative means more abilities spammed means more support, so there's some potential there, but honestly the last thing we need is more trickery dependence.

Shadow Arts has some potential if they make all the recovery abilities affect more people and in a much larger area, otherwise we are looking at groups needing to stack TIGHT to get the advantages of the shadow-steps and venom-shares, in other words as it is now it's kinda useless since the thief can realistically only suppport 1-2 people at a time, as opposed to ranger who effortlessly supports everyone in a 600 radius or more.

Ranger gives a unique party-wide precision bonus that helps everyone and the ranger equally, and has spirits who also bring unique buffs to the table. The spirits aren't great on their own, you need bodies to take full advantage of the benefits they bring, otherwise the ranger has better options. All of rangers support stuff is more or less effortless because of the forgiving radius.

[Nin.9853]

As a PvE Thief main and (gw1) Assassin before that, I often find myself compelled to play other, less "selfish", classes in team play to maximize what I have to offer a group simply because thief brings very little to the table where support is concerned. Yes, is some situations thief mobility/stealth makes them an ideal choice to circumvent various mechanics in dungeons. fractals, and raids to a lesser extent, but this is not my idea of support. Yes properly traited DE can pump out a stream of potent/long lasting offensive boons to their allies, but Might, Fury, and Swiftness are so readily available from every other class, often without needing to frame a whole build around their mass application. The Thief's limited healing potential relies heavily on applying stealth to allies, which is often removed immediately in combat as players frantically spam their skills with little regard for secondary effects like stealth being applied to them, or even worse, if playing with a fellow thief or mirage, we can actively disrupt their rotations by forcing them into stealth at the wrong moment. Beyond stealth and the couple supportive traits associated with it, we have Leeching Venoms...the potency of which is laughable compared to the passive healing effects other professions are capable of.

 

With the coming changes to thief Condi builds to bring them more in line with the Power builds, and the DD potential to tank, Support, in the form of Healing/Damage Mitigation seems like a logical direction to take thief with their next Elite Spec to round out what we bring to the table and add some much needed build diversity to thief, as well as help integrate the Thief into more Team builds as a viable support alternative. I'll spare you my personal ideas for how this should look and play, at this point, whatever we're getting is likely too far into development to change course anyway. 

[LyraOrpheo.8450]

I don't see Thieves healing beyond what Shadow Refuge and boon-sharing provides, but a caster thief? Sure

 

Back in GW1 one of my favorite builds was using a Staff for energy, or 40/40 Scepter/Focus and the spells in Deadly Arts line, the rotation was Assassin's Promise -> Ebon Vanguard -> Dancing Daggers -> Entangling Asp -> Signet of Toxic Shock. Now, deadly arts stopped being the "spellcasting" line when assassins became thieves, but we could get something like a shadow conjurer

[Zacchary.6183]

I would adore a support thief. Especially like the busted, yet highly tweakable one I came up with.

 

"Buh muh venumz" never really cut it as support, even when venomshare became baseline and other venom traits were consolidated. And that's because the very design makes most of them offer little outside condition burst. Shadow Savior and Merciful Ambush are a good attempt at making the Medic Thief more viable. But considering few shadowsteps have manual aiming, being accurate enough to get the most out of those traits is almost not worth it. Good attempt, but no dice. That leaves DE being a high damage might/furybot, which is nice but easily outclassed by other professions and elites.

[kash.9213]

50 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

I would adore a support thief. Especially like the busted, yet highly tweakable one I came up with.

 

"Buh muh venumz" never really cut it as support, even when venomshare became baseline and other venom traits were consolidated. And that's because the very design makes most of them offer little outside condition burst. Shadow Savior and Merciful Ambush are a good attempt at making the Medic Thief more viable. But considering few shadowsteps have manual aiming, being accurate enough to get the most out of those traits is almost not worth it. Good attempt, but no dice. That leaves DE being a high damage might/furybot, which is nice but easily outclassed by other professions and elites.

Thief support sort of mirrors the usual thief role in spvp by being plus-one getting to and setting up at trouble spots quickly. Our skills and utilities might get more expensive over time, but it's sort of about the clutch play by design. Infiltraitors Arrow is expensive, but it's considered a Shadow step for Savior, has good range, and it still has it's blind. You can dive right on top of a friendly quickly and mostly accurately and even with lite healing you can cover and get someone up quickly and under pressure.

 

When I see someone in trouble or part of our line getting rolled up, I can use Death's Retreat (DR can get close to manual aiming, knowing when to toggle to action cam or off helps a lot or you'd have to use it untargeted all the time), which is also considered a Shadowstep, is usually about the range I need to Leap in to set up Snipers Cover and blind through it or keep it up while I revive. Or I can stagger them out behind me if I'm walking someone out and it's also a smoke field if you need it. A few examples of what I find are reliable support includes

- Scorpion Wire to keep people from stomping or to interrupt someone about to blast one of your people. 

- Basilik Venom can be a game changer against a squad drive and can pop people out of stealth creeping around your side if you can tag them with something like Stolen Skill.

- Pitfall is great anywhere but it helps protect siege or support.

 

Some support is meta, structured, or passive while you would have to be deliberate, but sometimes you're the only one who can pull something off. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by kash.9213

[Zacchary.6183]

2 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

Thief support sort of mirrors the usual thief role in spvp by being plus-one getting to and setting up at trouble spots quickly. Our skills and utilities might get more expensive over time, but it's sort of about the clutch play by design. Infiltraitors Arrow is expensive, but it's considered a Shadow step for Savior, has good range, and it still has it's blind. You can dive right on top of a friendly quickly and mostly accurately and even with lite healing you can cover and get someone up quickly and under pressure.

 

When I see someone in trouble or part of our line getting rolled up, I can use Death's Retreat (DR can get close to manual aiming, knowing when to toggle to action cam or off helps a lot or you'd have to use it untargeted all the time), which is also considered a Shadowstep, is usually about the range I need to Leap in to set up Snipers Cover and blind through it or keep it up while I revive. Or I can stagger them out behind me if I'm walking someone out and it's also a smoke field if you need it. A few examples of what I find are reliable support includes

- Scorpion Wire to keep people from stomping or to interrupt someone about to blast one of your people. 

- Basilik Venom can be a game changer against a squad drive and can pop people out of stealth creeping around your side if you can tag them with something like Stolen Skill.

- Pitfall is great anywhere but it helps protect siege or support.

 

Some support is meta, structured, or passive while you would have to be deliberate, but sometimes you're the only one who can pull something off. 

Of course. But that is the issue I am touching on. The application of that kind of support thief is pretty niche and can really only fit into Medic Thief properly if the thief is good enough to use it effectively. And even then, it not as potent as you would find on other professions. The only thing thief has over most other professions is mobility. Now I get some people would rather this profession focus more on damage. But then everything this profession has becomes different flavors of the same thing and that can get stale really quick.

 

There is no harm in having a new espec with focus on effective support rather than just damage + gimmick.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Zacchary.6183

[MatyrGustav.6210]

On 2/28/2021 at 9:38 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

Arenanet could rework Shadow Arts into a trait line about defense and support, rather than over-loading Stealth.

 

Maybe if The new support Thief while being in stealth or coming in/out of stealth can heal or provide barrier in an area around them. Also a trait while stealthed you produce an aoe Heal over time. This way the current shadow arts traitline would work. maybe, just a thought.

[GRRRR.3521]

In theory interesting but the problem is a thief support spec would need to be a viable alternative to already existing support classes.
Guardian for example is a ridiculous overtuned monster that does everything well and i cant see anet nerfing that or making a competitive thief support.

If theres a thief support it will have its damage nerfed because thief is thief and cant have nice things. So even if its good support why not take a Hfb or Scourge instead, they have good support and damage.

If its meh support, well go figure. A squishy class with meh support and meh damage wow.

I dont have faith in anet pulling that off. Id rather see a good dps spec that does what thief was supposed to be, a glass cannon with actual competitive dps in exchange for having zero group support. Not like it is now, having zero group support and the same dps as a support class.

The "No trinity" design philosophy really went awry. With clear defined roles by design at least stuff would be op in one thing only and not smother everything else like guardian/scourge.

Tldr: Its a nice idea in theory but thief support will be bad and overshadowed by the already existing support masters. Id rather have a new way to dps.

[Touchme.1097]

Thieves can be healers too, but not stereotypically speaking. My idea of a support thief is a master of shadows whose job is to provide healing by preventing damage by melding in shadow his allies for a short duration with evades, protection and teleportation.

[Lucinellia.9247]

Support Thief is sorely needed given current build diversity. The initiative system would also work really well with a healer / support given the lack of mana in GW2. An elite spec that replaces steal with a short cooldown spell on a high ammo count (say, Hex or something which adds a new debuff to the energy) would allow for boon share via casting that and Trickery. Add utilities and weapon skills in the new elite spec for boon share (quickness, alacrity or something) and healing and then allow for a trait within the new elite to modify stealth application to instead be barrier or healing. That then opens up interplay with shadow arts. If the new weapon also has a quick fire shadowstep, the basics of the support spec are sorted as a Trickery/Shadow Arts/EoD Elite spec healer and boon support.