Next Spec for Thief : Shadow

[anduriell.6280]

What about being able to change the Steal mechanic for a mimic mechanic?

When the Thief uses steal ( which loses the shadow step and get increased CD) on a target instead getting the bundle the Shadow would have access to the weapon and utility skills that target has equipped at that moment. It would not have access to the profession mechanics (F1-F4) or the traits. That stole skill set would be stored in F2 and could be used once or discarded when stealing from another target.

In this case if you steal from a Firebrand it would have access to the guardian staff /scepter/shield skills and allt he mantras that target has equipped. The Tradeoff is the Shadow would not benefit from traits or profession mechanic from the target . That would give the steal mechanic something super interesting and actually the ability for the thief to become whatever is needed .

Need to fight a pewpew ranger? become one. Need to fight a perma-stun warrior? Hit him with his own skill sets. The original could be slightly superior because of traited skills but still.You are in WvW and need a Firebrand? Steal that from the enemy commander.

What could be the utility skills and the new weapon?

Maybe Scepter with ranged AoEs? And Wells as Utilities for Shadow Magic?

[Sobx.1758]

@"anduriell.6280" said:Need to fight [whatever]? become one.

More like half of one. Seems like weakening yourself, short of using some specific utility skills like hard cc or stunbreaks/mobility that you need to count on your opponent to have equipped rather than having control over what you have during the fight.

The original could be slightly superior because of traited skills but still.

No traits synergizing with stolen build and having straight up less options due to not stealing the whole build (f1-f4 skills)."slightly" superior, ok.

You are in WvW and need a Firebrand? Steal that from the enemy commander.

...while not having the attributes that benefit from the stolen build (and traits, lets not forget the traits) -at that point you're not helping much more anywhere close to your regular firebrand and you probably don't need more than you already have in an organized group anyways.

Overally sounds... underwhelming in most situations: "Hey lets fight that guy while being literally much weaker version of him!"No, thanks.

[anduriell.6280]

@"Sobx.1758" said:Overally sounds... underwhelming in most situations: "Hey lets fight that guy while being literally much weaker version of him!"I see your point.

But let me rephrase it:

• You have a sicem pewpew stored in your F2. Now you encounter a reaper. As Thief you may win or not, as Pewpew you are a hard counter against any necro.

• You have a Spell breaker stored. Now you encounter a pewpew. As thief pewpews are a thought cookie. As a Spellbraker no so much.

• You are fighting a group.

  1. You steal the pewpew abilities and target the necro with them. While the necro is half way to Grenth land you steal now from the necro .
  2. You focus the pewpew with all those corrupts, conditions and wells pewpew goes to sleep.
  3. They focus you, you steal from the HealBrand and heal yourself becoming a tank.
  4. Now you need to focus the Healbrand, you steal from the condi mirage. You have 2 dodges and all the clones in the word (weapon and utility skills) .
  5. You don't need to wait the skills cooldowns just the steal cooldown so you can blow off all the skills at once.
  6. And yet you have your own skills and weapons available. You win.

All i see is a very good mechanic which can be balanced by the CD on steal, and which could become extremely strong if not carefully tuned. It uses the game play from the thief of knowing the builds you are fighting against to turn them against each other.

[Sobx.1758]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:Overally sounds... underwhelming in most situations: "Hey lets fight that guy while being literally much weaker version of him!"I see your point.

But let me rephrase it:

• You have a sicem pewpew stored in your F2. Now you encounter a reaper. As Thief you may win or not, as Pewpew you are a hard counter against any necro.

No pet, no merge, no traits, sicem pewpew dmg totally not cut in half yay.

• You have a Spell breaker stored. Now you encounter a pewpew. As thief pewpews are a thought cookie. As a Spellbraker no so much.

You're still turning yourself into garbage version of spellbreaker without traits with less surviving stats/skills than the regular spellbreaker. Go ahead, pick spellbreaker without picking any trait [except it's hard to not pick minor traits, so you'll still have your burst skills, full counter, boon strip on cc, insight stacking and burst refresh after FC -none of which you'd have on that stolen copy] and go "fight a pewpew", then tell me you have easier time fighting something than a fully specced thief actually whichever class/build.

It's great that you have those imaginary scenarios in your head and think it will suddenly hard counter others, but usually (ever?) it just won't. You turn yourself into a half-class and hope anything you have specced will somehow magically synergize. Why not play a lottery instead.

1. You steal the pewpew abilities and target the necro with them. While the necro is half way to Grenth land you steal now from the necro .

3. [...]

Also you said f1 gets increased cd, suddenly you're constantly swapping builds you need in a teamfight left and right after using 3 skills. That's just some fantasy scenario that doesn't even match your initial idea.

All i see is a very good mechanic

See, at the start of your post you said you "see my point". The fact that you still think it's a very good mechanic simply because you've made up some imaginary scenarios where you suddenly counter something just because you've gained the weapon skillbar of some class while losing their traits/profession mechanics they were built around shows that you do not see my point at all.

[anduriell.6280]

@"Sobx.1758" said:You're still turning yourself into garbage version of spellbreaker without traits with less surviving stats/skills than the regular spellbreaker. Go ahead, pick spellbreaker without picking any trait [except it's hard to not pick minor traits, so you'll still have your burst skills, full counter, boon strip on cc, insight stacking and burst refresh after FC -none of which you'd have on that stolen copy] and go "fight a pewpew", then tell me you have easier time fighting something than a fully specced thief actually whichever class/build.Ok look this was an idea and you don't need to seem so upset, I would love Thief to be useful in squads that's all and this seems like a very fun way to achieve that.

Stats are easy to fix: A minor trait can increase stats based in the class you copied. Class mechanics would bring too much, you got access to new skills without incurring in cooldowns. As spellbreaker you would lack the Full Counter and Burst skill which thief has plenty access to (damage and interrupts) . The most useful skill which is Winds of Disenchantment is still available for you. Or the Battle Standard depending of what the target has equipped.

Keeping in mind you can drop that at any moment and go back to your thief skills i think of that as free skills.

Yes in some classes like necros or firebrands the Shadow would not be as effective, On others like ele, revenant or engi would be limiting ( like copying only the tuned elemental skills/legend/kit at the moment of the steal) still is something else for the steal you get for free.On other targets like Druid you would practically waste an steal. But that is for the thief to understand and learn to play properly.

Additionally you get the new weapon skills and new utility skills. I mean this can be a fun thing to play with. If you want to play hit and hide you always can play with core, daredevil or deadeye. I don't think we need another single hit hit and hide especialitation.

[Sobx.1758]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:You're still turning yourself into garbage version of spellbreaker without traits with less surviving stats/skills than the regular spellbreaker. Go ahead, pick spellbreaker without picking any trait [except it's hard to not pick minor traits, so you'll still have your burst skills, full counter, boon strip on cc, insight stacking and burst refresh after FC -none of which you'd have on that stolen copy] and go "fight a pewpew", then tell me you have easier time fighting something than a fully specced

thief

actually whichever class/build.Ok look this was an idea and you don't need to seem so upset, I would love Thief to be useful in squads that's all and this seems like a very fun way to achieve that.

I'm not "upset" just because I wrote why I think your idea is bad.

Yes in some classes like necros or firebrands the Shadow would not be as effective, On others like ele, revenant or engi would be limiting ( like copying only the tuned elemental skills/legend/kit at the moment of the steal) still is something else for the steal you get for free.On other targets like Druid you would practically waste an steal. But that is for the thief to understand and learn to play properly.

necro, firebrand -> not as effectiveele, rev, engi -> limitingdruid -> practically a waste of a steal

and what about ranger/sb without pet while quite some of its skills/traits are normally benefiting from it

"All i see is a very good mechanic" -you and I have a fairly different definitions of "good mechanic". Oh well, whatever you say.

[anduriell.6280]

@"Sobx.1758" said:and what about ranger/sb without pet while quite some of its skills/traits are normally benefiting from itThe pet is a terrible mechanic. What you may want from them is the weapon set (LB/GS) and the utility like stances or survival. None of them use the pet.

But as i said, you use what you need and then drop it and get back to your thief utilities and mechanics. So while you have the 8s OWP effect on you you may be using an unload. This is an example you are pretty capable of saying something like "P/P is trash"....

necro-> use the wells or shouts, ranged weapons and when needed go back to thief utilities. I don't see any issue with this mechanic it is additive to what you already have. And the good thing is Thief will have always an spot in the squad as multiclass. Not as effective as the real thing yet flexible enough to be whatever is needed to adapt to the squad needs at any moment.

[Sobx.1758]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:and what about ranger/sb without pet while quite some of its skills/traits are normally benefiting from itThe pet is a terrible mechanic. What you may want from them is the weapon set (LB/GS) and the utility like stances or survival. None of them use the pet.

It doesn't matter if you think it's terrible or not, it matters that it influences traits and skills and acts as a dmg/utility boost. Which is why I answered what I answered and why you decided to ignore what I wrote in place of saying that "pet is terrible, you don't want it", while at the same time claiming you'll have some ranger equivalent of pewpew and whatnot.

And the good thing is Thief will have always an spot in the squad as multiclass

So you take a thief to a squad """so it can multiclass""" and then you count for what? That he'll steal some of the FB skills (without tomes btw) and he'll be anywhere near utility/usability as a regular FB you'd want in your squad instead? You claim "you can take x skills and quickly heal", how? With thief's power stats he brought with his base build? It's not nearly as useful as you try to make it seem to be. No scaling, no profession mechanics, no traits the build for built around in the first place. Squads will be better with "non-multiclass" picks that they know they need to fill in the team composition. It can be "fun on paper", sure, but that's a spec that you use 2 times, see how underwhelming it is in comparison to any other class/build and throw it in a bin. So... for me? Thanks, but no thanks.

But as i said, you use what you need and then drop it and get back to your thief utilities and mechanics. So while you have the 8s OWP effect on you you may be using an unload. This is an example you are pretty capable of saying something like "P/P is trash"....

If that's what you want to do then:

1. you don't need to steal anything to cheese a high dmg skills
2. literally just play SB with lb instead of thief p/p to count you might steal a skill you need if you meet a correct class with corerct build/skill equipped so you can use it once. You want to be half of a class, then try playing SB without a pet (because "it's useless") and with half of the traits unequipped. Just, you know, to try how useful it would be.

Actually just go throw that proposal in ranger forum: you lose swap class mechanic, so you no longer have that useless pet (YAY!) and you can steal some skills from other classes instead, but still without their stats and traits. You can even steal thief's signet to use it to boost your pewpew! :o

[kharmin.7683]

Stealing mechanics from another profession seems more like a mesmer kind of thing than a thief, no?

[Yasai.3549]

Ah yes, the bundlemaster concept.

[anduriell.6280]

@kharmin.7683 said:Stealing mechanics from another profession seems more like a mesmer kind of thing than a thief, no?yes it could be a mesmer thing too.I thought about it but the reason i pick thief is: i know thief better (i don't have many hours on mesmer) and while mesmer used to have a squad spot thief never had.Thinking thieves are masters of shadow magic, becoming the shadow of your target in a sense that they have to fight themselves fits thief class perfectly too.

Also this is the only way i can think of to change how the thief plays, because of the polarizing design of the class (it is designed to go all in or not) i couldn't think in any way we could have an spec which would not be the same stuff as the previous ones.

This one brings anything you need with the limitation you need to fight that class at some point to be able to steal their skills.

Weapon could be the focus a weapon focused on team support. Why not scepter? Thief has pretty good main hand weapons with Sword and Dagger (pistol in the ricochet era was pretty fun too) , and adding a scepter would be a yes or no gamble.

Focus could bring a team support utilities on #3, #4, #5.And utilities no clue. I would say wells but i would like better something new and exciting.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"kharmin.7683" said:Stealing mechanics from another profession seems more like a mesmer kind of thing than a thief, no?

I'd say that mesmer is more about copying than stealing. Steal is supposed to imply a loss on the target that's been stolen from.

It could be fun to have a thief removing their opponent current weapon skillset for a few seconds due to steal (renamed disarm), forcing them to use their weapon switch (for convenience, both elementalist and engineer would be allowed to switch to their secondary set if that happen). It could be an interesting mean of control (with 2 thiefs this could be very annoying unless you got kit/conjure weapon/transformation skill). The F2 skill would be bland thought, "Throw weapon".

Would probably be totally useless in PvE, but it's not like introducing thing that are useless in PvE would be anything new.

[kharmin.7683]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:Stealing mechanics from another profession seems more like a mesmer kind of thing than a thief, no?

I'd say that mesmer is more about copying than stealing. Steal is supposed to imply a loss on the target that's been stolen from.

I can see that, too.

[anduriell.6280]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:Stealing mechanics from another profession seems more like a mesmer kind of thing than a thief, no?

I'd say that mesmer is more about copying than stealing. Steal is supposed to imply a loss on the target that's been stolen from.

I can see that, too.It makes sense. Like when you successfully steal all the skills enter in cooldown and you gain all those skills. I like that idea.

Could it be applied to core Steal? Like if the thief steal successfully one random skill on the target goes into full cooldown?