Thief Elite Specialization Prediction & Speculation Discussion

[AikijinX.6258]

I am calling it right now. Pistol/Sword offhand will be stoopid strong. I can't wait to see the number "3" skill. But also in general the 3 and 5 skills across all the weapon combinations. This should be an interesting spec.

 

I'm also looking forward to the new thing that the community will cry about. Since launch to present day it's been about Stealth, then Daredevil came around and it was dodges, Deadeye came around and it became stealth, but also reveal debuff removal skill, I hope we get some type of Perma Counter ability for the community to cry over next, so it's not only perma stealthing, or perma dodging, but also pure perma full countering that the community has to worry about. --1 blade counters magic/range attacks, the other blade counters physical--. This way we wouldn't need to stealth or dodge, we'll be in their face memeing away. (This suggestion is a meme, but will be a bigger meme if i predicted correctly)

 

And this new Steal mechanic better be unique. Something like Skyforge's (Yeah I know.. old game) Slayer class skill- Backstab. 1200 range or hey.. maybe even 1500 :p. But with this new steal you jump in the air and slice/slash/strike downwards knocking down or stunning opponent. ( I know that'll cause an uproar for even suggesting that), but it's just something off the top of my head. I want a really unique F1 and F2 bundle ability

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Fueki.4753]

I certainly hope they'll give Thief off-hand sword and call it Bladedancer.

Then they need to replace all applications of Stealth with a unique defensive boon.

 

But more than that, I hope we won't get a pop fiction Ninja.

[Bunny.9834]

Hoping for a dual-sword wielding Assassin: 

Daredevil has evades, Deadeye has stealthing... this one is probably going to be Porting. You no longer have stolen skill, your steal becomes Aura of Displacement and your F2 is Return to your original location. 1500 range. 

The tradeoff is you only now have one evade. 

This ES hopefully is something that synergizes well with Critical Strikes. Doing critical damage gives you some kind of buffs. 

Your main boon is quickness and your main condi is vulnerable. 

 

Idk if they will encourage doing the "one-shot" builds again but you never know. 🤷‍♂️

 

 

[AikijinX.6258]

23 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I certainly hope they'll give Thief off-hand sword and call it Bladedancer.

Then they need to replace all applications of Stealth with a unique defensive boon.

 

But more than that, I hope we won't get a pop fiction Ninja.

Yeah bro i totally agree. I would hate to have a generic Ninja-like specialization. I would definitely not be against having more Protective boons either! Thief needs more Protection boon or aegis, or increase our base vitality. :c I just hope if we trade off our stealth or our F1 ability, it'll be worth it!

 

18 hours ago, DragonSlayer.1087 said:

Hoping for a dual-sword wielding Assassin: 

Daredevil has evades, Deadeye has stealthing... this one is probably going to be Porting. You no longer have stolen skill, your steal becomes Aura of Displacement and your F2 is Return to your original location. 1500 range. 

The tradeoff is you only now have one evade. 

This ES hopefully is something that synergizes well with Critical Strikes. Doing critical damage gives you some kind of buffs. 

Your main boon is quickness and your main condi is vulnerable. 

 

Idk if they will encourage doing the "one-shot" builds again but you never know. 🤷‍♂️

 

 

Yeah I definitely believe Dual wielding sword will be lethal, but pistol/sword is definitely going to be nasty too! Probably one of our most lethal weapon combinations. Because if they give Pistol./Sword a blind on the 3 skill as well as a blink/teleport on the 5 skill It'll literally be D/P but for Sword xD. 

 

Thief definitely needs more access to haste and defensive boons too. Shoot. I would love to have a quickness specialization. That would be awesome!! I want a skill that runs linear like a bulls rush, maybe the #2 skill and it be like a gap closer. That skill can offer quickness while running towards your enemy and upon contact quick slash or jumping slash or something that'll stun, I don't know. I'm spewing nonsense xD But it could happen!!

 

I definitely want to see critical strikes have more love, so if this line works hand and hand with CS tree line, then I'll be all for it! I already have a CS build waiting to be used.

 

Oh and greatsword Thief is also a possible thing too! I already bought an eternity for luls just incase. 

Edited August 2, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[kash.9213]

23 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I certainly hope they'll give Thief off-hand sword and call it Bladedancer.

Then they need to replace all applications of Stealth with a unique defensive boon.

 

But more than that, I hope we won't get a pop fiction Ninja.

The game Rift had build trees that you could put points into and you could combine like two or three. Bladedancer tree could dual wield swords and was strong as a gap closer and an upfront fighter, more so for being agile and mobile than being a tank. It was probably dumb but I liked to combine it with the stealth and the port/blink trees, they might not have synergized fully but other builds had to search for answers. It would be wild to have an Elite focused on a bladedancer type with no stealth. It would have to go hard into that theme because thief will get focused if it's telegraphed like that. 

[AikijinX.6258]

3 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

The game Rift had build trees that you could put points into and you could combine like two or three. Bladedancer tree could dual wield swords and was strong as a gap closer and an upfront fighter, more so for being agile and mobile than being a tank. It was probably dumb but I liked to combine it with the stealth and the port/blink trees, they might not have synergized fully but other builds had to search for answers. It would be wild to have an Elite focused on a bladedancer type with no stealth. It would have to go hard into that theme because thief will get focused if it's telegraphed like that. 

Lets create a spec that is heavily attack on titan based xD haha. I want a full teleport specialization. Our evade should be a teleport xD haha 

[nopoet.2960]

I'm not so sure the crossed swords are the thief icon.  I think it might be for the guardian because guardians don't dual wield.  Since Anet is making a big deal about breaking rules it would be appropriate.  I think it might be the flame diamond thing.  It doesn't have to mean torch but it could mean they are doing something different with initiative.

[hatsamu.4327]

I can't wait to see what kind of trade-off that spec would get, haha. You're predicting based off which icon? The crossed-swords or the movie-300-immortals mask? And I've seen a lot of support for guardians to be the crossed-swords, somewhat surprising to me. 

[Nomad.4301]

It appears to me that this preview Elite spec image HEAVILY implies that the crossed sword icon would be for either guardian or warrior (if they gave it NEW sword skills) which means thief icon is up in the air again.

[Zacchary.6183]

15 minutes ago, Nomad.4301 said:

It appears to me that this preview Elite spec image HEAVILY implies that the crossed sword icon would be for either guardian or warrior (if they gave it NEW sword skills) which means thief icon is up in the air again.

Honestly, looks like it would be for guard or thief. Guard because heavy armor, but thief because that armor doesn't look very heavy.

EDIT: That pic could also be a sylvari guard. They are pretty thin.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Zacchary.6183

[Nomad.4301]

7 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

Honestly, looks like it would be for guard or thief. Guard because heavy armor, but thief because that armor doesn't look very heavy.

EDIT: That pic could also be a sylvari guard. They are pretty thin.

 The armor in the picture appears to be the https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warlord's_armor_(heavy)

Which is the heavy armor set from WvW, the medium and light sets look totally different.

 

Edit: Specifially the "open" helmet version.

Ps. If the link doesn't work, it's because the wiki is down.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Nomad.4301

[Teratus.2859]

3 minutes ago, Nomad.4301 said:

 The armor in the picture appears to be the https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warlord's_armor_(heavy)

Which is the heavy armor set from WvW, the medium and light sets look totally different.

 

Edit: Specifially the "open" helmet version.

Ps. If the link doesn't work, it's because the wiki is down.

Been talking about this in the Guardian section too.

I think people are putting way too much "It's a guardian not a thief" basis on the fact that it looks like the Heavy Warlords armour.

If you remember the other silhouette which is strongly implied to be the Necromancer was very obviously wearing medium armour as well.

I dunno if this is just the artists way of messing with us or going with something that thematically fits or looks cool over in game armour accuracy or whether we are extremely far off on that second silhouette being the Necromancers spec.
OR! whether this is Anet's way of hinting that these new specs might be getting the ability to swap armour weights (or at least mix their skins) but I am finding it very suspicious none the less 🙂

If by some miracle the latter of those is true then what we could be looking at here is a duel Sword Thief/Assassin spec that wears heavy armour.

[Zacchary.6183]

12 minutes ago, Nomad.4301 said:

 The armor in the picture appears to be the https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warlord's_armor_(heavy)

Which is the heavy armor set from WvW, the medium and light sets look totally different.

 

Edit: Specifially the "open" helmet version.

Ps. If the link doesn't work, it's because the wiki is down.

Alright, I am now thoroughly convinced that silhouette is a sylvari in heavy Warlord armor.

[Smoosh.2718]

I'm convinced Thief's elite spec is the oni mask and will get the greatsword.

The crossed swords is guardian with the pips meaning the 3 virtues.

[Daniel Handler.4816]

10 minutes ago, Smoosh.2718 said:

I'm convinced Thief's elite spec is the oni mask and will get the greatsword.

The crossed swords is guardian with the pips meaning the 3 virtues.

The colour is wrong for guardian. 

[Smoosh.2718]

Just now, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

The colour is wrong for guardian. 

You not seeing the massive amount of blue on the outlines and some shading? (also it doesnt have a trenchcoat on :V )

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Kodama.6453]

1 minute ago, Smoosh.2718 said:

You not seeing the massive amount of blue on the outlines and some shading? (also it doesnt have a trenchcoat on :V )

The red, which is the way more prominent colour of this image, doesn't match for former guardian elite spec reveals. Meanwhile it does match for thief elite specs.

[Smoosh.2718]

On 8/4/2021 at 7:55 PM, Kodama.6453 said:

The red, which is the way more prominent colour of this image, doesn't match for former guardian elite spec reveals. Meanwhile it does match for thief elite specs.

That honestly could be done to show 'golden' tints to the corners of armour plates, its the outline colour which never changes.

(Who ever reacted with the confused emoji, i hope you feel really smart since I was right with what I was saying).

Edited August 18, 2021 by Smoosh.2718
Remove React Emoji's

[Zacchary.6183]

Just now, Kodama.6453 said:

The red, which is the way more prominent colour of this image, doesn't match for former guardian elite spec reveals. Meanwhile it does match for thief elite specs.

The heavy warlord armor has gold on the helm and shoulders in those exact areas. Burn could turn it red.

 

[Kodama.6453]

3 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

The heavy warlord armor has gold on the helm and shoulders in those exact areas. Burn could turn it red.

 

That seems really reaching for me, why would they just do that for the head and shoulder pieces, but leaving the gold ornaments of the other armor pieces black?

 

This kind of colour coding is repeatedly done by Riot to hint at the class, not just to show some gold ornament the armor might possibly have.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[Panda.1967]

1 hour ago, Nomad.4301 said:

It appears to me that this preview Elite spec image HEAVILY implies that the crossed sword icon would be for either guardian or warrior (if they gave it NEW sword skills) which means thief icon is up in the air again.

That is 100% thief… just look back at all of the past previews, they always allow a hint of color associated with the core class.

Yellow/gold = Warrior

Light blue = Guardian

Dark dark red = Revenant

Light green = Ranger

Brown/orange = Engineer

Maroon/dark red = Thief

Bright Red = Elementalist

Dark green = Necromancer

Magenta = Mesmer

 

that icon has maroon.

[Zacchary.6183]

1 minute ago, Panda.1967 said:

That is 100% thief… just look back at all of the past previews, they always allow a hint of color associated with the core class.

Yellow/gold = Warrior

Light blue = Guardian

Dark dark red = Revenant

Light green = Ranger

Brown/orange = Engineer

Maroon/dark red = Thief

Bright Red = Elementalist

Dark green = Necromancer

Magenta = Mesmer

 

that icon has maroon.

That maroon is part of the heavy warlord armor set. There is a blue outline too.

[Panda.1967]

3 minutes ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

That maroon is part of the heavy warlord armor set. There is a blue outline too.

A very very feint hint of DARK blue…guardian ALWAYS has been hinted at with a very particular shade of light blue. ALWAYS. There is one thing that they have not once changed with their preview silhouettes. The color that they let bleed through is ALWAYS of specific shades that represent the class. It is also always the most prominent color you see on the silhouette, any other colors seen are just a result of the process they use for creating the silhouette. When the unveiling is done, that dark blue you see on the edges will become something else (a shine or reflection) while the maroon details that we see now will be unchanged.

[Kodama.6453]

6 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

That is 100% thief… just look back at all of the past previews, they always allow a hint of color associated with the core class.

Yellow/gold = Warrior

Light blue = Guardian

Dark dark red = Revenant

Light green = Ranger

Brown/orange = Engineer

Maroon/dark red = Thief

Bright Red = Elementalist

Dark green = Necromancer

Magenta = Mesmer

 

that icon has maroon.

Another hint that I think this is thief and not guardian: the pose.

 

Thief in all elite spec artworks has been very dynamic and flexible with the pose.

Guardian is not. Core guardian, dragonhunter, firebrand, they are all directly facing the right side.

 

Not with a twisted upper body, facing the observer with half profile or anything. Guardian is always full profile.

All 3 Guardian Artworks

The pose does not match. This guy is not directly facing to the right, so this is most likely not a guardian elite spec.

There are more hints in these artworks than just armor, weapons and colours. Look into details like this as well.