How would you redesign the thief?

[Total Barrage.3570]

> @"Lonami.2987" said:

> Do you feel like the thief could be much more? That his mechanics don't do his theme justice? Maybe his elite specializations have a weak design? Or do you just want to post some crazy ideas? Well, then this thread is for you.

>

> So, just for fun, how would you redesign the thief?

 

How about that the thief profession would actually be a thief..err I mean the magician they usually are, instead of being a gimmick?

And 'steal' would actually be steal and not some weirdo - hey what's that: o_O... <(flashy moves), o_o >--(how's this!) type of thing.

So you could actually steal stuff etc.

 

Cheers,

 

- B

 

 

 

 

[Lonami.2987]

> @"Sir Vincent III.1286" said:

> > @"Lonami.2987" said:

> > * If you equip the same type of main-hand and off-hand weapon, you get 5 new skills.

>

> I have suggested this long long long time ago. Don't hold your breath. If I have, I would have been dead long time ago.

 

Still wish it worked that way, and not just for thief. Dual-wielding is so underwhelming in this game :cry:.

 

> @"Zacchary.6183" said:

> > @"Lonami.2987" said:

> >

> > My problem with that idea is that I couldn't think about more than three belts (knives, bombs, shadowstep), and I would like to have at least 4-5.

> >

> > Do you have any other ideas, by any chance?

>

> Besides turning the venoms and traps into toolbelt skills, no. Those two utility types really do not see much use because they're pretty niche. Especially venoms.

 

Damn, that's a pity. Seems I'll be sticking to the current one.

[Kirin.7306]

> @"Asur.9178" said:

> I'd start by getting rid of the initiative system so they can stop being so reserved with balancing the class properly.

>

> I'd also get rid of every single stealth ability in the game.

>

> Neither of those are going to happen; so, it's irrelevant to me what they do.

 

yeah get rid of all stealth and those clones mesmers have

[Dangus.6572]

I do WvW and all I see is circles. All I feel is CC. even smallest mistake = death, slightest lag = death. Thief is single target class and it should remain such. Thief shoud be spiky and mobile. Reaction, controlled stealth and evades should be only skills required by thief. remove Bandits defence, Shadow refuge, they are useless. I was enemy number 1 on stealth skills cd, but now it's ok. Rework elite skills, give us more power or cheat with elite. we are not druids, warriors or pet lovers. Do not make thief to be yet another boring class. thief is villain, egoist and cheater. a character which cannot be caught easily. Even condi dmg cleanse is fine with thief. None of classes are designed to have universal build which leads to victory against others in all situations. I like distinction of classes and builds. Makes fights more interesting. There are few broken builds but there will be no evenness ever. attackers will kill, defenders will defend, supportes - support, haters will hate. choose your role. I love to charge into attack. slash slash = you dead. If not - it's me laying on the ground. I take that risk - it thrills me. do not make thief a cripple.

[Maugetarr.6823]

I wouldn't do a full redesign, just make it so trickery isn't a necessary trait line, although still remains a nice one.

 

Steal 25 second CD base

15 initiative base

Initiative regeneration at 1 every 0.8 seconds

Replace Kleptomaniac with a 3 second blind on steal

Replace Preparedness with a 3 second chill on steal

Change Quick pockets to 1 initiative on weaponswap (ICD 5 seconds), have it reduce weaponswap CD to 3 seconds

Remove the steal CD reduction from Sleight of Hand, make it give you 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds (at the start of steal so stuff like reapers protection is negated) and keep the daze

Lead attacks unchanged.

 

Forgot two:

First change is to remove the bounce and Cripple from dancing Dagger, reduce to 2 initiative. When it hits your opponent, you get a rollover skill for 2 initiative: instant cast, shadowstep to the player you hit with dancing Dagger and Cripple them (3 seconds), with no damage at all. My hope is that this helps D/D and P/D without adding any significant buffs to S/D.

 

The second is to make deathblossom a skill shot similar to warrior's GS#3. Range 300. Total cast time 0.75 seconds, evade frames for 0.5 seconds right at the beginning. All the damage and bleeds stay the same. My hope is to keep it viable for condi builds, but raise the skill floor while making the utility more usable for power D/D builds.

[Slugonaut.9841]

Honestly, I think making 15 initiative baseline would be a big step in the right direction. It would open up some more build diversity for sure. I mean I cant think of anyone I know or that 've seen that doesn't take Trickery in PvP or WVW (granted there are other reasons i.e. Bountiful Theft and Sleight of Hand) but I think its about time 15 initiative should be baseline. With how high damage is now and the way game mechanics have changed a 12 initiative build is just a handicap these days.

[DeceiverX.8361]

ToTC, Preparedness, Lead Attacks, and either BT or Trickster depending on your other lines are all standalone reasons to take Tr.

Even with preparedness baseline I'd still take it solely for ToTC and Trickster alone because no other trait lines come close to providing this level of PvP utility.

 

The thing about Trickery is that it's the one line that does more than one thing, and what it does, it does **really** well to compensate for the innate weaknesses of the rest of the thief.

 

It's gotten slightly better since we finally have a real condi cleanse utility these days, but any kit not running OH pistol for example only has an interrupt via Trickery. Increased initiative is global cooldown reduction by an effective 25%. Lead Attacks is DA-level damage. Even fury application coming from CS being contingent on hitting a lower-health target is just objectively worse than ToTC which applies it and a mobility effect on-engage.

 

Trickery is basically the same as the previous iteration of Soul Reaping on necromancer and the Defense line on warrior; without them, the class just kind of falls apart entirely unless all of the benefits are overcome elsewhere, which pigeon-holes you into what are usually just worse builds or ones which aren't any fun.

[Cobrakon.3108]

Id remove a significant part of their mobility, Making stealth more important disengage, but more so encouraging stay and win mechanics. The whole pecking strat would fall to the wayside. Autos would be reduced and main damage would come from high initiative skills or setups (like bs). Traps would ignore invulns... like if you trip on a wire.... you may not get damage becuase u have invuln but you should still trip on the ground. Gameplay would promote combos, and those combos would require skill but be intuitive so no animation cancels or camera angle bs. Counter attacks would give great reward in the form of damage, large attacks would expose you and if not down correctly could get you killed.

[Slugonaut.9841]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> ToTC, Preparedness, Lead Attacks, and either BT or Trickster depending on your other lines are all standalone reasons to take Tr.

> Even with preparedness baseline I'd still take it solely for ToTC and Trickster alone because no other trait lines come close to providing this level of PvP utility.

>

> The thing about Trickery is that it's the one line that does more than one thing, and what it does, it does **really** well to compensate for the innate weaknesses of the rest of the thief.

>

> It's gotten slightly better since we finally have a real condi cleanse utility these days, but any kit not running OH pistol for example only has an interrupt via Trickery. Increased initiative is global cooldown reduction by an effective 25%. Lead Attacks is DA-level damage. Even fury application coming from CS being contingent on hitting a lower-health target is just objectively worse than ToTC which applies it and a mobility effect on-engage.

>

> Trickery is basically the same as the previous iteration of Soul Reaping on necromancer and the Defense line on warrior; without them, the class just kind of falls apart entirely unless all of the benefits are overcome elsewhere, which pigeon-holes you into what are usually just worse builds or ones which aren't any fun.

 

Right, I totally agree Trickery has way more going for it than just preparedness (why I said there are other reasons to take it obv) but I also think therein lies the problem. BUT I also think 12v15 initiative is also a brick wall for a lot of people. Bottom line, Trickery stagnates build diversity because we basically HAVE TO invest into that line to be competitive in PVP/WVW.

 

Bottom line, BALANCE the trait lines better to allow for more build diversity that plays to the strengths of the weapon sets instead of baking so much into Steal and 1 trait line that thief falls apart without it.

[Maugetarr.6823]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> ToTC, Preparedness, Lead Attacks, and either BT or Trickster depending on your other lines are all standalone reasons to take Tr.

> Even with preparedness baseline I'd still take it solely for ToTC and Trickster alone because no other trait lines come close to providing this level of PvP utility.

>

> The thing about Trickery is that it's the one line that does more than one thing, and what it does, it does **really** well to compensate for the innate weaknesses of the rest of the thief.

>

> It's gotten slightly better since we finally have a real condi cleanse utility these days, but any kit not running OH pistol for example only has an interrupt via Trickery. Increased initiative is global cooldown reduction by an effective 25%. Lead Attacks is DA-level damage. Even fury application coming from CS being contingent on hitting a lower-health target is just objectively worse than ToTC which applies it and a mobility effect on-engage.

>

> Trickery is basically the same as the previous iteration of Soul Reaping on necromancer and the Defense line on warrior; without them, the class just kind of falls apart entirely unless all of the benefits are overcome elsewhere, which pigeon-holes you into what are usually just worse builds or ones which aren't any fun.

 

Trickery definitely has more going for it than just preparedness, but as @"Slugonaut.9841" pointed out, I think 2/3 of the minor traits in that line create a major problem for thief balance. I think it should have been made baseline when they did the initiative trait rework a couple of years ago where they moved both the top and bottom of initiative regen towards the middle. What I was putting forward was basically doing the same again, so hopefully Trickery would follow suit with CS as being a decent line, but not being necessary. A point I glossed is RFI, which might need a nerf with these changes I suggested to something like only gaining 3 initiative, but putting the CD at 30 seconds. I'm going to disagree slightly on preparedness though. It's not a CD reduction as much as it's an extra 0.5-1 charges for a single skill for the ammo system since it doesn't change the rate of regeneration. That's why my suggestion actually included a 25% increase to initiative regen while reducing some of the initiative gaining traits. Kleptomaniac is actually just as big of a hurdle as preparedness as it can represent a 10-20% increase in initiative gain depending on build and usage. Anyway, I think addressing those two minor traits would allow them to balance thief more easily going forward with perhaps moving damage from autos to the 2-5 skills as well.

[Maugetarr.6823]

 

A point that I should have mentioned in my response initially to this thread would be changing the SA traits Shadow's Embrace, Cloaked in Shadow, Resilience of Shadows, and Shadow's Rejuvenation. I'd like to see them moved to a more active version that revolves around gaining stealth, rather than just sitting in stealth by having them be reworked into a combination of how Shadow Protector and Daredevil dodge traits work (non-boon buffs). Something like, "when you gain stealth without having stealth 'effect' happens for X seconds. (ICD You seconds)." Gaining stealth in this context would mean going from not having stealth, to having stealth and not a re-application of stealth while you're already stealthed. So stealth stacking for longer periods of time wouldn't be encouraged as much whereas gaining stealth and then attacking would be a more appealing option.

 

So for Shadow's Embrace it would be something like "upon entering stealth, lose 1 condition. Upon leaving stealth, lose 1 condition, ICD 5 seconds."

 

Cloaked in Shadow - Gaining stealth blinds nearby foes. You cannot be critically hit for 5 seconds, ICD 5 seconds. This would change it to allow you to keep the effect for the 5 seconds even if you attacked, but if you stayed in stealth for longer than that, you'd lose it, until you came out and re-stealthed.

 

Similarly, Shadow's Rejuvenation would be something like gain 1 initiative on entering stealth (ICD 5 seconds assuming they change initiative regeneration rate per my other post). Gain 200 health per second for 5 seconds upon entering stealth. ICD 5 seconds.

 

Resilience of Shadow's would be "upon stealthing a player, that player receives 25% less damage for 5 seconds."

 

I think changes to these traits could make the Shadow Arts line be more engaging in combat rather than encouraging sitting in stealth for so long.

 

 

[BrokenGlass.9356]

The rework is simple, if I do say so myself.

 

Change the F skills to be a functional tool belt. Rework a few utilities who's effects have been worked into the tool belt.

 

F1- steal. Shadowstep and gain a stolen skill.

F2- stolen skill. Keep current steal table against mobs in PvE. Against players, steal the 2 skill from thier current weapon set. (animate using the weapon skin of the stolen player)

F3- Blinding Powder (replace the utility with something thematically appropriate)

F4- Shadowstep (replace the utility with something thematically appropriate)

Daredevil

F5- can assign utilities to this key, (physical only.)

Deadeye

F5- Shadow Cloak - your character becomes shadows, allowing movement while immobilized, and increased movement speed. Leave a trail of short lived smoke fields in your wake as you move. (the intent is to have one long CD that can cancel the negatives of kneel.)

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

I really wouldn't redesign it much.

 

Just get rid of most of the unneeded/now-redundant nerfs. Fix bugs within their skills. Make their underwater game more enjoyable. And add some better synchronization to their weapon kits.

 

And most importantly. Remove "No valid path to target"

[Seraphic Creed.1498]

Base Mechanics

- Mug: Short-range, Steal 2-3 boons and deal life stealing damage. Short cooldown but uses a bit of initiative.

- Trick: Long cooldowns, doesn't require initiative, can get reset with a rally. Complimentary Trick determined by primary weapon choice, for example, a Hook-rope for Sword, Gunpowder Trap for Pistol, Shuriken for Dagger, Snare Trap for Shortbow, Inflatable Bag for Harpoon/ Spear.

- Shadow's Grace: Instantly Shadow-step a max distance towards a target, press again to step back towards initiated location, it's then on cool-down for a decent period of time. (Allows more freedom for other utility skills.)

- Dual Wield is fine how it is IMO, except I agree that Dual Wielded Pistols and Daggers should have a 'double strike' on the default attack, with animations using both weapons.

- Shortbow should be less... comical, I'm not fond of the magic bouncing arrows. Auto attack should fire 3 arrows in a fan that don't bounce but pierce though 1 target each.

 

Daredevil Mechanics

- Can use Staff.

- Trick: Same as base except with the addition of the Staff Trick, which is an AOE Fear if you're under 40% health, an AOE taunt if you're over.

- Shadow's Persistence: Shadow Step to the rear of a random nearby enemy, can be used 3-4 times before cooldown.

- Extra Dodge and Evade customisation is great. Except I'd have a Leap for innately removing conditions and combo-ing with smoke fields, a Whirl but kind of like blurry, martial arts twist rather than the dagger throwing, upside-down whirl they have now, and that will do damage based on the weapon equipped as well as a Phase which would appear like teleportation but at a distance only somewhat further than the normal dodge.

- No pickpocket but has a Reckless Haste mode, basically like Frenzy where you take more damage but can attack/ combo faster. (The idea is to avoid being hit)

- The unique heal should heal passively depending on how many enemies are targeting the player, using it should restore endurance.

 

Deadeye Mechanics

- Can use Rifle, which has the longest range. Also gets new longer-range skills for Pistol and Shortbow maybe?

- Mark is integrated with calling Targets for team-mates but also causes vulnerability. If the Mark dies within a certain time-frame nearby allies get healed and a buff, this also resets Gamble if it's on cooldown.

- Shadow's Solace: Teleport away from target and stealth for 1-2 seconds.

- Trick: Whole new set of Tricks for each weapon to change things up, Dagger = Running Speed Boost ect.

- No Pickpocket but I really like this Gamble idea, so let's say if you initiate Gamble, it rolls a result which will determine a particular stance/ boon or detrimental debuff. One of these will be a really OP damage boost for the next attack from stealth but would only have a very small chance. There's also an equally small chance of jamming/ dulling your weapons.

[Zedek.8932]

Excelsior.

Since I am fine with my chosen profession and will probably stick to it forever, I would not fix thief, but fix other professions.

* Remove stealth from other professions.

* Remove "speed" from other professions.

Instead of removing these abilities what are part of the very core/basic design of a Thief profession, you could also turn them down on other professions, as in: "You have stealth, but if you want the real deal, you gotta be a thief!". Look at the range for example: Ranger excels Deadeye in range. It does not make a bit of sense, but okay, if I want more range, I should get a ranger (shivers, probably when the hell freezes over)

 

What would I like to change a bit?

* Getting rid of "Shadow This", "Shadow That" for everything. The Engineer got me into GW2, and I liked the diversity: Explosives, Chemicals, Fire. But also the healing skills made sense: Stimpacks, Bandages, AEDs. Make thieve's elite specialization more focussed around "black" or "shadow" magic. I see they are doing it right now with Deadeye a bit, but this required as an excuse as why we are still be able to steal while kneeling - we can't physically steal anymore as it was possible as Thief or Daredevil.

* Make Thief more "mean", someone that people are more afraid of, not only annoyed of. First I thought the real "mean" profession would be Necromancer, but with the hole sniping and malice and cantrips, the Deadeye looks to be one of the heartless professions, because he'd kill his victims out from nowhere. But right now, thief is the jolly guy that jumps around with this butter knives and low-range weapons that pops up here and there to be annoying as a Poltergeist, but when you cough at him, he has to retreat. Thief lacks the - filter incomming - bad-ass feel. Deadeye is my cup of tea, but just one step in the right direction.

* Longer stealth duration in PvE. Gimme 10 seconds so I can change positions. Or what's with this kneeling stealth duration? I wish we had 2x the time of stealth, so we could get out of aggro (hey, we are invisible after all!!) or get out of AoEs because the enemy has no valid targets.

EDIT: While we are at it, maybe Stealth becomes a one-button skill, too. Right now, it's always accompanied by something (stealing, kneeling, skill #5, healing skill). Why can't I just press, I don't know, F3 and vanish for 10 seconds? Stealth that is just there and not tied to a stipulation? Maybe it eats up initiative every 1 second, so when you choose to be unseen for 10+ seconds, you have no inititative left anyways. There are so many things to change that would beef up the joy immediately...

[Axelteas.7192]

I'd like the RANGE of pistols were a little bit longer. Thief is the only one who could face the OP Scourge in PvP, or unload high DPS in PvE, the problem is he needs to be very exposed, and having 11k of healthpoints is a suicide.

[Belishine.7493]

thare is a lot i want to change to make the thief a feared toon in wvw and more useful in pve. some of the changes i would make are our stealth attacks to do more damage so everyone starts looking for thiefs more often for wvw but for pve makes us do more dps for right now so we can keep up with dragonhunter and the ele in dps time. the stealth needs a tweek for pve and wvw like a little longer so we can get to the right locations. in a whole im saddened that thief is not the number one single target dps or realy feared in wvw like the war or the guardion is.i hop this stuff get changed soon so thief can rain suprem as the king of single target dps in the game.

[Crab Fear.1624]

I would delete them from the game.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

> @"Belishine.7493" said:

> thare is a lot i want to change to make the thief a feared toon in wvw and more useful in pve. some of the changes i would make are our stealth attacks to do more damage so everyone starts looking for thiefs more often for wvw but for pve makes us do more dps for right now so we can keep up with dragonhunter and the ele in dps time. the stealth needs a tweek for pve and wvw like a little longer so we can get to the right locations. in a whole im saddened that thief is not the number one single target dps or realy feared in wvw like the war or the guardion is.i hop this stuff get changed soon so thief can rain suprem as the king of single target dps in the game.

 

This. I remember those good old days when heartseeker hit 8k in PvP and backstab Even More. And in wvw backstab was easily over 10k without any setup.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

I would add an offhand sword to the core set of weapons:

 

* Skill 4 could be a parry skill that blocks for 2 seconds., blocking projectiles unless an attack in melee range is blocked, in which case it will shadowstep behind the attacker and daze, and if that daze interrupts a skill, also deal damage and vulnerability.

* Skill 5 could be a very short dash in any direction that evades for half a second while damaging up to 3 enemies in its path. The dash would not make the character turn in the direction of the movement, keeping the same orientation. So you could, for instance, dash behind an enemy that was behind you to face their back without having to turn after dashing.

 

---

 

I would give several of their skills skill ammo, so they still work with initiative, but can have recharges that limit their spammability. Some would have their initiative cost reduced a bit, and in the case of some sequence skills, removed since the skill count already limits how much they can be used.

 

This would only be done for a few skills that players tend to use over and over, like Unload, Vault, Pistol Whip, Death Blossom and Headshot. In most cases the number of charges would be generous, and would only be felt by players that were accompanying them with lots of initiative recovery to spam them constantly, ignoring all other skills and engaging in repetitive behavior.

 

For example, Unload could have 5 ammo with 10s recharge each charge. And Ankle Shots would be changed to reduce the recharge of the charges to 8 seconds.

 

This would encourage using more and more often all other weapon skills instead trying to save initiative for a few.

 

---

 

To make core thief more unique like with necromancer and its different shroud, I would give core thief a distinctive mechanic that is lost when equipping an elite specialization.

 

For example, extra 'pockets' for stolen skills. Instead just having F1 and F2, Core thief would have F3 as and additional pocket, and Improvisation would no longer allow using stolen skills twice, it would instead add extra pockets in F4 and F5. Daredevil and Deadeye will not have these extra pockets, and for them Improvisation will only give 1 extra stolen skill slot using F3, or work using stolen skills twice as before.

 

---

 

Since Shortbow doesn't have a trait of its own, but Pressure Striking works well with it, I would change the trait into the actual Shortbow trait also making each cast of Choking Gas refund 1 initiative if any of its pulses interrupts (or damage a defiance bar) at least 2 enemies at the same time . This would only happen once per use of Chocking Gas.

[Hydlide.7954]

Love the ideas, though the usage of the word "Dices" over "Dice" is weird.

 

I honestly want to see a Daredevil rework. I feel like I don't use many of the other skills much but mash 1. I think the other skills need a little more utility, and the slight animation lag on 5 and the lack of distance makes me never really want to use it.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Scrap initiative.

Bring back chain attacks from gw1 assassin, slighty modified, you can use skills without chain, but if use the sequence you get bonus (either more damage, boons, condis, reduced CD or whatever).

Remove stealth, add more shadowsteps/teleports instead.

[kash.9213]

I know thumbs down option would be abused but I wish we had one for these threads. "scrap everything about thief class and make it like the other classes". Clean up some bugs and change a thing or three but the design of thief is mostly fine.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

> @"kash.9213" said:

> I know thumbs down option would be abused but I wish we had one for these threads. "scrap everything about thief class and make it like the other classes". Clean up some bugs and change a thing or three but the design of thief is mostly fine.

 

Thought the thread name was "how would YOU redesign the thief" and not "how would you redesign the thief to fit kash likings".

[Orpheal.8263]

My Currrent Concept

 

# Thief

Weapons Thief should use baseline:

* Daggers

* Swords (Offhand now added)

* Pistols

* Rifle (DE merged into Core Thief, E-Spec replaced with **Longbow Rogue**)

* Shortbow

* Staff (Usable via Dervish Spec, reworked Daredevil)

 

#### Thief Gameplay Mechanics

 

* Initiative & Shadow Instinct

* Stealth & Assaults (Renamed Stealth Attacks)

* Dodge Styles & Increased Endurance

* Shadow Steps & Shadow Doppelgangers

* Stolen Skills/ Steal & Disarming/Suppressions

* Boon Steal & Share

* Trap Control/ Trapping

* Evasion & Counterattacks

* Venoms

* Thief Tools

 

This is basicallyl everything around the Thief and its Elite Specializations, which makes up together the **IDENTITY** of a Thief, when you just simply ask yourself, what do you expect from a Thief in a game like GW2, what should a trustworthy Thief be able to do - this little list would be my personal answer.

This are the gameplay aspects, which I'm awaiting from a true thief, that it should be able to fulfill these things somehow - either via Skills, Traits or other gameplay mechanics that are part of the Class, like the F-Buttons. Why do I write this up now, because like I mentioned somewhere else, I'm at the opinion, that the Thief Class has lost it's identity over the time, since HoT.

 

## Initiative & Shadow Instinct

 

Shadow instinct is a concept that I take over now from my Raider Concept to implement into the Core Thief and make it this way a baseline gameplay element to help balancing the overall Thief, and because its a cool mechanic that can help making Initiative in itself more intersting, if its bonded to another similar mechanic with that they both can be synergized with, if used inteligently together.

Shadow Instinct in itself is an upgraded from of Assaults - Special Skills which can be used only in Stealth for some cost of Shadow Instinct, with the speciality that they don't make you reveal, for the cost that they reduce temporarely your maximum Initiative Pool.

The maximum Initiative Pool of the Thief under this Concept will be set at 20. There are no Traits anymore, which raise the maximum Initiative, like Preparedness

If you use a Shadow Instinct Skill that costs you 4 SI, then this will reduce temporarely after reveal your Initiative Pool also by 4. Simple Concept that is there to force the player not to spam too much Shadow Instinct Skills, but rather use them at tactical good moments where you need to be offensive, but also stay stealthed for a while, where getting revealed would mean otherwise your death, but using a Shadow Instinct would turn the battle rather to your favor most likely, before the enemy gets to see you.

 

## Stealth and Assaults

Stealth will get reworked under this Concept. It won't be a Buff anymore, but works now instead as a Boon with Intensity Mechanic, where having more Stacks of Stealth means longer Durations and more intense Stealth, so that you need a certain amount of Stealth Stacks now to be completely invisible.

But therefore are Stealth Durations now significantly longer, especially if you are builded for Concentration, which can now boost the efficiency of your Stealth Durations then. Assaults will get now then also affected by the amount of Stealth Stacks you have, as the amount of Stealth Stacks will influence now the efficiency of your Assault Skills, the former Stealth Attacks, which have been now remaed to a shorter and better fitting term of Assaults.

This means, a Backstab Assault with now for example 15 Stacks of Stealth will be now more powerful, than a Backstab Assault with only 10 Stacks of Stealth, meaning now that positioning under stealth will become more important for Thieves, so that they try to perform their Assaults as quick as possible, so that they won't lose efficiency too much over time as their amount of Stealth Stacks sinks meanwhile. Direct Reveal Skills will get removed/ reworked. Boon Removal is now the natural Counterplay of Stealth.

 

## Dodge Styles and Increased Endurance

As part of merging the Daredevil into the Core Thief gameplay will receive Core Thieves now baseline the increased Endurance bar of 3 Dodges instead of two, makign this way Thieves compared to all other Classes more unique in general, underlining this way more their superiority of mobility and evasiveness, which shouldnt be reliant on a single Elite Specialization, which has been used by anet to destroy the Agility Traitline of the Core Thief, just so that Daredevil received a reason for its existance to come close again to the kind of Mobility, which Thieves have had, before Anet introduced Daredevils.

Dodge Styles will become now an integrated part of Thieves as well, making it possible for Thief Players to choose one out of now 5 different possible Dodge Styles to be used in Combat. Dodge Styles can be changed then while being outside of Combat.

Thieves won't have unlike all other Classes no generic dodges anymore, each of their dodges will feel now different and part of the martial artistical playstyle of a Thief.

F3 is now the Dodge Style Skill Slot.

 

## Shadow Steps and Shadow Doppelgangers

As masters of Shadow Arts, I expect alot more from Thieves especially in this kind of category. Now that there exists an Ammo System.

Instead of turning a Weapon of the Thief into a Shadow Step Tool should use the Thief Class Shadow Steps as part of their integral Gameplay that isn't ruled by just a single weapon, but should be part of the Thief Class, regardless of which Weapon you use, so that Thieves can have more build Diversity, without being crippled by their mobility due to being forced to use one specific weapon for it, if you want to have mobility.

Thats why I agree here in this point with the concept of an other player, that Shadow Steeping needs to become one of the Thief's general Thief Tools, because high mobility is the most important key element of the whole Thief Class Design, this Class lives from Mobility, take its Mobility away and the Thief is literally nothing now but a free victim for all others, if they'd have no Stealth to flee safely.

Shadow Steps will be turned into an Ammo Skill under F4, to allow the Thief to perform several Shadow Steps in a quick row, if needed, therefore it comes with no Blindness anymore and would have longer cooldowns, than it would take under Initiative to recharge, meaning it can't be spammed anymore, but will have longer range with now 1200 distance, instead of 900. and bigger ground target circles to reduce the chance, that you will get to see the error message of not being able to shadow step to that location, cause with bigger ground target is also the chance bigger, that the game iwll recognize a successful spot within that ground target to which yiou can be shadow stepped, than with smaller ground target circles.

Shadow Dopppelgangers will be the offensive way of using this Thief Tool, by charging the Shadow Control Skill up.

Tip and Release = Shadow Step Ground Target

Press and Hold = Charge the Skill and and create a Shadow Doppelganger, which is a perfect Shadow Duplication of yourself, which has your Player Build, that will attack your Target that you are attackingas well with exactly the same Skills you are using. If it gets defeated, before its duration ends, then the original you will receive a portion of the Doppelgangers Health back as a Heal and some Conditions removed. Doppelganger Health is 85% of the Original. Duration is 30s. You can have only one of them at any time and they look exactly like you, so if you go into stealth, while they are visible - chances are good that they will draw attention away from you, so that you can surprise the foe from behind when being traited for receving Stealth Stacks on using Shadow Control.

 

## Stolen Skills/ Steal & Disarming/Suppressions

Another Speciality of the Core Thief and its Elite Specs under this Concept, the Rogue.

This point has nothign big, what needs to be changed. It are F1 and F2, where F1 stays as the Steal Mechanic, and F2 stays as the Stolen Skill-Skill Slot which shows your your result of having used Steal on an enemy. The only thign I'd change under my concept here is changing the list of the Stolen Skills, giving thives alot more of interesting and useful Stolen Skills, while giving each Class from which you steal multiple different Stolen Skills as chance to receive, so that you don't always from enemies of specific Classes always one and the same thing, like receving from Mesmers always only a Glob of Ectoplasm.

Each Steal from Class X should end up in receiving 1 out of 3 possible things.

Disarming and Suppressions on the other hand would be the unique Gameplay Mechanics of the Rogue Specialization with Stolen Skills being replaced with Disarms which cause Suppressions to foes. A Suppression is a Rogue unique Debuff, which directly decreases significantly the Attributes of an disarmed foe, making this way the Rogue an effective Debuffer on the battlefields which weaken their foes directly by reducing their Attributes. Like a Warrior can buff Attributes directly by usign Banners, Rogues would becoem the natural Counter to this then - giving the game finally counterplay to banners, which are for 6 years now buffs, which have no counterplay, cause yu can#t remove the banners from your foes, you can't take them for yourself, they are no environmental item you can sabotage to use their effects for yourself instead, so it is neccessary to have Rogues, which can disarm foes to weaken them directly and reduce their Attributes by this directly as a counter to Banners. Fearsome Thieves and Rogues, suppress their enemies by just their presence on the battlefields, thats the role of a Thief to weaken their enemies and to debuff them, so that your allied soldiers and rangers have an easier time of dealing significantly more damage to your foes. By this being said are Thieves basically Front Combat Supporters. This is why they are good at basically +1ing, but they need to become also again effective in dueling and taking out quickly and effectively single targets, thats also a thief's speciality as assassins, which is why stolen skilsl need to become better, they are a thief's key element of improvisation to outplay single enemies, to turn combats against single targets to your favor., which is why it is important, that Steal should provide multiple different Stolen Skill options per Class, so that this kind of improvisation becomes more impactful for thieves, instead of being permanently so one sided with always the same skilsl that you gain only, making this way thieves more predictable, than they should be.

 

## Boon Steal & Share

This is something, which needs to get its focus set completely to the Rogue Specialization in regard of Boon Sharing, while the Thief should become signficantly better at Boon Stealing. Skills that remove so far only boons, should in fact steal those Boons from foes, so that the Thief profitates from them.

The Rogue is specialized in sharing the Boonms, he steals, making this way the Rogue the clear boon based Thief Specialization, that is focused on Group Support, cause a Rogue alone is weak, a Rogue, who shares his stolen goods with its gang, is strong. They aren't like Thieves lone wolves which hunt and roam alone. Rogues get real strong from their steal and boon based teamwork with that Rogues become ideal partners for especially Raids and Squads in WvW.

 

## Trap Control & Trapping

This is basically already part of the Core Thief, nothing great, nothing real new. But under my vsion of a thief, I expect from a Thief as masters of stealing things, that they are able to detect and remove traps. Traps are sadly liek banners a Gameplay Mechanic in Guild Wars 2, which have since 6 years no real counterplay, You can't do anythign agaisnt traps ion this game, except hoping for it that you don't run into them - which is really bad.

When we can set traps, then it should be also able for experienced classes that can use traps, to be able to detect ands remove them - so this means not only the Thief, but especialyl also Rangers should be too able to detect and remove Traps, same as Dragonhunters. This shoudl be really no rocket science, that this needs to happen to be able to balance better this game as also to add a new element of group support into this game, which just needs to exist - the ability to control all the trapping in this game, by detecting and removing them for you allies, so that they don't run into them, before it is too late. Easily added to the Thief via Trait, or as part of their Skills.

 

## Evasion & Counterattacks

Thieves have not very much ways to mitigate damage. This should get changed under my concept by increasing slightly their access to skills and traits, which enable them to have a bit more access to auto evasion effects to help them mitigate in a more fluid way incoming damage, instead of needing to blind foes for that and fuel this way the effect spam of conditions. As part of this should be added also a thief unique gameplay aspect, that is counterattacking foes if traited their auto evasions to become blocks instead which lead then to counterattacksg to turn your auto evansions this way into a more offensive form. Kind of what Darevevils have with that one Block Physical Skills, just more in fluid natural way performed by evading enemy attacks, cause thats what i await from an martial artistic acrobatic thief - to know how to parry attacks and use the enemy's motion energy agaisnt themself. Gentle Fist Combat so to say...

 

## Venoms

Venoms would I completely rework, the way they work now are they too meaningless, to quickly over, to be really impactful for Condition Builds, unless used for some short Condition Bursts, they are useless the way they are now. Id change all Venoms to use the Ammo System, giving the thief on usage of a Venom Ampule which is basically now the Ammo a set amount of time, in which all of your attacks have a chance to cause a specific Condition, instead of only like 2-3 hits doing a Condition and then the effect of the Venom is already over with a certain duration in which you are able to deal those few hits, before the effect ends.

This way are Venoms especially useful with builds, that are able to perform in short tiem many hits, giving you this way more chances to deal the specific condition to as many foes as you can hit in the duration time and not just only 1 single target. This way will be Venoms then alot more useful, especially when shared with allies.

 

## Thief Tools

Thief Tools are basically the Core Thief's F5 Skill Slot, which would give them the option of using one out of 5 different classical Thief Tools, like for example a Grappling Hook, which will be the improved changed version basically of Scorpion Wire being now a generral gameplay mechanic of the Thief instead of being a Utility Skill.

Or Throwing Weapons, like a Chakram or Shurikens, or a Thief Mantle which stealths you infintely as long you stay immobile. This is basicalyl there to give the Thief gameplay some more flavor, so that a Thief can do, what you expect from a Thief to do.