GW2 Thief Discussion

[Delias]

Agree. It could even be as simple as making it easier for melee to dodge, and making it so that they can dodge more often.

Woops I think that I spread the discussion into two topics.
Oh well.
If you put it that way it would be fine, but melee would have to also be able to be in range of the enemy more often than they currently are able to.
Like, a ranged character can sit there and attack the whole fight, a melee has to dip in and out to be efficient. This can't really be fixed easily besides simply giving melee attacks a bit more damage.

[Sy]

You should be rewarded for having to play better, in my opinion. If something has a higher skill requirement, it should be better than spamming skills from range.

isn't that what i just said?^^
i'm just saying that higher damage output should not be used in too big amounts, otherwise it becomes a "every noob needs to play ranged because otherwise they die and every pro-gamer needs to play melee because the damage is needed for progress" situation. i'd say ~20% higher damage would be fine, but not too much more.
there are many way to make a character stronger, damage is only one of them.

Like, a ranged character can sit there and attack the whole fight, a melee has to dip in and out to be efficient. This can't really be fixed easily besides simply giving melee attacks a bit more damage.

that is true, it needs to be balanced around actual dps of course, not just about the numbers of each ability.

[Iconoklaste]

I'm not sure if it has been stated before, but what is stopping people from playing melee and then dropping back and just weapon swapping to dual pistol when the damage gets to be too high? I think people are getting caught up on being "full melee" and I don't think that is the way this class (or game for that matter) is meant to be played.

[DrakeWurrum]

I'm not sure if it has been stated before, but what is stopping people from playing melee and then dropping back and just weapon swapping to dual pistol when the damage gets to be too high?

Nothing at all. The problem is that people don't want to be forced to use ranged weapons just because they are superior. If people want to play full-on melee, it should be possible.

[Delias]

I'm not sure if it has been stated before, but what is stopping people from playing melee and then dropping back and just weapon swapping to dual pistol when the damage gets to be too high? I think people are getting caught up on being "full melee" and I don't think that is the way this class (or game for that matter) is meant to be played.

Warriors have 5 melee weapons and 2 ranged.
Are you saying that warriors should be FORCED to use a ranged weapon to be viable?
If you were expected to use a ranged weapons at all times, why bother having 5 melee options.

[Iconoklaste]

I understand where you're coming from, it just seems counter intuitive to the original design of the game. (Sans trinity) Because the mobs are programmed to attack the closest character to them, it seems illogical that there should be profession builds that allow for you to be able to stay in the mobs aggro range at all times. I kinda took their "you can't tank mobs anymore" statement to mean that the in and out style was the one that we would be forced to use.

[solidsheep]

My only complaint about double-casting is when I would dodge twice by mistake, or when I would use LPD twice by mistake. Or when I would Heartseeker a second time even though the original target was dead. None of this was due to lag, it's because they seem to have skill queuing in the game and, unlike in WoW, they do not have a checkbox option to prevent you from accidentally double-casting when a key is pressed quickly in a short window.

I wish I could push ESC to cancel an attack.

Ohhhh man so I'm not the only one this was happening to, i got stuck so many times doing LDB as a mob was casting a big hit ability.

[DrakeWurrum]

I understand where you're coming from, it just seems counter intuitive to the original design of the game. (Sans trinity) Because the mobs are programmed to attack the closest character to them, it seems illogical that there should be profession builds that allow for you to be able to stay in the mobs aggro range at all times. I kinda took their "you can't tank mobs anymore" statement to mean that the in and out style was the one that we would be forced to use.

They're already working to make sure mobs will not favor melee quite as much as they do now, because ranged weapon users are just not feeling threatened and all. This should be better in the next BWE.

[solidsheep]

They're already working to make sure mobs will not favor melee quite as much as they do now, because ranged weapon users are just not feeling threatened and all. This should be better in the next BWE.

Forget making them go for range more, let us be able to punt them at range players :P

[Iconoklaste]

I agree that they should increase the difficulty of ranged play. As it stands now, simply strafing a few feet side to side is enough to avoid the vast majority of the incoming damage. This is far too sharp of a contrast to the melee play where if you aren't circle-strafing/dodging you will die in seconds. With that said, I hope they don't over tune it. I'm excited about the "tag-team" philosophy that will be required in dungeons, and if too much damage is being dealt to the ranged then I'm afraid it will take away that cooperation element that I'm looking forward to so much. People will be far more reluctant to jump in aggro range to damage soak if they are already taking too much damage at ranged. We will see how it plays out at least. I think the next BWE will be less of a melee slaughter-fest because the average beta tester will be more accustomed to the fast-paced dodge-oriented combat paradigm.

[DrakeWurrum]

Well I do agree that melee should have a bit higher risk, but that's only because you can't really avoid that, with the way AoE is in the game.

One thing they could do is give mobs attacks that specifically target enemies attacking them from a distance, while ignoring enemies in melee range, but I'm not sure if that would work, let alone make sense, for EVERY PvE mob encounter.

[solidsheep]

Well I do agree that melee should have a bit higher risk, but that's only because you can't really avoid that, with the way AoE is in the game.

One thing they could do is give mobs attacks that specifically target enemies attacking them from a distance, while ignoring enemies in melee range, but I'm not sure if that would work, let alone make sense, for EVERY PvE mob encounter.

My only gripe with melee vs range is that range get warning before they get owned(normally big red ring or a mobs starts moving to them),but melee is stuck staring through spell effects to figure out if boss is doing a cast animation.

[DrakeWurrum]

My only gripe with melee vs range is that range get warning before they get owned(normally big red ring or a mobs starts moving to them),but melee is stuck staring through spell effects to figure out if boss is doing a cast animation.

Yup. I'm still convinced half-cost dodges is the best solution to this.

[solidsheep]

Yup. I'm still convinced half-cost dodges is the best solution to this.

I think a easy fix would be to add a melee type ring that helps see what type cone aoe is coming and which way its going and give us target of target!

[Creamy Flames]

Woops I think that I spread the discussion into two topics.
Oh well.
If you put it that way it would be fine, but melee would have to also be able to be in range of the enemy more often than they currently are able to.
Like, a ranged character can sit there and attack the whole fight, a melee has to dip in and out to be efficient. This can't really be fixed easily besides simply giving melee attacks a bit more damage.

Melee attacks already have vastly superior damage.

On another topic, I didn't get to play thief much. How did you that did, feel about the combo points? Was it hard to balance their use?

[DrakeWurrum]

Melee attacks already have vastly superior damage.

On another topic, I didn't get to play thief much. How did you that did, feel about the combo points? Was it hard to balance their use?

Eh... since I didn't try the pvp content where I got upscaled to 80, Initiative felt slow. It felt like it was a resource you actually had to manage carefully, rather than ANet outright promising "You will always have enough to do your job."

That being said, I had yet to get any Init-boosting traits, so that may be different at higher levels. All in all, I liked it because it keeps me different from other classes. I can choose to spam Leaping Death Blossom multiple times, if I felt so inclined.

Unfortunately, Thieves need access to some kind of toggle that protects them from the spell queuing system. :S

[Murphlord]

I've been hearing that the thieves were squishy as hell. I didn't play them in the beta... so true or false?

[DrakeWurrum]

I've been hearing that the thieves were squishy as hell. I didn't play them in the beta... so true or false?

Squishy, yes, but skillful play negates it. :P

[TheJekyll]

Squishy, yes, but skillful play negates it. :P

I agree. The thief has so many ways to get out combat/away from any action, it's ridiculous.

[Blamtu]

Well in BWE I spend most of the time in PVP. First I went off as a dual dagger thief and it was bad. All the great crits were from backstab when u stealth or from 3rd attack on button 1. All the other skills were just "let's get closer cause he is running away". Then I tried dual pistol condition thief and it was waaaay better than daggers. Unloading 3 times on a target was great cause they need to heal up immediatly and still got great dmg from poisons and bleeding on them. For unloading this many times easily I was usingbasilisk venom to stun them and chill venoms to slow them down. Against range I was using smoke screen but it wasn't as good as OP scorpion wire Pull enemy roll while shooting pull them again Awesome! But then again I went for sword and dagger and OMG it was amazing! Sword dmg is much higher than dagger one. And flanking strike... against melee it was like 3 strikes from 1 button and quick flanking and stealth and backstab. I was repeating this rotation and it was suprisingly good. And with teleport that gives you escape route on button 2 with sword you could harass people and run away
For PVE I found shortbow as a great weapon with cripple and aoe shots it's just great for pve and killing 2-3 mobs at once