I survive much more on my Thief than on my Warrior. But with a bleed focused build on my Warrior, the damage output is greater than my Thief. In general terms anyway, there are always exceptional circumstances.
Thieves do more damage in bursts, warriors just wade into combat and stay there which will give them greater DPS, thieves go in and out of combat which reduces their dps but let's them prepare a spike on some poor bastard...
PS: your thief summons have scorpion wire and MY GOD!! is it annoying!! I spent one fight against a thief with 3 thief summons just being pulled around the battlefield! Thank god I had a pet to actually attack the thief or I probably woulda died!
Yeah did some testing on low level Warrior and Thief exclusively in PvP and it felt like Thiefs have more burst and Warriors have more sustained DPS. Once you waste the initiative as a thief you're on a long cooldown... Also didn't feel like Warriors had much more survivability.
I have a question though - I didn't dive into builds or anything, just so you know. I saw a Dagger/Dagger PvP video (BWE1) and the guy was doing 4+ Leaping Death Blossoms in succession and stacked up the poison to even 16+. When I tried that on the dummies I could only do it 2-3 times.
Is this a case of some traits or was the skill made more initiative costly in BWE2?
Last edited by Grable; 2012-06-11 at 08:16 AM.
"Loss of blood... My only weakness!"
~ Warlord Khan, Magicka
Anyway, if you don't already see where I'm going with this, allow me to spell it out: the only meaningful MMORPG "endgame" -- i.e., something novel to do after the progression process is over -- is that of the sandbox.
In BWE1 I always went P/P but ending up playing around with Shortbow at the end of this beta because I wanted to WvW and I couldn't find upgrades for my pistols. I actually started to like the Shortbow more. In WvW you pretty much have to have as one of your set ups.
Thieves lack range, but with proper utilization of your Shortbow you can make up with it. You won't be anything like a longbow ranger or staff ele but I feel like you bring a lot of utility to the table. I was able to wreck small skirmishes with cluster bomb and choking gas. On top of that, the autoattack on the shortbow is a combo finisher, so you activate combos on anything you or your allies have dropped on the ground.
Cluster bomb is great for WvW because a lot of WvW skirmishes are two groups returning volleys of AOEs while melee looks for an openning. AOEs from other classes cause players to spread out, this is where cluster bomb becomes valuable. Cluster bomb has the potential to spread across a relatively large area, but it also causes players to bleed and knocks them down if a combo triggers. Bleeds are good because a lot of people aren't regening in combat. The knockdown is invaluable. Several knowdowns over a large area gives your allies that window to unleash hell. You also have choking gas, which I used to lay down in front of my enemy to keep them at bay and punish anyone that crossed into it. A decent group of players won't let you get much closer. Disabling shot and Infiltrator's arrow obviously have their uses but I relied more on stealth to get away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1N4ryYzGV4
Pistol/Pistol; Dagger/Dagger
Killing things in Queensdale
2Daggers' combination skill is fun to chain with itself - especially with the trait that causes Steal to grant 3 Initiative ~w~
So just curious what is the CD on that skill you have while downed that stealth an teleports you? Because there was some dude in beta that was popping that the second he became visible every time, and I SWEAR he rooted me while downed as well, was this dude pulling some mad hacks? Or am I just underestimating downed thieves?
The #1 skill poisons. The #3 skill immobilizes targets in an aoe for like 2-3 seconds, on a 10-15 second CD. The #2 skill actually has a fairly long-ish CD. It only stealths for about 2-3 seconds, and the wiki says it has a 20 second cooldown (which feels about right). I'm also pretty sure the #2 isn't available immediately, though I could be wrong. You just need to find him better and stop being bad. Try dazing him or something. I know the "Finish him!" interaction is tantalizing, but it might be easier to actually just damage him the normal way, with dazing and stunning and immobs.
Seriously, don't bitch about that #2 until you've been a Thief and frequently used it, only to find it doesn't save your ass as well as you want it to.
Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-06-11 at 06:17 PM.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
so yea... thief support is pretty reliant on traits
thats not good, esp when you're leveling up and trying to do dugneons and you no long have access to venomous aura... kinda guts you significantly. all our support is either traited or utility skills unlike other professions who can use a weapon skill to get the job done
now i know the reason thieves dont have strong weapon support skills is because we can chain 2-4 of the same skill over and over due to initiative but really what they need to do is add 1 more offhand weapon, either a torch or a focus, and make it the support focused weapon. if anything have just the 5 skill doing that job with the 4 and dual focused on other stuff. to account for the repeated use via init they should be fairly low impact compared to the other professions who are limited to long cooldowns for their skills
and just throwing it out there... pistol/torch dual skill: flare gun
make it happen anet
in the end unless the pull some significant changes off for thieves that isnt dependent on traits i see thieves being horribad at support
throwing off a blinding powder or a shadow refuge doesnt match up to elementalists throwing down water fields. adding more dark fields to our toolset would be a decent first step but theres work that needs done.
---------- Post added 2012-06-11 at 01:44 PM ----------
he probably had combined tactics
The funny thing about being able to chain the same skill over and over is that it comes at the cost of all skills being tied together. Was frustrating to think that spamming Unload for raw damage resulted in not being able to use Daze Shot. Or that stacking up tons of Vulnerability meant not being able to take advantage of that Vulnerability.
@Glytch - I'm convinced they could let Thief use Longbow or Rifle for support. Plenty of nifty tricks to do with arrows or bullets.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
lol, I'd still like to know how they managed to bounce arrows off of foes.
that strays too far from the whole dual skill thing. shortbow to me is supposed to be the odd one out. if they add any new weapons i'd expect them to be either main hand or off hand. adding another 2h weapon diminishes the feature
plus i dont really see a specific niche that either of those weapons would fill. yea you can argue "sniper" but rangers have that covered with opening strike and thieves cover the single target ranged with p/p
angles
I just don't see Thieves using Torches or Focuses.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
You mean like a Sword? Or an Axe? Or a Mace?
All three of which fit in just fine to the theme of "bandit" or "pirate" or "swashbuckler" all three of which are certainly labels befitting of a thief. They're merely different styles of thieving.
When somebody says "thief" people tend to automatically think "oh, he snuck up on you silent like and snatched something out of your pocket without being seen."
But a pirate is still stealing from you. A bandit is still stealing from you. They just happen to be very straightforward about it.
I'm still upset that Mesmers can dual wield swords and we can't.
Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-06-11 at 10:53 PM.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
I'm really weird. I know the shortbow is pretty powerful and therefore always used as the weapon of choice to switch into for ranged in my case, but I actually find Sword + pistol amazingly good in PvE. The downside with said ability is that #3 roots you in place and is easily dodged, which makes it easy to avoid in PvP. But it feels good, even if you miss the "cloak and dagger" ability (stealth + wound).
I highly enjoyed the Thief class and felt as if it was pretty powerful. That was until I ran into a certain dragon shaman in a cave with his bloody elementals which spawn and multiply ontop of you at an increadible pace. Tried kiting the boss mob around and got him pretty far down before I messed up and he went back to full health. Using Shadowstep to kite, along with the shortbow and Tripwire to keep elementals at bay. I failed horribly when I got to that point. Now that the beta is over I realized that I should probably have switched the healing + stealth utility for the one which evades and heals you.
Up until that point I felt fairly good about Thief combat, overall at least, but I couldn't help but notice as well that our utility comes from traits more so than weapons. It caused a minor concern for me. I'm still going to play a Thief at launch, I think, it was very enjoyable until I hit the wall of ice elementals in that cave.
There is common sense and ignorance. Choose one and accept the consequences.