Resume? Thiefs are a LARGE pain in the ass, literally, if you like to backstab.
My experience if largely on the pvp front, did at most 5 hours of pve on the weekend.
Thiefs have the second, if not the most, complete array of conditions in the game. Daze, Poison, Cripple, Bleeding, Vulnerability, you name it. He has a really good damage output as well, mainly his double dagger and double pistol weapon sets, dagger being the higher of the two, because of the nature of the game (Melee damage > Ranged damage, hard coded). Thiefs survivability is also pretty good, mainly from the afore mentioned conditions you can apply to single or groups of targets, and because of his shadowsteps and invisibility skills.
After all this, youll'd think that Thief is mega OP. They aren't. And this is were Arena Net hit the spot with the class, I think.
The Thief's resource, Initiative, demands that you make sensible use of your skills, or pay the price. That's why you'll see a lot of new Thiefs out there distributing THE hurt, but left in the dust right after a kill or in the hands of a more skilled player before that, because, once your initiative is gone, you better start running. I think Initiative management is going to separate the good from the bad (and ugly) Thiefs.
As for their weapons (didn't play with sword in main hand, only double daggers, double pistols and short bow):
Double Dagger: Main damage dealing weapon set, has a cripple and aoe bleeding for conditions, and a stab that makes you go invisible, but doesn't do too much damage.
Double Pistols: Second damage dealing weapon set, has bleed, vulnerability, daze and blind, which is nice if you are chasing someone or have allies nearby, once someone get's into close range though, swap weapons.
Short Bow: Support weapon, damage is pretty lame, but the utility in this weapon is great, you'll have aoe poison, a cripple (that makes you jump back) and a shadowstep. The bomb arrow has a pretty nice effect, but doesn't do much damage.
For utility skills, Thiefs have a array of poisons, traps and signets. Poison's work really well 1x1, and his traps are nice for controlling the battlefield. Main difference between a Thief's trap and a Ranger's is that Thief's are set in a rectangle and Ranger's are in a circle area. I'm not sure about the damage difference between them.
I escaped from situations that I think most classes would have not been able to, and that makes me love this class even more.
Hope that's enough to give you guys a glimpse of the Thief. I'll be learning more about it in the next beta, hopefully.
Greatest problem for me was, not slamming the hotkey, even with lagg. Since skills have no cooldown, when you press 3 times the skill, if you have enough initiative, it will go off 3 times.
This has 2 problems. 1 - It will deplete your initiative VERY fast, so you'll be a sitting duck after. 2 - Most skills, daggers for example, have a movement animation that will launch you in some direction, this makes chasing targets that aren't crippled a hassle, because the animation doesn't move you very far.
Not even mentioning the fact that sometimes, because of lagg, you'll use a skill, use initiative, and not do any damage because the enemy wasn't near enough.
Yeah, I don't think they're OP. They give up a lot of survivability for that burst. The guy in the video is running with 12k hp. That's a one-shot from a Warrior's Eviscerate. Also, Warrior and Ranger burst damage seems higher and they have a lot better survivability. If anything, the warrior and ranger needs toned down a bit.
Played around with a ridiculous S/P build I found here. It's heavily reliant on cooldowns and about as glass cannon-y as you can get but very effective at bursting.
It's fun in a "big numbers" kind of way but feels gimmicky (and probably relies too heavily on certain mechanics that will probably be toned down soonish). Smart players can fairly easily predict the hasted Pistol Whip combo and counter it with CC or some other defensive cooldown.
Proximo Admin replied
732 weeks ago