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Guild Wars 2: The Thief Preview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the latest of our Guild Wars 2 profession previews, we take a look at the enigmatic thief. See what we discovered about the thief in the recent limited closed beta event and then let us know what you think in the comments.
I usually don’t choose the sneaky path, but I decided to give the thief a go anyways. I’m not sorry I did. The thief was very interesting as I felt that it was the most adaptive profession in the game. I felt like I could get in, deal some serious damage, then fall back and hit the enemy forces from afar. I could move the enemy around a bit, giving everyone a chance to strike the enemy at their backs. Yep, I didn’t wear the heaviest of armor, but I could do some good crowd control. The only thing I didn’t like about the Thief was playing alone, because it shines so much more when you’re in a group.
Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: The Thief Preview.
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Comments
Cant wait to see what it's really like. All of these previews that make sure to say nothing bad and only hype the game for the company are really getting boring.
Nothing new, but I suppose a good introduction for people who are new to the game. Even if the game will fail to meet my "fun factor" expectations, I am going to play it for longer then recent fail productions. It brings interesting features to the table and doesn't require monthly payments.
I will definitely give this profession a try. It looks nasty and menacingly.
The thief is almost always my character of choice and how fun it is will probably be the biggest determining factor to whether I buy GW2 or not. I'm a little worried about it from the description though to be honest, as it sounds like the stealth is limited duration (not sure the rationale for that: I can see getting rid of stealth altogether for realisms sake, but limited duration is just an annoying mechanic) AND the character is made of glass. The mobility might be enough to compensate for a visible character made of glass, but if there is any CC in the game I'm afraid the second the thief gets slowed down it will be an insta-death.
I usually love the high risk/reward of the glass cannon that the thief often provides but nothing in this description makes me think that is the way the thief will play here. Looks like they are going for the highly mobile and ranged aspect that chips away at an opponent as opposed to the assassin aspect of the thief.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
*sigh*
Well of course your Necromancer could take more hits than the Thief, David. The Necro is by far the most survivable profession in the game and the Thief is one of the squishiest (only beaten by the Mesmer). It's nothing do with the game needing balancing. Also it looks to take some actual skill, if you want to take on multiple mobs.
Well anyway I wish to make a Thief my main, which is why I may come across as arrogant. :P
I would watch plenty of YouTube footage of GW2 gameplay first, if I were you.
These days, it's Standard Operational Proceedure for any PR company to totally hype products.
(SWTOR is a good example of modern marketing at it's best (or should I say worst?))
Thieves don't have light armor, they have medium (adventurer) armor, like rangers and engineers. They do, however, have the lowest health pool, tied with eles and guardians for base stats.
"The Thief wears light armor..." Actually, the thief being an adventurer class wears medium armor. Unless they changed that recently.
Some categorize armour types differently: Heavy/light/robe or Heavy/medium/light.
I'm sorely tempted by the Thief. ArenaNet's "Joy of Movement" for combat is #1 draw, and the Thief is one of the most mobile professions so will be fun to try this one one.
Each profession in GW2 seems an awesome choice.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Stealth is not a limited duration btw
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
That's good to know. Why did the reviewer say it was then? Maybe you just need to equip a certain skill to get it to work probably???
In Rift for instance it was limited duration unless you had certain soul configurations...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
If you're talking about permanent stealth, then you are wrong, because the Thief has no way to remain in stealth and all their stealth abilities are limited in duration (mostly lasting 3 seconds).
or till you decide to perform an action.
This is not a game.
Three seconds?!? LOL. So they just blink on and off all the time? They should just get rid of stealth entirely then in my opinion, what's the point of 3 second stealth?
I don't like that change to the rogue mechanic at all from the WoW/Rift perma stealth. That is one big big big negative for me. I've had some of my funnest times slinking around in extremely risky areas (like in enemy towns surrounded by certain death if I was found).
I think GW2 just lost me on that. Boo. Oh well, at least I guess I can stop following these threads now LOL. Freedom at last!
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
3 second stealth allows them to disapear drop the target if there bign target drops agros on npcs and then they pop out and do a high dmg skill. Perma stealth s kinda stupid imo and requires no skill thats why i would assume there no perma stealth n GW2 cause devs want it to be a skill based game, 3 seconds may be a little low (will need to find out in game) i wouldnt go higher than a 20 second stealth max though.
Seriously do have to troll every single positive GW2 thread?
Do you not think that all these positive previews are a sign of things to come? I know alot of gamers dont give much cred to professional reviews but come on even games like SWTOR and Rift had some negative reviews whereas its an almsot unnimous concesus that everyone who reviewed the game from the press beta were blown away.
If you dont like a game jsut dont open any threads that speak about it ffs.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Every class has "no skill" mechanics. I've seen warriors with insta full-heal pops, clerics who could spam heals to out-do up to 2 or 3 people burning them at once. Mages who spam ice traps. Classes that teleport across the map. Etc. I really don't need a lecture on "skill"
And I'm not talking about what takes the most skill (note: it wouldn't be a tab target game thats for sure) I'm talking about mechanics that I find fun. Stealth to me was fun. Not for ganking newbs or anything, but for daring myself to do crazy risky things and see if I get away with it. Like slipping into enemy capital and killing their auctioneer and escaping with my life LOL.
Good times, good times...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
Permanent stealth requires no skill.
For the first time I think a gaming company is doing stealth correctly. From the video's I've watched teh thief still get's lot's of 5-7 second's of stealth anways. Plenty of time to break LOS or let your cool downs come back up.
Thank you Arenanet for getting rid of the stupidly op stealth mechnics of all these other games.
(btw, I leveled a shadow in STWORS when it launched and perm stealth is sooooooooo easy to gank with. my first game as a stealth class and omg is it easy to player kill)
Hey someone that understands!
Of course it is easy to gank with if they aren't expecting it. But in team battles that is rarely the situation. And in team battles there are a bijillion ways to keep AOE or other stealth breaking mechanics on an area so you don't get ganked. I mean, if all you use the rogue for is to gank unspuspecting noobs in open world then you played it wrong in my opinion. You gave rogues a bad name.
And the rougue had stealth because he was so weak in many other ways. Usually have no range abilities, no healing abilities, and wear leather armor. I always found clerics in PVP to be the least skilled in my opinion, but hey opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.
I still hope GW2 is a great game as it can influence the whole industry if it is. But taking away the stealth from the rogue is just too much for me to bear.
And as for skill based games, I get my fair share in my FPSers, chess, and my RTSers. MMO's for me are more for fun and role playing, and looks like there is no assassin mechanic in GW2 only more of a ninja mechanic. I always prefere the assassin.
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
well I always hated stealth classes in all mmo's and had never leveled one to completion. In SWTOR's I did decide to level my first stealth class to max level.
What I noticed was..........stealth is basically the single best most OP skill in a mmo. Being able to drop all agro and most importantly player agro is incredibly powerful.
Shadow step type abilities allow you to basically never lose a fight. I ganked at least 20-30 people as I leveld in Swtor's and only 1 time did I come close to losing. (a juggernaut)
Honestly all my biases were proven to myself after leveling that shadow. I rolled stealth because i was always told perma stealth is not op...............well i rolled one and I'm here to say yes it is OP.
Perma stealth is too strong.
I'm sorry this is not the game for you. Me and all the others though that have always thought perma stealth is too strong a skill are glad.
I know WOW has very powerful perma stealthers, so do SWTOR and RIFT. At least you have choices where I have had none. I remeber how happy i was when WAR was in development and said no stealth classes..........YEAH..........then they changed there mind and had 30 second stealth which i thought was reasonable enough but still dissapointing.
Now that i think about it a thief who can go invis 5 or 7 times during a fight will be far more annoying than one who can only perma stealth once.
The problem with most other games and permastealth is that it was needed because the class was so weak otherwise.
I'd rather have the ability to contribute to me team on a more steady basis than rely on perma stealth and be useless when i'm not in it.