Thief... cheesey?

[Alaris]

Yes, there is some balance, but warrior has burst skills remember? As I remember, even counting all that warrior has lots of weapons skills, engineer and elementalist have lots of weapon skills after taking into consideration the attunement and kits, and thief still has less variety. Mind you, that's fine imo because theif should be spending more time learning to move and shutdown, and less time learning to use weapon bars.

Seems to be that regardless of how many weapon skills each profession have, they all have pretty good options for dps AoE and single, for control, for shutdown, for support, etc. The main lacks I can see is that professions tend to either focus on support (guardian, ele, engineer) or shutdown (thief, mesmer). Or I might be wrong on that one.

[Fluffball]

The AoE blind certainly counts (but not as AoE damage), but the other ones appear to be single-target shots.

When I think of fighting groups, I specifically think of attacks that hit multiple foes like AoE's or sword swinging on an arc, so that you don't spread your damage rather you hit every foe with the full amount. Hitting two foes with unload splits the damage between them, so it loses efficiency against groups.

Dual pistols play almost exactly like GW1 rangers. So while not specifically AoE, it is definitely not a single target specific weapon set. A bunch of damage boosting skills that hit a single target is for 1v1, but spreading conditions is single target best employed against a group. Sure you can cripple the same guy over and over, but it's better used against a group.

It combos best with something like an ele. The dual pistol thief applies cripple and vulnerability to a group and the ele drops a meteor shower on them.

[harniq]

Yes, there is some balance, but warrior has burst skills remember? As I remember, even counting all that warrior has lots of weapons skills, engineer and elementalist have lots of weapon skills after taking into consideration the attunement and kits, and thief still has less variety. Mind you, that's fine imo because theif should be spending more time learning to move and shutdown, and less time learning to use weapon bars.

Seems to be that regardless of how many weapon skills each profession have, they all have pretty good options for dps AoE and single, for control, for shutdown, for support, etc. The main lacks I can see is that professions tend to either focus on support (guardian, ele, engineer) or shutdown (thief, mesmer). Or I might be wrong on that one.

You're missing the point. It's not about how many skills you have available at any time, but rather how many you've got available right now. ele: 5*4 (attunements on weapon) + 5 (heal/util/elite) making 25
necro: 5*2 (swap) + 5 (shroud) + 5 (heal/util/elite) + 0-8 (depending on lich/summons) making around 25 depending on choices
thief: 5*2 (weapon swap, 3rd skill optional) + 5 (heal/util/elite) + 4 (stealth) + 3*8 (steals from professon, each has about 3 options) making a potential 43 skills available at any time in pvp, in pve much higher. Even with only 1 opponent type, this makes for 22 skills. I wouldn't call this worse or less flexible than any other profession.
If there's functionality missing between those 22++ skills, you're most likely doing something wrong.

[Alaris]

You're missing the point. It's not about how many skills you have available at any time, but rather how many you've got available right now.

Nah, I calculated both. Total number of skills informs of customizability, number available now informs of on-the-fly flexibility. I was specifically talking about thief having fewer weapons combos to learn, so he'd learn his weapons faster leaving him the mental capacity to focus more on learning positioning. So I was referring to the learning curve, assuming you go around learning all or most of your weapons.

If there's functionality missing between those 22++ skills, you're most likely doing something wrong.

Wait, how did you get 4 stealth? I get 15 (weapon swap + utility) + 1 steal + 3 I guess for the skills stolen, so 19 maybe 20 if you have some way to cloak to get the stealth skill.

Anyway, plenty of ways to play your profession within combat, that much we do agree.

[sorudo]

you're forgetting downed/drowned....

[Alaris]

Dual pistols play almost exactly like GW1 rangers.

You make a good point about spreading condition, though I would not classify that as AoE, more like single-target with quickly switching. Case in point, I don't think you can switch target during an unload, so it's less like barrage/volley and more accidental if you hit several targets. And the conditions in GW2 are short-lived compared to GW1, so it might not be as good a strategy in GW2 as it was in GW1.

Compared to thief bow which has (1) a shot that hits several targets, (2) an AoE explosion, (3) an AoE poison, (4) an AoE blind, and (5) a single-target cripple.

This is why I'd expect pistols to be better against single-target than multiple targets, and bows to be better against multiple targets than single-targets. They seem to be designed for those specific functions, although you could be fairly decent using pistols against groups, or bows against single targets.

you're forgetting downed/drowned....

I'm not. If you're relying on those skills to stay alive, you're doing it wrong.

[Raww]

i played a thief all of beta, i used the duel pistols as my second set for awhile but i found i got bored and was wishing i has an some sort of AoE. i was hating on the idea of using a short bow as a thief rogue class but man i LOVE the short bow. its so powerful and amazing in any scenario from my experiences. theres lots of fun to be had with the short bow, i forget the names of the moves but the one with the explosion and if you hit the button again it explodes in the air doing way more dmg then it woulve if you just let it go. for WvWvW the shortbow is a must. also in pve i used the short bow because as melee you tend to get ****ed pretty bad on boss fights and stuff, and you have way more utility then duel pistols.
for my structured pvp i used double dagger for both weap sets.

there are times i feel as a thief im a little underpowered. for instance our heartseeker move stops us and then jumps at the target, i noticed a lot of the times players would keep running away from me and id miss. i feel that it shouldnt stop you from moving freely. thats the only thing that bugs me about the thief, that and the fact i cant spam attacks otherwise i use up my initiative. wish there was an option to turn off attack q's. in the end i know itll be something i have to get used to, the first BWE it took me about a day to really stop spamming buttons like i would in swtor/WoW(both games have an option to turn off auto q'ing), i had to keep reminding myself if i spam attacks i lose all my ini and im ****ed, once i got that down it wasnt so bad but i still had my button mashing moments and id do heartseeker like 4 times with no one near me lol

[Alaris]

Wait.

You use two dual dagger sets in PvP? But but... there's no cooldowns on the thief afaik so there's really no reason to do that!

Clever trick for other professions if it works though. Swap to refresh your skills. I might try it.

[Raww]

well i got signets from the vendor in the pvp area that give you a 30% increase of dmg on next attack and like 100% crit when you swap weapon sets and the dmg one stacks i believe. so i run around swapping weaps to get huge crits

[Raww]

the build i run people are crtting for 14-15k on the backstab, im still learning the spec seeing how i picked it up over the stress test day.