Azeroth vs. Tyria part 7: The Thief - Making Stealing More Than Part of Your Ambush Macro

Time to cover another one of the professions we're all looking at for our move to Tyria. We've got three left to talk about. Well, technically four, but anyone who knows about that one is apparently sworn to secrecy, so we'll deal with that when I've got more to go on than idle speculation.

For today's post we've got something from our resident rogue, Takkal. I'm going to assume that you're here to talk about the thief, right?

Might as well stick with what I know, right?

True enough. What's with the accent? Well, lack of one.

Something else I've been practicing. Believe it or not, there's not exactly a lot of trolls like me in that place. That and I've yet to see a single group over there that talks like I do.

So they all enunciate?

...Yes.

Sorry, couldn't resist. So you're doing this to fit in more?

Correct. After all I'm not a very good thief if I stand out and if I'm the only guy around who talks like this, then I'll be remembered and that's never a good thing in my line of business.

Makes sense. Guess we should start at the beginning. What drew you to the thief profession? I'm well aware of what the name implies, but let everybody know what the similarities are between being a rogue and a thief.

Well, the general feel is the same between the two. I mean, the two names mean the same thing to most people: we've a group of men and women who specialize in sneaking around, stealing, and attacking from the shadows. Both the class and the profession involve proficiency with dual-wielding. I suppose there's a few other areas that are sorta similar, but it's a bit of a stretch considering just how much is different in those areas as well.

Sounds like almost every other report we've had so far on the professions. Let's move to the weapons since those define most of your combat skills. What're you looking at as a rogue?

Well, I've still got swords and daggers like I do as a rogue. For ranged combat though, I've got pistols and shortbows. Like the rest of you found, all of these weapons serve their own specific purposes. I can only wield a sword in my main hand, but it gives me skills for enemy control and evasion like Crippling Slash and Dancing Blade. A dagger in my main hand lets me jump into the fray with quick attacks like Twisting Fang and Backstab, while an off-hand dagger can help me cripple foes as well as vanish from their sight. Pistols can be used to make my opponents vulnerable for further attacks as well as aiding my mobility or hindering my opponent's. Finally there's the shortbow for moments where I need AoE attacks as well as letting me shadow step around the battle.

So you'll still have access to your old rogue Shadowstep?

Yes and no, though calling it my old Shadowstep is somewhat wrong since there was no chance in the Nether of me ever going Subtlety. Back on topic though: while this shadow step still serves the same function as the old one, it's not locked to one ability for one specialization of the profession. There's a variety of skills that serve the function of helping the thief move around the battlefield and not all of them act the same. Infiltrator's Arrow lets me pick a location and fire an arrow to teleport there, while the Shadow Step utility skill just teleports me to the foe. There's even some dual-skills that mix the two: I could shoot my foe with a pistol then teleport in for a dagger strike, or I could reverse that with a melee opener that ends up with me attacking from range.

For some reason this video makes Fan of Knives seem a little underwhelming

Dual-skill?

Correct and here's where dual-wielding gets interesting for thieves. Back in Azeroth a dual-wielding rogue for the most part was only concerned with his off-hand so far as making sure it was the correct speed for his spec and the correct weapon type: daggers for Subtlety and Assassination and anything but for Combat. Looking at Tyria, we've moved on to actual weapon techniques like you showed in that first post and for a few of you, you've even learned how to use two different sets of skills if you're wielding two different weapons at the same time. There's no mixing for you guys though: it's always something like your first three skills are from your main hand and your last two are the off-hand. For thieves though, we've learned how to mix the two together.

Instead of three skills from your main hand and two from the off-hand, we've got two from each and that middle skill is now a dual-skill: a combat ability that mixes traits from both weapon types. I gave a couple of examples earlier in the section on shadow stepping, but we've also got some fun ones like Leaping Death Blossom for double daggers, Unload for a pair of pistols, and Pistol Whip for pirate wannabes with a sword and a pistol.

Tag, you're it!

Looking at those examples you gave earlier, it sounds like both techniques used a dagger and a pistol. How do you have two different techniques for the same weapons?

It's simple really: it's which weapon's in which hand. If I've got my pistol in my main hand, then I'll be using Shadow Strike so I'll need to be in melee range at first to use that ability. Reverse the order of the weapons and now I've got Shadow Shot and I don't have to wait until I'm in melee to use it. In essence these dual-skills serve as one of the two ways I can expand my weapon options, the other being through stealing.

So stealing actually has a purpose for you now other than a way to get free copper and vendor junk?

You have no idea how frustrating that was. The only reason any of us ever bothered to pickpocket back in Azeroth was to get lockboxes or we'd make it part of our normal Backstab or Ambush opener. Suppose that's why we went with rogue for our class name instead of thief. That or they thought it would be funny to give us a class name that would be constantly confused with a type of women's makeup. I swear half of Orgrimmar doesn't know how to spell...

I've tanked with people who spelled "gonna" with an H in the middle. Figure that one out.

Stupidity of some of our fellow Horde aside, most of us really didn't give a second thought to stealing. In Tyria though, stealing opens up a world of new weapon options for us. You know that last post you did on environmental weapons?

Yeah, they act like normal weapons and give us a new set of skills to work with. We've all got access to those. You find a boulder, you can throw it. Find a stick, you can beat someone with it.

Okay, now picture that a thief can pretty much take one of those from every single opponent he fights. For example I could be fighting a bird and try stealing from him. Some possible examples of environmental weapons I could take are an egg that I could use to heal myself or some feathers that I could use to blind the bird. This even extends to fighting humanoid targets as well. If I were fighting a warrior, I might get access to a rifle or a axe, while stealing from an elementalist could give me a staff or perhaps a scepter.

Wait, so a thief could take my weapon?

Not quite, it's more like I borrow the abilities from it. It's kind of an odd system. Since my notes all say that I only get access to these new abilities until I use them, my guess is that in the case of weapons, it's more likely that I take it and hit you quickly before you regain control of it.

That makes sense, I suppose. Sounds like that about wraps up weapons and stealing. What else makes the thief stand out?

Well, there's stealth which all of us rogues are familiar with. It does operate a little differently here though. Rogues are used to one flavor of stealth that's either on or off and we stay there until either we're detected or we stab something. Here though it's meant as more of a combat action. Stealth is a short-term state, so you can't just switch it on and make your way across the entire battlefield without being seen. For thieves it's meant as a way to either escape from a battle or to set up for another technique. There's even multiple ways to go into stealth. Hide in Shadows is probably the closest to what we're used to: you go into stealth and you come out after attacking. Shadow Refuge however allows the thief to go into stealth and heal himself, but it breaks if moves. Depending on the situation the thief finds himself heading into, he or she might wish to prepare a few different methods of going into stealth.

Another technique thieves have that we rogues do not is the ability to lay traps. Similar to the hunters back in Azeroth, these are simply something that is placed on the ground that can be triggered by one's enemies. Once triggered they can cause effects from poison and immobilization to allowing the thief to shadow step to the target.

Finally there's initiative. For most of the professions, if they use a weapon technique, there's an associated cooldown before they can use it again. For us though there's no such cooldown. If we want to use a weapon skill continuously, we're perfectly able to do so. The limiter here is initiative. Each of our weapon skills (with the exception of whatever the first technique for our main hand is) requires not only energy like all of the other professions do, but they also have an associated initiative cost. We start with ten initiative points and regenerate another one every second or so.

Using dual-wield pistols for an example, my first skill costs no energy, but Body Shot takes two, Unload is three, and Retreating Shot and Head Shot both take four. Even accounting for the fact that you can only use abilities so fast, there's still going to be a resource choke if you do nothing but use Head Shot over and over. This means that a smart thief needs to plan ahead. If you believe that you can burst fire your target down quickly if you stealth and get the drop on him, then you can do so. If it looks like a pretty lengthy fight though, you might want to sit on a few of those initiative points in case you need to use something like Retreating Shot to put some distance between you and your foe. Since your first skill always requires no initiative to use, it can be considered your filler skill while you wait for the right time to use another attack. Kind of like Mutilate or Sinister Strike, except they're not 50-60% of what you're doing during the fight.

So to wrap things up, a rogue looking to find work as a thief won't be disappointed, but there's going to be some retraining involved, particularly to get over the whole "why would I bother stealing?" idea. I imagine that's going to be a big hurdle for most of them.

Thanks for the report, Tak. That puts us up to five of the professions covered. Don't suppose you heard if anyone else is ready with another profession, did you?

I believe Lokaja's working on his ranger report, though he's still looking for info on pets. As for the elementalist, Malador and Daikaja are arguing over who's going to cover it.

Seems fairly obvious, I'd think. Elementalist is pretty much a mage, so that sounds like Mal's territory.

Yes, but Azeroth mages tend to be single element and Dai's arguing that since elemental shamans are more accustomed to working with multiple elements, he should get the job.

Sigh... fine. When you get back there, tell the two of them to just work on the report together. If they manage to write something halfway competent, I'll find work for both of them.