Surprised, Thieves? It is I, Tentral! Tinkerer extraordinaire, almighty alchemist, explosives expert and leader of the AETA! Do not worry about your precious Wormwood, no harm has befallen him…to my knowledge. He has foolishly decided to thieve away my thunder in the Engineer spotlight, so I’ve decided to return the…favor. 

After trying (and failing some time in, I might add) at blending into the Thief ranks with good old Tentral, I decided to recreate myself using the modern marvels of Asuran plastic surgery! One disguise and change of my name later, I was ready to make my infiltration. I presented myself to your kin, and they seemed oddly reluctant to take me in.

And he shall taketh my name!

Thieves Guild Guard: “Hold, Asura. How does the night welcome thee?”

Bubblegum Mash PhD (a.k.a. “me”): “Uhm…coldly? What an silly question. At any rate, I’ve come to join the ranks of the Thieves.”

Thieves Guild Guard: “You cannot be serious. Look at your clothes!”

Bubblegum Mash PhD: “This is a tactical choice! I choose to blind my foes with outrageous color rather than sneaking up on them. I’m told it works for the Engineers, those handsome devils.”

Thieves Guild Guard: “Hmm. As much as it pains me to allow you entry, you do have two daggers and at least half a brain. Thievery may not be your calling, as it requires a steady hand and a tactical mind, but we need more bodies for our efforts regardless. You’re in, now begone from my sight!”

Bubblegum Mash PhD: “I’m going to go ahead and thank you instead of stabbing you. Lucky you. Be glad I don’t have any freeze grenades on me.”

Thieves Guild Guard: “What was that, scrub?”

Bubblegum Mash PhD: “I said ‘I prefer my cheese homemade.’ Open your ears, Thief!”

Newly accepted into the ranks of the Thieves, I began to learn their craft. After days of watching and waiting, without the slightest scratch of my itchy trigger finger, I’ve finally seen what makes you all tick. Here today, I will publish my findings so that you Thieves may prepare yourselves for the upcoming conflict that will undoubtedly erupt between us. Learn well, because while Engineers may lack subtlety, we more than make up for it in our knowledge of all things explosive, alchemical, gadgetry, and soon…Thievery.

The Idea of the “Thief”

When I thought to myself, “This weekend, I’m going to be a Rogue.” I must’ve had a completely wrong idea of what it was that Thieves do and what they’re about. The classification of “Rogue” just doesn’t fit. I think words like “Swashbuckler” for their fighting style, or perhaps “Planar Assassin” for their mystic Shadowstep and Stealth abilities are much more accurate.

What Works

  • So the basic idea of sneaking around and attacking from behind don’t really do justice to how a Thief fights. You Thieves have your share of stealth options, but I can no longer say that you’re afraid of a direct fight. You all aren’t a group of assassins, but rather you’re a band of sticky-fingered mercenaries!

What Doesn’t Work

  • Why call yourselves Thieves? This idea that you steal and that’s all that you associate yourselves with is not accurate at all. Real Thieves are never seen, heard, and never engage in direct conflict. The only skill that relates to your namesake has a ridiculously long cooldown and limited use. I think it’s time for a name change. Something that reflects who you actually are. I’m thinking… “Swashbuckler.” Another good name could be “Fashion Disaster.” Very descriptive…and true. Ahhh! I’m kidding! No stabby-stabby, please!

I call this little move “Spinny-Flip of Death by Bleeding.”

General Combat

Thief combat, as much as I hate to admit, is rather fast and exciting. We Engineers prefer to invent things that do most of the work for us, but you Thieves really get right into the middle of the fight!

What Works

  • Jumping. Boy do you guys love jumping. In a world where movement is key, you move even more than the rest of us! Many skills propel you right into the center of the fray and then back out again, or vice versa. It’s part of what makes combat so fast, and undoubtedly effective.

  • You Thieves also have many skills to choose from, and many weapons as well. I have no love of slicing instruments, but your shortbow’s Cluster Bomb was especially intriguing to myself, as someone with…explosive interests. Your other weapon abilities seem to promote that eternal movement as well, with all the Shadowstep abilities.

  • I think that having the Initiative system instead of cooldowns really adds a lot to your profession. You wait for the bar to fill, then engage. Use 3 heavy hitting abilities to apply Bleed and Poison, then just distract them with the sheen of your blades as the effects do your work for you. That way, instead of using all of your abilities in some sort of rotation, you can pick which effects work best against certain enemies, then use only those effects against them. Enemies drop like flies.

  • Water Combat was dirty and effective. I only used the spear for my time underwater, but the ability to control where you were in relation to your enemies with a pull line and evasion techniques was amazing.

What Doesn’t Work

  • Your profession-specific mechanic, Steal, is nowhere near as useful as my trusty Utility Belt! The use of this skill usually amounted to an extra stun that I had every 45 seconds, among other less common effects. I usually just used it for its Shadowstep effect. The mechanic is useful, but only situationally, from my weekend experience with it.

  • Thieves are not as sneaky as you claim to be. Most stealth effects only last a few seconds (3 seconds to be exact…take note Enigneers). While this may be enough time to lose your foe’s attention, or to make a veiled attack, it is not enough to retreat. While I am a novice Thief, I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that if that Flame Shaman wants me dead, no amount of invisibility would help me. I proved this several times over the course of an hour.

  • Stealth also doesn’t work well to set up attacks. There is no lurking while running around as a Thief. You watch from a distance, then Shadowstep in for a surprise attack. This might not have made its way onto the “What doesn’t work” list for its effectiveness, except that if the enemy sees you, no amount of Shadowstep can weave that element of surprise back in!

This could be PvP if you have Mesmers on your team.

PvP

I didn’t spend as much time PvPing as I might have liked, because the afro was really starting to itch. I did observe that Thieves are currently in a better state than Engineers, as far as tournament PvP goes. Several reasons for that, but the biggest one is the tactical advantage of poison. Basilisk Venom has so many offensive and defensive applications, and I doubt I’ve even scratched the surface.

What Works

  • I was very capable in single combat. I can only imagine the kind of damage one could bring who had practice and experience on their side. Between Basilisk Venom, Signet of Shadows, Haste, and Spider Venom, I had absolutely zero issues taking down someone with my daggers, when it was just the two of us.

  • Power and other professions stacked well to make taking down armored opponents a cinch. This was a concern of mine, because I was afraid that stacking a specific stat would be necessary to be effective with non-element damage (i.e. – Stabby-stabby daggers). Oddly enough, Guardians and Warriors (who wear heavy sets of armor) had more trouble against me than highly movement-oriented professions, such as Rangers and other Thieves.

  • Map mobility was excellent! Most other professions have a 10% speed boost, which is borderline mandatory. The Thief’s Signet of Shadows gives a whopping 25% movement speed while not on cooldown, and a free blind on activation! That must be traited, because the wiki says 10%. I was able to cross the entire Forest of Niflhel to help quell a scuffle that broke out over the Henge, after I had finished capturing the Mine before any of my allies had fallen.

  • The downed Teleportation skill was especially useful (and you’d better believe I got a lot of practice with this one). On certain maps with more vertical aspects (such as Khylo and Niflhel’s Keep) you could cast the ability in such a way that opponents would have to scale structures to reach you, giving you a chance to escape. As an added bonus, the ability didn’t seem to leave any discernible trail, so if you play your cards right the enemy might have no idea where you’ve teleported to!

What Doesn’t Work

  • I always had to hesitate hopping into a team fight because of how delicate I am as a Thief. Whenever I saw a team fight start, I retreated a bit and switched to dual pistols. While I’m not exactly looking out for you guys or anything, but if I were a Thief, I might try to get some petition going to rally a survivability boost against multiple enemies….you’re gonna need it!

  • Steal didn’t help me at all. Once I started remembering to use it, I started noticing just how…underpowered the ability is in PvP. Maybe I’m just not doing it right, and I’m not sure what I’d do to fix it, but my opinion is that the ability needs tweaking.

So there you have it, my infiltration was a success! I must say, I had you Thieves pegged all wrong. I thought you were dirty, skulking, cowardly-shadow dwellers! This is wrong though, and you are all, in fact, capable fighters and cunning strategists. I have come to respect you all a bit more…but with that respect comes new hatred. I know how dangerous you all are now.

It’s time to start taking you Thieves seriously, lest I end up with sand in my eyes and a knife in my back. My time with you has been informative, and even fun, but my hatred for Thieves isn’t sated! If anything, I’ve renewed my ambitions to rid the world of you sticky-fingered scallywags. Watch your back, Thieves. With this new intel I’ve gathered, I will put together a plan to show you just how similarly…tactical we Engineers can be, too!