27 replies to this topic

[Peacemaker]

I have noticed alot of things with the increase of the lvls. For instance the damage increase of characters at a higher lvl. I havent noticed this with the thieves though. The way it is set up is that thieves will stand no chance against a party of anything now. I know u say well they have covert and can hit first. Well does that matter when everything that attacks it can pretty much round it? How many thieves u know can stand up to another class? Im sure maybe spelled up they can do ok, but why should u have to spell to do something other classes can already do? I say that we even the playing field a little. Make thieves able to assassinate for the same damage as a zerk smites. This should help make matchs fair. I mean think about it when was the last time u seen a thief win an event? I believe they should have the same ability to be able to one click something to. A zerk at lvl 35 can click about anything but another zerk. So i vote to increase damage done by thieves to make the playing field more even. As for right now they serve no purpose except for if you wanted to pk lower lvls otherwise you may be able to take out only a couple of bosses but thats it. I feel they are way underpowered atm.

[Gaddy]

If you haven't noticed that thieves deal higher damage at higher level, you haven't tested.

You also have to realize that testing via assassinate is very random, and as such hardly reflects real testing unless you do it hundreds of times.

[Peacemaker]

I have actually tested. I have a lvl 31 thief and it does no more damage than the lvl 30's. I have used them all over and over and never been a change. Still does the same damage as when it was lvl 30 no change.

[Gaddy]

I have noticed a slight increase in damage, as with normal levels, and an increased hit rate.

[Prophet]

Tbh thieves are underpowered when it comes to pvm, the simple reason being that when they hit things with 3 stam they only do 100-150(when hanced) dmg most of the time (sometimes less, sometimes a little more), when zerks and rangers can both do that amount of damage in a single stam point. The difference this makes can be seen alot when doing bosses, while the length of time killing them with thieves is on average about 50% to 100% longer than it takes with rangers/zerks.

As for pvp, they are already balanced in my opinion. They as a fighting class as designed for surpise attacks and when used properly in game even attacking rangers/zerks your oponent is normally down by 7 characters or more before they even know whats happening, therefore in that respect I think they're balanced.

I know armor has been an issue with thieves with them getting lower amounts than other classes, but I don't think increasing their armor will help them pvm as its not really a matter of keeping them healed its just the fact that they don't do as much damage as many other classes. I think to help them the best would be to increase there damage against pvm so they are doing about 400 damage(when hanced) with 5 stam and about 200-250(when hanced) with 3 stam. This should only be for pvm and not for pvp as currently when it comes to alt wars they are already balanced. In respect to the 1 alt server mass numbers of thieves isn't very likely to be found, but then again I have heard elsewhere that the armor increase is being brought in to help them pvp which should help in 1vs1 duels and such.


(P.s. I take my figures from when using party of 4 clerics and 16 thieves, and the time taken too kill bosses is noticebly longer therefore it follows that they must be doing significantly less damage)

[Hansol]

i'd like to add to that, that you can solo imhotep with 4 clerics and 16 rangers very easily.. but 4 clerics and 16 thieves is very hard because imhotep seems to get through the armor alot more and owns my thieves so i lost 10 when i took it on lol... I still killed it though... but it didnt drop...

[Gaddy]

Have to consider that rangers usually have more dex than thieves as well as more armor.
Imhotep tends to miss my rangers constantly due to their higher dex, their armor doesn't tend to help much.

Their PvM damage is lower than many classes, but they can also steal the gold instead of killing monsters...

[Peacemaker]

This is true that you can steal gold but since when does stealing from a monster get you the drop from it? How many bosses do you know that hold enough gold to make it worth your while to steal from them? Its just as easy to go killing stuff to make gold as it is to steal from it cause it takes too long to get all the gold from stuff. Also killing stuff gives you way more exp. Would seem fair to make them do more damage against monsters and also alot of thieves these days are lings the same as rangers so dex isnt the big factor here.

[Hansol]

lmao
i jus had the best idea
set macro to ./steal modern on all 16 of my thieves... do zeum over good n propa. but i guess the flaw is i'd have to kill em all after to regenerate the gold? So stealing gold still doesnt work. just increase the damage... or make a new item just for thieves that costs abit that adds dex or something

[Gaddy]

Not going to happen.
Thieves have been how they are for AGES AND AGES and there are as many arches of thieves as any other classes, people use them just fine.

You would have to move about to different areas to really take advantage of stealing, or go to a large large area.

As for the advantage on bosses---you can move off, covert, hit, move off, covert---and be hit far less often.
You have the ability to move to a boss without being seen or hit by monsters or players.


There are huge advantages to using thieves on bosses and you guys know it. Just cause you can get a team of 15 arch thieves loaded up doesn't mean we should change the game so that it's the most powerful party around. It isn't reasonable.

[Hansol]

but you'd have to change your macro's for every area to suit the monster unless you can have ./steal monster where it then steal from the top monter on the square or the monster with the most gold or what ever.. maybe that should be added? i dno, have a think and a good tamper with it maybe. could be a nice addition anyway.

i suppose thieves are fine the way they are.. but as for the less damage thing they do. maybe a weapon thats a little more beefy on the bass damage, but with not stat changes with it...Maybe at a cost of less armor? hmm.. I'd use my thieves alot more then. But at the minute i cant do anything cause im on a laptop and my computers broke. gonna get it fixed soon though. think i need to upgrade.

with the bosses thing you were on about. that would still take forever. and it wouldnt help with a boss that heals itself. so there again, thieves are a tad flawed. hm... I dno. No ones really cared enough to banter on about thieves though, it's always been zerks and mages being too over powered or whatever crap tony likes to go on about.

[Gaddy]

Umm...you can set the macros for steal just as easily as you set macros to hit.
And really, stealing is far easier than killing monsters with parties. If you've never done it, you might try it out.
I don't think we'd see anything like /steal set to top monster since you can just /steal [monster], just like attacking.

I still think their damage is okay. With 15 thieves and no clerics or spells, I can kill Captain Wylsen every time I go to him.
That doesn't mean it takes 15, but simply that I use 15 when I load a thief party.

[Hansol]

Yeah, I can kill it too using 16.. it depends on what kind of mood it wants to be in though, as it sometimes heals after every round.. which is annoying and so you'd have to sit there using pots for about half an hour till it dies.

Do you reckon a weapon could come out for thieves with say, 33 base damage, but takes off around 10 armor or something? with a nice story behind it

[Trevayne]

I've played around on thieves PvM probably more than anyone. Here is what I have seen when comparing my arch and level 34-35 thieves against other melee classes:

• Thieves (even dwarves) hit for less damage than any other melee class, with or without spells.
• Thieves (even halflings) hit less often than any other melee class at level 30.
• Thieves (even at level 35) gain less of an attack advantage (less damage and less bonus to hit) than druids, rangers, fighters, or berserkers.
• Thieves still have advantages, and they still remain one of my favorite classes, because entire groups can move without being seen for long distances, because they ignore armor, and because they are one-click.

Now a few opinions:

• Thieves do not need increased damage. They should not have the attacking power of a fighter or berserker, each of which has its own disadvantages.
• Thieves do not need increased armor. They are not rangers/fighters, and should not be walking tanks. Increasing their armor also wouldn't really make them more useful.
• Thieves are not likely to get any new abilities on multi. It might happen on 1a, but JLH doesn't want any major changes on multi.
• Thieves should have a higher chance to hit than they currently do. Let zerkers/druids/rangers/fighters be a way of doing more maximum damage and thieves be a way to do a lesser amount of more consistent damage. This would make them a more comparable option to other fighting classes without really changing the balance between classes or altering the maximum amounts of damage.

I'm happy to support a change like this, but I won't be the one to sponsor it since it would benefit me more than most.

[Gaddy]

Increased hit-rate makes sense to me due to how thieves seem like they should be agile, dexterious, and capable of doing their deeds wtih good consistency.

[Peacemaker]

I do support the increased hit rate, but what about something to make it to where you can get your stamina back faster to help when facing bosses or other people? Tell you what take a party of 20 thieves and run into a party of 20 zerks make sure they are all the same level and once the thieves attack watch them get picked off one at a time. Being that a thief cant click a zerk and i dont care what kind of thief you have it takes two to three and sometimes 4 just to get one zerk. If you notice zerks can hit with 80's to 100's in single attacks sometimes without spells even. So why not make that evened out in the stam in the thieves give them a 400+ assassinate make it fair would make them more effective for the game, and if none of that just increase their hit rate and maybe try and get some kind of ability to increase stamina like a mage has. Like make a rapid stamina regenerate ability name it Stealth or something if not increase stamina atleast make it increase dex by a good bit for the duration of like 20-30 seconds sounds reasonable to me.

[Gaddy]

...Your suggestions unbalance the game.
You are not considering how ridiculous it would be to make thieves so overpowered. They would be completely overpowered in the case of hitting for as much damage as the hardest hitting classes, muchless with faster stamina gain.

And as Trevayne said, 20 thieves shouldn't fight 20 zerks and win. They are not meant to sit out in the open and hack away.
You give me 10 thieves; I'll give you 20 dead zerks without losing more than a third of the thieves to even the VERY best players in game.
Sure, I wouldn't fight fair at all; thieves have their abilities. If you don't use the skills they have, you are a fool.
Thieves are not meant to fight in open combat like rangers, fighters, and zerks. You can't try to make them so strong that they can, because you then leave people who use the class with the right methods ridiculously overpowered.

And I finally bothered to check just to be able to say it outright-
There are more arch thieves than ANY other class in game.
People know they're worth-wild as they are. The fact that you're working with your sharies to get 40 or so logged on at once is not a good reason to make thieves buffed in such extreme manners.

[Redheart]

I never knew there were more arch thieves than any other class ingame

[Snoopy]

Every one should have a party of thiefs, although even playing unfair 10 thiefs couldnt take a fully party unless the person on the party was a fool.

hit and running coverting or invising with a mage works quite well but only where there are not many monsters round, other wise the party just chases you down and detonates you while your trying to hide heh

Not saying i disagree - i can take the cappy in under 1 morph with my party of thiefs and thats plenty of power so i would disagree with people saying they are underpowered - they hit plenty if you spend a little money equiping them right too!

[Peacemaker]

What about the Stealth ability i suggested? All this does is increase your dex for a short period of time. I dont see having this ability unbalancing the game. Would like to know the thoughts on this idea.

[Gaddy]

Like make a rapid stamina regenerate ability name it Stealth or something if not increase stamina atleast make it increase dex by a good bit for the duration of like 20-30 seconds sounds reasonable to me.

Umm. That is not just saying increase dex.
And also, what would keep thieves from doing this ALL the time? Is there no negative?
They can't use mana like mages and clerics do...
Along with that, they'd have far too much consistency for stealing if their dex got buffed in that fashion.

I think it would be MUCH more beneficial to them to increase their hit-rate with assassinate as Trevayne suggested...since that would be almost like having more dex all the time as far as attacking goes.

[Snoopy]

i woud support incresed hit rate btw if otherwise not stated in my previous post

There are other advantages to thiefs, for example when fighting is dex dropped areas - IE boats, or agaist high dex monsters they seem to be the only crits that can gain hits - zerks manage ok with smite too

[Peacemaker]

Wouldnt increasing dex increase hit rate?

[Gaddy]

Yes, unless it were horrible like how pallies' holy speed works.
But increasing dex does a lot more than increasing hit rate, such as increasing theft rate, and dodge rate...

Where as perm hit rate increase doesn't require time limits or the sort, and avoids messing with dodge rates, etc.

[joanna]

Ive never really noticed a problem with my thieves missing, then again i run my thief parties with the theives scrolled, but they seem to be more than capable of bringing down bosses...

what id like to see more is thieves having the ability to avoid traps... theives are supposed to be specialists in thief field yet traps drop theives as easily as they drop any other class. The main point of this is to let people use theif parties (ie druid or mage to lead and up to 19 theives) in areas protected with path-traps, ie Chronos, Faravar and Sentant, without having to resort to taking healers... Ive tried Chronos once and got to the TK with about 6 pots left between the entire party.....

as for pvp, Gaddy is spot on.... if you duke it out with your 20 thieves against 20 zerks, you dont know how to use a thief....

Edited by joanna, 22 July 2007 - 11:58 AM.

[Hansol]

I support the increased hit rate for thieves 100%. I'll happily help test aswell if need be.

as for the thieves avoiding traps. aparantly if you lead on a thief in your party you are more likely to avoid traps. I think gaddy or trevayne said that about a month ago.. or tony was blabbing

[Gaddy]

Yes, from what I have seen between my party in Scarlet Daggers' Guild, thieves do avoid traps much better than other classes.
However, the leader character of a party determines if traps are set off, from everything I've ever noticed.

[Raylen]

Simple solution:

Create a new area(!) with a 31bd weapon drop for thieves. That way you get a cool new area, and a cool new weapon. Everyone will be happy (that's a command, not a statement btw).



Hey it would be even better if a highly literate and creative young Englishman had already written such an area now wouldn't it.

Gareth?

No jk it's me