I was wondering.. What are the goals of the incoming thief edges? Will they make thieves more affective in hero range? I really think that's what they need, since there is really no incentive to rank into hero range as a thief. Their affectiveness just seems to fade out as they rank, which is a pity since they are such a cool class. It seems like there are only binders and city ties thieves up in the hero ranges since binders never seem to dim in power, and city ties are just as much a pain in the ass as ever, but what about the others? You never see others in hero range(of course there is a rare one on occasion). I wish I had some ideas of some things that would add to their affectiveness while incorporating their already implemented skills(ie edges), but I seem to be having some trouble thinking something up. Having played a thief though, I can say that I wish there was some way to have scrolls work a good bit better, I feel that would add some more zest and utility to a thief's repertoire. Anyway, I'd like to see some thoughts on this.

NT

I have seen all the different thief paths within Hero range before. Heck when I was Breganu there were 2 pickpockets, two binders, two poisoners, a trapper, and a thug (myself) within hero range.

And if you feel that a thief's effectiveness fades out as they rank, then I don't know what to tell you. The only reason, I think, it seems like there are only binders and pickpockets is because from what I've seen these two are the most selected paths. People tend to not play poisoners and trappers because of the whole 'I need ingredients to be cool' which is a bit of a deterrent to them. Thugs are fun but most folks won't play a thug because if they want to kill someone they can just play a binder w/ cheap shot or even a straight binder.

>Thugs are fun but most folks won't play a
>thug because if they want to kill someone they can just play a
>binder w/ cheap shot or even a straight binder.

Things come in and out of vogue, really. Two years ago nearly every high level thief was full thug. I'm not convinced that thug's gotten worse or binder's gotten better in that time, it's just one of those things.

Personally I had lots of fun as a thug. And I'll probably roll one again, maybe even a full thug. But I refuse to play a binder because it seems like everyone and their mom is one. Which is fine since it just means I can still have fun with pickpockets, trappers, and poisoners.

Edit:

The main thing for me, however, is incentive to become a kingpin. After becoming the Enforcer of Dagdan the whole experience was kind of bleh. Mostly since the only perk really for donating enough gold to become a kingpin is the ability to blackball a thief from the guild. Which isn't really that huge of a deal for a guild like Dagdan. Nevermind that most thieves who decide to join a guild rather join the other guilds given their proximity to the Eastern Road so there aren't that may thieves who are a part of Dagdan anyways. To be honest I haven't come up with anything that would interet me to ever make the effort to join a guild (other than convenience) and become a kingpin again as yet but I'm working on it.

Dagdan has lots of little side exits and is pretty much equal but opposite of Arkham in raw foot distance. If you recall, even if someone knows where to look for you they aren't finding you before you find a new place to disappear to.

Also Marcus, if you'd stop using 18 int or less to practice cheap shot you wouldn't have this problem. It's hard, but not that hard. These days certain thug thief skills later on in the path are harder to improve in than cheap shot.

"I have to admit I hate pretty much all of these ideas. " - Nepenthe, on New Ranger Skills

I don't have a problem, nor am I complaining.. just stating a possible reason why thug thieves might be are less popular. About thug thieves in general, I would strongly recommend the 'apt learner' edge.

But you actually did give me an idea about a gameplay change for thug thieves... How about changing death strike and strike of the abandoned so that when the skills fail, you don't initiate combat? For thieves initial strike is very important, and to get drawn into battle with nothing to show for it makes them sort of... not worth it.

Is there a reason why you step out of the shadows if you try to spam knife, but not when you spam other things? I think that's a questionable feature, seeing as you don't want people to use triggers, and all.. :p

The people you would need to spam knife on are usually sneaking. Anyone else a quick trigger finger will catch even on a road. If you can't be bothered to buy faerie fire scrolls to use on a sneaker (which does indeed give up backstab as an opener if you're not using weaponbutt which gets at least USABLE above 90 otherwise it sucks, and it's unreasonably hard to improve in imho for it's success rate) then you probably don't need to use knife as your first tactic, your tactic should be reliance on parting block or the element of surprise to allow you to use cheap shot.

I also think death strike and strike of the abandoned make for decent skills in the confusion of cabal raids but are utterly terrible for a class that generally doesn't tank like an arial assassin. They just aren't useful enough to warrant the costs they have (and miss a good bit), they're just fodder to practice for earclap. They seem tailor made to attack ranking groups, but the popular areas to rank in when you use these skills are all wilderness or otherwise impossible to hide in, making the whole situation of putting these skills to use either incredibly dangerous or outright moot.

My big complaint about thieves is that their use of scrolls is HORRIBLE. I've had it up around 93%, and find that it actually fails 93% of the time. If it werent for that, I think thug thieves could compete even at hero. But alas, they cannot.

It's not like there haven't been successful thug thieves, FYI.

Edited to add: (At hero.)

Cheap shot taking 100 hours instead of 20-30 minutes to perfect sort of lessens their appeal :p