help needed with thieves

[spiegel06]

I have a thief and would like to know more or less the do's and donts. I read the essay about it and would like to have the input of the vets of the class.

Thanks.

[Tantangel]

I wouldn't consider myself a vet really of the class, but a lot of the skills are overlooked that a thief has and I've been guilty of it myself usually because I forget they're there.

Cutpurse, although it makes people start leaking gold, it helps in more ways than getting rich quick. If you're fighting an opponent who isn't severely outdamaging you, this can be useful to track them if they flee and run away, but it doesn't last all that long.

Pilfer, yet another overlooked skill. While in combat you can pilfer someones backpack/sack or such and it will knock it to the ground. If your opponent loses their bags of goodies, it sometimes becomes irreplaceable for quite some time. Can also pilfer out those rares they have in inventory, just doesn't work on nodrop items.

Steal is great because you can steal someones backpack or sanc source if they can't cast it/commune it themselves. Makes fighting melee sometimes a lot more easy.

Traps are very handy indeed. You'll want to master them so that you don't fail nearly as much when trying to set up a quick trap after you've blackjacked someone. Some traps are better than others as well, you'll have to read help files and toy with them a little to see which ones you really like. You can have only two up at any given time though and they all have timers.

Circle is fantastic since when you attack someone who's in combat with something else you can easily go in and circle them until they're dead depending on the damage output and if they don't run. If you doublesheath two daggers, you'll have two attacks per successful circle stab which is great for increased damage.

Doublesheath is useful for if you get disarmed and have no noremove weapon in your primary hand. If you leave a doublesheath spot open and you have daggers in your inventory you autothrow at your fleeing opponent.

Gag is so useful it's ridiculous. If you gag a caster they can't do squat. They can't cast their spells, they can't talk, they can't even emote to cheat and get buy the non speaking potion. Makes for very easy mage kills.

Plant/Pry. The combo of these two are pretty nasty. It's much easier to just pry something off and plant it though than it is to plant and switch two items with each other. Take two demon Talismans and uncurse them then oaken rings and trap them if your traps can be put on objects so that when they try to remove them it will end up hurting them in the process.

Backstab/dual backstab are your meat and potatoes. Both can be trained and mastered around the same time or you can easily just train them at different times. Easy to just backstab lower level MOBs with low hp so you can keep going rather than do it to mobs with higher hp.

Trip is great to use to lag your opponent. The only problem with this though is you have no means of lagging smaller races. Basically anything shorter than a human you'll have a hard time against lag lock and races with high dex because they recover quicker. Giants/Ogres will be very easy to keep in combat if they're not flying though.

Counterfeit is great to use if you don't intend to kill someone you can easily just blackjack pry it off and counterfeit it. Plant the counterfeit back on them and it will end up crumbling quite a few hours later so they may not even expect it was you to begin with. With the high mana cost though and the huge lag from it it might not be worth it to plant it back on or even counterfeit it until later, in which case you sell it back to them and have them deposit the money in your bank and you drop it off in a 'secure' location and tell them to go get it.

There are daggers out there that a thief needs to survive at least decent PK with. Wont say what they are, but there are some good ones. If you don't have at least one dagger wielded, you can't circle stab, so if you dual wield two exotics, say good bye to that (useful for when defending Cabal and such).

I'd have to check up thief skill set to see what other skills I forgot, but that's just basics really.

[Deptore]

It might be better if you asked specific questions, I doubt anyone will make a complete essay on what to do in every situation. What do you have trouble not understanding? What class are you getting your *** handed to you by? Most people like to not give out every do/don't for a class as it means he's telling you exactly how to play and ruining the fun of discovery as you find new tricks yourself. Although we do like to face you in the right direction so that you're not completely lost.

[L-A]

Sounds like you're just starting out. The best thing to do is learn by playing. Chances are you know the base tactics of the class. Start there and see what you can come up with.

My advice: Be patient, its a requirement for any sucessful rogue.

L-A

[Mister E]

Agreed. Patience is key for ninjas and thieves. Thieves are imo the best class for totally destroying some unsuspecting passerby. Be smart with your trap selection, maximize blackjack with tick management, and try and have vuln throwing daggers if possible. Thieves rule!

[Deykari]

Another agreement with the patience thing. Why? Think of it this way.

When a thief blackjacks you and pries those pieces of armor you just spent an hour getting and steals your backpack full of supplies, what's usually the first thing you think? "Man, I want to kill that thief and get my gear back".

More often than not, stealing some really important stuff from people, anchors them to you. This gives you more opportunities to steal from them. With Rylafein, I killed so many people by stealing backpacks and prying the best EQ I could from them, keeping visible and running about. If you have antimagic, place antimagic in a place, perhaps a street not often run down in advance the first time you blackjack them. Let them wake up whilst you're a few rooms away, and lead them around the city, maybe outside and back in. Spend a few hours leading them on (so the blackjack timer runs out), then run down that little street so that to follow they hit the antimagic, dropping any anti-blackjack affects they have up. Come out, blackjack again. Steal more. If at this point you haven't sufficiently weakened them to be able to backstab/trap them, give a bit of a cool-off period because it's doubtful they'll fall for that trick again... straight away. Spend a day hidden, then come out in the open. Guarantee they'll be looking for you and you can repeat once more.

The above is not a set-in-stone tactic, as not all players will react in the same way. Just an example of how the mind of the thief operates.

There are some very creative ways of using your traps. Believe me when I say that there is one mechanism in particular that I will undoubtedly choose over the standard chestbuster or brambus needler after realising how effective it is when you think outside the box. There are ways of trapping people in rooms, without spells with only one locked exit, so easily. Sometimes you want there to be an exit (and one exit only). Think about it a bit.

Thieves are about surprise and patience. Some classes you can drop in literally a round or two. They're wandering along, you blackjack, pry weapons, backstab, watch them hit a trap, finish off with a chase and murder. Others with higher HP and decent EQ, or the melee types, need a shaman-like mindset. Picking apart at people's EQs and consumables to make them a LOT weaker, and with some players, to frustrate them to the point where they may make fatal mistakes, ie. "Man he's taken my sack of flight scrolls.. screw it, I can see him at Central Commons, I'll just go kill him". Then they die to a triplock after a backstab.

Biggest problem I had with Rylafein was trying to play a thief like a DK. Think attrition warfare against decked powerhouses.

Still need to be careful though, even after you've picked say, an Ogre Warrior or Ranger to pieces and all they have is a no-disarm weapon...

Dey

[spiegel06]

well this is my first thief what so ever and needed general advice on what to do, I learned and learning already with my thief (I do get owned at times). But the thing I have the most trouble with is prying skill or plant. I keep on failing that no matter what. I know the weight of things because I do the same items and I still fail those. I dont have trouble with blackjack, I rarely fail, and steal.

But thank you for all the info.

[Kyzarius]

1, Master everything. If you havent already.

2, avoid all out combat, try to just rob your opponents by focusing on say one piece of armor, blackjack and try to pry...if you fail, hide and wait two tics and blackjack and try to pry again.

do not listen to any advice telling you to skip mastering everything on ANY character. It is good practice and should be considered part of lvling up.

[corpsestomp]

Pry takes quite a bit of time to master, so I don't think you should go out of your way to master it, but certainly you should put some work into it.

[Deykari]

1' date=' Master everything. If you havent already.[/quote']

Gotta agree with Kyzarius here. You really need pry mastered as a thief.

There is a trick to training it, too.

Dey

[Kinicky]

to train pry:

blackjack low hp mob

plant object

pry object

plant object

pry object

plant object...