Make Hide Useful Again

One thing that I have noticed over several characters is the near extinction of really scary thieves.

I attribute this to the negation of hide through several qclass skills and abilities.

Given that the current PK pool ranges from 0 - 5 characters on at any one point in time, and the ease of which the current pbase may obtain qclass positions, the power of being a thief and using the shadows as a point of leverage has been reduced greatly.

I would like to see a restriction or a removal on the number of classes and/or abilities that enable characters to see thieves in hiding. Those that can see hidden completely outclass thieves in combat, and therefore their ability to see the thieves amounts to a negation of one of the thieves main tools in combat and survival. Consequently, thieves are prevented from being competitive against such classes.

This idea could tie into Celerity's previous tiered skill system, where a thief may select an advanced tier of hide at the expense of other advanced skill tiers. Customizing the class to be survivable against these enemies as a manifestation of a thief path/selection paradigm would change the way a thief character could perform against other thieves and other characters that can see hidden, and add flavor to one of the staple classes of the Forsaken Lands.

Are you serious...? Ninjas, thieves, one Qrace has it always, and another qrace has to do something special to do it.

Two cabals have "methods" of seeing hidden, both of which aren't always 100% reliable.

So really.. no.. not a whole lot of classes CAN see hidden.. 

EDIT to your edit:

Now, I do like the idea of a more advanced hide at the cost of something else. THAT would be cool and interesting.

Thanks Trick. I agree the path forward would make more sense as a new mechanic to thief skills rather than taking away from other classes or cabals.

I didn't mean to sound berating if that is how it came off. I am of the opinion there needs to be a few classes that can see you, to keep it fair and balanced.

I am 100% in favor of every class eventually being given paths to select from. Ninjas and thieves have a little bit of that right now, but they are kind of lacking. Thieves get trap selections and ninjas get paths. ( Traps really aren't paths and ninjas paths kinda suck, but still..)

I'd like to see invokers and battlemages get a little love from the path selections if I had to vote for a class to be reworked.

Honestly, I don't really think Thieves need anything. I haven't played one in awhile, granted, however they are super powerful and incredibly dangerous in the right hands.

I've had thieves almost completely 2 round Sirican (My Nexus Vampire) with a backstab and some pretty solid melee afterwards. I think it actually happened once or twice.

I've been a thief and destroyed warriors with relative ease.

While it's true, they can get raped hard sometimes... They also have arguably overpowered traps. (Unless they changed)

I think a thief, even unable to use hide, could do really well. If any rogue needs love, it's ninjas.

Naturally, I prefer the diversification of rogue abilities over the removal of cabal/quest abilities--and thieves could use a serious rework anyways. Unfortunately, they aren't anywhere near the to-do list in their current state, so back to toning:

I'm not too worried about the cabal abilities, being that the main one is targeted at a single other cabal only and can't be used against rogues outside of that cabal typically.

The qclasses that demolish thieves (yes, there are exceptions, but they are just that: exceptional situations)...one of the classes is terribly overpowered, and has always been. It needs toned, without question. It is disgraceful actually, that nobody will really touch them.

The other...well...

The root problem is that the dangerous classes are heavy laggers and a thief doesn't have a good option currently against that...outside of hiding. The natural tone thereby is to reduce the lag or melee potential of those qclasses while they have the detect abilities up. This is obviously easier for one of the classes than the other.

An exceptionally skilled thief can hold their ground, provided that their opponent is not as good, but that is no argument for balance.

Hard to talk about since we can't directly talk about the abilities, but yes, I agree with Mali wholeheartedly.

It would be interesting to see the (skill level)[A] being figured into the equation vs. the Hide skill level ** for a chance to "see" the hidden enemy. Assuming the thief mastered hide, then the player with the "new" skill has a -25 deficit toward successfully seeing the thief. A random roller added to both skills when used. Success = A + Roll > B + Roll. Luck is a factor, as it should be, but success is not granted its earned. I like the advanced skills Idea too.**

Cel, both vamps and liches have been toned and adjusted SEVERAL TIMES over the last few years, so please spare us such snide comments when they have no backing up.

Saders are still in the process of ironing out some bugs and balancing the single paths better.

With all three qclasses, changes have been made and some more will be made.

Adding on to what Anume said, I've toned and adjusted both vampires and liches in the past couple of years. Mostly to what they should have been originally (liches) and some changes with vampires with chances and skills that literally would never fail were made to fail from time to time like any other skills similar to them.

Thanks for the commentary. I think this idea has some interesting followthrough beyond the qclass argument, and could represent a new rogue to rogue dynamic. I have always thought that all of the detect skills functioning as an on/off switch was limiting, and there is more to the shadows than we know.