I have noticed that in my short time of return to Tempus, not much about the class I enjoy so much has been changed. Thieves still get stuck with the short end of every stick, except damage. So, I have thought of a few things that may help ease the suffering of the few players that play as thieves. But I will wait for what I think could be added for the end, first lets fix what is already there.

Hide - Now, this skill is almost useless. It does have use, so I really shouldnt say that, but its not as good as it should be. I've always been more towards the theory of thought that True See and Sonic Imagrey let you see what anybody could not normally see because of some sort of magic. But Hide just lets you hide in places people wouldnt normally look. Its mundane, nothing magical about it, and being able to see invisible people wouldnt help because you're simply out of sight. This is why, at least my impression was, skills such as Sense Life exsist, as a way of detecting normal presences unenchanted. Now I'm not saying morts should be given this amazing ability to dodge all sorts of sight but it needs to be improved. Perhaps Hide (and other skills which I will soon mention) could gain a higher chance of going undetected as gens go up. I dont know if its currently this way, but i doubt it.

Sneak - The same philosophy as Hide, except instead of Sense Life, the skill to counter this would be Hearing. Maybe the chances of sneak working would increase with gen as well.

Track - Whoa. What in heaven's sake happened to this skill. Why couldnt this stay the way it used to.. where you could track certain things. Track just goes all haywire now… ewwwwwww. I dont see why this was altered, it was fine.

Stalk - This skill is a cool concept, especially for following aggro mobs and people you want to kill, but its use has been shortlived due to the fact that Sneak has been getting suckier as well. If you cant sneak well, how are you going to stalk anyone? Perhaps this version of Stalk could be removed and replaced by a higher Remort Skill that would be an uber-version of Sneak. This way people could stalk around instead of sneaking, and for higher gens it would serve a better purpose of Sneak and Sneak as it is could stay.

Disguise - I still think this is the most gyped (no offence tended) skill Thieves have. The concept is great and like Strael (aha, I do read the boards!) I dont see how True See and Sonic Imagery, though useful they are against invisible and transparent players and mobs, would be able to see STRAIGHT through a disguise of normal clothes. That would be like a James Bond-type X-Ray vision.. who would stop perverted Mages and people alike from trapsing about, viewing through helpless mobs windows and watching them undress! (Oh and dont tell me you guys have never found those Halfling women to be sexy… you're just dying for a pixilated ASCII picture of them and you know it!) At the very least, Disguise could be like how r-invis used to work. Say I'm level 30 gen 3. Those higher than gen 3 and lv. 30 would stand a far greater chance at detecting me as myself (as opposed to what im disguised as) than those below.

Uncanny Dodge - sits with a little birthday cone hat and a party favor-whistle Oh yay… everybody and there mother has something like this. Monks get it at gen 0, lv. 22. We gotta wait till gen 2. I honestly dont see why we have this to begin with concidering how if a slight wind blows the wrong way a Thief would die because our HPS suck.

Now I'm sure more than myself have gone into a room with an aggressive mob, and being a thief with poor hitpoints and a now useless stun, and gets totally bent over. If a thief enters a room and cant stun, its gonna be a short match unless that thief has some fancy finger-work. This gave me an idea for a potential Remort Skill.

Shadows - Now I know we cant go back to having things that increase Speed (like my golden fleece, the Hellspike) so that you can stun and backstab in less than a second. But this dosnt change the fact that Thieves have almost no way to defend themselves in melee combat against mobs. What… trip, ok that gives ups time to run and possibly survive.. assuming it lands; gouge works sometimes to blind someone so that we could run away, but would be far more useful if HIDE worked.. because then we could actually USE Feign, and hide (assuming it too worked better); groinkick is alright; archery… why do we have this?!; Pele Kick is the best thing thieves have for close quarters combat when during a fight already… and even if it lands, we're on our backs! Since Mages have things that protect them as well as damage other people, and since as things sit the things which Thieves need most (sneak and hide) dont work properly, Thieves need something to let them slip past deadly and aggro mobs. I propose a skill which I call Shadows. We all know thieves cling to the shadows. Why cant the shadows cling to thieves? Say at Gen 5 you can learn this and as you gen up it gets stronger. Now there are two possible uses for this skill in mind…

1) It amplifies Sneak/Stalk and Hide drastically (I mean uber-style) 2) It acts as a non-magical shield. Such in the way that it prevents thieves from being detected.

 THIS is where skills like Infravision, Night Vision, True See and Sonic Imagery would come into play. Borrowing from the old remort-invisibility idea, gens and levels above you would be able to detect you while in the shadows more likely than those below. But because you're not hidden per se, True See or something would be able to detect this with great success. And before I finish I now present one last remort skill idea which just came to me.

Trap - Thieves are devious and rely on cunning. I believe I saw a post by Strael on how thieves should be able to not be effected by Death Traps or Damage Traps. What if, as a remort skill, Thieves could turn rooms INTO Damage or Death Traps. Say theres two versions.. Death Trap and Damage Trap (how original eh?). It allows the room to be turned into a Trap of say.. Fire spurts out of the ground, arros shoot from the wall, you're knocked unconscious by poison gas, you're attacked by a raging sea of hormones as screaming girls rush you like Elvis. This would be horribly awesome not only for pkilling, but for luring monsers into rooms as well. With levels and gens come varying degrees of success of course, and theres always the possibility that the trap will be disarmed or will not function properly.

 I think stuff like that which I have mentioned would not only bring more charm to the Thief class not only as primary, but a secondary choice for those remorting, but it would bring more life and something new to the realms of Tempus. I left for quite a while, came back and almost nothing has changed. Now Tempus surely is fun, hence my return, but a fresh breath needs to be pumped into it every now and then to keep things changing. And by fresh breath I dont mean hurricane gale's such as a Wizlock. Come on people, you know you want to see thieves with more fun skills that arent as geared towards killing. And why do I have the feeling very few players of thieves will even comment on this... 

-Cronos Hellebore aka Chase

And grand kvetching it is! Well I cant be too picky.. its better than "Thief Whining"… well no, its just in a diffrent language, but its better none the less. Thanks for titling it whoever.

yes, theives are a bitch to level and they dont get enough hp and they dont do enough damage and stun sucks and all of their skills suck and they are hte worst class in the game. yay for whining!

other then that, my only comment is Monk gets a skill similar to uncanny dodge at gen 0 level 22? uh no. I have never seen my gen 10 monk dodge an attack, ever. Evade? it does nothing.

I nevcer complained about the damage. Thieves get great damage. And as far as the Evade thing, what makes you think it would be better for thieves? A monk is a hand-to-hand fighting class and their dodge dosnt work. A thief is a hit-and-run class where if they get hit maybe a few times, theyre gone. So why the hell would we have something that no thief worth his salt would use?

Uhm. Look at the badass theives. Ladydeth. Loathing. Whatever Arna's thief is called (he's changed liek 109139847 times). Think they dont use Uncanny dodge. now quit your bitching.

Who the hell are they… LadyDeth sounds familiar and I remember Arna…

LadyDeth is Sin's gen 10 thief Loathing is Dante's gen 10 thief Arna's thief is Arna's gen ## thief.

notice, all these people have multiple gen 10's. if you know how to play the game, thief isnt as hard as it is if you dont. i dont claim to know how to play the game, or how to play a thief, thats why mine is only gen 1 :)

Might I also add that they didnt originally play thieves. Arna played Mage, Dante was Cleric. They got good and high gen chars AND THEN played thieves. The Thief class is a whole hell of a lot easier to play when you can tweak it out with all the bells and whistles that others wouldnt necissarily have. Though that goes without saying with any classes. Dante's still around though huh? Havnt talked to that old codger in ages.

Arna isnt a mage. He is a cleric, so you know :) And yes, as i said, they knew how to play the game, as in they had played other classes before. And wasnt the whole point of my post that thief isnt all that hard if you know how to play it? Play a different class first, get all the leveling spots down really good, and when you play thief and know what eq to get and where to go, it will be like 10x easier.

Uh.. I remember Arna originally being a Mage. And please dont talk to me like I'm some sort of newbie… I may be rusty and getting used to everything again but I am by no means a newbie and incompetant. I know the leveling spots, its just that I dont fancy parading around in mass groups and getting spam-level'd. Nor do I have the dedication of Zhang to go around and remort once a day. Frankly, I should have to. Thief should be a class open to both new and old players, not a class which is there solely for PKilling and PStealing for the higher generations that can afford to piss away money and time.

Heh, the fact is, Thief is playable. People come on here all the time, and thief is the most complained about class. It is not impossible to play, and if you think it is, play something else. thats the fact of the matter.

Who the hell said I said it was impossible to play? Certainly not I. I am here to try and enhance the skills that a thief would need, my goal is to enhance the playability. And did you ever think there was a reason WHY Thief is the most complained about class? Because, simply put, it is lacking compared to others. You need to stop putting words into other peoples mouths. Now, to anybody else that would rather talk about the Thief class instead of counter-complaining about my complaints, I would hope this thread is open for discussion.

You should really go through and read the countless threads on here that are doing the same thing you are. Thieves are not meant to be as strong as every other class… they are meant to sneak up on you and fuck you up without you knowing… not to stand there and throw down with a mob cause its gonna get you killed quick…

backstab/retreat til gen 0 level 49, then remort merc backstab/retreat while infiltrating til gen 10 stop whining

My thief was so easy I quit playing him at gen 7

Merr

Merriam, was that not pre wipe? Was that not when you had a gen 10 ranger/physic who could deck out your thief/merc? Was that not when you had +speed eq that loaded on mobs in the game? Anyway, just a few points to defend Cronos. Not to mention I do see some very good points that Cronos had added here. Most thiefs find that stun, trip, double attack, and backstab are the only things worth learning. O yea, and retreat. Thiefs could be more dependant on sneak, hide, and disguise. I do agree however that uncanny dodge is a awesome addition. With this all said….

Detect invis should allow to see invis.

True_Sight should allow to see invis, and transparant. Just because your disguise is not a magical effect does not mean true sight should not be able to see who you really are. True sight means exacty what it says, true sight…

If anything a thief in my opinion should not be imporved in the hps. Thiefs need to be able to use there skills more usefully. It wouldn't hurt having a ability to cut the throat of a target so they can't ask for help or use tells. It could also bleed and do damage overtime. When it does they could hold their neck and fall to the ground screetching in pain. A small wait state when they fall so they stay down a split second. It would bleed leaving a trail for the thief to track them down. A heal would take away the nasty effects of this. That is all…

Thief has its strengths. If you try to tank with a thief, it's just not going to work. My point was the thief does well to sneak in, do some damage, sneak out, patch up, and repeat. That's why I found it so easy.

Merriam/Maxwell

PS: Thief/Merc is still deadly.

Actually, I think the Thief class could use some quality of life improvements.

I think circle should be changed from what it is, to a direct damage attack that can be performed in combat.

Then, a skill that would let them escape any aggro on them, without having to retreat. That way, if they are in a group and they start taking too many hits they can save their skins.

How do you suppose you can backstab a person who is fighting you? For example, if you are a thief, and you're fighting King Learander, how do you suppose you are going to get behind his back and stab him? That's circle.

However, if King Learander is fighting your buddy in your group, or an elemental or something, then you can circle him all you like.

Do you mean something other than the way it works now? Where it could be: The King of Learander is here, fighting YOU!

And you could circle him?

Merriam/Maxwell

I mean, get rid of circle completely. Replace it with an entirely different skill.

Sorry Cronos I can't back your complaints about True See. It's whole intention is to expose things for how they truely are, not as they appear to be. True see has actually been stripped down alot over time too. Anyway. Does sonic imagery allow you to see people who are sneaking and hiding? If so that's utter BS. You can't be sneaking and hiding if you're making noises, and if you're not making noises there is nothing sonic about you to perceive, is there. For those who missed the point, Cronos isn't talking about thieves tanking. So lets just drop that silly notion. They can't tank, nor should they. They used to be great at hit and run, but stun got castrated, now they can't tank or hit and run well. Therein lies the problem. Nobody's asking for a tanking thief, they're asking for tools to hit and run again :p. They "I had a big badass thief" is BS too. All that crap is either pre lock, pre fubared stun, or after you already have a big badass to pamper your thief with. Without good eq, thieves are junk. And the thief without good eq isn't going to equip itself - Catch 22. I think uncanny dodge is quite useful, it gives you that extra bit of buffer in your hit and run, especially now that stun isn't so hot. It also fits right in with where thief belongs, as avoidance should always be high on the agenda of the frail bodied. Tanking and avoiding are two different things :) Now traps is a cool idea, goes right up the alley of how a thief should be played perfectly. I would like to see that idea developed into implementation. Sorry Jake I don't know what you're smoking about circle. In battle damage moves for a thief? That's not a thief's vocation, they have no buisness pimpslapping. Bitchslapping is what thieves do, and circle is exactly what it should be. Thieves fight dirty, and they will stab the backs of those unawares, or otherwise distracted.

Pre-lock, I never played a thief, so I can't comment on any of the changes. The only experiences with thieves is what I've got now. With that said, I think the thief class is fine. If anything, it's too powerful still. I don't know how good stun used to be, but it's ridiculously overpowered still. Against players that is. There is no reason that a gen 0 thief should be able to stun a gen 10. And once they stun, they're free to steal all the eq they want. Even if the chance of stun landing is only about 50%, it doesn't matter. Thieves can stun/steal naked with no real detriments. I've seen a thief secondary waltz in with a yellow potion and a monocle and jack a gen 9 no sweat. This is a problem.

Now, against mobs, this is a completely different story. I couldn't imagine leveling a thief as my first primary character. Sure, there's backstab/flee, and stun at later levels, but that doesn't change the fact that you're going to get hit. And thieves can't take too many hits. My thief was powerleveled pretty much exclusively. I'm never going to keep him as a main, but they definitely are useful.

Anyways, thief can be played. We've got examples of high gen thieves out there. There are so many other classes you can choose from on Tempus, why not just leave Thief as a master/utility class? Making thieves any stronger would just make PK/PSteal way more prevalent, which I believe the mud is trying to steer away from.

narc, thats not what 'sonic imagery' does

sonic imagery is actually closer to a dolphin or bats echolocation, it sends out a sonic wave, which pings off of something, and is interpeted by your brain (or whatever your wearing that provides it)

LadyDeth was my first ever character… I played a thief and only a thief for years. It's a long and arduous journey to gen 10 for a thief, even one with the backing of a powerful multi or clan. But the ends justify the means… a gen 10 thief is a formidable opponent. /end rambling

I agree with Nevermore's ramblings. I think when looking at any class changes (whether it be thief or anything else), we have to look ahead to that class' full potential at gen 10. Adding skills/spells to a class could make them overpowered when they reach their full potential at gen 10.

With thieves, as they gen/level up, their backstabs get much much stronger. Backstab has the potential for the strongest powermove in the game, depending on the thieve's damroll. And at gen 10, they are incredibly powerful.

I'm not saying thieves shouldn't be looked at, but it's a consideration that I think everyone needs to think about.

Kairi, That would be known as active sonar, which is what dolphins use yes. But there is also passive sonar, which merely listens without sending any sort of pinging, which is typically how your military submarine would run.

Here's what you do:

1. take off your panties;
2. package it for mail;
3. mail it to 2400 durant sp 707 berkeley, CA;
4. if you are male, find a female and repeat steps 1-3.

Acid, helpful? HELPFUL LIKE A FOX!

I just wanted to bring this thread back now that I've played quite a bit of thief. I think thief is fine. Now, it's true that I have, as Narcissus said, a big badass gen 10 to pamper my thief, but my eq isn't all that hot. My backstabber is decent, not perfect by any means, but other than that, I doubt any piece of my eq would sell for more than 1m.

I'd definitely like to see thief get a few more touches. After gen 3, there's nothing to look forward too, I think there could be 1 or 2 more remort skills added, but for now, there are other classes that need it more.

Well its been almost a year… I can probably repost in this thread and not get completely shunned away. Actually.. its been over a year. Anyway.

I have an idea - albiet a rather large proposal - but a rather level-minded and sensical one at that. I currently go to college for Video Game Design (yeah, go figure) and have had to sit through more than one class on character development as far as balance and such. I do see the flaws in some of the things I pointed out, but on the other hand… I had more than a few valid points. My proposal is this…

Let me come up with a remake of the Thief class. Strip it down to barebones, reassign the attributes, reassign skills - new and old - and resubmit it as a new class (whether the name Thief is kept or not would be pending). Let it then be subjected to the crutique of the Imm's as well as fellow players… and see what the outcome is. Aside from aiding my favorite class on Tempus, this also could double as a homework assignment for me.. so it'd be a help either way. Well, what do you say? You can't get any better than having a professional game designer (in training) work on something…

NOTE: The reason I ask to let me redo the class is because there is just way too much baggage on the thief class and merely fixing one or two skills isn't going to help the class. By taking everything and having a chance to re-assemble it, if you will, allows for a more useful character as well as elimination of poteltially cheap pitfalls.

Make an Assasin!!!! basically, fast, silent kills… :P

That's the way I kind of see thieves now. Assassins. Going merc secondary makes them even more so. In response to Cronos, I think that would be a pretty cool idea. But, is it really needed for thief? There are other classes that need it more. Some classes are always going to be popular primary (mages, monks) while some will be popular secondary (phyz, psi). And then some classes hardly get used at all (barb, merc). In my opinion, THOSE are the classes that need it more. Or maybe every class needs a balance overhaul…

Again though, I've probably said this many times, but thief is one of the better classes I believe. It's one that is played like it's meant to be played. I stun/backstab/retreat all the time. I gouge when I don't want to be tracked, I trip when I need to buy myself some extra time. When a mob has a powerful weapon or armor, I stun/steal it, then proceed to kick his ass. My secondary class only adds to the power. As a psi, I confuse them and weaken them to the point where I just dance circles around them, running in and out, stabbing at will.

Of course there, are a couple of things that still beg fixing. Making disguise work better against mobs, for instance. Thief is fine though. They play like a thief should. If anything needs to be fixed, it's class anomalies like mages being super-tanks.

Yeah… those fun little anomalies are always fun. And hey, if the Imm's really wanted me to I could probably do other classes. Merc does need a little work though… but then again, it's the class where a lot of Hoodlum stuff got dumped. Wrench, Hamstring… deadly. I'll just work on the Thief class today when I'm in one of the classes that really require no thought and submit it when I get home - see what you guys think.