Thief Template Question

PaPa

Journeyman
Im currently

GM:
Thief
Snoop
Mage
Resist
Hiding
Stealth
Det. Hidden

People have been telling to drop Detect Hidden for something else....

I don't fight...Just steal and run.
I don't use armor so I could drop Stealth to 80.

What would you folks do with a possible 120 points?

- 70/50 detect/tracking??
- GM lock for dungeon chests and 20 tracking(use magery to reveal)?
- Don't change a thing. GM Det Hidden is great! Just drop to 80 Stealth and add 20 tracking?
- Other

Thoughts?
 

kurtis

Grandmaster
I would ignore what people tell you and decide what you think is the most fun. Especially with non-PvP templates, it's all about play style and how you use your character, not how other people have fun with theirs.

If you think GM Detect is great and it fits your play style....keep it. And use it. Annoyed that you can't pick chests when you are out stealthing in dungeons? Then get GM lockpicking. Having trouble finding people to steal from? Try tracking out and see if it helps you find targets.

Personally, my stealth chars are rarely getting casted on so I don't typically take resist and would instead take GM tracking and detect. I love the track/detect combo. It has led to many joyous times.

With the exception of Lockpicking, all thieving skills are easily and cheaply macroed. So I wouldn't hesitate to test new things out and see what floats your boat.
 

PaPa

Journeyman
I would ignore what people tell you and decide what you think is the most fun. Especially with non-PvP templates, it's all about play style and how you use your character, not how other people have fun with theirs.

If you think GM Detect is great and it fits your play style....keep it. And use it. Annoyed that you can't pick chests when you are out stealthing in dungeons? Then get GM lockpicking. Having trouble finding people to steal from? Try tracking out and see if it helps you find targets.
.

Solid Advice. TY
 

PaPa

Journeyman
Personally, my stealth chars are rarely getting casted on so I don't typically take resist and would instead take GM tracking and detect. I love the track/detect combo. It has led to many joyous times.

With the exception of Lockpicking, all thieving skills are easily and cheaply macroed. So I wouldn't hesitate to test new things out and see what floats your boat.

Suggesting I should drop resist is a hard pill to swallow....=) I agree with your reasoning though...and it makes sense for my template as I probably play like you do. I also employ a ton of gm trapped chests.
 

drasked

Grandmaster
This is the ultimate template for high profile stealing (Champs/RDA);

100 Snoop
100 Steal
100 Hiding
80 Stealth
100 Magery
100 Resist
100 Wrestling
20 Med (40 if you use the PS trick)

Almost the same as what you posted but missing the wrestling. Without wrestling you will get minced by dexers.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Brujean

Neophyte
Sorry to resurrect this but I've been trying to plan out a thief template. One question that immediately comes to mind after reading some of this, is GM snooping really necessary on this server? (I always seemed to remember, on other servers, trying to minimize the amount of snooping skill I had to put on my thief)... I remember I last ran a thief with:

100 Hide
100 Stealth
100 Stealing
100 Magery
100 Resists
100 Healing
100 Anatomy

The point about dexxers destroying someone without any wrestling is legit, but I found myself able to outrun people and just stay alive through magery/healing+anat... I don't think I'd make this same thief, but still unsure about the necessity of 100 (or any) in snooping.. Thoughts?
 

shirtandpantsman

Grandmaster
my thief is

100 snoop
100 steal
100 hide
100 stealth
100 track
100 detect hidden
100 magery

I play my thief naked with maybe 10 of each reg, fighting or trying to survive are pretty pointless on a thief IMO. best to get the successful steal and recall away if you didn't get flagged, or run away and hide as soon as possible and stealth to freedom

if you are applying bandages and trying to not get hit by a dexer, or trying to resist spells, you're just gonna die tired. track/detect hidden will net you waaay more fun than resist/anat/heal

also snooping is totally necessary unless you only plan on stealing weapons out of peoples hands, or trying to random steal and fail on everything because their shit is in a pouch

although I have heard there are scripts that auto steal powerscrolls and other high end items without even needing snooping, but that seems like cheating as fuck and probably only the super "elite" have access to such scripts if they did exist
 

Brujean

Neophyte
Yeah, I had made him a sort of roach-thief (no parry or wrestle though), but honestly never had any serious problems staying alive (most of the time I didn't even have to run, i.e. vs. mages). The idea of dropping Anat and Heal for Detect Hidden and Tracking makes good sense to me though for a different variety of thief which I would like to try... I'm still just not certain about the value or necessity of 100 (or any) snooping.

At the end of the day, the best anti-thief option is to put everything into a locked box; but razor macros (as I recall from previous experiments) are fairly good at overcoming your snoop failures, and penetrating 1 bag/pouch or whatever inside of the main backpack also isn't a big deal (though if they put everything into a 2nd or 3rd bag inside of those you may start to notice some problems macro-wise for overcoming snoop failures). I also don't think it would be very hard to create a razor macro that was designed to specifically steal a type of item, but I haven't experimented or played a thief at all on this server (or in the last 3 years).

The nice thing for this server, unlike previous places I've played, it sounds like it would be possible to get the thief 720 skill cap to at least get 20 snoop (which is one of the benchmarks I used in previous testing); just really hard for me to imagine investing a lot of points (especially 100) into snooping, I will experiment though as I make this character.
 

shirtandpantsman

Grandmaster
Yeah, I had made him a sort of roach-thief (no parry or wrestle though), but honestly never had any serious problems staying alive (most of the time I didn't even have to run, i.e. vs. mages). The idea of dropping Anat and Heal for Detect Hidden and Tracking makes good sense to me though for a different variety of thief which I would like to try... I'm still just not certain about the value or necessity of 100 (or any) snooping.

At the end of the day, the best anti-thief option is to put everything into a locked box; but razor macros (as I recall from previous experiments) are fairly good at overcoming your snoop failures, and penetrating 1 bag/pouch or whatever inside of the main backpack also isn't a big deal (though if they put everything into a 2nd or 3rd bag inside of those you may start to notice some problems macro-wise for overcoming snoop failures). I also don't think it would be very hard to create a razor macro that was designed to specifically steal a type of item, but I haven't experimented or played a thief at all on this server (or in the last 3 years).

The nice thing for this server, unlike previous places I've played, it sounds like it would be possible to get the thief 720 skill cap to at least get 20 snoop (which is one of the benchmarks I used in previous testing); just really hard for me to imagine investing a lot of points (especially 100) into snooping, I will experiment though as I make this character.

you can snoop while hidden now, I don't know if you could do that back in the day. i think if you were hidden back in 1998 snooping would reveal you

i think here you oonly get revealed if you fail to snoop, so you wouldn't be able to snoop while hidden
 

drasked

Grandmaster
The point about dexxers destroying someone without any wrestling is legit, but I found myself able to outrun people and just stay alive through magery/healing+anat... I don't think I'd make this same thief, but still unsure about the necessity of 100 (or any) in snooping.. Thoughts?

If you steal PS at champs there is a big chance you can get dismounted, if that happens without wrestling and your hiding on cooldown because you just stole, it can get hard to get out.

Snooping is also needed to steal specific items.

Tracking and detect hidden are kind of useless if stealing at champs imo. Just use magery to reveal right as the champs drops and go to work. If you pay some attention to who was at the champ the longest with the biggest dragon you know who to steal from.
 

Rikket_The_Rogue

Grandmaster
There's a few things you could do up your chances of living like picking up 'Healing' but if you're confident in your abilities to get away I'd say pick up tracking, but only if you keep Det.Hidden.

But this is your show man. :)
 
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