Talk:Simple Thievery

Comments
This seems like a gimmick skill. It sounds fun, but seems pretty useless to me, and a terrible waste of an elite IMO.

Arcane echo, this skill and the 2 other thievery skills could amount to a very frustrated opponent. --Midnight08 13:54, 26 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Emphasis on 'could'. The skill theft spells can steal spells already disabled by another version of the spell. You won't have much use for 5 copies of Orison of Healing, and your foe won't mind losing it for a minute or so. --Shattered Self 14:06, 26 September 2006 (CDT)

This only targets non-spells. Arshay Duskbrow 14:24, 26 September 2006 (CDT)
 * My point still stands that you can't reliably use this and the other thievery skills to shut down an opponent. --Shattered Self 15:34, 26 September 2006 (CDT)

heh.. I can't believe it never occured to me to use arcane theivery on shock warriors.. disabling their only KD and giving yourself one O.O (Not a fifty five 23:36, 28 September 2006 (CDT))
 * Simple Thievery might, as Shock is a skill, but Arcane Thievery would definitely not. One of the top GvG's a while back had Me/E's stealing Gale from enemy W/E's, back when Gale Warriors were big, with consistency since that's the only spell they carried. Unfortunately, even with Simple Thievery on your bar, the only way to shutdown Shock war's shocks is still "Can't Touch This!".  You're more likely to steal one of their many attacks, stances, or Resurrection Signet, by mere probability. Merengue 23:54, 28 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Shock is a spell I'm almost poisitve. lemme check. Wow.. nevermind.. could never think of this as a skill lol (Not a fifty five 00:41, 29 September 2006 (CDT))
 * Arcane theivery had its time when gale warriors were big &mdash; Skuld 01:34, 29 September 2006 (CDT)

Just copy this with Arcane Echo and target an all-spell player with a res sig, then use the copied on another target of the similar kind :P BANG! Three res sigs, of which two you can use without worries --Angelo


 * Wow nice idea :) far surpasses echo res sig >.< you get infinite res sigs with this when ya think about it(Not a fifty five 20:35, 7 October 2006 (CDT))
 * Or you get to pressure a boon/prot with no COP in his skill bar. *eg* [[Image:Chuiu Me Icon.png|Chuiu]] (T/C) 21:35, 7 October 2006 (CDT)

When you Thievery someone's res sig and use it, when they get it back, it's still unused, right?
 * Thievery disables skills under Thievery's conditions, not the conditions of the actual skill. Therefore Res Sig shouldn't remain disabled if it was used by the person who stole it. (Terra Xin 05:49, 24 October 2006 (CDT))

Can this steal Dervish forms? ~ansi
 * What would the use be? The form would only last 15 seconds. --Curse You 21:09, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Yes, this can steal forms. It's really not practical as it would only be good at disabling the use of the form for Simple Thievery's duration. Plus the skill taken is random. I don't think using a form for 15 seconds is a big advantage, but who knows, maybe disabling one for 30+ may be? --RedFeather 21:42, 26 November 2006 (CST)
 * It can definitely steal Avatar of X skills; the boss with Simple Thievery stole and immediately used Avatar of Lyssa the first time I fought him. That hurt! :) Issa Dabir 07:47, 18 March 2007 (CDT)

As with Signet of Humility, attempting to cast Simple Thievery on an invalid target will return an inappropriate failure message: "That target has no spells to steal." (my emphasis) This is not a serious or particularly confusing oversight, but I was momentarily baffled after tossing Simple Thievery at a Corsair Mind Reader (mesmer) expecting to receive that failure message and instead succeeding in stealing... Irresistible Blow! Had the devs planted wacky skills within mob skill bars as a joke? Would I be able to steal Healing Signet from Abbadon? Then it dawned on me that casting Simple Thievery on an enemy who has themselves just succeeded in casting Simple Thievery will result in stealing the stolen skill, which, in this case, was a hammer attack a Corsair Mind Reader had swiped from poor Devona. Possibilities emerge of pointless, monumentally convoluted builds centered on using Mind Readers as switchboards to re-reroute various skills from one player to another. Note that Mind Readers can steal Signet of Capture, but the targeted player cannot "steal it back". --clubs 17:21, 3 December 2006 (CST)

I think this has the name Bane of Assasins on it, as it would break their chain easily, and for up to 30+ seconds too! Assassins rarely have any non-spell skills that's not an attack skill, and stealing it just hurts their effectivity a lot as it breaks their attack chain. Mister abc 21:58, 14 January 2007 (CST)

If you use this on, say, Mallyx the Unyielding, you would get no skill in return. However, I'm curious about one thing... Does the monster's skill still get disabled? If it does, does this mean you can completely shut down any monster that uses only monster skills by spamming this elite? Jayemji 8:00, 11 March 2007 (PST)
 * I don't think it would. After all, it disables only skills that it steals. None stolen - none disabled. ~ Nilles (msg) 06:32, 17 May 2007 (CDT)
 * Are you sure? How do you know it doesn't disable a skill first, and then steal it? In that case, I would think it would. Jayemji 1:54, 21 May, 2007 (PST)


 * Testing on a Terrorweb Dryder confirms that you can't even cast Simple Thievery if the target only has SPELLS and monster skill. This "elite" spell can only be cast on targets that have player-owned skills.  This information should really be added to the NOTES section so that no one else makes the mistake of assuming this "elite" spell has any real power to it.  I'd propose that it be considered L.A.M.E. or bugged ...atleast in PvE as it almost always "steals" only the first Skill in the enemy's virtual skill bar, often the same skill Twice when echoing this "elite" spell; making it worthless against most Nec-Spikers and Heavy-Hitting melees which are set up to use less deadly skills first. --ilr

"Stolen" is just a term to fit in with the skill's description. What the skill (like many others that "steal") really does is disable the skill and you gain a skill, you are not removing their skill from their bar to yours as such. King Neoterikos 02:28, 18 July 2007 (CDT)

Capping Possibilities?
Is it possible to say, have a friend come along with you bringing only one non-spell skill and then have it stolen then kill the boss before it expires to capture it? I think I remember this kind of thing happening with Echo, the boss would have 2 of the same skill and you'd have to wait until it expired until you could cap echo. Of course echo takes just another skill that the boss already has while simple thievery can take one of your heroes... If it worked like this you could cap pretty much anything you want with your heroes and balthazar faction and I could finally cap Golden Skull Strike... although I think now echo and what not now expires upon dying, so it might not work afterall...

I can't test for capping possibilities quite yet, but I can say that the "Copy skills like Echo end on death" is wrong. I was out on Perdition Rock just a little while ago, and happened to find the Echo boss with /Me secondary and a cap sig (for whatever strange reason >.>). He echo'd something before dying, and when I looked at the capture window, there were indeed two identical skills listed. So at least until the latest, most recent huge updates, Copy skills stay copied after death. Maybe not for players though. (T/C)

Well, I just went and capped this, and I think that the Talk:Midshipman Morolah is correct. Simple Thievery seems to revert back to itself once he is killed. But at the same time, I also found that Simple Thievery can steal a Signet of Capture. I wonder if that means Morolah can cap skills from a dead Mesmer player? (T/C) 11:30, 23 July 2007 (CDT)
 * You can only cap skills from bosses. Despite what mesmers players want you to think, they are not bosses. StatMan 23:46, 14 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Of course we're not bosses, we're GODS. The Imperialist

Siege Turtles
Can you cap Siege Turtle Attack, Arcane Echo it and blast it back? --BH
 * You can't steal monster skills. --Fyren 01:48, 9 February 2007 (CST)
 * It would be cool if u could..Base Defense M s4 23:11, 14 May 2007 (CDT)
 * You can't use spells on base defenders. Besides, as soon as you get withing spell range they would just use Base Defense. --Curse You 02:21, 17 May 2007 (CDT)
 * A siege turtle is no base defender. A siege turtle needs more than 1 hit to kill you, and they are in different battles. Dragnmn 12:39, 26 May 2007 (CDT)
 * Actually, Siege Turtles never hit you, they only cast a skill. --Curse You 06:46, 27 May 2007 (CDT)

Pet Thief
Would be funny if this skill could steal a Ranger's pet. --DEATHWING 18:58, 14 June 2007 (CDT)


 * They should totally do that. If you steal Charm Animal, you temporarily steal their pet too. That would be so awesome. --Heelz 19:07, 14 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Never would. If Charm Animal gets disabled, nothing happens. Even if Charm Animal gets removed from your skill bar, nothing happens (apart from not being able to turn it in at the pet collector). ~ Nilles (msg) 19:10, 14 June 2007 (CDT)


 * Let's say you're a Me/Mo (just an example, bear with me) and you don't have any other second professions unlocked for that character. Now go and steal "Charm Animal" from Salke Fur Friend (easy to find) or another enemy with CA. Then run to the nearest wild animal and use CA on it. What will happen??? Seb2net 11:31, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * You would cap it until you next zoned. Lord of all tyria 11:35, 25 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Unless you've already been Me/R and had a pet already, I guess. ~ Nilles (msg)

I assume (now this is just me thinking) that you would get the pet for the alotted time, then lose it. However, when you do become a secondary ranger, you would already have a pet since you already used CA on one (even though you weren't a ranger previously). King Neoterikos 02:31, 18 July 2007 (CDT)
 * What if you're already a Me/R and have a pet, but haven't equipped CA. You then steal CA from Salke (or whoever)... then what? Pet pops up out of nowhere? - (snō hwīt tăn)  [sic]  03:13, 16 September 2007 (CDT)
 * Don't think so, Pets only load when you leave an outpost with Charm Animal equipped...I don't think that adding/removing it while already in an explorable area does anything. Otherwise, all those times where you get "Temporary PvE Skill" (like Disarm Trap) and you replace CA, your pet should disappear. But it doesn't. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 03:18, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Error On Notes or Messages
Is it me or the description of the spell says " a random NON-Spell" and the notes talk about Error Messages that specifie "Target has no Spell to steal"?66.131.15.84 00:48, 3 August 2007 (CDT)
 * Thats already been noted *Points to bottom of notes section* :P The Imperialist
 * LEEEEEEEEROOOOOOY --DEATHWING 00:49, 3 August 2007 (CDT)
 * xDD The Imperialist