Sneak Thıef
Sofie Kovalcheck
Tom Morris is one of the most original and influential philosophers of our time. An electrifying keynote speaker and top motivator, he is the groundbreaking and bestselling author of over twenty books, and is an advisor to leaders in many industries. This site, TomVMorris.com, provides information on his talks, books, clients, and new ideas, as well as regular blog posts on what he's thinking.
If you live long enough, old age will some day begin to sneak up on you. There's a pain here, a strain there. Some food you've always loved starts bothering you. Too much cabernet or champagne will suddenly make you snore. Or at least, if other people's reports are to be trusted. It doesn't all happen at once. And each thing, in itself, can normally be explained away.
What makes old age such a sneaky thief is that when it starts to take things away from you, it typically most often brings them back - at least, at first, and for a time. You're hobbling around with a back injury, unable to do your normal stuff. And then a few days or a few weeks later, the pain goes away. The stiffness disappears. Oh, Ok. I'm fine.
Or age takes away, bit by bit, your natural ability to sleep solidly through the night. You have lots of fitful evenings. You're exhausted. And maybe cranky. And then you have one or two or more deep slumbers again. Oh, Ok. I'm fine. It was just the full moon, or the dog moving around too much, or those neighbors, or that spicy burger.
Now, I'm saying this as a youth of 62. I'm stronger than I've ever been in my life, and vigorous and energetic in almost every possible way. And yet, when I go crazy in the gym, it's easier to mess up that rotor cuff, or those hip flexors, and then I'm semi-benched for a while, until I come back, full force, but a little more cautious. My greatest strength and weakness at once is that I'm a person of extremes. And youthful resilience will tolerate extremes that middle age, and the early onset of maturity may not so readily indulge.
I have a friend who at 92 just published his memoir and has been on book tour promoting the autobiography on most of the major talk shows. He gives me hope. But he may even slow down in ten or twenty years. Most of his peers are already not as full of life and energy.
It looks like old age is going to eventually take away pretty much everything we have. It will take away beauty and power and all sorts of possibilities. In some cases, it seems to rob people of most everything they are, at least in this world. And yet, that's an important qualification. There's a wild option here.
In the end, it may be that old age isn't just a liar and a thief of the worst sort. Maybe it's a teacher and a guide. We say it has its compensations. And wisdom can certainly be one of them. But maybe this thing called wisdom goes far deeper than we suspect, and part of the wisdom that age has to convey to us is the realization that we need to shed a lot of the baggage of this world before transitioning to a new adventure in the next one.
Some may object that part of the baggage that age has helped them shed already is such a belief that there is something more. And in their journey, perhaps, that shedding in its own way has helped in their preparation for what does indeed come next. But it's my view that they'll be surprised. They think nothing is on the horizon. I suspect something big is. And I realize we can't both be right. But I can't help but feel that I am.
Age. I'll still wrestle with the joker, while laughing at his pranks. And the more I fight him, the more I'll get of him, if I'm successful. But of course, in the end, I can't win, because there is an end. Or, wait. What if somehow we both win, in the end, age and I, if we do it just right? Maybe old age is the guide it needs to be, in many ways - if we take the right attitude about dealing with it.
Long ago and far away, on a Hollywood sound stage, I appeared in two network ads for the wise Pooh, to promote his adventures on Disney Home Videos. For two years, I was The National Spokesman for that most philosophical bear. This is one of the ads. I had a bad case of the flu but I hope you can't tell. A-Choo!
A favorite performance of the great Brazilian bossa nova song Wave, by Tom Jobim. Notice Marjorie Estiano's fun, the older guitarist's passion, the flutist's zen. Marjorie's little laugh at the end says it all. That should be how we all feel about our work. Gladness. Joy.
A frequent inspiration. Monday, 30, April 2012. Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli perform "Time to Say Goodbye." Notice how they indwell the lyrics, and still manage to relate to each other so demonstratively.
For picking pockets and sneaking around illicit places, I have a dedicated Kajhiit Nightblade. She makes a pretty penny just creeping around places with nobles and priests, occasionally nicking a gold furnishing plan amidst the sellable piles of blue, green, and purple treasure.
The skills you slot on your ESO thief build are pretty much up to you, outside of ensuring that Shadowy Disguise (or the other morph) is on your front bar. I use a pretty standard meta setup for ease.
Remember that Marked doesn't disable stealth, it simply Reveals you after 2 seconds. So you can still freely play builds with rapid stealth-then-sneak-attack combos all you want. You just can't use stealth to wait out cooldowns or reset the fight.
Maybe not roaming and not dueling but if you're trying to catch up to your groups or you're walking people across a map, Reveal yourself before something else does. You might keep a constant scan of a radius around you on the move with your peripheral to feel out topography. Then you can kind of keep a catalog of routes that will let you dip low or around corners to mask your map travel some from as many directions as you can at once. If you know you broke line of site from most eyes that could be a good time to use skills to create some distance so you might drop target and whoever's reaching out to you might give up chase.
Had success with staff and using scorpion wire. No stealth at all (unless stolen), the scorp wire for interrupts and pulls back into staff cleave range -- which is probably where most dmg comes from. Spikes from vault usually saved for the end of opponents dodge frame, or various channelled skills ending etc.
It mainly works via keeping an opponent in mele range and using auto attack to be honest (as in that's the prime dmg source), while dodging their response. However, that's pretty generic for any thief build right? ?
Scorp wire also enables you to pull the annoying prevalence of standing in fields/wells/traps etc, but it's so damned buggy that it takes a while to get used to it in order to get it to land -- but coupled with swipe, has been known to be able to chain 3 interrupts in a row to essentially 100 -> 0 opposition. Obviously may be best to save swipe for the second interrupt to remove stab or penetrate the block if they use that as a stun break.
Staff is better than some think - but it isn't the best else everyone would use it. Staff 3 can break immob, while the ranged blind on staff 4 does okay damage (can be used to remove aegis or just do ranged dmg rather than blind specifically), so both really useful, but little in the sense of mobility on the weapon set specifically (the staff 3 is short distance, and 5 uses so much init for short movement it's suboptimal), so worth building around that consideration.
I find staff 2 to be useless/pointless -- the weakness application is short, and the init vs dmg payoff is so low as I'd rather save the init. Trying to think of another thief weaponset where I don't use one weapon skill under any circumstance.
I should add I use a sigil that gives 5s of quickness with 20s cooldown on interrupt - so that may tip how I find reasonable success. Depending upon utility choices you may wish energy/cleanse sigils as combos and alternative weaponsets given prevalence of condi, and certainly if not knowing the new specialisations yet (I don't, finding some tough for now).
Obviously this isn't going to be a build that, unlike some others, can take on any class/build combo -- so I'm not claiming this is awesome. I play it alongside sw/d daredevil or core. But on staff I do pair the shortbow still - mainly for ranged poking and gap opening.
If you try and are really struggling, take thieves guild. It may have a long cooldown, but the diversion/pulls they can supply for 30s can tip the fights at first and is suitable for nearly any fight.
Now, real reason to post it - can it solo a tower lord? Absolutely. Crit strikes heal can often do great things to keep you alive in a fight with tower lord and guards (vault can hit 5 is it, and if you get %age heal of dmg, can be quite an eye opener if crit hitting 5), and if you run thieves guild, you get an extra pull, extra damage, and more importantly - diversion ? The scorpion wire can help with trying to break their break bar too, but I may run a second stun break in this instance instead.
However, I'd have though condi was still king in that area (despite not playing a condi build in *years*), but the most important thing is just not getting dazed/knocked back by the lord. Avoid those (which can put you in a bit of a pickle) and you'll find it pretty easy.
(5) One of my favorite things to do to a necro hanging around a tower/keep portal is throw scorpion wire. Pull them to me. Use my #3 key (Shadow Strike) which shadow steps me backwards 600 game units, then scorpion wire the 2nd time to pull that necro further away from safety.
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