Steal

This article is about the core Thief profession mechanic. For the Deadeye profession mechanic, see Deadeye's Mark. For the Specter profession mechanic, see Siphon.

Shadowstep to your foe and steal from them. — In-game description

Steal

Profession

Thief (skill list)

Slot

Profession mechanic

Movement

Shadowstep

Game link

API

13014, 13109

“

25  

Steal

Shadowstep to your foe and steal from them.

 Range: 1,200

— In-game description

Stealing is a mechanic unique to the thief profession and the elite specialization Daredevil. By using the steal skill (F1 on the Mechanic Bar), the character will shadow step to the enemy and steal an item from them. Stealing has no activation time and may be performed during other actions without interrupting the action, and can even be used while disabled. After an item has been stolen, it will be "pocketed" and will be stored in the F2 skill until used.

Each enemy in the game has a small pool of possible items to steal. For example, a character may steal an egg from a moa and use it as a healing item, or steal feathers from it and use them to blind enemies and stealth themselves. Instead of a randomized pool of abilities, Raid Bosses and specific enemies in these encounters each have a special, powerful ability that can be stolen from a list of four options that can only be found in Raids. In PvP the stolen items are profession-specific, for example the thief can get a Whirling Axe from a warrior. Players don't lose items stolen from them; the thief just gains access to the associated stolen skill.

Most items that can be stolen can be found as bundles, and usually function in the same way. These ground items can interfere with stolen items, especially if the stolen item and the ground item are the same. Usually, the stolen skill will be lost if the bundle is used, and vice versa.

Benefits from and recharge of stealing don't require the steal to be successful. Using Steal without a target in range will disable the skill for the full recharge time and award any associated bonuses for stealing. Similarly, using Steal on inanimate objects will incur the full recharge time without awarding an item, but the bonuses will be activated, and the Mug trait will damage the target.

Stolen skills

Primary article: Stolen skill

Related traits

Deadly Arts

• Serpent's Touch — Stealing inflicts poison. While in the downed state, your attacks apply poison.
• Mug — Deal damage and gain life when stealing. This attack cannot critically hit enemies.
• Even the Odds — Apply vulnerability when you steal. Gain might when you hit with a stealth attack.
• Improvisation — Use stolen skills twice. Reduce the cooldown of all equipped utility skills when you steal. Cooldown effect will only trigger if all utility slots are filled and if at least one of your active utility skills is on cooldown. Does not affect inactive sequence skills.

Shadow Arts

• Hidden Thief — Stealing inflicts blindness. Stealth Attacks inflict weakness. Cannot affect the same target more than once per interval.
• Shadow Savior — After completing a shadowstep, you are healed. Nearby allies are also healed for a larger amount. Only affects thief shadowsteps.

Acrobatics

• Swindler's Equilibrium — Gain power and additional power when while wielding a sword or underwater spear. Successfully evading an attack while wielding a sword or underwater spear recharges Steal.
• Hard to Catch — Gain endurance when you shadowstep.

Trickery

• Kleptomaniac — Stealing gives you initiative.
• Thrill of the Crime — When you Steal, you and all nearby allies gain fury, might, and swiftness for 10 seconds.
• Bountiful Theft — Stealing grants you and all nearby allies vigor. You rip boons from your target and grant them to nearby allies. Grant additional boons to allies if your target has no boons.
• Lead Attacks — Increases all damage dealt per initiative spent. Steal gains reduced recharge time.
• Sleight of Hand — Stealing also dazes the target. Reduces the recharge of Steal.
• Deadly Ambush — Stealing also applies bleeding. Bleeding you inflict deals more damage.

Daredevil

• Endurance Thief — Gain endurance when you successfully steal from an enemy.

Notes

• Appears in the first profession mechanic slot if no elite specialization is equipped, or if no minor adept for an elite specialization is trained.
• If you Steal before using up your current Stolen skill, you will lose the unused Stolen skill.
  • If, however, you're partway through casting your current Stolen skill when you use Steal, you won't gain a new one.
• The ability to steal is unlocked at character level 5.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
February 14, 2023	Steal is no longer replaced by Swipe when the daredevil specialization is equipped. (Undocumented) Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
April 14, 2020	Fixed a bug that could leave stolen items with 0 ammo in the F2 slot.
October 01, 2019	Fixed a bug that could cause the shadowstep to fail in rare situations.
April 23, 2019	Physical Supremacy: This trait now causes Steal to become Swipe, which reduces the range from 1,200 to 600 and makes the attack unblockable.
December 02, 2015	Removed this ability's target requirement. This skill will no longer attempt to fire (and go on cooldown) on enemies outside of its maximum distance.
June 23, 2015	Specialization update: This ability has now been split between F1 and F2. The steal button remains at its default F1 position, whereas stolen items are now located in the F2 slot. Stealing while the F2 slot is filled will overwrite the currently existing stolen item if the slot already has an item in it. Steal has had its base range increased from 900 to 1200. Steal recharge has been reduced from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.
March 16, 2015	This skill will no longer activate if a valid path to the target cannot be found.
September 10, 2014	Fixed an issue in which thieves were unable to hit with this ability while using a movement skill.
July 01, 2014	Fixed a bug that caused players to occasionally steal an item from targets they could not reach by shadowstepping.
April 15, 2014	Fixed a bug in which this skill would be obstructed after shadowstepping to the target if there was an obstacle between the thief and the target upon activation.
June 25, 2013	Reduced the recharge to 35 seconds.
March 26, 2013	No longer initiates autoattacks.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Steal has been added to the game.

Trivia

• At one point during early development, stealing would force a bundle in the character's hands. This was accompanied by a trait which allowed the thief to "pocket" the stolen item, which later evolved into the stealing system as it functions today.

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Skill types and profession mechanics