Guild Wars 2

does chill affect initiative regen?

No it does not.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

No it does not.

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

+1 I hadn’t even thought of this.

Lightsbane.9012:

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

Its been talked about before. Generally what I hear from people (who I trust to not say unreasonable crap like, “THIEVES ARE BAD NEED BUFFS, MUST DO 50K BACKSTABS”) is that while thieves aren’t affected by chill in their weapon skill CDs, they are much more strongly affected by the lack of mobility, because they are so heavily based on mobility. With that massive reduction in mobility hurting them even more than others I’ve heard good arguments that it fairly covers the loss of CDR on their weapon skills.

It is certainly debatable, but I think I tend to agree that it is fair it doesn’t affect them.

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

Its been talked about before. Generally what I hear from people (who I trust to not say unreasonable crap like, “THIEVES ARE BAD NEED BUFFS, MUST DO 50K BACKSTABS”) is that while thieves aren’t affected by chill in their weapon skill CDs, they are much more strongly affected by the lack of mobility, because they are so heavily based on mobility. With that massive reduction in mobility hurting them even more than others I’ve heard good arguments that it fairly covers the loss of CDR on their weapon skills.

It is certainly debatable, but I think I tend to agree that it is fair it doesn’t affect them.

the same could be argued about a class with limited mobility, would you not say the movement impairment affects them twice as hard? considering thief is a class with beaucoup teleports and utility stealth mechanisms, i can’t say i see it as fair. if thieves could stealth a lot less, i’d say that point is valid. however, since they can stealth every three seconds in combat or otherwise(no rogue class in any other game can do this), i’d say this needs an official response.

The real issue with having Chill affect Initiative regen is that intiative is kind of like a shared cooldown between all weapon skills. It’s like if on a Hambow warrior, using Pin Down increased the cooldown on Backbreaker.

There might be a “fair” way to do it, but it really is nowhere near a simple problem to solve.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The real issue with having Chill affect Initiative regen is that intiative is kind of like a shared cooldown between all weapon skills. It’s like if on a Hambow warrior, using Pin Down increased the cooldown on Backbreaker.

There might be a “fair” way to do it, but it really is nowhere near a simple problem to solve.

right, and unfortunately i think that fair way to give thief actual cooldowns.

Lightsbane.9012:

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

Its been talked about before. Generally what I hear from people (who I trust to not say unreasonable crap like, “THIEVES ARE BAD NEED BUFFS, MUST DO 50K BACKSTABS”) is that while thieves aren’t affected by chill in their weapon skill CDs, they are much more strongly affected by the lack of mobility, because they are so heavily based on mobility. With that massive reduction in mobility hurting them even more than others I’ve heard good arguments that it fairly covers the loss of CDR on their weapon skills.

It is certainly debatable, but I think I tend to agree that it is fair it doesn’t affect them.

the same could be argued about a class with limited mobility, would you not say the movement impairment affects them twice as hard? considering thief is a class with beaucoup teleports and utility stealth mechanisms, i can’t say i see it as fair. if thieves could stealth a lot less, i’d say that point is valid. however, since they can stealth every three seconds in combat or otherwise(no rogue class in any other game can do this), i’d say this needs an official response.

You have to remember that unlike the other classes, thieves are the only non-heavy armored class that have to be in melee range in order to deal any sort of damage, which is why mobility is so important for them. Couple that with little to no access to protection, stability, and invuls, it’s extremely punishing to have their movements impaired compare to all other non-heavies who can just pew pew pew from afar then activate some defense whenever someone gets close.

As for those beacoup teleports and utility stealths, chill affects them just like any other class if they are utility skills.

Look at it this way. Initiative isn’t a cooldown like what all the other classes have. Chill affects thieves weapon skills the same way as everyone else: 66% increase in cooldown. It’s just that 66% * 0 = 0.

Thieves can do ok damage with P/P (although I admit the weapon set sucks overall) and vs multiple targets or those with a pet, a shortbow is no joke.

Instead of prot etc. thieves get stealth and tons of evades. It’s a tradeoff.

As far as movement being important, I agree, but my thief has plenty of teleports that don’t give a kitten about being slowed.

Aberrant.6749:

Thieves can do ok damage with P/P (although I admit the weapon set sucks overall) and vs multiple targets or those with a pet, a shortbow is no joke.

Yes you are right, but since P/P blows chunks, you’re already gimping yourself far beyond what being chilled could have ever done to you. And as for shortbow, you can kill AI with autoattacks pretty well I agree, but that’s about it. I can kill AI with any other class while I’m chilled too. In order to do any real damage with shortbow, you have to shotgun clusterbomb……in melee range.

Aberrant.6749:

Instead of prot etc. thieves get stealth and tons of evades. It’s a tradeoff.

My point was that you are forced to expose yourself in melee range without any passive damage mitigation if you want to do damage. You have to come out of stealth if you want to do damage, and evades only lasts a short period.

Aberrant.6749:

As far as movement being important, I agree, but my thief has plenty of teleports that don’t give a kitten about being slowed.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried getting behind a person while you’re slowed but unless you’re really lucky, it’s not going to happen since they are usually facing you when they slowed you in the first place.

The auto isn’t the only feature on the shortbow. Cluster bomb hurts. Pois field to reduce healing. It’s by my fav weapon on thief. Damage + utility.

Evades only last a short period? How about the entire pistol whip attack… and then you can teleport out immediately after (and lol @ los).

I started as a thief @ early release… so I’ve tried it all. You have so many ways of sticking on your opponent it’s not even funny. D/P teleports, S/P teleports & roots.

It sounds more like you’re using D/D for PvP which is a mistake imo.

Shinjo.6092:

Lightsbane.9012:

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

Its been talked about before. Generally what I hear from people (who I trust to not say unreasonable crap like, “THIEVES ARE BAD NEED BUFFS, MUST DO 50K BACKSTABS”) is that while thieves aren’t affected by chill in their weapon skill CDs, they are much more strongly affected by the lack of mobility, because they are so heavily based on mobility. With that massive reduction in mobility hurting them even more than others I’ve heard good arguments that it fairly covers the loss of CDR on their weapon skills.

It is certainly debatable, but I think I tend to agree that it is fair it doesn’t affect them.

the same could be argued about a class with limited mobility, would you not say the movement impairment affects them twice as hard? considering thief is a class with beaucoup teleports and utility stealth mechanisms, i can’t say i see it as fair. if thieves could stealth a lot less, i’d say that point is valid. however, since they can stealth every three seconds in combat or otherwise(no rogue class in any other game can do this), i’d say this needs an official response.

You have to remember that unlike the other classes, thieves are the only non-heavy armored class that have to be in melee range in order to deal any sort of damage

the latter part simply isn’t true. i don’t know about you but i’ve certainly been sniped by unload. mesmer seems to do just fine with their sword setup, and those cooldowns are quite high. also, almost all power necromancer builds require a distance of less than 600 to be effective, which in wvw is more or less melee. like i said, if thieves could stealth a lot less, the chill factor would be fair. however, since they can cleanse it every three seconds, i’d say that’s a bit broken.

Aberrant.6749:

The auto isn’t the only feature on the shortbow. Cluster bomb hurts. Pois field to reduce healing. It’s by my fav weapon on thief. Damage + utility.

As I said in the previous post, Cluster bomb hurts in melee range. Look at it this way. I’ve seen people killed exclusively with all other weapon sets. Have you ever seen anyone killed exclusively with Shortbow at range? Have you tried using Cluster bomb at range? This is why chill hurts thieves, because they have to be in melee range in order to do most of their damage.

Aberrant.6749:

Evades only last a short period? How about the entire pistol whip attack… and then you can teleport out immediately after (and lol @ los).

Pistol whip lasts for a little over 1 second and costs 5 initiative. On at 12 init pool, if you’re going to teleport out immediately, you’re using 5 initiative for infiltrator strike/return. That means you get 1 pistol whip at a little over 1 second of evade. Compare that to how long boons/invuls/etc lasts.

Aberrant.6749:

I started as a thief @ early release… so I’ve tried it all. You have so many ways of sticking on your opponent it’s not even funny. D/P teleports, S/P teleports & roots.

It sounds more like you’re using D/D for PvP which is a mistake imo.

You can teleport with D/P but are you able get behind your opponent while slowed? Or are you trying to convince me that we should just be running around using only shadowshot?

Lightsbane.9012:

the latter part simply isn’t true. i don’t know about you but i’ve certainly been sniped by unload.

The tradeoff for being able to do damage out of melee range with P/P is that there is absolutely no defensive mechanisms on that weapons set: no stealth, no evade, no protection, no invul, no block, no nothing. So basically you’re performing more or less the same functions as a mesmer’s iDuelist, except a mesmer has 3 of them. Anyways, I think most people can agree that P/P is such a broken weapon set that it’s really not worth bringing into this discussion. If it’s already broken without chill affecting it, how broken will it be if it does?

mesmer seems to do just fine with their sword setup, and those cooldowns are quite high.

Mesmers also get protection, invul, blocks, evades, etc. while being in melee range. But most mesmers don’t even do that. 99% of the ones I see hide in stealth somewhere far away while their phantasms do all the work. But most importantly, they can choose to fight in melee or range and still do damage. Thieves have to be melee while being squishy at the same time.

also, almost all power necromancer builds require a distance of less than 600 to be effective, which in wvw is more or less melee.

If I can do backstabs at 600 range, I would totally agree with you. But until then, 600 range is not melee range.

like i said, if thieves could stealth a lot less, the chill factor would be fair. however, since they can cleanse it every three seconds, i’d say that’s a bit broken.

They can cleanse 1 condition every 3 seconds, so if they have any other conditions on them, it’s not getting cleansed every 3 seconds. And anyways, this is part of their traits, so they would get this regardless of whether chill affected their weapons cooldown or not.

Lightsbane.9012:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

No it does not.

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

Ahh, I see this was a rhetorical question. Good for you, Bhawb said it perfectly though. Thief needs mobility or they die quick. Sure chill on a necro is no fun but they don’t melt from that, they have a large amount of sustain even with such little evasion/teleports. It doesn’t affect initiative because thief already has a much smaller skill rotation than anyone who has cool downs, no reason to cut that even shorter.

Try not to be so blind in thinking the mobility reduction on any other profession is even half as troublesome as applying it to a thief. There is a reason why we can bounce around so quickly, and it isn’t to look cool.

@ shinjo

If you time the cluster bomb it doesn’t matter what range you are. It does mean you can’t just sit there and mindlessly spam it and it takes a small amount of skill… but seeing as I don’t have a problem doing skillshots…

No I don’t force myself to just 1 weapon set. That’s silly and bad gameplay. I have many times used the shortbow to do a bit of damage then popped in with a burst though, it’s very effective.

Pistol whip + the new increased ini regen =‘s lawl @ it costing a lot. You can’t spam the other invulns like you can PW’s evade etc. You have options for staying alive in mele range. If you want the things the other classes have or find them superior, then play those classes. I personally have no problems using a spammable blurred frenzy.

If you’re in a position where you can’t get behind your enemy because you’re chilled, you have a ton of options… like stealthing to remove the cond… or one of the many escape skills that thieves have, then using teleports to quickly back re-engage when it’s better for you. As a thief you get to choose when you strike and when the combat ends.

No offense but you don’t sound very experienced based off of your comments in other posts asking for help learning P/D (one of the easier thief weapon sets) etc.

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

Its been talked about before. Generally what I hear from people (who I trust to not say unreasonable crap like, “THIEVES ARE BAD NEED BUFFS, MUST DO 50K BACKSTABS”) is that while thieves aren’t affected by chill in their weapon skill CDs, they are much more strongly affected by the lack of mobility, because they are so heavily based on mobility. With that massive reduction in mobility hurting them even more than others I’ve heard good arguments that it fairly covers the loss of CDR on their weapon skills.

It is certainly debatable, but I think I tend to agree that it is fair it doesn’t affect them.

Its totally not like they are immune to mobility reduction skills because of 4 dodges, most of their skills having evade frames which ignore movement speed factors and have a teleport on every weapon set except double pistol.

Except certain of those evades get the shaft from chill because it reduces the actual distance they go. You can’t afford to use teleports as the ONLY way for you to gap close.

Andele.1306:

Bhawb.7408:

Lightsbane.9012:

well then. that would mean that half of the chill effect does not affect the thief class. other than utility skills. maybe anet should address this?

Its been talked about before. Generally what I hear from people (who I trust to not say unreasonable crap like, “THIEVES ARE BAD NEED BUFFS, MUST DO 50K BACKSTABS”) is that while thieves aren’t affected by chill in their weapon skill CDs, they are much more strongly affected by the lack of mobility, because they are so heavily based on mobility. With that massive reduction in mobility hurting them even more than others I’ve heard good arguments that it fairly covers the loss of CDR on their weapon skills.

It is certainly debatable, but I think I tend to agree that it is fair it doesn’t affect them.

Its totally not like they are immune to mobility reduction skills because of 4 dodges, most of their skills having evade frames which ignore movement speed factors and have a teleport on every weapon set except double pistol.

wow i must have missed the patch where they added a teleport to d/d.

Yeah, have you ever seen a chilled thief spam HS? It’s kinda funny

Aberrant.6749:

@ shinjo

If you time the cluster bomb it doesn’t matter what range you are. It does mean you can’t just sit there and mindlessly spam it and it takes a small amount of skill… but seeing as I don’t have a problem doing skillshots…

When you cluster bomb from range, you have to wait for them to arc towards your target which decreases your dps tremendously. On top of that, the bombs spread to the point where they’re not all hitting your target anymore. You can’t control that. It’s just the way cluster bombs work, no matter how skilled your shots are, unless there was a Read the Wind for thieves that I missed in the last patch notes.

Aberrant.6749:

No I don’t force myself to just 1 weapon set. That’s silly and bad gameplay. I have many times used the shortbow to do a bit of damage then popped in with a burst though, it’s very effective.

Which is my point EXACTLY – in order to do damage, sooner or later a thief has to be in mêlée range. So then based on your own logic, you agree with me right?

Aberrant.6749:

Pistol whip + the new increased ini regen =‘s lawl @ it costing a lot. You can’t spam the other invulns like you can PW’s evade etc. You have options for staying alive in mele range. If you want the things the other classes have or find them superior, then play those classes. I personally have no problems using a spammable blurred frenzy.

Your math doesn’t add up. At a regen of 1 init per second, you can “spam” PW once every 5 seconds, and that’s if you do nothing else, including your idea of using infiltrator’s return to get away. That’s hardly comparable to other classes, who can have near permanent protection uptime, and they don’t even have to be in mêlée.

For the record, I have a level 80 on every classes and I do play them.

If you’re in a position where you can’t get behind your enemy because you’re chilled, you have a ton of options… like stealthing to remove the cond… or one of the many escape skills that thieves have, then using teleports to quickly back re-engage when it’s better for you. As a thief you get to choose when you strike and when the combat ends.

So your brilliant idea of dealing with chill is to remove the chill? Well then, I guess no classes should have any problems with chill whatsoever since they can just…. remove it.

No offense but you don’t sound very experienced based off of your comments in other posts asking for help learning P/D (one of the easier thief weapon sets) etc.

I was asking about how other thieves deal with diamond skin on a condition base build, not asking about how to learn P/D. But lets stay off the personal attacks, especially once that have NOTHING to do with the topic, shall we? People only do that when they know they’re wrong and have nothing else to contribute. It could be my first day playing thief today for all you know; it doesn’t make my argument any less valid.

Shinjo.6092:

When you cluster bomb from range, you have to wait for them to arc towards your target which decreases your dps tremendously. On top of that, the bombs spread to the point where they’re not all hitting your target anymore. You can’t control that. It’s just the way cluster bombs work, no matter how skilled your shots are, unless there was a Read the Wind for thieves that I missed in the last patch notes.

You can also auto/use other skills while the cluster is flying, so it’s not like it’s just sit on your kitten time. Learn to time your bomb explosions so they go off just before it hits the ground (helps proc sigils etc.).

Shinjo.6092:

Which is my point EXACTLY – in order to do damage, sooner or later a thief has to be in mêlée range. So then based on your own logic, you agree with me right?

That’s like saying my war needs to be in mele because he does more damage in mele range. Sooner or later he’s going to swap to a mele weapon right? All mele weapons deal more damage than ranged weapons. It’s part of the game. That doesn’t mean shortbow is weak or that thief is a mele only character.

Shinjo.6092:

Your math doesn’t add up. At a regen of 1 init per second, you can “spam” PW once every 5 seconds, and that’s if you do nothing else, including your idea of using infiltrator’s return to get away. That’s hardly comparable to other classes, who can have near permanent protection uptime, and they don’t even have to be in mêlée.

For the record, I have a level 80 on every classes and I do play them.

Look into using the trickery line. Higher initial ini + more regen.

Prot is far weaker than an evade… so I presume you’re joking right?

Level 80 means little, I could easily go level 80 every class 4 times over because I have gold. Doesn’t mean I would be experienced or knowledgeable with all of them.

Shinjo.6092:

So your brilliant idea of dealing with chill is to remove the chill? Well then, I guess no classes should have any problems with chill whatsoever since they can just…. remove it.

Please re-read what I wrote. Removing it is not your only option. Stop with the straw man arguments. It just makes everything you say look very suspect. Thief gets to choose when and where it fights. If you find yourself in a situation where it’s not favorable for you, then you can disengage. Thief basics.

Shinjo.6092:

I was asking about how other thieves deal with diamond skin on a condition base build, not asking about how to learn P/D. But lets stay off the personal attacks, especially once that have NOTHING to do with the topic, shall we? People only do that when they know they’re wrong and have nothing else to contribute. It could be my first day playing thief today for all you know; it doesn’t make my argument any less valid.

If you don’t know how to use a simple weapon set, then no… I won’t give your argument about that class overall much credit as it seems you don’t have much experience with the class.

A chilled thief is not at more of a disadvantage than any other class, it’s at less of one. Teleports (movement slows matter less) + no Ini reduction (cd slow matters less).

I will agree that chill should effect thieves in reducing the number attacks they can put out while chilled so that it can act as a utility condition against all classes, not just the seven that aren’t thief. The magnitude is the biggest issue, along with people being extremely defensive of anything that even looks like a nerf to their class. To start, chill is somewhat rare, with only 3 classes having it on their regular weapons and only 5 able to get it through utility skills alone. Nearly every class can get limited access through traits, runes, or sigils, but never to the extreme that other conditions can be acquired (honestly, sometimes it seems chill should be the model for conditions, but that’s off topic). Point there is no thief is going to be utter destroyed because someone stacked all of their chills on them and he couldn’t regenerate his initiative full for… What, max of 30 seconds if a ranger uses ever chill he can get on you at once and you don’t move?

The real question should be how much should initiative be reduced by chill, and I would say at most only 25-33%. The person above was correct in pointing out that chill would effect a pool that is shared between weapon sets is a valid concern. However, depending on implementation, you would still gain 3/4 ~ 4/5 of your natural initiative regen (math may be off, but it’s a point every 1.25-1.33 seconds). This would make chill a good deterrent, just like it is for most classes, but it’s not going to stop you from using your abilities.

TL;DR- Good idea, but not at 66%, because thieves are sometimes people too.

Creld.8702:

TL;DR- Good idea, but not at 66%, because thieves are sometimes people too.

Elementalists are also people and 66% on our attunements affects our skill pool too. People seem to forget that though. :\

Renny.6571:

Creld.8702:

TL;DR- Good idea, but not at 66%, because thieves are sometimes people too.

Elementalists are also people and 66% on our attunements affects our skill pool too. People seem to forget that though. :\

Yeah but know one wants to remember.

tl;dr

On thief, chill is a death sentence, unless I’m playing an S/P or S/D build with Withdraw or/and Roll For Initiative which is pretty much anti-chill and cripple. Buffing chill against thieves would be like beating a dead horse when there are worse things running about.

Although chill doesn’t reduce ini regen, it increases initiative use significantly. The only times I actually go fully dry on initiative is when I either miss 2 CnD’s or when I get chilled and locked down and have to waste lots of initiative on evasive skills or/and mobility skills to move around and try stay alive.

Try find another class that has to use all its weapon skills in a non-offensive way to stay alive and then run away and wait for cds to go off before eengaging the opponent.

Also except Withdraw and Roll For Initiative, thieves don’t have any good way to deal with chill and heavy condispam. Shadow’s Embrace often removes chill last and after stacking lots of stealth using shadow refuge to clear plenty of conditions, I’m usually walking there like a robotchicken getting stacked with new conditions as the old ones get cleansed while I’m chilled and stealthed.

It would effect every thief skill when you activate one, so it would effect the thief too much. This is why they didn’t do it. I think if it increased the initiative cost on the skill you activated for the duration of chill it would be better.

Corpse Flakes.5369:

It would effect every thief skill when you activate one, so it would effect the thief too much. This is why they didn’t do it. I think if it increased the initiative cost on the skill you activated for the duration of chill it would be better.

Not really. The ini-pool works both ways, and this is the expected behaviour.

Upside: All your cooldowns are shared.
Downside: All your cooldowns are shared.

A little off topic, but is it a bug that attument recharge is also affected by chill? Or is this intented? Either way, it certainly is really unfair.

Maliken.5630:

A little off topic, but is it a bug that attument recharge is also affected by chill? Or is this intented? Either way, it certainly is really unfair.

It’s funny because it’s unfair for the same reasons that thieves would see chill effecting initiative as unfair. Every time you swap out of an attunement you receive a global CD increase on all the skills in that attunement, regardless of whether or not you actually used them or not.

And every argument about how strong the slowing effect on chill is against thieves, because of how they need to reach melee range to do any damage, applies to D/D eles as well.

Ghostwolf.9863:

tl;dr

On thief, chill is a death sentence, unless I’m playing an S/P or S/D build with Withdraw or/and Roll For Initiative which is pretty much anti-chill and cripple. Buffing chill against thieves would be like beating a dead horse when there are worse things running about.

Although chill doesn’t reduce ini regen, it increases initiative use significantly. The only times I actually go fully dry on initiative is when I either miss 2 CnD’s or when I get chilled and locked down and have to waste lots of initiative on evasive skills or/and mobility skills to move around and try stay alive.

Try find another class that has to use all its weapon skills in a non-offensive way to stay alive and then run away and wait for cds to go off before eengaging the opponent.

Also except Withdraw and Roll For Initiative, thieves don’t have any good way to deal with chill and heavy condispam. Shadow’s Embrace often removes chill last and after stacking lots of stealth using shadow refuge to clear plenty of conditions, I’m usually walking there like a robotchicken getting stacked with new conditions as the old ones get cleansed while I’m chilled and stealthed.

So unless you take anti-cond, conds are a problem? Who would have guessed?! -.- You still have plenty of ways to teleport and get around even while chilled btw…

None of this stuff people are talking about means that ini shouldn’t be lowered due to chill. It’s not like it doesn’t hurt other classes just as much if they are mainly mele. I do agree that it shouldn’t be 66% though, but 0%… no.

Khalic.3561:

It’s funny because it’s unfair for the same reasons that thieves would see chill effecting initiative as unfair. Every time you swap out of an attunement you receive a global CD increase on all the skills in that attunement, regardless of whether or not you actually used them or not.

Discuss this with engineers who don’t have any cd at all on their kits.

Also thieves receive a cd on every skill on both their weapon sets if they run low on initiative, while elementalist still have 2 attunements to switch to if they swap, one which has some decent healing and good condition removal if they go deep into water line. If the opponent chills you right after you swap from water, it’s more or less skillful play on the opponents side.

Khalic.3561:

And every argument about how strong the slowing effect on chill is against thieves, because of how they need to reach melee range to do any damage, applies to D/D eles as well.

I agree that’s a bad argument, since chill doesn’t prevent thieves much from dealing damage in most cases, except for backstab which becomes impossible while chilled.
Where it hurts thief most is positioning and movement, thieves quickly gets mown down by AoE’s and AoE condispam. While Guardians, Warriors, Engineers and D/D Elementalists are way more tanky and can hold their ground on capture points.

Ever seen any of these discuss much about positioning? You see it quite often on the thief part of the forum and hear about it in thief vids.

Eng’s often have a lot of skills which are weaker, but they have it in greater number. The kits themselves are not cd based because of that (fair tradeoff). The toolbelt and all skills do have their cd’s increased due to chill (seems fair to me).

There are things the other classes don’t get that thieves do. Again, it’s all tradeoffs. But it’s not like the other classes are less effected by chill than a thief… thieves can teleport/disengage/re-engage at will which often makes chill’s slow kinda “meh”. Yes it makes landing backstabs harder, but that’s far from the only tool you have at your disposal.

Aberrant.6749:

Eng’s often have a lot of skills which are weaker, but they have it in greater number. The kits themselves are not cd based because of that (fair tradeoff). The toolbelt and all skills do have their cd’s increased due to chill (seems fair to me).

There are things the other classes don’t get that thieves do. Again, it’s all tradeoffs. But it’s not like the other classes are less effected by chill than a thief… thieves can teleport/disengage/re-engage at will which often makes chill’s slow kinda “meh”. Yes it makes landing backstabs harder, but that’s far from the only tool you have at your disposal.

I took engineer kits as an example, simply because they are 5 fresh weaponset skills with no cooldown on swap, which looks forgiving and is something that makes all other weaponswap-cooldowns in the game look unfair. I’m however not doubting engineers are balanced around them.

Never stated other classes are less affected by chill, those who are less affected by the movement decrease are often more affected by the cooldown increase, some plenty of both, and some not much by either, like Spirit Rangers, and some are hardly affected at all because of Dogged March and Cleansing Ire + LB if not Berserker Stance.

Teleporting away when getting stacked with high chill durations is an example of the tradeoff thieves have to do in order to survive when getting stacked with high chill duration. This is an initiative hungry method and can be accompanied with Shadow Step which is at a higher cooldown than most chills I know of, this while you are not performing anything offensive in a PvP manner. As I stated earlier, chill doesn’t reduce initiative regen but it does increase initiative use significantly, Shadow Shot spam to stick to your opponent with D/P, heartseeker if D/D, IF and IR spam if you’re S/x to get rid of conditions, S/P #3 til you’re safe, or switching to SB for #5 which costs 6 initiative or using #3 to avoid taking any extra damage.

Withdraw is by far the best counter thieves have against chill, it allows them to get rid off chill completely and stick to the fight by not using initiative, but by picking withdraw they will be way more vulnerable to burn which is just as dangerous to thieves as chill, and those with high access to chill usually have high access to burn,
also put poison on top of that and it gets nasty.

It only increases your ini use if you choose to try to stay in the fight… which you can choose not to do at any point on a thief… and this is after the fact that you didn’t avoid the chill in the first place despite all of the evades that thieves get.

Some classes do shed conds better. War was origionally supposed to have a strong body Vs. power, but be weak to conditions. Lol @ that now.

Again thieves do have access to other cond removals other than on their heals… if you choose not to take them and you get hit with a lot conds, be ready to disengage or you’re going to have a bad day. That seems balanced to me. The fact that my thief doesn’t lose any ini regen what so ever when chilled doesn’t given the various ways that thieves can deal with that type of situation.