Chill and thiefs

Chill and thiefs

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Posted by: Shockwave.1230

Shockwave.1230

I would settle for initiative to be reduced by 33% instead of 66% to make it fair. Otherwise elementalist’s need to be not effected by chill regarding attunement swaps.

I’ve been waiting for someone to suggest Chill cause initiative regen to be the old rate. That’s where my head’s been, and we know it worked in the game previously.

Sylvari Elementalist – Mystree Duskbloom (Lv 80)
Norn Guardian – Aurora Lustyr (Lv 80)
Mia A Shadows Glow – Human Thief (Lv 80)

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Posted by: Conncept.7638

Conncept.7638

If it did the 66 percent reduction to recharge all thieves would instantly lose when they have chill applied to them for 4 seconds or more.

You mean kind of like elementalists have suffered through since launch?

I main an ele, and can compensate chill impacting attunements because I have 20 weapon skills to work with plus plenty of condition removal. I happen to be an advocate for removing chill from impacting attunement swapping, due to it not impacting engineer kit swapping.

Even when I play on another class with only 10 weapon skills, I can swap weapons if chill is slowing me down on my current weapon set.

On thief I have only 1 universal pool of resources, so to be able to impact that pool so severely that it reduces my access by 66% is like introducing an anti-thief mechanic to the game.

Chill directly impacting thief initiative in the same way as skills with recharge are currently impacted can’t be introduce to the game without nearly eliminating the class from the meta.

I main an ele as well, and I’m also a third year design student, and that is a completely nonsensical excuse.

A skills output is measured by its affects compared to its uptake and downtime. Most classes only have one resource controlling their uptake and downtime respectively, including the elementalist, that being cooldowns and cast times. The thief is the only one which has more than one resource dictating its downtime, initiative and cooldowns. If their method of gaining initiative was dependent on skill-use without any other affects, and therefore itself controlled by cooldowns, that would be different. But it isn’t, the resource is gained with no required active play just like cooldown regen. And those on-CD traits and abilities which do give initiative are all married into other affects such as stealth, evasion, and critical hits.

Having their initiative regen drop by two thirds will affect their output no differently than cooldowns and cast times dropping by two thirds affects every other class.

(edited by Conncept.7638)

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Posted by: Simonoly.4352

Simonoly.4352

I think it would be quite interesting if Chilled did affect initiative regen in someway. I think this is the sort of change that would allow Elementalists to have more of a chance against any half competent Thief.

Gandara

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Posted by: Black Teagan.9215

Black Teagan.9215

Chill should have an effect on the Inireg.
Thieves shouldn’t have a semi-immunity, while every other class get the full effect of it.

It’s as similiar as a hardcounter and you know how bad they are..

Caleb Ferendir
-Charr Thief-
It’s good to be bad!

(edited by Black Teagan.9215)

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Posted by: Shockwave.1230

Shockwave.1230

If it did the 66 percent reduction to recharge all thieves would instantly lose when they have chill applied to them for 4 seconds or more.

You mean kind of like elementalists have suffered through since launch?

I main an ele, and can compensate chill impacting attunements because I have 20 weapon skills to work with plus plenty of condition removal. I happen to be an advocate for removing chill from impacting attunement swapping, due to it not impacting engineer kit swapping.

Even when I play on another class with only 10 weapon skills, I can swap weapons if chill is slowing me down on my current weapon set.

On thief I have only 1 universal pool of resources, so to be able to impact that pool so severely that it reduces my access by 66% is like introducing an anti-thief mechanic to the game.

Chill directly impacting thief initiative in the same way as skills with recharge are currently impacted can’t be introduce to the game without nearly eliminating the class from the meta.

I main an ele as well, and I’m also a third year design student, and that is a completely nonsensical excuse.

A skills output is measured by its affects compared to its uptake and downtime. Most classes only have one resource controlling their uptake and downtime, including the elementalist, that being cooldowns. The thief is the only one which has more than one resource dictating its uptime, initiative and cooldowns. If their method of gaining initiative was dependent on skill-use without any other affects, and therefore controlled by cooldowns itself, that would be different. But it isn’t, the resource is gained with no active play required just like cooldowns regen. And those on-CD traits and abilities which do give initiative are all married into other affects such as stealth, evasion, and critical hits.

Having their initiative regen drop by two thirds will affect their output no differently than cooldowns and cast times dropping by two thirds affects every other class.

You should read some of the points made early on. It’s great that you’re a design student, but don’t overlook valid points.

While you say cooldown is 1 resource, it’s not. It’s more like 4 resources per 5 weapon skills, and it’s not universal because these cooldowns can countdown simultaneously.

Chill universally affects cooldowns, but that does not make cooldowns a universal resource from a resource pool perspective.

Initiative is a universal resource to weapon skills, because each weapon skills requires initiative except skill 1 which has an initiative cost of 0. Initiative is a resource pool.

If you impact the resource pool of one profession you are severly crippling it. I don’t know what games you have played previously, but I’m going to use GW1 as my example.

In GW1 you had a resource pool called energy. Skills required drain from this pool and the pool naturally replinished over time like initiative does. In GW1 many of the classes that GW2 has were present. Now imagine you have a Mesmer and an Elementalist putting conditions on each other.

Let’s say our condition is Daze. Let’s say Daze increased your cast time and for the mesmer decreased its energy gain rate over time, but it didn’t do this to the energy pool of the elementalist.

These professions put daze on each other. What happens? Over time the mesmer will have fewer resources, in GW1 it so happens the mesmer was designed to activate skills quickly while the elementalist had a bigger resource pool to play with. What this would mean is that the mesmer’s resource pool would be depleated quickly and restore slowly, while the elementalist would restore normally and has more resources.

The above comparison has parallels to chill impacting initiative and recharges. Chill impacting the thief means they have a system in place that causes them to depleat their resources quickly and recharge them slowly, because they have 1 universal resource pool and can’t swap weapons to be able to use skills off recharge. On the other hand every other profession has at least 8 weapon skills each with their own resource available. This is the big difference, and why the thief would be hit so hard by chill impacting initiative.

Sylvari Elementalist – Mystree Duskbloom (Lv 80)
Norn Guardian – Aurora Lustyr (Lv 80)
Mia A Shadows Glow – Human Thief (Lv 80)

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Posted by: Chorazin.4107

Chorazin.4107

Remember chill is a condition, it can be removed, it has a duration and has to be applied, a lot of the arguments seem to revolve around i will never have initiative if im chilled and i cannot get rid of it ever. Thieves have access to some of the best tools for evasion, blinds, evades, interrupts, stealth.

And im not advocating 66%, my figure was 20% whilst Tetrodoxin’s initial idea of 13% was also thrown out there.

What this would mean is that the mesmer’s resource pool would be depleated quickly and restore slowly, while the elementalist would restore normally and has more resources.

If the mesmer in your scenario burned through his resource pool quickly to gain a win because he has access to the 1 or 2 key skills he needs continuously(until his resource pool is depleted) to down a player does it matter how fast his resource pool replenishes?

As the fight wore on, lets say for sake of argument that you cannot possibly get rid of this chill, then its an incremental advantage over time to the Elementalist and the odds will more and more stack in his favor.

The above comparison has parallels to chill impacting initiative and recharges. Chill impacting the thief means they have a system in place that causes them to depleat their resources quickly and recharge them slowly, because they have 1 universal resource pool and can’t swap weapons to be able to use skills off recharge. On the other hand every other profession has at least 8 weapon skills each with their own resource available. This is the big difference, and why the thief would be hit so hard by chill impacting initiative.

Except again there is no guarantee that the weapons skills are relevant to the fight at that time, blurred frenzy is useless if you are 600 units away, sure it might be off chill cooldown. But you have repeated access to the 1 or 2 key weapon skills you need until initiative is exhausted, whilst switching weapons gave other classes more skills to use, it does not take into consideration that at that particular juncture in a fight only a select few skills are useful.

I honestly dont think anyone is advocating 66%, but they are saying chill should have an impact on weapon skills. Id be happy with 13%-20% as a tester, it is at the end of the day a condition that can be evaded, blinded, dodged, interrupted, removed and thieves have more of these than most classes.

It also brings in counterplay, if you get chilled you might decide to go to stealth to heal up a bit and drop the chill, play defensively for a bit and buy some time. But theres also the option of going for the kill if you feel the fight is swinging your way.

Chorazin
[lion]~ riperonis
[tRex]

(edited by Chorazin.4107)

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Posted by: haviz.1340

haviz.1340

When chill affects weapon swap of eles it’s okay but when it could affect initiative it’s a big nerf.

Fighting against a thief as an ele is pretty one sided match. He can chill you for 10s every 28 seconds and make your weapon swap cooldown increased but your chill is somehow too strong to affect his weapon skills cooldowns.

Let’s not even start how immobilize is basically useless against thieves cause of their numerous weapon skill evades and teleports.

Eles have so many condition removals and that’s why they’re being commonly used in this condition&cc spam meta, right?

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Posted by: Tetsuyja.7805

Tetsuyja.7805

Why should chill also affect the thief’s cooldown-mechanic?

Because all other professions have the full disadvantage of the chill effect: Movement speed decreased by 66% and skill cooldown increased by 66%.
It’s fair that every profession has to fight against chilled in the same way.

Why, this proposal would not cause better balance between the professions? And why, the thief will have a considerable disadvantage by this change?

If (for example) a necromancer gets chilled. His unused skills are not on CD and are not affected by chilled until he’ll activate them. If he use a skill, it will go on CD and only this skill CD will be increased during the duration of chilled. ALL OTHER SKILLS (except of maybe 2) will be available on both weapon sets.
If a thief gets chilled and only has half of his initiative pool (6 or 7 initiative) then ALL SKILLS (#2..#5) will go on CD after using the next skill and initiative regeneration will be “frozen” (1 ini per 3 sec). That means the thief can’t use any weapon skill (#2…#5) of BOTH weapon sets after using the “same amount of weapons skills” like the necromancer.

Now please have a look at my example:

You can recognize that chilled would increase the cooldown despite of the fact that a thief doesn’t use any weapon skill and the initiative pool is not full!
Chilled would affect the thief’s cooldown mechanic without doing anything in MOST (91-95%, depending on max initiative) of the cases. Sure, you can clean it like everybody else can do, but you’ll see the big advantage IF your condition clean abilities are on CD or you were inflicted with many conditions covering chilled AND no “passive” counterplay (not activating #2…#5) is possible.

And yes, i know that answering on this thread will always revive this thread :P (sry @ all thieves) but i want you to know what maybe no one has considered. =)

Have fun playing this game =)

(edited by Tetsuyja.7805)

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Posted by: BobbyT.7192

BobbyT.7192

Remember chill is a condition, it can be removed, it has a duration and has to be applied, a lot of the arguments seem to revolve around i will never have initiative if im chilled and i cannot get rid of it ever. Thieves have access to some of the best tools for evasion, blinds, evades(fixed that for you, why mention it twice) , interrupts, stealth.

And conditions can be re-applied, multiple times, along with other conditions stacked on top of it, most time as random aoe. Thieves got alright condition condi removal, better with lyssa rune ( who knows what’s going to happen with that.).

@ haviz, very little are arguing how eles attumement swap should be affect. It might be because F skills get affect by chill on all class,( thieves steal included). Whether or not it’s design like that, who knows.

Evades while immobilize keep you in place, so it’s still doing its job, and thieves got to spend initiative to use those fancy weapon teleport and evades.

I though eles were part of the meta because they are nice and squishy?

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Posted by: Yamsandjams.3267

Yamsandjams.3267

I also feel that chill should reduce initiative regeneration for thieves. It never made sense to me that all cooldowns are slowed, but initiative is not touched, and thieves are thus not hampered as far as their weapon skills go.

Some might argue that it affect a thief’s ability to survive, which is likely true. However, I would point out, as others have, that it also affect’s every other profession’s ability to survive. Having weapon skills on increased cooldowns can mean life or death. For instance, a block skill coming off cooldown half a second late could make all the difference. Same thing for a blind, a leap, a heal (i.e. healing rain), &c.

Because initiative works different from standard cooldowns, it’s possible that 66% may not be the best number in this situation. Perhaps it should be lower, at 50% or 33%. That would be up to the people who implement and test these things. However, I don’t think it’s right to simply not have chill affect initiative at all.

If chill affected initiative regen, it could be used as a means to counter “in your face” stealth builds like d/p. Currently, if they are hit with a long chill (or even a short one), they can opt to repeatedly stealth until it fades. If initiative regen is affected, they may need to expend additional defensive utilities or really make an effort to escape instead of just constantly restealthing right in front of their attackers. Chill doesn’t have quite that level of effect at the moment, although the movement speed reduction is always punishing.

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Posted by: Talonblaze.3175

Talonblaze.3175

Currently regarding thief weapon skills, there is no counterplay.
Heartseeker is the only one thats interruptable because its a movement skill.

Practically being immune to interrupts is already a huge boon. Adding onto the fact that they also only suffer HALF of the Chill condition makes it even worse.

There needs to be something that affects them negatively, be it reduced attack speed or slower initiative, something has to give. Currently they have less risk for using their skills in a spammed fashion than most other classes.

So far the only way to stop a thief from doing anything is to completely disable them via Fear or Launches and even that’s not even viable with the stunbreaks and cleanses.

Duty is heavier than death.

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Posted by: Maliken.5630

Maliken.5630

Just an idea. While under the effect of chill, a thief uses 1 initiative more then normal when using skills.

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Posted by: Rym.1469

Rym.1469

Instead reducing initiative regeneration, simply increase the cost of skills by 66%.
Chill now prevents spamming and doesn’t hurt Thief that much.

[rude]Antagonistka – Revenant, EU.
[SALT]Natchniony – Necromancer, EU.
Streams: http://www.twitch.tv/rym144

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Posted by: Tetsuyja.7805

Tetsuyja.7805

Just an idea. While under the effect of chill, a thief uses 1 initiative more then normal when using skills.

great idea, in my opinion. This would remember the fact i described in my post above:
1 more initiative cost doesn’t touch the “global initiative cooldown”
– it only affects the abilities you’ll use and that’s the same as it already does on the other professions AND IS FAIR.

Best proposal!!! and i am a thief player. BUT u know UNTIL anet change something like this i takes half a year -.-’

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Posted by: Tetsuyja.7805

Tetsuyja.7805

Instead reducing initiative regeneration, simply increase the cost of skills by 66%.
Chill now prevents spamming and doesn’t hurt Thief that much.

CnD 6 ini → 10 ini.
spear #5 7 ini → ‘12’ ini. LOL

that chill effect hits harder than confusion can ever do
harder than daze AND Stun
AND it has a much longer duration AND can be stacked in duration

you are crazy man

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Posted by: Zacchary.6183

Zacchary.6183

I can’t believe all of you think this is a good idea lol!

Arenanet has already said they will not do this because it would be a hard counter to the whole thief profession. Secondly most of your alternative ideas are just as bad.

If you guys think thieves are really that overpowered then get on one and try to wreck everyone in WvW.

(edited by Zacchary.6183)

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Posted by: Yamsandjams.3267

Yamsandjams.3267

I can’t believe all of you think this is a good idea lol!

Arenanet has already said they will not do this because it would be the single hard counter to the thief profession. Secondly most of your alternative ideas are just as bad.

If you guys think thieves are really that overpowered then get on one and try to wreck everyone in WvW.

How is it a hard counter to thieves and not other professions? They all suffer from their weapon skills being affected, which can be crucial to their survival.

Most thieves only use around 3 of their weapon skills anyways. For instance, d/d often only use CnD and the auto attack, with maybe the occasional heartseeker for good measure, s/d thieves mostly use infiltrator’s strike and flanking strike, with some CnD as well, d/p is like d/d except with BP+HS combos instead of CnD, p/d is again mostly CnD although body shot and shadow strike are used, p/p often just spams unload, s/p often just spams pistol whip, and shortbow isn’t really used as a main weapon set for the most part.

It’s not like it’s crippling 50 different skills. Thieves also have a bit better means of countering chill naturally since they can wait in stealth for it to go away and have various blink mechanisms that remove conditions, as well as a healing skill that removes chill outright.

Just an idea. While under the effect of chill, a thief uses 1 initiative more then normal when using skills.

I fell like this would actually be a better thing to do than the initiative regen reduction, although I’d maybe consider bumping to to 2 initiative instead of 1. Hard to say if it would be too harsh without actually trying it out.

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Posted by: Zacchary.6183

Zacchary.6183

If you want to understand why thieves are saying no, its because that 66% translates into 300% CD for thieves.

C&D = 5 initiative
1 ini per second
C&D CD = 5 seconds

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 3 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 3 = 15 seconds.

For the short duration of chilled you might as well say halt initiative regen because its just as effective.What would you say if chilled tripled your CD time and then applied it to all of your skills. Hmm? Thats how universal cooldowns work.

Instead of trying to justify an “I win” button, you guys should play the profession yourself for once. Alot of you apparently do not understand thief mechanics.

(edited by Zacchary.6183)

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Posted by: Azukas.1426

Azukas.1426

Are people still dying to thieves????

Let’s move on b/c thieves are FAR from the most OP class in this game. I’ve killed them with every class in the game and RARELY die 1v1 against thieves…..or 1v2…..maybe 1v3 but I do get 1-2 of em.

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Posted by: Yamsandjams.3267

Yamsandjams.3267

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 3 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 3 = 15 seconds.

This is actually good to point out. I think when people describe reducing initiative regeneration (myself included), they don’t consider the actual math behind it. I believe the intent is actually to reduce the amount of initiative regeneration such that it effectively works out to a 66% longer cooldown like other professions have. For instance, a 10 second cooldown should become a 16.6 second cooldown.

As such, the math that I believe should be used is that a chilled thief would regenerate 1 initiative every 1.66 seconds, rather than reducing the regeneration rate by 66% to 34%.

This effectively works out to approximately 0.6 initiative per second, and thus could be considered a 40% reduction in initiative regeneration rather than 66%.

Reworking your calculations, this creates the following:

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 1.66 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 1.66 = 8.3 seconds.

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Posted by: Zacchary.6183

Zacchary.6183

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 3 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 3 = 15 seconds.

This is actually good to point out. I think when people describe reducing initiative regeneration (myself included), they don’t consider the actual math behind it. I believe the intent is actually to reduce the amount of initiative regeneration such that it effectively works out to a 66% longer cooldown like other professions have. For instance, a 10 second cooldown should become a 16.6 second cooldown.

As such, the math that I believe should be used is that a chilled thief would regenerate 1 initiative every 1.66 seconds, rather than reducing the regeneration rate by 66% to 34%.

This effectively works out to approximately 0.6 initiative per second, and thus could be considered a 40% reduction in initiative regeneration rather than 66%.

Reworking your calculations, this creates the following:

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 1.66 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 1.66 = 8.3 seconds.

Thank you! This is how everyone should be suggesting nerfs. +1

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Posted by: Arkantos.7460

Arkantos.7460

every other class has a button for immunity, and they are crying about chill is not rly affecting thiefs skills…… lol
Thief cant Switch weapons and get rdy-up weapon skills like every other class … think about it …. slowing a thief is fully effectiv with chill and thats enough

Good Thiefs are average,
Skilled Thiefs are dangerous

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Posted by: Cush.4063

Cush.4063

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 3 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 3 = 15 seconds.

This is actually good to point out. I think when people describe reducing initiative regeneration (myself included), they don’t consider the actual math behind it. I believe the intent is actually to reduce the amount of initiative regeneration such that it effectively works out to a 66% longer cooldown like other professions have. For instance, a 10 second cooldown should become a 16.6 second cooldown.

As such, the math that I believe should be used is that a chilled thief would regenerate 1 initiative every 1.66 seconds, rather than reducing the regeneration rate by 66% to 34%.

This effectively works out to approximately 0.6 initiative per second, and thus could be considered a 40% reduction in initiative regeneration rather than 66%.

Reworking your calculations, this creates the following:

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 1.66 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 1.66 = 8.3 seconds.

I’m down with that.

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Posted by: KillerJacket.9735

KillerJacket.9735

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 3 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 3 = 15 seconds.

This is actually good to point out. I think when people describe reducing initiative regeneration (myself included), they don’t consider the actual math behind it. I believe the intent is actually to reduce the amount of initiative regeneration such that it effectively works out to a 66% longer cooldown like other professions have. For instance, a 10 second cooldown should become a 16.6 second cooldown.

As such, the math that I believe should be used is that a chilled thief would regenerate 1 initiative every 1.66 seconds, rather than reducing the regeneration rate by 66% to 34%.

This effectively works out to approximately 0.6 initiative per second, and thus could be considered a 40% reduction in initiative regeneration rather than 66%.

Reworking your calculations, this creates the following:

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 1.66 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 1.66 = 8.3 seconds.

Ding ding ding we have a winner. Someone that actually understands balance and doesn’t just suggest an end all I win button.

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Posted by: Distaste.4801

Distaste.4801

You can’t treat the thief like other classes in this respect. The initiative system was a bad design decision and thus this isn’t something that can be balanced easily if at all.

Initiative is a huge trade off and has pros and cons. The pros are that it allows the thief to burst by using the same skills in a row and use a skill every 3-6 seconds. The cons are that all your skills use the same pool and if you just used an attack skill and need a defense skill you’re toast, this also impacts weapon swaps since you can’t just swap and get 4 fresh skills to use. The normal system allows players to use skills when they are needed, but of course you can’t use the same skills back to back and some skills have much longer cooldowns.

If you slow the thief’s regeneration that impacts both their offense and defense entirely. This would then make chill worse for the thief than other classes in the game, which if we want balance shouldn’t be the case. A normal player only gets punished by chill for skills he uses, all other skills are not impacted until used while chilled. The thief on the other hand would immediately have all their skills effected even if they weren’t used. So slowing initiative does not balance the situation.

The best system I can even come up with would be that skills used while chilled on a thief would then get a cooldown at 66% of their initiative cost or if the thief wanted to bypass the cooldown the skill would cost 66% more initiative. 6 initiative attack would get a 4s cooldown or cost 10 initiative. A bit of pro-rating could then be done so if the person waited 2 seconds of the 4 then the skill would cost 8 initiative. This still basically cripples the thief’s ability to burst using the same skill which is the positive of the initiative system, it is better IMO than slowing initiative because at least all your skills aren’t impacted.

Anyway you want to do it though is going to be unfair to one side or the other. The initiative system isn’t very balanceable between sustain/burst and tossing in chill can completely destroy the thief class.

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Posted by: Swagger.1459

Swagger.1459

I get the feeling that anet will get rid of the initiative mechanic and balance thieves differently soon.

New Main- 80 Thief – P/P- Vault Spam Pro

221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.

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Posted by: Shockwave.1230

Shockwave.1230

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 3 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 3 = 15 seconds.

This is actually good to point out. I think when people describe reducing initiative regeneration (myself included), they don’t consider the actual math behind it. I believe the intent is actually to reduce the amount of initiative regeneration such that it effectively works out to a 66% longer cooldown like other professions have. For instance, a 10 second cooldown should become a 16.6 second cooldown.

As such, the math that I believe should be used is that a chilled thief would regenerate 1 initiative every 1.66 seconds, rather than reducing the regeneration rate by 66% to 34%.

This effectively works out to approximately 0.6 initiative per second, and thus could be considered a 40% reduction in initiative regeneration rather than 66%.

Reworking your calculations, this creates the following:

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 1.66 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 1.66 = 8.3 seconds.

Ding ding ding we have a winner. Someone that actually understands balance and doesn’t just suggest an end all I win button.

This isn’t really a winning suggestion. All other professions can swap to another weapon set to access another set of skills while they are impacted by chill. The thief doesn’t have that option if they’re initiative is impacted by chill.

Additionally the thief is designed to use it’s skill much more infrequently over time than other professions. For example a D/P | SB’s average weapon skill cost is about 4 initiative average between skills 2-5. Over 60 seconds they have 72 initiative to use naturally. That’s between 18 weapon skills they can use.

Compare this to a Hambow warrior. Who can use about 36 weapon skills over 60 seconds.

If you scale an encounter down to 30 seconds. A thief has about 10 skills they can over 30 seconds because they have 42 initiative to work with.

A warrior will be able to pull off about 18 weapon skills over 30 seconds.

What happens if a thief has chill for 5 seconds of that 30 seconds?

They regen 3 less initiative, out of the 12 they can have available at any time. That’s 25% of their global resources (20% if traited).

Compare this to 5 seconds of chill on another profession. 1) They lose 3 and 1/3 seconds off their recharge time. 2) only skills on recharge are affected, not skills that are off cooldown, so it’s not impacting other professions globally like it does the thief. 3) Every other profession has other weapon skills to swap to, because they don’t have a global resource pool.

Let’s say half of player weapon skills are on cooldown, and let’s continue to look at hambow. Hambow’s average recharge time is about 15 seconds a skill. That means chill impacts their skill resource of recharge by about 23% per skill. With only half of the weapon skills on recharge, that’s less than a 12% impact.

So with average numbers, a hambow warrior would be impacted less than half as much as the suggestion to thieves.

Sylvari Elementalist – Mystree Duskbloom (Lv 80)
Norn Guardian – Aurora Lustyr (Lv 80)
Mia A Shadows Glow – Human Thief (Lv 80)

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Posted by: BobbyT.7192

BobbyT.7192

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 3 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 3 = 15 seconds.

This is actually good to point out. I think when people describe reducing initiative regeneration (myself included), they don’t consider the actual math behind it. I believe the intent is actually to reduce the amount of initiative regeneration such that it effectively works out to a 66% longer cooldown like other professions have. For instance, a 10 second cooldown should become a 16.6 second cooldown.

As such, the math that I believe should be used is that a chilled thief would regenerate 1 initiative every 1.66 seconds, rather than reducing the regeneration rate by 66% to 34%.

This effectively works out to approximately 0.6 initiative per second, and thus could be considered a 40% reduction in initiative regeneration rather than 66%.

Reworking your calculations, this creates the following:

Chilled C&D = 5 initiative
1 initiative per 1.66 seconds
C&D CD = 5s x 1.66 = 8.3 seconds.

Ding ding ding we have a winner. Someone that actually understands balance and doesn’t just suggest an end all I win button.

This isn’t really a winning suggestion. All other professions can swap to another weapon set to access another set of skills while they are impacted by chill. The thief doesn’t have that option if they’re initiative is impacted by chill.

Additionally the thief is designed to use it’s skill much more infrequently over time than other professions. For example a D/P | SB’s average weapon skill cost is about 4 initiative average between skills 2-5. Over 60 seconds they have 72 initiative to use naturally. That’s between 18 weapon skills they can use.

Compare this to a Hambow warrior. Who can use about 36 weapon skills over 60 seconds.

If you scale an encounter down to 30 seconds. A thief has about 10 skills they can over 30 seconds because they have 42 initiative to work with.

A warrior will be able to pull off about 18 weapon skills over 30 seconds.

What happens if a thief has chill for 5 seconds of that 30 seconds?

They regen 3 less initiative, out of the 12 they can have available at any time. That’s 25% of their global resources (20% if traited).

Compare this to 5 seconds of chill on another profession. 1) They lose 3 and 1/3 seconds off their recharge time. 2) only skills on recharge are affected, not skills that are off cooldown, so it’s not impacting other professions globally like it does the thief. 3) Every other profession has other weapon skills to swap to, because they don’t have a global resource pool.

Let’s say half of player weapon skills are on cooldown, and let’s continue to look at hambow. Hambow’s average recharge time is about 15 seconds a skill. That means chill impacts their skill resource of recharge by about 23% per skill. With only half of the weapon skills on recharge, that’s less than a 12% impact.

So with average numbers, a hambow warrior would be impacted less than half as much as the suggestion to thieves.

Just give up and let the thread die, these people are not going to be convince easily, you can rest a little easier knowing anet are not dumb enough listen to this

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Posted by: Monoman.2068

Monoman.2068

We’re finally at the bridge anet (or we have been there since launch I guess), I bet they regret giving a class 0 weapon cd’s now.

What if chill simply put the thieves initiative skills on a cool down that matches the remaining duration on the chill the thief is affected by? That means if you hit a thief with a 5 second chill and he follows it up with a heart seeker 1 second afterwards, he is placed on a 4s cool down. This would present a similar amount of panic to what I imagine most classes feel when they get slapped with chill imo.

Edit: Actually I think chill should function like this across the board because it is too kitten strong right now.

Laviere – Hybrid Wellomancer
Makonne – Hybrid Regen Ranger

(edited by Monoman.2068)

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

Easy solution: Chill increases initiative cost by 66% (or whatever).

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Posted by: Bombsaway.7198

Bombsaway.7198

Thieves have plenty of disadvantages to make up for this one advantage. The game isn’t setup to have conditions impact initiative.

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Posted by: laquito.5269

laquito.5269

In b4: Non thief players claiming to know anything about chill + thieves. CC’s are already a thief’s worst nightmare, so lets make it even easier to cc them. How would you feel only being able to use autoattack while being chilled? (-66% ini regen, rofl) Gotta love people crying about chill, while they’re playing stupidly broken condi tank builds. Move along.

Retired GW2 Player

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Posted by: Kyon.9735

Kyon.9735

In b4: Non thief players claiming to know anything about chill + thieves. CC’s are already a thief’s worst nightmare, so lets make it even easier to cc them. How would you feel only being able to use autoattack while being chilled? (-66% ini regen, rofl) Gotta love people crying about chill, while they’re playing stupidly broken condi tank builds. Move along.

Ask Elementalists.

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Posted by: laquito.5269

laquito.5269

Ask Elementalists.

Nice logic. “Nerf Rock, Paper is fine, written by: Scissors.”
I get your point. Chill is indeed very strong against Ele’s if Water is on CD, maybe a bit too strong, but why are you asking for a thief nerf then? “I can’t have it, so others shouldn’t have it aswell, no matter what consequences it might have.” Dat bitterness….

Retired GW2 Player

(edited by laquito.5269)

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Posted by: Brizna.5612

Brizna.5612

Initiative is basically a shared cooldown of all weapon skills for thiefs, a thief bursting runs through initiative in 1-2 seconds. How long does it take for another class to get all skills in CD?

Not to mention chill is a very common and long lasting condition and condition removal for thiefs isn’t exactly outstanding, what you are asking is for thiefs to be shutdown alltogether.

Stealth is a dirty tactic, some people get angry at geting backstabed to death, while that’s understable, one shouldn’t confuse beign beaten dirty with overpowerness. There is one role and just one role where thieves are the best of all classes: WvW roaming. In all other modes they range from good to sucky, let them enjoy their minute of glory in WvW, otherwise why play thief?

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Posted by: Tyron.1423

Tyron.1423

You know Math is a powerful tool and don’t get me started on statistics (there is a nice Quote :-P )

I think we can agree on:
- Chill only effects the skills you use
- Initiative is basicly only a Global Cooldown

So Chill would also effect Skills if u didn’t even used them well sounds fair…

if u take your precisions 66% and apply it to the Thief it has to be broken down for each Skill individually
66% / 8 Skills = 8.25%

the two Options we have now are Increase Init cost or decrees Init reg

a decrees would be unfair because it would affect skills prior to getting chilled wo we are left with option 1:

if a skill costs 6 Init and increase it by 8.25%
1.0825* 6 =6.495
since u cant spent 0.495 Init we have to round that… so its 6 Init ;-)

To sum it up it wouldn’t work…

Edit:
BTW Chill effects the Cooldown since the Cooldows is 0 1.66*0=0 ^^

(edited by Tyron.1423)

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Posted by: NinjaEd.3946

NinjaEd.3946

So your saying ok to reduce ini gain by via chill, because other classes skills not on cool down “may” not be useful in a particular situation, even though a thief with out initiative would be useless in most instances?

Why is the argument without initiative and chill cannot be removed under any circumstances? You will still be regenerating initiative, just at a reduced rate, seems every argument focuses around i have no initiative and will never have any and i can never remove chill.

Thats comparable to a Mesmer, all my weapon skills are on cool down, chill is way OP as now my class is completely useless. We all know this argument is a fallacy.

Chill can be removed by a friendly Guardian, via entering stealth, via using a condi cleanse.

Where are the suggestions for an equitable solution?

You keep looking too deeply at the condition effects and not what it does to the profession that is affected by it. Please play a thief and get chilled and discover what it means to be completely vulnerable. Not all thieves use stealth by the way, so you’re stealth condi clear statement isn’t valid as a universal solution thieves have. You get 10 skills on their separate cooldowns, we get 1 resource pool for all weapon skills, many of which are very expensive to use and/or completely useless.

“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”

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Posted by: Ihales.3820

Ihales.3820

There are also other option to apply chill-like effect on thief’s weapon skills.

  • Remove some of thief initiative – not very good option because removing chill would probably not restore initiative back.
  • Decreasing maximum amount of initiative for the duration of chill – this could be pretty close to chill on other classes. When chill will be applied you can still use all your initiative but after using it it wouldn’t regenerate above certain point.
  • Already mentioned and most obvious one, decrease initiative regeneration rate. This would either have to be significantly reduced rate (like those 13-20% suggested) or there would be other changes tight to it. Like separate initiative for different weapon sets and probably much more condition removal for thief.
    At the moment thief’s condition removal is on par with other classes when traited for condition removal on stealth. Without using stealth thief has the worst condition removal afaik. According to Anet’s post from 12/2012 thief and warrior should be vulnerable to conditions. Nothing was changed for thief, but warrior got many condition cleanses and immunities and more are comming with new patch. So unless you want to see every thief running stealth spec Anet would need to do something in similar style they done to warriors.
  • Increasing initiative cost for skills used while under effect of chill. Perhaps some variation like first usage: normal cost, second usage: normal cost + 1 initiative.