Guild Wars 2

Was talking to a friend about this and even said something about it on another topic.
Thief is gonna get Nerfed, too many people say we’re OP for Anet to not do it. And no matter how many people say QQ, its not gonna stop. So the best thing we can do is try to find a nerf that will work, the sooner we do that, the better.

No matter what nerfs we get, people will * that we are spamming X Skill, we’ve seen it several times now. So my idea is to give all of our Initiative skills a system like the cooldown system, but unique to the Thief.

My idea for it was that when a Thief uses a Skill, it kicks off a countdown like all the other skills. But we can still use our skills that are under cooldown, we just spend more Initiative to use them again. It could even be a stacking system with the Initiative cost increasing the more we use it with out letting the timer expire(maybe it resets every time we use it).

Honestly, as a Thief, its a Nerf I would welcome. It may even get rid of the people who went Thief because they think hes OP.

Kallist.5917:

Was talking to a friend about this and even said something about it on another topic.
Thief is gonna get Nerfed, too many people say we’re OP for Anet to not do it. And no matter how many people say QQ, its not gonna stop. So the best thing we can do is try to find a nerf that will work, the sooner we do that, the better.

No matter what nerfs we get, people will * that we are spamming X Skill, we’ve seen it several times now. So my idea is to give all of our Initiative skills a system like the cooldown system, but unique to the Thief.

My idea for it was that when a Thief uses a Skill, it kicks off a countdown like all the other skills. But we can still use our skills that are under cooldown, we just spend more Initiative to use them again. It could even be a stacking system with the Initiative cost increasing the more we use it with out letting the timer expire(maybe it resets every time we use it).

Honestly, as a Thief, its a Nerf I would welcome. It may even get rid of the people who went Thief because they think hes OP.

As long as the regeneration rate is 1.0 and not 1.6 and the traits nolonger have a CD, and the regeneration traits are doubled.

Daecollo.9578:

As long as the regeneration rate is 1.0 and not 1.6 and the traits nolonger have a CD, and the regeneration traits are doubled.

lol Yea, I figured a little while after we got the Nerf, we would be due for quite a nice Buff. Maybe finally fix our traps and Venoms along with a long list of Traits.

Kallist.5917:

Was talking to a friend about this and even said something about it on another topic.
Thief is gonna get Nerfed, too many people say we’re OP for Anet to not do it. And no matter how many people say QQ, its not gonna stop. So the best thing we can do is try to find a nerf that will work, the sooner we do that, the better.

.

Problem is your treating thieves as the problem the QQ seems to be half from trolls that get their kicks posting garbage and then baiting the people that reply. Thats not a thief problem its just we seem to be the fotm for whines so they come here.

The second group are people with the situational awareness of a rock that dont see a thief coming dont react for a bit after the thief starts attacking then come here with kitten examples of how they got back stabbed for 5,000,000 points by a perma stealthed theif and point out that they are so awesome that the only way a thief could kill them is we are totally over powered.

A thief could be reduce to a single weapon, the wet teabag that they are only allowed to attack with after presenting the opposing player with a 5 page appology and waiting 30 minutes and people would still come here and complain.

Kallis, I’m not going to say I support your idea, because I’m not sure if it would actually be a positive or negative change. HOWEVER…. I do really enjoy the general idea itself. It’s super cool, from a basic design perspective. * salute * I live for game design, and sometimes the little things just thrill me.

Again, I’m not sure if I support your proposition for sure, but an up side does come to mind…. right now our utility (weapon) abilities have no useful damage attached. It severely limits how often we’re allowed to change up the skills we use, and some just get flat out ignored. Spamming ensues. Moving on, I truly, very seriously do not think our resource system needs to be changed in order to safely buff up the damage on other skills. That said, your addition to the initiative system would make it a little easier to get away with. I think it’s definitely something to consider.

*Edited for clarity.

P.S.

I definitely hope Anet sees this idea, and takes a serious look at it. Even if it doesn’t properly serve their design goals for the thief, it’s a very good adjustment to this style of resource system. Not something to just pass over without consideration.

Well, I think that the Initiative-system is okay but the synergy on skills are broken or some weaponsets are just awful designed. For example Pistol/Pistol: Zero synergy between skills. What do you? Spam unload 24/7. Bodyshot? Bad. Headshot? How do you use it? You have to interrupt Unload for that and also it’s incredible expensive. Black Powder? 6!!!!!!!!!!! initiative for a blind.
So what do you do? -> Unload 24/7, because there is no other way to deal damage and the utility is kitten.

Dagger/Dagger is also bad but not incredible bad designed. You should use CnD -> Backstab or Dancing Dagger if the target is above 50% HP and finish it if the target is under 50%. However, heartseeker itself is such an overpowered ability for GW2: A finisher + gapcloser is just too much. What I would like to see is a removal of Death Blossom (or a complete rework) and a spell with a gap closer, evade and a short root. Dagger/Dagger would then be a strong weaponset with synergy and A-net could proceed to remove the gapcloser on heartseeker-strike and nerf the burst with steal -> CnD -> Backstab. Thieves would use all abilities and step back from Heartseeker-spam and steal -> CnD -> Backstab.

Sword/Pistol is kinda the same as Pistol/Pistol, except that it has a build-in headshot on Pistolwhip, so headshot is rarely used unless you really can’t reach your target (In that cases you are probably close to death anyway). Black Powder is okay but the range of the smoke is incredible small. Also it’s sooooooo expensive and pistolwhip has a build-in stun, so unless 2+ melees are directly standing on top of you, you wont use Black Powder. Why blind if you can deal 7k damage and have a 1 second stun for 1 less initiative?
So what do you do? -> Pistolwhip 24/7.

An awful designed weaponset is condition-dagger/dagger: Heartseeker is kitten because of no crit/crit-damage, dancing dagger is incredible expensive for the short slow it gives (but it has its uses) and CnD is just dumb (Why stealth if you can just evade all attacks and deal tons of damage for 1 initiative less?)

A good designed weaponset is Sword/Dagger: You use all skills for certain situations, you don’t spam one ability over and over. Sad that I don’t like it, Flanking Strike feels too clunky for me

What I want to say is that the Initiative-system is good. However, some thieves abilities are completely overpowered. Thieves should react and use abilities for certain situations and now have all situations covered by only one ability. Why a 0.5 second daze if I can just pistolwhip and get free 4-8k damage? Why slow target or use gap closers if I can just spam heartseeker with free 4-8k damage? Why go stealth if you can just evade all abilities, deals TONS OF DAMAGE for 1 initiative less?

EDIT: Holy hell is this a long post

TLDR: Initiative rules, skill-design sucks.

I love initiative how it is, not a fan of cooldowns or cumulative initiative costs. I agree that slowing down a backstab build just a little may be warranted but I don’t want to lose the ability to hit one skill a couple times in a row if I want to. I think it actually brings some depth to the class and the ability to mess with different builds with different play styles. This really differentiates Thief from the other classes. I would probably say goodbye to the game if they mess with my thief at this level. Just my thoughts though, everyone is entitled to their own.

Blood~

To be fair i’d be happy with 1/2 a second cool-down on all our skills besides auto attack of-course. The current problem is the ability to spam high damage abilities with hardly any risk involved, a 1/2 second cool down would still make it so you can use a couple of heart-seekers on a low hp target but would discourage mindless spam for an entire fight and encourage tactical play. What do you guys think?

Kallist.5917:

So the best thing we can do is try to find a nerf that will work, the sooner we do that, the better.

I was unaware ANet based their design decisions on forum concensus.

Geogaddie.8193:

The current problem is the ability to spam high damage abilities with hardly any risk involved…

What do you guys think?

I think you don’t actually play a thief if you truly believe this.

rickshaw.5279:

Kallist.5917:

So the best thing we can do is try to find a nerf that will work, the sooner we do that, the better.

I was unaware ANet based their design decisions on forum concensus.

Oh? New to Guild War are we? Hmm, maybe not.. Maybe you just never payed attention to how the community works?
Well they do take our suggestions and complaints in to consideration, thats why people bother to come here and talk about what they would like to see change.
Nice attempt to troll though.

Cargan you may have found the solution.

Initiative is fine, It’s what defines the entire design of our weapon skill bars. We’re meant to have two or three solid damage abilities and two or three solid utility abilities with not much damage. On a cooldown based class these skillbars wouldn’t work properly because you’d be stuck in a predefined loop of “damage and fall back to utility until damage is up again” In fact, some builds on other classes work this way already because of certain skill mechanics.

The problem isn’t initiative, its that our utilities are often sub-par for their initiative cost, and that some damage abilities have too much utility, or some utility abilities have too much damage.

The key to appropriately balancing thieves isn’t removing their ability to spam a skill, its creating a good reason to want to save that initiative or use it on something else. As a thief you should be encouraged to play your initiative by ear, balancing initiative between opportunities for solid damage and solid utilities, and based around their synergy with things you steal and changing combat conditions.

Burst is being lowered, and that’s fair. We should have good burst, but currently our burst builds also infer too much utility during the burst without costing us any extra initiative. Personally I would have rather seen the burst left alone and some of the utility removed from the burst skills, as well as having the utility skills buffed.

Since we know burst is being lowered, the only logical compensation is increasing our utility so we have more interesting moment to moment choices to make in combat about initiative spending, and a better ability to survive in a prolonged engagement when playing a burst build.

I dont think that word means what you think it means <<
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Utility

PopeUrban, I’ll at least agree that our utility skills (including weapon skills) are not very compelling. There are a couple of good ones, but most are boring, and not worth their cost.

I understand your point in keeping utility and damage separate, to encourage thoughtful decisions based on initiative. Basically, “should I spend the initiative, or do I need it for something else.” That’s cool, I get that, but I think there’s an even more compelling option.

I’m very in favor of stacking multiple effects on every single weapon skill. Effects that may not even have anything to do with each other.

Crazy stupid example, to help illustrate what it does to your thought process: (Headshot)

What if Head Shot did as much damage as Heartseeker but only at 25% health, interrupts spell casting for 1 full second, and removes a boon, but it costs 9 initiative?

-If all you want is damage, you’ll use Heartseeker x3, not Headshot.
-If you want a finisher, but they’re out of Heartseeker range, you might pay for Headshot. But what if you’ve got another player on your tail? Do you need to save the initiative to deal with him?
-If you NEED to remove a boon, is Headshot worth it? Maybe… But if they’re not casting a spell and/or below 25%, it’s a hefty initiative price to pay for a boon removal. You’ll have to decide if it’s the right for the situation.

If you can line up a Headshot where all three effects will activate, GREAT. That’s why the initiative cost is so high. But if you only need one or two effects, you have a lot of decision making to do.

This allows us to use more of our skills more often. Right now Headshot barely gets any use, and even it it was an AWESOME interrupt, it would still only get used as an interrupt. We need more reasons to press more buttons.

cargan.5689:

people with the situational awareness of a rock

cargan.5689:

A thief could be reduce to a single weapon, the wet teabag that they are only allowed to attack with after presenting the opposing player with a 5 page appology and waiting 30 minutes and people would still come here and complain.

I am your fan now. I wish my English could allow me to write similar things so often
Definitely will end up in signatures

Wraithforge.8710:

PopeUrban, I’ll at least agree that our utility skills (including weapon skills) are not very compelling. There are a couple of good ones, but most are boring, and not worth their cost.

I understand your point in keeping utility and damage separate, to encourage thoughtful decisions based on initiative. Basically, “should I spend the initiative, or do I need it for something else.” That’s cool, I get that, but I think there’s an even more compelling option.

I’m very in favor of stacking multiple effects on every single weapon skill. Effects that may not even have anything to do with each other.

Crazy stupid example, to help illustrate what it does to your thought process: (Headshot)

What if Head Shot did as much damage as Heartseeker but only at 25% health, interrupts spell casting for 1 full second, and removes a boon, but it costs 9 initiative?

-If all you want is damage, you’ll use Heartseeker x3, not Headshot.
-If you want a finisher, but they’re out of Heartseeker range, you might pay for Headshot. But what if you’ve got another player on your tail? Do you need to save the initiative to deal with him?
-If you NEED to remove a boon, is Headshot worth it? Maybe… But if they’re not casting a spell and/or below 25%, it’s a hefty initiative price to pay for a boon removal. You’ll have to decide if it’s the right for the situation.

If you can line up a Headshot where all three effects will activate, GREAT. That’s why the initiative cost is so high. But if you only need one or two effects, you have a lot of decision making to do.

This allows us to use more of our skills more often. Right now Headshot barely gets any use, and even it it was an AWESOME interrupt, it would still only get used as an interrupt. We need more reasons to press more buttons.

I see where you’re going with that, although that’s a pretty extreme example. I do think the point stands though, Initiative as a class machanic should be about having abilities with vastly different functions that encourage moment-to-moment decisions about initiative use.

A good example of a skill that is well designed for initiative is P/D 3

This is a skill that does something that no other skill on the bar does, and if it weren’t prone to bugging out at the slightest hill and shadowstepping all of two feet it would be a lot more useful. Its a skill you don’t really use for damage, and you wouldn’t just idly hit in a fight because using it wrong puts you in a bad space initiative wise, and in this case probably positioning wise as well.

A similarly good initiative skill is dancing daggers. It has a situational use as a ranged cripple against a single target, or as a very high damage dump against two targets, or again as a useful cripple against more than two targets. Its a skill that encourages use when its appropriate, and for the thief to learn when it’s appropriate to use once, spam, or not use at all to swing a fight.