Guild Wars 2

I am not going to post this in the profession balance because I know everyone who is not a thief will for sure be on this bandwagon so I’m going to post it here to see what you guys think of this suggestion I heard of. I personally don’t agree with it since I think it can be downright punishing and before you ask, read the title, stealth is in no way being attacked here.

The concept at question was “negative initiative”, to put it bluntly as I understood the reasoning behind it, thieves have the luxury of re-using “spells” repeatedly which can make them unfair to fight, mainly for people just getting into the realms of fighting other people. To re-word this in a way you guys may understand better and are used to hearing, “Omg thiefz spamz the heartseekersz and kill me, this unfair why I have cooldown and they hit with powerful attack that can be uzed over and over and spammed and gets stronger the moar Im dying” now then, the proposed suggestion was a negative initiative system that would let you use anyskill as long as you had at least one point of initiative but at a price. The initiative that should have been used becomes negative intiative that decays at the same rate as regular initiative regenerates.

How I see it, if you have four points of initiative left and you use Cloak and Dagger (six initiative in case thieves in the making are reading this) You would still be able to cloak and dagger, however, the four cute little white blips go away, and two red blips so up. That is the negative initiative. No other move can be used until at least one intiative blip returns after the decay to all the NI. This means that once those two NI decay after two seconds(one per second) and it immediately turns over to one RI (regular initiative, and there is no point with no initiative, the final NI is converted straight to a RI blip), and you want to use heartseeker, you’ll then get another two points of NI. Let’s use Cloak and Dagger again, you have one RI, you use CnD, you now have 5 NI. It’s here where I started to get iffy as having to wait a total of six seconds to use a move and a total of twelve seconds to use a high end move with no repercussions seemed a bit nerf OP.

The good: promotes active initiative management and wary-ness and discourages spamming

The bad: downright punishing in its punishment

What do you guys think?

EDIT: According to some constructive feedback, this is actually a stealth (not literal stealth calm down) buff.

not unfair. you cant add :P simply put.

if a guardian or w.e. class were to use skills 2 3 4 5 on weaponset 1 then switch to weaponset 2 and then use skills 2 3 4 5 again…thats 8 skills spammed in a row and each that gets used is INSTANTLY on CD which means they are not connected.

thief skills ARE connected. so there is no CD but skill 2 3 4 and 5 directly affect each other. a thief can use skills 2 3 4 and 3 then be out of init. cant even finish with skill 5. yeah. already behind guardian. so then a thief switches to weaponset number 2 and uses…. 0 skills bc hes out of init.

so a thief uses 4 skills then is out of attacks (other than auto attack) and guardian can use 8. even with cooldowns the number of non auto attack skills used within wepaonsets is going to be greater on any other class rather than a thief using his initiative.

so why isnt a thief worse off? well bc he can choose which skill to use on each scenario rather than be pidgeonholed. this is implemented bc a thief is usually a 2-3sec skill without having choice response. so in effect… thief gets less attacks per minute than a guard/warrior/mesmer etc etc.

so before you attack thief class perhaps ….learn the math? or learn the profession? or do cross class comparisons correctly.

goodbye.

lock and close thread request

It’s a sad day when thief players don’t even recognize “veteran thief” players on the forums. Go through my history and find an instance of me attacking my own class. And this wasn’t my suggestion, it was one I heard that inherently sounded interesting. You should learn to read carefully: “I am not going to post this in the profession balance because I know everyone who is not a thief will for sure be on this bandwagon so I’m going to post it here to see what you guys think of this suggestion I heard of. I personally don’t agree with it since I think it can be downright punishing and before you ask, read the title, stealth is in no way being attacked here.” there is my introduction in case you skimmed past it.

I don get it… If i understand it right, this would be only a buff. It would simply increase active initiative pool by a varying amount. Lets say you run out if initiative, have only one left and desperately have to use CnD (but you went HS happy before and you are kinda screwed) you get 5 negative initiative after using it. In this current situation that would work as if your initiative pool was 5 points higher in the first place, just you wont be able to use any skills until you lose all the negative initiative and pool enough real initiative or at least 1 real initiative to repeat same negative initiative thingy. I see this only as a buff, no idea what got Travlane so defensive about this.

Karolis.4261:

I don get it… If i understand it right, this would be only a buff. It would simply increase active initiative pool by a varying amount. Lets say you run out if initiative, have only one left and desperately have to use CnD (but you went HS happy before and you are kinda screwed) you get 5 negative initiative after using it. In this current situation that would work as if your initiative pool was 5 points higher in the first place, just you wont be able to use any skills until you lose all the negative iitiative and pool enough real initiative. I see this only as a buff, no idea what got Travlane so defensive about this.

Hm, good point, I would think the “nerf” here is that, how things work currently, if I am out of initiative, I would need to wait a minimum of two seconds to at least use HS, with the NI implemented, I would need to wait six seconds worst case scenario to use any move. It seems like a trade off actually but even still six seconds is rather long I think.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Karolis.4261:

I don get it… If i understand it right, this would be only a buff. It would simply increase active initiative pool by a varying amount. Lets say you run out if initiative, have only one left and desperately have to use CnD (but you went HS happy before and you are kinda screwed) you get 5 negative initiative after using it. In this current situation that would work as if your initiative pool was 5 points higher in the first place, just you wont be able to use any skills until you lose all the negative iitiative and pool enough real initiative. I see this only as a buff, no idea what got Travlane so defensive about this.

Hm, good point, I would think the “nerf” here is that, how things work currently, if I am out of initiative, I would need to wait a minimum of two seconds to at least use HS, with the NI implemented, I would need to wait six seconds worst case scenario to use any move. It seems like a trade off actually but even still six seconds is rather long I think.

Well but currently if you have 1 initiative left you cant use anything at all and with that negative initiative system you would be able to fit in one last move (CnD for example to stealth and start running to regenerate your initiative). This would be nothing but a buff.
I mean … as a thief you always gotta manage your initiative and this would only get into play if you failed at that or you just had to overextend into negative initiative to get that kill or survive.

panicbutton.1053:

I think what Travlene posted was spot on, there should not be any further discussion. You mentioned thieves ability to spam, and he countered what you said by saying we don’t, EVERYONE else does. As Travlene mentioned — one can easily see this by comparing the amount of attacks a thief can dish out in 10 seconds, versus any other class. By adding in the ‘negative int’ phase for a thief, you’re only reducing the amount of skills we can use by a larger amount.

If you’re a veteran thief you should know better than you suggest this, or even think it’s a great idea to implement.

Oh look another person who can’t read -_-, I’m not even going to bother explaining myself, I already have.

RedSpectrum.1975:

It’s a sad day when thief players don’t even recognize “veteran thief” players on the forums. Go through my history and find an instance of me attacking my own class. And this wasn’t my suggestion, it was one I heard that inherently sounded interesting. You should learn to read carefully: “I am not going to post this in the profession balance because I know everyone who is not a thief will for sure be on this bandwagon so I’m going to post it here to see what you guys think of this suggestion I heard of. I personally don’t agree with it since I think it can be downright punishing and before you ask, read the title, stealth is in no way being attacked here.” there is my introduction in case you skimmed past it.

soon as i saw “unfair” i laughed. ive seen your name in here. i never said u were an amateur thief. just really bad at math/comparisons.

panicbutton.1053:

No no trust me I read every single line. You don’t agree with it, but you’ll post it anyways as a suggestion because you’re a veteran thief, so that makes it completely OK.

If it was a suggestion, why wouldn’t I post it in the class balance sub-forum? I posted it as a topic of discussion. I even ended it with “What do you guys think?” allowing for broad opinions, not set in stone, this is what I think and how it should happen since I don’t agree with it yet it seemed interesting and I wanted to know what others thought of it. But apparently others seem more interesting in attacking rather than discussing. And my comment of being a veteran thief is something you’re taking out of context. I said that because I have been a thief for awhile and would think at least others who have been here awhile, such as Travlane, would recognize my account and what I generally stand for. Never once have I attacked the thief class or any class, except warriors.

and @ Travlane, never once did I, me personally say thieves were unfair, hence my words, “as I understood the reasoning behind it”.

panicbutton.1053:

No no trust me I read every single line. You don’t agree with it, but you’ll post it anyways as a suggestion because you’re a veteran thief, so that makes it completely OK.

ditto…. 15 minimum lines

RedSpectrum.1975:

panicbutton.1053:

No no trust me I read every single line. You don’t agree with it, but you’ll post it anyways as a suggestion because you’re a veteran thief, so that makes it completely OK.

If it was a suggestion, why wouldn’t I post it in the class balance sub-forum? I posted it as a topic of discussion. I even ended it with “What do you guys think?” allowing for broad opinions, not set in stone, this is what I think and how it should happen since I don’t agree with it yet it seemed interesting and I wanted to know what others thought of it. But apparently others seem more interesting in attacking rather than discussing. And my comment of being a veteran thief is something you’re taking out of context. I said that because I have been a thief for awhile and would think at least others who have been here awhile, such as Travlane, would recognize my account and what I generally stand for. Never once have I attacked the thief class or any class, except warriors.

and @ Travlane, never once did I say thieves were unfair, hence my words, “as I understood the reasoning behind it”.

yes but it is anattack. as weknow thieves get the silliest and most uncalled for nerfs due to such “suggestions” and QQers and also the most annoying of all the “sarcastic posts” which seem to be so popular rightnow. all are donig real harm to the thief class. we are nothing but a gimmick now and barely top 2 in 1v1 classes. half of the thief community already rerolled if not much more. if you were to make a 20 v 20 team….not 1 thief would be brought on either side. we are not in a good place right now and if u want to talk unfair look at F-mechanics. we by far have the worst f-mechanics in game. THAT is unfair. engineersalone have f-mechanics that outproduce ours by atleast 800%

This is a really convoluted buff to Thief, and a theoretical penalty to people who don’t manage initiative properly. It’s the worst kind of change, since it makes the good Thieves better, and the bad Thieves worse. Not a great idea.

Travlane.5948:

half of the thief community already rerolled if not much more.

Oh really? Can’t wait to see the source data for this one.

Travlane.5948:

snip

I know how terrible some of our mechanics are compared to others. Awhile ago I suggested >_> that steal be a natural stun breaker. But if you took the time to think as Karolis did, if you don’t spam anyway, then the idea above could potentially help and not hinder you. I wouldn’t bring it up if even I thought it was nonsense like a 50% damage decrease to backstab in return for a 33% increase in survivability however that percentage can be converted to those mechanics

Well in my playstyle I see it a s a buff. If i will run out of initiative and I need to “borrow” that initiative to get that CnD off or die, I will borrow it. For a 222 or 333 spammer who mindlessly spams it till he cant anymore… well he will be able to pull off one more 222 or 333, but then will have to starve a bit longer till his 222 or 333 spam will provide one more flashy animation.
Imagine it as a loan that you have to give back once you earn back enough money, instead of buying something.
No but seriously, how come some of you ppl can see it as a nerf ?

panicbutton.1053:

I think what Travlene posted was spot on, there should not be any further discussion. You mentioned thieves ability to spam, and he countered what you said by saying we don’t, EVERYONE else does. As Travlene mentioned — one can easily see this by comparing the amount of attacks a thief can dish out in 10 seconds, versus any other class. By adding in the ‘negative int’ phase for a thief, you’re only reducing the amount of skills we can use by a larger amount.

If you’re a veteran thief you should know better than you suggest this, or even think it’s a great idea to implement.

How would it reduce the amount of skills you can get off with your initiative if it actually adds one more skill to it. Only difference from having actual bigger initiative pool is that you have to w8 till that borrowed initiative is returned. So when it comes to spam that you are afraid to lose, you actually would be able to spam even more with this until you get into “burn out state” (use more initiative then you actually have).

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

Interceptor.2653:

This is a really convoluted buff to Thief, and a theoretical penalty to people who don’t manage initiative properly. It’s the worst kind of change, since it makes the good Thieves better, and the bad Thieves worse. Not a great idea.

Travlane.5948:

half of the thief community already rerolled if not much more.

Oh really? Can’t wait to see the source data for this one.

This is actually a complete 180, which makes it questionable in a different way than I originally thought

panicbutton.1053:

Red,

You presented a change to the thief class(even though you disagree with it ). You got a full proof response to it, to which you have yet to address. Nay? The original argument for this was in regards to spamming of skills. That argument was smashed, nay?

THIS is how constructive ideas emerge, but you’re just crying veteran thief and not actually addressing responses.

@Karo, he didn’t know that…He presented it as a limiter on our ability to reuse skills. If in the case it benefits our class, then we can negate the whole post. However its original intent was to limit, or nerf the thief in a mild way. Congrads on finding a corner case though :]

Wait what? You made it seem like I ignored Interceptor. I didn’t even respond to any post after his. And as you’ve seen I do respond, to constructive feedback. Interceptor did what Trav didn’t said it wasn’t a good idea, that’s it, no backlash or anything. And I did see it as a limiter, correct, but how it was implemented seemed different. If you were disciplined, than this shouldn’t hit you hard. Karolis even pointed out that it was a hidden buff.

alchemyst.2165:

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

I see your point, which was my frame of thinking, but to be the devil’s advocate, if you were out of everything and had one CnD left, why would you keep fighting? If the opponent got you to a point where you used everything and that still wasn’t enough, normally you’d be trying to reset.

alchemyst.2165:

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

If you have to chose between having 0 initiative and dieing because of it ( lets assume your utilities are already used) and you are sitting (running) duck like it is right now and having that ability to “borrow” extra initiative to survive, why in kittens name wouldn’t you do that. You will have to use your stealth utilities when u don’t have enough initiative to stealth anyway. With this change you would simply get more breathing space knowing that even if u will fk up and leave yourself with not enough initiative, you will still be able to stealth using borrowed ini.
And its not a “hidden buff”, its OBVIOUS buff. I have no clue how would someone present it as a nerf.

Karolis.4261:

alchemyst.2165:

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

If you have to chose between having 0 initiative and dieing because of it ( lets assume your utilities are already used) and you are sitting (running) duck like it is right now and having that ability to “borrow” extra initiative to survive, why in kittens name wouldn’t you do that. You will have to use your stealth utilities when u don’t have enough initiative to stealth anyway. With this change you would simply get more breathing space knowing that even if u will fk up and leave yourself with not enough initiative, you will still be able to stealth using borrowed ini.
And its not a “hidden buff”, its OBVIOUS buff. I have no clue how would someone present it as a nerf.

At that point you are already screwed. In a 1v1 or small 1vX you either have to STAY ON the opponent to CnD or run away, which, with no utility, is practically impossible. But if you stay on your opponent to CnD, once you’re out of stealth, you’re basically just bracing yourself for imminent death. (Unless you’re fighting a tank.) But CnD chains with no utility are very dangerous because you are staying on your opponent to survive, and if you mess up (or ONCE you mess up) you’re basically just giving yourself to your opponent’s burst. I see your point with the borrowed initiative, but this is just my thoughts. I think negative init is a creative idea I just don’t see it really having much positive effect on thief. One extra last chance stealth won’t save you. Plus, you wouldn’t really need to borrow initiative if you manage cooldowns effectively. Being a thief, your first priority shouldn’t be to kill, but to be tactical and weigh your options.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Interceptor.2653:

This is a really convoluted buff to Thief, and a theoretical penalty to people who don’t manage initiative properly. It’s the worst kind of change, since it makes the good Thieves better, and the bad Thieves worse. Not a great idea.

Travlane.5948:

half of the thief community already rerolled if not much more.

Oh really? Can’t wait to see the source data for this one.

This is actually a complete 180, which makes it questionable in a different way than I originally thought

panicbutton.1053:

Red,

You presented a change to the thief class(even though you disagree with it ). You got a full proof response to it, to which you have yet to address. Nay? The original argument for this was in regards to spamming of skills. That argument was smashed, nay?

THIS is how constructive ideas emerge, but you’re just crying veteran thief and not actually addressing responses.

@Karo, he didn’t know that…He presented it as a limiter on our ability to reuse skills. If in the case it benefits our class, then we can negate the whole post. However its original intent was to limit, or nerf the thief in a mild way. Congrads on finding a corner case though :]

Wait what? You made it seem like I ignored Interceptor. I didn’t even respond to any post after his. And as you’ve seen I do respond, to constructive feedback. Interceptor did what Trav didn’t said it wasn’t a good idea, that’s it, no backlash or anything. And I did see it as a limiter, correct, but how it was implemented seemed different. If you were disciplined, than this shouldn’t hit you hard. Karolis even pointed out that it was a hidden buff.

alchemyst.2165:

I don’t really agree with this change. Being a thief since release, I know initiative is hard to manage, especially with dagger/dagger, and ESPECIALLY without at least 15 in trickery, which, in WvW for a burst thief I believe you could use that for a different tree. While this negative initiative idea may seem like a buff, I see it as a nerf.
Let me explain. (This is mostly a WvW standpoint) Thieves MUST preserve cooldowns to survive. If you run out of cooldowns, you’re stuck with 2 CnD’s, and then you die after the use. Here’s where the negative initiative comes in. Let’s say you have very low initiative and you CnD. You’re making it so that you have to use your utilities to stay alive and stealth, because us thieves are very squishy and stealth is our salvation. After we use our utilities, we have nothing but CnD, which takes half our initiative right there. So after you CnD, you CnD again, which will leave you with close to none initiative, even with initiative regen. So you use negative initiative to stealth one last time. You can’t stealth again, and you’re screwed. A thief out of stealth is an incredibly easy target, especially without utilities.
Plus, I think this is basically just adding more initiative if you really think about it. But this is just my opinion, you guys feel free to agree or disagree.

I see your point, which was my frame of thinking, but to be the devil’s advocate, if you were out of everything and had one CnD left, why would you keep fighting? If the opponent got you to a point where you used everything and that still wasn’t enough, normally you’d be trying to reset.

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

alchemyst.2165:

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

So you’re basically saying what’s the point? Either way I’m screwed. In that case I’d imagine it’s situational. You and Karolis are giving different examples of it being implemented though, or rather, he’s thinking of it more in an offensive fashion and you are thinking of it in a defensive fashion.
Offensively, it seems it would allow more damage to be done at the cost of a longer wait to do anything else

Defensively, if you had no utilites to follow up, it would seem worthless and potentially ruin you as you won’t have a CnD to chain stealth to wait off a CD, if I understood you correctly?

RedSpectrum.1975:

alchemyst.2165:

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

So you’re basically saying what’s the point? Either way I’m screwed. In that case I’d imagine it’s situational. You and Karolis are giving different examples of it being implemented though, or rather, he’s thinking of it more in an offensive fashion and you are thinking of it in a defensive fashion.
Offensively, it seems it would allow more damage to be done at the cost of a longer wait to do anything else

Defensively, if you had no utilites to follow up, it would seem worthless and potentially ruin you as you won’t have a CnD to chain stealth to wait off a CD, if I understood you correctly?

Yes. I understand offensively this would potentially give thieves faster killing speed, but for one thing it can tunnel vision you into doing reckless things if the real priority is saving your HP. However, defensively it won’t be good, and I think that’s what thief needs improvement on. Thief offense is fairly good if you play it patiently. Defense is lacking. Once you’re out of initiative you have pretty much no options because of these reasons.
1. With no initiative you can’t create distance.
2. If you try to regenerate initiative when you can’t stealth it creates an awkward situation where you’re trying to run for your life but you get caught in a burst.
3.even if you do manage to get initiative, you still have to bide your time waiting for utilities if you wish to reset.

RedSpectrum.1975:

alchemyst.2165:

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

So you’re basically saying what’s the point? Either way I’m screwed. In that case I’d imagine it’s situational. You and Karolis are giving different examples of it being implemented though, or rather, he’s thinking of it more in an offensive fashion and you are thinking of it in a defensive fashion.
Offensively, it seems it would allow more damage to be done at the cost of a longer wait to do anything else

Defensively, if you had no utilites to follow up, it would seem worthless and potentially ruin you as you won’t have a CnD to chain stealth to wait off a CD, if I understood you correctly?

Actually i am looking at this defensively. That CnD from borrowed initiative may give you time to get some distance while stealthed and even maybe buy enough time for some utilities to get off cooldown to save your kitten . All im trying to say that this wouldn’t be a nerf in no possible way.

This is such a funny thread, I know you thieves are just cunningly conspiring to get a stealth buff, I see through your devious plan.

Karolis.4261:

RedSpectrum.1975:

alchemyst.2165:

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

So you’re basically saying what’s the point? Either way I’m screwed. In that case I’d imagine it’s situational. You and Karolis are giving different examples of it being implemented though, or rather, he’s thinking of it more in an offensive fashion and you are thinking of it in a defensive fashion.
Offensively, it seems it would allow more damage to be done at the cost of a longer wait to do anything else

Defensively, if you had no utilites to follow up, it would seem worthless and potentially ruin you as you won’t have a CnD to chain stealth to wait off a CD, if I understood you correctly?

Actually i am looking at this defensively. That CnD from borrowed initiative may give you time to get some distance while stealthed and even maybe buy enough time for some utilities to get off cooldown to save your kitten . All im trying to say that this wouldn’t be a nerf in no possible way.

Ah then I apologize, I misunderstood

Yasha.5963:

This is such a funny thread, I know you thieves are just cunningly conspiring to get a stealth buff, I see through your devious plan.

But..but…but…um…thief and buff don’t go in the same sentence?.. ._.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Karolis.4261:

RedSpectrum.1975:

alchemyst.2165:

Also I see your point but its basically that if I have utilities and I think I can defeat the opponent I will stay on them, because I know my utilities will buy me enough time to do a slight reset on the fight. If I have nothing left it’s hard for me to run away.

So you’re basically saying what’s the point? Either way I’m screwed. In that case I’d imagine it’s situational. You and Karolis are giving different examples of it being implemented though, or rather, he’s thinking of it more in an offensive fashion and you are thinking of it in a defensive fashion.
Offensively, it seems it would allow more damage to be done at the cost of a longer wait to do anything else

Defensively, if you had no utilites to follow up, it would seem worthless and potentially ruin you as you won’t have a CnD to chain stealth to wait off a CD, if I understood you correctly?

Actually i am looking at this defensively. That CnD from borrowed initiative may give you time to get some distance while stealthed and even maybe buy enough time for some utilities to get off cooldown to save your kitten . All im trying to say that this wouldn’t be a nerf in no possible way.

Ah then I apologize, I misunderstood

Yasha.5963:

This is such a funny thread, I know you thieves are just cunningly conspiring to get a stealth buff, I see through your devious plan.

But..but…but…um…thief and buff don’t go in the same sentence?.. ._.

Well they do in the sentence, “Thief and buff don’t go in the same sentence”

But seriously, there isn’t a single way in which this isn’t a buff. I know this is a flawed comparison, but imagine being able to use a skill twice in a row on another profession, with twice the cooldown.
It’s like the argument that was going around a little while ago that increasing health decreases the effectiveness of healing.

I don’t even know what is going on here… I stopped reading the posts when I realized nobody understood the OP lol so hopefully my post is relevant.

To throw my input in on the OP itself:

I can see it both ways.. Technically it could be a life saver if you think about that one instance where you REALLY needed to be able to do “insert skill name here” and you couldn’t because you only had 1 initiative instead of X amount.. But personally I see it as more of a negative. It’s kind of like getting a bigger desk, or a bigger closet, bigger inventory bags, an extra bank tab, either way they still get chock full of junk and you need more space again.

So either way, once you use that one extra attack you’re still out of initiative and now it will take even longer to regen usable initiative. I think it’s safer to wait 2 more seconds and with awareness usually you can do SOMETHING to save yourself. You’d be surprised how much you can get away with just waiting for initiative regen (as long as it’s not a 1vX).

I think it also would cause more issues with lag. Most people I know will mash the same skill repeatedly to make sure it fires (seen it on youtube vids of GW2 all the time) which is ok when your skill just goes on cooldown and won’t fire twice.
Thief already SHOULDN’T do this but sometimes I have issues where Heartseeker or CnD or something won’t work when I try to use it one time and I have to hit it again, only to heartseeker twice. If this happens when I’m low on initiative and it puts me into negative initiative this could really kitten me up.

@ P Fun Daddy: I disagree. It’s not like it would help you get 2 CnD off to double backstab someone or something because of the revealed debuff and the skills that don’t reveal you you can already use more than once anyways, I don’t see how, for the reasons I stated above, that this would be useful over how initiative already works.

Overall I wouldn’t support this change.

A) your whole idea was based off a false premise (unfairness of “spamming”)

B)we understand it. just not good.

Travlane.5948:

A) your whole idea was based off a false premise (unfairness of “spamming”)

B)we understand it. just not good.

You’re still on about this? How’s about you give input other than the fact that this is based off of spamming which others have already proven that this would, in some cases, actually help the thief instead of hinder it. You seem to /really/ want to get the point across that your against thief nerf threads, understandable, but we get it.

I don’t even know what is going on here… I stopped reading the posts when I realized nobody understood the OP lol so hopefully my post is relevant.

To throw my input in on the OP itself:

I can see it both ways.. Technically it could be a life saver if you think about that one instance where you REALLY needed to be able to do “insert skill name here” and you couldn’t because you only had 1 initiative instead of X amount.. But personally I see it as more of a negative. It’s kind of like getting a bigger desk, or a bigger closet, bigger inventory bags, an extra bank tab, either way they still get chock full of junk and you need more space again.

So either way, once you use that one extra attack you’re still out of initiative and now it will take even longer to regen usable initiative. I think it’s safer to wait 2 more seconds and with awareness usually you can do SOMETHING to save yourself. You’d be surprised how much you can get away with just waiting for initiative regen (as long as it’s not a 1vX).

I think it also would cause more issues with lag. Most people I know will mash the same skill repeatedly to make sure it fires (seen it on youtube vids of GW2 all the time) which is ok when your skill just goes on cooldown and won’t fire twice.
Thief already SHOULDN’T do this but sometimes I have issues where Heartseeker or CnD or something won’t work when I try to use it one time and I have to hit it again, only to heartseeker twice. If this happens when I’m low on initiative and it puts me into negative initiative this could really kitten me up.

@ P Fun Daddy: I disagree. It’s not like it would help you get 2 CnD off to double backstab someone or something because of the revealed debuff and the skills that don’t reveal you you can already use more than once anyways, I don’t see how, for the reasons I stated above, that this would be useful over how initiative already works.

Overall I wouldn’t support this change.

Very valid points actually. Like Interceptor mentioned, it would make good thieves better and learning thieves worse, let alone lag problems.

This almost seems like bending the laws of physics tbh. Common MMO (and by common I mean don’t fix what ain’t broke common) ways don’t let you use a skill if you don’t have the resource to support it or if its on cooldown. That’s why those things are there, for you to manage them. Letting someone slip away off any less than that seems like cheating imo. Would it be nice to CnD off 1 initiative if you REALLY needed it? Yes, but then it adds a whole new field of resource management and people would often get themselves killed than saved.

It would just further the good and the bad, which isn’t healthy for bringing in new comers. Thief needs some restructure but I don’t believe initiative is any part of that.

NinjaEd.3946:

This almost seems like bending the laws of physics tbh. Common MMO (and by common I mean don’t fix what ain’t broke common) ways don’t let you use a skill if you don’t have the resource to support it or if its on cooldown. That’s why those things are there, for you to manage them. Letting someone slip away off any less than that seems like cheating imo. Would it be nice to CnD off 1 initiative if you REALLY needed it? Yes, but then it adds a whole new field of resource management and people would often get themselves killed than saved.

It would just further the good and the bad, which isn’t healthy for bringing in new comers. Thief needs some restructure but I don’t believe initiative is any part of that.

I agree. While it would bring some nice things, the pain suffered from it would be even worse. Initiative doesn’t really need reworked

Essentially you’re increasing the initiative pool.

frans.8092:

Essentially you’re increasing the initiative pool.

Except that with this concept, if you have 1 initiative, and you use CnD (6 initiative) you get negative 5 initiative, and cannot use another skill until you have at least 1 positive initiative. So you couldn’t use heartseeker for example, which only uses 3, until you regen a total of 6 initiative (5 for the negative and 1 for the positive) so it really isn’t a functional increase.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

frans.8092:

Essentially you’re increasing the initiative pool.

Except that with this concept, if you have 1 initiative, and you use CnD (6 initiative) you get negative 5 initiative, and cannot use another skill until you have at least 1 positive initiative. So you couldn’t use heartseeker for example, which only uses 3, until you regen a total of 6 initiative (5 for the negative and 1 for the positive) so it really isn’t a functional increase.

Still, its like saying if SR has 10 more seconds on cooldown and I wanted to use it, it would just be a 70 second cooldown instead. The point is resources and cooldowns are meant to be managed. It’s nice to think outside the box but there is a reason why we have these things and it’s for balance. It’s bad enough we get Q.Q for those who dislike our ability to “spam” skills and us escaping fights all the time.

This would allow us to perma stealth again like in the old days.

I feel like this would have the opposite effect as intended. While it would nerf the overall sustained damage of the thief (namely sword and Condi builds), it would increase the capability of the thief’s front-loaded damage, further pigeonholing us into burst specs in order to maintain effectiveness.

Good insight all. I was actually having an IG discussion with the group that gave birth to this. I agree with Viking, among others, that this would increase bursting and shy us away from acrobatic builds and such. Heck maybe even P/D for that extra condi damage burst. For a little fun fact, this was also hypothesized for realistic purposes to simulate how you get varying levels of tired depending on how much you exert yourself near your physical limit. But then again we shadowstep so screw realism?