Guild Wars 2

Just a thought. What if Lead Attacks were changed conceptually?

Instead of increasing damage, what if it were to refill the initiative pool when a Thief enters combat?

Yes, you would lose the 15% damage increase, but you would gain versatility.

If you need to get to a battle quickly, you could use your initiative to get there, then engage without delay.

Or if you need to get the drop on someone, you can use all of your initiative to Stealth, then open with a Backstab without having to wait until the last second for your initiative to refill.

The initiative would only refill when entering combat, so it would not help you escape if you over-commit. But it would help you engage without being over-commited at the beginning.

What? This has to be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard.

Silverbolt.2301:

What? This has to be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard.

Unfortunately, I believe that is the exact opposite of “constructive criticism.”

Indeed, it may very well be one of the worst ideas you ever heard, but I’m quite unaware as to why.

In your opinion, would the change weaken the Thief too much by reducing the damage output? Or would it make the Thief overpowered by refilling its initiative?

So what ur saying is u want a trait that if your out of combat, u can use up your initiative, so that when you do enter combat, it’s give you the initiative back?

I’m asking what would the effect be?

Out of combat, health regenerates and we can swap weapons at will.

Unless I’m missing something (it’s late, so it’s possible), all it should do help the Thief to engage faster and more effectively.

Outside of combat, initiative is used mainly to travel from point to point (Infiltrator’s Arrow) or to stack Stealth (Black Powder + Heartseeker). The change would allow the Thief to either get to a battle faster or to begin combat with an advantage without also beginning at such a disadvantage (no initiative). Hence, your “Lead Attacks” would be beneficial.

What I’m wondering is where is the potential for abuse? And if there is none, what would the resulting effects be?

Free combo finishers while everyone else would have to use a cool down, u can start off with a stealth advantage already which I think would be too much. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, shrug* but I’m leaning more on the bad side coming from a wvw pov

Loading.4503:

Free combo finishers while everyone else would have to use a cool down, u can start off with a stealth advantage already which I think would be too much. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, shrug* but I’m leaning more on the bad side coming from a wvw pov

Indeed, it could go either way. For sake of discussion, I’ll list a few things in its defense…

1. “Free” combo finishers could benefit the Thief’s team in PvP. Such as Cluster Bombing for a group Stealth opener would not delay the Thief from engaging to support its team while its initiative was recharging.

2. Other professions do have to use skill with cooldowns to achieve those combos, but they can also switch weapons to use skills that are off cooldown. The Thief can’t do that, so any initiative use affects all of the Thief’s weapon skills.

3. Opening combat from Stealth is definitely an advantage. But the question is if it is enough of an advantage to offset the disadvantage of a now-visible Thief being with a low initiative pool?

Again, just some things to think about, though I’m sure there may be other negative issues as well.

A big reason why I even take Trickery at all is the damage bonus, which is why I’m upset they nerfed it for any build not playing spam.

I think it’d be better if they just undid the change. It wasn’t necessary at all.

DeceiverX.8361:

A big reason why I even take Trickery at all is the damage bonus, which is why I’m upset they nerfed it for any build not playing spam.

I think it’d be better if they just undid the change. It wasn’t necessary at all.

… Which would nerf anything but AA spam.

Either way, the trait is flawed: it’s either skill spam or AA, but I guess I like the former the better.

I disagree. The skill as it is promotes Skill spam and then AA for more damage. I’ve almost stopped bothering backstabbing since I’ll get more damage just whiffing CnD and hitting my targets with AA, now. For Shadow Shot spam, which was already optimal play for D/P, there is quite literally zero downside doing 333331111111111; it was previously worse than it is now, as you’d get diminishing returns on skill spamming and then also get punished for AA’ing at low initiative due to losing the gains from LA. Now, there’s no downside aside from being out of initiative, and you’re punished for conserving it and not using skills.

Frankly, this kind of effect makes more sense on a warrior than thief; thieves shouldn’t feel obligated to rotate skills or burn cooldowns to gain benefits while in combat for sustained damage; it’s contradictory to the purpose of initiative as a mechanic.

I prefer the change as is over the old. It does not make more spam in the way I fight. . I do not think one has to do the most damage possible on any given attack , but if an attack provides decent damage and other utility it is much more usable.

P/P can now use ini to greater effect with skills other than unload. Dancing dagger now can dish out decent damage. The Combo of CnD , backstab and heartseeeker works better. Harder to pull off then a shadowstrike but a nice fat reward at the end.

In my s/d build I am MORE likely to use different weapon skills than before as I am not so worried about losing needed ini for that single big attack. I fought a pile of 1v1s last night with s/d and used other skills like cnd/dancing dagger/infiltrators more. If continuing relentless attacks is considered “spam” than so be it. (wvW)

I do think they should change it up a bit so that the stacks can not be accrued while using INI out of combat. It should be a stay in the fight type trait. Like warriors adrenaline , those stacks might also decay faster when no longer in combat.

As to this thing called spam nothing forces the player to use the same skill over and over again and generally against a decent opponent spam will be countered more efficiently when that done. The changes to lead attack do not “force” more spam gameplay. Spam gameplay in the thief is a result of the INI mechanic and that INI mechanic is what gives theives their flavor. A person under old style of lead attacks “preserving ini for that big attack” is just as likely to be spamming AA as they would that opportunity.

That’s the thing – the trait used to be entirely about damage when getting the jump on your enemy. That was all. The entire design of the trait changed, and it honestly nerfed more underpowered builds more and buffed the stronger ones while trivializing play and reducing the impact of decisions.

P/P got buffed the most via unload spamming, nothing else. The aftercast removal on Vital Shot did little to help P/P power and next to nothing for interruption P/P condi. As it is, spamming unload is mathematically the best option P/P has for damage because of the might stacks paired with Lead Attacks. The same is said about Shadow Shot spam, P/W spam, or really any effect on a power kit. Conditions just got buffed (for no legitimate reason) and again, already-spammy/repetitive styles of play got buffed at the expensive of skilled play and initiative management that was once a critical part of the core thief design, nerfing other sets like D/D or builds focused around quicker fights or a plethora of abilities.

Dancing Dagger doing decent damage from a 15% modifier? I’m sorry – what? The skill is conceptually an under-performer and did and still does pitiful damage unless enemies are grouped together – but still, that 15% at-best bonus is not at all worth it, as odds are if you’re capped on LA’s damage and using DD, you’re already in combat, have exchanged blows, and are trying to reset/recover initiative after a disengage. If you’re trying to persist in a fight, a single AA (and especially HS) will out-perform it, anyways, so it’s a waste.

S/D has been least-effected by the change in terms of damage and style adjustments, but not because I think it has to do with tempo or using other skills; S/D always hovered around intermittent and mixed skill use when played well, never keeping full initiative but never dumping it, either. Dump initiative on S/D and you die. Don’t use anything and you also die. It’ll probably maintain around 6-12 stacks or so of LA which is about the same as it would have on the old LA by timing.

In many cases, it’s not a relentless sequence of attacks being maintained. It’s pressing one optimal skill repeatedly and getting rewarded for pressing it over and over. I’ve killed people putting Repeat Skill Use on #3 on D/P (sometimes #2 for trolls), P/P, and S/P, now for sequential Shadow Shots/Unloads/PW’s with no other skill use. That’s spam. And getting rewarded for it and not punished is completely stupid.

Having the stacks not accrue OOC would actually nerf the nerfed builds even more than they already are. The builds which spam one skill in combat (D/P, P/P, S/P, D/D condi) would get strictly more benefit than those which don’t and try to run with a few stacks before a hard engage while maintaining full initiative. It’s another hard nerf to builds focused on the engage and not the sustained fight, which is where the thief is supposed to do well, and is not doing well at the moment because of passive procs/auto-defenses from other classes which inhibit most good engages, anyways.

I think you vastly underestimate how strong a few select abilities in the thief’s weapon set kits are. I run with no utilities and kill people all the time because a few select weapon skills can carry the entire weapon set, utility skills, and the class in general.

Yes, the thief should have the ability for repeated skill use. I agree to that wholeheartedly, because the profession depends on the ability to think quickly and re-use skills on a whim if a threat is posed or opportunity opens, since the thief’s stats are innately lower than other professions’. That doesn’t mean that the thief should be rewarded for pressing the same skill over and over.

And that’s what LA was initially about; it rewards players for conserving initiative until they need it, while playing at a tempo which could help push damage at the cost of a flurry of skills for that one opportunity, or reuse skills for defensive purposes without having an extra damage modifier, which may cause them to miss an opening at full capacity, giving the opponent some leeway on how to play well against the thief, but giving the thief some capacity to determining if and when to wait and land an attack at peak damage or focus on the sustained game.

I can not agree with your point of view. You are fixated on one style of gameplay , that your own, to the exclusion of all others.

let us take dancing dagger and I am referring to WvW here. I do not use s/b as an off hand weapon. Dancing dagger is much more usable in my s/d thief. I can build 15 percent damage. load up basi and use it as an at range interrupt which triggers PI. When I use this on a cannon in wvw it hits both the cannon and the player firing it doing significant damage. I also now do this in a 1v1 when a DH or other class on traps in an AOE field. It also works very well against Eles in Overload mode where you do not want to get close to them.

Once that Overload/Aoe well/ plug in name here gone I can infiltrators in or steal in and do more damage.

Prior to these changes doing this same thing would hurt damage output long term as it would burn off ini meaning those followup attacks off the AA chain doing less damage.

P/p vital shot does more damage overall. Nothing changes the fact that Unload is most used for damge as far as lead attacks concerned. The people that spammed unload before will spam it after. That said #1 will do more damage as will number #2 and this especially helpful to the condition p/X set. I have been tinkering with a pure hybrid build and the changes to LA in fact encourage the use of MORE different skills.

“Conserving” ini is little more then relying on AA for attacks or avoiding attacks altogether via stealth and dodges. it is not more skilled gameplay. it just a different style.

The reason I think LA should not work out of combat is because people will use d/p h/s combo to build stacks out of combat and then enter combat at full stacks or just vault in place five times over or plug in skill here. Here there no element of risk at all as you are not engaged with an enemy as you do so. The 15 seconds allows a full stack of LA and more then likley a refill of all your ini by time you enter combat.

I don’t see why this should happen because most thives can manage their iniative anyway.

The former Lead Attack only give 15% damage boost to the first initiative attack or any non-initiative attacks and this boost diminishes for the rest of the fight whenever you use initiatives.

The new Lead Attack grants up to 15% boost for 15 seconds which a lot of the Thief’s skills can benefit from. The big difference here is the 15 seconds duration.

There’s really no point at spamming attacks once you get the buff at full stack. This is how the new Lead Attack works right now — you basically lead your attacks by dumping all your initiatives so that the rest of your damage are boosted. The former Lead Attack make players hesitant to use their initiatives if they don’t want to lose their damage boost.

This is a silly discussion. Unless you are sitting around at full initiative for a time, you can get to the full stack fairly easily. You can literally use 1 initiative every second and get to 15 stacks after 15 seconds and stay there. Both play styles got buffed.

i disagree to this idea new 15% damage is very well design for thief it make every weapon set just better.

more init sounds nice on paper but it just wont help in fights. to get real value from init regen you are implying you want to be able to fight forever and that just something thief can not be.

I think ANet intended to buff the damage output of the class in a way it would further strengthen its areas where it really shines (mobility):

• currently the only reason a Thief is in a team comp is its /somewhat/ supreme mobility. Your role is to +1 fights, play the map and quickly down targets. That’s what the current LA change encourages. Use your SB to travel across the map, build up your stacks so upon engaging you’d do the highest possible burst the class is capable of.
• spamming damage skills is easily punishable. There are tons of invuln. traits (looking at you engi mini) that trigger at X % to prevent such burst attempts, not to mention dodges and channeled blocks.
  If you spam your skills and you are facing good opponents, they will quickly empty out your ini bar, which leads to your death on any weapon set.

I disagree with the statement that it actively encourages spammy playstyle. People who wanted to spam have been spamming so far despite of it being ineffective.
Furthermore spamming is still ineffective, given the fact the Thief is facing competent opponents.