Guild Wars 2

I just happen to got curious on how much does it cost to run certain weapon set.
(weapon set = total initiative cost)

SB = 17 (3+4+4+6)
D/D = 16
D/P = 17
P/P = 19
P/D = 17
S/D = 19
S/P = 21
ST = 16

So even in our weapon sets there is no balance.

For our maximum Initiative of 12, it is fairly obvious which weapon sets will have a hard time managing Initiatives. With 15 Initiative, some weapon set has fairly low or non-existent cool down — this is why Staff is very appealing. Low cooldown and better damage output than S/P. S/P is just a very expensive set, they need to tone down the cost and improve the damage potential because right now, it’s not even worth running with it.

1) The first thing that needs to happen is to standardize the cost of skills by making all Skill #3 cost only 4. This will help P/P, S/D, and S/P in managing their Initiatives. S/D’s #3 cost will be split to 3/1.

Justifications: Unload currently cost 5 and the damage is not even close to Vault, so to help P/P manage their Initiatives and have some kind of contribution to DPS, its costs need to be lowered. Sure Unload is a ranged damage, but it’s already balanced by being a channeled skill compare to Vault’s instant damage. Pistol Whip has been out of balance and out of whack for the longest time and it needs a better cost at least if its damage will not be improved. Compare to Vault, the initiative cost of PW doesn’t even make sense because PW already had a balancing mechanism of being a channel and it roots, there’s no reason for it to be so expensive. S/D has been nerfed so many times and its cost needs to be toned down because of these nerfs — lowering the cost to 3/1 or 2/2 should be acceptable.

2) Skill #5 cost only 5 Initiatives

Justifications: The Skill #5 cost is to simply standardize the cost of Skill #5 across all weapon sets. Thanks to Vault, CnD and BP at 6 Initiatives cost no longer makes sense. For 5 Initiatives, Vault leaps, evade, and deal a lot of damage while BP is a lackluster AoE blind and CnD is a low damage stealth. Since CnD requires to hit in order to stealth, it is balance in that regards compare to Vault’s evade on activation. Plus the damage of CnD is not even close to Vault thus making CnD a rather unreasonably expensive skill.

3) Skill #2 need to only have a total cost of 3 with a 2/1 split for the Sword #2.

Justifications: It is fairly obvious that Infiltrator Strike is an expensive skill, that if I were to pay that much Initiatives, I’d rather use it on FS/LS or PW. The damage and utility of Sword #2 doesn’t justify the cost. For 5 initiative, I could Vault for more damage and the fact the Sword #2 has been nerfed hard, its cost needs to be standardized with other #2 skills i.e. Weakening Strike. Body shot is crap on what it can do for its cost thus lowering the cost will make its ability reasonable rather than a punishing skill to the set.

There’s really no good reason why each set has more than 1 Initiative difference in total cost, which is one of the many reasons why players tend to gravitate towards a weapon set with low total cost but with big damage output. If we are to only have a maximum of 15 Initiatives, the weapon set’s total cost should not exceed that amount by more than 1 Initiative. The Thief profession should have the ability to use all skills in their weapon set at the initial engagement. As of right now, once a Thief use PW and Black Powder, the other 3 skills are practically disabled compare to other professions that can use their whole bar at initial engagement.

I know that there will be arguments about the reason why certain skills costs that way, but the main point is to standardize the cost of skills relative to the maximum amount of Initiative the Thief gets. Besides, even with this new costs, the Thief will not be overpowered since the current abilities of each skills doesn’t justify their cost in the first place and as I mentioned, they are too expensive. Staff is a really good measuring stick (pun intended) to use to evaluate the other weapon sets. Also with a standardized cost, it can potentially open up other build possibilities rather than being pigeon holed in to one weapon set only because it is cost effective.

I’m all out for thief buffs but I feel like this wouldn’t be good.

Initiative management is part of our gameplay, and we need to do so if we want to be good. This would make us just spammy and basically no skill. There are better ways to buff thief, like nerfing everything else (except warrior)

The biggest problem with balancing initiative costs cross-weapons is that this isn’t super important. What is important is the initiative cost per the impact of each individual skill. If a weapon’s skill set is wimpy, you can scale each skill to only cost 3 initiative across the board. The weapon could still be underpowered, even though in overall cost it is actually cheaper than the others.

While I do agree with many of the individual changes you’ve suggested here, the basis you started with initially is flawed, and creates constraints that need to exist. The issue is better described by saying “Most of our skills are too expensive compared to their overall impact. Either make the skills better or cheaper”.

Op makes some nice points and I pretty much agree with his suggestions. I think the cost for Vault is good atm.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem with balancing initiative costs cross-weapons is that this isn’t super important. What is important is the initiative cost per the impact of each individual skill. If a weapon’s skill set is wimpy, you can scale each skill to only cost 3 initiative across the board. The weapon could still be underpowered, even though in overall cost it is actually cheaper than the others.

You’re contradicting yourself here. If what’s important is the initiative cost per skill impact, then if the impact is nerfed, the cost needs to go down also. However, you’re implying that the impact is great that the cost needs to also be great. As I have posted, that causes a problem only because the Thief don’t deal with skill cooldown, which where it makes sense — greater impact has higher cooldown, but when it comes to initiatives, that’s not a good thing as I have posted.

While I do agree with many of the individual changes you’ve suggested here, the basis you started with initially is flawed, and creates constraints that need to exist. The issue is better described by saying “Most of our skills are too expensive compared to their overall impact. Either make the skills better or cheaper”.

Obviously the skills will never get better, thus it has to become cheaper. If you compare the overall cost of S/P to the overall cost of Staff, then compare their impact, you’re suggesting that Staff skills need to be more expensive — which is detrimental to the Thief profession — when the total cost of S/P should be cheaper instead.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem with balancing initiative costs cross-weapons is that this isn’t super important. What is important is the initiative cost per the impact of each individual skill. If a weapon’s skill set is wimpy, you can scale each skill to only cost 3 initiative across the board. The weapon could still be underpowered, even though in overall cost it is actually cheaper than the others.

You’re contradicting yourself here. If what’s important is the initiative cost per skill impact, then if the impact is nerfed, the cost needs to go down also. However, you’re implying that the impact is great that the cost needs to also be great. As I have posted, that causes a problem only because the Thief don’t deal with skill cooldown, which where it makes sense — greater impact has higher cooldown, but when it comes to initiatives, that’s not a good thing as I have posted.

You have no idea what contradiction means. Contradiction means asserting two things that cannot be true at the same time. When I say that comparing initiative costs between weapons isn’t good, and that analyzing initiative costs of a skill by itself is good, those aren’t opposing statements. They are both true at the same time. Likewise, saying that a low impact skill needs a lower cost, and a high impact skill needs a higher cost isn’t a contradiction in any way that could be understood by humanity. In fact, it is the exact opposite of a contradiction. It is consistence.

The launching point for your whole topic is happenstance, and every direct suggestion you’ve made so far boils down to “This skill isn’t worth what we pay for it”, with a bunch of other things added on to the end. The whole "balance around 15 initiative cost’ is arbitrary. There’s a plenty ways to do something other than that (I.E. raising skill potency, increasing initiative regen from either base or outside sources, increasing base initiative, etc), and there’s plenty of ways to argue against your initial premise (why 15, when thieves start with base 12? Why is higher than 15 insufficient when steal from trickery gives you 17 starting initiative effectively), and the reason why there are plenty of ways is because your initial premise is nothing. It is a number that is convenient in your own mind that you’ve plopped down out of nowhere, and simply declare to be correct with no supporting argument.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Obviously the skills will never get better, thus it has to become cheaper. If you compare the overall cost of S/P to the overall cost of Staff, then compare their impact, you’re suggesting that Staff skills need to be more expensive — which is detrimental to the Thief profession — when the total cost of S/P should be cheaper instead.

Except that’s not what I"m saying at all. I’m saying that the skill should be worth what we pay for it. That doesn’t mean staff should be more expensive. And for that matter, who cares how much staff pays for its skilled, when S/P is overpriced in a vacuum?

I’d rather see each set be a coherent set, with a range of skills that properly compliment that set’s role – both in actual game efficacy and thematically – with each skill costing exactly what it’s worth.

It would likely follow from there that different sets would cost more Ini than others. Eg, it might be that a ranged, spike damage set cost more, since the player has the luxury of distance and being able to disengage/reposition through the fight, where some Ini can recharge while doing so.

But it might make more sense for a tanky, melee set to have a range of mostly cheaper skills, so that they can keep using skills throughout the fight’s duration. Or use the fact that these skills are cheaper to let some Ini recharge before disengaging and switching back to the ranged spike damage set.

A big part of the balance problem is the lack of elbow room that the Devs have to make proper changes, however much they might actually want to. What they need is more elbow room, not less like the OP’s suggestion is.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem with balancing initiative costs cross-weapons is that this isn’t super important. What is important is the initiative cost per the impact of each individual skill. If a weapon’s skill set is wimpy, you can scale each skill to only cost 3 initiative across the board. The weapon could still be underpowered, even though in overall cost it is actually cheaper than the others.

You’re contradicting yourself here. If what’s important is the initiative cost per skill impact, then if the impact is nerfed, the cost needs to go down also. However, you’re implying that the impact is great that the cost needs to also be great. As I have posted, that causes a problem only because the Thief don’t deal with skill cooldown, which where it makes sense — greater impact has higher cooldown, but when it comes to initiatives, that’s not a good thing as I have posted.

You have no idea what contradiction means. Contradiction means asserting two things that cannot be true at the same time.

The contradiction is when you said cross-weapon comparison is isn’t super important, then followed by saying that is it important after all by stating that the weapon could still be underpowered even with cheaper cost — implying that it is underpowered in comparison to other weapon sets. Do you see it now?

Then I replied that the only way to see the difference in impact is to compare them, then compare their cost.

When I say that comparing initiative costs between weapons isn’t good, and that analyzing initiative costs of a skill by itself is good, those aren’t opposing statements.They are both true at the same time.

It is contradicting only because comparing weapon sets is part of the analysis. As an example, the S/P vs Staff/cost vs impact analysis is important only because Thief has to manage Initiatives, not cooldowns.

What you’re confusing is that you’re looking at the impact of the weapon set individually when instead you suppose to look at the impact of 12-15 Initiatives pool.

For 12-15 Inititiaves, how much can a Thief do?
For 12-15 Initiatives, which weapon set has the best value, thus it’s important to compare them.

Likewise, saying that a low impact skill needs a lower cost, and a high impact skill needs a higher cost isn’t a contradiction in any way that could be understood by humanity. In fact, it is the exact opposite of a contradiction. It is consistence.

That’s not necessarily true. Just look at FS/LS, their cost are not justified by their impact. If what you say is true, then LS should cost more however that is not the case. The cost of skills looks beyond their impact and in FS/LS’s case, LS is simply being gated.

The launching point for your whole topic is happenstance, and every direct suggestion you’ve made so far boils down to “This skill isn’t worth what we pay for it”, with a bunch of other things added on to the end. The whole "balance around 15 initiative cost’ is arbitrary. There’s a plenty ways to do something other than that (I.E. raising skill potency, increasing initiative regen from either base or outside sources, increasing base initiative, etc), and there’s plenty of ways to argue against your initial premise (why 15, when thieves start with base 12? Why is higher than 15 insufficient when steal from trickery gives you 17 starting initiative effectively), and the reason why there are plenty of ways is because your initial premise is nothing. It is a number that is convenient in your own mind that you’ve plopped down out of nowhere, and simply declare to be correct with no supporting argument.

That’s a lot of false statements only means that you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.

First let’s get this out of the way, stealing from trickery when your initiative is full doesn’t yield 17 initiatives.

Second, the removal of many traits that refunds initiatives (i.e. Infusion, Opportunist) has made every weapon skills of Thief more expensive to use.

The current cost of the weapon skills were balanced around the fact that the Thief will receive initiatives in other ways. By removing the Thief’s ability to regain Initiatives in other ways, the cost on the weapons are no longer justified.

You’re arguing that they are justified without basis nor supporting argument yourself when the facts are showing that it clearly supports mine. Denying the facts is not a way to progress in finding a resolution.

Except that’s not what I"m saying at all. I’m saying that the skill should be worth what we pay for it. That doesn’t mean staff should be more expensive. And for that matter, who cares how much staff pays for its skilled, when S/P is overpriced in a vacuum?

And how exactly do you know that S/P if overpriced?
How do you know that the skills in S/P are not worth what we paid for it?
In a vacuum, S/P is not overpriced at all.

You’re making a lot of false statements that you’re not making any sense.

AsurasRCute.4136:

I’d rather see each set be a coherent set, with a range of skills that properly compliment that set’s role – both in actual game efficacy and thematically – with each skill costing exactly what it’s worth.

That would only make sense if the Thief uses cooldown instead of Initiatives. Other profession’s skills are always available to them if they choose to save it for later. Thief, on the other hand, doesn’t have that luxury since the skills they don’t use or save for later are practically put in cooldown even though they haven’t used it yet. You need to take this into account.

It would likely follow from there that different sets would cost more Ini than others. Eg, it might be that a ranged, spike damage set cost more, since the player has the luxury of distance and being able to disengage/reposition through the fight, where some Ini can recharge while doing so.

This line of thinking is not even consistent simply because Unload and PW have the same initiative cost, yet FS/LS is cheaper that PW. Using your line of thinking, you’d be ok if Staff cost more overall, which I strongly disagree.

But it might make more sense for a tanky, melee set to have a range of mostly cheaper skills, so that they can keep using skills throughout the fight’s duration. Or use the fact that these skills are cheaper to let some Ini recharge before disengaging and switching back to the ranged spike damage set.

Theoretically, that would be great. However, that is practically impossible and the main reason is as I have posted is the limited initiative pool. With expensive skills, Thief is very limited on what they can do. Swapping weapons is not even a good tactical option because the skills on swap will still be disabled when initiatives are depleted.

If ArenaNet refills the Thief’s initiative pool on weapon swap or give each weapon set their own initiative pool, then we wouldn’t even have this discussion. Since that is highly unlikely to happen, the only logical course of action to the make weapon skills cheaper and standard across weapon set. The cost of weapon skills shouldn’t be a deciding factor since that only limits the number of available builds to the Thief.

A big part of the balance problem is the lack of elbow room that the Devs have to make proper changes, however much they might actually want to. What they need is more elbow room, not less like the OP’s suggestion is.

The balance that I’m trying to make is to balance the total cost fo each weapon set that they can finally be viable to use with less punishing result. The Dev have removed a lot of traits that alleviates the Thief’s initiative limitations without any proper compensations. While the weapon sets were designed with these initiative traits, removing these traits warrants reduction in skill cost.

It shouldn’t be about rotating every skill.

If you want to rotate skills, play an ele. Initiative as a mechanic is designed to let the thief make an instantaneous decision about which skill is best to activate at any given time. Managing this resource is just as much of a factor in determining the skill level of the thief as making these decisions as well. If anything, the disparity between total cost vs maximum initiative is preferable as it makes build strategies have more depth to them. The unfortunate reality is Trickery is simply too good to pass up when making these kinds of decisions, so the depth in builds is reduced.

My newly-suggested ES concept focuses on pushing the need away from trickery and letting players choose almost any mixture of trait lines to make an equally-viable build focusing on some feature of the class. I’ve mentioned it in the past and I’ll say it again; there needs to be more overlap between the trait lines to reduce the dependencies we currently have on a lot of them. Daredevil did this for some trait lines, but it also conceptually gutted acrobatics and didn’t cover the base for Trickery, which honestly should have been prioritized for being replaceable or as an alternative.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The contradiction is when you said cross-weapon comparison is isn’t super important, then followed by saying that is it important after all by stating that the weapon could still be underpowered even with cheaper cost — implying that it is underpowered in comparison to other weapon sets. Do you see it now?

Yeah, you’re imposing your own notions onto the situation, them blaming me when that doesn’t make sense. The contradiction exists only in your own head. Whether a weapon is overpowered or underpowered isn’t a matter of internal thief balance, but class balance as a whole. Heck, you don’t even need to go that far. Just compare what a weapon set used to be capable of in the past to what it is capable of now

Sir Vincent III.1286:

What you’re confusing is that you’re looking at the impact of the weapon set individually when instead you suppose to look at the impact of 12-15 Initiatives pool.

Um… no. My whole point is that looking only at initiative costs isn’t the only way the balance. Only looking at initiative costs just limits our options.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s not necessarily true. Just look at FS/LS, their cost are not justified by their impact. If what you say is true, then LS should cost more however that is not the case. The cost of skills looks beyond their impact and in FS/LS’s case, LS is simply being gated.

That has absolutely nothing to deal with the idea that stronger skills should cost more, or if I have somehow contradicted myself.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s a lot of false statements only means that you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.

Oh please. I came into this topic to say that weapon balance should be open to both power increases and cost reduction. You’re the one who has decided to get defensive and cut posts into tiny little lines so you can nitpick them incessantly. Just FYI, that is a big waste of time that accomplishes nothing, because instead of talking about the topic as a whole you just derail into 50 irrelevant tangents.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You’re arguing that they are justified without basis nor supporting argument yourself when the facts are showing that it clearly supports mine. Denying the facts is not a way to progress in finding a resolution.

Except I’m not arguing that at all. The whole point is that your proposed balance stance is arbitrary. You haven’t provided a single “fact” to support your method of balancing over any of the other ways to help out the thief. At all.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

And how exactly do you know that S/P if overpriced?
How do you know that the skills in S/P are not worth what we paid for it?
In a vacuum, S/P is not overpriced at all.

Well, its quite simple: the skills were nerfed repeatedly, and base thief was nerfed repeatedly, and there was no consolidation between these changes to balance around one another. This results in an accumulating overnerf.

The reason why the staff is so much of a better weapon is because the staff was designed for the post-June thief. Thus, it both cheaper and more powerful, and these two facts are independent of each other, too. But you don’t need staff to know the other weapons are too weak.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You’re making a lot of false statements that you’re not making any sense.

“True” and “false” are not bound to be what you prefer the most. Your memory is short, and you’ve mistaken what I have said numerous times. If you think I’m just going around making false statements, then it means that you lack the capability to discern truth.

Sir Vincent III: You’re seeing inconsistency everywhere because you seem to be thinking that those who disagree (including myself) are disagreeing with everything that you wrote, rather than disagreeing with only one single thing.

To be clear, I doubt that most Thief players would disagree that:-

1 A lot of our skills need a rework, which will include cost adjustment, with some of our skills needing to be cheaper.

[This could be in conjunction with other balancing methods like putting more Ini recharge back into traits etc.]

2 All skills and sets should cost exactly what they’re worth; iteratively (by which I don’t mean the quarterly balance iteration cycle… iteration not work like that…) comparing costs with other sets will be an important part of achieving that correct costing. Nothing should be happening in a vacuum.

3 The only disagreement with yourself is with your idea that this should result in all sets costing exactly the same.

IMO, all this would do is add yet another design constraint that would get in the way of us getting the best possible result.

Try it yourself as a thought experiment: You’re now the Thief Dev, working within realistic limits (no major changes to the game’s core mechanics etc). Make each set work optimally, with each skill costing what it’s worth.

Your best result will almost certainly involve some sets being cheaper than others. Eg, S/P should probably be slightly cheaper than P/P; given the roles of those two sets.

Then make each of those sets cost exactly the same, and see what you lose in the process. You’ll inevitably be sub-optimally adding padding and cost to some skills and sub-optimally reducing the effectiveness and cost of others, to match this arbitrary constraint that you’ve unnecessarily added.

Try it for yourself.

DeceiverX.8361:

It shouldn’t be about rotating every skill.

If you want to rotate skills, play an ele. Initiative as a mechanic is designed to let the thief make an instantaneous decision about which skill is best to activate at any given time. Managing this resource is just as much of a factor in determining the skill level of the thief as making these decisions as well. If anything, the disparity between total cost vs maximum initiative is preferable as it makes build strategies have more depth to them. The unfortunate reality is Trickery is simply too good to pass up when making these kinds of decisions, so the depth in builds is reduced.

This is not about rotating skills, rather making each skill available at least once. The decision should be on whether reusing the same skill at the cost of another skill and not about costing the Thief a use of another skill because the Thief used an expensive skill.

So if I choose to spam HS, then the loss of other skills is due to my bad decision. But using PW and BP should not prevent me from using IS or Head Shot only because PW and BP are expensive.

My newly-suggested ES concept focuses on pushing the need away from trickery and letting players choose almost any mixture of trait lines to make an equally-viable build focusing on some feature of the class. I’ve mentioned it in the past and I’ll say it again; there needs to be more overlap between the trait lines to reduce the dependencies we currently have on a lot of them. Daredevil did this for some trait lines, but it also conceptually gutted acrobatics and didn’t cover the base for Trickery, which honestly should have been prioritized for being replaceable or as an alternative.

That’s basically the same direction I am going. By standardizing the skill costs, the loss of the initiative traits we had before will not be as important nor there will be any more dependency on Trickery.

AsurasRCute.4136:

Sir Vincent III: You’re seeing inconsistency everywhere because you seem to be thinking that those who disagree (including myself) are disagreeing with everything that you wrote, rather than disagreeing with only one single thing.

To be clear, I doubt that most Thief players would disagree that:-

1 A lot of our skills need a rework, which will include cost adjustment, with some of our skills needing to be cheaper.

[This could be in conjunction with other balancing methods like putting more Ini recharge back into traits etc.]

The whole idea of this topic is skill cost reduction rather than init recharge on a trait. The reason is putting initiative traits back will obviously narrow down the Thief’s choices the same problem the Thief have now with Trickery.

2 All skills and sets should cost exactly what they’re worth; iteratively (by which I don’t mean the quarterly balance iteration cycle… iteration not work like that…) comparing costs with other sets will be an important part of achieving that correct costing. Nothing should be happening in a vacuum.

I have made that point already that cost comparison between weapon set is important because the cheapest cost will obviously be the better choice. As of right now, BP is not worth 6 initiative nor does PW. However, there is an argument that because PW is not worth it’s cost that PW should be buffed — which I disagree. Lowering the cost opens up more build diversity rather than giving it a buff.

3 The only disagreement with yourself is with your idea that this should result in all sets costing exactly the same.

Only because we have a static resource thus we need to have a static cost. Choosing a weapon set should not be detrimental to any build. All weapon set should be a viable choice. The only real difference should be based on how the Thief would use each weapon not based on how much they can afford.

IMO, all this would do is add yet another design constraint that would get in the way of us getting the best possible result.

Not necessarily. With a standard weapon cost, it eliminates the need to take Trickery for initiative boost. Any build can appreciate any weapon.

Try it yourself as a thought experiment: You’re now the Thief Dev, working within realistic limits (no major changes to the game’s core mechanics etc). Make each set work optimally, with each skill costing what it’s worth.

Your best result will almost certainly involve some sets being cheaper than others. Eg, S/P should probably be slightly cheaper than P/P; given the roles of those two sets.

Then make each of those sets cost exactly the same, and see what you lose in the process. You’ll inevitably be sub-optimally adding padding and cost to some skills and sub-optimally reducing the effectiveness and cost of others, to match this arbitrary constraint that you’ve unnecessarily added.

Try it for yourself.

The worth of the skill have diminished over time by nerfs and the removal of initiative traits while the cost of the skills practically remained the same. The cost of skills were balanced based on the fact that the Thief has the ability to regain initiatives through crit damage, steal, weapon swap, going in stealth, etc.

However, when most of these traits were removed, the costs on skills are no longer justifiable. The thief instead relies on regen that is hardly a compensation to the loss the profession have suffered. So the first order of business is to standardize the skills cost. Even without changing the effects of each skill, the standard cost is justified as I’ve already explained. PW costing 4 init is very appropriate, for example. Choosing to buff PW so that it’s worth 6 init will have more negative results to the game overall.

I agree with Asuras on the sense that not necessarily a standard to all weapon costs is the best way.

See vincent, making all weapons “cost” the same and balance everything around it will indeed make them have the same power…

But this is not necessarily the best… some weapons are just stronger than other because they also have more danger on using them, they could also be stronger and be less versatile… and beeing more costy is a way of doing this.

Making a comparison on rl weapons a Hammer cost a lot initiative for us to swing, because we can only swing them like once per 2 seconds. But regardless of that a impact that a hammer attack does on someone will probabily instantly disable a person, different from a dagger than needs a somewhat precise strike but can be used twice per second and even run freely while doing it…

Idk if this analogy was of any use… but what I meant by that is that weapons having different power is normal, because they do. But they have some drawback inherent to this power… this is why the “best melle weapon” irl would be something like a Katana and not a massive hammer that could smash through a armor and kill a person with a single hit.

The general efficiency of a weapon need to be balanced with the others imo, but the frequency of spells, or how much you can do with it, or how powerful it is doesn’t necessarily.

Your way of balancing is like we saying that all irl weapons should have the same weight… (this is what I tryed to say)

People like different impact and want to be able to do different choices… some like few very powerful choices, others like a lot of medium choices… and others want ALL choices regardless if they are not going to be as powerfull, different costs on weapons serve that purpose imo.

Sir Vincent III: Honestly, I think that Thief’s too far gone for anything other than a stem to stern overhall to fix properly. I’d say that the first port of call is to make most of the thematic and mechanics ‘must haves’ baked in → frees up space in the Traits for fun and diversity → frees up space in our builds for fun and diversity (eg we ‘masters of speed’ can have +25% movement speed elsewhere than having to sacrifice a utility or runes).

But if we’re going quick and dirty, just to get us back on our feet, then I agree that reducing most skill costs is better than buffing most skills but keeping their costs the same; for all of the reasons that you mention.

All sets should cost roughly about the same, but I don’t agree that they should be made to cost exactly the same; since this would inevitably lead to the uselessly buffing or nerfing of some skills (to fit that arbitrary constraint) that you say that you want to avoid.

To go back to what I suggested above, grab a pen and bit of paper, and work out what you think P/P and S/P should roughly cost. Be a bit conservative, and the main aim is to reduce Ini costs (rather than buff or make major changes), as you say. [BTW, my arithmetic says that your OP’s S/P cost isn’t right. Should be 18/20?]

My quick and dirty, back of the envelope, first approximation gives:-

P/P: 3,5,3,5 (=16). Skill #2 has faster proj speed and slightly longer Immob.

S/P: 2,4,3,5 (=14). IR is often more of a PITA than benefit so it’s free (often PITA = sometimes useful). If there were a way to quickly and easily cancel it, then make it cost 1 Ini, for total = 14/15.

Given S/P’s different role (where being able to keep using defensive skills is more important), I’d be happy for PW to even cost 3, especially if it wasn’t buffed in any way: for 2,3,3,5 = 13 [or13/14 as mentioned above]. That would make it 3 Ini cheaper than my suggested P/P or Daredevil as is… cool, seems about right to me….

The OP is right concerning certain skills but definitely not all of them. A good example of a skill that probably has way too high cost is BP. Before the nerf the cost was justified, but now it’s maybe 1 point too expansive. Sword 2 is also expensive with the fact that the followup skill isn’t instant cast. Dancing Dagger is also expensive as heck with the super low damage it does. And I’m not gonna talk about pistol main-hand and p/p because it’s bad overall no matter the cost of skills.(pistol off-hand skills are fine except for BP which is I wrote about above).

Happy New Year everyone. Just got back from hibernation.

AsurasRCute.4136:

Sir Vincent III: Honestly, I think that Thief’s too far gone for anything other than a stem to stern overhall to fix properly. I’d say that the first port of call is to make most of the thematic and mechanics ‘must haves’ baked in -> frees up space in the Traits for fun and diversity -> frees up space in our builds for fun and diversity (eg we ‘masters of speed’ can have +25% movement speed elsewhere than having to sacrifice a utility or runes).

But if we’re going quick and dirty, just to get us back on our feet, then I agree that reducing most skill costs is better than buffing most skills but keeping their costs the same; for all of the reasons that you mention.

All sets should cost roughly about the same, but I don’t agree that they should be made to cost exactly the same; since this would inevitably lead to the uselessly buffing or nerfing of some skills (to fit that arbitrary constraint) that you say that you want to avoid.

If the total cost of the set are within +/- 1 init, then I guess that would be fine. However, I can still see that there will be problems because of the Thief’s static pool of max initiative.

To go back to what I suggested above, grab a pen and bit of paper, and work out what you think P/P and S/P should roughly cost. Be a bit conservative, and the main aim is to reduce Ini costs (rather than buff or make major changes), as you say. [BTW, my arithmetic says that your OP’s S/P cost isn’t right. Should be 18/20?]

(You’re right S/P’s total cost is 20 instead of 21, but I rechecked my source and it gives me 21 — I need to verify this in game)

My quick and dirty, back of the envelope, first approximation gives:-

P/P: 3,5,3,5 (=16). Skill #2 has faster proj speed and slightly longer Immob.

S/P: 2,4,3,5 (=14). IR is often more of a PITA than benefit so it’s free (often PITA = sometimes useful). If there were a way to quickly and easily cancel it, then make it cost 1 Ini, for total = 14/15.

This is exactly what I’m proposing with skill #2 costing 3 with a 2/1 split.

Given S/P’s different role (where being able to keep using defensive skills is more important), I’d be happy for PW to even cost 3, especially if it wasn’t buffed in any way: for 2,3,3,5 = 13 [or13/14 as mentioned above]. That would make it 3 Ini cheaper than my suggested P/P or Daredevil as is… cool, seems about right to me….

If they allow S/P to have a total cost of 13, why not?

My original proposition is to simply fit the weapon set’s total within the 15 initiative pool. But if they can make it even cheaper, it would be the very best decision that gives Thief a lot of combat interactions. With more affordable skills, the Thief will be less inclined to run away, hide, or dodge while waiting for initiatives to recharge.

In addition, Kleptomaniac and Preparedness should be base line. 12 initiative pool may have made sense back in 2012 because of all the initiative traits, but not anymore. Then they can give us something better for Trickery.

Welcome back good Sir – Happy New Year!

Since my only disagreement with yourself was with the absolute rigidity that all sets must cost exactly the same; if you’re cool with +/- 1 (or possibly occasionally 2) difference, then all is well.

Good fun though I’ve had, I’m definitely at the point where I’m bored with spamming Unload, and using the AA just because it’s free and not because it has anything else to recommend it; and pretty much never using any other skill (however good x/P #4 and #5 might be in other game modes I don’t play).

Reducing the other skills’ costs might help in making them used more for me, though P/x #2 also needs improvement as well. It would only be a temporary band-aid though.

I often feel for Karl, and how completely hamstrung he is by this game’s terribad skill system. If TPTB say that he doesn’t have the ability to give some baked-in thematic stuff to Thief (similar in vibe to what Guardians get), or dedicated weapon set skill lines, or separate game mode balancing, then he doesn’t have much design/balance elbow room to work with.

On the other hand, as a paying customer none of that’s my problem. Sentimental attachments to game/class/char are a finite resource, with the best will in the world.

It’s only a matter of time before Thief paying customers will get fed up that other games (many of whom with far lower budgets) offer them tens or even hundreds of generally good and well balanced skills to choose from… and GW2 only gives them five [only five!!!]… that they’re stuck with and can’t choose… and most of those skills are garbage.

No fiddling with what exists, and shaving off a point or two of Ini here and there is going to properly fix this, long term.