Guild Wars 2

I love the initiative system for thief, but I think the number of ways we can generate initiative puts us in a tricky spot for devs to balance around. They can’t feasibly buff a lot of our mediocre skills because of fear of mass spamming of one skill (i.e. Heartseeker on release/Unload in beta). For example Body Shot must be one of the most useless skills in thief gameplay currently, and the most requested changes for it has to be for it to either give burning/torment, cause weakness/chill or increase the duration of vulnerability, but none of these are currently possible without a massive increase in initiative cost for the skill. The possibility of being able to spam that skill almost 4-6 times before losing all initiative (akittens current initiative cost) would make it extremely powerful with very little downsides since current initiative regen rate when paired with utilities, and traits is extremely high.

Other big balancing concerns that are made difficult to balance due to the high initiative regen rate is the infamous and most QQ’d about D/P Blackpowder + Heartseeker combo(Permastealth). With the way things are with initiative at the moment, the only way to “nerf” this combo would be to raise the initiative cost on Blackpowder/Heartseeker, but that would be A HUGE nerf to almost ALL D/X and X/P builds.

The most common suggestion thrown out to fix this problem that I have seen was to simply nerf the natural initiative regen rate. However, I think that fix can potentially cause way more work than most would realize to implement since with a massive change like that, all skills will have to be looked at and re-evaluated in terms of initiative cost and if Anet doesn’t look at all the skills when implementing a change like that then, ALL Thief builds will effectively be nerfed.

I think the best way to fix initiative without affecting too many builds, and being easy to implement would be to keep the current initative regeneration rate/traits/utilities, but introduce an internal cooldown of say 3-4 seconds to natural initiative regen when a thief hits 0 initiative. Traits/Utilities such as Quick Pockets and Roll for Initiative would still grant their 4 or 6 initiative when 0 initiative is reached, but the natural ini regen will not restart until the ICD has finished.

This change should introduce some more counterplay against thieves, while encouraging much more skillful thief play (since most very good thief players are excellent at managing initiative anyway) and allow devs to have an easier time balancing some of the weaker skills (dancing dagger/bodyshot) since there is now a punishment to overspamming moves.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions, comments, questions? Please keep it civil!

Well I personally would remove or nerf the strongest/ too exploitable extra
ini regen, and implent skills/traits/whatever that are beneficial if you have a
lower ini count or something.

Like if you hit 6 ini or below you get a short healing/might/whatever every
20 seconds or so. Or more dmg if you are below x ini .(which balances itself
since you can only use auto attack and only one ini based skill or so)
Maybe f you hit 0/1 ini you get a random free venom recharge(every 30 secs
or so) …. well i think you get my point. It could provde another layer of depth
if done right i think.

I think just increasing the skills initiative would be enough. I mean you can’t really spam cloak and dagger unless you’re traited for full regen, but then your build would suck. So I think it’d be fine if they buffed body shot, but just increased it to say 6 initiative. That’s 2 uses at a time. Then a pause while you regen initiative, and that would be with the thief not being able to use any other skill. So honestly initiative is fine, just make the skill cost more and it will be balanced. You’ll have to choose which skills you want, because even if body shot is ungodly awesome, I’ll still want to have to manage initiative to use headshot and blackpowder. Not to mention unload, or shadow shot in Condi builds. It’s fine, but you your idea wasn’t bad. Just my opinion.

Well you do realize that we do bot get new “cd” on weaponswap or got for attubements to dance around.. Or the ability to change toolkits when we put the first ones abilities on cd?

That it what kitten us. If we spam mindless HS, we wont be able to use initiative to like escape. Yes we got utility skills bit so does other professions:)

I honestly only find one problem here and that is HS-spam. Not that I die to it but more when I alting on my thief. Give it 1/2 sec CD, since way too often it spamming itseæf twice wasting initiative.
And speaking of HS it is very powerfull as an gapcloser

I think maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about change or nerfing thief, but maybe buffing some other professions:)
Like say Rangers.. Or warriors spvp-wise (NOT wvw or pve they are very powerfull in that aspect).
Giving back the old RL to elementalist with the bug fixed (1200 range) etc.

And focus on making professions able to fullfill every role good, not equally. Not forcing us into some kinda meta

But that’s just my five cents..

I really don’t see a problem with initiative. Thief are supposed to be able to spam skills when needed or use multiple different skills in rapid succession as needed.

Just like other classes rotate skills in rapid succession we do the same with the ability to use the same skill more than once.

I don’t use any init regen in spvp and only infusion in wvw. Using init regen gimps your damage. Always a trade off, it’s not like thief gets everything for free.

There is nothing wrong with thief. Why do people keep wanting to change it? If anything, they need some love.

There is nothing broken with initiative.

Yeah ini is fine, but the amount of ini regens you can stack isn’t.
And some alternatives to ini regen would make way more fun to play imo.

Thanks for the response. Just to clarify
@swinsk – I do agree that thieves should be able to spam a skill repeatedly, its what separates us from other professions. However, that ability along with the possibility for us to stack a lot of initiative regen will prevent some skills from receiving necessary buffs such as bodyshot, dancing dagger, pistol whip(though it has gotten better recently), and (one could argue) Unload at the moment.
Also I agree natural ini regen is fine atm. The problem is how much we can stack ini regen beyond the native amount, even if we’re speccing into pure damage, example putting points into trickery (CND damage) and even critical Strikes have a minor trait that regen initiative. I do not want to change the thief, I would love to see it buff, but I believe the amount of ini regen stacking atm is preventing devs from really being able to buff us in many ways. (especially considering how many nerfs we’ve taken since the beta compared to the number of buffs/fixes)

@Pheonix Yes I understand we don’t get “a new set of CD” normally with weaponswap, (closest we get is a GM Trait in Acro), and natural ini regen I agree is fine atm. The problem is how much we can stack ini regen beyond the native amount. I am simply trying to come up with ways that wouldn’t normally nerf a thief unless its played badly i.e. mindless HS spam and a way to lessen the viability of “Perma-stealth D/P Troll builds” (not OP but annoying) while breaking as few builds as possible. I agree, also that other professions can be buffed too and would love that (except buffs to guardians, since they’re pretty balanced everywhere). However, I’m also afraid of Anet’s tendency of also horribly overbuffing professions (Necro Dhuumfire + Terror, though thankfully that got adjusted quickly)

@Smo I disagree that simply increasing initiative cost is going to fix things since that fundementally changes the thiefs ability to be able to spam skills for burst. One of the issues with S/D or S/P currently is that every single ability other than dancing dagger/headshot and AA cost 5 or more initiative and as a result (along with a waaay to slow AA imo) no real burst potential (in comparison to other weaponsets in regards to Direct Damage or Condi Loading) of skills at all

@Cyhann Interesting suggestion, but I think that may encourage some thieves to spam skills like HS even more since they’ll in a way be rewarded for it….

Virgil.3869:

@Cyhann Interesting suggestion, but I think that may encourage some thieves to spam skills like HS even more since they’ll in a way be rewarded for it….

If implemented right, they won’t since they have less ini regen after all, and if you
add some extra conditions do the effects it would basicaly prevent it.

Stuff like “offhand skills #4 deals 5 seconds torment if the projectile travels over
300(whatever) units while you have 6 ini or less” -> there needs to be some
distance or “if you have 6 ini or below, all your attacks now deal 20% more
damage, while if you repeat your previous attack it will only deal 50% dmg
and cripple you”.
(Please don’t talk about the numbers/balance/whatever, since it’s just about the concept)

Well or you could add more such trait without the ini counter requiement, and
it still won’t be against the base idea of ini since you can use attack a, then an
attack b, and then attack a again, which is still faster than other professions do.
And it would promote a higher skill ceiling if done right.