Guild Wars 2

If we look back at the history of popular and effective Thief builds they all share something in common.

They are always about spaming a certain ability (or ability combo) with vary little variation. This is a side-effect of the Initiative mechanic that equalizes expenditure among all abilities, encouraging you to only use your most effective.

You see, a Warrior that builds his build around 100-Blades is still forced to use his other abilities and time and setup his signature move accordingly. This gives the class a more varied and interesting play-style, both to play and play against.

A Thief on the other hand who builds his build around Flanking Strike + Lancerous Strike will try to spam that ability as much as possible because he can and it’s his most effective move. The same applies to Sneak Attack which is basically all a P/D Thief spams. D/P Thieves are in the same boat with their Black Powder + Heartseeker combo.

When you design a build for a Thief you are automatically trying to limit yourself as much as possible. The effect is that unlike other classes, Thieves never had and never will have something considered a “well-rounded” build. Thieves will always feel cheap and cheesy because being effective evolves around spaming whatever ability your build is focused on.

Every Thief build evolved in the same way:

1. Find a strength worth exploiting.
2. Pick traits to maximize that strength.
3. Pick enough passive Initiative regeneration so you can spam whatever ability you’re focused on.
4. Profit

What I am trying to convey is that Initiative as a class-resource, is fundamentally flawed……..that is if having a “well-rounded” game-play is even desired.

Imagine for example that Black Powder had a 9 second cooldown and Heartseeker had a 3 second cooldown. Suddenly your D/P combo wouldn’t just be about chaining the two for perma-stealth. Instead you’d be forced to utilize your other skills as well in order to gain an upper hand. This would make Thieves both more fun and skillful to play, as well as more fun and less cheesy to fight.

I disagree, and were I not on a phone right now I would argue that the initiative system should be present in ALL classes, not just Thieves. It’s a kitten shame that it’s not, otherwise other classes might do more than just play a rotation.

Thieves are already fun and skillful to play, and I would dare say that they are one of the hardest classes to play at a high skill level; you can’t just spam one skill.

Lol other classes just use whatever skill comes off cooldown. That is even easier than THINKING about which skill to use next.

Initiative is actually like mana, a resource.
It’s good design but hard to balance, i.e. it’s very difficult to make it so no skill is best (or people spam just that), or that spamming one skill isn’t imbalanced, etc.
Cooldowns are easier to balance in comparison, but lead to spam-off-cooldown-skills behaviors (unless Warrior, since you can swap weps a lot).

The reason why S/D plays the way it does it mostly because the other skills in that weapon set aren’t at par with the #3 skill. Even with P/D, you see people use all five of their skills now to try and cover up the bleed with torment and cripple.

Personally, I really like the initiative system for the thief. I’ve been playing an engineer lately, and it’s actually just the opposite of the D/P thief I’ve been playing for a year now. With D/P, I have to manage and conserve my initiative for when I know I might need it. If I’m fighting a warrior, for example, and I know his hammer is about to be off cool-down, I know I need to have black powder up. Similarly, when I know a class is about to heal, I will try to use my auto-attacks to make sure I have enough initiative to get that headshot in. On the other hand, on my engineer, I just spam all my damaging abilities and there are maybe 1 or 2 skills that I would save depending on the class I’m fighting.

Dee Jay.2460:

A Thief on the other hand who builds his build around Flanking Strike + Lancerous Strike will try to spam that ability as much as possible because he can and it’s his most effective move. The same applies to Sneak Attack which is basically all a P/D Thief spams. D/P Thieves are in the same boat with their Black Powder + Heartseeker combo.

This…isn’t even remotely accurate. Any thief spec that is designed around “Skill X will always be my best choice” is a kittenty, easily countered spec. I specifically dropped Jumper’s double S/D because people learned all it could do was FS->LS, and being predictable and inflexible is a huge disadvantage.

Spamming FS->LS is a great way to look cute and twirl around while I contribute absolutely nothing to my team. The most effective move I can do is almost always a complicated interaction between what my opponents build is, what my opponent is doing, what my opponents health is at, what my health is at, how much initiative I have, if my opponent has any boons, if there’s a cap point I’m trying to flip or hold down… and so on and so on and so on.

I’ll often switch to Shbow to poison a target right around when they should be using their heal, or against someone I notice trying to burst me down (for weakness, to neuter their Damage per skill used) even if Sword could potentially get the job done faster, because SHbow is the weapon that will get the job done with more consistency. Or if there’s a nice combo field I can take advantage of with blast finishers to support my team (mmm, Healing seed).

I’ll often use my AA to conserve initiative because its more important to have the init to FS around an Eviscerate/HS, or LS a couple particularly powerful boons, or poison a target with SHbow, or access a combo field with cluster bomb, etc etc etc.

If all a thief is doing in D/P is BP->HS, wait for revealed to drop, repeat, then that thief is awful. D/P is one of our best built sets, each and every skill is fairly well designed, and can be used in multiple ways – If you’re just dropping BS for the stealth Every time, you’re wasting init – you could instead be sticking to your target with HS or Shadowshot (each has situational advantages), dropping BP when they try to stand their ground (assuming they’re melee), then HSing out of it after tagging them with some AA’s you were able to land due to the blinds from BP. It’s also real handy to have 4 init sitting around to headshot a heal/important skill or Shadowshot a big gap when someone is trying to escape (when better thieves are chasing me, they don’t just default to stealth because “oooh, BS is the best!”, they time their Shadow shots so I can’t actually shake them)

If a thief is just thoughtlessly spamming HS when their target is under 50%, they’re an awful thief. Shadow shot can potentially deliver damage faster (depending on range), and comes with a blind, which makes it an amazing ability to pop when you see an Earthshaker or churning earth or Larcenous strike or something similar coming your way – it’s not always about what does the most damage, it’s about what leaves you in the best position to win the fight.

I could list more, but I think I’ve made my point.

P/D unfortunately spams sneak attack because that’s all it can do – adding torment to shadow-stab gave the set some flexibility so 5->1 isn’t ALWAYS the best thing to do, but it’s still far too often the best way to go. This is a failure of P/D design, not of thief overall.

Pretty much everything evilapprentice said. Nice post.

evilapprentice.6379:

-snip-

Of course I exaggerated a little. But at the core it’s still correct.

Yes, an Evade spam build will actually use all his abilities frequently….well except for Dancing Dagger and sometimes switching to Shortbow is viable too.

So while the reality is slightly less cut and dry than I presented it the flaw about Initiative still is true. Initiative lends itself towards spammy game-play because it rewards you for investing it in the most effective way. And your most effective move is rarely more than 1-2 skills, depending on your build. Hence Death Blossom spam, Sneak Attack spam, Heartseeker spam, Evade spam etc.

Maybe this is a side-effect of only having 10-15 skills to work with and maybe other classes aren’t much better with their “rotations”. But when I dodge a 100 Blades from a Warrior at least I know he won’t be able to use it again in the next few seconds.

I love initiative, it forces me to think about which skill to use. Is it the right time or will my enemy just dodge my attack, so I will waste my initiative? Is it better to use Heartseeker to reduce the distance or use a dodge and then CnD?

I’d hate these cooldown skills.
In fact it isn’t much different with cooldown classes:
Is my best skill ready? yes? spam it. no? spam my second best. aso
Means, what you are really arguing about is, that there are differences between the powerfulness of skills. And in this case, maybe you are right. But it has nothing to do with initiative or cooldown.

Dee Jay.2460:

evilapprentice.6379:

-snip-

Of course I exaggerated a little. But at the core it’s still correct.

Yes, an Evade spam build will actually use all his abilities frequently….well except for Dancing Dagger and sometimes switching to Shortbow is viable too.

So while the reality is slightly less cut and dry than I presented it the flaw about Initiative still is true. Initiative lends itself towards spammy game-play because it rewards you for investing it in the most effective way. And your most effective move is rarely more than 1-2 skills, depending on your build. Hence Death Blossom spam, Sneak Attack spam, Heartseeker spam, Evade spam etc.

Maybe this is a side-effect of only having 10-15 skills to work with and maybe other classes aren’t much better with their “rotations”. But when I dodge a 100 Blades from a Warrior at least I know he won’t be able to use it again in the next few seconds.

Your “core” isn’t incorrect, but you’re laying the blame on thief and initiative as a whole, and that is not the problem here. The blame lies on poor weapon design. Look at D/P again, because it is by far our most well designed weaponset. For the most part with D/P, the ability you use next will be a complicated choice based on a number of factors, because D/P usually has at least 2 skills (sometimes more) worth using in a given scenario, and your choice will affect further choices later in the fight.

You see DB spam because Anet for some unknown reason put a condition based dual attack in the middle of a direct damage weaponset. You see evade spam because Anet overnerfed dagger OH months ago, so its that or AA. You see sneak attack spam because it’s the only way for P/D to do decent damage. You see HS spam (when it’s used correctly, trying to finish off a scrambling, low health target) because ANet designed it as a thief’s finishing move, or because the thief is inexperienced.
This isn’t the fault of thieves, or the initiative system, because thankfully we have an excellent counter-example in D/P – Anet needs to revamp these weaponsets (Some need more work than others), they should all be as fluid and adaptable as D/P.

D/P even manages to devalue HS spam when your target is low – sometimes hitting Shadowshot and blinding that Eviscerate/HS/etc coming your way when both you and your target are at low health is infinitely more valuable that doing more damage with an under 25% HS. Sometimes its more important to interrupt it with Head shot, even though Headshot does negligible damage(like if it was a multi hit attack like HB’s or PW). It should be the standard by which all thief weaponsets are judged.

Concerning your HB’s example with warrior, I agree with you, but thief pays the price for that – thieves do not get any skills that compare in raw power with HB’s, because they are spammable. You’ll never see a thief skill that applies any decent length of a strong condition to an opponent, or a boon to themselves. You’ll never see a stun/kb/immob longer than second. You’ll never see the kind of damage an Eviscerate or a HB’s can do on a single thief skill because a thief can spam them – so there are costs as well as benefits associated with the init system.

Well obviously if you’re built to be an “evade spammer” then you’re gonna spam those evades. I also play S/D, but I’m built to be a controller with 70% condition duration and a ton of masking conditions, so I spam dancing daggers.

I really don’t see the problem with the initiative system. I’m always going to do my best to maximize the use of whatever tools I’m given to accomplish what I’m trying to do.

That’s where I find my fun and as far as the cheese goes, I care little for the opinions of my opponents as far as my playstyle is concerned. It is mine. They should only worry about their own.

I got better results using scepter/warhorn on my necro. I wasn’t particularly good or enjoying mesmer until I started using an offhand torch. I haven’t played my guardian enough to know what weapons or build to go with.

Each person has to find what works for them. It can be 1 spam. It can be faceroll. It could be something you’d play on the piano. If it works, it works.

evilapprentice.6379:

-snip-

You make a good case. While I do think there is merit to what I stated you have convinced me that the lack of focus on the weapon-sets is the bigger issue.

Death Blossom spammers spam Death Blossom mostly because there is no other melee-Condition damage attack.

Sneak Attack spammer spam Sneak Attack because there is no other decent ranged Bleed attack.

A more clear-cut (X/Y is for Condition builds, A/B is for Power-builds) would probably address a lot of my complaints.

Dee Jay.2460:

A more clear-cut (X/Y is for Condition builds, A/B is for Power-builds) would probably address a lot of my complaints.

Awesomeness is for Thief builds.

Dee Jay.2460:

evilapprentice.6379:

-snip-

You make a good case. While I do think there is merit to what I stated you have convinced me that the lack of focus on the weapon-sets is the bigger issue.

Death Blossom spammers spam Death Blossom mostly because there is no other melee-Condition damage attack.

Sneak Attack spammer spam Sneak Attack because there is no other decent ranged Bleed attack.

A more clear-cut (X/Y is for Condition builds, A/B is for Power-builds) would probably address a lot of my complaints.

Skill unification on each weaponset is a big part of it, but I think what makes D/P really shine is the fact that the weaponset is highly focused. It only does a few things (good damage, good access to damage prevention via blind/daze, and good gap closing), but each skill does it slightly differently, with different associated benefits and negatives. That’s what leads to D/P being such a versatile set.

You don’t have 4 different skills that do 4 vastly different things, so you’re never in a situation where skill X is always your best choice because at that moment, you need what skill X provides (be it evasion, big damage, mitigation, etc).

Incurafy.6329:

I disagree, and were I not on a phone right now I would argue that the initiative system should be present in ALL classes, not just Thieves. It’s a kitten shame that it’s not, otherwise other classes might do more than just play a rotation.

Thieves are already fun and skillful to play, and I would dare say that they are one of the hardest classes to play at a high skill level; you can’t just spam one skill.

Agree with this many classes are locked down to dropping 3-4 cool downs blam in one place faster than a thief can use their abilities tbh. I Think ini is great and gives more choice of tactics. I mean has anyone noticed although it doesn’t hit hard but Mesmers don’t like head shot repeated at all and is my solution to them, besides tracking them.

Consider this. On land thieves have not got a block/parry skill. If we did we’d just repeat it again and again if we needed to. The initiative system denies us ever getting that skill unless it is put onto a utility (which makes little sense).

Underwater thieves have a decent block and riposte skill, plus a good evade skill. The rest of the skills are awful. Even so, those two good skills needed to be nerfed to the floor just because they could be repeated again and again.

Stooperdale.3560:

Consider this. On land thieves have not got a block/parry skill. If we did we’d just repeat it again and again if we needed to. The initiative system denies us ever getting that skill unless it is put onto a utility (which makes little sense).

Underwater thieves have a decent block and riposte skill, plus a good evade skill. The rest of the skills are awful. Even so, those two good skills needed to be nerfed to the floor just because they could be repeated again and again.

if they made the block cost 12 initiative and only last 2 seconds, would you still spam it over and over? if they want to give us a block/parry on land, they will, and there is already a mechanic to prevent spamming, it’s called initiative cost.

a d/p thief will rarely press the same button twice (other than auto attack)