Guild Wars 2

Have the developers given a reason why Improvisation doesn’t recharge Flanking Strikes? I was wondering whether this is a mere oversight or an intentional design/balancing choice?

Improvisation has many more fundamental flaws already, though.
For example, it has an unpleasant sort of RNG where it always recharges things you don’t have equipped, which is not fun.

I’ve put real thought into this one because Improvisation seems fun in theory but is lame in practice. My first thought was having it do some complicated things with internal cooldowns and limiting skill types to what you have equipped, but tech-wise that’s got to be a nightmare.

Here’s an easier idea: Whenever you Steal or use a Stolen Skill (which, of course, you get to use twice) you take 3 or 5 seconds off of a random skill that is currently recharging.
It’s a roughly equivalent amount of recharge taken off, on average, but it’s split up a bit more so that you really feel like you’re making things up as you go.
Even better, that ensures that it’ll be useful for you no matter what you have equipped, without forcing you to equip every skill type or all one skill type to have it function.

Slowmelt.8547:

Improvisation has many more fundamental flaws already, though.
For example, it has an unpleasant sort of RNG where it always recharges things you don’t have equipped, which is not fun.

I’ve put real thought into this one because Improvisation seems fun in theory but is lame in practice. My first thought was having it do some complicated things with internal cooldowns and limiting skill types to what you have equipped, but tech-wise that’s got to be a nightmare.

Here’s an easier idea: Whenever you Steal or use a Stolen Skill (which, of course, you get to use twice) you take 3 or 5 seconds off of a random skill that is currently recharging.
It’s a roughly equivalent amount of recharge taken off, on average, but it’s split up a bit more so that you really feel like you’re making things up as you go.
Even better, that ensures that it’ll be useful for you no matter what you have equipped, without forcing you to equip every skill type or all one skill type to have it function.

Improvisation can be very powerful if it procs the right way and I assume the developers want it to be this way. It competes with Executioner which is an incredibly effective trait, so clearly the devs believe it warrants taking. I would estimate that at the moment the majority of D/P Thieves in sPvP have this trait equipped. I believe it should work with Flanking Strikes, thereby making FS more competitive in comparison with Thrill of the Crime and Uncatchable. Adding further interactions makes Improvisation less bad than you currently believe it is and potentially empowers other traits with which it might interact. Thus enabling further build diversification in player versus player which should be encouraged

Personally, I’d prefer improvisation recharging 1 of your 6-0 skills. It doesn’t have to be selected from recharging ones only, but only 1 skill out of the 5 equipped (even if it’s not on cooldown). This way, there’s a 20% chance to recharge 1 of your equipped skills. The more you have on cooldown, the better the chance of recharging one of them.

Silverbolt.2301:

Personally, I’d prefer improvisation recharging 1 of your 6-0 skills. It doesn’t have to be selected from recharging ones only, but only 1 skill out of the 5 equipped (even if it’s not on cooldown). This way, there’s a 20% chance to recharge 1 of your equipped skills. The more you have on cooldown, the better the chance of recharging one of them.

I think the consistent recharge would possibly be too strong. Furthermore having actual interactions with other traits would surely improve the trait from what it currently is.

Improvisation is fun but way too random at this point, in ways both annoying and powerful. I would like to see it changed to do something less random and more consistent, like reducing the cooldown of all your utility skills by 50% on Steal.