PLEASE stop increasing the initiative cost

[UNOwen.7132]

> @"Eugchriss.2046" said:

> @"UNOwen.7132" @"TheDeafGuy.4519"

> Well, "using the same ability several time" is indeed not spamming but using the same ability several time in a row IS spamming. And right there is the strength of my idea: if you were already not spamming it would have 0, quedal, net, nada impact on you. It s impact increases with your spamming rate.

 

Even that is not spamming.

 

> And no, the point of the initiative system is not spamming. That s **YOUR INTERPRETATION**. If that was the case, they would have implemented an initiative system per skill (kind of ammo-system we have now). Even worse, thief would have had only 1 skill per weapon to make that goal easier to achieve.

 

The goal isnt spamming, but thats because spamming isnt being done. The goal *is* however to allow the thief to use the same weaponskill multiple times in a row. Its a rather neccessary element seeing how most weaponsets have one skill that you use for damage, with the rest being used for utility, or not at all.

 

> The point of initiative system is to allow the user, as long as he has the resources, to use whatever weapon skill he wants, in whatever order he wants, whenever he feels appropriate to do so. That includes using the same skill again and again. **Although the initiative system allows that, using the same skill over and over is (one of) the flaw(s) of that system.**

 

Its not a flaw at all, its the *point*.

 

> The fact that anet decides to increase initiative cost prooves what I am saying: **spamming is not what was in the mind of the people who designed the initiative system.**

>

 

It doesnt. It proves that Arenanet has weird ideas of balance and that they dont have a better solution than just increasing/decreasing numbers.

 

> What amaze me the most is that you guys find my idea stupid whilst I think that it has 0 downsides and only comes with advantages like:

> 1. since the initiative is meant to grow, the base initiative cost will necessarily be low

> 2. if you were already not spamming you fully benefit 1.

> 3. if you were a spammer then you will half benefit 1.

> 4. It will improve the risk/reward decision. "Is it the right window to spam heartseeker?" If it is, well gg. If it s not you just "wasted" 2-3 additional initiatives because of a bad decision.

>

 

Because it is stupid, and has *only* downsides. As I said, its one of the worst ideas I had ever seen.

 

> Anyway, I am done and I don t really care about thief actually. It was just an idea which crossed my mind on how to nerf a behaviour without nerfing the class. But some of you think the behaviour is actually part of the class. Good luck with that.

 

Because that "behaviour", aka "using initiative the intended way", *is* part of the class.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

That's the issue with thiefs design as said above all of the classes weapon kits are designed around having 1 or 2 damage skills and 2 or 3 utility skills so to do damage ur forced to use the same 1 or 2 skills over and over. No ones gonna use d4,d5,HS or BP for damage so with s/d uve got sw2 and sw3 with some autos. Dp u got d2 and if enemies low on health HrtS with backstabs. All thiefs kits are like this unfortunately, bad design at best.

[Bazsi.2734]

This trend of making skills unnecessarily strong followed up by an increase in initiative cost is something I really can't understand. 1 second unblockable AoE daze with no cooldown on the skill indeed cannot cost a measily 4 initative, like the skill used to. However having it cost 7 initiative hampers it's usability too much.

So how do we solve this? Simple: thieves cannot have weapon skills this strong. If the strenght any skill justifies a 5+ initative cost, you nerf that skill and leave it on 5 or less init. One example for good skill design: You can combo a smokefield, hearthseeker, steal and backstab to do a decent burst. It's a 4 skill combo, 2 of which cost initiative. If you spent the same amount of initiative just spamming hearthseeker in the face of your opponent, you'd achive far less.

Thief weaponsets should encourage setting up combos like this, and no skill should be worth just spamming by itself. However with iniative costs on all but 1 skill raised on most weaponsets will kind of force thief players to rely on autoattack and one cheap utility skill most of the time. That's already how rifle deadeye is, with Double Tap/Three Round Burst gutted to uselessness, spamming 2 (kneeling or not) is how I spend most of my initiative. I'd really love to do combos and whatnot, but they are simply suboptimal to spamming 1 button to stack malice and constantly snare the enemy for almost no initative cost. I think in these fights both me and my target are constantly losing braincells because how simple and dumb that is, but using any other skill is just a clear waste of initiative so... please rework(rebalance, number changes could fix 70% of the problems) thief weaponskills with regard to cost and strenght!

[pninak.1069]

@Psycoprophet.8107 if see it this way then reducing dmg on one skill should force more use of other skills of the same kit. Most classes use most of their skills. Only other class that somehow wouldn't use all is renegade with renegade stance, because rev like to keep the stunbreak as a backup. If you simply use a number of skills for dmg and don't use the others a shift of dmg to the other skills should enforce using the others, don't you think? It is an argument in a sense that thief didn't really lose damage past the patches, because people ignore the skills instead of using them.

[TheDeafGuy.4519]

I mean, if a thief is spamming an ability back to back to back, it's pretty easy to punish that playstyle as they waste all their initiative for something that can be easily sidestepped or countered knowing what they're going to do. I think this aspect may just be a gold rating problem or lower. My point was 6 initiative was fine, it hurt, but 7 is just too much at that point, 5 initiative would have made choking gas a little too strong. Each initiative point increase is a huge increase in cost for a limited resource bar. Like others have mentioned, thieves shouldn't have high initiative costs just for one ability. I do think 5 should be the max for a single ability, 6 I feel is pushing it, but understandable considering the power of the 6 initiative abilities. So considering most abilities that used to be spammed are 5 initiatives or 6 initiative already since the pvp changes, we can't just keep upping the initiative costs of abilities and call it good, it leaves thieves only able to cast 2 to 3 abilities before being completely drained, and I'm not talking about the same abilities, I mean 3 different abilities as we generally have high initiative costs for everything now.

[TheDeafGuy.4519]

> @"Eugchriss.2046" said:

> @"UNOwen.7132" @"TheDeafGuy.4519"

> Well, "using the same ability several time" is indeed not spamming but using the same ability several time in a row IS spamming. And right there is the strength of my idea: if you were already not spamming it would have 0, quedal, net, nada impact on you. It s impact increases with your spamming rate.

> And no, the point of the initiative system is not spamming. That s **YOUR INTERPRETATION**. If that was the case, they would have implemented an initiative system per skill (kind of ammo-system we have now). Even worse, thief would have had only 1 skill per weapon to make that goal easier to achieve.

> The point of the initiative system is to allow the user, as long as he has the resources, to use whatever weapon skill he wants, in whatever order he wants, whenever he feels appropriate to do so. That includes using the same skill again and again. **Although the initiative system allows that, using the same skill over and over is (one of) the flaw(s) of that system.**

> The fact that anet decides to increase initiative cost prooves what I am saying: **spamming is not what was in the mind of the people who designed the initiative system.**

>

> What amazes me the most is that you guys find my idea stupid whilst I think that it has 0 downsides and only comes with advantages like:

> 1. since the initiative is meant to grow, the base initiative cost will necessarily be low

> 2. if you were already not spamming you fully benefit 1.

> 3. if you were a spammer then you will half benefit 1.

> 4. It will improve the risk/reward decision. "Is it the right window to spam heartseeker?" If it is, well gg. If its not you just "wasted" 2-3 additional initiatives because of a bad decision.

>

> Anyway, I am done and I don t really care about thief actually. It was just an idea that crossed my mind on how to nerf a behavior without nerfing the class. But some of you think the behavior is actually part of the class. Good luck with that.

 

I know you said you're done with the convo which I respect, but what abilities are thieves spamming several times in a row. I just want to know what you think is an issue at this very moment, not talking about back then, I mean since the major PVP changes about 2 months ago. Because I get the feeling you're still on issues before the major PVP changes, there were A LOT of issues in general. I was scared of the new initiative changes, but I can still make it work. The problem currently though that is Anet's go-to nerf to thief abilities is initiative increases, which will eventually break the class and make it unplayable

[Psycoprophet.8107]

> @"pninak.1069" said:

> @Psycoprophet.8107 if see it this way then reducing dmg on one skill should force more use of other skills of the same kit. Most classes use most of their skills. Only other class that somehow wouldn't use all is renegade with renegade stance, because rev like to keep the stunbreak as a backup. If you simply use a number of skills for dmg and don't use the others a shift of dmg to the other skills should enforce using the others, don't you think? It is an argument in a sense that thief didn't really lose damage past the patches, because people ignore the skills instead of using them.

 

Yeah but just reducing the one effective skills dps to match less effective skills dps just makes all weak asf and ineffective,its not as simple as that. Imagine changing great traits that arnt OP but are better than other options to make it on lv of other options basically making all options subpar instead of bringing the other up. There has to be a balance where all skills have a effective use OFTEN or at least 4/5 anyway and one for niche which would be fine.

[Shao.7236]

Should have kept it the way it was rather than changing it to an instant stun. An unblockable Daze that poisons, it's instant gratification rather than progressive punishment compared the past skill.