Please make Preparedness base line

[DeceiverX.8361]

IP is a far-cry from an on-demand heal. For one, the health gained is from sustained attacking, not at once; regen can heal for a lot of HP, but it's not on-demand; it's sustained. IP is conditional based on the state of one's opponent, while Mug is not, which makes it not on-demand in any sense of the word. I cannot choose to deal damage and always heal via IP. I can with Mug. You engage a warrior, ranger or DH/FB running more than 10 consecutive seconds of damage immunity and for those ten seconds, IP is worthless and healing for 0 while they deal damage. No, "any time I want it I just attack" is strictly untrue in a vast quantity of matchups featuring high negation. This is why it only works in PvE and nobody uses it ever in any PvP build - it's total garbage. Dealing less than 13k damage in 20s is absolutely possible these days solely depending on your foe and how they play. And the only time 13k reliably happens is from a surprise, which means as a thief you should be on full HP, anyways. Not to mention, aside from S/P and a few very niche Daredevil or IR builds, a thief that is dealing any degree of substantial power damage is vulnerable to being dealt damage in return. This makes IP innately risky. You can steal-dodge Mug for a safe heal, which I personally do regularly, as do many others. That 13k number is 13k if taking nothing in return, also forgetting the weakness that's coming from DA on top.

 

Taking CS with boon duration is a complete waste of a traitline and stats by that point - you're better off in damage running Trickery and better gear because to get 6s on Unrelenting you need literally full Commander's gear or a set with full concentration. Trickery with LA and Marauder will deal more damage with similar uptime, on demand, period. Especially if looking at things from the sPvP perspective where it's all on one amulet even if you try to make concessions. That outright gimps the thief overall (also by making Unrelenting harder to proc to begin with via such reduced damage), and makes no sense to argue. NQ is permanent fury, anyways. But regardless, I'd always take Trickery for ToTC over Unrelenting in terms of fury because it gets applied on-steal instead of on-90%; Steal-Stab combo becomes unreliable without Trickery (MH dagger), CnD crits don't happen reliably in the case of D/D, FS/LS may be unreliable to proc for S/D, combo damage is lost on OH P/P and S/P... the list goes on, and the duration may be baited or just outright beaten out by damage immunity. Again, this trait as a source of damage is tied to conditional capabilities based on the enemy, which does not work for a line carrying no utility. It is not cohesive through and through. I've spent the past five years optimizing my build around Crit Strikes. Unrelenting is a non-factor trait that is downright horrible in comparison to TotC in literally every way.

 

The corruption argument is irrelevant because it doesn't matter if the boons are corrupted but when they are. As mentioned, A steal-stab combo or any such strike can negate any corruption efforts because the attack *will* land as a crit. Unrelenting not only fails to make this guarantee, but its delayed onset increases the likelihood it will be negated by corruption efforts at essential moments, which CS is entirely based around for PvP functionality.

 

Again, which was my original point: Preparedness baseline does not solve over-dependence on Trickery or really make lesser-used builds any bit better relatively. It just buffs the very few builds which don't already use Trickery. The problems lie in their respective lines moreso than Preparedness. Preparedness' existence makes the game harder to balance, yes, and making it baseline would better-unify initiative costs relative to their maximum which simplifies some problems, but the claim that doing so will make other lines more accessible or viable is simply untrue. The issue is bigger, and I think there are better solutions.

[babazhook.6805]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> IP is a far-cry from an on-demand heal. For one, the health gained is from sustained attacking, not at once; regen can heal for a lot of HP, but it's not on-demand; it's sustained. IP is conditional based on the state of one's opponent, while Mug is not, which makes it not on-demand in any sense of the word. I cannot choose to deal damage and always heal via IP. I can with Mug. You engage a warrior, ranger or DH/FB running more than 10 consecutive seconds of damage immunity and for those ten seconds, IP is worthless and healing for 0 while they deal damage. No, "any time I want it I just attack" is strictly untrue in a vast quantity of matchups featuring high negation. This is why it only works in PvE and nobody uses it ever in any PvP build - it's total garbage. Dealing less than 13k damage in 20s is absolutely possible these days solely depending on your foe and how they play. And the only time 13k reliably happens is from a surprise, which means as a thief you should be on full HP, anyways. Not to mention, aside from S/P and a few very niche Daredevil or IR builds, a thief that is dealing any degree of substantial power damage is vulnerable to being dealt damage in return. This makes IP innately risky. You can steal-dodge Mug for a safe heal, which I personally do regularly, as do many others. That 13k number is 13k if taking nothing in return, also forgetting the weakness that's coming from DA on top.

>

> Taking CS with boon duration is a complete waste of a traitline and stats by that point - you're better off in damage running Trickery and better gear because to get 6s on Unrelenting you need literally full Commander's gear or a set with full concentration. Trickery with LA and Marauder will deal more damage with similar uptime, on demand, period. Especially if looking at things from the sPvP perspective where it's all on one amulet even if you try to make concessions. That outright gimps the thief overall (also by making Unrelenting harder to proc to begin with via such reduced damage), and makes no sense to argue. NQ is permanent fury, anyways. But regardless, I'd always take Trickery for ToTC over Unrelenting in terms of fury because it gets applied on-steal instead of on-90%; Steal-Stab combo becomes unreliable without Trickery (MH dagger), CnD crits don't happen reliably in the case of D/D, FS/LS may be unreliable to proc for S/D, combo damage is lost on OH P/P and S/P... the list goes on, and the duration may be baited or just outright beaten out by damage immunity. Again, this trait as a source of damage is tied to conditional capabilities based on the enemy, which does not work for a line carrying no utility. It is not cohesive through and through. I've spent the past five years optimizing my build around Crit Strikes. Unrelenting is a non-factor trait that is downright horrible in comparison to TotC in literally every way.

>

> The corruption argument is irrelevant because it doesn't matter if the boons are corrupted but when they are. As mentioned, A steal-stab combo or any such strike can negate any corruption efforts because the attack *will* land as a crit. Unrelenting not only fails to make this guarantee, but its delayed onset increases the likelihood it will be negated by corruption efforts at essential moments, which CS is entirely based around for PvP functionality.

>

> Again, which was my original point: Preparedness baseline does not solve over-dependence on Trickery or really make lesser-used builds any bit better relatively. It just buffs the very few builds which don't already use Trickery. The problems lie in their respective lines moreso than Preparedness. Preparedness' existence makes the game harder to balance, yes, and making it baseline would better-unify initiative costs relative to their maximum which simplifies some problems, but the claim that doing so will make other lines more accessible or viable is simply untrue. The issue is bigger, and I think there are better solutions.

 

Just because I have to attack to make a heal happen does not mean it NOT on demand.

 

You have to STEAL with mug to make that heal happen. different action (attack over steal) in order to initiate a heal does not make one on demand and the other not. This is just poor reasoning. YOUR on demand comes from a steal command issued which can only happen once every 21 seconds. Your "player with damage immunity running for 10 seconds" is NO DIFFERENT then my steal being on a cooldown for 21 seconds. With IP running I have to wait wait 10 seconds for that immunity to end. With mug on cooldown you wait 21.

 

Nor is a sustained attack required for IP to work. You can modify the degree by which you heal at any time which is preferable in many ways then always receiving a finite amount on a timed basis. Cleave and AOE is a thing and to get a cleave or AOE attack in takes just as long whether IP traited or not. If I use cleave and AOE, the likelihood of ALL my enemies having damage immunity running isminimal.

 

We are talking healing here, not poison, not weakness, not INI or stuns and any person who knows anything about this game knows that if they want to make a thief build (for whatever reasons) that is focused on healing they going to take IP over MUG because IP more reliable and provides way more healing. Mug does not give more heal with AOE, mug does not give more heal with quickness. Mug does not give more heal with Cleave. Ip gives more heal with all of these things . Quickness up , my IP heal all but doubles. Quickness up, Mug gives the same heal.

 

As to the rest of your argument you seem to be premising your entire point on GW2 being about 1v1 duels. The effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of all skills utilities and weapons change when we go from a 1v1 duel to a 8v8 fight which we might see in WvW. Things like cleave and AOE attacks are all more commonplace in Wvw over dueling and a single cleave WILL hit for 13k with regularity.

 

(I would add that your argument is very much like saying that using the active of SOM heal is more effective healing then using its passive)

 

You mentioned the need to have "all commanders gear" in order to get boon duration to 50 percent. This suggests you talking Wvw and I assure you you do not need anywhere near "all commanders gear". I have all zerker trinkets and all zerker weapons in wvw and run at 60+ percent boon duration base. That boon duration is not just so i can take FuryY out of CS. It helps ALL boons from all sources and the build I use is built around building might quickly and keeping it on, having high quickness uptime , meaning that with full time fury, max might stacks and added quickness were I to use IP as a heal those heals get fatter even as things like vigor and swiftness are full time with none of those boons relying on stealL.

 

When you say "taking CS with boon duration is a complete waste of a traitline" you have it completey wrong. You are taking boon durations for boons and CS is only a subset of those boons and I assure you that if you are running might stacked at all times with swiftness full time , vigor full time , Fury full time , high quickness up time you can take nominal hits to your stats while putting out all of the damage you need.

 

The reason why Trickery tends to be chosen over other lines is trickery has the most ways to payback on Steal and thieves tend to load as much as they can onto their steal. The reason preparedness going baseline would not see that great an increase in usage of other lines is because the Thief is still going to load all he can into his steal. The reason YOU prefer mug to IP is because your own build is built around steal. It is not because of better healing. (DA tends to be preffered over CS for ON steal reasons as well with Improv, Serpents touch and Lotus poison all triggered off a steal)

 

Boon duration builds work much the same way. If someone invests in boon durations they are going to take traitlines that offer the most boons so they leverage that investment as much as possible. They are not focusing one one boon. If different traitlines offer the same boons than they given flexibility in taking traits they otherwise would not take. Without boon duration you HAVE to take TOTC as your only reliable fury source. WITH boon duration other sources of fury become just as reliable if not more so and CS offers boons whereas DA does not.

 

 

 

[Legatus.3608]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > @"MakubeC.3026" said:

> > > @"Sobx.1758" said:

> > > > @"MakubeC.3026" said:

> > > > This simple change would make so many builds available for play you won't even believe it.

> > >

> > >

> > > I fail to see why would anyone not believe it. :neutral: It just adds your basic resource, of course it would make the class better/easier.

> >

> > It goes beyond that.

> > It would make Trickery not a "required" line in every build, and thus opening its space to other trees. It would certainly bring back SA, CS and ACRO thief back to some degree.

>

> To really make Trickery optional, there needs to be more appeal in the other lines and some overlap in functionality, especially for CS as far as PvP/WvW goes. Trickery gets taken for more than just preparedness. Having it baseline would just buff the builds that already don't use it more than provide incentive to people to play other lines.

 

Nah you're missing the important bit there even though you just said it yourself: you're buffing the other (read: non used) builds without buffing core sd since they always had this trait anyways.

 

Not saying I agree or disagree with the change, just that the idea is sound in terms of what will and will not be buffed.

[MakubeC.3026]

Good talk boys. I think a lot was exposed in this thread. We'll see what happens.

[Amante.8109]

A sensible change in favor of build diversity that people have been asking for since release, and yet here we are. Wouldn't expect much.

[Icy.2186]

I believe that most issues in build diversity regarding thief is how heavily every trait line relies on synergy with something else to be meaningful. Meaning that its for the most part not that hard to figure out which traitline you find more and less so desirable based on your weapon choice and your previous trait line choice.

Acros evade resets steal, great trait, swords only.

You have acro? That means you are most likely ( but not necessarily ) s/d and you use steal often. Why not buff steal with some trickery?

And that being just a random example where multiple traits kind of tie themselves to another trait tree just to do anything meaningful it brings me to why trickery wont be non-mandatory even with base +INI. And thats because trickery offers much more ON ITS OWN. Trickery improves thief as a whole with various boons and it buffs the very core ability which is steal and gives initiative based bonuses which also affect thief as a whole rather than as a specific sub spec. It really does act as a spine of most builds, mostly because it buffs the spine of subspec / sub profession, it buffs the thief even if hes butt naked.

The reason trickery is part of nearly every build is because its good in nearly every build and its not just max INI alone.

 

Sure other trait lines could potentially offer more damage or more survivability. But steal being a core ability and something you have with you no matter what, being able to also make it transfer boons, add additional boons, grant vigor, give INI is a decent balance of both offense and defense and the actual boon stealing portion of trickery can for a bit, probably, end up giving you more damage and survivability than other trait lines ( based on what boon you rip and what difference it creates compared to your opponent ) and lets not talk about the part where it also gives all of the above to nearby allies ( though at a fairly small range ).

Looking at trickery the trait line looks absolutely ridiculous in terms of how good it is. However as sad as it is, its versatility and overall strength is the only reason thieves can function the way they do.... or at all, +INI aside ( in my opinion anyway ).

 

A thing to remember with people immediately saying, +3 INI helps every build that doesnt use trickery while not affecting trickery at all. Please do remember that in case we do get more base INI, trickery will either have even more INI on top of that, if they decide to have preparedness base and within the trickery trait line. Or the trait will be changed/replaced and unless the replacement is absolutely totally horrible ( and maybe even that wont affect it ) trickery will still have SO MANY reasons to be taken.

 

And i believe that its mostly due to the fact that its a closed circle. It provides use on its own and does not require synergy with various other trait lines or abilities as for example shadow arts relying on taking specific weapon types, specific right bar skills or acrobatics mostly requiring swords because of one of its key traits. On the other hand there isnt a thief build that doesnt use initiation, doesnt want to get various boons, remove boons, spread boons to nearby allies, all of that with a lesser cooldown on steal as a cherry on top.

 

 

[babazhook.6805]

> @"Icy.2186" said:

> I believe that most issues in build diversity regarding thief is how heavily every trait line relies on synergy with something else to be meaningful. Meaning that its for the most part not that hard to figure out which traitline you find more and less so desirable based on your weapon choice and your previous trait line choice.

> Acros evade resets steal, great trait, swords only.

> You have acro? That means you are most likely ( but not necessarily ) s/d and you use steal often. Why not buff steal with some trickery?

> And that being just a random example where multiple traits kind of tie themselves to another trait tree just to do anything meaningful it brings me to why trickery wont be non-mandatory even with base +INI. And thats because trickery offers much more ON ITS OWN. Trickery improves thief as a whole with various boons and it buffs the very core ability which is steal and gives initiative based bonuses which also affect thief as a whole rather than as a specific sub spec. It really does act as a spine of most builds, mostly because it buffs the spine of subspec / sub profession, it buffs the thief even if hes butt naked.

> The reason trickery is part of nearly every build is because its good in nearly every build and its not just max INI alone.

>

> Sure other trait lines could potentially offer more damage or more survivability. But steal being a core ability and something you have with you no matter what, being able to also make it transfer boons, add additional boons, grant vigor, give INI is a decent balance of both offense and defense and the actual boon stealing portion of trickery can for a bit, probably, end up giving you more damage and survivability than other trait lines ( based on what boon you rip and what difference it creates compared to your opponent ) and lets not talk about the part where it also gives all of the above to nearby allies ( though at a fairly small range ).

> Looking at trickery the trait line looks absolutely ridiculous in terms of how good it is. However as sad as it is, its versatility and overall strength is the only reason thieves can function the way they do.... or at all, +INI aside ( in my opinion anyway ).

>

> A thing to remember with people immediately saying, +3 INI helps every build that doesnt use trickery while not affecting trickery at all. Please do remember that in case we do get more base INI, trickery will either have even more INI on top of that, if they decide to have preparedness base and within the trickery trait line. Or the trait will be changed/replaced and unless the replacement is absolutely totally horrible ( and maybe even that wont affect it ) trickery will still have SO MANY reasons to be taken.

>

> And i believe that its mostly due to the fact that its a closed circle. It provides use on its own and does not require synergy with various other trait lines or abilities as for example shadow arts relying on taking specific weapon types, specific right bar skills or acrobatics mostly requiring swords because of one of its key traits. On the other hand there isnt a thief build that doesnt use initiation, doesnt want to get various boons, remove boons, spread boons to nearby allies, all of that with a lesser cooldown on steal as a cherry on top.

>

>

 

A few weeks back, I would have agreed with everything you posted. That said the reality since patch is this.

 

Upper hand as a source of INI has been nerfed as far as the INI return concerned by over 50 percent. The AA chain of attacks using Dagger mainhand and Sword main hand has been lowered. This means more of our damage has to come from INI based attacks, which of course means TR becomes more important for that INI then it was 2 weeks ago. This does not mean there not other reasons to take TR. It means INI carries more weight when one looking at a trait line to choose.

[Kageseigi.2150]

> @"babazhook.6805" said:

> Upper hand as a source of INI has been nerfed as far as the INI return concerned by over 50 percent. The AA chain of attacks using Dagger mainhand and Sword main hand has been lowered. This means more of our damage has to come from INI based attacks, which of course means TR becomes more important for that INI then it was 2 weeks ago. This does not mean there not other reasons to take TR. It means INI carries more weight when one looking at a trait line to choose.

 

I'm curious of your opinion. Does this nerf to Sword AA/LS as well as the gutting of Acrobatics push the Thief back toward Dagger? And does the nerf to Dagger AA direct damage (forcing a heavier reliance on initiative attack as you said) push the Power/Crit Thief more toward a Condition or Hybrid build where something like Dagger Training makes up for the loss of direct damage?

 

Personally, this patch has me testing out the Wizard's amulet... something I hadn't even noticed before.

[babazhook.6805]

> @"Kageseigi.2150" said:

> > @"babazhook.6805" said:

> > Upper hand as a source of INI has been nerfed as far as the INI return concerned by over 50 percent. The AA chain of attacks using Dagger mainhand and Sword main hand has been lowered. This means more of our damage has to come from INI based attacks, which of course means TR becomes more important for that INI then it was 2 weeks ago. This does not mean there not other reasons to take TR. It means INI carries more weight when one looking at a trait line to choose.

>

> I'm curious of your opinion. Does this nerf to Sword AA/LS as well as the gutting of Acrobatics push the Thief back toward Dagger? And does the nerf to Dagger AA direct damage (forcing a heavier reliance on initiative attack as you said) push the Power/Crit Thief more toward a Condition or Hybrid build where something like Dagger Training makes up for the loss of direct damage?

>

> Personally, this patch has me testing out the Wizard's amulet... something I hadn't even noticed before.

 

Well I do not PvP so can not speak to Wizards amulet. In my opinion sword/x works best with the quickness add, so if anything more sources of, and longer lasting quickness desirable. The Acro line still performs well in WvW but in PvP I would be worried about the high cooldown on PR and Instant reflexes. IR at 90 seconds IMHO just not worth taking , PR is much less desirable and the remaining trait , does not do anything since vigor full time.

 

It my opinion that both d/x builds and S/x builds can benefit from quickness with the loss to the AA. You can make up for loss of damage by getting more attacks in over a shorter period of time. In WvW I went over from s/d to s/p as with the LS nerf s/p is much more competitve with PW. PW having that long channel is easier to get off with quickness. As such the added boon duration of 16 percent still makes that line worthwhile. Swindlers is still a good skill and Don't stop still a top performer.

 

As for dagger mainhand I never found ACRO working as well with it. With Swindlers not really usable and that added cooldown to HTC you got two sets of traits that perform poorly. The main problem with doing dagger MH in a hybrid is you just do not have a whole lot of Condition access in the weapon. Dagger training just does not provide enough as the durations too low . To get it reasonable you need duration adds and you also need to use a utility slot for some sort of Venom or Condition add. I think you end up compromising too much power damage and utility in order to do this. Now if you go d/d there lots of condition access but it an either or as far as INI goes in that the power damage on DB low so you can exhaust ini there and have little left for power damage skills (or vice versa). In earlier tests with Dagger Training versus trappers respite, just as example, I was finding I ended up doing more overall condition damage from a Needle trap from respite then the Dagger training condition damage over the 30 second cooldown of that skill. Since a d/x build can not really stick and fght you are just getting too few attacks off for the DT to help much.

 

P/d hybrid, or for that matter s/x hybrid can perfrom better simply because there more ways of getting a Condition on via the weapons themelves and many of the traits (panic strike as example) help both a power and condition build. Panic strike is of course the big one in that the IMMOB on s/x or the IMMOB on p/d will always add poison.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@"babazhook.6805"

 

Thank you :-)