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Thief Buff of the Day: Initiative on Interrupt


Kageseigi.2150

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It's time again for potential fixes that can improve the Thief as a fighter.

Today's improvement focuses on initiative and interrupts. And here it goes...

Buff:Every time a Thief successfully interrupts an opponent, the Thief is rewarded 3 initiative.

Reasoning:Interrupting is expensive. Sure, if a Thief interrupts a big attack, it can avoid a lot of damage. But by attempting to interrupt, it sacrifices offensive potential for defense. The enemy is out an attack, but so is the Thief. That's a neutral result, not a positive one. The Thief needs the ability to counter and punish.

By rewarding the Thief with 3 initiative for successfully interrupting, it guarantees that the Thief will have enough initiative to counter-attack with at least one skill on any given (land) weapon set.

This would also help relieve the burden of increasing initiative costs for certain skills. Further still, it would make non-Trickery builds more viable.

Precedent:Unload refunds initiative if all shots hit.

Defense:Yes, 3 initiative may seem like a lot, but it allows only one skill. It is also the difference between a Trickery build and a non-Trickery build.

Yes, a skill like Headshot is "spammable" and only costs 4 initiative. But initiative would only be rewarded if the skill successfully results in an interrupt. If it fails to do so, it's a waste of 4 initiative. So what if a Thief can successfully interrupt four straight attacks in two seconds? It sounds like a skilled Thief to me. The enemy can still auto-attack. Disabling the enemy's ability to fight effectively is exactly the type of combat the Thief should be involved in.

And yes, I use the word "reward" for a reason. It is rewarding a skillful player, not a skill spammer.

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Depends on if the interrupt does appreciable damage on its own, how easy it is to land (a key point), what type of interrupt is used, and what type of skill is interrupted. 3 initiative is enough for another Heartseeker after all , and also enough for another Weakening Charge or Cluster Bomb.

I don't think hook strike , choking gas , and head shot should be treated the same as pistol whip for example.

I would warn against crediting interrupts on weapon auto attacks for example. Do you remember revenants' Punishing Sweep before it turned into a healing type skill? "Sweep your staff at your foe. Gain access to Debilitating Slam if your foe is using a skill when struck." Even in thieves' own arsenal there's a precedent to chained skills such as Palm Strike and Uppercut.

Your proposal seems more like it would be a new trait to be honest.

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Considering how unload got nerfed in WvW and PvP so it only refunds 1ini if all 8 shots connect. I highly doubt they would ever refund 3 in our competitive mode. 1 or 2 at best.

Because remember if it refunds 3, and since our natural initiative regenerates by one point per second, you would be effectively be able to spam interrupt endlessly (once each second).

You wouldn't even need to use other skills to do damage with that initiative gain; torment on interrupt + pulmonary impact traits + draining sigil.

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Did you ever try duelling a meta D/P thief on a non meta thief build in HoT? Honestly I liked Pulm Impact, but I really like that D/P thieves can't cheese every other thief build through interrupt damage now, that alone killed a lot of build diversity for a long time imo. I don't really want to see that kind of gameplay come back, either.

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This certainly sounds like a trait that thief SHOULD have, but as others have mentioned it would have to have a CD attached to it, something like 10-15 seconds. It would be something that would refund the initiative spent on the interrupt so that you can spike harder/more or spike with enough left in the can for not overextending after the spike.

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I mean I like the idea of interrupts being rewarding in some additional way, but I do think you are underestimating 3 initiative.

Where would this be? A passive on Headshot or Tactical Strike or a trait in one of the other trees?

Personally, when it comes to initiative, I Would like to see some initiative-return mechanics implemented into the other trees like they used to. Back in Vanilla I didn't even run Trickery because I didn't need to; Shadow Arts had a trait that refunded 2 initiative upon entering stealth (not camping it) and Critical Strikes had a passive where critting every now and again would give 1 initiative. These traits no longer exist so Trickery is basically mandatory...

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