Please make Preparedness base line

This simple change would make so many builds available for play you won't even believe it.Every build since forever seems to orbit around this line and that doesn't feel right.Please through-fully explored this option.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Preparedness

What would you replace it with?

Not sure a power creep like this would be healthy for the profession overall.

I would honestly, hardly call it power creep. The traitline by default includes faster initiative regeneration ON TOP OF boosting baseline initiative. Initiative is tied to all the important weapon skills for Thief, which are obviously its main toolset. However, I've often found myself limited in builds because NOT taking this spec-tree literally means doing less actions or skills. In other words, you're literally just playing your class LESS. Having that +3 initiative would go miles into making the class far more engaging and interesting to play, because it would open up a lot more options instead of always going Trickery.

Trickery's traitline itself wouldn't be imbalanced either, since the +15% regeneration of initiative is still a pretty hefty passive bonus, along with rewarding you for actually spending initiative that other traitlines don't do.

@"saerni.2584" said:What would you replace it with?

Not sure a power creep like this would be healthy for the profession overall.

It's not a power creep. This traitline is almost always grabbed, specifically for the +3 initiative. Unlike other classes, thief's main abilities lies in his weapon skills. Both offensively, and defensively. While the utilities are often highly situational or defensive.

Having that +3 made baseline would definitely improve the build options that thief gets, and probably change the utilities they take.

As for replacement... I'd probably do something like... Dance of Cloaks "Successfully Dodging attacks grants initiative recharge bonus." treat it like leading blows, where the more stacks you build up, the quicker your initiative rises. Though this would probably be stupid on Daredevil.

The other option"Displacer" After successfully evading an attack the next incoming attack within 3secs is guranteed to be a miss. Internal cooldown of 5-7secs after proc. This means that after the 3 seconds has passed, it will be up again in 2-4 seconds.

This would open up the door for weapon sets such as D/D, S/D and the Spear as it gives them a decent defensive option.

OR.... just return ricochet and put it there...

@Lyros.4673 said:I would honestly, hardly call it power creep. The traitline by default includes faster initiative regeneration ON TOP OF boosting baseline initiative. Initiative is tied to all the important weapon skills for Thief, which are obviously its main toolset. However, I've often found myself limited in builds because NOT taking this spec-tree literally means doing less actions or skills. In other words, you're literally just playing your class LESS. Having that +3 initiative would go miles into making the class far more engaging and interesting to play, because it would open up a lot more options instead of always going Trickery.

Trickery's traitline itself wouldn't be imbalanced either, since the +15% regeneration of initiative is still a pretty hefty passive bonus, along with rewarding you for actually spending initiative that other traitlines don't do.

Please show me where Trickery says it passively increases initiative regeneration by 15%.

double post

@Aplier.7829 said:

@Lyros.4673 said:I would honestly, hardly call it power creep. The traitline by default includes faster initiative regeneration ON TOP OF boosting baseline initiative. Initiative is tied to all the important weapon skills for Thief, which are obviously its main toolset. However, I've often found myself limited in builds because NOT taking this spec-tree literally means doing less actions or skills. In other words, you're literally just playing your class LESS. Having that +3 initiative would go miles into making the class far more engaging and interesting to play, because it would open up a lot more options instead of always going Trickery.

Trickery's traitline itself wouldn't be imbalanced either, since the +15% regeneration of initiative is still a pretty hefty passive bonus, along with rewarding you for actually spending initiative that other traitlines don't do.

Was going to say the same. Initiative regeneration is not affected by Trickery innately; Klepto provides initiative, but per unit of time, SA and Acro alone provide way more, and Klepto is < 10% uptime except on DE on-kill or Acro S/D when combined with Trickery.

In an ideal world, trait lines would have more nuanced means to recover roughly the same amount of initiative per unit of time catering to specific styles of play, and the need to ask for powercreep like +3 base initiative would just be reduced instead.

Guess I am the only 1 who doesn't take trickery for the +3. bountiful theft and slight of hand is why I take it, though I guess it COULD help some builds out that don't take trickery.

I would probably just use Vault more often and get more dps by it. Looks like an easy dps increase without major side effects, so why not? We do not enough damage anyway.

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

To my build it would be power creep. A bigger initiative pool is very useful and even class defining in a lot of ways.

Now, you don’t have to take Trickery (I don’t) but the margin for error is lower. You have less initiative to spare for safety and missing a target.

That said, you might be able to reduce the overall effect, make that lower amount baseline and replace it with something less obligatory but still useful. Which is why I asked about alternatives.

For example, the baseline initiative goes to 13 or 14 and the trait could instead be something like: gain protection when entering combat for 2 seconds.

Playing thief just isn't the same without those +3. It totally hampers the synergy and flow of the class. I've been playing Thief almost exclusively since pre-release and like many have pointed, the number of builds this could open in great. As for the replacement, we could get anything, really. I'm sure the devs have lots of ideas to implement. Just no more passives.

Trickery in general is pretty essential for the initiative, cooldown, daze, lead attack damage, and boon rip/condi clear for tricks. I would still say it would be still be taken in most builds even if +3 init was made available, but it would make different builds more viable.

What they change preparedness to will determine if the change even matters, since you could still go your normal build with trickery and get a straight up buff.

@saerni.2584 said:For example, the baseline initiative goes to 13 or 14 and the trait could instead be something like: gain protection when entering combat for 2 seconds.

Now i do think they should make the change meaningful, but thieves do not need to be more difficult to kill, they need to become better at killing.

That's my main reasoning behind being concerned with powercreep; Trickery will still be taken for nearly every build that utilizes it because of various other traits giving a ton of bonuses across the board. By making preparedness baseline, you simply just end up with these builds objectively being stronger in the end. Trickery really only becomes super mandatory in builds emphasizing offense because SA and Acro both offer plenty of initiative recovery, and with +3 base initiative, there become some serious concerns about powercreep to these lines as well.

If the primary concern is to increase build diversity, other lines having initiative resources is probably the way to go; dropping Trickery in favor of something else means a loss in something somewhere (damage from LA, steal cooldown reduction/CC, Boon theft or extra cleanses on Trickster, etc.) which changes playstyle.

As the implications for baseline Preparedness are really big. Things like DA/CS/DrD would have no initiative problems and cause the thief to hit harder in melee and be more elusive in combat than right now. SA deadeye would have the ability to spam more skills when exiting stealth = more damage/utility. The list goes on and on.

Even still, I think the larger problem at hand is the initiative cost disparities between skills and the relation in power between initiative costs and the other-class power per skill due to powercreep. The game was originally balanced with 12 initiative in mind, and for a long time, it was enough. Cooldowns on other classes have gotten lower, but a number of initiative costs on skills have not changed (increased or decreased as these skills have been buffed or nerfed, respectively).

It's a pretty precarious situation, but yet again, the problem lies in overarching powercreep on every profession rather than the thief being designed to be too weak.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:That's my main reasoning behind being concerned with powercreep; Trickery will still be taken for nearly every build that utilizes it because of various other traits giving a ton of bonuses across the board. By making preparedness baseline, you simply just end up with these builds objectively being stronger in the end. Trickery really only becomes super mandatory in builds emphasizing offense because SA and Acro both offer plenty of initiative recovery, and with +3 base initiative, there become some serious concerns about powercreep to these lines as well.

If the primary concern is to increase build diversity, other lines having initiative resources is probably the way to go; dropping Trickery in favor of something else means a loss in something somewhere (damage from LA, steal cooldown reduction/CC, Boon theft or extra cleanses on Trickster, etc.) which changes playstyle.

As the implications for baseline Preparedness are really big. Things like DA/CS/DrD would have no initiative problems and cause the thief to hit harder in melee and be more elusive in combat than right now. SA deadeye would have the ability to spam more skills when exiting stealth = more damage/utility. The list goes on and on.

Even still, I think the larger problem at hand is the initiative cost disparities between skills and the relation in power between initiative costs and the other-class power per skill due to powercreep. The game was originally balanced with 12 initiative in mind, and for a long time, it was enough. Cooldowns on other classes have gotten lower, but a number of initiative costs on skills have not changed (increased or decreased as these skills have been buffed or nerfed, respectively).

It's a pretty precarious situation, but yet again, the problem lies in overarching powercreep on every profession rather than the thief being designed to be too weak.

To be honest the biggest compelling reason I can see for making it baseline is that it would enable for better balancing of skills by initiative cost. Right now preparedness gives a 25% increase in resource pool, it doesn’t sound like much but it allows for a greater expenditure but also less waste of regenerating initiative. On the other hand it is power creep and this kind of change constantly happening is what’s led to the clusterfudge of a balance situation we have now.

Still I think it should be either baseline or not in the game as a trait like preparedness makes balancing through initiative cost much harder to achieve without making a trait line mandatory.

Not really; if you make it baseline, you still end up with lines like SA and Acro giving lots of extra initiative while giving thieves higher base initiative and the option to simply take other lines than Trickery on top of the aforementioned two for either more/similar damage, or more defense without any initiative woes.

In an ideal world, initiative bumps/increases in-combat would be much more nuanced to allow the thief through creative play to have a little bit better sustained presence, preparedness could get removed entirely all lines get access to initiative on minor traits via certain conditions which are conducive to playstyle, and initiative costs could be reworked with these in mind.

Something like how the old Infusion of Shadow in SA was clever and supported a specific style of play. Obviously not workable today and that specific implementation has its share of problems, but the general idea is there.

Just adding more and more baseline onto classes is typically a recipe for disaster. There are only a few such examples that I think really need some baseline bumps, and it's pretty much all on the reaper due to the LF/SR changes which made the spec hard-counter itself.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Not really; if you make it baseline, you still end up with lines like SA and Acro giving lots of extra initiative while giving thieves higher base initiative and the option to simply take other lines than Trickery on top of the aforementioned two for either more/similar damage, or more defense without any initiative woes.

In an ideal world, initiative bumps/increases in-combat would be much more nuanced to allow the thief through creative play to have a little bit better sustained presence, preparedness could get removed entirely all lines get access to initiative on minor traits via certain conditions which are conducive to playstyle, and initiative costs could be reworked with these in mind.

Something like how the old Infusion of Shadow in SA was clever and supported a specific style of play. Obviously not workable today and that specific implementation has its share of problems, but the general idea is there.

Just adding more and more baseline onto classes is typically a recipe for disaster. There are only a few such examples that I think really need some baseline bumps, and it's pretty much all on the reaper due to the LF/SR changes which made the spec hard-counter itself.

I honestly think you have a good point. But the ini reg in other lines is not as effective and can also be used in conjunction with Trickery right now anyways.Currently a Thief can go for SA, TR and Acro and still have a bigger ini pool + ini regeneration. But let's say the trait becomes baseline. What would be the worst combination? DA, Acro and CS? Not much of a powercreep there. Essentially since the uses of CS vs Tr are very different, you could actually select CS for increased dmg or Tr for bs/utility.

@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.

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"MakubeC.3026" said:This simple change would make so many builds available for play you won't even believe it.

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.

@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.

These lines are already being utilized by DE (SA) and S/D Core (Acro) in a lot of builds already, though.SA DE often already opts out of Trickery entirely because of SA. Part of the problem with Acro is it only behaves well with weapons with lots of evasion, and only one of the kits (in core) which can utilize it is really any good (S/D). CS... CS struggles because it just brings absolutely no utility anywhere, and utility is a big deal right now for the thief in terms of staying alive. Sacrificing any of the damage options proves to be a waste when outside of PvE, DA is better for aggressive healing and damage via Mug in comparison to IP on CS, the signet trait is just garbage, Trickery is necessary for aggressive builds to function in order to maintain pressure or disengage, and SA, Acro, and DrD are obviously superior for sustain.

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. I'm still going to take it for the on-demand fury/swiftness, the 15% bonus damage, the boon theft or condition cleansing,the initiative gained every time I steal (imperative for S/D core Acro), and the overall steal cooldown reduction, because 30s base steal cooldown is 50% longer than Tr + SoH which will affect things like Hidden Thief running non-DE, anything Daredevil for Endurance Thief, DA for Mug and utility skill resets, etc.

So in the end, it ends up really just being powercreep for the sake of powercreep in most builds. It buffs the bottom-tier builds by just buffing the thief outright. It's like arguing giving the thief more base HP will make unused trait lines better; it will relative to the rest of the game outside of the thief, but it won't make them any better relative to the builds within the thief itself. It only really starts to open other possibilities when making the line basically pointless via everything being baseline (massive power creep) or over-redundancy.

It's a really tough trait to balance and I think the necessary changes require a lot more work in other under-utilized lines, as well as changes to weapons to better-balance them.

@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.

CS is superior to MUG for heals. I am not sure where you get the notion Mug has a better "aggressive heal" as the IP heal on all the time any one of which can heal more then using a mug. The difference is when IP taken for the heal damage and Fury access given up whereas choosing mug does not impact the damage bonuses available in the line.

If TR dropped CS provides a ready Fury source as well as might stacking but again, the issue is the tradeoffs. DA's advantage lies in the ability to take a given build and make a wider range of choices so as to make that build work no matter the weapons used or the style used. IE in a condition build CS is of little use and at every slot in DA there two choices that can make a condition build work. In a condition build weakness access is of benefit. The poison access works tremendously well yet BOTH of these traits help power as well and a power build has more choices each slot as well.

CS does not necessarily need more utility albeit that one solution. What it needs is a better ability to be used by all weapon sets and both damage types. In this way it a lot like ACRO wherein only specific weapon sets work well with it. CS Is close but I think the Signet trait, the sundering trait and the Ankle shot traits need a rethink. Sundering and Ankle shots really do not do any more then practiced tolerance . Even if in pistols there little reason to take Ankle shots over practiced tolerance just as example meaning no matter the weaponset there just one choice .

SO I would suggest just as example , that old trait that gave INI on a crit with a cooldown put in place of Ankle shots as example be restored, Sundering be made much better at stacking Vuln and better passive adds to the Signet trait over "on kill" that currently exist. (Perhaps some sort of bonus to a Given Stat per signet traited as in if SOM your heal and you have this trait you get 200 added heal power , if Signet of shadows equipped you get added Condition damage, Infiltrators you get added Vitality and so on)

@babazhook.6805 said:

@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.

CS heal might be superior consistently but Mug and all the stuff I loaded into it is happening right now and that's what will save you if you get pulled into a bunch of circles so you can bounce out. Plus Mug can convert an oh -shit moment into a fresh opportunity for your group/squad to clean up on but I might want IP in a big smc three way or something where I know it's going to be more peeling in directions than in-and-out stuff.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:So in the end, it ends up really just being powercreep for the sake of powercreep in most builds. It buffs the bottom-tier builds by just buffing the thief outright. It's like arguing giving the thief more base HP will make unused trait lines better; it will relative to the rest of the game outside of the thief, but it won't make them any better relative to the builds within the thief itself. It only really starts to open other possibilities when making the line basically pointless via everything being baseline (massive power creep) or over-redundancy.

I think this in an awful simplification of the matter. And overlapping isn't really a valid argument from a design standpoint, since each trait line should have its own use. The thing right now is that TR is a master of all.I honestly don't have the time to get into a too detailed reply war here, but maybe this thread has gotten enough track as to have a dev review it and analyze its implications.

@"MakubeC.3026" said:This simple change would make so many builds available for play you won't even believe it.Every build since forever seems to orbit around this line and that doesn't feel right.Please through-fully explored this option.https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Preparedness

I actually agree with this.

They did something similair with mesmer by making the shatter trait baseline, why not initiative for thieves.To replace the trait, add an passive initiative regen or endurance regen minor.With this being baseline though do not be surprised if Anet starts raising the cost of skills in the name of :airquotes: balance :endairquotes:

@babazhook.6805 said:

@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.

It takes 13333 outgoing damage for IP to start outweighing Mug. While absolutely doable in the scope of a fight, one of the biggest issues with every power thief build right now except for S/D is damage inconsistency; Mug's heal works regardless of if the attack lands or any damage is dealt, and the weakness application DA gives makes commitment a hell of a lot safer by negating incoming damage which makes the effective health gained per unit of time relative to the likely amount taken quite considerable. While CS/IP can out-heal DA/Mug, it often realistically just doesn't, and for a full-offense line, it just isn't rewarding enough when considering the damage/utility gains from DA typically beating out CS's outside of PvE or very long encounters where the thief can attack with relative impunity, which is rare. It's also worth noting, it takes dealing 13333 damage to just out-heal Mug numerically; in this timeframe, a CS thief cannot depend on the heal to survive, because if he does, Mug wins at the sustain game if measured per-damage received and not as per-damage dealt.

CS's fury access is strictly worse than Trickery's in most builds; the line becomes entirely dependent on NQ to give it more uptime than Trickery running SoH (which nearly everyone runs as it is for the steal CDR), and Unrelenting Strikes has a shorter duration which is counter-intuitive to how most power-built thieves need to play to stay alive (especially when not gaining utility from SA), all the while not being on-demand; like the IP issue mentioned above, Unrelenting only works when your foe is brought to a point to proc it. Its short duration also makes it relatively useless if brought into encounters with invulns etc.; the duration is usually around as long as (or in a number of cases, shorter than) most immunities.

The last bit kind of demonstrates my point, though. A lot of lines need a lot of tweaking and possibly some overhauls to make baseline preparedness really achieve the goal of making the thief more consistent and opening up its lesser-used lines. Trickery's dominance isn't just restricted to Preparedness, and being generally against powercreep, including the classes I play, I just don't see the change doing much as far as making lesser-used lines more viable as far as the thief goes. The problems are sourced deeper.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@babazhook.6805 said:

@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.

Mug works once every 21 seconds. IP is working all the time. Realistically it always outheals mug. There is no cooldown on IP. You are NOT doing only 13000 damage in 21 seconds. if you are doing only 13000 damage in 21 seconds you better roll up another class because you are never going to win a fight. I really do not see where the IP heal is not considered "on demand". Anytime I want it I just attack and get it as opposed to MUG where it on cooldown for 20 some seconds. That is not "on demand".

As to CS take boon duration. You do not have to kick it up a lot if you get 16 percent from Acro. Those 4 seconds from Unrelenting and 2 seconds from No quarter are a very different kettle of fish when it becomes 6 and 3. Very niche to be sure but I already suggested that CS needs a few tweaks to open up more builds wherein TR can be dropped.

An added advantage is that with boon theft or corruption, if you rely on TOTC you are not getting that Fury unil your next steal whereas with CS you can reapply it in half the time (unrelenting is a 10 second ICD versus 21).