How to solve the initiative spamming nature of Thief's skills

[FrancisN.9276]

As a thief main, I am sure that everyone of us has gone through this problem on many thief builds. Playing a power dps Deadeye? Kneel and and spam rifle 3, repeat until target dies or you do. Playing power dps Daredevil? Bound and spam staff 2. Playing condi dps dagger/dagger Deadeye or Daredevil? Spam dagger/dagger 3. Playing condi dps Specter? Spam scepter/dagger 3. Playing alac healer Specter or quick healer Deadeye? Spam scepter/pistol 3... Though Initiative is a great system that gives a lot of gameplay freedom, it also engenders a spammy type of gameplay, leading to devs nerfing skills with good initiative value in the name of PvP balancing (looking at initiative cost for rifle 3, rifle 4, shortbow 5,... in PvP and WvW mode). Therefore, I have a suggestion to fix Thief profession in general (for core and all 3 especs): make all Thief's weapon skills Sequence Skills (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sequence_skill)

Sequence Skills prevent spamming a single skill time and time again, leading to 3 gameplay outcomes:

1. Thief cannot just spam the most cost-effective skill over and over again.

2. No more abusing a single skill's effect, making it easier for devs to balance the number in the future.

3. Spicing up gameplay, so Thief has to go over several skills in a fight, even for PvE fights, to make playing Thief more interesting while retaining the freedom of the Initiative system.

The downside is that, of course, devs have to put a Sequence Skill for every existing Thief weapon skills, which is A LOT of work. However, "a lot of work" right now for a whole lot less work in the future seems worth it unless they do not intend for the lifespan of this game to be much longer into the future. What do you think?

Edit: Okay, I looked at Ranger's pet revamp in Nov 28 patch and that is A LOT of work. If devs can spare the same amount of commitment to fix Thief as they had for Ranger, my suggestion can certainly be made possible.

Edited November 3, 2023 by FrancisN.9276

[Zacchary.6183]

A few Anet devs should actually main the profession and not fire anyone who does so they can figure it out for themselves.

EDIT: They could also just revamp the entire profession into something that's fun to play and easier to balance.

Edited November 3, 2023 by Zacchary.6183

[kash.9213]

You don't have to spam anything. Specter especially has options depending on the need or opportunity. 

Anet can adjust something more appropriate than Initiative. If you got your Sequence system, they'd be hostile towards that.

Right now, if you're alert and deliberate, you're going to be a difficult one to figure out and you're in control of your resource pool budget. Or the other players will have to at least be as alert and making deliberate decisions. I wouldn't want to be locked into a Sequence and not have what I need and budgeted for when I need to answer something. I also wouldn't want to be that trackable and apparent. 

It would be interesting to fit Sequences in somehow though as an option, kind of like crafting a skill combo or weave sequence. 

Edited November 3, 2023 by kash.9213

[Bern.9613]

15 hours ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

As a thief main, I am sure that everyone of us has gone through this problem on many thief builds. Playing a power dps Deadeye? Kneel and and spam rifle 3, repeat until target dies or you do. Playing power dps Daredevil? Bound and spam staff 2. Playing condi dps dagger/dagger Deadeye or Daredevil? Spam dagger/dagger 3. Playing condi dps Specter? Spam scepter/dagger 3. Playing alac healer Specter or quick healer Deadeye? Spam scepter/pistol 3... Though Initiative is a great system that gives a lot of gameplay freedom, it also engenders a spammy type of gameplay, leading to devs nerfing skills with good initiative value in the name of PvP balancing (looking at initiative cost for rifle 3, rifle 4, shortbow 5,... in PvP and WvW mode). Therefore, I have a suggestion to fix Thief profession in general (for core and all 3 especs): make all Thief's weapon skills Sequence Skills (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sequence_skill)

Sequence Skills prevent spamming a single skill time and time again, leading to 3 gameplay outcomes:

1. Thief cannot just spam the most cost-effective skill over and over again.

2. No more abusing a single skill's effect, making it easier for devs to balance the number in the future.

3. Spicing up gameplay, so Thief has to go over several skills in a fight, even for PvE fights, to make playing Thief more interesting while retaining the freedom of the Initiative system.

The downside is that, of course, devs have to put a Sequence Skill for every existing Thief weapon skills, which is A LOT of work. However, "a lot of work" right now for a whole lot less work in the future seems worth it unless they do not intend for the lifespan of this game to be much longer into the future. What do you think?

Edit: Okay, I looked at Ranger's pet revamp in Nov 28 patch and that is A LOT of work. If devs can spare the same amount of commitment to fix Thief as they had for Ranger, my suggestion can certainly be made possible.

What I see you asking for is to get rid of thief. The initiative system is uniquely thief. If a player is spamming, they will eventually be punished for it. From your examples of skill spamming, I see you are strictly pve. ANet has already decreased the power and increased the cost of initiative in competitive modes to the point of spamming 3 uses of any skill will then leave you hanging your *** in the wind waiting for initiative regen. Maybe they should mimic the energy system of revenant. Low cd on weapon skills, higher power output, quicker energy regen with traits and/or weapon use, special utilities depending on specialization. This way the thief can use more weapon skills, have more utility skills and have at least 2 healing skills available in utilities.

[Isaac.1253]

I get OPs point.

A idea I'm having could look like this: if your next skill is a different skill that costs initiative, then reward the player. (ignoring the autoattacks ofc)

One of these maybe:

- Reduce cooldown of steal (by 0.5sec?)

- cost 1 less initiative

- if previous skill wasnt this skill, do X% more damage or increase condi duration for that skill.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Isaac.1253

[Tails.9372]

Thief is designed around the toolbox model meaning that the skills are supposed to be used when the situation calls for them (kind of how it is in fighting games). This resulting in the abilty to spam something is not an issue that needs to be solved.

However if all the player does is "hitting the same button (usually the main DPS skill) over and over again" then this is indicative of a problem with what he is fighting against as it implies that nothing really puts pressure on him and that all of his utility skills are rater useless most of the time.

[Puck.3697]

Well its simple really. 

Thief has 0 CDs and a singular resource. Abilities dont combo into one another. So theres 0 set up. 

Due to this it becomes spam whatever does the most damage for initiative cost. 

Because everything thief gets its Niche. 

Thief needs a secondary factor in its resource to expand on this approach realistically. 

Because right now every weapon has 5 attacks which 1 by default does more damage and is spammed. 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Puck.3697

[Lucinellia.9247]

On 11/3/2023 at 9:05 PM, FrancisN.9276 said:

 Playing alac healer Specter or quick healer Deadeye? Spam scepter/pistol 3... Though Initiative is a great system that gives a lot of gameplay freedom, it also engenders a spammy type of gameplay, leading to devs nerfing skills with good initiative value in the name of PvP balancing (looking at initiative cost for rifle 3, rifle 4, shortbow 5,... in PvP and WvW mode). Therefore, I have a suggestion to fix Thief profession in general (for core and all 3 especs): make all Thief's weapon skills Sequence Skills

It is minor, but I wanted to point out that this is not correct for playing current variants of Heal Thief. A heal thief wants to use their initiative wisely and this can, very legitimately, be on Ally Shadow Sap (Protection), Enemy Shadow Sap (Might), Ally Measured Shot / Endless Night (Heal, Barrier, Regeneration, Vigor), Headshot (CC), Black Powder (Blind, Potential Stealth access) depending on the situation. Enemy Measured Shot is even viable for add control in instanced PvE!

Edited November 6, 2023 by Lucinellia.9247

[Doggie.3184]

They already been trying sequence skills but their attempts have been super un-fun due to forced movement. Like even if Shadow Strike > Repeater was top DPS I don't think many would use it because it's just annoying getting self-CC'd with knockback (also annoying having to use an animation cancel gimmick to prevent it). Same with Measured Shot~ Scepter/Pistol 3 would be better if the first part of sequence was simply deleted. Staff's new sequence also sounds annoying because it's in the same boat, you're required to knock yourself back. Need more control over movement.

It sounds cool if all 5 weapon skills combo'd 3 times but with the designers we have you may not like the results.

Edited November 7, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

We need gw1 assassin offhand lead attacks and finisher type weapon skills we can swap out to have more build diversity. This would stop spamminess by locking certain skills unless conditions are met.

[Demonhead.7584]

I appreciate and second the idea of sequence skills, albeit I'd like them to be similar to gw1 dagger Sin builds

Edited November 7, 2023 by Demonhead.7584

[Sweetbread.3678]

1 hour ago, Demonhead.7584 said:

I appreciate and second the idea of sequence skills, albeit I'd like them to be similar to gw1 dagger Sin builds

Yeah its kind of crazy how much they messed up the transition of the Assassin and Mesmer playstyles from GW1 to GW2. It's weird considering how well the GW2 combat system lends itself to the Assassin's combo attack playstyle. It would've been amazing to see something like:

Weapon skill 1 is the auto-attack/filler.
Weapon skills 2-4 are combo skills. Use one and it becomes locked out, the other 3 go up a combo level and become new, more powerful skills, keep going til reaching combo level 4 for some crazy finisher and then the whole chain resets.

Instead we got the most imbalanced, gimmicky implementation of stealth ever and a WoW Rogue's energy, but none of the mechanics that would actually define any sort of rotation.

[Mhina.1827]

I've been bemoaning the spam oriented nature of the initiative system for a while myself, and I commonly run across thieves that entertain the notion that this isn't true....but reading most snowcrows benchmark guides confirm it for instanced content, and my preferred gamemodes (PvP/WvW) see us as 5 >2 +  stealth 1 bots  or shortbow cluster bomb spam until you can 5 > 2 > 1 combo. It may be a simplification that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of some. I get that the spam oriented nature of the class doesn't paint a true picture for how challenging the execution of the class can be. But as an enthusiast of the rogue/assassin/marksman archetype, I find that this is by far the most underwhelming version of the concept, but gw2's superior combat systems in terms of general movement mechanics and combat fluidity almost make up for it. 

 

Essentially, I agree, and if more thieves open their minds to this concept, we may get a class that has a far more dynamic playstyle that's easier to balance, and consequently regularly tended to by the development team. 

[Scynte.1340]

Here's a partial idea that might help with spam: all thief weapon attacks advance the skill 1 auto attack chain. The goal would be to see if you can land consistent third auto attacks among your initiative attacks.

A use case might be: 

Staff 2, 2, 1.

the uses of skill 2 would advance the auto chain. Then,  pressing 1 would give you the third attack on the auto chain, rewarding you for doing the combo with bonus damage. 

If you use your sneak attack, you could follow it up with whatever part of the auto attack chain you were on before going into stealth. You would be rewarded with a bit more burst if you can pull off a sneak attack followed immediately by the third attack in the auto chain.

Pistol and rifle could have an additional flipover skill that is accessible only if you previously used an initiative weapon skill (still superceded by stealth attack). It would flip back after 1 use. 

This might give thief more combo-oriented options to combat.

[Antycypator.9874]

You don't have to spam skills — every skill should be a different tool, like Vault is good for mobility, Dust Strike to blind mobs and avoid damage, Debilitating Arc for evade if you're good at timing. Death's Retreat is for kiting, Skirmisher's Shots to reach your target through other mobs. Death's Blossom for power thief is an extra evade. Be little more creative. It's boring only when you fight a champ in group content.