[THIEF] Spear Skills

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I think each Elite Spec should have their own built in bonus ini-regen system.

Want more initiative on Deadeye? We just take M7 currently...

Want more ini on Daredevil? I feel like "Upper Hand" (ini from dodging) should've been built into it somewhere instead of putting it into Acrobatics. It makes more sense as a Daredevil trait. Could also just replace our pseudo-deleted "Pulmonary Impact" trait with it. I still believe Acrobatics should have been Quickness/Superspeed/Alacrity support focused but they'd need to change their "design philosophy" for base classes.

Want more ini for Specter? Honestly I feel like "Quick Pockets" (ini from weapon swap) shouldn't exist in Trickery at all and Specter should get a minor trait like it instead of "Rotweiler Venom" being there. Reward Specters for being able to stay in Shroud longer than 2 seconds without it being bursted away by giving them faster ini regen while in it... and non-condi Specter builds~ if to ever exist~ wouldn't have venoms forced onto them. Instead it'd be something that benefitted all builds.

I think spectre's is basically "you can switch to shroud while initiative recharges". The problem is that they were punished for that by having a reduced base initiative, rather than simply being the opportunity cost of not having another initiative regen system. Bringing them back up to the same max initiative as other thieves would probably go a long way.

[Zacchary.6183]

12 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

I think each Elite Spec should have their own built in bonus ini-regen system.

Want more initiative on Deadeye? We just take M7 currently...

Want more ini on Daredevil? I feel like "Upper Hand" (ini from dodging) should've been built into it somewhere instead of putting it into Acrobatics. It makes more sense as a Daredevil trait. Could also just replace our pseudo-deleted "Pulmonary Impact" trait with it. I still believe Acrobatics should have been Quickness/Superspeed/Alacrity support focused but they'd need to change their "design philosophy" for base classes.

Want more ini for Specter? Honestly I feel like "Quick Pockets" (ini from weapon swap) shouldn't exist in Trickery at all and Specter should get a minor trait like it instead of "Rotweiler Venom" being there. Reward Specters for being able to stay in Shroud longer than 2 seconds without it being bursted away by giving them faster ini regen while in it... and non-condi Specter builds~ if to ever exist~ wouldn't have venoms forced onto them. Instead it'd be something that benefitted all builds.

This is a very good idea and I hope anet sees it. Can't say how often Upper Hand and Quick Pockets are used but I know I have not touched either of them for a long while.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think spectre's is basically "you can switch to shroud while initiative recharges". The problem is that they were punished for that by having a reduced base initiative, rather than simply being the opportunity cost of not having another initiative regen system. Bringing them back up to the same max initiative as other thieves would probably go a long way.

Then they were punished for tanking with shroud to regen init too ☠️

[kash.9213]

4 hours ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

This is a very good idea and I hope anet sees it. Can't say how often Upper Hand and Quick Pockets are used but I know I have not touched either of them for a long while.

I take Upper Hand on main Specter template to work with a couple of other things, but I also don't really need the other two traits. I also took Hard to Catch since I'm already using a number of Shadowsteps regularly anyway, and as long as I'm doing that, I also took Pumping up. I notice the Initiative return modifier working more since it's part of the device of that build so I'm always doing quick head math, but I wouldn't notice it on other templates, and that might be due to my pace and decision making on other templates not allowing it to be a factor.

Upper Hand at least is more noticeable now that they've included Dodge. I'm not sure I'd take an Initiative Return trait in Specter line if there was one since my other templates aren't playing around the feedback loop gimmick. 

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

On 7/1/2024 at 4:15 PM, Zacchary.6183 said:

This is a very good idea and I hope anet sees it. Can't say how often Upper Hand and Quick Pockets are used but I know I have not touched either of them for a long while.

Quick Pockets sees some use in WvW on double staff builds for group play, but outside of that, cele dual pistol roamer and PvE spectre I can't think of many instances it's used where Slight of Hand wouldn't be a generally better pick. If they moved it to spectre and also made the +3 initiative from Preparedness baseline they could keep the -3 ini penalty to spectre and massively increase it's build diversity by not forcing trickery just for ini management.

I personally think that this will never happen though, as I'm convinced they WANT spectre to be extremely limited trait wise in order to keep it in check balance wise. Which is a bad choice imo, but looking at the change history I can't help but feel that that is what they're doing.