Rune of Initiative

[AikijinX.6258]

Just throwing this out there. Since Anet seems to want to simultaneously reduce dmg as well as increase initiative cost on weapon skills with this recent balance patch. Which historically isn’t a new thing. A community complains enough and then anet feels obligated or compelled to oblige and hand out the nerfs. However It always seem to involve Thief Initiative and without any trade offs too. (better initiative generation and gain.)
 

So this is just a shot in the dark. What would you guys say if there was a rune for initiative. It was just in my mind and I wanted to write a thread on it. I’m just curious what you guys think the rune’s 1-6 piece should be? Whether it’s  Power, Condi, Vitality, etc. What would your 6th piece be? I’m just curious. I know this rune would NEVER come to fruition. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

Probably all stats, like divinity and traveler runes. That way it's not bound to a particular build. So ideally, something like:

 

8 to all stats

+1 ini regen per 10s

12 to all stats

+1 ini regen per 10s

16 to all stats

25% movement speed; Gain 1 initiative when striking with a sneak attack

 

All utility, so you'd have the trade off of worse damage. But the extra ini opens up builds that take two damage lines etc. 

 

Edit: Changed the 6th bonus from 2 to 1 ini regen on sneak attack

Edited May 25, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[AikijinX.6258]

47 minutes ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Probably all stats, like divinity and traveler runes. That way it's not bound to a particular build. So ideally, something like:

 

8 to all stats

+1 ini regen per 10s

12 to all stats

+1 ini regen per 10s

16 to all stats

25% movement speed; Gain 2 initiative when striking with a sneak attack

 

All utility, so you'd have the trade off of worse damage. But the extra ini opens up builds that take two damage lines etc. 

Yeah I totally like that idea. When I was writing this I was also thinking more like a utility type of rune set. It definitely couldn’t be overbearingly broken with absurd amounts of power/condi but I was still curious what others would have concocted. Maybe the 4th bonus instead of 10s be reduced to 5s from your suggestion, or would that be too much you think?

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

40 minutes ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

Yeah I totally like that idea. When I was writing this I was also thinking more like a utility type of rune set. It definitely couldn’t be overbearingly broken with absurd amounts of power/condi but I was still curious what others would have concocted. Maybe the 4th bonus instead of 10s be reduced to 5s from your suggestion, or would that be too much you think?

 

Well, look at how it would work on a standard build, let's take SA D/P daredevil. Trickery gives 2 ini on steal, thats 1 ini every 9ish seconds with slight of hand. You get 1 ini every 10s from infiltrator's signet, so add that to shadow rejuvenation giving 3 every 9 seconds, and you got 5 ini regen every 9-10 seconds. Now look at the rune. You can land two sneak attacks in 10 seconds pretty easily, so that's 4 ini regen in 10s, so with the bonuses as they are that's already 6 ini regen per 10s. If you took the rune with trickery and shadow arts, you'd get 11 ini regen per 10s, plus the baseline regen so 21 ini. Any more would be broken IMO, if anything it could probably do with a bit less, probably taking the sneak attack bonus to 1 ini would be better. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[DeceiverX.8361]

Disagree.  Putting the onus on fixing broken mechanics--especially class-specific ones--on gear is the exact mentality of how we got here in the first place.  Many such nerfs are rooted in problems other than where the symptoms manifest; it makes little sense to buff those symptoms while also not addressing the roots of the many problems thief has.

 

More of the same isn't going to fix the thief or improve its playability.  No other professions get what's basically global weapon skill cooldown runes, either.  At that point, just reduce the initiative costs, which generally is still addressing symptoms to root problems unless other changes are made in addition to the very imbalanced dynamics in thief's weapon sets and specific builds relative to others when comparing performance across various game modes.

 

Initiative over time is also generally just a really bad idea when sustained stealth and high burst mobility exists.  It encourages the same problematic gameplay patterns of people using their skills to deliberately NOT interact with their opponents rather than the other way around.  This is one of the fundamental problems with thief as a whole, and why the initiative costs got increased in the first place.

 

Until ANet makes massive changes to how the thief needs to/can approach combat (Hint: They never will, because that'd be a lot of work be fun for everyone in the PvP modes with minimal to no PvE impact), no surface-level changes like these addressing symptoms are going to matter or not be followed up almost immediately by more nerfs, negatively-impacting more builds.

[FelsPinguin.5902]

Nice Idea but it will never happen, since every rune can be used by multiple classes. Most runes do not make sense if used with another class, but in theory they could be. This is because runes connect to skill categories like heal Skill, Elite, Trap, Well, finishers, etc. and not to profession mechanics.

 

Your suggestion would in contrast be Thief only.

Edited May 26, 2021 by FelsPinguin.5902

[Dadnir.5038]

I think it's better to keep thing neutral.

 

Runes of initiative:

1. +8 to all attributes.
2. +10% alacrity duration.
3. +12 to all attributes.
4. +20% alacrity duration.
5. +16 to all attributes.
6. After completing a shadowstep/teleport gain alacrity (3s).

If ANet want to keep in check the weapon skills, why not aim the runes effects at the utility skills?

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Ummm or they could just stop being lazy and not just continually use increases to ini costs as a lazy way to nerf thief. Honestly with thief being as reliant on Preparedness as it has been for last couple yrs the fact these devs keep increasing ini costs while making empty comments about increasing build diversity makes me really reconsider whether I want to support this game any further, almost have 0 hype for EoD due to their lack of competence.

The 1 ini increase on repeater isn't gonna be felt really hard but its the fact that of course that's part of how they decided to nerf it. 

The current dev team is a joke.

 To the op, trying to fix a issue within a class by introducing a external item (rune) to patch its issues is not a great approach, although a new rune called replace ur balance devs would probably be a great addition and improve the over all health of the game.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Psycoprophet.8107

[TwiceDead.1963]

This is really just a terrible idea.

Why would you want gear to act as bandaids for your classes shortcomings? This has to stop, just lower the initiative cost and tweak values appropriately instead of the lazy approach that is locking out the entire thiefs weapon arsenal after one or two skill usages.

 

Tried playing Thief without Trickery or Deadeye lately. Good lord I feel like I am sitting there with 5 second cooldowns on every weapon skill after doing what amounts to nothing.

 

What they really have to do is unbloat the D/P combo and make thief less reliant on shortbow to survive, then we can start untangling the mess thief is in. I would like to remove the stealth on dodge thing Deadeye got going for it too, but that'll never happen.

 

Basically just nerf thief into the ground and build it up from there. Just pile on the suffering. It'll be good, I promise!

[AikijinX.6258]

Thanks for the responses guys, I do appreciate the interaction. Just like you guys I believe in the reverting or atleast lowering down of ini cost to weapons. This would be beneficial to the class and I am hoping Anet will wise up and see that this class is based around a resource that is heavily neutered at this point.
 

Build diversity is definitely lacking. I remember when people used to run shortbow builds, some builds were memey acrobatic evasive builds and others were very strong with their cluster bomb DPS and mobility, but now with this ini cost increase using anything but auto attack is super cumbersome. I remember when D/D power was also a thing and yes I do understand Shadow arts was GM was alot stronger but there was build diversity. It wasn’t just D/P meta (although D/P has always been meta historically) and the very reason some thieves (not saying all, and definitely not supporting the play style) but some camp stealth to recover initiative.

 

I wonder what crazy builds would sprout if Anet gave like 50% or 75% faster ini regeneration when Thieves don’t take Trickery line. I again know it’ll NEVER happen but it just makes me wonder if they’ve ever thought about giving (non trickery core thieves)  faster ini recovery generation.

Edited May 26, 2021 by AikijinX.6258

[Choppy.4183]

The changes to initiative are being used as a throttle on the class. To the extent that they want to provide trade offs to gain faster initiative gain, they'll do that in trait or skill options as they always have.

 

Class specific gear just doesn't make sense, and I'm not sure if there's any gear out there that provides an exclusive benefit to one class (is there?). Even the pet requirement on Rune of the Ranger triggers off of anything summoned, plus minis, iirc.

 

It also seems counterintuitive. If initiative demands force people to choose traits and skills to feed the beast, thereby lowering build diversity, wouldn't it make more sense to remove those options to increase initiative altogether and then reduce initiative cost across the board?

 

This seems a lot like the warrior dilemma of Fast Hands, which forces just about every build to take the Discipline line. The class derives a bunch of benefits from weapon swap, it's been balanced (or gutted, depending on persepctive) accounting for warriors having those benefits, making most other choices nonviable (or at least suboptimal) in most cases. The result is less build diversity.

[DeceiverX.8361]

12 hours ago, AikijinX.6258 said:

Thanks for the responses guys, I do appreciate the interaction. Just like you guys I believe in the reverting or atleast lowering down of ini cost to weapons. This would be beneficial to the class and I am hoping Anet will wise up and see that this class is based around a resource that is heavily neutered at this point.
 

Build diversity is definitely lacking. I remember when people used to run shortbow builds, some builds were memey acrobatic evasive builds and others were very strong with their cluster bomb DPS and mobility, but now with this ini cost increase using anything but auto attack is super cumbersome. I remember when D/D power was also a thing and yes I do understand Shadow arts was GM was alot stronger but there was build diversity. It wasn’t just D/P meta (although D/P has always been meta historically) and the very reason some thieves (not saying all, and definitely not supporting the play style) but some camp stealth to recover initiative.

 

I wonder what crazy builds would sprout if Anet gave like 50% or 75% faster ini regeneration when Thieves don’t take Trickery line. I again know it’ll NEVER happen but it just makes me wonder if they’ve ever thought about giving (non trickery core thieves)  faster ini recovery generation.

 

Crit Strikes used to have initiative recovery on critical hit way back in the day.  Between that trait and initiative on stealth from SA, a lot of thieves didn't run Trickery.  Honestly, this was the best thing ANet has come towards rewarding thieves to keep attacking/stay in combat in terms of providing resources.

 

Of course, this was busted (mostly due to the SA trait), as SA+CS enabled permanent capped initiative on D/P stealth builds.

 

Fundamentally, most of thief's problems are ANet designing almost all of the class's power around defensive mechanics (stealth, mobility, and evasion) to avoid combat rather than enable aggression and good spacing/kiting (see: light armor classes) or more simply, people not having to downright flee combat every time something goes wrong.  It's mostly why people think it's OP/annoying; frankly, the design is of the class has been deliberately shaped to be not fun to play against, with the best builds being the least interactive.

Edited May 27, 2021 by DeceiverX.8361

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

On 5/26/2021 at 4:04 AM, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Disagree.  Putting the onus on fixing broken mechanics--especially class-specific ones--on gear is the exact mentality of how we got here in the first place.  Many such nerfs are rooted in problems other than where the symptoms manifest; it makes little sense to buff those symptoms while also not addressing the roots of the many problems thief has.

 

More of the same isn't going to fix the thief or improve its playability.  No other professions get what's basically global weapon skill cooldown runes, either.  At that point, just reduce the initiative costs, which generally is still addressing symptoms to root problems unless other changes are made in addition to the very imbalanced dynamics in thief's weapon sets and specific builds relative to others when comparing performance across various game modes.

 

Initiative over time is also generally just a really bad idea when sustained stealth and high burst mobility exists.  It encourages the same problematic gameplay patterns of people using their skills to deliberately NOT interact with their opponents rather than the other way around.  This is one of the fundamental problems with thief as a whole, and why the initiative costs got increased in the first place.

 

Until ANet makes massive changes to how the thief needs to/can approach combat (Hint: They never will, because that'd be a lot of work be fun for everyone in the PvP modes with minimal to no PvE impact), no surface-level changes like these addressing symptoms are going to matter or not be followed up almost immediately by more nerfs, negatively-impacting more builds.

 

I don't really disagree with anything you or others below you have written, tbh I just found it entertaining to imagine what the rune might look like. Like Aki said this will never happen for many of the reasons you've listed, but it does serve to show that there is an elephant in the room called Preparedness in the build diversity discussion, and the devs seem really determined to not see it. 

[kash.9213]

1 hour ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

 

I don't really disagree with anything you or others below you have written, tbh I just found it entertaining to imagine what the rune might look like. Like Aki said this will never happen for many of the reasons you've listed, but it does serve to show that there is an elephant in the room called Preparedness in the build diversity discussion, and the devs seem really determined to not see it. 

It's still worth discussing anyway since the details would have to be considered if there were ever a trait/skills change to address how our resource use determines our momentum. It will have to happen at some point to free up Initiative to repair the fluidity of our skill use. 

Edited May 27, 2021 by kash.9213

[AikijinX.6258]

19 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

 

Crit Strikes used to have initiative recovery on critical hit way back in the day.  Between that trait and initiative on stealth from SA, a lot of thieves didn't run Trickery.  Honestly, this was the best thing ANet has come towards rewarding thieves to keep attacking/stay in combat in terms of providing resources.

 

Of course, this was busted (mostly due to the SA trait), as SA+CS enabled permanent capped initiative on D/P stealth builds.

 

Fundamentally, most of thief's problems are ANet designing almost all of the class's power around defensive mechanics (stealth, mobility, and evasion) to avoid combat rather than enable aggression and good spacing/kiting (see: light armor classes) or more simply, people not having to downright flee combat every time something goes wrong.  It's mostly why people think it's OP/annoying; frankly, the design is of the class has been deliberately shaped to be not fun to play against, with the best builds being the least interactive.

Yes I remember the good ole days with CS and initiative on crit. That was most definitely abused, but at this point now with how they changed Shadow rejuv, I think it’s okay to bring that back. Ugh. That would bring some nice theory crafting with build which involve S/X. Honestly if they brought back that trait, a lot of our current issues with preparedness would cease to exist. ( Not saying that it would completely nullify the issue ) It definitely was a strong and utility bound trait. I really hope they give us back some type of resource to generate initiative, or just in general revert those absurd and expensive initiative costs.
 

Edited May 27, 2021 by AikijinX.6258