Talk:Initiative

if the thief depletes their initiative completely, all of their skills will recharge for two seconds

I have to agree with Narayanese who removed this information here. What you see in Gametrailers part 3 footage is a moa dazing the player. On the other hand, @5:53 in part 4, you can see the player reaching 0 initiative and the skills don't recharge. Chriskang 10:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe Skills recharged (2sec) because there was a Weapon Change. Feathers (Environment weapon) to Daggers Wapakalypse 10:14, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I took a look at the second lot of footage on there, and she switches weapons as she depletes her initiative - and it does look to be greyed out. I have to get the source for the two second recharge thing so I'll remove the info ftm. And yeah *facepalm*, didn't realize it was the moa's daze that was doing that.(Xu Davella 10:44, 6 March 2011 (UTC))

Look again. This girl casts Leaping Death Blossom (costs 5 ini, remains 5 ini) then naturally gains 1 ini (ini bar shows 6) then swaps weapons, and finally casts Unload (costs 6) before the skill is even in the right place. So she reaches 0 ini after the swap. And the pistol skills definitely don't recharge. Chriskang 10:56, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe Steal works like blackout, Disables skills 2 seconds? Wapakalypse 11:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Nah, you can see that little white cloud just as the moa attacks, so I do think that it's daze, and yeah @chriskang, didn't notice that before, thanks for showing me. :) (Xu Davella 12:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC))

I can't find the source on it, though it was during the guild wars 2 fan day stuffs... they specifically said that reaching 0 initiative causes your initiative to not regain for a few moments, and prevents you from using any of your skills for a short while. While every case in videos may have shown getting dazed while an enemy attacks, that may just be coincidence - it only happens, obviously while fighting, and they get dazed the same time their initiative hits 0. If somebody remembers reading that, and/or finds the source, we really should re-add it... ~~ Kiomadoushi 02:39, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

It would be very interesting to read this source if anyone can find it. This [1] video, at about 3:35, shows a thief using all initiative without any negative effect. Rin Aki 20:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Switching Weapons

Reading the engineer article from wartower, I read the developers saying a trick to use more skills that I didn't though about before: Switching a weapon set doesn't recharge all the skills, they recharge without being shown, but you can still use the skills from the new set. In the case of elementalists and engineers it can mean to have every skill from the first set recharged before they return to it, and most professions can throw 8 skills (plus de no-recharge 1st slot ones) with only a one second or two cooldown (from what I've seen during videos changing sets)...

This makes me feel like initiative system could actually be slower in the spam of skills than the normal system, specially compared to eles and engineers as when you change set, it's still requiring initiative for the new skills and for what I know you don't recharge your initiative bar from one set to another. Granted that sometimes the second set isn't helpful, but for example a sword-sword warrior could change to axe-axe without changing his role too much. Anyway I have to watch more gameplay to see if the initiative system really gives you an advantage, but right now I'm a bit concerned about its efficency. Lokheit 19:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

You can use them more often, sure, but if you hit skill 1 through 5 then switch attunement ad infinitum, you'll run out of energy pretty quickly, not to mention you'd have to make sure you're lined up correctly for the attack or that your opponent hasn't run out of the AoE (and we don't know how good that AI is yet, afaik, but for players it would be very easy). You gain initiative a lot more quickly than you can gain energy, relatively speaking. --ஸ Kyoshi 19:12, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hummmm I though Thief skills consumed both, initiative AND energy. Have to check the videos, but I think that consuming initiative is just the replacement of recharge, not the energy itself. Lokheit 21:16, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

JUST CHECKED: The thief uses energy AND initiative for his skills for what can be seen on the videos (except for the slot1 of course). And attack skills doesn't use too much energy (and you can use energy potions), so I think it stills give advantage to a weapon swuitcher in some cases. The only benefit I can see is that you can spam the same skill but with the real good ones you can only spam it a second time. Lokheit 21:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

My main concern is initiative limiting a Thief's alpha-strike. After you have performed your big attack twice you have to wait anywhere from 3 to 7 seconds before using each skill, whereas other professions can use all the skills on their bar one after the other before switching to a diffwerent set. I guess the Thief is more about constant pressure damage rather than big alpha-strikes. But I could be wrong, we won't know for sure until release. As to switching weapons having an advantage, one way the Thief could counter this is to have a shorter weapon switch recharge time. That way, though they may have to wait a few seconds to use a skill, they can switch back to their previous set sooner without having to wait for skills to recharge, and therefore could keep the same pressure up between weapon sets. Just a thought - Rin Aki 13:15, 24 May 2011 (GMT)

"The thief uses energy AND initiative" That's strange, didn't know that. --ஸ Kyoshi 12:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, initiative is merely a recharge resource. Here's hoping the energy cost of Thief skills is low :) - Rin Aki 13:45, 24 May 2011 (GMT)

Well it depends on what you want to accomplish. ideally, you shouldn't need to use energy potions if you can manage your energy well. But the thief is all about getting in and getting out quickly. If they have to use an expensive energy skill multiple times to get their intentions across, then they're not playing that profession very well. Stalk in, do your thing, get out and then go and recover. --Xu Davella 14:54, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Underwater Initiative

Does initiative still work underwater? I was looking through the skills and they had a recharge to them, not the initiative square.

buff

so they reduced initiative cost for most of the skills? nice! --Moto Saxon 23:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

sounds like they also slowed the initiative regen to half as well. so it's actually a trade off. i still like it. will make Roll for Initiative more useful. --Moto Saxon 21:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Initiative Regeneration Rate

I just did some testing on base initiative regeneration rate in preparation for comparing base and preparedness rates and found out that the rate is NOT the stated 1.67i/s. I'm getting less than half that: ~0.75i/s. My test is with pistol whip and a stop watch. Start watch when initiative first drains, stop when it's full again. Test 1: 20 whips, 100i for 132s = 0.76 i/s. Test 2: 5 whips, 25i for 33s = 0.76i/s. Test 3: 5 whips, 25i for 33s = 0.76i/s. Preparedness check: 5 whips, 25i for 33s = 0.76i. So, Preparedness does NOT also increase initiative regeneration. It doesn't say it does, but I thought it might.

BTW, if someone could check my results for base initiative regeneration, I'd appreciate it. I'd rather not edit such a basic data point on the main page based on one quick check by one person. Okuza 02:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay, first off, the initiative regeneration stated is actually 1.67s/♦, or 0.6♦/s. That means that what you're getting seems like a reasonable number.

I heard some rumors a while ago that they raised the base initiative regen, but I never saw that confirmed. My testing at the time showed initiative regen to be at 0.6♦/s, and I know for sure that rate was correct for quite a while (at least for BWEs). However, your testing looks very solid and you're getting consistent numbers, so this definitely bears re-testing. I'll double-check your results when I get home today.   -Dacromir 15:49, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that all tests were in the Mists rather than general PvE. Inverting the units gives 1.33s/i compared to the page's 1.67s/i. Okuza 09:39, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Chill

Is the regeneration rate affected by chill? 145.52.129.140 16:30, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Feedback 2018/05/29

needs Update since deadeye rework