User talk:Ekko/Sandbox/Weapon Ideas/Thief

Retreating Shot has recharge time because otherwise it would allow ranged evade spam. Defensive skills have been said to be more costly energy and recharge wise, so it makes sense that Retreating Shot has some recharge on top of Initiative cost. Just sayin' in case you didn't know that. Mediggo 06:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

4 initiative cost already does that. You can only evade twice in a row--I suppose you can dump all your initiative for 3 Retreating Shots in a row, leaving you with absolutely nothing, even counting initiative recharging during your attacks. I'd honestly be more concerned with the 4-initiative Head Shot; spamming that can leave your target useless for two or three daze durations, letting your team easily pick them off in PvP.

Anyways, look at Dancing Blade--it can let you avoid a melee enemy almost indefinitely. You start off at range, deal damage, and then move one evasion-distance away from your enemy. Spam it as often as it comes of the global cooldown (you can do it 15 times in a row if it takes 1 second to complete, and forever if it takes 2 seconds) and you're always an evasion-distance away, except for a small window when you're stabbing them in their face.

tl;dr: A high initiative cost is already sufficient for that, and the thief has more serious contenders for evasion spam than Retreating Shot. (sorry about the really long post) ~Ekko (talk) 17:41, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and the minor Go for the Throat allows you to evade on the charge in with Dancing Blade, leaving a tiny (or nonexistant) window of opportunity for a melee foe to strike back. ~Ekko (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Good argument. First I'd remind you that, as I said, defensive skills are supposed to cost more than offensive attacks. Retreating Shot, if allowed to be twice or even thrice in quick succession, and coupled with other skills like Withdraw would give the thief an unfair escape advantage, capable of quickly moving out of range of spells and other ranged attacks.

Secondly, compared to Dancing Blade, Retreating Shot is a ranged attack. You could use it from already good range, to get even further out. Dancing Blade requires you to attack and enemy with, presumably, rather weak attack (compared to some others, judging by initiative cost) and then evade back. Spamming Initiative on Dancing Blade would thus reduce your overall damage dealing potential and control measures. Dancing Blade can indeed be used for quick hit and run attack, or to retreat from combat if you needn't leap, but the evasion seems instantaneous. That means you won't be able to use any other attacks while spamming Dancing Blade again and again. So while that may be a good tactic to avoid direct melee for a moment, it's far from actually doing anything useful. Any ranged character will be immediately able to attack you after evading back and forth (unless they swapped for melee weapon when you leaped at them, then they're locked to melee for a moment), and because Dancing Blade does absolutely nothing to your opponent but damage, they can prevent you from using skills or moving. Indeed, that is how I would deal with a thief: Fire a volley of rifle attacks at them, maybe immobilize them and should they get in melee and not immediately evade back, I'd switch to my melee set and pummel away. But let's not get into build discussions, that'd be pointless.

So... the main reason behind Retreating Shot recharge is that it could be not only spammed two or three times in a row, but combined with other evasion skills and dodging to too powerful escape method. Compared to simply dealing damage to an enemy. Anyway, that's just my theory and reasoning why one skill is different from another. Mediggo 19:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)