Quickness? Really?

+1 Initiative may be roughly +5% in power for a 20-initiative hero. Quick (+1 ini) also potentially allows you to choose Fast (+2 ini) which in turn may allow you to choose Graceful (another +2 ini and cannot be knocked prone).

Those initiative bonuses may start to look very appealing if you are a caster, a ranged attack hero or a hero using slow weapons such as maces.

I absolutely agree with Heavenfall. Quickness is one that I always pick.  Apprentice swordsman is another trait that looks underwhelming, but leads to very good ones later.

Yep, you should almost always take Quickness.

The underlying problem here is that the UI needs to do a better job of letting you know what traits a particular choice opens up.  Quickness wouldn't look at all underwhelming if the tooltip told you that it potentially gave you access to Fast and Graceful.  But to the average or beginning player they have no idea.  

I agree.  I think the traits should show what they lead to like the Spell Advancement traits do now.

I thought it was bad too until I found out what it led to and found a demon blade for my sovereign. Then with haste I became a whirling tornado of death and destruction! I agree with the above posters about showing where traits lead. It's especially confusing for new players like myself.

Haste, on the other hand, is extremely OP.  +4 init for 5 mana? 

Any buff is guaranteed to proc and should cost twice that of a spell that can be resisted. 

Absolutely.  I would think +1 init +1/AS for 10 mana would be more than fair.

[Edit: I also personally think Haste should have a dodge component to it, something like +5 / +3/AS.]

I remember I was playing a game as altar and found 5 air shards. After that all my bard henchmen could cast haste for 5 mana to give +14 initiative. Now that is ridiculous!

Can the mana go up in proportion to the spell power? I guess +5 mana per airshard would be a good balance.

Personally I think the spells should be less dependant on shards instead... Haste and slow are great examples of gaining waaaay too much from shards, 1 level 1 spell should not decide the outcome of a battle IMO... It should help though.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Haste is one of the few spells I even consider casting.  Remember casting haste means your sov won't be dishing out 20 or so damage from one method or another.

If Haste becomes more expensive or achieves less, then Quickness and its young kin become more attractive, to my way of thinking.  I also wonder whether mounts aren't overpowered in the Initiative department.

The real power of improving your initiative is passing the threshold of double your opponent's initiative. Once you move twice every time time the enemy moves once you can kite, you can alternate between attacking and defending, there are lots of tactical opportunities.

In general, going into a battle with 24 initiative instead of 22 is worthless though, you need to add in a weapon of +4 init, a warg, and a haste spell to really get going. 

OMG I wish...I have been lobbying for this since WoM.

Thanks for making me cry, Sean.

But at the same time, you're taking very small increments in initiative over completely new skills, important improvements in spell resistance, added spells, and larger, cumulative increments in experience (and no, I don't like their presence, but they're in the game).  I'm not arguing with your point of view--obviously, every person has to make such decisions for themselves.  But speaking only for myself, it still seems to me like a poor tradeoff when haste, a mount, and a weapon with a good initiative will do so much on their own, while leaving all those other traits available to your champion.

Maybe haste just has to be nurfed to:  +1 init +1 init/air shard

Thus, casting haste with 0 air shards is equivelant to the quickness feat. Both are desireable. If you have 4-5 shards, your in the +5 range. Still good, but not +16 good.

I like the idea.

And while we're at it, make slow reduce initiative by lower amounts, and have a base level below which slow will not reduce (for example, 10).

I cast slow on an endboss in a wildland area and it never moved for the entire combat. It can be a pretty huge debuff if you have enough shards.

At the end of the day, this is what makes me sleep happy.           :'(

I have been thinking about this a lot actually, and really hope they put the 3 traits into 2 traits that combined give +4 initiative and immune to prone, alone the first should give +2 initiative, the second should just give +2 initiative and immune to prone (Ok that is basically AXING "Quick" and keeping "Fast" and whatever the 3rd ones named).

Thats my opinion anyways.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Well, and I can live with this, too.  Really, several good ideas, above.  What I only find problematic is the current way things are configured.

I still think mediocre gateway traits are fine as long as the game makes it clear.  The user should always know 1) that a trait IS a gateway trait and 2) what that gateway trait gives access to.