Guild Wars 2

Does anyone here feel like Thieves staff 5 should get a damage nerf? It’s kinda silly that I can just evade and be in permastealth when it comes to PvP and WvW, then when I want to kill 5 squishies, I just hit 5 as much as I can and Bounding Dodge as much as I want. At least with heartseekers the damage is on a single target. With Bounding Dodge/Vault, you can just take out 5 people at a time. It makes both WvW (roaming) and PvP no fun. Should this get a nerf?

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

since the damage potential is greater than backstabs with less conditions to be met I can agree but seeing how the game change from 2013-current, nerfs/buffs doesn’t always equate to balance. If the damage gets nerfed, extra utility needs to be implemented so the skill remains at par. just my opinion.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

What are punish frames?

I think he was referring to the dp/staff builds ran atm though perma stealth is not usefull in pvp at all.

TBH I do find the constant bounding and voting a noting when I run my other to ons and come up against one specialy my necro who’s shouts and aoes all have to be perfectly timed to hit between the bunny hoping but since they die in seconds after I can live with that.

Nebast.7631:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

What are punish frames?

I think he was referring to the dp/staff builds ran atm though perma stealth is not usefull in pvp at all.

TBH I do find the constant bounding and voting a noting when I run my other to ons and come up against one specialy my necro who’s shouts and aoes all have to be perfectly timed to hit between the bunny hoping but since they die in seconds after I can live with that.

Punish frames the the animations frames baked into almost all Thief evade skills i.e. DB and Vault both have 1/2 sec cast where you are locked into animation and can’t cancel the evade is only on the first half of the skill the second half is free game while the thief is vulnerable so if someone spams those skill they die easily, and the D/P won’t give permastealth especially if what he says is true how he spams Vault since he will have no Initiative.

I’ve seen thieves go into stealth using bound and vault using pistol 5 and stay in it for 10 seconds with maybe a refresh by doing it again. They’ll come out with two bounds and then go invisible again. The damage they trade from doing this is insane considering they are dodging while doing this, and the frame of time you get before they do it again you spend either dodging or taking it in the face which will kill you quickly.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

and the D/P won’t give permastealth especially if what he says is true how he spams Vault since he will have no Initiative.

I don’t think he plays a Thief, not as his main for certain.

By the way, OP, you should have posted on the Thief forum, not here.

Neurion.4086:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

and the D/P won’t give permastealth especially if what he says is true how he spams Vault since he will have no Initiative.

I don’t think he plays a Thief, not as his main for certain.

By the way, OP, you should have posted on the Thief forum, not here.

There is a thief forum…?

spawnofdivinedestruction.6230:

Neurion.4086:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

and the D/P won’t give permastealth especially if what he says is true how he spams Vault since he will have no Initiative.

I don’t think he plays a Thief, not as his main for certain.

By the way, OP, you should have posted on the Thief forum, not here.

There is a thief forum…?

It’s stealthed between the Revenant and Warrior sub-forums on the main page: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum

Though, I don’t recommend a person ever ask if a profession should get a nerf on that profession’s subform…

~EW

(edit: a more tactful approach would be to post in that subfoum something like, “I’m finding [X] difficult to deal with, can anyone give me some suggestions on how to counter? I play [Y].” )

Staff is probably the highest risk weapon for Thieves and the damage is the reward for taking it. I personally don’t like using it for PvP because it’s evade frames and time spent in vulnerable animation makes it too undependable for me. Other Thieves using it against me can easily kill me instantly but I take advantage of the weak points I avoid and usually take them down.

hi welcome to gw2 and rule#1 dont post about nerf when u are clueless about pvp ok? bye.

Taxidriver.2043:

hi welcome to gw2 and rule#1 dont post about nerf when u are clueless about pvp ok? bye.

How about you stop posting when you have no idea what I play? I play Daredevil and Scrapper for PvP and I’ve gotten to Ruby multiple times, I also asked for for opinions about a nerf, not saying that it needs one. I didn’t say just PvP either I said WvW. Don’t come onto a discussion looking to start some kitten.

i also think vault is too good, but i just been quiet about it.

the skill cost 5 initiative, is multi-target up to 5, evades, does high damage and to top it off with, its a leap.
compared to all the over #5 skills, vault is really something else or more like unbalance

i dont think they should nerf the damage but rebalance the skill. reduce it to 3 targets, increase the init to 6 or take out the evade. having 2 skills with evades in staff is insane, plus it has another skill with blind. im not asking to nerf those but yes, i do get that is the specialization weapon as the trade of and its a 2-handed.

why they should rebalance vault or buff the other #5 skills

• infiltrator’s arrow – it really has no use but to travel or escape. the radius of this skill is so poor. why not increase the radius and make it give a smoke screen when it lands for 1s.
• cloak & dagger – vault, hands down! this skill is a joke, why do you think you dont see anymore d/d, the damage is outstanding, the cost for stealth is too expensive for 3s, and thats it! no, wait. dont forget about the 3% vulnerability, what would we have done without that.. im sure many of us have asked anet to implement “cloaked in shadows” with c&d over the 3% vul but no…
• black powder – so simple but super effective. 2 whole different skills compared to vault. no chance needed here

+1 inative on vualt, same dmg mod as hs teir 3. Bound is kitten trait, in fact all 3 of them but bound is just stupidly op compared to the other 2.

Vaults only saving graces are it can be ground targeted at range, and it does aoe damage. It has 1/4 second precast and after cast animations that are both easily interruptible. Comparatively its about the same damage as every single other duel wield skill so I personally think the damage is fine for the cost. Same goes for utility.

Vault/bound spam only really works against lower skilled opponents who dont understand the difference between the bound animation and the vault animation. Just about anything but rev will interrupt vault given the chance.

Most of the higher skilled theives you will notice they use debilitating arc over vault in many cases because its a better skill and has more controllable nuisances. The only time vaults really spammed is on downs for cleave. Nerfing it only takes away staffs ability to pressure downs.

Bound dodge damage is a little high on damage and the leap finisher is extremely useful. Dashes range and movement cc clear is really strong. The reduction on dash is also insane tied with other traits and food thief out of the gate can have a 80% damage reduction. The lotus dodge is really the only underwhelming one of the three.

From a numbers standpoint I would normally agree to nerfing the bound dodge damage to be in line with warriors reckless dodge. However I question nerfing the damage on bound because other classes got complete new mechanics that offer extra damage. Where as we got just got our dodges enhanced.

For example do you think bound dodge is out of line when compared to warriors burst skills in berserker? Or mesmers ability to re shatter clones? etc I think no.

Eval.2371:

Vaults only saving graces are it can be ground targeted at range, and it does aoe damage. It has 1/4 second precast and after cast animations that are both easily interruptible. Comparatively its about the same damage as every single other duel wield skill so I personally think the damage is fine for the cost. Same goes for utility.

Vault/bound spam only really works against lower skilled opponents who dont understand the difference between the bound animation and the vault animation. Just about anything but rev will interrupt vault given the chance.

Most of the higher skilled theives you will notice they use debilitating arc over vault in many cases because its a better skill and has more controllable nuisances. The only time vaults really spammed is on downs for cleave. Nerfing it only takes away staffs ability to pressure downs.

Bound dodge damage is a little high on damage and the leap finisher is extremely useful. Dashes range and movement cc clear is really strong. The reduction on dash is also insane tied with other traits and food thief out of the gate can have a 80% damage reduction. The lotus dodge is really the only underwhelming one of the three.

From a numbers standpoint I would normally agree to nerfing the bound dodge damage to be in line with warriors reckless dodge. However I question nerfing the damage on bound because other classes got complete new mechanics that offer extra damage. Where as we got just got our dodges enhanced.

For example do you think bound dodge is out of line when compared to warriors burst skills in berserker? Or mesmers ability to re shatter clones? etc I think no.

This guy hit it on the head. I can tell the OP has l2p issues because mainly, you should never be dying to a vault spamming thief.

1: It has a huge telegraph and a frame that you can interrupt when he vaults so he does no damage. Feel free to whisper me in game if you want me to demonstrate said frame.

2: Because of said frame in #1…Most thieves rather use the autos and skills 2 to 4 depending on the situation. Steal combined with 2 is a pretty good damage dealer because there’s a trick to get all 3 hit chains to land in the combo. 3 is just a more reliable evade frame that does damage and there’s a way to make it so that you cancel the rollback. 4 is just a nice ranged blind if you need it. The only time, I, as a thief, would vault is when to cleave rezzer’s or…If I know they’re just simply bad that I want to extra BM by vaulting them. Necros are also a safe choice to vault since limited dodges and slow attacks.

3: The only other time I use vault is to get some distance to stealth with d/p from a zerg or a group of chasers. And that’s usually 1-2 vaults with bounds combined in and bandit’s defense for ranged attacks.

Lettuce.2945:

3: The only other time I use vault is to get some distance to stealth with d/p from a zerg or a group of chasers. And that’s usually 1-2 vaults with bounds combined in and bandit’s defense for ranged attacks.

I just wanted to comment on this bit. And add to my above post.

Vault range and land speed is very similar to short bow. For those that complain about being forced into shortbow, staff is a very viable alternative because of the range on vault, because of the similarity of evades with debilitating arc and the range blind pressure.

A few above requested increasing the cost on vault. Doing so effectively takes this alternative away from thief. In addition it also forces staff thief into two lines. Both trickery and daredevil. I think the only way an increase would be fair is if they made preparedness baseline.

In all honestly I ask that if anyone reading this thinks staff is an easy forgiving weapon and that you can just vault people death; to go play staff thief and then come back with an informed opinion.

Staff is comparable to shortbow’s mobility while in-combat since it doesn’t need to swap, but most notably, it’s only comparable when on a flat surface.

For this reason it works well in Arenas and WvW but not so well in sPvP given the need to teleport vertically. For this I think the staff and shortbow are incomparable, since they achieve totally different things and perform well in their respective mobilities in specific environments. It’s equivocal to comparing HS spam and IArrow, which is also roughly the same in terms of distance covered per time. For that, HS spam is more comparable to Vault, and costs more initiative, does less damage, does not evade, and does not cleave.

The initiative cost for its damage is too low. BP + HS -> Backstab can be interrupted similarly, Unload suffers from a similar channel, FS->LS if used sequentially is extremely easy to punish, and CnD has objectively longer punish frames while providing less damage, no gap close, and no evade.

If moved to 6, it’d be barely recognizable except in instances where it gets spammed. The skill currently allows three consecutive casts all in a row without traiting for Trickery. With Trickery, it enables almost four. At +1 init there ends up a little more downtime such that non-trickery builds cannot spam a superior-damage version of backstab with no revealed penalty, evasion, mobility, cleave, and less cast time at less initiative than all other possibilities.

That, or its damage needs to drop. There’s no reason for it to be hitting harder than backstab with the further capacity to hit substantially harder than backstab at peak via Staff Master (the wiki’s coefficient is wrong; it’s actually 2.52).

I wouldn’t have much of an issue with it if I couldn’t hit for 30k damage per vault at 5 initiative on no cooldown and lower cast times than what D/X (particularly D/D) can do. It might not be tremendously easy to play well (and even this is arguable depending on trait configuration and perceptions of Daredevil and primary kit played by the user (it’s way easier than D/D coming from my perspective, for example)), but I sincerely do think the ability is overtuned for its cost.

DeceiverX.8361:

Staff is comparable to shortbow’s mobility while in-combat since it doesn’t need to swap, but most notably, it’s only comparable when on a flat surface.

For this reason it works well in Arenas and WvW but not so well in sPvP given the need to teleport vertically. For this I think the staff and shortbow are incomparable, since they achieve totally different things and perform well in their respective mobilities in specific environments. It’s equivocal to comparing HS spam and IArrow, which is also roughly the same in terms of distance covered per time. For that, HS spam is more comparable to Vault, and costs more initiative, does less damage, does not evade, and does not cleave.

The initiative cost for its damage is too low. BP + HS -> Backstab can be interrupted similarly, Unload suffers from a similar channel, FS->LS if used sequentially is extremely easy to punish, and CnD has objectively longer punish frames while providing less damage, no gap close, and no evade.

If moved to 6, it’d be barely recognizable except in instances where it gets spammed. The skill currently allows three consecutive casts all in a row without traiting for Trickery. With Trickery, it enables almost four. At +1 init there ends up a little more downtime such that non-trickery builds cannot spam a superior-damage version of backstab with no revealed penalty, evasion, mobility, cleave, and less cast time at less initiative than all other possibilities.

That, or its damage needs to drop. There’s no reason for it to be hitting harder than backstab with the further capacity to hit substantially harder than backstab at peak via Staff Master (the wiki’s coefficient is wrong; it’s actually 2.52).

I wouldn’t have much of an issue with it if I couldn’t hit for 30k damage per vault at 5 initiative on no cooldown and lower cast times than what D/X (particularly D/D) can do. It might not be tremendously easy to play well (and even this is arguable depending on trait configuration and perceptions of Daredevil and primary kit played by the user (it’s way easier than D/D coming from my perspective, for example)), but I sincerely do think the ability is overtuned for its cost.

The difference between vault and HS , backstab and unload that you fail to mention is that vault targets an AREA and once a person enters the animation that area can not be changed. This means the person at the receiving end of a potential vault can avoid the attack when s/he learns to recognize it by moving out of the area. With switfness up there generally enough time to do this without gaving to burn a dodge or use a block.

Unload, HS and backstab all lock to the target and generally can not be as easily avoided without using a dodge or block.

Vault obviously superior in areas of limited mobility and chokepoints.

I am also unsure how you conclude HS has a higher ini then vault.

Vault has too much baked in for such ini costs, especially compared to other high damage attacks from thief. Either ini costs need to be increased considerably or one of the aspects of vault needs a nerf (dmg reduction, shorter evade frame). Vault didn’t actually have evade at begin, we asked for something for such long animation to be viable but i still can’t believe they gave it such high dmg as well – once again devs listen only to part of the feedback.

Then again, i look at scrapper hammer and think “Nvm” :s

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

Good players running staff don’t vault but abuse the dodge > 3 combo along with proper use of 4.

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

Good players running staff don’t vault but abuse the dodge > 3 combo along with proper use of 4.

How does that apply to what i you quoted me saying?

Vault doesn’t need initiative increase, it’s the least used skill on staff by skilled players in fights alrdy. Somebody above said it right, its for downs and a gap closer. Vs over aggressive players, u can vault to evade and counterattack but anyone with half a brain can interrupt that. Any good player will punish ur vaults.

It’s a 5 ini cost because it doesnt bring u the same distance as bow 5 with 6 initiative and it has a much longer animation so its fair for its distance. Nerfing vault will nerf mostly ur mobility.

The damage is ok for its cost since most people take basilisk cuz of block meta and u dont have stomping power so u spam 5 to prevent resses. Its slow as hell, I’ve had people res through 5 spam on down so no, it doesnt need a nerf.

234 are the strong skills on staff although 4 could use a little love. It feels like its in the same place as dagger 4 with smaller range and more utility.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

Good players running staff don’t vault but abuse the dodge > 3 combo along with proper use of 4.

How does that apply to what i you quoted me saying?

I’m not spelling it out for you. Figure it out on your own

DeceiverX.8361:

The initiative cost for its damage is too low. BP + HS -> Backstab can be interrupted similarly, Unload suffers from a similar channel, FS->LS if used sequentially is extremely easy to punish, and CnD has objectively longer punish frames while providing less damage, no gap close, and no evade.

The damage is comparable to unload, backstab & pistolwhip. FS/LS have a terrible after cast between skills… its actually faster or FS use 1 then LS than it is to FS->LS, but thats off topic. CnD comparison is irrelevant, as it should be used for the stealth for backstab rather than the actual damage component its self.

DeceiverX.8361:

If moved to 6, it’d be barely recognizable except in instances where it gets spammed. The skill currently allows three consecutive casts all in a row without traiting for Trickery. With Trickery, it enables almost four.

The skill only allows 3 consecutive casts with trickery atm. I don’t know what grass your smoking but you cannot do more than two back to back without trickery.

People that are going to die to vault are going to die to regardless of the cost if you cannot dodge burst skills spammed back to back, your not going to make it far in any kind of pvp.

Ive already outlined this is my post above, you can get more dmg in aoe format from using debilitating arc to get a full auto chain down in the same time frame.

DeceiverX.8361:

That, or its damage needs to drop. There’s no reason for it to be hitting harder than backstab with the further capacity to hit substantially harder than backstab at peak via Staff Master (the wiki’s coefficient is wrong; it’s actually 2.52).

I wouldn’t have much of an issue with it if I couldn’t hit for 30k damage per vault at 5 initiative on no cooldown

Ah yes, claiming damage numbers are absurd while on valk signet build. Your the same person that has shown me 15k CnD’s followed by 30k+ backstabs with your build… and turn around and spew this? I am not buying it…

The only people that are going to see that high of numbers are people that run pure glass like you. Vault or not that gameplay will be binary because of it and to be frank the weapon isnt the cause, its the % modifies after being juiced up on valk gear with furious oils.

The avg thief gets 10k at most out of bound and thats running crit strikes on a target with no armor. Your avg staff thief is running acro trickery DrD and might see 8k vaults.

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

Good players running staff don’t vault but abuse the dodge > 3 combo along with proper use of 4.

How does that apply to what i you quoted me saying?

I’m not spelling it out for you. Figure it out on your own

Well seeing how i called the OP out on Perma Evade from Vault spam what you said doesn’t apply, clearly this is a good staff theif…. but go ahead and be salty

after I see other op abilities on the other classes… well… nvm

Shadowstep.6049:

Vault has too much baked in for such ini costs, especially compared to other high damage attacks from thief. Either ini costs need to be increased considerably or one of the aspects of vault needs a nerf (dmg reduction, shorter evade frame). Vault didn’t actually have evade at begin, we asked for something for such long animation to be viable but i still can’t believe they gave it such high dmg as well – once again devs listen only to part of the feedback.

Then again, i look at scrapper hammer and think “Nvm” :s

…There’s a huge punish frame on vault. Massive. It’s actually so risky to use vault against good players because of that…Need me to demonstrate to you? Those complaining about vaults really need to learn to play. Obvious telegraphs and it’s a lot of ini to use a skill against someone good who will just simply dodge it or interrupt it. As someone said above, it’s only good for cleaving rezzers and it’s a BM skill to use against bad players. Other than that, vault shouldn’t be really touched at all except for mobility and cleaving rezzers.

WTF… everyone seems to gripe about condi thief builds even the interrupt based hybrids. Players have always griped about D/P stealth and now Staff?

I hate saying this since it rarely applies, but learn to play. Vault is ridiculously easy to dodge, block, etc and has two frames that allow it to be interrupted. Every other Staff skill is fairly meh.

If a thieves are killing a player consistently in relatively even matches, either that player’s build is weak, they are on a necro or the thief is a flat out better player.

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

Good players running staff don’t vault but abuse the dodge > 3 combo along with proper use of 4.

How does that apply to what i you quoted me saying?

I’m not spelling it out for you. Figure it out on your own

Yeah, no, I don’t get it either. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to be responsible for communicating clearly.

Eval.2371:

DeceiverX.8361:

The initiative cost for its damage is too low. BP + HS -> Backstab can be interrupted similarly, Unload suffers from a similar channel, FS->LS if used sequentially is extremely easy to punish, and CnD has objectively longer punish frames while providing less damage, no gap close, and no evade.

The damage is comparable to unload, backstab & pistolwhip. FS/LS have a terrible after cast between skills… its actually faster or FS use 1 then LS than it is to FS->LS, but thats off topic. CnD comparison is irrelevant, as it should be used for the stealth for backstab rather than the actual damage component its self.

DeceiverX.8361:

If moved to 6, it’d be barely recognizable except in instances where it gets spammed. The skill currently allows three consecutive casts all in a row without traiting for Trickery. With Trickery, it enables almost four.

The skill only allows 3 consecutive casts with trickery atm. I don’t know what grass your smoking but you cannot do more than two back to back without trickery.

People that are going to die to vault are going to die to regardless of the cost if you cannot dodge burst skills spammed back to back, your not going to make it far in any kind of pvp.

Ive already outlined this is my post above, you can get more dmg in aoe format from using debilitating arc to get a full auto chain down in the same time frame.

DeceiverX.8361:

That, or its damage needs to drop. There’s no reason for it to be hitting harder than backstab with the further capacity to hit substantially harder than backstab at peak via Staff Master (the wiki’s coefficient is wrong; it’s actually 2.52).

I wouldn’t have much of an issue with it if I couldn’t hit for 30k damage per vault at 5 initiative on no cooldown

Ah yes, claiming damage numbers are absurd while on valk signet build. Your the same person that has shown me 15k CnD’s followed by 30k+ backstabs with your build… and turn around and spew this? I am not buying it…

The only people that are going to see that high of numbers are people that run pure glass like you. Vault or not that gameplay will be binary because of it and to be frank the weapon isnt the cause, its the % modifies after being juiced up on valk gear with furious oils.

The avg thief gets 10k at most out of bound and thats running crit strikes on a target with no armor. Your avg staff thief is running acro trickery DrD and might see 8k vaults.

Ok, I’m sorry, non-trickery thief needs to wait a period of a whopping one whole second between the first two casts to get three casts in a row. CnD isn’t irrelevant when discussing punishing frames because in order to deal damage equivocal to the staff via backstab, it has to be used and can be just as easily (or really, moreso) punished, while still costing more initiative.

I don’t think I’ve hit a 30k backstab since 2012 when Assassin’s Signet was still on a 50% damage modifier. The highest I’ve ever gone since was 27k, and this assumes a light armor player in berserker or glass gear that goes to < 50% to proc Executioner. 5% more innate damage on vault’s coefficient and an additional 10% and 7% extra damage modifiers (or better) damage gain over what dagger has push vault’s damage to be astronomically better than what MH dagger can achieve. The 30k vault number isn’t a maxed-out-got-lucky figure. On the same target as a 27k stab, A corresponding vault would push close to 40k – one-shotting most damage-built berserkers such that they’d never get a passive off since they’d go from 100 to 0 in one hit. A build without DA or CS such as Acro/Tr/Daredevil could still achieve ~15k vaults while not using Assassin’s signet by just pushing offenses via Daredevil.

I don’t see why this is an issue when everyone has already said that the best players use other aspects of the kit, anyways, and all this really does is prevent spam. If Vault was like backstab is to D/D in that it was the only thing carrying the weapon set, fine, but the staff doesn’t need that unjustified lower cost. I speak for nerfing the HoT power-creep game-wide, and Daredevil/Staff is not an exception. It might be more subtle, but it is there.

@baba, as far as the “heartseeker costing more than vault” comment – I was speaking in the context of mobility when compared to shortbow, and damage compared to vault, as multiple HS’s will be required to match either of them.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Azukas.1426:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sorry but nice try. Seeing how you can’t perma stealth with staff or perma evade with it either because punish frames are a thing

Good players running staff don’t vault but abuse the dodge > 3 combo along with proper use of 4.

How does that apply to what i you quoted me saying?

I’m not spelling it out for you. Figure it out on your own

Well seeing how i called the OP out on Perma Evade from Vault spam what you said doesn’t apply, clearly this is a good staff theif…. but go ahead and be salty

Vault is not needed and should hardly be used.

Lettuce.2945:

Shadowstep.6049:

Vault has too much baked in for such ini costs, especially compared to other high damage attacks from thief. Either ini costs need to be increased considerably or one of the aspects of vault needs a nerf (dmg reduction, shorter evade frame). Vault didn’t actually have evade at begin, we asked for something for such long animation to be viable but i still can’t believe they gave it such high dmg as well – once again devs listen only to part of the feedback.

Then again, i look at scrapper hammer and think “Nvm” :s

…There’s a huge punish frame on vault. Massive. It’s actually so risky to use vault against good players because of that…Need me to demonstrate to you? Those complaining about vaults really need to learn to play. Obvious telegraphs and it’s a lot of ini to use a skill against someone good who will just simply dodge it or interrupt it. As someone said above, it’s only good for cleaving rezzers and it’s a BM skill to use against bad players. Other than that, vault shouldn’t be really touched at all except for mobility and cleaving rezzers.

Who are you to tell me l2p lol?

The punish frame is not that huge, if you want to know what real punish frame is go play necro or ele. Also, still doesn’t change the fact that it deals backstab dmg, aoe, has invade built in, gap closer, costs only 5 ini, doesn’t require stealth, doesn’t root you in place w/o evade frame. Compare it all to backstab or pw requirements, costs and what they can do.

As far as Mobility goes deceiver. HS is in fact cheaper when comparing Ini spent for distance travelled. You get 150 units per INI on HS and 120 units per INI on Vault.

SB rates 150 per which is equal to HS as far as INI for a given distance.

2 Heartseekers in a row for 6 INI will move you as far as a SB infiltrators. Obviously SB has a myriad of advantages over HS such as that vertical movement and the direction/distance being so much easier to control and maximize.

The damage output of HS compared to Infiltrators is certainly larger and two heartseekers on a single target with low health is significant. In other words if I look at all three objectively I do not see the damage of Vault as being out of line.

On my own staff build, as others have mentioned, I use Vault much less frequently then the AA , or 2 3 and 4. Vault is used on chokepoints where enemies cluster or on downed enmies someone tries to rez.

Nerfing vault is an issue because I can only use staff for duels since its so slow. I like the kit but i have to literally run d/p sb and swap to d/p staff before engaging in a fight or use sb/staff with smokescreen or refuge and both of those skills are terrible. You cant even use it in high level pvp cuz its too slow.

The “I don’t see why this is an issue when everyone has already said that the best players use other aspects of the kit” doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saying lets further nerf d/d since it’s already not used very much. If a skill is rarely used, then it should get buffed, not nerfed. To prevent spam, u interrupt it during the first evade frame, problem solved. If some1 is spamming it, he should be bad anyways and u wouldnt have a problem in the first place.