Hello, just wanted to give some condensed feedback from the most recent beta weekend on the Daredevil Specialization.
Dodge Grandmaster:
Clunks aside, each of the dodges offer a nice range of utility/augmentation for builds across the board(outside of water that is haha). Though, I must say, I found the Lotus Training grandmaster (the throwing daggers based condi dodge) was a bit too powerful. With signet of malice, each dodge was producing upwards of 3 healing ticks per target, which when coupled with caltrops on dodge (since each tick of caltrops per target affected counts as an attack, and therefore a heal) made for an absurd amount of healing, on top of the massive condition spread, all of them being cover conditions for the heavier damage dealing ones. Another, strong feature about this dodge trait is the way it interacted with poison utilities, sometimes applying applications to multiple targets from a single charge. While not gamebreaking, I would still would say Lotus Training is a bit overbalanced compared to the other two dodge grandmasters. For it being the condition build oriented dodge, I found it to work wonderfully for any support ganker build.
Staff:
Overall, I really enjoyed the playstyle and utility staff had to offer for thieves. The damage felt appropriate for a high uptime oriented thief and the amount of weakness and dodges really made it effective as a semibunker support weapon, especially when combined with a well used signet of malice and lotus training (with the 6 attacks in the auto chain). With that said, I, in some regards, felt that it was a bit too much weakness across the board for one weapon, just comparing it to say shortbow or sword.
While my complaints with the weapon itself were minor, I did feel that the third skill, the Debilitating Arc which removed immobilization and crippled enemies while provide a short period of evade frames, was a bit lackluster. The skill itself offers a nice range of utility in theory, but when applied to the toolkit that a thief already had, It felt as if it would have been better suited for another profession, say one that doesnt have spammable weapon skills. Not to say that the skill wasnt useful, I just couldnt help feel it didnt really fit in on the weapon, which was made worse by the clunky animation. The main feature that turned me off about the skill was the lack of a need for using it multiple times, in addition to the similarity of the Disabling shot 3 skill from Shortbow. Not that thief skills should be something you want to spam ideally, the situational need for it to be used twice in a row felt nonexistent.
Physical Skills:
The various physical skills all seemed to fit very nicely into the thief toolkit, giving us even more flexibility in our utilities. All but the palm strike, seemed to behave very fluidly and as intended. The Palm strike chain however, seemed to be bugged as it did not require the whole cast to activate the final burst attack as was stated in the reveal. Whether this was intended or not I am unsure, but I figured id mention it. The block physical skill, while amazingly good, seemed honestly a bit too strong. I found myself unable to part with it once i started used it, always missing it when i didnt have it, so a ~5second cooldown increase might be necessary. The ultimate physical, while alittle clunky on execution, felt overall decently balanced and fit nicely within our skillset for teamfighting.
TLDR:
Dodge Grandmasters: Lotus Training felt a bit too good compared to the other 2, especially with it being good in all builds, not just condi.
Staff: Great overall, both in utility and playstyle. Only complaint is the Debilitating Arc 3 skill, as it felt clunky, unfitting to the skillset of staff, and way too similar to the disabling shot from shortbow. And when would you ever need to use Debilitating Arc twice in a row.
Physical Skills:
Loved the further increase to our utility flexibility, but felt the block was alittle too strong for its cooldown.
Thanks, keep up the good work. Also pleeeeeeeasssseee add a way to reset our beta accounts. I made bifrost over the weekend just to realize i couldnt play with it on my Teef QQ.