Guild Wars 2

Ausfer.1853:

Oh, and Karl: please, for the love of all things martial arts, if you won’t give us new staff animations, then at least give us the Monkey King idle and running animations. You already have those coded into the game and they look great!

I kept wondering what people were talking about with monkey king animations. So I looked for them. Yes they are neat.

babazhook.6805:

Ausfer.1853:

Oh, and Karl: please, for the love of all things martial arts, if you won’t give us new staff animations, then at least give us the Monkey King idle and running animations. You already have those coded into the game and they look great!

I kept wondering what people were talking about with monkey king animations. So I looked for them. Yes they are neat.

Considering the had at least a picture with the same stance…

Karl McLain.5604:

Hey all,
here’s some other changes that happened today.

note: There was a bit of feedback that the auto-attack wasn’t up to snuff. We took a look today and decided that it was quite the case, being that damage on this weapon set is more localized onto the auto-attack.
Staff Strike: Increased damage by 5%.
Staff Bash: Increased damage by 18%.
Punishing Strikes: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact.
Hook Strike: Increased damage by ~250%. note: The damage is still on the lower side for the weapon, but now deals more than practically zero. This ability is intended to set up high damage combos through crowd control, thus we’re trying to keep the damage lower than other from-stealth abilities.

Weakening Charge: This ability is now targeted, with the animation being cleaned up a bit. Distance traveled is slightly less, to increase the ease of landing multiple hits on a target. Reduced aftercast slightly (120ms).

Debilitating Arc: Included an evade fact. This ability continues to evade from the start of the ability.

Impaling Lotus: Removed the hidden initiative cost.

EDIT FOR BOLD!!!!!!

Awesome changes! Good to see this much progress in such a short time. Unfortunately some people can’t grasp this concept.

For Staff Strike and Bash Strike is there a possibility to combo off incoming projectiles to get to Punishing Strikes or is the missile reflect only on Punishing Strikes?

For example if I time Staff Strike right and hit an incoming enemy arrow or some other projectile it would deflect, destroy or reflect it leaving Bash Strike unlocked then allowing me to do the same with Bash Strike unlocking Punishing Strike.

Another example would be during Staff Strike and Bash Strike animation you absorb missile projectiles, and when you cast Punishing Strike you release and reflect all missile damage stored in Staff and Bash Strike back to its source(900 range).

Sorry, I had a question but I started brainstorming instead.

IDICERI.4268:

Awesome changes! Good to see this much progress in such a short time. Unfortunately some people can’t grasp this concept.

There’s no need to insult fellow players. I think you and I both know that people can very well grasp that these are good changes, nearly everyone has pointed out as such.

However, in the long run they’re not enough – they can buff the damage as much as they want, but that’s only a portion of a larger reason as to why people want to love playing this class.

Everyone is well aware that these changes are mostly positive, and it’s been noted that we’re happy Karl is communicating more regularly (keep it up Karl, please). However, there are many much, much larger changes that need to occur in order to keep Thief players happy, many of which have yet to even be addressed, let along worked upon – and that’s an issue. To say it isn’t is absolutely blind optimism and downplaying the importance of such changes.

It’s not that we can’t grasp that these are good changes, that’s absolutely insulting – it’s that these changes fail to address larger problems, larger problems that have yet to even be addressed, and that’s extremely worrisome for the player base.

Keep going Karl, you’re giving me some hope for Daredevil here.

Can you comment on if anything is happening with the hitbox of Fist Flurry? Right now it feels like it has the same issue that the Berserkers Wild Blow had, in that its hitbox isn’t representative of the action you’re taking. It feels too narrow, somehow. If someone even slightly steps out of my direct front, I’ll end up missing a punch, even if my fist actually went through them.

Oh, and Karl: please, for the love of all things martial arts, if you won’t give us new staff animations, then at least give us the Monkey King idle and running animations. You already have those coded into the game and they look great!

It’s worth noting that they don’t “have them in the game” yet. They have them in the game for the Monkey King model, which might share his animations with maybe humans or something, but they would at least need to tweak those animations for other models. Not that they shouldn’t, just that it’s not quite as simple as pressing a button.

I seem to recall something about the Monkey King model having weird skeletal rigs that don’t jibe with a lot of races, so maybe that’s why they didn’t reuse those? They still seem like the most appropriate preexisting animations though…

Karl, make Vault works on vertical axis like leap, low damage, a little more range and an evade frame. 6 initiative cost.

A true alternative to sb with a different play style (ninja style).

Al Shamari.7234:

IDICERI.4268:

Awesome changes! Good to see this much progress in such a short time. Unfortunately some people can’t grasp this concept.

There’s no need to insult fellow players. I think you and I both know that people can very well grasp that these are good changes, nearly everyone has pointed out as such.

However, in the long run they’re not enough – they can buff the damage as much as they want, but that’s only a portion of a larger reason as to why people want to love playing this class.

Everyone is well aware that these changes are mostly positive, and it’s been noted that we’re happy Karl is communicating more regularly (keep it up Karl, please). However, there are many much, much larger changes that need to occur in order to keep Thief players happy, many of which have yet to even be addressed, let along worked upon – and that’s an issue. To say it isn’t is absolutely blind optimism and downplaying the importance of such changes.

It’s not that we can’t grasp that these are good changes, that’s absolutely insulting – it’s that these changes fail to address larger problems, larger problems that have yet to even be addressed, and that’s extremely worrisome for the player base.

I’m sorry you feel insulted. My comment wasn’t directed at people who think the changes that were made are good. It’s directed at people who don’t understand that they made so much progress within a week and don’t have the patience to understand that you need time to fix all the issues that have come up with the Daredevil and the Devs are heading in the right direction. I should have made that clearer so people found it easier to grasp, in case it offended anyone, my mistake.

philheat.3956:

Karl, make Vault works on vertical axis like leap, low damage, a little more range and an evade frame. 6 initiative cost.

A true alternative to sb with a different play style (ninja style).

lets not get the damege too low. i was liking the damage from the first iteration.

Okay, let me start by thanking you for your efforts to try make this e-spec work Karl. I actually really appreciate you taking the time to communicate with us regarding the ongoing changes to the DD. I want to see this e-spec be as successful as possible for multiple reasons, including both playing it myself and playing against it. I want thieves to be able to play a stealth-less build without melting in seconds, and I think this is the perfect opportunity to make it work.

Below, I have underlined some possible changes and ideas to help make this e-spec be truly fun, and useful, so it does not become another P/P disaster (please bear with my wall of text).

• 1: The replacement of the various dodges from the GM traits to something like F-keys is something that could add a great deal more flexibility to the class (make it feel like an actual e-spec; the 3rd dodge feels like “Feline Grace” currently…except worse tbh), as well as allow for actual GM traits, as many others have suggested. However, I do not think it should be F3-F5. Personally, I think it would be best to have just a tiny icon (the size of F1 & F2 icons) that comes with a drop down type of menu (like legends for Revenants and pets for Rangers), allowing you to select the type of dodge when out of combat. Something very simple, but frees up 3 spots for actual GM traits (I’m sure you’re not hurting for ideas for real GM traits…right?!?).

• 2: Now, as far as Staff goes, currently (based on the last BWE) staff felt extremely lackluster, clunky, and pitiful in its damaging capability (as everyone else pointed out). The ability to stick to your target, while being evasive enough to stay in the fight was missing (something that S/D does really well, amongst other things that Staff fails to do). Now, I noticed there are some changes you’re looking to make to help with this. However, I can’t help but feel that it won’t be enough to allow the weapon to compete for use with the others. I don’t want to see Staff become another P/P disaster; therefore, I would greatly appreciate seeing some of the following, if not all.

• a: I like the increase in damage that you’re making in the AA chain. However, I feel like the entire chain will still be far too slow. If “Punishing Strike” was made slightly faster, I think this issue would not pose a problem. However, this is something I am uncertain about until I try the new AA in practice (hopefully in the next BWE).

• b: I am pleased with the changes to “Weakening Charge”, as long as the aftercasts and wind-ups don’t feel clunky in practice, as they did during BWE2.

• c: “Debilitating Arc” is a great skill, however, there’s one major problem with it. It puts you farther away from your target (and away from cap points), which is contrary to what you want to achieve with this weapon set. This opens up an opportunity to add a chain skill to it. Something to close the distance you just created. A simple recycled animation from something like “Earthshaker” from Hammer Warrior (with a bit clean up) can fill the role. Staff currently also lacks a way to slow your target down to stick to them. This chain skill would be the perfect place to add an effect like Cripple, as well as a very short Daze (we’ll come back to this later in 3b). It would require “Debilitating Arc” to connect to access it, and would require a high initiative investment from the chain to apply the debuff (just like FS to LS).

• d: Now, about “Dust Strike”. There are so many problems with this skill. It feels out of place, strange to use, and just plain awkward. I’m sure many would agree that instead of a ranged blind, a PBAoE blind would be best. Damage can stay as low as it currently is and range can be reduced with a 5 target PBAoE blind effect (similar to that of “Blinding Powder”). Furthermore, I disagree that this skill should leave a smoke field. In fact, I feel like the Staff should be more about finishers, than generating fields. Therefore, I think adding a “Blast” finisher to the PBAoE skill would be more beneficial for the weapon, while staying in line with its theme. This way, staff can be the provider of 3 finishers; “Whirl”, “Blast”, and “Leap”, which could be used as required, based on a given situation. As for animation, a simple recycled “Staggering Blow” from Hammer Warrior could be used, with some clean up.

• e: I like “Vault”. This skill was obviously designed to be the main focus and highlight of the Staff weapon. I think the reduction in cast time is going to be very beneficial. However, as for the evasion or no evasion, I would highly recommend adding an evasion aspect to it; perhaps a ½ second evasion, starting shortly after the beginning of the animation. The initiative cost can remain as 6.

• 3: As far as traits go (ignoring the GM traits; they should be something else), there’s little to say about the Minor traits, besides “Driven Fortitude”. Honestly, the benefit this trait provides is nearly negligible, and there are a hundred different things that can replace it. For example, if you bring back the old (now removed) “Opportunist” in its place, it would serve a much better role.

• a: Amongst the Adept traits, the change you mentioned that was made to “Evasive Empowerment” sounds nice on paper; however, if 2 seconds is good enough or if 3 seconds is required remains to be seen from actual practice. Besides that, “Brawler’s Tenacity” feels like an extremely underwhelming trait; but, I wasn’t expecting anything great considering most utility recharge reduction based traits are terrible.

• b: As for Master traits, I feel like the 10% boost to Staff damage from “Staff Master” should be made unconditional, because it promotes unnecessary use of endurance all the time, when you may not want to do so, given a situation. Furthermore, getting back into what everyone is unhappy about, “Escapist’s Absolution” should have its ICD reduced to ½ second. I think this would make this trait a lot more desirable over always relying on “Shadow Arts” trait-line for “Shadow’s Embrace”. Finally, regarding “Impacting Disruption”, I think the trait is perfectly fine as is. Especially if something like a “Daze” condition is made available on Staff, through something like 2c (a chain skill following “Debilitating Arc”).

• 4: Let’s talk about the heal now. Karl, come on man; “Channeled Vigor” is garbage to put it nicely. About 2.5 seconds (including wind-up) for a heal is just asking for pain…and more heal when endurance is full? How often do you see someone trying to heal when they have full endurance? If anything, add something like a defiance bar or stability stacks to it (while it’s being channeled). That should fix the major problems with this skill.

• 5: As for the utilities, I think everyone is fine with “Bandit’s Defense” having a higher cooldown. However, I am pretty sure they would also like for it to block for 2 seconds, and not 1 measly second. “Impairing Daggers” on the other hand has a problem with the projectiles being way too slow. Most often, than not, the projectiles would just disappear midair and fail to even hit the target. I like the change you made to “Fist Flurry”. However, the cast time (with wind-up) is just too long to ever reliably hit a target with all five hits.

• 6: The “Impact Strike” combo is great, but it’s strange that “Impact Strike” itself doesn’t actually stun, but simply dazes (not that it’s a problem, but the tooltip is very misleading). Finally, as many others have requested, it would be highly appreciated if “Finishing Blow” played your equipped finishers (we did pay and buy them to use and enjoy them after all) when you actually managed to kill someone with it.

• 7: I noticed that no one brought this up yet, so here it is; “Bound” & “Impaling Lotus” are not actual jumps. What this means is that obstacles, including pebbles, can prevent you from moving. It is very strange and does not flow. You essentially see yourself flying a mile high in the air, but are stuck on an invisible wall. However, this doesn’t really need a fix, unless it’s possible.

In closing, I hope you did not mind reading through my wall of text, and hopefully I was able to help spark some ideas in you to truly make this e-spec work, while ensuring that Staff does not become another P/P disaster.

PS: If you can, reducing “Steal’s” base cooldown to ~22s, while removing the bonus 20% reduction that “Sleight of Hand” provides would be amazing, as currently, it feels like that trait itself, along with the “Preparedness” trait, forces thieves to always take that trait-line, no matter what they try to do. This is a very poor design, because it takes away from the already severely lacking options.

Karl McLain.5604:

Punishing Strikes: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact.
Hook Strike: Increased damage by ~250%. note: The damage is still on the lower side for the weapon, but now deals more than practically zero. This ability is intended to set up high damage combos through crowd control, thus we’re trying to keep the damage lower than other from-stealth abilities.

Weakening Charge: This ability is now targeted, with the animation being cleaned up a bit. Distance traveled is slightly less, to increase the ease of landing multiple hits on a target. Reduced aftercast slightly (120ms).

Debilitating Arc: Included an evade fact. This ability continues to evade from the start of the ability.

Impaling Lotus: Removed the hidden initiative cost.

Oooh that’s what I like to see! Finally!
2 could be great, depending on the modified range.
3 If it evades from the start of the animation, we could finally fully avoid a burst with it. Which is great and makes more sense.
4 is still useless, but hey every thief weapon set got kitteneless skill.
5 Would need a bit more attention here. I think there is 2 possibility but for any of these 2 to work out well it need a change.

Possibility 1: Staff being used as a main weapon ONLY (ie. Staff + SB).
The ability still needs an evade, we are to vulnerable while doing it. It’s an evasive build, so no stealth, and the cost should be one reason it should provides some defensive mecanism.

Possibility 2: Staff could replace SB as a weapon switch (ie. D/P + Staff).
It could be a great change in the thief world if we had something else than a SB as a weapon switch. Since 2012 every thief is using a shortbow. Why not changing it?
In anyway, the ability would need 900 range and still an evade to even think of the possibility. But 900 range could be a bit too much considering the rest of the abilities, so i guess damage should be tweaked as well.

As for the rest,

Bandit’s Defense: An active KD would be MUCH better! Even if we only have the block animation time to use it!

Impairing Daggers: An increased velocity would be really appreciated here. Like I said in my previous statement projectiles just disappear into thin air because of it in real PvP combat.

Impact Strike: It should stuns 2 seconds. Not dazing 2 seconds. At the moment, there is no reason to choose it instead of the venom. Venom is 2 sec hard CC, really easy to land.
Impact Strike is just dazing the target, and it requires an extra animation risking dodge, block and interrupt (which is not the case of the venom). So OK, there is more than just the dazing part, but GL to land it in PvP. That’s why, in my opinion, it requires a stun instead of a daze.
But i agree, adding a stun mecanism to this ultimate, considering the other parts would place it in a better place than the venom. That’s why it should also have an increased cooldown. Like 1 minute or 1 minute and a half.

And if that happens. Well, i guess we finally get ourselves a good elite specialization!

+ I’d like to see the monkey king animations while using a staff. We all know, staff animations at this point are cheesy.

IDICERI.4268:

Al Shamari.7234:

IDICERI.4268:

Awesome changes! Good to see this much progress in such a short time. Unfortunately some people can’t grasp this concept.

There’s no need to insult fellow players. I think you and I both know that people can very well grasp that these are good changes, nearly everyone has pointed out as such.

However, in the long run they’re not enough – they can buff the damage as much as they want, but that’s only a portion of a larger reason as to why people want to love playing this class.

Everyone is well aware that these changes are mostly positive, and it’s been noted that we’re happy Karl is communicating more regularly (keep it up Karl, please). However, there are many much, much larger changes that need to occur in order to keep Thief players happy, many of which have yet to even be addressed, let along worked upon – and that’s an issue. To say it isn’t is absolutely blind optimism and downplaying the importance of such changes.

It’s not that we can’t grasp that these are good changes, that’s absolutely insulting – it’s that these changes fail to address larger problems, larger problems that have yet to even be addressed, and that’s extremely worrisome for the player base.

I’m sorry you feel insulted. My comment wasn’t directed at people who think the changes that were made are good. It’s directed at people who don’t understand that they made so much progress within a week and don’t have the patience to understand that you need time to fix all the issues that have come up with the Daredevil and the Devs are heading in the right direction. I should have made that clearer so people found it easier to grasp, in case it offended anyone, my mistake.

I don’t feel insulted, I just had a fundamental problem with the fact that you did insult other players.

Sure, changes take time – I think everyone understands that, for the most part. The problem is, there are fundamental problems with the specialization that have yet to even be addressed. That takes no time, it’s as easy as a response on the forum. Yet throughout this entire process, Karl has yet to say anything about these problems, which are something that the community has continually mentioned time and time again. Meanwhile, he’s addressing other problems. That leads myself and others to believe that these problems we feel are absolutely integral to the specialization are being ignored entirely, and that’s an issue.

Changes take time, we understand. But, the changes aren’t going to happen if the issues are being ignored and swept under the rug because the developer thinks the current state of the specialization is “fine” in certain regards, meanwhile the vast portion of the community disagrees. And there lies the problem – people are upset not because these changes are bad, or they don’t understand that changes take time, but rather than massive issues with the core flavor of the specialization aren’t even being addressed. They’re being ignored, the developer is reading critique and appears to be pretending they don’t exist – that absolutely, 100% alienates the player base and breaks down the trust barrier between player and developer, which is an important part of the the feedback loop. If trust between player and developer ceases to exist, the feedback loop because null because the player base doesn’t feel comfortable with the hands their suggestions are placed in.

c: “Debilitating Arc” is a great skill, however, there’s one major problem with it. It puts you farther away from your target (and away from cap points), which is contrary to what you want to achieve with this weapon set. This opens up an opportunity to add a chain skill to it. Something to close the distance you just created.

It does not need a chain skill, that is what Weakening Strike and Vault should be for, and they should be balanced to do that job well. Flip back to avoid, use a different attack to launch back in.

d: Now, about “Dust Strike”. There are so many problems with this skill. It feels out of place, strange to use, and just plain awkward. I’m sure many would agree that instead of a ranged blind, a PBAoE blind would be best.

I prefer ranged blind. It’s currently the only option for the Staff to have any impact outside of melee range, similar to the #4 skills on many melee weapons (Thief dagger, Warrior/Ranger GS, Rev sword and axe 4s, etc.). It’s good for when an enemy is “too hot to touch” but you don’t want to swap weapons.

4: I noticed that no one brought this up yet, so here it is; “Bound” & “Impaling Lotus” are not actual jumps. What this means is that obstacles, including pebbles, can prevent you from moving. It is very strange and does not flow. You essentially see yourself flying a mile high in the air, but are stuck on an invisible wall.

I don’t see a good solution to this though. If they are given more actual vertical than a normal dodge then that would be a huge combat advantage in some cases. The only possible solution would be to reduce the jump height of the animations, but I’m not a fan of that. It’s worth noting that Lotus uses the same animation as Death Blossom, and not too many people complained about DB not leaping over objects well enough.

Karl has yet to say anything about these problems, which are something that the community has continually mentioned time and time again. Meanwhile, he’s addressing other problems. That leads myself and others to believe that these problems we feel are absolutely integral to the specialization are being ignored entirely, and that’s an issue.

It is an issue of poor communication, but it’s not entirely unexpected. For one thing, ANet has a history/culture of not talking about things until they’re done. Not “will never change” done, but at least “we have it working in game, we’ve tried it, it does what we wanted, maybe you try it.” ANet almost never spitballs with the community about what they might want to maybe do, they only loop us in once they’ve tested it internally.

So these are the changes they are comfortable with for BWE3. That does not mean that they are not working on other things internally, just that those things are not ready to play with yet, so they haven’t mentioned them.

The second factor is that Karl is not as visibly enthusiastic and engaged with the community as Roy is. That does not make him a worse developer, that is not a developer’s job, it does not mean that he doesn’t care about us, and hopefully the DD and Tempests will make it out in as good a shape as the Revenant, but in the meantime, we are just not likely to get as much human interaction about the state of the class or the decision making process.

So I think it’s fair to express that the current changes are not good enough, and fair to express that you’d like to know more, but I don’t think it’s fair to assume that they are “ignoring” any topic just because they haven’t implemented a solution to it yet. Aside from Pistol Ricochet, which they are clearly providing a big uni-digital salute to the community over.

Just a sidenote for next bwe: can we get a stolen skill from revenant pls?

Dmg modification looks good. Keep it going

It does not need a chain skill, that is what Weakening Strike and Vault should be for, and they should be balanced to do that job well. Flip back to avoid, use a different attack to launch back in.

WS will never cover the distance that DA puts in (it even failed to do so in the BWE2). In fact, WS has a shorter range based on Karl’s post here.

I prefer ranged blind. It’s currently the only option for the Staff to have any impact outside of melee range.

Just because it’s PBAoE, doesn’t mean it has to be 130 radius (something like Blinding Powder, which has a 240 range is more than enough). Staff should be melee ranged anyway, and Vault covers 600 range.

I don’t see a good solution to this though. If they are given more actual vertical than a normal dodge then that would be a huge combat advantage in some cases. The only possible solution would be to reduce the jump height of the animations, but I’m not a fan of that. It’s worth noting that Lotus uses the same animation as Death Blossom, and not too many people complained about DB not leaping over objects well enough.

You mean like jump dodging? Where jump dodging gives you “a huge combat advantage in some cases”? DB actually leaps over objects that LT does not. The verticality of Bound and LT are imaginary. They don’t exist! It’s false! Fake! It doesn’t need a fix per say, but one would be appreciated.

Currently, the things that staff provides will not be enough to replace D/X, S/X, and definitely not SB, with just some padding and number tweaks.

Al Shamari.7234:

IDICERI.4268:

Al Shamari.7234:

IDICERI.4268:

Awesome changes! Good to see this much progress in such a short time. Unfortunately some people can’t grasp this concept.

There’s no need to insult fellow players. I think you and I both know that people can very well grasp that these are good changes, nearly everyone has pointed out as such.

However, in the long run they’re not enough – they can buff the damage as much as they want, but that’s only a portion of a larger reason as to why people want to love playing this class.

Everyone is well aware that these changes are mostly positive, and it’s been noted that we’re happy Karl is communicating more regularly (keep it up Karl, please). However, there are many much, much larger changes that need to occur in order to keep Thief players happy, many of which have yet to even be addressed, let along worked upon – and that’s an issue. To say it isn’t is absolutely blind optimism and downplaying the importance of such changes.

It’s not that we can’t grasp that these are good changes, that’s absolutely insulting – it’s that these changes fail to address larger problems, larger problems that have yet to even be addressed, and that’s extremely worrisome for the player base.

I’m sorry you feel insulted. My comment wasn’t directed at people who think the changes that were made are good. It’s directed at people who don’t understand that they made so much progress within a week and don’t have the patience to understand that you need time to fix all the issues that have come up with the Daredevil and the Devs are heading in the right direction. I should have made that clearer so people found it easier to grasp, in case it offended anyone, my mistake.

I don’t feel insulted, I just had a fundamental problem with the fact that you did insult other players.

Sure, changes take time – I think everyone understands that, for the most part. The problem is, there are fundamental problems with the specialization that have yet to even be addressed. That takes no time, it’s as easy as a response on the forum. Yet throughout this entire process, Karl has yet to say anything about these problems, which are something that the community has continually mentioned time and time again. Meanwhile, he’s addressing other problems. That leads myself and others to believe that these problems we feel are absolutely integral to the specialization are being ignored entirely, and that’s an issue.

Changes take time, we understand. But, the changes aren’t going to happen if the issues are being ignored and swept under the rug because the developer thinks the current state of the specialization is “fine” in certain regards, meanwhile the vast portion of the community disagrees. And there lies the problem – people are upset not because these changes are bad, or they don’t understand that changes take time, but rather than massive issues with the core flavor of the specialization aren’t even being addressed. They’re being ignored, the developer is reading critique and appears to be pretending they don’t exist – that absolutely, 100% alienates the player base and breaks down the trust barrier between player and developer, which is an important part of the the feedback loop. If trust between player and developer ceases to exist, the feedback loop because null because the player base doesn’t feel comfortable with the hands their suggestions are placed in.

So far you’ve agreed with the changes the Dev’s made are good. You also agree these changes take time. Clearly they are responding to our concerns from the BETA and not trying to ignore us and sweep anything under the rug. They’ve even mentioned on the first page of the article:

" Staff:
We’ll be looking at updating these abilities as we are able. There was a common tone in that the staff was too slow and didn’t feel as well as it could in its utility. We’ll be working on this now and in the future, so please continue to give feedback as you play the Daredevil."

What they haven’t changed are things they haven’t gotten to yet. What you think they should have changed first is subjective. Just in case someone still feels insulted by what I said in my earlier post I will pray for you before I go to sleep tonight. I’ll pray they get some thicker skin so when someone actually insults them in the real world they can actually survive out there.

MatthiasL.5346:

Just a sidenote for next bwe: can we get a stolen skill from revenant pls?

It hasn’t been posted in our subforum yet, but they confirmed Thief will have a stolen skill from Revenant next BWE akin to Essence Sap (900 range 1s Slow), but stronger.

Amante.8109:

MatthiasL.5346:

Just a sidenote for next bwe: can we get a stolen skill from revenant pls?

It hasn’t been posted in our subforum yet, but they confirmed Thief will have a stolen skill from Revenant next BWE akin to Essence Sap (900 range 1s Slow), but stronger.

Thx man!

Amante.8109:

MatthiasL.5346:

Just a sidenote for next bwe: can we get a stolen skill from revenant pls?

It hasn’t been posted in our subforum yet, but they confirmed Thief will have a stolen skill from Revenant next BWE akin to Essence Sap (900 range 1s Slow), but stronger.

oooh, that sounds nice. slow is so op (im sure they will eventually change it to 50% same as quickness). But mesmers get a ton of it (that gm trait with GS is going to be ridiculous, easily 50%+ uptime. pretty much 100% if you dont pressure the mes), i dont want to fall behind, gimme slow too. Even when they tone down slow, it will still be awesome on the thief.

WS will never cover the distance that DA puts in (it even failed to do so in the BWE2). In fact, WS has a shorter range based on Karl’s post here.

Yes, and that is the problem that needs fixing. Still, you can use Vault or Dodge rolls. DA should be about getting away. If you hit DA twice, you should be twice as “away,” not back where you started. Don’t hit DA unless you want to be away for a second, and if you want to be back, use some other move.

Just because it’s PBAoE, doesn’t mean it has to be 130 radius (something like Blinding Powder, which has a 240 range is more than enough). Staff should be melee ranged anyway, and Vault covers 600 range.

A 240 radius is nowhere near long range enough to hit distant targets, and a 600 radius PBAoE would be ridiculous. I say keep it as a ranged attack. They could make it a rectangular AoE if they wanted, like Stability Road, but not a sweep. Staff is mostly a melee weapon, but as you noted, DA pulls you out of melee range, and you can’t be in melee range all the time, which is why we have Dancing Daggers and the GS tossing skills, to allow you to “tag” distant enemies. I’m not saying they can’t make improvements to how Dust functions, but I like the core element of it being a mid-range attack of some kind.

You mean like jump dodging? Where jump dodging gives you “a huge combat advantage in some cases”?

That actually requires a little player skill to use though, and you should be able to jump-dodge with the new ones too (if you can’t currently, they need to fix that).

I know I have done my fair share of opinions on the daredevil and I am surely happy to see some mechanic problems get addressed, but I can never get over the animations please give me some peace of mind in knowing you will be working on changjng some of the lousier animations ( such as the staff Idle, the 3rd chain in auto, dust strike, debitating arc, and the final blow in the elite) i would love to see some martial arts flavor come into all of these skills and really bring this class to life.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hey all,
here’s some other changes that happened today.

note: There was a bit of feedback that the auto-attack wasn’t up to snuff. We took a look today and decided that it was quite the case, being that damage on this weapon set is more localized onto the auto-attack.
Staff Strike: Increased damage by 5%.
Staff Bash: Increased damage by 18%.
Punishing Strikes: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact.
Hook Strike: Increased damage by ~250%. note: The damage is still on the lower side for the weapon, but now deals more than practically zero. This ability is intended to set up high damage combos through crowd control, thus we’re trying to keep the damage lower than other from-stealth abilities.

Weakening Charge: This ability is now targeted, with the animation being cleaned up a bit. Distance traveled is slightly less, to increase the ease of landing multiple hits on a target. Reduced aftercast slightly (120ms).

Debilitating Arc: Included an evade fact. This ability continues to evade from the start of the ability.

Impaling Lotus: Removed the hidden initiative cost.

EDIT FOR BOLD!!!!!!

okokok…. Now where are going somewhere.

I have a question where do you want the staff to be damage wise? Right under Dagger? or between Dagger and Sword?

My suggestions:

Bandit’s Defense: CD should be reverted back to 10 seconds.

Especially because Berserkers have the same exact break skill, that grants adrenaline. Ours give Knockback, but it’s not anymore dangerous than extra adrenaline for each ennemy around the berserker.
Seriously, we need a reliable breakstun.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Outrage

Vault: Dodge effect on jump. 5 Initiative is reasonabe, but if this is too much, keep it 6 initiave, the dodge effect is must. Jumping around to smash people is an extremely flashy and attention seeking effect. It’s either this or taking 7 out of 10 Rapid Fire arrows while using Vault.

Hook Strike: Your argument is completely reasonable. I am not going to question that.

_Edit: I just noticed I just noticed the changes to Punishing Strike. I think that is well thought out sir. With that, we can start to guess your intentions of where you want the weapon to be among the Thief’s a/r,s-e-nal. (kitten popped up)

Kocoff.7582:

Karl McLain.5604:

Hey all,
here’s some other changes that happened today.

note: There was a bit of feedback that the auto-attack wasn’t up to snuff. We took a look today and decided that it was quite the case, being that damage on this weapon set is more localized onto the auto-attack.
Staff Strike: Increased damage by 5%.
Staff Bash: Increased damage by 18%.
Punishing Strikes: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact.
Hook Strike: Increased damage by ~250%. note: The damage is still on the lower side for the weapon, but now deals more than practically zero. This ability is intended to set up high damage combos through crowd control, thus we’re trying to keep the damage lower than other from-stealth abilities.

Weakening Charge: This ability is now targeted, with the animation being cleaned up a bit. Distance traveled is slightly less, to increase the ease of landing multiple hits on a target. Reduced aftercast slightly (120ms).

Debilitating Arc: Included an evade fact. This ability continues to evade from the start of the ability.

Impaling Lotus: Removed the hidden initiative cost.

EDIT FOR BOLD!!!!!!

okokok…. Now where are going somewhere.

I have a question where do you want the staff to be damage wise? Right under Dagger? or between Dagger and Sword?

My suggestions:

Bandit’s Defense: CD should be reverted back to 10 seconds.

Especially because Berserkers have the same exact break skill, that grants adrenaline. Ours give Knockback, but it’s not anymore dangerous than extra adrenaline for each ennemy around the berserker.
Seriously, we need a reliable breakstun.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Outrage

Vault: Dodge effect on jump. 5 Initiative is reasonabe, but if this is too much, keep it 6 initiave, the dodge effect is must. Jumping around to smash people is an extremely flashy and attention seeking effect. It’s either this or taking 7 out of 10 Rapid Fire arrows while using Vault.

Hook Strike: Your argument is completely reasonable. I am not going to question that.

I’m ok with bandits defense increased cd if the knockdown will be 2,5 sec and/or the block itself gets a duration of 2sec

There are a few posts about animations so i’d quickly like to bring up Unhindered Combatant (just saw a post about it on reddit) This could be used as inspiration for a better looking dodge. http://imgur.com/PXuculu

vault is the hard hitting skill of the staff and it should stay that way. the 600 range leap is okay in my opinion.
i think the best way for vault would be to stay on 6 initiative cost and get an evade frame. the damage should stay as it is.
but please make that the steal+vault combo is working every time and not only occasionally!

Al Shamari.7234:

Another thing I think many people would like address besides the animations is the fact that this specialization requires a Grandmaster Trait, simply to unlock our specialization mechanic. Tempests don’t need to “unlock” overload with a Grandmaster, Berserkers don’t need to “unlock” rage with a Grandmaster, Revenants don’t need to unlock their elite legend with a Grandmaster, etc – so on and so forth. Dodge is not more “powerful” than any of these mechanics. When many players pointed out that it was unbalanced that Revenants could not access weapon swapping, that it kitten the profession regardless of having access to two utility bars, the developers listened and made the right change. This is a similar scenario, yet we’re not seeing it addressed. Not having access to a true Grandmaster really hinders the specialization, and puts it far, far beyond every other specialization that doesn’t require the same to be done.

The thing I never understood here is why it needs to be this way in the first place.
Theoretically, giving us an F3 button that lets us swap dodges on the fly as the situation demands would be a lot more interesting and reinforce the style of a slippery, evasive combatant.
It also seems really obvious to me… I mean, surely this was thought in development, since this is meant to be our profession mechanic ‘thing’ right?
Giving us two of the three and letting us hot-swap between them would be great for build variety too—the Lotus dodge is nice for my Pistol-Pistol, but doesn’t help me at all for my Sword-Pistol where the Leap or Dash makes a lot more sense.
Is this not being done for tech reasons? I feel like being adaptable is something a tricky combatant like a Thief should be able to do, but right now that is firmly held above us, where we cannot reach.

Al Shamari.7234:

We’d at least like these two points addressed in some way or another – even if it’s “This is what we’re doing, and it won’t be changing”. Because, at least then, those of us who are waiting on this being addressed can move on.

So you took the time to make new animations for the Monkey King Tonic but use recycled ones for Daredevil?
I realy hope the animations we have now are just placeholders.

Karl, the changes you’ve made so far are very appreciated. Like many people, I’m hoping that Daredevil gets us out of the niche we’re in where we’re taken in PvE to skip content and PvP to run away from fights (lol…).

The main problem with Daredevil is the same main problem as Thief. We’re balanced against new players who don’t understand profession mechanics to the point where we struggle against every other profession in PvP.

Here are a few outstanding concerns for the spec:

Usability Fixes
Pulmonary Impact breaks Stealth. I’m sure this is a bug but I’m letting you know here.

We need the ability to dodge while stealth without revealing ourselves. Please make it so that anyone who has Impaling Lotus or Bound uses the normal non-damaging dodge while Stealth.

Elite Spec Mechanic:
So far, it seems like we get the short end of the stick with how our dodges are granted to us. Looking at all of the other elite specs, in addition to the new weapon and skill types, they all get the entire new mechanic suite.

• Reaper gets a whole new Reaper Shroud
• Chronomancer gets the Very powerful Continuum Shift
• Revenant gains Facet of Nature
• Dragon Hunter gets a new suite of Virtues
• Berserker gets Berserker Mode and Primal Bursts
• Tempest gets Overload for their attunements

The Daredevil ONLY gets 1 additional dodge from the tier 1 Minor Trait. The combat dodges really are our elite spec’s mechanics. They should be a baseline offering for anyone who goes Daredevil so that we may have powerful Tier 3 Major Traits to choose from.

If you really don’t want us to switch in combat, at least give us the ability to chose the dodge via a selection button similar to the Revenants Legend button. It can sit to the right of our F2 skill and will just be a manual change when we want to change dodges.

The other elite specs have some pretty powerful Grandmaster Traits to chose from that I feel like we’re missing out in the grand scheme of the elite spec.

Staff 4 – Dust Strike
This ability on staff is probably the one I’ve seen the most concerns for. As it stands, I’m not exactly sure when Staff would be better than our other weapons for World PvE, World Bosses, Dungeons or Fractals.

Understanding that we should have less access to stealth while using a Staff, many people still think that we need the ability to blind far more often than this ability allows. The best suggestion I’ve seen is a medium sized Darkness Field that pulses Blind in a rectangle stretching out 600 units from where the Daredevil casts it.

The tool tip would read something like:

• Shadow Strike (no longer Dust Strike, we’re using our Shadowstep “magic” for the ability now)
• Cast Time: 1/4
• Initiative: 4
• Damage: 235
• Blindness (2 sec): Next outgoing attack misses
• Number of Targets: 5
• Pulses: 3
• Interval: 1 sec
• Combo Field: Dark

Although the version I made is just a weaker version of the Reaper’s #4 on Greatsword, many Thieves feel that a blind field on Staff is a requirement for most content. The Dark Field instead of a Smoke Field can fit thematically with Thief and will still not give us access to on-demand stealth on staff.

Staff 5 – Vault
Vault is getting to a great place now. Like many other people I feel like this ability can be augmented a little more so we have a second Weapon Set option other than Shortbow. Vault is how we do that.

Here is the suggested Vault tool tip:

• Vault
• Cast Time: 1/2 (as many have said, the 1 second cast is too telegraphed to be used competetively)
• Initiative: 5
• Damage: 875
• Number of Targets: 5
• Radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Leap
• Range: 800

A longer range and shorter cast time will let people chose between Shortbow and Staff as a second weapon set – It’d be nice to finally have an option after 3 years lol.

Channeled Vigor
Obviously the best heal to design for Daredevil would have been Withdraw, lol. I think a heal that would fit better with the in-your-face-dodge playstyle than a channeled heal would be something similar to Elementalist’s Arcane Brilliance.

Proposed style of heal that I think people would love:

• Renewed Vigor
• Casting Time: 1/2 sec
• Cooldown: 20 sec
• Physical. Slam the ground, damaging foes in the area and healing yourself. Heal for more and gain Endurance if you hit an enemy.
• Damage: 300
• Heal: 3,275 (same as Signet of Malice)
• Healing Increase if you Hit a Foe: 50% (similar to Ele’s but doesn’t scale as high)
• Endurance Gain if you hit a Foe: 75
• Range: 120
• Number of Targets: 3
• Combo Finisher: Blast (Alternatively you can make them spin and do a whirl finisher if blast’s too strong)

Distracting Daggers
Most people who’re offering feedback think this skill needs additional work even after the BWE 3 changes. Many people are proposing Mantra usage but I think that’s too weak since Mesmers have the ability to insant daze on their mantra and we’re throwing a projectile. Plus copying another skill style 1:1 just seems lazy to me for some reason. I like the Mantra concept as imspiration but I think we can grow on it instead of copy it.

There was an outstanding proposal someone made where this ability is always “on” and it would auto recover a dagger after X seconds of using it.

Yet another proposed tool tip:

• Distracting Dagger
• Casting time: Instant
• Internal Cooldown: 1 sec
• Damage: 146
• Daze (1/4 sec): Unable to use skills.
• Range: 900
• Max Stacks: 3
• Recovery Time Between Daggers: 12 sec (not sure how to word this)

Essentially, what you have is an ability that functions as follows:

• Start with 3 stacks of Distracting Daggers instead of needing to precast it
• The internal cooldown between uses makes sense now
• After using a Distracting Dagger you have to wait 12 seconds to get a new stack that auto-regenerates

Escapist’s Absolution
This should be added to the Tier 2 Minor Trait Driven Fortitude.

We’re easily the squishiest profession in the game. We have less sustain than every other profession and we don’t have the highest DPS. The only advantage a Thief has today is that we can run away very well.

Daredevil is supposed to make us more survivable in combat. We need more access to condition removal as a baseline of the elite spec.

Fun Concerns
99% of the Dardevil community wants to know… Can we get confirmation on whether or not you guys are planning on changing the animations to something more similar to the Monkey King animations? Including the flip on jump and the flip on stealthed non-damaging evade.

Again, thanks for your work Karl. The Elite Spec’s really coming along.

Decked.8274:

So you took the time to make new animations for the Monkey King Tonic but use recycled ones for Daredevil?
I realy hope the animations we have now are just placeholders.

Wait… They made new animations that only needed to work for one exact body-type, bulk, and height and didn’t for 3 entirely separate body-types (human, charr, assura) that have variable bulk and height?

I’m shocked. Really.

I agree they could have and probably should have done better, but lets not compare apples and plastic fruit that vaguely looks like apples. Because the two things aren’t even as similar as apples and oranges.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hey all,
here’s some other changes that happened today.

note: There was a bit of feedback that the auto-attack wasn’t up to snuff. We took a look today and decided that it was quite the case, being that damage on this weapon set is more localized onto the auto-attack.
Staff Strike: Increased damage by 5%.
Staff Bash: Increased damage by 18%.
Punishing Strikes: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact.
Hook Strike: Increased damage by ~250%. note: The damage is still on the lower side for the weapon, but now deals more than practically zero. This ability is intended to set up high damage combos through crowd control, thus we’re trying to keep the damage lower than other from-stealth abilities.

Weakening Charge: This ability is now targeted, with the animation being cleaned up a bit. Distance traveled is slightly less, to increase the ease of landing multiple hits on a target. Reduced aftercast slightly (120ms).

Debilitating Arc: Included an evade fact. This ability continues to evade from the start of the ability.

Impaling Lotus: Removed the hidden initiative cost.

EDIT FOR BOLD!!!!!!

""""*Punishing Strikes*: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact."""""

OMG YES!!!!!! I was so wanting this to be a thing and now you made it. (And here is to the prayers that this stays)

For now I don’t have time for a long comment, so I’ll leave that to the other thief enthusiasts. But on the topic of vault. I think it should remain 6 ini (please make thief have extra ini baseline!!!) and that the evade frame should be at the end. The reason for this is that the animation looks nearly identical to bound, which evades for the duration of the animation. With the evade being on the end, it should protect you better than at the beginning if you are running bound, due to the hesitation from your opponents in interrupting. An evade at the beginning would just make it very easy to interupt due to the long cast animation. Once players had seen you flying for a second, they would just interrupt with confidence. Too easy.

Lastly, please look at increasing the block time on bandits defense if you plan on increasing the cooldown. I really liked BW2 implementation of the skill and don’t want to see it changed, but if you really don’t want thieves getting out of stuns easily as a daredevil, then at least make the precasting the skill more beneficial. Again, I prefer the cooldown to be brought back to 10 seconds.

Nike.2631:

Decked.8274:

So you took the time to make new animations for the Monkey King Tonic but use recycled ones for Daredevil?
I realy hope the animations we have now are just placeholders.

Wait… They made new animations that only needed to work for one exact body-type, bulk, and height and didn’t for 3 entirely separate body-types (human, charr, assura) that have variable bulk and height?

I’m shocked. Really.

I agree they could have and probably should have done better, but lets not compare apples and plastic fruit that vaguely looks like apples. Because the two things aren’t even as similar as apples and oranges.

The point is reasonable.
The amount of time spent making a tonic that maybe 5% of the player population might ever SEE, never mind OWN, could be spent making one third of the animation needed for having the Daredevil actually FEEL like a martial character who is good at what s/he does.

1. Wish I could buy Karl and the other devs a clue about the state of the game re. conditions and Thief condition cleanse. Escapist Absolution isn’t the world class trait some make it out to be but Thief condition cleanse is so crappy that it is pretty much a must take regardless of game mode (especially if you plan to dump SA for DD).

2. I guess #1 doesn’t matter at this point since unless they fix the Grandmaster dodge traits to be as fluid and as useable as the current dodge I won’t be using DD. BTW – the Bounding Dodge Grandmaster should be rethought entirely as the damage it does on landing is likely only going to be inflicted on foes accidentally/haphazardly.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hey all,
here’s some other changes that happened today.

note: There was a bit of feedback that the auto-attack wasn’t up to snuff. We took a look today and decided that it was quite the case, being that damage on this weapon set is more localized onto the auto-attack.
Staff Strike: Increased damage by 5%.
Staff Bash: Increased damage by 18%.
Punishing Strikes: Increased damage by 20% per attack. Added a missile reflect skill fact.
Hook Strike: Increased damage by ~250%. note: The damage is still on the lower side for the weapon, but now deals more than practically zero. This ability is intended to set up high damage combos through crowd control, thus we’re trying to keep the damage lower than other from-stealth abilities.

Weakening Charge: This ability is now targeted, with the animation being cleaned up a bit. Distance traveled is slightly less, to increase the ease of landing multiple hits on a target. Reduced aftercast slightly (120ms).

Debilitating Arc: Included an evade fact. This ability continues to evade from the start of the ability.

Impaling Lotus: Removed the hidden initiative cost.

EDIT FOR BOLD!!!!!!

the AA damage changes are really nice to see, and I’m now leaning a little more towards switching to staff daredevil than sticking with my condition thief.

however, I’d just like to reiterate – as many above me have:

• Animations: the basic animations still need work. I realise that it’s not an easy thing to change, but an acknowledgement of the issue would be a massive help.

• Condition Cleansing: the decision to not make Escapist’s Absolution baseline is still massively undermined by the base professions’s poor condition cleanse. if this could be addressed in some way, I think that’d make a big difference (either by switching EA and DF, or by indicating that base thief will see more condition cleanse in upcoming balance patches)

that aside, it’s nice to see the continuing changes to the class, and hopefully we can get this spec to a really good place before launch.

Looks like people agree. Balance Bandit’s Defence. The skill currently gives either advantages in a fight or disadvantages depending on the opponent (vs. Mesmer it just gets you killed).
Increased CD = Increased block/CC
Decreased CD = Current

Super happy on the changes, very muchly so looking forward to the next BWE. From my perspective, numbers are fine board wide. No need to touch them without further active testing from a majority of players.

The main thing to check is animations and progress. I was fine with the animations personally especially with utilities, Dust Strike and Vault. Which leaves Auto’s, Weakening Charge (doesn’t need much imo either), and the number 3 I never used. Oh and the dodges.

Dodges last BWE were coded as skills (all of them procced confusion and ate initiative, had pre-casts and After-casts iirc) and you said you fixed Lotus a bit. Can you check the Confusion and Initiative interaction with the other two as well? Last bit on the dodges- can these be the new Dash and Bound?
(((( http://imgur.com/PXuculu thanks Frobro)))))

Last thing for Vault having an evade frame- as much as I’d love 5 initiative cost, you might need to keep it at 6. If you put the evade at the beginning you continue the stigma that Thief/Daredevil is something you pay attention to last or if it comes at you (in which case, 5I cost). If you put at the end, people will again need to pay attention to Thief/Daredevil for the full duration of a fight which would be fantastic (and also warrant 6I cost). The evade frame is more beneficial at the END than the START, however it is your choice as to whether or not allow Vault be a skill that will soon be renamed Leap of Faith (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_-BOvWVycM) or to let it land and make Thief/Daredevil a teamfight threat that needs to be answered.

Nike.2631:

Decked.8274:

So you took the time to make new animations for the Monkey King Tonic but use recycled ones for Daredevil?
I realy hope the animations we have now are just placeholders.

Wait… They made new animations that only needed to work for one exact body-type, bulk, and height and didn’t for 3 entirely separate body-types (human, charr, assura) that have variable bulk and height?

I’m shocked. Really.

I agree they could have and probably should have done better, but lets not compare apples and plastic fruit that vaguely looks like apples. Because the two things aren’t even as similar as apples and oranges.

Asura use this stance when running with a gs or hammer

Slowmelt.8547:

Nike.2631:

I agree they could have and probably should have done better, but lets not compare apples and plastic fruit that vaguely looks like apples. Because the two things aren’t even as similar as apples and oranges.

The point is reasonable.
The amount of time spent making a tonic that maybe 5% of the player population might ever SEE, never mind OWN, could be spent making one third of the animation needed for having the Daredevil actually FEEL like a martial character who is good at what s/he does.

Understand what’s involved. Borrowing and repurposing existing assets from the Monkey King tonic is a GREAT idea. But to do it would also require additional time/resources from the character art & animation team to ensure it works with variable bulk/height and to remap those actions for the other body-types.

There is very little time left on the clock before HoT launches. It’s not as simple as “you should do it.” It is much more “Is it even possible in the time remaining and what will get displaced/shoved back if we do?”

If they can fit it in, great. But it’s not like throwing a light-switch just because the tonic is done.

staff is garbage bruh. thief has tanked. pretty sure im going mesmer now because they can do thief’s job better.

Nike.2631:

Slowmelt.8547:

Nike.2631:

I agree they could have and probably should have done better, but lets not compare apples and plastic fruit that vaguely looks like apples. Because the two things aren’t even as similar as apples and oranges.

The point is reasonable.
The amount of time spent making a tonic that maybe 5% of the player population might ever SEE, never mind OWN, could be spent making one third of the animation needed for having the Daredevil actually FEEL like a martial character who is good at what s/he does.

Understand what’s involved. Borrowing and repurposing existing assets from the Monkey King tonic is a GREAT idea. But to do it would also require additional time/resources from the character art & animation team to ensure it works with variable bulk/height and to remap those actions for the other body-types.

There is very little time left on the clock before HoT launches. It’s not as simple as “you should do it.” It is much more “Is it even possible in the time remaining and what will get displaced/shoved back if we do?”

If they can fit it in, great. But it’s not like throwing a light-switch just because the tonic is done.

All of that is 100% true, but let’s keep in mind that they’ve already agreed to add a new, special dodge animation for the Revenant, purely because the players said “Hey, this would be cool” and they’re fine-tuning many more.

Now, that’s great – I’m glad the developers are open to such endeavors.

But, it also bothers me – because the Revenant are getting the treatment we need. Daredevils are in a much, much worse place, animation wise, than Revenants. Those time and resources would be better spent improving Daredevil, rather than just giving “bonuses” to the Revenant. We’re not in a good place, as far as animation is concerned. Where as Revenant truly is, they have some of the most gorgeous animations – so before they get a cool new dodge, purely because players think it would be neat, let’s actually fix a specialization that legitimately looks bad as far as animation is concerned.

I’m getting happier with these changes. That confirmation on targeting for #2 is huge, and the damage upgrades are reasonable enough without getting into ’ going to get the nerf bat after beta’ territory. I would continue to echo comments that we need some more work on dust strike, but I’ve already said my part and others have said it much better.

Finally, I feel one of the worst things anyone could ever say is ‘Hey could we get another dev? The other dev seems better.’ Guys, Karl has Dragon Hunter, Tempest, and us. That’s already two forums loaded with more than enough whine (trust me I’ve been reading on guard since that’s my secondary). Thieves don’t whine, we get it done. We look for details, weaknesses, and ways to bypass or exploit our enemies that no other class can match. Its fine to post mechanics problems and recommended changes based on your experience, it’s not okay to belittle someone because they don’t act like another person. Karl is in here now and communicating with us about changes and LISTENING to feedback. That’s so much more than we’ve had in a long time. We won’t get everything we ask for, but I can’t wait to try retry this with what’s been done so far.

So, I noticed something in the preview for the Engineer elite specialization:

“The Purge gyro will zip around with you cleansing yours and your allies’ conditions every so often. The team designed this one as means to give the Engineer some much needed defense against conditions.”

Why is condition cleansing “much needed” for the Engineer but “situational” for the Thief? Thief has the worst condition cleansing and overall core durability in the game.

Escapist’s Absolution is already being vastly overestimated by players and developers alike. On average, a Thief is not going to be evading once per second or even once every few seconds. In real PvP, successful dodges often don’t even count as evades due to evading past the hitbox of an attack. Please, please, PLEASE reconsider adding Escapist’s Absolution to the Driven Fortitude minor. We need it to survive.

As others have already said, please consider updating the melee staff animations and the way it is being wielded (which is exactly like a hammer currently). Look at the internet for inspiration/fighting styles to implement here, making the daredevil fun and fluid in gameplay rather than reusing old animations meant for other weapons/shovel.

First thing first… Thank you for actually responding. We don’t see much Dev activity on the thief forums. So again thank you. Now my thoughts:

Karl McLain.5604:

Bandit’s Defense: Increased recharge from 10 seconds to 15.

I personally thought this was the only skill that did not need any changes and was perfect the way it was.

Karl McLain.5604:

Utilities:
For this beta, we looked at increasing damage for a few things as well as clearing up bugs that could be skewing an ability’s usefulness.

Thank you this is much needed.

Karl McLain.5604:

Distracting Daggers: Reduced equip cast time to 1/2 second. This ability now lasts for 25 seconds. Thrown dagger velocity has been increased by 100%. Fixed an issue that wouldn’t allow this ability to increase interrupt cooldown.

I will agree with others and say this needs to be treated like a mantra but I will not pass judgment on the changes until I see them in the next beta. I like the increase to velocity as I felt the daggers never hit during a cast to actually interrupt unless you were able to predict the cast. Can we make sure this is working in PVE as well plz? Also hope the interrupt CD is fixed otherwise the skill is pointless. 25 seconds is a decent window. I don’t mind arming the skill if the arm is not going to make me loose my window to hit.

Karl McLain.5604:

Fist Flurry: Increased damage per hit by 36%. Each successful hit applies one stack of vulnerability for 5 seconds. Removed hidden initiative cost.

Palm Strike: Increased damage on hit by 40%.

Thank you, I thought this was much needed. I loved the concept of the skill but in the last beta thought it was almost pointless as it cost initiative and did about the same dmg of my dagger strikes. I just hope the animation looks better now. Also love the idea of adding a stack of vulnerability per hit. This gives more pay off for landing the strikes and gives you the visual that you are tearing down the enemies armor with your fist of furry.

I still think pulmonary impact should have taken the dmg increase instead of the palm strike hit (that seems like the pay off of waiting the 2 seconds) but than again Palm Strike in the hit itself can actually crit. Just less climax i guess.

I still think the dodges should be select-able in F3-F5 just with a 10 second CD like weapon swap giving options for grandmasters to be more defense related additions to dodge.

Driften.8716:

I will agree with others and say this needs to be treated like a mantra but I will not pass judgment on the changes until I see them in the next beta. I like the increase to velocity as I felt the daggers never hit during a cast to actually interrupt unless you were able to predict the cast. Can we make sure this is working in PVE as well plz? Also hope the interrupt CD is fixed otherwise the skill is pointless. 25 seconds is a decent window. I don’t mind arming the skill if the arm is not going to make me loose my window to hit.

The best potential version of the skill is one many other people suggested, which is having Distracting Daggers be a permanently equipped charge-based skill (with charges refreshing somewhere around every 8-10 seconds). This would further differentiate it from being a pseudo-Mantra and give it some unique Thief flavor. Sadly, I don’t know if they have the tech for something like that yet.

Right now, Distracting Daggers is a mediocre version of a Mantra with a bunch of drawbacks Mantras don’t actually have, and it won’t be on any PvP Thief’s skill-bar. Let’s not forget that Mantras, once pre-casted, immediately start cooling down for future use AND you have the charges you just prepared ready to use with no time limit. With that in mind, I strongly suggest you consider one of the following changes:

1> After Distracting Daggers are equipped, there is no time limit to use them
2> The time limit stays, but the CD starts refreshing after they’re equipped

In my opinion, Weakening charge shouldn’t have had its distance cut, it didnt go that far to begin with lol.

Amante.8109:

So, I noticed something in the preview for the Engineer elite specialization:

“The Purge gyro will zip around with you cleansing yours and your allies’ conditions every so often. The team designed this one as means to give the Engineer some much needed defense against conditions.”

Why is condition cleansing “much needed” for the Engineer but “situational” for the Thief? Thief has the worst condition cleansing and overall core durability in the game.

Escapist’s Absolution is already being vastly overestimated by players and developers alike. On average, a Thief is not going to be evading once per second or even once every few seconds. In real PvP, successful dodges often don’t even count as evades due to evading past the hitbox of an attack. Please, please, PLEASE reconsider adding Escapist’s Absolution to the Driven Fortitude minor. We need it to survive.

I believe that the condition removal on evade should be in acrobatics, and just removing a condition with a dodge (Meaning not needing to dodge any attack to activate trait) should be granted to daredevil, but meh.

Good to know that you guys are working on some of the more pressing issues (hoping you look at animations as well), but will we see any change to staff 3 I can’t put my finger on it but something seems odd about that skill. Also for staff 4 if you guys don’t want a smoke field at least make it a dark.