Guild Wars 2

Ohoni.6057:

This really bugs me but the staff animations when holding the weapon and running aren’t staff-wielding like. This goes for Staff Revenant as well. It’s not like a hammer (which is the current animation). The hands should be at the base of the weapon. Others have stated about combat strikes are off in some instances so I won’t go into that.

I don’t understand what you mean by this? Do you mean they should be holding the staff as if it were a greatsword? That is a stupid way to hold a staff. A melee staff should be held at the 1/3 and 2/3 positions, for maximum control. If you’re going to hold it from one end then you might as well put a weight or a blade on the other to maximize damage. Melee staff skills should only be holding it at the base for occasional longer range strikes.

This would be the pose I’d want for running though, but the resting pose should be more in front of you. http://www.ambrakarate.com/images/boStaff.jpg

I’m in the majority agreement with Dust Strike being a circle as it’s more beneficial than a line; it can act like a larger Black Powder. In fights, I don’t consider using it as it doesn’t feel useful in my rotation.

I prefer it as a ranged attack, it lets you reduce the threat of enemies that are outside of melee range. I would not want to see it become a PBAoE, we already have that in pistol.

Noooooooooooooooooooo not like a greatsword at all, basically exactly like you stated; maybe I should have clarified. I was thinking along the lines of this: http://www.martialartsarticlesonline.com/images/bo.jpg . That picture you linked is exactly what I’d like for a running animation.

For Dust Strike I guess it comes down to personal preference but for me I probably won’t use it as much if it stays as is.

Zero Day.2594:

As much as some people would love animation changes (I’ve just watched videos…) as well as how the thief holds the staff on idle/while running changed – I don’t think that will happen, since it’s too “costly”/hard. While changing/tweeking numbers is editing a few variables/entries in a table – though mentally/logically straining… -, making/editing animations needs quite a bit more work along with polish to straighten them out. Like the current idle/running animation would essentially be scrapped and which ever group of people work on animations would need to redo the whole thing again. Can’t see that happening, considering they’ve already recycled some animations for the elite specs.

:P But then again, I’ve only barely touched model animations in my experiences… So maybe there are technologies/tools that make it a lot easier than I perceive.

Not a revamp but they are tweaking animation for other classes. Sigh. Wish thief got the same love…

Rev:
Staff
In staff the changes were mostly about the flow of play. It felt awkward to have to stand still to cast Renewing Wave so I changed out the animation to one that would work while moving to keep this weapon more mobile feeling. Debilitating Slam had a long cast time for a skill which is used for an interrupt so I went ahead and shortened that down to so it could be used as a more reactionary skill.

Reaper:
Staff
In staff the changes were mostly about the flow of play. It felt awkward to have to stand still to cast Renewing Wave so I changed out the animation to one that would work while moving to keep this weapon more mobile feeling. Debilitating Slam had a long cast time for a skill which is used for an interrupt so I went ahead and shortened that down to so it could be used as a more reactionary skill.

Dust strike: It needs to be a PBAoE 360 spin AOE Staff tip in ground animation and then

Blind (5s): Next outgoing attack misses.
Number of Targets: 5
Pulses: 3
Duration: 4s
Interval: 2s
Radius: 120
Combo Combo Field: Smoke
Combo Combo Finisher: Whirl Finisher
Range of Bolts: 900

OR

It needs Range effect of:
Blind (3s): Next outgoing attack misses.
Number of Targets: 5
Smoke Screen Duration: 7s
Combo Combo Field: Smoke
Unblockable
Linear Vertically cast from the feet of the thief towards enemies. / A curved arc( somewhat like Field of the Mists but non moving)

These 2 are what Dust strike needs

Ohoni.6057:

No, I thought about skill that activates after the roll-away move. So don’t change the actual skill and it’s behavior. But after successfully hitting staff #3 and doing the roll-away move, maybe activate a gap closer or a block like spear already has.

Ah, better than what I thought you meant, but I’m still not a huge fan. You could not spam the move to backflip away, which I value. I also don’t need it to “hop back, then forward again,” because I already have both #2 and #5 for forward hops if I need that (not to mention the DD dodges).

I think if I were going to add anything to #3, it would be a ranged attack, that you’d flip back and then make an attack, allowing the second or third in a row to continue doing damage, but then it’s pretty much just SB3. What about this, have it so that Staff 3 (perhaps requiring a trait for this), would leave a Darkness field in your wake, which means that then using #2 or Lotus to go back in would cause leaching bolts, using Bound or Vault would cause AoE blindness, etc.

A ranged attack or some kind of combo field would be nice too. Something like throwing the staff ? Actually a block would be pretty nice to sustain/stay longer in fights(which was the intention of DD spec)

These are good start for staff thieves for sure, and I realize this is a Daredevil change thread, but I really wish they would show some love to all our other issues…

I read a good suggestion today.

Dash

This animation looks terrible, at least on humans. It would look much better if it used the Shield Bash/Bull’s Charge/Burning Speed animation instead. That would look like a proper, solid dashing move underneath the effects already put on the dodge.

Still going to be skeptical about it Mr. Mclain. I will wait until next beta weekend to make send another feedback.

Karl McLain.5604:

Traits:
This iteration was mostly bug fixes. I’ve seen a lot of feedback on how Escapist’s Absolution should be baseline. It is the case that we believe this trait is powerful enough that it should be a choice in the trait line between damage, survivability and utility, rather than just a given. Driven Fortitude’s healing allows for usefulness in all modes where you take damage, where EA’s condition removal is situationally useful in a combat scenario.

I just wanted to add something about this: I think you’re underestimating the value of removal. With all the passive procs in PvP game modes, removal is virtually a necessity on the low tier health pools. It can really be seen if you look at what appears to be the vast majority of ele’s taking water:top, top, top and thieves taking SA:Shadow’s embrace. The only way I’m getting away with not taking it is by using S/X, Signet of Agility, and Shadowstep for my clears, and if I get bad RNG on it that doesn’t remove a burning stack quickly enough, I’m either in downstate or running. Honestly this isn’t close to enough for WvW either, but I’m mainly doing sPvP anyway.

I think you’re also overestimating the usefulness of this heal trait. I would rather have a bump in endurance regen than this. To me, this is a very situational trait that I probably wouldn’t take given a choice, much like Invigorating Precision in the CS line.

Making the dodge traits selectable out of combat like revenant legends would be a much better route to go as well. Right now it seems like most people are going to pick Escapist’s Absolution, and the GM’s virtually all do the same thing, you just pick the one that fits your build: power, condi, or neither. So really the biggest choice you’re going to get is only in the adept tier.

Warning, comments from a non-thief. Basically I played this as a daredevil in itself, not as someone who plays a thief.

I felt the staff was a little underwhelming on the damage side as a whole, minus vault. I put together a dodge endurance build for DD and found things just took forever to kill, I didnt feel like staff was doing acceptable damage overall until I went full dps traits and made an ascended staff (besides the zerker gear, ascended trinkets and scholar runes).

For vault, I would agree with an evade in there somewhere. Probably at the beginning for 2 reasons. As someone mentioned, so that the damage could have been interrupted and so that it can be used as an evade as well. Putting the evade at the end means anticipating longer before incoming damage and would feel different than other evades.

I wanted to use distracting daggers, but they just didnt feel like they were working for me. I would arm them, but then felt I needed to go ahead and use them or else I would drop them on the floor or something like they were slippery. I feel like it should either act like a mantra that has an infinite time limit on them until used. Or, though it would probably take some different tech, remove the equipping time and have all 3 charges each have separate 25 second cooldowns. So, you can spam them but have to wait for them all to be back up, or you can essentially cast 1 every 8.33 seconds.

Now, will evasive empowerment work with pulmonary impact from palm strike? can I fist flurry → palm strike → dodge and expect a 10% boost on pulmonary impact?

Does bandit’s defense currently block for the full duration or does it perform the knockdown as soon as it you have been hit? as it is only a 1 second block anyway, if it does not currently block for the full duration and only then activate reflexive strike, I believe that it should do so.

In pve (I dont know what the balance would look like in pvp with the following change), I found myself not bothering with finishing blow because of the long cast time. I used the first 2 in the chain often, especially with the various ranged mobs, then would go to a vault instead of finishing blow. It has a cast time now 2x that of vault now, its on a 40 second cooldown and does damage around 40% less. What if it was given a damage bonus to disabled (not downed) foes? so if you land impact strike or uppercut on the same target and its not eaten by a breakbar or stability, you get a damage bonus on that long cast time.

first of, dear anet developers you have to know we love you!

Keep in mind guys these are only a few changes, i’m sure with DD in it’s current state there will be many more to come. So don’t fret!

So basically, my only BIG concern at this point is the staff animation. But it’s not just about the Daredevil. If melee staff is supposed to become a thing, make it right.

You need to put the time to make a decent fighting stance (Monkey king stance) for starter.
If by the beginning of the expac, it’s too tight a schedule, I suggest reverting back to NORMAL staff stance for the time being. Normal staff stance feels way more natural than hammer stance.
If you wanted to make the staff act like a hammer, it would’ve been more logical to simply give us a hammer to begin with.

Also +1 to changing the dash animation to : “Shield Bash/Bull’s Charge/Burning Speed animation”

Karl McLain.5604:

Dust Strike: Reduced cast time from 1/2 second to 1/4 second.

Vault: Reduced initiative cost from 6 to 5. Reduced cast time from 1 second to 3/4 second. note: We’ve discussed leaving the initiative high and giving this ability an evade component at the beginning or end. Feel free to let us know what you think.

With evade: Cost 6 init and cast time none — functions like Dodge.

There is no point at making a skill with evade only to be hindered by casting time. In my opinion, all skills with evade should not have casting times because it makes it clunky and unresponsive to use (i.e. network lag, etc.). The only skill that you can evade with a skill with casting time is another skill with casting time — it doesn’t reward players in perfectly timing an evade.

Without evade: Keep it as is.

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 don’t know why you have to make this skill function like a Venom or Mantra when you can just have it reload a dagger over time up to 3 daggers — like every 5 seconds. Just remove the required activation step, it is unnecessary. This way, you can control the number of daggers by increasing/decreasing the reload time.

Traits:
This iteration was mostly bug fixes. I’ve seen a lot of feedback on how Escapist’s Absolution should be baseline. It is the case that we believe this trait is powerful enough that it should be a choice in the trait line between damage, survivability and utility, rather than just a given. Driven Fortitude’s healing allows for usefulness in all modes where you take damage, where EA’s condition removal is situationally useful in a combat scenario.

EA should be baseline because it requires the Thief to successfully evade an attack in addition to the internal cooldown. Driven Fortitude’s healing is never sufficient without equipping gears with Healing Power. Equipping gears with Healing Power means the Thief is not doing the damage it should be doing.

Now compare this to Warrior’s Adrenal Heal where they get a passive heal every 3s just by standing still — no evade requirement, no skill requirement, no fiery hoops to jump into. The adrenaline level is not an issue because they can fill it up by shouting “To the Limit”.

Now compare how much survivability Warriors get with simple skills and traits to what Thief has to do just to get a single condition removed plus a heal. It is utterly imbalance and unreasonable that you believe that EA is “powerful enough”.

Do you really believe that your stance is justified in the upcoming meta where Warriors are given tools to be effective while Thieves are severely being limited to a point of ineffectiveness?

EA needs to be baseline — the upcoming meta requires it.

Could Bandit’s Defence get balanced a bit more? If this animation lock stays then I suggest the 10s CD stays.

Hi
Pulmonary Impact feels good but the damage it deals reveals you when stealthed.
It would be a huge improvement if you could make the damage of Pulmonary Impact to not reveal you.

it’s nice to see the changes done so far, and I appreciate the work you’ve put into this.

that said, a few questions/comments on this feedback:

• Dodge Rolls: This is a tad disappointing. while you’ve acknowledged the issues with the animations, there’s a few other issues that haven’t even been mentioned
  - the placement of the supposed profession mechanic in the traitline. you don’t even have to change it, just explain why it’s done like this?
  - some people have raised the question of damage on the lotus training dodge – this hasn’t been mentioned – either as something to fix or something that’s intended.

• Weakening Charge: as has been mentioned above, the number of targets is nice, but the chance of hitting even one target is difficult. (though I appreciate that you mentioned looking into new targetting methods just a thought – maybe a directionally targeting strategy like Whirlwind attack – that’d do what you described)

Staff

• Animations: the only animation you mentioned was the one on weaknening charge, and even then only in passing. animations are far and away the single biggest reported issue with this specialisation, and I’m really confused and disappointed that this wasn’t addressed.

• Dust Strike: while this helps a little, it really would make more sense as an AoE – you could even throw a dark field on for a little more in the way of combo options (let’s be fair, all the combo fields are on the ranged weapons, which are kinda crap)

• Vault: this is a nice skill, but I think it needs something to make it a little more usable. more range, an evade, or an increase in speed would all be a huge help.

• Overall Purpose: as is, there’s not a huge amount of incentive to take Staff over other weapons. as a utility, it’s still not contesting Infiltrator’s Arrow Shortbow, damage wise it’s not beating D/D, and for multiple enemies, Sword’s still as good an option.
  - if this is meant to be a good raw damage weapon, then the basic attack could use some more damage, and vault needs a way to hit reliably.
  - alternatively, keeping the damage as-is, and increasing the number of targets would make it a much more AoE-style weapon, and make it markedly different in purpose when compared to the sword, for example. (vault could still use work in this scenario)
  - if this is meant to be a good utility weapon, give vault some more range and make dust strike an AoE combo field

Utilities:

• Distracting Daggers: this is a nice change, and makes the skill a lot more usable.

• Fist Flurry: while these changes make the skill more rewarding, it still doesn’t change the fact that the skill is very difficult to land, and the increase in damage doesn’t do enough to justify this.

Traits

• Escapist’s Absolution: while this argument you made about this trait would be perfectly valid on any other class, it’s not true for thief. we’ve got terrible condition cleanse to the point where certain specialisations are borderline mandatory to access the few we do have. couple this with our low health pool, and we’re possibly the most vulnerable class to conditions – moreso than revenant – for whom conditions are the designed weakness. unlike revenant however, we have other weaknesses in the form of raw damage, crit damage, being revealed, AoEs, and likely several others I’ve missed.

ultimately, I’d agree – EA being a major makes sense in giving us an choice between damage, survivability, and utility – but the base class is so woefully deficient in condition cleansing that it’s not a choice between these three. it’s a choice of having a decent defence against conditions or not.

• Evasive Empowerment: this change is nice, and gives the daredevil a bit more burst.

the other traits seem to be bugfixes, which are nice to see but don’t leave me with much else to say.

Hey Karl, first off I want to say that I appreciate the work you and the rest of the team does – especially those of you here managing the forums, since I understand things can get a little tense. I personally rarely come here, because it can be a cesspool of overwhelmingly negative opinions at times.

But I’m here today because there’s something I’m truly concerned about, and maybe you could help me understand.

Why are so many Daredevil animations recycled? It’s actually really troublesome that I see this, especially when so many other profession specializations got new, amazingly animated skills. The Revenant has tome of the most gorgeous skill animations I’ve seen in a game, the Tempest skills are absolutely wondrous to look at.

Then, when I play the profession I main, the profession I see every single day when I log on – we get recycled animations slapped on. It screams lack of care, either that or that this is being rushed out the door. That doesn’t make me, or anyone else comfortable.

Part of the reason people play Guild Wars 2 is because it feels wonderful, it’s so fluid to play – and skill animations are a large part of that.

So, why is it that a specialization centered around movement and control gets existing animations slapped on top, making it one of the least fluid characters to play to date.

The dodge rolls are the main offenders of this, part of the reason the pacing is off is because you’re utilizing existing skill animations and pasting them on top of a dodge roll cycle – these should truly be individually animated. It’s unfair that we’re getting hand-me-downs for the profession we truly love. The way the Daredevil holds the staff is another obvious offender. It’s the same grip in which a Revenant holds a hammer, which not only looks wrong, but is fundamentally wrong as well. You hold a hammer with a certain grip because the weight is balanced a specific way, you need a stronger grip to ensure you can support the weight of the hammer head itself. No one would wield a staff the same way, no one.

There are just two obvious issues ruining this specialization for myself as well as other. As it stands, my comment concerning this is the most upvoted comment on the Reddit thread pertaining to these coming BWE Daredevil changes, so there’s evidence that people agree with me.

So please, Karl, I beg you to truly give the Daredevil the love it deserves, the same love each and every other profession got when they were given some of the best looking skill animations in the game. This specialization deserves better, and if it’s being rushed out the door, that spells a larger problem with the expansion in general. Every specialization deserves the same treatment, give this specialization custom, fluid skill animations and I guarantee you that regardless of balance issues, people will play it because it feels good.

Glad the dodges are going to be fixed. Thanks! That was a bit debilitating.

Noct.2718:

Personal finishers on Elite skill or riot.

^ this. Still very disappointed by that. Our hard earned finishers need to be visible. Thanks!

Shinjiko.1352:

Meanwhile on the Revenant section….

*random post about maybe adding a unique Dodge animation * – " sure why not, in fact I’ll change a few other animations too because I love you guys".

I only wish all the classes got the same love rev is getting.

Lol, I’m not a random poster. I’ve been quite active in the Revenant community even before it had it’s own forum section.

Also, in fairness, the same attention was given to the existing classes at the beta events of the vanilla game.

so thats it? it only comes down to slightly changing few numbers now and bug fixes, no more chance for slightly bigger changes? staff animations stay this way (outside bug fixes), skill 3 and 4 remain the same functionally (4 has no use regardless of cast time changes, same with 3 outside of imob break), staff stays as thief weapon with no evasion (3 doesnt count, since it doesnt keep you engaged and evasion is delayed), no stealth, no buffs, no survivability of any kind, no group utility, no CC, no consistent dmg due to miserable AA, no fields to play with? gotta say im disappointed.

Traits and utilities are decent enough i guess (if you manage to fix dodges) but staff has no use in any game mode and worst of all it looks and feels horrible (not even a slight martial vibe it was supposed to have).

In that respect, number change id like to see – buff AA dmg (its terrible and really hurts the already weak weapon), at least the dmg on staff should be decent since it offers nothing else.

Make EA a minor (its not really a choice as you want to make it, its mandatory because its the only condition removal you can have on staff. You dont get to pick a master trait if running staff you have to take EA or die to first random burn thats thrown your way) or give some other consistent way to thieves to clear condis outside of stealth.

While I feel this is moving in the right direction. I don’t feel it is moving fast enough.

As people stated above.

Animations on the staff skills need improvement in looks (I.E More fluid and “new”), and speed.

Vault animation needs to execute quicker. As in less air time it is extremely easy to spot and move out of the way before you even can land it.

I am glad your looking into the dodges they are very sticky and clunky feeling in their current state.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Shinjiko.1352:

Meanwhile on the Revenant section….

*random post about maybe adding a unique Dodge animation * – " sure why not, in fact I’ll change a few other animations too because I love you guys".

I only wish all the classes got the same love rev is getting.

Lol, I’m not a random poster. I’ve been quite active in the Revenant community even before it had it’s own forum section.

the point is that once class can have what is – in the grand scheme of things – a minor and superfluous animation added by their dev – and quite quickly too, but when Everyone agrees that almost all of the daredevil’s animations are unfitting and recycled, we hear… nothing.

it’s less about your post and more about the difference in response quality.

Still not there.

Staff and Daredevil need a lot more work than just increasing damage or lowering cast times.

• Please make the new dodges baseline as a class mechanic. Switching them during combat burns 50 endurance. Outside of combat you can switch them without a cost.
  Frees up the Grandmaster trait slots.

You can put traits in there like e.g. :

10% of your toughness and vitality is converted to precision and ferocity while you are not stealthed or revealed.

Would open up the option to play the daredevil with Soldiers Amulet and give it the close combat staying power it doesn´t have at the moment.

• Staff needs to offer something that Sword/Dagger doesn´t have.
  Change the Skill Number 4 (Dust Strike) to a line shaped darkfield.
  It wouldn´t allow you to stealth with the staff but it gives you access to blinds and life leech. More staying power, team support and neat combos.

• Fitting and smooth animations are also very important. We have to look at them all the time while playing.

• Make the condition remove on Dodge (Escapist’s Absolution) the new minor grandmaster trait. On Steal traits are already enough in our traitlines. The trickery trait line is already a must have because of all the nice things you get from steal.

• Regarding Utilities … Bandits Defense shouldn´t be automatic. Let us block for 2 seconds . If we get attacked we get a follow up skill we can activate to knock down.

*There are a lot more great suggestions in various threads.

Please Arenanet don´t deliver something half baked to your customers.
We all know how awesome stuff you can do. So please give us this OH MY GOD – SO AMAZING feeling again.

Best regards!

Shino

Dash should not travel more than a normal dodge. It should be a normal dodge + swiftness and condi remover.

I would love some solid dmg modifiers (or combat effecticness) as baseline, not a choice. Look at chronomancer: 25% movement speed 25% time reduction on movement impairign effects, 66% recharge on key skills like elite. So much battle effectivness increase for mesmer while thief gains nothing but silly dodge with small, unreliable dmg radius.

I guess its time to learn mesmer.

Option to cancel Bandit’s Defense (dodging & stowing weapon), I also think increasing the Block time to 1.5 seconds to accommodate the increased cool down.
I also feel a bit bummed about the way our Elite part of the Specialization (the tweaked dodges) is locked behind Grandmaster Traits, we don’t see this with any other Specialization… Also saves up trait slots for combat-related coefficients, there’s been plenty of great suggestions for it.

Aside of that, the changes look good on paper, keep up the good work!

I was thinking along the lines of this: http://www.martialartsarticlesonline.com/images/bo.jpg .

Oh, maybe, although that’s a rather extreme resting stance, I’d be ok if they went that way, but a more casual one is fine.

A ranged attack or some kind of combo field would be nice too. Something like throwing the staff ? Actually a block would be pretty nice to sustain/stay longer in fights(which was the intention of DD spec)

I think a Block on staff would be a bit much, Thieves really shouldn’t be “blocky”, and we already have the new Block utility. I think the staff should be sustainy based on dodges and disabling the enemy with Weakness/blind/etc., so that should be the focus.

so thats it? it only comes down to slightly changing few numbers now and bug fixes, no more chance for slightly bigger changes?

I think it’s fair to point out, just because this patch has no major changes does not mean that they now consider the class “Done.” These are the changes they felt comfortable rolling out into the next test, we have no idea what’s going on behind the curtain. It would be nice if they were more open about what they’re working on, but they never have been. The ANet stance has always been to be quiet about anything that they weren’t ready to launch with, and that has continued throughout this beta process.

So while I don’t think any of the players are satisfied with the proposed BWE3 DD, and I hope that the Devs knew that going into this post, I also fully expect that the launch version is intended to have at least several improvements that didn’t make it into this build, and that they will continue to work on it until they get it right.

Completely underwhelming.

We still don’t have any way to clear conditions right away, any burst condi build will take 70% of our HP before we can get rid of the conditions. Seems like the traitlines aren’t going to be touched, so I’m guessing we’re gonna be stuck with less falling damage as GM trait?

The Daredevil spec still doesn’t fix any of the core problems the Thief currently has.

Sweetmate.5903:

Completely underwhelming.

We still don’t have any way to clear conditions right away, any burst condi build will take 70% of our HP before we can get rid of the conditions. Seems like the traitlines aren’t going to be touched, so I’m guessing we’re gonna be stuck with less falling damage as GM trait?

The Daredevil spec still doesn’t fix any of the core problems the Thief currently has.

Because they’re conditions, they’re conditional to cleanse.
Get it?

This is what i wanted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6fasDQ9mvQ

And this is what we got:
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=HPPj6viIBmU

I can’t express how sad and disappointed i am T_T

Most things are already said so i don’t really need to repeat it.
Dodges are no Grandmaster Trait worthy, Staff skill effects are lackluster, why are we the only class that get’s no new interesting thing with their F1 mechanic?
The animations are more important to me tho since they are just THAT underwhelming.

tl;dr: Fix Staff animations please and since you obviously don’t know kitten about Martial Arts using a staff get some proper video material first please. A bit reworking of the staff skills and trait line would be nice too.

Zero Day.2594:

Sweetmate.5903:

Completely underwhelming.

We still don’t have any way to clear conditions right away, any burst condi build will take 70% of our HP before we can get rid of the conditions. Seems like the traitlines aren’t going to be touched, so I’m guessing we’re gonna be stuck with less falling damage as GM trait?

The Daredevil spec still doesn’t fix any of the core problems the Thief currently has.

Because they’re conditions, they’re conditional to cleanse.
Get it?

GW2 staff members have some memorable quotes that just won’t go away. My favorites were Jon’s “l2p with Death Shroud it’s a strong mechanic” and “he who knows his name” ‘s "it’s for the purity of pistols" but this one is closing in on Jon’s. Even in bad times they can make a joke sad and funny. It’s conditional to cleanse lulz.

Does anyone remember if he said something special for GM fall damage trait?

Very disappointed with the changes. I am not going to give any feed back here because we have been giving feed back since years and nothing has changed. So don’t delete my post saying that I am not giving any feed back. If you kittening read all the threads created by us then you will know what needs to be done.

I am sorry Karl, you are not doing a good job in making thief class better.

Can we please have another dev to work on thief class or someone who actually play a thief?

Robert Gee please consider working on thief class

Karl McLain.5604:

Traits:
This iteration was mostly bug fixes. I’ve seen a lot of feedback on how Escapist’s Absolution should be baseline. It is the case that we believe this trait is powerful enough that it should be a choice in the trait line between damage, survivability and utility, rather than just a given. Driven Fortitude’s healing allows for usefulness in all modes where you take damage, where EA’s condition removal is situationally useful in a combat scenario.

So because Escapist’s Absolution a good trait for wvw/pvp and almost necessary for these two game modes, that it should be choice? I really don’t understand this logic.
Should also point that Impacting Disruption wont be used in pve because thief lacks aoe cc and it wont work on champs. So with all the people who play condi in pvp(except at a high lvl)/wvw we have to choose Escapist’s Absolution.

I know you can go sa but if you do unless your condi, either you will give up on initiative for damage or you will give up on damage for initiative.

Please listen to the animation posts.

All Staff animations are kind of silly, besides Vault.

You should really consider making new animations for melee staff that could easily work for Revenant too. The spin on staff’s auto is just SILLY and the shovel animation is silly too.

I’m pretty sure you can make staff look pretty AWESOME since it’s one of those styles that people crave for in games, but you’re executing very poorly at it by reusing animations not even designed for a MELEE STAFF.

As long as the animations of all the staff skills are replaced with actual martial arts animations (I suggest wushu or bojitsu), then at least the daredevil will FEEL fun to play. Just look at pistol/pistol (before the removal of riccochet and the other nerfs killed it) … even though it wasn’t a powerful build, many people (including me) loved playing p/p simply for the feel of being BA gunslinger.

Staff animations and the “feel” of the class should be paramount. Balance adjustments can always be made later, but we all know there won’t be new animations added in after the game launches.

Please, please, please remove the whirly staff spin auto-attack that has no place on a martial arts-based character. Karl, I don’t think there’s a single person here who wants a short projectile reflect on the auto-attack, which is what you just added. They want an auto-attack that actually feels like a martial art.

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!!!!!!

psst, you should remove that fun little part where dodging with Impaling Lotus will almost always reveal you if you are in combat.

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.

These changes definitely help out the damage aspect of the Daredevil, so we’re moving forward – but as people have talked about in this thread, myself included, can you address the animations for this specialization?

Why was the choice made to utilize previous animations for the specialization? Such as the idle staff animation being borrowed, as well as all three dodge animations? Every other specialization received new animations, and dodges are absolutely integral to the specialization as a whole – so why wasn’t more focus put towards these being fresh and interesting?

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.

A lot of players feel like this specialization is simply an afterthought. The lack of care put into the skill animations, gimping the class by requiring spec’ing into a Grandmaster to “unlock” its specialization mechanic, etc. It just doesn’t feel as though the same thought is being put into the Daredevil.

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.

Thanks Karl, I appreciate it!

Some very nice fixes to staff. Debilitating arc is very nice. Punishing strikes will start to lay on some hurt now.

Animations aside staff is getting there.

For anyone requesting improvements to staff animations, please state what race you are using…

The damage bump to Staff Strike, Staff Bash and Punishing Strikes is looking great. Also good to know that the reflection is intentional.

Weakening Charge now sounds perfect, especially with the jump in possible targets.

Overall, Staff’s pressure is looking far more positive. Now I’d just be interested in a possible change of Dust Strike (PBAoE) and the final version of Vault (whether it has evade frames or not).

It’s nice to hear more from you Karl, but it really feels like you’re polishing the brass on the Titanic at this point. I know you have to be careful with what you say lest you promise something that might not make it in before launch, but can we please get some acknowledgement on the big issues like placeholder animations, needed mechanical Staff changes, and the wasted GM trait debacle (even if it’s just “we’re looking into it”)?

It’s good to see you’re dipping your toe into posting more. I know there’s a lot of negativity around here, but please continue to post. Two-way communication goes a long way in terms of making players feel heard and understood, even if we can’t always get what we might want. Right now a lot of people are on the fence about whether to invest their time and money in HoT. Hearing some direct communication—even if it’s to tell us you can’t get to certain issues until after launch—would do a lot to help people pick a side of the fence to fall on.

Karl McLain.5604:

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).

Please consider turning it into a directable slide like whirlwind attack. While I’m happy that this is targeted now, giving the weapon two different situationally useful evades and one of them being a directable slide would give the weapon a unique feel amongst the other thief weapons. S/X has a shadowstep on #2, D/X has a targeted gap closer #2, Staff could have a fun/evasive repositioning tool (differentiating itself more from D/X).

Thanks for the changes though!

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!!!!!!

I’m not sure if it’s not clear enough or not but what all daredevil players really want above all else is appropriate animations! The attack animations are not befitting what this class should be at all, and the dodges are mechanically clunky.

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).

This sounds bad. Why is this not supposed to sound bad? The travel distance was already fairly short, if anything I would want to see a longer travel distance, not shorter. I’d also want for it to be able to mow through a bunch of enemies, but this sounds like it’ll just stick to one guy?

It’s far better now. Even against an ENORMOUS target like Lupicus, it was a pain to get all 3 hits to land with the distance you traveled. You had to readjust yourself constantly in order to get good mileage out of the skill’s damage. It felt terrible.

Now you can direct exactly where you want the skill to go, it can hit up to 5 enemies, and you actually have a somewhat more decent chance of landing more than 1 hit.

I wanted to chime in on the idea that people have been tossing around about the new dodge mechanic being an F-key toggle. I think it is a terrible.. TERRIBLE idea.

Here’s why: it looks way too strong on paper, so certainly we would see Daredevil would be toned down to compensate. But in reality, the only dodge you would be cycling between would be the random jump to the Rush dodge if you needed to break chill or cripple. Power builds would still largely benefit from the leap, and condi builds the lotus option. So you’d be gimping a potentially great specialization by giving a largely meaningless on the fly option, rather than having three powerful stand alone options, and a stronger overall trait line.

GinghamLion.3614:

I wanted to chime in on the idea that people have been tossing around about the new dodge mechanic being an F-key toggle. I think it is a terrible.. TERRIBLE idea.

Here’s why: it looks way too strong on paper, so certainly we would see Daredevil would be toned down to compensate. But in reality, the only dodge you would be cycling between would be the random jump to the Rush dodge if you needed to break chill or cripple. Power builds would still largely benefit from the leap, and condi builds the lotus option. So you’d be gimping a potentially great specialization by giving a largely meaningless on the fly option, rather than having three powerful stand alone options, and a stronger overall trait line.

I do not get the logic here at all. The spec traits on their own at this point are not as strong as you suggest. Only one can be used at a time. There no reason they would need to be toned down.

Now you can direct exactly where you want the skill to go, it can hit up to 5 enemies, and you actually have a somewhat more decent chance of landing more than 1 hit.

I’d kind if prefer it to be balanced on the assumption that you will only get one hit, but that one hit should be strong enough to be worth using. If an enemy is big enough to hit several times with it then it’s big enough to take those three hits. If you want to hit a small enemy several times, that’s what the Auto is for.

I wanted to chime in on the idea that people have been tossing around about the new dodge mechanic being an F-key toggle. I think it is a terrible.. TERRIBLE idea.

Here’s why: it looks way too strong on paper, so certainly we would see Daredevil would be toned down to compensate.

I don’t think you should be able to swap them during combat, I agree that would be overpowered without nerfs. I do think there should be an out of combat toggle for them though, because I always want to be using Dash out of combat for the increased speed, but I always want to be using Lotus while in combat. I’d like to be able to swap them without having to open up the Traits menu each time.

Yeah, I don’t think having the dodges swappable in combat adds much to the spec, and it could potentially cause balance issues. That’s still no excuse for the chosen dodge not being a drop-down list instead of GM trait, though. Having one extra trait choice is a bigger impact than people realize, especially one designed as a Grandmaster trait.

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!