Guild Wars 2

Serious Thought.5394:

apocom.3172:

alchemyst.2165:

I see it excelling at teamfighting, with its strongpoints being sustainability while keeping good sustained damage, similar to S/D, however from my experience staff has more damage than S/D. The cleave of Vault and Weakening strikes is good for teamfights, and the blind is actually pretty useful in that situation as well.

How on earth do you survive a teamfight? It’s not a damage problem, but you have nearly no defensive utility in this weaponset.

Why are you in a teamfight? Shortbow the rim, engage in 2- fights. 5 people is too much, and will remain too much. That’s the concept.

I should have been more specific, not large team fights, but up to 3v3 fights.

And technically 4 out of the 5 skills on staff have defensive utility; last autoattack chain is a reflect, #2 is weakness, #3 is an evade and immob remove, #4 is a blind.

And I’m in those situations because DD is actually pretty good in them, and the elite skill supports that, finishing off people quickly and taking them out to gain the advantage. Hope that cleared it up.

I got quite a few suggestions as well about the staff.

Autoattack: Seems responsive, but lacks something more rewarding on third chain then only vulnerability, or whirl finisher (dd doesnt have combo fields on staff so it is quite useless). Damage is okay.

Weakening charge – Damage is nice like everywhere on staff imo, but still this skill needs little something, more cost but evade frame maybe (or on vault)? It would be more timed skill to damage/evade and reposision not spammable weakness source. REALLY important is that whole skill (3 attacks) is affected by blind, you dont hit with it with bilnd or i am imaginating things

Debilating arc – can’t feel it right (yet), makes obvious combos with charge and vault, but i guess it is okay. Responsive.

Dust strike – it has no application, maybe stomps, but this skill is quite meh. It would be nice if it was pbaoe without damage, but with reveal. Staff DD has really hard time vs stealth classes.

Vault – main source of big damage, but in warriorish style – dont like it. You have to setup it with cc to hit something, same as warrior – thief is not warrior, supposed to be quick and responsive

As for the traits I would still argue about swapping driven fortitude with escapist absolution – this ttrait is the only choice without shadow arts

This is more a question than a feedback, but i think it is important: why a group should take a thief?
I mean, our damage is good, but not much better than any other, we provide little to no boons/condi remove to our allies, we cannot follow a melee train since we are too squishy, we don’t have great CCs. We have stealth, which is more important for us, due to our stealth attacks/traits, than for others. So, again, why?
Daredevil doesn’t add anything.
It is a selfish elite spec.

I feel like i’m not contributing like others to the fights, i would like thieves to have something unique and tactical to let them be a strong part of a setup, to be the steak, not the salad…

Zodryn.4216:

*

• How does thief (not daredevil) fare against daredevil and other classes introduced in HoT. Keep in mind, all elites and even base specs have received significant changes since the last BWE. Please give feedback based on this weekend and not past experiences.

Normal thief against beta classes today…

Utterly destroyed against most classes. Maybe tooltips are bugged, but the Rev appears to do up to 6-8k hits on their (I believe) auto attack hammer? It shows as 2s reuse, does three hits each hitting 6-8k.

Flame gun (whichever class) hit for 14k… it has 5 or 8s cooldown or something?

Engineer elite spec ran with 5 players chasing – we couldn’t kill and their heal was insane. 1v1 got wrecked in a few seconds.

Distinct impression that ‘free to play’ players (assuming they don’t have access to these new things) will be utterly destroyed; no idea how daredevil fares as haven’t created any beta characters. The new classes have been very frustrating to play against and not actually killed any of them at the moment. Whilst I’m not the worlds best thief by any stretch, didn’t think I was that bad.

Chips.7968:

The new classes have been very frustrating to play against and not actually killed any of them at the moment. Whilst I’m not the worlds best thief by any stretch, didn’t think I was that bad.

It’s not you, it’s them. Like, every elite I tested out except for Daredevil and maybe Berserker (did not test Ele’s at all) seems to have been designed in a vacuum. Balance was abandoned in favour of going to town. Reaper does kittened damage. Scrapper has kittened sustain and really good damage. It’s impossible to die as a Druid (ok, so you’re not helping with doing damage – but nobody in your vicinity can die either soooo).

It does really seem like, if you don’t buy HoT, you are going to get wrecked. Apart from situational ones like Druid, most of these elites are just straight upgrades and will be part of almost every build.

some quick new feedback:

• Vault’s AoE is actually about 10% smaller than what the ground target indicator shows (tested on golems to be sure).

• bandit’s defense will often end up killing you because instead of a flip over skill, it automatically leaps you like 400 units into the enemy team if it blocks anything. either take the leap off and keep the kick melee range, or give it a flip over skill on block instead.

Daendur.2357:

This is more a question than a feedback, but i think it is important: why a group should take a thief?
I mean, our damage is good, but not much better than any other, we provide little to no boons/condi remove to our allies, we cannot follow a melee train since we are too squishy, we don’t have great CCs. We have stealth, which is more important for us, due to our stealth attacks/traits, than for others. So, again, why?
Daredevil doesn’t add anything.
It is a selfish elite spec.

I feel like i’m not contributing like others to the fights, i would like thieves to have something unique and tactical to let them be a strong part of a setup, to be the steak, not the salad…

originally, thieves were really mobile, powerful duelists. strong in 1v1s, sustain through just not getting hit, ever, always on the right place at the right time.

as balance changes kept being pushed, other classes’ 1v1 abilities got better and better while the thief’s 1v1 abilities were at best the same, and at worst nerfed.

so as a result, the only advantage thieves have right now is that we can move a lot, and stealth downed allies for a safer rez/stomp prevention.

the daredevil doesn’t exactly bring anything new to the thief, as it’s not any better at fighting groups and sustaining drawn out fights (which i think is what it is meant to be) than a regular thief, and the signature weapon is actually worse at that than the current thief weapons. in fact, there’s nothing staff brings to the table that isn’t done better by another weapon set.

don’t get me wrong, i think the daredevil has great potential to be a more sustain-oriented thief, something other than “mega one-shot burst or run away”, a style that can handle 1vX pressure while staying on point. it just isn’t there yet, and making staff work is key for this. daredevil already allows condi thieves to be that much stronger in 1v1 scenarios (you’re probably better off with shadow arts for group situations, thanks to potent poison buff), and the traits (and most skills) are really good. but it needs something to convince me to not slap shadowstep, shadow refuge, and a shortbow to my loadout. until it does that, you’re probably better off with something else.

Rudy.6184:

As for the traits I would still argue about swapping driven fortitude with escapist absolution – this ttrait is the only choice without shadow arts

starting to think the same. it’s just unthinkable to not run condi cleanse, and daredevil isn’t meant to be running SA, so it can’t get the cleanse from there (and there, it’s ok for the cleanse to be a major trait because the other two traits suck, but on DD, the other traits are actually cool and useful, just not enough to warrant skipping condi cleanse). plus, driven fortitude is still a really solid trait that would warrant picking over the other two in some situations (i.e. S/P healing builds)

DD is how I expected it to be, like Acro, but with offensive/defensive traits (Acro’s Regen traits are pretty useless right now), it has a decent balance I think.

At least by far Bound is my favourite new evade, the only problem is that it seems too similar to Vault right now, rest like Dash; which seems to be good for changing direction and keeping distance, seems a bit off for me, as evades they don’t feel as fluid as normal evades; a toggle would be nice.

Staff seems much more fluid, but atm I’m not sure I’d take this over most of our other sets, even though it does seem to have high mobility, it doesn’t feel quite as fluid and it lacks the same amount of utilities as offhand pistol (which it works well with I feel), even with dust strike #4.

I really like the feel of channeled vigor with it’s low CD and endurance regen (traited for lower cd and 10 endurance), the cast time should be a little shorter though, at least I find it viable once i could create distance to give me a window to cast the skill, it’s at least better than HiS, which probably could do with lower CD itself.

Ok I have been playing Thief for the last two days in beta. Not so much PVP but PVE. I wanted to try it out in a raid but that got shut down. So for the final beta here is my feedback.

Staff: I feel over all this weapon started as a defensive (tanking) weapon but lost it’s way half way and started dealing more damage. It has plenty of survival spams and does decent damage.

Staff Strike>Staff Bash>Punishing Strike: Decent auto attack. not sure how I feel about the vulnerability on it. I feel like a 1s daze would work better for defense here.

Hook Strike I feel like this skill is lost as there isn’t many options to use this unless you stealth via utility or from another source. It doesn’t get the action it deserves.

Weakening Charge: The damage/weakness status is balanced. I don’t know how I feel about the actual charge part though. I feel like there is way too many “forced” mobile attacks and nothing but the auto attack chain to keep stationary.

Debilitating Arc: Solid break away. Overlaps a bit with Dash with the immobilize cancel.

Dust Strike: Solid defensive attack. Sorta spam-able. I like it but feel like I would have liked it more if it kicked up a dust cloud at your location causing blind. I think this would be better for when you are locked down and or tanking.

Vault: Solid way to re-engage. Though it just seems to double up with Bound.

Staff Final Thoughts: When using a staff it seems like Lotus Training is the only “diverse” option as Vault works like Bound and Debilitating Arc works similar to Dash in the immobilization removal and evade department. I feel like there is a lot of over lap with skills with the staff/DrD. Overall the staff seems pretty solid in PVE very well balanced in my opinion giving options to both offensive and defense. It will be good for solo builds and small groups. I wouldn’t raid tank with it though. I can see it making some enemies in PVP. Some of the animations are not practical with real Bo Staff handling but it flows non the less.

Physicals: This was really the only section that truly interests me when it comes to Dare Devil.

Channeled Vigor: Good Spike Heal. I think it is reaching too hard to do something additional. The Endurance clause should just be dropped or traded out for something else. I think it is just too many conditionals with the actual timing for channeling. In the middle of a fight I need something to give me a good chunk of health back fast. Trying to wait till I am full endurance before using it will just get me killed. It is just a handicap at this point. If anything you should be drained a bit of endurance when you use this because you want to dodge back to safety and activate. If anything do the reverse. Spike the heal and add a boon of vigor for 3 seconds.

Impairing Daggers: Great opener specially for a condition build. I see it’s potential in PVP. I personally don’t use it because I have other skills slotted but I can see me using it under certain conditions (dungeons/PVP, etc). This is a pretty strong skill.

Distracting Daggers: Works a lot better than BWE2. Glad to see it works in PVE this weekend. The projectile velocity increase was much welcomed. I still would like to see a bigger window after initiating.

Bandit’s Defense: An over all great skill. A must take for the break stun and knock down. I do agree with others that the block window should be a little longer. 2 seconds instead of 1 would be awesome.

Fist Furry Chain: The damage increase this BWE is great. I can actually use this skill now and not feel like it is pointless. I would agree with other though in the heat of battle trying to use this between dodges makes it very hard to land all 5 if the enemy is on the run. Moving the stun to the front of the skill or adding 1 second of immobilize would help. Or just plain remove Palm Strike Pre-req.

Impact Strike Chain: I know this was designed as a PVP skill but I would like to see some benefit in PVE. Specially since this is the only new Elite we get. Thieves don’t really have the best Elites to begin with. Adding a damage increase to the whole chain by 20% while enemy is under 25% health would be interesting. This would allow it to be used more to do damage on bosses in PVE where you know you are most likly not going to get the final hit and might have additional recharges from elongated fights.

Traits:

Physical Supremacy: I feel like this is too basic. It is a self given that you will gain access to physical skills. You don’t see any of the core thief skills (tricks, venoms, etc) locked behind a minor. Really this just says you get 1 extra dodge pip. I think it should also increase endurance regen by 1/3 of it’s rate to compensate for the larger pool.

Evasive Empowerment: This trait is as useless as Braille to a deaf kid. 10% dmg increase for 2 seconds is too short. Most of the time you are using this time to reconnect from the dodge’s disconnect. Specially if you are using Dash. Up it to 3-4 seconds than “MAYBE”. Still falls short when considering the next two traits. If this was flipped to provide 25% damage mitigation for 2 seconds I would see this being used (DD version of Resilience of Shadows).

Weakening Strikes: Not a bad skill. Works well with “Lotus Posion”. 10 Sec CD seems a little high. I do feel this wasn’t very unique though as it is almost exactly “Lotus Posion” just 1 sec longer and on crit hit rather than posion.

Brawler’s Tenacity: Really the only hand’s down choice compared to the other two in most builds. Curbs the recharge on physical utilities and replens endurance fairly well. Is a must if you are using physicals. If physicals were off the table than I would take “Weakening Strikes”. I wouldn’t change this trait.

Driven Fortitude: shrugs nothing special. Heals when you evade. I do think it should be increased by 10% for more survivalbility. If I had the chance to re-work it I would add a block after successful evade with a 20 sec CD.

Staff Mastery: If I planned on using a staff I would be more interested in it. However I don’t. This is basic base line. It works for what it is. However putting it in the same line as “Escapist Absolution” is like releasing a new movie the same weekend as the next Avenger’s movie. Plan for a crappy turn out.

Escapist Absolution: This is the “must take” of the whole line. Now that stealth has been crippled so bad from the additional reveals it just handicaps you to take SA anymore. “Shadow’s Embrace” can no longer be relied on. It was bad enough it got nerfed to just damage condition removal. Now you will get more from Escapist Absolution and DD. This makes EA the only “real” thief condition removal. Since this skill is so powerful it would be better off rolling it into “Driven Fortitude” as a package and replace it with something more “base line”.

Impacting Disruption: I like the idea, only problem is I will never use it over EA (Above) unless some other stream lined condition removal is put into play. I might use this if I am in a group where I just have to stand back and disrupt the mob without taking damage. But this is rare and not very fun. IMO this will nto see much light of day.

Endurance Theif: Only skill in the entire line that works with the original thief meta. It is simple, base line. Nothing special. Would be interesting if it stole a boon as well.

Lotus Training: Great dodge for condition builds. I preferred the death blossom animation. Break’s stealth which sucks. Otherwise no complaints.

Bound: Least favorite dodge. It is just the dodge version of Vault. Basic, not really interesting. Looks more like a stomp. Decent damage output. Not a fan.

Dash: I feel this is very strong. I worked my current build around this skill. The condition breaks are awesome. The only thing that hurts is the additional range means you have more disconnect time between melee hits. Works very well with pistols. Hard to keep in SR. Have to watch it around all the cliffs in Verdant Brink. I have dashed myself off an edge or two. Really this is the most godly skill DD has.

Final DD thoughts: I will have to agree with other when I say the dodges would be more beneficial and inline with the other elite classes it this were a Revenant style toggle menu in F3-F5. I do think it handicaps DD for there meta to be locked behind grand masters. If they are going to stay locked there I believe Bond and Lotus Training need a serious bump. If not new GM traits providing some more defense would help “a lot”.

Current with the DD survivalbility, I feel it is still way behind other classes. I know the whole idea is that if you evade an attack you mitigate 100% damage. Only problem is with this is you can only dodge so much. The more mob you have the more AOE the more chance you are going to stop on an AOE loosing half your health. Overall I think this is a problem with the Thief at the core. Before we had damage mitigation while in stealth. That is no longer an option. Right now as it is when we take damage we loose half our health from a moderate hit. 2 hits and you are in a downed state. If this were changed to 3 hits and you were down this would help SOOO much.

I was not able to test out the Thief in raids since they became disabled. However just from solo PVE I seen other classes having better chances with surviving. Even Elementalist last longer. If I missed one mechanic I most likely was laying on the floor. I even traded half my armor out for Knights armor just to see what the survivability was like. It was better but I started to loose a bit of my burst.

I can only imagine what it is going to be like in a Raid. Keep in mind from someone who has been a long time raider in other games. It doesn’t matter what your dps output is, dead puts you at the bottom of the parser. I feel that without a core damage mitigation buff Thief is going to be turned away from raids.

As for PVE, three types of mob “really hurt” in there veteran status to a thief. One the smoke screen reverent beasties. “Unrelenting Assault” just about kills you and continues through the dodge. Only Bandit’s defense seems to break this. The 2nd the shadow step frogs with the bows. Alot of disengagement. The 3rd Snipers. Easy if you attack them first but heaven forbid if you stop or have to cross one of there AOEs.

I have one major problem with Daredevil as it is now, it’s been said before many times too and I haven’t seen a response to this specific piece of feedback. All other elite specs get a new mechanic by using the elite line. Daredevil doesn’t get a new mechanic at all, we are just given +1 dodge. It doesn’t feel right that our Grandmaster line is what gives us a unique mechanic.

I don’t see why the dodge types couldn’t have been rolled into the minor trait and added an additional piece of UI that allows us to choose from the 3 dodges while OOC, or even better, in combat with a CD after switching similar to ele attunements (F3,F4,F5?).

This would feel like a much more complete and special elite spec, where as now it is little more than a base stat boost.

I would love to hear a dev response to this as it has been brought up so many times. There are other things I would like to see tweaked about Daredevil but if everything stayed as it is now with the exception of the unique dodges becoming the elite spec mechanic I would be able to get over the other small issues.

EDIT:
also once you burn some endurance the +50 endurance doesn’t really make a difference, you still have to wait the whole 10 sec (w/o vigor) to recharge one dodge, so this “mechanic” isn’t even allowing DD’s to dodge more often except for that initial burst. This is noticeable especially against smokescales where you have to burn so many dodges just to stay alive – once you double dodge you don’t really notice the extra 50 endurance for the rest of the fight because you’re dodging before your natural endurance regen can even begin to fill the 3rd dodge bar.

EDIT2:
The wiki says that endurance regens at at rate of 5%/sec unbuffed, so DD should be seeing a dodge ready up every 6.66 seconds, but it still takes 10 seconds. Unless the +50 endurance means we have +50% total (for a max of 150%?), not 150 endurance resource, which makes no sense.

TLDR: feels like 1 free dodge, not being able to dodge more often

What’s the point of don’t stop when you have dash?

Just wondering. Two gm traits and one of them is considerably more powerful than the other.

swinsk.6410:

What’s the point of don’t stop when you have dash?

Just wondering. Two gm traits and one of them is considerably more powerful than the other.

well no point if you spec DD but for those who decide not to it useful. The question then becomes will DD become a must have spec?

Is it possible to make Vault a blast finisher?

Daredevil feels way better than last BWE3. Here’s my take after testing the changes (any significant changes can wait till after HoT launch if necessary):

Staff

Skill 1 – Feels better; maybe a tiny increase in damage and it should be fine
Skill 2 – Feels waaaay better to use, thank you for this
Skill 3 – I feel like the animation needs to be faster if you’re trying to telegraph evades (since you strike then evade)
Skill 4 – The cast time is way better but it needs a smoke field or a field of some sort; this would really amp the staff up in the utility department which is what the staff is currently lacking
Skill 5 – feels better but think the cast time needs to be shaved down a bit more and it really needs an evade. Also the distance traveled feels shorter than stated (600), maybe bump it up a bit.

Overall, outside PvE, I feel lost with staff since other options feel better to use. The damage is there, but the effective utility is lacking.

Physical Skills

Channeled Vigor – Can’t really say since the 3/4 channel change isn’t in. I think it’ll be great and can compete with Withdraw when it’s finally in.

Bandit’s Defense – still good even with the increased cooldown but the duration needs a slight increase and the cast time needs to be faster. I telegraphed a jungle tendril knocking me back numerous times and I pop this skill right away when I did. Every single time it doesn’t go off in time. Also, this skill really needs a flip over for the kick followup; the kick needs to be optional. You can get caught out and die being locked in the kick animation like that.

Distracting Daggers – equip time & velocity is awesome but I still won’t use it due to the internal cooldown for the next dagger use. I feel there shouldn’t be a cooldown once I equipped the daggers.

Fist Flurry – I like the idea of this skill rewarding you for landing all the hits for the flip over but it’s too situational for decent reliable use imo

Impairing Daggers – Had no problem with it in BWE2, no problem with it now.

Impact Strike – No problem with it but I do think that if you land the damage on an enemy you should be able to continue the chain (read somewhere here that stability stopped the chain so that might be a bug). Also hoping that there can be a trait or something that gives us at least 2 stacks of stability when starting the combo.

Traits

Evasive Empowerment – I thought it was just me that thought 2s on this was short. I guess not. 1 or 2 more additional seconds would really help to followup quick disengage dodges.

Escapist’s Absolution – I’ve tried it and it’s a decent trait for dealing with conditions. But I think everyone here who’s brought up this trait up pretty much says the same thing: it needs to be added to or swapped with a minor; and I agree. I wouldn’t stress this if Thieves had another reliable way to condition cleanse via traits. In fact, I haven’t even tried the other master traits this BWE because I need EA to live. The only good one is Shadow’s Embrace in SA and a lot of people won’t be taking SA due to dodging more than stealthing. A majority of thieves, especially in PvP and doubly so for this meta, will take EA every time; we pretty much have to. With EA being a minor we can actually have options in the Master tier to choose from.

Bounding Dodger – I think this was getting a fix to be a leap if I recall? Also the dodge distance feels a little short (kind of the same situation with Vault).

Unhindered Combatant – Fantastic, very good with P/P

Lotus Training – maybe due to the animation but I felt the dodge distance was a little short

So to cover OP’s points of discussion:

• Practicality of skills. Is a certain skill reliable? Does it do enough damage or perform it’s function well? How’s the cast time?

Bandit’s Defense is very good but not reliable if trying to block in melee and not wanting the kick effect. Distracting Daggers is good but isn’t reliable due to the internal cooldowns. Dust Strike doesn’t feel reliable to use at all in a skill rotation. Impact Strike can be tricky to use and isn’t useful (rather than reliable) in PvE currently.

• Trait synergy and effectiveness. Do traits work well with each other and with traits from other lines? Do they perform well in practice, not just on paper? Do they define builds well?

Wasn’t noticing a significant difference with DD and Acro together. DA, CS and Trickery are good with DD. I read somewhere that Improv from DA line wasn’t working with Physical Skills though (possible bug?).

• Does daredevil feel unique from thief (given that acro has changed, please avoid comparing to pre June thief)? Can you create fun and useful builds with the tools it provides?

Not really imo. It feels like a new Acro line with a few more perks if anything.

• How does thief (not daredevil) fare against daredevil and other classes introduced in HoT. Keep in mind, all elites and even base specs have received significant changes since the last BWE. Please give feedback based on this weekend and not past experiences.

If we’re talking straight up 1v1 then Thief can fare against DD; I honestly think it can be a skill matchup. Versus everything else, if you don’t have the element of surprise you stand a chance but won’t stand a great chance especially since there’s more reveal skills to worry about. Even with the element of surprise, you’ll have a rough time as a Thief against most of the elite specs. You’ll have to disengage/reengage quite a bit.

• State one thing you really like about daredevil.

Dash dodge. I think it really opens up the possibility of new P/P builds

• State one thing you dislike/want changed about daredevil.

Kind of sad to say it but I dislike the new dodges locked behind GMs. I’ve thought a lot about it over the weeks and I think it’s more beneficial in order to give us more sustain like damage mitigation GMs to help us compete with the other elite specs. Can make us choose a dodge via an F3 option and stick with it till we’re out of combat or out of a PvP match. I think Dash would be a little strong in this regard so maybe make the swiftness part a trait.

Negative Feedback

Staff is not viable and doesn’t have the same survivability like other melee weapons

Utility good are bandit’s defense and the elite, other is really meh.

Traits problem is not the DD line but the other traits, there is no build except for d/p sa (but it will be an hell with this build too in the new meta). Core thief is weak, this is the main problem, DD doesn’t save the situation.

I tried a lot of other prof spec this weekend (chrono, druid, herald, scrapper, reaper) and honestly thief dd appears like a joke.

Thief needs more survivability, EA needs to be minor and buffed. Staff role needs to change, make Vault like a teleport or something similar, at least we can use it instead of shortbow. Or add a smoke field to staff like in #4.

Shalien.9018:

Answering OPs questions

• Practicality of skills. Is a certain skill reliable? Does it do enough damage or perform it’s function well? How’s the cast time?

Mechanic wise, Daredevil feels like the old Acrobatics Thief. It’s DPS is higher with the new dodges and Dash is pretty fun to use. I don’t think our sustain went up enough to match the current power-creep meta of HoT.

• Trait synergy and effectiveness. Do traits work well with each other and with traits from other lines? Do they perform well in practice, not just on paper? Do they define builds well?

Our traits aren’t exciting. Having the dodges on our grandmaster trait line instead of being baseline like Rev legends is a pretty big let down for most people.

• Does daredevil feel unique from thief (given that acro has changed, please avoid comparing to pre June thief)? Can you create fun and useful builds with the tools it provides?

It’s like Thief and a half. It’s good enough to be considered useful but doesn’t offer us anything we didnt really already have access to.

• How does thief (not daredevil) fare against daredevil and other classes introduced in HoT. Keep in mind, all elites and even base specs have received significant changes since the last BWE. Please give feedback based on this weekend and not past experiences.

I fought quite a few traditional and HoT meta builds as a Staff Daredevil. The weapon doesn’t provide the sustain we need. I tried it out as a sustain DPS style since that what it’s apparently designed for but Vault was too dangerous to use consistently.

• State one thing you really like about daredevil.

The animation’s are much cleaner (dodges aside) – I’m not in the camp that it should look like Naruto… No martial artist will ever run with a staff behind their back. The only thing I wish was different was the fantasy-style abilities should be more martial arts looking. Ex. Staff auto-chain #3 should be a whirling spin that an actual martial artist does instead of the weird helicopter thing.

• State one thing you dislike/want changed about daredevil.

I wish we had more sustain. I was hoping this would bring us up to group fight potential or better 1v1 that didn’t require pure burst and run tactics. If that was the goal it’s not quite there. The worst is probably that the trait’s are messy and our elite spec mechanic is on the trait line instead of baseline like everyone elses. The last 3 traits could add the sustain we need.

Thoughts on Daredevil
We’ve beaten this dead horse a few thousand times and at this point I’m not even sure it’s corpse resembles a horse anymore… but Daredevil needs to have the dodges selectable outside of combat as a baseline selection box similar to rev’s legends. We need the grandmaster line traits to be well thought our, grandmaster quality traits.

Staff
People sent me /whispers very often in sPvP telling me that they tried staff in PvP and it sucked. These notes are a result of those convos.

Staff is just not quite there. It doesn’t give us the sustain we need to be effective in mass scale fights. So many other professions have invulnerability and strong stunbreaks/condi cleanse. Daredevil could be our sustain/off-tank quality spec line. To prevent our other meta builds from going crazy, IMO this survivability can be put on Staff.

• The auto chain is nice as is. Projectile reflections cool, though a little hard to time since it’s on the third move. Maybe if you add very short projectile reflect to the first two so we can use it like a baseball bat on purpose, that’d be cool. A combination of this and a larger vault distance can make Staff a great option to replace Shortbow.
• AoE weakness just isn’t great. It’s no where near powerful enough to help Thief with it’s baseline weaknesses. Putting something like transferring condi’s to a nearby enemy would be something more helpful – though obviously too powerful for a spammable skill.
• #3 is in a good place. It doesn’t have any umph to it, but as it works in the weapon I’d say it’s pretty good.
• #4 needs a darkness or smoke field. 4 initiative for just a small AoE blind is too expensive to keep going with. If it’s going to remain without a combo field I think the initiative should be dropped to 3.
• I think Vault needs a buff. The distance is too short and it needs evasion frames. 6 Initiative will be too much to keep it competitive. The distance should be 900 and the aftercast should be removed so that we can use it instead of Infiltrator’s shot.

Additional Staff Notes

• I found it a little more difficult to stay on people using staff compared to most other weapon sets.
• When we need DPS in PvE, D/D and D/P provide it better.
• When we need to stack for PvE content, S/P and D/P do it better.
• When we need survivability, S/P and S/D provide it better.
• When we need control, S/P provides it better.
• When we need mobility SB provides it better.

I can’t think of any content where Staff is a better option than something else we already have.

Bug
To add to the bug’s listed in posts before mine:

• Vault doesn’t go the max distance. If you put the vault ground placement as far as you can and use the ability you’ll stop short about 50-100 units shorter than where you intended. When the ring’s close it works fine and you land exactly where the center is – only far away does this issue occur.
• Pulmonary Impact on interrupt trait doesn’t trigger on mobs with breakbars. I know you guys made other effects-on-trigger traits that don’t work on breakbars work, such as Reaper’s chill effect traits work against break bars so in all likelihood this is just an oversight.
• The animation for the heal is bugged if you cast it while moving. While still you float up in the air and look all fancy. if you cast it while moving your legs stay on the ground and it looks like you break your neck lol. Just update it so that you float around while moving and it’ll be fixed.
• The heal casting time was supposed to be 3/4 sec this BWE instead of 2 and 1/4. It’s still 2 and 1/4.

I totally agree with this, this is great addition to all that has been said!

My Feedback:
(I played a Dire set Thief for this Beta)

Dodges are where they should be. They feel like normal dodges.
The traits have been interesting, and just awesome to play with.
Each staff skill feels like its timed and doesn’t take too long, I really enjoyed BWE3 with the daredevil, and if it stays the same, then I am really looking forward to becoming one on my main.

Great job devs! Keep up the great work.

Bounding dodge should be reverted to a leap rather than a blast. It used to to create great synergy with the smokefield from pistol offhand, allowing some stealth safety to s/p and p/p build. this blast finisher makes it really clunky to try and gain stealth from your tiny smoke field. To gain stealth you need to place the field, run past and dodge back. This causes you to lose all momentum for a stealth set up and feels like a nerf. Please revert blast finisher to leap on bounding dodge. Thanks

Daredevil is really pointless for S/P, because Pistol Whip still locks you in place
If you’re locked in a solid position and a bunch of AoEs get stacked on you, you die as soon as the evade frames go, before you can even try using the one extra dodge… and there are plenty of AoEs in GW2.

Staff #4 would benefit from a dark field imo (not a smoke field).
I don’t feel like having access to stealth through the staff fits the theme of Daredevil. On the other hand, a dark field would make the weapon unique.
It would also provide more sustain with the whirl combo provided by the third auto-attack.

I concur on the darkfield while recognizing the desire to have a source of stealth. We just have too many smokefields with the P off hand and with various utilities and skills.

I had thought a water field might work too but it just does not suit the Class. Now there other fields I can see as possible that might work and would feel thematically correct.

Dark Field
Smoke field
Poison Field.
Ethereal Field

Dark preferred as it offers some sustain with leeching on a whirl.

Staff also begs for a block somewhere.. I know there a reluctance to give a block to the thief but if we to stay in battle one short duration block would be very useful. I am thinking it can be added to number 3. You break the immob while crippling the enemy. You evade BACKwards and get a 1 second block. If there no block in that one second then there an icon that allows you to jump forward 400 units with a leap. The forward leap does no damage but counts as a leap finisher and has a short evade.

I’m very satisfied. The role of the thief in PVP as a Roamer is significantly strengthened, mobility is now by far the best of all classes.

And no, I do not need all-rounder.

I have all the classes and all the necessary roles (Team Fighter, Bunker, Roamer, Healer). I change the class before the beginning of the match based by my team and the opponents.

Say goodbye to the idea of a “Main” and learn the whole bouquet.

I figured something out that annoys me pretty much a lot:

When I do Bandit’s Defence and someone hits me in melee with some kind of rapid attacks, it will try to do the knockdown. But instead I die because enemies spam auto attack or some other attacks during that window that it will try to knockdown the opponent.

For example when a warrior does Whirlwind, I still get hit by the whole thing (aside the first strike), so that’s pretty annoying. You might say it’s part of the skill and maybe that’s true, but it really doesn’t help in group fights where people are focussing on you.

Maybe change this to make the knockdown a flipover that you can trigger? And increase the block to 2 seconds?

Strategist.6132:

I figured something out that annoys me pretty much a lot:

When I do Bandit’s Defence and someone hits me in melee with some kind of rapid attacks, it will try to do the knockdown. But instead I die because enemies spam auto attack or some other attacks during that window that it will try to knockdown the opponent.

For example when a warrior does Whirlwind, I still get hit by the whole thing (aside the first strike), so that’s pretty annoying. You might say it’s part of the skill and maybe that’s true, but it really doesn’t help in group fights where people are focussing on you.

Maybe change this to make the knockdown a flipover that you can trigger? And increase the block to 2 seconds?

Or add an evade whlie kicking.

A thought occurs to me.

IF: Chronomancers are going to be meta…
THEN: Alacrity needs to affect initiative gain.

I’m not sure if anyone has tested this yet, but it needs to be the case. The optimal PVE group will always contain a chronomancer for quickness and alacrity. For alacrity to be fair, it needs to affect Initiative.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

A thought occurs to me.

IF: Chronomancers are going to be meta…
THEN: Alacrity needs to affect initiative gain.

I’m not sure if anyone has tested this yet, but it needs to be the case. The optimal PVE group will always contain a chronomancer for quickness and alacrity. For alacrity to be fair, it needs to affect Initiative.

This.

Glad to hear the animations are still rolling along!

Daredevil has an overall much better feel now, and in a bubble I have nothing bad to say about it other than the art we don’t need to give feedback on.

However, moving from a D/D build with acrobatics in live to rolling a fresh daredevil, it was no contest. No other elite spec has such glaring overlaps. Daredevil is a straight upgrade to the acrobatics line so much that I didn’t even have to consider my other two trait lines.

Daredevil does, in a practical sense, everything Acrobatics does with the only exception being a passive stunbreak. It’s a straight upgrade. That’s bad, and that’s not what Elite Specs are supposed to be.

I’m FINE with the mobility and dodging stuff being exclusive to daredevil, but acrobatics needs a clear role or daredevil is simply power creep rather than a valuable choice. Why not build it around passive reflexive effects completely, and have it be the holding pen for pistol and shortbow traits? At that point it would have a clear identity. You get burst sustain from acro through ICD reflexive traits, which are most valuable on ranged builds that generally take fewer total hit.

You haven’t responded to acrobatics concerns yet. Why? They may not be “part of daredevil” but they are concerns directly related to daredevil being added to the game. I’d think as a game designer you would agree that this falls under your domain of concerns when developing the new spec for the expansion.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

A thought occurs to me.

IF: Chronomancers are going to be meta…
THEN: Alacrity needs to affect initiative gain.

I’m not sure if anyone has tested this yet, but it needs to be the case. The optimal PVE group will always contain a chronomancer for quickness and alacrity. For alacrity to be fair, it needs to affect Initiative.

no thanks, because if alacrity affects initiative gain, then chill will too. i dont need that.

Hello folks!
I havent read all comments but…

The passive trait Driven Fortitude in Daredevil.
It dosent work at all while im evading attacks.
But the condi removal works good.

knyy.6427:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

A thought occurs to me.

IF: Chronomancers are going to be meta…
THEN: Alacrity needs to affect initiative gain.

I’m not sure if anyone has tested this yet, but it needs to be the case. The optimal PVE group will always contain a chronomancer for quickness and alacrity. For alacrity to be fair, it needs to affect Initiative.

no thanks, because if alacrity affects initiative gain, then chill will too. i dont need that.

Ouch I was on the pro side until that came into consideration so no please. I’m forced to take Withdraw since SE nerf I don’t need more reasons to not engage in fights just because a chrono might be around, PvE is flawed anyway, I know DD has chill removal but that and it’s relation with Acro drives it into the P2W and lesser diversity aspect so again no. Thief has endured too much this should never happen.

Many thieves can’t try on Daredevil, because they have to spend too much traits on steal and forced to use trickery. Steal is just a gap closer without some investments.
However, steal is one of the precious boon supplement, so most of thieves can’t give up on trickery. (Mug from deadly arts is also pretty essential)

And that’s the point where the endless pain begins.
They have to sacrifice some specialization slot, cus they have essential traits that mentioned above.
Btw, thieves are easily focused like every other class cannons.
Dodge can’t save them from ranged focus fire, So they have to choose between killing power and stealth based survivability. (we already know how acrobatics failed)
However, thieves can’t do their role without both.

Some of the traits have to be basis and should gives other benefits of choice.
I hope ‘trickery’ would be more condition focused giving some other benefits while playing condition and hit and run play style.

• edit : and also physical skill category has entropy between Improvisation

I wasn’t originally going to post this here, but…I changed my mind I guess. Copy pasta from my thread.

A lot of people are still saying they feel like the dodge selection should be baseline and toggled (some say out of combat some don’t) so we can get actual grandmasters. Here is what I think:

Create an F3 DD profession skill. The skill itself will change depending on which grandmaster you have selected, and should complement it’s associated dodge type. It will also have a pop up that allows you to switch grandmaster dodge selection while out of combat for convenience. Note: these aren’t dodges, and don’t use endurance, they just gain functionality based on endurance.

Lotus Training → F3: Poison Bomb Barrage
Cast time 3/4 second
Range 200 – 400 (randomized per bomb)
Field radius 120
Cooldown 15 seconds
Spin around, tossing bombs in all directions that leave behind a poisonous cloud for 5 seconds. Toss 2 bombs per full bar of endurance. Deals poison damage on impact and each field pulses poison every second.

Reasoning: It should provide an excellent set up for lotus whirl finishers, and help D/D condi as well. The poison duration from the skill itself should be minimal, as it’s meant to set up other skills, not melt things on its own.

Unhindered Combatant → F3: Bolt
Cast time 3/4 second
Range 400 per full bar of endurance (1200 max)
Cooldown 15 seconds
Dash to target area. Clear cripple and chill if you have at least one full bar of endurance, immobilize and slow if you have two, and stun if you have three.

Reasoning: To allow fast movement without using all of your endurance or initiative, and provide a means of skipping out on shortbow if desired.

Bounding Dodger → F3: Slam
Cast time 3/4 second
Range 600
Cooldown 15 seconds
Leap to the target area, dealing damage. Cripple targets if you have one full bar of endurance, immobilize if you have two, and knockdown if you have three.

Reasoning: Sets up further leaps from bound or vault that would otherwise be much harder to land.

If each dodge gave it’s own complementary profession mechanic like this, I can totally accept them as grandmasters.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

A thought occurs to me.

IF: Chronomancers are going to be meta…
THEN: Alacrity needs to affect initiative gain.

I’m not sure if anyone has tested this yet, but it needs to be the case. The optimal PVE group will always contain a chronomancer for quickness and alacrity. For alacrity to be fair, it needs to affect Initiative.

if alacrity affects ini gain, then so should chill… we can’t ask for one thing without also getting the tradeoff effect.

so i was hell bent on first, making staff DD work on PvP, and second, to make it work without trickery.

i got close.

main faults of DD:

• absolutely zero survivability brought by the staff. debilitating arc is just not enough (bad evade time and distance, bad timing), and vault doesn’t cover nearly enough ground to work as a disengage. dust strike is just not a good skill so long as it stays a forward cone.

• tried running various different ways of getting rid of condi instead of expeditious dodger. NOPE. the acro condi removal traits are really bad, and don’t make up for expeditious dodger.

• fist flurry seems pretty obviously targetted at PvE, because it’s really clunky to land it without a solid setup beforehand, and anything from blinds (which are pretty much everywhere thanks to burn guards, eles, and now reapers) to blocks to being outrun can break it.

• all my attempts involved slotting acro, and it really highlighted how weak that line’s become since the june patch. even with feline grace + vigor on heal, it’s just not pumping endurance fast enough to warrant a trait line, and it doesn’t really provide anything other than that.

• i’ll say though, it did some good damage, both with critical strikes + rage runes or deadly arts + pack runes. it’s just that for something that was sold as a more sustain/teamfight-oriented build, you can’t even handle a 1v2 before you melt, since everyone else has comparable damage while also having some sort of defense that doesn’t rely on filling the whole utility bar with defensive skills. i’m pretty hesitant to call my problem L2P issues, as i fare way better with other thief builds.

Some quick fire problems with Daredevil:

- Staff 2 – Never hit this 3 times naturally. You HAVE to combo with steal.
- Staff 4 – I will never use this ability, it sucks. #SilverwastesShovelAnimation
- Staff 5 – This ability is bugged. It’s AOE radius is much shorter than it’s indicator.
- Bound dodge – This was changed from a Leap Finisher to a Blash Finisher – RIP P/P Synergy.
- Lotus dodge – This Deals Physical damage so I will never take it with a condi build because it will reveal me if I have to dodge roll whilst in stealth… Anet pls.
- Dash dodge – The animation looks hella’ weird… Other than that, not too bad.
- Bandits defence – The moment you start the kick animation, you’re no longer blocking AND you’re now animation locked. The animation for the kick is relatively slow so people are taking advantage of this because it’s super telegraphed. It will actually get you killed in some situations. Blocked a Warriors Shield bash, only to stun myself with the kick animation, giving the warrior time to crit me for 9k with Eviscerate. Yeah, sure, I kicked him but it was too slow to stop Eviscerate…
- Impact Strike’s window of opportunity to move onto the next attack is FAR too low. Make it 10 seconds, there abouts. Right now it’s like… 3 seconds or something very low.

So far, I’ve only gotten success from spamming bound dodge rolls and vault. You can get around 10-12 leaps going on the trot. Very funny and effective but very kitten y.

Some quick fire problems with Daredevil:

- Staff 2 – Never hit this 3 times naturally. You HAVE to combo with steal.
- Staff 4 – I will never use this ability, it sucks. #SilverwastesShovelAnimation
- Staff 5 – This ability is bugged. It’s AOE radius is much shorter than it’s indicator. You also do not travel the full distance implicated.
- Bound dodge – This was changed from a Leap Finisher to a Blash Finisher – RIP P/P Synergy.
- Lotus dodge – This Deals Physical damage so I will never take it with a condi build because it will reveal me if I have to dodge roll whilst in stealth… Anet pls.
- Dash dodge – The animation looks hella’ weird… Other than that, not too bad.
- Bandits defence – The moment you start the kick animation, you’re no longer blocking AND you’re now animation locked. The animation for the kick is relatively slow so people are taking advantage of this because it’s super telegraphed. It will actually get you killed in some situations. Blocked a Warriors Shield bash, only to stun myself with the kick animation, giving the warrior time to crit me for 9k with Eviscerate. Yeah, sure, I kicked him but it was too slow to stop Eviscerate…
- Impact Strike’s window of opportunity to move onto the next attack is FAR too low. Make it 10 seconds, there abouts. Right now it’s like… 3 seconds or something very low.

So far, I’ve only gotten success from spamming bound dodge rolls and vault. You can get around 10-12 leaps going on the trot. Very funny and effective but very kitten y.

Staff is actually in a decent place right now pve-wise. its hopeless in pvp and no buffs can help it there (3 & 4 would have to completely reworked, like 3 keeping you in combat range, 4 being worth using in some way, vault would need evade). But its ok, not every spec/weapon has to be viable in pvp.

Things i would like to see changed:

- dust strike – its useless, never worth the initiative, give it a combo field (dark)

- evasive empowerment – duration is just too short. increase by 1-2s

- fist flury – needs more dmg. Its not a pvp skill by default, you will never land it and you need real utilities in pvp (stunbreaks, condi-clears, mobility, stealth etc). And dmg is not good enough for pve, things like assassin or agility signet boost your dps far more. Reduce CD or bump dmg.

- impact strike – needs a bit more dmg

- EA – still the same problem, its a mandatory trait making both other masters irrelevant. make it a minor

- vault has issues/bugs with distance and radius

I know theres no time to change idle/running/staff holding animations but work on it after release. Thats the thing staff needs the most

@Stilgar I’m trying to avoid posting here much because “blah blah” but just one thing, anything “works” in PvE/WvW.

I agree that we should regen endurance faster than base. Should take 6.66 seconds to fill an endurance bar rather than 10 seconds. Because right now its 1 extra dodge and then another after we steal. Okay, so 2 dodges. Its nice but its not good considering you guys are trying to make us a a sustain class.

A lot of us feel that you nerfed Acrobatics to the ground to pave the way for Daredevil. Before the trait change S/D 2/0/0/6/6 was really good. Now Acro is a joke and no one uses it. Bring back might on dodge, increase assassins reward base healing.

For the D.D. trait line. Escapists Absolution (Condi remove on evade) Should be baseline. Its the only condi cleanse we have. This would allow us to take Staff Master. Also, buff the endurance gained on staff master.

Overall the damage is fine. But it is still clunky. Very very clunky.

I have no feedback left but this:

From a pvp perspective.
Regarding Daredevil + staff:
I feel impotent like someone watching a traincrash happen. I see as in slow motion what happens and I know how it will end. It will be horrible.

one thing i forgot to mention on my feedback on DD staff: it’s an incredibly selfish spec. we’re sacrificing a lot of our usual group support (read: stealth to save downed allies, increased revive speed) to use it.

now admitedly, i have no idea how you’d add group support to the current situation, short of some blast finishers on the two skills that already look like blasts (bound and vault) and making dust strike more reliable blind application. i’m not sure if that’s the best solution, but i think there needs to be some way for evade thief to have group support options just like condi thief and stealth thief do. maybe redo some acrobatics traits to be like that.

Feed
Traits:
- evasive empowerment is way to short. 2 secs on dodge aint enough. I cant deal dmg during that time.
- "weakening strikes " is bugged. It does not negate any dmg
-" endurance thief is very weak value. 1 extra dodge per 30 secs is a joke gm triat. Especially that most fights are started with full endurance and steal is used right at the begining.

Heal is unuseable due to long casttime. Hope they reduce it as they considered.
Elite chain is too slow. It is impossible to land chain two even if enemy is immobed for 2 secs. They dodge right away after chain 1.

Staff 5 has no good utilites. It cant be used as dps couse autoatack deal more dmg. It cant be used as chase skill couse flight is slow and landing stops char for split second.

Why are u so scared to add smoke field to staff 4 since u changed dmg dodge to useless blast?

So this is my bit of feedback:
Overall: Dash and Impaling Lotus feel really good. Bound still feels kinda weird, I’d personally prefer it did damage at the beggining instead at the end. Staff still lacks utility, almoust never used skill 3 and 4.

Weakining Charge: still feels somewhat clunky. I’d be glad if pre-cast and after-cast was removed or at least reduced.

Debilitating Arc: As some people mantioned before, It could be a gap closer instead of escape.

Dust Strike: I feel like this needs to be a field to be relevant. It would bring a lot of synergy between all the staff skills, beacuse right now there is almoust none.

Vault: Its in a good spot for me although the range seems to be bugged. Still doesn’t behave like other abilities when using Steal.

Channeled Vigor: I found it really nice in pve because of the big heal. Cast time is too long for pvp.

Bandit’s Defence: This skill is fine. Nothing really to add.

Distracting Daggers: I feel like it should have some another benefit to it. Maybe a boon strip or something like that.

Impairing Daggers: I really like this skill. It looks nice and it overall seems pretty strong.

Fist Flurry: This still doesnt do enough damage. It’s hard to land and it’s not rewarding enough. Palm Strike: I’d love it to be a knockback instead of stun.

Impact Strike: This one is cool and fairly balanced.

As for traits:
Evasive Empowerment: This one is a lot better now.
Weakening Strikes: This is okay.
Brawler’s Tenacity: The endurence gain is too low.
Driven Fortitude: I think it would be a lot better as more of a spike heal with longer ICD.
Staff Master: This is fine.
Escapist Absolution: Really good trait.
Impacting Disruption: Pulmonary Impact should either do more damage or be able to crit.

I’d also like to thank Karl and the whole team for the work you’ve all done. Daredevil is my favorite elite spec both thematicly and mechanicly, it just needs some more love, thats all. Cheers.

I haven’t really been able to play much, but from my short time playing PvP, I have noticed a few things.

An acknowledged issue is the distance on Vault not going as far as it is listed to. I have noticed that the tooltips for Weakening Charge (staff2) and Debilitating Arc (staff3) list them as 450 and 400 range respectively. Comparing these to Dash (450 range), I have noticed that both fall short by anywhere between one half or a third of the distance they are supposed to move. Unless I am misunderstanding the tooltip, I do believe these are bugs.

Now onto my general feel of the class in PvP:
The condition removal on EA feels…unreliable. In a match I had earlier, there was an engineer capable of instantly applying 5-7 stacks of burning that lasted for about 5-6? seconds total. I think it was dealing about 2-3k per tick. Normally burn isn’t an issue, but I couldn’t remove it. The burning was usually covered by vuln, poison, bleeds, etc, or otherwise less threatening conditions. I would use all the condi clear I had at my disposal in an effort to clear the burn, but just ended up clearing the weaker ones instead. And then the engineer just stopped attacking so I couldn’t proc EA and thus ended up dying. This happened multiple times throughout the match.

Now as for staff. I played revenant for a bit to checkout the staff attacks. I was very impressed by it. I don’t even care that we hold the staff like a hammer, or that DrD uses recycled revenant animations. I seriously believe that we should use the Revenant staff auto-attack chain animation…it just looks so much better than what DrD currently has. If there is absolutely one thing that I would change about DrD staff, it is the auto-attack.

On a similar note, I also think Weakening Charge should use the Surge Through the Mists animation. It would looks a lot better than the recycled solo Dagger 3 animation in my opinion. There were some suggestions to make it function like Warrior’s GS 3. I think this would be a good change, even if it isn’t given evade frames.

Debilitating Arc runs into the same issue as many other evade skills, which is the skill queue. I also don’t think it is worth it’s 4 ini cost for what it does.

Dust Strike is kind of fun to use. I play Janitor Thief with it. To be honest, though, it’s not very good…especially at 4 ini. I would either make it an AoE or a field of some kind. People have suggested Dark Field, but personally, I think a Smoke Field would be more in line with the physical flavor of Daredevil.

Vault is a fun skill. It is very telegraphed, which is fine, but the damage is there. I would like to see this skill be used more for utility though. Maybe trade some damage for range, or add evade to some part of the leap.

Many have reported some issues with Bandit’s Defense triggering at inopportune times. I have found that against a mesmer, the block can be procced forcing you to expose yourself to their stun -> burst. This should be addressed as it severely limits the potential of this skill.

The DrD trait line is pretty solid, though there isn’t a lot of competition for certain traits (Escapists Absolution), which should be addressed by making the other ones stronger.

Thanks.

Edit: some stuff for clarity.

I am not convinced enough to buy HOT. I am waiting for dev’s to fix the thief class and I will buy HOT. Don’t really care about DD. I think it’s worthless until they fix the basic needs of thief class.

Fist Flurry is really hard to land plus hitting palm strike is near impossible on players. Palm Strike needs to be an automatic hit.

The evasion / dodge thing isnt working in terms of avoiding damage vs other players. There just isnt enough survival-ability when many of the fights are range in wvw.

First time ever Ive been hit with a 13k crit with a weapon that has a 1500 range…wtf is this ?

Nex Vestrum.1025:

I have one major problem with Daredevil as it is now, it’s been said before many times too and I haven’t seen a response to this specific piece of feedback. All other elite specs get a new mechanic by using the elite line. Daredevil doesn’t get a new mechanic at all, we are just given +1 dodge. It doesn’t feel right that our Grandmaster line is what gives us a unique mechanic.

I don’t see why the dodge types couldn’t have been rolled into the minor trait and added an additional piece of UI that allows us to choose from the 3 dodges while OOC, or even better, in combat with a CD after switching similar to ele attunements (F3,F4,F5?).

This would feel like a much more complete and special elite spec, where as now it is little more than a base stat boost.

I would love to hear a dev response to this as it has been brought up so many times. There are other things I would like to see tweaked about Daredevil but if everything stayed as it is now with the exception of the unique dodges becoming the elite spec mechanic I would be able to get over the other small issues.

EDIT:
also once you burn some endurance the +50 endurance doesn’t really make a difference, you still have to wait the whole 10 sec (w/o vigor) to recharge one dodge, so this “mechanic” isn’t even allowing DD’s to dodge more often except for that initial burst. This is noticeable especially against smokescales where you have to burn so many dodges just to stay alive – once you double dodge you don’t really notice the extra 50 endurance for the rest of the fight because you’re dodging before your natural endurance regen can even begin to fill the 3rd dodge bar.

EDIT2:
The wiki says that endurance regens at at rate of 5%/sec unbuffed, so DD should be seeing a dodge ready up every 6.66 seconds, but it still takes 10 seconds. Unless the +50 endurance means we have +50% total (for a max of 150%?), not 150 endurance resource, which makes no sense.

TLDR: feels like 1 free dodge, not being able to dodge more often

Gonna add a few more thoughts to my previous post:
If the dodges don’t become swappable in or out of combat they feel like traits that already exist just slightly buffed and with new animations.

Lotus Training = Uncatchable (Adept Major) + torment + whirl
Unhindered Combatant = Expeditious Dodger (Adept Minor) + Rangers Evasive Purity (Master Major. diff condis removed, same concept)
Bounding Dodger = Warrs Reckless Dodge (Adept Minor) or Engies Evasive Powder Keg (Adept Minor)

Being stuck with one is not particularly interesting especially in the case of Bounding Dodger where it is essentially equivalent to 2 other professions Adept MINOR traits in DDs Grandmaster slot.

These dodges are more situational than the regular dodge too. If I pick Unhindered Combatant I have awesome disengage from teamfights and great mobility to get to unguarded points, HOWEVER if I get in a 1v1 the disengage is so strong I spend 3/4 of the fight trying to re-engage. Same goes for Bounding Dodger, awesome in 1v1s (ignoring how hard it is to land ATM) but it feels very weak as an actual dodge/disengage in teamfights. Seeing as you’re going to encounter both of those scenarios in a typical pvp match it’s almost a better idea to not take a GM trait as the normal dodge is useful in both situations.

Hello! I’m relatively new to thief, so I can’t really criticize DD as a facet of thief as a whole, or go in to depth about the traits but here is some feedback based on my experiences with DD:

In general: I love the feel of this specialization! My one small issue is I have done a decent amount of traditional thief playing before and honestly this specialization feels a lot like regular thief due to the fact that steal hasn’t been changed at all, and certain utilities (Shadowstep, Withdraw) are still practically mandatory. The spec plays wonderfully though.

Dodges:
-Unhindered Combatant: I really like this dodge! This trait really sells the DD as a class/spec that can stay in the heat of battle without retreating. It affords amazing mobility, sustain, and essentially tanking if you build your thief that way.
-Bounding Dodger: I know it has been said that its current iteration is not the final one. Having the leap finisher occur at the start of the leap is mandatory though, otherwise very few will take this over Unhindered Combatant. I liked this GM trait in BWE2, didn’t even use it in this BWE3.
-Lotus Training: The animation for this BWE looks a bit silly (on a charr it does anyways) in my opinion! Amazing trait option for condi builds though.

Physical Utility Skills:
Love em! These skills are very fun to use, and you can pull off some interesting things with them!
-Channeled vigor: Would be better with a decreased cast time. If it is to have a 2s channel, I expect it to have a team-wide effect! A 1.25s cast time would be perfect for this skill to keep it as powerful, but having counterplay.

-Bandit’s Defence: Very good call on increasing the cd, this skill was quite op! It’s still a great choice and offers a very convenient stun break, projectile blocker, or offensive tool. I like this dynamic.

-Impairing daggers: oddly I found more use for this skill in power-builds than in condi builds. Great skill, very versatile and is great for either engaging the opponent, or chasing down a fleeing opponent.

-Distracting Daggers: I appreciated the increased window to throw the daggers! I think a nice stylistic touch to this skill would be to change it to “Distracting Bolts” and have it equip a small cross-bow on our forearms. It would otherwise function identically to Distracting Daggers, but would feel more visually distinguishable/different from impairing daggers. I understand this would require different artwork, animation, and sound FX though, but just thought I might throw this out there for fun

-Fist Flurry: I like that this skill can be used while moving. Frequently couldn’t get off the full combo though. Perhaps make it so that striking someone with at least one strike of it will allow the final palm strike, and then nerf the damage of palm strike slightly to compensate?

-Street Fighter combo (Impact Strike): Great skill! I REALLY like the fact that if the 3rd strike deals a killing blow to an opponent, it double-downs them! This adds a lot of depth, visual flair, and satisfaction to an already great skill.

Another tiny personal note :

For imparing dagger :
The skill is great. It’s just that I feel it would look more dynamic if the trajectory of the daggers was straight like the pistols and they just disappear when they reached the range limit.
I personally think that it makes the daggers look weak when their trajectory is an arc.

(It’s not important I know, but I wanted to share my view on this point)

The staff animations and weight feels worlds better from the previous beta weekend. Last beta weekend, I was certain I would not be playing daredevil when HoT released. After this one, I changed my mind. The skill fixes, too, are fantastic. Thank you for listening, Anet!

One thing I would point out is that the dagger models for the Distracting Daggers skill actually clips quite deeply into asura player models. It’s not the end of the world, but resizing these daggers to be just a bit smaller would be nice.

I also agree on Impairing Dagger- a straight trajectory would feel much more powerful than the current arc in regards to visuals.