Hook Strike, the steath attack from Staff cause Knockdown. This is extremely satisfying…
Problem is staff doesn’t provide stealth from itself so….
Staff might be a replacement for SB… given it’s 5 and the trait line giving you 150 endurance… Like it seems it could be used to get around places like SB….
Pretty much. I mean it’s a little confusing cause the description says “stun” and the tool tip says “daze” but hitting with the 0 range blowout should be a rather long stun effectively, plus damage after that….. so when does BV get its CD lowered?
I wish the second strike of the staff auto attack had endurance gain on it like daggers. Straight damage on the 3 hits is pretty underwhelming and endurance gain on it would have fit the set thematically. It has a couple of gap closers, an evade, and a blind, but no stealth, no poison, and no endurance regen, so I think it will lose out to D/P the same way S/X does.
Edit: That said, I would probably take the line for the traits/utilities and just use a different weapon set.
Pretty much. I mean it’s a little confusing cause the description says “stun” and the tool tip says “daze” but hitting with the 0 range blowout should be a rather long stun effectively, plus damage after that….. so when does BV get its CD lowered?
I wish the second strike of the staff auto attack had endurance gain on it like daggers. Straight damage on both is pretty underwhelming and endurance gain on it would have fit the set thematically. It has a couple of gap closers and a blind, but no stealth, no poison, and no endurance regen, so I think it will lose out to D/P the same way S/X does.
I noticed the same thing. Daze would be rather inconvenient. We wouldn’t want to miss our uppercut do we? lol
and I agree Staff AA is rather weak. I am pretty sure we can fix that with BWE feedback. Unless they want us to use the Physical utility skills to do the damaging.
It will be VERY challenging to connect those physical skills though. (if you don’t have stuns ready) I like the challenge.
Jesus this looks absolutely ridiculously powerful I LOVE IT!
And as for the numbers… since these were datamined, the numbers probably don’t reflect a properly geared level 80, DPS Daredevil so keep that in mind guys. These numbers are probably 3-4 times stronger than what is shown.
I am officially satisfied from the traits and Physical skills.
By the look how low the staff damage is, those who do WvW will have to opt for Deadly Arts, Trickery and DareDevil. So glad I can get rid Basilik Venom. I can use Bandit’s Defense to counter against Thieves who are using the former Elite skill.
The whole challenge once again is good synergy with new utility skills, and finding a way to fit in a stealth mechanic in there. Cause that 2 seconds knockdown is a must have.
Heal skill is pretty amazing too. 5,520 HP heals with 3 pulses? that’s our whole life back mates. It could be easily interrupted I guess.
Now we wait for the way all those moves look and it’s GG for Anet on my end.
Testing the tooltips in-game (they definitely scale with your stats), the Staff autoattack is crazy weak. Not even half as strong as Sword autos and the final 4-hit skill doesn’t even total past a single Lotus Strike or Wild Strike. I expect that will be buffed after a BWE, at least to a Sword standard, or maybe the cast times can be increased plus a smaller damage boost. Speed can be somewhere between Dagger and Sword while damage (auto-only in both cases) can be somewhere between as well.
Everything else is INCREDIBLE though.
EDIT: Attached auto chain comparisons with my stats scaled.
hmmm im of two minds, because they basically made thief a half -ssed monk, we will never get a monk, (and the way spec work, even if they made h2h it couldnt use the elite or utilities)
on the other hand a half -ssed monk/martialist is better than no martialist
dagger builds look like they will really get a nice boost out of this and in particular condi daggers traiting DA DD and trickery. More poison can be laid on and that immob on impairing daggers is going to be huge when subjected to death blossoms.
These really have nice synergy with existing traitlines.
I really like the way they work high endurance into providing that heal benefit.
Testing the tooltips in-game (they definitely scale with your stats), the Staff autoattack is crazy weak. Not even half as strong as Sword autos and the final 4-hit skill doesn’t even total past a single Lotus Strike or Wild Strike. I expect that will be buffed after a BWE, at least to a Sword standard, or maybe the cast times can be increased plus a smaller damage boost. Speed can be somewhere between Dagger and Sword while damage (auto-only in both cases) can be somewhere between as well.
Everything else is INCREDIBLE though.
yeah not sure why the staff is weak, wont people just use sword/pistol? it is also 3 targets does more dmg, and has about the same defense with evade, and black powder
its not a cool down class, theres no reason to swap to staff for more defense cause your other set is on cooldown.
I second the notion of replacing sb with staff. probably what I will end up doing on my main thief (not the trap thief). That elite and impairing dagger though…. my god <3
Testing the tooltips in-game (they definitely scale with your stats), the Staff autoattack is crazy weak. Not even half as strong as Sword autos and the final 4-hit skill doesn’t even total past a single Lotus Strike or Wild Strike. I expect that will be buffed after a BWE, at least to a Sword standard, or maybe the cast times can be increased plus a smaller damage boost. Speed can be somewhere between Dagger and Sword while damage (auto-only in both cases) can be somewhere between as well.
Everything else is INCREDIBLE though.
yeah not sure why the staff is weak, wont people just use sword/pistol? it is also 3 targets does more dmg, and has about the same defense with evade, and black powder
its not a cool down class, theres no reason to swap to staff for more defense cause your other set is on cooldown.
I sense it could be a more offensive alternative to an SB – which as far as I’m aware, is typically used for it’s mobility and poison field (maybe a bit of cluster bomb…), though throws off the flow between just being in melee to having a ranged weapon (and maybe that’s why we didn’t get rifle :/ )…
Look again—it has a lot of potential.
The first two strikes are relatively quick, and the third is 4 Vulnerability stacks and a Whirl finisher.
With Shadow Refuge, you can do a lot with the staff and many of these abilities.
Look again—it has a lot of potential.
The first two strikes are relatively quick, and the third is 4 Vulnerability stacks and a Whirl finisher.
With Shadow Refuge, you can do a lot with the staff and many of these abilities.
It’s not really quick at all, they hit as fast as Sword and the 3rd takes twice as long. What will close the gaps is what the aftercasts are like. Sword 1-3 has a pretty substantial aftercast.
I get the feeling staff is intentionally weak so that it can be bumped up instead of down.
This is what I’m hoping, too. The other skills have good damage and utility, I would guess that they didn’t want the Staff breaking faces with its auto right from the get-go, just to see how it fares.
Staff will require some testing, but other than that everything looks awesome. If they can combine this with some core trait revamps—supposedly a second round is coming around HoT, but who knows—then we might have something!
The staff skills look like they could be fun to use; the set certainly has the "thief theme" as I perceive it, which is to have tools to deal with whatever gets thrown at it, but it does seem extremely weak in the damage department, and I’m sorry but I just can’t see thief being anything but a mobile damage dealer. I’m interested to see how the new trait line compares to acrobatics, because I’d like to at least try taking one of two of those new utility skills with my current/new S/D build.
If it’s to be a tanky, supporty monk-like character, the new trait line will need to be chock-full of overpowered supportive traits just to create the slightest chance of a viable support build in the meta.
will this be a PvE DPS spec?
PvP devensive spec?
something else?
To me, looks like its gonna have some pretty viability with PvE. Sword+Pistol/Staff with Fist Flurry and Distracting Daggers has a lot of good AOE cleave potential. Heal skill, last utility, and Elite can be changed depending on the situation.
I LOVE IT!
