Guild Wars 2

I was going to make a post, but most of the stuff has already been mentioned.

Sorry in advance to the devs who really did put their heart into the daredevil, but the elite specialization seems really lackluster (bottom of the barrel in terms of elite specializations). It sounded good on paper, but the highly prevalent resuage of animations from other classes, the insane number of bugs, and the extreme clunkiness of the specialization beg the question if much thought was given to the spec as a whole. Although there are some good ideas, the aforementioned issues may demand some sort of rehaul to the entire specialization.

The new dodges also root you in place underwater.

edit: Seems only Impaling Lotus roots you in place.

I think this is the first time I’ve been very disappointed in this game. After all the revenant gameplay. After all the other elite specialisations. I finally see thief; my main profession. I quickly bought the expansion (which I was going to do anyway), to see if all the people in this forum are correct.

I was hesitant on watching the gameplay from Points of Interest the other day, but I figured, why are all these people complaining about the Theif. Every thing they say is true.

Animations are incredibly clunky and slow. You not longer feel like your the fast-moving, damage dealing, thief you once where. Literally no animation is new, it’s all just copy/pastes from other elements of the game.

I think the biggest thing to hit home was the part about not being the fast-moving, damage dealing, thief you once where. I would literally never play a staff thief. Ever.

I’m not going to get into the animations and dodging because there pretty much covered. I will, however, talk about the staff. What is the purpose of the staff? It doesn’t do magic. We might as well be wielding a great sword with the “new moves” we have at our disposal. I really don’t understand the reasoning for putting a staff in our hand over putting a sword or daggers. We’re not ranged with the staff (which, In my opinion would have been an interesting dynamic of gameplay to be able to switch to besides the slowness of our short bow).

Every other profession feels like your a big hero with lots of umph behind your swings, your big damage dealing skills, and overall like a kitten. The staff feels like it’s my grandpas walking stick and I’m here to twirl it around.

Everything about this new weapon needs to be changed. Everything has already been mentioned in the thread — I just came to vent. Sorry this is such a long vent, I just had to get it out.

/sigh

I think the reason you can’t use instant skills during vault is because it’s a jump, and you’re in the air for most of it. You can’t use skills when you’re in the air. I mean you can use a last second steal which does a lot of damage combined with mug + Vault, but you can’t shadowstep or shadow return. It’d be nice to be able to do this but I don’t care TOO terribly much, considering we get an earthshaker-esque movement out of it.

The biggest gripe that I have with DD is mainly its’ modified dodge abilities; Bound is difficult to control, and Dash takes the player out of the fight for way too long; both of these dodges are unwieldy and unresponsive.

I’m not sure if it’s intended behaviour, but Staff 1-3 (Punishing Strikes) reflects projectiles.

knyy.6427:

apocom.3172:

Howl.2498:

Sigil of Energy: Claims to restore 50 PERCENT (a bar and a half) of endurance on weapon swap. Only restores 50 energy (one bar).

50% endurance is 1 bar. We have now 150% and its not 50% of 150%. Same with signet of agility and hard to catch.

50% is not 1 bar. 50% is 50% of all your endurance, which would be 1.5 bars. Therefore they changed the description of Signet of Agility to gain 100 endurance. There is a difference between 50% and 50 endurance.

Plz read this:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endurance.

There is no 100 endurance, only 100% endurance. And we do not regenerate 5 endurance per second, we regenerate 5% endurance per second. And now we have 150% endurance, so 50% is still 1 bar.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, Dash’s 10 sec swiftness is not increased by 30% to 13 secs with Superior Rune of the Pack in PVP. Would be nice if it worked properly, especially since Pack runes are one of the most popular sets. Also, I noticed that Pack runes were not included in the Beta runes sets provided. Please provide these for next test for testing in PVE. I personally use them for all game modes since they are so versatile and the group buff works well in all game modes (if not one shot in PVE, LOL!)

Also, please make Vault + Steal work say like Cloak and Dagger + Steal work well together.

It would be awesome if Dust Strike created a mini Smoke Screen that could serve multiple purposes, such as a defensive option for group play and most importantly, a viable way to allow Staff access to stealth.

In my opinion, Vault is a little expensive for just damage and the damage is not even amazing. Yes, people worry about thief’s spamming it, but even the guy at POI mentioned last week that it would be 5 Initiative instead of 6. If kept at six, then it should also provide a dodge and like many other skills for staff, it needs to be sped up since it is easily dodge-able.

My current constructive criticism of Staff is that I would use the Daredevil trait line for S/D and not staff, since S/D does the things staff is intended to do much better (i.e. being dodgy).

The range of Weakening Charge needs to be increased and honestly it should have a dodge mechanic built in similar to the warrior and ranger charge skills on great sword.

Like many have said, the staff skills feel clunky and I just feel like I am more open to CC than I am with S/D or even D/P. Including dodge mechanics within the skills already in place would go a long way into making Staff feel like an option in a sustain fight.

Staff seems like a +1 weapon set and I was hoping for something that would allow us to stay in the fight. Maybe its a L2P issue, but I’ve been at it for two days and it just does not work well. We have too low a health pool and we are open to attacks most of the time while in staff with no real option to gain stealth. I hope for the best during the next BWE.

You get guys seem like you put a lot of work into daredevil, watching the stream you guys really came off as caring about this spec so hopefully from everyone’s feedback this class will be in good shape at launch. On that note:

-You mentioned Daredevil being able to fight multiple people in the stream, roaming the battlefield and staying in the fight more as an evasive brawler. The only way I can do this is if I run completely defensive using acro, dd and trickery. I wish I could play more offensive lines and be rewarded if I play well but they just don’t seem to stay alive at all.

Distracting Daggers – I really liked the skill Distracting Daggers on stream. Now that I’ve used it, it feels rather impractical. Feels really weird needing to charge up before using it. It takes away from the feeling of an assassin quickly flicking hidden daggers from his sleeve. The cd in between throws is also really weird and breaks the whole feel of fluidity and combo potential. In its current state I would regretfully never consider using it. I feel like if you made it instant (no awkward cast wind up) and you could use the daggers at will during the window the skill would be good (maybe that would be op? Doesn’t seem like it but idk).

Driven Fortitude- I was hoping I could run CS, DD, Trix and driven fort would be decent sustain but it just feels really weak. When running acro, Trix, dd slotting all heal over time abilities, the total add up is nice but I don’t wanna play a zippy healtank to actually be able to fight, I want to play a martial brawler who prowls the battlefield cracking faces open with his staff or whatever. I wish DD had some better sustain, not necessarily “free sustain” I want it to be challenging to play but when I successfully evade an important attack I feel like it needs more payoff .

Dash – the concept is awesome! I like it a lot! But it feels weird kinda like a twisted version of the old Version of Hard to Catch. I really dunno how I would fix it. But I will say it doesn’t feel as fluid as I had expected. Maybe it would functio Better if it was like this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gM876vMw-wg

It’s called assassins rush. It dashes you through the target and puts you behind them like a different spin on flanking strike and if you have no target it dashes you forward. Just a suggestion though.

Thank you for your hard work on this trait line! Just needs a bit of good polish and tlc.

p.s. All the thieves I fought in this beta were using D/P just thought I’d throw that out there

well... "clunky" seems to be the word of the day.

i’ll add my 2 cents for what it’s worth. staff feels slow and awkward for the most part... when staff for thief was announced, i envisioned an acrobatic staff using combatant whipping a staff around rapidly... like a bo staff (watch a good martial arts demo vid to see what i mean)... instead i got a character that looks like they’ve never held a staff in their lives swinging it like a hammer and spinning like a propeller it at random times.. it looks like someone tried to combine hammer with quarterstaff (fighting technique with bo staff and quarterstaff are completely different) and tossed in the bo staff spin for a dash of flavor.

the attacks are slow. they’re hard to aim... i felt like a LOT of my attacks were missing the mark. my damage was low... in short it was underwhelming. the spinning staff... i didn’t notice the fact that i wasn’t holding the staff, so that aspect didn’t bother me... i play a little more zoomed out so i can see everything around me, BUT... in my opinion, the staff spin shouldn’t be part of an auto attack chain... it’s distracting and, as i said before, hard to aim... i think it would work really well as a triggered attack.. maybe use the staff spin animation for the attack 4 instead of what is currently there.

staff is a very non-stealth fighting style... thieves are very squishy... staff needs more built in evade/blocks (think ranger GS with the built in evades/blocks)... even in the auto attack chain... i was taking a lot of damage trying to fight with staff... coupled with the low damage i wasn’t killing things fast enough to finish them off before they downed me in return.

the dodges.... my opinion on these is one big huge "meh". they sound AWESOME in theory, but currently... they are WAY too slow. i’m losing my (instant) dodge for something that has an activation delay... sometimes it felt like i waited a full second before the skill would go off... i WvW... a lot... this is a dealbreaker for me. any dodge replacement MUST be just as instant as the dodge it replaces... and just as aimable. if i’m strafeing left, and i hit my dodge button, i should instantly dash left, or do the spinning dagger lotus thingie... to the left...(i didn’t try the 3rd one yet). aim, especially on dash, was... less than predictable.

daredevil/staff thief has a lot of potential... but if it goes live as it is right now... i will not be using staff on my thief.

Suggestion:

• Make Staff 5 an evade: the ini-cost is insane for the long animation it does. Anyone with eyes can see it coming and interupt/blind very easily. Making it an evade (duration of jumping into the air) would make Staff alot more playable
• If the above cannot be accepted, atleast lower the ini-cost + casttime by half

Out of the three dodges, Dash feels by far the worst animation wise. It would be nice to be able to use daredevil traits without the regular dodge animation changing.

How about on Dash trait, leaving the regular dodge ani in place and maybe adding 2sec superspeed?

Animations for staff are way to clunky. Staff in general as is has no synergy. Pretty much useless weapon… Needs a lot of buffs to compete with d/p.

DD is just about useless. The dodge animations actually make you feel slower and more awkward. I suggest making these baseline and a toggle. Coming up with some real fm traits..

Remember as a thief we are giving up another line for DD. it has to compare to other lines. Right now it does not. Out of all the classes this one seems like the most incomplete…

Thief build with DD or staff is actually a step backwards at this stage in of HoT…

The only thing half way viable is a d/d condi build. Guess we all have to play like Karl McLain on his poi stream or else we don’t use new trait line…

Daredevil feels half-baked and unfinished, with loads of recycled animations, forced roots and aftercasts on what should be “fluid” animations, etc. As of now, the vision of the DD as a mobile, agile skirmisher is DOA.

Staff:
Clunky and underwhelming in all the ways people said it would be. AA too slow, #2 sends in random directions instead of working like HS, #4 too slow (and still no field), #5 too slow and telegraphed…
-
New Traits:
Most of the trait line is ok, but having to spend a GM slot on choosing a dodge makes it feel like we have to pay a premium for our elite mechanic in ways other elite specs just “get” along with a real GM trait choice.
-
The Dodges:
Extremely clunky and unnatural right now; some actually feel worse than the base dodge. Lotus is the closest to functional, but still not there. These should make us feel awesome, not encumbered, ESPECIALLY when we pay a Grandmaster trait slot for the ‘privilege’.
-
Physicals:
Bandit’s Defense and Impairing Daggers fulfill their roles well enough. Distracting Daggers sucks, due to the unnecessary startup cast and the delay between casts (neither of which mantras suffer from, hmmm). Fist Flurry seems pointless, as the damage is low and the net effect insignificant for something with a 20~ second cooldown. The Elite seems easily avoidable from what I can tell.
P.S. Most/all Physical skills still eat initiative. Was any of this tested beforehand?

So, Daredevil feels very buggy and unfinished, which makes it difficult to even properly test the new stuff. With only one more Beta Weekend between now and HoT likely, things are not looking good. DD needs more time in the oven, please see that it gets it.

So I noticed in another post that someone had tumbled to the fact that all the Grandmaster dodges were coded as attacks, and used attack animations and a light went on – “Oh, that’s why they were so clunky, delayed and unreliable.”

I ran a D/D thief through the beta area last night specifically to see if I could get a build using DD that would synergize well with my thief. Used 2 builds:

CS, Trickery, DD: Could not stick with this build. On paper it seems like it should be wonderful. It wasn’t – the primary issue I found was a lack of on-demand condition cleanse. I know everyone was thinking the “on evade” condition clean would be OP. Far from it. Given the condition spam in the beta area I found it completely unreliable – it ended up feeling more like a quality of life improvement (oh look you evaded and got rid of that torment too bad you still are poisoned, chilled, bleeding and crippled!) than a helpful trait. Mordrem and frogs dump massive amounts of poison and torment most notably – one mordrem drops 10 stacks of torment in a single attack. Having to evade an attack to remove either of those was way too hit or miss. And it you miss and you moved by dodging the torment wrecks you.

CS, SA, DD: So, this was quasi-viable. Mostly for the reliable damage condi cleanse and the blinds. However, as I noted at the start it really highlighted the problems with the grandmaster dodge traits. I honestly did not try the dash (I wanted damage)but regarding the other two:

Bounding Dodge: I was suspicious that this would really not work worth a dam. Unfortunately I was correct. The first problem as I see it is conceptual – I instinctively dodge away from attacks and attackers not into them so nearly every “dodge” attack hit nothing. The second problem is the coding of the dodge as an attack and the animation made it feel hopelessly slow and jerky. Dodges should be fluid and quick and this dodge was neither. Also, it seemed like my Norn thief sometimes barely moved in the dodge (but maybe that’s just a Norn issue.

Lotus Dodge: So this was half-way useful for damaging – too bad I wasn’t running a condi-thief. It still suffered from the same issues as the Bounding dodge though to a lesser degree. I was able to solo-defend a camp near the end of the night period using the second build with Lotus dodge without being defeated but it wasn’t pretty.

Grandmaster Dodge Trait Suggestions: I know appearances are important (sort of) but I would get rid of all the unique animations and stick with the fundamental dodge animation which is smooth and fluid and works. Then add the additional effects as you do with Uncatchable and Reckless Dodge. I would rather the Grandmasters be effective than look cool. Regarding the Bounding Dodge I recommend the attack occur at the start of the dodge (call it Explosive Dodger or something if you want) so that it has a relatively good chance of actually damaging an opponent you are evading.

Overall, like many have noted so far I found not much to get excited about. The three dodge bars were ok, but we had that with the pre-recently-nerfed Acrobatics line. Not going to get real excited about getting something back you took away for no good reason.

An End Note to the Anet Devs: For me, the new areas highlight the toll your incessant nerfs to initiative regeneration, condition cleanse and damage output have taken on the Thief class (not taking Trickery was painful to initiative, not having Shadow Arts left me too exposed to a condi-raping). I expect that as usual I will complete the content on my Thief first, knowing that when I’m completed it on my Thief I should be able to slam my face on the keyboard with every other class (yes, including even my Necromancer and still make it through.

I will speak to these a little at a time as I want to test each skill/trait throughly before leaping to conclusions that they garbage or great.

First the GM traits in the DD line. I think they pretty close to being there yet should have a few subtle tweaks and one major one.

1)Impaling lotus. Good skill overall. Why this skill works so much better then bounding dodger is the missile radius greater. That said it could use an increase in stacks given the dearth of conditions in this line for a condition build. Perhaps 2 bleeds and torments.

2>Bounding Dodger. Very hard to control and get this to hit. Either we have to have an ability to better tune where we dodge to or the radius of the impact made larger. The damage is nice. The problem is it so very hard to get it to strike. The dodges more often than not take you out of range of target.

3>Dash . As with others that stutter at the beginning is bothersome. A slight increase in range would be nice along with that much asked for smoothing of the skill.

The major change was mentioned by others and I think would be great. Keep the GM traits as is with the tweaks above but allow an F3 F4 and F5 toggle to allow us to select another trait mid battle. Put this on an ICD of say 10 seconds (or as another suggested allow them to be switched by burning endurance). This would allow us to shift from that bounding dodger mid battle to Dash.

I trust the community enough to not give out my opinion. LOVE ALL TEEFS

To the Majors DD Line.

1>Staff mastery I think is fine as is. The issue is the staff itself needing a few tweaks but I do not see this needing changes.

2>Pulmonary impact is fine and in a good place.

3>Escapists absolution. Not the be all to end all as some people thought for condition removal. I would suggest a tweak in that the ICD removed. Given it based on an evade it pretty hard to get more than one evade in a seconds time. This would mean if a person able to pull that off they cleanse more conditions. Put the dare into daredevil

To the Major adepts dd line.

1>Weakening strikes. Good trait in a good place needs no changes.

2>Brawlers tenacity . Increase endurance returned to 25. Few will have all physicals on the bar and the ICD of those physicals restrictive in its own right.

3>Evasive empowerment. Just not enough. Increase damage done next attack to 20 percent.

Some of these ideas have already been suggested by others I merely reinforce with my own impressions.

TL;DR: make staff more of a 5 target weapon, give it better survivability tools for fighting surrounded, tweak skills to make hitting them more reliable and useful, make Vault less of a damage skill and more of an engagement skill (less damage, more range, faster cast, etc.)

Long version:

I feel like the staff wants to be a weapon where you jump in the middle of a group of enemies and fight while surrounded without dying instantly.

Sadly, the only thing staff can do now is the “jump in the middle of a group of enemies” part, and even then not particularly well, because vault takes foreeeeveeeeer to land and has such a short range it can hardly be called a gap closer.

Here are some things I’d like to see done with staff to fit that playstyle more, instead of being a poor man’s sword:

• Up the damage all around. staff right now is worse than shortbow for damage. Until it can do damage that’s at least mildly comparable to other thief weapons, it won’t be taken seriously. It doesn’t have to be the new S/P, but it needs to at least deal some damage.

• Move the damage from Vault to Weakening Charge, and give WC a increased hitbox (right now it’s really freaking hard to land it more than once because it has such a small hitbox, even if you go through the enemy) and number of targets (to fit the “fight surrounded” theme). Also please make WC track your target (right now it feels like it goes wherever it pleases). giving the weakness one more second would be pretty nice.

• Debilitating Arc, once again i think hitting 5 targets around the player would be nicer. You sure it’s leaping 400 units backwards? It doesn’t feel like it. Maybe make it a leap finisher too? Pretty please?

• Dust Strike, blinding enemies around you (doesn’t even need that much range) instead of blinding that one guy 500 range away from you. Would be super awesome if it created a smoke field just long enough for you to leap through it once the skill ended. This is by far the suggestion I’ve seen pop most times regarding staff (other than “buff the damage”) on other threads, and I think it could define the staff’s playstyle.

• Vault, if you lower its damage significantly, could see some improvements to range and cast speed. This would allow the skill to be a better engagement tool, and it would be more interesting than just a clunky half range AoE. Making it an evade on the initial part of the skill would also be great, and would make sense with the animation. I’d much rather have Vault as a utility weapon skill than have it be the DPS skill on daredevil. Having it keep some damage component would let us engage with venoms too.

side note on the staff: can our third attack on the auto chain be like the revenant’s, animation wise? that animation is much cooler than “magic helicopter staff”. and the idle being more like the end of the rev’s third auto would be sweeet~

anyway, THAT’S my ramble on staff. i love the physicals and enough people voiced their problems with dodges already. sorry for the long-winded post

The Minors.

1>enforcer training Nothing more need be said this fine.

2>Driven Fortitude. I can not make a call on this. I am not sure I ever pulled off healing from this. If I did it not enough. Perhaps a (larger?) boost to the heal based on heal attribute needed.

3>Endurance thief. Is fine. Very good trait.

BUG: The minor trait in daredevil that is supposed to grant 50 endurance only grants 25 or so

Most of it has been mentioned already.

I got a feel of what I should be achieving in a fight and it’s not so much to stay in a fight but to jump in, shake up the balance, then jump out and repeat sporadically.

Pulling that off using all of the skills needed had a terrifying feeling of stop and go during a fight that made me feel like I was being controlled rather than controlling myself or the fight and I think that has more to do with the animations syncing up with the effects duration, even so, none of it should feel like a root.

1. Weakening Charge was sluggish and made me feel more pulled by something else but it wasn’t that bad for me.

2. Bounding Dodger as everyone else pointed out gives that same feeling of being rooted or controlled.

3. Auto animation doesn’t feel bad when I’m in the thick of it but one on one is where it feels like the staff is not in my hands.

I like the feeling of what the weapon, utilities, and traits should be after all of the circles and squares are fitted to the right hole.

daredevil feedback/suggestions:

I love thief and i think we’re on the right track with the evasion/martial arts playstyle.
Staff needs to be a strong weapon for thief based on the classes current build options….which is 1.

Staff auto attack needs to be FASTer. Im finding that if i try to stay in the pocket and get my vuln stacks im eating to much damage for it to be worth it.

To stay in the pocket, blind is our bread and butter. the DUST STRIKE needs a shorter animation. it needs to be almost instant. DO NOT SAY THIS IS OP WHEN PEOPLE ARE BURNING YOU FOR 50,000…

Obviously the dodge animations need to feel more fluid, especially since this is our Grandmaster trait and what defines this ELITE spec.

It would be really nice to have a bit more opponent control. Typically in martial arts the staff is a speed/control weapon. Getting a SHORT DAZE/INTERUPT on one of the staff skills would go a long way to be able to stay in the pocket, deliver damage, and then dodge out. I think this final point is crucial to making daredevil able to compete with the current state of classes such as mesmer, burn guard, DD ele, signet necro

alchemyst.2165:

I think the reason you can’t use instant skills during vault is because it’s a jump, and you’re in the air for most of it. You can’t use skills when you’re in the air. I mean you can use a last second steal which does a lot of damage combined with mug + Vault, but you can’t shadowstep or shadow return. It’d be nice to be able to do this but I don’t care TOO terribly much, considering we get an earthshaker-esque movement out of it.

i don’t think it’s qualifying as midair, ’cause i was testing weapon swapping halfway through the animation yesterday to cancel it, and it was working. in fact, it made the whole thing much smoother, because it would lose that sudden loss of momentum for the ground pound.

apocom.3172:

knyy.6427:

apocom.3172:

Howl.2498:

Sigil of Energy: Claims to restore 50 PERCENT (a bar and a half) of endurance on weapon swap. Only restores 50 energy (one bar).

50% endurance is 1 bar. We have now 150% and its not 50% of 150%. Same with signet of agility and hard to catch.

50% is not 1 bar. 50% is 50% of all your endurance, which would be 1.5 bars. Therefore they changed the description of Signet of Agility to gain 100 endurance. There is a difference between 50% and 50 endurance.

Plz read this:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endurance.

There is no 100 endurance, only 100% endurance. And we do not regenerate 5 endurance per second, we regenerate 5% endurance per second. And now we have 150% endurance, so 50% is still 1 bar.

There is 100 endurance. In fact, Endurance Thief clearly states that it restores 50 endurance on steal, not 50%. Compare this to the sigil, which says it restores 50%. The two are different.

Or, rather, I am claiming they should be different. Remember, I am filing a bug report, which claims that the way things are is wrong. So stop arguing how things are, and start arguing how it makes more sense your way than my way.

While I understand your argument, saying that it restores 50% out of 150% is borderline nonsense. I bet if you ask 1000 people the question, “if you have 3 bars of endurance, what is 50% of your endurance,” they will overwhelmingly respond, “1.5 bars.” All I’m saying is that restoring 50% of your endurance should restore half of your total endurance, not one third. To do otherwise defies all intuition.

BUGS
—bug with all of the new dodges : If you spam the dodge fast enough it can drain 100 or 150 endurance instead of 50 and obviously only dodge once.

other problems ive found on bound(maybe they apply to others):
—sometimes cannot shadowstep during the dodge or activate instan skills as if i was in the air(need confirmation)
—character is stuck for a short time at the end of the dodge
— weapon swaps cancel dodges

Wall of text incoming (seriously it did not look this long when I wrote it, got carried away it seems):

The intention of this post:
I would like to add to the feedback given in this thread a more general note about the concept of the AoE Infighter as the DD was at least hinted at by Karl.

The situation at the moment as sen by me (after just a few hours of practicing – I have to admit)
For me it seems (all sarcasm aside) that infact the acrobatics traitline was changed during the balance patch in June as a preparation for the DD, which in itself is okay (even though many S/D-players will disagree with me here).

The problem is, that the ability to stay in big fights comes through sustain which is more or less passive or at least usable while dealing damage.
Dagger/Pistol manages that by utilizing the “Black Powder” Skill to blind a chosen enemy andy stealth in order to reposition without being hunted.
Sword/Dagger manages that by using flanking strike. Stealth and teleports are both used for repositioning and condi cleanse.

Now comes staff:
- No (usable) AoE blind to reduce damage taken while attacks are executed, no stealth for repositioning, no teleports to throw the enemy off their game (which is as far as I understand one of the reasons S/D works so well: The combination of attacks with evade frames, dodges and teleports in combination with stealth).
- No teleports apart of the utility skills present.
- No stealth in order to open up a tight situation and create some breathing space.

Staff for me lacks all of this and therefore there is absolutely no sustain. It is true that one can dodge a lot with the new three dodge bars and if taking the “Acrobatics” traitline this becomes even more (and even do damage) but that is still no sustain.
In order to utilize the traits from the Acrobatics traitline one has to attack, something that is utter futility if done in an infight with more than one enemy.
There simply is no way of staying in melee for more than a few seconds meaning that “vaulting” in and getting out using “debilitating arc” seems to be a type of playstyle that is needed with a a dust strike thrown into the mix.
Unfortunately the thief and therefore the DD does not (in contrast to all the other classes) have different cooldowns on all his skill but shares one big global cooldown called “initiative” "and if I just vault in (6 ini) and get out using “debilitating arc” (4 ini) there is (if I waiit for two seconds room for exactly onr (1) dust strike and then the DD stands there pants at his ankles directly infront of a big group of enemies looking pretty stupid.

When looking at successful (or as they are called in this communnity) meta-builds they all have a (semi)-passive way of damage mitigation either trough continious healing (ele), invulnerabilities (guard), huge health pool + high armor + etc (warrior) or through blind/dodge + stealth/teleports (thief).
Apart from all the feedback already received which I completely agree to btw, especially that the whole gameplay of DD is not only NOT FUN but AGGRAVATING to such an extend that I consider playing the DD spec a chore.

An idea for allowing the DD to sty in the fight (perhaps not a good one though):
I like what the developers did to “black powder” when they considered it to be too good, they did not completely remove it but lengthened the time between the pulses so that it allowed counterplay without killing the spec.
This showed me that smoke fields can be balanced to mitigate not 100% damage but less (as it is now the case with the “black poweder skill”).
I feel that the DD needs to have some moves that allow us to stay in a group for a few seconds not mindlessly bouncing over the battlefield until we can dodge no more and our “initiative” is used up. This could be one of those super fancy moving combo fields used for the warrior for example.
I am aware of the fact that some of the attacks which are at the moment whirl or leap finishers would perhaps have to be removed (or perhaps not looking at the sorry state the developers put the thief at the moment – and the even worse state the DD is now) but this is still better – for me at least – as the way the DD plays now.

I have tried the DD mainly in PvP (as it is what i mostly do – with all classes but engineer and hunter but I main thief) and in Silverwastes because if I understand correctly the HoT content is going in the direction of SW.
I feel that the amount of aoe effects and damage + cc by the NPCs active in SW is a good benchmark for the validity of the DD and I have to say that there is no feel of anything with the DD but the whish to throw it into a dark corner and never visit it again.

If this is read by the developers responsible for the DD I would like to add that i like the idea and was hyped at the demo, I even bought the ultimate Hot prepurchase edition (something that i vowed not to do) because I wanted to try out this power house.
I assume you will not fix it, because frankly I think you are not capable of it (in time) but PLEASE surprise me by creating something for the thief class that is not horrible!

My sincerest regards, someone who would like to give back his Hot pre-purchase because of the DD at the moment.

No Thief build can rely on only one type of damage mitigation and this will never work for staff.

I stopped playing when I just couldn’t deal with all the clunky movements.

It Needs some work, I’m going to bullet point most of this. keep in mind this is only from one day of testing.

Day 1:
-Staff animation are far to slow, The staff should have the same IAS as sword, A staff is much quicker to wield then a greatsword, it seems to me the ias is about the same as a GS atm.
- Like other’s have mention there is no fluidity with the dodge rolls. The stop before and after kills it.

Arcobatics Changes:

-Removed Expedious dodgers from Acrobatics, add baseline to “Dash”, (brings it to 10seconds) Make this spot a +5-10% modifier for acrobatics (That’s your main problem with acro line)
-Add Staff to Swindler’s Equilibrium.

- Bound, Increase radius of Aoe a tad bit, Eventally you will have to dodge roll away from the enemy. we are squishy thiefs after all. maybe set it at 200-250, since the roll is 350 you can still miss but not as much.

-Wpn skills

— Staff 5: Vault: Great skill but, Increase height jumped, the height should be the same as the walls at mid point in legacy of the foefire. this will help Rotations on that map, though it would still be slower then SB. (Offhand diversity)
- Staff 2: weakening charge, Needs a range increase. Every thief uses sb for movement, to get some diversity into the mix the staff should have a longer gap closer. Needs targeting.
Staff 3: Debilitating arc: It’s decent, if you increase staff 2, this should also be increased.
(good job on the 50 less range, it add’s synergy)
Staff 4: It’kitten and miss
Staff 1 + stealth: IF you are going to keep the damage that low (which is a good idea) you should add boon hate to this. like the old larc strike maybe make this steal 2-3 boons on hit. this will help us thin out those pesky ele’s. and give us a bit more sustain.

There is not much of an increase in sustainability. the only way i figured was Every + healing trait, Caltrops, caltrops on dodge, and Som. You could do this before so there is no change.

Utilities:

Bandits defense: This is a gem. It does have problems though. The animation is to slow, so if you pop this, a warrior hits you with 100 blades, you will be dead by the time your kick reaches them.
Fist Fury: The first attack should auto aim, (Just the first attack) The damage is a bit lack luster considering you are leaving yourself exposed.
Distracting daggers: Cast time is a bit to long, The dagger’s should last a bit longer, it’s good with s/p or d/p to chain interupts (a kitteneesy though)
Impairing daggers:

Ulti< Impact Strike:
Great skill, fluid doesn’t really need anything done to it.

I will edit this post today after playing, and then again tommorow.

IT needs work but it’s alright so far

For sustain in Staff (and I am still testing this weapon) perhaps rather than a smoke or dark field so many ask for wherein we just repeat other builds (stealth blindness) advantages one of the Staff skills creates a water field.

Staff has a whirl and a leap. perhaps if we had a water field in there the set can bring in some healing.

As in number 4 Blinding mist. You get that intial blind and then create a 3 second water field in the area.

Just a thought. I do not think I just want to turn all the skills on staff copies of other weapon sets.

First, I wanted to say that I love the Daredevil. There are some things that need work, but I really enjoy the way it plays so far. That being said, I have some recommendations about what can be done to make the class feel a bit less clunky as many people have said. This might get long, I love thief, so bear with me!

Staff:

1.) The auto attack chain could perhaps use a slight damage buff, but what I’d actually like to see more is an increase in the attack speed to compensate. The animation could be swapped to that of the Revenant’s auto-attack, as it does feel more like a martial arts class. I feel like an increase in the attack speed, though, would give us more of that quick in-your-face type that the Daredevil seems to be after. It would be a bit less like the sword (hard-hitting and slow) and more like the dagger, where individual hits will chip at your health, but they come out so fast that you want to stay away.

2.) Weakening Charge seems to have two problems for me. It doesn’t feel that sluggish to me, it’s actually one of my favorites, but I think that if it chased targets it would be vastly improved. As it is now, I cast it, then I have to turn around and recast it. I feel like that’s where the idea of sluggishness comes from. Being able to rapidly cast it would go miles towards improving it (but I don’t know how hard it would be to code that).
Maybe we could also see a short evade during the cast. It would be reactive and fitting the dodging theme of the class.

3.) I actually like this skill as well. All I could recommend is that maybe the range is increased from 400 to 600. Maybe even a very brief immobilize instead of the cripple to make it viable with Vault.

4.) This skill could use a much faster cast time, and maybe a larger cone. Again, just something to be more reactive and to be able to chain it quickly. It’d be nice to POCKET SAND a Guardian that’s coming to bring the hammer down on your head.

5.) Instead of a damage increase for Vault, I’d like to see something like a faster cast time and the lower initiative cost that’s already been confirmed (I think) as it makes staff feel punishing for anyone who’s not using the trickery line.

Utilities:

Distracting Daggers: I’m ok with the cast time. I don’t like it, but from a balancing perspective, I understand it. I would like to see the cast between daggers reduced, or at least an increase in the duration the daggers remain equipped. 1 second is a long time to dedicate to a skill in the middle of a fight.

Bandit’s Defense: No complaints. I love this skill more than words can express, we really needed this. I can see myself getting Daredevil just for it. I would have recommended an increase in the cooldown, but that’s already coming.

Impairing Daggers: Solid skill again.

Fist Flurry: This skill could use a reduced cast time to get that fast feeling again. It’s incredibly hard to land as it is currently, and I thematically love this skill so much I want to desperately use it, I really, really do. A small addition (and I know this is a lot to ask) would maybe be to let the Impact stack twice (In PvE only) to make it more rewarding in a non-competitive environment.

Impact Strike: Love it. I squee like a little girl every time I get it off. I would recommend maybe a slightly longer range, but honestly, it’s probably in a good place and I’m just being super biased.

Traits:

The traits are great, up to Grandmaster. That’s where the bulk of the complaints have been, I feel like, so I’ll try and focus it to here.

Perhaps, like someone recommended, we could make the dodges into stances to feel more like a mechanic than an optional trait. That would require new Grandmasters, and that could be a pain in an of itself, so I’m not really thinking this would work well. Could be more wishful thinking.

The dodges themselves need some fine tuning. The aftercast and the fact that they are skills are the biggest problem for them. Quickness cuts them short and slow makes you some sort of untouchable anime hero.

Dash: First, the aftercast. That’s the main issue. The animation feels a bit odd too, but only because my character is holding something that’s not there, or he starts running mid air. I feel like the Bullrush animation would work really nicely here, to be honest (if a new animation is currently not an option) as it feels fast and snappier than running.

Lotus: Again, the aftercast hurts here. I’d also like to see the daggers prioritizing someone you have targeted instead of an AoE in random directions. Focusing it’s primary utility would go a long way to making it more desirable.

Bound: I want to love this skill badly. Aftercast is the common enemy again, and then there’s landing it. It’s difficult to consider how to buff this, and one of the only ideas I have is that this could be a ground targetable dodge. It would make it somewhat like Vault. I could see it being a problem when ground targetable, in that the animation may be cut short, and with that the evade. Perhaps something like the mesmer’s blur can be applied here? I’m not sure. I’m a bit at a loss for this dodge.

But that’s my dissertation, and again, I really love this class. I can’t wait until the expansion until I get to play it!

My thoughts: I agree with making the dodge rolls a lot smoother as well as the staff animations and changing the idle staff stance to a unique one. Also the cool-down between each distracting dagger should be removed or increase the overall duration. Lastly perhaps weakening charge could get the death’s charge fix because it often overshoots the target which can be a pain.

Edit: Vault animation needs to sped up.

Is it too much to ask for a single, high damage initiative attack that doesn’t displace the thief and isn’t cumbersome to use?

On the movement front:

• Dagger 2 (Heartseeker) bounces you around on targets with large hitboxes
• Sword/Dagger throws you all over the place
• Dagger/Dagger bounces you up and over targets
• Dagger/Pistol 3 teleports you (triggering an animation hitch) even if you’re on top of the target
• Pistol/Dagger 3 teleports you away from the target

On the cumbersome front:

• Shortbow 2 uses ground-targeting and requires timing a second keystroke to maximize output, and cannot be spammed easily since you can’t have more than one arrow in the air at a time
• Sword/Pistol 3 roots you and locks your facing for a long time

Pistol/Pistol is the Thief’s only fluid, responsive weapon loadout that doesn’t forcefully displace you, except Pistol/Pistol effectively doesn’t exist due to how unbelievably terrible its damage is.

I thought the elite specializations were supposed to push professions in new or unusual directions. Staff is just more of the same:

• Staff 1 – Slow, cumbersome, feels like S/P3
• Staff 2 – More forced movement, terrible damage
• Staff 3 – More forced movement, presumably a setup for bounding back to the target, but the dodges are all stiff as well
• Staff 4 – Terrible damage
• Staff 5 – Great damage but more forced movement, even if you are already on top of your target, with awkward animation windup and after-effect locks.

Seriously, can thief please just get a single initiative-spammer that doesn’t forcibly and often-times needlessly relocate the thief and isn’t painful to use?

I can’t believe the female ranger animation for Greatsword #4 counterattack was not recycled as a staff skill (not nessacarily the block aspect)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KdnVNJXdvSY

Ok I’ll add my voice:

Overall: Concept is good but it needs work. The animations to dodge and staff don’t mesh with what the concept is. Many other people have said it already, they are recycled animations to skills and it just seems sloppy and/or lazy. Dash especially, the character still acts like he’s holding an invisible great sword.

Staff: I don’t see what it fits into any kit. I primarily do PvE, and I wouldn’t even use it for open world exploration. EVERY kit does what it does better.

Staff 1: Clean up animations and get rid of spinning staff. Instead add an AoE sweep (recycle Guard’s Ring of Warding animation).

Staff 2: Make it act like Warriors Whirlwind ability with a targetable range. Give an evade.

Staff 3: Increase range. Range similar to rangers sword 2.

Staff 4: I like how it looks but I think it should be an AoE blind. Again, I would look at the Guard’s hammer Ring of Warding skill for animation idea.

Staff 5: I think I’m in the minority here in not liking it. It’s good AoE damage but the animation is so long and defies physics. I wish it was just a simple vault jump without all the extra stuff. It looks fancy, but adds to animations times.

Dodges:
All of the animations needs to get cleaned up. Period. Otherwise no one will use the specialization. The facing needs to be addressed too so we don’t face in the opposite direction when we use these dodges.

Utilities:
I like them, but I just don’t see where they fit with the current kits. I can’t see giving up any other utility for any of the current ones.

Elite:
I like it in theory, but I don’t see me using it over any other elite.

Overall:
The concept is there. It’s a strong concept. The execution though is disappointingly lazy and shoehorned into not unique animations.

The execution leaves you with a build and access to utilities that frankly don’t do anything really well. Everything a DD has access to any other build simply does it better. I hope the time between this BWE and the next will polish some of these issues and bring it up to speed.

Impact strike is easily the funnest skill in the game!!! Please don’t nerf it! It is difficult to pull off most of the time, but its amazing fulfilling to use! SO AMAZING

Dodges feel slower than a reg dodge. Seems to be pauses before or after. TONS of fun though!

Ive found that a daredevil/panic strike hybrid works for PvP, but i dont even bother with staff.

The Dash animation as been mentioned, has way too much of a casting animation delay, it takes getting used to, while still being unreliable right now.

I think due to the animation problems in the GM line, I still prefer using Acro, even though people have complaints about all the Acro nerfs, while acro needs more reliable Adept and Master (especially) traits like DareDevil.

DD elite is also lacking compared to pre-casting Basilisk under stealth for a burst, so I don’t see why people would take that instead of the norm either, but I like Channeled vigor enough to use it.

The Staff just doesn’t feel right right now either, it’s lacking in terms of melee and in range, lacking gap closers, fluidity and much range with it’s current skillset.

Just wanted to devs to have a mental note about reworking acrobatics on base thief. With the DD spec acro has sorta lost it’s identity. I suggest perhaps looking a improving shadow steps with acrobatics (maybe rename). Since thief has so many forms of shadowsteps augmenting them with the trait line could open new ways to play.

Lyger.5429:

Just wanted to devs to have a mental note about reworking acrobatics on base thief. With the DD spec acro has sorta lost it’s identity. I suggest perhaps looking a improving shadow steps with acrobatics (maybe rename). Since thief has so many forms of shadowsteps augmenting them with the trait line could open new ways to play.

This sounds familiar

Maugetarr.6823:

Lyger.5429:

Just wanted to devs to have a mental note about reworking acrobatics on base thief. With the DD spec acro has sorta lost it’s identity. I suggest perhaps looking a improving shadow steps with acrobatics (maybe rename). Since thief has so many forms of shadowsteps augmenting them with the trait line could open new ways to play.

This sounds familiar

Revert the SA “incidents” as well.

BrunoBRS.5178:

alchemyst.2165:

I think the reason you can’t use instant skills during vault is because it’s a jump, and you’re in the air for most of it. You can’t use skills when you’re in the air. I mean you can use a last second steal which does a lot of damage combined with mug + Vault, but you can’t shadowstep or shadow return. It’d be nice to be able to do this but I don’t care TOO terribly much, considering we get an earthshaker-esque movement out of it.

i don’t think it’s qualifying as midair, ’cause i was testing weapon swapping halfway through the animation yesterday to cancel it, and it was working. in fact, it made the whole thing much smoother, because it would lose that sudden loss of momentum for the ground pound.

You can swap weapons in a midair attack such as earthshaker.

I feel the same way with the OP. Dodges do feel clunky and what is the purpose of the staff? The other weapons have a very clear purpose.

Dagger – single target dmg, burst
Dagger(off) – stealth/cripple
Sword – aoe dmg/shadowstep
Pistol – condition/immobilize
Pistol(off) – daze/blinds
Shortbow – ranged aoe dmg/shadowstep
Staff – ???

What does staff have to offer that we dont already have?
“The daredevil is an up-close fighter that can engage multiple enemies at a time with sustained area-of-effect damage while retaining high lethality toward single enemies.”
But we already have the sword. I feel like sword/pistol is much more survivable and does way more dmg than staff.

The dmg from staff is pretty lackluster The stealth attack seems pretty neat but staff doesnt provide any stealth, forcing you to trait for stealth on steal or replacing your utility skills.

Please remove the colored daggers from impairing daggers…. its reallky silly throwing a red and green orb at the enemy while what u really want its just the skill Dancing Daggers from GW1….. simple and effective….. and visually pleasing.

Thiefs ARE NOT a magic-type user and in a Physical SKILL do have red and green giant orbs its really silly.

not gonna repeat what already has been said but yeah staff = too clunky and ir lacks unique animations im sorry but it honestly feels like u guys did 0 work on the Daredevil it just feels like it was rushed and u guys recycled one piece of everything else. u guys have 10000 kungkittenmovies with shaolin monks to draw inspiration. heck watch a youtube competetion with bo staff professionals

First off, this has a ton of potential guys. Really. It’s a great concept with A LOT of cool features. Just needs some fine tuning.

Keep in mind I 1v1 a lot. I also Spvp and WvW but mainly focused on 1v1 potentials.

Staff skills need some more damage on the other skills besides Vault. Vault does do good damage but is VERY hard to land on someone in a 1v1 because of the animation. Its a huge wind up essentially. So people move. Yes on most you will land it half the time, but players watch for it. And just side step.

Staff 1 is okay, no complaints here.
Staff 2 needs more damage and needs to STOP movement when you are at your target.
Staff 3 I think should only move you IF youre holding a directional key. Other wise you should roll in place. Just because this takes you OUT of the fight. yes you can vault back in but people will move then youre just wasting iniative to try to get back into it.
Staff 4 is okay. The blind is a cool idea.
Staff 5 Ive already covered. Maybe give it a bonus. 10-15% Damage to targets with weakeness. idk.

Ulitilies are okay. I really like bandit’s defence. I think its perfect how it is. Its really kittenin cool.

The Elite is cool too. Ive noticed some weird bugs with it at times but im sure it’s being worked on or was a lag issue.

But like everyone else the Grand Master dodges are weird. DASH is the only one you can count on.

And like said many times overall clunkiness.

As i play Ill probably edit or something with more things I’ve found. But unlike a lot of people I understand. THIS IS A BETA. This is a test. This is not final. This is our first chance playing it so im sure Anet will balance it and polish it. No doubt. Good company.

Just a few quick points on the dodge, and I’m sorry if they’ve already been said but I don’t have much time and would rather spend most of it in game than on forums =P.

I’m not sure I like that you -have- to alter your dodge by going into Daredevil, but I understand that you can’t very well spread the three options across all three trait tiers because then you could potentially have hyper-dodging thieves. But since we have to alter it, some things should be taken into account:
- Normal dodge does not interrupt your auto attack chain; because these new dodges are considered "skills," they reset your auto chain. This is extremely bad, especially for sword and staff.
- There is an after cast? It’s not really a "better" version of dodge if it has frames in which you can be hit and can’t do anything about it.
- It’s quite difficult, often impossible, to deal damage at the end of your dodge similar to how reckless dodge or evasive arcana works, because of the added travel distance. If you and your opponent are keeping close so if either tries to run, you can still get a few melee strikes in before they are out of range - which both players almost always do - then your dodge becomes just a longer cast time movement consisting of the same evade duration plus some vulnerable frames. Plus, at the end you’re out of melee range of your opponent when you might not want to be. If you’re trying to be on the offensive, you just gave them breathing room and if it’s anything with some sustain, it’s a huge help to your opponent. That’s negative, negative, and negative, for something that’s meant to be an improvement for us.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea. There are just some issues which really really need to be addressed. Personally, I’d keep the new animations, lower the damage a bit, keep the normal dodge travel distance, make the animation the same duration as a normal dodge, and make it not reset the auto attack chain.

On a less serious, but disappointed note: Pulmonary Impact in the same tier as Escapist’s Absolution? QQ.

Edit: Just did a quick check to be sure, and it turns out it’s the same travel distance as a normal dodge after all. This is surprising because both myself and a friend yesterday swore it was a longer distance, and it really affected the flow of our combat. He even stuck by that when he switched to duel me on another class. I wonder what it is that makes it feel like you’re going further, because I swear it messes up positioning. Perhaps it’s the cast time and or after cast? If so, great, please fix that and it’s two birds with one stone!

Edit 2: Oh and it should go without saying but, this really needs to work flawlessly for thieves, because it comes with a huge drawback already: dodging can break stealth. Often, this will make shadow refuge un-useable unless you let vampirism runes put you into mist.

Edit 3: Another issue found: you can swap weapons while normal dodging. With the altered dodge, weapon swap cancels the skill.

Escapist’s Absolution should really be a minor. Someone pegged it previously when they said it doesn’t feel OP as much as a needed (and barely sufficient) improvement in quality of life with the oodles of conditions out there in both PvP and the new PvE content. Much like the GM dodges, this doesn’t feel like a very good “choice”.

Found this after I made my thread, so I am going to copy paste mine into here too for the devs: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/DD-Feedback-Beta-is-beta

My initial thoughts regarding this elite specialization, is that it feels both unfinished and clunky. Obviously, beta is beta, and it’s there for a reason.

To start, I want to talk about the specialization as a whole. DD is meant to be an in-your-face fighter, that initiates a fight, and avoids damage to stay alive, innately he’s still squishy, but you can’t kill a target you’re unable to hit… How this spec has panned out however, is that you’re not mobile enough, with not enough ‘evasion’ to justify just how squishy you are, in general, although you can avoid a lot of damage, once some one connects a single hit, you’re dead, or to be more accurate, you have to back out, this is currently impossible due to no mobility on the staff.

- Lack of condition removal (applies to both thief and DD)

Elongated fights vs conditions. Thief inherently has bad condi cleanse. Escapist’s absolutely, I feel, acknowledges this, however the aim in general is to dodge the condition application, and with the frequency and ease of applying and stacking conditions it’s impossible to dodge all applications and “Dodge” clense them all. My first experience with the DD in the starting maguuma story was against these modrem that would apply high torment, which I have no realistic way of cleansing, the result was me falling over despite being able to avoid most damage output.

- Staff feels weak.

From the moment guild mates suggested staff as a thief weapon in the up and coming expansion, I told them it would be a bad idea. I told them this largely due to the fact that S/D fits the play style they were looking for, and adding staff to the game, would either be weaker then S/D or visa versa. As the case goes, it turns out staff is out right worse then S/D. Staff itself, has no mobility. No way in, no way out of a fight… The evasive acrobatic fighter is slowly walking himself into fights, and once he takes a sizable hit, and has to disengage, he can’t and pretty much just dies.

Staff however, can be easily fixed, change Weakening Charge into a teleport, then the short ranged ‘charge’. This will allow the DD to do what he is meant to do, dive the backline, helping the mobility problem. However they still lack disengage.

In my mind there are two ways to add disengage to the staff, the first is to increase the ‘jump back’ from debilitating arc to some thing closer to 900-1200 range, I don’t much care for this personally because it would look rather odd flinging yourself back that far. The second option is to add a stealth effect to Dust Strike, if it hits a target. The latter option allows access to the staff stealth skill, a reliable disengage, the ability to use the shadow art’s line (not effectively, but at least use it), and of course, it would make sense, you’re disappearing into the dust.

Lastly, vault feels clunky. I can’t imagine myself ever landing this skill against a player of equal skill, not to mention it locks you into an animation that you can be knocked out of and to make matters worse, if you steal during the vault, you teleport AFTER you land from vault. I have no personal fix for it as of right now, at least none that I feel are adequate enough to share.

- Grandmaster traits. The big one.

I was so excited for DD, I was excited to take Bound, and crush people under my boots while avoiding their damage. It looked so cool!.. Then when I tried it, I noticed how slow, clunky, and awkward it felt, this applies for both dash and bound. The biggest problem with both of these skills, and to a lesser degree Impaling Lotus is that they are STILL our dodge roll, and taking our dodge and replacing it with a skill.. Unless those skills are insanely overpowered, it’s not worth it.

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix for this…. Revert all the dodge rolls to the basic dodge roll, but keep the added effects, IE you dodge roll normally but also do damage, or roll further (but only dodge for the same duration) or roll and daggers fly out of your butt.
Some other minor thing’s that need to be considered as well: Bound can land you a bit too far away from your target to not be able to hit him with Bound’s damage. Bound + Impaling Lotus can NOT be used while stealth without removing it, and therefore both should be disabled (or rather their secondary effects) while you’re stealthed.

- Impairing Daggers.

Love it. Truly, I do, this has been the most enjoyable part of the elite specialization, it’s just a shame you don’t have access to this skill unless you take DD.
- Channeled vigor.

I am still trying to wrap my mind around this skill. So the acrobatic fighter, designed to dodge and avoid all damage, is suppose to stop.. and channel? This skill I feel needs a complete redesign.

- Impact strike.

I actually found some success with this skill. However if they avoid a single hit from it, it becomes pretty worthless. As with vault I have no real suggestions for this skill, simply that it feels … risky? I suppose.

I think that about does it for my experiences with the elite spec. Overall it felt clunky and unfinished, and not really fun. Furthermore I feel as though the current SA DP meta thief build is far more functional, even if it also has an array of problems that still need to be addressed.

Karl, i’m counting on you to make this specialization the most fun!

As many said, the new dodges are Rally nice, but fell a bit like “stop and go”, but red post said, ist in progress^^..

Waht I mentiones is, that the GM minor trait “Endurance Thief” does not give you 50 Endurance back, when you steal, ist only 25 (half of 1 endurance bar)…don’t know, if it’s intended.

I like the traits, it’s a hard choice, which one you want to use, because there are at least 2/3 good ones in 1 tier^^

There are also nice combinations like jump-dodge —> steal or Vault —> steal (with Hidden Thief trait) und u can still stay stealthed after landing It’s nit that easy to time, but nice to have.

So, all in all, I like the elite spec from Thief. Ist fun to play and I think there’s much potential with the right builds and there can be great synergies.
Pls, dont nerv Pulmonary Impact, ist really fun….esp. when you get a double one XD…

Daredevil elite skill, Impact Strike, is too slow to finish off Mesmers, Elementalists, and Thiefs using their downed skill 2s. Even with the launch from the second hit they still have enough time to escape the finish. Don’t know if this was the intent but this skill seems unnecessary with its current state considering how it leaves a Daredevil wide open to attacks. It’s much more practical to use blinds, Shadowstep, or stealth to stomp still.