Guild Wars 2

ZDragon.3046:

Being baseline stances on the different dodges I feel would be too strong. Considering the first minor gives you free dodge right off the bat is pretty strong as it is. […] But being ablet to swap them mid-combat is just a no no. You shouldn’t be rewarded for every type of dodge and then gain bonus new grand master traits.

Once you pick a type of dodge you should be limited to that one. Each of the dodges are pretty darn strong having access to all 3 at any given time should present the same problem as to why Reaper can not use Death shroud and Reapershroud at any given time when you take the reaper trait line.

i cant agree with you. this “free dodge” is not strong. it gives advantage only at the beginning of fight, when you have 3 dodges and enemy 2, but when you use your “free dodge” your endurance is regenerating with same speed as your enemy’s endurance. base endu regen is 5/s, endu on steal is 50 (IF it hit something) so 2,5/s with trickery Sleight of Hands (exactly same as vigor) or 1,7 without trickery. staff master gives 2 endu per initiative spent. with 1 ini per sec (base regen) its 2/s so max we can get from only DD trait line is 3,7 endu per second, or 4,5/s with tric SoH (which is max and depends on hitting with steal), BUT dodge is DD’s mechancs, isnt it? So lets compare it with other class:
Ele with arcana is my main argument. ele get perma vigor from adept what’s 2,5/s. AND his gm give him all 4 effects on dodge he can get and he can chose which one he want to use by switching attunements. yes, i know every effect have a cd and its not that simple and freely with effect choice, but… its not their mechanics.

other thing is “Reaper can not use Death shroud and Reapershroud at any given time when you take the reaper trait line”. Its true, but reaper gets ALL his mechanics when he chose reaper trait line. DD have to take a gm trait to get… i wanted to say “same” but DD is losing all it’s “new mechanics” after 20-30s of fight and reaper still have his new shroud skills.

imo current DD gm’s shoud go baseline and should be same as reve legends choice slot. it would be exactly same but with dodges. 2 slots (it would be enough if Lotus Training become a leap. i think no one will complain about it. condis would have leap with condis and power builds leap with dmg.) with 1 button to switch between them with X seconds cd.

last thing: i want to compare 2 traits (info from http://en.gw2skills.net)

• Bounding Dodger; dmg with 1000 power: 465; number of targets: 5; radius: 180; Leap
• Reckless Dodge; dmg with 1000 power: 332; number of targets: 5; radius: 180;

i dont think adding 40% dmg (332*1,4=464,8) and a leap combo finisher can be called “new mechanics” and justify moving it from minor to gm.. its even harder to hit with bd than with rd because of its’s animation.

Edit: with Brawler’s Tenacity, 5 physical skills spammed as soon as they refresh DD can get theoretically additional 8 endu per sec including healing regen which doesnt work as description says because give only 1,5 dodge. 25% per pulse in description relate to normal max endu, but as DD’s max endu is 150 it should regen 112 endu, so 37 more than it does now. with fix it would be 2,31 more than now.

conclusion: DD line can give 11,7 additional endu per second, but its only theoretical and means he would need to spam every skill as soon as it lose it’s cd no matter if it does or not have any sense e.g. bandit’s defence or impact strike in situation when full melee warrior is 1500 units away, same with initiative. if its on max, endu per second is dropping
current acro+agi signet have almost same potential (a bit over 10/s) but include “hey! cc me pls! i need it to get endu QQ” hard to catch which potential is 3,3/s

I agree with many of you about Animation dodge issues and need some change.

For staff, for me the issue is always the staff role, hardly staff will compete with other melee set like sword or dagger and i’d like to see a different alternatives to shortbow, so basically change vault to a more mobility skill who works on vertical axis, lower damage and lower casting time and move parte of this damage to other staff skills.

This promotes better build diversity and a super fun ninja style

So here’s what I’m seeing thusfar:

People like the seemingly intended synergy with existing builds.

People are still questioning why acrobatics is a generally underpowered trait line without DD.

People feel that the staff and dodges don’t feel as fluid and nimble as core specs and dodges. (Anet has stated dodges are being addressed. No word of Staff)

People feel distracting daggers is borderline useless in its current implementation.

People like fist flurry, but feel the payoff isn’t worth the difficulty to land the combo.

People like bandit’s defense, but would like to be able to interrupt it.

Almost nobody has a problem with impairing daggers. People find it useful and valuable.

People feel impact strike has too short a duration between strikes to be user friendly as a chain. People feel like Impact Strike is completely worthless in PvE. People like the insta-finish special feature.

People feel that overall the artistic polish on the spec is not up to par, with a lot of obviously re-used or poorly implemented animations, and a general lack of QA.

There is some contention about utilizing GM traits as the dodge selection mechanism. Some people think it’s fine, Others think it deprives DD of build choices.

There is some contention about the placement of traits.

That about sum it up this far?

WHoever suggested turning the three different dodges into an F3-F4-F5 skill. Thats a fantastic idea.

Take dodges out of the grandmaster traits and replace them with something else.

Glade to know I’m not the only one who didn’t like skill 2 on the staff. It goes through the target and sometimes it triggers twice while I only have pressed the 2 button 1 time only xD

I think it should be kinda like the skill 2 on the dagger but not exactly the same so it would still be unique for the weapon.

Being baseline stances on the different dodges I feel would be too strong. Considering the first minor gives you free dodge right off the bat is pretty strong as it is. I feel like everyone is right the dodges are not as fluid as the standard dodge and need to be looked at. But being ablet to swap them mid-combat is just a no no. You shouldn’t be rewarded for every type of dodge and then gain bonus new grand master traits.

I think that’s a fair point, and would be fine with them staying as GMs, and of not being able to swap them while in combat, but I do wish that there were a UI toggle for swapping them (actually changing the GM traits) while OUT of combat, just as a convenience factor of not having to constantly open the hero panel. Ideally I would want to run Dash whenever I’m exploring and roaming (even when an enemy tags me into combat that I have no interest in), but then be able to switch to Lotus whenever I planned to buckle down and have an actual fight.

As for the dodges being “too much” to not be traits though, I don’t really agree. Most of the other classes gain no less significant perks from just choosing their elites. Overloads are free, all the Zerker Bursts are free, all the DH virtues are free, that time warp thing is free, Reaper stance is free, these are all at least comparable to the DD’s new dodges.

The “triple dodge” function is a bad joke, it seems like a big deal, because it seems like you can dodge three times as often, but in practice you aren’t able to dodge as often as a Thief could six months ago before the nerfs. Once you’re already in combat, that third dodge is worthless because you’ll constantly be between your first and second one. Now, if DD’s came with baseline 30% more energy regen, that might be worth it.

I think that ideally, they would let you choose from the three dodges without having to choose GMs for them, but then each of the GMs would boost their effectiveness. Have it so that baseline Lotus would do slightly less damage than the current one (maybe only one dagger?) but traited Lotus would do more. Have it so that baseline Dash would not apply Swiftness (just a slightly longer dodge) while traited would regain that swiftness. Have it so baseline Bound is identical to Warrior’s dodge roll, and traited version is like the current one, only hits harder.

People feel like Impact Strike is completely worthless in PvE. People like the insta-finish special feature.

I actually really like it in PvE. I’m not a min-maxer type, so I’ll let other people fight out on whether it’s “worth it” and could use some tuning, but I love the launcher effect on the second hit. I have no idea for sure, but it really felt like I was contributing to breakbar fights with that move, and it helped set up Fist Furry. I do feel like the “auto stomp” is a complete waste in PvE, and there should be a PvP/PvE split on that, where the PvE version either does a lot more damage on the last hit or had some other strong effect to it to compensate, and I would like to see the move changed to a “one button, three hits” move instead of a manual combo, but I quite like it as an ability, and the only thing that makes me at all hesitant to slot it is how much I love Thieves’ Guild.

Oh, and one other change to Impact Strike, since it is meant as an auto-finisher, it would be pretty cool (and probably sell a lot of finishers), if it were designed so that in PvE it would use your finisher animation even on enemies that you don’t need to stomp.

Hope I’m not too late to provide feedback. Much of what’s been said already I agree with but I’m gonna go though item by item.

Staff
Staff Strike Chain Skills
I wish it inflicted a condition a little more in line with the evasion/control theme in the rest of the daredevil specialization. Maybe add something like projectile reflection or a short AoE protection to allies during the duration of the third skill?

I also think the animation needs tuning. Like most people I don’t think the staff should whirl in front of my characters hand, they should spin it like a martial artist.

Staff 2
This skill’s pretty neat. The AoE weakness is good but it feels a little short. This skill may end up like some of the less used thief skills where the best way to manage an encounter would be never to use this skill.

I think a short evasion should be added to this skill to make it a little more defensive.

Staff 3
I like this move a lot. It’s pretty great for what daredevil seems to represent.

The animation seems sped up, perhaps changing the dive backward to a shadowstep animation would make the transition smoother?

Staff 4
This move feels very weak compared to everything else on staff. Like others I think a rework of this skill is needed.

It should place a long & narrow smoke field in front of your character kind of like some of the newer combo fields. It should start under your character and if you dodge forward, you should get a blast finisher with bound. This would keep in line with the defensive nature of the weapon and would give people access to stealth the way we’ve been asking.

Staff 5
Great move but you can’t steal during it. I love that you can actually use it for jumping puzzles.

6-10 Skills
Channeled Vigor
This is my least favorite skill on the whole daredevil specialization. The channeling time was just way too long for the pay off. I understand that it’s not supposed to be interruptable but as it was this weekend all of the other heals for thief are better in pretty much all situations.

Bandit’s Defense
Great move. This will be on my bar most of the time. The animation looked a little weird, like my characters hands were kinda limp (human female).

This should be made available underwater.

Distracting Daggers
While I like this ability quite a bit, the casting time to equip them felt too long and the time they stayed available felt too short.

They also clipped with the armor I was wearing. I don’t know if you guys would have to make new tech for this, but a slider that allows you to set how close/far the wrist pieces are from the forearm could help people look less silly. (bonus for adding it to shields and back pieces)

Fist Flurry
A pretty fun & simple skill. Pulmonary Impact is very cool. I’d like to see some things to modify Pulmonary Impact in some of the lesser used thief lines like acrobatics.

Impairing Daggers
I don’t know if I just like throwing daggers or what but this move felt great. It was cool to throw them into a crowd of mobs and see more than one guy take a dagger.

Impact Strike Chain Skills
I really enjoyed this elite. Since launch I’ve felt a little underwhelmed with Thief’s elites but now I have a new favorite. I do think the time between skills is a little short, maybe up it 1 or 2 seconds before you have to do the next hit.

Traits
Enforcer Training
Obviously a rename is coming, lol.

Evasive Empowerment
Nice trait, will def have it’s uses especially if staff get’s it’s smoke field on skill 4.

Weakening Strikes
I like how much it fits the support/control theme of daredevil.

Brawler’s Tenacity
Another good trait.

Driven Fortitude
The heal seems a little small, maybe lower the internal cooldown to 3/4 instead of 1.

Staff Master
Awesome effects on this trait. I love how it’s not just a raw 10% damage increase at all times. It makes for more dynamic play.

Maybe go through some of the other Thief damage traits and make them more like this at another time.

Escapist’s Absolution
Quite a few people I’ve talked to has said it’s too weak to put on a trait into. I’d probably rarely use it myself.

Perhaps adding a constant effect to it so people can still use it while not successfully evading. Something like granting 1 second of resistance that doesn’t stack in duration to dodge.

Impacting Disruption
I love this skill for general play.

I had a build based around it but I felt very ineffective against enemies with break bars. Maybe you could track when a successful interrupt would have happened to enemies with break bars and this trait could give Pulmonary Impact to them without interrupting them?

Endurance Thief
Outright an awesome ability.

Lotus Training
If the skill dodges get cleaned up, Impaling Lotus was functionally great. I think there should be some visual feedback that you’re throwing daggers because I felt like I had a spin animation and didn’t throw anything.

Like most people I disliked the animation. I think this one needs a whole new animation.

Unhindered Combatant
Again if cleaned up, the Dash skill is great.

I have a suggestion for this one’s animation. I think the name should be replaced by Shadow Dash and you just have a shadow step animation instead of the current running one. It’d feel thematically better and it’d take less time since there’s no real animation to create.

Bounding Dodger
Of the three this one’s my favorite dodge skill.

The animation’s way sped up feeling. I think it’d be easier to fit the whole animation into the amount of time a dodge takes place by making it an instand shadow step into the sky where they are going to slam down from. This way the whole animation would just be them slamming into the ground.

Final Notes

• The new dodges are an awesome concept. I really do think they need to be cleaned up in that they have aftercast animations and interrupt your movement when you use them.
• The staff animations are pretty lame right now. You guys need to mocap either a modern wushu martial artist (faster) with a staff or a shaolin kungfu martial artist (more realistic) with staff.
• The heal really feels out of place being a channeled skill.
• Staff #4 should put down a larger smoke field than pistol #5.

Kocoff.7582:

Kydar Schattendolch.6879:

ZDragon.3046:

But being ablet to swap them mid-combat is just a no no.

Make it, that you can only swap when you are ooc and maybe disable swap while in PvP completly….Problem solved^^

I have an idea to improve “Bounding Dodger”.
There are complains, that DD is a spec which should stay in combat, but the benefit of this dodge doesn’t help you much, cause often you dont do any dmg, cause you dodge away from target. So, my idea is to inverse the animation for this one, so that the dmg is dealt at the start of the dodge.
1. You sill do dmg while/before dodging AND
2. you get some distance between you and your target.

Something like picture below^^

LOL dat backflip doe.

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On a serious note… I am just waiting for the dev to say something.

Don’t hold your breath for a response from the thief dev.

I really liked my daredevil, I think I only had 2 skills on my bar (on my melee set) that weren’t capable of interrupting, so ofc I carried the pulmonary rupture trait, and also torment on interrupt (from Trickery I think?)

Acrobatics has major synergy with all the dodging, and I found myself rarely at a loss for endurance: meanwhile I can evade or interrupt nearly every attack, while retaining an impressive amount of mobility.

I will probably be playing a lot of HoT with my thief, rather than my current guardian main, seeing the way dragonhunter is going..

I just wanted to ask that the animations be looked at again. There are too many reused animations with the staff weapon. Also, I wouldn’t expect a staff to be carried around like a giant hammer. I think a new drawn animation needs to be made for melee staves. Also, as many others have already said, the dodges felt weird. I disabled the dodge trait and enjoyed the specialization much more without any grandmaster trait.

I have to say I loved the daredevil concept so great job ANET.

That said the execution is still a bit cumbersome, it is meant to be an agile toon but it feels heavy on the keyboard because some animations are too long and unresponsive.

So my take on this is either they are REALLY lazy and basically just said kitten the thieves we’ll get our money else where…

OR the beta just came WAY too soon for the dev team in charge of the Daredevil, and they needed placeholder to at least let us have a look at the mechanism.

But, I expect (wishful thinking maybe but not unreasonable demand), to have at least the monkey king tonic stance on melee staff users instead of the hammer stance. I also expect a total makeover of all of the staff animations.

Because seriously, when you have a look at all that has been done here, compared to other specializations, no work has been done here yet in term of execution (the concept does deliver though). At this point asking for the monkey king animation (which has already been rigged, just need to adapt the controlers to the other models AND make the adjustments), is no more than asking the animation team in charge to wake up and go do their job.

When I see what the revenant has to offer, I think they are capable of making this class enjoyable and polished.
Now I’m not sure if I have to be worried or not, every bad aspect of the Daredevil can be corrected so, it’s just a matter of whether or not they are willing to put up the good work. So I’ll just wait for the last beta, or the release to really make a judgement

I had high hopes after POI 31 but after playing more solo at the end of the beta weekend this about summed up how I felt about the thief and the new DD spec.

Driften.8716:

I had high hopes after POI 31 but after playing more solo at the end of the beta weekend this about summed up how I felt about the thief and the new DD spec.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder…who designed DD? How did it get approved?

Looking at the staff skills, its obvious they wanted DD to be the melee team fighting weaponset, then they just didn’t bother to put any survivability in.

How is a DD thief supposed to stay alive in a brawl over a point?

The 456 health they recover on successful dodge? The weakness from weakening strikes (Which is not per target, btw, so what good is it)? How about those dodges that eat up our GM slot, not a single one of which adds much to survivability (Dash is ok, but it’s not like thieves are hurting for solutions to cripple/chill).

I just don’t get it.

Driften.8716:

I had high hopes after POI 31 but after playing more solo at the end of the beta weekend this about summed up how I felt about the thief and the new DD spec.

WoW – hey at least they can drop targets and if not then they duel for quite a bit, or disengage. In terms of dps for raiding they’re in the top 5 or 10 builds – and quite frankly if you min-max your gear and do proper rotations it’s a joke and you will be pulling more than someone that didnt min-max or doesn’t know proper rotation or has slower-key-mushing-skills.

Skyforge – Slayer – Again they can drop targets if properly played and they can duel, the have almost (but there is just a bit) no access to stealth, they’re the assassin archetype – Considered one of the more OP classes in PvP, and above average/good in PvE.

:P ANet since GW1 had a “different take” on assassins/rogues/thieves/ninjas – since they’re trying to innovate.

Driften.8716:

I had high hopes after POI 31 but after playing more solo at the end of the beta weekend this about summed up how I felt about the thief and the new DD spec.

This doesn’t make sense to me. Wherever I go rogues usually are decent if not OP. Even C9’s assasin and shadow found success in PvE despite the two being high tier in PvP and C9’s PvE is not casual.

More on the GM Traits and tying them to an F3 F4 F5 toggle allowing the ability to switch in combat.

Some suggest this is OP. I do not see that at all as you can only use one a time anyways and the usage of those are all still tied to overall endurance. People are just not going to burn off endurance to activate a dodge. Secondly they do not synergize that well together in a given build. As example a power build will get much less utility out of Impaling Lotus and a Condition build much less out of bounder. It pretty well a waste of endurance to use Bounder in a Condition build unless you just want that leap.

A hyrbrid might find more use out of using these two but there nothing wrong with improving the abilities of a hybrid. It more then likely a given build will switch between dash and one of the two other dodges.

I was intitially thinking there no need to change the GM traits themselves and they should just improved upon to bring them up to snuff but I have been having second thought on that as I think this can be a very practical and interesting way of adding utility to builds giving each type even more flavor. With that said I also think in making new GM traits here as those three different dodges moved to the toggle bar they can not be like other GM traits. They will be tied to the dodge toggle skills.

So as example I suggest.

Moving the Three Dodge types off the GM traits. Access is given by Enforcer training. These three now existing traits move to that toggle bar with current abilties (animations cleaned up).

Put the toggle bar on a 10-20 second cooldown. You must wait these seconds between switching modes. (alternatively as another suggested burn endurance to toggle)

Add three new GM traits each giving a different flavor that Kicks in when a Dodge mode toggled.

So just off the top of my head three GM traits might be.

Gain 50 endurance when changing dodge modes.
Daze nearby opponents for 1/4 second when changing dodge modes.
Transfer one condition when changing dodge modes.

Might want to tune down the damage of vault a bit jkjk

Zero Day.2594:

Driften.8716:

I had high hopes after POI 31 but after playing more solo at the end of the beta weekend this about summed up how I felt about the thief and the new DD spec.

WoW – hey at least they can drop targets and if not then they duel for quite a bit, or disengage. In terms of dps for raiding they’re in the top 5 or 10 builds – and quite frankly if you min-max your gear and do proper rotations it’s a joke and you will be pulling more than someone that didnt min-max or doesn’t know proper rotation or has slower-key-mushing-skills.

Skyforge – Slayer – Again they can drop targets if properly played and they can duel, the have almost (but there is just a bit) no access to stealth, they’re the assassin archetype – Considered one of the more OP classes in PvP, and above average/good in PvE.

:P ANet since GW1 had a “different take” on assassins/rogues/thieves/ninjas – since they’re trying to innovate.

I am not arguing that at once or twice in MMO history rogues have had a decent roll. The roll however is usually not handled well by those who never play it and and are usually improperly nerfed to mend the wounds of those who do not know how to counter them. Simply if you can’t go in a bash it with a stick it is too hard of a class to counter. These PVP nerfs lead to harder to balance PVE nerfs. I personally didn’t have problems with the “Rift” assassin and the blood stalker build. However this was nerfed like countless others. GW2 it’sef had a decent running “Thief” until they nerfed it to repackage it as the clunky DD.

Never cared much for WoW and it’s rogue classes but seen how they were nerfed into the ground pretty hard. Skyforge, I tried it out in beta, the slayer was alright but as you said no stealth which is a huge turn off. One of the best rogue classes I ever played was the rogue from Vanguard, but it seen the light of day once. Shadow Bane’s assassin was decent till that game crashed and burned. However this is all side note.

The funny thing and the main point of it is no one is arguing the survivalblity part. I have been with GW1 since “Prophecies” and had an Assassin back in the day. Personally I preferred the Necro and Ranger over the Assassin due to it’s 1 hit and KO record. GW1 no one grouped with an Assassin in PVE unless you were being charitable and could do the content a man down.

As for innovating, I have no a problem. However 3 years has been plenty of time to innovate and survivalbility has been a issue since the get go. Thieves had a decent chance of living about a year ago and have since slowly has been broken down to it’s current state. The main issue is during POL 31 Karl pushed that the DD spec would bring the thief back into the game. Suggested that the Thief would be able to hold it’s own. After playing it, it feels just as broke as it was before.

Timston.1976:

Might want to tune down the damage of vault a bit jkjk

Vault is pretty easy to dodge though. I think once people clue into the skill overall damage from it will drop.

Timston.1976:

Might want to tune down the damage of vault a bit jkjk

So basically you just dont dodge? You got hit from Vault 6 times, which makes it ~3600 damage per hit. Thats not a lot.

edit: okay, i just saw jkjk and interpret it as joke joke. I totally missed your sarcasm there

Now would be a good time for Karl to chime in and say what some of the planned changes are, even if they’re not final. Right now, all we know is that the delay on dodges is being looked at. Other than that, we know nothing about the status of these issues:

-Recycled animations all over the place, and not even ones that fit
-Staff is clunky, underwhelming, and needs meaningful mechanical changes
-Badly placed traits; majors that should be minors (Escapist’s Absolution)
-Endurance Thief minor only restores 25-30 Endurance, not 50 as advertised
-DD gives up a whole tier of traits for its mechanic when every other spec’s is baked in
-Dodge replacers count as skills, are punishable by interrupts and confusion
-Dodge replacers eat Endurance without firing if you do them too quickly in succession
-Distracting Daggers has delays that make it useless, unlike the mantras it was inspired by
-Timing issues with Impact Strike and its questionable usefulness in PvP

I actually really like all of the new traits. Most are in a good spot. There are a few that could use a slight buff as others have suggested.

The issue is the staff and the physical skills. I don’t see a use for the staff or when it would be viable over another primary weapon set. Likewise, the physical skills all need some type of rework. I can’t imagine people using them that often.

Bandit’s Defense and Impairing Daggers are solid and only need minor tweaks at best. The other Physicals have meaningful issues.

Amante.8109:

Bandit’s Defense and Impairing Daggers are solid and only need minor tweaks at best. The other Physicals have meaningful issues.

I really do not mind the heal. Maybe make the time 2 seconds but it worked pretty good for me.

I forgot about the heal. It’s surprisingly decent and a lot more usable than initially suspected. The biggest problem with it is that it’s hard to fit in over stuff like Withdraw except in mostly conceptual builds. If the Thief had more overall tools and options, the Physical heal would definitely find a place. As things are now, though… we’ll see.

Amante.8109:

I forgot about the heal. It’s surprisingly decent and a lot more usable than initially suspected. The biggest problem with it is that it’s hard to fit in over stuff like Withdraw except in mostly conceptual builds. If the Thief had more overall tools and options, the Physical heal would definitely find a place. As things are now, though… we’ll see.

Well the cooldown is the same as withdraw if traited. Thus way more healing per second plus that endurance gain. I think it will see a lot of play. Any stealth build will do well by it and this need not be one traited into SA. Blinding powder or just a CnD is enough to get the full heal channel off.

The point isn’t the utility of the heal. The point is does it mesh well with the mechanics and theme of the profession. The heal is counter-productive in a sense that in order to get the FULL benefit of the heal you have to channel for over 2 seconds in the middle of a fight and be at full endurance.

The core mechanic of the class is about using endurance. That would be like rewarding ele’s for not switching attunements.

Also, if you think about it a DD that doesn’t use endurance won’t need to heal because obviously it’s not taking any damage. If it’s condition damage you’ll still burn endurance to cleanse with the trait.

That heals makes no sense at all when you could have Withdraw or Hide in Shadows.

Also the tooltip reads that heal as physical and I think thats a great idea, make the heal offensive and physical. Reward the player for landing strikes on the enemy doing damage while at the same time sustaining.

To be fair, USING the heal gives endurance, and it heals for a solid amount even if not at full endurance. It has multiple uses and is a little better than it initially appears. You have a point about it being an awkward fit for current thief themes and mechanics, though. It almost seems designed for an ideal version of the Thief profession that DOESN’T have the core deficiencies in durability the real one does

Bllade.1029:

The core mechanic of the class is about using endurance. That would be like rewarding ele’s for not switching attunements.

Yeah that would be crazy stupid wouldnt it!

Oh wait a minuite…..

Bllade.1029:

Also the tooltip reads that heal as physical and I think thats a great idea, make the heal offensive and physical. Reward the player for landing strikes on the enemy doing damage while at the same time sustaining.

I would like this too. The heal should be more offensive. Maybe a kind of life steal skill, where you attack and heal for each hit you land. Then, like Fist Flurry, if you hit with all strikes you gain bonus endurance as well.

Bllade.1029:

• Channeled Vigor Suggestion – [Insert name change of heal here] - Three part chain. Summersault (front flip) towards your target and evade, heal for a base amount, and cure two conditions. . If you strike a target with this ability deal damage and gain access to [Insert three part chain name here.]

• [Three part chain] – Strike your enemy three times in quick succession, dealing damage, restoring health and endurance. The last strike knocks enemy back for X distance. All three strikes can critically hit.

This idea combines Withdrawals mobility and condition cleanse, with Channeled Vigors 3 pulse heal and endurance regen mechanics. The difference is the heal does physical damage and rewards you for landing those hits.

You would still gain the heal and the condition cleanse if you didn’t hit a target. So you could essentially use it just for the evade and mobility, but the heal promotes staying in the fight and maintaining pressure.

Can still be blocked, dodged etc. So there is a skill cap there, won’t just give you everything for sitting still for 2 1/2 seconds.

This was part of the wall of text I wrote on page 5.

So for my time with the BWE I built a full condition build, which sounds impossible, especially with how DD and the physical skills doesn’t exactly support conditions. Except I started with a trapping build and P/P weapon set attempting to stack as many pulmonary impacts on my targets, which in high end PVE and PVP works quite well, players auto-attack between rotations and BWE NPC enemies spam attacks like no one’s business (probably part of their high population AI) and as far as I could tell, nothing can cleanse a Pulmonary Impact so I was laying down unavoidable damage and boosting survivability by restricting my opponent from landing nearly as many attacks. Admittedly I was wearing Dire armour for every ounce of toughness and health I could muster and I felt like I was getting less heals from malicious signet (I could be wrong).

I eventually swapped to mainly physical dagger throw skills and basilisk venom for the spam interrupt and extra conditions and it played out quite nicely, and staff even had a place in the rotation while I waited for my skills to cd allowing me to spam weakness.

In PvE I don’t see this build as being as powerful as venomshare, but it seems more reliable when I don’t have 4 extra PCs to help finish the fight…just not in conjunction with the staff.

staff voult is very dangerous to use. player get tons of dmg during long flight. Reventant had same problem with sword “3”. Long skill animation and inabllity to control char during that time forced developers to add evasion effect to the skill. Is it not same situation with voult?

I love those ideas:
“Staff
Staff Strike Chain Skills
I wish it inflicted a condition a little more in line with the evasion/control theme in the rest of the daredevil specialization. Maybe add something like projectile reflection or a short AoE protection to allies during the duration of the third skill?

I also think the animation needs tuning. Like most people I don’t think the staff should whirl in front of my characters hand, they should spin it like a martial artist.

Staff 4
This move feels very weak compared to everything else on staff. Like others I think a rework of this skill is needed.
It should place a long & narrow smoke field in front of your character kind of like some of the newer combo fields. It should start under your character and if you dodge forward, you should get a blast finisher with bound. This would keep in line with the defensive nature of the weapon and would give people access to stealth the way we’ve been asking.

Reading up about DD really makes it look like a really good spec. Just like Bushy Brow from Naruto, the Dev just have to put a lot of dead weights on DD just to make it “fair” instead of taking the weights off and let the profession breath for once.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

..the Dev just have to put a lot of dead weights on DD just to make it “fair” instead of taking the weights off and let the profession breath for once.

Wow, your words truly have weight.

From all the words i´ve read that discribe us Thiefs in general, yours are the greatest.

Thank you for that! Now a Dev has to understand them.

knyy.6427:

ZDragon nice try Necromancer. You can feel lucky for your Reaper elite spec. We try to give feedback and suggestions on the Daredevil which is by far not as good as your spec. I bet you didnt even play Daredevil and just say one more dodge is good enough as a new elite specs mechanic. No, its just not.
And its so obvious that the new dodges are a part of the mechanic. So in comparison to other elite specs mechanic, it should be in the first minor trait, hence F3-5 skills (or only one which switches through or swap between two with cd of maybe 10s).

Its been out for one beta even weekend, of course its not that great yet. Chill out (pun pun pun reaper puns for days) But seriously chill out and i actually spend all sat. night and sun. morning on daredevil. I like the physical skills even though they feel clunky as heck and staff sucks. >.> But as a thief you have the option of stealth you must consider that a major player into your profession. You can use this to get away and hide where other professions like a necromancer cannot. I’m still against allowing the swaping of dodges in combat maybe even if you got a box to choose which while ooc thats fine bur during combat no.

The dodge itself is not the main part of the professions mechanic. STEALING IS by far the main profession mechanic for thief, now if they gave you the option of losing the ability to steal for those three dodge stances by all means go for it. Since you want a New profession mechanic, Dodging and evading is only part of daredevil not thief overall thus you should see things like stance swapping buttons in combat.

Remember these specs will likely not be the only specs to come as time goes on. The next round necromancer might not be so lucky with its spec as were thief might shine. This spec may be based on dodging while others in the future may focus more on other things a thief can do.

Im not here to troll so please hold your tongue on accusing me of not even playing a class i actually enjoyed playing.

babazhook.6805:

More on the GM Traits and tying them to an F3 F4 F5 toggle allowing the ability to switch in combat.

Some suggest this is OP. I do not see that at all as you can only use one a time anyways and the usage of those are all still tied to overall endurance. People are just not going to burn off endurance to activate a dodge. Secondly they do not synergize that well together in a given build. As example a power build will get much less utility out of Impaling Lotus and a Condition build much less out of bounder. It pretty well a waste of endurance to use Bounder in a Condition build unless you just want that leap.

A hyrbrid might find more use out of using these two but there nothing wrong with improving the abilities of a hybrid. It more then likely a given build will switch between dash and one of the two other dodges.

I was intitially thinking there no need to change the GM traits themselves and they should just improved upon to bring them up to snuff but I have been having second thought on that as I think this can be a very practical and interesting way of adding utility to builds giving each type even more flavor. With that said I also think in making new GM traits here as those three different dodges moved to the toggle bar they can not be like other GM traits. They will be tied to the dodge toggle skills.

So as example I suggest.

Moving the Three Dodge types off the GM traits. Access is given by Enforcer training. These three now existing traits move to that toggle bar with current abilties (animations cleaned up).

Put the toggle bar on a 10-20 second cooldown. You must wait these seconds between switching modes. (alternatively as another suggested burn endurance to toggle)

Add three new GM traits each giving a different flavor that Kicks in when a Dodge mode toggled.

So just off the top of my head three GM traits might be.

Gain 50 endurance when changing dodge modes.
Daze nearby opponents for 1/4 second when changing dodge modes.
Transfer one condition when changing dodge modes.

That last one makes no sense for a daredevil or a thief. Xfer a condition? Really how about just Cure a condition.
Also you already have gain 50 endurance when you steal so that one is also pretty void. maybe gain some but a full free dodge just for swapping modes might be a bit much. “It counters your endurance burn on swap suggestion”

I still stand against haveing the option to swap between dodges in combat.

Mabe the only way I would agree with swap dodges in combat if its put on a heavy stipulation on it such as “gain the ablity swap dodge types when your total endurance is above 50%.” (This in itself would have to be a grand master more than likely leaving 2 other options that prevent you from being able to swap in combat but give some other type of beneficial bonus)

This means that if you have 30/150 endurance, you cant swap. If you are at 110/150 you can swap with no cost. So this way there is some counterplay for having those options in combat. By burning evades like a mad man you cant swap like one.
.

ZDragon.3046:

The dodge itself is not the main part of the professions mechanic. STEALING IS by far the main profession mechanic for thief, now if they gave you the option of losing the ability to steal for those three dodge stances by all means go for it. Since you want a New profession mechanic, Dodging and evading is only part of daredevil not thief overall thus you should see things like stance swapping buttons in combat.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at the implementation of Daredevil. Only one trait modifies Steal (a minor that doesn’t even work as advertised), and nothing else refers to it at all. On the other hand, the first minor unlocks a third dodge and the GM trait unlocks a replacement for your normal dodge. For better or worse, they obviously decided on dodges being the main mechanical focus of Daredevil.

Furthermore, there’s no real argument against the dodge replacers being more readily swappable. Whether it’s in combat with an endurance cost or (more plausibly) out of combat with a drop down box like Revenants get with their legend, it needs to be decoupled from traits. There is no excuse for Daredevil not having a GM trait like every other elite specialization.

evilapprentice.6379:

The more I think about it, the more I wonder…who designed DD? How did it get approved?

Pretty sure it’s the same guy that did Dragon Hunter and Tempest.

No further comment should be necessary, but I’ll highlight the disparity:

Look at some of the specs that Robert Gee has worked on. Chronomancer came out of the gate amazing. Reaper hit BWE#1 with a decent foundation, some under-tuned math, and a few really bad mechanics. Both professions got extremely lengthy, detailed feedback responses from Gee that highlighted player concerns and adjustments in attempt to address them. BWE#2 comes and Chronomancer is still awesome, Reaper saw massive improvements not just in its numbers tuning but some of its mechanics and skill function were changed. Berserker felt unimpressive to me so far, because the new Zerk class skill seemed to be way too gimmicky just for the sake of being gimmicky with little-to-no tangible payoff, but I have full faith that Gee will take player concerns to heart and Zerk will improve for BWE#3 the same way Reaper improved for BWE#2.

Now look at DH and Tempest. The first responses after BWE#1 came later than Gee’s comments on his babies, were brief, and entirely missed the mark in many cases (“People seemed to like ______” when the overwhelming feedback was that ______ had no purpose and was actually detrimental to use) and proposed nothing more than some math adjustments even to skills that were obviously mechanically broken and almost no mention of trait fixes. Later responses conceded that other stuff needed work, too, but little of it would be done in time for BWE#2.

I like the concept of Daredevil, but, frankly and sadly, I don’t think nor expect we’ll see that concept fully realized within the game.

That pretty much sums it up sigh

Endlos.4852:

evilapprentice.6379:

The more I think about it, the more I wonder…who designed DD? How did it get approved?

Pretty sure it’s the same guy that did Dragon Hunter and Tempest.

No further comment should be necessary, but I’ll highlight the disparity:

Look at some of the specs that Robert Gee has worked on. Chronomancer came out of the gate amazing. Reaper hit BWE#1 with a decent foundation, some under-tuned math, and a few really bad mechanics. Both professions got extremely lengthy, detailed feedback responses from Gee that highlighted player concerns and adjustments in attempt to address them. BWE#2 comes and Chronomancer is still awesome, Reaper saw massive improvements not just in its numbers tuning but some of its mechanics and skill function were changed. Berserker felt unimpressive to me so far, because the new Zerk class skill seemed to be way too gimmicky just for the sake of being gimmicky with little-to-no tangible payoff, but I have full faith that Gee will take player concerns to heart and Zerk will improve for BWE#3 the same way Reaper improved for BWE#2.

Now look at DH and Tempest. The first responses after BWE#1 came later than Gee’s comments on his babies, were brief, and entirely missed the mark in many cases (“People seemed to like ______” when the overwhelming feedback was that ______ had no purpose and was actually detrimental to use) and proposed nothing more than some math adjustments even to skills that were obviously mechanically broken and almost no mention of trait fixes. Later responses conceded that other stuff needed work, too, but little of it would be done in time for BWE#2.

I like the concept of Daredevil, but, frankly and sadly, I don’t think nor expect we’ll see that concept fully realized within the game.

Great analysis. I am following the development of Reaper too and you’re spot on.

MY DAREDEVIL FEEDBACK

Dear Karl and Daredevil Team,

Let me start by saying that I LOVED the Daredevil from the get go. I’m very pleased with how it feels and plays. In fact, I was having so much fun both in Verdant Brink and WvW that I found myself playing 90% of the time with staff and not weapon swapping, which was surprising.

Here are my detailed thoughts about Daredevil traits, staff and slot skills, in that order. Please forgive the length (was a QA tester and UX/UI designer in former life lol) and any typos along the way.

TRAITS
I am quite pleased with the design of all the traits, my favorites being A1, M1, M2, GM2 and GM3. I enjoyed working with different combinations of these traits and can see many viable builds from it. I have 4 main trait suggestions/comments:

1. Dash – Animation Problem:
The start of this animation on this skill is NOT smooth. my character would stop momentarily, as if to wind up for the rush, then move forward. this was particularly pronounced with increased movement speed (traveler runes or swiftness).

2. Dash – Condi Clear:
It would be great if this cleared immobilize as well. Then it would be in line with Withdraw and Roll for Initiative, thus reducing the desire/need for using either of those and maximizing Escapist Absolution (M2). Although I just noticed that the Staff 3 clears immob. So, maybe this point is moot. Still…would be nice.

3. Bound – Should be blast finisher:
Given the AoE/cleave theme of this spec, this really should be a blast finisher. As a blast this would bring added value to this skill AND increase thieves’ value in group comps (I’m thinking WvW here, but this would be true in any content area I imagine).

4. Grandmaster Traits as Stances
I’ve seen it mentioned that the 3 GM traits should be made into stances as part of the Daredevil mechanic. I really like this idea. I envision the design for it being similar to the
Revenant legend swap. The Daredevil would have the 3 dodge skills as stances and the F3 key would cycle through each one. There would be no CD out of combat and a typical stance/attunement swap CD while in combat. This design allows for ease of use and quick preparedness for differing situations. For example: I could use Dash while running across a WvW borderland, but the minute I see a foe or get attacked, swap to Bound or Lotus Training if needed OR just stay in Dash if I need to get away or clear the Dash related condis.

STAFF SKILLS
Really happy with the staff skills except #2. Loved the feel of staff and the play of it. Even liked how mobile and “moving around the combat field” it felt. Four main suggestions on staff:

1. Staff #2 (Weakening Charge) – Animation Problem:
At first it was kittening me off, because I had the expectation it would work like Heartseeker (no target: move in direction I’m facing; target: move toward target). I enventually figured out how to use it in more of a directional sense, but was never really sure it was working. Mostly this is because, like Dash, the start of the animation is not smooth. You stop, wind up, then go. Not effective.

2. Staff #2 — Movement falls short of 450:
Seems more like 400 range. I tested this. Had a friend stand on me, then I used Heartseeker (also 450 range). Another friend stood where I landed. I rotated in position and swapped to staff, then used Staff 2. Came up short of my 1st friend. Tested it multiple times. All same result. Now, this could be because the animation start is messed up. But the distance moved is definitely less than 450.

3. Staff #5 (Vault) – Should be blast finisher:
Just like Bound, this should be an blast finisher. Both or either of these as blasts would significantly increase the value of thieves in group comps and open up new possibilities and roles for them. From a WvW perspective, two such roles that could be theorycrafted would be front-line thief and combat medic thief. Not sure if those would work, but having Bound and Vault be blasts, would open the possibility.

4. Staff #5 – Needs an evade:
I realize this may not be the intent and may never occur. But the tell on this skill is SO visible and the damage and contribution of it is so vital to the playstyle, that it almost requires having an evade. Imagine Death Blossom without an evade. That would be horrid and weird. And that’s the signature move of dagger/dagger (imho). Vault also feels like the signature move for staff. Edit: I just noticed on gw2skills.net that Staff #3 has an evade. I would rather you take the evade off Staff 3 and put it on Staff 5 where it’s more needed.

SLOT SKILLS
I tried each of the new Physical skills and found I liked most of them but not all.

1. Channeled Vigor (Heal) – Larger heal should be when endurance NOT full:
This wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. LOL The heal amount was pretty good, compared to our other heals. And the endurance regen was quite nice. However, I think the larger heal on this skill should occur when endurance is NOT full. For 1 that is when you need the regen of endurance. For 2, that when you need a larger heal the most. The way it’s currently designed encourages holding onto your endurance for the clutch heal. But the entire spec is designed to spend endurance. If this change is made I will definitely reconsider using this heal. But by the end of the BWE I had gone back to Withdraw because it just brings more to the table for me (because of Trickery M2, Daredevil Minor2 and Daredevil M2).

2. Impairing Daggers – Great skill!:
Loved it! Very effective in combo with a steal (or port) and Fist Flury, Impact Strike or other hard-hitting skills. Damage seemed really good and the immob and slow were awesome!

3. Distracting Daggers — Situational Use Only:
Cool skill. Highly situational. But plays nicely with Trickery M3 and Daredevil M3 traits. I would swap into it for situations that require, but not use it regularly because of the low damage and preference to take Daredevil M1 or M2 traits instead. Nice to have in the toolchest though!

4. Fist Flury – Great skill, bit tough to land. tooltip unclear:
Loved this skill. Hard to get it to fully execute. Which is why I started comboing it with Impairing Daggers and my daze on Steal. Tons of damage. But I wasn’t clear on how much damage the Pulminary Strike was going to do from the tooltip. Is that what the “Second Strike” meant? That’s not clear.

5. Bandit’s Defense – I struggled with this, not sure I’ll use it:
Theoretically, a great skill. In actuality, I’m not so sure. The stun break was nice, as I’m not used to having one on my thief. And the low recharge was awesome. But I don’t typically enjoy the “block something then do something” skills. I find them hard to pull off, especially at melee range. I can see it maybe working well with Fist Flury to follow. I will require more testing of this. But at this moment, plan to use a stealth-related core skill instead of this one.

6. The Elite Chain – Didn’t Use My Chosen Finisher:
This skill is pure awesomesauceness and epic good fun! I LOVED it. When I successfully delivered it. LOL It seems to take some timing and extra skill — akin to having to learn how to Cloak and Dagger well — but I expect to get better at this with more practice. Two main gripes about this. (a). The 300 range caused me to rush toward my target, or just forward. It was VERY disorienting and odd. Even caused me to run off a cliff once in Verdant Brink. LOL. Not sure if something can be done about this. Ended up being convenient for closing in on a kill. But is it really necessary to move me? (b). In WvW, it seemed as though it didn’t show my chosen finisher. Just slammed a spike into the target. Finishers in WvW and sPvP provide such a fun personal flourish that NOT seeing mine was anti-climatic and disappointing. Hope this gets fixed!

A FINAL QUESTION
I realize this isn’t the design intention but leveling as a daredevil would be so fun! Even leveling with just a staff — no elite spec line or elite spec skills needed — would be pretty darn fun. Will this be possible? If not, no biggie. Just wanted to ask from wishful thinking. :P

Thank you Karl for such great work on this elite spec! I am really stoked about the future of Daredevil and greatly appreciate all the hard work you and the team have done on behalf of our fun and enjoyment!

sirjarros.4107:

6. The Elite Chain – Didn’t Use My Chosen Finisher:

Yeah, this really bummed me out. I’m hoping it’ll be changed to use a chosen finisher instead of the vanilla one.

The Elite Chain needs a better animation for the third hit, too. The Warrior Stomp is the best recycled suggestion I’ve heard.

Amante.8109:

The Elite Chain needs a better animation for the third hit, too. The Warrior Stomp is the best recycled suggestion I’ve heard.

So the first strike dazes right? Then the second strike knocks em into the air?

Animation for the Third strike? How about this…

https://youtu.be/NKDIVq8UMLM?t=11m4s

After reading other people’s suggestions I agree that daredevil’s 3 dodges should be moved to a drop down like the Revenant’s legends and should be given as default out of the box with the first minor trait.

The Grandmaster Tier skills should be bigger for the elite specialization instead of the baseline of the ability.

You could even have the Grandmaster traits all affect Steal in some way, bringing a core theme back into the mix. This could also serve to offer another trait line that could replace Trickery, if done right.

Bllade.1029:

WHoever suggested turning the three different dodges into an F3-F4-F5 skill. Thats a fantastic idea.

Take dodges out of the grandmaster traits and replace them with something else.

Thank you.

But it seems some forum heroes dont like the idea and think its overpowered… sigh.

Amante.8109:

You could even have the Grandmaster traits all affect Steal in some way, bringing a core theme back into the mix. This could also serve to offer another trait line that could replace Trickery, if done right.

you can’t really replace trickery until preparedness becomes baseline. the extra initiative is too big.

Tonikor.5637:

Bllade.1029:

WHoever suggested turning the three different dodges into an F3-F4-F5 skill. Thats a fantastic idea.

Take dodges out of the grandmaster traits and replace them with something else.

Thank you.

But it seems some forum heroes dont like the idea and think its overpowered… sigh.

I don’t think it’d be overpowered, but I think a selectable box would be better overall.