Just got done watching the PoI today which showcased the Daredevil spec for the thief. After seeing it in action and getting a chance to analyze all of the skills, I wanted to take the time to write down my first impressions of the specialization and discuss its apparent strengths and weaknesses. I’m aware that it may be a bit preemptive to judge the spec before I’ve even had the chance to test it myself, but I feel having a bit of insightful discussion before we can play it would be useful for both us, as players, and the devs, to see our expectations and overall impressions. So, to start with:
SPECIALIZATION MECHANIC
The daredevil elite specialization grants us access to the Staff, Physical utilities, and an extra 50 endurance, giving us an extra dodge. Overall, I’m happy with this. While I’m a little disappointed steal wasn’t touched and we didn’t get anything “new” and shiny, more endurance is very fitting for the thief, and it’s nice to see that dodging and evading in particular is the profession’s theme, making it stand out from the other 8 professions.
TRAITS
Minor
- Enforcer Training – Allows access to Daredevil mechanics.
- Driven Fortitude – Heal ~ 500 hp every time you evade an attack on a 1 second cooldown. Awesome trait. This will help us to sustain in a fight and will reward skillful play (or spamming dodges, however you want to look at it.) I’m glad it’s baseline and not something we have to choose.
- Endurance Thief – Gain 50 endurance (or 1 dodge) when you successfully steal. While I love the thought of this skill, and will be abusing the hell out of it, I’m somewhat disappointed yet more effects are tacked onto steal. However, it fits in theme with the spec and will allow the thief to last longer in fights by allowing him more opportunities to avoid attacks. Can be used both defensively and offensively (given the new grandmasters). Very good trait.
Adept
- Evasive Empowerment – Do 10% more damage on next attack after a dodge roll. Interesting concept. It makes our dodges more offensive and is something we can trigger when we want, meaning we can wither react to it in a fight or use it to set up a burst. Somewhat plain, but it works and fits well at adept tier.
- Weakening Strikes – Apply 5 seconds of weakness to enemies when you critically hit them on a 10 second cooldown. This is effectively 50% uptime of weakness, which will help tremendously on staying alive. However, it only works for power builds, alienating condi. Also, it’s a passive, meaning there’s no counterplay to it. Additionally, what makes or breaks this trait is if the effect can only trigger every 10 seconds or if it triggers every 10 seconds per opponent. If it’s the former, then the trait is bad and lackluster. If it’s the later, then It will see some use.
- Brawler’s Tenacity – Gain 10 endurance when you use a physical skill, and physcial skills have 20% reduced cooldown. Seems a little simple to me, and I’m unsure how useful 10 endurance for a utility is going to be. This depends if each activation of a physical grants endurance (such as each dagger throw on distracting daggers or each chain hit on the elite) or if it is just 10 endurance for using the slot. Obviously, the former is preferable. If it’s the latter, it seems rather lackluster.
Master
- Staff Master – While wielding a staff, each point of initiative you spend will restore endurance (I believe it was 2 endurance per initiative), and you will deal 10% additional damage with the staff while your endurance is not full. I like this trait and also dislike like, for different reasons. On the positive end, It helps us sustain by constantly restoring our endurance, allowing us to fight longer. On the negative end, the trait seems somewhat self-conflicting. One half of the trait helps restore endurance while the other half requires us to use endurance. While this can be argued as a positive rather than a negative, the concept itself feels weird to me.
- Escapist’s Absolution – Remove 1 condition every time you evade an attack on a 1 second cooldown. This sounds to me like the most useful and powerful trait within the Daredevil spec, and will arguably be mandatory in any non-gimmick build. It’s just so strong and useful. The thief’s biggest weakness is his inability to reliably cleanse conditions and has forced many thieves to go into shadow arts for the ability to deal with them. With this trait, along with the plethora of ways to restore endurance and the built in evades of our weapons, we finally have an answer to our weakness without relying on stealth. We’ll have to see how balanced this is, but I’m suspecting we’ll see the cooldown increase on this trait. Otherwise, this is a godsend.
- Impacting Disruption – Every time you interrupt an enemy, they will take massive damage after a delay. This is an exciting trait that opens up the possibility of interrupt thieves (along with disrupting daggers, pistolwhip, and other various stuns/dazes we now have). I’m very excited to try s/p with this trait, but ultimately I can’t see this competing with Escapist’s Absolution. We already do so much damage, tacking on a little more isn’t going to help us as much as improving our survivability.
Grand Master
- Lotus Training – Our dodge roll turns into a mobile death blossom, throwing daggers at enemies and inflicting bleeding, torment, and cripple. It is also a whirl finisher. This is an interesting skill and will help supplement condition builds. However, aside from that fact, it seems kind of boring. Condition builds will take it, but it feels lackluster compared to the other 2 grand masters.
- Unhindered Combatant – Replaces our dodge roll with a dash that travels farther than a normal dodge roll, removes cripple and chill, ad applies 8 seconds of swiftness. It can also move in 8 directions. This is an awesome skills, and very reminiscent of GW1. Being able to remove cripple and chill on every dodge roll seems stupidly powerful, and having the ability to stack up swiftness like that is awesome. This means our dodge roll can be used both defensively and for mobility outside of combat.
- Bounding Dodger – Turns our dodge roll into a leap finisher than does massive aoe damage at the end on the animation. I LOVE this trait. It does more damage than I was expecting, doing around 3k damage on crits with a marauder amulet. Jesus. But, even if the damage wasn’t there, this being a leap finisher is enough to make me want to take it. With this trait, this means you can stealth with offhand pistol without using heartseeker. s/p and p/p now have reliable stealth, which will increase their survivability and utility. I’m absolutely loving thinking about all the things I can do with this trait alone. Good job Anet.
Overall, traits looks very good. There are problems with the adept traits, with the first 2 only being useful in a power build and are useless in a condi build. And the last trait, Brawler’s Tenacity is only situationally useful if you have a lot of physical skills. But chances are you’ll only have 1-2 physicals, and 10 endurance for a utility slot is not worth it. Meaning if you want to go condition, your adept trait choice is pretty much wasted and not that useful.
Additionally, While Escapist’s Absolution is amazing, it is arguably too much so. It’s a clear go-to trait that most will likely never stray from, making the other 2 skills, while interesting in their own right, overshadowed.
On the plus side, there are a lot of ways to restore your endurance among these traits, and nearly any build you create with the daredevil will utilize your dodge rolls in unique and effective ways that other professions won’t be able to, making us unique.
STAFF SKILLS
- Staff Strike -> Staff Bash -> Punishing Strikes – Our autoattack chain. Each hit will attack 3 enemies, and PS is a whirl finisher. It also applies 4 stacks of vulnerability. The animation of the staff looks somewhat weird, but I’ll get over it. There’s not much to say about this skill. It works, well enough, and does decent damage. Seems to be between sword and dagger in terms of damage.
- Hook Strike – Our stealth skill, this will knock down an enemy for 2 seconds. This is amazing, and brings back nostalgia of Assassins from GW1. It’s powerful because the staff has no means to stealth by itself. However, because of Bounding dodger, we can easily use a black powder, dodge through it, swap to staff, and hook stafkittenteal. From there, we can do anything we want, such as spikeing with our skill 5 or stunning them with our elite. Exciting stuff.
- Weakening Charge – Charge forward a set distance while hitting 3 times and weakening foes. It’s also a whirl finisher. 3 initiative. Weakness is very useful for a thief, and considering this is aoe that will help too. However, this skill is also somewhat flawed in that it locks you into an animation and doesn’t seem to dodge attacks while doing so. Staff being a melee weapon without stealth, weakness will be imperative to keep up, which will make us want to use this skill frequently. That being the case, that can make us predictable and set us up to be bursted as we are stuck in our animation lock. This skill would be better without the built in movement.
- Debilitating Arc – Strike enemies, applying cripple, and remove immobilize while evading backwards. 4 initiative. This is basically a better disabling shot, and will more than likely be the skill that keeps us alive. Being able to remove immobilize on demand if huge, and coupled with Unhindered Combatant will make us effectively immune to movement impairing conditions. Amazing skill.
- Dust Strike – Blind up to 3 foes in front of you up to 600 range away. Does a small amount of damage. 4 initiative. While I understand the intention, I can’t but help feel this skill is missing something. A single blind for 4 initiative feels way too costly, as the skill does nothing else. It could be a decent skill to engage with, but there are better options to use, such as setting up a stealth or casting a burst and stealing to an opponent. If an enemy is in melee range, Debilitating arc is more useful, as that will evade, apply cripple, deal more damage, and give you health on the evade (from the minor) for the same cost. It can also remove a condition if traited. I’m finding it hard to justify using this skill over others in any scenario. Lackluster and needs some work.
- Vault – Ground targeted leap finisher that deals significant aoe damage upon landing. 6 initiative. This is your hard hitting skill, and holy crap does it hit hard. It was hitting for 6-7k on crits with marauder’s gear. Fantastic for engaging, covering distance, or following up a CC (hook strike anyone?). Awesome skill.
Overall, staff seems okay. There are some very strong pros to the weapon, such as the kockdown, whirl and leap finishers, blind, weakness, cripple, as well as the amazing utility of Debilitating Arc. However, Weakening charge is risky as it locks you into an animation, and dust strike is underwhelming and overshadowed in both usage and utility from Debilitating Arc.
UTILITIES
- Channeled Vigor – Our heal which pulses 3 times, healing and restoring 25 endurance with each pulse. If our endurance is already full, we heal for more. Skills lasts for 2 1/4 seconds and is on a 20 second cooldown. While the endurance regain is nice (even more endurance regain, my god), the worst part of this skill is it locks you in place and lasts too long. Compare it to withdraw, which is instant and an evade, or hide in shadow, which heals for more and stealths you. Both also remove conditions and have, overall, much more utility. There’s little reason to choose this over them. Here are the main problems with this skill.
- You are locked in place, making you an easy target. Thieves survive by avoiding damage, they can’t take it well. Thus, having a skill that locks us in place (or locks us in an animation) is incredibly risky. The heal we get is not worth the risk we take for it. We can easily lose all the health we regain in those 2 seconds.
- While regaining endurance is nice, let’s be realistic here. We already have SO MUCH endurance regain from this spec inherently. From stealing, to using initiative, to using energy sigils and signet of agility, we likely are not going to be sparse with endurance.
- Bandit’s Defense – A 1 second block that will knock down an enemy in melee range if he hits you. It’s a stun break and has a 15 second cooldown. I love this skill. I love the concept, and have always wanted a block for the thief (though i always imagined it on the staff or offhand sword and not a utility). Having another way to CC the opponent is tasty, and having a stun break on such a short cooldown is nice. While there are potentially better utilities to pick for PvP, this will definitely be my go to defensive utility for PvE.
- Impairing Daggers – Throw 3 daggers at the target, each dagger applying poison, slow, and immobilize. Has 900 range, does a hefty amount of damage, and has a 25 second cooldown. While I didn’t like the description of this skill at first, seeing the damage it does sold me on it. While I’d like to see it on a shorter cooldown, the immobilize and slow are very useful in setting up an opponent for a safe burst (such as vault). However, I dislike this skill in that it overshadows already existing utilities, such as devourer and spider venom. Why would you ever choose those skill over this one, when this has a shorter cooldown, does damage, and also applies slow? I Love the concept of this skill, but I dislike it making other already existing skills obsolete.
- Distracting Daggers – Equip 3 daggers that can be thrown to interrupt a target. If a skill is interrupted, that skill has an increased cooldown of 10 seconds. The 3 daggers last 15 seconds, and the skill has a 25 second cooldown after that. I love the concept of this skill, and it makes me excited to try a shutdown/interrupt daredevil with pistol whip and impacting disruption. This skill also means you have the option to interrupt key skills, such as heals, when you don’t have offhand pistol equipped, which is useful. This will see some use, albeit somewhat infrequent.
- Fist Flurry -> Palm Strike Strike the enemy 5 times in melee range, dealing some damage. If you land all 5 strikes, gain access to Palm strike, which is a single, powerful strike that stuns the enemy for 2 seconds and deals massive damage at the end of the stun. 20 second cooldown. While Palm strike is exciting, I can’t say I like Fist Flurry all that much. I understand the need for a risk-reward skill, but we sacrifice a utility slot, often needed for our survival for this. To use that slot for a little damage (which we don’t need) and a stun seems lackluster to me. In order to guarantee this to hit, it feels like we’ll need to CC the foe before hand, such as using hook strike. One one hand, this skill is cool as it will allow us to continue to chain CC an opponent for multiple seconds if used in conjunction with other skills. (Just like GW1 Assassin, yaaaaaay). On the other hand, the amount of damage this skill does amounts to a crited vault, backstab, or pistol whip, and taking up a utility slot for something we’ll pretty much always have seems kind of…lame. Using a utility slot for damage is inefficient on the thief, which makes the skill only useful for the stun it provides. But, you will not always get access to that stun, making the skill unreliable. You may as well Choose scorpion wire if you want a CC, or better yet, blinding powder or shadow refuge to gain access to Hook strike on the staff.
- Impact Strike -> Uppercut -> Finishing Blow – Honestly, I feel like this skill should have been on the berserker, but I digress. This is a cool concept. Impact strike will daze a target for 2 seconds. If you hit, you gain access to uppercut, which does decent damage and launches the foe in place. Land that, and you get access to Finishing Blow, which also does moderate damage and will automatically finish the enemy if he goes down from the skill or is already downed. The elite is on a 40 second cooldown. There’s a lot of flavor in this skill, and many will choose it simply because of that, but I have to put int question how useful this skill will really be. If we’re fighting an opponent, say 1 on 1, is a 2 second daze and a launch on a 40 second cooldown that useful? That remains to be seen. The real draw of this skill is being able to instantly kill a foe with this if you down someone with it. Meaning a lot of daredevils will want to save this skill until the very end of a fight. But, it has a very short window. Do it too soon, and you wasted the skill. Do it too late, and you should have just stomped like normal. If you’re trying to stomp someone in a team fight, this skill is not that useful because the CCs will be applied to the downed opponent, not his teammates. The whole chain takes almost 3 seconds, which means it lasts longer than a normal stomp. Thus, the actual use of the skill is very limited.
Overall, there’s a lot of ups and downs with the utilities. Bandit’s Defense and Impairing Daggers are very promising and Distracting Daggers is interesting enough to create builds around it. However, Fist Flurry is a questionable skill to use and Channeled Vigor simply can’t compare to Withdraw (which honestly fits better with the Daredevil) or Shadow Refuge. And our Elite skill seems limited only to PvP, and only in very strict conditions. This may hint at some content in PvE, but given that the mechanics of this skill are only available for the Daredevil they won’t be required for any PvE content. The elite is simply flavor and not much more.
CONCLUSION
Anyways, that was much longer than I had anticipated it to be. If you managed to make it though all of this, then I thank you for spending your time on this and I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you agree or disagree with anything? Did I miss anything?
Anyways, The Daredevil looks very promising and I can’t wait to play it. It was the final push I needed to settle down and Buy HoT, so I’ll be trying it out in the next Beta event. I’ll update my impressions after I get to try it hands on.
Thanks for Reading. Cheers!
(edited by Loki.8793)