Guild Wars 2

Before HoT was released i did some theorycrafting for Staff using thief with my friend, as skillset seemed to be interesting. And we were generaly curious how well can it fit with current meta in sPvP and also how well it can handle WvW.
We did some teststing tooday, some 1vs1 fights and also damage tests.
So in sPvP my friend was using different combinations of runes / amulets in his Staff Thief, and i was running couple of different setups for warrior, GS/Hammer, GS/SwordShield, ShoutBow. Ranger Power / Condi. Elemental D/D, some other stuff as well.
And its just astonishing how bad Daredevil actually looks:
Problems that we encountered with it:
- Stability completly shuts down most of combos.
- Both “Impact Strike” and “Fist Flurry” are extemly hard to land if your opponent isnt just standing there. (in normal 1vs1 fight he didn’t hit his full combo with Impact strike even once same goes to Fist Flurry, and he is not the bad thief player)
Also both skills are extremly easy to see and/or predict as thief needs to be literaly on your face.
- Damage is really lower than we thaught it will be. I mean sure when i swapped to Berserkers Amulet he could do some real damage, but who uses that anyway.
When i was using Amulet of Knight / Settler / Or anything with a bit of armor damage was barely noticeable.
Even when i was just standing in place, not blocking, not dodgeing, and just giving thief 10 seconds to get as much damage as possible, it was hard for him to really kill. (when i was wearing Knights / Settlers amulets)

Now i do understand that Staff isn’t designed to burst down targets, its for a bit longer engagements, its for surviving while dealing damage, but point is, it does it considerably worse than any other class, with build designed that way.
Especially in sPvP where he offers pretty much nothing to team, unlike any other class.

In WvW we are not sure yet what to think about it, i saw some posts claiming that “its good for roaming” as you are just dodgeing around and your friends are killing enemies that are probably so offended by you that they just need to chase this poor little thief.
It has some potential in WvW for sure as its mobility allows it to get in, kill some staff elemental or zerk ranger and jump out, but thats what any other thief does anyway.
Now let me say that, the staff build has some kind of potential in fights due to Weakness that is pretty strong, but thats pretty much WvW exclusive as in sPvP every decent build will just cleanse it.

And yes +50 endurance is amazing, with 100% uptime of vigor even more, its all pretty and dodgy, it can survive alot, to the point of beeing (almost) immortal in some matchups, but thats it, it almost cannot kill anything in sPvP maybe other than some yolo berserk builds.

I guess we will do some more testing and playing with it, maaaybe its not as bad as it looks, we would like to believe.

In thief we believe.

Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage, which staff is, and Settler’s gear, or even Knight’s for that matter. Berserker and Marauder.

Impact.2780:

Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage, which staff is, and Settler’s gear, or even Knight’s for that matter. Berserker and Marauder.

his friend was the thief.
OP is the one in knights/settler’s.
FTFY

My preliminary thoughts on DD aren’t good…

Impact.2780:

Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage, which staff is, and Settler’s gear, or even Knight’s for that matter. Berserker and Marauder.

Okay then i will elaborate a little bit what Thief setups we used.
So at first we wanted to check damage that the build is capable of doing, so we used following amulets:
Berserker Amulet
Marauder Amulet
Barbarian Amulet

He was most effective with Marauder as to be expected, but still thief couldn’t stand against most tanky builds. We also tried Marauder thief vs Berserker/Marauder using build, warrior / ranger / guardian and then Thief had any real chances as damage was okay-ish.
But in confrontation with some a bit more tanky build, Knight Warrior for that matter, thief started to fall off hard, also as i said before, ANY Stability shuts most of thief combos down.

So we thaught, hey lets try to make him a bit more tanky, and maybe he will outlast oponent with all those dodges and also a bit of armor.
So we tried following amulets on Thief:
Knight Amulet
Valkyrie Amulet (with sigils of inteligence to compensate for the lack of precision)
Cavalier Amulet (same stuff with Sigils of inteligence)
And Even Soldier Amulet

So yeah he was hard to kill, evading most of skills and clearing conditions with dodge rolls, im pretty sure that some builds cannot kill good staff oriented thief with one of those amulets. But, there is always but, he was doing close to no damage to any build that wasn’t zerker. So yeah he can fight with me for like 30 minutes but whats that for? Shoutbow warrior, or bunker guardian, condi ranger, or D/D elemental will just stand on a point in sPvP and thats it, you as thief cannot really do anything about it, you are tanky but you are not a threat almost at all.

So when i read “Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage” So what is Thief designed for? If in sPvP he cannot kill any “meta” build, maaaybe he can kill rangers, depending on their builds.
And i know that the game isn’t designed about 1vX and important role of thief is +1ing the fights, but with that, honestly you can have any other class and build to just +1 some fight. And you will probably add more to team than thief does.

One more thing
I still don’t have any idea why Thief’s Short Bow has like 900 range when Guardian is happily using his longbow that bouth Outranges and Outdamages thiefs range abilities.

I havent had issues with Daredevil 1v1’s. Plus with the last few buffs to it, it’s been performing incredibly for me. I killed a mesmer with 2 hits at one point. Haha.

I think the problem you saying is with the staff and not the trait line
I find the trait line as an alternative to shadow art

My dp thief handle it well and also PP
With staff I theory craft more control build than dmg

messiah.1908:

I think the problem you saying is with the staff and not the trait line
I find the trait line as an alternative to shadow art

My dp thief handle it well and also PP
With staff I theory craft more control build than dmg

Exactly, we do know that trait line has some nice design to it, and we made some builds with it while using Sword / Dagger setup and Pistol / Pistol setup. Bot succesfull to some degree.

But all i presented was indeed about using Staff as main weapon, as we wanted to know how well you can use it. Also yeah it has better control than it has dps i do agree, but i feel like only thing that you really do is applying Weakness, because things like “Impact Strike” is nearly imposible to land if your target isnt just a sitting duck, its really easy to dodge it, block it, or just walk back.

What i really want to say in this topic is statement that:
Adding Daredevil traitline / staff / Physical skills did not improve the situation of Thief as class in sPvP that much. But of course it can be used, but its kinda lacking in my opinion.
Feel free to disagree

LuckyDucky.7231:

So when i read "Nothing is designed to burst down targets using direct damage" So what is Thief designed for? If in sPvP he cannot kill any "meta" build, maaaybe he can kill rangers, depending on their builds.
And i know that the game isn’t designed about 1vX and important role of thief is +1ing the fights, but with that, honestly you can have any other class and build to just +1 some fight. And you will probably add more to team than thief does.

Not designed to burst down using direct damage with a tanky amulet. Nothing is. You need significant investment in all three offensive direct damage stats to be able to burst something down from full health. Consequently, building for that enables the tankier builds to really hurt you, and there is an exception to the rule for use of intelligence sigil, but that is why only classes with good utility and mobility are viable running a squishy amulet.

1) +1 isn’t a role. It’s just something thief can do very well for two reasons.
i) Very mobile: gets there fast and before anyone else pulling off.
ii) Stealth: enter stealth, and the enemy doesn’t know if you’re still at that point, going to +1, or going to decap.
2) Thief hasn’t been fulfilling the burst role solo since celestial. There is too much sustain and pressure. And even before then, thief’s bursting down was really only for when the target reached 50% health. Before then he just sat in shortbow. Since celestial, thief meta changed to build for more survivability, and the bursting down of a target from full health became a two person job.

So what you were complaining about was never there. I do agree that a lot of things should have been made baseline for thief - or better, reworked slightly to become part of the profession mechanic - because with the build options and buffs to other classes and other classes’ profession mechanics, it is hard to perform any role as a thief, and classes which deal damage at range, away from the cleave and AoE faceroll of soldier and celestial builds, are becoming more in-line with the pressure of the thief. This is a design flaw, because ranged should never be more rewarding than melee, except perhaps for ranger but even then it should have something to compensate for that, like nerfs to survival utility.

Larcenous Strike should be restored to steal two boons.
Flanking Strike should turn over to Larcenous if it hits a target that blocked the damage.
Black Powder should be restored to blind more frequently.
Steal could be unblockable. Debatable with other buffs.
Shortbow should be 1000 range.
A second profession skill should be added giving access to some traits which should be baseline. Stop adding everything to Steal. Seriously. If it fails half the build is wasted for 21s.

I find daredevil incredibly useful. I have been able to beat most builds with it, the hardest matchup being scrapper. If you don’t think that the staff is a good burst weapon, just try user #2 → steal and watch their hp go from 100% to 30%. Its about as mutch damage as backstab, only you don’t need to be in stealth or behind them.

Escapist’s Absolution + Dash combined with 5 dodges (3+heal) is the best condi removal thief has probably ever had, and I find Dash gives greater survivability than D/P stealth.

IMO, arenanet did a great job with daredevil. The only people don’t realize this is because is doesn’t match their preconceived notions.

kaikalii.4198:

I find daredevil incredibly useful. I have been able to beat most builds with it, the hardest matchup being scrapper. If you don’t think that the staff is a good burst weapon, just try user #2 -> steal and watch their hp go from 100% to 30%. Its about as mutch damage as backstab, only you don’t need to be in stealth or behind them.

Escapist’s Absolution + Dash combined with 5 dodges (3+heal) is the best condi removal thief has probably ever had, and I find Dash gives greater survivability than D/P stealth.

IMO, arenanet did a great job with daredevil. The only people don’t realize this is because is doesn’t match their preconceived notions.

you mean in pvp? as its hard to play 1v1 as a thief without loosing time just doing 1v1.
i hoped for staff to be more unique weapon instead of just dmg as d/p . maybe its too soon to tell after i play with it more

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn8lCVOhFmC+OBkmiFqiyLE+gSornCgGYO77+yH-T5AGwADuEAQLDA4JAAA

I had moderate success with this build. Since the editor isn’t up to date yet, I left runes empty because I use Superior Runes of the Daredevil-
+power
+toughness
+power
+toughness
+power
After using a dodge, your next attack is guaranteed to critically strike.

I know its not the best build, but I did manage to feel like a disrupting bruiser with it. I guess thats a plus? But I gave up going glassy when I got melted and still couldn’t hurt anyone with a half decent health pool (no seriously, I could not deny cele…ever….). Anyway, have your buddy try this. He’ll need 5g if he hasn’t unlocked the runes in spvp yet.

kaikalii.4198:

I find daredevil incredibly useful. I have been able to beat most builds with it, the hardest matchup being scrapper. If you don’t think that the staff is a good burst weapon, just try user #2 -> steal and watch their hp go from 100% to 30%. Its about as mutch damage as backstab, only you don’t need to be in stealth or behind them.

Escapist’s Absolution + Dash combined with 5 dodges (3+heal) is the best condi removal thief has probably ever had, and I find Dash gives greater survivability than D/P stealth.

IMO, arenanet did a great job with daredevil. The only people don’t realize this is because is doesn’t match their preconceived notions.

We aren’t saying its weak, and most of us know the combos and tricks. The problem is that a tiny bit of toughness seems to turn most of the staff damage off. My autos hit for 360-700 (berserker, scholar,force, damage modifier galore) on a celestial elementalist who ignored me for the most part once he realized that I couldn’t dent him. For reference, I was doing 900-1400 to the training mobs. Something seems off, right? When his protection boon came up, I did 100-300. Am I allowed to be salty? I checked his build following match- Water/Arcane/Tempest celestial amulet+hoelbrak/strength/battle. Couldn’t kill him alone despite being full glass.

I have an engineer main that I mostly wvw with. For HoT I dusted off my thief because staff seemed cool, and took him to the new PvE zones. Thus far he is underwhelming – I need to be really on my game to get past a lot of the content, and mistakes are scary. I then brought in my engie and was able to bludgeon my way through content, only needing twitch skills when I screwed up by aggroing too much, and that allowed me to handle much more than thief.

I’m going to take a more careful look at my thief, as I do have some thoughts, but right now he seems weak.