Guild Wars 2

Hi folks.

I’ve been AFG for about a year, but came back and bought HoT about a week ago. I have all nine classes, but I never really got on with thief and my thief ended up as a mule. So I’m wondering if it’s worth getting her out of the stable.

I played thief in open world and in dungeon PUGs a bit. I played dagger/dagger, very glassy. I pretty much spent my life doing dagger 5 -> run round the back -> some dagger 1 -> repeat until it’s time for dagger 2. This worked fine unless it was a boss standing in a red ring, in which case I died.

I do actually know how to dodge — I play ele more than anything — but it seemed like my thief just had to put herself in the wrong place if she was to get anything like her theoretical high DPS. An ele can at lest pick a direction and keep a little distance to avoid red rings somewhat.

So I found thief squishy, and a bit of a one trick pony, though it was quite a trick when you could actually do it.

And my question, in a nutshell, is is Daredevil the same playstyle, or does it feel different to play?

I hope this makes sense…

daredevil has like 10 dodges and can dodge without losing dps, so you can just time dodges while staying in the red circles and be fine and still do sick dps

also the vault/bound sound effect is awesome

I would say try it out…

But indeed, Staff Daredevil – especially with Bound dodges – are quite different. The whole idea behind the combo is not only to be able to keep attacking while mass dodging (as opposed to burst → hide, rinse and repeat), but also to use your dodges as another attack.

Every staff skill but AA refills your endurance, and you have 3 dodges to starts with. And of course, if that’s not enough, you can use Signet of Agility in case of emergency. And since you also wanna try not to have full endurance to get extra damage, you don’t simply dodge to evade attacks, you also dodge to close gaps, or you dodge for the sake of dodging (monitoring and managing your endurance is primordial: you don’t wanna have full endurance, but you don’t wanna run out either). You no longer dodge away either: you dodge onto your target for even more chaos.

I first though the name “Daredevil” was kinda ridiculous, but you have to play it to understand how accurately it describes the spec. You often have that feeling… you know… “kitten, I have to get in the middle of that fight with my paper armor…” And you know as long as you keep attacking, you will survive, and may very well drop dead as soon as you stop.

The feeling is different with Dash IMHO, but that’s another story.

If you combined “bounding dodger” with shadow arts traits and a pistol in left hand, you’ll have a good source of stealth for a classical “stealth model of survivability”.

If you combined “unhindered combatant” with accrobatics traits and little other things you will develop what is called in some other games a “speed tank” model of survivability. As an exemple in eve online (space opera MMO), most of the players flying fighters use that model.
It’s fragile, but interesting to be played.
It’s very dynamic, as long as you manage correctly your dodges, I mean at a minimum you are able to control their direction

Pregnantman.8259:

I completed Daredevil just a few days ago and can’t seem to land Bounds %100 of the time and I can offshoot the target resulting in dps loss. While this wont be a problem for targets with large hitboxes, is there anything I can do to improve the accuracy on targets with small hitboxes?

I normally pan my camera up for a birds eye view when doing bounds or vaults, partially for placement and partially to make some sense out of the balls of light that most fights result in.

The thief is still basically the same class as when you left: glass cannon that relies on lots of dodging and evades to survive. DareDevil just does it a little better (arguably).

Having said that, there are different degrees of glass and not all builds die in one hit. And you can also go condi build in PvE, for example a Carrion build (Condition damage, Vitality/Power stats) if you don’t like the “Stealth>Backstab>Repeat” thing. I play Sword/Dagger precisely because I don’t care for that play style either.

The daredevil playstyle is an evolution of using the old d/d unicorn in PvE. Only with Daredevil you can do the playstyle with more weapon types and aren’t limited to having just really awful condition damage.

It’s glassy, but rather than “strike and disengage” the playstyle is “keep striking and dodging the biggest hits” because your attacks are also your survivability. Unlike stealthy D/D PvE, where your goal is to sporadically apply big spikes of damage, and get out of combat range to avoid damage, dardevil is awarded damage, boons, and lots of stacks of debuffs on enemies for effectively using his damage mitigation tools while remaining engaged, but loses survivability when he stops striking.

Basically, Daredevil thief is built more around tanking small hits and staying in the fight using more dodges/blocks/weakness, evading bit hits while staying in the fight, using his heals to stay in the fight to keep his damage.mitigation high while core thief is much more built around relying on not taking any hits at all and using his skills to take a time out from the fight if he starts taking damage to get back up to full and try again.

Basically, it’s tankier, but your damage and survivability depend on staying in the fight rather than core thief’s more hit-and-run style tactics.

PopeUrban.2578:

The daredevil playstyle is an evolution of using the old d/d unicorn in PvE. Only with Daredevil you can do the playstyle with more weapon types and aren’t limited to having just really awful condition damage.

It’s glassy, but rather than “strike and disengage” the playstyle is “keep striking and dodging the biggest hits” because your attacks are also your survivability. Unlike stealthy D/D PvE, where your goal is to sporadically apply big spikes of damage, and get out of combat range to avoid damage, dardevil is awarded damage, boons, and lots of stacks of debuffs on enemies for effectively using his damage mitigation tools while remaining engaged, but loses survivability when he stops striking.

Basically, Daredevil thief is built more around tanking small hits and staying in the fight using more dodges/blocks/weakness, evading bit hits while staying in the fight, using his heals to stay in the fight to keep his damage.mitigation high while core thief is much more built around relying on not taking any hits at all and using his skills to take a time out from the fight if he starts taking damage to get back up to full and try again.

Basically, it’s tankier, but your damage and survivability depend on staying in the fight rather than core thief’s more hit-and-run style tactics.

Excellent summation and one that needs to be explained to those that ridicule the spamming of dodges/evades (ie DBlossom build). You have to keep on attacking as long as possible if you want to go DD style. You snooze you lose.

I wouldn’t have said it better

Thank you everyone, especially PopeUrban, I think I get the general idea.