Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to say—contrary to what seems popular opinion right now—that I’m having a blast playing the Daredevil with staff! I’ve mained Thief since this game came out, playing sporadically over the years, and this is by far the most fun I’ve had playing this game. I played the Daredevil in beta a few months ago and it was extremely underwhelming. So when I got into HoT I figured I’d try to play another class since I thought Thief was boring and under-powered.

But after trying to play about 5 other classes, I decided to give my Thief another shot first. And wow, I’m glad I did! It seems like they cleaned up a lot of the skills and their animations, making the Daredevil look and feel fun. And with the right build, I feel rather powerful too. The spec has solid damage, decent sustain (both condi and direct damage), and more mobility than I know what to do with.

So for those of you who are wary of Thief (whether you’ve played it before or not), I encourage you to at least try it out! And to Anet, thanks for listening and making this class fun again!

Casual.9260:

-is having a blast-

lel

Oh yea? A decent condi cleanse? With staff? Please…tell me more about how you can spec for damage and condi cleanse at the same time with both traits being in the same tier.

Sounds like this is all about PvE, where pressing 1 only once is good enough.

Also, ANet did NOT actually listen to the players. People suggested numerous ways to improve the espec, while taking balancing into account, after each and every beta. They simply ignored it and cleaned up animations and delays only.

Well, there are still several ways the spec could be better (e.g., 3 slot move is useless). As far as condi cleanse goes, the evade condi cleanse is great, especially if you have Unhindered Combatant. I regularly have 60-120 condis cleared per game. Sure, you’re missing out on the 10% damage trait, but the condi cleanse is a necessity. I have yet to play the class in PvE, so this is all based on my experiences in PvP.

Number 3 slot should be throwing the staff, rolling back (breaking immobilize) and then staff returning like a boomerang.

I’m having a blast on Daredevil too. I’m having a ton of success fighting condies with that evade trait and shadowstep cleansing. Also, that 10% damage staff trait is completely not mandatory. I deal plenty of damage running DA/Tr/DD with Scrapper runes and I have pretty kitten good survivability too. I fight Revenants, Dragonhunters, Reapers, and Chronomancers regularly and only lose when I get +1’d or if I mess up real bad like not landing a steal at a critical point in the fight. Other than that, I make mince meat of almost everything I come across. I think Daredevil is fine tbh. Once the balance patch comes, if the other specs get toned down a bit, I think we’ll be doing even better and maybe even make meta again.

If you want to complain about something, complain about base Thief. While you can still use it to some degree of success, it gets outclassed by everything.

@OP – it very much depends on what game mode you’re playing.
I’m having a blast in PvE with thief too. Not sure if I’ll be able to do raids, still haven’t figured out how to deal “optimized damage” – this is another of those moments in which I wish I could equip 3 weapons.
In wvw the overall damage of all classes still is too high = no fun (to me that’s a huge problem).

Anyway, I kitten ed around with my thief and staff on the new maps yesterday and then went on to level my Rev. The class and it’s mechanics are intriguing – I really like the ideas behind it (I was surprised actually as it is kind of genius), but after a while I realized that this will be like any other class I’ve ever played – get it to level 80 and then shelf it. No matter how weak and broken thief is, I just love the class – and I have no idea why.

New account I see

Azukas.1426:

New account I see

marketing strategies lol

I adore the Daredevil traits. The leap finisher from Bounding Dodger has been transformative for P/P and condi clear on evade and weakness on crit are delicious. Staff is mediocre though, with its functionality pretty much revolving around Vault. Bandit’s Defense is amazing, but the other utilities are pretty useless. Elite physical is fun to use, but Basilisk is still the king.

I’d quite like to see some nerfs to Dragonhunter and Herald soon though so Thief can actually do something in sPvP.

Azukas.1426:

New account I see

New account? I’ve had this before the game came out.

Simonoly.4352:

I adore the Daredevil traits. The leap finisher from Bounding Dodger has been transformative for P/P and condi clear on evade and weakness on crit are delicious. Staff is mediocre though, with its functionality pretty much revolving around Vault. Bandit’s Defense is amazing, but the other utilities are pretty useless. Elite physical is fun to use, but Basilisk is still the king.

I’d quite like to see some nerfs to Dragonhunter and Herald soon though so Thief can actually do something in sPvP.

Although it hasn’t been that strong, I’ve mained P/P since I started playing this game. I haven’t tried it yet with Daredevil since I’m having so much fun with the staff, but it looks like it might have some potential.

As far as staff goes, I pretty much just autoattack and spam Vault lol. Occasionally I’ll throw out a Dust Strike. But with the Daredevil runes, you can dodge, Vault for 5k 5-target aoe, dodge, and rinse and repeat 3 times. That’s around 15k damage with mobility and evades built in.

For the physical skills, I think they’re mostly pretty good. When traited, they all have really short CDs and bring a variety of tools to your kit. The heal is on a 15 sec CD and heals more than any of the others (not to mentioned the endurance regen). Fist Flurry and Palm Strike are quick damage moves you can rotate in easily. I personally don’t care for Bandit’s Defense as I was using it was a stun break, which when you do that you rarely can follow up with the kick (so I swapped it out for Shadowstep). I don’t use Distracting Daggers, but I love Impairing Daggers—hit someone with that and you can get off 2 vaults and your Fist Flurry/Palm Strike within the immobile for 15-20k damage.

As for the Elite, I think it’s my favorite elite ever. To my knowledge, it’s the only ability that lets you finish someone. If you down someone with the 1st 2 hits, then you can finish them instantly with the 3rd hit. I personally think it’s better than Basilisk and far more enjoyable to use too. Being able to quickly finish someone in a fight seems much better than a 1-2 second stun, especially when it already has a 2 second Daze built into it.

Rain.9213:

I’m having a blast on Daredevil too. I’m having a ton of success fighting condies with that evade trait and shadowstep cleansing. Also, that 10% damage staff trait is completely not mandatory. I deal plenty of damage running DA/Tr/DD with Scrapper runes and I have pretty kitten good survivability too. I fight Revenants, Dragonhunters, Reapers, and Chronomancers regularly and only lose when I get +1’d or if I mess up real bad like not landing a steal at a critical point in the fight. Other than that, I make mince meat of almost everything I come across. I think Daredevil is fine tbh. Once the balance patch comes, if the other specs get toned down a bit, I think we’ll be doing even better and maybe even make meta again.

If you want to complain about something, complain about base Thief. While you can still use it to some degree of success, it gets outclassed by everything.

I agree 100%

Redfeather.6401:

Number 3 slot should be throwing the staff, rolling back (breaking immobilize) and then staff returning like a boomerang.

But we’re entitled to more than that. Make it transfer immob/cripple instead so they can suffer as I have.

yeah I am liking it now. but I would add a few things.

Casual.9260:

Azukas.1426:

New account I see

New account? I’ve had this before the game came out.

Trying too hard.

Any staff Dare Devil that can beat a DH for a control point is fighting a horrible DH. Don’t even get me started on Scrapper or Reaper which will bend a Dare Devil over a barrel and go to town. I know the Dare Devil can win but not against a good player in almost any other class as it is one of the worst Elites in competitive PvP. Fun, sure. Effective, no. Wanted on teams, hell no.

It’s fun in PvE… for everything else it’s now a running joke.

Link.1049:

It’s fun in PvE… for everything else it’s now a running joke.

Daredevil is still good for 1v1 and WvW, just not very effective in team fights unless you have some sort of support specced player making the Daredevil unkillable.

1v1 against a door maybe. It’s only good in WvW if you’re alone… running in empty space. Otherwise, any other class is a better bet now.

Link.1049:

1v1 against a door maybe. It’s only good in WvW if you’re alone… running in empty space. Otherwise, any other class is a better bet now.

Really? Cuz I rarely lose a 1v1 on my Daredevil and my MMR is high enough to get matched against Chaith and Caed. So unless by some cosmic coincidence every single enemy I’ve killed on DD is bad, I doubt DD is only good for door dueling.

Daredevil isn’t as amazing as other specs but it still has its merits, budd. But I do think that Daredevil doesn’t bring much to team fights so yeah other classes are better than it in high tier pvp.

I thought that condi cleanse trait only works if an attack is actually dodged?

Rain.9213:

Link.1049:

1v1 against a door maybe. It’s only good in WvW if you’re alone… running in empty space. Otherwise, any other class is a better bet now.

Really? Cuz I rarely lose a 1v1 on my Daredevil and my MMR is high enough to get matched against Chaith and Caed. So unless by some cosmic coincidence every single enemy I’ve killed on DD is bad, I doubt DD is only good for door dueling.

Daredevil isn’t as amazing as other specs but it still has its merits, budd. But I do think that Daredevil doesn’t bring much to team fights so yeah other classes are better than it in high tier pvp.

Good for you… no idea who those people are, nor am I concerned. I want to love Daredevil—really I do. As you said though, it’s not as good as any of the other specs. Like the final boss fight in HoT it feels like it was slapped together last minute. I don’t think it’s coincidence that the specializations that were announced first are the ones that are doing the best. They had more work put into them. Daredevil plays as an afterthought, which hopefully they’ll improve on.

There is a guy who eats glass for breakfast. He is said to be perfectly healthy. Does this mean eating glass is healthy? Or it is just working for that individual?

Rain.9213:

Link.1049:

1v1 against a door maybe. It’s only good in WvW if you’re alone… running in empty space. Otherwise, any other class is a better bet now.

Really? Cuz I rarely lose a 1v1 on my Daredevil and my MMR is high enough to get matched against Chaith and Caed. So unless by some cosmic coincidence every single enemy I’ve killed on DD is bad, I doubt DD is only good for door dueling.

Daredevil isn’t as amazing as other specs but it still has its merits, budd. But I do think that Daredevil doesn’t bring much to team fights so yeah other classes are better than it in high tier pvp.

Thief never realy did, did it? Unless venom share. The only thing thief ever really did to a team fight was to gank said low enemy target or sr rez, even that is kinds risky now.

Had this same augment with a guildy the other day he was like " you can’t beat anyone 1 as a thief, if you did then they were bad" what kind of horse kitten is that lol. Thief is still able to 1v1 on some class’s some just take too long it’s not worth it.

Rain.9213:

Link.1049:

1v1 against a door maybe. It’s only good in WvW if you’re alone… running in empty space. Otherwise, any other class is a better bet now.

Really? Cuz I rarely lose a 1v1 on my Daredevil and my MMR is high enough to get matched against Chaith and Caed. So unless by some cosmic coincidence every single enemy I’ve killed on DD is bad, I doubt DD is only good for door dueling.

Daredevil isn’t as amazing as other specs but it still has its merits, budd. But I do think that Daredevil doesn’t bring much to team fights so yeah other classes are better than it in high tier pvp.

Its a shame u have to be sooo good at it to make it work though, sadly in Solo queue i facepalm seeing thiefs in the team, its Litterally that… u have to be Extremely good at thief to make it work currently.

I want the stuff of my rev’s and thief’s staff merged actually. The only crowd control we have on staff is #1 out of stealth – but we have no blinding powder on that weapon, so we just as well could’ve gotten no CC.

I did too, for the ten minutes it took to realize my old build was better.

Have fun with +1 dodge though.

A guilty pleasure of mine is using the cool dodges and physical skills to show off.
At times I start to feel like Gene from God Hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WzK2evtYP8&t=52s

Playing DD staff & P/P feels a lot like playing Devil May Cry, which is awesome but unforgiving.

Tbh I’d still say the issue is with the cele meta and our lack of interaction with it, given the first week of the ESL pro league matches had something like 80% cele builds.

My initial build I theorycrafted for Staff DD when it first announced was actually designed around using Hook strike a lot wherein I specced for SA for stealth.

When It went live I only tried that briefly and then went to other specs (ie dd/cs/trickery and so on). Since then I have revisted that initial concept taking trickery for low steal cooldown with SOH and hidden thief along with blinding powder and p/p off hand for more stealth access.

This allows me to trait Mastery (10 percent more damge) or pulmonary given I can get cleanses from the Shadows embrace. Impact sigil on the Staff along with one of the on interrupt sigils (I have used draining so far) adds a lot to the steal allowing for some very nice knockdowns out of stealth followed by an attack .

Vault also becomes a bit easier to land as they will not see you coming and p/p can act as another stealth source. Mixed in here in the utilities is shadowtrap which is usually dropped on top an enemy for another stealth source coupled with its ample stacks of might .

That stealth knockdown off staff is very dangerous and while it does take a lot of sacrifice in order to make it usable more then “once in a while” has potential in a build with more sources of stealth.

Thanks for posting.
I am also enjoying Daredevil. I just created a Thief alt to try it out. But I could never get into it – find the right build for me. Daredevil has made me go from using my thief as storage to actually playing and enjoying it in the HOT pve maps. I die a lot more than on my main but that is also giving me a reason to focus on refining the build.

I cannot speak to its viability in modes like PVP, WvW or instanced content. I never intended to play it in those – just created it for fun as roleplaying character.

I also like the animations and skills. It makes me feel like a Shaolin martial artist. lol.

babazhook.6805:

That stealth knockdown off staff is very dangerous and while it does take a lot of sacrifice in order to make it usable more then “once in a while” has potential in a build with more sources of stealth.

We came to the same conclusion. The escape is significantly better. Survival goes way up from the drop target capability, the extra in stealth damage reduction, extra time in stealth and the highly underrated Cloaked in Shadow. The ability to Hook Strike and followup with a guaranteed Vault or Weakening Strike add up to some solid spike DPS. Pulmonary Impact or Staff Master also become more viable as the need for Escapists isn’t as great.

I use Steal and Blinding Powder to constantly come into and out of stealth. The other nice part of this build is that enemies tend to freak out when a thief stealths near them so it delivers some added intimidation.