Guild Wars 2

inb4qq

awesome!
curious to know if the staff skills are also getting some work done on them. i still want a circular darkfield on staff 4 /sadface.

Cool Stuff. And I prefer the second option ‘Receive less damage from weakened foes’. We need the damage mitigation.

Karl McLain.5604:

Aloh,
As we continue screaming toward launch, I’ll update this thread with the goings-on for Daredevil. Here’s a few things we’re testing now:

• Reduced channel time of Channeled Vigor from 2.25 to 0.75
• Vault: Fixed an issue that caused it to not travel its full distance.
• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second.
• Evasive Empowerment: This trait has been renamed to Havoc Master and grants the player 7% bonus damage to enemies within the 360 range threshold.
• Impaling Lotus: Increased bleeding duration from 8 to 10 seconds.
• Bounding Dodger: In addition to granting access to the Bound dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus physical damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Lotus Training: In addition to granting access to the Impaling Lotus dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus condition damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Unhindered combatant: In addition to granting the Dash dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% damage reduction against physical and condition damage.

We like the interaction that Evasive Empowerment had with your endurance bar and wanted to carry it further, but didn’t feel like it could have the desired impact in the adept tier. Thus, each of the grandmaster traits have their own version, geared toward their specific style of play.
Havoc Master has taken its place, as we felt that the line could use a more guaranteed damage increase. For trait mods, we’d like to experiment with Weakening Strikes slightly, adding a secondary to it within its role of debilitation. Options we’re looking at it:

• Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe.
  or
• Receive less damage from weakened foes.

Once again, thanks for your continued constructive feedback. It’s greatly appreciated.

-Karl

NOW we’re talking. Those stat buffs on the dodge GMs are exactly what they needed.

I’m confused about havoc master though, does it mark targets as you dodge with a special debuff, of is it an effect centered on you so that it basically doesn’t work with ranged weapons?

As for weakening strikes, I think it needs an AoE weakness Currently, unless I didn’t get it right, if you’re hitting a single target and it procs, you only weaken that one target. This doesn’t meaningfully increase your sustain with pistol, dagger, or most weapon sents. If it in stead did an aoe weaknedd, its power would remain unchanged in 1v1s, but it would offer better overall sustain where the DD is intended to excel versus the base thief, in group encounters, and better group support besides that.

After that, I like the “selfish” benefit of taking less damage from weakened targets. it makes the trait a really compelling choice, again, that makes it scale much better in group fights without making to overly good in 1v1s.

It’s no perfect balance but it looks like a great start. The idea of receiving less damage makes the weakness trait seem a lot more appealing. If it was inflicting more condis then it would only be benefitting condi thieves (obviously).

Oh wow these are some REALLY nice changes, Karl! Very excited to see how it turns out

Great changes, Karl!

For Weakening Strikes, I think the damage reduction would be far better received than another condition. This way it’ll benefit all builds seeking a little more defense as opposed to just condition-based builds.

PopeUrban.2578:

I’m confused about havoc master though, does it mark targets as you dodge with a special debuff, of is it an effect centered on you so that it basically doesn’t work with ranged weapons?

It’s just you. Weapons used outside the 360 range threshold wouldn’t gain the bonus.

PopeUrban.2578:

I’m confused about havoc master though, does it mark targets as you dodge with a special debuff, of is it an effect centered on you so that it basically doesn’t work with ranged weapons?

That’s exactly it. Daredevil is meant to be a melee-range spec (though thieves rarely attack from more than 360 range, really!) and this is supposed to reflect that functionality. It’s about the same as the Engineer trait that gives +10% crit chance within a 240 threshold at all times.

So in other words, no marking, no special shenanigans, just a straight up melee damage buff.

(Also, why don’t the engineers get 360 threshold, all that missed QoL!)

Rising Dusk.2408:

Great changes, Karl!

For Weakening Strikes, I think the damage reduction would be far better received than another condition. This way it’ll benefit all builds seeking a little more defense as opposed to just condition-based builds.

I agree with this. I was actually running Weakening Strikes for the defensive potential on my power build. If it got even more damage reduction that would make the skill 2 on staff WAY better especially for PVE.

With the weakness reduction dammage you could run deadly arts for tons of weakness and reduction dammage. Seems cool!

Thank you!! The dodges as grand master now actually work. I know everyone wants toggle dodges with all new GM’s but this actually does the job imo. At least now it feels like we kind of have a profession mech baked in but with the option of making one dodge more powerful. The other changes to the heal and fist flurry are also good news. I may actually attempt running the heal now.

As for weakening strikes, I am 100% geared toward the damage mitigation. If the daredevil is to play out as the enforcer / in your face dmg role, then it HAS to have more defenses. We don’t need anymore conditions, just fix death blossom and have it be the condition weapon.

These changes are looking great, the reliable damage buffs are heavily welcomed!

I definitely agree with the idea of Weakening Strikes further reducing damage rather than another condition.

I’d also like to continue advocating the idea of Dust Strike becoming a PBAoE, and Vault getting some form of evasion. Other than that, this is looking like smooth sailing!

Thanks for clearing up the havoc master question guys. Makes sense!

Question Karl, why the change in Distracting daggers visual que, the arm pouch of daggers was so much cooler then the hovering ring of magic daggers , also why the CD? cant it function like the mesmers mantras? channel it, use them when needed, channel it again, as is its kind of clunky having them time out on you and you forget

BaronSolace.6831:

Question Karl, why the change in Distracting daggers visual que, the arm pouch of daggers was so much cooler then the hovering ring of magic daggers

I’d imagine they did it to be more readable by opponents since Karl previously said part of the skill design is as a pressure tool so it’s important the opponent knows you have it up so you can freak them out with it.

The arm pouch was small, so it was a bit difficult for the opponent to see and be afraid of unless they were constantly looking at the UI, and we know anet prefers to design as few reasons to stare at the UI as possible.

As long as Havoc Master gives me my 7% damage on Staff, I’m happy.

Also, Karl- do the buffs take place during the dodge then start timing off or do the buffs happen after the dodge?

So I dodge, does my bound do 10% more damage THEN the buff timer starts or does my bound do tooltip damage then I get my damage buff?

this are amazing changes only thing that kinda needs a change is staff 4 as its not really worth using

Wow these look really good. Nice work Karl

As for Torment vs Damage Reduction, I’m going to have to go with the masses here and say Damage Reduction. It does a much better job at reinforcing the theme of Daredevil imo.

Edit: also staff still needs some work

Serious Thought.5394:

As long as Havoc Master gives me my 7% damage on Staff, I’m happy.

Also, Karl- do the buffs take place during the dodge then start timing off or do the buffs happen after the dodge?

So I dodge, does my bound do 10% more damage THEN the buff timer starts or does my bound do tooltip damage then I get my damage buff?

Evasive Empowerment activated after the dodge, so I would assume it’s the same here

Karl McLain.5604:

For trait mods, we’d like to experiment with Weakening Strikes slightly, adding a secondary to it within its role of debilitation. Options we’re looking at it:

• Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe.
  or
• Receive less damage from weakened foes.

-Karl

I think poison would be a nice idea, since Potent Poison from Deadly Arts increases poison duration and damage dealt. Also poison fits very well with weakness since it reduces the healing effectiveness.

LOVE IT.
It feels so surreal those are exactly the changes I was asking for. THANKS for the condi buff.
Concerning:
“Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe.”

1. Idea:
How about inflicting burning on weakness Calling the trait Burning Weaknes. ( Just becasue it sounds so cool)

2. idea:
weakened foes recieve x more condition dmg. ( Would go nicely with the whole weakned idea)

3. idea
If you hit a weakened foe ad 1 to each condition stack on your foe

I would like it if there is a choice for condi thief on every trait lvl.

Also I would like to see some changes at the tier 2 traits.
From a condi thief(Pve) perspective there is just nothing worth taking here.

My idea:
Give escapist absolution a secunday trait: If you evade an attack apply x conditions to the targets arround you .

Great changes! My notes:

• I think we’d all really love a line (dark or smoke) field on staff 4.

• A pop up to swap GM out of combat would be appreciated.

• 900 range and some height on vault so it can be an alt to shortbow.

• It would be cool to have an F3 for each dodge type that scaled with endurance. I no longer feel this is necessary given Karl’s changes.

• I support reduced damage from weakened foes or poison on weakness.

• Non rng ricochet so pistols are useful on vanilla thief.

• Acro changes so it’s useful on vanilla thief.

Edits: added a couple of things.

Actually after thinking more after what I posted, I am still sticking to damage reduction for weakening strikes, but for dagger death blossom, why not have it instead apply torment as you suggested with WS? This way dagger / dagger thiefs get something more unique and staff has its own unique feel as well. This would separate the two weapons giving us much needed options for weapon choice. Staff being the more power based up front weapon we get and the dagger being condition based as it seems to have been intended for. Death blossom would also need to have a longer evade Frame to be viable though.

I like the power of the GM “on dodge” traits, but I don’t like how they are locked in to specific dodges. Like if I want the defense buff then I HAVE to take Dash, or if I want the +condi then I HAVE to take Lotus. What about separating the two, and leaving the " +10% something" traits as the GMs, while making the dodges themselves something completely different.

Also, where’s the word on getting the UI toggle for the dodges so that we don’t have to go into the Hero panel to swap them out?

Ohoni.6057:

I like the power of the GM “on dodge” traits, but I don’t like how they are locked in to specific dodges. Like if I want the defense buff then I HAVE to take Dash, or if I want the +condi then I HAVE to take Lotus. What about separating the two, and leaving the " +10% something" traits as the GMs, while making the dodges themselves something completely different.

Also, where’s the word on getting the UI toggle for the dodges so that we don’t have to go into the Hero panel to swap them out?

There is no need. If you are built defensively the obvious choice would be dash, if you are seeking base dmg, bound, conditions= lotus. If you are going into a condition stance when power based then your doing it wrong anyway.. As far as I can see, these changes completely cover the complaints we had about GM’s vs prof mechs.

Really awesome that you took our feedback about not having grandmaster traits seriously. Thanks a lot!

These changes sound great.

Really good changes but I noticed all the love was falling into the Daredevil specialization. It needed this attention, but I am concerned about the continued viability of baseline thieves.

For Weakening Strikes maybe an added effect of cripple to keep enemies away or slow to give more time for evasion. Like a gut punch that leaves you winded.

I am on the boat for receiving less damage.

It will help with that feeling of being an up-close bruiser.

Thanks for listening to the input that we all have given.

nice! very happy to see that daredevil feedback about traits that were very poor value wasnt waste of time

Karl McLain.5604:

• Evasive Empowerment: This trait has been renamed to Havoc Master and grants the player 7% bonus damage to enemies within the 360 range threshold.

This is what we’ve been talking about. Straight up buff without hoops, loops and hurdles.

Thank you.

• Bounding Dodger: In addition to granting access to the Bound dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus physical damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Lotus Training: In addition to granting access to the Impaling Lotus dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus condition damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Unhindered combatant: In addition to granting the Dash dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% damage reduction against physical and condition damage.

Lotus Training is inferior compared to the other two. I used this GM during the BWE using P/P power based, thus this 10% bonus condition damage will not be beneficial. P/D “might” use is but why would anyone use it over Unhindered?

The only real build that will use Lotus Training is P/P. Even D/D is better off with Unhindered.

I see what you’re trying to do here, but we’re talking about Thief here, not Ele, Necro, or Mes. Lotus Training might work for those professions but not for Thief.

Maybe, this is a BIG maybe, if you really fixed P/P like you have proposed, then maybe this iteration of Lotus Training will be fine. If Vital Shot has no casting time and Unload deals additional condition damage, then yes, keep it — however currently, this doesn’t help any Thief condition build, Unhindered will still be the best choice for condi build.

Havoc Master has taken its place, as we felt that the line could use a more guaranteed damage increase.

Evasive Empowerment worked for both melee and ranged, now it just for melee. :/

Leaving P/P in the dust again.

For trait mods, we’d like to experiment with Weakening Strikes slightly, adding a secondary to it within its role of debilitation. Options we’re looking at it:

• Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe.
  or
• Receive less damage from weakened foes.

Since Havoc Master is for physical damage, I vote for the " Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe" just to give condition damage build something.

Once again, thanks for your continued constructive feedback. It’s greatly appreciated.

-Karl

Thanks for the hard work.

I am really happy about these changes.
Now the GM traits actually feel like GM traits, and not just a slightly different dodge.
Evasive empowerment change is very welcome too, this new trait is more flexible and gives us some nice options in the adept trait line.

In BWE3 I played mainly Dire condi and later on rabid/rampager D/D condi hybrid with all the whirl combo support, damage and lone wolf kittenery that i could give my team during raids and part of me wants to have the inflict X condition on weakening strikes. But I must agree with the rest when i say give us the – damage from weakened targets. Survival would be a nice change.

I would also like to ask about something you did not touch on, Karl. Have you had any advancements on the animations for the staff on the whole? it just feels too much like a hammer warrior when i play it and that’s why, well, I don’t play it haha.

At the moment I am still loving D/D condition Hybrid daredevil and P/P unhindered combatant daredevil aka zoom zoom I am Lucian from League of Legends daredevil.

Thank you Mr, Mclain for being awesome as ever and I can’t wait for release #hypetrainhasnobrakes o7

Karl McLain.5604:

For trait mods, we’d like to experiment with Weakening Strikes slightly, adding a secondary to it within its role of debilitation. Options we’re looking at it:

• Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe.
  or
  * Receive less damage from weakened foes.

Once again, thanks for your continued constructive feedback. It’s greatly appreciated.

-Karl

Making us take less damage from weakened foes, and giving the trait 100% up time (lasts 5 seconds, 5 second CD must remain on target to reapply though) it could be a really effective trait especially since it would promote constantly sitting on the target.

alicatrawz.9567:

inb4qq

awesome!
curious to know if the staff skills are also getting some work done on them. i still want a circular darkfield on staff 4 /sadface.

Smoke. If it doesn’t get smoke, it won’t be usable for cleave / trash situations in fractals / raids. If it doesn’t get smoke, we’ll still be forced into s/p.

OH and smoke gives us a way to gain stealth (from bounding) gives us blinding whirls, and of course, lets us set up for a stealth attack, to set up burst.

There is no need. If you are built defensively the obvious choice would be dash, if you are seeking base dmg, bound, conditions= lotus. If you are going into a condition stance when power based then your doing it wrong anyway.. As far as I can see, these changes completely cover the complaints we had about GM’s vs prof mechs.

That’s not true though. Each dodge has a mechanical difference. If you’re running a Pistol build, you might want the maneuverability of Dash, but the damage buff of Bound. You might also be running a mostly power build, but want to tack on some minor CCs with Lotus to keep pressure on them. There are plenty of cases where you might want the specific physical effect of one dodge, while maintaining the long term buffs that a different one offers. The current set-up bundles too much together.

Free 10% damage and condi reduction, won’t hate on that !

Great changes Karl!, I agree with others, any trait that promotes damage mitigation will be a welcomed addition. Really glad to see you guys working on polishing up the DrD. Also awesome change to fist flurry as well. DrD felt a lot better this past beta weekend so you guys are on the right track! Just keep up the communication, we really appreciate it.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Impaling Lotus: Increased bleeding duration from 8 to 10 seconds.
• Lotus Training: In addition to granting access to the Impaling Lotus dodge ability, the
  the thief will gain 10% bonus condition damage for 4 seconds after dodging

kitten , the d/d dd condi build I made was quite good as it is, but with this it might be come a really great thing!

Karl McLain.5604:

• Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe.
  or
• Receive less damage from weakened foes.

Both would be great, but I guess the latter would be way more important to thieves.

Weakening Strike- Please add receive less dmg on crit + a condition removal

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Karl McLain.5604:

• Evasive Empowerment: This trait has been renamed to Havoc Master and grants the player 7% bonus damage to enemies within the 360 range threshold.

This is what we’ve been talking about. Straight up buff without hoops, loops and hurdles.

Thank you.

• Bounding Dodger: In addition to granting access to the Bound dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus physical damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Lotus Training: In addition to granting access to the Impaling Lotus dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% bonus condition damage for 4 seconds after dodging.
• Unhindered combatant: In addition to granting the Dash dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% damage reduction against physical and condition damage.

Lotus Training is inferior compared to the other two. I used this GM during the BWE using P/P power based, thus this 10% bonus condition damage will not be beneficial. P/D “might” use is but why would anyone use it over Unhindered?

The only real build that will use Lotus Training is P/P. Even D/D is better off with Unhindered.

I see what you’re trying to do here, but we’re talking about Thief here, not Ele, Necro, or Mes. Lotus Training might work for those professions but not for Thief.

Maybe, this is a BIG maybe, if you really fixed P/P like you have proposed, then maybe this iteration of Lotus Training will be fine. If Vital Shot has no casting time and Unload deals additional condition damage, then yes, keep it — however currently, this doesn’t help any Thief condition build, Unhindered will still be the best choice for condi build.

Havoc Master has taken its place, as we felt that the line could use a more guaranteed damage increase.

Evasive Empowerment worked for both melee and ranged, now it just for melee. :/

Leaving P/P in the dust again.

For trait mods, we’d like to experiment with Weakening Strikes slightly, adding a secondary to it within its role of debilitation. Options we’re looking at it:

• Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe.
  or
• Receive less damage from weakened foes.

Since Havoc Master is for physical damage, I vote for the " Inflict X (torment, bleeding, something) when you weaken a foe" just to give condition damage build something.

Once again, thanks for your continued constructive feedback. It’s greatly appreciated.

-Karl

Thanks for the hard work.

It boggles the mind why you would use lotus rather than bound or dash on p/p

bound grants you stealth from your smoke field (though it was bugged last weekend so you had to end the dodge in the field) and dash gives you MUCH better kite.

Why on earth would you use a dodge that does primarily condition damage and only benefits your build by tossing out tiny bits of cripple when faced with two clearly superior options?

Not criticizing, I just don’t understand the logic that it’s only useful on p/p

Lotus is extremely effective on p/d and d/d condi. It helps you land CnD on p/d and it stacks loads more damage on d/d due to the much better endurance uptime from dagger auto, and in general adds 30% to 50% more condition damage depending on the circumstances of the fight.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Evasive Empowerment: This trait has been renamed to Havoc Master and grants the player 7% bonus damage to enemies within the 360 range threshold.

i assume that’s direct/“physical” damage only?

These look like awesome changes. I’d rather have reduced damage than poison or torment apply on weakened, but I see the promise of both.

Slightly related: I may be the only one – and perhaps this is even purposeful – but Bounding Dodger/Lotus Training completely kills my mobility outside of combat. Acrobatics’ Expeditious Dodger has me in the dodge-to-zoomzoom mode, though, so perhaps it’s a niche issue. Unhindered Combat’s delicious draw to me is condi removal, which you wouldn’t need outside of combat anyways, but I figure leave it alone because people might use UC for swiftness instead of Expeditious Dodger.

It’s just a pain when you’re in the SW doing escort missions, you do one last dodge out of AoE at the end of an escort ambush, and all of a sudden everything in the nearby area, even things that were not previously hostile, want to eat you because you can’t control your own AoE from Lotus Training. So you go hobbling after the escort with 3-5 trashmobs trying to bite your ankles – and every time you try to dodge their attacks you just aggro more! It was an exercise in patience, haha. You could potentially set your stealth skills up to take some of the aggro off you, but then you’re forced to carry around ?/d and/or stealth utilities (of which there are none on pure DD) for 2/3 GM traits – and not even for combat reasons.

That’s as nitpicky as I can get :3 good luck on fine-tuning for launch!

excellent changes, especially the GM bonuses. DD is ready for launch. Overall great work (outside of staff holding animation). Traitline is amazing, top3 unique mechanic imo, staff is very good (more on a pve side, but it could be a l2p thing too), utilities are decent to great and all of them have their use. Some people complain about the whole “mechanic in GM traits” thing, but imo the extra dodge and dodges having substantial bonuses and distinct visuals makes it great.
Thief has its issues in pvp but its not the daredevil part, its the core stuff.

Long term i think dust strike needs a rework (a field or something), its the only useless thing in the specialisation.

Overall 9/10 (point deduction for recycled hammer animations), cant wait to play it.

P.S. I dont like the daredevil icon that much, but thats really a minor thing, ill get over it quickly

i’m really, really happy with these changes. i don’t think anyone will complain that we don’t have “real” GM traits now.

regarding weakening strikes, at first i thought it would be interesting to just apply another condition as well, because i feel DD could have at least one more condi trait, but on second thought, reducing damage taken from weakened foes really helps solidify DD’s position as a bruiser, someone that can actually stay in fights rather than jump in and back out. plus, it synergizes with almost every build in the game (sword has weakness application, deadly arts has weakness on poison).

channeled vigor is in an excellent position now, i’ll definitely be running it. fist flurry’s faster cast time is what the skill needed, but only with some testing we’ll be able to say if it’s fast enough now.

even with fixed range, i think vault doesn’t go far enough. i’d honestly trade a third of its damage for some evasion frames during the leap, and 900 range. vault could be the thief’s mobility and disengage skill, if only it had more range. it could finally give us something other than shortbow.

changes i was hoping to see but didn’t:

• swapping driven fortitude and escapist’s absolution around (DF is a strong contender in itself, i’d argue with a slight buff it would be on par with the other two traits, but EA is just mandatory for any competitive scenario, meaning no one takes the other traits because they just can’t give up EA’s cleanse)

• debilitating arc having better start-up evasion and having a better effect. a day or two ago i thought daze instead of cripple would be really cool, and fit with the theme of the skill and the kit as a whole (and it provides synergy with impacting disruption, which people would take for interrupt builds if only they could give up EA). even if the daze is single target, i’d take it over AoE cripple.

• dust strike becoming a circular AoE around the thief. now i don’t agree with the people asking for a field on it, because a smoke field would invalidate black powder, and a dark field just doesn’t make sense when it’s a skill about throwing dust (aka smoke) around. i think a large radius AoE blind, even without pulsing, would be strong enough to justify the skill.

• the vault things i mentioned above.

honestly, i’m really happy with the shape daredevil is taking. as you can guess, my only true woe is that the staff seems like a poor man’s S/P right now.

Okay, these changes are starting to make the dodges more appealing. I will still go back to what I have been saying about Daredevil for a while now, the 3 dodges need to be part of the baseline elite spec and swappable OOC (or even in).

All other elite specs, when selected with no traits actually selected, get access to their special mechanic. Daredevil however is simply given +50 endurance if no traits are selected. It feels like Daredevil is getting the short end of the stick, having to use GM traits to unlock the unique mechanic, and being stuck using one even though the different choices work best in different scenarios that you may come across within 30 seconds of each other.

TLDR; Good start, but please listen to all the people saying it feels unfair to have to use our GM trait to get our elite spec mechanic.

PopeUrban.2578:

It boggles the mind why you would use lotus rather than bound or dash on p/p

bound grants you stealth from your smoke field (though it was bugged last weekend so you had to end the dodge in the field) and dash gives you MUCH better kite.

I disagree. I tried all three dodges and only Lotus works.

Bound is nothing but a regular dodge unless I get in melee range — which will never happen. Sure I can stealth, but why? I’m not building a condition based P/P and no reason to go in stealth.

Dashing backwards puts me out of range and often finding myself running back close to my target. I even trait for Uncatchable to give me more kiting power, but the distance is just too far.

Lotus is perfect because when my target gets closer, I can cripple them before they get in melee. I don’t have to take Uncatchable anymore with this.

Why on earth would you use a dodge that does primarily condition damage and only benefits your build by tossing out tiny bits of cripple when faced with two clearly superior options?

Lotus frees up an adept slot from Trickery for my build. Instead of taking Uncatchable, I can take Thrill instead.

Not criticizing, I just don’t understand the logic that it’s only useful on p/p

I understand. Think about it, what build will you use Lotus for? All builds, including D/D and P/D condition, will benefit more from Unhindered — that’s a given. And you said it yourself P/P is better off with Dash.

So the question is, who will take Bounding over Dash? And who will take Lotus over Dash?

The answer to the latter is P/P power base — it can benefit from it the most. However, making it to give 10% condition damage and making Havoc only 360 range leaves P/P without any viable options.

Lotus is extremely effective on p/d and d/d condi. It helps you land CnD on p/d and it stacks loads more damage on d/d due to the much better endurance uptime from dagger auto, and in general adds 30% to 50% more condition damage depending on the circumstances of the fight.

I don’t see why D/D would pick Lotus over Dash — the damage reduction is just too good for melee builds. P/D “might” use it but again why pick it over Dash? P/D will benefit more from Dash + Uncatchable.

Nice changes Karl and team, definitely a step in the right direction.

.
I’d go for the reduced damage taken from weakened targets.
Make sure it’s not to big and also keep in mind that there are protection and Resilince of Shadows

.
2nd staff skill. Might need a little damage nerf of 10-20%.
Without a target it can be used while aiming to the floor to redurce the distance and makes it easy to land all 3 hits.
As is, it deals more damage then heartseeker <25% if i am not mistaken.

Can increase the weakness duration to 3 seconds.

.
Can’t tell if that would be to strong, but it would be nice if signet of agility and sigil of energy would work based on the increased endurance pool.
Take this one with caution as i did not gave this one enough though yet

.
Just an interesting idea: reduce the damage, add ICD and add an interesting effet like
0.25 – 0.5s daze/stun/knock down.
As is, it’s quite some damage. And would be a shame if we kill someone in sPvP to fast making them come here and demand nerf. And we go back to where we were

Longer fights you’re controling are more fun anyways.

Won’t add my general thief thoughts here, but basically i’d say conditions could need some love. In the current state, we have to heavily invest all out initiative in spamming something like death blossom to deal decent condition damage which has very low physical damage.

Result: while the condition damage is decent, the total DPS compared to all the other classes running a condition build are very low as far as i can tell.

Christonya.3856:

Smoke. If it doesn’t get smoke, it won’t be usable for cleave / trash situations in fractals / raids. If it doesn’t get smoke, we’ll still be forced into s/d.

OH and smoke gives us a way to gain stealth (from bounding) gives us blinding whirls, and of course, lets us set up for a stealth attack, to set up burst.

then you’d just be turning staff into another D/P. if you want pulsing blinds and leaping through your own smoke fields to set up stealth bursts, there’s already a build that does that. it’s been meta for well over a year.

elite specs are about bringing new playstyles, not reinforcing old ones with a new look.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Evasive Empowerment: This trait has been renamed to Havoc Master and grants the player 7% bonus damage to enemies within the 360 range threshold.

Ty for the trait named after me Karl

Each time you make changes they just get better and better. Loving them so far.

Weakening Strikes should give you decreased damage by weakened foes (reinforces brawler style) by 10-15% , BUT the other adept traits need to be put on par with it.

My suggestions:

Brawler’s Tenacity should either give 15-20 endurance, or 10 endurance and gain vigor for X seconds. I’m thinking somewhere around 3-5.

For Havoc wink Master I would buff it to 10-12%. Straight up damage buff for those who want an aggressive close-ranged playstyle.

Again, I would make Fist Flurry 170 range and a cone AoE, and I was going to suggest a cast time decrease but you got there before me :P Love this change.

Keep up the good work Karl.

Nex Vestrum.1025:

Okay, these changes are starting to make the dodges more appealing. I will still go back to what I have been saying about Daredevil for a while now, the 3 dodges need to be part of the baseline elite spec and swappable OOC (or even in).

All other elite specs, when selected with no traits actually selected, get access to their special mechanic. Daredevil however is simply given +50 endurance if no traits are selected. It feels like Daredevil is getting the short end of the stick, having to use GM traits to unlock the unique mechanic, and being stuck using one even though the different choices work best in different scenarios that you may come across within 30 seconds of each other.

TLDR; Good start, but please listen to all the people saying it feels unfair to have to use our GM trait to get our elite spec mechanic.

you do realize that it’s a purely superficial difference, right? you’ll still have to pick the traits. you’ll always end up with a special dodge, all of which are incredibly strong as of now.

plus, all our trait options are really strong. making them and the dodges weaker to give room for 3 GM traits would kitten the spec more than help it.