Guild Wars 2

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BrunoBRS.5178:

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.

I disagree, the idea behind elite specs was you slot it and instantly get access to a new mechanic. Mes is going “I can go back in time”, Warr is going “Look at me go berserk!”, etc. Meanwhile Thief goes “I can dodge one more time…”.

It doesn’t FEEL like an elite spec as it is now. It feels like a nice new base spec line with some good GM traits. All the other classes I played felt really fresh, DD, not so much.

And yes, the dodges are strong, if the situation you’re in calls for the one that you happen to have slotted. In a teamfight I want Dash for the dmg reduction and disengage, but in a 1v1 I don’t want or need that, I would rather have Bounding Dodger for the extra pressure. Using BD in a teamfight is just going to leap you to your death, Dash in a 1v1 almost resets the fight since it is such a strong disengage. I always like thief because it is such a flexible class and I expected that to be maintained in the elite spec.

Some of these suggestions making me cringed due to their narrow-mindedness instead of suggesting the traits be viable to more builds than one.

Really happy with these changes, I feel our GM are up to scratch now =D Thank you so much for these changes! Excellent work!

though i definitely agree that Weakening Strikes needs a buff, i don’t particularly like the proposed changes. “receive less damage from weakened foes” is kinda redundant, since weakened foes already deal very little damage. and, inflicting a damaging condition like torment/bleeding only benefits condi specc’d players.

instead, how about:

• you deal X% more damage to weakened foes, and your conditions last 50% longer (maximum 1 second) against weakened foes

or

• weakened foes within 360 range of you suffer 67% fumble and 67% slower endurance regeneration (instead of 50% for both).

The reduced damage against weakened foes sounds perfect.
Great changes overall.

Nex Vestrum.1025:

BrunoBRS.5178:

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.

I disagree, the idea behind elite specs was you slot it and instantly get access to a new mechanic. Mes is going “I can go back in time”, Warr is going “Look at me go berserk!”, etc. Meanwhile Thief goes “I can dodge one more time…”.

It doesn’t FEEL like an elite spec as it is now. It feels like a nice new base spec line with some good GM traits. All the other classes I played felt really fresh, DD, not so much.

And yes, the dodges are strong, if the situation you’re in calls for the one that you happen to have slotted. In a teamfight I want Dash for the dmg reduction and disengage, but in a 1v1 I don’t want or need that, I would rather have Bounding Dodger for the extra pressure. Using BD in a teamfight is just going to leap you to your death, Dash in a 1v1 almost resets the fight since it is such a strong disengage. I always like thief because it is such a flexible class and I expected that to be maintained in the elite spec.

but all the GM traits change the mechanics. it’s the same thing. you will never play a daredevil that doesn’t have a special dodge. it’s not like you can opt out of the special dodges. if anything, we get to choose between 3 unique mechanics, whereas everyone else has one.

moriz.5473:

though i definitely agree that Weakening Strikes needs a buff, i don’t particularly like the proposed changes. “receive less damage from weakened foes” is kinda redundant, since weakened foes already deal very little damage. and, inflicting a damaging condition like torment/bleeding only benefits condi specc’d players.

instead, how about:

• you deal X% more damage to weakened foes, and your conditions last 50% longer (maximum 1 second) against weakened foes

or

• weakened foes within 360 range of you suffer 67% fumble and 67% slower endurance regeneration (instead of 50% for both).

it’s not redundant, it’s stacking defense on a profession that sorely needs more defense. if you’re more resilient against foes that have weakness, a condition that already tones down damage, then you’re very resilient. last thing daredevil needs is more damage modifiers

it’s not redundant, it’s stacking defense on a profession that sorely needs more defense. if you’re more resilient against foes that have weakness, a condition that already tones down damage, then you’re very resilient. last thing daredevil needs is more damage modifiers

Yeah, this addresses something we were talking about in the other thread, that Daredevils need something that benefits them directly in terms of survivability, so that even in large scale situations where the mob, most likely a boss, is already capped out on all conditions, and every player is receiving the direct benefit of that Weakness, the Thief is still receiving a bonus benefit that only the thief gets, to make up for having lower base defense.

Wow, no staff change. I think staff needs the most work. Don’t get me wrong, those changes are nice (still nothing near the other classes specialisations). But wasn’t staff supposed to be our brawl instead of our new pve weapon?

those are pretty dope changes. though i will admit i am disappointed evasive empowerment the one that gave a 10% damage boost went to bounding dodger, cuz during the beta i got a really nice combo going with dash giving me some distance and then vaulting towards what i dashed from after gaining evasive empowerment. it felt just right, but i don’t think bounding dodger will give the same feeling that i got from that combo, but I’ll wait and see once HoT launches i just hope it still feels as good.

DevisedDemise.2608:

those are pretty dope changes. though i will admit i am disappointed evasive empowerment the one that gave a 10% damage boost went to bounding dodger, cuz during the beta i got a really nice combo going with dash giving me some distance and then vaulting towards what i dashed from after gaining evasive empowerment. it felt just right, but i don’t think bounding dodger will give the same feeling that i got from that combo, but I’ll wait and see once HoT launches i just hope it still feels as good.

bound is more about sticking to close quarters dealing damage, so getting a damage bonus after dodging fits it more than the escape skill dodge.

BrunoBRS.5178:

DevisedDemise.2608:

those are pretty dope changes. though i will admit i am disappointed evasive empowerment the one that gave a 10% damage boost went to bounding dodger, cuz during the beta i got a really nice combo going with dash giving me some distance and then vaulting towards what i dashed from after gaining evasive empowerment. it felt just right, but i don’t think bounding dodger will give the same feeling that i got from that combo, but I’ll wait and see once HoT launches i just hope it still feels as good.

bound is more about sticking to close quarters dealing damage, so getting a damage bonus after dodging fits it more than the escape skill dodge.

yeah i get that but I’m just saying dashing away then bouncing right back dealing damage, felt better in my opinion :P. like, say you dash away from a group of mordrem that are hell bent on pretty much wrecking you, like the mordrem wolves they hit pretty fast at times, and then after you got some distance from them you vault straight at them while they’re trying to get to you. that again in my opinion at least felt pretty nice, though i will admit, in the beta iv never even touched the other dodges. i stayed on dash because it felt really good to use. xD

I just wish that staff would be more viable for condi thief… then again I feel that right now any class without access to burning doesn’t really have a chance at condi. So maby give Thieves some way to apply burning?

Why does everyone want a dark field?

Smoke field for access to Hook Strike

Well start off with the staff attacks then move to the utilities followed by the traits.
While I understand the reasoning to give the thief a supportive role with staff and a few extra dodges slapping an extra endurance bar on a thief then saying it is am elite specialization is like asking Trahearne to give your mother a card and him taking credit for it. Same goes for the tempest.
Hookstrike, while effective for what it does there is hardly reason to take stealth on a class that should be stragglers just to access one skill such as this one
The staff Punishing Strikes… While reflecting projectiles seems great it’s hardly useful since you can’t exactly time it or keep itnup to actually reflect important deadly missiles coming your way aside from hugging your opponent and auto attacking and getting this skill to acrivate during such a fluke would be just that. The access is just more of a nuisance as it is a small goal.
Dust strike has had an improvement justin the casting time but I personally fail to see why it has three separated impacts like the revanent mace skill blasts. This should either be a short duration Smokescreen skill casted outward or a linear attack like the Druid skill 4 on the staff though obviously shorter range OR even taken into account that black powder- like effect could give more up front and personal support combined with punishing strikes instead of having to back out of fights to blind from range, which might I add, is contradictory to the name “daredevil”.
Vault also has had it’s promised initiative change from six to five however aside from the tooltip OR range OR impact radius bugs this skill should indeed become an evade during its usage to “vault out” of the way or into combat. Five initiative still stresses thought of careful usage rather than spam of the skill. Interestingly enough you can’t steal while in midair which means no one can directly port to you either because you are in the air and a No Valid Path To Target individual.
Utilities: while they currently aren’t effected by improvisation here at the concerns.
Fists of fury: good skill except it practically never hits anything resulting a need to take panic strike trait or wasting a utility slot for devoured venom or using basilisk venom. Skill needs to use melee attack assist so you could at least rotate and keep hitting your target if it circles you. Why not add a reflect projectile skill effect?!?
Bandit’s Defense great except its no where near on par with other classes’ blocks and should be at least 2 seconds to block. Even this skill can stop a backstab or earth shaker warrior.
Distracting daggers is ok however 10s penalty to enemy hardly seems enough and let alone you can only keep it active for fifteen seconds while mesmer mantras can be kept indefinitely if not used. Kind of hard to believe from a logical standpoint that you cant hold onto daggers permanently and then lose concentration on a mantra… should be 15 seconds uptime for mantras and indefinite for a physical object like distracting daggers.
Impairing daggers should act like distracting daggers and allow an individual dagger to be thrown if we want to lock down a target in a chain.
The elite im alright with. As well as the healing skill
The traits hardly have what it takes to actually keep damaging conditions off of you unless you go into shadow arts which again contradicts the point of a stealthless playstyle of the daredevil.
Lotus training, Unhindered Combantant & Bounding dodger need to be REMOVED as traits and added as f3,4,and 5 skills , 3 dodge bars = 3 types of dodges that could be used, if you dont use one of your spec dodges then you can hit “V” and get a NORMAL dodge. which would leave room for 3 NEW and USEFUL grandmaster traits.
want to get place to place? hit your F4….guess what, you used DASH….want to leap on some poor fool? F5 and VAULT dodge onto him….want to mix it up a bit with conditions? F3 with Lotus Training dodge.
Weakening Strikes: Cooldown is too long unless the weakness actually lasted long enough, however if you take staff and spam 2 theres no real point for this trait.

this was a majority of the copy paste

Why does everyone want a dark field?

Smoke field for access to Hook Strike

If they were willing to give us Smoke Field, Smoke Field would be better, but everyone seems to doubt that they would because they do not want staff/Daredevil to be a stealthy build option. Any suggestions that make stealth more available or more viable with the DD automatically move into the could-cuckoo land area.

A Dark Field is not as good, but it does still provide a lot of function to the build without also providing super easy Stealth access.

Weakness reduces physical damage. Make it reduce CONDITION damage, and that trait becomes so amazing its not even funny. Everyone would love you.

Serious Thought.5394:

Weakness reduces physical damage. Make it reduce CONDITION damage, and that trait becomes so amazing its not even funny. Everyone would love you.

Oh….my….

I think I just fainted

“In addition to 50% glancing blows on direct damage, condition damage also has a 50% chance to deal 50% less damage.”

Karl if you implement that you would be a god

Very good changes and given they boost all the dodges to GM+ quality I see no need of seperate GM traits nor for that matter a dodge toggle unless it just a QOL for rapid ut of combat selection.

To the proposed changes this an excellent start although I belive a few further tweaks needed.

To the dodges themselves of the three Implaing lotus would seem the weakest even with the enhancement. While i will reserve judgement on it it still might need a wee bit mroe (such as 1 stack poison 3 seconds).

To weakening strikes and whether to add damage mitigation or a condition. One problem here is weakening strikes is crit based meaning of course the pure condition builds can not really take too great advanatge of it unless they spec for crits. Added to this the skill itself on a 10 second cooldown meaning any condition applied would be on a 10 second cooldown.

Now my own take is that power builds ado very well from the DD spec line and that condition builds need something more going their way. At the same time it hard to have a skill that on a 10 second cooldown do meaningful condition damage unless there a significant number of stacks added.

Gut insinct says make this 5 stacks of poison on weakness for 4 seconds each stack but then we get a weakening strikes->poison->-Lotus poison-weakness cascade which would be quite interesting to say the least.

Torment/confusion/bleed would also work here.

Adding a condition would give conditions a bit more in the traitline and synergize niceley with impaling blossom. if poison selected it would be a great boon for builds not having ready access to poison.

Further to that making this a condition with a significant number of stacks (given that 10 second cooldown on next weakness app) would open up more hybrid type builds.

For varieties sake and for that of fairness and balance I lean towards a condition added with this trait.

Unhindered combat will decrease damage by 10 percent , add this atop a weakness and you get significant damage reduction as is.

Karl McLain.5604:

Aloh,

• 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

An idea I had for a defensive trait within Daredevil was to have the thief get healed by the attacker based on their current endurance.

This would allow for thieves to stay in fights longer based on how they managed their endurance (the more you dodge around, the less you get healed for and the more precise your dodges, the more you get healed for, because frankly no “balanced” amount of damage reduction is going to offset the fact that thieves have no viable secondary healing whereas other classes can complement their #6 with viable traits since forever.

I opted for this mechanic, because thieves more than other classes tend to dodge not just for damage evasion, but also for positioning. With my mechanic of getting healed for X, Y and Z for every hit that you take at say 20+, 50+ and 80+ Endurance, the thief is not punished for these dodges unlike he would with traits that work on “successful evade”, yet it would be a very active and rewarding balancing act, if you managed your new Endurance bar well.

It would also help the thief against classes that rely on several pets, which is like hell to fight for thieves or in cases where they get jumped on (usually with a full Endurance bar), as thieves lack stability.

Just an idea.

alchemyst.2165:

Serious Thought.5394:

Weakness reduces physical damage. Make it reduce CONDITION damage, and that trait becomes so amazing its not even funny. Everyone would love you.

Oh….my….

I think I just fainted

“In addition to 50% glancing blows on direct damage, condition damage also has a 50% chance to deal 50% less damage.”

Karl if you implement that you would be a god

Why not!?

50% less condition damage from Adept is not so bad while a GM only reduces 10%.

Let’s do it.

Wait, Weakness doesn’t reduce Condition damage? It should do that.

You know though, in lieu of that, how about this, add in “Striking a foe that is affected by Weakness reduces Condition Damage applied to you by 50% for 3s.” Give or take.

BrunoBRS.5178:

it’s not redundant, it’s stacking defense on a profession that sorely needs more defense. if you’re more resilient against foes that have weakness, a condition that already tones down damage, then you’re very resilient. last thing daredevil needs is more damage modifiers

damage reduction in this game is multiplicative, which means diminishing returns. additional percentage damage reduction on something that already drastically reduces damage, means that the new damage reduction will have very little effect. as such, reduced damage from weakened foes not make the daredevil very resilient: it will have almost effect at all.

on the other hand, directly modifying the weakness condition on nearby foes to be more effective will lead to bigger damage reduction numbers, and since it is AoE, it also allows for more teamwork.

Serious Thought.5394:

Weakness reduces physical damage. Make it reduce CONDITION damage, and that trait becomes so amazing its not even funny. Everyone would love you.

what about “gain resistance when you apply weakness”? like, short resistance, and on an ICD, so it’s not broken, but i think adding condi-defense through weakness application is really interesting.

What MIGHT be nice is if that extra damage reduction off Unhindered combat , that extra damage off bounding dodger and extra condition damage off the Implaing loutus applied to nearby allies as well.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

The staff Punishing Strikes… While reflecting projectiles seems great it’s hardly useful since you can’t exactly time it or keep itnup to actually reflect important deadly missiles coming your way aside from hugging your opponent and auto attacking and getting this skill to acrivate during such a fluke would be just that. The access is just more of a nuisance as it is a small goal.

i completely forgot about that. reflect projectiles on a melee autoattack makes little sense. can’t get to the third attack on the chain while your opponent is at range, and if you’re in melee range, it’s very unlikely that your opponent is still using a ranged weapon.

that reflect could be put somewhere else (another candidate for making debilitating arc a more interesting skill!), or just thrown away altogether, and the third strike could get something else. i kinda wanna say “give it a block, like how ranger greatsword has evade”, but the animation is a bit too long, so it might be too strong, unless the animation is shortened or the effect put out of sync (obviously the latter option is just plain bad).

moriz.5473:

BrunoBRS.5178:

it’s not redundant, it’s stacking defense on a profession that sorely needs more defense. if you’re more resilient against foes that have weakness, a condition that already tones down damage, then you’re very resilient. last thing daredevil needs is more damage modifiers

damage reduction in this game is multiplicative, which means diminishing returns. additional percentage damage reduction on something that already drastically reduces damage, means that the new damage reduction will have very little effect. as such, reduced damage from weakened foes not make the daredevil very resilient: it will have almost effect at all.

on the other hand, directly modifying the weakness condition on nearby foes to be more effective will lead to bigger damage reduction numbers, and since it is AoE, it also allows for more teamwork.

weakness only has a 50% chance to deal 50% damage, so it isn’t affected by your personal damage reduction even when it triggers. so yeah, a 5k crit that fumbles will hit for 2.5k, but with extra 10% damage reduction, for example, that’s 250 health that you saved yourself. in a single burst, it sounds like nothing, but you keep shaving damage from weakness and damage reduction, it adds up, much like shadow’s embrace’s 300 health ticks.

BrunoBRS.5178:

moriz.5473:

BrunoBRS.5178:

it’s not redundant, it’s stacking defense on a profession that sorely needs more defense. if you’re more resilient against foes that have weakness, a condition that already tones down damage, then you’re very resilient. last thing daredevil needs is more damage modifiers

damage reduction in this game is multiplicative, which means diminishing returns. additional percentage damage reduction on something that already drastically reduces damage, means that the new damage reduction will have very little effect. as such, reduced damage from weakened foes not make the daredevil very resilient: it will have almost effect at all.

on the other hand, directly modifying the weakness condition on nearby foes to be more effective will lead to bigger damage reduction numbers, and since it is AoE, it also allows for more teamwork.

weakness only has a 50% chance to deal 50% damage, so it isn’t affected by your personal damage reduction even when it triggers. so yeah, a 5k crit that fumbles will hit for 2.5k, but with extra 10% damage reduction, for example, that’s 250 health that you saved yourself. in a single burst, it sounds like nothing, but you keep shaving damage from weakness and damage reduction, it adds up, much like shadow’s embrace’s 300 health ticks.

that effect is negligible, even on something as fragile as a thief.

my second suggestion (increased fumble chance, increased endurance regeneration penalty on weakened foes near you) would have a much bigger, and actually noticeable, effect. not to mention, a percent reduction from weakened foes is a purely selfish trait, while mine can be used on teammates as well: choking gas+blast = that melee push on your teammate just fizzled into nothing.

It is now time for me to give credit where credit is due. Thanks for the changes and thanks for listening to the feedback we were providing. I think with some of these changes we will actually be getting more inline with other elites. I just had a couple of questions and comments.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second.

I think this will help out drastically with trying to land all kittens. I will say i think this skill is good for launch.

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 am a little confused as others on this one. Is it a mark debuff on the enemy and if so for how long? I will say this makes it a bit more interesting.

Karl McLain.5604:

• 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.

Check, check and check. With them being a bit overloaded like this I do not mind them taking GM spots. They may not be in a Revenant style toggle like most feedback has suggested but the additional buffs to them do add more than what normal GM have. The out of combat toggle still would be nice but we can still switch them through the UI when needed.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Unhindered combatant: In addition to granting the Dash dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% damage reduction against physical and condition damage.

1st off I am assuming this is for 4 seconds like the other two dodge buffs?

2nd) if so I think this is a “huge” win for thieves as this is the only direct damage mitigator other than “Resilience of Shadows” which has been nerfed since so many reveals. (Thumbs WAY up).

3rd) Is there going to be a CD on these % effects? I hope not.

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.

To be honest I think the Thief has plenty of options to gain damage increase through other Sources within and outside of DD. I personally like the idea of taking less damage from a weakened foe. I feel this plays more into a rogue with sabotaging your enemy. Thats my personal thoughts.

Also do you have any thoughts on the current state of “Impact Strike”? Most believe this is still under powered for an elite, specially in PvE. I personally think a damage increase when the enemy is below 20% health would play well into a skill like this. It would help with dealing more damage to bosses in raids and kick up the stakes in PvP when running down a fleeing enemy. As one person already stated it seems to be only useful in PvP when the fight has already been won. If you don’t agree could you hint on why? Most of us are just curious.

Again make weakening strikes add poison.it the better outcome all around be a build condition damage or hybrid and giving access to poison for staff users who do not take DAwhile helping any combo of weapons .

3 seconds slow might be real nice too. Slow down the damage output of enemy rather then save 250 health off a hit

Havoc mastery is great for power builds. Brawlers tenacity works on any. Let’s make weakening strikes condition focused.

Honestly I feel that Dust Strike is not worth the initiative, its a cone of blinding that deals insignificant damage. Pistol does so much more for the thief with Shadow Shot and Black Powder. Might I suggest tagging the blind on the end of Debilitating Arc for 1 initiative, similar to Larcenous Strike and Flanking Strike?

The reflect on Punishing Strikes does not promote skilful play, you hope you are going to reflect something while auto-attacking as there is really no control. Might I suggest creating a reflect on staff 4, dealing minimal upfront damage and mainly used as utility if you are being pressured from range? Something like 4 initiative for a 1 or 1.5 s reflect?

I believe these changes would go a long way to ensure staff becomes a competitive weapons compared to the ones we can already use.

This is significant. Some sorely needed buffs in there, so thanks for recognising that.

It would be nice if Dust Strike could be changed to a smoke combo field though, for a couple of reasons:
1. Lack of access to stealth otherwise.
2. Hard to blind enemies around you, using an attack that only hits 3 things in a line.
3. Initiative cost of 4 is too high for effect. By comparison, Black Powder is 6, spawns a field for 4 seconds, and blinds enemies multiple times.

I like the changes so far but there is still one major thing I don’t see addressed. I’ve already mentioned it on reddit but I guess it can’t do any harm repeating it here.

DareDevil is designed as elite spec which doesn’t rely on stealth but so far we have no real Condi cleanse outside of shadow arts and/or hide in shadows. Sure there is the single Condi cleanse on successfully dodge trait but that one is really weak. Any build with decent Condi burst can load their conditions on a daredevil without shadow arts and hide in shadows and then simply stop attacking so the daredevil can’t trigger his condi cleanse trait.

tl;dr DareDevil misses a proper Condi Cleanse outside of shadow arts and hide in shadows if it should work without stealth.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

Why does everyone want a dark field?

Smoke field for access to Hook Strike

I feel like those who want smoke field are leaning on making it closer to d/p the best set with vast utility that’s cheap and staff was “in combat” oriented, it’s already trying to copy SB with it’s #3. Trying to make a set fit too many roles makes it OP then it gets nerfed in d/p case it’s not OP but they can’t nerf it that’s the only “combat” set left working after previous nerfs, it’s the only reason thief is not equipping double SB in PvP. While it worries me they will have to improve the rest of the sets without copy and pasting what d/p offers anyway might as well use staff as the first experiment.

Slightly off-topic I realized thief is the only one with updates like those so far after every class forum BWE3 threads were sticked by the same person mmm trying to improve social status?

While the mechanics seem solid and I certainly had a blast playing Daredevil in that respect, I really wish the staff animations had a stronger Martial Arts feel. I realize I may be beating a dead horse here, but for the sake of feedback – I am way less likely to spec daredevil because of the staff animations.

Ohoni.6057:

Why does everyone want a dark field?

Smoke field for access to Hook Strike

If they were willing to give us Smoke Field, Smoke Field would be better, but everyone seems to doubt that they would because they do not want staff/Daredevil to be a stealthy build option. Any suggestions that make stealth more available or more viable with the DD automatically move into the could-cuckoo land area.

A Dark Field is not as good, but it does still provide a lot of function to the build without also providing super easy Stealth access.

they dont want us to be an antistealth class…if they did theyd give us way more condition removal as opposed to pidgeonholing our butts into shadow arts JUST for the condi removal…

Escapist’s Absolution should remove 3 damaging conditions on evade…not 1. i mean kitten …1 condition ?!?!?

alchemyst.2165:

Serious Thought.5394:

Weakness reduces physical damage. Make it reduce CONDITION damage, and that trait becomes so amazing its not even funny. Everyone would love you.

Oh….my….

I think I just fainted

“In addition to 50% glancing blows on direct damage, condition damage also has a 50% chance to deal 50% less damage.”

Karl if you implement that you would be a god

this is why we have resistance, regeneration…protection for physical damage.
hell if anything add severity as a boon to stack with stacks

Wow! These are GREAT changes. Super stoked to see every single one. Thanks for the update Karl and the great work!

BrunoBRS.5178:

• 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)

+1 for baselining EA!

Bruno has an excellent point here, which has had me concerned. The cleanse is absolutely mandatory in PvP and WvW. Which sucks, because then we miss out on taking Staff Master and Impacting Disruption. I tested the former, but never tested latter, which is a shame because I run Sleight of Hand.

Personally, I’d like to see both EA and DF merged into the master minor trait slot. This provides 2 levels of sustainability that are essential for a melee based, in-your-face, brawler type specialization. That said, I would be happy enough if DF and EA traded places.

As for Weakening Strikes, at first I was mulling over how to make the trait appealing to both physical and condi damage dealers, for example adding poison or a chance to cause vulnerabiltiy. But the more thought about it, it almost has to support our survival to be a viable strong trait.

So here is a possible overall scenario:

1. Add the damage reduction to Weakening Strikes or a heal connected to the weakened foes such as “attacks from (or maybe against) weakened foes cause you to be healed for an amount”
2. If damage reduction is added to Weakening Strikes, then merge EA into DF at the master minor.
3. Alternatively, if a heal is added to Weakening Strikes, just move EA to the minor and remove DF entirely.
4. Add a new master trait where EA was that supports condition damage builds.

These changes do the following:

• Greatly boost survival on the cleansing, healing and damage reduction fronts, which we desperately need
• Allow low or non-stealth Daredevils to have a comparable level of sustainability that they got from Shadow Arts, freeing them up to choose other trait lines that compliment the elite spec better. Because lets’ face it, taking SA for survival as a non-stealth Daredevil is a complete waste. Even stealth-using Daredevils would be hampered, because they’d feel they have to take SA to be viable. If the Daredevil line can provide solid survival, then it’s much more lucrative to our damage to take either the DA or CS lines.
• Send some love in this trait line to the condi builds.

My only other comment is that, despite absolutely loving Dash, I am a little sad I will rarely get to choose Bound, since Dash is so much stronger in WvW and for group fights, and thus will miss out on the Bound finisher.

Any chance we can see Vault become a blast finisher then? That would add so much more group utility for WvW and raids!!

Thanks again. I am now even more excited for launch than I was after BWE3!

Sagat.3285:

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

Why does everyone want a dark field?

Smoke field for access to Hook Strike

I feel like those who want smoke field are leaning on making it closer to d/p the best set with vast utility that’s cheap and staff was “in combat” oriented, it’s already trying to copy SB with it’s #3. Trying to make a set fit too many roles makes it OP then it gets nerfed in d/p case it’s not OP but they can’t nerf it that’s the only “combat” set left working after previous nerfs, it’s the only reason thief is not equipping double SB in PvP. While it worries me they will have to improve the rest of the sets without copy and pasting what d/p offers anyway might as well use staff as the first experiment.

Slightly off-topic I realized thief is the only one with updates like those so far after every class forum BWE3 threads were sticked by the same person mmm trying to improve social status?

maybe the truth, however the only leap on staff is skill 5 which costs 5 initiative anyway so a max of 3 leaps to drain all of your initiative just for stealth is a bad tradeoff as opposed to heartseeker leaping through smoke.

if they just added the exact copy of blackpowder to dust strike wed be ok, be able to stay in the fight, cleave and whirl instead of projectile like BP currently does then we could have on the spot aoe and whirl blind support for our group….OR add a shorter duration smokescreen field that projects OUTWARD and even functions as smokescreen… this would not only eliminate the need to access the projectile reflection of chain 3 of skill 1 staff but could also block heavy hitting projectiles AND blind if they are hit by it.

currently punishing strikes is a kitten to get access to unless you can somehow TIME the reflect on important ranged attacks…seems too much work to reflect key projectiles in a chain skill and even then if you try to time it the most the skill stays up for(if you unbind it as an autoattack) is 5 seconds then you have to redo the chain.

just WAY too much work to access the reflect when we could add the above smoke screen idea…

let alone why the hell is Dust Strike a 3 impact, separated impact skill effect like the revenant Echoing Eruption? realistically speaking if i were to sling dirt/sand/dust up with a stick it would be a curtain anyway, not 3 or such plooms of them…

though i love the idea of hiding(not long) behind my dust clouds to pop back out…wouldnt be fair if they lasted long maybe 3 seconds

what about “gain resistance when you apply weakness”? like, short resistance, and on an ICD, so it’s not broken, but i think adding condi-defense through weakness application is really interesting.

I thought of that, but it’d be hard to make work. As you note, it can’t be perma Restist, it has to be on and off, and if it’s procced off of an attack, that basically means you’ll be constantly proccing it, and putting it on cooldown, when you have absolutely no use for it. Too random.

they dont want us to be an antistealth class…if they did theyd give us way more condition removal as opposed to pidgeonholing our butts into shadow arts JUST for the condi removal…

I’m not saying they’ve managed it well enough yet, but that is clearly their intent. Otherwise there would be more stealth options in the set.

Just a question and I am sorry if this answered before but to any that might have tried it.

Does Fist Flurry double up the Pulmonary Impact off the chain if successful with the traited skill Impacting disruption?

It would seem you should get two Pulmonary impacts off the chain if you managed an interrupt. Is that correct?

babazhook.6805:

Just a question and I am sorry if this answered before but to any that might have tried it.

Does Fist Flurry double up the Pulmonary Impact off the chain if successful with the traited skill Impacting disruption?

It would seem you should get two Pulmonary impacts off the chain if you managed an interrupt. Is that correct?

Yes, it stacks.

Auesis.7301:

babazhook.6805:

Just a question and I am sorry if this answered before but to any that might have tried it.

Does Fist Flurry double up the Pulmonary Impact off the chain if successful with the traited skill Impacting disruption?

It would seem you should get two Pulmonary impacts off the chain if you managed an interrupt. Is that correct?

Yes, it stacks.

Thank you. It would seem to me that haste would be devastating if coupled with this skill.

babazhook.6805:

Auesis.7301:

babazhook.6805:

Just a question and I am sorry if this answered before but to any that might have tried it.

Does Fist Flurry double up the Pulmonary Impact off the chain if successful with the traited skill Impacting disruption?

It would seem you should get two Pulmonary impacts off the chain if you managed an interrupt. Is that correct?

Yes, it stacks.

Thank you. It would seem to me that haste would be devastating if coupled with this skill.

Yes indeed it is! I typically run the Flanking Strikes and Sleight of Hand traits from Trickery. This weekend I also ran the Haste skill itself. An awesome combo I found was Steal (or some other “port to target” skill), pop Haste, use Impairing Daggers for the immob/slow, then the Fist Flurry and Palm Strike. Incredibly devastating. Add to that Impacting Disruption (which I haven’t tried yet), and if you get interrupts from the daze from Sleight of Hand and the Palm Strike stun, it’s double extra damage. Insanely great in PvE, but sadly not as reliable in WvW.

Those are some great changes! Kinda like more grounded changes from my last post.

Anyway, receiving less damage from weakened foes has great synergy with deadly arts and sword auto attack and would allow thief to be bruiser it wasn’t for a long time. As for more conditions on weakened foes, how about burning? Someone already suggested burning weakness and it would help out with burst conditions pressure.

Also, why not both? 3 stack of burning for 5 seconds on 10 seconds cd with 15% damage reduction?

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

First and foremost, thank you for your continued efforts to communicate with us and attempting to make this class better, than its current state. We really appreciate the communication. Having said that, let’s get down to the DD discussion.

Vault: Thank you for the fix to the range bug, but has the bug of the AoE radius been fixed yet? It was not damaging in the radius it was supposed to have been. Also, are you still adding evasion frames to it? I, along with many others, believe it is extremely important for the skill to have evasion frames, as currently, it’s a death sentence to be flying around the place with its long and exaggerated animation. Furthermore, are there any plans to increase the range of the skill?

Fist Flurry: So, based on my understanding, does all kittens connect within 1s? Or am I misunderstanding this statement?

Havoc Master: Does this trait increase your condi damage as long as you stay within the 360 radius, or is it only physical damage?

I like the proposed changes to the GM traits. They all seem suitable for each dodge type and follows the theme of DD.

Weakening Strikes: I personally believe the reduced physical and condi damage from weakened foes would be the better option, as thief is not entirely hurting for more damage, but rather survivability. They need as much help as they can get with survivability, being the only class with no access to aegis, protection, stability, or invulnerabilities.

Now, as for things that haven’t been addressed yet, both DD and Thief in general, the following are some to consider.

Bandit’s Defense: The skill’s block duration is extremely low to utilize the block effectively. 9/10 times good players can easily notice and hear the cues and simply stop attacking you for that 1s. It also does not help with things like minions triggering the counterattack, leading to an unfortunate death. The block duration being increased to 2 or 3s would prove to be the perfect fix for the skill.

Finishing Blow from the Impact Strike is still not using personal finishers.

Driven Fortitude’s heal amount is far too low to play any role at all, even as a minor trait. Either scrap this trait for something better, or increase the heal value.

Escapist’s Absolution, though great on paper, does very little to save you or buy you time against condi builds, which just chews through thieves. Relying on Shadow’s Embrace gets quite tiring. I feel like the internal cooldown could be reduced to 0.5s, without breaking the game. This way, depending on the type of dodge used and situation, a successful dodge would benefit you from either 1 or 2 condi removals. Furthermore, should this trait act as a replacement for Driven Fortitude, it would massively help thief’s survivability.

As for Staff, I still feel like this weaponset is far too weak (I’m not talking about damage) compared to the existing weaponsets. D/X, S/X, and SB performs far better on a DD than Staff, and I really don’t like the feeling of this. I feel like Staff should bring something so good that it truly has a place to compete with these existing weapon sets. S/D especially performs far better than Staff as a stealthless weapon. It brings everything Staff does, plus more: weakness, vulnerability, shadowsteps, condi clears, evade frames while sticking on enemies, boon stripping, daze, stealth, cripples, immobilize, disengage, and even blindness; all on top of doing consistent high damage. I’ve previously outlined my expectations from Staff in the last post BW2 update/feedback thread. So, I’ll bring back some of it that I feel should be highly considered.

• First and foremost, I am happy with the AA as it functions currently, though the damage might need a bit of tweaking.

• Weakening Charge: Again, I am happy with the skill as is currently damage-wise, however, I can’t help but feel that an evade in the skill is very fitting. Having said that though, should evade be added to this skill, I feel that the evade should rightfully be removed from Debilitating Arc, and the initiative cost for the two skills be swapped (4 for Weakening Charge and 3 for Debilitating Arc).

• Debilitating Arc: Continuing with the list, as I previously mentioned, I feel like the evade from this skill should be moved to Weakening Charge, with the initiative costs being swapped. Furthermore, this skill should have an added condition to it, it’s “debilitating” after all. So, I propose that the skill applies a short duration immobilize (2s) on hit, OR a very short daze (0.5s). The daze will act like a reactionary skill (rewarding skillful plays) and will also allow the weapon set to synergize with one of the traits DD offers: “Impacting Disruption”.

• Dust Strike: I am honestly surprised that you haven’t touched on this skill yet. For this one, I would like to bring back one of my old suggestions:

Silverbolt.2301:

There are so many problems with this skill. It feels out of place, strange to use, and just plain awkward. I’m sure many would agree that instead of a ranged blind, a PBAoE blind would be best. Damage can stay as low as it currently is and range can be reduced with a 5 target PBAoE blind effect (similar to that of “Blinding Powder”). Furthermore, I disagree that this skill should leave a smoke field. In fact, I feel like the Staff should be more about finishers, than generating fields. Therefore, I think adding a “Blast” finisher to the PBAoE skill would be more beneficial for the weapon, while staying in line with its theme. This way, staff can be the provider of 3 finishers; “Whirl”, “Blast”, and “Leap”, which could be used as required, based on a given situation. As for animation, a simple recycled “Staggering Blow” from Hammer Warrior could be used, with some clean up.

Finally, I would like to bring back some of the old issues with thief in general that should REALLY be addressed. The main one being the Trickery trait line. It’s suffocating to think how desperately thieves rely on this single trait line. It’s disgusting to even think about it. So, I would like to revive an old suggestion I made:

Silverbolt.2301:

“Reducing “Steal’s” base cooldown to ~22s, while removing the bonus 20% reduction that “Sleight of Hand” provides would be amazing, as currently, it feels like that trait itself, along with the “Preparedness” trait forces thieves to always take that trait-line, no matter what they try to do. This is a very poor design, because it takes away from the already severely lacking options.”

Preparedness’s bonus initiative should really be baseline, and the minor should be replaced with something better.

Once again, thank you for your continuing communication with us, and let’s make DD the best we can at launch. It needs all the love and attention it can get, as currently all the other especs offer something great, beyond their base class. Thief/DD also felt completely irrelevant in the raids…and that is just horrible if an entire class feels off and irrelevant for end game content.

sirjarros.4107:

babazhook.6805:

Auesis.7301:

babazhook.6805:

Just a question and I am sorry if this answered before but to any that might have tried it.

Does Fist Flurry double up the Pulmonary Impact off the chain if successful with the traited skill Impacting disruption?

It would seem you should get two Pulmonary impacts off the chain if you managed an interrupt. Is that correct?

Yes, it stacks.

Thank you. It would seem to me that haste would be devastating if coupled with this skill.

Yes indeed it is! I typically run the Flanking Strikes and Sleight of Hand traits from Trickery. This weekend I also ran the Haste skill itself. An awesome combo I found was Steal (or some other “port to target” skill), pop Haste, use Impairing Daggers for the immob/slow, then the Fist Flurry and Palm Strike. Incredibly devastating. Add to that Impacting Disruption (which I haven’t tried yet), and if you get interrupts from the daze from Sleight of Hand and the Palm Strike stun, it’s double extra damage. Insanely great in PvE, but sadly not as reliable in WvW.

I did not get to try it as we were limited in Rune choice but for WvW I am thinking of using Trappers runes for stealth. Use the knockdown and then followup with the fists of flurry. You should be able to squeeze a Impact strike in after that if hasted with those stuns. Flanking stikes is a bit of a problem as I was thinking of a DD/DA/sa build but may tweak that.

A Sigil of impact plus Havoc maybe the 10 percent of bounding dodge ..we are talking some hard hitting attacks.

by the way I must give kudos to Karl. There are many suggestions made that he has adopted directly. It was just a few days ago I suggested Fist Flurry be lowered to a second. I suggested might added to bounding dodger and we got something even better. Unhindered Combat is sweet now with the added damage reduction. I am really liking how this all shaping up.

DD is a traitline that can fit so many builds and so well and contrary to what some suggested it does change how I fight as a thief. I had a whole lot of fun in beta and am just itching to get back at it once HOT comes out.

>.> I didn’t get what I asked for, but I’m still so kitten happy. Those dodge changes literally make rolling either sinister or zerk incredibly fun. SUCH CHOICES MAN! Two excellent dps and one beautiful defensive gm.

That said, I still am going to make a point of asking for dust strike to at very least negate projectiles! I’m also super in favor of a dark field, but think about it. Staff has a reflect in its auto chain (which is cool), but one excellent way to branch it out from other weapons would be to give it the BEST projectile counter that thief has. Blind is always going to be secondary compared to the pistol 5, which is why we all keep yammering on and on about how staff doesn’t quiet cut it. Two whirl finishers, along with a leap finisher make an excellent field combo class. Give us that field without sacrificing utility slot and you’ve got a weapon that will be in contention with top tier.

Again thanks for all the hard work.

Karl McLain.5604:

• 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.

YYEEEESSSSSSSsssss!

Super Unicorn will DECIMATE!

So happy.

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.

Please let me shrug more damage. Please let me shrug more damage. Please let me shrug more damage. Please let me shrug more damage. Please let me shrug more damage. Please let me shrug more damage. Please let me shrug more damage. Please let me shrug more damage.

Ok. I may have a strong opinion on this matter.

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

-Karl

((too busy doing happy dance to respond coherently))