Guild Wars 2

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.

Question: Do caltrop ticks snapshot the thief’s condition damage? In other words will this fail to affect caltrops generated by Uncatchable?

DJSushi.5406:

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.

Yes! While everyone seems to be talking about the mechanics, I really want the staff animations to be improved. I still hope to see a change one day.

HidingCat.4037:

DJSushi.5406:

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.

Yes! While everyone seems to be talking about the mechanics, I really want the staff animations to be improved. I still hope to see a change one day.

I’m fairly sure that’s a project already in progress. Just not as something that will assuredly arrive by launch day.

• Reduced channel time of Channeled Vigor from 2.25 to 0.75 (this can finnaly make me replace withdraw that you as always forgot to buff to that promised 10% heal increase QQ)
• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. _note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second. (kinda wanna make me test physical again but i`m still sceptical about the cast time)
  *
  Evasive Empowerment: This trait has been renamed to Havoc Master and grants the player 7% bonus damage to enemies within the 360 range threshold.(is this permanent or after dodge for period of time?)
• 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. ( must be testet will those 4s be enought to land something usefull or it will be better to be changed to next attack deals 10% more dmg which is better i think)
• Unhindered combatant: In addition to granting the Dash dodge ability, the thief will gain 10% damage reduction against physical and condition damage.( good idea but would those 10% be of any help remains to be seen, i hope you pay attention to the burning stacking meta that ruins most stuff).
• Receive less damage from weakened foes.( this is what thief really need as reliable defence mechanic outside of dodge itself, but will it give condi dmg reduction too? or just mele.)
  Overall a little bit more possitive about the future of the elite spec, keep up the good work.

Nike.2631:

HidingCat.4037:

I’m fairly sure that’s a project already in progress. Just not as something that will assuredly arrive by launch day.

No, I’m not counting on that too. I just hope that it’ll happen!

I know that Thief as a Ranged combatant doesn’t seem to be the focus of almost anyone talking on the forums about Thief ….however I think the Daredevil specialization looks like a great trait line towards Pistol/Pistol and Shortbow builds. Most people might ignore that when they say the dash dodge isn’t as useful… and it definitely isn’t as useful for melee combatants…. it looks great for a ranged type imo.

However…. I think what’s truly missing is some sort of change to the special class trait like every other class gets. I think there should be some sort of change to Steal. This would be the best opportunity to have a different option for steal (which also doesn’t even fit the “daredevil” anymore imo) that would make sense for those kind of builds as well but also needs to remain somehow reliable for the new staff weapon. If anyone has a suggestion for that it would be great to hear !

Again… I think it’s a big big chance to fix older problems from the past with this new elite spec. I also believe a small change to it wouldn’t suffice…. if it functions mostly as it is right now… even if say the ability itself will do a dodge or evade backwards from a target instead of closing in…. or something similar, the stealing factor of it would still generate a skill that will have the need to be used in melee range (in most cases) …. which again makes it highly unreliable.

A rework of some of the skills on the range side wouldn’t be a bad idea either. (like the auto-attack on the pistol for example… it should at the very least have poison rounds instead of bleeding targets so it works better with other traits available) but this last part is a bit off-topic for this particular thread.

Toran.4230:

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.

BrunoBRS.5178:

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)

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.

1. If damage reduction is added to Weakening Strikes, then merge EA into DF at the master minor.
2. Alternatively, if a heal is added to Weakening Strikes, just move EA to the minor and remove DF entirely.
3. 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.

Silverbolt.2301:

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.

Escapist Absolution as a minor

Karl! Thanks for the great changes! The only thing I still hope for is for Escapist Absolution to become a minor. I would not mind this being swapped by one instead of merged.

I think this is better because thief has basically only 2 good condition cleanses that have a low cooldown which are Escapist Absolution and Shadows Embrace. Which means that a Daredevil that really wants Impacting Disruption or Staff Master is kind of forced to take Shadow Arts. But since a staff player will not benefit from Shadows Embrace, it is basically forced to take Escapist Absolution leaving the other traits unchosen. I think the change would prevent thieves being limited in their builds because of having no condition cleanse. (It basically opens 3 new master traits that are more equal to each other:P)

Why this isn´t overpowered

A reason not to change this might be because you think its to overpowered. I believe it is not so overpowered because of two factors:
- We need to successfully evade so we cannot randomly spam dodges to clean conditions (such as elementalists in water)
- A smart condition player will probably stop attacking after applying all those burn stacks on us. (Which there is not much we can do about I guess)

I really hope I can convince you on this one, please feel free to post some feedback on this idea if you have some time.

Good luck out there and thanks for the efforts!

Btw!: Just an idea: I heard people talking about wanting changes to Acrobatics. I can understand they will not come anytime soon with HoT in mind. But if they will come, maybe try to add a reliable condition removal trait to acrobatics? I am sure a lot of players would go for it then.:P

Plz add a way to remove condi that is more efficient than 1 random condi on evade…
That makes thief not viable on wvw and against any heavy condi build.. all the oponent has to do is land all their condi and stop attacking at all.. even if you down him.. he will rally cause you cant clear the condis and you will die as well…
Make it “a random condi on dodge” or i dont know give thieves a way to clear condis..
Everyone is playing condi.. even warrior with the new zerk spec.. and thieves has so few ways to clear them that it is extremely hard to survive 1st engage from a condi built.

I’m for the condi on weaken. I know everyone likes the damage reduction but other than the Dodge. DD spec offers little else for condi builds. Isn’t the idea of DD not to get hit anyway? It would mean I could take staff over SB to apply condi and would synergise well with the trait we have that applies weakness on poison. (other than acrobatics we don’t really have the synergies with other lines that other elites have)

Good job with the GM traits they’re great . I still feel we should have a toggle for QoL. I like the idea of making the dodges baseline with toggle and leaving the secondary effects as the traits. It would allow for a varied playstyle.

Eg. Use lotus dodge for whirl but want to use damage increase trait.
Use bound for leap combos but you are a condi build so want to use condi damage increase. Etc

It would allow for more builds and combinations with finishers for all thief builds.

Karl McLain.5604:

• 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.

These are really good changes, thanks Karl. I like the way Evasive Empowerment has been thematically rolled into the GM traits, very nice! I’m still not sure how I feel about Channeled Vigor, but I’m willing to give it a try before I criticise it.

Karl McLain.5604:

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

I think the second option would be more useful to different builds, while the first would only really benefit a condi build (unless you was going to add a non-DOT condition).

As an alternative option, maybe it could inflict a 2-3 second cripple when you inflict weakeness, with a 5 second ICD attached to it. That would help the Daredevil keep their target in range.

Daredevil still needs a way of locking targets down or it will be kited for days. How about an immobilize?

Karl McLain.5604:

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

Weakening Strikes: I think, as a trait, receiving less damage would go with the theme. That’s a great idea.

Staff: As other have said staff suffers greatly from being kited. Something that may solve this is to add cripple or some other method of keeping targets in range. The cripple with debilitating arc is nice, but it’s more about keeping them away. I believe something like this needs to be added to the staff directly, not as a trait or util.

(edit) But if it were to be added to a trait, Weakening Strikes is a good candidate.

Staff needs to stand on its own. If staff could somehow (even marginally) compete with Shortbow for overland mobility I think you would see a lot of people adopt it (even if that meant slight reductions in damage).

If vault had a low-flying, long trajectory (900 range) leap that would do it. Or if weakening charge had similar range to Warrior GS (whirlwind attack, 450 range) or even debilitating arc had a longer range (500 or so, like withdraw), and you could do a ‘forward arc’ like a forward withdraw. Some or all of these changes could help overland mobility greatly.

Lastly, Dust Strike was very unreliable and needs some tweaking. What I would love to see with this skill is something like D/D Ele burning speed (600 range), only instead of a fire trail, it makes a smoke trail which can be comboed in.

I realized all of these in combination would be a bit much, but any one of these tweaks would greatly improve staff. I know I’d run it if I could replace shortbow (even without shadowsteps.. just the flat-land mobility). I’ve seen many thieves comment similarly.

Thanks for all the updates and progress! DD is coming along nicely.

Nike.2631:

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.

Question: Do caltrop ticks snapshot the thief’s condition damage? In other words will this fail to affect caltrops generated by Uncatchable?

I’m not exactly sure what you are asking, but last I checked condition damage was calculated dynamically between ticks. If this is just a straight up mod to condi damage, then yes it will apply to any previously applied condis.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Nike.2631:

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.

Question: Do caltrop ticks snapshot the thief’s condition damage? In other words will this fail to affect caltrops generated by Uncatchable?

I’m not exactly sure what you are asking, but last I checked condition damage was calculated dynamically between ticks. If this is just a straight up mod to condi damage, then yes it will apply to any previously applied condis.

In the end you understood me perfectly. Thanks!

(“snapshotting” in this case would be the caltrops are a separate entity that has all of its characteristics locked in at the moment of its creation. It creates a “snapshot” of the caster and then stops looking at its caster to conserve server processing.)

babazhook.6805:

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.

you lose a significant amount of damage with them just to gain access to stealth because they give condition damage…not power etc…

if they had pulmonary impact deal condition damage in SPIKES then yeah i can see it

I-is this love I’m feeling? :P

Joke aside, Havoc Master sounds awesome.

EDIT: I also like some of the ideas here of increasing the efficiency of weakness via Weakening Strikes.

Weakening Strikes: The effects of Weaken is increased by 15%.

This could also we awesome:

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.

The thing is we need more means to survive.

As far as everything else goes…

#1: I’m going to throw my hat into the “more defense” option for weakening strikes. Even if this isn’t a condi specific option, it is still useful in condi builds. Likewise, with a relatively high reliance on brawler’s tenacity for endurance regen, this provides a non-endurance option for defense.

#2: I love that Fist Flurry, AKA Pai Mei’s Five point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, just keeps getting buffs. Right now I’m getting anywhere from 1k to 1.2k tooltip DPS per use, making it 38% more damage than perfect weakening charge spam.

#3: The impact strike chain still needs a buff. Reduce aftercast by 1 second and increase the damage by 50%. This will give it usability at any point in the fight instead of just the end. Also, this will give it usability over Basilisk Venom in PVE.

#4: Impairing Daggers and Distracting Daggers should still be 100% projectile finishers. This adds a bit more usability to them, particularly the ability to blind when used through a smoke field.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

babazhook.6805:

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.

you lose a significant amount of damage with them just to gain access to stealth because they give condition damage…not power etc…

if they had pulmonary impact deal condition damage in SPIKES then yeah i can see it

That "lost power’ is made up for with the triggering of the might stacks that come off Trap mastery. On shadowtrap alone this 15 stacks. 180 power is 6 might stacks and even a tripwire gets me 5 plus the vulnerability. added to this this stealth allows hook strike costing no Ini. What I am going to test is laying a trap down on top the knocked down foe.

Now because i can cleanse conditions from stealth escapists absolution not as needed and I will have interrupts via knockdowns galore with the build meaning while a pulmonary impact might not hit as hard as a person traiting power in a build , I will get more of them off due to more interrupts overall.

Now added to that. Since I will have more ready access to stealth which will not consume INI in my staff build, The opponent will be knocked down more which will kick in sigil of impact more often.

I’ll stand by it, thief needs a viable way to replenish its health other than their heal, because not only is the TTK on a thief lower, which allows for fewer heals to be cast throughout a fight, thief is also one of the if not the only class without supplemental healing outside of stealth.

The longer fights drag out, the smaller a thief’s chance of winning, that’s no coincidence. Mobility and dodges are great evasion tools, but in order to actually be viable tools for prolonged fights, they are not suitable, because TTK is too low to repeatedly take advantage of them.

Daredevil is meant to be a specialization that allows thieves to trade punches even vs. multiple foes, but it’s still not given the practical tools to do so, because even weakness as powerful as it can be, can also happen to not trigger at all for kittens, which is all it takes to down the thief.

Reducing the cast time on the heal skill would have been interesting to try out. I didn’t even give it any consideration with the 2.5s cast time.

Adding additional effects to the grandmaster traits is very good. It makes them more grandmaster. As it is, I still see the bound as reckless dodge with a new animation.

The new Havoc trait sounds great. It’d be a good candidate vs the weakness one. It fits the dare devil theme nicely, being that you have to be within a close range, and gives thieves back some damage that kept being taken away, which we need now with the crazy burst mesmers are putting out, and all the invulnerability skills used in the meta combined with strong support to undo the damage you did.

I’m not sure whether I’d put reduced damage from weakened foes or torment. Reduced damage sounds good for us but we have to build mostly for defense already, and weakness is already very strong and very annoying when it’s easily always on you from necros and other thieves. It depends on how many stacks and the duration of the condition, and the magnitude of the damage reduction I suppose. I’d probably take extra damage, even if it’s only a few stacks of torment at 0 condition damage, given the choice. It’d also give condi thieves something new to enjoy (and annoy me with).

There is still the issue of Steal. Dare devil doesn’t expand on it like the elite specs for the other classes did, at all. It just gives us one more bonus to landing steal. We now have: Deal 1.7-2k damage, gain 1.9k health, remove 2 boons, grant a stack of stolen boons to allies, gain vigor (~50% up-time, only source), daze target so you don’t take hits on arrival, gain 50 endurance, that we lose all of to a random dodge, unlucky blind, target enters stealth 2ms before activating, target goes invuln or blocks 2ms before activating etc. So many eggs in one basket. Some of this really should be baseline, because without beefing steal up, it’s so weak, and no other class loses so much of its build’s effectiveness and fails so many of its traits to one skill not hitting.

Impact.2780:

Reducing the cast time on the heal skill would have been interesting to try out. I didn’t even give it any consideration with the 2.5s cast time.

Adding additional effects to the grandmaster traits is very good. It makes them more grandmaster. As it is, I still see the bound as reckless dodge with a new animation.

The new Havoc trait sounds great. It’d be a good candidate vs the weakness one. It fits the dare devil theme nicely, being that you have to be within a close range, and gives thieves back some damage that kept being taken away, which we need now with the crazy burst mesmers are putting out, and all the invulnerability skills used in the meta combined with strong support to undo the damage you did.

I’m not sure whether I’d put reduced damage from weakened foes or torment. Reduced damage sounds good for us but we have to build mostly for defense already, and weakness is already very strong and very annoying when it’s easily always on you from necros and other thieves. It depends on how many stacks and the duration of the condition, and the magnitude of the damage reduction I suppose. I’d probably take extra damage, even if it’s only a few stacks of torment at 0 condition damage, given the choice. It’d also give condi thieves something new to enjoy (and annoy me with).

There is still the issue of Steal. Dare devil doesn’t expand on it like the elite specs for the other classes did, at all. It just gives us one more bonus to landing steal. We now have: Deal 1.7-2k damage, gain 1.9k health, remove 2 boons, grant a stack of stolen boons to allies, gain vigor (~50% up-time, only source), daze target so you don’t take hits on arrival, gain 50 endurance, that we lose all of to a random dodge, unlucky blind, target enters stealth 2ms before activating, target goes invuln or blocks 2ms before activating etc. So many eggs in one basket. Some of this really should be baseline, because without beefing steal up, it’s so weak, and no other class loses so much of its build’s effectiveness and fails so many of its traits to one skill not hitting.

steal should be unblockable first of all and undodgable…its an instant cast and would only make sense…why allow mantras to not be blockable/dodgeable as instant cast and not this?

About the grandmasters and different dodge types:

I would like to have the 3 dodge types aviable as attunements (like ele has it). Each with it’s ICD (10 sec. maybe).

The grandmasters than would buff one of the dodge-attunements. (10% bonus physical damage after dodging and reduced CD for Bounding Dodger etc.)

This way thiefs would have access to all three dodge-types in one fight but one type is always stronger than the other two.

Also condi thiefs wouldn’t be bound to Impaling Lotus etc.

Hulken.1385:

About the grandmasters and different dodge types:

I would like to have the 3 dodge types aviable as attunements (like ele has it). Each with it’s ICD (10 sec. maybe).

The grandmasters than would buff one of the dodge-attunements. (10% bonus physical damage after dodging and reduced CD for Bounding Dodger etc.)

This way thiefs would have access to all three dodge-types in one fight but one type is always stronger than the other two.

Also condi thiefs wouldn’t be bound to Impaling Lotus etc.

this, could also gain access to the dodge types as a STANCE, switch the stance get the dodge

Hulken.1385:

About the grandmasters and different dodge types:

I would like to have the 3 dodge types aviable as attunements (like ele has it). Each with it’s ICD (10 sec. maybe).

The grandmasters than would buff one of the dodge-attunements. (10% bonus physical damage after dodging and reduced CD for Bounding Dodger etc.)

This way thiefs would have access to all three dodge-types in one fight but one type is always stronger than the other two.

Also condi thiefs wouldn’t be bound to Impaling Lotus etc.

This is a must. I don’t know why they are not listening to us. At least tell us why they can’t implimebt this.

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

regarding pvp

you never see condi thief (even in wvw they are dying species)
as every other class got many immunity, debuff cleanse to conditions thief mst have more buff to their conditions
so i will vote adding 10 stacks of vulnerability (buff direct dmg and condi dmg) for 8 5 sec AOE also the weakness should be aoe but probably too op

i would give driven fortitude a protection for 3 sec when you evade . as we lack this boon.

also endurance thief – when you steal also your attacks unblockable for 2 sec – can bring back the d/d thief with the famous combo.

also pls make pistols 1100-1200 range . we lack stealth abilities thus we need more range than 900

try to think outside the d/p weapon set

staff i dont feel it would enter the pvp

Shogun.7401:

Hulken.1385:

About the grandmasters and different dodge types:

I would like to have the 3 dodge types aviable as attunements (like ele has it). Each with it’s ICD (10 sec. maybe).

The grandmasters than would buff one of the dodge-attunements. (10% bonus physical damage after dodging and reduced CD for Bounding Dodger etc.)

This way thiefs would have access to all three dodge-types in one fight but one type is always stronger than the other two.

Also condi thiefs wouldn’t be bound to Impaling Lotus etc.

This is a must. I don’t know why they are not listening to us. At least tell us why they can’t implimebt this.

At the very least for the two that deal damage, revert to normal dodge while in stealth, or allow us to toggle it on or off. Unless you’re D/P with SA and or vamp runes, you’re going to die inside refuge being unable to dodge.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

steal should be unblockable first of all and undodgable…its an instant cast and would only make sense…why allow mantras to not be blockable/dodgeable as instant cast and not this?

You can block and evade mantras.

Karl McLain.5604:

• Reduced channel time of Channeled Vigor from 2.25 to 0.75
• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second.

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

Do you really consider to buff Fist Flurry even even further? This already is the strongest, single utility skill in the entire game. It can potentially oneshot people if you land it correctly, comes with an inbuilt stun and armor ignoring damage. This skill is remotely overpowered in its current form, this buff will turn it further into a powercreep skill.

Same goes for the heal skill. Heal skills should have counterplay, heal skills should be used wisely at the right time and should proviide an opporturnity to counterplay, reducing the cast time slightly is okay, but this just turn the only single thief healing skill that has counterplay to it into another skill without much counterplay.

Also the defensive with weakening strikes is more then fitting. The spec is currently in a very good spot, it just goes a somewhat different route then the thief people are currently used to. By putting these changes into the game the Daredevil will be extremly OP by the time people starting to get used to, and mastering the spec.

Hi,
especially the Dmg reduction on dash!
I am finally looking forward to trying Daredevil.

Brujeria.7536:

Karl McLain.5604:

• Reduced channel time of Channeled Vigor from 2.25 to 0.75
• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second.

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

Do you really consider to buff Fist Flurry even even further? This already is the strongest, single utility skill in the entire game. It can potentially oneshot people if you land it correctly, comes with an inbuilt stun and armor ignoring damage. This skill is remotely overpowered in its current form, this buff will turn it further into a powercreep skill.

Same goes for the heal skill. Heal skills should have counterplay, heal skills should be used wisely at the right time and should proviide an opporturnity to counterplay, reducing the cast time slightly is okay, but this just turn the only single thief healing skill that has counterplay to it into another skill without much counterplay.

Also the defensive with weakening strikes is more then fitting. The spec is currently in a very good spot, it just goes a somewhat different route then the thief people are currently used to. By putting these changes into the game the Daredevil will be extremly OP by the time people starting to get used to, and mastering the spec.

why not, let’s reply to this.

fist flurry: if you get hit 5 times in the face without moving, and then get hit by a 6th attack, you deserve it. fist flurry brings nothing to the table other than raw damage, and the main effect of the skill is hidden behind a long channel that was almost impossible to land on anyone with half a brain. the skill is being made faster so that there’s actually a chance you’ll connect all kittens.

heal: this might shock you, but most healing skills in the game have either 0.75s or 1s cast time. in fact, there are some skills that have even shorter cast times (litany of wrath on guardian is a 0.25s cast time!). then you have the “counterplay” argument. well, shelter is a healing skill that can only be countered if you land unblockable CC on the guardian, because they’ll be blocking the full duration of the cast time. withdraw is an instant-cast heal that has evasion built into it. meanwhile, channeled vigor is a channeled skill, meaning if it’s interrupted at any point in those 0.75s, it will go on full cooldown with only half its effects applied, whereas all other heals, when interrupted, just go on a 5 second cooldown.

and no, it’s not about “learning to play” a new type of thief, because daredevil is mighty similar to another thief spec that was popular around 2014, the S/D evasion thief. no stealth, huge emphasis on evading, and the meta builds didn’t hit as hard then as they do now, so giving thief some much needed defensive options is very important.

All these changes seem like a good direction for daredevil and personally i think that daredevil’s taking less damage from weakened enemies could be a good boost in the survivablity outside of dodges that they could use.

Also the staff 4 currently just doesn’t seem worth using ever it should leave a line field of smoke after you use it to actually make it worth while.

Brujeria.7536:

Karl McLain.5604:

• Reduced channel time of Channeled Vigor from 2.25 to 0.75
• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second.

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

Do you really consider to buff Fist Flurry even even further? This already is the strongest, single utility skill in the entire game. It can potentially oneshot people if you land it correctly, comes with an inbuilt stun and armor ignoring damage. This skill is remotely overpowered in its current form, this buff will turn it further into a powercreep skill.

Same goes for the heal skill. Heal skills should have counterplay, heal skills should be used wisely at the right time and should proviide an opporturnity to counterplay, reducing the cast time slightly is okay, but this just turn the only single thief healing skill that has counterplay to it into another skill without much counterplay.

Also the defensive with weakening strikes is more then fitting. The spec is currently in a very good spot, it just goes a somewhat different route then the thief people are currently used to. By putting these changes into the game the Daredevil will be extremly OP by the time people starting to get used to, and mastering the spec.

First time i can’t agree on anything some one posted. o_O

FistFlurry is far from being the strongest utility skill. It does quite a lot of damage if you hit all if it hits which is kinda impossible against anyone who knows how to move or dodge. Even worse against someone with stability. I bet you only tried it against golems or the NPCs in HotM.

There are a lot of healing skills which are much harder to counter or are even impossible to counter than a 0,75 channel skill. Just because you wish healing skills were hard to use doesn’t mean that’s the reality.

People had enough time to figure out how to play as DareDevil. It’s not like everyone tested for only half an hour before they wrote their suggestions and complains. DareDevil is NOT in a good spot in the state it was in the last BWE and it sure as hell won’t be overpowered with those changes.

All in all i get the feeling you don’t even play DareDevil and just don’t want it to be strong so there is one less class you have to worry about in sPvP/WvW.

Edit:
One thing that came to my mind. The less damage from weakened enemys sure is nice….when you duel and spam #2 due it’s short weakening duration. As soon as there is another enemy tho your survivability goes against zero again since you can’t have both of them weakened at the same time.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Brujeria.7536:

Karl McLain.5604:

• Reduced channel time of Channeled Vigor from 2.25 to 0.75
• Fist Flurry: Reduced cast time by 20%. note: The final strike occurs just prior to 1 second.

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

Do you really consider to buff Fist Flurry even even further? This already is the strongest, single utility skill in the entire game. It can potentially oneshot people if you land it correctly, comes with an inbuilt stun and armor ignoring damage. This skill is remotely overpowered in its current form, this buff will turn it further into a powercreep skill.

Same goes for the heal skill. Heal skills should have counterplay, heal skills should be used wisely at the right time and should proviide an opporturnity to counterplay, reducing the cast time slightly is okay, but this just turn the only single thief healing skill that has counterplay to it into another skill without much counterplay.

Also the defensive with weakening strikes is more then fitting. The spec is currently in a very good spot, it just goes a somewhat different route then the thief people are currently used to. By putting these changes into the game the Daredevil will be extremly OP by the time people starting to get used to, and mastering the spec.

why not, let’s reply to this.

fist flurry: if you get hit 5 times in the face without moving, and then get hit by a 6th attack, you deserve it. fist flurry brings nothing to the table other than raw damage, and the main effect of the skill is hidden behind a long channel that was almost impossible to land on anyone with half a brain. the skill is being made faster so that there’s actually a chance you’ll connect all kittens.

heal: this might shock you, but most healing skills in the game have either 0.75s or 1s cast time. in fact, there are some skills that have even shorter cast times (litany of wrath on guardian is a 0.25s cast time!). then you have the “counterplay” argument. well, shelter is a healing skill that can only be countered if you land unblockable CC on the guardian, because they’ll be blocking the full duration of the cast time. withdraw is an instant-cast heal that has evasion built into it. meanwhile, channeled vigor is a channeled skill, meaning if it’s interrupted at any point in those 0.75s, it will go on full cooldown with only half its effects applied, whereas all other heals, when interrupted, just go on a 5 second cooldown.

and no, it’s not about “learning to play” a new type of thief, because daredevil is mighty similar to another thief spec that was popular around 2014, the S/D evasion thief. no stealth, huge emphasis on evading, and the meta builds didn’t hit as hard then as they do now, so giving thief some much needed defensive options is very important.

Fist flurry does offer some insane amount of damage, it is supposed to be hard to land. Its supposed to be chained onto a CC’d target. Thief and especially Daredevil has some very potent access to CC, Panic Strike, Basilisk Venom, Staff stealth attack, shortbow stealth attack, Bandits defence, also things like quickness can easily get this to get a full channel. This gets much easier if you consider teammates can also CC, and as a thief you mostl likely will +1 fights to end them quick. The amount of power this offers in regular play is just too much already, buffing this even further will turn it into a no brainer. Skills that are hard to land should get a big benefit, the benfit in this case would be way too high for the difficult.

Yes there are some heal skills that have an even lower cast time. Most of them do have counterplay to them. Lithany of Wrath can be counterplayer by disengaging as soon as it gets popped. Same as Defiant stance. Necro heals have long cast times to be interrupted. Healing skills in general can be poisoned. Skills that cant be countered so easily like shelter tend to have longer cooldowns or a lesser amount of healing. The amount of defense a Daredevil has once people realise theres more stuff then stealth is already huge, the amount of counterplay is also low, blocks with no cast time, a very high number of dodges, mobility and cc, stealth from traits and a second weaponset. This further eliminates every counterplay.

While thief will never be as durable as a warrior by nature it lacks a lot of counterplay. Many mechanics of the thief cant be countered unless youre another thief. They slowly add ways to counter stealth which is a good thing, this also enables to buff the other defensive aspects of the thief on the long run, yet they repeat the past mistakes by putting more stuff onto the thief with close to no counterplay attached. Even if the cast time would be upped to 3 seconds, you can still shadowstep away easily before using it. Or leaping away. You can also reduce the cast time a bit, but also adjusting its effect. Keeping it at the current strenght while minimizing the amount of potential counterplay is just over the top.

Toran.4230:

Edit:
One thing that came to my mind. The less damage from weakened enemys sure is nice….when you duel and spam #2 due it’s short weakening duration. As soon as there is another enemy tho your survivability goes against zero again since you can’t have both of them weakened at the same time.

. #2 is AoE, and the trait applies weakness on crit. also, it’s an adept trait, it’s supposed to be good, not a gamechanger :P

Brujeria.7536:

Fist flurry does offer some insane amount of damage, it is supposed to be hard to land. Its supposed to be chained onto a CC’d target. Thief and especially Daredevil has some very potent access to CC, Panic Strike, Basilisk Venom, Staff stealth attack, shortbow stealth attack, Bandits defence, also things like quickness can easily get this to get a full channel. This gets much easier if you consider teammates can also CC, and as a thief you mostl likely will +1 fights to end them quick. The amount of power this offers in regular play is just too much already, buffing this even further will turn it into a no brainer. Skills that are hard to land should get a big benefit, the benfit in this case would be way too high for the difficult.

Yes there are some heal skills that have an even lower cast time. Most of them do have counterplay to them. Lithany of Wrath can be counterplayer by disengaging as soon as it gets popped. Same as Defiant stance. Necro heals have long cast times to be interrupted. Healing skills in general can be poisoned. Skills that cant be countered so easily like shelter tend to have longer cooldowns or a lesser amount of healing. The amount of defense a Daredevil has once people realise theres more stuff then stealth is already huge, the amount of counterplay is also low, blocks with no cast time, a very high number of dodges, mobility and cc, stealth from traits and a second weaponset. This further eliminates every counterplay.

While thief will never be as durable as a warrior by nature it lacks a lot of counterplay. Many mechanics of the thief cant be countered unless youre another thief. They slowly add ways to counter stealth which is a good thing, this also enables to buff the other defensive aspects of the thief on the long run, yet they repeat the past mistakes by putting more stuff onto the thief with close to no counterplay attached. Even if the cast time would be upped to 3 seconds, you can still shadowstep away easily before using it. Or leaping away. You can also reduce the cast time a bit, but also adjusting its effect. Keeping it at the current strenght while minimizing the amount of potential counterplay is just over the top.

No offense, but I’m going to make an assumption here and say you main a necro. Judging by your comments in this thread, I am also feeling a bit confident in saying that you probably don’t know a whole lot about the state of thief, because you don’t actually play one competitively.

Thief is by far the weakest class currently in the game, as far as PvP goes (I’m talking skilled players only). Their “role” of being a “+1” (which I don’t agree is a role at all, because literally anybody can do this), and a “decapper” is kind of sad. Take away SB5 from a thief, and they are literally nothing, which can be replaced by just about any other class. The entire thief class currently is carried by SB5.

I saw, quite literally, one DD thief using Fist Flurry (FF) throughout the entirety of BWE2 & 3 in sPvP. Why?…because the class is hurting for better utilities than what it’s forced to use to stay alive. Shadowstep for stunbreaks and condi clears, SR to rez and run, SoA for bonus dodges, and Bandit’s Defense for stunbreak. Do you know what happened to that thief that was using FF? He ate dirt. If he ever attempted to use FF, he either wasted it without being able to land all the hits (wasted utility), or if he used it with BV, he got kicked in the teeth from stunbreaks, like Bandit’s Defense. The only real use for FF would be to increase your DPS in PvE…and really, the damage it deals is nothing out of this world that would break PvE.

You’re discussing on paper, while I’m talking about REAL application. In reality, at any given time, a thief does not have access to EVERYTHING, and they need to survive desperately. It’s a class that melts so fast that it doesn’t have room to waste a utility slot.

Shogun.7401:

This is a must. I don’t know why they are not listening to us. At least tell us why they can’t implement this.

Because it’s preposterous power creep?
Because it’s only ever been a viable path for the Daredevil to evolve in the fantasies of a couple of players?
Because you didn’t recognize the muffled pop-pop-pop sound that accompanied the unveiling of the new GM trait bonuses as the sound of the ‘dodge toggle’ being taken out behind the woodshed and having three bullets inserted in its skull?

Every time they’ve enhanced the GM traits in even the slightest way has been a move directly away from making them all available on a toggle. It was a neat idea when they were first presented and sorely lacking. It’s an outright absurd notion with what they’ve grown up to become.

Impact.2780:

At the very least for the two that deal damage, revert to normal dodge while in stealth, or allow us to toggle it on or off. Unless you’re D/P with SA and or vamp runes, you’re going to die inside refuge being unable to dodge.

Now this I agree with — with two out of three dodges doing damage and the third being less than ideal for stealth fighters, making at least one of the damaging dodges not do damage while in stealth would help the Daredevil mesh with existing Thief strategies.

I agree that the dodges should probably not fire their effects in stealth, just for the sake of synergy and build variety.

However, I feel that balance is balance, if bound and lotus don’t fire their special effects in stealth, neither should dash. Seems only fair.

Karl for the record I think you should give both on weaken. Condition damage does such little damage compared to white damage. It’s more challenging to deal full damage in pve AND pvp. Cond damage that’s not removed SHOULD deal more damage than white damage. Or maybe have ferocity affect Condition damage crits?

Why not just have a F3 that lets you toggle the special dodge currently equipped on/off?

Kayji.4390:

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

we already receive reduced damage from weakend foes lol.

Trait would have to be receive no damage from foes to make that worth something, ore make it 50% chance to not crit, 25% damage reduction on hits that crit or something… i don’t know, its just not creative imo.

Michael.9517:

Kayji.4390:

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

we already receive reduced damage from weaked foes lol.

Trait would have to be receive no damage from foes

There is a surprising amount of room between inflicts an average of 75% of its damage (weakness) and 0%. A talented acrobat line the Daredevil should have no difficulty landing on a ledge that wide…

lol this Brujeria.7536 guy. he is demanding buffs for necros and nerfs for thieves, revenants, warriors, engineers and mesmers. i really dislike those kind of ppl.

Michael.9517:

Kayji.4390:

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

we already receive reduced damage from weakend foes lol.

Trait would have to be receive no damage from foes to make that worth something, ore make it 50% chance to not crit, 25% damage reduction on hits that crit or something… i don’t know, its just not creative imo.

ok, let me do some quick math here.

weakness is 50% chance to do 50% damage. that means, on average, a weakened foe is hitting with 75% of their full strength.

the trait would be X% on top of that. with 10% damage from weakened foes, the number drops to 67.5%. 15% drops to ~64%, and 20% drops to 60%.

for reference, just in case someone is really bad at maths, 66.6% is 2/3.

that means that with weakness + 10% damage reduction, we’re shaving a whole third off of someone’s damage against you, and that stacks with protection and frost aura (which, granted, are two things thieves rarely get access to). that’s huge. i’d argue that the damage reduction should be 15%, because then it’s closer to “true 10%” reduction, rather than “10% on top of another percentage”.

but either way, my point is that damage reduction against weakened foes, even with low-ish percentages, is a massive thing, especially for a class that has such high weakness uptime.

All true. Believe me, the prospect of my Thief being a first-round draft pick for raid-tank has me salivating.

I really agree with Silverbolt’s suggestions on Page 2. My main issue is that I love the concept of DD and I have a moderate amount of fun in its current state, but I feel like I’m handicapping myself by choosing Staff in favour of the weapons currently available.

Sure these Trait updates sound fine, but what’s most important to me are Staff dmg improvements, effect execution (i.e.: Weakening Charge evade, Debilitating Arc daze, Dust Strike PBAoE blind w/ blast finisher )… and animation improvements. I almost love Daredevil and I almost have fun playing it.

The current animations detract from the fun factor because, outside of Vault (which I agree with many, is suicide without evades), the weapon animations lack in style and are not very exciting. Most of the other Elite Specialization skills have cool new animations and Daredevil feels dull in comparison. Not that I think everything needs to be as gorgeously visualized (and sound designed as well!) as Druid or Reaper or Chronomancer or Scrapper, but it would be nice to feel that Daredevil was given moderately equal love in this department.

These such changes would have me loving the class and on its side, but until then I feel it has great potential but leaves much to be desired.

Karl McLain.5604:

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

+1 on receiving less damage on weakened foes. (not chance to, flat out reduction)
thieves really need damage mitigation especially with your plans to introduce more damage that can’t be dodged.

Thanks for your planned changes to make the DD GM traits up to par with others.
Just to echo what others said, would really like the ability to change the dodge
like ele attunements. The GM traits themselves adding the ‘extra functionality’
to just one specific dodge (+ dmg, +condi, damage reduction). Meaning if you picked
the GM for Unhindered Combat, you’ll gain the damage reduction but won’t get the extra dmg if you use Bounding Dodge or Impaling Lotus.

Nike.2631:

All true. Believe me, the prospect of my Thief being a first-round draft pick for raid-tank has me salivating.

Nothing against you as player . . . but I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

Silverbolt.2301:

Brujeria.7536:

Fist flurry does offer some insane amount of damage, it is supposed to be hard to land. Its supposed to be chained onto a CC’d target. Thief and especially Daredevil has some very potent access to CC, Panic Strike, Basilisk Venom, Staff stealth attack, shortbow stealth attack, Bandits defence, also things like quickness can easily get this to get a full channel. This gets much easier if you consider teammates can also CC, and as a thief you mostl likely will +1 fights to end them quick. The amount of power this offers in regular play is just too much already, buffing this even further will turn it into a no brainer. Skills that are hard to land should get a big benefit, the benfit in this case would be way too high for the difficult.

Yes there are some heal skills that have an even lower cast time. Most of them do have counterplay to them. Lithany of Wrath can be counterplayer by disengaging as soon as it gets popped. Same as Defiant stance. Necro heals have long cast times to be interrupted. Healing skills in general can be poisoned. Skills that cant be countered so easily like shelter tend to have longer cooldowns or a lesser amount of healing. The amount of defense a Daredevil has once people realise theres more stuff then stealth is already huge, the amount of counterplay is also low, blocks with no cast time, a very high number of dodges, mobility and cc, stealth from traits and a second weaponset. This further eliminates every counterplay.

While thief will never be as durable as a warrior by nature it lacks a lot of counterplay. Many mechanics of the thief cant be countered unless youre another thief. They slowly add ways to counter stealth which is a good thing, this also enables to buff the other defensive aspects of the thief on the long run, yet they repeat the past mistakes by putting more stuff onto the thief with close to no counterplay attached. Even if the cast time would be upped to 3 seconds, you can still shadowstep away easily before using it. Or leaping away. You can also reduce the cast time a bit, but also adjusting its effect. Keeping it at the current strenght while minimizing the amount of potential counterplay is just over the top.

No offense, but I’m going to make an assumption here and say you main a necro. Judging by your comments in this thread, I am also feeling a bit confident in saying that you probably don’t know a whole lot about the state of thief, because you don’t actually play one competitively.

Thief is by far the weakest class currently in the game, as far as PvP goes (I’m talking skilled players only). Their “role” of being a “+1” (which I don’t agree is a role at all, because literally anybody can do this), and a “decapper” is kind of sad. Take away SB5 from a thief, and they are literally nothing, which can be replaced by just about any other class. The entire thief class currently is carried by SB5.

I saw, quite literally, one DD thief using Fist Flurry (FF) throughout the entirety of BWE2 & 3 in sPvP. Why?…because the class is hurting for better utilities than what it’s forced to use to stay alive. Shadowstep for stunbreaks and condi clears, SR to rez and run, SoA for bonus dodges, and Bandit’s Defense for stunbreak. Do you know what happened to that thief that was using FF? He ate dirt. If he ever attempted to use FF, he either wasted it without being able to land all the hits (wasted utility), or if he used it with BV, he got kicked in the teeth from stunbreaks, like Bandit’s Defense. The only real use for FF would be to increase your DPS in PvE…and really, the damage it deals is nothing out of this world that would break PvE.

You’re discussing on paper, while I’m talking about REAL application. In reality, at any given time, a thief does not have access to EVERYTHING, and they need to survive desperately. It’s a class that melts so fast that it doesn’t have room to waste a utility slot.

I know enough about the current state of the game to make these suggestions. The thief currently has some issues with surviving, especially in teamfight scenarios. By buffing DPS skills to an absurd level these arent going to be solved.

No thief is not the weakest class in PvP at the moment. As long as his mobility is that high, his ganking potential is so high and as long as conquest is the only really competetive PvP gamemode thief is very strong. Not on a teamfight base, , not in a pure 1vs1 base, but at the state of the game which is based around rotations, map control and quickly decapping points.

Thief does indeed have some issues with surviving, i give you that. But also people are refusing to go for more tanky stats. Improving DPS based skills isnt fixing the thiefs current problems, and by the time they are adressing the real problems it will become incredible overpowered and people will cry for nerfs.

In the actual game thief needs his utility skills for survival, but this should not be 100% neccessary, it should be a choice bases on builds and the intented gamestyle. The trait lines and some weapon skills need help to create more possibilities, more staying power and defense should you need that. You wont fix these problems by overbuffing a burst DPS focused utility skill, no matter if you look at it in game or on paper.

Arrow.4619:

Nike.2631:

All true. Believe me, the prospect of my Thief being a first-round draft pick for raid-tank has me salivating.

Nothing against you as player . . . but I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

I’m not offended. What’s your concern? Best capacity to dodge in game, 10% mitigation after dodge, dishes weakness, self-heals left, right, and center (on hit and on spend initiative), evade on #3.

Bunker thieves (all 8 of us in the entire game…) are already incredibly tanky. The last round of changes builds on that like I could only dream of.