Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one who has a problem with this not being a minor? Doesn’t seem like we would have much choice but to choose it otherwise, even though other the master traits are pretty good.

Maybe swap it with Brawler’s Tenacity but I don’t know just my thoughts.

Edit: Was more tired then I thought. Swap Driven Fortitude with Escapist’s Absolution

Edit: P.S. I know its a long shot but since he responded another post… Karl could we get a response here?

I think it’s very strong and competes pretty well with the other choices in that slot. You can gain a big source of endurance sustain + damage, a big source of condition removal or essentially Halting Strike. It’s a tough choice and honestly it should be.

It kind of feels like it should be combined with the GM minor, to be honest.

It’s a real choice based on game mode and the rest of your spec. As an example, I run a S/P Thief in PvE-side content almost exclusively, and honestly? My gut choice is to go for Impacting Disruption over Escapist’s Absolution. Trickster, plus knowing what/when to evade, is generally (just) enough to get by in PvE, and those Pulmonary Impacts sound like a real winner in a weapon set with a lot of interrupts.

A Staff user would have no real reason to shoot for ID, but they’d gain a metric ton of benefit from Staff Master. All the dojes. The bog-standard D/P builds would likely have more room for EA, and obviously EA is the top PvP choice…unless you want to Headshot your way to exploded hearts.

We’ll see what happens after BWE2, I suppose.

The tier seems to fit 3 different playstyles.
1) Condi removal if you don’t have any other or need the extra
2)Extra dodges and damage for staff
3)Extra damage for S/X users and X/P users via interrupts

I agree with you it should be a minor. Or else we are stuck with Shadow Arts for condi cleansing again. SA & DareD don’t match well.

There at that point there is no way we can survive being VISIBILE, with no condition cleansing. We won’t have much choice but take Escapist absolution.

They should replace Driven Fortitude with Escapist’s Absolution. Healing on dodge is alright, I am willing to forgoe heals to get EA.

yeah this is rather limiting. You can never take Staff master at all, despite it being an excellent trait. if you play with staff you have very limited stealth and thus have no condi removal at all and will die if you take staff master.

For other builds if you dont pick EA you are forced to take entire spec (deadly arts) and forced to specific playstyle – lots of stealth. S/P is great with daredevil but you cant make use of the interupt trait, cause you dont really want to stealth a lot as S/P and would rather not take DA at all.

Switch it with Driven fortitude. DF is strong enough trait to compete on its own. You get a condi clear that has synergy with the specialisation style in general. And you get to pick if you want to improve staff, improve your healing, or improve your interupts – something for every playstyle. Thats a real choice and you arent forced into anything.

Switching them around would be a huge improvement to the quality of the spec and general thief build diversity without making anything overpowered.

Or as you said switch it with Brawler but i feel Driven Fortitude makes more sense design wise.

A free condition removal on every dodge for a spec that has 3 dodges per bar along with a ton of ways to recover it would be just a wee bit too strong for a minor trait, rofl!

Stilgar.6437:

yeah this is rather limiting. You can never take Staff master at all, despite it being an excellent trait. if you play with staff you have very limited stealth and thus have no condi removal at all and will die if you take staff master.

For other builds if you dont pick EA you are forced to take entire spec (deadly arts) and forced to specific playstyle – lots of stealth. S/P is great with daredevil but you cant make use of the interupt trait, cause you dont really want to stealth a lot as S/P and would rather not take DA at all.

Switch it with Driven fortitude. DF is strong enough trait to compete on its own. You get a condi clear that has synergy with the specialisation style in general. And you get to pick if you want to improve staff, improve your healing, or improve your interupts – something for every playstyle. Thats a real choice and you arent forced into anything.

Switching them around would be a huge improvement to the quality of the spec and general thief build diversity without making anything overpowered.

Or as you said switch it with Brawler but i feel Driven Fortitude makes more sense design wise.

Imo, condition removal on dodge should be fused with heal on dodge to allow us to pick up Pulmonary Impact trait or Staff trait. Then we can get a new trait introduced that maybe gives you a stack of might on dodge allowing for condi/hybrid builds to stack might for their damage.

But as it stands right now, I see the staff trait as more of a PvE thing. You can avoid dodging and get 10% damage boost when cleaving mobs.

I strongly disagree. STRONGLY. Considering how many dodges Daredevil will get, having it as a minor trait would mean that you’d never have a condition on you for more than a second or two. It would be like facing an ele with diamond skin except for their entire health pool for condition focused builds.

It’s a strong trait and well in line with the other choices it’s paired with.

Well I guess we have to see how it plays out in the Beta. This is just my wishful thinking though as I have always wanted that exact trait in the Acrobatics line. I still think there should be an option to build might on an evade for condition/hybrid builds as well since there seems to be some viability for that with Daredevil.

Starlightmagus.8654:

I strongly disagree. STRONGLY. Considering how many dodges Daredevil will get, having it as a minor trait would mean that you’d never have a condition on you for more than a second or two. It would be like facing an ele with diamond skin except for their entire health pool for condition focused builds.

It’s a strong trait and well in line with the other choices it’s paired with.

It’s not in line with the other traits at all. The competition is not even a question here.
This whole spec line relies on dodge and the not the dependency on stealth like the other specs.

This means if you roll DareD, you probably won’t be choosing SA. Simply because if you can dodge that much why stealth? trait SA with DareD would be a waste.

SA is the main defense/ survival trait. It is the main and ONLY condition soap we have.
If the Daredevil is not expect to stealth at all, then it should be logical that condition cleaning be attributed to dodging. Not only that, but it should be a minor, available to any Daredevil.

DareD replaces SA, having DareD and SA for a minimum of sustain is borderline stupid.

and 3 dodges? ok… so? 3 dodges doesn’t change a thing when it comes to condition. If it’s applied it stays end of story. Dodges are for physical, direct damage.

we need this. We really do.

For all purposes, DD gets more like 4 dodges than 3 since F1 will give you one dodge instantly.

Also, you make the same mistake many players do about conditions and direct damage. You can dodge direct damage. You can also dodge condition applying skills.

Condition removal is the equivalent of toughness for direct damage. Dodge is dodge and works the same for both like Vitality.

stof.9341:

For all purposes, DD gets more like 4 dodges than 3 since F1 will give you one dodge instantly.

Also, you make the same mistake many players do about conditions and direct damage. You can dodge direct damage. You can also dodge condition applying skills.

Condition removal is the equivalent of toughness for direct damage. Dodge is dodge and works the same for both like Vitality.

I have to disagree with the dodging conditions. The consequences are completely different.

I agree dodge rolling on a Necro’s mark allows me to dodge the conditions and there a many examples like that and I am with you on that one.
But there is no way, the consequences are the same. I mean there is a reason why conditions are the #1 killers and becoming the most popular builds overtime.

For the condi player’s perspective, Dodged conditions has less of an impacts than dodged physical moves. If you miss your moves as a powerbuild you are in kitten you wasted your moves and you left your opponent at an advantage.

Not so much with conditions, because 1 small mistake from your ennemy guarantees a huge amount of damage no matter what. The moment it is applied the job is done…

The only way to make condition build a real challenge, or even counter, it is to add condition cleaning capabilities. This is a direct correlation. (It’s either this or completely obliteraing them in a race against time.)

You can fight perfectly against a Perplexity P/D thieves, but you miss the timing even once and that’s it. All you need is 5 stacks of bleed, 3 torments and maybe 4 confusion and my HP is halved. Applied maybe twice, and i am dead. Condition Builds are more powerful than Power builds and will remain so for a long while. Dodge needs a condi clean to make up for this discrepancy.

But that’s not something inherent to condition vs power!

Kocoff.7582:

Starlightmagus.8654:

I strongly disagree. STRONGLY. Considering how many dodges Daredevil will get, having it as a minor trait would mean that you’d never have a condition on you for more than a second or two. It would be like facing an ele with diamond skin except for their entire health pool for condition focused builds.

It’s a strong trait and well in line with the other choices it’s paired with.

It’s not in line with the other traits at all. The competition is not even a question here.
This whole spec line relies on dodge and the not the dependency on stealth like the other specs.

This means if you roll DareD, you probably won’t be choosing SA. Simply because if you can dodge that much why stealth? trait SA with DareD would be a waste.

SA is the main defense/ survival trait. It is the main and ONLY condition soap we have.
If the Daredevil is not expect to stealth at all, then it should be logical that condition cleaning be attributed to dodging. Not only that, but it should be a minor, available to any Daredevil.

DareD replaces SA, having DareD and SA for a minimum of sustain is borderline stupid.

and 3 dodges? ok… so? 3 dodges doesn’t change a thing when it comes to condition. If it’s applied it stays end of story. Dodges are for physical, direct damage.

we need this. We really do.

3 dodges if you use them all back to back, don’t use Steal, and don’t use vigor or the Acrobatics line. Trickster is another trait that removes Conditions, and dodging in general ‘negates’ condition applying skills. The truth is that Thief is not going to be designed at being a condition-cleansing machine. With this trait, it effectively becomes one. What you’re asking is for every Thief who takes the Daredevil spec to become effectively immune to conditions, ESPECIALLY if they take any of the other condi cleansing traits. As it stands, when you take this trait, you don’t HAVE to take other condi clearing traits which…you know, clears that necessity up to make other choices. Or you can take them and become the bane of every condition class ever.

It’s a very powerful trait. You have to look at it in combination with others, and not simply in a vacuum. I main thief, and I’m highly opposed to it being baseline. That would be a disaster. As I stated earlier, imagine if every Ele who took the Earth line was immune to conditions for, say, 50% of their health pool. It would literally break the class. The same holds true for Thief and this trait.

stof.9341:

For all purposes, DD gets more like 4 dodges than 3 since F1 will give you one dodge instantly.

Also, you make the same mistake many players do about conditions and direct damage. You can dodge direct damage. You can also dodge condition applying skills.

Condition removal is the equivalent of toughness for direct damage. Dodge is dodge and works the same for both like Vitality.

Tend to agree if with this line of thinking, We’re going to be dodging a lot, surely we can dodge a few nasty skills,
This trait is “on evade” anyways, so your have going to actually dodge something.

BobbyT.7192:

stof.9341:

For all purposes, DD gets more like 4 dodges than 3 since F1 will give you one dodge instantly.

Also, you make the same mistake many players do about conditions and direct damage. You can dodge direct damage. You can also dodge condition applying skills.

Condition removal is the equivalent of toughness for direct damage. Dodge is dodge and works the same for both like Vitality.

Tend to agree if with this line of thinking, We’re going to be dodging a lot, surely we can dodge a few nasty skills,
This trait is “on evade” anyways, so your have going to actually dodge something.

Oh wow, I just noticed that. That actually makes it even ‘more’ powerful, because if you’re using something like S/D or S/P (or Shortbow 3), you’re going to be just constantly stripping off conditions.

Again boys, I must disagree.

Trickery line removes 1 condition as long you are using 1 trick. If Trickster truly worked, being a line we are all used to, we would not be having this discussion. All of us Thieves are probably using Trickery line right now, and I don’t think it’s valid enough to argue Trickery should be enough, because it is not.

If condition cleansing doesn’t change lines or become a minor, then we’ ll start seeing a lot of Daredevil having to revert back to SA for sustainable condition cleansing. Low damage is gonna go even lower. It will be a lot less enjoyable.

Trickery doesn’t help and SA will make no sense whatsoever simply because it’s focus on stealth.

I want it to be either a Minor or at the very least be a adept move. OR even get rid of Driven Fortitude cause when it comes to healing, us Thieves can manage.

Escapist’s Absolution has a icd of 1 sec which seems fast but will probably turn out to be once per skill use and or dodge.

The thing is though, why would Daredevils revert to SA when they could just…choose the trait? I mean, sure, if you want one of the others and still want reliable condi cleansing you’ll have to pick that up elsewhere. I personally run Trickery in my current build with Trickster, and while I can still die to conditions, it’s pretty rare unless I get condi burst locked. In which case it doesn’t matter whether it was conditions or direct damage. Also don’t forget that one of your heal skills is also a condition cleanse even without Trickster, if you’re particularly worried about it.

Edit: I feel I should also note that Withdraw will actually condi cleanse with this trait more often than not, as you’ll be evading an attack with it. xD

Starlightmagus.8654:

BobbyT.7192:

stof.9341:

For all purposes, DD gets more like 4 dodges than 3 since F1 will give you one dodge instantly.

Also, you make the same mistake many players do about conditions and direct damage. You can dodge direct damage. You can also dodge condition applying skills.

Condition removal is the equivalent of toughness for direct damage. Dodge is dodge and works the same for both like Vitality.

Tend to agree if with this line of thinking, We’re going to be dodging a lot, surely we can dodge a few nasty skills,
This trait is “on evade” anyways, so your have going to actually dodge something.

Oh wow, I just noticed that. That actually makes it even ‘more’ powerful, because if you’re using something like S/D or S/P (or Shortbow 3), you’re going to be just constantly stripping off conditions.

1 sec icd, but ya, we are not limited to our actually dodge bar, this trait as is would be way too strong as a minor,
If it were to become a minor, i could see Anet putting a 10 sec icd on it. and no one wants that.

Starlightmagus.8654:

The thing is though, why would Daredevils revert to SA when they could just…choose the trait? I mean, sure, if you want one of the others and still want reliable condi cleansing you’ll have to pick that up elsewhere. I personally run Trickery in my current build with Trickster, and while I can still die to conditions, it’s pretty rare unless I get condi burst locked. In which case it doesn’t matter whether it was conditions or direct damage. Also don’t forget that one of your heal skills is also a condition cleanse even without Trickster, if you’re particularly worried about it.

Edit: I feel I should also note that Withdraw will actually condi cleanse with this trait more often than not, as you’ll be evading an attack with it. xD

I just feel like being stealthed allowed you to condi cleanse, and recuperate your inits, and breath out a little (sometimes literraly). Being constantly visible as a squishy thief (I know you don’t have to but again DareD has this playstyle), leaves the need to condition cleaning more necessary. It’s true Hide in Shadow helps, a lot. It is also true that getting condi locked to like 5-6 conditions is a consequence of bad play.

I disagree however that the only way to avoid condis is to not get condis… and the arguments I have read so far revolve around “well mate, don’t get hit.” There should be more counters available to conditions and the most effcient one should be this one, especially on an adept line. Apart from regens and heals.

note it’s on evasion meaning once again, that getting condi locks leads to the same sad death.

Heavy power build damage are countered with Weakness.It is only logical that Heavy condition build damage are countered with condition soap.
Yes? No? or should I just give up lol.

If it becomes a minor, the ICD will absolutely increase. By a huge margin. It’s fine. Leave it. For the love of god.

Should point out that this condi clear trait would be the only one in the the game that has counter play to it. All you have to do is stop attacking once you have a few condi ticking.

The others have a point that the ICD would increase as a minor. And yeah, I get where you’re coming from about it being a viable counter to conditions, but keep in mind that you ‘can’ take it if you’re worried about cleansing conditions rapidly. Otherwise, Staff Mastery actually helps negate conditions by regenerating Endurance more quickly and giving you more dodges to avoid them being applied.

I think a good halfway point here would be adding Resistance to the trait Pain Response in Acrobatics. Like…2-3 seconds of it only, mind. But it would cleanse damaging conditions and prevent them from being reapplied immediately, thus giving you a way to avoid massive condition burst.

Edit: Though if you did that, you should probably remove the Regen.

There’s also condition clear weapon sigils. Not that anybody uses those.

I suppose I’m just looking at this and figuring that the line is actually built pretty well. Health-on-doj as a minor supports all playstyles and all gametypes – everybody, everywhere, will at some point lose health and need to regain it, while conditions are somewhat less universal.

This trait is potentially extremely powerful and impactful, but so are Staff Master (for those zanies out there who actually want to use the durned thing) or Impacting Disruption. All three traits have a clear role/job, each one offers a different option. SM is an excellent offense/defense booster for staff users, ID is potentially huge for interrupt-heavy sets, and if neither of those applies (Dag/Dag sets, as an example), then take EA and say good-bye to condition woes.

I’m thinking we can at least wait for BWE2 to see how it works out. Admittedly, I’m a dirty scrubby soulless skill-less go-hang-yourself-nub PvE player, not a PvP guy…but like others have said, if you’re that worried about conditions, then you can just take EA. Nobody’s going to use staff in PvP anyways, and who takes interrupt traits?

To be fair, the interrupt trait is massively good, like Halting Strike. Off-hand Pistol would have a field day with that.

This a powerful trait as is. This cleanses on evades and not just dodges. Yes it can be harder to evade than dodge but there are plenty of sources of evades. As example s/d has an evade , withdraw has an evade, RFI has an evade. SB has an evade.

One can trait trickery/DD and get 5 conditions removed on a withdraw.

Now add to that the sheer number of dodges we also get. Steal adds an extra in the dd line, endurance now 150 base. This is going to be a whole lot of condition removal all on its own. If you got hard to catch on you get a refill of ALL endurance (150) after a stun.

I currently trait trickster with a sigil of purity in a DD build. That does a pretty decent job of keeping Condis off and when I get gob smacked by a number can easily drop into stealth for the SE cleanse. THIS trait is way better condi cleanse then trickster.

it is fine.

What will ultimately decide weather this trait has any solid uses is the interaction between ground targeted fields that pulse conditions and weather dodging through them counts as a dodge, cause unless your opponent is auto-attacking you (and if they’re not a thief, there’s a good chance they are while their main skills are on cooldown) you might run out of things to dodge to cleanse conditions. But it looks like with very tight control on a skill rotation thieve’s might be able to pull semi-decent damage negation with a staff/shortbow combination fairly consistent dodge-rolls and bandit’s defence to negate single target threats.

But this will all come out in the next BWE, so don’t get too caught up in “facts” yet; we’ve waited this long, what’s another week?

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

Hyperbole does not an argument make. If you claim 0 condition removal outside SA and Escapists absolution than that had better be the case as we are all thieves here and are well aware of condition removal sources.

Shadowstep is condition removal. Pain response is condition removal. Trickster is condition removal. Withdraw is condition removal. RFI is condition removal. HIS is condition removal. Sigils of purity and of cleansing and of generosity are all condition removal.

Using this trait and trickster just as example gives the potential for 5 conditions removed (three fixed types) every 15 seconds. None of this adds up to 0.

babazhook.6805:

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

Hyperlobe does not an argument make. If you claim 0 condition removal outside SA then that had better be the case as we are all theives here and are well aware of condition removal sources.

Shadowstep is condition removal. Pain response is condition removal. Trickster is condition removal. Withdraw is condition removal. RFI is condition removal. HIS is condition removal. Sigils of purity and of cleansing and of Generoisty is condition removal.

Using this trait and trickster just as example gives the potemtial for 5 conditions removed (three fixed types) every 15 seconds. None of this adds up to 0.

In order to proc escapist resolution u need to EVADE something.

It has a prerequisite.

It’s a trait made for aggressive evasion playstyle like S/D.

Trickster trait is terrible because TRICKS ARE TERRIBLE, that’s why it’s not even considered as a reliable source of condi removal.

Pain response is bad because it now competes with vigor on heal.

Moreover if u build this way you’re acro-trickery-DD and basically have 0 utility ( no panic strike, no weakness on poison, no impro for double SR )/ less damage ( no exe, no critical strike).

Basically there’s not a single reason to take this build over current D/P shadow arts.

pls

Mrbig.8019:

babazhook.6805:

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

Hyperlobe does not an argument make. If you claim 0 condition removal outside SA then that had better be the case as we are all theives here and are well aware of condition removal sources.

Shadowstep is condition removal. Pain response is condition removal. Trickster is condition removal. Withdraw is condition removal. RFI is condition removal. HIS is condition removal. Sigils of purity and of cleansing and of Generoisty is condition removal.

Using this trait and trickster just as example gives the potemtial for 5 conditions removed (three fixed types) every 15 seconds. None of this adds up to 0.

In order to proc escapist resolution u need to EVADE something.

It has a prerequisite.

It’s a trait made for aggressive evasion playstyle like S/D.

Trickster trait is terrible because TRICKS ARE TERRIBLE, that’s why it’s not even considered as a reliable source of condi removal.

Pain response is bad because it now competes with vigor on heal.

Moreover if u build this way you’re acro-trickery-DD and basically have 0 utility ( no panic strike, no weakness on poison, no impro for double SR )/ less damage ( no exe, no critical strike).

Basically there’s not a single reason to take this build over current D/P shadow arts.

pls

Tricks are terrible? You obviously do not play the same game I do. RFI as example is a stun break, gives 6 ini, removes immobile, chill , crippled and is a gap opener. That is hardly “terrible”. Haste is a stunbreak in addition to allowing rapid attacks for 6 seconds base , hardly “terrible”. RFI will even add more than this if one traits DD and can also add health and do damage on a successful evade.

Withdraw is one of the best heals in the game and is hardly terrible. Kocoff at least can make sound and resonable arguments and I can respect his position. Putting ER as a base trait does not change the fact you need to evade something in order to remove a condition while at the same time we have far more eades than we have dodges, meaning we can evade using s/d or sb or s/p.

If you do not choose to pick shadowstep or trait into trickster for more removal that is certainly your choice but it hardly because you have no other choices. Putting in ER as a baseline trait does not mean you suddenly get more utility and can now have enough Condition removal to take CS or DA. All it does is gives the option of taking a different choice at the master traitline, one of staff mastery or Impacting disruption. That is ALL that you lose with ER traited as a major.

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

haha well there is one! and he is a little angrier than me.

There is counter intuitive aspect about DD.
If you take DD, then you shouldn’t take SA. IF you take SA, then you DD should be out of the way.

SA= Condition cleaning through stealth.
DD= Condition cleaning through evades.

There is no way Staff damage and Pulmonary Impact can compete with Escapist’s Absolution. It truly cannot. It COULD compete with Health on dodge though. Switching those two wouldn’t hurt any thieves, and would grant more versatility to the spec.

Keep in mind it’s a cleanse on evade not on dodge

This means it triggers on any evade, not just evades from dodge. This includes d/d and s/d 2, sb 3, any outside source of evade granted by allies, and probably a couple more I can’t think of right now.

It’s actually a very powerful trait, especially considering it stacks with a 400+ heal on evade, and if it were downgraded to minor they’d have to ICD it in to uselessness.

As is it’s a solid choice when compared to the other options. If you’re running a stealth build, it’s probably not a priority for you, if you’re running in a group with a lot of outside cleanse, again, probably not a big deal.

DD actually has a place in a lot of stealth builds, and I can see viable */p stealth gank builds that would still take SA with it and wouldn’t benefit quite as much, but would get tons of utility and damage from the extra damage on interrupt. I can see staff builds for group fights that would rather have the extra end and staff damage to keep from getting spiked and rely on allied cleanses. Builds that don’t need cleanse on evade are typically geared to get more use out of stuff like withdraw, shadowstep, and SA.

This trait seems to be the option for the heavier dodgetank style builds as a way to allow them to skip withdraw and shadowstep since they have the option to take the mobility from staff or a dodge replacement in stead.

Kocoff.7582:

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

haha well there is one! and he is a little angrier than me.

There is counter intuitive aspect about DD.
If you take DD, then you shouldn’t take SA. IF you take SA, then you DD should be out of the way.

SA= Condition cleaning through stealth.
DD= Condition cleaning through evades.

There is no way Staff damage and Pulmonary Impact can compete with Escapist’s Absolution. It truly cannot. It COULD compete with Health on dodge though. Switching those two wouldn’t hurt any thieves, and would grant more versatility to the spec.

THIS is a reasonable point. It very much like the SE as an adept in the shadows art line making the other adepts rather pointless. I think here we need to get some playtesting in before arriving at that conclusion. I as example have a build I am eager to try that will use both SA and DD.

babazhook.6805:

Kocoff.7582:

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

haha well there is one! and he is a little angrier than me.

There is counter intuitive aspect about DD.
If you take DD, then you shouldn’t take SA. IF you take SA, then you DD should be out of the way.

SA= Condition cleaning through stealth.
DD= Condition cleaning through evades.

There is no way Staff damage and Pulmonary Impact can compete with Escapist’s Absolution. It truly cannot. It COULD compete with Health on dodge though. Switching those two wouldn’t hurt any thieves, and would grant more versatility to the spec.

THIS is a reasonable point. It very much like the SE as an adept in the shadows art line making the other adepts rather pointless. I think here we need to get some playtesting in before arriving at that conclusion. I as example have a build I am eager to try that will use both SA and DD.

^^@babazhook. True. We need some testing before going to have hard evidence of things. It doesn’t change the fact we could accurately predict what will happen with a combination of traits X and Y. We have relative experience with the profession. It won’t be difficult predicting the outcomes to certain builds.

I am pretty sure we can agree that fact that SA & DD is going to be quite weak. MAJOR SUSTAIN though, but damage wise it will be horrible.

So much stealth abilities from SA, when DD offers so much evade.

Not saying SA & DD is a terrible idea, rather it is inefficient . Unless of course you are doing a tanking build.

PopeUrban.2578:

Keep in mind it’s a cleanse on evade not on dodge

This means it triggers on any evade, not just evades from dodge. This includes d/d and s/d 2, sb 3, any outside source of evade granted by allies, and probably a couple more I can’t think of right now.

It’s actually a very powerful trait, especially considering it stacks with a 400+ heal on evade, and if it were downgraded to minor they’d have to ICD it in to uselessness.

As is it’s a solid choice when compared to the other options. If you’re running a stealth build, it’s probably not a priority for you, if you’re running in a group with a lot of outside cleanse, again, probably not a big deal.

DD actually has a place in a lot of stealth builds, and I can see viable */p stealth gank builds that would still take SA with it and wouldn’t benefit quite as much, but would get tons of utility and damage from the extra damage on interrupt. I can see staff builds for group fights that would rather have the extra end and staff damage to keep from getting spiked and rely on allied cleanses. Builds that don’t need cleanse on evade are typically geared to get more use out of stuff like withdraw, shadowstep, and SA.

This trait seems to be the option for the heavier dodgetank style builds as a way to allow them to skip withdraw and shadowstep since they have the option to take the mobility from staff or a dodge replacement in stead.

Withdraw is the only competitive heal thief has, and shadowstep is the best stunbreaker in the game.

There’s no way thieves will take them off their bars.

Even a 48 secs CD RFI with escapist absolution would be a subpar choice when compared to shadowstep.

Whenever u think about a DD build you have to think there’s only 1 space left in our U-skills cuz shadow refuge and shadowstep ain’t leaving at all.

moreover when u think about what traitline will be taken off for DD u have to think that trickery is a must and DA would be only replaced if DD offered the same utility ( weaknes on poison, panic strike, impro for double refuge) or damage ( Exe).

This leaves DD in competition with SA only, and specifically condi removal and heal.

So u have to trait for heal on evade and condi removal on evade.

The build is already forced, it’s sun day clear.

heal on evade and condi removal on evade need to be baseline, even with higher CD ( like 5 secs) and less health ( 300ish) otherwise the whole specialization becomes obsolete when compared to current D/P panic strike build.

Sigh people should really play PvP at decent level before talking about this stuff, otherwise it’s seriously wasted time.

Increasing the CD of such a potent condi removal just to make it a Minor is the death of that trait. STOP.

Do you have any idea how long we have waited for a really strong condition removal that doesn’t rely on SA? And you want to obliterate its CD because you want everything else at once? ARE YOU HIGH?!

Well Shadow Step might not be the best stun breaker in the game for long once HoT releases with it’s 8s cooldown stunbreak on Daredevil and 10s cooldown on Berserker..

With respect:

Shadow refuge and withdraw are the best competitive options when you are forced in to a d/p stealth spec in the current meta

HiS is still awful due to cast time no matter what

SoM is useful for blob warfare and pve (and even more useful with kitten damage on dodge and 400+heal on evade)

The venom is a venom, so it’s awful unless you’re playing vshare, and even then it’s pretty bad.

The new heal is actually quite good for stealth builds.

D/P is still going to be the best build for roaming stealth, but keep in mind the DD spec actually opens up things to do that aren’t roaming stealth.

PopeUrban.2578:

With respect:

Shadow refuge and withdraw are the best competitive options when you are forced in to a d/p stealth spec in the current meta

HiS is still awful due to cast time no matter what

SoM is useful for blob warfare and pve (and even more useful with kitten damage on dodge and 400+heal on evade)

The venom is a venom, so it’s awful unless you’re playing vshare, and even then it’s pretty bad.

The new heal is actually quite good for stealth builds.

D/P is still going to be the best build for roaming stealth, but keep in mind the DD spec actually opens up things to do that aren’t roaming stealth.

Shadow refuge is one of the most if not the most OP utility in game.

Shadow refuge has always been part of every competitive thief U bar from headstart and the reason is simple: stealth openers and stealth resses for the whole team.

withdraw is the best heal because it has the realistically highest HPS for the thief, on top of a very long evade.

DD won’t bring any new role to thieves for the simple reason there’re no roles anymore: it’s Eles and nothing more, cuz eles cover basically any possible role aside thief’s one.

If ele gets nerfed then there’s the possibility of a mobile point holder with decent damage with on a soldier acro-trick-DD build but even in that case there would be no reason to bring thief for a role with an awful lot of competitors offering a lot more than thief in the way of CCs, support, heal and what more ( bunker guard, shoutbow, hambow, DD ele, staff ele, engie, cele necro and so on).

Today POI may show what the daredevil really is, or rather an uber damage dealer, especially if staff coefficients are the ones datamined and they fixed auto attack.

Staff will be our 2shots weapon and we may see staffbow thieves, that’s all IMHO.

stof.9341:

Well Shadow Step might not be the best stun breaker in the game for long once HoT releases with it’s 8s cooldown stunbreak on Daredevil and 10s cooldown on Berserker..

Shadowstep is a 50 secs DOUBLE stunbreaker which removes 3 condies and travels for 1200 range with the chance to backport.

No one will compare, not even an 8 secs stunbreak with a block ( which is what thieves may bring along with it tho :P )

haha it’s true… very hard to compare Shadowstep to a nything else really. But I can see a surge of Daredevils not putting in in their utility bars.

But can we stay on topic please? Escapist’s Absolution….. into a minor.

PLIZ

Kocoff.7582:

babazhook.6805:

Kocoff.7582:

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

haha well there is one! and he is a little angrier than me.

There is counter intuitive aspect about DD.
If you take DD, then you shouldn’t take SA. IF you take SA, then you DD should be out of the way.

SA= Condition cleaning through stealth.
DD= Condition cleaning through evades.

There is no way Staff damage and Pulmonary Impact can compete with Escapist’s Absolution. It truly cannot. It COULD compete with Health on dodge though. Switching those two wouldn’t hurt any thieves, and would grant more versatility to the spec.

THIS is a reasonable point. It very much like the SE as an adept in the shadows art line making the other adepts rather pointless. I think here we need to get some playtesting in before arriving at that conclusion. I as example have a build I am eager to try that will use both SA and DD.

^^@babazhook. True. We need some testing before going to have hard evidence of things. It doesn’t change the fact we could accurately predict what will happen with a combination of traits X and Y. We have relative experience with the profession. It won’t be difficult predicting the outcomes to certain builds.

I am pretty sure we can agree that fact that SA & DD is going to be quite weak. MAJOR SUSTAIN though, but damage wise it will be horrible.

So much stealth abilities from SA, when DD offers so much evade.

Not saying SA & DD is a terrible idea, rather it is inefficient . Unless of course you are doing a tanking build.

I currently play dd with SA/Trickery/Acro. I assure you it has no issues with damage. As well as built he can get 4k healing using a single death blossom when things go right. Think condition. Nothing is really given up in such a build when DA and CS dropped.

With DD I will now be able to use ample dodges to lay down even more conditions which will also feed the heals off the SOM. DD means I can drop trickery without losing a whole lot IF i got that route.

Now if it were a power build using DD , I just do not see ACRO adding a lot to the build as you would still be stealth focused for the backstabs.

With the new condition cleanse on evade , using DB I will get plenty of extra cleanses as I attack. The SA would still be used for leeching venoms (I can get 3K healing just off spider venom) and SRejuv (or VA if in group) with the adept much more open . Dependent on just how much extra heal I get off the new heal on evade trait in the new DD line I might drop SA entirely and pickup DA for the posin traits or trickery and take pressure strike.

All needs testing.

Let’s just … take a moment to remove the numbers from the equation.

No, seriously. Shut up about the total dodges or evasions. We aren’t freakin’ rangers here and YES, initiative actually depletes quickly, even with Preparedness.

Let’s look at the scenario nice and simple:

1. Thief has access to condition cleansing of Bleed, Poison, Torment, and Confusion via Stealth from Shadow’s Embrace.
2. Thief can remove Bleed, Burning, or Poison via Pain Response.
3. Thief can remove conditions via Guarded Initiation.
4. Thief can remove conditions via Trickster.

In reality:

• Shadow’s Embrace removes only 1 condition every 3 seconds. While stealthed. That’s … poor. That’s one on entry, and one on exit if you go the full duration. This is actually 2 every 7-8 seconds if you can rapidly chain stealth (because of Revealed).
• Pain Response only removes all of three specific conditions, only triggers when you have less than 75% health and has an internal cool-down of 20 seconds. That’s, at best, 3 condition every 20 seconds, which is faster than most of our heals can keep up because you’ve not even got 9,000 HP to play with at that point.
• Okay, Guarded Initiation. If you really can keep >= 90% HP every second, then this is arguably the most powerful build. Except a base-line Thief has only about 1,200 HP to spare to maintain that margin. That’s a single hit from most powerful foes, or a general attack chain. Every second.
• Lastly, Trickster is a joke. Even if it’s “remove 1 condition on-use” with a -20% cool-down, there’s still:
  • Withdraw: 1 condition per 14.4 seconds + remove Chilled, Crippled, and Immobilized (total: 4)
  • Caltrops: 1 condition per 24 seconds (worse than Pain Response)
  • Haste or Roll for Initiative: 1 condition per 48 seconds
  • Scorpion Wire: 1 condition per 16 seconds
  • Dagger Storm: 1 condition per 72 seconds

I mean, sure, I could take Improvisation but there is NO guarantee that it’ll select Tricks, and even under perfect conditions, that’s a recharge every 19.5 seconds when fully traited.

Oh, and to fully counter the “remove on evade/dodge” nonsense, I can equip 5 tricks and remove 8 conditions quite quickly via that route. I’ll screw myself (the same as dodging 3~4 times and wasting all my endurance), but hey, I mean, I can do it, so let’s nerf that, right?

(edit: fixed Pain Response; I had originally misread the effect)

babazhook.6805:

Kocoff.7582:

babazhook.6805:

Kocoff.7582:

Mrbig.8019:

Kocoff.7582:

So It looks like most people think this trait fine and should be left as is. I still which it would move to the adept line at least, but it’s ok. @ Overworld, I guess you are right, I wanted to see where I stand, and understand other people’s opinion. I still find a little issue with it.

BWE will probably makes us understand the situation even more.

I’m totally with you.

I hate to sound rude but people saying escapist absolution shouldn’t be baseline have literally 0 clue about PvP.

There’s absolutely ZERO way a thief can stay melee without any condi removal or sustain, S/D vanished from meta for the exact same reason, or rather pain response being a controversial choice and bad condi removal overall when compared to buffed shadow arts ( even pre-nerf, vamp runes+ last response was enough to save thief 100% of times, making D/P even better).

People are so “blinded” ( pun pun pun) by the hype they don’t really understand anet is basically forcing choices in all our traitlines, we are even paying for our added mechanic !!!

If DD is our “alternative” to shadow arts sustain, then escapist absolution will be a MUST HAVE and there will be again 0 diversity, even worse since all traits are very good.

Thief doesn’t have condi removal options aside shadow arts and escapist absolution so there will be 0 choice.

Sigh, why am i even talkin, i’m prolly just wasting my time.

haha well there is one! and he is a little angrier than me.

There is counter intuitive aspect about DD.
If you take DD, then you shouldn’t take SA. IF you take SA, then you DD should be out of the way.

SA= Condition cleaning through stealth.
DD= Condition cleaning through evades.

There is no way Staff damage and Pulmonary Impact can compete with Escapist’s Absolution. It truly cannot. It COULD compete with Health on dodge though. Switching those two wouldn’t hurt any thieves, and would grant more versatility to the spec.

THIS is a reasonable point. It very much like the SE as an adept in the shadows art line making the other adepts rather pointless. I think here we need to get some playtesting in before arriving at that conclusion. I as example have a build I am eager to try that will use both SA and DD.

^^@babazhook. True. We need some testing before going to have hard evidence of things. It doesn’t change the fact we could accurately predict what will happen with a combination of traits X and Y. We have relative experience with the profession. It won’t be difficult predicting the outcomes to certain builds.

I am pretty sure we can agree that fact that SA & DD is going to be quite weak. MAJOR SUSTAIN though, but damage wise it will be horrible.

So much stealth abilities from SA, when DD offers so much evade.

Not saying SA & DD is a terrible idea, rather it is inefficient . Unless of course you are doing a tanking build.

I currently play dd with SA/Trickery/Acro. I assure you it has no issues with damage. As well as built he can get 4k healing using a single death blossom when things go right. Think condition. Nothing is really given up in such a build when DA and CS dropped.

With DD I will now be able to use ample dodges to lay down even more conditions which will also feed the heals off the SOM. DD means I can drop trickery without losing a whole lot IF i got that route.

Now if it were a power build using DD , I just do not see ACRO adding a lot to the build as you would still be stealth focused for the backstabs.

With the new condition cleanse on evade , using DB I will get plenty of extra cleanses as I attack. The SA would still be used for leeching venoms (I can get 3K healing just off spider venom) and SRejuv (or VA if in group) with the adept much more open . Dependent on just how much extra heal I get off the new heal on evade trait in the new DD line I might drop SA entirely and pickup DA for the posin traits or trickery and take pressure strike.

All needs testing.

Well not gonna lie I am very surprised. I couldn’t ever drop Trickery, I can’t play with 30 sec Steal anymore. I tried I failed. Trickery is too good. I guess it’all about testing. still hope the BWE makes them change the trait a little bit until release date.

fluffdragon.1523:

• Okay, Guarded Initiation. If you really can keep >= 90% HP every second, then this is arguably the most powerful build. Except a base-line Thief has only about 1,200 HP to spare to maintain that margin. That’s a single hit from most powerful foes, or a general attack chain. Every second.
• Lastly, Trickster is a joke. Even if it’s “remove 1 condition on-use” with a -20% cool-down, there’s still:
  • Withdraw: 1 condition per 14.4 seconds + remove Chilled, Crippled, and

1. : I actually like trickster with Withdraw. I take a the greedy way sometimes, and use this instead of Bountiful Theft. a I think it’s worth the CD reduction on a heal skill, very important to me at least.

#2: I hope you are joking about Guarded Initiation. Sarcasm isn’t really a thing in my culture but i really hope that was indeed sarcasm.

So in other words….? You Escapist Absolution should be a minor?

Kocoff.7582:

(…)

#2: I hope you are joking about Guarded Initiation. Sarcasm isn’t really a thing in my culture but i really hope that was indeed sarcasm.

So in other words….? You Escapist Absolution should be a minor?

AGREED. Escapist Absolution should be a minor and swapped as other posters have indicated.

(Guarded Initiation is only “powerful” from a purely numeric standpoint, until you take into account that maintaining those numbers is impossible.)