Guild Wars 2

In the face of the new staff, is there a reason to use power dagger/dagger anymore? If staff is better than d/d and they both play the same role, are players without the expac at a disadvantage when considering pve power builds? The necro gs does more damage than daggers but daggers have greater life force generation. Does this relationship exist with staff versus dagger on thief? What do you guys think? (This is not a nerf staff thread).

If staff were a weapon for the core thief profession that might be true. If for some reason you happen to like 3 out of 5 of the existing trait lines, you’re gonna have to make some decisions about what you’re willing to give up for that staff…

Nike.2631:

If staff were a weapon for the core thief profession that might be true. If for some reason you happen to like 3 out of 5 of the existing trait lines, you’re gonna have to make some decisions about what you’re willing to give up for that staff…

So, in your opinion, giving up a trait-line should be enough to make up for the power difference? What about all the % modifiers on the DrD line.

Yes, Staff > everything else for Power DPS in PvE now.

Remove Trickery for Daredevil – you swap out the 10-15% average damage modifier for a 7%, a 10% and another 10% that’s up a majority of the time (4s after a dodge roll). Keep Bound going periodically for that bonus damage (plus it hits as hard as Cloak and Dagger) and use all your initiative on Weakening Charge (that hits harder than a <25% Heartseeker) or Vault if you need another evade for some reason and even that hits harder than Backstab. Fill it out with an autoattack chain or two (that are faster than Dagger and hit about 10% harder than Sword, becoming our highest DPS autoattack) that applies a good amount of Vulnerability, allowing you to remove Sundering Strikes and take Practised Tolerance for even more Ferocity (moreso in raids than Fractals/Dungeons because 10 people is so easy to get 25 Vuln). And remember that this damage is all AoE on 3-5 targets, opposed to Dagger’s maximum of 2 during autos, 1 most of the time.

So overall, you lose the 3 extra base initiative, and a Steal Daze/initiative gain, plus some group Vigor. In exchange, you get an enormous DPS boost, a huge increase in self-survivability from all the endurance and evade frames, large amounts of Weakness uptime and steady Vulnerability application with good duration.

All good point Auesis, as someone with the x-pac I’m just trying not to see it as paying to get more damage, versus those thieves without it.

Auesis.7301:

Yes, Staff > everything else for Power DPS in PvE now.

Remove Trickery for Daredevil – you swap out the 10-15% average damage modifier for a 7%, a 10% and another 10% that’s up a majority of the time (4s after a dodge roll). Keep Bound going periodically for that bonus damage (plus it hits as hard as Cloak and Dagger) and use all your initiative on Weakening Charge (that hits harder than a <25% Heartseeker) or Vault if you need another evade for some reason and even that hits harder than Backstab. Fill it out with an autoattack chain or two (that are faster than Dagger and hit about 10% harder than Sword, becoming our highest DPS autoattack) that applies a good amount of Vulnerability, allowing you to remove Sundering Strikes and take Practised Tolerance for even more Ferocity (moreso in raids than Fractals/Dungeons because 10 people is so easy to get 25 Vuln). And remember that this damage is all AoE on 3-5 targets, opposed to Dagger’s maximum of 2 during autos, 1 most of the time.

So overall, you lose the 3 extra base initiative, and a Steal Daze/initiative gain, plus some group Vigor. In exchange, you get an enormous DPS boost, a huge increase in self-survivability from all the endurance and evade frames, large amounts of Weakness uptime and steady Vulnerability application with good duration.

Need to switch revealed training for panic strike right?

Lyger.5429:

In the face of the new staff, is there a reason to use power dagger/dagger anymore?

D/D is easier to play and does comparable damage to staff (D/D Daredevil is ever so slightly ahead of staff Daredevil if harder to play, staff Daredevil is a touch ahead of core D/D). Daredevil pushes ahead if you can use your dodges both as evades and to land the damage; presuming the non-Daredevil build also would have to dodge, the Daredevil build picks up an advantage there; otherwise the two builds are really close to being on par. D/D has more dodges and access to stealth for dropping aggro; staff has better cleave and applies a bit more vulnerability on average. Neither is so clearly better that you have to run it – in either case you’re a middling glassy DPS spec.

D/D doesn’t have noticeably more dodges. Using Staff with Staff Master will get back almost as much endurance as landing Wild Strike during a standard rotation, while having another large damage modifier that Dagger cannot use. Also, if you are using Wild Strike so often that you begin to outpace Staff’s endurance regeneration by a large margin, then you are not rotating Backstab often enough and your DPS will be abysmal.

With either weapon, Endurance Thief and Channeled Vigor is more than enough to out-evade any encounter.

And yeah gin, you could, but it could be a good idea to open a fight with D/D secondary, land Backstab then swap to Staff with a temporary boost from RT and remain in Staff for the rest of the fight. Haven’t tried messing with that in the beta, but it’s a possibility. Panic Strike could still be useful for some stuff in HoT, though. Hell, I might even try taking Deadly Trapper and have some temporary self-might with Shadow Trap on my bar for when I’m alone.

Wow the gameplay of staff sounds awful to me.. I like d/d fast hitting. I think I might give up thief for revenant

gin.7158:

Wow the gameplay of staff sounds awful to me.. I like d/d fast hitting. I think I might give up thief for revenant

If you prefer D/D stick with D/D, the damage difference between standard D/D Trickery and Staff Daredevil from a DPS standpoint is around 5%. That’s utterly dwarfed by the handicap of bringing a thief at all over a revenant (which is around a 30% DPS loss).

In the immediate future, if you want to do power DPS stick with the revenant, it’s grossly overpowered and you might as well ride that out as long as possible. Play thief because you want to not because it’s a particularly effective DPS class.

In PvE, definitely Staff without a doubt. The AoE damage from Vault+Bound is just too hard to pass up. However, for a single target boss fight for instance, I’ll still take D/D only because of backstab and faster auto-attack.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

In PvE, definitely Staff without a doubt. The AoE damage from Vault+Bound is just too hard to pass up. However, for a single target boss fight for instance, I’ll still take D/D only because of backstab and faster auto-attack.

Staff auto is as fast as Dagger. It’s actually about 3ms faster.

I can’t find any way to justify ever using D/D when the numbers on Weakening Charge, Vault and the autos are as high as they are along with their cast times, with far more multipliers than Trickery. D/x is pretty much a PvP weapon when people have got used to Staff.

Auesis.7301:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

In PvE, definitely Staff without a doubt. The AoE damage from Vault+Bound is just too hard to pass up. However, for a single target boss fight for instance, I’ll still take D/D only because of backstab and faster auto-attack.

Staff auto is as fast as Dagger. It’s actually about 3ms faster.

I can’t find any way to justify ever using D/D when the numbers on Weakening Charge, Vault and the autos are as high as they are along with their cast times, with far more multipliers than Trickery. D/x is pretty much a PvP weapon when people have got used to Staff.

It felt slower in the last BWE. Well, then if that is the case, BS is still a good reason to take D/D during a boss fight.

Ensign.2189:

gin.7158:

Wow the gameplay of staff sounds awful to me.. I like d/d fast hitting. I think I might give up thief for revenant

If you prefer D/D stick with D/D, the damage difference between standard D/D Trickery and Staff Daredevil from a DPS standpoint is around 5%. That’s utterly dwarfed by the handicap of bringing a thief at all over a revenant (which is around a 30% DPS loss).

In the immediate future, if you want to do power DPS stick with the revenant, it’s grossly overpowered and you might as well ride that out as long as possible. Play thief because you want to not because it’s a particularly effective DPS class.

30% dps loss??!!! I cry

gin.7158:

Auesis.7301:

Yes, Staff > everything else for Power DPS in PvE now.

Remove Trickery for Daredevil – you swap out the 10-15% average damage modifier for a 7%, a 10% and another 10% that’s up a majority of the time (4s after a dodge roll). Keep Bound going periodically for that bonus damage (plus it hits as hard as Cloak and Dagger) and use all your initiative on Weakening Charge (that hits harder than a <25% Heartseeker) or Vault if you need another evade for some reason and even that hits harder than Backstab. Fill it out with an autoattack chain or two (that are faster than Dagger and hit about 10% harder than Sword, becoming our highest DPS autoattack) that applies a good amount of Vulnerability, allowing you to remove Sundering Strikes and take Practised Tolerance for even more Ferocity (moreso in raids than Fractals/Dungeons because 10 people is so easy to get 25 Vuln). And remember that this damage is all AoE on 3-5 targets, opposed to Dagger’s maximum of 2 during autos, 1 most of the time.

So overall, you lose the 3 extra base initiative, and a Steal Daze/initiative gain, plus some group Vigor. In exchange, you get an enormous DPS boost, a huge increase in self-survivability from all the endurance and evade frames, large amounts of Weakness uptime and steady Vulnerability application with good duration.

Need to switch revealed training for panic strike right?

You can ‘exploit’ shadow refuge to get the revealed training buff. even more than ever since you don’t need stealth in your rotation. You will probably still take the two signets + SR. It’ll also be interesting to see whether fist flurry is a potential DPS increase now (f.e. while initiative downtime).