Guild Wars 2

I just watched the Scrapper ability reveal, and I can’t understand why elite specializations that have been revealed both before and after the Daredevil seem so full of unique effects, animations, and flavor compared to ours. Balance aside, where is the creativity in design or satisfaction in using the abilities of daredevil (staff especially) compared to ALL of the other specializations that have been revealed? As a thief main, I am jealous and frustrated, and just want to understand WHY this striking difference in quality has occurred.

Eye of the beholder stuff.

Some people really hunger for that more basic (less magical/flashy) martial arts combat theme. Others really don’t… Design wise, you might not enjoy it, but there are certainly some aspects of uniqueness to Daredevil, such as entirely reworking how you evade. It is cooler than people let on, which seemed to get a bad rep due to clunkiness. If the first impressions weren’t “clunky”, I have a feeling the general mood would have been much brighter overall.

I definitely understand that as a more physical class we won’t have all the flashy flames or lightning etc… that other classes have. My problem is that almost all of the ability animations for Daredevil are recycled from other parts of the game, which makes it feel thrown together and not unique at all. If all of the other professions get mostly new animations, why are we the only profession given leftovers?

Temus.7086:

I just watched the Scrapper ability reveal, and I can’t understand why elite specializations that have been revealed both before and after the Daredevil seem so full of unique effects, animations, and flavor compared to ours. Balance aside, where is the creativity in design or satisfaction in using the abilities of daredevil (staff especially) compared to ALL of the other specializations that have been revealed? As a thief main, I am jealous and frustrated, and just want to understand WHY this striking difference in quality has occurred.

Hahaha what? The Daredevil doesn’t have unique effects, flavor, and animation?
Daredevil felt like an acrobatic, stealthing, teleporting GS/Hammer warrior to me in all the right ways. Plus we got to pick between 3 different traits that change our dodge to fit our build and the only skill in the entire game that can instantly kill a player without sending them into downed state as long as you time it properly…

I mean, I know the animations on staff and the dodges need a bit of work but the spec overall played really nicely.

I also want to point out that most of the Scrapper’s animations are recycled as well just have added effects on top.

I guess the specialization is just not for me then, if this is the direction its going. The animations are mostly recycled and not at all representative of any staff martial arts I have seen and had hoped this spec would emulate.

Temus.7086:

I guess the specialization is just not for me then, if this is the direction its going. The animations are mostly recycled and not at all representative of any staff martial arts I have seen and had hoped this spec would emulate.

The animations definitely need work. That was a major complaint most of us had, along with general clunkiness. Overall though the spec is really great. And I’m really excited to finally have a leap skill.

Rain.9213:

Hahaha what? The Daredevil doesn’t have unique effects, flavor, and animation?

If you were feeling charitable, you could consider Daredevil as technically meeting the barest possible definition of those words. After all, Daredevil has one (1) non-recycled animation, so that meets the requirements of “unique animation”, right?

All jokes aside, it is extremely likely that Daredevil will receive a lot more changes between now and the release of HoT… but not in the way that most people are hoping for.

The source of people’s frustration and disappointment with Daredevil is the blatant, visible lack of passion behind its development. While it’s easy to blame this on Karl, I think he was merely the one passed the hot potato that is designing and balancing the Thief profession. For whatever asinine reason, it seems to be a job that no one wants.

This is why people are frustrated. No amount of number adjustments and minimal mechanical changes can replace a desire to make the Daredevil fun. Until we have someone in our corner who is excited about playing the Thief profession itself—rather than going through the motions of fulfilling a bullet point on the back of the box—a majority of Thief players will continue to find the profession unsatisfying.

Unfortunately, I see a very low likelihood of this changing anytime in the near future. While I hate to say it, if things don’t come together for Thief in the first month or so of HoT then I’ll be finding another game to occupy my finite money and time.

Amante.8109:

Rain.9213:

Hahaha what? The Daredevil doesn’t have unique effects, flavor, and animation?

If you were feeling charitable, you could consider Daredevil as technically meeting the barest possible definition of those words. After all, Daredevil has one (1) non-recycled animation, so that meets the requirements of “unique animation”, right?

All jokes aside, it is extremely likely that Daredevil will receive a lot more changes between now and the release of HoT… but not in the way that most people are hoping for.

The source of people’s frustration and disappointment with Daredevil is the blatant, visible lack of passion behind its development. While it’s easy to blame this on Karl, I think he was merely the one passed the hot potato that is designing and balancing the Thief profession. For whatever asinine reason, it seems to be a job that no one wants.

This is why people are frustrated. No amount of number adjustments and minimal mechanical changes can replace a desire to make Daredevil fun. Until we have someone in our corner who is excited about playing the Thief profession itself—rather than going through the motions of fulfilling a bullet point on the back of the box—a majority of Thief players will continue to find the profession unsatisfying.

Unfortunately, I see a very low likelihood of this changing anytime in the near future. While I hate to say it, if things don’t come together for Thief in the first month or so of HoT then I’ll be finding another game to occupy my finite money and time.

As I said, Scrapper hammer animations are recycled as well! So are Chronomancer’s, Tempest, and Herald Shield. In fact a lot of classes have recycled animations!

As for it not being fun, I found Daredevil to be more than what I hoped for. I haven’t had that much fun on Thief since I first picked up S/D Acro.

The only issue I had with DD was the auto attack and some clunkiness in the animations which are not that hard to fix. Idk if I’m the outlier but if I am, great! I’ll be one of the rare Staff thieves

Honestly, if Thieves had gotten rifle or some other form of different stealth play, I probably would have stopped playing it in favor of Revenant. But I felt Daredevil was very solid and extremely satisfying.

Rain.9213:

As I said, Scrapper hammer animations are recycled as well! So are Chronomancer’s, Tempest, and Herald Shield. In fact a lot of classes have recycled animations!

There are a variety of recycled animations in the elite specializations, yes. No profession has as many as Thief’s, but whatever… recycled animations are a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself (see above).

But hey, it’s clear you’re one of the few that actually enjoys Daredevil as it is. Not going to judge that, as everyone is entitled to their opinion and clearly someone is bound to like it.

The fact remains: a vast majority of Thief players are very disheartened about the state of Daredevil and the Thief profession at large, and ArenaNet would be wise to pay attention, lest they lose a small but profitable segment of their playerbase.

Amante.8109:

The fact remains: a vast majority of Thief players are very disheartened about the state of Daredevil and the Thief profession at large, and ArenaNet would be wise to pay attention, lest they lose a small but profitable segment of their playerbase.

As the risk of sounding cynical, I think it’s safe to say, judging from how the thief class has been handled over the last three years…

That Arenanet doesn’t give a flying kitten about thief players, because they still have 8 other professions worth of players. Been pretty patient and hopefully for a long time now, that the thief would finally get the attention it so desperately needed…but alas, it has not, and likely never will.

At this point, they may as well just delete the class and call it a day.

I have no idea how we can be so far apart; the daredevil spec seemed great to me, and a lot of cool build ideas came to mind.

i do hope they work on staff a bit: its promising, but a bit rough (many have noted specifics, wont tangent here).

Regarding scrapper, i wasnt impressed with gyros, though i reseve judgment until i try them. Hammer seemed quite cool, though.

jaif.3518:

I have no idea how we can be so far apart; the daredevil spec seemed great to me, and a lot of cool build ideas came to mind.

i do hope they work on staff a bit: its promising, but a bit rough (many have noted specifics, wont tangent here).

Regarding scrapper, i wasnt impressed with gyros, though i reseve judgment until i try them. Hammer seemed quite cool, though.

Haha the irony is that if you go over to the Engineer forums, they’re complaining that they don’t like their elite spec. Yet, here we are thinking it’s better than what we got xD

I can understand why Engineers might find the Gyros underwhelming (although I’m fairly sure Bulwark Gyro will see a lot of play). Literally everything else about Scrapper is amazing, though, so the complaining is pretty silly.

Amante.8109:

I can understand why Engineers might find the Gyros underwhelming (although I’m fairly sure Bulwark Gyro will see a lot of play). Literally everything else about Scrapper is amazing, though, so the complaining is pretty silly.

When DD was revealed, there was quite a lot of QQ from the Warrior forums that Daredevil had better Physicals than they did. Idk I think perspective makes a big difference in how you view all these elite specs. I did quite a lot of buildcrafting before and during the beta weekend and found cool builds that I could run with all the specs. Hell, I even thorougly enjoyed Tempest as I found something viable that could take on most if not all meta builds.

But say you could change the Daredevil, what would you change? Aside from animations. All my changes would be minor number things like making Fist Flurry a bit faster and AA on staff better.

That’s a hard question to answer, because as much as I’d like to see some major redesigns (especially on Staff), it’s unrealistic to expect that at this juncture. A lot of my feedback is also aimed at the core profession itself. No matter how well Daredevil ends up executed, it can only do so much while resting on top of such a shaky foundation. That said, here is what I think are the essential changes needed for Daredevil:

• Replacement Dodges: While they are good on a mechanical level, everything about their animation and usability needs to be rock solid. It is also very important that the game treats them like a basic dodge, both for latency and gameplay reasons (they’re punishable by Confusion right now). For what it’s worth, these changes are almost certainly coming.

• Real Grandmaster Traits: There is no excuse for us not having them. None. The most obvious solution is to design new Grandmaster traits, then expand the first minor so that it adds a Revenant Legend style drop-down list. This drop-down would let you select one of the three Dodges at any time outside of combat or an active SPvP match.

• Escapist’s Absolution: This needs to be merged into the Driven Fortitude minor without any further debate. Assuming the core profession doesn’t receive any buffs to its condition removal before HoT, Daredevil needs EA as a minor for even D/P and Shortbow to remain viable against the power creep of the upcoming HoT meta.

• Staff #3: While the Immobilize break is nice, the skill is clunky and doesn’t flow with the rest of the Staff. It also forces you to spend Initiative to get close enough to resume pressure. Initiative is a precious and finite resource, and you shouldn’t have to spend 2/3 of it just to remove one Immobilize and get back in melee. The best solution would be to add an additional effect that triggers if Staff #3 hits an enemy with the initial attack. This effect would either give a temporary reduction on the cost of Staff #2, or trigger some kind of flip-skill on Staff #3 that lets you re-engage affordably.

• Staff #4: Currently serves no meaningful purpose. There is a widespread consensus that it should leave a line-shaped Dark or Smoke field. If you don’t want the field to pulse Blind, the skill itself could still fire a projectile that Blinds.

• Staff #5: Badly needs an evade for at least the last half or it will be useless in PvP after the first week of HoT no matter how much damage it does. There is no way it should cost 6 Initiative either, as the only weapon skill that does is Infiltrator’s Arrow and Vault is nowhere near that in terms of power or usefulness.

• Channeled Vigor: This feels like it was designed for a profession that doesn’t have the near non-existent durability that defines Thief. Even if that fragility were somehow addressed, 2.25 seconds is not a realistic cast time for a PvP heal. For basis of comparison, there are a scant three other healing skills in the entire game that have a 2+ second cast time. All belong to professions more durable than Thief, and yet those heals still don’t see play. Thieves are so squishy right now that a 1s cast heal isn’t realistic, so what are we going to do with one that takes 2.25s? CV is unique in that it pulses three small heals over its channel, but it’s still too long. Lower the channel to 1.5s at the most.

• Bandit’s Defense: As powerful as a 10s stun break sounded on paper, Thief has such specific needs from its stun break just to survive that this skill’s limitations already meant it might not see play… then it was nerfed to 15s with no further changes. Cooldown aside, the block needs to be longer and to block all hits during its duration, not one. It is also important that BD act like a normal rollover skill instead of automatically triggering, lest pets and other NPCs waste the trigger. It would be nice if the Kick portion had Evade frames for its duration, but that’s not as essential.

• Distracting Daggers: Drowning in needless limitations that obliterate its potential usefulness. The upcoming buff to projectile speed won’t address its deeper problems, such as an arbitrary 1s ICD between throws. At the minimum, it needs the ICD removed or the daggers made unblockable, otherwise the skill can’t fulfill its own purpose. The time limit also seems unnecessary—especially on top of an equip delay—but those limitations could theoretically be worked around if the rest was cleaned up.

• Fist Flurry: Speaking of arbitrary restrictions, it’s not reasonable to require that you land all five hits of a 1.25s melee range channel just to get to the good part of a skill. The smallest change that could make it worthwhile would be having the last hit trigger the flip over to Palm Strike. Funnily enough, it’s Palm Strike—not the Bandit’s Defense knockdown—that should trigger automatically.

• Impairing Daggers: Very close to where it needs to be. The design is fine, but it has some usability issues with the projectile speed and how it travels that cause this skill to fizzle in situations that it shouldn’t. Fix that and it’ll be fine.

• Impact Strike: Like the dodges, it is fairly good mechanically but has animation and usability issues. Tighten up the way the chain flows together (and make the last hit trigger the user’s custom finisher) and it should fulfill its intended purpose.

Did that answer your question?

>>• Staff #3: While the Immobilize break is nice, the skill is clunky and doesn’t flow with the rest of the Staff. It also forces you to spend Initiative to get close enough to resume pressure, a limitation not shared by the #3 of any other Thief weapon.

It does no such thing. First and foremost that this a #3 skill is not material to the discussion. Nothing suggests a number 3 skill must keep a thief in combat. The reason this at number 3 is it has multiple effects that being damage inflicted a condition inflicted , an evade and Immob break and a gap opener which ideal for the number 3 slot.

I also used staff in Beta and rarely used INI to get back in battle. You have dodges to do that now or if you wished could use vault.

s/d takes one out of battle as well for the cost of ini and ini must be spent to get back in battle.

Number 3 is fine as is outside animations. Do not use it if you just want to maintain pressure. There other attack skills in the set. You can keep attacking even if Immobilized.

I get what you are saying.
On the paper the Daredevil is a good specialization. Heck, the whole forum rejoiced when the spec features were released.

But it was poorly executed (as it was in the beta weekend). The lack of pertinent screens when the spec was revealed compared to other specializations tells the whole story (one screen with an asura with a staff, another with a staff uppercut… that’s all).
But I want to think that it’s proof the animation side of this spec is still a work in progress and maybe those were just place-holder (Yeah I wish)

Let’s just give credit where it’s due.

It’s not Karl’s fault the animations were bad. It’s the animation team.
Mechanic wise the Daredevil is interesting.

The only thing that would compensate that feeling of neglection, is to bring polished and specific animations for melee staff (Revenants would even profit from it). Why ? Because other classes get either brand new visual effects, and/or props. It’s true thieves aren’t really supposed to be flashy, so we should at least get some love in the animation department.
A lot of people are asking for the Monkey King idle staff animation. I do too. And I think that’s the least they can do, to not make us feel like the leftover class.

babazhook.6805:

It does no such thing. First and foremost that this a #3 skill is not material to the discussion. Nothing suggests a number 3 skill must keep a thief in combat. The reason this at number 3 is it has multiple effects that being damage inflicted a condition inflicted , an evade and Immob break and a gap opener which ideal for the number 3 slot.

I didn’t explain my reasoning on Staff #3 as well as I could have when initially writing that post, but that section has received extensive edits since then (including removing the #3 on other weapons bit, which wasn’t the right tack to take). The updated version:

• Staff #3: While the Immobilize break is nice, the skill is clunky and doesn’t flow with the rest of the Staff. It forces you to spend Initiative to get close enough to resume pressure. Initiative is a precious and finite resource, and you shouldn’t have to spend 2/3 of it just to remove one Immobilize and get back in melee. The best solution would be to add an additional effect that only triggers if Staff #3 hits an enemy with the initial attack. This effect would either give a temporary reduction on the cost of Staff #2, or trigger some kind of flip-skill on Staff #3 that lets you re-engage affordably.

babazhook.6805:

I also used staff in Beta and rarely used INI to get back in battle. You have dodges to do that now or if you wished could use vault.

I suspect this is where we’ll have to agree to disagree. Yes, you have other options such as using your dodges or steal to get back in, but these are all precious resources the Thief needs just to barely hang in there. I’d rather not support the trend of us becoming more and more resource starved over time when things are bad enough as they are.

I will concede I’ve been a bit tough on Staff #3 in general. Initially I thought it was meh and could use a redesign, but after some further consideration I realized most of it is fine. I still strongly believe that it should offer a way to inexpensively re-engage after, though.

Amante.8109:

babazhook.6805:

It does no such thing. First and foremost that this a #3 skill is not material to the discussion. Nothing suggests a number 3 skill must keep a thief in combat. The reason this at number 3 is it has multiple effects that being damage inflicted a condition inflicted , an evade and Immob break and a gap opener which ideal for the number 3 slot.

I didn’t explain my reasoning on Staff #3 as well as I could have when initially writing that post, but that section has received extensive edits since then (including removing the #3 on other weapons bit, which wasn’t the right tack to take). The updated version:

• Staff #3: While the Immobilize break is nice, the skill is clunky and doesn’t flow with the rest of the Staff. It forces you to spend Initiative to get close enough to resume pressure. Initiative is a precious and finite resource, and you shouldn’t have to spend 2/3 of it just to remove one Immobilize and get back in melee. The best solution would be to add an additional effect that only triggers if Staff #3 hits an enemy with the initial attack. This effect would either give a temporary reduction on the cost of Staff #2, or trigger some kind of flip-skill on Staff #3 that lets you re-engage affordably.

babazhook.6805:

I also used staff in Beta and rarely used INI to get back in battle. You have dodges to do that now or if you wished could use vault.

I suspect this is where we’ll have to agree to disagree. Yes, you have other options such as using your dodges or steal to get back in, but these are all precious resources the Thief needs just to barely hang in there. I’d rather not support the trend of us becoming more and more resource starved over time when things are bad enough as they are.

I will concede I’ve been a bit tough on Staff #3 in general. Initially I thought it was meh and could use a redesign, but after some further consideration I realized most of it is fine. I still strongly believe that it should offer a way to inexpensively re-engage after, though.

Well let us just say that as designed it was one of my favorite skills in beta. I actually used acro with the build and upper hand (given i no longer needed that Immob break off don’t stop) and this was pulling off a good number of +1 ini evades. Upper hand still not enough but 3 ini was cheap for what you get with this.

Animations and #4 need the most work with staff and after that is tuning to vault and the damage coefficients.