Guild Wars 2

If you read my posts, you might know that I am a PVE daredevil (Wtf, right?) and I try to contribute with factually based theory crafting (I’m wrong a lot). In that context, I’ve adovcated a lot for Acrobratics. I think it’s utterly insane when it comes to going solo and really demonstrates the raw power that a daredevil has when it comes to soloing.

But before I can make that case, I have to talk a little bit about why I am making this distinction here between Group PVE and Solo PVE.

When you theory craft a build for group PVE, your goal is to create a build with the highest DPS possible with the minimum amount of sustain. Why is this? Well, because in group PVE, there is a number of elements that allow builds like this to work.

• In high level fractals, the bosses life total scales much higher than their damage does. (At least, it seems to)
• Intelligent players can manipulate the boss’s AI to shift agro from group member to group member, dispersing that damage among all five party members.
• If you go into downed state, you have another player to revive you.
• While the other player is reviving, you still have three other players, engaging the boss and keeping the encounter from reseting.

Now, on the flip side, none of these elements exist when theory crafting a solo build with the intention of hunting big game (elites, champions). Down state is game over when you are solo. If you build for all damage and you burst hard on an elite or champion and take him down to 50% before you run out of defensive resources and die, then you accomplished nothing. The boss resets back to full life, you have to waypoint and start over.

So with that in mind, you have to approach theory crafting a solo build with different priorities than a group build…

• You have to create some kind of composition that gives you a defensive rotation that can out cycle the champion or elite’s offensive rotation.
• Once you have achieved that, then you start layering on more damage.

This is a key distinction and why I think people new to thiefs and daredevil get so frustrated in open world and solo PvE. They go to metabattle, copy a meta build designed for group play and then get wrecked solo. There isn’t a lot of published information on how to make solo builds, because…well…to be honest…not many people have a masochistic streak like me that drives them single-handedly to slay champions; group builds are perfectly fine for killing trash and participating in group open world.

Okay, so with that in mind, what is the best way for us as thieves to achieve that kind of defensive rotation, so we don’t have to run away when we encounter an elite or champion alone? In my opinion, I believe, hands down, it’s Acrobatics. Acrobatics combined with the minor traits in Daredevil, a certain food buff and a couple of utility skills gives you everything you need to out cycle any mob’s offensive rotation. The minimum investment required allows you to devote all your other traits, sigils, runes and utility skills to increasing your damage.

How does it do this?

• Perma vigor that maxes out your endurance regen at the 100% increase cap.
• Hard To Catch in combination with Channelled Vigor and Signet of Agility

Perma Vigor with Max Endurance Regen

Okay, so we’ll start with vigor. We’ll need to talk a little bit about endurance and endurance regen and why endurance regen is stronger for daredevils than any other class.

Endurance regen works by restoring 5% of your total endurance per second. Therefore, other classes have a base endurance regen of 5 energy per second (5% of 100), while daredevils have a base endurance regen of 7.5 energy per second (5% of 150).

What is the significance of this? Dodges cost a flat 50 energy for all classes, so daredevils not only have a larger endurance bar, but can dodge more frequently.

(Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endurance)

This 5% can be increased by up to 100%, resulting in an energy rate of 10% per second. At this rate, we regen 15 endurance per second.

(Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vigor)

Daredevils can achieve this capped out endurance rate by using the following

Vigor (50%) + Endless Stamina (25%) + Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew (40%) = 115%

Okay, well, that’s cool, we can can out our endurance regen, but how do we get perma vigor?

Via the trait Feline Grace combined with the maxed out endurance regen rate.

Feline Grace grants us 5 seconds of Vigor on evade with a 1 second ICD
Our maxed out endurance regen rate grants us 15 energy per second (60 energy every 4 seconds)

This means if you consistently and frequently dodge and evade a champion or elite’s mechanics, you will gain vigor duration at rate faster than it declines.

The Acrobatics minor traits combined with the food buff creates an engine that fuels itself with it’s own dodges.

Hard To Catch

Why is this skill so great? It’s just a training wheels stun breaker for daredevils who can’t dodge correctly, right?

Well, yeah, kind of, but it can be much more than that. It’s a stun breaker on a 30 second that instantly restores 100 energy.

What is the significance of that? Well, there is a general rule in PvE that if a mob’s mechanic applies hard CC, it most likely will not deal enough damage to one shot you, provided you have some vitality from gear. There is exceptions to this rule, but typically, if a mechanic can one shot most characters, well….it doesn’t really need to hard CC, does it?

So with that in mind, you can intentionally eat a champion or elite’s hard CC mechanic as a substitute for dodging and in the process, regain enough energy for 2 subsequent dodges.

This nets you the following manually triggered endurance refills…

• Hard To Catch (100 energy on a 30 second CD, situationally dependent on the mob having a hard CC mechanic)
• Channeled Vigor (85 energy on a 16 second CD with Brawler’s Tenacity)
• Signet of Agility (100 energy on a 30 second CD)

All of this combined with your maxed our endurance regen means you have an insane amount of potential endurance. It’s only in extreme cases where I have ever had to pop Signet of Agility, so it’s existence on the bar is mostly an increase to your DPS while serving as an emergency defensive tool.

What did you have to invest to get all this? One trait line for Acrobratics, one specific healing skill and one utility skill that is a passive DPS increase. This leaves you free to take Critical Strikes and the passive damage multipliers in Daredevil and invest your elite slot and two remaining utility slots into damage boosting abilities.

And Acrobatics has other cool stuff…

The Other Cool Stuff

Expeditious Dodger is just great with any dodge choice in Daredevil and even better with Unhindered Combatant, because both swiftness applications on dodge stack. With all your endurance sources, you apply swiftness duration at a much greater rate than it expires.

Instant Reflexes is situationally awesome. If you are fighting multiple mobs or a champ/elite with a flurry mechanic, it’s crazy good. If you aren’t, it’s not good at all.

Upper Hand grants one second of intiative and 6 seconds of regen per evade on a 2 second ICD. This means you can maintain perma regen (remember we regen energy in this setup at rate of 60 per 4 seconds) while giving yourself more initiative to fuel into offensive attacks or defensive blinds.

Conclusion

So should you take Acrobatics in a group build?

No, not really; only as a training phase until you learn to manipulate the agro tables. Deadly Arts and Critical Strikes all have substantial damage multipliers and damage increasing traits. Dropping either one for Acrobatics is a DPS loss.

But for an open world build, it gives you the potential (You still have to know the mechanics and when to dodge) to stand toe to toe with anything and pretty much never die, even in chaotic content like Dragon Stand.

And with all that said, this is my base build I use in open world.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6qm8lCGOhFqiqLBCgDYLHHsdcO73+yH-TxRBQBJU9nFpE8K7PK9ewTAAAXEgMqMoQ6GIDQ1CA-e

Or just roll a MM reaper and roll your face across the keyboard.

It’s interesting that we’ve theorycrafted on the same issue but come to different conclusions. This is my build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAsal8MhCnYxTw0JQ/ELUF181/9hvXGMklQXCEAHAA-TxxIABvpE8IlfbrHQ29Ha/EAsu6PA8AAAA-e

I’m using this build as a solo(as in no help) build. I think the 2 most important thing about my build is SOM and Pistol Whip. Maxing out your endurance/vigor is important but it’s an active defense with no pressure. Pistol Whip gives you evade frame while constantly putting pressure on your target. It’s deceptive. It shows 4 swing animation but it’s really 8 if you check your combat logs. That 8*150(healing from SOM) = 1200 healing just from 1 skill. add the evade heal from driven fortitude (485) plus the regen from Upper Hand and you’re pretty much a tank. Chose Upper Hand over Assassin’s Reward to prevent overheal(wasted heal) and init regen for the rather expensive initiative cost of PW. I went with Lotus training not because of the conditions but the hits. It shoots 3 darts and can target multiple enemies. If you’re pulling a huge group… say 20 raptors in Auric Basin. you can literally dodge 3 times at half health and gain it all back.

Sigil of Draining is nice. It’s a 1k lifesteal on interrupt with no ICD. The whip in Pistol Whip is a stun and you will interrupt enemies often. Add that with the constant pressure of Pulmonary Impact and you’ve got one hell of a solo build.

my rotation when engaging a champ is PW > dodge > PW > Steal(to proc Kleptomaniac) > PW > PW > dodge. From here, you should be in a nice groove to know what to do. I like to keep my endurance low to not waste a Hard to Catch Proc. I use Haste > Black Powder > Dagger Storm to clear out groups and switch it out to Fist Flurry and Impact Strike for champs with breakbars.

I’ve had zerker armor and boy what a mistake that was. I agree with what you said. Getting a mob down to 30-50% in a few seconds means nothing if you’re dead. I’ve found Marauder balances this build out. This solo build in one of few thief build that benefits from celestial trinkets but like I said, SOM and PW are most important principles.

I can see how it works. I worked out a similar build in the past, but I think Staff with Acro/CS/DD has a higher number of advantages and synergies.

But if you don’t like staff, there is clearly alternative builds that still capitalize on the advantages of Acro + DD while playing to the strengths of the other weapon sets.

And yeah, I can’t stress enough how much I love Marauders. An additional 4k hp puts you right at the boundary of not getting one shotted by anything in HoT, except extremely high scaled champions and legendaries.

Yes ACRO in conjunction with a SOM heal build is very potent.I too found I got more heals overall from the upper hand and always up regen then assassins reward.

d/d condition can go forever like this and you can solo champions. Them things like the raptors are WELCOME as they give more evades and more SOM procs.

yeah I run acro on my pve daredevil too

Hey.

I am think of use the lvl80 boost I got to make and try a Thief / Daredevil.
What build you think is good for a fresh lvl 80, that never play thief at all, to go out on HoT map ?

At what point do i change to daredevil ?

I can make Marauders Exotic armor, Have 5 Ascend berserker jewels, All so have 3 berserker / Valkyrie, And 3 Soldier.

Weapon i will buy Exotic to start on.

I be playing solo, team up when i can for hero point.

TIA

I think you got some wrong information. It might state that the base regeneration is “5%” but in reality it’s “5”

I just tried dodging as daredevil and as normal thief, recording it at 60fps, loading into video editing and went frame by frame.

Daredevil base endurance regeneration is at 5/sec.

And if i remember correctly it was mentioned many times before.

Edit: And i think the regeneration rate is capped at 7.5/s (8.75/s for thieves). So having vigor + buff food, gives you no bonus. The food will only work in the down time of vigor when you don’t have permanent vigor.

crouze.3078:

I think you got some wrong information. It might state that the base regeneration is “5%” but in reality it’s “5”

I just tried dodging as daredevil and as normal thief, recording it at 60fps, loading into video editing and went frame by frame.

Daredevil base endurance regeneration is at 5/sec.

And if i remember correctly it was mentioned many times before.

Edit: And i think the regeneration rate is capped at 7.5/s (8.75/s for thieves). So having vigor + buff food, gives you no bonus. The food will only work in the down time of vigor when you don’t have permanent vigor.

Correct, it takes 10s to get one dodge without vigor on a DD. DD does not have higher base regen that OP claims. Food should stack with vigor, however. I believe that was a recent change, but don’t have the source.

Just like “refilling 50% endurance” off energy sigil is predicated on 100 as the base. The 150 total endurance is not recognized.

That said you do get 7.5 percent if you are not specced DD so in fact as a percentage the non DD is higher than the DD spec even though in numbers it the same.

eh? i thought anyting worked in pve.