Guild Wars 2

The weapon feels way too stiff. I feel like half the time I’m stuck in drawn out animations. This is far from the fluid, fast hitting weapon I expected.

I agree, it is too clunky in its current state.
That also applies to the new dodges, all of them seem to have some kind of annoying start up delay.

Lol. I just tired it. This is pure trash.

Yea…I’m really not liking the dodges either.

Dash looks weird. Bound roots you when you land. Lotus is fine, but it’s condi. XD

Especially skill 2, Weakening Charge. While it is a nice skill with pretty good damage, it has probably the worst animation ive ever seen in a AAA game.

Honestly that animation needs to be reworked. Cant the thief extend one arm with the staff out or something at least so that it looks the staff has some punch? Currently the thief just spins and does something that looks like a bad poke. He should spin and hit with the side of the staffs end. He should grip it in one end and hit with the side of the other. Watch a kungkittenmovie.

That animation could have been made by an intern after his first animation course.

Third hit on staff combo… No.

No. Please no. ‘Lookit me, no hands!’ It’s terrible. Just… no.

Vault is extremely cool looking at least. I was hoping Dust Strike would be like, sweeping the ground in a half circle or something instead of the shovel animation. A lot of the staff animations almost feel like placeholders.

Also, dust strike seems hits once or twice seemingly randomly when using it on unbreakable golem

Agreed, it is a bit clunky and slow.

This is the reason why I don’t want to give them money because kitten like this happens.

I understand that it is beta, but come on…nobody in their team ever check this?

I’m only going by what you guys are saying since I didn’t pre-order, but kitten , that’s really disappointing.

Good spec suffers from bad animation.

the auto attack feels disjointed. Like they don’t belong together. Does anyone else thing this?

I agree as a Thief main.

Staff is beyond bad due the following reasons:

• Auto-attack needs to be faster
• Skill 2: doesnt go towards the target but right where you’re looking at, which is bad. Imo it should work like Heartseeker and go towards the target. It should also hit 1 target more while going through it.
• Skill 4: too long casttime, range is fine.
• Skill 5: too long casttime

Overall, the staff feels clunky, not smooth as I thought it was going to be. I do like the way its going but it needs some work here and there. And thats what a Beta is all about, which I highly appreciate tbh.

Another thing is the dodges in Dare Devil traitline, the GM traits.
2 of the reveal you in shadow refuge when someone is attacking you in the refuge.
While the dash (same as staff skill 2) feels clunky while engaging into melee.

I feel like Marauder/zerker staff isn’t going to be a thing, but more for a Hybrid (Cele).
Going into marauders with Staff is plain suicide right now.

Physical skills are meh.. The elite is fine and working as intented, though. But the physicals arent worth leaving Shadow Refuge and Shadow Step. Which only leaves one utility slot for a physical.

Hook Strike’s (stealth 1) damage seems excessively low to me (Berserker amulet + Rune of the Scholar = 174 damage).

I understand the power of a 2 sec knockdown, but Tactical Strike’s daze (1.5 secs) and Backstab’s damage (2025) far outweigh the tiny damage and 1/2 second more CC.

i did say it was pure pve weapon and has no place in pvp due to lack of utility + long animations (actually blind animation is copy paste from conjured ele hammer spell which has long cast times)~

Staff was not the agile, acrobatic weapon I thought it would be.

Someone please get rid of that whirly staff spin auto attack, please. I cannot stress enough how ugly and cumbersome that thing is. I can’t even take the weapon seriously.

It looks like whoever animated the staff attacks has NO idea how a staff is used IRL.

I agree. It was just not fun to play and I was really hoping to play a thief in hot. I cannot put a finger on it. I also find the 3rd dodge with the damage attached very odd to use. The damage after I land is kind okittenward to me.

I also have to note that despite the smash dodge is revealing you from stealth, they should increase its radius, because its hard to aim it in an actual fight.

Sounds like it plays like all warrior weapons.

Well, I’m hoping for better animations for Vault skill (and for every skill in general). Hopefully one that uses the staff to pole-vault, atleast with human animations it does death-blossom and then staff strike on it’s end, good basis for “pole-vault” move. It fits abit, but would be excellent if it were a completely new animation that is fluid, than combination of 2 pre-existing animation

The auto-attack third skill animation looks very off, with floating-spinning staff from Revenants skill as it’s animation…

wow the Dardevil as a whole is clunky.
Glad I didnt waste time going on a hero point grind on my Thief…

I wish staff had been more like this: an improved animation for the autoattack, the number 2 ability made into the leap that 5 is but with a lot less damage and less initiative. No. 3 made into a block, hold the staff up and do a reactive counter attack against next 3 melee attacks. No.4 a wide ground sweep rising dust to blind up to 5 enemies. No.5 a wide sweeping attack doing damage to 5 enemies, quick, high damage, high cost.

This would actually feel like you are using a staff.

I think the problem was that the theme was dodging and so they made the staff this mobile weapon to fit the dodge theme but this resulted in a staff that does not feel like a staff.

I think it’s great. Number 3 is super fast with an evasion. Number 2 feels fine to me, yea it goes in a straight line but so does a lot of charge abilities in this game. Number 5 is amazing, I’ve crit people 7-8k with it… it hits harder than a backstab, is AOE and a gap closer. Number 5 might not be the fastest ability but it doesn’t seem any slower than Warrior Hammer finisher with F1, it’s fine.

The only thing I truly have an issue with are the dodges. They’re too slow and take too long, it feels like I’m gimping myself. The normal rolls are short and fast and I expected this spec to be amazing with 3 bars and special effects added. The AOE burst one takes way too long, the longer dash is better but also too long and sends me too far away from my target if I just want to evade an attack. I’m not sure about staff skill number 1 yet (I need to test further), same goes with the finisher. I would say that number 2-3-4-5 on staff are all fine at least.

I rly like that thief. Played him for around 3h.
The speed from the staff, skills etc is ok.
With skill 5 I did in a group 30k dmg on one boss. The dmg that he can deal is pretty nice^^

So for me theres nothing to complain

after trying out sd with some phys skills and DD….. definitely not my cup of tea
lack of team support, 0 dmg mitigation
dp SA is still waaaayy too superior in conquest
dodges are so…. slow
whole build is just too clunky

Staff is meh. Going to ask for refund on HOT.

Is it possible to get refund?

When they said theif is getting staff for HOT I had this in my mind

And now we’re getting this pathetic hand spin combo /flip table

beastie.4536:

When they said theif is getting staff for HOT I had this in my mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65M8bi5lI8

And now we’re getting this pathetic hand spin combo /flip table

I was expecting something along those lines, too … you know, a fighting style based off actual, real life bojitsu or similar martial arts. That seems like a pretty reasonable expectation. But instead we got a bunch of clunky animations and this flowery spinny autoattack that looks like it’s out of a bad anime.

Terrorsquad.4802:

I agree as a Thief main.

Staff is beyond bad due the following reasons:

• Auto-attack needs to be faster
• Skill 2: doesnt go towards the target but right where you’re looking at, which is bad. Imo it should work like Heartseeker and go towards the target. It should also hit 1 target more while going through it.
• Skill 4: too long casttime, range is fine.
• Skill 5: too long casttime

Overall, the staff feels clunky, not smooth as I thought it was going to be. I do like the way its going but it needs some work here and there. And thats what a Beta is all about, which I highly appreciate tbh.

Another thing is the dodges in Dare Devil traitline, the GM traits.
2 of the reveal you in shadow refuge when someone is attacking you in the refuge.
While the dash (same as staff skill 2) feels clunky while engaging into melee.

I feel like Marauder/zerker staff isn’t going to be a thing, but more for a Hybrid (Cele).
Going into marauders with Staff is plain suicide right now.

Physical skills are meh.. The elite is fine and working as intented, though. But the physicals arent worth leaving Shadow Refuge and Shadow Step. Which only leaves one utility slot for a physical.

I think this sums it up. The staff is just simply too slow. It feels very lacking in damage compared to other options (mainly daggers), and the utility the staff brings is really not impressive enough to outweigh its lack of solid dps.

Also to elaborate on the utility physical skills, I really think the only impressive one is “Impairing Daggers.”

“Fist Flury” in particular is just way too slow and relies on a stun proc if all its very slow clunky strikes hit. This is extremely unlikely as it only takes one dodge from the victim to break the chain. Quite frankly, Pistol Whip is a better version of “Fist Flurry”

I feel Bandit’s defense would have been way better as one of the staff skills, and should have a longer block period.

On a more positive note, I found that the leap trait for dodge had some nice synergy with smoke field for more stealth at times.

Overall, Daredevil thief fell way short of my expectations.

staff is 100% trash

no burst, no sustain , huge animations , clunky, ugly staff skins, massive initiative consume

staff is our worst weapon, and its in such a bad state (even worse than p/p ever was) that i cant think of any improvement that could make it viable. this thing needs a complete rework or :
take my staff….gimme rifle.

beastie.4536:

When they said theif is getting staff for HOT I had this in my mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65M8bi5lI8

A small group of men in brightly colored shirts swinging sticks around and dancing?

Gabriell.4856:

Staff is meh. Going to ask for refund on HOT.

So far I’m not convinced if I would even purchase this expansion.

If only the elite spec were rifle.. There would at least be nothing to kitten up, at least not much, considering it’s still anet.

What i wonder is how does one come to idea to give a class with close to no dmg mitigation, no stab, invuls etc. a weapon set with huge animations like war greathammer…..

It is ok for wars to have long animations, hence why they have high HP so they don’t die while executing earthshaker… but thieves with their low HP lol?
By the time you execute any meaningful dmg rotation you will probably die in mid of animations.

this feedback is good, valuable and necessary for anet to make adjustments (see reaper)

Cynz.9437:

By the time you execute any meaningful dmg rotation you will probably die in mid of animations.

This is exactly what happens. Sure, vault in, but it’s complete suicide, and the new dodge animations are so worthless with the pre/aftercast that you can’t even use those to get out in time.

kirima san.3760:

Especially skill 2, Weakening Charge. While it is a nice skill with pretty good damage, it has probably the worst animation ive ever seen in a AAA game.

Honestly that animation needs to be reworked. Cant the thief extend one arm with the staff out or something at least so that it looks the staff has some punch? Currently the thief just spins and does something that looks like a bad poke. He should spin and hit with the side of the staffs end. He should grip it in one end and hit with the side of the other. Watch a kungkittenmovie.

That animation could have been made by an intern after his first animation course.

I very much agree. I was dumbfounded when I first saw the animation for skill #2 and how bad it looked. I can’t even figure out what the animators were trying to do with this one.

I would suggest the following aswel:

• Make Staff 5 either an evade (while going up in the air) and keep ini cost/casttime/damage the same
• Make Staff 5 same as now but lower ini-cost + casttime but higer damage