Guild Wars 2

Speaking about thief (dare devil ) design, i think staff would be more interesting if it could compete with shortbow, for great mobility weapon and aoe damage.

Honestly thief has already good melee weapons and dd synergizes really well with sword ,dagger and pistol mh (at least on paper) and it would be really a little tryhard to compete with these set.

Everyone uses shortbow, it’s really good, and i think a really interesting way it would be changing staff to compete, in different ways, with this weapon, at least for mobility. It’s not really a good design, seeing a profession always stuck on the same weapon set.

It’s only an idea, probably today we’ll receive more details, but i think it would open an amazing build diversity on thief

Why would you want two weapon sets that serve the same role and do the same thing?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Why would you want two weapon sets that serve the same role and do the same thing?

I said this

1) staff in competion with the actual melee set will have hard life.
2) every thief uses shortbow.

So i think a different (not same) way to guarantee high mobility to thief in a different set + different stuff from shortbow would be better.

For example I see potential in staff leap 5 but not enough to be an alternative to infiltrator’s arrow

If the skills are totally different, yet still end up doing the same thing, its not really different. ie, if Staff #5 has a leap distance that is proportional to the initiative use when compared to SB#5.

Every thief uses SB because it has superior AoE and mobility. I personally cannot see the point in having those two things together on a different weapon.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

If the skills are totally different, yet still end up doing the same thing, its not really different. ie, if Staff #5 has a leap distance that is proportional to the initiative use when compared to SB#5.

Every thief uses SB because it has superior AoE and mobility. I personally cannot see the point in having those two things together on a different weapon.

Staff is designed to have AoE but in a different way than shortbow. It’s melee aoe damage, not ranged, and with different effects.

Main issue is mobility, infilitrator’s arrow is too far superior to a simple leap, and it’s the main reason cuz thief uses sb (in pvp).

Without giving a true alternative to infiltrator’s arrow, thief will always use shortbow in one weapon set.

It is clear at this point that the combination of Initiative’s cooldown-less weapon skills and Shortbow #5’s spammable mobility creates limitations around what can be done with Thief on the design level.

I’d like to see them increase our core durability and mobility through trait reworks and base stat increases (HP and Initiative), freeing up space to tone down problematic weapon skills like Shortbow #5. This would open up weapon choice and build diversity.

Two example trait improvements:
Acrobatics Minor: Passive 25% movespeed (ala Chronomancer)
Shadow Arts Minor: Gain Protection for the duration of Revealed.

Looking Vault (staff skill five) I think if it worked on vertical axes like e teleport leap, it could be really interesting like mobility skill. It has a GTAoE and honestly it would be amazing, visually speaking, acrobatic moves on vertical axis.

Karl said it will cost 5 ini cuz there is no evade (atm is 6) i think to promote a better gameplay then just spam 5 it could be a bit reworked with lower damage and lower Casting time+ teleport/leap in vertical axes and maybe buff in damage some other skills.

Actually there is no way for staff to compete with other melee set, probably an alternative (who works in different ways but always have a mobility skill) to shortbow would sound really more interesting.

My 2 cents ofc.

philheat.3956:

Looking Vault (staff skill five) I think if it worked on vertical axes like e teleport leap, it could be really interesting like mobility skill. It has a GTAoE and honestly it would be amazing, visually speaking, acrobatic moves on vertical axis.

Karl said it will cost 5 ini cuz there is no evade (atm is 6) i think to promote a better gameplay then just spam 5 it could be a bit reworked with lower damage and lower Casting time + teleport/leap in vertical axis and maybe buff in damage some other skills.

Actually there is no way for staff to compete with other melee set, probably an alternative (who works in different ways but always have a mobility skill) to shortbow would sound really more interesting.

My 2 cents ofc.

I agree. Vault on vertical axis, with lower casting time (and maybe lower damage with more damage on other skills to compensate) would be amazing. A real Ninja.

I don’t see really reasons to keep staff instead of d/x or s/x and we are always stuck on shortbow in the other weapon set.

I think it would be really amazing combinations with Staff instead of Shortbow, but we need a strong mobility skill.

Make it real Karl

Shortbow’s shadow step is still king.

Azure Prower.8701:

Shortbow’s shadow step is still king.

For now yes, and it’s a little sad to be always stuck on weapon set for a single skill :\

If Vault, say, refunded 2-3 Initiative if it the attack never damaged anything… maybe it could be used in serious PvP in place of Shortbow on Forest, maybe even Legacy. As it stands the Staff is pretty useless, unfortunately.

After tried staff, I always think it should be a mobility weapon in competition with sb, other melee set are too much better.