Guild Wars 2

So, I’m loving a lot of what DD is offering so far…but here’s my fear:

So many of the DD traits offer so much synergy to swords that the benefits of staff may just be completely eclipsed by what you gain from a sword set.

Let’s look at the synergy with traits for each sword set as an example

S/P
Gains stealth with bound on black powder.
– Indirectly gains access to condition removal if used with SA traits
Gains the ability to remove condis from Escapist Absolution when evading with Pistol Whip.
Gains healing from Escapist Absolution when evading with Pistol Whip.

S/D
Gains the ability to remove condis from Escapist Absolution when evading with Flanking Strike.
Gains healing from Escapist Absolution when evading with Flanking Strike.
Playstyle synergizes very well with high evade uptime, which is provided from DD 3rd endurance bar.

Now, a staff does technically get the same evade benefits that S/D does, but it has no direct access to stealth, and less condi removal. We don’t know the ini cost of staff skills yet, but it looks very possible that a S/D or S/P set will just be better for Daredevil all around.

I’d love to see sword Daredevils as viable, but it will be sad to see our new weapon as just all around inferior right out the gate…

If we can up the number of target from 3 to 5, staff becomes a much better AoE weapon.

Gray.9041:

If we can up the number of target from 3 to 5, staff becomes a much better AoE weapon.

Yea, kinda surprised me that it’s being sold as an AoE weapon, but only has 3 targets…

But who knows since that’s just from datamined tooltips. That’s something that could easily be changed between now and the beta or even after.

Gray.9041:

If we can up the number of target from 3 to 5, staff becomes a much better AoE weapon.

A part of me would be very, very happy with 5 targets.

I run Critical Strikes primarily (assassin gear, yeah, I know …) and spec’d for Invigorating Precision and Signet of Malice to offset my lack of HP (now that Acrobatics sucks and no longer gives +3,000 HP).

If I could hit 5 targets and get 7-10 pops of HP, I would be an insanely happy Charr.