Guild Wars 2

Do you guys use vault in your rotation or just to position yourself/gap close/evade (Basically utility with damage). I’m new to Daredevil and loving it, but using vault seems to crap on my initiative pretty fast compared to weakening strike. Also, can you evade using weakening strike? Never really noticed it.

Pve or pvp?
I use vault in pvp a lot, but not exclusively. For example weakening strikes is much stronger if your enemies are good enough to dodge the highly-telegraphed vault.
Or as a combo with steal.
In pve vault is a dps loss I think, at least if you have quickness. Weakening strikes is better than AA, but only if you manage to reliably hit all 3 strikes.

Weakening strikes works well against an enemy that isn’t going anywhere and can see vault coming. Hook strike+ vault+ weakening strikes is a very nasty combo to hit someone with since the vault comes first during the knockdown, and most people can’t react fast enough to stop one vault. Weakening strikes after since you’re more likely to hit at least one or two hits before they stun break.

weakening charge is no good in pvp becouse enemies move constantly so it will hit only once

In PvE, if you are fighting a boss mob with a large hit box that isnt moving or focusing you for damage, than weakening strikes is higher DPS than vault or AA without quickness, since you can reliably hit all three hits.

On the other hand, in an AoE situation, Weakening Strikes only does more damage if the mobs are lined up, which is very situational, thus making Vault more reliable against groups.

Beyond that, it’s situational. In PvE, my usage of the skills changes based on what type of mob I am fighting, how quickly I can burst them down and how much I can rely on dodges or standard movement to avoid their damage.

Like, let’s look at frogs and take an elite Crusher, for example. They have big, slow attacks that can be avoided by just doing a Weakening Strikes into them, so you end up on their backside. The telegraphing on their swings is that high. So for those fights, I mostly just AA and then save initiative to Weakening Strikes right before they swing. Easiest fight in HoT for a Daredevil with staff; you don’t have to even dodge to win.

Now, an elite Shadowleaper, that’s a different story, because they are arguably the most overtuned mobs in the game next to Bladedancers. They have too much HP to burst down by dumping your initiative and they have too much constant, high damage pressure to outlast on just endurance alone. To win, you have to use a combination of Dust Strike and dodges to avoid their standard attacks (which with an elite will knock you down to 25% HP with Marauders gear) and keep either one Vault or one dodge in the tank for their backflip attack. Backflip attack is a flurry of shots, so blind only works on the first shot and it will down you if you don’t evade most of the shots.

I’m in the same camp as MadRabbit, in that it’s very situational. Weakening strikes will do more damage per initiative if you hit all 3 strikes. However, vault comes with evade and free positioning, while maximising WS’s damage requires very precise positioning against standard mobs. In most situations, I prefer to just autoattack, while saving Vault for a high damage evade in place of a dodge.