Guild Wars 2

Karl McLain.5604:

P.I. is set to trigger its damage when the mark expires. Currently, the mark removes when the target goes down or dies (by design). As players receive invulnerability when they go down, the damage from P.I. probably just gets negated. I could see allowing the buff to continue on downed enemies in the future.

Thank you for the answer. I am glad you are considering adding that feature to the trait, as I really love the concept of P.I

In what world does PI do 4k for you? max i ever get is like 2,3

When I interrupt people with the new physical elite skill, and he gets downed at the same time, the pulmonary impact does not hit after the enemy is downed. If my last finishing blow then gets interrupted then the added damage from the pulmonary impact is dearly missed to finish them off with damage.

Is this intended?

I thought i could substitute a utility slot from signet of agility to shadow refuge, and use my distracting daggers to make up for the loss of dodges, only to find out that throwing the daggers, nor equipping the daggers for that matter, proc the trait for the extra endurance. The skill is marked as a physical skill though

Will this be fixed at some point in the near future? what about other traits that dont proc like flanking strikes on improvisation? Also why doesnt caltrops on dodge count as a trick to remove conditions?

I myself like using deadly arts, trickery and daredevil with following traits:
Da: 121
Tr: 123
DD: 221

Dagger/dagger and shortbow
Signet of malice
Caltrops
The dagger physical skill with poison I forgot The name of
Signet of agility
Daggerstorm

Should be enough sustain with malice for sinister or the new viper gear with krait runes and condi sigils like bursting or corruption on weapons. Insane condi clear with EA and trickster

To be honest, I am spending most of my initiative on vault, using ways to regain ini quickly I still crit them for anything from 7-9k. So damage is still very good but I last waaay longer in fights. Even if you use zerker trinkets with fury from thrill of the crime you get 50% which is enough to land enough damage. But in pve its all about the damage over time now anyways. Staff certainly has enough of that, so I’d rather hit hard vaults but have alot of HP and defensive traits. I think its a style of thief that not many are trying, because “thief needs to have burst dps bla bla”

So first off, I’d like to say that I find it rather dissapointing reading most first impressions of the daredevil. Before I get to my impression, let me tell you why. (this post will be aimed at HoT content, as I like most people went in there with beserker gear and tried to thief it up like normal)

Most people are expecting to get away with the regular thief playstyle of burst damage and squishy as ever with some survival utilities like smoke screen and the like, but I wonder how many of you are actually observing what arenanet is trying to push thieves to.

My impression was similar and I thought yeah staff is fun but it’s useless and squishy. I thought I’d be limited to a condi hybrid build with DD, which. I do enjoy alot, but I wanted more diversity. Then I decided to open up my perspective and try to see what anet has intended thieves to become. (on HoT atleast).

First of all, lets start with looking at the new runes, as I feel this is giving us a good direction with daredevil that is being over looked. Power, toughness and 100% crit after a dodge roll. Woah! Hold your horses here, Holliday. Are you saying we aren’t getting a nice precision/condi mix with weakness to compliment the hybrid playstyle? And what is with the toughness? Where is my precision?!
Let’s think about this for a second.
anet is basically telling us: “Look, thieves are getting free 100% crits on hardhitting attacks after a dodge, so go use some stats other than precision”

This got me thinking. If precision is free, all I need is power and ferocity. This opens up the stats I can use as a thief tremendously! Finally I can use something like valkyrie to get all that vitality I always wanted, heck I could go for the new wanderers stuff for some boon duration on my vigor. Yet I still can keep hitting hard and constantly evade on my vaults.
Let us also not forget that I can now trait way more defensively too, acrobatics, trickery, daredevil anyone? Well, I can now use traits in acrobatics that I never used before! I can actually use it to heal or gain initiative for longer fights because Look, dash is a better don’t stop!

No more need for insane fury uptimes and extra damage from this and that because the weapons hit hard enough (staff, p/p) on their own.

This is only one playstyle I have played with and it’s extremely fun and viable in the new zones.

I guess all I want to say with this post, is that before you start calling out for buffs and how daredevil isnt viable here and there, think about redefining everything you knew about thief and try out the awesome stuff anet is pushing here.

Well, after some thought I think we all agree on one thing:

Conditions need to be clearable on thief.

Now, we could just buff the escapist absolution to clear 1-2 conditions per dodge, but then no one would ever use the other 2 traits in the master’s line. Here is my proposal, to make condi clear more viable in other trait lines:

Instead of adding 2 condition clears on a trick, maybe add the caltrops on dodge as a trick to proc with that trait to make a 2 trait combo for good clear on dodging? This way you sacrifice some support and get the condi cleanse you need.
Then there isn’t a need to go for escapist absolution if you want to clear while dodging and opens up other build options.

Then we have reliable condi clear from a number of options.

Also I think a short slow would be awesome on weakining strikes, adding condi pressure and damage mitigation at the same time. Also fits the DD theme

I am really happy about these changes.
Now the GM traits actually feel like GM traits, and not just a slightly different dodge.
Evasive empowerment change is very welcome too, this new trait is more flexible and gives us some nice options in the adept trait line.

In BWE3 I played mainly Dire condi and later on rabid/rampager D/D condi hybrid with all the whirl combo support, damage and lone wolf kittenery that i could give my team during raids and part of me wants to have the inflict X condition on weakening strikes. But I must agree with the rest when i say give us the – damage from weakened targets. Survival would be a nice change.

I would also like to ask about something you did not touch on, Karl. Have you had any advancements on the animations for the staff on the whole? it just feels too much like a hammer warrior when i play it and that’s why, well, I don’t play it haha.

At the moment I am still loving D/D condition Hybrid daredevil and P/P unhindered combatant daredevil aka zoom zoom I am Lucian from League of Legends daredevil.

Thank you Mr, Mclain for being awesome as ever and I can’t wait for release #hypetrainhasnobrakes o7