Guild Wars 2

LOL the complaints from ele are laughable… You should see what it’s like being a thief. Your op as hell class deserved that nerf. I would welcome you to the rejected corner of the forums with is theifs but you still far surpass our class in all aspects. Enjoy the nerfs for once..

D/D cele ele was broken to hell… Please don’t complain about a completely fair balance change. Ele was previously capable of 3v1 and coming out on top in spvp. I don’t want to hear this woah is me when your class was literally complained about by pro teams saying running all ele was the meta….because that’s real balanced huh?

I fight for allot of causes on these threads for Daredevil, but this to me is a stupid thing to complain about, I immediately thought of Hermes when I saw this, nothing wrong with that. be constructive and at least comment on the things that should see change..not icons you will only ever look at while organizing a party…

Karl McLain.5604:

Animation update: All dodge animations are in the process of being iterated on. With that being said, in the next Beta weekend each custom dodge ability has had its animation replaced with what is called a ‘stub’, or a placeholder.
These stubs aren’t necessarily what the final animation will look like and may not even resemble the final product remotely (Huge disclaimer: Everything’s subject to change). However, we needed to replace the previously existing animations due to issues that couldn’t be resolved otherwise (i.e. Lag).

We are looking forward to the new functionality, but there’s a few pains that we’re getting through. During the next beta weekend, you’ll find that the Leap combo finisher for Bounding Dodger only works if you land inside a field. This is not intended and we’re already working on the fix for it (it’s in testing now). For now, it’s going to be trickier to get your leap finisher from Black Powder. There’s also a bug in the skill facts that indicate that it delivers a blast finisher, but it in fact a leap and will remain as such.

Other stuff:
As I talked about last update, Channeled Vigor’s now being tested as a 0.75 second cast (down from 2.25 seconds). We’re also toying with the endurance/healing values. The role of this heal is shaping more toward being high spike healing for the thief.

-Karl

Huuuge relief seeing this, but I must say I would love to hear the same for the staff animations as well. You touched the topic a while back when you said idle and run animations wont receive changes for a while, but then processed to say other animations were being worked on. When you said this, did you mean staff animations were being adjusted? Because me and probably every thief out there would be eternally grateful to get some real martial arts looking skills on the staff. I promise you, if you make this happen…my wallet is yours for another 2 years. Still praying current staff skill animations are placeholder.

I still have hope in you guys I know I have been quite the forum warrior, I just want the Daredevil to be all that I had imagined. I still have to say my dream would be to log in on launch and see a whole bunch of really well done martial arts looking animations in place of what it had, and I would expect no less from you guys. But for all the posts I have done, guess I just want to say I still feel you guys will surprise me yet again and all this worry is for nothing. I would also like to thank any dev reading this for all the hard work being done.

Slowmelt.8547:

Arctarius.2649:

Slowmelt.8547:

Arctarius.2649:

Serious Thought.5394:

Someone posted this and I thought these would work as the new Dash and Bound animations. =)
http://imgur.com/PXuculu

Edit: Apparently can’t search it in imgur. It’s basically a near instant slide-port for Dash and a quick flip Bound (opposed to … the uh… thingie we have now).

Although the idea of a shadowstep for a dodge is cool, it defeats the purpose of it being a dodge by removing the evade frames. Karl explained that if it were to have evade frames as a shadow step, it would have to have a wind up time at which point you would have evade frames. He also explained how they could not use new tech to just shadowstep as a dodge fluidly would. It would feel clunky and not path correctly. To me .. This sounds aweful as I like the overall fluid gameplay of a thief pre last betas daredevil, I hope that daredevil will play out fluid as well as they fix all of its issues.

The impression I got from others—and I wouldn’t mind myself—is if it just looked like a Shadowstep.
You know… have the little ‘poof’ effect at the start, some sort of a vague shadowy shape or trail traverse the distance while evading, then ‘poof’ back in. Like the Rev Sword 3, but… shadowy instead of misty.

You know, just for style.
And I don’t think they’d really need to put in a ton of new effort. Shadowstep effects already exist and everyone cares more that it’s cool than they care that it’s new.

Bonus points: if you evade through the shadows, it makes a lot of sense that you could escape immobilize effects. You did just roll through an alternate dimension or something, after all.
…Actually, I’m not entirely sure I understand how Shadowstepping… actually works…?

I completely know what you mean, I dont know why they take everything so literally. Shadow step dodge was obviously suggested for the animation without the functionality of an actual shadowstep. I dont know why they went on about how making it actually work as a shadowstep skill would be difficult. I do like the idea but I have to agree with the devs here, I want to see physical animations for the dare devil, where it never needs to vanish completely…but that being said, I would also like to see fresh animations that suggest these physical movements.

Honestly, I can agree with that, but…
I feel like that is the primary reason we’ve got so many placeholder animations.
Animating an entire body is a lot more difficult than chaining a bunch of discrete strikes together with a swooshy effect, and so on.
The effect is more understated but that doesn’t mean it’s easier to do, you know?
The truth is, the Daredevil’s style being done properly is probably going to take more effort on the part of the animation team, since, if you think about it, the Effects team and Animation team are… probably different teams? I’m assuming, anyway.
It’s basically loading it all on one side of that aisle, so it’s no wonder they’re struggling.
I just hope they’ll allot some time after HoT’s launch and give us an extra one or two animation passes to fancy it up after.

At this point I personally don’t care how much extra work it is for the devs ..I know this may sound selfish of me, but in the grand scheme of things it’s not. I have supported their game for 3 years.. I never posted or complained about anything on the forums in that time for anything even though the game was clearly suffering at the time. I stuck with anet through thick and thin.. Many times wanting to drop the game and watch it burn, i am sure I was not alone here. Despite the game seemingly going nowhere, me and many many others held hope for anet and decided to give them the support they needed to progress. There’s one thing that people always seem to forget.. These companies are nothing without us, we fuel them the money they need to run the game. That being said, I don’t think it’s asking too much to have freaking new animations on the one thing I am interested in after waiting for 3 years for some major content changes…

Slowmelt.8547:

Arctarius.2649:

Serious Thought.5394:

Someone posted this and I thought these would work as the new Dash and Bound animations. =)
http://imgur.com/PXuculu

Edit: Apparently can’t search it in imgur. It’s basically a near instant slide-port for Dash and a quick flip Bound (opposed to … the uh… thingie we have now).

Although the idea of a shadowstep for a dodge is cool, it defeats the purpose of it being a dodge by removing the evade frames. Karl explained that if it were to have evade frames as a shadow step, it would have to have a wind up time at which point you would have evade frames. He also explained how they could not use new tech to just shadowstep as a dodge fluidly would. It would feel clunky and not path correctly. To me .. This sounds aweful as I like the overall fluid gameplay of a thief pre last betas daredevil, I hope that daredevil will play out fluid as well as they fix all of its issues.

The impression I got from others—and I wouldn’t mind myself—is if it just looked like a Shadowstep.
You know… have the little ‘poof’ effect at the start, some sort of a vague shadowy shape or trail traverse the distance while evading, then ‘poof’ back in. Like the Rev Sword 3, but… shadowy instead of misty.

You know, just for style.
And I don’t think they’d really need to put in a ton of new effort. Shadowstep effects already exist and everyone cares more that it’s cool than they care that it’s new.

Bonus points: if you evade through the shadows, it makes a lot of sense that you could escape immobilize effects. You did just roll through an alternate dimension or something, after all.
…Actually, I’m not entirely sure I understand how Shadowstepping… actually works…?

I completely know what you mean, I dont know why they take everything so literally. Shadow step dodge was obviously suggested for the animation without the functionality of an actual shadowstep. I dont know why they went on about how making it actually work as a shadowstep skill would be difficult. I do like the idea but I have to agree with the devs here, I want to see physical animations for the dare devil, where it never needs to vanish completely…but that being said, I would also like to see fresh animations that suggest these physical movements.

Tabootrinket.2631:

Not to mention that the only thing we got, staff animation and dodges are completely broken (and RECYCLED), while other specs have tons of new visual effects mechanism and it works fine.

Tell me about it, I mean Christ at least make our skills look cool.. if the animations still reek of recycled animations on launch i am soooo done..i have fought and argued for it so much on these forums its not funny, i have even drawn examples of the dodge animations. I just cannot understand why the Daredevil was so lackluster compared to all the others..it is a huge letdown and my excitement for HoT is honestly drowned at this point.

So you are telling me, Dare Devils 1 EXTRA DODGE BAR…is our class mechanic to the druids avatar form, (which has 5 skills left side like death shroud AND 5 flip skill utilities on the right) Like Are you kidding me right now??
I am honestly kittened off, EVERY other class got an incredible addition to their class FOR FREE, our mechanic has been pushed into the GM traits as a choice as repeated countless times. The Dare Devil is in drastic need of a buff at this point. God help us.

never played Starcraft but would love to see it happen. I don’t know how easy it will be for them to make this happen, but with Karl announcing on them creating new tech for dash every other day, my hopes are high for somthing cool

Amante.8109:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m shocked that you’ve persisted so diligently in asserting that the Daredevil GMs aren’t “real”. They all have very real effects on dodge, and all augment dodge in a unique way that makes them very strong. I’m not sure what you genuinely expect to change in response to your complaints.

How many other elite specializations trade a whole tier of trait choices for their elite mechanic, exactly? Oh right… zero.

Or are you going to insist with a straight face that it’s an extra dodge-bar pip?

No, amante is right, if you haven’t noticed. All the thief gets for its elite unlock is 1 dodge bar.. Now compare a dodge bar to berzerk form, chrono shift, or the strong kitten new dragon hunter virtues and it looks like a joke. So your telling me it’s fair that every other class gets their elite mechanic baked into the elite minor but a thief gets one measly dodge (that becomes useless after the start of combat) and then has to waste a grandmaster trait to unlock 1! Of our profession mechanics?? Please think on this before replying with somthing stupid like “that dodge bar is HUGE” because no.. Truth is it’s not against the insane array of crazy kitten comming To every other class that we have to fight against in the expansion.

Shadow Dragon Bob.7160:

Fade.5904:

As others have said give a toggle dodge button on f3 f4 f5
Add a daze to staff 4 because it needed something extra and see below
Add new GM traits (ideas below)
Remove vulnerability from staff auto attack 3rd chain and add an evade

Traits GM
Shadow Armor – Gain Protection (2s) when you sucessfully evade an attack

Skulk in shadows – gain resistance while in stealth – drains 1 ini every second (this could synergise with ’Shadow rejuvenation, nullifying the ini gain from that trait, it would also help thief survive the insane aoe conditions currently in game)

Physical fitness – Staff and Physical skills deal more damage (1% per unspent initiative)

GM Minor
Endurance Thief – Gain Endurance when you succesfully steal from an enemy

Traits Master
Passive Defense Take reduced damage per initiative (1 ini = (-) 1% dmg)

Slip away – Gain stealth (2s) and superspeed (2 secs) when you daze a foe

(this would give old sets like PP SP ways to get stealth and also staff if you added a daze to staff 4)
Escapist’s Absolution – Remove a condition when you evade an attack

Master Minor
Driven Fortitude – Gain Health when you successfully evade an attack

Traits Adept
Staff Master – Gain a stacking toughness buff while wielding a staff (400 toughness) resets on gaining stealth or swapping weapons (this is not crazy – scrapper has a 500 toughness buff)

Quickital Wits – Critical hits reduce weapon swap (by 1 sec – 1 sec cool down)

Brawlers Tenacity – Gain Endurance when you first activate a physical skill. Physical skills have a reduced cooldown 20%

Adept Minor
Gain access to the physical skill category, enhanced dodges, staff weapon type and your maximum endurance threshold is increased.

These right here would be crazy broken. I appreciate that you’re trying to give us something to work with though. I don’t mean to call you out individually, but this is exactly why we will not see grand master traits redone at least until after launch. You do have some ideas I like though! Adding a daze to staff 4 is brilliant and would give some merit to the ability. Unfortunately your traits have heavy thematic synergy with something that daredevil should not be. With multiple classes getting new mechanics to combat stealth, we need non-stealth centrist options in order to stay competitive in sPvP. On PVE, the damage mechanics you have are crazy. Physical fitness + trickery + executioner would result in a 60% damage increase on targets below 50% when you have full initiative (15% trickery, 15% physical fitness, 10% for target having a condition, 20% for executioner). It would be essentially a new mandatory trait for us to run. Critical Wits with thief would allow for almost instantaneous constant weapon swapping between staff 1-2, dagger dagger and sword pistol for their 3 skill. The defensive abilities are not bad, but dip into more stealth mechanics when i believe thematically the daredevil was supposed to be less about stealth.

Mostly my point is that building even just 3 new traits let alone testing them would either delay launch or delay our elite spec from being accessible. Earlier I said that I didn’t want an f3 through f5 dodge, but mechanically that’s because I recognize that this cannot happen before launch. Yes I do want each dodge to be awesome and hard to choose between, but to get there we need to make sure they are fixed. Not only because of coding time, but also because of a lack of testing time. Think of how many things we found out from BW2 that needed tweaking, even just small breaks like impairing daggers using initiative.

That said, if we wanted a best of both worlds compromise down the road where we do get a class mechanic for changing dodges, these would be my recommended Grand Masters that still apply to each dodge. Or if we could just add these in and make them more awesome? Because while I feel dash is close to being ‘there’ as a ready class mechanic, Impaling Lotus and Bound are behind.

Black Lotus: Targets with bleeding, torment, and cripple receive three additional stacks of these conditions when you use impaling lotus.
One with the Wind: Dash becomes a 1 second evade and grants 2 seconds of super speed and stability
Tectonic Bound: Bound deals 10% additional damage and dazes targets for 3/4 second. 7 second cool down on daze.

Really like your ideas for the grand masters. They seem realistic enough.

Stinja.9612:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzLl8ecS0n8

so basically this? there’s tech to make clones of mesmers so it could prolly be copied retooled/purposed to just be a visual thing for thief dashes.

I wouldn’t count on anything happening though since we’re thieves and we’re not allowed to have nice things guys remember that.

Haha believe it or not, I was thinking of alucard when drawing this, I always loved that effect on symphony of the night and would love to see it used for that illusion of speed look.

Nike.2631:

Shalien.9018:

I’m sorry man but if a Thief has full endurance mid encounter they’re not doing something right. They have 2 traits in the Daredevil line based on not having full endurance and the new heal is based on not having full endurance.

Read. What. You. Just. Wrote.

There are other professions in game that have bonuses when they have less than max endurance. Daredevil is the only profession in the game that can still be sitting on 2 dodges for emergencies (the maximum safety margin for most folks) and still proc those traits.

The Daredevil’s benefit of 3 endurance bars is MONSTEROUSLY powerful. It’s a third pulse of on-demand godmode combined with a deeper cistern to trap time/vigor. Don’t let the simplicity fool you: it shames most of the other Espec mechanics for raw power and people here are treating it like a footnote. Its not “one more dodge per encounter” it’s “when any other profession would be out of endurance and stuck in a one-shot death zone you are sitting pretty — repeat as many times as you manage your endurance/vigor well.”

No it is not that powerful. Theif has had it for years if you knew anything about the class.. Felines grace (which was a MINOR trait) allowed for three dodges. They simply removed this a few months ago to slap the daredevils third dodge on which actually is less effective than feline once was. Guess what, theif was still underpowered during that time. You keep bringing up other classes and their dodges opposed to theif, news flash, theif has no hp/ defenses unlike the multitude of kitten other classes have. Thief depends on stealth and dodge to survive, so don’t go throwing out your bullkitten when you don’t know the class.

Serious Thought.5394:

Someone posted this and I thought these would work as the new Dash and Bound animations. =)
http://imgur.com/PXuculu

Edit: Apparently can’t search it in imgur. It’s basically a near instant slide-port for Dash and a quick flip Bound (opposed to … the uh… thingie we have now).

Although the idea of a shadowstep for a dodge is cool, it defeats the purpose of it being a dodge by removing the evade frames. Karl explained that if it were to have evade frames as a shadow step, it would have to have a wind up time at which point you would have evade frames. He also explained how they could not use new tech to just shadowstep as a dodge fluidly would. It would feel clunky and not path correctly. To me .. This sounds aweful as I like the overall fluid gameplay of a thief pre last betas daredevil, I hope that daredevil will play out fluid as well as they fix all of its issues.

Shalien.9018:

Arctarius.2649:

Here is the picture I made demonstrating what I mean by my statement. I hope others agree.

Not to go off-topic, but are you the dude who’s been drawing all of these sweet Daredevil animation sketches? They’re pretty awesome from a clarity of what’s happening perspective and an image-in-motion perspective.

Well done.

Bonus note – this would be a cool version of the dodge as long as the shadowstep particle effects are blendy enough

I am not the guy who made those other animation ideas no, however I do highly regard his ideas for the skills and would love to see something like those used in game. I am the same guy that made the “what eternity should look like” controversy thread about a year and a half ago though :p

Kocoff.7582:

it looks pretty cool. Especially the back dodge. The way McLain has been working weeks just to tweak a make a few adjustment makes me feel like animation are very difficult to overcome and create. I love the idea, it will kind of the Daredevil feel like a ghost.

Yeah I’m sure it’s no easy task, I am more than willing to wait for after launch to see changes like these though, so long as they are actually going to happen.. Gw2 is kind of known for the whole “so and so is going to happen and will become an ongoing thing in the game” and then it disappears or becomes irrelevant (guild missions) so I’m praying these changes are actually going to come through fully.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

I like this a lot…but I can’t agree that it’s a simple task of implementing this. To be completely honest, I think that this is what the devs envisioned as a dash as well but were unable to implement it this way for technical reasons. It looks like to me that the functionality of dodges just doesn’t mesh well with new animations…for that to be reworked, it may take a lot longer than we would like. But this is just speculation on my part…I don’t really know since I’m not a game dev hehe

Yeah to be honest I really dont know how difficult either, I just suggested a static pose because I figured using the same tech mechanic used for the withdraw skill and adding a static pose over it as it currently exists would be easier than creating a new moving animation. I also thought mabey for the after shadow effect I drew, they could use the mesmer clone tech and just have blue models sculpted into the poses for the dash that rapidly fade behind the character. Again I don’t know how it all works, these are just my guesses at how I would imagine the tech would work with the existing mechanics in the game.

In regards to the difficulties the team seems to be having with dash, I think I have created a valuable solution. I imagined dash functioning exactly the same, and just as fluidly as withdraw only it would function in any direction like the dodge rolls. If it functions like withdraw, it can then retain its elongated dodge value it had just without the clunk. I imagine it would not be too difficult to use a static pose for the animation for the dash forward and then a separate pose for the dash backward. These static poses however would be coated with a few cool effects so they would not feel stale. By using static poses and the after shadow effect i suggest in my drawing, I feel it is less work for the animators while still giving the illusion of movement through the effects. Please get back to me on how you feel about this as it took me quite some time to come up with. I would love to hear your feedback. Here is the picture I made demonstrating what I mean by my statement. I hope others agree.

Karl McLain.5604:

Fade.5904:

So does this mean Dash will still use the Warrior GS animation but now shorter?
Cant imagine this will look anything but clunky and juddery which is a shame since thief dodge looks so nice usually.
Cant you just make it a shadowstep for the old distance? One that’s instant but add 3/4 sec evade during and after?
A shadowstep would fit better with some existing thief sets and not be as likely to launch you off cliffs..

Dash, right now, is no longer the greatsword charge and will just run you in whichever direction you desire, while evading. As indicated, it’s in flux!

As for a shadowstep dodge: It’s not really in-theme for the daredevil, being a more of a physical-moving type of specialization. We’ve definitely talked about it internally. Here’s some of the collective thoughts on it:
Theory-wise, if we were to implement Shadowstep in lieu of dodge, you more than likely wouldn’t get any evade frames attached to it, being as it’s instant movement… Unless there’s a cast time to it. Typically with dodge-roll design, you’re only allowed to evade so long as you don’t have control. Example: stand in place and evade while ‘charging’ your shadowstep, or begin a dodge and get a few evade frames, then again when you land at the spot. In addition, there’s many areas in the game where you’d want to move the distance (I.E. standing on top of a rock), but simply couldn’t move at all because there’s no valid path and the shadowstep would fail.

In regards to the difficulties the team seems to be having I think I have a valuable solution. I imagined dash functioning exactly the same, and just as fluidly as withdraw only it would function in any direction like the dodge rolls. If it functions like withdraw, it can then retain its elongated dodge value it had just without the clunk. I imagine it would not be too difficult to use a static pose for the animation for the dash forward and then a separate pose for the dash backward. These static poses however would be coated with a few cool effects so they would not feel stale. Please get back to me on how you feel about this as it took me quite some time to come up with. I would love to hear your feedback. Here is a picture I made demonstrating what I mean by my statement. I hope others agree.

Thank you for finally addressing that the animations will see change. i am not going to lie it is saddening to hear dash loses its distance BUT you also said “for now” many times regiardlng the distance and animation so I am ok with this. I guess the only thing left is that I hope you guys add a new animation for impaling lotus and that te idle and run animations see change before launch with the other new animations, or even after launch if you need te time. I don’t care to wait so long as it’s is actually happening. Over all thanks a lot for addressing these changes it means allot I have renewed hope for the class.

Orpheal.8263:

Arctarius.2649:

Orpheal.8263:

Monks are all about “Balance”, “Meditation”. “Harmony”, “Peace”, “Gracefulness”, “Humility” and “Respect”.

If you want to make a song/melody, that catches all these aspects of a monks life and puts it downright on the pojnt with the melody and rhythm, I suggest you to hear these masterpieces, take the best parts out of them and make out of them a mixture:

The Strength from a Monk comes from Harmony, not from being ferocious like a wild Warrior, so any hectical, fast, loud and aggressive sounds, even for a “combat” song don’t really fit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPitHrf0a-w

This is much more fitting for a Daredevil played out as “Monk” with Monk Outfit.

But its just a matter of taste in the end.
Sometimes is simply less just more.

I did not find anything ferocious about the songs I posted. I almost used the xian song you posted in my mix, but it would throw the tempo off of the rest of the songs I used. Believe me I am an orchestral music junky, I have heard them all, I appreciate the beauty in a song of quick pace as well as a song like “A land restored” from Jeremy soule.

I respectfully disagree, for me your mix was just too loud, too much wardrums in the background at the begin and the middle to use that as a song, that symbolizes the way of life from a monk.
But this mostly has something more also to do with the controversy of monks and “battles” as monks normally don’t battle as said, the life of a monk is normally based on balance, meditating, peace, harmony and so on.

They treat everything in life with humility and respect… thats why I said, that sometimes less is more and that for a monk in my opinion a lesser aggressive and fast paced “battle music” fits just better.

My example of the Xian Song sure also has its slightly faster paced parts, but they aren’t so loud, what makes these sections not to sound so aggressive.
These kind of “epic” soungtracks have oftenly the tendency of being too loud, too fast paced to create for the hearer that immersion of sounding “epic” and impactful, because these kinds of songtracks are mainly made for orchestras back in mind, which have also a completely different accoustic when being played together with lots of people together in a good accoustical philharmony.

My point that I just wanted to express is, that I think, that when someone wants to make a kind of “theme song” for a monk, that this songtrack should also representate the values of monks which I named above and that by converting these values over onto the mood of the songtrack.
The result will automatically sound alot better and more fitting, than when you just simply mix together only various orchestra song parts together with just only looking about it, that these parts share the same “tempo”.

If tempo is just everything that was important for you, then you could just have researched as such a music junky for other good fitting more slower and harmonyful songtracks that do fit to a slower paced and less loud melody and rhythm.
For that I find that the Xian Song just would work as a good basis

But like said, in the end everything is just a matter of taste, if someone prefers rather faster paced melodies, or slower ones. I just prefer slower ones, as they are alot more relaxing and emotionally intense, giving you better the impression of feeling said values of a monks life when you hear that melody.

Because music is faster paced and more aimed for an exiting tone does not make it junk music as you described, that is your own shallow opinion. No tempo is not everything, but when I set out to make something that sounds fitting and flows well together song after song, yes tempo is very inportant. I understand that a monk is about harmony, I study daoist culture and plan to visit and learn one day… But again pressing biased oppinions as if they are whole hearted truth is foolish. Yes monks are not aggressive by nature, but what type and region of monk you speak of also can decide the line between harmony and physical prowess. A monk in tai chi wushu would indeed be more of the calm meditative type you speak of, as to where the shaolin live in the heart of battle. Though they meditate, they are structured around physical mastery and go through very brutal rigorous training.

Shalien.9018:

The optimist in me is hoping they are keeping quiet on the animation changes so they can reveal it at twitchcon.

Here’s to hope!

I Am in the same boat. Just holding my fingers crossed, this will literally make of break the expan for me.

Maugetarr.6823:

Shalien.9018:

Bllade.1029:

Might as well keep this Feedback train rolling;

How do we feel about Staff #4? Any Suggestions?

How about Channeled Vigor the DD heal?

Consensus on Staff 4 is to make it take 1/2 second cast time and put down a darkness field that pulses blind for 3 seconds.

Not many people talk about the heal because they aren’t planning on using it. A 3 person cleave physical attack that heals you and if you hit someone returns endurance would be leagues above the weird super long channel skill we have now.

How about a heal that returns 100 endurance instantly and heals a small amount (~2.5k) and then gives you a buff that the next 3 times you evade attacks you gain health (~1k) per successful evasion. Put a time limit of 10 seconds for the buff.

With the reveal timer, 3 would be pointless, I like your idea but instead it should be, for 10 seconds you have ( the next evade you make grants you stealth) and the buff is removed once stealth is granted. Even in the moment you get stealth, that’s 1 second, then at least 2 while in stealth, then 4 of reveal. 7 seconds gone so I don’t see the point in the 3.

Black Frog.9274:

They could have named it monk, but they didn’t. It’s not a monk.

Also, there’s no Asia in Tyria.

Obviously you did not play GW1 or read much lore in GW2. There is in fact an Asia with monks on a continent called Cantha. They just have not implemented it into GW2 yet. If you recall the Bird people in the game (the tengu) they are also Asians from cantha.

Orpheal.8263:

Monks are all about “Balance”, “Meditation”. “Harmony”, “Peace”, “Gracefulness”, “Humility” and “Respect”.

If you want to make a song/melody, that catches all these aspects of a monks life and puts it downright on the pojnt with the melody and rhythm, I suggest you to hear these masterpieces, take the best parts out of them and make out of them a mixture:

The Strength from a Monk comes from Harmony, not from being ferocious like a wild Warrior, so any hectical, fast, loud and aggressive sounds, even for a “combat” song don’t really fit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPitHrf0a-w

This is much more fitting for a Daredevil played out as “Monk” with Monk Outfit.

But its just a matter of taste in the end.
Sometimes is simply less just more.

I did not find anything ferocious about the songs I posted. I almost used the xian song you posted in my mix, but it would throw the tempo off of the rest of the songs I used. Believe me I am an orchestral music junky, I have heard them all, I appreciate the beauty in a song of quick pace as well as a song like “A land restored” from Jeremy soule.

Zekeon.6950:

Don’t encourage this monk bullkitten, please.

See I love where the devs we’re going with the monk like theme. My issue is that they didn’t have it live up to what it could have been on the animation side of things. But there is still hope, I can still dream until the expan hits. I personally don’t like the vintage pistol dagger thief arctype.. So your opinion is surely out ruled by the many others that see the daredevil ( if they fix it) as more appealing.

Made this compilation / Mix today of some music i love from MoP in preparation for daredevil. hope they live up to this musics call, and i hope the devs listen in for some inspiration. Walk with the winds.

Sigh…………………… I’m retiring from the forums… So much effort and for what. See you guys on the expansion. If animations and the thief class are not fixed by then. Then Il see you guys never.

Normally I would give a new comer good advice for the thief. But there is nothing good to say anymore. Roll a new class unless you want to use 3 times the effort and skill as any other class and still lose 1v1’s to people passively killing you with ease. Anet seems to think its ok for good thief players to have to do an increadible amount of work and put crazy amount of thought into their attacks to land a kill. I would be ok with this if other classes had to even do a fraction of what we have to do in order to kill something. Do they just expect all new players to be playing thief like veterans with tons of experience? Because that’s the only way a thief is doing kitten in pvp anymore.

Showbiz.9725:

evilapprentice.6379:

They’re the same as the odds that you strike oil in the bathroom of a mansion you won in a lottery, before being the first person on Mars, but after your whirlwind fling with an Icelandic supermodel while your band Leaf Seven (known for their hypnotic rhythms and driving baselines) is on world tour.

But don’t worry, even if we do get buffed, Anet will spend the next 2 patches nerfing it into the ground (so at least we’ll get a year out of it, heh), and the community will kitten about it for 3 years.

Well alright…since I’m still a relatively low level I may make another class to see how big of a difference it really is. Elementalist gameplay looked cool but there are also like 99999999 Elementalists running around right now…

you can play thief 2.0 otherwise known as Mesmer. They basically do our job now with about a quarter of the effort, triple our burst and double our stealth, OH and they are ranged.

Well, I have tried hard and petitioned this topic enough I would say, I have created multiple threads trying to shed more light on this topic and I have seen many others do so as well. I posted this initially in the rev forums because it seems to get ignored here but It seems it’s been shoved back to these forums. I think i am just done trying. If the dare devil just gets thrown into the game with all these recycled animations, well I guess I am done with this game after three years of supporting Anet. If anyone else cares this much about animations, by all means make it known by making your own posts and suggestions. (as if 90% of us we’re not already complaining about it)

I noticed all of the revenants staff skills have increadibly fitting animations. The daredevil staff animations coukd use a ton of work to feel fitting as well.

Karl, in my opinion an evade frame at the end of Vault would be most effective. We will be diving into fights and as soon as we make contact we will be vulnerable. I feel it is important we have some dodge while landing in the chaos lest we just get immediately smashed to pieces by the amount of incoming damage that will shortly follow our arrival. Also pleeeeaaase give us some feedback on if we will be getting some animation revamps for the staff skills/ idle positions, its very important to me

PopeUrban.2578:

I remember when we were masters of stealth.

Then engineers got a mobile super-refuge.

And they still don’t rely on stealth to defend themselves.

Look, Karl, I realize this is the DD feedback thread, but acro was eviscerated, and with all the reveal being tossed around to every single other class in the game SA is being eviscerated as well.

You want our role in PvP to be back capping and +1? Well that’s awful, but if you’re going that direction go all the way. Give us more run speed, shadow steps, and mobility so we can at least reliably run from fights since it’s obvious that we’re not supposed to be able to win them unless we select the mandatory new evade playstyle.

I don’t even play a stealth build any more and I’m just plain upset about the constant inattention to thief stealth reliance as more and more revealed creeps its way in to the game.

how does it even make sense that the class The developers stated is “the master of stealth” actually worse at providing and maintaining stealth for both allies and self than not one but both pet spam classes?

How is thief burst even a problem when compared to mesmer burst, or the upcoming engineer stunlock?

Isn’t it more problematic to have a class that can continually hand out lethal damage while remaining completely invisible? Didn’t you nerf cloak & dagger because of that exact issue?

Isn’t it more problematic for a class that can literally stunlock someone for upwards of ten seconds to also hand out obscene amounts of stealth to his allies?

I get that daredevil is all about the evasion. I’m a fan of that. But core thief is not in a good place and it is the only class that has all of its passive defenses turned off when revealed by an outside source

Since you’re in charge of thief balance at the moment, can you enlighten us as to why you feel this is an acceptable limitation for thieves, but not for classes with far better innate passive survivability tools?

This^

Ok.. So I heard the reverent is getting a new dodge animation… Wow. As stated earlier, how on earth does the revenant which has good animations get priority over the recycled old ones givin to the daredevil. For me this is like being kicked when I was already down. We don’t even have a fitting idle stance and we are supposed to be the nimble kitten class… Yet, the class with the best animations which also wears full plate gets a dodge animation fix. if you could at least acknowledge all of the people mentioning the animations and let us know it is something on your list, that would make me eternally greatful. On the other hand if it is not something you are going to change or bother to mention then you can count me out. 3 years with you guys but this is a big deal to me.. My class is weak, at least give me something cool to look at while every other class goes invulnerable for 40 seconds and one shots me.

I know I have done my fair share of opinions on the daredevil and I am surely happy to see some mechanic problems get addressed, but I can never get over the animations please give me some peace of mind in knowing you will be working on changjng some of the lousier animations ( such as the staff Idle, the 3rd chain in auto, dust strike, debitating arc, and the final blow in the elite) i would love to see some martial arts flavor come into all of these skills and really bring this class to life.

Zero Day.2594:

Tabootrinket.2631:

Also :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghgg_fukbvU

You know how much QQ it would bring if we could wield a staff while biting our toe nails and whooping as*…

I was literally just more impressed in the skills of this black bear weilding a stick
than I was in my " staff master" daredevil… please Anet… Surely you can design better looking skills in a fantasy game than a fat bear can preform in real life.

timpey.5437:

i would love to see these changes, it would look and feel so much better having the staff move around the character more. it would make the daredevil look much more agile

Yeah I agree, it would be amazing to see some of the skills look more like this guys rendition, anet is such a creative company.. It just shocks me at how little effort they put into a class. I mean… They have to realize we play this game usually contributing all out time into one character, meaning that one character is the entire purpose of the game in that respect. So why would they put no work into making it unique?? If I was the animations team I would have went all out for each of these. I get there is more content to produce animations for.. But hell, make mordremoth the one with reused animations I don’t give a kitten , he’s gunna die anyway.

runeblade.7514:

After seeing this video, I am going to give staff daredevil another try. I really really want to play a Monk, but I couldn’t find a viable build.

This video looks exactly how I envision monks to be.

That is why I wanted to main staff, I have wanted a monk class since launch and never thought they would actually make one. I have faith the devs will make the animations more monk like. Lots of people are complaining about them and with good reason.

Veloncia.9863:

Arctarius.2649:

Despite the Daredevils glaringly obvious bugs, chunkiness and animations. I still told myself I would play it in its current state to get some halfway decent footage to show off for those that did not play the beta. Hope you guys like it!

Awesome video man. Mind sharing the build you used?

Build was:
DD: Weakening strikes / Impact disruption / bounding dodge

DA: Mug / Panic / Execution

T : thrill / Bounty / Sleight

Marauder / Pack

Staff / SB (occasionally ran sword / dagger rather than SB)

Rain.9213:

Arctarius.2649:

Rain.9213:

Haha pretty awesome edits man! Glad to see yet another successful Staff user
Also fantastic choice of music! Mind sending me the list of songs you used in your video?

Thank you, and yes I can , The first song is called: Enfin Apparu , and the second song you may have to find on your own. I got a special Japanese album from a friend by the artist name Tutti sound, all the names are in Japanese on the album list, but by looking up tutti sound on you tube i was able to find most of the songs i have on my album.

Awesome thank you!

Maybe in the next beta we can have a duel or two!

I would be down for that, just pm me when the time comes, or i can pm you.

Rain.9213:

Haha pretty awesome edits man! Glad to see yet another successful Staff user
Also fantastic choice of music! Mind sending me the list of songs you used in your video?

Thank you, and yes I can , The first song is called: Enfin Apparu , and the second song you may have to find on your own. I got a special Japanese album from a friend by the artist name Tutti sound, all the names are in Japanese on the album list, but by looking up tutti sound on you tube i was able to find most of the songs i have on my album.

Despite the Daredevils glaringly obvious bugs, chunkiness and animations. I still told myself I would play it in its current state to get some halfway decent footage to show off for those that did not play the beta. Hope you guys like it!

Haha even though the pandas are lame, i must admit his staff moves are epic. i want this…

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Thief uses Staff in a primitive fighting style no different than picking up a random stick and whipping it around. The OP’s illustration looks like an artistic fighting style that was developed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Since the staff fighting is not something that was introduced in GW1 where it would have been developed for 250 years come GW2…it looks stupid.

That is my in-game lore assessment why Staff fighting looks ridiculous, awkward, and stupid.

Well frankly allot of us don’t give a kitten about lore when it comes to altering our main profession for the worst.. Aside from that apparently you never played a thief/ daredevil. Because no.. They don’t fight primitively. The 5 skill on staff sends them flying pulling off a corkscrew front flip then smashing the staff down. You go and pick up a stick outside for me and send us all a video of you doing this “primitive” move then ok? Meanwhile I’m going to continue petitioning these animations until hopefully Anet notices and makes all of them look fitting and not just one skill.. It was a bad move on their part and there’s no getting around it with lore as a poor excuse to reuse 3 year old animations.

I understand that fluid movement is a thing to take into consideration, which is Why i believe the artist that made these made multiple variations. Obviously the staff 4 spinning dust strike would be able to be preformed while moving easily..there are many animations in game that deal with this same type of thing (revenant auto chain 3 for instance). As for staff 2, his variation called whirling backspin would serve the most realistically as the animation can be pulled off in a charging spin flow movement without a stopping point. Honestly for his staff 3 recommendation, either of his drawings would work. as the skill stands now, it is simply one attack into a back roll. if anything, the animation would actually become even more fluid looking with his corkscrew uppercut variation as it could easily be preformed just the same as it does now just look 100 times better. I know it is cutting it close to the wire now.. but how did they ever expect us to be happy with what was given? I hate to say it but it just seems like they don’t care..either that or it truly was just to close to release, in which case i wish they held it back another few months or hell even a year because I would rather play something i genuinely enjoy than the half made version.

Seabreeze.8437:

I’ve got some ideas for the charr version of the staff skills. I don’t have as much time during the week, so I may not have something to post until the weekend, but I’ll still give my 2-cents whenever I can.

I like the idea that Leviathan suggested here about giving the third auto-attack blocking frames. I think it’d really help provide some much-needed defense, and as Maugetarr stated, it would be easier to balance since it wouldn’t proc any “on evade” traits. If Anet wants to keep the whirling attack at the end of the chain, then having it block for the duration of it would be most beneficial to us (and destroy projectiles, probably not reflect though, that may be too much).

Keep up the great ideas, everyone!

Reposted your pictures as a new thread to try to get them more attention, feel free to post mine wherever to get your fantastic idea out there! I would love to see those become the actual animations.

Seabreeze.8437:

Now that the beta weekend is pretty much wrapped up, I’d like to give my opinions/criticisms of the specialization, mainly in the animations. I’m gonna skip the combat stance and the auto-attack chain for now since it’s been well noted (but I will come back to them with my ideas for them later). This is going to focus on skills 2, 3, 4, and 5. Also, I played as a human male. So let’s get started, shall we?

Skill #2 – Weakening Charge: Simply put, I don’t know what this is supposed to be. From what I looked at, your character grabs the staff at the head and sort of does a spinning… punch? Meanwhile his legs show no indication of lunging, so you just kind of slide across the floor like a chess piece. Visually, it’s all around bad, like your character has absolutely no clue how to fight with a bo staff.

Skill #3 – Debilitating Arc: This ranks with skill #2 for the worst animations the staff has to offer. It honestly looks more like your character is glitching out. Everything happens way too fast and it’s extremely jerky and choppy. Very obvious cut-and-paste and it doesn’t work well at all for an animation.

Skill #4 – Dust Strike: Obvious use of the hammer, which makes the staff look very weighty and heavy, and the technique looks sloppy because of it.

Skill #5 – Vault: One of the very few new animations, yet this is the skill I have the most to talk about. Firstly, as the name implies, the character should plant his staff into the ground and actually vault from it. That would be much more visually exciting than the instantaneous take-off leap they currently do. Secondly, I feel that the crazy backwards corkscrew triple flip is a little too awkward and doesn’t feel right for a move where you typically propel yourself forward. One or two front flips would give the move a better feel in my opinion.
Finally, the landing. Currently, your character drops straight down, bringing his staff down with the power of Thor, slamming it into the ground with such force that the resulting earth-cracking shock wave damages foes. I feel this completely detracts from the theme of the daredevil. For a spec that’s supposed to be nimble and swift, a brutish slam like what we currently have just feels out of place and more suitable for warriors and guardians. Instead, I propose that the character whirls the staff above his head as he’s falling, following up with a sweeping radial strike the moment he lands.

I spent some time over the weekend sketching up some storyboard concepts of what I feel skills 2, 3, 4, and 5 should look like, along with some notes about them. To anyone interested, please feel free to take a look at them and let me know what you think.

Daredevil staff truly has the potential to be one of the flashiest new weapons HoT has to offer, but after seeing and playing with it in the beta, I can’t help but feel like there wasn’t much care put into the animations. I sincerely hope that there are plans to improve or replace them with unique, mind-blowing animations deserving of a brand-new fighting style (you really can’t compare a staff to a hammer, they’re worlds apart). Looks are so important to the satisfaction of playing a certain class, and the current animations just aren’t satisfying, I’m sorry to say.

Please Anet take everything this person posted into consideration. His simple mock drawings far surpass any of what daredevil currently offers with its staff animations minus vault. I am ok with abets vault. In fact he literally landed exactly what I was expecting to see on each and every move. Like these are soooo perfect.. Please Anet do these animations and i am 100% sticking to this game for life lol. View his post to see his attachments te drawings are spot on!!