Guild Wars 2

Killyox.3950:

Class mechanic wise thiefs are second last:P only engineers are behind.

I’ll take the scrapper’s hammer skills over our staff skills ANY DAY

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

Tabootrinket.2631:

Specialization : the undead.

spec mechanism : M key.
When in walking mode, invincible to anything but thief’s pistol skill “headshot”, but get one shotted when touched by it, no down state, straight to dead.

This is too OP because all the thieves are the walkers.

Walker is a better specialization name, good catch

Kageseigi.2150:

The Walking Teefs?

At least give us some undead biting power! We keep coming unless you cut off our heads! :-D

Specialization : the undead.

spec mechanism : M key.
When in walking mode, invincible to anything but thief’s pistol skill “headshot”, but get one shotted when touched by it, no down state, straight to death.

Warhawk.7095:

I tend to notice when I am no longer transparent >.<

Well sometimes with glitch, lag and stuff, the visual don’t load fast enough making yourself look visible when you really aren’t or invisible when you are.
(like when sometimes on map you only see npcs and peoples’ names but the model hasn’t loaded)

nopoet.2960:

New mechanics:
Guardian – Virtues that project physically in the world
Revenant – Channel a dragon! also a pbaoe that makes boons last longer
Warrior – Fire empowered berserk burst skills
Engineer – Mechanically assisted range finisher and reviver
Ranger – God like healing
Elementalist – Fire tornados, water bubble, lightning striking , earth quake riding madness
Mesmer – Time travel
Necromancer – Improved demonic state

Thief – dodges …..

rectification : Thief – dodge ….

Without the “s”. Because apparently our endurance still recharges at the same speed as other endurance bars.

Heck if we’re going to do that let’s do it where EVERYONE can see us. In the middle of Lion’s Arch !!!! Under the Jelly fish !
Let’s turn it into a manifestation.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Nike.2631:

So lets focus on getting us to a good place, and not the constant out-of-class comparisons that are usually horribly misinformed anyway.

Part of the frustration is the disparity in the amount of time spent in designing each Elite. It is blatantly obvious that the Thief, as history dictates, has always been an after thought.

I can already imagine how their iteration process went.

“Ok, we’re making Warrior a Berserker with cool new skills and mechanic”
“We’re making Guardian a Dragonhunter with cool new skills and mechanic”
“We’re making Necro a Reaper with cool new skills and mechanic”
“We’re making Ele a Tempect with cool new skills and mechanic”
“We’re making Mesmer a Chronomancer with cool new skills and mechanic”
“We’re making Engi a Scapper with cool new skills and mechanic”
“We’re making Ranger a Druid with cool new skills and mechanic”
“We’re making a new profession, the Revnant with cool skills and mechanic”

“Um sir, what about the Thief?”

“Who cares? Give them an extra dodge or something.”

^ THIS literally. Zero effort to the Daredevil. Just a chore for the devs.

Sagat.3285:

Wait for the skill balance preview before spreading too much doom yes I know that is too optimistic of me.

The problem isn’t really about OPness or not (well not the main problem).
You can’t balance inexistent things.

Daredevil has like zero new mechanism compared to other specs who get new stuff to play with.
Our “new” mechanism is just one bar. It’s like let’s say we give the warrior 1000 extra hp and call it their new mechanism.

They went lazy on the Daredevil, and now they’re in a rush to band-aid it and call it a day.

My real problem though isn’t really about it being viable or not (which IS a problem still).
It’s just that we get NOTHING new. You’ve played a thief and are somewhat bored ? Nothing in the Daredevil is going to give you a fresh new experience.

You get just 1 extra starting dodge and clunky and boring animations… making it better off sticking with the core thief if you value the visual.

Shogun.7401:

So what’s special about Druid?

Brand new Celestial form (like deathshroud)
New kitten pets
Lots of powerful CC
Heals everywhere

Daredevil :
1 dodge

Now I see why Karl looked so tense during the Daredevil POI. He knew it was broken.

He doesn’t, that’s why there’s so much salt.

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.

Wait a minute… I’ve seen something that startled me in this topic.
during the beta, I haven’t played DD a lot… just enough to see the animation problems and the clunkiness.

But is it true that our endurance regeneration speed doesn’t change ? That it recharges at the same speed as if we only had 2 bars ?

Endurance regeneration should be based on a percentage per second, not a static number per second. What use is there of this extra bar then ? So our spec’s mechanism is one SINGLE extra dodge at the beginning of a fight ? What ?

I hope it’s not supposed to be that way and it was a bug.

my favorite teaser artwork personally

Shalien.9018:

Bllade.1029:

Nike.2631:

Tabootrinket.2631:

To be honest, the problem you’re mentioning isn’t supposed to be ours.

You’re right. The problem on this side of the fence is having any concept of the level of effectiveness we’re supposed to be receiving. I get it the thief community is feeling a bit downtrodden after ages of being THE most despised of all professions. But GOOD DESIGN gives you a set of options that put you at the middle of the pack, not leapfrogging to the top spot.

It should be good enough a skilled player can win some of the time against other skilled players. That’s it. Not amazing. Sure as hell not stance dancing what they felt were three GMs worth of awesome. Oh, with another GM on top like a cherry.

Disappointment is the distance between bad expectations and reality. The bad expectations running rampant with “Oh, sure, just give us a triple GM and then 3 more GMs to pick from” is raw absurdity.

Could the Daredevil be better. Yes. Should it be better? Maybe, the data is kinda limited. Is it going to get THAT MUCH BETTER? Hell no. What gains are there to be made will be made within the framework we have now.

Give them some feedback and ideas they can use, because “We want 4 GMs instead of one!” doesn’t even pass the laugh test.

I understand exactly what you’re saying, but dodges aren’t GM worthy to begin with. These aren’t GM traits, they’re a core defensive mechanic.

Just because they’re in the GM trait line, doesn’t mean they’re GM worthy. So no, we’re asking for our core defensive mechanic and to have GM traits like everyone else.

Yeah, they’re the core mechanic of the elite spec. they’re not optional grandmaster quality traits that effect gameplay.

The ONLY way these could even be considered as grandmaster quality traits is if ANet admits that the entire core mechanic of Daredevil is ONLY 1 extra dodge. Without extra endurance regeneration. Legitimately adding 1 extra dodge per encounter no matter if it’s a 10 second fight or a 10 minute fight. We get only 1 more dodge by taking Daredevil.

Our endurance ability should regenerate proportionally to the size of the endurance bar otherwise the extra bar is insignificant.
Old acrobatic trait from core thief gave more dodges than the current iteration if it remains like that.

Nike.2631:

Tabootrinket.2631:

To be honest, the problem you’re mentioning isn’t supposed to be ours.

You’re right. The problem on this side of the fence is having any concept of the level of effectiveness we’re supposed to be receiving. I get it the thief community is feeling a bit downtrodden after ages of being THE most despised of all professions. But GOOD DESIGN gives you a set of options that put you at the middle of the pack, not leapfrogging to the top spot.

It should be good enough a skilled player can win some of the time against other skilled players. That’s it. Not amazing. Sure as hell not stance dancing what they felt were three GMs worth of awesome. Oh, with another GM on top like a cherry.

Disappointment is the distance between bad expectations and reality. The bad expectations running rampant with “Oh, sure, just give us a triple GM and then 3 more GMs to pick from” is raw absurdity.

Could the Daredevil be better. Yes. Should it be better? Maybe, the data is kinda limited. Is it going to get THAT MUCH BETTER? Hell no. What gains are there to be made will be made within the framework we have now.

Give them some feedback and ideas they can use, because “We want 4 GMs instead of one!” doesn’t even pass the laugh test.

The point you’re making is up to debate, I agree.
But that’s not really what I was talking about right there.
I’m talking about the quality of the spec as a finished product, not as a powerhouse. What I mean by that is :
- working mechanism.
- polished animation and visual effects.

We are (for now) denied correct animations. Mechanisms are for now clunky and flawed. That’s what needs to be adressed.
Every other posts I made concerning the suggestion of a dodge toggle has nothing to do with that.

Nike.2631:

Does ANYONE here think they’re going to give not just one, but all three of the current GrandMaster effects as a freebie (which incidentally you CAN toggle outside of combat — what you can’t do and never will do is dance between 3 GMs mid-match…) and then write up/code/test 3 more Grandmaster scale benefits in the 30 days remaining before launch.

You are describing a fairy tale.

There’s still persuasive arguments and bargains to be made with the Devs in the eternal quest for buffs to a spec you want to play, but that? That ain’t one of them.

To be honest, the problem you’re mentioning isn’t supposed to be ours.
We’re talking about what should be done for the spec. The poor schedule isn’t supposed to be our own concern. We’re on the receiving end, we are the one who may (or may not) buy the expansion.
Specializations should’ve been worked on for months now. It’s not our fault, and it’s definitely not us who should bend over when they ended up with a rushed and flawed result.

We’re not part of the team, we’re the customers.

I’ve got an alternate idea (not necessarly better though) about the dodge toggling system.

Having just an F3 to switch between offensive or defensive dodge.
Defensive dodge would be the dash dodge (the one that can’t be subject to interrupt, confusion and stuff).

The offensive dodge would be either bound, lotus training or another new offensive dodge (with knockback, blind, stun or something like that)

I wonder if it’s possible to postpone the release of HoT.
Some studios don’t hesitate to do that to ensure the quality of their product at release, and honestly I don’t mind that. It’s a guarantee of quality that actually reassure players that devs are putting some real love to the game they’ll deliver. There’s no shame to that.

Since it’s quite clear now that Daredevil can’t be polished by the release date of the expac, is there a possibility to postpone the release ? (I don’t mean to take the rest of the playerbase hostage but specializations are a genuine part of the expac that we pay for. It’s as important as the maps and the story).

Driften.8716:

Cronos.6532:

Karl McLain.5604:

A short update:
We’ve been working heavily on the dodge abilities, making them react the same way that your normal dodge occurs. There have been a lot of long hours, but we managed to get this functionality in for the next beta.

• The ‘Bound’ dodge animation is shorter and more appropriate for a dodge.
• Dash – The extra distance has been removed for now as well. Dash now breaks immobilize in addition to its other effects. For now, the animation is just going to run you in the direction you’re dodging.
• Impaling Lotus – The jump has been removed, as it caused issues that couldn’t be remedied. I’ll update if other things happen.

Other things:

• re: Shalien. I haven’t got this in the next beta, but the plan is to drastically reduce the cast time of Channeled Vigor. (3/4 to 1 second or so)
• Idle/running animations while wielding a staff are not planned to change at this time. There are, however, a couple of animations being worked on as development continues.

-Karl

this basically means Bound is the only dodge worth using on Thief besides the default

To be honest I still prefer Dash. Yea the dmg blow is nice, but a dodge imo is more about survival than damaging. Being able to remove immobile, freeze and cripple with no CD and a swiftness boon sounds alright for me. Only thing that could make this better would be a smoke bomb to blind :p

What about a knockback :p

Sarrow.2785:

Karl McLain.5604:

• Dash – The extra distance has been removed for now as well. Dash now breaks immobilize in addition to its other effects. For now, the animation is just going to run you in the direction

Hate to say it but like many others I preferred the distance on dash. It’s what made it unique. Distance can be applied in many different ways both aggressively and defensively, plus it could have been something that actually allowed P/P builds to work.

I guess not

What about instead of an extra distance traveled we get a knockback to people we cross ? (without damage)

It’s a good thing to have updates but it kind of makes me worried.
Will the Daredevil be ready by the launch of HoT ?
At this point I’d rather we didn’t have any release date, so devs would have the time to properly work on what needs to be improved instead of having to rush thing so that just the crucial features work in time.

For the dash animation I suggest something similar to the revenant shiro close-in shadowstep.
the first few frames to give the direction of the dash, then some kind of shadowstep to that said direction (it may or may not make the problem of the animation/distance ratio easier to fix)

How I wish we had the Scrapper hammer #3 for our staff…

I get what you are saying.
On the paper the Daredevil is a good specialization. Heck, the whole forum rejoiced when the spec features were released.

But it was poorly executed (as it was in the beta weekend). The lack of pertinent screens when the spec was revealed compared to other specializations tells the whole story (one screen with an asura with a staff, another with a staff uppercut… that’s all).
But I want to think that it’s proof the animation side of this spec is still a work in progress and maybe those were just place-holder (Yeah I wish)

Let’s just give credit where it’s due.

It’s not Karl’s fault the animations were bad. It’s the animation team.
Mechanic wise the Daredevil is interesting.

The only thing that would compensate that feeling of neglection, is to bring polished and specific animations for melee staff (Revenants would even profit from it). Why ? Because other classes get either brand new visual effects, and/or props. It’s true thieves aren’t really supposed to be flashy, so we should at least get some love in the animation department.
A lot of people are asking for the Monkey King idle staff animation. I do too. And I think that’s the least they can do, to not make us feel like the leftover class.

Your garment is really on point with the Dreamer

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Tabootrinket.2631:

I think it’s pretty clear what I was trying to achieve here xD
(ps: no I didn’t commit to it. Let’s say it’s the alternate version for the Guild Wars universe. Yes I’m aware the glorious skin would fit better)

Seen a dude in pvp once who looked very much like spiderman (asuming that’s what you are going for) he had sneak thief hat, glorious chest piece, forgot gloves and leggings and boots were rawhide I think.

Yeah that’s right. It was just an idea I had on that time when I browsed the hair possibilities. I used that opportunity. I didn’t have the right gears at the moment to have an accurate representation of the spider-man outfit though, since it wasn’t really my intention.

Here is what my thief really looks like

I think it’s pretty clear what I was trying to achieve here xD
(ps: no I didn’t commit to it. Let’s say it’s the alternate version for the Guild Wars universe. Yes I’m aware the glorious skin would fit better)

I’m glad with the changes.
Actually the only thing that really bothered me when playing was the cast time of traps… and a bit the velocity of the bow.
Now that it’s been adressed, I think the dragonhunter can become very untertaining to me.

But I kind of understand people maining guardians not being very thrilled with the spec.
Basically, this specialization is like using another class.
I enjoy the dragonhunter because my main character is a thief and I like to make use of my traps.
The dragon hunter is the one specialization that is really attracting to people not used to the guardian mechanism.

So basically, my only BIG concern at this point is the staff animation. But it’s not just about the Daredevil. If melee staff is supposed to become a thing, make it right.

You need to put the time to make a decent fighting stance (Monkey king stance) for starter.
If by the beginning of the expac, it’s too tight a schedule, I suggest reverting back to NORMAL staff stance for the time being. Normal staff stance feels way more natural than hammer stance.
If you wanted to make the staff act like a hammer, it would’ve been more logical to simply give us a hammer to begin with.

Also +1 to changing the dash animation to : “Shield Bash/Bull’s Charge/Burning Speed animation”

By the way, if we can’t have the monkey king stance animation, can we at least have the NORMAL staff stance back instead ?
It feels WAY more natural than the hammer-like stance.

AVM.5746:

Well the problem with doing that is that you can’t have horns or a halo when you wear a wardrobe because, well, they’ d be taking up the wardrobe spot.

What about adding a specific section independant to wardrobe or outfits. Like the mini tab.
The way it works, the clipping problem is limited since there’s no interaction whatsoever with the rest of the equipment.
So making it act like “some sort of mini” wouldn’t be a problem.

We’d have a wardrobe tab, an outfit tab, a mini tab, a finisher tab, and then a “head mini thingy” tab.
Basically it wouldn’t screw up what’s already done, it would use an additional tab in the hero panel

I think it would be a good idea to put a specific wardrobe-like section for stuff like the halo of the selfless potion, or the horns for the thoughtless potion.
(like the mini section)

They add some nice customization touch to the character.

The collection could be further enriched by stuff like :
tiny raining cloud, tiny sun, tiny stars, tiny flying birds, tiny glading quaggans, etc…

that we could get through gemstore and some rare events.

- Baseline 1050 range for pistols.
- I add ricochet to ankle shot trait.
- I put a forward dodge instead of a backward dodge for staff #3
- 1s Smoke field for staff #4 (or even smoke screen lol)
- shadow step/return and the likes become ports and aren’t hindered by props or walls or stuff like that.
-traps last 1s after being triggered by an ennemy before disappearing.

(not talking about animations of DD which clearly need rework)

Infinite logging axe

I personally love underwater contents (especially how it’s designed in the fractal level). There’s a good base, but it’s not polished right now.
As people say, the problem is balance.

Basically, the builds we choose for normal combats are transfered directly to underwater content, but it’s not compatible. Same for the skills.

What would be great, would be to add a totally independant trait and skill system specifically for underwater content. Everytime our character jump into the water, we automatically switch from on land trait system/skills to underwater build.
Would even be cool if we had a totally new independant equipment system too.

All this would make up for a good underwater expansion.

the main problem
is that this event turned into a game of selfish quick-tagging and run away to the next event.
Individual rewards make it so people want the participation benefit everywhere without caring about finishing one event.
What should have been a community-friendly event turned into a hijacking contest.

my suggestion
is to make the event reward collective. Every member of the same guild in the same map who has participated in (or finished, even) at least one event, gets the full credit of the work done by the entire guild members present.
That way, people from the same guild will split throughout the whole map and have the luxury to stay longer in events, instead of running everywhere and discarding every task.

It will also promote belonging in a guild, and there would be a real meaning for the new members to enter one.

I think that worldscale events should not have their reward system revolving around individual deeds, but around the guild’s deeds.
Making rewards individual is disproportionate compared to the scale of the events.

Making every member of a guild who share the same map get the same rewards, will allow them to split throughout the map to divide the task.
That way, people won’t necessarly feel the need to quick tag every event, and disappear before the event ends.

It would also truely help Anet’s intent to somehow make guilds useful and help the newcomers.

mechanic wise, the revenant is the closest to Kirito’s style in my opinion.
If you choose mesmer, you’ll have clones as main mechanism. Not sure that’s what you’re looking for.
Thieves revolve around a mechanism in which sword is just one of many tools. It doesn’t really compliment the sword weilding type in particular.
I don’t know ranger.

But as for the looks, medium armors have tons of longcoats.

But you can also later try to get outfits so that you don’t look heavy with the revenant.

To me, aside from the heavy armor look, the revenant is the best candidate.
They are fast, they feel very fluid, and have very good mobility. Even if by any chance it’s not Kirito-like enough for you, they have pretty anime-ish vibe to them with their instant gap closer, and ichigo’s bankai like sword attacks.

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

So my take on this is either they are REALLY lazy and basically just said kitten the thieves we’ll get our money else where…

OR the beta just came WAY too soon for the dev team in charge of the Daredevil, and they needed placeholder to at least let us have a look at the mechanism.

But, I expect (wishful thinking maybe but not unreasonable demand), to have at least the monkey king tonic stance on melee staff users instead of the hammer stance. I also expect a total makeover of all of the staff animations.

Because seriously, when you have a look at all that has been done here, compared to other specializations, no work has been done here yet in term of execution (the concept does deliver though). At this point asking for the monkey king animation (which has already been rigged, just need to adapt the controlers to the other models AND make the adjustments), is no more than asking the animation team in charge to wake up and go do their job.

When I see what the revenant has to offer, I think they are capable of making this class enjoyable and polished.
Now I’m not sure if I have to be worried or not, every bad aspect of the Daredevil can be corrected so, it’s just a matter of whether or not they are willing to put up the good work. So I’ll just wait for the last beta, or the release to really make a judgement

For staff :

- skill #3 :
I think it would be very interesting if instead of dodging backward, we dodge forward (without auto-turnaround). It would provide interesting positioning, and would fit with the daredevil theme (dodging toward the danger. Hopping over an ennemy to land right in the center of a zerg, etc… )

So my suggestion is to make it work exactly the same way it already does except,
instead of dodging backward we dodge forward (with no auto turnaround at the end).

I think it would provide some interesting positioning tool, and it would fit more with the theme of the daredevil (you dodge, but toward the danger)

I think the animation of the dash should change completely. The number 3 fire main hand dagger on elementalists would do the job to me.

It’s supposed to be a dodge. I visualize the dash like one powerful step.
Running away isn’t really “dodging”.

The visual effect is ok, just need to change the ‘running’ animation

It looks recycled

- (animation wise) I personally think that the longbow white arrows need to be way bigger. And by that I mean Javelin sized.
Right now shooting with the longbow feels like shooting with a nerf gun.

- Why do the traps have such a long cast time ? It’s impracticable. I think the cast time should be just the same as the thieves traps to be efficient.

Yeah, the dodging animations feel really clunky

Personally I’d prefer the animation of dagger elementalists fire number 3.
It feels more like a dash.

I really do think that the monkey king animation should be the staff specific stance animation, even for the revenant… and future elite specializations that may end up with a melee staff too.

Even if it may take some times for it to happen, I really wish working on that animation can be fit in their schedule

Actually, our specialization is the only one that does feel like a specialization, because you have to commit to a playstyle : condi-dodge, attack-dodge or safer-dodge.

It doesn’t really change much to have it through GM, since to become a Daredevil you need to get that traitline anyway.

I won’t talk in the name of the devs, but in our position, we would be more prone to a heavy nerf if they’ve decided to add another new mechanism on top of what we got. And what we got is already pretty powerful.

Now if you’re talking about quality of life addition like the f2 key, I would agree but then it should affect all trait sets in general (trait/gear quickset mechanism), since basically it would mean changing the last branch of the DD traitline.