Guild Wars 2

With our survivability? I’d say Nomads gear or you’re a goner.
EDIT: And you’ll be needing Dwayna Runes as well, of course!

Well…
Aside of the reveal thingy, atleast we didn’t get nerfed this time around?

It does, the thing with Shadowstepping actually seems to be a “lack” of animation(s).
You port from point A to point B with nothing really in between (there’s something that determines the route taken, hence all these “no valid path” messages)

In order to make them function like leap finishers, they’d have to be made slower and with that more telegraphed, which I don’t like.
I’d rather do without the Leap Finisher, than to have my excellent openers and escapes slowed down.

I feel disgusted at how easy other professions are.
Way higher reward vs. much lower risk.

I like putting in effort, but it’d be nice if others had to do the same.

Also, hi mate!

So what? Atleast he/she was trying and that’s a great start for me.
Can’t have it all at once (or after three years, but you get my drift, I hope)

I tend to /dance on the rare occasion that this happens.
It’s not bound to the Thief class though.

Option to cancel Bandit’s Defense (dodging & stowing weapon), I also think increasing the Block time to 1.5 seconds to accommodate the increased cool down.
I also feel a bit bummed about the way our Elite part of the Specialization (the tweaked dodges) is locked behind Grandmaster Traits, we don’t see this with any other Specialization… Also saves up trait slots for combat-related coefficients, there’s been plenty of great suggestions for it.

Aside of that, the changes look good on paper, keep up the good work!

I’d rather have Infiltrator’s Return lose it’s Cast Time again…
Leap Finisher would be second best I suppose :P

Pack is a great Rune for all game modes.
Scholar is the best for PvE from what I hear. I personally use it sometimes for full glass D/D in WvW. It’s also an option for organised Focus Party compositions.
Vampire Rune is a solid choice for PvP and maybe WvW, the make or break point for the Vamp Rune is based on the extent to where you can rely on your teammates to back you up. If your party doesn’t have the capability to pick you up after that mist form then this rune is really just a way of avoiding the inevitable for an extra three seconds.
I’ve always been a great fan of the Pack Rune because it’s good in every situation.

While Thief is currently underwhelming in general, D/P is a great weaponset.
You can completely shut down slow hitters such as warrior hammer with the blind, you can deny healing, stomping, rezzing, you can even interrupt enemy thieves’ heartseekers.
You can use them both offensively and defensively to great effect. Instead of using a dodge, use a blind or just interrupt that thing that’s coming to kill you.

The trick is in using your #3 and #4 in a clever way instead of mindlessly spamming them to no avail.

You can also use #3 to duke highly experienced opponents as you can cancel the part where you hit the target. So, say you’re in stealth and want to set up a quick backstab but can’t get around to their flanks, use #3 while stealthed and hit your ‘Stow Weapon’ key while the bullet’s in flight.
Your opponent gets blinded, but you will have cancelled the actual physical hit, thereby not breaking stealth. You close the gap, get in a better position and probably make an experienced opponent waste a dodge. Just hit that backstab after the dodge.

Long story short, D/P allows you to get creative.

We’re looking for a good Engi to play in the Focus Party.
They got some things that make them interesting (such as the previously mentioned pull).
So yes, there’s certainly use for Engi’s in organised GvG/GvW/GvZ or whatever you want to label things, but it’s pretty much a niche. A very interesting niche that I’d personally enjoy to see being explored more.

I actually do play DA/CS/TR. I also tried it with Berserker Amulet and even Scholar Runes (D/P and D/D) for fun but it simply didn’t really work.
If you play all out glass and enter a seemingly empty point where for example, a trap ranger left a surprise…. You’re dead.
You can make it work for teamfights, staying on the outskirts and picking of the stray enemies. It’s actually for every single moment outside of those that you’re in real trouble whenever a random bit of AoE get’s to you. That’s just how weak we are.

Well, I took a real example that a thief might face. Beta is still prone to changes. I’d actually feel a lot more comfortable with fighting such characters on a Daredevil, but it’s not an option yet.

And as to +1’ing… That’s not a job, that’s what we’ve been reduced to.

Dodging or other forms of evasion work to a minor extent.
Especially against Ele’s and Guard’s Purging flames it’s possible to dodge the ring/line of fire to prevent getting absolutely ridiculous Burn Stacks in a single motion.
Outside of that, there’s nothing aside of long periods of kiting.

I had a Burn Guard getting real mad at me because I wouldn’t come close to him (or his Trap Ranger pug ally).
I had several pugs of my own server die to them in seconds and I couldn’t help them too much outside of Shortbow Kiting. It came down to a stalemate because I wasn’t stupid enough to get killed, while they slowly but surely got worn down up to the point where they backed out of the fight and stooped down to getting all salty (partying to tell me how useless I was and how much of a kitten that I was for not rezzing my pug allies (mind you, my pug allies got cleaved instead of stomped so I’d get instagibbed upon getting close by traps + burn) and so on and so forth).

TL:DR you can beat them though extensive kiting while maintaining ranged pressure. While applicable to WvW, it doesn’t work for PvP really.
Best thing you can do is to take them out in a single burst during a teamfight when they’re low health and out of defensive utilities.
Evading also works to some degree to avoid the first brunt of the assault.

Tonikor.5637:

Bllade.1029:

WHoever suggested turning the three different dodges into an F3-F4-F5 skill. Thats a fantastic idea.

Take dodges out of the grandmaster traits and replace them with something else.

Thank you.

But it seems some forum heroes dont like the idea and think its overpowered… sigh.

It really would nothing more but fair to reimplement the dodges in such a way.
Truly it is quite outrageous to be the only Elite Specialization that has that what makes it stand out from the core spec locked behind Grandmaster Traits.
Like someone noted above, it’s not like the dodges have a lot of synergy between them so I don’t see how this would be overpowered.

Having the GM’s instead do something beneficial to this dodge-swapping, Steal or general Offense/Defense/Utility would be much more solid.

CnD blind and Dancing Dagger damage upped a bit again would go miles for build variety without gimping yourself too much.
That as well as many, many other things currently lacking in the core specs (no, Daredevil is fun and quite good, but it doesn’t make make up for a bad core) as well as weapon sets and lackluster utilities.

Probably “l2p”, however. IF you do decide to get more Defensive equipment, go for Valkyrie.
Toughness really goes to waste on Thief as you won’t get it high enough to make an actual impact, so Soldiers wouldn’t be a good choice.

Right, I did say I would update my earlier post, but due to the great amount of feedback (good job everyone!), I figure I’d just make a new post as the other one is probably allready overlooked.

*All of my feedback is based on PvP usage and a bit of WvW, so do keep that in mind *

Daredevil was despite it’s clunky aftercasts and bugs as well as other strange things like traits that simply didn’t work or utilities costing initiative, really fun to play.
It’s pretty obvious that it’s as much as a First Pass, using recycled animations and general clunky feel due to long pre-and aftercasts and thereby lacking a proper combat flow, but I did have a blast with it.
When playing it with S/D, I actually at some times felt like I was playing with pre-nerf Acrobatics, which was just amazing! That’s still no valid reason to not return Acrobatics closer to it’s former grace…

That get’s me to the weapons. I’ve found Daredevil to work with every weapon set, aside of P/D and (ironicly) Staff.
With P/D it just felt ‘meh’, I have to blame the set and it’s design for that though, it simply doesn’t suit my way of playing. I fear the same is true for the Staff. While using the Staff I felt like it tried to pull me out of combat, rather then have me stay in it, the Staff works for 1v1 if you’re facing opponents that cannot Interrupt and/or Blind a lot but it’s just a bit lackluster in other gamemodes. But like I said, that could just be me, I didn’t test the Staff for more than an hour before putting it down as it simply didn’t feel right for me. I supose you can make it work as I did see some Daredevils get lucky with some clever placed Vaults that I or my teammates simply didn’t see coming in the heat of the battle. I’ll force myself to play around with it a bit more in the next BWE as it does in theory suit my preffered stealthless/bruiser-ish type of play.
P/P and S/P felt like they were able to actually do something. Having access to Stealth through Bounding Dodger opens up some room for semi-viable builds. Maybe when the dodge animations are more fluid, these weaponsets may be better.
D/D did work with it, I felt a little more surviveable simply due to having the extra dodge and a bit more condi cleanse. I did lose a bit of DPS, dropping Critical Strikes for Daredevil, but I gladly did it to gain some more sustain. The greatest impact came from the fact that the Runes and Food we had weren’t optimal as I only tried D/D in WvW.
Then I tried S/D, I kept it for last because I was the most hopeful about it’s synergy to Daredevil. Boy did I have fun! I mean, it will definitly come of salty that I find Acrobatics was sacrificed and nerfed only for Daredevil to shine brighter. But I really did enjoy S/D with Daredevil. I felt like I could actually sustain and win 1v1’s properly again. I could stand toe-to-toe with bunkers or D/D Cele Ele’s for long enough to have my backup come in, while pumping out the burst when needed. So great job there, you gave me hope to see my beloved S/D back in top tier play!

The Utilities all seem to have a place somewhere, they’re not all optimal, but that’s good! It gives people something to choose from/between.
Channeled Vigor was surprisingly good if you could get yourself into Stealth or kited to safety prior to using it, otherwise it was just a big target saying ‘please interrupt me while I do this’. So yeah, I think that actually hit a sweet spot… I can see people using it over Withdraw or Hide in Shadow.
Bandit’s Defense was amazing in it’s current iteration. A 1 second Block isn’t too much, but the Stun Break’s really strong on a 10 second cooldown. I’ve heard on the PoI that the cooldown would be increased to 15 seconds, so I’d suggest to increase the Block duration to something like 1.5 seconds to still keep it as attractive as it is now.
Distracting Daggers doesn’t have much that needs to be said, it’s solid and is a good potential pick for people that want to run interrupt builds. I can only imagine the horror of a Condi Thief in WvW using this along with Perplexity Runes…
When trying Impairing Daggers I noticed I didn’t really use them because I didn’t feel like I needed to use them. Maybe someone running a condi build benefits more of it, I personally just used it as an alternative gap closer due to the immobilize :\
And then there’s Fist Flurry, I did make it work to actually hit with this by picking up Basilisk Venom and combining the two, or picking up something else to make my opponent hold still. In it’s current state it’s just too weak though. You have to go trough a fair bit of a hassle if you wish to properly land it and risk/reward wise, it’s just lacking a lot.
All in all, the utilities certainly got some use to them, Fist Flurry is the only one that can do with a bit more work, maybe have your character walk after the target it is used on. Yes, walk. It’s better than standing still and it’s not as overpowered as just following a target at full speed through Shadowsteps and Portals (yes, I’m looking at you, Unrelenting Assault!).
Personally, I’d stick to my old utilities, but I’d definitly ditch Shadow Refuge for Bandit’s Defense on a Bruiser build (which I ran for the majority of the time).

As for the Elite, I absolutely loved Impact Strike. It’s strong and there’s a lot of play with it. This will definitly be my go-to elite whenever I play Daredevil. I miss it allready

Smooth out the animations to improve combat flow, fix bugs where Utilities use Initiative and Dazes make it impossible to dodge and make sure all traits work properly, Driven Fortitude seems like it didn’t work which has/had a pretty significant impact on surviveability (maybe work on other things aswell if possible, Withdraw still doesn’t have the promised extra 10% healing). I certainly look forward to the next BWE!

As to the build I ended up running extensively:

Sword/Dagger & Shortbow
Air/Blood Sigil & Fire/Energy Sigil
Marauder Amulet & Pack Rune

Deadly Arts: Mug – Panic Strike – Improvisation/Executioner
Trickery: Thrill of the Crime – Bountiful Theft – Sleight of Hand
Daredevil: Weakening Strikes/Brawler’s Tenacity – Escapist’s Absolution – Bounding Dodger/Unhindered Combatant

Withdraw – Signet of Agility – Shadowstep – Bandit’s Defence – Impact Strike

Yeah, seems to be a thing for all ‘displacement’ skills and abilities.
Really this cannot be working as intended… It promotes even more zerging and Pirate Ship playstyle

Every decent guild out there has Thieves in their ‘Focus Party’.
This group has the purpose to harass and take out the enemy backline (ele’s, necro’s etc.) or other “high profile” characters such as the opposing Focus Party (taking out the enemy commander is possible, but it’s a bit of a low blow).

Thieves got the tools to stealth a group, a pletora of gap closers and the possibility to get out of sticky situations where others can not.

Playing a Thief along raids requires good positioning and a keen eye for safe targets to pick of. It’s an interesting playstyle that really only the Thief excels at, followed by Mesmers and potentially Rangers and Engineers.

EDIT#1: I forgot about the Daredevil part… Well that’s simply too early to say. Right now it seems like it allows a D/P player to better manage initiative vs endurance so that’s got something going for it. Outside of that, it’s just speculation.

EDIT#2: Wait… Are you on about PvE raids that have been announced?
Really confusing terminology…

Hey there!
Today during our guild raid we noticed that we got pulled despite having Stability up.
By the looks of it, the source of these pulls was the Revenant Sword #5 ‘Grasping Shadow’ and/or Chronomancer Elite ‘Gravity Well’.
I wonder if this is working as intended or not… At any rate, I personally doubt it’s suposed to work like this and asume it is a bug that hasn’t been noted yet(?).
This has happened on several occasions during our session on the Eternal Battlegrounds, something tells me though that it’s got little to do with the map, but rather with the skills themselves.

Thanks for your time

Great to see that you and your team are on top of things, gives the thieves hope
Keep up the great work!

Will edit this post after more extensive play with Daredevil.

Woo, was looking for this one to link it to a thief asking for help…
Long search! Well, some info is probably outdated but it’s all still gold.

Bumping this thread makes me feel like a necromancer…

Ah yes! Twitch is good as well. Other great streamers are Sindrener and Sizer. Magic Toker is the most consequent Thief streamer though (and arguably the best PvP Thief in the game, according to some). Not to mention that he’s also genuinely helpful and seems happy to share advice and help.

Yeah, especially the Whirling Axes… No matter what you do, cancelling it always puts you at a down.
As to why Healing Seed has a cool down, I haven’t a clue. Maybe they find it too op for builds revolving around healing power, double waterfield too op.
No, I can’t come up with a sensible reason. Outside of Condi cleansing, it’s not incredibly strong and if it is, well guess what thieves need a ton more of? ( yes thieves, not daredevils)

As above poster pointed out, there’s metabattle.com/wiki for builds of all classes, just look for ‘Conquest’. Then there is qqmore.net with PvP tips and a fair bit of information can be found on YouTube as well. For YouTube, I’d recommend checking out ‘Denied Guild Wars’ (it’s not the exact name but I can’t remember it, that should get you there though!) who has vids on builds and PvP in general as well as things like locations for shortbow #5 and stuff like that

I have to disagree, unless you’re playing in an organised group where you can be certain your party members can pick you up, the Vampire Rune will often just postpone the inevitable. It’s proc is just a ‘count to three before final burst’ indicator in any other scenario.

Besides, the build is ment to cater to WvW, in that vast open area, the vampire rune goes even further to waste. I personally find that rune to be overrated and inferior to the Pack Runes as long as you are aware of positioning and enemy behaviour/animations.
It only sees use in team play because those people know they’ll probably have the back-up to get revived from downed, or receive some burst heal (+cleansing).
Claiming such a rune would make you nigh unkillable is just ridiculous.

Your pick, CS is a solid choice and the Furious Maintenance Oil is amazing (I use it on my glassier D/P builds).
I pick DA because of Mug really. Improvisation and Panic Strike are just nice bonuses

But indeed, Pack runes allow you to pick up more defensive gear. In my opinion, S/D revolves more about maintaining a presence and pressure. For that I take Power over precision and ferocity.
Also, with high Crit-chance builds, you could also opt to use food like omnomberry pie, it’ll give health on critical hit based on an x % chance. Pretty good stuff!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsY4al0MhKnYpTw7JQ/EH+ElvJqioYHAv2Z2TrWoNB-T1BBwAYV+B4kAgT9nU6Hg8EAWu/wZlgBAQA4m38m3sNLFgg6sA-w
That looks a fair bit more solid.
I’d still recommend switching some Berserker pieces for Valkyrie pieces, you don’t need that much critical hit chance.

Personally, I roll this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVl0MhCnYpTwyJw/EHwElPNOj2oXYJRiqTgAY3A-TVCFABHq+DAPAgrUCKwRAIJlf1s/Qa6DI4EAswhAIAACwNbz28mBO6RP6RP6R7m38oH9m3sUACKMC-w

I agree that Death Blossom needs a serious rework, I just don’t think that the idea that you proposed is the right way.
In concept, the idea of DB fits the D/D theme. It’s just the implementation of it that is really weak.

Sort of, that depends on your position. But yes, you can go through player models to reach their backs faster. Body blocking works against skills and abilities, not against player models.

Positioning and practice, that’s all it is really.
Sorry, there’s no real trick to it :/

They’re both decent.
Signet of Malice is a terrible Heal skill for S/D, Withdraw is the best option out there as the evades of it play in well with the style. Even Hide in Shadows would be better, imo.

Going for Critical Strikes, I’d pick No Quarter as a Grandmaster trait because S/D and SB stealth attacks aren’t really hard-hitting skills. Consider Sword’s Blind/Daze and SB’s Immobilize more of an utility skill.
I’d personally also go for Signets of Power if you’re going to use Infiltrator’s Signet as a gap closer a lot.

You could also opt for the Signet of Agility instead because Sword #2 is an excellent gap closer (jump->#2 in rapid succession for that trick where you don’t get the return point. Keep in mind that you need to have a NPC or PC targeted for this to work (could also be #2→jump, I can’t remember… It became muscle memory :P)).
Using the Signet of Agility would also boost your Precision even higher and you already got (too) much of it.
I’d advice to put on a few Valkyrie pieces. That much Precision tends to go to waste.

Personally, I prefer and play the trait setup of DA/TR/Acro, I feel it properly allows me to at least hold out against opponents with cheat-death crap or tons of random Condi.
Both Acrobatics and Critical Strikes work well, I just prefer being a tad more durable.

EDIT: I should also add that speed runes are pointless. You can Steal without target to proc Swiftness, you can dodge for some Swiftness, you can move around with Sword #2 and shortbow #5, you could do forward Withdraw by using About Face.
All in all you can move around really fast even without that 25%.
I’d personally recommend Pack Runes or Eagle Runes. Depending on your playstyle, you could even go for Ogre Runes.

I actually quite like it :/
Confusion and chaos armor are both good and it’s also excellent for cleaving downed foes.

I did take note of that, hence the original suggestion I made to leave the ‘endurance returned on initiative spent’ for Staff.
The damage multiplier is strange to keep tied to the staff. If ANet fears that such a trait is needed as staff-restricted, they made a flaw with staff design and openly admit it really.
And that’s when you completely neglect the fact that we had a trait that did just this prior to june 23rd.
For proper balance and build variation, I think that my proposed change isn’t that bad. Especially given the fact that you’d give up a good Condi cleanse for it.

Static 10% damage is too good because we dodge too much, noted.

So in conclusion it seems that no one knows how this trait will work.
Then I’d go for a call to action and have thieves give it as feedback.
We got other ways of getting 10% extra damage so it’s certainly not overpowered. There’s definitely no reason to limit it to the Staff.

Animations are technically the same.
As to how it feels… It depends on the physical appearance you give the character.
Like, the biggest possible Norn will feel slower because he’s bound to relatively short animations with a bigger body.
A smaller Norn will feel identical to an average to tall Human Character.

I’d go with the advice to try both of them on a Jumping Puzzle and for a little rampage on the golems in PvP with various weapon combinations.

Or just go for an Asura.

Yeah that makes no sense considering it’s only for a single hit.
Sorry but how can you seriously consider that a proper reason when there’s already so many damage multipliers around that simply use a different trigger than “endurance not full”.
Why would you limit (or rather cripple) a trait in such a way?

Hidden Thief? Maybe you miss-time the attack that you use in combination with steal.
Heartseeker/CnD into steal requires a little bit of timing if paired with Steal if you got the Hidden Thief trait because bad timing results in the “hit” part of those skills to proc after your steal comes in contact with the target, which naturally reveals you.

@Amante Agreed, Acrobatics could do with major reworks.I fear though that with the addition of Daredevil, the chances of an Acro rework are ever so slim.
For that reason I’d rather have Daredevil the best (replacement) it can be.

@Auesis S/D would indeed get a bit too crazy I think (I’d like to try it though).
PvE-wise, I haven’t the foggiest to be honest. I didn’t even think about that side of the game (sorry!). Doesn’t take away the fact that you make a valid point.

At any rate, this small adaption would mean that non-staff users would at least have 3 traits to consider, rather than 2.

Hello everyone!

As some (or most, I assume) will know, there used to be a Grandmaster Minor trait in the Acrobatics Traitline that would have the Thief ‘Deal 10% more damage when Endurance is not full’.
With the switch of Traitlines to Specialization, this Trait (and yes, many others) was taken from the game. However we now had the reveal of the Daredevil Elite Specialization! And guess what? There’s a trait in there that does exactly was was taken from us and more!

Staff Master – Daredevil Master trait
“While wielding a staff, gain endurance for each initiative point spent. Deal bonus damage when your endurance is not full while wielding a staff.”

… While wielding a staff… Great.
So I had hoped this would be specified a bit further in the PoI, but they didn’t elaborate on it.
I’d like to get a clear answer wether or not this Trait is bound to just the staff, why not for all weapon sets? Sure, I get that they want the staff to have a bit extra in the traitline, which is understandable in a way. But why keep the 10% extra damage part of that trait restricted to the staff? In fact, will it really be restricted to the staff or not?

I personally don’t see why they can’t re-label it to:

Staff Master – Daredevil Master trait
“While wielding a staff, gain endurance for each initiative point spent.
Deal bonus damage when your endurance is not full.”

Seems more balanced to me, at least.
Thoughts? Answers? Constructive discussion and/or feedback? Post below!

I doubt it because Death Blossom’s evade is terrible and the aftercast is long.
So if you’re facing an opponent with the ability to see based on the animation when your Death Blossom’s evasion frame is over. Yeah… If such a person has any form of interuption at hand, you’re probably going to take a beating.

Probably DA, maybe CS.
I don’t think I could live without Mug, Improvisation and Panic Strike are both quite amazing aswell. Actually, maybe DD can give enough surviveability for me to ditch Improvisation for Executioner… That’d be amazing, going to have to try it out!
CS is just something I want to try, not revealing my plans for it yet though :P
I could also see myself running with Acrobatics every once in a while just for trolling. I’m curious to find out what I can do with DD overall.

The ontly traitline I don’t see myself running with it is SA. Then again, I allready avoid SA like the plague becaase I personally find that it offers too many crutches.
I only run SA if I’m up against condi-heavy opponents, really.

The animations would have to be made from scratch though (atleast for Asura and Charr).
The bonestructure that was/is used for the Monkey King are quite different from the bonestructure used by player models (not to mention issues in size variations).

It seems similar to the standard Human/Sylvari stucture, but I fear this is a much bigger task than you would think.
I’d rather have them spend that time on more pressing matters.

So far so good, I’ll remain in a skeptical state of joy until at least this Friday.
It looks good, almost too good (aside of the sleazy move on Acro).

Take what you can, give nothing back!

Let’s get ourselves fixed, this might indeed be our only chance for a long time to come.

Missing the point wherein Acrobatics should be viable without being conbined to Dare Devil(?).
Picking Acrobatics as it is is just a gimmicky pick that is in no way viable for higher tiers of gameplay.

But I’m still looking forward to that stealthless bruiserish playstyle that they took from us with that patch. Just sleazy to put it behind a paywall, but I’ll enjoy it nonetheless.

Thanks for returning potential stealthless builds.
While I’m happy to see this potential returned, it’s a low blow to Nerf Acro and then give us this as a version 2.0
Oh well… I’ll still enjoy it, I bet!

That’s pretty worrisome then…
Let’s hope it get’s adressed quickly!

Depends, if it’s a condi burst Engi, I disengage and don’t get near him unless I know I can get him down easily because my teammates got himdown to like 25% Health.
If it’s a more power oriented Engi (very unlikely…), then you can use #3 and #4 and hope for the best.