Guild Wars 2

1. Not a bug… it clearly says 1/2 seconds. If it were full 3/4 seconds it would have little counterplay.

2. I guess

3. Why do people still complain about things not “refilling 100 PERCENT endurance”? Daredevils already have a crap ton of endurance regen capabilities, who cares honestly. The coding for these skills doesn’t refill a percentage, it refills a number amount. Not a bug.

Serious Thought.5394:

I’d say sleight of hand over that. I mean if someone comes and steals from you, wouldn’t you be a little confused like “wtf. where did you come from?”

Yeah that’s true. I wouldn’t mind that either, but they’d have to replace the trait with something else.

Serious Thought.5394:

SEEEEEE! PREPAREDNESS BASELINE IS IMPORTANT.

/capslockandforgot

Yes I do agree that it should be, along with base steal stealing at least 1 boon.

AsurasRCute.4136:

Rather than typing another wall o’ text, I’d just broadly suggest that Acrobatics is a nice all-round thing to have, and I enjoyed it a lot (with CS and Trck, as a gunslinger).

But, the DPS loss from slotting it (losing DA) is very severe… which wouldn’t be such a problem if Acr was just a bit better; so that it was enough of a survivability and mobility buff on its own (a ‘one stop shop’ line) that it then allowed to us to go max DPS with everything else.

I found that I still needed to top its survivability/mobility effects up with so much other stuff (at further DPS cost), that I was better off just using that other stuff, which it turned out I still needed anyway, and switching Acr back to DA.

It just needs to be all-round a bit better; keep it pretty much as is but make all the numbers higher.

That’s the thing, though. The devs think that Acro can perform well with basically just vigor. Simply increasing the numbers wouldn’t do enough to help out sustain, which is why it needs more things added.

There is also the problem of thief not having much presence in a teamfight, which is why I suggested more boon stealing capabilities and boon sharing.

Also, as you said, you lose lots of DPS without slotting DA. This is just an innate thief problem of having all of the good stuff in one line (trickery; it’s mandatory) When it needs to be more spread out for build diversity.

For example, if preparedness was made baseline, and bountiful theft stole 1 boon (but actually stole the full amount) and put the other stolen boon into baseline, that alone would increase diversity by a lot, opening up options like Acro/Deadly/DD. Base damage on weapon skills (backstab especially) also needs increased. It just doesn’t match up to all the new skills any more. Current thief in old meta would be op, but now it needs some help. Not to say it’s bad, it’s definitely doable with the right amount of practice, but it still needs more.

Yeah these were just my ideas. Thanks for posting, I want to get a lot more. I don’t really use critical strikes much so my ideas might be a little off from people who do use it.

Majors first.

Side strikes- Increase the critical hit chance to 10%. Add "gain1 stack of might for 5 when attacking a foe from a flanking position(1 second ICD)

Signets of Power- Increase might to 12 seconds. This is a bursty trait and I think it should be given a little more time to do your work.

Flawless Strike- Deal 15% more damage while your health is above 90%. The payoff needs to be good for a thief to stay above 90% health. Also good for bursting down targets when coming into a fight.

Sundering Strikes- Add "When attacking a vulnerable foe, gain a stacking 2% damage increase for 5 seconds. Max 5 stacks.

Practiced Tolerance- Revert back to gain vitality based on precision.

Ankle Shots- Pistol shots apply 4 seconds of cripple(9 second ICD). Deal 10% more damage when you are more than 360 units away. A direct and indirect buff to pistols. I didn’t add in ricochet or increase range because I just think those things should be baseline for pistols.

No quarter- Leave as is.

Invigorating Precision- Leave as is.

Hidden Killer- Same functionality. Add “Stealth attacks steal a boon and deal 10% more damage.”

Now for the minors.

Keen observer- Make the threshold 75% health. (Maybe make it 7% crit chance too?)

Unrelenting Strikes- Keep as is

Ferocious Strikes- Add "Critical hits grant you vigor for 3 seconds. (10 second icd)

Well that’s all I have for now, add more suggestions if you’d like.

Considering that these two traitlines are the weakest thief traitlines (Acrobatics being weaker) here are some suggestions for them. I don’t expect them to be put in, but on the chance that a dev reads this, please consider them. If anyone has other suggestions post them here.

Acrobatics: Since Daredevil does the same thing but better, we should probably try and switch up its role a bit, however still staying mainly a defensive traitline. I think it’d be interesting if it had more boon-related traits, and gave a little support while still staying true to what a thief is.

Pain Response- Replace regen with resistance.

Fleet Shadow- Gain superspeed for 3 seconds whenever you apply vigor or stealth (X second ICD, maybe around the 7-8 range? It needs to compete with the other traits.

Vigorous recovery stays as is.

Guarded Initiation- Replace with Guarded thievery; Stealing grants you and nearby allies 5 seconds of resistance. Gives team support and self-sustainability that thieves need. This could also be “Stealing a boon gives you and nearby allies resistance for 3 seconds” on a 15(?) second ICD. This version would give less reliance on steal and more general sustainability.

Swindler’s Equilibrium- Imo it would be better to have something that benefits thieves in general, not just sword. This could be something like “Whenever you evade an attack your next attack transfers a condition and steals a boon (10-15 second ICD?) After dodging (Dodge roll), gain 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds.” This trait needs to compete with hard to catch, which is why I suggested giving the stability that thieves need in addition to the condi transfer.

Hard to catch stays as is.

Upper hand- “All abilities that steal boons steal an additional boon. Whenever you steal boons, share them with allies and gain protection for 2 seconds.” Gives team support and some sustain.

Assassin’s Reward- Roll the current upper hand to it. Keep current functionality and increase base healing by a good amount to keep it on par with the other gm’s. (At LEAST 120.)

Don’t Stop- Keep as is.

Now the minors.

Expeditious dodger- stays as is.

Feline Grace- Keep as is. I’ll explain why in a second.

Endless stamina- Keep current functionality with an added bonus. Applying vigor to yourself grants 10 endurance. Whenever you apply vigor to yourself, remove a condition (this part has a 2 second ICD or maybe no ICD, not sure yet) Basically this trait brings back most of the previous feline grace with new bonuses and sustain.

With these changes Acro could focus on 3 things of your choice: Boon steal and uptime, Vigor and sustain, or Mobility. Now onto Critical Strikes.

1. True
2. What?
3. Good suggestion but we need to wait for next balance patch…
4. Doesn’t really matter
5. This is true for all skills, that’s why burning speed + Lightning flash works.
6. True
7. If you don’t like how it works don’t use it
8. This is true for any chain (excluding Mesmer scepter)
9. It’s been 6(?) months. Get over it.

Serious Thought.5394:

@Alch:
I noticed that every line EXCEPT Critical Strikes offers something for Steal. What if the Steal buff that came from Crit Strikes line critically hit?

It’d be a trade off. No one really takes that vuln on crit trait (seriously, why would you?) so maybe stick it there? I’d place it as an ability that hits for 1/3 of the value of pulmonary impact at 4 hits total to achieve that value with the capability to crit?

I’m confused. Are you saying basically adding a mug-like ability that can crit? Either way I’m down for buffing Critical Strikes, it needs some love.

Scrapper will help you become more bruiser-y and help sustain yourself in teamfights, but if you think you can handle less survivability, go for pack.

Durability also isn’t kittenome others have stated.

Pulm already does enough damage

Steal is basically a 2k lifesteal so it balances out lack of damage

no

I’ve always seen RFI as more beneficial than signet, because it does just so much more when you use it. But signet is still fine, allowing for gap closer and stun break. The active effect really isn’t anything special imo. If you run signets of power infiltrator’s signet will help set up a burst really nicely.

It depends if you want a disengage defensive ability or a gap closer and burst setup.

Backstab and D/D do need more out of them. Even just the fact that vault deals more damage than backstab and hits more targets is concerning. Rather than nerfing vault damage, however, we need to buff backstab. It’s honestly lackluster in pvp.

Possible suggestions for Backstab and /D.

1. Reduce initiative cost of CnD to 5, add 240 radius blind from Cloaked in Shadow, increase damage by 15%
This may seem like too much, but this is balanced out by the simple fact that it’s very easily avoided. The reward should be good if the risk is that high.

2. Increase backstab damage by 15%. This could also be “Backstab ignores 15% of armor” Would give it a special edge.

3. Increase damage of dancing dagger by 20%. add 1 stack of torment for X (4?) seconds to each bounce.

4. Increase autoattack damage and heartseeker damage by 15%.

5. Make deathblossom deal more damage. Looking at about 3-4k. Or make it deal significantly more damage against poisoned foes. If anet wants D/D to be hybrid then this is the way to go.

DeceiverX.8361:

Narcarsis.5739:

It’s kind of sad that no one realized he was slowed by a down-state Revenant and that nothing’s changed.

Right?

Knee-jerk reactions.

I was also going to add this, thank you Caed

Thank you for this post.

As for the steal change, there’s a good chance it’s a bug or not supposed to be there, but if it’s not, oh well.

RedSpectrum.1975:

While a quality of life change, I’d prefer them to fix its “problems” of not finishing opponents right as they go down….maybe even make it unblockable >_>

I agree they should make it go through the invuln phase on down. Gives thieves a special advantage in team fights.

I agree with this post. Function gyro has finishers attached to it (I’m pretty sure) so why not daredevil.

If you want you can run Acrobatics for swiftness on dodge.

A lot of non-staff users love to call out vault spam. Even when they just do one in a row.

What’s even funnier is when you hit an 8k vault on someone’s face and they say “vault spam”

Only time I’ve hit 22k vaults is in Dragon’s Stand PvE.

This doesn’t happen in PvP. Even if that thief was running DA/DD/CS with scholar runes, berserker amulet, and full damage everything else, he could MAYBE hit 12k? 22k doesn’t happen. MAYBE if he had his teammates running banners and supporting him with tons of might, but you said he was alone, right? 22k vault didn’t happen.

Edit: Also if you heard a trap go off are you sure it wasn’t DH traps? They can definitely 100-0 someone.

Pretty sure this is a general bug for every class; not just daredevil (although it happens more on thief due to lots of teleports) this is for any evade I believe, including the standard evade.

I personally really like staff, I hate going without it actually. It actually has nice damage through #2 and #5, got good active defenses, and decent cleave. However it’s really what your preference is. You can definitely go without it if you want, but I would suggest using it.

kash.9213:

alchemyst.2165:

I use s/d staff with dash in pvp, dash to make up for some of the mobility lost by shortbow. I’ve found that if you play this similarly to a cele ele you can yield good results for you and your team. You can 1v1 a lot more easily with Daredevil and staff now, and s/d is very good with daredevil. And it’s also fun to play.

There is some topography in WvW where shortbow #5 can save a long round about trip, do you use staff #5 on that terrain or just avoid those parts? Also, if you play in the new action mode have you had trouble facing the right way on some dodges in Dash mode? The other two feel like normal for the most part but the odd way Dash doesn’t like to arch when you do jump/dodge often leaves me facing the wrong way and I might double dodge right into the middle of a stack or go shooting off into the sunset when I’m trying to get into the fight. I’m sure it’s something simple and I’m overthinking it but since you seem to like Dash I thought I’d ask. Not so much a problem in normal mode except I can’t jump flip/dodge like I used to, it’s almost entirely in action mode.

To answer your question about the topography in WvW, at times I use vault to get across terrain; I actually like vault over shortbow 5 sometimes because it can leap me across terrain with gaps in them.

For your second question; I think I experienced something like that when I used action mode, but I’m not sure. I might go test it out.

trappey.6957:

What is the name of that dagger skin? Is it only obtainable by gem store? Can you also link your build please:)

It’s the legendary Incinerator, you can either craft it or buy it off TP (I bought it from a friend)

My build is similar to this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYGWgJMv0wZoNM/BLhtQtEQAY3A-TlDFABNcIAWSpgSKJA4BAIwJAILlgIpEDF1PSSZA47PQjKIZoJIN9ALcEAIFgALAA-w

Note that the head gear, chest piece, one dagger, and staff are all marauder gear instead of what is listed. The build site isn’t fully updated yet.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Nice game play! I tried out da/dd/trickery for the first time in pvp, and boy is it fun to play! Using staff and short bow (I still can’t let go of the short bow lol) the new dash trait is awesome too! -10% dmg and 13 seconds of swiftness is so use fulL. Still need a lot of practice but i don’t think staff will main weapon in the future

I use s/d staff with dash in pvp, dash to make up for some of the mobility lost by shortbow. I’ve found that if you play this similarly to a cele ele you can yield good results for you and your team. You can 1v1 a lot more easily with Daredevil and staff now, and s/d is very good with daredevil. And it’s also fun to play.

Straegen.2938:

I think you wrecked me in a fight the other day. Caught me in the dredge and tore me apart. First time I ran into a staff build and ouch.

Really? haha what class where you on?

mompen.7952:

Not available for phone viewing

I’m sorry It’s hard to find good uncopyrighted music :/

^^ Something like that will work if the video is blocked for you.

Tywele.7812:

Can’t watch it because of music. Yay Germany!

Yeah sorry about that You might be able to bypass it, but I’m not sure how.

Here it is

Jump while casting #2. When you return it won’t port your back.

I don’t mind it right now, but I would love to see it become a triple flip striking the enemy each time. Kind of like the revenant mace 3 but with flips involved.

Really? because I’ve had more success in pvp playing S/D Staff with Dash than I ever have with D/P SA or anything else. If you play it similar to a cele ele with high mobility you can get pretty good results. And you can actually 1v1 people now, even 1v2 in some cases. I think S/D is better than ever tbh.

Although I do agree the whole flanking strikes combo should be unblockable.

Weakening charge plus steal is your friend.
You also have other weapon sets. Don’t forget about that. It also takes some getting used to with daredevil and staff, you can still deal a lot of damage but you need to know how. Utilize your CC to land vaults and weakening charge. Target your vault where they are going. Step back before using weakening charge to get all three hits. Etc.

Do you have auto targeting on? If not try that

Give up shadow arts and acrobatics, you don’t need acro with daredevil and shadow arts with daredevil is counterproductive. Run deadly arts.

I think they should reduce initiative to 5 and add the CiS blind to it.

lol

/15chars

When I saw this I literally went “HOOOOOOOOLLLY kittenttt”

For real tho. It also looks like they changed the first strike slightly, though maybe that’s due to the character being norn? Or maybe she isn’t idk long day.

But yay

My personal opinion from hardest to easiest(current state of game):
Thief- very squishy, requires most reaction time imo. Need good tactics
Power necro- not necessarily hard to deal damage but can be pretty hard to survive at times
Engi- only part that’s really hard imo is just getting a grasp on all the abilities. Other than that I don’t think it’s too terribly hard.
Medi guard- not too hard, if you blow all your skills you’re done
All of the rest of these are pretty easy to me:
Revenant- lots of easy damage and not hard to survive
Warrior- can have damage/condi damage while still being very tanky. Not hard to use
Mesmer- damage, surprisingly good survival. The damage isn’t too complicated to get off and is insanely rewarding. Pretty forgiving if you don’t get it the first time too.
Ele- it’s ele. Only build that is hard imo is s/d.
Ranger- high damage with the right build while still keeping decent survivability. Passive and active invulns.

Debating between using the Daredevil staff or buying the Chaos Staff. Trying to decide if a big or skinny staff is better.

Lol this gave me a laugh. “Perma-stealth” nah, you can’t pull that off any more without having a full utility bar of stealth skills, which is useless, considering you’re not doing anything in stealth and you can’t cap points in stealth.

Revealed is also being tossed around like candy, and people still say there are no counters to it, when you literally press a button and a player is left there like a sitting duck. No skill to it, lol.

Stealth doesn’t help much in PvP, considering the fact that you can’t cap points and sitting in stealth isn’t doing anything.

The reason attacks missed/blocked do not reveal you is because 1. In a sense they do, you know where they are now (STEALTH =/= INVULNERABILITY, people don’t seem to realize this), and it can be pretty kitten hard to land a stealth skill like backstab, especially against a player who actually knows how to fight a person who uses stealth.

People still crying after 3 years, smh.

Edit: Channeled skills also still hit players in stealth, you people act like you have it bad but you have a ton of crap that helps you kill a stealth player, INCLUDING YOUR BRAIN.

Nike.2631:

Driften.8716:

It would be nice if “Endurance Thief” was changed to “Reverse Pick Pocket” and transfers 3 conditions from you to your enemy’s back pocket on steel in addition to stealing endurance.

It probably only needs to transfer two conditions to be an effective addition, but I REALLY like the concept.

Transferring conditions is way more fun than just cleansing them .

Very good idea, but it would need to go into Acro. It needs the love, and putting it in DD would only make it outshine it more. I just think EA needs to be minor with DF, then add another condi removal option that wouldn’t outshine Staff Master and Impacting Disruption, but still be useful. Something like “Using a stolen skill removes a condition.” Would give synergy with Deadly Arts as well.

Karl McLain.5604:

Here’s a couple other updates that had been in the works and are now in testing.

• Vault: Reduced aftercast by 80ms. Added a 500ms evade at the start of the ability.
• Distracting Daggers: Projectiles from this ability are now counted as 100% projectile finishers.
• Impairing Daggers: Projectiles from this ability are now counted as 100% projectile finishers.
• Weakening Strikes: This trait now grants 10% damage reduction when being struck by a weakened foe, in addition to weakening foes on critical hit.

Woo yess

Woaden.9425:

alchemyst.2165:

Never thought about using defender runes with Daredevil but it actually makes sense. Very nice, definitely going to try that out for myself at launch! Nice video

Defender was great. I think overall Channeled Vigor will be our best heal to pair with “on heal do X” now that they reduced the CD. Can’t wait for all the options.

I can’t help but think we still need some more condi clear and damage mitigation tho.

Apparently we might be getting reduced damage by weakened foes with Weakening Strikes, so that will help if that gets implemented, and Dash will reduce Physical and Condition damage by 10% for 4 seconds, even better. But yeah, I agree, Escapist’s Absolution should be combined with Driven Fortitude, and maybe some more condi clear in some other areas as well.

Yeah, I get what you’re saying. Wouldn’t be against an animation clean up.

As for it going toward the enemy, I think we have enough skills that push us into melee range such as Weakening Charge and Vault, and let’s not forget that we have shadowsteps as gap closers. I think Staff needs that retreat-defense on the set, considering it’s supposed to be a semi-defensive set. Besides, it doesn’t push you back that far, and you can easily get back in the fray.

I’ll be finishing up my montage/guide soon.

The evade starts as soon as you activate the skill, so I really don’t worry about the first strike hindering me.

As for it being useless, I strongly disagree. It’s an evade and removes immobilize. That’s actually huge. This skill is very good in those sticky situations where you need to step out quickly and gain your bearings. The cripple is a nice added touch too, but the fact that you don’t need to hit someone with it to evade makes it that much better.

Not saying the animation couldn’t be better, just saying that this skill isn’t NEARLY as bad as people say it is.

Never thought about using defender runes with Daredevil but it actually makes sense. Very nice, definitely going to try that out for myself at launch! Nice video

If you’re getting killed by permastealth trap thieves then you need to fix something… contrary to popular belief it really isn’t that good lol.

Sorry. Hate to be that guy but this is a l2p issue.

Serious Thought.5394:

Weakness reduces physical damage. Make it reduce CONDITION damage, and that trait becomes so amazing its not even funny. Everyone would love you.

Oh….my….

I think I just fainted

“In addition to 50% glancing blows on direct damage, condition damage also has a 50% chance to deal 50% less damage.”

Karl if you implement that you would be a god

BrunoBRS.5178:

IDICERI.4268:

After BWE 3 I feel the following changes will help the Daredevil greatly:

1. Vault – I feel the evade frames that was being contemplated from BWE 2 will help(damage mitigation). Also can’t seem to shadow-step(using steal) mid animation, but able to do that when using bound dodge. Is this intended or am I doing something wrong?

2. Driven Fortitude – Removing the 1 second cool down will eliminate any sustain issues the Daredevil has in game. It will complement good thieves that evade attacks and waste the endurance of bad thieves that spam dodge. Staff really needs this because you no longer have much stealth to mitigate the damage and dodges only prolong a fight. Eventually you need to attack and with the low health pool the thief has, they get shreked in the exchange of damage. Removing the cool-down of this trait will provide the much needed sustain for a stealth-less fighter that thieves have been looking for.

Waiting for the fixes for the dodge animations to further comment on the GM traits.

bound dodge isn’t ground targeted, vault being GT while also moving the thief is probably why it’s impossible to do it.

It’s because Vault puts you vertically in the air, and you can’t use most skills in mid-air. Bound doesn’t actually put you in the air, the animation just looks like it. But the upside to Vault is that you can cross gaps with it due to it being a jump.