Vault a bug or intended?

Vault (PvP) is the only skill I know of that is complete animation lock (are there others?). Is it also animation locked in PvE/WvW as well? (can you cast steal+vault or weapon swap during vault in pve/wvw? Because in pvp you can't.)

In PvP, You can't cancel your vault in anyway, by weapon swap for example. This is especially hazardous because vault's evade frame is small, so even NPCs are rupting my vaults LOL. I would guess that this, more so than the nerf from 5 ini to 6 ini and acro nerfs, is probably the main reason why almost nobody runs staff in pvp now. Using vault against a smart player is asking to die.

Has anyone ever heard a dev comment on this change? It happened when they gutted staff awhile ago because of the perma bound+vault power builds (which were cancer, indeed, but they broke vault in the process). Before that change, vault worked just like any other animation; you could steal into it, blinding powder into it, weapon swap it, etc. However you now have 0 control over your char when you vault and can't cancel it in any way.

Same in PvE.

I am very sure you could never truly Steal in to it, you could manage to time it but the Vault would then just shift away in to a weird direction from your target, also the Steal didn't work so so often unless pressed almost before Vault.Anyway, it's a good point. I've always loved Staff very much, but it's "life" was literally drained out of it. (not talking boing boing boing build)

@"Alatar.7364" said:I am very sure you could never truly Steal in to it, you could manage to time it but the Vault would then just shift away in to a weird direction from your target, also the Steal didn't work so so often unless pressed almost before Vault.Anyway, it's a good point. I've always loved Staff very much, but it's "life" was literally drained out of it. (not talking boing boing boing build)

Oh yeah, I'm not saying people actually did that, like you said it would weirdly port where you didn't intend to land it, but I just used it as an example of how vault didn't used to be animation locked.

I really hope they revert this, staff is my fav weapon and it is sad to see the state it is in. Yet through all my google searching and asking I have yet to find almost anybody mention this let alone a dev mention it

Any mobility skills with animations lock the player and can only be partially-negated by weapon swapping. Unless they did something weird in the past month or so, I didn't have problems doing the normal partial-cancel like how heartseeker and most other similar leap skills behave when I was playing my troll SA staff build.

As for stealing with Vault, you can do it. You just need to wait for the final few frames prior to the impact. If you do it high in the air, you'll continue the animation and keep moving forward and miss.

Staff isn't played because PoF powercreep forced the thief mostly into S/D to counter FB. It's not so much that staff got gutted into not being playable so much as too much of the FoTM(Y?) counters staff these days, and the weapon (and really most of Daredevil as a whole) is really badly designed as it rewards spam more than it should.

The weapon is still quite strong into a lot of builds that aren't quite in the meta and I think it performs nicely into Spellbreaker and can be decent into Mirage. It's worth noting even D/P is in this situation for the most part; aside from WvW where it can camp stealth, the bunkers of PoF kinda phase out the need for anything but S/D and Rifle's unblockable attacks

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Any mobility skills with animations lock the player and can only be partially-negated by weapon swapping. Unless they did something weird in the past month or so, I didn't have problems doing the normal partial-cancel like how heartseeker and most other similar leap skills behave when I was playing my troll SA staff build.

As for stealing with Vault, you can do it. You just need to wait for the final few frames prior to the impact. If you do it high in the air, you'll continue the animation and keep moving forward and miss.

Staff isn't played because PoF powercreep forced the thief mostly into S/D to counter FB. It's not so much that staff got gutted into not being playable so much as too much of the FoTM(Y?) counters staff these days, and the weapon (and really most of Daredevil as a whole) is really badly designed as it rewards spam more than it should.

The weapon is still quite strong into a lot of builds that aren't quite in the meta and I think it performs nicely into Spellbreaker and can be decent into Mirage. It's worth noting even D/P is in this situation for the most part; aside from WvW where it can camp stealth, the bunkers of PoF kinda phase out the need for anything but S/D and Rifle's unblockable attacks

I..I'm not sure if we are playing the same game, but I definitely can't weapon swap during vault at any point in the frame; it is a pure animation lock, not like other movement skills which can have their animations prematurely ended by swapping.

What you just said about steal vaulting sounds like how it USED to work prior to the bug/nerf. This can't be done anymore unless I'm completely missing something lol

Edit: this is in SPVP (diff version of skill than pve/wvw)

Vault was locked specifically to prevent being able to steal during it.

@Crinn.7864 said:Vault was locked specifically to prevent being able to steal during it.

Interesting, did you see a dev mention that or just a guess? It seems like a strange/extreme thing to do.

Sorry, I had issues with editing comment and made a duplicate

@Evalia.7103 said:Actually you can steal(Shadowstep, Signet...) right before Vault lands. All you need to do is make sure the destination of Vault is right at your feet. Basically you Vault in place, and then you can use any instant skills including teleports during it's duration.

Vault also gives back 10 endurance with Staff Master, not 12. Even though it costs 6 initiative instead of 5 in PvP.

Another thing is that you can teleport even with a full-distance vault, as long as the destination is uphill, but it's wonky and unreliable then. If you plan to teleport on someone with a Vault, well it's 100% consistent if you do it in place and then teleport.

LOL I thought you were crazy but just to be sure I logged in and tried, as it turns out you're right; if you vault right at your feet, you can steal with it and even animation cancel by swapping rotfl. What the kitten kind of strange coding have they done to vault. It's still pretty wonky tho

Edit: played around more and it is incredibly wonky lol, more than half the time the vault wont land at all. I mean you can use it, the damage just won't connect. This is def something they didn't intend lol

Edit again: Whoops no that damage was from Mug haha, the vault 100% never lands with steal. I'm testing on NPCs in mists and have 250 Ping, maybe that has something to do with it? (I think the command of shadow stepping/stealing will cancel the vault, effectively like a weaponswap would.

This current functionality is useless lol, though I probably shouldn't even being trying to play staff or do things like backstab with 250 ping regardless

@Madisonlee.9641 said:LOL I thought you were crazy but just to be sure I logged in and tried, as it turns out you're right; if you vault right at your feet, you can steal with it and even animation cancel by swapping rotfl. What the kitten kind of strange coding have they done to vault. It's still pretty wonky tho

Edit: played around more and it is incredibly wonky lol, more than half the time the vault wont land at all. I mean you can use it, the damage just won't connect. This is def something they didn't intend lol

Edit again: Whoops no that damage was from Mug haha, the vault 100% never lands with steal. I'm testing on NPCs in mists and have 250 Ping, maybe that has something to do with it? (I think the command of shadow stepping/stealing will cancel the vault, effectively like a weaponswap would.

This current functionality is useless lol, though I probably shouldn't even being trying to play staff or do things like backstab with 250 ping regardless

Hmm. Well I can do it basically every time I want to with 100 ping. I play staff thief in PvP and I'm almost top 250 so I'm kinda familiar with it.

@Evalia.7103 said:

@Madisonlee.9641 said:LOL I thought you were crazy but just to be sure I logged in and tried, as it turns out you're right; if you vault right at your feet, you can steal with it and even animation cancel by swapping rotfl. What the kitten kind of strange coding have they done to vault. It's still pretty wonky tho

Edit: played around more and it is incredibly wonky lol, more than half the time the vault wont land at all. I mean you can use it, the damage just won't connect. This is def something they didn't intend lol

Edit again: Whoops no that damage was from Mug haha, the vault 100% never lands with steal. I'm testing on NPCs in mists and have 250 Ping, maybe that has something to do with it? (I think the command of shadow stepping/stealing will cancel the vault, effectively like a weaponswap would.

This current functionality is useless lol, though I probably shouldn't even being trying to play staff or do things like backstab with 250 ping regardless

Hmm. Well I can do it basically every time I want to with 100 ping. I play staff thief in PvP and I'm almost top 250 so I'm kinda familiar with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the ping is the culprit, as sometimes I'm unable to even steal into weakening strikes properly. However on my end the steal seems to be cancelling the damage portion of the vault; just to be clear, you DO get the damage from the vault when you use it like this? (stupid question but just to be sure) If so, and in pvp, then I trust you and it must be my ping. Thank god I'm moving back to the states soon

As of about two months ago I got the vault damage off on steal.

Latency issues (especially spikes and packet loss) causes a lot of issues with shadowstep effects in this game so I can't say I'd be surprised if that was the problem.

Yeah vault itself seems to have ping issues; explains why I've been told I'm randomly flopping around on staff and can't land backstabs without shadowshotting them

It is locked because it is a movement ability and I believe to allow for counter play. I have been able to break its animation but the window to do so is so short as to feel almost accidental when it happens.

Well to everyone who doubts you can blink during a vault... I'm done arguing with words so just take a look. You can also swap weapons to cancel the damage portion, though that's not very practical or relevant. You can't stow weapons to cancel the Vault. Blinking with a moving vault is possible but not very reliable and more often than not fails.

https://plays.tv/video/5b28bda8299dd9a81c/gw2-blink-vault

@"Madisonlee.9641" said:

Yeah vault itself seems to have ping issues; explains why I've been told I'm randomly flopping around on staff and can't land backstabs without shadowshotting them

To be honest 250 ping is quite extreme and makes any real-time game borderline unplayable. If I lived in Australia I'd actually be quite happy because I could play League of legends with low ping. But unfortunately where I live... it's AT LEAST 100 ping to everything basically.

@"Evalia.7103" said:Well to everyone who doubts you can blink during a vault... I'm done arguing with words so just take a look. You can also swap weapons to cancel the damage portion, though that's not very practical or relevant. You can't stow weapons to cancel the Vault. Blinking with a moving vault is possible but not very reliable and more often than not fails.

https://plays.tv/video/5b28bda8299dd9a81c/gw2-blink-vault

Perfect video, thank you for taking the time for that! I tested on the exact same spot with all the blink skills and I land where I wanted to land but the damage was cancelled by the port, similar to how weapon swapping cancels it for you.

It shouldn't surprise me that the culprit was the ping, but I never believed anyone who said 200+ was unplayable, just because it feels fine on my end; but I was wrong lol #feelsbadforoceanic #getakittenoceanicdatacenteryoucheapkittens

Oh and by the way getting back on topic, as this took a turn to talk about ping, I should also clarify that this functionality of vault (assuming you have good ping XD ) is NOT how it used to work for me. You didn't have to vault in place, it could be cancelled (to avoid getting rekt in the animation after the evade frame ended) at any point in the animation.

So they still borked it, I just don't know if it was on purpose or not; and if on purpose, they probably did not intend the vault in place functionality.

@"Straegen.9534" said:It is locked because it is a movement ability and I believe to allow for counter play. I have been able to break its animation but the window to do so is so short as to feel almost accidental when it happens.

I can still weapon swap at any point in the animations of every other "movement ability" I tested, including Warrior GS 3, Druid Staff 3, Ranger GS 3. None of these are truly animation locked (weapon swapping stops it dead in its tracks)

In @Evalia.7103 's video you can clearly see him spamming weapon swap when he vaults to a distance and it not working; only when he vaults in place does it work. This is not how any other movement skill functions to my knowledge and not how vault used to function. I'm wondering if they did this on purpose or not.