Why not make Daredevil have it's own unique mechanic?

Why just nerf steal and "make it unblockable". Most of us have a brain and can see aegis or blocking animations and icons.This change is literally a HUUUUUUGE nerf. If we take trickery with bountiful...not blocked.

Make the F skill something different.

We thieves put our input in and you went the opposite direction.

Daredevil is not a thief (thief is thief...daredevil is daredevil) so why "swipe"? If you want a duelist/brawler character, change the skill.

Do you mean swipe as in a paw swipe? Make the attack do damage and allow it to hit critical.

Man, not everyone wants to play staff spam. Hell, the whole thief weapon kit can use an overhaul.

TBH, cancel initiative and give us weapon cooldowns with some decent shit. Man, you increase intiative costs on everything, and literally everything shuts us down. No brainers can achieve victory by putting their cat on the keyboard.

I'm assuming that the swipe skill will come with a unique effect beyond unblockable, since taking sleight of hand and bountiful theft let you interrupt most skills already. Even if it's just damage that would be a plus. But we'll see.

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:I'm assuming that the swipe skill will come with a unique effect beyond unblockable, since taking sleight of hand and bountiful theft let you interrupt most skills already. Even if it's just damage that would be a plus. But we'll see.

I hope you are correct but this doesn't seem like it will be the case. The patch notes detailing these changes didn't seem vague. After all, if they went into that much detail about the Weakening Strikes change, there is no reason to believe they wouldn't describe Swipe in the same amount of detail if the changes were there. Unless ANet sees the dissatisfaction among Thief players and changes it suddenly, I'm quite sure the changes we are currently seeing with Swipe are what we are going to get.

Why not? Cuz that would require some actual thought and work on the balance teams end and judging by the past thiefs not to high on their priority list.

Well either make the Steal (read Swipe) range minimum of 900 or make it something completely different as you said.The more I think about it the more insane non-sense it seems to be: ->-> "Is now unblockable" -- Completely pointless"reduced range to 600" Really?

I honestly doubt that Anet realized that with bountiful theft, most block classes were not an issue save warrior block. (Which we just basi'd if we needed or waited it out.)

I don't think they actually know half the tricks out there that thieves use even though they can watch the same videos everyone else does.

This is a real shit patch attempting to make daredevil and staff more popular. bring back old d/p daredevil style play. That's the play style that defined the class.

Why didn't they just make swipe into something staff specific when you took the trait for it? Then there would be freedom for the other weaponsets to use steal like normal. To reiterate, something like how silent scope was mostly specific for deadeye's dodge stealth rifle.

900 range would be acceptable to this ‘swipe’ change.

Give swipe an extra benefit to using it like cripple and vulnerability.

Like DE, change the ‘stolen skills’ to DD specific ones that would help DD with this “brawler” direction they’re trying to do.

I am willing to accept the range of Swipe being 600 if there are other benefits that make it a trade-off rather than a downgrade. For PvP and WvW atleast, adding unblockable is of much lower value than reducing the range, so this feels more like a downgrade than a trade-off.

That said, I don't think the range necessarily needs to be increased, but Swipe should perhaps be buffed in some other ways. Some examples:-decrease the cooldown-add an additional charge (ammo)-add additional effects. I hesitate here since Steal effects are already bloated once traited. But I also feel like Swipe needs some help. The DD grandmaster traits could, for example, provide an additional effect to Swipe. Lotus Training could cause Swipe to also apply vulnerability and grant you might. Unhindered Combatant could make Swipe transfer 2 conditions to your target. Bounding Dodger could cause Swipe to deal damage and remove a boon.

@fluidmonolith.3584 said:I am willing to accept the range of Swipe being 600 if there are other benefits that make it a trade-off rather than a downgrade.

like a 3rd dodge

@"DemonSeed.3528" said:Why didn't they just make swipe into something staff specific when you took the trait for it? Then there would be freedom for the other weaponsets to use steal like normal. To reiterate, something like how silent scope was mostly specific for deadeye's dodge stealth rifle.

Read their "changes incomming" post again and then maybe you can understand why they did that.

@derd.6413 said:

@fluidmonolith.3584 said:I am willing to accept the range of Swipe being 600 if there are other benefits that make it a trade-off rather than a downgrade.

That's true, I hadn't considered that.

Is gaining a 3rd dodge and an unblockable Steal worth having the range of Steal reduced to 600? I'm not sure myself, but it's closer when the additional dodge is considered.

Perhaps a lot of the complaints are due to the fact that this is generally a nerf to DD, whether justified or not. Is it justified? Was DD overperforming?

What does everyone else think?

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:Why just nerf steal and "make it unblockable". Most of us have a brain and can see aegis or blocking animations and icons.This change is literally a HUUUUUUGE nerf. If we take trickery with bountiful...not block

Probably they will nerf bountiful theft too in future so Swipe unblockable will seem useful

@Kolly.9872 said:

@"Crab Fear.1624" said:Why just nerf steal and "make it unblockable". Most of us have a brain and can see aegis or blocking animations and icons.This change is literally a HUUUUUUGE nerf. If we take trickery with bountiful...not block

sigh. you are probably right.

Here's my question:

With this update, we are adding a trade-off to the profession skill that keeps the theme of a melee-oriented specialization.

How does removing a Daredevil's ability to use steal to close a long gap help us melee in any way?

If Anet wants us to melee they should be giving us more abilities to stick to a target not less. The range drop would be appropriate if we were getting something useful towards that end. Unblockable isn't it.

Maybe something like:

Physical Supremacy: This trait changes Steal to Hitched, which tethers the target to the thief and gives the thief a stolen skill and X seconds of X% base damage reduction. Toughness improves total reduction. Neither can leave 600 range of each other for X seconds. Stunbreaks used by either the thief or it's target will break the link. If either party attempts to use a skill to get out of range that is not a stun break it results in a knockdown and puts that skill on cooldown + X seconds. Stability applied after Hitched is engaged counters certain effects of Hitched but does not remove it - That means an attempted non-stunbreak maneuver to get out of range won't give the knockdown but the target still can't leave range. Stability applied before would prevent it of course.

It would work a lot like Guardian's Ring of Warding while allowing some counterplay for the target and helping the thief to be toe to toe for the duration. Most importantly it offers significant risk/reward choices in its use. Which is all I want.

And if you wanted to make it really sexy and give thief a GvG/WvW group perk, let it affect targets in an AOE. Would force the thief to use discretion on its use in small scale and be great for locking down targets for bombs.

@"Basharic.1654" said:Here's my question:

With this update, we are adding a trade-off to the profession skill that keeps the theme of a melee-oriented specialization.

How does removing a Daredevil's ability to use steal to close a long gap help us melee in any way?

If Anet wants us to melee they should be giving us more abilities to stick to a target not less. The range drop would be appropriate if we were getting something useful towards that end. Unblockable isn't it.

Maybe something like:

Physical Supremacy: This trait changes Steal to Hitched, which tethers the target to the thief and gives the thief a stolen skill and X seconds of X% base damage reduction. Toughness improves total reduction. Neither can leave 600 range of each other for X seconds. Stunbreaks used by either the thief or it's target will break the link. If either party attempts to use a skill to get out of range that is not a stun break it results in a knockdown and puts that skill on cooldown + X seconds. Stability applied after Hitched is engaged counters certain effects of Hitched but does not remove it - That means an attempted non-stunbreak maneuver to get out of range won't give the knockdown but the target still can't leave range. Stability applied before would prevent it of course.

It would work a lot like Guardian's Ring of Warding while allowing some counterplay for the target and helping the thief to be toe to toe for the duration. Most importantly it offers significant risk/reward choices in its use. Which is all I want.

And if you wanted to make it really sexy and give thief a GvG/WvW group perk, let it affect targets in an AOE. Would force the thief to use discretion on its use in small scale and be great for locking down targets for bombs.

I think you forgot that in cca 90% of cases it is the Thief who wants to (read absolutely has to) get away from the foe/target. The last thing Thief needs is to have its own skills preventing it from keeping distance/disengaging.

Another thing you likely did not consider is that Daredevil's very best utility skill is Bandit's Defense which also happens to be a stun-break, imagine that super rare 10% scenario where DD would actually wanna stay and try to go for a kill and he broke his "tether" by using a BD skill which is useful for almost any encounter and will likely get used on CD.

I don't get the new Physical Supremacy, do we lose the +50% endurance ?And 600 range I get the trade off, it's fair imo, but "unblockable" ... who cares really ? it's useless, give is something like "recharge weapon swap" "recharge 25% endurance" or something like magebane/scorpion wire, Idk something useful to daredevil.

@derd.6413 said:

@fluidmonolith.3584 said:I am willing to accept the range of Swipe being 600 if there are other benefits that make it a trade-off rather than a downgrade.

Not nearly enough.

@"Alatar.7364" said:

I think you forgot that in cca 90% of cases it is the Thief who wants to (read absolutely has to) get away from the foe/target. The last thing Thief needs is to have its own skills preventing it from keeping distance/disengaging.

Another thing you likely did not consider is that Daredevil's very best utility skill is Bandit's Defense which also happens to be a stun-break, imagine that super rare 10% scenario where DD would actually wanna stay and try to go for a kill and he broke his "tether" by using a BD skill which is useful for almost any encounter and will likely get used on CD.

You missed the point. Thief gets to disengage at will, but when we do, we aren't doing any melee damage. If Anet wants Daredevil to be a melee bruiser then we have to be in melee range which means we need the tools to keep a fleeing target in melee, and we need the ability to have chance to win there if the target wants to fight back. That's specifically why I had the damage reduction in there. I left it at X because it would have to be tuned, but probably a pretty darn high value.

RE the stun break stopping it: I was trying to create a downside. Though TBH like you said being tethered is already a big deal. Other options: A second button press or use of the stolen skill cancels the tether, and/or cause you to evade, or block, or blind yada yada yada . . . on top of whatever the stolen skill is. A block or evade would be most in character with the spec.

Vanilla Steal is an aggressive skill that can gives us some defensive options depending on who we steal from. Since DD is "supposed" to be melee it makes sense to give it something special on the melee side.

The other aspect of this is it's possible that Anet is giving steal some new DD specific stolen skills and they didn't tell us about them. That could make the range change and unblockable make a lot more sense if it's guaranteeing some nice juicy stolen items. I'm torn, because I love that idea, and I can't tell if Anet was just too dumb to include new stolen skills in the posted notes or so dumb they are leaving us with the vanilla stolen skills. It's a testament to my lack of faith in them that I consider either option equally possible.

What if the Daredevil tradeoff was reduced initiative?

@Cronos.6532 said:What if the Daredevil tradeoff was reduced initiative?

If it is more than 3 than it is about the same unplayability as 600r Swipe, making Trickery even more Mandatory than it already is....which is 100% complete must have already.

Yeah, I was thinking no more than 3. Trickery ain't mandatory if your weapon is Staff.