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Daredevil: Projectile Denial


Kageseigi.2150

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I've been trying out a "brawler" Daredevil to fight on point. Since this seems to be what Anet wants, I would suggest that they follow through on that line of logic...

In order for a Daredevil to fight in melee, its opponent must also fight in melee. So give the Daredevil the ability to persuade its opponent to engage in melee over ranged.

The third skill in Staff's auto-attack chain (Punishing Strikes) reflects projectiles, however, the Daredevil has to actually connect with the first two skills in order to deny projectiles (which means it's already engaged in melee). So adding the ability to simply block/destroy (not reflect) projectiles to the first two skills in the auto-attack chain would give the Daredevil the ability to defend against ranged opponents in both the defensive posture (when defending a point) and offensive posture (chasing down an opponent). With the range reduction of Swipe, the latter definitely needs some improvement, especially against Rangers.

Honestly, the Thief in general needs more projectile-denying ability, but since the Daredevil's Staff auto-attack already has it built in, this seems much more likely to get implemented.

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Agreed, even with runes of Durabilities on.... by the time I get to my target I am either oneshot dead or half hp left which still means I am dead. Especially to the 2 shot knock back super range rangers and massive nuke Mesmers... I have to use Sw/D combos to get something... but if you use dagger main hand.... kind of screwed.

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That would probably be too strong, regardless of the strength of the other parts of DD's toolkit.

I'd rather they lengthen the block on Bandit's Defense and add frontal block to Palm Strike and Weakening Charge. Thief lacks (quite a bit, really) the innate tankiness other builds have, and thus needs a bit more scaling protection on its unsafe skills that still allows for counterplay.

A lot of LoS spots already exist, too. And if nothing else, you can just staff#3. Pretty cheap evade.

Being able to chain the AA without needing a target in melee range would be nice tho, and not too strong I think. Maybe a bit more of a tell on longbow#4 CC would be nice, IIRC it p much looks like any other longbow AA.

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@Curennos.9307 said:That would probably be too strong, regardless of the strength of the other parts of DD's toolkit......A lot of LoS spots already exist, too. And if nothing else, you can just staff#3. Pretty cheap evade.

Perhaps so, though in its defense, it would still require awareness, facing your target, and proper timing (if it only had a 1/4 to 1/2 second window to actually block/destroy projectiles). If it was a technical block, then unblockable skills could still bypass it.

It would allow an aware Daredevil to stand on point (in the open where LoS isn't available) and negate a lot of sniping, saving endurance and initiative for when the sniper decides to engage in melee. It would also make it a lot easier to stay inside the boundaries of the point by not having to use dodges/evades that can very easily take the Daredevil outside the boundaries (flashbacks of using Withdraw on the old Skyhammer map, haha).

Also, it would allow the Daredevil to charge such snipers where there isn't LoS available without having to blow dodges or shadowsteps.

On top of that, it would allow the point-holding Daredevil to easier defend itself against kiting P/P Thieves and their Unload spam.

I suppose since the Deadeye is the ranged/sniper version of the Thief, the Daredevil could be the anti-ranged/sniper version since Anet seems to want to force it into melee.

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Personally I think the staff twirl should be on Staff 2 and they should replace the auto chain 3 with something else cause I hate that whirling charge animation. Then they could make you able to twirl (and reflect) the staff as long as you hold the button down, but it spends stamina over time (the first press and duration is free).

Kinda like whirling axes with no cooldown (just costs "energy" to upkeep).

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@"Kiroshima.8497" said:Personally I think the staff twirl should be on Staff 2 and they should replace the auto chain 3 with something else cause I hate that whirling charge animation. Then they could make you able to twirl (and reflect) the staff as long as you hold the button down, but it spends stamina over time (the first press and duration is free).

Kinda like whirling axes with no cooldown (just costs "energy" to upkeep).

I definitely would like the reflect to be on demand. And I like the idea of it lasting for as long as you hold the key down. The question would be should it consume endurance over time or initiative? Like 2 initiative per second, so with normal initiative regeneration, you would only be losing one per second.

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@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@"Kiroshima.8497" said:Personally I think the staff twirl should be on Staff 2 and they should replace the auto chain 3 with something else cause I hate that whirling charge animation. Then they could make you able to twirl (and reflect) the staff as long as you hold the button down, but it spends stamina over time (the first press and duration is free).

Kinda like whirling axes with no cooldown (just costs "energy" to upkeep).

I definitely would like the reflect to be on demand. And I like the idea of it lasting for as long as you hold the key down. The question would be should it consume endurance over time or initiative? Like 2 initiative per second, so with normal initiative regeneration, you would only be losing one per second.

Stamina for holding it down, initiative is for the first press that is free (so you could keep mashing it to spend initiative, or you could spend stamina by holding it depending on which resource you have more of at the time).

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In all honesty tho. Perhaps a little offtopic. But what purpose does projectile reflect on punishing strike serve? I mean sure it reflects. But how well or much can you benefit from that? Generally people would try to kite you when you're in close range or just hit you back in the face with melee. Neither can staff proc the aa chain if we dont hit anything. Say opponent on range. So long story short i feel like the value we get out of it is minuscule, if not at all. I think it would have been much better if we gained something like protection instead. Or idk... might? Thief can use a bit more damage after all.

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@GWMO.4785 said:But what purpose does projectile reflect on punishing strike serve? I mean sure it reflects. But how well or much can you benefit from that?

This is exactly the reason for this thread. I haven't played much Staff, but I don't believe I've actually reflected anything with it. The only time I've actually seen it reflect anything was in a video of a Daredevil soloing a boss fight.

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@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@GWMO.4785 said:But what purpose does projectile reflect on punishing strike serve? I mean sure it reflects. But how well or much can you benefit from that?

This is exactly the reason for this thread. I haven't played much Staff, but I don't believe I've actually reflected anything with it. The only time I've actually seen it reflect anything was in a video of a Daredevil soloing a boss fight.

yes in some PvE situations it can be very good. for example soloing an alpine tower lord in WvW or the necropolis lord as most of their attacks are projectiles. in some other encounters you might have ranged adds that you can mostly ignore that way.

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  • 2 months later...

What if the reflect from aa was removed and instead it was part of Weakening Charge (staff 2)?

It'd enable reacting instantly to ranged attacks instead of having to prepare the last part of the aa chain. Plus since the skill locks you in animation, you only get limited reward for spamming it, you cannot actively chase opponents if you use it for reflecting.

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I'd say it's unlikely that it will get tweaked, since both smoke screen and seal area offer projectile destruction and both were introduced/buffed last patch. You should probably try out smoke screen tho, 7s of projectile denial on a 25s cooldown (20s when traited) is nothing to sneeze at, and with staff you could set up some fun combos with the knockdown from sneak attack too.

@Kageseigi.2150 said:
I suppose since the Deadeye is the ranged/sniper version of the Thief, the Daredevil could be the anti-ranged/sniper version since Anet seems to want to force it into melee.This would be a good idea actually, and would give the spec a bit of purpose.

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Here's another idea: the reflect is on the first strike of aa instead of the last; if you reflect something, it moves onto the second strike.

In other words, you can use the aa against ranged as if it was a reflecting skill with a cd equal to the time it takes for the aa to reset.

shrugs

Edit: more like a reflecting aegis. Since you can spam aa until you actually reflect something with it. Reflectception.

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@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:I'd say it's unlikely that it will get tweaked, since both smoke screen and seal area offer projectile destruction and both were introduced/buffed last patch. You should probably try out smoke screen tho, 7s of projectile denial on a 25s cooldown (20s when traited) is nothing to sneeze at, and with staff you could set up some fun combos with the knockdown from sneak attack too.

Yes, thanks. Smoke Screen is quite nice, though I haven't really tried Daredevil since the patch. It is effective on my core build, though! :-)

Haha, I actually thought this thread died months ago :-P

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@Kageseigi.2150 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:I'd say it's unlikely that it will get tweaked, since both smoke screen and seal area offer projectile destruction and both were introduced/buffed last patch. You should probably try out smoke screen tho, 7s of projectile denial on a 25s cooldown (20s when traited) is nothing to sneeze at, and with staff you could set up some fun combos with the knockdown from sneak attack too.

Yes, thanks. Smoke Screen is quite nice, though I haven't really tried Daredevil since the patch. It is effective on my core build, though! :-)

Haha, I actually thought this thread died months ago :-P

Haha, I didn't even notice the necro xD

I tried daredevil once since the change, but the swipe range didn't feel good, more like a liability than a help half the time actually. Also I mostly played daredevil for condi no stealth trapper builds as I found them fun, and that obviously isn't a thing anymore.

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