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Bounding Dodger for actual dodging?


saethe.1897

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Anyone using builds out there with Bounding Dodger that make use of the dodges beyond just incorporating them into your rotation? How much does it hurt your DPS to hold your dodges(and is it worth caring about aside from min-maxing)? For those of you that do hold your dodges, do you stick with the meta build, or have you made some tweaks? I really dig this class, and I love the mobility, but I've read a lot of "if you have any dodges, you're playing the class wrong" and was curious as to just how true that was.

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That's the raid mentality. In PVP/WvW you can use the bounding dodges in smoke fields to stack stealth, and even avoid attacks if necessary. Personally I use Staff Master over Havoc Specialist, specifically because I hate blowing all of my endurance just to get a damage buff. As somebody who roams, pugs, and solo's content not meant to be solo'd, I've found myself getting killed when trying to run around with no spare dodges.

The damage loss can be pretty significant, though. See, thieves in full raid gear with no infusions rest at 2,897 power. Staff Master boosts this up to 3,137, which is an 8% increase. Now, that sounds good, but the more factors you add on, the less it matters. Consider the raid setting:

Potent Superior Sharpening Stone: 130 powerPower Food: 100 powerWarrior Banners: 100 powerFull Might: 750 power

Put that all together, and you get thieves with a resting power of 3,997. Staff Master boosting this up to 4,217 power is a 6% increase. That is less than half of the boost of Havoc Specialist. If you're concerned about dying, you can take Havoc Specialist and keep one dodge in reserve. This will boost your damage by 10%, while still giving you some leeway.

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@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:That's the raid mentality. In PVP/WvW you can use the bounding dodges in smoke fields to stack stealth, and even avoid attacks if necessary. Personally I use Staff Master over Havoc Specialist, specifically because I hate blowing all of my endurance just to get a damage buff. As somebody who roams, pugs, and solo's content not meant to be solo'd, I've found myself getting killed when trying to run around with no spare dodges.

The damage loss can be pretty significant, though. See, thieves in full raid gear with no infusions rest at 2,897 power. Staff Master boosts this up to 3,137, which is an 8% increase. Now, that sounds good, but the more factors you add on, the less it matters. Consider the raid setting:

Potent Superior Sharpening Stone: 130 powerPower Food: 100 powerWarrior Banners: 100 powerFull Might: 750 power

Put that all together, and you get thieves with a resting power of 3,997. Staff Master boosting this up to 4,217 power is a 6% increase. That is less than half of the boost of Havoc Specialist. If you're concerned about dying, you can take Havoc Specialist and keep one dodge in reserve. This will boost your damage by 10%, while still giving you some leeway.

Soloing difficult content is more along the lines of what I'm hoping to do with Daredevil, though I'd like to be useful in raids/fractals without needing to dodge spam. Overall, it's less about being concerned with dying and more trying to find an optimal way to play without relying on dodges as part of the rotation. Obviously, I won't be outdoing the meta by holding dodges, but I'd like a build that comes in at a close second for tackling fractals/raids. Maybe it's just me, but I find dodge spam as a part of the rotation to basically go against the agile and mobile feel of the class. Instead, it ends up feeling tedious and clunky due to the constant need to reposition the camera every 4 seconds, and, as contradictory as it might sound, I almost feel a bit "rooted in the air" because all of my mobility is going toward buffing my damage.

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@saethe.1897 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:I use it on my daredevil but i'm running a build that focuses on sustain through a mix of Zealot and Assassin stats.. so DPS isn't exactly a focus there and my dodges are used more for recovery than dealing damage.

Care to share your build?

Sure.http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PaxAgiZlJkw8ybYhtruGZnW2TXNbA-zxQY7ob6hvU6LVDsAaNICOiM5EEm/KYG-e

Thief isn't a class I play often but I found this build a lot of fun to play in PvE, it's glassy but between all the healing and the dodging it's got a fair bit of sustain on it.

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@saethe.1897 said:

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:That's the raid mentality. In PVP/WvW you can use the bounding dodges in smoke fields to stack stealth, and even avoid attacks if necessary. Personally I use Staff Master over Havoc Specialist, specifically because I hate blowing all of my endurance just to get a damage buff.
As somebody who roams, pugs, and solo's content not meant to be solo'd, I've found myself getting killed when trying to run around with no spare dodges.

The damage loss can be pretty significant, though. See, thieves in full raid gear with no infusions rest at 2,897 power. Staff Master boosts this up to 3,137, which is an 8% increase. Now, that sounds good, but the more factors you add on, the less it matters. Consider the raid setting:

Potent Superior Sharpening Stone: 130 powerPower Food: 100 powerWarrior Banners: 100 powerFull Might: 750 power

Put that all together, and you get thieves with a resting power of 3,997. Staff Master boosting this up to 4,217 power is a 6% increase. That is less than half of the boost of Havoc Specialist.
If you're concerned about dying, you can take Havoc Specialist and keep one dodge in reserve.
This will boost your damage by 10%, while still giving you some leeway.

Soloing difficult content is more along the lines of what I'm hoping to do with Daredevil, though I'd like to be useful in raids/fractals without needing to dodge spam. Overall, it's less about being concerned with dying and more trying to find an optimal way to play
without
relying on dodges as part of the rotation. Obviously, I won't be outdoing the meta by holding dodges, but I'd like a build that comes in at a close second for tackling fractals/raids. Maybe it's just me, but I find dodge spam as a part of the rotation to basically go against the agile and mobile feel of the class. Instead, it ends up feeling tedious and clunky due to the constant need to reposition the camera every 4 seconds, and, as contradictory as it might sound, I almost feel a bit "rooted in the air" because all of my mobility is going toward buffing my damage.

Well, the strongest build you can make without using bound as a booster is the raid build, except use Staff Master over Havoc Specialist.

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You don't have to play Daredevil although there are some great animations and sound with it if you need to plow through a lot of trash. Apart from not wanting to use my dodge up so much, my Bounding dodge was either held, or used primarily for positioning and secondarily for damage. At least Bound doesn't have too long of range but you still have to manage your orientation around the target.

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In my experience:

You always want to understand the "big idea" of your class' canonical raid and fractal builds — what your role is, what the most important rotations and synergies are, where your big damage and breakbar power come from, &c. — even if you don't run those exact builds.

Invigorating Precision gives PvE thieves a ton of sustain, you're practically immortal as long as you're not getting one-shot or chain-CCed. It's a very easy situation swap that lets you shave a bit of DPS for massive survival running solo or in PUG groups that need it.

Deadeye is quite good solo in a lot of situations where Staff Daredevil starts to feel weak, it's a great build to have "in your back pocket" for soloing bosses or trying to carry a group that just can't seem to survive any other way. (Where Staff Daredevil tends to come out considerably ahead is when other people are giving you tons of boons, since you get a bunch of unique damage multipliers that stack very nicely with max boons, while Deadeye tends to be getting more of its "solo" damage from built-in boons like M7 giving you 10 Might.)

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