Build:Daredevil - Power DPS

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on July 06, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

The power DPS raid build for Daredevil. This is an easy to play build that mostly dodges and autoattacks for high multi-target damage. Due to evading for most of its rotation, it can easily avoid boss attacks. It also has very high mobility, and provides high utility to its squad with Basilisk Venom, Stealth and various raid boss stolen skills.

Skill Bar

Staff

Shortbow

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Dual pistols are a good option to switch to if you ever find yourself losing melee uptime for extended periods of time, such as if the boss is animation locked out of range. Good examples of this happening are Deimos during Mind Crush, Dhuum during Greater Death Mark, and Samarog immediately after split phase. Also very useful on Xera for shards.
  • Offhand Pistol in particular is a useful source of extra CC via Head Shot and for Black Powder - a smoke field that can be blasted for AoE stealth.
• Shortbow can be used for mobility such as getting to green circles on Dhuum, and for various skips in fractals
• A second staff with Sigil of Superior Sigil of Accuracy can be brought to swap to in case you are unable to flank. This is highly recommended on Qadim.

Skill Variants

Healing Skills

• Signet of Malice for a relatively weak but continuous healing effect. Good if you do not plan on using your heal skill.
• Withdraw if you need an extra evade, or for fights that have a lot of movement impairing conditions.
• Channeled Vigor if you need dodges more than damage.

Utility Skills You can swap Tripwire for any useful utility, such as:

• Smoke Screen for projectile defence.
• Shadow Trap for niche situations such as Qadim.
• Haste offers some self-quickness in groups where the supports aren't doing their job.
• Shadow Refuge for AoE stealth.
• Shadowstep can be used to teleport to locations quickly.

Elite Skills

• Impact Strike for breakbar damage during encounters where Basilisk Venom gets wasted on adds.
• Thieves Guild for extra burst damage.
• Dagger Storm offers projectile reflect and a three second evade that you can move during.

Template Code

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

• Use Invigorating Precision if you're having trouble surviving. This is a ~10% DPS loss.
• Use Unhindered Combatant for mobility between encounters.
• Use Escapist's Fortitude if you need extra condition cleanses.
• Use Brawler's Tenacity if you want some more consistent endurance, particularly if using Channeled Vigor.

Equipment

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Assassin

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Staff
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x11

Infusion
x7

• If you do not have stat infusions, swap one accessory to Assassin stats.

Equipment Variants

• If you'd prefer a simpler rotation, you can run full Berserker stats and Signet of Agility instead of Tripwire.
• Your second weapon set is situational.
  • Dual pistols for ranged damage.
  • A second staff with Sigil of Superior Sigil of Accuracy if you are unable to flank.
  • A shortbow for mobility.

Usage

The Daredevil rotation consists of two major parts: the signet burst, and the looping rotation. You open with the signet burst, then repeat the looping rotation until Assassin's Signet is available for your next signet burst.

The idea of the signet burst is to deal as much damage as possible with Weakening Charge and Fist Flurry while under the effects of the Assassin's Signet active cast and Bounding Dodger. The looping rotation deals consistent damage by maintaining Bounding Dodger and Havoc Specialist while allowing your initiative to slowly recharge. This allows you to perform the next signet burst with max initiative.

Signet Burst

1. Dodge
2. Assassin's Signet before you land the dodge
3. Weakening Charge
4. Weakening Charge
5. Fist Flurry
6. Weakening Charge
7. Palm Strike
8. Weakening Charge or Dodge
9. Weakening Charge

Loop Rotation

1. Dodge
2. Weakening Charge
3. Repeat your auto-attack chain until your next dodge is up

Rotation Notes

• If using Tripwire, prepare the skill off cooldown (when you're not bursting), and trigger it during your burst.
• Use your signet burst again when Assassin's Signet comes off cooldown.
  • If Assassin's Signet is about to come off cooldown but you will only have half a bar of endurance or less when it does, use Swipe to immediately get endurance to perform the signet burst. In this case, use a Dodge at step 8 instead of Weakening Charge.
  • If the boss is about to phase, feel free to spam Weakening Charge to get some extra damage in (while maintaining Bounding Dodger).
• Try to dodge off cooldown, keeping no dodge bars left, to maximize Havoc Specialist uptime.
  • Be careful not to leave yourself without enough endurance to dodge major attacks - downstate is the biggest DPS loss of them all! You can leave one emergency dodge bar up for a ~5% dps loss while getting accustomed to the build.
  • Generally you should avoid interrupting your autochain when possible, as the third skill does a lot of damage. If you get a dodge bar mid-chain, you can dodge and then finish the chain after you land, before using Weakening Charge.
• Always flank the boss to get the +7% critical chance bonus from Twin Fangs.
• When it comes to fighting actual bosses where positioning matters, you may have to manage where your dodge ends so that you aren't forced into a bad spot.
  • For example, if you dodge through Artsariiv, you will be in a purple damaging AoE. Here you would have to dodge to the side or stand at the side of her so dodging through her will land you on the other side of her which is safe.
  • On other stationary bosses you might want to rotate your camera 180° every single time you dodge through them, so you maintain flanking by dodging on either side of the boss. For these cases you may want to walk back slightly while autoattacking so that you don't miss the damage from your dodge or end up being at an awkward distance from the boss (especially if the boss moves occasionally).
• Weakening Charge animation locks you, and it cannot be canceled with a dodge or weapon stow (this is why Palm Strike is delayed - to allow for the potential dodge at step 8). Be sure to watch boss mechanics so that you are not hit while animation locked - you can delay Weakening Charge during the looping rotation, or switch it with Fist Flurry, if you anticipate that you need to move or jump a mechanic.

General Tips

• You can use Vault or Debilitating Arc as evades if you're out of dodges.
• Use Basilisk Venom with nearby allies to break defiance bars.
• Cluster Bomb can be used to blast for Might or Stealth - particularly useful in dungeons or fractals. Make sure not to double tap it as only the first skill counts as a blast finisher.
• Infiltrator's Arrow can be used to skip parts of certain fractals such as the lasers in Aetherblade and the scaffolding in Cliffside.

Group Stealth

Thief's unique support in groups is long-lasting group-wide Stealth, which lets you run past trash without having to fight it. This lets you skip large sections of dungeons and certain fractals.

• Black Powder should be used as the primary smoke field due to lack of cooldown. Have party members chain blasts in this field with you, while you blast it with Cluster Bomb. The smoke field only lasts 4s so you need help from your party in order to stack a significant amount of stealth.
  • Use Smoke Screen in less organised groups since it gives a longer stealth field for easier blasting.
• Shadow Refuge gives a large amount of area stealth without needing to use blast finishers. This skill is useful when stealthing next to or on top of mobs since most blast finishers deal damage and thus break stealth. It can also be used to reapply stealth in the middle of a skip. When possible retrait for Shadow Arts before using it to get the benefit of Meld with Shadows and the cooldown reduction of Concealed Defeat.
• Blinding Powder gives 3s of stealth, is a blast finisher, and causes no damage making it very useful if you have to cover a long distance. It is often used in combination with Black Powder.

Pathing

Once you trigger certain mob groups while being in stealth they will follow you unless you "path" them. This is done by standing still until the Mobs reach you.

Pathing Tutorial by Vitarain

Skipping Ahead

After stealthing with your group you can use a lot of skills to skip ahead of your group to trigger bosses/events faster to save time. This requires you to be able to retrait fast for full efficiency but isn't needed.

You should retrait to Unhindered Combatant for extreme mobility. You should also trait Shadow Arts to reduce the cooldowns of Deception skills and get longer stealth from your skills.

• Use Steal to port to mobs (only with traited Shadow Arts otherwise you get revealed/in combat due to Mug).
• Use Shadowstep to blink up ledges and for additional mobility.
• Use Infiltrator's Signet and/or Infiltrator's Strike to teleport to mobs (should be used out of range to not hit the mob).
• Use Hide in Shadows and/or Steal Traited with Hidden Thief to gain stealth to not aggro mobs.