Guild Wars 2

About a year ago cloak and dagger had its damage reduced by 33% in PvP due to “one-shot” thief builds (CnD, steal, BS). (PvP only, damage remained the same in WvW)

However, due to the ferocity change as well as the evolution of the PvP community away from pure glass builds I really don’t see this as much of a problem anymore. In fact, I think cloak and dagger is weak now considering the difficulty landing CnD compared to the D/P BP -> HS combo. I think it’s fair to say D/D is a very underperforming set right now in general and I think restoring the damage on this skill would be a good start to re-establishing the usefulness of D/D especially since dancing dagger (4th skill on offhand dagger) is also quiet useless compared to its former version.

In short: dagger offhand needs some love! Revert 33% damage decrease on cloak and dagger in PvP, also maybe also look at improving dancing dagger.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PVX-Fix-redesign-or-remove/first#post4227204

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There is little reason to run a d/d power build without going glassy. I still agree the reliability of CnD actually hitting your target and not being blinded/blocked/interrupted/evade hurts. Like a suggestion I made long ago, make Dagger training (Deadly Arts IX) reduce the initiative costs of off hand dagger skills by 1.

Little love here and there if they wana go glassy to not be so punishing towards mistakes (since they die without CnD landing usually). There is much more that can be done towards d/d though that has little to do with damage values imo.

NinjaEd.3946:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PVX-Fix-redesign-or-remove/first#post4227204

Feed ze list!

There is little reason to run a d/d power build without going glassy. I still agree the reliability of CnD actually hitting your target and not being blinded/blocked/interrupted/evade hurts. Like a suggestion I made long ago, make Dagger training (Deadly Arts IX) reduce the initiative costs of off hand dagger skills by 1.

Little love here and there if they wana go glassy to not be so punishing towards mistakes (since they die without CnD landing usually). There is much more that can be done towards d/d though that has little to do with damage values imo.

I love that suggestion. Never thought of it before and it sounds like a great thing for thief. We need more creative minds like yours

I like the idea. The problem is that S/D is currently considered OP. If they were to buff offhand dagger, sword would need a major nerf.

style.6173:

I like the idea. The problem is that S/D is currently considered OP. If they were to buff offhand dagger, sword would need a major nerf.

Sword isn’t OP, self might stacking with a stronger zerker amulet + air/fire is what we’re seeing. A lot of people use them, and its the root of many bursts.

Quick mention, I don’t want the dagger % damage removed from dagger training, its a master major trait, let it grant 5% dagger dmg and -1 initiative cost for offhand dagger skills. I just realized my wording sounded like a rework rather than an addition.

Even better would be is to change revealed back to 3 seconds. The current longer reveal in PvP hurts D/D more than anything.

I can’t really get behind this suggestion. CnD is used to grant stealth, which already has several benefits associated with it, least of which is the enabling of backstab when using d/d. It doesn’t make sense to me to allow CnD to be a high damage ability that then enables another high damage ability. CnD can still hit very hard anyways, easily 5k+ on crits. It’s similar to why they nerfed dancing dagger very early on since it was literally one-shotting people from 900 range.

However, I am speaking from a WvW context, primarily. I think a better way to buff CnD in sPvP would be to put the reveal duration back to its original 3 second duration. Although, as mentioned, this will also buff s/d and p/d builds, but I feel the 4 second duration on reveal hurts them much less than it does d/d.

As for dancing dagger, the ability maximizes its potential with multiple targets clumped together, but most d/d specs only make situational use of it, especially in sPvP when you won’t be chasing people down as often. It is generally more useful than death blossom is though, unless you’re on one of those bleed spam builds.