Guild Wars 2

i play thief off main. i used to play d/p mostly, but i dont like d/p #5+#2 for stealth. its good, closes gaps, but somehow still seems unnatural and clanky to achieve stealth.

if viable, i like d/d #4+#5+#1 for backstab. i also like d/d #3 too. for me thief is being in the face, dancing around target and d/d #3 is that kind of spell.

i tried d/d yesterday in hotjoins. sometimes i would do great, but sometimes would be terrible. i am not complaining about mm necro. but there was r36 d/d ele (i’m r29, mostly engi). i was chilled most of time, he used water aura, electric aura, bottom line i could never get to him for cloak and dagger. later i started using d/d#4 more, but still, not easy.

this is roughly my build. i have fleet shadow for stealth movement and now i’m thinking to give up trickery-VI for acrobatics-VII to remove cripple.

any opinion about d/d viability and how to better pull backstab?

also, not sure about withdraw. initially i got it for trickery-XII, 4init/15 sec was great. but i didnt have enough traitpoints for it. i still kept it for in-out nature of thief, but stimes i would put effort in getting close up to target, need a heal and have to give up hardly earned 130 unit radius.

i love to put condi removal in my builds, but with hide-in-shadows, its 1sec cast and 30sec cd? these days if you need condi removal, you’ll usually be dead in 3 sec, does 30sec cleanse make difference?

also, is shadowtrap worth it as disengage tool? 1.5 casttime. there were moments where i wished i had it (i often forget to set it before), but is it good enough? ive been looking for blinding power instead.

D/P is the current meta build for thieves, and there’s a reason for that. It is by far our best duelist weapon set. You have two gap closers (1 with blind and 1 with potential high damage), stealth on demand that isn’t affected by blocks or blinds, AoE blind field, a ranged interrupt (have used it to save allies from getting stomped or interrupt enemy ressing) and ofcourse backstab. It offers way more utility at the cost of more initiative heavy to stealth and a smaller burst.

That being said I would encourage you to play what you enjoy! D/D can be amazing in the right hands! If you enjoy it then I think you should go with it. You have access to stealth with a small burst and debuff attached, but it’s very easy to evade, block, blind or interrupt. It’s difficult to land CnD in group fights because of all the random evades, AoE and boons that’s being thrown around, but it is doable. Just learn to time CnD and you’ll do fine. It’s awesome to play if you get it right, so I say give it a go

Withdraw is amazing, so don’t underestimate it. If it’s optimal for your build I’m can’t really say, because that boils down to how you play. If you feel like you doesn’t get enough stealth then maybe you should go with HiS. Withdraw offers some mobility on short cool down which I like to use in my builds.

I love shadow trap as it has saved me countless times! Use it both offensively and defensively. Decapping a point and someone entered the area? You’ll know because of the trap and you can ambush them. Need a quick escape? You got it! But be aware that Shadow Trap bugs out in a lot of places! Experiment with it and you’ll figure where it works and where it doesn’t.

As for your build with D/D. You chose hidden killer, which is great, and I don’t see any flaws in your build. It’s your own, and you’ve probably thought it through. But the runes and sigils – just no. You don’t need the extra precision. You have hidden killer, so you could put in sigil of force instead of agility. As for runes you should go with Scholar or Eagle. You need critical damage. Critical chance isn’t going to help your backstab (which always will crit), but critical damage and power will. You get fury when your target reaches 50% health, so you’ll sti have lots of critical chance when you use your heartseeker to finish them off.

One last question. Why have you chosen signet of agility? If it is for condition removal and more endurance – then it’s cool. But if it is for the extra precision, I wouldn’t go with it… I’d rather have shadowstep or blinding powder in its place.

D/D has weaker approach backstab than D/P. D/P can approach stealthed thanks to Infiltrator’s Signet, Shadowstep, Steal during Heartseeker animations (Useful tricks like Heartseekering away just to Shadowstep behind during the animation, hit with HS and Backstab) If you really need to secure a backstab, hit backstab and during the animation use Steal/Signet, even though you break stealth from mug you’ll still land the backstab. The animation for backstab is fast so practice for a few minutes to learn how to do it.
Generally, more Shadowsteps allows for more Backstab play, especially with D/P on-demand stealth.

D/P also has a strong stick with 3 that (for +1 init over HS, blinds, faster, farther range, less telegraph and approach not wrecked by cripple/chill) does good damage to targets above 50% (also handy for clutch counter-counter-stomping for allies when initiative is low).
Even the 4 has some good uses: Notably it’s incredibly useful at stopping Guardian Staff4 healing, Thief Hide in Shadows and non-stab stomps.
Pistol offhand also has a legendary stomp securing skill, I really miss Black Powder whenever I run S/D. 5 also grants potential area denial, forcing the opponent to react. It’s just incredibly good for PvP!

D/P has so many good options that for a low skilled Thief it can allow them to make a lot of mistakes and waste init. <- Woe to the only profession in the game without skill cooldowns to throttle/force options and more cooldowns from swapping. D/D only seems superior to D/P in the hands of less technical Thief players because it’s fairly mindless.
“Am I scared to go melee?” Hit 4 or use Shortbow.
“Am I in melee and scared?” Hit 3.
“Is target running away? (back turned)” Steal/Shadowstep, CnD, Stab
“Is target below 50%?” Spam 2 huehuehuehue
“Is target above 50% and I don’t think I can maneuver for a stab?” If yes, hit 3, rinse and repeat.
“Do I want to blow 10 initative for an easy backstab with a footslogged approach?” Hit 4, then hit 5, stab.

The only real notable advantage that D/D has over D/P is it can pop out a faster (“less telegraphed”) and cheaper backstab, which is nice for PvE but D/P’s better backstab approaches, unevadable(guaranteed) stealth and incredible options make it easily one of the best for PvP.

@Geiir.7603 thx buddy, i agree with you on all counts. i feel this will work or fail depending on in-combat mobility (since, unlike d/p, not many gap closers). going over runes, i liked Runes of Air, they have critDamage for stats, but better yet, they should help with swiftness a lot (especially with withdraw heal on short cd).
i also gave up 2init/stealth for cripple removal (Acro VII). not quite sure about this one, i’ll see how much im init starved. of sigils, how about sigil of ice? who’s chilled now? signet of agility was by mistake, i meant to put signet of shadows (again – mobility). i’ll give it another try.

OMGimAnoobLOLOL.4730 i love d/p thief too. i played it second most iv pvp and i dont pve much, but half of my pve experience is lvling d/p thief to lvl40. one thing that i’m not too d/p crazy is #5-#2 chain as a main source of stealth, it feels like an exploit to me (especially with multiple jumps in the same smoke).

however i’d disagree with d/d being “mindless”. i feel it is very dynamic, gotta watch your target constantly and stay under fire, while pulling your acrobatics.

Death Blossom was designed for when haste was 100% and there was no torment. D/D thief needs a revamped dual skill imo.

D/D is very underestimated, but it’s a very strong weapon, particularly for 1v1 with the right spec (blind on stealth really makes this set shine). However, D/D doesn’t really fit in the current meta that well for tPvP because 1) it tends not to contribute as much as D/P team fights because of no blind field and 2) tPvP is all about point capture and D/D is highly reliant on being stealthed, where you can’t cap points.

That being said, I think it still works just fine for solo Q as a roamer.

edit and it’s definitely not mindless. Knowing exactly when stealth ends to chain CnD and when Death Blossom is actually worth using (instead of being a waste as it often can be) really make or break success with the set.

D/D is poop.
D/P is meta.

I don’t have much experience with d/p as I found it boring when leveling. I tried to like the S/P and found it awesome in teamfights with good allies. Just clean house!

But in the end, I play with D/D almost always. (I should mention I only solo queue) And I trait to be invincible, because when your team is bad you still get over 100 points, have fun, and kill a few people. (Obviously I grab zerk trinket and Crit traits with 20% dg bonus below 50%) but the rest give me regen in stealth, and vigor on heal.

I play the far assault mostly, I can 1v1 any build if I play perfectly. But some people take a while to kill, and during that time they have the node. My goal is to put enough pressure on far to force them to bring a second, sometimes third player. If that doesn’t go well, use your great speed to traverse the map and deliver precise strikes where needed; always being around killing people who get low, and securing kills (poison/killing person rezing/stomp/sr allie stomping, etc), then its back to far assault and try and lure a few to fight me, often with the desire for revenge in their home. If I can get this going, we’ve generally won the game. So don’t underestimate D/D in Solo Queue.

Although, sometimes I’m fighting 3 in home, and we are being 3 capped, with not an ally in sight. Makes me wonder if my team has akitten or something. I can go many games fighting none stop and not ever go down. But still if I’m not careful its very easy. Also sick-em in teamfights gets you killed.

One last thing of note, cause it will happen often enough in solo queue. If you either kill someone quick or get to an empty node and cap, and see incoming enemies. With this build its usually good to try to force them to fight you off node, if that doesn’t work, switch to sb and hold for as long until you need to blow a cooldown, then gtfo, usually to the opposite side of the map as quickly as possible.

Anyway, yes d/p has many advantages over d/d, you can make d/d work if you try and have fun with it. Just focus on staying alive and delivering decisive blows. Or poisoning/blast finisher/evade. Against an organized team who knows how to respond to this, I can see how it could cause problems. But then again, your teammates can better utilize the opportunities created by the chaos you try to instill on the enemy.

Good luck with your choice, and sorry if this was a little long. (Thank you Arizer Solo)

d/d handsdown best soloq build for team arena

1) 4 signet spike
2) Rage in map chat: check
3) invisible whisper spam: check
4) screw the team: check
5) enjoying w/e the fk you want: priceless