Guild Wars 2

Has anyone else tried this?

I made one but it’s very initiative costly using D/P. It was very hard do enough DPS to kill them, ever. I think the hardest part was keeping it on the opponent, as most opponents swing and shoot quickly for it to make a noticeable difference. I think the only success I had was against melee only classes. Although smoke screen was useful against ranged classes. If anyone has had success with a build that is based on blinding the opponents I think it’d be neat to try out.

Give AoE blind on stealth a try. You won’t blind as often, but you’ll have much better damage.

The blind from pistol #5 is great in PvE, but in PvP I found it next to useless, though it might be better in a p/p build where you can use projectile finishers to do ranged blinds.

Try Offhand Dagger and the two traits in Shadow Arts which gives you +2 Initiative and AoE Blind on stealth.

I came accross 1 blinding thief in WvW in the jumping puzzle. They won the fight because they got the jump on me and I wasnt expecting it, but it still was a close fight with lots of running around and stealthing from both of us.

I did a lot of variations of the build and so far my thoughts are that to have a build around blinding the opponent is not so good. To be able to consistently keep an opponent blinded is next to impossible. All opponents wipe blind off with ease and it’s completely ineffective on all channeling attacks, which make up a large portion of attacks anyways. To keep the opponent blinded you have to sacrifice a lot to do so, such as using large amounts of initiative, utility slots and overall power in attacks. I’d really like to see this work somehow, but the mechanics seem so weak.

I’ve already tried everything said above, as my main goal is to be able to consistently blind the opponent, but it doesn’t seem viable at the moment. If I’m overlooking some major thing, I’d be happy to know!

Relying on blinds works fantastically in PvE because most mobs attack quite slowly and you can control where they move.

In PvP, players attack way faster than you can pump out blinds, and they can easily re-position to avoid black powder; so it’s not anywhere near as effective in PvP.