Guild Wars 2

I run into D/P thieves more and more, I guess people started to realise the “nerf” was a pure joke and it affected no one. I still permastealth everyday (without being traited for it) and solo cap keeps. (source=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jnqaW5BK4&feature=youtu.be)

The only reason I dislike D/P and think it’s OP, not so much because they can Stealth out of thin air and have a massive gapcloser by doing so + perma blind you at the same time.. that’s not really the reason I think this build is OP and should be looked at.

The real reason is the CONSTANT dazes whenever they realise they cannot kill you. You WILL die due to dazes. It happens about every encounter I have with D/P thieves in WvW.

This is if they are unskilled players, someone that is fairly decent at D/P is like a god and won’t die unless they overextend big time. I’m not entirely sure why Pistol offhand is superior over dagger, when dagger actually requires skill to stealth with? Hell it even costs the same amount of initiative. Of course this post is aimed at the build and no one specific, you have the full right to use something that works good, perhaps too good. Why wouldn’t you?

As D/D or P/D running with no stealth utilities, it’s a complete nightmare to play against D/P, because cowardly gameplay is rewarded so much ugh.

Source: I started out as a D/P thief, gained most of my “fame” doing so. (=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZOl-e8KCkY) I know what I’m talking about. This build has been OP since start and still is far superior. Defo the blinds on Black Powder are too much.

If this post feels like a rant, it is.
I’m on the verge of rerolling to D/P and win 1v5-10 fights as I used to in WvW.

You are talking from a thief point of view. DP thieves should win against any other thief build, period.
However, other classes have way more means to kill them than other thieves. Below you can look at all the classes I play, and I assure you, DP thieves are far more easier to kill than some DD in WvW. You just need an interrupt and they suddenly are pressured.
If your builds can’t beat them, and knowing you they can’t, then you should just accept it as a fact and move on.
PD is way more cheese in WvW at the moment, because it’s only really countered by DP in roaming. I love perma dazing PD thieves who like to troll bigger groups (actually I do this with every thief I meet, not just PD, but doing it with PD is extremely more rewarding).

P/D counters D/P if you play it right. Perma daze D/P thief? What? Why would anyone ever spend any time trying to do something thats not possible?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-Black-Powder/page/3#post3544109

Mordecai.6318:

P/D counters D/P if you play it right. Perma daze D/P thief? What? Why would anyone ever spend any time trying to do something thats not possible?

It is simply not possible for P/D to counter D/P, unless the D/P is REALLY bad or unless there are 1000 objects around to CnD (and even then it would still become a stalemate between decent players).

Mordecai.6318:

P/D counters D/P if you play it right. Perma daze D/P thief? What? Why would anyone ever spend any time trying to do something thats not possible?

P/D counters jack kitten, least of all D/P. All D/P needs to do is spam those Blinds and P/D can’t Cloak and Dagger.

Any time I run into a P/D they either lose or run away because they realize they can’t win. It’s the same when fighting D/D Thieves but at least they can occasionally still instant-gib you through Black Powder.

I agree that D/P is generally the best Thief WvW weapon set.

But unlike P/D cheese it actually requires skill to play well and active Initiative management which no other set requires. D/P is the only weapon-set in which ALL weapon skills are useful and require careful and times use. You can’t spam all the skills or you’ll run out of Initiative real fast.

That what sets is apart from other weapon sets that typically only use 2-3 of their actual weapon-skills.

I agree that the near constant Blinds are probably OP but at least it takes skill to play, resource-management and is less bursty than D/D.

And oddly enough, despite its power only about 30% of Thieves I encounter in WvW run D/P. Many still use D/D and P/D, both of which have an easier play-style.

Dee Jay.2460:

Mordecai.6318:

P/D counters D/P if you play it right. Perma daze D/P thief? What? Why would anyone ever spend any time trying to do something thats not possible?

P/D counters jack kitten, least of all D/P. All D/P needs to do is spam those Blinds and P/D can’t Cloak and Dagger.

Any time I run into a P/D they either lose or run away because they realize they can’t win. It’s the same when fighting D/D Thieves but at least they can occasionally still instant-gib you through Black Powder.

I agree that D/P is generally the best Thief WvW weapon set.

But unlike P/D cheese it actually requires skill to play well and active Initiative management which no other set requires. D/P is the only weapon-set in which ALL weapon skills are useful and require careful and times use. You can’t spam all the skills or you’ll run out of Initiative real fast.

That what sets is apart from other weapon sets that typically only use 2-3 of their actual weapon-skills.

I agree that the near constant Blinds are probably OP but at least it takes skill to play, resource-management and is less bursty than D/D.

And oddly enough, despite its power only about 30% of Thieves I encounter in WvW run D/P. Many still use D/D and P/D, both of which have an easier play-style.

This, although I would question the “OP-ness” of constant blinds, as it only affects classes like other thieves. Warriors can counter those, Guardians simply bypass them thanks to their multi-hit attacks and other classes can simply kite away from the blind field.

Yeah there are ways to penetrate the Blinds but they aren’t readily available or themselves have counters which makes them hard to use against a skill that can be used constantly.

Take a Warrior with melee weapons for example. Sure, he can use Berserker Stance but then I just kite away and chill in Stealth for a while, waiting for it to expire. After that, there’s really not much he can do. Hundred Blades will still deal some damage as will Blade-Trail but they’d have to be full Berserker to put out enough pressure.

When I fight another class I often feel I beat them because of the Black Powder mechanic more than anything else.

try s/d I roll d/p thieves all the time with that build… just trait the trickery spec wait for the blinding power and daze the heart seeker, they blow the init and panic lol

P/D can’t do anything against D/P if they trait condi removal.. and the daze spamming D/Ps are the bad ones that get frustrated because they cannot kill you. I am speaking from thief POV and outnumbered situations, obviously.

Thing is, like half of the fights I get into, you’ll have this D/P thief spamming Daze and eventually it just kills you, it’s dumb. :/

What I hate about the build is how passive it is, yet so rewarding.

Lol@ calling D/P a skillful build.. when exactly you need to manage your initiative? You successfully stealth 9/10, unless someone manages to root or interrupt you. Like I said in my initial post, I run no stealth utilities, I stealth by actively staying in combat, ->>>THAT<<<- requires skill, not some cheesy D/P bullkitten.

If I miss my CnD twice, I’m dead. I have to spam #1 to break aegis/blind about everytime I try to CnD and even then you have a big chance it misses due to an Aegis popping at a bad time lol.

Sceinna.3561:

Lol@ calling D/P a skillful build.. when exactly you need to manage your initiative? You successfully stealth 9/10, unless someone manages to root or interrupt you.

…which is quite easily done if you are fighting any decent player with some interrupts.
When I roam with my Mesmer/Ele/Engi/Thief I always interrupt D/P players who like to troll “hey I’m permastealthing #yolo”.
If you manage to interrupt it ONCE, the thief is forced to use one of his utilities to catch some breath (assuming he is fighting outnumbered). Interrupt it a second time and he will go away because he has everything on CD.

Dee Jay wasn’t talking about 30 shadow arts perma stealth cheese. he was talking about trickery d/p. you can’t really perma stealth with it as you don’t have very good init regen. they can’t perma evade ether. they have to rely on 3 to 6 second stealths (if they chain heartseeker stealth with hide in shadows) and positioning via shadowsteps to survive.

…and what did you accomplish by wasting ini like that?

daze spam? it does like no dmg, what do you kill ppl with? AA?

i wasted your last posted video, you kill uplvs in 3v3 situation… that is why d/p op? i am confused

Cynz.9437:

…and what did you accomplish by wasting ini like that?

daze spam? it does like no dmg, what do you kill ppl with? AA?

The daze spamming doesn’t happen in 1v1, it’s in larger fights. Any build that runs D/P is cheese, you stealth out of thin air, period.

Low risk high reward, it shouldn’t be like that.

@Chicago, 9 out of 10 do run 30 SA on D/P, all my points still stand I think. On the other hand I have no clue how D/P should be balanced without destroying certain builds.

I’ve never met a Thief who spams Headshot exclusively. Even myself I only use it to interrupt heals and revives. I mean it costs 4 Initiative and deals no damage. It hinder the enemy as long as it hinders me. If a D/P Thief uses it twice it already means he can’t use Black Powder for the next few seconds making him a vulnerable target.

D/P Thieves themselves also tend to be fairly glassly unlike P/D Thieves who run around in full Dire gear with Acrobatics talents for extensive dodges.

P/D is by far the most forgiving spec for Thieves and the easiest to play “well enough”. You have endless dodges, full Dire gear with max. Toughness and Vitality and enough Initiative to cover any Cloak and Dagger you might miss.

I mean with 15 Initiative and only Cloak and Dagger to blow it on you have to try really hard to waste it all.

Sceinna.3561:

Low risk high reward, it shouldn’t be like that.

it costs 9 init to stealth with d/p.

Sceinna.3561:

Low risk high reward, it shouldn’t be like that.

Interrupting a BP→HS combo means that 75% of the thief’s initiative is gone. And this is just for ONE interrupt.
I’d say the risk is quite high. If the D/P is facing bad players, then everything crumbles. But we must assume people with decent skill. One handed people should not be taken into account when you talk about balance.

Dee Jay.2460:

I’ve never met a Thief who spams Headshot exclusively. Even myself I only use it to interrupt heals and revives. I mean it costs 4 Initiative and deals no damage. It hinder the enemy as long as it hinders me. If a D/P Thief uses it twice it already means he can’t use Black Powder for the next few seconds making him a vulnerable target.

D/P Thieves themselves also tend to be fairly glassly unlike P/D Thieves who run around in full Dire gear with Acrobatics talents for extensive dodges.

P/D is by far the most forgiving spec for Thieves and the easiest to play “well enough”. You have endless dodges, full Dire gear with max. Toughness and Vitality and enough Initiative to cover any Cloak and Dagger you might miss.

I mean with 15 Initiative and only Cloak and Dagger to blow it on you have to try really hard to waste it all.

I agree P/D is very forgiving, which is why I play D/D atm, because I feel P/D is becoming too meta. @Daze spam, again, it happens to me everyday during 1vX, some D/P thief cannot kill you so he decides to Daze spam you allowing the rest to kill you with ease, it’s like an instant gameover button. It happens to me every single day, I’ll make sure to record it next time.

Dee Jay.2460:

Yeah there are ways to penetrate the Blinds but they aren’t readily available or themselves have counters which makes them hard to use against a skill that can be used constantly.

Take a Warrior with melee weapons for example. Sure, he can use Berserker Stance but then I just kite away and chill in Stealth for a while, waiting for it to expire. After that, there’s really not much he can do. Hundred Blades will still deal some damage as will Blade-Trail but they’d have to be full Berserker to put out enough pressure.

When I fight another class I often feel I beat them because of the Black Powder mechanic more than anything else.

^This, entirely. Black Powder is the only reason I hate D/P, the blinds on it are just stupid. I couldn’t care less if D/P grabs stealth out of thin air, I can counter that. The perma blind is what screws me up. You used to be able to clear blind by just spamming #1 and you didn’t need a target, but that got nerfed a long time ago. :/

Sceinna.3561:

Cynz.9437:

…and what did you accomplish by wasting ini like that?

daze spam? it does like no dmg, what do you kill ppl with? AA?

The daze spamming doesn’t happen in 1v1, it’s in larger fights. Any build that runs D/P is cheese, you stealth out of thin air, period.

Low risk high reward, it shouldn’t be like that.

@Chicago, 9 out of 10 do run 30 SA on D/P, all my points still stand I think. On the other hand I have no clue how D/P should be balanced without destroying certain builds.

so in xvx situation thief decided to use head shot as form of CC instead of doing dmg, i don’t see where problem is

Ok, d/p can stealth, so can any thief honestly… as d/d i can walk to NPC/clone etc. and get stealth off, as s/x i don’t even need stealth… stealth is core mechanic of the class, what is the problem of thief being able to go in stealth?

It is not low risk either, it costs 9 ini to go in stealth, it is easiy interruptable, can be easily countered by CCs, aoe spam etc., BP gives out your position as well, BS is not THAT easy to land on any half decent player as well and you traded 9 ini for it…. again what is the problem here? I can kill you easily with scepter AA spam on necro w/o using ANY spells, that is what i call low risk, high reward.

Stealth is actually huge disadvantage in pvp mode because it is all about point capture, hence you NEVER have thieves defending points. You will NEVER see a thief in pvp using perma stealth nor wasting ini for headshot unless it is to stop stomps etc.

Funny enough d/p is not even most popular build in pvp nor wvw actually. In pvp most ppl run s/p, in wvw i see more d/d or p/d than anything. Last time i saw d/p was….2 weeks ago? in our tower. Stealth trap made him run for his life lol.

I would rather fight d/p at any given time (be it even Caed) than kitteng AI/condi spam kitten we see atm in pvp.

Sceinna.3561:

Dee Jay.2460:

I’ve never met a Thief who spams Headshot exclusively. Even myself I only use it to interrupt heals and revives. I mean it costs 4 Initiative and deals no damage. It hinder the enemy as long as it hinders me. If a D/P Thief uses it twice it already means he can’t use Black Powder for the next few seconds making him a vulnerable target.

D/P Thieves themselves also tend to be fairly glassly unlike P/D Thieves who run around in full Dire gear with Acrobatics talents for extensive dodges.

P/D is by far the most forgiving spec for Thieves and the easiest to play “well enough”. You have endless dodges, full Dire gear with max. Toughness and Vitality and enough Initiative to cover any Cloak and Dagger you might miss.

I mean with 15 Initiative and only Cloak and Dagger to blow it on you have to try really hard to waste it all.

I agree P/D is very forgiving, which is why I play D/D atm, because I feel P/D is becoming too meta. @Daze spam, again, it happens to me everyday during 1vX, some D/P thief cannot kill you so he decides to Daze spam you allowing the rest to kill you with ease, it’s like an instant gameover button. It happens to me every single day, I’ll make sure to record it next time.

Dee Jay.2460:

Yeah there are ways to penetrate the Blinds but they aren’t readily available or themselves have counters which makes them hard to use against a skill that can be used constantly.

Take a Warrior with melee weapons for example. Sure, he can use Berserker Stance but then I just kite away and chill in Stealth for a while, waiting for it to expire. After that, there’s really not much he can do. Hundred Blades will still deal some damage as will Blade-Trail but they’d have to be full Berserker to put out enough pressure.

When I fight another class I often feel I beat them because of the Black Powder mechanic more than anything else.

^This, entirely. Black Powder is the only reason I hate D/P, the blinds on it are just stupid. I couldn’t care less if D/P grabs stealth out of thin air, I can counter that. The perma blind is what screws me up. You used to be able to clear blind by just spamming #1 and you didn’t need a target, but that got nerfed a long time ago. :/

Only the initial shot should blind you if you don’t dodge it. You can hit thieves from outside the BPS field. … perma-blind is a choice to stand in the BPS.

What’s the blind spam people keep talking about?

If it’s black powder you can attack from outside it’s aoe and still connect as melee. If you’re ranged there’s no issue.

Laela, I’m a fan of your earlier video’s the forward withdraw changed my life (I’m still the only person other than you that I’ve seen do it smoothly).

I’m p/d now as well though I’m a different build (perplex 10/0/30/0/30). I think you’ve nearly answered your own question in your rant. You don’t run any stealth utilities and only stealth through cnd.

While that’s very skillful, you need to run a stealth utility to save you when cnd isn’t an option (1vx with a d/p #4 spammer is such a case).

You might not beat that 1vx, but you can at least escape, in addition to the condi clear, healing and offensive options you’ll get from the stealth. I know you’d prefer to win, but you can’t expect to always beat all possible 1v2+ situations.

For 1v1’s vs d/p, it seems the best option is to run p/d main set and d/p offset. Where d/p is used mostly for mobility and black powder > heartseekers to counter the thief’s basi BS. You basically get all their d/p tricks with the p/d awesomeness.

From your 34sec perma-stealth example video I could tell what build and trait allocations you were using; you have absolutely awful survivability and damage output.

30pts into SA to get Shadow Rejuvenation, else really there’s no point in staying in stealth. Adept and Master slots are Infusion of Shadow and Patience respectively in order to upkeep initiative regen. That means no Shadow’s Embrace, so you have awful condi-removal; Shadow Step isn’t reliable on a 50sec CD. You could run Lyssa runes to give you a little bit more condi-removal, but I can see you’re running Centaur Runes because you gained Swiftness on Withdraw.

Speaking of Withdraw, you also gained Vigor and initiative on use, so that fills in the rest of the points with 10pts in Acro and 30pts in Trickery.

In your other video I watched the first couple seconds to see your gear choice. Using that gear with the build for perma-stealthing you have:

2,943 Attack
22% Crit Chance
58% Crit Damage

…yeah, uh, excuse me while I go die from laughter.

how do you jump with HS for not a full range but only in an area of a circle from BP?

AskTheDust.7384:

how do you jump with HS for not a full range but only in an area of a circle from BP?

You angle the camera upwards and so only leap a fairly short distance. It works reliably but is fairly inconvenient to do it combat.

What I find funny is that I don’t stealth nearly as much with my D/P weapon-set as I did with my D/D build.

Dee Jay.2460:

AskTheDust.7384:

how do you jump with HS for not a full range but only in an area of a circle from BP?

You angle the camera upwards and so only leap a fairly short distance. It works reliably but is fairly inconvenient to do it combat.

What I find funny is that I don’t stealth nearly as much with my D/P weapon-set as I did with my D/D build.

Well considering stealthing with DP costs 9 ini while DD takes 6 ini, without two on stealth, I can easily see why. Assuming you used trickery, that 15ini pool would leave you with 6 ini left going on 7 after one stealth so it’s not hard to see why you’re stealthing less with DP, however, it offers more blinds than DD can offer.

A common argument is that DP takes more skill to use than DD. Now it’s no right or wrong answer to this, but I personally believe that’s not true. However I am also not saying DD is more skillful. To explain, you have all skills useful for DP, so one could say “Oh we need to manage initiative.” Yeah, okay, but not really. It’s not like you’ll need all of those buttons all of the time. In the brunt of a fight with a melee warrior, I’ll barely use shadowshot since he’s going to be on top of me all of the time. In fact, why bother constantly stealthing, Black powder will mitigate the fool if he’s dumb enough. And as you’ve said, headshot if only really used when they are healing and one isn’t healing every second of the fight…actively anyway…so that’s another 4 initiative I don’t have to worry about constantly. So DP initiative management is only really a concern if youre constantly focused on getting a stealth out, but DP gives you the tools to not have to worry about that so much. DD on the other hand has so little to work with, calling it cheese gets me angry. DD stealth can be prevented in more ways DP stealth can be. Wanna know how to stop a DP thief from stealthing? Interrupt. Wanna know how to stop a DD thief from stealthing? Interrupt, blind, blocks, evades, keeping your distance. Imho you cannot justify DP being harder than DD. At first, yes it’s a hassle to learn all of your skills, but when you become a natural with DP, ini management comes as second nature to you as holding your breath while swimming, AND you have more skills to work with, double win!

RedSpectrum.1975:

Dee Jay.2460:

AskTheDust.7384:

how do you jump with HS for not a full range but only in an area of a circle from BP?

You angle the camera upwards and so only leap a fairly short distance. It works reliably but is fairly inconvenient to do it combat.

What I find funny is that I don’t stealth nearly as much with my D/P weapon-set as I did with my D/D build.

Well considering stealthing with DP costs 9 ini while DD takes 6 ini, without two on stealth, I can easily see why. Assuming you used trickery, that 15ini pool would leave you with 6 ini left going on 7 after one stealth so it’s not hard to see why you’re stealthing less with DP, however, it offers more blinds than DD can offer.

A common argument is that DP takes more skill to use than DD. Now it’s no right or wrong answer to this, but I personally believe that’s not true. However I am also not saying DD is more skillful. To explain, you have all skills useful for DP, so one could say “Oh we need to manage initiative.” Yeah, okay, but not really. It’s not like you’ll need all of those buttons all of the time. In the brunt of a fight with a melee warrior, I’ll barely use shadowshot since he’s going to be on top of me all of the time. In fact, why bother constantly stealthing, Black powder will mitigate the fool if he’s dumb enough. And as you’ve said, headshot if only really used when they are healing and one isn’t healing every second of the fight…actively anyway…so that’s another 4 initiative I don’t have to worry about constantly. So DP initiative management is only really a concern if youre constantly focused on getting a stealth out, but DP gives you the tools to not have to worry about that so much. DD on the other hand has so little to work with, calling it cheese gets me angry. DD stealth can be prevented in more ways DP stealth can be. Wanna know how to stop a DP thief from stealthing? Interrupt. Wanna know how to stop a DD thief from stealthing? Interrupt, blind, blocks, evades, keeping your distance. Imho you cannot justify DP being harder than DD. At first, yes it’s a hassle to learn all of your skills, but when you become a natural with DP, ini management comes as second nature to you as holding your breath while swimming, AND you have more skills to work with, double win!

Yeah, this bothers me too, especially when D/D gets called unskilled spam. It boils down to getting to choose which skills are useful/worth the ini cost, and #3/#4 are usually not worth the investment in initiative. I don’t want D/P to be nerfed, but it would be nice if the other skills in the set were brought up to the level of D/P. Maybe a condi transfer on one of those skills? Someone mentioned that #3 is also a .25 sec evadeX3, not just a .25 sec evade. If that’s true, the precast/aftercast and semi root just needs to be fixed for it to be a useful skill.

Rework or remove infusion of shadows (Not preferred cuz it messes up PvE thief builts), maybe only 1 ini?

Remove initial blinding shot from bp (i like this idea, it would be easier to rupt hs or cnd from that jumping thief)

Or that Combo finisher dark field thing, which would need some balancing afterwards (s/p ultra strng, p/p 1k lifeleech) also i think a ranged stealth should cost even more ini as you dont need hs and ios would make it cheaper than cnd.

I would never go back to d/p in wvw, d/d s/d is soo much more fluid and fun.

Not entirely relevant to the bulk of the thread but just wanted to chime in and say that almost every build for every class in this game should be considered “cheese”

So a P/D thief is complain about D/P!

Clearly you’re not thinking this through….heck D/D can easily bypass the smoke field

RedSpectrum.1975:

Dee Jay.2460:

AskTheDust.7384:

how do you jump with HS for not a full range but only in an area of a circle from BP?

You angle the camera upwards and so only leap a fairly short distance. It works reliably but is fairly inconvenient to do it combat.

What I find funny is that I don’t stealth nearly as much with my D/P weapon-set as I did with my D/D build.

-snip-

I agree and I don’t think I ever called D/D skill-less. That’s something I reserve for P/D.

It’s just that D/D skill revolves almost completely around movement and positioning and has very little to do with skill use. D/D fights are almost the exact same, against every enemy. That’s why watching D/D videos gets rather stale rather fast.

D/D is also faster-paced, meaning you can kill faster, but also die faster. This makes it a higher risk/reward spec to play but also means you completely overwhelm many enemies without giving them a chance to react. If fights are decided by two consecutive Backstabs, how much room is there really to show skill?

D/P in contrast may be more OP, but it also gives the enemy a little more chance to fight back (if he knows how). It also doesn’t require nearly as much stealth and that, as we all know, is what people hate most about Thieves.

So? you change your build to do that, and you do ONLY that in your vid.
Again.. so?
I like you as a player and i like your vids but still don’t understand why this crusade full of nothing.
Never, and i repeat NEVER seen a thief who really permastealthed in that way as i never seen a thief wasting initiative with daze.
Since D/P is full of usefull skill i will never do that becouse it’s useless.
And last but not the least with the current braindead meta.. are you really pointing your class? o.O maybe it’s time to let the flow going on instead of “i play another build becouse i dont like the mainstream cheese QQ”

Ok I think most people have missed that point the Op was trying to make. He wasn’t complaining about dp in 1v1 he was talking about when he is outnumbered and the enemies realize they can’t kill him. Then the dp thief will just start spamming daze on him(which is something anyone can do) effectively disable-ling him from doing anything while the rest of the enemies proceed to kill him. So basically he is killed because a dp thief decided to spam daze on him but he wasn’t kill solely by it.

Now Op I have experienced this many times and I will also use the daze spamming tactic on other thiefs trying to troll. Sorry but you are outnumbered so you can’t complain its might feel cheap that you get kill because of someone doing something that requires no skill but that the disadvantage of engaging larger numbers.

If you where to engage with even numbers a thief daze spamming on the opposing team wouldn’t be much of an issue. Its something you have to learn do deal with, also a dp thief is not op because in group fights there are many other classes that can contribute much more to a fight. Though yes in a 1v1 they can be extremely annoying but annoying doesn’t mean op and this game isn’t about 1v1 fights.

Galsia.4102:

From your 34sec perma-stealth example video I could tell what build and trait allocations you were using; you have absolutely awful survivability and damage output.

30pts into SA to get Shadow Rejuvenation, else really there’s no point in staying in stealth. Adept and Master slots are Infusion of Shadow and Patience respectively in order to upkeep initiative regen. That means no Shadow’s Embrace, so you have awful condi-removal; Shadow Step isn’t reliable on a 50sec CD. You could run Lyssa runes to give you a little bit more condi-removal, but I can see you’re running Centaur Runes because you gained Swiftness on Withdraw.

Speaking of Withdraw, you also gained Vigor and initiative on use, so that fills in the rest of the points with 10pts in Acro and 30pts in Trickery.

In your other video I watched the first couple seconds to see your gear choice. Using that gear with the build for perma-stealthing you have:

2,943 Attack
22% Crit Chance
58% Crit Damage

…yeah, uh, excuse me while I go die from laughter.

Excuse me? I was showing permastealth on my P/D build, all it took was 1 quick trait and utility swap takes 5s.

If you watched the older D/P vid more closely, you’d see I had 88% crit damage and close to 40% crit chance (without foods) so with foods up 98% crit damage. Also back then people had little clue what they were doing and a lot went full glass etc.

I never focused on Crit Chance a lot tbh, not even now on d/d, I have around 45% I think.

Why do I even respond to all this nonsense I wunder.

@Daze spam, it’s only a small part of the annoyance, what annoys me the most is how OP Black Powder is, yes you can try dodge the shot but why do I have to waste my dodges on that. I already use my dodge to spot the “miss” when they come up behind me, so I know whereabout they are. I don’t have a million dodges to waste lol.

Sceinna.3561:

@Daze spam, it’s only a small part of the annoyance, what annoys me the most is how OP Black Powder is, yes you can try dodge the shot but why do I have to waste my dodges on that.

You’re seriously asking why you need to dodge?

Well then, why do I have to “waste dodges” on engi grenades, or better yet the crate that has an kitten ton of shooty things that all shoot you at once. Why do I have to waste dodges on ranger rapid fire pew-pew-pew that can even hit me after I stealth and why do I have to waste dodges on mesmer phantasms? I should be able to stand there and magically avoid getting hit so I can use my dodge on the next hit right?

People shoot things at you. You dodge them if you don’t want to get hit by them. If you aren’t running a counter to what you’re fighting then you can’t possibly expect to win, but if you were running at LEAST one stealth util you could drop stealth, then Pistol 1 when they exit stealth to drop the next black powder and your rapid fire channel will continue to hit even after they stealth again. Then, hell, if you used basilisk before the Pistol 1 and catch him off guard, he’d be stuck and if you’re quick enough you could probably fit in a CnD+Steal as he tries to drop another black powder.

Bottom line is you can’t counter everything no matter what build you use on any class. There’s always going to be something that could have won you a fight that you lost. That’s just the way it is.

Think of it like this. You’re on the battlefield taking guys out one by one. You feel pretty good about yourself right? Then all of a sudden a guy drives up in a tank. If all you have is an AK-47 you’re going to run the kitten away, but put an RPG in your hands and you’ll probably take your chances. You’re not going to unload your AK on it and then be like “kitten THOSE TANKS ARE SO OP! THEY NEED TO BE WEAKENED SO THAT SMALL ARMS FIRE IS VIABLE AGAINST THEM!” Sometimes you need to run away to die another day.

Galsia.4102:

From your 34sec perma-stealth example video I could tell what build and trait allocations you were using; you have absolutely awful survivability and damage output.

30pts into SA to get Shadow Rejuvenation, else really there’s no point in staying in stealth. Adept and Master slots are Infusion of Shadow and Patience respectively in order to upkeep initiative regen. That means no Shadow’s Embrace, so you have awful condi-removal; Shadow Step isn’t reliable on a 50sec CD. You could run Lyssa runes to give you a little bit more condi-removal, but I can see you’re running Centaur Runes because you gained Swiftness on Withdraw.

Speaking of Withdraw, you also gained Vigor and initiative on use, so that fills in the rest of the points with 10pts in Acro and 30pts in Trickery.

In your other video I watched the first couple seconds to see your gear choice. Using that gear with the build for perma-stealthing you have:

2,943 Attack
22% Crit Chance
58% Crit Damage

…yeah, uh, excuse me while I go die from laughter.

Im certain that his perma stealth example video is made in Dire gear, so you might want to lower those stats that you came up with for whatever reason o,O .

hihey.1075:

Mordecai.6318:

P/D counters D/P if you play it right. Perma daze D/P thief? What? Why would anyone ever spend any time trying to do something thats not possible?

It is simply not possible for P/D to counter D/P, unless the D/P is REALLY bad or unless there are 1000 objects around to CnD (and even then it would still become a stalemate between decent players).

I have never once lost to any D/P from any notable guilds across T1 and T2. Its 100% possible and I have waaaaay to many recordings to sort through of me doing so. D/P is as predictable as it gets, especially if you’ve familiarized yourself with the set.

Acting like it cant counter because of a stalemate is pretty dumb. Considering in any thief fight that could be the case because our ability to run away, regardless of build.

Implying WvW isnt the cheese grounds of pvp, the one that cheeses the most with several buffs from foods and traits wins.

“Look mah I just critted for liek 12k in this nub, lel beds, when will they learn”
It’s gloryfied pve

Dee Jay.2460:

Mordecai.6318:

P/D counters D/P if you play it right. Perma daze D/P thief? What? Why would anyone ever spend any time trying to do something thats not possible?

P/D counters jack kitten, least of all D/P. All D/P needs to do is spam those Blinds and P/D can’t Cloak and Dagger.

100% false. I’m not even sure if you play this game. There are tons of windows to cloak and dagger.
http://youtu.be/iRmmVOIUgIg
I have a plethora of video clips where I beat D/P thieves. Either in organized duels or the candid experiences in WvW. This happens to be a random one and the first one I saw since things are organized by date on my PC. The only reason I even lost the amount of health I did is because I took the time to stand in place, type emotes, and jump around like an idiot.

Where were my infinite things to CnD off of? kitten, this guy was even using Smoke Screen for when he didn’t have enough initiative for the BP+HS combo.

Any time I run into a P/D they either lose or run away because they realize they can’t win. It’s the same when fighting D/D Thieves but at least they can occasionally still instant-gib you through Black Powder.

That can be said about pretty much any thief vs thief fight. If neither wants to lose, they wont. However, pretty much everyone fights until the end. And the D/D thief burst comes from the CnD+BS combo. It’s not a common occurrence to insta-gib with a backstab alone. Therefore, they would have to do that from the steal+cnd combo or from just outside the blind circle.

I agree that D/P is generally the easiest Thief WvW weapon set.

Fixed for you.

But unlike P/D cheese it actually requires skill to play well and active Initiative management which no other set requires. D/P is the only weapon-set in which ALL weapon skills are useful and require careful and times use. You can’t spam all the skills or you’ll run out of Initiative real fast.

So which is it? Is P/D cheese or does it counter absolutely nothing? In two posts in this thread you call P/D skilless and ‘cheese.’ How could such an easy weapon set not counter jack kitten? What a contradiction. Every last one of P/D, S/P, and S/D weapon abilities are useful. Is D/P the most synergized weapon set of them all? Sure. However, the only set that doesnt really have that many uses is P/P and #3 on D/D. You cant spam anything on any weapon sets without blowing initiative. D/P just happens to do it faster because basically nobody runs 15 in trickery outside of spvp.

I agree that the near constant Blinds are probably OP but at least it takes skill to play, resource-management and is less bursty than D/D.

I honestly don’t even know where to start. OP and takes skill to play? How the hell is that even possible? Again, I’m not even sure you play this game.

And oddly enough, despite its power only about 30% of Thieves I encounter in WvW run D/P. Many still use D/D and P/D, both of which have an easier play-style.

D/P has free reign to engage on its own terms at any given time. The skill behind trying to land cloak and daggers against skilled opponents outweighs the on demand stealth of D/P so heavily its not even funny. Its beyond inconsistent against someone who knows what they are doing. That’s even excluding random aegis procs and the like that could screw you over.

You have the most skewed perspective of thieves that I’ve ever seen.

That clip was a terrible D/P Thief who used his Black Powder exclusively for stealth when the true strength lies in being able to melee people.

And P/D, as said, is the most skill-less and forgiving build you can play.

How can something be OP and still require skill? Easy, being OP is about having excessive potential and yet harassing this potential still requires good situational awareness and skillful play.

P/D is essentially mastered if you can reliably hit people with Claok and Dagger. Voila, you’ve mastered the build. Now roll with Dire gear and never die to anything while spaming the same move over and over again.

D/P on the other hand takes a little more finesse, partially because Initiative management is a factor, all skills are useful and you can actually fail (as displayed elegantly in your clip).

I’m sorry I offended your favorite little chesse build. But chaining Sneak Attack endlessly against every enemy you encounter doesn’t make you awesome.

Dee Jay.2460:

P/D is essentially mastered if you can reliably hit people with Claok and Dagger. Voila, you’ve mastered the build. Now roll with Dire gear and never die to anything while spaming the same move over and over again.

Heartseeker through blackpowder until healed to full.
SKILL.
MASTERY.
TEACH ME.

Dee Jay.2460:

That clip was a terrible D/P Thief who used his Black Powder exclusively for stealth when the true strength lies in being able to melee people.

And P/D, as said, is the most skill-less and forgiving build you can play.

How can something be OP and still require skill? Easy, being OP is about having excessive potential and yet harassing this potential still requires good situational awareness and skillful play.

P/D is essentially mastered if you can reliably hit people with Claok and Dagger. Voila, you’ve mastered the build. Now roll with Dire gear and never die to anything while spaming the same move over and over again.

D/P on the other hand takes a little more finesse, partially because Initiative management is a factor, all skills are useful and you can actually fail (as displayed elegantly in your clip).

I’m sorry I offended your favorite little chesse build. But chaining Sneak Attack endlessly against every enemy you encounter doesn’t make you awesome.

Perhaps you missed the part of the video where I created distance. Oh wait, that was the entire video. What good would it be to drop black powder on me for melee purposes when 90% of the time I’m not even in melee range except for the backstab/opener? Please tell me how hitting 5>2>2>21>1>1>1>dodge>5>>2>2 maybe 3? maybe 4? >1>1>1>1 takes any more finesse?

Mastered by landing CnD? Laughable. Being able to land #3 accurately in P/D is as crucial to successful game play as CnD is to a D/D thief.

You have to have kitten for brains to not understand how in control D/P is of any 1v1 encounter. I am forced to take the backstab on P/D which forces me to always be on the defensive and to respond secondary. That is automatically a disadvantage in a 1v1. Backstabbing is the complete opposite on finesse, quite literally the opposite.

S/D is the finesse build of thieves. End of story.

I’m sorry you fail to recognize the obvious strengths of anything but the easiest set in the game.

Sceinna.3561:

Excuse me? I was showing permastealth on my P/D build, all it took was 1 quick trait and utility swap takes 5s.

Exactly. You were able to achieve perma-stealth with D/P using a completely ineffective build (0/0/30/10/30) for burst. You can’t attain perma-stealth with the standard glass 0/30/30/10/0 that you ran in your old PvP video.
Since December 10th you can only HS 3 times with 0/30/30/10/0 and are left with around 2-3 seconds downtime till you can repeat.

Sceinna.3561:

If you watched the older D/P vid more closely, you’d see I had 88% crit damage and close to 40% crit chance (without foods) so with foods up 98% crit damage. Also back then people had little clue what they were doing and a lot went full glass etc.

I calculated your stats by subtracting the points you had from CS in your old PvP video that you don’t have running 0/0/30/10/30 build in your example video. Under the circumstances you ran the build that allows for perma-stealth with your power gear, you would in fact have those stats.

Sounds like someone is seriously kitten that I don’t recognize his master skills.

I played P/D back when Wild Bill made the build popular and what drove me away from it is utter boredom. But whatever, I can farm P/D noobs all day.

And I don’t even need to stealth that much. I play S/D enough in sPvP so your point is moot.

And lol for you pointing to stealth. A dangerous D/P build won’t have the ability to perma-stealth and if played correctly, doesn’t need to.

Dee Jay.2460:

Sounds like someone is seriously kitten that I don’t recognize his master skills.

At this point you have to be trolling. I posted a video on the off chance you might be able to grasp how P/D can counter D/P.

I played P/D back when Wild Bill made the build popular and what drove me away from it is utter boredom. But whatever, I can farm P/D noobs all day.

Yet mashing #2 through BP is the epitome of thrilling? Please.

And I don’t even need to stealth that much. I play S/D enough in sPvP so your point is moot.

Never said you did. Only said you main the easiest weapon set in the game across all classes. What point is moot by pointing out S/D is finesse? Congrats, you play it in spvp. Careface?

And lol for you pointing to stealth. A dangerous D/P build won’t have the ability to perma-stealth and if played correctly, doesn’t need to.

Yea, shame on me for pointing to stealth on the weaponset that was nerfed for its ability to grant ‘perma-stealth.’ The only reason a D/P thief is threatening is because of the on demand backstabs. Am I supposed to be scared of headshot, heartseeker spam, and an auto attack chain with poison?

k.

PD is more cheese because in WvW roaming it’s countered only by DP thieves.
And since you’re so good that you can kill them anyway, it must mean that PD is the most OP build ever.

Zerk guardians? Hammer warriors? PU mesmers? Condi Engineers? Regeneration Rangers? Have fun killing them with DP.

Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep and night Mordecai.

I love how people get kittened every time someone mentions d/p as a cheesy weapon set. The fact is that I agree with Scienna. If you don’t win a 1v1 or 1v2 with d/p then you’re a really, really bad player. I remember playing d/p for a long time, and not even once was I interrupted on purpose while doing my combo. The only time it failed was because of some random CC flying around, but those were pure luck and happened in the midst of the chaos. Those times I popped one of my utilities and I was gone. The few times I died it was because I got too greedy.

I still play this some times, and I feel like cheating when roaming… It’s way too easy to get stealth with very, very little skill. Even my friend who is completely new to the game are doing great with d/p. He rarely die and he always land his combo to get stealth. The fact that he can do that as a new player is just wrong…

D/P doesn’t require much skill to play with the 0/30/30/10/0 build. Put on full Valkyrie and hidden killer and you simply can’t lose, and your backstab hit hard as kitten. It requires way more skill to land CnD than BP+HS.

hihey.1075:

PU mesmers?

People should be able to kill this, and many other specs, with just shortbow.

hihey.1075:

PD is more cheese because in WvW roaming it’s countered only by DP thieves.
And since you’re so good that you can kill them anyway, it must mean that PD is the most OP build ever.

Zerk guardians? Hammer warriors? PU mesmers? Condi Engineers? Regeneration Rangers? Have fun killing them with DP.

So if PD is only countered by DP wouldnt that make DP more ‘cheese?’ I dont understand the logic of you people.

However, I am the most fantabulous thing to happen to this game so I beat them regularly.

Also, D/P thieves kill all of those things just fine. The first two are melee ranged opponents. lawl blinds. gg.