Guild Wars 2

hey guys
This might be just me because I’m kinda new with the Thief but my favourite style to play Thief is with Stealth, and my favourite weapon set by far is D/D. The thing is with D/D I often can’t fight other thief’s, specially D/P ones, I can’t stealth and can’t do the burst I need too. With other classes most of the time I’m fine but running D/D vs D/P is a lose to me.

Is D/D a weapon set still viable for WvW Roaming? Is just me and I need to train more?

It’s perfectly viable, but you will have trouble with D/P Thieves because they’re practically a hard counter to it.

Incurafy.6329:

It’s perfectly viable, but you will have trouble with D/P Thieves because they’re practically a hard counter to it.

This is all that is really needed to say, oh and classes that are good at kiting may give you trouble, and tanky classes since you lack the pulsing blind of pistol offhand

I switched between D/D and D/P for a while over the past months. I generally prefer the D/D play-style because I find the D/P Stealth mechanic incredibly contrived and frustrating (god kitten Heartseekers into random pets and minions).

That said, D/P is definitely the superior weapon-set.

Not only does it hard-counter D/D, but it also allows you to go toe-to-toe with Warriors, something D/D can’t. Black Powder is just incredibly potent against melee combatants in almost every situation. Headshot too is quite useful if you’re good at timing it.

Played D/P for a while, but it started to bore me, and tried out D/D for a bit,
liked the slightly improved burst, quick access to stealth and dancing dagger.
Took D/P as offset. But felt meh so picked up shortbow instead.

D/D is viable, but against skilled players it’s a lot harder to play.
Like engineers who blow up their turrets to avoid your CnD and burst
you down in seconds. Engineers are greatly rewarded for countering D/D.

I’ve been roaming on a thief for a bit with both D/D and D/P. I started off with a 0/30/30/10/0 D/D build, and it worked fairly well, especially against MM necros, rangers and mesmers due to the easy CnD you can pull off on them. However, after I started rolling D/P, I realized a few things. Every single skill on the D/P set is great, while #3 and #4 are arguably useless on the D/D set. The utility in the gapcloser on D/P #3 and the interrupt on #4 is invaluable – especially the blind from Black Powder which lets you duel toe-to-toe with warriors and other D/D, D/P thieves.

While D/D brings slightly more upfront damage with CnD + Backstab, D/P has far more utility in a high-damage gapcloser, on-demand interrupt, and a blind field that doubles as on-demand stealth. As much as I love the D/D playstyle thematically, I’d suggest getting good with D/P: as of now, it’s the far superior weapon set.

Dee Jay.2460:

I switched between D/D and D/P for a while over the past months. I generally prefer the D/D play-style because I find the D/P Stealth mechanic incredibly contrived and frustrating (god kitten Heartseekers into random pets and minions).

That said, D/P is definitely the superior weapon-set.

Not only does it hard-counter D/D, but it also allows you to go toe-to-toe with Warriors, something D/D can’t. Black Powder is just incredibly potent against melee combatants in almost every situation. Headshot too is quite useful if you’re good at timing it.

Turn auto-targetting off when playing D/P, try not to select a target (click floor) & Heartseeker away.. it shouldn’t be an issue.

Best of all though; don’t play D/P, overpowered as hell but meh.. I wonder when Anet is cutting down the permastealth and perma blind, because D/Ps ruins every good fight I have as X/D and it doesn’t even require any skill, just the push of 5.

Nothing more frustrating than missing your Cloack & Daggers because of some thief that doesn’t know how to play and rather uses some google/youtube build to roam in groups and kitten you up 5v1. =.=

I’ve been questioning every nerf to thief since release..

I use D/P on my Thief and love it, the blinds and stealth on demand is great, and the gap closer pistol gives, is awesome!!! But I do still see plenty of D/D Thiefs out there, so yeah its viable still.

If you mean viable as in the best option then overall the answer is no, but it’s not too terrible either. The only real issue would be D/P thieves.

There are a few cases where D/D is superior to everything else though. It’s great when fighting heavily outnumbered, and I mean 1vZerg kind of outnumbered (easy to land a CnD, yet impossible to smoke field + HS). I also find it the best for anti siege sneakiness (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umWpDwCu4Ts -Skip to around 1:30 if impatient), and it shines in burst damage.

for me i’m 0/30/25/0/15 d/d is my main weapon set, shortbow secondary when with zerg, d/p secondary when roaming. Still open with d/d as the burst is more. But I will apply might with d/p and use it to escape if needed…also if i come across a d/p thief then i switch to d/p.

I dont understand how people can say D/P thieves beat them when theyre on D/D. Ive never lost to a D/P thief 1v1 on D/D, ever.

This is a legit L2P issue. D/D should crush D/P every time.

The thing youre all doing wrong is the same thing most people do wrong when you fight a thief. You play their game, and then you lose. The trick to fighting thieves is to not do what they want. They wanna drop a smoke field and fight you in it? Dont, just walk away. They wanna stealth? Thats fine, just leave. They cant keep stealth up and chase you, make them pick between the two. They wanna follow you around and HS in smoke fields for 20 minutes? Thats fine, walk into a group of mobs, train a ton together, then CnD them til he gets bored and leaves or moves into them to fight you (which will cripple him and give you an insane advantage as your stealth is now better and his is far worse)

With these simple tips you should now be able to crush D/P thieves like every other D/D thief! Especially since they mostly run all berserker gear and die in 1 cnd > mug > BS chain just like every other bad thief.

wish.1027:

I dont understand how people can say D/P thieves beat them when theyre on D/D. Ive never lost to a D/P thief 1v1 on D/D, ever.

This is a legit L2P issue. D/D should crush D/P every time.

The thing youre all doing wrong is the same thing most people do wrong when you fight a thief. You play their game, and then you lose. The trick to fighting thieves is to not do what they want. They wanna drop a smoke field and fight you in it? Dont, just walk away. They wanna stealth? Thats fine, just leave. They cant keep stealth up and chase you, make them pick between the two. They wanna follow you around and HS in smoke fields for 20 minutes? Thats fine, walk into a group of mobs, train a ton together, then CnD them til he gets bored and leaves or moves into them to fight you (which will cripple him and give you an insane advantage as your stealth is now better and his is far worse)

With these simple tips you should now be able to crush D/P thieves like every other D/D thief! Especially since they mostly run all berserker gear and die in 1 cnd > mug > BS chain just like every other bad thief.

solid tips, after playing d/p some i’ve always thought "to prevent that stealth you gotta get him to hit something while doing the bp+hs but then you are blinded. Never tried the random mob chain tip. Good stuff

since stealth pretty much works in PVE and WVW the same way, I’d have to say yea it’s working well. I personally would also give the hint of stealing from level 1 critters for a bit longer stealth since it stacks while out there.

When fighting d/p it’s also important to keep in mind that you can use your basic attack before every CnD to clear blind, this will work as long as you’re in melee range and outside of their black powder, obviously. Also make sure to work the outside of the ring as you’ll only be blinded by it when inside.

The real key though is patience, same as if you were fighting a d/d bunker elementalist. Just pick your battles. Try to land a backstab when they’re vulnerable and make sure to use mobs, critters, and even enemy keep walls if you’re really desperate, for cheap on stealth. Many d/p thieves will blow all of their initiative rather quickly trying to chase you down, so again, patience is key.

The poster above said a solid tip. Melee circle the black powder ring all your attacks will land. It’s great when a thief just sits on it waiting for you to cross over the line and blind yo self.

Sceinna.3561:

Dee Jay.2460:

I switched between D/D and D/P for a while over the past months. I generally prefer the D/D play-style because I find the D/P Stealth mechanic incredibly contrived and frustrating (god kitten Heartseekers into random pets and minions).

That said, D/P is definitely the superior weapon-set.

Not only does it hard-counter D/D, but it also allows you to go toe-to-toe with Warriors, something D/D can’t. Black Powder is just incredibly potent against melee combatants in almost every situation. Headshot too is quite useful if you’re good at timing it.

Turn auto-targetting off when playing D/P, try not to select a target (click floor) & Heartseeker away.. it shouldn’t be an issue.

Best of all though; don’t play D/P, overpowered as hell but meh.. I wonder when Anet is cutting down the permastealth and perma blind, because D/Ps ruins every good fight I have as X/D and it doesn’t even require any skill, just the push of 5.

Nothing more frustrating than missing your Cloack & Daggers because of some thief that doesn’t know how to play and rather uses some google/youtube build to roam in groups and kitten you up 5v1. =.=

I’ve been questioning every nerf to thief since release..

venom+steal can stealth you→steal→Cnd→backstab→HS… D/P is done in sec. He even cant press 5 button cuz of the wenom.

wish.1027:

I dont understand how people can say D/P thieves beat them when theyre on D/D. Ive never lost to a D/P thief 1v1 on D/D, ever.

This is a legit L2P issue. D/D should crush D/P every time.

The thing youre all doing wrong is the same thing most people do wrong when you fight a thief. You play their game, and then you lose. The trick to fighting thieves is to not do what they want. They wanna drop a smoke field and fight you in it? Dont, just walk away. They wanna stealth? Thats fine, just leave. They cant keep stealth up and chase you, make them pick between the two. They wanna follow you around and HS in smoke fields for 20 minutes? Thats fine, walk into a group of mobs, train a ton together, then CnD them til he gets bored and leaves or moves into them to fight you (which will cripple him and give you an insane advantage as your stealth is now better and his is far worse)

With these simple tips you should now be able to crush D/P thieves like every other D/D thief! Especially since they mostly run all berserker gear and die in 1 cnd > mug > BS chain just like every other bad thief.

So in your book running away from most Thief fights counts as a win?

I’m not saying I’d act differently. I know what fights I can and can’t win as a D/D. But running away isn’t something I’d consider “beating them ezy”.

Dee Jay.2460:

So in your book running away from most Thief fights counts as a win?

Youre not running away because you cant win or youre afraid of them, youre baiting them into playing stupidly, and not playing into their tactics. If they dont chase you, you can chase them, if they do chase you its an easy win.

Another thing I like to do is remain visible and attack groups of 15+ players, then run away to string them out so I can kill the bads who chase me. Thats not really running away either, its just a tactic to win a fight and kill some people.

i know it hard to fight d/p but from my experience i go further enough and count 4-5 seconds and stay away from the bp area and dodge thus he has 2 option. 1 to attack with hs again and got revealed or use another bp chain and the chance he wont have enough initiatives
if you "d"off hand look for npc to attack for stealth after 5 seconds so you’ll have the upper hand on stealth
fast targeting with key assign is much helpful as you can do fast steal+cnd+bs

i play p/d and have about 70% win against d/p (most of the time they run). the losses were mostly in 1v1 prepare fight thus they got me with steal venom bp hs bs, but in open area fight its another story.
the key is i put pressure on him so he must stealth to clear conditions thus he lose initiative points and cant hit hard, i dodge with caltrops which slower him down
and i know this fight will take time so i try to be patient
if i miss cnd i know he has got the upper hand so i try to keep distance from his bp area but if i land it i’ll probably gonna win