D/D Viability in Dungeons

D/D Viability in Dungeons

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Posted by: Athidae.3870

Athidae.3870

Hello all!

So I’ve played around with all of the weapons for Thief and I really just love D/D and SB if needed. I know that a lot of the community marks D/D in dungeons a big no no. I’d like to think that this being GW2 and us being able to play the way we like, I want to find a way.

I’m not so much a fan of condition builds, more so power / crit. Hard hitting Thief that wrecks some face. The problem with this is it usually (especially in my build) leaves little to no defense. In dungeons there are a lot of aoe attacks that can catch you and down you quickly and that’s the common complaint with people taking a D/D thief into dungeons.

So, I have a theory that if I’m bringing my glass cannon build into a dungeon, then I should have my armor and runes take care of the defense.

Would it be viable to bring my build: http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#3|3|3537|3468|3999|8743|4485|25|1143|1704|0|30|1190|1731|1728|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|10|786|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0| and wear an armor set made of:

Helm, Chest, and Shoulders – “Knight’s Emblazoned” armor
Gloves, Legs, and Boots – Valkyrie Emblazoned" armor

The 3 pieces from Knight’s would give Power, Precision, and Toughness and the 3 pieces from Valkyrie would give Power, Crit Dmg, and Vitality. For the runes, I was thinking “Superior Rune of the Wurm” which would give me more Vitality, Crit Dmg, and overall dmg.

I really want to make this work and appreciate any help you can give me with this idea. Thanks so much fellow Thieves.

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Posted by: Quasi Mota.7390

Quasi Mota.7390

You should get your Vitality and Toughness also from traits and not so much the 6 major slots of armor.

When you gear Knight’s or Valk you will sacrifice a ton of + Crit % dmg that you could have had from Berserker gear. Although, I suppose you could balance it out by getting all damage jewelry instead. The crit damage % plays well with power and precision for obvious reasons.

A D/D thief in PvE doesn’t need any condition dmg and certainly doesn’t need condition duration, so the Power tree leaves much to be desired and for the most part and isn’t worth the points imho.

The Toughness and Vitality trees will add tons of mobility and healing mechanisms that will keep you and your team alive for the long run. I have a pretty good thread in this forum titled “PvE Build – How to build a powerful PvE thief.” I’m not saying it is the only or “best” build out there, but it is strong and the general discussion should be very helpful to you.

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Posted by: Athidae.3870

Athidae.3870

Hey, Quasi! Thanks for the detailed reply.

I’ve taken the 25 points in the Power tree for well… the extra power :P I grabbed Sundering Strikes to reflect all the crit for more damage output and Dagger Training for more overall damage as well.

I’m looking for more of a hard hitting and heavy critting build via traits and using armor, runes, jewelry (basically everything but traits) etc. to cover the defense to be able to take hits, if hits are taken. Do you think this could balance well? If so, what armor combination, runes, jewelry, etc. would you take to cover all of this defense I’m after?

tbh, I’ve never been a fan of the Shadow Arts and Acrobatics trees.

Thanks again and thank you for any further help you can offer!

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Posted by: bwillb.2165

bwillb.2165

Melee is fine, really, as long as you can see attacks that are coming and react in time to dodge them. Unfortunately, between camera issues, overzealous visual effects, and poor optimization fps drops, that can be nearly impossible in a lot of battles.

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Posted by: Shooopa.5632

Shooopa.5632

I would not recommend melee against any boss enemy because irregardless of how much armor and HP you have, they inevitably hit hard enough to kill in 1-2 hits unless you’re a guardian with those damage negation skills.

Can it be done? Sure. But unless you’re an ultimate thrill/frustration seeker, I wouldn’t.

User will be infracted for this post.

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Posted by: Athidae.3870

Athidae.3870

So I took a closer look at the Shadow Arts tree and decided that IF I were to build into it, I’d take it this route. Same build as before only swapping Deadly Arts for Shadow Arts: http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/thief#3|3|3537|3468|3999|8743|4485|0|0|0|0|30|1190|1731|1728|30|2384|2199|746|0|0|0|0|10|786|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

+"Shadow Protector" for Shadow Refuge as I find the skill very helpful.
+"Infusion of Shadow" as a two initiative refund on C&D
+"Hidden Thief" for a free backstab (btw, does “Infusion of Shadow” apply to this as well?)

Now with this build, I was thinking that I’d take a full set of Valkyrie with either “Superior Rune of Divinity”, “Superior Rune of the Wurm”, or “Superior Rune of the Eagle” (would full Shadow Arts tree + full Valk armor give me enough defense to run an offensive rune?) I’m also afraid that running this way, I’ll be lacking in power.

I’d greatly appreciate anyone’s thoughts on this. Thank you!

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Posted by: mulch.2586

mulch.2586

Really at the heart it’s an empirical question and one for which the answer may differ for another player.

Here’s the way I see it. You can change your traits for a pittance. Changing your runes/sigils is fairly costly. Changing your gear is really expensive.

So really this takes a bit of experimenting, and I’m afraid time spent with free gear respecs in the Mists isn’t gonna help much, since it’s dungeons where the kitten hits the kitty box.

I guess another cheaper solution would be to try it out with green or yellow gear before jumping in feet first to exotics that may not pan out.

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Posted by: Athidae.3870

Athidae.3870

My point exactly, Mulch. I’m just trying to see if my theory will play out the way I imagine it: dps traits – defensive everything else. Hoping someone had any idea if it would even be worth it. I leveled up LW to 400 just for this, I have enough to put together my first piece but I don’t want to click that button until I’m sure. Not sure if anyone has made a setup like this and had a somewhat decent amount of survivability in dungeons.

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Posted by: Quasi Mota.7390

Quasi Mota.7390

My main point must still lie in the fact that currently the Power tree is not worth it’s weight in salt. Your second build posted is a much better option imho. Unless the Power tree is buffed in some fashion it relies heavily on poisons and condition duration which, at it’s current state, will not provide much to your build.

Acrobatics is very helpful up to the 15 point minor perk, and I love it even more at the 20 point level for Assassin’s reward. We spend points constantly, and more healing is always helpful, especially since most of us will use very few stats on +healing.

Trickery points are a sexy tease. If you really feel they are worth for the loss of mobility and excess healing, coupled with more vitality, then so be it. But, from my experience, I find that tree worthless for stats, and underwhelming is viability due to the fact that we need no condition damage in PvE dungeons. I hardly use steal in dungeons due to the fact that I am constantly switching targets, rezzing downed players, and focusing on single target dps.

You already posted that you aren’t focusing on condition damage. In that case, regardless, you should focus on the most rewarding utility spells/traits available to the class. This will allow you to focus your armor and runes/sigils on more damage.

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Posted by: Dronin.3957

Dronin.3957

I disagree with Quasi gearing Zerker is sub optimal, esp in terms of dungeons, with knights you notice a huge amount of bonus in survivability and when your not dead your doing damage. But it is down to taste

Just dont ever try running round orr with full zerker… its not fun with the broken mob density.

(edited by Dronin.3957)

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Posted by: Athidae.3870

Athidae.3870

I understand what you’re saying about Condition durration, but I wasn’t taking the tree for condition durration its self. I was taking it mainly for the buffs to steal with auto poison and vulnerability and for the +10% damage against foes with condition.

I’m more than willing to try my second build posted, but with that, could I get an opinion on using a full Valk set with “Superior Rune of Divinity”, “Superior Rune of the Wurm”, or “Superior Rune of the Eagle” (would full Shadow Arts tree + full Valk armor give me enough defense to run an offensive rune?) I’m also afraid that running this way, I’ll be lacking in power.

Any opinions on this would be great. I’d just like to have an opinion before I go and spend tons of ectos and gold on testing theories. Thanks!

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Posted by: Quasi Mota.7390

Quasi Mota.7390

I don’t use full Zerker and I didn’t write that I did. Wasting a bunch of gold or mats crafting all Knight’s or Valk isn’t really necessary. You get a ton of toughness and Vitality from Exotic Emerald and Beryl jewels. You could grab a few pieces of Rubicon gear from Karma and spend NO money or mats. Those provide strong base stats, the chest happens to be very sexy. You are also gonna farm dungeons fairly quick and get filler items there.

The strongest items for stats remain to be weapons and jewelry. I would focus on crafting those first, the armor you can snag from dungeon tokens fairly easy if you are running with the right bunch of fellows. I used Zerker to fill in all the armor slots I didn’t buy from Karma to start. Currently running with 16.5k HP and a boatload of toughness.

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Posted by: Icyie.9341

Icyie.9341

So does this mean I’m not completely screwed if I want to switch to a DB-Bleed build, having bought an exotic Berserker’s Dagger? And if I wanted to buy another exotic, another berserker/rampager/Traveler/explorer would be good?

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Posted by: Dronin.3957

Dronin.3957

your weapon is just one item its quality is more important than its stats, although Condition damage is ONLY affected by stats and not your weapons power.

still if you want to run a bleed build you would be 10x better off going with pistol mainhand or short bow and spamming CB in melee range, your dps would be significantly higher

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Posted by: Quasi Mota.7390

Quasi Mota.7390

Weapons in this game carry the highest stats of any item. Be really careful when you craft or buy your Exotic weapons.

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Posted by: Icyie.9341

Icyie.9341

I bought the exotic for my D/P blind/backstab build and it’s worked out fine for me so far. Was just wondering if the dagger is still viable for a condition build if i decide to run one.

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Posted by: cesmode.4257

cesmode.4257

I dont know who says D/D in dungeons is a no no…Its all I use and I use it well. I play the thief how it is meant to be played, not like the WoW rogues youll find on this forum that think you can sit in melee and stab stab if you stack enough vit/toughness.

Youll see me deathblossoming 3x (all the while avoiding direct damage), followed by Caltrop drop. I’ll dodge out(with the uncatchable trait, more caltrops drop). I wait 3 or so seconds, let someone else get aggro and I’ll use Steal(for initiative gain), and deathblossom another once or twice, roll out again with more caltrop drop.

If I find that mobs are paying too much attention to be, I use blinding powder to get out of there…

If the mob is a heavy hitter, like the wardens or the knights, I use the above liberally. If I know I can spend a few more seconds in melee, I will.

Karma is as abundant as air, and as useless as the Kardashians.

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Posted by: Athidae.3870

Athidae.3870

I dont know who says D/D in dungeons is a no no…Its all I use and I use it well. I play the thief how it is meant to be played, not like the WoW rogues youll find on this forum that think you can sit in melee and stab stab if you stack enough vit/toughness.

Youll see me deathblossoming 3x (all the while avoiding direct damage), followed by Caltrop drop. I’ll dodge out(with the uncatchable trait, more caltrops drop). I wait 3 or so seconds, let someone else get aggro and I’ll use Steal(for initiative gain), and deathblossom another once or twice, roll out again with more caltrop drop.

If I find that mobs are paying too much attention to be, I use blinding powder to get out of there…

If the mob is a heavy hitter, like the wardens or the knights, I use the above liberally. If I know I can spend a few more seconds in melee, I will.

So I assume you’re running a conditions build with all of that flippy jumping. What I’m looking for it more of a hard hitting, heavy critting build and making it viable in dungeons. I suppose this would consist of C&D backstabs, +% to crit from behind / side and since I’d be not focusing on conditions, very little Death Blossom.

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Posted by: Eternis.1746

Eternis.1746

I actually did make a most of my gear zerker, save for a few crit/vit/power pieces. With the new degen dungeon coming up, I’m going to go for a set of the wurm on top of it to help a little bit while keeping my glass cannon role. Since I do Shortbow till there’s only 1-2 targets left then I come in and finish them off with D/D, this has been working really, really well and I don’t go down unless 2-3 others go down and I get aggro.

But I’m also good at dodging, warping with the Bow, using AoE stealth appropriately, and swapping my healing moves (health per hit with bow, go invis for lots of burning/poison conditions or lots of single point fights), and just general tactics that keep me alive. I’ve always been an opportunist fighter, and I think I’m handling everything well. Traits are 25-30-10-5-0 focusing on dagger damage, vuln, initiative regen, and swapping between 100% crit chance out of stealth and 20% inc damage under 50% health, depending on if it’s a boss I can attack with daggers throughout the fight, or just help finish it off with Heartseeker spam in the last 10% health.

I think people just don’t swap their skills/traits/etc enough by situation. Just use your favorites while you’re learning the bosses/etc and then swap out when it’s necessary.

Although I have NO idea how well this is going to fare in the upper end fractals… :/ The ascended gear I get may be more power/vit/crit or power/vit/toughness…. I’m going to wait and see before saving up all that mystic forge crap. ALl I know is I’m going to go pure anti-agony defensive infusions with my low health pool

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Posted by: brandon.6735

brandon.6735

This is why i only go S/P in Dungeons. I love the amount and blindness i can put on a enemy and watch all the misses on me. I also love Infiltrator’s Strike b/c i can teleport in and teleport out for oh crap moments.

Guardianhipster
Thiefhipster

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Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

15 points in power is essential. 100% uptime on weakness is crazy good and something that no other high-damage class can offer. It costs you essentially nothing to get. That one trait single-handedly makes main-hand dagger the best weapon for a thief.

I agree that maxing out critical strikes is very good. It gives the best stat bonuses by far and has very strong traits.

Shadow Arts is ok, but unfortunately its value is inversely proportional to group quality. In a weak group, Shadow Arts shines by giving you a lot of sustain while allowing you to spend a lot of time stealthed. In a strong group, the bonuses are largely wasted, as time spent in stealth is time not spent dealing damage and maintaining weakness, and conditions and group sustain should be covered by classes that are good at those things.

If you’re pugging with a bunch of trash like greatsword guardians and signet warriors, sure, grab Shadow Arts so you can take care of your own, but I wouldn’t bother in a strong group.

You should absolutely give yourself the defenses you need through your gear selection. In particular, your amulet and rings have an enormous amount of stats on them and don’t take any expensive upgrades like runes, making them easy to swap in and out to make yourself more durable. I’d suggest picking up some defensive jewelry (Knight’s with Beryls, Soldier’s with Beryls if you have the tokens) to adjust your damage / durability threshold easily on the fly.

Failing that, your chest piece and weapons have a ton of stats on them, so those are prime pieces to swap for durability (Soldiers / Knights / Valkyrie).

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Posted by: NightyNight.1823

NightyNight.1823

D/D is not viable for Raw damage build.D/D is made for Condition Thieves and well BS but that doesn’t work too well in PvE.Sword performs a lot better to raw damage compared D/D.

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Posted by: Eternis.1746

Eternis.1746

I disagree with NightyNight; Single target damage Dagger is the best (Due to the outright power of crit+backstab) and when I was going main-hand sword it just wasn’t cutting it. For the small AoE, sure, the damage adds up, but I prefer to be alive, out of harms way, and hitting more targets and doing more damage (factoring in multiple targets) with shortbow instead.

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Posted by: NightyNight.1823

NightyNight.1823

D/D is not that viable because its single target and you’ll be forced to walk around whit shortbow most of the times and melee is much stronger.Those that preffer D/D they just like the setup , but its not more effective .And Dagger vs single target doesn’t outshine Sword that much either.

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Posted by: Radeonkid.2843

Radeonkid.2843

I’ve used D/D and SB in dungeons too, currently lvl 52, 20/0/20/0/0. Used to activate Spider Venom then death blossom multiple enemies, quite useful inside dungeon. I’m new so advice if improvement needed.

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Posted by: Eternis.1746

Eternis.1746

Single target/melee is incredibly viable. There are often times in dungeons where people kite a group and you gotta burst someone down fast. Or there’s a monster type you need to murder ASAP. As long as you don’t dodge for no reason and can read attacks and see red circles, you can usually melee just fine. The real nice thing about sword is the CC (Daze), but we’re talking pure damage output. I can’t do nearly as high crit damage on backstab with sword as I do with dagger.

You shortbow when there’s a ton of mobs you can hurt at once with cluster or the arrow bounce.

You just can’t willy nilly go “lulz I melee all the time”. That sort of attitude will get you killed real fast in a glass cannon build for thf. And if you’re not good at dodging or judging when to go melee, then do your PUG a favor and don’t build that way.

I personally hate venoms and poison damage, so I spec out for power/vuln/constant crits. Luckily there are barely enough major trait options in power tree to actually not have to do condition damage. I tend to use death blossom only when enemies regen/heal a lot or for the moments where I don’t have enough endurance to dodge.

(edited by Eternis.1746)

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Posted by: Shepe.6952

Shepe.6952

I’ve run every dungeon with a backstab spec, currently
Traits
25 —→ VI, IX
30 --→ III, VI, XI
0
0
15 —→ IV, IX

with only berserker equipment and im doing just fine.

Like Eternis said, you need to realize that you wont be going melee all the time, and play smart with your sb when you need to.

There’re bosses where you just can’t go melee cos you’ll die from aoe, sucks, but you can really help your party in other ways, sb is really strong for some fights. Most bosses will down you in 2 hits.

I’ve tried to change my traits to defensive ones, but they arent worth it imo, you wont really notice the change and you will lose like half, if not more, of your dps.

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Posted by: Eternis.1746

Eternis.1746

I’ve run every dungeon with a backstab spec, currently

There’re bosses where you just can’t go melee cos you’ll die from aoe, sucks, but you can really help your party in other ways, sb is really strong for some fights. Most bosses will down you in 2 hits.

I’ve tried to change my traits to defensive ones, but they arent worth it imo, you wont really notice the change and you will lose like half, if not more, of your dps.

And this is true; When you have a boss like this swap out your utility skills for AoE stealth and educate your party members on how to use it. (For example, if they go down and you cast it make sure they know to stop attacking so you can revive them safely) So you can do some ranged DPS and for that fight be very support-y.

And some of these AoE bosses you can still use Steal—>Cloak and Dagger—>Backstab, weapon swap to shortbow, 3 (the backwards dodge)- 3.. repeat on full initiative, or revive then do it again.

And when they get down to <10%, just spam Dagger#2 or backstab and finish ’em off. even if you get downed just warp away, throw some daggers to rally, or just heal.

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Posted by: Radeonkid.2843

Radeonkid.2843

I’ve run every dungeon with a backstab spec, currently
Traits
25 —-> VI, IX
30 —-> III, VI, XI
0
0
15 —-> IV, IX

with only berserker equipment and im doing just fine.

Like Eternis said, you need to realize that you wont be going melee all the time, and play smart with your sb when you need to.

There’re bosses where you just can’t go melee cos you’ll die from aoe, sucks, but you can really help your party in other ways, sb is really strong for some fights. Most bosses will down you in 2 hits.

I’ve tried to change my traits to defensive ones, but they arent worth it imo, you wont really notice the change and you will lose like half, if not more, of your dps.

How about your utilities?

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Posted by: Kisses.1054

Kisses.1054

I have run most dungeons with same spec as shepe above (maybe different traits i didn’t check, favourite trait is the executioner one). I haven’t tried arah or SE. In the other dungeons it is viable.

On trash use shortbow, this should stop you dying from one hit aoe. Also there would be no point using dagger here anyway. Most boss fights you can go dagger on boss and do autoattack, cd, backstab rotation. If you can’t it usually means your group sucks (e.g. they are all standing at range doing poor dps and out of range of each other’s buffs and if u try to melee it will aggro you and cause issues)

Fights which are painful: the mesmer in TA. The stairs guy in hotw (it used to be safe to stand behind him and now he shoots stuff out of his rear end. I think. idk, maybe there was issues because no one was tankign him and he was turning). Another lame thing is the trash wolves at the start of coe: you will be stnading behind him backstabbing, then bam one shot. His leap hits behind him, it’s stupid. For whatever reason these are the things which stand out in my memory. other deaths were always from lag or impatience/laziness on my part. You probably won’t die appreciably more than your [other class] 80.

You can get a set of valkyrie and switch to it when u think u need more health.

Heal: use signet of malice most of the time. It will give you more heal output when you aoe. On fights where there is more downtime where you arent attacking use stealth e.g. cof magg bombs, cof magg last boss.

Utilities: I use the runspeed signet always since I like it, though it’s not particularly useful most of the time. Then the 2 dps signets if I think I can get away with it. Shadowstep, shadow refuge, smoke screen, ambush situationally. precision signet and shadowstep give u 2 cleanses if you are desperate. Precision signet seems bugged to not work properly.

(edited by Kisses.1054)