Guild Wars 2

I just got back into GW2 a few days ago. I wanted to start back from lvl 1 since I only played a bit in beta and when the game came out (Ele and Necro mostly). I made a Necro and a Thief and I prefer the Thief right now (still gotta try Mesmer and I still have my old Ele).

I’m only lvl 11 ATM and looking at PvP builds to know which skills to unlock first since I prefer PvP to PvE. It seems like the popular builds are either D/P or S/D (both with shortbow). S/D might have more mobility and control, D/P an extra teleport onto enemies with a blind and a quick interrupt.

So far, I enjoy D/D the most by far because I like to burst. The 3rd ability is nice and I like to go invis with the 5th ability and re-open with a backstab for high damage. I read that D/P has some of the best single target burst. How does D/P surpass D/D for single target burst? It seems to me like the 3 abilities you gain from the pistol are more for mobility and control (blinds, teleport and interrupt) while the Dagger in the offhand adds quite more damage.

As for the sword, it’s nice to have the extra teleport but if you’re chasing down someone, you can’t use it again or else it’ll teleport you back to where you initially were. Is there a way around this or the Thief is supposed to jump in, do a few hits and jump back to where he was at first?

and you gotta love when you get these kind of lvl 11 ppl in your team, scoring 15 points while you do 270

to OP: i dont wanna be rude, but this question … was already here like 100 times

I’m not sure D/P has better burst actually, it’s just much easier to land and stay on your enemy with.

Shadow Shot is huge in playing the quick “in and out” game that is more or less required now that every other class is doing huge damage in melee range or big AoE damage.

Also D/D has some rather disjointed skills. Death Blossom has rather pitiful damage with a bleed efect (useless for direct damage burst). The evade time is VERY short and it’s combined with an activation delay, making it hard to time correctly especially when factoring in lag. Dancing dagger is ok I guess, making CnD easier to hit and can get rid of clones, but so can shortbow. CnD is also much easier to mess up than Black Powder + heartseeker, and again requires melee range.

Overall, on demand blind, interrupts, teleports seems more important considering the type of enemies you’ll be facing these days.

@angina: Yea…Your nickname and your Post fit very well, Like a disease.

To the op: Yea d/d is more of pve Set now. Before the last patch you could use it in wvw but it was Always inferior to d/p.
D/p offers more control, movement, more dmg (because you can stick to your enemy Like glue) more survivability and only Slightly less burst.
I personally do Not Like d/p very much, its boring, but sadly much better then thiefs other Sets.

Angina.9314:

and you gotta love when you get these kind of lvl 11 ppl in your team, scoring 15 points while you do 270

to OP: i dont wanna be rude, but this question … was already here like 100 times

I don’t want to be rude either but this answer isn’t of any help at all. I don’t know why you assumed that I jumped into unranked or ranked matches at lvl 11 in the first place. I did play during the Beta and when the game just came out but the PvP skill cap felt low and there were many issues back then so me and my friends quit the game shortly after it came out. Some of these issues have been fixed now so I’m giving it an other try. I normally rank in the top 5-10% at least in every PvP game I play, I’ve played GW1 a lot as well as many other MMORPGs. Of course I’m bad at GW2 right now and I wouldn’t throw myself into PvP being a burden and not being used to the builds and such. However, when noobs ask basic questions and I’m good at a game, I normally give a decent answer or let someone else do it so that they can improve and I don’t get stuck in the situation you described.

Anyways, I mostly was asking that because I want to get used to the builds and practice them while I level up to 80. I prefer D/D but if it doesn’t compete with S/D or D/P for PvP, I’ll force myself to get used to the other 2 as well. So if I understand well, D/D does the best single burst dmg but its lack of mobility and survivability makes it so the other ones can do more dmg in the end.

D/D have better dps than D/P. But D/P offer more utility to you and more option. Maybe you never been in the kind of situation i’ll talk about, but they will come with experience.

Shadowshot allow you to keep on target at a low cost. Shadowstep, steal, infiltrator’s signet, etc. They all help you keeping up with a enemy, but they all have long cooldown compare to the 4 initiative of Shadowshot. That way you can keep these longer cooldown in situation where you really need them. You are squishy as a thief and people know that you gonna backstab them. You need to keep up with them and hit them hard quick or retreat. If you start to chase them, they can just load damage on you, while you are not in melee range and you gonna lose at that game. HS is also a good gap closer, but it’s half the range of Shadowshot.

Blackpower is your most important skill.

1) You can use it + HS to stealth you. People know you want to backstab them, so they try to keep their distance with a thief. Easier to BP+HS than to try to C&D them before you backstab. It’s also a more versatile stealth than C&D since you can stealth away from anyone before a fight or to escape and you can HS 3 time in the same BP for a long duration stealth.

2) BP is a blinding field. Stomping is a very important and difficult part of the game against better players. B/P is a really good way to stomp several profession at a low cost (compare to the CD of a stab, block, etc for other profession). You can even use it on a player that a teamate is trying to stomp to help him. It also allow you to fight in close range on a point by blinding your opponents or use it with the Warrior stolen object for some blinding projectile.

Headshot is an important daze. Not as important as the other two skills, but still. You can interupt some healing skill and players trying to rez other people. It’s niche weapon, but once you know how to time it, it can be a game changer in a fight.

D/P just have to many useful tools compare to D/D.

D/D works and can spike slightly better than D/P but there are some things to keep in mind:

1: You need to learn to cancel cloak and dagger or you will waste all of your initiative and never gain stealth and consequently, backstab.

2. You can’t chase nearly as well as with D/P.

3. You can’t stealth at will unless you find some terrain that’s whackable.

4. You have poor defense since dodging was gutted and blind on stealth is in a poor spot.

Zodryn.4216:

D/D works and can spike slightly better than D/P but there are some things to keep in mind:

1: You need to learn to cancel cloak and dagger or you will waste all of your initiative and never gain stealth and consequently, backstab.

2. You can’t chase nearly as well as with D/P.

3. You can’t stealth at will unless you find some terrain that’s whackable.

4. You have poor defense since dodging was gutted and blind on stealth is in a poor spot.

4.1 No immediate blind access in general

5. Only 2/4 skills on d/d are efficient and used regularly.

D/P is universally better, coming from a D/D burst main since day 1 through today.

Pretty much spam 3 and win (SS + fire/air = backstab damage + teleport + blind + unblockable + ignores dodges for procs of fire/air due to a current bug (at least in WvW).

D/D’s skills are pretty much vastly inferior aside from playing full burst. If you’re not killing your enemy from CnD/Stab alone, you’re better off playing D/P, which in sPvP, since you’re pretty much never killing people from CnD/Stab alone unless you play signet burst, which is by far the most difficult build to make work in sPvP due to the dependencies of your success being solely on your enemys’ comp (it can’t do the damage to heavies and tanks it needs to like it can in WvW), which implies that D/P is always the optimal choice.

S/D used to be a solid build, though the nerfs to the Acrobatics line and the vigor boon have pretty much dumpstered the viability of it – when the best in the game switch to D/P after playing exclusively S/D for a very long time (and doing so extremely successfully despite having previously seen as a mediocre build compaired to D/P), you know it’s not as effective as it needs to be.

I love to encourage D/D as a set to learn on because it’s challenging and makes you a better thief in regards to commiting to fights, positioning, etc., but in all competitive manners, D/P is the only really viable set you can use as a thief – otherwise you’re just bested by other classes (or D/P) by a very large margin.

D/D is not very good because of Immobilize in the air bug, If you got immo while in mid animation of death blossom you are dead because it make your character unresponsive .
Basically if Ranger use entangle you are stuck for entire duration while before bug death blossom spam will save you.

The bug happened for months by the introduction of Teleport fix. Still no word from A-net though.

DeceiverX.8361:

D/P is universally better, coming from a D/D burst main since day 1 through today.

Pretty much spam 3 and win (SS + fire/air = backstab damage + teleport + blind + unblockable + ignores dodges for procs of fire/air due to a current bug (at least in WvW).

D/D’s skills are pretty much vastly inferior aside from playing full burst. If you’re not killing your enemy from CnD/Stab alone, you’re better off playing D/P, which in sPvP, since you’re pretty much never killing people from CnD/Stab alone unless you play signet burst, which is by far the most difficult build to make work in sPvP due to the dependencies of your success being solely on your enemys’ comp (it can’t do the damage to heavies and tanks it needs to like it can in WvW), which implies that D/P is always the optimal choice.

S/D used to be a solid build, though the nerfs to the Acrobatics line and the vigor boon have pretty much dumpstered the viability of it – when the best in the game switch to D/P after playing exclusively S/D for a very long time (and doing so extremely successfully despite having previously seen as a mediocre build compaired to D/P), you know it’s not as effective as it needs to be.

I love to encourage D/D as a set to learn on because it’s challenging and makes you a better thief in regards to commiting to fights, positioning, etc., but in all competitive manners, D/P is the only really viable set you can use as a thief – otherwise you’re just bested by other classes (or D/P) by a very large margin.

Just to add to what you said for the op: you can still use S/D in PvP, but there’s no point in going acro S/D since it doesn’t offer enough to enhance the set over the damage or utility you’d lose from giving up any line of DA/CS/Tr. As DecieverX mentioned though, this set is not as strong as D/P, but if D/P isn’t a good fit for your playstyle, don’t force yourself into it.

D/D doesn’t work in pvp for the simple fact that it doesn’t have proper gap closers like s/d and d/p have. All good players are great at kiting against thieves. You’ll find that they constantly create a gap from you and with d/d the only option is to burn a cooldown or spam heartseeker. D/P has shadow shot and that should honestly be the skill you use more than anything else. It closes the gap and blinds… it’s amazing. S/D benefits from infiltrator strike as well as flaking strike being a moderately good gap closer. Most people think dancing dagger is garbage but I find myself throwing 1 or 2 when I get an opponent low in health and they start looking to flee the fight. It can save the win when infiltrator’s strike is stuck on return. Don’t listen to people when they say to ignore acro with s/d. It’s a valid choice even if it is weaker than it should be.

I hope this helps and welcome back!

It is not good until you play and make it Viable for yourself, same as other weapon sets.

D/P is superiour, D/D is more fun (personal opinion.) both work. play what you like most. but if you want to play ranked, or even unranked. you might get yelled at by some if you do use d/d.

but I personally like the stealth much better on d/d but that is because I play it better then d/p (wvw experiance) but its much easier to counter d/d skill 5 then a d/p going 5 + 2

sure you miss a ghap closer, but honestly if you play smart and position your self well. it should work out for you

d/d faster stealth, easier to counter no weapon ghap closer. (d/d skill 5 still deals 25 % less damage then in WvW/pve, used to be even 50% but they reduced it to 25 last patch)

d/p Slightly slower stealth, less easy to counter, weapon ghap closer and a headshot intterupt. (this all makes d/p the better choice.)

Play whats fun to you. imo both are viable depending on how well you play My preference is and will be D/D as I just seem to play better most of the times.

Why ask for build on thief when thief got rly only 1 build. D/P, sorry mate if you want to “create your playstyle” you need to play mesmer ele or engi.

D/P is and always will be better that D/D
As power build on D/D you get useless dancing dagger and useless deathblossom, and hard to land CnD.
Vs
Dp gives you Daze on demand, easy (bit more expensive but safer)invis, blind on demand, another gapcloser WITH ANOTHER blind with dmg that is just so good.

Trick is There is nothing that D/D can do that D/P wont do better, when you have many things from rupting to controlling enemies with blind that d/d wont ever be good at.

And please dont even get me started on Condi thief, its a myth, it existed long long ago and went to the trashbox, same goes with S/D and S/P.

And before you ask, P/P is utter kitten, burns all your initiative to deal dmg(since only 1 skill deals dmg) has almost 0 survi and DEALS WAY LESS dmg than any long/mid range spec, thief using Shortbow smart will deal much more dmg in like 4/5 sec, while controlling enemies with weaknes combo and evading kitten with 3.

Mefiq.7039:

D/P is and always will be better that D/D

Think people would like to disagree and make them equal. Everyone knows d/p is better, but it shouldn’t always be better, otherwise what is the point of allowing such a set? Aesthetics? I prefer to think d/d is more skill based and should have a higher reward given the higher risk.

DD thief is disabled character. disagree?

NinjaEd.3946:

Mefiq.7039:

D/P is and always will be better that D/D

Think people would like to disagree and make them equal. Everyone knows d/p is better, but it shouldn’t always be better, otherwise what is the point of allowing such a set? Aesthetics? I prefer to think d/d is more skill based and should have a higher reward given the higher risk.

Ask devs why they trying to remove all fun from thief. Day and night buffs on dumb ranger and 0 fixes to thief and again even less viable builds

Mefiq.7039:

NinjaEd.3946:

Mefiq.7039:

D/P is and always will be better that D/D

Think people would like to disagree and make them equal. Everyone knows d/p is better, but it shouldn’t always be better, otherwise what is the point of allowing such a set? Aesthetics? I prefer to think d/d is more skill based and should have a higher reward given the higher risk.

Ask devs why they trying to remove all fun from thief. Day and night buffs on dumb ranger and 0 fixes to thief and again even less viable builds

Because no one at anet is passionate about thief so they have no strong representative for the class and its well being. That’s why we get bull kitten changes like making residual venom baseline across all venoms only to nerf DV (ninja nerf if you ask me) and BV which didn’t need a 2nd charge.

I don’t think anyone at anet has a clue on where they want thief to be or how to make it enjoyable. It’s kind of just that 3rd medium armor profession that you see in character creation.

NinjaEd.3946:

Mefiq.7039:

D/P is and always will be better that D/D

Think people would like to disagree and make them equal. Everyone knows d/p is better, but it shouldn’t always be better, otherwise what is the point of allowing such a set? Aesthetics? I prefer to think d/d is more skill based and should have a higher reward given the higher risk.

D/P is “always” better than D/D.

What u are talking about is only valid when the player that uses d/p is bad and d/d player is higher skilled than d/p or d/p player made huge mistakes.

There are no ways for d/d to beat d/p when both players are highly/equally skilled.

There is one serious bug with Death blossom. It make you float in the air. If you get immobilize in the air you are stuck and unable to press any skill like this.

This immobilize bug happened when they introduced some teleport fix months ago.Still no word from A-net

LONGA.1652:

There is one serious bug with Death blossom. It make you float in the air. If you get immobilize in the air you are stuck and unable to press any skill like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCzdCod3YfE

This immobilize bug happened when they introduced some teleport fix months ago.Still no word from A-net

Effing hell how is that not fix! Like it isn’t hard enough playing d/d in spvp already. Screw this. I hope someone reported it at least

D/D offers WAY too slow of a playstyle for conquest. Some people say it’s because you rely on stealth a lot and stealth prevents point cap, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it. Thief’s primary role in PvP is very support oriented and most of the time you don’t want to spend more than seconds at any specific location on the map. You’re there to abuse the fact that you can +1 fights anywhere on the map faster than any other class and deny enemy points by decapping. In a nutshell, that is what you’re good at. Of course the class is way more complex and the difference between a good thief and a very good thief is huge.

Since D/D is very slow in terms of playstyle and achieves a purpose that is not desired or that is accomplished better by other classes, it will never see serious play in conquest mode. D/P offers some team support through AoE blinds, AoE stealth, cheap interrupts and is overall better in teamfights while S/D has slightly better mobility and shines more in smaller skirmishes. Both are good but I would say D/P offers slightly more.

D/D is weaker than D/P because you can’t spam Shadow Shot or just mash Heartseeker and win a fight. I rarely see D/P thieves utilizing Headshot and still coming out on top.

Shadow Shot is overpowered for the damage it does, the utility it brings, and for how low the init cost is.
D/D mashing Heartseeker will just die from not being stealthed in the first place proccing the “below % hp” aspect of it.

Midori’s right in that as long as even Headshot remains part of D/P and D/D doesn’t get a ranged interrupt or blind, I don’t see D/D being as good of an alternative, unless DB is completely reworked to fill in for this utility, and condi-3spam builds are just dropped as a consequence from D/D. This of course means Dagger Training needs a subsequent rework such as actually giving certain skills poison in the first place and in subsequently much better amounts.

Ed’s right, though. ANet doesn’t have a devoted thief developer. Karl, while a great guy and caring developer to GW2 as a whole, doesn’t seem to take any particular trouble to resolving the problems the thief’s other weapons are facing or is willing to make some sacrifices to D/P to bump the rest of the weapons to appropriate strengths.