Guild Wars 2

is dagger dagger a viable power weapon set or do you have to go condition, I recently made a thief and love the dagger dagger skills more than any other set and was wondering if I could make a build using those weapons

edit: for pve

There are a couple of variations on power builds, but 30 CS is almost mandatory on most of them.

30/30/0/0/10 → Bursty, low survival/sustain. Hits like a truck.

25/30/0/0/15 → Same as above. The extra initiative from trickery guarentees the 25 CS trait triggers on the initial burst.

0/30/30/10/0 → Much more survival than the above two. Good condi removal, blind on stealth, good regen in stealth.

0/30/25/15/0 → My favorite. You trade the regen in stealth for an extra dodge/better endurance management. Think of it this way, if you avoid a 2k hit with the extra dodge that’s the equivalent of 6 seconds in stealth (where pressure is off of your opponent)

10/30/0/0/30 → Trickery thief. Still hits pretty hard due to the initiative damage traits. Decent inherent utility.

You can definitely do power based builds with that set. Theres also d/d bleed condi builds but you don’t see em to often. The entire set is aimed at power based builds other than 3 skill. I find the evade on it is very nice in pvp, even if the dmg is a joke. But for apower build slap 30 in the crit line, and work from there with your play style. Personally I run 0/30/10/0/30 d/d I love our trickery like.

Yeah it’s viable, it does take practice to master though.

In PVP i’m running 10 in deadly arts for mug (So steal does damage and heals me), 30 in critical strikes for Executioner (for +20% damage on targets with less than half health) and 30 in shadow arts so I can gain health while in stealth, stay in stealth and try to get backstabs off to get the target to half health then heartseeker with big damage bonuses.

I think something similar works really well in WvW too. You could use it in PvE but I think there’s better options for PvE, but if you like daggers there’s no reason you couldn’t make it viable with practice.

Dagger Mainhand is almost always a power build. Pistol mainhand is the thief’s condition weapon.

You could go for a mix of both power and condition. Death Blossom tends to do better in a PVE environment due to its’ AOE nature. Human players tend to focus on either vitality or toughness, so a build which does significant Power and Condition damage tends to be very adaptable.

d/d is beast when you use it properly. in spvp or pve i only use d/d. Use 25 30 0 0 15 build or 10 30 0 0 30 , even 10 30 30 0 0 is pretty sick if you wanna go for that backstab and alot of stealth bonuses.

0/30/30/10/0 or 10/30/30/0/0 is best. DO NOT go into trickery at any cost.

Big Tower.5423:

0/30/30/10/0 or 10/30/30/0/0 is best. DO NOT go into trickery at any cost.

why not, trickery is pretty fun.

Becuse it takes away the ESSENTIAL traits. in shadowarts/critical strikes. (shadow’s revjuination, hidden killer and meld with shadows)

Big Tower.5423:

Becuse it takes away the ESSENTIAL traits. in shadowarts/critical strikes. (shadow’s revjuination, hidden killer and meld with shadows)

sorry but trickery got alot too: “~2k heal, ~2k dmg, Fury, Swiftness, Might, 2 Boons stolen, Vigor, Interrupt, 2 Ini and a Shadowstep on a 21sec CD. Not to mention you have the stolen abilitys on a 21 sec CD aswell which means 50% uptime of almost all boons against mesmer for example.
Also +3 base ini from the Trickery line.”

If you’re a signet/initiative thief i would go Dagger/Dagger mostly for Cloak and Dagger and use backstab a lot. The stacks of poison you can get with Dagger autoattack is good as well, even if you’re not a condition thief.

Please specify if you’re talking about PvP or PvE, dagger is however viable for both scenarios. It has incredible burst and mobility.

Rassase.7943:

Big Tower.5423:

Becuse it takes away the ESSENTIAL traits. in shadowarts/critical strikes. (shadow’s revjuination, hidden killer and meld with shadows)

sorry but trickery got alot too: “~2k heal, ~2k dmg, Fury, Swiftness, Might, 2 Boons stolen, Vigor, Interrupt, 2 Ini and a Shadowstep on a 21sec CD. Not to mention you have the stolen abilitys on a 21 sec CD aswell which means 50% uptime of almost all boons against mesmer for example.
Also +3 base ini from the Trickery line.”

were do you get ~2k heal, ~2k dmg in Trickery?!

Volrath.1473:

Rassase.7943:

Big Tower.5423:

Becuse it takes away the ESSENTIAL traits. in shadowarts/critical strikes. (shadow’s revjuination, hidden killer and meld with shadows)

sorry but trickery got alot too: “~2k heal, ~2k dmg, Fury, Swiftness, Might, 2 Boons stolen, Vigor, Interrupt, 2 Ini and a Shadowstep on a 21sec CD. Not to mention you have the stolen abilitys on a 21 sec CD aswell which means 50% uptime of almost all boons against mesmer for example.
Also +3 base ini from the Trickery line.”

were do you get ~2k heal, ~2k dmg in Trickery?!

i meant if you play build 10 30 0 0 30

how do you remove condis? there are allot of condis flying around now days and don’t say Lyssa cuz cleansing every 45sec is obviously not enough

Just letting you know that power d/d is a pretty painful build for leveling, either use 3 a lot or go d/p and black powder => heartseeker for backstabs.

It is better DPS at 80 when geared

@OP

D/D is power+crit weapon set, it’s too costly to go condition damage with it.

25 30 0 0 15 —> Pretty much in love with this right now. For utilities, shadowstep, infiltrator’s signet and signet of shadows. I know it’s a little light on condition removal. However, the mobility is terrific.

All Zojja’s armor+weapons, 4 zerker/2 valk for trinkets, and guard stacks = 17.3k hps.

I hope the BG guys around QL recognize me on sight

Kincaidia, could you post your exact build ? Guard stack, what do you mean???

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-c;4Rwk0-7-VOFd0;9;4OT;0E28-15B;43;04NV4;2udbTudbTo-FSF6-6;2VOVTWYXcYi3o_630BN-5V8;0V5P;9;9;9;9;9;4VH-6D

Swap Zojja’s for the armor/weapons, +5 toughness on the armor…. can’t remember which of the trinkets were which, but that’s pretty close.

Guard Stacks = http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Applied_Fortitude + http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guard_Leech

Condition necros and !@#$(#$ bunker warriors give me trouble, but by trouble I mean I have to ditch if more people show up, or it takes a while.

Thank you very much, I’ll try it on my thief ; )

From a PvE perspective:

D/D with a power build is the best dps you can bring, which is why 25/30/0/0/15 is so popular for experienced thieves that can survive encounters without using defensive gear/traits as training wheels.

From PvP perspective:

D/D power builds with a SA (0/30/30/0/0 + 10) is probably one of the most effective roaming builds available in WvW. Check out vids by Yishis on YouTube to see more on this.

Trickery builds are good…but if you’re going with a trickery build, use D/P or S/D or S/P. The blind on stealth trait for D/D is amazing and you don’t get nearly as much utility as D/P when you run D/D without it. D/P will still give more utility than D/D with blind on stealth, but the gap isn’t as big and D/D makes up for this with the superior burst.