Guild Wars 2

I wanted to compare basic (non-skill) DPS using these two weapons. So, I timed some kills in the Mists. This is pretty much ONLY using auto-attacks or some basic spam-style skills. You can do a LOT better mixing in utilities and other combinations. Why not test those? Darn it Jim, I’m a human, not an octopus!

Target is the heavy golem in the Mists:

• 05s dagger auto, heartseeker @ ~30%
• 06s dagger auto, heartseeker @ ~50%
• 06s dagger auto, preload SoM, AS, IS (clock start after IS, on 1st hit)
• 07s dagger auto
• 07s sword auto
• 08s dagger auto with 2 signets (10 might, instant signets only)
• 08s sword auto with 2 signets (10 might, instant signets only)
• 08s sbow auto, two targets bouncing
• 09s sword auto with 3 signets (15 might)
• 09s sword auto with head-shot @ 0, 4, 8 (between sword cycles / mini-whip spam)
• 10s pistol whip spam (just 333333, letting all whip hits land)
• 10s flanking spam (just 333333, letting all flanking hits land)
• 10s heart-seeker spam (just 222222)
• 10s unload spam (just 333333)
• 11s pistol auto + dancing spam (two targets bouncing)
• 13s sbow auto, no bouncing
• 15s pistol auto
• 16s pistol auto with body shot spam (runs out of initiative, though)
• 18s pistol + dancing spam, no bounce (runs out of initiative)

Test build was same as my PvE: 0/30/0/25/15, full berserker, with Quick Recovery & Infiltrator’s (ie. maximum initiative). I would often use a lot of initiative while leveling up (D/P + P/D). Recently, I’ve begun to wonder if it might be better to use less. Hence, this little set of tests.

It looks like other than Dagger with BS & HS, auto-attacks are top dog on the DPS chain with sword being the clear auto attack winner due to it’s frontal AE potential. These are my conclusions for PvE:

• Activating Signets is bad for sustained DPS (they interrupt DPS)
• Pre-activating Signets is good for burst (only to prep a burst when not DPS’ing)
• Boss, single melee: d/d or d/p (latter if quick closing or blinding helps)
• Boss, single ranged: p/p (no bounces means bow & dancing are much worse)
• Multiple melee: s/p (if blind & daze help) s/d (blind/daze doesn’t help)
• Multiple ranged: sbow

The reduction in DPS on Signet use shocked me. The traited instant Signets reduced DPS. Even traited AS is a wash for sustained DPS. It looks like it’s best to not let anything interrupt your auto-attack. The gains don’t offset the lost attack.

As a result of this, I’ll be reworking my Thief build. I’ll probably have to change up my weapons a LOT for each fight, which is really annoying. I wish there were macros for changing gear when out of combat.

I’m not an expert in tests like this, but shouldn’t the spec-set be at 0, won’t critical hits skew the numbers?

If not thanks for the info this is good to know either way.

Critical damage scales linearly with weapon damage. As long as your stats are the same for both weapons, you should get the same relative results. The actual kill rates will be different, but which ones kill faster and slower would be the same.

This wasn’t why I didn’t use flat weapons, traits, etc., though. I was curious about berserker build DPS options for my thief. I wanted to know more about how often I should simply auto-attack and which weapon skills and utilities would up my DPS.

So, the tests lack rigour. Heh, I also checked the classic D/D mug/cnd/bs/hs spike. It’s impressive: ~15k in under 3s. My ability to start & stop the clock and work that chain with any accuracy is low, though — either the timing or the chain suffer.

Thief is tempting for wPVP just to see if I can use it to cherry pick foks for a kill AND get away, but I’m having too much fun with my mesmer in wPVP to swap to thief there.

Interesting on the signets, as that has not been my perception in gameplay. What is your relative power before and after signet use? I wonder if perhaps you are hitting some sort of diminishing returns on the amount of power you have acquired.

I was never able to enjoy sword.

DPS is similar to daggers, but daggers get poison (anti-heal), weakness 3s if traited, and endurance regen, plus they are faster and more likely to proc stuff.
Sword can AoE sure, but SB does it better and deals AoE poison/weakness/bleed on top of it.
Skill 2 is a useless, terribly dumbed down version of shadowstep.
Pistol whip is a joke now, and Flanking strike is even worse.
Stealth skill? 8k backstab vs low damage + 1.5s daze. Self-explanatory.

PvP-wise no decent player will get overwhelmed by sword Thief, and PvE-wise daggers can kill single targets faster and SB can AoE better.

Meh, I really wanted to love sword but it’s even worse than Warrior’s sword for me.

Red Falcon.8257:

Skill 2 is a useless, terribly dumbed down version of shadowstep.

Yeah, shadow step is a terrible utility and I don’t see why anyone would want that crap as a weapon skill.

Skill 2 is a gap closer and a stunbreaker/condition clearer for 5 initiative. I guess I don’t PVP so I wouldn’t know the value or the lack of in PVP, but in PVE it helps to have an on demand stun breaker with no cooldown.

colour me boggled. Infiltrator’s Strike is the primary method of avoidance in PVP aside from dodges and flanking strike. Dodges are limited in use (less so with acrobatics) and flaking strike is not always reliable with how so many moves auto-track and the ability moving you out of range. Infiltrator’s Strike lets you dodge a melee opponent all day by physically not being there when he attacks. It’s also one of the primary methods we have of getting rid of conditions.

Testing my sigil build against golems just to be sure; Normal attack chain requires about 12 hits of my sword to take them down. Using my sigils reduces this to about 7-9, depending on how obnoxious lightning strike wants to be.

Wow

Infiltrators strike and shadow step are 2 hands down best skills in the game. More so infiltrators strike, an ability that teleports you too your enemy, immobilizes them, then after you kill them/or get in over your head, lets you teleport back AND remove conditions. If you think this is worthless I feel terribly terribly bad for you.

Bashalot.3962:

Skill 2 is a gap closer and a stunbreaker/condition clearer for 5 initiative. I guess I don’t PVP so I wouldn’t know the value or the lack of in PVP, but in PVE it helps to have an on demand stun breaker with no cooldown.

Again, as I said a lot of times, IS is NOT a stunbreaker, even if it says so.

Go to a Moa, get dazed after you use IS and shadowstep back: you’ll get teleported but you’ll be still under daze.

Go to a troll/ettin/any mob who stuns/knocks down, and port back: you’ll port back, but you’ll still be stunned/knocked down.

The stunbreak part of the shadowstep is broken on IS.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Wow

Infiltrators strike and shadow step are 2 hands down best skills in the game. More so infiltrators strike, an ability that teleports you too your enemy, immobilizes them, then after you kill them/or get in over your head, lets you teleport back AND remove conditions. If you think this is worthless I feel terribly terribly bad for you.

You’re right, IS is an incredibily useful skill, and with a functioning stun break would be even better.

Problem is, it’s the only sword skill that atm is useful: sword dual skills are a joke, for damage you have to rely just on autoattack, with dagger off hand the daze has been lowered in sPvP to 1.5 and mesmer runes/stun sigil doesn’t add anymore to daze duration, dancing dagger has been nerfed to death so S/D now inflicts a ridicolously low damage, with pistol off hand we’ve never had a lot of reliable damage output, and we have to go still with haste, etc.

And I’ve played and loved (or tried to love) a LOT sword builds. S/P then S/D, but they’re now inferior to D/D backstab or bleed builds.

Sword is actually decent for PvE, but I’d imagine it’s a lot harder to get players to clump up nicely in front of you in sPvP. Whip & Flanking are serious drawbacks to the weapon. Even if they had zero initiative cost, it would still be better to not use them. Their side-effects aren’t worth the DPS reduction, much less the initiative and other drawbacks (like Whip’s root). Though, with just a gap closer in #2, an unusable #3, a situational #4 (pistol), unusable #4 (dagger), there’s nothing left to spend your initiative on besides #5.

On the bright side, since sword’s skills don’t help, that gives you plenty of time to focus on stepping and dodging to avoid melee damage while you auto-attack.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Wow

Infiltrators strike and shadow step are 2 hands down best skills in the game. More so infiltrators strike, an ability that teleports you too your enemy, immobilizes them, then after you kill them/or get in over your head, lets you teleport back AND remove conditions. If you think this is worthless I feel terribly terribly bad for you.

You are awesome. I don’t use shadow step at all though (since there’s infiltrator’s strike). But hey, they probably couldn’t understand the survivability/mobility of it, so went to ez mode stealth.

Sword main hand is our best melee PvE option, hands down. If you’re built for it, S/P can be a good support weapon. Otherwise, S/D can keep you alive while still dealing good damage. Flanking Strike is unreliable in PvP, but in PvE, it’s a hard hitting dodge ability with no cool down.

Before the recent nerf, S/D was also considered to be one of our best duelist builds, since it could keep the enemy daze-locked if done perfectly, while providing utility.

Thinking Infiltrator’s Strike is bad is just silly, though. It’s quite possibly one of the best skills in the game, and it has no cooldown to boot. I don’t think it even matters for the Break Stun to work (it seems to work on knockdowns, but nothing else for me). It’s still a 5 initiative cost, 600 range distance closer that can also be used as a 1200 range return back to where you used it. It also removes a condition upon return.

I mean seriously, if anyone thinks it’s bad, all I can really think is that you are. It’s like a mini Shadowstep, which is our best utility skill.

I actually just laugh at DPS thieves in PvE whenever they use D/D. All they can do is help on one enemy. That’s more of a hindrance than anything. I’d much rather have someone in my party who can deal AoE damage and actually contribute more than just DPS. Sword – with either Pistol or Dagger offhand – can contribute this with DPS.

You guys are comparing PvP for weapon combinations. Fact of the matter is some will be better in PvP than in PvE, and that is definitely the case with Dagger and Sword.

Tulisin.6945:

Red Falcon.8257:

Skill 2 is a useless, terribly dumbed down version of shadowstep.

Yeah, shadow step is a terrible utility and I don’t see why anyone would want that crap as a weapon skill.

For anyone that missed it, yes, this was sarcasm. Infiltrator’s Strike is amazing.

Sword’s main problem, as others have noted, is that it no longer has any burst capability since any skill that is able to reach >auto attack levels of DPS has been nerfed down to size. I wouldn’t necessarily agree that D/D is the best way to go for even single-target bosses, given the mobility that IS offers. Furthermore, single-target bosses aren’t all that common, most at least spawn adds which gives you the opportunity to pull far ahead with sword.

Tulisin.6945:

Tulisin.6945:

Red Falcon.8257:

Skill 2 is a useless, terribly dumbed down version of shadowstep.

Yeah, shadow step is a terrible utility and I don’t see why anyone would want that crap as a weapon skill.

For anyone that missed it, yes, this was sarcasm. Infiltrator’s Strike is amazing.

Sword’s main problem, as others have noted, is that it no longer has any burst capability since any skill that is able to reach >auto attack levels of DPS has been nerfed down to size. I wouldn’t necessarily agree that D/D is the best way to go for even single-target bosses, given the mobility that IS offers. Furthermore, single-target bosses aren’t all that common, most at least spawn adds which gives you the opportunity to pull far ahead with sword.

Well, after trying d/d again after dagger offhand and daze nerf, i still came back to S/D D/D is so dumb frontal assault, which i do not think thiefs aproach should be.
S/D while not having damage potential and having highter TTK is what makes thief for me. IS to your enemy hit your sword combo. Wait to see some big strike coming, teleport back removing condition(stun removal is somewhat… weirdly working) and rush back to your enemy with steal+ CnD for a daze after his big skill) enemy used his big hit, is dazed and probably lost some 50% of his hp, while took minor to no damage and removed conditions if he stacked any. Problem with sword set is that its basic attack is best damage skill hands down. Fixing flanking strike into rangers type of atack on sword similar to flanking strike, could fix whole weapeon set, into good tourament set.

Galandil.9641:

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Wow

Infiltrators strike and shadow step are 2 hands down best skills in the game. More so infiltrators strike, an ability that teleports you too your enemy, immobilizes them, then after you kill them/or get in over your head, lets you teleport back AND remove conditions. If you think this is worthless I feel terribly terribly bad for you.

You’re right, IS is an incredibily useful skill, and with a functioning stun break would be even better.

Problem is, it’s the only sword skill that atm is useful: sword dual skills are a joke, for damage you have to rely just on autoattack, with dagger off hand the daze has been lowered in sPvP to 1.5 and mesmer runes/stun sigil doesn’t add anymore to daze duration, dancing dagger has been nerfed to death so S/D now inflicts a ridicolously low damage, with pistol off hand we’ve never had a lot of reliable damage output, and we have to go still with haste, etc.

And I’ve played and loved (or tried to love) a LOT sword builds. S/P then S/D, but they’re now inferior to D/D backstab or bleed builds.

Agreed.

Actually I’m not doing too bad with Flanking Strike in SPVP right now, of course it is pub stomping so there is a difference; but it only seems to really miss on players that run away from you in a straight line, as flanking strike, well you know flanks causing you to lose ground. It works really well on players that strafe into you while moving, other than that, yeah auto attack, and tactical stoke with a few flanking a thrown in there and it’s a good tough combination.

bladie.5084:

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Wow

Infiltrators strike and shadow step are 2 hands down best skills in the game. More so infiltrators strike, an ability that teleports you too your enemy, immobilizes them, then after you kill them/or get in over your head, lets you teleport back AND remove conditions. If you think this is worthless I feel terribly terribly bad for you.

You are awesome. I don’t use shadow step at all though (since there’s infiltrator’s strike). But hey, they probably couldn’t understand the survivability/mobility of it, so went to ez mode stealth.

Haha hope this wasn’t sarcasm

I honestly loved backstab for a while, I enjoyed playing without any venoms, to actually learn to flank moving targets in the game, but I just got bored with it. Condition LDB and caltrops was fun but I’m not really a conditios guy.

I was honestly surprised by how hard the sword auto attack hit. Infiltrator strike until I became comfortable using it was only a gap close for me, now I couldn’t roll without the skill.

Okuza.5210:

So, the tests lack rigour. Heh, I also checked the classic D/D mug/cnd/bs/hs spike. It’s impressive: ~15k in under 3s. My ability to start & stop the clock and work that chain with any accuracy is low, though — either the timing or the chain suffer.

Best way to test things like this with precision:

• Get some sort of video recording software (I use MSI Afterburner)
• Record video of whatever you want to time.
• Get some sort of video editing software (I use AVS, but I’m sure others would work fine)
• Slow the video down to 10%
• Measure time from start to finish, divide by 10

This gives you highly precise measurement without requiring you to hit start/stop on a stopwatch. It’s easily within a tenth of a second in accuracy, which is more than you can usually manage with a stopwatch under ideal conditions.

Activating most signets doesn’t interrupt your dps, they don’t have cast times and don’t interrupt the cycle of attacking you’re currently doing (I use this in my PW build to regen initiative in mid PW thanks to signet use).
Not sure how you came to the conclusion they do interrupt the dps unless you were looking at Signet of Malice?

BabelFish.7234:

Activating most signets doesn’t interrupt your dps, they don’t have cast times and don’t interrupt the cycle of attacking you’re currently doing (I use this in my PW build to regen initiative in mid PW thanks to signet use).
Not sure how you came to the conclusion they do interrupt the dps unless you were looking at Signet of Malice?

SoM definitely does (cast time). The others have no cast time, but they have a rather long animation time. They’re called “instant” skills, but that doesn’t mean they’re truly instant. It just means they can’t be interrupted and also won’t interrupt channeling. Their animation was long enough to reduce the overall kill rate despite giving stacks of might. Raises burst, lowers sustained.

There are a LOT of skills in the game that have no cast time, but aren’t really instant. Off-hand pistol #4 is another one. It takes a full beat from the time you hit it until the time it fires, which makes it not so hot at interrupting quick skills. It’s still a lot better than pistol whip, which seems to take even longer than that and then you have to remain motionless to let the rest of PW work. Then there’s another hitch in responsiveness if you need to break off PW to dodge something because PW’s dodge ran out.

F1/steal is a good example of what feels like a truly instant skill, but even that has a quick animation/effect to go with it.

But if the animation doesn’t actually interrupt anything then how does it effect the dps?

I get that SoM does, that has a cast time but stuff like signet of shadows doesn’t and it doesn’t interrupt/displace any skills you’re currently using.

Krathalos.3461:

Sword main hand is our best melee PvE option, hands down. If you’re built for it, S/P can be a good support weapon. Otherwise, S/D can keep you alive while still dealing good damage. Flanking Strike is unreliable in PvP, but in PvE, it’s a hard hitting dodge ability with no cool down.

Before the recent nerf, S/D was also considered to be one of our best duelist builds, since it could keep the enemy daze-locked if done perfectly, while providing utility.

Thinking Infiltrator’s Strike is bad is just silly, though. It’s quite possibly one of the best skills in the game, and it has no cooldown to boot. I don’t think it even matters for the Break Stun to work (it seems to work on knockdowns, but nothing else for me). It’s still a 5 initiative cost, 600 range distance closer that can also be used as a 1200 range return back to where you used it. It also removes a condition upon return.

I mean seriously, if anyone thinks it’s bad, all I can really think is that you are. It’s like a mini Shadowstep, which is our best utility skill.

I actually just laugh at DPS thieves in PvE whenever they use D/D. All they can do is help on one enemy. That’s more of a hindrance than anything. I’d much rather have someone in my party who can deal AoE damage and actually contribute more than just DPS. Sword – with either Pistol or Dagger offhand – can contribute this with DPS.

You guys are comparing PvP for weapon combinations. Fact of the matter is some will be better in PvP than in PvE, and that is definitely the case with Dagger and Sword.

there’s a skill called death blossom

BabelFish.7234:

But if the animation doesn’t actually interrupt anything then how does it effect the dps?

I get that SoM does, that has a cast time but stuff like signet of shadows doesn’t and it doesn’t interrupt/displace any skills you’re currently using.

All I can say is try it and see. I did the timings first; the reasoning & guessing for why things didn’t seem to function as I expected came later. I was VERY surprised that the traited signets actually hurt DPS when used. The damage numbers do go up after you use them, but the golem always dies slower.

I think it’s because of some kind of animation precedence rule where the most recently activated skill’s animation is displayed first. Sometimes this is OK, such as when you steal while CnD is casting. Sometimes it’s not, such as preventing the auto-attack animation (and thus the damage) in order to apply a buff.

I pretty much just assumed it was the animation time. Testing to determine exactly “why” those signets aren’t an outright improvement to DPS is a valuable line of inquiry. It might turn out that as long as you activate your signet during another activated skill’s animation (not an auto-attack), you end up with both effects happening concurrently — or maybe it blocks that skill. ’Dunno. I could imagine it working either way and would want to test it to find out.

Deepsky.6083:

Krathalos.3461:

Sword main hand is our best melee PvE option, hands down. If you’re built for it, S/P can be a good support weapon. Otherwise, S/D can keep you alive while still dealing good damage. Flanking Strike is unreliable in PvP, but in PvE, it’s a hard hitting dodge ability with no cool down.

Before the recent nerf, S/D was also considered to be one of our best duelist builds, since it could keep the enemy daze-locked if done perfectly, while providing utility.

Thinking Infiltrator’s Strike is bad is just silly, though. It’s quite possibly one of the best skills in the game, and it has no cooldown to boot. I don’t think it even matters for the Break Stun to work (it seems to work on knockdowns, but nothing else for me). It’s still a 5 initiative cost, 600 range distance closer that can also be used as a 1200 range return back to where you used it. It also removes a condition upon return.

I mean seriously, if anyone thinks it’s bad, all I can really think is that you are. It’s like a mini Shadowstep, which is our best utility skill.

I actually just laugh at DPS thieves in PvE whenever they use D/D. All they can do is help on one enemy. That’s more of a hindrance than anything. I’d much rather have someone in my party who can deal AoE damage and actually contribute more than just DPS. Sword – with either Pistol or Dagger offhand – can contribute this with DPS.

You guys are comparing PvP for weapon combinations. Fact of the matter is some will be better in PvP than in PvE, and that is definitely the case with Dagger and Sword.

there’s a skill called death blossom

This. With your traits set up to maximize your initiative regen rate and to start with a baseline 15 initiative, you can usually do 4 Death Blossoms in a row before you need to use either Steal or RFI to refresh more initiative.

A D/D thief traited to 15 in the top row can be 100% perma-weakening the boss with Dagger 1 chain (and thereby probably sitting on max or near-max initiative), and when adds come can simply spin off 3-4 DBs in a row, tagging all the adds (and the boss) with 9-12 bleed stacks, then steal back to the boss and resume the perma-weaken spam. And Death Blossom is a hugely wide AOE. And it heals you for a ton if you’re built to heal on attack. DB does 3 hits per mob, so how many potenial self-heals is that at 100+ per heal? And on top of all that, you EVADE EVERYTHING while you’re lawn-mowering around with DB.

Laugh at that.

Deepsky.6083:

Krathalos.3461:

Sword main hand is our best melee PvE option, hands down. If you’re built for it, S/P can be a good support weapon. Otherwise, S/D can keep you alive while still dealing good damage. Flanking Strike is unreliable in PvP, but in PvE, it’s a hard hitting dodge ability with no cool down.

Before the recent nerf, S/D was also considered to be one of our best duelist builds, since it could keep the enemy daze-locked if done perfectly, while providing utility.

Thinking Infiltrator’s Strike is bad is just silly, though. It’s quite possibly one of the best skills in the game, and it has no cooldown to boot. I don’t think it even matters for the Break Stun to work (it seems to work on knockdowns, but nothing else for me). It’s still a 5 initiative cost, 600 range distance closer that can also be used as a 1200 range return back to where you used it. It also removes a condition upon return.

I mean seriously, if anyone thinks it’s bad, all I can really think is that you are. It’s like a mini Shadowstep, which is our best utility skill.

I actually just laugh at DPS thieves in PvE whenever they use D/D. All they can do is help on one enemy. That’s more of a hindrance than anything. I’d much rather have someone in my party who can deal AoE damage and actually contribute more than just DPS. Sword – with either Pistol or Dagger offhand – can contribute this with DPS.

You guys are comparing PvP for weapon combinations. Fact of the matter is some will be better in PvP than in PvE, and that is definitely the case with Dagger and Sword.

there’s a skill called death blossom

This. With your traits set up to maximize your initiative regen rate and to start with a baseline 15 initiative, you can usually do 4 Death Blossoms in a row before you need to use either Steal or RFI to refresh more initiative.

A D/D thief traited to 15 in the top row can be 100% perma-weakening the boss with Dagger 1 chain (and thereby probably sitting on max or near-max initiative), and when adds come can simply spin off 3-4 DBs in a row, tagging all the adds (and the boss) with 9-12 bleed stacks, then steal back to the boss and resume the perma-weaken spam. And Death Blossom is a hugely wide AOE. And it heals you for a ton if you’re built to heal on attack. DB does 3 hits per mob, so how many potenial self-heals is that at 100+ per heal?

Finally, RFI is nearly as useful as Infiltrator’s Strike for getting out of trouble. It’s easy to goof your IS and not really get as far away as you need to. RFI is 100% reliable and will move you very far away from the target and the center of the fight. It will also 100% reliably stun-break, which IS is not reliable at doing. Need condition removal? Put a superior signet of Purity on your off-hand dagger. Fixed. Now you effectively have automatic single-condition removal every 10 seconds.

Laugh at that.

Now, I’m not saying S/x is “bad”. But you’re waisting utility on it. D/D gives you just as much AOE potential if not more because Death Blossom is fire-and-forget on all the adds other than your main target, and it’s easy to refresh the DB bleed stacks occasionally. The main reason for D/D, in my opinion, is the perma-weaken from your dagger #1 chain. That is priceless in ALL situations. Perma-weaken effectively you are giving yourself a +25% damage lead in the damage race. That’s huge. And AFAIK, only thieves have this ability to perma-weaken. No other class does.

I’ll note that my warrior uses Axe/x in much the same way that a thief would use S/x. With enough micro-positioning during battle it’s pretty easy to keep a cluster of foes within your 180 cone. The difference is that Axe 2 and Axe 3 are both very useful utility skills, whereas Thieve’s Sword 2 and Sword 3 are crap. Okay, I’ll grant that some people like Sword 2, but I find it unreliable and too expensive, and it hampers true mobility. It’s a one-trick pony. I’d rather have full control over my own movement and positioning rather than being anchored to an invisible rubber-band point.

And on a different tangent, back to the OP, I disagree with the finding that Sword auto-attack is clearly better. Everyone using D/D will attack exactly as shown in the top spot in your findings chart: Dagger 1 switching to HS spam at 30%. In plain terms, that means perma-weaken + 7% higher crit rate while you micro-position during Dagger 1 spam, followed by serious beatdown once they’re at 30%. HS spam is cheap and you’d be stupid NOT to use it at 30%.

shaktiboi.5194:

A D/D thief traited to 15 in the top row can be 100% perma-weakening the boss with Dagger 1 chain (and thereby probably sitting on max or near-max initiative), and when adds come can simply spin off 3-4 DBs in a row, tagging all the adds (and the boss) with 9-12 bleed stacks, then steal back to the boss and resume the perma-weaken spam. And Death Blossom is a hugely wide AOE. And it heals you for a ton if you’re built to heal on attack. DB does 3 hits per mob, so how many potenial self-heals is that at 100+ per heal?
…
Finally, RFI is nearly as useful as Infiltrator’s Strike for getting out of trouble. It’s easy to goof your IS and not really get as far away as you need to. RFI is 100% reliable and will move you very far away from the target and the center of the fight. It will also 100% reliably stun-break, which IS is not reliable at doing. Need condition removal? Put a superior signet of Purity on your off-hand dagger. Fixed. Now you effectively have automatic single-condition removal every 10 seconds.

Sword auto attack also provides perma-weaken, plus cripple, plus AE capability, without taking a trait for it. Dagger’s poison->weaken application synergy is nice, but it isn’t exactly a huge leg-up on sword. Additionally, if you’re alternating long periods of auto attack with short bursts of Death Blossom you’re going to have to balance your stats or accept weaker bleeds, while not a huge hindrance this again reflects poorly on the decision vs. power-based sword.

Roll for Initiative is a utility skill, and pretty incomparable to IS. RoI only allows one-way movement, while IS can be used both to close and create distance, as well as removing conditions. That said, optimal IS use has a very high skill cap, so most people won’t really push its limits.

shaktiboi.5194:

The main reason for D/D, in my opinion, is the perma-weaken from your dagger #1 chain. That is priceless in ALL situations. Perma-weaken effectively you are giving yourself a +25% damage lead in the damage race. That’s huge. And AFAIK, only thieves have this ability to perma-weaken. No other class does.

Necro can permanently AE weaken. Thief dagger is single target, sword is 3 frontal, & sbow is AE. Dagger for weaken requires at least 15/x/x/x/x for your build to get the Weakness on Poison trait. This is not a comment on the necro weakness build, just noting that it’s not a completely free lunch for Thief.

And, yeah, weakness is an amazing PvE condition. I’m not sure how it fares in PvP because I’m usually on Mesmer for that and it has no effect on Mesmer’s main DPS method: illusions.

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shaktiboi.5194:

And on a different tangent, back to the OP, I disagree with the finding that Sword auto-attack is clearly better.

Well, you can go test it in the mists yourself. I’d certainly love to have more data. My tests were very simplistic, but when it comes to sword, none of the other skills I tested resulted in a higher kill rate than simply standing there and letting sword/1 do all the work, including testing traited signet use during the kill.

I so strongly believed that using haste would improve the kill rate that I didn’t test that one. If you test it and find it slows things down, I’m going to disbelieve and run off to test it myself. ^~

Deepsky.6083:

Krathalos.3461:

Sword main hand is our best melee PvE option, hands down. If you’re built for it, S/P can be a good support weapon. Otherwise, S/D can keep you alive while still dealing good damage. Flanking Strike is unreliable in PvP, but in PvE, it’s a hard hitting dodge ability with no cool down.

Before the recent nerf, S/D was also considered to be one of our best duelist builds, since it could keep the enemy daze-locked if done perfectly, while providing utility.

Thinking Infiltrator’s Strike is bad is just silly, though. It’s quite possibly one of the best skills in the game, and it has no cooldown to boot. I don’t think it even matters for the Break Stun to work (it seems to work on knockdowns, but nothing else for me). It’s still a 5 initiative cost, 600 range distance closer that can also be used as a 1200 range return back to where you used it. It also removes a condition upon return.

I mean seriously, if anyone thinks it’s bad, all I can really think is that you are. It’s like a mini Shadowstep, which is our best utility skill.

I actually just laugh at DPS thieves in PvE whenever they use D/D. All they can do is help on one enemy. That’s more of a hindrance than anything. I’d much rather have someone in my party who can deal AoE damage and actually contribute more than just DPS. Sword – with either Pistol or Dagger offhand – can contribute this with DPS.

You guys are comparing PvP for weapon combinations. Fact of the matter is some will be better in PvP than in PvE, and that is definitely the case with Dagger and Sword.

there’s a skill called death blossom

Hence why I said “DPS thieves.” Condition thieves are fine in PvE. Never said they weren’t. I will always laugh at DPS thieves using Death Blossom even at all. It’s a waste of initiative and time.

I’m also laughing at you for your inability to read.

Krathalos.3461:

Hence why I said “DPS thieves.” Condition thieves are fine in PvE. Never said they weren’t. I will always laugh at DPS thieves using Death Blossom even at all. It’s a waste of initiative and time.

I’m also laughing at you for your inability to read.

Condition thieves are “DPS thieves”, condition damage is a great, if slightly more situational way, to put out DPS.