Guild Wars 2

Hello.

I would just like to suggest that Death Blossom’s evade frame should be increased from 1/4 seconds to 1/2 seconds considering the animation time frame.

The reason why I would like to suggest this change is because, from looking at a comparison span with the rest of the 3rd weapon skill using dual wielding weapons for thieves (excluding the “no off-hand” weapon skills), death blossom is the easily the weakest of the combinations.

1/2 of the dual wielding skills are evasive skills, whereas for s/d, Flanking Strike is an evade, a boon removal, and a precursor to a secondary 3rd weapon skill that does almost half the damage as backstab, and for Pistol whip, a CC with a ~1.25 second evade frame that pumps up large amounts of damage the more hits you hit on your enemy; similar to Death Blossom but with a drastically low damage drop off, low conditional application and a small evasive frame.

I realize the dual-wielding 3rd weapon skill is unique to each and every dual-wielding option, but from all of these points listed, I believe Death Blossom deserves some buffing, regardless if it’s a very weak skill to tweak, increasing a small portion such as the evasive frame from 1/4 second to 1/2 second can make a large deal.

In conclusion, this is more of a biased opinion towards having more survivability with d/d compared to the other dual wielding options, but I believe out of all weapon skills, Death Blossom could be improved from its weak perspective.

P.S. I just wanted to show how many hours I’ve put into my thief out of all my characters to show that I know at least a small fraction of thief ;-;

Thanks.

people have been asking for a death blossom change since the extinction of the dinosaurs,
while i do think the evade frame should better reflect the animation i don’t think it would cause the skill to see more use, its a condition skill in a power weapon set.

people wanting a condition spec will use condition weapons like p/d,

i’d go with your suggestion to increase the evade frame, but i’d also remove the bleeds and increase the damage to make it a power skill.

yes to increasing the frame.

No to all other suggestions of ‘improvements’, especially ‘powerizing’ it.

I honestly belive that this would bring d/d back, so it is not going to happen after all the effort to ruin that set. Also the evade used to be longer it got nerfed since it was actually possible to reliably evade attacks with deathblossom which can not be. Basically it was the same as with sb3 (which also got nerfed on evasion duration). We are supposed to evade on 1/4 a sec (minus lag and animation delay) with unreliable pathing just because “tribulation mode” is inherent to thieves not using a sword.

So forget about it. Go copy the s/d spvp heros spam 1 and have fun.

I think it would be cool to turn it into a form of warrior’s whirlwind attack (GS#3).

Leave the damage, bleeds, and range the same.

Increase the evade time to .5 seconds and make it directional (the same way you aim GS#3)

That would give D/D a little more sustain, allowing for evasive repositioning, and a little bit of running if needed. I think it might put it on par with S/D#3, D/P#3, and S/P#3.

Liewec.2896:

people have been asking for a death blossom change since the extinction of the dinosaurs,
while i do think the evade frame should better reflect the animation i don’t think it would cause the skill to see more use, its a condition skill in a power weapon set.

people wanting a condition spec will use condition weapons like p/d,

i’d go with your suggestion to increase the evade frame, but i’d also remove the bleeds and increase the damage to make it a power skill.

Not a problem that it does condition damage. Doesn’t need to be changed.

Well well well look who finally came to the forums. I like your suggest op but didnt db use to have an evade from of 1/2 sec then it got nerfed?

@Liewec.2896 – I am going to have to agree with Faeyd.5094. D/D already has a lot of damage capability towards it, the only thing it lacks is survivability. The bleeds may not look like it’s a huge deal, but it really is.

Math: Death Blossom does a base bleeding of 42.5 at level 80, 3 stacks (considering the situation that all 3 attacks hit), is 127.5 bleeding/second. From most D/D thieves, the highest chance of sustainability, thieves use D/D with shadow arts (26600 or 20606), being able to usually maintain 6-8 might stacks (210-280 condition damage) which is equivalent to 159-169.5 bleeding ticks (still considering all 3 hits hit), enough to cover soothing mist (1050/10 seconds (105/sec) and 1/3rd of regeneration boon (192.5/second) with an average celestial ele of roughly 500 healing power~ .

The reason behind this is because in order to lock down a regeneration of an ele is to constantly apply poison to reduce their healing efficiency by 33%.

Now for a warrior, The generic healing signet is 362-370/sec, which we can already deduct 1/3 of it (241/sec) with poison – using the math earlier (159.5-169 bleed/sec) reduces the healing to 81-91/sec from healing signet. Applying CC such as crippling dagger can be a very large mistake due to regeneration boon – pumping their natural regeneration for 3~ seconds from 81-91/sec to an average of 211-221/sec.

This math is theoretical and is not experimental whereas in real combat, constant evading, immunity skills, defy pain/endure pain, CC (if you’re stunned, they regenerate, and/or inability to get close from movement debuffs (cripple/chill, etc)) will reduce this math immensely.

TL;DR – The bleeding makes death blossom great in various aspects.

@Bazzoong.7145 – I have no interest in s/d (quite one of the easier weapon sets of the rest), I realize it was nerfed before, but that was when it cost 5 initiative. There may have been a time when they only changed the initiative where it was 4 initiatives with 1/2 second evade still, but was quickly changed to 1/4 second evade.

@Maugetarr.6823 – don’t get me wrong, some of these skills beared the same ability, usage, and animation as they did in GW1, death blossom was one of them where they did twirl around them. I think it would ruin the concept, but yes; it would be interesting if it was changed like GS #3 for warriors. I would also like to say that the animation on GS #3 on warrior is probably one of the strongest animations in the game. Basically anything that allows you to move while having an evading frame is really strong (burning speed has become very strong). I think this because you can adjust how far you evade with swiftness and have an insane additional mobility range (especially for thief when thieves use infiltrator signet, steal, shadowstep, shortbow, heartseeker, withdraw).

@vincecontix.1264 – Hey shika. Yes. Also, "This skill used to cost 5 initiative prior to the 25th of June 2013. " (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_Blossom)

Isn’t there a post like on this page discussing the same thing?

Anyways, no need to turn DB into a power skill, just make it evade properly and turn it into a skill shot (like whirlwind attack on warrior GS).

The rest is fine imo.

@NinjaEd.3946 – “https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/death-blossom-replace-inspire-the-devs” – Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I went through 11 pages back in the “Thief” category and this is the only one. Yes, it talks about Death Blossom but the person who started this thread is talking about a complete change of the skill, I am only talking about a slim change of correcting the evasive frame. Death Blossom really does not need to be reworked completely, d/d is already strong as is; people have not given it its full potential yet.

I’ve read through the whole thing and it really is full of people who are just trolling or are flaming others for no reason. I know I sound one-sided here, but please take a good time to reread that thread, the ideas are ridiculous and people aren’t even taking it seriously.

I really hope you would read about what I said of your idea back to what I responded to @Maugetarr.6823. I would give you the same response.

The only trouble with lengthening the evade frame stems from the skill doing way too much damage as is to be much more than a damage skill. I think it’s totally fine to strip a good amount of the damage off to make the evade reliable, but there’s a non-trivial number of players that just spam DB all day that will be saddened by such a change.

Nope, sometimes i like to bait my enemy using his powerful attack against me (Structural PoV), and death blossom is perfect for that (you know skill spammer consist of 3 powerful attack combination i.e guardians) if you increase its evade frame, they will never hit you and will turn Daggers thief to imbalance again (even a.i in citadel of flame will never land a hit against you). of course you need to time it well. sometimes its not that bad to take some damage. i say working as intended, no need to change. please if you want some evasive type thief, you can always switch weapons, i heard s/d and s/p has a lot of evade to offer.

Chapell.1346:

if you increase its evade frame, they will never hit you and will turn Daggers thief to imbalance again (even a.i in citadel of flame will never land a hit against you). of course you need to time it well. sometimes its not that bad to take some damage. i say working as intended, no need to change. please if you want some evasive type thief, you can always switch weapons, i heard s/d and s/p has a lot of evade to offer.

You basically contradict yourself in the same sentence. You have to time that evade frame, and not to mention the aftercast. The whole animation lasts near 3/4 seconds and only (atm) has a 1/4 second evade frame. So when it’s suggested to increase to 1/2 you still have a small window where your character is landing and cannot really do anything.

I can’t speak for the rest but if such an evade frame would cause “imbalance” i’d be perfectly ok with them shaving a little off the bleed duration to something like 7 seconds.

Right now death blossom is an incredibly clunky fire & forget skill with no real synergy with the rest of d/d because of that evade frame. If you use it for damage (condi) you’re subjecting yourself to easy incoming damage and being fairly easy to avoid altogether given the short distance it travels. Swiftness alone with some strafing can avoid DB and your guy will aim like a slow moving projectile almost always missing unless you’re in their face. Make it a skill shot and those with a thought could predict where to aim it (like ele with old dragon’s tooth) vs relying on their last location for a poor chance to actually hit.

NinjaEd.3946:

Chapell.1346:

if you increase its evade frame, they will never hit you and will turn Daggers thief to imbalance again (even a.i in citadel of flame will never land a hit against you). of course you need to time it well. sometimes its not that bad to take some damage. i say working as intended, no need to change. please if you want some evasive type thief, you can always switch weapons, i heard s/d and s/p has a lot of evade to offer.

You basically contradict yourself in the same sentence.

Nope. i did not, its just that i don’t like being one sided. and i am a bit afraid for buffing it, besides Daggers is about damage output not defense on evasion. right. please prove me wrong.

You have to time that evade frame, and not to mention the aftercast. The whole animation lasts near 3/4 seconds and only (atm) has a 1/4 second evade frame. So when it’s suggested to increase to 1/2 you still have a small window where your character is landing and cannot really do anything.

Apologies, but i feel bad for you if you cant predict a well timed attacked of your enemy opponent player or A.i as i stated, i do not want being one sided game has 3modes after all. did not include WvW for thy is about blobbing.

NinjaEd.3946:

I can’t speak for the rest

Please save me from your babble, but you miss to quote the most important part where i am coming from.

Nope, sometimes i like to bait my enemy using his powerful attack against me (Structural PoV), and death blossom is perfect for that (you know skill spammer consist of 3 powerful attack combination i.e guardians) yes its spvp

will include it so that readers might not get confused. and some references for his predecessor http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dagger_spammer

basically the bleed effect is fine for baiting some condition removal of your opponent. again, i.e guardians. will add one more well necros.

you’re welcome. its all about learning and teaching. right.

Chapell.1346:

Please save me from your babble, but you miss to quote the most important part where i am coming from.

Nope, sometimes i like to bait my enemy using his powerful attack against me (Structural PoV), and death blossom is perfect for that (you know skill spammer consist of 3 powerful attack combination i.e guardians) yes its spvp

will include it so that readers might not get confused. and some references for his predecessor http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dagger_spammer

basically the bleed effect is fine for baiting some condition removal of your opponent. again, i.e guardians. will add one more well necros.

you’re welcome. its all about learning and teaching. right.

Well spare me the lies, you can’t work with a .25 second evade frame to “bait” anything. Feel free to link a video where you are successfully baiting everything with DB and then we’ll talk.

If you honestly think DB is better at baiting then the enemy baiting you into using DB to smash you with a .5 second window of free hits, I’m afraid you’re living a fantasy. Far easier to laugh and attack a thief using DB than using DB as a thief to evade anything reliably.

Also feel free to name a single weapon set for thief that doesn’t have atleast 1 defensive skill. Thief needs them because they aren’t forgiving to play, and the fact that d/p is far easier to play than d/d and as rewarding if not more rewarding is a problem. DB is not the root but it is a culprit and needs a more suitable evade frame.

The aftercast and low damage (power) isn’t going to suddenly become op, and the fact that it applies 1 condition just makes it really easy to remove. 12 stacks of bleed and cripple(uncatchable commonly)? No problem, 1 condition removal and now you’re sitting at 0 initiative and bleed was prioritized. Thank goodness for game logic.

NinjaEd.3946:

Snip.

No need to, it will turn to spoon feed. they can always do it anytime make a VoD of it and take all the credit, i don’t mind though. just press 3 repeatedly when you’ve been focus fire in small and large scale fights until you run out of initiative. make sure to ready your stunbreak and hide.

NinjaEd.3946:

the fact that d/p is far easier to play

Ah, the terror of the scariest of all thief, D/p. yea, now i know where you came from.

the fact that it applies 1 condition just makes it really easy to remove. 12 stacks of bleed

Please stop doing 1v1, and stop watching your twitch.tv hero.

Thank goodness for logic.

You’re welcome

Chapell.1346:

NinjaEd.3946:

Snip.

No need to, it will turn to spoon feed. they can always do it anytime make a VoD of it and take all the credit, i don’t mind though. just press 3 repeatedly when you’ve been focus fire in small and large scale fights until you run out of initiative. make sure to ready your stunbreak and hide.

NinjaEd.3946:

the fact that d/p is far easier to play

Ah, the terror of the scariest of all thief, D/p. yea, now i know where you came from.

the fact that it applies 1 condition just makes it really easy to remove. 12 stacks of bleed

Please stop doing 1v1, and stop watching your twitch.tv hero.

Thank goodness for logic.

You’re welcome

Funny how all of your posts (not just in this thread) are “prove me wrong” or “twitch.tv hero” and anything along the lines of “I’m better than you”. Feel free to throw your crayons at the wall some more, I’m not taking any of it to heart

Good to know you’re an 3 spammer, gives me a pretty good idea of what game mode you’re effective in.

NinjaEd.3946:

Feel free to throw your crayons at the wall some more

My pleasure.

NinjaEd.3946:

Good to know you’re an 3 spammer, gives me a pretty good idea of what game mode you’re effective in.

Course definitely not guild wars,
as i stated you need to time it well.

Oh

You basically contradict yourself in the same sentence.

and

the lies

reported for accusing me as a liar and contradicting the truth. i will not tolerate that kind of insult against me.

Just a quick thought about increasing the evade frames:

Even if you upped the evade frames to cover the entire skill, the worst you should end up with is the current evasiveness of S/D. You can really only spam the evades for so long before you’re out of initiative. Perhaps if the evade were increased to .5 seconds and the cast time + pre/post cast were shortened to the same total length as FS, it could be fired off faster, but would deplete initiative just as fast as spamming FS.

Not to mention (as NinjaEd pointed out and I’ll mention again for emphasis) all the damage can be cleared with a single condi clear, so after you dump all of your initiative into it, everything gets canceled out.

The entire skill has a 1.15s use time. A 0.5s evade frame, starting from the beginning of the animation, would make the skill a lot easier to use reactively to evade – yes, you can use it for that now, but your timing has to be impeccable and even a little bump in latency will wreck you. At the same time, a 0.5s evade frame wouldn’t eliminate all counter play, as there’d still be a pretty substantial window at the end where you can’t do anything.

I think people really, really underestimate the damage that comes out of Death Blossom if it isn’t cleansed. Even in full Berserker gear the damage is not a joke – the base damage is non-trivial (80% of what Flanking Strike does) and if not dealt with will deal another 1900 armor ignoring damage over the bleed duration – yes, they can be cleansed, aren’t you thrilled that your opponent is burning condition cleanses on a few bleeds from a power thief?

It’s a much healthier skill with the damage coming from bleeds than a much lower burst, and there are plenty of condition specced thieves that equip a dagger for clearing camps and the like with Death Blossom; there’s no reason to wreck what they’re doing. Still, if the skill is going to be made reliable it’s going to need a 3-5 second base bleed duration reduction to keep it in line with Flanking Strike.

Please take in notice that I would not like to change this thread into what’s better than d/d or a replacement instead of d/d. My preference has always been d/d, I have always enjoyed it for as long as I can remember; hence why I usually only play thief. I find it much more challenging than any other weapon set for thieves, where weapon sets such as s/d and d/p have incredible gap closers (d/p 3 and s/d 2 (especially the s/d infiltrator strike glitch for people who are aware of it)). Dagger main-hand does have heartseeker where people repetitively use it. Just because a skill can be used in a certain way (such as spamming), does not mean it’s supposed to be used that way.

@Ensign.2189 – I would not mind a damage reduction, seeing that d/d already has a large damage output. The only reason I would like this change is for more survivability with d/d.

@Chapell.1346 – Look, I realize this “perma evade” is an issue. A lot of new people misinterpret these kinds of ways of fighting and just play for fun. I cannot win that argument, after all, it is a game. However, if you compare an average thief to a thief that actually knows what they’re doing, then the skill level is pretty obvious when you see each other fight. A lot of big names in PvP for thieves can be listed, and you can interview them how to play it, and they’ll give you a different answer than the average person would give you. I also realize that DB spam and s/d evade spam is very easy to play, but it does not mean that everyone is good at it; it just means that they’re trying to have fun.

Hey, NinjaEd.3946 and Chapell.1346, I don’t mind you guys sharing your thoughts, but you guys bouncing back at each other of who’s right and who’s not isn’t really supporting this suggestion. The least I want to do is to start something against you guys, but if this is getting too serious, please take your argument in PMs please.

P.S.

@Maugetarr.6823 – This is what I am trying to get at. People are just spamming DB as nothing, and don’t realize what it’s capable of. I did a bit of math in my previous post of the calculations, and what it can really do. My intention of this increase of evasion frame is not to spam it, even if I wanted to spam it, it could not do as much damage as I wanted to with the initiative I could have used it for. The difference between DB and FS is clear: FS does a large amount of damage, it’s a single hit and does not rely all accumulative hits to equal to FS, it’s a boon strip which allows it to give it a higher chance of doing it’s full potential damage (removing protection), and is a precursor to a stronger hit (larcenous strike). DB is also a “stationary” weapon skill, as in, the movement distance it outputs does not even come close to what FS can travel (excluding swiftness for further distance). I really am not concerned about the damage it does, it’s like the burning application D/D eles gives, it’s not the main source of damage, but it cancels out a lot of regeneration a person can do.

To rephrase my suggestion, this thread was posted to increase the evade frame for survivability; not for spamming (even though it may be taken the wrong way if it goes through).

Wow, i thought this thread is about DB being useless cos other fellow thieves doesn’t know how to use it properly.
and some of you suggested that, must need to increase the evade frame cos its unfair that other weapon set has more evade time frame and remove the bleeding at all and by compensating must increase the damage of the said dual weapon skill.

Gentlemen, i stand corrected.

@ Chapell: This thread is about bringing up the utility side of DB so that it can be useful in both power and condi builds. It doesn’t need a damage boost as Crucify has pointed out, but the pre/after cast make it a detriment to the set as a whole.

@ Crucify: I think we’re actually on the same page, but have sligtly different ideas about the exact scope of the changes that should be made. I also think it should be able to be used more reliably, but I think the skill shot would add the utility that D/D needs since it lacks the same sort of gap closers that the others have (shadowsteps).

What is that command to see your playtime

@Maugetarr.6823 – I also think that could be nice. As good as it sounds, I don’t think there would be any realistic way to show that animation with d/d. I actually think that’s what makes d/d better to me, is that there is no easy way to get closer to your opponent (besides heartseeker). From my experience, it makes me think more of how to get to my opponent without using shadowsteps/steal/signet and it allows me to think differently of where I should position myself in combat. My other point is that, changing the skill would really displace the meaning of some of the skills Anet implemented since GW1; they brought so many GW1 skills back to GW2, it brought good memories to many people including myself.

@Renegade.6240 – /age http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chat_command (if you need to know anymore)

Maugetarr.6823:

@ Chapell: This thread is about bringing up the utility side of DB so that it can be useful in both power and condi builds.

That is what i did, so its my fault now for spoon feeding all of you? oh dear, people in this sub forum need to play more and stop changing a non broken weapon skill.
No offense, i guess you need more another 5k hrs of play to do so.

Maugetarr.6823:

It doesn’t need a damage boost as Crucify has pointed out, but the pre/after cast make it a detriment to the set as a whole.

Oh please, i did not say it need a damage boost and please pin point which of my statement that i ask for a damage boost on DB. please re read the whole thread and which is which asking for buff changes and compensation (please name and shame them). (and for the sake of defense) as i stated it doesn’t need a change for thy skill is working as intended didn’t i say its all about teaching the fools?

you’re welcome.

Chapell.1346:

Maugetarr.6823:

@ Chapell: This thread is about bringing up the utility side of DB so that it can be useful in both power and condi builds.

That is what i did, so its my fault now for spoon feeding all of you? oh dear, people in this sub forum need to play more and stop changing a non broken weapon skill.
No offense, i guess you need more another 5k hrs of play to do so.

Maugetarr.6823:

It doesn’t need a damage boost as Crucify has pointed out, but the pre/after cast make it a detriment to the set as a whole.

Oh please, i did not say it need a damage boost and please pin point which of my statement that i ask for a damage boost on DB. please re read the whole thread and which is which asking for buff changes and compensation (please name and shame them). (and for the sake of defense) as i stated it doesn’t need a change for thy skill is working as intended didn’t i say its all about teaching the fools?

you’re welcome.

At least we all know who is the broken leg in this thread. Pulse some more negativity, love to see you’re infraction score raise the roof.

On to the topic, DB is not working as intended. If it was A) it’s complaint would be minor and easily buried in the forums (any sub-forum) and you would see it being used in game time to time on power builds and C) you would see it used time to time rather than spammed because it does no good on its own.

There is no learning DB, its a poor skill which only works on condi because it has 3x 10 sec bleeds. Even so, it is very easy to avoid, has a wide window where you cannot control your character from reacting to any incoming attack (love that aftercast, stick the landing!), and covers little ground making any attempt to reposition from this skill basically non-existent for power builds. So it works in 1/3 of effects (condi), the rest is thrown in there like a school lunch for a kid late to the bus.

It simply needs to be more reliable for power builds, condi can take it or leave it because it already has a use for them. Power builds generally treat DB like warriors treat HS active.

It doesn’t need anything for power builds – power builds on D/D are already sufficient, and any weakness they may have should just be addressed on the skills that are actually weak (like Dancing Dagger).

Death Blossom + Caltrops is the single most effective bleed stacking that any class in the game can achieve. In a condi build, it’s amazingly strong. Even in a pure power build, the damage is non-trivial and can be situationally useful. Calling Death Blossom a weak skill is hilariously ignorant.

Leaving it as primarily condition damage is a good thing because it allows D/D to be versatile, which it needs to be because the only other melee option Thieves have isn’t. The only thing it needs is a better evade so that it can work as a defensive utility for non-condition builds.

Einlanzer.1627:

It doesn’t need anything for power builds – power builds on D/D are already sufficient, and any weakness they may have should just be addressed on the skills that are actually weak (like Dancing Dagger).

Death Blossom + Caltrops is the single most effective bleed stacking that any class in the game can achieve. In a condi build, it’s amazingly strong. Even in a pure power build, the damage is non-trivial and can be situationally useful. Calling Death Blossom a weak skill is hilariously ignorant.

Leaving it as primarily condition damage is a good thing because it allows D/D to be versatile, which it needs to be because the only other melee option Thieves have isn’t. The only thing it needs is a better evade so that it can work as a defensive utility for non-condition builds.

QFT. All it needs is a half second evade window and it’ll be fine. Because I’m pretty sure it’d be more useful to Power builds to have a half second evade available on D/D without having to use endurance.

^ the 1/4 second isn’t the bad part. The bad part is that the evade doesn’t occur right away and instead happens during the middle of the animation.

Just why? If I wanna use it to dodge something, it means I need to dodge something now, not in 1/2 seconds.

@Einlanzer.1627 – Dancing dagger is probably the 2nd most useful skill to me, behind cloak and dagger. The reason I say this is because for d/d, your movement is very crippled compared to all of the other weapon sets (even p/d, pistol 3 has an insane distance range that makes it have such an advantage and it can also deal a lot of damage (5-6k from my tests)).

Dancing dagger:
1) It allows you to catch up to your enemy
2) It can be used as a bait to make your enemy use their evades
3) It removes blind/aegis for more accurate auto attacks to increase poison duration and/or cloak and dagger/steal combo for full efficiency.

This is nothing to brag about nor to think I am better than anyone. I have hosted months and months of Fight Clubs from T6-T8, and I have fought many d/d thieves. The only skill I use least of is Death blossom, and most of the times I get lucky when I avoid their steal/cnd combo, basilisk combo, or crippling dagger to keep distance. I just really think the evasion from does not look realistically evasive in the full duration of the animation. When I use it, sometimes I get hit at the beginning of the whirl, at the end of the whirl, and sometimes at the very top of the whirl animation.

I really hoped no one would compared this to the D/D death blossom condition build with caltrops. This is the perfect example of people spamming death blossom as if it is nothing. I mean, how hard is it to just stand out of the caltrops radius for 10 seconds and dodge the very slow animation of Death Blossom. I agree that it can do a lot of damage over time with the immense stacking of bleeds it can build up, but it can be easily dodged by walking out of the 240 radius.

@Xae Isareth.1364 – I agree, the evasion frame does not occur right away, sometimes I think it occurs at the top of the whirling animation but sadly I’ve been hit and hit people during the top of the animation as well.

replace the bleed with vulnerability?

Runewolf.8456:

replace the bleed with vulnerability?

The move then becomes useless for the condi users, and power users, if using D/D, are mostly just using CnD and backstabbing so it won’t do a thing for them.

Runewolf.8456:

replace the bleed with vulnerability?

Eh, no. D/d is a hybrid set at heart, but if they simply would make the evade on DB reliable and fix dancing dagger to something else (I’d say exchange the bounce for poison but that’s a whole different discussion) it could be tailored to both power and condi without making a whole new weapon set. The skills have multiple functions, it’s parts of death blossom that reek.

We already have poison on lotus strike

Hah!, OP knew how to use the word bait now eh? Fight Club, i laugh hard in this. i like this, no harm done its all about learning.
Now bring me and my crew on equal footing against those Champions of yours, engrave in that tombstone and we will show you how conquering works instead of 1v1.

The Caltrops / Death Blossom spam pattern is rather effective against bunched up mobs in PvE; it’s also relevant for clearing camps quickly in WvW. There are enough people taking advantage of it that it’d do more harm than good to eliminate the pattern entirely.

The most compelling balance change I’ve seen proposed to Death Blossom was to increase the target cap to 5.

From a PvP perspective, the skill really needs a reliable evade if it’s going to have compelling play patterns there; at the same time, the bleed duration (damage) is too high for a reliable defensive skill, so that would come down to keep it balanced. This harms those DB-centric bleed stack builds in PvE significantly. Raising the target cap, on the other hand, would be a huge boon to the skill for PvE where you can ball up 5 mobs fairly often, but in PvP the difference would be minimal.

In total, a longer evasion frame and higher target cap give it very clear use cases in both PvE and PvP, and shifting power into both of them allows the single target damage to drop to a point that’s reasonable without shafting the skill in either environment, and keeps the spirit of the skill as-is for people who already care for it.

NinjaEd.3946 – I would have to agree with Jana.6831. I hardly see thieves use auto attack often, sadly I see more people abuse CnD because of the insane damage it does over and over, and wait until they can get them low enough to burst them down with a final backstab. Poison is really a game changer for most classes and can cancel out their entire build, people just need to learn to auto attack more for the poison on 3rd chain.

Chapell.1346 – I used to do Fight Clubs months ago, and then it got really outdated and/or people kept on using the same builds because they had the urge to win rather to test other things out/learn/have fun. I know Fight Clubs are about learning, I posted that on my posts when I posted them (feel free to look at all of my posts I’ve posted). If you’d like a 5v5, we’re on FA; feel free to hit me up in PM.

Ensign.2189 – No doubt, it’s really effective in PvE, but I am more focused on WvW pvp aspect (no npc fighting (camps, towers, keeps, smc, etc)) because that’s where I find fights are more interesting when you can fight 5v20s, or 10v30s; it may seem I am just talking about wiping really bad pug zergs, but it’s more of the communication that goes on in the outnumbered group in voice communications rather than fighting the zerg.

I wouldn’t mind the increased target cap, although I never really considered it seeing that the reason I only wanted was higher sustainability/survivability rather more AoE. After all, “most melee attacks made with a sword (or larger weapons) will also hit up to 2 other (3 in total) foes if they are close enough to actual target of attack.” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aoe). If they added a higher target cap with one skill, it would have to change it for others; especially melee weapons, regarding that quote.

I don’t think they want to give d/d more evasion. and since d/d needs a bit more sustain how about… a 1/4 or 1/2 second of blind on landing. this might migrate a little bit.
so we would have 1/4 evasion animation (small window for counterattacks) 1/4 blind on land.

@Highlie.7641 – Not going to lie, SA d/d thieves in general have enough blind in the world, they can blind every 3 1/2 seconds, adding an additional blind would be too much I think. I really like the idea but I’m not sure how Anet would implement an idea like that. Would the blind be a certain radius or would it only blind targets you hit? If so, I think it could be very strong and very weak; 1/4 seconds of blind is very minimal, but it can lead to really lucky situations such as just simply DBing around a mesmer during their animation of summoning a phantasm – in which it would be canceled due to the blind. A 1/2 second blind could suffice, but again, just not needed.

was thinking maybe a small range aoe like 130 radius (sword range). You are right though it has a high change of either being Op or Useless.
I can’t really suggest anything else at the moment, i’m just getting off a 2 mnt break and have forgotten a lot. So I’m going to play the “i’m a newb” card and respectfully retreat to my corner. Good luck getting some change though, the thieve could really use a shake up at this point.

Nahh, reading all your statement and such (in this thread only) no need to go that far (if you also read my statement) and i feel like, i need to invest more 5k hrs before i can level my self on you heh. atleast we know the different path we choose to walk. for that i stand corrected.

Oh and i apologize, for thy rudeness cos i suddenly barge in and talk nonsense. i am sorry for doing such, but i learn so much reading and some cross words between players for that i thank you and fairwind.

Crucify.1649:

NinjaEd.3946 – I would have to agree with Jana.6831. I hardly see thieves use auto attack often, sadly I see more people abuse CnD because of the insane damage it does over and over, and wait until they can get them low enough to burst them down with a final backstab. Poison is really a game changer for most classes and can cancel out their entire build, people just need to learn to auto attack more for the poison on 3rd chain.

I know of the poison on auto attack, but as dancing dagger stands now it is entirely not worth the effort. POison is just a thought to help out s/d and p/d whom do not have poison, but its just a shot in the dark towards an entirely different discussion. If you wana add dancing dagger to this discussion I’d be happy to pitch in but right now its just in the crossfire of my problems with d/d (skills being un-used).

(Only reason I say poison is because some npc mobs have dancing dagger which do not bounce but instead apply poison. So not even my idea really lol).

Either lengthen the frame to 1/2 second and cut the condition duration by 1-2s since the durations on condi thief builds are already high and it would yield too much evasion on D/D condi with minimal skill interaction (3 spam forever)

OR

Put the evade at the cast of the skill, and cut down the aftercast by 1/4 second to keep the same vulnerability period at the end as it is now, and cut the condition duration by 1-2s.

Problem solved?

NinjaEd.3946:

Crucify.1649:

NinjaEd.3946 – I would have to agree with Jana.6831. I hardly see thieves use auto attack often, sadly I see more people abuse CnD because of the insane damage it does over and over, and wait until they can get them low enough to burst them down with a final backstab. Poison is really a game changer for most classes and can cancel out their entire build, people just need to learn to auto attack more for the poison on 3rd chain.

I know of the poison on auto attack, but as dancing dagger stands now it is entirely not worth the effort. POison is just a thought to help out s/d and p/d whom do not have poison, but its just a shot in the dark towards an entirely different discussion. If you wana add dancing dagger to this discussion I’d be happy to pitch in but right now its just in the crossfire of my problems with d/d (skills being un-used).

(Only reason I say poison is because some npc mobs have dancing dagger which do not bounce but instead apply poison. So not even my idea really lol).

It’s unlikely to get the same skill twice on the same weaponset and ask yourself where you can use 33% less healing better; on a melee skill that doesn’t cost initative or on a wonky skill that costs 4 initative.
P/D is the least set which needs help and S/D is mainly played without dagger, that’s just for the mobility or to cripple or stomp enemies.

@NinjaEd.3946 – Really great point, I almost forgot about the poison from Veteran Scouts in WvW. I would like to see dancing dagger to have maybe a 1-2 second poison on it and could name it to Venomous Dagger instead. As of now, I am only curious about death blossom, however, since you brought up the idea; you should consider posting a thread about it and I will try to support you as much as you supported me =).

@DeceiverX.8361 – Yeah, again, I don’t mind any nerfs towards DB, as long as they add in the increased 1/4 evade duration to what it is now, I would be happy. The location of the evasion frame, I also am not too worried about, as long as they fix the evasion frame of it now and redevelop the skill to work more accurately, that can also sound nice.

@Jana.6831 – Also a really great point. I do think they already have enough potential and I believe all projectile skills suffer from that "wonky"ness where the pathing is ridiculously off, haha.

Dancing Dagger has worse hitbox / pathing issues than most projectiles though; it’s noticeably worse than Trick Shot, for instance. It’s a slower projectile at the very least and has a nasty tendency to fail due to ‘out of range’ when chasing a target because it seem the range is determined when thrown, and coupled with the slow projectile speed it’s pretty easy for your target to get out of range before it arrives.

If it weren’t for that I think the skill is still pretty great; some minor condition damage might be worth looking at to give it a bit more oomph and flavor but the reliability is the biggest issue.

Crucify.1649:

I wouldn’t mind the increased target cap, although I never really considered it seeing that the reason I only wanted was higher sustainability/survivability rather more AoE.

We’re on the same page, I’m just looking a bit further ahead. To be useful in PvP the most straightforward fix would be to lengthen the evade frame and synch it with the start of the skill. The danger of that is the damage on the skill is actually pretty good at the moment; it’s being balanced as this weird hybrid offense / defense skill that just doesn’t do enough of either consistently enough to be generally useful. If you make it a good defensive skill without tweaking the damage then it becomes overpowered (especially on dumb unicorn condition builds where it puts out three 20 second bleeds while evading), so the damage has to come down to a level consummate with a defensive skill.

The thing is there are a lot of people playing with that off build of spamming Death Blossom, and really hitting the damage hard enough to be appropriate would really, really upset those players. Hence the increase of the target cap – it gives those players some of their power back in a way that’s potentially even more useful to them, with a minimal impact on its damage output in PvP formats.

Basically, +evade -damage solves the PvP problem quite well, but has non-trivial collateral damage on PvE and off builds. +evade -damage +targets on the other hand solves the PvP problem and does not have obvious collateral damage in PvE, which is why I’ve grabbed onto the idea so hard.

@Ensign.2189 – Your answer is much more superior than mine since it covers all three aspects of combat however mine is only fixated on one of them. The damage deduction I am neutral with seeing that the only thing I want is the evasion frame increase (it feels like I’ve repeated this 100 times >.<) but the increase target cap I don’t really see it happening.

Yes, I see it being very good in PvE where people are backing up their points with caltrops + DB, and it can last 20 seconds with 100% condition duration builds, but if it’s increased target cap, then it could also have a larger drawback due to hitting more targets – proc’ing more retaliation boons and would make the people who do like to spam it feel negative about it because of taking too much damage at once for the sacrifice of only 1/2 second evade. In some points, people could take more damage during the evasion frame if they could hit 5 targets than they could without using DB.

I just think that increasing the target cap; even though it can be very flexible for PvE and PvP, can have some negative feedback.

In my opinion, what really needs to happen is that Poison needs to do a bit more damage or stack in some way so that it could benefit more from condition damage.