Guild Wars 2

What is the point of this skill?

It’s not a reliable evade, because a 1/4 second evade with a precast is the definition of unreliable.

It’s not a good condi builder because it’s D/D exclusive, and D/D is a power based setup.

It’s a terrible AoE. Sword does AoEs a lot better and since thieves have no weapon skill CDs, the 2nd set you carry is purely for alternate utility rather than a rotation, so you may as well carry a sword for AoEs when you need to AoE.

And finally, it’s definitely not good single target DPS.

So, what’s the point of this skill?

You would think that as the D/D exclusive skill, it would embody what D/D is all about: high single target DPS, fast attacks. But no, it’s low AoE DPS, slow cast. Makes no sense whatsoever and IMO a complete waste of one of the coolest attack animations in the game.

Well, I use it to tag enemies so I can get more loot bags..

Wouldn’t shortbow #2 and #4 be better suited to tag enemies for loot bags? But maybe that’s your point :/

frans.8092:

Wouldn’t shortbow #2 and #4 be better suited to tag enemies for loot bags? But maybe that’s your point :/

Shhh…I can pretend it’s useful…

I think originally Anet wanted d/p to be the high single target DPS set, and they wanted d/d to be a good hybrid set. Poison on the autoattack, death blossom, and if you go a bit into deadly arts as well there is evidence

It is a great condition builder. Used in conjunction with a p/d setup it can lay down AOE bleeds in great quantities in short order. It has to be used tactically all the time.

It a great set for a hybrid build that has both power and condition damage. Used with Aristocrat runes as example, one can build a toon with ~ 1000+ condi damage and ~ 2000+ power as a baseline . You can then count on 14 stacks of might without any issues on top of that. As the situation warrants I switched between bleeds from range boosted with the occassional DB. The HS then acts as a great finisher which does not exist in a pure condition set.

This works better in a build that focuses on hybrid damage and acrobatics over stealth and the sneak attack.

One can build far more ticks of bleeds from DB then from p/d. For p/d to build stacks to any great extent one needs to stealth AND use duration food. With DB you can build stacks faster without stealth AND can have reliable bleeds withot condi duration food. In fact the duration of the bleeds is longer then the p/d bleeds or the s/b bleeds both boosted by 100 percent.

10 seconds base beats 4 seconds base. Without condi duration the p/d set can rarely load more then 10 stacks. I have got stacks to over 20 using a combination of DB and P/d while using only C and D for stealth. (indeed in this setup d/d as the main source of bleeds. P/d supplemented and was used for torments and bleeds at range when Ini an issue)

Note that 20 stacks of bleeds at 1000 condition damage does more then 12 stacks of bleeds at 2000 condition damage. Being able to stack 20 bleeds then use a HS that does 6k damage and more is effective. This type of build is also very effective against Eles using diamond skin and or those using – duration food and melandru.

Whether one has bleeds on them from a P/d attack or from an DB attack is also not something known to the user. When I face a p/d user relying on bleeds I KNOW that with a 4 second base I can afford to wait longer before a cleanse due to their short duration. I know leaving a handful on will not necessarily lead to there suddenly being 20 on.

With a 10 second base this harder to judge and those stacks will build faster if not cleared.

The evade should be a bit higher and it would be perfect.

I think ANet doesn’t know what to do with this skill. I’m sure they like the animation and see it as a cornerstone of sorts of this class but are split between its uses. It’s an evade, a dot, a whirl finisher, and does some damage — based on this, they seem to leave it alone, but it tries to be too much and accomplishes nothing in the end by doing so.

But as you said, D/D is based on power, not conditions. This skill seems to be a leftover from early development when Thief was supposed to be this precision+condition damage type class with on-demand “burst” via Backstab (although it’d hit like a noodle thanks to lack of power and crit. damage).

I don’t think we need another personal DPS skill for D/D, because we got HS and backstab already, both of which are massive DPS so…

If they cut the cost of it down to 2 initiative, take away the bleed and make the evade 1/2 seconds, it might make a good dodging alternative for PvE.

If they make it add say, blind, it’ll make good trashmob control.

If they make it add say, 3 or 4 stacks of vulnerability, it’ll be a good group DPS skill.

Dont take my Death Blossom away. that skill is godly in condition build. stack bleed like crazy. like babazhook.6805 sayed it is great condition builder.

Famps.7461:

Dont take my Death Blossom away. that skill is godly in condition build. stack bleed like crazy. like babazhook.6805 sayed it is great condition builder.

The problem is that the rest of D/D is power based, so you’ll either be spamming 1 skill over and over, or not using it at all and can’t take it out of your bar.

In most games, the solution to situational skills is allowing the player to swap them out. In GW2, this isn’t possible, and is made even worse with this particular case because you can’t get DB on anything else but D/D,

I’m afraid I’d have to disagree with the D/D condi. A guildie of mine experimented with it, but 1v1, it still lost against the D/D backstab. The waste of initiative wasn’t worth the damage output.

If there actually is a condi D/D that can match up with backstab D/D, I want to see it. Right now, the only use I can find for death blossom, are tagging enemies, and being a whirl finisher.

>>The problem is that the rest of D/D is power based, so you’ll either be spamming 1 skill over and over, or not using it at all and can’t take it out of your bar.

Not really. The poison off the auto attack, the cripple off number 4 and the endurance regen off the auto attack can not be called “for power builds only”.

Again you do not USE d/d alone in a condition build. You use it in conjunction with p/d and it works great as part of a hybrid build.

You are trying to compare it to the direct damage of the backstab. You compare apples and oranges. It is not intended to be used as part of a power build.

D/d is the only melee weapon a thief has that stacks bleeds.

babazhook.6805:

>>The problem is that the rest of D/D is power based, so you’ll either be spamming 1 skill over and over, or not using it at all and can’t take it out of your bar.

Not really. The poison off the auto attack, the cripple off number 4 and the endurance regen off the auto attack can not be called “for power builds only”.

Again you do not USE d/d alone in a condition build. You use it in conjunction with p/d and it works great as part of a hybrid build.

You are trying to compare it to the direct damage of the backstab. You compare apples and oranges. It is not intended to be used as part of a power build.

D/d is the only melee weapon a thief has that stacks bleeds.

Poison and cripple aren’t damaging conditions, and frankly, in PvE, they aren’t even useful conditions unless we start getting heavy healers or mobs you absolutely need to kite.

D/D basically is a power build setup, having 1 skill with a condi builder doesn’t make it a condi setup.

Besides, ignoring all that. If you want to run a power D/D, because thats what most of your skills on your bar is for, then what the heck are you going to do with this skill? If you want to make non-customisable, fixed skill bars, you need to make everything on that bar have an use. This skill has no use other than looking kitten in a D/D power build.

babazhook.6805:

Again you do not USE d/d alone in a condition build. You use it in conjunction with p/d and it works great as part of a hybrid build.

You are trying to compare it to the direct damage of the backstab. You compare apples and oranges. It is not intended to be used as part of a power build.

D/d is the only melee weapon a thief has that stacks bleeds.

What are the traits used for the d/d hybrid? I’d like to see them.

As for ‘comparing’ backstab to condi, that wasn’t where it fell short. It was the waste of initiative to damage output – same reason why spamming HS is deemed faulty. Death Blossom doesn’t hurt, even with a build that supports conditions.

Death Blossom is a remnant from the days where aNet still though they could make a single weapon-set both appealing for Power and Condition users.

Or maybe originally, things weren’t supposed to be separated at all unlike the way they are now.

Whatever the case may be it’s clear that Death Blossom serves no purpose in the D/D weapon-set.

>>As for ‘comparing’ backstab to condi, that wasn’t where it fell short. It was the waste of initiative to damage output – same reason why spamming HS is deemed faulty. Death Blossom doesn’t hurt, even with a build that supports conditions.

this shows a profound ignorance of how condition builds work. Death blossom lays down more bleeds then does the p/d set. in a shorter time period. To claim it does no damage even in a condition build is nonsense unless one wishes to claim conditions do no damage. One more time 20 stacks of bleeds at 1k condition damage do more damage then 12 stacks at 2k. You can get closer to 20 with DD using DB then you can with p/d. If DB does no damage with its bleeds then neither does p/d.

Ini to damage output is another specious argument

If one traits for power one will get more damage from the second part of shadowstrike then from the torment it inflicts were one traited for conditions.
That one gets more damage per ini spent does not suddenly mean p/d is now a damage set and not suited for conditions.

This is just the nature of power damage versus condition damage. It not a weapon set issue. One must build stacks in a condi setup.

>>D/D basically is a power build setup, having 1 skill with a condi builder doesn’t make it a condi setup.

It can be part of a condi build because it inflicts bleeds. It inflicts bleeds at a higher rate then does P/d and longer lasting ones.

I have played these sets extensively. I can get far more stacks of bleeds using db then I can using p/d.

People are allowed two weapon sets in Gw2 and can swap out as needed. D/d is an excellent complement to p/d in a condition build and in particular a hybrid type build.

>>As for ‘comparing’ backstab to condi, that wasn’t where it fell short. It was the waste of initiative to damage output – same reason why spamming HS is deemed faulty. Death Blossom doesn’t hurt, even with a build that supports conditions.

this shows a profound ignorance of how condition builds work. Death blossom lays down more bleeds then does the p/d set. in a shorter time period. To claim it does no damage even in a condition build is nosense unless one wishes to claim conditions do no damage.

Ini to damage output is another specious argument.

If one traits for power one will get more damage from the second part of shadowstrike then from the torment it inflicts were one traited for conditions.
That one gets more damage per ini spent does not suddenly mean p/d is now a damage set and not suited for conditions.

This is just the nature of power damage versus condition damage.

>>D/D basically is a power build setup, having 1 skill with a condi builder doesn’t make it a condi setup.

It can be part of a condi build because it inflicts bleeds. It inflicts bleeds at a higher rate then does P/d and longer lasting ones.

I have played these sets extensively. I can get far more stacks of bleeds using db then I can using p/d.

People are allowed two weapon sets in Gw2 and can swap out as needed. D/d is an excellent complement to p/d in a condition build and in particular a hybrid type build.

>>D/D basically is a power build setup, having 1 skill with a condi builder doesn’t make it a condi setup.

What makes a condi setup? Why is p/d used for conditions? It only adds 2 stacks of torment as an extra condition. The usage of torment is meant more as a cover then a source of damage. Most condi builds still rely on bleeds.

A D/d set can get cover conditions . You can still get torment via p/d as the second weapon set. You can get it via a venom. You can get covers via your steals and trait for weakness and the like. What logic dictates that d/d can not be part of a condition build because one of its abilities gives 3 stacks of bleeds that last ten seconds?

The advantage p/d has is not “more conditions”. It is the ability to fight at ranged.

Why does a p/d condi build use C and D? That is expensive in INI points yet it a focal point of the build. They are not getting a whole lot of damage off C and D.

They do this to stealth so they can launch “sneak attack” sneak attack loads on 5 stacks of 4 second bleeds. It requires one get to melee range in order to use it. This costs more ini then does a death blossom.

Why is sneak attack preferable for laying down bleeds over DB?

DB is 4 ini to get 3 stacks of bleeds that last 10 seconds on multiple targets. It pretty hard to “miss”.

Sneak attack is 6 ini to get 5 stacks of bleed that last 4 seconds on one target. It easier to miss the cloak.

I suggest you burn less ini using DB if the goal is bleed stacks.

Yes, it’s totally useless.

babazhook.6805:

>>D/D basically is a power build setup, having 1 skill with a condi builder doesn’t make it a condi setup.

What makes a condi setup? Why is p/d used for conditions? It only adds 2 stacks of torment as an extra condition. The usage of torment is meant more as a cover then a source of damage. Most condi builds still rely on bleeds.

A D/d set can get cover conditions . You can still get torment via p/d as the second weapon set. You can get it via a venom. You can get covers via your steals and trait for weakness and the like. What logic dictates that d/d can not be part of a condition build because one of its abilities gives 3 stacks of bleeds that last ten seconds?

The advantage p/d has is not “more conditions”. It is the ability to fight at ranged.

Why does a p/d condi build use C and D? That is expensive in INI points yet it a focal point of the build. They are not getting a whole lot of damage off C and D.

They do this to stealth so they can launch “sneak attack” sneak attack loads on 5 stacks of 4 second bleeds. It requires one get to melee range in order to use it. This costs more ini then does a death blossom.

Why is sneak attack preferable for laying down bleeds over DB?

DB is 4 ini to get 3 stacks of bleeds that last 10 seconds on multiple targets. It pretty hard to “miss”.

Sneak attack is 6 ini to get 5 stacks of bleed that last 4 seconds on one target. It easier to miss the cloak.

I suggest you burn less ini using DB if the goal is bleed stacks.

i just qoute this because i agree.

What setup would you use for a hybrid build though. I’ve yet to see a working hybrid build that is competitive to a pure power or condi build.

However, you might have a point on the condi build. I went and tried stacking bleeds with DB and cantrops, it does stack very well. I’m not sure how the numbers compare to say, a warrior s/s build however. It’s also an extremely boring build that consists of spamming 1 skill over and over.

Run a hybrid build a death blossom is really strong. I will upload a video when I get home.

^ does it compare well to a pure power or condi build though? By that I mean, what’s its DPS?

I really can’t see it comparing well, just because on D/D, you can choose to specialise on either. It has the potential to work well on warrior s/s, because your damage is forcefully split into the two halves.

With d/d, you can completely ignore either half, and since thief skills have no CD, there’s no rotations which could benefit from having both halves.

In other words, if you decide on going hybrid, just thinking of it theoretically, you’re basically gimping yourself.

Another point I would like to make (at Anet) is that if you’re gonna make a system where you can’t swap out weapon skills at all, you need to make every skill have some sort of a use in every setup it can go on. It was fine putting skills with a 1% situational use in GW1, because you can slot it in in that 1%, and slot it out in the 99%. But when you got a skill hogging your skillbar which has 0 use whatsoever in your setup and there’s nuts all you can do about it, it’s just annoying.

I’m also thinking of what if d/d thieves gained a huge DPS buff for being in 100% endurance and buffed DB’s evade to 1/2? Then you might have an elite meta where the optimal play is to use DB’s 1/2 second evade to dodge stuff.

The answer is no. What use would another power-based attack give you? You get what you need from the auto, backstab, and heartseeker. Death Blossom is there to give the set versatility, both with condition damage support and, more importantly, with AoE, which it does very well. It allows D/D to be playable in many more situations than it would be otherwise. Many sets operate in this way, including P/P and P/D, with skills that benefit from both power and condition – that’s by design and how it should be, because otherwise you’d be overly restricted in weapon choices based on your current build.

Not only that, but it’s quite strong with a hybrid based build (which tends to give you greater versatility at the expense of raw damage – again, by design). It actually fits the set perfectly well and frankly, I don’t get why it’s complained about so much.

Xae Isareth.1364:

What setup would you use for a hybrid build though. I’ve yet to see a working hybrid build that is competitive to a pure power or condi build.

However, you might have a point on the condi build. I went and tried stacking bleeds with DB and cantrops, it does stack very well. I’m not sure how the numbers compare to say, a warrior s/s build however. It’s also an extremely boring build that consists of spamming 1 skill over and over.

Again, it’s not about the raw DPS, it’s about the versatility. Damage coming from both physical and condition sources, and the ability to drop a significant amount of passive AoE damage while you focus fire one target are huge boons that going hybrid with D/D gives you the ability to do. You also get the smaller bonus of increased Poison efficacy, improved Caltrops (they stack super well), cripple, steal items, and whatever else you may have in your utility kitten nal.

Now, the kicker here, and something I’m sure some people aren’t getting, is that it’s largely a PvE vs PvP thing. The above versatility does tend to be more useful in PvE than it is in PvP. I’d bet a lot of people who complain about Death Blossom are primarily PvPers. As someone who primarily does PvE, I absolutely don’t want my Death Blossom going anywhere.

^ give me a hybrid build that has higher DPS than a pure power build. I’ve been experimenting this morning, I can’t think one, not for solo, definitely not for group play.

The thing about thieves is that functionality isn’t actually nessecary most of the time. For example, if I’m running a a/m/s warrior, I need that weapon swap because of offhand CDs, so if say, axe 3 was a ranged AA instead, it might be handy.

However, thieves don’t have cooldowns, do if I need AoE, I’ll just switch to my sword. If I run a pure power build, the bleed on DB is useless, and the 1/4 evade with a pre-cast is far from reliable, so the skill doesn’t have much utility to compensate for its terrible damage.

If it added 5 sec weakness or 3 stacks of 10 sec vul, it might be useful. But as it is, I’m struggling to find any use for it outside of a condi build where you spam 3 over and over.

@above: meant for poster above you.

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ give me a hybrid build that has higher DPS than a pure power build. I’ve been experimenting this morning, I can’t think one, not for solo, definitely not for group play.

The thing about thieves is that functionality isn’t actually nessecary most of the time. For example, if I’m running a a/m/s warrior, I need that weapon swap because of offhand CDs, so if say, axe 3 was a ranged AA instead, it might be handy.

However, thieves don’t have cooldowns, do if I need AoE, I’ll just switch to my sword. If I run a pure power build, the bleed on DB is useless, and the 1/4 evade with a pre-cast is far from reliable, so the skill doesn’t have much utility to compensate for its terrible damage.

If it added 5 sec weakness or 3 stacks of 10 sec vul, it might be useful. But as it is, I’m struggling to find any use for it outside of a condi build where you spam 3 over and over.

See my response above. Caltrops + Death Blossom on a hybrid or condi build gives you astonishingly good passive melee range AoE, something D/D is otherwise not capable of.

You people that myopically focus on DPS are just silly, especially in a game like GW2 where combat is very active and individually focused. I’d sacrifice a small amount of single target DPS on a training dummy for significantly greater AoE, passive damage, and general versatility in just about any situation. That’s why I also tend to play P/P as hybrid because it just functions better overall even though you sacrifice a little bit of burst.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

What setup would you use for a hybrid build though. I’ve yet to see a working hybrid build that is competitive to a pure power or condi build.

However, you might have a point on the condi build. I went and tried stacking bleeds with DB and cantrops, it does stack very well. I’m not sure how the numbers compare to say, a warrior s/s build however. It’s also an extremely boring build that consists of spamming 1 skill over and over.

Again, it’s not about the raw DPS, it’s about the versatility. Damage coming from both physical and condition sources, and the ability to drop a significant amount of passive AoE damage while you focus fire one target are huge boons that going hybrid with D/D gives you the ability to do. You also get the smaller bonus of increased Poison efficacy, improved Caltrops (they stack super well), cripple, steal items, and whatever else you may have in your utility kitten nal.

Now, the kicker here, and something I’m sure some people aren’t getting, is that it’s largely a PvE vs PvP thing. The above versatility does tend to be more useful in PvE than it is in PvP. I’d bet a lot of people who complain about Death Blossom are primarily PvPers. As someone who primarily does PvE, I absolutely don’t want my Death Blossom going anywhere.

I’m primary doing pve now. If I want melee Aoe with evade frame I use S/P. From PvP perspective… I want Death blossom to get lost in the jungle and die from malaria, so it would get replaced by something actually useful like shadowshot on D/P.

Edit.: Since anet lets me post only once in an hour for spreading truth, im answering to next post here.
When it comes to trash things die faster then caltrops and death blossom would be able get to its full effect. Single pistolwhip does at least 10 k damage to lvl 80 mobs for 5 initiative, considering one will come back from critting, thats 4 seconds worth of initiative done in 2 seconds time. To do 10 k damage from bleeds in 4 seconds you gotta have 25 stacks of bleeds 100 damage tick per stack You would have to have 200 damage per tick per stack to do that in 2s. Not even mentioning time to ge tthose stacks up even with caltrops+deathblossom and caltrops has cooldown. Anything will be dead long before that, not even mentioning stuff in dungeons where you will be running with might and vulnerability stacks. SO yeah… Pistol whip and S/P in general provides MUCH MORE damage then deathblossom and caltrops. Dont get me started on boss fights where you can have 25 stacks of vulnerability which dont affect condition damage, thats extra 25 % physical damage.
So yeah, Deathblossom, besides of looking cool and attracting newbies attention, is useless same as any condi damage. On trash and mobs in open world because : they die much faster from physical damage then you are able to stack high amount of bleeds. In Boss fights because of bleed cap of 25 stacks and lack of damage in general because damage modifiers from traits and vulnerability not working with conditions. Im pistol whiping for up to 20- 25k on bosses and numbers close to that from full auto attack chain in between when topping up initiative, thats 7 k + damage per second. To reach 7 k dps with 25 personal stacks of bleeds you would have to do 300 damage per single stack tick which is simply impossible, same as keeping 25 stacks of bleeds up from single source.
Oh and you dont even have to go far to find weapon set with 0 access to aoe – thats D/P, same class.

Karolis.4261:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

What setup would you use for a hybrid build though. I’ve yet to see a working hybrid build that is competitive to a pure power or condi build.

However, you might have a point on the condi build. I went and tried stacking bleeds with DB and cantrops, it does stack very well. I’m not sure how the numbers compare to say, a warrior s/s build however. It’s also an extremely boring build that consists of spamming 1 skill over and over.

Again, it’s not about the raw DPS, it’s about the versatility. Damage coming from both physical and condition sources, and the ability to drop a significant amount of passive AoE damage while you focus fire one target are huge boons that going hybrid with D/D gives you the ability to do. You also get the smaller bonus of increased Poison efficacy, improved Caltrops (they stack super well), cripple, steal items, and whatever else you may have in your utility kitten nal.

Now, the kicker here, and something I’m sure some people aren’t getting, is that it’s largely a PvE vs PvP thing. The above versatility does tend to be more useful in PvE than it is in PvP. I’d bet a lot of people who complain about Death Blossom are primarily PvPers. As someone who primarily does PvE, I absolutely don’t want my Death Blossom going anywhere.

I’m primary doing pve now. If I want melee Aoe with evade frame I use S/P. From PvP perspective… I want Death blossom to get lost in the jungle and die from malaria, so it would get replaced by something actually useful like shadowshot on D/P.

Caltrops and Death Blossom does way more damage than a single Pistol Whip, it does it passively, you don’t always have the luxury of swapping sets in an instant, and you shouldn’t be required to run S/P secondary (another melee set) just to have access to basic AoE. Without Death Blossom, D/D would be just about the only set in the game with zero ability to deal damage to multiple targets.

The fact that you can’t see how it’s useful doesn’t make it not useful. You aren’t analyzing properly. Neither is anyone else complaining about the skill.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ give me a hybrid build that has higher DPS than a pure power build. I’ve been experimenting this morning, I can’t think one, not for solo, definitely not for group play.

The thing about thieves is that functionality isn’t actually nessecary most of the time. For example, if I’m running a a/m/s warrior, I need that weapon swap because of offhand CDs, so if say, axe 3 was a ranged AA instead, it might be handy.

However, thieves don’t have cooldowns, do if I need AoE, I’ll just switch to my sword. If I run a pure power build, the bleed on DB is useless, and the 1/4 evade with a pre-cast is far from reliable, so the skill doesn’t have much utility to compensate for its terrible damage.

If it added 5 sec weakness or 3 stacks of 10 sec vul, it might be useful. But as it is, I’m struggling to find any use for it outside of a condi build where you spam 3 over and over.

See my response above. Caltrops + Death Blossom on a hybrid or condi build gives you astonishingly good passive melee range AoE, something D/D is otherwise not capable of.

You people that myopically focus on DPS are just silly, especially in a game like GW2 where combat is very active and individually focused. I’d sacrifice a small amount of single target DPS on a training dummy for significantly greater AoE, passive damage, and general versatility in just about any situation.

The thing is, where would that passive damage be helpful?

If you go full power, the bleed damage is just negligible. If you go hybrid, I’m struggling to get the numbers to be favorable or for any justification of not going either way. If you go condi, first of all, as things stand, condi damage is pretty much useless in any grouped content, and second of all, we’re basically going back to 3 spam+ caltrops.

If I wanted AoE, I’ll just switch to a sword or shortbow until the trash/adds are down. They do a much better job of it, I don’t think I need to argue that. There’s no situation where I want to focus on target whilst doing low damage to its surrounding targets, it’s always either burn down the boss, or kill adds, because yoy always want to take out one threat or the other, not keep them both around for longer.

Even if we ignore all that, DB costs 4 initiative. Its just not a good use of that 4 initiative.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ give me a hybrid build that has higher DPS than a pure power build. I’ve been experimenting this morning, I can’t think one, not for solo, definitely not for group play.

The thing about thieves is that functionality isn’t actually nessecary most of the time. For example, if I’m running a a/m/s warrior, I need that weapon swap because of offhand CDs, so if say, axe 3 was a ranged AA instead, it might be handy.

However, thieves don’t have cooldowns, do if I need AoE, I’ll just switch to my sword. If I run a pure power build, the bleed on DB is useless, and the 1/4 evade with a pre-cast is far from reliable, so the skill doesn’t have much utility to compensate for its terrible damage.

If it added 5 sec weakness or 3 stacks of 10 sec vul, it might be useful. But as it is, I’m struggling to find any use for it outside of a condi build where you spam 3 over and over.

See my response above. Caltrops + Death Blossom on a hybrid or condi build gives you astonishingly good passive melee range AoE, something D/D is otherwise not capable of.

You people that myopically focus on DPS are just silly, especially in a game like GW2 where combat is very active and individually focused. I’d sacrifice a small amount of single target DPS on a training dummy for significantly greater AoE, passive damage, and general versatility in just about any situation.

The thing is, where would that passive damage be helpful?

If you go full power, the bleed damage is just negligible. If you go hybrid, I’m struggling to get the numbers to be favorable or for any justification of not going either way. If you go condi, first of all, as things stand, condi damage is pretty much useless in any grouped content, and second of all, we’re basically going back to 3 spam+ caltrops.

If I wanted AoE, I’ll just switch to a sword or shortbow until the trash/adds are down. They do a much better job of it, I don’t think I need to argue that. There’s no situation where I want to focus on target whilst doing low damage to its surrounding targets, it’s always either burn down the boss, or kill adds, because yoy always want to take out one threat or the other, not keep them both around for longer.

Even if we ignore all that, DB costs 4 initiative. Its just not a good use of that 4 initiative.

It’s not low damage. Death Blossom does more base damage than both Pistol Whip for less Initiative, significantly more damage than Cluster Bomb, and it synergizes extremely well with Caltrops, which is one of the Thief’s best melee range AoE tools.

You don’t kill mobs faster by damaging them one at a time than you do by dealing significant AoE damage while targeting one. Otherwise everyone wouldn’t switch to AoE when there are many targets, which is what always happens.

Sorry, you’re just not looking at it the right way. I don’t know what else to tell you.

I use a Death Blossom +caltrop spam build. It’s effective. It’s not a “waste of initiative” because you don’t need that initiative for anything else. I prefer it over S/P.

Power D/D builds don’t need another skill. Condi D/D builds… really don’t need another skill either, because it just works.

Einlanzer.1627:

Karolis.4261:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

What setup would you use for a hybrid build though. I’ve yet to see a working hybrid build that is competitive to a pure power or condi build.

However, you might have a point on the condi build. I went and tried stacking bleeds with DB and cantrops, it does stack very well. I’m not sure how the numbers compare to say, a warrior s/s build however. It’s also an extremely boring build that consists of spamming 1 skill over and over.

Again, it’s not about the raw DPS, it’s about the versatility. Damage coming from both physical and condition sources, and the ability to drop a significant amount of passive AoE damage while you focus fire one target are huge boons that going hybrid with D/D gives you the ability to do. You also get the smaller bonus of increased Poison efficacy, improved Caltrops (they stack super well), cripple, steal items, and whatever else you may have in your utility kitten nal.

Now, the kicker here, and something I’m sure some people aren’t getting, is that it’s largely a PvE vs PvP thing. The above versatility does tend to be more useful in PvE than it is in PvP. I’d bet a lot of people who complain about Death Blossom are primarily PvPers. As someone who primarily does PvE, I absolutely don’t want my Death Blossom going anywhere.

I’m primary doing pve now. If I want melee Aoe with evade frame I use S/P. From PvP perspective… I want Death blossom to get lost in the jungle and die from malaria, so it would get replaced by something actually useful like shadowshot on D/P.

Caltrops and Death Blossom does way more damage than a single Pistol Whip, it does it passively, you don’t always have the luxury of swapping sets in an instant, and you shouldn’t be required to run S/P secondary (another melee set) just to have access to basic AoE. Without Death Blossom, D/D would be just about the only set in the game with zero ability to deal damage to multiple targets.

The fact that you can’t see how it’s useful doesn’t make it not useful. You aren’t analyzing properly. Neither is anyone else complaining about the skill.

DB has a cast time of 1/2+1/4 aftercast= 0.75 second full cast. 0.6 skill coefficient.
PW cast a cast time of around 2.2. 3.3 skill coefficient.

This means even if we forget initiative and just assume you don’t ever run out, you can cast little less than 3 casts of DB in the time you full cast PW, giving DB a total comparable coefficient of 1.76. That’s 1.54 short.

Can you justify losing 1.54 coefficient in exchange for 9 stacks of 10s bleed in a power build, or justify going hybrid? This is ignoring that spamming DB 3 times costs 12 initiative vs PW’s 5.

this my condition build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY6Yl0Mp5p1NxzJsPNRLBx50nh3vpNzRzHEAA-TRSAABaoEM6TCQO6Hgw0HAPBgrU6x0+DIp+zYKDAA-e

it is more or less pure condition but i have traits in Deadly arts. with this build Deadly Blossom is amazing. i use DB in melee combat and i use p/d when i need to go in range and kite the mob or something.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ give me a hybrid build that has higher DPS than a pure power build. I’ve been experimenting this morning, I can’t think one, not for solo, definitely not for group play.

The thing about thieves is that functionality isn’t actually nessecary most of the time. For example, if I’m running a a/m/s warrior, I need that weapon swap because of offhand CDs, so if say, axe 3 was a ranged AA instead, it might be handy.

However, thieves don’t have cooldowns, do if I need AoE, I’ll just switch to my sword. If I run a pure power build, the bleed on DB is useless, and the 1/4 evade with a pre-cast is far from reliable, so the skill doesn’t have much utility to compensate for its terrible damage.

If it added 5 sec weakness or 3 stacks of 10 sec vul, it might be useful. But as it is, I’m struggling to find any use for it outside of a condi build where you spam 3 over and over.

See my response above. Caltrops + Death Blossom on a hybrid or condi build gives you astonishingly good passive melee range AoE, something D/D is otherwise not capable of.

You people that myopically focus on DPS are just silly, especially in a game like GW2 where combat is very active and individually focused. I’d sacrifice a small amount of single target DPS on a training dummy for significantly greater AoE, passive damage, and general versatility in just about any situation.

The thing is, where would that passive damage be helpful?

If you go full power, the bleed damage is just negligible. If you go hybrid, I’m struggling to get the numbers to be favorable or for any justification of not going either way. If you go condi, first of all, as things stand, condi damage is pretty much useless in any grouped content, and second of all, we’re basically going back to 3 spam+ caltrops.

If I wanted AoE, I’ll just switch to a sword or shortbow until the trash/adds are down. They do a much better job of it, I don’t think I need to argue that. There’s no situation where I want to focus on target whilst doing low damage to its surrounding targets, it’s always either burn down the boss, or kill adds, because yoy always want to take out one threat or the other, not keep them both around for longer.

Even if we ignore all that, DB costs 4 initiative. Its just not a good use of that 4 initiative.

It’s not low damage. Death Blossom does more base damage than both Pistol Whip for less Initiative, significantly more damage than Cluster Bomb, and it synergizes extremely well with Caltrops, which is one of the Thief’s best melee range AoE tools.

You don’t kill mobs faster by damaging them one at a time than you do by dealing significant AoE damage while targeting one. Otherwise everyone wouldn’t switch to AoE when there are many targets, which is what always happens.

Sorry, you’re just not looking at it the right way. I don’t know what else to tell you.

See above for PW vs DB.

Where is the synergy with caltrops though? Caltrops does the same amount of damage with you using or not using DB.

Famps.7461:

this my condition build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY6Yl0Mp5p1NxzJsPNRLBx50nh3vpNzRzHEAA-TRSAABaoEM6TCQO6Hgw0HAPBgrU6x0+DIp+zYKDAA-e

it is more or less pure condition but i have traits in Deadly arts. with this build Deadly Blossom is amazing. i use DB in melee combat and i use p/d when i need to go in range and kite the mob or something.

What’s the DPS on that build though?

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ give me a hybrid build that has higher DPS than a pure power build. I’ve been experimenting this morning, I can’t think one, not for solo, definitely not for group play.

The thing about thieves is that functionality isn’t actually nessecary most of the time. For example, if I’m running a a/m/s warrior, I need that weapon swap because of offhand CDs, so if say, axe 3 was a ranged AA instead, it might be handy.

However, thieves don’t have cooldowns, do if I need AoE, I’ll just switch to my sword. If I run a pure power build, the bleed on DB is useless, and the 1/4 evade with a pre-cast is far from reliable, so the skill doesn’t have much utility to compensate for its terrible damage.

If it added 5 sec weakness or 3 stacks of 10 sec vul, it might be useful. But as it is, I’m struggling to find any use for it outside of a condi build where you spam 3 over and over.

See my response above. Caltrops + Death Blossom on a hybrid or condi build gives you astonishingly good passive melee range AoE, something D/D is otherwise not capable of.

You people that myopically focus on DPS are just silly, especially in a game like GW2 where combat is very active and individually focused. I’d sacrifice a small amount of single target DPS on a training dummy for significantly greater AoE, passive damage, and general versatility in just about any situation.

The thing is, where would that passive damage be helpful?

If you go full power, the bleed damage is just negligible. If you go hybrid, I’m struggling to get the numbers to be favorable or for any justification of not going either way. If you go condi, first of all, as things stand, condi damage is pretty much useless in any grouped content, and second of all, we’re basically going back to 3 spam+ caltrops.

If I wanted AoE, I’ll just switch to a sword or shortbow until the trash/adds are down. They do a much better job of it, I don’t think I need to argue that. There’s no situation where I want to focus on target whilst doing low damage to its surrounding targets, it’s always either burn down the boss, or kill adds, because yoy always want to take out one threat or the other, not keep them both around for longer.

Even if we ignore all that, DB costs 4 initiative. Its just not a good use of that 4 initiative.

It’s not low damage. Death Blossom does more base damage than both Pistol Whip for less Initiative, significantly more damage than Cluster Bomb, and it synergizes extremely well with Caltrops, which is one of the Thief’s best melee range AoE tools.

You don’t kill mobs faster by damaging them one at a time than you do by dealing significant AoE damage while targeting one. Otherwise everyone wouldn’t switch to AoE when there are many targets, which is what always happens.

Sorry, you’re just not looking at it the right way. I don’t know what else to tell you.

See above for PW vs DB.

Where is the synergy with caltrops though? Caltrops does the same amount of damage with you using or not using DB.

Yes, I can justify it, and I do it all the time. 9 bleed stacks lasting 10 seconds is significant damage even in a power build, especially in conjunction with Caltrops, but it wouldn’t be a primary source of damage. I still use it often enough when facing more than one target because in those situations it’s a better use of Initiative than Heartseeker or Backstab.

In a hybrid or pure condi build, it’s just plain effective as hell. How do you not get the synergy with Death Blossom and Caltrops? Obviously if you are condi or hybrid both skills get stronger at the same rate. The two combined deal crazy amounts of bleed AoE damage in melee range. It’s unquestionably the most effective source of AoE the Thief has access to.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

^ give me a hybrid build that has higher DPS than a pure power build. I’ve been experimenting this morning, I can’t think one, not for solo, definitely not for group play.

The thing about thieves is that functionality isn’t actually nessecary most of the time. For example, if I’m running a a/m/s warrior, I need that weapon swap because of offhand CDs, so if say, axe 3 was a ranged AA instead, it might be handy.

However, thieves don’t have cooldowns, do if I need AoE, I’ll just switch to my sword. If I run a pure power build, the bleed on DB is useless, and the 1/4 evade with a pre-cast is far from reliable, so the skill doesn’t have much utility to compensate for its terrible damage.

If it added 5 sec weakness or 3 stacks of 10 sec vul, it might be useful. But as it is, I’m struggling to find any use for it outside of a condi build where you spam 3 over and over.

See my response above. Caltrops + Death Blossom on a hybrid or condi build gives you astonishingly good passive melee range AoE, something D/D is otherwise not capable of.

You people that myopically focus on DPS are just silly, especially in a game like GW2 where combat is very active and individually focused. I’d sacrifice a small amount of single target DPS on a training dummy for significantly greater AoE, passive damage, and general versatility in just about any situation.

The thing is, where would that passive damage be helpful?

If you go full power, the bleed damage is just negligible. If you go hybrid, I’m struggling to get the numbers to be favorable or for any justification of not going either way. If you go condi, first of all, as things stand, condi damage is pretty much useless in any grouped content, and second of all, we’re basically going back to 3 spam+ caltrops.

If I wanted AoE, I’ll just switch to a sword or shortbow until the trash/adds are down. They do a much better job of it, I don’t think I need to argue that. There’s no situation where I want to focus on target whilst doing low damage to its surrounding targets, it’s always either burn down the boss, or kill adds, because yoy always want to take out one threat or the other, not keep them both around for longer.

Even if we ignore all that, DB costs 4 initiative. Its just not a good use of that 4 initiative.

It’s not low damage. Death Blossom does more base damage than both Pistol Whip for less Initiative, significantly more damage than Cluster Bomb, and it synergizes extremely well with Caltrops, which is one of the Thief’s best melee range AoE tools.

You don’t kill mobs faster by damaging them one at a time than you do by dealing significant AoE damage while targeting one. Otherwise everyone wouldn’t switch to AoE when there are many targets, which is what always happens.

Sorry, you’re just not looking at it the right way. I don’t know what else to tell you.

See above for PW vs DB.

Where is the synergy with caltrops though? Caltrops does the same amount of damage with you using or not using DB.

Yes, I can justify it, and I do it all the time. 9 bleed stacks lasting 10 seconds is significant damage even in a power build, especially in conjunction with Caltrops, but it wouldn’t be a primary source of damage – you’d only use it when you needed AoE without weapon swapping.

In a hybrid or pure condi build, it’s just plain effective as hell. How do you not get the synergy with Death Blossom and Caltrops? Obviously if you are condi or hybrid both skills get stronger at the same rate. The two combined deal crazy amounts of bleed AoE damage in melee range. It’s probably the most effective source of AoE the Thief has access to.

If its significant damage, run the numbers by me. What assumptions are you using? What results did you get? If you wanna theorycraft DPS, I’m afraid you need the DPS to back your claims up :L.

Caltrops will do exactly the same amount of damage as it would if you didn’t use DB, so there’s no compliment, no synergy because independently, they’ll perform the same. You can include it as a part of a rotation to justify a build, but you can’t claim synergy between them on a 1v1 comparison.

You claim that caltrops+DB is the most effective AoE a thief has. Does it outperform sword AoEs? If you can have the numbers to prove it, I bow my hat to you.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Famps.7461:

this my condition build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY6Yl0Mp5p1NxzJsPNRLBx50nh3vpNzRzHEAA-TRSAABaoEM6TCQO6Hgw0HAPBgrU6x0+DIp+zYKDAA-e

it is more or less pure condition but i have traits in Deadly arts. with this build Deadly Blossom is amazing. i use DB in melee combat and i use p/d when i need to go in range and kite the mob or something.

What’s the DPS on that build though?

The more pressing question is – why would you expect DPS on a build that’s equally good at single target and AoE to out-DPS a build that’s only good at single target?

Even with that said, I bet the DPS is very solid.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Famps.7461:

this my condition build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY6Yl0Mp5p1NxzJsPNRLBx50nh3vpNzRzHEAA-TRSAABaoEM6TCQO6Hgw0HAPBgrU6x0+DIp+zYKDAA-e

it is more or less pure condition but i have traits in Deadly arts. with this build Deadly Blossom is amazing. i use DB in melee combat and i use p/d when i need to go in range and kite the mob or something.

What’s the DPS on that build though?

The more pressing question is – why would you expect DPS on a build that’s equally good at single target and AoE to out-DPS a build that’s only good at single target?

Even with that said, I bet the DPS is very solid.

I’m going to compare it to power sword/pistol.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Caltrops will do exactly the same amount of damage as it would if you didn’t use DB, so there’s no compliment, no synergy because independently, they’ll perform the same. You can include it as a part of a rotation to justify a build, but you can’t claim synergy between them on a 1v1 comparison.

You claim that caltrops+DB is the most effective AoE a thief has. Does it outperform sword AoEs? If you can have the numbers to prove it, I bow my hat to you.

Yes you certainly can, because they deal damage simultaneously and because they function the exact same way, meaning that as one gets stronger the other one does too, providing a multiplicative impact. That’s the definition of synergy.

Never minding the benefits of having AoE and single target in the same set rather than having to switch back and forth, we really don’t have to look at much besides base damage values to see that it does:

Pistol Whip – 1,066 damage, 5 Initiative
Death Blossom – 201 physical damage, 1275 bleed damage, 4 Inititiative

So a single application of Death Blossom does almost 50% more damage than a single application of Pistol Whip for 1 less Initiative. Death Blossom does damage on a delayed timer, which is a bit of a negative, but can also be spammed while Pistol Whip is a channel, which is a negative for Pistol Whip.

It’s arguable that Pistol Whip has more reach than Death Blossom based on build due to the fact that it’s totally physical, but that was certainly more true a few months ago than it is now after the Zerker nerf. If anything, it’s very possibly the opposite now.

When you throw in the fact that Caltrops is buffed alongside Death Blossom but nerfed as you try to improve Pistol whip – it’s a no contest. The major perk that S/P provides is baseline AoE through Cleave anyway. Pistol Whip is more of a utilitarian skill than it is a pure damage skill.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Caltrops will do exactly the same amount of damage as it would if you didn’t use DB, so there’s no compliment, no synergy because independently, they’ll perform the same. You can include it as a part of a rotation to justify a build, but you can’t claim synergy between them on a 1v1 comparison.

You claim that caltrops+DB is the most effective AoE a thief has. Does it outperform sword AoEs? If you can have the numbers to prove it, I bow my hat to you.

Yes you certainly can, because they deal damage simultaneously and because they function the exact same way, meaning that as one gets stronger the other one does too, providing a multiplicative impact. That’s the definition of synergy.

Never minding the benefits of having AoE and single target in the same set rather than having to switch back and forth, we really don’t have to look at much besides base damage values to see that it does:

Pistol Whip – 1,066 damage, 5 Initiative
Death Blossom – 201 physical damage, 1275 bleed damage, 4 Inititiative

So a single application of Death Blossom does almost 50% more damage than a single application of Pistol Whip for 1 less Initiative. Death Blossom does damage on a delayed timer, which is a bit of a negative, but can also be spammed while Pistol Whip is a channel, which is a negative for Pistol Whip.

It’s arguable that Pistol Whip has more reach than Death Blossom based on build due to the fact that it’s totally physical, but that was certainly more true a few months ago than it is now after the Zerker nerf. If anything, it’s very possibly the opposite now.

When you throw in the fact that Caltrops is buffed alongside Death Blossom but nerfed as you try to improve Pistol whip – it’s a no contest, unless you specifically need the stun and slightly better burstiness of Pistol Whip, which carries certain benefits.

You can’t use the tooltip damage on the wiki for proper calculations, that damage is calculated under some weird assumptions about power and weapon damage, with 2600 toughness or something.

You take the coefficient in the little brackets next to the number and add your own stats. You need to also take into account that the mob can die halfway through your 10 second bleed, making you lose damage, whereas PW’s damage is applied to full when it casts.

Caltrops does get nerfed as you buff up your power. But thats the argument of hybrid/condi vs power builds.

Synergy: the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

Using caltrops and DB together doesn’t give you more damage on each of them than if you used them separately. That’s just the same thing as fitting heartseeker and backstab together because they both benefit from power.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Caltrops will do exactly the same amount of damage as it would if you didn’t use DB, so there’s no compliment, no synergy because independently, they’ll perform the same. You can include it as a part of a rotation to justify a build, but you can’t claim synergy between them on a 1v1 comparison.

You claim that caltrops+DB is the most effective AoE a thief has. Does it outperform sword AoEs? If you can have the numbers to prove it, I bow my hat to you.

Yes you certainly can, because they deal damage simultaneously and because they function the exact same way, meaning that as one gets stronger the other one does too, providing a multiplicative impact. That’s the definition of synergy.

Never minding the benefits of having AoE and single target in the same set rather than having to switch back and forth, we really don’t have to look at much besides base damage values to see that it does:

Pistol Whip – 1,066 damage, 5 Initiative
Death Blossom – 201 physical damage, 1275 bleed damage, 4 Inititiative

So a single application of Death Blossom does almost 50% more damage than a single application of Pistol Whip for 1 less Initiative. Death Blossom does damage on a delayed timer, which is a bit of a negative, but can also be spammed while Pistol Whip is a channel, which is a negative for Pistol Whip.

It’s arguable that Pistol Whip has more reach than Death Blossom based on build due to the fact that it’s totally physical, but that was certainly more true a few months ago than it is now after the Zerker nerf. If anything, it’s very possibly the opposite now.

When you throw in the fact that Caltrops is buffed alongside Death Blossom but nerfed as you try to improve Pistol whip – it’s a no contest, unless you specifically need the stun and slightly better burstiness of Pistol Whip, which carries certain benefits.

You can’t use the tooltip damage on the wiki for proper calculations, that damage is calculated under some weird assumptions about power and weapon damage, with 2600 toughness or something.

You take the coefficient in the little brackets next to the number and add your own stats. You need to also take into account that the mob can die halfway through your 10 second bleed, making you lose damage, whereas PW’s damage is applied to full when it casts.

Caltrops does get nerfed as you buff up your power. But thats the argument of hybrid/condi vs power builds.

Synergy: the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

Using caltrops and DB together doesn’t give you more damage on each of them than if you used them separately. That’s just the same thing as fitting heartseeker and backstab together because they both benefit from power.

You’re being pedantic to distract from the weakness of your argument. Building condi gives you more damage for both DB and Caltrops, which is a significant point because Caltrops is a utility skill that layers extra damage potential on top of D/D’s already substantial damage potential. You use them back to back and their damage applies simultaneously while you’re still able to do other things. That is not the case with Heartseeker and Backstab.

The base values are more than adequate to judge general performance. Builds will obviously come into play, but there’s nothing that’s going to make S/P and Pistol Whip substantially stronger from a pure DPS perspective than DB and Caltrops. Even the point about the 10 second window required for full damage is only partially relevant on account of S/P being a channel skill that does not really outdamage the autoattack.

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Einlanzer.1627:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Caltrops will do exactly the same amount of damage as it would if you didn’t use DB, so there’s no compliment, no synergy because independently, they’ll perform the same. You can include it as a part of a rotation to justify a build, but you can’t claim synergy between them on a 1v1 comparison.

You claim that caltrops+DB is the most effective AoE a thief has. Does it outperform sword AoEs? If you can have the numbers to prove it, I bow my hat to you.

Yes you certainly can, because they deal damage simultaneously and because they function the exact same way, meaning that as one gets stronger the other one does too, providing a multiplicative impact. That’s the definition of synergy.

Never minding the benefits of having AoE and single target in the same set rather than having to switch back and forth, we really don’t have to look at much besides base damage values to see that it does:

Pistol Whip – 1,066 damage, 5 Initiative
Death Blossom – 201 physical damage, 1275 bleed damage, 4 Inititiative

So a single application of Death Blossom does almost 50% more damage than a single application of Pistol Whip for 1 less Initiative. Death Blossom does damage on a delayed timer, which is a bit of a negative, but can also be spammed while Pistol Whip is a channel, which is a negative for Pistol Whip.

It’s arguable that Pistol Whip has more reach than Death Blossom based on build due to the fact that it’s totally physical, but that was certainly more true a few months ago than it is now after the Zerker nerf. If anything, it’s very possibly the opposite now.

When you throw in the fact that Caltrops is buffed alongside Death Blossom but nerfed as you try to improve Pistol whip – it’s a no contest, unless you specifically need the stun and slightly better burstiness of Pistol Whip, which carries certain benefits.

You can’t use the tooltip damage on the wiki for proper calculations, that damage is calculated under some weird assumptions about power and weapon damage, with 2600 toughness or something.

You take the coefficient in the little brackets next to the number and add your own stats. You need to also take into account that the mob can die halfway through your 10 second bleed, making you lose damage, whereas PW’s damage is applied to full when it casts.

Caltrops does get nerfed as you buff up your power. But thats the argument of hybrid/condi vs power builds.

Synergy: the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

Using caltrops and DB together doesn’t give you more damage on each of them than if you used them separately. That’s just the same thing as fitting heartseeker and backstab together because they both benefit from power.

You’re being pedantic to distract from the weakness of your argument. Building condi gives you more damage for both DB and Caltrops, which is a significant point because Caltrops is a utility skill that layers extra damage potential on top of D/D’s already substantial damage potential. You use them back to back and their damage applies simultaneously while you’re still able to do other things. That is not the case with Heartseeker and Backstab.

The base values are more than adequate to judge general performance. Builds will obviously come into play, but there’s nothing that’s going to make S/P and Pistol Whip substantially stronger from a pure DPS perspective than DB and Caltrops. Even the point about the 10 second window required for full damage is only partially relevant on account of S/P being a channel skill that does not really outdamage the autoattack.

Look at any DPs calc thread or any DPS calc tool. They never use the tooltip numbers straight off without at least adjusting it somewhat. So unless everyone is being pedantic, I don’t think I am.

They aren’t actually even base numbers. The skill coefficient is the ‘base’ number for your skill, those numbers are basically that applies to some juju assumptions. The ones in game I think was your power, your current weapon damage with constant modifiers like force applied with a 2600 armor on the target, I don’t even know what those numbers in the wiki use.

Whilst your cal/DB numbers tack up, HS/BS and all other power based skills’ power goes down.

I don’t really know what the 10 second winder has to do with autoattack.

Not trying to be rude, but if you wanna prove my argument is weak, then run a rotation of your build and post its DPS, and compare it to a sword/pistol build. That’s the bottom line really.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Look at any DPs calc thread or any DPS calc tool. They never use the tooltip numbers straight off without at least adjusting it somewhat. So unless everyone is being pedantic, I don’t think I am.

They aren’t actually even base numbers. The skill coefficient is the ‘base’ number for your skill, those numbers are basically that applies to some juju assumptions. The ones in game I think was your power, your current weapon damage with constant modifiers like force applied with a 2600 armor on the target, I don’t even know what those numbers in the wiki use.

Whilst your cal/DB numbers tack up, HS/BS and all other power based skills’ power goes down.

I don’t really know what the 10 second winder has to do with autoattack.

Not trying to be rude, but if you wanna prove my argument is weak, then run a rotation of your build and post its DPS, and compare it to a sword/pistol build. That’s the bottom line really.

Why don’t you do that, since you’re the one making the argument? So far, I’m the only one who’s provided values at all and you’ve failed to demonstrate how your argument is anything more than presumption and conjecture.

Let us just give one example. I do not have the screen shot but it sticks in my mind due to the massive bleeds I was getting. It was at that time the highest ticks I had managed.

I went into a camp to flip it. I used my dd set running right into the camp so all the enemy clustered to me.I laid down a couple death blossoms. I dropped caltrops . I then stealthed right in the middle of the group and 2 guards..two dolyaks the scout and supervisor were all bleeding for 3500 per tick.

I have also used this tactic when defending a lords room in a keep. Lay down caltrops as the enemy approaches. They trend to run right into them AOE some dbs and in conjunction with the guards they will drop like flies.

Again the times you do this have to be chosen. When there a larger group you can focus on enemies that are distracted. Get in with AOE DB drop all those bleeds on a group, stealth drop caltrops and get out.

If you are 1v1 or in a smaller group you will be using caltrops less often.

As to a hybrid build, the best I have come up with uses Rune of The Aristocrat. You use marjories Chili with this which gives 6 stacks might on every Withdraw heal. the build is 4/0/0/4/6.

I have given several screen shots of the power/condi mustered in this build when one peaks their might. This is a peak and generally in game you will fight with around 16 stacks. (Note on SOM alone if traited you can get 11 stacks), There are several variants but hybrids work great in wvw.

Note on the build In the picture I just wanted to see the peak power/condi in such a build. I took signets of might and piled them on. It works great in Pve.

Generally you will not see this in WvW . Just take the 850 away and you can see the base build of close to 2k power and 1500 condition. Even with only 10 stacks of might the two sources of damage are significant. This build still had good armor and health. The DD heartseeker becomes very useful in a hybrid as a finisher and the CNd and BS damage is not shabby either.

Right, lets go to calculations. No buffs, no stacks.
Single pistol whip does 12-13 k damage on lvl 80 mob. Auto attack chain does roughly the same, in almost same time frame (Pistol whip has 2.2s cast time according to wiki and auto attack chain takes pretty much the same for bare eye). So 12k/2.2 = 5454 dps. Honestly… reason to use pistolwhip is stun, higher number of cleaved targets, signet of malice proc and evade, not much higher dps.

Single bleed stack does 120 dps with around 1500 condition damage. 25 stacks of bleed would do 120*25=3000 dps. Single death blossom+auto attack chain (which cant cleave so in aoe situation it would drop dps, but lets assume it cleaves) in carrion gear would do 450(db) + 2500(aa including 3 seconds of poison from last aa chain) damage in roughly 3s time so( 2500 + 450)/3 = about 1000 dps and you can use death blossom every 3s at most (1ini regen every 1s, lets include any ini regen traits u might have, allthough every other deathblossom you would have to follow with 2 auto attack chains to regen initiative) for sustained dps. So we have 3000 dps from 25stacks of bleed and 1000 dps from physical damage and poison = 4000 dps. Now that would happen only if you could keep 25 stacks of bleed constantly which u can’t. In reality you can keep around 10 stacks of bleeds while bumping up to 18-20 very briefly with caltrops (25 maybe if you go balls deep in DB spam, but then u get initiative starved), so your 3k dps from bleeds is actually more like 1500 dps what drops total dps to 2500. You can pick any gear any build, be it full berserker, hybrid celestial or full condi carion, rabid, even rampager with all its precision and no crit power (not even mentioning dire, cause that would decrease physical part of damage even more), none of that would come even close to what aoe damage full berserker S/P can pump out.
If we would take into account grp damage where vulnerability comes into play, damage gap would be even wider.
Conclusion: Death blossom is kitten poor excuse of aoe skill, same as d/d is a kitten poor excuse of aoe weapon set. If you are running D/D and know that you will have to aoe (and you will have to aoe pretty much everywhere), bring real aoe weapon as secondary.

You know, after all this, I’ll probably still use the skill. Because like warrior axe #5, its just such a kitten skill.

In PvE, if you’re playing thief, you’re not ‘optimised’ anyways generally since you’re not an ele/warrior/guardian, so may as well unoptimise yourself in style.

Xae Isareth.1364:

You know, after all this, I’ll probably still use the skill. Because like warrior axe #5, its just such a kitten skill.

In PvE, if you’re playing thief, you’re not ‘optimised’ anyways generally since you’re not an ele/warrior/guardian, so may as well unoptimise yourself in style.

Dont get me wrong, there is nothing wrong in using death blossom if u like it in…open world pve, www, spvp. But when it comes to dungeons you are gimping your group by doing so in comparison of taking S/P for aoe that also provides wonderful group utility -black powder.
And thief is “Optimised” enough and does as much or even more dps then glorified warriors, that everyone and their grandmother plays with their googled builds and no actual insight to class, but requires much more from a player to survive because of pretty much 2x lower ehp.