Guild Wars 2

After playing with a condition based d/d build for a while, the weaknesses of the 3rd skill became apparent.

Death Blossom

1) The after cast on the skill makes it feel awkward.
2)Lack of control. It is very easy to accidentally jump somewhere you didn’t mean to with it.
2a) In the new wvw map this can be deadly, especially if you get in a fight near a ledge.

My suggestion:

Remove the after cast, and make people “aim” it like the warrior’s great sword skill whirlwind attack. This would remove the awkward pause after using it, and would provide the much needed control this skill requires to be more useful.

Dancing Dagger:

1) Very little damage.
2) Very short cripple which isn’t worth much.
3) Too high of an initiative cost for its effects.

I remember when this skill actually did damage. The problem people complained about was it bouncing and doing damage to them multiple times. (Especially rangers w/ a pet)

I also know that some people don’t like the idea of removing the ability to hit multiple foes with it because they use it to help group up enemies for death blossom.

My suggestion:

Enlarge the size of the thrown dagger, and make it piercing. This means that it only hits people once, but can still hit multiple foes. This should allow the damage to be upped, along with the cripple. However, why not add torment stacks instead of physical damage. This would slow enemies down, and punish them for moving. (What I believe this skill was originally intended to do.) The lengthened cripple, and slight additional damage from torment would improve this skill for physical damage users, but the torment would also make this a very good skill for d/d condition users.

What do you think?

I like the Dancing Dagger idea in theory, but do you really want to give P/D another ability with Torment? At least now they have to stick you in melee range or give up a utility, this would be Torment at range.

Interceptor.2653:

I like the Dancing Dagger idea in theory, but do you really want to give P/D another ability with Torment? At least now they have to stick you in melee range or give up a utility, this would be Torment at range.

I think it might be manageable if the torment portion was for a very short duration like 2 seconds. This would give ok-good damage (depending if the target stopped moving) with enough stacks, but make it difficult to continually stack (initiative cost + short duration), while still pressuring the target to not move to reduce the damage.

For d/d and p/d I would see it as more of a way to open into a clock and dagger + stealth skill if you do not have steal (or another shadow step) available. The increased cripple time and added short duration torment would help to temporarily stop your opponent from running away from you.

Interceptor.2653:

I like the Dancing Dagger idea in theory, but do you really want to give P/D another ability with Torment? At least now they have to stick you in melee range or give up a utility, this would be Torment at range.

Keep in mind the #3 on p/d isn’t spammable technically. You port away unless you’re next to a ledge and even then its both costly and entirely avoidable (and doesnt last long). More pressure and a reason use the skill is necessary. Id personally perfer pison on dancing dagger or even if it transfered X conditions from each bounce to add some utility in 1v2+ fights.

You can ss to them and reuse #3 but thats a cooldown, so not all that effective. Our primary DoT is bleeds, torment is just a small cover up.

NinjaEd.3946:

Keep in mind the #3 on p/d isn’t spammable technically.

Tell that to someone who said that it was, please.

You can ss to them and reuse #3 but thats a cooldown, so not all that effective. Our primary DoT is bleeds, torment is just a small cover up.

It’s almost like adding Torment to a repeatable ranged ability would add a bunch of power to P/D Condition builds. Someone should mention that in this thread somewhere.

Dancing dagger needs poison to be useful both for power and condi builds, not torment. Revert cripple to 5 seconds. Additionally, increase damage slightly, let’s say 15%.

About LDB – give it 3/4 sec evade like shortbow #3, and increase power damage by 50% (or even more, so it deals as much damage as pistol whip minus bleeds). Right now, I can get stunned in mid air while trying do evade warrior’s stun.

Seriously, these skills are so terribly weak right now that they really need heavy buffs.

Thighum.7295:

I think it might be manageable if the torment portion was for a very short duration like 2 seconds. This would give ok-good damage (depending if the target stopped moving) with enough stacks, but make it difficult to continually stack (initiative cost + short duration), while still pressuring the target to not move to reduce the damage.

That’d be fine with me; I just don’t like the prospect of giving a P/D Thief the ability to kite and constantly punish people for both moving and closing, without a cooldown. It needs to be constained by something other than init, because they have quite a bit of it these days. A short duration might do it, since the potential damage would be limited.

Torment seems a bit out of place, it’s harsh against movement but guess what, pvp in gw2 is all about mobility and timing your evades/dodges. In the end the dps from moving with torment is just expected. I don’t think torment should be stackable in a 1v1 or even a 2v1 situation, but it should put some impact on their appropriate builds.

(Against my best interest) @Interceptor I didn’t imply anyone said #3 on p/d was spammble, simply stating the torment you already have on P/d isn’t all that impressionable. If the power of Dancing Dagger needs to be nerfed to justify the DoT of torment on it then so be it. Right now it isn’t suitable for a power build anyways.

I like the idea of changing DD #3 to a targeting directional move like the GS #3 on warriors.