Guild Wars 2

I apologize if this question comes off as… well… dumb, but the main complaint that I hear about Flanking Strike is that the second attack misses often, but the damage is really good and missing shouldn’t be as big of an issue in PvE, right? Using a sword and a dagger appeals to my blademaster-loving fantasy nerd sensibilities and it came as no small disappointment that the weapon setup is regarded as suboptimal.

I’m still pretty new to this game so please correct me if any of my opinions are off-base. If there are any endgame dungeon-runners out there who go with S/D, what builds/gear do you use?

I use it in my gold find set but damage wise it really isn’t that great (got some good utility mind) and flanking strike still tends to miss and is less damage than other sets moves.

You can use it but don’t expect to be pulling the best damage and expect a few comments now and then from others about it.

S/D is the best melee set in PvE imo.

Cleave autoattack, infiltrator’s strike is so good it’d take pages to explain, and flanking strike’s boon removal can be useful against enemies that don’t perpetually refresh their boons.

Just excellent.

kKagari.6804:

S/D is the best melee set in PvE imo.

Cleave autoattack, infiltrator’s strike is so good it’d take pages to explain, and flanking strike’s boon removal can be useful against enemies that don’t perpetually refresh their boons.

Just excellent.

How do you build around S/D, trait and gear-wise? Power and precision or what?

Aurelio.6159:

kKagari.6804:

S/D is the best melee set in PvE imo.

Cleave autoattack, infiltrator’s strike is so good it’d take pages to explain, and flanking strike’s boon removal can be useful against enemies that don’t perpetually refresh their boons.

Just excellent.

How do you build around S/D, trait and gear-wise? Power and precision or what?

Short answer: you need power.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Cleric-Thief-Dgn-WvW-Build/first#post1253719

This is one of my builds that use S/D. Its a playstyle preference I guess, but I can’t stand going 1 target at a time with dagger autoattack. Heartseeker is near useless in PvE, so the 2 slot comparison is completely lopsided. Infiltrators strike lets you laugh at enemies like Lupi and Alpha.

S/D isn’t going to be your incredible dps burst thief, but its definitely going to be the thief that doesn’t die every time the wind changes directions.

Infiltrator’s Strike <— Its just too good.

imo s/d is the best melee set we have… and doesnt get boring like dd, dp, pd

combining the amazing infiltrator strike, with dazes, stealth, evades, boon removal etc etc all while dealing crazy damage makes the funnest and versitile weapon set we have..

ppl will obviously disagree with me, so maybe its just my playstyle

Have to admit I do have moments of joy with the S/D build but I still prefer my deathblossom build, dot up a large group of enemies with 20+ stacks of bleeds then heartseeker them as they go below 25% hp for backstab damage rapidly.

They all have pro’s and con’s, try em all out (at least to unlock all there abilities) and see which one you enjoy.

Generally it wont matter what weapon combination you use as long as you know how to use it to its best

I run PTV armor with Emerald Orbs and Berserker Accessories/weapons with 30 Shadow Arts to blind nearby mobs and regen health/initiative, 30 Critical Strikes because duh, and 10 Acrobatics for some extra HP (I don’t really feel the need to go with DA for any extra burst and Vigor on Heal/Faster stealth movement/Might on dodge is nicer than the occasional steal buff from Trickery). Daze and blind control are order of the day, with nice sustained DPS. Definitely one of the better PvE builds.

I will concur that S/D is one of the best Power-based weapon sets for Thieves.

+Thanks to Sword Cleaves you will deal more DPS than even D/D builds in many situations.

+It doesn’t require a lot of Initiative. Auto-attacks deal the most damage so there’s little need to invest into Initiative saving traits.

+Built in stun breaker with Infiltrator’s Strike. No need to use a dedicated stun-breaker anymore when required.

+Built in Condition Removal with Infiltrator’s Strike. Just another perk of that amazing ability.

+Boon removal which can occasionally be useful in PvE. I’ll admit it’s situational at best, but does come in handy.

+The USP of S/D however is the ability to “daze lock” targets in both PvE and PvP. Dazing those pesky casters every few seconds can make PvE a breeze.

kKagari.6804:

S/D is the best melee set in PvE imo.

Cleave autoattack, infiltrator’s strike is so good it’d take pages to explain, and flanking strike’s boon removal can be useful against enemies that don’t perpetually refresh their boons.

Just excellent.

I’m not sure how do people enjoy sword main hand.

Auto is ok. I get it, high damage, useful debuffs.
Infiltrator strike is a castrated shadowstep, what the hell is that? It’s heartseeker with castrated damage.
Flanking strike is decent but against anything removely moving it fails, and I hate when the game fails me.

Red Falcon.8257:

I’m not sure how do people enjoy sword main hand.

Auto is ok. I get it, high damage, useful debuffs.
Infiltrator strike is a castrated shadowstep, what the hell is that? It’s heartseeker with castrated damage.
Flanking strike is decent but against anything removely moving it fails, and I hate when the game fails me.

Heartseeker doesn’t break debuffs, and can’t return you to the point where you originally cast it. Why compare two entirely different abilities? Simply because they both serve as gap closers? HS is a damage/execute ability with high damage and little else. IS is a gap closer (with longer range), lower damage and a condition wipe that is spammable as long as you have initiative. They’re not really similar in any way.

And Flanking Strike only fails on targets moving in a straight line. It’s better good at tracking strafing targets. Also, PvE mobs are often still long enough for you to FS them.

However, you don’t use S/D for FS. You use it for Dancing Dagger, Infiltrator Strike and on demand dazes to stop bosses. (C&D into stealth auto.) For damage, while FS is more damage than one auto, the sword auto chain is the highest damage you can achieve from the set. You use dancing dagger between chains to do high damage to multiple targets. Dancing Dagger hits the most if you have only two targets, as it bounces to each twice, so that’s the best time to use it. (Plus, hey, free slow.)

There’s really two distinict builds for S/D, one being pretty tanky (power/toughness/vitality) and it focuses more on outlasting an opponent by constantly dazing and what not, and then there’s the standard damage build (power/precision/crit damage). You are as squishy as normal thief builds, but you do decent AoE damage in a PvE setting, which is great.

Sword/Dagger is fantastic in PvE for solid damage and on-demand dazing. If you want bursty AoE damage (for things like the gate control in CoF, or large pulls like Ascalonian Fractal), try Sword/Pistol. Pistol Whip is a great AoE skill, and it retains the steady damage of sword autos.

Auesis.7301:

I run PTV …. one of the better PvE builds.

Mostly my build

Sword is fun, what more is there to say, more challenging then a P/D. And the Hall of Monuments sword skin is just to good to pass up.

I find the #3 misses rarely. Watch you combat log.

kKagari.6804:

Short answer: you need power.

Disagreed, my S/D build is centered fully around precision and berserker armour.
0/30/20/20/0, berserker setup. The 20 in shadow arts and acrobatics gives you enough armour and vitality to take some hits, while also giving an advantage in amounts of dodges. I deal almost 2-3k hits every swing (thanks to fury, giving me up to 71% crit chance) when hitting crit. It’s a build that works pretty well in sPvP, and it works well in dungeons and fractals too (up ‘till now at least, haven’t gone far into fractals yet.. lvl 5)

Gwalchgwn.1659:

berserker armour.

Berserker gives you power. I don’t understand the point here. Just because you are not taking the Power tree does not mean you are not receiving a large amount of power from your gear. And as power increases exponentially with crit, you’re still using a large amount of power.

In short, the statement you quoted is correct, and by saying it wasn’t, you proved it was.

Red Falcon.8257:

kKagari.6804:

S/D is the best melee set in PvE imo.

Cleave autoattack, infiltrator’s strike is so good it’d take pages to explain, and flanking strike’s boon removal can be useful against enemies that don’t perpetually refresh their boons.

Just excellent.

I’m not sure how do people enjoy sword main hand.

Auto is ok. I get it, high damage, useful debuffs.
Infiltrator strike is a castrated shadowstep, what the hell is that? It’s heartseeker with castrated damage.
Flanking strike is decent but against anything removely moving it fails, and I hate when the game fails me.

The only thing Heartseeker is good for in PvE is leap-cloak for D/P builds. Otherwise, it has nothing on Infiltrator’s. Inf is a stun breaker, a condition remover, you can stop charging attacks with the immobilize.

Lupi and Alpha absolutely QQ because one attack can make their best abilities worthless. Heartseeker is really only useful sub 50% hp, inf is useful all the time.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

kKagari.6804:

Short answer: you need power.

Disagreed, my S/D build is centered fully around precision and berserker armour.
0/30/20/20/0, berserker setup. The 20 in shadow arts and acrobatics gives you enough armour and vitality to take some hits, while also giving an advantage in amounts of dodges. I deal almost 2-3k hits every swing (thanks to fury, giving me up to 71% crit chance) when hitting crit. It’s a build that works pretty well in sPvP, and it works well in dungeons and fractals too (up ‘till now at least, haven’t gone far into fractals yet.. lvl 5)

Crit damage is also influenced by power I believe. Berserker gives power as a primary too btw.

I don’t use S/D in PvE, there is just something about the weapon skills that I do not like. I like to use D/D instead with P/P as my long range backup, they fit my play style more.

@OP: All the time. Invest a lot in shadow arts and I can go just about anywhere. Pretty easy once you learn to daze lock.

Red Falcon.8257:

Infiltrator strike is a castrated shadowstep

Not really, in my experience they’re equivalent but different.

Shadowstep vs Infiltrator’s Strike:
Initial Range: 1200 vs 600
Return Range: 1200 vs 1200
Condition Removal: 3 vs 1
Stun Breakers: 2 vs 1
Immobilize Enemy: 0 vs 1
Damage: 0 vs 183
Cooldown: 50s vs 0s (3+2, spammable if necessary)

Personally when I run Sword I appreciate having the spammable, zero-cd mobility IS provides on my weapon bar, allowing me to use it in all sorts of ways, and freeing up a valuable utility slot for something else (usually Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, Signet of Shadows).

It’s not quite as powerful, but has its advantages (like AoE immobilize), and that 50s cd is just a tad much. If Shadowstep had a 30s cd it might be a different story.

Maybe if you want to pop in, do some minor damage, then pop out but Sword on thief itself is kinda pathetic imo. Doesnt really fit any role other than to be annoying (pistol whip primarily)

NinjaEd.3946:

Maybe if you want to pop in, do some minor damage, then pop out but Sword on thief itself is kinda pathetic imo. Doesnt really fit any role other than to be annoying (pistol whip primarily)

I think you should perhaps try it for more than 0.01 seconds before giving misinformation.

NinjaEd.3946:

Maybe if you want to pop in, do some minor damage, then pop out but Sword on thief itself is kinda pathetic imo. Doesnt really fit any role other than to be annoying (pistol whip primarily)

That’s not even the S/D skill, dude.

sword/dagger = dagger/pistol is my main arsenal in wvw. using 30stealth/30acro/10trickery where burst damage doesnt come as first priority, but endurance, decent damage, aoe and etc.

kKagari.6804:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

kKagari.6804:

Short answer: you need power.

Disagreed, my S/D build is centered fully around precision and berserker armour.
0/30/20/20/0, berserker setup. The 20 in shadow arts and acrobatics gives you enough armour and vitality to take some hits, while also giving an advantage in amounts of dodges. I deal almost 2-3k hits every swing (thanks to fury, giving me up to 71% crit chance) when hitting crit. It’s a build that works pretty well in sPvP, and it works well in dungeons and fractals too (up ‘till now at least, haven’t gone far into fractals yet.. lvl 5)

Crit damage is also influenced by power I believe. Berserker gives power as a primary too btw.

Berserker also gives precision and +crit damage.
I only have 2k power while I have 2,9k precision. Yes I have a bit in power, but that’s just because berserker set is the only one that gives both precision and crit damage. Running your build would actually give you 3k power and only 2k precision. See the difference? One relies more on getting those critical hits while the other relies on a sustained but reliable damage output.
Also, by playing with a precision tier instead of power tier, I’d deal more damage once the person falls below 50%

I’m not saying that one build is better than the other. But I’m not relying on the power for my damage output. Also, the stats I’m citing right now are from my pvp set. In PvE I actually run a knight’s set, which means the difference in power and precision is slightly bigger.

I don’t really understand why people keep comparing IS to HS. They both move you toward your target, but they are incomparables. HS is only really useful for the damage it provides, as mobs in PvE don’t really give you a hard time in engaging with them. Infiltrator’s strike functions more like an ‘OH SHI-’ button, and I would never spam it in the way I do with Heartseeker.

a bit off topic, but as for heart seekers effectiveness in PvE? I strongly suggest you try it on boss encounters, and discover that no other class can match THOSE numbers in single target :P

S/D in PVE isn’t that great in my opinion. The auto-attack does good damage and I agree that Infiltrator’s Strike is an amazing skill, but that honestly is the only thing the weapon set brings in a PVE scenario (and S/P gets both of those perks).

The CnD into an auto for the daze is nice but you get better on demand Dazes from Headshot with either Sword/Pistol or Dagger/Pistol or even Pistol/Pistol. S/P, D/P, and P/P also utilize black powder, which is an amazing defensive utility in PVE.

I wish Flanking strike was either a faster cast or removed 2 boons, because atm I don’t feel it’s worth the initiative to remove one boon (when most enemies refresh boons faster than flanking strike can remove them). Since you like using swords I’d say Sword/Pistol is a better melee set, though if you enjoy S/D there’s nothing stopping you.

With S/D I prefer focusing on sustained damage over burst, which means less Precision and Crit damage and more focus on Power and Vitality/Toughness. Mix of Valkyrie, Soldier, and Berserker gear/trinkets. If you want to burst D/D or D/P are better weapon-sets.