Guild Wars 2

PvE or PvP, it doesn’t matter. I don’t even run a condition build. Death Blossom ties together my defense. It allows me to alternate between using initiative, endurance, and cooldowns for staying out of harms way. Several times throughout my thief I’ve wanted to like other setups, but I always come back to d/d (with shortbow swap).

Does anyone feel the same? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Feel the same?

….Death Blossom….. I just can’t quit you.

And yeah, when I’m not rolling with the LDB, I feel naked and a bit more squishy. But I get the sword out or the high-energy traits (to roll my day away), and have a good time forgetting about her.

If you ever buy me flowers…..

when i was leveling my thief at lv 10-20, i actually thought a thief was supposed to know how to dodge well with death blossom in order to fight mobs. Little did I know that going pure glass cannon doesn’t always work in pve.

S/D has two abilities you can use to get out of the way of oncoming attacks, as does shortbow.

I run D/D with SB swap since a good month, and i only have a key binding “for” LDB to use short bow 3 (bound to 5) since you can’t bind for weapon sets or individual skills.

I think i never used that skill, except in the betas, figuring out whats effective and whats not.

I don’t like the idea of pressing that button, and watching my character fleeing out of my hands/control, spinning into whatever, besides the fact that everybody with the reaction time of a brick can dodge the skill.

Overall, for me, it doesn’t fit into the dagger setup at all, which is about fast and precise strikes and tight control over the character.

So spinning nonsese is nothing for me.

I can’t live without the 15 points minor trait in acrobatics anymore though.
With only 2 dodges i feel like a heavy brick with a big red target sign on my back.

Asum.4960:

Overall, for me, it doesn’t fit into the dagger setup at all, which is about fast and precise strikes and tight control over the character.

Lets take D/D for example:
-#2 also takes control of your character from you, dedicating you to a straight-forward jump arc for a small period of time.
-#3 you’ve already explained.
-#4 while spammable, has a lazily slow projectile speed, far from precise.
-#5 has a substantial wind-up time easily dodgeable if you know what to look for.

If anything “fast and precise strikes” are a vast minority in dagger skills.

It’s entirely situational. When fighting ranged players you’re probably at a big disadvantage unless you close the gap fast.

I love fighting thieves overusing LDB, they are so predictable and easy to dodge. Not to mention how easy is to clear bleed condition and negate their entire damage.

Dagins.5163:

I love fighting thieves overusing LDB, they are so predictable and easy to dodge. Not to mention how easy is to clear bleed condition and negate their entire damage.

Well they are bad if they don’t use caltrops lol, then you are SoL on that condition clearing, especially if they immob you in the caltrops :P

Tulisin.6945:

Lets take D/D for example:
-#2 also takes control of your character from you, dedicating you to a straight-forward jump arc for a small period of time.
-#3 you’ve already explained.
-#4 while spammable, has a lazily slow projectile speed, far from precise.
-#5 has a substantial wind-up time easily dodgeable if you know what to look for.

If anything “fast and precise strikes” are a vast minority in dagger skills.

HS doesn’t feels like it’s taking control from me, it’s a gap closer, a fast leap foward, which generally feel good to use, so in this case.

DD “feels” fast. There is nothing as satisfying as throwing these daggers in little groups of 2-3 people. Also throwing daggers kinda feels like a precise thing to do.

CnD is a dodgy one, i aggree. While it often feels extremely unprecise and slow, and is missing for no reason, it just feels right sometimes (but yeah, if it would be a fast dagger stab it would be MUCH more satisfying to use).

AA is stabby stabby, exactly what i want from my Thief,

and LDB again, is this whirling around in the air, which just seems unpractical in my eyes if you want to stab someone with daggers.
While HS is this short and fast Leap, LDB just takes the control away long enough to feel bad to use for me (and it’s doing mostly condition damage, which doesn’t fit in my dagger setup and the role of daggers in my mind at all, daggers = stabby stabby, fast and nice direct damage on close range).

Overall, the Thief would feel pretty amazing if they would take away some damage, but increase the (attack/projectile)speed of all attacks (not on a “haste” level, but close), except maybe Heartseeker (and maybe, LDB, i think this ability just feels wrong, but thats just me).

every time i try a different melee build, i miss DB. it’s so hard to not use it, especially when you’re using a signet of malice condition damage build. i can stack 20 bleeds in an enemy in the first 5 seconds of battle and heal at least 1k health per death blossom, even more if there are more enemies around to hit.