Guild Wars 2

So…I’ve been reading through the forums for the past few weeks, and it seems that everyone wants to buff offhand dagger’s skills directly. I did a bit of thinking, and I think I’ve found a more elegant solution.

So here goes…the buffs should be applied via traits, not directly to the weapon. My reasoning for this is that giving blind to directly to the offhand dagger will grant utility to builds that do not need it (such as S/d). Let’s say all our wishes came true (haha) and acro got buffed back to its original state or better, and x/d got its blinds. Now S/d has access to limitless stamina AND blinds. Maybe not a huge deal, but it is a fairly significant boost to its survivability.

Anyway, you may disagree with the above…that’s not why I’m here. My idea is to work those x/d buffs into the Shadow Arts line. As it currently stands, we have Cloaked in Shadow (blind on stealth and blinding powder on fall damage). The first part of my idea is to take the fall damage aspect of CiS and add to or replace Last Refuge with it. The next, and more important, part is to have CiS reduce the ini cost of offhand dagger skills by 33%. This will mean that CnD will have an ini cost of 4, and Dancing Dagger will have an ini cost of 2.

So…guys what are you thoughts about this? I was a S/d thief prior to 6/23 patch so I don’t really have a lot of insight on the inner workings of the build.

the thing is that would force players to take a shadowarts to make x/d somewhat ok, while x/p stays stronger without it
that doesn’t balance the weaponset, it only limits the variations of builds even more

D/D needs a buff to death blossom and throw dagger
death blossom shouldn’t have a delay (why even give an evade a delay?!), throw dagger needs to either do more dmg, have a longer cripple duration and/or less ini cost
CnD doesn’t need blind on successfull hit if they rework CiS to not be a GM trait,
if not CnD needs either less ini cost, a function that “on successfull hit gain 1-2 ini” or blind on hit.

the thing is that would force players to take a shadowarts to make x/d somewhat ok, while x/p stays stronger without it
that doesn’t balance the weaponset, it only limits the variations of builds even more

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but don’t most d/d thieves take shadow arts anyway? I’m sure some take Crit Strikes, but imo that’s pretty gimmicky. Also keep in mind that Crit Strikes is pretty essential in PvE, so it’s not like it has no uses. As for acro, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any d/x thief take acro…so yea.

D/D needs a buff to death blossom and throw dagger
death blossom shouldn’t have a delay (why even give an evade a delay?!), throw dagger needs to either do more dmg, have a longer cripple duration and/or less ini cost

I’m personally not really sure what they should do with Deadly Blossom. Definitely the responsiveness (should apply to all evade skills though). I was thinking maybe to reduce the cast time to 1/4 second, and remove the weird flip leap animation…so it’s kinda like warrior’s axe 2, except it applies bleeds and offers a short eframe equal to its cast time. As for Dancing Dagger, reducing the ini cost comes with that fancy trait rework I came up with

CnD doesn’t need blind on successfull hit if they rework CiS to not be a GM trait,
if not CnD needs either less ini cost, a function that “on successfull hit gain 1-2 ini” or blind on hit.

The problem with CiS, imo, is that it doesn’t do enough as a GM trait. With that in mind, making it more impactful (ie the rework that I suggested) would be a step in the right direction. Yes, it’s unfortunate that you won’t be able to take the health and ini regen in stealth, but with my reworked trait, you will be able to CnD much more often without having to really worry about ini all that much.

blarghhrrkblah.3412:

I’m personally not really sure what they should do with Deadly Blossom.

It should deal power damage equal to ~70% of pistol whip plus that stupid bleeding which nobody needs (poison would be better). Also, the evade should be 3/4 second, just like withdraw, leaving a small window to hit the thief upon landing.

FIXED.

It should be like this since headstart; I don’t know why such heavily underpowered skill made it through tests for such a long time.