Guild Wars 2

I like to play condition d/d using death blossom and dropping caltrops and dodge trops. In pve I can quickly burn through enemy mobs just by doing this, but is it viable on wvwvw at all? I like the play style but have mulled over switching to more of a crit thief now that I’m nearing lvl 80. Thoughts or suggestions?

jzbush.8249:

I like to play condition d/d using death blossom and dropping caltrops and dodge trops. In pve I can quickly burn through enemy mobs just by doing this, but is it viable on wvwvw at all? I like the play style but have mulled over switching to more of a crit thief now that I’m nearing lvl 80. Thoughts or suggestions?

It can be a little difficult, especially considering that most zergs spam so much AoE. I ran D/D // P/P condition for a long while in WvW and then respecced for a little sacrifice on condition damage for crit. So long as you have a stunbreaker like RoI or Withdraw, and you use Death Blossom, I think you can be effective. It just takes a little more finger-dancing on the keyboard since you really have to get into the thick of it.

I recently swapped to it from P/D (because P/D was awkward and frustrating after the revelaed change) and have run it both ways.

I’ll admit my D/D is a bit different, in that it’s a hybrid power/condi setup but it serves pretty well in WvW as well as PvE

Core stuff in my build:

Signet of Malice Contrary to popular belief, SoM is actually a great skill that gets better the more you’re outnumbered. The trick is building around it and stacking it with other passive heals. The down side is you don’t have a panic button The up side is that you can actually eat a few hits if you’re playing your evasion right and never stop putting pressure on the enemy. Also, burst self heals are for sissies

Try getting used to it and how it changes your playstyle and see if it’s for you. If it is, consider a build something like mine!

20/0/20/10/20 – Traits are pretty obvious, I won’t bother listing them.

6x Runes of the mad King a must for any thief using SoM in the heal slot. Turns your elite in to a decent heal against single targets, and a full heal that gets better they more you’re outnumbered. The reason? Every single bird bite on every target they attack activates SoM. It’s zerg daggerstorm on steroids. It’s turning a semi-useful 45s elite in to a heavily useful 900+ heal that also adds a stun to your attack chain. It’s even more mayhem with thieve’s guild. In addition it adds a nice little bit of wide PBAoE damage to your elite, and turns you in to the hero from a John Woo movie.

The down side? It doesn’t work underwater. The solution? Avoid fighting underwater like everyone else. Underwater combat sucks anyway.

Life Sigil 250 extra healing power translates to about 20 extra HP per hit from SoM alone, and a bit better from assassin’s reward. DB hits multiple targets three times, and dagger’s auto-chain is four single hits, so it adds up nicely, especially considering you’re evading the vast majority of incoming damage. Also helps to supercharge the MK birds and turn cluster arrow in a a semi-reliable source of healing in long range zerg battles as each explosion can proc up to 5 heals, totalling 15 heals per shot, or 200-300 extra HP on top of assassin’s reward from the sigil alone.

Improvisation, shadowstep, roll for initiative, and shadow refuge Caltrops was questionable with the old duration in WvW, and with the new and shorter duration it wasn’t worth the spot, though I swap RFI for it in PvE. Improvisation opens up opportunities for a lot of cool combos if you, you know, improvise! Generally I’ll steal some feathers before I go out to fight in case I need some extra condition removal from my 10 in shadow arts, and I’ll engage from visible and fight out cooldowns, saving the feathers for the extra damage (it helps with the power from the MK runes and deadly arts) then, when a few are on CD i’ll pop my steal at an opportune moment and see if anything refreshes. What happens next is largely determined by which CD I just refreshed, if any at all. Doublecasting RFI can power-stack a lot of bleeds really fast or fuel a HS string if you’ve got the target low, double shadow refuge is… just hilarious, and double shadowstep can be really great for baiting CC. if nothing refreshes at all then I just continue to rely on what I’m already doing, possibly finding a good spot to use the stolen item to buy some time or finish. In PvE, double caltrops is just about the best thing ever. It’s fairly survivable and capable without Improvisation, but the improv recharges really make the build click in PvP as you’re able to pull off things the enemy (and you) didn’t expect which can often lead to victory.

It’s all about timing
This build isn’t about spamming DB as many times as possible and praying. It’s about precision evasion timing and using every tool at your disposal. You need to know the duration of steal-vigor, how to chain a dagger auto-2 or auto-3 in to a dodge to keep the target weak and your endurance up, and you’ve got to pay attention to cooldowns, improv refreshes, positioning for dodgetrops, and know the attack animations of the enemy. I won’t say I’m as proficient as I’d like to be with it yet, but it’s a lot more like playing a sword build than a dagger build.

Thanks for the feedback. I will have to test out some of your methods and see if I am able to have some success with them. I guess caltrops is kind of a “crutch” for me that I depend on a lot for my bleeds. They just don’t seem viable in pvp at all unless it is to control a small area etc. So I guess I need to find out how d/d condition works without the caltrops and if I still feel as deadly.

Having D/D mainhand and P/D offhand is still amazing. D/D for groups and P/D for 1v1 1v2. Sigil of geomancy on both for bleed swaps, dodge on caltrops, caltrops in skills and most enemies chew on 20 stacks of bleed, a poison and a cripple and the truly immobile will choke down all 25 stacks.