Guild Wars 2

Ashanor.5319:

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing.

You obviously haven’t spent much time using this in PvP. The only time it does what it is supposed to do is if your target remains almost completely still. It has a slight self root and doesn’t seem to teleport properly on top of that. It definitely need to be fixed to work properly.

I almost exclusively use D/P so I use this skill on a regular basis. If someone is trying to run away or strafe when you are using it, you will likely end up out of melee range and rooted for a quarter second where you land. I never use it unless I know someone is going to stay still or if I want to get back into range after a dodge backwards.

Please read the entire thread before commenting – someone already pointed this out. I agree, I forgot about the self root, just got so used to playing around it. Should be fixed, but the design is otherwise solid.

evilapprentice.6379:

Ashanor.5319:

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing.

You obviously haven’t spent much time using this in PvP. The only time it does what it is supposed to do is if your target remains almost completely still. It has a slight self root and doesn’t seem to teleport properly on top of that. It definitely need to be fixed to work properly.

I almost exclusively use D/P so I use this skill on a regular basis. If someone is trying to run away or strafe when you are using it, you will likely end up out of melee range and rooted for a quarter second where you land. I never use it unless I know someone is going to stay still or if I want to get back into range after a dodge backwards.

Please read the entire thread before commenting – someone already pointed this out. I agree, I forgot about the self root, just got so used to playing around it. Should be fixed, but the design is otherwise solid.

Update your post instead of blaming people who correct you.

Blazer Hellsing.9184:

evilapprentice.6379:

Ashanor.5319:

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing.

You obviously haven’t spent much time using this in PvP. The only time it does what it is supposed to do is if your target remains almost completely still. It has a slight self root and doesn’t seem to teleport properly on top of that. It definitely need to be fixed to work properly.

I almost exclusively use D/P so I use this skill on a regular basis. If someone is trying to run away or strafe when you are using it, you will likely end up out of melee range and rooted for a quarter second where you land. I never use it unless I know someone is going to stay still or if I want to get back into range after a dodge backwards.

Please read the entire thread before commenting – someone already pointed this out. I agree, I forgot about the self root, just got so used to playing around it. Should be fixed, but the design is otherwise solid.

Update your post instead of blaming people who correct you.

If you want to participate in a discussion, participate. If you want to read a couple comments and rush to throw in your 2 cents, by all means expect to be told to read the thread. I admitted I was incorrect, and corrected myself. Don’t let your personal dislike of the things I’m saying cloud your ability to rationalize.

On Second thought, it would be easier though if I just updated the original post, which I have.

evilapprentice.6379:

Ashanor.5319:

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing.

You obviously haven’t spent much time using this in PvP. The only time it does what it is supposed to do is if your target remains almost completely still. It has a slight self root and doesn’t seem to teleport properly on top of that. It definitely need to be fixed to work properly.

I almost exclusively use D/P so I use this skill on a regular basis. If someone is trying to run away or strafe when you are using it, you will likely end up out of melee range and rooted for a quarter second where you land. I never use it unless I know someone is going to stay still or if I want to get back into range after a dodge backwards.

Please read the entire thread before commenting – someone already pointed this out. I agree, I forgot about the self root, just got so used to playing around it. Should be fixed, but the design is otherwise solid.

Not going to read an entire thread that I am frankly not that interested in just to see someone else already corrected you. Maybe you should edit the original post.

evilapprentice.6379:

Blazer Hellsing.9184:

evilapprentice.6379:

Ashanor.5319:

D/P – Shadow Shot – One of 2 perfectly designed dual skill we have. 4 init, blind/gap closer/decent damage. I wouldnt change a thing.

You obviously haven’t spent much time using this in PvP. The only time it does what it is supposed to do is if your target remains almost completely still. It has a slight self root and doesn’t seem to teleport properly on top of that. It definitely need to be fixed to work properly.

I almost exclusively use D/P so I use this skill on a regular basis. If someone is trying to run away or strafe when you are using it, you will likely end up out of melee range and rooted for a quarter second where you land. I never use it unless I know someone is going to stay still or if I want to get back into range after a dodge backwards.

Please read the entire thread before commenting – someone already pointed this out. I agree, I forgot about the self root, just got so used to playing around it. Should be fixed, but the design is otherwise solid.

Update your post instead of blaming people who correct you.

If you want to participate in a discussion, participate. If you want to read a couple comments and rush to throw in your 2 cents, by all means expect to be told to read the thread. I admitted I was incorrect, and corrected myself. Don’t let your personal dislike of the things I’m saying cloud your ability to rationalize.

On Second thought, it would be easier though if I just updated the original post, which I have.

You are jumping to conclusions. I gave you a tip, is this your gratitude?

This is the last time I’ll be responding to you, so please, read very carefully – it’s silly to stick a condition damage only ability in the middle of a hotbar with 4 abilities designed to deal direct damage, or directly support the dealing of direct damage. Of course you can find uses for your other abilities, but they are being -underutilized due to poor design-. Reread the part I blocked out, because thats the key.

It leads to builds that either don’t use (power/crit doesnt use DB, unless your desperately trying to dodge a HB with no stunbreaks and no endurance) or underutilizes your other abilities. I’m glad you like the crap damage heartseeker does in a condi build, and you’ve found ways to explain how awesome your 500 damage CnD is (so you can backstab, right?), but you’re still ignoring the main issue. Until you acknowledge it, you’re just trolling.

You are the person who keeps blaming people who disagree with you with ‘failing’ and ‘trolling’. I keep explaining how different skills have different functions other than damage, and you just say ‘but they don’t do enough damage’.

I love your engineer example of P/P and your insistence on it. Their auto-attack does 2 seconds of bleed. They have a 2 second poison on a 10 sec cooldown. They have 3 sec blind+confuse on 15 sec cooldown. And they have 2 second burning.

This means that this 4 skills, used in succession, barely catch up to one use of Death Blossom that lands 3 bleed stacks that last 10 seconds.

An engineer that gets +50% condition duration will only earn one more tick on their conditions. A condition thief will get death blossom that lasts 15 seconds or more.

Condition removals are of course important to fight a condition thief, but they do not nullify them. Almost all condition removal abilities classes have only remove one condition, with a possible three removed on a 60 seconds cooldown. That’s a lot of time to stack conditions on people. And that’s why you apply poison to them, and weakness, and cripple, on top of the bleeding. You burn people’s condition removals out and you take them down.

A D/D condition thief specced well is a destructive force. Thankfully not many people realize it yet.

I don’t think the issue here is whether or not a D/D condition thief is viable. The issue is that it would be better if DB utilized Power/Precision/Crit (like every other D/D ability) instead of Condition Damage.

Although I think the bigger issue right now is the condition cap + terrible scaling issues more than anything else.

There isn’t a single weapon in the game that inflicts damage conditions with every single skill. That’s not how the game’s design works. You usually get 2, maybe 3 skills that inflict condition damage, and you either decide to pump those up or not. Those 2-3 condition inflicting skills being weak for you because ‘LOL I’m full Berserker’s conditions bad’, or your non-condition skills being bad because ‘LOL I’m condition build what is damage?’ is a problem with the user, not the design of weapons. Those sets are not going to be optimized with extremely linear gear choices – and this is absolutely a good thing.

There is a minor issue of condition damage, as a stat, being somewhat underpowered given the paradigm of only 2-3 skills inflicting conditions; I expect this will change in a future patch.

Death Blossom is one of the best skills in the game as far as PVE goes. Im specced around condition damage and I can death blossom 4 times as an opener. DB DB DB steal to get 4 initiative and death blossom again and shortly after I get another one which actually makes it 5. Spread some caltrops with dodges and gain might with dodges as well and you are an aoe PVE or zerg killing machine. Combine that with Signet of Malice I think it is which restores health at every attack and you are indestructible.

I don’t understand what is wrong with having many ways to build and use skills? If you are condition and use D/D Deathblossom is amazing and the poison from the 3rd auto hits harder, heartseeker is mostly for movement. If you are power/crit Deathblossom it’s an evade that does some damage but your back-stabs and heartseeker are amazing.

I run condition P/D and use D/D on swap almost only for Heartseeker as movement. There are so many ways to build each weapon type and you want to pidgin hole builds to specific weapons.

Ensign.2189:

There isn’t a single weapon in the game that inflicts damage conditions with every single skill. That’s not how the game’s design works. You usually get 2, maybe 3 skills that inflict condition damage, and you either decide to pump those up or not. Those 2-3 condition inflicting skills being weak for you because ‘LOL I’m full Berserker’s conditions bad’, or your non-condition skills being bad because ‘LOL I’m condition build what is damage?’ is a problem with the user, not the design of weapons. Those sets are not going to be optimized with extremely linear gear choices – and this is absolutely a good thing.

There is a minor issue of condition damage, as a stat, being somewhat underpowered given the paradigm of only 2-3 skills inflicting conditions; I expect this will change in a future patch.

“There isn’t a single weapon in the game that inflicts damage conditions with every single skill. "
Except for Engi Pistol/Shield or Pistol/Pistol, and some of their kits.

I Feel the conversation is getting de-railed. People love to make assumptions, most of which are 100% wrong. I specifically mentioned in my post that perhaps my suggestions weren’t perfect, but the main issue is the mixing and matching of abilities – DB doesn’t need to change to a direct damage ability specifically, but it should be in line with the rest of Dagger/Dagger – it currently isn’t. The same thing with Unload – it doesn’t need to specifically stack more conditions, but it should offer -something- to a condi build, because the other 4 Pistol/Pistol abilities are conditions, utility, and support.

Ranger shortbow is a very good example of what I’m aiming for – Shortbow is pretty obviously set up as a conditions weapon. 3 and 5 don’t stack conditions, but they are abilities that are still useful for a condition setup (swiftness and daze/stun are pretty useful for any setup, but that’s beside the point). Now compare that to Pistol/Pistol – what use is unload in a conditions build? Deathblossom is at least an evade, though the length of the animation kind of makes you a sitting duck on landing for anyone who knows what they’re doing. Other than a sub-par, last ditch evade, DB offers nothing to direct damage, which is what the rest of dagger/dagger is focused on. They could offer class appropriate buffs, or strip buffs from opponents, or anything, as long as it made sense to use the ability in the same vain as ALL the other weapon skills in the set.

Death Blossom still does 1500 direct damage (which can crit up to 3000) plus 1500 more from bleeding, for a pure direct damage build. To thieves that are addicted to 7k+ crits from backstab that doesn’t sound like much, until you take into consideration that it’s a fairly widespread AoE.

LiuliRenai.3928:

Death Blossom still does 1500 direct damage (which can crit up to 3000) plus 1500 more from bleeding, for a pure direct damage build. To thieves that are addicted to 7k+ crits from backstab that doesn’t sound like much, until you take into consideration that it’s a fairly widespread AoE.

people wanna keep death blossom cuz they like the condition build, i do too, but it doesnt change that it makes D/D a unfocused weapon just like pistol mainhand

Wolfe.3097:

LiuliRenai.3928:

Death Blossom still does 1500 direct damage (which can crit up to 3000) plus 1500 more from bleeding, for a pure direct damage build. To thieves that are addicted to 7k+ crits from backstab that doesn’t sound like much, until you take into consideration that it’s a fairly widespread AoE.

people wanna keep death blossom cuz they like the condition build, i do too, but it doesnt change that it makes D/D a unfocused weapon just like pistol mainhand

There is no such a thing as a “focused” weapon set! Pistol main hand fails because the design is bad, not because it is not focused. D/D is not focused either but works flawlessly.

The problem with Pistol and P/P in general is that the abilities are weak. P/P would be fixed easily to be viable for power crit and condition damage builds with the following changes:

1. Vital Shot instead of bleeding your target, should add 1 stack of vulnerability for 5 sec.
2. Body Shot instead of adding vulnerability, should add 3 staks of bleed for 8 sec. damage should be viable.
3. Unload execution should be faster and the damage should be increased by 15%-20%.
4. Head Shot’s damage needs to be increased by 200%-300%.
5. Black Powder’s initiative cost should be reduced by 1 initiative and it should also add poison with the original shot and every pulse.

With these changes P/P will be just as popular as D/D, S/P and Shortbow. As it stands now, P/P is the weakest settup for PvP… even S/D with Failing Strike is more effective duo to its lock down and harassing potential.

“D/D is not focused either but works flawlessly.”

Why do you feel it works flawlessly? That’s an honest question, maybe I’m thinking about it all wrong.

What function does DB fulfill in a power spec, other than a desperate evade? Liuili above mentioned that DB can hit for 1500 (3000 with proper spec on crit) with another 1500 from bleeds over 10-13 seconds – that sounds like a hell of a lot, but take some things into consideration ; any spec hitting that hard with DB is going to hit much harder with nearly anything else, AND is going to be on the squishy side. What squishy rogue has 5 init to spare for such a subpar attack? CnD will hit much harder, applies vuln, and gives you stealth. There’s a very small subset of situations where DB is the superior choice . Hell, even your auto-attack chain will hit harder, apply poison (and probably weakness due to 15 points deadly arts) and regain you some endurance. DB doesn’t even have to change that much, it just needs to offer SOMETHING to Direct damage specs – if they added something as minor as a single boon removal on the last hit, it would at least have a function for Direct Damage specs.

Blazer Hellsing.9184:

Wolfe.3097:

LiuliRenai.3928:

Death Blossom still does 1500 direct damage (which can crit up to 3000) plus 1500 more from bleeding, for a pure direct damage build. To thieves that are addicted to 7k+ crits from backstab that doesn’t sound like much, until you take into consideration that it’s a fairly widespread AoE.

people wanna keep death blossom cuz they like the condition build, i do too, but it doesnt change that it makes D/D a unfocused weapon just like pistol mainhand

There is no such a thing as a “focused” weapon set! Pistol main hand fails because the design is bad, not because it is not focused. D/D is not focused either but works flawlessly.

The problem with Pistol and P/P in general is that the abilities are weak. P/P would be fixed easily to be viable for power crit and condition damage builds with the following changes:

1. Vital Shot instead of bleeding your target, should add 1 stack of vulnerability for 5 sec.
2. Body Shot instead of adding vulnerability, should add 3 staks of bleed for 8 sec. damage should be viable.
3. Unload execution should be faster and the damage should be increased by 15%-20%.
4. Head Shot’s damage needs to be increased by 200%-300%.
5. Black Powder’s initiative cost should be reduced by 1 initiative and it should also add poison with the original shot and every pulse.

With these changes P/P will be just as popular as D/D, S/P and Shortbow. As it stands now, P/P is the weakest settup for PvP… even S/D with Failing Strike is more effective duo to its lock down and harassing potential.

flawlessly…you cant use that word, just like perfect, and normal, they are non existing ideals humanity created thru there hopes and bias. there is nothing in this world that is flawless, D/D included :P

and your wrong, D/P is a focused weapon set, it has no bleeds to rely on, none of its damage is split. S/P and S/D as well.

and when i mean focused, im just talking about a weapon set trying to do 2 types of damage, it spreads it thin and weakens it as a whole.

Condition Thief for life, Dagger/Dagger is FINE, its our BEST weapon slot and does not need changed.

Sword/Dagger needs a revamp… Pistol/Pistol needs a revamp.

Daecollo.9578:

Condition Thief for life, Dagger/Dagger is FINE, its our BEST weapon slot and does not need changed.

Sword/Dagger needs a revamp… Pistol/Pistol needs a revamp.

You’ve never tried pistol/dagger. Seriously, go try it. It’s better then D/D in every single aspect.
1) Condition removal no longer ruins your day, since your rapidly stacking short term bleeds for low initiative cost rather than slowly stacking long term bleeds at a high init cost.
2) You’re not in melee – pretty self explanatory.
3)Your stealth attack matters – Sneak attack is amazing compared to backstab in a condi build, again self explanatory.
4) A number of our utilities are infinitely easier to use with a ranged weapon than with a melee weapon (shadow refuge and shadowstep, primarily)

Pistol And Dagger’s Bleed does 3 times less damage then Death Blossoms bleed and you do NOT get a poison or a roll.

Poison is also on D/D, if you want to remove conditions from the set, you should remove that as well.

D/D also restores Endurance.

I think they should lower the damage of backstab and add a bleed and poison to it and make all of D/D condition based, and make heartseeker also add a bleed.

Atm though, we are one of the last classes that needs redesigned, except for pistol/pistol and Flanking Strike.

They need to get rid of the condition cap and make Condition Damage not terrible before they even consider adding more conditions to D/D….or any other kit.

Engineer gets at most 3 skills that benefit from condition damage on pistol / pistol; Ranger is in the same boat on Shortbow. Thief gets 2 skills that apply conditions on several weapons (Shortbow is bugged but no matter), but gets to spam skills situationally instead of being cooldown limited. LDB + poison on the autoattack more or less qualifies as a condition build given the standards set by other classes.

Of course you also get two good burst skills on D/D. That’s why it’s such a nice set, it can be played either way situationally.

Pistol/Pistol is kind of blah since Body Shot was nerfed into the ground and Unload lost its identity when the Sigil of Earth got eviscerated; it’s a weak set in general though so it’s not a good basis for comparison.

Sneak Attack from Cloak and Dagger is very nice, unfortunately that and the cripple is basically the entire set. It’s not bad though, and dishes out a good amount of condis even without condition damage on any other skills.

not too sure… if p/p added a large channelled bleed stacker, it might be a bit op with the pistol mainhand stealth openwr, which us also a multishot bleed stacker. how many bleeds is too many?

I think the OP did a good job!
I feel competent enough to comment only on S/D as that is my main weapon set.

Flanking Strike!

The thought behind the skill is to evade an enemy attack and launch a counterattack from the rear.
As the OP already suggested a simple evade and Shadowstep to the rear would be a very effective fix, still maintaining the original design of evasion and counterattacking.

With the modification in place, Flanking Strike would fit very well with the theme of Infiltrator’s Strike, which is also a Shadowstep, but used mainly as a gap closer and condition purging skill.
I really like this idea!

Regards,
Aetaru

I personally prefer ranged condition stacking and like how you can go between SB and P/D depending on your needs. That being said if the weapon roles were to be consolidated a bit I wouldn’t mind seeing something like below…

1) Trick Shot gets bleeding from Vital Shot, but just on the first target. Balance damage/attack speed as necessary.
2) Cluster Bomb moved to a burn effect. For being a relatively tough skill to use it should be more rewarding with a burn.
3) If Sword/Dagger were made more viably tanky (I’m looking at you Flanking Strike) that would make for a decent second set to duck into in bad situations, leaving SB as your primary ranged condition weapon.

Devildoc.6721:

Chakuna.6325:

Devildoc.6721:

If you’re using Thieves for a condition damage class you’re kind of doing it wrong.

fyp

I’m seeing too many posts about the SB being a condition weapon for a thief; 3 stacks of bleeding and poison damage? lol… Choking Gas is primarily meant for healing reduction and weakness, the condition damage is just a bonus, and Cluster Bomb is primarily meant for AoE direct damage, again, the condition damage is just a bonus.

Obviously Pistol MH and Unload need a revamp, just using Trick Shot out performs Unload atm and it has no initiative cost, cast time and it’s an AoE type auto-attack.

Imo they should give P/x a kiting/evasive direct damage play-style.
Give Vital Shot Vulnerability.
Give Sneak Attack more direct damage, Confusion and or Cripple/Chill, something other than condition damage.
Give Unload Cripple or Chill, same, if not more damage, it’s extremely lackluster atm
Get rid of Body Shot and give us something creative and relative to this play-style.

Shortbow’s direct damage is abyssmal, and no it doesn’t outperform pistols on a single target. Pistol autoattack actually does more damage than trick shot when the bleed is factored in and unload does as much damage as 2 cluster bombs and doesn’t have the long flight time.

Pistol has good damage aside from requiring bleeds to maximize it, what it’s lacking is mobility and the ability to effectively kite, and the skill that stacks vulnerability is a waste of initiative. That’s why I said sneak attack and unload stack vulnerability instead, and the #2 becomes a cripple. I won’t waste 2 initiative to put on a vulnerability for 5s, but I will use 2 initiative to cripple for 5s.

I’m not talking about single target, I probably should have made that clear.

Daecollo.9578:

Pistol And Dagger’s Bleed does 3 times less damage then Death Blossoms bleed and you do NOT get a poison or a roll.

Poison is also on D/D, if you want to remove conditions from the set, you should remove that as well.

D/D also restores Endurance.

I think they should lower the damage of backstab and add a bleed and poison to it and make all of D/D condition based, and make heartseeker also add a bleed.

Atm though, we are one of the last classes that needs redesigned, except for pistol/pistol and Flanking Strike.

Just to be clear, I’m not being sarcastic here – what kind of players are you facing when you roll D/D? Because rolling P/D, I see at LEAST 1 condition removal on 49 out of 50 of my fights (those without a condition removal are almost always either glass cannon, or obviously new to the game). More often than not, its 2-4 conditional removals in a 20s period. How does your super long, init intensive bleed help you out there? I specifically dumped D/D because any smart player waits until they have 9-12 stacks of bleed from your aerial twirls, then just drops them all, leaving you helpless for 10s.

Yes, D/D restores endurance, which P/D doesn’t. Que sera sera; it’s a small price to pay for how much more effective P/D is.

Why would I remove poison when it has a use in direct damage? I thought I made this perfectly clear, “this isn’t strictly about all abilities doing 1 type of damage, its about abilities being useful”. Poison is useful to a D/D build because it reduces heals by 33%.

My problem with unload isn’t that “It doesn’t do condition damage”, its that In a condition damage build you NEVER have a good reason to use it – it’s expensive and does kitten damage (in a condition build), and its generally used in desperation, or when you’ve got the fight in the bag. My problem with DB is the same – I dont care that the direct damage sucks, or that there’s a bleed, just that in a power/crit build, its a very expensive, sub-par dodge, and that’s it – 5 init is better spent on any of your other abilities 95% of the time, so why is it there? It doesn’t necessarily have to change to a Direct damage ability, but it should offer something to a Direct damage build because thats what the rest of D/D is focused on. Give me a reason to use Unload in a condi build, a reason to use DB in a power/crit build, even sometimes, and I’d be happy. At the moment, they are practically worthless when you spec in line with the rest of the weaponsets abilities (Condi for P/P and power/crit for D/D, to be clear)

Pistol And Dagger’s Bleed does 3 times less damage then Death Blossoms bleed and you do NOT get a poison or a roll.

Poison is also on D/D, if you want to remove conditions from the set, you should remove that as well.

D/D also restores Endurance.

I think they should lower the damage of backstab and add a bleed and poison to it and make all of D/D condition based, and make heartseeker also add a bleed.

Atm though, we are one of the last classes that needs redesigned, except for pistol/pistol and Flanking Strike.

well…that would be one way to get me to stop playing this game…

Ensign.2189:

Engineer gets at most 3 skills that benefit from condition damage on pistol / pistol; Ranger is in the same boat on Shortbow. Thief gets 2 skills that apply conditions on several weapons (Shortbow is bugged but no matter), but gets to spam skills situationally instead of being cooldown limited. LDB + poison on the autoattack more or less qualifies as a condition build given the standards set by other classes.

Of course you also get two good burst skills on D/D. That’s why it’s such a nice set, it can be played either way situationally.

Pistol/Pistol is kind of blah since Body Shot was nerfed into the ground and Unload lost its identity when the Sigil of Earth got eviscerated; it’s a weak set in general though so it’s not a good basis for comparison.

Sneak Attack from Cloak and Dagger is very nice, unfortunately that and the cripple is basically the entire set. It’s not bad though, and dishes out a good amount of condis even without condition damage on any other skills.

thats why its a bad set, its weaker because its split into trying to accomplish two things at once, resulting in a shallower skillset lacking identity.