Guild Wars 2

If you can’t beat em, join em…-sigh-

I’m about ready to hang up my gorgeous WvW zerker set, the shiny sword, fancy daggers, ascended trinkets, and sneaky stealthy tactics. I’ve done my shopping/farming and got the meta – dire condi p/d.

I do not like P/D – it’s clunky, it’s “skill-less”, it’s slow, and it’s cheese. Dear flippin love, it’s more cheesy than a triple-cheese-lover New Yorker pizza. All I have to do, is press 1 and win? How, who – ok, genius whoever discovered this build, but come on! This is too easy!!

My scariest foes now eat the dirt, and mercy of kittens, how did I not die from that condi-spike? This – this is witchcraft! I am terrified of the possibility that I may forget how to play thief!

Must adaprt to survive, but how far must it go? Is this the future for my poor thief? Accursed to follow the condi meta? Has she no hope of regaining her fluid grace, and must be shackled to this clunky build?

IS THERE NO HOPE?!

…

Melodramatic post, sue me. It was more fun to write it this way! In all seriousness, really…P/D is OP – no, my bad. Condition in general, is OP. P/D is just the only option left for thieves in this crazy World versus World. Sweet love, someone balance this oversight, please!

beautifully written! Lol I love it. I agree completely. Condi just doesn’t scratch my thief itch. It’s for somebody out there….but that person is boring.

Arikyali.5804:

If you can’t beat em, join em…-sigh-

I’m about ready to hang up my gorgeous WvW zerker set, the shiny sword, fancy daggers, ascended trinkets, and sneaky stealthy tactics. I’ve done my shopping/farming and got the meta – dire condi p/d.

I do not like P/D – it’s clunky, it’s “skill-less”, it’s slow, and it’s cheese. Dear flippin love, it’s more cheesy than a triple-cheese-lover New Yorker pizza. All I have to do, is press 1 and win? How, who – ok, genius whoever discovered this build, but come on! This is too easy!!

My scariest foes now eat the dirt, and mercy of kittens, how did I not die from that condi-spike? This – this is witchcraft! I am terrified of the possibility that I may forget how to play thief!

Must adaprt to survive, but how far must it go? Is this the future for my poor thief? Accursed to follow the condi meta? Has she no hope of regaining her fluid grace, and must be shackled to this clunky build?

IS THERE NO HOPE?!

…

Nope, not for you or any other people that play a build they don’t like. Just like server bandwagoners, you hop onto whatever wins the fights. Enjoy the cheese scrub.

What I don’t understand about some people that they give it the biggen by saying s/d is the best and most fun, or its the most challenging weapon set to play and slate how lame/cheese (what?) p/d is. Instead of working around this nerf by using cnd more often to land LS (I am sure there other tactics too) you give up on this high risk build for the p/d spec. Where is the logic in that?

Sometimes I just think a lot of people don’t try any more tbh.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

What I don’t understand about some people that they give it the biggen by saying s/d is the best and most fun, or its the most challenging weapon set to play and slate how lame/cheese (what?) p/d is. Instead of working around this nerf by using cnd more often to land LS (I am sure there other tactics too) you give up on this high risk build for the p/d spec. Where is the logic in that?

Sometimes I just think a lot of people don’t try any more tbh.

P/D was cheese before the s/d nerf. Condition damage itself, regardless of class or build, is the meta because it’s powerful – just as before the ferocity nerf, zerker was the meta. If condi damage and direct damage were balanced, I’d be content to go back to s/d or dagger mainhand builds.

S/D is still powerful in evades, escape, and crowd control. On average, an S/D thief can still beat the living daylights out of a P/D thief. S/D requires more knowledge of mechanics than P/D, and with awareness and constant practice, it’s not “press 1 to win”. But if you actually want to roam and kill people without dying yourself? It’s condi or nothing.

Play smart, cheesy, and dirty, or play fair and get your tootsie handed to you. A lot.

Just play around with the possible skills and it becomes less boring.
Ive been playing P/D for almost a year. and have always enjoyed running dungeons with friends using it.
By far my fav attack is. 6,1,3,F1,3,4,`(to P/P)then use 3 till they drop.(usually only took 1 hit to drop at this point)

I do agree, P/D has become OP, but it can be really fun to play with.

Try the P/d trap thief build. No I’m not joking. front page of forums. runes of the trapper are actually surprising me. Its really fun to play.

Can’t exactly takes this QQ seriously since it’s just a shift from D/D or S/D to P/D some patches/patch ago. Before the Dec 12 patch almost a year ago, there was little to no complain or name calling of this build, the main focus back then was D/D. Now that people don’t play D/D much… the focus shifted to another weapon set, which will then get QQ’ed about.
:P People will always QQ about a viable thief build.
BTW,you don’t need to specifically play this build, the reason people do play it is because they find it the most effective. If you don’t want to be like everyone else, then build something else. If it bothers you that your build is less effective, well I guess proceed to QQ’ing.

Yes, S/D got a huge nerf, but dagger main-hand is still freaking awesome. If you don’t enjoy Condi- don’t play it as D/P and D/D are both very viable.

I personally enjoy both play styles, but I probably enjoy D/D the most, and don’t find it underpowered. If you’re looking to add some interesting mechanics to P/D, as someone else suggested- get trapper runes. Makes this build very unique and fun IMO. also uncatchable + feline grace is fun too!, often times my dodge caltrops do like 30-40% of the damage when I kill someone, OP>

tl;dr You can make P/D a lot more fun if you want IMO, but if you really don’t enjoy it, power builds still very viable. well, dagger power builds are, you might wanna hang that sword up

i am still playing trickery dp in wvw <3
#hippster

can’t blame all s/d thieves rerolling tho, FS/LS change was rather big hit on s/d dmg

Go trap p/d condi and have you tried SA d/p?

Acro D/D

0/6/2/6/0 with zerk/cav armor and strength runes is actually pretty good. I’ve been tinkering around with traits and such, and I think it will be my new main setup.

Just something for you to try…I don’t want to lose another fellow thief to the condi meta q.q

alchemyst.2165:

Acro D/D

0/6/2/6/0 with zerk/cav armor and strength runes is actually pretty good. I’ve been tinkering around with traits and such, and I think it will be my new main setup.

Just something for you to try…I don’t want to lose another fellow thief to the condi meta q.q

I used to use this but I started to miss the burst that I had before so I swapped to D/D trickery 2 6 0 0 6 which I really like. It doesn’t have as much survivability but it is really fun to roam with and great in group fights. The fights just feel much more rewarding imo when not using cheese.

It’s pretty funny as to how much hate p/d gets now a days. I think all the hate for p/d comes from the condition meta. This set really only got popular after the whole perplexity rune introduction. Prior to that p/d was seen with some Wild Bill videos and no one really spent time complaining about it or saying it was thief meta. In fact I ran into post after post of people complaining about how mediocre p/d was. That the auto attack is too slow, that it hits like a wet noodle, etc.
Back in the days of D/D dominance p/d never got any real use. Also you can still die with p/d, play it as a hybrid build more power less toughness. Much less forgiving if you miss CnD.

oversoul soldier.1742:

It’s pretty funny as to how much hate p/d gets now a days. I think all the hate for p/d comes from the condition meta. This set really only got popular after the whole perplexity rune introduction. Prior to that p/d was seen with some Wild Bill videos and no one really spent time complaining about it or saying it was thief meta. In fact I ran into post after post of people complaining about how mediocre p/d was. That the auto attack is too slow, that it hits like a wet noodle, etc.
Back in the days of D/D dominance p/d never got any real use. Also you can still die with p/d, play it as a hybrid build more power less toughness. Much less forgiving if you miss CnD.

Personally I have hated this set since the beginning of days.
Its pure cheese the way pistol and dagger combine. The survivability comes next. There is no risk and a lot of reward.

If I could find a way to do pure condi d/d for WvW, I’d do it. But anything I’ve tried to theorycraft doesn’t work well.

Personally never had any problems killing p/d thieves so not sure what the problem with it is. The only damage conditions they have regular access to are confusion and bleeding. Shadow’s Embrace can easily keep up with removing any conditions a p/d thief can apply to me. I don’t really think p/d thieves fit into the condi meta as they don’t have insane uptime on burning like engi’s and necro’s can get.
As for its survivability it is pretty vulnerable to blinds and evades (if they keep missing that CnD they will eventually drop). They are also vulnerable to conditions, especially if you mix immob/chill/cripple into the mix as they can’t stealth if they have no CD’s left and can’t keep up with targets in melee to CnD off of them.

tl;dr D/P thief will inevitably beat a P/D thief. D/P is still the most viable thief build in WvW

Eldanesh.2390:

Personally never had any problems killing p/d thieves so not sure what the problem with it is. The only damage conditions they have regular access to are confusion and bleeding. Shadow’s Embrace can easily keep up with removing any conditions a p/d thief can apply to me. I don’t really think p/d thieves fit into the condi meta as they don’t have insane uptime on burning like engi’s and necro’s can get.
As for its survivability it is pretty vulnerable to blinds and evades (if they keep missing that CnD they will eventually drop). They are also vulnerable to conditions, especially if you mix immob/chill/cripple into the mix as they can’t stealth if they have no CD’s left and can’t keep up with targets in melee to CnD off of them.

tl;dr D/P thief will inevitably beat a P/D thief. D/P is still the most viable thief build in WvW

+1

D/P is not viable against anyone with a brain playing a build that can 1v1.

It’s the most telegraphed weapon set a thief has period and now you can literally face kitten the thief while standing inside the BP field…

Sure you can farm bads but you can do that on any thief build. It’s when you fight a decent opponent that you see how bad it is

I couldn’t disagree more. The smoke field was only a small part of surviving with D/P and if you rely on it completely you are not playing it very well. It is better to use the projectile part of Black Powder to blind an opponent at an important moment (such as a hammer stun or a CnD). The strength of D/P has always been that you can stealth without needing a melee target to hit, and that is still true. I have duelled every kind of class and every kind of build with it, and it can beat them all. There is no true ‘hard counter’ to D/P, it is the most versatile build thief has which is what makes it viable in my opinion. The other thing about D/P is that it is a hard counter to every other thief build. It has a fundamental advantage with the blinds and not relying on CnD, that the other weapon sets just can’t keep up with. The extreme amount of stealth also means continual condition removal, so D/P is by far the best counter to any condition classes and builds you may encounter

I go ultra cheese p/d with 5 venoms and all venom traits. It makes the set funner for me because the build has so many flaws but can still absolutely demolish almost anything with a few button presses. It’s also nice in teams since you can give people your venoms and spread condis all over the place.

p/d isn’t OP. Dire gear is though

Cam Ron.4170:

p/d isn’t OP. Dire gear is though

+1
Some people just don’t get it….it’s a combination they(power or condi) never ask themselves how different would it be if the thief was using carrion,rabid or settler….

Sagat.3285:

Cam Ron.4170:

p/d isn’t OP. Dire gear is though

+1
Some people just don’t get it….it’s a combination they(power or condi) never ask themselves how different would it be if the thief was using carrion,rabid or settler….

Pd condi build still bad for team comp but great for solo roaming.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Arikyali.5804:

If you can’t beat em, join em…-sigh-

I’m about ready to hang up my gorgeous WvW zerker set, the shiny sword, fancy daggers, ascended trinkets, and sneaky stealthy tactics. I’ve done my shopping/farming and got the meta – dire condi p/d.

I do not like P/D – it’s clunky, it’s “skill-less”, it’s slow, and it’s cheese. Dear flippin love, it’s more cheesy than a triple-cheese-lover New Yorker pizza. All I have to do, is press 1 and win? How, who – ok, genius whoever discovered this build, but come on! This is too easy!!

My scariest foes now eat the dirt, and mercy of kittens, how did I not die from that condi-spike? This – this is witchcraft! I am terrified of the possibility that I may forget how to play thief!

Must adaprt to survive, but how far must it go? Is this the future for my poor thief? Accursed to follow the condi meta? Has she no hope of regaining her fluid grace, and must be shackled to this clunky build?

IS THERE NO HOPE?!

…

Nope, not for you or any other people that play a build they don’t like. Just like server bandwagoners, you hop onto whatever wins the fights. Enjoy the cheese scrub.

^ So much this. Just like all the people hopping on to Ranger, my favorite profession. They weren’t using it when it was hard to use but now that it’s been buffed, everyone come on over to Ranger it’s easy over here! -_- I now have a little bit of hatred behind every Ranger I kill because I assume they’re a bandwagoner.

vincecontix.1264:

Pd condi build still bad for team comp but great for solo roaming.

It’s one of those builds where you can kind-of fit into a dps support role, but there are usually so many better options to take. Necromancer… Mesmer…

Initially I was psyched over the GS War changes because you can get him on a roamer spec, then put a P/D thief as a deeps support. Have P/D + GS War destroy far point node. Buut then they nerfed GS burst skill.

Chicago Jack.5647:

vincecontix.1264:

Pd condi build still bad for team comp but great for solo roaming.

It’s one of those builds where you can kind-of fit into a dps support role, but there are usually so many better options to take. Necromancer… Mesmer…

Initially I was psyched over the GS War changes because you can get him on a roamer spec, then put a P/D thief as a deeps support. Have P/D + GS War destroy far point node. Buut then they nerfed GS burst skill.

Word, but people still really sleeping on Venom share, even pre-ptach. I’d say condi venom-share is one of the top offensive support builds in gw2. Maybe the top offensive support for groups of 5 or less. Venom-shared basilisk venom or immobilize are basically a death sentence. also, as far as 1v1s go, venom-share+thieves guild is nuts, albeit gimmicky

>>Word, but people still really sleeping on Venom share, even pre-ptach. I’d say condi venom-share is one of the top offensive support builds in gw2. Maybe the top offensive support for groups of 5 or less. Venom-shared basilisk venom or immobilize are basically a death sentence. also, as far as 1v1s go, venom-share+thieves guild is nuts, albeit gimmick

Yes and keep in mind as per the patch the DURATIONS are also shared. Get a thief to 100 percent condition duration and those venoms are deadly when spread to 5 others.

Eldanesh.2390:

I couldn’t disagree more. The smoke field was only a small part of surviving with D/P and if you rely on it completely you are not playing it very well. It is better to use the projectile part of Black Powder to blind an opponent at an important moment (such as a hammer stun or a CnD). The strength of D/P has always been that you can stealth without needing a melee target to hit, and that is still true. I have duelled every kind of class and every kind of build with it, and it can beat them all. There is no true ‘hard counter’ to D/P, it is the most versatile build thief has which is what makes it viable in my opinion. The other thing about D/P is that it is a hard counter to every other thief build. It has a fundamental advantage with the blinds and not relying on CnD, that the other weapon sets just can’t keep up with. The extreme amount of stealth also means continual condition removal, so D/P is by far the best counter to any condition classes and builds you may encounter

So much misinformation

My main is a wvw thief, I recently stepped into spvp for the first time a few days ago. D/D backstab build 0/6/6/2/0 was totally useless. I was forced to try something else. I didn’t want to give up dual daggers, so I decided to try condi D/D for craps and chuckles. The first match I tried it, people were getting mad in map chat lol. I heard them calling it trolltrop build, so this is probably far from original. Killing people 3v1 and it was my first time trying this build, and first day entering spvp. I’m sure I was just going against crappies, but was still fun. :P

Here is what I used for skills and traits:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQJAoYl0Mp5pNNx7J0PNhTBxVA8eErIGd3hkmBA

Carrion amulet was working for me in spvp, but dire might be better in wvw. As for runes, I used krait. Stacking skale venom with the torment on elite skill use from krait runes + steal daze applies a ton of pressure.

I’m sure this could be refined, but I was getting people to 20+ bleeding stacks fairly easily. Using orrian truffle and meat stew (might on dodge + 40% endurance regen) in wvw would be awesome for this build imo.

Could swap 2 points in Shadow Arts for Mug. Both seemed to work fine, but I’m so used to having shadow refuge to save my kitten as backstab build.

Vurse.9873:

Yamsandjams.3267:

I go ultra cheese p/d with 5 venoms and all venom traits. It makes the set funner for me because the build has so many flaws but can still absolutely demolish almost anything with a few button presses. It’s also nice in teams since you can give people your venoms and spread condis all over the place.

Can you link me the build? I’m interested…

I’ve used something like http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAqYVlsMpopNNxrJsPNRMhw9uf986s2NWEA-TlyCABA8gAwb/hjPhCoovZiDBwNq/koSQGOABUcEAyS5HpAgZaE-w, which is a solo-roaming variant of the build (it’s not really that great for solo roaming though).

Note that I use carrion, but you’re probably better off with dire. Carrion gear is just much easier to get than dire, and it is actually higher DPS. I also put scavenging runes on it, but those aren’t necessary. Perplexity, aristocracy, nightmare, &c. can all work fine. Sigils can be changed around too if you want some crit procs or something. Traveler runes will also be good if you can’t stand being so slow.

The basic way to engage the enemy is to land the typical CnD+steal combo, and then pop your thieve’s guild once you’re in stealth. Once the thieves are spawned, pop all your venoms at once to share them to your NPCs, and then use sneak attack on your enemy. All your venom charges will effectively be applied at once, and your NPC buddies will dump theirs onto your enemy as well, so they get overloaded with condis. You can then go behind them (since immobilize prevents the enemy from rotating around to face you) and hit them with whatever you want. I usually do one or two shadow strikes and then a body shot or two when the immobilize is almost worn off so they’re still locked down. Or you can just do some more sneak attacks on them to stack bleeds.

As you can see though, you have very little defensive utility, especially little condition clearing and no stun breaks. If you waste your venoms or someone is able to break out of your long immobilize and clean off their conditions, it’ll probably be tough for you to win unless you play it perfectly. Of course, this build’s potential is maximized in a group since you can give them venoms.

The 5 venom version is http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAqYVnMJSRT20EeNB/TmImQ4e3veedW7GLCA-TlyCABA8gAwb/hjPhCoovZiDBwNq/koSQGOABUcEAyS5HpAgZaE-w. This is much more useful in a group scenario since you can give your venoms to your allies, and your buddies from thieve’s guild aren’t as necessary. The skelk venom can also work as a group heal, so it’s supporting them as well as enabling them to do more damage/apply long duration immobilizes/interrupt with basilisk venom. Once again, there’s little defensive utility, so you’ll just have to be careful not to get crushed by a rampaging zerg or whatnot.

EDIT: I haven’t played around with ice drake venom, but you could possibly swap it out for spider venom if you feel the excessive amount of poison is going to waste. Keeping someone chilled for 5+ seconds with a group barrage can be pretty devastating in some cases.

OP, why can’t you admit you got outplayed? If your gonna hate on it, don’t play it.

Xtinct.7031:

OP, why can’t you admit you got outplayed? If your gonna hate on it, don’t play it.

You…really don’t know how easy dire p/d is compared to zerker s/d in WvW, do you?

I play several theif build types,

I have blown up condi thiefs (yes, even some rocking full dire) on my s/d d/p power build. I wont break down every little detail for you, but it works best with 6 in SA, maintaining good blind up time and proper timing of infiltrator’s strike when my target manages to pull off a shadow strike.

I do get outplayed from time to time, but I do not come here to qq about it.

Wow. No, I’m sorry, I make a light-hearted post on my dismay for easy-to-play condi p/d and you come in and accuse me of q.q-ing about being outplayed? You don’t even know me.

Good love, get off your high horse. I’ve beaten my share of p/d thieves as well. Everyone knows cheesy builds don’t equate to good gameplay.

I dunno, it’s been funny reading some stuff here like how D/P is hard to counter, but I don’t think it can keep up with all the Condition ticks and applications, you’ll have to keep disengaging even with SA to ‘out-tank’ good opponents, which is a shame really.

I was thinking of hybrid myself , but I don’t think I like the idea of playing with less burst damage, to compensate for decent Condition damage/duration.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

but I don’t think it can keep up with all the Condition ticks and applications, you’ll have to keep disengaging even with SA to ‘out-tank’ good opponents, which is a shame really.

I think against p/d thieves d/p can keep up with the condi removal pretty easily as condi thieves don’t actually get access to that many different conditions. To overload a SA thief with condi’s you really do need to apply a lot of different ones at the same time, as they can only remove them one at a time. But if you are just applying bleeds with the very occasional vulnerability, cripple, poison, confusion and torment it is hard to keep them stacked with lots of condi’s. In other words in the SA thief survives the condi thieves steal based confusion burst then it is super easy to keep the bleeds off while their steal is on cd. Condi engi’s and necro’s are the big threat as they have a lot of uptime on many different conditions, and so they can keep a SA thief overloaded.

Guys, don’t all run to P/D please I don’t want to fight you when I’m roaming.

Maybe you’re right, but I think they can be one of the most boring fights you can find, especially against dire/rabid/carrion mix P/D thieves that are traited into SA and, or Acro.

I’ve run into some guys who also use D/P to disengage as their alternate set, very annoying..

Is annoying the same as broken or OP?

Sagat.3285:

Is annoying the same as broken or OP?

Apparently it is.

So I tried out P/D with Dire / Trapper for a few days. It’s pretty easy to learn. I’m not sure if I like this weaponset. Sure I get a ton of dodges, and access to 5 different ways of stealthing, but for some reason it doesn’t seem fun to me. Enemies players do melt away for the most part, but if I had to try to solo cap a camp, it’s not possible lol. Well, it is, but it only took me all of 10 mins to kill everything and the dredge at the same time. Although if I got snared, feared, or took a knockdown, it was over :\

It’s also pretty funny when I 1v1’d a D/P Thief in WvW. That fight was pretty dumb. And it ended up with me just leaving because I didn’t want to fight for 5 minutes. I think I’m going to go back to the ol’ backstab. Big numbers attract me anyway

I wonder if Rampager is worth it with Ele runes or something that gives power + condi damage. Maybe it will result in a pretty good hybrid.

Lamuness.3570:

I wonder if Rampager is worth it with Ele runes or something that gives power + condi damage. Maybe it will result in a pretty good hybrid.

As a rule of thumb, rampager is generally not worth it. If you want to go hybrid with a build that primarily focuses on condis, I generally find a carrion/rabid mix is the best way to go. You can add in some rampager too that if you need the precision for crit-procs, but I don’t find it to be worth it unless you somehow also have high crit damage, which is unlikely.

I gave up trying to like P/D. It just doesn’t have the same gap-closing and evasive ability as a sword. But I’m still going to keep the set for hopelessly outmatched fights.

Lamuness.3570:

but if I had to try to solo cap a camp, it’s not possible lol. Well, it is, but it only took me all of 10 mins to kill everything and the dredge at the same time.

I’ve come across someone like you once, they were good at 1v1 but a mess at capping camps. I’ve been alone in our borderland for hours and they took 10 mins to take out one camp (without dredge) – so I just upgraded and flipped all other camps and after a while they died to the npcs – problem solved.
Anyway, My condi thief takes 1.30 minutes for usual camps without dredge but 2 yaks. Set: p/d, SB and daggerstorm as elite. Full dire with runes of the krait.
I play my d/d zerker thief again though who’s even faster at taking out camps but I didn’t real play condi to be fair, so maybe there’s more potential.

Sheogorath: time for a celebration P/D CHEEEEEZE for everyone

Honestly id like trying PD with a venom build.