Guild Wars 2

https://goo.gl/ZsQuxF
work fine with grove runes and human elite ( avatar of melandru #5 ) too.

Body Shot is highly effective because you can lock down some people at a critical moment.

In pvp Deadshot amulet makes it a 2 second duration.

On my own WvW build I get three seconds per PLUS that vuln.

Deadshot would push the vuln to over 4 seconds per use. If someone locked down in PvP and you pile on say three uses of 2 he in a heap of trouble. That said you really can not spam it in the truest sense as not only will you not being a lot of damage but Immobs have a three stack limit meaning one will have to expire before another applied once that limit reached.

For s/b users p/d off hand can lock a person in place for a switch to the SB and CG fields. Personally I find no more then two at once ever needed in my own build. If you got durations up there a 1 shot body shot is the equal of two with no durations if we look at just immob.

The only time I can see you staying in p/d and spamming the skill is if you just want to lock someone down for a teamate to kill. That kind of ho hum and in real game terms there likely people on the other side trying to kill you.

It might be interesting to try and get the duration to 2 seconds in a WvW hybrid or power build using p/p. Lock and unload!

I am curious as to the link provided and the tooltips for body shot. It shows a stack of poison applied. I am not sure where that comes from.

In team fights with two or three allies an immobilize lockdown on a focus target is gold.

Especially if they are a thief who is out of dodges or not using escapists absolution.

“OP” doesn’t mean what you think it means.

People need to learn what a word or acronym is before using them.

babazhook.6805:

On my own WvW build I get three seconds per PLUS that vuln.

Deadshot would push the vuln to over 4 seconds per use. If someone locked down in PvP and you pile on say three uses of 2 he in a heap of trouble. That said you really can not spam it in the truest sense as not only will you not being a lot of damage but Immobs have a three stack limit meaning one will have to expire before another applied once that limit reached.

For s/b users p/d off hand can lock a person in place for a switch to the SB and CG fields. Personally I find no more then two at once ever needed in my own build. If you got durations up there a 1 shot body shot is the equal of two with no durations if we look at just immob.

The only time I can see you staying in p/d and spamming the skill is if you just want to lock someone down for a teamate to kill. That kind of ho hum and in real game terms there likely people on the other side trying to kill you.

It might be interesting to try and get the duration to 2 seconds in a WvW hybrid or power build using p/p. Lock and unload!

I am curious as to the link provided and the tooltips for body shot. It shows a stack of poison applied. I am not sure where that comes from.

For the question just read panic strike trait and grand master one

Wowsa. I had thought the change to panic strike was for that trait alone but it indeed it any immob. This makes the changes even better and devourer venom just went up a notch or two.

yeah this build could be very deadly i probably still take bound over dash for stealth reset since poison from the immo is so long no real reason to stay out of stealth.

Taobella.6597:

yeah this build could be very deadly i probably still take bound over dash for stealth reset since poison from the immo is so long no real reason to stay out of stealth.

Personally If I was doing a condition build, I would stay out of DrD entirely. It just does not offer enough. The must haves are DA and Trickery and for that other line I am not convinced DrD offers more then acro or SA for a p/d condition build.

Yeah, I’m seriously considering dropping DrD in favor of DA…although losing that mobility is hard given everything. SA offers a lot and so does Trickery (between the two I’d actually drop Trickery first).

saerni.2584:

Yeah, I’m seriously considering dropping DrD in favor of DA…although losing that mobility is hard given everything. SA offers a lot and so does Trickery (between the two I’d actually drop Trickery first).

The keys to trickery are uncatchable, that confusion and the extra INI off the steal and the line itself. P/d is not an INI hog like some other builds but that still hard to give up. I have done the line without confusion as well (back whn perplexity runes worked different I used pressure strike and the soh steal).

That said with the new DA your damage output really jumps and poison now easily accessible with a p/d build something not so easy to do before.

If you are going UC in DrD there a significant damage boost dropping it for DA but survival will be harder. If you 1v1 a lot you probably want to go for more damage.
For me dropping SA not an option. The RS is just too effective at boon stripping and gets me around resistance warriors which I could not deal with before.

At the end of the day these changes were well done IMO as they did boost core and there now more ways you can go core.

choking gas has all boon stripping you need in world stack with sigil of absorption

Taobella.6597:

choking gas has all boon stripping you need in world stack with sigil of absorption

All dependent on how long you keep him in the field and whether or not there stability on. Plus it does have to interrupt a skill when it fires. RS is a sure thing. P/D also likes stealth a bit more for the AA and sneak attack. RS also steals entire stacks. Ripping max might stacks off someone really puts a kick into your applied conditions.

Added to that I am a fan of SE as it always gets damaging conditions . If I am in and out of stealth (which p/d does) it vastly superior to EA. Resilience along with your typically higher armor also makes you hard to kill when stealthed.

I intend to play around a bit more with my existing build as well to see if leeching now worthwhile over hidden thief. I am not sure the math supports it just yet (Ie always get that sneak attack after a steal over lower venom cooldowns with health gain)

I’d also point out that in gameplay the ability to teleport stealth to a target can allow you to sneak around a lot more effectively.

Necro was capping enemy home on Forest while I stole their beast. Necro ran towards me while I stayed out of sight and I stole to one of his minions. IA to node and decapped before he realized I was there.

I might drop DrD for DA if only to see if the offensive gain is stronger than the defensive loss. I used to run DA/Trick/SA back before HoT and only adopted Acro over DA as preparation for the release of HoT.

I’ll be losing perma-swiftness as well so the mobility will take a hit. It may require refocusing my runes around poison as well to try and boost the spike damage.

babazhook.6805:

Taobella.6597:

yeah this build could be very deadly i probably still take bound over dash for stealth reset since poison from the immo is so long no real reason to stay out of stealth.

Personally If I was doing a condition build, I would stay out of DrD entirely. It just does not offer enough. The must haves are DA and Trickery and for that other line I am not convinced DrD offers more then acro or SA for a p/d condition build.

But Impairing Daggers applies 5 stacks of poison with Panic Strike and with Brawler’s Tenacity, that’s applied every 20s. This is how I Daze lock my targets with CG.

On defensive side, BD as stun break on 12s CD and Dash.

This is about what I’ve been running, but with vipers mixed into dire instead of rabid. With impairing daggers and spider venom and a couple body shots they’re usually in panic mode before you even get to shortbow.

d/d and d/p are also decent with the 33% poison chance to daggers. I’ve been running SA sometimes over trick, but I think babazhook is correct that SA over DD is probably best. You’ll lose pulmonary impact, but I think you get more sustain out of it.

Tinnel.4369:

With impairing daggers and spider venom and a couple body shots they’re usually in panic mode before you even get to shortbow.

I’m simply pointing out what DD trait brings and the kind of playstyle that it makes possible. As for full condition damage, I do not disagree.

maybe play style thing i never liked acrobatic or shadow line.

only reason i look at shadow line is to lower CD on venom.

only reason i look at acrobatic is higher eva time.

both i do not find i need in 80% of my fights that my just personal view

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Tinnel.4369:

With impairing daggers and spider venom and a couple body shots they’re usually in panic mode before you even get to shortbow.

I’m simply pointing out what DD trait brings and the kind of playstyle that it makes possible. As for full condition damage, I do not disagree.

Oh, I wasn’t disagreeing with you so much as just agreeing with baba. You’re totally right, it’s a matter of style. I’m not running BD, but rather BP, SV, and ID so the condi clear, damage reduction, extra stealth, and boon strip seem to work better for me.

Still very much playing with different things, but finding with this build you largely just watch them melt from stealth which is kinda zzzzzzz.

There very specific reasons I do not think DrD meshes as well in a p/d build Impairing daggers not withstanding . Impairing is a very good skill but in my opinion as far as condition builds go better suits d/d thief.

This is dictated out of the DA line and in particular the adept traits. if we consider condition builds only , d/d and p/d , these are my observations.

Mug really does not suit either build. It more oriented towards a power build. What mug can do in power is give you a nice instant damage spike followed up by health gain that can keep you in the fight long enough to get one or two more big hits in. With a condition build you are not geting a whole lot of damage from mug and the nature of DOT attacks means getting in one or two extra attacks that going from low health to a couple k more will rarely win a fight.

Dagger mastery with changes works very well with the d/d build as that build uses the dagger portion for 80 percent of its attacks. P/d does not benefit near as much as most of the attacks are the AA and #2 which are not dagger based.

P/d benefits MUCH more from trappers respite. A trap suits the kite and stealth nature of the build perfectly as you can draw people through them as you kite. The needle trap does bleed and poison and has a longer immob duration then does impairing daggers. Added to that with just respite traited you can effectively get two such traps simply by prepositioning one before combat entered (Ample opportunity exists for this in WvW)

If we jump to Major panic strike does not mesh all that well with p/d as you already have plenty of Immob via #2. It works better for d/d which has no sources of such. You really want deadly trapper for that lower trap cooldown and the added might and vuln.

This then shapes your choice for utilities. If I am taking trapper traits I want at least another needle trap. Effectively I can now have 4 of these in short order each of them stacking might on myself and vuln on the enemy. If we consider p/d #2 it rather easy to get 20+ stacks vuln in short order. While understood the percentages not additive this a huge boost to your poisons effectiveness when lead attacks (15) and potent poison (33) factored in with that vuln on the enemy AND your might, you are getting close to doubling the effectiveness of your poison stacks.

Not only that but your confusion and bleeds tick higher (minus the potent) and this swing is way more then Impairing can offer.

Shadowtrap also synergizes very well with this adding more vuln and even more might stacks along with allowing escape, pursuit and misdirection potential. That leaves one slot for another skill and taking DrD just for Impairing is not going to make it worthwhile.

As to BD again a great skill , but I find stuns do not happen near as much in my p/d build as in my d/d build. I am going to much prefer shadowstep for the mobility and cleanses for my stun break OR using that last spot for a venom.

We then get down to the heal. I just find wirthdraw a superior heal in a p/d build for its ability to cleanse conditions and open a gap over CV. The single largest thing missed from that DrD line in a p/d build is that UC but it my feeling that I get more out of SA in sum total then what UC provides and this relates directly to the nature of p/d and its AA attack demanding stealth and my desire to peel boons away at will.

RS also does this. If desired I can now drop BT and sub in trickster and or pressure strike without crippling my ability to remove things like resistance and regen. A pure condition build going up against a build with high resistance up time will simply not be able to do much damage and you need a way to get at those boons.

about bodyshot spam is op…

I am trying out this fun build atm. Yes, in some situations it’s pretty strong. Now here’s an example of a recent fight. Met a guardian in EotM. Bodyshot spam, Poison and Confusion from Steal, Impairing Daggers, Spider Venom, stealth+pistol 1 bleeding burst, Needle Trap… He cleansed EVERYTHING. Every single freaking condition I put on him. Over and over again, like he had condi cleansing on every single skill and with no cooldown for those cleansings. And then healed back, every single time, over and over again. All I could do is to just run around, attack him again and again and retreat.

Another example. Necromancer sending back all those conditions to me. Currently I run DA-Trick-DrD for mobility and movement-impairing condi breaking. Almost no condi removals. He can send back to me my poison stacks on signet, on trait, from staff skill… I’ll be down from my own poison in 2 seconds. Not to mention that he has also tons of ways to simply remove my conditions.

Power mesmer jumped on my thief. My 17k health, with tons of toughness, gone in 2 seconds, I barely had time to do any damage on him.

How much more counter classes/builds do ppl want to stop complaining that a build is overpowered? Is this a strong build? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is. But it has its counters.

I run a variant using SA/Trick/DrD.

I have higher condition cleanse and better stealth access. This lets me avoid a lot of condition transfers from necromancers.

As to guardian was that a DH? You find that between blocks and cleanse on block (yay HoT) DH can require more careful attacks. Use Choking Gas because it is unblockable. Load venoms and avoid attacking too much. Be sure to use the stolen ability at the right time to shut down some of his healing.

Shortbow and caltrops trait can really hurt a DH with unblockables.

Body Shot also isn’t something to spam (use more than once in a row) in most 1v1s. You are better off using it in groups to help your allies land their bursts. It might be less satisfying than doing the damage yourself but it can be highly effective,

saerni, the whole point of discussion of Bodyshot spam being overpowered, as Soma.3891 thinks, was about recent update in Deadly Arts spec, where, through 2 trait combo Bodyshot gains around 3k poison damage on top of immobilization. So SA/Trick/DrD won’t work here. For me, it’s either DA-SA-Trick or DA-Trick-DrD.

Yes, that was a dragonhunter. But the point is, that everything, even this so called overpowered Bodyshot, can be countered, if ppl would put their minds to it, instead of just screaming out of their lungs how things are overpowered. I just really don’t want this really sweet update to Deadly Arts spec, that I was waiting for so long, to go away because of some whiners.

Fair enough, adding poison to Body Shot doesn’t make it op though because you can get a lot more conditions off Shadow Strike or Sneak Attack for less initiative than you will spend on Body Shot. Poison on immobilize is a bonus rather than an abusable mechanic for unreasonable levels of poison.

It provides a good consistent cover condition though with heal reduction so that is nice.

Antares LYA.3504:

Yes, that was a dragonhunter. But the point is, that everything, even this so called overpowered Bodyshot, can be countered, if ppl would put their minds to it, instead of just screaming out of their lungs how things are overpowered. I just really don’t want this really sweet update to Deadly Arts spec, that I was waiting for so long, to go away because of some whiners.

“go away because of some whiners.” ohh it’s anet gonna take like 3 years for balance it. if u not trust me just look at ghost thief and 3333dodge spam d/d condi mode :>

@babazhook.6805
I was not suggesting to replace DA with DrD. Acro does nothing for P/D that DrD cannot provide, so it’s not even a valid candidate. My suggestion was to use both DA and DrD and maybe have Trick or SA as the 3rd trait line.

Antares LYA.3504:

Another example. Necromancer sending back all those conditions to me.

This is exactly why I don’t use more than 2 kinds of conditions. I know that Torment and Confusion are good to stack with Poison and Bleed, but Necro will always force you to rethink your decision.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

@babazhook.6805
I was not suggesting to replace DA with DrD. Acro does nothing for P/D that DrD cannot provide, so it’s not even a valid candidate. My suggestion was to use both DA and DrD and maybe have Trick or SA as the 3rd trait line.

Antares LYA.3504:

Another example. Necromancer sending back all those conditions to me.

This is exactly why I don’t use more than 2 kinds of conditions. I know that Torment and Confusion are good to stack with Poison and Bleed, but Necro will always force you to rethink your decision.

I have outlined why I feel both Trickery and SA superior for a P/d build for my purposes. DrD offers those added Physical utilities such as Impairing daggers which simply means displacing something equal or better in the kit.

P/d is NOT an evade build meaning you do not benefit a lot from the on evade traits that is offered up by DrD.

For utility and damage trickery with its added INI , the confusion on steal, uncatchable and lead attacks , can not be beat or matched by anything in the DrD line. Removing TR in favor of DrD is simply a non starter from my perspective.

SA is another I would not give up simply because I find the condition cleanse of SE in a stealth build superior to EA. SA offers two extra stealths and more boon theft which is of great benefit to a Condition build (Impairing daggers does nothing if you can strip resistance off an enemy just as example)

To Acro and comparing it to DrD it hardly as bad as you suggest. Acro will give all the swiftnekitteneally needs and couples that with some pretty decent condition removal and health regen out of PR . That PR works very well with SE in ensuring damaging conditions removed efficiently and does a better job of this then does EA for a p/d build.

While I stated I am rarely stunned in p/d when I do get stunned HtC will break that stun immediately and refill endurance. Yes it has a long cooldown but the frequency of stuns precludes needing it every 12 seconds.

Dont stop also does a decent job as far as Immobs go. While UC is certainly superior in this regard , If I had to rank the suitability of each traitline for the build I want DA, Trickery and SA all come out ahead of DrD. Acro would be slightly behind DrD with a lot tied to other utilities and traits taken and CS at the bottom of the pile.

babazhook.6805:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

@babazhook.6805
I was not suggesting to replace DA with DrD. Acro does nothing for P/D that DrD cannot provide, so it’s not even a valid candidate. My suggestion was to use both DA and DrD and maybe have Trick or SA as the 3rd trait line.

Antares LYA.3504:

Another example. Necromancer sending back all those conditions to me.

This is exactly why I don’t use more than 2 kinds of conditions. I know that Torment and Confusion are good to stack with Poison and Bleed, but Necro will always force you to rethink your decision.

I have outlined why I feel both Trickery and SA superior for a P/d build for my purposes. DrD offers those added Physical utilities such as Impairing daggers which simply means displacing something equal or better in the kit.

P/d is NOT an evade build meaning you do not benefit a lot from the on evade traits that is offered up by DrD.

For utility and damage trickery with its added INI , the confusion on steal, uncatchable and lead attacks , can not be beat or matched by anything in the DrD line. Removing TR in favor of DrD is simply a non starter from my perspective.

SA is another I would not give up simply because I find the condition cleanse of SE in a stealth build superior to EA. SA offers two extra stealths and more boon theft which is of great benefit to a Condition build (Impairing daggers does nothing if you can strip resistance off an enemy just as example)

To Acro and comparing it to DrD it hardly as bad as you suggest. Acro will give all the swiftnekitteneally needs and couples that with some pretty decent condition removal and health regen out of PR . That PR works very well with SE in ensuring damaging conditions removed efficiently and does a better job of this then does EA for a p/d build.

While I stated I am rarely stunned in p/d when I do get stunned HtC will break that stun immediately and refill endurance. Yes it has a long cooldown but the frequency of stuns precludes needing it every 12 seconds.

Dont stop also does a decent job as far as Immobs go. While UC is certainly superior in this regard , If I had to rank the suitability of each traitline for the build I want DA, Trickery and SA all come out ahead of DrD. Acro would be slightly behind DrD with a lot tied to other utilities and traits taken and CS at the bottom of the pile.

Well, I do respect your condition build, in fact, I love the poison build you posted before and all those are valid points. Thanks.

babazhook.6805, but without DrD thief’s mobility suffers greatly. While roaming in WvW, it’s essential to have a permanent swiftness for catching up with a fleeing target or for getting away from the incoming zerg. Without DrD all your mobility is just the expensive teleport on SB. Or you need to waste a slot for a speed signet. Every time I try to take DrD away from my spec combo, I feel like my thief has been crippled.

Acro gives swiftness on dodge just like UC so you aren’t really suffering that much.

Antares LYA.3504:

babazhook.6805, but without DrD thief’s mobility suffers greatly. While roaming in WvW, it’s essential to have a permanent swiftness for catching up with a fleeing target or for getting away from the incoming zerg. Without DrD all your mobility is just the expensive teleport on SB. Or you need to waste a slot for a speed signet. Every time I try to take DrD away from my spec combo, I feel like my thief has been crippled.

I play 5 different thieves and know how it feels to go from one with high swiftness access to one without. That said a thief that traits Bounding Dodger or Impaling Lotus does not get that swiftness access either and do fine so a few points.

As stated Acro does have swiftness. I myself do not take it on the p/d build so do not have that as a source but Acro does have other benefits that DrD does not offer if you go that course.

Alternatively you can take TOTC over uncatchable if you really want swiftness that badly. Again I do not do this. I just live without it. How to catch someone that flees ? I use P/d #2 . Granted the range 900 and it relatively slow but I get a three second Immob off it. Mixing this with the SB port I can catch up to a good number of fleeing foes. Now there certainly classes that can escape but that no different then me playing my Necro and having a druid escape from me. It is what is. I have learned to let it go.

If fleeing a fight the SB is enough. I use Shadowtrap and two other traps along with trappers runes so as I flee I drop drops which stealths me. This also leaves an Immob trap behind me which generally snags the people chasing. I also use shadowtrap and this has allowed me to escape zergs countless times. Drop it and flee in one direction. They pursue and trip it and I port behind and go in the other.

There another thing integral to my build that helps me here and that long condition duration. One would think it would be of little benefit in a pursuit but trust me it works. Many classes have cleanses that rely on active blocks or evades or for something like the mesmer shattering their clones. When they are fleeing after a condition bomb landed these cleanses are ineffective. I have landed bombs on people only to see them run away. They can get halfways across the map and drop and I follow at liesure to finsih them off.

Finally hidden thief trait allows faster movement while stealthed than you get from swiftness. There one slot I can free up in my build If I wish and you can put in SR there if you really want to escape that bad. Thats 15 seconds of stealth movement at a speed 50 percent greater then swiftness.

babazhook.6805:

Antares LYA.3504:

babazhook.6805, but without DrD thief’s mobility suffers greatly. While roaming in WvW, it’s essential to have a permanent swiftness for catching up with a fleeing target or for getting away from the incoming zerg. Without DrD all your mobility is just the expensive teleport on SB. Or you need to waste a slot for a speed signet. Every time I try to take DrD away from my spec combo, I feel like my thief has been crippled.

I play 5 different thieves and know how it feels to go from one with high swiftness access to one without. That said a thief that traits Bounding Dodger or Impaling Lotus does not get that swiftness access either and do fine so a few points.

As stated Acro does have swiftness. I myself do not take it on the p/d build so do not have that as a source but Acro does have other benefits that DrD does not offer if you go that course.

Alternatively you can take TOTC over uncatchable if you really want swiftness that badly. Again I do not do this. I just live without it. How to catch someone that flees ? I use P/d #2 . Granted the range 900 and it relatively slow but I get a three second Immob off it. Mixing this with the SB port I can catch up to a good number of fleeing foes. Now there certainly classes that can escape but that no different then me playing my Necro and having a druid escape from me. It is what is. I have learned to let it go.

If fleeing a fight the SB is enough. I use Shadowtrap and two other traps along with trappers runes so as I flee I drop drops which stealths me. This also leaves an Immob trap behind me which generally snags the people chasing. I also use shadowtrap and this has allowed me to escape zergs countless times. Drop it and flee in one direction. They pursue and trip it and I port behind and go in the other.

There another thing integral to my build that helps me here and that long condition duration. One would think it would be of little benefit in a pursuit but trust me it works. Many classes have cleanses that rely on active blocks or evades or for something like the mesmer shattering their clones. When they are fleeing after a condition bomb landed these cleanses are ineffective. I have landed bombs on people only to see them run away. They can get halfways across the map and drop and I follow at liesure to finsih them off.

Finally hidden thief trait allows faster movement while stealthed than you get from swiftness. There one slot I can free up in my build If I wish and you can put in SR there if you really want to escape that bad. Thats 15 seconds of stealth movement at a speed 50 percent greater then swiftness.

Looks like a fun build, what kind of stuff are you using ?

Gear used is trailblazer across the board using condition duration food and consumble toxic crystal . This puts my conditions at 92 percent base. Overkill on the poison to be sure but this really helps the AA off pistol get more stacks of bleeds and maximizes weakness applied along with the immob confusion torment and vuln.

Runes are trapper runes. this gives the potential to do that sneak attack at range several times over without CnD. Cnd still used close up. It only 2 seconds base stealth but this enough to get your sneak attack off and do at least one damaging condition cleanse.

Malice on one pistol and a purity sigil (condition cleanse I use is minimal so a bit more needed) along with Cleansing sigil shortbow with corruption. Base condition damage lower then most condi builds at just over 1800 when stacks on.

Armor thus runs at around 3300 , vitality just over 18k. Biggest thing to watch for is conditions of course especially when facing Necro or mesmer. With mesmer going in and out of stealth helps a lot derailing their ability to generate clones and shatter. Necro you have to be careful and try to prevent those conditions in the first place. Since you do cleanse only damaging conditions with SE your stealth is your friend .

When in SB you can still access stealth when a trap ready and this can be very useful.

Baba I’d love to duel sometime just to see your fighting style

So I played around with it. I’d probably drop a venom from my build to compensate for the decrease in survivability (signet probably).

The damage spike is insane but I’m still preferring DrD for the flexibility it brings.

saerni.2584:

So I played around with it. I’d probably drop a venom from my build to compensate for the decrease in survivability (signet probably).

The damage spike is insane but I’m still preferring DrD for the flexibility it brings.

It all about style and personal preference. Trust me when I get on my own build that lack of access to swiftness is telling. I personally think the damage boost worth it.

Were they ever to make Preparedness baseline trickery might be dropable in the future or alternatively a person wanting to go with DrD could drop the SA and forgo that boon theft.There are several iterations of p/d that work fine.

Absolutely, and I would note that dropping SA might present the smallest decrease in survivability (cooldowns wouldn’t be reduced and somewhat less stealth access and lack of boon stripping) for a substantial increase in damage.

I’m sure it would help with killing DH and Druid and hurt killing Rev and Warrior (with resistance boon strip is much needed). Overall a tradeoff that may be worth making.

I prefer SA though because stealth is how I like to play. Coming in and out of stealth, moving behind my targets to keep them guessing where I am, vanishing and escaping in another direction, kiting them away from my real objective and stealth teleporting to them and then back to the objective while they run in vain to stop me. That is what draws me to play the class in the first place.

Do keep in mind that as far as swiftness goes, that while a DA/Sa and TR build has no native access in a p/d build, with BT and RS you can steal it and swiftness is one of the more common boons. Where it really “feels off” is when you move around the map from objective to objective. SB helps here but it does feel like I on my Necro

I wanted to test going DrD DA and TR just to see if effectiveness increased. With impairing daggers I got marginal increase in damage. What you are in essence doing is swapping one condition add for another on the utility bar. The added swiftness off UC with Immob breaks was certainly useful BUT i ran into a few resistance warriors and was simply ineffective against them. I also found myself less able to cleanse damaging conditions via the EA cleanse

Overall for what I want my build to do, I still prefer SA over the DrD. The utility offered by the added boon theft IMHO makes up for what is lost out of DrD.