“Is she completely insane” yeah, I am but hear me out:
D/P is by far the best weaponset we have: gap closer, stealth “on demand”, interrupt and blind all on it.
Me as a D/D thief : Gap closer = steal (frequency depends on trickery), blind: CiS (now in grandmaster), interrupt: sleight of hand, only availlable via trickery.
A D/P thief usually doesn’t stay melee, a D/D thief has to. So, we need reliable condi clear which has been nerfed in June.
D/P now does more damage than D/D since June as the combo of a D/P thief is usually smoke field, heartseeker, shadowshot (which does more damage than CnD which is hard to land and puts the thief into the AoE range of the enemy)
So, if all traits are balanced around D/P which is the set with the most utility thief has got (staff aside) – then lets nerf D/P so the other weapon sets have got a chance.
EDIT: SUMMARY
All other thief builds had to get their utility from traits – all of these traits (except those in trickery) have been deleted back in June – the only thief build that was halfway viable has been D/P because they have all the utility other builds need to trait for on their weaponset. Still they can also trait for these utilities = have got twice as many. And since the utility on D/P is what most if not all thieves need or want (teleport, blind, smokefield = stealth) D/P are a lot stronger than any of the other thief’ builds.
Since offhand and mainhand weapon do always the same for every thief, except their distinguished #3, nerfing shadowshot and/or putting some of the utilities that is on the whole D/P set into traits would be an option. Reason: if you have nerfed the set you can buff the traits to which all thieves have got access to. Also D/P wouldn’t be as self sustained as it is now. D/P has always been stronger than any other set; simply putting back the traits the other builds need doesn’t really solve the problem, especially not since now the traits are merged. And I’d actually like to get the 50 movement speed in stealth and blind on stealth. I don’t need stealth on steal and the falling trait though.
I don’t want D/P to be nerfed to the ground, but I don’t want D/P to be the excuse why it’s not worked on thief any further – also I don’t think that simply buffing the other weapons would really bring other sets on par with D/P especially not since most of our traits are now best suited for D/P.
I do think it’s a shame that thief build diversity has been killed off in June – it’s not just about D/D, but I happen to know the set best.
The rest has been discussed in the thread – it might be sometimes painful to read.
Anet, please don’t just listen to your community – most S/D, D/D and P/D thieves have already quit – you won’t hear any suggestions from them anymore.
ETA² :
Right now a lot if not most traits favour the D/P playstyle – There’s no way other sets have access to all the traits as always 2 of them are glued together. This could be used to either redesign the traits to favour other sets (which would be an indirect nerf to D/P) or the most common traits are turned into either baseline or minor traits so every thief has got access to them. Still every set should be able to take the traits neccessary to make their set and/or playstyle work.
(edited by Jana.6831)