Guild Wars 2

Hey there,

since D/D is meta again (I’m not really a thief expert), why shouldnt trickery be swapped for daredevil? why is trickery suggested? Better group support in raids?

As for open world, it seems to me the daredevil spec makes more sense.

It should be. The meta trait line for DPS has been DA/CS/DrD because it offers more damage.

Tr is needed for PvP/WvW play, and the forgiving/power-creeped nature of DrD makes the build D/P (now with patch today a hard requirement) DA/Tr/DrD in most cases.

I have been playing the D/D DA/Tri/CS build in raids it does more damage in certain fights all fights that don’t perma reveal you will provide more damage and some group utility based on the trickery traits selected. If you are in any perma reveal fights like KC Staff is more damage since you cannot BS.

I was just curious cause http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_Raid_DPS suggests trickery over DrD for Raids.

I’m not certain what the gains from Backstab are from raw AA. All I do know is that Tr offers competitive damage while giving the thief much better burst and fewer initiative concerns.

Daredevil, however, offers more raw modifiers for damage output, better sustain, and better cleansing.

Lets start with damage modifiers. 15% from lead attacks (it stays up close to that most of the time) vs 7% from havoc mastery and while there is a 10% on bound, it’s only 4s long so the up time is not very good. So right there it should be more damage on dagger.

Then, there’s the initiative thing, you will run out of initiative if you’re backstabbing as soon as reveal is off for a while, so having more initiative to start and better ways of refilling it you’ll be able to backstab more often.

Also you have the ability to have even more breakbar attacks, daze on steal with a 20s recharge (that also loads you with a lot of boons), and you could grab scorpion wire on that last open slot (2 signets then basically a free spot) for 250 total vs the 200 that is on daredevil’s palm strike

I’m trying to think of a reason to use DD but all I can come up with is extra dodges and a bit of sustain, things you don’t really need in raids if you’re playing well. .

I find I never run out of Initiative running the D/D core build, and not being locked into animations like bounding dodger and such is better for my playstyle so I don’t get positioned into unfavorable Aoe/ positioning.(aka I suck at aiming bounding dodger)