Guild Wars 2

Most thieves can agree that Death Blossom is one of the weakest skills for a thief. The damage output isn’t worth the initiative. Its only uses are a quick evade in a tight burst, or clearing out mobs. Even then, there are other skills that do a better job of that.

What if…Death Blossom could reflect projectiles? Would that make it too OP? I’d just like to see this skill with a bit more utility use.

…It’s a pretty skill.

No, it just needs reliable evade like shortbow #3 and much higher power damage. I think 70% of pistol whip’s damage plus that small bleed would be fine. Could also increase initiative requirement back to 5. That’s all.

The whole movement should evade… and some more damage would be nice.

It should be remade into something like shadowshot on D/P. Because atm D/D has 0 chasing ability (and don’t say spam HS) compared to D/P.

stinkypants.8419:

The whole movement should evade… and some more damage would be nice.

Basically. It has no place other than for Som pve thief and kitten d/d condi builds as if they work at all.

NinjaEd.3946:

stinkypants.8419:

The whole movement should evade… and some more damage would be nice.

Basically. It has no place other than for Som pve thief and kitten d/d condi builds as if they work at all.

Yeah and since noone plays D/D 3333 spam in pvp anymore and if you playing condition D/D in pve you deserve to get kicked into testicles , and we have Pistol Whip to work with SoM (3 SoM ticks from each target hit with fail evade frame VS 8 SoM ticks from each target + stun + serious evade on second skill part) it has to be reworked into 900 range shadowstep gap closer with blind or cripple.

Death Blossom was amazing in Gw1, it’s pitiful on Gw2.

I know they are completely separate games, but Death Blossom on Gw1 was probably one of the highest hitting attacks for an Assassin. On Gw2 there really isn’t much use for it. Though, I know if they buffed it we’d only see more complaints.

I love it in PvE. I click 3, evade attacks, deal some moderate damage and bleed and then bam! I’m perfectly positioned for a backstab.

Brizna.5612:

I love it in PvE. I click 3, evade attacks, deal some moderate damage and bleed and then bam! I’m perfectly positioned for a backstab.

Though you can manualy position yourself for backstab much faster.

Karolis.4261:

Brizna.5612:

I love it in PvE. I click 3, evade attacks, deal some moderate damage and bleed and then bam! I’m perfectly positioned for a backstab.

Though you can manualy position yourself for backstab much faster.

Shh let him be. We can’t share our secrets, or anet might nerf it O.o

Karolis.4261:

Brizna.5612:

I love it in PvE. I click 3, evade attacks, deal some moderate damage and bleed and then bam! I’m perfectly positioned for a backstab.

Though you can manualy position yourself for backstab much faster.

I would swap evade ability with spin target by 180°

it would be an amazing ability in D/D compared to D/P

I like the idea of projectile-reflect, but maybe it would be too strong.
How about just increasing the dodge duration?

Axelwarrior.9084:

I like the idea of projectile-reflect, but maybe it would be too strong.
How about just increasing the dodge duration?

reflect would be too OP. because effect of the projectile is being reflected as well.
i.e. if ranger’s knockback hits it projectile reflect shield, then user will be knocked back.

You can test it on Earth Elemental mobs since they have such shield and such rules applied to it.

It is an AOE ability on a set that lacks cleave. While the individual damage is less than some of your harder hitting single attacks, the amount of damage it does when against a group of enemies should be significantly higher even without equipping yourself full of condition damage.

The dodge is a bit tricky, and it’s probably easier to just take advantage of some kind of stealth+backstab build for dagger.

I think the power is probably fine. You already have harder hitting single target attacks; turning death blossom into another one won’t make its’ need any greater. Right now it has a niche, and I think it fulfills that niche fairly well.

Tao.5096:

Axelwarrior.9084:

I like the idea of projectile-reflect, but maybe it would be too strong.
How about just increasing the dodge duration?

reflect would be too OP. because effect of the projectile is being reflected as well.
i.e. if ranger’s knockback hits it projectile reflect shield, then user will be knocked back.

You can test it on Earth Elemental mobs since they have such shield and such rules applied to it.

Yes, I believe I know how reflects work.

Warkupo.1025:

It is an AOE ability on a set that lacks cleave. While the individual damage is less than some of your harder hitting single attacks, the amount of damage it does when against a group of enemies should be significantly higher even without equipping yourself full of condition damage.

The dodge is a bit tricky, and it’s probably easier to just take advantage of some kind of stealth+backstab build for dagger.

I think the power is probably fine. You already have harder hitting single target attacks; turning death blossom into another one won’t make its’ need any greater. Right now it has a niche, and I think it fulfills that niche fairly well.

Well … Sword auto attack hits harder and has cleave. Pistol whip hits harder and has a much stronger built in evade. Death blossom is crap.

Sword has poor spike damage options. Dagger doesn’t.

Pistol Whip roots you and is pretty obvious.

Death Blossom is crap is a pretty lazy argument.

I don’t really get why there’s so much hate on Death blossom. It’s the only aoe skill in D/D and is pretty much necessary in PvE for the set to viable at all.

Einlanzer.1627:

I don’t really get why there’s so much hate on Death blossom. It’s the only aoe skill in D/D and is pretty much necessary in PvE for the set to viable at all.

It’s weak aoe, the animation lasts longer than the evade time, therefore using it as such is problematic, and who cares about pve for balance? Pretty sure people in pve using d/d are goin for them 18k backstabs and not wasting time dancing over the enemy as they cc them.

Warkupo.1025:

Sword has poor spike damage options. Dagger doesn’t.

Pistol Whip roots you and is pretty obvious.

Death Blossom is crap is a pretty lazy argument.

You just proved my point. Dagger is a spike damage weapon and death blossom has no place there because … well… it does low damage in comparison what can pistol whip or sword auto attack cleave. Everyone who uses death blossom for exploration is either new or very ignorant and does it because its looks cool and he read somewhere that unicorns are good for pve. nothing matches S/P and shortbow with power build for that. Anyone who brings death blossom build to serious dungeon grp is a walking talking kick me button. And when it comes to pvp death blossom is as obvious as pistol whip can be, just you can do shadowstep pistol whips with steal and infiltrator signet what makes it not so obvious at all.

I did not prove your point at all; The point of Death Blossom is that fills a niche in a set that it does not otherwise fill. If you changed Death Blossom to another spike damage it is either going to invalidate something else on the build or remain useless. The way it is it does have some use, it just isn’t useful for every single application.

Switching weapons out has its’ own inherit problems, so I think it’s silly to act like it is a be-all solution.

The amount of DPS lost by going a hybrid build is not as significant as people on this forum like to pretend it is. MMO communities in general have this really bad habit of speaking in absolutes when they refer to value comparisons. Over on the warrior forum, one handed axe is the only actually viable weapon because it has all the DPS, while the impression is that the other weapons don’t actually do any damage. This is obviously untrue, but it doesnt’ stop everyone from believing it. That same observation is made in any class forum for any given weapon.

I’m going to go ahead and blow your mind a little, but; damage is less important than mmo communities believe them to be. People work very hard and will put up with being extremely bored to improve their kill-time by whole seconds. That’s pitiful, to me.

Pistol Whip still isn’t flawless, regardless of how much you think that it is.

EDIT: Death Blossom is hardly a weak ability either; it takes awhile to do its’ full application of damage, but that damage is not insignificant at all. It does about 34% more damage than a single auto-attack + poison of dagger, but also has evade and AOE. Stack is three times, then start working on a harder enemy with your auto-attack (or whatever). The rest of the spawn will be dead by the time you are done.

It seriously does need a rework. I agree that it does attempt to fill a role, but it is way too weak at filling that role.

D/D #3 needs: more evade time or less of an after cast. Currently it evades for 1/4 second, but the cast time is 1/2 second + 1/4 after cast. It is also hard to control…time to leap off of bridges, cliffs, or walls; thus is needs more control, really we should be able to aim it’s direction, instead of it auto jumping at a selected target, sending you off a cliff to a spawn point. Finally it needs to scale better with direct damage. When I see a group I should think “Time to unleash some death blossom on them” not “time to pick them off slowly one by one while backstabbing the entire pack to death.” Its current uselessness is rather depressing.

Well one person in here talked about how they use it to jump behind the enemy. Truth be told, it seems like it attempts that but people can just step to the side and avoid it’s damage and positioning. I agree, it doesn’t need more dps although a viable melee condi set would be nice, but I suppose that’s what new weapon sets are supposed to accomplish. I think if they made the evade 1/2 second, keep that after cast (people seem to already complain about sb #3 spam as if it does anything but avoid being melted), and increase the leap affect it has to cover 400 units.

Most times with d/d you would use either steal or HS as a gap closer. Hs is the brute charge part of d/d, while DB would be the juke right before you both make contact and avoid whatever hit they were going to start with. It already has the benefit of positioning you behind the target (assuming that place is within range) so it would go along the lines of dirty fighting which is something should excel at. Right now its just too predictable and hardly accomplishes anything as far as defence and offence.

All it really needs is to evade through the entire skill duration. That gives it a really valuable niche in a D/D build. Whatever else needs to change to make that happen, needs to happen.

I think the bleed duration on the skill probably needs to be nerfed. On a pure power D/D build the damage is perfectly fine, but on a condition build the damage DB does is really silly. Yes, I know it’s a one skill gimmick and is not hard to deal with, but the numbers are silly and I can see how with a full evade it would make that build really incredibly obnoxious.

So, yeah, it needs the full evade, nerf the bleeding, nerf the initiative, nerf the damage, I don’t really care; it’s not going to work without that evade.

Warkupo.1025:

It is an AOE ability on a set that lacks cleave

Yeah, that’s sort of what I end up using it for sometimes too. You can jump at a cluster while avoiding incoming attacks while hitting them all. I guess part of the issue is that most of the other dagger skills are used for single target stuff (i.e. backstab, heartseeker), so it can be a bit out of place in some instances.

But getting 3 stacks of bleed on 5 targets for 10 seconds each use is fairly good damage, even for a power-focused build. A bit hard to get that unless you’re fighting a PvE stack though.

I’m not sure if improving the evasion would really get that many more people using it… also, I would just facepalm if we had shadow assault shenanigans occurring on land… that’s the last thing anyone needs. I guess s/d already kind of does that anyways.

I use it for apply bleed in condition build, is there a better way to add bleeds?

khadorian.6417:

I use it for apply bleed in condition build, is there a better way to add bleeds?

Caltrops from either utility or trait (uncatchable adept in trickery). I’ve used a d/d bleeder build in pvp LONG time ago. It was sad when I killed people, but occasionally I’d meet someone who knew what to do and it took little effort to keep me at bay. D/D bleeding builds are only for pve, it’s terribad everywhere else. For the sake of d/d they should bump the evade duration to .5 seconds, and change dancing dagger to something more useful. In the ascalonian fractal I know the dagger npc’s apply poison on that skill, something that would make p/d and d/d condi builds much better.

well i played a LONG time ago :P
really liked my poison build and dagger dagger was a big part.. would love to have some help on my build to make it work these days.. i dont like shortbow

Actually death blossom should be removed from D/D all together. It does not blend in well with the rest of the skills. I’d like to see a new main hand weapon that is focused on melee condi attacks. Death blossom would be a great #2 skill there.

i think they should just buff it to more bleed. else there is no condition damage build for melee

khadorian.6417:

i think they should just buff it to more bleed. else there is no condition damage build for melee

Thieves have no viable condi build for pvp not because their bleeds cause not enough damage, but because they rely only on bleeds. They have no spammable sets of different condis to cover them, not to mention no access to burn, which is a very powerful damaging condi.

Let’s hope venom (and trap) rework will come soon, so thieves can at last start playing around condis for real.

Actually Death Blossom’s only point to ever use for me, as a PvE only thief (practicly an extinct race, I know), is spam it 3-4 times on a group of mobs with the healing signet passively healing me back up.

well my thief is using poison but thats only 5 attacks and the steal… but its build around having poison increasing skills.. stil feel the damage is abit low.

Dagins.5163:

khadorian.6417:

i think they should just buff it to more bleed. else there is no condition damage build for melee

Thieves have no viable condi build for pvp not because their bleeds cause not enough damage, but because they rely only on bleeds. They have no spammable sets of different condis to cover them, not to mention no access to burn, which is a very powerful damaging condi.

Let’s hope venom (and trap) rework will come soon, so thieves can at last start playing around condis for real.

They just need to add more viable sources of poison for dagger skills. You can trait for DA to apply poison on steal, and you can use dagger aa but it’s just not easily reapplied to do any pressure. Dagger aa poison is almost non-existent for how short it lasts (and you can’t sit there and aa forever), and dagger has 2 useless skills both for power and conditions.

DD is a short cripple, even if against say a ranger and it bounces back to them from their pet, the damage is weak, and it’s slow causing it to miss far too much. DB is predicatable, the evade is near impossible to work with, and it travels to short of a distance to where people can just kite away from you and avoid the hits by natural movement. Poison and bleeds are enough for a thief condi build to be viable, we can cover the rest up with cripples, vulnerability, torment, blind, etc. Thieves don’t need burn to be strong, we just need more efficient ways of applying and reapplying damaging conditions.

My friend in his video had pretty good solution for death blossom. He had swapped the activation button of c&d to 3 and death blossom to 5. No more moments where you accidentally press 3 and everyone thinks you are a scrub.

Can go 2 directions: offensive or defensive

Offensive: remove the evade, up the damage, increase the AE, think “mini-blade storm”

Defensive: increase the evade time, leave everything else the same.

Either would be good.

How about a little from column A and a little from column B?

stinkypants.8419:

How about a little from column A and a little from column B?

It’d be too much if you weren’t vulnerable while doing decent damage. It’s kind of the only thing that balances the thief at the moment high risk high reward game-play. If you are going to make it an offensive weapon then it needs its defensive part taken, if its given as a defensive then it can’t be doing too much damage or the OP cries would crash the server.

I don’t think it really has an AoE effect currently, it just hits anyone within melee range (130 range unit). Perhaps they could have it hit people further out or something, like a 180 or 240 raidus.

I guess it can also function as a spammable whirl finisher, but not too many people go for those frequently. I think it partially has to do with the bolts from the whirl finisher going out in a spread and not necessarily hitting anything unless it’s like a stack of clumped mobs standing on a field. A lot of them also just provide some form of condition, which some people don’t find useful. Projectile finishers are often more useful since they’re easier to come by and can be specifically directed at a particular target.

As such, it might help to buff death blossom if they made some of the whirl finisher effects a bit more impactful, such as an AoE effeect instead of just sending out a spread of bolts like projectile finishers do (i.e. mini fire storm, single small radius condi cleanse, an AoE blind). That way you could death blossom two or three times in the field to cause the finisher effect while also getting the damage and bleeds.

However, it is a little tough for a thief to set up such a combo themselves. Thieves only really have poison and smoke fields, which are only available on shortbow, offhand pistol, or the uncommon smokescreen utility. They do also technically have an ethereal and dark field, but the former is on the stolen gunk item and the latter is on shadow refuge which is generally used to hide and not to combo in. As such, trying to buff it through the whirl finisher wouldn’t change a lot of solo play, though it might impact some team play.

style.6173:

Actually death blossom should be removed from D/D all together. It does not blend in well with the rest of the skills. I’d like to see a new main hand weapon that is focused on melee condi attacks. Death blossom would be a great #2 skill there.

I disagree. Like others have pointed out, Death Blossom gives D/D something that it would otherwise completely lack, which is the ability to deal with adds or multiple mobs at one time. Personally, I think it’s important that any weapon set have viability in more than one specific situation.

they need to bring the dodge back up or something… it is a great looking skill
but as of now i just pretend it is not even there .
lol unless i am fighting a moa for the fun of flips lol

Arikyali.5804:

Most thieves can agree that Death Blossom is one of the weakest skills for a thief. The damage output isn’t worth the initiative.

I strongly disagree!

The damage output against a single target is indeed weak, however this skill has the ability to deal AoE damage and should be used as such.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Arikyali.5804:

Most thieves can agree that Death Blossom is one of the weakest skills for a thief. The damage output isn’t worth the initiative.

I strongly disagree!

The damage output against a single target is indeed weak, however this skill has the ability to deal AoE damage and should be used as such.

There is no situation where you cant just bring S/P and Showrtbow for aoe purposes and do much more damage then death blossom.

Karolis.4261:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Arikyali.5804:

Most thieves can agree that Death Blossom is one of the weakest skills for a thief. The damage output isn’t worth the initiative.

I strongly disagree!

The damage output against a single target is indeed weak, however this skill has the ability to deal AoE damage and should be used as such.

There is no situation where you cant just bring S/P and Showrtbow for aoe purposes and do much more damage then death blossom.

I’m not so sure it’s true that there’s no situation, but even if there is, it’s beside the point. AoE is needed often – who wants to be forced to use S/P and/or SB just so they can deal with an add or two?

Every set needs some AoE capability even if it isn’t the primary purpose of the set. Death Blossom is actually perfect from that perspective. The evade just needs to be a little more reliable.

Einlanzer.1627:

Karolis.4261:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Arikyali.5804:

Most thieves can agree that Death Blossom is one of the weakest skills for a thief. The damage output isn’t worth the initiative.

I strongly disagree!

The damage output against a single target is indeed weak, however this skill has the ability to deal AoE damage and should be used as such.

There is no situation where you cant just bring S/P and Showrtbow for aoe purposes and do much more damage then death blossom.

I’m not so sure it’s true that there’s no situation, but even if there is, it’s beside the point. AoE is needed often – who wants to be forced to use S/P and/or SB just so they can deal with an add or two?

Every set needs some AoE capability even if it isn’t the primary purpose of the set. Death Blossom is actually perfect from that perspective. The evade just needs to be a little more reliable.

It is wise to bring every weapon set as a thief to deal with different encounters (speaking pve). If I will need single target dps I will pull out d/d. If i want Melee aoe dps i will pull out S/P, If i have to range something i will pull out shortbow or p/p etc etc.
Its same as a ranger that brings bows to dungeon, while other 4 members stack mobs in corners and melee it, and says “I like my longbow (and it has aoe skill in it), why should I be forced to use sword or greatsword”. Well because thats the best choice.
Thats why thiefs and rangers have a bad rep in dungeons. Many of players are simply ignorant and keep using their flashy weapon sets/wrong gear which they find pleasing and scream “play your way” bullkitten. I honestly have seen D/P thief in dungeon once.

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

Bazzoong.7145:

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

More like we see 4-5 digit numbers hit us because the evade is near impossible to work with other than spamming it, which still does next to nothing. Death blossom has a role in d/d, it just fits it poorly.

Bazzoong.7145:

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

you really seem to misunderstand what most players want.

DB isn’t supposed to be a hit-truck skill for us, or give us immortality.
We want to rework it so it’ll be useful, and would allow some combinations in battle.
Because currently it’s better to use Heartseeker on target with 100% hp than DB.

Tao.5096:

Bazzoong.7145:

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

you really seem to misunderstand what most players want.

DB isn’t supposed to be a hit-truck skill for us, or give us immortality.
We want to rework it so it’ll be useful, and would allow some combinations in battle.
Because currently it’s better to use Heartseeker on target with 100% hp than DB.

No, I do not misunderstand.

Comparing HS to DB is not legit those are 2 totally different skills with totally different functions and the last thing we need on our skill bars are skills that provide similar effects with different animations.

Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom work, both are situational and provide utility over damage.

What you want, to be frank, is more direct damage which we do not need we have cnd and BS for targets at 30%+ and HS as a gap closing finisher for targets at <30% hp, the other skills provide uique utility and unique combinations due to providing different finishers for combos. No need to change them.

Bazzoong.7145:

Tao.5096:

Bazzoong.7145:

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

you really seem to misunderstand what most players want.

DB isn’t supposed to be a hit-truck skill for us, or give us immortality.
We want to rework it so it’ll be useful, and would allow some combinations in battle.
Because currently it’s better to use Heartseeker on target with 100% hp than DB.

No, I do not misunderstand.

Comparing HS to DB is not legit those are 2 totally different skills with totally different functions and the last thing we need on our skill bars are skills that provide similar effects with different animations.

Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom work, both are situational and provide utility over damage.

What you want, to be frank, is more direct damage which we do not need we have cnd and BS for targets at 30%+ and HS as a gap closing finisher for targets at <30% hp, the other skills provide uique utility and unique combinations due to providing different finishers for combos. No need to change them.

You can’t honestly sit there and defend death blossom, and follow it with situational utility.

Death blossom is weak, both in utility, defensive, and offensive capabilities. Whirl finishers aren’t that great, the bleed and the direct damage are really easy to avoid since DB moves only a few hundred units even w/ swiftness, and the evade is less than 50% of the duration of the skill between the channel and aftercast. Nothing on it is working for the thief aside from experimenting for new players.

I wouldn’t be entirely against a whirl rework, since it’s combo mechanics are pretty lame. If you compare how effective projectile, blast, and leap finishers can be it makes whirl look like futilie. I think if they made whirl finishers, ALL whirl finishers destroy projectiles it could raise the skill ceiling of those skills up into the sky. Some skills have no use other than for a small bump in damage, because holding onto it for the right moment is non-existent (cyclone axe on warrior for instance).

Then fix the role DB is supposed to follow, whether it was dmg(not really needed) or evasion. If it was evasion, it should last the duration of the skill, let the aftercast be what prevents it from being perma-evade. Lastly increase the range it leaps to, so it isn’t so easily kited. That’s just my thoughts on DB, it needs to be good at something. Not great, or incredibly op, just good.

Dancing dagger has nearly no use. Sigils on it can proc off the main hand attacks, the damage is weak, the cripple even on a bounce is hardly noticeable (spamming it is horrible…), and it’s really slow moving making it miss or be obstructed more than it should.

Personally, I don’t see the point of it bouncing, we don’t need bouncy balls on every weapon set and dagger isn’t going to be a cleave set anytime soon so give it a purpose that can be useful. The thief npc’s in ascalonian fractal have the right idea, they don’t bounce but they apply a moderate duration poison. Poison is universal, and due to thief’s low off-hand weapon choice those skills should have some all around utility. CnD does this great, both OH pistol skills are great, Dancing Dagger not so much. Even as a projectile finisher, p/d is better off using body shot to stack a bunch of conditions(and it moves quickly), and d/d is better off using HS through it because leap finishers greatly outweigh projectile finishers, and leaping is a better gap closer than a 3 second cripple. A poison would nicely complement p/d builds for pvp, where thief condi isn’t that special. More than likely a nerf to wvw p/d on the poison duration, because between dire and food buffs condi thief is quite scary at times.