Guild Wars 2

Since I’ve made the swap to full sustained damage thief with S/D or S/P, I’ve been loving my gameplay with the thief. All the 1,2,3 skills are very useful and generally powerful, and I love the pistol offhand for BP (rarely use the 4 skill I must admit).

So my question is, with the dagger offhand, does anyone even bother to stealth in PvE? (In WvW it obviously has applications for defensive/offensive purposes). I have to remind myself to use CnD with S/D, generally 95% of my play I get by with religious use of IS/SS and autoattack, FS when applicable (i.e. dodging a hit). 4 skill I never use, (wtf am I going to do with a cripple?) and 5 is very situational when I’m getting swarmed or something.

Does anyone have any advice for useful application of stealth with S/D?

Depends what you use it for. You can use it just for the auto damage, but I use C+D with it very often for controlling mobs (Sigil of Para for 3s daze), and if you’ve traited in to SA you can blind nearby mobs often (this will be easier when 3s Revealed returns) and other stuff. As for DD, I use that against a few different mobs to slow them down a bit and negate portions of their big hits (Icebrood Wolves are one good example, and Ascalonian Warriors too).

Yes, I use stealth all the time. With a sigil of paralyzation you can (or could and soon will be able to again) stun lock at least one enemy.

This is sometime’s useful, for example, against silver mobs in dungeons.

I’d also like some advice on s/d in spvp. I’ve been running it alongside d/p (to get cnd burst via weapon swap) but have found myself constantly staying on d/p. What situations, however narrow, is s/d a superior set?

as for dancing dagger… well I’m hoping they are going to remove it completely, and that’s why they haven’t done anything to improve it.

Well the condition removal (if you spec 20 in Shadow Arts) is better than infiltratror’s strike (at cheaper init cost) because the first condition is removed the instant you hit CnD instead of after a global cooldown. That can sometimes make a difference against destroyers, but most of the time it’s not going to matter.

However; I believe both CnD and Tactical Strike do more damage than auto attack, so if you’re fighting against a single mob then it should result in a slightly higher dps to work them into your rotation, right?

ens.9854:

as for dancing dagger… well I’m hoping they are going to remove it completely, and that’s why they haven’t done anything to improve it.

So you want to remove the cripple from p/d, turning it into by far the worst weapon set available?

I only use CnD to blind (trait: Cloaked in Shadows) and stack Vulnerability my target in PvE. Or you can use it as condition removal (trait: Shadow’s Embrace).

I’m not proposing they leave offhand dagger with only one skill.

dancing dagger is superbly over costed… and I’m not sure its all that important to p/d pve plan… which is pretty much just chaining sneak attacks not kiting with cripple…

Yep, dungeons… CnD does decent damage and stuns take pressure off of whoever needs it. Ideal party setups won’t need it but there’s plenty of times where you can help someone survive in pugs as well as less experienced people.

And sometimes you can roll with knights/soldiers gear to absorb damage meaning you’re better off keeping mobs off your zerkers while they do the damage.

I use C&D to trigger the 5s Regen + stealth regen traits in the SA line, and gain might stacks.

Pretty good amount of sustain if you use it often because mobs don’t dodge C&D. Basically perma Regen (150 ish per second), and a 300 ish heal every 4s (soon to be 3s) if you break stealth immediately, and 450/s for the next few seconds if you don’t. This is without any additional healing power other than the 300 from SA.