Guild Wars 2

Hello,

For those of you who dont want to read all this:

1. D/D or D/P?

2. Glass cannon vs 30 pts in Shadow Arts

And for those who do want to read:

1. here’s a quote from Narcarsis.5739 (Caed):

Narcarsis.5739:

The difference between D/D and D/P burst potential is minimal, while the trade off for it is huge. While you say D/P has less burst that is actually incorrect, it has a tad bit more, and gets stronger the lower initial health of the target. The only benefit of D/D is a faster and easier combo that is more forgiving on positioning. D/P takes a second to set up, however the damage comes at roughly the same time as D/D (maybe ~0.10 seconds slower). While this is more than enough time to use a stun break (as you can easily do with D/D) it’s a combo that you save until you know the target has no escape. Other combo’s can also kill squishy targets very easily (such as steal/backstab out of stealth). Additionally D/P provides an enormous amount of team utility with Headshot and Blinding Powder, as well as an excellent chase skill (when chilled) with Shadow Shot. Another benefit of D/P is that the stealth is guaranteed, whereas the stealth on Cloak and Dagger can be negated by a skillful player with a blind, dodge roll, or daze.

Full topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Caed-s-Thief-Walk-Through-and-Guide-Mini

and here’s something from DirtyBird.6093:

DirtyBird.6093:

NOW – that being said, i personally play D/D. Its a playstyle choice. The skill level needed to play D/D is much higher as you are reliant on having things to hit to gain the stealth readily and easily. It requires much better terrain choice and selection to win fights. You want to engage combat by NPCs or siege, things you can hit. The reason i play D/D:
1) More fun for me personally, i like the challenge
2) C&D is a good 1/3 of your spike damage that you lose by just going for the backstab.
3) i hate flopping around in a black powder like a fish out of water. its slower in comparison to lurking around and tapping 5.
4) there are a lot of things you can do using the Cloak and Dagger stealth mechanic. I’ve been on top of the lords room with 15+ enemies just roaming around and cloak and daggering off enemies to stay up in there. Ive quite literally won 1v1’s by using nothing BUT C&D (i just wanted to see if i could do it). Constant C&D and when their life dropped low enough, backstab. As well, in team fights you can use a downed player to lure other players out to down them, as well as you can use them as a constant source of cloak that doesnt move.

If you do decide to go D/D, always have a pistol to swap out in case you need perma stealth.

Full topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-dagger-dagger-or-dagger-pistol/first#post2305029

So the 2 seem to contradict eachother. Which one is better? Is this really just personal preference? Or does this only matter if you are in high lvl tpvp teams? I do like both playstyles, and I want to decide in which to put more efforts to get a nice return in gameplay enjoyment. Jumper’s sword-dagger evade build is just not my cup of tea. (A potentially steep learning curve is not a problem to me, it is worth it to bite the dust a few dozen times to learn the proper gameplay.)

2. Then…

the somewhat standard roaming or beginner builds usually go like: 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0. (For D/D and D/P ofc.) I took a look at Caed’s backstab D/P build (see above) that is: 25/30/0/0/15 and I thought to myself ‘How the hell do you stay alive longer than 5 seconds with this build?’ Does this only work in well organized teams, where others can cover your butt? Or does it only work with a super-skilled player? I was in a game the other day and the other team had a D/P thief. If he opened on me while I was 70% HP or lower, ha insta downed me with backstab; if I was above 70% HP he also needed one Heartseeker to down me. I never saw him fighting extensively, just popping out of stealth, downing some1 in one second, and then vanish. So is this the playstyle I should be looking for to learn? I dont think you ALWAYS have a situation where you are the opener. And if that happens, you are dead just as quick as you can kill others. However I have to admit that it is quite effective. (If an opener attack instantly takes 65-75% of you HP, thats pretty much a done deal.)

Any constructive feedback is welcome, ty.

The real difference between D/D and D/P is lies in the increased control over your target offered by D/P, when it comes to damage D/D has more spike damage whereas D/P “spreads” the damage more.

In combat D/D has higher stealth uptime due to CnD being cheaper than BS+HS on the initiative, CnD is not hard to land and does incredible amounts of damage on crits.

The real reason why D/P is superior is ranged interrupts with headshot and the damage reduction offered by blinds, this makes D/P superior in small group fights mutual support will win out eventually.

Interrupting stomps with daze or protecting stomps or ressing with blind fields is not possible with D/D.

D/D however has incredible damage spikes, those do not require much setup and can be initiated from range, the combination of mug, sigil of flame, cnd and BS will usually be decisive if it lands, you do not need to run a one-shot build for that. D/D is way easier than people make it appear and basically all about CnD and the blind on stealth trait.

So it comes down to hang back and wait for the weak spot then hit on D/D or the damage support with D/P it is a matter of playstyle.

Generally both builds depend on active avoidance, you must never stand in the bad stuff and always must avoid any hard hitting abilities, both weapon sets cave in against AoE and especially AoE conditions both builds can not deal with constant pressure and areeasily forced to retreat.

(as a sidenote: if you want long periods of stealth (esp. out of combat stealth) it is way better to swap in smoke screen on your utility bar for your HS than swapping in a pistol.)

Ty for the answer. Pretty much covers all I wanted to know.

What you wrote got me wonder about one thing: initiative management. D/P may lack some stealth uptime due to the higher initiative cost, but using black powder may allows you to swap out the blind-on-stealth trait, and take +2 initiative on stealth. Although HS being a leap, sometimes your target wont be blinded because the smoke cloud – where you leaped from – is too far to effect the opponent. But when in meele range, Black Powder + stealth blind is an overkill imho.

So would you suggest swapping out blinding on stealth for the 2 extra initiative points?

Hey Nimrud.5642

I noticed you posting about a couple D/P Builds. These seem like WvW setups. I just wanted to say if you plan on doing sPvP/tPvP here are the current Thief Meta builds.

D/P
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQNAoaVlsMp0pdPxyJ8PNhs9YnqQey7BZNWmlWBaC-TsAg0CnIQShkDJDSSksINKYZx0CA

S/P
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQNAsaVl0Mp0pdPxyJ8PNhs9oC1Jey7BZNWmlWBaC-TsAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNKYZx0CA

Ty so much, now I only need 1000000000000 hours of practice and I’ll be fine.

PSA: You never get done with practice, it’s a continual process of self improvement so don’t let that get you down.

Tip: Once you feel comfortable with rotations (where you need to be at on the map) notice how often you get in fights and practice for it.

Solo fights at far point? – Join a dueling server and practice.
Also watching some of the top streamers can help

Caed – http://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis
Sizer – http://www.twitch.tv/sizer2654 (Live Now at the time of this post)

TYVM! If you are a good looking big boobed blonde then all my dreams have come true! Mind dating me?

I played a few games with your D/P spec, and I have to tell you I enjoy the tons of control it has. (To me it seems this spec has more than the D/D. But that could be because of how bad I played the D/D thief. :P)

All in all, you got me occupied for a few months.

Ty, and watch your back; I might even get good one day.

L8r

Comparing quotes from one of the best thieves in the game and some guy I’ve never heard of should tell you all you need to know Use d/p if you want the best chance of winning against skilled opponents; use d/d if you want to destroy a few scrubs in an outnumbered fight (or if that’s the weapon set you like the most… play what you like as a priority).

If you’re in wvw and new to thief i’d stick with x/30/30/x/0 but with more experience at staying alive you can try 10/30/0/0/30 (that’s caed’s and most spvp thieve’s build right now).

I’d say the first post is correct.

Both basically do the same damage. Look at heart seeker, and add the small damage from blinding powder shot to it. It basically matches the damage from CnD, and is way superior when your opponent is at lower hp levels. The difference being that the shot is ranged, and HS is a leap, so they are easier to hit an opponent with than CnD which is short range.

Now look at initiative. BP + HS = 6+3=9; CnD=6. However black powder’s field blinds, so you don’t need the blind on stealth trait for survivability, and can take the 2 initiative trait instead. Thus BP+HS=9-2=7 initiative. 7 is not that different from 6 initiative.

Add to this that it is far harder for someone to prevent a d/p from entering stealth than a d/d, both because it doesn’t require a target, and that the shot from black powder blinds your opponent, so they most likely will not be able to clear the blind and interrupt your HS in time. And so many good traits are tied to maintaining stealth like condi removal, and healing while in stealth.

I play d/d when I want to look good, or when I am fighting AI. I role d/p when I want to slaughter people in WvW.

Edit: 1 thing to add. The only thing that I find superior about d/d in WvW is that CnD works better in a zerg. This is because the BP+HS combo can be messed up by all of the field spam in WvW zergs, giving you some random thing you didn’t want instead of stealth at times.

Nimrud,

Near the beginning of the game, dagger offhand took a damage nerf. Many people who were still interested in a backstab build switched to d/p after that. The damage is roughly the same now between the two sets (heartseeker damage, instead of cloak and dagger damage, is roughly the same). The only real difference in the damage is the setup needed for d/p, but the aftercast on heartseeker allows you to get off your backstab quicker than CnD into backstab – CnD has a longer aftercast.

What you gain by running d/p over d/d, however, is huge. d/p is way more of a team support setup than d/d. The only thing d/d can do is damage people and that’s it. d/p allows for more team support – as others have pointed out with headshot, shadowshot, and blackpowder. Also it is important to mention that there are subtle tricks you can pull off with shadowshot whereas deathblossom, and also dancing dagger, is virtually useless on a d/d set.

The reason why people avoid running shadow arts in spvp is because it’s less useful. That’s the straightforward answer, but the long-winded answer would be to say that shadow arts line is incredibly selfish. You would ether put thirty in shadow arts, or thirty in trickery, and the amount of team support offered by putting thirty in trickery is way more than what you would get by putting those points into shadow arts.

Besides, you shouldn’t need that much survival by running points into shadow arts. Whereas you can gain so much, and contribute so much more to your team, by just playing better and running a trickery build.

To be honest though, the argument is somewhat rather pointless as shortbow is the weapon you need to learn since you will, or rather should, be sitting in it more than d/p. It doesn’t help that most thieves are terrible with shortbow.

Chicago Jack.5647:

It doesn’t help that most thieves are terrible with shortbow.

I can’t explain it. I used to be able to hit anything like it was magic or something. Now, the arrow goes where I aim and I can’t hit nothing.

Chicago Jack.5647:

To be honest though, the argument is somewhat rather pointless as shortbow is the weapon you need to learn since you will, or rather should, be sitting in it more than d/p. It doesn’t help that most thieves are terrible with shortbow.

So on this note. I’m on a constant quest on L2P. Can you explain how you would use this set? Every time I switch to this set I’m either trying to run away, or I don’t succeed in doing anything before some warrior just Bolo’s me or downs me w/ his stupid fire bow.

Lamuness.3570:

Chicago Jack.5647:

To be honest though, the argument is somewhat rather pointless as shortbow is the weapon you need to learn since you will, or rather should, be sitting in it more than d/p. It doesn’t help that most thieves are terrible with shortbow.

So on this note. I’m on a constant quest on L2P. Can you explain how you would use this set? Every time I switch to this set I’m either trying to run away, or I don’t succeed in doing anything before some warrior just Bolo’s me or downs me w/ his stupid fire bow.

Mainly to keep pressure up via cluster bomb, cripples and a long poison to kite people in with weakness. Also gives access to on demand blasting. But against a warrior, they will usually out regen your damage with this weapon so if I ever used Sb on a warrior, its to get them with bug bites if melee at the time is too risky and use choking gas. Someone will probably prove me wrong, but SB alone won’t kill a typical WvW warrior

WyldKat.4712:

Chicago Jack.5647:

It doesn’t help that most thieves are terrible with shortbow.

I can’t explain it. I used to be able to hit anything like it was magic or something. Now, the arrow goes where I aim and I can’t hit nothing.

Or they can just strife left and right at round 700+ and all of your AA will miss…