Guild Wars 2

Had some fun 1v1 with my buddy.
S/D vs Power Rev / shatter Mes

Enjoy

While I try and play all weapon styles as theif, I justy have a natural affinity for s/d. How are the recent boosts to the style affecting the performance in pvp?

The longer port gives it the engage potential of d/p and the rturn on infiltrators the disenegage on p/d. this should make it work much better and push to rivaling d/p not so?

babazhook.6805:

While I try and play all weapon styles as theif, I justy have a natural affinity for s/d. How are the recent boosts to the style affecting the performance in pvp?

The longer port gives it the engage potential of d/p and the rturn on infiltrators the disenegage on p/d. this should make it work much better and push to rivaling d/p not so?

D/P is still superior.
i’d say the changes to SW#2 makes it worse. Jump casting was more inportant than that extra range

babazhook.6805:

While I try and play all weapon styles as theif, I justy have a natural affinity for s/d. How are the recent boosts to the style affecting the performance in pvp?

The longer port gives it the engage potential of d/p and the rturn on infiltrators the disenegage on p/d. this should make it work much better and push to rivaling d/p not so?

S/Ds defense is too fragile. Any above average meta player is able to and will disable your playstyle now by easy rupts. The instacast on shadow return was op years ago, but due to massive progression on other meta builds this is no longer the case.

From watching Sizer, it doesn’t look like infiltrator’s return getting interrupted is what breaks S/D. The main problem with S/D is it’s damage, CC and stealth access are all lower than D/P. Even with the prevalence of boons, S/D is so incredibly weak because it does so much less than staff or D/P in the gaps between invulns, blocks, and the like. Sizer can struggle so much to 2v1 mesmers, scrappers, warriors, and druids because of these limitations.

A fix I’d like to see is buffing S/D through changes to CnD and SA, such as by making the blind of stealth trait a non-GM trait, making CnD cost less initiative, and allowing infiltrator’s strike → CnD → tactical strike to become a legitimate combo against certain classes.

Nothing will save CnD or really even S/D without first nerfing boons and block access to begin with, honestly, unless they just make Flanking Strike unblockable, but that’s just bad and lazy design.

The set will never be good if both are so easily-spammed.

A shame really as the set could be fun. As far as weapons go off hand Dagger just holds back a lot of sets. Offhand Pistol is superior in so many ways.

I really think the fix has to be accomplished through that off hand and it can help with d/d as well. The damage and utility of the first three is IMHO ok. Weakness on the AA with sword can not be overlooked.

As for the weaponset i feel like it has werry little limitations. The build i am running got decent damage, thats no problem. If you feel like thats what gates you ill link my build bellow.

S/D was the ‘MAN’ slash ‘FIGHTER’ of pvp, now it’s basicly a revenant with more mobility and faar less potential. The role you have to fill while playing this spec can be outperformed by reve if you play the 2v2/smallscale fighter or D/P if you play the roamer.
I’d point out 2 more important things that gate thes spec.

1. its natural weakness to blinds and D/P thief overall. Since D/P is in the core metagame you are going to face at least one/game.
2. however it supposed to be a fighter class its sustain is laughably low to be able to keep a node while fighting an opponent. It relyes exclusively on active defenses which are countered by AoE/field based abilitys in these scenarios (EDIT: also instant/proccing traits/abilitys/sigils.)

build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVn8lCFOhFmCmOB8PhFYCTLBEA2NehhzQbYOEeCbhA-TZBFABPcCAA4RAswRAQn9HEvMAA

I just wanted to say i really enjoyed the duels. This build looks like a lot of fun to play and fight against. I think the biggest limitation we are seeing with some builds these days is they rely on mobility and active defence to survive and cannot fight on a point. FA ele is another prime example of this.

sd sooooooo strooooong!

I use this same build in wvw but with scholar runes instead of vamp. Also I use EA sometimes which does help vs d/p but not a lot.

I’ve noticed 2 very big issues when I play this set:
1) Skill queues especially on sword 3 make the set so easily counterable. If you press the button 3 or 4 times before the first skill even starts casting it will use it 4 times and remove all your initiative. This is a huge problem when you consider how many blocks and evades are present in the game. The skill queues need to go.
2) S/d just doesn’t have the safety of d/p. It has evades and that’s all it’s defense whereas d/p has evades comparable to s/d thanks to daredevil, high stealth uptime (If running bound), near immunity to s/d’s lockdown (If running dash), blinds, more chase ability, more damage, etc.

What I’d like to see outside of skill queues being removed:
- Either be able to pre load ls again or make it cycle off of blocks because it’s still hitting something, just not doing damage. This will help s/d to be able to have a higher damage upkeep as their biggest damaging skill and boon rip capability will be more readily available.
- Make the jump cast affect return again because it was invaluable as a chase ability to compare with d/p
- Make sword 2’s return instant cast but not stunbreaking and cannot be used when dazed or stunned. Then we will have something we can use to escape and avoid damage on short notice without it being op from being able to perma stunbreak.
- Increase some of the sword skills’ damage. Like compare the damage of each skill to one on d/p. Say infiltrator’s strike to shadow shot, inf is slow, only able to be used once at a time, and does like 1.8k damage. Shadow shot is fast, spammable, blinds, and does 3k+ damage. Those kinds of gaps don’t allow for s/d to be competitive when thief has to be able to burst hard and get out.

DeceiverX.8361:

Nothing will save CnD or really even S/D without first nerfing boons and block access to begin with, honestly, unless they just make Flanking Strike unblockable, but that’s just bad and lazy design.

The set will never be good if both are so easily-spammed.

Exactly. If CnD becomes more accessible and SA more worthwhile, S/D may work partly through using Rending Shade to rip boons rather than FS/LS.