Guild Wars 2

I’m sure it’s been discussed at some point, but… in theory, what would the implications of making the sword/dagger dual skill a parry/riposte kind of thing, rather than a dodge? It’d kind of play up the fencer aspect and give thieves something they can’t normally do – although the latter might change with the elite spec.

Problem is that a parry/riposte skill with no set cooldown would be very hard to balance with the S/D set as is.

Unless it cost a fair amount of ini, it would be OP in 1v1, but vs multiple opponents it would be nigh useless; where an evade would dodge attacks from any foe, riposte would by definition only block the first strike then lock you into the counter-attack animation so you would have to take the other hits. This would limit the set in much the same way as D/D is limited currently, where 1 and 2 are good, 3 fails defensively and 4 and 5 are shared with S/D.

On a melee staff with other defensive mechanics like another dodge skill and a projectile block, riposte would work and would likely be awesome. But it wouldn’t help S/D, imo it would likely do the opposite.

That is true. Oh well. It was just a random idea. I just wish S/D was a bit more PvE-friendly, recent nerfs notwithstanding.