(edited by Phosphorite.6192)
Thoughts on my D/D condi build?
You might want to swap out daze on steal for confusion on steal. The lower cooldown is only about 5 seconds and the damage loss can be significant. Further, the stun can proc “on stun” effects on your opponents, especially taunts.
I’d consider going P/P or P/D on the offhand if you want something offense in that slot. That will also further increase your condition coverage and give you ranged pressure. Stealth from offhand dagger may be harder to pull off in one sense, but it takes less initiative and works well for a close range build that dodges a lot.
Yea, P/D is what I’m going for with the second set.
About the steal thing: Confusion would deal about 3.877 damage in total. Is that really more than stealing five seconds faster each time? Might only trade off in longer fights but still. 5s seems like a big deal to me, since steal is already dealing 7.442 damage through poison and gets me all of the sweet boons. Also, faster more initiative, so more death blossom and more endurance, meaning more lotus training.
I find confusion on steal superior to the daze. The reason is you really do not want to steal every 20 some seconds on the dot anyways as you should time your steals for a burst rather then perform them like clockwork so that lower cooldown does not help a lot.
The Confusion on steal helps to limit an enemies actions. As example if you already got poison on and load confusion the enemy is going to lose a whole lot of health doing any action , even their heals. Confusion is an excellent cover condition as well.
Timing a confusion for when the enemy low on health and NEEDS to do that next action can force them into killing themself.
I tried the daze on steal and it does not work as well . It used to be ok on the old perplexity runes and can in theory work with pressure strike but I think long term you give up significant damage and ability to control the fight.
I am not a fan of Impact strike in that build either. The reason is most of its damage comes from power and to pull off that chain you are stopping in place leaving yourself very exposed for minimal payback. D/D has little ability to close range so steal the only practical way to get at them quickly and they can pick you apart with things like Rapid fire before you get in range to do any damage.
I preferred daggerstorm here to get those reflects so you can storm towards the enemy while in the whirl. Further if you in WvW you will get a huge damage boost with fields.
Since you already have high durations on bleed/poison I am abivalent about Krait runes even if for the elite since so much is going to waste from the other bonuses. Undead might be the better choice for a really nice overall condition number.
Since two traps in the build you can consider trappers runes as well for some cheap and easy stealth, or Adventurer, taking a cut in overall condition damage but ensuring full endurance after a heal for more dodges.
if p/d is your off hand trappers really will work well as you can get that stealth at range without having to CND for a sneak attack or drop trap right on enemy instantly giving you stealth for a sneak attack then shadowstrike away or transition into DB off d/d as enemy is immobed.
Trappers also gives a 10 percent boost to base condition duration which really helps extending those immobs from needle traps.
(edited by babazhook.6805)
Thanks a lot for your extensive thoughts babazhook! I have to admit that I’m mostly just playing PvE so I was talking more about sheer numbers regarding the steal but nevertheless, your tips are very useful should I ever want to get into PvP or WvW.
Also, I have the impact strike in there bc of the low cooldown, to get the most out of the krait rune. When I’m not running around solo, I switch to basi poison for the venom share. I also switch the daggers with skal poison, since that times 5 does more damage than my daggers alone.
Basi venom is good to carry just for breakbar damage (daze as well). Maybe think about using Mug as an “Oh crap” bailout plus heal. I’ve also found that pairing Withdraw (uninterruptable) as a heal with Adventurer runes works out quite nicely. Plus Krait is a bit redundant with all the extended condi you already have with full expertise and Malice sigils. Maintaining heavy bleed ticks should be pretty easy with caltrops, daggers, and DB all going.
That combination makes it really easy to stay on top of targets, pretty much constantly evading and spitting out condis, then using spider and skale venom as big spikes when needed. Oh, and if you carry a shortbow, be sure to work whirl and projectile combos off your poison fields with DB and dodges. The extra poison and weakness ticks add up.
Other than that, yeah, listen to baba and have fun man. Good luck out there.
(edited by JonnyForgotten.4276)
I dont know, what kind of PvE content we are talking about, but since you indicated that you run around solo a lot, I think we are mostly talking about open world here.
If you feel confident enough in your survivability, I’d suggest to switch some of your gear to viper stats. Full trailblazer’s might be a bit overkill on the tankiness if we are talking about -and please correct me, if im wrong – open world PvE. Dagger autoattack, CnD, Stealth-attacks and a good chunk of your other abilities as well, scale fantastically with power and crit-stats, resulting in a significant DPS boost with viper’s stats. You also dont loose any condition damage since the condi-stats are the same as trailblazer’s.
If you feel like you need more sustain with vipers, you could also try to go for the signet of malice healskill. It synergizes really well with DB and the fast dagger autohit chain. I don’t know about the DPS however, since it would affect the Lotus-Training uptime.
The viper/blazer split works pretty well (I use a an even half and half), just don’t expect a high crit chance. Think mine is at about 20%, maybe a bit less. The extra power is def nice for backstabs, and it leaves enough toughness and vitality to soak up whatever hits get through the evades.
Thanks a lot for your suggestions! I was thinking about the viper stats too, but I actually pretty much opted for a “hit and run” build, so
“get to the enemy fast” → “apply all the condis” → “get the F outta there” → “wait for ticks/cds to run out” → “repeat”.
For that, having a lot of vit/tough is definitely nice. Ans yea, I’m doing a lot of free roaming, but there are still a lot of ppl there for events, so I’m taking basi with me now.
The signet of malice is a nice idea for healing, I’m not sure tho. Channeled vigor is nice bc it gives me more endurance, thus more mobility and damges with the lotus training~ gonna try that out.
CV is def worth using, I just prefer Withdraw because I have a tendency to get in a liiitttle too deep sometimes and it’s a great way to bail. Plus the stun/immob break on it is nice in a clinch.
Withdraw doesn’t work well for me bc of Trapper’s Respite. The needletrap gets put down after the roll so it’s hard to estimate where it will actually be.
After some testing I also found that signet of malice leaves me feel much more vulnerable than CV, even with the high synergy with DB, so I guess I’ll stick to CV so far.
Withdraw doesn’t work well for me bc of Trapper’s Respite. The needletrap gets put down after the roll so it’s hard to estimate where it will actually be.
After some testing I also found that signet of malice leaves me feel much more vulnerable than CV, even with the high synergy with DB, so I guess I’ll stick to CV so far.
Withdraw works better with a p/d trappers set as you stealth after you pull back and can attack from range immediately with a sneak attack. usually the enemy then closes and steps on the trap. It does not work as well in d/d because you do not want to open range in d/d unless you have to.
SOM is better in a non trapper build as you get heals off your dodge and your attacks which can add up in short order especially with shamans or apothecray armor and coupled with assassins reward. You can get 2k heals on a DB doing this. With both DBS and dodges healing, along with uncatchable left behind you can keep health topped off quite easily for long periods of times. The vulnerability exists when you “run out of gas”. It really predicated on an energizer bunny type build where you just go go go with your attacks.
That’s interesting, I never thought about putting some healing in my stats for smth like that. Might be worth checking out. I definitely like the idea of a thief seemingly endlessly jumping around a target inflicting condi after condi after condi x3
That’s interesting, I never thought about putting some healing in my stats for smth like that. Might be worth checking out. I definitely like the idea of a thief seemingly endlessly jumping around a target inflicting condi after condi after condi x3
if you want to take this idea to an extreme at the cost of utility use d/d in all your weapon slots.Go energy sigil /geomancy one energy sigil geomancy the other> (or put a stack sigil there for courruption) Take quick pockets and swap every ten seconds as you DB. Very one dimensional but can frustrate an enemy to heck as you just go and go an go. With shamans or apothecary as armor health keeps pouring in.
The damage output is predicated on time more than others with a higher Condition damage trait overall or having access to more bursty type condition application so It can take a while to kill things .
My general thought about a thief condi build: use any metabattle condi build, put some tesa on your 3 key and enjoy your life.
Welp, wish they’d rework the thief back to the Assassin class from factions… good times.
Try this one:
This is one of the most annoying D/D builds out there. Full uptime on speed, lots of escape, near non-stop evasion and ridiculously durable. Lyssa runes cover the burst condi hole and Instant Reflexes counters the burst DPS typically from compound thieves hitting you from stealth. They seem like odd choices until you run into a REALLY good player then they make all the difference. Most variants of this build go too heavy on Condi application when it simply isn’t needed.
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