Guild Wars 2

I have a recurring question about the weapon set S/D. What is the intended purpose of the weapon-set Sword/Dagger?

It’s more or less a duellist weapon set that evolves around controlling your opponent while being very evasive. Skills like larcenous strike and tactical strike (sword number 1 from stealth) are great for the purpose of controlling them along with dancing dagger and infiltrator strike to snare them. And obviously flanking strike, infiltrator return and cloak and dagger makes for some strong defence aswell.

Don’t ever use skill 4 (its terrible and just eats up your initiative needlessly) and, in only excluding very rare occasions, don’t use skill 5 (it is also just an initiative drain). The aftercast on cloak and dagger makes tactical strike (stealth hit) virtually unusable. Instead, approach using something like 2 + steal, then use flanking strike, 1 + dodge (only the first hit in the chain though, since it has an extremely short aftercast), and larcenous strike + dodge. Your role as S/D is to provide constant pressure on a target. It is a high sustain dps build able to contest points – which is rare as a thief.

I’m not sure what context OP is looking for but a Daze S/D build is a very strong spec, albeit in a 1v1 situation. Also you can use skill nr 4 to find stealthed opponents if there are any targets near you that aren’t stealthed. (Look where the dagger bounces towards) but as Chicago said, dancing dagger will be barely used, usually not worth it. I’m looking at S/D from a WvW perspective btw, for tPvP it’s a combination of flanking strike, larcenous strike and slice and dodging to be effective.

S/D = Boon stripper. That’s it.

It used to be a nice weapon set until Anet butchered it to uselessness.

Boon stripping, evades, daze, hit many targets at once with auto-attack…it’s a great set if played well.

free rally bait for the other team

From what I recall on sword/dagger

-Buff to #3, now it is a 2 part skill with the 2nd part stealing 2 boons (YEA!)

-Nerf to #2, no longer breaks stun (was op as hell, I can’t argue with that)

-Nerf to #3, now LS costs 2 initiative to justify the 2 boons stolen. (Ok, I suppose. Not a big deal tbh)

-Nerf to #3 now only steals one boon. Continues to cost 2 initiative for LS (umm…)

-Nerf to #2, now has a cast time. Illusionary leap/swap for mesmers remain intact (…….new build time, AGAIN).

End result? It had its time, now its just to dance with your enemy and hope they slip up.

its not a boon stripper…not anymore. ever since it went from 2 to 1 boons stolen…. now u just get like 4 secs of fury or something. nothinglong.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Don’t ever use skill 4 (its terrible and just eats up your initiative needlessly) and, in only excluding very rare occasions, don’t use skill 5 (it is also just an initiative drain). The aftercast on cloak and dagger makes tactical strike (stealth hit) virtually unusable. Instead, approach using something like 2 + steal, then use flanking strike, 1 + dodge (only the first hit in the chain though, since it has an extremely short aftercast), and larcenous strike + dodge. Your role as S/D is to provide constant pressure on a target. It is a high sustain dps build able to contest points – which is rare as a thief.

That’s not entirely true. Dancing Dagger is certainly a useless skill in anywhere from 95% to 99% of all situations, but there are a few very rare situations where it’s useful. Two, actually. The first is when you need to deal ranged damage but your weapon swap (presumably SB) is on CD and you can’t use Infi Strike for whatever reason (maybe you’re capping a point). The second occasion is when you have IR up and just need to deal that tiny bit of extra damage to down an opponent, when your secondary is on CD and you don’t know that you have the time to IR/IS before your opponent heals or you take a significant amount of damage. The third and final occasion is when you have a downed opponent nearby and are letting him/her bleed and he/she is trying to heal, and all the while you’re capping a point. In those situations, the downed heal interrupt that you can get from Dancing Dagger can be helpful.

Of course, the skill in and of itself is still pretty terrible.

Very nice responses, I just wanted to see everyone thoughts on it. I’ve been playing S/D since beta for PvE and PvP.

Dancing dagger is also a 100% combo finisher, and if you’re aware of your friendly fields, can have its uses whether you be d/d or p/d (condi). I know the post is about s/d but just putting out its other uses. Also I believe even the bounces have 100% combo finisher on them so kudos if you got 2 next to an good DoT field.

Another thing is if you have IS on cooldown, and have no other means to catch up to an opponent to keep dealing damage, the cripple helps slow that gap. Whether it be to finish them off as Arganthium stated or to simply catch up, its got its use. I wouldn’t use dancing dagger for anything but utility purposes, it hits like a wet noodle even in zerker gear.

I used to play S/D for a long time and still do. But it’s been feeling more and more lackluster by the day.

I should really give D/P a try but that build is even glassier. I actually liked S/D because it wasn’t entirely about bursting people down and instead allowed you to show some skill.

But if you only have one role to fill in combat you might as well fill it right.

Dee Jay.2460:

I used to play S/D for a long time and still do. But it’s been feeling more and more lackluster by the day.

I should really give D/P a try but that build is even glassier. I actually liked S/D because it wasn’t entirely about bursting people down and instead allowed you to show some skill.

But if you only have one role to fill in combat you might as well fill it right.

1. on d/p is an incredible skill. I don’t even use #6+#2 to spam stealth, as its overused and quite honestly ineffective against people with half a brain. Its all about the #1-3, and its hella fun. I’d give s/d a try if I didn’t watch it crumble to pieces over the last 7 or so months.

On D/P, its more like 1-5. Using a blind via shadowshot on a skill that overloads blinds isn’t very good. It’s more effective to interrupt it since most of the time they are channeled skills. Also, interrupting heals is pretty critical to down someone as fast as possible. It’s a setup that forces people to think about what the other person is doing in order to be effective. You can gank people who are already fighting someone real easy, but in a fight where people know you’re there interrupts on heals are pretty critical to down someone fast. It’s why I love D/P: It’s the closest thing I’ve seen in this game that resembles an R/Mo – an incredibly skilled build.

You’re right though. Perma-stealth teefs via 5, 2, 2, 2, 2 are pretty boring.

Chicago Jack.5647:

On D/P, its more like 1-5. Using a blind via shadowshot on a skill that overloads blinds isn’t very good. It’s more effective to interrupt it since most of the time they are channeled skills. Also, interrupting heals is pretty critical to down someone as fast as possible. It’s a setup that forces people to think about what the other person is doing in order to be effective. You can gank people who are already fighting someone real easy, but in a fight where people know you’re there interrupts on heals are pretty critical to down someone fast. It’s why I love D/P: It’s the closest thing I’ve seen in this game that resembles an R/Mo – an incredibly skilled build.

You’re right though. Perma-stealth teefs via 5, 2, 2, 2, 2 are pretty boring.

Well I guess I misplaced #4’s use, its very useful but in very limited ways. It’s meant to interrupt not control or evade as much as blinding does. I just love #3 because its unblockable and a much more reliable gap closer than #2 and still hits rather hard (not as hard as #2 but more reliable, if you know what I mean). You can’t hs out of a ring of warding, or past a spectral wall, or ele wall. Plus a built in blind, its just a lot of fun to use. I used to like #3 on s/d but since it’s history seems to be further depleted from various nerfs I tend to avoid it at all costs. Headshot is great but its something you really have to look for otherwise it’s entirely wasteful. Only time I use #5 on d/p is when coupled with blinding powder to get more than enough stealth time to escape a fight or recover rq or to stealth an ally for a long time to rez em.

NinjaEd.3946:

Dee Jay.2460:

I used to play S/D for a long time and still do. But it’s been feeling more and more lackluster by the day.

I should really give D/P a try but that build is even glassier. I actually liked S/D because it wasn’t entirely about bursting people down and instead allowed you to show some skill.

But if you only have one role to fill in combat you might as well fill it right.

1. on d/p is an incredible skill. I don’t even use #6+#2 to spam stealth, as its overused and quite honestly ineffective against people with half a brain. Its all about the #1-3, and its hella fun. I’d give s/d a try if I didn’t watch it crumble to pieces over the last 7 or so months.

I have played D/P in WvW quite a bit and know how good it is. I just haven’t really tried it in sPvP because up until recently I was reasonably content with S/D.

But assuming we’re talking about the 10/30/0/0/30 build here, what do we use to cleanse conditions?

Excalibur.9748:

free rally bait for the other team

Or:

Dee Jay.2460:

what do we use to cleanse conditions?

You can ether use hide in shadows with shadowstep, or if you’re uncomfortable with that, you can run lyssa runes as well. Lyssa runes are not really needed though unless you’re running withdraw (which most S/D thieves do).

do you mean whats the purpose? or whats it left with doing now? 2 very different things :/

Travlane.5948:

do you mean whats the purpose? or whats it left with doing now? 2 very different things :/

“Whats the purpose” I’m sorry I didn’t really explain in context that much like I should have, to remove confusion. Nonetheless I like the responses tho. xD