Guild Wars 2

When I browse the thief forum, I always see people saying that D/P is much better than D/D. Why is that? If I go D/D and run 0/30/25/0/15, with Infusion of Shadow, Hidden Thief, and Hidden Killer, I can pull off constant high damage backstabs. If I need to escape, I can use Shadow Step, Shadow Refuge, or Roll for initiative. CnD with Infusion of Shadow and Preparedness allow me to keep my initiative high, as well as frequent stealth. Does the pistol have some kind of huge benefit over dagger offhand?

It has all the significant parts of D/D and more.
It’s a chaser set, Thieves take an assassin role most of the time ganking players, D/P excels at staying on a target and disabling them.
In PvE it gives a blind field to disable most enemies.

What you should be wondering. Is what is your Dagger/Dagger giving you that is so valuable. Every pro you mentioned is the same for D/P.

its a really good dueler set basically anti melee is amazing on it.

D/P is the ‘new’ D/D. It simply ‘works’ like the D/D build worked pre-nerf. I played it a bit post-nerf—but, I myself, don’t like it as much as Sword/Dagger (profanity filter didn’t like S/D in conjunction with the rest of sentence) in PvE, so with the return of Reveal to 3s, I’m back to S/D.

buddypls.5296:

When I browse the thief forum, I always see people saying that D/P is much better than D/D. Why is that? If I go D/D and run 0/30/25/0/15, with Infusion of Shadow, Hidden Thief, and Hidden Killer, I can pull off constant high damage backstabs. If I need to escape, I can use Shadow Step, Shadow Refuge, or Roll for initiative. CnD with Infusion of Shadow and Preparedness allow me to keep my initiative high, as well as frequent stealth. Does the pistol have some kind of huge benefit over dagger offhand?

D/P can do everything you listed, and also has the utility of a gap closer with a blind, an on demand daze, and an excellent blind field in BP. The stealth is also on demand and doesn’t require you to hit a target.

For D/D, deathblossom is worthless outside of a condi build. Dancing daggers is arguably worthless as it is hard to land, and the cripple is 2s if there’s only 1 target. CnD requires a target and a hit to land. The only upside to the set is that CnD stealth uses 3i less than BP→HS for stealth. However, you can stack 8s stealth with BP→HS from a full ini bar.

D/P is competitive for a number of reasons, the main ones are that you have very high stealth uptime without blowing utils (no need for x/D’s target) and more importantly an on-demand blind, an underrated condition as it’s effectively a sort of group Aegis. The daze is nothing to shrug at either.

I run with both, DD DP second. Everyone already said it strengths but I personally can fight some classes better with DD, like mesmers,necros and rangers.

In general it may perform better but for burst D/D is a must, I don’t and have never ran D/P in pvp. It’s a very cheese build imo and I hate to be a lemming, I just run D/D since release and the damage from C&D is great to take out mesmer clones and other stuff I think it’s the best if played correctly. Hardly a forgiving weapon set though which is why it isn’t favored.

If PW gets a buff I will use S/P again, that was a pretty fun build. Constant interrupts really felt like trolling your opponent almost to the point of feeling bad lol.

I played D/P a lot for a while… was great in WvW, not so much in SPvP. I’m back to running D/D in SPvP after a long spell on S/D and I run conditions with very high heals in WvW because of all the D/P thieves there…. I prefer to stalemate them and move off rather than have a fight that lasts too long.

What D/P has:
- same burst, if not higher than D/D
- on-demand stealth
- on-demand gap-closer with really good damage (people underrate that skill, it’s even better than using heartseeker prematurely to use it, since it also blinds the enemy and increases your survivability)
- instant daze (whoever doesn’t use this skill at all is wasting D/P’s potential. Ever tried dazing people as they were about to cast their important spells like heals or ulties? Daze is perhaps even stronger than a stun, since you can stunbreak out of a stun)
- blind field (destroys other thieves and melee classes, also makes taking down boss objectives like svanir a breeze)

Now as to the other reasons why it’s better than your D/D build:
- as you said, you are using “constant high damage backstabs”. You can do that on d/p too the same, with the exception of not having to actually hit anything with CnD. In WvW people just might find a critter or something else to hit, but in tournaments you have to hit your opponents and that doesn’t work out well without a gap closer, since they are obviously avoiding your CnD (which costs a lot of initiative, so missing even one makes blind field stealthing more cost-efficient). Also, if you hit a critter with CnD, you are loosing damage that still gets done with blind field stealthing through a heartseeker.
- now as to the way other thieves actually play: in tournaments slowly killing by backstabs is not viable. You MUST burst somebody down, or you go down yourself, or even worse your whole team looses the teamfight, not even mentioning that taking your time killing enemies on point slowly looses you the game. Also, other classes like warriors can pull of better damage over the time you stealth and backstab 3 times and don’t need to stealth for that, so there’s basically no reason for any team to want a thief that plays the way you do.

Basically the only thing d/d has right now is the ease of pulling off the combo, which isn’t really hard in the first place.

I think you answered your own question there in that your damage was all about the back stabs – for D/D that is certainly good. D/P can do backstabs too but I like the blind field from Black Powder which is pretty underrated .sshhhh…Shadow Shot is also underrated and hits hard enough and is a great gap closer, headshot interrupts like a boss -oh you were about to heal..muhuhuhuhuhaaa..and heartseeker is there too. I played S/P solid then started struggling with it and things simply are much easier with D/P.

Elmuerto.9840:

I think you answered your own question there in that your damage was all about the back stabs – for D/D that is certainly good. D/P can do backstabs too but I like the blind field from Black Powder which is pretty underrated .sshhhh…Shadow Shot is also underrated and hits hard enough and is a great gap closer, headshot interrupts like a boss -oh you were about to heal..muhuhuhuhuhaaa..and heartseeker is there too. I played S/P solid then started struggling with it and things simply are much easier with D/P.

What this guy said, it is easier to play. Why work harder for the same results? This isn’t a jab at your Elmuerto or others that run D/P.

Silferas.3841:

What D/P has:
- same burst, if not higher than D/D
- on-demand stealth
- on-demand gap-closer with really good damage (people underrate that skill, it’s even better than using heartseeker prematurely to use it, since it also blinds the enemy and increases your survivability)
- instant daze (whoever doesn’t use this skill at all is wasting D/P’s potential. Ever tried dazing people as they were about to cast their important spells like heals or ulties? Daze is perhaps even stronger than a stun, since you can stunbreak out of a stun)
- blind field (destroys other thieves and melee classes, also makes taking down boss objectives like svanir a breeze)

Now as to the other reasons why it’s better than your D/D build:
- as you said, you are using “constant high damage backstabs”. You can do that on d/p too the same, with the exception of not having to actually hit anything with CnD. In WvW people just might find a critter or something else to hit, but in tournaments you have to hit your opponents and that doesn’t work out well without a gap closer, since they are obviously avoiding your CnD (which costs a lot of initiative, so missing even one makes blind field stealthing more cost-efficient). Also, if you hit a critter with CnD, you are loosing damage that still gets done with blind field stealthing through a heartseeker.
- now as to the way other thieves actually play: in tournaments slowly killing by backstabs is not viable. You MUST burst somebody down, or you go down yourself, or even worse your whole team looses the teamfight, not even mentioning that taking your time killing enemies on point slowly looses you the game. Also, other classes like warriors can pull of better damage over the time you stealth and backstab 3 times and don’t need to stealth for that, so there’s basically no reason for any team to want a thief that plays the way you do.

Basically the only thing d/d has right now is the ease of pulling off the combo, which isn’t really hard in the first place.

I disagree.

Pulling off Steal CnD + BS is harder than 5-2 then Steal/InfilBS.

D/D is a more skill-based build for PvP. If you are performing well with D/D, you will dominate with D/P.

McFribble.2349:

D/D is a more skill-based build for PvP. If you are performing well with D/D, you will dominate with D/P.

Probably true, but both dagger mainhand builds are easier to play than any of the other thief weapon sets.

Sifu.6527:

Silferas.3841:

What D/P has:
- same burst, if not higher than D/D
- on-demand stealth
- on-demand gap-closer with really good damage (people underrate that skill, it’s even better than using heartseeker prematurely to use it, since it also blinds the enemy and increases your survivability)
- instant daze (whoever doesn’t use this skill at all is wasting D/P’s potential. Ever tried dazing people as they were about to cast their important spells like heals or ulties? Daze is perhaps even stronger than a stun, since you can stunbreak out of a stun)
- blind field (destroys other thieves and melee classes, also makes taking down boss objectives like svanir a breeze)

Now as to the other reasons why it’s better than your D/D build:
- as you said, you are using “constant high damage backstabs”. You can do that on d/p too the same, with the exception of not having to actually hit anything with CnD. In WvW people just might find a critter or something else to hit, but in tournaments you have to hit your opponents and that doesn’t work out well without a gap closer, since they are obviously avoiding your CnD (which costs a lot of initiative, so missing even one makes blind field stealthing more cost-efficient). Also, if you hit a critter with CnD, you are loosing damage that still gets done with blind field stealthing through a heartseeker.
- now as to the way other thieves actually play: in tournaments slowly killing by backstabs is not viable. You MUST burst somebody down, or you go down yourself, or even worse your whole team looses the teamfight, not even mentioning that taking your time killing enemies on point slowly looses you the game. Also, other classes like warriors can pull of better damage over the time you stealth and backstab 3 times and don’t need to stealth for that, so there’s basically no reason for any team to want a thief that plays the way you do.

Basically the only thing d/d has right now is the ease of pulling off the combo, which isn’t really hard in the first place.

I disagree.

Pulling off Steal CnD + BS is harder than 5-2 then Steal/InfilBS.

I agree with this disagreement, if you have a build dedicated to D/P like 0/25/30/25/0, its burst is definitely not as high as a D/D build like 25/30/0/15/0|30/30/0/0/10|0/30/30/10/0 to name a few

Noob question about D/P – figured I’d ask here instead of starting a new thread:

For the 5/2/F1 combo sometimes it seems like the steal gets interrupted. Basically hit 5 and then hit 2-F1 in rapid succession (i.e. F1 immediately after 2) – sometimes it works but often it does not and I end up sitting in the same place with low initiative… Steal goes on a short 5 second cooldown as if it got interrupted. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong here – am I hitting F1 too quickly?

One of the main things I often see people gloss over when advocating for D/P is that to stealth you need a 2 attack combo, whereas a D/D only needs to use C&D. I’m not saying D/D is all around better because of this, but it does have its own set of advantages, even if it’s not what it used to be.

Sometimes the blind field is a clutch factor to winning a fight and sometimes it’s getting in a stealth+backstab before your enemy heals or gets help from allies.

Sometimes the daze is a clutch factor to winning a fight and sometimes a ranged cripple is.

Leadfoot.9071:

Noob question about D/P – figured I’d ask here instead of starting a new thread:

For the 5/2/F1 combo sometimes it seems like the steal gets interrupted. Basically hit 5 and then hit 2-F1 in rapid succession (i.e. F1 immediately after 2) – sometimes it works but often it does not and I end up sitting in the same place with low initiative… Steal goes on a short 5 second cooldown as if it got interrupted. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong here – am I hitting F1 too quickly?

You are out of range of steal.

archive.9073:

Leadfoot.9071:

Noob question about D/P – figured I’d ask here instead of starting a new thread:

For the 5/2/F1 combo sometimes it seems like the steal gets interrupted. Basically hit 5 and then hit 2-F1 in rapid succession (i.e. F1 immediately after 2) – sometimes it works but often it does not and I end up sitting in the same place with low initiative… Steal goes on a short 5 second cooldown as if it got interrupted. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong here – am I hitting F1 too quickly?

You are out of range of steal.

Nope, was practicing against dummies and regularly reproducing it in range for steal out of range for HS, it works occassionally but not usually – so I’m not sure what it is that’s making it not work.

Dahkeus.8243:

One of the main things I often see people gloss over when advocating for D/P is that to stealth you need a 2 attack combo, whereas a D/D only needs to use C&D. I’m not saying D/D is all around better because of this, but it does have its own set of advantages, even if it’s not what it used to be.

Sometimes the blind field is a clutch factor to winning a fight and sometimes it’s getting in a stealth+backstab before your enemy heals or gets help from allies.

Sometimes the daze is a clutch factor to winning a fight and sometimes a ranged cripple is.

Black powder in team fights is amazing as is the on demand dazes from headshot. D/D simply cannot add that utility so that’s why you do not see it in high level tPvP. It’s not a bad set, they both haves pros and cons but for tournament play D/P does seem to take the edge.

Leadfoot.9071:

archive.9073:

Leadfoot.9071:

Noob question about D/P – figured I’d ask here instead of starting a new thread:

For the 5/2/F1 combo sometimes it seems like the steal gets interrupted. Basically hit 5 and then hit 2-F1 in rapid succession (i.e. F1 immediately after 2) – sometimes it works but often it does not and I end up sitting in the same place with low initiative… Steal goes on a short 5 second cooldown as if it got interrupted. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong here – am I hitting F1 too quickly?

You are out of range of steal.

Nope, was practicing against dummies and regularly reproducing it in range for steal out of range for HS, it works occassionally but not usually – so I’m not sure what it is that’s making it not work.

Not sure then, I haven’t had any issues with it.

I’m sure it’s something stupid… I recorded a video of it happening against training dummy:

Can’t tell what I did different the last time where it worked properly.

Leadfoot.9071:

I’m sure it’s something stupid… I recorded a video of it happening against training dummy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D-s7quiXD8

Can’t tell what I did different the last time where it worked properly.

I’m in game right now, in the same spot you are in the video, and have no issues stealthing.

Except now I see you are doing 5, then 2, then F1?

I think the Steal is cancelling the Heartseeker, which is why you go nowhere. (This is true if you wait too long between key presses.)

Never mind, I got it. You have to F1 then 2 immediately after, like a double-tap.

I think it actually might be due to range issue – I’m doing it right within steal range but it is acting like I’m out of range (i.e. if I back up a couple steps the red bar appears under steal). It seems like the red bar under steal may be inaccurate relative to the caclulation when I execute the combo – if I move in a few steps it works pretty much every time.

Leadfoot.9071:

I think it actually might be due to range issue – I’m doing it right within steal range but it is acting like I’m out of range (i.e. if I back up a couple steps the red bar appears under steal). It seems like the red bar under steal may be inaccurate relative to the caclulation when I execute the combo – if I move in a few steps it works pretty much every time.

I just tested it and it seems that is exactly it. Inched forward until I was in Steal “range”, but now get the same results as your video. I guess you need to be slightly closer than advertised? ;)

This Thread should be called “Why is Thief So Highly Praised”?

People have already stated the main reasons, here’s my response in a nutshell:
D/D can only use, at most, 3 of its 5 attacks. D/P uses all 5.
D/D’s CnD requires a target, and must hit; also, it can’t be used in stealth. B/P+HS does not require a target, and does not have to hit anything; furthermore, it can be used to stack stealth.
D/D has only one thing going for it, burst. D/P has four: burst, gap closing, ranged interrupts, and blinds (many at range and many more at melee distance).

Really, the only way in which D/D might have an advantage over D/P is with CnD versus BP+HS combo. BP+HS costs slightly more than CnD, and can sometimes miss or accidentally target somebody and slam revealed on you. CnD is pretty good against stationary targets like clones or pets. However, that’s it, and of course there are all of the disadvantages to CnD that I wrote about earlier.

Arganthium.5638:

People have already stated the main reasons, here’s my response in a nutshell:
D/D can only use, at most, 3 of its 5 attacks. D/P uses all 5.
D/D’s CnD requires a target, and must hit; also, it can’t be used in stealth. B/P+HS does not require a target, and does not have to hit anything; furthermore, it can be used to stack stealth.
D/D has only one thing going for it, burst. D/P has four: burst, gap closing, ranged interrupts, and blinds (many at range and many more at melee distance).

D/D takes only 1 skill to stealth (6 initiative with 1/2 sec cast time), whereas D/P takes 2 (9 initiative with 1 & 1/4 sec cast time). D/D also has some gap closing with HS and even though it’s not as effective as Shadow Shot, it does also have a cripple, which is something that D/P doesn’t have. Also, you can get the AoE blind effect to an extent with D/D through taking Cloaked in Shadow.

I’m not saying that D/D is better, but simply that your argument to justify D/P is overlooking a lot.

Dahkeus.8243:

Arganthium.5638:

People have already stated the main reasons, here’s my response in a nutshell:
D/D can only use, at most, 3 of its 5 attacks. D/P uses all 5.
D/D’s CnD requires a target, and must hit; also, it can’t be used in stealth. B/P+HS does not require a target, and does not have to hit anything; furthermore, it can be used to stack stealth.
D/D has only one thing going for it, burst. D/P has four: burst, gap closing, ranged interrupts, and blinds (many at range and many more at melee distance).

D/D takes only 1 skill to stealth (6 initiative with 1/2 sec cast time), whereas D/P takes 2 (9 initiative with 1 & 1/4 sec cast time). D/D also has some gap closing with HS and even though it’s not as effective as Shadow Shot, it does also have a cripple, which is something that D/P doesn’t have. Also, you can get the AoE blind effect to an extent with D/D through taking Cloaked in Shadow.

I’m not saying that D/D is better, but simply that your argument to justify D/P is overlooking a lot.

I get that it only takes one skill, that is (to some degree) what I was hoping to get at with the whole initiative-cost thing. You also have to realize that there are some practical time constraints on CnD- you have to get up close to your enemy, make sure they’re not evading, and be in perfect range for CnD, so I think that any time differences between the two stealths are fairly negligible in many circumstances (the one major exception is stationary targets). D/D has the same gap closer as D/P but lacks another one, which is why I stated D/P as having better gap-closing potential. There is indeed a cripple on D/D, but, like LDB in most D/D builds, it’s impractical and inefficient, and DD has been inefficient for a very long time. The only thing it’s ok at is starting a fight, but even that is inferior to D/P’s less costly Shadow Shot that also comes with a Shadowstep to your enemy as well as, essentially, a free block.

Getting AoE blind with D/D requires a rather hilariously large amount of sacrifice.

@Arganthium
I am not saying you are wrong but I do think you are basically saying DD is utter trash, even if that’s not what you are implying. Let’s take a look at things from a DD perspective, because we already know how DP works. What class would you need a gap closer for mainly when fighting? We can say rangers are a main one, mesmers, and maybe even necromancers. Those are the main classes we need to take at for a range.

Now then, if I need to get close to a ranger using DD yes I could heartseeker, or I could evade my way toward him. Both would work but are risky, especially the evading one. However what I DD user would do, an experienced one, is that they would CnD off of the pet and make their way to the ranger, maybe a HS or two in stealth so the ranger can’t predict movement. A mesmer, same scenario, CnD off of clones and make your way to the mesmer. Necro same thing, assuming they have minions, if not then other tactics are used and a kitten ton of heartseekers.

Classes like Warriors and Guardians, while risky are fought in CQC with DD, with the blind on stealth trait letting you get a free damageless stealth, though I admit, not as effective as the field. And DP is the easiest way to fight a thief as a thief. Which is why I carry that set as my secondary.

The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think either is better than the other. Believe it or not, one scenario I have seen and even did better with DD is against a mesmer. When you stealth with DP, you are usually very predictable as to your location, think about it, you HS toward the target, so the have a good idea where you are. But a DD user can CnD off of clones, and zig zag their path and confuse the mesmer. Once a ranger pet was running back to its master, I CnD’d all of the way to the ranger off of the pet, I can’t do that with DP as I didn’t know his location. But to satisy your argument, DP does offer blinding and a more reliable gap closer. The thing is fighting with DP makes things a bit easier due to your tools. With DD you have to be much more weary of your surroundings and dodges.

General thing I’ve noticed, if they love range, they will usually have something for you to CnD off of to compensate, if the love CQC, you can CnD off of the person, however you have to be more careful during the fight.

Sifu.6527:

I disagree.

Pulling off Steal CnD + BS is harder than 5-2 then Steal/InfilBS.

d/p : use basilisk venom, mark target, detarget (depending on whether you have already been seen, as using basilisk by hitting enemy with black powder prematurely can utterly funk your whole combo up, giving enemy more time to stunbreak or even having the effect pass), use black powder, retarget, use assassin’s signet while using heartseeker (if you use it before this point you are loosing one or more of the empowered hits by black powder), use steal, use backstab

d/d : use basilisk, use assassin’s signet, use CnD, use steal, use backstab

I fail to see how possibly any combo ever could be more simple than pulling off CnD backstab. You might have in mind pulling off just a backstab without usage of any combos or stuff like that (seeing akittenting CnD can be tricky… as I have previously stated), which would be quite pointless in spvp/tournaments seeing as if you fail your burst combo the first time, you gonna die babe, unless you run real fast. In regards to pve : backstab builds suck. There is also the WvW thing for which I hold no regard whatsoever, since basically everything and anything works there (player skillbase is somewhere in between the floor and satan’s bathroom.

@RedSpectrum: there is only one D/P build and it’s 25/30/0/0/15 with full zerker and scholar’s runes. There is a remote chance you might be talking about WvW, where stuff like being upleveled from level 13 matters much more in a fight than having a weird trait setup.

I am not playing sPvP, so I can say from view of WvW. If you look just on the stats D/P is bather, and it is bather in 1vs1, but I find it more useful to use D/D. Reason is that not everyone is going male on you, and stuns from a distance can kill a thief. You find your self in a bad position whit all initiatives used very fast whit D/P. Whit D/D I go much easier to stealth, can kitten the situation and then make the attack. If the situation is to dangerous always have enough initiatives to reposition my self. I am not talking here fighting against some doliak hunters, I am talking about fighting good players.

D/P on the other hand is the best and only option against good guardian (1vs1 again). I had lot of fights whit guardians that lasted to long, hi always get his health up before I do a final hit. D/P whit its daze and blind fixes that problem, but to carry all the time D/P because of that one fight where you find a good guardian 1on1 is not a good idea. Other classes go down quite good from D/D combination.

I see someone talk about thief helping other players in a zerg Play gardian or nekro The best thief that can do in zerg situations is to take guys on the side or on the back of that zerg, or use SR to revive. If you are hitting the main force of the zerg use arrows as they hit multiple targets, do not run in whit D/P as you will not survive for to long.

Silferas.3841:

Sifu.6527:

I disagree.

Pulling off Steal CnD + BS is harder than 5-2 then Steal/InfilBS.

d/p : use basilisk venom, mark target, detarget (depending on whether you have already been seen, as using basilisk by hitting enemy with black powder prematurely can utterly funk your whole combo up, giving enemy more time to stunbreak or even having the effect pass), use black powder, retarget, use assassin’s signet while using heartseeker (if you use it before this point you are loosing one or more of the empowered hits by black powder), use steal, use backstab

d/d : use basilisk, use assassin’s signet, use CnD, use steal, use backstab

I fail to see how possibly any combo ever could be more simple than pulling off CnD backstab. You might have in mind pulling off just a backstab without usage of any combos or stuff like that (seeing akittenting CnD can be tricky… as I have previously stated), which would be quite pointless in spvp/tournaments seeing as if you fail your burst combo the first time, you gonna die babe, unless you run real fast. In regards to pve : backstab builds suck. There is also the WvW thing for which I hold no regard whatsoever, since basically everything and anything works there (player skillbase is somewhere in between the floor and satan’s bathroom.

@RedSpectrum: there is only one D/P build and it’s 25/30/0/0/15 with full zerker and scholar’s runes. There is a remote chance you might be talking about WvW, where stuff like being upleveled from level 13 matters much more in a fight than having a weird trait setup.

There isn’t one DP build, just like there isnt one DD build

cnd and bs ……easy to pull off? wierd….wonder why they fail more than they succeed on each skill

RedSpectrum.1975:

…
There isn’t one DP build, just like there isnt one DD build

In pvp, there is only one DP build, as well as only one DD build. Coincidentally, they are the same. They have been played from the launch, tested endlessly and proven to be the best. Now if you are basing your argumentation on WvW, let me stop you. WvW is a game mode that is in it’s core based on abuse of principles, that were supposed to make PvE better for the people playing the game, like ridiculous maximum critical damage, fully geared players being put against newbs and similar disgusting things.

Silferas.3841:

RedSpectrum.1975:

…
There isn’t one DP build, just like there isnt one DD build

In pvp, there is only one DP build, as well as only one DD build. Coincidentally, they are the same. They have been played from the launch, tested endlessly and proven to be the best. Now if you are basing your argumentation on WvW, let me stop you. WvW is a game mode that is in it’s core based on abuse of principles, that were supposed to make PvE better for the people playing the game, like ridiculous maximum critical damage, fully geared players being put against newbs and similar disgusting things.

This is horrendously untrue, in multiple regards. Lemme give you some background, first.

I was a WvW veteran that came over to PvP after the server that I had transferred to, Eredon Terrace, was beginning to show signs of falling apart, being damaged irreversibly. I was faced with situations where I would have to function as pseudo-commander for a giant group of pugs while being forced to negotiate agreements with a commander from FC, whilst expecting they would break their end of the agreement when most convenient for them. Eventually, the stress and countless losses became too much for me, so I quit.

You are correct, then, that WvW is based on the abuse of principles that, if implemented in PvP, would work horrendously for teams. However, in WvW, you don’t have the luxury of being guaranteed with having equal resources relative to what your opponents have. This results in crazy imbalances, but they’re very good learning experiences. I have had to fight against players with better gear than me on more than one occasion (I’m very poor), and have had to learn to use non-optimal gear to fit my build. I’ve had to learn how to play cheaply, and play efficiently. I had to learn how to craft builds that could make up for my lack of money, that could fulfill the purposes I needed for them to do while still remaining competitive. I also had to learn many tactical and strategic ideas in order to survive; I’ve faced groups of 20 or so by myself before, acting as harassment while our “armies” came in to give assistance. The point is that you shouldn’t be treating WvW without respect; I can promise you that you experience none of these kinds of things in PvP whatsoever.

Now, onwards. While learning to play the thief, leveling up, and learning the mechanics of WvW, I developed many of my own builds; first it was S/D, then, for a long period of time, S/P, and then some meddling in S/D again; however, I finally came upon a very new weaponset that I liked: D/P. However, because survivability is such an important part of the WvW strategy that I used (and continue to use whenever I dip my toe back into WvW again), and my gear was so varied, I had to rely upon my build choice to provide me with the survivability that I wanted. It took a long time, but eventually, I came up with what may look to be the most crazy stupid and yet somehow self-consistent build you’ll ever be lucky enough to see: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmiP3eS6E95EB3Dna0m6fAs9MuqVB

The idea was very simple: lay down pressure by using the flexibility given to me by my defensive spec that allowed me to be particularly aggressive. The trait points, however, were very bad indicators of just what the build was like; while you might expect a turtle that did nothing but noob off others’ kills in battle from this build, I did the exact opposite: I was a front-line fighter with excellent scouting and soloing opportunities. I offset any offensive weaknesses that I had by patching together some aggressive gear from a variety of different areas- mostly zerker gear. Soon enough, I owned the battlefield. This was the only build that I would recommend people, at the time; it was far superior in terms of strategy and tactics to any other build you might find out there. More aggressive builds, like the GC D/D or D/P build I think you were referring to typically require the sacrifice of some long-term advantage in exchange for many short-term advantages; however, a good player learns how to grab onto the long-term advantages while neutralizing all of the short-term ones that you have, and thus the GC idea eventually falls apart. However, this tanking build didn’t require the giving up of an advantage early on in the fight; instead, it sought to use complicated strategy and tactics to gain a small advantage on an opponent, and then use that advantage as leverage to gain an increasingly larger and larger advantage. The strategy worked so beautifully, I brought the build over to PvP, where I gave it some Zerker stats and the like.

If you really think you know everything there is about D/P then, that you’ve magically “proven” that 25/30/0/0/15 is the best build out there, then you are horribly mistaken. You’ve jumped over hundreds if not thousands of ideas that buildcrafters like myself have developed; you can’t say that something is the “best” without knowing anything about the alternatives.

I was some 50 times in sPvP, and when you go play against your own rank, thing what hapkitten that you get attacked in most of the time 2vs1 or worse. I have guys akitten the base. Quite disgusting. Also what chance has a thief against two warriors in the small circle which hi needs to protect. Again I did not play sPvP that much, I am shore that there are some tricks there you can use, but in general when you learn them it is just repeating the same process again and again. Like the guys who farm COF 24/7. Someone call that skill and tactic, I do not have the same opinion, as you put those guys in a different position and terrain and they are lost as they can not adapt to any situation. Best sPvP player in my guild can not find them self in WvW.

It is not the gear or the stats that make you a good player in WvW, it is the positioning and knowing when and how to attack. Build which puts all on power and precision is not the best for WvW, I tried it and it showed bad in situations when you have multiple enemy’s coming around the corner in to the fight you already started.

Leadfoot.9071:

I’m sure it’s something stupid… I recorded a video of it happening against training dummy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D-s7quiXD8

Can’t tell what I did different the last time where it worked properly.

You’re hitting steal too fast. :P
The correct way to combo: 5->2 (wait till you start going up in the air)->Steal->(2 finishes and lands on target)->(you’re in stealth and have around 2 secs to hit backstab)->Backstab pew pew. Practice it more calmly and slower don’t mash your buttons randomly at the same time.

Combat log will show:
Black powder
Steal (Mug)
Heartseeker
Backstab

Ontopic:
Only thing D/D has over D/P is the execution speed, damage is the same, but D/P is miles over D/D for its utility. Blindfield (miniaegis and allows you to safestomp 5 out of 8 professions on first try), spammable interrupt (most evil thing ever), on demand gapcloser and stealth on demand that doesn’t require a target.

On D/D you require blind on stealth trait to stomp the same way (you sacrifice damage), you have no gapcloser on demand, no interrupts and you require hitting your target to stealth. What’s so hard to understand?

D/P backstab combo damage is pretty much the same as D/D if not higher.
BP+HS+Mug+Backstab vs CnD+Mug+Backstab.

No worries Sifu – D/P is just easier indeed and S/P is gimping yourself. Plus I’m the kind of thief that considers ressing teamates part of spvp. Although I will say one thing I haven’t seen an effective D/D thief in a very long time and I’m only killed by one when caught completely unaware in combat focused on another enemy. There are some very good S/D thieves about at the moment however now that flanking strike has been more than fixed its proving very effective.

Psybunny.8906:

You’re hitting steal too fast. :P
The correct way to combo: 5->2 (wait till you start going up in the air)->Steal->(2 finishes and lands on target)->(you’re in stealth and have around 2 secs to hit backstab)->Backstab pew pew. Practice it more calmly and slower don’t mash your buttons randomly at the same time.

Combat log will show:
Black powder
Steal (Mug)
Heartseeker
Backstab

Actually I’m pretty sure now there is an issue with distance – it shows you in range (no read under steal button) but when you are just on the edge of being in range it bugs out and acts like you are out of range. If you take a step or two forward then it works.

The main reason i wakittenting steal so quickly after HS was because if you don’t it looks like you do not get stealth… however, archive on here showed me that you actually do get stealth it just doesn’t show you as stealthed – it does show the buff. That was throwing me off so I thought I had to hit it quickly for it to work right. Also, this would probably have solved the problem above anyways because the HS would take me the extra couple feet I need.

There does seem to be a bug with being out of range when it shows you in range – it may be specific to this condo and related to the HS before steal. dunno…