Guild Wars 2

D/P isnt anything new! That unseen and deathless video from reddit with all knights gear probably had a bigger impact on thieves running D/P in WvW than Yishis video will. Most ppl copy that Unseen build trait for trait from the other thieves I talked to.

I don’t feel like D/P is cheesy it is just superior to off hand dagger. It trumps off hand dagger in a 1v1 scenario most of the time.

Most thief playstyles I have come across and usual optimal setup is jump in do your burst if its success stay on target. If its not then use HIS, SR, bow. This is assuming your on say 1 target. Its not like there are any thief builds where you sit there and face tank anything its all about getting in do damage assess the situation if you feel like you can win then fight it out if not abandon or attempt a reset.

D/P is no different than D/D when it comes to tempo etc. The execution is different but its still trying to accomplish the same thing. I think alot of D/D thieves don’t like D/P or call it cheesy because well a D/P can wait out your Shadow refuge pretty much if you fail to get a quick kill. They don’t have to blow their SR while you might have to. There is no rocket science to this waiting out to see who uses their SR or HIS first is just cat and mouse. A D/P has the cards stacked in its favor compared to D/D just the way it is but doesnt mean its cheesy because its better.

oZii.2864:

D/P isnt anything new! That unseen and deathless video from reddit with all knights gear probably had a bigger impact on thieves running D/P in WvW than Yishis video will. Most ppl copy that Unseen build trait for trait from the other thieves I talked to.

I don’t feel like D/P is cheesy it is just superior to off hand dagger. It trumps off hand dagger in a 1v1 scenario most of the time.

Most thief playstyles I have come across and usual optimal setup is jump in do your burst if its success stay on target. If its not then use HIS, SR, bow. This is assuming your on say 1 target. Its not like there are any thief builds where you sit there and face tank anything its all about getting in do damage assess the situation if you feel like you can win then fight it out if not abandon or attempt a reset.

D/P is no different than D/D when it comes to tempo etc. The execution is different but its still trying to accomplish the same thing. I think alot of D/D thieves don’t like D/P or call it cheesy because well a D/P can wait out your Shadow refuge pretty much if you fail to get a quick kill. They don’t have to blow their SR while you might have to. There is no rocket science to this waiting out to see who uses their SR or HIS first is just cat and mouse. A D/P has the cards stacked in its favor compared to D/D just the way it is but doesnt mean its cheesy because its better.

It’s cheesy because there’s less counterplay. At least with P/D and D/D, you have to land your CnD…

Cat and mouse man…cat and mouse. One minute the D/D is the cat; seconds later he become the mouse.

In this term, D/P is always the cat.

You have to land the CnD to not waste your HIS or SR or smoke screen combo or your blinding powder if those are what you fancy for utilities. You don’t HAVE to land a CnD to kill someone with off hand dagger or to go into stealth for that matter.

You could run stealth on steal, bs, do some auto attack, blinding powder bs, do some auto attacks, HIS bs do some auto attacks, SR bs and do some auto attacks.

You would have to be playing someone afk but you can do it. Most thieves play that way anyway with off hand dagger. Most thieves in WvW don’t use HIS for the heal most of the time its to reattempt burst after a fail anyway.

You guys realize this build sacrifices a lot of dps for survivability?

I ran this build this morning for a few hours in spvp and wvw.

While it gives incredible init regen, defense, mobility. DPS suffers greatly.

I backstabbed some guy in spvp for 700 damage. No crit, he had protection up I think.

You are a cat without claws with this build.

oZii.2864:

You have to land the CnD not waste your HIS or SR or smoke screen combo or your blinding powder if those are what you fancy for utilities. You don’t HAVE to land a CnD to kill someone with off hand dagger or to go into stealth for that matter.

You could run stealth on steal, bs, do some auto attack, blinding powder bs, do some auto attacks, HIS bs do some auto attacks, SR bs and do some auto attacks.

What happens when that all fail? You HAVE to land the CnD right? While the D/P BP+HS all day long.

swinsk.6410:

You guys realize this build sacrifices a lot of dps for survivability?

I ran this build this morning for a few hours in spvp and wvw.

While it gives incredible init regen, defense, mobility. DPS suffers greatly.

I backstabbed some guy in spvp for 700 damage. No crit, he had protection up I think.

You are a cat without claws with this build.

There are multiple D/P builds. Some focus on surviavability other focus on dps.

swinsk.6410:

You guys realize this build sacrifices a lot of dps for survivability?

I ran this build this morning for a few hours in spvp and wvw.

While it gives incredible init regen, defense, mobility. DPS suffers greatly.

I backstabbed some guy in spvp for 700 damage. No crit, he had protection up I think.

You are a cat without claws with this build.

Back in November during the D/D haydays, I ran D/P to be different. I only knew of one other thief that actually ran the weaponset routinely back then. I had a might stacking D/P build that was actually a lot of fun. I could easily get 20+ stacks of might very early in the fight by combining might duration runes, might on dodge food, might on dodge trait, and might on stealth. The dps was fantastic. I was no “cat without claws.” I was a newb, however, and never HS’d three times through a BP, only once. In any event, I had the exact same survivability as in this video with substantial dps.

Around early January I grew tired of the cheese and decided I wanted something different.

The only problem I have with the weaponset is the ability to stealth indefinitely if necessary. Every thing else, in my opinion, is irrelevant. This is an ability that no other class in the entire game can do except for the thief and, understandably, is frustrating other players immensely. Regardless if you agree with their opinions or not, or believe they are skilled or not, the fact the use of this mechanic is detrimental to the growth of the game as a whole should be of concern, regardless if you use the mechanic or not. I hardly believe the developers wanted the 100% stealth option available given the short duration of stealth on skills.

lets see:
HiS 30 sec CoolDown
Blinding Powder 32-40 sec
SR 48/60
traited steal 30-45 sec
smoke wall has 24/30 cd (used with clusterbomb/hs)

c&d OR Black Powder+hs = 4-6 second CD ?!? (traited ofc ini regen/ +2ini on stealth etc)
just tell me where stealth is broken

Seriously JakobGW has done the math, he stays in stealth 2/3 of the time, only being visible for a good 5 seconds each time he reappears and you really dare to defend such a gamestyle? Try to fight against someone who’s only visible 1/3 of the time he should be and still does tons of damage, of course people will start complaining about it and it’s their good right to do so, cause this certainly isn’t the way ANet wants the thief to be played.

dude, you do not understand, let me write again:
i do not want any more nerfs to the pve thief

if you want wvw, please go to the wvw section, thank you.
tell a-net to forbid thieves from entering wvw, and all will be happy

DanH.5879:

dude, you do not understand, let me write again:
i do not want any more nerfs to the pve thief

if you want wvw, please go to the wvw section, thank you.
tell a-net to forbid thieves from entering wvw, and all will be happy

D/P thieves are meta in pvp for a long time. This very fresh build adds shadow arts instead of burst because you shouldn’t spam stealth in pvp.

I realize that there are a ton of different P/D builds.

My build is more of a mix of yashis and burst. I like the hidden killer trait a lot and having 30CS for damage.

I get more burst but less defense and condi clears.

I’m just saying that the thief in this video is not winning because hes so powerful. He’s winning because he’s playing well.

Every build has it’s ideal environment to be in and fight people. Yashis has made his build to be best at fighting 1vs Many.

I am sure there are plenty of decent classes out there that he can’t kill simply because he can’t dish out enough dps. Which is why he tries to go for the squishies first.

This is also why I play a thief roaming in wvw, to pick on under leveled squishy noobs. When I want long drawn out combat intense 1v1s, I’ll go to spvp. WvW is about ganking noobs. That’s what this build is and what he does in the video.

Sifu.6527:

oZii.2864:

You have to land the CnD not waste your HIS or SR or smoke screen combo or your blinding powder if those are what you fancy for utilities. You don’t HAVE to land a CnD to kill someone with off hand dagger or to go into stealth for that matter.

You could run stealth on steal, bs, do some auto attack, blinding powder bs, do some auto attacks, HIS bs do some auto attacks, SR bs and do some auto attacks.

What happens when that all fail? You HAVE to land the CnD right? While the D/P BP+HS all day long.

When all that fails you lose thats just it. Dagger/pistol is superior. Im just mentioning this in a 1v1 scenario but its still basically the same style your trying to land your burst attack from stealth. Your not trying to auto people down. D/P gives you more opportunity to land your backstab as it doesn’t need a CnD. In the end you both are trying to land backstabs. D/P lets you do that without needing a target but the play style is similar and the goal is still similar. Thats why I can’t see it as cheesy if D/P is cheesy then D/D is just as cheesy.

D/P lets you fight some other classes/specs without even needing to go into stealth (not optimal but you can do it) just because of blackpowder. Like hammer/gs guardians or hammer warriors they attack so slow with those weapons. You dont need stealth and can auto them down inside black powder just stay on top of them black powder they move away shadow shot for 5 sec blind blackpowder auto attack, steal to them with black powder auto attack. D/D doesnt let you do that. In that situation and that scenario you need steath more than D/P because you have no mitigation outside of stealth. So does D/D then become the cheese?

if you are not dumb, you can see he retreats and pick another victim, when he can see he can’t kill his targets
as a note, most of his kills are under-leveled ppl or bads, which, both of these categories deserve to be killed

DanH.5879:

lets see:
HiS 30 sec CoolDown
Blinding Powder 32-40 sec
SR 48/60
traited steal 30-45 sec
smoke wall has 24/30 cd (used with clusterbomb/hs)

c&d OR Black Powder+hs = 4-6 second CD ?!? (traited ofc ini regen/ +2ini on stealth etc)
just tell me where stealth is broken

DanH.5879:

if you are not dumb, you can see he retreats and pick another victim, when he can see he can’t kill his targets
as a note, most of his kills are under-leveled ppl or bads, which, both of these categories deserve to be killed

This is my last post. I’ve made my personal points/arguments and hopefully someone reads them and agrees.

What you’ve stated is completely irrelevant to me. I don’t care about cooldowns on Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, etc.; I don’t care that Yishis picked his victims correctly or killed “underleveled bads” (which, by the way, in the first 10 minutes only 30% of his victims were up-leveled, hardly “most”); and I don’t care who deserves to be killed or who doesn’t.

What I do care about is the fact that this weapon set is the ONLY weaponset in the entire game that allows a single player to use all his/her skills and/or utilities to achieve a permanent state of stealth. To make matters even worse, all the player needs is the weaponset and to never use a single utility, as demonstrated by the video, to achieve this type of stealth. The added utilities just add MORE stealth to the mix. The fact is that this is frustrating to people, regardless whether or not you think it should be, and that fact alone is why it needs to be addressed. I’m merely hoping that folks will read my posts and try a different spec for what I feel will be for the benefit of the game. That, of course, is just my opinion.

I hate D/P and quite frankly a nerf to it should have happened instead of the 4 sec reveal.

That being said……I now run it /cry

Why?

Because its sooooooo easy that’s why. Running OH Dagger is immensely more difficult that running D/P.

I have been running d\p for quite awhile. This build seems great with the gear Yishi has but not my more typical zerk valk knight setup.

I have a ele and mesmer if i want to grind out fights. For my thief i want to blow people up and escape when needed. I run 10-30-30-0-0 and it works very well for that.

Sigh im sure shadow tree and pistol is next on the nerf block….

And here we go again! OP zomfgwtfbbqshauce he spammin teh 5 skillz n stealthin like every .1452458 seconds. He so OP, like, there’s nothing that could ever killz him.

Just kidding…… actually not really. Come on people, that’s why you don’t STAND in the black powder? ohohoh, check and mate. If you’re still getting screwed over by some blind that you can get rid of by auto attacking, go kill some NPC’s in Heart of the Mists and pretend they’re the thief that killed you.

Respect to Yishis for playing well, despite the other players’ poor abilities.

you guys really just ASK for nerfs with stupid vids by 1%’ers like this tooting their own horns.. that guy is VERY skilled and could prob find a way to kill ppl with a wet noodle.

Im a warrior and I dont see cheese I see a thief doing what a thief should do? even ur own class call it cheesey, kinda warped. because its..easy? So you want carpel tunnels.. and ALL I di is wvw and ive never run up against NO thief like this guy.. ever 90% of you blow and die fast or run =)

So stop being w/e your being. good vid was fun to watch

To everyone saying that this will be the next nerf , im actually sorry to tell people but this kind of build would be used in competitive paid tournaments 4 months ago and more even..

Awesome video. I recently picked up my theif for WvW only, couldn’t decide on S/D or D/D.. But this D/P seems just incredibly OP. A mix of better survivability and high dps, good gap closer, so much blinds and stealth stacking (plus much easier to stealth than with CnD).. The build looks incredibly OP to me. I just hope I can get my theif to level 80 and play with it for a bit until (if) they decide to nerf it. It definitely feels a bit too strong, but also seems a lot of fun

swinsk.6410:

You guys realize this build sacrifices a lot of dps for survivability?

I ran this build this morning for a few hours in spvp and wvw.

While it gives incredible init regen, defense, mobility. DPS suffers greatly.

I backstabbed some guy in spvp for 700 damage. No crit, he had protection up I think.

You are a cat without claws with this build.

I’m not sure how the DPS suffers? Looking at his build he has 2116 power, 63% Crit chance and 95% Crit damage with his gear and food (but no fury). It seems looks pretty high to me. On top of that he has a 2500 armor and 15k health and 350 healing power. That’s pretty decent I’d say.

In spvp the crit damage is capped around 60-ish or so, which makes a big difference from the regular open world. And you hit someone with protection, non-crit, probably a bunker build in sPvP.. That doesn’t set a standard.

Very impressive play, i have tremendous respect for players of any classes who use the class to such an extent, figure out some tricks etc, impressive.

now we need two more then we need to face you two off against Pyro, Osicat + Kylia (mesmers) would be fun to watch :P

keep it up, i’m doing a thief alt at the moment and this is the style of play i was looking forward too

offence.4726:

To everyone saying that this will be the next nerf , im actually sorry to tell people but this kind of build would be used in competitive paid tournaments 4 months ago and more even..

Because the recent 1 second change to reveal was a result of what happens in tpvp right? It was balanced for WvW…

the 1 second reveal change was better than what they where planning to do, and thats down to you thieves fighting your corner.

paleeshi.1924:

Awesome video. I recently picked up my theif for WvW only, couldn’t decide on S/D or D/D.. But this D/P seems just incredibly OP. A mix of better survivability and high dps, good gap closer, so much blinds and stealth stacking (plus much easier to stealth than with CnD).. The build looks incredibly OP to me. I just hope I can get my theif to level 80 and play with it for a bit until (if) they decide to nerf it. It definitely feels a bit too strong, but also seems a lot of fun

The build may ‘look’ OP but honestly it isn’t. I don’t consider myself the best thief in the world but I also don’t think I’m terrible at the class and I can tell you that recreating the results you see Yishis obtain in this video are not easy. He is an excellent player, and really understands how to use the build to max effectiveness. I’ve run p/d for a little while and good players can make things very difficult indeed, especially against multiples. However, the bads are just as easy to kill with this spec as they are with D/D or any other spec for that matter. In the end, I think people who feel they can roll this spec and run around owning any group of multiples they run into are going to find themselves sorely disappointed at the outcome.

Ok. I know D/P can hit hard but you have to trait for it and build around it.

Yishis has traited and built around defense. This particular build, while great at staying alive does not do nearly as much dps as other builds.

I am running his build and I know. Even with 25 bloodlust and 10% crit food my back stand hit for 5-6k. I have back stabbed something in the face no crit for 700.

The advantage this build has is not dps. It’s the ability to constantly apply pressure and stay in the fight. If you want more dps you lose some survivability…

It just seems some people in here are sour because they like off hand dagger or something. The fact that you can stay in stealth for an extremely long time does what? Not let you kill people? Your not doing damage to anyone anyway while you play with your self in stealth and giggle.

Off hand dagger isn’t immensely harder to play than D/P. You do more damage with off hand which would mean your target would die faster which means that your opening burst is even more deadlier which means that you can find enemies where the fight is over in 4 secs.

Whats funny is it seems like people that feel they are using off hand dagger want a nerf to D/P because D/P trumps off hand D/D. If you run S/D you shouldn’t have a problem with a D/P thief. This thread is so backwards lol people playing other classes come in and get upset at thieves calling perma stealth etc. We try to help them to counter now we have thieves crying nerf because D/P has more stealth than off hand Dagger so there is no more outstealthing other thieves unless you run D/P.

I mean everyone did the same thing unless you run P/D then you aren’t in as bad a shape. If your off hand dagger missed or was blocked or you where blinded what do you do? The answers would be run, use a invis skill, attempt another cnd, pull out a bow maybe pull out another weaponset

D/P is the same exact playstyle when you are in stealth your attempting the same attack. Unless you wanna run around in stealth forever letting the enemies cooldowns and heals come back up then ok.

The only thing in your control that prevents you from landing a CnD is initiative management. The same can be said for BP/HS to stealth combo.

Everything else that will stop you from landing it has more to do with the enemy than yourself. Paying attention to the fact that your fighting a guardian that can blind you or have aegis up to prevent CnD isn’t difficult.

oZii.2864:

It just seems some people in here are sour because they like off hand dagger or something. The fact that you can stay in stealth for an extremely long time does what? Not let you kill people? Your not doing damage to anyone anyway while you play with your self in stealth and giggle.

It seems that you don’t know what you’re talking about. How is staying in stealth indefinitely not an advantage? In a faceoff between D/D and D/P the d/p will just outlast d/d’s stealth, denieing him to attack, and it doesn’t even need an enemy or utility skills (BP, SR) to stay in stealth. If you’re low on health, you can just stack stealth by BP + HS to heal up, whereas any other weaponset needs SR or their healing skill. So in this aspect d/p surely is superior to other weaponsets, as the access to stealth and especially the amount of stealth is so much easier/more.

Nobody ever proposed a nerf to the ground for d/p, they just need to nerf the potential to stack stealth indefinitely and thats exactly the problem with this spec. This thread much rather shows the few people, who still maintain to stay objective on their favourite class and those, who just want to abuse an unintentional game mechanic in order to get an advantage over others. You seem to be one of the second kind.

swinsk.6410:

Ok. I know D/P can hit hard but you have to trait for it and build around it.

Yishis has traited and built around defense. This particular build, while great at staying alive does not do nearly as much dps as other builds.

I am running his build and I know. Even with 25 bloodlust and 10% crit food my back stand hit for 5-6k. I have back stabbed something in the face no crit for 700.

The advantage this build has is not dps. It’s the ability to constantly apply pressure and stay in the fight. If you want more dps you lose some survivability…

For me 5-6k in relation to the survivability it has, is pretty high. I’m saying this though as a none thief player who usually runs tankish damage builds. I dont know what thieves normally hits for, but i’ve always prefered builds where i can outlast while not losing too much dps, rather than going full zerker.

So if I understand it correctly, D/P was always OP, but people used the subpar D/D because it’s a macho spec and takes more skill. Aha. Sounds completely legit, because people think this way. They use the macho thing instead of the effective one when they want to steamroll in WvW. Right.

Sifu.6527:

offence.4726:

To everyone saying that this will be the next nerf , im actually sorry to tell people but this kind of build would be used in competitive paid tournaments 4 months ago and more even..

Because the recent 1 second change to reveal was a result of what happens in tpvp right? It was balanced for WvW…

WvW has nothing to do with what I was saying. This spec was used loong before it became “fotm” im gonna spell it for you “flavour of the month” for new thieves after the recent changes to reveal.

So calling this new spec OP or “WOW this spec is a KILLEr” means it shouldnt and just proves how clueless and way behind the WvW community really is about gameplay, mechanics , which was the main reason that our beloved thieves got nerfed yet again with the new reveal changes. I hope this made it clear for you.

I think this is a great video to demonstrate one way what you can do with practice and patience (kudos to him). Of course after changing my specs and evening attempting the black powder hs combo and trying to hs back into it to double or triple the stealth stack I had no success and looked like the village idiot.

offence.4726:

WvW has nothing to do with what I was saying. This spec was used loong before it became “fotm” im gonna spell it for you “flavour of the month” for new thieves after the recent changes to reveal.

So calling this new spec OP or “WOW this spec is a KILLEr” means it shouldnt and just proves how clueless and way behind the WvW community really is about gameplay, mechanics , which was the main reason that our beloved thieves got nerfed yet again with the new reveal changes. I hope this made it clear for you.

They’re quite behind. Similiar situation happened with bunker eles. Some guy made a guide after it was already being used in tpvp and now he’s the creator of that oppleasenerfomg build.

laquito.5269:

oZii.2864:

It just seems some people in here are sour because they like off hand dagger or something. The fact that you can stay in stealth for an extremely long time does what? Not let you kill people? Your not doing damage to anyone anyway while you play with your self in stealth and giggle.

It seems that you don’t know what you’re talking about. How is staying in stealth indefinitely not an advantage? In a faceoff between D/D and D/P the d/p will just outlast d/d’s stealth, denieing him to attack, and it doesn’t even need an enemy or utility skills (BP, SR) to stay in stealth. If you’re low on health, you can just stack stealth by BP + HS to heal up, whereas any other weaponset needs SR or their healing skill. So in this aspect d/p surely is superior to other weaponsets, as the access to stealth and especially the amount of stealth is so much easier/more.

Nobody ever proposed a nerf to the ground for d/p, they just need to nerf the potential to stack stealth indefinitely and thats exactly the problem with this spec. This thread much rather shows the few people, who still maintain to stay objective on their favourite class and those, who just want to abuse an unintentional game mechanic in order to get an advantage over others. You seem to be one of the second kind.

Oh yea that’s why I play my warrior more now in WvW that just rolled not to long ago than my thief. Check my post history lol.

You seem to be upset that ppl are rolling d/p more now and as someone else put it is superior to your macho spec. A lot of the things your complaining about sound the same as every other person that doesn’t have a thief complains about thieves. Ironic.

As someone else also said d/p had been around awhile in tPvP. I even posted this isn’t anything new. The first major d/p video to hit the web was the Proof-concept video on reddit in like October of last year!!!!! You know what Anet did? They made it so you can’t cap in stealth thats all. You should read up and research a bit more.

Summary of the video all the thief did was stay in stealth while 15 enemies chased it around at the supply camp. Fix: can’t cap in stealth came in the the next patch.

So ask yourself your own questions it playing as intended? Seems like it to me.

Killing a d/p thief isn’t hard if you run s/d and that is offhand dagger macho style. So is it still omgbbqop no it isn’t. Just stop spamming heartseeker inside the black powder and get some patience.