Guild Wars 2

Today we have faced with a cond thief who was spamming db nonstop. We 3 ppl werent able to kill him in the node due to evasions. Can you explain how is that achieved? i d like to try that build too if u can share. Thanks. Have fun.( i am not new to pvp by the way, playing since the original gw2 betA)

db? you mean bd – Bandit’s Defense?

go with this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAoYn8lCFOh9OBemCkmilWCzrMcHiCznwV4LULAcAWAA-TJhHwAAeAAHLDE4EAIZ/BA

you will never have endurance problem or initiatives

Zdenny.2704:

db? you mean bd – Bandit’s Defense?

death blossom #3 on dagger

Daredevil, Trickery, and Acrobatics (more dodges, fewer condis) or Deadly Arts (more condis, can reset utilities with Improv for high up-time on dodges). For what seems like infinite db and dodge spam, the Thief will need to use Runes of Adventure (50 endurance on heal) and utilities like signet of agility and RFI. The Thief playing this build cannot dodge infinitely, even if traited for maintaining as much initiative and endurance as possible. If he is spamming his db and dodges, he will eventually run out and need to leave the node, although it can take quite some time for this to happen (15+ seconds and more if Acro or Improv procs a dodge utility).

It can be strong but it’s also very easy to play around, particularly because it’s very weak in team fights, kills itself on retal, can’t stay close enough to apply the number of condis necessary break a cele class (especially if they kite with high swiftness up-time). To fight 1v2+ without depleting his initiative so much that he can’t eventually escape, the Thief needs to briefly space out the dodges which leaves him slightly susceptible to CC’s landing. Being immobilized even for for a second can be long enough to almost immediately die if 2 people are attacking. It can be very fun to play, particularly because the play style is so different from most Thief builds, and it’s hilariously strong against impatient Revenants. There’s just such a low skill ceiling on it that’s it’s hardly worth it to play it as a main build, especially since you’ll promote some poor habits as a player from how easily it beats newer players. Nonetheless, when it works, it works very well.

I was afraid more this would start to get popular

It not infinite but through a combo of INI for DB and dodges for impaling loutus you can string a while pile together and yes take down multiple enemy players if they just sit in the AOE cone.Mixed with SOM a lot of healing comes in. It has counters.

A very good variant is to sacrifice condition damage and take healing in place of it. You would be amazed how fast this guy can heal up from near zero with a Few DBS and dodges in a mob be they enemy players or in PVE against trash critters.

DB spam mixed with dodges is the easiest way to use the build but the AA poison with the endurance gain if offers is VERY useful to the build and should not be overlooked. CnD will rarely be used. Cripple off the dancing dagger rarely used either as impaling lotus gives that cripple. If uncatchable traited out of trickery the beginning of your dodge will also drop caltrops on a player.

It hard to use in fluid battles where enemy mobile. It is devastating in enclosed areas such as a tower where people try and flip a location (or you try and take).

was a white winged charr by any chance? then it was me xD cause yesterday i was all the day on spvp using this build and i remember facing 1vs x situations a couple of times http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJA4Yn8lC9OhFNBemC8PhFqiy7C+gBornCgGYO77+wH-TJRAwAAeAAkLD45gA0b/BA

basically is just as you say, spaming DB lotus dodge, keeping steal and weapon swap on CD to infinite ini/end, while healing a lot and removing conditions. pretty nice build to slaughter melee or berserker players

its main weakness though are field like attacks like necro wells or ranger/dh traps since you lack the toughness from dire stats

Azukas.1426:

I was afraid more this would start to get popular

I can imagine players gathering around him thinking it’s a pinata.

Sagat.3285:

Azukas.1426:

I was afraid more this would start to get popular

I can imagine players gathering around him thinking it’s a pinata.

This is more cancerous than the old SD build by miles. When I saw the DD reveal I knew,it was only a matter of time…..

Yesterday i played this style. It´s an old Dodge Death Blossom Build. Trickery/ShadowArts/Acrobatics but with the stamina nerf, it was not played. No it has a “resurrection” with the Daredevil Style.
I played it Acrobatics/ShadowArts/Daredevil. It only works in sPvP because there many Player stayed together on a spot. In WvW it doesnt work, only to cap supply camps.
In sPvP its a “hard-to-catch” build because of the Acrobatic Traits and with Lotus Training you spam bleedings all time on dodge. CC is the key, and Death Blossom is useless against player who move and dont stand on the ground to fight.

Azukas.1426:

Sagat.3285:

Azukas.1426:

I was afraid more this would start to get popular

I can imagine players gathering around him thinking it’s a pinata.

This is more cancerous than the old SD build by miles. When I saw the DD reveal I knew,it was only a matter of time…..

It’s easier to deal with but many will take a while to learn. I literraly see players just standing trying to AA them. It’s rising but it won’t go far.

Azukas.1426:

When I saw the DD reveal I knew,it was only a matter of time…..

Only a matter of time? I was announcing this loud and proud in the Daredevil development threads. Dagger+Dagger and caltrops everywhere in Settler’s armor with Undead runes. Its glorious.

Nike.2631:

Azukas.1426:

When I saw the DD reveal I knew,it was only a matter of time…..

Only a matter of time? I was announcing this loud and proud in the Daredevil development threads. Dagger+Dagger and caltrops everywhere in Settler’s armor with Undead runes. Its glorious.

I prefer shamans to settlers myself due to all the conditions and AOE circles that inflict the same.

i dont know

i had 1v3 on mid on my DD thief

the enemy where d/d db thief, guard trap, ele d/d

sure i got killed after 30 sec so i check the dmg of the thief on me amd i was surprised he did only 200 poison and 200 bleeding in average while guard did all the dmg mainly

so does it really good build to play?!

I dont think that thief was doing it right. 200dmg is the average of like 3 bleed stacks ticking.

So the thief was either playing it wrong, or you were playing your cards right and didnt chased the thief at melee range

On a melee character that tries to spike me down 10s is more than enough time to fill him with enough bleed stacks to make him take 2-2.5k dmg ticks

Range dps however, and traps, specially traps and any floor skill can melt this build in seconds.

Range dps can still be baten if you manage to catch up. But trap dh, staff necros, wells chronos and trap rangers that know what theyre doing will kill you

Still is a pretty fun and powerfull build to play if you are tired of the more squishy thief builds. You can do yolo jumps with confident

As an additional note worth mentioning that this is not a spiking build, is about surviving and wearing out the opponent. So if what youre looking is a build for spiking down in like 5s you better try using staff with soldier stats and DD runes instead. The guarented crit.on dodge make bound/vault a nice spike combo. And soldier stats give you a nice survability

TrueTears.2149:

Today we have faced with a cond thief who was spamming db nonstop. We 3 ppl werent able to kill him in the node due to evasions. Can you explain how is that achieved? i d like to try that build too if u can share. Thanks. Have fun.( i am not new to pvp by the way, playing since the original gw2 betA)

Lol yep that could have been me too. I even told them “need aimbot yo”. In one game there were 2 people who were constantly trying to take me down, they couldn’t touch me because of all the evades. Meanwhile they were close enough trying to hit me, I was stacking condi’s on them constantly. I played that spec for the better part of the day, it was absolute hilarity.

Now as to one of the posters above, yes it does take some time to deplete all of your resources, but if specc’d with brawlers tenacity and acro line, the downtime between the skill rotation to restore your resources (endurance, initiative) is pretty low.

I’d dodge in (lotus training), DB, DB, dodge, DB DB, dodge, RFI, dodge-steal, withdraw (gain vigor & 50 end), DB, Dodge, SoA, dodge some more, DB some more… usually by this time they’re on the ground, sometimes at which point instead of finishing them, I’d continue my LOL-Ballet until they died; otherwise I have cloak and dagger to stealth and finish.

Tora.7214:

I dont think that thief was doing it right. 200dmg is the average of like 3 bleed stacks ticking.

So the thief was either playing it wrong, or you were playing your cards right and didnt chased the thief at melee range

On a melee character that tries to spike me down 10s is more than enough time to fill him with enough bleed stacks to make him take 2-2.5k dmg ticks

Range dps however, and traps, specially traps and any floor skill can melt this build in seconds.

Range dps can still be baten if you manage to catch up. But trap dh, staff necros, wells chronos and trap rangers that know what theyre doing will kill you

Still is a pretty fun and powerfull build to play if you are tired of the more squishy thief builds. You can do yolo jumps with confident

As an additional note worth mentioning that this is not a spiking build, is about surviving and wearing out the opponent. So if what youre looking is a build for spiking down in like 5s you better try using staff with soldier stats and DD runes instead. The guarented crit.on dodge make bound/vault a nice spike combo. And soldier stats give you a nice survability

as a thief when i dodge i cleanse his conditions pretty much easily so again ele, necro, ranger , guard can cleanse bleed and poison pretty much easily too
against non condi cleanse player you can tick 2k dps but common who aint taking condi cleanse these days …

messiah.1908:

Tora.7214:

I dont think that thief was doing it right. 200dmg is the average of like 3 bleed stacks ticking.

So the thief was either playing it wrong, or you were playing your cards right and didnt chased the thief at melee range

On a melee character that tries to spike me down 10s is more than enough time to fill him with enough bleed stacks to make him take 2-2.5k dmg ticks

Range dps however, and traps, specially traps and any floor skill can melt this build in seconds.

Range dps can still be baten if you manage to catch up. But trap dh, staff necros, wells chronos and trap rangers that know what theyre doing will kill you

Still is a pretty fun and powerfull build to play if you are tired of the more squishy thief builds. You can do yolo jumps with confident

As an additional note worth mentioning that this is not a spiking build, is about surviving and wearing out the opponent. So if what youre looking is a build for spiking down in like 5s you better try using staff with soldier stats and DD runes instead. The guarented crit.on dodge make bound/vault a nice spike combo. And soldier stats give you a nice survability

as a thief when i dodge i cleanse his conditions pretty much easily so again ele, necro, ranger , guard can cleanse bleed and poison pretty much easily too
against non condi cleanse player you can tick 2k dps but common who aint taking condi cleanse these days …

i wasnt referring to condition dmg, i was refering to the raw dmg of the skills itself; yes we can cleanse condition while evading, best condition cleanse of any class i think. but we have to land some time and thats where we are most vulnerable to the effect of land skills like:

necros reaper mark wich fears us and we cant dodge while feared, thus unable to cleanse and vulnerable to heavy retaliation. also the damage from well of suffering

falling on a ranger combo of spike and flame trap, burn is a pretty strong condition atm so even if we can cleanse it, the couple of seconds that managed to tick on us from the knock will hit hard. also long channel skills like rapid fire and and barrage will eventually hit us in the small vulnerable frames we have between dodges

DH traps, do i even need to describe these?

chronomancers gravity wells, wich leave you completely vulnerable and unable to dodge

those are the most dangerous kind of skills for this build, not condition dmg, but skills that are either long enough to hit us on our small vulnerable moments, deal massive instant dmg when we are vulnerable (DHs) or leave us vulnerable to retaliation (knocks, pulls, launches)

since we lack Dire stats in spvp a condi thief has to sacrifice either endurance or vitality on his amulet choice so strong hits will still hurt, and while SoM can keeps us altmost always full from small hits that go trough dodge, a well aimed spike that leaves us below 50% hp on our vulnerable frame are way harder to heal

I haven’t found a counter to this build in WvW at least playing as a thief. The build applies too much continuous bleed condition to remove and is in full evade 90% of the fight. Even if you can time it and land a hit, often they use Dire so they can easily soak up big hits. As soon as I see it now, I create space and I do not engage.

Its the fun build right now, but anet promised to rebalance the meta every now and then in there “future of gw2” post, so you can buy new rune sets and destroy old ones. Inject economic flow in a sense. (Spend more $$