Guild Wars 2

And yet, d/p is so much better. d/p is a complete weapon set, each and every skill it has is useful. It has stealth, on demand, copious amounts of blind, it even has an interrupt.

d/d on the other hand is broken in comparison. Its third ability is completely useless to power builds. It doesn’t even function well as an evade due to the pathetic .25s evade on a skill that takes roughly a second to go through.

Its #4 is terrible, it used to be fairly decent dealing a fair amount of damage with a decent cripple, but now it’s hardly worth the initiative given the cripple lasts all of 3 seconds, it’s slow as hell, and it does barely any damage. Then there’s the #5 it’s not a bad ability, but it is so incredibly telegraphed that decent players should almost never get hit by it. Not to mention that in spvp in only deals the damage of a HS at above 50% health.

ArenaNet; I want my favorite set to feel complete. I want it to be competitive. As it is d/p is better than it in pretty much every situation. Make it so all 5 abilities are useful and we actually have to manage our initiative around what we want to use at a given time instead of the only viable moves being 5 and 1 with an occasional 2 thrown in for good measure.

Welcome brother.

here here.
so true.

Another pathetic D/D thread by someone who obviously has no clue about how that set works.

Get it in your head D/D has higher in combat stealth uptime, CnD is easy to land and does very good damage.

Dancing Dgger is a protictile finisher that hits up to 4 targets, learn to use your teams combo fields.

Just more inconsistent and mindless complaining, you hate D/P and love D/D then go on about every aspect of D/P being better and D/D being inferior.
All you want is D/P utility on top of the high damage burst combos of D/D.
You will never get that because it would be stupidly overpowered.

You probably play the wrong proffesion.

I’m in the same boat as OP,

I play D/P because it’s incredibly effective, utilizes all its skills and gets results.

But D/D has the far more compelling play-style. Especially the ability to seamlessly “crowd-surf” with Cloak and Dagger is very cool. It’s also a fairer build to compete against as Cloak and Dagger can be countered. But urgh, it’s so simplistic with such a limited tool-set it really isn’t all that effective.

I’d love to see the seamless and compelling play-style of D/D combined with the effectiveness and utility of D/P.

Bazzoong.7145:

Another pathetic D/D thread by someone who obviously has no clue about how that set works.

Get it in your head D/D has higher in combat stealth uptime, CnD is easy to land and does very good damage.

Dancing Dgger is a protictile finisher that hits up to 4 targets, learn to use your teams combo fields.

Just more inconsistent and mindless complaining, you hate D/P and love D/D then go on about every aspect of D/P being better and D/D being inferior.
All you want is D/P utility on top of the high damage burst combos of D/D.
You will never get that because it would be stupidly overpowered.

You probably play the wrong proffesion.

What? CnD and Backstab, there it is your rotation on dagger dagger….

D/P IS superior for pvp, blind field+teleport+daze+heartseeker vs what? Dancing dagger combo field rofl…

emmmm ok . . . . . so

I believe this is what they call, “preaching to the choir.”

Bazzoong.7145:

Another pathetic D/D thread by someone who obviously has no clue about how that set works.

Get it in your head D/D has higher in combat stealth uptime, CnD is easy to land and does very good damage.

Dancing Dgger is a protictile finisher that hits up to 4 targets, learn to use your teams combo fields.

Just more inconsistent and mindless complaining, you hate D/P and love D/D then go on about every aspect of D/P being better and D/D being inferior.
All you want is D/P utility on top of the high damage burst combos of D/D.
You will never get that because it would be stupidly overpowered.

You probably play the wrong proffesion.

You don’t seem to have much clue about the thief class. #3 on D/D is irrelevant for a power build as the OP stated.

Dee Jay.2460:

I’m in the same boat as OP,

I play D/P because it’s incredibly effective, utilizes all its skills and gets results.

But D/D has the far more compelling play-style. Especially the ability to seamlessly “crowd-surf” with Cloak and Dagger is very cool. It’s also a fairer build to compete against as Cloak and Dagger can be countered. But urgh, it’s so simplistic with such a limited tool-set it really isn’t all that effective.

I’d love to see the seamless and compelling play-style of D/D combined with the effectiveness and utility of D/P.

I was thinking this, but when you see it in words, it honestly will sound like the most OP thing we’ll get. My chalice of tears is empty and needs refilling.

I gotta say, I have to personally disagree with most of you. I found out the wonders of D/P a long time ago in late December of 2012. I loved it because, at the time, it wasn’t the meta, it was a freak build. People complained I was “trolling”. But then somehow, everyone started playing it. In not making the “I did it before everyone else” claim, because I don’t know if someone played it earlier, but as time has gone on, and I have played other builds, it has been very funny, for me, to watch this build blossom from “troll” to “OP”!

oscuro.9720:

I gotta say, I have to personally disagree with most of you. I found out the wonders of D/P a long time ago in late December of 2012. I loved it because, at the time, it wasn’t the meta, it was a freak build. People complained I was “trolling”. But then somehow, everyone started playing it. In not making the “I did it before everyone else” claim, because I don’t know if someone played it earlier, but as time has gone on, and I have played other builds, it has been very funny, for me, to watch this build blossom from “troll” to “OP”!

I personally “blame” Iohanna
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-Slayer-Ultimate-WvW-D-P/first#post1464342

D/D isn’t underpowered so much as D/P is overpowered.

D/D is a fair set. You have amazing burst potential and high stealth uptime… but at the cost of needing to stick to your target and being incapable of contributing anything except raw backstab damage. They Aegis your CnD? You’re SoL. The set, building burst damage, does exactly what it should be doing: killing unsuspecting players/other glass cannons.

D/P gets all the damage but also has way better utility and in-combat survivability. Playing without auto-targeting allows for almost-equal stealth uptime at theoretical maximum, and often offers simply better uptime while still providing immensely strong counterplay to effects which could stop such behavior due to the blind field and ranged interrupt.

For people to have months ago claimed the build was a troll build is nuts. The smoke finisher with heartseeker and pulsing blind screamed OP to me from the getgo. On-demand stealth no matter the occasion for less initative just makes the CnD/Stab build concept worth nothing, especially because it was more potent before due to the initiative regen upon attempting to stealth. At the very least D/P is more fair than it was, but the bonuses to initiative regen has simply delayed spamming and replaced it with waiting a few more moments.

DeceiverX.8361:

On-demand stealth no matter the occasion for less initative just makes the CnD/Stab build concept worth nothing, especially because it was more potent before due to the initiative regen upon attempting to stealth.

Just going to do a little correction here: CnD costs 6 initiative, BP + HS costs 9 or 4 and 7 with infusion of shadow respectively.

While the combo uses more initiative, the uptime is better per initative spent.

Blind + HS = 9 initiative, regen effects in the 3s revealed timer that you’ll get approximately 4 back by uptime if traited properly, HS again at <1s remaining on blind for the double use, meanwhile also blind pulsing the target.

So you’ve spent 12 initative for 6s stealth and two heartseekers versus 18 on CnD and two HS’s.

Of course the field is a lot more accessible and can be used without a target. With a target, the result is the same, so I should have stated something along the lines of using similar levels rather than having just stated “less.” Of course, it does become strictly less when you take into account infusion, as you’re only using net 1 initative on the second HS versus 4 with CnD.

Granted, the overall result still heavily favors D/P which is kind of what I was going for.

D/D is not a weak build and it feels viable against most players. It’s the existence of other cheesy builds (looking at you, perpelexity…) that give it the feel of being weak. sadly, that puts pressure on going D/P (or S/D). Anet schould rework Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom to actually convince me to use them (D/D needs condi remove).

Oh well, in three months we will all have joined the condi crowd anyway…

D/D – Backstab combo
D/P – Blind combo

both weapon sets are effective if used properly.

i was d/d thief for loooong, switching to d/p was so good, d/d is about 25% less effective(spvp) no matter what build you run, they need rework of skill 3 and 4.

MarauderShields.6830:

D/D is not a weak build and it feels viable against most players. It’s the existence of other cheesy builds (looking at you, perpelexity…) that give it the feel of being weak. sadly, that puts pressure on going D/P (or S/D). Anet schould rework Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom to actually convince me to use them (D/D needs condi remove).

Oh well, in three months we will all have joined the condi crowd anyway…

so true, we need condi removal on d/d.

Dancing dagger should just be remade into another skill, frankly. Would be interesting if the skill slot was occupied by something which copied the conditions on you back to the target.

DeceiverX.8361:

Dancing dagger should just be remade into another skill, frankly. Would be interesting if the skill slot was occupied by something which copied the conditions on you back to the target.

I really want to see Dancing Dagger made into a single target rollover. For 2 initiative, throw a dagger and mark your target on a successful hit. 2 more initiative, shadowstep to and cripple your target.

Maugetarr.6823:

DeceiverX.8361:

Dancing dagger should just be remade into another skill, frankly. Would be interesting if the skill slot was occupied by something which copied the conditions on you back to the target.

I really want to see Dancing Dagger made into a single target rollover. For 2 initiative, throw a dagger and mark your target on a successful hit. 2 more initiative, shadowstep to and cripple your target.

This this has potential, but that dagger is in them on rollover, so would it still do DoT if the rollover skill isn’t activated?

Rassase.7943:

i was d/d thief for loooong, switching to d/p was so good, d/d is about 25% less effective(spvp) no matter what build you run, they need rework of skill 3 and 4.

Wouldn’t work in my build cause D/ mainhand is my secondary weapon which is only used for 3 hits: Sigil of hydromancy, c&d and backstab. The surprise of the swap when suddenly going into burst is gone if I’d run D/P since I have to either run an utility for the stealth (but lose out on vuln and 2-5k damage on c&d) or waste too many time on BP-stealth (which mostly would cost too much ini anyway as a finisher burst)

I thought we passed the whole discussion on D/D and D/P, guess I was wrong…

azerte.4365:

I thought we passed the whole discussion on D/D and D/P, guess I was wrong…

Actually D/P has situations where its better then D/D and D/D has situations where its better then D/P. As for example D/D will perform better when there is lots of targets, but that usually happens when fighting people with lower level of skill that aren’t aware how stuff works, so D/D is superior in those situations. We (X/D thieves) have a bug in our kitten about D/P because set on itself is direct counter to x/D set because of so much blinds simply shut down our own ability to stealth while D/P can ignore blinds and stealth all he wants. Same skill level D/P player will always defeat D/D. Also gotta mention that D/P has double Shadows embrace and shadow rejuvenation ticks every 3 s for every leap through smoke field u did and that I consider a bug.

Karolis.4261:

Also gotta mention that D/P has double Shadows embrace and shadow rejuvenation ticks every 3 s for every leap through smoke field u did and that I consider a bug.

Huh; what? o.o

Please explain.

Karolis.4261:

azerte.4365:

I thought we passed the whole discussion on D/D and D/P, guess I was wrong…

Actually D/P has situations where its better then D/D and D/D has situations where its better then D/P. As for example D/D will perform better when there is lots of targets, but that usually happens when fighting people with lower level of skill that aren’t aware how stuff works, so D/D is superior in those situations. We (X/D thieves) have a bug in our kitten about D/P because set on itself is direct counter to x/D set because of so much blinds simply shut down our own ability to stealth while D/P can ignore blinds and stealth all he wants. Same skill level D/P player will always defeat D/D. Also gotta mention that D/P has double Shadows embrace and shadow rejuvenation ticks every 3 s for every leap through smoke field u did and that I consider a bug.

I know Karolis, I never said one is better than the other, both have a place next to each other. I run both D/P and D/D depended on what build I feel like running. It just surprises me that not everyone gets to that conclusion :p

I really, really dislike D/P. I’ve used D/D since the start, and I feel like it’s much better.
Sure, the stealth-anywhere ability on D/P can be handy for healing, but I feel like I’m constantly forced to burn my Initiative in D/P whereas, I have an abundance of initiative with D/D.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Maugetarr.6823:

DeceiverX.8361:

Dancing dagger should just be remade into another skill, frankly. Would be interesting if the skill slot was occupied by something which copied the conditions on you back to the target.

I really want to see Dancing Dagger made into a single target rollover. For 2 initiative, throw a dagger and mark your target on a successful hit. 2 more initiative, shadowstep to and cripple your target.

This this has potential, but that dagger is in them on rollover, so would it still do DoT if the rollover skill isn’t activated?

No. I don’t want to copy impale by giving a DoT ability. Maybe it could cripple for 3 seconds every 3 seconds for 3 pulses. I don’t want damage on the shadowstep either, since there would be cries of OP rather quickly if it were an instant cast ability. The idea is to give X/D more utility as it already has decent damage. Currently Dancing Dagger is supposed to be a utility skill, but falls short.

The projectile could also be sped up.