Guild Wars 2

I want to have some discussion going on the two current D/P meta builds. We have the 6/0/2/0/6 and the 2/6/0/0/6. Both utilize all the standard Trickery traits and Mug. DA usually have Improvisation and Revealed Training or Panic Strike. Critical Strikes usually have Practiced Tolerance and Executioner.

Which of these two builds would fit our role best?

My experience is that I am rarely staying above the threshold for first strikes, so I am rarely getting the bonus from that trait. This however is not true when I am on my shortbow since I am usually auto attacking and dropping poison fields. My foes do usually have conditions of some sort on them, so I am almost always having 10% extra damage when 5 deep in deadly arts. Executioner is pretty sweet when heartseeking or focusing down a target. Revealed training again are amazing for the added burst on backstab and the extra power when auto attacking.

I am honestly not sure which is better, which is why I want us as a community to discuss and figure it out ^^ any good theory crafters are very welcome to do some math on this.

So, which one do you fancy, and why? Which one do more damage all over? What do the builds excel at? These are some of the things I want to know.

Both builds use a different set of runes. Or at least I do. I choose eagle for the extra precision while in deadly arts and ogre runes when in critical strikes.

I think the crit strikes build has more burst while deadly arts has more sustained damage?

Either way I prefer the DA build now – especially with D/P I think Shadows Embrace is a must have to survive the condis and is easily accessible with Powder and HS

crit strikes does more damage but panic strike is panic strike. Revealed training is so much worse (for pvp/wvw) than panic strike IMO.

I prefer the deadly arts build

I have been sticking to deadly arts, and actually revealed training. The 200 extra power is very noticeable, especially if you precast backstab into mug, even the auto attacks after or the heartseeker to finish off hit way harder because of that trait. I can see panic strike be better in more coordinated teams where people actually focus targets.

And yes, I love the condition removal on stealth! Much needed in the current meta.

i like 2/6/0/0/6 build because
- i love to get air/fire procs from both weapons + sigil of generosity on sb
- i mostly play ranked so my job as thief is usually not to duel enemy but go to fight points and create outnumbered situation, at that point enemies are usually not at full HP so executioner is works really well in that scenario
- extra HP from practiced tolerance is sweet and always welcome

reasons why i don’t like 6 in deadly arts besides losing pros from crit line:
- i feel like i am actually losing some dmg, i do not have much survival as thief for long fights so the more burst i can dish in short time the better (which is ensured by crits and crit procs)
- panic strike is nice as long as you don’t fight someone with lot of condi removal which franky most meta builds have nowdays due to condi abuse so i feel like i can’t make really much use of it unless i fight another thief

i did run 2 in SA for a while but it turned out that i have better chance to win a fight when i dish out extra dmg and drop someone fast instead of losing some dmg and getting very slow and very situational condi removal that won’t help me at all vs grenade spam or fearmancer