Guild Wars 2

Comments? good in competitive pvp? does shadowstep and return cost too much initiative to be competitive? is Sword dps too weak compared to dagger mainhand? Or is it great? let’s get some ideas going

The two major issues with S/D are that:

a) C&D doesn’t synergise well, as Sword doesn’t really have a strong from-stealth attack (unlike daggers or pistols), and;
b) Flanking Strike is unreliable.

That, and S/P and D/P are better options because they don’t have these problems.

take mesmer runes, anything to increase daze duration. make a S/D daze build. not perfect, butkittenfurstrating for other players

elithrar.7143:

The two major issues with S/D are that:
b) Flanking Strike is unreliable.

This. For some reason Flanking Strike moves relative to you rather than your target, so if you’re facing an odd angle (which you usually are if you’re strafe meleeing), then chances are likely that you’ll go shooting off in a random direction and miss completely.

Ouzhyr.2175:

elithrar.7143:

The two major issues with S/D are that:
b) Flanking Strike is unreliable.

This. For some reason Flanking Strike moves relative to you rather than your target, so if you’re facing an odd angle (which you usually are if you’re strafe meleeing), then chances are likely that you’ll go shooting off in a random direction and miss completely.

exactly. i love the idea of making an evade-focused bulid with sword/dagger,
but it is so buged that u cannot rely on it to work properly.
much like most of your teleporting abilities.

I don’t like Flanking Strike in PvP. In PvP all units are very mobile and there is a lot of dodging and teleportation. Flanking Strike is a slow and stable attack which easily misses the target just because the target is running…

I disagree, Sword/Dagger is about sustainability and outlasting your opponent. Evading attacks while doing dmg, Dazing and Blinding. And the more important issue the Snare. you lock people down and whittle them down with 1.5k -3k strikes. Throw an Air and Fire rune and watch the people drop. Flanking Strike is Pure Gold. You get the kill on a downed opponent much more frequently by being able to stealth. S/D Is very strong against HS and PS respectively. Granted dont use S/D with a glass build. Try it with 30crit/25Acro/15Trick or 25Crit/30acro/15 trick. Its extraordinarily effective. It allows you to hold Nodes solo, much like a necro or guardian.

Thanks for the tips, Classic. I love giving new builds a spin.

in my opinion, S/D’s strong points are:

1. Shadowinstep…. say good bye to silly condition necros or any condition spec for that matter.. Great for chasing because of the 1 second immobilize, great for that escape because of shadow return breaking stealth. Works awesome with a 12 initiative build. I also run a trap build so i like to shadowstep in, set my traps, lure a couple idiots on me, and step out leaving them in confusion and giving my teammates an opportunity to wreak havok

2. Auto attack has great sustained dmg, and great conditions in daze/blind/cripple, couple with Haste utility skill and i will shut down any profession better than when i use Haste with dag/dag (which has more burst dmg but the target can usually escape pretty easily from melee range without crippling/dazing)

3. C/D might not synergize well with sword, but it is an awesome escape mechanism and a confusion mechanism. great for stomping downed enemies as well. Who said stealth is all about break-stealth damage?

4. dagger cripple is awesome because it bounces between targets, i’d much rather have dagger offhand than pistol offhand because pistol seems a little 1v1 oriented to me. With dagger skill 4 I can pop Haste and drop around 6 throws in 2 or so seconds, all of them bouncing in between targets for around 700-800 each (no crit), absolutely KILLER in team fights on point, where everyone gets their ankles and hearts broken.

Dag/dag will provide you insane burst from autoattack/HS, but really? Thieves have more utility than you think

One more thing about Shadowstep—

if you get knocked down, shadowstep out
if you get pushed back, shadowstep out
if you get immobilized, shadowstep out
if you get moa’d, oh wait.. moa is OP.

everytime you shadow step back in, immobilize your target 1 second??? if i wasn’t a thief i’d say this is more OP than heartseeker but most ppl don’t know how to dodge that’s why they say hs is op.

I play and love Sword/Dagger. I like to run a build that rewards being in stealth and blinds enemies when entering stealth, since the weaponset has such an easy time re-entering stealth every 3 seconds while whittling away at the opponent’s health.

I’ve noticed no one has mentioned that Flanking Strike removes boons from your opponent. This is a key ability in my experience, since (as long as you make sure you’re facing the right way to not mess up the Strike) you can use Flanking Strike 2 or 3 times and remove a wealth of boons, neutralizing your opponent and evading whatever they’re trying to throw at you at the same time.

tldr;

Have Sword/Pistol as your weapon switch. Cloak and Dagger with your S/D build, swap to your Sword/Pistol which has Sigil of Intelligence on it, and have a Stealth Pistol Whip Critical. Repeatable every 9 seconds.

Tactical Strike from behind is probably one of my favorite things when timed well. Remember when you hit from the side or behind out of stealth it dazes, rather than blinding. You can interrupt channeled abilities and heals (Take that HB Warrior.) With it’s root, Infiltrator’s Strike might be the best gap closer the Thief has, with the ability to use shadow return to remove a condition or escape from a bad situation. Flanking Strike is decent, but I don’t tend to use it much. With Cloak and Dagger + Tactical Strike you can daze your target very frequently. Not nearly as bursty as D/D but I like it better personally because of it’s added utility. S/D is my preferred build in sPVP.

Vexus, the problem with the Sigil of Int. is that it only grants critical for the first attack, which would only be the pistol shot, i think a +5% crit sigil would work better. Interesting play-style though, but i do wonder how viable it is against stability and dodging in general, always been skeptical of pistol whip builds.

100% agreein with Jstereo, daze is a beach to deal with, especially when i can get most targets to 65-70% health before i even use C/D —> Tactical strike, preventing them from doing anything for 2 seconds i’ll probably get them down to 40% or so, and the perfect finish would be using tripwire cleverly and bursting using elite/haste. If you try to run i have shadowstep which will close the gap AND immobilize IMBAAAAAA