Guild Wars 2

“Florentine style of fencing”
^ This has been my #1 inspiration for using S/D since launch.
By playing as a duelist in WvW and sPvP, the evades from FS and endurance regen from 15 points in Acrobatics makes it so that I’m rarely touched.
Problem is, FS does such little damage, that is, if you manage to land the second strike. I’ve started using FS only as a means of dodging while #1 seems to be my main source of damage (#4 tends to be my nuke if there are two targets next to each other. #5 is great for some added damage/interruptions from #1’s stealth skill). I have noticed, however, that fights tend to last too long because damage is lacking, so when cd’s have been exhausted, and the opportunity presents itself to strike hard, there really isn’t anything in this set to reliably “strike hard” with. So mid-late fight often times, is like the fight just starts back to square one.

Of course, I’m only thinking about it from a PvP standpoint so the idea of blocking might be a better concept for both PvE and PvP.

Start with the Thief as a whole and how people expect it to feel like: sneaky, agile, damaging, doesn’t play by the rules, always has a trick or two up their sleeve, unpredictable, the amount of adjectives goes on for days.
However, only a few of our weapon set-ups fulfill this experience.

Dagger/Dagger , Dagger/Pistol, Shortbow, … yeah…

Sword/Pistol offers the hot-topic Pistol Whip. Everyone knows the PW-Haste combo. One Trick Pony doesn’t fit into what I believe most people want the thief to be.

Sword/Dagger has the Fencer vibe to me, it fits the thief if you think about it, but in execution you’re putting in more work than you get any result out, hence why more people defer to our other combinations. So this needs tuning.

Pistol/Pistol has little to nothing going for it. “Guns Blazing” … and then what? That’s not thief-like at all.

Pistol/Dagger(?) I’ll admit I’m not very experienced with this combo so I won’t touch it.

I want to create a topic where fellow thieves can discuss the Thief-Vibe. Please discuss how you think a Thief should feel in PvP in regards to our current weapon combinations.

If you’re running S/D ymight wanna check out the Acrobatics trait-line. Extra Endurance refunded on dodge + 2 initiative every 10 sec with that Infiltrator signet = Infinite dodging

Sword/Dagger needs people to stand up for what it is. In my opinion, it’s what thief should feel like.
Not your Spamtastic-Imatryhardtoburstyou-2222/3333.
What’s wrong with removing 1 boon everytime you use it? Many professions rely on their boons to bring an edge to the fight, why not remove that edge? Furthermore, you called it our main attack, it isn’t. Traited correctly, it allows us to dodge practically infinitely.

Sword and Dagger seems great as is, I don’t understand why people are trying to change it.
Yes, it needs a little tweaking, the pathing for example. But that’s about it.
I’m only 70 atm but I’ve spent at least levels 40 – 70 in WvW. I can manage to take 2-3 enemies at a time. It’s a free evade that damages! And traited into Acrobatic it’s practically free when you mix it up with your regular dodging.
Sometimes I have too much initiative / endurance than I know what to do with, and the enemy can barely lay a hand on me.