Guild Wars 2

Jana.6831:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

I have always seen d/d as a 1 tricky pony but they also really have 1 real chance at it

Pft. Have you never seen me fighting? (GH too, Josteinn)
Or: Here’s my favourite D/D thief:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thGwGzQvajw
D/D thieves are more than One Trick Ponies

Nice vids, Jana. Thank you for sharing.

DA-CS-SA, I presume? Or is Acro in there?

I don’t play d/p, but it is fine. I think the perception of its strength is only noticed relative to how less versatile the other weapon sets are, and I believe it is in the best interest of all teefs to drive a conversation that raises the other sets up rather than hammering away at the nice, solid, viable weapon set that we have in dp.

Dancing dagger absolutely needs something. Less ini or a stronger effect. I feel it is really almost there, and in service to shoring up DD/s lack of gap closers. Just needs a little love.

Maybe a Resign button activates if certain point spreads are met? Such as if one team is 300 points ahead or something? That’s a lot of lost time if the opposing team wants to wait around, and they’d have to do it unanimously.

Given how the mechanics of a DD thief are predicated on successful CnD’s, does Panic Strike occupy a very special place for DD thieves due to the immob?

Steal, Infiltrator’s Signet, and even the Acro line to a certain extent, all help us get to the target, of course, but Panic Strike (along with BV) would seem to me to be valuable especially for DD thieves.

Or, in your opinion, does CS win out as the better damage-dealing line?

MidoriMarch.8067:

Mattigan.6395:

Since I agree that DD is premeditated upon sticking to your opponent to land the CnD, did you test out Infiltrator’s Signet? It is what I am using now to give me that second hard stick, but I can see where Acro gives you more reliability.

With all the passive defenses and invulns and endure pains flying around, burst mitigation is at an all-time high.

I used infiltrator’s signet + shadowstep + shadow refugee before the patch.

but after the patch since most of thieves in wvw runs d/p bp helps more against their open burst than infiltrator’s signet. But yeah i do agree infiltrator’s signet is also great to land that cnd + stunbreaks and small ini recover. I do swap them around depends on situation.

Btw i tried the acro line yesterday and it worked out great especially better survivability than trickery but trickery seems to provide more burst but yeah acro is definitely a great choice imo.

Thanks for the info, Midori. I was going to try and get some experience with the Acro line in yesterday, but, well, life happens sometimes.

What I am trying to theorycraft here is does a d/d cs-sa-acro build deal enough damage in a sPvP environment? Does all the survive (which, admittedly, is about the best you can get these days with a thief) kill your hitting power to the point where you aren’t helping the team out as much?

Clearly this build has success in WvW, but I was wondering what the limitations and strengths it had taking it into sPvP. Will see if I can’t get some time in tonight to answer my own question.

Since I agree that DD is premeditated upon sticking to your opponent to land the CnD, did you test out Infiltrator’s Signet? It is what I am using now to give me that second hard stick, but I can see where Acro gives you more reliability.

With all the passive defenses and invulns and endure pains flying around, burst mitigation is at an all-time high.

Hey DHawk. Is Daggerstorm more of a strict WvW choice for you? I am wondering if switching to BV for sPvP would perform stronger in that more constrained environment.

Hey DHawk. Very interesting build.

Have you tried this out in sPvP? Or did you intend this to be an exclusively WvW build? I know the answer seems obvious (otherwise why list food, infusions, etc) but I thought I’d ask anyways.

Thank you.

I haven’t, in my personal experience, seen people publicly lambast DD thieves in /map, but we are a definite rarity.

+1!
Message Body length must at least be 15

I run a marauder DA-CS-T d/d thief and I support this thread. Steal in, BAM, and if they die, hey that’s great now go wait to come off cooldown. If they see me coming and pop an invuln or have a passive answer (aegis, decoy, etc) then it’s a gamble to see if my shadowstep port is actually attainable and not blocked by weird terrain geography.

They clearly want to make d/d a hybrid, but then…what, gave up half-way through? Tweak Deathblossom as an evade maneuver and remove the delay.

And, man, do something with dagger #4. As d/d I feel I have to run infiltrators just so I can have a chance of sticking to my target. That weak cripple doesn’t get the job done. I suppose buffing the passive of Infiltrators could be a solution. Sure, I can HS for mobility but then you get QQ about ‘Heartseeker Hero’ and ‘lol 22222’ (that delicious gem of irony came from a ranger when I used precisely one HS to down her).

I thought the patch was supposed to increase the evade frame for the whole duration of the animation? Did that not get implemented? If not, then yes, it needs a longer evade frame.

Whatever they theoretically purposed d/d for, it is far more useful and reliable as a powerset than a condi or hybrd set, at least in sPvP.

I’d also like to see them do something more creative with dagger #4.

I guess I’d rather they help us out on survivability rather than a HP increase. I don’t want to tank, but I do want better ways to avoid direct damage and mitigate condi pressure.

JaeleCt.3967:

Mattigan.6395:

in sPvP with Marauders in a d/d glassy signet build I can hit for about 8-10K on a backstab. Between the Mug, CnD , HS, fire/air procs, and between 5-10 stacks of might from signet use it usually ends the fight right there.

But that’s about all I can do. Shadowstep to run away if they recover or put on SoS, Endure Pain, desperate decoy activation, etc.

I am what Anet made me.

i tried d/d instaburst for a few games too. all that happened is i would jump in with cnd/bs combo. the person i was jumping’s passive auto invul/fear etc. went off. they turn and burst me right back, almost killing me if i had a utility off cooldown, outright killing me if they werent…

Yes, that happens quite a bit, too. Nightmare runes are the bane of all thieves, I feel.

But if I go into the less-then-stellar SA then my damage is marginalized while my sustain/survive is only slightly increased.

With thieves, or thieves at my level of play I should say, it feels like it’s all-in or nothing.

in sPvP with Marauders in a d/d glassy signet build I can hit for about 8-10K on a backstab. Between the Mug, CnD , HS, fire/air procs, and between 5-10 stacks of might from signet use it usually ends the fight right there.

But that’s about all I can do. Shadowstep to run away if they recover or put on SoS, Endure Pain, desperate decoy activation, etc.

I am what Anet made me.

When I do sPvP dailies with my low levels, I cache any chest rewards in the bank and then open them up on one of my 80s specifically because the rewards are tagged on open.

Unsure about magic-find affecting those rewards. Would be good to find out.

Removing team swapping is a must. Absolutely kittened.

Salamander.2504:

Mattigan.6395:

I feel the first step is fixing the team swapping. Tired of people switching to spectator, forcing a jump, and then rejoining the game on the winning side.

Play unranked instead?

Yes, this is a solid solution, I agree.

But I feel the issue doesn’t really need to be one of environment, in that there is no real reason to not implement a team-swapping fix in hotjoins.

I feel the first step is fixing the team swapping. Tired of people switching to spectator, forcing a jump, and then rejoining the game on the winning side.

Yeah, I am running almost the same utilities, but only 2 signets (Infiltrator and Assassin’s) with Shadowstep as my last utility. I’m having a great time as D/D in sPvP.

Which signets are you using?

Trickery no question. For all the reasons Helly gave.

The shock aura has gotten me killed so many times. Along with a possible invuln, ele can shut down our opener, shut down our burst, and just faceroll aoe hard enough to make you thinking of maining engi.

I did manage to kill what I suspect was a pure zerker ele. But I came at him from an odd angle as he was camping a point. I say zerker because I’ve never done a 8.8 backstab before. Throw in the sigil procs, mug, CnD, and a single HS and I’m sure it was a case of overkill.

What I’m trying to say is you can kill them if they are pretty much afk lol.

Exe vs. Improv is an interesting debate and I’ve read much on this forum regarding the merits of those traits.

I think the conventional wisdom is if you are going for burst in PvP (lol as if you have a choice), then Executioner is the pick.

I don’t do much focused PvE so I can’t advise you what would be appropriate in those scenarios.

I did use Improv in sPvP over the weekend, and it has a lot going for it, but only some stolen items are good (thief, warrior, guardian, mes maybe). Since I usually opened with Steal, there weren’t many scenarios where I could count on a skill recharge. If it guaranteed a specific skill type, like, say, BV, then you could build around it in sPvP a little bit.

Ran D/D in hotjoins this weekend. Glass cannon signet build (but using Marauder amu).

If I got the jump, I destroyed people who weren’t quite as adept with their class. Against people who have played longer, they just hit Endure Pain or Stone Amulet or went into Shadow Form if my positioning was off. After that it’s either escape or die.

It works particularly well against zerkers, but only if you, again, initiate combat. Medi-guards or dagger/scepter eles (or even d/d) just lol if they catch you off guard.

I’d honestly like more sustain, some decent condi cleanse, and a way to deal with the faceroll grenade aoe spam besides the shadowstep retreat, but in the end I am what Anet wants me to be.

I’ll check it out when I get home, but I could have sworn my Hidden Killer + Mug + Steal didn’t reveal me in the practice areas. I was playing with a bunch of builds yesterday so I could be wrong.

EragamerLG.2390:

Is it intended that CnD + Steal doesn’t work with Hidden Thief? I remember this being an issue pre-patch and it got fixed ages ago, seems it is now a problem again because the trait stealth procs before you can make the CnD hit.

I haven’t had any problems with this, though I was just testing it out in HotM against the pre-generated profession opponents.

penelopehannibal.8947:

ades.1386:

the no condi removal answer,

Tricks can remove conditions, and you have two new tricks now (Withdraw & Dagger Storm)

Well, you have to be traited for that, but traiting into Trickery is never a bad option regardless.

sPvP was a huge train wreck for me. While I don’t claim to be a great thief, I could generally get my kills and survive to the enxt encounter. Yesterday, while still sporting a zerk amulet and 12k health, all eles had to do was sneeze at me and I died. Frequently 2-shot. With very poor condi removal (used Shadow’s Embrace and Withdraw) I simply cannot compete with eles and engis. Swapped to Marauder and now have 17k health, so hoping that helps.

Yes, my damage did go up, but A) everyone else’s did as well and now I feel I need to be a pure glass cannon to contribute. And is Blinding Powder from d/p #5 no longer working? I downed some guardians (in a group environment), hit #5, went to stomp, and the bubble blast just overrode my blind. Never had that happen before. Perhaps it was just fortuitous timing.

So if pure burst is the way forward now, maybe d/d will come back in some small way to sPvP.

I thought it only broke a stun but would refill endurance on any type of disabled effect (which, admittedly, sounds a little disingenuous). Didn’t know about the 10s swift.

T raw.4658:

People keep going on and on about D/P

Lemme just say D/D makes them rage more. I’m 100-0 just about anyone and if I can’t then they only an AA or two away.

+1’n as a thief is even more deadly. Our sustain took a crap though

T, is this in WvWvW or sPvP? I love D/D but D/P just offered too much sustain and utility. I’d love to know that D/D has something more than viable now.

I assume you did a signet burst build, but maybe you went bleed condi. Care to share? Thanks!

IGN: Mattigan
Playstyle: sPvP
Server: Anvil Rock
Experience with thief: I’ve played thief as my main since the game went live, and while I truly adore the class, I find myself struggling to bring all the disparate elements of the thief into homogeneous, effective rotations and proper reactions to enemy attacks. I do not think I am a bad thief, but I also believe I am not better than average. I am determined to increase my skill and become as good at this class as I can. I am hoping Teef can provide that mentoring experience and help me along the path to be the very best that no one ever was.

I started as d/d but am now d/p. The utility and high survival outweighs the d/d burst for me, for now.

Thank you.