Guild Wars 2

I’m cross referencing a post in the thief forums:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/S-D-concept/first#post220121

Basically, replace the currently buggy/underwhelming Flanking Strike with a block based ability. Something like the following:

4 Initiative
Block with sword for 2 seconds
On block, shadowstep to the back of attacker, low damage strike with dagger to remove one boon.
If no one attacks during block, refund 1 Initiative.

All thanks to the people on the thread in the Thief forums for the specifics. Tuning appropriate, I think this idea could be perfect for the S/D weapon set and give some more depth to the Thief’s repertoire.

Mrbig, that’s pretty much exactly what I was suggesting I do like the idea of having a block based ability out of water.

Sharpclaw.7510:

Roland Falantyr.3290:

Just stop. we all know what happened.

We do. Two “losing” teams decided, having dealt with a large zergfest from their prior match up, to deny the dominant team the map control necessary to keep their lead. Alongside this, in various Borderlands, these two teams continued to harass each other. This largely took the form of sabotaging supply lines in the hope of weakening the other force for later attacks. A larger push was attempted by one of these teams on a rival’s valley keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds but the line held, convincing the (for lack of a better term) defeated team that continued attack wasn’t tenable and to focus attacking a different front that would yield better results

This was done without major forms of communication, with continued skirmishes at camps and towers between these two forces, while they also attacked the dominant force with significant results.

This setback led certain individuals to concoct not one, but two separate explanations from what occurred that appear to have little grounding in the actual beyond the fact that this apparently beleaguered and aggrieved homeworld faced attack on two fronts and could not muster sufficient defense to defend the large holdings they’d claimed, which made them into a target to begin with.

Am I missing any details?

Yes. The word for this is strategy.

I’d like the evade to stay, IF it actually begins on key press without the delay that seems to exist on the current iteration. This is why I like the block idea – it can be instant and lead to the same shadowstep to the back. Of course, the length of block would have to be short to balance it. If they could make the evade/shadowstep to the back work without any delay, I’d be fine with that as well. The nice thing is that this is the one outstanding issue with S/D, I feel the rest of the set up works fairly well.

Edewen.8304:

Sum up this thread.

Page 1. TC Mag alliance called for
page 2. Mag confirms participating in said alliance.
Page 3. All is denied. EB is whining. Meanwhile Red Briar is being hit from east by TC and west by Mag. They have NO other point on map.

I hope this week gets shut down and none of the servers get bonuses.

1.) In regards to preventing a situation like last weeks blow out. This turns out to be not the case. Fighting among all three ensues.

2.) Mag confirms strategic focus on top scoring team. This is taken as collusion. Tin foil hats are put on.

3.) True. Maybe. I wasn’t there, I don’t know.

Anyways, it sounds like a viscous three way fight now, exactly what WvWvW should be.

Plus, the delay on the start of FS makes it tough to use even as a dodge. This is why I like the block idea – you can have an instant defensive button that stops your damage output, but sets you up behind target (which is what FS wants to do). As is, I never use FS either, but I do make great use of all 4 other weapon skills. Unfortunately this means that the majority of my damage comes from auto attack + DD, but I enjoy the defensive style anyways so I can’t complain

Wow this thread has become hilarious. The tin foiling and narrative building would make a conspiracy convention proud.

I’ve been enjoying sword/dagger (shortbow off) for a while now and it seems to have a particular niche as a harassment/evasion play style. It particularly does well against small groups (2-4 enemies).

Current set up uses withdraw, roll for initiative, shadow refuge, and shadow signet. I use both daggerstorm and thief guild interchangeably depending on context. Traits I use are 0/30/0/30/10, with a focus on as much crit and as many dodges as possible. Gear is a mix of power/vitality/crit damage.

Using this I put out medium-low DPS, at least compared to thief burst builds, but it completely breaks most of the glass cannon builds by having multiple ways to get away and evade incoming damage. With the auto attack cripple and dancing dagger cripple I can keep them close when I want to (and CnD to add to the confusion). Spamming DD on a group of 2 or a ranger + pet can be absurd damage and crippling duration.

The one weak spot in this build is flanking strike. The concept fits the evasive playstyle, but it’s tough to use in a moving PvP fight (and I’m certainly not the first to bring this up). One thing that I think would be fun and add to the defensive playstyle would be some sort of block ability – that after a successful block, shadowsteps you behind your target (similar to the idea of flanking strike) and perhaps? removes a boon with a dagger hit.

Overall, this has been a fun way to play a thief that I thought I’d share (as well as the flanking strike idea) since I don’t see to many posts about S/D on the forum.

I am enjoying the narrative that EB feels they are victimized by being focused on due to being in first.

Also, I know it’s not right to pin the reputation of an entire server on one or two vocal posters, so I’ll take that back and say let’s focus the competitive spirit in the game

So I can’t login right now so I can’t comment for sure, but what it sounds like is a fairly close 3 way match. This leads to the trailing two teams to work together without communication out of pure tactics/logic – it’s the idea behind 3 teams duking it out, it should be self regulating.

What was happening with one team waaaay out in the lead is that #2 and #3 would fight each other for #2 spot, which is counter to the purpose of 3 team match ups. What we’re seeing now is how WvWvW should work – self regulating leads.

Again, I can’t make it into the game until Monday, but I think people are taking the self regulating nature of a 3 way matchup personally because one person led off this thread with a suggestion for an alliance (which would naturally happen without communication by teams #2 and #3).

Glad to hear it’s being competitive. I’ll be gone until Monday (clearly why Maguuma is behind!) and hope to have an even fight up ’til the end.

Ah that was more or less what I was afraid of. Here’s to hoping it gets some love in the future.

Is there any advantage to this weapon set? I enjoy the idea of mobility and evasion, but I’m underwhelmed when comparing it to any of the other weapon sets.

Anyone else have some insight to what might make this combo work well?