D/D needs some love

now that they have nerfed the D/P stealth combo I would really like to see D/D make a comeback as a power weapon and not just a death blossom spam condition weapon.personally I wish it had access to a trait similar to swindlers equilibrium where u get a free steal but IDK what do u guys think

You can start by stopping your exaggeration, and improving yourself.

That is not to say X/D power does not need a little love, but implying D/P is a dead weapon set is far from the truth.

I don't think I am implying D/P is dead it is still a powerful weapon set with access to blinds gap closers and stuns I think the changes are super annoying in WVW and PVE because if u try to preform the stealth combo more than once u can now clip someone or something and reveal yourself.............

all I said was "now that they have nerfed the D/P stealth combo I would really like to see",,,,, I don't see how that is implying it is "dead" or even how I exaggerated.care to explain lol it is a fact the stealth combo has been nerfed that is not a exaggeration lol wtf,,,, well I am glad we agree X/D could use some improvements but so could your understanding of the word exaggeration because in no way have I exaggerated or twisted the truth !

I was thinking if they are going to get rid of some of the stealth spam to add more skill to the game they should consider knocking off some of the rust on D/D..I miss playing that weapon set as a power weapon its definitely a much higher risk to reward build that I would like to see come around again

D/D power does need love. IMO D/D power is the true thief experience but the reason D/D has been lack luster for a long time was because of high mobility from DD + trying to tame D/P. D/P is such a wild set so much teleport and blind etc but its a pecking strategy not a true assassin set.. Why should all the other sets suffer because of D/P? Anet has allowed d/p to persist while d/d, s/d stood on the sidelines. (not so much for s/d lately heh). So theres poor D/D power, what once used to be great to play in the early days of GW2 , but with all the trash abilities, passives, invulns, etc... its crazy to not pick D/P over D/D due to DP's high mobility and greater sustain through blind. Maybe give d/d a better backstab with 2 daggers or give it a better number 5. Something, anything to compete with wild D/P set. Its either that or remove some of the crazy sustain of many classes.

d/d power's bread and butter is backstab, but backstab has been marginalized with so much power creep. shadowshot+auto is much easier to perform and provides for more consistent damage. Its a sad world we live in.d/d represents more of what an assassin/thief/rogue class has traditionally meant. anet doesnt want that it seems. They dont want a stealth class they erased stealth class a long time ago and replaced it with a prankster acrobat class.

Dead eye seems like its good on stealth but....the rifle is lack luster imo.

I would be ecstatic if they showed some love for Dagger/Dagger. I loved using daredevil D/d and dash but nerfs to dash and bandits made it shit. I've honestly just been hanging around on the sidelines since the nerfs since that style of play isn't welcome in this meta.

A fix i'd like to see is maybe make the stealth portion of cloak and dagger unblockable, so long as you hit a target. Then maybe make backstab ignore armor class.

There's no decent way to blink or bounce in or out with d/d without switching to shortbow. I'd be cool with d/d if I could maybe hold down with a slight cast time on death's blossom for more range on release but maybe lower to the ground and the spins turn more into rolls. It would probably do little more than look cool along with Heartseeker jump but I'd at least feel like I'm keeping up with everyone a bit.

• Backstab should apply a buff to you, lasting for 20 sec. Increasing the damage of Backstab by 5%. This should stack up to 6 times.

This limits the burst potential of d/d in pvp, while allowing for much higher dps on pve. Also... This makes the biggest number d/d can produce... Bigger. Which means more fun. Don't pretend you don't get excited when you crit for 16k.

• Cloak & Dagger should apply a buff to you reducing the duration of revealed by 25% and reducing the initiative cost of C&D by 1 for 15 sec Stacks up to 3 times.

This allows DPS rotations to become smoother, while still providing a buff to make d/d more playable in pvp.

for power in pvp dagger 2, d/d 3 and 4 are IMO waste of initative and considering how easy CnD is countered it is often also wasted. for d/p the dagger 2 has at least use as leap finisher and the other skills are diffrent from d/d and better.so to make d/d viable they got to improve d/d 2,3,4,5 in utility, because just buffing the damage would need to be buffed to a point, it will oneshot everything with backstab and then still d/p would be better as no target requirement for stealthing.

for buffing the utility, they could make d/d #3 a power evade attack applying 2 seconds of unblockable buff so you can then use your CnD better, wich then could give stealth even if it doesnt hit but grants part of ini back if it does and then make dagger 4 let you shadow step to the targets basically let it work more like smokescale attack or rev. and for dagger 2 i dunno cause every change will also affect d/p tho for that only the leap finisher is important, aside from this the skill is trash in pvp as you are locked in animation that you can only cancel with weapon swap.with those changes it could be good, but also too strong :D

To be honest, all that really needs to be done is to give Dancing Dagger another stack of torment per bounce, and then make DB a fixed-distance 600 range dash/evade akin to Death's Charge before it got changed to stop at the target, consolidate its hits down to 2 hits and 2 stacks of bleeding, and then keep all of its hits at the beginning of the cast/similar hitbox timings/locations so that it can't just be spammed for damage and requires to be in melee range. Recover 1 init for evading an attack with DB like how Unload works. Then bring CnD down to 5 init. Unblockable CnD becomes overpowered from BV's unblockable CC as well as SA builds for being able to permanently maintain stealthed unblockable attacks, or rewards spamming 5 for solid unblockable damage.

The biggest issue with D/D is it isn't cohesive with the rest of how the thief needs to play. It lacks any instant-engage and totally lacks any disengage tools whatsoever. It forces you into melee all the time with no means to close/open gaps, which in this game-state with so much persistent AoE and CC makes the kit generally suck. I like the idea of designing it around being the more "stay and beat them" kit rather than focusing on resets, but the thief in all of its weapons needs some kind of capacity to get out of being slapped around, be it either from movement skills or just being at range and kiting like P/P.

If they really wanted to get fancy, the end of DB could strike with both daggers for a better power coefficient akin to how Heartseeker cleaves to a single target to give it some damage to reward perfect spacing upon engaging.

Honestly, I'd really like to see HS reworked because it's imho one of the most useless skills the thief has aside from its leap finisher for D/P.

The kit then has some degree of necessary mobility to give it some better engage/disengage potential, and the condi variant gets some better diversity while requiring more skill to play than just spamming 3.

The damage is fine and generally the kit is cohesive... For the most part. I'd rather see incremental change which addresses why the kit is weak than crazy and superfluous buffs. Most of my failures on D/D come from the lack of mobility and DB's painfully long aftercast which still keeps you in melee more than anything else.

D/D thief was all i played but gave up after last balance patch. If D/D sees some love id be back in a instant. I fear though core d/d will just be buried and forgot about. Its a shame.