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Loving Thief since S/D


skystorm.9280

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I've been playing between melee ranger and hammer scrapper for ages trying to find a build that would suits me - ended up dusting my old thief main and gave s/d a try. ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. Its been the playstyle I've been trying to make work on other profs and has the tools naturally baked into so many of its kit. Just saying Anet did a wonderful job with this and looking forward to see what happens with the next elite (hoping for OH sword to finally make my swashbucking kitty into a proper chARRRR.

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Welcome to the club. S/D for life! If you want to swashbuckle I recommend tying it with Daredevil, you'll really like it. I usually run DD/Trickery, then bounce between DA, CS, and Acro for the third line.

DA/CS for more burst, Accro for more survival, SS and Signet of Agility are must haves, third utility and elite are dealers choice. They've all got their uses.

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@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I haven't ever played with S/D, but I remember loving D/D as I leveled my core thief towards Daredevil. Deaths Blossom is one of my favorite attacks, and also the culprit behind me falling off lots of stuff....

I'm curious though, what is it about sword that you like?

I love that its a mix-and-match sort of a thing you know? Kind of like how your not mirroring your mainhand weapon and it just looks like your bag of tricks imo which it is! I'm also big D&D player as well and I normally roll a Rogue in a majority of my campaigns that uses a short sword and dagger when I can so this makes me happy to channel that in a sense. But I mainly play the WvW game mode and for that purpose s/d thief is great; sword 2 is a great lunge and gap closer with a root + poison and it can cleanse 1 condi very reliably, sword 3 has both of its attack chains unblockable and it can steal boons (if they dont have any on them it does 20% more dmg), and dagger 5 is such a favorite of mine (sword 1 in stealth is so good). It also has a lot of evades built in with sword 3 and sword 2 can displace you very easily and confuse the enemy, messing up their setups and changes the fights in your favor.

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@Basharic.1654 said:Welcome to the club. S/D for life! If you want to swashbuckle I recommend tying it with Daredevil, you'll really like it. I usually run DD/Trickery, then bounce between DA, CS, and Acro for the third line.

DA/CS for more burst, Accro for more survival, SS and Signet of Agility are must haves, third utility and elite are dealers choice. They've all got their uses.

Ive thought about running DD in place of acro but I just feel like core thief performs the job to its full potential however DD is mega fun and much faster with the dash dodge traited.

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@Turkeyspit.3965 said:I haven't ever played with S/D, but I remember loving D/D as I leveled my core thief towards Daredevil. Deaths Blossom is one of my favorite attacks, and also the culprit behind me falling off lots of stuff....

I'm curious though, what is it about sword that you like?

For me it's the whole package right down to the race pick. Because I DON'T like S/D thief as much on other races. Charr S/D animations are beautiful.

I play primarily in WvW and love the swashbuckler/brawler play-style. There is the added factor that in playing this game since launch I truly believe full glass S/D & short-bow with DD/Trick/CS(or DA) is one of the hardest builds in the game to play well. There's no part of that build where the game plays for you - aka automatic invulns - looking at you warriors and rangers - you sad sacks. If you succeed it's because of how you positioned, your reaction time, how you moved, and what keys you pressed when.

Even better you can tune the build to your skill that play session. Having an off night, zerg surfing instead of roaming, or facing to much auto survival cheese? Go DD/Trick/Accro and take your own autosurvival cheese. Too many condis? Same lines and take the condi removals. Playing like a golden god, picking off sickly gazelles, or fighting a lot of squishies? DD/Trick/CS and make big numberz (for S/D) all day. More complex fights? DD/Trick/DA.

It also feels really good to win fights as thief and not be relying on the game's broken stealth mechanic.

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@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Basharic.1654It also feels really good to win fights as thief and not be relying on the game's broken stealth mechanic.

Absolutely this. It's so satisfying to win when you know that you went toe to toe with another player, where you didn't need to conceal your attacks yet you still outplayed them.

Infiltrator's Strike/Return isn't quite toe-toe. Unfortunately Thieves aren't made for a Warrior vs. Guardian style body-smash.

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@Turk.5460 said:

@Basharic.1654It also feels really good to win fights as thief and not be relying on the game's broken stealth mechanic.

Absolutely this. It's so satisfying to win when you know that you went toe to toe with another player, where you didn't need to conceal your attacks yet you still outplayed them.

Infiltrator's Strike/Return isn't quite toe-toe. Unfortunately Thieves aren't made for a Warrior vs. Guardian style body-smash.

Nope, we're made for dancing. :-)

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S/d is love, s/d is life!

I'm running full marauders with pack runes.. good vitality at 18k. Decent enough pressure damage and a ton of evades through the kit provided. Love the build.

Best moment these days was getting a whisper from an SA permastealth Deadeye, after I downed them... accusing me of having perma evade lol.. on core thief mind you haha.

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@Razi.6031 said:S/d is love, s/d is life!

I'm running full marauders with pack runes.. good vitality at 18k. Decent enough pressure damage and a ton of evades through the kit provided. Love the build.

Best moment these days was getting a whisper from an SA permastealth Deadeye, after I downed them... accusing me of having perma evade lol.. on core thief mind you haha.

Haha, them guys are funny.

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@Turk.5460 said:

@Basharic.1654It also feels really good to win fights as thief and not be relying on the game's broken stealth mechanic.

Absolutely this. It's so satisfying to win when you know that you went toe to toe with another player, where you didn't need to conceal your attacks yet you still outplayed them.

Infiltrator's Strike/Return isn't quite toe-toe. Unfortunately Thieves aren't made for a Warrior vs. Guardian style body-smash.

If all I did was spam IS, you'd be right.

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@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Basharic.1654It also feels really good to win fights as thief and not be relying on the game's broken stealth mechanic.

Absolutely this. It's so satisfying to win when you know that you went toe to toe with another player, where you didn't need to conceal your attacks yet you still outplayed them.

Infiltrator's Strike/Return isn't quite toe-toe. Unfortunately Thieves aren't made for a Warrior vs. Guardian style body-smash.

If all I did was spam IS, you'd be right.

I didn't say anything about Spam. But if you're opponent is any Melee build worth his salt then you're not going to win if you don't utilize IS fairly often. Sure you can win against lower skilled opponents just using FS and DD, but not against a well played enemy. This isn't speculation, this is fact as to how the matchups work vs. what the S/D kit has.

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@Turk.5460 said:

@Basharic.1654It also feels really good to win fights as thief and not be relying on the game's broken stealth mechanic.

Absolutely this. It's so satisfying to win when you know that you went toe to toe with another player, where you didn't need to conceal your attacks yet you still outplayed them.

Infiltrator's Strike/Return isn't quite toe-toe. Unfortunately Thieves aren't made for a Warrior vs. Guardian style body-smash.

If all I did was spam IS, you'd be right.

I didn't say anything about Spam. But if you're opponent is any Melee build worth his salt then you're not going to win if you don't utilize IS fairly often. Sure you can win against lower skilled opponents just using FS and DD, but not against a well played enemy. This isn't speculation, this is fact as to how the matchups work vs. what the S/D kit has.

Doesn't break targeting though, and any decent opponent will memorize where you IS from, so it's still pretty toe-to-toe IMO.

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