Dagger skill 3 needs a total rework to make dagger main hand viable...

[Grafhbot.7385]

How many years is it going to take to change one simple skill to make d/d builds viable?  For d/d to work you have to make zero mistakes, or you die.  How many other weopons sets are this bad?  Every other weapon combo for thief has better survive options than d/d that has a wonky dodge with condition damage as priority when the rest are the skills are for pure damage.  Skill 4 has torment, I know but it does decent damage and ranged cripple, it's perfect.  2 is a leap with great damage, 5 is good damage and stealth.  3 is just kitten, you can't even get all 3 hits ever if someone is moving, if it did, or it hit harder skill 3 would be ok..  I think skill 3 needs either damage, and blind, or less damage and better evade, or same evade and the hits need to register.  I would prefer the latter.  Why is this so hard for anet to fix?  My wallet ain't gonna open, and my game ain't gonna be booting up until I can play my d/d thief anet.  D/d is the only cool thing about thief, (and staff). Both of which have been nerfed into the dirt.  

The kitten pistol 5 gets a buff, but dagger 3 is still kitten.  Please explain how this is a thing...

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Honestly.....it's anet so realistically it won't ever get changed. U need to remember this is a set of devs that purposefully deleted whole traitlines by adding 300 sec cds on the very traits they were used for and then has left them for yrs in such a state.

I laughed when they forum's praised anet for yet another more frequent balancing credence, as usual was empty promises.

[Grafhbot.7385]

1 hour ago, Psycoprophet.8107 said:

Honestly.....it's anet so realistically it won't ever get changed. U need to remember this is a set of devs that purposefully deleted whole traitlines by adding 300 sec cds on the very traits they were used for and then has left them for yrs in such a state.

I laughed when they forum's praised anet for yet another more frequent balancing credence, as usual was empty promises.

Ahh yes the good old acrobat cd changes on the  most important survival traits that didn't rely on stealth which everyone cries about.  Doesn't make sense at all!!!  GW2 would be the GOAT if only they could balance and not destroy.  Thief was a proper zerger with that evasive trait in a 60 sec cd, now just kitten.

[BobbyT.7192]

3 hours ago, Psycoprophet.8107 said:

Honestly.....it's anet so realistically it won't ever get changed. U need to remember this is a set of devs that purposefully deleted whole traitlines by adding 300 sec cds on the very traits they were used for and then has left them for yrs in such a state.

I laughed when they forum's praised anet for yet another more frequent balancing credence, as usual was empty promises.

 

Wow, I just saw that, started playing again a few weeks ago after stopping before Covid.

...... Like how is this okay? What were thieves doing to warrant this, ... not dying?

[Psycoprophet.8107]

47 minutes ago, BobbyT.7192 said:

 

Wow, I just saw that, started playing again a few weeks ago after stopping before Covid.

...... Like how is this okay? What were thieves doing to warrant this, ... not dying?

They did the same to warriors defense line, everyone figured it was such a large cd that basically makes the traits unplayable (5 min cd?) that they must be place holders but that was a year and a half ago.

[Doggie.3184]

Don't worry, they'll do a tooltip update to it when EoD releases. 

Also; as an Assassin main in GW1 who used the original Death Blossom, I've never liked this new annoying leapy condi version since GW2's beta. It's long overdue for a redesign.

Edited September 14, 2021 by Doggie.3184

[Meridian.9103]

6 hours ago, Psycoprophet.8107 said:

They did the same to warriors defense line, everyone figured it was such a large cd that basically makes the traits unplayable (5 min cd?) that they must be place holders but that was a year and a half ago.

First, you have to say that this only applies to PvP/WvW and across all classes. These traits were specifically made unusable because they were passive and thus considered bad for competitive play. Yet I agree that these traits should be reworked so they are not lying around dead.

On the actual topic:

Totally agree that Death Blossom needs a serious look. It makes the D/D weapon set feel awkward and defines its identity Crisis of being between Condi and Power Damage. On top of that this skill is way too clunky to precisely utilize it for its dodge and can position you weirdly out of place.

Edited September 14, 2021 by Meridian.9103

[Felices Bladewing.3914]

7 hours ago, Highlie.7641 said:

You could use it to dodge at least...  Then Arena net decided to change the pathing a couple months ago (?) And its just garbage now.  Gotta love suicide buttons...

 That clears it up for me 😲

 

Returned to the game like a month ago (played until start of HoT), and was surprised how bad death blossom felt, it wasnt my favorite since the beginning but now feels completly lackluster

[Onlyflameone.2136]

Are you crazy? Dagger skill 3 is one of my fav abilities! If I have to chase BAM I shadowstep! If someone is on cliff with range weapon BAM I shadowstep! Someone is trying to escape BAM shadowstep! Nothing personal but do you even think? Shadowstep is a must for dagger weapon. You are no thief if you want to rework the single ability that makes difference !

Edited September 15, 2021 by Onlyflameone.2136

[Meridian.9103]

4 minutes ago, Onlyflameone.2136 said:

Are you crazy? Dagger skill 3 is one of my fav abilities! If I have to chase BAM I shadowstep! If someone is on cliff with range weapon BAM I shadowstep! Someone is trying to escape BAM shadowstep! Nothing personal but do you even think? Shadowstep is a must for dagger weapon. You are no thief if you want to rework the single ability that makes difference !

D/D 3 aka Death Blossom is not a shadowstep, you must be thinking of something else.

[Onlyflameone.2136]

Oh mate I was talking about dagger/pistol. I want to apologize! Forgive me fellas

[Salvatore.3749]

19 hours ago, Meridian.9103 said:

First, you have to say that this only applies to PvP/WvW and across all classes. These traits were specifically made unusable because they were passive and thus considered bad for competitive play. Yet I agree that these traits should be reworked so they are not lying around dead.

On the actual topic:

Totally agree that Death Blossom needs a serious look. It makes the D/D weapon set feel awkward and defines its identity Crisis of being between Condi and Power Damage. On top of that this skill is way too clunky to precisely utilize it for its dodge and can position you weirdly out of place.

In PvP with Death Blossom, I use a condi core thief build with deadly art traits that adds poison to dual attacks and more poison to deadly art traits with my other weapon set being P/D. Using this setup with DB, I can stack 6 stacks of poison with spider and bleed, plus skill 4 for cripple and torment and the enemy can't run away. The downside is that heart seeker and backstab doesn't deal as much damage. 

I think Death Blossom works best with a condi setup on core thief with venom traits in shadowarts. The kills are quick and with P/D I can constantly stack bleed. A couple days ago I got 20 kills in PvP with a condi core thief. However, the secret sauce are mirage runes and sigil of doom because on evading attacks, DB also causes torment (plus bleeding & poison), and sigil of doom when opening with auto attack on daggers causes more poison. Again, the only downside is that backstab doesn't do much damage, but allows you to apply poison from spider venom (if it hits), and heart seeker is used only for auras or closing the gap (which isn't recommended since swapping to pistol is more efficient). 

I get what you are saying, and I get what everyone else says about the mobility aspect of DB, I think if they just did a spin in place where the thief is cloaked in shadow magic to make it look like a distortion effect, it would be more precise. I think the mechanic now is that DB used once gets you behind the target for stealth and then backstab, but that sucks if the enemy moves.

However, I think d/d should be more condition focused than power focused. I know backstab was crazy back in the day, but d/d has three skills that cause conditions and I would rather backstab cause immobilize, confusion, vulnerability, and bleed for compounding damage.

TLDR: In PvP, Death blossom is amazing with mirage runes, sigil of doom, and P/D as a condi core thief and backstab should be condi focused. Death blossom should attack in place with distortion effect. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Salvatore.3749
Editing and TLDR

[kash.9213]

7 minutes ago, Salvatore.3749 said:

In PvP with Death Blossom, I use a condi core thief build with deadly art traits that adds poison to dual attacks and more poison to deadly art traits with my other weapon set being P/D. Using this setup with DB, I can stack 6 stacks of poison with spider and bleed, plus skill 4 for cripple and torment and the enemy can't run away. The downside is that heart seeker and backstab doesn't deal as much damage. 

I think Death Blossom works best with a condi setup on core thief with venom traits in shadowarts. The kills are quick and with P/D I can constantly stack bleed. A couple days ago I got 20 kills in PvP with a condi core thief. However, the secret sauce are mirage runes and sigil of doom because on evading attacks, DB also causes torment (plus bleeding & poison), and sigil of doom when opening with auto attack on daggers causes more poison. Again, the only downside is that backstab doesn't do much damage, but allows you to apply poison from spider venom (if it hits), and heart seeker is used only for auras or closing the gap (which isn't recommended since swapping to pistol is more efficient). 

So I get what you are saying, and I get what everyone else says, but I think d/d should be more condition focused than power focused. I know backstab was crazy back in the day, but d/d has three skills that cause conditions and I would rather backstab cause immobilize, confusion, vulnerability, and bleed for compounding damage.

TLDR: In PvP, Deathblossom is amazing with mirage runes, sigil of doom, and P/D as a condi core thief and backstab should be condi focused. 

So Back Infect instead of Backstab. There might be easier and cheaper ways to load up Immob and Vuln and other flak conditions than setting up and trying to land BS, especially if you're using BS primarily to load up conditions since you have them coming in after BS. I think for sustained damage like that I might just skip BS even if it did have all that. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I wouldn't mind seeing it reworked, if only because of how awkward it is to play thief in Raids.  The forced movement for daredevils (bounding dodger, death blossom, lotus training) or the near utter immobility of deadeye means that I'm always in some combination of locked in place or out of place.  I can't have myself constantly flinging through the boss into poison, or off the edge, or into an attack, etc.  

[Meridian.9103]

11 hours ago, Salvatore.3749 said:

In PvP with Death Blossom, I use a condi core thief build with deadly art traits that adds poison to dual attacks and more poison to deadly art traits with my other weapon set being P/D. Using this setup with DB, I can stack 6 stacks of poison with spider and bleed, plus skill 4 for cripple and torment and the enemy can't run away. The downside is that heart seeker and backstab doesn't deal as much damage. 

I think Death Blossom works best with a condi setup on core thief with venom traits in shadowarts. The kills are quick and with P/D I can constantly stack bleed. A couple days ago I got 20 kills in PvP with a condi core thief. However, the secret sauce are mirage runes and sigil of doom because on evading attacks, DB also causes torment (plus bleeding & poison), and sigil of doom when opening with auto attack on daggers causes more poison. Again, the only downside is that backstab doesn't do much damage, but allows you to apply poison from spider venom (if it hits), and heart seeker is used only for auras or closing the gap (which isn't recommended since swapping to pistol is more efficient). 

I get what you are saying, and I get what everyone else says about the mobility aspect of DB, I think if they just did a spin in place where the thief is cloaked in shadow magic to make it look like a distortion effect, it would be more precise. I think the mechanic now is that DB used once gets you behind the target for stealth and then backstab, but that sucks if the enemy moves.

However, I think d/d should be more condition focused than power focused. I know backstab was crazy back in the day, but d/d has three skills that cause conditions and I would rather backstab cause immobilize, confusion, vulnerability, and bleed for compounding damage.

TLDR: In PvP, Death blossom is amazing with mirage runes, sigil of doom, and P/D as a condi core thief and backstab should be condi focused. Death blossom should attack in place with distortion effect. 

Honestly? This build is exactly why i have a problem with the D/D set and especially Death Blossom right now. Your initiative is best spent by spamming 3, which is absolutely lame (and not even good at a certain elo, and it shouldn't be good). On a power build however, Death Blossom is just a pure waste of initiative.

Totally disagree that D/D should be focused on condition damage. If anything, it should be the epitome of power damage. But atm it's not good for either of those. The trait interactions you mentioned in your condi build work better with P/D anyways. You'd be better off taking SB instead of D/D.

[Salvatore.3749]

20 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

So Back Infect instead of Backstab. There might be easier and cheaper ways to load up Immob and Vuln and other flak conditions than setting up and trying to land BS, especially if you're using BS primarily to load up conditions since you have them coming in after BS. I think for sustained damage like that I might just skip BS even if it did have all that. 

Pretty much. It got nerfed so badly since launch that they may as well rework. See with D/D it should be either one way Power or Condi, not a mix. I think Condi would be more useful and viable, especially since Dagger 4 causes torment and cripple, and Dagger 1 causes poison; it only naturally makes sense to have backstab cause more conditions instead of high power damage with a terrible 1s CD when stealthed. That 1s CD really hurts thief in PvP, there is no room for error. With my condi build, backstab is useful to apply spider venom, but with a lack of power, it's not that strong. 

[Salvatore.3749]

10 hours ago, Meridian.9103 said:

Honestly? This build is exactly why i have a problem with the D/D set and especially Death Blossom right now. Your initiative is best spent by spamming 3, which is absolutely lame (and not even good at a certain elo, and it shouldn't be good). On a power build however, Death Blossom is just a pure waste of initiative.

Totally disagree that D/D should be focused on condition damage. If anything, it should be the epitome of power damage. But atm it's not good for either of those. The trait interactions you mentioned in your condi build work better with P/D anyways. You'd be better off taking SB instead of D/D.

Actually, I don't swap to D/D until my target is at 50% health so I can cause a quicker kill . Or if I am in a group setting like 2v1 or 3v1 since it causes a lot of havoc on the enemy team in pvp. Nothing is sweeter than loading up bleeding, poison, and torment on a DH, Tempest, and Ranger, and watching all of their health bars go down rapidly. 

But, I do use sneak attack, repeater, and pistol2 quite often with steal and dagger 5 to go invisible. That's where I load up the bleeding before I swap weapons and finish with dagger and poison. Signet of shadows is also nice since I have the trait where blinding an enemy siphons health and stealth applies blind. Paired with the sigil that does more damage per condition on the target, my dps goes up a bit. 

However that last line is how I feel about Death Blossom and D/D either all power or all condi. I prefer all condi, especially for PvP and even PvE when mixed with Daredevil specialization for the condition spreading dodge mechanic, but otherwise, it's hard to use D/D in a lot of builds right now. 

Trust me, I would love to see more condi power on thief with lesser caltrops on dodge, condition spreading mechanic on daredevil, and more condi damage on dagger skills as a whole. That would make thief a force to be reckoned since we're supposed to rely on poisons and tricks (lore wise). 

But if they went all power, I'm cool with that too. 

Edited September 16, 2021 by Salvatore.3749

[DeceiverX.8361]

D/D will be bad until DB gives untargeted mobility. 

[kash.9213]

2 hours ago, Salvatore.3749 said:

Pretty much. It got nerfed so badly since launch that they may as well rework. See with D/D it should be either one way Power or Condi, not a mix. I think Condi would be more useful and viable, especially since Dagger 4 causes torment and cripple, and Dagger 1 causes poison; it only naturally makes sense to have backstab cause more conditions instead of high power damage with a terrible 1s CD when stealthed. That 1s CD really hurts thief in PvP, there is no room for error. With my condi build, backstab is useful to apply spider venom, but with a lack of power, it's not that strong. 

Torment on Dancing Dagger used to punish kiting a little, now it's mostly on the cripple but the bounce is still good for power. Dagger 1 keeps poison staggered which is something you still want with Power. You're building for condi but you don't like the lack of power on backstab, so you want backstab to do more condi and less power, or just more condi on top of power? 

 

If you're going for condi damage, there are Stealth Attack options. If you're going for condi count for something like Exposed Weakness, there are Stealth Attack options. I'd be all for boosting condi builds but your suggestion sounds kind of sweeping in regards to what still keeps Power in a fight. 

[Salvatore.3749]

On 9/16/2021 at 4:07 PM, kash.9213 said:

You're building for condi but you don't like the lack of power on backstab, so you want backstab to do more condi and less power, or just more condi on top of power? 

 

If you're going for condi damage, there are Stealth Attack options. If you're going for condi count for something like Exposed Weakness, there are Stealth Attack options. I'd be all for boosting condi builds but your suggestion sounds kind of sweeping in regards to what still keeps Power in a fight. 

I may not have been too clear. I don't like the CD on backstab and how it's power was nerfed. Instead, I would prefer more condi on top of power.

Backstab used to deal more damage and now the power decrease in PvP is significant to make it an average or above average skill versus a excellent skill (see below for the nerf language). I would prefer backstab to actually add conditions upon hit. Either immobilize, bleed, confusion, torment, or some combination of conditions to give dagger skills more conditions. When I think of an actual backstab, a person would bleed, be confused, and unable to move, so why not provide that to thief in GW2?  If ANET did, we would have a primary condi setup for thief. 

As for what keeps Power in a fight, I primarily play PvP. What I noticed is that conditions and high critical hit chance with high critical damage typically wins. Reduced power on thief reduces damage output from critical hits and overall autoattacks. But, if we could cause more conditions, we could cause more damage overtime through stacking. That may actually benefit thief in PvE as well, but I'm not a huge fan of PvE these days so someone else would have to comment on that.

The nerf for backstab in competitive play is:

Reduced base power coefficient from 1.2 to 0.9. Reduced flanking power coefficient from 2.4 to 1.8

Edited September 27, 2021 by Salvatore.3749

[kash.9213]

40 minutes ago, Salvatore.3749 said:

I may not have been too clear. I don't like the CD on backstab and how it's power was nerfed. Instead, I would prefer more condi on top of power.

Backstab used to deal more damage and now the power decrease in PvP is significant to make it an average or above average skill versus a excellent slo;; (see below for the nerf language). I would prefer backstab to actually add conditions upon hit. Either immobilize, bleed, confusion, torment, or some combination of conditions to give dagger skills more conditions. When I think of an actual backstab, a person would bleed, be confused, and unable to move, so why not provide that to thief in GW2?  If ANET did, we would have a primary condi setup for thief. 

As for what keeps Power in a fight, I primarily play PvP. What I noticed is that conditions and high critical hit chance with high critical damage typically wins. Reduced power on thief reduces damage output from critical hits and overall autoattacks. But, if we could cause more conditions, we could cause more damage overtime through stacking. That may actually benefit thief in PvE as well, but I'm not a huge fan of PvE these days so someone else would have to comment on that.

The nerf for backstab in competitive play is:

Reduced base power coefficient from 1.2 to 0.9. Reduced flanking power coefficient from 2.4 to 1.8

I think I get you. I wouldn't mind that cd if Backstab wasn't generally shrugged off unless I build entirely into it for what should be a clutch skill. I think the potency of tics and application on any condi residuals on top of power would vary in how op or not it would be. That's a dicey area of balance. I'd rather have more payoff on a snappy Backstab given the setup it takes but I understand your reasoning considering that dead space in a fight can be critical.

[Sifu.9745]

Delete.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Sifu.9745

[Salvatore.3749]

18 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

I think I get you. I wouldn't mind that cd if Backstab wasn't generally shrugged off unless I build entirely into it for what should be a clutch skill. I think the potency of tics and application on any condi residuals on top of power would vary in how op or not it would be. That's a dicey area of balance. I'd rather have more payoff on a snappy Backstab given the setup it takes but I understand your reasoning considering that dead space in a fight can be critical.

That's exactly it! 

Thief has to rely on backstab when using a power D/D build, while most of the skills on D/D, except for heart seeker, cause conditions. So essentially, you are using two skills and a weak auto-attack (to generate initiative) combined with stealth for power D/D builds. You may as well use Sw/P for more power and stuns and swap to D/P for the backstab only. 

The way that Power D/D Builds work is through reliance on the backstab-behind enemy setup. Which renders the other skills useless since they don't do much raw damage.

As of now, if you're planning on using backstab and heart seeker combo, you have to use shadow arts and critical strikes.

Death blossom is virtually useless on power builds. That's why I think Condi D/D would be more viable for thief (mostly in pvp) for more sustained condi damage. 

I would even suggest changing heartseeker to apply vulnerability (lvl 1), bleed (lvl 2), and poison (lvl 3), for finishing targets. At 25% health, target suffers all three conditions and they can be continuously reapplied. 

[kash.9213]

I use off hand dagger for pretty much every power build I use. CnD is CnD but dancing dagger has a good bounce and it cripples, it also carries over it's range a little like longbow and you're actually more likely to be able to hit top smc cannons with it than with rifle and it will bounce to targets around it.

Death blossom aside from the evade adds a condition for Exposed Weakness, but that whirl along with the leap from Heartseeker are handy everywhere, especially in team fights or moving through a large fight with a squad. 

I don't have to use heartseeker for backstab. 

Edited September 17, 2021 by kash.9213

[Salvatore.3749]

5 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

I use off hand dagger for pretty much every power build I use. CnD is CnD but dancing dagger has a good bounce and it cripples, it also carries over it's range a little like longbow and you're actually more likely to be able to hit top smc cannons with it than with rifle and it will bounce to targets around it.

Death blossom aside from the evade adds a condition for Exposed Weakness, but that whirl along with the leap from Heartseeker are handy everywhere, especially in team fights or moving through a large fight with a squad. 

I don't have to use heartseeker for backstab. 

True! But, I typically use heart seeker as a finisher or with black powder shot to go stealth for backstab set up. Plus headshot gives a nice stun.

Typically in WvW, I'm running either D/P and Rifle as DE or Sw/P and SB as DD. I shied away from D/D in WvW solely because it's not viable in zergs and the damage output in a pure power build is less than Sw/P or Rifle as DD or DE.