1 shot thief?

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said:

> > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said:

> > > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > > > > @"Zakuchi.8120" said:

> > > > > i thought Anet was moving away from these 1 shot builds, but enlighten me on how a thief can do 10k cloak and dagger into 22k backstab? (in wvw)

> > > >

> > > > I guess since I'm basically the D/D Assassin's Signet spokesperson I'll provide some insight.

> > > >

> > > > It comes from playing glass using core-game gear with no defensive trait lines, no passives, and either no dedicated condi cleanse, no stunbreak, or no other miscellaneous utility. DA/CS/Tr with Assassin's Signet and full damage traits all the way from the DA adept to Tr GM. That or CS/Tr(orDA)/DE but it's kinda meh without the mobility from steal.

> > > >

> > > > Zerk+Valk combo for gear - marauder loses way too much power and ferocity. With valk you lose damage from food and are required to take HK over NQ also cutting damage pretty drastically, but you may survive. For consistent 20k+ full berserker gear is the only available option. Force + Impact sigils (only on core thief as Meld > BV) to scale harder. Fire/Air is stronger but on-crit passives are lame and will cost the per-skill damage.

> > > >

> > > > I suggest you try the build. Played poorly it basically dies to everything; played moderately it dies to anything but noobs or people who don't see you and have bad reflexes; played well it's mean and can catch the average player not expecting the damage off guard and may be playable into some good players, but as soon as they know it's coming it usually just loses any given fight it tries to partake in because it has no means of negating incoming threats which good players will be able to land.

> > > >

> > > > To be honest, the damage is actually kind of average if not below average compared to what many other professions are capable of in a similar amount of time and with a similar amount of investment in their build.

> > >

> > > I thought they changed the signet build, no more might from signet use? No reason to not have a stunbreak now.

> >

> > Somewhat. They removed the might and took away Assassin's Signet's 15% increased damage modifier in place of giving it a high flat power.

> > What they did was move a huge chunk of damage to SoS active since it applies 10 stacks of vuln now. So combined, the signets are similar to the old effect of activating two.

> >

> > You can opt out of Infil Signet for Shadowstep, but last I was aware, Improv doesn't reset Shadowstep while Shadow Return is available, making a condi cleanse + stunbreak combination possibly available (mind you, it does become a shared thing so you need to cast wisely), but it also has a higher cooldown and most notably re-increases the gap between you and your foe, while also 100% locking you out of a reset (if I'm wrong on this, let me know). This can be a pro and heavily depends on matchup, but you can't simply just disengage from most of the more dominant roaming builds (like a longbow ranger, mirage, GS warrior, or guardian with JI) with just Shadow Return alone, so sometimes the increased teleport cooldown is just a huge loss. Not to mention, when most people take the nuke from Mug + CnD, they usually pop all defenses and mobility and just try to reset knowing you lack mobility on D/D. Sure you can then disengage, but Shadowstep's cooldown is usually as long or longer than most others' engage/disengage tools, and in the case of longbow soulbeast, it gets the priority for re-engagement on all fronts, and just returns with a one-shot kill on RF regardless of if you teleport out or not.

> >

> > There are very few matchups where hard disengaging out of response to being hit by something is beneficial when playing D/D considering you need to then burn something else to get back into the fight, and your range options are usually outmatched when taking into account range and damage dealt vs damage taken as % hp. It basically amounts solely to holosmith and power hammer warrior since they'll one-combo-kill you. But realistically speaking, D/D isn't the kit that's killing a holo; it has way too much burst damage negation to make optimizing around utilities worthwhile, and hammer warrior isn't exactly something encountered often. Better off just trying to bait these moves and knowing to dodge them.

> >

> > Big numbers are still available without SoS as well, but then you start getting into territory where you have no bonus movespeed options outside of 50% uptime (at best) on ToTC. This is a pretty big deal when you live and die by being able to stick to your target to land CnD for both your damage and defense, and also when you have no OOC stealth to roam safer or simply just to avoid being pressured; if you do not land CnD when you need to, you die or waste 5 initiative - Anyone with permaswiftness can just engage on you and you have no answers either. In a lot of cases when playing aggressively, SoS isn't worth burning at the start of a fight for the opening burst, but rather used instead after they use their immunities/defenses/etc. since Mug/CnD damage will usually trigger some kind of passive or response from the enemy as it is, negating the boosted backstab and also timing out your swiftness from ToTC leaving you with downtime where you can't mantain aggression. Again, also depending on matchups, something like a mesmer, spellbreaker, or another thief can also just steal your swiftness at the onset of the fight and render you useless and unable to even hit a CnD until that full 20s when Steal becomes available again, so I find myself using SoS most-effectively for its blind in order to negate such CC or the subsequent lethal damage in the first place, since it has absolutely zero cast time and can foil multiple targets' coordination efforts.

> >

> > Maybe it's just because I have so much experience with the setup, but while D/D is playable (barely) without going for a huge OHKO build with signets, I don't think it's worth playing outside of the signets when playing D/D as a OHKO burst build featured around huge critical hits (assuming Assassin's Signet is part of that), just because I think the loss of the one utility slot to fill a lot of the gaps in the burst build due to Assassin's Signet is absolutely massive, and most of the utilities do not solve these weaknesses except in matchup-specific ways.

> >

> > If DB was a movement skill, this whole conversation ends - Shadowstep and RFI 100% become the way to play the kit since it would then have a reliable engage tool.

>

> Interesting thoughts. Have you played the DE stealth build with D/D? I used that with assassin signet SS and RFI for a while, I found it had some major advantages over D/P considering I was using it as an execution set anyways so I was hardly ever using shadow shot. Death blossom becomes a nice way to build malice when close quarters or revealed (baiting warriors with it is pretty effective) or avoid a hit on a spec that lacks dodges in general. The stolen skills with 5 malice means you're not always forced to go melee for a stealth from cloak and dagger, which made playing around groups much easier. Rifle offers a lot of utility that shortbow lacks, and the range combined with shadowstep makes killing an enemy that survived a backstab much easier. Damage wise, you often don't need cloak and dagger, 20-30k stabs are common with malice buildup. It requires a bit more setup sure, but it has a lot of perks over core D/D for sure.

 

The thing about DE with D/D is that you're basically forced into playing heavily into the rifle; without the rifle, most of the kit is dead weight considering D/P outclasses it in most aspects, and DB has punish frames with its ending cast which some skilled players can take advantage of.

 

Rifle is strong, but considering it's already going to be utilized as a bursting and engage/disengage weapon, there's little incentive to bring D/D aside from just durdling via DB to survive via extra dodges and to get an MBS. But frankly, I think S/D and even S/P bring more value given their superior evades and generally more reliable damage, with the former providing better setup for DJ via boon denial, and latter not requiring use of malice and allowing for things like PW+DJ. As mentioned, CnD isn't really utilized, and generally speaking, OH pistol is going to bring more value thanks to the blind field and head shot's interrupt.

 

D/D's play-ability on DE is more about DE+rifle being strong enough on its own to allow it to function well-enough in more cases than what core offers, rather than through any innate synergy with D/D - D/P with some slight playstyle adjustments generally does everything better.