Daredevil - Condi P/P Blind Spammer

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Hybrid damage

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on June 01, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

The gameplan of this rather obnoxious 1v1 focused PvP Daredevil build is simple: use Bounding Dodger in Black Powder for stealth, follow up Sneak Attack - repeat until the target dies. Due to its simplistic playstyle it's also quite beginner friendly.

Skill Bar

Pistol/Pistol

Shortbow

Utility

Slot Changes

Utility

Blinding Powder can be replaced by:

• Prepare Thousand Needles - AoE burst damage that can cover an entire capture point on some maps.

• Signet of Shadows - passive movement speed boost and the active adds a lot of cover conditions to burst combos. The passive also makes it possible to drop Rune of Lynx or Relic of the Wayfinder and take stronger options for these slots.

• Roll for Initiative - stun break with extra initiative and an evade frame. Also cleanses some non-damaging conditions.

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Specializations

Variants

• Sleight of Hand - lowers your burst damage but gives you more frequent access to Stealing and turns Steal into an instant interrupt. The CD reduction on Stealing also helps with Vigor uptime which is crucial to the build.

Equipment

Pistol

Pistol

Sigil

Sigil

Shortbow

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Lynx - by taking this rune for the passive movement speed you get to drop the current relic for something else, but Lynx has slightly worse stats. Your sustained damage will be lower.

• Rune of Orr - good stats and the the anti-condition aspect could help in mirror matchups, or against any other condi build in general.

Relics

• Relic of the Fractal - better burst damage and more condition variety on your Sneak Attack spam, but has a 20s cooldown.

• Relic of the Demon Queen - the healing reduction could help you wear down the more tanky builds, but doesn't really add more raw damage to the build as the build only has 1 CC skill by default.

Usage

General

• Much of the sustain in the build comes from spamming Blind and stealth attacks.

• Spamming projectiles while inside Black Powder (BP) is both your primary source of defense and offense.

• If you don't have the initiative for BP or if you're under heavy pressure, use Smoke Screen. This is the best defensive skill in the build, keeping you safe from both melee and projectile pressure while also proccing Blind related traits and providing a combo field for stealthing.

• When you get low on HP or you feel like you need to wait for CDs/initiative to come back, simply linger in stealth for a while instead of ambushing.

• Blinding Powder is an excellent defensive skill. Not only is it a stun break and instant source of stealth, it's also a blast finisher that can be used inside Blinding Powder and Smoke Screen for even more stealth.

• Hide in Shadows provides much needed cleansing and another option for stealthing without having to set up a combo field first.

• Shadow's Embrace provides a steady stream of condition cleansing, as entering/exiting stealth frequently is part of your rotation.
  • Other sources of condition removal include Shadowstep's chain skill, but Escapist's Fortitude and Sigil of Purging.

• Headshot won't be used much except for interrupting important skills (such as healing or rez attempts). When used in a smoke field like BP this will not only interrupt their current action, but also makes their next attack miss because of the Blind from the projectile finisher. That interaction also makes this rather strong when you're under pressure and need to survive.

• Dagger Storm is mainly for defense. The on-demand evade frame coupled with potential blinding projectiles while used in a smoke field could not only save you from lethal damage but also heal you up. The healing scales with the number of enemy targets.

Damage

• Most of the damage comes from spamming Sneak Attack.

• Shadow's Rejuvenation provides passive Initiative generation while doing your burst rotation. Use this excess Initiative to use some filler skills while you can't re-enter Stealth.

• Unload is a strong but expensive filler which works very much like Sneak Attack except for being a less reliable projectile finisher. Try to use it inside Black Powder whenever possible.

Core burst rotation:

1. Black Powder
2. Dodge inside BP to proc Bounding Dodger for stealth
3. Sneak Attack while standing inside BP for 100% chance to combo blinding projectiles for sustain.

Related Builds

• Daredevil - Celestial P/P - WvW roaming version of the build.