Blade of Alacrity [aDPS]

The purpose of writing this guide is to provide a competent DPS options with good alacrity uptime and decent DPS output in group PVE content. While weapon swaps are not included in the rotation, swapping to another dagger or a ranged option remains viable choices. This build is functional in both open world and instanced content. While this build has a a moderate skill floor, it has a higher achievable damage ceiling once the basics are secured. Because of the differences in condition types and trait interactions, this build is not efficient with torment unless special arrangements are made, thus this guide assumes you are only using dual/triple daggers.

The alternative weapon sets (spear and scepter) are not covered in this guide due to easily cancelled skills and complexity of execution. Daggers unfortunately, do have a small amount of forced movement. The issues and workarounds with the rotation will be discussed in the guide with a primary focus on accessibility and choosing fights. The featured build is selective for utilities that do not hinder the rotation on mobile fights and has preference for utilities that are multifunctional and smoothens the gameplay experience. Time sensitive skills that disrupt the rotation or involve more button presses may be played situationally and adopted as deemed necessary. This build has intermediate difficulty and although the APM is relatively low, high ping, slow execution and fumbling with your skills can lead to a massive drop in DPS.

Gearing and Consumables

GW2Skills Links

1. Daggers Loadout

Equipment

• Full Ritualist's

• You may swap a few pieces for Viper's for a negligible increase in DPS when you are comfortable with the uptime
• Different sigils have different effects on DPS depending on your utilities. You are already capped on poison duration.

Weapon Swap Options

Food

• Any standard condition food will work. Take note that you are already capped on poison duration.

Utility

•  Magnanimous Tuning Crystal(Condi)

Build

Alac DPS (Optimised)

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Trait Alternatives

1. Consume Shadows is able to provide group barrier if that is missing from your group.^[1]
2. Traversing Dusk can refill your shroud meter if you bring wells.^[2]

Rotation and Utilities

Ensure skill 1 on both shroud and daggers are set to autocast. Prioritising your auto-chains on top of other skills will lead to a DPS/Alac drop.

Rotation

Precasts - Thieves Guild (Elite) and Utilities (use these on cooldown) Opener - Siphon (🫳F1) and Enter Shadow Shroud (🥷F2) and use them on cooldown.

1. Alacrity Rotation (In Shroud 🥷) - Grasping Shadows (🥷2) + Eternal Night (🥷4) on cooldown.^[3]
2. DPS rotation - Exit Shroud and Spam Death Blossom (🗡️3)^[4]
3. Cast utilities during/after step 2.^[5]
4. Use up all your initiative with Death Blossom (🗡️3). If your initiative is 0, try to do a few uninterrupted full auto chains till Enter Shadow Shroud is refreshed.^[6]
5. Reset the rotation using Enter Shadow Shroud (🥷F2).^[7]

Utilties

1. Utilities to cast on cooldown
   • Spider Venom
   • Devourer Venom
   • Caltrops
   • Thousand Needles
   • Well of Sorrow (viable on less mobile fights)
2. Optional Situational Utilities
   • Basilisk Venom
   • Well of Bounty
   • Well of Gloom
3. Other Strategic Options
   • Shadowstep
   • Prepare Shadow Portal

Note: All the utilites are optional as your rotation is predetermined by your weapon and shroud skills.

CC options

• Basilisk Venom is your best CC skill.
• In shroud, you can use Dawn's Repose(🥷3)/ Mind Shock(🥷5) to CC

Sustainability

1. Death Blossom (🗡️3) is an evade. You spend almost half the time in evade frames.
2. Enter Shadow Shroud is your second health bar. You spend almost half the time on your second health bar.

Optimisation

Raid Ready

1. W1 Vale Guardian - Consume Shadows before greens gives your healers a super easy time. Dawn's Repose also adds barrier that fears red orbs away. You can take on guardians of any colour and you have a boon strip through Bountiful Theft.
2. W1 Gorseval - Thousand Needles is a prolonged immobilise that can stop spirits in their tracks. It is also a great damage skills which you can precast before each main boss phase.
3. W1 Sabetha - Be careful with Death Blossom during the flamethrower phase. Bring Basilisk Venom for Knuckles.
4. W2 Bandit Trio - Place thousand needles along saboteur routes.
5. W2 Matthias - Bring Basilisk Venom to break allies free. Use your shroud CCs if it is not available.
6. W3 Escort - The large amounts of HP, cleaves and evades make this a good build to fight on towers solo. You also have plenty of immobilise options for backwarg.
7. W4 Cairn - This build is effective on this fight. Stay in shroud and stack alacrity when he is bouncing around/out of reach.
8. W4 Mursaat Overseer - Its probably good to bring a thief so you can open the door to the next fight.
9. W4 Samarog - Bring Basilisk Venom to break allies free but this is only available on alternate break bars. Use Thousand Needles or your shroud CCs if it is not available.
10. W4 Deimos - Thousand Needles can be used when prides are nearby. Death Blossom can drop you in the oil so have bit of clearance.
11. W5 Soulless Horror - You may use your wells/shadowsteps to get through walls. Bring Basilisk Venom as failing the breakbar is of dire consequence.
12. W5 Dhuum - Shadowstep is good for this fight, especially CM! Using Enter Shadow Shroud at 10% skips the ball collection phase.
13. W6 Twin Largos - Right lane (Kenut) is favourable for condition damage. If timed well, you can use Death Blossom (🗡️3) to dodge the wave. If you need a wider window, evading drops Lesser Caltrops too, which is still pretty nifty.
14. W6 Qadim - You will probably be joining the main squad. Death Blossom (🗡️3) can be used to dodge the main boss's wave. You may also precast CCs during sub-boss phases.
15. W7 Adina - Shadowstep options help you move around the arena quickly and can be used in advanced tactics in statics, use your imagination.
16. W7 Sabir - Try not to blindly Death Blossom into the red tornado.

Consider an alternative build for

1. W2 Slothasor - This build does not perform well on Slothasor as conditions reset when he sleeps. Bringing a power option is recommended but this is not a strict contraindication.
2. W3 Keep Construct - Bringing a power option is recommended but this is not a strict contraindication.
3. W3 Xera - Bringing a power option is recommended but this is not a strict contraindication.
4. W6 Conjured Amalgamate - Bringing a power option is recommended.
5. W7 Qadim the Peerless - If you need to pylon kite, just play a deadeye.

Benchmark

The benchmark is based on budget food and no infusions.

1. Barriers scale according to your vitality so investment into healing power is not necessary. ↩

2. This scales to more than 5 players, and is very useful in open world and Raids/Strikes, less so in fractals. ↩

3. You may need to stay in shroud for a longer period of time (due to range or to extend alacrity), usually a rotation of 2 casts of 🥷2 is sufficient. ↩

4. Note: Your shroud skill may be non-responsive and doesn't queue well after Death Blossom (🗡️3)'s aftercast. ↩

5. Some of these have no cast time and can be done mid animation. ↩

6. Your initiative can carry over to the next dagger loop. Unless you are confident that you won't interrupt your autos, you should allow a bit of leeway for your auto chains. ↩

7. This rotation is surprisingly short, you need to enter shroud as soon as you can and not muck about. ↩