Guild Wars 2

I currently have a 61 engineer and looking to level up an alt. Considering thief, but I want to stay ranged. So I’m wondering: is a thief with P/P and shortbow viable or does damage suffer significantly compared to D/D or D/P type builds?

I looked through the stickied build thread, but only saw a P/P build for PvE. My question is more focused on only using P/P and shortbow, no melee.

Main problem is a way to slow people. The bow has it but it also evades back which is a pain if you are chasing. P/P just has no way to slow people aside from a .5 sec daze.

No it’s not viable. P/P is by far the worst weapon set, and Shortbow you actually have to be up close, almost melee range, to deal effective damage.

May want to look at the Ranger class for ranged dmg.

Thanks for the info. Arakinis, I am trying to avoid pet based classes. Tried Ranger, but yeah the pet wasn’t doing it for me. Also want to stick with pistols or rifles for primary damage. Shortbow was primarily for its AoE’s.

Try warrior with rifle. I’ve been hit for like 15K in one shot from them. I think if you spec right they do tons of ranged dmg.

I’ve recently dabbled in thieves (lvl 43) and love playing P/P & shortbow for PvE and WvW. Shortbow, while a bit stunted on range, can apply lots of condi dmg and control, absolutely great for big WvW fights and mobs with adds. I enjoy P/P for soling pve stuffs.

Your killing power is subpar with range weapons. Bow is great for aoe but is atrocious for single target dps. Pistols are the best single target range dmg but the dmg is bad compared to daggers. When i’m stuck using pistols in pve because I can’t melee a certain boss, my dmg is reduced by at least half. No exaggeration.

Damage does suffer a bit. But you gain a little extra survivability that is lacking on the melee options. For thieves, ranged damage basically means condition damage. And condition damage as a stat is kind of lackluster right now, but is supposed to improve in a future patch.

I am using a P/D theif, all I can say is what a blast, especially against melee. They get close you stealth gain distance then pop your special on auto. Lots of fun. Not sure if that helps ya, its a condition build that is a mid range. If you go with sb as alt you can pop aoe poison and shoot through it to stack some more cond dmg in there.