Guild Wars 2

So, I have all my materials together to make an ascended huntsman weapon.

Since I use Shortbow as my secondary weapon in pretty much all my builds and when in zergs, I figured Shortbow would be my best bet as my first Ascended. The problem I’m having is that I can’t decide what stat combo to go with.

Typically, I run a mix of Beserker and Valkyrie gear, but the Shortbow would benefit from some condition damage. My current exotic bow is Carrion, which I feel works fine, but it’s likely that the extra Condition Damage isn’t actually helping my bleeds and poison enough.

So, just wondering what other thieves would go for Shortbow stats? (Or should I forget about the shortbow and get an ascended pistol instead, even though it’s my off-hand?)

Get a legendary problem solved!
If you cant do that i prefer agressive stats as zerk or if you are in big zergs all the time i would go with PTV

Nothing but math here. Carrion ascended Shortbow has +188 Condition damage, which is an extra ~9-10 damage per bleed stack, or ~19 damage per poison tick. If your build is mostly power-based anyway, I think I’d rather have the extra +10% crit damage, for Cluster Bomb.

What’s your main hand? Dagger?

Main hand swaps between Dagger and Sword, depending what I’m doing.

S/P may be considered a weak spec, but I still enjoy it for general PVE use.

Going hybrid Power/Condition damage is suboptimal.

Commit to one or the other. If you’re a Power build then get Berserker stats. Defensive stats aren’t that important on the Shortbow since it’s a naturally defensive weapon. You aren’t typically in much danger of taking damage when you switch to Shortbow.

And then you can always spam Disabling Shot.

Clusterbomb does an insane amount of damage on a Power build. Easily up to 6000 with sufficient Crit-Damage. That’s way better than having additional 10 bleed-damage ticks.

I made dagger first and used my valk weapon chest on a pistol. Then quit thief to play warrior and made mace/shield and greatsword .

Dee Jay.2460:

Going hybrid Power/Condition damage isn’t really viable.
…….

Viable for what? Very little in this game requires you to fully commit to ANY particular stat stacking or weapon set to successfully survive most aspects of the game.

Your points are all valid EXCEPT for stating something isn’t “viable”…. “not the most efficient at killing faster” is more applicable to what you really mean.

I don’t think Dee Jay.2460 is anything wrong there. The point is that Op seemed to be asking which stat doing the best DPS.

Coldin.2840:

Main hand swaps between Dagger and Sword, depending what I’m doing.

S/P may be considered a weak spec, but I still enjoy it for general PVE use.

I think that Pistol is a good decision too, then. It really comes down to how often you use your Shortbow, because having a strong ascended in your offhand does help both of your D/P and S/P specs. Nothing wrong with an exotic Berserker’s Shortbow, if all you really employ it for is zerging and finishers, for example.

Okay. Thanks for the advice guys. I’ll probably still mull it over for the next few days, but it sounds like I’ll be just fine going for a Berserker shortbow since I don’t spec for condition damage anyway. Probably I’ll go for the pistol next, since I’m really just lacking the empyreal shards.

Though, I wonder if Valkyrie may be a better choice on a shortbow for the extra Vitality while in a zerg. Probably not since it would only get me an extra couple hits at best.

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

Walker.3056:

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

You get nothing from the Vitality when you swap to it during combat, and its sub stat Toughness, while Knights is main stat Toughness, which is the only thing that matters IMO.

wish.1027:

Walker.3056:

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

You get nothing from the Vitality when you swap to it during combat, and its sub stat Toughness, while Knights is main stat Toughness, which is the only thing that matters IMO.

I don’t know. Still think I would prefer main stat power over main stat toughness. If I was going to take Toughness main stat, I’d probably shoot for Cavalier’s.

wish.1027:

Walker.3056:

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

You get nothing from the Vitality when you swap to it during combat, and its sub stat Toughness, while Knights is main stat Toughness, which is the only thing that matters IMO.

Care to explain how in that situation, Vitality is useless while Toughness is useful? And out of anything you would rather have your Power drops?

Siva Mira.3546:

wish.1027:

Walker.3056:

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

You get nothing from the Vitality when you swap to it during combat, and its sub stat Toughness, while Knights is main stat Toughness, which is the only thing that matters IMO.

Care to explain how in that situation, Vitality is useless while Toughness is useful? And out of anything you would rather have your Power drops?

I’m not too sure but I think he meant that the extra vitality would be useless when in combat if your health is already down a bit, it wouldn’t really help in that situation because it would raise your max hp and not current hp at that moment (I think) So the toughness would be better because it reduces damage. Again i’m not sure..

Invizible.2960:

Siva Mira.3546:

wish.1027:

Walker.3056:

wish.1027:

Knights shortbow is the best, since shortbow is only useful for running away and spamming blast finishers.

Why not use PTV then?

You get nothing from the Vitality when you swap to it during combat, and its sub stat Toughness, while Knights is main stat Toughness, which is the only thing that matters IMO.

Care to explain how in that situation, Vitality is useless while Toughness is useful? And out of anything you would rather have your Power drops?

I’m not too sure but I think he meant that the extra vitality would be useless when in combat if your health is already down a bit, it wouldn’t really help in that situation because it would raise your max hp and not current hp at that moment (I think) So the toughness would be better because it reduces damage. Again i’m not sure..

Thats exactly it.

You only put on shortbow for three situations; when youre injured, in combat, and running away, or just moving around or using blast finishers. For the first situation having Vitality on your weapon will not raise your current HP when you swap to it in combat, but the extra Toughness will help you live as you run if you take any hits. Youre not attacking anyone, youre spamming 5 to get away, thats why only main stat toughness matters. Other than that you only use shortbow for moving around and blast finishers which also have nothing to do with DPS, so stat distribution doesn’t matter for those situations.

If youre attacking people with a shortbow, youre playing thief terribly wrong.

wish.1027:

If youre attacking people with a shortbow, youre playing thief terribly wrong.

I’m not too sure about that, I can think of one (but only one) situation that SB is desirable above any other weapon set – Grawl Shaman at high levels. Unparalleled AoE capabilities against the army of lava elementals, tons of blasts for water fields and unlimited evasion for kiting if someone else goes down or needs help (I always get permanent aggro in full zerk w/ Scholar from this nutcase, so it helps).

Sure, you can swap to it for the blast/kiting + shield phases and melee when he’s alone and nobody is in trouble (usually use D/D for that), but honestly I get lazy in that fractal.