Guild Wars 2

Short(er) Version: What stats are best for a P/P + SB ranged Thief? I assume you want a crit build, because of Unload. Does Power actually affect Crit Damage (e.g. is it included in the base damage part of the Critical Hit calculation)?

I’m level 62 right now. My gear is rubbish, but I’ve been trying to go for Power + Precision gear to make P/P work. Well, I have to Unload like 4-6 times to down one mob (level 52). It feels like I’m slapping them with wet noodles, it’s just ridiculous.

I’m spec’d 0/15/0/20/17 at the moment. Swapping to P/D I feel like I do the same damage just spamming auto-attack and Dancing Dagger as I do P/P. If I get a Sneak Attack and/or Caltrops things go down real fast. I don’t want to make this a debate between P/P and P/D, but I do want to make sure I’m doing the most for my P/P build so that I can make a fair judgement call.

My current stats are:
Power: 734 (130)
Precision: 951 (347)
Crit Chance: 29
Crit Dmg: 24
Condition Dmg: 318
Weapon Dmg: 510

I’m not using any venoms or signets in my build.

Thanks for the advice!

The problem with P/P is that, yes, you want to stack power/critdmg/precision if you’re going to be spamming Unload, but any time you’re unable to spam Unload and have to resort to auto attacks you’re going to be doing substandard auto attacks due to a lack of condition damage. Your best bet for a P/P power build is to invest heavily in crit chance and initiative regeneration (especially things like initiative-on-crit from the crit trait tree) and hope that your initiative regeneration can keep up with your use of Unload so you don’t have to resort to condition-heavy attacks in your power/crit build.

Well, I do wonder if I should go for Sigil of Earth (60% chance on crit to cause bleeding) and stack Condition Dmg, Crit Chance, and Condition Duration. However, browsing gear in the build calculators it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot with that particular combination.

Also, is it just typical that fighting a normal mob, that it will take 6+ Unloads to down them? Just makes the whole experience feel weak.

Thanks!

SpaceCowboy.1398:

Also, is it just typical that fighting a normal mob, that it will take 6+ Unloads to down them?

That doesn’t sound right, but Unload is not that amazing burst-damage wise so it could be possible depending on your stats. People see the high damage numbers on the skill and think it must be an impressive way to do damage in a short period, but with how long the channel is you’re getting barely any more damage out of spamming Unload instead of a power-based auto attack. As soon as you go to 2+ mobs at once, sword/shortbow auto attack are going to do more damage than Unload in a similar period.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Skill-Coefficients-for-all-the-Thief-weapons/first#post451556 is a good post to compare your skills’ damage/DPS potential.

One thing that could help would be to make all pistol attacks pierce like speargun attacks. At least then they’d hold some AE capability.