Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow thieves. My name is Scoots and I am here today to teach you about how you can become a successful end game rogue.

P/P was is a seriously underestimated weapon-set. I attribute this to bad builds and not counting bleed damage. When players build a full crit P/P thief they shudder whenever they see the damage from vital shot. They shouldn’t; the base damage is amazing considering how fast it shoots, on top of that you get an additional 300-500 more damage from the bleed (group might buff anyone?).

That being said, with the correct build, you will still rarely be using vital shot. With the proper build and initiative management you will out-dps most D/D rogues. I’ve heard people say P/P has less “mobility” then D/D, but honestly I don’t see how that has anything to do with PvE, you have plenty of endurance to dodge all major attacks if your positioned correctly.

Remember everyone plays different, this build has plenty of room for customization. The important thing to remember is that if you aren’t going party support (venomshare), your only job is damage, and you need to be good at it

On to the build:

This is the end game build I use while doing high level fractals. It is pure damage, with very little party support. My role in the group is just to make the fight shorter. Teamwork is necessarily if you want to live longer then 30 seconds with this build.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkMMc9rx0pfVsqMsV08kiG7khT7kiQ7070M7kGL70V7ofD70m

This is a modified survivalist build that most people should start out with. It has more defensive traits and you can trade in some of your Berserker gear for Knight’s or Valkyrie’s gear.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkMMc9rxVGfVoqcsM08kil7khT7kiQ7070M7kGL70V7owX7ow47ofD

Playing this build is pretty simple. You spam 3 and focus most of your attention on not dying. Not dying is what gives you the big advantage over melee thief; it’s why your total damage is higher even though their “DPS” might be higher.

FAQ:
Q: Why all the precision sigils? Why not might on crit or something?
A: Because berserkers only has precision as a secondary trait, and because your crit damage is so high, the best way to increase your overall damage is to push your base crit-chance as close to 80% as possible.

Q: What utilities do you use?
A: Most of the time… Hide in Shadows, Signet of Agility, Infiltrator’s Signet, and THE BATMAN kitten ABILITY (Shadow Refuge). For obvious reasons these give me more damage, condition removal, and some support. That being said there are many utilities, such as Devourer Venom during the Underground Facility Fractal’s final boss, that you will want to swap around.

Q: Thanks for pointing out the obvious.
A: Your welcome. ^o^ However it’s not obvious, and the number of P/P rogues that pass up Fluid Strikes is disturbing.

Q: Shortbow is an AoE weapon and does more DPS, why bother with P/P.
A: What an excellent looking question! As most dungeons go you have several groups of lesser mobs called “trash” you also have giant mobs called “bosses.” The shortbow is used in this build to deal with the trash because AoE will always out DPS single target DPS against multiple enemies. But the P/P comes into play during bosses, when you don’t have 10 targets to hit, you just have 1. While doing explorable dungeons and low level fractals, the shortbow is defiantly strong enough to get by, even against single targets.

Q: Why use Preparedness instead of Sundering Strikes?
A: Honestly, I really wish I could use Sundering Strikes instead of Preparedness, and you can if you want to. Personally it just doesn’t feel right. When I see 3 max initiative I don’t just see 3 total initiative for the whole fight. Looking deeper into how fights work you’ll notice it’s actually 3 initiative whenever you deal with an event, have to heal an ally, get downed, have to pick up an item, are unable to DPS for a few seconds, ect… 10/30/0/25/5 and 0/30/0/25/15 are both great traits to use for this build.

Yea Fluid Strike is awesome, i’m also kinda curious as to why so many thieves try to build p/p with 25-30 points into deadly arts while it’s obvious we rely on movement and mobility much more than stealth.

Which brings me to my question, why hide in shadows ? You would get a much more steady dps out of healing yourself through signet of malice, in my opinion, i know you put those 15 points into trickery and buffed your condtion damage a bit but to me your first mistake comes with using thrill of the crime, while there are other classes which will help the team get fury way better than you will.
Also, put any necro or ranger in your team and your bleed stacks won’t be that usefull most of the time.

Since you said you didn’t build that much for support, i think you should consider dropping the trickery line entirely and put at least 10 points into DA, in order to grab either mug or sundering strikes.

The last 5 points i don’t really know, but i know you don’t need those extra 3 initiative either in order to keep unload ready at all times.
It’s true it seems a good investment since acrobatics doesn’t have any good grand master trait, but then why not putting it at 30 and pick assassin’s reward, for example, further improving your ability to play the dodging regenerating turret.

As for utilities and elites it can be very situational so, while i agree with your pick, personnaly i switch those very often during a single dungeon run; although the infiltrator signet is not mendatory either to keep unload ready, the only times i pick this one are when i find myself dps’ing a target immuned to crits (yellow health bar, like objects, turrets, and a few boss)

I’d still much rather have a Thief spaming Clusterbomb than a Thief spaming Unload. Both do similar damage but one is AoE and triggers combo fields….and the other is just damage.

Talk about a boring play-style too. You’re literally not bringing anything aside from damage. And the fact that you pigeon-hole yourself into a Single Weapon set and prefer utilities with little/no group support is a sign of a bad Thief.

Sorry, I withdraw my post. I didn’t notice that trait-wise this build is almost opposite of mine.

Dee Jay.2460:

I’d still much rather have a Thief spaming Clusterbomb than a Thief spaming Unload. Both do similar damage but one is AoE and triggers combo fields….and the other is just damage.

Talk about a boring play-style too. You’re literally not bringing anything aside from damage. And the fact that you pigeon-hole yourself into a Single Weapon set and prefer utilities with little/no group support is a sign of a bad Thief.

Clusterbomb doesn’t do nearly as much damage as unload, less then half actually… It also requires melee range for full speed spamming. Also… combo fields? REALLY?

There is no boring play-style when you hit level 30 in fotm, you are literally always on your toes. As for the single weapon set, this build actually works extremely well with spamming cluster-bomb from a short-bow.

Killing big groups of mobs you use the short-bow, but the hard parts of dungeons are bosses, that’s why you center a build around single target damage, then work in what AoE you can. With full Berserkers and insane initiative regain, short-bow does just fine at clearing trash.

Clusterbomb outdamages unload and is an aoe attack, don’t see why you go P/P, its a worthless weapon set.

Scootabuser.4915:

Dee Jay.2460:

I’d still much rather have a Thief spaming Clusterbomb than a Thief spaming Unload. Both do similar damage but one is AoE and triggers combo fields….and the other is just damage.

Talk about a boring play-style too. You’re literally not bringing anything aside from damage. And the fact that you pigeon-hole yourself into a Single Weapon set and prefer utilities with little/no group support is a sign of a bad Thief.

Clusterbomb doesn’t do nearly as much damage as unload, less then half actually… It also requires melee range for full speed spamming. Also… combo fields? REALLY?

There is no boring play-style when you hit level 30 in fotm, you are literally always on your toes. As for the single weapon set, this build actually works extremely well with spamming cluster-bomb from a short-bow.

Killing big groups of mobs you use the short-bow, but the hard parts of dungeons are bosses, that’s why you center a build around single target damage, then work in what AoE you can. With full Berserkers and insane initiative regain, short-bow does just fine at clearing trash.

Do you do WvW, if so what build,weapons,sigils,gear and runes do you run with?

Lunatic.9314:

Scootabuser.4915:

Dee Jay.2460:

I’d still much rather have a Thief spaming Clusterbomb than a Thief spaming Unload. Both do similar damage but one is AoE and triggers combo fields….and the other is just damage.

Talk about a boring play-style too. You’re literally not bringing anything aside from damage. And the fact that you pigeon-hole yourself into a Single Weapon set and prefer utilities with little/no group support is a sign of a bad Thief.

Clusterbomb doesn’t do nearly as much damage as unload, less then half actually… It also requires melee range for full speed spamming. Also… combo fields? REALLY?

There is no boring play-style when you hit level 30 in fotm, you are literally always on your toes. As for the single weapon set, this build actually works extremely well with spamming cluster-bomb from a short-bow.

Killing big groups of mobs you use the short-bow, but the hard parts of dungeons are bosses, that’s why you center a build around single target damage, then work in what AoE you can. With full Berserkers and insane initiative regain, short-bow does just fine at clearing trash.

Do you do WvW, if so what build,weapons,sigils,gear and runes do you run with?

5/0/30/20/15 P/D and D/D Carrion 45% bleed runes bleed duration sigils, ambush and shadow trap

Daecollo.9578:

Clusterbomb outdamages unload and is an aoe attack, don’t see why you go P/P, its a worthless weapon set.

Lol what? Do you even play a theif?

I’m going to say this and some people are going to bash me but I believe P/P is just as strong as D/D (In terms of Damage output) but lacks some usefulness.

This is the build I use, I do this because I main D/D as a full zerker, so holing myself into P/P will just gimp me in many situations.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkMMzz9MMbFLmMxoLm0xp0fcaqmzV08khT70z7kiQ7070M7kGL70V7ofD70m

Ok well I like my build and the utilities I use. Hide In Shadows gives me two stealth, removed conditions. IF I have any conditions not removed, my other trait removes them (such as cripple and ect.) Then Roll for Ini is used more for a break stun GTFO type of restort since as D/D and P/P lack mobility compared to P/D or SB. Shadow Refuge is nice for support, could be switched, however it offers really nice HP Regen w/ Pistol (You go invis, use 1, spam unload and hope quickness procs, its good to keep a timer in your head for how often quickness has procced). Then my last utility could be either Smoke Screen, a signet, a deception, or anything really. Same w/ Elite.

Unload (above 50%) hits from anywhere of 2.4k-5.3k on mobs and bosses. Below 50% I hit from 3k-8k. BS+CnD hits from 4k-6k and below 50%, 6k-12k. Benefits of using unload is that I get to be ranged, its faster burst damage, and simpler. I give up constant cond. removal, and slight higher DPS burst. I normally switch back and forth depending on situation. Clusterbomb on the other hand hits for 2.1k (single target). I do use SB but only in the Dredge fractal & THAT IS IT. Everywhere else I find myself hitting one target. That’s why P/P is viable.

Daecollo.9578:

Clusterbomb outdamages unload and is an aoe attack, don’t see why you go P/P, its a worthless weapon set.

Just tested it now, cluster-bomb does about 3100-3400 + 500(x1-3) bleed. (Above 50%)

Unload does 6000-7000. (Above 50%)

On top of that cluster-bomb is only spammable if your at point blank range…
I’m providing numbers, where are yours?

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Clusterbomb outdamages unload and is an aoe attack, don’t see why you go P/P, its a worthless weapon set.

Just tested it now, cluster-bomb does about 3100-3400 + 500(x1-3) bleed. (Above 50%)

Unload does 6000-7000. (Above 50%)

On top of that cluster-bomb is only spammable if your at point blank range…
I’m providing numbers, where are yours?

Unload isn’t an AOE Attack, it only hits one target, it also doesn’t get the extra effects since its not a blast finisher, its a low chance to do a projectile finisher, which isn’t nearly as good.

Cluster Bomb costs 2 less initiative, with Cluster bomb and Choking Gas, I can get 30 seconds of poison on multiple mobs, alone.

Cluster Bomb out-damages Unload so much, its not even funny, or worth it to argue over, hitting a random target in the open and telling me how much damage it does is kind of stupid, in real pve or pvp, there are always combos going around.

Cluster Bomb can give 9 stacks of might, can unload do this?

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Clusterbomb outdamages unload and is an aoe attack, don’t see why you go P/P, its a worthless weapon set.

Just tested it now, cluster-bomb does about 3100-3400 + 500(x1-3) bleed. (Above 50%)

Unload does 6000-7000. (Above 50%)

On top of that cluster-bomb is only spammable if your at point blank range…
I’m providing numbers, where are yours?

Unload isn’t an AOE Attack, it only hits one target, it also doesn’t get the extra effects since its not a blast finisher.

Cluster Bomb costs 2 less initiative, with Cluster bomb and Choking Gas, I can get 30 seconds of poison on multiple mobs, alone.

Cluster Bomb out-damages Unload so much, its not even funny, or worth it.

There is a reason I have P/P main and shortbow as a secondary.

Short-Bow for multi-target damage, P/P for single target damage.

What is so kittening hard to understand about this… Jesus Christ…

Also… Unload is a projectile finisher…

Also… The reduced initiative doesn’t mean anything since you don’t run out of initiative with unload…

Daecollo.9578:

Cluster Bomb out-damages Unload so much, its not even funny, or worth it.

Just because you keep repeating that, doesn’t make it true. Enjoy never progressing past level 10 because you don’t want to accept reality.

Can Unload grant you and your allies 9 stacks of Might?
Can Unload grant you and your allies 18 (minimum) seconds of Poison?
Can Unload grant you and your allies 18 (minimum) seconds of Regeneration?

Is Unload an AOE attack, my Clusterbomb can hit for 25k some times!

Cluster Bomb has a 1.452 ratio, an activation time of ~0.95 seconds, and an initiative cost of 3. It also gives a single stack of bleed on hit (or 3 if detonated perfectly).

Unload has a 2.4 ratio, an activation time of ~2.2 seconds, and an initiative cost of 5.

Taking the opportunity cost of auto-attacking into account, and assuming a full dunk spec (which gives 1 second of bleed ~=0.025 ratio), you get that Cluster Bomb adds 1.002 ratio worth of damage for 3 initiative, while Unload adds 1.15 ratio for 5 initiative.

As far as rotations go, ‘Cluster Bomb, Trick Shot, Cluster Bomb, Trick Shot’ has roughly the same DPS as 100% Unload spam uptime; Cluster Bombs with 2 Trick Shots in between have the same DPS as Unload alternated with a single Vital Shot.

The DPS advantages of Unload come from being able to trait the damage up a bit higher, and from the skill being much easier to hit against targets that don’t just stand there. As a secondary weapon set against stationary PvE boss encounters, Short Bow is going to deliver just as much damage as Unload spam.

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Clusterbomb outdamages unload and is an aoe attack, don’t see why you go P/P, its a worthless weapon set.

Just tested it now, cluster-bomb does about 3100-3400 + 500(x1-3) bleed. (Above 50%)

Unload does 6000-7000. (Above 50%)

On top of that cluster-bomb is only spammable if your at point blank range…
I’m providing numbers, where are yours?

Unload isn’t an AOE Attack, it only hits one target, it also doesn’t get the extra effects since its not a blast finisher.

Cluster Bomb costs 2 less initiative, with Cluster bomb and Choking Gas, I can get 30 seconds of poison on multiple mobs, alone.

Cluster Bomb out-damages Unload so much, its not even funny, or worth it.

There is a reason I have P/P main and shortbow as a secondary.

Short-Bow for multi-target damage, P/P for single target damage.

What is so kittening hard to understand about this… Jesus Christ…

Also… Unload is a projectile finisher…

Also… The reduced initiative doesn’t mean anything since you don’t run out of initiative with unload…

Daecollo.9578:

Cluster Bomb out-damages Unload so much, its not even funny, or worth it.

Just because you keep repeating that, doesn’t make it true. Enjoy never progressing past level 10 because you don’t want to accept reality.

Can Unload grant you and your allies 9 stacks of Might?

You mean when our guardian calls out his AoE field and I switch to my Shortbow for 9 seconds and spam Clusterbomb? Followed by the swap back to P/P and the Mesmers time warp, 3 Body Shots and back to Unload. It’s called “The Burn.”

So… yes… this build can grant allies 9 stacks of Might.

Except, it takes time to switch weapons, If I did that, I could get 18 stacks of might to everyone, because I already had my short bow out!

Unload also has a longer channel time, in the time it takes to do an unload, I could do 2 cluster bombs, or a cluster bomb and choking gas at long range.

Daecollo.9578:

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Scootabuser.4915:

Daecollo.9578:

Clusterbomb outdamages unload and is an aoe attack, don’t see why you go P/P, its a worthless weapon set.

Just tested it now, cluster-bomb does about 3100-3400 + 500(x1-3) bleed. (Above 50%)

Unload does 6000-7000. (Above 50%)

On top of that cluster-bomb is only spammable if your at point blank range…
I’m providing numbers, where are yours?

Unload isn’t an AOE Attack, it only hits one target, it also doesn’t get the extra effects since its not a blast finisher.

Cluster Bomb costs 2 less initiative, with Cluster bomb and Choking Gas, I can get 30 seconds of poison on multiple mobs, alone.

Cluster Bomb out-damages Unload so much, its not even funny, or worth it.

There is a reason I have P/P main and shortbow as a secondary.

Short-Bow for multi-target damage, P/P for single target damage.

What is so kittening hard to understand about this… Jesus Christ…

Also… Unload is a projectile finisher…

Also… The reduced initiative doesn’t mean anything since you don’t run out of initiative with unload…

Daecollo.9578:

Cluster Bomb out-damages Unload so much, its not even funny, or worth it.

Just because you keep repeating that, doesn’t make it true. Enjoy never progressing past level 10 because you don’t want to accept reality.

Can Unload grant you and your allies 9 stacks of Might?

You mean when our guardian calls out his AoE field and I switch to my Shortbow for 9 seconds and spam Clusterbomb? Followed by the swap back to P/P and the Mesmers time warp, 3 Body Shots and back to Unload. It’s called “The Burn.”

So… yes… this build can grant allies 9 stacks of Might.

Except, it takes time to switch weapons, If I did that, I could get 18 stacks of might to everyone, because I already had my short bow out!

Unload also has a longer channel time, in the time it takes to do an unload, I could do 2 cluster bombs, or a cluster bomb and choking gas at long range.

P/P does more damage against single targets.

Also the clusterboobs/second is irrelevant. It’s clear you have 0 experience in high level fractals so please, stop embarrassing yourself.

Ensign.2189:

the skill being much easier to hit against targets that don’t just stand there.

And there in lies why P/P is dominant in end-game fractal content.

Scootabuser.4915:

P/P does more damage against single targets.

No, actually, it doesn’t. That’s the fascinating thing about using math to make sense of your observations. Without making use of the pistol-specific traits, the damage of the two sets is more or less identical. P/P certainly has its advantages, particularly its ease of use compared to maximizing the Short Bow – but when it comes to single target damage, the difference between the two sets is pretty negligible.

Scootabuser.4915:

And there in lies why P/P is dominant in end-game fractal content.

Ah, yes, all those end game fractal bosses that dart around the arena unpredictably, such as:

…I guess the Archdiviner moves around a bit?

I do kind of like Pistols for the Grawl Shaman, simply because it’s a pain in the kitten to hold the camera angle in a way that I can watch for his cast animation while also ground targeting. That’s only for the garbage time part of the encounter though, during the parts that actually matter it’s 100% shortbow all the time.

Ensign.2189:

Cluster Bomb has a 1.452 ratio, an activation time of ~0.95 seconds, and an initiative cost of 3. It also gives a single stack of bleed on hit (or 3 if detonated perfectly).

Unload has a 2.4 ratio, an activation time of ~2.2 seconds, and an initiative cost of 5.

Taking the opportunity cost of auto-attacking into account, and assuming a full dunk spec (which gives 1 second of bleed ~=0.025 ratio), you get that Cluster Bomb adds 1.002 ratio worth of damage for 3 initiative, while Unload adds 1.15 ratio for 5 initiative.

As far as rotations go, ‘Cluster Bomb, Trick Shot, Cluster Bomb, Trick Shot’ has roughly the same DPS as 100% Unload spam uptime; Cluster Bombs with 2 Trick Shots in between have the same DPS as Unload alternated with a single Vital Shot.

The DPS advantages of Unload come from being able to trait the damage up a bit higher, and from the skill being much easier to hit against targets that don’t just stand there. As a secondary weapon set against stationary PvE boss encounters, Short Bow is going to deliver just as much damage as Unload spam.

Care to explain this maths and language to me plz? What do you mean by ratio? 2.4 ratio for unload? is this the skill modifier for unload? Im genuinely confused here…

It’s true P/P is the way to go for high fractals. Doing max dmg at range while avoid a lot of the boss attacks that can 1 shot anyone. You will out dmg a D/D thief simply because he will be too busy avoiding attacks and not hitting the boss.

Anyone that says that SB can hit more than P/P in high fractal levels 30+ onwards is gotta be kidding me.

What’s the activation time on cluster bomb again? Isn’t it more or less determine by flight distance? How are you coming to a conclusion, by assuming a shot directly at your standing location? Even at your standing location there is a flight time to consider.

If that’s the case you must be using a tanky build, because if your factor of DPS is true damage over time it implies you’re damaging foes right from the start instead of waiting for other group members to get attacked first. So if you’re tanky, your DPS is lacking right there. If you’re a glass cannon, this strat doesn’t work. You’d get targeted down or have to dodge out/invis/heal which is time you’re not doing damage.

On the flip side, you can start doing damage with p/p without much worry about position and much less stress on survivability – especially with lifesteal food.

Additionally between the two weapon options, invis to clear agro is downtime for shortbow. But it’s not so for p/p because your’e first auto-attack out of stealth is a burst of shots – the time you lose going invis is more than made up.

If it’s a single target available and against champions, I’ll use P/P over SB any day for damage output.

If your primary goal is single target DPS, P/P is by far an amazing choice.

However, in certain situations (like my own) I run in groups that have access to a great deal of Light / Ethereal combo fields – the Blast finisher alone on Clusterbomb makes it a much better choice for group utility than a straight-up “Projectile Finisher” weapon set.

Unload’s damage far outclasses Clusterbomb, it’s the Finisher (IMO) that makes Clusterbomb invaluable in a group setting.

Edit: Maybe P/P + SB would be worth testing out.

Aervius.2016:

If your primary goal is single target DPS, P/P is by far an amazing choice.

However, in certain situations (like my own) I run in groups that have access to a great deal of Light / Ethereal combo fields – the Blast finisher alone on Clusterbomb makes it a much better choice for group utility than a straight-up “Projectile Finisher” weapon set.

Unload’s damage far outclasses Clusterbomb, it’s the Finisher (IMO) that makes Clusterbomb invaluable in a group setting.

Edit: Maybe P/P + SB would be worth testing out.

See this makes sense. The sad thing, is that it’s useless against bosses in Fractals. The fact that Scootabuser is trying to use the combo finisher as an argument that makes SB better than P/P based on that is discredits his argument. Rarely, RARELY will you ever see someone melee a boss (unless glitched) that will put down a combo field and have a thief use Clusterbomb to stack might. Regen and Poison are time duration, which cap after a while of stacking (I believe the max is 8 secs or something? I can never apply more than that on poison) and the groups running are usually already good at keeping those up to begin with.

SB is more of a utility playing it slow and safe against bosses. P/P is faster and just as safe if you have decent skill at dodging.

In PvE, melee will be there, so the AoE combo field will definitely be worthwhile, but the time it takes a Clusterbomb to fly from the bow to the actual mob and detonate perfectly or let it not explode it takes a ton of time, in that time I will already have dumped out an entire 2 clips of unload (considering the thief is playing at range, which is almost always the case). Also, I use quickness, which is (heavenly) which I don’t benefit as much from SB than I do from P/P.

But because P/P doesn’t have utility, I feel that it’s lacking and could use some sort of buff in SOME way to make it more useful. I don’t like the fact that all I can do is just DPS and nothing else.

xyger.7349:

Aervius.2016:

If your primary goal is single target DPS, P/P is by far an amazing choice.

However, in certain situations (like my own) I run in groups that have access to a great deal of Light / Ethereal combo fields – the Blast finisher alone on Clusterbomb makes it a much better choice for group utility than a straight-up “Projectile Finisher” weapon set.

Unload’s damage far outclasses Clusterbomb, it’s the Finisher (IMO) that makes Clusterbomb invaluable in a group setting.

Edit: Maybe P/P + SB would be worth testing out.

See this makes sense. The sad thing, is that it’s useless against bosses in Fractals. The fact that Scootabuser is trying to use the combo finisher as an argument that makes SB better than P/P based on that is discredits his argument. Rarely, RARELY will you ever see someone melee a boss (unless glitched) that will put down a combo field and have a thief use Clusterbomb to stack might. Regen and Poison are time duration, which cap after a while of stacking (I believe the max is 8 secs or something? I can never apply more than that on poison) and the groups running are usually already good at keeping those up to begin with.

SB is more of a utility playing it slow and safe against bosses. P/P is faster and just as safe if you have decent skill at dodging.

In PvE, melee will be there, so the AoE combo field will definitely be worthwhile, but the time it takes a Clusterbomb to fly from the bow to the actual mob and detonate perfectly or let it not explode it takes a ton of time, in that time I will already have dumped out an entire 2 clips of unload (considering the thief is playing at range, which is almost always the case). Also, I use quickness, which is (heavenly) which I don’t benefit as much from SB than I do from P/P.

But because P/P doesn’t have utility, I feel that it’s lacking and could use some sort of buff in SOME way to make it more useful. I don’t like the fact that all I can do is just DPS and nothing else.

I completely agree, in the context of an encounter that you are familiar with P/P is a far better choice than SB, especially for Fractals.
For Exotic Farm Dungeons, P/P > SB for bosses, SB > P/P for “trash clusters” IMO.

Aervius.2016:

I completely agree, in the context of an encounter that you are familiar with P/P is a far better choice than SB, especially for Fractals.
For Exotic Farm Dungeons, P/P > SB for bosses, SB > P/P for “trash clusters” IMO.

This is exactly why I always carry all available weapon sets
Melee Single Target = Dagger/X
Melee Aoe = Sword/X
Ranged Single = Pistol/Pistol
Ranged Aoe = ShortBow

Each are great at their respective roles.

Okay… the discussion SB vs. P/P is kinda funny since Scootabuser uses them both…

So, I hope you dont mind if I try to discuss the OP-P/P build instead. My favourite P/P Build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMkMMc9dpx0f0oaVsqM08khT7kie7kiQ7070M7kGL70V7ofD70m

The main difference: DA instead of Acro and Trickery. Whenever you said sth like “Why do many player skip Fluid strike” I was like “wtf, exposed weakness is even better”
The vulnerability from sundering strikes and sigill of frailty lasts half the time for bosses but the duration is 25% longer with DA. It’s not imba, but its something.

250 Power and +5% Dmg from combined training > +one Unload every 25 sec from quick recovery

There are still 15 points in Acrobatics left, so the loss of survivability is small.

The +3 initiative from preparedness is one big joke. One 3/5 unload more in a bossfight that lasts about 5 min? I think not. Kleptomanic increases your ini-reg for 3 Points/40 sec. Thats another Unload every minute. + you cant use it on every Cooldown since it teleports you to the big bad boss – you need to use it carefull.
The group support with 10 sec might and fury every ~40 sec is maybe a bit better than the group support with vulnerability, but thats it.

Even the bleed-dmg from vital shot profits more from +25% conditionduration then from +150 Conditiondmg.

Since your OP looks expierienced and well-conceived, maybe I am missing a huge point here.
And sorry for the probably terrible language, I am not a native speaker, but im sure you figuered that out

Eduardo.4675:

Care to explain this maths and language to me plz? What do you mean by ratio? 2.4 ratio for unload? is this the skill modifier for unload? Im genuinely confused here…

What I’m calling the ratio could be what you call the skill modifier.

The base damage of every skill is:

base damage = [constant] * [power] * [weapon damage] / [target’s armor]

This is further modified by critical hits, traits, weapon modifiers, etc. In the skill description, the game assumes a target armor of 2600 at level 80.

When comparing the damage of skills to each other it is easier to simply compare damage constants. This is because while power and crit rates and traits can vary from character to character, they will usually affect all skills equally.

The tricky part, that isn’t nearly as straightforward, is accounting for skills that deal condition damage on top of the physical component. It turns out that when you spec into full Berserker’s gear and stack the damage traits, your damage gets up to a point where a 0.1 increase in damage ratio is about 5 times as valuable as a 1 second bleed. Similarly, when you spec for maximum condition damage and duration, you pick up enough damage stats in the process for a 1 second bleed to be about 5 times as valuable as a 0.1 increase in ratio.

Building upon that, I found that when you stack a full contingent of buffs and debuffs (might, fury, vulnerability) that this ratio is more or less preserved. In addition, hybrid builds tend to see fairly minimal increasing returns – essentially, from playing both types of damage you lose out on the increasing returns from condition damage/duration or critical chance/damage, and that mitigates the additional raw strength you get from taking full advantage of the hybrid skills.

So when it comes to normalizing condition damage, you take whichever is greater for a skill – seconds of bleeding / 10 or the power ratio – and add a fifth of the other to it to get roughly how effective it will be on the whole.

After that it’s just a matter of contrasting the damage with the activation times to get a per second comparison, and stringing together skill rotations (for example, Cluster Bomb into two Trick Shots as a common, high performance skill rotation) to understand what weapons are actually capable of.

Stop manually detonating Clusterbombs and you will see how much damage it does.

Detonating Clusterbomb manually = More spread, less direct damage, 3 Bleeds, 4 Initiative

Not Detonating Clusterbomb = Less spread, more direct damage, no bleeds, Blast finisher, 3 Imitative.

And non-detonated Clusterbomb should easily hit for 6000 on a Berserker Thief and for half the cost of Unload. Add various additional benefits for being a Blast Finisher like AoE Healing, Might stacks or Area Retaliation and there’s no reason to ever spam Unload again.

Dee Jay.2460:

Detonating Clusterbomb manually = More spread, less direct damage, 3 Bleeds, 4 Initiative

Not Detonating Clusterbomb = Less spread, more direct damage, no bleeds, Blast finisher, 3 Imitative.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cluster_Bomb

Im not sure which game you’re playing…

Detonating Clusterbomb manually = More spread, more direct damage, 3 Bleeds, 3 Initiative

Not Detonating Clusterbomb = Less spread, less direct damage, 1 Bleed, Blast finisher, 3 Initiative.

Unload has a higer chanche to trigger Opportunist. And if you hit that thief with 6k Bomb, you’ll hit him with 11k Unload. (Okay Ensign, 10k, but that changes nothing)

Molch.2078:

Unload has a higer chanche to trigger Opportunist. And if you hit that thief with 6k Bomb, you’ll hit him with 11k Unload.

Well, 10k. You’d get 11k if every single shot was a crit, which they usually aren’t.

Of course every single Cluster Bomb won’t crit either. Same deal.

The Opportunist trigger is a big deal. Procs in general are a big deal for Unload; it’s a shame there aren’t more of them in the trait trees to take advantage of.

Molch.2078:

Dee Jay.2460:

Detonating Clusterbomb manually = More spread, less direct damage, 3 Bleeds, 4 Initiative

Not Detonating Clusterbomb = Less spread, more direct damage, no bleeds, Blast finisher, 3 Imitative.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cluster_Bomb

Im not sure which game you’re playing…

Detonating Clusterbomb manually = More spread, more direct damage, 3 Bleeds, 3 Initiative

Not Detonating Clusterbomb = Less spread, less direct damage, 1 Bleed, Blast finisher, 3 Initiative.

Unload has a higer chanche to trigger Opportunist. And if you hit that thief with 6k Bomb, you’ll hit him with 11k Unload. (Okay Ensign, 10k, but that changes nothing)

The wiki is wrong, just go test it in game.

I did that before I looked it up at the wiki. Detonate Cluster costs 0 initiative. The tooltip for the dmg is also correct, but obviously higher. And one bomb deals 1 stack of bleed.

Edit: Screens added

Well as I see it the manual detonation is dealing 314 dmg + 3 Bleeds and the other is dealing 885 +1 Bleed.

Now the tool-tip says that detonation costs 1 Initiative but that may be wrong, idk.

Anyway, still seems to confirm that not detonating is superior to detonating, at least for Crit-builds.

All I see wrong about my statement is that I missed the 1 Bleed.

You get 3 small bombs… 3×314=942>885.
And the tooltip says it has one sec activation time. Nothing about cost.

Actually detonating clusterbomb when its close to the target to ensure all 3 splits hit the target is slightly more damage than not detonating it.

And the target gets 3 stack of bleeds instead of 1 stack, but the blast finisher will not activate on detonation.

But chances are not all 3 splits will crit, so it ends up with slightly lesser damage. as its easier to get 1 big crit than 3 smaller ones.

Back to the topic about clusterbombs compared to unload.

One rarely go in melee range to clusterbomb in high lvl fractal as that is suicidal. So if you are clusterbombing at a safe range. It is lower dps than unload.

Until the day they change clusterbomb to work like engineer bombs where you continuously pump them out. The damage will always be lesser simply because you can’t do 2 clusterbombs (6 init) at range compared to 1 unload (5 init) in the same time frame of 2 secs.

Anyway I am talking about consistent dps at boss fights, where normally its just 1 boss and no adds.

If its about trash mobs, everyone knows that SB wins hands down. That’s why SB is a mandatory secondary weapon for every thief no matter which weapon set u use for main.

Skybreaker.3264:

Actually detonating clusterbomb when its close to the target to ensure all 3 splits hit the target is slightly more damage than not detonating it.

And the target gets 3 stack of bleeds instead of 1 stack, but the blast finisher will not activate on detonation.

But chances are not all 3 splits will crit, so it ends up with slightly lesser damage. as its easier to get 1 big crit than 3 smaller ones.

Back to the topic about clusterbombs compared to unload.

One rarely go in melee range to clusterbomb in high lvl fractal as that is suicidal. So if you are clusterbombing at a safe range. It is lower dps than unload.

Until the day they change clusterbomb to work like engineer bombs where you continuously pump them out. The damage will always be lesser simply because you can’t do 2 clusterbombs (6 init) at range compared to 1 unload (5 init) in the same time frame of 2 secs.

Anyway I am talking about consistent dps at boss fights, where normally its just 1 boss and no adds.

If its about trash mobs, everyone knows that SB wins hands down. That’s why SB is a mandatory secondary weapon for every thief no matter which weapon set u use for main.

Ok, that cleared up a few things.

I think DPS wise nobody is arguing that in a single-target environment with no adds etc. Unload spam does more damage. But that’s really all it ever does.

Spaming Clusterbomb instead would leave you with maybe 20% less DPS, but all the other benefits of using the Shortbow (Combo fields, AoE and utility)

It would also allow you to pick some more universal traits.

That’s why I’m arguing Shortbow > Akimbo Pistols.

Skybreaker.3264:

But chances are not all 3 splits will crit, so it ends up with slightly lesser damage. as its easier to get 1 big crit than 3 smaller ones.

Sometimes your big cluster wont crit either, then you lose a bunch of Damage. You can also say “as its easier to get 1 non big crit than 3 small non big crits” Both statements are wrong.

Lets say you shoot 10 Bombs at a 60% crit Ratio. Lets take the numbers from the picture. Split: Crit 314 (~pi*100, btw); No Crit 168 and No Split: Crit 885 -> No Split and No Crit: 474

No Split: 10 Bombs, 6 crit, 4 No crit -> 7206 Dmg
Split: 30 Bombs, 18 Crit, 12 No Crit -> 7668 Dmg

The topic was about the P/P build. There is little sense to comparing it to SB since Scootabuser uses a SB anyway as a sec. weapon.

I went and re-timed Cluster Bomb, I was totally off and it’s around 1.25 seconds per use. That makes a big difference, Unload is clearly better damage with the correct numbers (but again not by too much).

Cluster / Trick / Cluster / Trick is easily sustainable at a range of about 600, still doable out to about 800 but the timing gets tricky. Beyond that Cluster / Trick x2 is repeatable.

Unload does about the same damage as standing right on top of a target spamming Cluster Bomb – actually you do more damage with Cluster if you detonate every single one of them, but seriously, you don’t use Cluster Bomb that way.

100% uptime Unload spam does about 20% more damage to a single target than alternating Cluster Bomb and Trick Shot. It also gives you more procs and is a lot easier to use.

83% uptime Unload (which is 2 Unloads for every Vital Shot) does about 13% more damage than 1:1 Cluster / Trick.

Short version: all-in Unload builds do deal more damage than the Short Bow, but not by as much as you probably think.

Ensign.2189:

I went and re-timed Cluster Bomb, I was totally off and it’s around 1.25 seconds per use. That makes a big difference, Unload is clearly better damage with the correct numbers (but again not by too much).

Cluster / Trick / Cluster / Trick is easily sustainable at a range of about 600, still doable out to about 800 but the timing gets tricky. Beyond that Cluster / Trick x2 is repeatable.

Unload does about the same damage as standing right on top of a target spamming Cluster Bomb – actually you do more damage with Cluster if you detonate every single one of them, but seriously, you don’t use Cluster Bomb that way.

100% uptime Unload spam does about 20% more damage to a single target than alternating Cluster Bomb and Trick Shot. It also gives you more procs and is a lot easier to use.

83% uptime Unload (which is 2 Unloads for every Vital Shot) does about 13% more damage than 1:1 Cluster / Trick.

Short version: all-in Unload builds do deal more damage than the Short Bow, but not by as much as you probably think.

Many procs have a Internal Cooldown, making unload less and less valuable for its large hit states, it used to be a very good attack when Opportunist and bleeding sigils did not have a ICD, which I don’t think they should.

Daecollo.9578:

Many procs have a Internal Cooldown, making unload less and less valuable for its large hit states, it used to be a very good attack when Opportunist and bleeding sigils did not have a ICD, which I don’t think they should.

The problem with those proc effects without an ICD is that you have to balance them around the very high hit rate skills that maximize the proc triggers, which unfortunately makes them more or less worthless when used in any other circumstance. Putting an ICD on each effect allowed them to boost the power level of the individual procs and made them attractive for a wider range of weapons.

Even with the ICD skills like Unload benefit more from proc effects than slow skills, especially low percentage, low cooldown effects. It would be nice if there were more of those available to provide some very attractive secondary utility to skills like Unload.

i dont know about you guys, but using cluster bomb from a decent range is painful as it takes so long to travel

as scooter is saying, for high level bosses, where u really should not go into melee range, P/P is the best by a mile!

SB mobs,
Melee vets and normal champs
P/P bosses

Using the short bow has been described as the GW2 equivalent of driving a minivan, and I cannot disagree. It is a painful weapon to use, especially when contrasted with how awesome pistols feel to use.

It is, however, a very strong weapon set., and that ends up being pretty important when you’re deciding which weapons to use based upon their effectiveness, not how awesome they feel to use.

just saw this on the build-site:
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/68/bildschirmfoto20130114up.png

brb, taking everything in WvW on my own

I think I’m going to have to try this build out. I’ve been meaning to switch up my traits for a more P/P oriented build ever since I got into the level 30 fractals.

Note: the following comments are for fights against a single target in fractal boss fights (Not for general PvE play)
I do believe that D/D can still lay down more raw dps in easy fights, but I won’t use D/D for high fractals because 1 wrong move and your downed in melee range of the boss. Not to mention the dodge roll bug has killed me too many times (when you dodge roll at the wrong time in your skill 1 attack chain and it prevents you from rolling).
Another DPS factor that many people seem to overlook is that the entire skill set has projectile finishers which is better (imo) than a leap or whirl finisher in a boss fight.

Ensign.2189:

Unload does about the same damage as standing right on top of a target spamming Cluster Bomb – actually you do more damage with Cluster if you detonate every single one of them

Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true

Also dear moderator, you infracted and deleted my response to muscarine.5136 without even reading it, I made my comments inside of the quote using (these) so I could focus on each point individually. I’m re posting it because it has important information relating to the build. I’ve changed my comments to BOLD so they stand out more.

muscarine.5136
Yea Fluid Strike is awesome, i’m also kinda curious as to why so many thieves try to build p/p with 25-30 points into deadly arts while it’s obvious we rely on movement and mobility much more than stealth.
Which brings me to my question, why hide in shadows ? (Condition removal and the largest burst heal, if you get hit, your either low on health or dead) You would get a much more steady dps out of healing yourself through signet of malice, (True, but in practicality because of the bursty nature of incoming damage, it’s not effective) in my opinion, i know you put those 15 points into trickery and buffed your condtion damage (it’s not for the condition damage, it’s for the extra 3 initiative that gives you and extra 30 seconds of unload spam before you have to start mixing in vital shot, that 3 initiative goes a long way to delay running dry while all your initiative regain kicks in, the reason for this is because the trait opportunist, every time you get to use unload, you gain more initiative FINALLY it increase the amount of time you can diddle around without losing DPS) a bit but to me your first mistake comes with using thrill of the crime, while there are other classes which will help the team get fury way better than you will. (Yes, there are, and that’s the point of party buffs, if your in a well formulated team, fury and swiftness are up 24/7 without sacrificing much personal DPS.)
Also, put any necro or ranger in your team and your bleed stacks won’t be that useful most of the time. (I beg to differ, even for those classes it’s hard to fully block out all other bleeds, we always run with 1 condition ranger and while she does peak at 25 occasionally, it’s usually when a utility skill pops.)
Since you said you didn’t build that much for support, i think you should consider dropping the trickery line entirely and put at least 10 points into DA, in order to grab either mug or sundering strikes. (For end game fractals, some support is required, this is bare bones support. If a class doesn’t have party wide fury and swiftness, we don’t take them.)
The last 5 points i don’t really know, but i know you don’t need those extra 3 initiative either in order to keep unload ready at all times. (Try it out, go to a golem that you can crit on and spam unload, 3 initiative may not look like much, but as I said before, it delays vital shot long enough to get quite a few more unloads off.)
It’s true it seems a good investment since acrobatics doesn’t have any good grand master trait, but then why not putting it at 30 and pick assassin’s reward, for example, further improving your ability to play the dodging regenerating turret. (Same reason I don’t pick signet of malice, I either get hit and die or almost die, and the healing wont get me up to full fast enough to weather another hit. it only heals about 350 per unload anyways )
As for utilities and elites it can be very situational so, while i agree with your pick, personnaly i switch those very often during a single dungeon run; although the infiltrator signet is not mendatory either to keep unload ready, the only times i pick this one are when i find myself dps’ing a target immuned to crits (yellow health bar, like objects, turrets, and a few boss)

Scootabuser.4915:

Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true ;

Which is why I suggest anyone who has any interest in this should go and test it themselves; the targeting dummies make it really easy, and the math is fairly simple and wholly transparent.

(and if anyone needs help with the process or the math, feel free to message me here or in game and I’d be happy to walk you through it)

EDIT – don’t know if it has been mentioned, but Accuracy Sigils do not stack. You should ditch one of them for a different Sigil (almost certainly a proc effect, since those are by far the highest damage boosts with a high crit rate).

Ensign.2189:

Scootabuser.4915:

Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true ;

EDIT – don’t know if it has been mentioned, but Accuracy Sigils do not stack. You should ditch one of them for a different Sigil (almost certainly a proc effect, since those are by far the highest damage boosts with a high crit rate).

That’s actually a mistake I meant to leave that one air.

Ensign.2189:

Scootabuser.4915:

Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true ;

Which is why I suggest anyone who has any interest in this should go and test it themselves; the targeting dummies make it really easy, and the math is fairly simple and wholly transparent.

(and if anyone needs help with the process or the math, feel free to message me here or in game and I’d be happy to walk you through it)

EDIT – don’t know if it has been mentioned, but Accuracy Sigils do not stack. You should ditch one of them for a different Sigil (almost certainly a proc effect, since those are by far the highest damage boosts with a high crit rate).

That is the reason I asked about Skill Multipliers and Unload. I too do all my own theorycrafting, and when i saw a Constant (as you call it) of 2.4 for Unload, i was suspicious, because that may lead to assume that 2.4 is to be multiplied by power, weapon and then divided by armor. With Unload, however, things dont work that way.
2.4 is the constant for Backstab, when you hit from the back. And we all know Unload is far from reaching the numbers of proper backstabing. But this has an explanation. Using the tooltip as a guidance to determine the constant, as you seem to be doing, may lead to squinted results. 2600 armor is more or less the armor of the heavy golem, so we can easily see if Unload and Backstab are working proper. Unload is not. In all power ranges I tested, when contrasting Tooltip with Golem, the variations for Unload were sometimes very noticeable, even within values of power for tooltip only. I got values that ranged from 2.34 to 2.46 only using the tooltip descriptons. For a power of 1216 i get 8*18 (144) from tooltip, which will get me 2.463 constant. For power of 1066 I get 8*15 (120) from tooltip, which is a constant of 2.341. Almost 5%.
Using the golems to test various values for power, i get ranges between 2.239 and 2.386, only with heavy golem. Quite different scenario from backstab, where values are alot more consistent across the board, tooltip or golems. The tooltip varies between 2.397 and 2.409, much closer. And using heavy golem, I get 2.385 to 2.400.
This may not seem much, but when comparing the dmg stated on the tooltip for both skills, and then seeing what dmg they did to the heavy golem, there were some nice discrepancies. All tests i did i used steady weapons, and the difference backstab on tooltip and on golem was only of 1 dmg, in all cases where there was a discrepancy, this amounted to less than 1% difference between tooltip and golem. And most times there was no difference. With Unload there was plenty of cases with 8 dmg discrepancy, which amounted to almost 10% in some cases.
This makes Unload do less dmg than its supposed to do. In reality, not tooltip.
Also, Unload its much more affected by RNG associated with weapon range dmg and crit chance than skills like cluster bomb, which have only 3 hits or only 1 if you chose not ot detonate. If you crit with cluster, its max dmg crit multiplier on a variable weapon dmg range hit. Unload will not totally crit unless you have 100% crit chance. And then you have RNG on weapon range for each of the 8 hits. Its this negative RNG that affects Unload total dmg output when you compare with backstab; despite having basically the same constant and same potential for big dmg, it will never give you 12k crits like backstab.

I played a backstab d/d thief in fractals until I read this thread more than a week ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Fractal-Thieves-UNITE

These are the damage outputted by Pinch.4273 at fotm 59
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/20706034/pics/gw2/gw015.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/20706034/pics/gw2/gw017.jpg

After seeing the numbers, it got me thinking about what traits, runes and sigils he used to achieve those numbers apart of good party coordinations with party wide 25 stack might, fury and some vulnerability on boss.

I am not sure where you guys pull damage numbers of 12k backstab crits and 6k clusterbomb crits from, because I never deal that much damage with those weapons before in fractals in full berserker gears as the bosses and mobs have tons of toughness on them. Are those numbers from WvW, where players toughness is lower?

Anyway, this thread started with Scootabuser.4915 showing that P/P is a viable weapon set and it is good dps against single target, whereby it is important in high lvl fractals.

It is just an option for those who dislike p/p (like me in the past) to give it a chance and try it again.

Eduardo.4675:

That is the reason I asked about Skill Multipliers and Unload. I too do all my own theorycrafting, and when i saw a Constant (as you call it) of 2.4 for Unload, i was suspicious, because that may lead to assume that 2.4 is to be multiplied by power, weapon and then divided by armor. With Unload, however, things dont work that way.

I assure you Unload does in fact work that way, and it does have a constant of 0.3 × 8.

What’s probably tripping you up is that the game does not round consistently. The damage listed on the tooltip is rounded to the nearest integer, but damage shown when you shoot something in game is rounded down. So, for example, at 1560 power with a steady pistol the tooltip shows 23 damage, but shooting something shows 22; a 0.3 ratio says the damage should be 22.5. At 1600 power, the tooltip still shows 23 damage, and the damage floater agrees – a 0.3 ratio says 23.08.

Now I don’t have any good data on whether or not the game is actually rounding the damage dealt. I have stayed alive at 0 health before, which is (very weak) evidence of hidden precision, that it is not in fact rounding. But the fact is, at level 80, with the damage variance of your weapon and large power values, this rounding is not a very big deal. In the worst case scenario, the game is rounding down every shot, which on average costs Unload 3.5 damage compared to a single hit skill – much less than a tenth of a percent.

Skybreaker.3264:

After seeing the numbers, it got me thinking about what traits, runes and sigils he used to achieve those numbers apart of good party coordinations with party wide 25 stack might, fury and some vulnerability on boss.

There are also two damage banners on the ground, and it looks like an Empowered Allies as well. Those numbers are totally consistent with a 30 Critstrikes, full Berserker build with those buffs going.