Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, i just started gw2 and i love using guns in the game. Does anyone know if thiefs have a viable gun spec or whatever that works in this game?

Well you can play with double pistols, but the damage is not exactly what it should be and it does not really offer defense either.
Soo, play with what you want. Its possible, but dont expect to succeed with pistols in high level pvp or pve, it just wont work. At least get a decent/meta main weapon and make your pistols’ use situational.
But if you have the concept of a cool, rogue style fighter in mind, who unloads swarms of bullets on those who oppose him, you better wait for further balance patches and pray.
This sums up pretty wellw hat pistols are and what they should be.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Can-we-get-a-new-Pistol-auto-attack/first#post6017717

Unload spam is pretty bad and pointless. But it can be “fun” using it though different fields. Personally I found them only good if used like back stab.

try it out and see for yourself

I say go for Daredevil with Bounding Dodger so you can have access to stealth with Blackpowder Combo. Stealth will add to your survivability and also give you pistol Sneak Attack opening before unloading for even more burst.

Trickery because you will need the extra initiative

Critical Strikes for Practiced Tolerance and No Quarter

or Deadly Arts ,its up to you.

There are lots of ways to play p/p. You just have to find the style that works for you.
Power
Power Trap
Power Sustain
Stealth Power
Stealth Hybrid Trapper
Hybrid ’Rupter
Hybrid Stealth

Find something that fits you.

full glass cannon p/p can be incredibly fun as long as you stay behind and snipe kids who are tunneling some bunker on your team, best part is sneaking up on DHs who like to sit in some open spot and usually go down in a single unload provided you have the right build

Well, in PvE I think you can forget about P/P as your main weapon. It does decent ranged single target damage, but you want AoE (or at least multiple targets damage) and you want to finish your foes as fast as possible. Staff is my personal favourite in PvE, but daggers or sword do ok too – P/P doesn’t even come close.

In WvW however, I’ve been quite happy with my P/P, but as a secondary weapon only. In zerg fights, Unload spam can quickly finish targets too far to be killed by regular means or wound a player so your team mates can finish him. But P/P really shines when used as a crowd control weapon: immobilize a target or turn it to stone with bas venom, daze it, and of course, call the target so your team mates can finish it (or switch to your main weapon set). If your team is coordinated and can follow a target call, a good gunslinger can make the difference.

In 1v1 fights, it’s another story though. You won’t kill anyone with a simple Unload spam, except full glass canons unaware of their surroundings. It’s still good though when engaging, with bas venom, or in fight for stealth (with Bound) or cc. Just keep in mind you will have to switch back to your main weapon set if you’re actually trying to kill the dude.

Also, since P/P should be your secondary set IMHO, not your primary one, using it means no Shortbow, and therefore a loss of mobility. I got used to it, but most thieves wouldn’t.

EDIT – Also, welcome to GW!

Unfortunately, Pistol/Pistol is in pretty bad shape. It deals substantially less DPS than other weapon sets and also has less utility.

The animations for Unload (the main DPS skill of Pistol/Pistol) are awesome, so it does feel awesome to run around using this weapon set, but the balance inadequacy pretty much kills it.

Pistol/Dagger, however, is great for PvP. It’s still a melee weapon set, but you do wield a pistol with it at least.

Sadly, GW2 is overall a weak MMO for people who like range DPS play since very few builds can play competitively without spending at least a significant time in melee range.

That being said, I still think GW2 is one of the best MMOs out there overall.

Hopefully that helps. Welcome to the game. =)

I run d/p primarily, but p/p for ranged backup. I agree with the others who say that p/p can’t feasibly be used as a primary weapon set. I’ll elaborate on that to say that the problem with p/p starts with a weak, single-target auto-attack. This forces you to produce damage by expending initiative (unlike staff, dagger, or sword which have stronger damage against more than one target), which is only available through unload.

In PvE, this produces very boring play – especially against bosses! Consider the other skills on the bar: a short, low damage cripple/immob in pistol 2, a low damage interrupt in pistol 4, and a melee range area blind. This is not a strong set to work with if you want to produce damage (you can produce some damage with pulmonary impacts on interrupt with pistol 4, but it produces less damage than pistol 3 and you can’t interrupt bosses!).

What p/p does well in PvE is allow you passable single-target burst from range when being at melee range simply isn’t feasible for whatever reason. And thieves are fantastic at kiting.

However, most players prefer the mobility provided by shortbow’s infiltrator’s arrow. There’s no better way to get around quickly, especially if you run unhindered combat for 100% swiftness uptime and long dodges paired with an endurance refill or two on your utility bar!

Shortbow doesn’t offer great damage either, but it does offer solid area effect and combo capability for area weakness. It’s a far more useful set than p/p, in my opinion. However, I believe unload spam in a short-term scenario is better single-target damage than shortbow and thief is still plenty fast (outside of PvP) just running daredevil with unhindered combat.

That’s the only reason I run p/p. I don’t particularly like the set as it really only does one thing (in PvE) and does it not-so-well. But as I try to stay in d/p as much as possible, I only need p/p to do one thing. I wish it did it better and gave me a more coherent skillset to work with, but I prefer it to shortbow for dropping back out of melee range and landing some quick damage.

I am really bad at thief despite it being one of my favorite classes.

I chucked on a full ascended zerker set with full mighty infusions and took a walk through the park in WvW.

I actually killed a few people with P/P. The #3 spamming can be quite humorous but so brain dead… Some roamers I’ve seen before so the first time they got rekt but after that they knew what build I was running so RIP me. A lot.

Yes you can kill people with it if they’re unaware/bad (like me).

There’s a better option out there though…. D/P. Sigh. I wish P/P was viable but it simply isn’t. It’s a gimmick, much like rifle warri.

i play zerker p/p all the time in pvp and it leads to some hilarious moments instagibbing people :-3
with daredevil you actual get some survivability too since you can Bound through Blackpowder to get stealth

pistol pistol with interrupt runes/palm strike its just amazing, best tech for beating necros