Guild Wars 2

EDIT: This build has been updated, due to the general annoyances found in the previous traits! This is the new one I’m working with:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsa6alcmaOHcy4E95ExODfKU/Dft7xVtKXB

I left the old one below just for kicks and giggles.

The premise is as follows:

I’ve been really intrigued by the signet synergy that the thief can potentially use, and I absolutely LOVED playing P/P. Seriously, finding a target and dropping unloads on it feels really really good. Same for Pistol whip, and S/P in general is very versatile in my opinion, (although I’m highly disappointed in the haste nerf and the reduced damage on PW).

Anyway…

Introducing my PvE build which I’m not entirely certain is all that unique, but hey, I couldn’t find it in the forums so I’ll take credit for it until someone else does!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsa6alcmaOHcy4E95EymCfSo0UQTNY3jrSrqKA

Humor me here, I know this is going against the grain quite a bit. A Thief who doesn’t stealth is a dead thief, right? RIGHT?

(Probably). BUT! Let me see if I can make this work in theory, then I will go back and re-spec my current condi thief into this sustained damage thief. Hopefully I can get some good advice from you guys to help me make this more viable (read: “give up and go d/d/SB zerker burst thief like everyone else” is not good advice!)

Gameplay (as I envision it):
Open S/P, infiltrator strike (-3 initiative) —> Assasin’s signet (+3 initiative, 5 stacks of might, next 5 hits does 15% extra damage) --> Pistol whip (-5 initiative) —> Shadow return (-2 initiative) --> Weapon swap (+3 initiative) = At this point I should have ~9 initiative left and be in P/P mode.

Activate Sig of Shadows (3 initiative, 5 stacks of might. AoE blind which I suppose is useful if I’m getting mobbed) —> Unload!!! --> Unload!!!(-10 int). At this point I’m sure dodging will become necessary, which gives us 1 stack of might per roll —> Signet of agility (Full endurance again, +5 stacks of might, +3 initiative) --> Weapon swap (3 initiative) —> Back to sword pistol again.

Sounds pretty sweet on paper, right? Right?

Gear:
Valkyrie Armor
Berserker Weapons
Berserker/Valkyrie Jewels
___________________________
Idea is to get critical percentage up just over 50% and then focus the rest on vit/toughness/crit damage, as needed.

Problems to which I have no answers for:

1. Improvisation, the VII trait in the DA trait line, what does it mean when it says I get +10% damage when wielding a “bundle”, does ALL my utility slots have to be signets including my heal? Because I really don’t like Signet of Malice to be honest, I’d much rather have withdraw or hide in shadows. Although the 12 sec cooldown is pretty sweet as I’m traited, it’ll recharge faster than any of my other signets…

2. Defense, particularly consistent source of healing. I’m really worried about this, I don’t really have an answer yet. I suppose with my traits in acrobatics I can dodge around quite a bit so that helps some…

I’ll get cooking on this build as I wait for some feedback!

Silver.4798:

Problems to which I have no answers for:

1. Improvisation, the VII trait in the DA trait line, what does it mean when it says I get +10% damage when wielding a “bundle”, does ALL my utility slots have to be signets including my heal? Because I really don’t like Signet of Malice to be honest, I’d much rather have withdraw or hide in shadows. Although the 12 sec cooldown is pretty sweet as I’m traited, it’ll recharge faster than any of my other signets…

Bundle are environmental weapons which includes the one you have stolen.

2. Defense, particularly consistent source of healing. I’m really worried about this, I don’t really have an answer yet. I suppose with my traits in acrobatics I can dodge around quite a bit so that helps some…

I’ll get cooking on this build as I wait for some feedback!

I personally use S/D due to the balance of dmg and def.

Nevertheless, interesting build.

I’m not sure if the above link worked, so just in case, here’s the link of that build again:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsa6alcmaOHcy4E95EymCfSo0UQTNY3jrSrqKA

Silver.4798:

Humor me here, I know this is going against the grain quite a bit. A Thief who doesn’t stealth is a dead thief, right? RIGHT?

No, no it isn’t.

Here’s my critique of your build:

20 DA- I do… Kinda like the traits here, but you’ll really have to be using up all of your signets before you Steal.

20 CS- given the signet focus, I agree with this.

30 Acro- I would be okay with this, but… PLEASE, DO NOT CHOOSE QUICK POCKETS. I think that it’s a very bad choice when compared to Quick Recovery. The reason for this is that you have to switch weapons to get the init regeneration. This is extremely limiting; you have to wait a full 10 seconds until you can go back to the weaponset you were using beforehand. If you’re in a melee/midrange battle, you don’t want to get stuck with P/P for 10 seconds when you could be using S/P. This alone, I think, completely justifies IX over XII; you need to be flexible, and swapping weapons every 10 seconds to keep up initiative in order to do this is pretty ridiculous. Also, given that you will already have massive initiative regeneration because of your signets, you won’t need to worry as much about maintaining initiative anyways, so you can sacrifice that single extra point of init.

Now, you’ll probably hate this, but let me suggest that you move 20 from DA to Trickery. The problem that I have with DA is that, first of all, both of your minor traits are practically useless for this build. On top of that, all of your traits in DA (given that the only way you can poison somebody with your build is the 5 DA minor trait) rely on steal, which you have a 45-second cool down on. That’s pretty risky. It means that you’ll only be able to bust out all of your signets once in a regular battle and then steal to get them back instantly and do damage with Mug. On the other hand, with 20 in Trickery, here’s what you get:
- Kleptomaniac: for a trait that only requires 5 points to get, and gives you nice initiative for a skill that you’ll be using often anyways, this is a pretty nice minor.
-Uncatchable/Thrill of the Crime: either of these work. Uncatchable gives you lots of free caltrops with your dodges that you’ll be using a lot because of your 30 Acrobatics. TotC simply gives you and all nearby allies a short but sweet influx of boons when you steal, which is amplified by your increased boon duration with 30 in Acro.
-Preparedness: I use this in all of my builds. It is, IMO, the best Thief minor trait for its price. 3 initiative might not seem like a lot, but remember that, for example, if you have 5 initiative and use all of your signets at once, without it you’ll have 12 initiative, but with it you’ll have 13. It’s also very helpful for when you go into battle. I also find that, with my playstyle, I throw a wave of attacks at my opponent, letting my initiative drop, and then (because I run SB with most of my builds) I’ll switch to SB and allow my initiative to regenerate naturally, with stealths (I have V in SA, which gives me 2 init on a stealth), and Quick Recovery. With 12 initiative, I have to start attacking with my main set as soon as I reach the 12 initiative if I want to make the most out of all of my initiative regeneration. With 15, I get to wait a little longer, which can be extremely useful if I forget, if I start running away- or whatever.
-Whatever other Major trait you want: basically, TotC or Uncatchable (if you don’t have one yet), Flanking Strikes, BT, IS- anything works fine. If you don’t like any of the major traits available to you, you can always just have 15 in Trickery and then invest the last 5 in CS, which will give you a nice minor trait that will also work very well with Preparedness.
-Also, I should mention- if you have 20 in Trickery, you get 9 fewer seconds between steals. I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Stealing is going to give you a very powerful new weapon, 3 initiative, a shadowstep, and, depending on how you spec, a variety of boons for you or conditions for your enemy as well.

Otherwise, build looks interesting, probably try it out tomorrow.

Thanks Arganthium, that was a very well thought out reply!

Regarding my choice in DA, you’re right the minor traits doesn’t help me at all since I have no means of poison in this build besides stealing, which is absolutely inefficient. The main reason why I went into DA is because of the power boost, and since the build I had in mind was a sustained damage build, a bit of a power spike will help I imagine.

You make a good case for quick recovery, I’ll give it a shot! What I was thinking with quick pockets was that the animation for PW and unload are rather long, so I was trying to turn that to my advantage. I wanted to slot my weapons with sigil of energy (returns 50% of my endurance upon switch) and sigil of battle (get 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds on switch) because I figure I’ll be rolling around quite a bit for defense (but will get a stack of might out of it each time!), so endurance will run out fairly quick. Sounded good in my head lol I’ll see if it works out in practice.

Regarding trickery, the preparedness minor treat is EXTREMELY attractive, kleptomaniac is pretty good too, but outside of slightly decreased steal recharge this build cannot use condition damage, so the caltrops I will drop from uncatchable and thrill of the crime major traits doesn’t synergize as well in this build as does mug and Improvisation major traits. If I had the trickery minor traits and the DA major traits it would be ideal!

What I was alternatively considering though was to not go into DA and go into SA instead for increased survivability and the stealth buffs, but then I don’t have a reliable way to stealth in this build. Although this ties into…

@ Sir Vincent III

I was thinking of S/D*** rather than S/P because of CnD, which would make going into SA viable rather than DA. But the reason why I went with pistol offhand is the AoE of PW and Blinding powder. P/P can’t really deal with mobs very well esp if they get close to me so I’m trying to think of ways to compensate.

• I don’t have a lot of experience with S/D, if you know of a way to deal with mobs with S/D, please let me know!

Arganthium.5638:

Silver.4798:

Humor me here, I know this is going against the grain quite a bit. A Thief who doesn’t stealth is a dead thief, right? RIGHT?

No, no it isn’t.

Here’s my critique of your build:
…

He’s right. Stealth != only means to survive.

x/x/0/30/x is perfectly viable. you’d be surprised the amount of zerg surfing you can do as an evade thief, with no stealth utilities/heals equipped. Sure a stealth build might can outlast you, but you are zerg surfing. Even in the best of circumstances your chances are low if anyone has a call target button (and people listen to that person). Regardless, even if not zerg surfing, I don’t understand. small scale and 1v1 any build really can work when you understand it and your enemy (hard counters aside).

/giggle, I read that it was a pve build, and still this came out as my response. Learn2read me!

Signet S/P is fun!

I would personally never run Improv. It’s too random for me, especially as you are trying to run a signet build and it’s got a 1/4 to recharge the signets (though great when it does!). I would go dual training. Unload/PW are both nice hitting with high power.

I am with Arg in Crit strikes as it’s heavily signet focused, and you’ll be wanting to pop them for them buffs.

In Acro I would completly get rid of Assassin’s reward and just use the vigor on heal or QR. I have never been a fan of AR’s lackluster slow effects and even though Arg has a point on quick pockets, but I find it infinitely more useful than AR. More INI is more damage, and evade windows, or blinds (on sword). You do have to be mindful of swapping as often as you can, but if you can do the melee/midrange dance well, it shouldn’t be too bad, especially since IS lines up with weapon swap rather well, and your offset is pistols.

with gear you listed, and your short recharge on malice, you’ll want to pop it if you think you need it. it won’t heal a great deal, and you’ll have a higher base hp, you’ll just have to go on the defensive more when it’s on CD, obviously. Omnoms make for great pairing with it.

Again, sorry my brain has turned everything into pvp the last few days.

Silver.4798:

You make a good case for quick recovery, I’ll give it a shot! What I was thinking with quick pockets was that the animation for PW and unload are rather long, so I was trying to turn that to my advantage. I wanted to slot my weapons with sigil of energy (returns 50% of my endurance upon switch) and sigil of battle (get 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds on switch) because I figure I’ll be rolling around quite a bit for defense (but will get a stack of might out of it each time!), so endurance will run out fairly quick. Sounded good in my head lol I’ll see if it works out in practice.

Regarding trickery, the preparedness minor treat is EXTREMELY attractive, kleptomaniac is pretty good too, but outside of slightly decreased steal recharge this build cannot use condition damage, so the caltrops I will drop from uncatchable and thrill of the crime major traits doesn’t synergize as well in this build as does mug and Improvisation major traits. If I had the trickery minor traits and the DA major traits it would be ideal!

What I was alternatively considering though was to not go into DA and go into SA instead for increased survivability and the stealth buffs, but then I don’t have a reliable way to stealth in this build. Although this ties into…

@ Sir Vincent III

I was thinking of S/D*** rather than S/P because of CnD, which would make going into SA viable rather than DA. But the reason why I went with pistol offhand is the AoE of PW and Blinding powder. P/P can’t really deal with mobs very well esp if they get close to me so I’m trying to think of ways to compensate.

• I don’t have a lot of experience with S/D, if you know of a way to deal with mobs with S/D, please let me know!

s/d: circle strafe kiting autoattacking. the sword autoattack is about as good as PW. FS from s/d has a boon remove(on 1st hit) and hits moderately okay if second hit lands. judicious use of cnd/tac strikes, and juking with IS/DD if needed for CD’s.

SA has tons more survival than DA(obviously), nothing that really synergizes well with s/p, and p/p, but meh.

also I may have misread again, but your sigils you were thinking about won’t stack. one proc on crit/hit weaponswap sigil will turn on the ICD for the other that didn’t proc for at least as long as the ICD of the first thing to proc. force is a good choice for damage once you figure out what you want on swap (energy would go well with your lack of dagger offhand build).

I just started leveling a thief, and I’m doing something very similar. I’m taking 30 in Critical Strikes to get both of the pistol traits and Signet Use. Next, I’m taking 20 in Acrobatics for Quick Recovery and Descent of Shadows (WvW). 10 points each of Shadow Arts and Trickery to get Slowed Pulse and Uncatchable. I’m looking for some evasion tankiness, in addition to burst.

I really love Pistol 4. That’s a mean skill if your timing is good. For solo pve, I can take on just about anything with Pistol five and Pistol 1 + a few dodges here and there. It is boring as hell, though. Still, this approach is excellent for keeping people alive. Using Pistol 3 and 4 is much more active, but entails bigger risk. Either way, I’ve found that I end up tanking in pve. Apparently, blinding and interrupting mobs gets you their attention.

I should add that I’m looking at the Signet that grants Endurance instead of the Power one.

Silver.4798:

Thanks Arganthium, that was a very well thought out reply!

Regarding my choice in DA, you’re right the minor traits doesn’t help me at all since I have no means of poison in this build besides stealing, which is absolutely inefficient. The main reason why I went into DA is because of the power boost, and since the build I had in mind was a sustained damage build, a bit of a power spike will help I imagine.

You make a good case for quick recovery, I’ll give it a shot! What I was thinking with quick pockets was that the animation for PW and unload are rather long, so I was trying to turn that to my advantage. I wanted to slot my weapons with sigil of energy (returns 50% of my endurance upon switch) and sigil of battle (get 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds on switch) because I figure I’ll be rolling around quite a bit for defense (but will get a stack of might out of it each time!), so endurance will run out fairly quick. Sounded good in my head lol I’ll see if it works out in practice.

Regarding trickery, the preparedness minor treat is EXTREMELY attractive, kleptomaniac is pretty good too, but outside of slightly decreased steal recharge this build cannot use condition damage, so the caltrops I will drop from uncatchable and thrill of the crime major traits doesn’t synergize as well in this build as does mug and Improvisation major traits. If I had the trickery minor traits and the DA major traits it would be ideal!

What I was alternatively considering though was to not go into DA and go into SA instead for increased survivability and the stealth buffs, but then I don’t have a reliable way to stealth in this build. Although this ties into…

@ Sir Vincent III

I was thinking of S/D*** rather than S/P because of CnD, which would make going into SA viable rather than DA. But the reason why I went with pistol offhand is the AoE of PW and Blinding powder. P/P can’t really deal with mobs very well esp if they get close to me so I’m trying to think of ways to compensate.

• I don’t have a lot of experience with S/D, if you know of a way to deal with mobs with S/D, please let me know!

Yeah, can’t say I support DA that much. Also- somebody else mentioned this- not sure that Improv necessarily recharges signets if that’s all you’re running.

Ah, I see now. Alright, yeah. Try both out. I like that you try to synergize your sigils with the weapon swapping, definitely an interesting idea. I still prefer IX’s flexibility, but hey, give it a shot.

Yes, unfortunately the major traits for Tricks don’t synergize quite as well with your build. Thus, if you were going to go for the Trick minors, I would put in 15 and put 5 more into CS. Another idea- something you mentioned- would be to take out the 20 from DA, put 10 in CS for Executioner, and put the last 10 wherever you like. That way, you’ll be able to sustain your damage by getting increasingly stronger throughout the fight, making up for lower init and cool downs on utilities.

Also, don’t think of Crits as “spiky” damage. Think of it instead as a booster to your total mean damage over time. If you have a 50% critical chance with 160% Crit Damage then think of it as being a .6*.5 = 30% increased damage output over time.

Finally, like you said, I wouldn’t go for 20 in SA, however, if you put 10 into CS, then you could put 10 into SA, which would work out quite fine.

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated!

@ Selver:
I didn’t know that improv was random, I’m reading the trait off of the build editor website and gw2 wiki, it says steal will always recharge a skill of one type, I assumed 100% of the time so every 45 secs when steal recharges I should be able to recharge all my sigs. Assuming I’m going into a battle with a steal off of cool down this means I can recharge my signets at least once to bring them all off cooldown.

I guess I’m wrong? Are you sure about improv not activating 100% of the time? If it isn’t then yes for sure I’ll go into dual skills giving me 5% extra damage, but I coulda sworn…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Improvisation

My thinking of assasin’s reward was that since I’m going to be burning initiative and gaining initiative so much that it will be a nice almost steady source of healing, but to be honest I’m not sure how much heal I’d be getting off of 1 initiative spent, I should probably look that up. However I like your advice on using QR or gain vigor in heal, if I have SoM in such a short cool down I might as well use it and get some vigor out of it. Come to think of it I REALLY like that idea… thanks!

Regarding the sigils it wont stack?! kitten !!!! Ok, so if I flip it around and have one pistol that gets the sigil of energy and the other that gets sig of force, and my sword gets sig of battle and my other pistol gets sig of force, will this work instead?

@ Haligator
Signet of agility will replenish all your endurance on activation, I’m not sure if thats what you were asking though. The method you mentioned sounds… irritating. And not as fun as UNLOADING HOLY HELL and then pistol whipping them to the moon and back!!! It’s a little riskier if you are low on health but you should be perfectly ok if you’re at a reasonably high health.

yeah, improv will recharge a skill of one type, so you have a 1/4 in it clearing out your signets again. go to mists, spec for it, equip one of each type of utility listed, blow them all. steal from an NPC there. one will pop back up ready for use. I imagine if I always had one of each type it could be handy, but still too RNG for my tastes when there are other options.

Assassin’s Reward was always lackluster. It goes off base ini spent, not after what you’ll gain back and all that. It also triggers after the ini has been spent (and feels like after the animation of the skill). I haven’t really tried it when I had a bunch of healing on my gear, but it was so disappointing otherwise that I never felt like trying. :/

Sigil of Bloodlust on trash you can swap out.
Sigil of Energy (really fun with endless dodge builds)/battle(great on altruism/mightstacking builds)/etc won’t proc if you have like a chance on crit sigil or another swap sigil, and it has processed recently (only one I am not sure of is water, as it isn’t a chance on crit, just a chance, pretty sure it’s under that rule too though).

if you have say a dagger in offhand on both setups, with say, swap aoe bleeds targets, then if you have pistol MH on one set, and sword on another with both having force, you’ll get +5% damage on both sets, and a chance to crit bleed aoe on both swaps. I carry around too much gear :/.

Silver.4798:

@ Haligator
Signet of agility will replenish all your endurance on activation, I’m not sure if thats what you were asking though. The method you mentioned sounds… irritating. And not as fun as UNLOADING HOLY HELL and then pistol whipping them to the moon and back!!! It’s a little riskier if you are low on health but you should be perfectly ok if you’re at a reasonably high health.

Oh, I know. I wasn’t actually asking, but thank you. It suits me if I’ve come home from a 12 hour work day and just want to grind out a level. I’m using shortbow as my backup. Pistol for single target damage. Shortbow for groups that clump nicely.

I’ve been having a much easier time with this thief than I did with the Mesmer or Engineer. On my Necromancer, I used to just let my crazy minions decide which bad guys to attack and follow them around, keeping them alive. You can do that on a Necromancer if you just let go and go with the insanity. Thief seems pretty well-balanced, post-patch, though anything but p/p tends to die more often.

I’m NOT using stealth. I think it was Rift that taught me how to play a ‘rogue’ class without the crutch of stealth. In gw2, I’ve been aiming for a blinky, ranged thief, and gw2 has made the tools available to play one.

This is very similar to a build I’m refining for P/P. Its basic premise is bleed w/ vital shot, poison with spider’s venom, blast w/ Unload, keep up the Initiative and Endurance, use pistol skills for tactical control, and Dodge for evasion/might/swiftness and range control.

In DA though, I use +33% poison duration and 2 stacks of might with poison application, total points 25 to get the 10% damage bonus with conditions.

I also have 20 in CS, and the same second trait, but for the first trait I have +10% pistol damage.

However, for Acro, I only have 10 and the I’m using Power of Inertia (which is yummy with the Swiftness on Dodge). I’m considering going to 20 and selecting Quick Recovery w/ Fleet of Foot and Pain Response as excellent backups.

I have 15 in Trickery. This is the trait line I’ve been giving a closer look lately. Caltrops on dodge and the extra 3 initiative are both great. However, that 3 initiative is mostly only a benefit for the first onslaught, since the initiative regen rate is the same as usual. The caltrops are very handy, especially for a kiting P/P thief, and they work well with the other dodge benefits to render some pretty awesome range and movement control, plus conditions that feed the +10% bonus from DA’s exposed weakness. However, w/ pistols generating conditions is easy and the caltrops require some finesse to be effective (its pretty common for NPCs to avoid them if they’re not already moving in a straight line or if the caltrops aren’t dropped directly on their square). But I do so loves me my caltrops.

Right now I’m considering shaving 5 each off of DA and Trickery and taking Acro to 20 to maximize the benefits of the increased endurance and initiative regen control, which is really the core of the build when you get right down to it. Well, it’s the core for me, since I focus on P/P and evasion. I rarely even switch out weapons to my S/D (personal preference that is probably foolish in the overall scheme of things).

I generally have HiS for healing/stealth/escape, Spider’s Venom, Signet of Agility, and the third is situational, most commonly Radiation Field (Asura), Assasin’s Signet, and Signet of Shadows. When circumstances are such that mobility is a bad idea or impossible (tunnels, enclosed spaces, or aerial/cliffside venues like jump puzzles w/ NPCs), Agility is swapped out for Shadows. For elite, mostly Dagger Storm, then Thieves Guild or one of my golems (Asura).

I use rampager armor and rings, but PVT for all other accessories and the equivalent upgrades for the rings. I use Rata Sum runes, mostly because Eagle is too expensive, but the radiation field is a nice bonus, especially when you can kite someone in circles within its area of effect. Without food buffs, I’m currently at 61% crit chance, which works well with Unload and Opportunist from CS to help keep that initiative up. The dodge/might/swiftness/caltrop/SoAgility combo is very effective against any NPC trying to close range with you. You keep dodging, he keeps missing, limping, bleeding, and eventually dying about the time you stop moving and let him come close enough to loot when he drops at your feet. I also get a lot of pleasure from kiting with P/P and then suddenly switching to S/D, Infiltrator Strike, CnD, 1, 1, 1, Shadow Return, switch to P/P and burn him down the rest of the way while he tries to close with you. I also do a lot of turning and running back towards an NPC and then evading over them to catch them on the caltrops and escape in the opposite direction, i.e. lead the NPC away from your route of escape then turn and run to escape.

This is the beauty of initiative. You use it for what you have to. If you dont need to swap, dont. The build i’m having fun with is an endless dodge variant. 0/10/0/30/30. Initiative is never a problem and cds line up nicely. I use no stealth since i prefer the ldb evade/bleed. It also hits well directly, and backstabs land 2-4k crit. In it i get ini on swap(and if condi removal on self wasnt so imperative, would have endurance on swap sigil), ini +2/10sec, sometimes throw in shadowstep signet. I havent tried it with s/d a lot yet, but fs isnt as disorienting for an opponent as ldb or as useful an evade as sb(i miss the boon rip terribly!)

edit: I say I use no stealth, I do with an opportunistic backstab, and a cnd+stomp when I can, but mostly it’s to delay camp turnovers til reinforcements arrive, or get larger groups baited. It’s great 1v1 with all the evades. most classes weapon swap for cd’s and you’ve lost very little hp And my main point was(sorry I go off on tangents often): Weapon swapping for no reason is silly, weapon swapping for a benefit is not. Do what’s fun, and what you must to get what you want out of your thief. We are very versatile, despite what the doomsayers here might think.

Silver.4798:

@ Sir Vincent III

I was thinking of S/D*** rather than S/P because of CnD, which would make going into SA viable rather than DA. But the reason why I went with pistol offhand is the AoE of PW and Blinding powder. P/P can’t really deal with mobs very well esp if they get close to me so I’m trying to think of ways to compensate.

• I don’t have a lot of experience with S/D, if you know of a way to deal with mobs with S/D, please let me know!

P/P requires 30/30/x/x/x to be effective IMO, so I would only spec for DA if I use pistol Main Hand and it is my main weapon set. I have P/P as my off-set just in case it’s too dangerous to get in melee range. But kitten D, I’m currently using 0/30/20/20/0, which requires my to be frugal in spending my Initiatives.

Swords already have a cleaving capability (meaning able to hit multiple targets within a cone area in front of the Thief), so PW is not really that great anymore now that Anet botched Haste. S/D is all about controlling the mob using Dancing Daggers, IS/SR, and CnD. Always initiate with CnD because it gives you indication how many mobs responded to the attack, because thanks to the Feb update, mobs stares at you while you’re in stealth, then you get a good look at how many mobs you’re dealing with. I never use IS as an initiator, rather I use it to transfer from one mob to another.

I personally bring Ambush trap skill as a staple while leveling up when dealing with mobs.

I’m doing fairly decent damage with P/P without any traits in DA actually by compensating for it in the gear and having more initiative to burn (initiative regen is the linchpin of this build). This particular build aims to rain down constant dps in a steady stream rather than doing massive burst damage and then wait for recharge and do it again.

Said another way, if left unharassed I can literally chain 10 unloads in 30 seconds and the only time I am not doing any dps is the animation of SoM heal.

Also I’m trying to completely stay away from stealth, since it has been taking a nerf bat to the face, the balls and up the rear end in what seems to be like in every patch. Also BP seems to be a pretty adequate AoE defense, so I wanna see how S/P works out.

The reduced dps from PW really stinks, but I do like the momentary stun which can interrupt and built in evades of PW so I just think of it as a more glorified autoattack.

It really comes down to your play style and the Thief profession have skills to compliment that style.

s/p is great for clutch interrupts, the AA being just as good as PW is disheartening, but hey. that’s more Ini for ranged interrupts/blinds. I never was a fan of stationary evades, but I think I mentioned that once.

Since they lowered CD on blinding powder a while back it became an instant favorite.

And I disagree p/p requires 30/30/x/x/x; looks like Silver’s making it work

I will second Ambush trap is great shenanigans for pve.

Selver.1307:

s/p is great for clutch interrupts, the AA being just as good as PW is disheartening, but hey. that’s more Ini for ranged interrupts/blinds. I never was a fan of stationary evades, but I think I mentioned that once.

Since they lowered CD on blinding powder a while back it became an instant favorite.

And I disagree p/p requires 30/30/x/x/x; looks like Silver’s making it work

I will second Ambush trap is great shenanigans for pve.

It really is a trade off. 30/30/x/x/x (or atleast 25 in DA) provides both raw damage and condition damage, which I believe is more effective than multiple Unloads. And there’s the othere side, to be able to Unload multiple times.

Also the 30/30/x/x/x is coupled with using D/D on the second half to finish things off quickly.

Note that I said for it to be “effective” meaning this is because relying on Unload for damage also exposes the Thief, not to mention that it is blockable and can be reflected, and the most reliable damage that bypass all these is condition damage.

EDIT: Simply put, relying on Unload makes it easy to shut you down.

The pve side of things that isn’t such an issue.

using p/p effectively in pvp requires a lot of situational awareness (how many dodges do they have left, have they popped aegis recently, has their cleanse you know they are packing been blown, etc etc), and a lot of premeditation on lining up cc through venoms/traps(yes I said it)/stealth openers/switches. It is very easy to shut down if miscalculated or what not, but in a situation where you can not close distance or put enough ranged pressure in return – they generally are set to be able to uphold that unload for at least more than you are gonna be able to dodge. Anytime you team with a baiter with some CC it becomes childs play though (another thief taunting with sb or p/d is amusing when you finally close on them and you get chain bv’d and unloaded/backstabbed on by that one and his p/p buddy that was los’ing his nameplate) :P

( I fell for it … ouch)