Guild Wars 2

I used to run short-bow and PP for PVE and WvW.

How ever, every time I used PP in PVE, I would get shredded by mobs.

Whilst in WvW, although the unload damage was good for taking a chunk of health, it was quite useless after that. With no slow and shortbow’s cripple bouncing you away from your target. I usually ended up losing easy kills due to this.

I promptly switched to shortbow and PD. I haven’t looked back. I’m still firing a gun. The pistol’s stealth attack with PD is as good as unload. Plus it has a cripple with dagger throw. It is good enough for me!

Scorpy.9754:

Splat.2718:

Short-bow is bad and it should feel bad. All short bow does is some aoe damage.

what are you talking about, Shortbow does more dmg then unload overall, on PP u just spam unload, with Shortbow its poison cloud from which all party benefit + cluster bomb detonates multiple times on same mob

Short Bow does good damage, if there are multiple targets.

But if you’re just blasting away at a single target then Short Bow damage is abysmal. Like, really, really, really bad.

I’d still pick it as my main ranged weapon in Dungeons and PvE where there’s plenty of need for AoE but in PvP and certain boss fights, Pistols really are the better choice.

Dee Jay.2460:

Scorpy.9754:

Splat.2718:

Short-bow is bad and it should feel bad. All short bow does is some aoe damage.

what are you talking about, Shortbow does more dmg then unload overall, on PP u just spam unload, with Shortbow its poison cloud from which all party benefit + cluster bomb detonates multiple times on same mob

Short Bow does good damage, if there are multiple targets.

But if you’re just blasting away at a single target then Short Bow damage is abysmal. Like, really, really, really bad.

I’d still pick it as my main ranged weapon in Dungeons and PvE where there’s plenty of need for AoE but in PvP and certain boss fights, Pistols really are the better choice.

Don’t forget the AoE weakness.

Nobody complains about PvE, in PvP P/P is very bad.

Amante.8109:

Devildoc.6721:

Well I still don’t see how shortbow is supposed to be such great damage on a single target. I’m doing about 3000 damage on cluster bomb explosions compared to 5500 on unload. Both can stack bleed with sigil of earth and pistol auto attacks, and I can poison with steal just the same as using choking gas, just on a single target. In the end I’m doing 50% more damage with pistols. Things just die a lot faster with pistols. I can circle strafe and things die. Shortbow requires a lot more finesse but the payout for that finesse is just lacking.

What you’re proposing is a false dilemma. The ubiquity of Shortbow in the loadouts of talented thieves has nothing to do with single target damage, so why bother comparing it between Shortbow and Dual Pistols? Between the very good AOE damage and the CLASS DEFINING mobility of Infiltrator’s Arrow, passing on Shortbow is not an option for the competitive Thief, period.

This means that, when intelligently discussing potential Thief weapon choices, there’s an underlying assumption that the weapons in question would be run ALONGSIDE the Shortbow. This also means that you preferably want your non-Shortbow weapons to provide something unique, ranging from utility to strong single target damage.

And what, really, do Dual Pistols bring to the table? In terms of damage, it’s ALL single target, and not even that high compared to other options. The set lacks a single snare, root, or meaningful escape skill, Unload is slow and easy to dodge in PvP, and to cap it off, the skills don’t even synergize well amongst themselves. Vital Shot and Sneak Attack favor Condition Damage, Unload favors Power, Crit, and On Hit effects, and Body Shot costs resources you’ll never have to spare, due to how Initiative hungry Unload is.

Headshot and Black Powder are very useful, granted, but you could just run D/P or S/P and get the same skills attached to a better package instead. Frankly spoken: P/P needs work.

Because people swear up and down it’s more damage on a single target, which it’s not. It’s pathetic damage honestly, it’s just good utility and it’s aoe., but the aoe damage is mediocre at best.

Pistols = Burst down a single target, spam blind, spam interrupt
Shortbow = Kite and outlast multiple opponents

Key word, outlast. You’re not killing things fast.

I think the thing people most overlook when disparaging PP is its survivability options. In WvW I mainly use SB, but keep PP on hand for a couple reasons. First is single target damage. There’s very little dissent about how poorly the SB is at single target, and when targets start getting called, I stop aoeing for a moment.
On the other hand, it does make a pretty sweet part of a defensive setup. When you have an interrupt and a blind on your hotbar, you are always moving 25% faster than just about everyone, you drop aoe cripples when you dodge, and you have at least 1 stealth skill ready, you can bounce around a skirmish for quite some time. And that’s with fairly minimal vit/tuff armor, which means you can still build for crits or conditions, or whatever floats your boat.

No, PP is not the most suited weapon to burning targets down in a flash, but believe it or not, there are other ways to build your thief.

Scorpy.9754:

Splat.2718:

Short-bow is bad and it should feel bad. All short bow does is some aoe damage.

what are you talking about, Shortbow does more dmg then unload overall, on PP u just spam unload, with Shortbow its poison cloud from which all party benefit + cluster bomb detonates multiple times on same mob

You’re considering “more damage” as the fact that it does AoE, which is what he was saying anyway. That being said, if it were to matter when it comes to focusing one person, and I mean one person (like in an instance for example; a major boss), Dual Pistols does way more damage and provides much better utility than Short Bow.

The main thing with Pistols is the auto attack doing bleeding damage while being free. Unload does more burst damage on a single target than EVERY Thief skill with the exception of Pistol Whip (SP) and Heartseeker. I say burst because it’s debatable that Death Blossom can do more, only due to bleeding if you can land it several times in succession.

Aside from that, Headshot can be used to interrupt enemies, especially when you see major attacks coming. Black Powder is amazing since it blinds. You can be up in enemies faces for the most part, especially in PvE. It’s very easy to get around harder enemies with this skill. Oddly enough, you can go to stealth through this skill, but most people are too slow to understand what the results of combo fields do yet. Just switch to Dagger main hand and use Heartseeker since the finisher “Leap” grants a boon to you; in this case, Stealth.

Shortbow’s function is to exploit enemies weaknesses in mobility, not really do so much damage. It’s safer to use in a group situation when you don’t want to be in the fray, but it will never ever do more damage than Dual Pistols when focusing a specific person. You’re capable of doing Poison, Weakness, and kiting enemies around, but that’s its function in a skirmish and it’s supposed to take much longer.

The point of the discussion wasn’t even really over damage, but use. And yes, Shortbow is much less useful, but has its strengths. It’s easily the second least useful weapon a Thief can use though, behind Sword.

If you’re in a 1v1 you’re using daggers or a sword in some way or another; not two pistols. And if you do you probably are because you need to kite… in which case shortbow is better because dual pistols only have a cripple, you won’t stop them from moving. And CC? If you’re using 4/5 then your only damage is auto attacks, in which case you might as well use shortbow.

Humorless.1573:

If you’re in a 1v1 you’re using daggers or a sword in some way or another; not two pistols. And if you do you probably are because you need to kite… in which case shortbow is better because dual pistols only have a cripple, you won’t stop them from moving. And CC? If you’re using 4/5 then your only damage is auto attacks, in which case you might as well use shortbow.

But you’re still missing aoe blind, it pretty much screws most of melee/ranged attacks so long they are within the field. And I can pretty much chain 3-4 of those, using initiative alone.

so purely theoretically, pump up bleeding for auto-attack and remain within smoke screen.

I take down 1v1 with short bow without kiting, and quickly, just fine.

It come down to this. people who use PP haven’t spent enough time with Short Bow to know how to trait, slot and build for Short Bow. People who run Short Bow definitely don’t spend time with PP, traiting it etc.

I run BOTH. I also run D/P. And P/D. AND S/P. I practice with ALL of them, and I can say that from a purely damage outlook, PP is no better than SB 1v1. The rate at which I can spam my cluster bomb (note, I stand still leave my cursor right at their feet in melee and just slam 2,2 2,2 2,2 and it lands quick and crits a lot), regain initiative, heal and spam my cluster bomb allows me to 1v1 vets, skill challenges, and some bosses quickly, plus if I get too much heat I can bail easier.

Here’s the thing though, the difference is miniscule. P/P does just fine and has no splash damage allowing me to pull much cleaner, and focus on my bag of tricks more.

If there were a huge disparity on single target damage between the two, I could see slamming one or the other. There isn’t.

If you think their is, parse it and come back. To me, 6 seconds is 6 seconds. Pick one and enjoy it. No need to convert others. Both are equal.

(shortbow is better)

I’ve used P/P since release. SB is my OH. Take it for what it is though. I just hit 80 over the weekend, have yet to set foot in any PvP and have just been having fun playing the game. I plan to PvP at some point but I have other goals in mind atm. I know it’s probably not the highest DPS or the most widely used, but it brings me the most enjoyment and isn’t that why we all play games?

I say use what makes you happy unless someone is paying you to play professionally or competitively.

This game is awesome!

I use P/P along with Smoke Bomb for pretty much perma blind for dungeons and if I want to cheese a veteran mob.

I like P/P but it feels unresponsive to me compared to other weapons. So I only use it for dungeons so I can use the smoke bomb, bleed, and vulnerability.

(The 1+2 skills feel slow and weak, especially.)

amradio.2513:

More or less, the offhand has no synergy with the main hand. You dont need vulnerability stacks if you’re doing condition dmg. You don’t need blind spam if you’re kiting from range. They dont go together. Basically you pick off hand pistol or mh pistol, buth both just gives you something other things can do better.

Personally I’m a P/D man myself. Low intiative cost, great bleed stacks, decent mobility, with the only real weakness being lack of powerful ranged abilities. With a shortbow the problem is remedied with increased mobility, moar conditions, and useful kiting tools.

It’s interesting that nearly no one uses P/D. You have stealth, criple, gap opener that all of them does nice amounts of dmg also with heavy stealth opener and bleeds. That’s a win/win combo for me. As off hand, i prefer D/D for the burst dmg to finish things off. Traps work best with P/D btw imo.

I use PPs as one of my two sets, the other being S/P. They tend to do very good damage and are especially popular in WvW and boss fights for me.

I think pistols get crapped on a bit too much. While I definitely agree shortbow has far more utility, pistols still are your best choice for ranged single target.

With that said, I don’t think pistols will ever truly be good. As already said, Vital Shot conflicts with Unload because VS want’s condition damage whereas Unload wants power/crit. If they removed VS bleed and buffed the base damage it would work, however I don’t think that will ever happen because VS bleed is very important to P/D. Another option would be to buff Unload enough to counter VS being pathetically weak for P/P, however that would make P/P basically the ultimate glass cannon setup, and being that they just nerfed Heartseeker for those reasons, I highly doubt this will ever happen.

The only other thing I can think of that could possibly work is if they ditched Body Shot completely, since it’s basically worthless for all mainhand pistol setups, and threw in some kind of AoE instead. This would make P/P a viable choice over shortbow, however they would have to balance it EXTREMELY well because P/P would need to enough AoE to be viable, but would still have to do less AoE than shortbow overall, otherwise there would be no reason to take shortbow.

Rusha.4725:

amradio.2513:

More or less, the offhand has no synergy with the main hand. You dont need vulnerability stacks if you’re doing condition dmg. You don’t need blind spam if you’re kiting from range. They dont go together. Basically you pick off hand pistol or mh pistol, buth both just gives you something other things can do better.

Personally I’m a P/D man myself. Low intiative cost, great bleed stacks, decent mobility, with the only real weakness being lack of powerful ranged abilities. With a shortbow the problem is remedied with increased mobility, moar conditions, and useful kiting tools.

It’s interesting that nearly no one uses P/D. You have stealth, criple, gap opener that all of them does nice amounts of dmg also with heavy stealth opener and bleeds. That’s a win/win combo for me. As off hand, i prefer D/D for the burst dmg to finish things off. Traps work best with P/D btw imo.

It’s due to the fact that you need to close in melee range for the stealth and it is completely ineffective without high condition damage as it has no burst damage. Even shortbow has more burst damage than D/P.

Usually people use a pistol setup when being in melee would absolutely destroy them.

It’s pretty much exlusively a sPVP setup.

In PVE, if you’re going to be in melee range, why not use a sword or dagger?