Guild Wars 2

Just wondering, never seen one actually using P/P and I like it a lot.

It is a very confused weapon set, 1 skill is condition dmg, 2 skill is junk, 3 skill is direct dmg with no condition dmg, 4 and 5 skill are defensive. There is no cohesion in the set and the dmg it does is subpar.

It is single target but does just as much damage as SB does but SB does it better with more utility and it hits multiple targets.

Basically p/p needs a complete rework but it just has never happened.

I run S/D and P/P since the patch mostly because I like being hyper aggressive. P/P lets me unload and get rid of aegis quickly while still hurting as well as track thieves through their cloak attempts. Not to mention the stealth x5shot. Unload/stealth/x5 shot/unload before the enemy even gets near you. That’s a metric ton of damage before they can properly react.

But I do agree I run this for extreme fun and aggression whereas bow is safer, has more utility, and you don’t need any traits for. Though 2-3 thieves running together spamming Unload is the funniest kitten ever

Yes. The only thing that makes it even slightly usable is how easily thieves die in melee.

I do run P/P + SB, since november actually, even started running it in tpvp, and my blocklist is sky rocketing.

I’m a hotjoin hero to start with, had to take a little break from GW2 a while ago so i’m sitting at r50 which is not as high as i could be.
Spent a while tweaking my traits and gear and i know for sure i’m the only thief in EU running around with this setup.
In hotjoin it’s a delight, in WvW it’s an absolute glass canon eater but that’s not really relevant.

In tpvp i get hated by my team at first, because they see me with Signet of Malice and Signet of Agility.
Then i get hated by some of the enemy team players, losing to them or defeating them, either way makes no difference i get trakittenalked.

You wanna run P/P ? Just grab it. Win some, lose some.
Every single player i saw trying to run P/P makes the same mistake, they think they need to build as if they were your regular power/crit stealth dependant thief.
I actually don’t use stealth except for shadow refuge, sometimes, but even that utility is used most of the time for the benefit of the dark field combo. Which can be very deceiving actually because almost every player thinks you’re going to try to ninja soon as they see SR and rush in, but you’re actually setting your burst up.
Many people also believe you can’t get anything out of it if you don’t 333333333, well good luck with that.
Running P/P, i use every single skill on my bar, and yes even body shot has its uses because of the cheap 100% combo projectile it offers. It’s also very dependent with SB so you really need to learn when is the right time to put your weapons on CD otherwise you’re free food.

The opponents you will never defeat are bunker guardians and BM rangers, and you’re going to have a very hard time dueling bunker oriented engies, at least as long as those know what they do.
You won’t be a bunker eater, but then again, that’s kind of the point of bunkers, not dying 1v1.

Other than that i’ve beaten my share of shatter/phantasm mesmers, bunker eles (i made this build a while ago especially in order to counter bunker eles and believe it or not it gave decent results), other thieves and so forth.

It’s true that you need to work your kitten off to be on par with most of the favored tpvp specs, it’s true the skill/reward ratio is unfair compared to many specs out there, but i still believe P/P is very underestimated.

Yes it needs some love but far from a complete rework as i read more and more.
And the hipster in me whispers he doesn’t want it to be buffed because i don’t want it to become cheezy and start seeing all those people discarding it without even trying starting to run around with P/P because Anet mouth feeded it to them.

i th ink this is the next obvious big change for anet on gw2 i almost guarantee a rework on pistol mainhand and p/p will be done in nxt couple months.

The set currently based around 1 ability spam that can be avoided completely by doubletap. So yeah, theres a reason no one uses it. I looses in most situation in shortbow, even in burst (clusterbomb shotgun is as good as Unload). It still is ok to bring down target fighting someone else in pvp or wvw with massive damage, but basically every player just doubletaps, blocks, interrupts Unload.

muscarine.5136:

I do run P/P + SB, since november actually, even started running it in tpvp, and my blocklist is sky rocketing.

I’m a hotjoin hero to start with, had to take a little break from GW2 a while ago so i’m sitting at r50 which is not as high as i could be.
Spent a while tweaking my traits and gear and i know for sure i’m the only thief in EU running around with this setup.
In hotjoin it’s a delight, in WvW it’s an absolute glass canon eater but that’s not really relevant.

In tpvp i get hated by my team at first, because they see me with Signet of Malice and Signet of Agility.
Then i get hated by some of the enemy team players, losing to them or defeating them, either way makes no difference i get trakittenalked.

You wanna run P/P ? Just grab it. Win some, lose some.
Every single player i saw trying to run P/P makes the same mistake, they think they need to build as if they were your regular power/crit stealth dependant thief.
I actually don’t use stealth except for shadow refuge, sometimes, but even that utility is used most of the time for the benefit of the dark field combo. Which can be very deceiving actually because almost every player thinks you’re going to try to ninja soon as they see SR and rush in, but you’re actually setting your burst up.
Many people also believe you can’t get anything out of it if you don’t 333333333, well good luck with that.
Running P/P, i use every single skill on my bar, and yes even body shot has its uses because of the cheap 100% combo projectile it offers. It’s also very dependent with SB so you really need to learn when is the right time to put your weapons on CD otherwise you’re free food.

The opponents you will never defeat are bunker guardians and BM rangers, and you’re going to have a very hard time dueling bunker oriented engies, at least as long as those know what they do.
You won’t be a bunker eater, but then again, that’s kind of the point of bunkers, not dying 1v1.

Other than that i’ve beaten my share of shatter/phantasm mesmers, bunker eles (i made this build a while ago especially in order to counter bunker eles and believe it or not it gave decent results), other thieves and so forth.

It’s true that you need to work your kitten off to be on par with most of the favored tpvp specs, it’s true the skill/reward ratio is unfair compared to many specs out there, but i still believe P/P is very underestimated.

Yes it needs some love but far from a complete rework as i read more and more.
And the hipster in me whispers he doesn’t want it to be buffed because i don’t want it to become cheezy and start seeing all those people discarding it without even trying starting to run around with P/P because Anet mouth feeded it to them.

Inspiring, sir. Now I want to try it. Haven’t touched P/P since August.

It doesn’t do what a lot of thief sets do: it has no built in evades, no access to stealth, and no shadowsteps.

In exchange, you can fire a lot of bullets, and everything you do, you can do from 900 units away. And as Muscarine said, you have access to blinds, dazes and a very affordable projectile finisher, things that can give you a lot of control over a fight.

As a P/P user, I don’t think I have seen a good P/P users that can make me run for my money yet. I guess good players just don’t play P/P at all or maybe I just haven’t seen one just yet.

1. You don’t play P/P as your main without your second weapon set as your mean of escape.
2. Anyone who said P/P is all about 3.3.3.3.3.3 are just people who don’t really use or don’t know how to take advantage of what P/P can offers.
3. In 1vs1, P/P can eat SB Thief anyday if you don’t make any mistake but in a team fight SB Thief contribute better than P/P.
4. IMO, also as muscarine.5136 said, it is better to use P/P without relies on stealth. Also before the revealed was nerf to 4sec, you can actually double stealth with SR but too bad it is gone now.
5. Again, as muscarine.5136 said, P/P is very underestimated but that doesn’t mean P/P is a great set just yet because due to the downside of Vital Shot and Body Shot, and the lack of Utility skills to support it. Vital Shot is way too slow that it became unresponsive. Well you won’t notice it much when you play normally but when you are up against something like as flexible kitten D Thief the flaw in Vital Shot will become very clear to you. As for Body Shot, muscarine.5136 said he used it but to me P/P only has 4 skills.

People don’t focus on P/P because its average dps coupled with its inability to handle multiple targets, so it’s only decent in situations like DPSing down a boss, or in ranged skirmishes. But if the P/P user gets focused by multiple foes, they’ll, likely crumple.

^
Thats why you have to play sneakier than you think you did

P/P is like one of those situation where they only give you “wood” “fire” and “fish” but not food.

So what’s your build muscarine.5136 ?

P/P can barely kill a kitten wolf…

Siva Mira.3546:

- snip as it makes my post too long

My responses, and why I stopped maining P/P:
1. True, but this also faces the greatest weakness of thief: Initiative is shared. P/P is one of the most initiative hungry combos in the game – Unload is your only access to DPS, and costs 5. Headshot is your interrupt that can stop the heal that would have undone all of your unload damage, but costs 4. Black powder can add survivability, but costs 6. Mobility/stealth moves costs 4+ init to use. You’ll never kill anything with conservative use of initiative with P/P as the DPS is simply too low, so you can often find yourself seconds dry from that escape, and that would = death. Utilities can help close that gap, to be used for escape or to be able to stay on target, but your lack of native moblity/control means that an active fight eats those too. Short story – you either cripple your fighting ability to keep an escape, or you go do or die to be able to fight.

2. Very true. As I said in 1, 4 and 5 are both useful… but they are also expensive. I personally don’t think P/P can afford BP, as eating half your initiative for a few blinds on a init starved set is highly iffy. It might work on a 1v1 where the target is too dumb to just auto-attack off the blind and dodge/block/reflect your subsequent single unload… but the most it does is delay the battle for less time than the init you consumed – thus it is a loss. Headshot is useful, but once again expensive for what it is. I save it for that casted heal or all mobility breaks are down and 100b is about to skewer me. Won’t bother talking about auto attack and body shot. 90% of the time you should just be dodging and 3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3

3. Bull kitten. An SB will be P/P any day if both are good. If the SB user sucks, sure, the SB would lose, but that applies to anything – Skill > Class/equipment. But seriously, Chocking Gas will keep you perma poisoned and weakened, Weakened being the hard counter to dodge builds like P/P. SB can keep you crippled and stick on you for Cluster Bomb shotgunning, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Add in the fact that SB auto from stealth is an immobilize (I’ve won many fights from this), and it’s no contest. Oh, and my Cluster Bomb I have less than a second where dodging would interrupt my attack, as I can trigger it during dodges. The only thing is that SB lost auto attack due to the kitten nerf, so it’s now a melee range only weapon.

4. True. The stealth move off P/P is a condition move, and if you’re running P/P, you’re likely not a condition build unless you don’t know what you’re doing. Thus stealth doesn’t really help you except as an escape. However it’s a powerful escape, so it’s hard to go amiss with SR on your bar.

5. I used to think that, but then as I sPVP and tPVPed more, I woke up to the fact that by simply swapping the utterly worthless mainhand pistol with anything else, I get more utility, mobility, and more DPS. P/P doesn’t crumple against multiple targets, P/P crumples against anyone that is slightly mobile. You have nothing to stop them as even the trait sucks as it has a lame 10s cooldown for a chance at a 3s cripple, while anyone else will keep you crippled a minimum 50% of the time. Your only DPS move is easily dodged/interrupted/blocked/reflected. If the target has no blocks, no interrupts, no reflections and only two dodges is the only time P/P shines. But then any other DPS would shine against that, so once again, why take P/P over D/P or S/P (or any other weapon combo period)?

I think all thief Pistol moves need major help, but mainhand Pistol is completely broken. The only thing that is ok on it is the stealth attack for condition stacking, but if you want to use that, once again you’re not using P/P, it will be P/D… which once again gains you mobility, stealth and actual bleed stacking that P/P can’t give.

I want to use P/P. My first month as a thief was P/P. But I can’t justify its use competitively.

Pistol/pistol is used for single target dps with little utility, defense, or support. It also provides very mediocre single target dps. That leaves very little going for it other than the shortbow being even worse single target dps.

I didn’t give up P/P after a month of Trial&Error. I play P/P since beta until now and I haven’t switch to anything yet. But not because I CAN’T but because I don’t want to.

3. I don’t know about the others but I don’t play P/P standing in one spot and spam 3. And I don’t think I would be stupid enough to eat every Cluster Bomb you threw at me and standing in Chocking Gas field fighting you. IMO, the only way a SB can beat P/P in fair fight 1vs1 is to have your SB disappear every second like I would be fighting a S/D Thief. You have to know that your CB and CG have to land on me or it won’t do any damage. The only advantage SB has over P/P are Disabling Shot and Infiltrator’s Arrow but the downside is those 2 skill hardly has any damage.

4. If you went full Stealth build with P/P you can really do alot of amazing thing and Sneak Attack can do up to over 3k dmg which is not too bad. But the downside is that once you used your healing skill(HiS) and you still can not win the fight then you are lose by default any longer into the fight will just drag you down to your death. And if you are running this Stealth build you are also lose by default when you are up against a bunker or any Retaliation build. This build give you just enough power to play and great escape but once you used up that POWER you are done. That is the limit for using stealth with P/P.

5. In the current form, P/P can NOT win against any of those top spec that are using int tPvP. Due to the lack of being a completed set and Utility Skills to support it. It is the same when you think what D/D going to do if they remove Basilisk Venom? Without a doubt D/D will fall apart.

Yesterday, I killed a warrior rank 52 who was trying to burst me down because he saw me using Unload on him. I guess he was thinking I am one of those thief who spam unload and let him Bull Charge and burst them down. And you know what excuse he gave me?
Here is what he said:
“Lucky Noob! I screwed up.”

Sorry, Siva, but you WOULD be eating those Cluster Bombs. No one just stands there – as a P/P thief, if you don’t have at least 15 acrobatics for dodges, it’s a fail build as you have to make up for the lack of base mobility. You run out of my choking gas, that’s at least 3-5 stacks of poison/weakness. You dodge out, I baited that dodge for only 4 init and I can just cast it again. You’re not stopping the poison/weaken. Besides, I usually start the battle from stealth, thus immobilizing you. You’re eating that unless you eat your Withdraw or RoI right off the bat, which to me is an even bigger win than if you ate it. With my always having a minimum of 2 immobilizes + spammable cripple + infi arrow, mobility between your P/P and my SB is not a contest. Keeping CB on you is easy, and I have just as many dodges as you. The only difference is it’s 3 or 4 init wasted when you dodge, and for you it’s 5. P/P #1 is ignorable. #2 is ignorable. #3 is rediculously predictable, and have more than enough dodges + utilities to keep up on avoiding it. #4 is ignorable as Withdraw heal triggers instantly, and I don’t really care if you interrupt anything else. #5 means you just spent 6 init for that blind – SB is a lot weaker than it used to be with it’s auto-attack nerf, but it still can take on P/P easily. I have never lost to P/P, and the only time I ever struggled against one using that set was back when I used P/P.

Until they fix P/P, there is only two reasons to use them:
1) You want to, and don’t care if they suck compared to anything else.
2) You need to DPS a single target at longer than melee range. Cluster Bomb is better DPS than Unload at melee range, but at long range sucks due to it’s stupidly slow arc. All other thief weapons are melee, so that leaves no option but P/P. Though, of course, this situation only applies to anti-melee bosses in PvE.

As for your example, that fits the situation where P/P can shine: If the target has no blocks, no interrupts, no reflections and only two dodges. Warriors are one of the easiest targets in PvP as they have crap mobility – the mobility moves they do have are clunky and predictable – you can walk out of a Bull Charge, though I’m sure you just dodged or interrupted. And as a Bull Charge user, I’m sure he is a Melee using CC over Endure Pain, thus he had nothing but two dodges to avoid unloads. Saying P/P is a 3,3,3,3,3 is not saying you’re an inept player that uses one finger never touching WASD or utility skills, it’s saying that 90% of the time you use a weapon skill, it’s #3. My point is that everything else on the weapon set is so dredge worthy that you’re stuck using a sub par skill as it’s your only access to DPS. Heals/Utilities/Elites are fine.

As for the comment of P/P being an “amazing stealth build”, um why would you use P/P over P/D? P/D translates your #3 into a mobility move (giving you far far better escape than P/P). /D #4 may have been nerfed to uselessness, but CnD gives you access to all the stealth you need rather than relying on long cooldown utilities. Add in the fact that stealth blinds > BP, and the only thing you can argue the loss on is the interrupt and unload. But if you want DPS with stealth, you should be using Sword or Dagger mainhand. If you want condition, you use Pistol. And the expensive interrupt is a small loss for more mobility and more stealth.

I’m not telling you to give up P/P, I’m desperately pleading for Devs to give P/P some much needed love.