Double Pistols on a thief?
The best pve sets are:
melee/Pistol (black powder for AoE blind pulses)
Shortbow (ranged, high aoe damage, cluster bomb spam for dynamic events)
Pistol/Dagger (strong, versatile set when running condition damage builds)
And possibly Dagger/Dagger for Death Blossom spam.
P/P is currently one of the weaker sets given the lack of synergy between the condition damage auto-attack and the direct damage dual skill, the lack of synergy between ranged combat and Black Powder, and the overall weakness of Body Shot.
hey i’m new to the guild wars 2, and i’m wondering is having double pistols on a thief better then having, say a pistol and a dagger or a sword and a dagger? I pretty much only play PvE.
You cant really say one set of weapons is universally, throughout the whole game better than another in gw2. Not on a thief at least IMO. There are fights against multiple mobs where you can equip S/P, signet of malice, life regen food and just outheal/evade any damage while mowing the mobs down with Pistol Whip. Then there are fights where despite massive self healing the mobs will 2 shot you – there your preferred weapon is the shortbow and cluster bomb. There are single target fights where you can stay on the boss and just keep sticking your daggers in his back for max possible damage and there are fights where the boss just wont let you do that in which case youll want to resort to P/P (8-10k unloads are nothing to sneeze at).
Personally I usually run S/P & P/P swapping to SB where needed.
Even with the synergy issues, my Thief’s been P/P D/P for most of her existence. And yes, I do dig the black powder/HS/BS chain. With that said, I do keep SB for those ‘Oh frack, I need AoE!’ days.
Malegryne (Sylvari Mesmer), Lannka (Asura Thief) – Ferguson’s Crossing: [PRD/BRB/OMFG]
Other 80s: Any but Warrior
Other 80s: Any but Warrior
The issue with P/P is that it only has 1 ability that hits hard -as long as your target forgets they can dodge- and the rest don’t really add much…Sorry, but Anet seem to have had some idea that none of us -player base- seem to get regarding all the other P/P abilities other than Unload. It seems weird to me that P/P has no way of consistently geeing into stealth!
Short answer: No, usually not.
The issue with P/P is that it only has 1 ability that hits hard -as long as your target forgets they can dodge-
He said it he was asking about PvE.
The best pve sets are:
melee/Pistol (black powder for AoE blind pulses)
Shortbow (ranged, high aoe damage, cluster bomb spam for dynamic events)
Pistol/Dagger (strong, versatile set when running condition damage builds)And possibly Dagger/Dagger for Death Blossom spam.
P/P is currently one of the weaker sets given the lack of synergy between the condition damage auto-attack and the direct damage dual skill, the lack of synergy between ranged combat and Black Powder, and the overall weakness of Body Shot.
You forgot the overall weakness of Vital Shot, which is actually a more significant issue than both the hybrid style and Body Shot.
Short answer: No, usually not.
This sums it up. P/P is situationally useful in some dungeon fights, but for open-world PvE there isn’t really a niche it fills better than other sets.
I’ve found that P/D is better than P/P in most of those niche dungeon fights where Pistol is stronger than Short Bow. Unless your team drinks paint between dungeons Body Shot will out-damage Unload, making the only particularly valuable thing about P/P the Daze spam.
The only place I use P/P now is against the Ice Elemental or Dredge Power Suit at the end of the Underground Fractal, where I like that Daze spam if I need to interrupt the heal. Otherwise the fact that Body Shot > Unload against dungeon bosses really removes all motivation I have for using P/P.
Unless your team drinks paint between dungeons Body Shot will out-damage Unload,
It isn’t as simple as that, and depends on the thief’s stats, group composition, and what amount of group damage is condition-based.
Im currently leveling a thief and run mostly P/P since I like the way it looks and usually 2 unloads does the job on normal mobs. I also use S/P for killing vets or higher since blind+auto attack makes it easy mode.
It isn’t as simple as that, and depends on the thief’s stats, group composition, and what amount of group damage is condition-based.
It does depend on all those things, and the sum of those factors is that Body Shot will outperform Unload unless your team is really bad.
I’ve been running several different scenarios, and the rule of thumb I keep getting is that Unload is better than Body Shot if and only if you are dealing more than 1/3 of the team’s normal damage; that is, if you are dealing more than twice the normal damage of an average teammate.
You’re only going to be dealing more than twice as much normal damage as an average teammate – with a Pistol! – if you’re carrying some real dead weight along for the ride.
Hence the rule of thumb to use Body Shot in a good group and Unload when solo, or when carrying baddies.