Guild Wars 2

thinking of a condition armour (carrion?) + D/D thief with

condition removal/initiative/health while stealthed
damage while stealing
fleeting shadows + quick recovery
thrill of the crime or long reach … haven’t worked out which would be better …

Also thinking of shortbow as weapon swap for ranged attack and AoE as required.

Am I thinking wrong going this way?

I have to still work out what to add to the weapons by way of sigils or orbs.

what is this for? pve, pvp, or wvw? mug is near useless without criting. those 10 points would be better off elsewhere. in most situation DB is more than enough AoE, so SB for AoE is really only useful when you need range on top of AoE. you will normally know when those situations are coming, so I would recommend a pistol main hand in your second weapon slot and keeping a SB in your bag for those situations. with just D/D you wont be stealthing without utilities too much, so you may want to see where else you can put the shadow arts points unless you go with the pistol in the second weapon slot idea. as for what to add to the weapons, with dd/short bow you could use corruption/agony for the daggers. if you go with the pistol in the weapon swap slot you could put geomancy sigils on both main hands, and corruption on your off hand, so you can always access the corruption bonus unless you need to switch to short bow. then you can go in, DB till you are out of initiative, switch weapons to spread more bleeds, utility to stealth, sneak attack with pistol, and continue fighting. swaping weapons/fighting style as needed stacking AoE bleeds with every swap.

hmm, I havent been happy with pistol at the lower levels, been finding daggers more useful and down foes alot faster. Maybe I need to test them again when I get to higher levels.

This is what I tend to do atm, start off with steal, #F1, let auto-attack strike, hit DB until initiative runs out and by then foe is almost down and will let #1 or #2 finish them off.

Occasionally I’ll go steal, #F1, CD, backstab then DB …

Not sure if I am using those in the right order but if I get it right foes go down fast.

the thing about pistol is consistency of damage and stealthing regularly, allowing you to get the most of shadow arts traits. to do decent damage with it in a condition build it requires you to stealth to use sneak attack to stack bleeds. it can be more consistent in single target situations, especially in pvp and wvw. DB has longer lasting, AoE bleeds, but against players it is easier to dodge than sneak attack and vital shot. they D/D and P/D can be used together to meet your needs. D/D for groups, and P/D for single targets, especially powerful targets. the two sets have great synergy. another tip is if you have points in trickery, don’t use steal immediately. if you can close without it, and then DB, you can get an extra DB off from steal’s initiative recharge.