Guild Wars 2

To be honest almost every thief build out there has a Sb alt weapon so no worries there.

on pve -thief use short bow more often, nearly all the time
on wvwvw – except 1 vs 1 / 1 vs 2 ( i use d/d ), i always use shortbow
i’ve got an friend ranger, he mainly use axe on pve , sb more in wvwvw duels

tanf.8917:

Black Cat.1024:

To be honest almost every thief build out there has a Sb alt weapon so no worries there.

True but lets say, how much more % will i use the bow as a thief compared to a ranger?
I like the weapon and would like to use it most of the time. On a single targets its better achievable by a ranger while on group mobs, with a thief.
I would like to use it as a main weapon of course, but now when i think about it its quite lacking on both profession, on a ranger in aoe aspect, and on a thief.. well.. i don’t know.. i might get flamed in dungeons if ill use mostly SB :<

Unless you run a zerg type Sb/Sb set, you will be using Sb mainly for crowd control and movement.

I’m guessing you’ll use the shortbow about half the time on your thief. Its skill set is good on most occasions you can’t stay in melee. I’d say that the ranger is more tricky to work out since you could use a shortbow as your main weapon or largely ignore it. If you’re not using the shortbow on the ranger much now then you should at least try it out with some new builds before deciding on the shortbow legendary.

Only time I ever use it is if I have a brain fart in melee and get in danger. Swap, hit #3 and spam Cluster Bombs until I’ve recovered enough to go back in to melee.

I use the shortbow on my thief whenever I can’t melee something. Or if I need to move quickly or escape. Or if I want to spam a blast finisher. Or if I want to tag mobs that are far away.

So… I use the shortbow a lot. I vary my melee setup a lot, but for ranged attacks it is always the shortbow.

Depends on your playstyle. I always carry one in my inventory but rarely use it. Mostly I run S/D + D/P to allow me to adapt to fighting most classes on the fly. When I’m defending a tower, I’ll slot it sometimes, but the alts I have handle range much better while the thief handles close combat (slightly) better.

That said, I would put it on the thief over a ranger so when you so use it you can have unicorns fly slowly through the air and then burst in 3 other unicorns, or have 1 charge between multiple targets as your arrows bounce around.

tanf.8917:

I really need some help. I’m close on finishing the dreamer, and can’t decide if i want it on a thief or a ranger. I favor the thief profession more, but i’m not sure if its worth it. I don’t pvp or wvw, i do only dungeons/pve/events.
Not sure how much the short bow will serve me in dungeons/pve/events. I got to play a thief in a dungeons and cant say i really used the short-bow a lot. I love the short bow tagging, but not sure if its enough to put the dreamer on a thief.
On other hand, short bow on rangers is kind of poop because aoe is almost non-existent, and its quite annoying, the only thing i like about short bows on ranger is the fast and addictive animation. I’m really in a pinch! help!

I would recommend you to chill for a month or 3 and then see if you still like thief. Because what you are writing, indicates you are a newbie and you dont actually play thief that much…

Shortbow for movement or aoe tag. If you spam number 2 while you run around packs, like in the last living world events, you’ll do wonders. Thief also have no cds, so you can always stick with 1 weapon for a longer time than gimping yourself.

wvw a thief needs a shortbow, it’s his best weapon. I use my short bow in almost every fight either for getting away, kiting, securing kills, controlling choke points, defending towers, blasting combo fields etc.

Build the dang thing first, then decide who to soulbind it to.

Here’s a secret: even after it’s soulbound you can swap it to a different character via clever use of Fine Transmutation Stones.

Rissou.7213:

tanf.8917:

I really need some help. I’m close on finishing the dreamer, and can’t decide if i want it on a thief or a ranger. I favor the thief profession more, but i’m not sure if its worth it. I don’t pvp or wvw, i do only dungeons/pve/events.
Not sure how much the short bow will serve me in dungeons/pve/events. I got to play a thief in a dungeons and cant say i really used the short-bow a lot. I love the short bow tagging, but not sure if its enough to put the dreamer on a thief.
On other hand, short bow on rangers is kind of poop because aoe is almost non-existent, and its quite annoying, the only thing i like about short bows on ranger is the fast and addictive animation. I’m really in a pinch! help!

I would recommend you to chill for a month or 3 and then see if you still like thief. Because what you are writing, indicates you are a newbie and you dont actually play thief that much…

This. ^

Not to be rude, but how the hell can you not know just how much YOU use SB on YOUR Thief? How we play is irrelevant, most Thieves SB as their second set 24/7, but you may decide to never use it.

Sit on it until you’ve actually developed your own playstyle, then reconsider it.

On thief I run D/P with SB as alt… I find I only use shortbow when I stealth, go for a backstab, and finger-kitten hit the Tilde key instead of 1 by accident… followed by rage!!

lol.. but seriously though.. I only use SB in like 5v5 fights or larger because of the 10 second weapon swap cooldown or to range siege on walls in WvW. The whole point of The Dreamer is to run around pew-pewing that ridiculous looking rainbow unicorn effect that brings shame to anybody that gets killed by it.. for me personally, putting it on MY thief would be a waste of that potential.

Alternatively, you could always sell it and use that money to buy a different legendary that might suit you better. At least all your work wouldn’t be a complete waste.

I use shortbow like 75% of the time in WvW.

I would suggest getting this for your Thief!
-Blast Finishers
-Evading with 3 is always useful even better when something has to eat a unicorn that cripples them
-Mobility, running around I always use 5 to get places quicker
-I play a thief and love/use my bow often

shortbow is THE aoe weapon of thief (#2-clusterbomb)
don’t say sword, because 3 targets, is not the same thing kitten targets

and CB seems to be a bit better on the kitten objects (ex. burrows in AC)

IMO, it is more stylish and more useful for the Thief to have it than the Ranger.

Thief can use SB for both AoE and Single target, while Rangers cannot.

If you know how to play Thief with SB, you’ll know how to manage the area of effect and not pull unnecessary aggro in dungeons.

The only thing I never like with SB is the attack speed.

tanf.8917:

I really need some help. I’m close on finishing the dreamer, and can’t decide if i want it on a thief or a ranger. I favor the thief profession more, but i’m not sure if its worth it. I don’t pvp or wvw, i do only dungeons/pve/events.
Not sure how much the short bow will serve me in dungeons/pve/events. I got to play a thief in a dungeons and cant say i really used the short-bow a lot. I love the short bow tagging, but not sure if its enough to put the dreamer on a thief.
On other hand, short bow on rangers is kind of poop because aoe is almost non-existent, and its quite annoying, the only thing i like about short bows on ranger is the fast and addictive animation. I’m really in a pinch! help!

What should decide it for you is that when you detonate clusterbomb each individual bomb is also a pony. And I think (could be wrong) that the arrow bouncing between foes from autoattack is also a pony. So that pretty much settles it right?

I’m Dual, and I’m here to ask you one question, and one question only: Explosions?

Rainbow Unicorns that explode into more Rainbow Unicorns that also explode.
Think about it.

Personally I never use shortbow unless i’m fooling around.

Most Thieves have a Shortbow on swap as it is our best secondary wapon (as intiative is shared between both sets, we need something complementary in our second set, instead of the rotation of nukes other professions have on swap, so the Shortbow as is a perfectly balanced weapon is great here).

Here are some of the things Shortbow brings:

- AoE auto-attack (which means a lot of loot bags in PvE events and WvW zerging).
- Best combo finisher in the game (spammable blast finisher) that can be transformed into a great tagging and damaging attack detonatinc it (more tags = more loot bags!).
- An “oh crap let’s get outta here!!” button (also called spamming 3 for some seconds of invulnerability and replacing yourself when you see all those red circles over you with your stamina depleted and no way to go.
- An AoE poison field (more tagging!! more loot bags!!) that before the nerf to Lotus Poison was a great source of group defense with Weakness.
- A way to travel faster around the map.

Aditionally to that, this weapon has some cool things on the hands of the Thief:

- Your auto-attack unicorn will run from target to target.
- You can have a slow moving high flying unicorn that can shatter into more unicorns!
- You can “ride an unicorn” using Infiltrator’s Arrow (you don’t ride it, but you travel to his position).

A ranger visual advantage is to throw 5 of them at the same time, like throwing a chariot of unicorns.

As others said you should first decide how much you will use SB on your Thief. It is very useful, but at the end it is up to you to know where you prefer it.

SB is what makes a thief relevant in PvP and PvE zergs. Use your blast finisher in fire fields to AoE might to your zerg. AoE auto attack that becomes an AoE immobilize if you pop it from stealth. Not mention the additional mobility it brings. I almost exclusively use SB in WvWvW.

That being said, if you mainly play by yourself or in small groups against a limited number opponents, SB is not so great.

dreamer is my FIRST…….legendary…i never equip it unless im at a boss where i need range….even then usually p/p is better. so i chose a legendary that i used all the time in wvw to not using it at all

I use it on every blob fight in WvW and mainly on PvE.

Lokheit.7943:

- An AoE poison field (more tagging!! more loot bags!!) that before the nerf to Lotus Poison was a great source of group defense with Weakness.

Can’t you still generate the weakness by simply following the poison field with the blast attack on 2?

Fordel.3208:

Lokheit.7943:

- An AoE poison field (more tagging!! more loot bags!!) that before the nerf to Lotus Poison was a great source of group defense with Weakness.

Can’t you still generate the weakness by simply following the poison field with the blast attack on 2?

That would potentially overwrite other, possibly better combo fields. Not to mention that the 4->2 combo is easily evaded whereas the poison + weakness from lotus poison is essentially unavoidable and is instant.

tanf.8917:

I really need some help. I’m close on finishing the dreamer, and can’t decide if i want it on a thief or a ranger. I favor the thief profession more, but i’m not sure if its worth it. I don’t pvp or wvw, i do only dungeons/pve/events.
Not sure how much the short bow will serve me in dungeons/pve/events. I got to play a thief in a dungeons and cant say i really used the short-bow a lot. I love the short bow tagging, but not sure if its enough to put the dreamer on a thief.
On other hand, short bow on rangers is kind of poop because aoe is almost non-existent, and its quite annoying, the only thing i like about short bows on ranger is the fast and addictive animation. I’m really in a pinch! help!

A legendary is mostly about the looks, so the question would be more, which animations you like best.

Ranger has the five-arrow spread
Thief had the clusterbomb fireworks

- which is coolest to you?

I never use SB with my Ranger. I literally use every weapon with my Ranger EXCEPT the Shortbow

I use it all the time.

The best thief weapon for grpdmg and mobility

Shortbow utility is hard to pass up for a lot of thieves. The mobility and AoE it provdes are pretty boss. Compared to every other thief setup you can’t hit more targets at once than shotgunning clusterbomb, and having that shadowstep up your sleeve when you need it has secured me kills and escapes on too many occasions to count.

That said, very few thieves use it as a main weapon, but a large number of us use it as a swap specifically for that utility, as well as the fact that it, along with the dagger is one of the few weapons that can perform well on both burst and evasive condition builds.

Depending on the situation, I only use it when it’s obvious that it’s my best option and I still use it about 60% of the time (if not more). In PvE zergs, it’s your best friend. When you are low, it’s your best friend. In WvW , it’s your best friend (the mobility aside, shooting from stealth immobilizes your target and it’s my favourite tool to catch a runner in WvW).

Only in small skirmishes, duels or Boss fights do I use my melee set. I would use it less if I would run S/P or S/D though, because those sets can do some crazy AoE damage in smaller fights aswell.