Guild Wars 2

I’m trying to find a different weapon set to give thief a bit of fresh air for me as far as PvE goes, pressing 5, backstabbing, and then AA until reveal is off can get a bit boring.

P/P unload? Seems like it could be a ton of damage with Quick Pockets and another set of P/P on weapon swap

S/P pistol whip? This could be pretty sweet

S/D flanking strike? This one seems like it could be a lot of fun.

Thanks

S/P is part of the meta for trash mobs but you can’t beat D/D for single target massacring. Please, for the love of your future groups, don’t bring P/P into a PvE dungeon/fractal. If you are on your own, by all means…use whatever you like but P/P will end up wiping you over and over because you lack the evades of S/D or the ability to stealth on demand of D/D or S/D. Unload is a meh skill that is fun to look at but not so fun for your party members when you are only helping at killing one thing at a time.

S/P is a fun build and very useful for clearing lots of mobs and giving your party a nice constant source of blinds. It also gives Pistol Whip, which not only clears defiance, but also gives you a nice evade on demand. S/D is very mobile and a good source of evades as well but it lacks the defiance removal and the single target killing power of D/D.

SB is your best friend for your secondary…don’t replace it!

got it, so P/P on world boss farm XD

i can try out S/P since it basically uses the same build as D/D

Yeah basically. P/P has it’s uses but they aren’t in PvE.

S/P is a good way to go, but you will find that it can be a lot like D/D. Use skill 5 to blind and AA. Though you will use more of the skills with S/P, as skill 2 helps with conditions and 3 is a nice evade so long as you don’t use it when defiance stacks are off. It’s a bit more interactive than D/D, I will give you that. If you are dungeon running, it’s good to start off S/P and when you get to the bosses swap out to D/D so it drops faster. Or D/P will work too as you can heartseeker to get stealth for backstabbing.

I love the damage of D/D, and I use it when I can, but you simply cannot replace the damage and survivability of Sword / pistol. In most dungeons S/P is pretty much required, especially since dungeons are less about your own personal DPS these days, and more about what you can offer the group, and that smoke field you get with offhand pistol is very useful for the group.

Here is the build I use for dungeons and whatnot:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_D/D_S/P_Shortbow

As much as I love S/P, I tend to prefer D/P. I know sword AA cleaves 3 and 2 helps with condi (lord knows condi eats most PvE thieves alive), but dagger gives me heartseeker for a quick stealth if I need it and Shadowshot helps a lot when I get knocked back for returning to the target and another blind. It’s really hard for me to choose what to take in a dungeon, and weapon swapping isn’t an easy past time for me…so I tend to stick with dagger as I am way more familiar with the D/P set up. Nothing like expecting a heartseeker only to remember it’s a sword LOL

Here are my choices for PvE;

Dynamic Events – P/P + D/D with Ricochet (my favorite load out)
World Boss – P/P + P/P with Quick Pockets
Dungeons – D/P or D/D + SB depends on the Dungeon
Fractals – S/D + P/P or SB with Bountiful, depends on the Fractal
Dailies – P/P + SB

I only use S/P in WvW.

Jordo.5913:

I’m trying to find a different weapon set to give thief a bit of fresh air for me as far as PvE goes, pressing 5, backstabbing, and then AA until reveal is off can get a bit boring.

P/P unload? Seems like it could be a ton of damage with Quick Pockets and another set of P/P on weapon swap

S/P pistol whip? This could be pretty sweet

S/D flanking strike? This one seems like it could be a lot of fun.

Thanks

If you wanna play it just for fun, try out 5/6/0/0/3 with S/P, Invigorating Precision and Signet of Malice and enjoy nigh immortality.

If I where you, I would move on from pve. It wont challenge you at all and you will never get better in skill level. Try going into pvp or wvw so you can really see what builds are good and fun. You are probably board of backstab because npcs don’t try to counter it so its easy and pointless. In wvw you will find people that know how to fight someone that backstabs and force you to find better ways to fight them.

Half the people in wvw are easier to kill than npcs…

Btw, if a thief likes S/P and uses it even on a boss, pls wait till the ele in the party uses the freeze, instead of pistol whipping boss asap.

MindWipe.3028:

If I where you, I would move on from pve. It wont challenge you at all and you will never get better in skill level. Try going into pvp or wvw so you can really see what builds are good and fun. You are probably board of backstab because npcs don’t try to counter it so its easy and pointless. In wvw you will find people that know how to fight someone that backstabs and force you to find better ways to fight them.

I swear to dog, this is the reason why I hate these forums so much. A poster asks specifically about PvE and here comes the holy than thou PvP crowd to rush in on their high horse about how much better they are because they PvP.

If you have nothing to say about the OP post…don’t kitten say anything.

S/P is good in PvE. It’s actually not far off from D/D and you can mitigate a ton of group damage with Black Powder and a ton of personal damage with Pistol Whip. Pistol Whip is only a very slight DPS increase over the auto attack so you can support your whole group with aoe blinds throughout the run. Back it with Short Bow for easy blast finishers for Might and Stealth.

P/P is low DPS. Even if you gear/trait for Ricochet and Ini regen you’re losing a lot of Power so your shots do less damage. It’s over 20% less then S/P.

in low lvl maps d/p , turn on auto-targeting and just shadow shot from mob to mob lol.