Guild Wars 2

I’m new to thief PvP can someone tell why all the guides show a shortbow as the second weapon choice. I get the fact of the range. But what is use in a combat point of view.

Blast finisher, poison field, infiltrators arrow.

Shortbow often fills more of a utility purpose, whereas your other weapon set is generally what you will use to actually fight things.

In particular, infiltrator’s arrow is an excellent mobility skill, allowing you to move about the map quickly, blink up on certain ledges, and escaping situations if things go badly.

Other than that, you’re able to apply poison in an area, which is useful for counteracting healing, you have a convenient high damage AoE attack that is a blast finisher for combos, and an evasive leap back that hopefully doesn’t bug out too much.

If nothing else, it allows you to keep pressure on the enemy without being in melee range. For instance, if you’re fighting a necro and they dump a bunch of wells on a node and sit in them, you can swap to shortbow and shoot them until the wells run out, at which point you can go back in melee. It also does have the advantage that it hits multiple targets, but that tends to be more of a side benefit in PvP.

At least, that’s always been my take on it. I’m not a thief expert by any means.

You can also use Surprise Shot (stealthed auto attack in shortbow) twice before you are revealed to stack immobilize on the enemy (5 seconds). Immobilize is an extremely lethal condition that allows you to quickly burst down your target without them being able to disengage/escape.

As Drennon mentioned, the poison field and blast finishers are also useful. Poison field prevents foes from recovering hp as fast as they should (-33% heal when poisoned) and the blast finisher is self explanatory.

Oh, and detonating cluster bomb is powerful damage. And disabling shot is a good tool for invincibility frame.

Because it is one of the best weapon in the entire game.

It particularly shines in team fights. What you usually want to do is NOT to jump with your dagger in the middle of the cleave when the team fight starts, but be on your SB while auto-attacking and cluster-bombing for decent damage, spamming AoE weakness with your skill 4 (via the DA minor trait or by blasting the field), until a target is low enough and tries to kite. Then switch to your dagger and finish.

It is also an amazing cleave weapon. Generally, as a thief, when an opponent goes down, your role is to cleave, but without taking too many risks, so if it is a big team fight, you are probably better off with your SB.

It’s a combination of great mobility it offers and the fact that other ranged option for Thief blows massive chunks.

SB is capable of sustained AoE poison, which is huge, AoE weakness, which is probably the strongest condition in the game for PvP, and immense cleave at point blank range. And it passively counters Mesmers, which is pretty hilarious.

Vigil.8205:

I’m new to thief PvP can someone tell why all the guides show a shortbow as the second weapon choice. I get the fact of the range. But what is use in a combat point of view.

Its mostly just a utility weapon, Thief is the one class that doesn’t need to switch weapons on a regular basis in fights since they have no actual cool downs and with good initiative control don’t have to worry about not being able to use their abilities, so like 80% of the time it will simply be used for its #5 to just get around the map much faster than any other class can except maybe a GS/Sword warrior.

Other than that the only times I find myself using my SB is 1 if I find myself where I’m out of stamina and need to evade incoming damage, 2 poison fields to deal with Warriors/make downed revives harder, and 3 to use The AOE blast finisher to stack Might for team/deal AOE damage to downed enemies.

Shortbows cause explosions. Need I say anything else?

Yeah, improving your SB skills really puts you above most thieves in game. As most generally want to stick to their melee weapons.

Not to mention there are times where you really need range because youre so squishy. In team fights, you can easily become a backline giant laying down poison and incredible DPS. Also when you send another thief into SR because you have outplayed them, SB is youre only option to finish them off rather than them being able to reset the fight.

When I first started running thief I would feel naked in SB, now its gotten a lot better though I still havent gotten as good (and might never) as others Ive seen jack people up with SB.

Also SB 5’s mobility really allows you ownership of most maps if you know what you can do and where you can do it. For example, Temple Mid. If your team has gotten overpowered, you can easily get out of there by SB 5 up to the bridge over the steps down.

I couldnt imagine thief without it.

Agreed. SB is really for support though. 1v1 the enemy just charges you and squish you are a splat on the floor. With a non-thief friend they are distracted and THEY are the person blown to bits.