Guild Wars 2

Or maybe how about the new assassin gear?

I’ve realized most times if I get caught I’m dead anyway with valks armor, should I just roll zerker or assassins?

P/P thieves? Dead in any gear. That set sucks.

infantrydiv.1620:

P/P thieves? Dead in any gear. That set sucks.

(if you’re referring to WvW…)

P/P thief can survive no-problem, and can easily spam 5-10k Unloads 6x in a row. Most professions drop within the first 2-3 Unloads unless they’re “tanky” and/or blow their CDs just to survive the initial pressure. With Steal (Mug + Daze), Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Shadowstep, and Basilisk Venom (Lyssa), there is also plenty of mobility and utility to go with the high (and sustained) ranged-damage.

Thus, I wouldn’t quite say it “sucks”. It’s actually more useful in small-to-massive battles than any other thief setup I’m aware of — well, unless you want to hide behind allies and auto-attack/cluster-bomb.

For P/P, you want the fight to end as soon as possible. Do whatever it takes to achieve that, while accommodating what’s necessary to survive (for me, I chose utilities that provide bursts of mobility).

I run p/p in my second slot and can do a ton of damage and if i need to melee or escape just switch back to d/p.

P/P is viable if you only use unload since thats its only good skill besides #4

P/P sucks if you’re by yourself. The single most overpowered tagging tool a class could ask for in a zerg. Do pistol shots bounce at 50% chance, each unload tags 8 people on average (8 attacks + 50% bounce = 4 + 50% bounce = 2 + 50% bounce = 1…8+4+2+1=15…but the “8 attacks” only tag one target so -7 = 8 ). Couple that with zerk gear and it really only takes one or two bullets from ONE unload to tag something, then add on the fact that you don’t just get ONE unload but you get a spammable one? Well hell. Just sit in the middle of your zerg and spam unload on random things and watch the loot literally fly at you.

Also zerk gear > assassin gear unless you can keep some serious might on yourself at all times.

P/P sucks if you’re by yourself.

P/P can perform well for 1v1 scenarios, but with a low health-pool, the pressure from being outnumbered (and focused) can be too much (for me at least, especially with a no-stealth setup). After switching to Lyssa runes, however, and using only Basilisk Venom (due to that), I actually can’t think of any profession that feels superior.

Fights against Guardians/Warriors can definitely take longer (with their defensive utilities and/or mobility), but they’re either downed with little threat, or it’s a quick, good fight. If they’re “tanky”, it’s no threat, but just an unnecessarily longer fight.

Necros can be a problem with mass-conditions, but a proper Basilisk w/ several Unloads and they generally must retreat (followed by whittling down shroud/forms/blah blah…).

Mesmers.. well, they’re generally quite squishy, and ricochet drops most of their clones/phantasms within a second of them being summoned. Unload channels through their stealths as well, so it can be a very quick fight.

Elementalists usually drop very quickly also (if they don’t run after the first/second Unload), and usually ends in just chasing their mist-form(s). Some can heal quite well through the Unloads for a while, however, but then there’s also no threat.

Engineers, depending, can be good, tough fights. High damage (and ranged), with plenty of conditions (and utility), can definitely pose a threat.

Rangers… well, I’ve had many close-calls with those. The equivalent damage and (superior…) range of Longbow (with knockbacks!) is threatening! It feels like a combo of three of its skills can easily shave 10k+ health within a few seconds.

Thieves.. the majority I’ve encountered would have to catch me off-guard not to be downed within <5 seconds.

Which professions (or specific builds) would you consider superior? Albeit P/P is not bested suited for 1v1, it feels sufficient to me (even if it’s only Unload spamming).

I’ve found that P/P can perform solidly in a 1v1 scenario, but definitely thrives in group fights. I even run P/P in SPvP to moderate success. Focus on being mobile and collapsing into existing skirmishes.

I’ve experimented with a number of set ups, but typically prefer an Initiative heavy trait layout of 0/30/0/20/20. I usually run stealth-less. Rocking Withdraw, SoS, Shadowstep, and Signet of Agility, and Daggerstorm. Full Berserker/Ruby everything. If I had the cash laying around, I’d probably pick up Travel runes.

What set up do you run, Barfoi?

There is no way you can beat a good Engi P/S with Healing Turret with P/P no matter how you run it.

P/P is a decent set but not a beast like D/P and S/D.

Siva Mira.3546:

There is no way you can beat a good Engi P/S with Healing Turret with P/P no matter how you run it.

P/P is a decent set but not a beast like D/P and S/D.

true.

in my spvp experience, i prefer d/p for main spec. and now i use p/p as secondary weapon.

first as off spec i tried p/d, which is great in pve lvling, but in spvp imo it lacks blind/interrupt. there is #3, but its not good enough. it is against this deficiency of p/d that i’ve tried p/p (which has #4 daze) , which is not bad if you need some ranged dmg. but shortbow, which with all the aoe is less fun than p/p, accomplishes same results and even better.

btw, a question: daze (p/p #4) does work as interrupt, right? im not all clear how various interrupts happen. blind – i understand. but daze, say i daze sone while casting. is cooldown gone? or did i just stop him while dazed, but cooldown will be available for re-cast right after daze is over?

say reciprocally, when i’m interrupted myself, i noticed that when i heal myself, stimes i click it and it is as if its blinking, and once one i regain control, its ready for re-cast. what kind of control have i been subject to, which only disabled skill momentarily, but didn’t waste my cooldown.

To run P/P you really need to build for it or else just don’t run it. If you want to run it as your second set it is fine for range DPS but at the same time you are sacrificing your life-saving mechanic(Shortbow) for it.

Siva Mira.3546:

To run P/P you really need to build for it or else just don’t run it. If you want to run it as your second set it is fine for range DPS but at the same time you are sacrificing your life-saving mechanic(Shortbow) for it.

yeah, shortbow is superior. i’m practicing it against spirit rangers and… is it good against necro and petting zoo?

Well, in a group you should do fine as long you don’t let yourself in the middle of it. But fighting 1vs1 against any of them in a fair fight, I don’t think so. They are called “Walking Nuclear Reactor” and “Pet Zoo” for a reason

Siva Mira.3546:

Well, in a group you should do fine as long you don’t let yourself in the middle of it. But fighting 1vs1 against any of them in a fair fight, I don’t think so. They are called “Walking Nuclear Reactor” and “Pet Zoo” for a reason

right, that’s what I meant. to kill of spirits with shortbow AOE while group fight is going on

What set up do you run, Barfoi?

10/30/0/0/30, mostly Berserker (w/ Lyssa Runes), using Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Shadowstep, SoS, and Basilisk Venom. It strengthens Steal significantly — 21~ second CD, poison, damage, heal, +3 ini, fury/might/swiftness, (sometimes boon-stripping), an interrupt, and the obvious gap-closer.

I used to use Dagger Storm often, but giving it up for Basilisk Venom (due to Lyssa runes) has made certain encounters much easier. Besides, since I mainly use Withdraw in WvW (and not Malice), it’s a bit hazardous to survival (no mass heals during it). Being immobilized also prevents dodging out of it (bad if no other CDs up), and Necros can even corrupt your stability into a fear.

There is no way you can beat a good Engi P/S with Healing Turret with P/P no matter how you run it.

Why (excluding sPvP)? P/P focused on high damage and mobility-through-utility exerts an extreme amount of pressure on a single target in a very short period of time, and can easily maintain it. The only issue I can think of comes from bursts of condition-application (e.g., similar to Necros), but using Lyssa runes nullifies the concern for a bit, and provides time for several more Unloads. The shield-reflect & block just delay the fight, which works in favor for both our cool-downs. The turrets… situational. Offensively, their range is less than ours, no? The healing turret, if it doesn’t get destroyed by ricochet’d Unloads, and its healing (for some unknown reason) can’t be burst through, would probably easily go down in 1-2 Unloads.

It’s basically a matter of which can burst the other down first. Can P/S engineer spam enough conditions (after Lyssa clears the first set, and possibly Shadow Return clearing the next 2~), and/or do enough raw damage to kill the thief before the Unload-spam kills them? There is no “whittling-down” in this fight — it’d be over within 1-2 minutes for one or the other.

I will be sure to keep an eye out for those engineers next time I play, and see how the fights feel. I don’t roam often, at all, but I might run into a solo fight here/there some time with one!

Interesting. I’ve toyed with five or six different trait setups, but haven’t gone 30 in Trickery for Berserker P/P. I feel like you would be vulnerable without triple dodge and Vigor on Heal?

I know what you mean about the Basilisk and Lyssa runes, as well as the danger of dropping Daggerstorm at a poor time only to get Immobilized. I’m just used to running Daggerstorm on account of typically running a condition thief.

I’ll give your variant a test in SPvP.

@Barfoi.9537: I guess you haven’t seen a real Engi with his imbalanced Healing Turret.

Watch this and then tell me how do you intend on killing his Healing Turret? (maybe you don’t really know how Healing Turret really work?)
One more thing, Engi is not just a master of spamming condition he is also a master at reapplying condition. Cleaning conditions every 40-60sec is not going to work here.

I guess you haven’t seen a real Engi with his imbalanced Healing Turret.

I don’t sPvP, so possibly not, and I seldom encounter engineers for 1v1 encounters in WvW (poor roamers?). I’ve had numerous side-line fights w/ engineers (some P/S, as stated earlier), however, but never felt overwhelmed.

As for the video, it looks like the engineer is a bunker condition build? His raw damage is fairly low, and relies heavily on “whittling down” a target (while maintaining steady healing). I would assume the elementalist is something similar, as well, considering the painful length of the fight.

The question, however, would be whether the fight lasts long enough for the engineer to win. That’s entirely situational (many factors), obviously, but the engineer would have to survive very intense (and sustained) bursts of ranged damage the entire fight.

how do you intend on killing his Healing Turret? (maybe you don’t really know how Healing Turret really work?)

Ever been on the other end of (effective) Unload spam? On non-bunkers, it can easily channel for 8-10k per (<2 secs). If the turret can out-heal its damage (obviously lower on bunker) every 2 seconds, then only then would it be a concern. If it’s deployed, detonated, and blasted in, isn’t that only a 6k~ heal every 20~ seconds? That’s only slightly higher than Withdraw @ 15 seconds.

I’ve toyed with five or six different trait setups, but haven’t gone 30 in Trickery for Berserker P/P. I feel like you would be vulnerable without triple dodge and Vigor on Heal?

When I first tried P/P, I probably switched my traits 20+ times until I found something comfortable. The setup is vulnerable to begin with, so quick fights are necessary IMO — the sooner a target is forced into playing defensive, the better. If 2-3 Unloads can easily drop most targets, or at least drop them <30% health, then they usually must try healing or using their CDs. In that case, dodging is just a crutch (and a waste).

If you do try 30 in Trickery (for Sleight), I would also highly recommend Mug — every 21~ seconds is 2-3k~ damage, and 2-3k~ heal (in addition to all the other Steal goodies). With a 15 sec Withdraw, 21~ second Steal, Heal-on-Crit food, health can be maintained quite well — especially with the mobility provided by utilities.

I’ll give your variant a test in SPvP.

Could you post the build-stats (mainly power, crit chance, crit dmg) that you try with?

Most of my experience comes from sPvP. Now it’s possibly different in WvW (since people in WvW for the most part suck/under-geared/under-leveled/more damage/free kills/etc), but in sPvP, P/P is a godawful abomination set. You can’t spike people down (even other glass cannons) and you lack any disengages or surviability yourself so you just end up wasting your initiative to have them heal then mow you down like yesterday’s grass.

Shortbow? Life saver? I have plenty of disengage with my D/P primary, I use S/P for my secondary because (for whatever reason) many classes are really quite weak to reapplication of pistol whip. It’s amazing how many of them fold just by hitting your 3 button at appropriate times. And if they do adapt, it’s simple to swap back over to D/P for either the stealth backstab heartseeker finisher or peel off with stealth. They won’t chase if they’re at 30% health with no defensive utilities.

Now it’s possibly different in WvW (since people in WvW for the most part suck/under-geared/under-leveled/more damage/free kills/etc)

Hmm? My step-daughter’s friend recently got GW2, got to 80 in a few days (on warrior), then leveled a thief to maybe 20~. He wanted to try PvP, so I set him up similar to me, and he said he was downing players with ease. Mind you, he knows very little of the game’s mechanics, nor the thief profession, and also plays on a small-screen laptop with 15ish fps.

My step-son plays casually as well (warrior), and in PvP. Despite my efforts, he still prefers to “mash keys” for the most part (;P), and can down enemies fairly well.

Either way you look at that, sPvP nonetheless also consists of players that “suck/under-geared/under-leveled/more damage/free kills/etc”. It’s entirely situational whether one has more “skilled” players than the other.

You can’t spike people down

The damage scaling in sPvP, if anything, could definitely cause problems with P/P. I don’t have any experience with that, so I can only assume. I would further assume, however, that it would also affect other high-damage/low-survivability builds as well, such as your “stealth backstab hearthseeker” combo.

p/p is literally just a range burst/dps like any other range, just build the same way as them imo.

And i have no trouble killing/surviving in wvw, in fact range is always safer then melee.

@Barfoi.9537: I guess you are more like a casual player.

First of all, Let me explain that Engi to you.
This is his build.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VVRw;0B-cPkk0c-3UFx0;9;4J9-T942-5;308B5;0TJ;1J0-hoHAhoHA2Vx

This is not really a bunker but more like balanced build. You might not see big number in the video but this build is capable of killing you in 10sec if you don’t do anything about his conditions. This build has almost an unlimited usage which mean he has almost no down time. If you can’t kill him under 15sec he will heal back again and again until you whittle down and die.

Healing Turret: this skill is imbalanced, the best healing skill in the game with no contest.
But this skill is rather hard to use. As you can see in the video you can hardly see him keep the Turret on the ground more than 1 second. Why? Because he pick up back so there is no point in wasting your damage on that because you won’t kill it in time. Why did he pick it up? If you or him destroy that Turret the Healing Turret will go on CD for 20sec but if he pick it up he only have to wait 15sec. And Healing Turret gives him a Water field when he uses it, also removes one condition and gives regeneration. This mean you can combo out of that and get even more heal. With his build he is capable of doing 10k healing from Healing Turret. And you think that is everything? No he still has his F1 healing skill which give Regeneration and Water field. What does that mean? It means he has 2 healing skills with 2 short CD. To put more salt to the wound, Healing Turret alone can out heal you Withdraw.

He has over 18k HP and 2.6k Armor. Your Unload only do 8-10k dmg to a player who has no Toughness. To him you will only do about 4-6k dmg with a full Unload but that is not going to happen. He will dodge your obvious Unload attack and at best you will deal about 2-3k dmg per Unload to him. Oh I forgot, his build has an unlimited Vigor and Swiftness.

You may want to say you can dodge his attacks and get the equal ground. The problem is that dodging his atk means nothing since he can just re-spam it again and again as I explain above. And another problem is if you are dodging then you are doing no dmg to him because that is the flaw in P/P and another flaw is P/P attacks are slow like kitten.

IMO, I am not talking for others, using Trickery with P/P is a waste. I tried them I killed alot on the back of my team but when I go to 1 vs 1or2 I have nothing in my arsenal. All I can do was just spamming Unload till I died.

With his build he is capable of doing 10k healing from Healing Turret.

P/P is also capable of doing 20k damage before the turret’s cool-down is available, but capable doesn’t always translate to practical. If the engineer drops the turret the very split-second Basilisk Venom is consumed (and it lands), for example, then what happens to the engineer and their turret?

Oh I forgot, his build has an unlimited Vigor and Swiftness.

To remind you, it’s quite simple to switch to Bountiful Theft before fights. Oh look, P/P would get Vigor also (15 secs, every 21~ seconds), and also rip 2 boons from the engineer (also every 21~ seconds). I’ve thought about switching to this trait so often — mainly against guardians (prolonged deaths), but usually, it’s never necessary.

You may want to say you can dodge his attacks and get the equal ground.

Really? Heal-on-crit food would probably out-heal the auto-attacks. I think it’d heal at least 1.5-2x higher than what the engineer even gets from the turret-regen.

This is not really a bunker but more like balanced build.

Balanced builds would be fine for fights that naturally last quite a while, since it can endure pressure briefly while awaiting support. For PvP, I assume that works great. However, remember that those builds neither excel in damage, nor survivability. It’s similar to wearing PTV gear in WvW — you may live longer, but you’re also less useful.

his build is capable of killing you in 10sec if you don’t do anything about his conditions

Probably true, but likewise, P/P could kill the engineer in 5 seconds if they didn’t do anything about the raw damage. A naked, up-leveled warrior could also kill the engineer rather quickly under the same circumstances. See the pattern?

If you can’t kill him under 15sec he will heal back again and again until you whittle down and die.

That’s only true if the engineer can out-heal 100% of the damage every 15 seconds. Considering the engineer was near-dead from that Ele quite often, then you’re greatly mistaken.

I guess you are more like a casual player.

All I can do was just spamming Unload till I died.

I’m a casual player that plays very often, and enjoy it 100%. I love to be front-line or dead-center in small skirmishes, or even better, in massive battles (that don’t lag…). I can spam Unload to my heart’s content and survive until the end. If I die in those situations, it’s usually due to a complete wipe, or from our front-lines collapsing and falling back (I don’t like to run ;P). Then there are times where I get a “yolo” urge, but that’s a personal thing. :-)

If you enjoyed P/P play-style, you would adapt your setup to survive — not just spam Unload until you die…

You sound like you’re a fan of this engineer, and that’s fine. They could very well overwhelm P/P through setup, through “skill”, or both — not denying the possibility. From my experiences in WvW, however, I’ve never noticed any imbalance between P/P vs P/S (Eng), but as they are limited (with P/S Eng), I will, as said earlier, keep an eye out for ‘em. Unfortunately, it’d take many encounters to get a “good feel”, given the obvious factors involved in random encounters.

If you’re not their fan, then you must’ve instead been mauled by condition Engineers quite often. Ouch! Learn to adapt, if that’s the case, instead of giving-up on a weapon-set. Unload animation is too nice to sacrifice. :-)

I played Thief since beta and I only main P/P and D/D as my second set. I learned Thief and P/P the hard way. I have died more than I could count at the beginning.

I am not a fan of Engi but I do like their playstyle to a certain degree.

Did I get mauled by condition Engi I hope I got that chance but no, I haven’t face a good Engi as that guy yet. Most of the ones I have faced usually died after a new tricks.

gesho.9468:

btw, a question: daze (p/p #4) does work as interrupt, right? im not all clear how various interrupts happen. blind – i understand. but daze, say i daze sone while casting. is cooldown gone? or did i just stop him while dazed, but cooldown will be available for re-cast right after daze is over?

All interrupts puts your skills on a 4s cooldown. So if your daze or stun lasts longer than 4s, you can recast after the cc.
Blind however is not an interrupt theoretically. Blind is making the person miss, so he still uses their skill (it doesn’t get “stopped” but it misses), thus going on full cooldown.

PP works but is harder to play and less effective than other thief builds here is an old vid https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Pistol-Pistol-video-WvW-3v1-more/first#post2531158

Barfoi.9537:

With his build he is capable of doing 10k healing from Healing Turret.

P/P is also capable of doing 20k damage before the turret’s cool-down is available, but capable doesn’t always translate to practical. If the engineer drops the turret the very split-second Basilisk Venom is consumed (and it lands), for example, then what happens to the engineer and their turret?

Oh I forgot, his build has an unlimited Vigor and Swiftness.

To remind you, it’s quite simple to switch to Bountiful Theft before fights. Oh look, P/P would get Vigor also (15 secs, every 21~ seconds), and also rip 2 boons from the engineer (also every 21~ seconds). I’ve thought about switching to this trait so often — mainly against guardians (prolonged deaths), but usually, it’s never necessary.

You may want to say you can dodge his attacks and get the equal ground.

Really? Heal-on-crit food would probably out-heal the auto-attacks. I think it’d heal at least 1.5-2x higher than what the engineer even gets from the turret-regen.

This is not really a bunker but more like balanced build.

Balanced builds would be fine for fights that naturally last quite a while, since it can endure pressure briefly while awaiting support. For PvP, I assume that works great. However, remember that those builds neither excel in damage, nor survivability. It’s similar to wearing PTV gear in WvW — you may live longer, but you’re also less useful.

his build is capable of killing you in 10sec if you don’t do anything about his conditions

Probably true, but likewise, P/P could kill the engineer in 5 seconds if they didn’t do anything about the raw damage. A naked, up-leveled warrior could also kill the engineer rather quickly under the same circumstances. See the pattern?

If you can’t kill him under 15sec he will heal back again and again until you whittle down and die.

That’s only true if the engineer can out-heal 100% of the damage every 15 seconds. Considering the engineer was near-dead from that Ele quite often, then you’re greatly mistaken.

I guess you are more like a casual player.

All I can do was just spamming Unload till I died.

I’m a casual player that plays very often, and enjoy it 100%. I love to be front-line or dead-center in small skirmishes, or even better, in massive battles (that don’t lag…). I can spam Unload to my heart’s content and survive until the end. If I die in those situations, it’s usually due to a complete wipe, or from our front-lines collapsing and falling back (I don’t like to run ;P). Then there are times where I get a “yolo” urge, but that’s a personal thing. :-)

If you enjoyed P/P play-style, you would adapt your setup to survive — not just spam Unload until you die…

You sound like you’re a fan of this engineer, and that’s fine. They could very well overwhelm P/P through setup, through “skill”, or both — not denying the possibility. From my experiences in WvW, however, I’ve never noticed any imbalance between P/P vs P/S (Eng), but as they are limited (with P/S Eng), I will, as said earlier, keep an eye out for ‘em. Unfortunately, it’d take many encounters to get a “good feel”, given the obvious factors involved in random encounters.

If you’re not their fan, then you must’ve instead been mauled by condition Engineers quite often. Ouch! Learn to adapt, if that’s the case, instead of giving-up on a weapon-set. Unload animation is too nice to sacrifice. :-)

when an engineer of average or higher skill level sees a p/p thief he thinks 2 things: 1. LOL, 2a. must be a casual, or 2b. this isnt the brightest thief in the guild, and as soon as you drop that first unload your going to have it reflected in your face and s/he will proceed to faceroll you in seconds

(referring to WvW)

PP works but is harder to play and less effective than other thief builds here is an old vid

Outside of solo (or small group) roaming, how effective are those other builds? Whether 5v5, or even 60v60, P/P builds can melt targets down non-stop with ease.

as soon as you drop that first unload your going to have it reflected in your face and s/he will proceed to faceroll you in seconds

Joke… right? Skills can be cancelled. :-) If anything, the shield skills (20 sec+ CD?) only delay the fight (in total) by 4-5 seconds. If the engineer wants to waste it when they don’t need it (<50% health), then I’ll quote you:

1. LOL, 2a. must be a casual, or 2b. this isnt the brightest engineer in the guild

Siva Mira.3546:

@Barfoi.9537: I guess you are more like a casual player.

First of all, Let me explain that Engi to you.
This is his build.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VVRw;0B-cPkk0c-3UFx0;9;4J9-T942-5;308B5;0TJ;1J0-hoHAhoHA2Vx

This is not really a bunker but more like balanced build. You might not see big number in the video but this build is capable of killing you in 10sec if you don’t do anything about his conditions. This build has almost an unlimited usage which mean he has almost no down time. If you can’t kill him under 15sec he will heal back again and again until you whittle down and die.

Healing Turret: this skill is imbalanced, the best healing skill in the game with no contest.
But this skill is rather hard to use. As you can see in the video you can hardly see him keep the Turret on the ground more than 1 second. Why? Because he pick up back so there is no point in wasting your damage on that because you won’t kill it in time. Why did he pick it up? If you or him destroy that Turret the Healing Turret will go on CD for 20sec but if he pick it up he only have to wait 15sec. And Healing Turret gives him a Water field when he uses it, also removes one condition and gives regeneration. This mean you can combo out of that and get even more heal. With his build he is capable of doing 10k healing from Healing Turret. And you think that is everything? No he still has his F1 healing skill which give Regeneration and Water field. What does that mean? It means he has 2 healing skills with 2 short CD. To put more salt to the wound, Healing Turret alone can out heal you Withdraw.

He has over 18k HP and 2.6k Armor. Your Unload only do 8-10k dmg to a player who has no Toughness. To him you will only do about 4-6k dmg with a full Unload but that is not going to happen. He will dodge your obvious Unload attack and at best you will deal about 2-3k dmg per Unload to him. Oh I forgot, his build has an unlimited Vigor and Swiftness.

You may want to say you can dodge his attacks and get the equal ground. The problem is that dodging his atk means nothing since he can just re-spam it again and again as I explain above. And another problem is if you are dodging then you are doing no dmg to him because that is the flaw in P/P and another flaw is P/P attacks are slow like kitten.

---

IMO, I am not talking for others, using Trickery with P/P is a waste. I tried them I killed alot on the back of my team but when I go to 1 vs 1or2 I have nothing in my kitten nal. All I can do was just spamming Unload till I died.

Great post, you are really good at breaking things down in a clear way.

I never found p/p good for much other than slaughtering scrubs, because they really have a hard time running away from your unload, lol. When I see p/p thief in WvW they are a target to immediately pressure as hard as possible and expect them to die. Can’t honestly remember ever running away from a p/p thief, but like almost any build I am sure there is someone out there who kicks a lot of butt with it.

And p/p is one of the sweetest looking builds in the game, if that does anything for you. Especially if your pistols have that zephyrite skin!

If you want a challenge. It’s not that bad, but not for scrubs.

When I see p/p thief in WvW they are a target to immediately pressure as hard as possible and expect them to die.

Is there another thief setup that can actually apply pressure in WvW? Melee thieves fail horribly in intense fights, and any that main a shortbow in open-field fights aren’t much better off. I’ve actually started ignoring those thieves for the most part, unless they try to target me.

Barfoi.9537:

When I see p/p thief in WvW they are a target to immediately pressure as hard as possible and expect them to die.

Is there another thief setup that can actually apply pressure in WvW? Melee thieves fail horribly in intense fights, and any that main a shortbow in open-field fights aren’t much better off. I’ve actually started ignoring those thieves for the most part, unless they try to target me.

Those must be really bad thiefs melee thief. Played right any dp, dd, sd are very effective but here is an old vid of mine 3v1 pp thief http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZrsaTsXCU

but here is an old vid of mine

For roaming, that looks fairly balanced, but you “kitten ” yourself quite badly with low damage and a reliance on stealth. Those crutches, for example, result in a ranger being able to out-heal your damage! Even bunker-guardians shouldn’t be able to do that (even w/o boon-stealing).

In fast-paced conflicts, those seem to be the reasons dp/dd/sd (that you mentioned) seem to be ineffective. They’re forced into stealth after 1 Unload most of the time, and then either pose zero threat, try to troll, or just die.

vincecontix.1264’s build wasn’t anything special. It was a balanced build but focus more on healing himself back rather than dishing out more damage. I have ran that build a couple times in sPvP but went back to my 0/30/20/20/0 since it does better damage while giving you enough time to stay alive.

Ranger out-heal you is normal because they are best at that thing otherwise nobody use them to bunk the capture point in sPvP.

IMO, I think you just never seen an actual good Thiefs that use D/P, D/D and S/D. A good player that use those weapon set is almost unseen in the fight. They will jump on you before you even realized what was going on.

I’m running a very interesting build currently that seems to be very effective. I run pvt on two pieces, with rampagers on two, and dire on two. It seems to work well so far. I use full seeker trinkets keeping my crit damage at 50% and my overall attack stays at 3300. I have 2500 armor w/ 18k health. It’s effective because my unload will hit 5k on average. This generates decent burst for the survivability. I have the condition effects because what happens when you are 1vx and run out of iniative? Basic attack that Frits for 1k and stacks a bleed ticking for 115 isn’t bad. Granted the duration is far below good, it does do some okay damage through conditions sense it is a basic attack. I use caltrops for additional dps. Very VERY helpful when fighting more than one enemy and when serving.
Use signet of malice and you never have a problem. Zerging is easy, it’s hard to die when you have ricochet and heal 1k or more per unload. Throw caltrops, blow know tive on unload, then dagger storm. You are one of the highest dps outputs despite having a high survivability build. I’ve found this works very well in dungeons, even speed runs. I’ve done CoF in some decent times w/ this build.

0 – 30 – 20 – 20 – 0
3/6 zerker
3/6 tanky