Guild Wars 2

So after a few hours of gameplay and some WvW roaming, here’s my verdict. P#2 is virtually useless.

Not only is 4 initiative FAR too costly for P/P users to use (our DPS is fairly crap already, we can’t afford to waste what’s practically the cost of an unload on a 1 second immobilize), but not worth it at all. A 1 second immobilize is completely worthless, especially when they have foods that give them ridiculous amounts of condition duration reduction. There’s literally no difference. Maybe they get a stutter in their run pattern. But who gives a crap? Most people have insane mobility. P/P thieves have trash. No mobility, subpar damage, pitiful CC (1 second immobilize, WOOHOO!!!!), no stealth options, no escapes, no NOTHING. This did nothing to help our situation whatsoever.

I’m so disappointed. I expected maybe at the very least a 2 second immobilize for a 4 initiative cost ability.

0/10, would actually like the original Body Shot back.

I tried it and liked it. Give it a chance…..

In a team spec it becomes exponentially more valuable than for solo play, especially the fact that you can stack immob duration.

The first spec that comes to mind would be a P/P Venom Share spec for team-fights. I’m predicting this will become extremely common in the near future.

P#2 is virtually useless.

It’s much more useful now than before, but it’s very situational, and depends on the build/preferences of the player.

To me, it’s similar to saying the steal-daze is useless because of its duration, but that’s simply not the case (e.g., great for interrupts, or more recently for perplexity builds).

Not only is 4 initiative FAR too costly for P/P users

It was far too costly pre-patch because the +damage from the vuln. stacks were lackluster compared to just Unloading twice. Now, however, it provides situational utility, and thus the “cost” of its initiative is also situational.

our DPS is fairly crap already

P/P (in WvW) is very powerful (and effective) if you focus mostly on damage-oriented gear/traits. The only professions that pose a threat (to me) are backstab thieves, and the only profession to mitigate the pressure seems to be clone-and-stealth-heavy Mesmers. I can burn a bunker-guardian/necro down very quickly, but those Mesmers can survive several minutes easily!

I expected maybe at the very least a 2 second immobilize

That might be balanced if our weapon-skills had cool-downs, but they don’t, and the immobilizes will stack in duration. Throw in immobilize from venom, and with high condition-durations, and you could probably keep someone immobilized for a very long time.

This did nothing to help our situation whatsoever.

After months of P/P in WvW, I feel this was only a buff to my setup (esp. since I also run Withdraw and Roll for Ini). The only problem I’ve noticed is it’s normally more worthwhile just to spam Unload, and this helps change that.

Quite the opposite i find. Although 4 initiative is costly, i would still use it.

I ran d/d + p/p setup last night trying out a new way of playing thief instead of the stealth spec, running 0/30/0/20/20 traiting into

Furious Retaliation, Signets of Power, Executioner in Critical strike,
Power of Inertia and Pain Response in Acrobatics
Uncatchable and Bountiful Theft in Trickery.

(Utilities a liked to run is Shadow trap, shadow step, signet of agility).

by using pistol 2 followed up by 2 unloads, i forced my opponent to use his/her condition removal utilities and other cooldowns to keep their health up. The 5 stacks of vulnerability still hurt and unload now can crit up to 9k (Heavy armor) on a good unload. After 2 unloads i follow up with a few auto attacks applying some bleeds (im not condi specced but they still add to the damage) putting pressure on my opponent. Once i got my enemy to under 50% health, and i got over 8 initiative, i do this combo.

Pistol 2# -> (weaponswap) -> steal + CnD -> backstab -> heartsearker (finisher)

the opponent is left with 8 stack vunerability + ripped boons and little to no health in all my encounters. Now i dont need to rely on having basilisk venom up all the time. Although i still use it in certain situations where i require an extra stun. i can now follow up quicker with the steal + cnd combo much more reliable once pistol 2# hits.

What i have noticed however with this new skill is that its buggy and some kitten reason gets obstructed easily like shortbows autoattack. So fighting on bulky terrain makes the skill tricky to land that immobalise.

What I don’t get is:
How long have Thief players told ANet’s guys that the major weaknesses of P/P set are:

1. Unload’s damage being the highest on the set, thus causing a Gunslinger Thief to blow all their Init on #3 spam.
2. ZERO access to stealth or evasion, thus making P/P the only Thief weapon combo
   to lack any means of in-built damage mitigation.

So, what the kitten is with merely a 1 second Immobilize, then? The set’s major weaknesses still persist.

Advent.6193:

What I don’t get is:
How long have Thief players told ANet’s guys that the major weaknesses of P/P set are:

1. Unload’s damage being the highest on the set, thus causing a Gunslinger Thief to blow all their Init on #3 spam.
2. ZERO access to stealth or evasion, thus making P/P the only Thief weapon combo
   to lack any means of in-built damage mitigation.

So, what the kitten is with merely a 1 second Immobilize, then? The set’s major weaknesses still persist.

Black Powder> Lacking any means of built-in damage mitigation

go 100% condition duration, problem fixed

or combo p/p with another weapon set that can take advantage of its utility. I like to weapon swap mid combat when i use blackpowder as a damage mitigation then heartseeker for a free stealth backstab initiation.

that immobalise just opened up a door of weapon swap combination opportunities that i before thought were not worth or useless. At least now i can kite succesfully, drain my enemies health and go for the opening burst

thieves are good at movement plain and simple so immobilize by itself for thieves are good as it serve as controlling your enemy movement.
i think you can compare it to the mesmer scepter block every 8 seconds (or 6) and every other classes block skills. if you time it right you can prevent the enemy burst on you (maybe more the melee ones but also other classes too)

if you going power build than as said b4 it can be use as seconds set to secure your burst instead of using venom devourer venom or basilisk

if you going on condition spec with p/d that you can control the fight with immobilized the enemy burst on you or use shadow strike to punish his movement around using torment

but so far good thieves learn to handle how to play without it so for me its not account as buff at all.

Tetsuyja.7805:

DanH.5879:

go 100% condition duration, problem fixed

thats the way ;D 2 sec of immobilise

Then warrior immediately uses one of several options he has to break immobilize. Goodbye 4 initiative.

I’m not opposed to this change in and of itself, but I’ll repeat for the 400th time that Body Shot wasn’t really the problem with P/P even though it’s complained about a lot.

The problem that really needs to be fixed on P/P is that Vital Shot is not potent enough to carry DPS for the set, because it:

a.) is not optimizable due to having hybridized damage, and
b.) has too long of an aftercast for its offensive specs

This combination cripples the entire set by making you overly reliant on Initiative for basic DPS. This is in turn why everybody complained about Body Shot – because it directly competes against Unload due to the Initiative system, which requires you to lose far too much damage to make applying Vulnerability to be worth it in 95% of situations. No other class has this problem at all and even within the Thief only Pistol and to a lesser degree the Shortbow are affected much.

This is a systemic problem primarily revolving around the #1 skill that needs to be addressed with both of these weapons. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the damage on Vital Shot being hybridized so that it can work well with both P/P and P/D but it needs to at least fire faster or hit harder with longer bleed stacks.

I saw someone using it in a p/d build. They would occasionally use the body shot to momentarily immobilize the opponent to help them ensure the CnD landed (opponent can’t dodge when immobilized).

I’d say it would still be a tool more reserved for team fighting primarily, although it would only be small scale WvW or sPvP stuff really. I can’t see it being that useful in a ZvZ unless you’re specifically trying to target one guy (i.e. a backliner). I haven’t really tried it out yet though, been playing a lot of s/p lately.