Guild Wars 2

I’ve finally started my 2nd Thief. My normal routine is to make x2 characters of a profession. Basically I pick up all of the stuff that I thought was interesting, but couldn’t fit into my 1st character.

With this in mind, I’m running S/D & P/P. This builds is far more mobile and aggressive than my original S/P & SB Venomous Aura character. As I’m looking things over, I think that I’m going Acrobatics 30 / Trickery 30 / (Undecided) 10. The issue is deciding what I should take for those final points. I find myself debating between Shadow’s Embrace for condition removal or Pistol Mastery for when I’m forced to ranged combat.

I’m already used to having poor condition removal on my 1st character and I don’t mind slotting some kind of removal in a Utility slot. Pistol dps is notoriously poor for sustained fights, so increasing its capabilities is attractive. However I’m just torn. Is the damage increase from Pistol Mastery that noticeable? Would it be worth taking for both sustained fights and for when I need to dps spike things down?

EDIT

Does the condition removal from Shadow’s Embrace happen immediately when I enter stealth? Or would I have to wait around for a few seconds before its effects can be seen?

Are you talking solo PvE, dungeon PvE, sPvP or WvW?

It’s hard to for anyone to give the most basic advice on builds without knowing the purpose.

PvE only. Solo and group.

Shadow’s Embrace activates once immediately on going into stealth.

Can I ask how much Power / Precision / Crit Damage you have?