Guild Wars 2

I have been trying it for the last couple of days and it feels so strange…
As a thief, SB is part of the profession, playing without it feels like i’m playing a different profession… The thief becomes very slow and its escapability almost disappears…

I will however force myself to play without it for a bit longer to see if I can get use to it since playing a thief is basically playing the only profession in the game with only one weapon set since the other is reserved for the SB. I am trying to end with this dependency and actually have 2 synergetic weapon sets like every other profession out there.

I doubt it will work and will be equipping my SB soon though

What about you? have you tried it? what do you think about playing without a SB equipped? do you feel crippled like i do?

I forced myself to deal without it too. I’m not sure what you’re doing but for me in PvP hotjoins I had a hard time dealing with not having one now I don’t really miss it.

Biggest problem is that the thief has no cooldowns, and so he can remain in one weaponset as long as the situation is right for it. The situational nature of the thief’s weaponswap on top of the shortbow’s insane utility means it always win out as his backup set.

What would probably fix the problem would be if thief had less initiative, around 10, but regained all initiative on weaponswap, so he would function under similar constraints that other classes follow, while creating interesting new builds due to the fact that he would effectively be rewarded for weaponswapping.

It’ll never happen though and if shortbow becomes any more of a problem Anet will just nerf the weapon rather than the underlying problem.

When you break the concept rules of your game with one profession, then give it a weapon that has such a great combination of damage, utility and escape, you’re asking for trouble.

Personally although I use the shortbow a lot, pure melee D/P, S/P, or S/D is a lot of fun to play as

I havent used a shortbow since the lac strike buff months ago. Sword #2 and a stealth is all you need to get away from people.

I haven’t used SB much at all after i stated REALLY learning how to create new builds around different weapon sets. Atm, i use d/p with either d/d off set for wvw, or s/d offset for tpvp. works really well and i prefer both options over SB after mastering them.

Playing a Thief without a ShorBow
… is stupid.

I have the same exact feeling, you can’t run around without either a SB or a dagger mainhand, since those are the 2 mobility giving things…

This is why i have been wanting new/more weapon sets for the thief for ages…

Atm im playing with S/D and (trying out) P/P, yeah i know every one says P/P sucks and for that reason im trying to make it work xD and tbh it’s proven very effective versus some melee classes, nyst need to be extra carefull with retaliation and whirlwind abilities.
and the S/D is my jack of all trades.
I always play S/D + SB but im getting bored of playing the same set over and over and over again without any diversity…
I sometimes try to kill ppl with my SB only, without switching weapons just to have a different gameplay…

Don’t get me wrong i absolutely love SB but it is a shame that it is a MUST HAVE for every thief, almost mandatory… If it gets nerfed (again) it will be catastrofic but on the other hand…. how to make it not so mandatory?

The way i see it would be giving some kind of shadowstep ability to pistol (MH or OH doesn’t really matter) so that there is another weapon set that provides mobility without a target, even it the travel distance is shorter and the init cost higher… that SB #5.

Thieves should turn to SB for what it is mend to do, AOE dmg and not basically for one single ability (#5).

I’ve been considering running two different melee weapon set ups, S/D and D/P, mostly because I’d want to utilize both of them. But in the end I’ve realized that you would most likely want to have a ranged option, so that leaves P/X and SB. I think this is also a part of the reason why many use SB. It’s surely not mandatory to have a ranged option, but still something many would feel more comfortable with I guess.

Though I played D/D ele mostly where swapping to range in combat isn’t even an option, so guess I might be contradicting myself a little bit :P

Am trying this right now as well and … it does feel kinda strange. However, seeing how the shortbow is more of an “oh snap I need mobility and defense, nao!” weapon (usually, anyway), and I end up in WvW roaming situations, I figured having a different melee weapon set to, y’know, surprise people I meet might be interesting. It is. Very interesting.