Guild Wars 2

Just how the heck does short bow 5 skill make a thief so indispensable to a team?

I’m still pretty new to PvP with about 90 matches, and I’ve been using thief exclusively. Everything I read says short bow 5 is essential to playing the thief in PvP, but nothing explains why. I understand you can use the short bow 5 to go from place to place a little quicker. But how is this any better than, say, a warhorn warrior with perma-swiftness in terms of getting to a point to decap or cap? People go so far as to say that thief would be worthless in PvP without this skill.

Vertical mobility.
In a pvp map when you know where to teleport with SB you can cover the map much faster than with perma swiftness following the normal route. Also SB is good for disengage fast from critical situations

Check out this vid for a good coverage of sb hopspots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCKHBldKO44

Midi.8359:

Check out this vid for a good coverage of sb hopspots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCKHBldKO44

That video helps, thank you. I did not realize you could shadow step to all those places.

So our current role in the meta is to be a teleport monkey that decaps and stealth-rezzes downed allies?

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

So our current role in the meta is to be a teleport monkey that decaps and stealth-rezzes downed allies?

….. Yes.