Power Pistol/Pistol Daredevil: VIABLE!

Power Pistol/Pistol Daredevil: VIABLE!

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

Easily one of my favorite builds in PvP – Stronghold during the entire BWE3 is the Marauder stat P/P and Staff full Physical Skills Daredevil.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqaWn8lCdmiFmCWmCkmiFYCbLQ9B6QzhwRYLULBEAyAA-TpBFABIt/g4lBQ4IAQwDAYhDBAAnAAA

Best part, is with the newly announced changes, its going to be further improved!

With the trait changes, the build now makes even better sense, as some of the traits before were trade offs, but since the build primarily wishes to stay between 600 to 900 range from foes, the Evasive Empowerment to Havoc Master change makes it less desirable, freeing us to take Brawler’s Tenacity without conflict.

Similarly, the damage reduction on Unhindered Combatant synergizes well with the healing provided from Invigorating Precision, making it even easier to maintain your health over 90%, which is vital for this build’s Scholar runes and Flawless Strikes.

The goal of the build is to use the massive mobility and disengage afforded by the Dash dodge, endurance gain and low cool-downs of the Physical skills, and lastly the staff 5 for further mobility and Endurance gain thanks to Staff Master. The result is a build that has MORE mobility than the same build with short bow 5, thanks to staff’s slightly lower cost and endurance return, at the cost of not being able to shortbow 5 up certain shortcuts.

This build relies on kiting melee foes and getting into favorable mid-range against long range foes at break-neck speed, and relying on the disengage from the dodge and staff 3 or 5 to maintain distance. Bandit’s Defense is your go to anti-engage skill, immediately flowing into Fist Flurry to counter attack on a successful knockdown.

You then decide to continue into the Elite chain IF you think you can kill the foe (swapping weapons to trigger Intelligence sigil to make all three hits crit) or disengage with a dodge backward into an Unload.

Unload is clearly the mainstay damage of the build, but never underestimate the powerful spike potential of a Pistol 2 Immobilize into a Staff 5 100% crit smash. If you get the jump on the foe and land most or all of the first unload before you get dipped below 90% health, your damage will be massive. 12,000+ Unloads were not an uncommon sight, and healing was decent enough to keep the Scholar runes and Flawless Strikes going. Now that the actual heal is VERY fast to complete, it will be even easier, and -10% from all incoming damage types will vastly help as well.

The Utilities all serve a great purpose:

Impairing Daggers is excellent for landing a double unload if they don’t have an invulnerability/projectile defense/immobilize removal, but landing them can be tricky. Wonderful for disengage as well.

Bandit’s Defense is your amazing get out of kitten free card which also sets up the massive, and now easier to use, damage from Fist Flurry, which then dazes to set up Impact Strike or a dash dodge away into an Unload. The damaging Utilities often serve a great place as a filler skill when you have blown your initiative, and they act as the go-to melee offensive when a foe think’s they’re closed in on you for the kill.

Marauders leaves the build with enough health to react, while the higher precision maintains the build’s consistency with critting better than berserker, which would likely be too susceptible to burst damage anyway.

Conditions are a problem with the build. If Escapist’s Absolution becomes base-lined into the Minor traits like everyone is hoping, then we may finally have a good option there, but not taking Staff Mastery hurts the build’s mobility significantly.

But yes, I’m happier than I’ve ever been that Power based P/P thief finally can be playable and viable! Condi P/P is also looking good too. What a time to be alive!

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Posted by: Ryou.2398

Ryou.2398

Where are the changes announced?

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Posted by: Eleandra.4859

Eleandra.4859

Actually I ran a similar build during BWE3 for a few matches and was rather successful.
However I found it very cheap (but this is solely my peronal preference).

I want to have my staff melee ^^ main weapon whine

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Posted by: Revengeance.8956

Revengeance.8956

I can’t really imagine the Condi P/P part with only auto’s and bleed that doesn’t even synergise with almost anything else from the traits as far as I can tell (if it were a poison however it would’ve been a different case) but…. P/P Daredevil certainly looks like it will be a thing and I’m excited for it.

I was wondering however… how does everyone feel about Steal for daredevil…. being still…. the thief Steal…. a close-in skill for a mid-ranged character that will reward you with melee range skills in certain situations doesn’t sound really useful to me. I don’t know…. it feels a bit … dodgy (get it? I’m terrible sorry)

Since this new elite spec is the only thing that makes ranged play viable for thiefs…. I believe it should also come with a counterpart for Steal. However since it also comes with the option of playing staff…. it’s a difficult call as in what it should be exactly.

How do you feel about it ?

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

The gap closer from steal with mug nicely sets up Impact strike to finish off someone below 25%. Dash steal impact is a deceptively long range assassination

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Posted by: DresdenAllblack.1249

DresdenAllblack.1249

Bah, 1 second block better get a bump or that skill will grow dust from lack of use.

Angelina is free game again.
Crystal Desert

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

Bah, 1 second block better get a bump or that skill will grow dust from lack of use.

You do know its a block and a knockdown and damage skill and a stunbreak on a loooooow recharge right? Its one of our strongest utility skills.

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Posted by: messiah.1908

messiah.1908

you wanna try my build setup
bit more dmg , cleanse, weakness , quickness (amazing with p/p) and stealth abilities to support and Shadow step

crit dmg will be 230%
crit chance with perma fury 82%
5% dmg from rune

your rune only works on opening strike as being 90% hp is hard as thief.

you have 10%+20% (executonier – below 50%) with 195% crit dmg

try it and have fun (i call it raging pistols)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqaVl0MhSnYvTw7Jw/EL7Em3SYLcF2CA1m20cC8BeBB-TpBFABP8AAsZ/BxLD02hAYhjAAAnAAA

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Posted by: babazhook.6805

babazhook.6805

I was using a p/p build in WvW before Beta weekend which was helped immensely damage wise from the upgrade to the AA and unload damage. That said it still was fragile and beta weekend I threw that unhindered combat on the build. The difference was very noticeable.

As stated however conditions an issue. You pretty well need trickery and the trickster trait to try and keep those conditions off . Withdraw as the heal then can potentially rid you of 5 conditions plus one if (wvw) you eat that remove condition on heal food.

Now if you do trait trickster (back to pvp now where there no food) an you trait shadowstep PLUS carry some combination of sigils that clear condition (purity generosity cleansing) you are getting to having enough and can conceivably trait impact disruption rather than escapists.

This then allows a real nice damage spike on interrupt and those interrupts are very good for countering enemy heals.

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Posted by: Revengeance.8956

Revengeance.8956

Bah, 1 second block better get a bump or that skill will grow dust from lack of use.

You do know its a block and a knockdown and damage skill and a stunbreak on a loooooow recharge right? Its one of our strongest utility skills.

It is indeed a strong skill but then again it can knockdown only targets in your melee range, so unless you’re planning to go full in with it in a 1200 ranged character’s face it’s only a 1 sec block and stunbreak. That’s what it is that I don’t really like about this build tbh, while phys utility skills do have great synergy with endurance gain and have pretty nice effects…. they’re still melee range which goes against the idea of being exactly a mid-range build.

While I do think this build will be pretty good against a melee… in a very counter/reactive way, I don’t see it as good looking against ranged professions. Just my opinion… might very well be wrong (I hope so) … but I don’t think it has enough utility to get close enough without dying while trying to do so. And given the nature of Bandit’s Defense and Fist Flurry, you’d probably want to be in melee range rather then mid-range against a ranged profession.

(edited by Revengeance.8956)

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

They are the hard counter to unavoidable and hard to kite melee builds such as dagger pistol thief and medi guard. Its a very range flexible build

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Posted by: Straegen.2938

Straegen.2938

The complete lack of condi management would make this build unplayable in WvW or sPvP. Lyssa runes might solve that problem but you will take a hit on DPS.

Sarcasm For Hire [SFH]
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

As for steal, usually the best move on pistol builds is to take slight of hand in trickery so you can use it to interrupt heals or stun followups. Basically, only use it for the daze to finish people off or to defend yourself against melee that manages to close on you.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: Christonya.3856

Christonya.3856

Miss leading title. This build is not at all viable. It might be fun, it might kill people, but against top of the line players using proper builds, you won’t do any thing. Heck if I saw you on my DP thief / DD … I would have you dead before you could do any thing.

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

Someone doesn’t know what viable means

Fishsticks

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

I agree Ghotistyx, Christonya really should look up what viable means

Christonya, I will happily face you in PvP with the build after launch if you like!

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Posted by: euroz.7190

euroz.7190

PP is not viable, PP is for keks, nothing more. Only an noob dies to PP, its extremely easy to shut down.

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Posted by: King Noob IV.3560

King Noob IV.3560

PP is not viable, PP is for keks, nothing more. Only an noob dies to PP, its extremely easy to shut down.

lol you’re the kid that got destroyed twice by a pp thief in pvp yesterday. liar

D/D Elementalist takes no skill but is good at everything in the game.
Mesmer is unfun to play against and does everything better than thieves.
Hoping those two get gutted with nerfs

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Posted by: messiah.1908

messiah.1908

p/p might be viable (not the build above)

just you must not be targeted and look for outnumbered fight

with few adjustment like more range, evade we could be back from the shadows

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

The thing I liked most about the build is anytime you are in an unfavorable fight, the disengage potential is staggeringly good. Cripple, Chill, and Immobilize are some of the stronger tools to prevent disengage, and this build flat out negates them, and will do so even easier with the new rapid cast time on the heal.

If the Remove Condition on Evade is ever made base line with the Minor traits, this build will be able to go toe to toe with Condi builds without needing to disengage against unfavorable 1v1 match ups against them, but against power builds it should do very well.

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Posted by: euroz.7190

euroz.7190

PP is not viable, PP is for keks, nothing more. Only an noob dies to PP, its extremely easy to shut down.

lol you’re the kid that got destroyed twice by a pp thief in pvp yesterday. liar

Kek, how old are you? i haven’t spvpd in 3 days. Sad troll is sad.

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Posted by: FinalPatriot.8034

FinalPatriot.8034

This looks to be a pretty interesting build OP. Do you have a video of it in action?

Laura Seranus – Mesmer –
“Shatter Me!”
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

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Posted by: Straegen.2938

Straegen.2938

PP is not viable, PP is for keks, nothing more. Only an noob dies to PP, its extremely easy to shut down.

P/P is currently situational against certain builds such as pure melee, necros, trapper, etc. I use it to augment D/P since it allows me to drop 6k to 10k from Unload at range. While I don’t think it makes a good main, as a backup it is still very lethal.

Sarcasm For Hire [SFH]
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

This looks to be a pretty interesting build OP. Do you have a video of it in action?

Sadly my recording software was not running in the background like i thought during the BWE so i didbt capture anything going to test it thoroughly on release though!

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Posted by: messiah.1908

messiah.1908

This looks to be a pretty interesting build OP. Do you have a video of it in action?

it pretty much bad build for pvp.
no SB to reach kite location and fast travel
no cleanse
in group fight around aoe the staff is useless

probably for 1v1 it might work

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Posted by: Swiftwynd.1685

Swiftwynd.1685

This looks to be a pretty interesting build OP. Do you have a video of it in action?

it pretty much bad build for pvp.
no SB to reach kite location and fast travel
no cleanse
in group fight around aoe the staff is useless

probably for 1v1 it might work

It is very specifically a stronghold build.

For the purpose I used it for, it was fantastic. It has the best mobility in the game as far as im aware and this will only improve with the range fix on Vault and the cast time reduction of the heal. Yes you lack the positional ability of sb 5 to get up ramps and levels but this is less important on strongholds map than say khylo. In terms of absolute distance traversed, staff wins out over sb thanks to the additional endurance generation and lower initiative cost.

It gets to the front gate guards and kills them before most builds can even get to their treb to defend, then it can either skirmish at the foes gate, go for their treb user, or disengage and run supply or rush to assist the defenders.

Its rather good at finishing off the lord or safely picking off the guard npcs, including those in the lord room.

Its not designed to be a heavy teamfight build nor a 1v1 every build in the game like old cele ele. It has very good high points at the cost of having areas it will not excel, which to me is a good, balanced build that functions as a defined role on the team that needs to be filled.

(edited by Swiftwynd.1685)

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Posted by: Rorschach.7406

Rorschach.7406

cs/dd/shadow arts or trickery. Trapper runes. Sigil of energy on both weapons for swaping. U be using traps for stealth, and have a LOT of dodges. This way u can spam unload and stealth attack almost all the time with dodging in between. Or u can drop something for Deadly arts for traps cd reduction, might stacking and another trap on healing skill. U will sacrifice some power tou, but u quite unhitable.

(edited by Rorschach.7406)

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Posted by: MadVisions.4529

MadVisions.4529

- staff#3 said the necro.
- “oaaaeah” said the thief.
- double weapon swap said the necro.
- the thief fell to the ground and shouted: “Help Me!!!”.

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Posted by: InsidiousWaffle.7086

InsidiousWaffle.7086

you just just necro’d a 4 month old post… GG

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Posted by: MadVisions.4529

MadVisions.4529

you just just necro’d

this part made me lagh for no reason :’D

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Posted by: Amante.8109

Amante.8109

If you couldn’t tell that the P/P “changes” were gonna amount to nothing even 4 months ago, then I have a bridge in Queensdale I’d love to sell ya…