Hello!
Are there any permanent ranged thieves here? even without the 1200 range, what are your thoughts on the class and playstyle?
My thief is permanent ranged (with an important exception, more on that later). I typically run P/P with a Shortbow in the auxiliary. I absolutely love the playstyle. Being purely ranged gives you enormous mobility, which is one of the best aspects of thieves, in my opinion.
I’ve been using pistol/pistol and sometimes either shortbow or pistol/dagger as my secondary weapon set, I’m really enjoying it so far and there’s quite a few traits that make the play style viable.
I concur. I was drawn to thief (and engineer, briefly) due to the prospect of being a dual-pistols gunslinger, and thief has absolutely lived up to my hopes. High mobility combined with enormous burst damage makes you a useful member of the group who, given a proficiency with dodging, can easily offset damage-focused gear with skill-based survivability.
On the topic of traits, Critical Strikes opens up a lot of fun options to P/P thieves. The great thing about P/P, though, is that it can be made to work quite effectively with a number of potential trait lines. In my experience with other classes, traits don’t seem to be quite as flexible – a problem for guardians in particular.
I’m just curious what you guys think?
I personally think the 1200 range should be added, I do fine with 900 but it can be quite annoying at times…
I find that 900 range is a very reasonable tradeoff considering several factors. First and foremost, we have some of the absolute highest ranged burst damage around. The typical tradeoff for longer range is lower DPS. Second, our astoundingly high mobility compared to other classes more than compensates for the reduced range. Personally, I roll with Signet of Shadows much of the time – this makes orbiting targets amazingly effective even when the targets are pursuing you. Without SoS, several traits from Acrobatics increase mobility either as a function of dodging or via swiftness.
also, what do you guys think ArenaNet’s thoughts are on Ranged thieves? do they want the class to be played using whatever playstyle we prefer? or do they hate the idea of a ranged only thief?
From a philosophical standpoint, ANet’s on the record as saying that they generally want players to find their own comfort zones and play the way we prefer. I’ve never seen any evidence post-launch to countermand that.
One thing to watch out for, however, is the upcoming AoE nerf, which might have substantial effects on the shortbow’s viability. If anything, though, that should really make P/P stand out further, being a single-target weapon set (I’m assuming that ANet wouldn’t penalize the weaponset as a whole based upon the Ricochet trait – one additional target 1/5 of the time is a far cry from five targets all the time).
