Guild Wars 2

Hey! I apologize if this is a question with an obvious answer but I’m not really sure how else to answer it other than to ask here.

Anyway, I’ll get on with it, I LOVE archers. They are one of my go-to classes in games, and while I know the ranger is a playable class in-game, I’m not so much a fan of the pet and druidic theme.

That being said, is the shortbow a decent option for thieves to PvP with as a main weapon? Glancing over the abilities it looks like it’d be very condition heavy, but I’m fairly new to the game so I’m unsure.

As a side note, if the shortbow can be effective, it doesn’t involve running in and spamming clusterbomb does it? I see that’s an AoE ability and I also saw a thief doing that one time.. Being fairly new to the game I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea or not. I would think not, and also hope that it isn’t, but I have no idea.

Thanks in advance for anyone able to answer my questions!

~Nex

Sadly no. I’m also a huge archer guy as well, and simply GW2 doesn’t offer precisely that. Th shortbow itself on the thief is a pretty sub-par MH weapon as it is very predictable to avoid its primary damage source – cluster bomb. Due to the bomb’s crazy slow projectile speed, it’s actually best used at point blank and spammed for the AoE, which is a shame, but how it’s designed. It’s one of the best utility weapons in the game from its spammable blast finisher, evades, mobility, and spammable AoE poison field and defaulted AOE for tagging, however, so it is almost always used as the alternate set of choice. It is not, however, a very viable DPS/main weapon unless you’re looking for very long and drawn out 1v1 fights with building tank in mind.

Ultimately, I’d suggest just looking into the ranger, or just wait and see what happens with the HoT expansion (but that’s probably a long time away). I imagine more classes will end up with the longbow by then.

Longbow ranger is decent as a power build without too much use of the pet. The utility the pet provides is good, but the flavor is rather annoying, I’ll give you that, but it’s definitely the best archer the game has to offer at the moment.

Here’s hoping with specializations they either give the thief the longbow and/or remove the pet dependency from the ranger to help remove it’s druid-ness. Originally the ranger class was supposed to be three different classes – an archer, druid, and warden, but I guess those were too specific so they merged them all together. We’ll see if they take those splits into consideration down the road.

DeceiverX.8361:

Originally the ranger class was supposed to be three different classes – an archer, druid, and warden, but I guess those were too specific so they merged them all together. We’ll see if they take those splits into consideration down the road.

Ah, no wonder!

I was a little confused as to why they had so many tricks up their sleeve, but it makes sense if it’s a somewhat overstuffed reduction of three classes into one.

What Deceiver. The cluster bomb spam, helps in WvW when fighting others who can pop into stealth in melee range.

I use d/d and SB and I like my SB.

It’s nothing compared to a rangers 10k +/- 10sec cd mega spam but it can be handy in certain situations.
It has a nice evade to kite people with and avoid damage, similar to S/Ds no3 skill except d/d doesn’t offer such a decent evade for me so if I want something similar I can use bow.

If you can land a cluster bomb on some one it hurts.
In wvw mine crits 4k-5k atm however as others said its painfully easy to avoid when you are shooting it to its max range.
Opening up with the SB might be silly unless its a ranged team fight however I think they are great for finishing off when staying in close quarters with your primary weapon might have been too dangerous.

For me they are much more than a simple way of spamming skill 5 to move around.

Apparently I have a clone who enjoys thief -,-

Some of the replies are weird. Thief’s Shortbow is one of the best weapons in the game.

no.1 hits hard and AoEs well, making it strong in team fights and in 1v1s against Rangers and especially Mesmers.

no.2 is the best Blast finisher in the game that hits extremely hard.

no.3 is a spammable evade that cripples. It’s a great tool for dueling and surviving when getting pinned down.

no.4 is a poison field. Poison is one of the best conditions in the game that directly counters the current healing meta. Not only that, but you can blast it with #2 for AoE weakness, which is incredibly powerful.

no.5 is the absolute best mobility tool in the game. This is what gives Thief his place in the current meta and makes a well played Thief uncatchable.

YuiRS.8129:

Some of the replies are weird. Thief’s Shortbow is one of the best weapons in the game.

no.1 hits hard and AoEs well, making it strong in team fights and in 1v1s against Rangers and especially Mesmers.

no.2 is the best Blast finisher in the game that hits extremely hard.

no.3 is a spammable evade that cripples. It’s a great tool for dueling and surviving when getting pinned down.

no.4 is a poison field. Poison is one of the best conditions in the game that directly counters the current healing meta. Not only that, but you can blast it with #2 for AoE weakness, which is incredibly powerful.

no.5 is the absolute best mobility tool in the game. This is what gives Thief his place in the current meta and makes a well played Thief uncatchable.

The SB is an amazing utility weapon but it doesn’t fit what the OP wants at all and there is no build that is based around using the SB as a main weapon.