Guild Wars 2

gentlemen, I’ve been using D/D and P/P on my thief since day one. i just started using D/D and shortbow recently just to try things out since so many people have recommended it to me. I just can’t seem to see how the shortbow is better than P/P.

can you guys break it down for me? pros and cons of each? I’m going for a full power/condition build.

From what I’ve seen as a 70 thief so far shortbow seems to focus on small group and survivability scenarios while dual pistol seems to excel at single target damage from what I’ve seen. That being said however the blinding skill from the dual pistols can be amazing for surviving against an opponent with slow, powerful attacks.

Yep. The shortbow’s autoattack bounces. Couple this with poison field, and excellent mobility skills means a shortbow thief is much harder to kill, but also harder to use.

Dual Pistols has very good single target damage, especially if you’ve got the quickness thing. Downside is that if you’re facing multiple opponents, the only choice you have is to either put one down VERY quickly, or switch to another weapon set. Well, or run.

I tend to stick with a dual dagger/dual pistol combo since the thief throwing dagger bounces and the death blossom affects multiple enemies if they’re close enough. I tend to go with my dual pistols for bosses and veteran enemies when they turn on me since the blindness can be nearly perpetual if you use no other skills while the mob is on you and it hits too hard.

Shortbow is great in fights with 3 or more targets. It has probably the best combo blast finisher in the game with cluster bomb since its spammable. On its own it poisons, spreads weakness (combo blast finisher from poison field) and does great aoe damage. With the 15 point talent lotus poison you can perma weaken anything in the game. To top it off it has a spammable evade that snares and one of the best mobility abilities in the game with infiltrators arrow.

There’s really nothing to not like about thief shortbow, if it had better range it’d be one of the best weapons in the game.

Shortbow is great for throwing up combos, and mobility, and some aoe from the walls in WvW. However it is by far the lowest damage weapon in the thief’s arsenal. It’s only effective for damage in a full condition damage build, and even then, a pistol pistol or pistol dagger setup will be able to stack bleeds better at least on a single target.

I consider Shortbow to be a gimmicky weapon, but a lot of people really like it.

Shortbow, no question. AoE, one of the best escape tools, and combo’s.

SB is always my second weapon spec; P/P is too heavily focused on Unload, and not ‘different’ enough if you are already running a D/P or S/P spec.

Shortbow does not do bad damage. Running in point blank and spamming cluster bomb is probably our best AoE option. Cluster bomb spam into friendly combo fields is also extremely effective, depending on the combo field. The utility on the #5 is also just fantastic, and while the single target dps may be lackluster you can kite for ages using the shortbow.

I don’t really like P/P. If I want single target damage I’ll typically go with a melee build like D/P or D/D which don’t have to sacrifice every ounce of initiative they have just to deal some single target damage, and can instead offer a little more utility without dropping their dps down to negligible amounts. P/P is also just incredibly boring.

You really have to invest in condition damage if you want to use shortbow. That, and making sure that all of your cluster bombs split just before they hit the ground, so that each bomb causes bleeding stacks. I’ve recently been using it with all kinds of +cnd equipment and it’s fantastic

Vargs.6234:

Shortbow does not do bad damage. Running in point blank and spamming cluster bomb is probably our best AoE option. Cluster bomb spam into friendly combo fields is also extremely effective, depending on the combo field. The utility on the #5 is also just fantastic, and while the single target dps may be lackluster you can kite for ages using the shortbow.

I don’t really like P/P. If I want single target damage I’ll typically go with a melee build like D/P or D/D which don’t have to sacrifice every ounce of initiative they have just to deal some single target damage, and can instead offer a little more utility without dropping their dps down to negligible amounts. P/P is also just incredibly boring.

In PVE, problem is champions tend to 1 shot you and in a mess that is most world group event bosses, it’s just not viable to try and dodge everything, especially with how much particle effects and melee range aoe there is. Pistol/Pistol at least lets you put on some damage in those events without getting 1 shot. Trying to use condition heavy builds like shortbow in those events is also a waste, because if someone has more condition damage than you and uses poison or stacks bleeding you’ll be overwritten and not get much credit for the event. Enjoy your bronze participation.

Dungeons are hit and miss for meleeing on bosses. Some it works, others you’ll get merced if you try. Melee is great for trash and anything that doesn’t have the buff where blindness is pretty much useless and CC only works 1/4 of the time. But when there’s that buff, I just don’t find 2-3 dodges to be sufficient.

For PvE:
If you have extra initiative regeneration, the cluster bomb is perfect for events. I’m calling my my Short Bow “Shot Gun” because of this. Just spamming the “2” button, while running through masses of mobs, is amazing. The initial damage is good and the bleed is amazing! If I run out of initiative, I use the first attack and get away a bit to see if any mobs are after me (in events thats pretty hard to see besides my health bar)
The Dual Pistols are nice in boss fight imo. But I get to lazy switching my secondary weapon between combats.
For WvW:
I am using Short Bow, too. Still I would prefer having a D/P || P/D, if I had a good pair of both. The Bow is useful for the “5” to get around very fast, maybe the poison field and in some crazy cases for cleaning up concentrated siege attack at the gate or if they break through. If more players spam their AoE that’s 5min of worthless siege for the enemy. Again.. Cluster Bombs!

Mostly because P/P is still lackluster. Most of your damage comes from Unload which is a lengthy channel and still far from amazing in damage. The loadout also has no real control and not even a cripple on demand. It also has no AoE damage or mobility whatsoever.

I love the idea of P/P but it is so hard to recommend right now. It simply offers so little. Even SB spamming Cluster Arrow can do more direct damage then a P/P in a shorter amount of time.