Guild Wars 2

D/P SB vs Staff D/P. Is there another OH besides SB that you find more effective PvP wise for D/P than SB? And for Staff. Having D/P as an OH would be pretty kitten beneficial because you still get the HS, SS and stealth PLUS the better DPS from Staff. Would that not make Staff thief with OH D/P the meta for PvP right now? If not. Please explain why running D/P alone with SB is better besides the mobility and loss of P. Impact.

Ok here is the way i view it. i run SP STAFF and staff is my secondary. dp is always first.

WHY STAFF?

PROS:
Vault on others trying reviving players (best move for this)
great opener (dodge roll to steal to vault to weapon swap)
gets out of immob

CONS:
lose extra mobility with infil arrow to decap (HS can be used instead but obviously not as good)

WHY USE SB?

PROS:
Extra mobility to decap

CONS:
little to no offense
No pulmonary impact
cant interrupt
kills initiative bad when you have to swap after you get decap

Another way i look at it…SB vs no SB….. its basically about INFIL arrow right? ok lets say you are running from point B to C to decap far….. it can save you like 4-7 seconds depending on the map. basically 1 kill (5pts) that you COULD get with a more agressive DP STAFF build if played right and not over estimating your disengagement criteria. you should still be decapping obvioulsy. so the net gain/loss you would have to choose for yourself. to each their own. depends how good you are at thief. i find less thieves running SB these days.

another drawback: decapping works with a good team who knows how to rotate and disengage and not just jump into 2v1 and 3v1s (unless you already have the cap and saving points)

If you have zero interest in mobility and want to go for teamfighting then I could almost see the justification for dropping SB, however you’re gimping yourself harshly for that. Thieves are built to capitalize on unfavorable situations for the enemy. +1 a 1v1 to easily secure a kill, exploit a bad rotation to get a decap, secure a secondary objective, etc. These are kind of the point of even playing a thief. Because of that, SB is a cornerstone due to the mobility, poison for denying healing, blast finisher, a meh evade frame, and ranged poke.

Considering most people are sadly just bad at staff due to them having a wrong idea of playing it, d/p staff is usually the same way due to people not playing it correctly/capitalizing on its strengths while recognizing weaknesses. But if you know how to use it effectively it’s a good build. Lots of people are turned off by not having a shortbow, but on pretty much every map there’s workarounds and better spots since you have vault.

TL;DR: Don’t be dumb with it and d/p staff works

Edit: To add, one isn’t necessarily better than the other, both have their pros and cons. But if we measure effectiveness by the players using it, shortbow is more effective obviously due to familiarity. Not a lot of people actually know how to play staff well, so it is a hindrance to many. But when learned, staff is incredibly powerful in a variety of situations.

I use staff mainly for dodge / vault spam, then I also take SB for mobility.

Abelisk.4527:

I use staff mainly for dodge / vault spam, then I also take SB for mobility.

I find vault spam too easy to dodge. I like using auto, #2, and #3 mostly. I do like using vault like the other guy said for when someone is attempting a Revive or if I know I can get a couple people at once.

As far as shortbow vs staff: from My short experience it seems to comes down to mobility/utility vs more damage. I think shortbow is better for getting to points quicker. still I like staff better than shortbow and dagger pistol. Probably not as effective, but I like it better.

Staff, when played by a decent staff user is so good at dishing out damage and avoiding taking it. Shortbow really works well with condi builds but brings a lot less utility to power imo.

As a mesmer main/plays other classes I have to say I appreciate a thief using the d/p meta dash build over the d/p+staff build.

On my mesmer I can cover 1 point be it far/near/etc. and allows the thief to truly float around the map w/out worry of having to defend a capped point. If you are playing dp/staff you can’t really race to +1 the point I portal back to defend or keep that 3rd point decapped. Yes you aren’t as fragile as the d/p meta build, but other classes out perform what you can do on a dp/staff thief.

Druid/Scrapper/DH are just examples. Heck if you got the proper support you’re better off going Rev or Necro than a dp/staff thief

Question as a non spvp player. How important is it generally to dominate the topography in the center areas? It seems like from the videos posted here that the wack-a-mole dash/sb thieves have an easier time of intercepting being able to shortbow to almost any given window or rubble at whatever height or angle.

Is it pretty much as efficient to wait for contact to happen en-route or are non sb thieves able to master the map design well enough without it?

Staff is easier to use than D/P imo and from my experience after 1v1ing maybe 25 staff thieves, few of which OH D/P, I realize that running D/P as main without staff OR maining D/P with staff as OH for weaponswap bonuses are better than maining a staff with SB or D/P as secondary.

Meaning it’s always best to begin the fight with D/P because it has a higher skill cap and with a good D/P thief 1v1ing a Staff thief, the D/P has more useful skills and therefore, if played well, tends to be just a bit better meta wise for pvp than Staff.

Healing in stealth is kitten now correct? Because if it were not than maining staff and using D/P as permastealth/heal would be OP as kitten. However because stealth heal is kitten now it isn’t.

So any thoughts on Staff/DP vs DP/Staff? MH being your opener? I contradict myself when I say that opening with Staff because it is more powerful would ACTUALLY probably be better than opening with D/P. I had a change of heart. Would you agree?

Also could you say screw Staff or screw D/P as an OH and main either Staff/SB or D/P SB? Which one do you TRUELY feel is better for PvP?

Staff/DP vs DP/Staff vs D/P SB vs Staff SB annnndddd GO! =)

Staff/DP is more effective fighting by a good margin and its mobility is nearly as good as shortbow. All SB really brings to the table is vertical mobility which is potent on some maps. Otherwise it is difficult to move away from Staff/DP or in some cases Staff/PP.

Travlane.5948:

WHY USE SB?

PROS:
Extra mobility to decap

CONS:
little to no offense
No pulmonary impact
cant interrupt
kills initiative bad when you have to swap after you get decap

That’s just far too incorrect.

PROS:
-Superior mobility to everything else in the game. (Let’s also not forget all the shadowstep spots in the game that further increase mobility.)
-AoE unblockable poison for downed cleave.
-Moderate AoE damage cleave with cluster bomb.
-On demand evade with little initiative.
-Ranged option for misc circumstances.

CONS:
-Can’t use headshot. (But can still steal with sleight of hand.)

Soo….?

Staff just can’t compete at a higher level. You can’t do it. It’s for the same reason that offhand dagger can’t compete at a higher level, either. A good d/p thief is always going to win against a good staff thief. This is not because a d/p thief has stealth, but simply because a staff thief is severely limited by it’s main source of damage which is Vault. Staff can’t interrupt, staff can’t reliably hit vault, staff can’t do a lot of things that d/p CAN do. And SB cleave is on the same level as staff cleave, so why take it if SB has superior mobility?

I’m in gold so can only speak for that tbh, and for context, I take shortbow as a secondary whatever my main hand.

Staff works wonders in lower ranks, (silver specifically) especially when the other team is stacked with Reapers and DH and has no thief. It’s carried me back up in rank a couple of times after a loss streak. If your team can’t quite hold the teamfight to give you chance to decap and +1, being able to take out these classes on mid then decap when you have the numbers advantage works really well.

That said, a good meta D/P thief can achieve the same and more just simply because it has good stealth access and mobility. If you take staff you sacrifice one of those for your teamfight potential. If the enemy team has a D/P thief and a mesmer, odds are you’ll find yourself outrotated regardless and your teamfight would have been better covered by a scrapper bunkering a point than a staff thief.

staff for soloq, dp for competitive.

If you go competitive with staff you will get rekt if the enemy team has a dp thief unless your team is capable of holding 2 nodes the entire match dp thief will always be more useful.

I think we’ve talked a bit too much of this but dp is just better in any aspect but raw damage.
The fact that staff doesn’t provide any kind of stealth makes dp automatically better for opener/res/+1, if you want to 1v1 with staff then you’re a monkey and probably will never go pro.

Thet being said staff is better suited for soloq/low tier tournaments and dp for high level pvp.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Staff just can’t compete at a higher level. You can’t do it. It’s for the same reason that offhand dagger can’t compete at a higher level, either. A good d/p thief is always going to win against a good staff thief. This is not because a d/p thief has stealth, but simply because a staff thief is severely limited by it’s main source of damage which is Vault. Staff can’t interrupt, staff can’t reliably hit vault, staff can’t do a lot of things that d/p CAN do. And SB cleave is on the same level as staff cleave, so why take it if SB has superior mobility?

Sure sure bro continue in your dream !!

Elxdark.9702:

staff for soloq, dp for competitive.

If you go competitive with staff you will get rekt if the enemy team has a dp thief unless your team is capable of holding 2 nodes the entire match dp thief will always be more useful.

I think we’ve talked a bit too much of this but dp is just better in any aspect but raw damage.
The fact that staff doesn’t provide any kind of stealth makes dp automatically better for opener/res/+1, if you want to 1v1 with staff then you’re a monkey and probably will never go pro.

Thet being said staff is better suited for soloq/low tier tournaments and dp for high level pvp.

HAHAHAHAHAHA, dagger pistol thief for pro HAHAHAHAHA