Guild Wars 2

This is just a simple post to start of the thief forums. I have been 80 for a couple of days and really enjoy the duel dagger combination but find myself using my short bow more. I just want to start a topic (if it hasn’t already started) of the strengths and weaknesses of the two. For me I am going for a precision condition damage build and probably going to invest into toughness. My original plan was to go power precision condition damage but I felt that my dps wasn’t reliable when I had to back out all the time. That’s just me and I want to hear what you guys think. Thanks

Personally I use dagger/pistol and shortbow. Simply for single target I go melee with dagger/pistol, if there are multiple mobs I use shortbow for the AOE. It is a fun mix of both melee and range and I like being able to mix it up durring a fight as the number of mobs drop or other helpful fellows come along.

This is from a PVE only point of view. Can’t bring myself to leave the world to go into WvWvW or PvP yet.

I use both d/d and shortbow both for pve and pvp. My build is power crit toughness and crit damage, with a reliance to stealth. You can’t use melee in all situations, and thats what bow is for. Besides ranged option, it gives an amazing utility for most situations. But basically, my playstyle is like a real rogue – in and out, sniping targets.

I’m 65 now, and I’ve found d/d can be suicidal when dealing with some champions. If you’re going condition damage, you can put on a lot of hurt by using Death Blossom to bleed targets as much as you can. Plus, DB lets you evade attacks while using it! Then you can always swap weapons while waiting for your initiative to come back.

I’m back to Power/Precision now, but this is what I did when I was heavy conditions

I’m with Barent on the weapons selection. D/D and a shortbow for aoe but for some added damage/help I throw in Ambush and Thieves Guild. I like being able to keep mobs or other players off of me while I stealth and nuke em with heartseeker (with added abilities like executioner). Usually works out for those battles where I’m out numbered.

Hello there I’ve been 80 for a little while but in general I find myself using d/d with ease and that is because once you learn the mechanics to fights you can avoid most damage and it isn’t necessary to back out completely. That being said when it comes to my second set of weapons when I know I need to range a single target I tend to do dual pistol if I know there will be multiple I use short bow but that is my preference. As for dagger pistol I see it more for tanking so I really only use it for soloing or when I know I will be taking a lot of damage. Hope this helped.

Ster

Okies here I go… So I’m from a guild where everyone chose to play their class to deal the most dmg possible. I too started my thief that way; however, I also noticed like the OP that I had to back out for long periods or even would get downed from being focused. My guild was in desperate need of a support/healer.

I then checked out all my traits that were available and thought.. okay I’m gonna give support/heal thief a shot! After a few dungeon runs and even SPvP matches, I found that not only could I heal and buff my allies, but I stayed alive longer than ALL of them. Using Pistol/Dagger and Shortbow along with aoe stealth/heal mechanics proved to be super powerful. I invested 30 traits in toughness, 20 in Vitality, and 20 in Condition Dmg. Choosing all the AoE buff/heal traits as possible along with Deception skill cooldown reduction.

Have a downed ally who simply refuses to dodge your enemy’s attacks? Coolio, simply aoe stealth him and yourself and proceed to get him back into the fight. This has proven to be one of the thief’s best skills in PvE and SPvP. People don’t realize in SPvP that resurrecting an ally actually gives them points. :] So just suggesting i guess that if you get tired of “Zomg I do so much dmg hnggggg” then possibly give this fun build a shot!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fYMQRAoY6alcmKPHcy5E+JFymiKMn8P8VaPcpW6l6FA

Here is my build for both PVP and PVE together, been to WvW and done a lot of dmg and killing with this build. Same for PVE.

Course the site is limited on items

I use a condition dagger/dagger build to put on bleeds and poison, then switch to pistols because they keep the bleeds going.

It feels like I am the only one that uses Sword/Dagger and Pistol/Pistol. This is what I think of the skills I use:

The first Sword attack is good for hitting several enemies that are close to each other. Skill 2 is good for attacking the mobs that hits slow but very hard, as I just teleport away from them. Or I can use it to reach an enemy that is trying to run away.
Skill 3 is when you auto flank an enemy and hit them in the back or their side. I find that to be an extremely good way to dodge attacks and still have full endurance for the important escapes.
Skill 4, the first skill with pure dagger, is just amazing. Why use any other ranged attack when it will bounce back and forth between enemy targets. It is so brutally efficient that I see no reason to use a bow for ranged AOE. Plus the cripple is good to prevent them for reaching you.
Skill 5 gives you stealth for a second or two and weakens the enemy. I don’t use it that often, but it works.

I use the Sword/Dagger the most as I like melee, but when I face too many enemies at the same time, I do not feel like I have a chance, as I run out of endurance and initiative to stay away from the attacks.

That is when I switch to my two pistols.
Skill 1 gives them a minor bleed. I would like to see it last a bit longer so I can build up more stacks, but as it does not use initiative I can’t complain I guess.
Skill 2 is nice with it’s weakness. Good to build up some extra damage for the volley.
Skill 3, the volley, will do good work on any single target as you blast them with tons of bullets from both guns.
Skill 4 interrupts the enemy’s action and once I started to learn how to use it, it became a favorite against veterans and champions. Very good if you like control.
Skill 5 offers a blind. While very good as it will make the opponent’s next attack miss, you need to be next to the enemy when you use it. That kind of removes the point of range…

I should also point out that I try to use one or two poisons for DOT and weaken.

During the beta I used the bow, but I found myself using it less and less and soon moved over to the two guns. But it’s good that we are not all using the same weapons and abilities, as it gives us much more variation.

Level 55 Thief here:

For PvE I’ve been rolling with Pistol/Pistol for almost all engagements and Shortbow for multiple targets and mobility.

Judging by the posts here, I may have to investigate Dagger/Dagger more. However, I’ve had absolutely no problems with any content so far, reverse circle strafing and spamming Unload. I guess it’s a bit cheap, but based on the way most monsters were designed to move and fight, I can kill most mobs several levels higher than me without ever being hit. This is why I’ve never seen any need to use any other weapon spec.

i use Dagger/Dagger and Shortbow more often than anything else and I find myself switching between them quite a bit. Shortbow I find super important for dynamic events with swarms of enemies or bosses that are hard to melee with but the daggers really shine in almost every other engagement.

I wouldn’t run condition damage for PvE unless you know nobody else is stacking bleeds in 5 mans. Bleeds only stack to 25 and poison stacks duration. Playing any class as melee in PvE means you just have to learn tells from mobs and react appropriately. Melee does a lot more damage for more risk, but the thief has a lot more evasion utility. Dagger autos restore endurance on the third strike, and the poison can be buffed with 15 points in power to give weakness. That being said, each set has it’s own advantage and you should carry a shortbow, two daggers, two pistols, and a sword at all times.

My only problem with that Syf is that I cant seem to find 2 pistols that I would like to use as back ups, or even a sword for that matter. I agree we should always have an arsenal of weapons to switch to before we get into a sticky situation.

blaqfenix, when I was leveling and I didn’t have a backup pistol I usually bought a white one because the daze/blind is amazing, they usually make dungeon runs a breeze.

SyF.1693:

I wouldn’t run condition damage for PvE unless you know nobody else is stacking bleeds in 5 mans. Bleeds only stack to 25 and poison stacks duration.

you’ll have no problem with hitting the stack cap in a 5 man unless your entire party is bleed based (scepter necro, sword warrior, AND a thief?). i’ve never actually seen a mob get 25 capped in a 5 man dungeon. this only happens during Dynamic Events where there’s like 20+ people attacking the same target.

and poison stacking is always useful. it applies the highest damage per tick out of all poisons applied, but the duration for that tick stacks from any poison application, so even weaker poisons can still be beneficial to this stack. getting the duration on a poison stacked long enough to stay on the mob until its dead is very important.

I’m a d/d shortbow loving thief, and it comes down to what I’m trying to do.

In PvE events where you have swarms of enemies, it’s all about shortbow with choking gas to not only poison everything, but to set up the poison combo for all the other ranged projectile peeps. In sPvP, shortbow is a good way to start a fight against a group of opponents because again, choking gas poisons them all. The last thing the shortbow is good for is the AoE’s fired at the people up on walls in WvW. Ya, you have to get a lot closer than the rangers and elementalists, but it lets you be somewhat useful during the time when you’re waiting for the gate to drop.

The daggers are just so much damage. Death Blossom to stack bleeds. Your default auto-attack poisons. Heartseeker is a great closer/finisher. And of course Cloak and Dagger – run behind – Backstab. Good times.

I’ve found that PvE is more about survivability than damage, therefore I’m running with shortbow & S/P. S/P for the blind and shadowstep.

Shortbow also has amazing AoE and sometimes it even beats other weapons at single target if you’re stacking bleeds with cluster bomb.

For PvE I use D+D with passive healing and toughness with some crits and condition dmg.

Secondary set is either P+P or SB depending on situation. Caltrops on dodge is also useful.

For PvE, I’m running Sword/Pistol. Its a pretty glorious combination. You get two interrupts, which pretty much allows you to pound on some mobs without giving them a chance to hit back (especially fun on risen brutes). The dual skill does some pretty good damage as well in addition to the stun. Furthermore, the sword has a very wide hit area, like, 180degrees in front of your character, and hits up to 3 targets. Main downside is that you’re severely lacking in combo finishers.

I ran in PvE with d/d and shortbow for the first 40 levels or so, and I thought that was the best combination for most situations (condition… lots of stealth reliance), but then just for variation I switched over to d/d and pistol/dagger. It took some getting used to, but now I’d swear by it for non-group encounters (groups I switch back to shortbow for more support).

Pistol/dagger is just a demon for kiting and evasion. Lay down your bleeds and just leisurely toy with your foe as he drips away…

I used to run D+D/SB but I really loved the flavor of double pistol but I didn’t want to sacrifice the AoE of shortbow. I ended up going for a sustained initiative build with D+D/P+P. With 3 extra initiative, 2 initiative/10 sec, initiative on steal, and initiative on crit procs, I find that I can alternate unload+auto attack on bosses for a very long time without the danger of attacking champions with D+D. If I need AoE, Dancing Dagger and/or Leaping Death Blossom to stack on conditions and avoid damage. I’d link a build but I’m on my phone right now. Sorry of block of text may be hard to read.

I was thinking of using double pistol and then adding the ricochet skill from the trait tree and see how that works with aoe. Imagine unload plus the ricochet…has anyone tried this?