Guild Wars 2

Yeah I know it will never happen but until P/P becomes more dangerous (Ricochet!), gets some sort of evasive ability or SB gets an attack that actually packs some punch the thief is always going to have to pick and chose fights with great care in WvW/sPvP. If they let me run with melee of choice, a shortbow and P/P I wouldn’t have to +1 so many fights.

Melee weapons are workable in some fights and useless in others. Ranged pressure is only accomplished via P/P and about the only way I can handle trappers, reapers, shatter mesmers, d/d eles, condi bunkers or any class that has heavy spike AoE. I don’t even know how to play without a shortbow any longer since it is the only way for this class to survive a mistake in many cases given the number of gap closers most classes now have.

Don’t see ranged combat as dmg only.
Shortbow provides evade, aoe poison field, blast, teleport/blind.

Also have decent dmg ( shortbow 2 can crit 5/6k on zerks ).

I don’t get about ranged pressure.
You have many ways to get closer:

-D/P skill 3
-S/ skill 2
-Steal
-Signet of Infiltration
-Shadowstep
-Stealth
-SB skill 5

I know that actually thieves have to use shortbow more often than before ( with 17k healt im used to die in 1/2 sec from a single tanky character as reaper or dh ), but guns re kinda hard to fix ( cause they re meant both to condition set and physical dps set ).

Shirlias.8104:

Don’t see ranged combat as dmg only.
Shortbow provides evade, aoe poison field, blast, teleport/blind.

Also have decent dmg ( shortbow 2 can crit 5/6k on zerks ).

The DPS on a shortbow is laughable against a decent opponent. My scrapper will chew and spit out a thief trying to damage me with one. Don’t even get me started on my Dragon Hunter longbow via Thief shortbow. Prior to the SB nerf that slowed down the blast, it was mildly effective… mildly.

Shirlias.8104:

I don’t get about ranged pressure.

Have you dueled a decent Scrapper, Dragon Hunter, Reaper, power shatter Mesmer, D/D ele or a half dozen other tanky/high dmg AoE builds? Unless you are a complete surgeon that makes no mistakes these classes will tear up a thief coming into melee range. I have had some luck with S/P with the evades but even those are hard to land without eating a big shot. Miss a dodge against a Gravedigger and boom dead. Catch an updraft… yep dead. Get caught in any number of DH traps… dead.

Shirlias.8104:

guns re kinda hard to fix ( cause they re meant both to condition set and physical dps set ).

Huh? P/P is almost pure direct damage as the only damaging conditioner fires so slow it is pitiful. Every other attack is pure direct damage or control. Unload is actually respectable DPS but lacks utility. SB lacks DPS but has a near necessary skill on the thief these days.

sb has dps but it’s so kittengly sloooooooooooooooooooooow

step away

no dps

You either have to go into melee to have a chance to hit anyone or burn cd’s.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

sb has dps but it’s so kittengly sloooooooooooooooooooooow

step away

no dps

You either have to go into melee to have a chance to hit anyone or burn cd’s.

No, SB has 1 decent damaging ability. As in it does decent damage, but kitten dps. TBH SB has needed a dps buff since launch. Quadruple the speed of #2, double the damage of #3 and increase aa speed by 25-50% then it’d do decent dps.