Guild Wars 2

In your humble opinion what’s better for solo pve? Pistol x2 or Pistol/Dagger?

I’m only lvl 10 and have tried both. I enjoy ‘em both but can’t decide what’s best

I actually used dagger/pistol for much of my PVE the first time through on thief. It allowed for a lot of mobility in closing the gap to targets, as well as protection from #5 blindness.

I was using that thief for both PVE and WvW and just recently decided a build that works for both isn’t focused enough for either. So I’m dedicating that player to PVE/Dungeons.

I’m leveling a 2nd thief now. I decided to go P/P-SB for my two weapon sets (fully ranged) and full glass cannon while leveling. I dedicated 10 gold to this character to start with, so maybe this isn’t the best option for you if you’re perpetually poor.

I’ve been upgrading to masterwork at normal intervals (14, 20, 26, etc), and eventually ascalon armor since I have a ton of tokens, and rare weapons once I get to that level.

Between loot and map completions I’ve managed to not spend that much so far. Crafted armor at low to mid levels is being sold under cost and is pretty cheap.

Once I get 80 I’ll switch it up and go with a condition build instead of glass cannon but getting there will be faster as a ranged cannon I think.

I have a feeling doing it this way will be very fast/efficient.

So yeah, I’d go Pistol/Pistol for single targets with shortbow as weapon swap to decimate multiple targets with cluster bombs (aimed at my feet while standing near enough to enemies – that way no travel time for the bombs).

You really should learn all weapon skills though if you haven’t already. What I decided to do isn’t what’s best for everyone. Each has their own style of play. So try it like I suggested but try it other ways too to find what works best for you.

P/P works best if going for a Power/Precision/Crit damage build (Lots of Unload spamming)

P/D works best if going for a condition damage build, using Cloak and Dagger and Sneak Attack to keep bleeds on a target.

That said, the extra survivability from being able to Cloak and Dagger and run away can help in solo PvE leaning me to saying P/D (Then again, I leveled most of the way without using much stealth outside of Shadow Refuge)

I use P/P and D/D – ranged and close combat.

Works really well for me. Unload does insane damage (sometimes 6K). You would be surprised how many people don’t dodge a channelling skill.

I can only dream of getting a burst like that on my Necro

I, too, use P/P and D/D on my thief, and it works just fine for me. I tend to gravitate towards my double pistols when I’m fighting more difficult foes, though, because that’s one of the advantages of ranged combat. Sometimes I swap to my daggers when I need to stack a lot of bleeding on my enemies, though. It all depends on the mood.

I’m not sure about P/D as a combination since I never really tried it out, but if you enjoy it and if you continue to enjoy it in your adventures, then I say stick with it! I recommend having P/P as one of your two weapon sets you can switch between, though, because Unload really comes in handy. It’s helped me out with a fair few group events, and I don’t know what I’d do without it!

Actually Sword + Pistol is probably the best weapon-set for leveling.

But if you’re set on P/P or P/D then one is a Crit-set while the other is a Condition Damage/Attrition set.

P/P will kill things faster which is probably the most important factor when leveling.

So P/P is usually spamming unload?

adamshadow.5246:

So P/P is usually spamming unload?

Yes. You get some minor utility out of a short duration Vulnerability, a Daze, and an expensive dark field, but for the most part, it’s auto-attacking and spamming #3.

Yes adamshadow. P/P strength is unload.

In a full group, stacking vulnerability with body shot is semi helpful, but rarely enough to make up for the lack of DPS from unload. Headshot helps in rare situations. Even AOE blindness helps (#5 attack) in rare situations such as cliffside fractal on the mid seal in a squishy group. But for the most part unload is it.

Unload spam, heal/invis or refuge/invis to regain initiative (if you’re traited for that), autoattack from invis = 5 shot burst + 5 bleeds, unload more. That’s currently the fastest / most damaging ranged burst in the game vs single targets.

Pistol/dagger on the other hand is useful for condition builds. The combo of cloak and dagger and autoattack stacking 5 bleeds from stealth puts out of a lot of condition damage. But you have to be in melee range for it to be effective. That can work well against some tougher single targets if you’re solo.

Alternatively, dagger/pistol can work well too if you’re not a condition build in the same situation by just using autoattack and blindness. It’s not my favorite choice because, while it’s pretty safe, it’s slow DPS.

I played around with sword some and don’t like it. Yes sword can hit multiple targets in melee but shortbow-clusterbomb does that much better if you’re shooting at your feet. So I’d rather just stick to focusing on single target damage with my main weapon set and swap to shortbow when mulit-target damage is preferable.

Hey AdamShadow,

So personally I enjoy the Pistolx2 setup; reasoning being is I have my trait setup revolving around my pistols/critical hit which I find very productive; using Daggerx2 is my second setup.

Sword/Pistol will still stomp on everything in leveling.