Guild Wars 2

I’m confused about why shortbow is recommended as the secondary weapon for a berserker/staff build (https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Daredevil_-_Berserker_Staff). According to metabattle, it’s for stacking might and stealth inbetween encounters. But I run pickup fractal groups where nobody has any clue about stacking might. And, since I’m not doing dungeons, I find that I have very little need for stealth. So I spend 95% of my time with pistol/pistol in secondary; and I only equip shortbow for the occasional shadowstep.

Can somebody help me understand the rationale behind using shortbow, or sword/pistol in secondary for PvE? The DPS of pistol/pistol is like 2x better than either of those choices. Basically, I have 3 questions:

1) Stacking might is not something I can do solo, right? It involves somebody in the group dropping a fire-field, and everybody else in the group hitting it with blast finishers?
2) Does the shortbow have any advantages over pistol/pistol if you’re not stacking might or stealth?
3) What advantages does sword/pistol have over pistol/pistol? Are the blinds actually worth losing all your punch at range?

A lot of times, I need to get out of melee range to let my heal cooldown, or to soak up a bunch of smaller heals from 3x unload + invigorating precision. I can’t see a reason to give up all the extra dps plus the avalanche of personal heals that come from pistol/pistol. What am I not undersrtanding here?

I think that metabattle page is not well-maintained. It’s labelled as designed for “Fractals”, but it suggests sigils for dungeons. And in any group, you better use Basilisk Venom instead of Impact Strike as elite skill. Five people with Basilisk Venom reduce the breakbar faster than one with Impact Strike. The page doesn’t even mention that.

Also, there is no Versatile Mighty Infusion anymore in the game since July 2016.

I’m not saying the people on metabattle don’t know what they are doing, just that the info for thief is outdated. They also made no changes to the page after Unload was boosted, which makes double pistol more viable.

I do T4 fractals every day and never equip a bow. I don’t see how might stacking should be an issue when Unload does that perfectly fine. I occasionally use Shadow Refuge for stealth, but that’s it about skipping trash mobs. Everybody uses mobility pots and can just ignore mobs without stealth.

Fun fact, when you dash away from the boss because you are low on health, switch to pistols and Unload a few times (as you say in your last paragraph), your dps doesn’t even drop noticable. I’m pretty sure it would drop if I used a short bow.

I think the Thief build on metabattle was created by old school Thieves who never really bothered to play double pistol, and maybe at that time, fractals were different.

Don’t forget that the meta is theorycrafted by the top percentage of a gamemode.
This group of people does know about and use(s) might/stealth stacking and such.

Staff and P/P with Invigorating is a near impossible combo to beat in PvE. Unload is now super cheap to cast and allows a thief to run around with 25 stacks of might for most of a fight.

SB can be good in groups as a blast finisher in fields particularly fire fields as it will stack might on the group. Choking Gas can also be a strong damager with Draining Sigil and Impacting Disruption but that would be a Vault replacement IMO and it will never outperform Vault in the DPS category.