[…]but I also like how short bow works on thieves. […] I guess I would want a build that would synergize really well with sb where I would use it quite frequently in pve/wvw.
Well first off, don’t listen to all the bads that think shortbow is lacking. You can kill people perfectly well JUST with shortbow, but it takes a bit of skill to pull it off. If you can muster it, and become ambidextrous with shortbow and d/p, then you will upgrade your unpredictability factor tenfold – which is absolutely critical as a thief. Every time a thief goes into stealth, everyone prepares for a backstab – hoho, I say to that.
The trick to shortbow, like the trick to d/p, is to land your stealth hit (thank god its a lot easier to hit with shortbow). The stealth shot allows you to do so much with shortbow, but mainly it allows you to clusterbomb their face. It’s absolutely critical to have poison via choking gas on your target. It also helps tremendously to have sleight of hand as you will be using steal + clusterbomb a lot, and it helps to interrupt critical skills and throw off your opponent – that 1 second daze timer gives you some breathing room in melee range as well. Not only will you be using clusterbomb, but you will have your steal items as the center-of-attention. This is why I LOVE shortbow. It offers a bit of a different playstyle because (if things go right) you can easily land those pesky but great steal items. The playstyle is a lot like an improvisor, where they pick out the steals that they want the most at any given time. In any case, it’s great fun.
Clusterbomb is such a great skill. Its damage is substantial, it hits like a truck (about 5k reliable damage each hit in spvp). It’s aoe, so it hits stuff like stealthed characters. It’s 3 individual attacks (detonate), so it overloads things like aegis or blinds. It’s a blast finisher, spammable at that.
I recommend bringing at least 2 stealth utilities (i wouldn’t go more than 2) for this to work and basilisk venom for pvp. The typical 2 stealth utilities are hide in shadows and shadow refuge, but some thieves choose to bring withdraw, shadow refuge, and blinding powder. I recommend basilisk venom because it’s like the big brother of surprise shot. The trick is to hide it from your foes. This can be tricky because you have limited access to stealth in a shortbow setup, so you don’t want to blow all of your immobilizations in one go. In the downtime between stealth recharge and revealed debuff, you will be auto-attacking or using debilitating shot when needed. Also shadowstep is great with shortbow to confuse your foes and give you time to setup your bassi.
As far as gear, just run your typical burst setup of power precision and critical. Flavor survivability of vitality or toughness to your taste.
Oh and one more side note: when fighting other thieves using shortbow, their steal is absolutely critical to maintain an edge on them – just keep this in mind. In fact, it’s pretty critical that you land all of your steal attempts when using shortbow.
Oh and one more, one more note: Shortbow wrecks PU mesmers. If you can nab their steal, the protection and aegis help tremendously with mitigating the residual damage after dodging their phantasms – just remember to apply it when you’re in stealth. The only thing that hits hard is scepter 2. Keep in mind shortbow stealth attack tracks people even when they are going into stealth, so if you get revealed after a surprise shot, feel free to clusterbomb away. Also remember to try and interrupt their mass invis via slight of hand. The better PU mesmers will distort before mas invising, but that kills their clones so yeah.
Hope this helps!
