Guild Wars 2

Right now Sword/Pistol.
It’s not quite as exciting as my Dagger/Dagger build – but I am enjoying the ability to stand in with a mob and take no damage. The trade-off on a veteran+ fight is that you need to conserve your initiative for Black Powder shots so you don’t get as much burst damage in. I use the traits that apply poison, weaken and increase my power instead. Also Thieves Guild.

Sometimes you need to either fire off a Headshot as an interrupt or step around the mob. Those fire-breathing lizards are an example: they have a bursting light animation to show they are about to breath. The Black Powder smoke cloud keeps the mob blinded – but only physical attacks miss. You still take damage in a fire stream. Headshot stops that quickly.

I am thinking about switching one Trait out for the one that regenerates an extra initiative every 10 seconds – to see if it helps. I have the skill which gives me an additional 3 already.

Still – in a group setting this set-up works very well. I keep the mob blinded and essentially damage-impotent while my friends tear it down.
It’s nice.

Champion Mobs can hit pretty hard and you need to be on your toes there.
I generally end up ranged on them and boss mobs because there are so many people around I can sometimes barely see what is happening.

Still, any other mob in the game (so far) I feel great going toe to toe against. I played D/D for awhile but recently switched to D/P – and I love it!

I also just “discovered” the joys of steal – a great opener, especially now that I am learning all of the item symbols – and I have the trait that applies poison when I steal. Pistol Whip is a solid follow up. I also use the skills skale venom and spider venom for great damage.

One of the great joys of this approach though is the offhand pistol abilities. Headshot causes the target to become dazed which acts as an interrupt and limits their skill usage for a short bit. It’s great for mobs which have a short buildup to a big attack – like when Ettins have a flashy light in their hand right before flattening you with their club. As soon as I see that light I headshot and they drop their attack and get all grumpy.

Black Powder creates a smoke field which blinds the target and causes them to miss their next attack. The smoke field can also be used by another projectile as a combo to blind that target or another target. I haven’t explored the whole combo system enough to report well on it though.

So – by holding on to initiative and using those offhand abilities judiciously I can stand with mobs for quite a long time if needed – all the way up to them being dead.