Guild Wars 2

Please note that nothing groundbreaking or original is here, just stuff that I use in my regular playstyle that might help other thieves. when and if they use this build.

-Sneak Attack does a lot of damage actually, 1000 base and air / fire are guaranted to proc with it, so we’re looking at nearly 4k damage total against most power builds. (not including the bleeds or the poison from stealing)
-Unload will track that thief or mes going stealth.
-Shadow refuge + sneak attack = unexpected burst + lifesteal, only use it if you think the fight will be finished shortly after this, not if you think you’ll need SR to disengage.
-Headshot will interrupt the flowchart 5+2 d/p thieves (hard to pull off with 150 ping)
-Headshot will interrupt anything actually. Headshot all the things!
-Using necro’s stolen item and in the middle of the cast, using your long-kitten range steal so they get instantly feared while you use all your burst from stealth… is nice.
-Using Blinding Powder’s blast finisher into fields such as Black powder (extra stealth) for 7 seconds of stealth, or ranger’s stolen item for a quick heal.
-Using shadowstep as a way to keep kiting.
-Saving warrior’s stolen item for a fight against a power ranger or a projectile shooting class.
-Using warrior’s stolen item in black powder for perma blind.
-Using headshot into a field for a 100% physical projectile finisher.
-Snaring someone with Surprise shot from stealth and then showering him with unload.
-Snaring someone with Surprise shot from stealth and then using ele’s or engi’s stolen item on them.
-Using cluster bomb to blast Black Powder while in or out of combat to gain stealth (if you want to save your utility cooldowns and are sure that you’re not gonna hit the other guy, because doing so would reveal you).
-I almost never do this, but Body Shot adds 5 vuln that will last long enough for a full unload cast (the immob not so much)
-The autoattack does pitiful damage, yes (700-1000 on a crit) but it can still proc air and fire! Damage isn’t half bad then.
-If you see a zerg coming towards you, you can just steal from 1500 range into one of them at the back (pref a thief) and move on.
-With traited Long Reach you can also use steal to escape. Just select a random trash mob and F1! 1500 is a long distance and you will be stealth immediately after hitting it (unlike the very brief delay that cloak and dagger has) so that will surely throw chasers off unless they can spot the poisoned monster in a very large radius.
-My usual rotation is basilisk, steal + stealth with hidden thief (even if they see me coming, nobody expects a traited distance steal), sneak attack, unload. Against glassy targets, that usually means curtains for them. ]

-Do you use non-meta builds just for the sake of being ‘different’?
No, I don’t enjoy using meta builds, its all. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t used them in the past (namely cele d/d ele).

-How has this build evolved over time?
The trait combo was always the same, but I used to roll shadow trap instead of refuge, thieves’ guild instead of basilisk, and something else instead of shadowstep.

-How will this build fare after the new traits are here?
It has improvements and nerfs. No more long reach and 18s cd withdraw will really hurt though, especially the loss of long reach (now other thieves will be able to get the jump on me just as easily).

-Why p/p anyway, even after everybody said it sucks?
Most people who claim it sucks do it because p/p has 0 stealth capabilities from weapon skills, and a thief without stealth on demand is already at a severe disadvantage for many reasons.

-An alternative to shortbow?
I would use s/d as my off-set if I could, but my high ping doesn’t allow me to reliably land c&d (150 to 200ms)

-What food do you use?
+10% damage while moving (60% chance swiftness on kill) food and +6% 4% precision oil.

-What to do now that Mug and Hidden Thief are bugged?
You can either go 0/2/6/0/6 with Shadows Rejuvenation (meh)
or
0/4/4/0/6 with anything you want on critical strikes (cripple, haste, bonus crit on double skills) your choice.

These won’t be nearly as deadly because without Mug you cannot stun with basilisk venom on steal.

Average Joe thief. They drop very easily and don’t even know what hit them. This applies mostly to d/p d/d ones.

Power Mesmer. Walk in the park, they’ll always use their stealth to try to get an edge on you but you can always out-stealth them until they have no choice but to try to use their gimmicks while being fully visible.

Average Joe warrior. Kite, kite, use stolen axe on smoke field, kite some more.

Condi Necro. Most of the times really easy to kill, but you have slightly lower room for error compared to other easy matchups, of course you can always disengage with ease tho.

Power engi. Way too glassy, hard for them to find an opening on you.

Condi mesmer. I’ve only ever lost once to a condi mesmer, and it was a PU one hybrid with scepter, torch, pistol and sword. They have to be masterfully played to even be an issue.

Zerk Staff ele. A glass staff ele cannot survive against you, but that’s no surprise.

Power ranger. You should always get the upper hand on them with Long Reach, easy to kill most of the times.

Power necro, used to be easier before they changed lich form. Anyway, you’re ranged so their wells are wasted utility slots.

Any ele with ether renewal. free kill.

Engi. Being a ranged thief means that they can’t just ‘skillfully’ pointblank grenade your kitten , so they start feeling confused and disoriented.

Condi thief. Manageable actually, some might say they’re quite beatable too, unless they run perplexity.

Tankier staff ele. Stalemate most of the times. They can’t kill you, ever.

Shoutbow warr. A long fight, but it shouldn’t be hard to slowly kill them while they cannot really catch you.

Skilled thief. S/d They lack the spike damage to really kill you, but if they time their evades properly it can be a challenging fight. D/p they can be quite annoying specially with shadow shot (apparently ‘pro’ d/p players use only shadow shot + autoattack), it’s a skill based matchup against a good thief.

Condi ranger. Gotta make use of their stolen item at its full potential to reliably win this fight everytime.

Full reflect warrior. Warrior with a shield and offhand sword traited with projectile reflection can be very frustrating to deal with, they can’t really kill you though unless you mess up constantly.

Medi guard. Guard, and any class with high retaliation uptime can be extremely painful to deal with. I rank these as the “easier” hard-tier matchup since they can be dealt with to some extent by using your range advantage.

Condi anything with perplexity. Funny how this runeset can turn some otherwise easily manageable builds into a hard fight. Engi, necro and thief become a bit obnoxious to overcome, good thing you don’t have to fight them at all if you don’t want to.

D/D ele. They’re hard to kill, but doable. More skilled ones are almost impossible to get their hp down though.

Warrior with that one retaliation trait. Nigh impossible matchup, gotta steal retaliation as soon as they get it so at least you have a small window to get some damage going without losing 2k HP per unload.

x/F ele. Anti-projectile galore and either massive burst or condis. A well played x/f ele is pretty much this build’s hardest counter.

-Uses a high amount of stealth, to make up for the lack of built-in stealth in p/p.
-Its core traits are Hidden Thief + Sleight of Hand + Mug
-Does not use shadow rejuvenation
-Uses unload AND sneak attack (pistol stealth attack) for their primary source of damage
-Does not use any unnecessary ‘initiative regen’ traits to have a 100% upload uptime
-Does not use invigorating precision or any signets
-Its quite tanky (1400~ toughness in wvw) while still dealing very respectable damage.

Pros:
-Extreme survivability, I survive waaay more on this build compared to even my Dire perplex set (yes I have one, rarely use it though)
-Range
-High kiting potential
-Positioning. Having a ranged weapon + stealth build allows you to attack from their blind spot everytime, leaving people confused and allowing you to get an extra second or two of dps in.
-Some condition damage in this too.
-Double pistols are just the epitome of kitten

Cons:
-Somewhat lower burst damage compared to other thief builds (higher than s/d)
-Enemies using LoS against you can be crippling to your playstyle
-The entirety of your damage being projectiles leaves you quite useless against reflects and blocks
-DPS might not be enough against the tankiest specs.
-Loses some damage and tankiness in spvp (which accentuates the already present damage issues), but can still work very well.
-No access to swiftness when roaming, but can always equip signet of shadows temporarily.