The Thief, from my experience is by far the best ranged class I’ve played.
I run primarily Pistol Main Hand, Dagger Off Hand for my first weapon set, and Short Bow for my second.
Pistol/Dagger gives you a couple of OP abilities. The first is dagger throw (dancing dagger). You’re actually better fighting two mobs at the same time as it will bounce between the two for absurd amounts of damage. It also slows the enemy so you can kite effectively.
After that you have a stab, teleport, and shoot ability. If enemies are too fast you use this to keep distance instead. It’s your hardest hitting solo mob attack so sometimes it’s fun to keep running in and popping it if someone else has the mobs attention.
On the short bow you have the most versatile AoE in the game. if you liked the Ranger Longbow AoE then you’ll find the thief much more compelling as you keep everything poisoned with a similar style attack but without the stupidly long cool down. Two targeted AoE’s (poison and cluster bomb) and a position shot (shoot and jump back) all on demand (once you get used to managing initiative) makes it hard to die. The base attack for the short bow also bounces twice like an axe does for rangers making it very good AoE as well.
Unlike other classes the thief is not cool down based and instead has initiative which means you can stay on a target easier and use the abilities you want. Give this a bit of time as it takes some getting used to. Once you get in the later levels you’ll have abilities that get initiative back such as one per crit per second from the traits. Early on there’s a signet that regenerates one every 10 seconds.
Spend traits in Precision (you want to keep your crit above 50%) and then power and then whatever you need.
If you’re getting hit for more than you can regen with signet of healing you’re doing it wrong. There’s only a couple of mobs in the game I can’t kite successfully (plague bearer undead packs post 35 as they run tookittenfast and poison you when they hit are one of the few, the others are rangers as they hit really hard at range).
Pistol/Pistol has a very high hitting attack, but lack the multi-target slow needed to keep enemies from catching you.
I use a signet build as well but almost never pop the signets themselves as I like the passive buffs more.
I have not tried PvP with this spec.
After 30 I grabbed Bladestorm for my finisher and with Signet of Healing you can mostly stand in the middle (still move just stay near the center) of a large group (10-20 mobs as oddly, the larger the better) and by the end of the 8 seconds you’ll be mostly at full health, and they’ll largely be dead. Dodge out of the center toss a couple of daggers and claim your loot. With the signet I’ve seem my health drop to double digits and then rapidly climb back to full in the middle of the bladestorm. Careful though, as double tapping a direction will cancel the bladestorm and then you just die.
This spec may not be for everyone but I’ve been cruising through +3 content consistently using this.
There’s also likely a significant bug with knife throw (dancing dagger) as occasionally it will hit for absurd amounts
WAter