Guild Wars 2

Dagger Storm is just a fancy-looking liability. ;P Immobilize, Corrupt Boon (Necro), or Steal (Thief w/ boon-stripping & daze) can easily get you killed, or at the least make you waste your elite.

To be effective with raw-damage P/P, the more Berserker, and the more Ascended, the merrier. :-) To survive, rely on utilities and play-style.

With P/P, I can gap-close and down almost any ranger I target (in WvW) in <5 seconds, and there’s VERY little they can do about it. I would never want to play that profession.

Hmm? Fighting in a BL JP offers no contribution to WvW efforts. If you’re one of the many against this post, and intentionally prolong your time within a JP, then do your server a favor and log-off so someone wanting to WvW can join. In actuality, you shouldn’t even be at the JP. I only just today completed the BL JPs (for meta), and I’ve played WvW heavily since the start.

JPs are basically PvE anyways. ;P

DevonCarver.5370:

Orion is correct, you will need to have done enough damage to the gate to get credit for the achievement.

20k+ damage to paper gates did not count for me during the the current TCBL karma-train (several tries). I skipped trying, and just did the other JP for the meta.

For those that are trying, I had 10-15 credits no-problem treb’ing SM walls.

Sanduskel.1850:

I play on SOR, and I am ashamed that we aren’t showing up to fight. I continue to fight to the last, including in Hills in BG BL last night. Held you guys off several times, including contesting the circle successfully 3 times.

Come now, SoR, life isn’t fair. Get over it and fight.

Blackgate has experienced many of these moments itself since release. The morale would be so low, at times, that only 5-10 would be on the entire BL, while 30-40 eagerly “farmed” them.

It can be devastating, and make you feel utterly defeated, but those that remain, and endure, truly show the strength of a server. You are only defeated when you choose not to fight. Therefore, those that are continuing to fight at this moment, are your champions. Remember them, because you don’t want to fight alongside cowards in the future — well, at least I don’t.

With a long bow skill that does 18k bleed damage and snares for around 6 seconds

Actually, that’s quite a coincidence — that last warrior I fought in WvW (1v1) was oddly enough trying to use LB against me. I only remember the fight because it’s “rare” for a warrior to range me.

In that fight, I decided to just stay immobilized, and ate the bleeds. I basically stood there and spammed Unload until they were downed. Very quick and dull fight. If it was threatening, I would’ve used Basilisk (Lyssa), but it wasn’t even necessary.

In 1v1, LB or Rifle warriors simply pose very little threat. If I’m roaming in a crowd of enemy, however, Kill Shot can 1-shot me, but that happens very, very rarely. Good for laughs, though, on both sides.

P/P is very powerful in WvW — don’t let anyone confuse you otherwise. ;P

what traits should i try

I run 10/30/0/0/30 — Valkyrie armor, and the rest Berserker (Ascended) — Withdraw, Roll, Shadow Step, SoS, and Basilisk (Lyssa).

Having 20 is Acrobatics is very unnecessary — especially for what you’re losing in other traits. I have 10 in DA for Mug (Damage + Heal), and 30 in Trickery for Sleight of Hand (21~ second Steal, instant interrupt). IMO, those are far more valuable than what you’re getting from Acrobatics.

For Trickery, I also use Thrill (mainly for Fury and Swiftness) & Bountiful (mainly for boon-stealing, but vigor is nice). Much better than a typically lackluster caltrops (for us). I miss Ricochet, however — used to use it often — but it’s more important being able to steal boons from certain professions.

what skills should i use

If you’re using Lyssa runes (I recommend), then you should use Basilisk — it’s a very short cool-down.

You should not use venoms (except maybe for underwater ;P). If you trait 10 in DA, you Poison on Steal anyways.

You may want to try Shadow Step — it’s incredibly useful for many different situations. You can Shadow-Step into an objective’s portal (to avoid a 50+ gate blob), you can instantly close a 1200-range gap (I drop MANY targets <5 seconds with this), or use it to escape/travel.

Depending on the situation, you’ll probably want to alternate utilities and/or traits.

Ive been hearing about a venomshare version of P/P

Venom-sharing P/P would make very significant sacrifices by going further into DA, and also neuter their very-needed utilities (by replacing them with venoms). Sounds like a death sentence to me.

(in reference to WvW)

P/P thief vs warrior….warrior stands there, laughs while P/P thief pew pews them without actually doing any damage. Warrior health bar stays at max whole time.

I would recommend trying a setup (gear, traits, etc.) that can actually deal sustainable damage. It’s very common to see warriors melt in 5-10 seconds, and with P/P, there’s nothing they can do about it but try to run. Same with Guardians.

I wonder, though, how many players use P/P?

I very seldom encounter another P/P thief, but there are definitely those that play it and enjoy it. I assume most are just put-off by the weapon-set’s lack of mobility/utility, but I don’t mind. If anything, the more people complain about that, perhaps the better my setup will be “tweaked”.

I think it hints at some mechanics issues if the only weaponset that Warriors have difficulty countering is (arguably) the weakest and least popular one.

I’d say ranged just provides an advantage against non-ranged, and that’s why its damage is purposely inferior. However, for melee to survive (i.e., the warrior), they need to compensate and not just go full Berserker. Ranged, however, do not quite need to make this sacrifice.

As long as a P/P thief can maintain a gap, and the warrior cannot compensate quickly, the warrior will naturally lose. It’s no different than a Swordsman charging someone with… dual pistols.

Warriors can counter P/P, they just don’t want to because they rarely run into it.

How?

but a good warrior is not going to lose to a good thief.

With the proper setup, there is very little a warrior (in WvW) can do against a P/P thief. They can’t maintain melee range, can’t maintain stuns, and can’t out-heal or mitigate the damage.

Of course, that’s from my experience, and I gladly welcome alternate insights otherwise.

@Zeke

Oh, just noticed you’re on Blackgate also. ;P

With P/P, I’m running Withdraw, Roll, Shadow Step, SoS, and Basilisk, with Precision oils and On-Crit heal food. I’ve thought about the Power/Crit-Damage food, but my sustained is currently high enough (at range) that I haven’t bothered.

Unload is much more effective for single-target pressure; 1-2 channels is usually enough to either drop them, or send them into “panic mode”.

Depends on what you consider “decent”.

If you can survive being (almost) full Berserker, then you should just go with that, and maximize its potential with 30 in CS. If you primarily rely on stealth and/or dodging to survive, or even trying to tank damage w/ toughness, then that alone significantly reduces your effectiveness (IMO).

I’m Valkyrie armor with the rest Berserker, and when Ascended armor becomes available, I’ll probably still craft Valkryie. At-a-glimpse, it looks like I’ll only lack Precision, but with consumables/fury/etc. I still maintain 80%+, so yeah.

I would say a d/p thief. Even a bad one. Maybe I’m just bad but I find it really hard to fight something you can’t see for most of the fight.

IMO, they’re more of a nuisance and/or waste of time than anything.

If you can interrupt them before BP/HS combo, it makes it a much shorter fight. Quite often, a Steal (Daze) right as they’re about to HS, or a Shadow Step into their field, will get them downed within a few seconds.

The last changes actually (kinda) buffed my setup (P/P w/ Withdraw & Roll), and I can still strip 2x boons with Steal. ;P

Warriors should, as they mostly are, be the “kings” of melee. If you fight them on their terms, then of course they’ll win. I don’t see any problem with that.

As Zeke said, use Valkyrie armor, and the rest Berserker. With consumables and a high up-time on fury, you should still have 80%+ crit-chance (with full Exotic and Ascended), and at least 100% crit-damage (higher depending on food/runes/etc.).

Do you have an idea for doing a lot of damage without dying ?

I would recommend adapting your utilities and play-style to maintain high survivability. Melee will most definitely be more difficult to adapt, but it’s possible. I play P/P because it’s much easier to maintain pressure in any situation, and it performs incredibly well for that purpose.

In regards to Dagger Storm, it is very effective in certain circumstances, but it can also fail to contribute anything significant to a fight, and also result in an easy death (e.g., boon-strip/corrupt + interrupt). Basilisk + Lyssa works much more universally for me. I only miss Dagger Storm for disrupting large groups before a push (e.g., Shadow Step dead-center, Dagger Storm, Shadow Return, and push sidelines with the group). Although, I also enjoy playing a shock-troop, so that might be the reason. ;P

(WvW)

Until I switched to Lyssa Runes (as P/P thief), Necros posed a significant threat. Now, I can cope with their pressure, but they can’t cope with mine. Warriors (e.g., cc-spammers) die very easily — outside of their 2x Endure Pain.

Mesmers very often drop within 5-10 seconds, but there are some that are incredibly difficult to maintain pressure on (heavy stealth and phantasms/clones). To me, those are the most difficult to fight (1v1).

I don’t see how Earth would be very worthwhile for these setups. For the odds of a proc on 4% crit-chance (or relying on Fury for 24%), using one of the newer Malice/Bursting might be more effective (and reliable). I ditched P/D before those came out, however, so I’ve never tried them.

Most annoying thing for me with a Warrior… hitting Endure Pain x2 (from trait) back-to-back, and then Vengeance. Such a waste of 30~ seconds.

wish.1027:

Vaux.7502:

I’m curious how you (and other thieves) play in bigger group scenarios.

I think the main idea when playing thief in WvW is to avoid larger groups…. If you want to play in a zerg, put on a shortbow to buff them and try to stay on the opponents backline instead of the blue dorito if you cant just switch to your Guardian. Anything else just tends to result in dieing a lot.

That’s a saddening perspective on a thief. I love massive fights with my (no stealth) P/P, and being almost constantly within the fight, will usually be the last to die (if we wipe).

Although for a stealth-reliant melee thief, there probably isn’t much else to do. ;P Switch to short-bow, and slap-on a sign that says “kill me”.

The only issue I’m having in wvw/pvp is the ridiculous skill lag since the last patch.

Same. I rely on instants to survive (mostly Berserker P/P), so the skill-lag is an extreme liability. If I Shadow Step behind 30+, and can’t stay mobile, then I’m… in a bad situation! I learned that quickly on Day 1 of the season (Blackgate). :-)

Thief…can’t kill most bunkers at all.

I don’t have any problems (in WvW) against (i.e.., solo) bunker Warriors, Guardians, or Necros, unless I’m engaged after a very recent fight (no CDs, half health, etc.). Every other profession burns so quickly that I won’t even consider their bunker-builds.

Running 10/30/0/0/30 I only really have trouble with other mesmers and the occasional necro.

I run that for my P/P, and oddly enough, the only enduring fights I’ve encountered have also come from (certain) Mesmers!

It’s still, IMO, one of the worst class in zergs. You’re too squishy to be able to deal good damage and survive.

Hmm? P/P thief is amazingly fun (and effective) in massive fights. With our utilities (no stealth!), we have incredible mobility and utility. Throw in being fully exotic and ascended (mostly Berserker), and you’ll burn through targets in a zerg — just don’t try “hiding” in your own group.

The only thing I like when zerging with my thief are those glorious 8 seconds of daggerstorm.

It’s not that worthwhile. If another thief tries to Dagger Storm me (I’m P/P, it would be effective), Bountiful Theft strips the stability, and Sleight of Hand interrupts the channel. Said thief then soon becomes downed. Not only that, but in large fights, Necros can (and will) easily boon-corrupt your stability into fear — unless they changed that.

Dee Jay.2460:

while making no real effective contribution to overall WvW.

On the topic of contribution…

P/D contributes (to WvW) just as much as mostly every popular weapon-set. Outside of trolling, they may be effective with yaks or camps, but that’s about it. That’s not saying much, however, since every other profession can do the same.

The only weapon-set that seems even remotely viable for a broader contribution (solo, small-group, zerg v. zerg) is P/P (with mostly Berserker). Many, however, seem unable to cope without stealth and/or dodge-spamming, and thus “shrug it off”. Try it, make it work, and everything else might seem “cheese” instead.

Day #2 still horrible. As a mainly berserker thief, split-second timing is very important for game-play — spamming an instant 4-5x in a row to no avail DOES NOT WORK.

Good news, though. GW2 is on sale, so even more new players can experience this, and old players can experience it in even greater magnitude.

(in reference to WvW)

Condition pp full carrion with perplex runes

It’s an extremely effective (albeit irritating) setup, but also extremely limited in their scope of effectiveness. ;P

spamming unload requires planning and thought?

If you don’t think it does, then you’d be one more to complain about its poor performance. Personally, I find the damage to be extremely high and sustainable, and it’s very easy to down most professions and still have full health. I will once again give props to the only profession than can sustainable (without CDs) mitigate its damage — certain Mesmer builds. I will exclude, however, troll-thieves that flee 2000 units after a single Unload.

Out of curiosity, what would be the optimal gear setup for P/P? 50/50 Carrion/Zerker? Dire/Zerker? Something else?

You’d be mediocre in both condition-damage and crit-damage, and would have to make sacrifices everywhere (e.g., runes, sigils, foods, etc.). It can still “work”, but a naked up-level with no traits can as well, so that’s not saying much.

Most people use a zerker/glass build with it to maximize Unload which means it has decent burst damage but at the cost of relatively poor sustained damage, poor mobility, and little to no utility.

Do you know why maximizing damage is important? It ends fights quickly. When a target can’t survive the first 5 seconds of combat, mobility isn’t high in priority. Bunkers take longer, but when realize their health drops much faster than for what they tickle you for, they’ve already lost.

Apparently, someone thought it was a good idea to (attempt to) bring more players into WvW, even though the “server lag” only worsens with larger fights. It’s done nothing but compound the problem, and tonight was a very unpleasant experience because of that fact. I don’t look forward to my next experience.

Perhaps when media-hype advertises massive battles (or anything else, for that matter), it should be tested beforehand to see if the engine can actually support it. Remember the Karka Invasion? :-) Those are the epic battles we can look forward to in WvW!

The potential 20% damage after 50% HP is replaced by the fact that if I stay above a certain level of initiative I’m always doing 10% more damage so it events out.

With another 5 in CS, though, you get both — that doesn’t quite “even out”. ;P With another 5 in Trickery, you also get Lead Attacks. It’s not that reliable, but it’s a nice “freebie” when getting Sleight @ 30. If I auto-attack someone below 50% health, for a (bad) example, then it looks like in total they’d grant +43% damage. You do get Fluid Strikes, which is much more reliable than Lead Attacks, but that comes at a heavy cost to other traits.

The reason I wanted to go acrobatics is that I believe the constant ability to dodge is crucial

If you flip the scenario, and force your opponent to constantly dodge instead, then you’ll need to dodge much less often yourself. To compensate in situational circumstances, however, Bountiful Theft (w/ Sleight) does provide a 15sec Vigor every 21~ seconds, in addition to any boons it strips.

Is it worthless to focus on venoms?

Traiting heavily into Deadly Arts, and giving-up the majority of your utilities (for venoms), comes with its own limitations. I assume it’s effectiveness (in WvW) would primarily be defined by the player, and how well they cope with those limitations. IMO, I don’t see anything appealing about it.

Thieves are a free rally for the opposing zerg

If you’re melee (or short-bow), then probably so.

(in reference to WvW)

in order to even reach reasonable damage you have to dump literally all of your Initiative into spamming Unload

If your Unload doesn’t channel for 5-10k+ per, then you’re probably better-off sitting in stealth trying to land a back-stab. Although even then, you’d probably just tickle most people.

which means you get absolutely nothing in the way of mobility OR utility

The weapon-skills may lack mobility and/or utility, but there are other sources.

No other set on any class in the game has this problem, because all other classes use cooldowns

Not having cool-downs in not a problem for me. If I want to spam a skill, I can, but it comes at its own price, which is an enjoyable limitation.

With 10/30/0/0/30, I used to run Ricochet quite often, but more recently I’ve just focused on Bountiful Theft instead (w/ Thrill of the Crime). P/P is mainly single-target anyways, and boon-stealing/sharing helps both offensively and defensively (esp. against boon-heavy professions).

Thoughts?

Without 30 in CS, you’re missing a potential 20% damage increase, as well as the additional precision and crit-damage from it.

Putting points into Acro (or for others, SA) only “gimps” your damage in P/P. I put 10 in DA for Mug, and 30 in Trickery for Sleight — it turns Steal (21~ sec CD) into a “beast”. :-)

If your chosen utilities are what you’re using, then the Blinding Power and Shadow Refuge are also “gimping” your setup. They have more use for stealth-heavy builds.

I keep thinking about going full Berserker, but I don’t think it’s necessary. With Valkyrie armor, and the rest Berserker (+5% crit sigil), and a high up-time on Fury, I still maintain over 80% crit-chance during fights, and have a small extra buffer of HP.

Due to 10/30/0/0/30 (no SA or Acro), I’ve sacrificed some damage for survivability from runes (Lyssa), food (on-crit heal), and utilities (Withdraw, Roll, Shadow Step, SoS, Basilisk). The sacrifice had to be made somewhere, but at least these sacrifices also have valuable offensive potential.

The shortbow seems to be pretty helpful

I off-hand shortbow because of what it provides, but they’re very situational of course.

confuses me on how p/p would be used without condi damage

Unless you’re using Perplexity runes, I wouldn’t worry about condition-damage at all. There’s really no sustainable (nor reliable) means of maintaining conditions on a target — especially since they can be easily cleansed.

but kitten ….we are squishy

P/P might lack weapon-skill mobility, and the player might have very low HP/toughness, but they can still easily out-live bunker-builds if played properly.

Because the only way you can make it work is to be relatively glassy, in which case, what is the point?

If you’re not mostly “glassy” with P/P, or you can’t survive extreme encounters if you are, then you definitely will have problems. If not, however, then your P/P should ruin the lives of mostly every other profession and/or build in WvW. If anything, only certain Mesmer builds can mitigate the constant pressure to provide a long fight, or those troll-thieves that just keep running away and coming back for some reason.

It’s not that great at bursting because for one its power is a ways from being on par with backstab.

In small-to-large fights, how many back-stabs can you easily land in 10 seconds on multiple targets? More specifically, don’t confuse spike-damage with sustainable-damage.

You have a blinding smoke field which can cast stealth if you use a leap finisher

If someone shadow-steps into that field, you’ll get “revealed” and die 2-3 seconds later.

P/P, power wise, you kinda just have unload to deal damage. Yeah you can use your other attacks, but let’s not forget, initiative spending

… and don’t you kinda just have to Back-stab to deal damage? Against other thieves, Unload usually channels for 8-10k. I can probably spam Unload 4-5x in a row before having 1 ini left, and then I can steal/roll and go back to Unloading. Initiative is not a problem for P/P when it channels for so much (ranged) damage.

So what exactly about P/P makes it so much worse than S/D or even D/P?

P/P probably performs less effectively in sPvP, but outside of solo-roaming (or trolling), S/D and D/P in WvW can be rather useless. To be fair, they can be very effective in organized (and competent) groups, but don’t confuse their performance when matched against unorganized groups.

I would say a good “zerg support” build for a thief involves being able to drop targets quickly (not finish). Given that definition, P/P can both easily (and safely) circle the outskirts of a zerg (<900 range), and drop (most) targets within 4-5 seconds. Eliminating active enemy — especially back-line berserkers — and providing rallies to fallen allies, provides more overall “support” than any other setup I can think of.

if a condi Thief was viable

They’re not very effective in WvW. The larger the fight, the more (overall) useless your contribution will be.

just find some PVT gear and grab a shortbow

… if you prefer watching the fight, instead of contributing to its successful outcome.

P#2 is virtually useless.

It’s much more useful now than before, but it’s very situational, and depends on the build/preferences of the player.

To me, it’s similar to saying the steal-daze is useless because of its duration, but that’s simply not the case (e.g., great for interrupts, or more recently for perplexity builds).

Not only is 4 initiative FAR too costly for P/P users

It was far too costly pre-patch because the +damage from the vuln. stacks were lackluster compared to just Unloading twice. Now, however, it provides situational utility, and thus the “cost” of its initiative is also situational.

our DPS is fairly crap already

P/P (in WvW) is very powerful (and effective) if you focus mostly on damage-oriented gear/traits. The only professions that pose a threat (to me) are backstab thieves, and the only profession to mitigate the pressure seems to be clone-and-stealth-heavy Mesmers. I can burn a bunker-guardian/necro down very quickly, but those Mesmers can survive several minutes easily!

I expected maybe at the very least a 2 second immobilize

That might be balanced if our weapon-skills had cool-downs, but they don’t, and the immobilizes will stack in duration. Throw in immobilize from venom, and with high condition-durations, and you could probably keep someone immobilized for a very long time.

This did nothing to help our situation whatsoever.

After months of P/P in WvW, I feel this was only a buff to my setup (esp. since I also run Withdraw and Roll for Ini). The only problem I’ve noticed is it’s normally more worthwhile just to spam Unload, and this helps change that.

10 (Mug)/30/0/0/30(Sleight) using Withdraw/Roll/Shadow Step/Basilisk and Lyssa runes is very capable in WvW for a mainly Berserker P/P thief. The ranged-damage is very high and sustainable, and you have enough healing, mobility, and burst condition-cleansing to maintain constant pressure on a target.

Being able to drop most professions within 5-10 seconds should be common, as long as you’re mostly exotic and ascended. Actually, it’s faster to drop a target to downed-state (from 100%) most of the time than it is trying to finish them off. ;P

I feel like stealth and condition builds are almost complete opposites

For PvE, P/D condition (heavy stealth) is very effective, and it’s because the stealth compliments the condition-damage — especially since conditions don’t break stealth. As long as a fight doesn’t reset, you can maintain 25 stacks of bleed on/off (in addition to other conditions), and remain in stealth almost the entire fight.

For WvW, however, it’s not so easy to stack conditions when the majority of your opponents can cleanse them so easily. You can still win fights easily through attrition, but it’s severely limiting your impact (and role) in most situations.

Which one would you choose?

For me, neither. I’ve been content with P/P play-style (and performance), and if I ever did switch, it’d probably only be for PvE. That is, whenever I get around to trying Dire with P/D.

I’ve run into quite a few running perplexity runes, but other professions are nowhere near as problematic as a P/P using them — especially if you’re running a no-stealth setup, with very limited (and no passive) condition cleanses.

With high ini-regen, Headshot can be spammed quite often. Throw in a 21~ second Steal daze, 20~ second Scorpion wire, and 45~ second Basilisk, and you’ll have high stacks of confusion (and other conditions) on you for the entire fight. Now, being a thief, they’ll also steal stealth from you, and be able to dump more bleeds on you.

The fight can be won — sure — but it’s still extremely problematic. Well, at least for some professions and their respective builds.

I was referring to granting a steady 100% crit-chance (for non-crit builds) being the imbalance, and not the damage itself (although the damage would contribute much more than normal). However, I neglected to think about it being in the crit trait-line to begin with, so that’s somewhat of a less concern (hey, I’m sleepy ;P).

I feel like I can’t stick to a target without Swiftness or Signet of Shadows, especially more mobile builds.

(#1) Is there a utility you’d prefer over the benefits of SoS?

My second concern with is whether the drop in 6% crit damage and -60 total stats (Divinity Runes) worth getting the Traveler’s set

(#2) Is that utility (from #1) worth losing those stats?

It might just be a matter of answering those questions in that order. I dropped my Ruby Orbs some time ago for Lyssa Runes for the utility — never regretted it. I almost always use SoS, and using the Traveler runes would free that utility-slot, but there’s no utility that can provide what Lyssa runes do. :-)

P/P with Lyssa runes (Basilisk) also works well against Necros. Usually 2x Unload will drop 90% of their non-form HP, and once they panic w/ Deathshrouds, they don’t have the option to fight.

“bursting” a class that might have 25k life and 3 life bars sounds funny

You’d be surprised at how easily a P/P build can burst most professions down — especially when you don’t need to be in melee range. Unload can effortlessly channel for 5-10k+ in <2 seconds, and be spammed consistently for quite some time. Against other thieves, it usually channels for 8-9k.

I’d rather have Lyssa’s 6th bonus — especially over a 1 second fear (or those other bonuses).

Wouldn’t a P/D be able to spam CnD and Sneak Attack constantly with 100% crit-chance, even if they have no additional Precision? Perhaps I’m mistaken, but that sounds horribly imbalanced.

Nilgoow.1037:

This is meaningless and doesn’t demonstrate anything.

Hey, that summarizes this whole EHP crusade for me. ;P

I haven’t re-traited in quite some time since settling into 10/30/0/0/30. Withdraw (Lyssa), Roll for Initiative, Shadowstep, SoS, and Basilisk Venom (Lyssa) provides more than enough mobility and healing. 30 in Acrobatics would just kitten you — much like 30 in SA would.

guardian pops reflection: you basically suicide

… go around the Wall, or just wait? :P

but the damage was pretty lackluster

… don’t P/P if you’re not geared/traited for sustainable high damage. Most professions in WvW should be close to downed after 2 Unloads. Tankier professions (and/or builds) should also not be able to out-heal your damage.

^no, 30 in cs is not a must.

If you don’t care for high-damage, then no, it’s not a must.

Ricochet is nice, but with a RNG trigger and at the cost of power, not worth it.

At a 50% chance, Ricochet is great. If I Unload for 10k~, that’s another 5k hitting nearby targets (clones, pets, minions, turrets, rally-ers, mobs, etc.). With crit-heal food, it also provides a steadier proc.

I’ve been so tempted to swap it out for the boon-stripping (for Guardians…), but when I try, it’s sorely missed.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Well if you go dual pistols you are almost certainly going to be using unload most often, which roots you

…? Moving will not cancel the channeling.

Larynx.2453:

Want to know what I do when I see a thief twirling about? I walk up to them and start attacking because they’re incredibly vulnerable and do maybe 6k damage max over the channel.

If someone tries to tank the full channel from a crit-thief, they’ll need to soak-up 15-20k+ damage. I have yet to see anyone attempt that and survive (well, aside from immunities). If it’s not coming from a crit-thief, however, then it’s probably negligible.

but here is an old vid of mine

For roaming, that looks fairly balanced, but you “kitten ” yourself quite badly with low damage and a reliance on stealth. Those crutches, for example, result in a ranger being able to out-heal your damage! Even bunker-guardians shouldn’t be able to do that (even w/o boon-stealing).

In fast-paced conflicts, those seem to be the reasons dp/dd/sd (that you mentioned) seem to be ineffective. They’re forced into stealth after 1 Unload most of the time, and then either pose zero threat, try to troll, or just die.

Sorry I’m referring this build for WvW

I brought that up because the OP said their wife mainly plays with PvE content.

You gotta try this for a different game play

I’ve been tempted! In theory, in sounds fun for an attrition build, but I’m currently enjoying a fast-paced play-style. In the future.

When I see p/p thief in WvW they are a target to immediately pressure as hard as possible and expect them to die.

Is there another thief setup that can actually apply pressure in WvW? Melee thieves fail horribly in intense fights, and any that main a shortbow in open-field fights aren’t much better off. I’ve actually started ignoring those thieves for the most part, unless they try to target me.

How well does that work for PvE, xbyte? If you’re fighting slow-hitting mobs (plenty of those), confusion would presumably perform poorly. With no easy access to stealth, the bleeds from sneak-attack will contribute little as well — at the cost of condition/bleed duration bonuses (from alternate runes).

Now I haven’t tried perplexity (thought about it), but mostly berserker P/P would probably be much more efficient.

If it’s easier for her to play ranged, she might want to try P/D condition instead. A full Carrion setup (Dire could be “better”), with heavy stealth (and stealth cleanse/rejuv.), can be very enjoyable in PvE. She’ll have to get up-close for CnD (traited for blind), and also dodge-caltrops/utility-caltrops, but she’ll get to see large groups of mobs bleed to death while alternating safely between stealths.

If that’s an option, then I would recommend 40% condition-duration food (still cheap), and runes/sigils/etc. to get to 75% or 100% bleed duration. I believe for my last set, I tried Giver weapons, and focused primarily on condition duration. Before that, my set had 100% bleed duration.

If it wasn’t for enjoying P/P in WvW so much, I’d still be using a condition build in PvE myself.

(referring to WvW)

PP works but is harder to play and less effective than other thief builds here is an old vid

Outside of solo (or small group) roaming, how effective are those other builds? Whether 5v5, or even 60v60, P/P builds can melt targets down non-stop with ease.

as soon as you drop that first unload your going to have it reflected in your face and s/he will proceed to faceroll you in seconds

Joke… right? Skills can be cancelled. :-) If anything, the shield skills (20 sec+ CD?) only delay the fight (in total) by 4-5 seconds. If the engineer wants to waste it when they don’t need it (<50% health), then I’ll quote you:

1. LOL, 2a. must be a casual, or 2b. this isnt the brightest engineer in the guild