What build are you guys running for general PvE?

[Xunlai Agent]

Just curious what people are running? I have general builds that can be run in all of PvE whether it's general exploration or fractals for Warrior, Guardian and Mesmer. However I haven't spent much time on my thief having now decided that I am choosing him and dropping my Ranger because I feel the class unworthy in it's current incarnation. I find pistols lack AoE damage and thus aren't viable for PvE (I was running them for the Matrix effect because my Thief has a matrix-inspired name), so I am looking at packing Shortbow with some melee setup. Any ideas or input is greatly apprecaited! :)

[shawn]

Sword/Pistol. Sword autoattack does more dps than Unload does.

Spec blow-up-mode for running around in the open pve world, survival/stealth for dungeons - especially the condition removal on stealth, makes dying in dungeons an extreme rarity, which vastly increases your dps - even dying once will kill your overall damage compared to someone who doesn't die, even as glass cannon.

[RD]

Pistol pistol and dagger pistol or dagger dagger.

Tapatalk'd

[Fluffball]

Any of the melee combos except d/p or p/d is good for general PvE. If you run d/d you'll probably want a reason to do so, i.e. you're specced for backstabbing or conditions, at least a little bit, since the autoattack is not AoE.

Shortbow is far superior to p/p for general PvE, but I definitely recommend having a couple pistols handy for times when you need to interrupt, blind or cause vulnerability like in JPs or events. Just evaluate which set is more effective; if there is already max vulnerability and bleeding a champ, probably stick to shortbow, otherwise switch to p/p. Or be a man and backstab the champ.

Thieves do well as glass cannons, just make sure you have some a couple oh **** buttons. If your traits are all offensive, take a couple defensive slot skills (typically shadow refuge or blinding powder, but there are a lot of good ones.) For that reason I always take the cloaking heal skill.

[Xunlai Agent]

Thanks for the responses so far, they confirm my own experience regarding the inadequacy of the pistols and the superlative qualities of the shortbow.

As for utility skills I am currently running Shadow Refuge, Signet of Shadows and experimenting with the final slot skill. So far I have found the shadowsteps to be excellent skills as shawn suggested. At the moment I am playing with Roll for Initiative in my third slot which has quite extraordinary synergy with Disabling Shot. Given that I intend to run a glass cannon spec as much as possible being able to kite and evade backwards while reapplying cripple is an absolute blessing.

Signet of Malice has been interesting so far with Clusterbomb, I want to try it in combination with Haste and Daggerstorm when I finally unlock the latter.

I seem to have unlocked the wrong elites so far because Basilisk Venom is pretty useless when you aren't PvPing and Thieves Guild has been incredibly disappointing for general PvE too.

[shawn]

Yeah there was a thread I made about how weak pistols are, but it turned into people saying they use them and that they think that they're fine and have no problems killing stuff. That wasn't the point, the point was that they're statistically inferior and the skills don't synergize well. But anyway.

Thieves Guild is passable as a pve elite, you can pop it during boss fights or when things get hairy. From a pure damage perspective it's probably better than dagger storm, as those two thieves pump out a hell of a lot of hits during the time they're up, including the ability to combo too. Dagger Storm on the other hand does something like 1500, possibly. Not sure how many times it hits offhand, but I doubt it would get to the level of two thieves attacking for 30s.

[Fluffball]

Shawn has a colorful imagination. Pistols do a lot more damage than SB in certain situations. Pistols can provide a 25% damage increase to everyone hitting a single target, and the autoattack is better than the autoattack of the SB (which is not worth THAT much as you can spam clusterbomb pretty frequently.) The blind and interrupt are really handy, although if you're using dual pistols for those skills, consider s/p first. p/p has the advantage over s/p as being the only non-shortbow ranged autoattack.

I definitely recommend the thieves guild for PvE, as mentioned. Not only do they do a ton of damage, they also blind, interrupt and provide meat shields. I'm not 100% sure how it works, but I imagine they become better equipped the better you equip yourself.(??) I use them as an oh **** button, since there is a long recharge.

If you want to use daggerstorm, I'd use it with the idea of reflecting projectiles and consider the damage a bonus. For certain bosses you might want to whip it out, and it does really well in WvW since melee is rare in zergs.

[Alaris]

I can see P/P being good in 1vs1, but then shortbow seems better generally for PvE given that there is so much demand for AoE in PvE. To demand the two weapons to be balanced is a bit meh, given that they are not meant to do the same thing to begin with.

My 2 cents, keep in mind I don't even play the profession.

[Fluffball]

I can see P/P being good in 1vs1, but then shortbow seems better generally for PvE given that there is so much demand for AoE in PvE. To demand the two weapons to be balanced is a bit meh, given that they are not meant to do the same thing to begin with.

My 2 cents, keep in mind I don't even play the profession.

You got it right. As far as I know (and there is a ****load to know in GW2 so I reserve the right to be wrong) no other class has access to the level of on-demand interrupting, ranged constant vulnerability OR ranged blinding the p/p provides. Dropping constant ranged vulnerability or constant ranged blinding is kind of huge. Certain people like to read other forums that aren't as smart as us and dismiss p/p and then not post when we say things like this.

[shawn]

Vulnerability is hilariously overrated.

The reason no one replied, was if statistical evidence isn't good enough, what is? Pointless to waste time.