Thief Weapon Series: Pistol/Pistol

Today I'm going to cover one of the more popular thief sets we've seen used by various beta testers. Why does everyone like it so much? My only guess is that firing two pistols at once just looks freaking cool. Then again, how stealthy can someone be running around unloading their pistols on everyone they see? *shrug* Let's break it down a skill at time...

Pistol/Pistol

1) Vital Shot (0i)
    An on-demand bleed stacking skill with zero initiative cost. This is quite good especially if used in conjunction with malice gear/traits.

2) Body Shot (3i)
   Another on-demand condition stacker, except this time we get vulnerability. Obviously the cost is a bit prohibitive to attempt full stacks of vulnerability. Definitely a good skill regardless. After all, if your build attempts to focus on condition damage, the more conditions you stack the better (reducing the effectiveness of condition removal).

3) Unload (5i)
    A flat damage ability that in my opinion is just a little overrated. Perhaps that's because it is such an easy ability to use. At 5i this skill is much too expensive for what you get. Fortunately there is a trait that should reduce its cost. I expect to see many thieves utilize this dual skill heavily, but I doubt you'll see me using it much at all.

4) Black Powder (5i)
    A very nice AOE defensive utility. I like this one a lot for large scale PvP such as WvW zergs. But for small scale 1v1 or 2v2 I feel like the cost is rather high.

5) Head Shot (5i)
    Daze is another nice defensive utility, but again the cost is high for only one second of safety. That said, if they were to reduce the cost at all this skill would fall dangerously close to overpowered once you start stacking initiative regeneration and maximum initiative. According to the current wiki description, the damage is very low causing this skill to be unusable in most situations.

s) Sneak Attack (0i)
    A decent stealth skill that does not require positioning, which is usually preferred for a ranged set. I can't confirm how many stacks of bleeding this applies, but it is hopefully more than one as the non-stealthed 1-slot skill also applies bleeding. Really though... how sneaky can a pistol be?

In summary: Much like the previous article, I really like one half of this set while I feel like the other leaves a little to be desired. The 1-3 slots are all very effective in small scale PvP and possibly even larger scale battles when you consider the need to keep your distance. The 4-5 skills are really costly and provide utility for both large scale and small scale PvP which means a lot of the time, one of these won't be very useful. And because the dual skill is dependent on the set as a whole, I likely won't be using it much either.


Ranking: Let's just say this set is not my favorite...

Structured PvP (5v5)

WvW


In my next post I will talk about the shortbow "set". I don't want to give too much away, but let me just say that it was one of the bow's abilities that turned me on to the thief in the first place.