Returning Thief: What's the state of P/P thief?

[Tails.9372]

P/P thief is in quite a bad state, on one hand it's completely outclassed by rifle and on the other hand it suffers heavily from A-Nets poorly thought out "1h weapon combo system".

Compared to P/P the rifle has:

• more sustained DPS

• an AoE option

• significantly better burst damage

• more range

• more mobility

• better stealth (both in regards to going invisible and not attracting as much attention)

• more practical CC options

In regards to performance there is not a single reason to choose P/P over rifle, it's completely outclassed in this regard.

But that isn't even the main problem P/P is suffering from. The main issue is that P/P as a weapon set is highly dysfunctional. It's completely unplayable in any competitive PvP environment and a rather bad choice for most of the PvE content. It kinda works for OW but that's not really an accomplishment.

The reason for that is the complete lack of synergy between the individual weapon skills which is rooted in how A-Net designed the "1h weapon combo system". Instead of looking at the weapon combo as a whole and then replacing skills with low synergy to the underlying theme of the weapon set (which in this case would be "fast paced Run 'N Gun gameplay" / "going in guns blazing") with dual skills they just mashed the weapons together, replaced 3 with a dual skill and called it a day. Important to notice is that there are (aside from some special cases) essentially 2 basic types of weapon sets:

• type one that focusses on stong attacks with high damage where the AA serves as filler, this is the kind of weapon set usually found on classes which use the cooldown system

• type two which is based around a strong offensive skill while the other skills are mainly used for utility, an example for this would be D/P

The problem for P/P is that at its core it's essentially the later while also having an element from the former which causes masive problems for the weapon set.

If there is anything wrong with P/P it's Vital Shot, this skill is essentially a filler AA from a type one weapon set while Unload on the other hand is the offensive kind of AA a type two weapon set is usually based around + the rest of the weapon set is mostly utility and has therefore more synergy with Unload than Vital Shot (at least in theory). This creates two problems, firstly Vital Shot is highly redundant and doesn't really do anything for the weapon set and secondly Vital Shot occupies the first skill slot which should be filled with Unload instead. With Unload not being the cost free AA every other skill now has to compete with Unload for the same resource meaning you can't focus on utility if you still want to attack afterwards and vice versa. This is the main reason why P/P is such a big mess and there is no point in addressing anything else until they fixed this.

Vital Shot has to go, it does nothing for the weapon set (both in regards to gameplay and the overall theme of the weapon set). What they should have done from the start is making Unload the dual skill replacement for Vital Shot (as it is both a good skill to base a set around and a fitting representation of the general theme of the weapon set) and use 3 (and 2) to add more utility to the set. I'd also add the "Revealed" debuff to Unload to further limit its stealth options.

This obviously wouldn't solve every issue as P/P would still be outclassed by rifle for the most part but this way we would at least have a proper weapon set.

[XenoSpyro.1780]

@"Tails.9372" said:The reason for that is the complete lack of synergy between the individual weapon skills which is rooted in how A-Net designed the "1h weapon combo system". Instead of looking at the weapon combo as a wholeThis reminds me of the first time I played the game. As a Warrior, I was using Sword Warhorn for a while during FtP, and then moved to dual Axe just before I bought HoT. Imagine my irritation when I saw instead of swinging both weapons in succession for Autos, you only swung using your right hand.

[otto.5684]

@Black Frog.9274 said:I've been away since just before POF dropped. I've always played P/P thief no matter how bad it was. What's it's current state? Does it work with DE specs?

If you are playing P/P it is safe to say you are not really looking for top dps. Overall, DE P/P is very good in open world. It is terrible in any game mode, but there are better options