Dual Pistol Thief Questions from a new player..

[Stonesolid]

For regular PvE it will always be fine.
In dungeons, explorable mode, it might not be so great.
My brother says that the dual pistol lacks CC. It has no(or nearly no) blinds?
Which is the only reason why a thief can live.

The thief is the king of the blind and not utilizing this feature to its fullest could set you back.
But again, this only applies to the more hardcore contest as explorable dungeons, in normal PvE you can run whatever and stuff will still be easy.

Just fyi.

Dual pistol has blind-on-command. Black Powder is an AOE blind and shooting through the smoke field it leaves with any Pistol ability will combo Blind and refresh the condition.

[Zorac]

On my thief I use 2x daggers and 2x pistols and I love it.

I however did not go full power/prec for max damage and max crit as my other lvl 80 toon is a mesmer and well I eat that build for lunch in WvW. my stats are 30/30/0/0/10 (there are 5 trait lines right? its in in last, can't remember if there is another 0 in there lol) I use knights emblazoned armour which gives power/prec/toughness, but mostly toughness. I have power/vit/crit damage accessories and yak runes to boost my toughness and vit somemore. The way it boils down is I have somewhat less power than a glass cannon thief, but the most damage I have taken from a player in 1 hit is 1700 which was a necro I think, and the most from anything was 6800 from a treb that was shelling our base. The way it ended up I have slightly more vit than toughness and while I would prefer more hp, my 16595 hp holds out pretty well I don't fear anything but 1v3+, and thats just because I use all signets and can't remove conditions very well so if I get alot on me they can cause problems, but that's usually when I run away >.>

1) PvE I usually use my 2x daggers for most things and pistols when its something I don't want to get close too, but they both take stuff down with no problem.

2) Kind of your choice, and the great thing about this game is that its easy to switch things up if your build doesn't work out. PvE going more damage/crit will certainly help you kill things quicker, but in PvP can be dangerous as you are easier to kill as I explained in my thief build. But you said PvP isn't really important to you right now and again you can always switch up without much trouble.

3) I would say your build is fine, think its the same as mine ;D

4) Shortbow will give you aoe power at range which the pistols lack and 2x daggers do as well. 2x daggers 3rd skill can hit meele aoe and the 4th skill will bounce a dagger at range between targets, but the short bow has much better aoe. Using 2x daggers myself I find not having a true aoe annoying, but I use sigil of fire on my psitols and that aeos on crits, 30%? of the time I think. So I get a fair amount from that, but does not make up for a real ranged aoe. Dagger storm (elite skill) is a great aoe, but 90 sec cooldown means once maybe twice in a fight. 4th 2x dagger skill is nice, I like to use it on guys on the walls as it will bounce between them I use all my initative on it then switch to pistols and finish the guy off if he didn't run away. But again its choice and playstyle. Try both, thats what I did while lvling up and I settled on daggers over shortbow.

Also note you can still use a shortbow, you just have to switch out before a fight, I have been contemplating this for myself for when defending a keep of switching my daggers for a bow while defending.

Good luck and remember, no matter what anyone else says, try it out for yourself and see how you like it, if YOU find it fun its not wrong to play that way.

[Anacrusis]

I however did not go full power/prec for max damage and max crit as my other lvl 80 toon is a mesmer and well I eat that build for lunch in WvW. my stats are 30/30/0/0/10 (there are 5 trait lines right? its in in last, can't remember if there is another 0 in there lol) I use knights emblazoned armour which gives power/prec/toughness, but mostly toughness. I have power/vit/crit damage accessories and yak runes to boost my toughness and vit somemore. The way it boils down is I have somewhat less power than a glass cannon thief, but the most damage I have taken from a player in 1 hit is 1700 which was a necro I think, and the most from anything was 6800 from a treb that was shelling our base. The way it ended up I have slightly more vit than toughness and while I would prefer more hp, my 16595 hp holds out pretty well I don't fear anything but 1v3+, and thats just because I use all signets and can't remove conditions very well so if I get alot on me they can cause problems, but that's usually when I run away >.>

I have a similar stat build for WvW survival. I use knights rings and earings, a berzerker amulet. My armor is a mix of mainly berzerker and valkyrie with an ogre rune. Since I don't have points in deadly, I need the ogre rune for power. It also gives an extra 3% crit dmg and 4% overall dmg with the 6th slot. I wanted eagle but they cost over 3 gold a piece. These are not exact but stats somewhere ardound 1800 precision and power, 1100-1200 of toughness and vitality, plus a high crit damage with a 45% crit rate. The 20 point acro trait that heals you whenver you use a skill that uses initiative helps alot. I also use sigil of blood on my short bow and main hand dagger to heal me on crits. If you die in WvW, you are often making a long run back to your team. Sometimes you can't get back to them if the enemy zerg is blocking the path.

In WvW, I use my shorbow most of the time as my guild runs 20-40 people in a zerg most of the time. I spam cluster bomb up close and hit so many people. Excaping with infiltrators arrow. Shooting down from the keep walls is fun too. The great thing about clusterbomb is you dont have to face them so you can just dodge around spamming it to hit everyone around you. And I have the acro trait to give me might when I dodge. Sometimes i leave the zerg and go scouting which is More fun because i can use daggers more.

I highly recommend Shadowstep and Shadow refuge over the signets. Those are the two best PvP utilities IMO. I agree conditions are the worst enemy and shadow step helps with that. In WvW, sometimes you get overwhelmed with conditions and they are deadly. I'm happy to hear you have a similar WvW gear set up, because i was not sure if mine was decent balancing between so many stats.

[fireflyry]

Personally I've found P/P to be self-gimping in PvE.

For range you just can't beat shortbow for versatility and AoE pwnage.I guess it really depends on play-style and how much you will be soloing.If you going to be taking down a mob at a time from range I guess P/P would be an option but, again personally, I have found P/P really shines in PvP way more than PvE.I really can't see why P/P would even be an option outside preference.Shortbow with a melee switch is just too good imho.

In saying at the end of the day play what you enjoy more and good luck.

[tym]

While, IMHO, Just about any build is gonna work, depending on how you play it. Myself, Been playing my thief like a Dual Pistol toon. I use Dual pistols for my primary, and dual daggers for secondary. Been So much fun. Tried the short bow, Not a fan, imho, Dual pistols work better/faster. Its just how I play.