Guild Wars 2

It’s not a secret to anyone that Anet has not been kind to pistol and rifle weapon types. Rifle on warrior has received no love since launch (the LB has surpassed it in both dmg and utility and is the ranged choice for any sane warrior). Pistol on thieves is by far their weakest weapon (still having some use for utility in off-hand but its main hand dmg is pathetic). As for engineer its been made abundantly clear by Anet that they want engies using kits as their primary weapons.

So whats the deal? Has Anet just decided that adding firearms into the game and are just silently dropping them and shoving them to the side. OR (and this is what i hope above all else) that they aren’t idiots and do have a plan to make them better in HoT by giving more ranged specializations to classes for whom range is a weakness (see Guardians/ Dragon Hunters). Will they be giving new ranged oriented elite specializations to warrior, thief or anyone else?

What do you guys think? Why no love for firearms, the weapons types that are already some of the most restricted weapons in the game.

I don’t really see an anti-firearms conspiracy. Yes, both the warrior’s rifle and the thief’s pistol are bad. But the Engineer’s weapons are alright, as is the mesmer’s pistol. I think you’re coming off a bit strong here. Several non-firearm weapons are also not in a good place. So it has less to do with them being firearms and more to do with general balance between the different options professions have.

I think there’s a decent chance that warriors get an off-hand pistol (either that or an off-hand dagger). Likewise, I think there’s a decent chance that thieves get a rifle (although recent speculation is that they will get a melee staff).

Diovid.9506:

I don’t really see an anti-firearms conspiracy. Yes, both the warrior’s rifle and the thief’s pistol are bad. But the Engineer’s weapons are alright, as is the mesmer’s pistol. I think you’re coming off a bit strong here. Several non-firearm weapons are also not in a good place. So it has less to do with them being firearms and more to do with general balance between the different options professions have.

I think there’s a decent chance that warriors get an off-hand pistol (either that or an off-hand dagger). Likewise, I think there’s a decent chance that thieves get a rifle (although recent speculation is that they will get a melee staff).

You’re probably right that I’m being narrow in my view ( sword has always had an odd existence on warriors). The main thing being though that they’ve taken away so much from these weapons, mostly traits, ricochet, and most of the rifle and pistol oriented engie traits along with gutting rifle dmg on war that they have to be planning to either replace it or merge them or something. also its the removal of a lot of the pistol and rifle traits that have me saying they’re weak on engie since there is little now to make them competitive with kits

I didn’t mention mesmer because i know pretty much nothing about the state of their off-hand pistol. only that i rarely see it being used in pvp or pve but thats all.

Your assumption for engineers is a little off. Most rifle engineers use the CC and some burst skills from the rifle in conjunction with the skills from kits, especially tool kit. The skills flow together in ways that make it ignorant to assume that only the rifle or only the kits on their own are effective.

Also in the hidden arcana about chronomancer or one of those articles they said they originally intended to make a spec using rifle for the mesmer, but they weren’t able to get something creative to work with their goals of creating a time mage using a rifle, so they used shield instead since it looked sort of like a clock to them.

Emptor.9148:

It’s not a secret to anyone that Anet has not been kind to pistol and rifle weapon types. Rifle on warrior has received no love since launch (the LB has surpassed it in both dmg and utility and is the ranged choice for any sane warrior). Pistol on thieves is by far their weakest weapon (still having some use for utility in off-hand but its main hand dmg is pathetic). As for engineer its been made abundantly clear by Anet that they want engies using kits as their primary weapons.

So whats the deal? Has Anet just decided that adding firearms into the game and are just silently dropping them and shoving them to the side. OR (and this is what i hope above all else) that they aren’t idiots and do have a plan to make them better in HoT by giving more ranged specializations to classes for whom range is a weakness (see Guardians/ Dragon Hunters). Will they be giving new ranged oriented elite specializations to warrior, thief or anyone else?

What do you guys think? Why no love for firearms, the weapons types that are already some of the most restricted weapons in the game.

Engineer Rifle > All weapons across all classes!!!

As a proud crafter of the Predator, this is the topic that will decide whether I purchase Hot or not.