Guild Wars 2

1. Are there any plan to change its animation ?

In PvP it’s slow and clunky, especially the first part.

2. Are there any plan to revisit its damage ?

Post nerf, damage wise you would be better off autoattacking

3. Are there any plan to fix the kitten evasion ?

As things stand right now, it evades some stuff and some other doesn’t, it’s often random ( i even got CCed while whipping) and unpredictable.

For example, necro minions attacks go through the evade frames like if there was no evasion at all.

the set would be overall pretty good and competitive if these things were addressed.

Some people can still make it work, but these issues are glaring and really keep the set behind, along with retaliation killing yourself on a single pistol whip.

*okthxplsfix

There are tons of things that go straight trough PW evade frames. To name a few:

1) guard symbols
2) combustive shot
3) engi bombs
4) mesmer shatters
5) some CC effects ( this needs more testing, but i’ve definitely been stunned by stuff like Signet of Domination during the evade frames)

and many more.

Overall, all persisting AoE fields go trough PW defenses, and it makes no sense since i should be evading.

PW evasion is odd and unreliable and needs fixing.

Pistol whip as a skill needs no nerf, the only reason why people complain about PW in general is because they feel it’s all about spamming 3. And as the OP says, there are a ton of things that PW doesn’t evade…whether it’s a bug or not I’m not sure. And the underlying problem with S/P still exists, which is the inability to chase people down like D/P.

Which is true to a point – but the spam is not by choice. When your weapon set has only 2 skills worth using, 1 of which is a teleport…you’re going to be forced to spam 3. Headshot is a ridiculous skill post-stun nerf and black powder is extremely situational as PW already evades, thus making BP kind of redundant.

Pistol whip itself is not a problem and people should look into the source of the problem, which may be upping the usefulness of the other weapon skills in conjunction with that specific weapon set.

The only weapon set that’s not “spam” based (though some may say otherwise) is d/p and that’s only because 4/5 skills in the weapon set have their situational purposes. You can auto-attack for sustain, you can place BP down for blinds and defense. You can then leap out of it with heartseeker to setup backstab, and you can shadowshot as a immediate gap closer. Even headshot which is utter horrid right now has it’s purpose. It’s just a smooth and complete set because every skill has it’s use.

If we are going to nerf evades, we should be taking out the evade off of Shortbow #3 instead. That is truly the ultimate spam and evade forever concept – along with acrobatics and signet of agility. SB #3 already allows you to distance yourself to zone targets out…in no way should it be evading in the process. I also believe dodges should have a .1s or .2s aftercast so that there are outplays for people who just spam dodges for the hell of it. I believe that would truly bring out the good thieves vs the bad ones.

As far as I could test, PW evade frame last 0.75s casting time. However, the animation from it last 1 second. In other words, all those ‘bypassing’ skills happen in the last 0.25s of the animation, where you don’t have your evade anymore…

The evade frames work.
The evade frames do not start immediately which leaves vulnerability time which has always been the case. The effects of latency also have to be considered given that latency can have you thinking you are safe in a dodge, and you end up dying in your dodge roll.

The only weapon set that’s not “spam” based (though some may say otherwise) is d/p and that’s only because 4/5 skills in the weapon set have their situational purposes. You can auto-attack for sustain, you can place BP down for blinds and defense. You can then leap out of it with heartseeker to setup backstab, and you can shadowshot as a immediate gap closer. Even headshot which is utter horrid right now has it’s purpose. It’s just a smooth and complete set because every skill has it’s use.

All the /P sets use the offhand. However since none of them really have combo finishers of significant worth to use with Black powder, they have little reason to use it other than for stomp/team set up and the ocassional niche situation. Black Powder defensively isn’t that strong given that it doesn’t target break for S/P and P/P which are inherently stealthless weapon sets, in contrast to D/P which can decide it has enough of ranger 1111111 spam and break target. Yes headshots daze reduction makes it defensively and offensively more strained for the 3 kits but again D/P get’s the least effect of this.
The other two /P kits always felt strain to use the offhand, for D/P it enables extra damage via combo, for S/P and P/P it’s a complete dps drop for the sake of defense which it frankly is mediocre at given any sort of ranged offense. It’s not simply redundant on S/P it feels impractical the majority of the time on 2/3 /P’s. Especially Given P/P can’t afford to actually hope someone sits in BP even for 2 blinds due to that massive DPS drop per ini, and any guaranteed projectile finish costing an arm and a leg as well.

Of course no one is going to buff Black Powder to be a more practical defensive tool to S/P and P/P, since that Combo leap finisher exists. Maybe if Black powder wasn’t a smoke field Most D/P’s would say “this isn’t cutting it”.

Asomal.6453:

As far as I could test, PW evade frame last 0.75s casting time. However, the animation from it last 1 second. In other words, all those ‘bypassing’ skills happen in the last 0.25s of the animation, where you don’t have your evade anymore…

which goes back to “change this crap animation” since using PW against an half decent opponent who knows his stuff can mean suicide ( especially against necros), altough i’m not sure about it since i’ve been definitely hit by shatters DURING my PW, not only at the end.

Also, what Kuro said: nerf the kitten off Disabling shot, add a kitten after cast, i’m tired if scrub thieves avoiding attacks simply due to spamming 3 like a nub.

Start fixing this professio otherwise not only people will always complian, but also good thieves will ( i HATE S/D evade crap thieves, one of the most dumb builds ever, even if it was born by even more braindead builds like dumbfire necros and AI ranger).

Amaterasu.6280:

I believe that would truly bring out the good thieves vs the bad ones.

You know it is already extremely obvious which ones are bad right? Thief is probably more polarized between good and bad than any other class.

Hype.8032:

Amaterasu.6280:

I believe that would truly bring out the good thieves vs the bad ones.

You know it is already extremely obvious which ones are bad right? Thief is probably more polarized between good and bad than any other class.

Not true.

S/D acro build is extremely forgiving even if you play very bad.

ok you can add Eviscerate to the list of things PW doesn’t evade

There was dev talk of changing pistol whip to a two part skill on the live stream, one part for the pistol whip, and one part for the evading flurry.

Shockwave.1230:

There was dev talk of changing pistol whip to a two part skill on the live stream, one part for the pistol whip, and one part for the evading flurry.

this doesn’t mean they’ll fix the odd evade frames.

Working as intended. There is an opportunity for counter play RIGHT between the stun and the attack and right before the attack completes.

This is where I knock you back with the hammer or smash you while you stare at the screen wondering what happened.

What do you guys want complete invuln? no risk vs reward?

Honestly it seems vague to be able to attack and evade at the same time. . .typically in fighting games if you attack someone you are left open to a counter (not worried about blurred frenzy because it doesn’t do alot of damage by itself). Also you have steal/infiltrator’s signet to setup PWs if you are a baddy and don’t know how to aim properly.

i’ve never seen a thief just straightup spam pistolwhip, the sword autoattack chain is very strong.

Aquin.3192:

Working as intended. There is an opportunity for counter play RIGHT between the stun and the attack and right before the attack completes.

This is where I knock you back with the hammer or smash you while you stare at the screen wondering what happened.

What do you guys want complete invuln? no risk vs reward?

No, i want to be able to COUNTERPLAY your COUNTERPLAY.

If i know there’s a time frame ( when i can react) while you can attack me, i’ll dodge-evade-port way-whatever.

Sad thing is that such counterplay is available only for the opponent, while we’re stuck with an animation we don’t know if evading or not ( still not sure about evade frames).

in short word, we can’t react properly.

And aside that, there’re things totally ignoring PW evade frames ( persisting AoE fields in general and shatterz).

And even with 100% evade, S/P thieves would be far from OP.

You do have an opportunity to cancel the PW at the end with a dodge or movement. ( if you havent experimented with this yet)

I suppose that would be your counterplay to my counterplay. The opening vulnerability is unavoidable.

PW is in a very strong state when it comes to risk vs reward as mentioned by sorrychief.

I feel it will become overpowered if they buff it too much.

Evading attacks while dealing 8-9k crits in spammable fashion gets ridiculous fast, especially since a thief has like 3-4 different options (steal, shadowstep, infiltrator strike, infiltrator signet) of closing the gap in order to land the move.

You can work around the early vulnerability by casting the stun and then using steal or a shadowstep, dodging out and using infiltrator’s return to get out of range.

its already out of control just wait until everyone else realizes it. It used to be effective with heavy investment in acrobatics. Now you have the init regen by default and can select different traits for utility/damage ( trickery anyone? )

Aquin.3192:

You do have an opportunity to cancel the PW at the end with a dodge or movement. ( if you havent experimented with this yet)

I suppose that would be your counterplay to my counterplay. The opening vulnerability is unavoidable.

PW is in a very strong state when it comes to risk vs reward as mentioned by sorrychief.

that’s not what i’m saying.

If i cancel it with a movement i’m vulnerable.

If i cancel it with a dodge, i waste a dodge.

The animation should give FULL EVADE time, or it should be tweaked in order to do it ( shortening the animation) in order to avoid wastes or open times.

if i need to have an opening, do it by adding an aftercast, not by creating an opening WHILE i’m whipping, because it makes no sense.

By fixing the animation by adding an aftercast AND giving full evade, you give your opponent counterplay that can be coutnered by you at the same time ( with a dodge roll, not wasted in this case), just like mes blurred frenzy ( best possible example).

The skill is unpolished

Pistol whip needs to not evade anyways… Here’s why. Putrid explosion is losing its “Unblockable” because it doesn’t make sense to what the ability is. It’s a kittening explosion. So why in the hell does hitting someone with a hilt and slashing your sword around make you invincible? >_>: Stun better, or just be invincible, but you really don’t need both. Evades on skills is another thing that should be kept to a minimal that isn’t.

Give thieves real defenses so they don’t get 1 shot if they kitten up and remove all the bullcrap passive evades. Thx.

ronpierce.2760:

Pistol whip needs to not evade anyways… Here’s why. Putrid explosion is losing its “Unblockable” because it doesn’t make sense to what the ability is. It’s a kittening explosion. So why in the hell does hitting someone with a hilt and slashing your sword around make you invincible? >_>: Stun better, or just be invincible, but you really don’t need both. Evades on skills is another thing that should be kept to a minimal that isn’t.

Give thieves real defenses so they don’t get 1 shot if they kitten up and remove all the bullcrap passive evades. Thx.

Blurred frenzy says hi.

S/P is a wonderful set where you use basically all your skills.

We need more of this instead of S/D 33333333 spamming ( doesn’t matter if with shortbow or S/D).

sorrychief.2563:

Honestly it seems vague to be able to attack and evade at the same time. . .typically in fighting games if you attack someone you are left open to a counter.

This is one of the biggest problems with the pvp in this game. There are far too many ‘I can hurt you but you can’t hurt me’ abilities and builds. You should be able to either attack or defend, not do both at the same time, yet that’s what most of the popular builds do, and the builds that can’t end up getting pushed out of the meta as a result.

Mrbig.8019:

ronpierce.2760:

Pistol whip needs to not evade anyways… Here’s why. Putrid explosion is losing its “Unblockable” because it doesn’t make sense to what the ability is. It’s a kittening explosion. So why in the hell does hitting someone with a hilt and slashing your sword around make you invincible? >_>: Stun better, or just be invincible, but you really don’t need both. Evades on skills is another thing that should be kept to a minimal that isn’t.

Give thieves real defenses so they don’t get 1 shot if they kitten up and remove all the bullcrap passive evades. Thx.

Blurred frenzy says hi.

S/P is a wonderful set where you use basically all your skills.

We need more of this instead of S/D 33333333 spamming ( doesn’t matter if with shortbow or S/D).

Blurred frenzy makes SENSE to the skill… Its a blur/distortion of the body. There’s magic involved. ( PS I don’t play Mesmer)

ronpierce.2760:

Mrbig.8019:

ronpierce.2760:

Pistol whip needs to not evade anyways… Here’s why. Putrid explosion is losing its “Unblockable” because it doesn’t make sense to what the ability is. It’s a kittening explosion. So why in the hell does hitting someone with a hilt and slashing your sword around make you invincible? >_>: Stun better, or just be invincible, but you really don’t need both. Evades on skills is another thing that should be kept to a minimal that isn’t.

Give thieves real defenses so they don’t get 1 shot if they kitten up and remove all the bullcrap passive evades. Thx.

Blurred frenzy says hi.

S/P is a wonderful set where you use basically all your skills.

We need more of this instead of S/D 33333333 spamming ( doesn’t matter if with shortbow or S/D).

Blurred frenzy makes SENSE to the skill… Its a blur/distortion of the body. There’s magic involved. ( PS I don’t play Mesmer)

So thieves don’t use magic ?

Now that you say it, i always questioned form where the kitten my shadow refuge appeared.

Or my Shadow trap porting me everywhere

PW evades, end of the story.

And if it does, at least it should do it good.

It’s a High telegraphed move, you can walk away from it.

It’s not Op at all, it needs fixing.

Mrbig.8019:

ronpierce.2760:

Mrbig.8019:

ronpierce.2760:

Pistol whip needs to not evade anyways… Here’s why. Putrid explosion is losing its “Unblockable” because it doesn’t make sense to what the ability is. It’s a kittening explosion. So why in the hell does hitting someone with a hilt and slashing your sword around make you invincible? >_>: Stun better, or just be invincible, but you really don’t need both. Evades on skills is another thing that should be kept to a minimal that isn’t.

Give thieves real defenses so they don’t get 1 shot if they kitten up and remove all the bullcrap passive evades. Thx.

Blurred frenzy says hi.

S/P is a wonderful set where you use basically all your skills.

We need more of this instead of S/D 33333333 spamming ( doesn’t matter if with shortbow or S/D).

Blurred frenzy makes SENSE to the skill… Its a blur/distortion of the body. There’s magic involved. ( PS I don’t play Mesmer)

So thieves don’t use magic ?

Now that you say it, i always questioned form where the kitten my shadow refuge appeared.

Or my Shadow trap porting me everywhere

PW evades, end of the story.

And if it does, at least it should do it good.

It’s a High telegraphed move, you can walk away from it.

It’s not Op at all, it needs fixing.

Hurrdurr, They do, I guess, but pistol whip doesn’t. I mean look at the animation, nothing magical about it. Just a guy swinging a sword around aimlessly being god mode. All is vain.

This is so silly. PW gives a moment of vulnerability in exchange it does strong damage, and some defensive stronghold. It is not perfect defense nor does it need to be.
Skills are allowed to be interrupted the “Counter-play to your counterplay” is to force out their interrupts earlier, Shadowstep into a pistolwhip to leave immediately into the stun from range, or throw up a dagger storm/Lyssa boosted Basilisk into PW with stability supporting you.

You don’t need to have PW to readily evade a Eviscerate on the dime. They already gave you a stun you could time for that, and if timing the stun is impractical you have headshot which is what a .25s cast time on 4 ini to use instead of PW’s .5s. on 5 ini.
The skill is fine as it is, it’s strong and isn’t a shortfalling of the kit. The notion that they even want to split it when it’s in such a strong state as it is and “fix” what isn’t broken for no reason that I can see is baffling. PW isn’t holding some other weapon set back nor is it a detriment to S/P in its current state with the buffs it has recieved. It needs no buff.
S/P has some inherit weakness with ranged attackers due to inability to target break unlike /D’s and D/P, which are fine to keep but even reducing that slightly wouldn’t be about PW. It be about Headshot or Black Powder. Which probably won’t be changed due to D/P.

tl;dr. PW is fine wtf bro.

ensoriki.5789:

This is so silly. PW gives a moment of vulnerability in exchange it does strong damage, and some defensive stronghold. It is not perfect defense nor does it need to be.
Skills are allowed to be interrupted the “Counter-play to your counterplay” is to force out their interrupts earlier, Shadowstep into a pistolwhip to leave immediately into the stun from range, or throw up a dagger storm/Lyssa boosted Basilisk into PW with stability supporting you.

You don’t need to have PW to readily evade a Eviscerate on the dime. They already gave you a stun you could time for that, and if timing the stun is impractical you have headshot which is what a .25s cast time on 4 ini to use instead of PW’s .5s. on 5 ini.
The skill is fine as it is, it’s strong and isn’t a shortfalling of the kit. The notion that they even want to split it when it’s in such a strong state as it is and “fix” what isn’t broken for no reason that I can see is baffling. PW isn’t holding some other weapon set back nor is it a detriment to S/P in its current state with the buffs it has recieved. It needs no buff.
S/P has some inherit weakness with ranged attackers due to inability to target break unlike /D’s and D/P, which are fine to keep but even reducing that slightly wouldn’t be about PW. It be about Headshot or Black Powder. Which probably won’t be changed due to D/P.

tl;dr. PW is fine wtf bro.

If you analyse PW in a vacuum, it’s not fine at all.

If you compare it with the only comparable skill ( Blurred Frenzy) it has a HOLE in its defense, unlike BF.

BF has an aftercast while you can hit the mesmer and it’s GOOD it’s like this because it forces a dodge in order to avoid the attack.

PW has a HOLE while you’re still attacking but not evading and this is not fine (clunky).

Again i don’t want it to be buffed, i want it to be polished ( like BF), because it would allow for counterplay from both my opponent ( attacking on the aftercast) and S/P user ( dodge).

As things stand now, you either dodge prematurely ( interrupting the animation) or move ( being vulnerable), which is not fine.

The set already has its weaknesses ( slow, roots you, so so chasing abilities), no reason to add “odd evasion frames” on it.

And aside this, permanent AoE fields go through PW no matter what.

How would blurred frenzy be the only comparable skill
Hundred Blades, Zealots Defense, Pistol WHip and Blurred Frenzy are practically copy & pastes of each other with different effects. Pure damage, reflection, CC & Evasion, Full evasion. Far as Im concerned PW isn’t really suited to being a “dodge”. It’s an offensive skill that allows you more staying power when you jump on an enemy. It’s not an impenetrable defense, and for the damage it does and given it temporarily stuns an opponent it certainly shouldn’t be.
Aoe fields only go through the vulnerability frames, and are still subject to the evade frames.

I remember pistol whip in open beta and even now to have a stun, evade, and multi strike on one skill is crazy. Like a gw1 elite skill style crazy. I gotta say in open beta when playing it and insta killing anyone was crazy. Funny enough launch was crazy because of backstab although haste 1.0 and death blossom had its moment.

When was the last time you seen a thief use death blossom? Shadow Strike has better synergy.

Pistol whip has some pretty simple counters.

Retaliation is one of the riskier ones. Mesmers, Guardians, and Warriors can deal back a lot of damage back with retal, especially warriors since they can use damage immunity.

Evading the stun is probably the easiest counter.

There’s little reason to stun break because you can walk straight through the thief to cut the damage down by half to avoid a lot of the flurry. Or you can dodge roll out of it after the stun. Or while winding up the pistol whip you can just walk through the thief and be behind him so he misses.

If a thief is winding up a pistol whip for seemingly no reason, it’s probably because he’s going to shadow step at you during the wind up so you think he’ll miss. This tactic is also fun to do on Skyhammer with a Hammer Gaurdian + Judges intervention to easily knock people off the map. Also doable with Lightning Hammer + Lightning Flash on the ele.

As a mesmer you can flurry each other evading each other, that’s amusing to be a part of.

If you’re wasting your cooldowns on a PW thief, learn to time your skills to hit after the flurry ends.

There’s all kinds of ways to counter pistol whip, and the easiest ones to pull off just involve positioning + dodging, so they’re available to all classes. The thief can do nothing but waste time flurrying at nothing or cancel the flurry wasting valuable iniative when you use counter play on pistol whip.

Remember PW does at least double damage of Blurred Frenzy with no CD and a stun attached.

DanyK.3842:

Find the nearest warrior (easiest part), steal to them, blinding powder + whirling axe – facerub your opponent, blinding powder, stomp. After patch you could just stick a fire + air in your s/p for maximum pwnage. L2p thief.

Pls tell me how this is related with what i’ve written.

L2read.

Scrubs gonna scrub.

Mrbig.8019:

1. Are there any plan to change its animation ?

In PvP it’s slow and clunky, especially the first part.

2. Are there any plan to revisit its damage ?

Post nerf, damage wise you would be better off autoattacking

3. Are there any plan to fix the kitten evasion ?

As things stand right now, it evades some stuff and some other doesn’t, it’s often random ( i even got CCed while whipping) and unpredictable.

For example, necro minions attacks go through the evade frames like if there was no evasion at all.

the set would be overall pretty good and competitive if these things were addressed.

Some people can still make it work, but these issues are glaring and really keep the set behind, along with retaliation killing yourself on a single pistol whip.

*okthxplsfix

About 2…it’s been a long time since auto-attack was higher DPS than pistol whip. The actercast change before Dec 10th made it higher DPS than AA and the Dec 10th aftercast change made that difference even greater.

Either way, it’s going to be overhauled soon anyways.