Guild Wars 2

I like the current version of Pistol Whip.

Spooko.5436:

How’s about you just play an Elemantalist in soloq`s for 4 hours. I am sure you will get a feel for the issue.

^ this.

Initiative generates too fast, so SP can spam a lot of pistol whip.

right now its just a skill with CC stun can deal massive amount of damage, while evading everything and without a CD.

imo if you want to keep these settings its better to shave some damage.

I like pw to bad retal can kill you in team fights xD otherwise would be op.

Simon.3794:

Initiative generates too fast, so SP can spam a lot of pistol whip.

right now its just a skill with CC stun can deal massive amount of damage, while evading everything and without a CD.

imo if you want to keep these settings its better to shave some damage.

pw damage is almost on par with AA chain if shave it more….

I feel it does too much damage for the amount of utility it grants the thief. Spam 3, evade, and daze your opponent while doing good damage. It just seems like it does too much.

problem with this is the thief has to much initiative

the qustion with this skill is: regeneration is to fast or pw is to cheap

i would make pw cost more initiative – this skill has to be something you use careful and not just spam when rdy

edit: in my opinion sword #2 need higher initiative cost too – it need more risk reward
2 and 3 (with pistol offhand) has to much utilitie on it – on other classes this would be eliteskills^^

The problem isnt the skill itself, indeed, it used to be considerated subpar to other thief dual skills. Why ? flanking strike is evading while moving toward the target and was stealing 2 boons, shadow shot is a gap closer with blind and good dmg, while pistol whip roots you in place.
Why did it become popular ? Mainly cause of the nerf to flanking strike and to the fact that some players realized that it synergize well with a trickery build, that reduce cd on steal and let you do the combo pw + steal/other shadowsteps; AND because the actual meta is leading toward the motto “the more AoE on the point, the better it is”. Pistol whip does also cleave, while evading, so the thief has the possibility to join the aoe spam in a different way from cluster bombing.

tl:dr; the skill isnt op, its a combination of things that make it look so. A little bit like it happens with warriors, but they are still unbeated on this :|

Here’s a good consideration.

" •Putrid Explosion: This ability is no longer unblockable."
Because it “Didn’t make sense and had no counterplay.” It’s an EXPLOSION… On an ai that has to be near you (and we all know how brilliant AI is)… Fast forward to thief.

Pistol whip – Randomly swinging your blade around makes you evade every attack. #Logic. Counter play to someone evading everything? Quit the game and wait for a better one. Check.

I play a thief and the problem that I see from most abilities being “OP” stems from the way the class is designed with initiative. The class is designed to spam one ability several times. We (thieves) generally only have one good damage dealing weapon ability and with no cool downs on our weapon skills it leads to spamming.

I can see two ways to fix the spamming problem. The first involving adding more abilities to each weapon set that deal damage. I understand that there are great utility weapon skills to be used, but when we want to deal damage it’s typically one ability being used and spammed because that’s we’ve got to use. The second idea is a little more involved and requires a lot of class restructuring. Get rid of initiative… make the class operate on cool downs like all the other classes. The only problem I see in idea #2 is that in doing so you’d have to also implement idea #1….

As for PW… maybe get rid of the evade and leave the rest alone. A thief that uses PW is rooted and therefore vulnerable. Removing the evade makes it a risk to use the skill and will provoke more thought before using it / spamming it.

I main thief.

PW is not that incredible especially considering that it is quite easy to mitigate/evade it when you see it coming.
However, I think it could use a longer cast time so that an infiltrator’s strike immobilize end and pistol whip cast have at least 0.5-1 second between them.
Other than that, I think it’s fine.

The evasion that it imparts could be toned down also.

Luto.1938:

I play a thief and the problem that I see from most abilities being “OP” stems from the way the class is designed with initiative. The class is designed to spam one ability several times. We (thieves) generally only have one good damage dealing weapon ability and with no cool downs on our weapon skills it leads to spamming.

I can see two ways to fix the spamming problem. The first involving adding more abilities to each weapon set that deal damage. I understand that there are great utility weapon skills to be used, but when we want to deal damage it’s typically one ability being used and spammed because that’s we’ve got to use. The second idea is a little more involved and requires a lot of class restructuring. Get rid of initiative… make the class operate on cool downs like all the other classes. The only problem I see in idea #2 is that in doing so you’d have to also implement idea #1….

As for PW… maybe get rid of the evade and leave the rest alone. A thief that uses PW is rooted and therefore vulnerable. Removing the evade makes it a risk to use the skill and will provoke more thought before using it / spamming it.

Increase the stun a nudge, too, but yes remove the kitten evade… Evades on ANY thief weapon was the worst decision ever……… What the hell is the point of energy when the 1 class with no cooldowns gets evades on most of their major weaponsets… If Thieves are lacking in defense, evades are not the way to fix it…

I main thief ( from beta) and i can say that the only problem PW has right now is ini regenerating too fast.

This, along with minor problems ( like sleight of hand havling steal CD- aka havign tons of teleports avoiding PW rooting) make the set A LITTLE too strong ( surely not like people would like to believe).

S/P thieves have counters and suck a lot more 1vs1 than old S/D thieves.

Imo S/P is almost fine, rather than a nerf i would completely change the animation.

Luto.1938:

I play a thief and the problem that I see from most abilities being “OP” stems from the way the class is designed with initiative. The class is designed to spam one ability several times. We (thieves) generally only have one good damage dealing weapon ability and with no cool downs on our weapon skills it leads to spamming.

I can see two ways to fix the spamming problem. The first involving adding more abilities to each weapon set that deal damage. I understand that there are great utility weapon skills to be used, but when we want to deal damage it’s typically one ability being used and spammed because that’s we’ve got to use. The second idea is a little more involved and requires a lot of class restructuring. Get rid of initiative… make the class operate on cool downs like all the other classes. The only problem I see in idea #2 is that in doing so you’d have to also implement idea #1….

there would be a 3th option
make thief skills combo eachother

remove stun from #3 and make #2 followed by #3 stun the target
remove boonremove from #2 and make #3 followed by #2 remove 2 boons

something like this would give thief some depth when enough combos and would remove the spamplay

edit: this skillcombo system would be cool for warrior and ranger too – remove utilitie from normal skills and add it to combos

1. → #2 ……,#3……,#4……,#5…..
2. →#1…..,#3…..,#4…..,#5……
3. →#1….,#2……,#4……,#5……
4. →#1……,#2…..,#3……..,#5…..
5. →#1…..,#2……,#3……,#4……

……… are utiltie bonis like blind, stun , extraheal or whatever
this woud bring the low risk high reward classes in line with eles and (old) engi

Do you main Thief? No, but I do play it often when I am in WvW.
When do you feel that pistol whip is unbalanced? In sPvP, when a player is trying to defend a point. Specifically, I feel that it is most imbalanced in 1v1, although this imbalance can pop up in other situations.

Pistol whip requires the stun portion of the skill in order to land most if its hits and high damage, or at least the first few hits. The complete-evasion/invulnerability portion is required to provide the thief some defense while it completes the full channel, specifically in PvE. The thief can also shadowstep/stealth to make it hard to predict when this skill is coming, making it very hard to counter by dodging. All of these together combine to make it extremely difficult to counter with the thief experiencing no risk.

The combination of the stun and damage make this an important skill to move away from (or counter, which you can’t due to evasion). Thus, players would need to use a stun-breaker to break away from it or use stability. Considering that stun-breakers and stability are not equally accessible to all professions/builds and are on long recharges, this results in situations where players have no choice and must simply eat most of the damage frequently because their stunbreakers/stability have already been used.

My suggestion: Would be to rework the evasion portion of the skill and change it from evasion to take X% (50-75ish?) less damage. That way, the attacked player (or an ally) can still counter with a CC/damage or attempt punish the thief for attempting to use the full duration, and the thief still gains a lot of defense.

I agree with Romek.
I really enjoy his/her suggestion..
stun/boonremove combo’s would be sweet

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

I’ve been seeing a lot of threads pop up with varying feedback about this skill. I’d appreciate it if you guys could toss some feedback in this thread about the skill, and try to be as concise as possible.

Also, try to answer these questions:

• Do you main Thief?
• When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
  • How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
• What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?

Additionally, if you feel Pistol Whip is exactly what it needs to be, I would like you to say so in this thread.

This thread is for me personally so I can properly communicate to the designers how you guys feel about it.

Thanks!

Hi Allie,
My main pg is a thief since beta and i have played every modality of the game (especially wvw and pvp). According to me PW is OP if you know like skill works because, a noob thief will fail to strike an enemy, but a good player will kill you every time simply spamming 3, and this is the problem. I’d like to see PW nerfed in terms of damage (with lower initiative cost) or cast time (but in this case you should buff for damage). Honestly i hope you make again viable S/D beucase i like a lot this set ; LS without possibility of steal 2 boon, it’s useless, people stopped to use it for not waste initiative (you make same damage of autoattack and steal just 1 boon that last…3-4s?) and with this build you don’t do a great dps (it’s high, but not near to S/P, elementalist ecc.), you gain more evade but it’s quite useless because a thief that evade and don’t kill/do a good damage it’s not good for pvp/wvw/pve.
Thieves are hard to balance because they combine great dps with a decent survival (blind, evade, stealth,teleport), if you nerf too much one of them there is the chance that class became unviable.

face a pistol whip thief on any class that is not engi, no matter how bad the thief is all you have to do is smash few buttons and you have perma evades / blind . the main problem is any1 with 1 brain cell can play it. I see many terrible players just spam pistol whip and killing. I though hammer warrior was bad since it was op and easy to play. Pistol whip is OP AND EASIER* to play than hambow.

My main is a guard but thief/ele would be my very close 2nd’s.

In PVE the evade is necessary in most cases when not specced for vigor (i.e. 10/30/0/0/30 or acro builds etc). In that case I’d say keep it as it is.

For sPVP I can see how the interrupt is annoying but also how the evade would be a necessity in terms of defense. As it stands many see that PW has both offense and defense but too much of both. I’d say to balance the set, as it is S/P, take away the interrupt since there’s already another spammable interrupt on #4 in the set. Keep the evade but either tone it down or have it apply a blind. Imo that would make sense for the skill name as it implies you’re smashing someones face in with a pistol. I’d rather like the evade to stay so at least there’s some defense left in it.

Magnus Heartseeker.7958:

I feel it does too much damage for the amount of utility it grants the thief. Spam 3, evade, and daze your opponent while doing good damage. It just seems like it does too much.

it doesnt do it at the same time, and it roots the player for its duration. the stun doesnt last forever, and has a visual tell.

its dmg isnt that great either.
Its essentially a make em pay counter, it maximizes its potential by catching you off guard/mid animation.

IMHO the problem with PW is three fold:
1) Its a quick access to a stun at a moments notice to interrupt every and any skill needed to by a thief – coupled with their seemingly infinite shadow steps – could land every time if played correctly.
2) It’s amazing defensive qualities. When i manage to apply pressure to thief running with S/P they just press their 3 skill allowing themselves to evade until their defensive CD are up again (not to mention the DMG they are doing at the same time – or the fact they can just stealth and reset over and over until they feel confident they finally have the advantage and can win).
3) The damage it deals itself. The skill deals a metric kitten ton of DMG and due to the initiative thieves rely on that just got buffed, can be spammed like there is no tomorrow not allowing players to re-act (because it stuns), fight back (they are evading) or even dodge (the sword 2’s immob is easy to land allowing the combo to rarely miss). Not only all of this, but even professions with ‘the same’ skill or similar do not gain half of the dmg PW has, like mesmer for example. Their sword MH #2 allows them to be invul, but doesn’t even do a third of the DMG PW is capable of or stuns.

This is how i feel, not stating it as a fact, but please read it and consider mine and the other poster’s experiences with this truly un-balanced skill.

Below i attacthed an image of my combat log of a fight i had with a thief. I was on my mesmer running with staff, blink and decoy. The fight lasted roughly 5-15sec in which the thief started off in stealth (couldn’t summon my clones/phantasms) then he opened with a steal and PW combo, i used blink to get away and stun break, he used a shadow step and continued the dmg, i then used staff #2 to get farther away, he used another shadow step, i then used my F4 shatter, but PW outlasted it and i died due to the overload of DMG without a way to fight back even though im rank 40+ and have a thorough understanding of the game and shouldn’t meet an opponent i can’t seem to land a hit on. I added this picture not to QQ about how OP of a skill PW is, but i believe in order to get my point across an example cant do any harm.
Thanks for reading.

Ixl Super Ixl.7258:

face a pistol whip thief on any class that is not engi, no matter how bad the thief is all you have to do is smash few buttons and you have perma evades / blind . the main problem is any1 with 1 brain cell can play it. I see many terrible players just spam pistol whip and killing. I though hammer warrior was bad since it was op and easy to play. Pistol whip is OP AND EASIER* to play than hambow.

I agree… I main thief and find PW to be extremely boring to play. It’s not that I don’t use other weaponskills besides PW, but that’s the main source of damage. Headshot is pointless on the s/p weapon set because PW is so much better. I played a hambow warrior to see what that was all about and yeah it’s OP and easy but like you said, PW thief is right up there with hambow.

Spooko.5436:

How’s about you just play an Elemantalist in soloq`s for 4 hours. I am sure you will get a feel for the issue.

Bingo !

• Do you main Thief?
  I main a thief now,rerolled from ele,ty anet.

• When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
  Is unbalanced because it stuns,evade,huge ammount of damage,low initative cost all in one easy skill that can be spammed.

scenario :

ele : what a beautiful day,i’m capping this point after i have killed a war.

“hide in stealth” thief : this poor ele is going to die.

thief : azaratrat —> pistol whip--> steal—> quickness—> immobilize. spam = win.

ele : duck you,motherducker,hax,thief op,low skilled,brainless,3 3 3. “this ele will reroll thief or quit the game”

thief : quack quack i’m superpr0skilledthebest.

• How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
  How does it feel balanced compared to other class mechanics for anet?

• What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?

When pistol whip is attacking someone the thief will evade,if the thief is spamming the skill and isn’t hitting someone it can be hitted. In this case spam = death.

Or Each time you evade an attack in pistol whip you consume 1 initative.

but anyway no one of our feedbacks will never be implemented in this game,so you can close the thread.

It’s strange because IG every thief I’ve spoken too says it’s OP for the rewards it grants, also describing the build as ‘dumb’ or ‘virgin’.

I think the point is it’s a bit more powerful than other builds, it face rolls instantly anything without damage mitigation (which sucks for ele), and it’s stupendously easy to play, which irritates committed players.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

I’ve been seeing a lot of threads pop up with varying feedback about this skill. I’d appreciate it if you guys could toss some feedback in this thread about the skill, and try to be as concise as possible.

Also, try to answer these questions:

• Do you main Thief?
• When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
  • How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
• What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?

Additionally, if you feel Pistol Whip is exactly what it needs to be, I would like you to say so in this thread.

This thread is for me personally so I can properly communicate to the designers how you guys feel about it.

Thanks!

PW is actually subpar and needs a buff. The lead dev, John Peters, said the team is looking at ways to buff PW. /thread

Ixl Super Ixl.7258:

face a pistol whip thief on any class that is not engi, no matter how bad the thief is all you have to do is smash few buttons and you have perma evades / blind . the main problem is any1 with 1 brain cell can play it. I see many terrible players just spam pistol whip and killing. I though hammer warrior was bad since it was op and easy to play. Pistol whip is OP AND EASIER* to play than hambow.

pistol whip is pretty slow and leaves you open to dmg if the player avoids the stun/stun breaks. even if you get caught, you can evade 1/2 the dmg. Its a melee only counter skill.

it also would probably make sword pistol completely useless if it isnt better than AA dmg, to which its already close

phys.7689:

Ixl Super Ixl.7258:

face a pistol whip thief on any class that is not engi, no matter how bad the thief is all you have to do is smash few buttons and you have perma evades / blind . the main problem is any1 with 1 brain cell can play it. I see many terrible players just spam pistol whip and killing. I though hammer warrior was bad since it was op and easy to play. Pistol whip is OP AND EASIER* to play than hambow.

pistol whip is pretty slow and leaves you open to dmg if the player avoids the stun/stun breaks. even if you get caught, you can evade 1/2 the dmg. Its a melee only counter skill.

it also would probably make sword pistol completely useless if it isnt better than AA dmg, to which its already close

Leaves you open to damage when you’re evading it all. :P

If you take away the stun it would pretty much be just the spammable blurred frenzy, which I think would be fine. If you aren’t stunned all you really have to do is just move away from it making it a waste of initiative already if used offensively. It’d also make it so that thieves would have to use #2 or #4 more instead to help it go off indirectly making it cost more initiative.

Grim.4795:

IMHO the problem with PW is three fold:
1) Its a quick access to a stun at a moments notice to interrupt every and any skill needed to by a thief – coupled with their seemingly infinite shadow steps – could land every time if played correctly.
2) It’s amazing defensive qualities. When i manage to apply pressure to thief running with S/P they just press their 3 skill allowing themselves to evade until their defensive CD are up again (not to mention the DMG they are doing at the same time – or the fact they can just stealth and reset over and over until they feel confident they finally have the advantage and can win).
3) The damage it deals itself. The skill deals a metric kitten ton of DMG and due to the initiative thieves rely on that just got buffed, can be spammed like there is no tomorrow not allowing players to re-act (because it stuns), fight back (they are evading) or even dodge (the sword 2’s immob is easy to land allowing the combo to rarely miss). Not only all of this, but even professions with ‘the same’ skill or similar do not gain half of the dmg PW has, like mesmer for example. Their sword MH #2 allows them to be invul, but doesn’t even do a third of the DMG PW is capable of or stuns.

This is how i feel, not stating it as a fact, but please read it and consider mine and the other poster’s experiences with this truly un-balanced skill.

Below i attacthed an image of my combat log of a fight i had with a thief. I was on my mesmer running with staff, blink and decoy. The fight lasted roughly 5-15sec in which the thief started off in stealth (couldn’t summon my clones/phantasms) then he opened with a steal and PW combo, i used blink to get away and stun break, he used a shadow step and continued the dmg, i then used staff #2 to get farther away, he used another shadow step, i then used my F4 shatter, but PW outlasted it and i died due to the overload of DMG without a way to fight back even though im rank 40+ and have a thorough understanding of the game and shouldn’t meet an opponent i can’t seem to land a hit on. I added this picture not to QQ about how OP of a skill PW is, but i believe in order to get my point across an example cant do any harm.
Thanks for reading.

You didnt even tried to fight back… look theres like 3 pw on that ss and thats enough time for you at least hit ur f3 and interrupt him at the right time to get the fight in you favor but you didnt even AA him or anything the combat only show the thief attacks… im not saying its fake but very low experience even though you are lvl 40+.

If the SS isnt fake you prob got desperate and didnt think well to act

The problem, like so many abilities, is that is over budget. You can not have an ability tied to offense, defense, and control. It’s just a no no. There are several abilities in the game that falls into this category. The problem with the thief profession is that this is magnified by the initiative system and there ability to use, in succession, abilities that are over budget.

…

If this skill gets nerfed before hambow and decap fix and else’s buff, just…
A dmg nerf? You all realize right that the sword AA chain does more dps if all three strikes crit right?

The only reason you all want this nerfed is because you are seeing it so much. Evade everything s/d thieves are so much more fun to fight against; those skillful random dodges AMIRITE? The trickery version of this build does kitten for dmg to anything not glass cannon.

Iniative regen nerf, I can somewhat get behind. Sb 3 spam evade, for the love of kittening god I can get behind. Pistol whip nerf, no.

Wait .5 walk out of range. Don’t blow your burst into the evade animation either and be careful doing right after cuz sometimes we dodge afterwards. Profit.

Ixl Super Ixl.7258:

face a pistol whip thief on any class that is not engi, no matter how bad the thief is all you have to do is smash few buttons and you have perma evades / blind . the main problem is any1 with 1 brain cell can play it. I see many terrible players just spam pistol whip and killing. I though hammer warrior was bad since it was op and easy to play. Pistol whip is OP AND EASIER* to play than hambow.

Tru dat. The 3 spam is getting out of hand. Part of the problem – a significant portion of it – was the change to initiative. S/D is harder to play now (as initiative regen for it was nerfed and sword 2 was also nerfed), so now all S/D thieves went s/p and it’s worse than S/D ever was – unintentional consequences rear its ugly head once again.

Compounding the issue, there is a certain small window of opportunity to kill the thief as the evade frames doesn’t cover the whole animation. On one hand, this is great since it requires people to read their opponents. On the other hand, it is virtually impossible for certain classes to take advantage of that window of vulnerablity.

Since I main thief, this isn’t a problem for me as all of my burst is directly under my control. Other classes (ahem, mesmer) rely on AI or, as with the ele, certain classes have longer cast times because of the AoE potential. It’s virtually impossible to be able to time a shatter or in general have the tools necessary to pull off the necessary timed burst against a perma evade thief.

It doesn’t help matters when pistolwhip is really the only skill you need to deal your damage, as sword 2 is situational. Why headshot at all? Also blinding powder on S/P is really only used to stomp people.

As a ele main, thief second

In my opinion on its own it is not over the top, however when coupled with a few things it becomes way over the top.

Shadowsteps remove the need for positioning or timing

Steal will strip stability if the thief is wise enough to save steal vs some classes.
this means skills like either renewal can’t be safely used without a very high chance of being interrupted.

then coupled with the evasion frames you can see why PW can become a extremely versatile skill,

need to interrupt a heal/skill? PW
to dangerous to stomp a foe? PW
need to stop people rezzing? PW
need a few seconds for heal to come up? PW

I think the skill could benefit from some tweaks, yeah.
Maybe if the stun was removed, or the evade frame was shorter. The skill could be made to last for a shorter amount of time. At the moment the evade frame is actually quite long, making it very annoying to play against.

Just another thing, I feel that without pistolwhip, the s/p set would feel quite lacking.

Evoneva Drakon.1754:

As a ele main, thief second

In my opinion on its own it is not over the top, however when coupled with a few things it becomes way over the top.

Shadowsteps remove the need for positioning or timing

Steal will strip stability if the thief is wise enough to save steal vs some classes.
this means skills like either renewal can’t be safely used without a very high chance of being interrupted.

then coupled with the evasion frames you can see why PW can become a extremely versatile skill,

need to interrupt a heal/skill? PW
to dangerous to stomp a foe? PW
need to stop people rezzing? PW
need a few seconds for heal to come up? PW

problem is theives need a lot one skill, because main and offhand often dont synergize well.
if pistol whip didnt stun, no one would get hit by it, if it doesnt do dmg, no one would use it over AA (to which its already close) if it didnt evade it would essentially kill the user.
and if it sucks, sword pistol doesnt serve much purpose.

- I main a thief, for the most part (been playing Guard a lot lately)

- I don’t think that Pistol Whip is as imbalanced as people make it out to be, but it is a rather awkward skill that makes balance inherently problematic.

If I was to redesign the skill, here’s what I would do:
– Pistol whip would only stun with a bit of damage (maybe on par with Slice), but would be a blast finisher.
– Lower ini cost to 4.

This would give Sword a stealth option (blast on blind field) to allow it to be a more control-oriented version of D/P. The burst is lower and the amount of stealth would also be lower since Black Powder -> Heartseeker costs 9 ini total and this would cost 10.

This would take away the DPS increase of Pistol Whip in PvE, but it would give thieves access to a blast finisher that’s not on short bow which would work for groups that aim to stack might

Do you main Thief?
Yes, since i started to play gw2

When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
I think pw by itself may be not so bad however paired with teleports + immmob + daze + haste it is almost impossible to avoid the dmg even if you see it comming.

It is also very hard to controll thief that is spamming it simply because fast strikes allow it to ignore blinds and evade part allows to ignore any kind of CCs like fears/stuns dazes so only option that is left when fighting pw thieves is to try to avoid/perma block the dmg and wait untill they run out of ini.

How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
If i play any other thief wepon set (outside of p/p) i have to play smart and know when to go in melee and when to eat aoe otherwise my character will drop very fast. With pw you don’t have to worry being interrupted, or taking big hits, similar to mesmer skill (which is on CD) you can spam pw just to avoid dmg

Compared to other classes it is obvious that spell is strong but strongest part is that it can be spammed unlike blurred frenzy.

What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?
I do not believe that nerfing immobs or ports on thief would be the solution since other weaponsets rely on those too.

I heard an idea bout splitting pw like flanking strike. The 2 ideas off the bat, either:
- separate pw in 2 spells lke flanking strike dmg portion + evade portion (evade portion should avoid aoe too as atm it doesn’t), precast time needs to be reduced though
- or remove evade portion and for each successfull strike grant thief protection or fill endurance

Phaeton.9582:

It’s strange because IG every thief I’ve spoken too says it’s OP for the rewards it grants, also describing the build as ‘dumb’ or ‘virgin’.

I think the point is it’s a bit more powerful than other builds, it face rolls instantly anything without damage mitigation (which sucks for ele), and it’s stupendously easy to play, which irritates committed players.

Because all other classes are so hard to play in this game right? You’ve obviously never played thief (or played one against competent players). I do agree that it does shutdown most other zerker specs but then again… So does every other thief spec.

Sword dagger is better than s/p and easier. Who have you been talking to? D/p thieves that think the way they press 5 then 2 followed by a series of 1 and the occasional 3 gap closer is skillful?
S/p has barely changed at all over the course of this game. Oh they sped up the after cast of the animation? Well they also toned the stun down from 1s to .5s. What’s changed is amount of ppl playing the build. Pls do the math.

Thief main since beta, if that is important.

PW is not unbalanced it mirrors other chained sword skills of other professions (blurred frenzy, hundered blades e.g.).

Like all sword and greatsword melee builds S/x on thieves relies on the “extreme” range of the cleave cone and the disproportional high base damage on all sword attacks, pistol wip is the culmination of that.

Generally sword damage is to high on all proffesions given that it has a AoE cone of great range, compare this to dagger damage which is single target and does not cleave and has less range.

In sPvP this makes S/x for thieves superior since by the nature of the conquest mode everything and everyone is usually stacked up on the point.

The thief is defined by being able to repeatedly use the same move PW evades are the only option thieves have to stay on the same spot for several seconds without getting shred to bits in seconds or being cc’d into oblivion thieves have no stability and no protection to passively achiv that goal so they need the active version the evades provide, this is what makes PW strong in sPvP since that mode is all about staying on the point and area denial (here done by AoE cleave damage and evades).

PW forces your opponent to move away if you can not you get punished hard, there are lots of options for other proffessions to do that way better therefore PW is balanced. People complain about it because they are not used to it and not used to being forced to move away from a thief nor to thieves being able to stay on point like almost any other proffesion.

On a personal side note: I do not belive that S/P warrants the attention it gets at the moment it only makes the thief an “inferior” version of a warrior.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

I’ve been seeing a lot of threads pop up with varying feedback about this skill. I’d appreciate it if you guys could toss some feedback in this thread about the skill, and try to be as concise as possible.

Also, try to answer these questions:

• Do you main Thief?
• When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
  • How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
• What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?

Additionally, if you feel Pistol Whip is exactly what it needs to be, I would like you to say so in this thread.

This thread is for me personally so I can properly communicate to the designers how you guys feel about it.

Thanks!

Allie,

The root cause is the Balance Team did a flat buff to thief regen several months ago. This made many abilities much more spammable than before.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a spammable aoe ability that evades, stuns and does damage is overpowered.

The right answer would be to go back and tune down thief regen. They didn’t need the buff at all, considering they were all alone in the top roamer spot before the buff.

Given the balance team’s pattern of fixing their mistakes with band-aids, I’d recommend they increase the cost of pistol whip from 5 to 8 initiative.

I don’t play a thief. I play one of those classes that isn’t viable in the Meta because of thieves. (pick any one)

Allie Murdock.8152:

How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?

Blurred Frenzy:

• CD: hard 12s
• Stun: none
• Evade: 2.5s
• Damage Coefficient: 2.4

Pistol Whip:

• CD: soft 5s (5 initiative x 1 init/s = 5s)
• Stun: 0.5s
• Evade: 1.5s
• Damage Coefficient: 3.14 (30% more damage)

I don’t main thief, but I do troll around spvp with a PW spec.

Phaeton.9582:

It’s strange because IG every thief I’ve spoken too says it’s OP for the rewards it grants, also describing the build as ‘dumb’ or ‘virgin’.

I think the point is it’s a bit more powerful than other builds, it face rolls instantly anything without damage mitigation (which sucks for ele), and it’s stupendously easy to play, which irritates committed players.

What made pistol whip OP is the buff to ini.

Ini regenerates faster so long channelings give you more ini so you can spam more.

It has never been Op in the past ( aside haste stunlocking) and nobody ( aside few) really used it for a reason.

phys.7689:

Evoneva Drakon.1754:

As a ele main, thief second

In my opinion on its own it is not over the top, however when coupled with a few things it becomes way over the top.

Shadowsteps remove the need for positioning or timing

Steal will strip stability if the thief is wise enough to save steal vs some classes.
this means skills like either renewal can’t be safely used without a very high chance of being interrupted.

then coupled with the evasion frames you can see why PW can become a extremely versatile skill,

need to interrupt a heal/skill? PW
to dangerous to stomp a foe? PW
need to stop people rezzing? PW
need a few seconds for heal to come up? PW

problem is theives need a lot one skill, because main and offhand often dont synergize well.
if pistol whip didnt stun, no one would get hit by it, if it doesnt do dmg, no one would use it over AA (to which its already close) if it didnt evade it would essentially kill the user.
and if it sucks, sword pistol doesnt serve much purpose.

^ I think that’s the core of why Pistol Whip is in such a bad spot. It’s really filling the gap created by a lot of skills that just don’t cover what the weaponset needs.

You can’t change Sw #2 without breaking S/D and you can’t change pistol OH skills without breaking D/P. Headshot you could maybe tweak, but it would be tough.

This means that Pistol Whip is the only spot left to address all the shortcomings of S/P.

Take a look at the buff to critical haste.

phys.7689:

problem is theives need a lot one skill, because main and offhand often dont synergize well.
if pistol whip didnt stun, no one would get hit by it, if it doesnt do dmg, no one would use it over AA (to which its already close) if it didnt evade it would essentially kill the user.
and if it sucks, sword pistol doesnt serve much purpose.

If PW didn’t stun, it would be like Blurred Frenzy, and blurred frenzy hits things all the time.

sorry couldn’t resist

Magnus Heartseeker.7958:

I feel it does too much damage for the amount of utility it grants the thief. Spam 3, evade, and daze your opponent while doing good damage. It just seems like it does too much.

^this!

Do you main Thief?
nope, but i play as and against alot of thieves.

When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
it is’nt really a scenario, its overall,
it is one skill that you can simply spam in any situation.
enemies about to down your ally? pistol whip stun to stop them!
downed guardian about to knock you back? pistol whip to evade the knock!
taking too much damage? Pistol whip!
need to deal alot of damage? Pistol whip!

How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
pretty unbalanced, thief is generally a high risk/high reward class that requires more skill than other classes, but spamming pistol whip shatters this theme, it is low risk, high reward and requires no skill atall.

What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?
i have several different ideas:
1. change the stun to a daze and remove the evade, this means it must be combined with other skills to get the damage off (just like warrior 100b), it also removes the cheese of a high damage skill that makes you immune to damage.
or
2.make the first hit apply vulnerability/confusion, remove the evade from the second part and allow it to be used on the move.
or
simply lower the damage or increase the cost

note: attack skills should never make the attacker immune to damage, a player should be deciding to either attack or play defensive, skills that deal damage while blocking are extremely cheesy and ofcourse they will be spammed.