Guild Wars 2

stof.9341:

Lordrosicky.5813:

And if people QQ about PW and auto attack chain not having much DPS difference then the auto attack should be nerfed because that is also too strong. Auto attacks shouldn’t do massive damage

Yeah, thieves shouldn’t do damage at all in fact.

They shouldn’t do absurd damage if they are also:
1, By far the most mobile
2, More survivable than bunker guardians when wearing zerker amuet (lol)

That is the issue. Fine if you want them to do massive damage. But then at least make them killable ever. Which they aren’t currently. You can’t have a class doing the most damage and then make it impossible to focus that class. It is ludicrous.

Evilek.5690:

Sinister.5792:

Do you main Thief?
Yes, I am one of the baddest thief you will ever find in EU.
I’ve been playing with my thief since launch(aka. Evisceratrix [permabanned])
I have mastered all weapon sets, and played a wide range of builds and variations.

When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
To me, personally I think Pistolwhip is unbalanced, due to the Dodge capability, the animation is sometime glitched(like standing on place but actually casting the skill)
There are hidden secrets about Pistolwhip, and how to totally dominate in PvP with it.

-When you cast pistolwhip you are dodging all the attacks until the animation ends.
-While doing the animation, you gain initiative from trait, and from seconds, so the ini regeneration is quite you know
-Pistolwhip damage is way too high for the cost of 5 initiative, I’ve tested builds, and I still hit 5k – 7k with only 20% crit dmg
-the stuns on pistolwhip is horrible and just plain horrible and should be removed even if its 0.5ms, for some reason its like 1s or (gives big disadvantage on other classes)
-even my little sister could kill an elementalist as long as I tell her to press button 3 all the time

to sum it all up why its unbalance due to
-stun
-dodge
-huge damage
-gives big disadvantage to players (skilled or un-skilled)

How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
Pistolwhip destroys the fun… its like back in the spam 2 heartseeker era.
one skill, 10 dead bodies

What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?
-To keep pistolwhip balance either you could do these

V1
-Remove Stun
-keep the damage
-Increase initiaive cost to 7
-remove the dodge

V2
-Keep stun
-increase initiative cost to 7
-remove the dodge
-minimise the damage 20%

V3
-Increase initiaive cost to 7
-keep dodge
-remove stun
-minimise the dmg 20%

V4
-Increase initiative cost to 7
-remove dodge
-remove stun
-keep the damage

V5
-increase initiative cost to 8
-increase damage 20%
-remove dodge
-remove stun

V6 (HARD MODE)
-increase initiative cost to 8
-no changes

I like how liewec said about the vulnerability, but confusion? nope..

its a good idea to give pistolwhip a condition effect like vulnerability, imagine, you’re being slashed, lets be realistic, if you get slashed, do your armor remain intact? nope.. you
become vulnerable.. lol

anyways, I can’t be bothered writing things down in formal way.

First time PW has same DPS as AA chain(AA chain make cripple and weknes and ofc cost ZERO initiative)

Secondly increase initiative cost on 7 or 8 ? This is best joke in this topic Looks like you have not played the thief in life

Are you serioulsy telling this to SINISTER ?

This is the reason why threads like this have absolutely no sense, because any random can feel entitled to know stuff.

Personally i agree with Sinister and if anything, the issue right now is ini regenerating too fast with PW animation being very long ( aka regening craptons of ini while doing so, spamming even more PW).

But tbh the real problem with thieves is the whole ini system, paired with a boring and idiotic profession mechanic with absolutely no flexibility ( Steal) being overbuffed due to the reasons stated above.

Something that lead to the idiotic achievement of doing so much with a single button.

Instantly.

Thief needs a redesign, not a simple “shave”

Mrbig.8019:

Evilek.5690:

Sinister.5792:

Do you main Thief?
Yes, I am one of the baddest thief you will ever find in EU.
I’ve been playing with my thief since launch(aka. Evisceratrix [permabanned])
I have mastered all weapon sets, and played a wide range of builds and variations.

When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
To me, personally I think Pistolwhip is unbalanced, due to the Dodge capability, the animation is sometime glitched(like standing on place but actually casting the skill)
There are hidden secrets about Pistolwhip, and how to totally dominate in PvP with it.

-When you cast pistolwhip you are dodging all the attacks until the animation ends.
-While doing the animation, you gain initiative from trait, and from seconds, so the ini regeneration is quite you know
-Pistolwhip damage is way too high for the cost of 5 initiative, I’ve tested builds, and I still hit 5k – 7k with only 20% crit dmg
-the stuns on pistolwhip is horrible and just plain horrible and should be removed even if its 0.5ms, for some reason its like 1s or (gives big disadvantage on other classes)
-even my little sister could kill an elementalist as long as I tell her to press button 3 all the time

to sum it all up why its unbalance due to
-stun
-dodge
-huge damage
-gives big disadvantage to players (skilled or un-skilled)

How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
Pistolwhip destroys the fun… its like back in the spam 2 heartseeker era.
one skill, 10 dead bodies

What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?
-To keep pistolwhip balance either you could do these

V1
-Remove Stun
-keep the damage
-Increase initiaive cost to 7
-remove the dodge

V2
-Keep stun
-increase initiative cost to 7
-remove the dodge
-minimise the damage 20%

V3
-Increase initiaive cost to 7
-keep dodge
-remove stun
-minimise the dmg 20%

V4
-Increase initiative cost to 7
-remove dodge
-remove stun
-keep the damage

V5
-increase initiative cost to 8
-increase damage 20%
-remove dodge
-remove stun

V6 (HARD MODE)
-increase initiative cost to 8
-no changes

I like how liewec said about the vulnerability, but confusion? nope..

its a good idea to give pistolwhip a condition effect like vulnerability, imagine, you’re being slashed, lets be realistic, if you get slashed, do your armor remain intact? nope.. you
become vulnerable.. lol

anyways, I can’t be bothered writing things down in formal way.

First time PW has same DPS as AA chain(AA chain make cripple and weknes and ofc cost ZERO initiative)

Secondly increase initiative cost on 7 or 8 ? This is best joke in this topic Looks like you have not played the thief in life

Are you serioulsy telling this to SINISTER ?

This is the reason why threads like this have absolutely no sense, because any random can feel entitled to know stuff.

Personally i agree with Sinister and if anything, the issue right now is ini regenerating too fast with PW animation being very long ( aka regening craptons of ini while doing so, spamming even more PW).

But tbh the real problem with thieves is the whole ini system, paired with a boring and idiotic profession mechanic with absolutely no flexibility ( Steal) being overbuffed due to the reasons stated above.

Something that lead to the idiotic achievement of doing so much with a single button.

Instantly.

Thief needs a redesign, not a simple “shave”

WoW you use 40 trait point on boost one spell, where is point ?

dimyzuka.7051:

style.6173:

dimyzuka.7051:

Allie please realise that %90 of people posting in this thread are bad and/or hotjoin players that have no idea what their talking in about.

PW is fine, if you focus nerfs on PW alone thiefs will just go back to perma evade S/D cheese, or perma stealth d/p cheese. The problem is the trickery tree and the initiative regen of thiefs overall. Atleast PW can be countered by retaliation, unlike S/D which still has no counter.

I hope you realize how bad you just made yourself look. I can’t name ANY top thief in solo or team queue that runs a permastealth d/p build. It is a liability for a team.

Stay focused on PW. It doesn’t need a lot of changes. It just needs the evade removed. That won’t impact top players that much but will raise the skill cap a bit. That’s a good thing.

That’s because you dont play at high level, Caed, Xii Xii, Lux, infact in NA d/p is the premiere build amongst the top players. You wouldn’t know this because you’re a WvW and hotjoin hero.

You just made yourself look even less educated. None of them run PERMASTEALTH builds. PERMASTEALTH is only really beneficial in WvW. In PvP, people stealth, but don’t stay that way for long. The only top end player that I know who used to run permastealth in PvP was Cruuk way back when, but I don’t think he plays anymore.

If you need a definition of permastealth, let me know. I’m sure I can help you learn more about it. D/P is not equal to permastealth.

Zirith.6429:

If the evade is removed then the skill is useless, you cant have a channeled skill on the squishiest class in the game that roots you without some form of defence.

The squishiest class in the game (which is not the thief) does have a channeled skill that roots them without some form of defense.

Churning Earth.

:)

First off, as many have stated already, the initiative buff last patch is the largest factor responsible for thieves causing balance issues.

If I were to change pistol whip this is how I would do it.

Split the skill into 2 parts and invert the order.
Part one: Slash repeatedly with your sword and evade attacks

Part two: Whip the enemy with your pistol stunning them (1/2 second stun)

This ensures that if you want to use the skill offensively, you must actively CC your target before hand. If you want to use your PW defensively for an evade, its still accessible on the first activation of the skill.

Have the skill act just as Flanking Strike/ Larceonous Strike do as well. Once you use the first activation, flip to the second for x amount of seconds. If you use the 2nd skill it rotates back to the first, if you dont you have to wait out the duration until the 1st skill is available again. This helps to negate spamming evade frames.

I think this is the cleanest way to help negate the issues plaguing this skill.

Rickster.8752:

stof.9341:

Lordrosicky.5813:

And if people QQ about PW and auto attack chain not having much DPS difference then the auto attack should be nerfed because that is also too strong. Auto attacks shouldn’t do massive damage

Yeah, thieves shouldn’t do damage at all in fact.

They shouldn’t do absurd damage if they are also:
1, By far the most mobile
2, More survivable than bunker guardians when wearing zerker amuet (lol)

That is the issue. Fine if you want them to do massive damage. But then at least make them killable ever. Which they aren’t currently. You can’t have a class doing the most damage and then make it impossible to focus that class. It is ludicrous.

Thieves do lots of damage regardless of the build. This is not pistol whip specific.

Pistol Whip dps is slightly more to on per with the auto attack chain damage. The differences are:

• PW doesn’t inflict weakness and cripple w/ 80% uptime
• PW evades
• PW can’t be perma spammed
• 5 initiative skills, when blowing all your natural initiative, can only be used 14 times per 60 seconds, at a frequency of about 4.3 times per 15 seconds. In the case of PW this creates at best about a 33% uptime of telegraphed evasion if all you do is spam the skill. Comparably, weakness (like from the auto attack) reduces the effective damage of pure zerk builds by about 67% overall.
• PW roots you for about 1.2 seconds unless you cancel the flurry early
• PW damage can’t kite with a target
• PW stuns for 0.5 seconds, enough time to dodge and prevent 40-50% of the flurry damage.

PW does less dmg than AA chain so everyone that says that it ‘does too much dmg’ is blatantly wrong.
The stun lasts long enough to deal 2-3 strikes after which you’re free to go away from it.
This is the price for the evade. Spamming 3 is not the greatest idea and dying to it is poor gameplay and not OP PW.
Also, it is less spammable than it used to be pre ini-regen change because ratio of trait nerfs vs sheer ini regen is lower than pre-change – it’s spammed LESS.

What it should use is Stun-Flurry split that Cynz has mentioned in the first page (with reduced precast on Flurry part) at the same time the cost might be increased to 6 and split in 2-4 ratio. This would give S/P both higher skill floor and ceiling.
Cheers!

Dear Arena Net,

This community hates thieves. So in order to fix all problems with the thief class you need to remove off hand weapons. Reduce auto attack damage, reduce total initiative to four, make sure thieves have chill and weakness constantly applied to them, Give the thief only five trait points, remove all teleports from the class, Make sure the only utilities the class has access to are traps, remove all forms of healing, make sure thieves have a constant target over their head, and remove the short bow from the list of thief weapons. If you do all of this then the community might not hate thieves as much.

Pistol Whip has a wind up. The wind up is hard to see at a distance or if the thief is an asura (this is a whole different can of wurms). This why most thieves use teleport skills to land a pistol whip. The stun portion of this skill is block able so you can just walk away from the thief. The thief is not evading when casting the stun or in the last few swings of the “whip” portion of the skill. Clone death + necromancer pet death still goes through the evade frames. The damage pistol whip does is hardly greater than one auto attack chain. Hundred Blades does more damage and can be used more often per minute then pistol whip.

People say its cheesy and skill less. These people are probably playing PU phantasm mesmers, MM necros, Sprit rangers, Hambow warriors, or any other type of passive play style. They have forgotten how to react to active play. People also seem to forget that all thief weapons share the same resource pool. A thief with no initiative swapping from S/P to D/D will not be able to perform cloak and dagger right away unlike a warrior going from spamming his hammer skills to then spamming his longbow skills then five seconds later switching back to his hammer.

They want the evade frames gone; the stun gone, Initiative increased, and the damage reduce even further. Without the evade frames the thief will die if they use this skill. The community basically wants free kills. The stun makes sure half the damage from pistol whip lands unless in a few cases you get lucky with RNG quickness or pop haste. Some guy wanted the initiative increased to eight, as a thief you only get twelve or fifteen initiative. So in order to use pistol whip you lose out on first strikes and a large part of lead attacks traits. It also leaves the thief with only four or seven initiative. PvE wise the weapon set is now garbage if that were to happen. The stun can only hit one person. If that person isn’t you take a step back. If that person is you, you will actually have to use a survival utility to live! Group retaliation or just retaliation will still wreck a pistol whip thief.

Arena net I beg you lock this forum. Do not change anything with pistol whip YET. Release the March 18th patch. See if the community can actually learn to counter pistol whip before you decide to gut this weapon set. Go after passive play first. Your game has a fun active combat system. Don’t wreck it because people refuse how to learn to play.

Marlafox.8715:

Dear Arena Net,

This community hates thieves. So in order to fix all problems with the thief class you need to remove off hand weapons. Reduce auto attack damage, reduce total initiative to four, make sure thieves have chill and weakness constantly applied to them, Give the thief only five trait points, remove all teleports from the class, Make sure the only utilities the class has access to are traps, remove all forms of healing, make sure thieves have a constant target over their head, and remove the short bow from the list of thief weapons. If you do all of this then the community might not hate thieves as much.

Pistol Whip has a wind up. The wind up is hard to see at a distance or if the thief is an asura (this is a whole different can of wurms). This why most thieves use teleport skills to land a pistol whip. The stun portion of this skill is block able so you can just walk away from the thief. The thief is not evading when casting the stun or in the last few swings of the “whip” portion of the skill. Clone death + necromancer pet death still goes through the evade frames. The damage pistol whip does is hardly greater than one auto attack chain. Hundred Blades does more damage and can be used more often per minute then pistol whip.

People say its cheesy and skill less. These people are probably playing PU phantasm mesmers, MM necros, Sprit rangers, Hambow warriors, or any other type of passive play style. They have forgotten how to react to active play. People also seem to forget that all thief weapons share the same resource pool. A thief with no initiative swapping from S/P to D/D will not be able to perform cloak and dagger right away unlike a warrior going from spamming his hammer skills to then spamming his longbow skills then five seconds later switching back to his hammer.

They want the evade frames gone; the stun gone, Initiative increased, and the damage reduce even further. Without the evade frames the thief will die if they use this skill. The community basically wants free kills. The stun makes sure half the damage from pistol whip lands unless in a few cases you get lucky with RNG quickness or pop haste. Some guy wanted the initiative increased to eight, as a thief you only get twelve or fifteen initiative. So in order to use pistol whip you lose out on first strikes and a large part of lead attacks traits. It also leaves the thief with only four or seven initiative. PvE wise the weapon set is now garbage if that were to happen. The stun can only hit one person. If that person isn’t you take a step back. If that person is you, you will actually have to use a survival utility to live! Group retaliation or just retaliation will still wreck a pistol whip thief.

Arena net I beg you lock this forum. Do not change anything with pistol whip YET. Release the March 18th patch. See if the community can actually learn to counter pistol whip before you decide to gut this weapon set. Go after passive play first. Your game has a fun active combat system. Don’t wreck it because people refuse how to learn to play.

+9000

Marlafox.8715:

Dear Arena Net,

This community hates thieves. So in order to fix all problems with the thief class you need to remove off hand weapons. Reduce auto attack damage, reduce total initiative to four, make sure thieves have chill and weakness constantly applied to them, Give the thief only five trait points, remove all teleports from the class, Make sure the only utilities the class has access to are traps, remove all forms of healing, make sure thieves have a constant target over their head, and remove the short bow from the list of thief weapons. If you do all of this then the community might not hate thieves as much.

Pistol Whip has a wind up. The wind up is hard to see at a distance or if the thief is an asura (this is a whole different can of wurms). This why most thieves use teleport skills to land a pistol whip. The stun portion of this skill is block able so you can just walk away from the thief. The thief is not evading when casting the stun or in the last few swings of the “whip” portion of the skill. Clone death + necromancer pet death still goes through the evade frames. The damage pistol whip does is hardly greater than one auto attack chain. Hundred Blades does more damage and can be used more often per minute then pistol whip.

People say its cheesy and skill less. These people are probably playing PU phantasm mesmers, MM necros, Sprit rangers, Hambow warriors, or any other type of passive play style. They have forgotten how to react to active play. People also seem to forget that all thief weapons share the same resource pool. A thief with no initiative swapping from S/P to D/D will not be able to perform cloak and dagger right away unlike a warrior going from spamming his hammer skills to then spamming his longbow skills then five seconds later switching back to his hammer.

They want the evade frames gone; the stun gone, Initiative increased, and the damage reduce even further. Without the evade frames the thief will die if they use this skill. The community basically wants free kills. The stun makes sure half the damage from pistol whip lands unless in a few cases you get lucky with RNG quickness or pop haste. Some guy wanted the initiative increased to eight, as a thief you only get twelve or fifteen initiative. So in order to use pistol whip you lose out on first strikes and a large part of lead attacks traits. It also leaves the thief with only four or seven initiative. PvE wise the weapon set is now garbage if that were to happen. The stun can only hit one person. If that person isn’t you take a step back. If that person is you, you will actually have to use a survival utility to live! Group retaliation or just retaliation will still wreck a pistol whip thief.

Arena net I beg you lock this forum. Do not change anything with pistol whip YET. Release the March 18th patch. See if the community can actually learn to counter pistol whip before you decide to gut this weapon set. Go after passive play first. Your game has a fun active combat system. Don’t wreck it because people refuse how to learn to play.

What do you think of my suggestion? Would you be OK with spliting the skill like S/D?
To a degree, I agree with you. There is no need to neuter the skill and make the weapon set unviable. On the other hand though, dissuading people from #3 spam and adding depth would increase the skill needed to pull off this weponset and allow for more enjoyable gameplay for both the thief and the opponent.

Marlafox.8715:

Don’t wreck it because people refuse how to learn to play.

You’re talking about the most noob friendly thief build that is easily capable of destroying decent players and you’re saying we need to learn how to play?

I’m sorry but reading through your entire post is sickening, you clearly have no idea how the opponent feels.

Keep this thread open please Anet, it’s much needed.

candlecan.9827:

First off, as many have stated already, the initiative buff last patch is the largest factor responsible for thieves causing balance issues.

If I were to change pistol whip this is how I would do it.

Split the skill into 2 parts and invert the order.
Part one: Slash repeatedly with your sword and evade attacks

Part two: Whip the enemy with your pistol stunning them (1/2 second stun)

This ensures that if you want to use the skill offensively, you must actively CC your target before hand. If you want to use your PW defensively for an evade, its still accessible on the first activation of the skill.

Have the skill act just as Flanking Strike/ Larceonous Strike do as well. Once you use the first activation, flip to the second for x amount of seconds. If you use the 2nd skill it rotates back to the first, if you dont you have to wait out the duration until the 1st skill is available again. This helps to negate spamming evade frames.

I think this is the cleanest way to help negate the issues plaguing this skill.

If you split the skill this way, I can’t think of a single reason to ever use the second part. The only reason a 1/2 second stun works on Pistol Whip now is because it immediately chains into a heavy hit. Without this, it’s a tiny stun where you can only really land the first attack of an AA chain. The only real advantage of having a stun this short if you can’t get a burst in is to interrupt, which can already be accomplished at range with Headshot. Either that or they would just use the ability once, then use the second portion and chain immediately into the first step of the skill again to get the effect of the current Pistol Whip.

Dahkeus.8243:

candlecan.9827:

First off, as many have stated already, the initiative buff last patch is the largest factor responsible for thieves causing balance issues.

If I were to change pistol whip this is how I would do it.

Split the skill into 2 parts and invert the order.
Part one: Slash repeatedly with your sword and evade attacks

Part two: Whip the enemy with your pistol stunning them (1/2 second stun)

This ensures that if you want to use the skill offensively, you must actively CC your target before hand. If you want to use your PW defensively for an evade, its still accessible on the first activation of the skill.

Have the skill act just as Flanking Strike/ Larceonous Strike do as well. Once you use the first activation, flip to the second for x amount of seconds. If you use the 2nd skill it rotates back to the first, if you dont you have to wait out the duration until the 1st skill is available again. This helps to negate spamming evade frames.

I think this is the cleanest way to help negate the issues plaguing this skill.

If you split the skill this way, I can’t think of a single reason to ever use the second part. The only reason a 1/2 second stun works on Pistol Whip now is because it immediately chains into a heavy hit. Without this, it’s a tiny stun where you can only really land the first attack of an AA chain. The only real advantage of having a stun this short if you can’t get a burst in is to interrupt, which can already be accomplished at range with Headshot. Either that or they would just use the ability once, then use the second portion and chain immediately into the first step of the skill again to get the effect of the current Pistol Whip.

My thinking is this:

First time in the fight the evade and damage portion of the skill acts like blurred frenzy for mesmers. Its can be used on demand for an evade or you can Infiltrator’s strike to immob into your slashing. Then the skill flips over to the stun. For example purposes lets suppose the skill flip lasts for 10 seconds if unused. You now have a 10 second window in which the skill is “primed” and can work as it does currently, stun —> damage. If you just haphazardly use the stun to “burn” it and access the evade again, you have used initiative on nothing and it would have consequences (in theory). If you go Infultrator’s Strike —> Slash —> Stun —> Slash, with the correct initiative costs this would deplete your initiative and leave you vulnerable (aka an all or nothing move if you try to cheese the mechanic and squeeze all the burst you can from it).

Another words the purpose of the inversion is to apply some sort of initiative cost to “prime” the skill into the stun→slash combination. It would require timing and management that the skill currently lacks and it would potentially curb the effectiveness of blindly spamming 3.

What about removing the stun, so you only have the second part. And remove the root, so you can walk while using flurry?

If you move while using PW, this skill does not evade.

Just a random suggestion thats all.

As thief main I will say that s/p is generally inferior as a roaming spike build, HOWEVER it’s main feature is that it lets the thief pull off invulnerable bursts when combined with their own or others CC skills (like warrior hammer…)—and this is probably a big nono.

Against anybody with vigor or runspeed it is pretty subpar though. IMO increasing the initiative cost is not the answer, since it will still nearly 1 shot squishies. I would like to see the skill split (like flanking) and the flurry channel decreased in duration/swings dramatically. The emphasis should be on making the second half a “responsive” evade that tosses in a few swings for good measure instead of a skill that unleashes aoe hell if you can lock somebody down for the duration.