[Thief] Vital Shot
P/P isn’t a primary weapon set. Stop thinking of it that way.
Instead imagine using unload ranged burst potential to combat classes that are trying to kite you.
I’ve seen thieves open up with melee burst and finish em with the pistol stealth shot into unload.
Buffing vital shot is NOT an option due to P/D
Also unload hits for a truck load for being a ranged attack
This is actually fun.
Just play S/D or S/P. When they try to kite you and they’re all smug, switch to PP and pewpewpewpewpewpewpewpew. You’ll scare the crap out of them. Not MLGpro level, I don’t think, but it’s enough of a curveball to confuse them.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
The point is that P/D has easier access to Sneak Attack than P/P AND benefits more from using it. Additionally, condition damage is more passive which means you don’t have to stand still and channel something to generate it AND it synergizes really well with Caltrops, especially in PvE. These are all reasons why P/D works better.
so basically p/d’s good. we know. in fact, it’s a very good reason not to adjust Vital Shot because buffing p/d’s 1 skill to do 33-50% more direct damage would be a pretty huge buff.
OMG.
First, no – 15-25% damage buff, not 33-50%.
Second, no – Vital Shot is just as stupidly weak with P/D as it is with P/P, but the effect is diluted with P/D because the damage comes from multiple sources while allowing you to remain mobile. Buffing Vital Shot would have a smaller practical impact on P/D than it would on P/P.
Third, no – that’s why you balance Sneak Attack.
Virtually every argument you throw out shows your inability or unwillingness to consider more than one or two peripheral factors at a time. It isn’t worth arguing with you.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
P/P isn’t a primary weapon set. Stop thinking of it that way.
Instead imagine using unload ranged burst potential to combat classes that are trying to kite you.
I’ve seen thieves open up with melee burst and finish em with the pistol stealth shot into unload.
Buffing vital shot is NOT an option due to P/D
Also unload hits for a truck load for being a ranged attack
Like most dissenting arguments in this thread, this one makes no sense. What is the point of having a weapon set with a full 5 skills if its only use is to give you a single you a single utilitarian burst attack for a single specific situation?
Sorry, not buying it. Saying ‘but it works for this!’ isn’t an excuse for it to have completely broken resource management and be a poor performer in the vast majority of situations.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
First, no – 15-25% damage buff, not 33-50%.
Earlier, you claimed that vital shot was 60% of Unload, when it should be 80-90%.
Vital Shot probably does an average of 60% of the damage Unload does when it should be more like 80-90%
Boosting Vital Shot from 60% of Unload’s damage to 80% would be a 33% buff. Boosting Vital Shot from 60% of Unload’s damage to 90% would be a 50% buff.
I’m not sure whether you forgot you said that, or whether you remember it and just don’t know how to math?
Second, no – Vital Shot is just as stupidly weak with P/D as it is with P/P, but the effect is diluted with P/D because the damage comes from multiple sources while allowing you to remain mobile. Buffing Vital Shot would have a smaller practical impact on P/D than it would on P/P.
I’m actually inclined to say the opposite. Unload’s a 2 1/4 second channel, IIRC. A lot of your time as PP is spent unloading. A buff to Vital Shot would only affect your downtime when you have no Initiative.
On the other hand, P/D’s abilities have no channels- they’re all quite quick. They spend quite a bit of time using Vital Shot. This leads me to believe that P/D would be benefiting at least a similar amount from a Vital Shot buff.
Third, no – that’s why you balance Sneak Attack.
How?
Make it deal more damage? You’ve made Sneak Attack completely invalidate Backstab.
Make it deal less damage? You’ve made Sneak Attack a waste of time.
Virtually every argument you throw out shows your inability or unwillingness to consider more than one or two peripheral factors at a time. It isn’t worth arguing with you.
I’m inclined to agree that this discussion can’t bear any fruit either. You keep jumping between things; you say “mediocre” when you mean “average”, you forget the numbers you’ve already posted, you take time out of your busy day to include comments like “this is a dumb argument” and “it isn’t rocket science”. How is this supposed to be fair to me?
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
First, no – 15-25% damage buff, not 33-50%.
Earlier, you claimed that vital shot was 60% of Unload, when it should be 80-90%.
Vital Shot probably does an average of 60% of the damage Unload does when it should be more like 80-90%
Boosting Vital Shot from 60% of Unload’s damage to 80% would be a 33% buff. Boosting Vital Shot from 60% of Unload’s damage to 90% would be a 50% buff.
I’m not sure whether you forgot you said that, or whether you remember it and just don’t know how to math?
Second, no – Vital Shot is just as stupidly weak with P/D as it is with P/P, but the effect is diluted with P/D because the damage comes from multiple sources while allowing you to remain mobile. Buffing Vital Shot would have a smaller practical impact on P/D than it would on P/P.
I’m actually inclined to say the opposite. Unload’s a 2 1/4 second channel, IIRC. A lot of your time as PP is spent unloading. A buff to Vital Shot would only affect your downtime when you have no Initiative.
On the other hand, P/D’s abilities have no channels- they’re all quite quick. They spend quite a bit of time using Vital Shot. This leads me to believe that P/D would be benefiting at least a similar amount from a Vital Shot buff.
Third, no – that’s why you balance Sneak Attack.
How?
Make it deal more damage? You’ve made Sneak Attack completely invalidate Backstab.
Make it deal less damage? You’ve made Sneak Attack a waste of time.Virtually every argument you throw out shows your inability or unwillingness to consider more than one or two peripheral factors at a time. It isn’t worth arguing with you.
I’m inclined to agree that this discussion can’t bear any fruit either. You keep jumping between things; you say “mediocre” when you mean “average”, you forget the numbers you’ve already posted, you take time out of your busy day to include comments like “this is a dumb argument” and “it isn’t rocket science”. How is this supposed to be fair to me?
The numbers in the original post were just wild, impromptu guesswork. I would imagine a 20-25% increase for Vital Shot would be about right. The ENTIRE PROBLEM with P/P is that you more or less have to spend all of your time Unloading to sustain reasonable damage. That’s the point of buffing Vital Shot, so that you actually gain the intended flexibility with the set. Spamming Unload becomes a tactical option for quick damage like using Black Powder is for defense rather than a perpetual necessity. How do you not get this?
For Sneak Attack, no, as I said more than once you simply convert some of the bleed damage to direct damage so that it’s a bit better with P/P and a bit less good with P/D; it should probably be about a 50/50 ratio like Vital Shot itself is.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
The numbers in the original post were just wild, impromptu guesswork. I would imagine a 20-25% increase for Vital Shot would be about right.
If that was wild impromptu guesswork, where are you deriving your “20-25%” increase from?
Screw it. Gonna figure out just how much the difference between Unload and Vital shot is, because I’m pretty sure it’s not so big that 20-25% is required to put it in order.
I’m going to run the numbers for two thieves; one which is spamming just Vital Shot, and one which has hacked the game and is able to regenerate their initiative quickly enough to be able to return to 15 initiative while casting Unload. This is the build which I’ll be using.
I’ll be doing this in four stages; I’ll calculate untraited DPS, then calculate the impact of traits, then critical strikes, then the condition damage which Vital Shot deals. I will not be including Vulnerability, Might, Fury, or the complicated effects of Runes or Sigils, because I am lazy. Both Thieves are always able to benefit from Flanking Strikes and Side Strikes.
Untraited
Vital Shot direct damage at the moment:
134+950.4=1084.4
Unload direct damage at the moment:
101+712.8= 813.8 per shot
813.8*8=6546.4
Vital Shot direct DPS at the moment:
1084.4*2=2168.8
Unload direct DPS at the moment:
6546.4*4/9=2909.51111111
2168.8/2909.51111111=0.7454173286
Vital Shot is currently 74.5% of the DPS of Unload, not including the conditions applied.
Traits
These traits have a direct effect on the numbers of both Vital Shot and Unload, and are not affected by Initiative:
Pistol Mastery: +10% damage
Executioner: +10% damage (averaged out)
Flanking Strikes: +5% damage
These traits are dependent on Initiative. They have a variable effect on an Unload-centric rotation’s DPS, and not a Vital Shot-centric rotation:
First Strikes: +10% damage (if over 6 initiative)
Lead Attacks: +1-15% damage (depending on initiative)
We end up with 50% increased direct damage to Vital Shot, and 45-50% increased direct damage to an Unload rotation which can magically restore all of its initiative while using an Unload.
Vital Shot DPS: 2168.8*1.5=3253.2
Unload low DPS: 2909.51111111*1.45=4218.79111111
Unload high DPS: 2909.51111111*1.50=4364.26666667
Critical Strikes
Critical strikes affect Unload and Vital Shot equally. The build has a 66.86% chance to critically strike. This is an old version of the build calculator, and has not been adjusted to account for the Ferocity change, so the numbers generated here will be slightly inflated as a result.
Crit damage calculation:
.6686*2.5=1.6715
Vital Shot DPS=3253.2*1.6715=5437.7238
Unload low DPS=4218.79111111*1.6715=7051.70934222
Unload high DPS=4364.26666667*1.6715=7294.87173334
Vital Shot’s bleed damage
58/s per bleed stack with this build
Each bleed lasts 4.4 seconds, and a bleed is applied twice every second. Truncate bleed duration to 4 seconds.
58*4*2=464 extra damage applied every second.
5437.7238+464=5901.7238
Conclusion
I am truncating numbers for the sake of readability here.
Vital Shot-centric rotation deals 5902 DPS. Unload-centric rotation deals between 7052 and 7295 damage.
5902/7052=.83
5902/7295=.81
A Vital Shot centric rotation currently deals between 81% and 83% of the damage a pure Unload rotation does. By buffing Vital Shot’s damage by “20-25%”, you are overshooting your initially stated goal by at least 11% and making Vital Shot deal more DPS than Unload, even in optimal circumstances.
My wild guesses about the assumptions that I made:
Might benefits Vital Shot rotation significantly more than it does Unload, by improving the amount of damage Bleeding does.
Fury and Vulnerability slightly benefit Unload rotation more, because Fury and Vulnerability do not affect Vital Shot’s bleeds.
Sigils and Runes slightly benefit Unload rotation more, because they are not a component of Vital Shot’s bleeds, unless a bleeding duration/condition damage/condition duration rune/sigil set is used, which does more harm than good to the Vital Shot rotation.
Vital Shot’s aftercast is not calculated because I don’t know it. I’m just using the wiki’s numbers.
If there are any mistakes in my math, please let me know.
Super Conclusion: Vital Shot is not the problem. Unload is the problem- if there even is one.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
Hello, Sarrs.4831.
Your post was amazing that I have to shed some tears. But there is one flaw in your math. If you don’t believe me then you try a Thief with P/P with your best Power build and join a PvP game and see for yourself if you can hurt anyone if you simply spam Vital Shot alone.
All is vain.
Hello, Sarrs.4831.
Your post was amazing that I have to shed some tears. But there is one flaw in your math. If you don’t believe me then you try a Thief with P/P with your best Power build and join a PvP game and see for yourself if you can hurt anyone if you simply spam Vital Shot alone.
Few points;
I do use that build, with a few minor changes, in hotjoin (different sigils and runes, combo critical chance instead of side strike). I don’t use it in solo queue or team queue because… Well, it’s bad, and it’s bad whether I use unload or vital shot. It isn’t bad because of Vital Shot’s damage, though.
This is a pure numbers analysis, and Vital Shot still loses by 20%. It’s still an objectively worse thing to do, to spam Vital Shot instead of properly use Unload, but the point wasn’t to demonstrate that Vital Shot is better or equal to Unload- The point was that a 20-25% increase is a ridiculous amount to boost Vital Shot, especially considering that such a change has overflow to P/D. If you want to make P/D objectively better than P/P, this is a great way to do it.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
Man that was a lot of work considering that you complicated the comparison needlessly without even factoring in Vital Shot’s aftercast, which is one of the most significant components and is even on the wiki. Additionally, Pistol Mastery for sure and I believe the other traits only affect direct damage, not bleed damage, so they benefit Unload significantly more than Vital Shot.
Let’s just look at baseline statistics taken from the build editor, which for the most part corroborate your math.
Vital Shot – 134 direct damage, 170 bleed damage with a .82 refire rate
Unload – 808 direct damage over 1.75 seconds with a .1 recast delay
Let’s take an arbitrary value for time- we’ll go with 6 seconds:
7.3 Vital Shots
3.3 Unloads
Vital Shot damage total = 978/1241 total direct/bleed damage
Unload damage total = 2666 total damage
The direct damage portion of Vital Shot is 36% the strength of Unload, and the total direct + bleed damage is 83% of the damage of Unload, which is admittedly closer than I had assumed.
However, the problem remains the same. Because condition damage is delayed and can be more easily mitigated, it is ‘worth’ significantly less than direct damage. Also, because Unload is spammable and benefits more from crit and Pistol mastery (which if you don’t have you shouldn’t be using P/P), it is capable of putting out far more damage than Vital Shot can in a given window of time and therefore carries excessive responsibility for the set’s overall damage pressure.
In short, the baseline percentages break down like this:
Vital Shot – 36% direct damage, 83% total damage of Unload
It is critically important to note that this is skewed much further by the way you should be building with P/P. Between traits and gear you’re likely to end up with something more like Vital Shot doing 70% of the damage Unload does.
When the proportion should be more like this, which would be accomplished by reducing the aftercast by .2 seconds:
Vital Shot – 50% direct damage, 110% total damage of Unload.
The above would in no way make Unload useless or obsolete, because there’s tremendous value in 100% of the damage it does being direct damage as opposed to condition damage – it’s burstier, way less likely to be mitigated, and will be impacted significantly more by crit stacking builds. Many people would still spam it, but it would give the set enough flexibility that it wouldn’t be required.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
Man that was a lot of work considering that you complicated the comparison needlessly without even factoring in Vital Shot’s aftercast, which is one of the most significant components and is even on the wiki. Additionally, Pistol Mastery for sure and I believe the other traits only affect direct damage, not bleed damage, so they benefit Unload significantly more than Vital Shot.
It’s fairly simple; most of the work is in how it’s structured.
The aftercast isn’t there, but the total cast time is, and I made a mistake with Unload’s cast time. I’m making the adjustments now; my apologies, as they quite significantly change the results.
Vital Shot-centric rotation deals 5902 DPS. Unload-centric rotation deals between 7052 and 7295 damage.
Vital Shot
5902/2=2951
2951*1.2=3541.2
Low Unload
(7052*9)/4=15867
15867*(4/7)=9066.85714286
High Unload
(7295*9)/4=16413.75
16413.75*(4/7)=9379.28571429
Therefore, Vital Shot spam deals 3541 DPS. Unload spam deals between 9067 and 9379 damage. This assumes that 1.2 Vital Shots are made per second, and 1 Unload takes 1.75 sec to complete, with no cast delays.
You are correct in that all damage % multipliers are applied only to the direct damage portion of the attack. This is why I ordered the analysis in the way that I did; multipliers come before the Bleed damage is added.
Let’s just look at baseline statistics taken from the build editor, which for the most part corroborate your math.
Vital Shot – 134 direct damage, 170 bleed damage with a .82 refire rate
Unload – 808 direct damage over 1.75 seconds with a .1 recast delayLet’s take an arbitrary value for time- we’ll go with 6 seconds:
7.3 Vital Shots
3.3 UnloadsVital Shot damage total = 978/1241 total direct/bleed damage
Unload damage total = 2666 total damage
You are completely ignoring Power and Condition Damage; the effect they have on numbers is not a direct translation.
However, the problem remains the same. Because condition damage is delayed and can be more easily mitigated, it is ‘worth’ significantly less than direct damage.
Armor? Toughness? Protection? Direct damage is subject to just as much mitigation as condi damage, if not more. If you’re just spamming Vital Shot I’m personally kinda doubtful that anyone will bother spending their condi removal to take it off.
Also, because Unload is spammable and benefits more from crit and Pistol mastery (which if you don’t have you shouldn’t be using P/P), it is capable of putting out far more damage than Vital Shot can in a given window of time and therefore carries excessive responsibility for the set’s overall damage pressure.
I have included Pistol Mastery and critical damage in my calculations. They’re in the sections labelled “traits” and “critical strikes”.
It is critically important to note that this is skewed much further by the way you should be building with P/P. Between traits and gear you’re likely to end up with something more like Vital Shot doing 70% of the damage Unload does.
If you have a spec with which to perform an analysis, please feel free to post it. This spec has some provisions in its utilities to ensure that it doesn’t die. I’d be very interested in seeing a higher-damage version of an Unload build.
I’ve calculated the effects of traits and crits.
When the proportion should be more like this:
Vital Shot – 50% direct damage, 110% total damage of Unload.The above would in no way make Unload useless or obsolete, because there’s tremendous value in 100% of the damage it does being direct damage as opposed to condition damage – it’s burstier, way less likely to be mitigated, and will be impacted significantly more by crit stacking builds. Many people would still spam it, but it would give the set enough flexibility that it wouldn’t be required.
Only if you analyze P/P in a vacuum. If you’re P/P with either Shortbow or no alt set, then Unload is superior to Vital Shot for burst.
However, that’s a vacuum. Pistol Whip is a better burst ability than Unload, and I’m fairly sure most people will agree. SP/PD would be able to retain all the utility of PP, retain the max range pressure of a buffed Vital Shot(which now deals more damage over time than Unload), and substitute Unload with the superior Pistol Whip. The only strengths that Unload has over Pistol Whip are Ricochet and range; Ricochet requires a specific set of circumstances to come out on top over cleaving attacks like Pistol Whip, and while the range can be useful, Pistol Whip’s evade frames beat it out.
I still don’t think a Vital Shot buff is the right way to address Unload.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
Look, we’re just on fundamentally different pages here. You are focused on Unload being the issue.. I’m not arguing that there’s no chance Unload needs a buff – maybe it does. But it’s not the problem with the set. At most, it deserves a 10% damage increase OR some additional utility. It does less total damage than Pistol Whip and lacks cleave, but it also has 900 range, casts faster, and is harder to evade. There are also limitations to swapping sets midfight and it isn’t always practical to do so even when you could.
That is simply not the case with Vital Shot, which is a good 20% shy of where it should be at best, leading to issues with resource management and general playability for the entire set. Whether it’s too weak, too strong, or just right, Unload is still more critical than #2, #4, or #5 a disproportionately large percentage of the time just because it’s pigeonholed into functioning as your main source of DPS. Buffing Unload won’t change that and will just pressure you even more into spamming it endlessly, keeping your versatility, mobility, sustained DPS, and utility all perpetually poor while leaving the set’s overall playstyle feeling boring, spammy, and one-trick pony.
It’s just bad design. Despite my snark, you come across as a smart guy – I don’t see how you can’t see this.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
Look, we’re just on fundamentally different pages here. You are focused on Unload being the issue.. I’m not arguing that there’s no chance Unload needs a buff – maybe it does. But it’s not the problem with the set. At most, it deserves a 10% damage increase OR some additional utility. It does less total damage than Pistol Whip and lacks cleave, but it also has 900 range and channels a bit faster; I don’t actually know that PW is superior burst. They’re definitely close to one another, and Unload does its full damage a bit faster.
I’m focusing on Unload because Unload is the only skill that can be changed for PP without there being knock-on effects from buffing a skill. Pretty much every other weapon spread in a Thief’s kitten nal is just fine, except for PP. (I’d actually probably argue that DD could use a bit of love as well, but that’s not what we’re here for).
That is simply not the case with Vital Shot, which is a good 20% shy of where it should be at best, leading to issues with resource management and general playability for the entire set.
I’m going to respond to the first section of this twice because there’s two ways of going about it.
Vital Shot is a good 20% shy of where it needs to be in a PP set. That’s the problem with buffing it; you make other builds’ 1 skill 20% better, you start chasing other skills (like Sneak Attack) to try to fix the issue- And before long, you’ve got dozens of skills which all need adjustment. Thieves are in a decent place right now, and tromping about making changes causes upsets all across the board.
Vital Shot is a good 20% shy of where it needs to be in your interpretation of PP. You’ve set up the statement that all weapon sets in the game use 1 as their damage baseline, and that’s true- for classes which have cooldowns dictating their weapons (not a thief, in other words). You’ve also set up the statement that all Thief weapon sets need to use their 1 as their baseline, which I disagree with because, to the best of my knowledge, every other weapon for a Thief relies on skills other than their 1 to deliver their damage. Sword 1 is the exception, not the rule.
The issue is that, whether it’s too weak, too strong, or just right, Unload is still more critical than #2, #4, or #5 a disproportionately large percentage of the time just because it’s pigeonholed into functioning as your main source of DPS.
You make note of Unload holding the set back because sustained use causes initiative issues, locking you out of your utility. I agree with this assessment.
Your recommendation is to increase Vital Shot’s damage so that when you do fail to manage your initiative, it’s less punishing. You’ll still run out of initiative when you spam Unload, but that’s okay, because you can fall back on Vital Shot if you screw up. This leans over and sticks its straw into P/D’s milkshake and drinks it up, which is very, very dangerous.
My recommendation is to reduce Unload’s initiative cost so that it’s significantly less taxing to maintain high Unload uptime. I think just saying this doesn’t quite have the impact it does, but reducing the resource cost of your primary attack by 20% is huge.
Buffing Unload won’t change that and will just make it even more critical that you spam it endlessly anytime you’re using P/P, keeping your versatility, mobility, sustained DPS, and utility all perpetually poor.
Okay, going to address each of these in turn.
Is spamming 1 better than spamming 3?
Reducing the initiative cost of Unload gives you more Initiative to spare for other utilities, increasing your versatility.
Reducing the initiative cost of Unload makes it less punishing to interrupt it- allowing you to dodge and move more.
Reducing the initiative cost has both direct increases on sustained DPS (more unloads = MORE BULLETS) and secondary effects (Lead Attacks/First Strikes have better uptime).
Reducing the initiative cost of Unload gives you more Initiative to spare for other utilities, increasing your… Uh, utility.
This all assumes that you’re actually talking about initiative and not time. If you’re literally talking about “time” as in the stuff that comes in balls of timey wimey stuff then just cut the init cost/cast time/bullets fired by unload and done, now Unload’s nowhere near as much of a time investment while retaining the damage.
It’s just bad design. Despite my snark, you come across as a smart guy – I don’t see how you can’t see this.
Thankyou for dropping the snark. It really makes a difference in how I interpret your posts.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
snip
Three quick rebuttals I have here-
First, is spamming #1 better than spamming #3? The answer is yes, for two reasons – a.) you don’t really “spam” #1 – it’s passive. b.) Vital Shot doesn’t cost initiative and doesn’t channel, which means you retain full mobility and access to utility.
Second, you only think reducing the cost of Unload would give you more Initiative for other things, when in reality – it wouldn’t. Unload is a better use of Initiative than any other skill 90% of the time, so all it would do would cause you to spam it even more and leave the set just as dysfunctional from a resource & utility perspective. It would only increase the burst damage without addressing any of the utility, mobility, or sustained DPS concerns, which is not really what P/P needs.
Third, I just simply don’t buy the ‘buffing vital shot = slippery slope’ argument. There’s a chance it will make P/D slightly too good, which isn’t even certain as P/D is only currently better than P/P because of its resource management, which this wouldn’t impact much. If after evaluation it proves to be too good, it will only be because of the combination of Sneak Attack and Vital Shot, so they would just need to rebalance Sneak Attack to do an even amount of direct and bleed damage instead of mostly bleed damage. Run the numbers yourself!
First, is spamming #1 better than spamming #3? The answer is yes, for two reasons – a.) you don’t really “spam” #1 – it’s passive. b.) Vital Shot doesn’t cost initiative and doesn’t channel, which means you retain full mobility and access to utility.
You can change your autocast to another ability to use that instead. There are at least a few specs that consciously click off their 1 autocast, particularly Ranger Sword. Even then if your spam’s on autocast, you’re now just sitting there doing nothing- The exact opposite problem.
Vital Shot doesn’t cost initiative and that’s one of its strengths- Yet Unload getting an initiative cost cut would not do anything. That’s a contradiction.
I am arguing exclusively against the assertion “Unload is too initiative-intensive, therefore Vital Shot should be buffed to take its place”. I don’t care about the cast time because that’s not what we’re talking about, unless the cast time is relevant to how expensive it is.
Second, you only think reducing the cost of Unload would give you more Initiative for other things, when in reality – it wouldn’t. Unload is a better use of Initiative than any other skill 90% of the time, so all it would do would cause you to spam it even more and leave the set just as dysfunctional from a resource & utility perspective. It would only increase the burst damage without addressing any of the utility, mobility, or sustained DPS concerns, which is not really what P/P needs.
Uh yeah. Being better than other abilities 90% of the time is… Normal. That’s how utility works; you don’t always need it. Trying a perfect 25/25/25/25 split between all four of your initiative spending abilities is silly.
I actually tested how much I can do pure Unloads as it stands with an Initiative focused spec, in the Heart of the Mists. Try it for yourself; 04046 spec, grab all the pistol vitals and initiative regen traits and skills. The only thing that kept me from constantly Unloading and Sneak Attacking was when Steal didn’t give me a Blinding Tuft. If Unload cost 4 Initiative then I’m fairly confident I could spam Unload without ever going underneath 7 initiative.
Seriously, don’t understate how big a cost drop is. A 20% boost in resources over in WoWland changes a Rogue from energy starved to unable to spend all their energy.
Third, I just simply don’t buy the ‘buffing vital shot = slippery slope’ argument. There’s a chance it will make P/D slightly too good, which isn’t even certain as P/D is only currently better than P/P because of its resource management, which this wouldn’t impact much. If after evaluation it proves to be too good, it will only be because of the combination of Sneak Attack and Vital Shot, so they would just need to rebalance Sneak Attack to do an even amount of direct and bleed damage instead of mostly bleed damage. Run the numbers yourself!
It’s better than P/P for several reasons. It has native access to stealth (DO NOT UNDERSTATE HOW BIG AN ADVANTAGE THIS IS), its damage isn’t tied up in a long channel, it’s less resource dependent, more condi protection…
If Vital Shot dealt more damage than Unload in all circumstances, I’d never use PP. Like I said, no reason not to use PD/SP. Pistol Whip’s better than Unload.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
I wonder if it would be viable to make Vital Shot put 4 stacks of vuln (remove the bleed), and remove the vuln on Body Shot and replace it with 3 stacks of bleed.
(edited by roamzero.9486)
Vital shot needs a large buff. Thats all I have to say. I just hope the Dev’s read this because it is a really poor auto attack for pistols.
Edit /04/05/14: It’s great to see this post pop back up and see so many great ideas being posted. Hopefully we have the Dev’s interested by now and if not, hopefully we can soon.
I believe what Vital shot needs is greater direct damage and reduced after cast, that way it can stack bleeds for p/d and maintain DPS for P/P. It would be nice to see it twice as fast, although that’s probably pushing it a bit
Bleed per auto attack not enough? Wow… Rangers would love to have vital shot in our shortbow.
Success is my only option, failure is not.
Uh yeah. Being better than other abilities 90% of the time is… Normal. That’s how utility works; you don’t always need it.
Uh no. No it isn’t. I don’t even understand how you’re rationalizing that assertion.
No other class deals with this because they use cooldowns (meaning skills don’t share a resource and don’t lock each other out), and with all other thief weapons the autoattack is sufficiently strong enough that #2-5 take on utilitarian roles where they are better in some situations than in others, which is how it’s supposed to work. When you’re playing with D/D you don’t just endlessly spam Heartseeker, or Death Blossom, or any of the others, because they all have different strategic uses and which one is better is dynamic based on context. With P/P, Unload is virtually always better than the other skills, because using any of the other skills takes too much away from your damage, which, ultimately, is more important than any other utility. That’s why Initiative skills that are damage focused should only be slightly stronger than the autoattack and not significantly stronger, so that there’s a balance between Initiative skills and, for example, Body Shot may be more useful than Unload in some situations.
I’m sorry, but you just plain are not thinking about this in the correct way – you’re locked into a very specific dogma here that just isn’t very defensible. Maybe I’m not doing a great job of explaining it, but I know with absolute certainty that I’m right. Take a step back and really try to evaluate what I’m saying. You’re too literate for this.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
Vital shot needs a large buff. Thats all I have to say. I just hope the Dev’s read this because it is a really poor auto attack for pistols.
Edit /04/05/14: It’s great to see this post pop back up and see so many great ideas being posted. Hopefully we have the Dev’s interested by now and if not, hopefully we can soon.
I believe what Vital shot needs is greater direct damage and reduced after cast, that way it can stack bleeds for p/d and maintain DPS for P/P. It would be nice to see it twice as fast, although that’s probably pushing it a bit
Bleed per auto attack not enough? Wow… Rangers would love to have vital shot in our shortbow.
That’s…. dumb. Ranger shortbow fires about 3 times the speed of Vital Shot and does substantially more damage without even factoring in the bleed.
Vital shot needs a large buff. Thats all I have to say. I just hope the Dev’s read this because it is a really poor auto attack for pistols.
Edit /04/05/14: It’s great to see this post pop back up and see so many great ideas being posted. Hopefully we have the Dev’s interested by now and if not, hopefully we can soon.
I believe what Vital shot needs is greater direct damage and reduced after cast, that way it can stack bleeds for p/d and maintain DPS for P/P. It would be nice to see it twice as fast, although that’s probably pushing it a bit
Bleed per auto attack not enough? Wow… Rangers would love to have vital shot in our shortbow.
That’s…. dumb. Ranger shortbow fires about 3 times the speed of Vital Shot and does substantially more damage without even factoring in the bleed.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crossfire
you might want to do your math
Success is my only option, failure is not.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot
pretty decent with traits compared too http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosive_Shot
:/
Its Not Apho – Necromancer – Callous Philosophy [LaG] – Anguîsh [Ash]
Vital shot needs a large buff. Thats all I have to say. I just hope the Dev’s read this because it is a really poor auto attack for pistols.
Edit /04/05/14: It’s great to see this post pop back up and see so many great ideas being posted. Hopefully we have the Dev’s interested by now and if not, hopefully we can soon.
I believe what Vital shot needs is greater direct damage and reduced after cast, that way it can stack bleeds for p/d and maintain DPS for P/P. It would be nice to see it twice as fast, although that’s probably pushing it a bit
Bleed per auto attack not enough? Wow… Rangers would love to have vital shot in our shortbow.
That’s…. dumb. Ranger shortbow fires about 3 times the speed of Vital Shot and does substantially more damage without even factoring in the bleed.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crossfire
you might want to do your math
I was overstating for emphasis, but Crossfire is still unquestionably the stronger of the two attacks. It’s more than 50% faster than Vital Shot and therefore does more than 50% more direct damage. The bleed damage is about even when you’re able to consistently apply it.
Uh no. No it isn’t. I don’t even understand how you’re rationalizing that assertion.
You always need damage.
You don’t always need to immobilise people, you don’t always need to interrupt people, you don’t always need to blind people.
Assertion rationalized.
If you mean the “90%” number, then stop throwing out random numbers- Actually get a track of what abilities you use and when.
No other class deals with this because they use cooldowns (meaning skills don’t share a resource and don’t lock each other out), and with all other thief weapons the autoattack is sufficiently strong enough that #2-5 take on utilitarian roles where they are better in some situations than in others, which is how it’s supposed to work. When you’re playing with D/D you don’t just endlessly spam Heartseeker, or Death Blossom, or any of the others, because they all have different strategic uses and which one is better is dynamic based on context.
When you’re playing P/P you don’t endlessly spam Unload. In standard rotation, you put out Unloads when you’re about to cap out on, and therefore waste, Initiative. You only spam it in situations where you need burst- exactly what you want.
With P/P, Unload is virtually always better than the other skills, because using any of the other skills takes too much away from your damage, which, ultimately, is more important than any other utility. That’s why Initiative skills that are damage focused should only be slightly stronger than the autoattack and not significantly stronger, so that there’s a balance between Initiative skills and, for example, Body Shot may be more useful than Unload in some situations.
The main reason Body Shot will be more useful than Unload in some situations is because your Unload has no place in a max DPS rotation. You will start using Body Shot for the vulnerability because it’s a better spend when you’re at Initiative cap.
I’m sorry, but you just plain are not thinking about this in the correct way – you’re locked into a very specific dogma here that just isn’t very defensible. Maybe I’m not doing a great job of explaining it, but I know with absolute certainty that I’m right.
You accuse me of being locked into a specific dogma, and in the next sentence, you claim to know absolute truth. Seriously- the number work you’ve done is pretty kitten and you’re claiming to know your solution is flawless and will have no secondary repercussions that you haven’t accounted for.
Take a step back and really try to evaluate what I’m saying. You’re too literate for this.
I know what you’re saying. Move the damage emphasis from Unload to Vital Shot.
I disagree with you because it fundamentally changes the playstyle (you no longer need to manage your initiative for maximising damage; all thief weapons except S/D need to do this, and S/D is the exception, not the rule) and practical issues (PD is stronger, and PD/SP is now better in every situation except a very specific one).
I understand your position. I just think you’re wrong.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
I was overstating for emphasis, but Crossfire is still unquestionably the stronger of the two attacks. It’s more than 50% faster than Vital Shot and therefore does more than 50% more direct damage. The bleed damage is about even when you’re able to consistently apply it.
Vital Shot has a .82 total cast time.
Crossfire has a .54 total cast time.
.54/.82=0.65853658536.
This rounds nicely to 66%.
Crossfire is 34% faster than Vital Shot, not “more than 50% faster”.
Vital Shot’s bleed duration is 4 seconds. Crossfire’s bleed duration is 3 seconds. 4/3 = 133% = 33% better than Crossfire. This implies that your assessment is correct, and that the two abilities are more or less equal in condition application.
However, Vital Shot’s higher duration allows it to benefit more from Condition Duration. Vital Shot only needs 25% to gain an extra Bleed tick where Crossfire needs 33%. 25% is easily attainable by putting 25 points into Deadly Arts; a ranger would need to put 30 points in Marksmanship and then find another source to get the extra second. Vital Shot can push 6 bleed ticks per shot with Sigil of Agony + 30 Deadly Arts; it is impossible for an sPvP ranger to push a 5th bleed tick on Crossfire, even with full Marksmanship, Sigil of Agony and a condition duration runeset.
I don’t know whether these specs are popular, but 30 Deadly Arts has a nice trait for Condi Thieves in Residual Venom, whereas 30 Marksmanship doesn’t really have much bang for its buck.
Crossfire has a positional requirement, but Vital Shot does not. Another point in Vital Shot’s favor.
Also, Pistol Mastery is there with no equivalent trait for Rangers, and I’d argue that Ricochet is a stronger trait than Piercing Shots. It’s hard to line up shots to pierce in sPvP, whereas Ricochet is completely passive and requires no effort.
If the two skills traded places, Rangers would be stronger for it- 20 Marksmanship(a decent decision, so you can take Piercing Shots)+Agony+runes is 50% bleed duration. They get an extra bleed tick out of the trade, in exchange for a negligible amount of direct damage and slightly less Sharpened Edges procs- But if they build for 2 more ticks from Vital Shot, they’ll gain another tick out of each proc of Sharpened Edges.
Vital Shot has distinct advantages for condi builds over Crossfire. It is only “unquestionably better” if you’re arguing from a Power perspective rather than a Condi perspective, and that’s silly because use a longbow you stupid ranger.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
Sarrs, no. Vital Shot fires at 66% the speed that Crossfire does, meaning that Crossfire is roughly 50% faster (50% of 66% is 33%). In 6 seconds, Crossfire will shoot 11.1 times and Vital Shot will shoot 7.3 times.
In other words, Crossfire does slightly more than half-again the direct damage that Vital Shot does, and roughly the same amount of bleed damage if the bleeds are consistently applied. It’s probably about equivalent to Vital Shot without the bleeds (don’t forget about procs) and becomes unequivocally better if you’re even sometimes able to apply them.
As for the the post above that, I misinterpreted the “90%” rebuttal, but you still aren’t thinking right. Yes, damage is needed much more often than utility, but no other set forces you to sacrifice damage for utility, because they are either governed by cooldowns, meaning the skills function independently of one another, or the autoattack carries the ‘primary’ damage, meaning you are only sacrificing damage in the moment you use the utility, not borrowing against your future resources needed for continuing to deal damage. That is why the Vital Shot/Unload dynamic is and always has been ‘the’ problem with P/P and why a buff to Vital Shot is the most sensible solution.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
Now I know how it feels to watch people bicker :/ Sorry.
Anywho, p/x is hybrid set, because p/d favors condition application (access to stealth for sneak attack, #3 applies torment, etc) while p/p favors more of a power/hybrid spec. That’s the issue, p/p isn’t viable in either way and if you’re aiming for sustain with the power/conditions p/d does it better by being able to kite and put out some nasty hits. A complete rework of the #2 is unquestionable imho, this skill is just far to strange for anyone to have and has seen some drastic changes in its life span.
Then the line to separate the 2 sets, increase the bleed duration of sneak attack from 4-8 seconds base, lower the bleed duration of the aa from 4-2 seconds, and increase the direct damage base as well as power coefficient slightly. Lastly, each shot from unload should apply a 1 second 1 stack of vulnerability to help out with its channeled damage. This makes the power portion, p/p, have more direct damage and gives the condition portion, sneak attack, to do what it does.
This would help p/p have a strong single target impact, it wouldn’t nerf p/d hybrid because the heavy bleeds would still be there just relocated to a more appropriate position, and p/d conditions would get the same treatment. Only build that would suffer would be p/p hybrid if that even exists outside of a gimmick but if you’re gaining one build at the expense of another that behaves very similar, why care?
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
As a P/P stealthless thief, I would not like to see other X/P / P/X skill re worked at all. P/P thieves realize other weapon sets are better. Maybe unload needs to be re worked or some how buff specifically steathless thieves. But P/P does need something specifically for P/P.
Crazy Leg
Then the line to separate the 2 sets, increase the bleed duration of sneak attack from 4-8 seconds base, lower the bleed duration of the aa from 4-2 seconds, and increase the direct damage base as well as power coefficient slightly. Lastly, each shot from unload should apply a 1 second 1 stack of vulnerability to help out with its channeled damage. This makes the power portion, p/p, have more direct damage and gives the condition portion, sneak attack, to do what it does.
Not sure about this; Unload applying Vuln could mean that Body Shot’s pushed even further into the Weird Box for PP. At the moment, you might go “yeah throw out body shot for vulnerability stacks and help my buddies” in a groupfight, but now Unload just does that too.
I think a straight 3-5% damage boost for Unload would probably be better just because it’s less messy. It ends up being about the same.
This would help p/p have a strong single target impact, it wouldn’t nerf p/d hybrid because the heavy bleeds would still be there just relocated to a more appropriate position, and p/d conditions would get the same treatment. Only build that would suffer would be p/p hybrid if that even exists outside of a gimmick but if you’re gaining one build at the expense of another that behaves very similar, why care?
The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.
Wait, what? Other than the fact you ignored my recent post correcting yours – are you seriously arguing that buffing Vital Shot by reducing its aftercast by .1 second would somehow make P/D supplant P/P for power builds? Whatsthisidonteven….. That has absolutely 0 likelihood of happening as P/D doesn’t have a single good source of direct damage only, including Vital Shot, even if you buffed its damage output by twice what anyone is asking for. The only one that even comes slightly close is Shadow Strike, and it doesn’t do nearly as much as Unload and isn’t typically spammable.
P/D will never usurp P/P for power builds just because you buff Vital Shot, that’s a silly assertion.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.
Wait, what? Other than the fact you ignored my recent post correcting yours – are you seriously arguing that buffing Vital Shot by reducing its aftercast by .1 second would somehow make P/D supplant P/P for power builds? Whatsthisidonteven….. That has absolutely 0 likelihood of happening as P/D doesn’t have a single good source of direct damage only, including Vital Shot, even if you buffed its damage output by twice what anyone is asking for. The only one that even comes slightly close is Shadow Strike, and it doesn’t do nearly as much as Unload and isn’t typically spammable.
P/D will never usurp P/P for power builds just because you buff Vital Shot, that’s a silly assertion.
He said “power” P/D meaning abusing Sneak Attack because you just buffed its physical damage output. Compare to Unload, Pistol sneak attack is a cheap alternative.
http://sirvincentiii.com ~ In the beginning…there was Tarnished Coast…
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.
The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.
Wait, what? Other than the fact you ignored my recent post correcting yours – are you seriously arguing that buffing Vital Shot by reducing its aftercast by .1 second would somehow make P/D supplant P/P for power builds? Whatsthisidonteven….. That has absolutely 0 likelihood of happening as P/D doesn’t have a single good source of direct damage only, including Vital Shot, even if you buffed its damage output by twice what anyone is asking for. The only one that even comes slightly close is Shadow Strike, and it doesn’t do nearly as much as Unload and isn’t typically spammable.
P/D will never usurp P/P for power builds just because you buff Vital Shot, that’s a silly assertion.
He said “power” P/D meaning abusing Sneak Attack because you just buffed its physical damage output. Compare to Unload, Pistol sneak attack is a cheap alternative.
That can’t be what he meant, because that isn’t what Ninja Ed suggested doing. Even if you did buff its physical damage output, though, you’d have to really overdo it for Sneak Attack to rival Unload as a power move.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
Then the line to separate the 2 sets, increase the bleed duration of sneak attack from 4-8 seconds base, lower the bleed duration of the aa from 4-2 seconds, and increase the direct damage base as well as power coefficient slightly. Lastly, each shot from unload should apply a 1 second 1 stack of vulnerability to help out with its channeled damage. This makes the power portion, p/p, have more direct damage and gives the condition portion, sneak attack, to do what it does.
Not sure about this; Unload applying Vuln could mean that Body Shot’s pushed even further into the Weird Box for PP. At the moment, you might go “yeah throw out body shot for vulnerability stacks and help my buddies” in a groupfight, but now Unload just does that too.
I think a straight 3-5% damage boost for Unload would probably be better just because it’s less messy. It ends up being about the same.
This would help p/p have a strong single target impact, it wouldn’t nerf p/d hybrid because the heavy bleeds would still be there just relocated to a more appropriate position, and p/d conditions would get the same treatment. Only build that would suffer would be p/p hybrid if that even exists outside of a gimmick but if you’re gaining one build at the expense of another that behaves very similar, why care?
The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.
Well I also mentioned changing body shot completely to something that isn’t so awkward. Right now even as a short vuln stack it leaves no impact.
P/d hybrid wouldn’t be affected negatively by this, the bleeds would still be present and the power portion would be getting a slight buff. The point of reworking the aa is to fit what p/p and p/d has access to in terms of stealth. P/p can’t stealth on its own, p/d can, so it would be logical to relocate the the condition portion to the build that has a use for it in order to buff the power portion. A flat buff to the aa does no good as far as distinguishing p/p and p/d, there has to be an adjustment as to where the damage buff comes from.
This change would likely raise the skill level to play p/d also, since they can’t use the aa for 8+ second bleeds (wvw, pvp its more like 6-7). Actively working to enter stealth and get those bleeds on you and using the aa as sort of a balance in the mean time, also giving you the choice to focus on other skills. It also gives some counter play to those up against p/d, as they will have a better idea of how to avoid the burst of bleeds (get hit once, dodge being the most practical, the bullets are visible even if the enemy is in stealth).
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
(edited by NinjaEd.3946)
The only build which suffers is PP hybrid, but there are two builds which benefit here; P/P power (the intended target) and PD power. That’s what I’m mainly worried about when you buff Vital Shot to better supplement Unload, even when you move around the condition application; PD power could just take over completely from PP.
Wait, what? Other than the fact you ignored my recent post correcting yours – are you seriously arguing that buffing Vital Shot by reducing its aftercast by .1 second would somehow make P/D supplant P/P for power builds? Whatsthisidonteven….. That has absolutely 0 likelihood of happening as P/D doesn’t have a single good source of direct damage only, including Vital Shot, even if you buffed its damage output by twice what anyone is asking for. The only one that even comes slightly close is Shadow Strike, and it doesn’t do nearly as much as Unload and isn’t typically spammable.
P/D will never usurp P/P for power builds just because you buff Vital Shot, that’s a silly assertion.
He said “power” P/D meaning abusing Sneak Attack because you just buffed its physical damage output. Compare to Unload, Pistol sneak attack is a cheap alternative.
That can’t be what he meant, because that isn’t what Ninja Ed suggested doing. Even if you did buff its physical damage output, though, you’d have to really overdo it for Sneak Attack to rival Unload as a power move.
What other reason to build “power” P/D? Auto-attacking with Vital Shot?
Even if that’s not exactly what he meant, the CnD + Sneak Attack from P/D surpasses Unload damage and it’s more cost efficient in a power build.
The only way for Unload to compete in that scenario is to do what NinjaEd suggested, is to add vulnerability to Unload.
Even then, its doesn’t address one of the main problem of P/P, that is gap creator skill (gapper).
By placing P/P into it’s own 5 skill set, it will allow Anet to add necessary skills to help out P/P users, which can include a gapper skill.
http://sirvincentiii.com ~ In the beginning…there was Tarnished Coast…
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.
Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D – Make it happen
PvE – DD/CS/AC – If that didn’t work, roll a Reaper or Revenant.
P/d hybrid wouldn’t be affected negatively by this, the bleeds would still be present and the power portion would be getting a slight buff. The point of reworking the aa is to fit what p/p and p/d has access to in terms of stealth. P/p can’t stealth on its own, p/d can, so it would be logical to relocate the the condition portion to the build that has a use for it in order to buff the power portion. A flat buff to the aa does no good as far as distinguishing p/p and p/d, there has to be an adjustment as to where the damage buff comes from.
P/D hybrid benefits a bit I think, both from the direct damage boost and from the bleeds coming in bigger ‘chunks’. I do like that a change like that would move the skill load from the autoattack.
But yeah, I’m not worried about P/D hybrid. I’m worried about P/D power. Boosting Vital Shot closes the cap between P/D power and max Unload P/P power.
That can’t be what he meant, because that isn’t what Ninja Ed suggested doing. Even if you did buff its physical damage output, though, you’d have to really overdo it for Sneak Attack to rival Unload as a power move.
I’m fairly sure Sneak Attack is already higher DPS than Unload. I haven’t run the numbers, but if you get stealth as PP, you spend it on Sneak Attack because it’s roughly equal if not better DPS, infinitely better DPI and the bleed stacks are just gravy. The only weakness it has is Revealed locks its fire rate to 1 every 3 or 4 seconds, and Unload’s advantage here is that it’s only locked by your initiative regen.
Didn’t respond to your last post and not going to because it’s the exact same post as the one that came before it; just more “you’re thinking wrong” stuff. My goals are pretty simple; least possible spillover, don’t overshoot the goal, don’t change the playstyle.
If you mean specifically the Crossfire stuff, fine- you get better physical damage out of it. You still get better bleed ticks from a 4 sec bleed Shortbow 1 with .82 cast time, and arguing that a Power Ranger wants good physical damage on SB1 is silly because use a Longbow or a Greatsword you silly ranger.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
I’m fairly sure Sneak Attack is already higher DPS than Unload.
Carrion Sneak Attack is close to Berserker Unload, add in additional condition duration and it might well out-damage Unload.
Guys, guys
I’m talking about Sneak Attack in a power build, which I took to mean a power/crit build and not a power/condi build because clearly P/D is better for that already.
Using a Power/crit build, there’s no way Sneak Attack will ever rival Unload and there’s no chance P/D will ever be better than P/P with such a build unless you made Vital shot do more physical damage than Unload, which nobody is asking for. Zero chance.
Guys, guys
I’m talking about Sneak Attack in a power build, which I took to mean a power/crit build and not a power/condi build because clearly P/D is better for that already.
Using a Power/crit build, there’s no way Sneak Attack will ever rival Unload and there’s no chance P/D will ever be better than P/P with such a build unless you made Vital shot do more physical damage than Unload, which nobody is asking for. Zero chance.
Sneak Attack deals better DPS than Unload. Run the numbers.
Post the build you’re talking about. I’ve posted a build; return the favor.
It doesn’t need to deal more damage than Unload. It needs to deal enough damage to push it from “core DPS ability” to “tactical burst”; Pistol Whip and Sneak Attack can do the rest. You also actually did ask for Vital Shot to deal more overall damage than Unload, but let's ignore that.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
Maybe I’d rather have a trait to make pistol shot piercing. But that’s another topic.
Not too sure what kind of build that make you believe Sneak Attack can do better DPS than Unload which is not true. And to top that off you can’t chain Sneak Attack like you did with Unload.
On the other hand, who is in their right mind to say that Vital Shot has the DPS that is remotely close to Unload DPS? Show me how you can deal 4K damage with Vital Shot in a mere 2 seconds.
All is vain.
Not too sure what kind of build that make you believe Sneak Attack can do better DPS than Unload which is not true. And to top that off you can’t chain Sneak Attack like you did with Unload.
The build I linked earlier. I did the math and it did almost exactly the same damage as unload, for 1 second of casting. It might switch about a bit depending on which build exactly you’re using. The difference between DPS and DPSC is worth noting.
You’re right; you can’t Sneak Attack more than you can Unload because of Revealed’s limiting. Because of that, though, P/D power benefits more from a Vital Shot buff because they’re forced to spend that time Vital Shotting, and will make something like 4 vital shots in between each Sneak Attack. Unload doesn’t actually benefit that much (if you’re actually doing the rotation properly) because that ratio goes much lower, depending on your build. Using a full initiative build (04046 w/ pistol essentials) and good utility use you can do a full rotation while using very little, if any, Vital Shots.
On the other hand, who is in their right mind to say that Vital Shot has the DPS that is remotely close to Unload DPS? Show me how you can deal 4K damage with Vital Shot in a mere 2 seconds.
get 2 crits as 26006 on a light armor class with 0 toughness
134 + ((2314 * .4) * 2.50) = 2448 per shot
i haven’t adjusted for armor
also this is pre ferocity nerf so idk what exactly the highest crit damage you can get now is
Nalhadia – Kaineng
No matter how great P/D power is, you can not Sneak Attack out of nowhere you have to go into Stealth first. If you think P/D power use a lot of Vital Shot then you should think that P/P power also use a lot of Vital Shot too. IMO, both P/D and P/P need Vital Shot.
As a person who run P/P power build, as far as I can tell is that direct damage of Sneak Attack only did 1/3 of Unload Damage and there is no way those crappy bleeding damage would do another 2/3 of Unload Damage. The only good thing here is, Sneak Attack has a reliable way to land all 5 shots while Unload having a harder time to land all 8 shots. IMO, Sneak Attack and Unload are both perfectly fine and there is no need to fix them.
As for Vital Shot, whatever math you are using is doesn’t matter. The highest damage I have seen once a month in a single shot of Vita Shot is 1500 damage and if that happened my Unload would do at least 8K damage to that same target. And what does that mean? Even if you have to buff 20% to Vital Shot direct damage it still nowhere remotely close to Unload damage. I honestly still think that Vital Shot should see some buff to it direct damage.
And for god sake, please Anet, please fix Body Shot so that it won’t fail to hit the target 90% of the time. Or best of all, just rework it already.
All is vain.
No matter how great P/D power is, you can not Sneak Attack out of nowhere you have to go into Stealth first. If you think P/D power use a lot of Vital Shot then you should think that P/P power also use a lot of Vital Shot too. IMO, both P/D and P/P need Vital Shot.
Well, I don’t think that, because I can play P/P power and make a lot of Unloads- A lot more Unloads than I do Vital Shots.
Seriously, try it. 04046 zerk’s on the Indestructible Target Golem. Withdraw, Roll for Initiative, Signet Which Gives You More Initiative Over Time, Blinding Powder, Dagger Storm.
As a person who run P/P power build, as far as I can tell is that direct damage of Sneak Attack only did 1/3 of Unload Damage and there is no way those crappy bleeding damage would do another 2/3 of Unload Damage. The only good thing here is, Sneak Attack has a reliable way to land all 5 shots while Unload having a harder time to land all 8 shots. IMO, Sneak Attack and Unload are both perfectly fine and there is no need to fix them.
DPS, not overall damage per cast.
As for Vital Shot, whatever math you are using is doesn’t matter. The highest damage I have seen once a month in a single shot of Vita Shot is 1500 damage and if that happened my Unload would do at least 8K damage to that same target. And what does that mean? Even if you have to buff 20% to Vital Shot direct damage it still nowhere remotely close to Unload damage. I honestly still think that Vital Shot should see some buff to it direct damage.
“Empirical facts and mathematical analysis don’t matter! Here’s an anecdote!”
A 20% buff to Vital Shot won’t matter because you should be making very few Vital Shots if you’re playing Unload properly. It will matter to P/D because they use Vital Shot regularly, and the only ability P/D has that needs a buff is Dancing Dagger because that’s the worst Initiative spending skill you have.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
Guys, guys
I’m talking about Sneak Attack in a power build, which I took to mean a power/crit build and not a power/condi build because clearly P/D is better for that already.
Using a Power/crit build, there’s no way Sneak Attack will ever rival Unload and there’s no chance P/D will ever be better than P/P with such a build unless you made Vital shot do more physical damage than Unload, which nobody is asking for. Zero chance.
Sneak Attack deals better DPS than Unload. Run the numbers.
Post the build you’re talking about. I’ve posted a build; return the favor.
It doesn’t need to deal more damage than Unload. It needs to deal enough damage to push it from “core DPS ability” to “tactical burst”; Pistol Whip and Sneak Attack can do the rest. You also actually did ask for Vital Shot to deal more overall damage than Unload, but let's ignore that.
Try reading again please, even though I couldn’t have possibly made it more clear- Physical. Not overall. Of course Sneak Attack does more overall DPS than Unload at baseline, which is completely irrelevant because it’s also 75% condition damage and can’t be spammed.
Because it’s 100% physical damage AND spammable, Unload (and by extension P/P) is vastly superior for a power/crit build and always will be even if they egregiously overbuffed Vital Shot. Your posts are utterly mystifying.
A 20% buff to Vital Shot won’t matter because you should be making very few Vital Shots if you’re playing Unload properly. It will matter to P/D because they use Vital Shot regularly, and the only ability P/D has that needs a buff is Dancing Dagger because that’s the worst Initiative spending skill you have.
No, once again – it will have a much more far reaching impact on P/P because of P/P’s current overdependency on Initiative for damage. It would reduce that dependency, allowing P/P to function like every other set. P/D, in contrast, deals damage from numerous sources, so a Vital Shot buff, while still a buff, would be somewhat diluted and is still warranted.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
Try reading again please, even though I couldn’t have possibly made it more clear- Physical. Not overall. Of course Sneak Attack does more overall DPS than Unload at baseline, which is completely irrelevant because it’s also 75% condition damage and can’t be spammed.
I could have also said the word “overall”. Psst: I did. I also question your earlier mathwork other than the “50%/110%” goal because you didn’t even calculate base power.
I also didn’t say that Sneak Attack does more DPS than Unload at baseline. I said that Sneak Attack does more DPS than Unload for the build I’ve posted, which is in full Zerker’s gear. I’ve posted a build; return the favor.
A 20% buff to Vital Shot won’t matter because you should be making very few Vital Shots if you’re playing Unload properly. It will matter to P/D because they use Vital Shot regularly, and the only ability P/D has that needs a buff is Dancing Dagger because that’s the worst Initiative spending skill you have.
No, once again – it will have a much more far reaching impact on P/P because of P/P’s current overdependency on Initiative for damage. It would reduce that dependency, allowing P/P to function like every other set. P/D, in contrast, deals damage from numerous sources, so a Vital Shot buff, while still a buff, would be somewhat diluted and is still warranted.
If you are not a scrub PP player, you will do a lot of Unloads.
For you to make more Vital Shots than you make Unloads in a PvE environment, you have to be utterly, hilariously horrible at your initiative management. If you’re arguing from a PvE perspective, I’m sorry, but this really comes down to skill; you’re getting bad damage not because the playstyle is broken, but because you can’t handle it.
If you’re arguing from an sPvP perspective, your weakness isn’t the result of Vital Shot being weak. You’re weak because other builds (And I mean THIEF builds, not every other build in the game, I swear if I see a word about other classes I don’t know what I’ll do) have core effects which you don’t have, which they use to not die: gapmakers and evade frames. Body Shot is the closest thing to a gapmaker you have, and it’s a 1 second immobilise- hardly a tool that’ll keep you alive. Changing Vital Shot in a way that doesn’t change its fundamental role won’t change your behaviour; you spam Unload until your target drops dead or you do. Changing Vital Shot in a way that does change its fundamental role puts Unload on the same turf as Sneak Attack and Pistol Whip, where it really can’t compete.
And that’s what, as I understand, you want. You want to change Vital Shot from “i screwed up my initiative and now i’m using this” to “core of damage” and you want to change Unload from “core of damage” to “burst”. But you’re missing that Vital Shot in P/D gets changed from “i can’t do anything more interesting so i use this” to “core of damage”, and that Unload is now a redundant tool compared to SA and PW.
So yeah. If you can clarify which one you want, that’d be great.
Is it a Vital Shot buff which doesn’t change fundamental behavior, but raises your damage when you’re all out of Initiative?
Is it a Vital Shot buff that changes which skill you use actively to deal baseline damage, and which you use to deal burst?
Also I’ve posted a build; return the favor.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
Try reading again please, even though I couldn’t have possibly made it more clear- Physical. Not overall. Of course Sneak Attack does more overall DPS than Unload at baseline, which is completely irrelevant because it’s also 75% condition damage and can’t be spammed.
I could have also said the word “overall”. Psst: I did. I also question your earlier mathwork other than the “50%/110%” goal because you didn’t even calculate base power.
I also didn’t say that Sneak Attack does more DPS than Unload at baseline. I said that Sneak Attack does more DPS than Unload for the build I’ve posted, which is in full Zerker’s gear. I’ve posted a build; return the favor.
A 20% buff to Vital Shot won’t matter because you should be making very few Vital Shots if you’re playing Unload properly. It will matter to P/D because they use Vital Shot regularly, and the only ability P/D has that needs a buff is Dancing Dagger because that’s the worst Initiative spending skill you have.
No, once again – it will have a much more far reaching impact on P/P because of P/P’s current overdependency on Initiative for damage. It would reduce that dependency, allowing P/P to function like every other set. P/D, in contrast, deals damage from numerous sources, so a Vital Shot buff, while still a buff, would be somewhat diluted and is still warranted.
If you are not a scrub PP player, you will do a lot of Unloads.
For you to make more Vital Shots than you make Unloads in a PvE environment, you have to be utterly, hilariously horrible at your initiative management. If you’re arguing from a PvE perspective, I’m sorry, but this really comes down to skill; you’re getting bad damage not because the playstyle is broken, but because you can’t handle it.
If you’re arguing from an sPvP perspective, your weakness isn’t the result of Vital Shot being weak. You’re weak because other builds (And I mean THIEF builds, not every other build in the game, I swear if I see a word about other classes I don’t know what I’ll do) have core effects which you don’t have, which they use to not die: gapmakers and evade frames. Body Shot is the closest thing to a gapmaker you have, and it’s a 1 second immobilise- hardly a tool that’ll keep you alive. Changing Vital Shot in a way that doesn’t change its fundamental role won’t change your behaviour; you spam Unload until your target drops dead or you do. Changing Vital Shot in a way that does change its fundamental role puts Unload on the same turf as Sneak Attack and Pistol Whip, where it really can’t compete.
And that’s what, as I understand, you want. You want to change Vital Shot from “i screwed up my initiative and now i’m using this” to “core of damage” and you want to change Unload from “core of damage” to “burst”. But you’re missing that Vital Shot in P/D gets changed from “i can’t do anything more interesting so i use this” to “core of damage”, and that Unload is now a redundant tool compared to SA and PW.
So yeah. If you can clarify which one you want, that’d be great.
Is it a Vital Shot buff which doesn’t change fundamental behavior, but raises your damage when you’re all out of Initiative?
Is it a Vital Shot buff that changes which skill you use actively to deal baseline damage, and which you use to deal burst?Also I’ve posted a build; return the favor.
Not that I should have to explain this, but apparently I do -
It’s not about “waah I don’t want to pay consequences when I don’t use the set right” – this is both a misunderstanding of the issue and a childish mis-characterization of the argument.
Instead, it’s about P/P being boring and poorly designed because its Initiative skills don’t compete well with one another strictly because of Vital Shot being weak, making it bland and one-trick pony instead of engaging and tactical.
Builds are not relevant.
Not that I should have to explain this, but apparently I do -
It’s not about “waah I don’t want to pay consequences when I don’t use the set right” – this is both a misunderstanding of the issue and a childish mis-characterization of the argument.
You could alternatively answer the question. Which one do you want; a Vital Shot buff that changes how the set is played, or a Vital Shot buff which doesn’t?
Instead, it’s about P/P being boring and poorly designed because its Initiative skills don’t compete well with one another strictly because of Vital Shot being weak, making it bland and one-trick pony instead of engaging and tactical.
Boring is subjective. Personally, I enjoy managing and trying to stay at high levels of initiative with unload. If you don’t like that, maybe you should find a different weapon set that better suits your playstyle.
Also the problem isn’t “Unload costs too much initiative, locking out your other skills”. That’s too specific an avenue. The problem is “PP sux”.
Builds are not relevant.
Except the amount of initiative you can generate per second is intimately tied to your build, which could mean that the problem you’re experiencing with Unload is that you’re not building properly to maximise Initiative.
The amount of damage that your abilities deal is dependent on your build, and if you’re going to make claims about the amount of damage each ability causes, you’re going to need to provide a build so that you can actually provide a context for, and prove your claims.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
You could alternatively answer the question. Which one do you want; a Vital Shot buff that changes how the set is played, or a Vital Shot buff which doesn’t?
A pointless question, as any Vital Shot buff will change how the set is played, which is obviously the ultimate goal.
Boring is subjective. Personally, I enjoy managing and trying to stay at high levels of initiative with unload. If you don’t like that, maybe you should find a different weapon set that better suits your playstyle.
Or maybe P/P should actually have a well-developed playstyle rather than just being a #3 spamfest with mediocre to poor overall output.
Also the problem isn’t “Unload costs too much initiative, locking out your other skills”. That’s too specific an avenue. The problem is “PP sux”.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive. The problem is that PP sucks (which there is practically universal consensus on because it’s kittening obvious); the specific reason why it sucks is that it has bad sustain, bad utility, and bad mobility. The reason it is bad in each of those categories is because all of its finite resources have to be reserved for its single damage skill, which happens to be a channeled burst resource hog. These are called logical deductions.
Except the amount of initiative you can generate per second is intimately tied to your build, which could mean that the problem you’re experiencing with Unload is that you’re not building properly to maximise Initiative.
The amount of damage that your abilities deal is dependent on your build, and if you’re going to make claims about the amount of damage each ability causes, you’re going to need to provide a build so that you can actually provide a context for, and prove your claims.
No, the problem I’m experiencing with P/P has nothing to do with that, because no matter how much initiative I have it’s all going to Unload all the time because Vital Shot can’t carry its needed weight in damage and you can’t afford to use resources needed for basic damage on iffy utility. It doesn’t matter if I get one extra use of Unload because I have high regen or you decrease Unload’s cost. All that means is that you get one extra use of Unload. It would do virtually nothing to change the fundamentals of the set, meaning its bad sustain, bad utility, and bad mobility.
No, I don’t. If you have a condition build you should be using P/D. Otherwise, Unload is always going to be the only major damage source. Therefore any time you’re playing P/P you’re doing exactly one thing – spamming Unload. Your build is completely and totally irrelevant.
I don’t know how else to explain it to you. It’s very kittening simple. P/P’s overall performance is very deeply affected by the damage gap between Vital Shot and Unload being higher than it should be. You can’t afford to spend Initiative on anything else (or move around much) lest you sacrifice huge amounts of damage for standard utility, which NO OTHER SET IN THE GAME requires you to do because utility cannot compete with damage – the latter will always win. There is nothing tactical or engaging about it.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
A pointless question, as any Vital Shot buff will change how the set is played, which is obviously the ultimate goal.
I didn’t realise that trying to identify the goal and potential complications of a change was pointless.
I think we have wildly different problem-solving styles and with that in mind we’re not really gonna go much of anywhere, so I’m gonna have to bid you adieu. Best of luck fixing PP.
Nalhadia – Kaineng
A pointless question, as any Vital Shot buff will change how the set is played, which is obviously the ultimate goal.
I didn’t realise that trying to identify the goal and potential complications of a change was pointless.
I think we have wildly different problem-solving styles and with that in mind we’re not really gonna go much of anywhere, so I’m gonna have to bid you adieu. Best of luck fixing PP.
It’s not about our problem solving styles, it’s about our analytical skills. Bye.
wow, this thread is… something else.
my two cents, vital shot is in a good spot for P/D because P/D is a power/condi set, and vital shot can stack up to 7s of bleed per shot (new krait runes + sigil of blood), which is a fairly long bleed for an autoattack. the damage itself is a bit meh, but if you want large numbers, you’re on the wrong spec to begin with. and if someone is spending dodges for vital shot, they won’t have dodges for CnD/sneak attack, which are far more threatening skills.
overall, it works well for me. i wouldn’t mind a buff, but i won’t ask for one either. like it was said earlier in the thread, if anything needs a buff on P/D, it’s dancing dagger. even body shot is in a nice spot, IMO (easy immob delays people just long enough for you to decap their point right after they leave and bail, or stacking immob on someone to focus a team burst). took them forever, but i think that one is finally in a decent spot, or at least a useful one.
LegendaryMythril/Zihark Darshell