Guild Wars 2

It is outdated. With all the projectile hate and power creep this weapon become very bad.
Now with the PP buff (which is nice), rifle is our worst weapon choice. Damage is too low and cool downs are too high.
There is no reason to take rifle for serious gameplay in pvp or wvw.

I disagree, shield remains the worst choice. But yeah, rifle could use some buff

^ +1

Yes please !

+ 1

+1 maybe in 4 months^^

+1
Sadly true.
:_(

P/P buff didnt change a thing about how our core weapons are all worse than hammer anyway.

Rifle, Pistol and Shield are all still pretty bad compared to the all mighty hammer. It would be one thing if ranged attacks were actually valuable in pvp but they arent, in many cases having a ranged projectile is a liability rather than a benefit. This might be the only game where being ranged is not flat out better in pvp.

it’s not in that bad of a position, but it’s far weaker as a standalone weapon now as it takes way less skill/timing/whatever for most new abilities in the game. Overcharged is still the strongest skill on the weapon, I would argue that it needs a buff to blunderbuss cast time or net shot travel speed to bring it in line with current HoT power creep. I don’t think it needs an entire rework.

+1

Net Shot: Liability because of all the reflect and projectile hate out there. At least it’s instant though, so I guess it’s fine.

Blunderbuss: it’s fine

Overcharged Shot: HUUUUGE liability because of reflect, block, aegis, invuln, any kind of defense at all really. Thing is, if it works, it’s pretty good, but there are so many ways it can fail in this meta. It just becomes a self-cc.

Jump Shot: Major liability. There are no evade frames. If there were, it’d be fine. The damage is good, but it seems like every time I attempt this I just get chain-cc’d to death.

It’s super bad because every class and their mother have an absurd amount of missile reflect or block now.

So to recap:

-faster net shot travel time

-blunderbuss cast time reduced

-make overcharget a direct attack

-jump shot gets evade frames

Does that make it balanced or op in your opinion?

Pride.1734:

So to recap:

-faster net shot travel time

-blunderbuss cast time reduced becomes a blast finisher.

-make overcharged shot direct attack if you take the Skilled Marksman trait.

-jump shot gets evade frames.

IMO this way the rifle becomes very powerful without turning dumb easy.

I’d say baseline Skilled Marksman speed buff would be a good first step, but ultimately, the problem is that power creep in other areas has made rifle unplayable.

Net shot. For its cooldown, you’re getting one projectile that is easily blocked/reflected/nullified. It’s okay when it connects, but it rarely does.

Overcharged shot. You’re getting one projectile again, but it’s much worse. You’re cc-ing yourself to do it and you have no guarantee it’ll even hit. If it’s reflected, you’re now double-cc’d.

Compare with hammer, which does better, more reliable damage while not risking anything. It even provides you with defensive skills like reflect and block and gives you boons on autoattack.

In my opinion, the only way to get back to what we had before is to tone down the HoT power creep. Things like:

• The sheer amount of projectile hate elementalists have access to. A good ele can hold on a point indefinitely vs a projectile/rifle engineer build. You literally cannot touch them with all the reflect and nullification and stability/invuln they can spam.
• Reaper shroud stability (and other stability spam). An engineer’s main defense is CC and mobility. You can’t rely on CC when your opponents can just gain 10 seconds of stability that constantly refreshes itself. Overcharged shot is a single attack at huge risk to the engineer. That’s not going to make a dent in stab stacks.
• Dragonhunter’s Shield of Courage. Druid’s heal-wall. Scrapper’s Bulwark Gyro Defense Field. Rev’s staff projectile blind/reflect thing. etc. etc. etc.

I could go on, but ultimately the problem is:

PROJECTILES ARE REALLY REALLY BAD NOW

and this unfairly punishes ranged classes like pew pew ranger, rifle warrior, and rifle engi. I don’t know if any amount of buffs to the weapon will fix that.

Remove all aftercast from jumpshot. Increase range to 900.

I should point out that overcharged shot cures immobilized, cripple and chill. That and rocket jump are good for disengaging.

SirPrizeBartSachs.4670:

Remove all aftercast from jumpshot. Increase range to 900.

make it work with quickness … T_T

Pride.1734:

So to recap:

-faster net shot travel time

-blunderbuss cast time reduced and make it a blast finisher

-make overcharget a direct attack

-jump shot gets evade frames

Does that make it balanced or op in your opinion?

This would be the perfect buff !

I duno man. Pistols and Shield are pretty bad as well, infact anything that isnt a Hammer is quite bad by comparison.

Evade frame <3 This is the best so far!

Yea mh pistol (except skill 3) and the shield are in a way worse position than the rifle. They need so much love Q_Q …

i think
hip shot needs 30% damage increase
net shot needs to be twice or thrice as fast
blunderbuss needs a 50% damage increase and adjust the range to damage ratio or get rid of 2 its ridiculous a short range skill has FOUR damage ratios in almost the same ranges 700>550 550>400 400>250 250>0 allow me to explain how stupid this is typical melee attacks have a range of 130 wich means for max damage you have to be 1-3 steps worth of distance from your enemy

overcharged Shot needs to be unblockable Or be a direct attack

so why did i pull those specific numbers

because as it is our rifle/main ranged power weapon AutoAttack is 50% weaker than a 1000 range ranger longbow wich has 2200 effective range vs our 1200

and 30% weaker than a guardian longbow

our main burst skill blunderbuss has a damage coefficient of 1.0 and 1.6 at melee range compared to everyone else’s DH’s 4s spammable shot has a 2.5 scaling
thief unload has a 3.2 and ranger’s rapid fire has a 3.75 and all of those work perfectly fine from their full range in other words our burst skill is a joke not only requiring high risk for maximum damage but not delivering proper rewarding offense for it

Wouldn’t like to see hip shot buffed, rather the trait reversed to a damage modifier for the rifle rather than attack speed.

I agree on the rest tough, especially overcharged shot needs that unblockable thing.

My rework for the Rifle would go in this direction:
(Unless stated otherwise, all current functionality of each skill should remain the same)

Skill 1: Add a third attack chain called Semi-Automatic that fires a burst of three rounds that each inflict 1 stack of vulnerability (only slightly longer animation time than Hip Shot, same damage numbers and scaling).

Skill 2: Net Shot. After firing the net the skill rotates over to a movement skill that performs a front facing roll that evades for 1 sec, is a leap finisher and covers 400 units of distance.

Skill 3: Blunderbuss. Skill is now unblockable. If this skill removes Aegis or an opponent attempts to block, this skill can be used repeatably over the next 2 seconds before going on full cool-down.

Skill 4: Overcharged Shot. This skill applies one stack of burning for 1 second and blind for 3 seconds on the struck target. It places a 2 second, 240 radius smoke field that does not blind.

Skill 5: Jump Shot. Add 1/2s Evade frames at initiation of this skill but the landing portion is still vulnerable to CC and DPS.

My rework would be this:
Damage increase at all +30%
Skilled marksman baseline
#1: is ok
#2: faster travell time
#3: remove damage ratio at distance, remove bleed and add crippe instead, unblockable
#4: should not be a projectile, unblockable
#5: add an evade frame

I agree on everything but the 30% modifier – wtf guys o.O The rifle is not THAT bad.

Blunderbuss is good already, I’d only reduce it’s cd a bit. The rest you mentioned is great, just would add that quickness scaling on #5.

Anet is scared to change this sort of thing, but when you compare it to many of the other range weapons it is really kittened how little dmg this thing can do.

everyone is throwing around excessive damage mods, evade frames, and unblockable as if these things are supposed to be everywhere.

insanemaniac.2456:

everyone is throwing around excessive damage mods, evade frames, and unblockable as if these things are supposed to be everywhere.

i just think it needs a dmg buff. that is all I want.

insanemaniac.2456:

everyone is throwing around excessive damage mods, evade frames, and unblockable as if these things are supposed to be everywhere.

well
i dont see how my modifiers were broken when all i proposed was to bring our modifiers in line with other professions’s

lol. shield def worse. rifle is not nearly as bad as people think, simply no one devotes any time or effort trying to play something that is not brain dead zikavirus infested. In terms of buffing rifle most of the things that need changing are extremely minor and/or mostly related to other aspects of engineer, mostly core traits and utilities that would allow for more build diversity and the opportunity to run rifle. I.E. reverting nades/fixing nades, fixing static discharge in general etc etc etc. even after these changes rifle would still be pretty doodoo to the average BabyRage kiddo that tries it for 2 games and complains. Unfortunately not every weapon and spec in the game can be broken-op so that simpleminded kittens can play it.

tl;dr rifle is better than people think but will never be at a level of which kiddos will play it and not complain

all of this coming from someone who has played rifle engi pretty much the entire 2 something years ive played.

Dear BertBoy, I can see a mountain of salt in your post. The sad truth is that this game become a block/invuln/evade/reflect -spam with the addon.
There are just 2 options:
1: nerf elite specs to core level
2: buff core specs to elite level
I played enough engi to tell you that pp, ps, and rifle are a joke compared to the hammer.

1. Net shot coud have a faster travel speed.
2. Overcharged shot coud be umblocable and ignore anti projectile effects.
3. Jump shot could have 900 or 1000 range, and works with quickness.

The relative trait could increase 25% attack speed.

I hope that anet will care for our engi rifle build needs.

Gotta love to jump shot to someone, hit 6K in full berserker, while thinking in the same time: kitten I could have done the same damage with reflect on a 6s cooldown…

Yes please! Buff rifle

yes buff rifle. and gadgets.

Hammer has awesome spammable #2 with high dmg, whirl finish and reflect.
Jump shot does nearly the same dmg (start+end dmg) but on 20 sec CD and easy to interrupt.
I dont understand why blunderbuss cause bleeding??? this is a pure power weapon, there shouldnt be a damage condi.

I dont see how having “pure” weapons is good. Making a hard separation only limits build diversity. On the contrary, I would prefer better bleeding and other condis present in rifle. That way it could be as useful with a condi set as with a power set, opening new ways to do content as an engie.

+1

15 characters

Having played wildstar for quite a bit now (which features a follower AI-done-right for bots. Seriously a-net, gyros are a confused mess in comparison), I think rifle could be fixed with a decent overhaul.
Think shotgun, thematically:

#1: Blunderbus (new AA)
600 range, frontal cone (90°)
0.75sec cast
High power dmg
Adds one stack of torment (5sec duration)
5 target cap

#2: Nail round (8sec cd)
900 range, narrow frontal cone (45°)
insta-cast
Medium power dmg
adds cripple for 5 sec
adds 3 stacks of bleed for 8sec
5 target cap

#3: Inciniary round (12sec cd)
900 range, narrow frontal cone (45°)
0.75 sec cast
High power dmg
adds 2 stacks of burning for 6sec
5 target cap

#4: Overcharged shot
does pierce now (ruin the day of 2 thieves for the prize of one)

#5: Jump shot
stays as is

Traits:
No changes needed.
No scope, high caliber, skilled marksman, modified ammunition and incendiary powder in their current form all would go nice with this weapon, which opens up build-diversity around rifle, especially considered that it’s now a proper hybrid weapon.

Maybe the cone on the AA is too wide, but on the other hand, engineers always were supposed to deny the area with high aoe pressure, so it might just underline our theme decently. And these changes also avoid the gro’ of projectile hate (welp, wouldn’t want to fire this into a zerg buffed with retal, still).
And overcharged shot? Welp, I just like it too much^^
If it’s too much, leave the piercing part out.

befor hot one of the great things i found about the rifle was the fact that its 2 main damage skills wernt ranged skills and could go threw reflects/missile block, imo the problem now is the sheer lack of utility and damage compared to the hammer.

Auto is fine imo, if anything increase the the minimum damage alot and reduce the scaling so it can function alot better without needing might stacks out your kitten .

Rework net shot to function like the guardians new deflecting shot, and make it net targets it hits or maybe just the first target it hits and cripples the rest.

Blunderbuss, i do like LilBiM.3581 thinking, but the unblockable part is quite strong on a skill that allready goes threw reflect and missle block so how about if it is blocked it has a 50% faster cd, now think about that for a second, its an aoe cone skill, okay so you hit your target and his buddy next to him that has agies and it gets a faster cd and youve still done damage to your main target.

overcharged shot, evade backwards instead of falling over.

Jumpshot, speed up the animation by alot so i can use it both for damage and a nifty gap closer/maker and itll be great.

aight so now we have this rifle which has alot more utility with an improved net shot that wont fail 50% of the time and a knock back that can be used for more then just controlling your target if need be and with a much faster jumpshot we will be able to use it as a much more reliable chasing/fleeing rather then just a damage skill that gap closes.

ukuni.8745:

overcharged shot, evade backwards instead of falling over.

This is a much needed adjustment to the skill that would single-handedly make it a more competetive power option over hammer in PvP situation.

ukuni.8745:

improved net shot that wont fail 50% of the time and a knock back that can be used for more then just controlling your target

My proposition for adjusting net shot would be something similar to the way that most walls currently function. Net Shot is now a ground-targeted net “wall” that immobilizes anyone trying to pass through. Raise the cd for this adjustment and make it something reasonable like 3-5s duration.

I have ran Rifle in PvP for a long time, and still do. It is still useful, but I can definitely tell you there was a drop of usefulness once HoT came. This surprised me too, because with the range and cooldown traits were bundled into the weapon.

For someone who has used this weapon basically since launch, equally as the other engi weapons, rifle needs the following:

#1Hip Shot – 15% Damage boost
#2Net Shot – faster, misses if they move side-to-side at all.
#3Bluderbuss – Fine as is
#4Overcharged Shot – 20% damage boost, and if you don’t hit anything you don’t CC yourself, push-back further, add casting time to make it a key interrupt-able skill
#5Jump Shot – damage is fine, but add evade frames for the jump.

Im not a fan of unblockable range attacks. It would be nice if overcharged shot could go through reflects like air blast can though.

Just compare damage and power scaling:

Hammer:
#1: 323 (0.8) / 323 (0.8) / 404 (1.0)
#2: [2x] 888 (2.2)
#3: [3x] 1,212 (3.0)
#4: [5x] 1,010 (2.5)
#5: [6x] 1,452 (3.6)

Rifle:
#1: 274 (0.65)
#2: 0
#3: [0-250] 675 (1.6) / [240-400] 591 (1.4) / [400-550] 506 (1.2) / [550-700] 422 (1.0)
#4: 422 (1.0)
#5: [start] 380 (0.9) / [end] 759 (1.8)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_engineer_skills

everybody can see this poor power scaling for rifle…

mov.1246:

Just compare damage and power scaling:

Hammer:
#1: 323 (0.8) / 323 (0.8) / 404 (1.0)
#2: [2x] 888 (2.2)
#3: [3x] 1,212 (3.0)
#4: [5x] 1,010 (2.5)
#5: [6x] 1,452 (3.6)

Rifle:
#1: 274 (0.65)
#2: 0
#3: [0-250] 675 (1.6) / [240-400] 591 (1.4) / [400-550] 506 (1.2) / [550-700] 422 (1.0)
#4: 422 (1.0)
#5: [start] 380 (0.9) / [end] 759 (1.8)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_engineer_skills

everybody can see this poor power scaling for rifle…

misleading at best.

One example of how rifle is bad now:

In the past, if you came across a melee enemy, you’d dodge their initial gap closer (eg. warrior’s Bladetrail or Charge), then counterattack with Overcharged Shot, cc-ing them and buying some time to hit them with one of your attacks. This felt good because you skillfully avoided damage and were rewarded for it by being able to cc the enemy.

Now, you can’t risk it vs most classes:

• Warrior: has stability and/or other stances active. You attempt this, and you’ll just end up cc-ing yourself. Warrior kills you while you’re knocked back.

• Thief: the evade/condi spam build that is popular now is a dice roll. You might hit them if your have good ping and you are lucky. If not, you take condi’s and die.

• Scrapper: will almost certainly be reflecting or blocking with hammer after rocket charge and/or thunderclap. You can’t OC shot them. Also, they have stability.. It’s futile to even attempt it.

• Druid/Ranger: 50-50. Things that can go wrong: cc-their pet via that trait, hit stability because they activate their elite. Heal wall (doesn’t really count. you should be able to avoid this).

• Chrono: 50-50. Reflect hurts, but it’s easier to land OC shot than vs other classes.

• Dragonhunter: Aegis / block is annoying, but you can usually time it. 5 seconds of projectile reflect on top of that from shield of courage is frustrating though. It feels like you’re waiting 30s for an opportunity to even hit them sometimes.

• Ele: Hit them with a projectile? Hahaha.. no. Reflect uptime is ridiculous. Also stability/invuln.

• Necro: OC shot actually works most of the time, but the condi pressure will kill you unless you catch them with shroud low.