Guild Wars 2

I love rifle engineer and I love my Charr rifle engineer(because of the fact I am a master of guns, thank you based hidden pistols and charrzooka) But man is rifle lacking.

These are some proposed changes that could make us work in what I believe is Anets “as intended section” as a mid range fighter and I don’t think some of these Ideas should be overlooked. Now I have checked the bug section and I know much is to be desired but this is specifically rifle based changes to improve the weapons mediocre stance. Constructive criticism is welcome.

Rifled Barrels trait changes to our skills.

-Hipshot range increased by 100. From 1,200-1,300

My reasoning? I know were supposed to be mid range damage dealers but our grenade trait has a maximum range of 1.500. That doesn’t even make sense to the context of a rifle if I can throw balls farther. If otherwise at the very least increase our damage output by roughly 10% on base.

-Increase Blunderbuss and Overcharged Shots min max dmg range and min low dmg range to where it can be considered EFFECTIVE at mid range.

My reasoning? Its only worth now is at close which is risky among almost any other class in the game. Especially since we are a ranged class. Especially since it misses on hill side slopes and small rodents for no good reason. To that extent our combat zone should be more to Anets original Idea of our proper combat radius.

-Jumpshot changes
And finally the 5 skill everyone hates using so much.
If a warrior or an elementalist with a great sword can avoid taking damage throwing themselves at its enemy’s at the very least allow us to travel with jump shot without getting pegged from start to finish. Count the jump between as an evasion like the whirls. And if at all possible increase the recovery time Even an immobilized opponent can punch us in the face for 10k on landing.

Netshot I feel currently is somewhere between the right and wrong place so depending if any changes were made to the rifle for better or worse. I’d swing one way or the other.

What are your thoughts?

Mod edit: removed infraction

Weapon description is not exactly accurate i’d say rifle is close ranged “ranged weapon” for engineers, i never use overcharged shot and blunderbuss at medium range because i don’t wish to squander already limited damage.

Couldn’t agree more on jumpshot, it does decent damage but either make it faster (remove that connection time when we land) or give us immunity when we take off and 1 second after we land or both would be awesome.

Netshot is fine, i think.

Hipshot: i think the pierce effect should be scrapped and added to one of the rifle traits, instead how about chance for a chilling effect? no class has this so far and would make us unique.

Yeah, the more I try to work jumpshot into my arsenal, the more I’m going to demand it gets fixed.
I died using it a few days ago vs a warrior. I overcharged him, got up and leap at him.
I had 8k hp, he had 2k. I died mid flight to a 10k eviscerate.
It needs to deal damage on contact. Not sit there and hover in melee range for .5s, THEN deal damage.

Take your pick on it. Bigger aoe, faster cast/land)its something like 2seconds travel time currently, so with its small aoe, misses at a very high rate), immune while in air, damage on contact, etc.

Everything about it currently makes it a death trap to use for anything but cheating in jump puzzles.

Chill effect, sounds like a great future utility skill.

Pretty sure adding new skills is how professions will be expanded in the future. the system will unlimited skill points, is clearly made to allow expansion. It already has some expansion via racial skills, and special preorder skills, etc.

Gadget
Cryo armor. Use:break stun stability for 5s, chill when hit for 2s.
toolbelt. Cyro ammo. 20% chance to chill on hit for 20s, 40s cd.

My only problem with the rifle is the reliability of the attacks. Overcharged Shot would be fine if a bug didn’t cause it to fail to fire half the time.

Net shot would be amazing if it didn’t miss from longer ranges due to the travel time of the net. In a game with tab targeting -IE. where we can’t manually aim a little ahead of our target to compensate for the travel time- this is inexcusable. The net needs to travel faster, or the skill needs to hit our target regardless what the net animation is actually doing.

With Jump Shot, the only change I want to see is to make it instantly deal it’s damage, the moment you reach your destination. It doesn’t need evasion or anything like that, it just needs to deal it’s damage reliably. It’s already a ground targeted skill, which means the chance of missing a moving target is high. There’s no reason to also have a half-second delay before landing on top of that. That just makes the skill feel unresponsive and clunky.

-Travail.

Morgax Warrior.5728:

Hipshot: i think the pierce effect should be scrapped and added to one of the rifle traits, instead how about chance for a chilling effect? No class has this so far and would make us unique.

We have a set of traits similar to what you described you know? Something along the lines of, Sitting duck, Knee Shot and exploit weakness.

I like the idea of hipshot having chill although we have net shot to do exactly that, to lock down our enemys. But as I said my stance on net shot is something along the lines of, Increase the effective use of our other skills and leave it as is or buff it in an otherwise negative situation(Travel Time). Especially since it doesn’t operate quite the same as hipshots skill nor as reliably.(Its far more easier to dodge, and easily obstructed based on terrain.)

Perhaps 1 stack of Vulnerability or bleeding? The synergy with out other traits and skills would help.

I am however fine with hipshot piercing. It adds collateral damage to rare situations, that usually alone has me like the skill more than all of the others.

Isn’t the definition of love liking something for the way it is.

/on topic
Overcharge shot should be cone and not single target. Even the skill animation is a cone.

Lite.3819:

Overcharge shot should be cone and not single target. Even the skill animation is a cone.

Agreed, If ele the king versatility can have not one, but two proper knockdowns, why can’t we the the lesser have 1 fully functional knockdown with a drawback, instead of it being mediocre at best.

I have honestly never used Overcharged Shot and though “Darn… I wish this skill was better.” Because very time I use it, it’s been incredible. Yeah, the self CC is a little sad, but I can keep people well and away for ridiculous amounts of time with all of Rifle’s skills.

Overcharged Shot and Net Shot are Rifle’s two best skills in my humble opinion.

Jump Shot getting a fluidity change (so you’re not kind of floating there when you land for .5 seconds) would be very nice, and I can agree with that.

Blunderbuss with a larger cone is in my “Condensed Suggestions” thread. We get a bigger cone from pistol 4… A smaller weapon. Having a 600 range cone for Blunderbuss, especially with the skills’ “diminshed effect” for far targets, is something that needs to happen too.

I do love my rifle a lot though, and I wouldn’t want them to change it drastically like some people have been suggesting.

Also: Rifled Barrels is absolute garbage for Rifles, go figure… Heck for most weapons except the Elixir Gun… Honestly, it should be baked into skills (the ones with under 1200 range) and gotten rid of, since 100 extra range on most attacks means next to nothing, even in sPvP and WvW.