Guild Wars 2

I would simply like to see the views that people hold on the subject of pistols and rifles when used in a tanky build. They each have their strong points and each build will use either one depending on what they need, because a conditoneer would never use rifle, you would have a hard time finding a DPS engineer with a pistol. But what if the engineer is focused more on staying alive than doing damage? Is base damage or condition damage better? You could people do the damage for you with confusion and retaliation from prybar and static shot, or you could try to stack some base damage with Cleric’s gear from the 5% power from toughness and 10% power from healing power. What do you think? And please keep the pessimism low and the respect for each other high, we’re all engineers here.

I find that using pistols+condition damage works better than rifle if you want to be tanky. With a condition build you only have to max out your condition damage stat to be a threat. So that leaves two free stats for power and/or toughness (since equipment typically only allows you to focus on three stats).

kazi.6438:

I find that using pistols+condition damage works better than rifle if you want to be tanky. With a condition build you only have to max out your condition damage stat to be a threat. So that leaves two free stats for power and/or toughness (since equipment typically only allows you to focus on three stats).

Yeah, I was leaning towards condition damage too. Rabid gear is pretty great for that, and it can give you some added base damage with the critical hits you get from the precision while still having toughness as its main stat. The best part about condition damage is you don’t really have to have condition damage gear, because condition duration is just SO strong all you have to do is get the right runes/gems/weapons. The shield is also another great reason to use pistols. But the rifle does have more CC, and the net is pretty kitten powerful.

In PvP, I think you can make a case for rifle because getting the necessary condition damage/duration to actually damage anything is much more difficult. In PvE/WvW, condi all the way. Shield or OH pistol work fine.

Depends on what I’m doing. Pistol for group fights because of the blind and shield skills, rifle for fights against one or two people for control and better DD.

a rabid geared ft conditioneer is sofa king we tall did awesome kittens.

but I like pow/tough after I’ve hit 50% crit.