Guild Wars 2

I have been running Rifle/Gadget at level 80 for a bit, having a blast but wanted to take a look at pistol/shield. I have just like this combo. So I go to the mist to play around. so far I have not found a good niche.

I know there are issues with the pistol regarding damage and some hate the shield. So I am not sure I fully understand the pistol. For example the explosive shots does it gain a bonus from traits like explosive powder (which give a 10% dmg bonus to explosion) or is that only reserved for bombs and such.

What trait lines would go down I am leaning toward towards inventions but that seems to be more of a turret based approach which might be the way to go with it. Would explosive and firearms be better approach?

Any advice would be appreciated. I play PVE and WWW

I think putting 30 in firearms is a must as you can pick up the trait that causes pistol shots to pierce (causing an explosion on EACH TARGET). That’s the only advice I can offer.

I love the P/S myself. One thing that I had to learn about the shield is to learn the enemies tell to their ranged attacks. Once I did that, I could mitigate the ranged damage completely at times while reflecting it fully back to them, generally with 3/4 of them criting. Nothing is more satisfying then seeing a rifle or bow enemy do a multi-burst attack that reflects back at then for heavy damage.

I found precision helps alot with procs on things that add to cond. damage. I focus on prec/cond dmg/toughness armor and power/vitality/cond dmg jewelry with pow/prec/cond dmg gems in the jewelry. Basically I focus on cond dmg for the pistol and earth sigil. I put 30 into fire arms for the coated bullets and precisions, as well as the 20% decrease on pistol coold downs and 20 in inventions for the added toughness and 20% decrease in shield cool down and the 90 toughness in that same shield trait.

I put 20 more into tools for speedy kits for unlimited swiftness and kit refinement. I use bomb kit, elixir gun and rocket boots. Rocket boots give me two ways to do damage and burning as well as a stun breaker. I use elixir gun for debuffs and two condition removal options and 3 regens avaliable. I use bombs for BoB for damage and control. I often swap to bombs and use #3 then #2 for thr 5 stacks of confusions (got to love watching enemies hurt themselves) and AoE burn. Often I swap just for the fire bomb or smoke bomb for the fire field or smoke field for invisibility or blind.

This gives me invisibility, multiple burns, weakness with elixir gun, 3 AoE regens, a stun breaker, condition removal, the ability to mitigate damage, an escape option, stuns, fire fields, constant swiftness, poisons, and many different ways to play it.

I use this build in PvE, sPvP, and WvW. If I need to help rez in WvW or dungeons, I swap elixit R for rocket boots so I have a stun breaker and an AoE rez assist. I often use elixir gun in those cases as well to keep 100% weakness on enemies. Bosses in particular, as it causes glancing blow consistently, allowing me to limited the enemies damage out put.

I must say I like the stun stacking – with the elite – Supply crate – and shield then swap to either Grenade kit or Bomb kit and basicly kite and aoe – and watch your enemies go down – the four skill on grenade kit and the 5 skill on the bomb kit – aoe burn & confusion…. Oh boi.

I like P/S too. Only thing is, I very much wish the cooldown on all shield skills was 10-15 seconds shorter. I mean, let’s face it, with a 30 sec and 40 sec CD, an ability is basically a ‘once per fight’ use. Compare that to a pistol offhand and its 15 sec CD Blowtorch, which you can use at least twice as often.

That’s pretty much the only reason I often find myself dual-wielding pistols. Just not worth the cooldown most of the time. Unless I know I’m going against very heavy-hitting ranged mobs.

Oh I agree to an extent. Due to the fact that pistol main hand has a horrible damage coefficient and is very condition damage focused.

MH pistol is the absolute only option we have with pistol. I do feel shield #4 should be 25s CD as base and #5 should be 30s as base. As of now the #5 skill does not get the 20% reduced CD at all if you throw the shield. As well, we have to spend 20 points to invest in the reinforced shield trait.

coglin.1496:

Oh I agree to an extent. Due to the fact that pistol main hand has a horrible damage coefficient and is very condition damage focused.

MH pistol is the absolute only option we have with pistol. I do feel shield #4 should be 25s CD as base and #5 should be 30s as base. As of now the #5 skill does not get the 20% reduced CD at all if you throw the shield. As well, we have to spend 20 points to invest in the reinforced shield trait.

Yeah the #5 not getting reduced CD bummed me out because the shield toss is one of the funnest and coolest looking skills.

I sometimes wish tht you could move while doing #4, ala thief, but this skill has still saved me more than most others. aoe knockback is nice