Guild Wars 2

If you are going condition you are almost forced to go pistol/pistol. After the bleed nerf an engineer that relies on pistol shield does such crappy damage its sad. You can augment that with rocket boots but it has a long cooldown and the rocket boot escape is so bugged its suicide to use.

I really would like to use the shield again

Also make shield reflect usable while moving.

I’m condition build and I use pistol/shield just fine. Condition/Precision build that procs a whole bunch of stuff off crits with coated bullets to pierce. I sometimes use the flamethrower kit to use the Incendary bullet toolbelt for a bit of added burn. I run around Orr and WvW with the build and it offers a lot of flexibility.

Frankly I have never used the rifle/pistol offhand in leveling or WvW. Felt too clunky to me.

Why would you ever use pistol/shield for PvE o_O

Pull like 4-5 mobs and bomb kit/flame turret. Mobs hit slow so you can blind and AOE.

Im talking about SPvP.

Cause it worked for me since I like to be flexible. The reflect/repel has proven very useful (as it allows me to use blast combos on my random elixir throws) as has the shield block stun/shield throw interrupt. And honestly I don’t like having to go into close range to get the most benefit of Torch like you would with pistol/pistol, or bomb kit for that matter. And I hate turrets.

And you never mentioned that you were talking about SPvP in your original post did you. I thought you were on about shield/pistol in general. I don’t touch SPvP so I can’t help you there I’m sorry.

try bomb kit for PVE… there is no reason to EVER use shield for PVE…. ever.

heaven forbid someone plays a game how they want

I actually think pistol/shield is the best option in both sPvP and PvE. Blowtorch and Glue Shot really aren’t that good of abilities. Blowtorch’s damage isn’t anything to write home about when you consider the combo fields you can create with Shield 4, and Glue Shot’s immobilize is nothing compared to Shield 4’s knockback and Shield 5’s stun and interrupt.

The combo fields you can create in PvE with Bomb Kit and Flamethrower are ridiculous…

AoE Might
AoE Stealth
AoE Regen
AoE Retaliation

And more, depending upon your other utilities.

Edit: Also, in higher level dungeons, the extra CC is always more desirable.

There is a lot of reason to use shield on PvE. This sort of mentality that it “should never be used in PvE” is exactly why we have some of the close minded threads we do. I can do more damage with “magnetic shield” then anyone can think of with off hand pistol. Example, last night I was 5v1 with PvE mobs, that fired a multiple shot burst. I literally reflected a round from all 5 at once with alot of crits, hitting for 5k on 2 mobs, 4k on 2 mobs and 2.7k on the last.

I question anyone’s logic who would claim that damage to 5 mobs of that nature has no use in PvE.