Guild Wars 2

One of the most fun things of my engineer prior to the june 23rd patch was the ‘coated bullets’ trait which made the pistol feel really useful in PvE. Since they didn’t notice it in the stream (and I think they would, because it would be a significant change), and they changed the bleeding on pistol 1 which they did notice, does anyone still think we would ever get our pierced pistol shots back (and maybe some of our range)?

From memory, there was a point at which they were talking about making Coated Bullets baseline, as well as making Fragmentation Shot and Jump Shot count as explosions for the purpose of traits.

Whether through oversight or because they decided it was too powerful, it appears that neither has happened.

We’re probably not going to see Coated Bullets as a trait on its own – somewhere they said that one of the things they wanted for the new structure is for each profession to only have one trait that buffed a specific weapon, and for the engineer pistol that’s Chemical Rounds. Whether they do something else – making it baseline, folding it into Chemical Rounds, or some other tweak – is not something I can predict.

Here is the problem with Coated Bullets, it broke WvW when Explosive Shot initially caused bleeds to every enemy struck in the radius due to zerg balls. It is highly likely that this will not see another application of itself due to the current state of condition damage as this would undoubtedly cause the same amount of grief that was seen pre-release. The short version of the discussion: Engineer can’t have nice things because the masses refuse to adapt new tactics, ie turrets.

From what I understand, we had a dev realignment. The devs who set most of these expectations, are no longer in charge of those changes.

It seems they shift dev teams around occasionally. To me, it seems that each time they do this, expectations change. The issue is, the player base are the ones left out in the cold when this happens.

Mnemesis.8257:

Here is the problem with Coated Bullets, it broke WvW when Explosive Shot initially caused bleeds to every enemy struck in the radius due to zerg balls.

No it didn’t. Nor did it get complained about by any players on the forums. It changed between BWE2 and BWE3 before release, with no explanation as to why at the time. The community didn’t argue it at the time, because so many changes occurred that this was under the radar. It wasn’t until after release that it was discussed, and the devs in charge at the time, displayed no interest in discussing it at the time, and the change had already occurred.

draxynnic.3719:

From memory, there was a point at which they were talking about making Coated Bullets baseline, as well as making Fragmentation Shot and Jump Shot count as explosions for the purpose of traits.

That was discussed well before the June 23 patch. By a dev that was, to my understanding, shifted out of being in charge of this when they adjusted what teams various devs were on.

okay if coated bullets in pvp is considered too strong you could still make them coated in pve – and if that is too strong either (what i dont believe as lets face it, no one uses pistol 1 in pve)
than at least make it an explosive…at the bare minimum that cause in pve, pistol 1 and 2 are just horrible…

dancingmonkey.4902:

No it didn’t. Nor did it get complained about by any players on the forums. It changed between BWE2 and BWE3 before release, with no explanation as to why at the time. The community didn’t argue it at the time, because so many changes occurred that this was under the radar. It wasn’t until after release that it was discussed, and the devs in charge at the time, displayed no interest in discussing it at the time, and the change had already occurred.

Not that it matters too much now, as I said we will likely never see it again, but it was insanely powerful back in those days. Maintaining around 12 stacks of bleed with an auto-attack on a zerg ball meant that at least 2 Engineers had to do nothing but stack some bleed duration with rabid and watch mobs melt. It was an incredible power to wield back then, but one that undeniably did not need a justification for tuning down. Instead, the devs left everyone confused with the tooltip for more than 2 years by leaving the bleed from explosion attached to a dead sentiment of what it once was; further adding to frustrations by taunting us with “explosion” status that did not benefit from Shrapnel (again for obvious reasons). The point is this, under optimal circumstances Explosive Shot was by far the best auto-attack in the game because of that synergy and was vetted as a direct result of such. If we are to receive Coated Bullets baseline today, it would mean that only the first target causes an explosion with bleed and the piercing bullet following should be allowed to proc bleed from crit so as to keep the pistol auto from becoming a ridiculous mob killer again. Balance needs to be viewed from beyond our personal wants to the actual impact the changes would invoke.

Nemesis.6938:

okay if coated bullets in pvp is considered too strong you could still make them coated in pve – and if that is too strong either (what i dont believe as lets face it, no one uses pistol 1 in pve)
than at least make it an explosive…at the bare minimum that cause in pve, pistol 1 and 2 are just horrible…

The main point of all of this is that no auto-attack is intended to be an overly powerful offensive tactic. Because of our hybrid nature, the now Fragmentation Shot, benefits from too many beneficial traits for Coated Bullets to be a realistic possibility. Regardless of such, there has been more than enough research done by members of the community to illustrate the best rotations possible for our DPS outputs and thus exceeding other classes (besides ice bow) as a result of the relatively seamless skill rotations at our disposal. This means that there is no need to dumb down the Engineer by making lazy play more desirable. If anything were to be done at all, I would have to suggest that the bleed duration be improved upon by at least 1s to help improve its role as a DoT based weapon. We have enough on demand aoe bleed application, with more to come from mortar, that a piercing target pistol is going to be received as overkill IF made baseline; trait competition would be required for this to be fair by merging with Heavy Armor Exploit.

I’d rather have Fragmentation Shot count as an explosion and benefit from those traits than gain baseline piercing again. Piercing always functioned a bit oddly on Frag Shot anyway, and it just makes it too similar to Rifle as well. Having it count as an explosion makes it more interesting and creates more synergy with traits.

But Dart Volley absolutely needs piercing to become decent again. Its bad enough that the spray misses out on targets not at point-blank range, but when said shots can also be blocked by other random enemies in the path of the shot it just becomes laughably ineffective at anything more than “apply some poison to some random thing in a vague area in front of you”.

Mnemesis.8257:

Nemesis.6938:

okay if coated bullets in pvp is considered too strong you could still make them coated in pve – and if that is too strong either (what i dont believe as lets face it, no one uses pistol 1 in pve)
than at least make it an explosive…at the bare minimum that cause in pve, pistol 1 and 2 are just horrible…

The main point of all of this is that no auto-attack is intended to be an overly powerful offensive tactic. Because of our hybrid nature, the now Fragmentation Shot, benefits from too many beneficial traits for Coated Bullets to be a realistic possibility. Regardless of such, there has been more than enough research done by members of the community to illustrate the best rotations possible for our DPS outputs and thus exceeding other classes (besides ice bow) as a result of the relatively seamless skill rotations at our disposal. This means that there is no need to dumb down the Engineer by making lazy play more desirable. If anything were to be done at all, I would have to suggest that the bleed duration be improved upon by at least 1s to help improve its role as a DoT based weapon. We have enough on demand aoe bleed application, with more to come from mortar, that a piercing target pistol is going to be received as overkill IF made baseline; trait competition would be required for this to be fair by merging with Heavy Armor Exploit.

there is a difference between overly powerful and useless
there should NOT be any useless skill in the game that no one uses ever – if that is the case either kick the skill out at all or alter it – because like this its just a waste of a skill slot, a waste of an animation and a waste of resources

Electro.4173:

I’d rather have Fragmentation Shot count as an explosion and benefit from those traits than gain baseline piercing again. Piercing always functioned a bit oddly on Frag Shot anyway, and it just makes it too similar to Rifle as well. Having it count as an explosion makes it more interesting and creates more synergy with traits.

To be perfectly honest, it was also a bit weird that a single bullet could explode in one target while continuing on to explode in another, and so on out to maximum range.

draxynnic.3719:

Electro.4173:

I’d rather have Fragmentation Shot count as an explosion and benefit from those traits than gain baseline piercing again. Piercing always functioned a bit oddly on Frag Shot anyway, and it just makes it too similar to Rifle as well. Having it count as an explosion makes it more interesting and creates more synergy with traits.

To be perfectly honest, it was also a bit weird that a single bullet could explode in one target while continuing on to explode in another, and so on out to maximum range.

thats a fair argument from a logic point of view (we have to keep in mind its a fantasy game) – but then MAKE it an explosion when it is even called an explosion! this would also open up a few new build ideas

And if youre add it – improve on skill 2 – if this is too powerful for pvp than simply reduce the spread of the shots in pve so that they hit more often

funny isnt it, it was called explosive shot originally but got changed to fragmentation shot coz we asked why it didnt get the explosive trait benefits.

If pierceing 4 enemies is to strong, they could make it only pierce once. That way we still get the double hit trick when positioning properly without the 25 hit combo from 5 stacked enemies.

Just wanting to chime in, I also am still dissapointed there is no coated bullets or rifled barrels traits baseline like we were told was going to be a thing. the pistol condi duration trait is really meh and only good for blowtorch imo since the pistol bleeds are so weak, even with pistol duration trait, elixir gun puts out better bleeds AND weakness. I used to run coated bullets and rifled barrels all the time, by far the best mob tagging and zerg smacking combo we had.

If we don’t get coated bullets back, why don’t they give back the aoe bleed? As far as I know it got removed, because it was too strong with coated bullets. The aoe damage of the attack is so small, it doesn’t has any sense. Give back aoe bleed for pistol 1.

Nemesis.6938:

draxynnic.3719:

Electro.4173:

I’d rather have Fragmentation Shot count as an explosion and benefit from those traits than gain baseline piercing again. Piercing always functioned a bit oddly on Frag Shot anyway, and it just makes it too similar to Rifle as well. Having it count as an explosion makes it more interesting and creates more synergy with traits.

To be perfectly honest, it was also a bit weird that a single bullet could explode in one target while continuing on to explode in another, and so on out to maximum range.

thats a fair argument from a logic point of view (we have to keep in mind its a fantasy game) – but then MAKE it an explosion when it is even called an explosion! this would also open up a few new build ideas

And if youre add it – improve on skill 2 – if this is too powerful for pvp than simply reduce the spread of the shots in pve so that they hit more often

My comment doesn’t argue against either of those.

To play ArenaNet’s advocate, though, it’s possible that they were concerned that it would give pistols too much multiple-attribute dependency. Buffing pistol so that it’s better with its native line may be better than making it balanced on the assumption that you’re running both Firearms and Explosives. Of course, this requires that it be reasonably decent with Firearms alone.

Coated Bullets wold really bring up Pistol MH.
Irenio please consider this at least as a trait, it’s so much needed! Bring down bleed duration if you have too, but we really need this trait, pistol feels so crippled without

I’ve been playing since launch but I must have missed the part of this game where Coated Bullets was overpowered and everyone used it. Is it a serious point of argument to say Coated Bullets is too strong to come back?

It was nice for tagging in zergs and for making the pistol not feel useless in groups but it was still nowhere near what grenades can do. It was a nice upgrade for those who like to use pistol, it helped the weakest 2 pistol skills actually do something. It really should make a comeback, MH pistol still needs love.

Adamantium.3682:

I’ve been playing since launch but I must have missed the part of this game where Coated Bullets was overpowered and everyone used it. Is it a serious point of argument to say Coated Bullets is too strong to come back?

It was nice for tagging in zergs and for making the pistol not feel useless in groups but it was still nowhere near what grenades can do. It was a nice upgrade for those who like to use pistol, it helped the weakest 2 pistol skills actually do something. It really should make a comeback, MH pistol still needs love.

This is true. Pistol had AoE and pierce for years and nobody used it, grenades got it by a bug and broke SPvP for weeks. That goes to show how weak pistol are compared to grenades.

I want to use Pistol. Plz buff Pistol 1 and 2. It’s not fair that it deals such low damage, both low power and condi…

Isn’t there kind of an obvious solution?

Engineers only have one weapon at a time, meaning that having the pistol and rifle traits in different tiers of the same trait tree, is utterly worthless, they can’t possibly use both traits. Furthermore, if anyone takes firearms, its practically guaranteed they have either a pistol or rifle since those are our firearms.

Move No Scope down to an adept and take off a second of fury, move Pinpoint Distribution down to an adept and change it to 7% stat conversion while wielding a kit and 10% while wielding a weapon.

Move High Caliber up to a master and change the critical increase to 15%, and finally move chemical rounds up to a master and give it the functionality of coated bullets.

Every build possible now is possible with this change, we get coated bullets back, and the developers don’t have to have more than one pistol trait.

I am not really a big fan of traits working on JUST autoattacks and coated bullets just makes pistol feel more like rifle.

Not to mention that Coated Bullets did not do a very good job of promoting the Pistol’s role as a condition weapon.

Would much rather framentation shot got something like a short(2 sec) torment in addition to the bleed.