Guild Wars 2

apples to oranges.

rifle is a control tool. pistols are for HURT.

assuming, of course, that an engy in pvp is near useless without significant condition output..

i used p/p for months. recently ive been successful with rifle, but with kits to provide the damage.

Rifle easy, Not only do the pistol skills look stupid they are also crappy, damage wise.
Its inability to quickly (or at all really) stack bleedings is a major problem.

I know alot of people like pistol (for the life of me I cant see why), it must be a play style thing.
I know grenades are really good, but I cant stand using them. So I never do.
I knowingly choose a weaker build because I find it more enjoyable. I assume its the same with people who use pistols.

Neither.

Pistol and shield all the way, baby.

If rifle had a blast finisher and two sigils, I’d never use anything else. It doesn’t, though, so pistol/shield.

I use Rifle for power build since the update with new grandmaster trait and dual pistols when running a healing/condition build.

Grenades for damage and rifle for fun. And I don’t like the conditions… I want direct damage that can’t be countered by condition removal. So I just go for power and crit and it is still fun to throw grenades in WvW in the enemy zerg and it gives the rifle good power for fighting single enemies. Maybe not that good for soloing but the CC helps in small fights x vs x.