Guild Wars 2

The game launched since last year September so it’s almost 10 months. Look at the rangers and necros, see how much they’re improved on their pets and minions compare to the very beginning, not to mention a lot of other bugs on other professions Anet did fixed.

Now look at the “explosive shot” (pistol #1). It’s worse than thief’s “vital shot” (pistol #1 also) in all criteria: longer activation time, lower damage and shorter bleeding duration. And yes it DOES NOT EXPLODE to nearby targets as the tool tip says.

it’s because our “Poison Dart Volley” shoot multiple targets and all missed when shooting obstacles in zero range? Thank you very much!

I’ll bite because I have nothing else to do while waiting for this movie to start… if you are only looking at the number one skill with no 30 point engineer coated bullets trait… then sure the thief pistol one is probably better. no comparison with the engineers number 2&3 pistol skill vs the thief set. I think we win that one easily.

Last time I checked it does explode. And I play all day pistols, so it’s not long ago I checked.

The explosion doesn’t bleed, it’ll just do the power damage. So yeah explosive shot is horrible.

yeah it does… I wonder if he just tested this all on a golem and didn’t notice it. against a single target you have to be at a sweet spot to get the explosion tic too.

Edit: was not responding to you penguin

Can’t dance around the fact that the damage for Explosive Shot is hilariously bad. For Power or Conditions.

Even with 100% Condition Duration gear, you’ll only get your Bleeds to last 4 seconds before they disappear. Compare that to Shrapnel Grenade, which lasts 24 seconds with the same setup. Even Tranquilizer Dart from the Elixir Gun is better than the Pistol, applying 8 second Bleeds with 100% Condi Duration. (Both, by the way, do more direct damage as well.)

But looking at the other 2-4 skills you have when wielding the Pistol, it’s bar-none one of the best Condition Damage setups in the game. The Bleed stacking may not be the best, but you have access to Poison, Confusion, Blind, Burn, Immobilization, and Cripple all with the same weapon. There’s no other weapon in the game that offers that.

I think you also have to be mindful that while the Pistol may be weak, we definitely have the best Shield in the entire game. I would genuinely believe that, if the Pistol applied Bleed as efficiently as the Grenade Kit, the weapon would be overpowered given how ridiculously good our Shield skills are giving us a projectile reflect, AoE knockback, interrupt, ranged block, Stun/Daze, a 100% chance Projectile finisher, and a Blast finisher all in only two weapon skills.

I’m not saying that it necessarily excuses the awful damage of Explosive Shot—as I would like it to be buffed to 3-4 seconds myself—but Pistol/Shield Engineers are a lot more powerful than you insinuate, and have the ability to augment such ridiculous condition application and defensive control with the use of any kit that we feel like—with no weapon swap cooldown.

the nr1 sucks, the other abilities are pretty decent. But yah, Explosive Shot could go with some loving, it has been on the receiving end up a long string of heavy-handed nerfs in the beta and even just after launch.
Because, funny this, it was actually kinda OP at some point, back in the Beta.

But it could do with a little lovin’

Imho, they should buff up some pistol trait. Especially the grandmaster one. Frankly speaking, it doesn’t do much for a grandmaster trait, especially since it only affects two skills. It can’t even be compared to the other traits that give piercing (especially since they get also other effects and they’re just master traits – with the exception of necromancers, who got that only on two skills as well, but as an adept trait).
They could pair it up with hair trigger and make it a master trait – it would basically work as warriors’ crack shot, since we either use pistols or rifle – and the grandmaster trait could be given to something else.

Thieves have a better Vital Shot because Engies can potentially follow their Explosive Shots with Poison Darts, Static Shots and Blowtorches. You get 2 stacks of Confusion, Poison, Burning, and can go up to 8 Bleed stacks with the pistols if you trait and equip yourself fairly well. With P/P and even P/S (Incendiary Powder), you can apply all the most damaging conditions at once with the skill set alone.

Oh, and let’s not speak about the possibility of making it a piercing shot, which makes it both AoE, AND, Piercing.

Tell me what Thieves have, on the other hand? Bleeds, and that’s all. Sure, they can stack it up through abusive use of stealth, but it will all go down with one condition removal and additional bleed stacks don’t compare to Confusion, Poison, and Burning, especially Burning. Their other skills are either raw damage, or controls/evasion which are incompatible.

PS: Yes it does AOE damage, and no, it’s not counted amongst the explosives. Use coated bullets and watch the massive multiplicative damage on groups of ennemies.

I do agree Pistol auto attack needs something. Although I don’t think they should change anything with it until they tone down Grenade kit.

MrForz.1953:

Thieves have a better Vital Shot because Engies can potentially follow their Explosive Shots with Poison Darts, Static Shots and Blowtorches. You get 2 stacks of Confusion, Poison, Burning, and can go up to 8 Bleed stacks with the pistols if you trait and equip yourself fairly well. With P/P and even P/S (Incendiary Powder), you can apply all the most damaging conditions at once with the skill set alone.

Oh, and let’s not speak about the possibility of making it a piercing shot, which makes it both AoE, AND, Piercing.

Tell me what Thieves have, on the other hand? Bleeds, and that’s all. Sure, they can stack it up through abusive use of stealth, but it will all go down with one condition removal and additional bleed stacks don’t compare to Confusion, Poison, and Burning, especially Burning. Their other skills are either raw damage, or controls/evasion which are incompatible.

PS: Yes it does AOE damage, and no, it’s not counted amongst the explosives. Use coated bullets and watch the massive multiplicative damage on groups of ennemies.

It’s still a horrible auto-attack and should feel bad.

Explosive Shot would be far more effective than it is if it actually fired as often as it says it should – with a 1/2 second cast time, you’d expect 30 shots to be fired long before 26.2 seconds had passed.

Otherwise…well, they intentionally, as far as I’m aware, kitten the non-Kit weapons of the Engineer in order to make them use Kits, or as some kind of tax for versatility.

Compared to a thief’s pistol, the engineer’s pistol wins hands down. While the damage is low and the bleeding duration is low, it can apply a whole slue of conditions in a few seconds. My thief would be more than happy with running P/P if his pistol attacks were as good (unload I’m looking at you). I think I’d be happy if all the explosion based traits in the explosive line also affected pistol 1. Would make a 30/30/-/10/- pistol build somewhat more interesting.

In the original OP’s defence, poison shot misses how many times? If it didn’t assume that suddenly we shoot like drunken monkeys on horse back then yah sure…. And while we’re at it, your all busy singing the praise of static shot? Confusion is pretty much ignored since the nerf ( my other toon being a Mesmer formally using a confusion-shatter hybrid build 15 ish stacks gets you 1500 damage as opposed to the 3k it use to )
Sooo
pistol
1) meh
2) good, great if it wasn’t kitten stupid rng aimed
3) mediocre even with a pry bar conf bomb chaser

So I get his point, having said that I think it’s a case where the whole is greater than the sum, and any adjustment to pistols would want to be small.
Make 1 a little more forgiving, 2 hit where you aim, 3 increase conf dmg 25% but remove glamour conf traits, sure you killed glam Mesmer 100% dead, but conf bomber engies who risked hammers of death in point blank range shouldn’t have been killed too.

Between my wrench and confusion shot im hitting around 800 to 900 damage (wvw). Sure i dont get the memsers confusion stacks (why should i?), but with what i got and all the other lovely condi from my grenades.. Well target rarely stand afterwards.

So i personally dont find the pistol worthless the slightest. Its slow as F—-, yup, but then again i only use it to tag/dot something.

pistol 3 with the FT tool belt skill is pretty powerful in pve fighting multiple mobs (I haven’t pvp’d on engi yet but imagine it’d have a good effect).
im not sure they intended/expected engineers to use their auto attack too much given the huge diversity of other more useful skills the kits give them.
though this is of no consolation to people that dont us kits.

also this isn’t an excuse for a bad auto attack. just my opinion.

I find myself using the pistol more and more than the rifle nowadays, and this is due to the auto attack of the pistol.

By itself, the auto attack of the pistol is somewhat subpar. Base 118 damage with a short bleed, but with the bonus that it hits in an AoE around the target it touches. So it is basically a targeted AoE auto attack, except it just goes until it hits something.

But there is one trait that rockets the auto attack to obscene levels: Coated Bullets. This makes the auto attack pierce. At the maximum range and also when firing from above or against a wall, this doubles the pistol’s auto attack damage. One for the explosion caused when hitting the target, and the second explosion caused when the bullet ends. This puts the pistol’s auto attack roughly in line with the rifle’s auto attack in damage: slightly lower but also has a bleed to help out. Interestingly, the pistol causes an explosion for each enemy it pierces, and each of those explosions hits up to 5 additional enemies. Since the attack can pierce-hit up to 5 enemies, this ends up being

5 enemies hit x 5 enemies per explosion = 25 hits.

Yes, in the right circumstances the pistol’s auto attack hits 25 times with every shot. The damage from this is somewhat chaotic, since you can hit the same 5 enemies 5 times, or you could spread the damage around a lot. But in the end, this gives the pistol’s auto attack massive potential. In some of the orr events I hit up to 1.2k with the auto attack on mobs, and hitting 25 times means I’m doing a total AoE damage of 30k with every auto attack. On my screen it causes an explosion of numbers every 0.75 seconds, and I watch as an entire undead zerg melts quickly under the pressure.

In sPVP, coated bullets is not an effective trait. Enemy players don’t tightly pack together like that, and the situations where you’ll get the double hit on a single enemy are situational. In WvW it is a little better, since there are many zerg vs. zerg fights where the melee train will bunch up, and the auto attack can shred them. Also while defending keeps, the auto attack will hit any player twice, since is firing down into the ground. This can make coated bullets a worthwhile trait, should someone not wish to spec into grenades. However, it will probably be inferior to grenades in the long run, albeit lower maintenance.

So to reiterate, the auto attack is somewhat subpar, but it can be boosted to extreme levels by a grandmaster trait.

All Explosive Shot needs is to act like it is supposed to from the description of the skill, not the buggy mess it is.

It needs to inflict bleeding in the area of its explosion, not just the selected target.
Traits effecting explosions SHOULD effect Explosive Shot. Its in the freaking name.

Coated Bullets might make an Explosive shot such as this way stronger compared to what we have now. As Arachnid said, thats 25 stacks of bleed in one shot from an auto-attack in the perfectly aligned and exploited situation. I thought positioning was to be rewarded in this game.

Poison dart volley only needs to get off the booze and keep its aim straight.

The funny thing is that thieves complain that ranger shortbow autoattack is better than vital shot.

Thieves can’t carry up to three other weapons along with their pistol, and swap between them all with no cooldown.

Thieves can’t chain-swap through kits to the extent that they rarely have to their pistol 1 ability at all.

Thieves don’t have a pistol 2 that stacks heavy poison on one or more targets, a pistol 3 that stacks blind and confusion across up to four targets, and pistol 4 that applies burning to any opponent in front of them, or a pistol 5 that immobilizes/cripples opponents in a solid area.

Thieves can’t swap out their pistol 4+5 for a ranged reflect+aoe knockback, or a block+ranged daze.

Thieves can’t decide to use a different auto-attack, but still be able to instantly swap over and use their pistol skills when needed/they’re off CD.

If thieves could do all those things, then yes, I would agree that our pistol auto-attack needs a buff. But engineers are a completely different class from rogues, with separate strengths and weaknesses, so I don’t see how a comparison between the Thief and Engi pistol 1 abilities proves anything, one way or the other.

Derren.8724:

Thieves can’t carry up to three other weapons along with their pistol, and swap between them all with no cooldown.

Thieves can’t chain-swap through kits to the extent that they rarely have to their pistol 1 ability at all.

Thieves don’t have a pistol 2 that stacks heavy poison on one or more targets, a pistol 3 that stacks blind and confusion across up to four targets, and pistol 4 that applies burning to any opponent in front of them, or a pistol 5 that immobilizes/cripples opponents in a solid area.
Thieves can’t swap out their pistol 4+5 for a ranged reflect+aoe knockback, or a block+ranged daze.

Thieves can’t decide to use a different auto-attack, but still be able to instantly swap over and use their pistol skills when needed/they’re off CD.

If thieves could do all those things, then yes, I would agree that our pistol auto-attack needs a buff. But engineers are a completely different class from rogues, with separate strengths and weaknesses, so I don’t see how a comparison between the Thief and Engi pistol 1 abilities proves anything, one way or the other.

LOL really? A thief complaining about the tools they have? The top 20% thieves I’ve come across hit like a truck, move across maps and through zergs at will, and can reset any fight that’s not in there favour.
Just remember the frozen bird thawing out in the cow patty and kitten.

I’ll make this simple:

1) If explosive shot bleeding was AoE, Coated Bullets would be crazy powerful on balled up targets. The first explosion grants 1 stack of bleeding. The second would be 2. This goes on for an infinite amount of targets. That’s why it doesn’t spread the AoE Bleed. Yes, they should update the text to make that clear.

2) Comparing cross classes is a terrible idea. Mechanics work differently for different professions and drawbacks are placed in different locations on the class. Sure, thief has an amazing auto attack, but their ability to take hits is kitten compared to engi. We also have much higher health. Not to mention we have WAY more skills on one build than thief. You really cannot compare individual things like that.

3) Pistol in PvP is by far one of the best weapons we have. Pistol 2 is really all about getting poison on there so healing is worse. You need one shot to do this. You’re also ignoring the glory that is pistol 3. I’m not even going to get into pistol 4 and 5.

Coated Bullets might make an Explosive shot such as this way stronger compared to what we have now. As Arachnid said, thats 25 stacks of bleed in one shot from an auto-attack in the perfectly aligned and exploited situation. I thought positioning was to be rewarded in this game.

World vs World, man. World vs World.

Fos.4185:

The game launched since last year September so it’s almost 10 months. Look at the rangers and necros, see how much they’re improved on their pets and minions compare to the very beginning, not to mention a lot of other bugs on other professions Anet did fixed.

Now look at the “explosive shot” (pistol #1). It’s worse than thief’s “vital shot” (pistol #1 also) in all criteria: longer activation time, lower damage and shorter bleeding duration. And yes it DOES NOT EXPLODE to nearby targets as the tool tip says.

it’s because our “Poison Dart Volley” shoot multiple targets and all missed when shooting obstacles in zero range? Thank you very much!

I’ve noticed that a LOT of tool tips AND their actions are either wrong or don’t work – I stopped using pistol – and will not do so until they fix Engineer and its problems.

And not all Ranger problems have been solved – not by a long shot.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I’ll make this simple:

1) If explosive shot bleeding was AoE, Coated Bullets would be crazy powerful on balled up targets. The first explosion grants 1 stack of bleeding. The second would be 2. This goes on for an infinite amount of targets. That’s why it doesn’t spread the AoE Bleed. Yes, they should update the text to make that clear.

The bleed from explosive shot is far less damaging than the direct damage it inflicts. Now, I don’t know the specific armor rating of enemies, so a lot of this is guesswork, but I’ll throw some math at this.

The pistol’s auto attack does 118 base damage with a 2 second bleed for about 85 damage. If we are to assume a full condition build (around 1600 condition damage, full bleed duration), we’d get 122 damage per tick and 4 ticks, coming to 488 bleeding damage per auto attack. If we are to “go insane” with this and assume max might, this will give us 2450 malice, 165 damage per tick, and a total of 660 damage per auto attack.

In my zerker build, I inflict twice that amount of damage with the auto attack on crits. Since my crit chance is really high (53% crit rate + high fury uptime + target the weak = roughly 78% crit rate scaled), crits are the norm, and you can say that I am inflicting crits the vast majority of the time. I don’t have my exact build memorized, so I can’t come up with a fully adjusted damage rate, however it does hammer the point home: making the bleed in explosive shot spread to additional targets wouldn’t make it overpowered.

Thing is, you kind of have to go either full zerker or full condition damage to get those extreme numbers, so they are on opposite spectrums of each other. Making the explosion bleed enemies in an AoE will simply make the pistol much more viable for condition builds, but it will definitely not be the peak damage the pistol can do. Not by a long shot.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The pistol’s auto attack does 118 base damage with a 2 second bleed for about 85 damage. If we are to assume a full condition build (around 1600 condition damage, full bleed duration), we’d get 122 damage per tick and 4 ticks, coming to 488 bleeding damage per auto attack. If we are to “go insane” with this and assume max might, this will give us 2450 malice, 165 damage per tick, and a total of 660 damage per auto attack.

Yes. With one stack. 165 damage per tick per stack. For every nearby person to that target, you get another stack. In zergs, you can stack up 25 bleed every auto attack instantly. 25 * 165 = 4125 AOE and it can damage infinite foes.

Think about it. If you hit the first person, all nearby foes bleed. It pierces and hits another foe. Now all foes around that foe bleed. Because the second foe was close to the first foe, they both have 2 stacks of bleeding. In WvW, it’s not uncommon to have 40+ people stacked up super tight. 5 * 40 = 200 stacks of bleeding across 40 people.

I would also like to mention: This is one engineer. Imagine a zerg of these.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Making the explosion bleed enemies in an AoE will simply make the pistol much more viable for condition builds, but it will definitely not be the peak damage the pistol can do. Not by a long shot.

“Much more viable for condition builds?” Engineers already have what are probably the strongest condition damage builds in the game and the pistol is a huge part of that. If they were any more “viable” they’d definitely be pushing the limits on PvP balance.

Or were you referring to PvE? The general problems of condition damage in PvE are much harder to solve. Anet could of course implement more mobs with high toughness like karka, which puts condition users at less of a disadvantage, but the stacking issue will still persist.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The pistol’s auto attack does 118 base damage with a 2 second bleed for about 85 damage. If we are to assume a full condition build (around 1600 condition damage, full bleed duration), we’d get 122 damage per tick and 4 ticks, coming to 488 bleeding damage per auto attack. If we are to “go insane” with this and assume max might, this will give us 2450 malice, 165 damage per tick, and a total of 660 damage per auto attack.

Yes. With one stack. 165 damage per tick per stack. For every nearby person to that target, you get another stack. In zergs, you can stack up 25 bleed every auto attack instantly. 25 * 165 = 4125 AOE and it can damage infinite foes.

Think about it. If you hit the first person, all nearby foes bleed. It pierces and hits another foe. Now all foes around that foe bleed. Because the second foe was close to the first foe, they both have 2 stacks of bleeding. In WvW, it’s not uncommon to have 40+ people stacked up super tight. 5 * 40 = 200 stacks of bleeding across 40 people.

I would also like to mention: This is one engineer. Imagine a zerg of these.

That’s not how Explosive Shot works.

Edit:

I’ll make this simple:

1) If explosive shot bleeding was AoE, Coated Bullets would be crazy powerful on balled up targets. The first explosion grants 1 stack of bleeding. The second would be 2. This goes on for an infinite amount of targets. That’s why it doesn’t spread the AoE Bleed. Yes, they should update the text to make that clear.

That’s not how AOE works either.

Maximum amount of targets that explosive hit can hit is 30. Assuming you’re not re-hitting the same target. Any player attack in the game has a maximum of 5 targets only. Thus, assuming you can line 5 players up in a line, and have 5 more players around that target, you can get one bullet pass through 5 persons to hit 5 surrounding players.

I’ve always felt it should apply the bleed in the AoE. Otherwise you’re in this weird situation where your group damage may actually scale better with power with the auto-attack, but you’ll likely invest in condition damage if you want to be using pistols (dual pistols, at least).

And I wish the poison dart volley would just shoot straight. The pseudo-cone effect it has is just an inconvenience. I suppose it can apply a decent amount of poison if all the darts hit, but it can be a bit cumbersome to hit someone with it at range, especially if they’re running away from you. The channel time makes it so you’re just doing nothing for 2/5-3/5 of the channel in some cases. Professions like ranger can get a similar poison duration if they use their poison shot point-blank, but there’s is instant and pierces by default, whereas engg has to channel it and trait for the pierce.

Those are the only two things I think the pistol could actually use. It’s fine otherwise, even if it can be one of the lowest damage weapons in the game.

I will just assume people cant move away from each other for 3 steps because their collective intelligence suffer if they do that, and agree that WvWvW zerg battles are the ultimate perspective when it comes to balance.

I think people overestimate the power of the Pistol.

Explosive Shot is just really bad.
PDV needs you to kitten near hug your opponent, using it at any kitten range and its not uncommong for 2-3 darts to miss. Close to max range, sometimes even 4.
Static Shot does meh damage straigth up, and Confusion is just a poor condition now, damage is just really poor. Blind is still nice ofcourse.

But i think people give the Pistol to much credit as a “zomg awesome for conditions”. Pistol off-hand is responsible for a nice Burn. Other stacks of conditions (burn/bleed) can often be attributed to trait procs, which are not weapon specific.
I get better bleed from my Grenade, and a bit harder to use, but better poison aswell. Also, better blind.
And for Confusion, the tried and true Magnet→Prybar combo.
And if you prefer teh bombkit, that also has you covered with Burn and Confusion.

Truth is, even without Pistols i still got access to all conditions and can stack them quite well.

Even if pistol sucks in the DPS department, i find myself returning to it as i find rifle downright boring.

With P/P at least i feel that i use most of the skills on hand, while with rifle i basically sit there watching #1 go plink plink plink.

Then again, if ANet had provided us with a ranged direct damage kit that didn’t involve ground targeting i would likely never touch either weapon option again.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The pistol’s auto attack does 118 base damage with a 2 second bleed for about 85 damage. If we are to assume a full condition build (around 1600 condition damage, full bleed duration), we’d get 122 damage per tick and 4 ticks, coming to 488 bleeding damage per auto attack. If we are to “go insane” with this and assume max might, this will give us 2450 malice, 165 damage per tick, and a total of 660 damage per auto attack.

Yes. With one stack. 165 damage per tick per stack. For every nearby person to that target, you get another stack. In zergs, you can stack up 25 bleed every auto attack instantly. 25 * 165 = 4125 AOE and it can damage infinite foes.

Think about it. If you hit the first person, all nearby foes bleed. It pierces and hits another foe. Now all foes around that foe bleed. Because the second foe was close to the first foe, they both have 2 stacks of bleeding. In WvW, it’s not uncommon to have 40+ people stacked up super tight. 5 * 40 = 200 stacks of bleeding across 40 people.

I would also like to mention: This is one engineer. Imagine a zerg of these.

… I think you missed the point. The bleeding per hit from explosive shot would do 660 damage to each player for each shot. Currently in my zerker build I do twice that amount of damage to each player for each shot. Therefore making the bleed spread wouldn’t be “overpowering” because even under insane circumstances, the bleeding is far less damage than the direct damage it already inflicts.

I think it has been mentioned before, but the main hand pistol excels at covering our more powerful conditions: immobilize, burning, vulnerability, etc—by tossing on bleed, poison, blind, and confusion. With the right traits it can even proc more bleeding, some burning, vulnerability, and even grant swiftness to us. It also has some other neat interactions. For example, if you have the Incendiary Ammo buff from the FT toolbelt skill the first 3 bounces of your Static Shot apply burning as do the first three hits from Poison Dart Volley. Also, Poison Dart volley is a great way to apply poison when you anticipate that someone is going to heal, and with the right build (high crit and might stacks) it hits very hard.

Our pistol will never be a powerhouse with a lot of front loaded damage. Anet wants us to use kits, and that is evident in how our MH weapons behave. Most of our builds tend to apply a lot of nasty conditions and then cover them or use CC to prevent our opponents from reacting.

Kabooky.8071:

Derren.8724:

Thieves can’t carry up to three other weapons along with their pistol, and swap between them all with no cooldown.

Thieves can’t chain-swap through kits to the extent that they rarely have to their pistol 1 ability at all.

Thieves don’t have a pistol 2 that stacks heavy poison on one or more targets, a pistol 3 that stacks blind and confusion across up to four targets, and pistol 4 that applies burning to any opponent in front of them, or a pistol 5 that immobilizes/cripples opponents in a solid area.
Thieves can’t swap out their pistol 4+5 for a ranged reflect+aoe knockback, or a block+ranged daze.

Thieves can’t decide to use a different auto-attack, but still be able to instantly swap over and use their pistol skills when needed/they’re off CD.

If thieves could do all those things, then yes, I would agree that our pistol auto-attack needs a buff. But engineers are a completely different class from rogues, with separate strengths and weaknesses, so I don’t see how a comparison between the Thief and Engi pistol 1 abilities proves anything, one way or the other.

LOL really? A thief complaining about the tools they have? The top 20% thieves I’ve come across hit like a truck, move across maps and through zergs at will, and can reset any fight that’s not in there favour.
Just remember the frozen bird thawing out in the cow patty and kitten.

Actually he made a very legit point – P#1 for engy is pretty weak – but the pistol main hand in general is VERY strong overall for the reasons he stated – especially if you take into consideration the fact that, if they run kits, they have a near zero cooldown weapon swap to other kits and therefore rarely if ever need to even bother with pistol #1. Sounds like you are just tyring to turn this into the typical qq about thief burst thread which is not the point at all.

However, thief off-hand pistol is really awesome – both #4 and #5 are fantastic skills. Thief pistol main hand is pretty bad and if you run P/P you are blowing the majority of your initiative on Unload and don’t have a lot left over for the off-hand utility skills in most cases.

Engy/thief are the two classes I play the most so I do not have a bias here.

To be fair, the second skill has a terrible accuracy.
And unlike thieves, we have no weapon swap, so if we want more weapons (kits) we’ve got to pay for them with utility slots.
But the problem here is that, imho, balancing weapons with the assumption that you will also use kits makes no sense. Cause it actually forces you on getting those kits to make up for it.

Manuhell.2759:

To be fair, the second skill has a terrible accuracy.
And unlike thieves, we have no weapon swap, so if we want more weapons (kits) we’ve got to pay for them with utility slots.
But the problem here is that, imho, balancing weapons with the assumption that you will also use kits makes no sense. Cause it actually forces you on getting those kits to make up for it.

While i dont really see bringing kits as a burden on our utility slots (we have the utility belt for that exact reason), the fact that we need minimum one kit to have a distant similarity to weapon swapping does sound quite suspect.

Kits are not all an engineer is supposed to be about. Our utilities are compiled from Gadgets, Elixirs, Turrets and just finally, kits. Growing an engineer to lvl80, you can get away with never ever bringing a gadget or a turret. I know, because i did just that. Elixirs are on the “fine” side of the spectrum. But kits? You can never leave home without at least one. Or you can, if you want to be the least effective as possible.

We know its just a smaller part of the problem, but it is a part of it. How would one make gadgets and turrets and elixirs more viable when they leave you stuck with your class weapons with their tiny flaws like buggy #1 and #2 on pistol and situational potential on rifle?

I run with everything you just mentioned. I use P/P and got a healing turret, elixir gun, personal battering ram, and elixir C on my build.

lakdav.3694:

While i dont really see bringing kits as a burden on our utility slots (we have the utility belt for that exact reason), the fact that we need minimum one kit to have a distant similarity to weapon swapping does sound quite suspect.

I don’t see it as suspect. In fact, the engineer is unique among all the profession in that only we can disregard our class mechanic if we so choose.

The ranger’s class mechanic is their pet. My ranger cannot elect to not use a pet. I can choose among several different useful pets, and I can choose how heavily I invest in traits to boost it, but I still have to use one. I would also be somewhat foolish not to, since it accounts for a significant percentage of my damage output in any build.

It’s like this for other classes, too.

The engineer’s class mechanic is our kits, which take the place of normal weapon swap mechanics. Unlike all 7 of other classes, though, we can opt to not use any kits and just play without weapon swapping. We even have a lot of traits that boost the few non-kit weapons we are able to use.

I don’t think Anet wants to boost kitless builds up to the level of builds that involve at least one kit because they do want engineers using kits, even if they don’t force us to use them.

If you do actually choose to play without kits, our pistol and rifle are both decent weapons that give a spread of useful skills. There are some workable builds using only elixirs and/or turrets. It’s not optimal, but you can make it work if you really want to.

Kits are not our profession mechanic. You said it yourself “we can opt not to use it”. Toolbelt is our profession mechanic. Its unique to the Engineer, you will always have it, and it is the thing that gets enhanced through the bottom Trait-line (like every other profession).
Kits on the otherhand, are not unique to the Engineer. Anyone with 60c can get a Flamethrower for example.

Terrahero.9358:

Kits are not our profession mechanic. You said it yourself “we can opt not to use it”. Toolbelt is our profession mechanic. Its unique to the Engineer, you will always have it, and it is the thing that gets enhanced through the bottom Trait-line (like every other profession).
Kits on the otherhand, are not unique to the Engineer. Anyone with 60c can get a Flamethrower for example.

This. A thousand times.

Terrahero.9358:

Kits are not our profession mechanic. You said it yourself “we can opt not to use it”. Toolbelt is our profession mechanic. Its unique to the Engineer, you will always have it, and it is the thing that gets enhanced through the bottom Trait-line (like every other profession).

Quite so. The profession mechanic is always present regardless of weapon equipped, utilities selected, or even level. It occupies the space on the top left of your action bar and is (default) bound to F1, potentially all the way up through F4. The rangers have pets; elementalists, attunements; thieves, stealing; warriors, adrenaline; guardians, virtues; mesmers, shatters; necromancers, death shroud. And, of course, engineers have the tool belt.

Why cry about pistol when you can throw a grenade? xD

Kidding aside, come on. Is Pistol 1 engi really a concern? You’ve probably read the WvW forums and how they rage against zergs with members that spam the 1 button.

This is not us. Engineers are among the professions that push many buttons as quick and timely as possible to make the most out of the class.

We don’t have signets, so we scoff that signet warrior to the ground using the rest of our skills, not just pistol 1. We don’t have the thief’s speed, but we do have the fun of watching his bullets fly back at him, or see him literally shocked as he stabs us with our shield up and electrified. We don’t have weapon swap, but we have kits that work as well anyway. With the obvious exception of our elite skills save Supply crates, everything about the engineer requires you to be precise in order to play the class as efficient as possible.

So lay off that 1 button for now. You have a whole array of skills to burn with.

Terrahero.9358:

Kits are not our profession mechanic. You said it yourself “we can opt not to use it”. Toolbelt is our profession mechanic. Its unique to the Engineer, you will always have it, and it is the thing that gets enhanced through the bottom Trait-line (like every other profession).
Kits on the otherhand, are not unique to the Engineer. Anyone with 60c can get a Flamethrower for example.

You even get a limited variant for free in Southsun. Irony being that the flame jet there do more damage than our kits flame jet.

This weapon does need improvement all around.

The speed is as slow as the rifle.

Both weapons don’t fire in sequence just 1 at a time when you are using P/P

And the #2 Poison Dart Volley has been a thorn in my side for almost a year now where shots just inexplicably miss at level 80 in full gear.

I personally would love an explanation on this from the balance team. Why is our Poison Dart Volley not like the Warrior Rifle Skill Volley where every shot hits?

In fact I’d like to know why there’s a ton of skills that just don’t function away the other classes function.

FT Napalm =/= Ele Flame Wall
FT Smoke Vent =/= Black Powder

I could go on. Is it me or does it seem like there’s a lack of focus on this class when it comes to skills? Too much RNG not enough direct things to count on. It’s like the acidic elixirs why not make them act similarly to the Skelk Acid AOE zone? And tossing elixirs why not make the ones that do boons do 1 boon every time and the rest of them be optional? Like Elixir B why not make it do Retaliation as a constant and the rest of the boons as optional?

I just wonder sometimes why certain things weren’t done.

I find it ironic that a hylek is more accurate with a blowgun than we are with a pistol…

The Gates Assassin.9827:

World vs World, man. World vs World.

Suddenly, a wild Guardian appears.

tigirius.9014:

I personally would love an explanation on this from the balance team. Why is our Poison Dart Volley not like the Warrior Rifle Skill Volley where every shot hits?

Because the warrior’s Volley does only direct damage, whereas the engineer’s Poison Dart Volley does direct damage, damage over time, AND reduces healing by 33%.

That’s the balance reason, at the very least, and a very obvious one IMO. The technical reason is that the warrior’s Volley is a single-target attack, whereas the engineer’s Poison Dart Volley is a target-targeted (is there a better word for that?) cone-shaped AoE. Think of it as, say, a thief’s default dagger sweep but with a 900 range.

Le edit: Actually it’s easier to explain by comparing it to the flamethrower’s Flame Jet ability, the difference being that Poison Dart Volley is a projectile-based attack meaning the projectiles need to connect with the target in order to register as a hit.

Fos.4185:

The game launched since last year September so it’s almost 10 months. Look at the rangers and necros, see how much they’re improved on their pets and minions compare to the very beginning, not to mention a lot of other bugs on other professions Anet did fixed.

Now look at the “explosive shot” (pistol #1). It’s worse than thief’s “vital shot” (pistol #1 also) in all criteria: longer activation time, lower damage and shorter bleeding duration. And yes it DOES NOT EXPLODE to nearby targets as the tool tip says.

it’s because our “Poison Dart Volley” shoot multiple targets and all missed when shooting obstacles in zero range? Thank you very much!

Meh, its fine. Just go see all the condi roaming engis out there doing better damage with conditions than necromancers and you know pistol is fine.

Cause I want post an answer:
Engie’s pistol can apply a wider variety of conditions with ease, and hit more opponents at once. Couple that with the traits Coated Bullets and Incindiary Powder and Engie can apply a load of bleeds, burnings, poisons and confusions to just about everything in front of them. Makes Thief’s single target bleeds seem very insignifucant in comparison.
In fact, it makes most other condition classes envious as well, no other class can maintain as many damaging conditions as Engie.

Though incendiary powder only hits one enemy at a time.