Guild Wars 2

It seems every thread I read regarding WvW has the rifle/grenades coming out on top. I really want to run with pistols/nades, but it sounds like the dmg is so inferior that it really isn’t worth the time. Is there any scenario where a build like this could be succesfull? Something with a bit more survivability than the traditional rifle/nades glass cannon build?

Are you thinking about doing condition damage or power for you spec?

The limiting factor is typically with P/P you want coated bullets the 30 point firearms trait to get the maximum dps out of them. With grenade you similarly want the 30 point explosives grenadier trait to get the most out of them.

To use both and get the most out of both you’d want to do a 30/30 build which doesn’t leave many free trait points for increased crit damage from tools, or vital survivability traits from inventions / alchemy.

If you go grenade you can easily stay in grenade kit all the time and use a P/S for extra survivability, many like rifle for the CC / situational burst from jumpshot / blunderbuss.

But you can be a beast with pistol / nades whether you go power or condi. But power builds with it might be a tad bit squishy.

I’m going to try out a 30 / 30 pistol / nade build with shield, and see how I like it, in PvE / WvW.

But my chief concern is survivability. Elixir S + shield should be plenty however with smart play and group support.

Does the rifle not have better range and survivability? The pistols pack more punch but their range is shorter, but i suppose you could use the grenades for the long range stand-off situations.

The rifle has better burst moves in a power spec without trait support. But both blunderbuss and jumpshot are point blank range abilities. Hip shot and net shoot and a 1000 traited to 1200 range but overall pistol has better range and usage as a ranged weapon.

The key to pistols is the coated bullets trait. When firing at 4-5 tightly packed enemies it will trigger an explosions for each enemy so you get 4 or 5x the normal damage. It also has an extremely fast firing speed making it more difficult to dodge. With quickness it is devastating.

The survivability of rifle comes from CC, but if you take shield in the offhand you get much better survivability than rifle provides. 2 channeled blocks, ranged stun, and an AoE KB vs a ST knock + self knock back, and a ranged immobilize.

The key defining fact comes to play style melee vs mid ranged and spec type. Pistol can somewhat work for both power and condition, rifle is mainly power, it cannot stack bleeds well enough in my opinion to make condition builds functional.