short version of this is, we need more info.
Pistols are getting a number of large buffs. Rifle seems to be eating a few nerfs. Other builds are getting buff/nerfs too.. hard to place where everything lands atm.
But still wanted to look at some of the things..
target the maimed, and target the weak. both gone.
Target the weak is getting replaced with hematic focus. so basically 10% crit all the time, instead of 10% crit below 50%.
Target the weak is just plain gone. 5% damage buff lost to pretty much all engi builds.
Rifle mod is also gone for rifles… another 10% damage lost for them…. ouch.
Hair trigger 20% recharge on pistol, rifle, and harpoon. NEW hair trigger is only rifle and harpoon it seems..
no pistol… (how well that 10% ias performs for rifles remains to be seen. )
Sharpshooter small buff to 4s duration. But loss of explosives +30% cond duration. (which grenades, etc all took, but rifle/ft/pistol may not have)
Pistol builds were in the first place, stat locked. power/cond duration in explosives. valuable stats.
Crit, and cond damage in the firearms. with ferocity in tools. and some trait synergy with blood injection and/or hgh experiment turrents in alch. there was no good ideal stat+trait synergy.
the good news.
P1 is an explosive, and cond now stack. and vul effects cond damage.
things now get interesting for pistols.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgEB6AJYBVw~
first, How does chemical rounds work? “your pistol skills have 50% increased condition duration”. is this “just” the conditions applied from the core skills, or any condition applied by the pistol skill? namely, sharpshooter, steel packed powder, and incendiary powder? if it effects this, amazing. if not.. eh..
Pistol damage currently if running celestial will be about 60% direct, and 40% condition.
Frag shots attack speed and coeff is terrible. coeff was even nerfed at one point.. but can double or triple damage with coated bullets, which is now also default. decent for trash, not so much bosses where it doesn’t double/triple up.
.350 coeff, .75 a/s. current 2s bleed on direct hit.
+50% cond duration with pistol skills.
+33% duration bleeds
10% of prec=cond.
p1 is now an explosive.
Shrapnel-15% chance of 12s bleed and 2s cripple. (each aoe?)
Explosive powder- 10% more damage for explosions.
steel packed- explosions apply 5s vul.
Look at all this fun stuff we didnt have before.
Frag 1.
33% change on crit for 5s bleed.
3.66s bleed on hit.
1 stack 5s duration vul on hit. (possibly more0
15% chance of 16s bleed.
.350 coeff into 10% EP, 5%glass cannon, 10% excessive energy, 5% shaped charge.
PDV .4 coeff, 2 attack duration, kittens(can miss) 10s CD. 2s poison/hit.
This was easy to maintain 100% uptime of poison all by yourself, without any +duration, or even the 20% cd recharge. Decent coeff as well. 2 over 2s.
Now with stacking poison, whew boy.
And the poison is being increased to 4s duration.
New Poison 3.5 + (0.375*level)+(0.06*Condition Damage)
old poison. 84 + (0.1 * Condition Damage)
1/3 the scaling per level, and just over half the scaling per cond.
there was little really buffing PDV in old traits. just the 5% target the weak, and modified ammo.
but now we also have the +50% duration trait. And since poison stacks, we actually benefit from +duration, nightmare runes, malice sigil? good old duration food. super veggie pizza… toxic oil/stone.
With just the trait, PDV will be 5 stacks of 6s duration poison. with the poison dealing over twice as much as it did prepatch.
Static shot. also a .4coeff. with 4 bounces. considering the bounce, also not bad coeff really.
+blind on call, and confuse.
the confuse change is a direct buff to its pve use.
Will it still be 2 stacks of 3s of confuse?
2 +(0.3*Level) + (0.04*Condition Damage) is the new dot component.
Blowtorch.
definitely up for grabs here.
the +range is now default? making this easier to hit I hope.
how the new burning works with its 3 hits is up for grabs. Same with incendary powder. if the 50% pistol cond works on incendiary powder, it may be better then modified ammo.
But at the same time… you are applying poison, bleed, vul, burning, cripple, and possibly immobalize all by yourself constantly as a p/p engi… Rune/stat etc might effect this.