Guild Wars 2

Aveneo.2068:

Dastion.3106:

We aren’t going to get mh weapon skills that trigger the offhand weapon, dual wield skills are the Thief’s domain and they’ve states in the past they aren’t going to utilize the offhand weapon in mh skills, despite complaints from people that the offhand felt ‘dead’.

I believe what he meant was that it would use a different animation only; not separate skills like the Thief where the #3 would change depending on the OH. Best comparison would be that the main attack would have similar animations as ‘Repeater’. Combining it with a second Pistol would change the animation to ‘Unload’.

So, for example, let’s say that ‘Chaotic Barrage’ would fire 5 times if only the MH Pistol was equipped. When equipping a Pistol for both MH and OH, it would use both in its animation and give the impression that it shoots 8 times, but you’d still only see damage numbers 5 times. So it would be mainly for aesthetic purposes so the weapons appear to function as one when using both of them at the same time.

I know what he meant. I was just covering both aspects of the ‘using both weapons to attack’ concept. The first is actually using both weapons, which is the domain of the Thief. The second is just appearing to use the offhand for thematic purposes. For example, animatig both swords if you dual wield them.

As to the latter, as I said, they’ve stated in the past that it isn’t something they are considering. They want each attack to have a recognizable animation and not vary depending on the offhand.

Dastion.3106:

I know what he meant. I was just covering both aspects of the ‘using both weapons to attack’ concept. The first is actually using both weapons, which is the domain of the Thief. The second is just appearing to use the offhand for thematic purposes. For example, animatig both swords if you dual wield them.

As to the latter, as I said, they’ve stated in the past that it isn’t something they are considering. They want each attack to have a recognizable animation and not vary depending on the offhand.

That’s a pretty odd stance from ANet then as currently each attack doesn’t even have its own recognizable animation. If I summon my iZerker I do a ‘He-Man’ with my sword, and when I heal I do the same ‘He-Man’ with my sword. And my Guardian has the exact same ‘He-Man’ for his heal.

Besides, shooting a barrage of purple bullets from one pistol or shooting purple bullets from two seems pretty recognizable that it’s a Mesmer using a Pistol MH. Even moreso, it would even show the opponent that the Mesmer is either using a single pistol or if he’s using two. So that would make pistol attacks even more recognizable.

This isn’t meant as an atttack towards you or anything, just that ANet devs don’t even seem understand what they’re talking about half the time in my opinion.

Regardless, I still want a Pistol as a mainhand weapon for my Mesmer.

Aveneo.2068:

Dastion.3106:

I know what he meant. I was just covering both aspects of the ‘using both weapons to attack’ concept. The first is actually using both weapons, which is the domain of the Thief. The second is just appearing to use the offhand for thematic purposes. For example, animatig both swords if you dual wield them.

As to the latter, as I said, they’ve stated in the past that it isn’t something they are considering. They want each attack to have a recognizable animation and not vary depending on the offhand.

That’s a pretty odd stance from ANet then as currently each attack doesn’t even have its own recognizable animation. If I summon my iZerker I do a ‘He-Man’ with my sword, and when I heal I do the same ‘He-Man’ with my sword. And my Guardian has the exact same ‘He-Man’ for his heal.

Besides, shooting a barrage of purple bullets from one pistol or shooting purple bullets from two seems pretty recognizable that it’s a Mesmer using a Pistol MH. Even moreso, it would even show the opponent that the Mesmer is either using a single pistol or if he’s using two. So that would make pistol attacks even more recognizable.

This isn’t meant as an atttack towards you or anything, just that ANet devs don’t even seem understand what they’re talking about half the time in my opinion.

Regardless, I still want a Pistol as a mainhand weapon for my Mesmer.

Obviously they can’t have a unique animation for every skill. I think what they meant is that when you use the skill it looks the same every time, thereby making the attack predictable. You know if a Mesmer raises his sword he may be summoning a Phantasm. You know how his sword swing animation looks and so can time it for avoidance. If the animation changed depending on the weapon it would be much more difficult to correctly telegraph the attack.

I agree that OHs seem dead, I wish we all got dual wield skills as our #3 at least, but I can see their logic.

Dastion.3106:

I agree that OHs seem dead, I wish we all got dual wield skills as our #3 at least, but I can see their logic.

Forgive me, but I do not see this logic. All classes except one follow the ‘no dual wield’ mechanic. Yet I don’t see why the Thief would be the only one allowed a changing #3 and why ANet is so reluctant to allow other classes such a mechanic (even if it was just for animation purposes only).

I just don’t understand why they felt the need to make the Thief such a ‘special snowflake’ with changing #3 abilities and active initiative-based combat while the rest of the classes are stuck with static cooldown-based combat with no synergy at all between MH and OH weapons.

As such I believe that allowing more classes access to more dynamic changing abilities on their #3 depending on the offhand would benefit the entire game and make offhands feel less static as a whole.

And the first weapon to use for testing could be Mainhand Pistol for Mesmers!

Dual swords – if blurred frenzy was on 3 and the animation used both weapons that would be fantastic.

And yes it would be good in general to see more classes have dynamic #3 skills for MH/OH weapon sets. It just looks a little, I dunno… bland using each one separately – if you had one thing in each hand, whatever it was and had 5 ways to use them, surely one of those ways would involve using BOTH items together.

KevEveryDay.8163:

TBH, I’d rather have 25% speed signet, more than main hand pistol :/

It isn’t needed. Use rune of the centaur for quickness on heal (works with mantra heal) every 10 seconds, and use focus speed increase. Using these two things will give you swiftness 100% of the time.

Aveneo.2068:

Dastion.3106:

I agree that OHs seem dead, I wish we all got dual wield skills as our #3 at least, but I can see their logic.

Forgive me, but I do not see this logic. All classes except one follow the ‘no dual wield’ mechanic. Yet I don’t see why the Thief would be the only one allowed a changing #3 and why ANet is so to reluctant to allow another class to have one on a single weapon (even if it was just for animation purposes only).

I just don’t understand why they felt the need to make the Thief such a ‘special snowflake’ with changing #3 abilities and active initiative-based combat while the rest of the classes are stuck with static cooldown-based combat.

As such I believe that allowing more classes access to more dynamic changing abilities on their #3 depending on the offhand would benefit the entire game and make offhands feel less static as a whole.

And the first weapon to use for testing could be Mainhand Pistol for Mesmers!

You misunderstand. I was saying that I wish other professions had the #3 dual wield skills too. The ‘logic’ which I understand is that they don’t make the same ability have different attack animations depending on the offhand weapon because it hurts telegraphing of attacks, even thieves don’t get that. You weren’t referring to a special skill based on your offhand, you were referring to a special animation for the same skills.

As to why Thieves are have initiative and dual wield skills – it’s their mechanic, the two go hand in hand. First off, Thieves have initiative because If they had CDs like everyone else, then taking the time to use a random item that may or may not be effective would be inefficient when you could be using real skills, since a weapon skill sitting there unused is wasted potential.

To make Stealing more viable without making every stolen item ridiculously powerful they gave thieves initiative. In this way, so long as you aren’t sitting at full initiative no potential is lost by using the weaker and random steal skills. Even so, they still had to make Steal Shadowstep you and not replace your weapon skills before they considered if viable.

Now, since Thieves have Initiative their playstyle has changed. It’s no longer viable to make a weapon set like others have because the Thief can use the same skill multiple times in a row. Instead if having a set if skills that works well together, Thieves are intended to have a variety of skills that are situational. For example, Heartseeker is only at it’s best when the target is low HP, because of how Thieves work it’s okay to have a skill designed to only be used in specific situations. Dual Wield skills are meant to tie this system together by giving the Thief something that fits the weapon set, such as the ability to go quickly from Melee to range with P/D or vice versa with D/P. Yet P/P doesn’t need to be in Melee range for anything so has neither.

Dastion.3106:

You misunderstand. I was saying that I wish other professions had the #3 dual wield skills too. The ‘logic’ which I understand is that they don’t make the same ability have different attack animations depending on the offhand weapon because it hurts telegraphing of attacks, even thieves don’t get that. You weren’t referring to a special skill based on your offhand, you were referring to a special animation for the same skills.

You are correct, I was mainly referring to a different animation when using 2 pistols instead of 1. I would understand ANet’s supposed desire to have visible telegraphing attacks. However, I feel that the telegraphing might become even better as a result because an opponent would know when a pistol is in the offhand because of the highly visible (different) animation. So actually having different animations might have the potential to improve the overall experience, giving better telegraphing of mainhand/offhand loadouts and make it feel more dynamic at the same time.

My reasoning for keeping the #3 as-is and only changing the animation would be -to me- a solution to give the illusion of synergy which would not only be aesthetically pleasing, but would also make the attack animations more dynamic and fluid without the need to spend time developing new skills which would then also require monitoring and balance.

As to why Thieves are have initiative and dual wield skills – it’s their mechanic, the two go hand in hand. First off, Thieves have initiative because If they had CDs like everyone else, then taking the time to use a random item that may or may not be effective would be inefficient when you could be using real skills, since a weapon skill sitting there unused is wasted potential.

Hmmm, I always thought that the F# ability was the actual class mechanic. I mean the Mesmer class mechanic is shattering illusions, the Guardian class mechanic revolves around Virtues, the Ranger uses pets as their class mechanic etc. So to me ANet just threw in initiative because it ‘felt cool’. I believe I even saw a video where they said it was the main motivator for Initiative, but I can be mistaken. No clue where the changing #3 came from, but I guess it was just another thing the devs ‘felt cool’.

Besides, why would the Thief be the only class to have different animations depending on their equipped weapons? Why wouldn’t a Mesmer be able to fire 2 pistols if both were equipped or wield 2 swords simultaneously right?

At present time the Thief feels much more dynamic in terms of weapon animations whereas the other classes wielding 2 weapons of the same kind feel completely static and disconnected.

Maybe I’m looking at it from a different angle as I’m more of a creative designer when it comes to games. But giving one class a changing ability based on their choice for offhand (thus making the two weapons feel connected) whilst keeping them for every other class separate does not ‘feel cool’ in my humble opinion.

To make Stealing more viable without making every stolen item ridiculously powerful they gave thieves initiative. In this way, so long as you aren’t sitting at full initiative no potential is lost by using the weaker and random steal skills. Even so, they still had to make Steal Shadowstep you and not replace your weapon skills before they considered if viable.

Now, since Thieves have Initiative their playstyle has changed. It’s no longer viable to make a weapon set like others have because the Thief can use the same skill multiple times in a row. Instead if having a set if skills that works well together, Thieves are intended to have a variety of skills that are situational. For example, Heartseeker is only at it’s best when the target is low HP, because of how Thieves work it’s okay to have a skill designed to only be used in specific situations. Dual Wield skills are meant to tie this system together by giving the Thief something that fits the weapon set, such as the ability to go quickly from Melee to range with P/D or vice versa with D/P. Yet P/P doesn’t need to be in Melee range for anything so has neither.

You lost me here as I’m not really into the how’s and why’s of ANet’s decisions and don’t see what connection Initiative would have to weapon abilities changing because of it. All I see is an active element in one class where weapons synergize and feel as one, and all other classes having a static element where weapons of the same type do not synergize and feel disconnected from eachother.

So TL;DR: I’m still highly in favor of giving Mesmers a Mainhand Pistol first and foremost. And it would be awesome to have it synergize (if possible) with an Offhand Pistol in terms of animations on the #3 ability.

EDIT: Modified my post because it felt a little ‘snarky’ when it was not intended as such.

The profession specific mechanics are the stuff above the weapon bar, most if it is just F-Keys, but sometimes it’s resources too. Such as the Mesmer Illusion Counter, the Warrior Fury Bar, Necro Life Force, etc. those are resources that compliment the F-Keys.

Arguably Initiative is more the Thief mechanic than Stealing, which is really just a stand-alone freebie utility. But the two do synergize. Stealing is random and unpredictably useful, Initiative allows the Thief to make use of Steal and whatever special skill it gives without ‘losing out’ on if they had just used a weapon skill instead. Every other profession knows what they are getting when they use their mechanics, Thieves at best can make an educated guess. As a Mesmer it is unlikely you’d want to Steal when you have two weapons worth of skills to use, most of them likely off CD. So Thieves don’t have weapon CDs.

I’m not sure how better to explain it, initiative removes much of the opportunity cost involved with using a randomized skill. And since Thief skills all share the same CD they have to be balanced differently. It’s okay to have a skill like Heartseeker on your bar (which, ideally you should save for when the target is low health) because there is no opportunity cost involved with leaving it unused as there would be on a normal separate CD weapon set.

Each Thief skill has to be stand-alone useful compared to the other skills, you cant have a ‘medium damage, medium CD’ and ‘high damage, high CD’ skill on their weapons like you do on other professions because the least efficient one would never be use. So, if you understand how and why Thief weapon skills are set-up, then it makes sense that dual wield skills are there to tie the set together, to give it something unique that it needs.

Dagger/Dagger gets a Melee AoE+maneuver within Melee, Dagger/Pistol gets a ranged close skill, and Pistol/Dagger gets an escape to range skill. Each uniquely fits that weapon combination to give it something unique to spend initiative on.

I’m not saying that others shouldn’t get dual wield skills, but they don’t tie into our mechanic the way they do for Thieves. And we certainly do not need varied animations, telegraphing attacks in PvP is huge. Yes, they may reuse the same animation for different skills, but it still allows for a greater degree if recognizability than if every thing was an ‘If then’ animation (which is more complex than you think).

While I find this discussion very fascinating, I fear that we may detract from the original intent of the thread. I myself am partly to blame for that (because of my love for discussion), but let’s recapture the original intention of the thread.

The original poster stated his desire of having a Mainhand Pistol option for the Mesmer. I fully agree with this as the Mesmer seems to be lacking in their choices for mainhand options. And because of the fact that we have 2 illusionary pistols in the game (Lyss and Ilya), I assumed that it may have been ANet’s intention to have a Mainhand Pistol for the Mesmer at launch. Yet for reasons unknown, they did not implement it (yet).

Fact remains however that apparently a lot of Mesmers (myself included) would LOVE having a Pistol as a mainhand option!

This was the basis of the discussion. I believe it then went beyond that basis with lots of additional suggestions. One of them regarding potential weapon skills. This then went one step further where a skill (#3) could fire off either one or two streams of illusionary bullets depending on the offhand. So with one pistol you could have 5 illusionary bullets being fired and with two pistols the iDuelist animation would be used (firing off 8 bullets). But regardless of the single or double attack it would still only deal damage for the 5 bullets. My desire was to see a form of synergy so the offhand weapon would feel part of the same attack routine without requiring 2 separate skills which would then require balancing.

So my suggestion was more an aesthetic addition in terms of animation. This would translate in the Mesmer aiming and firing both pistols; giving the impression of them working together.

I’m not saying that others shouldn’t get dual wield skills, but they don’t tie into our mechanic the way they do for Thieves. And we certainly do not need varied animations, telegraphing attacks in PvP is huge. Yes, they may reuse the same animation for different skills, but it still allows for a greater degree if recognizability than if every thing was an ‘If then’ animation (which is more complex than you think).

No no, I woulddn’t want actual dual wield skills (which would imply different skills or even traits); just changing the animation from one to two streams of bullets. More skills would require more work in terms of implementation and balance (and we’ve all seen how that goes). That’s more what I was meaning to say. Better visualization and synergy without the need to devote more time than is needed.

Trust me, I know how complex things can become as I have been ‘Lead Designer’ for a couple of game-related projects (Most notable the Playable Dremora Project for TES3:Morrowind and Mannimarco Revisited for TES4:Oblivion). As such I was aiming for the best results with the minimum of effort. Switching animations depending on the number of pistols was -to me- the least intrusive in terms of implementation (because the code already exists) yet the most rewarding in terms of visual effects in my humble opinion.

So… anyone think we might get a MHpistol for our Mesmer now? Especially considering the fact that we only have the sword as a viable mainhand choice after the patch.

As such, I think everyone who would like to have a MHpistol should put ‘#MesmerMHpistol’ in their signature.

My take on mh pistol:

Name (activation time – recharge time – range)

1- Duelist’s Shot (½s-900yd)- Shoots your foe. Combo finisher: Projectile (20% chance)
-> Mind Shot (½s-900yd)- Shoots your foe again. Combo finisher: Projectile (20% chance)
-> Discharge Shot (½s-900yd)- Fires a shattering bullet that damages foes nearby. Radius: 120. Combo finisher: Projectile (20% chance).

2- Illusionary Fragility (¾s-12s-900yd)- Fires a shot that applies weakness for 5 sec and sends a random condition on you to your foe. Creates a clone by your side that casts Duelist’s Shot.

3- Trickster’s Escape (1s-30s -600yd)- Shoots a chaos bullet that knocks foes down in a line, then teleport to the end of it. Combo finisher: Blast.

The idea would be keeping it more or less flexible, so you can decide to go for condition damage and have it interact with ethereal fields, crit for bleeds or sheer power and enhance that gameplay further depending on your off hand weapon choice. Of course, numbers should be tweaked to make it balanced.

Unless the autoattack was incredibly slow, a clone with an AE attack would be raging awesome with Sharper Images. I.e.: not going to happen. :P

Well, scepter clones only cast Ether Bolt, so having them casting just Duelist’s Shot would be enough of a fix then.

[please remove that post]

I don’t think we’ll get a new weapon added in a regular patch but I’m positive we’ll get one in a future expansion. My hope is that said expansion is on its way but I think it would definitely spark the community a little bit if classes got a new weapon in a regular patch. Like aelska noted, with the Confusion nerf Scepter really took a major hit so it would be nice to have another MH option.

Crion.8465:

Skill 1
Double Shot:[½ second] Two quick shots at the target(Both pistols if two pistols are used).
Followed by
Aimed Shot:[½ second] An aimed shot at the target, causes 1 stack of Confusion for 1 second.

Skill 2
Illusive Acrobatics:[10 second cooldown] Mirror Images effect. Jumps/rolls to the left or right summoning a clone that jumps/rolls in the opposite side. Clone causes 1 stack of confusion on attacks.

Skill 3
Chaotic Barrage:[15 second cooldown] Phantasmal Duelist type attack using both pistols if two are used. Attacks target repeatedly causing 1 stack of cofusion with every attack.

Just an idea for condition type weapon using mesmers favourite condition. :p

I really like these, however since #3 steps on the toes of the iDuelist (and the Thief more generally) we could perhaps instead have something like:

Chromatic Shock: [22 second cooldown] Fire a bullet applying Confusion (2 stacks) to all foes along its path. (similar to o/h sword #4)

Once you activate CS, you can then activate a “Swap”-like ability at any time during the bullet’s path, otherwise it’ll automatically activate once finished:

Slip the Parabola: [x] Blink to the end of the path, summoning a clone that will use Double Shot in your place.

I think something with high clone production and strong movement would be really cool.

shimmerless.4560:

Pollux.3247:

3- Trickster’s Escape (1s-30s -600yd)- Shoots a chaos bullet that knocks foes down in a line, then teleport to the end of it. Combo finisher: Blast.

I swear to God I didn’t see this before I just posted… great minds think alike lol

We’re all teleport maniacs!

I find mesmer dual pistols takes away from the sophisticated style of the mesmer, the mainhand sword + offhand pistol is classic dueling, with double pistols I end imagining the mesmer sliding down a hill on their back while holding the pistols sideways and firing. Leave such action hero antics to the thief imo.

I would love a main hand pistol! The. I can go Pistol/Torch like I’ve always wanted with my Mesmer!

Mastruq.2463:

I find mesmer dual pistols takes away from the sophisticated style of the mesmer, the mainhand sword + offhand pistol is classic dueling, with double pistols I end imagining the mesmer sliding down a hill on their back while holding the pistols sideways and firing. Leave such action hero antics to the thief imo.

Some might wish to run Pistol/Pistol (like me), but it’s not like all other offhand combinations would suddenly become obsolete. Want to run Pistol/Sword or Pistol/Torch or Pistol/Focus? With a mainhand Pistol you could.

shimmerless.4560:

Part of me strongly agrees, however there’d be nothing really to stop one from fielding Pistol/X (for example Pistol/Sword).

Exactly!!

If they ever add a main hand pistol it should be a condition weapon or at least have a decent length channeled auto attack to use with sharper images.

Hiki.9310:

If they ever add a main hand pistol it should be a condition weapon or at least have a decent length channeled auto attack to use with sharper images.

I’d say instead: rework scepter to make it a full condition/dot weapon, then give us ranged Power MH (pistol).

Ranged Power 2H: GS
Ranged Cond 2H: Staff

Ranged Cond MH: Scepter
Ranged Power MH: ? (add in pistol)

I’d prefer this way.

Hiki.9310:

If they ever add a main hand pistol it should be a condition weapon or at least have a decent length channeled auto attack to use with sharper images.

Personally I would disagree with it being made a condition weapon as the Scepter (broken as it may be) seems to have been intended as the ranged condition damage mainhand. The one we are missing at the moment is a ranged direct damage mainhand in my humble opinion; in which the Pistol would be a perfect candidate.

Aveneo.2068:

Hiki.9310:

If they ever add a main hand pistol it should be a condition weapon or at least have a decent length channeled auto attack to use with sharper images.

Personally I would disagree with it being made a condition weapon as the Scepter (broken as it may be) seems to have been intended as the ranged condition damage mainhand. The one we are missing at the moment is a ranged direct damage mainhand in my humble opinion; in which the Pistol would be a perfect candidate.

I’ve gotta say, the pistol for the mesmer strikes me more as Raw Damage + AoE control, that being said i’m pretty sure it’s not going to be conditions as much as i would like it to be.

Ive been playing some mesmer based on my love of guns on other classes specifically engineer. And heres my thoughts on a 1-3 MH pistol.

MH Pistol

1)A basic auto attack. 1 stack vuln with low base duration. Fire rate 1/2 sec
2)An illusionary shot that has a higher base dmg than auto attack and procs a clone nearby. The clone “slowly” spams auto attack. Clone does 1 stack of vuln with low duration. Cooldown 10 seconds.
3)An illusionary unload(with the same projectile count as the phantasms)(The entire purpose of this is to confuse the opponents to figure out which one is the real one when paired with OH 4 skill. It should still do moderate damage at the least. Cooldown 14-15 seconds.

Yes I am taking the 20% skill decrease reduction and increased range into account.
Upon these changes the max range should be the same as engineers rifled barrels trait on its pistols sitting at 1050 as not to have a replacement with greatswords 1200 in long range roles.

I’m entirely basing this off how Greatsword works with its cloning mindgame so its not horrendously unbalanced. As well as how other pistols and rifles operate on similar themes being fire rate and damage.

There you go Anet. Program it, play it and tweek its dmg and CD timers. It would probably take you guys a week to do this.

By the way MH scepter is a horrible burst dmg dealer. And needs to be redone and paired with scepter somehow for more synergy.

And with that we have what is essentially a run and gun mesmer.

Ricochet- hits up to 3 targets inflicting vulnerability and cripple and face’s the target in the opposite direction.

I’d love a mh pistol.

I would love to have a pistol main hand weapon (or any other weapon) cuz I don’t like scepter and I’m forced to go melee If I go with sword.

Who else would love it if the skills for the MH pistol were very similar to the Toypocalypse one? IE almost no damage but ridiculously high amounts of support.

Durzlla.6295:

Who else would love it if the skills for the MH pistol were very similar to the Toypocalypse one? IE almost no damage but ridiculously high amounts of support.

Please refresh my memory Durzlla, as I always ran around with a rifle so don’t have a clue what the pistol actually did.

Aveneo.2068:

Durzlla.6295:

Who else would love it if the skills for the MH pistol were very similar to the Toypocalypse one? IE almost no damage but ridiculously high amounts of support.

Please refresh my memory Durzlla, as I always ran around with a rifle so don’t have a clue what the pistol actually did.

It would absolutely need to differ from it for OP reasons, but what the weapon did was as follows:

1) Stun target (1/2 cast no CD, no damage, obviously would need to be altered)
2) Cause the target to attack their allies, is also considered an ally to you (so it will gain buffs that you give) (1s cast 15s CD lasts 10s, if you used it in a 1v1 it made both of you regen as if you were out of combat instantly)
3) Essentially gave them fear, same cast and CD as above, lasted 2s
4) created a clone.

Obviously it can’t be the same, but something similar would be cool.

Durzlla.6295:

It would absolutely need to differ from it for OP reasons, but what the weapon did was as follows:

1) Stun target (1/2 cast no CD, no damage, obviously would need to be altered)
2) Cause the target to attack their allies, is also considered an ally to you (so it will gain buffs that you give) (1s cast 15s CD lasts 10s, if you used it in a 1v1 it made both of you regen as if you were out of combat instantly)
3) Essentially gave them fear, same cast and CD as above, lasted 2s
4) created a clone.

Obviously it can’t be the same, but something similar would be cool.

Hmmm, the abilities do sound pretty neat; yet I fear a lot would be a little too much from a balance and ‘is it fun?’ perspective.

As you already stated, the #1 would be way over the top as it’s basically a permanent stun, so ANet would be better served to have a regular autoattack sequence that simply deals damage (with maybe something like 1 stack of bleeding on the final shot)

On to #2. In general, abilities that cause you to lose control briefly can be annoying. But losing control for a prolonged period of time could be considered an ‘un-fun’ mechanic as well as potentially prone to exploits when enemies can be turned into allies.

The #3 ability could work as an actual ability as we don’t have anything that grants fear. However, we are masters of illusion and mindtricks. So creating some kind of illusionary horror (see image) to instill fear in the minds of others sounds pretty reasonable.

At any rate, there is lots of potential for the mainhand pistol which would make for a perfect addition to our (currently limited mainhand) arsenal.

I think the toypocalypse pistol skills are a bit of a stretch. Fear wouldn’t be a terrible one to include though. I like the suggestion above to make some kind of illusionary fear. Maybe even a fear unique to the Mesmer similar to how Necros are getting a unique condition.

Munkee.3542:

Maybe even a fear unique to the Mesmer similar to how Necros are getting a unique condition.

like a lure; ‘come here’ sort of anti fear?

Everything between brackets wouldn’t be part of teh in-game description.

#1: [Chain skill, pistol skill, small projectile finisher] Shoot -> Shoot -> Scattershot (names are subject to change)
first and second shot: Shoot an illusionary bullet at your foe, dealing more damage and conditions the closer they are.
range: 900
damage if range is between 900-1200: 90% damage of greatsword at 0-300 (can only reach this range when traiting for pistol range)
damage if range is between 600-900: 90% damage of greatsword at 300-600, vulnerability for 3 seconds.
damage if range is between 300-600: 90% damage of greatsword at 600-900, an additional 2 seconds of vulnerability, 1 second of bleeding
damage if range is lower than 300: 90% damage of greatsword at 900+, an additional second of vulnerability, an additional second of bleeding (2seconds total),

3rd skill, Scattershot: Shoot 5 bullets (in 1 shot) in a very small cone, dealing more damage and conditions the closer they are. (same as first and second skill).
the 4 additional bullets only do16.5% damage and no conditions. (The bullet in the middle reaches your target regardless of foes standing in it’s way, but it still damages 2, it has exactly the same effect as the 1st and 2nd skill).

#2: insert name here [Pistol skill, chain skill, clone generating skill, leap finisher, projectile finisher] cooldown: 12 seconds
Aim at your foe, when attacked in the next 2 seconds: block the attack, teleport the direction you’re moving (range: 600) and leave a clone behind, then shoot a blinding shot at your attacker.
insert name here [Pistol skill, leap finisher]
end your block early, teleporting the direction you’re moving. (range: 600)(cannot be used while disabled, doesn’t leave a clone, doesn’t benefit from clone cooldown trait)

#3: insert name here [place-able AoE, pistol skill, blast finisher] Cooldown: 15
Fire a slowly moving bomb at target area, on impact it epxlodes in a puddle of boiling chaotic energy, immobilizing foes. lingers for 4 seconds, pulses 1 second cripple each second. small ether bolts fly for a short range (1 per 0.5 second), inflicting vulnerability for 10 seconds on foes and might for 10 seconds on allies.
puddle radius: 100
puddle damage: low
ether bolts radius: 200
ether bolts damage: very low

The main hand pistol would be a power based medium range AoE weapon, it could find it’s way in builds that need 2 off-hands and maybe in shatter builds, trading amazing defense (from the staff) for better damage, but still with a teleport skill on higher cooldown. where normal pistols would have the little smoke cloud, we’d get butterflies coming from the gun.

I still want this. It would look so pro.

MH Pistol auto should be a fast attacking, low impact shot. This way, mesmers have an attack that could proc often yet be fodder for retaliation/confusion, much like Engi FT (but not quite that fast). It would be a power weapon. #2 can fire an ethereal bullet that explodes on contact, increasing the explosion range for each illusion out. #3 can fire an smoke cloud that deploys a clone and deals damage.

It’s that time again for Mesmer MH Pistol to shine back to the top; what with all the stuff happening as of late.

Mesmers still lack a ranged power mainhand weapon. Giving Mesmers a Mainhand Pistol option would be the perfect solution in my opinion and allows for more diversity.

This would also clear the way for Scepter to change from the current dysfunctional power-condition hybrid to a true condition mainhand.

My take on the pistol, names are subject to change.
#1: Quick Shot (1/4s range: 1200): normal shot, deals decent dmg
Debilitating Shot (1/2s range: 1200): apply Vulnerability
Illusionary Stream (1s range: 1200): shoot out slow-moving stream of butterflies that hits in a line and apply Confusion.
#2: Phase Dash (1/2s range: 900): throw your pistol to the target, deals minor damage, then dash (something like dashing clone in iLeap) to the target, dealing high damage upon crashing into them.
Temporal Recall (1/4s): create a clone at your position and teleport back to the original position before you Phase Dash.
#3: Shattered Bullet (2s channel range: 900, 1200 if traited): shoot a crystal shard that repeatedly shatters on impact dealing AoE dmg and bleed as you channel the skill. Total hits: 8

Keep up the good work guys. Come on Anet, we mesmers deserve a MH pistol
And while at it, can we get rapier skin for sword, and hand-held fan skin for focus please!

Oh, before I forget. I wanted to post an adaptation of the suggested skills; based on Crion.8465’s initial suggestion.

—-

1. Double Shot: Fires two quick shots at the target.
   followed by
   Aimed Shot: Fire a powerful aimed shot at the target.
2. Illusive Separation: Roll to the left or right and summons a clone that rolls in the opposite direction (Evade 1s). Clone then uses ‘Double Shot’.
3. Chaos Barrage: Fire several shots with your pistol. Uses both pistols if one is equipped in the offhand (like the iDuelist animation, but damage remains the same).

I’ve been playing a Mesmer for quite some time now (and still love it, despite certain recent changes), but it still feels as if the Mesmer is severely lacking in the choice for mainhand department, as if it simply wasn’t a fully finished class at launch in terms of weapon choices.

Only a Sword or Scepter remain as options for mainhand, which feels rather minimal; especially considering all the other classes. Only the Engineer seems to have even less choices, but can make up for it with all their kits.

Also, there are 2 illusionary pistols in the game; Lyss and Ilya. To this day this still leads me to believe that it may have been the original intention to include a pistol as an option for a mainhand as we already have it as an offhand option and a Master trait (Duelist’s Discipline) that affects pistols (plural). Lastly, there is the pretty odd positioning of the Offhand Pistol skills when viewed from the weapon selection screen in our Hero panel and it all feels like theres a piece missing in our puzzle.

As such, I sincerely hope that ArenaNet would want to consider adding the pistol as a mainhand weapon for the Mesmer. Personally I would love to have more options available to me as the current choices simply do not seem to mesh well with one another.

(And the concept of finally being able to wield both Lyss and Ilya on my Mesmer is very appealing to me.)

So I would really love the choice of one more mainhand weapon that focuses on being a true Power based weapon. And to me the pistol could be that choice as a 900 range (1200 when traited with Duelist’s Discipline) weapon. This would allow ArenaNet to modify our scepter to take up to its own true calling; an actual condition based weapon.

For me having the mainhand choices of Sword, Scepter and Pistol would complete our puzzle and give us a full set of weapons where each has its own identity and function.

Sorry about the necro, but given the issues Jon Peters is having in figuring out what to do with the Scepter I felt it was justified because I’d like to provide a helping hand as well as a solution that could be to the benefit of the game and the Mesmer community.

You see, giving Mesmers a Mainhand Pistol would remove the issues you guys currently have with the Scepter’s identity crisis and its very awkward auto-chain. Having a Mainhand Pistol would allow you to turn the Scepter into a true condition weapon while allowing the Pistol to become a viable choice for power based attacks.

(And it would finally give Mesmers a means to wield both Lyss and Ilya at the same time)

For additional motivation I need only point to the post above which I made 4 months ago as well as the ones preceding it.

@all

Honestly i feel like a daze on the skills (not all) or bleeding on the MH pistol would most fit it. A little torment would be nice coz we lack torment sources except Scept 2 and runes and sigils.

I want to see an auto attack like this =p

Butterfly shot, shoots out a fast moving (think pistol 5 shot speed but a bit slower) butterfly that homes into the target, damage 700? (dunno, just thinking to have it do similar power damage to most power based weapon auto attacks) range 900 (1,200 with pistol trait) (this would be purple of cause and leave a trail of butterflies as an afterimage of each shot) 1/2 second cast time perhaps?

I’d prefer to see Scepter have the clone removed from the AA chain and have the DD brought up to make it a viable weapon, rather then see a new weapon. We do need more MH weapons, but I think making our current set viable is more important.
Talking from a PvE perspective, the only thing we can really use is sword, which is odd to say the least for a “mage” class.
The only redeeming quality of GS is the strong AoEdmg phantasm. Staff offers some nice boons and escape as a secondary weapon, but won’t do much for you as a main weapon. And scepter is…. scepter: Single target, hits like a wet noodle, the clone gen screws phant builds and makes the AA chain all around terribly awkward do to the drawn out cast of the third hit, and one of it’s main components is confusion which is kinda mediocre in PvE.