Guild Wars 2

The small buffs to P/P were much appreciated in the last patch; however, long time players of the Thief class are well aware that it was only an incremental buff that didn’t accomplish much in allowing P/P to be as diverse, fun, and effective as the other sets. I hope that these weapons continue to be looked at, and hopefully a few suggestions can be taken and applied to help address the issues associated with P/P.

Some suggestions:

• The auto-attack is weak and slow, this needs to be looked at first and foremost, it also suffers from an identity crisis in that it wants to be build for condition damage/duration, but the other skills represent a more direct damage approach.
  Solution: Make it scale well with power to benefit direct damage builds; increase its rate of fire for condition builds.
• Body shot doesn’t quite have a place in the set. It’s rarely, if ever, worth casting over unload.
  Solution: Increase its duration dramatically (15~20 sec), this way you can weave it into your “rotation” to keep stacks rolling; increase the stacks of vulnerability (8~10) applied.
• Unload, while a great burst ability with haste, is too slow. It does less DPS than the sword auto attack.
  Solution: Reduce its channel time and/or after cast delay — if this poses issues for PVP balance, the direct damage can be reduced a bit and moved over to a bleed/poison condition, thus allowing unload to be a viable tool for condition builds.
• Headshot is an amazing tool in PVP and still a decent one in PVE. It doesn’t really need much changing, however it does almost no damage in an offensive-minded set.
  Solution: Tweak the damage upward just a bit and/or add a confusion debuff when something is interrupted. This rewards good play, and gives an extra incentive to hit something other than unload.
• Black Powder is too expensive.
  Solution: Lower it to 5 initiative, even if you have to tune it down.

Traits

• Ricochet is an amazingly fun trait. I’ve tried it on test dummies and it’s hilarious watching my bullets bounce…but it’s still incredibly unreliable and only presents a small boost under specific circumstances.
  Solution: Increase the rate to 33%-50% with full damage bounces or 55-75% bounces with reduced damage.

General

• Pistols do about ~25% less damage than comparable sets. Overall, it just doesn’t hit hard enough. Its not quite a utility set, and not quite a viable damage set. It needs more tweaking upward in general if it is to compare with a set like the Warrior’s rifle.

These are just some suggestions from a beta/release Thief. I wouldn’t ever expect all of these changes to be implemented, but these merely represent a couple of ideas that could work in fixing some of the core issues of the P/P set. A 5% buff to damage and a large buff to a useless talent were a step in the right direction, but hardly remedy the shortcomings of a weak set. As someone who dreamt up an awesome steampunk Thief, I am still waiting for the day I can feel like I’ve made a wise choice with my weapon slots — much like the strength of D/D, SB, P/D etc. — while maintaining the awesome flavor that is a P/P Thief.

P/P desperately needs piercing shots. Ricochet is an okay gimmicky trait that is a lame excuse for an aoe skill.

2 things that will make P/P viable for me:

1) Make pistol skills/attacks: 100% piercing
2) Body shot change into: 1200range w/ crippple

-or: Like above.

and if Anet is feeling generous they can throw in a faster animation for unload.

While i like your thread it will probably get deletd since you called Anet in the title

Talking from my own experience.

Sons.5493:

While i like your thread it will probably get deletd since you called Anet in the title

Talking from my own experience.

Thanks, I’ll save the post just in case.

This is the sugestion I always made for P/P:

Implement this into Black Powder: It stealths you on use, but the small area works like Shadow Refuge in that if you leave it it removes stealth. Keep the 6 ini cost.

Now the explanation for this:

Black Powder is a great skill, but only for melee players, with P/P right now the only way to go is to spam Unload on a crit+initiative gain build. This allows you to access your Sneak Attack while blinding your opponent, so you can choose between fast direct damage with Unload, or steady Condition Damage plus defense through the use of Black Powder + Sneak Attack.

By removing the Stealth if you leave the field, which isn’t very large (Shadow Refuge is muuuuuuuch bigger in comparison, and this one wouldn’t pulse, which means it would end before the field), you don’t make this skill overpowered as you can’t use the Stealth for anything else than your Pistol Sneak Attack. While in a P/D build to gain Stealth you’re forced to hit a melee attack, that skill allows you to freely roam around your target (or away from him), which is what makes it so powerful in 1 vs X WvW videos, but limiting the area makes this Stealth only useful for the Sneak Attack. This way the skill will be worth the 6 initiative on a P/P set instead of only being useful for melee builds.

And for melee builds, it basically works the same, both melee stealth attacks require you to hit your opponent’s back for full effect (and sword non-back effect blinds… but the field is blinding your opponent anyway) and as you’re limited to the area, you’re not reaching your opponent’s back (unless he’s dumb, in which case he deserves it and it wouldn’t be neccesary to beat a dumb opponent anyway).

So basically we have a change that doesn’t change the melee beheaviour much, which currently works greatly, and makes P/P able to chose between going pure damage for fast HP drops, or defensive and condition damage for steady fights, or a combination of both to change the pace of the fight when you think it would be neccesary.

Aditionally, Body Shot needs a boost, either by adding another condition, or making it a spread shot so in close range it does great damage and it’s an alternative when being attacked face to face.

About Headshot, I guess it’s fine because of how Initiative would make a long daze OP, but the damage is ridicously low for a skil named HEADSHOT.

Here’s a change to how CCs works that would help this skill as spamming wouldn’t make it OP:

As other games have, make a “recovering” state when affected by dazes, stuns or KDs (around half second or maybe a full one) so nobody can be permalocked. This way you can put 1 second or 1.5 seconds on Headshot and spamming it wouldn’t be overpowered as you can’t keep them thanks to the recovering state.

If we are to regroup suggestions in one thread then i hope you don’t mind if i copy/paste mine, we share some expectations by the way

After extensive use of p/p in pvp and a lot of tweaking to try and get the most balance build out of it, don’t hate me for it but i’m not sure we are lacking in the raw damage department.

As a matter of fact i think the problem doesn’t come from the lack of damage but from how defense in general with the current overall balance is way more efficient than offense.
From my experience, anyone running an offense oriented build will get punished very fast by a wise alternation between unload and headshot and a few defensive selectable skills.

I think i’ll have to disagree on that one about what i read from Jon, although p/p doesn’t lack utilies, it is not packing the right ones to prove efficient.

What i would like to see :

- Increased vital shot activating time, true it will come with a slight increase in the overall weapon set dps, but more importantly it will allow for better pressure which p/p is really lacking atm.
Why ? The constant dodging, repositionning, slow activated skills like unload and recovery time after a headshot means you really don’t get to use it much because it is either interrupted, either not usable because your target is not in front of you.
It is a problem considering how heavily initiative consuming p/p is, you end up not being able to properly keep on pressuring , as well as not being able to rely on proc traits like the essential Opportunist trait because most of the time your auto attack is not usable.

- Unload needs some tweaks but it might prove really hard to balance properly. I would suggest to take body shot’s vulnerability away and put it along with unload, while decreasing the amount of stacks applied, and making it applying only with the last bullet.
Why ? Because unload is a skills that immediately calls for a dodge, and is infact not that hard to counter by doing so. So on one hand you would get a slightly better unload but still avoidable like it is right now, meaning you have to use it at the right time instead of just spamming it even more because it got buffed. Once again i think the current unload does fine and i don’t think a raw damage or attack speed increase would do much good. Attack speed especially since the current speed allows Opportunist to proc twice with a bit of luck.
Also, i would like unload to be able to shoot a bit more from the side, like vital shot does, currently it intterupts itself a bit too easily and defeats the purpose of flanking your opponent, negating the usefulness of many thieves traits.

- Black powder shot, while very interesting, costs a lot, while giving no significant returns, while unload can be managed through using the Opportunist trait, black powder shot just empties your initiative leaving you exhausted while you were supposed to play defensively.
Also the blind procs too slowly inside the aoe and you will keep beeing hit by many attacks although your opponent stands inside like an idiot, he won’t even get punished for it.
I am not sure what to do with it but i think it could benefit from the same kind of design as nine-tailed strike, with something like, while standing inside the black powder area you recover your initiative faster, or if you are still in the area once BPS disappears you get a portion of your initiative back.

- Body shot, if you consider what i said about removing vulnerability from it in order to give it to unload, i would really love to see body shot becoming anessential low damage utility skill like headshot is currently, by making it remove a boon on each succesful use. Now you would give pistols a very interesting utility counter skill.

- Headshot, i love this skill but i think it could be improved a bit while rewarding smart playing, by making it deal a % of increased damage Or apply X stacks of confusion if succesfull at interrupting an activating skill.

I honestly don’t understand how you guys think these are balanced ideas.

Vital Shot as is is fine. It could have its current fire rate bug fixed, but this really isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not the center of any build; it’s just a filler in between Unloads or Stealth attacks. Increasing its fire rate AND damage would just make it extremely overpowered in power builds. I don’t see how you didn’t see this.

Body Shot needs reworked. It doesn’t need to be superbuffed into 8-10 stacks of Vulnerability for 15-20 seconds (I laughed at this).

Unload already does good damage. It hits just about as hard as Volley does, but it doesn’t have a cooldown. Pistol Whip also has less DPS than the sword auto attack. All this is telling me is that the sword auto attack is really strong. Trying to say everything is weak just because it’s better is stupid.

Headshot isn’t supposed to deal damage. It is already an extremely awesome ability. It can completey shut people down, stop them from healing, interrupt a long ability (like, for example, Churning Earth or Hundred Blades), etc. I’d like to see it get a damage increase when interrupting, just because I think that would be a cool mechanic. It’s not even close to necessary, though.

Black Powder is already awesome. It completely shuts down 5 out of 8 of the downed states. Initiative cost is high because it’s a 4 second long dark field.

One thing everyone seems to be unable to realize is that these skills don’t have cooldowns. A lot of the abilities are balanced around this fact. Unload, for example, can’t be the super high damage ability everyone wants it to be, simply because you can spam it. Just another day of forum balancing team, I guess.

You don’t know what initiative does do you
It’s sad because otherwise you make good points

muscarine.5136:

You don’t know what initiative does do you
It’s sad because otherwise you make good points

You can trait yourself around having enough initiative regen that initiative isn’t even a problem. I use a P/P build in sPvP with 0/30/0/25/15 and I never have an issue with initiative. That’s also counting the fact that I use Unload a ton.

You have to actually build toward initiative or yes, it’s an issue if you spam abilities. That’s why the option is there. You’re able to spam abilities, and they have to balance around this. Expecting Unload to be as strong as every other class’s abilities is just ridiculous. Because it doesn’t have a CD, they have to balance around the fact that it’s also insane with Haste.

I understand, i’m running a 10/30/0/30/0 build myself atm, i dont get access to some of the tricker line initiative boost but if you’re actually running with this you should know that even with so much initiative related traits (and i think you actually sacrifice a bit too much for initiative’s sake), but you of all people should know that just spamming unload and black powder only ends up with most of your burst flippantly evaded or countered living you spamming a vital shot that won’t even activate half the time because you have to dodge / reposition.

Also, black powder is indeed a nice safe way to finish a downed opponent, but you probably saw how ineffective it proves when hugged by a melee ranged pressure, all the more reasons to actually avoid using it in combat unless you’re really having fun dumping inititative for useless defense instead of dealing damage.

If nothing is done toward black powder’s cost, it needs at least to proc blindness faster inside the aoe.

This is all a cost/effectiveness issue.

And unload has a cooldown, it’s a player managed cooldown, like every single one of our skills.
Also, vital shot is not a “filler”, it is supposed to act as your only reliable pressure tool and currently it is not even enough to pressure a single mesmer clone, not because of damage but because the game asks you to always be on the move / dodge / unloading or headshoting thus not allowing you to keep it firing steadily. This is how you end up with an empty initiative bar countered by a single self heal (headshot on a self heal only resets it for 3 seconds), and not, i agree, because unload is too weak.

Krathalos.3461:

Pistol Whip also has less DPS than the sword auto attack. All this is telling me is that the sword auto attack is really strong.

thief sword auto is about 9% stronger than ranger sword auto, and warrior axe auto is about 24% stronger than thief sword auto. unless the recent triple chop change affected the dps
hopefully that helps!

Krathalos.3461:

Body Shot needs reworked. It doesn’t need to be superbuffed into 8-10 stacks of Vulnerability for 15-20 seconds (I laughed at this).

From my original post:
Solution: Increase its duration dramatically (15~20 sec), this way you can weave it into your “rotation” to keep stacks rolling; increase the stacks of vulnerability (8~10) applied.

One or the other. Not both. If you increase it’s duration, it’s worth using in PVE as an increase to you/your team’s DPS. Six seconds of vulnerability is nothing.

If you increase the stacks, it has the same effect, but is a burstier alternative (setting up 25 stacks solo into an unload for example).

Independently, neither of these ideas are OP. I’m afraid you may have fused two separate ideas into one. So please, read properly first before you judge! Likewise, I didn’t ever imply (in fact, I did the opposite) that all of these changes are necessary, simply fixing/tweaking a skill or two could put P/P on the chart.

P/P is obviously not in a good place. I’m sorry that your solution is “it’s fine” when Anet and everyone else is aware of the elephant in the room.

Auto: update animation to reflect speed in description
Body Shot: Add functionality “cripples moving foes for 5 sec” increase cost by 1, increase vuln duration and stacks by 20%
Unload: Without changing total damage, increase amount of hits to 10-12
Head Shot: add “do more damage and apply burn upon interrupt”
Black powder: increase duration by 1/3, increase time between blind ticks by 1/3

EDIT: I was seriously over-thinking all this.

Suggestion:
Unload – Increase cost to 6 initiative. Regain 2 initiative if all attacks hit.

Prahl.1057:

EDIT: I was seriously over-thinking all this.

Suggestion:
Unload – Increase cost to 6 initiative. Regain 2 initiative if all attacks hit.

“Obstructed”

Great post OP. It never ceases to amaze me, though, Vital Shot is far and away the biggest problem with Pistols. It does roughly 66% of the damage and bleed stacking it’s supposed to. Read again: 66%.

This means that any build that isn’t entirely built around avoiding Vital Shot dependence for basic/normal DPS through constant usage of Unload or Sneak Attack is absolutely terrible, and it also means that even well-optimized builds over-rely on constant spams/Initiative dumps (P/P) or melee range skirmishing (P/D) in a frantic, neverending attempt to be mediocre as opposed to terrible.

There are other problems with Pistols (actually there are a lot of other problems), but even so every one of them together is neither as significant nor as clearly unintended as the problem with Vital Shot. I mean I seriously for the life of me cannot understand how it isn’t as plain as day to anyone who spends 5 minutes playing a Pistol thief in any game mode at any level with any build that Vital Shot is significantly worse than other autoattacks and almost entirely single-handedly destroys the playability of both P/P and P/D. It fires no faster than the rifle’s autoattack even though it has a 50% faster activation speed and much lower offensive specs.

I totally agree that Body Shot isn’t amazing and that Unload’s damage could stand to be a little higher, and that the lack of either a cripple or a knockback is obnoxious, but Vital Shot needs to be fixed first and foremost, because its weakness/slowness single-handedly causes both P/P and P/D to average about 75% of the damage they should do and creates an overdependence on Unload/Sneak Attack. After that, we can take a more microscopic look at how Pistols are performing and discuss tweaks to other skills and traits.

So I don’t main a thief, but when I do play mine I always equip P/P, shoot some stuff, then switch to a different weapon set. I want it to work, but it just doesn’t feel
complete. Mostly I find the lack of a slow annoying (makes it mighty difficult to kite) and I never use black powder (it feels like a kickkitten melee ability, but P/P is ranged).

If I were in charge, I’d add an offhand sword to the class (I honestly don’t know why this option isn’t available already) and give black powder to sword #5. Then make pistol #5 a 2-3s immobilize (still costs 6 initiative).
Perhaps some tweaks to Vital and Body shots, but those aren’t the issue for me.

Burrfish.6408:

If I were in charge, I’d add an offhand sword to the class (I honestly don’t know why this option isn’t available already) and give black powder to sword #5. Then make pistol #5 a 2-3s immobilize (still costs 6 initiative).
Perhaps some tweaks to Vital and Body shots, but those aren’t the issue for me.

Man… P/P is CERTAINLY weak but a spammable 3-second immobilize is honestly the most OP idea I have ever heard on this forum… you would just immobilize people to death… that’s easily 9 seconds of straight immobilize even without any initiative recovery skills… get extra 3 initiative back and you got 12 seconds of immobilize… in 12 seconds you can auto-attack x/x/30/30/x guardians to death…

We don’t need a cripple, we have Ankle Shots… You have to chose between this or +5% crit on dual weapon attacks and it seems like good design to me.

I prefer playing the skills rather than hoping for my luck to shine

60% chance is hardly luck considering you should at the very least be running around with 50% crit chances to start with.

In other words, Ankle Shot will cripple your opponent.

p/p is fine i would not mind a faster unload channel but it not require change. honestly if it had faster channel time i find myself just spaming auto attack waiting on meter to build.