Guild Wars 2

I’m not opposed to this change in and of itself, but I’ll repeat for the 400th time that Body Shot wasn’t really the problem with P/P, even though it’s complained about a lot, and this update will do little to fix it.

The problem that really needs to be fixed on P/P is that Vital Shot is not potent enough to carry DPS for the set, because it:

a.) is not optimizable due to having hybridized damage, and
b.) has too long of an aftercast for its offensive specs

This combination cripples P/P by making you overly reliant on Initiative (Unload) for not just burst but also sustained DPS. This is in turn why everybody complained about Body Shot – because it directly competes against Unload due to the Initiative system, which requires you to lose far too much damage to make applying Vulnerability to be worth it in 95% of situations. No other class has this problem at all and even within the Thief only Pistol and to a lesser degree the Shortbow are affected much.

This is a systemic problem primarily revolving around the tuning of #1 skill in the context of Initiative that needs to be addressed with both of these weapons. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the damage on Vital Shot being hybridized so that it can work well with both P/P and P/D but it needs to at least fire faster or hit harder with longer bleed stacks. Then, Unload would fall into a more utilitarian role, meant for sharp spikes in damage when you don’t need to move or be defensive, rather than having to provide the bulk of your sustained DPS. Not only would the corrected flexibility make the set more functional, but it would also make it more fun and engaging to use.

I don’t P/P on my thief much but messed with it yesterday on my condi P/D setup and its not bad. It is still expensive but if you have initiative management traits to help its not to bad. It does fire slow though. So far I have found it best against other thieves. Initially I thought it would be good against mesmers but I think it is decent against them but with clones in the way wasting 4 ini and hitting a clone sucks. Overall I would say its decent change. 2/5.

should be nice to keep those stun warriors away from you.

I remembered them mentioning Vital Shot on stream, unless I was going crazy at the time. I thought they were going to rework that skill as well.

The immobilize is kinda meh and devalues Dancing Dagger on P/D even more, giving it less purpose. They seem very confused about what to do with Thief.

Thief Weapon skills are just all over the place and don’t make much sense for the most part. With the way we’re set up the only way to ever fix it would be when they change the entire game mechanics to let us change a weapon’s skills. That or they’ll have to somehow hybrid every single skill for strong pure cond and power/crit dmg builds.

oZii.2864:

I don’t P/P on my thief much but messed with it yesterday on my condi P/D setup and its not bad. It is still expensive but if you have initiative management traits to help its not to bad. It does fire slow though. So far I have found it best against other thieves. Initially I thought it would be good against mesmers but I think it is decent against them but with clones in the way wasting 4 ini and hitting a clone sucks. Overall I would say its decent change. 2/5.

While it certainly isn’t perfect, P/D is not broken in the same way P/P is, and this upgrade arguably does more for it than it does for P/P despite how it affects Dancing Dagger. The main reason P/D is more functional is that most of its sustained damage comes from Vital Shot and the Sneak Attack (costing zero Initiative), which means you have more freedom to use the #2-#5 skills as you see fit. With P/P, Body Shot has to compete with Unload for Initiative and Unload will almost always win.

Einlanzer.1627:

The main reason P/D is more functional is that most of its sustained damage comes from Vital Shot and the Sneak Attack (costing zero Initiative), which means you have more freedom to use the #2-#5 skills as you see fit. With P/P, Body Shot has to compete with Unload for Initiative and Unload will almost always win.

simple solution: nerf unload & sneak attack

DanH.5879:

Einlanzer.1627:

The main reason P/D is more functional is that most of its sustained damage comes from Vital Shot and the Sneak Attack (costing zero Initiative), which means you have more freedom to use the #2-#5 skills as you see fit. With P/P, Body Shot has to compete with Unload for Initiative and Unload will almost always win.

simple solution: nerf unload & sneak attack

It’ll happen eventually. Surprised it hasn’t happened yet. They’ll probably nerf Shortbow a few more times before then.

Brando.1374:

should be nice to keep those stun warriors away from you.

You mean those stun warriors with 98% immob reduction, rendering the immob on bodyshot useless?