Guild Wars 2

Ricochet is the trait that increased pistol range and made the shots bounce, this trait is now gone with the elite spec patch, but i would love to have it back!!
Can you imagine dual pistols with dash (dodge) and ricochet, would be so cool ????

So please anet, try to add this trait back into the game! P/p is already very underpowered and could really use that trait!

Now now, we can’t have viable, powerful, or useful p/p builds, because that “would hurt the purity of pistols”

Dont worry, Arenanet decrease pistol range on 600 because Thief dont need ranged weapons.

No really, Thief want only better ranged weapons but ArenaNet say no and remove only one good trait on ranged weapons (Ricochet) and make this horrible staff specialization

This is crazy… Why are they not listening to the community?

Is there any other way to communicate to dev’s? We had a thread for this issue and we had more than 10k views!!! I really don’t think giving feed back for DD is going to change anything other than nerfing the thief class again.

You are far more likely to get piercing bullets than a return of bouncing bullets.

T_T
I used that trait for years.
I loved it in combo with unload.

Yeaaa I don’t know why they’re not bringing it back. Even piercing is better than nothing. P/P is probably too OP, like Ausfer said :P

Some people are really salty about this trait. Like, I understand being disappointed, but not even all the oceans have this much salt.

If you take a look around, you’ll find plenty of viable p/p builds.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Some people are really salty about this trait. Like, I understand being disappointed, but not even all the oceans have this much salt.

If you take a look around, you’ll find plenty of viable p/p builds.

There are no viable P/P builds. There are subpar P/P builds for those that really wish to keep on playing it. The damage is worse than what it was before the talent system change and the removal of ricochet removed any viability it had in general PvE due to the set now lacking AoE. Fact is, you’ll only play P/P if you love it and even then, only in single enemy encounters, in situations when you just can’t stay in melee range effectively. In all other cases, you’re better off playing S/P or D/D. (Used to play P/P Sb, but switched to S/P P/P due to the removal of ricochet, the loss of AoE just hurts too much.)

If it ever comes back be smart about it and don’t put in CS like the range increase on pistol you know because pistol is also a condi weapon at least it see more uses as that and somehow the range wasn’t made baseline.

They haven’t even rolled in the extra 150 range to Pistols yet. This is keeping in mind that every single other range increasing trait in the GAME was made baseline… except for Ankle Shots (which doesn’t even list the range increase), because reasons.

So yeah, not holding my breath on Ricochet coming back, when they won’t even spend 10 minutes including Thieves in a game wide trait design change.

NO ! Make it baseline

Shimekiri.1580:

There are no viable P/P builds. There are subpar P/P builds for those that really wish to keep on playing it.

You seem to erroneously think “viable” and “optimal” are synonyms. They aren’t. Not even “meta” and “optimal” are synonyms, though you’d make a much better case if you were arguing that.

Even with ricochet, p/p wasn’t really something you’d ever use in pve (I would know, as I ran p/p in pve). That being said, there are already plenty of different ways to play p/p, and more are coming with daredevil.

just make all pistol skills bounce up to 2 targets or something

Ghotistyx.6942:

Shimekiri.1580:

There are no viable P/P builds. There are subpar P/P builds for those that really wish to keep on playing it.

You seem to erroneously think “viable” and “optimal” are synonyms. They aren’t. Not even “meta” and “optimal” are synonyms, though you’d make a much better case if you were arguing that.

Even with ricochet, p/p wasn’t really something you’d ever use in pve (I would know, as I ran p/p in pve). That being said, there are already plenty of different ways to play p/p, and more are coming with daredevil.

You are right to say that a lot of people wrongly think that viable and optimal are the same. However, saying that there are plenty of different ways to play p/p (while also technically true) none of them is what you would call particularly good.
Viable, yes.
Good, not so much…

Ghotistyx.6942:

Shimekiri.1580:

There are no viable P/P builds. There are subpar P/P builds for those that really wish to keep on playing it.

You seem to erroneously think “viable” and “optimal” are synonyms. They aren’t. Not even “meta” and “optimal” are synonyms, though you’d make a much better case if you were arguing that.

Even with ricochet, p/p wasn’t really something you’d ever use in pve (I would know, as I ran p/p in pve). That being said, there are already plenty of different ways to play p/p, and more are coming with daredevil.

I don’t mix the two things, simply used it in the same sense that most people seem to interpret it as, which means competitive, an alternative where you wouldn’t kitten yourself badly when choosing it.(Sorry for generalizing people and their views though, if that’s what you’re after.) You are doing that though, gimping yourself that is, by playing it. It still holds value for fights where you can’t go “balls-deep” melee, where ranged just shines.

However if you need/want me to clarify the point, its the fact that you can use P/P, however it isn’t even close to being competitive with the other alternatives with the subpar DPS and 0 AoE capability, when compared to said alternatives. You’re simply gimping yourself by not playing something else, whenever you’re able to. Ricochet is what made it atleast a viable/semi-competitive option for general PvE content where there’s almost always AoE present. The lack of said mechanic, or something similar removes that option and its ability to compete with any of the other alternatives in said content.

Facts are these: DPS is low compared to the alternatives such as D/D or S/P. P/P has no AoE viability of any kind. You’re better off smacking enemies with wet noodles than attempting to AoE with P/P, since no form of AoE exists for P/P, when the alternatives can and are able to deal medium-to-high AoE damage and still have high survivability due to the ability mechanics, such as Pistol Whip evasion for S/P. Ricochet was the only thing keeping P/P an option, a niché. Hard to call P/P even a niché at the moment, even if its the set that I love the most in the game. Its fun to play, there’s no denying that, but when the conversation shifts to efficiency, its the worst of the worst. In its current state, it has only a handful of occasions when its truly useful. It used to be an option you could consider playing without gimping yourself too much in all of the PvE content in the game, which is something you can’t do in its current state.(Saying that as a thief who ran fractals and all other aspects of PvE in P/P. It simply feels sluggish now and there’s no way I would go to fractals etc. with it, only to be carried through all of the content when I would be contributing far less, than with the other options available.)

I compleatly aggree. I posted some in the infameous thread as well that got shut down.
So i just want to add that plz dont do dev callouts and only protest, or this one will be locked up too.

Hopefully they will bring it back on Oct 23rd.

No? …………….

I think a lot of us are hoping for somekind of reincarnation for the Ricochet trait to make the spec atleast playable in general PvE content, outside of a few special cases that still exist,(Dwayna event end comes to mind.) where it can be considered a valid alternative. The sad truth is that the few special cases don’t even justify the cost and bag space taken by even owning the set. Only those that really enjoy the P/P playstyle will even bother with it, considering that it’s so far behind on all fronts, when compared to all alternatives.

The solution is simple… take the hidden +150 Pistol range on the Ankle Shots trait, give it to the Thief baseline—like was already done with every other range increasing trait in the game—and then put something akin to Ricochet in its spot on Ankle Shots.

Viola: P/P sucks a LITTLE less while not affecting game balance in any meaningful way. Thieves are happy and everyone wins!

I play a thief quite rarely, but the draw to me was always PP, and I liked coming up with ways to use it in SPvP, but that mostly relied on the trait that granted initiative on critical hits for real sustain. With that gone, the burst is much harder to plan, but I think there are creative ways to get around this, especially in WvW.

In PvE, at least in open world events and farming, Ricochet was king, especially when combined with the Signet traits for might stacking. Hopefully the bounces and whatnot will come back. I didn’t get to play over the beta weekend, but the staff seems like a strong, stealthless weapon with evades; there must be a way ANET can rework PP. It’s a great mainhand for condi, and a great offhand for power. The key is melding the two.

No other builds should benefit from Ricochet so just give Ricochet and +150 range to Unload.

Case close.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Even with ricochet, p/p wasn’t really something you’d ever use in pve (I would know, as I ran p/p in pve). That being said, there are already plenty of different ways to play p/p, and more are coming with daredevil.

I’ve run nothing BUT p/p in PvE for the past 3 years. It works great. I’ve actually had quite a bit of fun in SW. WvW is the issue (I know nothing about pvp). I’d love to see some vid of these great builds (or adequate or whatever) in action. Especially in tier 1 or tier 2 WvW, because I seem to be the only person who ever runs it there. I occasionally see someone try it out. There might be one or two masochists like myself out there.

We all have to resign ourselves: ricochet is gone for good. Single target damage is better now, esp with the right traits, so spreading it out with Ricochet would be pretty powerful. I don’t even know what it would replace if they brought it back.

If I could choose an old trait to bring back, I’d rather have Opportunist. If I could just name preferences, I’d want 1200 range first, then Opportunist, then more base HP, then improved bleed on the AA (duration or another stack).

edit: while it doesn’t have true AoE, you might want to take a closer look at p/p by taking it against some large groups in pve. I’m not 100% sure, but its basically a wide beam. When targets step into the path, they get hit even if they aren’t the selected target. Combine this with high mobility and circles, you can simulate AoE. This is a useless tactic in WvW though, because no one is just going to let you spin circles around them.

Bring back ricochet trait!

Black Frog.9274:

We all have to resign ourselves: ricochet is gone for good. Single target damage is better now, esp with the right traits, so spreading it out with Ricochet would be pretty powerful.

Would it? P/P was low on damage before the revamp; now it’s even worse. Its damage is awful even for single target, so Ricochet wouldn’t really do much but let you randomly do mediocre AoE damage in between your mediocre single target damage. Seems fine to me.

Trait design seems to have moved away from stuff like random procs of AoE damage, though. If they added a multi-target trait to Pistol, it would likely be something more akin to how Warrior Rifle works (your AA and certain attacks upgraded to pierce instead of just hit one target).

I really did not get to play around with it enough in Beta but there MIGHT be some possibilities using the DD line. That said even were some build found it would be niche without ricochet.

I am thinking it will work good as a second weaponset to staff. Of course if we had a change on the fly f3 f4 f5 dodge selector as I and others have suggested we might get better synergy out of it as in switch to P/P and swap the dodge to dash. When with Staff use Bounder.

Combined with the loss of chance of initiative regain on crits, removal of ricochet basically puts P/P from my favourite ‘fun if not entirely brilliant reason to play thief’ to ‘why would you ever use this weapon set’ with boredom at playing the thief as a 1 trick pony meta build that’s near pointless in PVE and not much better in PVP.

Thief suffers at ranged options. Ricochet was a decent bandaid for that, which is now gone. The reasoning of removal being “purity of pistols” is laughable when you have engineers that fire glue, fire and lightning from theirs, and a shortbow on thief that has a pointy projectile ‘bounce’ off targets.

Also given a 10k+ view thread was closed without any dev feedback or commentary on it, I wouldn’t hold your breath in the slightest, unless we can expect another elite spec entirely around ranged options but a) I doubt we’ll get that anyway and b) even if we did it’d be at least 12 months away.

Thiefs been replaced for me by mesmer for stealth (zero revealed preventing restealth problem) and revenant for interesting/flexible melee options for me now. Nothing fun or interesting it can do role or playstyle wise anymore other classes now can’t ape or just do better.

Where I really liked using it outside the zerg fight was against Mesmers and D/D eles.

It did a bang up job on the clones and phantasms , far better then SB and could lay a lot of hurt on those eles at range especially after they used water to heal up.

Black Frog.9274:

-snip-
We all have to resign ourselves: ricochet is gone for good. Single target damage is better now, esp with the right traits, so spreading it out with Ricochet would be pretty powerful. I don’t even know what it would replace if they brought it back.
-snip-

Actually the damage is worse, so need to correct you on that. We lost 10% baseline damage, we lost the chance-to-gain-initiative-on-crit(This hurt all the crit builds.) and now we need to talent for “10%” extra damage on crippled targets with a badly thought out mechanic of having a chance of throwing out a cripple effect for 3s every 8s, assuming the target can’t/won’t get rid of it during that already short period of time, where we used to be able to go for chance-to-inflict-vulnerability-on-crit. No matter how you choose your talents, you will do less damage overall than with the old talent system, on top of having less group utility and all the other previously mentioned factors.

edit: Fixed a typo.

Ausfer.1853:

Now now, we can’t have viable, powerful, or useful p/p builds, because that “would hurt the purity of pistols”

And it’s too RNG, I mean, sometimes it ricochets and sometimes it doesn’t. You just can’t make any meaningful plays.

Evilek.5690:

Dont worry, Arenanet decrease pistol range on 600 because Thief dont need ranged weapons.

No really, Thief want only better ranged weapons but ArenaNet say no and remove only one good trait on ranged weapons (Ricochet) and make this horrible staff specialization

Staff is fantastic most ppl who qq about it qq about its animations which I agree with or qq saying that it sucks which it doesn’t most thrives are horrible and spam all their skills ftw. Staff is an attempt to slow that style down and make it more deliberate and allow for more strategic play…I think they did that well after making the adjustment I was running a s/d staff build and was doing great I do think staff can use a small damage buff but it’s fantastic right now and I just think most thrives are terrible and don’t know how to make the adjustment bc they’re so used to either spamming 521 222222 or p/p and hide behind other players so they don’t know how to be in a sustained fight

epoc.7941:

Staff is fantastic most ppl who qq about it qq about its animations which I agree with or qq saying that it sucks which it doesn’t most thrives are horrible and spam all their skills ftw. Staff is an attempt to slow that style down and make it more deliberate and allow for more strategic play…I think they did that well after making the adjustment I was running a s/d staff build and was doing great I do think staff can use a small damage buff but it’s fantastic right now and I just think most thrives are terrible and don’t know how to make the adjustment bc they’re so used to either spamming 521 222222 or p/p and hide behind other players so they don’t know how to be in a sustained fight

And you sir, have no clue what P/P thieves were able to do, can do and should do.(If a person is still playing it in PvE/PvP/WvW.) If your purpose here is to just to rage about your beloved weapon/skillset X being better than Y and that it requires “more skill” to play than Z, simply because of one remark from someone who doesn’t like the staff playstyle in this specific instance, please do it somewhere else. The conversation is already shifting away from the main focus anyway. If however, you have something more constructive to add, please do. I’d like to see the remaining P/P threads to remain a bit more civil and on the actual topic though, so we could have some proper discussions about how to try and fix this crippled weapon/skillset, with the small hope that the dear devs would listen to what we have to say, about how to make the set more enjoyable to play, atleast in the PvE-side, even if it wouldn’t be the “new meta”.

Ricochet was the needed bandaid fix for PvE, but had too many PvP implications in its old form and I fully well understand that. What I don’t understand is why not just give Unload, the primary DPS ability of P/P either a piercing or bouncing effect or simply bring back Ricochet trait back like it was but with exactly one change; status effects would not effect the bounces, which would remove the PvP balance issues it caused if a person got a lucky streak with the procs.(This[Bringing back the old Ricochet.], could be a massive and unfeasible undertaking, depending on how the “procced” projectiles are created/handled in general, but if there’s a chance to do it and its feasible, it’s the option I’d like to see.)

As much as people miss Ricochet, I get why they removed it: a randomly triggering cleave is not good design. What I DON’T understand is why something hasn’t been put in its place. Warriors have a trait that makes their Rifle attacks pierce; why can’t Thief have this with Pistols through a trait? Thief is one of only two professions in the game lacking access to piercing attacks, and it wouldn’t be drastic enough to put P/P over the top.

The continued silence and lack of attention on ANet’s part is really unfortunate, as it lends Thief the air of a profession left to rot. That perception isn’t helped by traits like Ankle Shots, which remains the ONLY weapon range increasing trait in the game not yet made baseline. If they can’t even include Thief in changes that every other profession in the game receives, what are the chances of our traits and utilities getting another look?

So far they have taken at least one trait from each profession that I use and removed it for whatever reason they have. The people behind these changes do not know what they are doing it’s clear they don’t want anyone to use anything that is useful to some players. It’s clear that their motto is if it’s fun or useful nerf or remove it while adding or keeping stuff that sucks. This is my opinion and I’m sure people will tell me to adjust to it but I should’nt have to with something that was optional for me to use.

Shimekiri.1580:

No matter how you choose your talents, you will do less damage overall than with the old talent system

I’m not sure that’s true for a crit build. Between Executioner, Exposed Weakness (w/ Panic Strike, pistol 1/2/5, Serpent’s touch, Lotus Poison, poisons/sigils), Ankle Shots, Flawless Strikes, and Ferocious Strikes, there’s quite a bit of bonus damage and basically infinite Fury.

I miss Opportunist though. Man do I miss it.

3 second burst window every 8 seconds, instead of 10% all of the time and even then, the raw math([100/8*3]*0,1=3,75% increase in damage over time.) will only show the “optimal damage increase” result, when in reality you won’t be able to even use 1 single Unload everytime you have the “buff” up. Compare that to a flat 10% bonus and well… you get the point. This isn’t taking into account the crit chance loss we had either. Long story short: Our damage is worse than what it was and by a semi-noticeable margin.

Shimekiri.1580:

3 second burst window every 8 seconds, instead of 10% all of the time and even then, the raw math([100/8*3]*0,1=3,75% increase in damage over time.) will only show the “optimal damage increase” result, when in reality you won’t be able to even use 1 single Unload everytime you have the “buff” up. Compare that to a flat 10% bonus and well… you get the point. This isn’t taking into account the crit chance loss we had either. Long story short: Our damage is worse than what it was and by a semi-noticeable margin.

I listed many more damage traits than just ankle shots. They’re also in more than one line. What about them? Why haven’t you factored that in?

I don’t know about you, but with the Fury uptime, I can run 100% crit chance with an Assassin set. With a basic berserker setup (2 pistols, armor, scholar, accessories) and NO utilities, not counting Fury, and no upgrades on the trinkets, you get 58% base crit chance. Add in the crit bonuses that are situational from Crit line (fury at 20, 5, 7) and you’re at 90% a good amount of time and 78% almost permanently. And that’s without food/utilities/buffs/sigils.

Let’s see the build you’re referring to.

There was zip OP about Ricochet before they removed it. The only thing great about the skill was that it was fun and allowed P/P builds to contribute to skirmish in a useful and meaningful way. I get removing or adjusting OP skills but in this case they removed a skill that virtually nobody came away from a fight in thinking it was somehow broken.

To sit here and say that P/P is viable is true but it isn’t particularly competitive. You hardly ever see it anymore and when a player does use it they are at best a secondary or tertiary target that in most instances can be completely ignored while an enemy deals with much stronger builds.

Karl McLain.5604:

Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.

It was cut without any compensation for the loss in DPS and the reduction in total hits to proc things like signet of malice. Which many players feel was entirely unwarranted.

Why not just remove the RNG factor, then? Why not just make riccochet baseline for Unload, and make every other shot bounce? Or make every shot bounce but have reduced damage? There’s a multitude of ways to go about solving the RNG “issue” without completely removing ricchochet and replacing it with absolutely nothing.

And yes, I put “issue” in quotations as I’ve never seen people talk about it being an issue before. There’s a hundred other RNG-based abilities in the game, so why does this one get flak?

Karl McLain.5604:

I will say though that pistols are something we’ll be looking to improve, being as they feel under-tuned at the moment.

-Karl

Thank you for letting us know that you are working on making pistols viable! I’m glad to know that it hasn’t been forgotten/overlooked!

Karl McLain.5604:

Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.

-Karl

Maybe that Increased damage from pistol could be switched with the that RNG bounce attacks? This should be the primary trait, not the increased damage from pistol. We can deal with the loss of damage from this, but the Ricochet effect is mostly why Thieves picked the trait, not the other way around.

Is that a reasonable thing to ask?

I am glad you answered Mr. Mclain because I right now I am doubtful this profession will see receive any positive light to grow. So thank you. really.

Kocoff.7582:

the Ricochet effect is mostly why Thieves picked the trait, not the other way around.

I would like to emphasize this for its truth. Karl seems to believe that most players preferred playing without riccochet, when that was not the case at all.

Now that I think about it, in all the time spent playing this game, I haven’t seen or heard anyone ever say that they preferred p/p without riccochet.

Karl McLain.5604:

Ricochet in its previous implementation is not slated to return at this time.
When the trait system was condensed, the standard was set in that each weapon set could only have one trait. Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.
I will say though that pistols are something we’ll be looking to improve, being as they feel under-tuned at the moment.

-Karl

Hello,
Could pistols have a piercing trait added so it would require more tactical positioning, similar to Ranger Longbow? This thread contains a lot of ideas for bring some variety back to the thief traits and weapons. I mentioned putting a piercing trait in the trickery line.

Karl made his point, there is no point arguing about it. They are not going to bring back ricochet.

I enjoyed playing p/p with ricochet, I am not sure if I should re-roll or deal with it lol.

I was very happy with thief class until they nerfed critical damage, opportunist,ricochet etc..

to be honest, i really didnt know people exist that play p/p. but nice that you guys can look forward to something.

Karl McLain.5604:

Ricochet in its previous implementation is not slated to return at this time.
When the trait system was condensed, the standard was set in that each weapon set could only have one trait. Being that a player might want to receive increased damage from pistols, but not necessarily inherit the RNG bounce attacks from the secondary trait, this secondary trait was cut.
I will say though that pistols are something we’ll be looking to improve, being as they feel under-tuned at the moment.

-Karl

Nope, wrong call, fix it. Bring back Ricochet, remove Ankle Shots, baseline either if necessary, but the bounce is NON NEGOTIABLE.

Ausfer.1853:

Kocoff.7582:

the Ricochet effect is mostly why Thieves picked the trait, not the other way around.

I would like to emphasize this for its truth. Karl seems to believe that most players preferred playing without riccochet, when that was not the case at all.

Now that I think about it, in all the time spent playing this game, I haven’t seen or heard anyone ever say that they preferred p/p without riccochet.

This, very much this…

It made P/P much more useful in fractal/dungeon runs, not to mention WvW. It really seems to show how out of touch the people doing the classes are.

Great to get a reason though…

Ausfer.1853:

Kocoff.7582:

the Ricochet effect is mostly why Thieves picked the trait, not the other way around.

I would like to emphasize this for its truth. Karl seems to believe that most players preferred playing without riccochet, when that was not the case at all.

Now that I think about it, in all the time spent playing this game, I haven’t seen or heard anyone ever say that they preferred p/p without riccochet.

Well if you want an honest answer.

I spend 80 percent time in WvW. I spent 20 percent in Pve. In PVE it was always on. In WvW it was on around 30 percent of the time. I did not run a lof with zergs and it was a hindrance in 1v1 unless fighting a mesmer.