Guild Wars 2

This weapon combination has always seemed to lag so far behind the other options. The Initiative costs are insane and there is like no synergy between the skills.

What would it take save for a complete rework for P/P to find it’s way out of the most niche` of niche` spots and into relevance?

Joshua.9346:

This weapon combination has always seemed to lag so far behind the other options. The Initiative costs are insane and there is like no synergy between the skills.

What would it take save for a complete rework for P/P to find it’s way out of the most niche` of niche` spots and into relevance?

No, I’ve posted about this many, many times – but while P/P has numerous minor problems that aren’t quite set-breaking, it has one major one that is:

Unload is stronger than Vital Shot and they do different damage types. That’s it. That’s a major, major problem because it pushes you into building around Unload, which means Vital Shot is even weaker, which then pigeonholes you into an Initiative starved #3 spam-fest to manage decent burst (while still getting questionable sustained DPS.)

Apart from being a boring one-button spam fest, it also renders all the utility skills (2, 4, 5) mostly impotent because they have to compete directly with Unload for resources, which they will usually lose to. At all times you are forced to dump all utility and mobility for damage or forced to dump all damage for mobility and utility- not a healthy choice and it’s one that causes the set to dramatically under-perform in general.

It’s a such a glaring and obvious design flaw and such an easy fix that I can’t believe it hasn’t been addressed yet. All it needs is a significant buff to Vital Shot (about 20-30%) and a minor buff to Unload (10% or so) so that you can have a build choice between great burst/mediocre everything else or good sustained DPS, decent utility, poor burst.

Unload needs to cost 1 less initiative so that P/P builds can keep up their only real source of damage without spending all traits just for that
OR it needs to do slightly more damage, so that the sacrifices it takes to keep using it are justified
OR do the same damage but over a shorter time frame, so that it’s more bursty

Vital Shot can be a triple shot like the eles auto of scepther (doing more damage of course) and unload can do 1% more damage x bleed staked on the enemie, that could be a good synergy. Of course, this is just a random idea, but somthing like that can be doable i think.

I don’t see why the dev’s don’t sit down and do some math.

I’m sure there exists a way to tune the Direct damage Vital shot does so that
- In a power crit setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Vital shot itself, but it does slightly less than comparable skills, which is made up for by the low damage bleed you get (low damage because you’re power/crit focused, not condition focused)
- In a condition setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Bleeding, but the ability doesn’t do the kitten poor damage it does now.

Then you do the same thing with unload – by having it apply torment, bleed, burning, whatever.

Viola – you’ve solved the bulk of P/P’s problems (it still has very poor defense options for a thief weaponset, but one problem at a time), and turned P/P into a versatile weaponset – something that works well for Power/crit setups, for condition setups, and hell, even for hybrid setups!

evilapprentice.6379:

I don’t see why the dev’s don’t sit down and do some math.

I’m sure there exists a way to tune the Direct damage Vital shot does so that
- In a power crit setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Vital shot itself, but it does slightly less than comparable skills, which is made up for by the low damage bleed you get (low damage because you’re power/crit focused, not condition focused)
- In a condition setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Bleeding, but the ability doesn’t do the kitten poor damage it does now.

Then you do the same thing with unload – by having it apply torment, bleed, burning, whatever.

Viola – you’ve solved the bulk of P/P’s problems (it still has very poor defense options for a thief weaponset, but one problem at a time), and turned P/P into a versatile weaponset – something that works well for Power/crit setups, for condition setups, and hell, even for hybrid setups!

Make the auto attack faster with the same damage. Put vulnerability on the auto attack instead of bleeding (up to 8 stacks naturally). Lengthen the bleeds on sneak attack (p/p ain’t using it). Put poison on pistol 2 to make up for some of the lost bleeds and knock down regen. Decrease the number of shots by 2 on unload and increase the damage of the remaining ones accordingly to maintain the same damage but make it burstier.

Results (hopefully):
Decent direct damage that doesn’t require initiative and increases over time.
Vuln application for team play.
A method to knock down regen on tanks
Burst damage separated by the need to maintain vuln stacks.
Same condition damage + 1 more damaging condition
Vuln stacks set up for close combat burst.
Less susceptible to retal

Hello there.

I play my thief with P/P, specially in Fractal HL, with a:
25: -VI-X
30: -V-IX-XI
0:
0:
15: -IV

With Assassin and Agility Signet, unload hits for 10K (without might)
under 50% foe’s heatlh: 12K
With 12 stack of might: 14K
(of course depending Foe’s Armor)
With “Opportunist”, I can unload 5-6 times in a row, and after auto attack 3-4 times, and Unload again and again.
60K Damage within ~20 sec, is not bad IMO.

With a 20% chance projectile finisher, and 8 bullets / unload, you have a good sinergy with Elem combo field or Mesmer (confusion into Ethereal field), or your own combo field with Smock Screen. (blind baby blind)

And the most important, the Pistolero Style is awesome <3

I play it some times in wvsw its decent. 0/30/0/20/20

Maugetarr.6823:

evilapprentice.6379:

I don’t see why the dev’s don’t sit down and do some math.

I’m sure there exists a way to tune the Direct damage Vital shot does so that
- In a power crit setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Vital shot itself, but it does slightly less than comparable skills, which is made up for by the low damage bleed you get (low damage because you’re power/crit focused, not condition focused)
- In a condition setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Bleeding, but the ability doesn’t do the kitten poor damage it does now.

Then you do the same thing with unload – by having it apply torment, bleed, burning, whatever.

Viola – you’ve solved the bulk of P/P’s problems (it still has very poor defense options for a thief weaponset, but one problem at a time), and turned P/P into a versatile weaponset – something that works well for Power/crit setups, for condition setups, and hell, even for hybrid setups!

Make the auto attack faster with the same damage. Put vulnerability on the auto attack instead of bleeding (up to 8 stacks naturally). Lengthen the bleeds on sneak attack (p/p ain’t using it). Put poison on pistol 2 to make up for some of the lost bleeds and knock down regen. Decrease the number of shots by 2 on unload and increase the damage of the remaining ones accordingly to maintain the same damage but make it burstier.

Results (hopefully):
Decent direct damage that doesn’t require initiative and increases over time.
Vuln application for team play.
A method to knock down regen on tanks
Burst damage separated by the need to maintain vuln stacks.
Same condition damage + 1 more damaging condition
Vuln stacks set up for close combat burst.
Less susceptible to retal

Meanwhile, you would kill the already pitiful damage of P/D by almost completely removing it’s main source of damage (bleed application on VS).

reikken.4961:

Unload needs to cost 1 less initiative so that P/P builds can keep up their only real source of damage without spending all traits just for that
OR it needs to do slightly more damage, so that the sacrifices it takes to keep using it are justified
OR do the same damage but over a shorter time frame, so that it’s more bursty

No, the problem isn’t Unload, it’s Vital Shot. It’s Vital Shot that needs a buff so that you can do reasonable DPS without having to spend all your Initiative to do so. The problem with putting everything on Unload is that your Utility skills use Initiative too, so it renders them impotent because they can’t compete with Unload in the vast majority of situations.

With them putting all of the primary damage on Unload, the set might as well not have #1, #2, #4, or #5 skills. It effectively functions as 1/5th of a set, which is why it’s so horrible.

1) add trait: when dual wielding pistols, reduce initiative cost on all abilities by 1.
2) add the following functionality to “10% more damage with pistols” trait: your vital shot deals double damage but does not apply bleed

Ichishi.9613:

1) add trait: when dual wielding pistols, reduce initiative cost on all abilities by 1.
2) add the following functionality to “10% more damage with pistols” trait: your vital shot deals double damage but does not apply bleed

Fixing P/P through traits is not the solution. All this would do would be make those traits mandatory for P/P to be functional, which is bad design. It needs to be changed at the baseline. They need to reduce the aftercast of Vital Shot by .1 – .2 seconds, which would increase its DPS by about 20%. That would allow you to sustain reasonable DPS without Unload. Then Unload would be used for burst specifically rather than just general DPS, meaning that your other skills would stop being useless and you’d get much better mobility and utility.

If they’re concerned about over-buffing Vital Shot for P/D (which is unlikely), they can just nerf the Sneak Attack a little to compensate.

reikken.4961:

Unload needs to cost 1 less initiative so that P/P builds can keep up their only real source of damage without spending all traits just for that
OR it needs to do slightly more damage, so that the sacrifices it takes to keep using it are justified
OR do the same damage but over a shorter time frame, so that it’s more bursty

This^^

My first response to fixing P/P’s tendency to fixate on Unload, and increase the damage of the set as a whole, would be:

• Increase Vital Shot’s physical damage by 10%. Increase bleed duration by 1 second.
• Increasing the power coefficient by 0.2. Deal additional damage per stack of bleeding on target.

While not only buffing Vital Shot, these changes would encourage the user to stack bleeding from Vital Shot so that Unload hits even harder. Having to reapply the bleeds with Vital Shot prevents continually spamming Unload, thus hopefully leaving spare initiative for Head Shot, Body Shot, and Black Powder.

Unfortunately, this most likely would only work in vacuum, with no other source of bleeding than Vital Shot…

Shogun.7401:

reikken.4961:

Unload needs to cost 1 less initiative so that P/P builds can keep up their only real source of damage without spending all traits just for that
OR it needs to do slightly more damage, so that the sacrifices it takes to keep using it are justified
OR do the same damage but over a shorter time frame, so that it’s more bursty

This^^

No, the entire problem with P/P revolves around how much stronger Unload is than Vital Shot. Buffing Unload while leaving Vital Shot alone is the worst possible solution and will do virtually nothing to fix P/P unless they make Unload egregiously OP, which would be silly.

There is a macro problem here, to be really effective with p/p you need to take several specific pistol traits in your build (ricochet, or %10 damage…) whereas with other weapon sets you can work with general ones (there is not a perk for sword or dagger+10%damage), other thieves can select perks for almost any situation (increase damage ingeneral, initiative, etc…)
At the same time other weapon sets are much more versatile from the survival point of view if focusing on skills, and obviously make much more dps (mele range).
These three fields are conditioning everything:
- Specifity of pistol traits
- Underperformance in survival pistol skills
- DPS outcome

The last one is fair, obviously it can not be the same to make damage close to a target than ranged, but this fact is conditioned by the fact that many classes have really good approaching skills (just in thief: heartseeker, steal, teleports…).
Taking in account all these issues the class is rubbish compared to others.
The main problem is that p/p skills stink. No DPS, no survivalbility, no options…

Best,

Haltair, onbe of the Twelve Shadows

Haltair.3062:

There is a macro problem here, to be really effective with p/p you need to take several specific pistol traits in your build (ricochet, or %10 damage…) whereas with other weapon sets you can work with general ones (there is not a perk for sword or dagger+10%damage), other thieves can select perks for almost any situation (increase damage ingeneral, initiative, etc…)
At the same time other weapon sets are much more versatile from the survival point of view if focusing on skills, and obviously make much more dps (mele range).
These three fields are conditioning everything:
- Specifity of pistol traits
- Underperformance in survival pistol skills
- DPS outcome

The last one is fair, obviously it can not be the same to make damage close to a target than ranged, but this fact is conditioned by the fact that many classes have really good approaching skills (just in thief: heartseeker, steal, teleports…).
Taking in account all these issues the class is rubbish compared to others.
The main problem is that p/p skills stink. No DPS, no survivalbility, no options…

Best,

Haltair, onbe of the Twelve Shadows

It’s not that the skills stink, it’s that you can’t use them effectively because you have to reserve most of your Initiative for Unload. Again, the best way to resolve this problem is to buff Vital Shot so that you aren’t so reliant on Initiative for basic DPS.

To me P/P has 3 problems.
- Auto attack damage too low.
- No built in defense.
- Too narrow with traits (partially due to being somewhat hybridish).

With that in mind i think that the acrobatics line would actually be a preferable set of traits for P/P, but it can’t really be used due to general trait placement.

Suggestions:
- Remove bleeding from Vital Shot, up its physical damage and quicken the time between shots. OR just quicken animation and ad vulnerability on hit.
- Add bleeding on vital shot as an adept or master trait in trickery to compensate P/D.
- Put riccochet in the critical strike line as a master trait & switch some traits around so that it fits.

These changes both take burden off of Unload & opens up builds based on 30 crit strike traits. Ofc it would be “yet another” 30 crit basis, but… honestly that’s how physical damage thieves are built anyway.

With it you could go for 10/30/0/30/0 heavy acro build, still opt for 0/30/0/20/20 or go for 10/30/0/0/30 heavily focusing on steal etc.

From that point on we could also see if P/P needs more buffs.

Here’s a rather novel idea. How about buffing Vital Shot’s direct damage scaling and making Unload grant Haste (4s) and evade frames (1s) instead of being a damage skill on its own?

It could become a secondary ranged DPS set that can also set up effective melee bursts (Unload -> swap to melee), rather than competing with Shortbow’s as a utility set.

When suggesting changes to vital shot or body shot, please remember that P/D exists, as well as Sneak Attack – both are clearly set up for condition damage.

If you make a suggestion that turned Vital shot into a direct damage ability, you just killed P/D and made the stealth attack pointless.

You guys really think devs care and will read all this? And even if they will do, are you sure they will understand everything what people are saying? xD

Two major problems with P/P:
1) Any changes to skill #1 and #2 will affect P/D
2) Any changes to skill #4 and #5 will affect D/P and S/P

They can’t make these skills appealing or viable for P/P without breaking it for the other 3 weapon sets.

Solution?

Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D

I’ve said this before and I’m still waiting.

Incurafy.6329:

Maugetarr.6823:

evilapprentice.6379:

I don’t see why the dev’s don’t sit down and do some math.

I’m sure there exists a way to tune the Direct damage Vital shot does so that
- In a power crit setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Vital shot itself, but it does slightly less than comparable skills, which is made up for by the low damage bleed you get (low damage because you’re power/crit focused, not condition focused)
- In a condition setup, the bulk of the damage comes from Bleeding, but the ability doesn’t do the kitten poor damage it does now.

Then you do the same thing with unload – by having it apply torment, bleed, burning, whatever.

Viola – you’ve solved the bulk of P/P’s problems (it still has very poor defense options for a thief weaponset, but one problem at a time), and turned P/P into a versatile weaponset – something that works well for Power/crit setups, for condition setups, and hell, even for hybrid setups!

Make the auto attack faster with the same damage. Put vulnerability on the auto attack instead of bleeding (up to 8 stacks naturally). Lengthen the bleeds on sneak attack (p/p ain’t using it). Put poison on pistol 2 to make up for some of the lost bleeds and knock down regen. Decrease the number of shots by 2 on unload and increase the damage of the remaining ones accordingly to maintain the same damage but make it burstier.

Results (hopefully):
Decent direct damage that doesn’t require initiative and increases over time.
Vuln application for team play.
A method to knock down regen on tanks
Burst damage separated by the need to maintain vuln stacks.
Same condition damage + 1 more damaging condition
Vuln stacks set up for close combat burst.
Less susceptible to retal

Meanwhile, you would kill the already pitiful damage of P/D by almost completely removing it’s main source of damage (bleed application on VS).

Which is why you extend the bleeds on sneak attack and add poison to the set. You end up with bleeds that can be extended even longer, 1 more damaging condition, and a more constantly applied cover condition. I don’t think most p/d builds trait 15 into DA, but if you did, you’d also have weakness application on 2. Partially the idea is to be able to keep up poison without using a venom which will be cleared 5 seconds after you apply it so heavy regen classes go down rather than walking away from you. Anyway, re-read the original one because it tried to maintain the original condition damage while increasing the variety of conditions and hopefully benefiting hybrid/direct damage builds. P/D 3 should honestly either apply more stacks of torment or longer stacks of torment to help bring it up, but that discussion fell outside the purview of a P/P discussion.

Seriously guys, many of you are overthinking this.

Literally all they need to do is buff Vital Shot (both its direct and bleed damage) by about 20% by reducing its aftercast. This would improve the damage on P/D and balance P/P by making it less reliant on Initiative for sustained damage.

This would also allow P/P to work reasonably well with both crit and condi based builds – you’d be effectively choosing between better utility or better burst damage rather than the choice you have to make currently which is between any damage (burst or sustained) or any utility.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Two major problems with P/P:
1) Any changes to skill #1 and #2 will affect P/D
2) Any changes to skill #4 and #5 will affect D/P and S/P

They can’t make these skills appealing or viable for P/P without breaking it for the other 3 weapon sets.

Solution?

Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D

I’ve said this before and I’m still waiting.

I’m not going to rain on your parade by dissing your idea, because it would be kinda neat. However, it’s not practical merely because that isn’t the convention for how other weapons are set up and would require extensive work. The changes need to fit into the scope of how other weapons are designed, so they need to just focus on fixing what they can fix within that paradigm.

I totally disagree. There’s a library of items that players can pick up that changes our whole weapon set (i.e. pickiing up a boulder). Now each of these items are store in a database with unique IDs same with skills and their IDs. How do you think data mining works?

If Anet can create a new skill ( you know the one they sell for 25 skill points), they can create new skills for Thieve’s dual-wield. They then can deploy these new skills by simply adding a new set of dual-wielding sets into the weapon set database. Then every time a Thief have the weapon set active, or swapped into the set, the game will pull data from the new dual-wielding set.

They’ve already show that the technology and capability is there, it’s just a matter of whether Anet really cares for Thieves.

I think they can buff Vital Shot by a full 20% without really making P/D OP. If P/D feels too strong after a buff to Vital Shot (keep in mind it doesn’t have the same burst potential that P/P has), all they need to do is reduce the strength of the Sneak Attack to compensate.

IMO, P/P shouldn’t have Vital Shot — it should be a non-condition damage weapon set and D/D is a condition damage weapon set.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Einlanzer.1627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Two major problems with P/P:
1) Any changes to skill #1 and #2 will affect P/D
2) Any changes to skill #4 and #5 will affect D/P and S/P

They can’t make these skills appealing or viable for P/P without breaking it for the other 3 weapon sets.

Solution?

Full set of 5 unique skills for both dual-wield weapon sets: P/P and D/D

I’ve said this before and I’m still waiting.

I’m not going to rain on your parade by dissing your idea, because it would be kinda neat. However, it’s not practical merely because that isn’t the convention for how other weapons are set up and would require extensive work. The changes need to fit into the scope of how other weapons are designed, so they need to just focus on fixing what they can fix within that paradigm.

I totally disagree. There’s a library of items that players can pick up that changes our whole weapon set (i.e. pickiing up a boulder). Now each of these items are store in a database with unique IDs same with skills and their IDs. How do you think data mining works?

If Anet can create a new skill ( you know the one they sell for 25 skill points), they can create new skills for Thieve’s dual-wield. They then can deploy these new skills by simply adding a new set of dual-wielding sets into the weapon set database. Then every time a Thief have the weapon set active, or swapped into the set, the game will pull data from the new dual-wielding set.

They’ve already show that the technology and capability is there, it’s just a matter of whether Anet really cares for Thieves.

I think they can buff Vital Shot by a full 20% without really making P/D OP. If P/D feels too strong after a buff to Vital Shot (keep in mind it doesn’t have the same burst potential that P/P has), all they need to do is reduce the strength of the Sneak Attack to compensate.

IMO, P/P shouldn’t have Vital Shot — it should be a non-condition damage weapon set and D/D is a condition damage weapon set.

No – they are both mixed, like most sets in the game. P/D is slightly geared more toward condi and P/P is slightly geared toward direct damage, but they both contain plenty of both. The problem is that P/P is incorrectly pigeon-holed into a direct damage set because Vital Shot is poorly tuned and blatantly outperformed by Unload even as a source of sustained damage, which shouldn’t be the case.

But Vital Shot is not a total condition skill, it’s a direct-condition hybrid skill. It’s fine supporting DPS on both sets, it just needs to be buffed so it can be a functional part of P/P’s rotation and allow you to not be so dependent on Initiative for DPS.

I think I’m probably the only person in the game who’s actually happy with the P/P weaponset. My damage is good, initiative is manageable and sustainable without being forced to trait into it (even moreso with the upcoming patch), and my weaknesses can easily be coverable by utility choice and proper play.

In a perfect world, I could go for a bit more attack speed on the auto-attack. Maybe give Unload a passive generosity effect to keep up with the condi meta since thief cleanse options are complete garbage unless you’ve got a sword or Shadow’s Embrace. Even still, it would be a fine line between a simple buff and downright OP.

At the very least, I’d personally like to see the Vital Shot dilemma handled. In a perfect world, I could see:

• VS aftercast fixed
• Either Body Shot or Unload being given an evade or leap component.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

I think I’m probably the only person in the game who’s actually happy with the P/P weaponset. My damage is good, initiative is manageable and sustainable without being forced to trait into it (even moreso with the upcoming patch), and my weaknesses can easily be coverable by utility choice and proper play.

In a perfect world, I could go for a bit more attack speed on the auto-attack. Maybe give Unload a passive generosity effect to keep up with the condi meta since thief cleanse options are complete garbage unless you’ve got a sword or Shadow’s Embrace. Even still, it would be a fine line between a simple buff and downright OP.

After you being able to kill people using fireworks, is P/P really fine or are you carrying the set with your gameplay? To clarify what I mean, you killed people without using weapons (here is not the place to discuss perplexity though) so virtually any attack would be a vast improvement over no weapons.

Einlanzer.1627:

No – they are both mixed, like most sets in the game. P/D is slightly geared more toward condi and P/P is slightly geared toward direct damage, but they both contain plenty of both. The problem is that P/P is incorrectly pigeon-holed into a direct damage set because Vital Shot is poorly tuned and blatantly outperformed by Unload even as a source of sustained damage, which shouldn’t be the case.

But Vital Shot is not a total condition skill, it’s a direct-condition hybrid skill. It’s fine supporting DPS on both sets, it just needs to be buffed so it can be a functional part of P/P’s rotation and allow you to not be so dependent on Initiative for DPS.

That’s the problem. Condition damage has no place in P/P, condition duration, yes, but not condition damage — P/P benefits more from Chill, Vulnerable, Cripple, for example, than from Poison and Bleeding. Having condition damage in P/P only complicates its role. P/P should be designed around Unload, and D/D designed around Death Blossom.

Your idea of hybrid doesn’t fix the problem since if P/D and P/P are both hybrids, then why pick P/P? That’s what we have now.

The ways in which I see most sets designed as
a) Auto attack based – Significant damage is put on the auto attack and your skills are utility to support that (See ranger Shortbow)

b) “Caster” based – the auto attack itself isn’t very significant, your other skills however are, which means insteady of the steady damage output of an auto attack based weapon set, you have a more “burst” oriented weapon

c) “Support” based – The auto attack may or may not be powerful, but the skills are really about utility/auxillary purposes such as the Elementalist Ice bow or guardian staff.

There’s possibly a lot more ways to categorize sets but that’s a quick outlook. Imo P/P right now plays more on the caster side. If you look at D/x sets while the auto attack is strong, in some sections of the game it’s really not about the auto attack, in others the auto attack is a bit more important. P/P’s auto attack is crap, so you’d think it a “caster” but that’s pretty wonky to do with the initiative system, given the global resource restriction. Only way a “caster” P/P works given the initiative system is for the skills to have significant utility to incentivize their use instead of players funneling into one option. I don’t think they’ve achieved this yet. Granted many thief sets in general funnel, and we’ve seen this over time 5-2-1 play, 5-1 play, 333333 play on multiple sets, 2222 on multiple sets. They may eventually get thief exactly where they want it.

Back to P/P… the support given isn’t all that impressive at all as a whole given the kit, so players still find themself funneling into unload though to a lessened degree to before.

So really you could a) go with what Einlaizer(?) has been proposing for eons, and bring it to a more auto-attack emphasized set. Or you have to well make the kit more supportive. That’s going to be “tough” to do given how the weapon sets work in this game. Einlizers request is probably the easiest route for them to do given their weapon system.

They could have experimented with ini costs, higher damage on unload but 6 ini, 2 ini on a body shot with that 5s vuln on 10 stacks.
Possibly change the whole mechanic and make it unique or something like Body shot or unload put a mark on a target which makes them take additional effects from other skills eg. “Target hit by unload is marked, body shot immobilizes a marked target and removes the mark, headshot dazes for 50% longer, black powder, grants aegis” some crap like that.
A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

ensoriki.5789:

A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

I agree that it would be the easiest but it doesn’t solve the problem, his suggestion is just a “band-aid” solution.

P/P and D/D needs surgery, not bandage.

Maugetarr.6823:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

I think I’m probably the only person in the game who’s actually happy with the P/P weaponset. My damage is good, initiative is manageable and sustainable without being forced to trait into it (even moreso with the upcoming patch), and my weaknesses can easily be coverable by utility choice and proper play.

In a perfect world, I could go for a bit more attack speed on the auto-attack. Maybe give Unload a passive generosity effect to keep up with the condi meta since thief cleanse options are complete garbage unless you’ve got a sword or Shadow’s Embrace. Even still, it would be a fine line between a simple buff and downright OP.

After you being able to kill people using fireworks, is P/P really fine or are you carrying the set with your gameplay? To clarify what I mean, you killed people without using weapons (here is not the place to discuss perplexity though) so virtually any attack would be a vast improvement over no weapons.

I’d like to think that player ability SHOULD carry a weaponset, not the other way around.

As it stands, P/P has good damage, a daze, an immobilize, and a fantastic blind/smoke field. The downside to all that flexibility is that you have to make decisions and sacrifices on the fly to get the most out of the set and can be easily punished if you make a mistake or countered if you fall into predictable patterns. In my opinion, that’s balanced. In fact, it might just be one of the ONLY balanced weaponsets in the entire game, but that’s a separate argument completely. :P

I feel that if a player like me can get by fine using the set, any buff that brings it more inline with the easier-to-use kits will just make it ridiculously powerful in the hands of the truly good players.

Unload costs 4 initiative.

There fixed, next…

redkat.1892:

Unload costs 4 initiative.

There fixed, next…

Utterly not the point. If anything, that would that would just exacerbate the discussed problem, namely spamming Unload.

When you look at mainhand pistol and offhand pistol separately, you see a condition-based set (mainhand) and a utility set (offhand). However, when combined, we’re given a direct damage dual skill that inherently promotes spamming of that dual skill. Unload needs to combo off of conditions the thief can reliably supply, if anything, without generating those conditions itself.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Maugetarr.6823:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

I think I’m probably the only person in the game who’s actually happy with the P/P weaponset. My damage is good, initiative is manageable and sustainable without being forced to trait into it (even moreso with the upcoming patch), and my weaknesses can easily be coverable by utility choice and proper play.

In a perfect world, I could go for a bit more attack speed on the auto-attack. Maybe give Unload a passive generosity effect to keep up with the condi meta since thief cleanse options are complete garbage unless you’ve got a sword or Shadow’s Embrace. Even still, it would be a fine line between a simple buff and downright OP.

After you being able to kill people using fireworks, is P/P really fine or are you carrying the set with your gameplay? To clarify what I mean, you killed people without using weapons (here is not the place to discuss perplexity though) so virtually any attack would be a vast improvement over no weapons.

I’d like to think that player ability SHOULD carry a weaponset, not the other way around.

As it stands, P/P has good damage, a daze, an immobilize, and a fantastic blind/smoke field. The downside to all that flexibility is that you have to make decisions and sacrifices on the fly to get the most out of the set and can be easily punished if you make a mistake or countered if you fall into predictable patterns. In my opinion, that’s balanced. In fact, it might just be one of the ONLY balanced weaponsets in the entire game, but that’s a separate argument completely. :P

I feel that if a player like me can get by fine using the set, any buff that brings it more inline with the easier-to-use kits will just make it ridiculously powerful in the hands of the truly good players.

Well I guess that’s sort of the problem then when compared with the rest of the sets in the game. I guess it’s where you consider the baseline to be. Either P/P is subpar or everthing else is over the baseline. In either case something needs to be adjusted.

redkat.1892:

Unload costs 4 initiative.

There fixed, next…

Yeah, buffing Unload in any way is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. The other skills, primarily the autoattack, need to be brought in line with Unload so that you can utilize proper resource management.

Unload costing 4 initiave utterly no the point? Some reasons it migh be on point:

1. Super simple Anet fix that doesnt mess with the other OP d/p, p/d..peediddy etc
2. Buffs P/P dps some, without buffing other specs
3. Leaves room for initiave to use in other smart plays using timely headshots and black powder.
4. Some people love spamming unload, more fun to them

So there, easy fix that buffs the set some while leaving initiave for the offhands. Anet doesnt have time for complex changes or wall of text reading.

redkat.1892:

Unload costing 4 initiave utterly no the point? Some reasons it migh be on point:

1. Super simple Anet fix that doesnt mess with the other OP d/p, p/d..peediddy etc
2. Buffs P/P dps some, without buffing other specs
3. Leaves room for initiave to use in other smart plays using timely headshots and black powder.
4. Some people love spamming unload, more fun to them

So there, easy fix that buffs the set some while leaving initiave for the offhands. Anet doesnt have time for complex changes or wall of text reading.

Sorry, but that makes zero sense.

a.) P/P mostly needs buffs to its utility and sustained damage, not buffs to its burst damage, and buffing Unload would in no way stop it from being an Initiative hog – people would just spam it more for the damage and the other skills would be just as useless as they are currently if not more.

b.) P/D could use a slight buff as well, which a buff to Vital Shot would accomplish (if it’s too much, which I doubt, re-tune the Stealth Attack)

c.) Some people love spamming Unload, more power to them, buffing Vital Shot would in no way hinder their ability to do that. More people hate it, so now they aren’t forced to just to play P/P functionally.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

I agree that it would be the easiest but it doesn’t solve the problem, his suggestion is just a “band-aid” solution.

P/P and D/D needs surgery, not bandage.

It’s not really a bandaid.
Think an ADC in a moba, or well most “ranger” archetypes (like even our rangers shortbow) in typical mmos, or even FPS games with abilities where your “auto-attack” is the greatest long-term source of damage. It’s putting it into that sphere.
The other option is to keep the auto attack meagre to put emphasis on the abilities but at the moment the abilities I would say still don’t flow that well to make it meet that goal and it’s hard to do it right given we use a global resource.
Ergo ~ Increase the auto-attack to go towards a certain design (which is valid and not a bandaid), or increase other abilities towards another (which is also valid but would quite likely take longer).

I think either way they’d have to look at a couple skills again even if they did increase the auto-attack but P/P would feel the improvement faster if they started there.

Was called “utterly besides the point” and now “make zero sense”, so much for civilized discussion :C

Think Anet doesnt want to buff the thiefs better specs, so asking for vital shot buff (though great, yeah!) harder for them to give us.

Do good players just rely on spamming unload? I want to see that against the darn reflecting projectiles snakes.

Considering some of the posts on the forums, sir, ‘utterly beside the point’ is exceedingly polite.

Forgive me if I sounded rude, but the main thrust of the ‘civilized’ ( ) discussion is the fact P/P users seem to rely on Unload to the exclusion of the other 4 skills. Quite honestly, I probably use it 70% – 85% of the time while running P/P, when I know I’m not going to be facing AI that requires special tactics (Read: Toxic ‘Baby Cat’ Nimross.)

Buffing Unload alone would, as I put early, just exacerbate what seems to be a large part of the problem. Buffing or changing Vital Shot could upset other main-hand pistol builds, creating a problem there if none already existed. However, this may not seem like a problem, nor may it actually be a problem, to some players. All I can say to that is: I have my opinion, you have your opinion, and I respectfully disagree with it.

Another problem could be that of the dual-weilding system itself, and trying to balance a unique dual-skill between 4 other unique skills, and among the other dual-skills. Unload: Reduce range to 130, add initial daze and root. P/P Pistol Whip, any one?

Want to go further? Think about how it’ll be affected by traits, utilities, a second or third player, a full party, an open world zerg, etc.

The problem is that Anet made pistol mainhand a condition weapon, and p/p is not generally a condition weapon set.

If anet wants it to be successful at all it needs a damage increase for it’s autoattack, at the cost of buffing an arguably already balanced P/D set.

Quickness on 3 to make vital shot the new unload: quick stomp/rez (good/bad, just raising the possible issue)

My own suggestion:
Change unload to something that interacts with P AA the way stealth interacts with all AA’s. Since P/P lacks survival/mobility, P/P 3 could be a leap that changes vital shot for 1x use, the way stealth changes vital shot to sneak attack.

To try it out (if it is possible or not), anet could use what they already have (sneak attack). Vital shot → sneak attack for 1x use withing 3sec after using unload.

IMO, Einlanzer.1627 has the right solution. There are a couple ways to use P/P for the right situation but every time I used one of them Vital Shot was always in the way for being slow kitten . Specially when fight against someone who is really fast at jumping on you.
Reducing the after-cast and adding 2or3 endurance gain with a successful strike(if possible) would rather help P/P alot than one might think.

In my opinion, the changes P/P need would be :
- 1 initiative costless on Unload
- Switch Ankle shots and Ricochet in the traits, since ricochet is more a direct damage upgrader, and Ankle Shots a kind of Trickery.

Spike.1526:

In my opinion, the changes P/P need would be :
- 1 initiative costless on Unload
- Switch Ankle shots and Ricochet in the traits, since ricochet is more a direct damage upgrader, and Ankle Shots a kind of Trickery.

No, buffing Unload is the worst solution imaginable. Please read above- Vital Shot needs to pull its weight in carrying the set’s damage for P/P to ever be really functional.

Reducing initiative cost on Unload is NOT going to solve the problem of P/P as a whole. It is the same thing happened to DB, Anet reduced the cost on DB and how did that solve the problem on D/D as a whole. NOTHING. Condition build can just spam DB more and Direct Damage build can still never use DB.

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

I agree that it would be the easiest but it doesn’t solve the problem, his suggestion is just a “band-aid” solution.

P/P and D/D needs surgery, not bandage.

It’s not really a bandaid.
Think an ADC in a moba, or well most “ranger” archetypes (like even our rangers shortbow) in typical mmos, or even FPS games with abilities where your “auto-attack” is the greatest long-term source of damage. It’s putting it into that sphere.
The other option is to keep the auto attack meagre to put emphasis on the abilities but at the moment the abilities I would say still don’t flow that well to make it meet that goal and it’s hard to do it right given we use a global resource.
Ergo ~ Increase the auto-attack to go towards a certain design (which is valid and not a bandaid), or increase other abilities towards another (which is also valid but would quite likely take longer).

I think either way they’d have to look at a couple skills again even if they did increase the auto-attack but P/P would feel the improvement faster if they started there.

Like I’ve already mentioned, the problem with Vital Shot is that this skill is shared between 2 weapon sets. Any changes to this skill to buff P/P will also buff P/D. Now that both weapon set has a decent auto-attack, why would any one pick P/P over P/D? Can you see? That’s the same situation we are in today, thus this is a “band-aid” solution.

Anet needs to separate P/P from P/D, D/P and S/P and the only way to do that is to give P/P its own 5 skill weapon set (same goes with D/D).

Take Body Shot for instance. The immobilize is useful for P/P, but P/D now have 2 movement impairment ability — can’t you see the problem there? It just made P/D much more better than P/P, so why use P/P?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

ensoriki.5789:

A lot of stuff they could play with but what Einlizers(?) been suggesting would be the easiest.

I agree that it would be the easiest but it doesn’t solve the problem, his suggestion is just a “band-aid” solution.

P/P and D/D needs surgery, not bandage.

It’s not really a bandaid.
Think an ADC in a moba, or well most “ranger” archetypes (like even our rangers shortbow) in typical mmos, or even FPS games with abilities where your “auto-attack” is the greatest long-term source of damage. It’s putting it into that sphere.
The other option is to keep the auto attack meagre to put emphasis on the abilities but at the moment the abilities I would say still don’t flow that well to make it meet that goal and it’s hard to do it right given we use a global resource.
Ergo ~ Increase the auto-attack to go towards a certain design (which is valid and not a bandaid), or increase other abilities towards another (which is also valid but would quite likely take longer).

I think either way they’d have to look at a couple skills again even if they did increase the auto-attack but P/P would feel the improvement faster if they started there.

Like I’ve already mentioned, the problem with Vital Shot is that this skill is shared between 2 weapon sets. Any changes to this skill to buff P/P will also buff P/D. Now that both weapon set has a decent auto-attack, why would any one pick P/P over P/D? Can you see? That’s the same situation we are in today, thus this is a “band-aid” solution.

Anet needs to separate P/P from P/D, D/P and S/P and the only way to do that is to give P/P its own 5 skill weapon set (same goes with D/D).

Take Body Shot for instance. The immobilize is useful for P/P, but P/D now have 2 movement impairment ability — can’t you see the problem there? It just made P/D much more better than P/P, so why use P/P?

What’s the issue with designing Vital shot and Unload so that it can be used equally effectively with a condition focus, a power/crit focus, or a hybrid setup? This is of course assuming they add something to unload that allows it to do both direct damage (already exists) and condition damage (would have to be added).

There is a finite number of attribute layouts (in PvP at least, so at minimum this would work as a PvP only split, but could likely work for PvE and WvW as well), so there has to be a direct damage value + attack speed + condition choice + base condition duration combination that would make vital shot and unload do enough damage in any setup to be competitive.

I’m not claiming this would be a spectacularly easy feat, but it’s all math using values they determined and have complete control over – it seems easier than a complete redesign to P/P and how Anet designed thieves dual wielding.

Of course, a complete redesign could also tackle P/P’s other problems (no mobility, very few defensive options for any available thief playstyle)