Guild Wars 2

So, we know that the next elite will be sniper-like. There are also rumors that this elite will only have a single dodge roll, that it will be heavily based on positioning and that the skill category will be Survival Skills.
Based on that, let’s now come with some cool skills/traits for the class. Just for the lols.

Bagworm: Skill: Stealth for 6 seconds and gain rejuvenation. If you move or are knocked back you become revealed. CD 25 secs.
Phantom bullet: Trait: Attacks made from a riffle/pistol cannot be reflected. CD: 5secs.
Hidden weapon: Trait: Your weapon swap cooldown becomes 3 seconds if you are wielding a riffle.
Bonus Point: Trait: 50% chance to gain one initiative point if you hit a foe by the side or the back. CD: 5secs.

Shieldbreaker – rifle skill – deal damage and apply a debuff to target that causes all attacks against them to be unblockable. Attack itself is unblockable.

I already came up with the kit a year ago.
With all the skills, traits, utilities, and interactions (See signature).

Too bad none of the ideas aside from the name and weapon are going to be used lol. Shame, as I sincerely doubt the spec will carry the level of understanding of what needed to happen to make rifle usable and not broken.

If there is a rifle condi variant I will be happy. Right now I have HOPE and Incinerator, adding Predator into that will complete the trifecta of cyberpunk weapons.

But, I worry that the survivability of the spec will suffer compared to Daredevil and with projectile hate being what it is a rifle needs some big impact projectile bonuses to make it worthwhile.

Lahmia.2193:

Shieldbreaker – rifle skill – deal damage and apply a debuff to target that causes all attacks against them to be unblockable. Attack itself is unblockable.

That’s a pretty good one.

Lol u mad – rifle – Kill everything on the map and grant 1 stack of might to you
3 sec cooldown
Thoughts?

Testing for weakness (trait): Each time you hit your target, you gain a “insert random name”-counter (hitting multiple foes at once only adds 1 counter). At reaching X counters, your next weaponskill will deal Y% bonus damage and be unblockable.

Whisky flask : skill : Heal you for a large amount of HP. Self blind.
Hidden flask : trait : Heal you for a small amount of HP when you reach 25% HP. Blind you. ICD 30s.

BikeIsGone.8675:

Testing for weakness (trait): Each time you hit your target, you gain a “insert random name”-counter (hitting multiple foes at once only adds 1 counter). At reaching X counters, your next weaponskill will deal Y% bonus damage and be unblockable.

Really like this one as well. But I would approach it a little differently:
1. It is the target who gains said debuff. (“You are being targeted by player”).
2. Only one Testing for Weakness debuff can be active, so if you hit somebody else, you have to start from zero stacks. It also vanishes after a few consecutive seconds of not being hit.
3. At X stacks target gains high amount of vulnerability and can’t block for X seconds. (This way I think is more group oriented).

What do you say?

Dadnir.5038:

Whisky flask : skill : Heal you for a large amount of HP. Self blind.
Hidden flask : trait : Heal you for a small amount of HP when you reach 25% HP. Blind you. ICD 30s.

If you went from large to very large at the cost of adding confusion to the list, it’ll be very thematic haha.
This also goes a lot with the survival type of skills. Well thought.

MakubeC.3026:

Really like this one as well. But I would approach it a little differently:
1. It is the target who gains said debuff. (“You are being targeted by player”).
2. Only one Testing for Weakness debuff can be active, so if you hit somebody else, you have to start from zero stacks. It also vanishes after a few consecutive seconds of not being hit.
3. At X stacks target gains high amount of vulnerability and can’t block for X seconds. (This way I think is more group oriented).

What do you say?

I get the idea. Hardly makes sense to “look for weaknesses” in a targets defense and then, once the stacks are built to just burst another one^^.
While I like the target-bound thing, Id like for the sniper to just get some added damaged instead of just applying a stack of vulnerability….complements the thief’s bursty nature better imo. Disabling blocks on the target would be borderline broken in pvp i fear.

I cam up with a few more ….didn’t know theorycrafting (if thats even the right term) could be so much fun^^

Clean Shot (Trait): As long as the target isn’t within x Range of another enemy, ranged attacks deal increased damage.

Unspottable (Trait – combat only): After standing still for X seconds, the thief gets Y seconds of stealth (and maybe even superspeed?). Movement of any form (Knockbacks, pushes, pull etc) reset the timer on this trait.

Graze Shot (Weaponskill): In addition to dealing damage, your targets gets up to X seconds of cripple, depending on how close they are to you (The closer, the longer the cripple)

Tracing Bullet (Utility?): Hit your target with a tracking bullet, placing a visible debuff on them. Allies (and yourself) within X Range of the target have their movementspeed increased by Y% (Stacks with other speed buffs). Target is revealed for the whole duration of the debuff.

Single Out (Weaponskill): A skill with a very long cast time that fires a projectile that simply deals MASSIVE dmg. —> A bit unimaginative, but lets be honest….this just is NEEDED for a sniper spec.

Quick Load (Utility): Gain a unique buff that reduces cast time for all weaponskills by X% for Y seconds.

elite skill, sniping while stealthed increases damage 20% if target is at 1200 range – 1500 range

Lightning Shot (auto) – deliver a high speed projectile. Slower reload but fast projectile.

Head Shot (stealth) – deliver a powerful strike that inflicts confusion. More confusion for longer distances.

Tracer (skill 2) – fires a test round. If the round hits your next shot inflicts bonus damage and torment.

Sniper’s Retreat (skill 3) – become immobilized and temporarily revealed. After 3 seconds gain stealth and super speed.

Bullet Shield (skill 4) – aim a directional cone. For the duration of this skill block projectiles by shooting them out of the air. Each projectile you block grants might.

Final Shot (skill 5) – fires a shot that does more damage to low hp enemies. Is unblockable under 25% hp. Applies self vulnerability.

I d love rifle 5 to be something similar to what the mordrem have.
Charge a shot for a duration while putting a buff on target that makes it visible that he is being targetet. After charging u fire a shot that deals massiv dmg in a line and leves a line of scorched earth that deals dmg over time and aplies cripple or maybe even burn (to give the thief access to burning). this skill would make the weapon viable in pve where mobs stay in in this line and it offers outplaypotential in pvp but can still be devestating combined with something like imob and can be used for area control. My problem with ranged weapons is that they are normaly undertuned in pve cause if not they would be op in pvp

also for play potential u can use this without targeting an enemy to avoid the being targeted buff but then it will shoot to the direction u are facing and not to the targeted enemy after the charge and would be really easy to dodge if the enemy is prepared

while charging u might aswell gain revealed to counteract abuse of this skill and give it synergy with traits

in my opnion this would go a long way for the viability of the rifle in all gametypes
im looking at this in more of a balance standpoint then a lore or flavor one and i would love to hear ur thoghts

also im very sorry for my bad english
edit: some spelling errors (well there are still enough left xd)

Jyrio.4637:

I d love rifle 5 to be something similar to what the mordrem have.
Charge a shot for a duration while putting a buff on target that makes it visible that he is being targetet. After charging u fire a shot that deals massiv dmg in a line and leves a line of scorched earth that deals dmg over time and aplies cripple or maybe even burn (to give the thief access to burning). this skill would make the weapon viable in pve where mobs stay in in this line and it offers outplaypotential in pvp but can still be devestating combined with something like imob and can be used for area control. My problem with ranged weapons is that they are normaly undertuned in pve cause if not they would be op in pvp

also for play potential u can use this without targeting an enemy to avoid the being targeted buff but then it will shoot to the direction u are facing and not to the targeted enemy after the charge and would be really easy to dodge if the enemy is prepared

while charging u might aswell gain revealed to counteract abuse of this skill and give it synergy with traits

in my opnion this would go a long way for the viability of the rifle in all gametypes
im looking at this in more of a balance standpoint then a lore or flavor one and i would love to hear ur thoghts

also im very sorry for my bad english
edit: some spelling errors (well there are still enough left xd)

That idea is actually not half bad. It is a very good skill and I think it matches the sniper theme very well. It even sounds like a number 5 type of skill lol

Id also love to get the ricochet trait back.
Ricochet: (trait) Rifle and pistol shots have a 50% chance to bounce to an aditional target. increase rifle and pistol dmg by 7% (max bounces 3)

or something like that :-)

Marked for Death:
Mark a target, for 10 seconds target enemy cannot stealth and takes additional damage from all sources,
if the target dies before the Marked effect expires all of your skills are recharged.
cannot be used on targets below 75% health.

(probably an elite)

i can almost guarantee that renegade will have a ranged version of final thrust/grave digger too
an execution shot that will deal massive damage but only be usable on lower health enemies.

I would make a trait that would give you haste when for not hitting the same target twice in a row. Think about it, if it’s really going to be a sniper there is going to already be a lot incentive to just burst down one target at a time. I hope the spec builds in some sort of counter play to that. The idea is that you shot, switch, shoot, switch, shoot , switch and build up enough haste to then take down a target quickly.

Jyrio.4637:

Id also love to get the ricochet trait back.
Ricochet: (trait) Rifle and pistol shots have a 50% chance to bounce to an aditional target. increase rifle and pistol dmg by 7% (max bounces 3)

or something like that :-)

Oh yes, this so much.

i love a skill that on impact hitting 1 target it explode around them hitting 5

Taobella.6597:

i love a skill that on impact hitting 1 target it explode around them hitting 5

This could be a skill. Would make an incredible AoE if used with Ricochet.

MakubeC.3026:

Taobella.6597:

i love a skill that on impact hitting 1 target it explode around them hitting 5

This could be a skill. Would make an incredible AoE if used with Ricochet.

Just thinking about that gets my man parts hard xD there would be alot aplication for that in trash mob scenarios and it could be used for bosses with alot of adds maybe combined with a mesmer pull…
Also imagine that in WvW tho retal counters it pretty hard i guess..
Just the thoght of an upcomming new elite spec is so exciting and deadeye has alot of potential.. Im sure anet will completly surprise us tho with something that i cant even think of atm :-)
also the cool part of the thief and its elitespec is that he has an initiative pool and no real cooldowns on weapon skills what makes it even easier to have awesome combos and synergies (we dont need every skill for dps we can have 1 or 2 dps skills on weapon and the rest utility)

retal counter thief in general so it w/e