Guild Wars 2

What changes do you think we will see to P/P?

- Repeater : 20% more damage
- Unload : 5% more damage. Initiative cost increased by 1
- Body Shot : now applies 6 stacks of vulnerability

i hope something..

I am d/d and p/p for range..

Thief

Fixed a bug preventing Unload bullets to go at full speed

Fixed body shot casting time, in order to match the current displayed timer

Fixed a bug preventing head shot to do the tipical head shot sound.

Fixed a bug with Black Powder shot: now the skill is cooler.

tl:dr;

I wouldn’t expect anything relevant, anyway i just want my S/D build back.

a 10% buff to warrior rifle dmg, just kidding. I would like to see body shot merged with unload so it puts on vulnerability and skill 2 replaced with a cripple.

To me, we’ll see just 10% more damage on unload.

that would be pretty disappointing, has anyone actually done the math to see if its worth applying 5 or 10 vulnerability stacks before doing an unload or just doing 2 to 3 unloads.

mickers.2715:

that would be pretty disappointing, has anyone actually done the math to see if its worth applying 5 or 10 vulnerability stacks before doing an unload or just doing 2 to 3 unloads.

2-3 Unloads>5-10 Vuln stack. However, depending on team make up, and your spec, it’s beneficial to do 20 Vuln stack and then an Unload in certain boss fights.

2 body shots followed by unload is weaker than 2 unloads.

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

Watch BS and VS get buffed. Unload is plenty strong already.
Doubt any changes will be “interesting”.

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

Einlanzer.1627:

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

You actually do so voluntarily in every single thread, and try pass it off as if that’s the only issue. No one really denied anything you’ve really said regarding Vital Shot.

So, if I were you, I’d focus on trying not to sound like a broken record in every single thread. Doesn’t make you look any better than the complainers, complaining about the same nonsensical bull kitten.

Only reason to do a body shot before unload is if you have 25 in Deadly arts and don’t have any other conditions on target to get the extra 10% damage from. In fact that probably wouldn’t even be worth it unless you were in a very long fight with other team mates…

Einlanzer.1627:

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

Here’s the thing:

Say VS gets tuned up, and becomes a more viable way to do mixed-type damage for free, that doesn’t help power-based P/P at all. Either the “fixed” VS is better than Unload DPS-wise (like all of the other auto attacks) and you’re better off just running condition damage (and consequently most likely just using P/D), or the fixed VS is still worse than Unload and people continue to spam Unload for mediocre damage. Literally the only thing boosting VS would do for P/P is boost a utility-heavy thief where you spam VS with +condition gear for your DPS and conserve your initiative to burn on #2/4/5 skills. Not a popular build, and not really that good at what it does. That is just the unfortunate truth of how the initiative system makes all thief skills in direct competition.

VS is a bad skill, but fixing it won’t fix P/P.

Tulisin.6945:

Say VS gets tuned up, and becomes a more viable way to do mixed-type damage for free, that doesn’t help power-based P/P at all. Either the “fixed” VS is better than Unload DPS-wise (like all of the other auto attacks) and you’re better off just running condition damage (and consequently most likely just using P/D), or the fixed VS is still worse than Unload and people continue to spam Unload for mediocre damage. Literally the only thing boosting VS would do for P/P is boost a utility-heavy thief where you spam VS with +condition gear for your DPS and conserve your initiative to burn on #2/4/5 skills. Not a popular build, and not really that good at what it does. That is just the unfortunate truth of how the initiative system makes all thief skills in direct competition.

VS is a bad skill, but fixing it won’t fix P/P.

Hmmm… that makes sense, despite being depressing. Assuming Vital Shot does get “fixed”, maybe adding some utility to Unload in lieu of upping its damage would help. Say, a 1 second immobilize or some cripple… maybe a couple of seconds of confusion? Nothing to interrupt, but it could still gain other advantages.

I can’t imagine that would break P/P, but maybe I’m missing something.

Tulisin.6945:

Einlanzer.1627:

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

Here’s the thing:

Say VS gets tuned up, and becomes a more viable way to do mixed-type damage for free, that doesn’t help power-based P/P at all. Either the “fixed” VS is better than Unload DPS-wise (like all of the other auto attacks) and you’re better off just running condition damage (and consequently most likely just using P/D), or the fixed VS is still worse than Unload and people continue to spam Unload for mediocre damage. Literally the only thing boosting VS would do for P/P is boost a utility-heavy thief where you spam VS with +condition gear for your DPS and conserve your initiative to burn on #2/4/5 skills. Not a popular build, and not really that good at what it does. That is just the unfortunate truth of how the initiative system makes all thief skills in direct competition.

VS is a bad skill, but fixing it won’t fix P/P.

Tulisin, you realize that Pistol is supposed to be a condition weapon, right? And P/P is hybridized, but it’s still supposed to be skewed toward condition in the same way that D/D is a a hybrid set skewed toward Power. While P/P does and should benefit from Power, it does not need to be fully optimal with a Power only build. I don’t believe that was ever the intention behind it.

Lol wut.
The only DoT on P/P is vital shot, outside of that, the only thing it benefits from is Power and condition duration. Sure you can include Sneak attack if you disregard P/P’s lack of stealth access.

Tulisin.6945:

Einlanzer.1627:

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

Here’s the thing:

Say VS gets tuned up, and becomes a more viable way to do mixed-type damage for free, that doesn’t help power-based P/P at all. Either the “fixed” VS is better than Unload DPS-wise (like all of the other auto attacks) and you’re better off just running condition damage (and consequently most likely just using P/D), or the fixed VS is still worse than Unload and people continue to spam Unload for mediocre damage. Literally the only thing boosting VS would do for P/P is boost a utility-heavy thief where you spam VS with +condition gear for your DPS and conserve your initiative to burn on #2/4/5 skills. Not a popular build, and not really that good at what it does. That is just the unfortunate truth of how the initiative system makes all thief skills in direct competition.

VS is a bad skill, but fixing it won’t fix P/P.

Honestly they should just bite the bullet (no pun intended) and just start putting CD’s on some abilities.

For example, buff VS by 30% or however much it needs to be competitive with other ranged auto-attacks. Buff the crap out of Unload, but put a CD on it. Leave everything else alone. That way, Unload is doing good damage and being used, but not being spammed. It leave periods of time open for VS as well as utility abilities to be used since you won’t be burning through ini.

Same goes for S/P, buff Pistol Whip but put a CD on it so it’s not spammable.

ensoriki.5789:

Lol wut.
The only DoT on P/P is vital shot, outside of that, the only thing it benefits from is Power and condition duration. Sure you can include Sneak attack if you disregard P/P’s lack of stealth access.

The only power damage on P/P is Unload, and it sucks up large amounts of Initiative, therefore the damage is supposed to be supplemental to the primary source of damage, which is Vital Shot.

Think harder please.

Einlanzer.1627:

Tulisin.6945:

Einlanzer.1627:

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

Here’s the thing:

Say VS gets tuned up, and becomes a more viable way to do mixed-type damage for free, that doesn’t help power-based P/P at all. Either the “fixed” VS is better than Unload DPS-wise (like all of the other auto attacks) and you’re better off just running condition damage (and consequently most likely just using P/D), or the fixed VS is still worse than Unload and people continue to spam Unload for mediocre damage. Literally the only thing boosting VS would do for P/P is boost a utility-heavy thief where you spam VS with +condition gear for your DPS and conserve your initiative to burn on #2/4/5 skills. Not a popular build, and not really that good at what it does. That is just the unfortunate truth of how the initiative system makes all thief skills in direct competition.

VS is a bad skill, but fixing it won’t fix P/P.

Tulisin, you realize that Pistol is supposed to be a condition weapon, right? And P/P is hybridized, but it’s still supposed to be skewed toward condition in the same way that D/D is a a hybrid set skewed toward Power. While P/P does and should benefit from Power, it does not need to be fully optimal with a Power only build. I don’t believe that was ever the intention behind it.

Yeah but what he is saying is that either VS spam is going to be better than Unload spam, or vice versa. They are both damage dumps, they are competing for the same spot in the rotation. So unless they drastically change things, you are either gonna be sitting there spamming only #1 or sitting there spamming only #3 for damage.

S/P has the same problem, 2 damage dumps competing for a same spot in the rotation. Which is why I think they need to consider putting CD’s on non-auto-attack damage dumps.

Vital Shot faster, or more damage? Bleed on Unload would be great.

Range needs fixes as well.

Einlanzer.1627:

Tulisin.6945:

Einlanzer.1627:

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

Here’s the thing:

Say VS gets tuned up, and becomes a more viable way to do mixed-type damage for free, that doesn’t help power-based P/P at all. Either the “fixed” VS is better than Unload DPS-wise (like all of the other auto attacks) and you’re better off just running condition damage (and consequently most likely just using P/D), or the fixed VS is still worse than Unload and people continue to spam Unload for mediocre damage. Literally the only thing boosting VS would do for P/P is boost a utility-heavy thief where you spam VS with +condition gear for your DPS and conserve your initiative to burn on #2/4/5 skills. Not a popular build, and not really that good at what it does. That is just the unfortunate truth of how the initiative system makes all thief skills in direct competition.

VS is a bad skill, but fixing it won’t fix P/P.

Tulisin, you realize that Pistol is supposed to be a condition weapon, right?

At which point you’re arguing intent. It either is or it is not. Pistol has never been a condition-only weapon. You can desire to make it one, but a VS boost alone isn’t going to do it, especially since even with a viable VS that is a single skill slot out of the 9 that constistute P/P and P/D that does condition damage.

Want to push for Burning, Poison, Confusion, etc on pistol skills? Awesome, go for it, but that is presenting a new direction to take the weapon set to make it viable, not merely making it do what it is “supposed” to do.

Tulisin.6945:

Einlanzer.1627:

Tulisin.6945:

Einlanzer.1627:

Kurow.6973:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ugh, it drives me crazy that almost no one sees what is very clearly the main issue with pistols – it isn’t Body Shot, it isn’t Unload, it isn’t weak traits, and it isn’t lack of stealth.

The weakness of P/P is 75% due to Vital Shot and its weak sauce damage/bleed stacking due to buggy rate of fire. This is what they need to fix before they do anything else.

…or maybe…just maybe…others don’t like sounding like a broken record repeating the same thing in almost every single thread. There’s a lot of “issues” with pistols and P/P. Not just one.

There is one that is much, much more prominent than any others, and that’s the aforementioned VS issue. Everything else is peripheral. Just because someone refuses to see that does not make it not so, and forces me to bring it up at every opportunity in an (apparently vain) attempt to increase awareness.

Here’s the thing:

Say VS gets tuned up, and becomes a more viable way to do mixed-type damage for free, that doesn’t help power-based P/P at all. Either the “fixed” VS is better than Unload DPS-wise (like all of the other auto attacks) and you’re better off just running condition damage (and consequently most likely just using P/D), or the fixed VS is still worse than Unload and people continue to spam Unload for mediocre damage. Literally the only thing boosting VS would do for P/P is boost a utility-heavy thief where you spam VS with +condition gear for your DPS and conserve your initiative to burn on #2/4/5 skills. Not a popular build, and not really that good at what it does. That is just the unfortunate truth of how the initiative system makes all thief skills in direct competition.

VS is a bad skill, but fixing it won’t fix P/P.

Tulisin, you realize that Pistol is supposed to be a condition weapon, right?

At which point you’re arguing intent. It either is or it is not. Pistol has never been a condition-only weapon. You can desire to make it one, but a VS boost alone isn’t going to do it, especially since even with a viable VS that is a single skill slot out of the 9 that constistute P/P and P/D that does condition damage.

Want to push for Burning, Poison, Confusion, etc on pistol skills? Awesome, go for it, but that is presenting a new direction to take the weapon set to make it viable, not merely making it do what it is “supposed” to do.

I never said it was condition only, I said it was condition primary, and frankly I feel like it’s silly to try to argue that point. The #1 is very obviously meant as the primary source of sustained damage (at least for non caster weapons), and that damage in this case is condition based. Arguing that the pistol “may or may not be” a condition-primary weapon is about as nonsensical as arguing that the dagger “may or may not be” a power-primary weapon.

Again, P/P and D/D are both hybridized sets, but the damage from Unload, just like the damage from Death Blossom, is intended as a utilitarian supplement to the damage on the #1 skills, which represents the baseline of sustained damage output.

Improving VS in and of itself may not make the Pistol perfect, but it will make a greater difference in its usability than any other one change would. It would allow it to kill with adequate speed, reducing reliance on stealth and defensive maneuvers (given its range). It would simultaneously reduce the dependence on Unload spam for halfway decent damage, freeing up more initiative to get better use out of the utility, which results in the set not only being more functional but also more fun to play.

There are definitely traits that need refinements, and Body Shot is no doubt questionable as a skill, but I’m telling you, those items are comparatively insignificant.

Einlanzer.1627:

ensoriki.5789:

Lol wut.
The only DoT on P/P is vital shot, outside of that, the only thing it benefits from is Power and condition duration. Sure you can include Sneak attack if you disregard P/P’s lack of stealth access.

The only power damage on P/P is Unload, and it sucks up large amounts of Initiative, therefore the damage is supposed to be supplemental to the primary source of damage, which is Vital Shot.

Think harder please.

Take your own advice.

Power and condition duration benefit P/P the most.
The bleeding on Vital shot gets stronger by just increasing it’s kittening duration.
Vital shot?
Body shot? What benefits it?
Power and condition duration?
Unload? Power.
Headshot? Power.
BP? Power and condition duration.
Vital shot? Power, Condition damage, and condition duration.

The split between direct dmg and bleeding damage keeps the Pistol flexible otherwise P/D would only deal condition damage with sneak attack. However as a whole P/P benefits mostly from Power, not condition dmg, straight and to the kittening point.
It is not to say that the condition dmg of Vital shot is insignificant to the success of the set, but straight up what P/P brings to the table as a set. If you’re building solely around Vital shot, you should be looking at P/D.
Plain and simple.

ensoriki.5789:

Einlanzer.1627:

ensoriki.5789:

Lol wut.
The only DoT on P/P is vital shot, outside of that, the only thing it benefits from is Power and condition duration. Sure you can include Sneak attack if you disregard P/P’s lack of stealth access.

The only power damage on P/P is Unload, and it sucks up large amounts of Initiative, therefore the damage is supposed to be supplemental to the primary source of damage, which is Vital Shot.

Think harder please.

Take your own advice.

Power and condition duration benefit P/P the most.
The bleeding on Vital shot gets stronger by just increasing it’s kittening duration.
Vital shot?
Body shot? What benefits it?
Power and condition duration?
Unload? Power.
Headshot? Power.
BP? Power and condition duration.
Vital shot? Power, Condition damage, and condition duration.

The split between direct dmg and bleeding damage keeps the Pistol flexible otherwise P/D would only deal condition damage with sneak attack. However as a whole P/P benefits mostly from Power, not condition dmg, straight and to the kittening point.

Please, only Vital Shot and Unload represent significant enough sources of damage to warrant consideration, and condition damage affects Vital Shot’s total damage output significantly more than power does (or at least it would if it was working as intended). Unload benefits only from power, but again, due to the initiative cost it is intended to supplement Vital Shot, not the other way around.

Pistols benefit from power and condition damage, but they are condition primary. Again, arguing that point is just goofy. Despite that, building around Vital Shot currently is folly, because it is weaker than it’s supposed to be. Therefore, building power and spamming Unload is the only viable way to play P/P, and that’s the entire problem with the set, and is obviously not working as intended.

Therefore, your argument is supporting my points, not countering them.

You know what would be ideal for p/p thief? boost the damage on unload, increase the damage from bodyshot and reduce the cast time. And for the love of god make ricochet 30-40%, 5% is a joke.

Einlanzer.1627:

ensoriki.5789:

Einlanzer.1627:

ensoriki.5789:

Lol wut.
The only DoT on P/P is vital shot, outside of that, the only thing it benefits from is Power and condition duration. Sure you can include Sneak attack if you disregard P/P’s lack of stealth access.

The only power damage on P/P is Unload, and it sucks up large amounts of Initiative, therefore the damage is supposed to be supplemental to the primary source of damage, which is Vital Shot.

Think harder please.

Take your own advice.

Power and condition duration benefit P/P the most.
The bleeding on Vital shot gets stronger by just increasing it’s kittening duration.
Vital shot?
Body shot? What benefits it?
Power and condition duration?
Unload? Power.
Headshot? Power.
BP? Power and condition duration.
Vital shot? Power, Condition damage, and condition duration.

The split between direct dmg and bleeding damage keeps the Pistol flexible otherwise P/D would only deal condition damage with sneak attack. However as a whole P/P benefits mostly from Power, not condition dmg, straight and to the kittening point.

Pistols benefit from power and condition damage, but they are condition primary. Again, arguing that point is just goofy. Despite that, building around Vital Shot currently is folly, because it is weaker than it’s supposed to be. Therefore, building power and spamming Unload is the only viable way to play P/P, and that’s the entire problem with the set, and is obviously not working as intended.

Therefore, your argument is supporting my points, not countering them.

That is only true for VS and Sneak attack which again are not the only considerations in a P/P build, this shouldn’t have to be reiterated. Painting the Pistol as a hybrid weapon is significantly as generalizing as calling the dagger one. Check the significance of conditions on D/P….exactly.
Thus the lol. If Unload caused Bleeding or Sigil of Earth was improved, P/P would be more relevant to the Pistol as a whole leaning to conditions when the reality is only 1 skill on the bar does, and 2 if you count stealth which dual pistols cannot readily access!
Making Tulsin correctly in that Pistol is only as condition focused as you want it to be, but lettuce be real tea. P/P is a power set.

In the beta Sigil of Earth didn’t have an ICD, so Unload + Sigil of Earth made P/P a respectable set for stacking condition damage.

But then they gave SoE a 2 sec ICD, which pretty much sunk con damage-heavy P/P.

ensoriki.5789:

Einlanzer.1627:

ensoriki.5789:

Einlanzer.1627:

ensoriki.5789:

Lol wut.
The only DoT on P/P is vital shot, outside of that, the only thing it benefits from is Power and condition duration. Sure you can include Sneak attack if you disregard P/P’s lack of stealth access.

The only power damage on P/P is Unload, and it sucks up large amounts of Initiative, therefore the damage is supposed to be supplemental to the primary source of damage, which is Vital Shot.

Think harder please.

Take your own advice.

Power and condition duration benefit P/P the most.
The bleeding on Vital shot gets stronger by just increasing it’s kittening duration.
Vital shot?
Body shot? What benefits it?
Power and condition duration?
Unload? Power.
Headshot? Power.
BP? Power and condition duration.
Vital shot? Power, Condition damage, and condition duration.

The split between direct dmg and bleeding damage keeps the Pistol flexible otherwise P/D would only deal condition damage with sneak attack. However as a whole P/P benefits mostly from Power, not condition dmg, straight and to the kittening point.

Pistols benefit from power and condition damage, but they are condition primary. Again, arguing that point is just goofy. Despite that, building around Vital Shot currently is folly, because it is weaker than it’s supposed to be. Therefore, building power and spamming Unload is the only viable way to play P/P, and that’s the entire problem with the set, and is obviously not working as intended.

Therefore, your argument is supporting my points, not countering them.

That is only true for VS and Sneak attack which again are not the only considerations in a P/P build, this shouldn’t have to be reiterated. Painting the Pistol as a hybrid weapon is significantly as generalizing as calling the dagger one. Check the significance of conditions on D/P….exactly.
Thus the lol. If Unload caused Bleeding or Sigil of Earth was improved, P/P would be more relevant to the Pistol as a whole leaning to conditions when the reality is only 1 skill on the bar does, and 2 if you count stealth which dual pistols cannot readily access!
Making Tulsin correctly in that Pistol is only as condition focused as you want it to be, but lettuce be real tea. P/P is a power set.

sigh. This is so ridiculous. It should be clear that you’re talking about what is while I’m talking about what’s intended. And what’s intended is not some misty, subjective area; it seriously could not be any clearer.

The intention: MH Pistol is a condition weapon, P/D is mostly condition-utility while P/P is condition-power due to Unload. Regardless, bleed stacking is the main purpose of MH Pistol, meaning that it’s primarily a condition weapon. Therefore, it benefits significantly from condition damage and condition duration, while the supplemental damage from Unload benefits from power. This makes P/P viable with either a power or condition build, but condition is slightly more optimal as the baseline of its damage from Vital Shot is mostly maintaining large bleed stacks while the damage is supplemented by periodic/tactical Unloads. Therefore, P/P operates as a condition-power set with good DPS.

The reality: Vital Shot is weaker than it was originally intended be due a fairly obviously unintentional discrepancy in its firing speed and damage values. Along with kittening MH Pistol’s damage capabilities in general, it skews the intended percentages of condition vs. power damage coming from the set. This essentially means that to maintain anything resembling decent damage you have to rely excessively on Unload Spamming and therefore Vital Shot (and bleed stacks) represent an unintentionally lowered percentage of the overall damage output. Therefore, P/P operates as a power-condition set with mediocre DPS.

I tried con damage Rifle Warrior for shiggles. Even with the trait that applies bleeds on crit, it was still terrible compared to pwr/crit Rifle.

You are banking way too much on a VS buff making condition damage-heavy P/P being supreme. It’s not gonna happen, not unless we are talking like 200% speed increase to VS or P/P is given some kind of reliable stealth mechanic. You keep clinging to this idea that auto-attacks dictate how a kit is to be played, and when you actually play the game you realize it’s just not true.

The auto-attack needs a change badly (and an animation upgrade like using both pistols). And unload needs it’s damage increased by more than 5%. If they are gonna make a fix make it right.

But I have the distinct feeling this will not be fully fixed in the upcoming patch. If anyone here played World of Warcraft during the Wrath of the Lich King period, they sould notice that the thief has taken the Death Knight effect. Meaning they were too OP at launch and now, everyone is crying when they get a buff no matter how much they need it, and the developers are afraid of fixing their issues beceause it will certainly generate rage.

JonPeters.5630:

We are looking into this. I actually think P/P has a lot of utility. Blind field, daze, vuln stacking. However damage is a bit low. We are making some headway here in the12/14 build so be patient for one more week.

Jon

Here’s an official ANet post concerning Pistols.They admit that some aspects of it are OK,but other are too weak.They will buff it.OK?
So @Einlanzer shut it already and stop embarrasing yourself anymore.
And don’t try to play smart to explain me that D/P and P/P are different things,they cannot buff P/P while nerfing P/D.I don’t think they will buff Unload(only),more like it buff Vital Shot… So GG @Einstein sorry @Einlanzer….

Blacksarevok.8104:

I tried con damage Rifle Warrior for shiggles. Even with the trait that applies bleeds on crit, it was still terrible compared to pwr/crit Rifle.

You are banking way too much on a VS buff making condition damage-heavy P/P being supreme. It’s not gonna happen, not unless we are talking like 200% speed increase to VS or P/P is given some kind of reliable stealth mechanic. You keep clinging to this idea that auto-attacks dictate how a kit is to be played, and when you actually play the game you realize it’s just not true.

Even if this is true (which I doubt), it isn’t that relevant, and you (and many others) continue to argue with strawmen.

To make the point simpler, here it is: Pistols do subpar damage, and that is the main problem with them. Utility issues are secondary. The source of the problem must be one of two skills – Vital Shot or Unload. Unload may not do stellar damage, but Vital Shot is very, very obviously weaker than it’s supposed to be.

Continually arguing about condition vs. power is really pointless and either way the facts don’t change. The simple fact is this: the designers have already stated damage is the problem, and it’s the easiest deduction in the world to conclude that when it comes to damage Vital Shot is the problem.

2:1 odds that we get no changes of any substance. If there are changes of any substance, I’d take 1:3 that the changes are a net nerf to pistol main-hand (mostly likely by re-working sneak attack).

I believe that A.Net massively overestimates Vulnerability, and that pistol #2 will still be terrible after the next patch. I do not expect #4 to be touched (though they have an issue of not having damage on utility skills in general), nor do I expect changes to #5 (despite being a melee skill that doesn’t play terribly well with MH Pistol). Neither of the latter are bad, just highly situational for P/P.

I’d expect tweaks to #1 and #3, which may or may not be enough to make MH Pistol viable as a high damage, low utility set. I’d bet that A.Net is afraid of giving Pistol the damage it would need to make up for its lack of utility, and that they don’t have the resources to rework any skills, so you’re probably looking at something strictly worse than a rifle Warrior post patch as well.

I would be very happy to see the sorts of reworks necessary to make this a viable set, and I think A.Net is capable of doing it, it’s simply a matter of priority – and I do not think this is a high enough priority.

Nemo.6295:

The auto-attack needs a change badly (and an animation upgrade like using both pistols). And unload needs it’s damage increased by more than 5%. If they are gonna make a fix make it right.

But I have the distinct feeling this will not be fully fixed in the upcoming patch. If anyone here played World of Warcraft during the Wrath of the Lich King period, they sould notice that the thief has taken the Death Knight effect. Meaning they were too OP at launch and now, everyone is crying when they get a buff no matter how much they need it, and the developers are afraid of fixing their issues beceause it will certainly generate rage.

I don’t think they will give VS a double shot animation, simply because then they would have to have separate animations for P/D and P/P, which in turn would cause every other class to whine about not having unique animations.

And yes, I think the WotLK comparison to be fairly accurate. They will buff Thieves, but very slowly over a long time span. When it comes to MMO’s, especially ones with competitive PVP, the mentality is usually “nerf fast, buff slow”.

ZLE.8293:

JonPeters.5630:

We are looking into this. I actually think P/P has a lot of utility. Blind field, daze, vuln stacking. However damage is a bit low. We are making some headway here in the12/14 build so be patient for one more week.

Jon

Here’s an official ANet post concerning Pistols.They admit that some aspects of it are OK,but other are too weak.They will buff it.OK?
So @Einlanzer shut it already and stop embarrasing yourself anymore.
And don’t try to play smart to explain me that D/P and P/P are different things,they cannot buff P/P while nerfing P/D.I don’t think they will buff Unload(only),more like it buff Vital Shot… So GG @Einstein sorry @Einlanzer….

You’re clearly confused about a few things here.

I have gained 42 ranks with bleed thief,i know a lot more that you.I don’t intend to argue with you,just laugh at you for a bit….

Blacksarevok.8104:

I don’t think they will give VS a double shot animation, simply because then they would have to have separate animations for P/D and P/P, which in turn would cause every other class to whine about not having unique animations.

And yes, I think the WotLK comparison to be fairly accurate. They will buff Thieves, but very slowly over a long time span. When it comes to MMO’s, especially ones with competitive PVP, the mentality is usually “nerf fast, buff slow”.

Sure it can be. We have attacks that use the right hand pistol individually and we have attacks that use the left hand pistol individually. How hard would it be the make these animations play in succesion? It won’t affect the P/D set up cause no animation is removed.

Nemo.6295:

Blacksarevok.8104:

I don’t think they will give VS a double shot animation, simply because then they would have to have separate animations for P/D and P/P, which in turn would cause every other class to whine about not having unique animations.

And yes, I think the WotLK comparison to be fairly accurate. They will buff Thieves, but very slowly over a long time span. When it comes to MMO’s, especially ones with competitive PVP, the mentality is usually “nerf fast, buff slow”.

Sure it can be. We have attacks that use the right hand pistol individually and we have attacks that use the left hand pistol individually. How hard would it be the make these animations play in succesion? It won’t affect the P/D set up cause no animation is removed.

Truthfully, I’d like to see this for other sets as well, I doubt it’s something that’ll happen anytime soon.

Einlanzer.1627:

Blacksarevok.8104:

I tried con damage Rifle Warrior for shiggles. Even with the trait that applies bleeds on crit, it was still terrible compared to pwr/crit Rifle.

You are banking way too much on a VS buff making condition damage-heavy P/P being supreme. It’s not gonna happen, not unless we are talking like 200% speed increase to VS or P/P is given some kind of reliable stealth mechanic. You keep clinging to this idea that auto-attacks dictate how a kit is to be played, and when you actually play the game you realize it’s just not true.

Even if this is true (which I doubt), it isn’t that relevant, and you (and many others) continue to argue with strawmen.

To make the point simpler, here it is: Pistols do subpar damage, and that is the main problem with them. Utility issues are secondary. The source of the problem must be one of two skills – Vital Shot or Unload. Unload may not do stellar damage, but Vital Shot is very, very obviously weaker than it’s supposed to be.

Continually arguing about condition vs. power is really pointless and either way the facts don’t change. The simple fact is this: the designers have already stated damage is the problem, and it’s the easiest deduction in the world to conclude that when it comes to damage Vital Shot is the problem.

How is it a strawman? You on COUNTLESS OCCASIONS have stated auto-attacks dictate how a kit should stack stats. Warrior Rifle is generally considered to be the best ranged kit in the game, and yet it completely contradicts what you are stating as fact. Warrior Rifle does not stack con damage as it’s primary stat, despite it’s #1 attack applying a bleed. Condition damage doesn’t hurt, but you don’t actively seek over power/crit/pre. And if you don’t believe me, go ask any competent Warrior on the Warrior forum and you will get the same answer.

As for your last statement, nobody is arguing against a VS buff. Most of us agree it sucks, what we are arguing is that a VS buff will not magically make P/P an amazing kit, no will it make P/P a viable con set without sacrificing Unload entirely.

Not to mention them saying they are buffing P/P does not guarantee they will buff VS, let alone increase its speed (if they do buff VS, more than likely they will just increase it’s damage by 10%, as they did with longbow)

Blacksarevok.8104:

Einlanzer.1627:

Blacksarevok.8104:

I tried con damage Rifle Warrior for shiggles. Even with the trait that applies bleeds on crit, it was still terrible compared to pwr/crit Rifle.

You are banking way too much on a VS buff making condition damage-heavy P/P being supreme. It’s not gonna happen, not unless we are talking like 200% speed increase to VS or P/P is given some kind of reliable stealth mechanic. You keep clinging to this idea that auto-attacks dictate how a kit is to be played, and when you actually play the game you realize it’s just not true.

Even if this is true (which I doubt), it isn’t that relevant, and you (and many others) continue to argue with strawmen.

To make the point simpler, here it is: Pistols do subpar damage, and that is the main problem with them. Utility issues are secondary. The source of the problem must be one of two skills – Vital Shot or Unload. Unload may not do stellar damage, but Vital Shot is very, very obviously weaker than it’s supposed to be.

Continually arguing about condition vs. power is really pointless and either way the facts don’t change. The simple fact is this: the designers have already stated damage is the problem, and it’s the easiest deduction in the world to conclude that when it comes to damage Vital Shot is the problem.

How is it a strawman? You on COUNTLESS OCCASIONS have stated auto-attacks dictate how a kit should stack stats. Warrior Rifle is generally considered to be the best ranged kit in the game, and yet it completely contradicts what you are stating as fact. Warrior Rifle does not stack con damage as it’s primary stat, despite it’s #1 attack applying a bleed. Condition damage doesn’t hurt, but you don’t actively seek over power/crit/pre. And if you don’t believe me, go ask any competent Warrior on the Warrior forum and you will get the same answer.

As for your last statement, nobody is arguing against a VS buff. Most of us agree it sucks, what we are arguing is that a VS buff will not magically make P/P an amazing kit, no will it make P/P a viable con set without sacrificing Unload entirely.

Not to mention them saying they are buffing P/P does not guarantee they will buff VS, let alone increase its speed (if they do buff VS, more than likely they will just increase it’s damage by 10%, as they did with longbow)

A few points here:

1. This is more an issue with conditions than it is an issue with condition-oriented weapons. It’d be silly in general to dump all power and crit for nothing but condition damage, good thing the game doesn’t even let you do that, much less force you to. The warrior’s rifle, much like the thief’s pistol, is a condition-power hybrid, but condition damage represents a much larger percentage of the rifle’s damage regardless of build, which is almost certainly the intention with Pistols as well.

2. Whoever said anything about not ever using Unload? That would be silly. Also, I never said it would magically become an amazing set, I merely stated that Vital Shot is the most significant single broken element of the set. And to that I stand. These would be examples of strawmen (and hyperboles).

3. It isn’t certain they are buffing VS attack speed, but Jon showed up on the Ranger board on a thread about the Longbow earlier talking about how the DPS is too low because the #1 skill fires too slowly. So even after buffing the damage on the longbow they determined it wasn’t enough and that the speed needs to be increased. It’s very likely they are looking into this very specific issues across various weapon sets and professions.

No one dies from auto-attacks – you should take them into account when deciding how to spec your character, but it isn’t the key to victory. You have to look at the damage output of common rotations over your most important play patterns.

P/D plays like a condition-focused weapon because Sneak Attack allows you to quickly stack a bunch of bleeds, which does kill people. P/D doesn’t have any large normal burst damage, so it benefits less from raw damage than many other sets. Every substantial attack you make is going to bleed, so you clearly spec for bleeds.

P/P cares about condition damage, but its main lethal attack is Unload, not Sneak Attack – so you necessarily need to be more power/crit focused. Again, condition damage matters for setting people up, but your lethal attacks are Unloads.

Warrior Rifle is like P/P – it’s more power focused but benefits from condition damage enough for you to want to pay attention to it. It’s power focued due to Kill Shot being so key, and Volley benefiting from power over all else. You’d certainly be happy to take some condition damage where you can get it, but you’re killing people with Kill Shot, not the auto-attack – so you’d be foolish to kitten Kill Shot for the sake of a stronger auto.

Ensign.2189:

No one dies from auto-attacks - you should take them into account when deciding how to spec your character, but it isn’t the key to victory. You have to look at the damage output of common rotations over your most important play patterns.

P/D plays like a condition-focused weapon because Sneak Attack allows you to quickly stack a bunch of bleeds, which *does* kill people. P/D doesn’t have any large normal burst damage, so it benefits less from raw damage than many other sets. Every substantial attack you make is going to bleed, so you clearly spec for bleeds.

P/P cares about condition damage, but its main lethal attack is Unload, not Sneak Attack - so you necessarily need to be more power/crit focused. Again, condition damage matters for setting people up, but your lethal attacks are Unloads.

Warrior Rifle is like P/P - it’s more power focused but benefits from condition damage enough for you to want to pay attention to it. It’s power focued due to Kill Shot being so key, and Volley benefiting from power over all else. You’d certainly be happy to take some condition damage where you can get it, but you’re killing people with Kill Shot, not the auto-attack - so you’d be foolish to kitten Kill Shot for the sake of a stronger auto.

I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as you make it. Largely, it’s a factor of what you’re doing in the game. If you’re talking about sustained DPS then Bleeding Shot is going to be very significant, moreso than Vital Shot. Volley and Kill Shot both do much more burst, obviously, which is beneficial especially in PvP.

The choice you make is really condition vs. crit moreso than condition vs. power. Crit is almost certain to benefit you more in PvP and also in group PvE, but condition is fantastic for solo play. When I talk about "condition building" or "power building" I think people read it more literally than I mean it, which doesn’t help the arguments that keep occurring.

The bottom line is that the warrior’s rifle is nearly perfect, while the thief’s pistol is far from it. There are some relatively minor utility issues, but the main problem is that the rifle does good damage both from a combination of decent bleed stacking and decent direct damage, while the pistol does mediocre damage through subpar bleed stacking and decent direct damage. It therefore benefits less than it’s supposed to from condition and more than it’s supposed to from power/crit.

Ensign.2189:

I believe that A.Net massively overestimates Vulnerability, and that pistol #2 will still be terrible after the next patch.

Probably because Vulnerability looks great on paper in group situations. In practice, not so much, especially on thieves who specifically sacrifice damage for it.

Einlanzer.1627:

A few points here:

1. This is more an issue with conditions than it is an issue with condition-oriented weapons. It’d be silly in general to dump all power and crit for nothing but condition damage, good thing the game doesn’t even let you do that, much less force you to.

2. Whoever said anything about not ever using Unload? That would be silly. Also, I never said it would magically become an amazing set, I merely stated that it is the most significant single broken element of the set. And to that I stand. These would be examples of strawmen.

3. It isn’t certain they are buffing VS attack speed, but Jon showed up on the Ranger board on a thread about the Longbow earlier talking about the DPS is too low because the #1 skill fires too slowly. So even after buffing the damage on the longbow they determined it wasn’t enough and that the speed needs to be increased. It’s very likely they are looking into this very specific issues across various weapon sets and professions.h

1.) Taken from Warrior Forum:

“critical damage. I did the math and condition damage needs a buff. Raw data:
Gear is all-exo. 3/6 berserker’s 3/6 rampager’s for the purpose of testing, weapon is a rampager’s rifle with sigil of earth. Traiting distribution is 20/30/0/0/20 glass cannon. What I modified was jewelry between 5/5 berserker’s or 5/5 rampager’s.
With the berserker’s jewelry set I have 3159 attack, 58% crit, +68% critical damage, and 634 condition damage.
With rampager’s I have 3103 attack, 65% crit, +36% critical damage, and 949 condition damage.
Going out into the wild and testing:
Rampager’s autoattack shots do 350 damage base, critting for 650, and bleeding for 90 damage a tick. My bleeds are extended roughly 80% so I get ten ticks of bleed, and I have two additional possible procs of bleed (33% and 60% on critical), so each shot is on average worth 350 + 195 (crit) + 900 (guaranteed base bleed) + 200 (33% bleed) + 360 (60% bleed) = 2005 damage.
With the berserker’s jewelry set, I auto for 380 critting for 800, with bleeds ticking at 74. 380 + 244 + 740 (guaranteed bleed) + 142 + 258 (other bleeds) = 1764 damage.
So by rotating to rampager’s, the rifle autoattack loses about 250 dps.
The problem here is when you factor in skills that don’t have guaranteed bleeds, and thus frontload all their damage. Volley, for instance, does another 2-3k damage with berserker’s. Killshot crits for 6k under rampager’s but does 10k with berserker’s. Might improves condition damage and power, and the improvement to power will vastly scale against both your critical rate and the crit damage buff. In exchange for the 250 dps on autoattack each of the other attacks becomes kittenedly buff, and this is under full traits and runes for maximizing bleed damage. Swords are actually worse because of the relatively large damage on the sword autoattack swings which comprise most of a sword warrior’s damage.
so yeah condition damage is never worth it on warriors, at least”

So, for Rifle, Rampagers vs Berserkers, purely from a damage standpoint, Berserker’s is better. As the quoted man stated, you need to take into account all of a kits abilities to determine what gear you use, not just the auto-attack.

2.) We talked about Unload earlier. The situation is this: Either using Unload is going to net more DPS than than just using VS, or just using VS by itself (completely dropping Unload) is going to net more DPS. By buffing VS, it is either still going to be weak enough to encourage using Unload, or it’s going to get buffed enough to allow us to drop Unload out of the rotation entirely. You see what I’m saying? VS and Unload both directly compete as our damage dump, and as long as one does more damage than the other, that is the one we will be spamming. So unless VS gets buffed to the point it out damages Unload, Unload spamming will still be prominent.

Now I will admit that buffing VS will make spending initiative on Black Powder/Head Shot instead of Unload less painful, which is exactly why I am all for buffing VS. But as I said, in situations where only damage matter, Unload spam will still be king (and therefore, crit damage > con).

3.)If they do buff weapon speeds across the board, then that’s awesome. But until the 14th comes around I’m not banking on any kind of specific buff.

What we’d like to see (my personal opinion of course)-
- A buff to vital shot (I won’t weigh in on what the buff should be, I’m not a playtester. its obvious the skill needs something more.)
- Body shot changed in some way to make it actually worth using.
- Some sort of coherency in the set itself – with 4 and 5 being pure utility skills, P/P has 3 skills for damage. Body shot is worthless, a complete waste of initiative. That leaves us with Vital shot (and sneak attack), which are clearly intended for condition builds, and Unload, which is clearly intended for direct damage power builds. Fixing Body shot would likely help nudge the set to some sort of “identity”, but something would have to be done (probably minor) to either vital shot (and sneak attack) or unload to give the set some coherency.
- Some survivability in the set itself, or access to our already established survivability mechanics (mobility, stealth). Currently, P/P is a sitting duck, relying 100% on utilities for stealth or other survivability mechanics to keep it from being eaten alive. any dagger OH spec gets access to stealth, any sword MH spec gets access to inf strike, shbow gets disabling shot. P/P needs -something- to keep it from being a sitting duck.

What we can expect from Anet considering the precedents they’ve set when dealing with the thief class
-15% more damage for Headshot and Black powder shot
-5% faster unload speed animation
-5% increase in Shadow refuge healing
-Body shot range changed to 1200

-Body Shot:
Damage now scales based on target’s current HP pool, dealing more damage the less health the target has.
> 50%: 9,000
< 50%: 19,000
< 25%: Lolgetstomped.

Head Shot: (PvE version)
This skill will now be instant cast, and is now a 2s Daze if used while Flanking.
4 Initiative

Black Powder: (PvE version)
This skill has been redesigned to allow off-hand Pistol builds more access to initiative based Stealthing mechanics, and will no longer cause a Projectile Finisher, but a Blast Finisher the triggers immediately after Smoke Field creation. This effect will still combo with itself. Granting Area Stealth.

50% damage nerf on Headshot. I’m calling it now.