Guild Wars 2

Before I begin, I wish to state that it is not my intention to rant, even though the post might appear so; I simply wish to get some advice/ suggestions from my fellow thieves who also go pistol/pistol.

I love the style of dual pistol, how it looks and its animation. But there are two things that have been bothering me for a while.

1. Relatively low damage of Unload: I know we are dealing damage from range, and as such melee should have an advantage over damage output to compensate their sacrifice in safety. But the damage gap between dual pistol and melee weapon is just huge. I am traited for dual pistol and my unload hit for 3-4k and costs 5 initiative. And yet my 2nd weapon set (sword and dagger) can hit for the same amount of damage without costing anything, and it is AOE! I have thought to myself "maybe dual pistol is not designed for damage output ", so I tried to do some support too, like apply vulnerability, lay down smoke field, or use head shot to interrupt enemy, but this leads me to the 2nd issue

2. Dual pistol “utility skill” cost too much initiative: In the conventional cooldown based skill system, using one skill has no effect on the usage of another skill, as long as that other skill is off cooldown; but in the Initiative system, all 3 other skills are fighting for initiatives with my only direct damage skill. If I spend my initiatives on these skills instead of unload, I would only do a paltry 200-300 damage. Dual pistol “utility skills” are simply not cost effective.

So I have to ask my fellow dual pistol thieves out there, how do you handle your “unload downtime”, do you pick up some condition damage to strengthen your basic attack? Do you think it is worth it to spend 4-6 initiatives on our utility skills?

Thank you all for reading.

Unload and stealth skill 1 are a nasty combo, especially combined with the attack haste on crit. I’ve literally dropped people in 2 seconds with that combo, and I’ve seen a single unload hit for 12000. I cannot part with my duel pistol.

The daze on the pistol is also quite useful, it can be used to lock someone down from using skills, or to stop people from rezzing their downed allies. I enjoy the vulnerability debuff when others have stacked theirs first, but 1v1 it’s pretty bad concidering you can only keep 5 stacks on someone, when you apply it to 10 stacks, it jumps down to 5 almost instantly.

As for dealing with unload downtime, I’m specced to gain initiative on steal, have 15 total initiative, gain some on using a health skill and use stealth skill 1(unload with bleeds) as often as I can as it costs nothing.

I use a similar build as Edenwolf. The idea is to first make using stealth restore initiative along with any other initiative restoring abilities you feel you need. Then you can create an endless cycle of “Unload” and when you’re out of initiative you stealth and what not to refill. When in stealth you can use a mini reload in the “1” ability of which I forget the name right now. You can also do the same thing with dual daggers only when in stealth you get to backstab constantly and then spam the “3” aoe bleeding attack. I can post the build in an hour or so when I get home if you’re interested.

Currently I am running a Pistol/Pistol set up as well, or I guess I should say aiming towards as I am only level 25. I would like to see the build you are using, as I am seeing the same issue as Tanwenfu. The damage output is sub-par to other ranged classes unless you can abuse sneak attack (Stealth Pistol #1).

I’m just having trouble figuring a way to really “abuse” sneak attack in between unload rounds. Currently I do have the +3 maximum initiative, and the +2 initiative every 10 seconds trait lined up. The rest is where I can stuck at… Right now I’m thinking of going mainly +critical chance and utilizing more “chance on critical” traits/weapon runes.

Hell, at this point, Unload might be better burst that Pistol Whip. Pure damage wise. Or at least equal.

Just for reference this is the build I am building towards. I’m sure it can use some work as it is the preliminary build and I do not have much experience, yet.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqaVlUmaOHfy9E+5Ex2Dg+Td6f4r9MuqVB

Looks good Nihmindu, I use almost the exact same setup traits wise, except that I forgo Ankleshots for Critical Haste and took Executioner in the last slot.

My utility looks completely different though, as I was going for a pure ranged machine gun pistol build, with Sigil of Rage on weapon for quickness procs, quickness from the trait, and using Haste as one of my utilities for on demand burst.

My other utility slots are Signet of Agility and Roll for Initiative, because with Haste you need it to refill your endurance back afterwards. Roll for Initiative because it’s so very useful for this build for multiple reasons. One, initiative gain. Two, stun/movement break and evade all in one. Three, good for retreating and keeping distance.

For healing, I use Withdraw which I’ll explain in a moment, but I do change this up based on what I’m doing. In heavy condition situations I use the stealth heal and for pve stuff I sometimes change out the trait Quick Recovery for Assassin’s Reward and use Signet of Malice for the constant heal procs. I typically also drop Haste for Infiltrator’s Signet when I do this too, for more initiative gain.

I use Shortbow with the aoe fire proc sigil for heavy aoe situations. The shortbow is also good for mobility and you can chain your leap back from it with Roll for Initiative and Withdraw for a pretty hefty backwards scooting retreat when you really need to get out of dodge.

Any of the elites can work as well I find, depending on situation or personal flavor.

Edit: If you find yourself really in need of snare, drop Haste for another utility or change weapon sigil to the chill on crit one, which is practically like having Ankle Shots on your weapon.

Edenwolf.6328:

Unload and stealth skill 1 are a nasty combo, especially combined with the attack haste on crit. I’ve literally dropped people in 2 seconds with that combo, and I’ve seen a single unload hit for 12000. I cannot part with my duel pistol.

The daze on the pistol is also quite useful, it can be used to lock someone down from using skills, or to stop people from rezzing their downed allies. I enjoy the vulnerability debuff when others have stacked theirs first, but 1v1 it’s pretty bad concidering you can only keep 5 stacks on someone, when you apply it to 10 stacks, it jumps down to 5 almost instantly.

As for dealing with unload downtime, I’m specced to gain initiative on steal, have 15 total initiative, gain some on using a health skill and use stealth skill 1(unload with bleeds) as often as I can as it costs nothing.

Thanks for the info. How do you get 15 total initiative? The most I can get is 13 after going 15 points into trickery. Are you sure unload can hit for 12k? That’s 3-4 times of what my unload does @@

15 points in trickery gets you 15 point initiative bud. You start with 12 and get +3.

If ur unload isnt making ppl cry its due to your low power or low crit damage

My unload kitten ppl appart

I done 8k unload in a warrior

With the correct build i can spam unload till the target dies and do massive ranged damage

I wonder how awfull they will feel when they see i did 16k damage with unload has top damaging ability

Elthurien.8356:

15 points in trickery gets you 15 point initiative bud. You start with 12 and get +3.

The Conundrum of Instant initiative vs Sustained Initiative

If u want to spam unload get the Infiltrator signet and 20 in acrobatics Quick Recovery

30 in critical and get leet executioner and any that boosts ur damage

put the rest in power and traits that boost ur damage

Laugh at the enemy team being pew pewed by ur OPload

another instant initiative build for pistols is 30 trickery for the 4i onheal combined with withdrawl and rfi you get two successive roll evades for 10i. Withdrawl is like a fast Rfi with 30 trickery, 4i every 15seconds.

Sneakier.9460:

Elthurien.8356:

15 points in trickery gets you 15 point initiative bud. You start with 12 and get +3.

The Conundrum of Instant initiative vs Sustained Initiative

If u want to spam unload get the Infiltrator signet and 20 in acrobatics Quick Recovery

30 in critical and get leet executioner and any that boosts ur damage

put the rest in power and traits that boost ur damage

Laugh at the enemy team being pew pewed by ur OPload

Sorry I should have quoted but I was replying to Tenwenfu asking how to get 15i he mistakenly thought he only had 13i with 15trickery.

Another is to go 30 trick, 20 acro and 20 critical but the lack of damage may not make up for it :<

But u sure get tons of initiative and tons of condition damage aka LDB spam ftw ;D

I haven’t used dual pistols for a couple of weeks, I might revisit now that Pistol whip has been nerfed. I was playing with Pistol/Dagger & Dual Dagger last night with 30 trickery and getting 20 stacks of bleeding on target before they started to fall off. Caltrops, DB, CnD and Sneak Attack, then withdraw/Rfi and watch them bleed to death ftlulz.

I love p/p its on of my fave combos. This is my current build trait wise was curious should I go with rage runes and such? and what do you guys think about the skill set up.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYUQNAqaVlUmCO3dS+E+5Ex2Dg+Ti6p4ritTxVtKA;TEBg0ynEOJdS9lyLKlMKJUyqkTJpSLLGRcq4FxsCA