Anet has a habit of nerfing things that are already under performing / hard to use. Take a look at shortbow nerfs. People barely even fight with it outside of a tool for mobility and occasional aoe weakness. Now they’re nerfing poison duration yet again to a worthless two seconds.
So it makes sense they would step in and nerf something that’s rarely used and under performing such as P/P. It really seems that Arenanet doesn’t honestly care very much about thieves at all. :/
Edit: Also if they seriously moved Pistol traits such as ricochet to Elite Spec traits, that is not only a really lame way to invest in a “new” traitline by using already existing and thus recycled traits. Of which is also a greedy garbage way of cash grabbing from current players. That would truly reinforce statements of them honestly not caring about thieves.
I’m copy/pasting a post of mine from another thead.
“Ricochet probably got movednto the new trate line that we know nothing about yet. One more reason to believe the new weapon will be a rifle and that the new trait line will be about ranged dps (pistols, short bow and rifle)”
I’m copy/pasting a post of mine from another thead.
“Ricochet probably got movednto the new trate line that we know nothing about yet. One more reason to believe the new weapon will be a rifle and that the new trait line will be about ranged dps (pistols, short bow and rifle)”
At this point, Volrath… I really hope you’re right.
I’m copy/pasting a post of mine from another thead.
“Ricochet probably got movednto the new trate line that we know nothing about yet. One more reason to believe the new weapon will be a rifle and that the new trait line will be about ranged dps (pistols, short bow and rifle)”
At this point, Volrath… I really hope you’re right.
Same thoughts occured to me when I saw they had disappeared. I think he probably is correct and we’re getting the “Gunslinger” specialization after all. I honestly thought ANet wouldn’t give the Thief a rifle (or any 1200 range on anything EVER) because of their precious PvP balance/Esports . . . looking like I was wrong.
Nerf Shadow Arts condition cleanse. Gut the
Acrobatics trait line. Then sell it back
to them for $50. Brilliant! – ghost of P.T. Barnum
Killer 1 is the range loss as much as the AOE loss given so many other weaponsets saw ranges boosted. This means it weaker 1v1 and weaker in group fights with that AOE loss. If you are already taking hits at range because you are not close enough , given their little stealth or built in evades you will generally start off combat at a disadvantage.
Killer two is 300 loss in precision from the CS line. While there makeup that will come from gear , I think it will be much harder to get that high crit rate. It was that high crit rate with IP that allowed for more sustain given there no stealth in the build.
Killer three is an overall loss of vitality in the thief build meaning out in the open fighting harder to pull off without being melted in short order.
Now there is an overall boost to unload damage by 5 percent. Pistol mastery was merged with Ankle shots although it could be argued predicating it on the enemy being crippled is not a net gain. Trickery skills can now remove conditions which were always a pain in PP but all of that might not be enough.
The concept of the build will have to be rethought IMHO wherein pressure striking taken for the torment and we rely on head shot rather then unload for damage. Load up basi venom and there a pile of interrupts there. (This would require some decent condi damge stat perhaps using sinister) Frankly i do not know what will work until i start experimenting.
^ babazhook pretty much sums it up with those 3 killer points, especially point #2 since you need that sustain to keep yourself alive against mobs. For me, IP combined with SoM was vital since you are sacrificing mobility and stealth just by picking up dual pistols in the first place.
One of the biggest reasons I enjoyed my P/P build so much was because I didn’t want to play the typical cloak-and-dagger stealth assassin. Now it seems like that’s the ONLY way Anet wants you to play a thief…
