Guild Wars 2

Weapon of Choice – The Rifle
Gameplay Mechanic – Initiative changes over to “Ammunition”
Its basically still the same mechanic, but with a different twist and change in the way it works and gets handled by the player.

By Initiative the Costs can vary between 3 and 6 points it takes to use instantly a skill.
With Ammunition the Costs are reduced to 1, as each Shot takes 1 Bullet but Ammunition doesn’t recharge automatically like Initiative, it doesn’t passively regenerate. The player has to manually reload the Rifle with various types of Ammunition and in this case has the Rifle not 6 Skills, it offers 11 Skills.
6 Weapon Skills and 5 Ammunition Skills that are used by shooting the Rifle
Unlike other Weapons does have the Rifle for its Weapon Skills Cooldown Times like all other Classes
—

Stealth Skill
Shadow Bullet – Shoot an unblockable Boon stealing Bullet at your target, that pierces through and hits all targets in line of sight. If it hits a Target with more than 90% health, then it will steal another Boon

Weapon Skills
1) Double Thrust > Windmill Strike > Bayonet Slash
2) Rifle Reloader
3) Ammo Preparation
4) Smoke Grenade
5) Overloader

1 = The classical shortrange melee 3 sequence attack with a Rifle.
First two quick thrusts with the Rifle’s backend, followed by a surprising whirling of the rifle in close range, that will reflect back incoming projectiles, finished by a final slash of the Rifle’s Bayonet, that will cause Bleedings and deals increased damage so more Bleeding Stacks a foe has.

2 = With this quick recharging Skill do you reload your Ammonition of your Rifle. You have to be quick, because when you use it, then you knee down and can’t move as long as you reload your Rifle with either one of your 5 ammo skills or with a mixture of them. A Rifle can take maximum untraited 12 Bullets, with Trait it will be 16, before you have to reload

3 = With this Skill you make your next few Shots more powerful, which comes at the cost of having to stand still for a whiel also as well. But when you are ready, then you gain also some Boons for a while – Fury, Stability, Regeneration and Vigor for 10s

4 = With Smoke Grenade you cause a Smoke Field which will grant you and your Allies inside of it Stealth and foes inside of it will receive inside of it Blindness, while projectiles get blocked that enter the Smoke Field.

5= With this Skill you can instantly reload your Rifle from empty to full, but the bullets put inside are put in randomly. Therefore is your Rifle now overloaded and all Bullets will deal 10% more Damage.
—-

Bullet Skills (Ammunition)

• Gravity Bullet
  Shoot your Target with a Gravity Bullet. When you hit somethign with this Bullet, then you create at the spot of impact a large Gravity Sphere, which sucks in nearby foes to its epicenter and deals constantly over time damage. Foes will suffer on Slow and Cripple when the effect ends

• Sonic Bullet
  Shoot your Target with a Sonic Bullet. These shoots fly super fast, are unblockable, even Aegis doesn’t protect you from this and these bullets have an increased range of +300 Units

• Bouncer Bullet
  Shoot your Target with a Bouncer Bullet that will richochet between nearby targets up to 3 times. These bullets deal on impact Vulnerability to their hit targets.

• Explosion Bullet
  Shoot your Target with an explosive Bullet, that will explode on impact, dealing AoE Burning and removes a Boon. If a foe had in that moment no Boons, then the foe will get knocked down instead from the explosion’s shockwave.

• Scatter Bullet
  Shoot your Target with a shortranged Scatter Bullet, that will work basically like a Pumpgun. So nearer you are to the Gunslinger, so more will this Bullet hurt you and send you flying away from me, if you were too near. Each Scatter Projectile will cause a Bleeding Stack on top of that which hits you.

—

Traits

Minor Adept
- Wild Arms – Unlocks the Gunslinger, the Rifle Weapon, its utility Skills and Traits and increases the Range of Pistols and Rifles by +300

Major Adepts
- Fast Reloader – Gain Swiftness and Quickness after reloading the Rifle and your Stances recharge 20% faster
- Longlasting Preparations – Increases the amount of prepared Shots you can do.
- Shadow Sniper – Increases the Power of Shadow Bullet. Shadow Bullet can now kill downed targets instantly.

Minor Master
- Gunslinger’s Presence
While wielding a Rifle or Dual Pistols do you gain few seconds Stability and Might whenever you perform a Critical Hit (ICD 1s)

Major Masters
- Greater Ammunition Pack – Increases Maximum Ammunition from 12 to 16
- Cunning Grenadier – Your Smoke Grenades deal now damage before their effects take place and the Smoke Field of them poisons now additionally foes.
- Rifle Master – Deal more Bonus Damage with a Rifle when using Overload. Gain Endurance back and Regeneration when you reload your Rifle with Rifle Reloader instead.

Minor Grandmaster
- Superior Aiming – Gain Precision Bonus based on your Power. Surpasses your Critical Hit Rate the threshold of at least 70%, then you gain with this Trait a flat Extra Bonus of another +10%.

Major Grandmasters
- Precise Gunner – Gain a Bonus on Ferocity based on your Precision and gain a bit Endurance back if you deal critical hits with a ranged weapon
- Hit Two Birds With One Shot – You have now a rifle with two pipes, so that you can shoot two bullets at once, what will double essentially the Bullet Skill Effects or lets you perform Bullet Combos with two different effects at the same time.
- Shadow Hunter – You can shoot a Shadow Bullet now twice, before you get revealed and if nobody hits you after reveal within 5 seconds, then you automaticaly use a weakened version of Hide in Shadows, which heals 90% lesser

—

Utilities

The Gunslinger uses Stances

Heal

Courageous Stance
You heal yourself and gain on top of that for some time Resistance if you wield a Rifle or Dual Pistols. You get healed for some time after usign this Skill, of you gain new Boons in that time. The Follow Up Heals will be stronger for every Boon on you.

Utility Stances

Expert Focus
Gain Fury, Vigor and Quickness for some time. aftr usage of this skill are you able to auto evade the next incoming 3 projectile attacks.

Practiced Stance
Your Bullet Skills will deal 10% increased Damage when this Stance is used and you have a 50% chance, that the Bullet Skill will cost you eventually no Ammunition.

Seeking Bullets
The next 3 Shots with either a Rifle of Dual Pistols will become unblockable and steal Boons if the Target was under 50% health. Being hit with this Stance beign active causes also Reveal for soem time.

Serpent’s Quickness
You poison nearby foes when you perform Dodge Rolls after using this Stance and you gain Quickness. This Stance will recharge also your last used Utility Venom Skill if you have one in your Skill bar at that moment.
—

Elite Stance

Storm Chaser
You gain Super Speed and increased Precision after every shot Bullet of +30 per Bullet.
So your last Bullet will have a Bonus of + 450 Precision.

So when you switch to your d/p weapon set all you can do is auto attack because no initiative. Hoorah!

I want the next xpac weapon to be a machine gun so I can listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhcGNN9r1D4
song all day long.

@ Ramoth:

Please think first then comment. Thank You.
Naturally would end up using one of the Core Class Weapons under the Gunslinger in returning to the Classical Initiative System.
The mentioned “Bullet System” should replace the Initiative System only in the case, where you play also ONLY with gun weapons – so Rifle and Dual Pistols.
However, your comment lead to the point, that I realized that I forget to mention the conceptional Dual Pistol Skills under my Gunslinger and to include them also in the Traits better, cause I posted only the stuff for the Rifle – so in this case had your comment something good to remember me on this missing part.

So heres the missing part for Dual Pistols (Using the Spec will replace the Initiative based Pistol Skills with them)

Stealth Skill
Silent Snake – You will shoot out with both pistols from stealth a salvo of venomous bullets, that will hit in a 180 degree angle all targets in front and at the sides of you
Hit targets will get several stacks of Poison and will get stunned also as well if the added Poison hits target that suffer togeher with the added Poison on more than 3 conditions

Weapon Skills
1) Critical Eye > Lethal Shot > Deep Impact
A series of 3 Dual Pistol Shots, the first being always 100% critical and unblockable, followed by a Lethal Shot that causes Weakness, finished by a Deep Impact, a blast of both Pistols at the same time that causes Bleeds in 2er Stack Steps so lesser the Health of the Target is. 2 Stacks at 100-80%, 4 Stacks at 79-40%, 6 Stacks at 39% and lesser

2) Pistol Reloader – Same as like Rifle Reloader, but in this case slightly faster
3) Ammo Exchange – Allows you to exchange the Bullet Skills as “Packs” quickly, where you have to do it manually with the Rifle for each Bullet, with Dual Pistols you get Ammo Packs so that you can shoot faster Bullets of a same time in a row.
4) Evasive Stance – Lets you Auto Evade the next incoming Attacks for the next 5 seconds and restores Endurance, if you evaded within that time enough attacks
5) Desperado – Unload all your Bullets into all directions to hit anybody around you Equilibrium Gun Kata Style like making this Skill a clear specialized superior version of Unload which can shoot simply only in 1 direction.
A little movie to show it Its always better to see it, than to describe it ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-giO15yKik

Will adapt to this now the traits a bit.

@Jana:
Id rather hear to my Concept of a Gunslinger this Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x2ABSAMVno

David Guetta ft. Skyla Grey – Shot Me Down

So awesome and relaxing at the same time at its more calm passages This in an endless loop when you in a gun fight with an other gunslinger
This or when I’m in the mood for it that as alternative ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg

just love David Guetta Good Music for any Situation!

feels like gunslinguer should be somethign arroudn engi class with dual pistol :\

Orpheal.8263:

@ Ramoth:

Please think first then comment. Thank You.
Naturally would end up using one of the Core Class Weapons under the Gunslinger in returning to the Classical Initiative System.
The mentioned “Bullet System” should replace the Initiative System only in the case, where you play also ONLY with gun weapons – so Rifle and Dual Pistols.
However, your comment lead to the point, that I realized that I forget to mention the conceptional Dual Pistol Skills under my Gunslinger and to include them also in the Traits better, cause I posted only the stuff for the Rifle – so in this case had your comment something good to remember me on this missing part.

So heres the missing part for Dual Pistols (Using the Spec will replace the Initiative based Pistol Skills with them)

Stealth Skill
Silent Snake – You will shoot out with both pistols from stealth a salvo of venomous bullets, that will hit in a 180 degree angle all targets in front and at the sides of you
Hit targets will get several stacks of Poison and will get stunned also as well if the added Poison hits target that suffer togeher with the added Poison on more than 3 conditions

Weapon Skills
1) Critical Eye > Lethal Shot > Deep Impact
A series of 3 Dual Pistol Shots, the first being always 100% critical and unblockable, followed by a Lethal Shot that causes Weakness, finished by a Deep Impact, a blast of both Pistols at the same time that causes Bleeds in 2er Stack Steps so lesser the Health of the Target is. 2 Stacks at 100-80%, 4 Stacks at 79-40%, 6 Stacks at 39% and lesser

2) Pistol Reloader – Same as like Rifle Reloader, but in this case slightly faster
3) Ammo Exchange – Allows you to exchange the Bullet Skills as “Packs” quickly, where you have to do it manually with the Rifle for each Bullet, with Dual Pistols you get Ammo Packs so that you can shoot faster Bullets of a same time in a row.
4) Evasive Stance – Lets you Auto Evade the next incoming Attacks for the next 5 seconds and restores Endurance, if you evaded within that time enough attacks
5) Desperado – Unload all your Bullets into all directions to hit anybody around you Equilibrium Gun Kata Style like making this Skill a clear specialized superior version of Unload which can shoot simply only in 1 direction.
A little movie to show it Its always better to see it, than to describe it ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-giO15yKik

Will adapt to this now the traits a bit.

@Jana:
Id rather hear to my Concept of a Gunslinger this Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x2ABSAMVno

David Guetta ft. Skyla Grey – Shot Me Down

So awesome and relaxing at the same time at its more calm passages This in an endless loop when you in a gun fight with an other gunslinger
This or when I’m in the mood for it that as alternative ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfuAukYTKg

just love David Guetta Good Music for any Situation!

Please think more before making especs. So if you ran out of initiative you can just switch to a gun and reload? Pretty hilariously OP.

@ Ramoth:

1) Please make first your own Concepts, if you think you make better ones before you point onto others with your finger and literally tell them they should not do make them.

2) If you would have read my concept and basically would have understood it in fact, then you could realize in the end that I have written, that the Bullet System that I propose here doesn’t regenerate itself unlike Initiative.
This means, you just can’t spam first all your Bullets away, switch to D/D, spam your Initiative away and switch right back to Rifle and expect from your Character to be able to spam magically skills further infinitely again – NO, you just have to reload your Rifle first again with bullets.
Here, watch this, as this was basically the inspiration for the Gameplay, maybe it helps your understanding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS34BEjg0nk < Toukiden Rifle Gameplay

3) Since when has become Skill Swapping Mechanics “hilariously OP”???
Do you haven even a clue, that what you have said there literally means that Classes like the Elementalist or the Engineer with their tons of Skills they can swap out would be essentially under your opinion far more “hilariously OP”, than my Concept here of the Gunslinger, which has in the end still alot lesser Skills than those both Classes and which has to reload manually in case of the Rifle slowly each single Bullet Skill manually, WHILE BEING ROOTED at that moment, while all other Classes and Elite Specs in ther Gameplay don’t have that?!!

The Gunslinger by design should be an Elite Specialization, which requires alot more intelligent Character Positioning, therefore that it comes with alot more Range, more Precision through Free Aiming and more Power than playing with Dual Pistols, which are the faster alternative to the Rifle therefore that they have the limitation to be able to shoot the Bullets only in “Packs” of a same type, while the Rifle can shoot bullets in any row and any type you want due to the manual reloading of the Rifle.

Aside of this is the Gunslinger E-Spec just meant to be a kind of Alternative to the Initiative System. Sooner or later has Anet to make for the Thief an Elite-Specialization that doesn’t use Initiative.
Initiative in itself is so unique to the Thief, that Anet has to break out of this mechanic, or the game will basically end up with all Elite Specs of the Thief using the exact same Gameplay and that would be not only totally boring and uncreative, it would be for the Class, its Build Diversity and Design way too limitating to reduce down all aspects of futurous Elite Specs of the Thief down to just only Initiative.
I found it personally already extremely disappointing, that the Daredevil is essentially by design the exact same as like Thief due to using also as well Initiative, while all other Classes received completely new and different gameplay mechanics – just only not the Thief, we got practically just Thief 2.0 >.< /facepalm

The Gunslinger with a Bullet Skill System would be that kind of breakout from the omnipresent Initiative System, that would allow Anet to give the Thief a more creative Elite Specialization, that isn’t bonded as well as like the Daredevil to Initiative too, due to the Weapons being in usage making use of the thing, that is essentially the biggest part of a gun weapon – its ammunition, while the system of Bullet Skills feels in fact still in a different way very similar to Initiative, just with the difference, that Bullets need to be reloaded manually and don’t regenerate automatically for you, which makes the Gunslinger an Elite Specialization, that requires of the player far more situation awareness and good positioning to be played out good and effective!

Nice idea I guess, but Anet wouldn’t do anything this complicated for a weapon/spec. Especially if your idea is for it to also affect dual pistols since they will need to do double the work to make this happen. And with the whole bullet and ammo thing, this really comes off as a Engineer play style, not really a Thief. And then because you are using a completely difference resource system, half of the abilities from the other trees would need to be reworked or balanced around this too because you pick 3 specializations, not just 1. Overall, its too complicated. Nice idea though.

I can see them going with a Rifle for the new ES, but way more simpler such as a Saboteur and make better use of mines and maybe grenades. You have to remember that they never intended ES to be the identity of a class. Its merely another way to spec your class. Your idea completely gives the Thief a new play style and identity which is not what the ES are meant to be. Daredevil at its core is still a Thief. Dragon Hunter at its core is still a Guardian. Berserker is still a Warrior. This Gunsligner sounds more like a new class than it would be Thief.

Why do I need to make my own concepts? It’s not a forum rule and you posted it here, is open for anyone to scrutinise. And i choose to scrutinise. You can choose to ignore me, that does change the fact i think the concept is fanciful and not well thought out. What, do you only expect people to come here with praise?

Look at how your ‘bullet system’ will interact with the five core traits, oh that’s right, it pretty much won’t. Anything that’s to do with initiative gets thrown out the door.

As far as concept specs go I’ve seen far better.

Given ANet’s lack of capacity to balance the initiative system as it is, I’m not sure adding another whole resource is the best of ideas. Not to mention as pointed out, it has synergy issues with existing traitlines including Acrobatics, SA, and Trickery.

You do so, as if this concept wouldn’t work at all, only because there are some Traits that “currently” work only under Initiative.

Upper Hand – current version – Gain Initiative and Regeneration when you evade an attack.
Upper Hand – With Gunslinger Version – Gain Initiative or a Bullet (in case of Rifle its a random Bullet) back and Regeneration when you evade an attack.
—

Assassin’s Reward – Current Version – Heal yourself when you use a Skill that uses Initiative
Assassin’s Reward – New Version – Heal yourself when you use a Skill that uses either Initiative or a Bullet (difference here is only the factor with that Bullets get multiplied by Healing Power, due die Initiative Skills using more Points than just only 1 like Bullets do cost always only 1 per Skill used, unless you use a Rifle with “Hit Two Birds With One Shot”)
—-
Next Traitline – Trickery

Kleptomaniac – Current Version – Stealing grants you Initiative
Kleptomaniac – New Version – Stealing grants you Initiative or Bullets based on your used Weapon Set at the moment (or simply something different as Gunslinger like
Endurance, a unique Boon or whatever)

Preparedness – Current Version – Increases maximum Initiative +3
Preparedness – New Version – Old Version is now baseline. “Reduces Condition Durations on you by 15%” either – or “Regain also Endurance when you receive heals based on a proportional percentage of the received Healing”

Lead Attacks – Current Version – Damage gets increased per spent Initiative and Steals recharge faster
Lead Attacks – New Version – Damage get increased per spent Initiative or Bullet and Steals recharge faster (Here again, Bullets will just get a different factor for the damage increase)

Quick Pockets – Current Version – Gain Initiative when swapping Weapons
Quick Pockets – New Version – Old Version becomes baseline. Effect changed to "Increases the amount of Steal Skill Slots by +1 enabling it to steal now 2x before the skill has to recharge. Trait renamed to “Big Pockets”
—
Next Traitline – Shadow Arts

Shadow Rejuvenation – Current Version – Regain Health and Initiative in Stealth
Shadow Rejuvenation – New Version – Regain Health & initiative and lets you reload faster than usual your Bullets in Stealth when using the Reloader Skills
—

Done, problems solved, cause neither DA nor CS have any traits with any initiative gameplay that could get any issues with a conflicting Bullet System from the Gunslinger.
Thats 7 small changes to some traits and we all know, that the thief Traits are totally messed up and that some of them like Preparedness need changes anyways to improve the build diversity of the Thief while reducing the overfocus on Trickery because of its current version effect.
An overall opinion among many thief players, which agree with it, that the old prepareness has to become baseline.
Reworking in in order to make the trait working also with other Gameplay Mechanics aside of Initiative would be a good incentive to do that change.

The idea is still terrible. No espec changes the core trait lines. You might as well rewrite the whole game at this point. This sounds like fan fiction

If you need to change core functionality the elite spec ultimately is a design not worth pursuing. As mentioned, good elites should be as compatible as possible while negating any need to rework existing lines. We can’t expect the profession developers to rework existing skills that need reworks. I really doubt they’d be on-board for an idea that would require a substantial rework to the core bits as well. It’s this reason why I gave up on the Deadeye’s development after the stealth attack ICD; some minor incompatibilities were introduced (particularly the stealth attack ICD), and there’s nothing that can resolve them without depending on an undo of some of these changes.

Even my posposal took a lot of flak for just putting an ICD on Quick Pockets equal to just under the baseline weapon swap cooldown (which thus has zero effect on any core game element whatsoever) which is necessary in order to keep the spec itself balanced.

Just a couple of thoughts:

Is the rifle to be a 1200 range weapon or 1500 range? Putting an extended range on a minor trait for a weapon that can’t be used without the spec is a bit redundant by the way, might as well just state the ranges in the skills.

That said, if it’s 1200 brought to 1500 with sonic bullets, it’s gonna be useless for two reasons: firstly druids/dragonhunters will outrange you with their longbows (and even if the range is higher there isn’t much you can do to stop them, they have way better defensive capabilities), and secondly the spec does almost nothing to help you survive a warrior or daredevil getting close. In fact it hinders you, since the spec removes the ability to use survival skills like shadowstep. Where are the stun breaks? I see you have permanent stability while attacking, but without a ranged autoattack to keep stacking stab all I have to do is go defensive while you fire, wait for the reload and you’re up guano creek without a paddle. You can’t run from me or kite without swapping weapon sets, at which point you’re a core thief that’s missing a specialisation.

Outside of daredevil, the only condi cleanse you’d have without utilities is pain response and shadows embrace. You only have one way of stealthing on the set, which presumably will have a cooldown, so you’re going to be eaten alive by basically any condi class as long as they save their spike for when you just swap to rifle.

Then there’s the issue of tankiness. If you make the damage coefficients such that you can be tanky, in order to offset the mentioned lack of defense, then a glass rifle thief will deal insane damage. If you make it so you have to build glass (like the rest of the profession currently works), then it’s going to be useless due to an almost total lack of active and passive defense.

Lastly, it seems clunky. You want us to press the utility buttons in a specific order to load the bullets, while immobile, and then press the utility buttons in the correct order to fire the bullets, with minimal stealth or evades, no passive defense and more than likely glass stats? Unless I’ve misread something, there’s not much point to the 5 skill loading bullets randomly if you press the utilities to fire the specific bullet you want. That and the melee autoattack means the weapon has no sustained DPS at range, and with the lack of defense and stunbreaks it’s useless at close range too, forcing you to swap to your second set when pressured.

I’m not trying to be harsh or anything, I just don’t understand how this is going to be anything but a death sentence when swapping to rifle in its current state.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Just a couple of thoughts:

Is the rifle to be a 1200 range weapon or 1500 range? Putting an extended range on a minor trait for a weapon that can’t be used without the spec is a bit redundant by the way, might as well just state the ranges in the skills.

That said, if it’s 1200 brought to 1500 with sonic bullets, it’s gonna be useless for two reasons: firstly druids/dragonhunters will outrange you with their longbows (and even if the range is higher there isn’t much you can do to stop them, they have way better defensive capabilities), and secondly the spec does almost nothing to help you survive a warrior or daredevil getting close. In fact it hinders you, since the spec removes the ability to use survival skills like shadowstep. Where are the stun breaks? I see you have permanent stability while attacking, but without a ranged autoattack to keep stacking stab all I have to do is go defensive while you fire, wait for the reload and you’re up guano creek without a paddle. You can’t run from me or kite without swapping weapon sets, at which point you’re a core thief that’s missing a specialisation.

Outside of daredevil, the only condi cleanse you’d have without utilities is pain response and shadows embrace. You only have one way of stealthing on the set, which presumably will have a cooldown, so you’re going to be eaten alive by basically any condi class as long as they save their spike for when you just swap to rifle.

Then there’s the issue of tankiness. If you make the damage coefficients such that you can be tanky, in order to offset the mentioned lack of defense, then a glass rifle thief will deal insane damage. If you make it so you have to build glass (like the rest of the profession currently works), then it’s going to be useless due to an almost total lack of active and passive defense.

Lastly, it seems clunky. You want us to press the utility buttons in a specific order to load the bullets, while immobile, and then press the utility buttons in the correct order to fire the bullets, with minimal stealth or evades, no passive defense and more than likely glass stats? Unless I’ve misread something, there’s not much point to the 5 skill loading bullets randomly if you press the utilities to fire the specific bullet you want. That and the melee autoattack means the weapon has no sustained DPS at range, and with the lack of defense and stunbreaks it’s useless at close range too, forcing you to swap to your second set when pressured.

I’m not trying to be harsh or anything, I just don’t understand how this is going to be anything but a death sentence when swapping to rifle in its current state.

See what I mean? It reads like fan fiction and has nothing about it that makes sense with the current game engine.

Not sure what relations a rifle has with a thief but oh well

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Not sure what relations a rifle has with a thief but oh well

Pirates are thieves and they use rifles. We’re not taking about cat burglars or bandits. In that case, pistols wouldn’t make sense either. But you can easily make an ES that is focused on using the rifles along with mines and grenades. Grenadier or Saboteur. Personally, I would prefer a simple off hand sword for a Duelist.

Honestly the game’s rifle Movesets are possibly the most boring of all weapons, i don’t see people’s infatuations with getting the thief to have one.

Oh and also, there are no utilities in the game that specify a specific weapon to use. Another reason why this espec won’t work

Your idea is a good start. I liked the idea of the skills as ammo types used, but I think bouncer bullet should simply be replaced by getting back ricochet trait since it used to effect the bullets itself and make bullets bounce, and make it work on both pistols and rifles since both use bullets. But i think if ammo type is the skill it should have toggle on/off effect like an engineer kit. Also you could make a trait focused on ammo type skills to make it group friendly taking away it has to be a weapon that uses bullets and makes it just apply to groups weapons generic of type as a buff effect. Which is another reason to remove the bouncer bullet and jsut give back Ricochet trait instead. I would make
the buff not stack, but different thieves could toggle on different ammo types and share the effects even with other thieves with different ammo effects on.Make a life stealing shot trait an make all bullet based attacks life stealing. I would also love to see an armor set around that too give it stats : Strength,and Precision as primary stats, and then as minor stats give Ferocity, and Healing. I don’t even care if rifle gets 1200 range though would be nice if it did, but there is ways to give rifle to thief and not make it 1200 range , like if you made rifle function more like a shotgun doing damage in cone aoe and do greater damage to targets the closer you get, but more spread of the bullets the farther away you get but hit more targets at once. make it like flame jet on engineer flamethrower sort of, but longer range then flame jet.( and thus bigger spread of bullets, make it hit everything in cone field of effect so no maximum targets, ( also like flame jet.) just reduce the damage the farther away they are from you. You could even make it the auto attack and rifle 1# attack call it Scatter Shot.

Sounds cool. I’m still very new to the game but I think your ideas are a start if ANET were to want to create a path where Thief could have a viable Rifle / Dual Pistol build that would be awesome.

Ya, sounds cool on paper, but so more oftenly I have read through the criticisms, so more I started to think, that there is something essentially missing in the concept.

I need to get on it , what it is exactly. Juggle made some good points there, but thats not everything I think is missing or better said, didn’t got thought over by me.

But my poit stands, Anet needs to break out impo from the thief’s omnipresent initiative System, or we will most likely see with every Elite Spec for the Thief permanently only alterations of the Core Thief, which will play essentially all the same and that will be not only extremely boring, but also same as much as uncreative and in the end not the vision I had for Thiefs, when I brought the concept of Sub Classes back in the past about Character progression in the CDI’s what lead to the present of us havign now Elite Specializations as ANet’s own version of my proposal.

Elite Specializations need to be more, than just only Core Classes 2.0 in my opinion – Thieves included.

Anyone else purchase a Predator Rifle in anticipation of another upcoming Elite Specialization haha.

I can’t lie , i did buy a predator rifle for thief.

Like I say Orpheal, I wouldn’t take my criticism too personally as the majority of the issues are the same issues the Devs will face if they decide to make a rifle thief. It’s not an easy problem, since you’d have to totally change how thief plays (slippery glass cannon) to make it work imo. Your idea was creative, which I liked

And I’ve had a predator rifle sat in my bank ever since my engi got a hammer, so I’m looking forward to being able to use it again. That said, I’m pretty sure the spec is either gonna be support or condi based, if only because that will be easier to balance in the long run.