Guild Wars 2

1) 5% dmg.
The issue of PP is the wild RNG nature of it.
With 65% crit and +15% dmg (5% on dual skills +10% mastery), Unload can range from a worthelss 3k hit to an overpowered 8k hit.
Even if you gave a whooping 20% dmg buff on what we already have now, it would be 3600 dmg to 9600; either still far too low or way too high – this proves out of doubt that % damage changes are completely uneffective until the wild unload foruma is under control.
You cannot make Unload balanced without reducing the super-wide RNG of it.

2) Ricochet.
Ricochet will not make P/P worth taking over SB for AoE unless it’s at least 50% – which you won’t do because you don’t do major buffs yadda yadda.
I say just replace the trait with a more single-target-oriented one, as P/P is a single target weapon.
Chance for boon removal/condition/boon/endurance on crit, or whatever you feel it’s best.

Thank you.

uh? Unload has incredibly low damage variation compared to most skills
The more hits a skill does, the more the number of crits tends to the average
(Hit once, and it’s all or nothing. Hit 100 times and damage won’t vary by much. maybe 45 crits one time, 53 another.) So yeah no, you’re pretty wrong there.

and… of course the idea isn’t to make P/P better at AoE than SB. lol. It’s just to make its AoE not completely worthless. Ideally it should be super awesome single target with a little bit of AoE. The problem is that it’s mediocre at single target.

I think by giving Unload an additional 20% Crit Chance built-in will make the RNG more acceptable. This will improve the min damage of Unload while keep the max damage remain unchanged.

Vital shot still slow and weak, unload still subpar damage, head shot still eats up initiative… black powder still a melee skill that destroys your offensive output and doesn’t even protect you that well… steal still useless for ranged thieves… max range still 900, still no skills that would make a compelling argument to be anything besides super glass cannon… still no way to get into stealth… and at the end of the day… the damage is still way below how squishy you are

My rifle warrior I don’t even dodge or kite, I just stand there shooting… he doesn’t even get hurt… thief is dead in a few shots and he didn’t even kill anyone… p/p still needs a very significant bump…

Vital shot needs to be improved, unload has to be improved… the other 3 skills need to have their initiative costs slashed in half…

SB needs its own initiative bar…