Guild Wars 2

So I been watching my p/p videos to see what am I doing wrong then it hit me. Pistol has only one skill in the no 1 skill. Well that sounds a bit confusing so let me explain. If you are using daggers and you use the number 1 skill you get 3 types of strikes same with the sword. So why not give it to the pistols as well?

Let me know what you guys think of this and if you like this idea of mine or is it crap

It is crap.
M B L M B 15

It’s that way with most ranged weapons

Warrior: rifle and longbow only have one “#1” attack
Elementalist: all weapons only have one “#1” attack
Ranger: shortbow, longbow and axe only have one “#1” attack
Engineer: pistol and rifle only have one “#1” attack

The problem is not that they only have 1 skill, the problem is that the recast for that one skill is much slower than it’s supposed to be, making the #1 skills of most ranged weapons for most professions garbage. The same is true of Longbows, Staffs and Scepters, and it’s even true of the Thief’s Shortbow (not for the ranger though, since they removed its activation timer and GCD).

Strangely, Rifles are the only ranged weapon that fire at or near the rate seemingly intended. It isn’t surprising that Warriors or Engineers with a Rifle are typically considered the strongest ranged builds in the game.

But that 1 skill applies a bleed every time it hits. It’s a really really awesome skill and meant for bleed builds. Sneak attack is amazing as well.

Stiv.1820:

But that 1 skill applies a bleed every time it hits. It’s a really really awesome skill and meant for bleed builds. Sneak attack is amazing as well.

Yes, it is meant for bleed builds, but no, it isn’t awesome at all. Try playing a Rifle warrior then come back and see if you still think it’s amazing. Vital Shot barely manages to stack 5 bleeds while doing pitiful direct damage. The Warrior’s rifle stacks 8-9 bleeds, does more direct damage, and has a range of 1200 yards.

The difference in power, bleed duration, and range all favoring the rifle is because the pistol is supposed to fire faster (and consequently stack the same number of bleeds), but it doesn’t due to a bug or design oversight. This is pretty much the entire reason why you see so many complaints about Pistols being weak.

Einlanzer.1627:

Stiv.1820:

But that 1 skill applies a bleed every time it hits. It’s a really really awesome skill and meant for bleed builds. Sneak attack is amazing as well.

Yes, it is meant for bleed builds, but no, it isn’t awesome at all. Try playing a Rifle warrior then come back and see if you still think it’s amazing. Vital Shot barely manages to stack 5 bleeds while doing pitiful direct damage. The Warrior’s rifle stacks 8-9 bleeds, does more direct damage, and has a range of 1200 yards.

The difference in power, bleed duration, and range all favoring the rifle is because the pistol is supposed to fire faster (and consequently stack the same number of bleeds), but it doesn’t due to a bug or design oversight. This is pretty much the entire reason why you see so many complaints about Pistols being weak.

Pistol’s on their own are’t weak, it’s just P/P that kind of sucks with unload having no bleeds. Offhand pistol is good and so is main hand (well pistol#2 does suck) but Warriors don’t have stealth. I’m all for buffing my class but I can’t imagine Pistol#1 getting a buff because of how functionally useful it is currently.

Maybe I haven’t run into enough bleed rifle warriors or they aren’t effective against Thieves with lots of condition removal because I haven’t noticed them.

Stiv.1820:

Einlanzer.1627:

Stiv.1820:

But that 1 skill applies a bleed every time it hits. It’s a really really awesome skill and meant for bleed builds. Sneak attack is amazing as well.

Yes, it is meant for bleed builds, but no, it isn’t awesome at all. Try playing a Rifle warrior then come back and see if you still think it’s amazing. Vital Shot barely manages to stack 5 bleeds while doing pitiful direct damage. The Warrior’s rifle stacks 8-9 bleeds, does more direct damage, and has a range of 1200 yards.

The difference in power, bleed duration, and range all favoring the rifle is because the pistol is supposed to fire faster (and consequently stack the same number of bleeds), but it doesn’t due to a bug or design oversight. This is pretty much the entire reason why you see so many complaints about Pistols being weak.

Pistol’s on their own are’t weak, it’s just P/P that kind of sucks with unload having no bleeds. Offhand pistol is good and so is main hand (well pistol#2 does suck) but Warriors don’t have stealth. I’m all for buffing my class but I can’t imagine Pistol#1 getting a buff because of how functionally useful it is currently.

Maybe I haven’t run into enough bleed rifle warriors or they aren’t effective against Thieves with lots of condition removal because I haven’t noticed them.

Nay. Pistol off-hand is fine because it’s utilitarian, but Pistol main hand is not fine regardless of your OH, and it will not be fine until they fix Vital Shot. You man think you’re doing great damage with it, but trust me, you aren’t.

People complain about Body Shot, but Body Shot is not the major problem with MH Pistols; it’s a utility skill not a damage skill. The problem with MH Pistol is that it does wretched DPS because Vital Shot fires at roughly 60-70% the speed it’s supposed to, failing to stack enough bleeds OR do enough direct damage to give the set decent sustained damage, which is why Unload spamming is the only semi-viable (and still quite sup-optimal) way to play it.

It’s not just the attack speed of Vital Shot that needs to be fixed. Also the range of pistols is not 900 as specified, it’s even shorter than that!

The description of both Trick Shot for Short Bow and Vital Shot for Pistol (the auto-attacks) specifies range 900.

Now if you want, you can try this out.
Go to the shooting range in Lion’s Arch near the Dungeon Armor vendors, then equip a Short Bow and put yourself at max range and shoot to see how far the arrows go t hit the target. Now, switch to Pistol and try shooting from the same distance which should be 900 and see what happens…

Pistols’ effective range is actually roughly 700, hence the range in Pistol skills description is a lie.

I like it the same. Well, if all attacks apply bleed then I wouldn’t care too much. Just don’t take away bleeds from the number 1 pistol build. That is the vital to the P/D condition build and without it condition thieves using p/d wouldn’t survive.

Hermes.7014:

It’s not just the attack speed of Vital Shot that needs to be fixed. Also the range of pistols is not 900 as specified, it’s even shorter than that!

The description of both Trick Shot for Short Bow and Vital Shot for Pistol (the auto-attacks) specifies range 900.

Now if you want, you can try this out.
Go to the shooting range in Lion’s Arch near the Dungeon Armor vendors, then equip a Short Bow and put yourself at max range and shoot to see how far the arrows go t hit the target. Now, switch to Pistol and try shooting from the same distance which should be 900 and see what happens…

Pistols’ effective range is actually roughly 700, hence the range in Pistol skills description is a lie.

This may be due to how shots arc with different projectiles. I know you can get extra range out of arcing your bow shots, it is possible that pistol shots do not rise and then fall, but merely fall, causing their range to be less than stated in some situations.

Tulisin.6945:

This may be due to how shots arc with different projectiles. I know you can get extra range out of arcing your bow shots, it is possible that pistol shots do not rise and then fall, but merely fall, causing their range to be less than stated in some situations.

Pistol shots just travel on a straight line and then disappear.
Even if that was the case though, it’s still a lie.

Hermes.7014:

It’s not just the attack speed of Vital Shot that needs to be fixed. Also the range of pistols is not 900 as specified, it’s even shorter than that!

The description of both Trick Shot for Short Bow and Vital Shot for Pistol (the auto-attacks) specifies range 900.

Now if you want, you can try this out.
Go to the shooting range in Lion’s Arch near the Dungeon Armor vendors, then equip a Short Bow and put yourself at max range and shoot to see how far the arrows go t hit the target. Now, switch to Pistol and try shooting from the same distance which should be 900 and see what happens…

Pistols’ effective range is actually roughly 700, hence the range in Pistol skills description is a lie.

I never realized this, but now that you point it out it’s obvious in hindsight, there have been a number of times where I’ve been trying to shoot something and it’s acted like I was too far away and I was like “really?”

That’s insane, why has this not been addressed yet?

Hermes.7014:

Pistols’ effective range is actually roughly 700, hence the range in Pistol skills description is a lie.

Out of curiosity I just tried now what you’re saying.

There’s a little difference between the range of pistol and shortbow, but it’s really a little step (tapping W very rapidly to gain maybe a 3-5 range), but not at all the difference of 200 that you’re talking about.

The funny thing it’s that even if in the game we don’t hit the target due to “out of range”, there’s no red bar under the pistol skills.

Galandil.9641:

Hermes.7014:

Pistols’ effective range is actually roughly 700, hence the range in Pistol skills description is a lie.

Out of curiosity I just tried now what you’re saying.

There’s a little difference between the range of pistol and shortbow, but it’s really a little step (tapping W very rapidly to gain maybe a 3-5 range), but not at all the difference of 200 that you’re talking about.

The funny thing it’s that even if in the game we don’t hit the target due to “out of range”, there’s no red bar under the pistol skills.

It’s not a little step, it’s a full step forward.
These are the pictures of my test for comparison. You can notice the distance on the minimap as well. First picture is Short Bow max range using a Short Bow, second is Short Bow range using a pistol, and third is Pistol max range.
It may not be 700, but still the range specified for pistols is unaccurate and shorter than Short Bow’s.

What if pistol is 900 and the short-bow is bugged and gets too much range? NERF

Hermes.7014:

It’s not a little step, it’s a full step forward.
These are the pictures of my test for comparison. You can notice the distance on the minimap as well. First picture is Short Bow max range using a Short Bow, second is Short Bow range using a pistol, and third is Pistol max range.
It may not be 700, but still the range specified for pistols is unaccurate and shorter than Short Bow’s.

I tested again, and I took some screens. I used a trap to define better the position of the character.

Behind view (SB-Pistol):
[img]http://i.imgur.com/sX4uZ.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/dLaUS.jpg[/img]

Lateral view (SB-Pistol):
[img]http://i.imgur.com/svFhr.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/STrck.jpg[/img]

Diagonal view (SB-Pistol):
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ANbNd.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ISnQj.jpg[/img]

The effective difference between SB and Pistol is a single step backward, which is less than a single step forward (the characters move slower backward).

Another strange thing that I noticed: with the SB distance, all the main pistol skills did not hit the dummy, but the Head Shot did hit it.

Edit: I forgot that I can’t put external images here, just click on the links to check them.

The auto attack and the stealth attack are the only two abilities that aren’t crap on main hand pistol. Why would you want to change the auto attack?

Edit: To the poster above me, all arrows shot have slightly more range than stated (as they start to lose distance, they are still able to make contact). It’s not that the Pistol has less range – it’s that the Shortbow has slightly more range than stated.

Krathalos.3461:

The auto attack and the stealth attack are the only two abilities that aren’t crap on main hand pistol. Why would you want to change the auto attack?

Edit: To the poster above me, all arrows shot have slightly more range than stated (as they start to lose distance, they are still able to make contact). It’s not that the Pistol has less range – it’s that the Shortbow has slightly more range than stated.

You are objectively wrong. The #1 attack is far crappier than it should be. Try playing a rifle warrior and come back and make this argument.

Krathalos.3461:

The auto attack and the stealth attack are the only two abilities that aren’t crap on main hand pistol. Why would you want to change the auto attack?

I think you may be overestimating the potential of the auto attack. I’m not sold on it being quite as sky-is-falling terrible as some folks here, but it isn’t in Sneak Attack’s league, and I wouldn’t call it good.

Erm, assuming the 900 range on Steal is any indication, then Pistol is 900. Shortbow is longer. I can 900 range Steal within Pistol range, and cannot at the same range as pistol stops auto-attacking.

For whatever reason, Dancing Dagger and Shortbow do out range 900. The arcing theory seems as good as any for this. Unless there’s a wackiness over Steal’s range that I’m unaware of.

Vital shot could sure use a buff to rate of fire though.

So the question is why pistol bullets aren’t arcing like arrows? Are those magical bullets that travel on a straight line and just disappear into nothingness instead of falling towards the ground thanks to gravity?

Hermes.7014:

So the question is why pistol bullets aren’t arcing like arrows? Are those magical bullets that travel on a straight line and just disappear into nothingness instead of falling towards the ground thanks to gravity?

well yes, they are magical since you dont carry bullets and the thief never has a need to reload or clear a jam:P

anyway i agree that pistol is rather weaksauce in its current form, i like it as an off hand with sword but against a champ i would love to kite it using p/p without needing to spam 3 the whole time…. i mean it would be nice to spam 3 as long as your init stays above….say 6 then when it gets low have the option switch to 1 so you get to keep your skill 4,5 utilities ready while still doing nice damage but…. hmm… would that be op? for a thief to still be useful to the team while doing good( average) damage? :P

Einlanzer.1627:

That’s insane, why has this not been addressed yet?

It takes a lot of careful planning and testing to make sure they don’t accidentally add a bug to warriors.

LittleRaven.7319:

So I been watching my p/p videos to see what am I doing wrong then it hit me. Pistol has only one skill in the no 1 skill. Well that sounds a bit confusing so let me explain. If you are using daggers and you use the number 1 skill you get 3 types of strikes same with the sword. So why not give it to the pistols as well?

Let me know what you guys think of this and if you like this idea of mine or is it crap

When people swing swords and daggers around, they are expected to have multiple ways to maneuver. That’s just with the territory. However, when you’re firing a pistol or rifle, you do the same thing all the time. There isn’t anything you could add to it to make it more meaningful!

That being said, I find that the pistol skills in general are rather limited (at least, when dual wielded. I like them combo’d with daggers in either configuration). If you’re doing P/P, you have a #5 skill which doesn’t do much damage, and is an expensive blind while solo, a #4 which doesn’t do hardly any damage at all, and is a good interrupt, #3 which is just a fancy looking way to blow through your initiative, and #2 which is mostly only good against world bosses where you have 15+ people focusing down one creature. #1 is actually what I consider the most useful of this weaponset~

Einlanzer.1627:

Krathalos.3461:

The auto attack and the stealth attack are the only two abilities that aren’t crap on main hand pistol. Why would you want to change the auto attack?

Edit: To the poster above me, all arrows shot have slightly more range than stated (as they start to lose distance, they are still able to make contact). It’s not that the Pistol has less range – it’s that the Shortbow has slightly more range than stated.

You are objectively wrong. The #1 attack is far crappier than it should be. Try playing a rifle warrior and come back and make this argument.

Rifle warrior isn’t viable as a condition damage weapon. Pistol main hand is, very much so.

I really don’t see the comparison between the two, either.

The auto attack isn’t as good as the stealth attack, but it’s great nonetheless. It’s a consistent bleed with decent duration. It’s terrible on DPS builds, obviously, but you shouldn’t be using Pistol if you’re using a DPS build.

I’m going to theorize that the problem with the mentioned range argument is based on the animations and the hitbox of the projectile.

The difference is slightly shorter, about a character width.

Say all the projectiles do go precisely 900 units forward, as intended. The discrepancy in range might be because the projectile on Vital Shot starts further back than the projectile from Head Shot. This would likely be due to animations determining the origin point of the attack.

This would also explain why Shortbow has a slightly further range, as the origin point of the attack is from the front of the bow, rather than from inside the weapon. Also, many pistol shots have animations for “cross body” shots where due to movement, the origin point is close to the left shoulder. With shortbow, even while moving, the point will always be from an outstretched left arm, giving about a character width worth of range advantage.

Total theory though, don’t take this as fact.

Krathalos.3461:

It’s terrible on DPS builds, obviously, but you shouldn’t be using Pistol if you’re using a DPS build.

I don’t think you understand what that term means. Condition-based damage generates excellent, if slightly more situational, DPS.

Wasdclick.1764:

Say all the projectiles do go precisely 900 units forward, as intended. The discrepancy in range might be because the projectile on Vital Shot starts further back than the projectile from Head Shot. This would likely be due to animations determining the origin point of the attack.

The only issue I have with this is that all range should be measured from the same point on the character hitbox. We don’t see range variations due to race, for instance, because animations are just a fancy overlay onto mechanics that should be consistent regardless of animation.

Krathalos.3461:

Einlanzer.1627:

Krathalos.3461:

The auto attack and the stealth attack are the only two abilities that aren’t crap on main hand pistol. Why would you want to change the auto attack?

Edit: To the poster above me, all arrows shot have slightly more range than stated (as they start to lose distance, they are still able to make contact). It’s not that the Pistol has less range – it’s that the Shortbow has slightly more range than stated.

You are objectively wrong. The #1 attack is far crappier than it should be. Try playing a rifle warrior and come back and make this argument.

Rifle warrior isn’t viable as a condition damage weapon. Pistol main hand is, very much so.

I really don’t see the comparison between the two, either.

The auto attack isn’t as good as the stealth attack, but it’s great nonetheless. It’s a consistent bleed with decent duration. It’s terrible on DPS builds, obviously, but you shouldn’t be using Pistol if you’re using a DPS build.

I’m sorry, but once again flat-out, unequivocally wrong. The warrior’s rifle (and every other condition weapon in the game) is far better at stacking and maintaining bleeds than the Thief’s Pistol is, and determining this isn’t a matter of complicated, detailed analytics. It’s a matter of spending 5 minutes casually playing each one.

Here, I’ll lay it out for you:
The Pistol (baseline) has about a .8 recast, and the bleed lasts 4 seconds
The Rifle (baseline) has about a .85 recast, and the bleed lasts 6 seconds.

Therefore, Vital Shot can only maintain 5 stacks of bleed at best, you occasionally briefly get more from a sneak attack, and often dip below from doing anything else at all.

The Rifle pretty consistently maintains about 8. The front-end damage is also slightly higher, the range is greater, and they still get huge boosts to power from Volley and especially the Adrenaline shot that does mega damage (far more damage than Unload).

It’s also very intuitively obvious that this is all because Vital Shot is ‘bugged’ and doesn’t autoattack as quicly as it was intended to. The same problem affects the #1 skills on various ranged weapons across professions. Not trying to be rude, but you very clearly don’t understand much about what you’re talking about.

Einlanzer.1627:

Here, I’ll lay it out for you:
The Pistol (baseline) has about a .8 recast, and the bleed lasts 4 seconds
The Rifle (baseline) has about a .85 recast, and the bleed lasts 6 seconds.

Therefore, Vital Shot can only maintain 5 stacks of bleed at best, you occasionally briefly get more from a sneak attack, and often dip below from doing anything else at all.

The Rifle pretty consistently maintains about 8. The front-end damage is also slightly higher, the range is greater, and they still get huge boosts to power from Volley and especially the Adrenaline shot that does mega damage (far more damage than Unload).

Not trying to be rude, but you very clearly don’t understand much about what you’re talking about.

This pretty well lays it out for me. I don’t care that we have less range, that’s what Stealth & gap closers are all about. It’s the rate of fire that’s just silly. I’d happily take a bleed duration increase while we’re at it though!

Unload damage needs boosted by 33%, Rate of Fire on “1” skill needs doubled (to be the same speed as dagger’s 1.), a Trait needs to be added so shots pierce, bounce trait needs increased to 100% or removed.

Pistol Mastery: Increases Pistol Damage by 5% and pistol attacks now pierce.

LittleRaven.7319:

So I been watching my p/p videos to see what am I doing wrong then it hit me. Pistol has only one skill in the no 1 skill. Well that sounds a bit confusing so let me explain. If you are using daggers and you use the number 1 skill you get 3 types of strikes same with the sword. So why not give it to the pistols as well?

Let me know what you guys think of this and if you like this idea of mine or is it crap

Actually makes alot of sense part of the problem also is the pistol shot shoots as slow as rifles. you have two pistols why aren’t they both firing in sequence? bang bang …see? I just don’t get the way they slowed down these attacks made them do half damage of rifles and expected that to be perfectly fine. Same goes for the #1 ability of engineer pistols.

tigirius.9014:

LittleRaven.7319:

So I been watching my p/p videos to see what am I doing wrong then it hit me. Pistol has only one skill in the no 1 skill. Well that sounds a bit confusing so let me explain. If you are using daggers and you use the number 1 skill you get 3 types of strikes same with the sword. So why not give it to the pistols as well?

Let me know what you guys think of this and if you like this idea of mine or is it crap

Actually makes alot of sense part of the problem also is the pistol shot shoots as slow as rifles. you have two pistols why aren’t they both firing in sequence? bang bang …see?

They do…on the only P/P skill that exists. Auto attack is not a P/P skill, it is a P/ skill.

thieves don’t reload…thieves unload!!!
btw there will be a nice idea realod after unload,just add some bleeds from unload and nerf it with a 1 sec of daze xD

Einlanzer.1627:

Krathalos.3461:

Einlanzer.1627:

Krathalos.3461:

The auto attack and the stealth attack are the only two abilities that aren’t crap on main hand pistol. Why would you want to change the auto attack?

Edit: To the poster above me, all arrows shot have slightly more range than stated (as they start to lose distance, they are still able to make contact). It’s not that the Pistol has less range – it’s that the Shortbow has slightly more range than stated.

You are objectively wrong. The #1 attack is far crappier than it should be. Try playing a rifle warrior and come back and make this argument.

Rifle warrior isn’t viable as a condition damage weapon. Pistol main hand is, very much so.

I really don’t see the comparison between the two, either.

The auto attack isn’t as good as the stealth attack, but it’s great nonetheless. It’s a consistent bleed with decent duration. It’s terrible on DPS builds, obviously, but you shouldn’t be using Pistol if you’re using a DPS build.

I’m sorry, but once again flat-out, unequivocally wrong. The warrior’s rifle (and every other condition weapon in the game) is far better at stacking and maintaining bleeds than the Thief’s Pistol is, and determining this isn’t a matter of complicated, detailed analytics. It’s a matter of spending 5 minutes casually playing each one.

Here, I’ll lay it out for you:
The Pistol (baseline) has about a .8 recast, and the bleed lasts 4 seconds
The Rifle (baseline) has about a .85 recast, and the bleed lasts 6 seconds.

Therefore, Vital Shot can only maintain 5 stacks of bleed at best, you occasionally briefly get more from a sneak attack, and often dip below from doing anything else at all.

The Rifle pretty consistently maintains about 8. The front-end damage is also slightly higher, the range is greater, and they still get huge boosts to power from Volley and especially the Adrenaline shot that does mega damage (far more damage than Unload).

It’s also very intuitively obvious that this is all because Vital Shot is ‘bugged’ and doesn’t autoattack as quicly as it was intended to. The same problem affects the #1 skills on various ranged weapons across professions. Not trying to be rude, but you very clearly don’t understand much about what you’re talking about.

The fact that you consider Rifle warrior a viable condition build is proof enough that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Rifle is terrible for conditions. It has one ability that can apply it, not counting the bleed on crit sigil/traits (which really shouldn’t be factored in at all).

Thief’s pistol is perfectly fine. P/D is already a great weapon set for conditions. You’re trying to buff the auto attack without realizing that it would cause balance issues in combination with the stealth attack. THAT is why our auto attack isn’t on par with other ones that cause bleed. We also have stealth attack which can apply 5 stacks of bleed no problem.

Pistol is perfectly okay, if not stronger than okay, for conditions.

Rifle condition build warrior vs. Pistol condition build thief: the rifle warrior would lose every encounter, no questions asked.

Seriously the only thing that would put thief behind on condition builds is the lack of a trait that allows us to put on a condition on crit (like, for example, how Mesmers’ illusions, Rangers, Necro, and Warriors can apply bleed on crit).

Edit: Forgot to add that the entire reason rifle warrior even has a bleed on AA is so they could split the damage between pure raw damage and condition damage. Having more raw damage on rifle’s auto attack would make it far more powerful, whereas adding bleed and reducing the base damage will balance it out on burst builds. Also so that it synergizes with the 25 point minor trait in Arms path.

Krathalos.3461:

Einlanzer.1627:

Krathalos.3461:

Einlanzer.1627:

Krathalos.3461:

The auto attack and the stealth attack are the only two abilities that aren’t crap on main hand pistol. Why would you want to change the auto attack?

Edit: To the poster above me, all arrows shot have slightly more range than stated (as they start to lose distance, they are still able to make contact). It’s not that the Pistol has less range – it’s that the Shortbow has slightly more range than stated.

You are objectively wrong. The #1 attack is far crappier than it should be. Try playing a rifle warrior and come back and make this argument.

Rifle warrior isn’t viable as a condition damage weapon. Pistol main hand is, very much so.

I really don’t see the comparison between the two, either.

The auto attack isn’t as good as the stealth attack, but it’s great nonetheless. It’s a consistent bleed with decent duration. It’s terrible on DPS builds, obviously, but you shouldn’t be using Pistol if you’re using a DPS build.

I’m sorry, but once again flat-out, unequivocally wrong. The warrior’s rifle (and every other condition weapon in the game) is far better at stacking and maintaining bleeds than the Thief’s Pistol is, and determining this isn’t a matter of complicated, detailed analytics. It’s a matter of spending 5 minutes casually playing each one.

Here, I’ll lay it out for you:
The Pistol (baseline) has about a .8 recast, and the bleed lasts 4 seconds
The Rifle (baseline) has about a .85 recast, and the bleed lasts 6 seconds.

Therefore, Vital Shot can only maintain 5 stacks of bleed at best, you occasionally briefly get more from a sneak attack, and often dip below from doing anything else at all.

The Rifle pretty consistently maintains about 8. The front-end damage is also slightly higher, the range is greater, and they still get huge boosts to power from Volley and especially the Adrenaline shot that does mega damage (far more damage than Unload).

It’s also very intuitively obvious that this is all because Vital Shot is ‘bugged’ and doesn’t autoattack as quicly as it was intended to. The same problem affects the #1 skills on various ranged weapons across professions. Not trying to be rude, but you very clearly don’t understand much about what you’re talking about.

The fact that you consider Rifle warrior a viable condition build is proof enough that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Rifle is terrible for conditions. It has one ability that can apply it, not counting the bleed on crit sigil/traits (which really shouldn’t be factored in at all).

Thief’s pistol is perfectly fine. P/D is already a great weapon set for conditions. You’re trying to buff the auto attack without realizing that it would cause balance issues in combination with the stealth attack. THAT is why our auto attack isn’t on par with other ones that cause bleed. We also have stealth attack which can apply 5 stacks of bleed no problem.

Pistol is perfectly okay, if not stronger than okay, for conditions.

Rifle condition build warrior vs. Pistol condition build thief: the rifle warrior would lose every encounter, no questions asked.

Seriously the only thing that would put thief behind on condition builds is the lack of a trait that allows us to put on a condition on crit (like, for example, how Mesmers’ illusions, Rangers, Necro, and Warriors can apply bleed on crit).

Edit: Forgot to add that the entire reason rifle warrior even has a bleed on AA is so they could split the damage between pure raw damage and condition damage. Having more raw damage on rifle’s auto attack would make it far more powerful, whereas adding bleed and reducing the base damage will balance it out on burst builds. Also so that it synergizes with the 25 point minor trait in Arms path.

The weapon speed is a tooltip error. The devs have the weapon speeds set as they want them to be. The evidence is the fact that the devs, in the last patch, buffed longbow #1 by 10%. They are obviously aware some auto-attacks aren’t performing as good as they should be. If the speeds were actually wrong, they would have just fixed that instead of buffing damage. Not to mention, as you said, increasing VS speed by 37% would mean P/D would be able to maintain 10 stacks of bleeds with just that ability alone. It would be OP, the devs knew it would be OP, they nerfed the speeds and didn’t update the tooltips. These guys aren’t idiots, after 3+months they would have figured out that half the auto-attacks in the game were attacking at the wrong speed.

Krathalos.3461:

The fact that you consider Rifle warrior a viable condition build is proof enough that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Rifle is terrible for conditions. It has one ability that can apply it, not counting the bleed on crit sigil/traits (which really shouldn’t be factored in at all).

Thief’s pistol is perfectly fine. P/D is already a great weapon set for conditions. You’re trying to buff the auto attack without realizing that it would cause balance issues in combination with the stealth attack. THAT is why our auto attack isn’t on par with other ones that cause bleed. We also have stealth attack which can apply 5 stacks of bleed no problem.

Pistol is perfectly okay, if not stronger than okay, for conditions.

Rifle condition build warrior vs. Pistol condition build thief: the rifle warrior would lose every encounter, no questions asked.

Seriously the only thing that would put thief behind on condition builds is the lack of a trait that allows us to put on a condition on crit (like, for example, how Mesmers’ illusions, Rangers, Necro, and Warriors can apply bleed on crit).

Edit: Forgot to add that the entire reason rifle warrior even has a bleed on AA is so they could split the damage between pure raw damage and condition damage. Having more raw damage on rifle’s auto attack would make it far more powerful, whereas adding bleed and reducing the base damage will balance it out on burst builds. Also so that it synergizes with the 25 point minor trait in Arms path.

No.
No.
No.
No.
No.

Even with Sneak Attack, the thief’s pistol cannot sustain bleed stacks as well as warrior’s rifle can, period. The only reason you think Pistols are good for conditions is probably because of things like Caltrops, which gives Thieves better condition offense than warriors get in general. This does not mean that pistols are good, and it’s very, very obvious if you play both classes and have a brain that rifles are superior.

Just like it’s also obvious (again, assuming you have a brain) that the bug with pistols isn’t their tooltip, it’s their actual rate of fire. Why is this obvious? There are a few reasons:

1.) It’s just intuitive given common sense and the base stats for each that Pistols were intended to shoot more rapidly than rifles.

2.) The recast is not identical between rifles and pistols, pistols are actually very slightly faster, just not nearly as much faster as the tooltip would indicate. If you were correct, then Vital Shot would have the exact same recast as Bleeding Shot and it would have a longer duration bleed. Instead, Vital Shot has a faster activation speed but a slower recovery time than Bleeding Shot, leading to only a marginal difference in rate of fire (<10%) and a significant difference in overall output (>25%), when it’s clearly intended to be the opposite.

3.) The issue is not isolated to Vital Shot. The Ele staff for example, the #1s for Air, Earth, and Water are all supposed to be faster than the #1 for Fire, but they aren’t. That’s why Fire feels stronger and you see Eles disproportionately running it. Meanwhile, the Mesmer greatsword #1 shows a 1 1/2 sec activation speed and has exactly that long of a recast because there’s no recovery period and the recast is seamless. It’s like that because they fixed it. Originally it shot more slowly due to animations issues.

4.) The game is riddled with bugs and design issues, the devs and testers have their hands full trying to address critical issues. There is neither precedent nor evidence that this is ‘working as intended’, so making that assumption in the face of all the contradicting evidence and erratic behavior/power of weapons is folly.

Try again.

Blacksarevok.8104:

It would be OP, the devs knew it would be OP, they nerfed the speeds and didn’t update the tooltips. These guys aren’t idiots, after 3+months they would have figured out that half the auto-attacks in the game were attacking at the wrong speed.

The poster above took more time and more detail to break this down, and he/she did a great job. I just want to point out your closer… where you apparently think Anet is professional/knowing AND somehow believe that they ninja nerfed several auto-attacks and left incorrect tooltips in place. Those two implications would seem to be at odds.

After doing some testing on heavy golems (Warrior Rifle #1 vs Thief P/D #1 + Sneak Attack, no gear, no traits) I’ve concluded that Rifle CAN maintain, on average, more bleeds than P/D can even when using Sneak Attack.

However, what I can also say is that P/D + Sneak Attack kills things twice as fast than Warrior Rifle was (P/D about 20-22 secs to kill heavy golem, Rifle 36 – 40 secs). Another interesting thing I noted is that P/D just using #1 is actually killing things FASTER than Rifle just using #1(I was clocking around 31-34 secs for pistol). Now this could be attributed to P/D getting 2 sigils (5% damage/5% crit) as opposed to Rifle getting just 1 (5% crit), however even with that in mind it would more or less putt the two on equal ground in terms of auto attack, which is interesting.

Something else to note that P/P Unload (not spamming though, pooling ini) does about equal damage to Rifle (Kill Shot + Volley). Actually, P/P tends to pull ahead by a couple secs usually, but I attribute that to having two sigils.

Now this isn’t conclusive evidence by any means, but I suggest you guys try messing with this stuff yourselves. It’s pretty interesting. Later on I think I will try comparing P/P berserker Unload pooling with appropriate build vs Rifle berserker Volley + Kill Shot with appropriate build. I think it’s going to be closer than everyone thinks.

EDIT: Corrected countless grammar errors…

Also, this has made wonder if the reason why Vital Shot does less damage than Bleeding Shot is to account for pistols getting two sigils.

personally id love to see a buff to it, as it can seem abit lack luster, but actually bleeds on thief… super easy

heres a nice combo…

cloak and dagger steal or any stealth skill,

walk onto point, throw cantrips, do some dodges for extra cantrips if they are immobile or point defending, distance, sneak atk… i play tpvp with condition dmg thief, one thing i love doing is taking out bunker guardians before they get to points, or taking out the nooby 100b warrior with a single caltrop.. just had a final where i had 40sec of cripple on a warrior and was just lol’ing sohard. personally i use 3c 15% bleed duration runes, and can extremely quickly get 20 stacks of bleeding on anyone.. the auto atk isnt the main source, neither is it particularly great but its ok as a gap filler between ur other combos. consider using poison field clusterbomb combo.

Gintoki.6405:

personally id love to see a buff to it, as it can seem abit lack luster, but actually bleeds on thief… super easy

heres a nice combo…

cloak and dagger steal or any stealth skill,

walk onto point, throw cantrips, do some dodges for extra cantrips if they are immobile or point defending, distance, sneak atk… i play tpvp with condition dmg thief, one thing i love doing is taking out bunker guardians before they get to points, or taking out the nooby 100b warrior with a single caltrop.. just had a final where i had 40sec of cripple on a warrior and was just lol’ing sohard. personally i use 3c 15% bleed duration runes, and can extremely quickly get 20 stacks of bleeding on anyone.. the auto atk isnt the main source, neither is it particularly great but its ok as a gap filler between ur other combos. consider using poison field clusterbomb combo.

That actually is part of the problem. Thieves get great condition abilities otherwise (I would almost argue that Caltrops are too good, they stack 2 bleeds per tick, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re bugged and it’s only supposed to be 1). Caltrops alone is good enough to make a condition oriented weapon not even worth using because Vital Shot is terribad in comparison.

In other words, even with a condition build, you’re better off running caltrops and D/D for the long duration bleeds on Death Blossom and higher front-end damage. That’s sad.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Also, this has made wonder if the reason why Vital Shot does less damage than Bleeding Shot is to account for pistols getting two sigils.

Even if this is true, it doesn’t really compensate for the difference that exists.

More than anything, I want answers on what gives with the recovery speed on autoattacks and why it varies so greatly from weapon to weapon, making activation speed a poor predictor of how fast an attack is and making the skills much harder to compare and balance on paper. It really doesn’t make any sense.

Also, it doesn’t make any sense that you killed golems twice as fast with P/D when you said that Rifles held bleed stacks better, because the Rifle’s front-end damage is higher as well. If this claim is true, it leads me to assume your Pistol was higher level/quality than your rifle.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosive_Shot

Explosive Shot is an AOE Attack. (It hits all targets around it/Bleeds All of them.)
Explosive Shot can be traited to additionally pierce, causing it to stack over when it aoes, hitting the same 2-3 targets 6 times if they are all bunched together, since each piercing shot also explodes.

Einlanzer.1627:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Also, this has made wonder if the reason why Vital Shot does less damage than Bleeding Shot is to account for pistols getting two sigils.

Even if this is true, it doesn’t really compensate for the difference that exists.

More than anything, I want answers on what gives with the recovery speed on autoattacks and why it varies so greatly from weapon to weapon, making activation speed a poor predictor of how fast an attack is and making the skills much harder to compare and balance on paper. It really doesn’t make any sense.

Also, it doesn’t make any sense that you killed golems twice as fast with P/D when you said that Rifles held bleed stacks better, because the Rifle’s front-end damage is higher as well. If this claim is true, it leads me to assume your Pistol was higher level/quality than your rifle.

Well it made sense using CaD + Sneak Attack because they both do substantial upfront damage in addition to bleeds. All of the weapons are the 80 pvp exotic weapons.

But I did some more testing today (much more testing, actually). Pistol #1 vs Rifle #1, no gear, no traits, Pistol has 5% extra crit due to extra sigil. And I’ve concluded that Rifle is, on average, killing faster. Pistol can can sometimes stay close (which is what I was seeing yesterday I guess) if it gets lucky with crits, but after testing for a more extended period Rifle is usually killing 8-10% faster.

However, this doesn’t really write-off my sigil theory. But because sigils tend to affect or be affected by most offensive abilities, and because there just so many sigils, it would be hard to actually test what kind of an effect dual-wielding has versus a two-handed weapon without having some kind of simulation program.

As I said yesterday, I was going to test P/P, full berserker, highest dps trait setup, Unload pooling vs Rifle, full berserker, highest dps trait setup, Volley + Kill Shot, but I figure a lot of people are probably going to disagree on traits (I know for P/P I personally prefer 25/30/x/x/x over x/30/x/20/x) and of course sigils, so I don’t know if I will or not. I guess I could try multiple trait setups if I get time.

I just think that sigils should certainly be taken into account in the big picture of things when it comes to class balance (although that doesn’t mean I’m against buffing VS).

Blacksarevok.8104:

Einlanzer.1627:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Also, this has made wonder if the reason why Vital Shot does less damage than Bleeding Shot is to account for pistols getting two sigils.

Even if this is true, it doesn’t really compensate for the difference that exists.

More than anything, I want answers on what gives with the recovery speed on autoattacks and why it varies so greatly from weapon to weapon, making activation speed a poor predictor of how fast an attack is and making the skills much harder to compare and balance on paper. It really doesn’t make any sense.

Also, it doesn’t make any sense that you killed golems twice as fast with P/D when you said that Rifles held bleed stacks better, because the Rifle’s front-end damage is higher as well. If this claim is true, it leads me to assume your Pistol was higher level/quality than your rifle.

Well it made sense using CaD + Sneak Attack because they both do substantial upfront damage in addition to bleeds. All of the weapons are the 80 pvp exotic weapons.

But I did some more testing today (much more testing, actually). Pistol #1 vs Rifle #1, no gear, no traits, Pistol has 5% extra crit due to extra sigil. And I’ve concluded that Rifle is, on average, killing faster. Pistol can can sometimes stay close (which is what I was seeing yesterday I guess) if it gets lucky with crits, but after testing for a more extended period Rifle is usually killing 8-10% faster.

However, this doesn’t really write-off my sigil theory. But because sigils tend to affect or be affected by most offensive abilities, and because there just so many sigils, it would be hard to actually test what kind of an effect dual-wielding has versus a two-handed weapon without having some kind of simulation program.

As I said yesterday, I was going to test P/P, full berserker, highest dps trait setup, Unload pooling vs Rifle, full berserker, highest dps trait setup, Volley + Kill Shot, but I figure a lot of people are probably going to disagree on traits (I know for P/P I personally prefer 25/30/x/x/x over x/30/x/20/x) and of course sigils, so I don’t know if I will or not. I guess I could try multiple trait setups if I get time.

I just think that sigils should certainly be taken into account in the big picture of things when it comes to class balance (although that doesn’t mean I’m against buffing VS).

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mck9wpx9Mfcacsqm – P/P Thief.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcR9wax9MxVzkVVob – Rifle Warrior. (get all signets, its the best warrior build.)

Daecollo.9578:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Einlanzer.1627:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Also, this has made wonder if the reason why Vital Shot does less damage than Bleeding Shot is to account for pistols getting two sigils.

Even if this is true, it doesn’t really compensate for the difference that exists.

More than anything, I want answers on what gives with the recovery speed on autoattacks and why it varies so greatly from weapon to weapon, making activation speed a poor predictor of how fast an attack is and making the skills much harder to compare and balance on paper. It really doesn’t make any sense.

Also, it doesn’t make any sense that you killed golems twice as fast with P/D when you said that Rifles held bleed stacks better, because the Rifle’s front-end damage is higher as well. If this claim is true, it leads me to assume your Pistol was higher level/quality than your rifle.

Well it made sense using CaD + Sneak Attack because they both do substantial upfront damage in addition to bleeds. All of the weapons are the 80 pvp exotic weapons.

But I did some more testing today (much more testing, actually). Pistol #1 vs Rifle #1, no gear, no traits, Pistol has 5% extra crit due to extra sigil. And I’ve concluded that Rifle is, on average, killing faster. Pistol can can sometimes stay close (which is what I was seeing yesterday I guess) if it gets lucky with crits, but after testing for a more extended period Rifle is usually killing 8-10% faster.

However, this doesn’t really write-off my sigil theory. But because sigils tend to affect or be affected by most offensive abilities, and because there just so many sigils, it would be hard to actually test what kind of an effect dual-wielding has versus a two-handed weapon without having some kind of simulation program.

As I said yesterday, I was going to test P/P, full berserker, highest dps trait setup, Unload pooling vs Rifle, full berserker, highest dps trait setup, Volley + Kill Shot, but I figure a lot of people are probably going to disagree on traits (I know for P/P I personally prefer 25/30/x/x/x over x/30/x/20/x) and of course sigils, so I don’t know if I will or not. I guess I could try multiple trait setups if I get time.

I just think that sigils should certainly be taken into account in the big picture of things when it comes to class balance (although that doesn’t mean I’m against buffing VS).

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mck9wpx9Mfcacsqm – P/P Thief.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcR9wax9MxVzkVVob – Rifle Warrior. (get all signets, its the best warrior build.)

What sigil for Rifle do you think? Superior Sigil of Air?

Right now I’m thinking of doing Rifle Air vs P/P Air/Accuracy, and I will also probably try P/P Air/Bloodlust because last I checked that was the highest theoretical DPS.

Daecollo.9578:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mck9wpx9Mfcacsqm – P/P Thief.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcR9wax9MxVzkVVob – Rifle Warrior. (get all signets, its the best warrior build.)

I really, really hope you’re just kidding about the signets being the “best warrior build.”

Aside from that, everyone knows P/P thief is crap. Rifle is also a raw damage weapon, so it will definitely come out on top over P/P. Although in an initial sustained DPS build, Unload could do well, Rifle is better in practice because of its range and burst.

You guys are comparing Rifle auto attack to Pistol auto attack, without even counting the fact that Rifle will never be used as a main weapon in a condition build. It has ONE ability that will help their damage in condition builds. They also don’t have stealth, a stealth attack, shadow steps, etc. You’re comparing apples to oranges and expecting them to be equal.

A sandbag test will never, ever be useful in a true balance test. There’s far too many factors that come into play.