Guild Wars 2

A change to pistol directly means changing all the other pistol combinations which could cause problems. Changing the unload skill to have a flip over for more utility similar to Flanking strike could cause more problems than solutions. A really good trait only for P/P would make it being needed baseline.

Only thing i can think of is a trait that affects all mirror weapon sets (P/P, D/D). I would say ricochet as one trait on one line that affects all mirror sets (not just P/P) for offense and a defensive one that changes the number 4 and 5 skills.

D/D’s ricochet would have deadly blossom fling daggers that still bleed on evade with a chance to bounce and P/P would be what it was.

As for what the No. 4 and 5 would be, i got no idea.

EDIT: Not sure why i limited the change to just the 4 and 5. Would be better if it was just all of them affected by the trait. This way, condi pistol keep P/D the way it is and power can take P/P while avoiding being hindered by lack of defense and useless condition damage.

Pistol offhand is fine, as are all non-Unload dual attacks with Pistol. This means the skills that need the most work are Vital Shot (Pistol #1), Body Shot (Pistol #2), and Unload.

Vital Shot is generally fine mechanically, but its numbers are off. The combination of its damage and attack speed are too low (although today’s buffs help that a tad), and the Bleed application rate simply isn’t good enough. Increasing its attack speed and upping the Bleed duration would help a lot.

Body Shot, on the other hand… oh boy, where to even begin? It’s simply awful in every possible way. The animation is so telegraphed that it is absurdly easy to dodge. The damage is so low that it might as well be non-existent (and maybe should be, so you could Body Shot people without dropping Stealth). The Vulnerability stacks are so short in duration that they’re ultimately meaningless, even more so due to how readily other professions can stack Vulnerability. While I’m not sure what a remade Body Shot would look like, it still needs a redesign without question.

That leaves Unload. While it has a lot of issues, it’s not nearly as bad as Body Shot. The biggest problem is the long channel that is easy to interrupt or avoid. The second is, of course, that it’s an Initiative hog, but this could be solved through shifting some damage off of it and onto Pistol attacks in the first two slots.

Pistol might be pretty meh right now, but it’s definitely fixable. Here’s to hoping that the added damage isn’t the only change it gets anytime soon.

It would start with 1200 range. Anyone who’s tried to use P/P thief in WvW would know that.

with daredevil and leaping through black powder (if the animations don’t suck like beta2) there might be some potential with less unload spam and more sneak attack usage/stealth

the biggest problem is probably body shot as a 4 ini immobilize for 1 second and no damage is completely useless

Body shot is definitely the weak link. The vulnerability is too short, the immobilize is a nuisance and can’t be used because the pistol doesn’t have any burst skills that would require immobilizing, and even as a projectile finisher Dancing Dagger is faster, cheaper, and more damaging.

If Body Shot were to apply vulnerability for 10 seconds and cripple for 5 seconds, then it would be a lot better. It would synchronize better with ankle shots and have a meaningful damage addition when used alongside of unload or weapon swaps. Even at this point, I’m still not sure it would be strong enough, but at least it is a start.

Also, base bleed of vital shot and sneak attack should be 5, not 4. Also, bring ricochet back. The situations in which someone would not want a bouncing projectile is extremely rare, to the point where I can’t think of an example.

Unload is fine and does not need a lot of work.

It has a number of things going for it. High damage at range. Multiple shots in a short period of time maximizing sigil and item procs. The ability to fire while moving be it strafing side to side, backpedaling are in pursuit. A great “coolness” factor which gives the feeling you have two guns blazing.

It does have the downside of eating INI but I think most theives who use P/P know how to properly manage INI.

Now testing tonight with changes INI is not as big an issue as it was before because Vital shot can now adequately fill in for when you need damage and try to conserve INI. Indeed in my build I was using the build with nothing in trickery thus less INI than most builds and was fine INI wise due to extra damage .Vital shot may still need a lowering to 1/3 of a second so 3 of these can be got off in one second (this would help bleed/condi builds) but the added damage makes a great difference.

It my opinion that body shot the key and has to be reworked to provide some sort of survival utilities. Again I think a stun break with a 1 second evade backwards as it fires crippling shots or a longer IMMOB will work. The set will still be weak to conditions lacking stealth . It will be THE kite weapon.

I do not think 1200 range needed in the set but we should get 1050 back in some manner.

Aside from Unload P/P is really useless.. You dont have any options, you cant be competing for damage or trading damage with anyone, headshot doesnt do anything in the grand scheme of things, sitting in black power for the occasional blind just gets you killed, so what is left is straight up unload spamming with a a lot of dodges and a high dependance on utilities (which means taking improvisation). At the end of the day you are left with deadly arts, acrobatics and critical strikes.

As bad as body shot is, would putting all the eggs in that basket be enough? Would only be a matter of time before the capabilities of the other classes make the set useless again if that was the only change.

The evading shot idea is pretty interesting but will it just get bad damage like flanking strike? because of it is then we will just have another S/D situation on our hands.

Ragion.2831:

As bad as body shot is, would putting all the eggs in that basket be enough? Would only be a matter of time before the capabilities of the other classes make the set useless again if that was the only change.

no it wouldn’t be enough but having 2 buttons is better than 1 for the playstyle of the set

whether it’s an evade (which would be nice but just a pull from shortbow) or even changing it to a heavier hitter with some sort of utility that would justify using the ini over unload it needs a revamp

head shot is good for a situation where you need to stop a heal/ability, and with black powder stealth dodge it could possibly add some more nuances to the set with the 100% projectile finisher blind where you don’t have to spam 3 to do any sort of damage

Obviously, range increase to 1200 & adding in ricochet as a trait would go a long way.

Vital Shot
This should be where the damage should be. IMO P/P has a great starting point for a condi Thief build. The way initiative works vs. traditional cooldowns, our autoattack should always be the highest DPS ability on a weapon. Up the bleed stacks to 5 seconds and apply a second bleed per shot.

Body Shot
Body Shot is where Pistol needs the most help. Many people think it should be changed to a sustain skill. Something that maybe grants 1-2 seconds of evasion.

Thematically it can be changed to something like Point Blank where we teleport to the target in the style of Rev’s sword 3, shoot them point blank and then teleport back to where we started. Having evasion during the entire animation. In addition to the added evasion, it would still apply the Vuln and Imob that’s on the set today.

On the teleport we’d have Shadow Step particle effects, I just want to avoid no valid path to target issues.

Unload
For Unload’s improvement I think the guns should overheat on the last few shots.

• Shot 1-5 would work the same as they do today.
• Shot 6 would Blind neaby enemies
• Shot 7 and 8 would cause Burning and Blind nearby enemies

This way the animation stays the same, you just add some smoke & ember particle effects to the last few shots. The 3 quick applications of Burning would add some utility/sustain and the Burning would fit the Pistols mainhand theme of being a condi weapon.

The base damage can be reduced to account for the two stacks of burning.

Sneak Attack
I saved Sneak Attack for after Unload so you understand the overheating concept.

Sneak Attack’s good but shot 4 and 5 should also cause Blind to nearby enemies.

Pistol off-hand is great as is.

Shalien.9018:

Obviously, range increase to 1200 & adding in ricochet as a trait would go a long way.

Vital Shot
This should be where the damage should be. IMO P/P has a great starting point for a condi Thief build. The way initiative works vs. traditional cooldowns, our autoattack should always be the highest DPS ability on a weapon. Up the bleed stacks to 5 seconds and apply a second bleed per shot.

Body Shot
Body Shot is where Pistol needs the most help. Many people think it should be changed to a sustain skill. Something that maybe grants 1-2 seconds of evasion.

Thematically it can be changed to something like Point Blank where we teleport to the target in the style of Rev’s sword 3, shoot them point blank and then teleport back to where we started. Having evasion during the entire animation. In addition to the added evasion, it would still apply the Vuln and Imob that’s on the set today.

On the teleport we’d have Shadow Step particle effects, I just want to avoid no valid path to target issues.

Unload
For Unload’s improvement I think the guns should overheat on the last few shots.

• Shot 1-5 would work the same as they do today.
• Shot 6 would Blind neaby enemies
• Shot 7 and 8 would cause Burning and Blind nearby enemies

This way the animation stays the same, you just add some smoke & ember particle effects to the last few shots. The 3 quick applications of Burning would add some utility/sustain and the Burning would fit the Pistols mainhand theme of being a condi weapon.

The base damage can be reduced to account for the two stacks of burning.

Sneak Attack
I saved Sneak Attack for after Unload so you understand the overheating concept.

Sneak Attack’s good but shot 4 and 5 should also cause Blind to nearby enemies.

Pistol off-hand is great as is.

The main problem with this is the fact you’re trying to build a condi thief build, out of P/P which is illsuited for condi, on top of thief being the worst condi in the game anyway. Unless EVERYTHING thief has and utilizes now in all weapon sets and utilities get fully redesigned, it’s really unfeasible to start converting a clear power weapon set to support condi, which is already less than lackluster. A cleansable burst every ~35-40s is bad. Very bad. The only reason people even play this is the fact that there are many “kitten s” running around who just fail to get rid of the conditions stacked on them. If a person survives the condi burst from P/P, by cleansing the stacks off, that P/P thief is “dead in the water” and after a couple more seconds, dead in the literal sense of things.

Babazhook already covered almost everything what I believe needs to be done with P/P, other than AoE capability via pierce f.ex. What to me seems to be the common theme is that the majority of people here complaining about power P/P thieves being bad, having nothing else than headless Unload spam etc. don’t actually know how it should be played.

P/P currently works as a BURST dps build. It relies on you realizing that and then capitalizing on it. There are many ways to utilize it including 1v1 situations as well as team fights. 1v1, bait the opponent into wasting his/her dodges, or just Scorpion Wire and then Haste+murder with Unload, in team fights, just pay attention to what’s happening and when you see someone “wasting” their dodges/counters, same kitten as 1v1, Haste+murder by hail of bullets. This is the short version of how it should be done and ofcourse there are other variables in both 1v1 and team fights that need to be taken into consideration, but the baseline deal is that you do NOT waste your initiative straight off the bat and hope something dies. That only works when fighting trash mobs in PvE. Both PvE boss fights and PvP are all about initiative management and managing your burst. In PvE, the focus is more on sustaining a balanced ratio of Lead Attacks via initiative and then Unloading the excess initiative, while in PvP, its about knowing when to utilize Haste+Unload burst, to get the target down VERY quickly. Unload works perfectly fine for what its meant to do. If you don’t utilize it this way, then sadly you are just playing it wrong and there’s no way to spin that around.

The problems with the set lie entirely elsewhere than Unload and its function, like I’ve been screaming all over the thief forums for the past few days.

Body shot needs to be given stronger synergy with pistols in general.

Daredevil puts p/p condi builds in a reasonable place, allowing leap-stealth to trigger sneak attack gives it a reliable ranged stealth chain. If you’re going for condis as of HoT, the daredevil build will function a lot like p/d, not leaving enough damage for unload to be practical, or like backstab D/D, not leaving enough init for death blossom to be practical.

Unlike other professions, I think it’s okay that in some configurations we have a mostly ignored skill, as our initiative and stealth attacks let us get greater use out of the remaining four, and it’s a good way to have a little build diversity even on the same weapon sets.

Body shot, however, is in a bad place as it’s an initiative hog that doesn’t work well with their condi or power p/p, or have decent synergy with P/* so really that’s where pistols need to go.

The theory here is that if body shot were more usable, power P/P would have a good init>DPS faucet, some good situational abilities in the form of headshot and black powder, and a good setup/synergy skill, and thus the only “waste” would be in the bleed on the auto/sneak, which could be totally acceptable if unload did the proper amount of damage.

So, how do we fix body shot?

Make it a literal combo skill

What if body shot marked a target for 3 seconds, and during the mark additional pistol attacks stacked a debilitating (rather than damaging) condition? The rapid fire nature of both sneak attack and unload would interact well with it.

Sneak attack’s five attacks would stack it less, but may even out with the use of condition duration gear that those builds are likely to have, while unload’s 8 attacks would pick up the slack on power builds.

So, what condition are we talking about here?

Slow and Cripple

Cripple alone isn’t a compelling reason to spend the initiative, it’s one of the easiest conditions to clear, and is often passively cleared.

Combined with slow, however, it becomes a potent sustain tool against ranged fighters. The stacking nature also serves to pressure your target in to burning dodges. If Body shot, when in effect, turned all pistol attacks in to a 1s slow/cripple, you can bet your butt people would want to dodge the majority of those rapid fire bullets.

The init cost makes it a valuable choice rather than a straight up given, using body shot to open people up to heavy slow and cripple would cut your DPS drastically, but unlike the current body shot it would be worth the sacrifice in those situations.

If we want to get really creative, we could alter it to say “all ranged attacks” in stead of “your pistol attacks” making it a powerful group support tool in line with the other CC on pistol, which might also have the effect of making venomshare builds a bit more fun to play.

In P/* builds it functions as a less powerful, but still situationally useful sustain/chase/disengage tool since you can still get some decent slow/cripple stacks from the auto.

I’d say :
- making 1050 range baseline
- replacing ankle shot with a piercing trait (and potentially +150 range).

1. 1200 range

2. Decrease Body Shot initiative to 3, make it sort of like Shortbow 3 where you evade backwards, but less distance than SB 3.

3. Make unload an AoE cleaving cone, or make ricochet baseline for it.

4. Make each unload bullet stack vuln.

5. Buff ankle shots in some way.

It would start with an announcement that a Humongous Balance Patch is coming in which they will re-work all the less desired traits/skills of all of the classes.

Proceeded by a stream beforehand about their thoughts on balance and what will/won’t be changed.

And the rest is what you guys are saying – hopefully, or it could be another 20% damage increase.

And of course a stream after release to talk about the changes in a bit more detail.

I think pistol should be power orientated, move away from condi builds. Engis already have condi pistol, thief should stick to the gunslinging archetype, high and quick burst direct damage. Remove the bleeds etc and replace with vulnerable and cripple condis on 1 + 2 to allow set up for huge burst and kite potential with unload. Offhand is fine as is. Trait wise allow for a choice between boost to single target sustain, aoe (ricochet), or more utility through say boon strip for use in pvp. Synergy with traps is ideal for pvp, not sure what for pve though. I don’t main a thief but i really like the play style especially dual pistols, don’t want to see this prof crash and burn.

I don’t know about all conditions, but Thief should be the king at delivering bleeds. With all weapons. Poison I could understand Necro being superior.

If we are to be skulking ministers of murder, than the bleed (or poison) should remain one of our trademarks. I shouldn’t be competing with an earth ele for bleeds.

BTW as to suggesting p/p terrible for condi and a thief overall bad at Conditions, I would disagree and especially with the upcoming DD spec line.

Currently in WvW at least I do very well with condi in a d/d build and a p/d build works as well. Both a little underwhelming when compared to the other classes but the change to potent poison along with the addition of dd traitline will push those builds upwards.

P/P does work with condi and quite well at that if interrupts timed for pressure strike (which I think warrants one more stack torment given the need of that timing) and is coupled with some form of stealth such as trappers runes meaning of course in PvP it would not fare so well.

The larger issue with p/p as condi is that lack of stealth in the set along with the lack of get away/survival type utilities which generally end up with you being dead before your DOT has time to work , thus the need to kite and down him in short bursts.

In my own P/P build come HOT time I will likely not use bounding dodger. I am going to use unhindered combat to move around the battle field along with Trapper runes which will cause loss of target as I relocate for another sneak attack. Dash will also help greatly to help address the other major issue with p/p and that when in pursuit of an enemy low on health who pulls back out of range to regen health and get skills off cooldown.

Now with that dash and the extra dodge , there may not be as much onus on making number 2 another evade and I am prepared to accept some other function. As example I had suggested perhaps it become a type of tracer shot that allows you to fire on a target forming a tether of sorts this allowing all followup attacks to hit that target and only that target for the next 5 seconds even if stealthed. It can be that extra evade. it can be more vuln stacks that last longer along with a longer Immob.

It might behoove us to have patience on that particular skill so as to ascertain just how well the set works survival wise with the full HOT release so we can really be certain on what lacking and not just double up skills to the point no one will use it because there another better source.

Shimekiri.1580:

Shalien.9018:

Obviously, range increase to 1200 & adding in ricochet as a trait would go a long way.

Vital Shot
This should be where the damage should be. IMO P/P has a great starting point for a condi Thief build. The way initiative works vs. traditional cooldowns, our autoattack should always be the highest DPS ability on a weapon. Up the bleed stacks to 5 seconds and apply a second bleed per shot.

Body Shot
Body Shot is where Pistol needs the most help. Many people think it should be changed to a sustain skill. Something that maybe grants 1-2 seconds of evasion.

Thematically it can be changed to something like Point Blank where we teleport to the target in the style of Rev’s sword 3, shoot them point blank and then teleport back to where we started. Having evasion during the entire animation. In addition to the added evasion, it would still apply the Vuln and Imob that’s on the set today.

On the teleport we’d have Shadow Step particle effects, I just want to avoid no valid path to target issues.

Unload
For Unload’s improvement I think the guns should overheat on the last few shots.

• Shot 1-5 would work the same as they do today.
• Shot 6 would Blind neaby enemies
• Shot 7 and 8 would cause Burning and Blind nearby enemies

This way the animation stays the same, you just add some smoke & ember particle effects to the last few shots. The 3 quick applications of Burning would add some utility/sustain and the Burning would fit the Pistols mainhand theme of being a condi weapon.

The base damage can be reduced to account for the two stacks of burning.

Sneak Attack
I saved Sneak Attack for after Unload so you understand the overheating concept.

Sneak Attack’s good but shot 4 and 5 should also cause Blind to nearby enemies.

Pistol off-hand is great as is.

The main problem with this is the fact you’re trying to build a condi thief build, out of P/P which is illsuited for condi, on top of thief being the worst condi in the game anyway. Unless EVERYTHING thief has and utilizes now in all weapon sets and utilities get fully redesigned, it’s really unfeasible to start converting a clear power weapon set to support condi, which is already less than lackluster.

For P/P the dual wield skill is the one off. Everything pistol main hand is condition. Pistol off-hand is also condition. It makes sense for Thief to have access to a condition damage build and P/x is a good place to start since it’s the only Stealth Attack we have that causes condition damage.

Like half of the dual wield skills, Unload just doesn’t fit the actual weapons it’s attached to. As long as we keep our dual skills as hybrids that don’t fit a weapon set’s damage types, we’re going to remain stuck with D/P as our only real option.

Shalien.9018:

Shimekiri.1580:

Shalien.9018:

Obviously, range increase to 1200 & adding in ricochet as a trait would go a long way.

Vital Shot
This should be where the damage should be. IMO P/P has a great starting point for a condi Thief build. The way initiative works vs. traditional cooldowns, our autoattack should always be the highest DPS ability on a weapon. Up the bleed stacks to 5 seconds and apply a second bleed per shot.

Body Shot
Body Shot is where Pistol needs the most help. Many people think it should be changed to a sustain skill. Something that maybe grants 1-2 seconds of evasion.

Thematically it can be changed to something like Point Blank where we teleport to the target in the style of Rev’s sword 3, shoot them point blank and then teleport back to where we started. Having evasion during the entire animation. In addition to the added evasion, it would still apply the Vuln and Imob that’s on the set today.

On the teleport we’d have Shadow Step particle effects, I just want to avoid no valid path to target issues.

Unload
For Unload’s improvement I think the guns should overheat on the last few shots.

• Shot 1-5 would work the same as they do today.
• Shot 6 would Blind neaby enemies
• Shot 7 and 8 would cause Burning and Blind nearby enemies

This way the animation stays the same, you just add some smoke & ember particle effects to the last few shots. The 3 quick applications of Burning would add some utility/sustain and the Burning would fit the Pistols mainhand theme of being a condi weapon.

The base damage can be reduced to account for the two stacks of burning.

Sneak Attack
I saved Sneak Attack for after Unload so you understand the overheating concept.

Sneak Attack’s good but shot 4 and 5 should also cause Blind to nearby enemies.

Pistol off-hand is great as is.

The main problem with this is the fact you’re trying to build a condi thief build, out of P/P which is illsuited for condi, on top of thief being the worst condi in the game anyway. Unless EVERYTHING thief has and utilizes now in all weapon sets and utilities get fully redesigned, it’s really unfeasible to start converting a clear power weapon set to support condi, which is already less than lackluster.

For P/P the dual wield skill is the one off. Everything pistol main hand is condition. Pistol off-hand is also condition. It makes sense for Thief to have access to a condition damage build and P/x is a good place to start since it’s the only Stealth Attack we have that causes condition damage.

Like half of the dual wield skills, Unload just doesn’t fit the actual weapons it’s attached to. As long as we keep our dual skills as hybrids that don’t fit a weapon set’s damage types, we’re going to remain stuck with D/P as our only real option.

I had suggested Vulnerability be moved to unload from number 2 so as to make that skill usable in a condition build as well. That said in its current state if you use Conditions in p/p build unload DOES have limited use if firing into a combo field.

babazhook.6805:

Shalien.9018:

Shimekiri.1580:

Shalien.9018:

Obviously, range increase to 1200 & adding in ricochet as a trait would go a long way.

Vital Shot
This should be where the damage should be. IMO P/P has a great starting point for a condi Thief build. The way initiative works vs. traditional cooldowns, our autoattack should always be the highest DPS ability on a weapon. Up the bleed stacks to 5 seconds and apply a second bleed per shot.

Body Shot
Body Shot is where Pistol needs the most help. Many people think it should be changed to a sustain skill. Something that maybe grants 1-2 seconds of evasion.

Thematically it can be changed to something like Point Blank where we teleport to the target in the style of Rev’s sword 3, shoot them point blank and then teleport back to where we started. Having evasion during the entire animation. In addition to the added evasion, it would still apply the Vuln and Imob that’s on the set today.

On the teleport we’d have Shadow Step particle effects, I just want to avoid no valid path to target issues.

Unload
For Unload’s improvement I think the guns should overheat on the last few shots.

• Shot 1-5 would work the same as they do today.
• Shot 6 would Blind neaby enemies
• Shot 7 and 8 would cause Burning and Blind nearby enemies

This way the animation stays the same, you just add some smoke & ember particle effects to the last few shots. The 3 quick applications of Burning would add some utility/sustain and the Burning would fit the Pistols mainhand theme of being a condi weapon.

The base damage can be reduced to account for the two stacks of burning.

Sneak Attack
I saved Sneak Attack for after Unload so you understand the overheating concept.

Sneak Attack’s good but shot 4 and 5 should also cause Blind to nearby enemies.

Pistol off-hand is great as is.

The main problem with this is the fact you’re trying to build a condi thief build, out of P/P which is illsuited for condi, on top of thief being the worst condi in the game anyway. Unless EVERYTHING thief has and utilizes now in all weapon sets and utilities get fully redesigned, it’s really unfeasible to start converting a clear power weapon set to support condi, which is already less than lackluster.

For P/P the dual wield skill is the one off. Everything pistol main hand is condition. Pistol off-hand is also condition. It makes sense for Thief to have access to a condition damage build and P/x is a good place to start since it’s the only Stealth Attack we have that causes condition damage.

Like half of the dual wield skills, Unload just doesn’t fit the actual weapons it’s attached to. As long as we keep our dual skills as hybrids that don’t fit a weapon set’s damage types, we’re going to remain stuck with D/P as our only real option.

I had suggested Vulnerability be moved to unload from number 2 so as to make that skill usable in a condition build as well. That said in its current state if you use Conditions in p/p build unload DOES have limited use if firing into a combo field.

Yeah, I’m not talking about limited use though. We are pretty much stuck with 1 real competitive weapon set, we should have our rework suggestions be based around making other weapon sets competitive.

Body Shot – Remove the vulnerability stacks, they’re laughable anyways. Add a short distance (shorter than SB #3) backwards evade that also counts as a leap finisher. Congratulations, P/P made infinitely more viable along with something new to P/D as well. If you feel that the one second of immob is too much with this change, remove it too. Honestly though, it would only give you time to get most of a sneak attack off as long as you used it immediately after stealthing via black powder + body shot leap

EDIT: Wishful thinking, but an awesome new animation for this evasive body shot would be the mid-air spin shot from the Deadpool trailer. Just super saiyan.

I am personally enjoying the Pistol/Pistol weaponset. All it needs imo is:

1200 range
Double bleed duration from stealth (or double stack preferably)
Autos always apply bleed but also apply another random damaging condition
Body Shot condition durations doubled
Unload keeps its current damage, but shoots 6 shots (to speed it up)+100% proj fin
Head Shot daze becomes stun (same duration)
Black Powder gets unnerfed

But the pistols on their own right now are pretty lethal. Just gimme my dang range already.

The first and most important thing it needs is an effective autoattack. While this should be a high priority for any set in the game, it’s especially important for Thieves due to how Initiative works. It’s dysfunctional having most of your DPS (Unload) competing with defensive and utility skills for resources.

P/P would be far, far more effective if Vital Shot operated as the staple damage source while Unload was switched into a more supplementary/utilitarian role, such as an AoE. This is not rocket science, and it’s unbelievable that it’s been 3 years and is only just now being discussed. It’s very, very difficult to not question the competence of the balance team in charge of Thieves.

PopeUrban.2578:

What if body shot marked a target for 3 seconds, and during the mark additional pistol attacks stacked a debilitating (rather than damaging) condition? The rapid fire nature of both sneak attack and unload would interact well with it.

I like this idea!

When I thought about this, the best I came up with was: P 4 + 5 are fine so re work the initial ones. Pistol should be a condi weapon. With that in mind:

p/p 3 unload renamed: Scatter shot. Teleport to your target, unload an explosion of buckshot (causing high bleeding) then shadow step back to your original location before the back fire. (The back fire causes you to release a blast and I toyed with the idea of the utility BP but that seemed too strong) This allows p/p to have some maneuverability, and most importantly a way to gain stealth 5 —> 3 (so some survivalbility position and access to stealth 1)

Pistol 1: Turn this into a 3 part attack. First applies bleeding second torment last poison in addition to our poison GM in DA being made to work with our condi weapon (pistol) this would give pistol a way to stack condi’s more consistently.

pistol 2: largely remains the same, maybe tack torment on it.

idea: body shot causes pulmonary embolism along with the immobilize but does no initial damage

has a use from stealth and adds a little burst to both condi and power without being spammable if the embolism just refreshes without blowing up on reapply

Ravoku.1852:

Body Shot – Remove the vulnerability stacks, they’re laughable anyways. Add a short distance (shorter than SB #3) backwards evade that also counts as a leap finisher. Congratulations, P/P made infinitely more viable along with something new to P/D as well. If you feel that the one second of immob is too much with this change, remove it too. Honestly though, it would only give you time to get most of a sneak attack off as long as you used it immediately after stealthing via black powder + body shot leap

EDIT: Wishful thinking, but an awesome new animation for this evasive body shot would be the mid-air spin shot from the Deadpool trailer. Just super saiyan.

Could there please be some John Woo-style doves that come flying out every time you do this evade?

Froptimus.6741:

Ravoku.1852:

Body Shot – Remove the vulnerability stacks, they’re laughable anyways. Add a short distance (shorter than SB #3) backwards evade that also counts as a leap finisher. Congratulations, P/P made infinitely more viable along with something new to P/D as well. If you feel that the one second of immob is too much with this change, remove it too. Honestly though, it would only give you time to get most of a sneak attack off as long as you used it immediately after stealthing via black powder + body shot leap

EDIT: Wishful thinking, but an awesome new animation for this evasive body shot would be the mid-air spin shot from the Deadpool trailer. Just super saiyan.

Could there please be some John Woo-style doves that come flying out every time you do this evade?

Better yet, just use whatever mail carrier you have chosen as the effect! :P