Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been toying around with some builds and so far in PuGs I’ve been enjoying myself with pistol/pistol.

http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/thief#1.1.3.0-3.8.7.14.2-20.30.0.0.20-11.2.13.12.5.12.11

I have shortbow there basically for mobility purposes.

I’m using Runes of Divinity, I have Sigil of Superior Ice on my MH and Force on my OH, and Beserkers Amulet with the Beserkers gem in it.

So far I’ve been able to easily kite people around with the caltrop dodge and most ranged fights I can win easily with the blinds.

Just wanted to know if theres any actual competitive pistol/pistol builds that work for both pvp/pve?

From a pvp perspective, most ppl will tell u its not viable but it def is.. After a lot of practice, I think pp is best as a secondary weapon set, instead of sb.. If u added haste to your build u can kill a player in 3s at range. Very lethal

But, imo, it’s best to use pp with a melee set and switch between the two constantly.. I use leaching vemon with spider venom, if you combine that, with shadow refuge and sneak attack u steal about 4.5k of health, add that to the 2.5 k raw dmg, and 5 bleed stacks then follow up with a 6k unload.. Opponents are shocked u can do that mid fight after switching from melee… It’s a very dynamic build and tons of fun

My impression from sPvP/tPvP is that:
1.They are Rare.
2.They are not quite viable.Maybe i didn’t met a experienced P/P thief yet.Maybe bomber is right,but this will be still “best secondary weapon set”.What i get from your post is that you enjoy pistols and you want it for primarily set.Maybe you should try SPvP,where gear is for free,do some tests and see for yourself.Kiting with caltops is not that easy in PvP as in PvE , ppl have quite a few charge-rush-shadowstep like abilites,also cripple and chill effects.In this build you have literally NO way of going Stealth,neither you invested in Shadow arts and/or Acrobatics trait line.Black Powder and dodge just will not be enough to survive.Once the enemy burst players recognize you as an easy prey,it will only get worse and worse.You need more survivabilty.

Lack of a stealth skill is the killer of P/P. Seeing as every weapon set we own has varying degree’s of a powerful/useful stealth skill 1, being unable to use it without packing a stealth utility (long CD), is a killer.

Katsumoto.9452:

Lack of a stealth skill is the killer of P/P. Seeing as every weapon set we own has varying degree’s of a powerful/useful stealth skill 1, being unable to use it without packing a stealth utility (long CD), is a killer.

Actually, the killer of P/P is Vital Shot. Due to either a bug or a design oversight, it is intended to have a faster rate of fire than it actually does, so both the direct damage and the bleed stacking are very subpar compared to other weapons. It should do roughly 50% more damage than it actually does.

Body shot is disgusting.

PvE? Yes, full berserkers, 0/30/0/20/20 picking up initiative regain and damage. With that a P/P rogue can spam 3 ALL day long for kittenloads of damage. You also have the survivability from Black Powder and dodges. The on demand boss interrupting of headshot. And finally the lack of dependence on any utility skill makes it so you can bring whatever skill best suits the fight, calatropes for kiteing, venom for heal heavy bosses, ECT… you also turn steal into a massive support skill giving everyone fury might swiftness vigor and 2 of the enemy buffs without kittening your dps.

Best team buffs
Highest Applied DPS
Survivability up the kitten
No condition overlap.

shortbow= best secondary and best primary… shortbow in right hands is just horrifically awesome.

Scootabuser.4915:

PvE? Yes, full berserkers, 0/30/0/20/20 picking up initiative regain and damage. With that a P/P rogue can spam 3 ALL day long for kittenloads of damage. You also have the survivability from Black Powder and dodges. The on demand boss interrupting of headshot. And finally the lack of dependence on any utility skill makes it so you can bring whatever skill best suits the fight, calatropes for kiteing, venom for heal heavy bosses, ECT… you also turn steal into a massive support skill giving everyone fury might swiftness vigor and 2 of the enemy buffs without kittening your dps.

Best team buffs
Highest Applied DPS
Survivability up the kitten
No condition overlap.

What P/P brings to the table in PvE is relatively safe ranged damage with access to the nice utility of the pistol offhand. You’re mistaken about applied DPS though. Unload spam doesn’t even do as much as sword or dagger auto attack. P/P also lacks AE capability, which is a heavy weakness to have in open-world PvE and even many dungeons.

I’d like to point out that I run S/x in PvE and have just as much malleability in my utility skills. For group situations I, too, can run boons-on-steal. What I don’t have is the safety of 900 range.

That said, P/P is absolutely a great choice in some fights. For the Dredge fractal boss, for instance, no other weapon set gives interrupts-on-demand while delivering enough raw power based DPS to consistently burn down the boss while kiting. Same idea with the grawl fractal boss, high hit volume is a great way to wear down the shield and pistol’s range means constant DPS uptime even while staying mobile.

I might be a minority here but I’ve stuck with D/D, P/P thief sense beta and it works well for me in both pve and wvw. Maybe people least expect a P/P thief running around in wvw (I don’t know lol) but I’ve gotten plenty of kills in before I go down (I’ve taken 2 invaders at a time before). It would be nice however if P/P had one aoe skill, cause thief’s don’t have much for aoe other then the bow. Anyways, with practice, a P/P thief can do well in both pve and wvw.

I haven’t tried pvp yet tho, so I can’t vouch for that yet.

I’d say p/p is quite efficient at killing. However bringing that into DE’s may be less than rewarding as the shortbow offers the best bang for your buck in mob tapping, paired with Caltrops and Uncatchable you are an unstoppable bleeding machine. If DE’s aren’t your thing, by all means prove those that say p/p isn’t good wrong. I prefer p/p, it’s more fun, imho, but tagging mobs sucks without sb.

Guys, come on. It’s very obvious that Pistol MH does extremely subpar damage. It’s also very obvious that this is due the fact that #1 doesn’t fire as rapidly as it is supposed to due either to a bug/mislabeled tooltip or to animation/GCD issues.

I really, really don’t understand how this isn’t more obvious to people. I immediately noted that something was off after spending a lot of time as a rifle warrior and then starting a thief. The firing speed is almost exactly the same on the two weapons even though Vital Shot is significantly weaker, with shorter duration bleeds and closer range than Bleeding Shot; the former is very clearly intended to be faster. If you don’t believe me, here:

Bleeding Shot:
Damage – 155
Bleeding – 6 seconds
Range – 1200 yards
Activation (tooltip) – 3/4 second
Actual Recast – .8 – .9 seconds

Vital Shot:
Damage – 134
Bleeding – 4 seconds
Range – 900 yards
Activation (tooltip) – 1/2 second
Actual Recast – .8 – .9 seconds

I thought p/p thief didn’t use anything but unload
so skill 1 doesn’t matter

Tulisin.6945:

Scootabuser.4915:

PvE? Yes, full berserkers, 0/30/0/20/20 picking up initiative regain and damage. With that a P/P rogue can spam 3 ALL day long for kittenloads of damage. You also have the survivability from Black Powder and dodges. The on demand boss interrupting of headshot. And finally the lack of dependence on any utility skill makes it so you can bring whatever skill best suits the fight, calatropes for kiteing, venom for heal heavy bosses, ECT… you also turn steal into a massive support skill giving everyone fury might swiftness vigor and 2 of the enemy buffs without kittening your dps.

Best team buffs
Highest Applied DPS
Survivability up the kitten
No condition overlap.

What P/P brings to the table in PvE is relatively safe ranged damage with access to the nice utility of the pistol offhand. You’re mistaken about applied DPS though. Unload spam doesn’t even do as much as sword or dagger auto attack. P/P also lacks AE capability, which is a heavy weakness to have in open-world PvE and even many dungeons.

I’d like to point out that I run S/x in PvE and have just as much malleability in my utility skills. For group situations I, too, can run boons-on-steal. What I don’t have is the safety of 900 range.

That said, P/P is absolutely a great choice in some fights. For the Dredge fractal boss, for instance, no other weapon set gives interrupts-on-demand while delivering enough raw power based DPS to consistently burn down the boss while kiting. Same idea with the grawl fractal boss, high hit volume is a great way to wear down the shield and pistol’s range means constant DPS uptime even while staying mobile.

You’ve been reading too much of the forums, let me blow your mind…

D/D may have more DPS, but I mis-typed. I meant to clarify as DAMAGE DONE.

Take a D/D rogue against some bosses and a P/P rogue against a verity of bosses. And by the end of the fight the P/P will have done more damage.

There are very few bosses that you can actually do more damage with D/D then P/P.

(I do have D/D for those few bosses though in my back pack

It is kinda sad I am only doing ~1,318 instead of ~2,653 DPS, approximately 50% of the dmg, spamming the ‘1’ button.

http://veil.enjin.com/forum/m/6641013/viewthread/4909366-king-thieves-thief-dual-pistol-build/post/last#last

This is what I’ve been running, and I find it pretty good. I keep a sword as a secondary weapon (which makes it Sword/Pistol) and my unloads can crit all the way up into the 10k’s with full exotic berserker gear. It’s definitely a glass cannon build, but you certainly can dish out the damage.

I find P/P is a good combination. You get plenty of utility with Headshot and Black Powder, and Unload spam is a ridiculously easy way to deal lots of single target damage from a safe 900 range.

Amiron.1067:

You get plenty of utility with Headshot and Black Powder, and Unload spam is a ridiculously easy way to deal lots of single target damage from a safe 900 range.

The only problem I have with this thinking is that the former is inhibited by the latter. If you’re feeding your initiative into Unload to keep DPS stable then you don’t readily have the initiative pool available to use the great off-hand pistol utilities. Compare to S/P which does more DPS than Unload without spending any initiative, leaving the entire pool available for Headshot/BP at the cost of being in more dangerous melee range. If pistol auto attack ever does get a boost I think there will be more room for a condition+utility based build that uses pistol auto attacks to conserve initiative and takes full advantage of the 4/5 utility.

Yes, if all you do is Unload spam then you are getting no utility usage out of P/P and that is in fact the only viable way to use P/P.

Once again, read: Vital Shot’s attack speed is broken, and it ruins the set. You may manage to do decent DPS spamming Unload but that means you get zero utility out of the set. And if you aren’t spamming Unload so that you can use any utility whatsoever, you’re doing wretched DPS.

The set is borked, face it, and it will be until they fix Vital Shot’s attack speed.

Tulisin.6945:

Amiron.1067:

You get plenty of utility with Headshot and Black Powder, and Unload spam is a ridiculously easy way to deal lots of single target damage from a safe 900 range.

The only problem I have with this thinking is that the former is inhibited by the latter. If you’re feeding your initiative into Unload to keep DPS stable then you don’t readily have the initiative pool available to use the great off-hand pistol utilities. Compare to S/P which does more DPS than Unload without spending any initiative, leaving the entire pool available for Headshot/BP at the cost of being in more dangerous melee range. If pistol auto attack ever does get a boost I think there will be more room for a condition+utility based build that uses pistol auto attacks to conserve initiative and takes full advantage of the 4/5 utility.

But the thing is, between Quick Recovery, Infiltrator’s Signet, Preparedness, Opportunist, and Kelptomaniac, I never run out of initiative. I always have enough up for at least one Headshot, and if I don’t, I have plenty of ways to replenish initiative fast enough so that I can get a Headshot off.

In short, why go for all utility or all damage when you can do both with some simple initiative management?

EDIT: For further understanding…
-Kelptomaniac = +3 initiative per Steal.
-Quick Recovery = +2 Initiative every 10 seconds.
-Preparedeness = +3 Maximum initiative.
-Opportunist = 20% chance to replenish 1 initiative on a critical strike. (procs all the time with Unload.)
-Infiltrator’s Signet = +1 Initiative per 10 seconds. (Stacks with Quick Recovery).

At this point no.

they need to make the stealth shot a headshot instead of the redundant bleed shots that they have right now. Think about it, the whole idea of shooting someone that can’t dodge the attack because they don’t know it’s coming is to make it deadly.

having a headshot style damage shot coming out of stealth is the best option for that. The pistol’s version of the backstab.

And don’t get me started on how low the chance that bullets will pierce or bounce making farming impossible in places like Orr.

Hardly hit anything. This is supposed to be the most agile of the professions, no one can convince me that thieves can’t ricochet more often then this. 5 enemies should be the max of course but mine never reaches that many while fighting large groups.

This combined with the “slow as a rifle” shot system they have right now is just not right. It’s supposed to be like the wild wild west where the quick and the dead (the dead being those too slow to keep up).

Why are the pistol shots so slow btw what is up with that? Is it a bug? Is there a fix coming?

And shooting from stealth has GOT to change, there’s gotta be like a headshot or some BIG damage shot one can do from stealth that will do burst damage because this tiny bleeding pellets thing should be for warriors not thieves that can shoot you in the head to kill you. What happened to this profession being a balance between the swashbuckler, the rogue, the assassin, aren’t those the archtypes we should be working with?

There’s no real stealing, they nerfed pistol whipping, there are no mechanics in pve for longer stealth periods like 1 minute, there’s no sapping, there’s no distraction techniques to make enemies turn around look behind them, all of the teleports put you right in the face of the enemy instead of behind them, and pistols don’t function properly (ie slow shots, no headshot from stealth rather then an already present twice multishot bleed, seriously it’s there twice. No off hand AND dual pistols do we really need a third option for slow bleeds instead of burst damage for a stealth shot?)

Einlanzer.1627:

Yes, if all you do is Unload spam then you are getting no utility usage out of P/P and that is in fact the only viable way to use P/P.

Once again, read: Vital Shot’s attack speed is broken, and it ruins the set. You may manage to do decent DPS spamming Unload but that means you get zero utility out of the set. And if you aren’t spamming Unload so that you can use any utility whatsoever, you’re doing wretched DPS.

The set is borked, face it, and it will be until they fix Vital Shot’s attack speed.

Speeding up Vital Shot isn’t magically going to make the set good. You’ve literally brought this up in every thread (with no real evidence to support it, for all we know it’s working as intended and Arenanet just forgot to update the tooltip). Most of the tooltips are either straight up wrong or don’t update properly, so it wouldn’t be surprising. For example, PW says it hits 1 + 8 times, but the animation only swings 1 + 4 times. Warrior Axe #5 is also only hitting 7 (or is it 8? I forget) times, but the tooltip says 15. So unless the devs come out and say these abilities are broken, it’s just as likely they could be working as intended and just haven’t had their tooltips updated.

Speeding up VS would be a buff to P/D more than a buff to P/P. Vital Shots base damage is absolutely pitiful and makes up such a small percentage of P/P’s damage (when traited correctly) that speeding up ability by 30-40% really wouldn’t do much without a damage buff to go with it. Not to mention it still leaves the kit in a very niche situation (single target ranged dps). #2 will still be useless, and #5 will still remain mostly unused (although I will admit that any Vital Shot buff will simultaneously make Black Powder more useful).

But yeah, on topic, P/P is certainly viable for PVE. It’s almost mandatory in some dungeons unless you want to completely trash your damage for melee survivability, and Headshot is extremely useful from stopping Karka from destroying you in one channel. Theoretically D/D will put out more numbers, but I feel like the forums underestimate the usefulness of range single target DPS. P/P certainly needs work, but issues it has are more with the fact that don’t use half your abilities, not so much with the damage.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Einlanzer.1627:

Yes, if all you do is Unload spam then you are getting no utility usage out of P/P and that is in fact the only viable way to use P/P.

Once again, read: Vital Shot’s attack speed is broken, and it ruins the set. You may manage to do decent DPS spamming Unload but that means you get zero utility out of the set. And if you aren’t spamming Unload so that you can use any utility whatsoever, you’re doing wretched DPS.

The set is borked, face it, and it will be until they fix Vital Shot’s attack speed.

Speeding up Vital Shot isn’t magically going to make the set good. You’ve literally brought this up in every thread (with no real evidence to support it, for all we know it’s working as intended and Arenanet just forgot to update the tooltip). Most of the tooltips are either straight up wrong or don’t update properly, so it wouldn’t be surprising. For example, PW says it hits 1 + 8 times, but the animation only swings 1 + 4 times. Warrior Axe #5 is also only hitting 7 (or is it 8? I forget) times, but the tooltip says 15. So unless the devs come out and say these abilities are broken, it’s just as likely they could be working as intended and just haven’t had their tooltips updated.

Speeding up VS would be a buff to P/D more than a buff to P/P. Vital Shots base damage is absolutely pitiful and makes up such a small percentage of P/P’s damage (when traited correctly) that speeding up ability by 30-40% really wouldn’t do much without a damage buff to go with it. Not to mention it still leaves the kit in a very niche situation (single target ranged dps). #2 will still be useless, and #5 will still remain mostly unused (although I will admit that any Vital Shot buff will simultaneously make Black Powder more useful).

But yeah, on topic, P/P is certainly viable for PVE. It’s almost mandatory in some dungeons unless you want to completely trash your damage for melee survivability, and Headshot is extremely useful from stopping Karka from destroying you in one channel. Theoretically D/D will put out more numbers, but I feel like the forums underestimate the usefulness of range single target DPS. P/P certainly needs work, but issues it has are more with the fact that don’t use half your abilities, not so much with the damage.

Sorry, but every single point you attempted to make here is wrong.

First, it takes a lot of denseness to think that pistols firing as slowly as rifles, especially when its contrary to the activation speed, is “working as intended”, especially given the obviously and laughably weak damage that Vital Shot puts out combined with its reduced range relative to other #1 skills (such as, say, Bleeding Shot).

Second, yes, speeding up Vital shot would in fact ‘magically’ make the set at least decent if not good; it would allow it to be properly used as the bleed stacking weapon with power utility (the opposite of D/D) it’s supposed to be. Unload is meant to supplement the sustained condition damage of Vital Shot, not vice versa. Speeding up Vital Shot by 40% would be a dramatic increase in DPS regardless of OH because you’d be able to maintain 9 or so bleed stacks like every other bleed stacking weapon can instead of struggling to maintain 5. This isn’t rocket science, I have no idea how it isn’t 100% clear to anyone.

Third, Body shot is only useless when you’re alone. It’s not at all useless in a group, and especially wouldn’t be useless if you could manage decent sustained damage through Vital Shot instead of having to destroy Initiative by endlessly spamming Unload to make the set halfway effective.

Fourth, Pistol Whip swings 4 times, but hits 9 times during those swings, so the tooltip is accurate.

Fifth, Black Powder is amazing, it can almost single handedly make you invincible against multiple targets in melee range, although a stealth field would certainly be nice.

/end rant.

Einlanzer.1627:

Third, Body shot is only useless when you’re alone. It’s not at all useless in a group, and especially wouldn’t be useless if you could manage decent sustained damage through Vital Shot instead of having to destroy Initiative by endlessly spamming Unload to make the set halfway effective.

Unless you’re running a lower-than-average damage build as a thief, Body Shot may only barely pay for itself at 4/5 group members, and that is only in comparison to using other pistol attacks. “Alone” is far from the only situation where Body Shot is terrible.

Tulisin.6945:

Einlanzer.1627:

Third, Body shot is only useless when you’re alone. It’s not at all useless in a group, and especially wouldn’t be useless if you could manage decent sustained damage through Vital Shot instead of having to destroy Initiative by endlessly spamming Unload to make the set halfway effective.

Unless you’re running a lower-than-average damage build as a thief, Body Shot may only barely pay for itself at 4/5 group members, and that is only in comparison to using other pistol attacks. “Alone” is far from the only situation where Body Shot is terrible.

The point I was making is that a lot of the reason why Body Shot feels terrible is because Unload spamming is required for the set to even deal halfway decent DPS. Therefore, even casting a single instance of Body Shot ends up excessively crippling the damage you’re dealing, so of course it isn’t worth it.

Now, sure, the Vulnerability should last longer, or perhaps they should just change the skill altogether, but it is not single-handedly breaking MH Pistol, that would be Vital Shot.

I don’t mean to come across as Vital Shot zealot, but I’m telling you all this is the problem with MH Pistols and it also affects Engineer’s MH Pistol and Longbows for both Warriors and Rangers. It desperately needs to be brought to the devs’ attention. Everything else is very, very peripheral in comparison.

As a general purpose weapon set, no, it’s not viable – main hand pistol is a weak weapon. Its only good skill is sneak attack, and you have no reliable way to pop in and out of stealth with an off-hand pistol. It provides no utility whatsoever and deals weak single target damage; if that is what you want you’d be better off picking pretty much any other class in the game.

It does have some niche uses though; while you’d never bring a thief for the pistol damage, it does deal slightly better single target DPS than the short bow, and it allows you to use an off-hand pistol (which does have useful skills). So against the handful of bosses that are totally toxic to melee, with no adds, that also demand constant interruption, pistol has a role for just that encounter. So you might as well keep one in your pack for the occasional niche use.

It really has no business being one of your main sets though – it’s worse than short bow in so many ways that there really isn’t even a contest between the two.

Einlanzer.1627:

Sorry, but every single point you attempted to make here is wrong.

First, it takes a lot of denseness to think that pistols firing as slowly as rifles, especially when its contrary to the activation speed is “working as intended”, especially given the obviously and laughably weak damage that Vital Shot puts out combined with its reduced range relative to other #1 skills (such as, say Bleeding Shot).

Second, yes, speeding up Vital shot would in fact make the set much better because it would allow it to be properly used as the bleed stacking weapon with power utility (the opposite of D/D) it’s supposed to be. Unload is meant to supplement the sustained condition damage of Vital Shot, not vice versa. Speeding up Vital Shot by 40% would be a dramatic increase in DPS regardless of OH because you’d be able to maintain 9 or so bleed stacks like every other bleed stacking weapon can instead of struggling to maintain 5. This isn’t rocket science, I have no idea how it isn’t 100% clear to anyone.

Third, Body shot is only useless when you’re alone. It’s not at all useless in a group, and especially wouldn’t be useless if you could manage decent sustained damage through Vital Shot instead of having to destroy Initiative by endlessly spamming Unload to make the set halfway effective.

Fourth, Pistol Whip swings 4 times, but hits 9 times during those swings, so the tooltip is accurate.

Fifth, Black Powder is amazing, it can almost single handedly make you invincible against multiple targets in melee range, although a stealth field would certainly be nice.

/end rant.

1.) Again, you are assuming here. It does weak damage. I totally agree that it needs to be buffed. However as I said, it’s just as likely that the tooltip could be wrong as it could be the tooltip is right and the function is wrong. You keep comparing it to Rifle #1, but how do you know the intended for Pistol #1 and Rifle #1 to do the same damage?

2.)Once again, assuming. You are assuming that P/P is intended to be played in one fashion (condition damage build) without any real evidence to back up the claim. Did the devs ever come out and say “P/P can’t be played as pwr/crit. We want you to play it as bleed stacking solely, sorry”. If that was the case, then explain D/D? Why are all of D/D’s abilities in favor of pwr/crit, but not DB? Or Warrior Rifle, Rifle #1 is obviously way too slow to effectively be used as a condition damage build, so does that need to be speed up to? Not to mention, if they did speed up VS, Unload spam would STILL BE VIABLE, it not BETTER than P/P bleeds, you’d likely just run 25/30/0/0/15 instead of 0/30/0/20/20 because the VS buff would be more beneficial to that build.

3.) Okay, I suppose you are right, Body Shot isn’t totally useless. It’s a decent opener But lets be real here, NOBODY is taking a Thief to a dungeon for Body Shot spamming. Especially when you can bring vulnerability via Sundering Strikes + Unload. It won’t be as much vulnerability, but you won’t be giving up all of your damage to apply it either. The only time Body Shot would truly be useful is in large scale encounters, but with the vulnerability cap it’s pointless.

4.) It physically only swings 5 times. Regardless though, a better example is Warrior axe. As I said, it’s says it performs 15 attacks but it only performs half of those. The point I’m trying to make here is that there are plenty of instances where tooltips are wrong.

5.)Black Powder is amazing. It’s just not amazing for P/P. If you are going to be using BP, why are you not using S/P or D/P?

Blacksarevok.8104:

Einlanzer.1627:

Sorry, but every single point you attempted to make here is wrong.

First, it takes a lot of denseness to think that pistols firing as slowly as rifles, especially when its contrary to the activation speed is “working as intended”, especially given the obviously and laughably weak damage that Vital Shot puts out combined with its reduced range relative to other #1 skills (such as, say Bleeding Shot).

Second, yes, speeding up Vital shot would in fact make the set much better because it would allow it to be properly used as the bleed stacking weapon with power utility (the opposite of D/D) it’s supposed to be. Unload is meant to supplement the sustained condition damage of Vital Shot, not vice versa. Speeding up Vital Shot by 40% would be a dramatic increase in DPS regardless of OH because you’d be able to maintain 9 or so bleed stacks like every other bleed stacking weapon can instead of struggling to maintain 5. This isn’t rocket science, I have no idea how it isn’t 100% clear to anyone.

Third, Body shot is only useless when you’re alone. It’s not at all useless in a group, and especially wouldn’t be useless if you could manage decent sustained damage through Vital Shot instead of having to destroy Initiative by endlessly spamming Unload to make the set halfway effective.

Fourth, Pistol Whip swings 4 times, but hits 9 times during those swings, so the tooltip is accurate.

Fifth, Black Powder is amazing, it can almost single handedly make you invincible against multiple targets in melee range, although a stealth field would certainly be nice.

/end rant.

1.) Again, you are assuming here. It does weak damage. I totally agree that it needs to be buffed. However as I said, it’s just as likely that the tooltip could be wrong as it could be the tooltip is right and the function is wrong. You keep comparing it to Rifle #1, but how do you know the intended for Pistol #1 and Rifle #1 to do the same damage?

2.)Once again, assuming. You are assuming that P/P is intended to be played in one fashion (condition damage build) without any real evidence to back up the claim. Did the devs ever come out and say “P/P can’t be played as pwr/crit. We want you to play it as bleed stacking solely, sorry”. If that was the case, then explain D/D? Why are all of D/D’s abilities in favor of pwr/crit, but not DB? Or Warrior Rifle, Rifle #1 is obviously way too slow to effectively be used as a condition damage build, so does that need to be speed up to? Not to mention, if they did speed up VS, Unload spam would STILL BE VIABLE, it not BETTER than P/P bleeds, you’d likely just run 25/30/0/0/15 instead of 0/30/0/20/20 because the VS buff would be more beneficial to that build.

3.) Okay, I suppose you are right, Body Shot isn’t totally useless. It’s a decent opener But lets be real here, NOBODY is taking a Thief to a dungeon for Body Shot spamming. Especially when you can bring vulnerability via Sundering Strikes + Unload. It won’t be as much vulnerability, but you won’t be giving up all of your damage to apply it either. The only time Body Shot would truly be useful is in large scale encounters, but with the vulnerability cap it’s pointless.

4.) It physically only swings 5 times. Regardless though, a better example is Warrior axe. As I said, it’s says it performs 15 attacks but it only performs half of those. The point I’m trying to make here is that there are plenty of instances where tooltips are wrong.

5.)Black Powder is amazing. It’s just not amazing for P/P. If you are going to be using BP, why are you not using S/P or D/P?

I’m not assuming anything, I’m using deductive logic. There’s a very big difference. MH Pistol is clearly intended as a condition weapon, just like the MH dagger is very clearly a power weapon. P/P and D/D are both hybrid sets due to the dual skills. They are both intended to benefit from condition damage and power builds.

Every other “bleed weapon” in the game has a #1 that is able to maintain stacks of 8 or 9 on autoattack. Vital Shot struggles to maintain 5, doing terrible upfront damage in the process. The weapon that the Thief’s P/P set most closely resembles is the Warrior’s Rifle. The #1 on the rifle does more upfront damage, has greater range, and a has a 2 second longer bleed duration, while the #1 on the Pistol has a faster rate of fire, except it actually doesn’t. The Rifle also has great upfront damage capability with Volley and the Adrenaline attack, while also having superior utility and range.

When you actually look at the data, the conclusion is intuitively obvious. Either you haven’t spent enough time looking at the data, or you have poor analytical skills. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former.

Einlanzer.1627:

I’m not assuming anything, I’m using deductive logic. There’s a very big difference. MH Pistol is clearly intended as a condition weapon, just like the MH dagger is very clearly a power weapon. P/P and D/D are both hybrid sets due to the dual skills. They are both intended to benefit from condition damage and power builds.

Every other “bleed weapon” in the game has a #1 that is able to maintain stacks of 8 or 9 on autoattack. Vital Shot struggles to maintain 5, doing terrible upfront damage in the process. The weapon that the Thief’s P/P set most closely resembles is the Warrior’s Rifle. The #1 on the rifle does more upfront damage, has greater range, and a has a 2 second longer bleed duration, while the #1 on the Pistol has a faster rate of fire, except it actually doesn’t. The Rifle also has great upfront damage capability with Volley and the Adrenaline attack, while also having superior utility and range.

When you actually look at the data, the conclusion is intuitively obvious. Either you haven’t spent enough time looking at the data, or you have poor analytical skills. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former.

If MH dagger is clearly designed as a power weapon, then why is D/D bleeds still just as viable as D/D backstab? The issue here is that you think weapon sets are intended to solely fulfill one role based on their #1 attack, exactly how is that logical? As I said, if D/D was intended to be a pwr/crit kit, then why are just as many people playing D/D bleeds? If Warrior Rifle was intended to be a bleed build, then why is just as viable (no, MORE viable) as a pwr/crit build?

And I feel like you are implying that I think P/P doesn’t need buffs, which is not true. I agree that Warrior Rifle is better than P/P in most aspects, however VS under performing due to a proposed speed bug isn’t not the only reason for that under performance.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Einlanzer.1627:

I’m not assuming anything, I’m using deductive logic. There’s a very big difference. MH Pistol is clearly intended as a condition weapon, just like the MH dagger is very clearly a power weapon. P/P and D/D are both hybrid sets due to the dual skills. They are both intended to benefit from condition damage and power builds.

Every other “bleed weapon” in the game has a #1 that is able to maintain stacks of 8 or 9 on autoattack. Vital Shot struggles to maintain 5, doing terrible upfront damage in the process. The weapon that the Thief’s P/P set most closely resembles is the Warrior’s Rifle. The #1 on the rifle does more upfront damage, has greater range, and a has a 2 second longer bleed duration, while the #1 on the Pistol has a faster rate of fire, except it actually doesn’t. The Rifle also has great upfront damage capability with Volley and the Adrenaline attack, while also having superior utility and range.

When you actually look at the data, the conclusion is intuitively obvious. Either you haven’t spent enough time looking at the data, or you have poor analytical skills. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former.

If MH dagger is clearly designed as a power weapon, then why is D/D bleeds still just as viable as D/D backstab? The issue here is that you think weapon sets are intended to solely fulfill one role based on their #1 attack, exactly how is that logical? As I said, if D/D was intended to be a pwr/crit kit, then why are just as many people playing D/D bleeds? If Warrior Rifle was intended to be a bleed build, then why is just as viable as a pwr/crit build?

And I feel like you are implying that I don’t think P/P doesn’t need buffs, which is not true. I agree that Warrior Rifle is better than P/P in most aspects, however VS under performing due to a proposed speed bug isn’t not the only reason for that under performance.

That is not the problem here, and I retract what I said earlier.

D/D bleeds are not as viable as D/D backstab, and even if it was that doesn’t change the fact that MH Dagger is designed as a Power weapon, the condition damage is supplementary. Why is that? DING DING DING, it’s because the #1 skill is bread&butter, initiative-free, AND immutable, while the #3 skill costs initiative and varies by set. In other words, the #1 skill of any weapon set represents the baseline usage of that weapon, while the other skills all provide tactical options to supplement it.

You can continue arguing all you want, but you I am very confident I know what I’m talking about. MH Pistol is a condition weapon, and due to a bug or design oversight it is a terrible one. The only saving grace of P/P is that you can stack power and focus on Unload for mediocre DPS instead of being forced to rely on Vital Shot for wretched DPS, which is still an inferior strategy because Unload costs initiative, while the bread and butter initiative-free #1 skill that is supposed to maintain decent sustained damage while being supplemented by other skills is completely broken by firing almost half as quickly as it’s supposed to.

If you logic was correct, then every single weapon kit would only have abilities that benefit from one stat set. If D/D was intended to only stack pwr/crit, then DB would deal pure direct damage and no bleeds. If Warrior Rifle was intended to stack condition damage, then Killshot and Volley would both do less direct damage and apply bleeds or some kind of condition. It is fairly obvious that developers intended most weapon kits to be able to be played in different fashions. Whether or not said playstyles are viable is another story, but to say that a weapon set is supposed to stack a certain stat based SOLELY on what the number #1 skill does is contradictory to what is actually happening in the game even outside of P/P.

Blacksarevok.8104:

If you logic was correct, then every single weapon kit would only have abilities that benefit from one stat type. If D/D was intended to only stack pwr/crit, then DB would deal pure direct damage and no bleeds. If Warrior Rifle was intended to only stack condition damage, then Killshot and Volley would both do less direct damage and apply bleeds or some kind of condition. It is fairly obvious that developers intended most weapon kits to be able to be played in different fashions. Whether or not said playstyles are viable is another story, but to say that a weapon set is supposed to stack a certain stat based SOLELY on what the number #1 skill does is contradictory to what is actually happening in the game even outside of P/P.

Man, I’m trying hard not to be rude, but you struggle with reading comprehension don’t you? None of this even remotely resembles any statement I have ever attempted to make, and you pretty much just wrote a full paragraph arguing against a strawman.

I’ll break it down as simply as I can: P/P is a terrible set. The reason why it’s a terrible set is because it’s intended to do good DPS through a combination of bleed stacking via Vital Shot and tactical Unloads, benefiting from both Power and Condition building. Instead, Vital Shot is so weak that you get little return from condition building and therefore in order to make P/P even kind of work you have to build for power and focus exclusively on spamming Unload. Even doing that, you only reach mediocrity because Vital Shot’s weakness still bottlenecks your sustained damage and you have to reserve all your Initiative for Unload, meaning the set is useless from a utilitarian perspective. Not working as intended. And it’s entirely because of Vital Shot, everything else that may or not be wrong with the set is tertiary.

Einlanzer.1627:

Blacksarevok.8104:

If you logic was correct, then every single weapon kit would only have abilities that benefit from one stat type. If D/D was intended to only stack pwr/crit, then DB would deal pure direct damage and no bleeds. If Warrior Rifle was intended to only stack condition damage, then Killshot and Volley would both do less direct damage and apply bleeds or some kind of condition. It is fairly obvious that developers intended most weapon kits to be able to be played in different fashions. Whether or not said playstyles are viable is another story, but to say that a weapon set is supposed to stack a certain stat based SOLELY on what the number #1 skill does is contradictory to what is actually happening in the game even outside of P/P.

Man, I’m trying hard not to be rude, but you struggle with reading comprehension don’t you? None of this even remotely resembles any statement I have ever attempted to make, and you pretty much just wrote a full paragraph arguing against a strawman.

I’ll break it down as simply as I can: P/P is a terrible set. The reason why it’s a terrible set is because it’s intended to do good DPS through a combination of bleed stacking via Vital Shot and tactical Unloads, benefiting from both Power and Condition building. Instead, Vital Shot is so weak that you get little return from condition building and therefore in order to make P/P even kind of work you have to build for power and focus exclusively on spamming unload. Even doing that, you only reach mediocrity, not anything great. Not working as intended. And it’s entirely because of Vital Shot, everything else that may or not be wrong with the set is tertiary.

You said that a kits #1 attack directly reflects how the kit should played. You are saying that because D/D’s #1 attack utilizes direct damage that D/D is clearly intended to be a power-based kit. You said that because P/P’s #1 attack utilizes bleeds, it’s clearly intended to be a condition damage-based kit. I simply pointed out that assuming that is contradictory to how these kits, among loads of others, are actually being played in game.

And I don’t know where you’ve been, but all ranged sets perform mediocre in the damage department. Even Unload spam in it’s current incarnation can put out competitive numbers to Ranger Shortbow or Warrior Rifle. Just go and test it yourself. Why do you think P/P didn’t receive any damage buffs this past patch? The issue with P/P is, and has always been, it’s lack of diversity. It’s a one-trick pony. Kits like Warrior Rifle are better because they have better utility and better on-demand burst, but the actually sustained damage is similar.

Who is to say that the devs didn’t intend for VS to mainly utilized by P/D and that Unload spam was actually intended for P/P? You do also realize that P/D is already a very strong single target kit, and that increasing VS speed by 30-40% may make it overpowered? Hell, that could be the whole reason why VS speed is as it is currently.

Blacksarevok.8104:

And I don’t know where you’ve been, but all ranged sets perform mediocre in the damage department. Even Unload spam in it’s current incarnation can put out competitive numbers to Ranger Shortbow or Warrior Rifle. Just go and test it yourself. Why do you think P/P didn’t receive any damage buffs this past patch? The issue with P/P is, and has always been, it’s lack of diversity. It’s a one-trick pony. Kits like Warrior Rifle are better because they have better utility and better on-demand burst, but the actually sustained damage is similar.

While this is generally true it isn’t even P/P’s skills that make it worse than, say, ranger shortbow or warrior rifle, it is that the initiative system creates a shared resource pool between damage and utility, whereas the cooldown system means a weapon can bring both to the table. So while a thief can put out “competitive numbers”, doing so means pouring all of their initiative into damage and leaving very little for utility. It isn’t that the skills aren’t diverse, P/P actually has a pretty diverse set of skills (perhaps missing a token AE option), it is that thieves can’t properly utilize utility unless the utility is bundled onto their damage skills or they can do initiative-efficient damage, neither of which is true of P/P.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Einlanzer.1627:

Blacksarevok.8104:

If you logic was correct, then every single weapon kit would only have abilities that benefit from one stat type. If D/D was intended to only stack pwr/crit, then DB would deal pure direct damage and no bleeds. If Warrior Rifle was intended to only stack condition damage, then Killshot and Volley would both do less direct damage and apply bleeds or some kind of condition. It is fairly obvious that developers intended most weapon kits to be able to be played in different fashions. Whether or not said playstyles are viable is another story, but to say that a weapon set is supposed to stack a certain stat based SOLELY on what the number #1 skill does is contradictory to what is actually happening in the game even outside of P/P.

Man, I’m trying hard not to be rude, but you struggle with reading comprehension don’t you? None of this even remotely resembles any statement I have ever attempted to make, and you pretty much just wrote a full paragraph arguing against a strawman.

I’ll break it down as simply as I can: P/P is a terrible set. The reason why it’s a terrible set is because it’s intended to do good DPS through a combination of bleed stacking via Vital Shot and tactical Unloads, benefiting from both Power and Condition building. Instead, Vital Shot is so weak that you get little return from condition building and therefore in order to make P/P even kind of work you have to build for power and focus exclusively on spamming unload. Even doing that, you only reach mediocrity, not anything great. Not working as intended. And it’s entirely because of Vital Shot, everything else that may or not be wrong with the set is tertiary.

You said that a kits #1 attack directly reflects how the kit should played. You are saying that because D/D’s #1 attack utilizes direct damage that D/D is clearly intended to be a power-based kit. You said that because P/P’s #1 attack utilizes bleeds, it’s clearly intended to be a condition damage-based kit. I simply pointed out that assuming that is contradictory to how these kits, among loads of others, are actually being played in game.

And I don’t know where you’ve been, but all ranged sets perform mediocre in the damage department. Even Unload spam in it’s current incarnation can put out competitive numbers to Ranger Shortbow or Warrior Rifle. Just go and test it yourself. Why do you think P/P didn’t receive any damage buffs this past patch? The issue with P/P is, and has always been, it’s lack of diversity. It’s a one-trick pony. Kits like Warrior Rifle are better because they have better utility and better on-demand burst, but the actually sustained damage is similar.

Who is to say that the devs didn’t intend for VS to mainly utilized by P/D and that Unload spam was actually intended for P/P? You do also realize that P/D is already a very strong single target kit, and that increasing VS speed by 30-40% may make it overpowered? Hell, that could be the whole reason why VS speed is as it is currently.

Nope, I didn’t. Read between the lines.

In some cases (especially the Longbow), yes, because of the same issue, which is why it’s critical it gets looked at ASAP. Rifles are fine.

Nope, they didn’t, nope, it isn’t, and nope, it won’t. VS is terrible. Consequently, P/D over-relies on C&D to reach subpar damage and mediocre utility while P/P over-relies on Unload to reach mediocre damage and subpar utility. Neither of those is intended. A buff to Vital Shot would make P/anything feel like a viable weapon set for the first time in GW2 history.

Tulisin.6945:

Blacksarevok.8104:

And I don’t know where you’ve been, but all ranged sets perform mediocre in the damage department. Even Unload spam in it’s current incarnation can put out competitive numbers to Ranger Shortbow or Warrior Rifle. Just go and test it yourself. Why do you think P/P didn’t receive any damage buffs this past patch? The issue with P/P is, and has always been, it’s lack of diversity. It’s a one-trick pony. Kits like Warrior Rifle are better because they have better utility and better on-demand burst, but the actually sustained damage is similar.

While this is generally true it isn’t even P/P’s skills that make it worse than, say, ranger shortbow or warrior rifle, it is that the initiative system creates a shared resource pool between damage and utility, whereas the cooldown system means a weapon can bring both to the table. So while a thief can put out “competitive numbers”, doing so means pouring all of their initiative into damage and leaving very little for utility. It isn’t that the skills aren’t diverse, P/P actually has a pretty diverse set of skills (perhaps missing a token AE option), it is that thieves can’t properly utilize utility unless the utility is bundled onto their damage skills or they can do initiative-efficient damage, neither of which is true of P/P.

Right, and the reason why it’s a particularly large problem for P/P is because Vital Shot should be the primary source of damage, which would allow you to spend your Initiative tactically, but it isn’t, forcing you to dump all your Initiative into Unload to maintain what is still rather poor sustained damage.

Tulisin.6945:

Blacksarevok.8104:

And I don’t know where you’ve been, but all ranged sets perform mediocre in the damage department. Even Unload spam in it’s current incarnation can put out competitive numbers to Ranger Shortbow or Warrior Rifle. Just go and test it yourself. Why do you think P/P didn’t receive any damage buffs this past patch? The issue with P/P is, and has always been, it’s lack of diversity. It’s a one-trick pony. Kits like Warrior Rifle are better because they have better utility and better on-demand burst, but the actually sustained damage is similar.

While this is generally true it isn’t even P/P’s skills that make it worse than, say, ranger shortbow or warrior rifle, it is that the initiative system creates a shared resource pool between damage and utility, whereas the cooldown system means a weapon can bring both to the table. So while a thief can put out “competitive numbers”, doing so means pouring all of their initiative into damage and leaving very little for utility. It isn’t that the skills aren’t diverse, P/P actually has a pretty diverse set of skills (perhaps missing a token AE option), it is that thieves can’t properly utilize utility unless the utility is bundled onto their damage skills or they can do initiative-efficient damage, neither of which is true of P/P.

I suppose that’s true, but that seems to me to be more of a flaw with the resource system itself. I mean, what could they do to counter that? The only thing I can think of would be to put CD’s on our abilities while increasing the damage, but that would kinda take the point out of having initiative.

What seems to work well are specs that utilize stealth attacks as their main abilities. D/D backstab, P/D Sneak attack, and the former S/D TS all usually had ini to work with because of the stealth ICD. Maybe they could implement a similar system for all the kits? Alternatively, I guess they could always put more emphasis on traits like First Strikes, rewarding us for pooling initiative so that we have enough to spend on situational abilities. This was something that was used in ToR extensively, and I actually enjoyed from a damage-dealing standpoint.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Tulisin.6945:

Blacksarevok.8104:

And I don’t know where you’ve been, but all ranged sets perform mediocre in the damage department. Even Unload spam in it’s current incarnation can put out competitive numbers to Ranger Shortbow or Warrior Rifle. Just go and test it yourself. Why do you think P/P didn’t receive any damage buffs this past patch? The issue with P/P is, and has always been, it’s lack of diversity. It’s a one-trick pony. Kits like Warrior Rifle are better because they have better utility and better on-demand burst, but the actually sustained damage is similar.

While this is generally true it isn’t even P/P’s skills that make it worse than, say, ranger shortbow or warrior rifle, it is that the initiative system creates a shared resource pool between damage and utility, whereas the cooldown system means a weapon can bring both to the table. So while a thief can put out “competitive numbers”, doing so means pouring all of their initiative into damage and leaving very little for utility. It isn’t that the skills aren’t diverse, P/P actually has a pretty diverse set of skills (perhaps missing a token AE option), it is that thieves can’t properly utilize utility unless the utility is bundled onto their damage skills or they can do initiative-efficient damage, neither of which is true of P/P.

I suppose that’s true, but that seems to me to be more of a flaw with the resource system itself. I mean, what could they do to counter that? The only thing I can think of would be to put CD’s on our abilities while increasing the damage, but that would kinda take the point out of having initiative.

What seems to work well are specs that utilize stealth attacks as their main abilities. D/D backstab, P/D Sneak attack, and the former S/D TS all usually had ini to work with because of the stealth ICD. Maybe they could implement a similar system for all the kits? Alternatively, I guess they could always put more emphasis on traits like First Strikes, rewarding us for pooling initiative so that we have enough to spend on situational abilities. This was something that was used in ToR extensively, and I actually enjoyed from a damage-dealing standpoint.

The fix is very simple and has already been covered. Buff Vital Shot’s attack speed so that you aren’t forced to over-rely on Initiative dumps to Unload to maintain any significant DPS. This is what I’ve been saying all along. You’ll notice that neither shortbows nor the melee weapons have this problem to nearly the same degree, there’s a pretty obvious reason why – their initiative-free #1 skills do appreciable damage, which allows you to utilize your Initiative tactically.

Look, Blacksarevok gets your point, Einlanzer, at this point you’re just going in circles about semantics and intent. The fact is, unless you’re under NDA, you can only speculate as to developer intent. You can use analysis to back up that speculation, but it is still speculation.

Personally I’m of the mind that developers do not intend specific builds, rather they have a responsibility to provide a wealth of tools for players to create combinations that are both effective in combat and enjoyable by being molded to preferred playstyles. While the developers need to maintain a balanced environment, going as far as to “intend” skills and weapon sets be used in very specific ways takes away from the freeform nature of GW2’s skill and trait sets. Build is, after all, more play style than statistic choice.

Tulisin.6945:

Look, Blacksarevok gets your point, Einlanzer, at this point you’re just going in circles about semantics and intent. The fact is, unless you’re under NDA, you can only speculate as to developer intent. You can use analysis to back up that speculation, but it is still speculation.

No, he quite obviously doesn’t. And false, the developer intent could not be any clearer. This argument is altogether ridiculous.

Well all I can say is I’ll be chuckling when in the future we see in the patch notes “Vital Shot: This attacks tooltip has been properly updated to reflect it’s attack speed.”

Blacksarevok.8104:

Well all I can say is I’ll be chuckling when in the future we see in the patch notes “Vital Shot: This attacks tooltip has been properly updated to reflect it’s attack speed.”

All that would prove is that the QA/development folks aren’t very competent.

All-in Unload spamming delivering damage on par with the ranger’s shortbow autoattacks is not acceptable damage; quite the opposite. The ranger still gets to use all their weapon utility skills while dealing that damage – the thief has zero utility from his weapon when forced into Unload spam just to deal acceptable damage. That’s just the initiative system, and it does not work when you have to choose between dealing damage and providing utility.

Vital Shot needs to deal good damage on its own, and Unload should fill a role as a finisher or burst skill. That model works. The current pistol model of putting all the damage on Unload, with a crappy auto and pathetic damage utilities, just doesn’t work. The weapon needs a total overhaul.

Ensign.2189:

All-in Unload spamming delivering damage on par with the ranger’s shortbow autoattacks is not acceptable damage; quite the opposite. The ranger still gets to use all their weapon utility skills while dealing that damage – the thief has zero utility from his weapon when forced into Unload spam just to deal acceptable damage. That’s just the initiative system, and it does not work when you have to choose between dealing damage and providing utility.

Vital Shot needs to deal good damage on its own, and Unload should fill a role as a finisher or burst skill. That model works. The current pistol model of putting all the damage on Unload, with a crappy auto and pathetic damage utilities, just doesn’t work. The weapon needs a total overhaul.

Thank you, I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets that Vital Shot is 95% of the problem with Pistols, and is obviously not working as intended.

p/p with shadow refuge is insanely good! throw in haste and unload after your sneak attack and you will find you are now full health and your opponent is dead

Personally, I find P/P is fairly, if not, completely useless and underwhelming in sPvP.

However, in PvE, it can be fairly useful in certain dungeons and fights that require you to stay at range. In these cases, you’ll pretty much find people just Unload spamming as that’s the only real viable skill. Black Powder can also be fairly good in these situations as a teamplay factor, however, it forces you to bunch up really close as the field is extremely small…and for its initiative cost, it does not offer too much.

Einlanzer.1627:

Guys, come on. It’s very obvious that Pistol MH does extremely subpar damage. It’s also very obvious that this is due the fact that #1 doesn’t fire as rapidly as it is supposed to due either to a bug/mislabeled tooltip or to animation/GCD issues.

I really, really don’t understand how this isn’t more obvious to people. I immediately noted that something was off after spending a lot of time as a rifle warrior and then starting a thief. The firing speed is almost exactly the same on the two weapons even though Vital Shot is significantly weaker, with shorter duration bleeds and closer range than Bleeding Shot; the former is very clearly intended to be faster. If you don’t believe me, here:

Bleeding Shot:
Damage – 155
Bleeding – 6 seconds
Range – 1200 yards
Activation (tooltip) – 3/4 second
Actual Recast – .8 – .9 seconds

Vital Shot:
Damage – 134
Bleeding – 4 seconds
Range – 900 yards
Activation (tooltip) – 1/2 second
Actual Recast – .8 – .9 seconds

i can’t believe you’re still going on about this.

okay it’s not fast enough. just say it’s not fast enough, don’t assert a bunch of nonsense as truth that isn’t at all relevant to saying “pistol 1 should be faster”

posting a bunch of numbers and asserting what arenanet’s obvious!!!!! design intention was is not going to make it more likely to get changed (or “fixed,” i guess as you look at it)

lethlora.1320:

Einlanzer.1627:

Guys, come on. It’s very obvious that Pistol MH does extremely subpar damage. It’s also very obvious that this is due the fact that #1 doesn’t fire as rapidly as it is supposed to due either to a bug/mislabeled tooltip or to animation/GCD issues.

I really, really don’t understand how this isn’t more obvious to people. I immediately noted that something was off after spending a lot of time as a rifle warrior and then starting a thief. The firing speed is almost exactly the same on the two weapons even though Vital Shot is significantly weaker, with shorter duration bleeds and closer range than Bleeding Shot; the former is very clearly intended to be faster. If you don’t believe me, here:

Bleeding Shot:
Damage – 155
Bleeding – 6 seconds
Range – 1200 yards
Activation (tooltip) – 3/4 second
Actual Recast – .8 – .9 seconds

Vital Shot:
Damage – 134
Bleeding – 4 seconds
Range – 900 yards
Activation (tooltip) – 1/2 second
Actual Recast – .8 – .9 seconds

i can’t believe you’re still going on about this.

okay it’s not fast enough. just say it’s not fast enough, don’t assert a bunch of nonsense as truth that isn’t at all relevant to saying “pistol 1 should be faster”

posting a bunch of numbers and asserting what arenanet’s obvious!!!!! design intention was is not going to make it more likely to get changed (or “fixed,” i guess as you look at it)

Do you know how numbers work?

Kurow.6973:

Black Powder can also be fairly good in these situations as a teamplay factor, however, it forces you to bunch up really close as the field is extremely small…and for its initiative cost, it does not offer too much.

Nobody has to “bunch up” except you and the mobs, Black Powder is a condition-applying offensive skill, not a boon-applying defensive skill. You group the mobs up and drop it on them to virtually negate all outgoing damage, you don’t hide in it. The benefit is more than worth the cost, especially for things like shutting down knockback harpies or groups of hard-hitting non-boss mobs.

bomber.1540:

p/p with shadow refuge is insanely good! throw in haste and unload after your sneak attack and you will find you are now full health and your opponent is dead

In PvE you just dropped two utilities to kill a mob that most thieves can down in a few auto attacks. In sPvP you just dropped two utilities so you better hope your opponent didn’t just dodge out or around a corner.

You aren’t wrong, but “this weapon set is awesome because if you drop two utility skills you can totally destroy something” is true of every single weapon set.