Guild Wars 2

just won 6 match in a row with p/p

win ranked matches with p/p
win duels with p/p
500k dps in a match with p/p
able to 2 shot a necro with p/p

I’m glad that people say its still weak.

please buff pistol more dev..ill be waiting for that day

I question the competence of the players you fought. Don’t get me wrong I love the dmg on p/p with pure zerk, but it’s really just insta death if you don’t kill the other person fast enough, so it’s not very viable

One would expect to win a game with 50% more players on their side.

DeceiverX.8361:

One would expect to win a game with 50% more players on their side.

Those were probably people leaving the game after it ended, but before being automatically kicked out. That happens frequently; don’t you pay attention in PvP?

Let’s be honest. P/P is a little too dumb right now. The ridiculous damage you get just from one attack combined with Haste is unreasonable.

I’m all for making P/P viable and good but when I can just hit 3 once or twice and kill someone with little to no effort, that’s when you know something’s wrong.

Furthermore, just played with a buddy running Trapper Rune P/P build in WvW…. yeah, you thought Trapper D/P was super strong? Try P/P. The might stacks will make you annihilate everything.

Now I have never asked for a nerf to Thief before but I think this type of damage needs to be spread out in between all the pistol skills. Spamming 1 skill to win is unrewarding and game breaking, quite frankly. We need more incentive to use our other pistol skills…

IchigoHatake.5098:

I question the competence of the players you fought. Don’t get me wrong I love the dmg on p/p with pure zerk, but it’s really just insta death if you don’t kill the other person fast enough, so it’s not very viable

It’s the same effect(not as big) as when burn stacking was first introduced or necro allowed decent attrition. It takes time for people to recognize the unusual that happened once to my team I had to call out the p/p thief that no one was seeing once I did we went on and won. Give it time and everything is back to normal.

I love playing P/P thieves that think they are Vash the stampede until they realize sliding by by ganking on unsuspecting people or killing casuals only gets them so far. Trust the forums, p/p is really bad. On thief I have to not use stealth most of the time to keep the fight moderately entertaining.

I have come across quite a lot of people that try to make it work, always the same, unload unload unload run into stealth after they nearly die then more unload. Even when i port out of range i sometimes still see the unload going. Lol.

In ranked all you need to do is carry stealth utilities then unload people that are fighting other people, then run when confronted. Sure you win but that doesnt make a very good weapon set. The better ones would toss in a dodge here and there but they are more concerned with doing damage and not canceling their unloads that they dont dodge most of the time just unload spam.

It really bothers me how a class can lack so much depth, HoT was supposed to be the time to do some really interesting stuff to the class mechanic but nope they dust off some old animations code, add an endurance bar and fit in some flat skills while turning everyone else into super saiyans. I mean have you seen the druid?

p/p is ridiculous now..with basilisk venom and daze on steal i can easily kill d/p thieves and even guardians.

sure a lot of people say its weak right now because no one uses it, but wait until people started using it and then you will see a lot of cancer posts on the forum.

like i post above 584k damage dealt is more than half a million.. i made a lot of dps characters in gw 2 for spvp and none of them reach that number, not even close.

Run any stunbreaker and P/P pistol can’t do anything to you. Roll the freaking unloads. Jesus christ guys. Sure, it’s great against people who play like they’re AFK, but so is every build. Are you for real?

plz tell me your traits and sigils

Sweetmate.5903:

Run any stunbreaker and P/P pistol can’t do anything to you. Roll the freaking unloads. Jesus christ guys. Sure, it’s gret against people who play like they’re AFK, but so is every build. Are you for real?

Yeah no. That wont save you considering that it’s spammable. Not to mention they should have 2 stun breaks available with Haste and Roll for Initiative. And on that note… Quickness from Trickery line + Skill. Yeah good luck trying to stun break fast enough to avoid dying to two Quickness boosted unloads.

that seems like a learn to play issue, p/p thieves has less access to stealth if you play d/p spam stealth and then kill them easy.

After HoT, they will have easy stealth access with Bounding Dodger though. And its not really an L2P issue as they have more than enough survivability to survive a 1v1 long enough to afford spamming Unload for easy damage. I’m not saying kill Unload completely. I’m saying tone down the damage but increase the damage of the other skills to make up for it, then we wont feel the need to spam Unload and we’ll be able to deal out plenty of damage just by using our other skills without having one single attack that is spammable and can destroy almost everything with 2 presses of a single key.

I question the validity of this thread atm. Claiming pistol pistol is broken because unload? How to counter:

Roll
Block
Reflect
Invuln
Terrain intercept
Weakness
Protection

In a nutshell. Especially if you are crazy enough to be like “oh zomg quickness”, all it takes is someone stun breaking and rolling once (oh and even more hilarious is that some classes don’t have to do anything more than roll because auto stun breaker is auto). If I fought you one on one with pistol/pistol you and me on dag/pis I’d win. Over and over and over. How? You unload, I headshot. You unload, I headshot. You unload, I steal. Gg you have literally no initiative left and I am at at 75% or more. Please before you complain op, fight competent players. I played this and against players within 30 minutes of the patch, I felt op. Then a few people remembered the skill, and in my medium-high player bracket (yay pvp?) people just played around it or flat out killed me with it.

Edit: Rain, it is 100% l2p. I rarely use that to describe anything (check my post history) but that is the definition of learn to play. A slow, hard hitting, channeled, ranged, obviously telegraphed ability. I could describe how I could kill you on any build on anyone with whatever 1 to 1 opening you envision.

u know why complaining? cuz thief is a thief. not a gunner. make DD / SD / DP builds less squishy then we’ll be alright. but all that PP and condi stuff… thats not a Thief.

Once people realize that all they have to do is dodge, interrupt, or reflect the 3.0 multiplier skill Unload is right now it’ll return to the same place. When something is so rarely used it surprises people the first time.

Ragion.2831:

I love playing P/P thieves that think they are Vash the stampede until they realize sliding by by ganking on unsuspecting people or killing casuals only gets them so far. Trust the forums, p/p is really bad. On thief I have to not use stealth most of the time to keep the fight moderately entertaining.

I have come across quite a lot of people that try to make it work, always the same, unload unload unload run into stealth after they nearly die then more unload. Even when i port out of range i sometimes still see the unload going. Lol.

In ranked all you need to do is carry stealth utilities then unload people that are fighting other people, then run when confronted. Sure you win but that doesnt make a very good weapon set. The better ones would toss in a dodge here and there but they are more concerned with doing damage and not canceling their unloads that they dont dodge most of the time just unload spam.

This guy gets it. The OP? Not so much.

Yes unload is being used to devastating effect now in WvW but that because people are used to simply ignoring the damge. They will adapt. Use unload once against a person that throws a reflect up and you are dead. Those that have truly used p/p and made it work to some degree will not spam unload. The set far more effective if you use it tactically. With vital shot buffed and now doing decent damage the set is much more effective.

The set still needs work.

babazhook.6805:

Yes unload is being used to devastating effect now in WvW but that because people are used to simply ignoring the damge. They will adapt. Use unload once against a person that throws a reflect up and you are dead. Those that have truly used p/p and made it work to some degree will not spam unload. The set far more effective if you use it tactically. With vital shot buffed and now doing decent damage the set is much more effective.

The set still needs work.

That’s what I’m saying. The damage is too dependent on spamming Unload.

I’d like to see the immob do more damage in exchange for losing out a bit of dps on Unload. Sneak attack should really be the hard hitting attack that unload is right now as that takes setup to execute and landing it skillfully to annihilate your enemy is where the fun in playing the spec should be. Not spamming 3 till the enemy runs out of dodges. That just makes you predictable and the playstyle rather brainless. With Bounding Dodger P/P stealth or Trapper runes in WvW, this type of playstyle would fit perfectly with Thief.

P/P didn’t need more damage.
Since thieves have no way to gain stability, Unload is easy to interrupt. After that the thief is left ’’naked’’ vs enemy’s attacks.
What this set needs is:
1- 1200 range
2- Blast finisher to gain stealth
3- Evade frame during unload even at the cost of revert the damage buff
4- Skill 2 changed into a teleport or blink for disengage from enemy pressure (what I would like to see is this skill to be splitted in 2 part: the first one that immobilize and put vulnerability like it’s now, the second part that blink you 900 range back from your target. Something similar to Mesmer’s ’’Illusionary Leap" but at the opposite.

Make all this changes and then you can revert the damage buff on every skill.

EDIT: regarding the OP, you clearly fought vs unskilled players. Nothing wrong with you mate, but playing a 1skill weapon set is wrong in pvp, even more if this set is soo vulnerable and has no way to disengage. Skilled players after the first team fight and seeing what you are using, will start focusing you badly at any encounter with coordinated atacks. BOOM thief dead in 2 secs

i agree that p/p is very squishy and lack escape, but i think people really underestimate hasted unload with basilisk venom..it is not that easy to dodge, especially in 3v3 fights when people tying to contest a point they probably won’t see it coming.

and if the p/p thief is good with positioning, he can rack up many kills in a matter of seconds.

if all else fail, then you do have a secondary weapon set..

Rain.9213:

babazhook.6805:

Yes unload is being used to devastating effect now in WvW but that because people are used to simply ignoring the damge. They will adapt. Use unload once against a person that throws a reflect up and you are dead. Those that have truly used p/p and made it work to some degree will not spam unload. The set far more effective if you use it tactically. With vital shot buffed and now doing decent damage the set is much more effective.

The set still needs work.

That’s what I’m saying. The damage is too dependent on spamming Unload.

I’d like to see the immob do more damage in exchange for losing out a bit of dps on Unload. Sneak attack should really be the hard hitting attack that unload is right now as that takes setup to execute and landing it skillfully to annihilate your enemy is where the fun in playing the spec should be. Not spamming 3 till the enemy runs out of dodges. That just makes you predictable and the playstyle rather brainless. With Bounding Dodger P/P stealth or Trapper runes in WvW, this type of playstyle would fit perfectly with Thief.

Well I disagree to a point. It predicated on using unload because people not familiar with the set tend to use unload. I would rather the main burst damage stay with unload. It just makes no sense in any thief set to have multiple weapon traits that do the same thing.

if one set does damage on skill 4 why would I want damage on skill 2. ?Why do I want to spread damge out just for the sake of spreading damage out? Leave the main burst damage on unload.

I see no reason “sneak attack” needs to be the hard hitting attack either. All you end up with than is the rather boring d/p set where number 5 is used for a smoke field so that one can gain stealth via heartseeker for a backstab. Putting all the damage on sneak attack is just recreating how d/p works. Why is THAT acceptable ?

All that needs fixing is number two. it should not be a trait that adds more damage nor do i think it really needs damaging conditions added to it. number two needs an ability unique to the set that will be useful to the set meaning utility or defense something we get on no other set. Maybe a life steal , maybe something that generates a boon we cant get like resistance. Think outside the box and not just make another version of another weaponset.

As to an evade frame on unload. I do not like that idea for the reasons another pointed out. I want to be in control of my movement direction when using unload be it strafing, backpedaling , running towards an opponent or circling and shooting. Evade frames take away that control. I think the ability to burst that kind of damage out should come at a risk that you are taking damage back and it a matter of who will take the most. this is part of what makes it fun. That “feel” of putting out a hail of lead in a balls to the wall type attack where all ones own defenses are non existant is something I enjoy in the set. If i want to get defensive it should come from number 2.

As to the spamming of three being brainless , well there a place for brainless in the game too. brainless IS a fighting style Ask Mike Tyson ….As long as an enemy can take advanatge of that brainless style it ok and leaving unload without evades and just a hard hitting attack allows those counters.

Unload damage is pretty good, but but you can’t do anything else with p/p
Still have crappy range, no mobility, no survivability, no AoE or piercing.
OP against afk ppl and pets.

Lavexis.5360:

i agree that p/p is very squishy and lack escape, but i think people really underestimate hasted unload with basilisk venom..it is not that easy to dodge, especially in 3v3 fights when people tying to contest a point they probably won’t see it coming.

and if the p/p thief is good with positioning, he can rack up many kills in a matter of seconds.

if all else fail, then you do have a secondary weapon set..

A number of professions have the ability to lock someone down with a stun followed up by a high damage attack.

Lavexis.5360:

i agree that p/p is very squishy and lack escape, but i think people really underestimate hasted unload with basilisk venom..it is not that easy to dodge, especially in 3v3 fights when people tying to contest a point they probably won’t see it coming.

and if the p/p thief is good with positioning, he can rack up many kills in a matter of seconds.

if all else fail, then you do have a secondary weapon set..

do you know what? the p\p thief reminds me about DPS engi. In the first team fight you can catch ppl off guard of course, after that anyone with half a brain that understand what you’re doing, will focus you badly and you will be just an easy target to shut down.
The first rule of a team fight is to focus the dps and squishiest target, and you know what? the p\p thief is the squishiest of all class. GW2 doesn’t have dedicated healers that can keep you alive, you need your own stuffs.
As I said the problem was not the damage but the fact that in this game to survive you need some stuffs that p\p thief is still lacking. We don’t have invulnerability, blocks, a second life bar and so on., so less damage and more tricks would make p\p a realy nice set to use.

Lavexis.5360:

if all else fail, then you do have a secondary weapon set..

If you really are suggesting we run something OTHER than Shortbow, then you’ve done a better job of tearing your argument apart than anyone else could ever hope to.

I don’t get where people get their “p/p is ridicilous damage” I mean, Warrior does same damage, engineer does same damage, ele does still same damage, burn guard does same damage after 2 seconds, mesmer does more damage, ranger can do same damage too, necro does same damage with dagger autos pretty much.

Anyways, I was against few p/p thieves yesterday and that was just sad. They spammed all their initiative they could but I lost around 7k health to that (17k max with marauder).

Amante.8109:

Lavexis.5360:

if all else fail, then you do have a secondary weapon set..

If you really are suggesting we run something OTHER than Shortbow, then you’ve done a better job of tearing your argument apart than anyone else could ever hope to.

saying " you do have a secondary weapon set" = “suggesting run something other than shortbow”

where is your logic behind this

pistols are outranged by most other projectile weapons in the game and require the thief to give up mobility.

If you’re floating in ~900 range without a block and you aren’t getting closer, you deserve unload.

Let’s be frank here. People who think pistol is all about damage inherently lost the argument. The same goes to those people think pistol has been fixed and we are complaining. It’s usually the same people.

The pistol was invented to cause damage to others. Put one in the hands of a caveman and watch them bang one on a rock when their initiative burns down.

Still, they are fun in the open world and I refuse to give up on them. If I wanted to play what everyone else was playing I’d be on the CoD forums.

Idk, i have yet to face a pp thief after patch that posed a threat. Killed every single of them on standard dp w/o breaking a sweat. Steal, backstab, few AA and they are dead usually.

Just played a round with a p/p thief on the opposite side while on cele ele. All my deaths were basically caused by here. You don’t even realize that they’re shooting at you while you’re fighting someone else.

Hyde.6248:

Just played a round with a p/p thief on the opposite side while on cele ele. All my deaths were basically caused by here. You don’t even realize that they’re shooting at you while you’re fighting someone else.

You mean exactly like you don’t see a Mesmer bursting you? Difference is the Mesmer doesn’t have 11k HP. Now go into the Mesmers forum and starting crying as well.

Threads like this make me absolutely livid because the OP put zero thought into it.

For more than THREE YEARS people have been conditioned to eating damage from P/P thieves because it was so laughably bad and ineffective. People have only had two days to adjust.

Good job sneaking up on people and killing them while they are busy fighting others. Good luck with your unload spam when you run into a

-minion necro
-any mesmer
-any ranger

and you waste half or more of your initiative hitting a pet/clone/minion and then have literally nothing to do while they stomp you.

All it takes to counter unload is 1) dodge 2) anything that effects projectiles. 3) Any damage reduction, such as protection which several pvp classes can spam, or damage halting which warriors and rangers can do with ease. Once you’ve blown your initiative you’re dead if you haven’t killed them because you aren’t going to accomplish anything with your pathetic auto attack and zero damage bleeds.

Once people learn that, hey, I actually have to react to P/P thieves because their damage isn’t a joke anymore, this build will once again be under performing.

This thread is almost a perfect mirror of the longbow ranger threads from a few months ago only with thieves instead of rangers.

guys w8 for hot
than take daredevil and dodge for blas finisher in pb and you got stealth ability

also to those how claim than pp set can be negated by dodge/ block/ evade/ immunity etc… isnt it also for any other build and weapon set lol. only thin is reflect so just w8 for few seconds or use SB #2 and #4 as its aoe .

ppl expect that pp set will play like d/p set. we stealth and burst
our other 3 skills is for control like immobilize (uneeded as short duration) daze as constant cc and blind which will be perfect with daredevile

w8 and see

we basically become stronger ranger from 900 range with no pet

check my vid for build and gameplay (got back for thief after 1 year)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Yj84a6ADM&feature=youtu.be

p/p is really good..the thief forum people are just too oblivious.

i have a p/p video before the unload buff where i just literally wreck people left and right. After the unload buff now you don’t need to spec for executioner, so you can just go for shadow arts.

for those of you who are interested…
this is the build that i use

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqaVlsMhunYpTw8Jw/EHIFlPGCieg3ABwCsjyNbKB-TZBEwAGOBAAOEAZLDQ4JA8b/BA

the basic combo is basi venom – unload – steal – unload then you should be able to wreck them.

you have enough utility to get out from fights.

lets for the fun compare it to dp set
d/p:
mainly use AA to do dmg
HS to finish
spam #5+#2 to stealth
sometime #3 to gain melee range
and #4 to daze

with pp :
use #3 to do dmg,
use #5 and #3/1 to do blind,
sometime AA to gain initiatives,
use #2 to immobilize so the target will stay at range
and #4 to daze

the main difference is 1 unload can do 10k dmg while with dp you need 1 backstab and hs

messiah.1908:

the main difference is 1 unload can do 10k dmg while with dp you need 1 backstab and hs

Wut.

I dunno what thief you’re rolling, but my chain is 10-12k damage in the time it takes to preform a back stab. Not to mention up to three stuns in a row.

Plus D/p isn’t countered by a reflects in any meaningful way, a proper thief might lose 1.5k damage to a reflect, that’s all. p/p gets shut down.

To clarify, d/p and p/p have about the same spike damage, p/p has a faster but more easily countered one. (Literally shut down a thief by using Darude – Dagger storm because haste caused him to burn through enough of his shots before he could cancel.)

P/P can be shut down so easily. For instance the mesmers reflect projectiles on evade. Not to mention it’s boring has poo running around spamming 3.

Aidal.4901:

messiah.1908:

the main difference is 1 unload can do 10k dmg while with dp you need 1 backstab and hs

Wut.

I dunno what thief you’re rolling, but my chain is 10-12k damage in the time it takes to preform a back stab. Not to mention up to three stuns in a row.

Plus D/p isn’t countered by a reflects in any meaningful way, a proper thief might lose 1.5k damage to a reflect, that’s all. p/p gets shut down.

To clarify, d/p and p/p have about the same spike damage, p/p has a faster but more easily countered one. (Literally shut down a thief by using Darude – Dagger storm because haste caused him to burn through enough of his shots before he could cancel.)

thats right you have to chain attack to gain 12 k dmg from melee while i just need 1 from range
sure reflect negate dmg but i am at range while you at melee. you can get blind, block, evade, dodge same as pp set. the main difference is reflect. pp just cant get to be op right?!

3 stun in a row you mean venom and steal? pp set does the same…

i dont say d/p is less than pp. dp will be the meta cause of stealth
but bring trapper runes to the mist and will see what ppl like more…:D

Meanwhile I laughed as all the P/P thieves we encountered gave us almost a free win for running a useless build that only works against unaware bads.

Could go about it that way as well.

Sweetmate.5903:

Hyde.6248:

Just played a round with a p/p thief on the opposite side while on cele ele. All my deaths were basically caused by here. You don’t even realize that they’re shooting at you while you’re fighting someone else.

You mean exactly like you don’t see a Mesmer bursting you? Difference is the Mesmer doesn’t have 11k HP. Now go into the Mesmers forum and starting crying as well.

I don’t know about you but I can tell when a mes can burst just fine. I can usually dodge it with little problem. Kinda hard to miss clones coming towards you. Now little bullets coming towards you while you have other spell effects going on are hard to see. I’m not saying that she wasn’t hard to kill. Just a bit annoying like ranger 4(?) longbow.

Ritt.3069:

Meanwhile I laughed as all the P/P thieves we encountered gave us almost a free win for running a useless build that only works against unaware bads.

Could go about it that way as well.

yes pp set need rethinking the play style of the thief
you cant just come like d/p or sd thief anymore
its more like LB ranger from closer range.

sure any time i got focused by thief+other enemy 80% i was down if not being supported or my utilities were on cd.

the main difference is when ppl still see a thief from range and think he cant do high burst dmg.

i also can say the opposite when i play pp my team won after they understand what i am using and how. but still pp set need more love in the way of defense abilities

Everyone’s trying to define p/p with a single definition when there are basically three different categories for how the weapon set plays out.

Category 1 – God Mode: Bursting down every player in sight by spamming unload and possibly timing it around steal daze, basi venom, and haste(s).
Category 2 – Almost Viable Mode: Bursting down players with relative ease only to watch them get rezzed with even more ease because P/P has no cleave and Unload spam has left the Thief without initiative to spam Clusterbomb and Headshot.
Category 3 – Harsh Reality: Players singling out the Thief with a combination of pressure, CC, dodges, invulns, reflects, retaliation, LoS, and rezzing of allies who ate the basi/haste/steal burst to effectively turn the match into something far closer to a 4v5 than a 5v5.

This is the new P/P. It’s got the same old bag of tricks with a lot more punch. Sometimes it’s absolutely awesome. All of the time, however, it’s a few quality decisions away from being reduced to what can not yet accurately be defined as undoubtedly good.

Ritt.3069:

Meanwhile I laughed as all the P/P thieves we encountered gave us almost a free win for running a useless build that only works against unaware bads.

Could go about it that way as well.

There a whole pile of p/p thieves that are new to the set taking up the weapons because of those changes and those ones are dying. The ones that used p/p all along fare much better.

Chaining unloads back to back is not a great idea. You try and get one in , pause so as to see how the enemy reacts and than use another. If he throws up blocks or reflects there no purpose to more unloads. In WvW you also have to be careful who selected as a target. I will sometimes scroll throughtwo or more to see what defenses up before picking one out. This usually someone already engaged who might have burned blocks and dodges. You unload on him there little he can do.

In Iv1 unload spam against a person who knows what he is doing is suicide. While it a hard hitting burst attack you have to use it deliberately and the battle will stretch out.

Look on the bright-side.

At least we are actually discussing a build other than D/P…even…if only for a moment.

Rain.9213:

Let’s be honest. P/P is a little too dumb right now. The ridiculous damage you get just from one attack combined with Haste is unreasonable.

I’m all for making P/P viable and good but when I can just hit 3 once or twice and kill someone with little to no effort, that’s when you know something’s wrong.

Furthermore, just played with a buddy running Trapper Rune P/P build in WvW…. yeah, you thought Trapper D/P was super strong? Try P/P. The might stacks will make you annihilate everything.

Now I have never asked for a nerf to Thief before but I think this type of damage needs to be spread out in between all the pistol skills. Spamming 1 skill to win is unrewarding and game breaking, quite frankly. We need more incentive to use our other pistol skills…

Rangers get rapid fire. Also learn to dodge or block. Shield 5 is your friend if you play warrior. Against a good player all pistol 3 does is waste initiative unless you have a stun set up.