Guild Wars 2

Sacrificed my vitality trait for 10% pistol dmg and geez.
4k to 6k dmg consistently per unload, autoattack crits for 1.1k, Sneak hits decently too.
I also hit someone for 9k but probably sidekicked/green geared.
I’m on glass cannon gear + 30/30/10 so it might be just me but still.
Other Pistol skills still suck terribly in PvP (not so in PvE tho), but would you waste init on them if they were good? Unload would still deal more damage.

Now I much prefer P/P as backup instead of now-poor SB, having a lot of fun with PP (now it makes sense to swap at least).

Anyone else having fun with it?

The only issue I have is that pistol specific traits are a MUST have for pistols. =/ No original builds.

Red Falcon.8257:

Sacrificed my vitality trait for 10% pistol dmg and geez.
4k to 6k dmg consistently per unload, autoattack crits for 1.1k

Still far less DPS than melee equivalents. It is still a good set for sacrificing mobility, utility, and damage for the safety of range. The problem is that sacrificing mobility, utility, and damage for the safety of range isn’t worthwhile in most cases.

If you prefer P/P backup to SB backup you weren’t really utilizing the good parts of SB backup anyways. SB’s strengths don’t lie in its damage potential (although it has great damage potential, and far better than P/P against multiple targets).

The damage has always been good, people just compare it to melee kits instead of other ranged kits (even though ranged weapons are SUPPOSED to do less damage than melee weapons in return for having higher uptime on targets) and think it’s gimped because of that.

Even before the damage buff it did equal damage to Warrior Rifle and both Ranger bows. They just need to figure out a way to make P/P utility better/more synergistic and it will be fine.

Tulisin.6945:

Still far less DPS than melee equivalents.

Otherwise it would be terribly OP. :p
As a ranged weapon P/P is definitely one of the best single target bursters I’ve seen these days.
Due to multi-critting nature of Unload you get the init through Opportunist to get off 3 of them and that’s 12k-18k dmg in a matter of 3s or so from 900 range, plus the free Sneak attack.

It’s very good to finish off people that are running toward their allies and heartseeking would be dangerous.
Allows you to down a Warrior/Guardian without riskying to get 8k blows in your face.

Might not be the end of the world, but it’s a much better switch for your melee setup than the nerfed SB (and to think SB used to be the “mandatory” secondary before the nerfs).

I’m using P/P more than D/D lately… finding it quite enjoyable. Yeah, unload provides pretty deadly burst damage, plus range is king in this game.

It’s also great to use in a zerg battle, picking off people on the edges of the scrum.

Why do people keep expecting ranged weapons to deal as much damage as melee ones. That will NOT happen.

Once again, if you find pistols good now, then it was good before, 5% is not such a change that it would bring an entire weapon set from subpar to totally fine…

Lorath.2504:

Why do people keep expecting ranged weapons to deal as much damage as melee ones. That will NOT happen.

Eh………I’m of the opinion it’s due to other MMOs. In most MMOs it is typical for casters/physical ranged characters to pump out either massive damage spikes or constant high crit based DPS from a range.

Whats so good about Pistol/Pistol?
Survivability – Poor (no stealth.)
Mobility – Poor (no way to escape or cure conditions.)
Damage – Poor (Laughable Damage.)
Control Effects – Ok (but not to good, the enemy must be standing on top of you to get CCed, so it might as well be a melee weapon.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding_Shot – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot – Less Range, Less Damage.

I don’t see how a set that gives up Mobility/Survivability/Damage can be good, infact it sounds kind of terrible actually.

To the poster above, why does that ranged weapon “do so much” damage?

Daecollo.9578:

Whats so good about Pistol/Pistol?
Survivability – Poor (no stealth.)
Mobility – Poor (no way to escape or cure conditions.)
Damage – Poor (Laughable Damage.)
Control Effects – Ok (but not to good, the enemy must be standing on top of you to get CCed, so it might as well be a melee weapon.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding_Shot – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot – Less Range, Less Damage.

I don’t see how a set that gives up Mobility/Survivability/Damage can be good, infact it sounds kind of terrible actually.

To the poster above, why does that ranged weapon “do so much” damage?

I can’t speak for Mesmer, but P/P has equal, if not better, sustained than Warrior Rifle. Yes Vital Shot is worse than Bleeding Shot, but Unload has a much higher up time than Volley and ends up covering for it. Volley does about 30% more damage than Unload, but you can easily fit 2-3 Unloads during Volleys down time, meaning Unload is dealing more damage than Volley over x amount of time.

I agree that P/P mobility is terrible and and the survivability is meh, but the damage is actually really good when you compare it to other ranged sets.

EDIT: Also, Volley has a longer channel time than Unload, further reducing the DPS margin when comparing it to Unload.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Whats so good about Pistol/Pistol?
Survivability – Poor (no stealth.)
Mobility – Poor (no way to escape or cure conditions.)
Damage – Poor (Laughable Damage.)
Control Effects – Ok (but not to good, the enemy must be standing on top of you to get CCed, so it might as well be a melee weapon.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding_Shot – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot – Less Range, Less Damage.

I don’t see how a set that gives up Mobility/Survivability/Damage can be good, infact it sounds kind of terrible actually.

To the poster above, why does that ranged weapon “do so much” damage?

I can’t speak for Mesmer, but P/P has equal, if not better, sustained than Warrior Rifle. Yes Vital Shot is worse than Bleeding Shot, but Unload has a much higher up time than Volley and ends up covering for it. Volley does about 30% more damage than Unload, but you can easily fit 2-3 Unloads during Volleys down time, meaning Unload is dealing more damage than Volley over x amount of time.

I agree that P/P mobility is terrible and and the survivability is meh, but the damage is actually really good when you compare it to other ranged sets.

EDIT: Also, Volley has a longer channel time than Unload, further reducing the DPS margin when comparing it to Unload.

Lol… No… Sustained Damage is damage over say a 2 minute timeframe, which Rifle Warrior’s Damage out put is almost 3 times that of a thieves in that period.

Pistol can spam unload 3 times, and then are completely useless for awile, since they can’t do anything else. (it takes about 24 seconds to get your initiative back up, meanwhile rifle cool downs are only 8 seconds for volley…)

Warriors have more access to “FURY” (20% Critical Chance.), while Pistol Thieves do not.

Volley and Bleeding shot do 30% more damage then Unload and Vital Shot.

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

Daecollo.9578:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Whats so good about Pistol/Pistol?
Survivability – Poor (no stealth.)
Mobility – Poor (no way to escape or cure conditions.)
Damage – Poor (Laughable Damage.)
Control Effects – Ok (but not to good, the enemy must be standing on top of you to get CCed, so it might as well be a melee weapon.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding_Shot – Good Range, Good Damage.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot – Less Range, Less Damage.

I don’t see how a set that gives up Mobility/Survivability/Damage can be good, infact it sounds kind of terrible actually.

To the poster above, why does that ranged weapon “do so much” damage?

I can’t speak for Mesmer, but P/P has equal, if not better, sustained than Warrior Rifle. Yes Vital Shot is worse than Bleeding Shot, but Unload has a much higher up time than Volley and ends up covering for it. Volley does about 30% more damage than Unload, but you can easily fit 2-3 Unloads during Volleys down time, meaning Unload is dealing more damage than Volley over x amount of time.

I agree that P/P mobility is terrible and and the survivability is meh, but the damage is actually really good when you compare it to other ranged sets.

EDIT: Also, Volley has a longer channel time than Unload, further reducing the DPS margin when comparing it to Unload.

Lol… No… Sustained Damage is damage over say a 2 minute timeframe, which Rifle Warrior’s Damage out put is almost 3 times that of a thieves in that period.

Pistol can spam unload 3 times, and then are completely useless for awile, since they can’t do anything else.

Maybe if you have garbage precision, but assuming you are in full berserker sitting close to or at 60% natural crit, Opportunist procs will allow to fill in at least 2 Unloads every 8 secs. And this is not including the 3 Ini per 10 secs from Quick Recovery + Infiltrator’s Signet if you choose to run that build.

And I got to lol at Rifle doing 3 times more damage than P/P. Do you even try to do the math? Let’s assume, just for the sake of the argument, P/P can only do 1 Unload per 8 secs. Normalize Bleeding Shot and Vital Shot to 1 sec for quality of life reasons, and round Unload up to 2 sec channel from 1.75 (tipping the balance further towards Rifle). Here is quick scenario just to demonstrate a point:

10 second timeline, numbers taken from my Thief and Warrior both geared in full 80 berserker exos (25/30/0/0/15 for Thief, 20/30/0/0/20 for Warrior)

P/P: Unload – 2100 (2 sec) Vital Shot x8 (@350 per shot) – 2800 (8 secs) Unload – 2100 (2 sec)
Total: 7000

Rifle: Volley – 2950 (2.5 sec) Bleeding Shot x 8 (@400 per shot) – 3200 (8 secs) Volley – 2950 (2.5) sec
Total: 9100

So as you can see, even in a completely unrealistic scenario that vastly favors Rifle, Rifle is only doing about 30% more damage that P/P. Factor in the extra Unloads + correct channel times + everything else and you will have both weapons more-or-less performing at the same level.

EDIT: Fixed some math I did wrong.

Daecollo.9578:

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

1.) All damage testing and theorizing I do has Rifles and Pistols at the same cast time (because they do have the same cast time.

2.) Rifle adrenaline building is extremely slow. Like, 1 KS every 20 secs. It would affect Rifles damage output, but not to a deal-breaking extent.

3.) Even if this is true and the recast times are different (I haven’t tested this) it would essentially tag an extra .25 sec to Unload, but it would still be .5 sec faster channel than Volley.

I do agree range is an issue, among many other issues P/P has. This argument is solely aimed at comparing damage.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

1.) All damage testing and theorizing I do has Rifles and Pistols at the same cast time (because they do have the same cast time.

2.) Rifle adrenaline building is extremely slow. Like, 1 KS every 20 secs. It would affect Rifles damage output, but not to a deal-breaking extent.

3.) Even if this is true and the recast times are different (I haven’t tested this) it would essentially tag an extra .25 sec to Unload, but it would still be .5 sec faster channel than Volley.

I do agree range is an issue, among many other issues P/P has. This argument is solely aimed at comparing damage.

Its not slow… You have a healing ability that puts you at full adrenaline + precision signet that does the same thing, both have LOW cooldowns.

You can use these BOTH before the fight even starts as well.

Daecollo.9578:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

1.) All damage testing and theorizing I do has Rifles and Pistols at the same cast time (because they do have the same cast time.

2.) Rifle adrenaline building is extremely slow. Like, 1 KS every 20 secs. It would affect Rifles damage output, but not to a deal-breaking extent.

3.) Even if this is true and the recast times are different (I haven’t tested this) it would essentially tag an extra .25 sec to Unload, but it would still be .5 sec faster channel than Volley.

I do agree range is an issue, among many other issues P/P has. This argument is solely aimed at comparing damage.

Its not slow… You have a healing ability that puts you at full adrenaline + precision signet that does the same thing, both have LOW cooldowns.

You can use these BOTH before the fight even starts as well.

Fair enough, but 2 things to consider:

1.) You lose 12% damage and 9% crit every time you Kill Shot, and it takes a long time to build that back up manually.

2.) Kill Shot (for me) has a 1.75 cast time for 2k damage (though it crits a lot). It’s an intimidating burst tool, but when looking at it from a sustained point of view, it’s not that mind-blowing (especially when you take what I listed in #1 into consideration).

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

Oh yeah, Rifle Warrior also has more range too.

The Channel doesn’t matter, Pistol has a longer recast then Rifles, so there wait time between attacks is almost THE SAME, do a video comparing Unload/Volley and then fire a shot after.

Do a Comparing Video between Bleeding shot/Vital shot, vital shot is suppost to be 25% faster, but its not, volley is suppost to be slower, but its not.

I’m not even going to bring up “Kill Shot.”.

The channel time between rifle/pistols do not matter, because Pistols have to wait 0.75 seconds to attack again, while rifles only have to wait 0.50 seconds.

Vital Shot/Bleeding Shot have different channels, but because Pistol Recast is 0.75.
Volley/Unload have about the same reuse time, even though volley channels slower, I can use another attack faster then I can as a Pistol Thief.

1.) All damage testing and theorizing I do has Rifles and Pistols at the same cast time (because they do have the same cast time.

2.) Rifle adrenaline building is extremely slow. Like, 1 KS every 20 secs. It would affect Rifles damage output, but not to a deal-breaking extent.

3.) Even if this is true and the recast times are different (I haven’t tested this) it would essentially tag an extra .25 sec to Unload, but it would still be .5 sec faster channel than Volley.

I do agree range is an issue, among many other issues P/P has. This argument is solely aimed at comparing damage.

Its not slow… You have a healing ability that puts you at full adrenaline + precision signet that does the same thing, both have LOW cooldowns.

You can use these BOTH before the fight even starts as well.

Fair enough, but 2 things to consider:

1.) You lose 12% damage and 9% crit every time you Kill Shot, and it takes a long time to build that back up manually.

2.) Kill Shot (for me) has a 1.75 cast time for 2k damage (though it crits a lot). It’s an intimidating burst tool, but when looking at it from a sustained point of view, it’s not that mind-blowing (especially when you take what I listed in #1 into consideration).

………

2k damage?

Its an AOE attack that hits for more then BACKSTAB (due to warriors having more +% damage traits.), warriors far more critical chance, they sit at 80% while we are at 60%. (permament fury.)

I start the fight with full adren, use all my abilities, then use killshot (WHILE I WAIT for my abilities to cooldown and come back.) then after that, I use precision signet, FULL ADRENALINE AGAIN!, my abilities like volley are up again! I use them, then I notice, Kill shots up again! use that! then I can use my heal! full adrenaline again! rince and repeat!

Also… not even going to mention this since I forgot it, on top of doing far more damage then P/P, rifles also Pierce.

Pistol Pistol Thief has no access to stealth, 25% movement speed, and less damage and armor then rifle warrior.

So, less damage (by a good bit.), less range, can’t pierce, less movement speed, less armor, less mobility.

Daecollo.9578:

………

2k damage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

Its an AOE attack that hits for more then BACKSTAB (due to warriors having more +% damage traits.), warriors far more critical chance, they sit at 80% while we are at 60%. (permament fury.)

I start the fight with full adren, use all my abilities, then use killshot (WHILE I WAIT for my abilities to cooldown and come back.) then after that, I use precision signet, FULL ADRENALINE AGAIN!, my abilities like volley are up again! I use them, then I notice, Kill shots up again! use that! then I can use my heal! full adrenaline again! rince and repeat!

Also… not even going to mention this since I forgot it, on top of doing far more damage then P/P, rifles also Pierce.

Pistol Pistol Thief has no access to stealth, 25% movement speed, and less damage and armor then rifle warrior.

So, less damage (by a good bit.), less range, can’t pierce, less movement speed, less armor, less mobility.

First off, that video cherry picks the best Kill Shots and posts them. Look at his buffs, too. 90% of the time you play Rifle, you are gonna see Kill Shot crits in the 10-11k range. Against light armor wearers and with tons of buffs it will be higher, but so would Backstab (I can get 15-20k Backstabs buffed against light armor, and a far more sustainable rate than KS). Just go on the Warrior forum or better yet play one yourself, KS montages are the same as the Backstab montages we complaning about people making because they aren’t accurate, just cherry-picked scenes with the intention of showing off or whining about OPness. For reference I can hit light armor when buffed similarly for 11-12k, on an attack that I can use back-to-back.

As for Traits:

Damage traits Warriors get (specced 20/30/0/0/20) that affect Rifle:
+10% increased Crit to KS
10% damage when bleeding
+20% rifle recharge
+3/7/12% damage/adrenaline
+2/5/9% crit/adrenaline

Damage traits Thieves get (specced 20/30/0/0/15) that affect Pistols:
+10% damage when weakened
5% Dual Skill damage
+10% Pistol damage
+5% dual skill crit (if you take it)
+10% damage above 6 ini
+20% damage below 50% health

As you can see, traits actually favor P/P over Rifle. I’ll admit that the optimal Rifle build would probably be 10/30/0/0/30, but it’s really not going to make a huge difference.

But back to KS, even if I give you the benefit of the doubt about KS spamming, as I already said, you aren’t going to see those kinds of numbers in that video doing anything solo. Make a Warrior, go full berserker, and run around PVE a bit. I guarantee you will only be seeing hits around 9.5-10k without buffs.

On the subject of pierce, I’m not gonna argue really since it’s a valid point, but not really related to sustained single target damage. Also, we have Shortbow, so does it really matter THAT much?

Again I agree that P/P survivability is low, but that’s not what I’m arguing.

You keep insisting it’s less damage though but you aren’t providing any evidence for this, just a cherry-picked Kill Shot vid (just like the ones with 15k+ backstabs, because we all know we see those numbers every time we use Backstab, right guys? lol). I showed you some numbers, no they aren’t very accurate but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at tooltips and come up with a decent idea of DPS.

Not to mention you can just kill heavy golems, and I promise you P/P and Rifle will be killing them at about the same rate

Oh, and for reference:

http://i.imgur.com/VtwEL.jpg

Right about 2k damage unbuffed.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

………

2k damage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

Its an AOE attack that hits for more then BACKSTAB (due to warriors having more +% damage traits.), warriors far more critical chance, they sit at 80% while we are at 60%. (permament fury.)

I start the fight with full adren, use all my abilities, then use killshot (WHILE I WAIT for my abilities to cooldown and come back.) then after that, I use precision signet, FULL ADRENALINE AGAIN!, my abilities like volley are up again! I use them, then I notice, Kill shots up again! use that! then I can use my heal! full adrenaline again! rince and repeat!

Also… not even going to mention this since I forgot it, on top of doing far more damage then P/P, rifles also Pierce.

Pistol Pistol Thief has no access to stealth, 25% movement speed, and less damage and armor then rifle warrior.

So, less damage (by a good bit.), less range, can’t pierce, less movement speed, less armor, less mobility.

First off, that video cherry picks the best Kill Shots and posts them. Look at his buffs, too. 90% of the time you play Rifle, you are gonna see Kill Shot crits in the 10-11k range. Against light armor wearers and with tons of buffs it will be higher, but so would Backstab (I can get 15-20k Backstabs buffed against light armor, and a far more sustainable rate than KS). Just go on the Warrior forum or better yet play one yourself, KS montages are the same as the Backstab montages we complaning about people making because they aren’t accurate, just cherry-picked scenes with the intention of showing off or whining about OPness. For reference I can hit light armor when buffed similarly for 11-12k, on an attack that I can use back-to-back.

As for Traits:

Damage traits Warriors get (specced 20/30/0/0/20) that affect Rifle:
+10% increased Crit to KS
10% damage when bleeding
+20% rifle recharge
+3/7/12% damage/adrenaline
+2/5/9% crit/adrenaline

Damage traits Thieves get (specced 20/30/0/0/15) that affect Pistols:
+10% damage when weakened
5% Dual Skill damage
+10% Pistol damage
+5% dual skill crit (if you take it)
+10% damage above 6 ini
+20% damage below 50% health

As you can see, traits actually favor P/P over Rifle. I’ll admit that the optimal Rifle build would probably be 10/30/0/0/30, but it’s really not going to make a huge difference.

But back to KS, even if I give you the benefit of the doubt about KS spamming, as I already said, you aren’t going to see those kinds of numbers in that video doing anything solo. Make a Warrior, go full berserker, and run around PVE a bit. I guarantee you will only be seeing hits around 9.5-10k without buffs.

On the subject of pierce, I’m not gonna argue really since it’s a valid point, but not really related to sustained single target damage. Also, we have Shortbow, so does it really matter THAT much?

Again I agree that P/P survivability is low, but that’s not what I’m arguing.

You keep insisting it’s less damage though but you aren’t providing any evidence for this, just a cherry-picked Kill Shot vid (just like the ones with 15k+ backstabs, because we all know we see those numbers every time we use Backstab, right guys? lol). I showed you some numbers, no they aren’t very accurate but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at tooltips and come up with a decent idea of DPS.

Not to mention you can just kill heavy golems, and I promise you P/P and Rifle will be killing them at about the same rate

You forgot the important trait: Rifle Shots Pierce… and you forgot 50% BLEEDING duration…

You forgot “Empowered” 2% Damage per boon, Rifle warriors should have Infinite Might/Fury/Swiftness. so thats at least 6% more.

Red Falcon.8257:

Might not be the end of the world, but it’s a much better switch for your melee setup than the nerfed SB (and to think SB used to be the “mandatory” secondary before the nerfs).

I disagree, they don’t really fill the same roles.

As a swap SB offers: Mobility (both evade and travel), utility, burst short-range damage, decent conditions, excellent AE potential, and thief’s longest range set.

As a swap P/P offers: Less damage, malleability, and mobility than your melee set, but at a range.

P/P isn’t “good for damage”, it is “good for damage when melee isn’t an option”. SB brings things to the table that your melee set doesn’t.

I don’t have a problem with the idea that ranged weapons sacrifice damage for the safety of range, but people way overestimate the situations when that is actually a good tradeoff. P/P sacrifices mobility and utility as well, which means you’re even less likely to be able to maintain the range which it its only useful attribute. For a final insult to injury, P/P is shorter range than most ranged sets in the game, so it has no place as an option if you’re being kited. If you can’t catch them with melee, P/P isn’t a solution to that problem.

Daecollo.9578:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Daecollo.9578:

………

2k damage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

Its an AOE attack that hits for more then BACKSTAB (due to warriors having more +% damage traits.), warriors far more critical chance, they sit at 80% while we are at 60%. (permament fury.)

I start the fight with full adren, use all my abilities, then use killshot (WHILE I WAIT for my abilities to cooldown and come back.) then after that, I use precision signet, FULL ADRENALINE AGAIN!, my abilities like volley are up again! I use them, then I notice, Kill shots up again! use that! then I can use my heal! full adrenaline again! rince and repeat!

Also… not even going to mention this since I forgot it, on top of doing far more damage then P/P, rifles also Pierce.

Pistol Pistol Thief has no access to stealth, 25% movement speed, and less damage and armor then rifle warrior.

So, less damage (by a good bit.), less range, can’t pierce, less movement speed, less armor, less mobility.

First off, that video cherry picks the best Kill Shots and posts them. Look at his buffs, too. 90% of the time you play Rifle, you are gonna see Kill Shot crits in the 10-11k range. Against light armor wearers and with tons of buffs it will be higher, but so would Backstab (I can get 15-20k Backstabs buffed against light armor, and a far more sustainable rate than KS). Just go on the Warrior forum or better yet play one yourself, KS montages are the same as the Backstab montages we complaning about people making because they aren’t accurate, just cherry-picked scenes with the intention of showing off or whining about OPness. For reference I can hit light armor when buffed similarly for 11-12k, on an attack that I can use back-to-back.

As for Traits:

Damage traits Warriors get (specced 20/30/0/0/20) that affect Rifle:
+10% increased Crit to KS
10% damage when bleeding
+20% rifle recharge
+3/7/12% damage/adrenaline
+2/5/9% crit/adrenaline

Damage traits Thieves get (specced 20/30/0/0/15) that affect Pistols:
+10% damage when weakened
5% Dual Skill damage
+10% Pistol damage
+5% dual skill crit (if you take it)
+10% damage above 6 ini
+20% damage below 50% health

As you can see, traits actually favor P/P over Rifle. I’ll admit that the optimal Rifle build would probably be 10/30/0/0/30, but it’s really not going to make a huge difference.

But back to KS, even if I give you the benefit of the doubt about KS spamming, as I already said, you aren’t going to see those kinds of numbers in that video doing anything solo. Make a Warrior, go full berserker, and run around PVE a bit. I guarantee you will only be seeing hits around 9.5-10k without buffs.

On the subject of pierce, I’m not gonna argue really since it’s a valid point, but not really related to sustained single target damage. Also, we have Shortbow, so does it really matter THAT much?

Again I agree that P/P survivability is low, but that’s not what I’m arguing.

You keep insisting it’s less damage though but you aren’t providing any evidence for this, just a cherry-picked Kill Shot vid (just like the ones with 15k+ backstabs, because we all know we see those numbers every time we use Backstab, right guys? lol). I showed you some numbers, no they aren’t very accurate but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at tooltips and come up with a decent idea of DPS.

Not to mention you can just kill heavy golems, and I promise you P/P and Rifle will be killing them at about the same rate

You forgot the important trait: Rifle Shots Pierce… and you forgot 50% BLEEDING duration…

You forgot “Empowered” 2% Damage per boon, Rifle warriors should have Infinite Might/Fury/Swiftness. so thats at least 6% more.

- Pierce has nothing to do with direct single target damage (which is what im discussing). Bleeds…ok, I’ll give you that.

- If you put points in Tactics to get empowered then you are gimping yourself elsewhere, so it evens out.

- I did forget elite signet, so that’s what, 70%-ish uptime on 5 Might/Fury?

So 5 stacks of might with 70% uptime + 50% more bleed duration. That would probably make the trait allocation about equal between the two kits.

Tulisin.6945:

Red Falcon.8257:

Might not be the end of the world, but it’s a much better switch for your melee setup than the nerfed SB (and to think SB used to be the “mandatory” secondary before the nerfs).

I disagree, they don’t really fill the same roles.

As a swap SB offers: Mobility (both evade and travel), utility, burst short-range damage, decent conditions, excellent AE potential, and thief’s longest range set.

As a swap P/P offers: Less damage, malleability, and mobility than your melee set, but at a range.

P/P isn’t “good for damage”, it is “good for damage when melee isn’t an option”. SB brings things to the table that your melee set doesn’t.

I would agree with this. No range weapon can really compete with melee weapons, ranged is generally there for when you would otherwise have low melee up-time on the target. When I used P/P I never replace SB, but rather whatever melee weapon I was using.

You should count Brutal Shot in your math when comparing the weapons; it really is quite good in the situations where you will actually use a rifle.

The problem with Pistols isn’t that the damage isn’t up to par (it is pretty much on par with other weapons when you go all-in on Unload spam), but that you sacrifice all your utility to get that damage – why would I want to take a pistol Thief over an Ele or Mesmer or Necro or Engineer or Ranger or even mediocre stuff like rifle Warriors and scepter Guardians?

They just don’t offer anything that a Ranger with a shortbow can’t do while AFK.

Ensign.2189:

You should count Brutal Shot in your math when comparing the weapons; it really is quite good in the situations where you will actually use a rifle.

The problem with Pistols isn’t that the damage isn’t up to par (it is pretty much on par with other weapons when you go all-in on Unload spam), but that you sacrifice all your utility to get that damage – why would I want to take a pistol Thief over an Ele or Mesmer or Necro or Engineer or Ranger or even mediocre stuff like rifle Warriors and scepter Guardians?

They just don’t offer anything that a Ranger with a shortbow can’t do while AFK.

P/P really doesn’t offer a lot of utility regardless of damage output. Black Powder is kinda useless since it’s a melee ability and the whole idea is to be at range. Body Shot’s vuln duration is way too low (6 secs I believe? Compared to Brutal Shot’s 10 seconds) , and you already provide decent vuln via Sundering Strikes + Unload. Really the only decent thing the kit has it Head Shot.

I mean, I’d be all for buffing Vital Shot at least up to Shortbow #1 damage just to make using utilities in place of Unload less painful, but that really won’t deter P/P from being just Unload spam + a few Head Shots. Not until they make Body Shot better (or change it altogether) and/or make Black Powder have better synergy with P/P.

The first black powder shot blinds your target at a 900m range, then you have a smoke combo field you can 20% with unload or 100% with body shot / headshot, it’s not that melee really.

muscarine.5136:

The first black powder shot blinds your target at a 900m range, then you have a smoke combo field you can 20% with unload or 100% with body shot / headshot, it’s not that melee really.

Rifle Warrior can also blind from that range, there attack also does lots of damage, unlike our blind which does none.

Rifle Warrior is very short cooldown, 8 seconds for volley, which does 45% more DAMAGE… (Basicly almost the same as using 1 and a half unloads.)

Rifle has a faster recast then pistols, but higher channel, this means Bleeding Shot/Vital Shot are almost the same, exactly, except for the fact… Bleeding Shot does 20% more damage, has way more range, and can pierce, Rifles seem to be even faster then pistols if you think about it. (also, the bleed part of rifles is longer, but I don’t even want to go into condition damage at this point, too much work.)

Rifle also has kill shot, which they can use between cooldowns, this is a 1500 (1500 what!?) Range attack that does MORE damage (not by much.) then back stab!
Healing Surge/Precision Signet/Berserker Stance = Adrenaline no problem.

Rifle warrior has more survivability, better armor, better mobility, and better range, P/P doesn’t have stealth, unless you wanna add it to utility, but really have fun killing anyone with your nerf gun.

Just because of the rifles recast Advantage, Brutal Shot and Volley will out DPS two Unloads and do it in a shorter (not by much.) amount of time.

muscarine.5136:

The first black powder shot blinds your target at a 900m range, then you have a smoke combo field you can 20% with unload or 100% with body shot / headshot, it’s not that melee really.

The thing about “P/P utility” is this:
Yes, there are utility skills on the bar, but they’re #4/5, the pistol off-hand, which nobody debates is a bad set of skills, but…

1. You don’t need to take P/P to use the pistol off-hand.
2. P/P is the worst weapon set at effectively using that off-hand. Its operational range is not ideal for Black Powder, and P/P eats initiative to do any sort of reasonable damage, leaving little left to burn at will on utility.

So it isn’t really an argument in favor of P/P as much as it is an argument in favor of using AnythingElse/P because P/P is bad at using those utility skills.

It is not… ?
Of course i’m mentionning off hand pistol when talking about p/p, and no it’s not bad at using these skills, i really don’t know what else to say you have to try for yourself…

Too many people believe a dps thief has to grap 30/30 deadly arts / crit in order to deal any damage, this is the number one reason why so many fail to use p/p at its full potential.

Now if you read some of my post history, i actually agree p/p deserves some tweaks, we all agree on this, still it is really not as bad as so many people try to claim it is.

muscarine.5136:

and no it’s not bad at using these skills,

It is the worst of any build that uses pistol off-hand at using pistol off-hand. Subjectively, you might still believe it to be “good”, but objectively it is still the worst way to use those abilities. Both other /P sets deal more damage using less initiative, allowing more initiative to be available to use the expensive /P utility skills. Both other /P sets operate at a range that makes BP more usefuf. Both other /P sets have more mobility than P/P, allowing them to dictate the proper range for the /P skills.

It is like saying “Wearing level 70 exotics instead of 80 exotics is good, you’re still effective”. They’re straight-up worse, regardless of how effective you are with them you’d be more effective in 80 exotics.

What can i say, no it’s not ?

I’m running out of arguments, i’ve stated facts, you consider them wrong, i think it’s understandable to have so many people mistaking like you do with this bursty/tanky meta but at the end of the day i win my duels against s/p d/d p/d thieves, hold my own against bunker d/d eles and guardians, there’s not much i need to prove myself you guys just need time and a big Anet green flag to tell you it’s ok you can use p/p now.

muscarine.5136:

i win my duels against s/p d/d p/d thieves

I’ve won duels with S/nothing to prove it was possible. That doesn’t mean S/nothing is a great weapon set, it means you’re significantly better than your opponent. If you can make P/P work, then you can make another weapon set work much better. Good on you for fighting with a handicap, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t a handicap.

muscarine.5136:

What can i say, no it’s not ?

I’m running out of arguments, i’ve stated facts, you consider them wrong, i think it’s understandable to have so many people mistaking like you do with this bursty/tanky meta but at the end of the day i win my duels against s/p d/d p/d thieves, hold my own against bunker d/d eles and guardians, there’s not much i need to prove myself you guys just need time and a big Anet green flag to tell you it’s ok you can use p/p now.

/p is an ok pve weapon, mediocre pvp weapon.
p/ is a poor pve weapon, and alright pvp weapon.

p/p together is a sack of crap that doesn’t know what it wants to do, because its all over the place.

Its just a big handicap.

Yeah I will agree there is an issue with P/ abilities and /P abilities not really going together.

Honestly I think they should just make P/ a short range weapon, like Engineer P/. Basically, make it do more damage when under 200 range. This wouldn’t really affect P/D too much since it already has to get in for CnD anyway, and it would kinda make sense since muzzle-loaded pistols irl had terrible range anyway.

Then, just add a Rifle for Thieves to use as a primary single target ranged weapon, and that way you can build all 5 abilities around the same concept so you have the awesome synergy Warrior Rifle and other 2h ranged kits have.

Head Shot is suffering from ‘utility skills deal no damage’ disease that has crept over a lot of Thief skills (but not Warrior skills). This is amplified by P/ having a weak auto-attack.

Black Powder Shot is utterly nerfed on P/P between the combination of the weak auto (its initiative cost essentially pigeon-holes it into black powder + auto gameplay) and it being a melee range field on a set that desperately needs to stay at range to be effective. No, shooting through the field is not an effective use of your initiative. 95+% of the time that I use black powder on P/P, it is immediately before swapping to a melee set.

I don’t think the pistol auto needs to do Ranger short bow damage (that set doesn’t really have damage amplifiers like Unload / Body Shot), but it certainly needs something – the entire set does, to be honest, there isn’t a skill on there I wouldn’t change.

No real access to stealth and the only damage dealing move (unload) is not mobile friendly. P/p needs a lot of work. I still use it but I’m not going to pretend it’s awesome.
Even vital shot isn’t mobile friendly with you constantly dropping targets or auto attack stopping. The constant misses, the range issues. Lots and lots of work.

Ugh, the people on this forum.

It is very demonstrably not good, it is weaker than both the Thief’s melee sets AND most other ranged sets. By weaker I mean lowish damage AND poorish utility. If you want to see an actual correctly working ranged set try a Rifle warrior.

Like i said most of you are just waiting for that extra update that will go too far because of biased feedback, putting p/p way too far above what it needs to be, once it will be there you will maybe consider it and we will start to see another round of nerf thieves, only p/p this time.

It’s like the d/d eles all over again.
That’s how you create an actual fotm.

Right now p/p needs minor tweaks, no more. It’s actually a very balanced set, and if anything the game should be balanced around this kind of design instead of faceroll 123456 or facetank 123456.

Instead of this, we will just end up with another broken spec that goes way too far forcing the meta into more burst vs tank dynamic.

P/D > all
Stealth >> #1 >> #1 >> #1 >> Stealth >> #1 >> #1 >> #1 >> Stealth >> #1 >> #1 >> #1 >> Stealth >> #1 >> #1 >> #1 >> Stealth >> win

Throw poison, immob and SoS utils, along with TG elite and it’s a guaranteed win.

Anyone remember Power P/D…
guess not.

muscarine.5136:

Like i said most of you are just waiting for that extra update that will go too far because of biased feedback, putting p/p way too far above what it needs to be, once it will be there you will maybe consider it and we will start to see another round of nerf thieves, only p/p this time.

It’s like the d/d eles all over again.
That’s how you create an actual fotm.

Right now p/p needs minor tweaks, no more. It’s actually a very balanced set, and if anything the game should be balanced around this kind of design instead of faceroll 123456 or facetank 123456.

Instead of this, we will just end up with another broken spec that goes way too far forcing the meta into more burst vs tank dynamic.

Precisely. Currently, 80% of the problem is the animation bug with Vital Shot. If it was fixed (increasing rate of fire by 30-40%) both P/P and P/D would feel much more balanced and usable. What’s going to likely happen though is that they’ll ignore that issue and either do nothing or make a bunch of unrelated “tweaks” based on player feedback that will end up breaking the set even more in one direction or the other.

It’s irritating to say the least.

No, to be completely honest, P/P is NOT good at all (especially for sPvP/tPvP). This is coming from someone who plays P/P almost DAILY when bored.

decide to sign in to comment on this.

i have a rifle warrior(10-30-0-0-30) before creating my thief toon(25-30-0-0-15).
my rifle warrior crits alot more than my thief due to S of Rage, and i can cast For Great Justice during channeling(thats prob why my KS always crit, 10-13k, if i m lucky to hit someone). I like Volley too as it gives me 8-9k dmg with FJJ and SOR. My adreno is always full because i have [less adreno spent on F1] and [shouts boost adreno] and [crit adds more adreno] trait.

My p/p thief… i am an Unload spammer. i barely use first skill unless i am fighting a glitched fractal boss while tabbing out afk watching some youtube video. i ve never used second skill and Black Powder because they cost too much with little return. i have now stopped using 4th skill, i thought it is good to interrupt stomping but i normally see 2 or more people stomping one player at the same time so i would rather not waste my ini.
My Unload hits 5-6k.

although p/p doesnt seem as good as rifle warrior, i ’d rather roll with it, simply because of the current route bug that exists within all bullet/arrow projectiles.
Yes i am talking about bullets being blocked by thin air. it tend to happen when the bullets fly through certain type of terran(even its flat land), the bullet glitches and wont hit, and it only happens once in a while(i ve never seen two bullet glitch in a row) if character is moving. The bug has bugged me horribly cuz it caused a chunk of my Kill Shots hit nothing at all, put my skill into CD and roots me. For Volley, if one shot is glitched, i lose at least 1.6k dmg during the channel; for Unload, i lose like 800dmg , which isnt too bad because i can spam another 2 loads of Unload and they wont glitch.

in case u guys havent noticed, if u get rooted by one of those Binding Root skill, try destroy the root with pistol or rifle, none of the attacks will hit.

A couple weeks ago I decided to try p/p – sb combo in fotm when I get up there in level difficulty, to great success. After adjusting some gear and traits, I now d/d-p/p in wvw except when needed to aoe people on walls or from walls.

I’m quite happy with pistols.

Xenth.2408:

A couple weeks ago I decided to try p/p – sb combo in fotm when I get up there in level difficulty, to great success. After adjusting some gear and traits, I now d/d-p/p in wvw except when needed to aoe people on walls or from walls.

I’m quite happy with pistols.

The only way you can be totally happy with pistols is if you’re extremely un-analytical. They are not good.

muscarine.5136:

Like i said most of you are just waiting for that extra update that will go too far because of biased feedback, putting p/p way too far above what it needs to be, once it will be there you will maybe consider it and we will start to see another round of nerf thieves, only p/p this time.

It’s like the d/d eles all over again.
That’s how you create an actual fotm.

Right now p/p needs minor tweaks, no more. It’s actually a very balanced set, and if anything the game should be balanced around this kind of design instead of faceroll 123456 or facetank 123456.

Instead of this, we will just end up with another broken spec that goes way too far forcing the meta into more burst vs tank dynamic.

This is pretty much the only reason why I wish we had DPS meters.

Though it would also help if the devs would give us some real feedback on balance.

Basicly, P/P does not know what it wants to do, and it currently is probably 30-40% DPS behind the other ranged weapons, and on utility, the utility is good, but its just too costly, also P/P is one of the few weapons that don’t have a melee knockback, you literally can’t do anything if a melee goes up in your face.

daecollo try going glass cannon and spam unload. i assure u its not lacking dmg.(as P/P is clearly designed for unload spamming).

its mostly #1 that is the issue when going P/P.

as for traits, since when is there any “original” builds in any mmo that has a tallent tre / trait system, we all use the most effective build for our playstyle mostly cos any other uncommon or unused builds are just rubbish.

now i do agree #1 #2 and #5 for pistol need to be sorted out.

1. = 6 ini cost but no stealth = lame, so make it 4 ini cost for its blind field when only using P/P so its not OP when using D/P S/P,
   make #1 scale better, make its direct dmg do twice as much at the same attack speed and have its bleed scale with power when P/P.
   now as for body shot when using P/D make bodyshot stack bleeds, and when P/P make body shot snare/slow.

due to unload spammy nature maybe a small dmg increase would be nice. and maybe reduce its ini cost to 4 perhaps.

headshot is perfect as its an interupt not a dps ability so its dmg is fine for what it lets u do.

krixis.9538:

daecollo try going glass cannon and spam unload. i assure u its not lacking dmg.(as P/P is clearly designed for unload spamming).

Unload spamming is well below melee DPS. Even if you can make the argument that Unload spamming is decent for ranged DPS, you sacrifice utility to use it, whereas most ranged sets can provide their damage simultaneous with utility. The sacrifices required to maintain that DPS would logically mean that P/P would do excellent damage, but it only does mediocre damage.

krixis.9538:

daecollo try going glass cannon and spam unload. i assure u its not lacking dmg.(as P/P is clearly designed for unload spamming).

its mostly #1 that is the issue when going P/P.

as for traits, since when is there any “original” builds in any mmo that has a tallent tre / trait system, we all use the most effective build for our playstyle mostly cos any other uncommon or unused builds are just rubbish.

now i do agree #1 #2 and #5 for pistol need to be sorted out.

1. = 6 ini cost but no stealth = lame, so make it 4 ini cost for its blind field when only using P/P so its not OP when using D/P S/P,
   make #1 scale better, make its direct dmg do twice as much at the same attack speed and have its bleed scale with power when P/P.
   now as for body shot when using P/D make bodyshot stack bleeds, and when P/P make body shot snare/slow.

due to unload spammy nature maybe a small dmg increase would be nice. and maybe reduce its ini cost to 4 perhaps.

headshot is perfect as its an interupt not a dps ability so its dmg is fine for what it lets u do.

You’re correct that it’s Vital Shot that is the problem and that P/P damage heavily depends on Unload spamming, but it is very obviously not designed that way intentionally and is basically an animation bug affecting Vital Shot’s rate of fire.

How it should be working:
Vital Shot provides steady/sustained moderate DPS w/ occasional boosts from sneak attack (which is tertiary for P/P given lack of stealth access)
Unload provides an Initiative dump for burst DPS and through consistent use (by ignoring other skills/utility) gives P/P a way of managing good sustained DPS (as opposed to mediocre).
Prognosis: Good DPS through Vital Shot + Unload spamming (regardless of build), moderate DPS through Vital Shot and using Initiative for other skills (more condition/utility oriented).

How it is working:
Vital Shot provides crap sustained DPS due to a short bleed duration and long recast
Unload therefore is single-handedly responsible for a hugely disproportionate amount of the set’s potential DPS, so P/P is enormously over-dependent on optimizing power/crit and initiative refresh so you can stave off reliance on Vital Shot and do mediocre DPS through Unload only as opposed to garbage DPS through a combination of Vital Shot and Unload.
Prognosis: Mediocre DPS with power/crit build through constant Unload spamming and Vital Shot avoidance. Poor DPS otherwise.