Guild Wars 2

I’m making this its own topic here in the vain hope that a dev will read it and something will click.

Body Shot is complained about often, but is not and has never been the actual problem with P/P, and adding a 1 second root to it will accomplish nothing.

The actual problem with P/P is that its primary damage skill is the Initiative-sucking Unload when it should be the free Vital Shot. This causes a problem with resource management where all of the ‘specialty’ skills are perpetually pitted against the main damage skill in a competition that the latter will always win.

In short, it’s the only set in the entire game that forces you to sacrifice most of your DPS to get any utility or mobility and sacrifice all of your utility and most of your mobility to maintain decent DPS. That is and always has been what’s wrong with P/P.

Please buff or rework Vital Shot to be good with P/P and redesign Unload into something a little more utilitarian/specialized (like a cone AoE) so that you aren’t forced to rely on it for basic DPS. Short of making #2, #4, and #5 blatantly overpowered that’s the only thing that will actually fix P/P.

I, like many others, not only have no problem choosing where to use our Initiative, but I prefer Unload as it is. While not the same burst as d/d, Unload delivers a nice burst of ranged dps.

GOSU.9574:

I, like many others, not only have no problem choosing where to use our Initiative, but I prefer Unload as it is. While not the same burst as d/d, Unload delivers a nice burst of ranged dps.

No offense, but you clearly don’t understand what I’m saying.

Einlanzer.1627:

No offense, but you clearly don’t understand what I’m saying.

I love when someone disagrees with someone else and they start saying “you don’t understand”.
One can understand and disagree at the same time.
He just doesn’t like your Unload redesign proposal, nor do I.

Also, one fundamental concept.
Skills in GW2 are not designed to be an alternative to the main DPS skills, nor to be rotated.
They are meant to be situational; you use unload for DPS, headshot for Control, vital shot for Condition dmg, etc.

The only class that defies the concept is Elementalist who needs to rotate all their skills to deal decent DPS.
If you want to use all your skills a la WoW you can roll an Ele, so you can play piano with your numerical buttons and believe that makes you a pro, instead of having to use your skills intelligently.

Red Falcon.8257:

Einlanzer.1627:

No offense, but you clearly don’t understand what I’m saying.

I love when someone disagrees with someone else and they start saying “you don’t understand”.
One can understand and disagree at the same time.
He just doesn’t like your Unload redesign proposal, nor do I.

Also, one fundamental concept.
Skills in GW2 are not designed to be an alternative to the main DPS skills, nor to be rotated.
They are meant to be situational; you use unload for DPS, headshot for Control, vital shot for Condition dmg, etc.

The only class that defies the concept is Elementalist who needs to rotate all their skills to deal decent DPS.
If you want to use all your skills a la WoW you can roll an Ele, so you can play piano with your numerical buttons and believe that makes you a pro, instead of having to use your skills intelligently.

Yes you can understand and disagree, but that isn’t what’s happening here. Your analysis is mostly right, and that’s exactly what the problem is. The Thief has a unique resource mechanic – it isn’t cooldowns, it’s initiative. No other classes deal with this as a potential problem because they use cooldowns so their skills don’t directly compete with each other.

The Initiative mechanic means that the bread-and-butter damage skill should always be the autoattack like it is for every other Thief set because it uses no Initiative and therefore isn’t directly tied to your ability to use other skills. #2 – #5 should operate in a supplementary/specialized role. They offer some utility and may be better than the autoattack DPS wise in some situations, but not all. Unload is uniquely among all sets totally superior to Vital Shot, and that single-handedly breaks P/P by forcing you to choose at all times between maintaining DPS or having any utility whatsoever.

You can argue all you want, but I’m objectively right. The main thing that needs to happen is that Vital Shot needs to be buffed in some way to work better with P/P and Unload should be redesigned to work in some unique way that makes it only situationally better than the other skills, including Vital Shot.

Einlanzer.1627:

snip
Unload is uniquely among all sets totally superior to Vital Shot, and that single-handedly breaks P/P by forcing you to choose at all times between maintaining DPS or having any utility whatsoever.
snip

This^. That is exactly the problem I have been having trying to adjust to a thief coming from two other classes. I think the OP has a valid point.

Einlanzer.1627:

Red Falcon.8257:

Einlanzer.1627:

No offense, but you clearly don’t understand what I’m saying.

I love when someone disagrees with someone else and they start saying “you don’t understand”.
One can understand and disagree at the same time.
He just doesn’t like your Unload redesign proposal, nor do I.

Also, one fundamental concept.
Skills in GW2 are not designed to be an alternative to the main DPS skills, nor to be rotated.
They are meant to be situational; you use unload for DPS, headshot for Control, vital shot for Condition dmg, etc.

The only class that defies the concept is Elementalist who needs to rotate all their skills to deal decent DPS.
If you want to use all your skills a la WoW you can roll an Ele, so you can play piano with your numerical buttons and believe that makes you a pro, instead of having to use your skills intelligently.

Yes you can understand and disagree, but that isn’t what’s happening here. Your analysis is mostly right, and that’s exactly what the problem is. The Thief has a unique resource mechanic – it isn’t cooldowns, it’s initiative. No other classes deal with this as a potential problem because they use cooldowns so their skills don’t directly compete with each other.

The Initiative mechanic means that the bread-and-butter damage skill should always be the autoattack like it is for every other Thief set because it uses no Initiative and therefore isn’t directly tied to your ability to use other skills. #2 – #5 should operate in a supplementary/specialized role. They offer some utility and may be better than the autoattack DPS wise in some situations, but not all. Unload is uniquely among all sets totally superior to Vital Shot, and that single-handedly breaks P/P by forcing you to choose at all times between maintaining DPS or having any utility whatsoever.

You can argue all you want, but I’m objectively right. The main thing that needs to happen is that Vital Shot needs to be buffed in some way to work better with P/P and Unload should be redesigned to work in some unique way that makes it only situationally better than the other skills, including Vital Shot.

It is what is happening here. I disagree, give you my reason, and you state I don’t understand. Here is what I understand:

You want to diminish Unload’s effectiveness in order to buff a skill you like better. No. No thanks. You go on your merry way. You give NO reason to change the skills other than you don’t like the way YOUR preferred skill works and would rather a non-preferred skill be diminished in order to get your preferred one buffed.

No thanks. I do understand, and I disagree. Better yet, it won’t happen. Close discussion, carry on.

GOSU.9574:

Einlanzer.1627:

Red Falcon.8257:

Einlanzer.1627:

No offense, but you clearly don’t understand what I’m saying.

I love when someone disagrees with someone else and they start saying “you don’t understand”.
One can understand and disagree at the same time.
He just doesn’t like your Unload redesign proposal, nor do I.

Also, one fundamental concept.
Skills in GW2 are not designed to be an alternative to the main DPS skills, nor to be rotated.
They are meant to be situational; you use unload for DPS, headshot for Control, vital shot for Condition dmg, etc.

The only class that defies the concept is Elementalist who needs to rotate all their skills to deal decent DPS.
If you want to use all your skills a la WoW you can roll an Ele, so you can play piano with your numerical buttons and believe that makes you a pro, instead of having to use your skills intelligently.

Yes you can understand and disagree, but that isn’t what’s happening here. Your analysis is mostly right, and that’s exactly what the problem is. The Thief has a unique resource mechanic – it isn’t cooldowns, it’s initiative. No other classes deal with this as a potential problem because they use cooldowns so their skills don’t directly compete with each other.

The Initiative mechanic means that the bread-and-butter damage skill should always be the autoattack like it is for every other Thief set because it uses no Initiative and therefore isn’t directly tied to your ability to use other skills. #2 – #5 should operate in a supplementary/specialized role. They offer some utility and may be better than the autoattack DPS wise in some situations, but not all. Unload is uniquely among all sets totally superior to Vital Shot, and that single-handedly breaks P/P by forcing you to choose at all times between maintaining DPS or having any utility whatsoever.

You can argue all you want, but I’m objectively right. The main thing that needs to happen is that Vital Shot needs to be buffed in some way to work better with P/P and Unload should be redesigned to work in some unique way that makes it only situationally better than the other skills, including Vital Shot.

It is what is happening here. I disagree, give you my reason, and you state I don’t understand. Here is what I understand:

You want to diminish Unload’s effectiveness in order to buff a skill you like better. No. No thanks. You go on your merry way. You give NO reason to change the skills other than you don’t like the way YOUR preferred skill works and would rather a non-preferred skill be diminished in order to get your preferred one buffed.

No thanks. I do understand, and I disagree. Better yet, it won’t happen. Close discussion, carry on.

No, this post demonstrates your lack of understanding of both the situation and my argument with even greater transparency.

This isn’t actually a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of fact. Thieves uniquely have Initiative, which means they uniquely have direct resource competition with their 2-5 weapon skills. The only way that can function well is if the primary damage skill is the auto-attack and the 2-5 skills are more tactical/situational/utilitarian.

Doing it any other way means that whatever the primary damage skill is (in this case Unload) is going to consistently out-compete the other skills and leave them in a much less usable state than they should be because in order to use them you have to siphon resources you need to keep damaging your target.

That’s why people complain about P/P having such poor utility and mobility – it isn’t because it has poor utility and mobility, it’s because you can’t make proper use of what it does have without sacrificing your DPS more than is necessary on any other weapon set in the game.

I’m going to have to agree with Einlanzer.1627 here. Unload breaks the principal of utilitarian/situational skills on the 2-5 slots. If all thief weapons worked like P/P he wouldn’t have a valid point, but this is the one skill that breaks the mold and creates issues.

Good post OP, i agree.

Also, LOL at the back and forth between you and GOSU, it almost reads like a buddy comedy. Classic GOSU, always getting into shenanigans and, once again, you have to try to fix everything!

“Root on MH Pistol #2”? Er, what root? Are they going to add one or something? (only rooting I’ve noticed for Thieves is on Pistol Whip; a really annoying skill. Wish they’d give the option to have multi-strike skills show the per-hit damage rather than an increasing total – seeing it go from like 400 to 800 to 1200, etc. makes it look like you’re doing 2400+ damage total)

Einlanzer.1627:

snip
Thieves uniquely have Initiative, which means they uniquely have direct resource competition with their 2-5 weapon skills. The only way that can function well is if the primary damage skill is the auto-attack and the 2-5 skills are more tactical/situational/utilitarian.

Doing it any other way means that whatever the primary damage skill is (in this case Unload) is going to consistently out-compete the other skills and leave them in a much less usable state than they should be because in order to use them you have to siphon resources you need to keep damaging your target.

That’s why people complain about P/P having such poor utility and mobility – it isn’t because it has poor utility and mobility, it’s because you can’t make proper use of what it does have without sacrificing your DPS more than is necessary on any other weapon set in the game.

This is exactly spot on imo. I find I have so little initiative left after using my most effective P/P attack that the other skills might as well not be there; I can rarely use them.

JDGumby.7685:

“Root on MH Pistol #2”? Er, what root? Are they going to add one or something? (only rooting I’ve noticed for Thieves is on Pistol Whip; a really annoying skill. Wish they’d give the option to have multi-strike skills show the per-hit damage rather than an increasing total – seeing it go from like 400 to 800 to 1200, etc. makes it look like you’re doing 2400+ damage total)

Yeah it’s in the patch notes for the big October patch. It’s a totally pointless and ill-conceived change. The problem with P/P isn’t Body Shot; it’s a systemic problem with resource competition that is mostly due to the design of Vital Shot and Unload. That’s where its issues need to be addressed.

pistol pistol needs to either be purely condition based or dps based, not both. critical damage does nothing in the way of boosting conditions and condition damage does nothing to support dps for a thief. our skill trees and the traits we’d have to use to make this set even remotely viable already kitten us let alone having to choose underwhelming utilities to support this set.

Einlanzer.1627:

JDGumby.7685:

“Root on MH Pistol #2”? Er, what root? Are they going to add one or something? (only rooting I’ve noticed for Thieves is on Pistol Whip; a really annoying skill. Wish they’d give the option to have multi-strike skills show the per-hit damage rather than an increasing total – seeing it go from like 400 to 800 to 1200, etc. makes it look like you’re doing 2400+ damage total)

Yeah it’s in the patch notes for the big October patch. It’s a totally pointless and ill-conceived change. The problem with P/P isn’t Body Shot; it’s a systemic problem with resource competition that is mostly due to the design of Vital Shot and Unload. That’s where its issues need to be addressed.

Add a one second burn to each shot from unload, that or two stacks of bleeding. Body shot should be removed and replaced with another skill entirely, one that is evasive. That is my thoughts on the matter other than buffing the damage that the main attack deals or decreasing the cast time of vital shot.

This wouldn’t be an issue if we were allowed to use our off hand weapons as part of our main attack chain in the process as far as I see it that would make a lot of weapons and builds actually viable instead of having a lazy off hand.

jonwar.4186:

pistol pistol needs to either be purely condition based or dps based, not both. critical damage does nothing in the way of boosting conditions and condition damage does nothing to support dps for a thief. our skill trees and the traits we’d have to use to make this set even remotely viable already kitten us let alone having to choose underwhelming utilities to support this set.

My issue with P/P is similar to this guy, though slightly different. The issue is that Vital Shot/Sneak Attack and Body shot on P/X are by nature a condition damage and support abilities and Head Shot and Black Powder likewise are support abilities, however Unload the P/P special ability is a burst damage ability that offers neither condition damage, utility or mobility that would compliment the rest of the skills.

In all honesty I think Sneak Attack should be changed to be more like Unload and Unload changed to add a fair amount of bleed stacks. Thus focusing P/D more on single target damage with stealth for mobility and allowing P/P to have some conditional burst without having to use traits or a skill slot to achieve stealth.

People have been saying p/p needs work from since the beginning, don’t expect them to do anything about it in this century.

Best use for pistols on a thief is ranged champ tagging with Unload, beyond that there’s nothing but better options weapon-wise.

slightly off topic: Any other former dual-pistol superheroes here? (RIP CoH)

Neural.1824:

slightly off topic: Any other former dual-pistol superheroes here? (RIP CoH)

Nope, just a Villain. :P Ah, Rotten Ronnie (and his buddies Terrible Ted and Brutal Bob), you didn’t have nearly enough time to shine before they destroyed the City by going F2P, but you shall be missed.

kitten nic Touch.7960:

People have been saying p/p needs work from since the beginning, don’t expect them to do anything about it in this century.

Comments like this really bum me out. Not because I disagree but because I fear they are true. I came back to GW2 after an eight month hiatus and I’ve noticed a lot of the same skill point givers are still broken and such. Makes me think all ANet does is create new world events and ignore their bug backlog.

pdg.8462:

Comments like this really bum me out. Not because I disagree but because I fear they are true. I came back to GW2 after an eight month hiatus and I’ve noticed a lot of the same skill point givers are still broken and such. Makes me think all ANet does is create new world events and ignore their bug backlog.

This is off topic but… the hell. My name actually gets censored now… saw it when you quoted me…. god kitten . Watch them make me change my forum name or character name next.

pdg.8462:

Makes me think all ANet does is create new world events and ignore their bug backlog.

They have no motivation to do so. Their accountants are quite happy kittening all over the older playerbase so long as new users keep buying and everyone keeps buying gems. The only way Anet will ever straighten up is if their bank account depends on it.

Like I said in your other topic, Einlanzer, I agree with you completely, but you’ve been arguing this point since beta and have yet to have a single dev post on a single one of your bloody topics about it. Let’s face it, Anet either has no idea what’s wrong with P/P, doesn’t care (we know that’s not true, anyone with half a brain knows that Anet loves GW2), or simply don’t know how to fix it without killing P/D or D/P.

For once, I would LOVE to see a red post in one of your topics, but that just seems so unlikely (if a dev reads this, seriously, can you please take the <2 minutes to reply to the OP?).

i think we need to see the patch live 1st then continue on how body shot will works towards p/p gameplay, but i am sure that it will be a beast on p/d condi set.

And Unload itself its not really amazing skill, it just the best DPS we currently have on p/p. adding CC/evasive skill to Unload will be overkill imo, so the decisions to add CC to bodyshot will do some decisions whether to melt the target or root the target in place.

And lets not forget that Body shot could bounce 50% of the time when traited, could be awesome for team disabler.

Varylk.5628:

i think we need to see the patch live 1st then continue on how body shot will works towards p/p gameplay, but i am sure that it will be a beast on p/d condi set.

And Unload itself its not really amazing skill, it just the best DPS we currently have on p/p. adding CC/evasive skill to Unload will be overkill imo, so the decisions to add CC to bodyshot will do some decisions whether to melt the target or root the target in place.

And lets not forget that Body shot could bounce 50% of the time when traited, could be awesome for team disabler.

While I get what you’re saying, you aren’t really understanding my argument.

Immobilize just another reason for my Thiefsmer build to excel.