Guild Wars 2

Pistol Whip needs the first/second part separated, the first part should be smacking them with your pistol, which should be a fast casting melee attack that you can use on the move, the second part needs to root you and slash repeatedly while evading.

3-1 Pistol Whip (¼ Cast/Strike) 2 Initiative
Pistol-whip your foe, stunning them.
Damage: 302
Stun: ½ s
Range: 130
Can use while moving, when you use this skill it opens up “Sword Flurry” for the next 7 seconds.

3-2 Sword Flurry (½/Channel/Root) 3 Initiative
Evade attacks while slashing your foe repeatedly with your sword.
Damage (4x): 1,262
Evade: 2 s
Range: 130
Rooted/Evades attacks while Channeling.
If you move while channeling the skill, it cancels both your attack and Evasion.

I’m not a fan of skills that roots me. Besides, how are you going to hit your target with your “Sword flurry” when your target can move because they are no longer stunned while you are rooted slashing at nothing?

The current Pistol Whip doesn’t need to be separated. Instead, it just need to do 3 slashes instead of 9 dealing the same amount of damage.

The animation can also be modified to have the Thieve do 2 slashes in a “X” then whip around for a stab. Three hits that can be channeled in 2s, that’s all it needed.

I love this idea. It isn’t conceivably OP in any way, and it gives us the flexibility we need to actually use PW properly.

We also get the option to just use the skill as a stun, and completely ignore the damage end, giving us a control mechanism that’s actually usable in battle.

I would rather the flurry activate once the Pistol Whip hits. That’s just me though.

9 slashes? Count better…

OK… LEMME FIX THAT..

4 Slashes, not 9. I apologize.

Sounds like the Mesmer sword skill.

Why seperate a skill that has worked fine since Launch and the only reason it has issues is because they’ve nerfed it essentially twice.

ensoriki.5789:

Why seperate a skill that has worked fine since Launch and the only reason it has issues is because they’ve nerfed it essentially twice.

It needs to be more responsive and mobile. I consider it weaker because the first part and the second part root you, breaking it into 2 skills would make it considerably better as a skill.

To what purpose.
Go run S/P.
Tell me the issues you actually get with it.

Stability, retaliation, the wind up of pistol whip, and the damage you deal considering that wind up. You’ve really done nothing to the issues PW has.
Instead it has everything that is problematic but it’s seperated for completely arbitrary reasons.

Then you have the BP which is primarily just a stomp or combo field for your other weapon set. When using it for S/P itself generally the loss of damage due to it’s low base number screws you over for the initiative cost.

But how does seperating PW into two skills that work exactly the same as now with the only change being they are seperate remedy it’s faults? The moment you boosted up the damage you already gave PW a significant benefit and just made it more rewarding to land it. Seperating it at that point is just adding arbitrary flexibility.
If it’s more rewarding to land your PW there isn’t an issue.
If it’s easier to land the stun then there is less issue.
But seperating the skill doesn’t actually make landing the PW itself easier anyways which was the main qualm in terms of responsiveness.

ensoriki.5789:

To what purpose.
Go run S/P.
Tell me the issues you actually get with it.

Stability, retaliation, the wind up of pistol whip, and the damage you deal considering that wind up. You’ve really done nothing to the issues PW has.
Instead it has everything that is problematic but it’s seperated for completely arbitrary reasons.

Then you have the BP which is primarily just a stomp or combo field for your other weapon set. When using it for S/P itself generally the loss of damage due to it’s low base number screws you over for the initiative cost.

But how does seperating PW into two skills that work exactly the same as now with the only change being they are seperate remedy it’s faults? The moment you boosted up the damage you already gave PW a significant benefit and just made it more rewarding to land it. Seperating it at that point is just adding arbitrary flexibility.
If it’s more rewarding to land your PW there isn’t an issue.
If it’s easier to land the stun then there is less issue.
But seperating the skill doesn’t actually make landing the PW itself easier anyways which was the main qualm in terms of responsiveness.

It does make it easier, now I can Infil-strike and immediately go to the damage portion of Pistol whip for example, or steal and immediately go to the damage portion.

You don’t understand how simple synergy can make all the difference.

Daecollo.9578:

ensoriki.5789:

To what purpose.
Go run S/P.
Tell me the issues you actually get with it.

Stability, retaliation, the wind up of pistol whip, and the damage you deal considering that wind up. You’ve really done nothing to the issues PW has.
Instead it has everything that is problematic but it’s seperated for completely arbitrary reasons.

Then you have the BP which is primarily just a stomp or combo field for your other weapon set. When using it for S/P itself generally the loss of damage due to it’s low base number screws you over for the initiative cost.

But how does seperating PW into two skills that work exactly the same as now with the only change being they are seperate remedy it’s faults? The moment you boosted up the damage you already gave PW a significant benefit and just made it more rewarding to land it. Seperating it at that point is just adding arbitrary flexibility.
If it’s more rewarding to land your PW there isn’t an issue.
If it’s easier to land the stun then there is less issue.
But seperating the skill doesn’t actually make landing the PW itself easier anyways which was the main qualm in terms of responsiveness.

It does make it easier, now I can Infil-strike and immediately go to the damage portion of Pistol whip for example, or steal and immediately go to the damage portion.

You don’t understand how simple synergy can make all the difference.

I get the synergy, I feel it’s completely the wrong direction to go.
In other words, split it to ignore whats wrong with it. Will split 100b into two skills next so you don’t get fully screwed if they dodge.

This would be interesting. Might make using the attack portion against a moving mob/player a bit easier to pull off.

Personally, I’d rather see the damage increased back to what it was before they nerfed Haste.

Separating it into two parts would make it a lot better as an ability itself, IMO.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I’m not a fan of skills that roots me. Besides, how are you going to hit your target with your “Sword flurry” when your target can move because they are no longer stunned while you are rooted slashing at nothing?

You COULD cast the ability twice, doing the exact same thing that pistol whip does now. If pw was changed like this I do believe it’d make the skill crazy op. Instead of having the disgusting delay between cast and evade, you could potentially have Blurred Frenzy but with initiative and a 2.5s cd (cast times). It’d be strong enough that soloing Lupi on a thief would be just as fast as soloing on warrior.

ensoriki.5789:

To what purpose.
Go run S/P.
Tell me the issues you actually get with it.

Stability, retaliation, the wind up of pistol whip, and the damage you deal considering that wind up. You’ve really done nothing to the issues PW has.
Instead it has everything that is problematic but it’s seperated for completely arbitrary reasons.

Then you have the BP which is primarily just a stomp or combo field for your other weapon set. When using it for S/P itself generally the loss of damage due to it’s low base number screws you over for the initiative cost.

But how does seperating PW into two skills that work exactly the same as now with the only change being they are seperate remedy it’s faults? The moment you boosted up the damage you already gave PW a significant benefit and just made it more rewarding to land it. Seperating it at that point is just adding arbitrary flexibility.
If it’s more rewarding to land your PW there isn’t an issue.
If it’s easier to land the stun then there is less issue.
But seperating the skill doesn’t actually make landing the PW itself easier anyways which was the main qualm in terms of responsiveness.

You clearly have no idea what splitting it into 2 skills would do. You’d now have an on demand stun that can be used on the move and an on demand evade that deals good damage. It would require set-up which would also increase the skill cap of the build. If you really don’t see the greatness of an on-demand evade like that then just look at blurred frenzy. If that’s not good enough, look at how horrendous the evade is on pistol whip. What good is an evade when you have to wait 3/4s before it even goes off? There isn’t one. And if you really think bp is only good on d/p then you’ve been using it wrong.

Will split 100b into two skills next so you don’t get fully screwed if they dodge.

I never realized 100b was a 2 part ability. Here I always thought everything was straight forward.

If you really wanted to compare it to a skill and actually make sense and have a point, you should have compared it to something like the Ele dagger earth grasp skill (that was split into 2 parts for added usability) or mesmer sword 2 (which is in 2 parts for added usability) or warrior sword impale (only warrior 2 part skill I could find yet it too is split into 2 parts). I guess you could argue rush could be broken into 2 parts, first part to rush to your target, 2nd would be to use the damage. It would help as right now the warrior can get locked into the rush animation for too long since the game doesn’t believe they are close enough to land the damage yet…

Why I say what I say.
I ran S/P from late December/January until the quickness nerf as a response to all the S/D nerfs they had done in Nov and Dec. Noctis Assassin was still running S/D and then eventually converted to S/P because Rangers were and to this day are flipping annoying he probably had additional reasons but thats what I knew.
We ran Haste burst specs, we did well for what we were playing, he did team tourneys, I solo-que’d, ran into each other ocassionally and had good skirmishes. Run into Ackwin who I usually saw with P/D but knew he played S/P as well. Run into a couple other S/P thieves and their names escape me. Ran into more popular names which I’ll refrain and did just fine, good matches. Hgh engies? Couldn’t relate to the forums threat of them. Mesmers? Felt very even a little cheesy at times but whatever. Guardians? I could spec to deal with them albeit was a bit hit or miss at times. Ele’s? That was problematic but in terms of a team just fine. PvE? Throw Black powder and cleave took care of everything. Everything? everything Monsters attack frequency was so predictable you could PW through them all without qualm and save an ini. Well to this day you still can. Rangers? Still annoying but less than playing S/D at the time.

When they nerfed S/P in October I feel they nerfed it in relation to haste. Since that October Nerf S/P was more or less balanced in terms of Haste play, with a couple issues like retaliation blowing you to kingdom come. Which was kind of dumb considering if you were hitting multiple targets as S/P that was their fault not yours.
That and stability had people ignoring the hell out of pistol whip. Outside of that the set was pretty dam good. Could go against any of the other thieves, only qualm was when you ran into D/x with haste, and if they blew their haste then you could definitely beat that too. Good set. Quickness nerf to S/P was like quickness nerf to HB wars. Especially considering the skills are extremely similar.

When they nerfed Quickness it’s like they nerfed what they had already near perfectly balanced around quickness. Sinoctis doesn’t play anymore and I’m here playing less frequently, going through April with a burst S/D set before they nerfed that too with the Mug nerf :o.

PW was balanced for Quickness. Now it gets screwed up not really because it roots, the root means extremely little. With haste in it’s current state you can’t wear them down and then blow em up. You can’t see someone at 50%, haste and plow through them either. The skills too slow and doesn’t hit hard enough for the speed.

If they up the damage, you’ll wear them down better regardless of your spec and it’ll add up over time. Similarly when you use haste it’ll be more effective when you’re compressing higher damage. The hits that land will do more damage if they walk through it with stability.
On the other hand.
If they speed up the skill itself, you’ll stun more reliably can interrupt key skills with greater ease without resorting to headshot while you’re in melee range. You’ll get more hits in which means wearing them down easier. You can CC better for teammates in a venom spec, and feel more use out of your haste in a haste spec. You’ll get more hits off even if they walk through it with stability.

I don’t see a need to split a skill that until 2 patches ago was still a clear threat in pvp or wvw if you wanted to run it. Few professions could ignore hasted whips. Simultaneously you could run different trait lines back then because haste counted as a damage boost so you could run acrobatics, trickery, or DA. There is Cruuks build too I suppose that runs Shadow arts.

They should fix what they broke, we can’t go back to 50% quickness so making PW hit harder or faster would definitely help. As where it was before it only had a couple issues. I don’t think it needs seperation at all. I think they had it probably 80 or 90% balanced after October. Broke it with the quickness nerf hit it again with the mug nerf, and kinda sliced into it a fourth time by “fixing” inf strike.

Thing needs a damage buff 1) So it can properly wear down targets better since it doesn’t have 50% quickness to make up for lack of damage.
2) Because Mug isn’t nearly as strong, it’s additional damage out of S/P’s mouth.

It’s still “usable” in a venom spec and by usable I mean if you’re going to run venoms then you might as well take S/P. Since it does that arguably better than our other sets.

Seperation feels like saying “Here is a skill that functionally worked and was fine. We’re now functionally changing it, instead of bringing it back to where it was”.

It would be the SAME exact skill, just be split up and respond a lot faster. I feel that the two skills going together just makes the enemy know your coming, IF YOU SPLIT THE skill, it will not only increase synergy with other skills and increase the skill cap, you can artificially add more damage to it because now its a better attack.

And since you lowered the hit volume of it, you can buff Signet of Malice to heal for more since you have less swings which increases its value on EVERY other attack in the game.

SoM is held back by the Old PW/Unload.

I love fighting PW thieves in SPVP, because I have perma-retaliation. They are an absolute joke.

Daecollo.9578:

It would be the SAME exact skill, just be split up and respond a lot faster. I feel that the two skills going together just makes the enemy know your coming, IF YOU SPLIT THE skill, it will not only increase synergy with other skills and increase the skill cap, you can artificially add more damage to it because now its a better attack. The synergy comes from taking the whip and throwing it away because it’s “In the way”.

And since you lowered the hit volume of it, you can buff Signet of Malice to heal for more since you have less swings which increases its value on EVERY other attack in the game. They could buff SoM right now. The Hit volume of PW and Unload can’t argue leaving SoM as it is when Hastes been nerfed. The only other utility skill that’s problematic with SoM is caltrops.

SoM is held back by the Old PW/Unload.
Maybe back with 50% haste. Their current speeds aren’t holding back SoM. The maximum speed is too low. Previously when you brought up SoM I said it has use when you get a lot of hits and brought up haste as part of that and caltrops. With the current maximum speeds it doesn’t matter it shouldn’t have any balance issues if SoM is buffed with the current skills. If anything the only reason SoM would have a problem is caltrops triggering the heal or use with Shadow rejuvenation (but I doubt that)

randomfightfan.4091:

That’s fine. I’m slightly perturbed at someone trying to tell me what I do and do not understand. Forgive me if while typing I do not take the time to go through every single strategy and use of a skill in my head in an attempt to be as brief as I know how.

Daecollo.9578:

… you have less swings which increases its value on EVERY other attack in the game.

That’s all it needs improvement on. Less swings. That’s it.

I’d rather have it stab once, really.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Daecollo.9578:

… you have less swings which increases its value on EVERY other attack in the game.

I’d rather have it stab once, really.

That would be preferred. Considering Sins signet, venoms and HK. Annoying enough knowing Sin signet active sucks for multi-hit.

ensoriki.5789:

That’s fine. I’m slightly perturbed at someone trying to tell me what I do and do not understand. Forgive me if while typing I do not take the time to go through every single strategy and use of a skill in my head in an attempt to be as brief as I know how.

What happened was that you said it wouldn’t make a difference/would help at all. Myself and others disagreed with you, adding in new points and views that you didn’t seem to think of. You then retorted by calling me dumb (and indirectly others) because we thought of situations where breaking the skill into 2 parts would be amazing. Forgive me for being annoyed by someone when they insult my intelligence when all I’m doing is adding different (and valid) perspectives to a situation.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Daecollo.9578:

… you have less swings which increases its value on EVERY other attack in the game.

That’s all it needs improvement on. Less swings. That’s it.

I’d rather have it stab once, really.

Not a bad idea but then that’d just completely ignore the evade portion/concept of the ability. It’d turn from a control/survivable attack into an undodgeable burst IF the stun lands. It might be too much to force a player to use a stun break against a skill that could be cast multiple times in a short time. Just my 2 cents.

To what purpose.
Go run S/P.
Tell me the issues you actually get with it.

As many have said, 3/4s delay before you evade isn’t good in many situations. Twitch evades would be significantly more useful. Not to mention sometimes a player will want to turn around and stun a target (even temporary stuns) then capitalize with other skills. Someone might want to stun with the 1st part then drop caltrops or SOMETHING.

I’d also just like to say I never said the change is necessary, it would be nice to have though. The change on ele earth grab wasn’t necessary, it was nice though. The change on fs wasn’t necessary, it was nice though. The same could be said with any other 2 part skill in this game. It might not be necessary to break them into 2 uses, it’d sure be nice if they were (if they already aren’t) for most of them though.

You’ve really done nothing to the issues PW has.

Separating it into 2 parts would do a lot to help with many of the issues it has. I simply described a few situations where you clearly didn’t fathom the benefit. I know you didn’t think of those, look at your quoted point above. Then you call me dumb and your reasons for doing so is…

Hmm I’m fine. It doing something and it remedying the issues the set has are two different things. It doesn’t address them so I deem it unnecessary. Why break apart the skill if it’s design isnt broken.

I’ve got nothing against you for trying to add anything. It bothered me that you were stating what I think. Moving on.

Separating the skill allows me to stun and if the enemy moves away and breaks it, I don’t have to commit to the full spell, I can Infil-strike/then use my evade

Daecollo.9578:

Separating the skill allows me to stun and if the enemy moves away and breaks it, I don’t have to commit to the full spell, I can Infil-strike/then use my evade

That sounds like a potentially beast combo. Might also be the reason why it’s not currently separate :P

The reality of it all.~

S/D combo system was buffed because the battle system was too bugged and was beyond repairing. So it was given a new look.

P/W shouldn’t be split like S/D because it’s not broken. The idea is nice really, but it’s not helping the original problem P/W has (fix old problems before thinking about new buffs) That way, your vision is more clear if a new buff should be implemented.

P/W shouldn’t have lesser strikes/slashes. While I dream about this, players will just abuse this fact and go back to haste p/w. Wouldn’t that suck? True perma stunned P/Wing with no skills needed.

There are two problems that Pistol whip has: 1. It needs a damage buff since Haste has been nerfed. I really do wish it would go back to 15% but haste is not gone from the game.. So i would realisitically bargain for a 10% dmg rebuff.

2. Would have to be that the skill cast for the P/W skill is alright.. But my problem is that the evade doesn’t activate instantly the pistol whip is casted.. This really sucks when you’re face tanking and you don’t have luxurious Boons that help you survive.

Daecollo.9578:

Separating the skill allows me to stun and if the enemy moves away and breaks it, I don’t have to commit to the full spell, I can Infil-strike/then use my evade

That’s my issue with it. Not that I don’t like it, but having that potential will make PW a candidate for nerfing.

So if we are to improve skills for Thieves, let’s also take into consideration what would be the potential consequences that might merit a nerf and try to avoid that avenue.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Daecollo.9578:

Separating the skill allows me to stun and if the enemy moves away and breaks it, I don’t have to commit to the full spell, I can Infil-strike/then use my evade

That’s my issue with it. Not that I don’t like it, but having that potential will make PW a candidate for nerfing.

So if we are to improve skills for Thieves, let’s also take into consideration what would be the potential consequences that might merit a nerf and try to avoid that avenue.

A nerf might even be worth it if you were to add that level of usability to the skill. My opinion at least. Putting this into a pve perspective, it’d be amazing and wonderful if I could use the stun portion (the part where you’re rooted, doing no damage, and vulnerable) away from the boss then move in for the frenzy+evade part. It would really help with the insta down near insta cast stab/kick ability the grawl has along with allowing thieves to go in and melee the boss even when the rest of his team is being wusses and ranging. It’d also be great b/c you’d finally have a good damaging while evading ability when fighting Lupi or any other boss where you’re dodging 50% of the fight, bringing thief effective dps potentially on par with warriors IF played right. A lot of variable I know, it might make the weapon set op for sure, but it’d be pretty cool to have complete control over the skill.

randomfightfan.4091:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Daecollo.9578:

Separating the skill allows me to stun and if the enemy moves away and breaks it, I don’t have to commit to the full spell, I can Infil-strike/then use my evade

That’s my issue with it. Not that I don’t like it, but having that potential will make PW a candidate for nerfing.

So if we are to improve skills for Thieves, let’s also take into consideration what would be the potential consequences that might merit a nerf and try to avoid that avenue.

A nerf might even be worth it if you were to add that level of usability to the skill. My opinion at least. Putting this into a pve perspective, it’d be amazing and wonderful if I could use the stun portion (the part where you’re rooted, doing no damage, and vulnerable) away from the boss then move in for the frenzy+evade part. It would really help with the insta down near insta cast stab/kick ability the grawl has along with allowing thieves to go in and melee the boss even when the rest of his team is being wusses and ranging. It’d also be great b/c you’d finally have a good damaging while evading ability when fighting Lupi or any other boss where you’re dodging 50% of the fight, bringing thief effective dps potentially on par with warriors IF played right. A lot of variable I know, it might make the weapon set op for sure, but it’d be pretty cool to have complete control over the skill.

If that is the case, then it would be better to just replace the “flurry” part to a single attack/stab. Since you want complete control, rooting mechanic is your greatest enemy whether it evades you or not. I personally hate rooting mechanic on offensive skills.

Splitting it to two skills will actually spawn 2 versions of it for PvP and PvE. But to be honest, since we have PvP only gears, I don’t understand why they didn’t went all the way to have a PvP only skills. That way PW can be as OP as it can be without them worrying about how it would play in PvP environment. A lot of the recent nerfs are PvP based anyway that just aggravates the PvE community.

We need OP skills in PvE because the difference is, in PvP, they are not fighting a Level 84 Champion mob or a world boss.

With that said, revert haste and PW back to it’s former self in PvE and keep the junk versions in PvP. Thank you.

The skill is very hard to use in PvP, and easy to use in PvE, separating it would make it useful for PvP.

Atm, Pistol Whip is an absolute joke to my necromancer. Hes not even the best SPVP class.

It does less damage then autoattack, WHY Not raise its skill cap and separate it and add some diversity? IT WOULD ALLOW people to use more then 3 3 3 3 3 3…

Daecollo.9578:

The skill is very hard to use in PvP, and easy to use in PvE, separating it would make it useful for PvP.

Atm, Pistol Whip is an absolute joke to my necromancer. Hes not even the best SPVP class.

It does less damage then autoattack, WHY Not raise its skill cap and separate it and add some diversity? IT WOULD ALLOW people to use more then 3 3 3 3 3 3…

lol PW is also on the 3rd slot :P

Daecollo.9578:

The skill is very hard to use in PvP, and easy to use in PvE, separating it would make it useful for PvP.

Atm, Pistol Whip is an absolute joke to my necromancer. Hes not even the best SPVP class.

It does less damage then autoattack, WHY Not raise its skill cap and separate it and add some diversity? IT WOULD ALLOW people to use more then 3 3 3 3 3 3…

PW isn’t very hard to use it all. Landing PW isn’t problematic. It’s when you land them and they shrug it off because of the nerfs in PW, Haste and Mug adding up.
You’re doing less damage and thats why S/P becomes less threatening. The typical S/P set took 3 damage nerfs… If you nerf backstab 15% you’ll see D/ wondering why people are shrugging them off, and hell that is already happening.

ensoriki.5789:

Daecollo.9578:

The skill is very hard to use in PvP, and easy to use in PvE, separating it would make it useful for PvP.

Atm, Pistol Whip is an absolute joke to my necromancer. Hes not even the best SPVP class.

It does less damage then autoattack, WHY Not raise its skill cap and separate it and add some diversity? IT WOULD ALLOW people to use more then 3 3 3 3 3 3…

PW isn’t hard to use in PvP.

Frauding, typical tpvp specs for Necromancer are still vulnerable to S/P due to the necro’s lack of stunbreaks and general lack of mobility. Necro’s probably the easiest class to kill with S/P.

S/P uses all of its skills. What are you talking about “allow people to use more then 333333” S/P, D/P and SB are the only sets that actually use all their skills.

Wow, you’ve played with some terrible necros then. Retaliation eats PW users ALIVE. However I understand most hotjoin necros are terrible. Its not exactly an easy class to play like thief. That is why my suggestion actually makes it harder to play and raises the skill cap a bit.

Daecollo.9578:

ensoriki.5789:

Daecollo.9578:

The skill is very hard to use in PvP, and easy to use in PvE, separating it would make it useful for PvP.

Atm, Pistol Whip is an absolute joke to my necromancer. Hes not even the best SPVP class.

It does less damage then autoattack, WHY Not raise its skill cap and separate it and add some diversity? IT WOULD ALLOW people to use more then 3 3 3 3 3 3…

PW isn’t hard to use in PvP.

Frauding, typical tpvp specs for Necromancer are still vulnerable to S/P due to the necro’s lack of stunbreaks and general lack of mobility. Necro’s probably the easiest class to kill with S/P.

S/P uses all of its skills. What are you talking about “allow people to use more then 333333” S/P, D/P and SB are the only sets that actually use all their skills.

Wow, you’ve played with some terrible necros then. Retaliation eats PW users ALIVE. However I understand most hotjoin necros are terrible. Its not exactly an easy class to play like thief. That is why my suggestion actually makes it harder to play and raises the skill cap a bit.

Retaliation doesn’t eat PW until you’re hitting multiple targets. Against a single-target it’s manageable. Also 30 in trickery was viable when haste was rolling because you had enough damage as a result of quickness. Not that you needed it, at all. 25/30/0/0/15 ate necros. Why? The damage output was high enough that no one cares about your retaliation. You as a necro are a single person with retal. Retaliation for S/P really sucks in when you’re hitting 2 and 3 people simultaneously because then you’re taking double and triple retaliation damage every swing. This is the same thing for HgH engies. No one is losing sleep over one person with retaliation. It isn’t a problem.

I Literally don’t know what you’re talking about. If you went 25/30/0/0/15 with Mug and Haste, the damage output would dropped Necro’s. Basically the easiest target on the field unless they went on a bunker spec. In which case you’d still kill them but it would take longer. If you went 10/30/0/30 with acrobatics you killed Necros. If you went 10/30/0/0/30 you killed Necro’s. You’ll probably still kill Necro’s in a Venom spec running 30/0/30/0/10. When you can bring LoS around nearly all capture points. Can daze, stun and immobilize a prof that admits it doesn’t break CC well and has low mobility and bring up retaliation? A single person with retaliation does not kill S/P thieves. It’s going in a team fight, guardian drops retal on everybody you cleave 3 people and are taking huge amounts of damage with your hasted whips and can go from 100% health to 20% faster than Usain bolt can run 100m.

I have to agree with Daecollo on this one since it would be a pretty bad Necro if they fall with just any Thief build. It would be a stalemate at best and a dead Thief at worst.

The builds im talking are for before the quickness nerf. The necro is more problematic now because the Thief does less damage. However the necromancers retaliation has always been negligible because PW doesn’t get wrecked by retal until it hits 2+ people with retal.

randomfightfan.4091:

Putting this into a pve perspective, it’d be amazing and wonderful if I could use the stun portion (the part where you’re rooted, doing no damage, and vulnerable) away from the boss

The first part of PW doesn’t root you? PW roots you once the whipping starts.
Or do you mean that very small interval between the pistol and the whipping?

Even better lengthen the evade frame to the beginning of the skill.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

randomfightfan.4091:

Putting this into a pve perspective, it’d be amazing and wonderful if I could use the stun portion (the part where you’re rooted, doing no damage, and vulnerable) away from the boss

The first part of PW doesn’t root you? PW roots you once the whipping starts.
Or do you mean that very small interval between the pistol and the whipping?

I’m talking about pretty much the entire time from after you start casting the stun and before the evade starts. It’s like 3/4 of a second or something stupid while the stun is only half that. Besides, using pistol whip on any boss (that requires any skill or timing) is a death wish. The evade just isn’t reliable at all.

randomfightfan.4091:

Gwalchgwn.1659:

randomfightfan.4091:

Putting this into a pve perspective, it’d be amazing and wonderful if I could use the stun portion (the part where you’re rooted, doing no damage, and vulnerable) away from the boss

The first part of PW doesn’t root you? PW roots you once the whipping starts.
Or do you mean that very small interval between the pistol and the whipping?

I’m talking about pretty much the entire time from after you start casting the stun and before the evade starts. It’s like 3/4 of a second or something stupid while the stun is only half that. Besides, using pistol whip on any boss (that requires any skill or timing) is a death wish. The evade just isn’t reliable at all.

You can use your stun (the actual act of whipping the opponent with your pistol) while moving, but you’re rooted while slashing.

Independently, these are okay, but the problem is that the stun can’t always hold an opponent in place for the duration of the slashing frenzy.

Splitting the skill would allow for more tactical stuns, and offer a way to “cash in” on a stun if you really want to. We’d be able to run an actual tank spec with the build, as well! With well-timed stuns and equally well-timed slashing evades, we could properly shut down melee and be able to finally combat burst without the use of stealth.

:D

randomfightfan.4091:

I’m talking about pretty much the entire time from after you start casting the stun and before the evade starts. It’s like 3/4 of a second or something stupid while the stun is only half that. Besides, using pistol whip on any boss (that requires any skill or timing) is a death wish. The evade just isn’t reliable at all.

So you do mean the interval between stun and evade. Not the stun part itself (since that small part isn’t rooted yet. But yeah I do agree, just wanted to clear up what exactly you mean.

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I’m aware of that, but he was talking about “stun part roots you” which could mean either: On trigger (stun), while triggering (stun), or aftercast (interval stun/whip)

The first part would be completely free form, only the flurry part would root you and give you evade.

The first part would give no evade/let you go free, and then you have 10 seconds to use the second part.