Guild Wars 2

Only 3 of its skills were. Interesting.

The Auto-attack.
The Stealth attack
And one Dual attack

That is only 3 out of 10 possible Pistol skills.

Not to mention that the range increase from Ankle Shots was removed, resulting in an overall nerf.

It was a bug fix

Well if you would look at General discussions you will see one thread started claiming this Buff to pistols makes the Thief even more OP

Everyone has their own take it seems.

Nah, it’s simply “working as intended” right now…
Just another nerf hidden under a pile of rather insignificant changes.

Tks Karl!

Although this changes do nothing for us and will not change a thing at this moment, it’s good to know that you guys are aware that this weapon set needs some love and that we will see changes coming to it in the future!

/respect

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

any news on a range buff to replace the loss from the trait as that was the only reason i took that trait

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

Thanks for the response!

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

Nobody’s listening anymore.

“Trust is a function of two things: character and competence.”

Well, if my gunslinging buxom norn wench dream is still hanging by a thread, i wont delete it just yet.

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

Thanks for the update man.

Hope these future looks can be extended to the current state of the class as a whole. Keep a presence as much as you can, I know we’re all critical as hell (myself included at times), but we really appreciate knowing we’re at least being heard.

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

Yes, thank you for the update. It’s good to know there are more changes coming. In fact, the more changes, the better (and not just for pistols). Hopefully, the future you speak of will be the near-future :-)

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

thanks for showing up and clarifying that.

but understand why we’re all so jaded about the state of pistols (especially P/P). the weapon has been a terrible set since the game came out, a running joke in the thief community. the one time it shone was with a gimmick build that used perplexity runes. the one pistol trait to survive the game-wide overhaul was ankle shots, and that trait is just laughably bad, especially without the range buff it apparently used to have.

pistol mainhand is a condi oriented set that works somewhat decently if you have high stealth uptime (from, say, dagger), even though the autoattack probably feels a bit too slow. pistol offhand is a CC-oriented weapon, with a cheap interrupt, a smoke field that pulses blinds. somehow, against all reason, combining condi with CC yields in a power skill that is nothing more than a kitten rapid fire. so if you take P/P, you have a weak, condi oriented autoattack, a clunky CC skill that i seriously doubt most people use (and is vastly inferior to infiltrator strike), a power skill that you’ll most likely be spamming until you’re out of initiative, and two CC skills, one of which is a CC skill aimed at melee engagements. it’s single target, it’s clunky, it has no mobility, and it deals less damage than pretty much any other weapon in the thief profession.

and after three years, we get a "yeah, they’re kinda bad, aren’t they? we’ll do something about it… Soon™ ".

so while i’m grateful for your communication, and for at least acknowledging that there is an issue there, pardon me if it doesn’t exactly inspire much hope. especially when the last several patches for the thief have been very, very underwhelming, with boring small tweaks that don’t change anything at best, and fixes to tooltips at worst. seeing once again like 5 lines of balance changes (that could be summed up in 3 lines) after one of our specialization lines was butchered and rendered mostly useless (some say just to reintroduce most of it as a new, elite specialization), after years and years of skills that need fixing (scorpion wire, death blossom’s evade frames, etc), is very, very jarring.

EDIT: sorry, went on a bit of a rant there >.> i just want P/P to be viable

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

Well, I’m glad that the situation is aknowledged. It seems like right now it’s just that the schedule is tight with the Daredevil already.
But that kind of post is really appreciated. No returns lead to unrest. So thx for the news.

Appreciate the update. Yeah trying the changes the pistols are still really subpar at best. Will hope for more changes in the future and will go back to waiting and enjoying the other classes until another pistol rework.

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

I think the damage buff will serve as a bridge to following improvements. It is in time for the Beta so I can test out the build I was thinking off using Unhindered combat , PP and Staff.

I have tested it in game a bit and there a noticeable increase in damage and contrary to others suggestions more damage never a bad thing.

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

What was your rationale for “fixing” Ankle Shots by removing the range increase without making it baseline? Does the devteam feel that 1050 range on the weakest Thief weapon set is too strong? I’m genuinely curious of the internal reasoning.

P.S. Ankle Shots still increases Vital Shot range by 150 (but not the other abilities); it also lowers Pistol damage back to pre-buff levels.

4-6 months from now, you may see a few more minor changes to pistols……that’s how balance iteration goes for this game.

“we’re looking at the situation and plan more changes in the future” …..i so badly want to play P/P…….but it will never happen.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

It is possible for p/p and p/d(if d/d was really a hybrid set) to compete with SB if combat oriented. Losing SB means losing disengage a lot of us ask for better team presence that presence could be fulfilled by those two if we give up the mobility of SB. That’s partially why I wanted rifle for elite spec since p/p and p/d got nerfed with the intro of spec lines.

That’s why p/p needs to give up that “spam to try” design and offer combat sustain same with with p/d(that one kind of did until CiS became a GM RIP synergy) since SB has the mobility. All people saw when “Team Rifle” was around was a 1200 weapon we saw more than that. Little or big number changes won’t change that so we are where we are.

I don’t know what more is in store but if that’s not the mentality that’s around p/d and p/p I would prefer them to tell us so we can stop hoping. The other way is if we can drop semi-tanks as soon as they are in range meaning game breaking damage increase.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

Sagat.3285:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

It is possible for p/p and p/d(if d/d was really a hybrid set) to compete with SB if combat oriented. Losing SB means losing disengage a lot of us ask for better team presence that presence could be fulfilled by those two if we give up the mobility of SB. That’s partially why I wanted rifle for elite spec since p/p and p/d got nerfed with the intro of spec lines.

That’s why p/p needs to give up that “spam to try” design and offer combat sustain same with with p/d(that one kind of did until CiS became a GM RIP synergy) since SB has the mobility. All people saw when “Team Rifle” was around was a 1200 weapon we saw more than that. Little or big number changes won’t change that so we are where we are.

I don’t know what more is in store but if that’s not the mentality that’s around p/d and p/p I would prefer them to tell us so we can stop hoping. The other way is if we can drop semi-tanks as soon as they are in range meaning game breaking damage increase.

but that’s the thing, thieves don’t need two weapon sets to fight. the initiative is shared, so two sets are largely useless. and no one takes SB for fighting, we take it for the utility. it’s an excellent weapon for dealing with downed players (poison + high damage AoE), and it’s the single best mobility in the game.

saying that another set will be able to rival SB because it’ll do better than SB in combat is not understanding why SB is taken in the first place.

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

to be clear, i don’t think pistol should be SB-lite. i was just saying that’s what it would take for someone to drop SB in favor of a pistol.

P/P, in my opinion, needs a new #3. something that gives it either mobility, stealth (directly or indirectly), or evasion, as those are the only things that can keep a thief alive, and incidentally the things that every thief set except P/P has. get pistol a better #2 too while at it. (poison isn’t a bad idea, though that sounds more like dagger’s territory. maybe a bouncy shot a la mesmer pistol that applies different condis based on target order).

BrunoBRS.5178:

Sagat.3285:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

It is possible for p/p and p/d(if d/d was really a hybrid set) to compete with SB if combat oriented. Losing SB means losing disengage a lot of us ask for better team presence that presence could be fulfilled by those two if we give up the mobility of SB. That’s partially why I wanted rifle for elite spec since p/p and p/d got nerfed with the intro of spec lines.

That’s why p/p needs to give up that “spam to try” design and offer combat sustain same with with p/d(that one kind of did until CiS became a GM RIP synergy) since SB has the mobility. All people saw when “Team Rifle” was around was a 1200 weapon we saw more than that. Little or big number changes won’t change that so we are where we are.

I don’t know what more is in store but if that’s not the mentality that’s around p/d and p/p I would prefer them to tell us so we can stop hoping. The other way is if we can drop semi-tanks as soon as they are in range meaning game breaking damage increase.

but that’s the thing, thieves don’t need two weapon sets to fight. the initiative is shared, so two sets are largely useless. and no one takes SB for fighting, we take it for the utility. it’s an excellent weapon for dealing with downed players (poison + high damage AoE), and it’s the single best mobility in the game.

saying that another set will be able to rival SB because it’ll do better than SB in combat is not understanding why SB is taken in the first place.

You just proved it our combat presence are limited because SB has no competitors and they haven’t tried to make the two capable of it but SB isn’t the weapon you would stay in to fight so there is a large room for improvement for p/p and p/d in combat presence which is they have or used to have in p/d case or never had in p/p case..hopefully you get it.

Design change:
+3 initiative from Trickery delete it no not baseline delete it
+3 initiative gain on weapon swap is baseline

sagat

-snip-
The other way is if we can drop semi-tanks as soon as they are in range meaning game breaking damage increase.

This is exactly why pistols need more of a mechanical change rather than just the number adjustment we’re seeing here. The Pistol 1-3 skills need to be balanced more like the melee sets with strong autos and utility on the rest of the set.

I’m actually happy that we’re being told that this isn’t the final iteration of pistols, just a stopgap.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

to be clear, i don’t think pistol should be SB-lite. i was just saying that’s what it would take for someone to drop SB in favor of a pistol.

P/P, in my opinion, needs a new #3. something that gives it either mobility, stealth (directly or indirectly), or evasion, as those are the only things that can keep a thief alive, and incidentally the things that every thief set except P/P has. get pistol a better #2 too while at it. (poison isn’t a bad idea, though that sounds more like dagger’s territory. maybe a bouncy shot a la mesmer pistol that applies different condis based on target order).

Evasion on #3 is what I’m a strong advocate for. It just needs to have the shot number decreased to 4 instead of 8 so when you use it to evade it punishes people. Individual shot damage should stay the same so it would be a 1.2 multiplier (not taking account of the damage buffs today). Strong sustained damage should be moved to the auto since it’s a 900 range set with no mobility.

Sagat.3285:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Sagat.3285:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

It is possible for p/p and p/d(if d/d was really a hybrid set) to compete with SB if combat oriented. Losing SB means losing disengage a lot of us ask for better team presence that presence could be fulfilled by those two if we give up the mobility of SB. That’s partially why I wanted rifle for elite spec since p/p and p/d got nerfed with the intro of spec lines.

That’s why p/p needs to give up that “spam to try” design and offer combat sustain same with with p/d(that one kind of did until CiS became a GM RIP synergy) since SB has the mobility. All people saw when “Team Rifle” was around was a 1200 weapon we saw more than that. Little or big number changes won’t change that so we are where we are.

I don’t know what more is in store but if that’s not the mentality that’s around p/d and p/p I would prefer them to tell us so we can stop hoping. The other way is if we can drop semi-tanks as soon as they are in range meaning game breaking damage increase.

but that’s the thing, thieves don’t need two weapon sets to fight. the initiative is shared, so two sets are largely useless. and no one takes SB for fighting, we take it for the utility. it’s an excellent weapon for dealing with downed players (poison + high damage AoE), and it’s the single best mobility in the game.

saying that another set will be able to rival SB because it’ll do better than SB in combat is not understanding why SB is taken in the first place.

You just proved it our combat presence are limited because SB has no competitors and they haven’t tried to make the two capable of it but SB isn’t the weapon you would stay in to fight so there is a large room for improvement for p/p and p/d in combat presence which is they have or used to have in p/d case or never had in p/p case..hopefully you get it.

Design change:
+3 initiative from Trickery delete it no not baseline delete it
+3 initiative gain on weapon swap is baseline

first, and i mean no offense, but use some punctuation. i honestly couldn’t get most of what you said because it’s a whole paragraph without a single period or comma.

second, i was just arguing against “it can compete with SB”, which is a silly claim, because it can’t compete with SB if they’re competing in entirely different categories.

third, those 3 extra initiative are so vital for thief that no one would even think of running anything but trickery. it would be like an elementalist that doesn’t run arcana.

and last, they’d never add an on-swap effect as baseline, it would be a weird, obtuse mechanic that only exists on one profession.

I salute you karl for stepping in this sub forum!

Still thief is a dying hope for me… but at least you make an effort.

Man, an expansion would be the perfect time to make some of those reworks happen….

There is always the next one… I think it’s called GW3.

NinjaEd.3946:

I salute you karl for stepping in this sub forum!

Still thief is a dying hope for me… but at least you make an effort.

I would like to add my thanks to this. Getting feedback on DrD was expected, assuaging our concerns about the functionality of pistols wasn’t.

Thanks for dropping by!

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

“…in the future.”

Also, pistols are a small part of what this class needs.

PLEASE do not focus 100% of your attention on pistols.

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

hands up

Thats all I want.

Paulie.6215:

“…in the future.”

Also, pistols are a small part of what this class needs.

PLEASE do not focus 100% of your attention on pistols.

It will be 3-6 months until the next patch anyway and with that we might get one minor buff which will lead to outrage (like I experienced in wvw today all the time: “What thief was buffed? I’m not leaving this tower”). Know what, guys? Upgrade your stuff yourselves, learn to use siege and flip your camps – I don’t think I will be around anymore.

P/P Daredevil with a Carrion amulet has potential. The ability to stealth at will from Black Powder + Bound opened up a lot of freedom over the P/D build – you can poke at range, kite around a black powder if they close, stealth to reset as it ends – then get a Sneak Attack from range. You even do reasonable damage with Pulmonary Impact, allowing you to use Head Shot aggressively to disrupt while your DoTs tick.

Granted it’s not quite there yet and I think it needs another tool or two to make it shine, but the core pattern of using Black Powder + Bound → Sneak Attack felt really good, and I’d really like to see that build fleshed out.

One day
Maybe if
If only
We’ll look into it
It’s up for consideration
It’s on the list
We promise to give it our full attention
etc
etc
etc
etc
etc
etc

Please save my Pistols. I miss pew pewing all over the place with SAB pistols. I need something to replace the fun Ricochet gave me if you’re not going to return it.
There’s no need to make it 100% single target for everything.

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

to be clear, i don’t think pistol should be SB-lite. i was just saying that’s what it would take for someone to drop SB in favor of a pistol.

P/P, in my opinion, needs a new #3. something that gives it either mobility, stealth (directly or indirectly), or evasion, as those are the only things that can keep a thief alive, and incidentally the things that every thief set except P/P has. get pistol a better #2 too while at it. (poison isn’t a bad idea, though that sounds more like dagger’s territory. maybe a bouncy shot a la mesmer pistol that applies different condis based on target order).

Evasion on #3 is what I’m a strong advocate for. It just needs to have the shot number decreased to 4 instead of 8 so when you use it to evade it punishes people. Individual shot damage should stay the same so it would be a 1.2 multiplier (not taking account of the damage buffs today). Strong sustained damage should be moved to the auto since it’s a 900 range set with no mobility.

I’ll just put own cents here in this topic aswell:
First off, S/P doesn’t have access to stealth either and functions exactly the same as P/P does, but in melee instead and instead of having freedom of movement with the burst ability, Pistol Whip, it locks you into place and gives you short evade frames. (On top of working as an AoE, which Unload doesn’t do.)

The draw to both S/P and P/P is the fact that they have the burst dps capability. Its a playstyle choice. A choice many of us playing P/P and S/P love. That is also the reason why a very large portion of do not want any kind of change, at all, to Unload. It functions as intended and it functions well. What needs to be done is boost the damage of Vital Shot, so it’s closer to Unload in terms of damage, not on par, but closer, so when we need to choose between utility and damage, we would know we aren’t gimping ourselves heavily. This would give us the UTILITY of BURST DPS. A high spike damage that is on-demand, which doesn’t exist for our weapon sets outside of S/P, which can unfortunately be too easily avoided due to the fact that it locks you into place. The burst of P/P can only be avoided by dodging or by getting out of line of sight and both counters are easy to avoid when you’re not sleeping.

I’ll also lay in the concerns that adding a “disengage” type mobility into the primary burst ability of P/P, will render that ability completely useless in the majority of the PvE content in the game due to various problems such as throwing you out of range of the target or throwing you into insta-kill-AoE etc. It simply should not be done. Ever. For any reason.

My suggestions are these:
Change Body Shot into the mobility skill of P/X sets, that would leave P/P’s primary draw, Unload and burst DPS capability + interaction with the DPS instead of the snooze-inducing afk-while-autoattacks-do-the-job playstyle that many of our other weapon sets suffer from. That is also a playstyle choice, but not something all of us like and that’s why P/P and S/P have been our go-to choices.

Leave Unload as is, no further changes.

Shorten the cast time of Vital Shot to 1/3s, 1/4s would be even better, but would probably go to the side of overpowered.

Give P/P some form of AoE, such as piercing. All other weapon sets except P/X have AoE capability. Adding a pierce effect to all pistol attacks would in this way give the AoE capability to some extent to all of our weapon choices. Vital Shot pierce for P/X and P/P would get both VS and Unload.

Also consider lengthening the duration of Black Powder by 1-2s. It’d make using it less of a spammable chore and initiative drain, which sucks the fun factor out of using it, turning into a skill in the “Bleh, have to use it again…” category. It won’t be a major deal breaker in PvP as it still requires for you stay standing inside its small radius to get its effect, thus decreasing your mobility further if you wish to fully utilize this possible change in the PvP aspect of the game. It’d simply be a PvE QoL improvement.

Thank you for recognizing that thieves exist Karl. Looking forward to future updates.

PopeUrban.2578:

Thank you for recognizing that thieves exist Karl. Looking forward to future updates.

It’s scary when you see posts like this. Is he really that out of touch with the Thief and it’s players?

symke.3105:

PopeUrban.2578:

Thank you for recognizing that thieves exist Karl. Looking forward to future updates.

It’s scary when you see posts like this. Is he really that out of touch with the Thief and it’s players?

I’ll put it this way:

This forum had not seen a red name post in over a year until someone had to drop by because they were designing elite specs and they couldn’t opt to ignore thieves when they were engaging the other profession forums so much.

If we get more regular developer interaction once Daredevil is shipped and its bugs are all ironed out, I will be pleasantly suprised.

And I hope I am. after languishing in obscurity for an age Necro and Ranger finally got a modicum of love, so hopefully it’s our turn next.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Sagat.3285:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Sagat.3285:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

It is possible for p/p and p/d(if d/d was really a hybrid set) to compete with SB if combat oriented. Losing SB means losing disengage a lot of us ask for better team presence that presence could be fulfilled by those two if we give up the mobility of SB. That’s partially why I wanted rifle for elite spec since p/p and p/d got nerfed with the intro of spec lines.

That’s why p/p needs to give up that “spam to try” design and offer combat sustain same with with p/d(that one kind of did until CiS became a GM RIP synergy) since SB has the mobility. All people saw when “Team Rifle” was around was a 1200 weapon we saw more than that. Little or big number changes won’t change that so we are where we are.

I don’t know what more is in store but if that’s not the mentality that’s around p/d and p/p I would prefer them to tell us so we can stop hoping. The other way is if we can drop semi-tanks as soon as they are in range meaning game breaking damage increase.

but that’s the thing, thieves don’t need two weapon sets to fight. the initiative is shared, so two sets are largely useless. and no one takes SB for fighting, we take it for the utility. it’s an excellent weapon for dealing with downed players (poison + high damage AoE), and it’s the single best mobility in the game.

saying that another set will be able to rival SB because it’ll do better than SB in combat is not understanding why SB is taken in the first place.

You just proved it our combat presence are limited because SB has no competitors and they haven’t tried to make the two capable of it but SB isn’t the weapon you would stay in to fight so there is a large room for improvement for p/p and p/d in combat presence which is they have or used to have in p/d case or never had in p/p case..hopefully you get it.

Design change:
+3 initiative from Trickery delete it no not baseline delete it
+3 initiative gain on weapon swap is baseline

first, and i mean no offense, but use some punctuation. i honestly couldn’t get most of what you said because it’s a whole paragraph without a single period or comma.

second, i was just arguing against “it can compete with SB”, which is a silly claim, because it can’t compete with SB if they’re competing in entirely different categories.

third, those 3 extra initiative are so vital for thief that no one would even think of running anything but trickery. it would be like an elementalist that doesn’t run arcana.

and last, they’d never add an on-swap effect as baseline, it would be a weird, obtuse mechanic that only exists on one profession.

Revenant has a on swap effect for their legends, class mechanics are not supposed to be identical. Making the initiative pool linked to weapon swap while improving combat efficiency is the needed step.

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

What about fixing withdraw so that it actually heal with a 10% increase? It’s hard to fix bugs Karl?
What about to give to Ankle Shot that 10% dmg increase as shown in the tooltip?
Or we must assume that with every patch the thief gets stealth nerfs over the usual nerfs?

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

This made my day. I may buy HOT on Saturday. I would like to know what changes they have made on BW3 before I buy the expansion again.

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

Hi Karl, I know I’ve recently been somewhat harsh with regards to thief changes since June. Just 3 points I’d like to mention, although I apologise point 2 is long and 3 may become a little long as well as they include my reasoning on their initial points (the most important ‘skim read’ bits are bolded):

1. Thank you for posting and showing you are both reading our forums and considering our concerns, although at this time due to the current state of the profession my thief has now been relegated from my main char full-ascended-wearing fun AoE gunslinger and highly unpredictable mobility annoyance in team fights to ‘craft and storage mule in exotics’ for both PvP and PvE content.

2. Why Ankle Shots is currently not worth slotting
The ‘bugged’ range increase on Ankle Shots was the main reason many of us took the trait considering how semi-random the damage increase on it is, from both anecdotal posts on the forums and amongst my own friends (none of whom have picked up their thieves in weeks asides me).

Justification/maths on why it is no longer worth taking: (For the full breakdown of the following calculations please see the bottom of the post)
Currently there is no reason to take Ankle Shots over Practiced Tolerance for the following reasons:
- Ankle Shots currently LOWERS damage on the AA/Vital Shot, although oddly Sneak Attack is unaffected by this. Maths supporting this:
With AS: normal: avg 444.5 plus crit avg of 1142, crippled: avg 512.5 plus crit avg of 1251
Without AS avg 573 plus crit avg of 1440.5
Therefore
Normal targets: non crit shots loss of 22.4% , crit shots of 20.7%
Crippled targets: non crit shots loss of 10.6%, crit shots of 13.2%

- As Unload is unaffected by the damage drop bug, it’s a good test of which is better on an equivalent skill…..and again for average play, Practiced Tolerance wins.
Unload with AS: Crippled target average of 5 = 8128, un-Crippled target average of 5 = 6036
Unload with Practiced Tolerance: average of 5 = 7977.8
Against a Crippled target a gain of 1.9%, against an un-Crippled target a loss of 24.3%

- The only skill that Ankle Shots wins with is Sneak Attack and not enough to justify the above losses, with a weapon that currently is unable to self stealth unless in P/D configuration or using utilities (I’ve assumed it will be used as an opener, therefore always applying cripple with AS)
With AS: average of 5 = 4602
With Practiced Tolerance: average of 5 = 4401
AS gain of 4.6% over Practiced Tolerance

- To get maximum benefit of Ankle Shots, due to the internal CD and duration of the trait supplied Cripple, you need to be in melee range to use other sources of Cripple (utility slot traps, caltrops etc) on a mid-range set where the point is to NOT be in melee range due to the Pistols lack of mobility skills, and give up escape/mobility/survival skills to do so. Or rely on someone else to be applying it for you constantly.

- The increase to crit damage from Practiced Tolerance also synergises with Invigorating Precision, increasing the healing gained from that GM trait.

- Ankle Shots only affects Pistols, Practiced Tolerance works for every equipped weapon.

3. Suggestion (and justification) for AoE/multi target Ricochet ‘lite’ Trait replacement for Ankle Shots
While you have stated outright now several times Ricochet will not be coming back in it’s current form, I do believe this was very useful both for P/P aoe and unpredictable D/P mobility which helped with our overall survival, which is the currently biggest problem facing the profession especially with the increase in stealth and reveals for other professions.

Would a guaranteed 2 ‘random target’ bounces trait be an option to replace Ankle Shots? I ask due to the maths from point 2 above showing why Ankle Shots is currently very lackluster/not worth slotting over Practiced Tolerance (esp with the number of bosses immune to CC for large periods), plus the main objection dev side seemingly being the random number of times it would bounce, rather than it hitting random targets after the first (see knife utility skill for DD, the 4 for D/D (Dancing Dagger) etc).

A balance for this would be to pair the guaranteed Ricochet/bounces with damage modifiers that equal nearly the same across multiple targets as current the single target damage (say 50%, 30%, 20%). If taken as a trait, these modifiers would then ALWAYS be in play regardless of whether you’re against 1 or 3 targets so thieves could then choose between having either a single target ranged burst weapon or a crowd/AoE weapon best against 3+ targets.

adding the damage split modifier would also mean Invigorating Precision (healed for % of crit damage) doesn’t get out of control, while making Signet of Malice more attractive for use again.

I believe this would then give the Pistol (and thief on the whole) back some of the flexibility it sorely needs to be considered as a viable weapon beyond generating stealth fields with D/P, offering both PvP and PvE options for play style while also not making the weapon set/trait a complete no-brainer “must take”.

Wall of maths and notes:
- I used Pistol/Pistol in the PvP lobby with Berserker amulet and Runes of the Eagle for armour, Sigils of Force (5% damage) and Lightning Strike (this rune procs removed from damage calcs) in Pistols plus Signet of Precision (plus crit ). giving a ‘base’ crit of 63.76 (boosts to 83.76% with easily accessible Fury) and ‘base’ Crit Damage of 216.6%, using the trait lines of Deadly Arts, Trickery. Target chosen is Heavy Golem.
- I realise 5 isn’t a statistically significant spread and each of these comparison should contain probably 100 plus recorded outputs for each side, but I’m limited in time this week, and it’s hard to fit all that into a forum post without flooding it/people not reading it, so I settled for removing the rare attacks that were of 50% or less crits to try and keep comparison fairer.

- Auto attack calc ranges:
Without AS 444 to 702 (avg 573) plus crit of 1181 to 1700 (1440.5)
With AS
normal: 366 to 523 (avg 444.5) plus crit of 974 to 1310 (1142)
crippled: 411 to 614 (avg 512.5) plus crits of 1087 to 1415 (1251)

- Unload comparison
Unload with AS: crippled average of 5 = 8128, uncrippled average of 5 = 6476.6
crippled: 9088 (8/8 crit) 7647 (6/8 crits), 7871 (7/8 crits), 8617 (7/8 crits), 7419 (6/8 crits)
un-crippled: 6036 (6/8 crits), 6514 (7/8 crits), 7564 (8/8 crits), 6713 (6/8 crits), 5556 (5/8 crits)

Unload with Practiced Tolerance: average of 5 = 7977.8
6781 (7/8 crits), 7468 (7/8 crits), 7238 (7/8 crits), 9070 (8/8 crits), 9332 (8/8 crits)

- Sneak attack comparison
Sneak Attack with Ankle Shots – average of 5 = 4602
4627 (5/5 crit), 4590 (5/5 crit), 4821 (5/5 crit), 4277 (4/5 crit), 4695 (5/5 crit)
Sneak Attack with Practiced Tolerance – average of 5 = 4401
3974 (4/5 crit), 4314 (5/5 crit), 4456 (5/5 crit), 4569 (5/5 crit), 4694 (5/5 crit)

My question is do they even want to fix?
When you talk about perception of the game population towards other classes, is there any class lower than ours? Necro maybe?

Thief is lowest on the totem of possible fixes and overall enjoyment and maybe that is done intentionally.

Shimekiri.1580:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Maybe not, but I don’t think making pistol SB-lite is the answer. I would rather have it have strong in combat fighting ability, meaning evasions and the ability to hinder the enemy. A boon hate design along with some evasive skills could make S/D+P/P something that might be able to stick to a point by killing boon bunkers. Maybe that number 2 skill needs poison in it too. A strong auto would be vital for maintaining pressure while saving your initiative for reacting to the opponent. SB is our utility ranged option, now P/P and P/D need to be our power and condi DPS ranged options.

to be clear, i don’t think pistol should be SB-lite. i was just saying that’s what it would take for someone to drop SB in favor of a pistol.

P/P, in my opinion, needs a new #3. something that gives it either mobility, stealth (directly or indirectly), or evasion, as those are the only things that can keep a thief alive, and incidentally the things that every thief set except P/P has. get pistol a better #2 too while at it. (poison isn’t a bad idea, though that sounds more like dagger’s territory. maybe a bouncy shot a la mesmer pistol that applies different condis based on target order).

Evasion on #3 is what I’m a strong advocate for. It just needs to have the shot number decreased to 4 instead of 8 so when you use it to evade it punishes people. Individual shot damage should stay the same so it would be a 1.2 multiplier (not taking account of the damage buffs today). Strong sustained damage should be moved to the auto since it’s a 900 range set with no mobility.

I’ll just put own cents here in this topic aswell:
First off, S/P doesn’t have access to stealth either and functions exactly the same as P/P does, but in melee instead and instead of having freedom of movement with the burst ability, Pistol Whip, it locks you into place and gives you short evade frames. (On top of working as an AoE, which Unload doesn’t do.)

The draw to both S/P and P/P is the fact that they have the burst dps capability. Its a playstyle choice. A choice many of us playing P/P and S/P love. That is also the reason why a very large portion of do not want any kind of change, at all, to Unload. It functions as intended and it functions well. What needs to be done is boost the damage of Vital Shot, so it’s closer to Unload in terms of damage, not on par, but closer, so when we need to choose between utility and damage, we would know we aren’t gimping ourselves heavily. This would give us the UTILITY of BURST DPS. A high spike damage that is on-demand, which doesn’t exist for our weapon sets outside of S/P, which can unfortunately be too easily avoided due to the fact that it locks you into place. The burst of P/P can only be avoided by dodging or by getting out of line of sight and both counters are easy to avoid when you’re not sleeping.

I’ll also lay in the concerns that adding a “disengage” type mobility into the primary burst ability of P/P, will render that ability completely useless in the majority of the PvE content in the game due to various problems such as throwing you out of range of the target or throwing you into insta-kill-AoE etc. It simply should not be done. Ever. For any reason.

My suggestions are these:
Change Body Shot into the mobility skill of P/X sets, that would leave P/P’s primary draw, Unload and burst DPS capability + interaction with the DPS instead of the snooze-inducing afk-while-autoattacks-do-the-job playstyle that many of our other weapon sets suffer from. That is also a playstyle choice, but not something all of us like and that’s why P/P and S/P have been our go-to choices.

Leave Unload as is, no further changes.

Shorten the cast time of Vital Shot to 1/3s, 1/4s would be even better, but would probably go to the side of overpowered.

Give P/P some form of AoE, such as piercing. All other weapon sets except P/X have AoE capability. Adding a pierce effect to all pistol attacks would in this way give the AoE capability to some extent to all of our weapon choices. Vital Shot pierce for P/X and P/P would get both VS and Unload.

Also consider lengthening the duration of Black Powder by 1-2s. It’d make using it less of a spammable chore and initiative drain, which sucks the fun factor out of using it, turning into a skill in the “Bleh, have to use it again…” category. It won’t be a major deal breaker in PvP as it still requires for you stay standing inside its small radius to get its effect, thus decreasing your mobility further if you wish to fully utilize this possible change in the PvP aspect of the game. It’d simply be a PvE QoL improvement.

The roll could be as short as 300 which is a standard dodge roll. The set is not working outside of PvE for what seems to be the vast majority of thief players. I don’t know the exact usage rates, but it’s low enough that pistols have been chosen to be addressed. Including the damage boost that was added, the 4 shots would be a 1.5 multiplier overall, putting it at midrange heartseeker. The initiative could be lowered to 4 as well at that point. Adding a mobility skill to pistol #2 is just trying to copy SB. If thieves need more evasion/mobility outside of SB, that should be addressed with utilities. RFI would be a good example. The initiative gain and cooldown could be cut in half allowing you to use it more often.
My overall point is that P/P is not working. Limiting what they’re allowed to mechanically change to only number 2 is not going to fix it or else these number changes would have come close to fixing it. I’m not saying take away the burst. The damage from the reworked unload would still be relatively high and at the same rate. P/P needs to be a strong in-combat weapon set with staying power, not more ability to run.

Tldr: Unload needs to change to fix the set.

Maugetarr.6823:

The roll could be as short as 300 which is a standard dodge roll. The set is not working outside of PvE for what seems to be the vast majority of thief players. I don’t know the exact usage rates, but it’s low enough that pistols have been chosen to be addressed. Including the damage boost that was added, the 4 shots would be a 1.5 multiplier overall, putting it at midrange heartseeker. The initiative could be lowered to 4 as well at that point. Adding a mobility skill to pistol #2 is just trying to copy SB. If thieves need more evasion/mobility outside of SB, that should be addressed with utilities. RFI would be a good example. The initiative gain and cooldown could be cut in half allowing you to use it more often.
My overall point is that P/P is not working. Limiting what they’re allowed to mechanically change to only number 2 is not going to fix it or else these number changes would have come close to fixing it. I’m not saying take away the burst. The damage from the reworked unload would still be relatively high and at the same rate. P/P needs to be a strong in-combat weapon set with staying power, not more ability to run.

Tldr: Unload needs to change to fix the set.

Tell me, with solid reasoning, why could said utility you’re after, which is mobility in one form, not be inserted into Body Shot slot instead of destroying the the playstyle of others for your own enjoyment? If the skill being revamped into such a gap opener, dodging backwards in your suggestion, would be Body Shot, it wouldn’t bother the other set of users either and more than likely both sides would get what they’re after.

You also seem to ignore the obvious fact that the burst would be ruined, completely, with your change. You can’t use an ability for burst dps, if you’re not within melee range when starting said burst, if a backwards dodge was added into it, with your theoretical distance value of 300. Also you need to note that in PvE, you’re almost never that close to a boss, which would mean the burst would simply cease to exist or it would be a massively nerfed version. The only way to make your suggestion work with Unload, without hindering the burst dps capability, would be to make the travelled distance so miniscule that it’d end up being useless in PvP as a gap opener anyway.

Quick edit: You’re also wrong with the fact that the changes that were just implemented should’ve fixed the spec, if the issue wasn’t Unload. The issue here is the fact that Vital Shot is too weak. Increase its cast speed to 1/3s from the current 1/2s and we’d be closer to “fixed” when speaking about our dps overall. What would then be left, is to give us the gap opener a lot of us want, which is what I’ve been meaning with changing Body Shot into a mobility skill of some sort and AoE capability via a pierce effect, since bounce seems to be off the table.

Shimekiri.1580:

Maugetarr.6823:

The roll could be as short as 300 which is a standard dodge roll. The set is not working outside of PvE for what seems to be the vast majority of thief players. I don’t know the exact usage rates, but it’s low enough that pistols have been chosen to be addressed. Including the damage boost that was added, the 4 shots would be a 1.5 multiplier overall, putting it at midrange heartseeker. The initiative could be lowered to 4 as well at that point. Adding a mobility skill to pistol #2 is just trying to copy SB. If thieves need more evasion/mobility outside of SB, that should be addressed with utilities. RFI would be a good example. The initiative gain and cooldown could be cut in half allowing you to use it more often.
My overall point is that P/P is not working. Limiting what they’re allowed to mechanically change to only number 2 is not going to fix it or else these number changes would have come close to fixing it. I’m not saying take away the burst. The damage from the reworked unload would still be relatively high and at the same rate. P/P needs to be a strong in-combat weapon set with staying power, not more ability to run.

Tldr: Unload needs to change to fix the set.

Tell me, with solid reasoning, why could said utility you’re after, which is mobility in one form, not be inserted into Body Shot slot instead of destroying the the playstyle of others for your own enjoyment? If the skill being revamped into such a gap opener, dodging backwards in your suggestion, would be Body Shot, it wouldn’t bother the other set of users either and more than likely both sides would get what they’re after.

I’m after survivability, not mobility. P/P is a stealthless set (without a specific setup on DrD). All the other sets have survivability on the #3 skill. In fact, Unload offers nothing but damage. If they made the P/P autoattack have a unique animation that alternated firing pistols instead of firing from the mainhand one, it would be exactly the same. Unload does nothing except make up for the poor auto damage which I went into in the other thread that for the initiative recharge of 5 seconds, it is exactly the same DPS as the autoattack. Unload is a stopgap that makes P/P usable in PvE against single targets that don’t dodge.

A problem you’re overlooking in defending unload is that right now in PvE you can be effective just by sitting at max range and hitting 3. The new PvE content is supposed to change that by giving us smarter AI.

You also seem to ignore the obvious fact that the burst would be ruined, completely, with your change. You can’t use an ability for burst dps, if you’re not within melee range when starting said burst, if a backwards dodge was added into it, with your theoretical distance value of 300. Also you need to note that in PvE, you’re almost never that close to a boss, which would mean the burst would simply cease to exist or it would be a massively nerfed version. The only way to make your suggestion work with Unload, without hindering the burst dps capability, would be to make the travelled distance so miniscule that it’d end up being useless in PvP as a gap opener anyway.

This would not affect the burst. You could use the skill twice in the same timeframe for the same damage. It is still a 1.5 multiplier using it once after this damage buff which is equivalent to a mid range heartseeker, (which is a burst skill). The difference is that as a 1.5 multiplier above 50% health and below 25% health, it would be stable and usable at range. It’s not hindering the burst DPS at all. The overall DPS of the set would rise as well as bringing utility to it.

Quick edit: You’re also wrong with the fact that the changes that were just implemented should’ve fixed the spec, if the issue wasn’t Unload. The issue here is the fact that Vital Shot is too weak. Increase its cast speed to 1/3s from the current 1/2s and we’d be closer to “fixed” when speaking about our dps overall. What would then be left, is to give us the gap opener a lot of us want, which is what I’ve been meaning with changing Body Shot into a mobility skill of some sort and AoE capability via a pierce effect, since bounce seems to be off the table.

I have advocated adding a piercing trait to the Trickery line. Increasing the attack speed will be a DPS boost which will not change the set mechanically; you’d just choose between firing 1 pistol to firing 2 pistols by hitting unload….. If unload is that much fun, the animation of the autoattack for (P/P specifically) should be changed because that’s all unload is. Gaining quickness would then make the auto into an exact replication of unload. You’re overlooking the fact that Vital shot just got a damage boost also, and that’s not going to help the set without further adjustments to how the set plays.

Just changing body shot is not the answer either. Making it into a mobility skill would just give P/D 2 mobility skills and make it a weaker version of SB. Giving it the poison and a boon strip would give it both P/X sets the ability to wear down boon-regen bunkers in combat better for the tradeoff of mobility which is highly available on our other ranged set.