Guild Wars 2

There’s no real point to thief in this game, warrior does everything better and can take hits. Most mmo devs fail to balance rogue vs warrior, a few have done it well tho, this game not so. The class has no direction at all.
They spent a few years designing the pvp system and then nerf it very quickly based on whines, they have no confidence in their creation and admit to their failure quite fast.

The point to thief is as a kind of cleanup crew. Swoop in on an existing battle, take out the enemy, and retreat into the shadows. High burst, low armor and health, decent mobility. That’s the thief in a nutshell, they’re the best at that job. ArenaNet just needs to fix some of the bugs that interfere with this role’s balance, such as the player culling issue, and take a long, hard look at the overall implementation of the quickness effect.

Bitapetrone.7423:

The lack of responsibility in this thread is astounding. While I unfortunately feel it is moot to even mention, it’d be best for most of you to take a moment and really think about what you are saying – and I direct this to people on both sides of the argument.

To ya’ll whining about Pistol Whip being OP:

Pistol Whip can hurt quite badly with haste, but once haste is gone that spec is done. Counter this and you win. And to be honest, if you aren’t running with stun/condition removal you are begging to get eaten by this spec and all specs like it. Complaining about this spec is silly. It’s just plain silly. Don’t waste time whining – go spend it learning how to handle glass cannons. And for the love of god, stop faceplanting into melee range with a Thief you see running at you with S/P. Most of the time I don’t even see people try to get away from S/P thieves until it is too late.

I also notice that a lot of the whining comes from OTHER glass cannons! What do you expect? If you’re sick of dying to glass cannons then spec more defensive. You cannot have it all.

To people whining about Pistol Whip being nerfed:

15% damage? If that hurts you then you are obviously amazingly reliant upon a single skill to kill for you. One hit wonder specs are great if you can sneak up on people silly/inexperienced enough to stay in melee with you. What if they’re clever enough to get away? What exactly do you have once your single skill has been used with Haste? You have over half a minute where you do what? The S/P Thieves I fight spend that half a minute trying to run or dying. If this is to the extent you can utilize your skills then in my opinion you need to practice with your class more. Throwing all of your eggs in a single basket can go well and it can go very very badly. Some food for thought there. There is more to Thief than being a glass cannon if you endeavor to search for it. If this nerf just plain kills it for you then you are doing something wrong.

To the people whining about Basilisk Venom being nerfed (buffed?):

There are two other great ultimate skills. If you just cannot stand Basilisk Venom getting a realistic change then use something else. Or maybe now you people that are whining about Pistol Whip being nerfed can use Basilisk to force your opponent to blow their stun removal. And hey, if they don’t remove it, then no harm done to Basilisk to begin with. In fact, you still have that .5 second buff to the duration!

Have you even looked at the damage on the other skills in the S/P skillset?

PISTOL WHIP IS THE ONLY SKILL ON THE BAR THAT DOES CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE

do I need to spell it out so that you can actually take it in and comprehend what I’m saying?

it is the ONLY

ONLY
ONLY

Skill on the bar that does decent damage.

Every other skill on the bar has great utility, but that utility is situational, and not something you use all the time.

Infiltrator’s strike is good for setting up a pistol whip, or ambushing and then retreating really quickly, or setting up to be able to remove a condition. It does damage equal to the first hit of an autoattack chain.

Head shot does about 1/4 of the damage of the first hit in an autoattack chain, it is useful for when a target is out of melee range and doing something that needs to be interrupted.

Black Powder does 1/4 of the damage of the first hit in an autoattack chain, it is useful for setting up a smoke field that blinds anyone stupid enough to stand in it, and blind 1 ranged target.

The damage from this set is on the autoattack, and pistol whip, and Pistol whip does about double the damage of an autoattack chain (or at least it did).

Devildoc.6721:

Have you even looked at the damage on the other skills in the S/P skillset?

PISTOL WHIP IS THE ONLY SKILL ON THE BAR THAT DOES CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE

do I need to spell it out so that you can actually take it in and comprehend what I’m saying?

it is the ONLY

ONLY
ONLY

Skill on the bar that does decent damage.

Every other skill on the bar has great utility, but that utility is situational, and not something you use all the time.

Infiltrator’s strike is good for setting up a pistol whip, or ambushing and then retreating really quickly, or setting up to be able to remove a condition. It does damage equal to the first hit of an autoattack chain.

Head shot does about 1/4 of the damage of the first hit in an autoattack chain, it is useful for when a target is out of melee range and doing something that needs to be interrupted.

Black Powder does 1/4 of the damage of the first hit in an autoattack chain, it is useful for setting up a smoke field that blinds anyone stupid enough to stand in it, and blind 1 ranged target.

The damage from this set is on the autoattack, and pistol whip, and Pistol whip does about double the damage of an autoattack chain (or at least it did).

Looks like you have quite a few things you can do while you’re waiting for the moment to cast Pistol Whip again. Or maybe you could swap to another weapon set, unless for some reason you are running S/P S/P. If you’re struggling to strike a particular person with S/P then swap to something else. The fact you are pushing this so heavy just proves your reliance on that single skill. My point stands.

Pistol Whip damage breakdown in comparison to Auto Attack
Pistol Whip
882
381
381
923
457
457
1107
457
457
TOTAL = 5502
Slice = 2326
Slash = 935
Crippling Strike = 3953
TOTAL = 7214
Please tell me Pistol Whip was overpowered again. From that one example you can see which numbers are critical hits and which aren’t. Pistol Whip had 3/9 total critical hits, auto attack had 2/3. Pistol whip is useless now, I may as well auto attack and daze spam.
Using Steady weapons:
Pistol Whip
53 + (52 × 8) = 469
Auto Attack
Slice/Slash/Crip Strike: 123 +123 + 200 = 446
Why would anyone spend 5 Initiative on this ability now when they can auto attack?

Yep, looks like they want to make the hardcore pvp people think more in fights.
Not to worry though, they’ll still keep it casual for the other crowd as well

good luck!

The fact that you know nothing about the thief class still stands and your ignorance is insulting.

Thieves share a resource pool across both weapons, it’s not like other classes where their off weapon set gives them a new set of cooldowns to work with. You switch weapons, and have the same amount of resources to work with.

In almost every case, thieves off set weapon is a ranged weapon, most commonly shortbow.

Shortbow is another weapon set that does rather mediocre damage at best but has lots of utility.

So in a sword/pistol and shortbow weapon set, your highest damage skill, is pistol whip, and the way thief is designed, you are supposed to use the same skill multiple times in succession, that is the point of the initiative system. Your only other option for damage in that set, is cluster bomb, which will do about half the damage of a pistol whip at best.

So if a thief with that setup wants to actually damage an opponent that they’ve immobilized/blinded or otherwise hindered with their other skills… they have to use pistol whip, in succession (if they can land it). Using anything else consumes all their initiative and produces minimal damage.

Do some homework, play a thief, then you can come back and run your mouth.

Elthurien.8356:

Pistol Whip damage breakdown in comparison to Auto Attack
Pistol Whip
882
381
381
923
457
457
1107
457
457
TOTAL = 5502
Slice = 2326
Slash = 935
Crippling Strike = 3953
TOTAL = 7214
Please tell me Pistol Whip was overpowered again. From that one example you can see which numbers are critical hits and which aren’t. Pistol Whip had 3/9 total critical hits, auto attack had 2/3. Pistol whip is useless now, I may as well auto attack and daze spam.
Using Steady weapons:
Pistol Whip
53 + (52 × = 469
Auto Attack
Slice/Slash/Crip Strike: 123 +123 + 200 = 446
Why would anyone spend 5 Initiative on this ability now when they can auto attack?

Were those numbers taken from the combat log or were you just watching damage. The damage shown over mobs’ heads is not the damage per strike, but the entire chain.

Devildoc.6721:

Were those numbers taken from the combat log or were you just watching damage. The damage shown over mobs’ heads is not the damage per strike, but the entire chain.

Those numbers were taken from the combat log.
Using 25/30/0/0/15 traits.
No Major traits equipped.
PvP armor of the Thief & Soldiers Amulet equipped (The starter sPvP Set)
I also chose 1 set out of several instead of averaging the lot. I wanted a basic look first.

Devildoc.6721:

The fact that you know nothing about the thief class still stands and your ignorance is insulting.

Thieves share a resource pool across both weapons, it’s not like other classes where their off weapon set gives them a new set of cooldowns to work with. You switch weapons, and have the same amount of resources to work with.

In almost every case, thieves off set weapon is a ranged weapon, most commonly shortbow.

Shortbow is another weapon set that does rather mediocre damage at best but has lots of utility.

So in a sword/pistol and shortbow weapon set, your highest damage skill, is pistol whip, and the way thief is designed, you are supposed to use the same skill multiple times in succession, that is the point of the initiative system. Your only other option for damage in that set, is cluster bomb, which will do about half the damage of a pistol whip at best.

So if a thief with that setup wants to actually damage an opponent that they’ve immobilized/blinded or otherwise hindered with their other skills… they have to use pistol whip, in succession (if they can land it). Using anything else consumes all their initiative and produces minimal damage.

Do some homework, play a thief, then you can come back and run your mouth.

Getting a bit hostile are we? I actually do play a Thief. I just don’t rely on a single skill to do all my work for me.

Regarding initiative. What exactly are you spamming to use up all your initiative making a second weapon set useless? Pistol Whip? Just because Pistol Whip is your highest damage skill does not mean you should be spamming it and forsaking other abilities more useful for the situation. This AGAIN pushes the fact you completely rely on it! Read what you are typing. And no, you do not have to be spammy with a single ability to be effective unless you are completely built around doing as much damage as fast as is humanly possible before you die from lack of survivability. If that is your case, then you need to deal with the downside of this choice. From your post I gather that you literally are running into people and hammering Pistol Whip over and over hoping they die. Practice. You can do better than that.

The thief is possibly the best burst class in the entire game, as shown in the pvp’s battle log. Against a defensive-specced elementalist, they can hit with 10k+ damage in few seconds, something that a power-specced elementalist would need four times the skills and twice the time to achieve.

There’s a reason why everyone and their mothers plays thief in pvp (and mesmer, and guardian).

Really, go to any profession board and watch the crying. It’s the exact same. The conclusion we can get from the profession boards’ reaction to each update notes is that all professions suck, that all devs want us to change our profession, and that it’s time to reroll to any of the seven other professions.

Bitapetrone.7423:

Devildoc.6721:

The fact that you know nothing about the thief class still stands and your ignorance is insulting.

Thieves share a resource pool across both weapons, it’s not like other classes where their off weapon set gives them a new set of cooldowns to work with. You switch weapons, and have the same amount of resources to work with.

In almost every case, thieves off set weapon is a ranged weapon, most commonly shortbow.

Shortbow is another weapon set that does rather mediocre damage at best but has lots of utility.

So in a sword/pistol and shortbow weapon set, your highest damage skill, is pistol whip, and the way thief is designed, you are supposed to use the same skill multiple times in succession, that is the point of the initiative system. Your only other option for damage in that set, is cluster bomb, which will do about half the damage of a pistol whip at best.

So if a thief with that setup wants to actually damage an opponent that they’ve immobilized/blinded or otherwise hindered with their other skills… they have to use pistol whip, in succession (if they can land it). Using anything else consumes all their initiative and produces minimal damage.

Do some homework, play a thief, then you can come back and run your mouth.

Getting a bit hostile are we? I actually do play a Thief. I just don’t rely on a single skill to do all my work for me.

Regarding initiative. What exactly are you spamming to use up all your initiative making a second weapon set useless? Pistol Whip? Just because Pistol Whip is your highest damage skill does not mean you should be spamming it and forsaking other abilities more useful for the situation. This AGAIN pushes the fact you completely rely on it! Read what you are typing. And no, you do not have to be spammy with a single ability to be effective unless you are completely built around doing as much damage as fast as is humanly possible before you die from lack of survivability. If that is your case, then you need to deal with the downside of this choice. From your post I gather that you literally are running into people and hammering Pistol Whip over and over hoping they die. Practice. You can do better than that.

Clearly you don’t play thief, you show an extreme lack of knowledge on the class.

Yeah.. this change was totally unnecessary. And I don’t even play a thief, I play a guardian.
Noobs complaining about getting QUickness+PWhipped down equals ANet devs just reducing damage by a whopping 15%?

Yeah.. this change was totally unnecessary. And I don’t even play a thief, I play a guardian.
Noobs complaining about getting QUickness+PWhipped down equals ANet devs just reducing damage by a whopping 15%?That’s called bad balancing. All they needed was protection or a stun breaker or a teleport or a dodge.. etc….

Yeah.. this change was totally unnecessary. And I don’t even play a thief, I play a guardian.
Noobs complaining about getting QUickness+PWhipped down equals ANet devs just reducing damage by a whopping 15%?That’s called bad balancing. All they needed was protection or a stun breaker or a teleport or a dodge.. etc….And not to mention, ANet decided to SWITCH AROUND the guardian’s greatsword abilities. A month and a half into the release. Thanks for the confusion. Great patch!

Clearly you don’t play thief, you show an extreme lack of knowledge on the class.

I may not be the best Thief in the world, but I know enough. The only lack of knowledge I’m seeing is from people completely unwilling to expand and grow with their class as it changes (what do you expect in an mmo?). This little nerf is just breaking people down and it shouldn’t be. Perhaps try playing the class differently and expanding YOUR knowledge of it.

Bitapetrone.7423:

Devildoc.6721:

The fact that you know nothing about the thief class still stands and your ignorance is insulting.

Thieves share a resource pool across both weapons, it’s not like other classes where their off weapon set gives them a new set of cooldowns to work with. You switch weapons, and have the same amount of resources to work with.

In almost every case, thieves off set weapon is a ranged weapon, most commonly shortbow.

Shortbow is another weapon set that does rather mediocre damage at best but has lots of utility.

So in a sword/pistol and shortbow weapon set, your highest damage skill, is pistol whip, and the way thief is designed, you are supposed to use the same skill multiple times in succession, that is the point of the initiative system. Your only other option for damage in that set, is cluster bomb, which will do about half the damage of a pistol whip at best.

So if a thief with that setup wants to actually damage an opponent that they’ve immobilized/blinded or otherwise hindered with their other skills… they have to use pistol whip, in succession (if they can land it). Using anything else consumes all their initiative and produces minimal damage.

Do some homework, play a thief, then you can come back and run your mouth.

Getting a bit hostile are we? I actually do play a Thief. I just don’t rely on a single skill to do all my work for me.

Regarding initiative. What exactly are you spamming to use up all your initiative making a second weapon set useless? Pistol Whip? Just because Pistol Whip is your highest damage skill does not mean you should be spamming it and forsaking other abilities more useful for the situation. This AGAIN pushes the fact you completely rely on it! Read what you are typing. And no, you do not have to be spammy with a single ability to be effective unless you are completely built around doing as much damage as fast as is humanly possible before you die from lack of survivability. If that is your case, then you need to deal with the downside of this choice. From your post I gather that you literally are running into people and hammering Pistol Whip over and over hoping they die. Practice. You can do better than that.

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

Testing with steady weapons:

autoattack chain: 135 + 135 + 219 = 489 base, 289 + 289 + 570 = 1148 all crits

pistol whip: 56 + ( 57 * 8 ) = 512 base, 119 + ( 122 * 8 ) = 1095 all crits

This is with speccing 5% more damage from dual attacks

This is just awful.

Bitapetrone.7423:

Clearly you don’t play thief, you show an extreme lack of knowledge on the class.

I may not be the best Thief in the world, but I know enough. The only lack of knowledge I’m seeing is from people completely unwilling to expand and grow with their class as it changes (what do you expect in an mmo?). This little nerf is just breaking people down and it shouldn’t be. Perhaps try playing the class differently and expanding YOUR knowledge of it.

If you know any of what you claim. Feel free to chime in with evidence to back up your statements like saying how we have other damage abilities in the set other then pistol whip. I am waiting.

Bitapetrone.7423:

Clearly you don’t play thief, you show an extreme lack of knowledge on the class.

I may not be the best Thief in the world, but I know enough. The only lack of knowledge I’m seeing is from people completely unwilling to expand and grow with their class as it changes (what do you expect in an mmo?). This little nerf is just breaking people down and it shouldn’t be. Perhaps try playing the class differently and expanding YOUR knowledge of it.

It broke the weapon set to where now autoattack does better damage than the dual skill.

Expand and grow = don’t use sword/pistol apparently.

Bitapetrone.7423:

Clearly you don’t play thief, you show an extreme lack of knowledge on the class.

I may not be the best Thief in the world, but I know enough. The only lack of knowledge I’m seeing is from people completely unwilling to expand and grow with their class as it changes (what do you expect in an mmo?). This little nerf is just breaking people down and it shouldn’t be. Perhaps try playing the class differently and expanding YOUR knowledge of it.

This nerf is breaking people down because they went about it all wrong. It frustrates me that they’re attacking a fairly weak ability instead of taking out the problem at its source: The quickness buff. Pistol Whip is almost useless without quickness and definitely OP with it. This was true before the patch, and it is true after the patch. All they did is show that they’re really not looking closely enough at what is going on. But then, I’m not sure what I expected from the company that gave the ridiculous answer they gave to the requests for an FoV slider…

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

Uhhh….it’s a 15% damage nerf to the skill you use like 90% of the time. Just because you don’t feel it’s impact doesn’t mean the impact is not relevant.

It wouldn’t be a big deal if they took away 15% from PW and moved it into the #1 attack and/or Tactical Strike. But they basically nerfed S/P with no compensation, a kit that was already doing less sustained than both D/D setups and worse AoE and utility than Shortbow.

Devildoc.6721:

Testing with steady weapons:

autoattack chain: 135 + 135 + 219 = 489 base, 289 + 289 + 570 = 1148 all crits

pistol whip: 56 + ( 57 * 8 ) = 512 base, 119 + ( 122 * 8 ) = 1095 all crits

This is with speccing 5% more damage from dual attacks

This is just awful.

Lol.

Looks like Arenanet has adopted Blizzards mentality of nerfing everything to be equally terrible as opposed to buffing everything to be equally good.

Test Results
Traits: 25/30/0/0/15 (DA/CS/SA/AC/TR)
Major Trait: slots empty
Armour: Superior Rune of the Scholar (6/6) equipped on sPvP Armor.
Amulet: Berserker Amulet equipped with Berserker Jewel
Power: 2344
Weapon damage: 1014
Critical Hit Chance: 53%
Critical Damage: 58%
Health: 14095
Armour: 1980

Results taken on Heavy Golem over a 30 minute period
Average Auto Attacks (All Critical Hits): 6375
Average Auto Attacks (No Critical Hits): 2958
Average Pistol Whip (All Critical Hits): 7137
Average Pistol Whip (No Critical Hits): 3186

Bitapetrone.7423:

Devildoc.6721:

The fact that you know nothing about the thief class still stands and your ignorance is insulting.

Thieves share a resource pool across both weapons, it’s not like other classes where their off weapon set gives them a new set of cooldowns to work with. You switch weapons, and have the same amount of resources to work with.

In almost every case, thieves off set weapon is a ranged weapon, most commonly shortbow.

Shortbow is another weapon set that does rather mediocre damage at best but has lots of utility.

So in a sword/pistol and shortbow weapon set, your highest damage skill, is pistol whip, and the way thief is designed, you are supposed to use the same skill multiple times in succession, that is the point of the initiative system. Your only other option for damage in that set, is cluster bomb, which will do about half the damage of a pistol whip at best.

So if a thief with that setup wants to actually damage an opponent that they’ve immobilized/blinded or otherwise hindered with their other skills… they have to use pistol whip, in succession (if they can land it). Using anything else consumes all their initiative and produces minimal damage.

Do some homework, play a thief, then you can come back and run your mouth.

Getting a bit hostile are we? I actually do play a Thief. I just don’t rely on a single skill to do all my work for me.

Regarding initiative. What exactly are you spamming to use up all your initiative making a second weapon set useless? Pistol Whip? Just because Pistol Whip is your highest damage skill does not mean you should be spamming it and forsaking other abilities more useful for the situation. This AGAIN pushes the fact you completely rely on it! Read what you are typing. And no, you do not have to be spammy with a single ability to be effective unless you are completely built around doing as much damage as fast as is humanly possible before you die from lack of survivability. If that is your case, then you need to deal with the downside of this choice. From your post I gather that you literally are running into people and hammering Pistol Whip over and over hoping they die. Practice. You can do better than that.

In a situation where I have a target immobilized, using pistol whip twice in a row IS more useful than using any of the other skills, as I’ve likely already used infiltrator strike to set up the pistol whip because if they’re not immobilized they’re not getting hit, and in that situation stunning them and then dishing out damage is a better use of initiative than blinding them or dazing them for 1/4 of a second while they’re in melee range.

How about YOU suggest, what I should do, instead of using pistol whip, when I have someone set up in melee range immobilized and at my mercy, while using the S/P set?

Apparently I’m supposed to switch to a dagger mainhand setup, since that’s still viable.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

Uhhh….it’s a 15% damage nerf to the skill you use like 90% of the time. Just because you don’t feel it’s impact doesn’t mean the impact is not relevant.

It wouldn’t be a big deal if they took away 15% from PW and moved it into the #1 attack and/or Tactical Strike. But they basically nerfed S/P with no compensation, a kit that was already doing less sustained than both D/D setups and worse AoE and utility than Shortbow.

or nerfed the damage by 15%, fix the obvious bug of it self rooting, replaced stun with a daze and sped up all sword animations a bit so we DONT have to rely on haste

I ask again. Why would we waste 5 initiative on this ability when Auto attack does the damage. Why not just remove the damage entirely and make it a stun? If you’re going to nerf us do it properly.

Knyx.5926:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

Uhhh….it’s a 15% damage nerf to the skill you use like 90% of the time. Just because you don’t feel it’s impact doesn’t mean the impact is not relevant.

It wouldn’t be a big deal if they took away 15% from PW and moved it into the #1 attack and/or Tactical Strike. But they basically nerfed S/P with no compensation, a kit that was already doing less sustained than both D/D setups and worse AoE and utility than Shortbow.

or nerfed the damage by 15%, fix the obvious bug of it self rooting, replaced stun with a daze and sped up all sword animations a bit so we DONT have to rely on haste

The self root isn’t a bug, it’s an artistic vision so you can sit there and stare at the grass for a second.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

Uhhh….it’s a 15% damage nerf to the skill you use like 90% of the time. Just because you don’t feel it’s impact doesn’t mean the impact is not relevant.

It wouldn’t be a big deal if they took away 15% from PW and moved it into the #1 attack and/or Tactical Strike. But they basically nerfed S/P with no compensation, a kit that was already doing less sustained than both D/D setups and worse AoE and utility than Shortbow.

No, i wouldn’t want it on the autoattack.

Standing there and autoattacking is just not engaging gameplay. Even turning off the autoattack function and continually hitting 1 all the time, not even needing to manage a resource is not engaging.

Elthurien.8356:

Test Results
Traits: 25/30/0/0/15 (DA/CS/SA/AC/TR)
Major Trait: slots empty
Armour: Superior Rune of the Scholar (6/6) equipped on sPvP Armor.
Amulet: Berserker Amulet equipped with Berserker Jewel
Power: 2344
Weapon damage: 1014
Critical Hit Chance: 53%
Critical Damage: 58%
Health: 14095
Armour: 1980

Results taken on Heavy Golem over a 30 minute period
Average Auto Attacks (All Critical Hits): 6375
Average Auto Attacks (No Critical Hits): 2958
Average Pistol Whip (All Critical Hits): 7137
Average Pistol Whip (No Critical Hits): 3186

I’m betting that S/D + Dagger throw spamming will be better than S/P + PW if these numbers are right.

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

You must lack playing time in cursed shore with S/P. Before the patch, it’s still quite ok to run along alone, facing 1 veteran or 2. But now? out of the window (as compared to greatsword, which can take up to like 3/4 vets)

And although, I sometimes run S/P. Even, then, I was like, “ahh, kitten, sword ONLY HAVE ONE ATTACK aside from auto-attack”. It’s probably my opening move, and that’s that. With pistol whip costing as high as 5intiviatives, and I don’t run the extra 3 initiative traits, I could hardly use it more than once. In a way, whether you like it or not, it is quite a major nerf for a weapon set, that truly can attack once (utility aside) and not to forget to account for other classes ability that can easily ‘interrupt/ break’ it….

Devildoc.6721:

Blacksarevok.8104:

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

Uhhh….it’s a 15% damage nerf to the skill you use like 90% of the time. Just because you don’t feel it’s impact doesn’t mean the impact is not relevant.

It wouldn’t be a big deal if they took away 15% from PW and moved it into the #1 attack and/or Tactical Strike. But they basically nerfed S/P with no compensation, a kit that was already doing less sustained than both D/D setups and worse AoE and utility than Shortbow.

No, i wouldn’t want it on the autoattack.

Standing there and autoattacking is just not engaging gameplay. Even turning off the autoattack function and continually hitting 1 all the time, not even needing to manage a resource is not engaging.

Well I wouldn’t want it either really. Point I was trying to make was that they nerfed the kit without compensation despite the fact it was already performing just ‘average’ in PVE.

Basically this patch was all about finding scapegoat abilities instead of addressing the real problem: Haste (or Quickness in general)

Yep, pretty strange nerf.

As many have stated already, Quickness was the problem, not the PW skill.

Haha Devildoc, if those numbers are true, they’ve totally screwed this weapon set.

@bwillb It is a bug,
Any self root on ANY ability on a class designed for MOBILITY, let me repeat that for you in case you forgot your glasses; MOBILITY based class, is a bug. No dev with an IQ higher then a chimpanzee would add that, so considering they can obviously post on the forums and make statements with real sentences I am going to guess they can dress and feed themselves as well. Ergo self root is a bug

Now you stare at the grass for a moment

honestly, to the @ thief nerf supporter:
1) Learn to play properly (this is not your WoW/ Swtor/ hack and slash)
2) Stop showing outdated videos from youtube.
3) The other ability that’s about the same like PW = 100Blades, and that class is hardly touched.

Knyx.5926:

@bwillb It is a bug,
Any self root on ANY ability on a class designed for MOBILITY, let me repeat that for you in case you forgot your glasses; MOBILITY based class, is a bug. No dev with an IQ higher then a chimpanzee would add that, so considering they can obviously post on the forums and make statements with real sentences I am going to guess they can dress and feed themselves as well. Ergo self root is a bug

Now you stare at the grass for a moment

You need to learn the definition of the word bug in this context. Self root on this attack was intended and is working as such. Perhaps “Poor design choice” would be better used.

Perhaps this is a way of Anet putting forward that this weapon setup isnt about the instagib but is about control having dazes, stuns, blinds, cripples and immobilizes.

It might cause people to use pistol whip in a more situational way instead of it being practically the only thing used.

Paranoid.9542:

Knyx.5926:

@bwillb It is a bug,
Any self root on ANY ability on a class designed for MOBILITY, let me repeat that for you in case you forgot your glasses; MOBILITY based class, is a bug. No dev with an IQ higher then a chimpanzee would add that, so considering they can obviously post on the forums and make statements with real sentences I am going to guess they can dress and feed themselves as well. Ergo self root is a bug

Now you stare at the grass for a moment

You need to learn the definition of the word bug in this context. Self root on this attack was intended and is working as such. Perhaps “Poor design choice” would be better used.

Perhaps this is a way of Anet putting forward that this weapon setup isnt about the instagib but is about control having dazes, stuns, blinds, cripples and immobilizes.

It might cause people to use pistol whip in a more situational way instead of it being practically the only thing used.

As a situational tool, without haste, it’s pretty useless. The stun is over well before you regain control of your own character again.

Knyx.5926:

or the devs who added it are mentally challenged.

Did you see their post about FoV?

edit: or for that matter, this pistol whip nerf?

Paranoid.9542:

Knyx.5926:

@bwillb It is a bug,
Any self root on ANY ability on a class designed for MOBILITY, let me repeat that for you in case you forgot your glasses; MOBILITY based class, is a bug. No dev with an IQ higher then a chimpanzee would add that, so considering they can obviously post on the forums and make statements with real sentences I am going to guess they can dress and feed themselves as well. Ergo self root is a bug

Now you stare at the grass for a moment

You need to learn the definition of the word bug in this context. Self root on this attack was intended and is working as such. Perhaps “Poor design choice” would be better used.

Perhaps this is a way of Anet putting forward that this weapon setup isnt about the instagib but is about control having dazes, stuns, blinds, cripples and immobilizes.

It might cause people to use pistol whip in a more situational way instead of it being practically the only thing used.

The only other worthwhile ability is Black Powder, and P/P + D/P both supply it as well. People go S/P for Pistol Whip, not for anything else. Now that they made it more-or-less do the same damage as the #1 attacks, there’s no reason to play it. That’s not the fault of the players, that’s the fault of the developers making “one trick pony” kits that rely on a single ability to make it viable.

@Bwillb What post about Pistol whip? All I read was the patch notes, I see nothing of an explanation.

Dayrian.8973:

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

You must lack playing time in cursed shore with S/P. Before the patch, it’s still quite ok to run along alone, facing 1 veteran or 2. But now? out of the window (as compared to greatsword, which can take up to like 3/4 vets)

And although, I sometimes run S/P. Even, then, I was like, “ahh, kitten, sword ONLY HAVE ONE ATTACK aside from auto-attack”. It’s probably my opening move, and that’s that. With pistol whip costing as high as 5intiviatives, and I don’t run the extra 3 initiative traits, I could hardly use it more than once. In a way, whether you like it or not, it is quite a major nerf for a weapon set, that truly can attack once (utility aside) and not to forget to account for other classes ability that can easily ‘interrupt/ break’ it….

Yeah now I guess I’m going to just spam black powder and autoattack things to death while i stand in the field.

It’s going to kill as fast as pistol whip does now and will be safer when it comes to defenses as well.

Pre nerf I’d use pistol whip to blow up 1-3 mobs in about 2-3 10k pistol whips, now I’m getting like 6k pistol whips (the 15% damage nerf is amplified in difference by crits when you have 250% crit damage it’s extremely noticable), I run out of initiative and am autoattacking anyway.

It was just a heavy handed nerf that just makes me kill things in double the time I used to.

Meanwhile warriors run around killing 1-3 mobs in 1 100 blades.

Izzy needs to find himself unemployed.

Blacksarevok.8104:

The only other worthwhile ability is Black Powder, and P/P + D/P both supply it as well. People go S/P for Pistol Whip, not for anything else. Now that they made it more-or-less do the same damage as the #1 attacks, there’s no reason to play it. That’s not the fault of the players, that’s the fault of the developers making “one trick pony” kits that rely on a single ability to make it viable.

I think it’d be pretty viable within a decent team, which is what I think Anet intended it for.

Figure a reliable way to geting into stealth and you can keep someone daze locked for 3 seconds in a sword build, which oddly enough is enough time to recloak and daze lock again.

All theorical of course, it just seems the general mindset atm is “I must kill things, NOW for the kitten!”

Devildoc.6721:

Dayrian.8973:

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

You must lack playing time in cursed shore with S/P. Before the patch, it’s still quite ok to run along alone, facing 1 veteran or 2. But now? out of the window (as compared to greatsword, which can take up to like 3/4 vets)

And although, I sometimes run S/P. Even, then, I was like, “ahh, kitten, sword ONLY HAVE ONE ATTACK aside from auto-attack”. It’s probably my opening move, and that’s that. With pistol whip costing as high as 5intiviatives, and I don’t run the extra 3 initiative traits, I could hardly use it more than once. In a way, whether you like it or not, it is quite a major nerf for a weapon set, that truly can attack once (utility aside) and not to forget to account for other classes ability that can easily ‘interrupt/ break’ it….

Yeah now I guess I’m going to just spam black powder and autoattack things to death while i stand in the field.

It’s going to kill as fast as pistol whip does now and will be safer when it comes to defenses as well.

Pre nerf I’d use pistol whip to blow up 1-3 mobs in about 2-3 10k pistol whips, now I’m getting like 6k pistol whips (the 15% damage nerf is amplified in difference by crits when you have 250% crit damage it’s extremely noticable), I run out of initiative and am autoattacking anyway.

It was just a heavy handed nerf that just makes me kill things in double the time I used to.

Meanwhile warriors run around killing 1-3 mobs in 1 100 blades.

Izzy needs to find himself unemployed.

Yup, same boat here.

Sucks too because I was in the process of saving for my last few pieces of T3, now it looks like I’ll have to blow money on a new set of weapons. Thanks, Arenanet.

Paranoid.9542:

Blacksarevok.8104:

The only other worthwhile ability is Black Powder, and P/P + D/P both supply it as well. People go S/P for Pistol Whip, not for anything else. Now that they made it more-or-less do the same damage as the #1 attacks, there’s no reason to play it. That’s not the fault of the players, that’s the fault of the developers making “one trick pony” kits that rely on a single ability to make it viable.

I think it’d be pretty viable within a decent team, which is what I think Anet intended it for.

Figure a reliable way to geting into stealth and you can keep someone daze locked for 3 seconds in a sword build, which oddly enough is enough time to recloak and daze lock again.

All theorical of course, it just seems the general mindset atm is “I must kill things, NOW for the kitten!”

Well buddy, in PVE time is money, and killing things half as fast as you used to is costly.

Everyone seems to be forgetting that this nerf has FAR more impact in PVE than it does in PVP.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Well buddy, in PVE time is money, and killing things half as fast as you used to is costly.

Everyone seems to be forgetting that this nerf has FAR more impact in PVE than it does in PVP.

True, seems it might be a bit hard on the PvE builds. Thems the breaks I guess, P/D sustain build here, lets have a slow kill competition.

@Bwillb What post about Pistol whip? All I read was the patch notes, I see nothing of an explanation.

Those were two separate items, I was talking about the nerf itself which didn’t address the problem they were trying to fix at all.

This is really sad. Some of the professions are nerfed like mad while warrior is untouched.

@Lonewolfie
I can’t find the direct quote but apparently they have warriors where they want it to be.

You might as well reroll to a different class before they ruin the thief class as a whole. Devs are too trigger happy at the meantime. You can shove balance up somebody’s butt, cause you won’t be getting some.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Devildoc.6721:

Dayrian.8973:

Bitapetrone.7423:

I feel like you are completely disregarding PVE here.

I love Pistol Whip in PVE. I use S/P when I’m running around alone fighting groups of mobs (that I can bunch together of course). I don’t feel that the 15% damage nerf has harmed my PVE effectiveness to any sort of significant degree.

You must lack playing time in cursed shore with S/P. Before the patch, it’s still quite ok to run along alone, facing 1 veteran or 2. But now? out of the window (as compared to greatsword, which can take up to like 3/4 vets)

And although, I sometimes run S/P. Even, then, I was like, “ahh, kitten, sword ONLY HAVE ONE ATTACK aside from auto-attack”. It’s probably my opening move, and that’s that. With pistol whip costing as high as 5intiviatives, and I don’t run the extra 3 initiative traits, I could hardly use it more than once. In a way, whether you like it or not, it is quite a major nerf for a weapon set, that truly can attack once (utility aside) and not to forget to account for other classes ability that can easily ‘interrupt/ break’ it….

Yeah now I guess I’m going to just spam black powder and autoattack things to death while i stand in the field.

It’s going to kill as fast as pistol whip does now and will be safer when it comes to defenses as well.

Pre nerf I’d use pistol whip to blow up 1-3 mobs in about 2-3 10k pistol whips, now I’m getting like 6k pistol whips (the 15% damage nerf is amplified in difference by crits when you have 250% crit damage it’s extremely noticable), I run out of initiative and am autoattacking anyway.

It was just a heavy handed nerf that just makes me kill things in double the time I used to.

Meanwhile warriors run around killing 1-3 mobs in 1 100 blades.

Izzy needs to find himself unemployed.

Yup, same boat here.

Sucks too because I was in the process of saving for my last few pieces of T3, now it looks like I’ll have to blow money on a new set of weapons. Thanks, Arenanet.

I completely agree with everyone that is stating this nerf sucks. I don’t know about everyone but I know that for several people currently, it isn’t exactly easy to become loaded up with gold in the game, I myself just spent a large portion of my coin on Exotics for.. you guess it, my S/P PvE Build. This is a prime example as why “nerfing” should NEVER be done in a game, I have now LOST money that I spent a great deal of time attempting to acquire, that Exotic Sword and Pistol might as well go in a closet to be forgotten now, I am very dissatisfied with ANet for doing this, it only reminds me more of WoW.

I do not believe that nerfing should ever occur in a game unless something is drastically overpowered in some way, what SHOULD be done is the scaling up of other abilities for other classes, or as many have mentioned, adjusting the quickness buff that made S/P so good in PvP.

My S/P build is now useless in PvE aside from an interrupt every now and then, and for all of those complaining that it was OP in sPvP, maybe you need to learn to start spamming that dodge button whenever a thief first hits you with Pistol Whip, you can get away from it after all.

Now I have to grind through farming some more rares for ectos and trolls for powerful bloods just to try to get exotics for my switch to a Cloak and Dagger/Backstab build.

I love how everyone also goes on about thieves being OP in sPvP all the time.. Have they not played against a mesmer? Those things are bloody ridiculous! Then you have the case here where (and I may be wrong in this, but) Warrior has YET to receive any form of a nerf yet.

Yeah, according to Isaiah Cartwright, who mains warrior btw, warriors are where he wants them to be, at the top of the totem pole.

S/P was the one set we had where we had a good balance between control, mobility, defense, and damage, with some limited aoe. Now the damage is gone.

Guess I need to get a dagger and sacrifice mobility and condition removal instead, and have no aoe.

Um guys, leave the personal attacks against Developers out of here please.
Attacking Izzy isn’t going to amount to anything other than getting yourself banned and the thread locked. Please continue gathering data and offering suggestions to improve the Thief. I’m furious at this change too but making personal attacks against developers is never going to help the situation.

Elthurien.8356:

Um guys, leave the personal attacks against Developers out of here please.
Attacking Izzy isn’t going to amount to anything other than getting yourself banned and the thread locked. Please continue gathering data and offering suggestions to improve the Thief. I’m furious at this change too but making personal attacks against developers is never going to help the situation.

So who should we hold responsible for this stupidity? Right now, it feels like they’re running beta on a live server. I love gw2 to death but when they do something this plain out idiotic, do you just stand there and take it?

They just ruined a whole weapon set. S/P auto attacks hit as much as PW. I hope there comes a time when they actually test it before they implement it.