Guild Wars 2

After looking into DPS using baseline values, I concluded that Vital Shot does about 35% of the direct damage and 80% of the total damage Unload does while also being significantly weaker than comparable ranged #1 skills such as the Warrior’s Bleeding Shot and Ranger’s Crossfire. This may seem reasonable to some, but it isn’t – it’s a huge imbalance that demonstrates how badly Vital Shot needs a buff.

The fact that Vital Shot is so weak creates excessive gameplay pressure to spam Unload while using P/P, which gimps the entire set by dramatically reducing its mobility and rendering its utility impotent for no other reason to have moderate burst with bad sustained DPS. From day one, Vital Shot has been the problem. Note that this issue also affects the Engineer’s Pistol, which also has an underpowered #1 crippling the entire set.

Reducing the aftercast by .1 second would make the ratio about 40%/95%, and reducing it by .2 seconds would make it 50%/110%. At least a .1 reduction is absolutely needed, and arguably up to .2 would be reasonable considering the value of Unload’s damage being fully direct.

I also think it’s unlikely this buff would do much to break P/D, but if it does they can just re-balance Sneak Attack and/or Shadow Strike accordingly. I feel like it’s a critical change that needs to happen.

The cast time of Vital Shot is .82 seconds, which is too slow for the damage and bleed duration it possesses. It really wants to be at least .72 and arguably .65 or so, which would give it a better proportion of P/P’s total damage capabilities and balance the set much better from a resource management and utility perspective. This would also bring it more in-line with other ranged autoattacks like Bleeding Shot and Crossfire.

Just because you speed up Vital Shot doesn’t necessarily means that Thieves will stop spamming Unload. All this will do is unbalance the weapon set because it no longer punishes the Unload spammers since they can still rely on Vital Shot to do sustain damage.

The end result is a nerf to either Vital Shot’s overall damage or Unload’s damage and more than likely that Unload will take the hit.

Your suggestion is based on a blind faith that Anet will not take damage away from somewhere if Vital Shot is ever sped up. Just look at their track record and you can see that your faith is misplaced.

Trouble is the possible combinations of P/x are in direct competition between direct damage and condition damage specs. The main-hand skills will NEVER work well for both sets. I think the only real solution (though not feasible) is to branch off P/P and P/D in to 2 completely unique sets of weapon skills, with different auto-attacks to suit each combination. You could easily apply that logic to most main/off-hand combos for most classes, but again, that kind of change is just not feasible.

Auesis.7301:

Trouble is the possible combinations of P/x are in direct competition between direct damage and condition damage specs. The main-hand skills will NEVER work well for both sets.

Exactly!

I have spelled it out to the OP in the Profession Balance forum but he’s just being stubborn and conveniently ignoring other facts.

Auesis.7301:

Trouble is the possible combinations of P/x are in direct competition between direct damage and condition damage specs. The main-hand skills will NEVER work well for both sets. I think the only real solution (though not feasible) is to branch off P/P and P/D in to 2 completely unique sets of weapon skills, with different auto-attacks to suit each combination.

That’s a common argument, and sensible on the surface, but I don’t think it’s as true as people think it is. Currently, Vital Shot is a perfect hybrid that doesn’t work well with either set because it’s tuned poorly. What helps in P/D’s case is that it has easier access to the sneak attack, which doesn’t cost initiative (directly anyway) and disproportionately deals condition damage, which helps offset Vital Shot’s weakness. P/D also gets good supplemental condition damage from other utility sources like Caltrops, which helps further mask how weak Vital Shot is.

What needs to happen is that Vital Shot needs a buff for the sake of both sets, and then Sneak Attack needs to be recalibrated to do more direct damage and less bleed damage so that P/P benefits equally from it.