Guild Wars 2

Einlanzer.1627:

I think Ricochet makes more sense than Piercing, it just still needs a bit of a boost to be useful. I think instead of being a flat 20% it should be 75/50/25. The same is true of Dancing Dagger, I really don’t know what their thinking is here.

Ricochet is more for condition damage users, it should be a 33% chance for pistol shots to explode, dealing 25% of that attacks damage and setting all targets around it on fire for 1s.

Pistol Mastery should improve damage by 10% and add piercing shots, but a critical pistols person would not go for ricochet because they would have little to no condition damage.

People seem to forget that the POWER part of pistol attacks is almost negated if you don’t use critical bonus/precision gear, while the bleeding part is negated if you don’t have condition gear.

Its perfectly acceptable to have both good power/good condition damage on one attack, because you can only really have one or the other.

muscarine.5136:

Aervius.2016:

Body Shot – 3 Initiative
Leap away from your opponent, firing an explosive round that applies 1x bleeding (4s) and 1x weakness (3s) to enemies near your target. 900 range, 300 range rear-directional leap.

A backward leap would be an awesome utility indeed, even more considering that pistols are way more dependant on mobility rather than stealth imo.

Now i still think piercing would make p/p way too powerfull, it’s true it would help especially against classes protected by freaking bots (rangers-mesmers-necros), but if you really wish piercing on pistols then the piercing has to be reduced, 5 targets is way too much for multiple unloads.

Meh, in optimal conditions it would make Unload worth 5 initiative, especially considering that the other classes that have access to Piercing projectiles have much greater range on said weapons.
900 range Piercing wouldn’t be OP unless the morons all perfectly lined up don’t move at all while the P/P Thief dumps ini on Unload, even then, all it takes it’s the target to perform a dodge roll and he/she has just saved everyone in the line of fire.

IMO, 900 Range attacks that Pierce would be inherently balanced as “short-ranged firepower” especially considering that P/P leaves little in regards to survivability, inherently. Just going off experience with my Rifle Warrior, as the Risk/Return balance for Piercing Volley seems disproportionate (in favor of the warrior) due to Rifle’s range advantage.

Just food for thought.

edit: It’s also worth considering that it would enhance syngergy with Thief traits already in-place, specifically Flanking Strike, meaning P/P would also stress positioning to an extent.

Daecollo.9578:

Ricochet is more for condition damage users, it should be a 33% chance for pistol shots to explode, dealing 25% of that attacks damage and setting all targets around it on fire for 1s.

Pistol Mastery should improve damage by 10% and add piercing shots, but a critical pistols person would not go for ricochet because they would have little to no condition damage.

People seem to forget that the POWER part of pistol attacks is almost negated if you don’t use critical bonus/precision gear, while the bleeding part is negated if you don’t have condition gear.

Its perfectly acceptable to have both good power/good condition damage on one attack, because you can only really have one or the other.

I completely agree. Pistol Mastery granting +10% and Piercing would consolidate the benefits of Piercing attacks to largely Pow/Crit builds, while Ricochet granting the chance of exclusive access to a powerful Condition (Burning) for a small duration.

In fact, that change to Condition would also allow Condition Pistol Thieves to alternate between P/D for Bleed stacking, or P/P for higher hit-volume attacks to proc more instances of Ricochet, further escalating their potential for AoE pressure.
The latter being something that Thieves, exclusively, lack.

Aervius.2016:

Meh, in optimal conditions it would make Unload worth 5 initiative, especially considering that the other classes that have access to Piercing projectiles have much greater range on said weapons.
900 range Piercing wouldn’t be OP unless the morons all perfectly lined up don’t move *at all* while the P/P Thief dumps ini on Unload, even then, all it takes it’s the target to perform a dodge roll and he/she has just saved everyone in the line of fire.

IMO, 900 Range attacks that Pierce would be inherently balanced as "short-ranged firepower" especially considering that P/P leaves little in regards to survivability, inherently. Just going off experience with my Rifle Warrior, as the Risk/Return balance for Piercing Volley seems disproportionate (in favor of the warrior) due to Rifle’s range advantage.

Just food for thought.

_edit: It’s also worth considering that it would enhance syngergy with Thief traits already in-place, specifically Flanking Strike, meaning P/P would also stress positioning to an extent._

My unloads output varies a lot depending on my targets, form 2k to 8k per unload, i know it is definitely weak against bunkers or anyone running this stupid 90% uptime prot boon...
But i think we need a better mean to strip boons instead of more damage that may eventually lead to an other flow of tears, and i really don’t want to see p/p on the nerf side of the wheel :’(

Anyway, considering the numbers i gave you, that’s a possible 8k to 5 targets 2-3 times in a row, i know the stars have to be lined up for it to happen but the fact that it can happen may still be an issue.

Also, as of now, with my current build, every time i use unload i heal for 8x100+346 (+450 if it procs), if you give me piercing i potentially get the ability to heal 5x800 more every times i shoot inside a furball.

I’m just giving some numbers, i can’t tell for sure, sometimes p/p seems so weak and exhausting to manage, and some other times i just roll through my opponent staying at full life.

Well. p/p is good for 1on1 with d/d elementalists.
So, if you know for sure your going to be facing such an ele in a match, and maybe in there backlines, perhapst hen pistols would be viable.

The problem with talking about Unload doing “xk to xk” damage is that raw damage numbers are meaningless without a timeframe over which they’re done. Unload can put up big numbers, but it is one of the thief’s slowest skills. If it were to be able to pierce I think people underestimate how difficult it’d be to effectively use it to hit multiple targets PvP, at least beyond the first couple shots. You’ve got a better shot at pistol whipping 3 targets for the entire duration than you do of being able to land a full Unload on multiple targets with piercing.

daydream.2938:

Well. p/p is good for 1on1 with d/d elementalists.
So, if you know for sure your going to be facing such an ele in a match, and maybe in there backlines, perhapst hen pistols would be viable.

Funny you should say that because i specifically designed my p/p build to hold my own against d/d eles to start with, and it actually gives great results, at best i win, at worst the nasty bunker and i just fight endlessly until one of us decides to leave.

And of course being able to hold it against d/d eles means you can hold it against most other builds.
Still having a lot of trouble against mesmers though, losing LoS way to often to apply a proper pressure.

P/P has a very expensive initiative cost. I mean, its basically spaming unload, the Headshot has very slow damage and very short stun time. Body Shot has a very short amount of Vulnerability time, making Unload most viable to use. In my personal experience, I only use P/P in sPvP/WvW sometimes and in dungeons where there must be a high mobility to dodge boss and stuff. I prefer Shortbow because it is a more sustained DPS and you can put conditions, combo fields, AOE, etc, but doesnt work too well on high mobility situations. Here’s my thoughts.

Body shot should apply burning, not vulnerability.