Guild Wars 2

I think his point was, if a bit poorly phrased: thieves only current options are to fight with a melee weapon, or with a ranged weapon so ineffective at long range that they may as well just whap the enemy over the head with it.

If they want us to consider the SB and Pistol as viable weapons, then they should fix them. Give pistols Ricochet back, and triple the flight speed of Cluster Bomb. Maybe faster, I’d have to see how fast “triple” ended up beings. About as fast to target as Ranger LB auto-attack is what we need. Also more of a sting on the SB “out of stealth” attack. Ideally also give SB its original range back. They do that, they can keep rifle for all I care, rainbow death unicorns forever. 100 years, flaming death unicorns.

Short bow and pistol… p/p does have dmg. 6k crit cluster bombs and crazy unload dps spam. Unfortunately they have to be spamed to be effective but even then, why do you need to? I only do mass event pve and the only thing I do is tag mobs with trick shot and detonate cluster bomb.

Ohoni.6057:

The game is balanced around sPvP. That’s a fact, that’s the truth, and that’s the premise for all decisions made unless people start not playing the game at all or something is definitely not working as intended. As far as balancing goes, ANet’s stance really does not indicate much of an interest in how the PvE tiers are.

Perhaps so, but I refuse to play along with their biases on that. I feel we as a community can do better than they have, and should always try to consider all aspects of the game, not just sPvP like ANet does.

PvE is doable by anything given the skill. What you’re asking for is easy-mode pewpew with competitive DPS to melee alternatives.

I’m asking for a standoff range option for Thieves that puts their sustained DPS at that distance on par with Ranger, Engi, Hunter, etc. If they aren’t going to deliver on that, then I would rather they not give the Thief Rifle/LB at all. I see no benefit to a ranged weapon that is used as another support tool.

This will literally never happen in the competitive PvE environment, and frankly, the number of players who actually care about high-end PvE is so miniscule that if Anet actually catered to them, we’d have a horrible state of game balance and thieves would not even be as strong in PvE as they are, because our damage would need to get nerfed or others buffed; in which case our utility suffers for pug runs which is what the majority of players pay attention to.

That’s nonsense, Thieves are by no means in demand for any PvE content except to provide Stealth or to venom share. Or DPS is not considered a necessary contribution.

Fun fact, six chained interrupts and permanent 25 vuln as I mentioned in my specialization on no cooldown via the initiative system would absolutely destroy break bars to the point where the rifle would be an amazing weapon for high-end PvE as a secondary for damage ramping. Stacking modifiers and group utility always takes precedence and is why Water Spirit + Glyph of Empowerment Druid is so heavily used. Oh wait, you never read my proposal and are making claims about how it wouldn’t be functional for group PvE. The irony.

Understand this, you don’t matter. Your proposal does not matter. If someone chooses to read and respond to your proposal directly, then they are doing you a favor, they do not owe it to you, they are not lessened by not having done so. I am not discussing your pet rifle build except in direct response to you bringing it up, and going by what data you present here. If I speak of a Thief Rifle build, it will be a general one that may or may not have any relevance to the one you came up with, because again, the one you came up with does not matter.

Also of note, ranged DPS scaling with distance doesn’t work in high-end PvE. The reason that longbow ranger was hated on so much for dungeons wasn’t because it had poor damage but because it missed out on all of the utility gained from being bunched up together for combo fields, boons, buffs, and other effects.

It really depends on the content. Some content the players all bunch up on top of the enemy, in which case a melee/skirmish weapon is best. In other cases, they bunch up at a distance from the enemy, in which case a standoff weapon is the best. In other cases, large groups do both. I’m not talking about things like Raids or dungeons, who cares about those? I’m talking about the actual content of the game, the open world events.

So what you’re saying is we should disinterest ourselves for every single major aspect of this game in favor of open-world PvE events to give the thief a DPS 1200 ranged weapon and forsake all competitive interests in the game despite them accounting for the majority of player interests and monetary gain for ArenaNet? You proclaim I do not matter and yet your interest lies in such a miniscule, closed-minded association and claim your subsequent opinion matters more to the integrity of the game?

I’m sorry but you’re absolutely delusional. Frankly, they could take away half of the World Bosses in the game and people probably wouldn’t care that much. Just like your claim about my proposal not mattering, you also mean nothing in a world boss. Your DPS coming out of a rifle means nothing when 100 other players are shooting away as well. Anything with a multi-hitbox range is going to crush your rifle ideology’s impact on the fight as a whole.

Who cares about raids and dungeons over open world content? I haven’t done a world boss in over two and a half years. I have zero interest in pressing 1 and watching something die. I have little interest in PvE as it is because I think it’s either largely too easy/waste of time in the case of dungeons for the reward it provides, or too big of a meta-shouting raging buffoons for raids and competitive groups.

Ohoni.6057:

Shadow.1345:

Rememeber back when pewpew Ranger was considered one of the two weakest classes along with Necromancer? That’s what a 1200 range DPS thief would be but squishier and lacking a pet. So, no, I won’t quit if they don’t get rifle.

Yeah, but then they buffed up Longbow. We’d want the “post lessons learned” version.

And longbow ranger continues to be one of the worst PvE DPS sets in the game.

If you want to talk about PvE so much and balancing towards it, please understand what constitutes viability in PvE. Otherwise you’re talking out of your bum proclaiming yourself as correct about so many assertions that are blatantly false, and you’re making up blatant generalizations about what the game wants and what does/doesn’t matter in the eyes of the players in regards to what needs to be balanced.

Frankly, I can get a gold medal in Teq using Scorpion Wire’s damage. There’s your 1200 range-much-needed safety-net skill. Just rebind it to 1 and spam it. You’ve got what you’re asking for.

Id like the rifle to be 900 range but have a mechanic that would allow it to be at 1200 range.
Example
F2 Skill Mark Target
Mark Your target changing the way your number 3 ability works providing long range skill for each skill set.
This would be cool as it would provide alternatives for more than just your rifle shot.

Rifle Mark target skill 3. Shoot a devastating skill from 1200 that leaves a burning trail along the way.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

What? Can you rephrase that please?

It was 7am and I was still waking up. What I was trying to say is our ranged weapons suck in the range department. And because of it there really is no point in using them out of melee distance. They may aswell be melee weapons.

Short bow and pistol… p/p does have dmg. 6k crit cluster bombs and crazy unload dps spam.

Unload is relatively weak and very expensive without Ricochet to spread out the damage. It’s just the best DPS a Thief can do from range.

Cluster Bombs can do decent damage per hit, but since you can only have one in the air at a time and they travel so slowly, they are PATHETIC for 900 range DPS. They are only effective DPS if you are punching people in the face with the arrows, and at that point why not just use Staff? Engi Mortar, by comparison, can have up to 1500 range, does less damage per hit, but you can have 3-4 of them in the air at a time, so the sustained DPS is better.

So again, if they greatly increased the flight speed of Cluster Bomb and returned Ricochet then those weapons might become truly viable again, but as it stands they are merely “better than nothing.”

I only do mass event pve and the only thing I do is tag mobs with trick shot and detonate cluster bomb.

Then you are wasting everyone else’s time by bringing poor DPS, and you should be asking for options to bring better DPS to the table.

So what you’re saying is we should disinterest ourselves for every single major aspect of this game in favor of open-world PvE events to give the thief a DPS 1200 ranged weapon and forsake all competitive interests in the game despite them accounting for the majority of player interests and monetary gain for ArenaNet? You proclaim I do not matter and yet your interest lies in such a miniscule, closed-minded association and claim your subsequent opinion matters more to the integrity of the game?

No, that’s what you’re asking for. I’m saying they should focus on open world PvE content, which is the majority of this game.

I’m sorry but you’re absolutely delusional. Frankly, they could take away half of the World Bosses in the game and people probably wouldn’t care that much.

Probably, if they took away the lamer ones. But if they took away all of them, or the ones people actually enjoyed, it would cause more trouble than if they removed WvW.

Your DPS coming out of a rifle means nothing when 100 other players are shooting away as well. Anything with a multi-hitbox range is going to crush your rifle ideology’s impact on the fight as a whole.

Every player should bring the best DPS that he can. Players shouldn’t be forced into bringing scrub DPS and dragging everyone else down just because ANet provides them with no better options.

Who cares about raids and dungeons over open world content? I haven’t done a world boss in over two and a half years. I have zero interest in pressing 1 and watching something die. I have little interest in PvE as it is because I think it’s either largely too easy/waste of time in the case of dungeons for the reward it provides, or too big of a meta-shouting raging buffoons for raids and competitive groups.

And that may be true for you, but you are not everyone else.

And longbow ranger continues to be one of the worst PvE DPS sets in the game.

So in your opinion, which are the strongest 1200+ range sets out there?

Frankly, I can get a gold medal in Teq using Scorpion Wire’s damage. There’s your 1200 range-much-needed safety-net skill. Just rebind it to 1 and spam it. You’ve got what you’re asking for.

What I’m asking for is to meaningfully contribute to the success of the event as well as anyone else around me, not merely to “tag and get my credit.” I’m not satisfied with “press 1” gameplay.

Honestly, I’d much rather them add piercing to Vital Shot and Unload than add a rifle. Thief doesn’t need another weapon it needs another role that isn’t currently being done by another class. Ranger will always have better long range DPS and stealthy cc/support revealer rifle guy is currently being filled by Scrapper. To add those roles to the much squishier thief would be redundant on top of giving the thief a useless new role better done by another profession.

Ohoni.6057
Are for kittening real lol? A few people who in full basic armour/weapons are not going to dent the dps of around 50-100 people. Dps only matters for things like spirit Vale and or elitist speed clear dungeons.

Are for kittening real lol? A few people who in full basic armour/weapons are not going to dent the dps of around 50-100 people. Dps only matters for things like spirit Vale and or elitist speed clear dungeons.

It really depends. I don’t know how much of the game you’ve played, but the new open world meta involves splitting people up, so boss fights are rarely 50-150 on a target, they are more like 15-30 per target, and while they’ve nerfed the Garrant a bit, losing fights on that one tend to be about the DPS race. Wanting to bring your A game is a perfectly reasonable desire. Not to mention the many smaller fights against HP bosses, or event champs where you might be dealing with less than 10 players, or even just general roaming where you want to be able to solo Veterans and might need to bring more DPS to do it.

I was duoing the Auric Arrowhead HP boss tonight, and it was a lot of fun, but it did take a long time using sub-optimal DPS.

Well, I have played pretty much all of the games content. 2 chars with 100% would exploration. I did enough HoT pve to get Bo staff. A lot there’s things in pve are not meant to solo (we all know that).

I have enough dps for my self and in a small grp. Any bigger then 5 people then aiming for max dps isn’t a nessescaty.

Edit. I still think you are asking for too much. We all like our main classes and want the best, but there are certain things that some classes shouldn’t have, and a 1200 range dps weapon is 1 of them

A lot there’s things in pve are not meant to solo (we all know that).

And yet if other classes can solo that thing, I’d like to be able to as well. It’s not about “can do it”/“cannot do it”, it’s about “can do it”/“can do it WELL.”

I have enough dps for my self and in a small grp. Any bigger then 5 people then aiming for max dps isn’t a nessescaty.

It isn’t necessary, but it’s considerate. You don’t want to be carried, it doesn’t feel nice. I’m willing to get carried if necessary, but I always do my best to do my best, to be a beneficial as possible, so if I feel that the build I want to play is not as useful as other ones, then I will push to have that changed, whether it’s absolutely necessary or not.

Edit. I still think you are asking for too much. We all like our main classes and want the best, but there are certain things that some classes shouldn’t have, and a 1200 range dps weapon is 1 of them

And I still don’t see why you have this existential crisis over the thought of the Thief no longer being the ONLY class without 1200+ range options. Assuming it’s balanced out to limit peak mobility/stealth when using the full DPS options, I don’t see what the problem would be in the class being EQUAL to the other classes in this regard. It’s not like anyone’s asking them to give us a 2000 range Rifle shot (although I wouldn’t kick it out of bed either). I haven’t even seen anyone asking for the 1500 range that Rangers and Engies can earn.

rifle would look very clumsy, i mean…. U are the fastest Proffession in game, that crosses Distances in and Out of combat faster then any other proffession and u want to pull a Sniper rifle out on that fact? XD

i think the issue with 1200 Ranged on Thief is the fact thief can Already pretty much keep up with any proffession in the game (it’ll die but it could catch them atleast xD) to hand em a 1200 Weapon with that u’d pretty much be capable of Damaging anyone at every point of the game with very little stopping your DPS, Specially when chasing a Player, which anet i guess do not want as that could easily become something that makes balancing u more Complicated which would throw thief into a event worse spot, being balanced on 100% Uptime on Damage would be Dramatically low.

it isnt Impossible, but they’d have be Careful as hell implementing that into a proffession like Thief, look at it from the other side, Imagine if base Necromancer had thief Mobility and Then was given Reaper?… Teleporting Evading Sonic Speeded Reapers?… how much nerfing Would the Reaper/Necro have to take to implement a thief level mobility into them?… Well now Reverse it…

I mean granted, Thief Position needs fixing, their Ranged Options Need buffing a rebuild of half their utilities and ALOT of their weapons need fixing… how long as D/P been the only thing avaliable to thief again? lol, i feel like giving the thief a 1200 ranged weapon would seriously cause Nerfs to ur mobility to prevent u litterally having everything, I mean with ur mobility you shouldnt need one realistically, this is Just a balance problem + bunker Meta causing this doom times for the thief not realistically inability of a 1200 Weapon, the mobility is ment to compensate For the lack of a 1200 weapon, the things that would happen to the proffession after such a change, would upset players.

Because i think we do need it thats why. I am not worried what other classes can do (to an extent) ok, scrappers can out stealth us, probably out dps us well of we dont screw up buts thats a differwnt subject. some classes wish they could port around pve and stealth farm hero challangs and the nodes.

no i want gs or double swords

Ohoni.6057:

Again, that allows you to move in from 1200 range, but then you’re stuck there. If they add the Rifle, I would expect to be able to attack from 1200 range continuously, without ever coming closer than that.

You make that sound like a bad thing! From close range we can blind, interrupt, and/or deal more damage much more easily and with fewer limitations from reflects, LoS, projectile destruction, and enemy stealth. Melee is where the magic happens.

Ohoni.6057:

Short bow and pistol… p/p does have dmg. 6k crit cluster bombs and crazy unload dps spam.

Unload is relatively weak and very expensive without Ricochet to spread out the damage. It’s just the best DPS a Thief can do from range.

Unload is weak? What planet are you on? Traited for damage, Unload now deals almost 40% more DPS than Rapid Fire and P/P overall can out-damage LB ranger. Unload has dealt higher DPS than longbow/Rapid Fire this entire time because it has much more than half the damage in half the casting time.

And longbow ranger continues to be one of the worst PvE DPS sets in the game.

So in your opinion, which are the strongest 1200+ range sets out there?

Ranger longbow. And it absolutely sucks relative to melee combat in regards to DPS, because not only by design is it meant to (ANet has come out publicly and stated this during talks about the ranger considering the perception of the ranger and the old longbow during various class showcases, CDI, etc.), but like I said above, you’re not gaining or giving utility at 1200 range. 25 Might + 180 power/precision/ferocity, Alacrity, Quickness, and 30% outgoing damage in modifiers are massively important to speed up a fight.

Frankly, I can get a gold medal in Teq using Scorpion Wire’s damage. There’s your 1200 range-much-needed safety-net skill. Just rebind it to 1 and spam it. You’ve got what you’re asking for.

What I’m asking for is to meaningfully contribute to the success of the event as well as anyone else around me, not merely to “tag and get my credit.” I’m not satisfied with “press 1” gameplay.

So being at the event finishing people’s combo fields, providing heals, buffs, boons, debuffs, and break bar damage isn’t meaningful contribution despite them being quite literally necessary to beat the encounter?

I’m sorry but World bosses by their very nature ARE “press 1” gameplay. I’ve literally gone AFK at these fights in melee range on my thief and have been fine.

If there was an actual purpose or need for the 1200 range DPS rifle for safe gameplay for the thief for PvE, sure. The thing is, there currently isn’t. All it’d do is break PvP formats.

And I know for a fact the fallout from deleting WvW would be way bigger than ANet removing World Bosses. I’m next to certain the major focus on WvW occurring in the near future is because their business statistics are plummeting and multiple new games are being released featuring WvW-style gameplay that are frankly going to do it better than what ANet has now, particularly in the minds of the players who are disgusted with HoT’s WvW changes. Every leading WvW player condemns the changes made recently and entire communities have been left fractured if not broken because of them. They’re scared because they’re going to lose huge business. I recall at release the queue and overflow to Lion’s Arch was shorter than the queue to any of the WvW maps. The audience is there, and not paying attention to it is costing them business. WBT is historically just a bunch of people running around getting their daily gold or because they’re so bored of everything else.

I respect those who do Triple Trouble untagged with no people to mooch off of them. That’s about it.

NO GREATSWORDS FOR THEIF!!!

i think the issue with 1200 Ranged on Thief is the fact thief can Already pretty much keep up with any proffession in the game (it’ll die but it could catch them atleast xD) to hand em a 1200 Weapon with that u’d pretty much be capable of Damaging anyone at every point of the game with very little stopping your DPS,

That’s just a silly argument. Thieves can keep up with just about any classes, considering that they can shadowstep occasionally, but they are not the fastest, especially when not geared for peak speed, and plenty of other classes can keep up with Thieves just as easily. Herald, for example, has better access to Swiftness, Super Speed, and Unrelenting Assault, and they have 1200 range. Engies have Rocket Boots, perma-Swiftness (or a lot of Super Speed), and they have 1500 range. Rangers have potential perma-Swiftness, and GS lunge, and 1500 range. Eles have tons of Swiftness, a blink, Ride the Lightning, and 1200 range. Guardians have perman-Swiftness, a lunge, (a bonus lunge on Hunter), and 1200 range. Hell, my Hunter is always first to mid on most maps, or at least on par with anyone else.

Theives can be good at running away from enemies since they can confuse pursuit with Stealth, but they are no better off at covering ground or catching a fleeing target.

And again, giving Thieves a 1200+ range rifle would likely come with certain conditions, things that would limit their ability to shoot and run effectively, and that’s fine. This is to give the class options, not to let it do everything great all at the same time. Nobody’s asking for a rifle that would allow you to be in stealth, deal a ton of damage, re-stealth, reposition, do a ton more damage, and repeat constantly until the enemy is dead with very little counterplay. That would be OP, so nobody is asking for that. What is being asked for would reduce the Rifle thief’s mobility and/or stealth potential relative to the existing builds, at least when you’re playing it as a DPS spec.

no i want gs or double swords

My preferences, in order, would be OH Sword, Focus, and then Rifle, but my point for this thread is, if they do add Rifle, do it kitten right. If all they do is repackage the supporty/nuisance options of SB and P/P then I see no point in having the weapon at all.

You make that sound like a bad thing! From close range we can blind, interrupt, and/or deal more damage much more easily and with fewer limitations from reflects, LoS, projectile destruction, and enemy stealth. Melee is where the magic happens.

And melee is fine, if that’s what you want to do. If that’s what you want, you can run D/D, D/P, Staff, whatever, and that’s great. But Thieves need the option to not do that when that would not be the best option. Part of the problem with Thieves in melee is that so much of what they’re good at can be negated by the enemy. Blinding enemies constantly is great, unless the enemy is immune to blinds or just clears them super fast. Weakness is great, except when dozens of other players are applying it to and the enemy doesn’t seem to care. Interrupting is great, unless the enemy has a breakbar and all you’re doing is taking it down 5% while they keep hitting you. Thieves can be great at 1v1 against a balanced enemy, but a lot of the tools they bring to the table just become completely useless when the enemy does not “play fair.”

Unload is weak? What planet are you on? Traited for damage, Unload now deals almost 40% more DPS than Rapid Fire and P/P overall can out-damage LB ranger. Unload has dealt higher DPS than longbow/Rapid Fire this entire time because it has much more than half the damage in half the casting time.

I’m not a serious number cruncher, but at base levels, Rapid Fire deals slightly more damage and applies 10 Vulnerability. I’m not sure what you would do to “trait for damagE” on pistol since they removed that trait, but you can trait for damage on Ranger too. And don’t forget that Rangers also have their pet dealing damage, so their base damage should always be a bit lower than raw balance would indicate.

And sure, you can spam Unload a few times for high burst, but then you’re low on Ini, so it’s not great for battles that last more than a couple seconds.

Ranger longbow. And it absolutely sucks relative to melee combat in regards to DPS, because not only by design is it meant to (ANet has come out publicly and stated this during talks about the ranger considering the perception of the ranger and the old longbow during various class showcases, CDI, etc.), but like I said above, you’re not gaining or giving utility at 1200 range.

So this is my point. I want the option of doing this with a Thief. This is the nice thing about GW2, you can weapon swap in combat. I’m not saying anyone would go 100% Rifle, 100% of the time, you’d want a melee or skirmish ranged alternate weapon, but in cases where it’s ideal to hang back and snipe, you’d have a valid option to hang back and snipe. In cases where you’d want to get in close, the Thief already has plenty of options for that, and doesn’t particularly need another one. If you choose to never use the 1200 range option, then that’s fine, but it’s something the Thief should have available.

I’m sorry but World bosses by their very nature ARE “press 1” gameplay. I’ve literally gone AFK at these fights in melee range on my thief and have been fine.

AND AGAIN, I am in no way interested in “being fine,” I am interested in “doing the best I possibly can,” whether that is strictly necessary or not. Just because you can “press 1” doesn’t mean that you should.

If there was an actual purpose or need for the 1200 range DPS rifle for safe gameplay for the thief for PvE, sure. The thing is, there currently isn’t. All it’d do is break PvP formats.

Not if it’s well designed.

And I know for a fact the fallout from deleting WvW would be way bigger than ANet removing World Bosses.

Nope. Nobody plays WvW anymore. They could shut it off tonight and most people wouldn’t even notice except when they tried to go to the borderlands to craft or use the Forge. Compared to that, they always have multiple full maps going for any world boss, even the fairly lame ones. World bosses are GW2’s core feature.

I recall at release the queue and overflow to Lion’s Arch was shorter than the queue to any of the WvW maps.

Well sure, because most players were not in Lion’s Arch. But even on low pop servers it was pretty much impossible to get onto the non-overflow maps for world bosses unless you got there well in advance.

They didn’t remove the trait for extra damage on the pistol. Ankle Shots is there and continues to be there. Unfortunately they did change it such that its effects only work on burst situations since it has a 10s ICD and a 3s duration. It also competes with PT which is more consistent albeit provides a slightly smaller damage modifier.

Two unloads is better than a rapid fire. If you build a thief to spec for damage, such as DA/CS/Tr or CS/Tr/DD, one unload will deal comparable damage to a rapid fire. The thief has the best damage modifier access in the game, despite the Druid being able to achieve close values. Two unloads will absolutely and undeniably deal substantially more damage than an RF, which is the longbow ranger’s absolute best DPS. In the minimum cooldown of a RF recharge via Quick Draw + Lead the Wind playing Longbow + Longbow on a ranger, you can theoretically achieve three RF’s on average every 20 seconds, or once every 6.67s due to the cooldown on swapping weapons.

At worst, unload can be used every 5s flat due to the rate of natural initiative regeneration. Pushing RFI, Infiltrator’s Signet, Kleptomanic, and Quick Pockets, a thief every 20s regenerates 2 + 2 + 2 + 6 = 12 initiative running a mirror set of P/P + P/P as the ranger running double longbow. So over the course of 20s, we can see the ranger performing three sequences of RF (and this decays for the worse as the fight time increases due to the swapping dependency for the ranger to proc Quick Draw), and the thief, never using Unload unless at maximum initiative, would be able to perform 4 unloads baseline at 1 init per second + 2 more =6 unloads with an additional 40% of an unload ready.

Also of importance is the Ranger’s capacity to ever RF at complete maximum of 10% extra damage from vulnerability; this offsets the penalty from Lead Attacks in the Trickery line.

Factoring a cancellation of Steady Focus to Exposed Weakness’s 100% uptime being generous to the ranger (assuming the ranger never needs to dodge or is never targeted at 1200 range and can fight from complete and total safety), a Druid-built ranger using SotW and GoE can only ever modify his damage via a 1.2 and 1.1 modifiers respectively at 13.3% uptime and 30% uptimes. Therefore the average damage modifiers are 1.0266 and 1.03 for the ranger.

The thief in Executioner’s average modifier of 10% extra damage per encounter alone provides more damage. Back to Crit Strikes, however, the thief gains an additional 7% off of Flawless Strikes (we’ll also assume this thief can stay over 90% health, but he’s allowed to dodge unlike the ranger), 1% net on Ferocious Strikes per encounter, but he also gets the ability to maintain an innate 13.3% more critical damage via PT over the ranger AND an additional 16.7% critical damage modifier from permanent NQ uptime while also having better innate critical hit chance and permanent fury uptime than the ranger, which the ranger of said build is physically incapable of doing, netting a 30% increase in critical hit damage. The net result is a compounded total where the thief at hand in terms of raw coefficients pumps on an average hit over 20% more damage than the ranger. This again is also assuming the ranger gets his 10% damage modifier from Vuln, which we’re also assuming is not capped and is solely influenced by the classes themselves. A given unload by the thief at hand will deal approximately 80% of a Rapid Fire per unload while retaining maximum initiative. Burst-wise, the thief wins favoring almost 60% more damage from these two skills compared. What’s left is the auto-attack, which the longbow ranger wins, only while at maximum range. The thief’s pistol auto-attacks will deal roughly 80% of the damage of a given 1200+ range Druid longbow auto. However, since Unload’s damage is favored so heavily over RF’s, and based on the skill-downtime mentioned prior, this gap is closed entirely as the fight progresses due to the thief’s Unload damage dealing so much much damage over RF due to its frequency of use.

We can assume the pet deals negligible damage on the pretense that the above situation occurs in a vacuum; if other players provide vulnerability or a warrior with a greatsword or D/D ele is brought to stack might, the thief unquestionably does better DPS numbers because key advantages the ranger has will be negated entirely, and the thief will be in range of the stacking effects for 25 might (750 power; the thief is now guaranteed to deal more damage per second including its auto-attacks) whereas the ranger will be required to be out of range to gain its advantages from not needing to dodge and maintain its longbow damage. Going in closer, the ranger immediately loses its edge on its Auto-chain and subsequently loses all advantages it has.

As soon as the ranger stops playing Longbow/Longbow Quick Draw RF, the thief wins the DPS race through one set of P/P alone and the trickery line.

So how exactly do you want the rifle to do amazing DPS? Autos that hit for 6k+ baseline at 1200 range on a .75s delay? That’s just OP.

They didn’t remove the trait for extra damage on the pistol. Ankle Shots is there and continues to be there. Unfortunately they did change it such that its effects only work on burst situations since it has a 10s ICD and a 3s duration. It also competes with PT which is more consistent albeit provides a slightly smaller damage modifier.

Unless it lies, it only boosts damage against crippled foes.

Two unloads is better than a rapid fire. If you build a thief to spec for damage, such as DA/CS/Tr or CS/Tr/DD, one unload will deal comparable damage to a rapid fire. The thief has the best damage modifier access in the game, despite the Druid being able to achieve close values. Two unloads will absolutely and undeniably deal substantially more damage than an RF, which is the longbow ranger’s absolute best DPS. In the minimum cooldown of a RF recharge via Quick Draw + Lead the Wind playing Longbow + Longbow on a ranger, you can theoretically achieve three RF’s on average every 20 seconds, or once every 6.67s due to the cooldown on swapping weapons.

OK, now you’ve really got me curious, this needs some testing. We need two players to go into a Guild Hall Arena, decked out in ideal DPS gearing, stand perfectly still and just blast at each other from maximum range, first to downed.

Now, if the Ranger is at his maximum range of 1200, he would probably win, as the Thief would be dealing zero damage each time, but just to make it interesting, maybe they could do it from 900 range. I still think the Ranger could come out ahead. Even if so, I would want an option for Thieves that does more damage than they are currently capable of dealing at 1200 range.

We can assume the pet deals negligible damage on the pretense that the above situation occurs in a vacuum;

Why are you not counting the pet damage? Are you thinking that counting the pet would mean the Thief gets partners too? That’s nonsense, the pet is a baseline element of the Ranger, his damage is the Ranger’s damage. The “vacuum” is Ranger+Pet.

whereas the ranger will be required to be out of range to gain its advantages from not needing to dodge and maintain its longbow damage. Going in closer, the ranger immediately loses its edge on its Auto-chain and subsequently loses all advantages it has.

Keep in mind that what we’re discussing here IS the 1200 range, so discussing how the LB is weaker at closer ranges is moot. If the enemy is closer than 1200 range then he’d switch to something else.

So how exactly do you want the rifle to do amazing DPS? Autos that hit for 6k+ baseline at 1200 range on a .75s delay? That’s just OP.

No. Not that.

I mentioned above Ankle Shots’ effect has a 10s ICD on a 3s duration; Ankle Shots gives the ability for pistol attacks to apply cripple for 3s. Just this ability to do so for some reason has a 10s ICD, making the effect rather pointless in comparison to say, PT.

I played P/P gunslinger thief for over a year competitively before the buffs to Unload, and dual-mained a ranger from release to before HoT. P/P thief outputs better DPS numbers and also can out-burst RF by chaining unloads in the same time frame.

If there is such a drastic need for being at 1200 range, a pet going into melee will surely die. Also, the pet truly does negligible damage. In an encounter that truly needs ranged attacks, anyways, that pet is going to be swapped so often it’ll be missing out on half of its attacks which deal maybe a few hundred damage to a given boss. I wont speak for the HoT pets because those pets have massively overtuned damage like most of the HoT specs are blatantly overpowered. I think it’s safe to say in regards to power builds, Revenant PvE numbers are off the charts and nothing will ever even hope to compare without massive nerfs or buffs somewhere along the line. As a frame of reference, a Rev does around four times the damage of a longbow ranger… using just its auto-attack. If you seriously want to contribute to a WB in terms of damage output, you’re not doing it correctly by playing ranged damage. Also of note, P/P thief will deal less damage than dagger MH thief. This is again, because ranged damage, by design, is meant to deal less damage than melee attacks.

I wasn’t discussing 1200 range. You said “unload is relatively weak” to the ranger, making the claim that the longbow ranger crushes P/P thief in DPS numbers. I just demonstrated above that not only is this claim false, but the ranger can only become even competitive to the P/P thief in DPS when playing at 1200 range, and as soon as he gets closer than that for party buffs, as soon as people stack vuln instead of himself and the thief having none, he automatically loses his damage edge to the P/P thief, and if he does get closer, he also loses his capacity to dodge otherwise again, losing to the thief.

Ranged weapons are meant to deal sub-par damage as opposed to melee options because of the nature of combo fields and buffs/boons, and for PvP balance to prevent players from perching on a ledge and just 100-0’ing other people. Hammer Revenant is currently ruining WvW by trivializing fights by dealing what are currently AOE backstabs to blobs of players. Giving the thief 1200 ranged competitive DPS or huge burst does absolutely nothing for the class in PvE and breaks the class in sPvP/WvW. It’s why I designed the Deadeye the way I did, and why I gave the class a high-investment, short-term transformation ability to get 1200-range DPS/Burst without breaking the class entirely in terms of its balance, while also giving the rifle a unique role and give condition builds some love without playing cheese like D/D evasion spam or P/D SA stealth camping, while giving the thief PvE/Raid usage by allowing it massive interruption potential to quickly bring down break bars to double or triple the entire party’s damage output.

I mentioned above Ankle Shots’ effect has a 10s ICD on a 3s duration; Ankle Shots gives the ability for pistol attacks to apply cripple for 3s. Just this ability to do so for some reason has a 10s ICD, making the effect rather pointless in comparison to say, PT.

Yes, but maybe applying cripple, 60% of the time you crit, which is probably also less than 100%, would still not be a flat 10% damage buff even if it didn’t have an ICD, so no, it is not the original buff. It’s also not Ricochet, for that matter.

If there is such a drastic need for being at 1200 range, a pet going into melee will surely die. Also, the pet truly does negligible damage.

Are you talking about before or after they made pets immune to indirect damage? Also, some pets can attack from range too. And directly, a pet may not do a ton of damage, but it is bonus damage on top of what the Ranger’s attacks deal, and should always be factored into overall damage calculations.

Also of note, P/P thief will deal less damage than dagger MH thief. This is again, because ranged damage, by design, is meant to deal less damage than melee attacks.

But, a P/P Thief will do considerably more damage than a dagger MH Thief will when the enemy in question has a 600 radius death field around him. The Thief would either be dealing zero damage because he isn’t within his attack range, or he would be dealing zero damage because he’s dead, but either way, zero damage. Range is rarely the ideal option, but it is an important option to have when ideal circumstances are not available.

Giving the thief 1200 ranged competitive DPS or huge burst does absolutely nothing for the class in PvE and breaks the class in sPvP/WvW. It’s why I designed the Deadeye the way I did,

But giving the class the things your Deadeye offers is even more useless, most of those options are already available in Pistol or Shortbow. You can argue that Thieves do not need a long range damage option if you like, but they need a long range support/debuff option even less. If your argument is that they don’t need a long range DPS option, then they don’t need another long range option, period. Did you see all the furor on the Ele boards about the Tempest, about how it was basically just their D/D build? Well the “Deadeye” would cause reactions that would make that look like a love-fest.

Also, you talk up your build’s “massive interruption potential,” but I’m not seeing it.
Maybe I’m not understanding the documentation, but it sounds like you have to channel for three seconds, costing 4 ini total, to load 6 dazing rounds? Then you’d have to spam #1 to fire those rounds at the target? So even best case it would take 3.5 seconds to get off one 1/2s daze, and then probably another 2.5s+ to get off the remainder, stacking a total of 3s daze, then you could repeat? Keep in mind that in many Breakbar cases, the bar is only up temporarily, and this effect cannot be stored up, so unless you know the bar is coming and start channeling before it starts, you’re going to be wasting a lot of time just charging this up, and a good team might have his bar killed by then already.

Headshot already applies 1/4s dazes almost instantly, so while it’s not as efficient, it does work faster, plus other options Thieves have to reduce breakbars, and options other classes have, I just don’t see this as being a “must have” option that would put “breakbar Thieves” in high demand for anything. As a bonus option, just one of many great things they can do, perhaps, but not as a core hype feature of the spec.

I wouldn’t quit at all, in fact I’d prefer to get warhorn for the next weapon. If we do get a rifle though, I hope it will be less of a ranged sniper role and more of a battlefield commander/debuffer style.

Two requests for a rifle though:

Mark the target sounds amazing, yes please.
If we have get a snipe I’d like it to force a weapon switch. That way thieves will stay in the action instead of sitting back spamming our awesome skill.

I’d prefer Longbow for Thief, it’s easier to make unique and balance. Such as giving it conditions like burning, torment, chill, and confusion so we actually have a full condi weapon for once.

Rifle on thief? You TRYING to get us nerfed? Stealth + Kill Shot type skill = OP, period.

Why do you think that there will be next at all

Ohoni.6057:

Nope. Nobody plays WvW anymore. They could shut it off tonight and most people wouldn’t even notice except when they tried to go to the borderlands to craft or use the Forge. Compared to that, they always have multiple full maps going for any world boss, even the fairly lame ones. World bosses are GW2’s core feature.

Wow you are such a ignorant piece of kitten. As if you know everything and especially about WvW. We have still a queue in at least one borderland on Primetime (8-12pm in Silver).

It is true, that since HoT the population of WvW players went back and not just a tiny bit, a kittenload of player quit. But do you think all of them are now happy PvE-“we only farm World Bosses”-Players? Big kitten kitten you in your face dude, most of them quit the game completely. And that is the last thing Anet wants. So shut the kitten up you pathetic kitten and i hope Anet never gives Thief a 1200 range weapon, just because you want it.

/rant over.