Guild Wars 2

Ive just come back from a break, to find that in the few months ive been gone, Rifle has been nerfed (It was underpowered anyway, so why did AN nerf it?) so now it doesn’t deal bleeding damage any more.

Considering I use a Rifle + Sword/Sword condition build, does it work? Ive thought about it’s viability by using Volley to proc loads of On Crit bleeds, but otherwise, im not really sure.

Any ideas? I really like the rifle, so I don’t appreciate it being nerfed to the point where I feel obligated to use the longbow, which I dislike in terms of functionality and aesthetics, so im desperately trying to find an excuse to save my rifle.

Hell to the no, its pure 100% pure un-adulterated power

Chaith.8256:

Hell to the no, its pure 100% pure un-adulterated power

Well, thats a terrible shame, considering it was the better of the two long-range weapons. I hate longbow for condition builds, because people slap the tag “condition weapon” on it, because it deals burns…those burns are so short, no amount of +burning% can save it, therefore it is not a condition weapon, because it’s conditions are so short, they might as well not exist.

Thats really annoyed me now. They nerfed the only real long range condition weapon to the death.

Argon.1563:

Well, thats a terrible shame, considering it was the better of the two long-range weapons.

Speak for yourself lol. I would pick longbow over rifle even in a power build.

Burning is additional damage, regardless of how short the duration is. You also forgot that longbow has Pin Down, which is 6 bleeds for 12 seconds + a nasty 3-second immobilize. Additionally, you can stack might for yourself to make your condis tick for more.

Argon.1563:

Chaith.8256:

Hell to the no, its pure 100% pure un-adulterated power

Well, thats a terrible shame, considering it was the better of the two long-range weapons. I hate longbow for condition builds, because people slap the tag “condition weapon” on it, because it deals burns…those burns are so short, no amount of +burning% can save it, therefore it is not a condition weapon, because it’s conditions are so short, they might as well not exist.

Thats really annoyed me now. They nerfed the only real long range condition weapon to the death.

Combustive Shot is far from a short burn uptime.

I do wish they would stick the Bleeds back on, say, Volley. That way those of us with Exotic (or worse, Ascended!) rifles that are condition based can still get some use out of our weapons.

Taking the bleeding away from rifle was easily the dumbest thing anet has ever done.

Zaxares.5419:

I do wish they would stick the Bleeds back on, say, Volley. That way those of us with Exotic (or worse, Ascended!) rifles that are condition based can still get some use out of our weapons.

Even before the rifle 1 change it was still better utilized as a power weapon not a condition based weapon with skills 3, 4 and f1 being so heavy into pure damage.

Ezeriel.9574:

Taking the bleeding away from rifle was easily the dumbest thing anet has ever done.

Was absurd, indeed: a underused weapon, with a kind of damage which was niche in Warrior builds which goes nerfed to reach the “zero use” status.

I’m starting to think that the vanilla Warrior with the mediocre “192 HP heals/sec” signet was much more capable and versatile than the current “no rifle/no mace/no axe/no adrenaline enought to burst” Warrior, which seems a pile of ruins from the former glory they have.

I was disappointed about this as well, the LB already suffers from a shorter range unless you invest a trait in it. Not a fan of having to manually place where I want Arcing shot and Combustive strike to hit, they should have just let it hit the targeted enemy like the regular skills.

I still use rifle in WvW for a few reasons. With fast hands trait it’s easy to switch to and launch #3—this surprises many kiters. I also trait Crack shot(pierce and lower cooldowns)—perfect trait for WvW zerg fights. I only use #3 and maybe the auto attack, I then switch back to melee—the cooldowns on #3 are short with the Crack shot trait and the damage is good.

I find it keeps the pew pew rangers and other kiting types honest. They think they are getting away, only to get shot in the back repeatedly.

Argon.1563:

Chaith.8256:

Hell to the no, its pure 100% pure un-adulterated power

Well, thats a terrible shame, considering it was the better of the two long-range weapons. I hate longbow for condition builds, because people slap the tag “condition weapon” on it, because it deals burns…those burns are so short, no amount of +burning% can save it, therefore it is not a condition weapon, because it’s conditions are so short, they might as well not exist.

Thats really annoyed me now. They nerfed the only real long range condition weapon to the death.

I never understand people’s interpretation of rifle as a “condition” weapon over longbow. Longbow with 1 point into arms makes the auto attack have chance at bleed 2x if you wana argue the auto attack and its faster (because it has 2 hits even if the speed is slightly less). You got a shotgun burn for some real damage or the burst skill for an incredible burn coverage and fire field to work with (which can turn all arrows into burn), and you got a nice blind and an incredibly rewarding skill like pindown. Rifle all you had was bleed and cripple because vulnerability doesn’t work on conditions.

Bottom line, a 6s bleed auto attack did not make this an ideal condition weapon. No build would be more effective with rifle over longbow in this department, and changing it to an actual power weapon that works well with itself was a good change. Even killshot on the right build can be quite hilarious, its just not an ideal burst skill against players with a head.

The Past:
Rifle builds would apply bleeds (and bleed on crit), Confusion on interrupt (and another Confusion on interrupt from Perplexity), Cripple (and Immobilize on Cripple), and Vulnerability. It was a fun condition weapon that was good for kiting, and the damage stacked in intensity. But Perplexity was nerfed and half the bleeds were removed. Bow in comparison mainly offers burning which does not stack in intensity and competes with other people’s burning.

Now
I use the Rifle as a crit-damage weapon, landing big hits.

misterdevious.6482:

The Past:
Rifle builds would apply bleeds (and bleed on crit), Confusion on interrupt (and another Confusion on interrupt from Perplexity), Cripple (and Immobilize on Cripple), and Vulnerability. It was a fun condition weapon that was good for kiting, and the damage stacked in intensity. But Perplexity was nerfed and half the bleeds were removed. Bow in comparison mainly offers burning which does not stack in intensity and competes with other people’s burning.

Now
I use the Rifle as a crit-damage weapon, landing big hits.

To extend his toughs : The condition Rifle realy worked on a couple of simple ideas.

I used to play a 20/30/0/0/20 (or 4/6/0/0/4) personnaly.

First, you are not a full Condition build made to overextend fights but rather a Hybrid glasscanon (Pre++/Condi+/Pow+ set) playing on your high level of control and damage versatility to take your ennemies down with high pressure and burst in both melee and ranged fights.

Secondly, you rely on soft controls and interupts to apply confusion (trough Distracting Strike) and keep your ennemies away, you switch back to melee (in my case Sword&Board) and use your low weapon switch cooldown from Fast Hands to alternate between range and melee using Hamstring defensively and Savage Leap to gap away or ending the fight with a Savage Leap, Flurry and Fear Me combo.

One crucial part of that build was to buff your bleed duration up to 100% to make your Flurry a very powerfull burst skill. Fear me, was just there as a fail safe if someone tried to heal or interupt you while channeling the attack.

The Rifle applied high duration bleeds that could easely stack between 20-25 intensity with the right setup and the extra confusion from Rifle But, Shield Bash could quickly turn a fight around (especialy in PvP).

The build started to slowly fade when they changed the way Sword/mh worked. The switch of Hamstring to the combo and the cripple on the leap made sure you could only use the weapon as a way to charge in to cripple instead of using your cripple before a leap to leap out and switch back to your Rifle to keep the pressure you applied with your bleeds. Not to mention Final Thrust odd design made sure to downgrade the Sword to a simple mobility/execute power tool…

The condition build up process for the Rifle wasn’t that high by itself, but its synergy with the sword realy allowed to keep high ranged pressure and the confusion was the cherry on the cake.

Concerning the bow, Bow has never been a dedicated condition weapon until late after the game launched. The Bow was mostly a power support weapon (since it was the only one with a field) and the burning damage was just there to support Warrior builds with fields or grant extra damage trough synergy with Burning Arrows.

I personnaly can’t play my warrior since this change, I could switch to a Berserker build with a Greatsword and keep my Rifle. But the power version of it is just boring in my personnal oppinion and the greatsword doesn’t offer the verstality Sword&Board used to give to my character.

The best thing they could probably do, to make up for the disapointement, would be to switch Crack Shot into a different skilltree since Rifle has no more room left for a condition build anymore.

But knowing the balance team past issues to actualy balance the game after release, I doubt anything good will come out of this suggestion…