Guild Wars 2

The devs welcomed our concerns, thus I’ll air mine, though I doubt many will share them. This is a personal build I enjoy greatly; I understand it’s not PvP viable, but it works well enough in WvW for me. That said:
This is the build I run for WvW.
The principle is to maximize Killshot Damage and Crit chance, maintaining Rifle as the primary weapon, falling back to Sword+Warhorn for mobility (read: escape) and the necessary condition cleanse.
As the current proposed changes stand, I will no longer need to rely on Deep Strikes to maximize Precision, as Burst Precision has me covered.
The Discipline line then covers the necessities for Rifle, though I do lose out on some mobility (Mobile Strikes merged against Crack Shot). That’s generally fine.
The problem arises in the Tactics line, as going for Quick Breathing limits my choice of GM trait. Assuming I stick to Signets (which I will, Signet of Might/Killshot synergy is too much to give up), Shouts become a null choice. Rifle isn’t something known for might stacking, so Phalanx Strength is out as well. That leaves Powerful Synergy, but considering the build, not only do I not want to get hit (essentially nullifying Aura benefits), the one leap I have doesn’t have an accompanying field.
Frankly, I question the usefulness of Powerful Synergy in any build barring the latest Longbow/Sword+Warhorn meta.
The revive-oriented minor traits don’t go very far toward helping my build either, though I’ve lived with that until now.
If this remains as is, I will either end up with one nigh-unviable GM trait, or have to forfeit the mobility/condi cleanse aspect completely, which invalidates the entire build.

In short, if I opt for Warhorn, I end up with no truly useful Tactics Grand Master traits.
Might those Tactics GM traits be revised to compensate for this, to have a different Damage or Utility oriented trait in place?

To further explore the build: I would be trading Leg Specialist for Empower Allies (since Quick Breathing shares the slot), and perhaps Brawler’s Recovery rather than Destruction of the Empowered.
Furthermore, I’ll lose the focus on maximizing Precision (since stats from Trait lines are being re-located), and be able to take Power food/sigils/utilities.
Might these things already compensate for the lackluster Tactics GM choice; Powerful Synergy then serving as a situational quirk rather than a build-making pillar?
I’m not convinced, but thus works bias, so I’ll ask that to the community.

Thanks for reading.

This is a great post and i’m really keen on the rifle being worthwhile in the coming expansion. The meta seems to favor longbow, by a fair margin. Which is unfortunate. Especially with one pre-existing class already (probably) getting the rifle – it’d be really nice for the warrior to maintain some degree of capability.

I completely forgot I hadn’t actually commented on this. I’m in a similar boat, learning I’d need to replace my gs as escape. What I might do, is go shouts like you discarded, but keep signer of might, as I agree it’s an incredibly useful trait with KS.

Then again, they might overhaul kill shot and make it something completely different. If thief gets rifle access, I could see KS becoming their stealth skill, which makes more sense thematically. In any regard, I’m probably going to go two shouts and SoM with sword/warhorn unless the specialization is particularly compelling

Thanks, and this along with some newer forum posts that have popped up, had me thinking that perhaps an undertone of my initial post questioned the viability of Warrior Rifle in general, and in light of the update.