Guild Wars 2

With the upcoming changes to adrenaline and burst abilities, of all the weapons that get hit the hardest I believe Rifle got it the most crippling. Especially given that so far, the only “buff” to Rifle is one that was needed prior. However the newest changes to Adrenaline make the Burst skill quite laughable especially since Cleansing Ire won’t even benefit from its glaring many weaknesses.

Invulnerable
Evades
Blocks (Unless you activate Signet of Might)
Blinds
Stealth (If you didn’t pre-channel prior)

All those already were very strong on completely shutting down most burst skills, but even more so in regards to Rifle. Recovery was a bit easier with having to only deal with the 7-10 seconds of cooldown. However now, with all those listed above you also now lose your adrenaline.
The AA buff isn’t going to be making the adrenaline any less of an issue especially after shutting down the rifle’s only notable upside.
Also keep in mind you still suffer;

EXTREMELY Telegraphed Attack.
Rooted In place.
1-1/4 Cast Time.
Single Target.

The reward versus risk for the rifle is a complete joke and will be even more so come patch time, especially in PvP based modes like WvW and PvP.

I’m kind of worried about the future of killshot as well.

One small buff I thought they could perhaps give it is to make it unblockable by default. That would at least give it a way of overcoming one kind of expendable defensive resource.

They could also perhaps give it some bonus damage vs. vulnerable foes like the auto-attack will get.

Also, does crack shot not make killshot pierce? If it doesn’t, it probably should… only makes sense, given what the trait does.

Yamsandjams.3267:

I’m kind of worried about the future of killshot as well.

One small buff I thought they could perhaps give it is to make it unblockable by default. That would at least give it a way of overcoming one kind of expendable defensive resource.

Also, does crack shot not make killshot pierce? If it doesn’t, it probably should… only makes sense, given what the trait does.

It does, but I can’t recall if a blind or such prevents it from piercing. I know buffs like block and invulnerability stop it from piercing.

I think they should also adapt the range of Rifle abilities, Killshot can shoot at 1500fts but with the new Adrenaline system we will only be allowed to generate it at 1200fts, making it very hard to use at max range. If we stay to far from a fight, we are in many occasions going to loose the Adrenaline to use our burst skill from afar.

Also with the change on Bleeding Shot, I think it would be more appropriate to switch Crack Shot in the Strength trait line since getting that piercing trait is going to force us to get that 33% chance to bleed targets from Precise Strikes wich realy sucks when teaming up with friendly condition builds and doesn’t give much benefits unless we invest at least 5 trait points in Arms.

Yamsandjams.3267:

I’m kind of worried about the future of killshot as well.

One small buff I thought they could perhaps give it is to make it unblockable by default. That would at least give it a way of overcoming one kind of expendable defensive resource.

They could also perhaps give it some bonus damage vs. vulnerable foes like the auto-attack will get.

Also, does crack shot not make killshot pierce? If it doesn’t, it probably should… only makes sense, given what the trait does.

Speaking about unblockable, I think your suggestion would be a nice way to compensate for the lack of utility and long cast time from that skill and allow us to make room for a greater diversification of utilities in our builds.