Guild Wars 2

Okay, I don’t really keep up with info on balancing, but I can’t ignore the removal of Bleeding from Fierce shot, and I haven’t found any explanation as to why on the forums.

Soo… Why did bleeding get removed from fierce shot?

Again; I’m not good at keeping up with balancing changes.

P.S. Sorry for being a dumb dumb.
=)

because rifle is a power weapon to begin with. so they removed bleed and buffed damage.

Thankyou. =3

Simon.3794:

because rifle is a power weapon to begin with. so they removed bleed and buffed damage.

That’s not really a good response. Bleeding Shot was actually better than Fierce Shot. the 20% physical damage increase is not as potent as the bleed was by a significant margin. Not even really on a pure power-based build, but especially in general usage.

In short, Rifle really feels less usable than it used to. It seems like a silly change.

Einlanzer.1627:

Simon.3794:

because rifle is a power weapon to begin with. so they removed bleed and buffed damage.

That’s not really a good response. Bleeding Shot was actually better than Fierce Shot. the 20% physical damage increase is not as potent as the bleed was by a significant margin. Not even really on a pure power-based build, but especially in general usage.

In short, Rifle really feels less usable than it used to. It seems like a silly change.

This*100. Also, it is not a silly change, it is plain stupid. Rifle auto needs another 20% damage boost to begin with.

Einlanzer.1627:

Simon.3794:

because rifle is a power weapon to begin with. so they removed bleed and buffed damage.

That’s not really a good response. Bleeding Shot was actually better than Fierce Shot. the 20% physical damage increase is not as potent as the bleed was by a significant margin. Not even really on a pure power-based build, but especially in general usage.

In short, Rifle really feels less usable than it used to. It seems like a silly change.

That was the reason why anet did it which OP asked.

Arenanet made a mistake in doing that. Buffs and nerfs should not change the function and use of a weapon in such a manner. If you were a sword/sword rifle user, for example, that change alone meant you had to drop the weapon and that’s not what a buff should be doing.

Rifle was never an adequate power weapon and the adrenaline change limited it even more because it couldn’t be used with the killshot opener. The weapon was made doubly useless and Arenanet`s logic on the rifle changes eludes me to this day.

chronometria.3708:

Arenanet made a mistake in doing that. Buffs and nerfs should not change the function and use of a weapon in such a manner. If you were a sword/sword rifle user, for example, that change alone meant you had to drop the weapon and that’s not what a buff should be doing.

Rifle was never an adequate power weapon and the adrenaline change limited it even more because it couldn’t be used with the killshot opener. The weapon was made doubly useless and Arenanet`s logic on the rifle changes eludes me to this day.

To be fair, using rifle as a condi weapon was…. sub-optimal to say the least.

Because of pistol … HoT

chronometria.3708:

Arenanet made a mistake in doing that. Buffs and nerfs should not change the function and use of a weapon in such a manner. If you were a sword/sword rifle user, for example, that change alone meant you had to drop the weapon and that’s not what a buff should be doing.

Rifle was never an adequate power weapon and the adrenaline change limited it even more because it couldn’t be used with the killshot opener. The weapon was made doubly useless and Arenanet`s logic on the rifle changes eludes me to this day.

Because skill 4 gives the enemy vulnerability and the burst skill and 3 skill were pure damage. The bleeding had no place on the weapon at all. If anything the 1 skill was merely bandaided by the bleeding.

Thing is, rifle was weak, and the removal of bleed on auto made it weaker. No more synergy with Arms GM minor either.

Cygnus.6903:

chronometria.3708:

Arenanet made a mistake in doing that. Buffs and nerfs should not change the function and use of a weapon in such a manner. If you were a sword/sword rifle user, for example, that change alone meant you had to drop the weapon and that’s not what a buff should be doing.

Rifle was never an adequate power weapon and the adrenaline change limited it even more because it couldn’t be used with the killshot opener. The weapon was made doubly useless and Arenanet`s logic on the rifle changes eludes me to this day.

To be fair, using rifle as a condi weapon was…. sub-optimal to say the least.

Rifle was sub-optimal as both Power and Condition damage weapon. The only way I found to make this weapon deal relatively good sustained damage used a mix of high precision, power and condition damage.

With a Rampager 20/30/0/0/20 Rifle build, I was able to sustain 3,8K Dps (unbuffed) with the Rifle only and the 25stacks of bleed which with a sigil of stone and 100% bleed duration were very easy to obtain, and this in a straight line. Your Berserker build can’t even get close to that because the auto sucks and 80% of the time you will be using your auto. With the higher condition damage comparaison you barely lost any burst because while channeling Killshot or Volley your DoTs would actualy tic twice before the channeling ended which compensated for the power you lost by wearing Rampager gear instead of Berserker gear.

And with the switch to Sword&Shield and Fear me as utility, you had 3 skills at least to proc distracting strike from, lowest source coming from the 12sec CD on Rifle Butt.

Now with the change on Bleed Shot, you actualy lost DpS as a Berserker Rifleman, you still have crappy DpS and you are wasting hundred of points into condition damage if you want the Crack Shot upgrade and mostly it decreases the number of viable builds working with Rifle…

Rifle worked reasonably with general/hybrid setups before, now it doesn’t really work with anything.

Cygnus.6903:

chronometria.3708:

Arenanet made a mistake in doing that. Buffs and nerfs should not change the function and use of a weapon in such a manner. If you were a sword/sword rifle user, for example, that change alone meant you had to drop the weapon and that’s not what a buff should be doing.

Rifle was never an adequate power weapon and the adrenaline change limited it even more because it couldn’t be used with the killshot opener. The weapon was made doubly useless and Arenanet`s logic on the rifle changes eludes me to this day.

To be fair, using rifle as a condi weapon was…. sub-optimal to say the least.

Lol so much this.

The bulk of rifle’s damage was from the direct damage. The bleeds from the autoattacks were negligible by comparison.

Ambrecombe.4398:

With a Rampager 20/30/0/0/20 Rifle build, I was able to sustain 3,8K Dps (unbuffed) with the Rifle only and the 25stacks of bleed which with a sigil of stone and 100% bleed duration were very easy to obtain, and this in a straight line.

How? I mean seriously, how does one stack 25 stacks of bleed with a rifle? Even with the bleed on auto???

Sigil of stone? I think you mean Earth… Has a 5 sec bleed (10 sec with +100% duration) on a 2 sec internal cooldown. Also only a 60% chance to proc on crit. Let’s say you get the proc every time right when the internal cooldown ends (which you won’t), thats 5 stacks from the sigil. Then you have the minor in Arms, which has only 33% chance to proc on crit and gives only 3 sec (6 sec) of bleeds. Let’s say you get a proc every second, which would be insane, that’s 6 stacks. Best case scenario, you would have to stack 14 stacks of bleeds with rifle auto???

I don’t think this was achievable solo.

Also, being on auto attack for 80% of your time on any warrior is plain stupid. I would switch to rifle, use either 2 or 4 depending on the situation, volley, throw in maybe 2-5 auto’s and switch right back to w/e other weapon I’d use. Fast Hands ftw.

I do think removing the bleed and replacing it with a 20% (was it?) auto damage boost was a significant nerf. The bleed did more then 20% extra damage on itself, and it pays to have a condition on your opponent, as it can cover other condi’s like vulnerability and cripple. Not to mention the lost synergy with Deep Cuts and Attack of Opportunity. If anything, the new auto attack should do way more damage then the old one, not less.

Anet royally screwed us over on this one.

Cygnus back in the day before people that did Arah P4 finally decided to switch to meleeing Vahid (Melandru boss in the path), the optimal rotation for warrior was using Rifle + LB.

The rotation was using 65003 with crack shot and either deep strikes or deep cuts (fast hands was essential):

Volley
Weapon swap to longbow
Arcing arrow
Autoattack until weapon swap was off cooldown
Weapon swap to rifle and repeat

Even with deep cuts trait, you were right. It would be absolutely impossible to have achieved 25 stacks of bleed from straight up rifle autoattacking and volley was pretty much the only skill on rifle worth using from a DPS standpoint.

With a rifle and with 65003 and banner of discipline with the old signet of rage + for great justice (increased fury uptime), it was possible to maintain roughly 9 stacks of bleed on average with straight up rifle autoattack and volley off cooldown, no deep cuts trait.

Deep cuts increases bleed duration by 50%. Quite obviously that wouldn’t get you to 25.

Cygnus.6903:

Ambrecombe.4398:

With a Rampager 20/30/0/0/20 Rifle build, I was able to sustain 3,8K Dps (unbuffed) with the Rifle only and the 25stacks of bleed which with a sigil of stone and 100% bleed duration were very easy to obtain, and this in a straight line.

How? I mean seriously, how does one stack 25 stacks of bleed with a rifle? Even with the bleed on auto???
.

Ok, I might have slightly exagerated when I said it was easy to reach 25stacks of bleed with Rifle alone. But you can come relatively close with the build I was using.

The Bleed on Rifle was 6sec (12sec with extra condition duration), the attack speed was around 0,96sec. So you can stack about 11-12 bleeds before the stacks start to fade out.

During those 12 attacks, each of them have 33% chance to stack a bleed for 6sec. So you always have around 1-3 extra stacks of bleed in your cycle.

With Sigil of Earth having a 60% chance to land a bleed on 80% of the shot (if not on CD) I was constantly getting 3-4 extra stacks of bleed.

With rune of the Krait, which are the one I used. I got between 1-2 extra stacks of bleed depending on how often I was getting hit.

And on top of that my character is a Charr using the Shrapnel Mine, thats 2 extra stacks for 40sec.

So I was consistantly between 18-23 stacks when using my Rifle, but since I switched a lot between Sword&Shield and my Rifle with Quick Hand I was always toping the Bleed cap with my character. Allowing him to keep ridiculous sustained damage even when I switched back to my Rifle and the extra confusion on Rifle Butt was the cherry on the cake.

Cygnus.6903:

chronometria.3708:

Arenanet made a mistake in doing that. Buffs and nerfs should not change the function and use of a weapon in such a manner. If you were a sword/sword rifle user, for example, that change alone meant you had to drop the weapon and that’s not what a buff should be doing.

Rifle was never an adequate power weapon and the adrenaline change limited it even more because it couldn’t be used with the killshot opener. The weapon was made doubly useless and Arenanet`s logic on the rifle changes eludes me to this day.

To be fair, using rifle as a condi weapon was…. sub-optimal to say the least.

Sword Rifle Rampager was a good build though.

Purple Miku.7032:

Cygnus.6903:

chronometria.3708:

Arenanet made a mistake in doing that. Buffs and nerfs should not change the function and use of a weapon in such a manner. If you were a sword/sword rifle user, for example, that change alone meant you had to drop the weapon and that’s not what a buff should be doing.

Rifle was never an adequate power weapon and the adrenaline change limited it even more because it couldn’t be used with the killshot opener. The weapon was made doubly useless and Arenanet`s logic on the rifle changes eludes me to this day.

To be fair, using rifle as a condi weapon was…. sub-optimal to say the least.

Lol so much this.

The bulk of rifle’s damage was from the direct damage. The bleeds from the autoattacks were negligible by comparison.

Not as true as you assume. It actually did more damage than it does now even with a Berserker build, and substantially more with a mixed build.

Cygnus.6903:

Rifle auto needs another 20% damage boost to begin with.

Been drinking?

Ambrecombe.4398:

Valued explanation

Right, I can see how you got to the 25 stacks and it seems decent. Yet I can not believe that this build would allow for more damage then a direct damage build which incorporates rifle (talking about the old bleeding shot). You are talking about 12 stacks from the auto, which would mean attacking with the auto for 12 seconds? No, never. You will always use Volley on cd, and that’s only 8 seconds traited plus a 2,5 second casttime.

You also sacrifice runes and sigils to get more bleeds, whereas you could go all zerk. I don’t think extra condi damage on just the bleeds makes up for the complete lack of crit damage and much lower power.

SmoothHussler.6387:

Been drinking?

Yes.

Been dying to rifle?

Cygnus.6903:

Yes.

Been dying to rifle?

Nope.

Cygnus.6903:

Ambrecombe.4398:

Valued explanation

Right, I can see how you got to the 25 stacks and it seems decent. Yet I can not believe that this build would allow for more damage then a direct damage build which incorporates rifle (talking about the old bleeding shot). You are talking about 12 stacks from the auto, which would mean attacking with the auto for 12 seconds? No, never. You will always use Volley on cd, and that’s only 8 seconds traited plus a 2,5 second casttime.

You also sacrifice runes and sigils to get more bleeds, whereas you could go all zerk. I don’t think extra condi damage on just the bleeds makes up for the complete lack of crit damage and much lower power.

You indeed lack the critical damage power, but again like I told on my previous post. You have higher critical chance than a berserker build and you have a Sigil of Earth which means your Volley would actualy stack a couple of bleeds while doing combined damage with bleed tics.

The burst was indeed lower compared to a Berserker build, but again the low duration bleed and low power scaling on the auto never made Rifle an outstanding DpS weapon with a Berserker build. The Rampager build saved the weapon from some of those weaknesses and could actualy in comparaison sustain higher DpS over a Berserker build. Because after its initial burst from Volley or Killshot, the Berserker build just doesn’t do anything remarkable. that’s why I say you auto attack 80% of the time because on a cycle of 10sec, you usualy use 8 Bleed Shots and a single Volley, the rest of your abilities are situational utilities which shouldn’t be spamed (except Brutal Shot as a Berserker build).