Guild Wars 2

(This is all from a SPvP/TPvP perspective)
Rifle is one of the cooler weapons in GW2, too bad on warrior it’s pretty much universally considered to be terrible. Even in WvW it’s only really useful for sniping uplevels or overly-glassy foes. This also requires you to be glass as well which as a class we’re currently moving away from.

The biggest problem with rifle in my mind is that it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. It appears that it wants to be the opposite of the longbow, a single target ranged weapon that focuses on damage. The problem is, only 1 skill actually deals decent damage and the burst – while hard hitting is so obvious that only fools or the unaware get hit by it. Here’s a breakdown of what I think of each of the rifle’s skills:

1: Bleeding Shot – This is my biggest problem with this weapon. For a weapon that seems to be focused of power based damage the auto attack not only deals low damage but also applies BLEED of all things. It’s like the weapon is trying to do two things but as a result does neither well.

This skill needs to have bleed removed (and a name change) and either have its damage buffed…kinda boring… or have it apply vulnerability instead. I’ll explain why I like this idea in a bit. One more side option would be to make it the reverse of Ranger’s Long Range Shot, it deals more damage the closer you are.

2: Aimed Shot – This skill isn’t terrible, but it is very boring. Again, I’m going to steal an idea from Rangers, Crippling Shot, that would make the skill more interesting. Reduce the Cripple duration and make the next 3 attacks apply Vulnerability, you see where I’m going with this?

3: Volley – This is fine as is. It deals a good amount of damage which is what I think the weapon was intended for. If chained with the proposed change to Aimed Shot it would also mean that the first 3 shots would apply Vuln.

4: Brutal Shot – The buff to the skill was what gave me the idea to make rifle a Vulnerability stacking weapon. As it is currently it’s still a pretty lackluster skill especially considering the cast time. If the skill were to remain unchanged with the proposed changes it would fit in rather well.

5: Rifle Butt – Again, not a bad skill but pretty boring. It’s basically just to keep foes at arms length and that’s fine. If I had my way I’d give it a longer CD and make the user hold the rifle like a baseball bat and give the skill a launch.

Kill Shot – Here’s the big one. I have several ideas about this, although some may be far too complicated to implement. The simplest would be to reduce its damage and to make the cast time shorter. Another would be to turn it into a ranged version of Final Thrust, dealing more damage to foes below 25% HP. My other ideas revolve around stacking Vulnerability and giving Kill Shot a unique effect based on the number of stacks they have. For example applying 1 second of daze per stack of 5 vuln with a max of 3 seconds. The problem is this effect would only be able to happen at 3 bars otherwise you’d have people using it at 1 bar. It’s most likely that this kind of skill isn’t possible to add in the current game.

What I would like to see is having rifle be a weapon that starts off with low dps but deals more and more damage as you stack Vulnerability. Your other set would probably need some sort of junk cover conditions, maybe offhand sword for constantly applying Torment so passive removal gets rid of that instead of the Vuln. Either way I think that some of these changes would make rifle much more enjoyable to use than it currently is.

Your ideas sound interesting, but personally I’m totally fine with rifle as is. All skills have pros and cons but thats how its used to be.

Bleeding shot: Although rifle is a burst weapon, I’m totally fine with the bleeding effect. Even if you dont spec for condition damage, the bleeding damage is a nice addition when your target runs out of sight. And the synergy with 25 Arms Minor is much better than switching bleed with vulnerability. 10% more damage on bleeding targets is equal to 10x vulnerable, but harder to purge.

Aimed shot is ok for me. With Leg Specialist it prevents the opponent to dodge the first second of a Volley, which is quite nice. Or combined with Kill shot it reduces the chance for your opponent to run out of sight during the long casttime.

Brutal Shot: IMO the casttime should be reduced to 1/2s.

Rifle Butt: The only problem I have with rifle butt is that it misses too often. IMO the range could be increased to compensate for that.

Kill Shot: I love kill shot as it is. Huge damage and range, but hard to land. You have to use it wisely, e.g. when target is distracted or CCed or after target dodged twice. Its an integral part of the game, that the most dangerous abilities are telegraphed to the opponents, so they can react accordingly.

teg.1340:

Your ideas sound interesting, but personally I’m totally fine with rifle as is. All skills have pros and cons but thats how its used to be.

Bleeding shot: Although rifle is a burst weapon, I’m totally fine with the bleeding effect. Even if you dont spec for condition damage, the bleeding damage is a nice addition when your target runs out of sight. And the synergy with 25 Arms Minor is much better than switching bleed with vulnerability. 10% more damage on bleeding targets is equal to 10x vulnerable, but harder to purge.

Aimed shot is ok for me. With Leg Specialist it prevents the opponent to dodge the first second of a Volley, which is quite nice. Or combined with Kill shot it reduces the chance for your opponent to run out of sight during the long casttime.

Brutal Shot: IMO the casttime should be reduced to 1/2s.

Rifle Butt: The only problem I have with rifle butt is that it misses too often. IMO the range could be increased to compensate for that.

Kill Shot: I love kill shot as it is. Huge damage and range, but hard to land. You have to use it wisely, e.g. when target is distracted or CCed or after target dodged twice. Its an integral part of the game, that the most dangerous abilities are telegraphed to the opponents, so they can react accordingly.

The problem is, rifle in PvP is basically worthless. There’s no situation where you would want to have it over another weapon…almost any weapon in fact. I think if you went into a TPvP match with rifle at least one person will just instantly rage quit, and they wouldn’t be totally unjustified.

You’re right, but for 1vs1 footage atm everything’s worthless besides Mace/Shield + GS.

For WvW rifle is really nice.

I had a post a while ago about how boring the rifle was…

It lacks a warrior feel and has very uninteresting mechanics

anyways, the ideas weren’t perfect, and it came before the quickness nerf

Angriff.1935:

Well it’s time again. This time it’s…

Rifles. They’re boring. Some might say underpowered, some say very situational. I say they could use a heavy dose of fun.

Why are rifle’s boring? Well you sit there and you peck away from a distance, and every so often you get a big painful peck that often never connects.

My idea is to make the rifle much more aggressive.

Volley - The closer you are, the more damage it does. I think about 18th century battles and how inaccurate the muskets were, a volley was held off until opposing forces were relatively close to maximize damage. The skill could also track enemies moving around you instead of the skill ending early.

Crack Shot - Change piercing to ricochet(up to 3 targets). I think this mechanic is a bit more fun and makes hitting more than one target a bit easier to set up. Taking time to line your targets up doesn’t seem like a warrior type thing to do. Charging in firing wildly is more like it.

Now for the fun stuff

Rifle Butt - Changed to the adrenaline skill. Now stuns instead of knocking back(remember volley doing more damage up close?)

Prepared Shot (Replaces Rifle Butt on the #5 slot). – Prepare a powerful Rifle Shot. Prepared shot Does different things depending on how well prepared it is. Skill changes for every second it is charged.

-Less than 1 second – ill Prepared Shot – Fire an ill prepared shot that knocks back the enemy(so a double tap of the skill maintains the same function as Rifle Butt)
-After 1 second – Hastily Prepared Shot – Fire a Hastily Prepared shot that stuns your foe
-At 2 seconds(full cast) – Well Prepared Shot – Fire a powerful Shot that immobilizes your foe

Bayonette - Replaces Brutal Shot – Rush forward and impale your foe with with a bayonette making them vulnerable.

I think it would be a lot of fun charging in with a rifle like this. More utility(prepared shot/rifle butt), more damage(volley/crack shot), more aggressive, more fun. Yeah it gets rid of Kill Shot, but I never liked that skill anyways. I think it would be hard to make an accurate Kill Shot when pumped up on adrenaline anyways.

Edit: Some additional thoughts. Though the idea of these changes were to make rifle more aggressive, but they also allow for more defensive play as well. Bayonette could used to run away as well as charge in. Prepared shot can keep people away or hold them still and if they do get close, rifle butt is there to stop them.

This approach makes the rifle more involved, versatile, and usable.

from..
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/A-New-Approach-to-a-Balanced-Warrior/first#post623961

I rather like my rifle just the way it is, and here’s why:

1. Bleeding Shot: Yes, the bleed is reverse synergy with a power build, but it is perfect synergy with the +10% damage vs bleeding foes trait, in the arms tree, which is where the rifles weapon trait is, Crack Shot.

2. Aimed Shot: Ah how I love this simple “boring” skill as you call it. It’s a short cooldown, high duration cripple, on a ranged weapon, what’s the issue?
Why is our animation for aimed shot from the hip, while the animation for running around shooting a #3 volley is held up and carefully aimed! through the scope? It’s all backwards!

3. Volley is great in so many ways, from adrenaline building, to burst damage, to tracking stealthed foes.

4. Brutal Shot: 8 stacks of vulnerable isn’t the most “interesting” effect in the world, but if you use it before volley, the cooldowns almost perfectly sync up, and thats +8% damage x 5 party members.

5. Rifle Butt: Again, a fairly short cooldown knockback, on a weapon that is designed to fight opponents at a distance. You can use it to interrupt stomps, heals, catch people in the face as they dodge roll into you to avoid your volley, etc.

Except for maybe reducing the bleed damage and upping the #1 skills damage or fire rate, please dont change my rifle I <3 it just the way it is!

I use my rifle all the time in PvE and it’s great there because NPC bad guys aren’t too smart. In PvP I think it’s useless. I agree with the OP that it’s underpowered and the kill shot takes a ludicrous amount of time for setup. In WvW it can have a purpose, but the LB is better suited.

Agree rifle is boring, too. I like the changes you’re suggesting. Interesting to see if any of them are picked up in future.

ATM I have many weapons that I choose from based on the situation, but I would really like the rifle to be more useful in all situations.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

the kill shot takes a ludicrous amount of time for setup

Maybe we can do something where Killshot is a “Hold to Charge” attack, using 1 bar of Adrenaline per 3/4th second spent charging, and doing damage to match?

That’s not a bad idea, as long as you can still move around while charging. Standing still in one spot in PvP or WvW is not recommended any more than taking 5 seconds to kneel down and take aim!

So many things incorrect in OP post i don’t have time to address them all. Rifle is a support weapon. It’s not your job as a rifle warrior to kill people, it’s your job to down them or force them to leave the engagement. Volley and killshot are brutal. Time them with bleed stacks for 10% more damage and brutal shot, then signet of might kill shot 50% hp guardians for an easy down, and then their friends all die. Killshot stealthing thieves, easy down. Piercing volley or kills hrs on people who try to res friends….. So strong.

The reason people think its bad is because it’s hard to play in unorganized pug matches. With an organized team you can absolutely wreck enemy teams, but you need protection.

It’s also very very good in wvw but requires a high skill level to survive and reach maximum dps via positioning and timing skills correctly. There is currently nothing better to kill enemy commanders with. Killing an enemy commander can completely disintegrate enemy zergs. Masking your killshots is one of the biggest things you need to learn in smaller engagements. My favorite is when someone goes to gank a dolyak, channel your Killshot from inside the dolyak, and they never see it. Very entertaining. Even with a full zerg build I’ve often found myself able to duel decent players, it’s all about timing. People also still know nothing about signet of might, many players will pop a reflect skill when you channel Killshot, and then sit there waiting to see you Killshot yourself. Pop signet of might at the last minute and then /dance on their bodies afterwards.

Recommend condition duration reduction food, and stat stacking to ensure that with 25 precision stacks you have 90% chance to crit guaranteeing that your Killshot will crit every time. Full dps everything isn’t the way to go, as you can’t dps if you’re dead. Add a touch of survivability and you will be able to do far more dps than a full dps specd rifle warrior. The food increases your tankyness a LOT. You can get away with 3-5 pieces of knights gear if placed in the right spots.

Do yall have suggestions on what utilities to run on a rifle warrior and what is a good secondary weapon set to compliment rifle?

Sword warhorn for cleansing, weakness, vigor, savage leap. Helps you survive. Final thrust is a good execute.

Great justice and signet of might are a must. Third slot cold be signet fury, endure pain, dolyak signet, balanced stance. Healing signet/surge. And signet of rage.

WhiteandMilky I totally get what you’re saying. Have to use a weapon for its intended purpose. But ya, pug PvP is not a place to use this. I have never done sPvP, and don’t have a team. I’m still learning, so thanks for your input.

I’ve been running an Axe/Rifle build in WvW (I know this discussion was centered around tPvP, but still) and Rifle is awesome there. In group fights you can take out multiple people with one killshot or Volley. Plus Volley will track thieves even after entering stealth. I’ve killed several thieves (who normally give me alot of trouble) that way.

Weapon is nigh unuseable in tPvP simply because teams are intelligent enough to focus down a Zerker warrior.

If you run Rifle, and want to pump out enough damage to be noticeable, then you have an extremely open weakness to being pressured. Most good teams will cleave you down in a few moments when they realize whats going on.

Only volley is worth while, Killshot isn’t useful due to its cast time and how easy it is to view the animation.

All the other attacks (minus knockback) have to long of a cast time, or don’t do enough useful damage or effect to be considered.

In the end, running Rifle for your team will actually hurt them more than help – if you want to be ranged and a Zerker, only longbow right now is the viable option.

FYI:
My team tried running me as Rifle all last night, sure I did damage, but not enough of anything else to be considered a useful part of a teams composition.

Defektive.7283:

Weapon is nigh unuseable in tPvP

If you run Rifle, and want to pump out enough damage to be noticeable, then you have an extremely open weakness to being pressured

The rifle feels pretty solid in PvE, WvW. I cant attest to high level tPvP as I’m not all that good, but it’s rather underwhelming even in hotjoin. So as a tPvPer, what do you propose as a fix then?

See, I’m in a situation where I can see the rifle is under-performing in PvP, but dont want to see it’s core functions changed. 1 Auto Attack bleed for use with a trait. 2 is a cripple, 3 is dps, 4 is vulnerable for group DPS, and 5 is a knockback. I’m quite happy with all those buttons as they are.

Also the problem is any buff you give to rifle baseline, will flow over tenfold into Zerker warrior builds. So what, do we ask Anet to buff the baseline strength of the rifle, but nerf the damage co-efficient? Do we ask for a complete revamp of Killshot?

^ I actually suggested something like that:

Aim shot – 5sec chill
Volley – 1sec poison per shot
Brutal shot – immo 2sec/stun 1sec, 3 stacks of torment
Butt – 3sec cripple
Killshot – casttime reduced to 3/4 or at least 1sec. Cause 7sec weakness

Inspired by description on wiki:

“Inflict various conditions and unleash powerful attacks against a single target.”

Its doesnt need more damage, its need utility.