Guild Wars 2

hey guys, as the april change is approaching and critical damage is reduced by 10% overall, is sniper build still available? I do know it will be reduced by a lot in damage.

Rifle will be as bad after patch as it now,they are nerfing bow skill nr5 to by 200% longer cast time….

My build theory

The biggest boon on the sniper build in the new patch is that the new power grandmaster trait will make precision worthless for the burst skill. You don’t need to equip the glassy zerker anymore. You can go valkyrie for survivability. This is huge because in order to get big crits, you need to be zerker.

Other than the new power GM trait and valk gear, everything else is pretty much optional.

DISC traits suggestions

• Burst Mastery is there for extra damage and generate adrenaline sooner.
• Replace Burst Mastery for the blind removal on weapon swap trait. Mainly because I tend to get blinded a lot.
• You can equip inspiring shout and then equip FGJ and SIO to generate adrenaline faster to generate another killshot. However, FGJ isn’t strong in this build because fury isn’t necessary.
• Sharpened Axe- Alternate way to generate adrenaline while in melee. With valk gear, you will survive better than in Zerker gear. Maybe not viable because it requires crit.
• Signet mastery for shorter SoR cooldown.
• Destruction of the Empowered- For Damage
• Vigorous Focus- When being stance heavy. Necessary for vigor.

10 point traits suggestion

• Crack shot to use volley sooner. Not recommended. I would use rifle only for killshot.
• Dogged March- Snare hate trait.
• Remove 10 points from Burst mastery and put 20 points into defense for Cleansing Ire. Not because of the condi removal but because of the strong adrenaline gain. Then you will be in melee very often and then use killshot when the enemy is on the run.
• Shield Mastery- Because block is cool
• Missile deflection- Because reflect is cool.
• Inspiring banners- Equip Banner of Str and Warbanner for group support.
• Leg Specialist- People tend to panic dodge right after they end immobilize. This will be easier to land a kill shot. Synergetic with Throw axe too. Use throw axe with combination with Eviserate.

Skill suggestion-

• For great justice/Shake it off- For adrenaline gain.
• On my mark- For 10% dps boost.
• Signet of Might- DPS boost + unblockable.
• Healing surge- Instant adrenaline
• Healing signet- for great heal.
• Frenzy- Faster killshot/eviserate.
• Berserker/Endure pain- General defensive skills.
• Banners- Group support
• Signet of Fury- For instant adrenaline gain
• Bull’s Charge- To make up for the of lack of gap closer skills.

Runes suggestion-

• Scholar- For damage
• Melandru- To make up for the lack of condi removal
• Lyssa- To make up for the lack of condi removal.

Weakness- No crit damage unless you are using killshot or eviserate.
Pro- Better survivability and no losses to crit damage from killshot/eviserate.

Rifles are still unfortunately worse to use than longbow in just about every situation other than Melandru in Arah P4.

For non-PvE (because anything is viable in PvE):

More than half the damage from rifle comes from volley by itself, in addition to autoattacks, so using the new strength line trait and going tanky will still sacrifice a lot of damage potential that rifle currently has.

Furthermore, you would get more mileage by going 30 in disc and slapping on a new sigil of intelligence for the guaranteed crit on weapon swap + 2 more crits following the burst skill use.

If you’re running rifle your main damage mitigation should be based on kiting with help from GS, not facetanking damage. You have the range with rifle to force people to overextend in trying to kill you…take advantage of it by kiting away and forcing them to either further extend into your teammates to try and damage you in melee or range, or attempt to disengage and take damage from your ranged rifle damage as they do so (usually with volley as you pursue them to keep them in range).

I would not advocate using the new trait with rifle based on the currently-available information.