Guild Wars 2

I’ve kind of been thinking about the rifle basic attacks for warrior and its bleed effect. To me at least, it makes more sense for the LB basic attacks to apply bleeds based on the fact that the LB in general has many more burn and DoT skills and is more based upon condition damage. The rifle’s damage on the other hand comes from volley and killshot which provide damage upfront, without being at all condition damage based. Also it limits the damage a rifle build can do, as those who go rifle usually don’t build condition damage.So do others also maybe think that the rifle basic attack shouldn’t have bleed, and instead have more upfront damage? Just fyi I am NOT complaining that the warrior sucks etc, don’t flame please.

There are realy 2 ways to play an offensive riffle build.
1) You take it as a secondary weapon for your Berserk character and use mostly its Volley and Kill Shot to burst an unawared ennemy in seconds. But your overall damage will be low because your auto attack will not allow you to have high sustained DPS.
2) You take it as a primary weapon for a Rampager set, put a Superior Sigil of Earth, add a couple of physical utilities (like kick) and Distracting Strike trait and you get a deadly mix able to dish out 3K+ DPS at range just with the auto attack, and confuse ennemies whenever you interupt them. Your Volley and Kill Shot are a lot weaker but your periodical damage are compensating a lot (not totaly) for the missing critical damage. So you end up with a more flexible but less bursty setup.

So in my humble oppinion, Bleeding Shot condition damage makes sense.

hmmm I mean I definitely see your point, as bleeding shot provides constant dps whereas the LB’s is only on 2,5 and the special, but I mean, it still seems to me that the LB is more meant to be condition damage based. I mean I still love going crit rifle as pulling off those 10k+ killshots with the piercing trait is absolutely hilarious, and I guess the sheer damage from volley with the crits compensate for the condition damage on bleeding shot. I guess changing the basic attack to not include the bleed and do more damage from the start might make the idea of the rifle warrior op; I mean the regular attacks on crits for me hit around 3k sometimes more depending on the person. Makes some sense now I guess, thanks.

As someone who mains a pistol engg, be thankful of your rifle auto-attack… be very, very thankful.

I would rather we lost the bleeding effect so we could use rifle as a sustained DPS weapon with burst capabilities. I don’t see a lot of use for the bleed and I feel it limits the builds we have available with it.

Yamsandjams.3267:

As someone who mains a pistol engg, be thankful of your rifle auto-attack… be very, very thankful.

Take the perk that allows pistol shots to pierce and laugh at how hilarious things can get in WvW.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I would rather we lost the bleeding effect so we could use rifle as a sustained DPS weapon with burst capabilities. I don’t see a lot of use for the bleed and I feel it limits the builds we have available with it.

How does it limit the build possibilities? As mentioned above, you can have a direct damage and condition damage variant of it due to the nature of the auto-attack. Taking away the bleed would make it much less effective for use with condition damage, thus limiting the number of builds that could make effective use of the rifle.

Yamsandjams.3267:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I would rather we lost the bleeding effect so we could use rifle as a sustained DPS weapon with burst capabilities. I don’t see a lot of use for the bleed and I feel it limits the builds we have available with it.

How does it limit the build possibilities? As mentioned above, you can have a direct damage and condition damage variant of it due to the nature of the auto-attack. Taking away the bleed would make it much less effective for use with condition damage, thus limiting the number of builds that could make effective use of the rifle.

I don’t think that person realy cares about build diversity, neither possibilities, and just wants to steamroll everything with his own Greatsword/Riffle build, even if it renders those of other people useless.

No offense intended.

You guys are right I think, it would ruin those who use condition rifle builds, and I don’t really want that. Just our of curiosity whats the damage from bleeding shot at level 80 with a condition build?

Tooltip says 306 dmg from Bleed Shot, 2290 dmg from Volley, and 102dmg per bleed (usualy around 15-20). I have 75% crit rate with an extra 20% crit damage + an extra 22% dmg from Berserker Power and Attack of Opportunity. With Signet of rage and For Great justice my bleedings are going up to 115dmg and I am getting 95% crit chance.

Those damage aren’t looking that great but together they do grant a very important DPS output with your rifle.

ppl play rifle as a condi weapon well that’s interesting. double sword as the secondary set?

AlBundy.7851:

ppl play rifle as a condi weapon well that’s interesting. double sword as the secondary set?

Nope Sword and Shield, I use distracting strike so my shield allows me to get a third way to interupt my foes and apply 3 stacks of confusion. And the shield block realy helps out a bit when you take high sustained damage from ennemies.

I am mostly going to use my melee when I need to root my target in place or when i’m out of interupts, it is also possible to use it at its max range to stop attacks from some types of melee ennemies but I usualy avoid that sinds a wrong manipulation can end with you eating the dust. I also use my swords leap to cover distance when things goes south.

The condition is there for few reasons:

First, they clearly don’t wanna give rifle more DPS. Which is understandable given that Volley and Killshot already give quite a stupid high burst. Being able to also maintain a post-burst high DPS through a high damage auto attack, would potentially send it over the top.

However, it figures that they also felt that maybe the damage by itself was not good enough. Thus they added a small “overtime” component, that adds just a tiny extra “oomph” to your auto-attack, over a slower period of time – thus not adding to the already high rifle burst, but giving it just a little more sustained DPS.

In turn, this bleed serves a secondary purpose: it allows for the rifle to have any use in a condition build – sustained bleed stacking versus the longbow’s burst burning, and it stops it from being potentially overpowered in a raw damage build.

If you look at the longbow it’s the exact opposite situation. The auto-attack has no condition, but actually scales pretty well with power (as do many of the other skills, despite scaling better with condition damage). This means that it’s still useful in a power build, despite its damage truly shinning in a condition build.

How does distracting strikes give you a third interrupt on shield?

AlBundy.7851:

How does distracting strikes give you a third interrupt on shield?

You misunderstood me, what I was trying to say is :
- With Shield I get a third interupt skill (aka Shield Bash), because I already have Rifle But as primary interupt and Kick (utility) as secondary interupt. That makes a total of 3 interupt skills.
- With Distracting Strike I apply 3 stacks of confusion whenever I interupt a foe. This is the reason why I pick a Shield instead of an Offhand Sword, because I can take advantage from my traits with that weapon set.

Those were 2 seperated information but in a same sentence, sorry if I didn’t make myself clear.

ProxyDamage.9826:

The condition is there for few reasons:

First, they clearly don’t wanna give rifle more DPS. Which is understandable given that Volley and Killshot already give quite a stupid high burst. Being able to also maintain a post-burst high DPS through a high damage auto attack, would potentially send it over the top.

However, it figures that they also felt that maybe the damage by itself was not good enough. Thus they added a small “overtime” component, that adds just a tiny extra “oomph” to your auto-attack, over a slower period of time – thus not adding to the already high rifle burst, but giving it just a little more sustained DPS.

In turn, this bleed serves a secondary purpose: it allows for the rifle to have any use in a condition build – sustained bleed stacking versus the longbow’s burst burning, and it stops it from being potentially overpowered in a raw damage build.

If you look at the longbow it’s the exact opposite situation. The auto-attack has no condition, but actually scales pretty well with power (as do many of the other skills, despite scaling better with condition damage). This means that it’s still useful in a power build, despite its damage truly shinning in a condition build.

You can easily dodge most of volley’s damage, same with Killshot. I’d rather have the Rifle be a power-based weapon rather than what it currently does which is try to be a bir of everything. Most builds with rifle don’t even use the auto attack. I feel that if you want a condition build you’re playing the wrong class. Even with swords the bleed is more of a side benefit rather than a main feature, they may have wanted it to be a bleed stacker with sword offhand but I think most would agree there’s better options.

If you stack condition damage then volley and killshot’s damage becomes sub-par because of the lack of crit damage. What’s more is that even with sword/sword with sigils of earth and agony you still won’t stack bleeds as well as a ranger can. I would also say that bow still combos better with Sword/Sword due to Pin down giving 6 stacks of bleeding in addition to burning because at least then your skills are mostly scaling with the condition damage much better than rifle does. Bow does have skills like arching shot that scales well with power but if you want conditions it’s still a better choice. Even if you could stack more bleeds with rifle and sword that’s only one, easy to remove, condition. Having Burn to cover your bleeds is a much more sound strat then just having bleeds with it. Even then, warriors just can’t do conditions as good as rangers or necros currently, they can either stack faster than you, or stack a bigger variety.

Perhaps rather than just increasing rifle 1’s damage they could replace bleeds with vulnerability which would go well with brutal shot and Rending strikes and could act to make Killshot as lethal as possible. With the attack being so blatantly telegraphed it means that if you get hit by it you were caught unawares or let yourself get set up.

To people using distracting strikes, that confusion kind of sucks because when you stun or knockback someone they cant do anything with those stacks on, wich only last 5 seconds, so the damage is really minimal if any.

Tetra Bug.7134:

To people using distracting strikes, that confusion kind of sucks because when you stun or knockback someone they cant do anything with those stacks on, wich only last 5 seconds, so the damage is really minimal if any.

This is true, I tried to use it with hammer but you never get the full effect from it because the whole point is to lock your foe down, maybe if you stacked condition duration but that doesn’t seem like a worthwhile investment.

The rifle will also sync well with the buttery-good trait known as Deep Cuts. That’s +50% duration on bleeds, meaning a 9s bleed per auto-attack. This is before any condition duration from food, gear, or attributes. It can easily be boosted up to a 12s bleed per shot.

Then you can get additional stacks from on-crit effects and such… That’s a fair amount of bleed stacks you can do by yourself with just the rifle, at a 1200 range to boot. Throwing the sword in there would be even crazier.

I know a ton of enggies that would love warrior rifle abilities for that bleedy goodness…

If longbow had bleed on auto attack it would be perfect. Or maybe have combustive shot work like it does on ballista and apply 6 stacks of bleeds.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The rifle will also sync well with the buttery-good trait known as Deep Cuts. That’s +50% duration on bleeds, meaning a 9s bleed per auto-attack. This is before any condition duration from food, gear, or attributes. It can easily be boosted up to a 12s bleed per shot.

Then you can get additional stacks from on-crit effects and such… That’s a fair amount of bleed stacks you can do by yourself with just the rifle, at a 1200 range to boot. Throwing the sword in there would be even crazier.

I know a ton of enggies that would love warrior rifle abilities for that bleedy goodness…

I actually prefer the pure power of Engis rifle especially with HGH being as strong as it it. Everything on it is power across the board, it doesn’t have a condition on it that seems to contradict the weapon’s role.

Also, putting a sigil of earth on a longbow means you have a chance to apply 2 bleeds if both shots crit.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Yamsandjams.3267:

The rifle will also sync well with the buttery-good trait known as Deep Cuts. That’s +50% duration on bleeds, meaning a 9s bleed per auto-attack. This is before any condition duration from food, gear, or attributes. It can easily be boosted up to a 12s bleed per shot.

Then you can get additional stacks from on-crit effects and such… That’s a fair amount of bleed stacks you can do by yourself with just the rifle, at a 1200 range to boot. Throwing the sword in there would be even crazier.

I know a ton of enggies that would love warrior rifle abilities for that bleedy goodness…

I actually prefer the pure power of Engis rifle especially with HGH being as strong as it it. Everything on it is power across the board, it doesn’t have a condition on it that seems to contradict the weapon’s role.

Also, putting a sigil of earth on a longbow means you have a chance to apply 2 bleeds if both shots crit.

It’s funny you mentioned that… There was some thread way back when on the engg forum where someone was suggesting the rifle skills between the classes be swapped. It’s perhaps just a case of wanting what you don’t have though.

I never really gave a condi-rifle build much thought before, but I think I might go and play around with one now just to see how it handles…

In regards to sigil of earth, I don’t think that will work with the longbow. If the first crit procs a bleed, it will put the sigil on cooldown, and the second hit should not proc the bleed. If it does, then it’s probably a bug.

Tetra Bug.7134:

To people using distracting strikes, that confusion kind of sucks because when you stun or knockback someone they cant do anything with those stacks on, wich only last 5 seconds, so the damage is really minimal if any.

Even if you loose a second because of the knock mechanic. In PVE monsters usualy get 1 to 2 strike from confusion when fighting melee and always 2 when they are ranged targets. Also some Champions are vulnerable to interupts even if you don’t knock them down, so you still apply the confusion even if you didn’t stop their action. It also works on hordes of small ennemies that get interupted by your basic attacks (like spiderling hordes), wich means you can stack a ton of confusion on them and take them down very quickly.

I will have to agree on a couple of things, the damage is subpar for PVE, but I’ll just respond to you that you get the exactly same results and issues when you try to deal confusion damage with your Engineer or Mesmer, those 2 strikes from confusion skills are commun! And hey, it is damage on top of what you are already dealing!

On the other hand, it does provide a lot in PVP sinds the confusion will protect your bleeding effects a bit against condition removal and at the same time punish people for fighting you back. (Another argument would be that people don’t expect a Warrior to confuse them, but with time comes adaptation, so this is not a permanent advantage)

I will agree also on the fact that Maces and Hammer aren’t ideal for this trait, sinds those are power weapons, you might not want to use distracting strike with them sinds you will loose a considerable amount of damage because you wont be able to adapt your gear to work around it and also because you get a shorter effective duration for the confusion because those same weapons are knocking or stuning targets for a longer duration.

But the trait can work, Sword/Shield and Riffle are still ideal sinds they both offer a quick way to interupt with very small invalidation timer on and can be centered around condition builds, the kick utility is also nice addition with the trait sinds it is basicaly a second Rifle But with a 20sec CD.

Also you forgot to mention it is a 6sec confusion (food and runes not included) sinds you need at least 20 points to pick up that trait. Finaly, you may agree or not, this change to your skills will force players to track animations from foes and will also gratify them for doing it so. So to me, it has become a must have in my build, because this trait has learned me a lot how to be a good Warrior, and I think A-Net should make more like these!

BurrTheKing.8571:

You can easily dodge most of volley’s damage, same with Killshot.

This isn’t an excuse. Any attack in the game can be dodged. Volley is very spammable. Killshot is an attack of opportunity thing. If you prefer a damaging auto-attack over burst skills pick longbow.

ProxyDamage.9826:

BurrTheKing.8571:

You can easily dodge most of volley’s damage, same with Killshot.

This isn’t an excuse. Any attack in the game can be dodged. Volley is very spammable. Killshot is an attack of opportunity thing. If you prefer a damaging auto-attack over burst skills pick longbow.

Yes, any attack can be dodged, but few as easy as these two skills. Although with Signet of Might’s active soon to be giving you 3 unblockable attacks, I could see bolas + Killshot being a potentially deadly mix especially with the new 30 pt dis boon hate perk.

I still think that rifle is at it’s best when used with power, without it volley and killshot just don’t deal significant damage, at least the burning from bow will benefit from condition damage.

You could potentially do something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAscTjcOtuBPyQMxBALjiG6yIppSKOzMA-TsAg1CsI8R5jzHjPyvsfNCYVxsCA
Using pin down+bolas+Flurry may not be meta but it can be funny to apply around 12+ seconds of immobilize. You could also lock them into Combustion Shot. I personally would probably prefer a warhorn to offhand sword though for the utility.

Rifle certainly feels like a weapon that wants to do both condition damage and power damage. I personally wouldn’t mind an auto attack that did more direct damage but I think most people that use rifles as a main weapon tend to take the attacks of opportunity trait as well.

also, am I alone in not liking the vulnerability 4 attack in pvp settings, and to a lesser degree in pve (though vulnerability stacking is always good I suppose)? The damage for the cast time and length/ number of stacks is kinda underwhelming.

The bleeds from rifle is actually useful when you solo as a riffle warrior. Think about it.If your using rifle as a main weapon your going put traits into arms for Musketeer, and you usually put at least 5 more for Attack of Opportunity.Having a constant bleed seem like something a riffle warrior would want.

Normally I wouldn’t read much of this thread because rifle autoattack is not going to be changed.

I think it’s important to point out though that a good thing about rifle is that you don’t need to change your build much or at all to take advantage of the bleed, just add the 50% bleed duration trait and +condition.

For wvw roaming I have a mix of zerker and enough condition to get to 1100 condition. My volley and kill shot (when I can get it in) are still pretty good and in between I’m stacking 11-12 100 bleed ticks. So what if they remove them? It’s autoattack and will go right back on.

For spvp I use pure zerker rifle. I already have a vuln (that admittedly is so slow I rarely use it) and autoattack crits non-mitigation builds for around 1100 and with 57% crit is pretty good even without the bleed.

For right now my only complaint about rifle is that for me, either hybrid or zerker rifle builds are the best for pvp that I’ve found since the frenzy nerf and I didn’t roll a warrior to sit at 1200 range.