Guild Wars 2

It wouldn’t sting so much to have no new rifle or pistol classes if Anet hadn’t also been removing support for those weapons and failing to make using them a competitive option next to other weapons and builds.

So with the image of what we can only assume is a staff wielding thief its pretty clear at this point that rifles and pistols are out of the HoT. I`m curious to what Anet plans to do with Firearm type weapons. Will they just slowly continue dropping support for them. I find it hard to believe that they could fall any lower other than straight up pulling them out of the game. do they simply have a hard time coming up with ideas for weapon abilities. I honestly don`t know. Does anyone else have any thoughts on our disappearing firearms because as the proud owner of a predator I find the whole situation very disheartening.

CantiCooly.8271:

I really hope we get rifle so i can finally use my hunter rifle skin since it would fit a thief more than a warrior or engi

I hope we get rifle so i can use my Predator skin (honestly the worst legendary to have made right now, so useless on warrior and engi)

yeah the “what new weapon are we getting” question that doesnt really seem like much of a concern to many warrior players (unlike thief players where the staff/rifle debate is….divisive to say the least). Seems like if whether we get Dagger or Pistol no one would complain with either (even though i would really like to duel wield pistols or simply give warriors a trait line to make rifle viable once again)

Palador.2170:

Jordo.5913:

almost (90%+) everything that that_shaman data mines lately ends up in game

That’s all the more reason for the devs to throw in fake/junk data, though. They want to make it a big reveal, which they can’t do if it’s all datamined before they’re ready.

Im just picturing everyone at Anet reading this thread and the other like it laughing their kitten off.

Toasty.9134:

Yeah if anyone bothered to read the datamined stuff you’ll see thief is getting staff + there’s a throwing knife kit in there aswell.

What i think people are failing to understand is with the new prof a thief is no longer a Thief anymore, thats the point of the new elite profs its a completely new style of play

Ok so how are people not seeing a thief which is a primary melee prof and needs to be in melee to STEAL so it makes more sense having a new melee wep than a ranged one, sniper would fit Ranger a hell of a lot more.

i doubt it’s kits unless they remove weapon swap with the elite spec (if you didnt know engies dont have weapon swap and kits are why). also how does playing acrobatics with a staff count as a completely new play style when you guys are already spinning and jumping everywhere already anyways. Also I’ve always found datamines stuff to never be all that reliable (remember people datamined polearms in the beta back in 2012 and we STILL DONT HAVE OUR POLEARMS ANET!) so I would be skeptical of anything dataming turned up even if it gave evidence toward rifle (the one i would prefer by far over the staff for both selfish and none selfish reasons)

Toasty.9134:

Stop crying, thief staff is awesome

its sounds like the exact opposite of that

Coldtart.4785:

It’s not quite 100% that thief gets staff, but it might as well be.

idk, every profession that uses staff use them to cast legit magic from some sort of range. The staff skins that already exist in the game i have a hard time seeing being used as a bo-staff. Also i think a lot of people are forgetting that they will also be giving classes new utility skills (banners or kits is what i would put my money on that picture being of). Finally I think that thieves are likely to be getting a ranged elite spec due to there absolute gutting of pistols with the patch on the 23rd ( why would they take those skills out? moving stuff sure but straight up removing seems odd)

Diovid.9506:

I don’t really see an anti-firearms conspiracy. Yes, both the warrior’s rifle and the thief’s pistol are bad. But the Engineer’s weapons are alright, as is the mesmer’s pistol. I think you’re coming off a bit strong here. Several non-firearm weapons are also not in a good place. So it has less to do with them being firearms and more to do with general balance between the different options professions have.

I think there’s a decent chance that warriors get an off-hand pistol (either that or an off-hand dagger). Likewise, I think there’s a decent chance that thieves get a rifle (although recent speculation is that they will get a melee staff).

You’re probably right that I’m being narrow in my view ( sword has always had an odd existence on warriors). The main thing being though that they’ve taken away so much from these weapons, mostly traits, ricochet, and most of the rifle and pistol oriented engie traits along with gutting rifle dmg on war that they have to be planning to either replace it or merge them or something. also its the removal of a lot of the pistol and rifle traits that have me saying they’re weak on engie since there is little now to make them competitive with kits

I didn’t mention mesmer because i know pretty much nothing about the state of their off-hand pistol. only that i rarely see it being used in pvp or pve but thats all.

It’s not a secret to anyone that Anet has not been kind to pistol and rifle weapon types. Rifle on warrior has received no love since launch (the LB has surpassed it in both dmg and utility and is the ranged choice for any sane warrior). Pistol on thieves is by far their weakest weapon (still having some use for utility in off-hand but its main hand dmg is pathetic). As for engineer its been made abundantly clear by Anet that they want engies using kits as their primary weapons.

So whats the deal? Has Anet just decided that adding firearms into the game and are just silently dropping them and shoving them to the side. OR (and this is what i hope above all else) that they aren’t idiots and do have a plan to make them better in HoT by giving more ranged specializations to classes for whom range is a weakness (see Guardians/ Dragon Hunters). Will they be giving new ranged oriented elite specializations to warrior, thief or anyone else?

What do you guys think? Why no love for firearms, the weapons types that are already some of the most restricted weapons in the game.

Keep holding onto hope that our specialization does give us a dedicated ranged build path. If not then thiefs are likely to get rifle…

after browsing this corner of the forums for a while ive noticed that there arent that many threads about how a pistol condition build is bad so am i too assume that there is no major problems with this build.

while the warrior is one of the most versatile classes you cant have that anymore while being rifle spec. level a warrior to 80 and spec into the rifle you’ll see what i mean plus the engie auto attacks non crit for about as much as my warr crits for and since alot of what i do is auto attack punctuated by volley and KS it just feels better to be even auto attacking for more.

Can i just add that a warrior wielding a rifle really has to spec very heavily and gear themselves very heavily( i would know i have an 80 warr that almost exclusively uses the rifle) in order to be competitive with other classes i.e thief shatter spec mesmer and other warriors. That being said i am currently leveling an engie and am actually enjoying not being one of the glassiest guys out there though on the flip side I was surprised and disappointed to find that the rifle was more a shotgun than anything else.