Pistol dagger need a full rework?

At the state it is in is mediocre descrive how it is usefull or why it need a full rework ( people call it a gimick )

Pistol 3 not 2 sorry

Yep, P/D #3 might use some sort of rework, because it requires a lot of timing and to hit shadow strike.

I'd call this a skill shot if its effect had more value.

Leave as is. Buff certainly but no need to radically change the set itself.

Lots of people try it for five minutes and then give up when it doesn’t behave as expected.

In combat conditions, a single Shadowstrike can reach a potential of over 10k torment damage. Learning to use it takes time but don’t underestimate it.

I’ll add that I’ve main’ed P/D for almost the entire game’s life (5+ years).

If anyone wants insight into how it works you can ask me or @babazhook.6805 who plays all thief builds.

The first problem with Pistol/Dagger is that it's so good as a PvP weapon set because your goal is to hit someone multiple times with high spikes of damage. The nextproblem is that only 3/5 are good (1 is borderline unusable). The last problem is that Thief is the only profession in the game with NO access to burning. We are the only class that cannot burn our target in some manner without a stolen ability, a rune, a sigil, or otherwise.

My suggestion would be to rename Pistol/Dagger 3 to Burning Retreat or something where you use the same animation as the current 3 except that a flask is thrown on the ground where it is used (regardless of if hit a target). This creates a burning field, size equal to Pistol 5 for reference, that inflicts burning on a 1 second interval for 2 seconds. With that change alone this skill is good AND you would actually desire to use either Pistol 2 to root them in it OR Pistol 4 to throw multiple projectile finishers through the burning field.

Thoughts? I think it's fairly balanced as a concept, and with number tweaks would be good. Perhaps up the initiative cost by 1 to make it even more "fair"?

Access to burning isn’t the problem.

What condi thief has difficulty with is certain anti condi builds that cleanse exceptionally well. But those builds can be beaten with a little ingenuity and not fighting 1v1.

In that sense it’s fairly balanced because an anti condi build should be fairly hard for a condi build to fight.

What you suggest removes the kiting ability from P/D which would be a significant survivability nerf. A few stacks of burning won’t kill the enemy fast enough to make up for being unable to kite.

Do you mean stealth kiting? In which case, that is my bad entirely. My idea was to leave the ability almost entirely the same (animation, damage, motion, hits, and so on) but just add a mini animation with the pistol hand (because you drop back by slicing with the dagger then shooting) to drop a flask while you slice with the dagger. And the flask adds the burning the field.

Leave it as is. The weapon set that needs to change are D/D and P/P. Every skill from 1-5 should change, not just skill #3. This will give the dagger and pistol combination set more flexibility when it comes to game balance since they will no longer affect the Dual-wielding sets (D/D and P/P).

i would buff pistol 2 to have more condi and and a teleport to enemy to be honest so you can land 3 more easy ofcourse remove the inmov

P/D is fine as is and in a Condition build #2 is a very useful skill. #3 is very potent and I have used to add 30+ torment stacks in conjunction with other skills. The fact the torment followed by a port away , generally leads to damage while moving on the target.

My own P/d works very well in WvW as a pure condition build. I have since been going through multiple weapons to find what I feel the best set in a grieving/hybrid build and so far P/d is working the best. The layout of the skills are useful in a multitude of situations.

Other/Leave as it is.For P/D, I think the tools available are quite amazing. It do with a little buff in terms of applying reliable cover-conditions some quicker, maybe a little buff to the intensity of condi's currently applied.But in it's mechanics and functionality in essence, I think it works great.

D/D and P/P however, could use some more love and possibly full reworks.P/P needs the rest of the weapon utilities to be more rewarding, so it becomes more than a "unload spam" set. I think at this point (mainly because other P/x and x/P builds are doing fine with their mechanics), the only way to make that work is to give whole new set of weapon skills whenever P/P is equipped.For D/D, I'm just not sure. Haven't played it in a long time outside of PvE and there it does quite fine due to how basic and scrub-friendly it is. But in PvP and WvW, I'm simply too far out of the loop with this set to give a proper suggestion/proper suggestions to make it better and enjoyable.I think that I'd still like off-hand Dagger #4 to apply Poison (instead of Torment, perhaps) to boost it's use for Power sets as well as Condi sets and for Cloak and Dagger to get increased range (maybe through a short port) to help with hitting it. CnD in it's current state should at least get it's Initiative cost reduced.But yeah... Not sure if those ideas still hold up today, as I haven't played in PvP/WvW with that setup for ages now.

Improve dagger 4 and reduce initiative cost on pistol 2 for PvE atleast and it will be far better now.Maybe a CC on P/D 3 cpuld be beneficial too but a while rework is not necessarry, buffing it is enough.

P/D is a dead weapon set that was once powerful, but these days not so much (otherwise you'd see more thieves running it)Biggest issue is that after a condi burst from steal/utilities/#3, you are essentially a sitting duck (P#1 is almost no pressure). A Ranger for example can just condi cleanse and down you immediately after landing sickem.U need to get into melee range for stealth, but sneak attack isn't really worth the melee risk with so much condi removal. Even for P#3 there is so much direct damage in the game now that getting near anyone is a recipe to get stunlocked and burst down.Ur just better off with S/D (can cleanse condis and evade with the weapon set) or D/D (can evade) with condi thief. Even d/p can be better.

The only thing I want to see more often in thief weapons is skill charges, so they can be improved while staying reasonably spammable, and still using initiative, but without the fear of being spammed too much.

For example, if no matter how much initiative recovery you stacked you were limited to using consecutive Unload 5 times in a row by giving it 5 max ammo and something like 20s recharge per ammo count, Unload could be improved in many ways while keeping the pewpewpew feel, but without keeping P/P as a weapon used practically just for the pewpewpew because trying to immobilize someone or interrupt a skill or save someone with some blindness would be such a waste of initiative that could be used for one more pewpewpew.

@roamzero.9486 said:P/D is a dead weapon set that was once powerful, but these days not so much (otherwise you'd see more thieves running it)Biggest issue is that after a condi burst from steal/utilities/#3, you are essentially a sitting duck (P#1 is almost no pressure). A Ranger for example can just condi cleanse and down you immediately after landing sickem.U need to get into melee range for stealth, but sneak attack isn't really worth the melee risk with so much condi removal. Even for P#3 there is so much direct damage in the game now that getting near anyone is a recipe to get stunlocked and burst down.Ur just better off with S/D (can cleanse condis and evade with the weapon set) or D/D (can evade) with condi thief. Even d/p can be better.

I agree having skill 3 port away and 5 stealth from close is weird pistol 2 is good but it need condi presure to cover your torment and even skill 1 from steath condi preasure is bad I mean super low reward for being reveal and even skill 1 presure is low, this set have potential but is being held back by low presure.

@Brokensunday.4098 said:

@roamzero.9486 said:P/D is a dead weapon set that was once powerful, but these days not so much (otherwise you'd see more thieves running it)Biggest issue is that after a condi burst from steal/utilities/#3, you are essentially a sitting duck (P#1 is almost no pressure). A Ranger for example can just condi cleanse and down you immediately after landing sickem.U need to get into melee range for stealth, but sneak attack isn't really worth the melee risk with so much condi removal. Even for P#3 there is so much direct damage in the game now that getting near anyone is a recipe to get stunlocked and burst down.Ur just better off with S/D (can cleanse condis and evade with the weapon set) or D/D (can evade) with condi thief. Even d/p can be better.

2 has condi pressure. trait Panic strike and it loads 2 poison , immob and 5 vuln (alternatively trait Improv over Potent which drops your poison stacks by one with number 2 but gives other benefis). The vuln could use a wee duration boost but this more than a little useable. Like all Thief Condi builds you have to look for traits and utilities to get added condition pressure , but in its raw form p/d has excellent all round condition pressure given EACH of the 5 skills is adding conditions. The reason more thieves do not run it is power attracts. All around there not a lot of condition thieves.

As to stealth , generally you are not using CnD as a main source. You kite and if an enemy does get close that when you use it. You generally do not close to get stealth. Hidden Thief, trappers Runes and the utilities in some combination are generaly what you count on for stealth and this why DE works so well with the set. Smeld , the stealth on steal along with hidden thief with mercy for resets of steal get plenty of sneak attacks off.

None of the above beacuse p/d is completely useless weapon set. These days you are simply not able to come to enemy use n3 and run away. There is always some boon or trap or something that would prevent you from dealing dmg if it wouldnt stun/daze/knockback/interupt you back leaving you vulnerable and easy to kill. Besides applying tornment with p/d is pretty useless on its own. If you want to do it equip d/p or Distracting daggers as utility and you get plenty of interrupts which will cause Tornment when traited with Pressure Striking. It is far more rewarding and also you get to use interupts which will deny enemy attacks. (Beware of Stability and Aegis and you are fine)

Strange, I find only people using a lot of cleanses and active defenses can mitigate P/D. Everyone else seems fairly pressured. As far as damage output I don’t suffer as much as people seem to think P/D is limited.

And four torment on Shadowstrike is a lot. It used to be two. Now that was useless. But I’d say that four is right where it needs to be.

Don’t forget that Malicious Sneak Attack can add upwards of 7-9 seconds of torment in addition to bleed. Adding in cripple and vuln and immobilize and you start to see how the poison and bleed add up while the torment ticks away.

If anything P/D is less of a gimmick set since potent poison and panic strike have been brought in line, it used to be stupid OP to spam immobs with the set for the poison but now it's more torment focused which is good. The meta has a lot of cleanse at the moment since scourge is a thing (thinking WvW), there's a number of builds that heavily punish being in melee range (spellbreaker, holo, scourge, DH) and there's a number of servers that will hunt lone players 10v1 which all makes stealth and ranged a better defense than dodge with melee when solo roaming imo, so condi thief (daredevil at least) isn't as safe an option as valk DE. That's pretty much the only reason I don't run it more.

Previous to that Torment change my P/d build went more Poison focused and now he more Torment focused. I still have Poison access via #2 but use that more for the heal inhibit and Immob/vuln then the damge off the poison. For this reason I took the Skale venom over spider and then threw on The Torment runes. Given there less poison stacks this sees me taking Improv over Potent Poison. The damage you can output with a payback synergizing with Improv with that double steal use plus random reset of a skill type can be insane.

Using HIS with trappers respite while up close is a condition spike all in itself (2 torment , 4 poison 3 bleed immob and weakness) Sneak attack (5 bleed 5 torment if mali at 5) and shadowstrike away for 4 more torment. This without even using the skale or considering the steal adds.