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Pistol whip..? What's happening..?


killfil.3472

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Possible solution for Pistol Whip:

  1. Drop the evade on Pistol Whip and speed up the skill cast considerably, make it usable while moving, Shorten stun to 1/2 second. Current Ini cost is fine.
  2. Make the Stun a second part of the skill like with Bandits Defense/Reflexive Strike, you have to land Pistol Whip to gain the Stun skill.

You could add something to the skill for a successful stun. Whatever that may be. Bandits Defense and Impact Strike feel more meaningful when successful as a result of the secondary actions required.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:ITs the nature of how thief was designed tbh. Revs damage is high but people dont complain about rev spam. While the skills use energy they still have cds. If thief was moved over to a similar system people would prob be less annoyed by it in general.

This is the total and complete truth. While others may not agree, I believe the initiative system (at least in concept) is a much superior design than that of cooldowns. It is the main reason why I play Thief, and I would actually support every profession using it... I may actually play other professions then.

Cooldown systems are one of the reasons I dislike most MMO's. It's just a video game mechanic that doesn't make too much sense for a trained fighter. He can swing his weapon in basic slashes infinitely, but he can't aim for the head or the leg or do specific attacks for so many seconds after the last time he used it? It's silly.

I see the initiative system to be much more realistic and sensical. Think of a fighting game (Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat). You can throw high/mid/low attacks at any time and you can use high/mid/low blocks/counters at any time. You can even use special moves/combos at any time. It's all about using the right technique at the right time.

Unfortunately, the initiative system (at least as it is currently implemented) is not perfect. And while it certainly has advantages over cooldowns, it also has disadvantages. For example, Thieves do not gain more attack ability from switching weapons. If you used all your initiative on your primary weapon set, if you switch to your secondary set, you're not going to be able to use any initiative-based attacks/skills until the initiative refills. You may as well have not switch weapons. On top of that, the Thief is still limited to cooldowns for both utilities and dodge rolls/dashes. The saving grace for some Thieves (depending on weapon set) is that some initiative-based weapon skills have built in evades which can be used to make up for the lack of other defenses (Protection, blocks, barriers, invulnerabilites, etc.).

@Ghos.1326 said:While I agree with you that Thieves should have a healthy access to stealth mechanics and some evades to avoid damage, it should never be to a point where, playing a build that is built for assassinations, they can avoid every and anything.

Unfortunately, the one thing that a Thief lacks in becoming a master assassin is the actual assassination part (in PvP anyway). At least for most Sword builds which seem to be the focus of most complaints these days. They are mostly evasive-based with little Stealth access. They can move around fast, but they aren't great at hiding, and they don't really hit that hard compared to others.

Couple this with high bursts that can hit 8-10k in a single skill from stealth and it gets to be a little much

It's a difficult thing to balance when you have some professions starting out with 11.5k health and little armor while others are running 25-30k+ with lots of armor.

I agree, though, getting insta-downed from Stealth without warning is no fun. Oddly enough, I don't remember ever having that happen to me on my Thief from another Thief... even when I played Berserker... even in the old days of Basilisk Venom/Steal/Backstab openers pre-HOT. However, I've certainly had it happen to me by Mesmers, and recently... even in PvP wearing Marauder. Absolutely zero time to react... not even enough to dodge or Roll for Initiative. Just plain dead. Very sad :-(

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@kash.9213 said:

@"sneakytails.5629" said:Actually Warriors Whirlwind Attack-Greatsword 3, and Thief Pistol Whip are a good comparison for a simple reason. They do too much for a single button press. I think its time that some skills become more focused in what they do instead of some of them just doing too much.

ZDragon.3046 brought up Warrior Whirlwind Attack-Greatsword 3 which has a 3/4 second evade, 450 range movement and has 4 impacts for reasonable cleave damage. This is a good example of a skill doing too much. I am sorry but Warriors should not be downing players when they are "kiting" with crits from this skill. This skill should be about kiting, and should be about using it at the right time, and not spamming it through attackers for more cleave damage. The damage needs to be dropped from this skill entirely. A 3/4 second evade, and 450 range movement are more than powerful enough on their own. This then gives the Warrior's opponent a chance for more counter-play while the Warrior is kiting.

You can then make the same case for Thief's Pistol Whip.
A 3/4 stun should never have an evade attached to it
, and that's what makes it so crappy to play against. I feel the same problem exists for Warriors Bulls Charge, a 900 range movement, a 1 1/4 second evade attached to a very long 3 second CC, it can also crit for alot like Pistol Whip can. Thief PW can be spammed as well due to the resource system which add yet another element of frustration.

Skills across the board need to be looked at, and they need to have a defined purpose with a real chance for counter play. This stacking effect needs to stop, and some of the excess needs to be trimmed from these skills.

It has an evade, but you're not going anywhere until it's done or you cancel it and take the resource loss, and it's not getting spammed, staggered if someone knows what they're doing but that's not cheap. I don't know if people are still getting wrecked in spvp with it but it's hardly a factor in wvw anymore if it ever was, you're just asking for everything to be dropped at your feet while you're telegraphed.

My use of Whirlwind as an example was a very rough example just to personally give a thought example of how it would feel if warriors could use it back to back. The reality is that they cannot do this but if they could that no doubt they would use it over and over again just as how a lot of thief builds work.

I dont think whirlwind attack does too many things at once i just think the damage is too high like most things on warrior its probably due to the insane high might generation.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"sneakytails.5629" said:Actually Warriors Whirlwind Attack-Greatsword 3, and Thief Pistol Whip are a good comparison for a simple reason. They do too much for a single button press. I think its time that some skills become more focused in what they do instead of some of them just doing too much.

ZDragon.3046 brought up Warrior Whirlwind Attack-Greatsword 3 which has a 3/4 second evade, 450 range movement and has 4 impacts for reasonable cleave damage. This is a good example of a skill doing too much. I am sorry but Warriors should not be downing players when they are "kiting" with crits from this skill. This skill should be about kiting, and should be about using it at the right time, and not spamming it through attackers for more cleave damage. The damage needs to be dropped from this skill entirely. A 3/4 second evade, and 450 range movement are more than powerful enough on their own. This then gives the Warrior's opponent a chance for more counter-play while the Warrior is kiting.

You can then make the same case for Thief's Pistol Whip.
A 3/4 stun should never have an evade attached to it
, and that's what makes it so crappy to play against. I feel the same problem exists for Warriors Bulls Charge, a 900 range movement, a 1 1/4 second evade attached to a very long 3 second CC, it can also crit for alot like Pistol Whip can. Thief PW can be spammed as well due to the resource system which add yet another element of frustration.

Skills across the board need to be looked at, and they need to have a defined purpose with a real chance for counter play. This stacking effect needs to stop, and some of the excess needs to be trimmed from these skills.

It has an evade, but you're not going anywhere until it's done or you cancel it and take the resource loss, and it's not getting spammed, staggered if someone knows what they're doing but that's not cheap. I don't know if people are still getting wrecked in spvp with it but it's hardly a factor in wvw anymore if it ever was, you're just asking for everything to be dropped at your feet while you're telegraphed.

My use of Whirlwind as an example was a very rough example just to personally give a thought example of how it would feel if warriors could use it back to back. The reality is that they cannot do this but if they could that no doubt they would use it over and over again just as how a lot of thief builds work.

I dont think whirlwind attack does too many things at once i just think the damage is too high like most things on warrior its probably due to the insane high might generation.

Honestly I'm kinda fine with warrior doing what it does. Just like you should be worried if there's a good thief in stealth, or a good mage freecasting, a good warrior should be a real threat in melee and a hard target to kill imo. I generally think a person's playstyle is a much bigger contribution to how cheesy something feels than the class, I'd much rather fight someone who's persistently attacking, kiting and just being an active presence in the fight than someone that whiffs a wombo combo then just disengages entirely until they can try again.

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