Pistol/pistol rework for thief?

[Guy.9207]

So, I think this is a better place for devs to notice. Anyway..

Can we have a pistol semi-rework? It's a shame that thief pistol looks cool but ultimately becomes broken, either op with unload or up without it. Not only that, but also the skill ceiling is really low, which not only makes you look like noob, but also overshadows all other abilities, not to mention boring.

I would make unload a new autoattack and nerf it a little, then give skill 3 an entirely new skill, either a 1200 range attack or a piercing attack that travels in straight line, or both. Maybe a bit of bleeding if used in melee, and if it's not good enough, knockback as well.

Now ofc you can leave your opinion on here. Wouldn't want to talk about it alone.

Edit: I'll admit, maybe I gave the wrong impression, but the new "autoattack/unload" I talked about would be something like this:

• No channel time, works more or less the same as the old autoattack, just fires faster similarly to repeater speed.
• The autoattack gives you a might on each hit.
• Optionally you could make it a chain attack with second hit giving you bleeding. When its dual equipped anet could also animate it to be firing both guns I suppose.
• Stealth could have a lot shorter channel time, while still applying the same amount of condis. Think of it like scattergun when it fires.

[saerni.2584]

Pistol/Pistol? Pistol/Dagger?

You need to clarify what you are talking about when you ask for a rework, namely:

1) Why a rework is justified2) What exactly you want changed and how

You said replace auto attack with Unload but really what you are saying is: “buff auto attack and nerf Unload as needed to compensate.”

Now, to me that’s not really a full rework. So if you have ideas for other skills you should raise them and we can go over whether certain other skills need buffs.

Edit: There’s plenty of posts in the thief sub forum that discuss this kind of issue in depth.

[CJH.2879]

I truly miss the ricochet trait for the pistols, wish that one was brought back into the mix (or re-incorporated in one way or another on the actual pistol attacks). =)

[Guy.9207]

@saerni.2584 said:Pistol/Pistol? Pistol/Dagger?

You said replace auto attack with Unload but really what you are saying is: “buff auto attack and nerf Unload as needed to compensate.”

No I don't want two reload skills for thief pistol, and it doesn't make sense either. What I'm saying is, make reload skill 1 and give skill 3 something new entirely that would be as useful and the rest.

[Ashen.2907]

@CJH.2879 said:I truly miss the ricochet trait for the pistols, wish that one was brought back into the mix (or re-incorporated in one way or another on the actual pistol attacks). =)

Yeah, my thief went into semi-retirement after that change. I still pull him out for a bit of play every once in a great while, but just doesnt feel right.

[Guy.9207]

I honestly don't want ricochets since that would rob out sb's ability to do aoe damage. Pistol in my mind should be something that excels in single target, but maybe as a utility weapon rather than just straight up dps.

Think about it, p/p skills has a lot of cc, from skill 2 and 5 putting condis on them, and skill 4 being near instant cc. Now ofc I'm not saying it should deal damage equivalent of throwing paper balls to enemies but it has a potential to give a new style of gameplay, and you know, actually be viable.

[saerni.2584]

@NeverLoseGuy.3894 said:

@saerni.2584 said:Pistol/Pistol? Pistol/Dagger?

You said replace auto attack with Unload but really what you are saying is: “buff auto attack and nerf Unload as needed to compensate.”

No I don't want two reload skills for thief pistol, and it doesn't make sense either. What I'm saying is, make reload skill 1 and give skill 3 something new entirely that would be as useful and the rest.

And what would this new skill be?

[Guy.9207]

Possibly a dual wield skill that makes the user to fire two rounds from both guns that travels further than usual. (1200 instead of 900). This would give them ability to attack at the longer range at the cost of initiatives that could have been spent in other skills. If that's not powerful enough, give it a bleeding condi or/and knock the target back when used in close range.

[Pifil.5193]

@NeverLoseGuy.3894 said:So, I think this is a better place for devs to notice. Anyway..

Can we have a pistol semi-rework? It's a shame that thief pistol looks cool but ultimately becomes broken, either op with unload or up without it. Not only that, but also the skill ceiling is really low, which not only makes you look like noob, but also overshadows all other abilities, not to mention boring.

I would make unload a new autoattack and nerf it a little, then give skill 3 an entirely new skill, either a 1200 range attack or a piercing attack that travels in straight line, or both. Maybe a bit of bleeding if used in melee, and if it's not good enough, knockback as well.

Now ofc you can leave your opinion on here. Wouldn't want to talk about it alone.

So that would make pistol 1 a single-pistol unload skill (with no initiative cost), 2 an immobilize, 3 a bleeding knockback, 4 a daze and 5 a pulsing blind?

So that means that pistol/dagger will now get unload? Seems like a lot of power creep. Unless you reduce the damage so much that it's essentially the same as the current pistol auto-attack in which case it's a nerf (as unload has a channel time so auto-attacking would lock you into channeling your auto-attack, preventing you from using other abilities).

I also don't see how your changes would fix the problems you see with pistol: how is your suggestion less boring, for example, or raise the skill ceiling? I also don't fully buy that it overshadows the other abilities, they all have their uses too, especially in competitive modes.

I think I would find this a lot more boring than the current implementation, I like my pew-pew thief.

[joneirikb.7506]

Another alternative would be to move Unload to #2, to keep some damage on main hand pistol, and move the old #2 to #3 for p/p, it would give p/p a role as CC heavy (3+4+5), give both p/p and p/d the same physical damage potential, without touching d/p. And I don't think it would do a large difference on p/d's condi potential, just make the setup more versatile for power as well as condi.

Forgot, thief has a trait that does bleeding on crit hits or something? if so it could still benefit somewhat for condi builds as well with p/d.

[saerni.2584]

No, there isn’t a bleed on crit trait.

And I’ll echo the others who are concerned this proposal so far isn’t detailed enough and doesn’t properly buff the sets.

Why a 1200 range attack? Does this make the pistol workable at the projectile velocities currently used? I’m not clear on how this makes the set reward more skillful play.

Issues with pistol:

1. Skills don’t do enough damage (power/condi) and are overshadowed by other options (see 2).
2. Unload performs exceptionally well with just needing to press a single button and does too many things (damage, boon application) which makes Sneak Attack and Body Shot weaker by comparison and in balancing.
3. Repeater needs to do more damage to be effective.
4. Body Shot needs to be more reliable.
5. Sneak Attack needs to do more damage (as a channeled attack with that many projectiles and requiring stealth to activate).

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

As someone who’s Mained PP thief competitively for years, what the OP is saying is very close to how PP should be reworked.

The fundamental problem with pistol pistol as of right now, is that all your damage is funneled into a single ability that costs initiative. This handicaps the entire playstyle because if we want to kill someone we have no choice but to only use this one skill...everything else on the PP set costs too much initiative with presenting enough value to improve on the weapon

Changing the Sneak Attack to become the new auto attack would alleviate the damage disparity on the weapon set. The stealth skill can then be a more improved version(unload) and skill 3 can be something else entirely (a mobility skill with a finisher perhaps, something PP naturally lacks)

I know anet wanted some kinda condo damage hybrid but whatever idea they had or still have is garbage and doesn’t work in practice at all under any circumstance.

[derd.6413]

have unload fire in a cone towards your target instead of always hitting your target when they're within range

[saerni.2584]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:As someone who’s Mained PP thief competitively for years, what the OP is saying is very close to how PP should be reworked.

The fundamental problem with pistol pistol as of right now, is that all your damage is funneled into a single ability that costs initiative. This handicaps the entire playstyle because if we want to kill someone we have no choice but to only use this one skill...everything else on the PP set costs too much initiative with presenting enough value to improve on the weapon

Changing the Sneak Attack to become the new auto attack would alleviate the damage disparity on the weapon set. The stealth skill can then be a more improved version(unload) and skill 3 can be something else entirely (a mobility skill with a finisher perhaps, something PP naturally lacks)

I know anet wanted some kinda condo damage hybrid but whatever idea they had or still have is garbage and doesn’t work in practice at all under any circumstance.

So rather than improve an existing idea you want to make it a clone of Rifle power damage? Lol.

Don’t just assume hybrid can’t work. Could it use a buff, sure. But just because Unload is overloaded doesn’t mean the hybrid idea isn’t workable.

[Doctor.1384]

Id like for p/p to at least be a viable alternative to short bow but for that to happen I think there needs to be disengage on pistol thats competitive with shortbow 5. Maybe put stealth on p5

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@saerni.2584 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:As someone who’s Mained PP thief competitively for years, what the OP is saying is very close to how PP should be reworked.

The fundamental problem with pistol pistol as of right now, is that all your damage is funneled into a single ability that costs initiative. This handicaps the entire playstyle because if we want to kill someone we have no choice but to only use this one skill...everything else on the PP set costs too much initiative with presenting enough value to improve on the weapon

Changing the Sneak Attack to become the new auto attack would alleviate the damage disparity on the weapon set. The stealth skill can then be a more improved version(unload) and skill 3 can be something else entirely (a mobility skill with a finisher perhaps, something PP naturally lacks)

I know anet wanted some kinda condo damage hybrid but whatever idea they had or still have is garbage and doesn’t work in practice at all under any circumstance.

So rather than improve an existing idea you want to make it a clone of Rifle power damage? Lol.

Don’t just assume hybrid can’t work. Could it use a buff, sure. But just because Unload is overloaded doesn’t mean the hybrid idea isn’t workable.

I don’t see how anything I said is synchronous with rifle. Rifle is already a clone of PP in design (hello...double tap....)

[saerni.2584]

You seemed to be saying we should remove the unique aspects of pistol and move towards a pure ranged DPS with boons for our primary attack.

That sounds a lot like rifle to me at least.

Nerf Unload and buff Sneak Attack and Repeater. No need to swap Unload with our auto attack to buff it. Keep the uniqueness of the sets while making it more viable.

P/D is fun to play. We should buff it to make more players willing to try it.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@saerni.2584 said:You seemed to be saying we should remove the unique aspects of pistol and move towards a pure ranged DPS with boons for our primary attack.

That sounds a lot like rifle to me at least.

Nerf Unload and buff Sneak Attack and Repeater. No need to swap Unload with our auto attack to buff it. Keep the uniqueness of the sets while making it more viable.

P/D is fun to play. We should buff it to make more players willing to try it.

Nerf unload more than it’s already been nerfed? Have you played PP at all?

Buff sneak attack when pp has next to no access to stealth?

We’re talking about PP not PD stay on topic

[saerni.2584]

P/P has plenty of potential access between Daredevil and Deadeye. Does P/P itself have stealth? No but there are plenty of ways to access it now. We don’t play weapon sets in a vacuum.

And yes, Unload is over performing and the consensus has been that to buff the set overall you would need to decrease the output potential of Unload.

You and a few others seem to think stepping on P/D and unique play styles is an acceptable path to buffing things for P/P users.

I, obviously, disagree.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@saerni.2584 said:P/P has plenty of potential access between Daredevil and Deadeye. Does P/P itself have stealth? No but there are plenty of ways to access it now. We don’t play weapon sets in a vacuum.

And yes, Unload is over performing and the consensus has been that to buff the set overall you would need to decrease the output potential of Unload.

You and a few others seem to think stepping on P/D and unique play styles is an acceptable path to buffing things for P/P users.

I, obviously, disagree.

So you wouldn’t like unload being a stealth attack on PD? Or having sneak attack become an auto attack on PD? Those are direct buffs to PD set while making PP much much more viable.

[saerni.2584]

How would Sneak Attack become an auto attack? It already functions like a slower version of damage and bleed.

Also, with DE Sneak Attack gets malice based bonuses through torment. That would disappear in an auto attack version.

[Sobx.1758]

So correct me if I'm wrong, but your idea to fix p/p is putting the most problematic skill as an autoattack? Oof.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@NeverLoseGuy.3894 said:I would make unload a new autoattack and nerf it a little, then give skill 3 an entirely new skill, either a 1200 range attack or a piercing attack that travels in straight line, or both. Maybe a bit of bleeding if used in melee, and if it's not good enough, knockback as well.

This is not new. I have been suggesting this for years now.

My idea was to give P/P ( and D/D) full 5 skills dual-wielding skills. Which means, skill #1-5 will be unique to P/P (and D/D) since the dual-wield mechanic will flip all 5 skills, not just skill #3.

Now as for auto-attack, it as you say. It would be like Unload, but slower. The attack animation will be, right-hand, left-hand, both hands.

• Skill #2 will be single target head and body shot that applies daze and vulnerabilty.
• Then Skill #3 will be a spread shot dealing AoE damage in a cone -- it's basically an AoE Unload.
• Skill #4 will be single target aiming for both knees that applies immobilization.
• Skill #5 can then be an evade skill with the same animation as Death Blossom or a Slide animation while attacking.

The main thing here is, the Thief will be using both pistols at all times instead of one at a time.This dual-wielding mechanic will be exclusive to Thief.All other weapon sets (e.g. D/P) will only have the skill #3 affected by dual-wield, so no changes to those sets.

The advantage of this approach is that whenever they need to nerf D/P or S/D, P/P and D/D will not be affected, thus same goes with buffs.

P/P should be pure physical damage weapon set, no condition damage. This will give it its own identity in contrasting to shortbow, which should be our main condition damage weapon set.

Also, knockback is out of context in terms of pistols. You would need a shotgun or a cannon to do that.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@saerni.2584 said:How would Sneak Attack become an auto attack? It already functions like a slower version of damage and bleed.

Sneak attack is basically a toned down version of unload with conditions built into it. It’s not hard to imagine it becoming an auto attack. It would function exactly as it does now.

[Sobx.1758]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@saerni.2584 said:How would Sneak Attack become an auto attack? It already functions like a slower version of damage and bleed.

Sneak attack is basically a toned down version of unload with conditions built into it. It’s not hard to imagine it becoming an auto attack. It would function exactly as it does now.

I don't see how's that a reasonable change.