Pistol theif? raids fracts?

[Artemis.8034]

So I was on my scourge doing some raiding and would you know it, 2 freaking ascended pistols drop from the bosses. So I have a thief but I never hear anything about pistols, is it any good im dying to use them lol. Not many classes use pistols in this game soo , at least not what I play. If not why you would think anet wouldnt make pistol weak so much considering not many use it. Or is it like specter is the fix for thief lol

Edited December 22, 2021 by Artemis.8034

[Zacchary.6183]

Specter is the fix for thief. Pistols are good for defiance bar breaking, Unload spam and dropping smoke fields but that is it. You can combine them with specter for some support and general damage, but personally I think s/d will be the best core set for specter.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Zacchary.6183

[Infusion.7149]

Honestly you would use it in competitive modes as d/p or on an axe mirage in PVE. Also if you play condi mechanist/holo in PVE (or even sword holo).

Pistol+dagger deadeye is used in fractals because it's bursty condi but leaping backward often feels bad.  https://discretize.eu/builds/thief/condi-deadeye/

Edited December 22, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

On my daredevil builds I usually have P/P sitting in the back for when I need to do ranged damage.  It's not that bad.  It isn't super-competitive top tier DPS, but spamming unload is better than doing nothing at all.

[Ashantara.8731]

19 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

On my daredevil builds I usually have P/P sitting in the back for when I need to do ranged damage.  It's not that bad.

Same here. Not bad at all for a Staff Daredevil as a secondary weapon set. 🙂

[Tails.9372]

OH pistol is a good choice for a support weapon because Head Shot does good Break Bar damage and Black Powder also has some good uses but as a main hand weapon it's just overshadowed by other options.

For power P/P is pretty much inferior to rifle in every performance relevant area there is and I wouldn't be surprised if scepter is going to do the same thing for condi leaving MH pistol with no real niche to fill.

As for the MH pistol set itself 1 is mostly useless and is going to be avoided as much as possible, 2 is generally redundant because of 4 and 3 should have been the AA with Repeater if P/X and Unload if P/P. In general just think about what makes D/P work and realise that P/X lacks all of it (especially P/P is just awful in 2 of the 3 "cornerstone gamemodes" and extremely lackluster in the 3rd).

The reason why people still use it in spite of that essentially boils down to gameplay preference (especially rifle has some issues here).

19 hours ago, Artemis.8034 said:

If not why you would think anet wouldnt make pistol weak so much considering not many use it.

There are multiple reasons here but the simplified version is a mixture of: they don't care + they wanted to babysit bad players in competitive instead of requiring them to learn how to use their active defenses + they wanted to make rifle look better by comparison so instead of actually fixing the issues people had with rifle they nerfed the already underperforming P/P even more.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Tails.9372

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

17 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

On my daredevil builds I usually have P/P sitting in the back for when I need to do ranged damage.  It's not that bad.  It isn't super-competitive top tier DPS, but spamming unload is better than doing nothing at all.

Bound-beefed Unload is good for soloing a lone boss from afar. Against mobs and ads, shortbow is always superior - on top of consuming less initiative which you can spend on staff to Vault / Weakening Charge.

Aside from open world roaming, dual pistols aren't any good, though. Condi deadeye does use a mainhand pistol, though, and it's a good solo build. There are some workable wvw and pvp builds with a mainhand pistol as well, but they're all condition damage.

If you want remarkable power damage from afar, use rifle. Even then, you need to be able to handle the kneel function and know your DPS rotation (which you can upkeep for a minute before it starts to fall off). It's usable in some raid encounters and SOME fractals, but daredevil is generally better due to not having to stand still for prolonged periods of time.

Every time you're forced to unkneel and move, you're losing time, initiative and DPS.

Edited December 23, 2021 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Vidit.7108]

On 12/21/2021 at 8:34 PM, Artemis.8034 said:

I never hear anything about pistols, is it any good im dying to use them

There is a condi deadeye build that uses pistol/dagger involves running through a boss or jump canceling the forced movement to maximize the dps. Absent learning to do that it's not very useful for anything else. Some Daredevils have it as a back up range weapon in fractals but from what I understand it's mostly better to have a second a staff in raids.

On 12/21/2021 at 8:34 PM, Artemis.8034 said:

If not why you would think anet wouldnt make pistol weak so much considering not many use it

Anytime thieves get a really cool use out of pistols anet nerfs it or removes it. It's had a hard time since rifle was added to the game finding a place in instanced group content. It's got mostly niche uses. They just don't like ranged weapons in this game, that's why the only new main-hand pistol users took 9 years to show up.

[BobbyT.7192]

12 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

They just don't like ranged weapons in this game, that's why the only new main-hand pistol users took 9 years to show up.

This pretty much, noticed how there is not 1200 range weapon available with this round of elite espec, even though classes like elementists were begging for it. Range combat as gotten the short end of the stick since gw1.

Damage, heals, boons; everything has to be in a nice little compact ball in front of everyone's feets.

[Artemis.8034]

Wow reading over the replies is kind of disheartening. I think its sad they nerf range like this, i feel boxed in and unable to see boss effects stacked up on top of each other. Im beginning to think they dont know how to make the game balanced for ranged and that makes me a little upset. Because i like to play a variety of styles, not always melee, that gets old after a while. I do have an elementalist im leveling, and I much prefer to play as ranged on it. But yeah looks like all the decent dps is all melee.  I guess my class fantasy isnt going to happen. I cant go back to final fantasy it feels so slow compared to gw2 now, but there i can play a ranged caster or a melee if i want.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

On 12/22/2021 at 1:15 AM, Infusion.7149 said:

Honestly you would use it in competitive modes as d/p or on an axe mirage in PVE. Also if you play condi mechanist/holo in PVE (or even sword holo).

Pistol+dagger deadeye is used in fractals because it's bursty condi but leaping backward often feels bad.  https://discretize.eu/builds/thief/condi-deadeye/

unload is really not viable, even on dash unload spammer, you run out of initiative quick due to the pve split

[Infusion.7149]

2 minutes ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

unload is really not viable, even on dash unload spammer, you run out of initiative quick due to the pve split

d/p not p/p

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

9 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

d/p not p/p

op got 2 pistols no?

[Infusion.7149]

37 minutes ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

op got 2 pistols no?

That's not what you quoted from me though 😄