Engineer pistol lacks projectile combo finishers.

[Quench.7091]

In the early stages of the game this made sense. "Poison Dart Volley" on the engineer has poison and other rapid fire abilities on other professions, such "Unload" on the thief or "Rapid Fire" on the ranger, were not granted anything like might or vulnerability at the time. I think it's time to review projectile combo finishers on the engineer's main hand pistol skills. It feels like an oversight that is easy to skim over, since projectiles finishers are chance based.

[jason.1083]

I don't disagree with your suggestion, although I do want to make a correction, not all projectile finishers are chance based, usually those are either AA projectiles or skills with a lot of them. Skills that have a reasonable CD with 1 projectile usually have 100% chance to proc combo finisher.

 

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Engineer also has some of the best and easiest access to combo fields. I think the original design philosophy was that some professions could set up combos and others would exploit them with finishers. This is perhaps why those pistol skills were left out in the past to prevent engineers from having too much access to combos.

Imagine a world where combos are considered OP, power creep has certainly seen an end to that.

[SleepyBat.9034]

2 hours ago, jason.1083 said:

I don't disagree with your suggestion, although I do want to make a correction, not all projectile finishers are chance based, usually those are either AA projectiles or skills with a lot of them. Skills that have a reasonable CD with 1 projectile usually have 100% chance to proc combo finisher.

 

I guess Thief Pistol Ambush is an exception with it being quite spamable and having a 100% combo chance.

[Matoro.9708]

I'm really more upset about how it still sometimes phases through certain targets. 

Also the mortar kit is weird, it gains combo finishers but the mortar has to pass through the target to apply it, so most of the time it has no effect. It should apply to the explosion.

[jason.1083]

12 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Engineer also has some of the best and easiest access to combo fields. I think the original design philosophy was that some professions could set up combos and others would exploit them with finishers. This is perhaps why those pistol skills were left out in the past to prevent engineers from having too much access to combos.

Imagine a world where combos are considered OP, power creep has certainly seen an end to that.

I'm quite sure that was the philosophy Scrapper was built upon, maybe core Engineer as well, just nowhere near as much. 

Combos are still considered to a degree, especially if their effects synergize with someone's build, it's sad that most people don't engage with them at all. 

I still use leaps in light fields for Light Aura, with good boon duration and the right amount of incoming strikes you can build up a considerable amount of Resolution. Blasts as well, because that's nice for your team and for me it's also a proc of Comeback Cure for my party. Using a blast finisher healing skill I always try to use it inside water fields for that extra heal and to also heal my team.

But yeah powercreep has driven people away from this playstyle.

Edited October 7, 2023 by jason.1083

[jason.1083]

10 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

I guess Thief Pistol Ambush is an exception with it being quite spamable and having a 100% combo chance.

Underlying balance issue that nobody mentions because it's either underutilized or as we've established, most people never bothered wrapping their heads around Combos.

[AlPower.2476]

Engineer pistol lacks everything.

But hey, there's another nerf 'cause relics are too strong. 🫠

Edited October 7, 2023 by AlPower.2476

[SeTect.5918]

On 10/8/2023 at 1:28 AM, AlPower.2476 said:

Engineer pistol lacks everything.

But hey, there's another nerf 'cause relics are too strong. 🫠

Well at least the tragedy called "mace" pushes closer to pistol due to pistol nerfs!

(I'm just kidding)

Well i was kidding that there would be any good thing about a pistol nerf. The thing that mace is a tragedy was no joke.

But thats a funny but sad thing! Pistol is trash, but mace is so big trash that it will still never get anywhere near close to pistol. 

I actually calculated it out of curiosity. 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAoqWyB-DSJYmRD/R0hEQhDgKA-e

^basic condi pistol engi build. Didnt choose elite specs or explosions traitlines because these add nothing to comparing pistol and maces condi dmg.

You see, 10549 poison dmg on skill 2.

And 3429 confusion on skill 3 with 215 on skill use. Lets say the enemy attacks once every 3 sec. That would be 3.67 attacks over the duration of 11 seconds. 3.67*215 is 789.05. So 789.05 + 3429 = 4218.05. (Can inflict double damage to one enemy if there are 2-3 enemies due to bouncing)

Now to mace:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAkqWyB-DSJYmRD/R0hEQhDgKA-e

^this one has everything identical, i just swapped pistol with mace.

Skill 2 does 2578 confusion dmg over 8¼ sec. With the same as above that would be 2.75 attacks in 8¼ sec, resulting in 591.25 bonus dmg. Adding the 2578 that would be a total of 3169.25. 

Skill 3 does 3968 burn damage.

 

This Shows how much more stronger pistol is than mace.

Anyway, not saying to nerf pistol, but buff mace because mace is never ever going to Catch up the slightest if this is not going to happen.

And yes i am writing this out of Frustration. I crafted eureka months ago when confusion was good just to see i wasted over 2k Gold because this weapon is utter trash now.

[Panda.1967]

On 10/6/2023 at 9:29 AM, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

Engineer also has some of the best and easiest access to combo fields. I think the original design philosophy was that some professions could set up combos and others would exploit them with finishers. This is perhaps why those pistol skills were left out in the past to prevent engineers from having too much access to combos.

This is actually exactly why… I remember reading a dev post stating that back on the old forums… Engineer and Elementalist were both deliberately giving the least access to combo finishers at launch because they both had the greatest access to setting up combo fields. Though they never answered why Memser also had almost no access to combo finishers or combo fields…

Edited October 11, 2023 by Panda.1967

[Quench.7091]

On 10/10/2023 at 7:41 PM, Panda.1967 said:

This is actually exactly why… I remember reading a dev post stating that back on the old forums… Engineer and Elementalist were both deliberately giving the least access to combo finishers at launch because they both had the greatest access to setting up combo fields. Though they never answered why Memser also had almost no access to combo finishers or combo fields…

Yeah, it's definitely an outdated reason. Us engineers can do things like a Photon Blitz with our combo fields now, but the inconsistency of the rules is what made it outdated long before elite specializations. Thieves got smoke fields and lots of combo finishers for example. It leaves people kind of lost on the reason.