Pistols Grant Elementalists the Choice between Greater Damage and Defense

[ScottBroChill.3254]

Idk why they couldn't add burning to an air skill just to not make it a total dps and condi loss. I guarantee that lightening can light stuff on fire, I think science can even back that up.

But it does look kinda cool. Gonna have fun trying to do bullet combos and pew pew.

Edited November 29, 2023 by ScottBroChill.3254

[Anthony.8056]

I would have loved for them to give other conditions instead of the same ones. They could have thematically created something to change it like giving fire attunement torment., water attunement poison (opposite of healing), air attunement confusion, and earth attunement slow.

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, FrozenEve.6875 said:

Your final line definitely resonated with me as a long time GW1 Elementalist and how I have bemoaned the loss of specialising in an element such as Water attunement for the class fantasy. The forcing of having to almost always use fire and earth as damaging attunements is getting boring after so long. 

Oh, definitely. I don't think single-element is feasible, but they could at least have weapons that vary which elements are good. Currently, fire and earth seem to be the best for ranged builds at least 80% of the time (any staff, any pistol, condi sceptre which is more commonly used than power sceptre). I really like the lightning mage theme myself, but the only practical non-melee option there is for that is fresh air sceptre and that's really not what I had in mind. Generally speaking, that's an itch I have to scratch with mesmer (which does it far better despite not technically being lightning) or other games.

14 hours ago, ScottBroChill.3254 said:

Idk why they couldn't add burning to an air skill just to not make it a total dps and condi loss. I guarantee that lightening can light stuff on fire, I think science can even back that up.

But it does look kinda cool. Gonna have fun trying to do bullet combos and pew pew.

There's precedent from GW1 too. As I noted, though, there's also precedent in engineer to electricity being linked with confusion.

Edited November 29, 2023 by draxynnic.3719
Typoes

[Eddbopkins.2630]

I hate conditions. So I used the pistols in pvp as a power weapon. It wasn't that great. Have projectile combo was cool I guess but there's so much pewpew now everyone's pewpew it just ruins the feel of combat for me. Not that much fun. What defense does pistol offer? Maybe I just don't know what attunement and skill for the defensive part of it. But I was getting hit for 12k+ decapitates from berserkers/warriors. 10k+ great sword f1. 10k+ rush. It was dodge everything or die. I don't get why ele has to have 11k hp when there are skills that hit more then it's based hp. That just seems unfair.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Something random but am I the only one who kinda wants water pistol 2 to be like Scorched earth and pulse chill with damage instead?

Would be very funny to have a catalyst use the skill twice and actually ramp some high numbers on the dps meters in wvw.

[China.5268]

What about buff/rework for staff skills do we get or we will have the same old weak, slow and poor skills for ever? 🤣

[Mimiga.9815]

After having used the pistol for a while, I still think that, even with the buff indicators, it's still far too easy to lose whether or not you have a bullet loaded. I stack a lot of personal buffs and don't care for squinting at the dozen little icons in fast gameplay. Personally I would love it if the skill icons themselves had either a flipped state with a slightly different illustration to denote that they have extra effects, or something similar to how combo skills will glow if they would proc a field when cast.

[Joswi.2635]

Instead of having the bullets be in the buff bar there should be an icon above the attunements or above the health/endurance bar. That way it's not lost in all the other buffs and has a fixed spot for us to look. I like above the attunements, so if I have a fire bullet it'll appear above the fire attunement no matter what attunement I'm in so I always know what bullets I have. I'm not a big fan of the bullet mechanic in general though, feels too clunky and not rewarding enough to keep track of for the most part anyway.

[pipo.6075]

Why sound effects of legendary pistol HOPE doesn't apply to elementalist skills? 🤨

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Joswi.2635 said:

Instead of having the bullets be in the buff bar there should be an icon above the attunements or above the health/endurance bar. That way it's not lost in all the other buffs and has a fixed spot for us to look. I like above the attunements, so if I have a fire bullet it'll appear above the fire attunement no matter what attunement I'm in so I always know what bullets I have. I'm not a big fan of the bullet mechanic in general though, feels too clunky and not rewarding enough to keep track of for the most part anyway.

In all honesty, the buff bar is completely overloaded. There needs to be a way to separate out the buffs that are about giving you more gold/magic find/xp/etc so you can clearly see the ones that actually influence gameplay.

[Skullsox.9162]

it just feels so slow  and clunky, also why is it so devoid of magic, these skills are so boring looking . It does okay but idk why i would take pistol over the scepter if can do the same or better dmg  in half the time..

[kurosy.1384]

Please! Consider putting the bullet in the ui similar to Malice! :C

Overall the pistol feels a bit undertuned regarding the flow and the effects / magic feel.
The projectiles are barely visible. Air2 has the same visual effect of the auto attack. Fire 2 is merely visible. When playing pistol it almost feels like you're pressing many buttons but they are all the same, in terms of visual appeal.
The single target is so much unattractive. 900 is a lame range. I'm not going to enter the technical aspect as i've been testing it for only a few hours. I'm sure it does big damage in a raid scenario.

Pistol also felt clunky when it comes to pair it up with an offhand weapon. I tried them all, maybe focus is the best match, at least for me. It also feels weird to play it with tempest and catalyst as both specs are aoe oriented and melee-awarded while pistol has a single-targeted selfish mid-range set. It's not that it can't be played of course but only weaver felt more natural.

I'm so jelaous of guardians right now, they got the same weapon but there's no comparison. Double pistols. Great, visible AA visual, one of the coolest-looking skill that i'v ever seen in this game and a coherent and fun mechanic.

[crosknight.3041]

i think this is the worst weapon ele ever has gotten, and i HATED hammer.

bullet mechanic is just annoying. weapon mechanics in general are annoying. leave those for elite specs not on weapons. this is why i hated hammer. ***glares at hammer 3***

damage is garbage
single target only, can we have the bullets pierce please?
extremely boring design and animations

all around unfun.

[Kilty.4906]

I must say, the pistol skills are underwhelming. They use the same animation over and over, and the particle effects are just minor changes from one element to another, and for some reason, they appear 3 meters away from the pistol. Moreover, the shooting noises get really repetitive over time. All that without talking about the complexity of the orbs mechanic, and how 90% of the skills are projectiles and most of them are single targets.
It feels like the devs picked the least effort weapon when they realized the amount of skills they would have to develop for the Elementalist, and I fear what the new skills will be like in the upcoming expansion.

[Downstate.4697]

You could get rid of the bullet mechanic, add the buffed abilities as baseline and it still wouldn’t measure up to other weapons.

If you are going to add a bullet mechanic, make it worth considering in your rotation. For example, have it increase bounces for fire 2 or make fire 3 do a flame expulsion that’s also a blast finisher. I think you guys need to download a new ai into CMC

 

[China.5268]

Well I still preffer rework for staff skills...😒

[nofo.8469]

This weapon just seems.. questionable. Same role as scepter but scepter seems more fun to play. It's not that pistol is terrible it just doesn't really add anything to the class.

Long bow/rifle was the obvious choice because ele does not have a long ranged/single target/pierce weapon. Pistol offhand would have even made more sense. Really questioning Arenanet's decision making process here.

[Andy.5981]

Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang

Simultaneously the noise of Ele pistol autoattack and me hitting my head against the wall to dull the pain of using this.

What a woeful weapon. Underpowered, lacking in fun, awkward mechanic to get the special attack on skill 1 and its mind numbingly boring.

You have the ability to pull the data from the servers Anet. How many Elementalitss are using pistols in competitive modes or even PVE? I suspect very few in pvp/wvw and even the ones in PVE are probably spamming pistol skills so they can get Artisan of Arms: Elementalist's Pistol achievment done.

You need to go back to the drawing board on this one.

Edit - weapon effects are also lazy. Skills 1 and 2 share the same graphics. Also agree with Randulf below - what on earth is Air skill 3 supposed to be?

Edited March 9 by Andy.5981

[Randulf.7614]

I really want to like it, but it feels like too much condensed into a one handed weapon. The water skills seem decent enough, but the air ones are horrible, especially that weird dash one.

The bullet mechanic isn't intuitive at all - maybe if it was a generic elemental bullet rather than one for each element? Or on a rifle es-spec where more could be done with it? The bullets aren't even easy to track or consistent when they appear even when using the right skill. I love the Catalyst mechanic and it's my favourite e-spec, but this - whatever this is meant to be doing - just isn't working or synergising with the rest of the class.

I agree it needs a rethink. There is some decent bits to it, but not enough to warrant using it beyond it being new and needing the achievement points. 

[Markus.6415]

On 2/28/2024 at 4:38 AM, pipo.6075 said:

Why sound effects of legendary pistol HOPE doesn't apply to elementalist skills? 🤨

Other legy pistol effects also don't quite work. Guess that's what you get when they just poorly recycle a couple of already existing visuals and call it a day.

[zeyeti.8347]

And now that pistol is "overperforming" on the golem all tempest are given the finger as dps , you don't play pistol , but you still got the -5% condi damage , ahhhh so happy i converted my ele to a full time fisherman.

A useless awfully designed weapon , who ended up nerfing a whole spec , rather have ele have no weapon at all then ... still least played class in endgame , and this for sure is not gonna change it , who cares ? surely not anet ! eager to see ele hit the 0.1 % playrate.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

And now that pistol is "overperforming" on the golem all tempest are given the finger as dps , you don't play pistol , but you still got the -5% condi damage , ahhhh so happy i converted my ele to a full time fisherman.

A useless awfully designed weapon , who ended up nerfing a whole spec , rather have ele have no weapon at all then ... still least played class in endgame , and this for sure is not gonna change it , who cares ? surely not anet ! eager to see ele hit the 0.1 % playrate.

I wonder how many times we're going to end up repeating "ArenaNet said they'd stop balancing on golem numbers, but..."

Protip: If something has a low playrate despite having a high benchmark, and it's not a monk-strike situation where groups are waiting around because there's more demand for the profession than people playing it, there's probably something going on that offsets the high benchmark.

High benchmarks only really matter for speedrunners, and there you're looking at the 1% of the 1%. For most players, as long as you're not being DPS-raced by the supports, there are factors that are far more important to success than few thousand extra DPS.

[zeyeti.8347]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I wonder how many times we're going to end up repeating "ArenaNet said they'd stop balancing on golem numbers, but..."

Protip: If something has a low playrate despite having a high benchmark, and it's not a monk-strike situation where groups are waiting around because there's more demand for the profession than people playing it, there's probably something going on that offsets the high benchmark.

High benchmarks only really matter for speedrunners, and there you're looking at the 1% of the 1%. For most players, as long as you're not being DPS-raced by the supports, there are factors that are far more important to success than few thousand extra DPS.

To my own taste when i play the lowest armor and hp class i expect to be better to my role .... but this situation is non existent , not a single ele spec is shining in pve , thus showing the stats little % played , every other class (except maybe thief) has somewhat an e-spec present in the meta , so instead of nerfing based on a stupid non moving golem and capping the bench at 43-44k (nobody is allowed to go higher), anet  should ask and wonder why nobody plays ele in endgame pve , there should be at elast one e-spec of each class represented there , 

The ele situation has always been the same , new build comes out , somebody on snowcrow bench 48k , hop nerf to everyone , and here they nerf in a lazy way the whole tempest instead of nerfing the stupid pistol nobody is playing, great balance philosphy ...

for vets who have cleaned the whole content , dps rush is the only thing we can do as dps role , so in term of pure efficiency taking an ele in many case is a tune down to take , others do better more safely and it's been 5  years am wondering wth are they doing with the ele... and i say it while i know many players who leaved the game solely because of the ele situation , many players fancy the pure staff mage ranged dps , who is non existent here , the fact that ele , who is mostly supposed to be ranged is a melee class is ...weird , and pistol resolve nothing , as tempest your tiny 180 overloads needs you to melee anyway.

I am joking on it , but i am pretty sure if snowcrow somewhat fakes dps bench anet is gonna follow blindly.

Edited March 20 by zeyeti.8347

[nofo.8469]

23 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

And now that pistol is "overperforming" on the golem all tempest are given the finger as dps , you don't play pistol , but you still got the -5% condi damage , ahhhh so happy i converted my ele to a full time fisherman.

A useless awfully designed weapon , who ended up nerfing a whole spec , rather have ele have no weapon at all then ... still least played class in endgame , and this for sure is not gonna change it , who cares ? surely not anet ! eager to see ele hit the 0.1 % playrate.

Eles would be better off without the pistol. The weapon not only is a poorly designed mess it has one singular purpose (tempest condi dps) that the whole class is being balanced around

More is not better if it adds nothing to the class and the pistol actively detracts from the class because it makes less builds viable

[zeyeti.8347]

7 hours ago, nofo.8469 said:

Eles would be better off without the pistol. The weapon not only is a poorly designed mess it has one singular purpose (tempest condi dps) that the whole class is being balanced around

More is not better if it adds nothing to the class and the pistol actively detracts from the class because it makes less builds viable

On spot ! pistol is just an overperforming complex for nothing scepter , all classes had something they were lacking , nécro mobile weapon , engi support weapon (even if mace and shield are good , but bow still is werid) , and all the others the same , we could have a good support mainhand , but anet would have ruined it anyway , cause ele need to be versatile at any cost for them , if i want to play damage i want to play it in all attunements , here again teh pistol is weirdly used in air just for a lower cooldown on next skill and nothing else ... 0.2% of ppl will play this build and there you go.

And on the other hand you have warhorn who is good in anything , dope support weapon and big damage dealer as condi ... quick anet nerf it ... i really miss the base staff meteor fireball mage , we have it ofc , but the fireball is a hot nugget and the meteor are actually sprinkles you throw at your enemy.

Ele balanced around having always 20 weapons skills (more for weaver) but when you end up using half of them is this balance making sense ?