What are you planning on trying when pistol/pistol goes live?

[Kuya.6495]

I'm gonna:

1. Cast pistol 5 (spell cannon)+ judge's intervention on some poor fleeing sod in wvw.

2. Try out pistol/sword+sword/pistol for dueling.

3. See if pistols are better than scepter and torches for condi in pve.

 

What plans do you have for pistols once you get your hand on them?

Edited November 18, 2023 by Kuya.6495

[arazoth.7290]

43 minutes ago, Kuya.6495 said:

I'm gonna:

1. Cast pistol 5 (spell cannon)+ judge's intervention on some poor fleeing sod in wvw.

2. Try out pistol/sword+sword/pistol for dueling.

3. See if pistols are better than scepter and torches for condi in pve.

 

What plans do you have for pistols once you get your hand on them?

firing that blue fire ball in ffa some friend face 😂

[psizone.8437]

• Stick it on a celestial Willbender, chase down roamers and burn them to death for a while.
• Feel disgusted with myself and question my life choices while I swap to support Spectre and heal people to balance it out.
• ????
• Profit.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Going to the forum and enjoy all the QQ of the players you guys pew pew to death. 

 I need some salt in my life. Don't let me down. 

[CraftyK.9062]

Try Longbow Pistol/Pistol Willbender sPvP memes

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, psizone.8437 said:

• Stick it on a celestial Willbender, chase down roamers and burn them to death for a while.
• Feel disgusted with myself and question my life choices while I swap to support Spectre and heal people to balance it out.
• Switch back and forth while farming bags.
• Profit.

Unlike the Underpants Gnomes, this is a case where the missing link isn't so hard. 😛

[Trejgon.9367]

Ever since the announcement of guardian getting pistols during SotO marketing phase I am having hopes for pistol+shield build. Going to try to make one for general PvE and one attempt at making a roamer build around that. Actually maybe I will do more than just a single attempt at making a working roaming build around pistol+shield.... 🤔

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

I just want Pistol to be be absolute dogwater in sPvP/WvW, and broken OP in PvE, so I can use it on Condi builds.
People always gonna whine Guardian getting anything is OP, yet I haven't seen 1 big thread complaining about Longbow since SoTO released lmfao.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

7 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Ever since the announcement of guardian getting pistols during SotO marketing phase I am having hopes for pistol+shield build. Going to try to make one for general PvE and one attempt at making a roamer build around that. Actually maybe I will do more than just a single attempt at making a working roaming build around pistol+shield.... 🤔

That's what I've been wanting. But I don't think it will be good at all. It seems to me the main damage will be coming from pairing the Symbol with the offhand weapon skills.

The Mainhand looks to just have a slow firing single pistol shot and the symbol skill will be dependent on other weapon skills enhancing it.

I don't know what the last Mainhand pistol skill will be but it would need to be very good I think to make pistol/shield be good.

[Razi.6031]

Pistol/sword and sword/pistol cele willbender. Wanna see if there is gonna be any synergy in those options.

Might be good. A gap closer on both swaps. Burn generation on both swaps. 

 

Might be fun 

 

Edit: for wvw roaming ofc.. let the salt flow

Edited November 19, 2023 by Razi.6031

[Trejgon.9367]

On 11/19/2023 at 12:09 AM, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

That's what I've been wanting. But I don't think it will be good at all. It seems to me the main damage will be coming from pairing the Symbol with the offhand weapon skills.

The Mainhand looks to just have a slow firing single pistol shot and the symbol skill will be dependent on other weapon skills enhancing it.

I don't know what the last Mainhand pistol skill will be but it would need to be very good I think to make pistol/shield be good.

I would not be going so far with assumption based on the video.

First, a mainhand weapon that only is capable of serving it's function with specific off-hand is terrible design.

Second, the AA shot on the vid seems to be going at usual pistol-shot pace (the blog even claimed it to be a "fast" projectile.

Third, the wording of the blog about symbol says nothing about using weapon skills to enhance it - only that striking a foe within the symbol, or shooting through symbol will cause symbol to afflict burning. This imply to me that any source of damage should be able to do the trick.

Sure the volley shot was advertised as one way to stack alot of burns onto an enemy, it sounds to me more like a specific burst ability more than requirement to get DPS on-par.

keeping enemies within the symbol to stack burning with all the kinds of attacks in PvE is going to be definitelly possible and not that difficult, in WvW roaming should also prove workable against NPC targets, the main question is how it will fare, and what skill no 2 will bring in against other players.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Lord Trejgon.2809
very late spotted typo

[Ferus.3165]

On 11/19/2023 at 12:09 AM, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

That's what I've been wanting. But I don't think it will be good at all. It seems to me the main damage will be coming from pairing the Symbol with the offhand weapon skills.

The Mainhand looks to just have a slow firing single pistol shot and the symbol skill will be dependent on other weapon skills enhancing it.

I don't know what the last Mainhand pistol skill will be but it would need to be very good I think to make pistol/shield be good.

it all depends on the numbers, but the reveal disappointed me three times already.

No mention of unblockable, this right here means it's pretty much worthless in wvw aside from duels and ganking probably.

The symbol is placed "below" you. That means in pve u are always going to be in melee range for the symbol to deal dmg. And if there is not really heavy burn dmg attached to it its use will also be severely limited in pvp and wvw too.

And the last disappointment is more subjective because it's a condi weapon and as such probably only useable with cele in wvw.

 

Imagine pistol/shield. Pistol auto is probably some generic autoattack that deals low dmg and applies some bleed. Pistol 2 is unknown so far and pistol 3 is a symbol that is placed in melee range right below you. With the two shield skills how do you have any pressure on this weapon set? I imagine engie pistol shield without toolbelt and without kits. So far it sounds very meh. High damage numbers could change this obviously so let's see what we get on the full reveal in about a week from now.

[draxynnic.3719]

To be honest, I suspect part of the reason why they've done pistol as a pair is that, as designed, pistol mainhand needs pistol offhand to be effective - the multishot being on 4 suggests that 2 won't be a multishot, and none of the other offhands have the skills to synergise with the pistol.

All the more reason that the symbol should be ground-targetable.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

22 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

I would not be going so far with assumption based on the video.

First, a mainhand weapon that only is capable of serving it's function with specific off-hand is terrible design.

Second, the AA shot on the vid seems to be going at usual pistol-shot pace (the blog even claimed it to be a "fast" projectile.

Third, the wording of the blog about symbol says nothing about using weapon skills to enhance it - only that striking a foe within the symbol, or shooting through symbol will cause symbol to afflict burning. This imply to me that any source of damage should be able to do the trick.

Sure the volley shot was advertised as one way to stack alot of burns onto an enemy, it sounds to me more like a specific burst ability more than requirement to get DPS on-par.

keeping enemies within the symbol to stack burning with all the kinds of attacks in PvE is going to be definitelly possible and not that difficult, in WvW roaming should also prove workable against NPC targets, the main question is how it will fare, and what skill no 2 will bring in against other players.

I'm not basing my concern on the video but by considering that they've told us what 2 of the 3 Mainhand pistol attacks do.

They describe the Auto attack as a Fast Projectile because the speed of the actual projectile is a concern in a lot of ranged attacks. The slow Projectiles like many scepters and staffs make it hard to hit fast moving targets because of the time between the projectile leaving you and getting to the target. They are mentioning the projectile speed as a reference to this.

The animation does seem to be normal pistol animations... Which I think always feels very slow.

 

There isn't a single pistol in the game with a Chain Auto attack and they didn't mention the AA having a chain so I'm expecting it to follow the trend. So it is just going to be a single shot that causes bleeding. Nothing to write home about and Guardian doesn't have any traits to boost Bleeding.

Skill 3 is the Symbol

Shield skills are defensive.

So that means that you will only have Pistol 2 and the slow single shot auto attack to make use of the Symbol.

 

I think the pistol will be good as an offensive weapon when paired with the Torch, Focus, and possibly sword. I just don't think Shield will be able to leverage the Pistol symbol and I don't think the Mainhand pistol will have the damage on its own to carry the build. 

The pistol symbol is about synergizing with other attacks but if you aren't bringing other weapons capable of capitalizing on this then you're going to be leaving a big part of its toolkit at home.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

To be honest, I suspect part of the reason why they've done pistol as a pair is that, as designed, pistol mainhand needs pistol offhand to be effective - the multishot being on 4 suggests that 2 won't be a multishot, and none of the other offhands have the skills to synergise with the pistol.

All the more reason that the symbol should be ground-targetable.

Well Sword 4 seems to do 5 hits and Sword 5 does 2 hits against 3 targets.

So that will be a respectable amount of additional burning.

 

The Torch has the Flamethrower ability with 10 hits. Will each of those hits trigger the Symbol? I don't know and I don't think we'll find out until beta.

Likewise the Focus DOT does 9 hits... Will those trigger? I don't know.

 

But the Mainhand pistol really seems to be a synergistic DPS weapon relying on boosting off hand weapons... Mainhand pistol on its own will have to be lower damage than Axe because Axe doesn't boost the damage of the offhand weapons.

If Mainhand pistol does comparable damage to the Axe but also adds damage to the Torch then Pistol guardian will destroy the use of any other weapon on a DPS guardian.

[Trejgon.9367]

3 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

So that means that you will only have Pistol 2 and the slow single shot auto attack to make use of the Symbol.

And all the utilites and whatever else I can bring with the build. description of the symbol does not state anything about weapon skill being requirement there, just that striking enemies within the symbol will cause symbol to burn them.

3 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

The animation does seem to be normal pistol animations... Which I think always feels very slow.

Ah I see, you meant casting speed not the projectile speed.

I am still thinking you are making too many assumptions on what little was shows in the blogpost (both in video and text)

[Ferus.3165]

49 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

I am still thinking you are making too many assumptions on what little was shows in the blogpost (both in video and text)

you are doing the same tbh. There's no reason to speculate any further, let's just wait and see.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

1 hour ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

And all the utilites and whatever else I can bring with the build. description of the symbol does not state anything about weapon skill being requirement there, just that striking enemies within the symbol will cause symbol to burn them.

Ah I see, you meant casting speed not the projectile speed.

I am still thinking you are making too many assumptions on what little was shows in the blogpost (both in video and text)

But you'll still be able to take those utilities with an Offhand pistol. The numbers have to be set so that dual pistols with damaging utilities are balanced with DPS classes.

There is only a single skill that is missing from the description that you'll get with Pistol/Shield.

But regardless Pistol/Pistol will have to be relatively balanced with the other builds in the game and the Mainhand Pistol will be giving a big boost in damage to the multi attack Offhands that other weapons don't give.

 

Mainhand pistol MUST be lower damage than other weapons or there will be no reason to take the Axe for example.

[Trejgon.9367]

3 hours ago, Ferus.3165 said:

you are doing the same tbh. There's no reason to speculate any further, let's just wait and see.

How so? I only said I will be trying to make it work, and then opposed the notion that mainhand pistol is going to require offhand pistol as well to work. Called it terrible design because it would be a terrible design, and my disappointment in AN was unmeasurable if they designed it like that. Other than that, I do not recall stating anything that would not be refering to things explicitely stated in the content of the blogpost, and oposed other poster assuming that his vision is how it would be working. There is no assumption I have made in any of my post.

2 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

But you'll still be able to take those utilities with an Offhand pistol.

That is a fair notion. I guess we will see soon-ish enough how will it pan out in practice.

2 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

There is only a single skill that is missing from the description that you'll get with Pistol/Shield.

That is correct.

2 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

Mainhand Pistol will be giving a big boost in damage to the multi attack Offhands that other weapons don't give.

That is something I would not be banking on until we see tooltips involved. AN have stated an intent of synergy there, but how well will that pan out in practical applications, we simply do not know yet.

2 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

Mainhand pistol MUST be lower damage than other weapons or there will be no reason to take the Axe for example.

Mainhand pistol should indeed have lower dps output than axe, mainly because it is ranged condi weapon vs melee condi weapon. It is supposed to have less dps in exchange for being able to apply that dps from further away. Not that AN has fantastic record of mantaining that balance throughout the game history, but I agree that this should be expected. I will still try to see if I can make pistol/shield work better than my axe/shield used currently. Maybe continue using both in the end just on the swaps. We shall see. I am not going to get dissuaded from trying to make it work before it goes properly live in next quarterly update 😉

[Kuya.6495]

Axe probably will still be more dps than mainhand pistol if you take unrelenting criticism on firebrand. Makes no sense to me for anet to make mh pistol on wb, core and dh less dps than axe though. You already don't take axe for wb for condi because it's not better than sword and scepter. If mh pistol is less dps than axe, then condi wb has no reason to take it over scepter and sword.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Kuya.6495

[Roadkizzle.2157]

But the Sword, Scepter, and Axe don't add additional damage to whatever Offhand is used either.

 

Pistol and Torch has to be comparable to Sword and Torch.

 

But if the Torch does more damage with the Pistol than it does with the sword then to be comparable builds the pistol will have to do less damage on its own.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 11/21/2023 at 12:38 AM, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

Well Sword 4 seems to do 5 hits and Sword 5 does 2 hits against 3 targets.

So that will be a respectable amount of additional burning.

 

The Torch has the Flamethrower ability with 10 hits. Will each of those hits trigger the Symbol? I don't know and I don't think we'll find out until beta.

Likewise the Focus DOT does 9 hits... Will those trigger? I don't know.

 

But the Mainhand pistol really seems to be a synergistic DPS weapon relying on boosting off hand weapons... Mainhand pistol on its own will have to be lower damage than Axe because Axe doesn't boost the damage of the offhand weapons.

If Mainhand pistol does comparable damage to the Axe but also adds damage to the Torch then Pistol guardian will destroy the use of any other weapon on a DPS guardian.

None of them, except perhaps the torch throw, are projectiles. So they'll trigger the symbol doing burning on the symbol's next pulse, but they won't trigger extra burning on the skill's hits. Hence why it would be important for the symbol to be under the target's feet rather than your own for any offhand that isn't pistol.

Furthermore, based on the description, it is at least a reasonable interpretation that the symbol only pulses one stack of burning per pulse regardless of how many times the target is hit within that interval. So sword 4, for example, might only get one stack from the symbol, while Pistol 4 gets 6 (one from the symbol pulse, one for each projectile). If this interpretation is correct, simply autoattacking with the pistol would likely get more burning stacks out of the symbol than if you used any non-pistol offhand skill except the Zealot's Flame throw.

We'll have to see what the exact mechanics are when we see it, but even if the additional burning from the symbol pulsing can stack, pistol will still get more burning because it's getting two stacks per strike instead of one. And if the enemy is outside of your symbol because the symbol was dropped at your feet, that becomes offhand pistol delivering one strike of burning from the symbol instead of zero.

9 hours ago, Kuya.6495 said:

Axe probably will still be more dps than mainhand pistol if you take unrelenting criticism on firebrand. Makes no sense to me for anet to make mh pistol on wb, core and dh less dps than axe though. You already don't take axe for wb for condi because it's not better than sword and scepter. If mh pistol is less dps than axe, then condi wb has no reason to take it over scepter and sword.

Most cases where the ranged weapon matches the melee weapon for damage, it's because the melee weapon is at least somewhat defensive in nature (power mesmer, power ranger), there's some trait interaction favouring the ranged weapon (condi virt) or the melee weapon just doesn't exist (condi necro). Sword has always been a decent burn guardian option because it has multihit, so pistol's primary competition is scepter (and having torch offhand on both sets).

[Saiyan.1704]

I find it comical that off-hand pistol will already be eons better than Torch. IF torch is supposed to be a "hybrid condi/power burst weapon"... then it fails miserably in doing that.

Torch is such an outdated forgetful weapon, with a TERRIBLE tracking Torch#4 throw....(not counting Willbender can't even use Torch#5)  that no one is even asking for buffs because at this point, most Guards don't even want buffs for it lol. We threw the towel YEARS ago. Just give us pistol so we can forget Torch ever existed.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Saiyan.1704

[Roadkizzle.2157]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

None of them, except perhaps the torch throw, are projectiles. So they'll trigger the symbol doing burning on the symbol's next pulse, but they won't trigger extra burning on the skill's hits. Hence why it would be important for the symbol to be under the target's feet rather than your own for any offhand that isn't pistol.

Furthermore, based on the description, it is at least a reasonable interpretation that the symbol only pulses one stack of burning per pulse regardless of how many times the target is hit within that interval. So sword 4, for example, might only get one stack from the symbol, while Pistol 4 gets 6 (one from the symbol pulse, one for each projectile). If this interpretation is correct, simply autoattacking with the pistol would likely get more burning stacks out of the symbol than if you used any non-pistol offhand skill except the Zealot's Flame throw.

We'll have to see what the exact mechanics are when we see it, but even if the additional burning from the symbol pulsing can stack, pistol will still get more burning because it's getting two stacks per strike instead of one. And if the enemy is outside of your symbol because the symbol was dropped at your feet, that becomes offhand pistol delivering one strike of burning from the symbol instead of zero.

Most cases where the ranged weapon matches the melee weapon for damage, it's because the melee weapon is at least somewhat defensive in nature (power mesmer, power ranger), there's some trait interaction favouring the ranged weapon (condi virt) or the melee weapon just doesn't exist (condi necro). Sword has always been a decent burn guardian option because it has multihit, so pistol's primary competition is scepter (and having torch offhand on both sets).

Yup. It looks like I combined the first and the second part in my mind. It looks like I was being overly optimistic.

So it looks like the pistols only have synergistic effects with each other.

To me it seems.

If MH Pistol has the same DPS as Sword and OH pistol has the same DPS as Sword then Pistol/Torch and Sword/Torch, or Sword/Pistol should all be comparable and players just choose which one... BUT if they chose Pistol/Pistol then they'd get free extra Burning Stacks on every attack boosting the DPS higher than any other weapon combination.

 

But if Pistol/Pistol is comparable DPS to Sword/Torch then Sword/Pistol and Pistol/Torch will be lower DPS and not worth using. 

[Kuya.6495]

9 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

I find it comical that off-hand pistol will already be eons better than Torch. IF torch is supposed to be a "hybrid condi/power burst weapon"... then it fails miserably in doing that.

Torch is such an outdated forgetful weapon, with a TERRIBLE tracking Torch#4 throw....(not counting Willbender can't even use Torch#5)  that no one is even asking for buffs because at this point, most Guards don't even want buffs for it lol. We threw the towel YEARS ago. Just give us pistol so we can forget Torch ever existed.

Tbh, I think they should just rework radiant fire and make torch 5 pulse condi cleanse so there's at least a scenario where I might consider taking torch.