Duelist Discipline is poorly designed, here's my take on improvements for it

[LoreChief.8391]

Current version;

1. Pistol skills from player and illusions cause bleeding (6s) at 50% chance per hit
2. Interrupting a target refreshes the cooldown on pistol skills by 25%

Whats the problem? 25% cooldown refresh is not very good.

With illusion trait; base cooldown for the two pistol skills are 16s and 25s.Without the illusion trait; base cooldown for the two pistol skills are 20s and 35s.

That means per interrupt with this trait you would be refreshing the cooldown of those skills by 4/5s on Phantasmal Duelist, and 6.25s for Magic Bullet. You would need to pull off both a successful Magic Bullet, as well as both Powerlocks in a row in order to "refresh" the cooldown on PD, assuming you aren't a Chrono with alacrity of course.

This feels very heavy-handed in order to get a benefit out of a trait where the cooldown refresh doesn't even work on enemies with break bars in the first place. The trait is therefore only good for stacking bleeds, assuming you're playing a condi build in the first place. Aside from this trait though, Pistols favor power builds.

So what is my idea?

Duelist's Discipline:

1. Pistol skills from player and illusions cause bleeding (6s) at 50% chance per hit
2. Killing an enemy refreshes the cooldown of pistol skills

A simple change, but a welcome one. It maintains its use for condi builds, loses the clunky and unrewarding interrupt-based partial cooldown refresh, and allows a full time pistolier to reliably have a phantasmal duelist up for the start of a new mob. It also adds a dimension to multi-mob fights that allows the player to focus a larger target with duelists while culling weaker mobs in order to refresh phantasmal duelist - allowing them to pick up speed on a boss fight with quicker duelist summons.

Anyways, thats my idea. Trying to play power mesmer with pistols is mediocre to say the least, mostly due to the cooldown on PD.

[atlashugged.7642]

Interrupting an enemy in PvP is rewarding though, and the 25% cooldown reduction is in line with other traits.

Most cooldown reduction traits just give a flat 20% reduction all the time. The pistol ability is more nuanced: it lets you get 25% per interrupt, which given how hard interrupts can be in the era of pulsing stability, that seems fair. With the interrupt CDR and the bleed on images, Duelists Discipline is a trait that offers something to both PvE players and PvP players, now which seems like an indication of good design. So I question your entire premise for this thread.

Anyways, your proposed change would be "win more" in PvP. I.E., not too useful at winning the fight, but very useful once you've already pulled ahead. You would take away a good portion of its utility in PvP in order to make a build nobody uses (pve power pistol) slightly better but still not worth using.

[LoreChief.8391]

The trait is heavily lop-sided in supporting PvP as well as condition builds. Pistols should be viable for power based players as well. Comparing it with "flat % traits" is completely irrelevant, as there are only two pistol skills, and the cooldown reduction benefit is almost non-existent in pve, and as I said before - the bleed stacks are only good for condi builds.

[Zenith.7301]

Just give it the 20% flat reduction already, and make it give 250 ferocity so power builds benefit from it as well.

[atlashugged.7642]

@LoreChief.8391 said:The trait is heavily lop-sided in supporting PvP as well as condition builds.

I have no idea what you mean by this.Pistols should be viable for power based players as well.

In PvP, power builds with pistols are viable. But more importantly, why should they be? Should every weapon be viable to every playstyle in every game mode?Comparing it with "flat % traits" is completely irrelevant, as there are only two pistol skills,This is true for every off hand weapon category with a cooldown reduction trait. Torch and Focus both have flat 20% reduction traits in mesmer, and both only offer 2 skills to the mesmer. Saying that this comparison is irrelevant on the basis of pistol only having two skills is you being completely ignorant of mesmer traits and weapons. Why should people buy into your ideas about trait reworks when you don't understand what the current traits are?and the cooldown reduction benefit is almost non-existent in pve, and as I said before - the bleed stacks are only good for condi builds.Actually, the cooldown reduction could be present in PvE based on interrupts. Not every PvE enemy has a breakbar,, and the mobs you're talking about killing to refresh cds probably don't.

[Refia Montes.3205]

@Zenith.7301 said:Just give it the 20% flat reduction already, and make it give 250 ferocity so power builds benefit from it as well.

Problem is it competes with Phantasmal Fury.

[OriOri.8724]

Keep it the way it is in PvP, in PvE you could bump it up to 50% I guess? Might be too powerful on enemies without breakbars

[Carighan.6758]

Maybe add an "X% of breakbar damage recharge Y% of cooldowns" for PvE?

[OriOri.8724]

@Carighan.6758 said:Maybe add an "X% of breakbar damage recharge Y% of cooldowns" for PvE?

Or see my idea in this thread for a general solution that isn't tied to individual traits, but works for all on interrupt traits/runes/sigils

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/7120/make-on-interrupt-traits-proc-when-dealing-xx-breakbar-damage-in-pve#latest