Dual Guns need Combos Build Up

[Bioxyde]

Hi,

 

I've a Sentinel lvl 50+ and when i play this toon i love the Defense and Resistance from Energy Armor pool. However, the damaged are not very good. same if you use the Vunerability Mod i think this pool need a Build Up. So in the Branch we can't add a new power BuildUp without remove one. But, i think we can create a combos system, the same than Dual Blade for pull the Build Up. The damaged from the blaster are the same very poor.

 

Try to find a solution for render the pool Dual Gun better, because when you play in solo and full IO'd/Attuned the damaged are very poor.

[Crysta Clear]

The solution would be to first examine Dual Pistols to see if it really is underperforming compared to other ranged primaries, and if so, check to see whether the lower damage is meaningfully compensated for in another area. If, and only if, the set is found to be underperforming but not compensated for in some other way (such as control effects, or end costs, or debuffs, etc.), then the best place to insert some damage would simply be to add a small to-hit buff and damage buff to the Swap Ammo toggles, on par with other 100%-uptime variants of Build Up, such as Dual Blades' 'Blinding Feint' being only +30% damage instead of Build-Up's +80%, but it is up all the time with minimal investment.

 

But it's very, very important to check whether the set itself actually needs such a buff, to avoid power creep. My personal experiences with Dual Pistols have been that it seems just fine on a Blaster due to the higher base damage scale, even with a secondary like Martial Combat, whose Build-Up variant is RNG and unreliable. (Seriously, we can't even see the proc chance of Reach For the Limit, or even whether it's a flat rate or PPM!) But on a Sentinel, I have noticed that any set without Build Up won't perform well, because Sentinels' damage scale as a whole is more than a bit lower than it should be, if the archetype's intent is really to be a 'ranged scrapper.' Scrappers consistently outperform Sentinels in damage. I have not played a Dual Pistols Corruptor long enough to really comment on how that one feels, only to ~20th level or so, and Defender, I can only comment that my friend seemed to love applying the ammo types' debuffs, and Defenders just aren't intended to bring high damage to a team.

[Frostweaver]

I think that the only thing DP really needs is better ammo buffs.

Fire is fine as it is. Ice should provide a minor slow, recharge, and -damage. Toxic should debuff resistance and defense slightly.

[Razor Cure]

Piercing Rounds should apply -res regardless of the Ammo type. The aoe part works no matter what ammo is loaded..why doesn't that?

[BrandX]

Well, last I recall from live, Dual Pistols came in dead last in terms of DPS.  That was with the old Snipe change.  I'd say the new snipe change likely continues the trend.

 

Agree with Piercing Rounds always applying the -resist.

 

Maybe that would be the change that actually helps the sets DPS.

 

Though, I may have preferred something different with the ammo types.

 

Keep the DPS the same on them all.  Different DoT for the ammos.  Lethal, Cold, Toxic, Fire DoTs, with each set giving different secondary effects.  Fire w/ -Resist.  Ice w/ -Spd/Rch.  Toxic w/ -DMG.  Lethal w/ KD.

 

Fire ammo would still do more damage due to the -Resist, but with good damage on the other ammo types, could be a better reason to switch ammos based on some enemies who may actually have a weakness to them.

[Galaxy Brain]

No enemy has weakness to toxic, in fact it is the most resisted type.

 

Fire is second least resisted right behind negative. 

[Frostweaver]

Well, let's face a simple fact. Dual pistols was designed, if not to exactly simulate, at least give a very strong nod to Starlord.

The Idea of swapping ammos as a viable in-combat action is extremely appealing. Heck, if there was an 'air' swap ammo that gave several of it's attacks the chance to 'bounce', I'd absolutely use it, especially if it bounced outside of the aggro cap.

Dual pistols IS a low damage set. Having the option to open with cold (for -rech, -dam, -speed) swap to toxic (minor -res, -def) and then follow up with fire or air (+damage, +targets) would not only be extremely fun and thematic, but it would avoid power creep because, in toto, the damage still wouldn't exceed that of a set like water, and would be a fun way to probe for enemy weknesses.


As it stands right now, There's very little profit in switching out of fire other than a tiny hint of mitigation in ice and turning swap ammo off if you don't mind uncontrolled knockback. Especially when you consider that most pistols powers can easily slot -res already.

[Galaxy Brain]

Are you talking MCU star lord or comics star lord?

[Razor Cure]

8 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

Well, let's face a simple fact. Dual pistols was designed, if not to exactly simulate, at least give a very strong nod to Starlord.

Was it? I always thought the animations are SO much like the style of gun-fu in Equilibrium. Starlord just shoots, he doesn't gun-dance around (well..he DOES dance, but not while shooting I guess).

Thinknig about the original question again, and what Brand said..

I am sure the snipoe changes made DP worse off, as all (most?) other sets got a super fast, great damage attack, that can be fired 'first' to do even more damage. The closest thing DP has to a snipe, Piercing, is slow (even if it looks quick, and awesome). Likewise, ExeSHot is also slow (compare that to Blaze, haha!)

Then the Nukes. DOnt get me wrong, I love the bullet dance. But again, its SLOW. Granted, you get some def with it, which makes sense..but 10% def on an AT with none (usually) is not a heap. And the damage is DoT, which makes it kill slow too, and feel less damage than it actually is.

 

So back to the idea of combos and build up..I think it would be really cool. Titan, water, streetJ all at least get some kinda offensive buff, and staff has the Form doing +damage. AR gets..shit. But that is another story. I think if you 'aim' a blast of fire (never mind the fact you are aiming it for teh get go, just to get it in the general direction), WHY can you not aim down the sights of a rifle, or a pistol (or turn of some low powered, limited use lasers, hint hint).

An Aim/Bu/Combo would help DP a lot, and make the nuke hit harder (thinking about it, whats gonna do more damage, a blast of fire, or 20 odd pistol bullets..yep, of course its the ONE shot of fire). Perhaps if the first tier attacks, and the cone, built a combo of a few stacks, each with a +damage (or even +damage to teh secondary element) and then after max stacks, you get a 10-15 second hit of +35+ damage, letting you get to the next mob and nuke it.

 

Or...just make Swap Ammo inherent (water and stj and tw dont need a separate power to get the benefits of what is basically the defining part of the set) and give it a Laser Sight click power.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Razor Cure

[Frostweaver]

Oh they nodded to equilibrium also, clearly.

But I despise combo sets, and I very much like DP. I think making it yet another crappy combo set would be an intensely bad idea... we have way too many already.

[Apparition]

On 10/27/2019 at 7:30 AM, Crysta Clear said:

The solution would be to first examine Dual Pistols to see if it really is underperforming compared to other ranged primaries, and if so, check to see whether the lower damage is meaningfully compensated for in another area. If, and only if, the set is found to be underperforming but not compensated for in some other way (such as control effects, or end costs, or debuffs, etc.), then the best place to insert some damage would simply be to add a small to-hit buff and damage buff to the Swap Ammo toggles, on par with other 100%-uptime variants of Build Up, such as Dual Blades' 'Blinding Feint' being only +30% damage instead of Build-Up's +80%, but it is up all the time with minimal investment.

 

But it's very, very important to check whether the set itself actually needs such a buff, to avoid power creep. My personal experiences with Dual Pistols have been that it seems just fine on a Blaster due to the higher base damage scale, even with a secondary like Martial Combat, whose Build-Up variant is RNG and unreliable. (Seriously, we can't even see the proc chance of Reach For the Limit, or even whether it's a flat rate or PPM!) But on a Sentinel, I have noticed that any set without Build Up won't perform well, because Sentinels' damage scale as a whole is more than a bit lower than it should be, if the archetype's intent is really to be a 'ranged scrapper.' Scrappers consistently outperform Sentinels in damage. I have not played a Dual Pistols Corruptor long enough to really comment on how that one feels, only to ~20th level or so, and Defender, I can only comment that my friend seemed to love applying the ammo types' debuffs, and Defenders just aren't intended to bring high damage to a team.

 

Yeah.  Sentinel seems to be the real issue here.  I have a level 50+3 tricked out DP/Temporal Manipulation Blaster and the damage feels good to me.  It's not Fire of course, but nothing else is.

[Crysta Clear]

Basically this, yes! My Dual Pistols blaster uses /Martial and she is very fun to play XD Teleports around, sweep-kicks people, then loads them up with Hail of Bullets XD

[BrandX]

On 10/28/2019 at 10:45 AM, Frostweaver said:

Well, let's face a simple fact. Dual pistols was designed, if not to exactly simulate, at least give a very strong nod to Starlord.

The Idea of swapping ammos as a viable in-combat action is extremely appealing. Heck, if there was an 'air' swap ammo that gave several of it's attacks the chance to 'bounce', I'd absolutely use it, especially if it bounced outside of the aggro cap.

Dual pistols IS a low damage set. Having the option to open with cold (for -rech, -dam, -speed) swap to toxic (minor -res, -def) and then follow up with fire or air (+damage, +targets) would not only be extremely fun and thematic, but it would avoid power creep because, in toto, the damage still wouldn't exceed that of a set like water, and would be a fun way to probe for enemy weknesses.


As it stands right now, There's very little profit in switching out of fire other than a tiny hint of mitigation in ice and turning swap ammo off if you don't mind uncontrolled knockback. Especially when you consider that most pistols powers can easily slot -res already.

 

I highly doubt Dual Pistols was made with Star-Lord in mind.  Pistols was released in 2010.  GotG film was released in 2014.  The comic version was hardly known by anyone, including Marvel Comic fans.

[Dragon Crush]

I disagree with giving DP combos, although them adding a second, similar set with combos might be OK for people who want them if it wouldn't be too large a burden on the devs. I'd be in favor of tweaking ammo effects to be a bit better, -res for all versions of piercing rounds, and a follow-up type buff to executioner's shot, with perhaps only 8 second duration or weaker/un-enhanceable +damage/+to-hit if needed. Maybe adjust HoB a bit as well, adding more defense for first 5 seconds starting as soon as you click and current level off defense for 5 seconds afterward as well as making the first tick do more damage and lowering remaining ticks to front-load the DoT a bit.

[Frostweaver]

2 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

I highly doubt Dual Pistols was made with Star-Lord in mind.  Pistols was released in 2010.  GotG film was released in 2014.  The comic version was hardly known by anyone, including Marvel Comic fans.

There's this new thing where you go to a comic book shop, put money on the counter, and are expected to puzzle out those word-things in the balloons over the art's heads. It's been popular for a while.

Star lord was already a popular character in 2010. I know I was reading GoTG then. Yes, it has nods to others as well, but you can easily tell the three fundamental influences. GOTG (Comic book), Equilibrium, and Wanted, with a hefty dose of robocop, some spaghetti western '3 amigos', and various random animes (even gundam/robotech swarm rockets are nodded at). And check out the old boards. Starlord was mentioned VERY frequently as a pistol-toting superhero, and was undoubtedly one of the biggest reasons for the 'ammo swap' ability. I, personally, am VERY glad for the influence, I would simply prefer that it be a bit more pronounced with a bit LESS 'Equilibrium'.

Unless you can think of another strong influence for swapping elemental ammunition?

I love my "Robo the Kid" dp/temp toon, he's a complete badass who can s/l farm almost as fast as a brute and is always asked to be on teams when i log him in... but those big robot fists and gigantic hand cannons look kinda stupid doing ridiculous 'gun fu' moves. If there were alternative non-equilibrium moves, I would absolutely take them.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Frostweaver

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, BrandX said:

I highly doubt Dual Pistols was made with Star-Lord in mind.  Pistols was released in 2010.  GotG film was released in 2014.  The comic version was hardly known by anyone, including Marvel Comic fans.

Speak for yourself.  Starlord (and Marvel) were around long before the MCU.

[Frostweaver]

4 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Speak for yourself.  Starlord (and Marvel) were around long before the MCU.

I thought that The GOTG Arcs with Binary blew 'captain Marvel' out of the water... and Iron Man in GOTG was a lot cooler than he was with the Avengers.

And Starlord's Dad was WAY cooler than EGO.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Frostweaver

[Dragon Crush]

30 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

Unless you can think of another strong influence for swapping elemental ammunition?

Not going to get into everything that inspired DP, but to this I remember an anime Outlaw Star, one of the main character's had a specialized gun that had a wide range of effects based on what shells he loaded it with.

[BrandX]

5 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

There's this new thing where you go to a comic book shop, put money on the counter, and are expected to puzzle out those word-things in the balloons over the art's heads. It's been popular for a while.

Star lord was already a popular character in 2010. I know I was reading GoTG then. Yes, it has nods to others as well, but you can easily tell the three fundamental influences. GOTG (Comic book), Equilibrium, and Wanted, with a hefty dose of robocop, some spaghetti western '3 amigos', and various random animes (even gundam/robotech swarm rockets are nodded at). And check out the old boards. Starlord was mentioned VERY frequently as a pistol-toting superhero, and was undoubtedly one of the biggest reasons for the 'ammo swap' ability. I, personally, am VERY glad for the influence, I would simply prefer that it be a bit more pronounced with a bit LESS 'Equilibrium'.

Unless you can think of another strong influence for swapping elemental ammunition?

I love my "Robo the Kid" dp/temp toon, he's a complete badass who can s/l farm almost as fast as a brute and is always asked to be on teams when i log him in... but those big robot fists and gigantic hand cannons look kinda stupid doing ridiculous 'gun fu' moves. If there were alternative non-equilibrium moves, I would absolutely take them.

 

True.  It however, was still not well known, regardless of you knowing of them.

 

As for the switching of ammo.  Been done before in lots of media.  Changing up the damage type was also a new novel gimmick.

[Zepp]

Not a big fan of combo mechanics especially on top of  the stance mechanic. What I would like to see is base-procs not being erased by alternate ammo types and more reason to focus on specific ammo types...

[Lockpick]

On 10/28/2019 at 7:54 PM, Razor Cure said:

Or...just make Swap Ammo inherent (water and stj and tw dont need a separate power to get the benefits of what is basically the defining part of the set) and give it a Laser Sight click power.

 

 

 

 

 

This sounds reasonable to me as a starting point. 

 

Otherwise, if you buff Swap Ammo and people don't take it they don't get the benefit.  I also think DP is light from a DPS standpoint and don't like a combo idea system.

[Frostweaver]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

 

True.  It however, was still not well known, regardless of you knowing of them.

 

As for the switching of ammo.  Been done before in lots of media.  Changing up the damage type was also a new novel gimmick.

It had about 70% of the circulation of Avengers in 2010, and 50% of the circulation of X-Men, at least according to Diamond. And unlike all those crappy 'Marvel Presents" and some of the nastier DC sidelines, Diamond wasn't forcing me to keep them on the shelves. They SOLD. Perhaps that is anecdotal, but when you rely on anecdotal evidence to pay your rent and keep food on the table, It seems to be pretty strong evidence.

There's a reason comic stores are going out of business. I think it is half MCU, but the other half is the fact that Diamond is singlehandedly keeping the Big Two alive by stealing money from small business owners by forcing us to carry 'diversity' titles instead of just selling the comics that are GOOD and popular... of which there are very few left, and have been few since about '98.

That's why they made a movie. Regardless of what Diamond reports as 'title sales', someone out there knew what people actually liked.

[Dragon Crush]

Aren't powerset based inherents tied to a specific power? Would tying it to the first two power cause problems if/when you pick both?

[Frostweaver]

15 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

 

This sounds reasonable to me as a starting point. 

 

Otherwise, if you buff Swap Ammo and people don't take it they don't get the benefit.  I also think DP is light from a DPS standpoint and don't like a combo idea system.

I don't think it's particularly light, DPS wise, but it is light DPA wise, which matters to blasters and stalkers.
The thing is, it's a mitigation-heavy set... and not a crappy late mitigation like electric blast, either. It has a lot of fast aoe for cleaning out minions and luts quickly (which doesn't need 1200+ nuke numbers) but it is a little lighter on delivering ST damage quickly.

But when you consider that it has 3 forms of mitigation potential on EVERY attack (-rech, -damage, KB) which you can switch between easily, I sort of understand where it's coming from DPA-wise. My only successful blaster farmer is a DP/time, where much 'harder hitting' sets fail utterly to deliver....and I think it's because I freely swap ammo types to layer as much mitigation while I am farming as I can.

I look at swap ammo buffs as "Yes, I'd like", but I am not going to be disappointed if they say 'no'.

[Hero_of_Light]

On 10/27/2019 at 4:30 AM, Crysta Clear said:

The solution would be to first examine Dual Pistols to see if it really is underperforming compared to other ranged primaries, and if so, check to see whether the lower damage is meaningfully compensated for in another area. If, and only if, the set is found to be underperforming but not compensated for in some other way (such as control effects, or end costs, or debuffs, etc.), then the best place to insert some damage would simply be to add a small to-hit buff and damage buff to the Swap Ammo toggles, on par with other 100%-uptime variants of Build Up, such as Dual Blades' 'Blinding Feint' being only +30% damage instead of Build-Up's +80%, but it is up all the time with minimal investment.

 

But it's very, very important to check whether the set itself actually needs such a buff, to avoid power creep. My personal experiences with Dual Pistols have been that it seems just fine on a Blaster due to the higher base damage scale, even with a secondary like Martial Combat, whose Build-Up variant is RNG and unreliable. (Seriously, we can't even see the proc chance of Reach For the Limit, or even whether it's a flat rate or PPM!) But on a Sentinel, I have noticed that any set without Build Up won't perform well, because Sentinels' damage scale as a whole is more than a bit lower than it should be, if the archetype's intent is really to be a 'ranged scrapper.' Scrappers consistently outperform Sentinels in damage. I have not played a Dual Pistols Corruptor long enough to really comment on how that one feels, only to ~20th level or so, and Defender, I can only comment that my friend seemed to love applying the ammo types' debuffs, and Defenders just aren't intended to bring high damage to a team.

They cant perform the same as scrappers.

 

There stills needs to be a trade off for choosing to have that range or not.

 

Needing to be close and personal with everything needs to have its perks, otherwise why NOT be a sent?