What is Your Experience with Dual Pistols?

[Force Redux]

It's a non issue. I'm mostly on incendiary. Occasionally I swap to cold ammo for the range boost. By itself cryo mostly negates the sentinel range penalty. With +range from IOs/Alpha, you can get some great distance. Useful on certain fights, like Battle Maiden on TinPex. 

 

And was Frozen Burn said, the swap mechanic is as easy as clicking a button. No animation.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Force Redux

[Two5boy]

1 hour ago, Frozen Burn said:

 

I  have  DP/Nin and it's a really great and fun combo!  The weapon swap is fast and barely noticeable.  Go for it and have a Blast!  (pun intended.)  😄  

Thanks I think I will try it 🙂

[Digirium]

Playing a DP/Ninja too at the moment and loving it!

 

The highlights for me are:

• good defense (I call it good when typed/positional is 25% or better)
• critical shot damage indicators popping up frequently
• ToHit bonus from Shinobi, Kuj-In Toh (nearly 50 hp/sec)
• knocking stuff down with Golden Dragonfly.

I had this character leveled up to 50 two years ago as part of "must play all blasters" but never got around to playing it until now.

 

And now that I am playing it I am facepalming at the thought I had not played it right away.

 

If you know the movies Grammaton Cleric (Equilibrium) + Wanted.

Edited January 9 by Digirium

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Just tagging in that Montana Jane (DP/Energy) is a whole bunch of fun to play, with Boost Range giving some extra tactical options (sniping Nemesis snipers has been fun). Plus the ability to quickly smackdown / KB golf anyone who gets too close is useful. I've gone with an all-out-assault / glass cannon build, but IOs have helped build up a semi-respectable DEF score.

[StarseedWarrior]

I think they where meant to work more fluidly with certain other sets it depends what you like with it, it matches martial to me perfectly, dual pistols are generally accepted as powerful I am not sure why the op thinks they are under performing, the ammo types is situational, maybe poison is more for pvp just a thought.

[Digirium]

There is one elephant in the room concerning dual pistols when going in to the costume editor the editor reverts to the default pistol and colors. I guess it happens to everyone it has been a bug that has existed it seems like forever. Nobody seems to really talk about it the bug is fairly annoying but does not put me off playing dual pistols at all.

 

Is there anyone not affected by this bug?

[Force Redux]

Only every once in a while. Annoying, but livable.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

On 1/11/2024 at 11:27 AM, Digirium said:

Is there anyone not affected by this bug?

I've noticed that happening with AR quite a lot, but not so much with DP. I use the match pistols with lasers quite a lot so that'd be quite noticeable.

[High_Beam]

On 1/10/2024 at 2:49 AM, StarseedWarrior said:

dual pistols are generally accepted as powerful I am not sure why the op thinks they are under performing, the ammo types is situational, maybe poison is more for pvp just a thought.

I have many DP toons and love them and have great fun with them, but they are not considered powerful, they are considered underpowered, even when mixing in Swap Ammo.  They use Smashing and Lethal to start with; most resisted, most defended.  Now that doesn't mean they are garbage, they are not garbage but lets not write a check that cannot be cashed.  Mitigation and damage from your secondary helps a lot, especially if you are willing to step into melee range.  I am sure there is a cat out there with Pylon numbers or whatever, but I am only responding based on play feel.

 

Primary alone, my Sonic, Water, Energy, Dark, AR and Ice Blasters all kill faster than my DP.  Only my Archery, Seismic, Storm and Psionic are slower (though Seismic is close to being faster).  Fire and Beam are on my Sentinels and Rad is on a Corruptor and Electric is on a Defender.

 

Again, love my DPs, have three Blasters alone and all are super fun to play (Di Di Guns DP/MC, Runeslinger DP/RAD and Two Gun Trixie DP/NT)

[StarseedWarrior]

2 hours ago, High_Beam said:

I have many DP toons and love them and have great fun with them, but they are not considered powerful, they are considered underpowered, even when mixing in Swap Ammo.  They use Smashing and Lethal to start with; most resisted, most defended.  Now that doesn't mean they are garbage, they are not garbage but lets not write a check that cannot be cashed.  Mitigation and damage from your secondary helps a lot, especially if you are willing to step into melee range.  I am sure there is a cat out there with Pylon numbers or whatever, but I am only responding based on play feel.

 

Primary alone, my Sonic, Water, Energy, Dark, AR and Ice Blasters all kill faster than my DP.  Only my Archery, Seismic, Storm and Psionic are slower (though Seismic is close to being faster).  Fire and Beam are on my Sentinels and Rad is on a Corruptor and Electric is on a Defender.

 

Again, love my DPs, have three Blasters alone and all are super fun to play (Di Di Guns DP/MC, Runeslinger DP/RAD and Two Gun Trixie DP/NT)

I have seen allot of claims that they are powerful, I made a blaster and thought it was to weak ma does help make it for it sure but it one or two attacks require you to use melee right up on them and you cannot land it  half the time. I hear dp works out better for sentinals since its more of a close range set ive also heard the debuffs for defenders is really good.

Edited January 17 by StarseedWarrior

[High_Beam]

1 hour ago, StarseedWarrior said:

I have seen allot of claims that they are powerful, I made a blaster and thought it was to weak ma does help make it for it sure but it one or two attacks require you to use melee right up on them and you cannot land it  half the time. I hear dp works out better for sentinals since its more of a close range set ive also heard the debuffs for defenders is really good.

Its yes and no.  Sentinels obviously have better survivability on the surface, but a properly build Blapping Blaster can exceed that.  My DP/MC is a heavy Blapper and I rarely end up face down (unless I do something stupid), same for the Ninja Training.  You get a defense bump for firing your Tier 9 Hail of Awesome so I have even more survivability for a bit.  that allows me to sweep the legs knocking them down and in many cases finishing off stragglers that survived the deathblossom, then high kick the standing boss if needed then flip out and repeat the cycle (rarely have to do so though).  Glorious.  Also don't forget the triple bump attack you can use Burst of Speed to get in there in the first place (make the macro baby) and Proc!

 

Target biggest baddie in the mob --> BoS #1 --> Dragons Tail (KD) --> Hail --> BoS #2 --> BoS #3 --> Eagle's Claw --> Flip out of Mob -->Empty Clips --> Bullet Rain --> Go to Hot Curls and get highlights . . . awesome!

 

Similarly with Ninja Training, Lotus Drops then Golden Dragonfly then out.  Dragonfly is effing awesome.  You can integrate Combat Teleport to simulate the jump in but it doesn't do any damage like BoS and you can slot any damaging procs in it.  But you can get really good defense with NT between the powers and the Set IO (and that is with ZERO purples).

 

Now My DP/Rad.  Yeah I do tend to end up tasting concrete a bit from time to time, not just because I did something stupid.  My build gives her too little Def and too little Res so it equals a lot more pain received.  As a result, that one isn't in melee as much, just enough to taint the enemy with Beta decay and Rad cloud while I Rain and then punch the ground with Atom Smasher.  I am going to have to work in some additional defense via Set IO to better leverage the -ToHit that is laid on the enemies with the rad.

 

Since this is about Blasters I wont get into my other DPs except to say DP/Kin Corr is insane fast furious fun, gorgeous in a team environment, especially when I get that Fulcrum Shift hard on.  Oh baby.  The DP/Elec Sentinel is fine, survivable (resistance) and I use the secondary tools to accelerate the primary (rech, endurance etc).  The Time/DP Defender.  Yeah that one is in a parking lot . . . slow . . . debating on deleting.

Edited January 17 by High_Beam
Forgot to finish a sentence. Saw something shiny.

[StarseedWarrior]

1 hour ago, High_Beam said:

Its yes and no.  Sentinels obviously have better survivability on the surface, but a properly build Blapping Blaster can exceed that.  My DP/MC is a heavy Blapper and I rarely end up face down (unless I do something stupid), same for the Ninja Training.  You get a defense bump for firing your Tier 9 Hail of Awesome so I have even more survivability for a bit.  that allows me to sweep the legs knocking them down and in many cases finishing off stragglers that survived the deathblossom, then high kick the standing boss if needed then flip out and repeat the cycle (rarely have to do so though).  Glorious.  Also don't forget the triple bump attack you can use Burst of Speed to get in there in the first place (make the macro baby) and Proc!

 

Target biggest baddie in the mob --> BoS #1 --> Dragons Tail (KD) --> Hail --> BoS #2 --> BoS #3 --> Eagle's Claw --> Flip out of Mob -->Empty Clips --> Bullet Rain --> Go to Hot Curls and get highlights . . . awesome!

 

Similarly with Ninja Training, Lotus Drops then Golden Dragonfly then out.  Dragonfly is effing awesome.  You can integrate Combat Teleport to simulate the jump in but it doesn't do any damage like BoS and you can slot any damaging procs in it.  But you can get really good defense with NT between the powers and the Set IO (and that is with ZERO purples).

 

Now My DP/Rad.  Yeah I do tend to end up tasting concrete a bit from time to time, not just because I did something stupid.  My build gives her too little Def and too little Res so it equals a lot more pain received.  As a result, that one isn't in melee as much, just enough to taint the enemy with Beta decay and Rad cloud while I Rain and then punch the ground with Atom Smasher.  I am going to have to work in some additional defense via Set IO to better leverage the -ToHit that is laid on the enemies with the rad.

 

Since this is about Blasters I wont get into my other DPs except to say DP/Kin Corr is insane fast furious fun, gorgeous in a team environment, especially when I get that Fulcrum Shift hard on.  Oh baby.  The DP/Elec Sentinel is fine, survivable (resistance) and I use the secondary tools to accelerate the primary (rech, endurance etc).  The Time/DP Defender.  Yeah that one is in a parking lot . . . slow . . . debating on deleting.

Ninja training is the exception though that is one less annoying blapper to me I do not agree with most on sentinal so you wont be changing this mind here friend, I think its more of a community issue then am at issue, it seems blasters if anything are over tuned since its mostly an endgame thing which happens often in mmos and im more about the journey i do not want to wait 50 plus to have a smooth experience. I tried dp but its kind of meh to me seems better utilized on other ats.

Edited January 17 by StarseedWarrior

[High_Beam]

All good mate, wasn't trying to convert anyone, just answering your question of "my experience with DP", in a Blasters forum.  You do you and fight hard.🔫

[Ignatz the Insane]

11 hours ago, High_Beam said:

Sentinels obviously have better survivability on the surface, but a properly build Blapping Blaster can exceed that. 

 

High end Blasters are sturdy enough to smash spawns with impunity much of the time, but they have never exceeded Sentinel survivability on the surface, below the surface, or above the surface.  I understand you were more conveying that Blasters in today's game can be built to be incredibly durable.  I agree.  So can any other AT.  

[Shocktacular]

I don't usually play blasters; I tend to find them too squishy. However, I was determined to get one of each archetype to 50 without power-leveling. I tried a number of different blasters, but the one that finally worked for me was Dual Pistols / Martial Combat.

 

Martial is a really nice secondary, with a slow PBAoE toggle to keep bad guys from running up and ganking you, a self-teleport power to get into and out of melee range quickly, and a self-heal/break-free power for when you get mezzed (plus the T1, Ki Push, is really good for getting bad guys out of your face. I call it "super yeet" for giggles).  It worked really well with Dual Pistols thematically.

 

As for Dual Pistols, I like the Swap Ammo power a lot because it allows you to get around certain foes' resistances and use different effects. It also means that you can do some rather... creative slotting, since certain powers will take some enhancements that only apply to effects when using a certain kind of ammo (like Suppressive Fire taking hold sets when it only holds with ice ammo. Also, pretty much any power can take slow sets because of the slow applied from ice ammo, and many can take knockback sets even though that effect only applies when you don't have a specific ammo type equipped). The damage from DP is pretty good and I found the animations to be energetic and fun (although I know that some people find them absurd and ridiculous. I kind-of leaned into a more frenetic type of character for my DP/Martial).  It's got a good amount of AoE for mobs and decent single-target damage for finishing off remaining bosses or EB/AV fights.  I would like to note that, although Piercing Rounds is technically a cone, it's a very narrow cone, so I basically treated it as a single-target power that would very occasionally do damage to a nearby enemy as a bonus; I didn't plan on it hitting anyone but my main target with it, so I wasn't disappointed when it didn't, which is what happened most of the time.

Edited January 18 by Shocktacular

[Cheli]

The set lags on account of long animation time, lack of an aim power, and lack of a 'real' nuke. Swap ammo is a neat idea but most of the time as a blaster you'll just use incendiary, and even with the extra fire damage it doesn't really compare to an aim'd and built up t9 from a more traditionally-balanced set. 

 

Even so, while the long animations make the powers generally weaker, I love them and their cool factor and punchy sounds. I also like that the set's AOEs feel easier and more consistent, and it's a nice change from just running in and nuking with your cooldowns up. I also tend to enjoy grittier and more realistically-grounded character concepts from an RP perspective, and a pistols set really fits with that.

 

The most fun I've had with the set is taking a strong secondary and going blapper style, using the pistol AOEs and the secondary melee attacks (and executioner's shot, since it hits hard and fast enough to fit well into a single-target attack chain). DP/martial is fun.