piercing rounds (wished it had ability to have sniper slotted)

[TECHWON]

With the way piercing rounds (wished it had ability to have sniper slotted) works kinda would be dope but it'd prolly be a pain to mod and or fix since it prolly require performance under the hood, etc.

 

this is just a thought.

[arcane]

It’s not a snipe. It just has an incorrect icon.

[Frozen Burn]

1 hour ago, TECHWON said:

With the way piercing rounds (wished it had ability to have sniper slotted) works kinda would be dope but it'd prolly be a pain to mod and or fix since it prolly require performance under the hood, etc.

 

this is just a thought.

 

As Arcane stated, it's not a snipe.  It has only the normal range as other blasts.  You would have to completely turn it into a snipe power, which doesn't fit a "pistol" theme.  And then the set would be like every other set too (no thanks).  

 

Additionally, Sniper sets are crap - I have yet to find a single build where they are useful.  Some may have some attractive bonuses, but at the cost of not even giving the power the proper stats (+Dam, rech, acc, etc) like you would want.  Ranged sets are far better.

 

But Piercing Rounds is a cone - and you get an additional ranged AOE set for your build.  That means more opportunity for Bombardment, Frozen Blast, Posi's Blast, or Ragnarok, which are far better than any snipe set, imo. 

[TECHWON]

3 hours ago, Frozen Burn said:

 

As Arcane stated, it's not a snipe.  It has only the normal range as other blasts.  You would have to completely turn it into a snipe power, which doesn't fit a "pistol" theme.  And then the set would be like every other set too (no thanks).  

 

Additionally, Sniper sets are crap - I have yet to find a single build where they are useful.  Some may have some attractive bonuses, but at the cost of not even giving the power the proper stats (+Dam, rech, acc, etc) like you would want.  Ranged sets are far better.

 

But Piercing Rounds is a cone - and you get an additional ranged AOE set for your build.  That means more opportunity for Bombardment, Frozen Blast, Posi's Blast, or Ragnarok, which are far better than any snipe set, imo. 

 

true and i know like said just a thought

[ZorkNemesis]

On 6/15/2024 at 12:41 PM, Frozen Burn said:

Additionally, Sniper sets are crap - I have yet to find a single build where they are useful.

 

Sting of the Manticore is honestly pretty good.  2.5% Ranged defense at 3 and 7.5% recharge at 5.  Generally gives me the best of both worlds for what I build for on a Blaster, but I typically put Blaster's Wrath in my Snipes instead to max out their damage potential.

[tidge]

I agree with @Frozen Burn about the Snipe sets.

 

I used to like Sting of the Manticore, but I realized I liked it because Scrappers/Stalkers don't get their snipe until the Epic/Patron pools open up. Blasters typically get their snipes so much earlier than that, and the set bonuses for SotM cut out at level 27 IIRC.

 

For Blasters, I am almost always slotting Apocalypse or Winter's Bite in the Snipe. I have one character that had so much intrinsic +ToHit that I 6-slotted Experience Marskman, and leveraged the Fast Snipe. While leveling up, I've used recycled attuned Gladiator's Javelin or Experienced Marksman while I waited for Apocalypse to be slotted.

[Frozen Burn]

1 hour ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

Sting of the Manticore is honestly pretty good.  2.5% Ranged defense at 3 and 7.5% recharge at 5.  Generally gives me the best of both worlds for what I build for on a Blaster, but I typically put Blaster's Wrath in my Snipes instead to max out their damage potential.

 

You cut off the rest of my statement when quoting me: 

 

"Some may have some attractive bonuses, but at the cost of not even giving the power the proper stats (+Dam, rech, acc, etc) like you would want.  Ranged sets are far better." 

 

So, yes, the set bonuses for Sting of Manticore are good however, the % Damage buff it provides to the power is only 91% - not even to the ED cap range.  (It's like Mako's Bite - good bonuses, but crap for enhancing your power.)  In fact, there are attractive bonuses in all the Sniper sets, but because they are all weak in actually enhancing the power, I have no use for them in my builds.  Some maybe okay with weaker powers, but I hate it.  

 

And sure, the best use is to slot 3 SotM to get the ranged Def bonus, but then franken-slot other things to get the power to actually deal full damage.  But I usually can get that ranged defense elsewhere and with better and more efficient slotting for my snipe using Ranged sets or Apocalypse.  

 

Some may also argue that the proc in the set makes up the difference for the lower enhanced Damage, but not always.  It's a proc and it's not guaranteed to fire.  Additionally, I think procs should be bonus damage, not there to make the power deal "normal" damage.  But again, to each their own.

 

I really wanna like the Snipe sets - but because they of weak enh %, I just don't see a use or need for them when I can do better with other things.  

[Onlyasandwich]

I feel like SoM would be too powerful as a set if the ed were better. Few sets offer such bonuses for low IO investment.

 

As it stands, it poses an interesting build optimization.

 

I will often 3 slot it, do a +5 purple dam/end, and round out with procs. This requires good global acc support. Can sub in an HO or even plussed out t strike in place of the purple.

 

Other times like @tidgementioned I'll go for winter' bite, typically a three slot for the slow resistance, round out with procs. 

 

Edited June 18 by Onlyasandwich

[tidge]

Heh, I just checked: Sting of the Manticore has a level range of 35-50, so there are no set bonuses below level 32! Yeesh!

 

I'll admit this about my (current) slotting preferences for Blaster Snipes: I lost a lot of interest in adding %procs to them after the HC change to them, and even before that I was mostly adding %damage to Stalker/Scrapper versions. I find the %damage to be generally "OK" if used on the "slow" snipes, but after some testing (for my own mind, I didn't collect the data) I found that a faster snipe w/ more global +ToHit was on average yielding more (single-target) damage. I want to say that the experiment was comparing 5x Sting of the Manticore + 1x %damage, on a level 50 build where that 6th slot was moved eslewhere to add a Kismet +ToHit piece, or buff ToHit (and/or Endurance reduction) in a +ToHit toggle.

 

Once I convinced myself that more +ToHit was on average better for Blaster Snipes (if the Snipe is part of a regular attack chain, so mostly the "fast" version is used), I changed my attitude around Snipe slotting for Blasters. This is also one of the reasons why I occasionally use the Experience Marksman set.