Problem with Dual Pistols?

[WuTang]

I've built a Corruptor DP/TM and it's great fun. I can bounce into a mob unload on them and rarely take any damage. I pretty much exclusively leveled him in teams, not AEs, but actually playing because it is such fun. At 50 now with some incarnates and I've come across an issue. I posted about this in the Corruptor forum but haven't gotten any feedback, but that post didn't start out with the problem I'm having.

 

It started when I was deciding on which of two other problems I was more comfortable living with, being mez'd or running low on endurance. Fast forward, I chose being mez'd... But any ways to decide if endurance was actually going to be an issue I went to the pylons and cycled through a few rotations and sure enough my endurance was not going to hold up. However, I was so focused on my blue bar that I didn't notice the pylon's green bar hadn't budged. I could chip away a sliver of it with my nuke but it would regen it back while it was on CD. But I thought, maybe that the pylon was just too big of a critter, because every run I'd been on in a team I hadn't noticed an issue. So I started watching my numbers...

 

What I found was that on bosses and below I could melt them fairly easily, but EB's and up my numbers became virtually nonexistent. On EBs I might get a 9 damage, but on AVs and monsters it would be 1s, 2s, of 3s and sometimes nothing would register, "miss" didn't float up, nothing did.

 

All my tests were done with Incendiary Ammo on and this wasn't just a run or two, this was several runs that I observed over a few days.

 

So, has anyone else seen this or have I somehow just built my guy wrong?

Corruptor (Dual Pistols - Time Manipulation)-7.mbd

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, WuTang said:

So, has anyone else seen this or have I somehow just built my guy wrong?

 

Can you tell how often you are hitting?

Does it look like you need something to reduce the enemies defense or resistance?

Have you tried different ammo types against a target to see if a different ammo type does more damage against the target?

 

Maybe you just need other teammates to help out on EBs and Pylons.

 

I don't end-game, so I can only really make suggestions based on the game (leveling content).

[Without_Pause]

There's nothing about the build which would lead to why there are end issues or damage would be lacking. Was the build simply not really played until it was level 50, or is there something specific about this build versus the one you used when leveling? I would also look at your combat log. 

[WuTang]

13 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

There's nothing about the build which would lead to why there are end issues or damage would be lacking. Was the build simply not really played until it was level 50, or is there something specific about this build versus the one you used when leveling? I would also look at your combat log. 

Yeah the endurance issues are real. Chrono Shift's recovery throws the endurance bar off because it's only 30 seconds long and all the powers consume loads of endurance. So, while not fighting everything is great, but Ageless fixes that and if I exemp down I just eat blue candies like a fend. Also, I think maybe it's because this is a quick recharge build so all my power cycle back up quickly.

 

Yes, I don't see where the damage issue is either on paper, but there is one in real world application. That's why I was wondering if there was maybe a bug, or something happened to lethal damage, or the tougher mobs got tougher vs lethal.

 

I played this toon in teams all the way through to 50, he never once sat in an AE, I know it well. I also realized there was a problem in a 54 PI group where it was just me and a tanker, it took us forever to whittle the mobs down that we duo'd, but that was just before I was fully geared so I attributed that run to that.

[Without_Pause]

Depending on the mob and diff setting, Lethal damage can be incredibly resisted. I don't suggest soloing DE with Claws at +4x8 on anything outside of a Scrapper. Even then, a sun dial might be required for checking your time. I soloed DE on a Claws Brute even with a lower diff(+2/+3) and I knew the build was sturdy due to how long it took to kill a mob. I would assume the different ammo would counter this to a point.

 

I have a Fire/time Controller. End issues certainly exists, but that's vastly due to Hot Feet. I don't recall any on my Time/rad. It's been ages since I played my Time/dp, but I have been wanting to dust it off again. Its still low level though.  

[High_Beam]

I have the following Dual Pistols:  DP/Rad Blaster (Runeslinger), DP/MC Blaster (Di Di Guns), DP/Nin Blaster (Two Gun Trixie), DP/Kin Corr (Boom Boom Britta), DP/Energy Sentinel (Trinity Six), Time/DP Defender (Mender Oakley)

 

DP has always had a damage deficiency to a degree because of being primarily smashing and lethal.  You mentioned using Incendiary ammunition and in many cases that makes a difference.  The trick is effectively integrating your other power set.  For Blasters its the simple fact that in many cases, they play well as blappers.  MC and Ninja is especially true and once you are in there, you hit them with the big melee strikes.  MC is so Sesksi when you BoS in, drop Hail (getting a defense buff as you do it), then Dragons Tail and cap with Eagles claw on the Boss you targeted then flip out hammering whats left with Empty Clips and Bullet Rain.  Glorious.  Ninja has that glorious, big damage Golden Dragonfly!  My Rad is the weakest of the 3 Blasters.  Dont sleep on the high damage capability of suppressive fire (and stick with Ice when using suppressive because the mag of the hold compares to fire rounds.

 

Corruptors are going to depend on their self-buff/enemy debuff to increase damage the enemy takes.  I have Kin so its fairly self-explanatory, and thats before FS . . . Beautiful!  You said you are running a DP/Time Corr, I have a Time/DP Defender and yeah, the tools in time aren't as self-helpy for speeding up the arresting.   Time crawl and Slowed Response (used in that order so that slowed is amplified).  Time is about improving survivability (slow the enemy, debuff their to hit, reduce their damage).  But see that's the point really, not every AT, even damage-centric ATs should be able to saw through everything fast.

 

This isn't some "enjoy the ride" lecture, let the guy in game who gives his characters annoying, preachy names do that.  All I am saying is that not every set is supposed to mow down the enemy at 4/8 or even 1/1.  The 4/8 Controllers are snowflakes, not the norm.  Good on them, that was their goal.  That is not me, I am a 2-3/4-6 melee, 1-2/1/2 Defender, 2/4 Blaster/Corruptor/Controller/Dominator/Mastermind/Sentinel person.

 

As for endurance burn, I have never had a problem on any of them, not when I started playing them and definitely not at level 50 with Set IOs and the other bells and whistles.

 

The forum post below is the Blaster DPS rankings so you can see where DP falls there (could be dated a little but likely still mostly correct except for the buff that Suppressive Fire got), but again that purely looking at the Blast set, not how secondary sets interact with it.

 

 

 

Edited August 10 by High_Beam

[Triumphant]

On 8/8/2024 at 6:02 AM, WuTang said:

I've built a Corruptor DP/TM and it's great fun. I can bounce into a mob unload on them and rarely take any damage. I pretty much exclusively leveled him in teams, not AEs, but actually playing because it is such fun. At 50 now with some incarnates and I've come across an issue. I posted about this in the Corruptor forum but haven't gotten any feedback, but that post didn't start out with the problem I'm having.

 

It started when I was deciding on which of two other problems I was more comfortable living with, being mez'd or running low on endurance. Fast forward, I chose being mez'd... But any ways to decide if endurance was actually going to be an issue I went to the pylons and cycled through a few rotations and sure enough my endurance was not going to hold up. However, I was so focused on my blue bar that I didn't notice the pylon's green bar hadn't budged. I could chip away a sliver of it with my nuke but it would regen it back while it was on CD. But I thought, maybe that the pylon was just too big of a critter, because every run I'd been on in a team I hadn't noticed an issue. So I started watching my numbers...

 

What I found was that on bosses and below I could melt them fairly easily, but EB's and up my numbers became virtually nonexistent. On EBs I might get a 9 damage, but on AVs and monsters it would be 1s, 2s, of 3s and sometimes nothing would register, "miss" didn't float up, nothing did.

 

All my tests were done with Incendiary Ammo on and this wasn't just a run or two, this was several runs that I observed over a few days.

 

So, has anyone else seen this or have I somehow just built my guy wrong?

Corruptor (Dual Pistols - Time Manipulation)-7.mbd 44.03 kB · 8 downloads

 

I wouldn't be too discouraged.  A run several 50+ incarnates (a couple at tier 4) that can regularly run +4/8 content, but I've never been able to knock down a pylon on my own.  I've barely been able to even make the health bar go down very much on a pylon.  I've never been able to solo an arch villain on my own, either (fwiw, if anything).

 

Except for maybe... two? missions, you never have to destroy a pylon, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

If you really DO want to play at the top levels of the game, though, I'm sure there are plenty of top-tier players here that would be willing to help you with your build, tactics, power rotation, etc.  I've never cared enough to pursue that level of mastery of the game but, if that's something that you enjoy, it's totally legit to do that. 👍