Thoughts on DP Piercing Rounds?

[Curveball]

So I have a DP/SR Sentinel (as well as my Fire/SR Sentinel, it's an interesting contrast) and I'd pretty much ignored the Piercing Rounds attacks without ever even trying it, because despite its great damage on paper (2nd highest in the set) it has a 2.5 second activation time and an unreliable and limited aoe (3 targets max, and it's hard to line up). But I figured I should at least try it out, so I respecced, dropped Pistols and took Piercing Rounds. And I've tried it for a while and... so far I'm not thrilled with it.

 

It seems to take the middle ground between Executioner's Shot and Hail of Bullets, but it takes on all the qualities I like least about both.

 

 

The animation time for Hail of Bullets is just as long, but it's a dot, and the animation lasts as long as the damage (and, you know, it looks really cool) so it's not a big issue to wait it out. Also, it has such a long recharge time it's not part of your regular attack chain so when you're using it, you're doing something deliberate. And its AOE is fantastic. The animation time fits with the power perfectly.

 

Executioner's Shot is a little less satisfying. The animation is great, but it's a little longer than I'd prefer it to be, just because I'd prefer a faster attack chain. But the damage is nice and it's fine.

 

Piercing Rounds... the damage is fantastic but I'm basically just sitting there watching my character flip his gun in the air for no reason. It's frustrating to use right now, though I suppose I could get used to it eventually. It claims to do the 2nd highest amount of damage in the set, though if you translate that to dps it might not be true due to the long animation time...  but I haven't bothered to put it on a spreadsheet yet.

 

Anyway. I'll give it another few days but so far no sir, I don't like it. A character's attack shouldn't be giving me attention span issues. 😄

 

[Uun]

You don't need to put it on a spreadsheet. If you use Mid's, pull up the Power Graphs window and select Damage/Anim. Piercing Rounds DPA is inferior to Executioner's Shot, Hail of Bullets, Pistols or Suppressive Fire (using Cryo or Incendiary Ammo). [Note, Mid's information on Suppressive Fire is incorrect for non-standard ammo types and it doesn't appear in the Power Graphs window.]

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Curveball said:

Anyway. I'll give it another few days but so far no sir, I don't like it. A character's attack shouldn't be giving me attention span issues. 😄

 

I thought the Dual Pistol sound effects were supposed to be the cue to prepare another attack?

[Curveball]

22 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

I thought the Dual Pistol sound effects were supposed to be the cue to prepare another attack?

 

Are they really? I honestly had no idea, though I don't see how that could work with the dots.

[Curveball]

51 minutes ago, Uun said:

You don't need to put it on a spreadsheet. If you use Mid's, pull up the Power Graphs window and select Damage/Anim. Piercing Rounds DPA is inferior to Executioner's Shot, Hail of Bullets, Pistols or Suppressive Fire (using Cryo or Incendiary Ammo). [Note, Mid's information on Suppressive Fire is incorrect for non-standard ammo types and it doesn't appear in the Power Graphs window.]

 

If I could get Mids running on Linux that would make me very happy, but it requires dotnet which requires protontricks  (for my specific setup anyway) which crashes every time I try to run it. But that's a good thing to remember for when I finally get all that worked out!

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Curveball said:

 

Are they really? I honestly had no idea, though I don't see how that could work with the dots.

 

Dual Pistols is the one set I've used (more than once) where both the dog and I find the noise (firecrackers) to be highly annoying. I recognize that most sets become audibly repetitive, but DP is the one that triggers me (sic).