Post by edorfeus on May 17, 2011 13:19:34 GMT -5
Intro:
I changed my build many times and now, I am finally satisfied. I've named it little bit weird maybe, but it reflects the meaning of all the things. This build is made to deal damage and have good energy management.
Level 1: Gunslinger (R2, R3)
Level 1: Blade Tempest
Level 5: Acrobatics (R2)
Level 6: Two-Gun Mojo (R2, R3, Acc.Metabolism)
Level 8: Lightning Reflexes (R2, R3)
Level 11: Bullet Beatdown (R2, Not without incident)
Level 14: Parry
Level 17: Eye of the Storm (R2, Blade Beyond the Veil, Acc.metabolism)
Level 22: Form of the Tempest
Level 27: Holdout Shot (R2, Stim Pack)
Level 32: Lock N Load (R2, Two Smoking Barrels)
Level 40: Lead Tempest (R2, R3, Acc.Metabolism)
Dexterity/Ego
Dexterity OR Dexterity/Strength
Ego OR Ego/Strength
Endurance/Dexterity
Dexterity/Recovery
Endurance/Recovery
Some words about powers:
Gunslinger: At first I decided to forgo ranking it up, but then I just tried to rank it up and check the situation. Experiments showed that extra energy generation from this power is very useful, though it generates only by some 4 or 5 points more, its more then enough, considering that energy pool far below 200. Also, any extra damage is good for the specialist, since he crits all the time.
Blade Tempest: I decided not to spend point on this power, because critical chance is high enough to spend 2 points on Crashing Crescendo. CC crit chance bonus expires after a succesfull crit, and when crit chance is 30%+ , this 2,5% bonus doesn't make any sense.
Acrobatics: PvP dudes often take teleport, but I make character capable in PvP and good enough in PvE, and in both cases increased speed is very useful. I had one unattached point, so i decided to put it in acrobatics R2, to be more manueverable.
Two-Gun Mojo: This power is very good and I always use to start the combat, after making 1-2 shots with gunslinger. It makes quite good damage and you can maneuver freely while maintaining it. I found R3 more useful than Close the Gap (further CTG), cause i calculated, that R3 gives you +20% damage comparing to R2 base damage (for example if R2 base damage is 200, and R3 base damage is 240, you can see that 20% of 200 is 40dmg). So, these 20% are applied on any distance, but CTG gives the bonus only in close range.
The advantage of R3 is the average damage total. For example you charge your enemy maintaining TGM R2+CTG (lets take R2 base dmg as 200) before you can engage in melee, and you make, let's say, 10 shots during this movement. 6 of them make 200dmg while the other 4 shots has the bonus . but it is not an instant 30%. It is 30 only when you're very close, and while you still runing close enough to have that bonus at all, you take some 10, 15 or 20 and so on, until you get clsoe enough for 30. Well, anyway, you can figure out, that most of shots has a damage of just R2, maybe + some 5%...
But with R3 you will deal your 240 dmg at any range, and it is good to fit whatever situation you can face.
Accelerated metabolism fits fine, for this is a maintaining power, and you have a chance of energy return on every tick. Due to weak energy management of the specialist, extra energy is more than useful.
Lightning Reflexes: That probably doesn't need much explanation. Passive powers are must have R3 almost in any case, cause they give significant advantages. This one gives you Dodge bonus.
Bullet Beatdown: At the beginnig i though that Not Without Incident was useless to take, since Specialist has other AOE powers, but it turned out, that NWI is way better than R3. First of all it deals extra damage not only to targets around the primary BB target, as you could think reading the description, but it deals damage to targets around the target including the target. Since this character is all about criticals, you will get amazing extra damage, furthermore harming other nearby foes. Damage from NWI is about 300, and the bonus you get from R3 is about the same 20% or maybe little bit more, as in case of Two Gun Mojo. Anyway, since NWI gives you more ~300 extra damage, R3 doesn't matter at all.
Parry: As for me, it turned out, that ranking up block R2 dont do much difference, but spending points for R3 no rational, cause I prefer to keep character more offensive, besides, this archetype by itself is better at attacking and doing damage, than defense, although its role is guardian, it is not a protector, so you better think about taking out your opponents fast, than try to defend yourself for a long time, cause you won't last for too long in any way. Besides, let's look the truth in the eyes, in PvP block won't save you from Behemoth, that has Crippling Challenge, which disables your ability to block for some seconds, but these seconds are more than enough to knock you down than and finish off. So, blocking is kinda useless here. When it comes to PvE, you better deal with the crowd fast, and I have to say, it's no hard task for that build. So, ranking up block has no rational use.
Eye of the Storm: So, this is one of the specialists most useful powers. It makes quite good damage with Form of the Tempest full stacked, and also absorbs ~4000 damage. With this power maintaining all the time you can even tank for some time, and if you have a healer by your side, you can do it for a very long time, dealing a good damage along the way. R2 for better damage and damage absorption, and Blade beyond the veil to deal even more damage to those, who try to attack you at close range.
Accelerated metabolism was taken for the same reasons as for Two Gun Mojo.
Form of the Tempest: This power is simply the specialists lifesupporting suit, for it supports you with energy, and it does quite well. You gain ~35 energy on critical hits. This form also gives great melee damage bonus, a 16% for a stack. 8 stacks max.
I've been watching this power's effects for some time and finally I can conclude, that there's no much difference in focus stacking speed between R1 and R2. Waste of points. Works just fine with R1.
Holdout Shot: This power is the only thing that can keep your HP in a good gondition, so Stim Pack is a MUST HAVE advantage. R2 for more damage. And I have to say, the damage on crit when you have low energy is quite impressive. You can use it when you feel that you need some healing and I suggest to use it everytime you have low energy, for it has a significant advantage while your energy is low, even if your HP is full or almost full, because it doesnt take much time and deals good damage if it crits.
Lock & Load: It's a very good buff, with R2 it provides 50% damage to all of your ranged attacks, critical chance bonus and also you can break out of hold using it. Two smoking barrels are must have advantage, cause believeme, you dont wanna wait a whole minute till it recharges, and with TSB you will have -2 seconds of cooldown on each melee strike. Using the Eye of the storm, your cooldown will expire VERY fast.
Lead Tempest: First I took Tread softly, for it gives 7.5% dodge bonus but then I realised, that it doesn't make me more survivable than without it, so I've picked R3 for increased damage, because this archetype deals critical hits very often, and since we get our damage from any power multiplied by some value on critical hit, any base damage turns out into even more damage. It's more comfortable and easy to take out the crowd faster, so they won't have time to hurt you seriously, than slowly deal less damage and still take the same from opponents.
Accelerated metabolism for this power is almost must have thing, imho. When there are crowd around you, chance to get extra energy is very high, and I saw how my energy increased +12 for 3 times almost simultaniously.
Some words about talents:
I prefer to max out superstats, that's why i took many talents with DEX. Although you have 2 superstats, DEX is more significant, for it makes your critical hit chance, and this archetype is all about critical hits. Ego is the second important, because your critical damage bonus depends on it. But i took talents with endurance and recovery to provide a better energy gain, and also to have more max.energy. You'll find high max.energy useful enough crushing your opponents with Bullet Beatdown full combo. If you're lucky, you will get enough energy from the Form of the Tempest, performing BB, to make another BB combo at once, without building up your energy with Gunslinger. But when your energy is low, that's where recovery comes useful. First of all it provides a higher equlibrium, which meand you'll have a higher starting energy, and also you' gain more energy from energy builder. Since energy management of this achetype is quite poor, I found boosting REC useful.
I changed my build many times and now, I am finally satisfied. I've named it little bit weird maybe, but it reflects the meaning of all the things. This build is made to deal damage and have good energy management.
Level 1: Gunslinger (R2, R3)
Level 1: Blade Tempest
Level 5: Acrobatics (R2)
Level 6: Two-Gun Mojo (R2, R3, Acc.Metabolism)
Level 8: Lightning Reflexes (R2, R3)
Level 11: Bullet Beatdown (R2, Not without incident)
Level 14: Parry
Level 17: Eye of the Storm (R2, Blade Beyond the Veil, Acc.metabolism)
Level 22: Form of the Tempest
Level 27: Holdout Shot (R2, Stim Pack)
Level 32: Lock N Load (R2, Two Smoking Barrels)
Level 40: Lead Tempest (R2, R3, Acc.Metabolism)
Dexterity/Ego
Dexterity OR Dexterity/Strength
Ego OR Ego/Strength
Endurance/Dexterity
Dexterity/Recovery
Endurance/Recovery
Some words about powers:
Gunslinger: At first I decided to forgo ranking it up, but then I just tried to rank it up and check the situation. Experiments showed that extra energy generation from this power is very useful, though it generates only by some 4 or 5 points more, its more then enough, considering that energy pool far below 200. Also, any extra damage is good for the specialist, since he crits all the time.
Blade Tempest: I decided not to spend point on this power, because critical chance is high enough to spend 2 points on Crashing Crescendo. CC crit chance bonus expires after a succesfull crit, and when crit chance is 30%+ , this 2,5% bonus doesn't make any sense.
Acrobatics: PvP dudes often take teleport, but I make character capable in PvP and good enough in PvE, and in both cases increased speed is very useful. I had one unattached point, so i decided to put it in acrobatics R2, to be more manueverable.
Two-Gun Mojo: This power is very good and I always use to start the combat, after making 1-2 shots with gunslinger. It makes quite good damage and you can maneuver freely while maintaining it. I found R3 more useful than Close the Gap (further CTG), cause i calculated, that R3 gives you +20% damage comparing to R2 base damage (for example if R2 base damage is 200, and R3 base damage is 240, you can see that 20% of 200 is 40dmg). So, these 20% are applied on any distance, but CTG gives the bonus only in close range.
The advantage of R3 is the average damage total. For example you charge your enemy maintaining TGM R2+CTG (lets take R2 base dmg as 200) before you can engage in melee, and you make, let's say, 10 shots during this movement. 6 of them make 200dmg while the other 4 shots has the bonus . but it is not an instant 30%. It is 30 only when you're very close, and while you still runing close enough to have that bonus at all, you take some 10, 15 or 20 and so on, until you get clsoe enough for 30. Well, anyway, you can figure out, that most of shots has a damage of just R2, maybe + some 5%...
But with R3 you will deal your 240 dmg at any range, and it is good to fit whatever situation you can face.
Accelerated metabolism fits fine, for this is a maintaining power, and you have a chance of energy return on every tick. Due to weak energy management of the specialist, extra energy is more than useful.
Lightning Reflexes: That probably doesn't need much explanation. Passive powers are must have R3 almost in any case, cause they give significant advantages. This one gives you Dodge bonus.
Bullet Beatdown: At the beginnig i though that Not Without Incident was useless to take, since Specialist has other AOE powers, but it turned out, that NWI is way better than R3. First of all it deals extra damage not only to targets around the primary BB target, as you could think reading the description, but it deals damage to targets around the target including the target. Since this character is all about criticals, you will get amazing extra damage, furthermore harming other nearby foes. Damage from NWI is about 300, and the bonus you get from R3 is about the same 20% or maybe little bit more, as in case of Two Gun Mojo. Anyway, since NWI gives you more ~300 extra damage, R3 doesn't matter at all.
Parry: As for me, it turned out, that ranking up block R2 dont do much difference, but spending points for R3 no rational, cause I prefer to keep character more offensive, besides, this archetype by itself is better at attacking and doing damage, than defense, although its role is guardian, it is not a protector, so you better think about taking out your opponents fast, than try to defend yourself for a long time, cause you won't last for too long in any way. Besides, let's look the truth in the eyes, in PvP block won't save you from Behemoth, that has Crippling Challenge, which disables your ability to block for some seconds, but these seconds are more than enough to knock you down than and finish off. So, blocking is kinda useless here. When it comes to PvE, you better deal with the crowd fast, and I have to say, it's no hard task for that build. So, ranking up block has no rational use.
Eye of the Storm: So, this is one of the specialists most useful powers. It makes quite good damage with Form of the Tempest full stacked, and also absorbs ~4000 damage. With this power maintaining all the time you can even tank for some time, and if you have a healer by your side, you can do it for a very long time, dealing a good damage along the way. R2 for better damage and damage absorption, and Blade beyond the veil to deal even more damage to those, who try to attack you at close range.
Accelerated metabolism was taken for the same reasons as for Two Gun Mojo.
Form of the Tempest: This power is simply the specialists lifesupporting suit, for it supports you with energy, and it does quite well. You gain ~35 energy on critical hits. This form also gives great melee damage bonus, a 16% for a stack. 8 stacks max.
I've been watching this power's effects for some time and finally I can conclude, that there's no much difference in focus stacking speed between R1 and R2. Waste of points. Works just fine with R1.
Holdout Shot: This power is the only thing that can keep your HP in a good gondition, so Stim Pack is a MUST HAVE advantage. R2 for more damage. And I have to say, the damage on crit when you have low energy is quite impressive. You can use it when you feel that you need some healing and I suggest to use it everytime you have low energy, for it has a significant advantage while your energy is low, even if your HP is full or almost full, because it doesnt take much time and deals good damage if it crits.
Lock & Load: It's a very good buff, with R2 it provides 50% damage to all of your ranged attacks, critical chance bonus and also you can break out of hold using it. Two smoking barrels are must have advantage, cause believeme, you dont wanna wait a whole minute till it recharges, and with TSB you will have -2 seconds of cooldown on each melee strike. Using the Eye of the storm, your cooldown will expire VERY fast.
Lead Tempest: First I took Tread softly, for it gives 7.5% dodge bonus but then I realised, that it doesn't make me more survivable than without it, so I've picked R3 for increased damage, because this archetype deals critical hits very often, and since we get our damage from any power multiplied by some value on critical hit, any base damage turns out into even more damage. It's more comfortable and easy to take out the crowd faster, so they won't have time to hurt you seriously, than slowly deal less damage and still take the same from opponents.
Accelerated metabolism for this power is almost must have thing, imho. When there are crowd around you, chance to get extra energy is very high, and I saw how my energy increased +12 for 3 times almost simultaniously.
Some words about talents:
I prefer to max out superstats, that's why i took many talents with DEX. Although you have 2 superstats, DEX is more significant, for it makes your critical hit chance, and this archetype is all about critical hits. Ego is the second important, because your critical damage bonus depends on it. But i took talents with endurance and recovery to provide a better energy gain, and also to have more max.energy. You'll find high max.energy useful enough crushing your opponents with Bullet Beatdown full combo. If you're lucky, you will get enough energy from the Form of the Tempest, performing BB, to make another BB combo at once, without building up your energy with Gunslinger. But when your energy is low, that's where recovery comes useful. First of all it provides a higher equlibrium, which meand you'll have a higher starting energy, and also you' gain more energy from energy builder. Since energy management of this achetype is quite poor, I found boosting REC useful.