This is my feedback from “next discussion” that didn’t make it into the test patch. I think it deserves another look.
Inquisitor is the og ranged mastery. However during our top20 testing me and other builders found out that the best ranged builds don’t usually contain Inquisitor apart from the famous Evoker build. There are few reasons for that, but here I wanna propose some simple changes that can make ranged Chaos Inquisitor viable at the top end.
Class combos that can be Chaos ranged Inquisitors lack %damage and decent flat sources/conversions
I am not taking about Deceivers here because they lack strong AA (ranged Rah’Zin is pretty meh). But Purifiers and Paladins don’t have any reliable way to get enough flat damage. Oathkeepers have Voidsteel gauntlets that enable strong builds like this or this . So with a Shieldbreaker you can at least utilize the power of additional flat physical damage from rebuke plus Smite with added steroids (and Smite is in general pretty stellar as ranged wps, especially for Chaos). With Chaos Inquisitors there is no way to convert all that juicy pierce flat from Conviction and Ranged Expertise and there are no chaos mods for its wps.
Solution: add pierce to chaos conversion mod to Blood Sigil of Ch’thon medal and add some WPS mods to chaos pistols
So if Blood Sigil of Ch’thon gets a 100% Pierce converted to Chaos to Ranged Expertise that means Chaos Inquisitor gets a big flat damage boost, simple as that.
There are pistols that could definitely use a Chaos mod to one of the Inquisitor’s wps. Like Exterminus and Deviltongue could definitely have mods to either one of Inquisitor’s wps. Now what about “translations” Zantai might ask? Well for Chilling Rounds you can just copy paste mod from Havoc, for Bursting Round/Storm Spread you can copy paste mods from Dagallons (and adjust values accordingly if needed).
goofballing aside:
rah’zin conversion has actually bothered me for a while
you can’t get full pierce conversion without dw 2x pierce conversion melee anyway
you don’t actually get full cold conversion either
and you basically block off fire and vitality slots too
The main reason Inquisitor is lacking strong ranged DW builds is the supposed strongest WPS of the class - Storm Spread - is just garbage for DW. It splits into 4 + 4 bullets that net total of ok single target dmg and serves as a decent procer, but both Chilling Rounds and Bursting Round net you more dmg in 95% cases because they can hit multiple targets with full dmg. Storm Spread is basically a Brimstone b*tch for DW.
Also DW lacks phys conversion, and ranged as a whole. There is a load of ranged fire support in the game but NO way to convert phys for 2H or DW into fire for any of AA in the game. That’s why the best fire ranged build is Stronghold. As for chaos specifically, just dgiving access to pierce conversion will go a very long way.
Upcoming Berserker will have chaos dmg exclusive but i still think Conviction deserves to have it too, and it’s long overdue. Chaos dmg is very under-represented and therefore lack diversity.
Which is great, but chaos ranged Inquisitors are one conversion mod away from being viable nowadays. And then if you wanna spice it up and make Deviltongue viable there are easy chaos wps mods that can be added to it.
If it comes with 2H melee chaos MI’s and works with 2H melee chaos savagery, my life might just be complete. Especially if the mastery has hp regen synergy.
on appearance, “judging by steam/discord interactions”, it seems like it’s one if not the most popular fire pistols among beginners/“starter” purifiers - i see it everywhere for those folks
Maybe because of leech proc? Health regain is in short supply early on. Other than that just a simple Dagallon offers much more dmg. And it’s a craft, not a random drop.
if i had to venture a guess it would be perhaps because of that too
also its level, not only does it have a level 50 version they might have gotten “used to”; but also end is 84, so they likely obtain it quicker over dags, and then probably just stick with it
(being a base game item i also have conspiracy theory it drops more frequent than other legends)
combined with base stats just “suggesting” it’s a raw fire weapon and +1demo screaming “this is the good one for your firestrike pew pew”
and ofc as you mention has that leech proc, which on perception is rather big for some beginners for sure
tho sometimes i have wondered if maybe there is a guide (an old?) floating around somewhere they are “all” are looking at, where the GT was using deviltongues
Deviltongues can be both chaos and fire pistols. Like they can have global Pierce to Chaos convesion that will affect Inquisitors only or they can have Chaos mod for one of the Inquisitor’s wps while a medal has a conversion mod for like Ranged Expertise.
But honestly making Deviltongues into viable endgame option with a cool mod would be the icing on the cake. Just having pierce to chaos conversion mod on the medal would already open up so many chaos combinations for Inquisitor and there is no shortage of Chaos pistols to choose from currently.
