this applies to almost all normal AAs like Cadence, Savagery, RF etc when they go ranged. And I actually dunno how to solve this problem.
To delete things fast and w/o passthrough u need to be either Valdun or Gargabols (or any king of Purifier build), otherwise it will be a nightmare.
2 Likes
Overall I love the concept of caster guns (and rifles), it’s not stupid, especially when your “spell” is a massive grenade in the face. Definitely refreshing when all your 20 builds are scepter + off-hand.
Here’s my feedback on the ones I used the most :
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Barrelsmiths
Great caster guns, and the reason why I think not all guns are made for AA or Primal Strike. They are strong enough for grenado+canister, however the AA side is weak. If you mix it with the bombs, you don’t even have the points to use savagery, and even then it does no damage cause caster = no weapon damage. Sure you can leech off it, but not a lot, it makes the build so clunky you actually lose dps, and you can survive another way. If you want to purely AA with it, you sacrifice the weapon slots where you could get AA replacer bonuses for some WPS and a build that plays like Dagallon or such, it’s redundant. The guns would be better off with some cast speed to make the bombing smoother but not more OP than it already is. -
Gildor’s Pulverizer
I tried a pierce grenado build with a saboteur (in 1.1.7.2) and everything was wrong. Weak damage, horrible itemization (rimetongue is garbage for everything it promises to do), and no other good skill to add as a saboteur (perhaps Fire Strike to use the attack speed but no skill points to do so). I think the gear for pierce grenado is the major issue there. -
Oathbearer
Tested on a pierce Gun&Shield purifier and paladin, so not exactly what it’s made for. Not great not terrible, both achieved similar dps which was actually good (unless you’re a crucible enthusiast, then it’s trash cause 6min+). Could use a little bump to AoE somehow. -
Adversary
INSANELY good caster rifle for fire grenado, I don’t know about Canister but it seems to be made for physical Canister, which could work well with the new Maul devotion proc. Worth exploring before jumping to conclusions.
The rest is either very good (Darkblaze, Stronghold) or looks so bad I don’t even want to try it (Venomlance).
Edit: forgot to add : buff Wrathguard please ! It’s useless for Gun&Shield because of Watcher of Erulan that is better on every aspect even on purifier, as I demonstrated sooner this year.
I used it on cold PS build. It is good for cold PS. Skill it gives is very nice for freezing trash and hero mobs in SR.
I have just spent the last 2 days testing and theorycrafting around Rutnicks Templar, this is my final build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZww0pnZ
Benchmarks:
With good spawns I’ve been able to achieve ~ 14 minute 150-170 (Yikes) I believe with optimal play a sub 10 mins is possible.
I’ve clear SR 60 with great ease, ill come back and edit once ive pushed further.
The good - Insanely fun and insanely durable, dashing around while cycling mirror and ascension cooldowns and melting single targets with great ease brings me a ton of joy.
The bad - Lack of RR in the build proper and really pitiful aoe, the only one being bonemongers empowered smite and rutnicks WPS.
2 Likes
Added and will give this a try as well as I haven’t had amazing results on the lightning side with similar damage numbers, but considerably different support classes obviously
Deathdealer’s Sidearm is an extremely poor man’s Havoc, and that’s an underwhelming archetype to begin with. Non-inquisitor WPS have no AoE on ranged, and inquisitor ones interact poorly with physical damage, since only bursting round isn’t multi-projectile. With the update to Unchained Grasp, you could try making some kind of meme Havoc/DS Paladin, but don’t expect much.
I’d actually argue smite is the best ranged wps with big damage and passthrough with guns, so physical oppressor may be the best starting place to test it since you’ll be focusing on vit conversion more anyway. I’ve been reading mixed thoughts on maul changes being enough so far, however, so I’m not getting hyped before I test myself.
@Crittrain was trying out havoc tactician, but haven’t seen his crucible times after some tweaks and I won’t have time to dig into my own testing until Friday.
1 Like
RR mod on guardians only work with celestial presence.
Happen to have a GT link handy? Planning to spend most of my weekend testing things called out here if I haven’t already spun them up
The problem with oppressor is that Necromancer has no physical support in the mastery at all. Outside of reaping strike and RR, Necro doesn’t bring enough to make it worth taking. With the boost to War Cry and nerf to Scales/Spectral Binding, Warlord is probably a better pick if you want to dual-wield Deathdealers.
lolwut… I think you got some thing mixed around here @Smitherson
Necro brings everything needed for physical damage, Flat it can convert and 2 wps with more converted flat.
You can convert 50% aether to physical via seal of might 
. Also cold/vit from bone harvest -> physical too. But the lack of Oathkeeper support (+2 smite only) makes it hard to make a viable Opp build. Would be nice if Crate add mod: 30% chance to pass through mobs to RF to this weapon.
Inquisitor gets more flat with one Havoc and Unchained Grasp. Soldier and Inquisitor both get 150%-200% more physical damage easily, so whatever flat you get from Necro won’t mean as much. The only real advantage is another WPS, and Oppressor with 2 Deathdealers is completely starved for skill points, since it gives you all of 4 points per gun.
Genuine question, what elemental to phys gear would you expect to use on an oppressor that’ll also support RF and leave you with enough skill points? Because just converting vit and half of aether will still output lower total damage without any %phys.
O i like this, Challenge accepted.
Kinda agree here. Been playing ranged tactician and I must say, before getting Havoc Burrwitch Peacekeeper is a more sexy option even prior to this patch. Damage wise it almost the same as Deathdealer and have no adcth, but in exchange it got cunning+DA+physical resist.
Made a fun build with it in previous patch, didn’t find it strong enough to post.
Also based on Luminari blue set.
3 Likes
Nice thread. Haven’t built anything ranged since AoM but I guess I’ll chime in a bit since there are reasons why I didn’t…
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First of all lemme point onto the elephant - ranged is balanced around FS. FS got two AoE mechanics.
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FS is the most supported AA replacer for ranged. Dagallon, Arcanum Sigillis, Arcaneweaver, Valdun, Darkblaze, Dreadscorcher. So while I myself want to see a physical FS rifle to use with 3pc Valdun on Commando and a lightning FS rifle for Elementalist in the game, honestly FS is loaded as is and is in the least need of help. If you further support FS you might just delete all non-FS support for ranged in the game then.
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Contrary to my earlier (AoM time) beliefs I think piercethrough isn’t THAT op in general. Valdun isn’t a piercethrough gun but it works because of all the innate Fire Strike’s AoE, same for Gargabol. On the other hand, Dreadscorcher is a piercethrough FS gun but it’s known to be lackluster, and Phasebreakers received a cold shoulder despite having a built-in passthrough. Ranged Cadence is also a good example.
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The reason why piercethrough is less impactful than is looks at a glance is most enemies don’t really line up for you. Melee tries to encircle you and ranged typically makes a wide arc. Part of the reason why melee has it easier is melee’s wps tend to have an arc wps. Ranged’s answer to that won’t be piercethrough but AoE blast radius and fragmentation, both of which FS has by default.
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Obviously RF and Savagery are at a great disadvantage compared to FS since they are single target. It might had been a different story if FS was incompatible with ranged WPS, which would had been quite interesting, but alas - can’t really inject too much steroid into ranged WPS with FS fully supporting them.
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You may argue that you can get AoE from procs and I’d agree, but then RF and Savagery need to be really good single-target wise, which isn’t true. Pistols have base damage of a dagger while they have base attack speed of a fucking mace, which makes pistols the worst weapon type in the game stat-wise. Don’t think I’d be far off if I claim that pistols as a weapon type is carried by huge sheer flat damage of FS. It’s easy to fix by reducing weapon damage of FS and compensating to 2H and melee by bumping transmuters and buffing base weapon damage of guns to reasonable levels.
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Unlike Cadence, RF and granteds that do have a pistol support (“support” in case of granteds), pistol Savagery is pretty much non-existant. Whether it’s fine or not is up to debate though. While I’ve made a ranged Savagery vindi before and it was pretty fun, admittedly if DW melee lightning doesn’t work all that well high end then why would DW ranged lightning be different.
10 Likes
What about MI’s
I know of some FS-build with MI’s and there used to be some PS build with MI’s from long time ago
FS-MI’s
Plasmo:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/dVbPqkkN
AlexGoldfish:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/m233k6j2
PS-strike:
Yea what immediately came to mind when I saw this pistol was bonemonger set. Its support to Inquisitor and Inquisitor’s general ranged support alongside aether RR should imo make Paladin the better class for this pistol. Paladin does have a problem with %aether damage though…
What if one used rutnik’s wps for retal like storm spread/jaxxon’s? 