first of all, really looking forward to the Inquistor even though i find the Flames of Ignafarr and Storm Box of Elgolath very uninspiring. but Runes and Words kick major ass.
i think for a lot of people though the big draw is support for dual pistols. one thing i’m worried about is the potential lack of a pistol/ranged centric skill that can proc WPS akin to Firestrike. without such a skill you’ll really be pigeon-holed into Demolitionist as a second mastery if you want to fully utilize Chilling Rounds. i suppose you could go Soldier too and use MA and ZT along with Chilling Rounds but that pales in comparison to the Firestrike line and even then, you’re still tied down to only two secondary masteries instead of all of them.
maybe someone saw something i didn’t in the stream preview of the skill tree (and i know its all subject to change), but it didn’t seem such a skill was in the cards because i would imagine it would be available pretty early on in the tree and would have a skill line dedicated to it. i think not having a skill like this would be a fairly big design oversight and a huge missed opportunity for build diversity using this mastery as well as more ranged weapon support which is fairly lacking in this game. because honestly, if you wanted to focus on pistols and use Chilling Rounds and you went any other secondary mastery but Demo it just wouldn’t really work.
thats good to know. could have sworn Savagery was melee only, so thats nice as well. i don’t really count Cadence since it lowers your WPS proc chance pretty significantly though, and i think overall my point still stands.
Physical damage can be converted into virtually any type of damage, ABB can be turned into even more acid (Venomblade cowl) or into vitality (Demonslayer’s hat)…
Basically you are not pigeon-holed into Demo unless you want to focus on fire damage.
not really. the AOE that the Firestrike line provides, especially with Brimstone, is going to vastly outshine those other options and damage type/conversion has nothing to do with what i’m talking about.
i will concede that if you just use pistols as your single target option and then use something else for AOE the build options are wider than i thought. if you want to be a real gunslinger and have pistols be your one stop shop though, i don’t see anything other than Demo being required as a second mastery.
adding some kind of a ranged ability that can use WPS to the Inquisitor mastery will give pistol focused builds a ton more variety because they can then use any mastery they want to supplement that play style instead of just 1 or 2.
Amarasta’s Blade Burst has a nice AoE to it. You could always use WPS and WPS-proccing skills for your single target and supplement it with AoE from other places. Savagery, for example would go well with Reckless Tempest i think. That said, I don’t mind more options but i’m not worried about Inquisitor builds lacking options.
what am i missing about ABB that makes it relevant to the discussion at hand?
i’m not saying that Inquisitor builds will be lacking options overall, i’m speaking specifically about pistol-centric builds. assuming you don’t use Firestrike but you want to focus on pistols, what can you really do? pick Savagery, Beronath’s Fury, or Troll Rage and fish for Chilling Rounds procs? i guess that works for single target but i don’t think i’d be alone in having expected more. there’s Cadence too but that would greatly hinder your Chilling Rounds proc rate so i don’t consider that a valid option.
a lot of people were clamoring for one of the new masteries to be entirely focused on ranged weapon combat. while i definitely prefer the idea of the Inquisitor, seeing how it’s supposed to also at least partially address that issue it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect it to come with a new ranged weapon focused attack.
Well, besides Inquisitor, the mastery that supports ranged builds best was/will be Demolitionist so its only natural that inq+demo combo would require the least effort to build a gunslinger.
However, as others pointed out too there are plenty of alternatives to Fire Strike as a default attack replacer and you’r biggest complaint against them seems to be the (much) weaker aoe potential compared to FS.
But this shouldn’t be too big of a problem as trash could be melted by devotion- and item procs alone.
And thats just about pure gunslingers, going caster hybrid opens up craploads of possibilities btw.
i don’t disagree with most of what you said and i probably do underestimate AOE procs from devotions. maybe i’m expecting too much with having a new ability with AOE baked in, but i still don’t think it’s too much to ask for a new weapon skill that’s maybe even ranged exclusive.
Fire Strike, Savagery, Beronath’s Fury, Troll Rage and Cadence (which is more like 2/3’s even). That’s less in the whole game than there was in a single skill tree in D2.
Every mastery could no problem have at least one, preferably two or more, of these basic attack replacers, with different damage types, AoE, etc.
My biggest problem with GD is the refusal to make attack replacers a basic part of the game, while on the other hand having tons and tons of procs that the player has no control over. Well that, or endure looking at cooldowns like an mmo.
Agree with the OP. Options are limited at best and I’ll personally be pretty disappointed if there isn’t a new default attack replacer skill, not to mention ranged weapon skills.