Dual Pistols QQ

I've gotta admit I absolutely hated the obligatory Clark/Lana moment at the end of each episode...but I don't blame the actress for that. She's a cute looking gal.

That what the first definition on urban dictionary says.

Well, ya learn something useless every day!

Ask the all-pistols ITF teams in beta. Rommie and the Romans didn't stand a chance against that assault.

Except that this doesn't really prove anything - full teams of about any powerset/at combo's do pretty good in the game.

Note I am not saying anything either way about DP - but pointing out that a full team of X can steamroll any content doesn't say anything about the quality of X.

Pistols don't go "pew". They go "bang".

Obviously.

Ah look, a time traveller from closed beta!

Awesome! just because it's not the worst I guess it means it's alright! yeehaw!

Yeah, and I guess 5 players picked at random in AP will get you the top of the creme in CoH/V performance's finest.

The set is currently popular because it's new and shiny, and it may even be somewhat effective in some cases (my DP/TA/Mace Corruptor on test can clear out +2/x8 spawns of S/L mobs by himself, relatively quick) but it's still underperforming compared to the other sets.

It's a similar case with MA for Scrappers. The set is alright, you can pair MA with /SR or /SD and make a decent AV soloer or farmer, it's just that every other set will do it better.

Don't forget that two-thirds of the ATs have access to DP also have access to buff/debuff sets, and in this game, there is nothing as hideously overpowered as stacking buff/debuff sets. 8 petless MMs would be a formidable force because they all have buff/debuff secondaries. I predict that many of the "My all-DP team just obliterated X content!" posts, such as yours, in addition to having the usual flaws attributed to anecdotal evidence, will have an even more skewed perspective because you are not seeing DP performance in a vaccum. You are seeing stacked buff/debuffs making up for DP's sub-par performance.

Yeah, and we all know that lowbie teams are the end all be all of measuring performance, and joining a team that makes it through the hollows is one of the biggest ingame accomplishments

We don't have Legacy Autos because the Dual Pistols handguns are mostly new. These ones have moving slides on every shot, where the old ones didn't. BABs tends to leave Legacy options behind as grandfathered choices, but he does not retrofit them into new designs, hence why Dual Blades don't have Legacy options.

As for the set's actual performance, it's probably not the worst, but "Hey, it's not the worst thing ever!" is not a very convincing selling point. The set's DPA is NOT GOOD, thanks in large part to over-long animations. Empty Clips, Bullet Rain, Executioner's Shot and Piercing Rounds are all 2.5+ seconds long, and that just kills burst damage. Utility is kind of there, but neither the slows nor the damage debuffs are strong enough on a Blaster to make TOO much of a difference, and in the end Lethal's knockback just ends up being better mitigation anyway.

Damage swapping IS a decent benefit (I can admit it when I'm wrong), potentially improving damage output against specific targets by upwards of 20%. However, that alone is not as much a benefit as the numbers suggest, because few enemy factions have consistent resistances, and some even have contradictory ones. And even when you do find a consistent one, not everyone knows enough about enemy resistances for this to matter. There's a spreadsheet of enemy resistances in the Guides section, but that's both a lot of work and I'm not sure if it's still being updated.

I'd love to see at LEAST one of the set's AoEs sped up and I'd love to see Executioner's Shot sped up, as well. That ought to give it some more meaningful DPA.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The damage here is not the question. It's the fact that it takes you over 5 seconds to deliver it, whereas most other Blast sets can do that in around 3.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

That Bond theme: Mr QQ Bang Bang.


DP is fun. Freezing someone into a block of ice and then gunning them down is fun.

If you can be bothered to learn how to play it, it's a perfectly good set.

Whiskey and pistols go together!

But if DP were as sub-par as you claim, then wouldn't the increased spawns from the overall team size obliterate them right back? Heck, the supposed weakness of DP would be exacerbated in missions, leading to mass wipes as eight-man spawns would emerge to match the underpowered eight-man teams.

No chance of that I love the set

Weak they are not I went out with a team of 6 during closed beta and we breezed thru everything the change ammo very handy as you can select the ammo that your opponents are weak against

Regarding QQ:
While Urban Dictionary does suggest this origin, that's likely because that's where most people probably first discovered it. Those users there attribute it to Warcraft II's introduction of the keyboard command. That would've been 1995. I pretty sure that QQ... or more accurately, Q.Q was used on IRC and MUDS while I was still in the service (I got out in '94).

Back then, crying was usually represented with variations of the semicolon or T. ( ;_; ;.; T_T T-T ) As effective as they were, they were often associated with the silent-crying (the line and dot suggested a closed mouth while the semicolon dots and tops of the T's suggested squinty eyes).

When you wanted rage-or-shock-filled anger- the kind of thing that would lead to rage-quitting, you needed to communicate that rage. There were a couple of options- an open mouth ( ;o; , ToT ) had some advocates for the really "wailing cry" but many others... what seemed the majority in my crowd, seemed to gravitate to the "Wild eyed, with tears" looks of "Q.Q". This was almost always done in mockery of the person- you'd rarely, if ever, use it to describe yourself, but you'd use it to suggest how someone else reacted to something.

It might have been pure coincidence, but I like the idea that the Blizzard dev coming up with the keyboard commands saw the intuitive nature of the "q for quit" and made it closer to the ascii emote... a way to discreetly make the rage-quitter admit to his own emotions.

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Regarding Dual Pistols

Are pistols the "worst"? Absolutely not.
Not by the numbers, not by the feel.

Are they the "best"? Absolutely not.
Nor should they. If every new powerset made the other powersets obsolete, they'd be bad for the game. You want to add to the options in the game, not subtract from them.

There are several "goals" to make that possible, two that are relevant to this conversation:
1) It fits within reasonable "low-average" with just casual, non-optimized play.
2) It should offer a slightly different kind of tactic, which, if adopted and mastered, will give high-average performance.

There are some people out there that play every blaster set like "just another blaster set" and miss out on the nuances of each. They've see the one or two sets that fit their playstyle as "clearly superior" and expect every new set to be introduced to, if anything, fit that playstyle even better. They'll see the set as under-performing. They'll probably Q.Q over this set- particularly if they feel betrayed by the hype.

Then there are those that take up the challenge of adjusting their tactics to get the most out of it. It very well *may be* that even with these adjustments the set still will not "shine enough," but they're reserving judgement until they REALLY get to weigh the options and push the envelope. True tactical optimization is more than the obvious "without aim, you gotta do this" or "use ammo X against foe Y."

True tactical optimization takes time to be discovered, debated, modified and retested. If that kind of exploration isn't for you, wait a few months until it's all distilled down into a "FOTM guide to maxing out Dual Pistols." You'll know it when it's out- people will be quoting it as they QQ that they shouldn't have to change their tactics to get the most out of a set.

"Not the Worst" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.

Not that I know one way or another, I'm just here for the free weekend.

When you have a new set- one that we haven't learned the "ins and outs" of... yet - and particularly if we have preconceived expectation for how an archetype is played- knowing it's numerically "not the worst" helps a LOT.

If you're sucking playing a set, there are two possibilities-- either the set is inherently flawed or you haven't found the tactics that make it function better.

If there are other sets that are numerically WORSE, then you know that the problem isn't ENTIRELY within the set. Your tactics probably need some worse. If you hear others citing how strong the set is for THEM, then there may really be tactics that make the set shine (of course, it could also be that those people have different priorities, too)