Dual Pistols - Early Thoughts since going live

Like many, I have started some DP toons and I am going to share my thoughts. Others should share their thoughts as well.
First, I have made a Traps/DP defender as well as a DP/MM blaster. Both toons are fun, but I like the defender more (which is rare for me as I usually like high damage toons) so I will focus a bit more on that.

Dual Pistols first though. Damage is a bit low. Lack of AIM. Long Animation. All fair to say. Swap Ammo (will come back to that) is neat idea, but has some issues for upside and downside.

The good stuff, cool animation, you can swap ammo which is cool, and it is just fun to play. IO potential is good (we will get to that). Also, a lot of people asked for it (athough oddly enough, they were scrappers, but oh well).

Likely, although only lvl 21 so I cannot be certain, it was not designed with pvp in mind and it may be hard to min/max. Hold on, I can be certain. This set is not for pvp, although I do look forward to seeing the guy who takes it to PvP and proves otherwise.

Swap Ammo: Great idea. The downside is that the difference is neglible so far. Against some enemies that resist lethal, you can add a 30% componant of either toxic, fire or cold damage. The secondary effects seem minimal, although they may stack in some cases (cold possibly). The downside is that it took the place of AIM. My suggestion is replace with AIM and make swap ammo a passive power that is just given at lvl 1 (not to replace a power). You cannot slot the power with any type of enhancement, so getting it does not provide a real advantage. The incendiary ammo may improve dps over time with the fire DOT componant, but if I want that I would just make a fire blaster.

Getting over my lack of AIM, I went traps defender (oh no, no build up like blaster sets, I will suck, right, maybe, we will see). Why traps? Well traps is great set in general as it does a bit of everything and offers some mez and defense for the owner as well as team. It was mostly due to mechanics of dual pistols. Redraw can be an issue for most. I find that traps is OK, because FFG is on, even if you are slept, and that you lay your traps and then can blast away. You do defender damage, so that is an issue for many, but in terms of redraw it gels decently. Trick Arrow would actually do well too if you set out debuffs first and then blast. FF and Sonic would work out. FF more because you can set bubs and then blast for 4 min. Active healing sets probably would be tough as the animation time would limit the ability to heal in some cases. That being said, healers should never be mandatory, but we all enjoy having them around. Sorry, meant to say buffers with heal powers as not to offend those who get easily offended. I think any set can work, but if redraw is stopping you from trying the set, consider the suggestions above.

So what does DP really offer besides cool animations and something new. It will be the true FOTM after all, because in one month, we will all be summoning demons. It does offer a lot of IO potential. I say this only in theory as I have not crunched out some Mids builds, but pretty much all of the powers are ranged or PBAOE (Hello, it's a blast power), but the secondary effects of defense debuff and KB is in most of the powers (plus a disorient in one). This makes it very much like a radiation blast set which is a great set to drop some chance for XXX damage procs in. Traps is well known to allow for interesting IO sets, and softcapping a traps defender is pretty straightforward and easy. I think the potential for an endgame traps/dp defender is actually pretty good, but perhaps in two weeks or so, I will let you know more.

Of course, I encourage more traps defenders purely for selfish reasons because stacked FFG is so full of win, the win is bursting the seams of its britches. Stacked buffs and debuffs beats down on anything pretty much, and thematically and /or conceptually, traps and dual pistols works.

Anyway, sorry for long post, but I admit I really enjoyed the set. Depsite my 5+ year vet status, I don't post too much. Share you thoughts thus far on what you have played and what you like and don't like about the set. Also, if anyone wants to crunch out a mids build, I would love to see it. I need to do it too, but I am at work right now, so can't work on that here.

Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew

Welcome to the Dark Side my friend!Defenders Rule the WORLD!

Ehem...

Anyhow, now that im done with that moment of insanity.Iv watched a few Dual Pistol Blasters running around.Iv only seen 1 DP Defender running around though, so I cant comment for those at the moment.

I perfer to run Solo with my SD/Axe Tanker on Freedom at the difficulty of +1/8 w/Bosses.However I do add another player at times just to up the killing speed.Its helpful when I BU, use the +Dmg Aura, and Shield Charge a clumped mob and the player that I added takes whats left of the Minion and Lt Hit Points.

Im half a level off from Whirling Axe so SC is my only AoE at the moment.

They perform like any other blaster from what iv seen.The major diffrence is that DP seems to make a player want to sit back and fire off at range.Which isnt common with most blasters iv teamed with.

I think the animations are a bit funky and akward, but im willing to delete my Traps/Rad in favor of a Traps/DP simply because of the Change Ammo asspect of it.It'll go great with Acid Mortar.

I have rolled 2 /DP defenders so far. I will probably roll a traps/DP too. I really like how the powers fit together in the early levels on my Kinetic/DP, Billy the Kinetic. I don't feel like I am missing any major powers. Repel is quite skippable, and I am delaying Increase density. So far the Chem rounds stacked on siphon power seems to be a golden combo for dealing with boss damage.

Not such an easy groove on my Storm/DP. I want ALL the storm and ALL the DP so there is some conflict there. I am delaying O2. I though about also delaying steamy. I might roll up another build since I am above level 10 for soloing so that I have more than 2 DP blasts by level 12. Level 14 is travel; 16, 18, and 20 are stamina bolted in for the stormy end drain. This hero seems to be going to be a slow maturer, but by level 30 I should be set between defense and offensive balance.

I have two thoughts since watching people run around with the Pistols.

1. Looks awesome if a bit flashy.
2. Can we at least pick better initials or short form name for the power set. Being the adult human that I am... those two letters keep pointing my mind towards the gutter. I can almost imagion the comments and puns that will be poping up.

Dual Pistols feels very FotM. Looks awesome if you're into gun-fu, but looks ridiculous if you're not. Add that to the fact that it's functionally below average and I'm predicting some revisions coming sooner or later.

You're definitely onto something with the lack of Aim.

The stated thought is that DP pays for the flexibility with weaker secondary effects.

DP really pays for it with:

1) Weak secondary effects
2) Needing to take a power to get them. (Do you need to take a DoT power for Fire Blasters?)
3) Losing access to the power that could have been in the slot used up by Swap Ammo, presumably Aim

The nuke is also pretty badly designed. PBAoE DoT with a random factor. Kinda seems to be designed to get us killed.

DP/Kin Corr here. Low sustained damage due to poor DPA attacks, low burst damage due to not having aim, long animations that interfere with an active secondary, redraw. Low damage even with the kin buffs (with no self-buffs, non-incendiary Bullet Rain only takes off 1/4 of minion HP, though I may have been fighting lethal-resistant enemies - I'll check again later). At least Scourge helps. People keep saying that swap ammo is great, but both numerically and from actual, in-game experience I've not found this to be the case. The set is fun to play and great-looking, but sub-par.

The animations seem to last too long for the damage delivered.

Animation for Piercing Rounds, in my eyes, looks....weird. Perhaps the animation could have been a triple-blast sequence. Two single shots from both guns followed by a third with both guns simultaneously. In order to have the power deal the damage in a single blow, as opposed to 3 rounds of damage, the 3 animations would have to be fast..like the blink of an eye fast.

I think Bullet Rain should have been called Explosive Rounds. A variation of the Empty Clips animation with multitudes of explosions occuring around the target.

Change Ammo..now if there aren't any plans to change damage dealt or animations, then perhaps they can bump the damage conversion to 50/50?

I haven't gotten to the tier 9 but I'm sure you've already read what others in the Dev section have said about the power. Right now it sorta looks like a set holder, which is a shame for a tier 9.

Bottom line: I'm offering my opinion only. So before some nut jumps on my back about how I'm whining let me be clear...whether the Devs decide to alter the set is irrelevent in my eyes. They produce a product, you either buy it or you don't.

Which is how I approach this & all power sets. The Devs own them, they design them as they see fit, take it or leave it.

LVL 31 now. Must admit, the defender damage has become much more lackluster, but as a defender, I guess I can't complain too much. The great animation is starting not to make up for it, although I love Executioner's shot(position toon just right, and you look like you are actually executing someone). With traps and DP, I see lots of small little orange numbers. I was able to solo the EB Heracles at lvl 23 with one red insp and one purple. I think it was the uberness of traps that made up for it. The killshot was done by acid mortar sadly. Got bullet rain, and I could see a "Wanted" and "Matrix" influence in the animation design. Enough so, I have binded the statement "Dodge this" to Executioner's Shot (see the matrix when trinity shoots an agent in the head). Sorry, I got on a tangent. So with bullet rain, and this long and amazing animation, the damage totally sucked. The range was great, but the with all that rooting, need more damage.

Still, devs, before GR, give us AIM. It really is the needed. Thematically, you could take a second and aim your pistols, so, um, what gives. Swap ammo should be a freebie. As stated above, fire blasters don't choose DOT. Also, you don't get DOT all the time.

I also feel that the incendiary ammo is causing a fear effect which is annoying. I tested this by going solo into mishes and not using caltrops or acid mortar. 80% of enemies ran at 50% health. Cryo and Chemical Ammo don't seem to have the effect as best I can tell.

My midgame assessment for DP can be summed up as this. Style over substance.

Why didn't they want to give [Pistols] the full range of secondary effects available on the other powers?

My feelings for dual pistols can be summarized thus:

awesome < 1 hour < I'm going back to archery.

All observations are with a DP/Kin corrupter.

I pretty much mirror what everyone else has said. Animations are rather good, but the animation time takes too long and the damage simply isn't there. Executioners Shot and Hail of Bullets in particular, but I suppose every powerset has powers nobody in their right mind would take. I'm never horribly fond of nukes anyway, but I can't rationalize the thought process behind Hail of Bullets at all.

Empty Clips seems like it needs a wider cone, better range, or something. Given enough recharge I would probably drop it from my build. Being a /kin I'm always fairly close to combat anyway, but I always feel like I'm just shy of getting the targets into the blast radius.

I feel like the changing ammo could have been played with much more thoroughly. It mostly comes off feeling like a gimmick, rather than anything set defining, which is disappointing. I'd have liked the powerset to feel completely different with different ammo, but alas. Incendiary Ammo is the only one that seems useful, as more damage never hurts. The animations are too long to ever really take advantage of the other two; You could typically only stack the effect twice. Perhaps if your secondary also slow'd or lowered damage it might be useful, but as a /Kin fire seemed the best route, and I'd guess that it would still be regardless of your primary/secondary. Putting out fires by shooting at them was funny as hell, however.

You can do some fairly useful things with suppressive fire and an epic/patron hold, while simultaneously still taking advantage of stacking stuns so that you aren't waiting until 40 to have something to fight back against bosses. Without this move I probably wouldn't even bother with Dual Pistols at all.

Preferred fix would be to speed up the animations so that they can mesh better with corrupter/defender powersets while simultaneously increasing damage output so that it can compete with other 'blast' sets. As it stands it has a few nice gimmicks, but I'd probably just stick with archery.

Curious about DP/ blasters:

Why do so many go with /MM? I mean, I can sort of understand /devices for a natural/tech feel and /EM because EM goes with anything...but I've seen so many /MMs now and during beta...

Don't think I ever saw /Ice, I saw probably a couple /Elec but not many now and I'm the only /Fire I've seen at all. Is there some kind of synergy or character concept everyone is aiming for that I'm just not aware of?

I've only played it to 20, but I'm pretty disappointed so far.

I love the animations, and I love the idea of changing ammo types. But the damage is pitifully low. It's like buying a ferrari, then driving it home and wondering why it won't go over 10mph, then you find a go-cart engine under the hood.

The damage for this set needs a serious buff, at least with the change ammo types.

People go /MM because MOAR AOEZ and Drain Psyche/PSW being PBAoE works well with Hail of Bullets.

The DP acronym is definitely giggleworthy, at least for anyone who grew up saturated with internet porn (not that that's anything to be ashamed of). It's definitely not the game's first horrible acronym, though -- doesn't anyone remember ED? Was it Enhancement Dysfunction or Erectile Diversification, I forget...