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Links are good when you find answers...|
Originally Posted by HeroJunkie
Nevermind I found the answer in another thread.
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Just saying.
yeah it peaked my interest and I'd like to see the link. 
50s:
White Valkyrie - BS/Regen Scrap
Fear of Silence - Ninja/Dark MM
Corporate Zombie - Necro/Poison MM
Ardent Cataclysm - Stone/Fire Tank
Angelic Heart - Peacebringer
Maelstrom - Elec/Elec Brute
Novastar - Energy/Fire Blaster
It was (and still is) on the first page of the Blaster forums under a similar enough heading that it should have been easy to find the thread, but here is the link to my post that definitively explains why, where damage is concerned, Incendiary Ammo is the only ammo that matters.
Thanks, Umbral. That is what I always have suspected, but thanks for providing the clear cut explanation. For my blasters, it's fire all the time.
Currently on Virtue:
Jinrazuo - Crab Spider
RWZ All-Pylon Solo Run
So does that mean we shouldn't take Swap Ammo, or that we should take it and just always use fire anyway?
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Piqued your interest, actually.
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Originally Posted by JusticeisServed
yeah it peaked my interest and I'd like to see the link.
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If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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Take Swap Ammo and always leave Incendiary Ammo on. Incendiary Ammo provides you with substantially more damage even in the worst conditions for it than any other ammo type out there and you cannot get access to Incendiary Ammo without taking Swap Ammo.
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Originally Posted by seebs
So does that mean we shouldn't take Swap Ammo, or that we should take it and just always use fire anyway?
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Hell, no. Don't keep Incendiary on at all times. When solo, go with standard (ie, pure Lethal) ammo - the frequent knockback will save your ***. A different matter on teams, of course. And you might want to consider the toxic rounds as well, at least later on when fighting BIG stuff that can do several hundred damage per hit.
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Not once you get into higher levels where everything is extreamly resistant to Lethal. By that point I think you'll want the extra damage and you'll probably want to lean more on your secondary for CC when you can.
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Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
Hell, no. Don't keep Incendiary on at all times. When solo, go with standard (ie, pure Lethal) ammo - the frequent knockback will save your ***. A different matter on teams, of course. And you might want to consider the toxic rounds as well, at least later on when fighting BIG stuff that can do several hundred damage per hit.
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It depends on your secondary as well. A DP/Ice might find use in stacking slows from Cryo bullets with your secondary powers.
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
Is that applicable to Defenders as well? I was hoping the increased debuffs would help make the other ammos more useful.
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It's still largely applicable to Defenders and Corrs, but it gets a bit fuzzier when you start getting into stacking debuffs. Cryo ammo is still largely pointless thanks to the general uselessness of -rech in PvE, but Chem ammo can do some completely crazy things when properly stacked. Where damage is concerned, Incendiary Ammo is still on top by a substantial margin but, against single hard targets, you're definitely going to want to go with either Chem (for -dam) or standard rounds (for -res from Piercing Rounds) because of the lower base damage and higher secondary effect mods for those ATs.
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Originally Posted by JayboH
Is that applicable to Defenders as well? I was hoping the increased debuffs would help make the other ammos more useful.
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Hey, -rech isn't useless in PvE! ...it's just that tiny amounts of -rech with ludicrously short durations are. |
Originally Posted by Umbral
It's still largely applicable to Defenders and Corrs, but it gets a bit fuzzier when you start getting into stacking debuffs. Cryo ammo is still largely pointless thanks to the general uselessness of -rech in PvE, but Chem ammo can do some completely crazy things when properly stacked.
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Duel pistols always used cryo-ammo/swap ammo with traps as a secondary
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Well, Incendiary Ammo's main damage is still 70% lethal. Against most targets that are 20-30% more resistant to Lethal (which seems the most common range) you're only doing around 6-8% more damage before the DoT. And you can also get thet 6-8% damage by using Cryo or Chem rounds since those are also usually less resisted damage types than Lethal... the real question is more total damage (from the DoT) or more protection (from the -damage or -recharge). I'd rather use Incendiary if I can, but faceplanting = dealing zero damage so if I need more survivability I'll use Chem or standard (worst damage, but probably the best total mitigation). I generally avoid Cryo since I play Blasters... a Defender might get some use from it but at Blaster levels the debuff is insignificant.
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Originally Posted by Mr_Frost
Not once you get into higher levels where everything is extreamly resistant to Lethal. By that point I think you'll want the extra damage and you'll probably want to lean more on your secondary for CC when you can.
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Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
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Standard actually does better damage than Chem or Cryo because of Piercing Rounds' -res effect which only applies while using standard ammo and not while using Chem or Cryo.
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Originally Posted by StrykerX
standard (worst damage, but probably the best total mitigation).
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Seeing as how DP isn't a damage monster...I really think that at least "three" changes should be made to the DP set to make it a little better:|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Standard actually does better damage than Chem or Cryo because of Piercing Rounds' -res effect which only applies while using standard ammo and not while using Chem or Cryo.
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1.) Add the fire DoT to the tier1 pistol attack
2.) Either slightly reduce the animation time of Executioner's Shot or increase it's range to either 60 or 80 ft.
3.) Allow the -res from Piercing Rounds to work even when "not" using standard rounds.
If they did just these minor changes...I think the set would be pretty good...
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That's probably true vs single targets. AoE I'd place standard at the bottom for average damage just because of resists, since the -resist debuff is only on 1-2 targets. On the other hand, the knockdown on Standard ammo AoEs is decent mitigation.
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Originally Posted by Umbral
Standard actually does better damage than Chem or Cryo because of Piercing Rounds' -res effect which only applies while using standard ammo and not while using Chem or Cryo.
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Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
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One of the things I wanted to happen from the very beginning was for Pistols to actually get the ammo effects attached to it, even it was weaker than it "should" have been. I understood why the devs would want the tier 1 attack to be weaker (fast animation time and low recharge time mean a very fast, low animation consumption cycle that could allow you to stack enormously well), but I still think that it should have had some secondary effect (4 secs of -dam, 2 possible ticks of DoT, 5 secs of -rech, 10% chance for KB).|
Originally Posted by DarkMaster
1.) Add the fire DoT to the tier1 pistol attack
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| 2.) Either slightly reduce the animation time of Executioner's Shot or increase it's range to either 60 or 80 ft. |
The more viable option would be to simply increase the endurance and recharge on Executioner's Shot until the attack becomes a strong, viable alternative. A 14 second recharge would give the it a competitive DPA (67.0 compared to Pistols' 52.7 and Dual Wield's 44.7) and, because of the long animation time, the cycle time stays roughly the same.
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| 3.) Allow the -res from Piercing Rounds to work even when "not" using standard rounds. |
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That's up for debate. Cryo ammo is certainly better than either Standard or Chem from a damage type perspective (which is the only real difference we're talking about here), but Toxic damage gets resisted incredibly heavily by many enemies in the game, even more than Lethal, much like Psi. It's not a damage type that players have much resistance to, but enemies have a bad habit of resisting it rather heavily.|
Originally Posted by StrykerX
AoE I'd place standard at the bottom for average damage just because of resists
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For overall damage, I'd might place Cryo above Standard rounds, but at that point it's still an academic question: Incendiary Ammo trumps everything. Chem ammo is, definitely, however, at the bottom of the heap.
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Bolded what I'm addressing here. |
Originally Posted by Umbral
(which is honestly one of the only reasons to use Piercing Rounds in the first place thanks to lackluster damage, effects, and AoE capability) |
I think the idea was to have the effect of the bullet traveling through the first guy and hitting the guy behind him, and the only way they could pull that off with the game engine was to make it an extremely narrow cone. The only way you're going to hit all 3 possible targets with it is if they are standing in a line. I don't think it was really meant to be a true AoE.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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I know. It was actually a narrower cone back when the set was first being tested, if you can believe that, with higher AoE assumptions (more targets that could be hit, higher end cost).|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I think the idea was to have the effect of the bullet traveling through the first guy and hitting the guy behind him, and the only way they could pull that off with the game engine was to make it an extremely narrow cone. The only way you're going to hit all 3 possible targets with it is if they are standing in a line. I don't think it was really meant to be a true AoE.
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The problem is that Piercing Rounds, if you assume it to be an ST attack with minor secondary target capabilities (which is largely what it is), it still looks really bad. It has twice the recharge as Executioner's Shot with double the recharge, lower damage, and 62% higher endurance costs. With those numbers, you would have to assume that it is either intended to be an AoE, a debuff power, or both. It's lackluster in the AoE department, thanks to high comparative costs for the number of targets it can hit, and the only time it's got a worthwhile debuff is when you're using Standard Ammo, so it just seems kind of off to me.
I think it will get the most use by me in an AV fight.
Chem rounds for the most part, switch to standard when Piercing Rounds is up, after debuffing switch to Incendiary to take advantage of the debuffed resistance, switch back to Chem to debuff the AV's damage some more. Maybe switch to Cryo when I get tired of green and yellow bullets and want to see blue ones for a few shots (can't think of any other reason I'd want to in that situation)
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Can we get a translator in here... stat?|
Originally Posted by TECHWON
Duel pistols always used cryo-ammo/swap ammo with traps as a secondary
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And it's "dual" as in two, not "duel" as in an Alexander Hamilton style "battle."
Nevermind I found the answer in another thread.