Making Dual Pistols "feel" better.

I've run two DP characters through the wringer lately. 1 blaster and 1 defender. Dual Pistols as a set seems to be ok. Not trash but not high end blaster set either. However I've run across alot of things that make the set "feel" less than it is or worse to play. So I'd like to suggest some changes.


1. Change the lethal/elemental damage ratios to 50/50 or 30/70 (lethal/elemental) and make the element matter.

Currently it's an accepted fact that for damage at no time should you use anything other than incendiary ammo. Resistances simply won't change the damage enough. To me this is contrary to the feel of DP and Swap Ammo. What's the point of having different ammo elemental damage if your just going to use Incendiary almost all the time?



2. Add secondary elemental ammo effects to Pistols.

The tier 1 blast power "Pistols" current has no secondary effect in anything but base ammo. This is the only exception in the set and is inexplicable. It didn't bother me at first, but once I fully fleshed out Dual Pistols it becomes a noticeable difference.



3. Shorten the animation on Empty Clips. It needs to be 1.0-1.2 seconds to be comparable to other cones like it. I'd settle for 1.5 seconds easily.

Empty Clips has a very noticeably long animation. Otherwise it's not an overwhelming power either so this hurts even more. I appreciate the animation but it needs to be shortened a bit. All other cone blasts either animates twice as quickly or have double the damage/recharge, which makes the animation far less of an issue. The only exception is Howl from sonic blast. But it's still faster, has 10 ft longer range, and has a nice -13% res component.

Bullet Rain is in similar state, but it's a better power overall. So animation shortening would be nice, but it's not as much of an issue.



4. Make Piercing rounds give -res with all ammo, put as an addition in base ammo.

This I'm slightly concerned about balance-wise in changing, especially with my next suggested change. However I cannot express how annoying it is to switch out to base ammo every time I want to debuff a hard foe and then immediately switch back to incendiary. If I don't do both I lose out on a significant amount of damage, especially teamwise.

You get an exact idea of how annoying this is when you fighting an AV or GM and your constantly switching ammo's back and forth.



5. Make Piercing Rounds have a larger arc. I'd increase it from 5 degrees to 7.5 or even 10 degrees.

This is 100% for feel. It's just frustrating how difficult it is to line up more than 1 mob with this unless mobs are clumped together, and it can still miss then. Also, especially when held and such, the graphics do not always accurately depict the hitbox of a mob.

Having to treat it as a single target attack or be endlessly frustrated by misses with mobs that appear to be in a direct line, even touching each other back to front, completely takes away from the coolness of the power to me.

10% shouldn't be enough to hit too much. They'd still have to be pretty close to on the mark. But if it doesn't look right you could scale it back to 7.5 and see how helpful that would be.



6. Add an equal amount of resistance to Hail of Bullets to compliment it's defense. 10% seems about right.

I like that Hail of Bullets has defense on it, and it's nothing to sneeze at imo. However as many have noted you are stuck in the middle of a group of foes doing your best to tick them off for a good amount of time. Defense helps, especially with soft capped IO builds, but on teams this can be insufficient with enemy level differences.

Since you can pretty much expect to be hit by higher level foes, I say add an equivalent amount of resistance to Hail of Bullets. I don't want to be seriously protected, I just want enough shaven off that I can limp away if I eat a few hits while unable to do anything about it.



7. Makes the slows/recharge on cryo ammo actually worth it.

I don't care if it's a value increase or just a duration increase so you can more easily stack them. Currently they are pretty negligible unless someone else is already slowing the mobs.





Conclusion

I know that some of these changes could potentially alter the balance of DP somewhat. That's why feedback gets given though right? I'm just out to make the set feel better and less underwhelming or frustrating (or anti-thematic).

Agree with #1. But I'd likely say just got 50/50.

However, I was thinking on Dual Pistols the other day and I did think of something that I think would help the set without really upping it's damage.

Give Pistols the Claws treatment.

Seeing as how Swap Ammo mechanic really doesn't make anything impressive (mind you I love the set) why not make it the Claws equivalent for ranged sets?

Reduced Recharge/End Cost

Won't argue after a quick skim.

I'd like an option for not-so-silly animations though. As a friend of mine put it playing his, "Quit spinning your damn gun and just SHOOT the SOB already!"

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/Signed

'But it has ultilty!' is no valid argument when said utility is as much use as slapping a tank with a dry kipper. All it does is make you look like an utter wally.

It's bad enough that dam/animation isn't actually factored in, making DP weaker simply by the length of animation in relation to the (lack) of bang for the buck.

Which is a shame, 'cos I *love* the set. I'm not asking for it to be a Fire/Fire clone; I just want it to suck less...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.