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!"

See my Guides and Tutorials

/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.

/signed

For the damage, it's most likely be 50/50.
Pistols NEED a secondary effect
Aoe damage needs to be fixed
either give piercing rounds -res in all ammos, or maybe each ammo could have its own unique effect thats not its usual one?(base:-res Cryo:noticable -tohit Chem: noticable -regen inc:Strong dot) and YES to bigger arc
no opinion on HoB
Cryo should have longer durations, and i think chem should also have a slight -regen(if not put in piercing) too?

EDIT: also, the +def and/or the claws treatment makes a lot of sense too, maybe use all of these suggestions for the set?

I'm necro'ing this thread, so deal with it. Everyone complains when you don't use the search engine. I'm not only using the search engine...I'm using the ADVANCED search engine. Because that's how I roll up in this hizzy.

Everything that is wrong with Dual Pistols can be summed up thusly: YOU'RE NOT IN A WILD WEST SHOW - QUIT SCREWING AROUND & SHOOT.

Bottom line: You are hit with DOUBLE redraw. You draw your weapon with a flourish, and then proceed to do some band majorette style twirling animations. Frankly I'm shocked that the devs didn't include an animation where the guns burst into flames, then get thrown over your head, and you catch them behind your back while doing a split. I suppose sacrifices had to be made on the editing room floor.

My suggestion for the devs is for one of the lead developers to throw a party at their house over a holiday weekend, and rent every Jon Woo movie you can get your hands on. Then come back on Monday, and take another look at how short this set fall from the mark.

I truly believe if the animation times were shorter, and you could get off more attacks quicker, everything else that's wrong with this set would take care of itself.

the -res in piercing rounds definitely needs to change. Empty Clips keeps its -Def through all kinds of ammo, I'm not sure why Piercing Rounds is any difference.

Cold and Toxic definitely need some love. maybe tacking on a -Recharge on Ice? And a slight -Regen on Toxic? Or just bumping their values up a bit, 5-10 percent to make them more worthwhile.

The concept is sound, but the execution needs some adjustment. Especially given how few ways there are to figure out any enemy's given resistances, you're only switching ammo for the secondary effects and not the elemental types.

I agree with most of the recommendations in the OP. I think a better split of lethal/other damage would definitely influence my decision on what ammo to load with. I'd also up the chance of knockback on standard ammo as well so that it offered better mitigation when solo.

However this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_mini_gunman Bottom line: You are hit with DOUBLE redraw. You draw your weapon with a flourish, and then proceed to do some band majorette style twirling animations. Frankly I'm shocked that the devs didn't include an animation where the guns burst into flames, then get thrown over your head, and you catch them behind your back while doing a split. I suppose sacrifices had to be made on the editing room floor.

This is the real issue I still have with Dual Pistols. I'm ok with the actual animations themselves but that damned twirl every. gods. damned. time I draw my pistols annoys the hell out of me. DP already has long animations, why torture us further by having a long redraw animation too? If this was the wild west, I'd have all six barrels lodged in my chest before getting a shot off.

That redraw animation is less "quickdraw" and more "watch me dance!" Losing that and making DP faster off the draw would certainly make the set feel more fluid to me.

given that incendiary does extra damage and the other 2 give different secondary effects, I don't see why incendiary should not always do the most damage - that is literally what it is for. use cold if you want to slow your foes, not for more damage

and I love the animations, it is why I am playing the set - and I thought I would hate the animations.

I am playing dual pistols on a corruptor, maybe it is better for them.

I said it over in the Corruptor DP thread, and I'll say it here. Let Dual Pistols use two ammo types at the same time. One for each gun. If they use the same ammo twice, give half (or less) benefit from the second type. Make the damage 50% Lethal, 25% first element, 25% second element.

That way you could use Incen and Chem for extra damage and debuffing their damage; or Standard ammo with Incen to do extra damage with the defense/resist debuff; or Cryo and Chem for a crippled group of enemies.

Also, considering situations where a player might want to do both of the same ammo, half effect would be a decent bonus that would act as an incentive to use varying ammo types.

Really the debuffs that chemical and Cryo ammos have are potent, but they are not potent enough to account for the reduced base damage and time it takes to actually change between ammo type in a fight. Allowing for the use of two different ammos means DP is the jack of all trades; master of none. Able to have average ST and AoE damage with a selection of debuffs, or sacrificing damage to have staggering debuffs.

Right now, it isn't even a jack of all trades, as the debuffs come at too great a cost to use in a practical manner.

The only question would be, can they convince the art team to make modified animations with all the combinations of colored bullets?