Is DP as bad as I keep hearing?


Adeon Hawkwood

 

Posted

After hearing all the negative comments about DP, I decided to start up an all DP super team to see how it would fair. I made a DP/kin, hit the ground running and never looked back. It was easily the most fun I've ever had leveling a toon. We met once a week and picked a TF to run. We completed every TF in the game short of STF and LRSF, and that is only because the team disbanded before we got a chance to take a shot at them. We completed Kahn in 23 minutes, and Cuda with just a team of four DPers.

My point isn't that DP is amazing, just that even with a supposedly "weak" set, even the toughest challenges in the game are doable.

Now that my DP/kin is lvl 50, he solos +2x8 mobs very comfortably and has become my favorite toon to play when I am in the mood for causing absolute mayhem.


 

Posted

First 50 corrupter I managed to level all the way without looking back was my DP/Traps. Lots of fun.


Originally Posted by Megajoule
We're being invaded. Again. This time, instead of aliens, zombies, or eyeballs with teeth, it's the marching band.

 

Posted

I'm playing my Pistols/Time Corruptor as I type this.


'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.

 

Posted

I love Two Pistols conceptually, but I hate the goofy animations. But that's personal preference.

My problems with the set:

~ Your third single target attack will either be Piercing Rounds or Executioner's Shot and both have atrociously long animations. (The first two single target attacks are standard length for blast sets.)

~ Your cone and targeted AoE attacks are both long animation DoT attacks. So while Fire Blast, Archery, Dark and similar sets lay out the AoE damage before the enemies return fire allowing you to already be moving or starting a heal, the Dual Pistols character will be eating the alpha return fire while the first AoE is still animating. This is my biggest complaint of the set I think. I'd be fine with it if either Empty Clips or Bullet Rain had guaranteed knock down to mitigate return damage.

~ No Aim.

~ Redraw. If they could fix this just for secondary powers it would help.

~ The crashless nuke is great, but it requires you to be in the middle of the pack which is a disad.

~ Losing my -Res from Piercing for running Fire ammo is annoying. (Fortunately I hate the animation so much I tend to skip the power.)

~ You need Swap Ammo to bring your damage up to par, so basically you don't get Aim so you can waste a power to bring your damage on par with middle of the road sets. To put it another way, if the set was changed to have extra Fire damage and the chance to knock down it still wouldn't be as good as Archery or Dark.

Let's not compare the set to Fire since a lot of people just love the raw damage. Let's compare the set to Archery which I think is a fair comparison. Archery is awesome. It has a lot of little perks like reduced recharge on the tier 1 attack and full 80 range on the tier 3 attack. These, combined with the crashless nuke that can be used at range, make up for redraw. In addition, the Archery standard AoEs fire fast and don't agro enemies until the damage is actually delivered. I can get off my cone while kiting, for example, which I can't do with Empty Clips.

After playing Archery I go back to Dual Pistols and the set just fights against itself. I take so much more return fire because of the long animation AoEs that deliver DoT and the point blank nuke.



Now some advantages of Dual Pistols that aren't obvious.

~ Because it has so many secondary effects and accepts so many weird sets into its attacks there are interesting IO set bonus games you can play by slotting knockback, slow, and similar sets.

~ It is sometimes useful having a single target control power that can be a disorient or a Hold, especially where Hold sets have some good set bonuses for two or three slots.

~ If you can survive a point blank alpha the crashless nuke is awesome.

~ Being able to sacrifice damage for knockdown is an interesting game choice.


Moonlighter

50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD

First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563

 

Posted

I'm not sure what every is expecting from this set.

You're fighting Jon Woo style with 2 pistols, so the animation involves alot of twirling & animation before firing. It looks cool the first 20-50 times you see it, but it does get a bit tedious after a thousand interations. At some point, you just want your character to settle the F--- down & shoot already. All I can say is I give the devs credit for time spent crafting this cool looking set, but in the heat of battle I do wish I didn't have to watch all the twirling.

On a related note, all but maybe two of the gun models are absolutely atrocious. Not just unattractive or lumpy looking. I'm talking down-right ugly. I'm talking three-bagger, coyote bait, beer-goggle ugly. I'm talking a terminal case of butterface. The art department gets a "D-" for the job they did in this one area. There is so much good art for revolvers & pistols floating around on the web for inspiration, that it's really shameful that a power set designed to be so visually pleasing would fall on its face & come up lame right at the finish line.

But I digress.

I agree with several posters that you can't measure the damage of other power sets against fire. Everyone forgets that all attack powers have secondary effects, and that those effects are factored into the equation for power balance. Fire's secondary component is....more damage...which is why it seems stronger.

What people also tend to forget is that without "Swap Ammo" you're only doing half damage. You HAVE to select a special ammo type in order to get the biggest bang for your buck with this set. Sure you will sacrifice your knockdown, but you'll make up for it with more damage. Incendiary ammo makes a huge difference.

TD:LR - it works fine. It does more damage than the low-damage, high debuff sets; and less damage than the high-damage, no secondary effect sets. It's mostly attacks, with a hard Mag 2 hold, which can prove valuable.

Personally, I created a Praetorian DP/Dark Corruptor to mess around with when I returned to the game. The hold will stack with DM's Mag 2 hold to mezz bosses, and the debuffs from DM will serve well to keep me in the fight. So far it's working pretty well, but I'm many moons away from having him at level 50.

I have a level 50 ice/dark corruptor right now, so I'm interested to see how this new toon stacks up to my old one in terms of the balance of protection, control, and damage.


Why do I do do do things I do
Nobody was ever there for me to talk to
Once I was youngster, pure and true
Now I'm running with a sick, sick crew.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silencer7 View Post
it's animation times are atrocious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonlighter View Post
both have atrociously long animations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The_mini_gunman View Post
all but maybe two of the gun models are absolutely atrocious.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. [/Inigo Montoya]


'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by The_mini_gunman View Post
I agree with several posters that you can't measure the damage of other power sets against fire. Everyone forgets that all attack powers have secondary effects, and that those effects are factored into the equation for power balance. Fire's secondary component is....more damage...which is why it seems stronger.
Most secondary effects do very little to improve performance (except for -res and -tohit). Things like -def, minor slows, endurance drain and KB do not compare to the powerful and consistent advantage of higher damage. The developers have severely overvalued them when considering power balance.

Incidentally, the DoT in fire is actually quite minor, and not the main reason for the strength of the set. Fire is a top-tier sets because it has blaster-level rain of fire, a cone that does abnormally high damage (1.75 damage scale vs. 0.9-1.4 for most other blast sets), and a TAoE with one of the fastest animations in the game. To these advantages it adds no redraw and an exotic (non-S/L) damage type.

That said, lots of sub-par sets have been buffed recently, often in the face of highly vocal opposition, so there's still hope. I predict that within a year DP will get an animation time fix like TA, AR and Archery all did and maybe some other buffs on the side. And when it happens, all the people who insisted it was "just fine" will go about trying to pretend they never said anything of the sort.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathstroke33 View Post
I keep toying with the idea of making a DP toon, but the number of negative comments I keep hearing about its very lack luster damage kinda scares me away. Is it as bad as people say, or is this just another example of people over exaggerating?
If you care about numbers as part of your fun: Don't play Dual Pistols. It will disappoint you performance wise compared to other sets (Fire, Ice, Rad, Sonic, Psi) and the redraw hurts. You can try to offset this by pairing it with damage buffing sets with little redraw, but you'll still feel under par if you play with something like a Sonic/Rad

If you don't care about numbers and just want to have fun: Play it to your hearts content. It's a bit flashy but looks like a badass set.


 

Posted

Yeah for all it's 'faults' it's still perfectly viable to play with. You're not going to be stuck faceplanted constantly. A buff by the devs certainly wouldn't hurt, but it can play any content without any major hitch.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathstroke33 View Post
I keep toying with the idea of making a DP toon, but the number of negative comments I keep hearing about its very lack luster damage kinda scares me away. Is it as bad as people say, or is this just another example of people over exaggerating?
People are exaggerating it. Some people don't like it because it's not doing Fire Blast damage.

Dual Pistol has very good aoe damage and it has several debuffs and some controls. It looks very flashy.

The mini-nuke is also quite strong. A lot of people only use fire ammo but I usually use ice. The slow debuffs are quite obvious. Toxic ammo is kinda hard to notice the benefits.

Basically I try to play up to DP's strength. If I am using all fire ammo, I might as well play Fire Blast. I do change ammo depending on the enemies' resistance type.

The only thing that annoys me is redraw.


What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.

 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silas View Post
That's Tanker logic.
Emphasis.


 

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex View Post
DP is fine for what it is, which is a versatile set with a few debuffs. I view its primary benefit as being the only set able to use knockback on the occasions it is useful, and have higher damage the rest of the time. The Toxic and Ice bullets unfortunately are mostly worthless.

Regardless, redraw drives me insane. Especially redraw on a set with long animations.

YMMV. I think it can be fun to play, but having played it once to 50 I dont feel a big draw back to it.
I keep hearing about how toxic bullets are useless in game situations, but I think this is a bit short sighted (not calling you out, Tex). I was just working with a pug doing level 50 content with a full group (me on a DP/Time rupter). We had a bad situation where we wiped, I switched to chemo rounds (was on incindiary) and from then on in, no issues. True, i wasn't doing near the damage as before but it's a good example of how chemo isn't really as worthless as some tend to think. Now, I still don't know of a really good use for Cryo rounds, other than the DFB end AVs. They really hate cold damage.

And I think one of the reasons ppl think it does terrible damage is the dot effect from the AoEs. Small numbers, but lots of em. I tend to think of em as more of a mini burn patch.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silas View Post
That's Tanker logic.
Logic is a strong word. Let's call it reckonin'.


'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.

 

Posted

Dual Pistons is all around a good set.

The only power that needs to be tweaked is Empty Clips which gives the entire set a bad reputation honestly.

Empty Clips.................2.5s
Buckshot....................0.9s
Nightfall.....................2.0s
Fistful of Arrows..........1.17s
Ball Lightning...............1.07s
Energy Torrent............1.07s
Fireball.......................1.00s
Frost Breath................2.67s
Electron Haze..............2.37s
Howl..........................2.33s

Other than Frost Breathe, Empty Clips doesn't justify its cast time honestly.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadey_NA View Post
I keep hearing about how toxic bullets are useless in game situations, but I think this is a bit short sighted (not calling you out, Tex). I was just working with a pug doing level 50 content with a full group (me on a DP/Time rupter). We had a bad situation where we wiped, I switched to chemo rounds (was on incindiary) and from then on in, no issues. True, i wasn't doing near the damage as before but it's a good example of how chemo isn't really as worthless as some tend to think. Now, I still don't know of a really good use for Cryo rounds, other than the DFB end AVs. They really hate cold damage.

And I think one of the reasons ppl think it does terrible damage is the dot effect from the AoEs. Small numbers, but lots of em. I tend to think of em as more of a mini burn patch.
Somewhere in the blaster forums are some very good damage comparisons showing that even against the enemies who have the greatest vulnerability to cold/toxic AND a resist to fire the fire damage rounds still cause more damage.


"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by plainguy View Post
I have a DP Traps that can solo 4/8 so how bad can it be. Am I clearing a map in 4 minutes. No.. But am I surviving yep.
That has more to do with /traps than anything else. It is one of the most powerful sets in the game when built and used well. You see the same thing on the MM forums sometimes:

Player seeking help: "Guys, having trouble with my <inisert primary here>/<insert non-traps secondary here>, any tips?"
Would-be helper: "I dunno, you're doing something wrong. My <same primary>/traps solos like a madman."


 

Posted

You know it just occurred to me that Empty Clips accepts Defense Debuffs sets, and thus can take Achilles Heel. Kind of minor I guess, but still sorta important.


 

Posted

One thing I've wanted to see with Dual Pistols is:

It's Dual Pistols! Let us use two ammo types at the same time, while giving half (or less even) bonus for using the same ammo type, and spliting the elemental damage between the ammo types.

Team have a bunch of Blasters? Use cryo and Chem for the ultimate mitigation secondary effect set. Less damage than Dark Blast, but 15% recharge debuff and a 10% damage debuff that I believe stacks between the different powers would make up for that.

DPs damage not up to par? Need to sacrifice the versitile secondary effects just to do comprable damage? Run incendiary ammo and you're debuff of choice. Want pure offense? Run Incendiary ammo with standard ammo to leverage the DoT, defense debuff, and resistance debuff.


Murphys Military Law

#23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.

#46. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.

#54. Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.

 

Posted

I just read an entire thread with a lot of people saying Dual Pistols is "not that bad", and not a single post detailing numerically where this set stands against other sets (not just Fire Blast) to actually prove that.


I feel like I have learned absolutely nothing from the experience.



 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus View Post
I just read an entire thread with a lot of people saying Dual Pistols is "not that bad", and not a single post detailing numerically where this set stands against other sets (not just Fire Blast) to actually prove that....
Try http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15076020/Cha...s%20i21%29.xls.
But understand, it was built for a specific build and specific playstyle and is not universally applicable, nor are instructions included, nor is any assertion of accuracy nor precision made.


 

Posted

I'm enjoying DP more as a secondary than a primary. Dropped my DP/Rad, DP/Ele for something I found thematically sound, Kin/DP Defender. Wish Kinetic had a no FX option though or at least alternate animations.

What I feel DP needs is to just remove the redraw, let em cast whatever pom-pom effect with the guns out. Would that be too much?

Dogan
I want to go boom, click, boom without putting the guns away.


 

Posted

Dual Pistols Definitely needs more damage. The utility of the set doesn't really go that far.



 

Posted

I use fire ammo most of the time which makes DP very interesting damage wise.