Pistoleer Archive

I suppose there are situations where you would want to output optimum damage and not worry about SAC, in PvP for instance. Often I dont get to use up much action with all the recovering and healing going on so you might want to go for a gun with all out damage and speed.

I get confused when players say that they "never run out of action".

If you are chaining your higest damaging specials andfiring as fast as you can your action will eventually be gone, even with a pistol puped to 46 SAC. Or are you throwing in ranged shot and not spamming?

from playing I've realized that speed has the least effect out of all 3 factors on me... I go for pistols in the 70-80 SAC range and *almost* capped out damage... its really not hard for a w/s to get a pistol to that... the tiny differences in speed can be made up in attachments, but the damage can not

---

BadgerSmaker wrote:

I get confused when players say that they "never run out of action".

If you are chaining your higest damaging specials andfiring as fast as you can your action will eventually be gone, even with a pistol puped to 46 SAC. Or are you throwing in ranged shot and not spamming?

---

Well of course I don't mean I literally never run out of action, but it takes a very verylong time to get to that point with a SAC that low, and most of the time the fight is over before it happens (not talking about PvP here, not into that). No, I don't spam advanced critical and torso or whatever, ranged shot is in the mix as is quickdraw. I find a nice mix of lower level specials with the max ones keeps the action bar very stable with a low SAC weapon. Besides, the windup timerslead into each other more efficiently with a bigger mix of states/damage specials. If I spammed advance critical all the time I'd be waiting alot while other stuff is ready.

On another note, is there any difference at all between having innate speed skills as opposed to the attachments? I dropped master marks recently and picked up an attach of that speed magnitude, haven't seen a difference.

I spent a lot of money one day, and bought all sorts of pistols. high damage, low sac, fast speeds. I juggled them all, and what i found is what you said in the begining. It all comes back to sac. If I dont have any action it doesnt matter how hard or fast I hit, im not doing crap. I dont PVP much, just PVE, and I know it happens more often than not, that I get 3 on me, and have to take em all at once. That makes for one long fight, and when my action goes in the middle of it, im screwed. So I decided to choose only pistols with the lowest sac I could find (im still using those sac pups too, which help a ton) After sac, THEN I go with the highest damage I can find. Speed, like someone else said above me is neither here nor there, we are fast shooters to begin with. .04 seconds isnt gonna make or break anything =) Just my two cents...

---

raider7734 wrote:

It's possible to reach spam city with a carbine, so it should be possible with a pistol, too. What I mean by spam city is thatI can chain-alternate critical shot and legshot as long as the spice lasts, and not make a meaningful dent in my action. This is with an 81 SAC carbine, speed 2.25. SACpowerups are required. I think it's avery good thing to be able to use the high-multiplier attacks all the time. Who cares if you're missing 50 damage on the top endif you can constantly hammer away with 1.9x shots instead of 1.3x?

The value to pay attention to is SAC divided by weapon speed.(Let's face it, SAC alone is a pretty useless number unless related to the speed at which your attacks happen.)

If [SAC / Speed] is too high, your action is gone in a flash. A little lower, and youcan put up a goodfight for 3-5 mins. Lower yet, and you can go 8 mins. Lower yet, and you reach spam city.

The trick is to find what SAC/Speed works for your speed mods, fighting style, and what endurance level you want.

My method is todecide what speedI want, and get a weaponsmith to make a test weapon with this speed and a really low SAC. Damage doesn't matter, because I ruin it on purpose to 1/1 via repairs.I go out and kill a lair until it's empty, and there you go. The test weapon only does 1 damage regardless of special because it's busted, and the empty lair has thousands of HP to blast away at, so you can test all night.

I useSAC powerups made bymy artisan, that are experimented anywhere from 8-28% SAC reduction. Swap powerups to fine tune the SAC,attack the lair, do whatever specials you want, and see how long your action lasts. Did your action run out too fast? Try one with more SAC reduction. Feel like you could sustain a little higher action drain in order toachievehigher dps? Try one with less SAC reduction.

When you're done, you have a value for SAC/Speed that works for you,and you can hand your goodtissues to a weaponsmith and ask for highest dps with speed in the neighborhood of X, and [SAC / Speed] close to Y. A good smith will be able to balance the experimentation according to this info, andmake agun that's ideal for you and your fighting style, one thatfeels exactly right.

---

***** Nice post

Yup, 5 stars for that one, great info.