Arc Pulser Seems Week on Assaults

[oesis]

The Arc Pulser Skill seems like a bad skill. It does 2-4 After Armor piercing damage, when your shotgun already does 2-4 after armor(No enemies have more than 2 armor for along time). As well you can pick up AP rounds and deal 4-6 with your basic shotgun, which has the advantage of 100% killing drones.

The Minus Hack just doesn't seems helpful to me, at least early. I don't think it brings a mec's Hack defense low enough to 100% a shutdown, or 100% a Drone mind control. Minus hack does have utility just not much, especially early game, and this is a low level ability. To give an example, if you arc thrower a mec, then hack an 80% shutdown and failed, you just spent most of your actions to not kill the MEC, which now has extra movement to flank your units.

Lastly, it competes with close and personal which is a really good ability. Close and personal gives up to 30% crit, which combined with a basic laser sight gives 100% crit against flanked targets. This means that an assault can get 100% 100% relatively early on which can be quite significant.

To me if the arc thrower had some form of lock down, in addition or instead of the minus hack it would be a much better skill. Something like a disorient, or minus aim or minus movement. Right now I just find it hard to pick up over close and personal, pretty much ever.

On a side note, at least in my opinion, It would be nice if Arc Pulser had some interaction with the electroshock ability(Currently Guarantees Disorient on miss for non robots).

[Psieye]

It's fine, it's there for the unorthodox long-range assault, who might not even have a shotgun. With Stungunner, it means you have +25 hit chance to do some mech damage from far away. Now, "why would you ever build a long-range assault?" is a good question and one I don't have much of an answer for (besides 'rookie rolled this class when he was destined to be a nest sniper').

[wobuffet]

Now, "why would you ever build a long-range assault?" is a good question...

When your high-aim, low-mobility Assault rolls Light 'Em Up in the AWC!

[oesis]

I mean If i got light em Up on an assault sure. But If I had an assault who's mobility was so bad I didn't want to give him a shotgun, I feel like Id be better off just making him a haven advisor. An assault without a shotgun is pretty much a rookie. It'd be hard to justify bringing him along to missions.

[stefan3iii]

Now, "why would you ever build a long-range assault?" is a good question...

When your high-aim, low-mobility Assault rolls Light 'Em Up in the AWC!

That's possible? That soldier would be a god.

[WanWhiteWolf]

Now, "why would you ever build a long-range assault?" is a good question...

When your high-aim, low-mobility Assault rolls Light 'Em Up in the AWC!

That's possible? That soldier would be a god.

Yup.

And if you don't move you can shoot 3 times (you can get the extra action from shooting a flanked target).

I had 1 Assault with Icarus who would teleport in the middle of a 8 man rainbow squad. Close combat + free reload + 3 shots.

You can kill the whole command squad solo. Was ridiculous. Almost as good a a technical. /s

Not to go to much off-topic, I think some of the Arc skills are good, but it's not worth to pick the whole mid path.

For example, the first skill is against slug or lightning reflexes. I think having a 100% to chance disorient an enemy with a low chance to stun is better than lighting reflexes and slug on most missions. . At MSGT you can simply dash + command and you stun + dissortient all enemies - which I think it's more powerful than having +2 damage overall. Imagine you can run into a 8 man command pod and stun 6 and disorient 2 consistently.

I think the problem with Arc spec is that is weaker than alternatives until you get to MSGT.

I usually go first skill on arc, then full Breacher path. Once I reach MSGT, I respec to ARC some of the Assaults.

[oesis]

@WanWhiteWolf Just to specifiy, I'm not saying all the stunner perks are bad, I'm saying arc pulser specifically is bad, even if you are going for a stun gun build you don't really need it, and it's not that good.

[WanWhiteWolf]

@WanWhiteWolf Just to specifiy, I'm not saying all the stunner perks are bad, I'm saying arc pulser specifically is bad, even if you are going for a stun gun build you don't really need it, and it's not that good.

If you are referring to the ability itself ...well, that depends.

On late game, you will have issues with heavy and superheavy MECs. That one skill , paired with the HACK reduction from sting grenade can make it a reliable stun for the hacker and a good chance for full override.

If you manage to get a Superheavy MEC or Sectopod on a supply raid, you basically won the mission flawlessly; which might be otherwise quite difficult. A permanent mind control for a Sectopod has something like 45-50% with a strong hacker by default. You can increase that to 65-68% ish chance without redscreen rounds.

You might say it's not worth it - because if you miss you are screwed. But you can always use stasis if it fails. This combo will win 2/3 missions that have a sectopod. You can't really say that 30% extra critical chance is going to have the same impact.

Early game ...it's pretty weak; but that's mostly because you don't have a Hacker in place to begin with. You can use it to finish up MECs and drones. You might say that shotgun is better but shotgun requires close proximity, whereas the Arc Pulser can be shot across the map.

[gimrah]

It's not a great perk tbh. I like using higher aim soldiers as arc thrower builds.

Arc pulser is an ok long range option early on when I use a shotgun on him.

Once I get to TSGT I like to take rapid fire and put a rifle on him, so pulser loses that functionality. But then by that stage in the game hacking is more of thing so it has that use instead.

[Icarus]

Once you get to the perk that lets you shoot everyone in sight, Arc Pulser means more targets. And depending on your respec options, respeccing may take too long to be viable.

[Psieye]

I want a 2nd tube for respec'ing. Some of my later assaults took an experimental build but I can only respec 1 as it takes the better part of a month to respec now.

[JulianSkies]

Once you get to the perk that lets you shoot everyone in sight, Arc Pulser means more targets. And depending on your respec options, respeccing may take too long to be viable.

Nope, chain lightning doesn't works with arc pulser, I've tried but that was in 1.1

[Icarus]

Once you get to the perk that lets you shoot everyone in sight, Arc Pulser means more targets. And depending on your respec options, respeccing may take too long to be viable.

Nope, chain lightning doesn't works with arc pulser, I've tried but that was in 1.1

I haven't tried this myself, didn't get far enough to chain lightning yet. I thought I had read about this being possible.

Can anyone verify this for 1.4 or 1.3?

I want a 2nd tube for respec'ing. Some of my later assaults took an experimental build but I can only respec 1 as it takes the better part of a month to respec now.

You can make tube time ignore the character's rank in the INIs, which makes it a lot faster. I always play with that change.