Pistol Builds?

[Clibanarius]

I still find that pistols synergize the best with (DFA) Sharpshooters. The ability to take a second shot after a successful DfA kill is absolutely amazing, especially once you're past conventional pistols and can expect more than 1-2 damage a shot from your pistole.

[Jadiel]

Did you find overall that it was worth building an assault pistol just for a concealment opening? I was beginning to think it had more use in general fights but if all you're doing with it is conceal opening, then I'll just go back to the usual assault builds. If what you're mainly doing is using faceoff from concealment, I think doing it on a ranger makes much more sense since they have better aim, BOE+aggression comes standard on a non-overwatch build.

No, I didn't actually use my Assault from concealment at all. I was just pointing out that actually Shadowstrike doesn't do as much as it would appear if you're using it against inactive pods, because your CTH and CTC are both pretty close to 100 anyway. I used my pistol assaults in general fights against a lot of enemies, either because two pods arrived at once, or due to a bad activation. It's pretty good against an 8 pod too.

I can see it on a ranger with a rifle, but I don't think it would work well unless they have SS. Even with SS, positioning while in concealment is awkward. Maybe if you have a lot of cover destruction?

[trihero]

CTH and CTC are both pretty close to 100 anyway.

Wait what? Shinobi without shadowstrike is nowhere near 100 on ctch or ctc on inactive pods.

[Ithuriel]

I still find that pistols synergize the best with (DFA) Sharpshooters. The ability to take a second shot after a successful DfA kill is absolutely amazing, especially once you're past conventional pistols and can expect more than 1-2 damage a shot from your pistole.

Really? Tbh I never bother even giving my sharpshooters pistols; they're generally 3 miles behind the lines regardless, and if they get flanked their reaction is generally to run like hell. Something about having 4 hp and being my most valuable soldier makes me skittish... I always run Stocks on my DfA snipers, so they can always use their DfA actions anyway. Having +20 Aim and +20 Crit on every shot is just a tad bit good.

[Dirkin]

Grenade dots are an effect of the grenade and so are effected by grenade perks.

Ammo is separate from the pistol and applies only to the base effect. (Bonus damage rounds should not increase damage on a crit either).

So the only way to increase damage from venom rounds is to rupture.

DoT ammo is affected by weapon base damage perks the same way grenades are by grenade perks. A Rupture shot will indeed add damage to the DoT effect, as will base damage perks like Lethal and AMF. You are correct though that crits and crit damage perks won't have an effect on the DoT damage.

[Jadiel]

CTH and CTC are both pretty close to 100 anyway.

Wait what? Shinobi without shadowstrike is nowhere near 100 on ctch or ctc on inactive pods.

Right, but I was talking about Assaults when I said that. I think the conversation has got a bit confused.

I was telling you about my experience with Pistol Assaults. You said you're unconvinced, and that you think Shinobis with SS and Faceoff might work better. I made a point saying that if you have concealment, a Pistol Assault has close to 100 CtH and CTC (my most experienced Assault in that campaign had 95 Aim with a Superior Perception PCS, and Exposed + Aggression + Get Some + Talon Rounds is 100 CTC), so you're almost as good as a SS Shinobi but your crits hit much harder and Faceoff works much better when not concealed as well.

My last post was confusing (I think I'd forgotten my original point) - sorry.

[trihero]

DoT ammo is affected by weapon base damage perks the same way grenades are by grenade perks.

This implies that center mass and hunter's instinct should affect the dot from ammo then? (as well as lethal, alpha mike foxtrot for main weapons, but center mass for pistols as well). I don't really feel like ini editing because I'm testing the actual game with actual training times, but I might do it so I can quickly get my shinobi trained to see how dot with ammo works.

If this is true can you imagine the double dipping you get from hunter's instincts on pistol dots?? Wow.

I was telling you about my experience with Pistol Assaults. You said you're unconvinced, and that you think Shinobis with SS and Faceoff might work better. I made a point saying that if you have concealment, a Pistol Assault has close to 100 CtH and CTC (my most experienced Assault in that campaign had 95 Aim with a Superior Perception PCS, and Exposed + Aggression + Get Some + Talon Rounds is 100 CTC), so you're almost as good as a SS Shinobi but your crits hit much harder and Faceoff works much better when not concealed as well.

I see what you're saying, but that's not the point I'm trying to make with the shinobi faceoff. The point is, the shinobi scout is already a part of the team, and can be given mass aoe damage by learning faceoff and shadow strike. I'm not directly comparing a shinobi's faceoff versus an assault's, I'm comparing with respect to what you have to give up on your team. What are you giving up to have an assault pistol on your team and did you feel it was overall worth it? For the shinobi, I don't think it implies giving up anything.

[Goumindong]

The problem with shadow strike on a shinobi is that it's on the same rank as evasive and evasive is super hilariously strong. (Especially combined with the rest of the defensive tree)

[trihero]

It might be strong if you build a defensive shinobi, but I noticed I never get any use out of it when I'm using my shinobi as a concealed scout.

Edit:

Oh this is disappointing, hunter's instinct doesn't buff the dot, but it turns out center mass does. Tested with venom rounds which do 1 dot damage, hunter's instinct remained at 1 damage a tick but a center mass application went up to 2 a tick. It's harder to take advantage of double dipping with dots than I thought. Still, it's interesting to know you can squeeze some extra damage out of those venom/dragon rounds if you have someone with center mass/lethal/alpha mike foxtrot, and of those three only center mass applies to pistols.

[Goumindong]

Well i still put it on full stealth shinobi because

1) You don't bring full stealth shinobi to combat missions

2) You don't care about doing damage on stealth missions. Its better to just bail if you get revealed, which means evasive is stronk

edit: remember that evasive eliminates the graze band and so is effectively -10 aim for aliens. If your shinobi is in high cover they're going to have 45 defense. Probability to hit at 75 base aim is now 20 and if you do get hit its going to graze(for the first hit).

Without, probability to be hit is 40%, 50% hit, 50% graze.

[Ithuriel]

It's harder to take advantage of double dipping with dots than I thought. Still, it's interesting to know you can squeeze some extra damage out of those venom/dragon rounds if you have someone with center mass/lethal/alpha mike foxtrot, and of those three only center mass applies to pistols.

Do Venom Rounds apply poison 100% of the time? How about Dragon Rounds? Also, is the DoT for poison just 1 every turn? They both last for 2 turns afaik.

[trihero]

I don't know what the application chance is, although I know it is certainly not 100%. I would guess it's 75%, but I haven't tried counting.

The venom one ticks for one, the fire ticks for 1-3.

[Goumindong]

Might get changed in 1.3. Current application rates are 100%, but they only hit the first(?) target on multi-target abilities or are entirely disabled.

So you can area suppress/kill zone/rapid reaction and apply a lot of poison rounds, but you cannot saturation fire and apply a lot of poison rounds(which frankly is dumb)

[Goldenmonkey]

I haven't tried pistol builds yet, but I just remembered, that I have the Shadowkeeper, a pistol that gives you stealth, when you kill an enemy. That should be amazing on a shinobi with pistol perks. I haven't tried yet, but afaik, you can get stealth multiple times with that

Btw, does quickdraw go together with other perks? For example Fan Fire? Or clutch shot?

E: I just made some calculations:
Build:
Ghostwalker, Shadowstep, Lone Wolf (doesn't really matter up to here), Hunter's instincts, Shadowstrike, Conceal( or whatever you like), Implacable, (whatever you like)
Pistol perks:
Lightning hands, Quickdraw, Fanfire

Basic dmg 2.5, flanked 4.5 +15% on crit, so theoretically +0.15dmg on average
If we go Lightning hands, into quickdraw, into fanfire, we get off 5 shots, meaning 23.5dmg.
If we can get our hands on the updated Shadowkeeper, we get 34 and 44,75 dmg.

This should kill any enemy, give us stealth and another action to run away. If we do this from stealth, we even get +65% crit on the first shot (which isn't that much of a deal though)

Holy cow....

Would this work? Or do I misunderstand how the perks work?

[Fizpez]

I haven't tried pistol builds yet, but I just remembered, that I have the Shadowkeeper, a pistol that gives you stealth, when you kill an enemy. That should be amazing on a shinobi with pistol perks. I haven't tried yet, but afaik, you can get stealth multiple times with that
*snip stuff here*

As I recall you actually have to select the Shadowkeeper shot - its not an "always on" benefit of the pistol and as such I think its only once per mission (could be wrong here but I know I've never used it twice in a mission)

I just started using the Shadowkeeper but I put it on my lead Technical for Ambush corpse runs. I usually try to end the first pod (or as close to the end as feasible) with him taking a close shot on the last target. The damage on the first upgrade of it is pretty weak (3-6 I think) so you need a fairly wounded last target and it needs to be somewhat isolated because even if you kill it, if there's another Advent within visual range you will conceal then immediately be revealed again.

Having a grenadier with ghost grenade has allowed me to pull of 3 flamethrower ambushes on the same mission using this thing.

[Goldenmonkey]

As I recall you actually have to select the Shadowkeeper shot - its not an "always on" benefit of the pistol and as such I think its only once per mission (could be wrong here but I know I've never used it twice in a mission)

I think you are right, that would make my idea worthless. It would be so fun though, sneak up on someone, shoot them 5 times, then run off concealed

[Ithuriel]

As I recall you actually have to select the Shadowkeeper shot - its not an "always on" benefit of the pistol and as such I think its only once per mission (could be wrong here but I know I've never used it twice in a mission)

I think you are right, that would make my idea worthless. It would be so fun though, sneak up on someone, shoot them 5 times, then run off concealed

For what it's worth, I actually had 2 Shinobis successfully take a combat mission using this strat? IIRC Destroy the Monument mission, 11 enemies including my first Archon; one Shinobi had a mag pistol and very heavy pistol training. That said, this wasn't with Alien Hunters, so the shenanigans were pulled off by alternating who broke concealment and both Shinobis having the Conceal perk! ...it felt damn good. Unfortunately, then this happened because to took too long and the Doom Reinforcements showed up the turn I killed the last enemy: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =868768405

And thus, the badass gunslinging Shinobi met his end: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =868781486

[JoINrbs]

I've been throwing tons of soldiers into the AWC for pistols in my current campaign and they all seem extremely strong. example: https://clips.twitch.tv/NastyGiftedLlamaANELE

I think you guys are overthinking it a bit in general; these are perks which will consistently give you a free 5-10 damage on any soldier who has them and a pistol. They occasionally do something completely broken (for example you can get up a gunslinger aoe ow zone on top of a pod AND faceoff them) but for the most part they are good because they just give consistent extra output on any soldier who has time to train them. Soldiers with stuff like Center Mass and high aim are going to be a little better at using them than others, but that doesn't mean you don't just want these on everybody. At a little over a month to train them you can easily have an 8-soldier A-team with 7 pistol perks each by late game.

[LordYanaek]

The shadowkeeper pistol is still useful to give anyone who can't normally take it one use of "conceal". I started training pistol skills for this reason on an assault with Covert from AWC so i could sneak twice for Trench Gun opening and was impressed by what she could do with her pistol and decided to train other soldiers.
Hunter's Instinct does work on Pistols too so rifle and gun shinobis can pack quite some punch. I had one such shinobi in my campaign built like Goldenmonkey's example above.

• Ghostwalker - Lone Wolf - Hunter's Instincts - Shadowstrike - Conceal - Implacable - Serial
• Lightning Hands - Quickdraw - Fan Fire

Fanfire out of concealment on the biggest threat followed by a free pistol shot and a regular flanking rifle shot was always very fun. Doing it twice or 3 times (with Shadowkeeper) per battle even more. Implacable allowed repositioning before the final shot and with Serial just about moving at any point to continue killing things but she could already kill three guys including a big one long before MSgt. Even with only a single use of Shadofall it's still a very potent build.

But yeah, as JoINrbs says almost everyone can benefit from pistol perks. Some guys have a harder time fitting a pistol in their slots thought.

[JulianSkies]

Grenade dots are an effect of the grenade and so are effected by grenade perks.

Ammo is separate from the pistol and applies only to the base effect. (Bonus damage rounds should not increase damage on a crit either).

So the only way to increase damage from venom rounds is to rupture.

Ammo dots are "weapon" based, so weapon added damage perks (lethal, center mass, AMF) apply as long as it is the proper weapon.

Also don't forget that Faceoff in particular doesn't applies dots and debuffs.

[LordYanaek]

Also don't forget that Faceoff in particular doesn't applies dots and debuffs.

Where is this specified? Or do you refer to the "first target only" bug that affects every multi-target ability?

[JulianSkies]

Also don't forget that Faceoff in particular doesn't applies dots and debuffs.

Where is this specified? Or do you refer to the "first target only" bug that affects every multi-target ability?

Hrm... I may have misunderstood the bug (if it isn't intentional), I think we're talking the same issue but i thought it applied only to faceoff? Not that I remember any other multi target ability like it.
Either way we're talking about the same thing, except I'm sure it's on purpose. Imagine Dragon Rounds faceoff...

[LordYanaek]

From what i've read (i never really paid enough attention in-game) it affects Saturation Fire and Iron Curtain as well, probably also trench gun and street sweeper.
I doubt it's on purpose, all those shots are using the same ammunition so there's really no reason only the first one should add the effect. If it was done on purpose for balance it would probably add a multiplier to the proc effect so that it affects only 25% of targets or something similar.