I slept on Sundering Blow done with a mortar

[Boeroer]

Hi!

Did you know that Sundering Blow works with ranged weapons? Because I somehow missed that all the time.

Okay, I haven't played a lot of single class fighters in the first place (bit boring) so I didn't have much motivation to check that in- or outside the game.
But causing solid -4 AR in a quite big AoE for over 30 secs is nothing to sneeze at. Trying a SC Tactician atm and the Blinding Smoke (distracts) seemed to be a convenient way to flank most enemies on the spot. Then I stumbled across Sundering Blow... 

 

Sunder! Ah-ha-aha-aha-ha-a!
Sunder! Ah-ha-aha-aha-ha-a!

I was caught
In the middle of a duuummy pack (Sunder!)
I looked 'round
And I knew there was no switching back (Sunder!)
My mind raced
And I thought, what could I use? (Sunder!)
And you know
I had already lightened the fuse... (Sunder!)
Scorching their arse
penetrating their heart
The thunder of mortars
Tore them apart
They've been...

...Clean Swept!

 

 

[Sympetrum]

Hey, I want to ask: how did you build and play this SC Tactician? I've been reading about SC Fighters, and from what sparse information I've gathered, they're not that good. Even so, I want to know how to make them work well. I thought I should look more into Tacticians, because of their being able to recover Discipline by interrupting an enemy action; I thought then I'd be able to endlessly spam Clear Out or its upgrades, especially with Fire in the Hole. I'm likely wrong here, as interrupting an action isn't that easy, so I thought I'd ask you about it as well as how you built and played that character.

(I have searched the forums many, many times and only found a pitiable number of posts mentioning SC Fighters—compared to other SC classes—in general, and even fewer mentioning SC Fighter subclasses in particular; yours is the only one mentioning SC Tactician.)

 

[thelee]

holy thread necro!

but this is actually the good kind of necro because i definitely missed the post the previous time around.

can't speak for boeroer, but IME there are three main aspects of a SC fighter worth talking about:

• clear out upgrades
• sunder armor
• some extremely light metagaming with the passive that gives you more discipline maybe?

if you wanted to do a tactician, upgrading clear out and using a handmortar in your main hand with a melee weapon in the off hand might be a good pay off for SC. you'd need perception resistance or to leave your blunderbuss modal off, but you'd get tons of interrupts. i actually don't know if you're capped at restoring 1 discipline per attack, or if you could actually have a net gain in discipline. but even when capped at only 1 discipline restored fire in the hole (which can be upgraded to bounce) plus a good offhand weapon plus maybe the line clear out upgrade will tax your video card while outputting tons of damage and will be extremely cheap to spam in a fight.

[Elric Galad]

It's a different topic but similar, I have just realized after all that time that barbaric blow & upgrades can be used with ranged weapon. 

That is not super interesting because you loose the carnage bonus and these abilities are any way very meh. 

But with BPM mod changes, this is super interesting. The no recovery BPM upgrade is even enough to sell a ranged (or semi ranged) barbarian (the Rod modal is especially good, the reload weapons much less since reload has a absolute minimum). 

[Ivanfyodorovich]

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

The no recovery BPM upgrade is even enough to sell a ranged (or semi ranged) barbarian (the Rod modal is especially good, the reload weapons much less since reload has a absolute minimum). 

Yes! I had a fun Savage turret build I was noodling.  Barbaric is always nice, if nothing else, to keep Blood Frenzy going. I was imaging using it with a Boreal Dwarf and Aamiina's Legacy (10% crit on graze/hit/crit) w/ Modal and Frenzy. I'm sure you could do fun stuff with Galawain's Harry on St. Omaku's Mercy, too. 

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

Yes! I had a fun Savage turret build I was noodling.  Barbaric is always nice, if nothing else, to keep Blood Frenzy going. I was imaging using it with a Boreal Dwarf and Aamiina's Legacy (10% crit on graze/hit/crit) w/ Modal and Frenzy. I'm sure you could do fun stuff with Galawain's Harry on St. Omaku's Mercy, too. 

IMHO :

BPM Barbaric Smash + St Omaku or Veilpiercer or Frostseeker

BPM Crushing Blow + Rod modal or Frostseeker (with a good multiclass, you can burn your rage into an instant AoE)

 

I'm absolutely fond of rods in general. Rod of the Deep Hunter is especially great because its debuff makes it as good vs crowd as vs bosses. Amira's Wing is just too cool with its devastating spells with weapon quality bonus and focus regen.

[Boeroer]

On 1/31/2024 at 6:10 AM, Sympetrum said:

Hey, I want to ask: how did you build and play this SC Tactician? 

Hi, sorry it took so long. First I was sick in bed (had a weird one-day fever that went very high and then just vanished ) and then the forum broke down for a bit. 

Anyway, what @thelee said basically.

SC Fighter isn't very interesting in general because multiclasses with fighters fulfill most roles better due to nice synergies. And what makes some SC of other classes interesting is often some devastating damaging effect (Meteor Shower, Maelstrom, Whispers of the Wind and so on) which the Fighter doesn't have. That's not really a problem of the fighter alone: SC Rangers, Ciphers, Chanters and Paladins also don't have many fans. 

For me a SC Fighter looks appealing when I look at Clear Out and then either Clean Sweep or Clear the Path. And most often it's about debugging with a weapon modal (more me mostly morning Stars or clubs with the -25 fortitude or will debuff). 

For example I once played a hireling Black Jacket SC with high DRX and high INT who had a morning star setup, a mace, a club and a flail - so that he could debuff fortitude, armor, will and reflex with Clean Sweep in a wide area. This is very helpful for fellow AoE casters. I mean to drop a certain defense by 25 and do what Clean Sweep does at the same time is very nice.

You could also do that with a multiclass and Clear Out. But it takes forever to get there and you will be confined to the cone - while the circular AoE covers so much more area.

Yet... it's still pretty boring.

I didn't even play the Tactician I mentioned above in a real playthrough. I merely tried out an idea I had and stumbled over the effect I mentioned above.

But if you want to go SC Fighter I would focus on Clean Sweep or Clear the Path and try to combine an AoE weapon with it. This has a devastating AoE damage potential like a very powerful spell and also does good CC.

With a Tactician something like Hand Mortar+Blinding Smoke would make a lot of sense because you can distract a lot of mobs (often all of them) and then not only get 1 discipline because you maybe interrupted an action but also because all enemies are flanked from Blinding Smoke. This might grant enough discipline to fuel Clean Sweep or Clear the Path a lot more times. 

Note that Clear Out and upgrades hit the first target twice. So even against single foes it's a good damage tool. 

[dgray62]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

With a Tactician something like Hand Mortar+Blinding Smoke would make a lot of sense because you can distract a lot of mobs (often all of them) and then not only get 1 discipline because you maybe interrupted an action but also because all enemies are flanked from Blinding Smoke. This might grant enough discipline to fuel Clean Sweep or Clear the Path a lot more times. 

Don't you need a melee weapon to use Clean Sweep or Clear the Path? I thought that they wouldn't be available for a mortar build.

[NotDumbEnough]

Hold a melee weapon in offhand to fool the game. But it doesn't work everywhere, you're not allowed to Mule Kick with a ranged weapon.

Edited February 3 by NotDumbEnough

[Elric Galad]

7 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Hold a melee weapon in offhand to fool the game. But it doesn't work everywhere, you're not allowed to Mule Kick with a ranged weapon.

It does not work with normal primary attacks. It works with AoEs : Clear Out and Whirling Strikes (you'll get an attack from both melee and ranged hands. 

[Boeroer]

Clear Out does a primary attack only, so it is mandatory to hold the ranged weapon in the main hand and unlock the ability use with a melee weapon in the offhand (which won't get used).

Whirling Strikes is a little bit different because it is a Full Attack and I think (like 63.5% sure) it doesn't matter in which hand you hold the ranged weapon. 

[Constentin Lévine]

Yes Clear the Path use the melee weapon for the first hit roll, and then use the primary weapon. 

and also yes, Whirling strike, as full attack, doesnt require to equipe a melee weapon in offhand to use the ranged one.

Swift Flurry work like Clear the Path, you need a melee weapon to proc the ability but whatever is in your primary hand, that is used for the attack. 

[Sympetrum]

On 2/3/2024 at 2:22 PM, Boeroer said:

With a Tactician something like Hand Mortar+Blinding Smoke would make a lot of sense because you can distract a lot of mobs (often all of them) and then not only get 1 discipline because you maybe interrupted an action but also because all enemies are flanked from Blinding Smoke. This might grant enough discipline to fuel Clean Sweep or Clear the Path a lot more times.

For the purpose of interrupting an enemy, is Hand Mortar be better than Fire in the Hole? The latter can be enchanted with +1 bounce which -- assuming I'm correct -- inherits the interrupt-on-hit property of Clear Out; does the same rule apply to Hand Mortar's Blinding Smoke? Will all the Blinding Smokes produced by Hand Mortar interrupt enemies on hit just as the bounce from Fire in the Hole will?

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, Sympetrum said:

For the purpose of interrupting an enemy, is Hand Mortar be better than Fire in the Hole? The latter can be enchanted with +1 bounce which -- assuming I'm correct -- inherits the interrupt-on-hit property of Clear Out; does the same rule apply to Hand Mortar's Blinding Smoke? Will all the Blinding Smokes produced by Hand Mortar interrupt enemies on hit just as the bounce from Fire in the Hole will?

Good question. Blinding Smoke counts as weapon attack (for example it can trigger Avenging Storm) - but I'm not sure if it also transports the properties of the Clear Out attack (pushing and kockdown/interrupt). Chain Shot (the +1 bounce for Fire in the Hole) does def. transport those effects (its AoE, too) so I think it's the save bet to use it over Blinding Smoke... I mean if you are only looking out for max. interrupts. Chain Shot is also the better option for damage per use of Clear Out. 

However - Chain Shot does not cause flanked when used with Clear Out while Blinding Smoke does. I believe a SC Tactician can harvest more Discipline from triggering Brilliant + fewer interrupt chances (Blinding Smoke) than he can from not triggering Brilliant + higher interrupt chances (Chain Shot). But I may be wrong. I didn't try and compare both weapons thoroughly enough to make a def. statement. Should Blinding Smoke transport the interrupting, too then I would use Blinding Smoke/Hand Mortar I guess. 

Then... in a party with enough potential to cause mass flanking (see Cipher with Phantom Foes for example) Blinding Smoke might be the inferior choice anyway because the disorienting/flanking effect of Blinding Smoke isn't really needed. So, it all depends I guess - as most of times with this game.  

Best would be to try both options during some proper fights, compare the results and then decide.    

Edited February 5 by Boeroer

[Constentin Lévine]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Good question. Blinding Smoke counts as weapon attack (for example it can trigger Avenging Storm)

So with Xefa Empirical Explication instead of mortar, blinding smoke should do 4 lightnings with Avenging Storm? 

Because of some properties of this weapon (Inexplicable Mass and Matter Repulsion are Ranged weapon attacks (the effect itself bounce with Driving Flight) and proc Avenging Storm and Blinding Smoke ; there are both vs fortitude and proc on crit for each bullet, so could bounce 8 times per shot) a Clear Out with a ranger-fighter with Avenging Storm and Blinding Smoke seems clearly devastating, i guess.  

 

 

 

[Boeroer]

I don't really understand.

Blinding Smok is an enchantment of Serafen's Hand Mortar. I don't see how one could combine Xefa's Blunderbuss with Blinding Smoke.

Blinding Smoke has an AoE in the form of a cone. It procs from a crit from Hand Mortar rolls (AoE crits included). You can proc a lot of Blinding Smoke cones with just one mortar shot (the more enemies the better).

It is indeed devastating with Avenging Storm. That's why I sometimes use it in combination with Fire in the Hole (Chain Shot) on a SC Stormspeaker (Tekehu) or SC Druid. 

[Constentin Lévine]

11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I don't really understand.

Blinding Smok is an enchantment of Serafen's Hand Mortar. I don't see how one could combine Xefa's Blunderbuss with Blinding Smoke.

 

Sorry I mixed up Blinding Smoke and Powders Burns, so does the modal proc avenging storm ?

[Boeroer]

5 hours ago, Constentin Lévine said:

Sorry I mixed up Blinding Smoke and Powders Burns, so does the modal proc avenging storm ?

nope