Swashbuckler (streetfighter/black jacket) help

[Tomucci]

So I'm wanting to make a streetfighter black jacket, premise is pretty straightforward and obvious, blunderbuss modal to trigger distracted, instant swap to other weapons, make use of different models and unique weapons for different effects, cover multiple damage types to always have the right tool for the job available ect.

Couple of things:

I'm probably wanting to have my sets as either blunderbuss/shield, pistol, sabre, mace for a hybrid melee ranged style or dagger/shield, blunderbuss, pistol, raw damage pistol for a pure ranged style. Any recommendations for gear, not limited to weapons?

Also race, attributes ect?

I've also been having an issue in my preliminary testing where I fire off the blunderbuss, it triggers "heating up", but it doesn't affect the reload speed of the weapon and thus 6 seconds of my 15 or so seconds of distracted is wasted which kinda defeats the purpose of the build. I'm not activating disciplined barrage, heating up and distracted are active, the reload issue is a bit inconsistent, sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, but whether or not I immediately reload or if I switch to another weapon immediately after firing to attack with something else then switch back to reload in the last few seconds of being distracted doesn't seem to make a difference. Is this a known issue?

[thelee]

17 hours ago, Tomucci said:

I've also been having an issue in my preliminary testing where I fire off the blunderbuss, it triggers "heating up", but it doesn't affect the reload speed of the weapon and thus 6 seconds of my 15 or so seconds of distracted is wasted which kinda defeats the purpose of the build.

yeah, the timing of the weapon reload is iffy so i'm guessing it triggers first before heating up kicks in. the first reload won't benefit, the second reload will.

however, what might get around this for blackjacket purposes is to have two weapon sets each with a blunderbuss, and a third "normal" weapon set. because the reload/recovery benefit doesn't kick in immediately, i'm wondering if switching to the third weapon will give you a chance ot immediatley benefit from heating up (you make an attack and trigger a new recovery with the heating up buff), and when you need to refresh your heating up, you switch to the unfired blunderbuss and shoot - because you were still under heating up, your reload is fast. when you need to refresh later, you switch back to the first one and maybe you'll be able to reload real fast because it'll be under a different heating up trigger. if that doesn't work, you can switch back to the second one instead, which should benefit from the reload.

this is just a theory. anohter idea is to have one weapon set with two blunderbusses. you let one fire, and don't let the other one fire until you need to refresh distracted. and then maybe when dual-wielded like this you can get heating up to work properly

[Tomucci]

@thelee good ideas thanks, I also had another issue where on a custom henchmen I made in another playthrough just for testing purposes I couldn't even get heating up to trigger from distracted (I confirmed that distracted and "looking for a fight" were active at the same time) and had pretty much given up on the concept and decided to go back to melee trickster black jacket but I'll give your suggestions a go

[tackthumb]

I remember testing this exact multiclass and weapon setup myself and it was as @thelee describes where the first blunderbuss shot that activates Powder Burns doesn't get the streetfighter's heating up recovery bonus unfortunately. If you switch to another blunderbuss in a different slot, it will profit from it however (as long as the previous Powder Burns effect is still active).

I don't remember testing if firing your first blunderbuss to activate Powder Burns, then switching to another blunderbuss in a different slot to skip reload and firing it to reactivate Powder Burns, and then switching back to your first blunderbuss will then give you the recovery bonus when you resume reloading it. I don't know if the game is sophisticated enough to "remember" the original, unmodified reloading time or if Black Jacket instant swapping and reactivating Powder Burns in between would then grant you the recovery bonus but that sounds like it's worth testing.

[tackthumb]

I went ahead and further tested the two separate blunderbusses scenario (fired first blunderbuss with Powder Burns modal to activate heating up, instant swapped via Black Jacket + Quick Switch to another blunderbuss as the reload animation started on the first blunderbuss, fired the second blunderbuss to restart the timer on Powder Burns, and then swapped back to the first blunderbuss). Unfortunately, even though the tooltip on the weapon reload time states it is getting the heating up bonus, the first reload on that first blunderbuss you use to activate Powder Burns will always require the full, unmodified time to reload. Swapping back and forth from another weapon to your second blunderbuss, however, will bypass that so one method you can do to get around the unavoidable, slower first reload is to keep a second blunderbuss (since it will continue profiting from heating up) in your weapon slot and only swap to that one to refresh Powder Burns while considering your first blunderbuss "dead" after it's done its job and activated heating up on you.

This was all tested on the vanilla game, by the way.

[Tomucci]

@tackthumb thank you so much for doing that, it's a bit of a bummer on an already strained concept (not being able to use disciplined barrage to gain intuitive feels like I'm losing something pretty fundamental too) but at the end of the day I'm just losing one weapon slot so it's not entirely a deal-breaker. I'm gonna see how I go with it and if I don't like it I'll just make a melee trickster / black jacket. Thanks again.

[tackthumb]

You're welcome. I know you're probably going for a more self-sufficient way of activating heating up on your Streetfighter by multiclassing with a Black Jacket and using a blunderbuss, but may I suggest an alternative, party-dependent setup for a Streetfighter? It still relies upon using a blunderbuss, but instead of equipping a blunderbuss directly on your Streetfighter and using the Powder Burns modal, you equip Serafen's Hand Mortar on another party member and take its Blinding Smoke upgrade. Blinding Smoke adds a Disorienting effect to its auto-attacks which fires out in a cone and affects allies and enemies alike. By merely positioning your Streetfighter in between your Hand Mortar-user and enemies, you can reliably keep Heating Up activated on your Streetfighter. The Blinding Smoke attack also targets Will and works on grazes which is very beneficial for a Streetfighter that would want to keep their other defenses like Deflection high in order to counteract the Flanked status that comes with Disoriented. Another nice facet about the Blinding Smoke effect is that it is an attack that does no damage so it won't take away charges of spells like Mirrored Image.

You would still wanted to deal with the fact that Disoriented is a nastier T2 Perception Affliction that adds on a 50% recovery penalty which is counter-synergistic to the Streetfighter's recovery bonus. Luckily, a very easy way to deal with this is to upgrade Eder's starting Saints War Armor which gives Perception Resistance and will downgrade Disoriented to a more manageable Distracted perception affliction. These two pieces of gear are available fairly early, though it may take you some time to gather the necessary materials to upgrade them. You'd also be stuck with using Hand Mortar on another party member to enable your Streetfighter's bonus, but I find that a party member with high-ish Intellect can reliably keep the duration of Blinding Smoke active on the Streetfighter while alternating between attacks with another, dual-wielded weapon, like Fire in the Hole to pair with it, or firing off the occasional spell -- a dual mortar setup is pretty nice setup for a lot of builds so you don't exactly have to twist my arm for me to want use it, personally. Granted, another downside is the opportunity cost of not being able to take the alternative Point Blank shot enchantment on Hand Mortar for the extra damage. Yet another issue that you'd have to overcome is protecting your other frontliners besides the Streetfighter who are standing in front of the Hand Mortar-user so that they don't suffer Blinding Smoke's effects. Fortunately, the Captain's Banquet food bonus can give you Perception Immunity, but be prepared to shuck quite a lot of oysters depending on the number of front-line party members you have.

I know this may all seem like a chore, but it's honestly my favorite, relatively painless way of getting a Streetfighter to work, especially when I want the Streetfighter to be able to use weapons other than a blunderbuss with Powder Burns. This party setup would also free you up to multiclass your Streetfighter with something else besides a Black Jacket, since you seem a little disappointed by needing to dedicate several slots for blunderbusses to do the Powder Burns swap and the lack of being able to use your Fighter side's Disciplined Barrage. Instead, you can multiclass your Streetfighter with another class that has higher, non-Perception Inspiration accuracy buffs and defenses to counteract the Flanked and Distracted status. Cipher is a nice option, for example, for the Borrowed Instinct's big boost of accuracy and defenses. Paladin is another good option for the accuracy or armor aura, the accuracy bonus while using Flames of Devotion, and the Clear Head passive ability which gives you Perception Resistance, allowing you to then use a different armor than the Saint's War Armor.

It also sounds like you're leaning more towards the Black Jacket side in your original Streetfighter / Black Jacket post. I have some suggestions on Black Jackets too if you'd like.

[Boeroer]

What about shooting at enemies from stealth first? Then it shouldn't be too bad if the first reload doesn't profit from Heating Up - because stealth has it's own -85% recovery/reload bonus. 

Completely different approach:

the most painless way for me to make my Streetfighter Swashbuckler work very reliably was to turn him into a tank with a large shield (like I did Edér many times before) and "escape" into the middle of an enemy mob in order to get flanked - for real.  

And then I just let him hack away, always heated up until only a few enemies are left and there was no flanking anymore. But at that point the fight is usually won anyway.

That way I could make good use of:

• Escape and Charge (mobility is useful in order to get the best position for tanking and getting flanked - especially useful since you can move while the large shield modal is up)
• Coordinated Positioning (never used this before - but in this case it can be great to place yourself between crowded enemies perfectly so you actually get flanked properly - sometimes there's no free space to Escape to... and then Escape doesn't work reliably and your character might get ramdomly placed in some stupid spot)
• Mob Stance (even faster attacks and cleaves on kill - with the help of some engagement slots, see Hold the Line, shield and some other gear)
• Armored Grace (obviously)
• heal-on-kill pet (the damage output is good, that leads to kills which leads to cleaves which lead to more damage and kills which leads to a lot of healing procs for you)
• Entonia Signet Ring (getting engaged by enemies raises your defenses, perfect)
• Riposte (lots of missed melee attacks against you due to high deflection even when flanked - can trigger cleaves, too)
• Deep Wounds (nice in combo with Riposte and Cleave imo)
• Persistent Distraction (unlocking Deathblows on every engaged enemy automatically, also reducing their accuracy)
• Adept Evasion (in combo with a large shield modal AoE spells don't bother me anymore)
• Refreshing Defense (of course this works very well with such a setup)
• Unbending (if he punishment is too much you can still keep going easily)
• Fighting Spirit + On the Edge (increase dmg output even more before eventually getting healed)
• Slippery Mind (won't remove real flanking but will take away all PER/INT/RES afflictions once you are On the Edge - it's super useful imo)
• Pernicious Cloud (it's friendly fire so normally I wouldn't ever use it - but since you're surrounded by foes anyway...)
• Into the Fray (nice to pull some enemies near so they can flank you instead of bothering your allies)

and so on. It worked out really well - while the tankyness was good enough to be the main tank of the party, the damage output was still very impressive. No comparison to the Edér Swashbuckling tankyness I'm more used to - in terms of the offense I mean. The increased Sneak Attack damage (+50%) combined with the short recovery, Ripostes and Cleaves leads to great dps while occupying a lot of enemies - even though it's "only" weapon & large shield and no dual wielding or two handed stuff. There wasn't even the need for the Rogue's strikes abilities.

All in all I think this was much easier to play and less fuss than what is usually done with Streetfighters to make them unlock their passive "easily". I find all that blunderbuss firing and switching in order to milk that Heating Up passive turns into tedium quickly. But maybe that's just me. 

I used a Streetfighter/Devoted with the Galdiator Sword + Bronlar's Phalanx by the way for some Roman Gladiator vibes (also I wanted to stack the +1 PEN of the sword with the +2 from the Devoted and never bother to switch weapon sets - Iazy ;)). But I think the Fighter subclass doesn't matter that much. With a Black Jacket you can be more versatile (and even switch from weapon & shield to a more offensive setup if the situation is right or directly turn off the large shield modal), with an Unbroken you get more AR (but worse Reflex - but that's already very high due to the large shield) and better disengagment attacks, the Devoted grants more dmg with your one chosen weapon because of the PEN and slightly incrased crit dmg... but that's all not really crucial for this direct "getting flanked" approach I think.    

Edited June 12 by Boeroer