Rogue and Priest - ranged or melee?

[Myrten]

I'm planning a party like this:

 

1)Cipher - Ranged DPS\CC

2)Warrior - Tank

3)Chanter - Tank

4)Wizard\Druid - Ranged DPS\CC

5)Rogue 

6)Priest 

 

I can't decide whether I should go with melee or ranged for my priest and rogue, I'm more inclined towards ranged since guns can do  great damage and 2 tanks should hold everything. Any suggestions?

[Sock]

If on normal difficulty, all ranged. If on any higher difficulty, you're going to need to stay ontop of CC, but neither priest nor rogue are really suited for melee. Slap a shield on the priest in the switch slot, and that might be enough since the priest has other functions beyond attacking. If something gets by, you can hold it back with the priest if needed.

[Myrten]

If on normal difficulty, all ranged. If on any higher difficulty, you're going to need to stay ontop of CC, but neither priest nor rogue are really suited for melee. Slap a shield on the priest in the switch slot, and that might be enough since the priest has other functions beyond attacking. If something gets by, you can hold it back with the priest if needed.

So all ranged, but if something come through tanks priest should switch to melee and act as a second line of defense? Makes sense

 

Also, what weapon would you suggest? I'm tempted to go with arquebus on all ranged characters except Wizard

[Sock]

When it comes to power, nothing tops the arquebus. I'd recommend you go Priest of Magran and take Intense Flames to give you +10 accuracy to Sword and Arquebus, and give him both of those, then take Gunner so that you can kind of set your priest to a reactive play style with their spells, hitting for 60 regularly whenever they get a shot off.

 

Blunderbuss or Pistol on the Rogue usually works really well. It would probably be overkill to use the arquebus on the rogue, especially if you have your Cipher working to enable sneak attack for your rogue.

 

Blunderbuss for certain on the Cipher, to keep him/her loaded in focus.

[Myrten]

When it comes to power, nothing tops the arquebus. I'd recommend you go Priest of Magran and take Intense Flames to give you +10 accuracy to Sword and Arquebus, and give him both of those, then take Gunner so that you can kind of set your priest to a reactive play style with their spells, hitting for 60 regularly whenever they get a shot off.

 

Blunderbuss or Pistol on the Rogue usually works really well. It would probably be overkill to use the arquebus on the rogue, especially if you have your Cipher working to enable sneak attack for your rogue.

 

Blunderbuss for certain on the Cipher, to keep him/her loaded in focus.

Why Blunderbuss not Arquebuss for the Cipher? Focus gain depends on damage done not the number of hits. I've did test playthrough with my Cipher using arquebus and I've managed to do 80-120 damage per shot so I had enough focus for pretty much everything.

[Sock]

I can't find where I read it, but someone did a comparison with ranged weapons and focus gain. If you take the +2 focus per hit talent that ciphers get, then blunderbuss is WAY better than anything else. Even without it, the blunderbuss still provides more focus, just not as much. It does 6 (or was it 8?) hits per shot, has decent penetration, and with high accuracy or against a paralyzed target, it will do significant damage on a hit.

[Myrten]

I can't find where I read it, but someone did a comparison with ranged weapons and focus gain. If you take the +2 focus per hit talent that ciphers get, then blunderbuss is WAY better than anything else. Even without it, the blunderbuss still provides more focus, just not as much. It does 6 (or was it 8?) hits per shot, has decent penetration, and with high accuracy or against a paralyzed target, it will do significant damage on a hit.

Well I think that with Arquebuss I got more then enough enough focus to fulfill all my casting needs, but to be honest I'm wondering which weapon actually does more damage. I've made some calculations (accuracy and reload speed are not included) and Blunderbuss seems better unless target has 10 DR (or 15 with penetrating shot)

[Sock]

Blunderbuss is very reliant on accuracy for damage, too. It comes with a penalty to accuracy to start with, and due to lower damage per hit, you want more hits/crits, a graze would be minimal damage by a large margin.

[Myrten]

Blunderbuss is very reliant on accuracy for damage, too. It comes with a penalty to accuracy to start with, and due to lower damage per hit, you want more hits/crits, a graze would be minimal damage by a large margin.

At the beggining yes, but later on 5 difference in accuracy is not that big. As for graze as far as I know damage multipliers are additive so my enchanted Lead Splitter from Backer Beta with 1.25x and 1.3x damage enchants will hit for 1.55 dmg and graze for 1.05 dmg so it's not that bad.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Myrten