Advice on next talent pick

[Sidmus]

So I'm just finishing up Act II and about to head to the White March. My main character cipher has just hit level 10 and I'm debating what talent to pick. So far I have Biting Whip, Draining Whip, Greater Focus and Sneak Attack.

 

My usual strategy for battles is to cast a power, fire off a pistol, cast another power then dive into melee with some sabres (or reload the pistol if it's looking a bit hairy).

 

I'm torn between:

Arms Bearer - to carry an extra pistol

Gunner - faster reloading is nice

Weapon Focus Ruffian - more accuracy is also nice

 

Is Arms Bearer and switching worth it without Quick Switch? How much time am I saving versus taking Gunner and reloading? Why'd they have to make this game so complicated?!

[Boeroer]

Switching adds 2 seconds to recovery. Quick Switch will remove 1.5 from that.

 

There's also a belt in Russetwood that reduces it by 1.

 

So with both you would nullify the penalty completely.

 

It's a ton quicker than reloading, but the max amount of shots without reloading is limited to 4 (Island Aumaua with Arms Bearer).

 

Weapon Focus Ruffian would be my recommendation.

[MaxQuest]

Depends on what weapons do you have at your disposal, plus what armor do you wear.

 

If it was pre-level 7,.. I would totally recommend having Persistence in main set, Lead Spitter in off set, and taking Penetrating Shot. The plan being: make a shot with LS and quickly switch to the bow.

 

On level 10 though, you might want another bow: Cloudpiercer or even better: The Rain of Godagh Field, which comes already enchanted to superb quality (which is nice as you can't apply such enchant yourself until lvl 12).

 

Blunderbusses and bow benefit a lot for DR bypass and extra accuracy.

For pistols though... if you still keep missing / or use sabres - Ruffian; otherwise I would take Arms Bearer or even Sanctifier provided that you go to WM now) or Scion of Flame (if you have burning lash / aefyllath).

 

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Regarding Arms Bearer vs Gunner:

Gunner would reduce your pistol reloading from 150 to 125 frames, i.e. saving you 0.833s on each shot (from 275f down to 250f) - provided there are no other modifiers.

Arms Bearer would substitute your reloading animation (of 150 frames) with switching animation (60 frames; or 15 frames if you have Quick Switch) - i.e it would save you 3s (or 4.5s with QS) , but only once.

Edited September 7, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Sidmus]

Thanks both. The numbers were particularly interesting.

 

I kind of want to keep using pistols for RP reasons (my cipher's a fan of gadgets and machines) and they're obviously pretty stylish, even if suboptimal compared to bows. I'm also using medium armor at the moment largely because I'm a fan of the way it looks - will probably switch to something lighter when something good comes along since I rarely get hit anyway...

 

Currently using an exceptional Forgiveness, though I was a bit disappointed to find out the speed bonus doesn't apply to reload (is this a bug? Otherwise it feels like firearms get little benefit from this enchant)

 

Will probably go WF, though I guess I'll need to specialise in melee/ranged at some point...