Sharpshooter/Assassin with arquebus viability

[Majber]

Do you think that build with Sharpshooter/Assassin focusing only on arquebus or other big ( base damage ) kind of firearm will be viable? 

Im thinking about sth like sniper or character that can focus on single "soft and important" (like mages) target from stealth and take them out as fast as possible with as few attacks as possible.

[Boeroer]

Arquebus + modal (+20 acc) is nice for alpha strikes like Assassinate + Backstab. Also with Assassination it doesn't hurt that much that guns have blunted criticals - because the +50% on crit from Assassinate and the +30% from overpenetration still work well enough.

[SaruNi]

Arquebus + modal (+20 acc) is nice for alpha strikes like Assassinate + Backstab. Also with Assassination it doesn't hurt that much that guns have blunted criticals - because the +50% on crit from Assassinate and the +30% from overpenetration still work well enough.

 

Thankfully "+50% crit damage" actually seems to mean +50% total damage on crit, rather than +50% of the extra crit damage (which would be +12.5% total damage without blunted criticals, and 0 with). Hopefully that's intentional.

 

With Assassinate and Sharpshooter you get so much Accuracy and Penetration that it may be redundant in almost all encounters. (Except maybe to deal with Wizard's Double or Escape or other deflection boosting spells/abilities. Firearms should bypass the +50 deflection from Arcane Veil too.) 

 

Firearms have reload rather than recovery, which means you can escape/stealth immediately after using them. Huge boost to survivability, especially since you have to get close to backstab with firearms. Arquebus is better than blunderbuss or dual-wielding pistols because backstab and assassinate only apply to the first attack roll (so for blunderbuss, just the first projectile).

 

Even if you don't one-shot, wounding shot will let you do good DoT. That will also give your pet a damage bonus against them, and the pet iirc has a special attack that can interrupt spells/abilities.

Edited April 20, 2018 by SaruNi

[Boeroer]

Usually +50% crit damage simply means +50% of weapon base damage gets added when you crit.

 

With a normal weapon you'd do +25% crit damage (meaning base damage * 0.25 as extra dmg) and with Assassinate it would be 25% + 50% = 75% of weapon base dmaage gets added. With an arquebus only +50% because the arquebus itself does not have increased crit damage ("blunted criticals").

 

I don't know if Assassinate's crit damage bonus is multiplicative, I did not double-check but I guess it's not. 

[Heijoushin]

I'll leave the technical details of it to Boeroer and them, but basically it's a great combo that's also easy to play. All you have to do is keep your distance, which means you can dump your defensive stats and go for damage. You might be in a pinch if you get attacked in the rear though.

 

Also, consider a sharpshooter/black jacket that switches between four guns

[SaruNi]

Once you crit and overpenetrate, additional accuracy and penetration don't do anything. So sharpshooter/assassin might not be optimal. (The arquebus modal also adds +20 accuracy.)

 

Sharpshooter/Streetfighter could be better. You can get "flanked" using the Blunderbuss's Powder Burns. (And Sharpshooter +penetration helps with Blunderbuss's low penetration.) For max damage you'd also have to get blooded. Escape adds +50 deflection so it's not that hard to drastically raise defenses / get blooded in melee then escape and attack from range. Status effects from Powder Burns give you an accuracy penalty, so ranged Streetfighter benefits from the high accuracy bonuses you get from Sharpshooter and/or arquebus modal. 

Edited April 21, 2018 by SaruNi

[Boeroer]

But as an Assassin you want to be absolutely sure that you crit. So the arquebus modal is good. Especially against high deflection targets.

 

You don't want to open fight with assassination + hit.

[Majber]

Thank you all for your opinions. Here is portraits for reference

Edited April 21, 2018 by Majber

[SaruNi]

But as an Assassin you want to be absolutely sure that you crit. So the arquebus modal is good. Especially against high deflection targets.

 

You don't want to open fight with assassination + hit.

 

With the DoT from Accurate Wounding Shot and Deep Wounds, you don't need to one-shot to kill because you'll be getting 40% weapon damage per tick as DoT. (Not to mention the pet's damage bonus against enemies suffering DoT.)

 

The arquebus modal does stack with Accurate Wounding Shot (or the accuracy bonus from Finishing Blow, Confounding Blind, etc.).

Edited April 21, 2018 by SaruNi