Which weapons should I be using for a pure ascendant?

[Fredward]

Obviously the goal is to max focus ASAP, I've been using dual pistols which have been adequate and get points for style but I've heard good things about Frostseeker and apparently there's a rifle somewhere with a 75% speed bonus. 

 

Any weapon groups or specific weapons that shine here? 

[Edolamberto]

I'll follow this.. I'm interested too.. Atm using dual pistol but I feel like I'm missing something

[gadenp]

I am not a pure Ascendent but the War Bow FrostSeeker seems to generate Focus at a crazy rate and hits hard.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I haven't tried bows, and I have bad restartitis, but what's been working for me from like level 1-12 has been taking Arms Bearer early and then using an arquebus, two blunderbussi (kitchen stove from old city and serafen's) and a quarterstaff. Open with arquebus, move to blunderbus, fire those, close with quarterstaff. 

 

You could probably substitute pistols for any of the guns depending on what you found. Quarterstaff is very important so you have a Crushing damage type that does heavy damage; you could also probably use dual sceptres, but there is at least one really potent endgame quarterstaff that does scaling damage based on Metaphysics skill.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Rumpelstilskin]

two blunderbussi

i believe you meant "two blunderbi"

[1TTFFSSE]

I think if you want to the fastest focus you want some form of dual pistols or "blunderbi" to open a fight and immediately switch to Frostseeker as to not reload during the fight. I did not bother as it seems as long as you upgrade Frostyseeker (explore areas on Neketaka island to get it) and have high dex and no armor penalty you can just use that warbow to pewpew away. 

 

Ironically as someone pointed out in other threads that weapon in itself is probably not balanced  and is really good on any number of ranged classes. Like also late game under time-parasite for single-target dps at least you are better off just auto attacking with that bow with the speed boost iand borrowed instinct n ascendant rather than bothering with spells unless you have good chance to hit the boss with a disintegrate or something. kind of a funky design for a caster class if you ask me. 

[Crucis]

 

two blunderbussi

i believe you meant "two blunderbi"

 

 

Nah.  Two shotguns! 

[Rumpelstilskin]

while we are at it, what's the purpose of multiple-projectile weapons in PoE2? in PoE1, where armor was a flat damage threshold multiple weaker projectiles could give more dmg against low armor (and vice versa), but now there's a separate penetration stat and all damage reduction is relative in %, based on armor-penetration. so if the same dmg is split into multiple projectiles, the result will be exactly the same (well except maybe more close the the average statistically). i suppose there could be fringe cases like when some spell/ability adds flat damage bonus to each hit, but is that it?

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

while we are at it, what's the purpose of multiple-projectile weapons in PoE2? in PoE1, where armor was a flat damage threshold multiple weaker projectiles could give more dmg against low armor (and vice versa), but now there's a separate penetration stat and all damage reduction is relative in %, based on armor-penetration. so if the same dmg is split into multiple projectiles, the result will be exactly the same (well except maybe more close the the average statistically). i suppose there could be fringe cases like when some spell/ability adds flat damage bonus to each hit, but is that it?

 

Separate chances to hit rolled for each projectile, so they're more consistent. 

 

The blunderbuss has a very high "alpha strike" damage -- theoretically higher than the Arquebus or Arbalest. You're unlikely to ever hit that max because of all the separate roles, but you'll rarely ever miss completely, either. So it's very solid consistent punchy damage, which is a great fit with the cipher.

 

Only problem is that right now "blunted criticals" means you do less damage on a critical hit than on a normal hit, so that's a thing.