Well its been almost a necessity on Legend lately with the out of control spawn engine and specials.
Since you’re fighting specials like 60% of the time anyway I’ve even gotten away from the Volley which is rare for me.
I almost spend more time shooting specials than fighting Hordes and Ambient mobs lately due to the spawn engine being out of control again.
which has always been the case on legend unless you get super lucky with spawns or your team is clueless on how to use melee: specials are far more important to kill with ranged than hordes are
That’s not what I mean, I mean the majority of time you’re dealing with 4-6 specials, NOT hordes or ambient mobs anymore,
Its that out of control.
EDIT: The things being talked about in this thread.
Will necro this thread because after dabbling with the BoP, I was wondering why it does so abysmally little damage against bosses, it’s not even funny.
It really does. I’m running a +20% vs Monsters and Barrage (+25% attack power on 5th bullet onward) and it’s not even helping. On both WHC with deathknell and the in-built headshot damage increase and BH with the increased ammo it’s basically a waste to use it on bosses.
I am willing to amend my original point as it’s quite useful vs specials right now on Legend, but nothing more.
I use the pistols on bounty hunter, I think they are good. They lack the raw power of other weapons, but they make up for it with how quickly you can fire. With the scrounger trait you can effectively farm ammo, so running out is rarely an issue.
Ammo is almost never an issue for BH. Right now, the BoP’s only advantage over the repeater pistol is accuracy. The repeater has better burst damage, better sustained damage, better boss damage, besser ammo sustain, better boss damage, better elite and special killing, higher ammo.
Pretty much,
This thread originally started when the base ammo for BoP was only 20. It was upped to 25. But its still not enough really.
Repeater Pistol has everything you just described… just completely outclasses BoP.
Volley Crossbow is the same, single shots hit 4+ targets in a horde in a line. Charged shot at close range one shots most targets other than CWs. Same type of boss damage as Repeater, though Repeater’s Charged shot does more damage to bosses and elites, but not as much to a horde. Volley just has a long reload time.
Normal Crossbow after buff is actually on par with both of them now. One shots most elites on headshots, and even can chain stun CWs. Damage is off the charts, and pretty good on Boss Mobs. With the trait of one ammo back per headshot its almost unlimited ammo. Better range than all other weapons.
BoP… is limited to only Berzerker killing and short range Special Killing. And all the other weapons do a good job at that too. Doesn’t do enough damage to armored or bosses… and has no penetration into a Horde, Has little to no Range… yet has one of the lowest ammo counts of all weapons.
BoP were fantastic in V1, because they had high ammo, the ambiente enemys were somewhat significant and there were only rat specials/elites. I also think they made always the same damage, range didnt matter in that regard, if i recall correctly.
But V2 is different. The ambiente enemys dont matter at all, except elites and BoP does quite a bad job against them. They are also completely useless against waves and bosses. Their ammo count is way too low for what the game throws against you.
So, either the ammo gets increased to 40-50 or the damage get a significant increase. They are black powder weapons and should do heavy damage.
I use em all the time for their ease of use. You can literally dodge during horde melee, pop off 2-3 bullets for an incoming special or whatever, dodge again and continue meleeing without getting hit or needing to reload.
I wouldn’t mind having 30 bullets though.
fatshark just increase the ammo to 30 or 35 already ;D
u know u want it, i know u want it, and u know that i know that u know u want it ;D!!
And yet I regularly run with Saltzpyres who perform great with Brace of Pistols on legend. We win, they get lots of kills. YOU being unable to use it effectively isn’t an objective judgment.
Brace is great on Witch Hunter, with Scrounger and crit builds, when you can use your ult for extra crit bonus and just pew pew pew everything in sight in an emergency and get tons of ammo back. And when you are fighting near an ammo box with Brace you can wreck everything in sight.
Brace is also pretty good on Zealot. I just would never run it on bounty hunter.
I still see no reason why it gets such a hefty penalty against bosses. None of the other blackpowder weapons that shoot single bullets gets that.
They are fun on bounty hunter but their low ammo makes me evade them like a plague on zealot and WHC. Too be honest I only use regular crossbow on those 2 anyway so no idea how much it matters. My only real problem with them is their pitiful damage versus bosses and super armour. If that was upped I would love them.
Ok man, here’s why the BoP falls short.
WHen I play WHC with Extra Ammo trait I have 33 shots. Which sounds great… But here’s where it comes into play.
For this you just have to go to the Target Dummies and test… with each ranged weapon step back and fire a shot until you see the damage drop off sharply. BoP the damage after medium range drops off to nothing… you can go from 62.00 damage to 9.00 damage, while the other weapons may be 22.00-24.00 even at that Range. So they maintain their damage.
X-Bow and Volley keep their long range damage. Repeater Drops off just as sharply.
Penetration: Volley, Repeater, and normal X-Bow All penetrate 4+ targets in a line. BoP maybe 3 at max. So with Volley or X-bow or Repeater… each shot on a horde is 4-5 Kills. So even the X-bow at 25 ammo with extended ammo trait is killing 4+ per one shot. And if you headshot and have the trait, you get your ammo back. And Repeater, Volley, and X-Bow are all much more accurate at range allowing you to do that. So BoP at range misses just as often as not. Meaning… that 33 ammo is not nearly as efficient as the ammo in the X-Bow or Volley or Repeater. The X-Bows 25 ammo becomes 100 ammo against a Horde.
Boss Mob Damage… Here the Volley and Repeater are the top two but X-Bow because of the huge damage per shot ends up being very similar. Especially if you can get a lot of Headshots. BoP even on rapid fire can only maintain accurate fire for 2-3 shots and you might miss one of them… the Volley unleashes 3 with no recoil allowing all three to be headshots in one pop. Which for WHC means bonus Headshot damage in one shot. Repeater unleashes all 8 shots in one pop… all on a headshot (which for BH means they all crit too). X-Bow you have to take your time with but can literally snipe repeatedly if you can get headshots to get your ammo back. Crit Build with BoP can work but not compared to the other options.
So…
Repeater, Volley, and X-Bow maintain their flexibility in ALL situtions… BoP does not.
What is BoP good for?
6 Berserkers charging you at once (rapid fire guns them down quick), or close range Special killing… remember they drop off in damage real bad after medium range…
But the others with the exception of the X bow do that just as well on their charged shots.
So the BoP is so Nich that its primary advantages compared to the others are slim to none. And the ammo is so low (33 shots, as compared to 25 X-Bow, or 39 Volley, or 50 Repeater).
If it had the advantage of being able to hit CWs it would be worth taking, or if it did more Boss Damage than Volley it would be… or had similar penetration into a Horde… but as it stands… it does nothing that beats the other options. Sure it can be used… but has become the lowest option on the totem pole, while the other Ranged Weapons are all on a higher level and balanced against each other well… BoP falls short of all the other options.
You might laugh but I just learned firearms do pierce through enemies.
Because of the low ammo count of the Brace of Pistols until then I never bothered shooting at hordes.
Does anyone have experiences if hit targets behind the initial pierced one may also be critted? Does that proc Scrounger thus able to give more than 2 ammo back per shot? I guess not by I haven’t set up any tests for this yet and I am currently not at home for a few days to fo so.
I just started to use my Scrounger BoPs against hordes as long as they are dense and that’s a sweat miracle, a revelation. It kinda gives back a little bit of that VT1-BoP feeling where they really were a useful jack-of-all-trades weapon.
With a crit build (and ammo talent) on hordes it’s like having more than 45 rounds with each one able to kill up to three slaverats.
Nearly 60 while a 10 seconds Animosity and rapid fire.
Has this just been overseen or am I just too excited about that?
Yes, your entire projectile crits and Scounger gives you 2 ammo for each enemy pierced, that’s why regular and volley xbows have so good ammo sustain on BH with garanteed crits.
I just had a small error on my thoughts: Each regained round also has a chance to generate more rounds.
So, just in theory, and I know that’s a case that will never happen, if a gigantic horde of slaverats enters in a constant stream in a beautiful straight line, I got a 20% crit build and Scrounger on my BoPs I might have infinite ammo because on average I would regenerate more ammo than used as long as I hit 3 enemies at once?
To shift that into a more realistic scenario: Shooting a horde while Animosity is active (40% crit + Scrounger) would on average regenerate as much ammo as used as long as you hit 1.25 enemies per shot fired.
Is that right?
edit:
Repeater Pistol’s and Volley Crossbow’s secondary fire; do they regenerate 2 rounds per projectile or just per shot?
Eg a VX-Bow: May it regenerate 3x3x2 = 18 rounds or is it limited to 1x3x2 = 6?