Invuln Munitions Build

beldin

OK .. after creating an Excel sheet for calculating damage i'm now convinced that EGO
instead of DEX as Primary SS is really better for a pure Ranged char, so i retconned
my Munitions Char into this.

Its however a level 40 Build and needs the +Crit Items .. with a primary Offense with DEX
and +46 Crit i have still 37.8 Crit chance and 101.5 severity

Rocket (never used it before) especially with Imbue is really a nice Alpha Strike that often
directly kills the henchmen so you can just use PBR on the Villain. REC as SS helps of course
to have enough Energy for that, and also Overdrive scales with REC.

PowerHouse (Link to this build)

Name:

Archetype: Freeform

Super Stats:
Level 6: Ego (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Recovery (Secondary)

Talents:
Level 1: The Scourge
Level 6: Quick Recovery
Level 9: Wordly
Level 12: Ascetic
Level 15: Indomitable
Level 18: Field Ops Training
Level 21: Jack of All Trades

Powers:
Level 1: Particle Rifle
Level 1: Pulse Beam Rifle (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 6: Concentration (Rank 2)
Level 8: Force Shield (Force Sheathe)
Level 11: Invulnerability (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 14: Rocket (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Overdrive
Level 20: Lock N Load
Level 23: Lead Tempest (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 26: Bountiful Chi Resurgence (Rank 2, Resurgent Reiki)
Level 29: Support Drones (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 32: Imbue
Level 35: Masterful Dodge


One Power pick and 5 Advantage Points left .. take whatever you want

Travel Powers:
Level 6: Jet Pack (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Scarab Tunneling

Specializations:
Ego: Force of Will (2/2)
Ego: Insight (1/3)
Ego: Aggression (2/2)
Ego: Follow Through (3/3)
Ego: Sixth Sense (2/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Warden: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Warden: Ruthless (2/2)
Warden: Tenacious (2/2)
Warden: The Best Defense (3/3)
Mastery: Ego Mastery (1/1)


Gear :
Heroic Gloves of Precision with Gamblers Lucky Gem
Heroic Breastplate of Utility with Gamblers Lucky Gem
Heroic Helmet of Utility with Gamblers Lucky Gem
Mods : 3 x EGO, 2 x CON, 1x REC

Secondary Offense with +Critcal Strike
Garrison Bracers
Friendly Eyepiece

monsterdaddy

That's kind of funny Beldin that you came to that epiphany. I've always liked EGO over DEX for PSS but now.... I have your opposite epiphany...

I prefer DEX over EGO for a Pulse Beam Rifle toon. :biggrin: Reason being, the crit rate goes up pretty high anyway so I could use the extra damage from Severity and Expose Weakness. (That toon is pure damage, I'll have to post it sometime.)

I see from your build that EGO is probably better anyways and with Force of Will, it should be a very sturdy toon.

beldin

monsterdaddy wrote: »

That's kind of funny Beldin that you came to that epiphany. I've always liked EGO over DEX for PSS but now.... I have your opposite epiphany...

I prefer DEX over EGO for a Pulse Beam Rifle toon. :biggrin: Reason being, the crit rate goes up pretty high anyway so I could use the extra damage from Severity and Expose Weakness. (That toon is pure damage, I'll have to post it sometime.)

I see from your build that EGO is probably better anyways and with Force of Will, it should be a very sturdy toon.

The character is really fun for somebody like me who enjoys alot farming Unity. I think
it is maybe even faster than my Infernal Build .. and thats not easy

The only think i don't like is the way to build up and maintain stacks of concentration if i
compare it to Form of the Tempest.

Maybe i will upload and link my Excel Sheet somewhere also when i'm back at home, but
i'm not sure if other people understand how to use it, and i'm too lazy to write a big handbook :biggrin:

But the sheet was also good for finding out that it is better to put 3 in Follow Through
and 2 Sixth Sense. The higher Crit rate looked for me better but the number say that
the higher severity gives you more

[edit]
Here is the Excel-Sheet :
http://beldin.be.funpic.de/CO/CO_Damage.xls
[/edit]

monsterdaddy

I think Pulse Beam Rifle is really hard to figure out on spreadsheet. This comes from my professional Risk Management experience where we use programs like @Risk to find true expected values by running thousands of iterations.

What I usually do instead is just go to PH and attack dummies again and again. Sometimes, it will be how fast a dummy dies in seconds (which is subject to lag) or how much a full maintain takes off a dummy's HP. I used this to compare PBR r3 vs. AR Mow Em Down and AR R3 which works since both are 4 sec maintains.

beldin

monsterdaddy wrote: »

I think Pulse Beam Rifle is really hard to figure out on spreadsheet.

Its more to calculate what exactly all the additive and multiplicative crit damage adds
to a given value. The main reason for me was really just to compare a DEX vs. EGO build

helbjorn

There's a simple way to determine on the fly whether higher crit or crit severity will be better. Simply multiply your crit percent by your severity and you will get your % damage increase.

For example if you are deciding between taking your crit% to 35 from 32 or taking your severity from 110 to 117, just multiply 0.35 x 110 and then 0.32 x 117. This shows you that in this case, increasing your crit % by three is more valuable than increasing your severity by 7.

Base: 0.32 x 110 = 35.2% dmg bonus
0.35 x 110 = 38.5%
0.32 x 117 = 37.4%

I'm certain someone with more free time could post the graph that demonstrates the relationship between the two, eliminating the need for calculating.

beldin

helbjorn wrote: »

There's a simple way to determine on the fly whether higher crit or crit severity will be better

But is it so easy also to see if its better to have 30/100 crit but high EGO and Concentration
or 46 / 112 crit but no EGO and FotT ?

monsterdaddy

Just an FYI, but the severity buff in EGO where you get 30% of severity as added damage after a crit CANNOT in any way be simply calculated on a spreadsheet. It requires iterative analysis.

Why? Say you're at 50% crit chance. You might assume crit, non-crit, crit, non-crit, etc. But we know it could be crit, crit, crit, non-crit, non-crit, non-crit and that has just one proc of the Ego spec. So iterative method is required.

Also better with powers that increase in damage over time like PBR and AR.

But if you have the time to run a couple of tests and setups in PH, that's the best method IMHO for 99% of the cases. The only exclusions I can think of are high amounts of damage resist debuffs like Detect Vulnerability (which I got to 45% on one toon) stacked with even more debuffs. I think the dummies only have 10% but I know Gravitar has a lot.

beldin

Nobody need to use the spreadsheet .. just ignore it

However all special buffs will only be better with EGO since you base damage before crit is higher.

monsterdaddy

beldin wrote: »

Nobody need to use the spreadsheet .. just ignore it

LOL, I'm not saying that. I use spreadsheets all the time for CO but some powers are just beyond spreadsheets.

But back to your build. I have similar versions but I just use Automatic Targeting and skipped Rocket Launcher for Implosion Engine so I can also use the build for Gravitar (adding Smoke Grenade and Evasive Manuevers.)

chilimac77

Hey Beldin,

I am a VERY casual player and barely claim to even understand the crafting system of this game, but I've been having a blast playing this build. I know you said it wasn't a leveling build, but I've found it to be fun and very survivable just by switching around the order I've taken a few powers here and there. It's thematic and engaging to play rather than just spamming an AOE all the time like I normally end up doing. Thanks for taking the time to post it, so that somebody like me can enjoy the game. I tried making a particle beam toon a few days before seeing this post and it went very differently.

Thanks Again!

thebrainstem

First of all, I've been using this build (with a few minor changes: I dropped Support Drones for thematic reasons, took Gunslinger energy builder to tie in with Lead Tempest's dual pistols, and moved Concentration to second power and grabbed Implosion Engine to unlock Pulse Beam Rifle) and have been having a great time with it. Very solid build, and Vendor Fury loves it.

One question, though: Could this work with SS DEX instead of CON? Is the CON only for health purposes? I have been scratching my head a bit at that - I can't really find anything it synergizes with. It seems that DEX would work nicely to boost both dodge and crit chance, and CON can be gotten via items for health. Am I overlooking something?


EDIT: Oop, somehow I completely overlooked Imbue! If I drop Imbue for Ego Surge, though, I could easily SS DEX rather than CON, yeah?

pugdaddy

I'm using a similar build, but my Primary is Dex for the Dodge/Avoidance bonuses. I took Regen and plan on getting secondary Armadillo gear. I took Submachine Gun Burst instead of Rocket but I plan on eventually grabbing Orbital Cannon and maybe Chest Beam for its debuff.

r0y0

I, too, am using a somewhat similar build... I went offensive with Electric Form and dropped the rocket and pistol power...

In fact here is my build - based off the OP's (sort of). OK, we both have PBR and the energy builder... and everyone works in BCR+Masterful Dodge, etc.

-r0y