User:Vyn/Gunslinger

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The following notes based on the character below:

Gulreth: Orc Gunslinger (normal/adventure) Embers of Rage

This is my first Embers of Rage character. Just wanted to poke around the new (to me) campaign and get some unlocks. There were several old guides on gunslingers online, but it seems like many talents have been changed through recent patches.


General Impression: Embers of Rage

  • Loot is a bit sparse in the EoR campaign. Not being able to get a wand of clairvoyance anywhere early on was a direct cause to my first death.
  • With fewer zones available, it is sometimes necessary to fight through enemies that one would normally just retreat from in the Age of Ascendancy campaign. This can increase the overall difficulty of the campaign if you run into a strong random enemy.
  • Final boss battle in EoR was epic.
  • The new system to unlock generics through the Mystery of the Yetis quest is very nice, and relieves a lot of anxiety induced by escorts in the main campaign.
  • EoR campaign really doles out the generic unlocks generously. This makes Adept even better too.

General Impression: Gunslinger

  • Gunslinger was pretty fun to play, with many interesting and consequential choices to make in battle. Even the talents that looked like duds at first saw some situational use.
  • All the shooting talents will hit twice when dual wielding steamguns, so Double Shots is actually two shots with two guns, for four total hits.
  • Gunslingers do not care about fatigue, so it's worth aiming for Power Armor
  • The Adept prodigy really saves a lot of points from the tinkering trees, as a single point will get you to talent level 3, enough to unlock most of the recipes.

Stats

Category Points

Class Talents

Some suggestions for class talents. Raw talent level in brackets, assuming Adept prodigy has been taken.

  • Gunner Training
    • [5] Steamgun Mastery: Main weapon mastery talent, must be maxed.
    • [3] Double Shots: This will actually hit 4 times while dual-wielding steamguns, so the damage is actually decent. 3 points with Adept will yield a 3-turn stun. Can target two enemies too.
    • [1] Uncanny Reload: Steamguns and ammo can come with reload bonuses that far surpass this talent, so it is generally best to spend your talent points elsewhere.
    • [4] Static Shot: A good AoE attack that also strips non-magical effects. 4 points with Adept will remove 2 effects. The lightning element is a good complement to the physical/fire element on most gunslinger attacks.
  • Gunslinging
    • [5] Strafe: Allows one to shoot and move in the same turn, also refunds nearly all the ammo used during the process. This will not be used as often late game as you learn more talents, but having the option available is still very handy.
    • [1] Startling Shot: Can be useful for setting up a stronger attack like Vital Shot.
    • [1] Evasive Shots: A very situational sustain. If you are fighting enemies with projectiles, and the projectiles are naturally slow or you have gear that slows projectiles, then this talent will add a decent amount of damage. In the Embers of Rage campaign, these conditions do pop up sometimes against Anorithils that have Corona active. Not sure if this works with the projectile deflection provided by Automated Cloak Tessellation; will have to test that some time.
    • [4] Trick Shot: Will only target visible enemies, so you cannot use it to shoot around corners. Makes a good combo attack with Combustive Bullets against tight clusters of enemies.
  • Bullets Mastery:
    • This category seems to get overlooked a lot, but there are good uses for every bullet type. The duration and cooldowns also work out in such a way that you need to invest in several bullet types in order to maintain the buff during longer battles (e.g. final boss). If one dose not choose the Adept prodigy however, it would be possible to cut some points here.
    • [5] Overheat Bullets: Use this for highest total damage on single targets
    • [2] Supercharge Bullets: Allows bullets to pass through enemies, helpful if you can get your targets to line up in a corridor, does not need too many points since enemies rarely stay lined up for long
    • [5] Percussive Bullets: Turn this on against high threat melee attackers to keep them stunned and knocked back
    • [5] Combustive Bullets: Higher instant burst damage than Overheat Bullets, works great with Trick Shot to clear dense clusters of enemies, as the AoE damage can trigger twice on every target hit
  • Avoidance
    • [1-5] Automated Cloak Tessellation: A very strong defensive sustain DoTs or any multi-hit attacks. There are many dual-wielding sawbutchers in the Embers of Rage campaign for example, and they can hit 4 times per turn with Tempest of Metal. If the enemy also spawned with equipment that grants on-hit procs, this can quickly stack up a tremendous amount of damage. The flat damage reduction provided by this talent is the perfect counter to that. While Steam Powered Armour will provide a much higher flat damage reduction value, the projectile deflection bonus from this talent will still remain useful.
    • [1-3] Cloak Gesture: Allows one to break visual contact with enemies, which can also activate Embedded Restoration Systems. 3 points with Adept will also clear the target of any enemy that was chasing you. Just be careful that DoT effects will cause them to retarget you immediately, so one has to time this correctly.
    • [1-4] Embedded Restoration Systems: Actually gives a pretty decent amount of healing, provided there is enough terrain cover to break line of sight with enemies, or you can use Cloak Gesture to achieve the same effect.
    • [1] Cloaking Device: A very strong stealth effect that can remain useful even on higher difficulties. The duration is limited to 10 turns with a 25 turn cooldown, and the steam cost is quite high, but turning this on before a battle starts can give you a decisive advantage. The stealth effect can also be used as an escape option and help you deal with stair traps.
  • Elusiveness
    • [1-4] Slip Away: Allows instant movement in 8 directions. This is an important tool for dealing with stair traps and patrol ambushes. 4 points plus Adept will give you 8 tile range on open ground.
    • [1-3] Agile Gunner: Grants a movement bonus based on the number of visible enemies. This is a situational sustain that can be quite helpful during the final boss battle, where there is no option to retreat and quick repositioning against many visible foes is important for survival.
    • [1-3] Awesome Toss: This used to fire your guns every time you moved, which turned movement infusions into a huge damage burst, but that has been fixed now. The talent is still pretty useful anytime you need a few turns to use Automation or Avoidance talents, place a toxic canister, or use a tool.
    • [1] Dazzling Jump: Can only be used while Awesome Toss is active. It's a nice disengage, but it requires an enemy to be in melee range too.
  • Automation
    • [1] Pulse Detonator: Fires a slow projectile that deals moderate damage, and can knockback and daze. Most useful when aimed close for a quick area knockback when you do not have room to backup (e.g. in the Ritch Hive).
    • [1] Flying Grapple: Can deal a decent amount of damage any time there are multiple enemies around. If you aim it towards enemies further away, it can pull back those that were trying to close in on you too. Still pretty situational, but it is free damage if you just activated Awesome Toss.
    • [1-5] Net Projector: Pinning effects are great for ranged attackers, and this one even comes with a resistance debuff. The main downside is that it uses a lot of steam and can be completed resisted by saves.
    • [5] Sawfield: This talent has the highest total damage potential of all gunslinger attacks. It deals physical bleed damage each turn, which means it will deal the listed damage as physical each turn, and tack on a 5-turn bleed for 50% of the listed damage. The bleed effect will stack across multiple turns too. Sawfield will not hurt yourself, but it will damage friendly entities like toxic canisters / voltaic sentry / fatal attractors.

Generic Talents

Some suggestions for generic talents. Raw talent level in brackets, assuming Adept prodigy has been taken.

The Embers of Rage campaign has the Mystery of the Yetis quest to replace escorts in the Age of Ascendancy campaign. This makes it very easy to unlock generic categories without spending category points, so it pays to spread out the generic talent points a bit.

  • Engineering
    • [0] Emergency Steam Purge: Blind is a useful debuff, but this talent is very expensive to use, so if it fails to kill or blind enemies, you can end up in a very bad situation.
    • [0] Innovation: Improves equipment crafted by masters or powered by steamtech. Does not appear to affect any tinker attachments. This talent could be useful in the Age of Ascendancy campaign, where there is significantly more loot, allowing one to select those that meet the condition. It is a dud in the Embers of Rage campaign unfortunately.
    • [0] Supercharge Tinkers: Provides a decent buff to steampower and steamtech crit chance, but it costs so much steam to use that it would be hard to utilize the bonus effectively afterwards.
    • [0] Last Engineer Standing: Adds a bit of cunning, physical save, and crit shrug. The resistance to self damage is not useful to a gunslinger. This would be a somewhat useful passive to take, but it requires too many useless prerequisites.
  • Scoundrel: can unlock with Mystery of the Yetis quest
    • This category is just full of great talents for a gunslinger. Highly recommend it as the first generic category to unlock.
    • [1-3] Lacerating Strikes: Fantastic passive that can add a lot of bleed damage.
    • [1-3] Scoundrel's Strategies: Another useful passive that debuffs enemy crit damage and puts random talents on cooldown.
    • [1-3] Misdirection: This talent just flat out prevents physical debuffs from even landing in the first place.
    • [1] Fumble: Adds a stacking debuff that causes talent failures. Does not need a high level to be effective.
  • Conditioning: can unlock with Mystery of the Yetis quest
    • [1] Vitality: A nice automatic heal when your life gets low.
    • [1-3] Unflinching Resolve: An automatic cleanse that has a chance to remove one disabling effect each turn. 3 points with Adept is sufficient for it to work on all applicable effects. This still requires you to suffer through the effect for at least one turn however, and then you still have to pass the RNG check, so do not count on this to actually save your life.
    • [1] Daunting Presence: A moderate debuff on enemy powers. This will not reduce enemy damage output by much, but could help you escape a few debuffs.
    • [0-1] Adrenaline Surge: Gives a small buff to physical power, which will improve weapon damage. It is an instant use talent with no downsides for a gunslinger, so it can be worth picking up if you have generic points to spare.

Prodigies

  • Adept: great on any character being played for the first time, especially where there aren't any two-prodigy combos worth pursuing
  • Vital Shot: pretty basic pickup on any ranged weapon user, that damage and debuffs are just great

Play Style

Deaths and Threats

  • Died once on the 3rd level of Ritch Hive due to unfamiliarity with map setup. Was digging through the sand carefully at first, but could not find anything at all. Got impatient and just held down the movement key and let my character zoom across the map. Promptly ran into a cavern of monsters and was obliterated before I could even lift my fingers of the keypad. For whatever reason, the lost life warning I was counting on did not trigger and lock out inputs to the game. Returned to clear the area after finally locating a wand of clairvoyance in an AAA.
  • Other than the final boss, the hardest fight was actually against a random Whitehoof Sun Paladin rare in Krimbul Territory. The Sun Paladin talents gave it big melee damage, and allowed it to heal quickly if left alone for any amount of time, while its racial death momentum mechanic made it nearly impossible to maintain distance. It took multiple engagements, and the rare healing up to full in between, before I managed to land several CCs in a row to finally finish it off in one go.
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