A little weapon advise please...

Hi all,
I was wondering what you guys find to be a good weapon set-up for PvM? I hear a lot of crats go for the type1 and type4 combo. So I guess the question is really, is that a good setup in SL considering that projectile damage normally sucks in shadowlands...

I guess basically I just want to contribute more towards the team's damage output.. since I'm not always able to charm in higher missions (even with VoT) and most 240+ mobs have high nano resist so nukes do virtually no damage.

At the moment I have a 185 and a 253 Flux equipped, so anything better (not to mention faster) would be a bonus.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you guys n gals might have :)

typ1 + type 4
MBC
cdr + type 1/4
smg type 5?
those are the good choices for pvm damage.

The curse of a crat doing damage.

Pimping out your damage is great for a team, because even pimped out you will be not draw agro or shouldnt. The bad side if you twinked on some guns you don't want to take off soloing can be a bitch, because its so easy to OD your bot and some of the charms and we all know how long a crat can tank damage.

As for charms I find the charms in missions fit well with the lvl you can use them, outdoors im still not impressed with the lvl cap we can charm up too. If you are using VOT and doing missions with 240 mobs then expecting to charm at that lvl is asking for much. Some mobs in missions mainly sided ones just can't be charmed or have crazy nano resists, but if your going for damage then your nano skills and or perks probably aren't dirrected to nano skills so you can expect to fail more charms with a lower attack skill on your charms. At 206 I could solo 233 dummy's faily easy so there are lots to charm even using VOT.

Nuke damge, RoO works good in general again it helps to have nano skills to increase its chance of landing. Some mobs you might have to go back to DA a faster nuke not as much damage but only a 75% nano resist. Then again DA almost does as much damage over time as DoO.

Crats can realy do some crazy damage, nothing like a shade but if you and your team can stomach juggling 2 charms you can some nice damage. Be warned some teams don't like charms, mainly because the bad rep alot of crats have givin letting their charms run loss at the wrong moments, or just the plain fact it confuses some teams into thinking they are lagging or there is a add you are not mezzing.

Damage dumper never realy tells the entire story for crats. 99% of the time your charms aren't figured into your damage output. There are alot of times your bot isn't even included in your damage, naming your bot with the same name as you helps.

what lilla said are the best pvm options really

It's easy to recomend QL 300 kyr pistols with type 1 and type 4. Not to easy to afford them.

My personal suggestion is to get dark pistol of the revoked and the solar powered master engineer pistol. The master engineer pistol will cost you around 10-15m (Mostly for the mist filled jar and notum threaded backpack... oh and a hollow island trip). The dark pistol of the revoked is a crypt of home NODROP.

Now these guns don't exactly look fantastic, but they have low pistol requirements, very decent minimum damage, some nice 'other' bonuses (for if Damage dealing isn't your #1 priority), and both deal radiation damage. This means that when you have 40m to spare down the line, you pick up a pair of add radiation damage arul sabas, and let the carnage flow (as both weapons will benefit).

I'm taking this approach because it leaves you a huge number of IPs to put elsewhere. Evades, run speed, heck I even do some tradeskilling. Taking the kyr approach would deal 'more' damage, but only by about 50% more. Pump those IPs into mechanical engineering/field quantum and trim your bot with Ql 200 trimmers. Do some tradeskilling on the side. Etc, etc, etc.

When you reach 220 it's a different story, but a key thing about 220 is that you've reached 'the end' and can spend a few months reperking to fit on Ql 300 kyr pistols, use your reset points to max out your final skill set, yada yada. Until then, engineer + revoked = FTW

Thanks guys, some nice advise there. I've managed to equip a decent QL Kyr now with the DPoTR in my offhand, purely because of it's tiny equip requirements (mainly the Multi-Range, which on Kyrs is hideous). Also looking into the master engie pistol or a low QL type 4... as I'm way past needing DPoTR's mods :)
The type 1/type 4 combo is pretty much what I'd had in mind all along, but it never hurts to ask from those who may have tried (and failed/succeded) in different weapon setups before. (I've already IPRd twice to end up going straight back to pistols, guess I'm just stubborn)

type 1 and 4 shouldnt cost you that much wurm.
10ish m for a type 1 and 4 upgrade. pistol 10ish perhaps so all in all 40ish m.
compare to an MBC for 500m q 220ish or type 112 upgraded sword for like 100 150ish our pistol setup is a cheap one indeed.

Type 1 is a pretty common drop from generals-so assuming you are in an org that should be free, and pistols drop fairly common also, I think I paid like 5m for ql 300 pistol months ago.

But as Lilla said even if you have to buy the whole thing it shouldn't be that much.

Now, my take on things. IP is just real tight on crats (solitus crats anyway). I think the op is on target with the not spending much on MR. I'm a tad unconvinced that putting a bunch of IP in MR for a ql 200ish type 4 makes much sense, and if you do that, you are gonna have to spend a wad of IP in burst also.

I use a 254 Type1/CDR on my crat, and no its not "optimal" but the damage it does is decent, and when I'm teamed, seems like usually a soldier or keeper or both is teamed, and for little IP spent, I get a burst special that cycles in less than 10 sec that hits over 2k. I don't have a huge amount of IP in fling, and to get the pistol on, I have to use a right arm fling implant.

Dark blue skills in fling, burst, and multirange just scare me and I suggest being very careful with raising any of those.

Alrighty, I finally found someone who wasn't asking for the contents of the treasury and equipped a relatively good set of Kyr pistols.. type 1 and a type 4 in the offhand.. immediate increase in damage output and with renamed CG I even managed 3rd in the teams DD report (only the Enf and Keeper ahead of me :P) of course that did include chain casting RoO. So, although I'll never match my agent's damage, I'm now at least "happy" with this toon's damage. Thanks to all those who posted/made suggestions.

I'm doing very good damage for my level with Energy Hammers... if all you care about is PvM (which seems to be a majority of crats) being ranged just doesn't pay off.

I also have a personal reason for dark pistol of the revoked and master engineer pistol. I had to go 'get' them, not just buy them. The engineer pistol in particular is a very long quest, but certainly does excelent damage, not to mention having a rather low multi-ranged requirement. Eventually I plan to stick in a type 4 in my left hand, but keep my engineer pistol in my right hand. Fling shot is nice, but those IPs into evades and nano resist can be just as useful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Portulis

Now, my take on things. IP is just real tight on crats (solitus crats anyway). I think the op is on target with the not spending much on MR. I'm a tad unconvinced that putting a bunch of IP in MR for a ql 200ish type 4 makes much sense, and if you do that, you are gonna have to spend a wad of IP in burst also.

---

Porty, my Solitus crat is 216, and not really hurting for IP; she has 1.2 mil in the pool to spend.

She has the obvious stuff maxed, like all Abilities, Body Dev, and Nano Pool.

All 3 Evades, Runspeed, Nano Resist, Pistol, Burst are maxed.

Fling is about halfway, like 500 base.

Nano Init is ~1800, not quite maxed

Comp Lit is around 1250, nowhere near maxed.

Nano skills are near max, I could max them all but MM for 220K, leaving 980K unspent.

Porty, don't misunderstand me, I'm not arguing with you or trying to prove you wrong or anything, just wondering what you raised that I didn't. Or are the last four levels going to eat that whole pool of unspent IP?

Oh, yes, and Varmintia uses a Type 4 and a CDR :)

the diff might be that he has some tradeskills trained. that surely would eat alot of IPs.
My crat doesnt have any ip problems but then again I have streamlined her ips and just 1100 in nanoprog for them implants and maxed psychology.
650k ips unused. My impression of crats isnt either that you are especially tight with the Ips. not like my soldier or adventurer. that is for sure.

Hmm, well comp lit I have maxed, you have to have that for towers and alot of Pand gear. Something like 1800 comp lit or 1750 for ql 300 towers, can't remember. Also have maxed nano init.

Just a caution, some people may not spend IP the way I do, but if they do, it seems rather tight. I have that "tight feeling"on my adv and soldier-I won't say the crat is any worse. Keeper and doc seem to have extra IP however.

I agree with Wyrm on the MEP, but for a crat I suspect most are gonna get more bang for the buck with a type 1 as opposed to type 4 Kyr. Takes less IP to raise fling to get the pistol on and with the minimum you put into it, you have a special that is gonna be less than 10 seconds.

Recharge on Type 4 is gonna be slow unless you max burst and unless you are just shooting for PVM, that is gonna suck the IP up.

Well I've got a kyr type 1 in my left hand, and solar powered master engineer pistol in my right hand. The master engineer pistol has some big advantages over CDR. Although it lacks specials, the gun does some VERY nice crits, and has both a high minimum and maximum damage. While it's 'sub-optimal' in shadowlands, I find it works 75% as good as a kyr in shadowlands, and 75% as good on rubi-ka. It certainly tears through token gun mobs like butter (Since you crit pretty consistently against weak mobs relative to you).

The rundown

Master engineer pistol
Upside
VERY nice criticals for a pistol. If you do low-level farming, this gun is for you.
Easy to equip : 1k pistol, that's it
Great multi-ranged : 800 multi-ranged, very easy to meet.
+2% xp for the win.
Downsides
Right hand only
Due to a glitch, pressing reload will NOT reload your left hand gun (either do it manually or wait for natural reload)
Requires a trip to hollow island. However on any big hollow island raid, at least one of the item for this will drop, and usually nobody wants it.
Not 1/1 firing speed. It's 1.7 attack, 1.2 recharge, which is okay if you go offensive.
Low range. If you attack something from maximum distance, you'll only be hitting with the kyr.

Customized desert reet (CDR)
Upside
Both burst and fling shot. If you've got the extra IPs to put into these skills, can deal pretty damn good damage.
Fire damage. Many mobs aren't 'strong' against fire damage.
Downside
If you already have one of these, whoohoo for you. However foremans has since been level locked to 100, meaning the lab director is.. well... the equivilent of aztur on steroids. Good luck taking him down to get one of these.

There already is a nice thread about weapon choices. Just for the reference. :)
And while I think that MBC and SMG type 5 are great guns, they are more of a doc weapon. Their benefit is that they do much damage with their specials, which is important because a soloing doc is spamming nanos all of the time and rarely gets a normal shot through. So good damage from specials is important here. Crats do have the time for normal shots. If the CDR or a type 4 is better mainly depends on your burst skill. Dual-ql300 Kyr pistols is nigh impossible because of the multi-ranged requirement. So it is ql199 type 4 and ql300 type 1 for most.
I have no idea about melee weapons, but I guess in places where you get rarely hit and you do not have to calm much and do not have to root or control charms, that is the best way to deal good damage. During pande raids for example.

I left melee (briefcase + kyr axe) to go pistols (type 1 + type 4) but now i OD my pet by far.
But actually, i am still trying to get the 1K burst/MR i need for the type 4 (how do you boost it besides implants and RC ??)

The pistols are a good choice if you play full def, and the specials recharge quickly. Moreover the pistols carry 75 ammos, so you dont recharge too often...

If you are playing for fun (and not for DD), get a kyr axe (or 2), it looks nice and people will think you are adv :D