The Party-friendly Marksman - Revision history

Onderduiker at 22:46, 18 May 2011

2011-05-18T22:46:40Z

Althai: /* Utility / Prerequisite Skills */

2007-11-18T05:10:24Z

Utility / Prerequisite Skills

Althai: /* Utility / Prerequisite Skills */

2007-11-18T05:08:37Z

Utility / Prerequisite Skills

Riverbrady: changed end Marksman link

2007-11-10T21:50:55Z

changed end Marksman link

Althai: /* Skill Choices */

2007-11-06T04:22:15Z

Skill Choices

Althai: /* Passives */

2007-11-06T04:15:52Z

Passives

Althai at 21:48, 29 October 2007

2007-10-29T21:48:40Z

New page

Guide format stolen wholesale from Filorux' rainmaker guide. This guide is only based on playing the marksman up to level 22, so is subject to change after we get hands-on experience with the higher level skills.

== The Spark ==
Some might consider marksman to be the solo player's character. While it's true that sniping from a distance with a sniper rifle isn't the best party support role, the well-equipped marksman has a lot to add to cooperative demonslaying, and this build is designed to maximize that.

==Skill Choices==
=== Key skills ===

* Beacon 5-10/10
** Paint a single target for increased damage.

* Elemental Beacon 3-10/10
** Paint a single target for increased vulnerability to elemental effects.

* Multi Beacon 5-10/10
** Simultaneously paint several targets for increased damage.

These skills are your bread and butter. Count on spending around 20 points here, perhaps more for the truly dedicated. Multi Beacon should be spammed against groups to constantly increase damage for the whole group. Every boss, and rare/epic/named monster should be under the effects of beacon from the moment you see him, and additional beacons should be spent on the nastier of the usual monster types, such as bruisers.

=== Grenades ===

* Phase Grenade 1+/10
** Your goal is to be group oriented, and what's more group oriented than a grenade which makes all monsters in an AoE take 50% extra damage? More points are good here if you want increased phase duration.

* Flashcrasher grenade 1+/10
** If escape is your individual panic button, this is your group panic button. If your allies are getting overwhelmed, throw in a flashcrasher grenade for some breathing room.

=== Utility / Prerequisite Skills ===

* Escape 1/5 minimum
** For emergencies. More points here give you more time to heal and reposition/get out of harms way.

* Sniper stance 1/10 minimum
** Sniper stance is such a one-point wonder that it would be crazy not to put a point here.

* Tactical stance ?
** This is your big choice. If your only consideration is damage over time, even a level 1 sniper stance is better than level 10 tactical stance. On the other hand, sniper stance means increased vulnerability, while tac stance does not, and may even offer increased security if they fix overshield. Regardless, tactical stance requires many points to be a serious competitor with sniper stance, so you're probably going to want to spend a lot of points here and skimp on passives and beacons, and skip the rapid fire tree altogether, or else skip tactical stance entirely and put more points into passives, beacon, and/or the rapid fire tree.

* Rapid Fire / Multishot?
** This depends a lot on weapon choice. If you're going with a rocket launcher, sniper rifle, or beam weapons, rapid fire is not useful. If you're going with (non-beam) pistols or an automatic rifle of some kind, it can be very useful. And as for multishot... I have no idea.

=== Passives ===

* Dead Eye 7/7
** While seven points here are not necessary for the build, it's a passive damage boosts - who's to object?

* Hollow Points 1+/7
** It's a passive damage boost, but probably not as effective as Dead Eye. Between weapon properties, mod sockets, and accuracy, you're probably already doing so much bonus critical damage that more points here aren't that useful.

* Ricochet, Reflected Shot, and Homing Shot
** More info is needed about how these abilities interact.

Any skill not mentioned is skippable, but can still be taken with leftover points if desired.

== Leveling ==

This build is very powerful from very early on. Your first key skill is beacon, which is available at level 5. You have the energy to use it a lot, so cast it on anything that doesn't go down instantly (of course, most things will). Try to find a group early on if you can, since they will also benefit from your beacons. Playing solo should not be a problem however, due to the ease of the early levels.

== Weapons ==

Since the build is based off of skills which benefit any weapon, use whatever weapon types you are most comfortable with.

== Variants ==

This build has a lot of flexibility: which stance do you go for, or do you grab rapid shot instead? Do you go for special damage effects and elemental beacon, or focus more on pure damage output? Do you spend a lot of points in grenades and air strikes, or concentrate more on passives to increase your main weapon damage? All of these add room for individual customization.

----
back to [[Marksman builds]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:46, 18 May 2011
Line 73:		Line 73:
	----		----
	back to [[Marksman#Guides\|Marksman Guides]]		back to [[Marksman#Guides\|Marksman Guides]]
		+
		+
		+	[[Category:Hellgate: London]]

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 ** This depends a lot on weapon choice. If you're going with a rocket launcher or sniper rifle, rapid fire is not useful. If you're going with pistols or an automatic rifle of some kind, it can be very useful. Also, at present it is very effective with beam weapons as you get multiple streams with perfect accuracy. Multishot can also be quite powerful as it doubles damage while active, and also greatly increases your odds of getting a crit effect. On the other hand, it takes a lot of points to get more than a few seconds of multishot given the number of points in prereqs.
+*It's worth pointing out that rapid fire and sniper stance alter not just firing speed but skill use rate as well, so if you use multishot (for example) while rapid firing, you can use it almost twice as often. On the other hand, using it in sniper stance will give it very slow cooldown. There's a good chance that this is a bug and will get fixed, but I imagine there are a lot of higher priority bugs at the moment.
 === Passives ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:50, 10 November 2007
Line 70:		Line 70:

	----		----
−	back to [[Marksman ~~builds~~]]	+	back to [[Marksman#Guides\|Marksman Guides]]

@@ Line 38: / Line 38: @@
 * Rapid Fire / Multishot?
-** This depends a lot on weapon choice. If you're going with a rocket launcher, sniper rifle, or beam weapons, rapid fire is not useful. If you're going with (non-beam) pistols or an automatic rifle of some kind, it can be very useful. And as for multishot... I have no idea.
+** This depends a lot on weapon choice. If you're going with a rocket launcher or sniper rifle, rapid fire is not useful. If you're going with pistols or an automatic rifle of some kind, it can be very useful. Also, at present it is very effective with beam weapons as you get multiple streams with perfect accuracy. Multishot can also be quite powerful as it doubles damage while active, and also greatly increases your odds of getting a crit effect. On the other hand, it takes a lot of points to get more than a few seconds of multishot given the number of points in prereqs.
 === Passives ===

@@ Line 29: / Line 29: @@
 * Escape 1/5 minimum
-** For emergencies. More points here give you more time to heal and reposition/get out of harms way.
+** For emergencies. More points here give you more time to heal and reposition/get out of harms way, or movement speed with improved escape.
-* Sniper stance 1/10 minimum
+* Sniper stance 1/10
-** Sniper stance is such a one-point wonder that it would be crazy not to put a point here.
+** Sniper stance is such a one-point wonder that it would be crazy not to put a point here. On the other hand, more points do relatively little, and you shouldn't be spending enough time in sniper stance to justify them.
-* Tactical stance ?
+* Tactical stance 1/10 (starting point)
-** This is your big choice. If your only consideration is damage over time, even a level 1 sniper stance is better than level 10 tactical stance. On the other hand, sniper stance means increased vulnerability, while tac stance does not, and may even offer increased security if they fix overshield. Regardless, tactical stance requires many points to be a serious competitor with sniper stance, so you're probably going to want to spend a lot of points here and skimp on passives and beacons, and skip the rapid fire tree altogether, or else skip tactical stance entirely and put more points into passives, beacon, and/or the rapid fire tree.
+** Crits are good. Then again, with max reflected shot and dead eye, you should be getting plenty of crits without resorting to a stance which removes your most valuable asset: mobility. Additionally, you don't have the points to get elemental visions, and overshield is almost useless at present. However, if you really want to get crits, you could stick a few extra points here.
 * Rapid Fire / Multishot?
@@ Line 45: / Line 45: @@
 ** While seven points here are not necessary for the build, it's a passive damage boosts - who's to object?
-* Hollow Points 1+/7
+* Hollow Points 1/7
 ** It's a passive damage boost, but probably not as effective as Dead Eye. Between weapon properties, mod sockets, and accuracy, you're probably already doing so much bonus critical damage that more points here aren't that useful.

@@ Line 48: / Line 48: @@
 ** It's a passive damage boost, but probably not as effective as Dead Eye. Between weapon properties, mod sockets, and accuracy, you're probably already doing so much bonus critical damage that more points here aren't that useful.
-* Ricochet, Reflected Shot, and Homing Shot
+* Reflected Shot 7/7
-** More info is needed about how these abilities interact.
+** This skill is way too good not to max.
 Any skill not mentioned is skippable, but can still be taken with leftover points if desired.