Now which Build good for PVE & PVP in 1.4?

[RimBlock]

Yeah, unfortunately they "fixed"  the switching in and out of the lonestar. 

Not that any player would call it a bug.

I think I called it a bug many times on these here forums  :1_grinning: .  Of course, they couldn't fix it or Heroic mode on any mission would have been impossible without changing through the range of weapons due to lack of ammo. 

@Little Warfy:

I got a decent M60 recently and given various people saying the belt fed LMGs are top dog at the moment tried it out.  I was unimpressed.  

It is fine for throwing bullets around but time to kill was just too high for my play style.  I checked it out against my main M4 and found the dmg per bullet was more or less exactly the same but the M4 had a 300rps throughput advantage.  The M4 only has 30rounds (mine has 64 with an extended mag) so the LMG clearly has the sustained fire advantage but if I can take down most bad guys in one --> 2 mags on the M4 (2 for the elites, maybe 3 --> 4 for the bosses).  The M4 has the advantage on armour but the LMG is better for any out of cover.

Again the utility of these weapons is clearly determined by the players role in a team and play style.  I am moving more in to the cover to cover pushing forward aggressively type role at the moment with AR and SMG / Shotgun.  This is a change from my previous support / marksman role I used to play (marksman rifles just don't seem that strong to me at the moment).

I have just got a Scar AR (I am liking the Scar Marksman) and a P416 AR (recommended by @DeadSockPuppet IIRC) to try out this week as well.  I am still after the elusive LVOA-C with decent stats though as the stability was better than the M4 in 1.3 and hopefully this also caries over to 1.4 as well.

I also almost bought the Scar Marksman rifle 229 blueprint last night but waved off as the one I have has pretty good talents and only 1.4k below the max per bullet dmg.  Think I may save the PXC although the Centurion pistol is also tempting with the 3 talents rather than the normal 2 for a pistol.

@DeadSockPuppet: Yeah the M870 is nice.  Mine is 126DMG with 2 healing talents and something else I don't currently recall (if I am that close, chances are that my health is probably down).  One other advantage of the M870 is that you don't have to wait for a full reload to fire again.  If reloading (it reloads slow with one shell at a time) you can fire off anywhere after the first shell goes in.  Can be a life saver if the bad guy pounding you have very little health left.

The SAS-G is still pretty great for rapid close range devastation though  :5_smiley: .  I have also not found a show stopper yet.

 

[DeadSockPuppet]

@RimBlock my favorite ARs (what I'm running on my main toon) are the tactical MK16 and the LVOA-C.  I've had the same GS204 ones for like 8-10 weeks because I can't find 229 ARs that compete with them.  I'm running 4x AB, so the two guns share vicious, brutal, destructive, swift, deadly and fierce.  

I usually run the MK16 as the primary, because it's more stable and fires a tighter group because the RPM is a little less.  And with about 1600 rounds of ammo from 1.4, I don't have issues with running out of ammo. That and I have 1/2 dozen SMGs that I can swap to and pair up, as well as pairs of LMGs and DMRs (all weapons within the types are set so I can pair 2 and get 6 talents).

 

[Juliet Tango]

I'm still running with my old G36 enhanced from 1.3 with brutal,destructive and focused. Just picked up a LVOA-C and a P416 G3 yesterday with some similar talents so gonna try them out. I had previously been using a first wave vector with brutal, destructive and unforgiving as my backup but found it was lacking and taking a couple of mags to down enemies. Tried an enhanced PP-19 but was pretty poor but luckily picked up a great MP5 ST yesterday with decent talents and it works great. Such a big difference from either previous SMGs I've tried.

Currently using a pretty good strikers 4pc, specialized backpack and a chest piece which gives armour boost under cover for more than 4 secs. I have a chest piece with vigorous and tried it out but didn't notice that it has XP boost as a minor attribute instead of 50% ammo capacity. Really need the ammo instead. DPS is currently sitting at 260k, 226k toughness and about 80k skill power. I've been speccing into enemy armour damage which is currently sitting at about 66% and headshot damage. I find that if you can sit behind cover, throw out a flame turret and get decent headshots in then you quickly melt through most enemies. 

Ive been trying to get a 4pc predators mark since 1.4 came out but only had 1 predators mark piece drop for me since the update arrived. I purchased the holster from the vendor next to the HVTs last night and had 1 previous piece at 268(now 229) so just need 1 more and I'm set. I'm gonna try and build a hybrid set using 3 piece hunters faith to boost my headshot damage to 140% and maybe run 3pc predator to boost AR & SMG damage also. 

 

[Juliet Tango]

Just landed a 4th predators mark pieces. Away to give this new build a test run. 

 

[Oh. daesu]

so jelly  :3_grin:

 

[Rsk2mc]

In my opinion i think 3 piece striker, which gives you stability and damage, combined with 3 piece alpha bridge, which gives you an additional 5% damage bonus, is the best. Because of the stability the best in slot gun I have used, and ive used alot of them, is the LVOA-C with brutal, deadly and destructive. My secondary i switch between M870 shotgun and RPK, but hands down the LVOA-C dominates with this build. Since the stability is solid the gun mods are cirt damage and crit chance. I run 3 Firearms mods and 3 Stamina mods all with armor. My Firearms is at almost 4600, my toughness is at 300k and my skillpower is 101k. Switch your talents to give you the extra 20% explosion damage then use seeker mine performance mods and use the cluster mines for your skill. My cluster mines hit for over 6k. My current armor mitigation is at 57.5%. 

 

[RimBlock]

Jut picked up the 4th piece of Tact Auth that is more or less as good as the gloves I already had so swapped it out.  Upped my electronics and firearms went down but...

SCAR AR is around 170k DPS, Toughness is around 290K (55% mitigation +10% in cover) and Skill power is around 156k.  Seeker mines are fins and pop up quite frequently as does heal and every time I use a skill I get 10% damage boost.  Enemy Armour damage is only around 40% at the moment which I would like to improve.

 Still liking the M4 a lot.  Tried the P416 but seems it is not good for me.  The Scar AR is doing quite well (+1k damage over the M4 at 15K / hit plus 1k AR damage bonus on the gloves).  I have also just picked up a Tac-16 which seems ok so will try that tomorrow.

I have just been running challenge mode underground after doing the dailies with the M870 MCS and seeker mines only (cluster does 41k damage  every 25.6s).  It has been quite fun but the challenge mode does seem a bit easy now.  Running through with the AR would have just been no challenge at all.

My overheal does 161k health every 32s, BFB does 288.5k every 51.6s and my sig cooldowns are 644s for those who are interested in what that level of skill power gives.  Any other skills people are interested in then just shout.

I have parts for strikers but they are no where near as strong as the Tact Auth I currently have.

The LVOA-C have generally been awesome especially in 1.1 & 1.2 but dropped a bit in 1.3.  Good to see them coming back in 1.4.  Now if I could only find a decent one.

 

[Juliet Tango]

In my opinion i think 3 piece striker, which gives you stability and damage, combined with 3 piece alpha bridge, which gives you an additional 5% damage bonus, is the best. Because of the stability the best in slot gun I have used, and ive used alot of them, is the LVOA-C with brutal, deadly and destructive. My secondary i switch between M870 shotgun and RPK, but hands down the LVOA-C dominates with this build. Since the stability is solid the gun mods are cirt damage and crit chance. I run 3 Firearms mods and 3 Stamina mods all with armor. My Firearms is at almost 4600, my toughness is at 300k and my skillpower is 101k. Switch your talents to give you the extra 20% explosion damage then use seeker mine performance mods and use the cluster mines for your skill. My cluster mines hit for over 6k. My current armor mitigation is at 57.5%. 

Nice. I'm actually not that impressed with the 4 piece predators mark and definitely noticed a difference with losing the 20% stability of the strikers. I've got assault rifle and smg damage added onto my gloves along with the 8% bonus for the 3 piece but the bleed seems pretty poor.

 I'm gonna try out a hybrid soon with predators mark and maybe either strikers or hunters faith but might also look at alpha bridge aswell. I'm still in the process of picking up new gear mods with added armour. Seem to keep getting ones with added skill power. 

 

[Rsk2mc]

The nice thing about the AB/Striker combo is the flat damage bonus of the AB. Its not limited to the weapon. So what I do is use the LVOA-C mostly until boss comes, then I switch to my RPK because of the mag size. The damage isnt much different but its nice solid damage over time. Ive been using this setup for a few days it works very well, Ive noticed the 100k skillpower is a good baseline for seeker mines. I tried using 3 piece predator/3 striker, 4 predator/2 sentry, 4 predator/reckless and savage.  the AB/Striker with LVOA to me is best hands down. I just started using the RPK but im not sold on it as a main, similarly with any of the LMG's. To me the LVOA-C replaces the G36 as the best gun. Plus with this gear setup the Assault rifles give you the enemy armor damage all the time unlike the LMG which is when they are out of cover.

 

[DeadSockPuppet]

Hmmm, might have to give this a look.  I think I'm going to try and power level a 3rd toon this weekend and as of yet I don't have a set idea on what I'd like to run with the toon.  I thought about creating a sniper/DMR specialist, but I'm not sure that I'll want to go that route.  I really liked the AR/SMG combo on my 1st toon before I got the 4x AB, so maybe I'll go back to that with the PM and some HE items.  

 

[Little Warfy]

@Little Warfy if you like running LMG & shotty you might try running 3x or 4x LS for the bonus ammo and bonus LMG/shotty dog and if you can hit 4 the swap to reload.  It's tons of fun to just keep switching weapons and keep sending hot lead down range without reloading.  And it's great to cancel out Waste Not on UG.   

Ta, I only really like the Shotty and LMG as something to build around the Turret. I suppose I could run a Marksman to keep right out of the battle arena but my old M1a is pretty nerfed now. I have electronics on this build around 3,000, but wondering if I spec more into it, just don't know how it will affect the cool down timer?

 

[RimBlock]

So I tried the Tac16 I found and kinda like it.  Slower than the M4 but still pretty good.  

Unfortunately, after the first mission using it I got a good LVOA-C drop with some good talents inc destructive (around 54% enemy armour damage now) and have been using that since.  The only reason I change from the LVOA-C is when I run out of ammo  :8_laughing: .

@Little Warfy: Skill power effect is linear up to around 250k now.  It was curving off at around 120k on the PTS but they corrected this.  I was running 3.2k tech with a skill power for 130 (see screenshots on page 1).  I did get the 10% bonus from 3 piece Tact Auth and my chest piece also gave 200% of Firearms and Stamina as skill power.  On the PTS, at 100k I had almost full uptime on a pulse turret.  This seemed to be nerfed a bit on 1.4 but was still good.  As a sort of benchmark,  overheal does 161k health every 32s @ 156k skill power.  I posted some other stats for that skill power level a few posts above.

 

[Rsk2mc]

So I have a new build to share that im really enjoying. I am running 3 piece sentry/3 piece hunters faith. This gives 30% headshot damage with the accuracy buff from sentry. The headshot damage is not limited to snipers so it works well with the LVOA-C but my main weapon is the SVD. So here is how I built this. I tried the M44 which hits hard, like 500k+ but the fire rate is very slow, the SVD with brutal hits 250k but has a much better fire rate. Hands down out of all the snipers ive tried in 1.4, including the M1A, the SVD takes the cake. You can literally 3 shot NPC's because the SVD has +163% headshot damage. For weapon mods I use accuracy, headshot damage and crit damage, my headshot damage is around 280%. For gear I have 57% armor mitagation, 4700 firearms and 325k toughness. My skillpower lacks at 65k but I only use pulse because of the crit chance buff which you need. if you have this gear laying around I highly recommend trying it, I know it seems odd that the SVD does less damage than the M44 and is better but if you try this set up you will see exactly what I mean. For close range the LVOA-C to the head melts NPC so fast you will kill them in less than a clip. I soloed all the dailys with this build.

 

[DeadSockPuppet]

That might be what I test first for my 3rd toon.  He's only lvl 4, but it shouldn't take long to get him up to 30.

 

[Rsk2mc]

So i have an update, last night I got a nicely rolled SOCCOM. This gun is a beast with a 50 round clip (using extended mag) it is awesome. During the same run I got a Custom M44. Before I was using the classic M44 with 106k damage, that was the gun reference above. This gun does not let you add a whole lot of mods, just scope and muzzle. The M44 custom has a base damage of 96k but has all mod slots available and the reload time is drastically faster. I would say the M44 custom is now my favorite most powerful sniper. The M44 classic hit for around 500k average, the M44 custom is hitting around 422k, however the extra clip size and extra mods make it worth it. We also tried tinkering in the dark zone, my teammate let me headshot him so we could see the damage, he had almost 400k toughness and high 50% mitigation and I dropped him in 2 shots. The build is very strong.

 

[quinch1199]

@Rsk2mc what's you're opinion on stats for sniper rifles then? Seems you look at DPS but I have a close friend who runs a dedicated sniper and he completely disregards DPS and ONLY considers the base damage per shot. 

He's set his toon up so that if all his buff's hit he can one shot take down most level 33 Ai's with a headshot and he will continue to pick off mobs like that for 60% of the encounter.

That said he runs with an SMG as his secondary and I really don't agree with that...my thinking is he should spec to shotgun.

Opinion for 1.4? Is Sniper + SMG best now or is it still Sniper + shottie?

 

[Rsk2mc]

@quinch1199 So heres my opinion. I also ignore DPS, its an inflated stat that doesnt mean a whole lot. With that being said I focus on the base firearms number which for me is currently 5200. For snipers, you want a decent rate of fire because even though I also one shot level 33's you dont one shot heavy armored NPC's. Both the M44 classic and Custom have an RPM of 55, the Soccom is 275. If I was in the DZ i would stick with the socomm because your not always going to be able to aim for the head on rogues for example. The M44 custom, in my opinion since I got one now, is the best sniper to use for PVE or even PVP if you have a solid group. For mods I focus on headshot damage, accuracy and crit chance. Im not a huge fan of crit damage for the sole reason of I want max damage with or without crit but alot of mods have both crit chance and damage. My crit damage (i think) is around 60% but my headshot damage is almost 280%. 

For a secondary to me it doesnt make any sense to run SMG's in 1.4 for PVE. Even though the base damage seems high they do not do as well as an LMG or Assault rifle. For example if you run 3 striker/ 3 predator it gives you 8% smg and 8% assault rifle damage, however the SMG only buffs crit damage while the assault rifle bumps enemy armor. So you get the damage buff from striker and predator and the =18-22% armor damage and crit hit or not your doing alot of damage. Now with the LVOA-C you get the benefit of the fire rate of an SMG while having the damage of an assault rifle which to me makes this gun hands down best in the game. Even with the sniper build that is focused on headshot damage i run my LVOA-C as my secondary and melt NPC's in the face. Last night I killed a 33 yellow elite with the LVOA-C and had 22 rounds left in the mag. Killing an NPC in less than a mag is very good and I dont think an SMG would do that unless you have high crit chance, which then you sacrifice crit damage. 

Another thing to consider is your play style, if you run an M44 you will not run and gun. Your job will be sit back and aim, I never zoom so I got quite good at no scope but thts the play style. If you like to be in the action but want the sniper you would want the Soccom or the SVD with a better fire rate.

 

[quinch1199]

Huge thank you for the opinion. So Shotguns aren't the best back up for snipers...which is what I thought...he seems to struggle with the SMG and clearly its due to the issues you highlighted so I can throw him some recommendations now!

I love my LVOA-C as well or "Zippy" as I call it. I just had a good roll on the one I bought from the vendor, though the G36 is the go to for longer ranges...as you say ....nothing melts faces like the LVOA-C when close up. 

 

[Rsk2mc]

@quinch1199 another thing to mention about shotguns, with the sniper focused build you need to hit the face. I have an M870 god roll that i use but im not a fan with the sniper build because if you dont hit the face it sucks. I do however use my M870 with my 3 piece alpha/ 3 piece striker build. If your good at head shots then I would say the M870 would be solid choice for sniper back up but with that gun you want a high velocity mag with crit chance and crit damage keep the bullets at 5 because reload time takes forever and high velocity makes reloading faster and 5 bullets doesnt take that long.

 

[quinch1199]

Solid advice. Good one.