I KNOW gadgeteers such as myself can be great Trolls or great DPS, I've seen it in action, so here's my question... is it possible to dual spec and have the best of both worlds? I attempt to play as a troll, and do fairly well at it. Some of you may know me in-game as CrossShadow, I don't play the hero, I am ranged, focus on doing my job and thats it... if the healer goes down, I pop distract and pick him/her back up then go right back to pumping the power. I've also been grouped with DPS gadget users and been blown away by the numbers. Granted, it's not quite as high as HL (but that's just broken and we all know it). But I was looking at most of things I use for my loadouts and I realised, they work well in BOTH stances... so is it simply a case of the one with the gear rules the roost, OR is there a trick to speccing those skill points?... As I know after 50+ skill points, you pretty much have every +VIT/DOM skill you need... so does that mean if you grind out the other skill points (39 other points for those hardcore gamers) you can dump them into DPS?... or is there something I am missing?
Note: this is my personal opinion, I believe this is the best way to spec the innates you need for dps'ing are: critical attack chance critical attack damage might precision the innates you need for trolling are: vitalization cunning I would suggest getting health also because that improves your survivability in both roles. you don't need to put sp into dominance because you get enough dominance from your gear. you only need 550-600 to control enemies in t4 raids (i forget the exact amount). at 127 sp I have all my crit attack chance, crit attack damage, might, precision, health, vitalization, many different weapon attacks, some movement mode powers, and some cunning. I still need a few more sp to finish the rest of my cunning. cunning increases critical power chance, if you didn't know. TL;DR you need around 120 sp to FULLY dual spec, depending on how many different weapons and movement mode powers you use
You need 77 sp to full spec as a dps just for the inmates. think after that you need 18(??????) more to spec into Crit power chance and vitalization and depending on your movement mode 5-7 more for youre breakout mastery(which grants power back and scales with vit) then a few extra if you need to pick up a weapon combo here and there. I personally dont spec into dom because i get the required amount just from my gear alone so i throw my extras into health. But yes, i am dual specced as a mental and all i have to do is switch roles and switch my gear out and im good to go. POWER POINT wise, you could dual spec gadgets and mental and still be good at both but i dont think you'll get everything you want as HL PPwise.
Short answer, yes. Long answer, yyeess. P.s. you don't need 120 sp to duel spec. It's more like 80-90
LOL! It's SO funny that these posters before me are spewing out all these bs numbers and passing them off as "facts." So Jess here seems to think you only need 50 SP to fully spec into troller. WRONG. Agnetta thinks "you need around 120 SP to FULLY dual spec." WRONG. Although, he was actually on the right track with his breakdown. Very, very close to the correct answer, but not quite there. And 13igtyme thinks you need "80-90" SP to dual-spec. WRONG. Agnetta's guess was closer. See my next post for exactly how many SP you REALLY need to dual-spec.
So, how many SP do you REALLY need to dual-spec? It's EXACTLY 140! (which is great, cause I have 141.) I'll do a breakdown here: Movement: 10 SP, for the 7 Inate Speed abilities, Tornado Pull, Speed Drain, and Whirling Dervish Hand Blasters: 10 SP, down to Power Discharge, plus the 3 Mights and 3 Health One Handed: 13 SP, down to Flurry, plus the 3 Mights, 3 Vit, and 3 Health Bow: 13 SP, down to Bow Slam, plus the 3 Mights, 3 Cunning, and 3 Defense Brawling: 10 SP, down to Launching Uppercut, plus the 3 Crit Heal Chances and 3 Health Dual Pistol: 13 SP, down to Magnum Round, plus the 3 Crit Attack Dams, 3 Vit, 3 Defense Dual Wield: 10 SP, down to Dual Flurry, plus the 3 Crit Attack Dams, and 3 Defense Martial Arts: 13 SP, down to Elbow Drop, plus the 3 Crit Attack Dams, 3 Cunning, and 3 Defense Rifle: 13 SP, down to Flame Thrower, plus the 3 Crit Attack Chances, 3 Vit, and 3 Health Shield: 13 SP, down to Shield Uppercut, plus the 3 Precisions, 3 Cunning, and 3 Health Staff: 10 SP, down to Downward Smash Combo, plus the 3 Crit Attack Chances and 3 Defense Two Handed: 13 SP, down to Mega Smash, plus the 3 Crit Attack Chances, 3 Vit, and 3 Health These numbers sum up to 141 SP, but you get 1 freebie SP in your starting wep that doesn't appear in your SP counter, so it's actually 140 SP. This breakdown assumes you're Speed and that you don't need to unlock any additional wep combos. You MUST be Speed to effectively dual-spec as Gadgets. And personally, I just spam Spin Chop clips as DPS and spam Surprise Volley between uses of Defib as troller, so I don't need to unlock any additional wep combos. These numbers include all the Def and Health inates. If you're not getting those (presumably because you don't have enough SP), you'll need 107 SP to dual-spec. Now, here's how to dual-spec PP. This first one assumes you're Speed: Traps (7 PP): Taser Pull, Fear Gas, Defibrillator, Bunker Buster, Gauss Grenade, Cryo-Foam, Cryo-Field Tricks (5 PP): Sticky Bomb, Intimidation, Distract, Vortex Cannon, Napalm Grenade Iconics (3 PP): Weapons Expert, Tactical Genius, Wisdom of Solomon DPS Loadout: Intimidation, Gauss Grenade, Fear Gas, Cryo-Field, Whirling Dervish, Bunker Buster Troller Loadout: Sticky Bomb, Defibrillator, Gauss Grenade, Vortex Cannon/Napalm Grenade/Tornado Pull, Distract, Speed Drain For that 4th spot on your troller loadout, you'll be switching between Vortex Cannon, Napalm Grenade, and Tornado Pull as the situation demands. If you're not speed, here's how you dual-spec PP. Although, this is not quite as effective as dual-speccing with Speed. Traps (7 PP): Taser Pull, Fear Gas, Defibrillator, Bunker Buster, Gauss Grenade, Cryo-Foam, Cryo-Field Tricks (3 PP): Sticky Bomb, Intimidation, Distract Iconics (5 PP): Weapons Expert, Tactical Genius, Wisdom of Solomon, Neo-Venom Boost, Word of Power DPS Loadout: Intimidation, Gauss Grenade, Fear Gas, Cryo-Field, Neo-Venom Boost, Bunker Buster Troller Loadout: Sticky Bomb, Defibrillator, Gauss Grenade, Cryo-Foam/Movement Pull, Distract, Word of Power For that 4th spot in your troller loadout, switch between Cryo-Foam and your movement pull (Low Pressure for Flight or Grapple Line for Acro).
Orlynao? Everyone, pull out your wallets and start getting those movement respec tokens. Its the ONLY way to be effective as gadgets.
Yep. I also included how to dual-spec as Flight or Acro (if you bothered to actually read my post), but it's easier to dual-spec as Speed because you can use Speed Drain and WD, meaning you can save PP. You only have 15 PP to spend, but you've got TONS of SP, so it's best to utilize your movement tree if possible. If you'd care to reread that quote, I did say "effectively." It's possible to dual-spec Gadgets as either Flight or Acro, but it's just not as effective. Also, you WILL do more damage with WD than you will with NVB, the Turret, or Neural-Neutralizer, so personally I'd go Speed just for that.
I think the mistake Anierna made is saying that you need the health and defense innates to count as dual-speccing, which you don't. That's speccing as far as one can spec, but that's not what you need to fully dual-spec.
I think Aniema is right to a certain extent. To have an effective controller loadout, you need to have a supercharge that regens power and to be effective in the damage role, you will want a supercharge that does beast mode damage. Wisdom of Solomon is a great one for controlling, but it requires a power point(boo). The one in the Super Speed tree only uses a skill point and you can get lots of those(yay). Bunker Buster is really powerful and most Gadget DPS would consider this a "must have" ability for a proper loadout. This would allow you to more easily have a supercharge available for each role, without having to spend 2 of your precious 15 power points on them. Speccing properly, in this game, requires you to have a ton of skill points. From what I understand, almost any role needs 75-80 skill points to fully spec into the role. But it should be noted that a lot of those points are essentially "wasted" by getting to the innate abilities at the bottom of the weapon trees. Once you are fully specced in one role, you probably only need 3 skill points per weapon tree to properly spec your off role. With 11 weapons, you will need a minimum of 33 more skill points to fill those trees out for your secondary role's innates. You may also want a few more for things in your movement tree that you don't have for your original role. I did not include the health/defense innates in this calculation. I assume that you either have those already or you do not need them. I will say that in my limited experience, these are not as important to a player using a ranged weapon. When I go controller in PvE with my rifle, I am usually the lowest on "damage in." But that is a result of smart play, good movement and positioning, and liberal use of Crowd Control abilities. If you are planning to be a melee user in either role, those defense and health innates become much more important as lots of damage will be relatively unavoidable. As for the loadout, I somewhat disagree with Aniema's choices for damage, but that is about playstyle and preference. Again, I play ranged (rifles specifically), so Cryo-field has only situational value for me - the rifle lunge does not move you into melee combat, but merely flips you in place. I prefer Photon Blast for PvE damage role because it is a ranged ability, it hits like a truck and works like an execute style move, and it provides the 50% damage buff for weapon attacks. Cryo-Field is a great move for melee though, and I use it more when PvPing. It has 100% uptime if you use it on cooldown, it is a powerful AoE, it provides PI and potentially CC, and it gives the 50% damage buff. I wholeheartedly agree with the Controller loadout she listed. I use those exact abilities minus the movement pull. If I really find myself needing a pull ability, I switch in Taser Pull. Remember, you can always turn around and whip that thing at the wall to get a PoT going if you don't want to effect the enemies' positioning. I realize that using this as a pull may lead to PoT clipping, but that is the choice I make when necessary, and I rarely need to. After getting the appropriate skill points to properly fill out both sets of innate abilities, the number one factor affecting your damage out will be your gear. Your controller set will be laden with Vit and Dom, while the damage set will have loads of Might and Precision. Then you can factor in the mods on the gear and the affinity bonuses. All this will greatly contribute to your output. After getting the innate abilities and the proper gear, the next thing will be your own ability to wield the rotation of your loadout. The more clipping you can do, the better. Any increase in damage after these factors is purely from the player, so practice lots.
I must be doing something wrong because I can almost duel spec my dps with 87sp. Oh wait, my bad, it's you who is wrong.
First, let me say a HUGE THANK YOU! Your answers are really giving me something to chew on. I really appreciate the feedback from vets but... you didn't need to be quite so harsh in the beginning lol I was merely making an observation from my own limited experience. As for the rest of your comments, they were VERY insightful and truly worth the effort to type out and read and while I COMPLETELY agree that speedster is the ideal movement type because of it's skill tree, practicality wise... in high level instances, if you don't fly you go CRAZY trying to get around tight tunnels, crags and other nonsense. ESPECIALLY if you have to go repair due to inexperience in the dungeon, or not getting to healer in time to save a wipe (rare for me, but it happens) Concerning SP, we'll just leave that as undecided... I didn't mean HOW MANY POINTS MUST I SPEND... just is it possible... Now a little about myself... Last week, I LOST my original character last week due to moving country and have now had to start over. Before that sorry event, I was coming along nicely with my trolling.I had a healthy CR of 72 (please don't be elitist or judge me for having a "low CR", it's merely a game and I was having fun.) Though my Vit was only 987, nothing compared to the beastly 1200-1400 that I hear about so much, I was still able to to troll with reasonable proficiency and was called upon by my league to troll all the time, heck I even managed to solo troll FOS 1/2/3 at a push, it wasn't pretty but, I got the job done and it was not because I had the most VIT or a ridiculously high CR, but because I DID MY JOB. I learned the HARD way, a troller shouldn't be in the thick of the battle, they should be staying back with the healer for the most part and doing CC from a distance while supplying constant power, using there bow/rifle/hand blasters/Dual pistols ect to deal ranged damage to recharge their own power pool. While DPS and Tank deal with the Boss, your job is to clean up the trash mobs and cc the hell out of them so your team can do their jobs. or in the case of "the league killer" also known as "the bridge" in FOS2 stay near tank and assist with pulls and keep the teams power up. My Troller load out was; Sticky Bomb, Gause Grenade(PVE)/Napalm Grande(PVP), Defibrillator, Word of Power, Suppression Turret, and Distract (note in cases where I needed to pull I switched GG/NG for grapple line from the accro tree) My DPS load out was; Sticky Bomb, Gause Grenade, Intimidate, Bunker Buster, Photon Blast(PVE)/Napalm Grande(PVP), and Distract P.S. Please continue the feedback it's really helping me decide how this new toon will come along. P.P.S. A HUGE thanks to my league Displaced Inc, for helping me out after I lost all my stuff. Keep an eye out for JessTier (she's my new toon) and yes I specced into flying as I was sick of sticking to things when I didn't want to lol
My math is correct. As I said in my previous post, quoted above, you need 140 SP to "fully" spec (meaning dual-spec with survival inates), and you need 107 SP to dual-spec without survival inates. Oh really? You "can almost dual-spec your dps with 87 SP?" Let me check my numbers again... They're most definitely correct. I've even given a breakdown of how I got to the numbers 107 SP and 140 SP (quoted above). There's my proof - have you got any proof stating you can dual-spec with 87 SP? ... I didn't think so. Because you can't properly dual-spec with 87 SP.
Here's some Gadgets information I posted on this thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/highest-dps-class-atm.1200/page-2
LOL! That's simply bogus. Take a look at what I'm spending SP on. For my 107 SP number, the inates I'm getting are: Prec, Might, Crit Attack Damage, Crit Attack Chance, Vit, Cunning. Tell me, are ANY of those unnecessary? Prec, Might, Crit Attack Damage, and Crit Attack Chance all directly impact the amount of damage you do. Vit and Cunning (the important part being the increased crit power chance) directly impact the amount of power you put out as a troller. For my 140 SP number, I'm getting all the inates I've mentioned above, plus all the health and def. I agree that health and def are not strictly necessary, since they won't increase your damage-out or power-out directly, but they will prevent you from ever getting 1-shotted (assuming you're full t4 as well), and that indirectly helps you play your role. Dead DPS don't do damage and dead trollers don't give power. And if you have extra SP after dual-specc'ing with my 107 number, why not put the rest into health and def? Do the math, bud. The numbers say I'm right. Live with it.
Your grabbing WD, speed drain, break out mastery(which is still broken), pulls which aren't needed in raids other than fos2 and a good tank can handle that, plus unused weapon combos. So its just over 90 to dual spec.
I'm not getting any unecessary wep combos. The only wep combos I'm getting are the 4 that have inates built into then, that go straight down to the bottom of each wep tree so you can get the role inates. It's not possible to get any role inates in any wep tree unless you first unlock 4 wep combos in each tree. So, for argument's sake, let's say I don't get: WD, Speed Drain, Break Out Master, and Tornado Pull. That only saves me 4 SP. So my numbers have gone from 140 and 107 to 136 and 103. Good job. You're still wrong, since you still can't dual-spec with 90 SP. Look at your own wep trees and do the math yourself. Try getting every single Prec, Might, Crit Attack Chance, Crit Attack Damage, Vit, and Cunning inate in every tree. And then get the 7 movement inates as well (or 6, since you don't want Breakout Mastery). As I've just proved, it'll be more than 90 SP.
