The Cutting Edge Gadgets Guide

Precision:
First, you need to pick your weapon. I assume you'll be using these attacks for the specified situation.
Melee AoE - Bow Smokebomb Mastery
Melee Single-target - MA Uppercut Mastery
Ranged Single-target - Dual Wield Flurry Shot Mastery

Most Gadgets weapon-based loadouts are going to play roughly the same. Melee loadouts will typically consist of:
1. Battle Display (Weapon Buff)
2. Suppressor Turret (pet)
3. Neo-Venom Boost (damage and defense boost)
4. Cryo-Field (AoE) or Stealth (single-target)
5. Gauss Grenade (AoE) or Taser Pull (single-target)
6. Holographic Decoy (taunting pet) or Distract (CC cleaner and shield)

You can find a decent write-up on how to play the AoE version of the loadout here:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...tting-edge-gadgets-guide.288758/#post-3986619

Just substitute "Two-Handed" with whatever AoE weapon attack you are going to spam.

For single-target, replace Cryo-Field with Stealth and Gauss Grenade with Taser Pull. Clip every Uppercut Mastery with Taser Pull. Taser Pull itself can be clipped with Stealth. In Stealth, do Cuff'em, jump cancel it, and use Surprise Attack.

The single-target version will also work with Flurry Shot Mastery if you are within 10-13 meters to land your Stealth attacks.

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll write up the Might version in a little bit.

Might:

Ranged AoE
The Ranged AoE Loadout is pretty easy:
1. Gauss Grenade
2. Fear Gas
3. Paralyzing Dart
4. Downdraft (Flight) or Throwing Knives (Acrobatic)

Just keep casting those four powers in sequence.


Max Damage Single-Target
Loadout:
1. Stealth
2. Swoop Attack (Flight)
3. Heat Vision
4. Taser Pull
5. Robot Sidekick
6. Battle Display

For your Stealth loadout, you will want:
Cuff'em, Surprise Attack, Hard Light Shield, Neo-Venom Boost, Robot Sidekick, and Return to Normal.

With this loadout, be sure you equip the Critical Battle Display head mod. Battle Display will boost your critical ability attack chance by 2% when that mod is equipped.

Here is the rotation:
1. Summon Robot Sidekick
2. Power Rotation: Swoop -> Heat Vision -> Swoop -> 3x Taser Pulls
3. Whenever Stealth is off cooldown, clip the first Taser Pull in the 3x Taser Pull sequence. When you clip Taser Pull, use Cuff'em, jump cancel, and use Surprise Attack. Depending on transformation lag, you may only need to do one Taser Pull after doing a Stealth Clip before it is time to restart the rotation.
4. Battle Display can be used to clip Swoop Attack and Taser Pull.

I consider this rotation to be suicidal in Elite raiding content. Swoop Attack always puts you right beside the boss and Heat Vision is vulnerable to interrupt without the Hand mod.


Easier-To-Play Single-Target
Loadout:
1. Stealth
2. Fear Gas
3. Taser Pull
4. Suppressor Turret
5. Distract
6. Holographic Decoy

Stealth Loadout:
Cuff'em, Surprise Attack, Suppressor Turret, Supercharge (Bunker Buster or Neo-Venom Boost), Hard Light Shield, Return to Normal

Here is the rotation:
1. Summon Suppressor Turret
2. Power Rotation: 3x Taser Pull + Fear Gas
3. Whenever Stealth is off cooldown, clip a Taser Pull with Stealth. When you clip Taser Pull, use Cuff'em, jump cancel, and use Surprise Attack.
4. Use Distract if you are countered, crowd controlled, or need an emergency shield/detaunt. Decoy is there in case the tank dies or you don't have a tank around.

This doesn't do quite as much damage as the previous loadout, but it is much easier to play. It also greatly increases your survivability.

This particular loadout can be played at 10-13 meters from the target. That is generally enough distance to avoid most boss attacks.



Melee AoE
There are a lot of directions you could go with this, but I'm just going to list what I typically use:
1. Gauss Grenade
2. Fear Gas
3. EMP Pulse
4. Implosion Mine
5. Distract
6. Holographic Decoy

The basic rotation is simple: Gauss Grenade -> Fear Gas -> EMP Pulse -> Implosion Mine

Implosion Mine currently has a broken dom check and will always pull non-boss NPCs to it regardless of content. If you know what you are doing, you can use this to interrupt enemy attacks or gather up enemies. Just be sure not to annoy your tank by constantly pulling NPCs away. I find that flying over top the tank and using mines typically works out ok.

Use Decoy as a taunting pet or if you are expecting a big hit (Decoy transfers some damage while it is active). Use Distract if you are countered, crowd controlled, or need a shield/detaunt.

If you don't want to use Distract/Decoy, you can swap them out for a couple more offensive powers. Stealth, Taser Pull, Paralyzing Dart, and a supercharge are all viable options here.

I won't claim this is the best Gadgets max damage melee AoE rotation out there. It does good damage compared to most Gadgets AoE tray loadouts and has low power consumption. The highest damage AoE rotation I ever tried with Gadgets required 3 controllers to keep me powered.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you so much for all that awesome info! After reading this, I think switching to Might is the play style I will prefer with Gadgets. What artifacts do you recommend for a gadgets might spec? I need to level all new artifacts so I want to make sure I am doing the best ones.

And again, thanks for all the detailed info!

Unlike Precision builds, there are no "must have" Might DPS artifacts at the moment. So you have a a few choices:
-Tetrahedron of Urgrund - Health group buff
-Scrap of the Soul Cloak - Increases Supercharge generation and reduces Supercharge ability cooldowns. This one is a must-have if you are a Gadgets controller. Also useful if you are running a Supercharge focused DPS build.
-Omegahedron - Increases base Power Regeneration
-Solar Amplifier - Gives boosts to Heat Vision.

The first three provide general buffs that are useful for all Might situations. Solar Amp is useful if you incorporate Heat Vision into a loadout.

There are a lot of ways to play Might Gadgets AoE and Single-Target. Don't feel constrained by the loadouts listed above. Those are just some general guidelines. Often the optimal loadout for a specific situation will see you swapping one power around. Don't be afraid to incorporate Iconic and Movement mode powers. There is a lot of overlap between Gadgets and the Iconic powers.

Hey hey! Super cool guide you have here! I've been reading through it, and after playing gadgets a little on an alt, I kinda got the urge to do a complete 180 and put my main as a gadgets/acrobatics hero from mental/flight. Currently, I'm at CR 208-ish, dealing with Earth-3 content right now.

I'd love to do a little bit of a mix between classic controller and "iconic" inspiration, and since our tray-space is limited, I really want to find stuff that works.

My current mental loadout is

1. TK Shield
2. TK
3. Pyro (for the defence debuff)
4. Power dump
5. Shield/power supercharge
6. Psi Shock (Healing debuff)

And after reading through your guide, I kind of decided on a mish-mash of several things:

1. Distract (for the shield)
2. Sticky Bomb (attack debuff) (or perhaps Napalm grenade, given that it's a healing debuff and cheaper power-wise?)
3. Gauss grenade (defence debuff)
4. Defib
5. Battle Drone
6. And for the final spot, I'm sort of torn between Backflip and Battle Display. Mostly because of style over substance

For my weapon, I'm thinking of either MA or DW, to keep up iconic inspiration. But I still want it to be viable and playable, though understandably that's a pretty hefty thing to ask.

Do you have any suggestions, perhaps?

Just to make sure we're operating on the same wavelength here, you're looking for tips for a build with the following characteristics:
-Controller role
-Acrobatic movement set
-Iconic inspiration
-Viable and Playable

I have three questions:
1. I see it is important that you stick with your iconic inspiration here. Are you trying to model yourself after a specific NPC or are you talking more in terms of Iconic powers?
2. Are you intending to use this build in group content or more of a solo/duo type thing?
3. Are you intending to play this as a pure controller or more of a hybrid playstyle where you want to emphasize damage output as much as the controller aspect?

I recommend using a Supercharge generator for controller loadouts, for quicker supercharge generation for more power. Some of the Controller powerset supercharges are group shields, and that is mighty useful in group content, so I reckon most ppl equip a Supercharge generator.

For Gadgets, Stasis Field is the supercharge generator.

I think I worded it wrong. I don't mean directly an iconic inspiration, not like using iconic powers in a loadout and all that. Mainly I'd keep it iconic feeling, fitting for a gadgets/acro character. So MA or DW, maybe a bow. The addition of backflip from acrobatics is to enhance the feeling of mobility and agility. Think of most, if not all the non-super-powered characters in the game. Does it make sense?

Currently, I run all content with little issue in regards to trolling, solo/duo/group/elite. It all goes quite well for me, and I do usually solo troll. And I would want to play it as a pure controller over a hybrid type of playstyle.

And I don't thing stasis field would be a good choice? I remember encasement powers like those being very disruptive, because the encased enemies have a tendency to jump around. Right?

Encased enemies can't "jump around." The encasement will roll around if you're on a slope.

Gadgets players can immediately destroy a Stasis Field encasement with the following powers: Napalm Grenade, Sticky Bomb, Thermite Mine, and Self-Destruct Signal. The advantage to using Self-Destruct Signal over the other listed powers is that it will inflict additional damage. If you have a lot of Stasis Field encasements setup, you can inflict a large amount of damage.

Stasis Field typically isn't a problem in alert and raid-level content since those NPCs will immediately breakout of an encasement. Just wait for the tank to pull a mob group and then use Stasis Field.

This is what I typically use when I'm Controlling:
1. Stasis Field - Supercharge Generator and Defense Debuff
2. Sticky Bomb - Damage Debuff, Encasement Breaker, and quite possibly the most overpowered CC ability in the game if you know how to use it properly.
3. Distract - Shield, Detaunt, CC Cleaner
4. Battle Drone - Group power return and shield
5. Defib - Group power heal and precision boost
6. Flex Slot

I'll use whatever seems appropriate for the situation in the Flex Slot. Here is a list of things you might consider:

• Napalm Grenade - Healing debuff
• Taser Pull - Pulling power. Useful for pulling Engineers away from turrets or rock monsters back to volcanos. Works a lot better if you know how to jump pull
• Cryo-Foam - Healing debuff and grounding effect
• Holographic Decoy - Amazing ability if the tank goes down or if a tank isn't around. You can leap in, set it up, and it will draw aggro on everything for 10+ seconds. It can also be used as a 25% damage transfer pet for certain OHK mechanics.
• Stealth - Couple it with the Improved Stealth mod and you have Gadgets most powerful non SC shield. Also detaunts, improves movement speed, acts as a CC cleaner, and gives you a second loadout bar. Works really well for avoiding charging attacks and AoE death pools.

Backflip also works to help maintain positioning.

As for the weapon, use whatever you feel most comfortable with. A lot of people use Handblasters because of their Supercharge generation capabilities. Dual Wield is a very balanced weapon damage wise. MA is great if you can into melee distance.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

A short derailing

Anyone noticed how in the TT alert's last boss Cyborg's behavior with a Holographic Decoy deployed?
From my observation, he does move towards the decoy YET he only attacks players. Was this ever addressed or is it just me?

That has been my observation too. Cyborg will attack the Decoy sometimes, but he primarily focuses on players. I think it is mostly due to the way Cyborg's attacks were scripted.

I still use Decoy in that fight for its damage transfer properties. It can be useful if you're running a 3 dps/1 tank setup and don't have the group defense buff. It can also sometimes be useful if you have 2-3 people to pick up.

Pen (Crim's help is very welcome too but I know he tends to be more hybrid/weapons focused), I know you're busy with testing the new DLC, but just got a couple of questions for when you have the chance.

My damage seemed to have went slightly backwards lately:

For multi-target I had been clipping EMP with ST but that seemed to be a damage loss for me (my clipping might leave a bit to be desired).

Before that I had just been using (1 of) the standard loadouts, Cryo-field, IMine, GG, EMP, ST. I decided to try the other standard loadout, minus ST but with TMine. It's pretty hard to tell as I'm PS but those 2 loadouts seemed fairly evenly matched.

However, I tried switching GG with Sticky Bomb & it seemed to be slightly better. It was doing circa 26k unbuffed. Not really sure how this sits with you but it's slightly higher than I'd been getting with the other options.

Like I say, PS testing is not ideal (combat log on 3 dummies), but is there any reason why GG is favoured over Sticky Bomb generally?

Also, re single target, what damage should I expect to be hitting with Stealth/Surprise Attack, HV, TP & FG? You hear some funny numbers on the forums & I just feel as though I'm underperforming in this respect. I have 32k+ might & a level my Solar Amplifier is just shy of the 160 mark.

I guess while I'm asking for your help, with the new Artifacts, which ones seem better suited to gadgets? Nothing seems quite as clear cut anymore.

Thanks in advance.

You're better off not using Turret for clipping. It will result in a noticeable DPS loss if you do it badly. Turret clipping might make you feel like you are casting faster, but the damage output numbers don't lie.

In the long run, you're better just casting powers in a rotation without trying to do any fancy clipping tricks.

Was is your rotation with that loadout? Can you provide some details on how you are conducting your testing? It is very easy to do parser testing the wrong way and get bad conclusions.

It is possible to lose the damage from a Sticky Bomb cast if the target dies too quickly.

Without know the exact rotation you are using, it is hard to say why Gauss Grenade is performing better than you.

The problem when you see numbers being thrown around on the forum is that everyone has a different reference point. Your mods, gear, augments, and artifacts will be different from what anyone else is using. Those differences result in very different numbers being reported even if two people use the same rotation. So that means that you have to use yourself as a reference point and conduct careful parser testing.

I just finished leveling my Solar Amp to 120. I was hoping to get some time soon to do parser testing with the improved Heat Vision. I expect to make some minor changes to my damage rotation.

I wouldn't feel comfortable making any recommendations at this point. Three of the four artifacts are going to be changed. Some are way too overpowered at the moment. Others are bugged. The only one not being changed is the Healer artifact and that doesn't do a Gadgets player any good.

Yeah, thanks Pen. I figured re the clipping which is why I changed it. It feels active, which I enjoy but something just didn't feel right.

The rotation I used prior to the clipping adventure was (with ST active) cryo-field, IMine, GG, EMP, GG, IMine, GG, EMP,...until cryo-field was off cooldown. That did pretty decent for me.

I'm now trying out cryo-field, IMine, TMine, sticky bomb & EMP. Not sure about it. It does decent on sparring targets but they obviously don't die so your point about things dying too fast may well be valid. Plus it does have a tendancy to throw adds around & obviously knocking them out of range of the mines isn't good.

My testing is pretty flawed. I'm not really sure of any other way on a PS but to put the chat tab to combat, damage for a while, stop & then wait til the damage summary comes up. There are major issues with this, namely if ST is up or if anything is still ticking, so it's more just to get a general idea rather than anything concrete. I also don't use trinket, supply or any buff sodas when testing.

CR is 249, mods are Atlantean, damage augments all 217, Solar Amplifier is 158 & Tetrahedron 120. I'm only like 360 SP so I'm probably missing a bit of might via health with the Tetrahedron but mostly my stats should be pretty reasonable. & don't get me wrong, my damage is decent, sometimes I'll top, sometimes i'll be 2nd or 3rd in raids depending on who I'm running with.

I just feels there's more in the power, particularly single target. & whatever I do single target, jump cancelling Cuff-em or just going straight Surprise Attack, HV, no HV, the nos. are similar, about 15k single target.

Thanks re the Artifacts. Wait & see I guess.

Here is how I prefer to test:
1. Respec first.
2. Under Stat Points, pick your Focus. Do NOT pick Critical Attack Chance or Critical Attack Damage. Finishing speccing relevant stats. The important thing is NOT to spec any crits.
3. Set the parser interval to 30 seconds.
4. Go to the league hall. For an AoE build, use 3 sparring targets.

Again, the important thing is not to spec any Damage crits. Not speccing crits will give you a more consistent parser number.

When evaluating a rotation, try to collect at least ten 30 second parser averages. All of your parser averages should be within a narrow range. Average those numbers and you'll get a really good idea of how it is performing.

Be sure not to use any stat buffs, buff sodas, trinkets or anything else unless you are explicitly testing those.

When testing, the important thing is consistency. Never make more than once change to your loadout, mods, or rotation at one time.

Just realize that by not speccing into crits, your damage numbers will be a little lower than expected. That's fine. You're testing for damage consistency. The loadout that gives the best damage consistency will work well when you respec your crits.


Looking at your Cryo-field, IMine, TMine, Sticky Bomb, & EMP loadout, I get very similar results with or without Cryo-Field. The damage ranges look about the same. If you drop Cryo-Field from the rotation, you spend more time casting your burst powers. Try swapping Cryo-Field with Self-Destruct Signal. You'll get more reliable damage out of your mines that way. Swapping Sticky Bomb with Paralyzing Dart may give you slightly better results too. The power consumption is higher, but the damage is immediate and there are no knockbacks.


In regards to your single-target damage, you are experiencing the frustration associated with trying to min-max your damage. You've reached a plateau and you feel like there should be someway to do a little more damage. You're trying out a lot of things, but nothing seems to give you a substantial boost.

I understand that feeling completely. The truth of the matter is that you're already doing almost everything to maximize your damage output. At this point, it is more about technique rather than finding a completely new loadout. You're operating on the margins looking for little improvements.

One thing you might want to try is slotting Suppressor Turret/Robot Sidekick for single-target. That will give you a small damage boost.

I need to do more testing to see whether Fear Gas is worth using in conjunction with the improved Heat Vision.


Did you ever pick up the Boo-tility Belt?


Keep an eye on what they do to the Eye of Gemini artifact. That artifact could provide significant DPS bonuses depending on what changes they make to it. Some playstyle changes are required in order to make the best use of the Eye of Gemini artifact.

Almost forgot about this one.

If you don't care about your survivability and your character is Flight/Skimming, try this:

Loadout:
1. Stealth
2. Swoop Attack (Flight)
3. Heat Vision
4. Taser Pull
5. Robot Sidekick
6. Your choice

For your Stealth loadout, you will want:
Cuff'em, Surprise Attack, Hard Light Shield, Neo-Venom Boost, Robot Sidekick, and Return to Normal.

Here is the rotation:
1. Summon Robot Sidekick
2. Power Rotation: Swoop -> Heat Vision -> Swoop -> 3x Taser Pulls
3. Whenever Stealth is off cooldown, clip the first Taser Pull in the 3x Taser Pull sequence. When you clip Taser Pull, use Cuff'em, jump cancel, and use Surprise Attack. Depending on transformation lag, you may only need to do one Taser Pull after doing a Stealth Clip before it is time to restart the rotation.

Also use the LexCorp Automated Sidekick trinket. That trinket is the best single-target pet trinket in the game.

Just be warned that I wouldn't recommend using this in Elite content. Swoop Attack will get you killed very easily.

I'll reply properly to this later Pen, ty.

I knew about removing Crits from the past but I forgot about it in this round of 'testing' so I'll be sure to do that.

I'm acro

The LexCorp Sidekick is a great tip. I actually have 1 I got as a free PSN/+ gift which I haven't used on any character yet so that will be getting used.

Thanks again

Thanks for the shoutout. To be honest I'm not even a great help with weapons right now because I despise DW and I've gotten sick and tired of Bow Smokebomb WM. Other weapon types might as well not exist at this point.

I haven't put any particular effort into testing Gadgets pftt recently but what I like to use with Acro is Zip Tie Attack. It's a max range, medium cost, single target burst with an alright cooldown and deals pretty good damage. Maybe give it a try and see if you gain anything from slotting it into your rotation at some point. I'm using it with Rage too right now and so far it's never been the weakest link in my rotation.

All noted re the no crits (which makes perfect sense) & the different loadout options.

Now I'll just have to figure out how to set up parsers on PS. Like I said, what I was doing was a bit primitive just basically working with combat log & going for a completely random period of time.

I had avoided trying out PD on my melee loadout as I thought that was purely single target. It's also hard to get the AM era out of my head when that was the SM alternative to EMP. Hopefully power shouldn't be an issue as I never really seem to have any power issues so think I should be able to deal with using 1 slightly higher power cost power.

Single target I might try your loadout while incorporating Crimson's suggestion of Zip Tie Attack. Whether I can pull that off though we'll see as I tend to try to keep things fairly simple when Stealth is involved.

Not important for when it comes to testing as obviously I wont be using any Supply Drops, buff Trinkets, etc but using in actual combat, what would I be losing by using the LexCorp sidekick? I'm guessing either my buff trinket or more likely my backup.

Bootility belt I'm not too sure if I have on my main, I definitely only have max 2 boos. I do have the belt & all 4 boos on an alt.

Not sure if I'll get on tonight with time to test, hopefully but have a joiner(I know this probably isn't the term used in US) in fitting door handles so depends what time he leaves at.

Apologies if I've missed anything, I'm on my phone.

As per above I'll give Zip Tie Attack a try Crim. I use Throwing Knives in my ranged multi target loadout & that's pretty fun.

& I feel for you re weapons. I'm obviously aware of the weapon combo outliers/issues from the forums but tend not to get involved as there's nothing of substance I can really add.

It's a sorry state of affairs if no other combos are really viable despite Venom Wrist Dispenser.