The Cutting Edge Gadgets Guide

Thank you very much. Currently got 73 sp right now so got a bit to go still but it's a decent start. Haven't got to play that much but having fun with it.

Good to hear. Feel free to post if you have any other questions or want to share something.

Stealth Observations
I was doing some testing with Stealth on Live today and noticed I was getting higher than expected damage numbers. It used to be that going into Stealth would remove your Damage role bonus, but that no longer seems to be the case. Going into Stealth gives you a Damage role bonus, even if you use Stealth from Controller form.

Here is what I was observing with Thermite Mine:
Controller Role Non-Crit Damage Range: 1258-1377 damage per tick
Going into Stealth from Controller Role Damage Range: 1370-1517 damage per tick
If I cast Thermite Mine in Damage Role, I saw 1373 to 1532 damage per tick.

I always made sure there were no power interactions active when running this test.

So it looks like Stealth role is defaulting to giving the player the Damage Role bonus.

I saw similar things happening with most other powers when comparing Controller role damage, Stealth Form, and Damage role.

I'll need to investigate further and see what is happening. If it holds up, it would improve the viability of any Stealth-based loadout.

One other thing I noticed today is that Fear Gas is reliably triggering the Stealth damage proc.

Oh you want more stealth info...
I'm not at my computer right now so verify especially the superspeed parts but

Gadgets
Retain stealth
Battle drone, suppressor turret, battle display, cuff em, thermite mine, implosion mine, anesthetic and self destruct signal
Extra damage ticks
Taser pull( I think), fear gas, surprise attack, cryofoam, guess grenade, empty pulse, bunker buster and asphyxiation gas.

Iconics
Retains stealth
Hard light shield, robot sidekick and neovenom boost
Extra ticks
Heat vision (actually adds 2. 1 extra big and 1 extra small), freeze breath, sonic cry(I think), sonic shout, pheromone bloom and word of power.

Acrobatics
Retains stealth
Perfect poise
Extra ticks
Flip forward attack, backflip attack, devastating flip, launching roll zipline attack I think and I think the rolls from the mod too forgot to test.

Superspeed
Retains stealth
Phase dodge, metabolic boost (I think)
Extra ticks
Vortex trap, dash attack, speed drain and whriling dervish

Flight
Retains stealth
None T-T
Extra ticks
Swoop attack, whirlwind attack, air burst and vacuum bubble. Pretty sure high and low preassure dont but need to check

Stealth is it's own thing. You get a bonus to crit damage and crit chance. I can't test the artifact enhanced heat vision yet, all I'm getting is atlantian time capsules, haven't even got a single assassin's time capsule T-T.

Implosion mine seems to be doing about 1.5 to 2 times as much damage as thermite mine.

Right now I'm testing a build centered around cryofoam, implosion mine, stasis field and sticky bomb to do a fast encasement aoe detonation. Self destruct signal/holographic display is seemingly low damage. I gave up on cryofield and am using stealth and battle display. Manacles is pretty helpful due to my low skill points and I can do decently but holographic display is kinda crap at keeping aggro, may need to get sidekick. Guardian angel model is such a lifesaver, sometimes you just need a few extra seconds.

Leaning towards precision dps in the future, testing out clip combos and chains. From my current perspective I think that superspeed would be the optimal movement mode for those comfortable with it and in pvp, especially with the inertial flywheel and improved stealth mods. Acrobatics is second especially with the manbat trinket and tumbling mod. Flight is only good for positioning and if you're going to be using Swoop attack mods to pursue or kite

Currently teir 4 with 100ish skillpoints. Regretting investing Mark's to get manacles up there. Seems the game is still heavily stat focused and idve been better off just pouring everything into gear and cr chase as much as possible for now then backtrack from the top. I like the look and style of my character and I can just buy sp now which is useful. Probably will restart when I have a chance

Stealth form no longer receives a crit damage and crit chance boost. That was removed in the Revamp and replaced with a single-target damage proc. It was too easy to exploit the crit chance boost.

Certain powers like Cuff'em receive a crit chance boost, but it isn't innate to the Stealth form.

Without power interactions, the average base damage is as follows for the mines:
Implosion Mine: 61
Thermite Mine: Six ticks of 8-9 (51 cumulative average) over 3 seconds

Testing them again this morning, the base damage values are still accurate. I'm not seeing a 2x discrepancy in damage.

If you are going the AoE Encasement route with Stasis Field, be sure to use Self-Destruct Signal. Self-Destruct Signal will provide extra damage for any Stasis Field destruction. For solo/duo content and the size of the mob group, you can net some very impressive damage numbers. Just make sure you have enough Dom to inflict the Encasement for that build.

For Holographic Decoy, remember it has an aggro range on it. It is about the same as EMP. Also remember that an enemy needs to finish its currently scripted attack before it will turn to attack the Decoy.

You might want to try working in the heavy hitting powers too like Paralyzing Dart and EMP.

Gadgets is really good at single-target Precision DPS. Just be mindful that you have to use certain weapons and attacks if you want to get really good results. Dual Wield Flurry Shot is the best for single-target ranged. Dual Wield Explosive Shot is good for AoE ranged. For melee AoE, Bow Smoke Bomb gets good results.

Manacles is best used in Elite content. You won't start running Elite content until you get closer to the modern end-game.

Most of the game's combat equations are entirely stat drive. The more stats you have, the better.

figured out the discrepancy in the mine test was due to mispositioning on my part and hitting the second sparing target.

You're right about stealth but it still has the two UI decals for the crit dmg and crit chance my bad again.

The reason I'm testing out the sticky bomb explosion is as long as the target has frostbite and isn't burning it seems like the implosion mine will encase them no matter the dominance of the character, even in damage role. I cast cryofoam to consume burning pi and do it that way but haven't tried it in a raid yet.

I have a rotation using both paralysing dart and emp from back in when AMs were introduced but I haven't really tried them yet. Will do when I have a chance to play later

I think you can afk forever in stealth btw

Gadgets Battle Troll

Test Server Updates
I'm noticing some undocumented changes to Gadgets in the latest PCTest build:

1. Battle Drone


30 Second Cooldown

2. Implosion Mine
No longer ignores the Dominance Check. That means Gadgets DPS won't annoy tanks in large group content anymore.

I'll have to keep testing and see if any other tweaks were made.

Can you check to see the Stealth QOL fixes? Like if you can still lock the power off stealth and have to wait 12s to use it again? Also see if the dovetails of powers are still clipping you out of stealth like cyro-field

I'm not seeing any Stealth adjustments. It behaves like it does on Live.

Mepps posted some additional patch notes. The Gadgets changes include Battle Drone cooldown, Implosion Mine Dom bug, and Fear Gas Empowered Channeling bug.

I don't think they fixed the Fear Gas bug though.

Sometimes these devs make zero sense with their changes. Why just Battle Drone why wouldn't you do Bastion at the same time, why have a separate game update on test just to decrease Bastion from 60-30s. On top of that its changes that shouldn't even be made, now there is absolutely ZEROOOOOOO drawback to be a gadgets controller you literally have everything any end game situation would call for. Only non tank powerset with a taunt, one of 2 controller powersets with a 100 cost debuff, one of 4 controller powersets with a detaunt shield, gadgets is tied with quantum for the highest supercharge regened through their rotation and now a 30s group shield power supercharge.

ridiculous attempt at power balancing

Question: Thermite Mine + Fear Gas are still making enemies going away?

Hello everyone! I was just wondering if the tap triangle would work? Im a returning player, I went off around GU59. I'm not sure if the tap triangle would produce consistent damage in the long run if i do it and clip it with let's say, uh, taser pull for example. So then it would look something like TAP > Clip with Taser Pull (or any power).

Thank you guys! Ive been testing but it seems like I'm getting some off numbers due to some inconsistent crits between parses. Just wanted to seek from the people whom I know that is experienced with this.

Btw, this load-out that I'm testing is for like a boss single target load-out. Like mainly a single target so if there are also some suggestions, I would definitely take it! Thanks again.

Stasis field and self-destruct seems to not split damage on live. Was getting 30k on 3 targets and 80k on 8

On Test, that combination is causing an explosion that knocks the NPCs back.

My personal preference is that I like to avoid clipping tap attacks on Might-based builds. Unless you do the clip perfectly, you'll get lower parse scores because you are spending too much time on comparatively weak weapon attacks. For Play-from-the-Tray builds, I find it better just to stick to a fairly simple rotation that gives consistent damage rather than putting in a lot of work for minuscule benefits.

For builds that utilize Weapon Mastery attacks. clipping your weapon attacks with Taser Pull is a good idea for single-target situations.

It is splitting damage correctly. You just have to keep in mind that each Stasis Field generates its own AoE when it is destroyed. So with 3 targets, you get 3 AoEs. 8 targets gives you 8 AoEs. The damage from each individual AoE is being divided correctly.

The numbers look spectacular, but it is a hard combination to use in reality. In raid level content, Damage role players don't have enough Dom to inflict the encasement. Breakout profiles make it problematic to use on Controller builds. An encasement will usually trigger an auto-breakout giving you no opportunity to use Self-Destruct Signal. You won't be able to inflict any follow-up encasements when immunity is active. Even if you do inflict the encasement, it will all be for nothing if another member in your group is using an encasement busting attack. The best place I've ever seen to use this combination is in the second half of the Titans duo. NPCs in duo content typically don't have breakout profiles.

Arent you guys worried about the dps loss of not being able to pull adds with implosion mine? I loved that gadgets dps had this extra "tanking" role which, correct if im wrong, but pulling the adds the fear gass/emp/thermite 'em would net very good numbers. Of course im not am *****, i dont use implosion in raids, but im duos and alerts it was very useful, am I the only one a bit mad because of this "fix"?

A minor investment in Dominance (OP gear as an example) will give you a high enough stat to continue using Implosion Mine's pull effect in duos.

For good Gadgets players, I view the change to Implosion Mine as a nerf. I was personally able to put the pull effect to good use in alerts and raids with intelligent use of the ability.