The Go Go Gadget Guide to Everything Gadgets

Thanks to this thread and all of the people that have given out some really good information, I'm leveling up my Gadgets alt. I might be a slow learner, but on day one I got in front my sparring targets and the only EMP combo I could hit was DIstract->EMP LOL! I even screwed up Exit Stealth->EMP, doh!

So, over the past couple of weeks I've been practicing. Well, I have *finally*, and yes it has taken me this long, been able to hit the rotation and reliably keep BD up and get all 3 different souped-up EMP pulses.

I have to say, y'all were not kidding, it is definitely more challenging than 1-2-3-4, which I guess I was looking for, but DEAR GOD! This is a serious learning curve! However, the results have been rewarding and impressive (seriously, I mean that other people are impressed at my damage ). This is a beast of a rotation

If it helps anyone my learning progression was:

1. Learn to Distract->EMP whenever it is up. Had to train my brain to notice when Distract was off cool-down.
2. Learn to 3 PI + EMP without loosing Battle Awareness. Had to train my brain to really notice when BA was up or down by seeing the graphic display, preferably before I was out of power.
3. Learn to add in stealth. Couldn't do this until I could reliably keep Battle Awareness up (step 2). Had to train my brain to notice when stealth was off cool-down.
4. Refine my jump cancel. At the start I found myself "over jumping", I pretty much just jumped after every power since that was easier than having to remember which power I needed to jump cancel - LOL! Although this wasn't hurting anything, I had to learn to lock it in and only jump cancel Fear Gas.

Now for a question:
With BD, soders and supply drops, I'm rarely out of power, so I was doing like 0 precision damage. So I added in lunges into the rotation just for kicks. Had to learn the rhythm which goes something like: power, lunge, power, jump, power, lunge, EMP, lunge.
Is it really helping my overall damage output, or am I just over-complicating things? I''m thinking it is not worth it, at least not as a part of the regular rotation. Since it is more complicated, there is more of a chance that I screw up the jump cancel and get a lame-EMP. Since just one lame-EMP is a loss of quite of a bit of damage, it would counter any additional precision damage in the mix. So, I'm assuming it is not worth the risk. Thoughts?

Well you can definitely throw in a tap range between each power for a little extra damage. It does get a little complicated but as long as you remember to tap the range button (or mouse button) and then quickly hit the power button you should be fine

Because EMP currently produces around 80% Of your damage (if I remember correctly), you want to get to EMP as fast as you can. Especially when you're comparing damage to other powersets using the scorecard. Throwing in lunges would Reduce your EMP set time with 3xPI but Perhaps if you register damage immediately like you would with tap range attacks such as phantom triangles. What I'm saying is nothing that keeps you in animation longer than 1 second would be worth it. I found even with phantom triangles (different from your lunges) were not producing significant increases in total damage a while back. Range taps would just be a very minor extra.

Over jumping isn't a bad thing. Especially when you're fighting a NPC where the mechanics require to constantly move. I jump all the time to keep myself mobile, constantly register damage like EMP and keep BD up. There are some fights where NPCs don't do anything and there isn't anything to avoid so that would be the only time I just stay in one spot without jumping.

It looks like they're finally fixing Sticky Bomb's splitting which is good.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dc...l-midrange-update.260756/page-3#post-3429430d

It should properly split damage after 2 targets instead of after 3.

Finally! Can't wait to see the Sticky Bomb spammers come in here and complain that it suddenly does less damage

If you use lunges between the powers you waste time that is more effectively used for EMP seup. If you clip the lunges before your powers to not lose time, you lose the lunge damage and it's wasted effort. Range taps work but they're just a drop in the bucket and I stopped using them altogether. The EMP rotation itself will have way higher damage variance than your range taps can even hit for. You won't notice the difference.
I found that there are still weapon combos that can be added in to boost damage, most notably HB's Power Discharge (clipped in right at the start) and Bow's Explosive Shot (clipped in before PI setups). Discharge is trivial to use but is only a minor damage increase and you need to be very close to the targets for it. If you can pull it off, you can use Explosive Shot up to 3 times in a 3PI+EMP rotation but each time will make it more likely to break the setup and lose EMP. Using it only twice makes it easier to maintain and is still a notable damage bonus, however Explosive Shot is pretty hard to pull off consistently without breaking your rotation on moving targets. It has the option to be used as single target or multi target attack though (Mastery version is multi target but classic version does double damage on single target).

Yea I need help or advice with my dpsing rotation. My character DPS CR 137 and my loadout is EMP, Intimidation,Distraction,Paralysis Dart, with stealth combined with paralysis Dart, Battle Display. In that exact order. My sequence is I hit BD, then intimidation , hit PD, BD, Distract. EMP then after I use Stealth/Paralysis Dart for my 2nd burst damage. But my power not coming back quick enough so I have to use a soda cola.

I keeping getting out damage by people with the same CR 137 and 132 with alot of them being quantum, Ice and sorcery Pets. They out damage me by like 40k or more Im been doing flash museum, they kill and one shot the assassins adds like in ten seconds with just there powers . The stealth/PD and Distract/Emp almost kills my targets to 75% health sometimes it barely hits 35% it varies. I think my loadout does heavy damage but to slow to burn them, because i run out of power.

What's the first PD for? All it does in your rotation is setup the Intimidation DoT which EMP would already do (and quite frankly won't do much on trash mobs except waste time). Also clipping in a second BD before Distract wastes power since that doesn't give you the regen buff. Same for Stealth. You might also do more damage by coming out of Stealth, then using EMP, and not using PD from Stealth. In Stealth you only have a 10% damage modifier from Max Damage.

Anyway think about the exact reasons why you put each power on your main loadout. That PD is a waste of space since you have EMP already, Intimidation provides the DoT (which isn't very effective on trash) and having PD and EMP, Inti and Distract, Stealth and BD on the same loadout prevents you from using the 3PI setup method. For a usual loadout you would choose just one from each of those pairs and fill up the other spots with appropriate PI. Not saying your loadout is wrong, just advising you to reflect on why you have each of those powers there.

yea your probably right. The only reason why I had it on my loadout because my targets usually jump around avoiding my crit might attack and keep getting knocked back on EMP. I like Paralysis Dart better. Im going heed hopefully I get more power back. Thanks for the input.

Hey you know what I take that back you were absolutely right 100%! That little change drastically changed my damage output gameplay value.

yeah another great thing about the 3xPIs is that if you have high enough dom you can root or stun the adds as a result of setting up the PIs which keeps the adds where you want 'em

Whats your loadout now? For duo's and raids?

Just a heads up. You don't have to spec into Dom at all. It's not your Dom amount that lets you control those NPCs. Some have very low to no Will Power which allows you to control them anyway. Like Imps in the DC alert. The other thing is our PI explosion does the same thing Nature's Harvest and one/some of Quantum's ability do. They can break the dom rules and can control NPCs that are programmed to be control.

Well that's even better than I anticipated!
Moral of the story is still 3xPIs = awesome

Had a question about the dps load outs I am using.

My close to mid is Battle-Gauss-Fear-Stasis-Emp-stealth-emp. With an occasional bunker buster if the first emp doesn't pull me out of stealth too soon. The other load out i use is just Dart instead of Emp. Just wanted to see if this is the atypical loud out and if there is any room for improvement, like with using distract.

I'm just getting back to one of my alts that is gadgets and looking for a good small content LO (solos/duos).

Back in the day I would use gauss/BD > sticky > FG/jump > EMP > Stealth/PD > EMP

This doesn't seem to have the oomph that it once had. the EMPs seem to miss more often than not and the LO in general just seems off now. I'm looking for any advice on how to juice this up a bit but I can't read through 300 pages unfortunately

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

So yeah.. you guys got an update.

Just for clarification: what exactly is dovetailing? Is it less complicated than it sounds? I mean, chances are I already know how to do it, just under a different name

This just means after casting emp you can cast another power after 1.0 seconds. So it would be EMP-1.0 seconds- next power. Hope that explains it. Not sure what the dovetail was before this though.

so...if you cast a power before 1 second it wont register at all?
also what was the dovetail before this update (the current dovetail on live servers)?

EMP has an animation longer than 1 second, one of the only nonchanneled and noncast bar powers like that postGU36. This change insures that that the time it takes from finishing one rotation to finishing the next is 4 seconds like Mental and Quantum.