The Rainmaker

Many thanks to CaLViN for a marksman guide format; without whom I wouldn’t have known how to put all this down in an orderly fashion.

The Spark

"rainmaker." Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1). Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. 27 Oct. 2007. Thesaurus.com Rainmaker.

Key skills

• Tactical Stance 10/10
  • Passive, crit bonus for proccing Reflected Shot

• Elemental Visions 10/10
  • Passive, maxing phase, ignite, and stun attacks with a modded weapon

• Reflected Shot 7/7
  • Passive, to double / triple dps and increase sfx attack chances

• MultiShot 10/10
  • Active, to increase dps, sfx attack chances, and Reflected Shot proc chances

Utility / Prerequisite Skills

• Escape 1/5
  • For emergencies

• Overshield 3/10
  • Prereq to Elemental Visions

• Rapid Fire 3/10
  • Prereq to Multishot

• Heightened Senses 2/10
  • Prereq to Multishot

• Controlled Burst 3/10
  • Prereq to Multishot

Leveling

This build only realizes its full potential at level 49, when all of the Key Skills are maxed and working in concert. Leveling should not be a problem, however, as many of the Key Skills as well as Utility Skills can be useful on their own. Unfortunately at this time I cannot provide a level-by-level detail of skill point investment, as some skills cannot be increased each level – and at higher levels those details are still unknown to me. I will suggest a general strategy however, which will maximize the potential of what skills are available at each level breakpoint corresponding to the tiers of skills.

Work on Rapid Fire until 5, when Escape is available. Until Reflected Shot is available at 15, work on Tactical Stance and the prereq points in Overshield when Tactical Stance is not available. Until Multishot at 30, prioritize in the following way as much as possible: Reflected Shot, Tactical Stance, any Multishot prereqs, and finally Elemental Visions. Finish off by maxing MultiShot and Elemental Visions.

Weapons

It will come as no surprise to many of you who have read my posts on the Basin Forums that I will be advocating the use of the Firefox Launcher as the primary weapon for this build. As soon as it becomes available (around the Temple Station area) the Arclite Cluster Rifle will also be in the loadout. At times when these two are not available, and in the final weapon slot for end-game, user preference shall dictate the choice. In all cases the weapons will be heavily modded as will be described in the next section.

Bonuses and mods

Since this build will utilize Elemental Visions, mods that give special effect attack strengths (sfx attacks) will be a high priority. Just as high a priority will be Shield Penetration, because this will provide the ability to apply these sfx attacks before enemies’ shields have been depleted. Here is a rough list of helpful properties that can be taken from any combination of “magical”, mods, or purchased augmentations:

• For the Firefox
  • Shield Penetration: X%
  • Adds X% Spectral Damage
  • Adds X to Phase Attack Strength
  • Adds X to Ignite Attack Strength
  • Adds X% to Physical Damage
  • Adds X to Stun Attack Strength
  • Increases Splash Damage Radius: X% (less than 10% is not very noticeable)

• For the Cluster Rifle
  • Shield Penetration: X%
  • Adds X% Spectral Damage
  • Adds X to Phase Attack Strength
  • Adds X to Stun Attack Strength

• In General
  • Increases Damage: X%
  • Critical Chance Bonus: X%
  • Critical Chance Multiplier (Monster Type): X%
  • Critical Damage Bonus: X%
  • Accuracy, Willpower, Stamina, or All Stats: +X
  • Certain “Skillful” augments
    • Any that increase our Key Skills or important properties (Dead-Eye for example)
    • Any that provide a useful 1-2 point wonder skill to round out the ability to deal with situations (like Sniper, Beacons, etc…)
    • Absolutely must avoid augments that add points to either Homing Shot or Reflect Shot. These three skills are mutually exclusive, and so having either of the other two proc will prevent Reflected Shot for the duration. Neither Ricochet nor Homing Shot will increase dps in the same reliable way that Reflect will for this build.
  • +X% Damage to Spectrals
    • Artillery is typically most effective against ground based enemies. Given that Spectrals tend to be fliers, it is a good idea to either mod the Cluster Rifle or a third weapon of choice to specifically handle these types. This is especially helpful for 314’s Mind and the Exospecter, as the Firefox has limited use in these areas where Spectrals dwell. The Cluster Rifle, with its phase attack and shield penetration will easily handle Defilers, Corrupters, Pain Leeches, etc… but for the Orbile types something else (like a Zeus Rifle or automatic) may be desired.

Statplay

Not knowing exactly what stat feeds are going to look like at max level for this build, nothing too concrete can be said at this point. First, allow me to state the obvious: that we will want only as much Strength as is required to equip gear. Also, any extra points can go into Stamina for the purposes of equipping high shield value armors, and survival in extreme modes of play.

Less obvious will be the investment needed for Accuracy and Willpower. I am tempted to say only as much Accuracy as our gear requires is needed, because our primary weapons have a low rate of fire and splash damage; and so the aiming reticule’s size will not be much of an issue. This is especially true since we will be making heavy use of Tactical Stance, which will help with aiming quite a bit. It is likely that some of our weapon mods will draw on our Accuracy feed, so don’t be afraid to have just a few extra points ready to spend or already spent here for that. Finally, although the critical damage bonus from Accuracy would be nice, this build’s main concern with critical hits is the ability to proc Reflected Shot and not necessarily additional critical damage.

As for Willpower, this might be the hardest stat to gauge prematurely. First of all, we will need an above average amount to handle the cost of heavily modded weapons. The Firefox will take 6, and the Cluster Rifle at least 7. While sticking to enhanced quality mods will not be too expensive, this build will cry out for legendary quality mods whereas Increased Damage, Shield Penetration, and Increased Splash Damage Radius are concerned. As mentioned before, some mods will draw on Accuracy instead of Willpower, and so it is hard to say anything for sure at this point. Furthermore, MultiShot is an active skill having an unknown cost with 10/10 points at level 49. The bittersweet news is that the skill has a 30 second cooldown; sweet in that those 30 seconds will likely be enough time to regenerate most of the cost, and bitter in that it is a shame such a nice skill cannot be used more often.

Gameplay

Some of this section will be speculative since I have not had the opportunity to try MultiShot. With perhaps the exception of Reflected Shot, the other key skills speak for themselves. So allow me to just work through my thinking on this build here, and how it will play out. This will be a build that focuses on killing groups from range as much as possible. If not, it will hope to considerably butter-up the enemy before they get into melee range. If the enemy is of the ranged variety, pity them deeply - this build intends to have a great advantage in firepower over them.

Begin with the Key Skills we have before getting to MultiShot. Boosting Reflected Shot is the goal, and the combination of three factors will greatly increase our chances to proc it. First, we have a respectable chance to crit while in Tactical Stance. Second, the initial hit of a Firefox projectile will splash over a decent area; and we multiply our chance to crit by the number of enemies hit. Finally, the fire field left behind by that blast will burn for 3 seconds, with one tick of damage being done per second. For each mob inside that fire field per second, we add our crit to that initially multiplied value because those ticks can crit as well. With just a few mobs we should see a crit somewhere on most every shot. Reflected Shot, with a 55% chance to proc on a crit, should boost on more shots than not, then. The chances get better and better the more mobs we can hit per shot, of course.

When Reflected Shot boosts, we are going to see some great things happening – especially if the mobs decide to stay close (defined by the splash radius of our weapon) to each other on their way to where we are standing. The next shot will hit the first mob in line, splash to the others, and then reflect either into that same mob or the next one in line, depending on certain circumstances. The reflected shot will hit its target, splashing into the group for a second time. Finally the projectile reflects again; moving to another target and splashing the group for a third time. Each time the projectile splashes the group it pops another fire field under their feet, also. Furthermore, each time a mob is hit with either the initial splash or tick of the fire field we have a chance to Ignite, Phase, Stun, and Interrupt it (of which, the first three we are boosting through Elemental Visions). Ignite is a nice stand-alone effect, but the other three work together in a very particular way. If we Interrupt or Stun a mob it is stuck in the fire field for another second at least, and also in a great position for our next shot – right where it was on the last shot. If the mob is Phased, then the (potentially) three fire fields beneath it are burning 50% hotter, and so will the splash from the next shot.

At level 22 this is an incredibly powerful synergy of skills and weapon effects, even with the recent changes to the Firefox (reducing damage by 10% and Interrupt Strength by 45%). The boost to Reflected Shot happens quite often here, and that is without a full investment in either Tactical Stance or Reflected Shot. Now crank the build to level 50, and add MultiShot to the mix. MultiShot will fire 2 additional projectiles for 13 seconds every 30 seconds. This could be used in two ways: 1) To pretty much guarantee that Reflected Shot will proc somewhere in that time frame, or 2) After Reflected Shot has procced, to show folks why we call this build The Rainmaker!

From time to time it will be unavoidable that mobs will make it to melee range. On these occasions, and when travelling through maps where long-range engagement is not possible, swap to the Cluster Rifle and spam in their general direction from Tactical Stance. This weapon has a nice splash effect that will proc Reflected Shot quite often, even without a fire field to help it out. Having some Stun Attack Strength on it will help keep our damage taken low, or provide an opportunity to escape out of range if needed. Phasing is always nice to reduce damage taken as well as increase killing power, too. Don’t forget that we have some pre-requisite points in Rapid Fire, and the Cluster Rifle would probably work well with that – especially in tight spaces.

Open Issues

• How does MultiShot treat those additional projectiles?
  • Subsequent shots?
  • Simultaneously in a fan pattern, or random scatter?
• What to do with the level 50 skill point?
• What are the implications of the 5x maximum upgrades rule for the build?
  • Will the Firefox 237 appear sufficiently late in the game to make a 5x upgraded one viable in the later stages of the game?
  • Is there another version of the Cluster Rifle, and ditto the concerns of the Firefox 237 for it?
• What other weapons might there be past Temple Station that would work well with this build?

The Math

Proccing Reflected Shot

Weapon	# Splashed	# tick 1	# tick 2	# tick 3	Ttl Hits	Crit %	Ttl Crit %	Proc %	Ttl Proc %
Firefox Launcher	5	5	5	5	20	14%	280%	55%	154%
Firefox Launcher	5	5	4	2	16	14%	224%	55%	123%
Firefox Launcher	4	4	3	2	13	14%	168%	55%	92%
Firefox Launcher	3	3	-	-	6	14%	84%	55%	46%
Firefox Launcher	2	2	-	-	4	14%	56%	55%	31%

Here is a little table detailing some different firing situations with the Firefox. At the top shows a best case scenario, where a large number of mobs are hit by the initial splash and all stay within the fire field for the full duration. Moving on down we see less mobs being hit, and various numbers remaining in the fire field; to get a view of what happens when fewer and fewer mobs are hit. From experience, hitting three mobs is about average. One can expect to get one or two of them stuck in the field for more than just the first tick, especially when “leading” them – or, placing the fire field in the likely path they will take on their way to you.

This is the basic math in abstract, but the story in the game is quite different - and more favorable to our cause. It is not necessary to proc Reflected Shot in one shot to accomplish our goal of severely thinning the herd before it reaches us. Normally the first shot will “wake up” the mobs, or start the aggro process. By the time a second shot is already on its way, and the mobs have not moved a great deal from their original location – especially if we’ve Interrupted or Stunned them. Go ahead and double the 46% figure to 92%, and then throw in a few more points for good measure (because surely at least one of them has been in the fire field for the second tick of one of those two shots). This is all we need to reach 100% chance to proc, but in reality there are still more chances. At 30-40 yards there will be time for three shots at least, and this is more than enough. Now consider that Multishot has not been brought into the math yet. Go ahead and (potentially) triple any number along the way you would like. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Build Variants

Since this build is not complete until level 49, I am not going to be suggesting what should be done with the final skill point. I’ll go as far as to say that there are about 15 skills that it could possibly be put into, and I doubt that it makes very much difference which one it is.

Filorux 00:36, 29 Oct 2007 (GMT)

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