Hey guys, I'm Thotus, and I want to ask what is the best status effect.
I hear that Curse may be useful, but the Gran Faust seems to have a drawback by being a double-edged sword. The Avenger seems to be the ideal choice for later levels, but I'll try to get a Faust for jelly runs
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For my gun, I was thinking of getting a Cryotech Alchemer or a Pepperbox upgrade for my gun. Which is best?
I was recommended freeze, but fire does damage.
Poison is great for everything actually, not just jk. It halves the amount of damage the mob does, and increases damage done to it by 25 or 30%
Fire Damage is only useless in fire themed levels, otherwise its a powerful dot. When you see an enemy light up after a combo or 2, you can usually target switch knowing that target will die on its own
Curse does about the same amount of damage as fire per tick *but only* every time the mob attacks- so its about triggering the attack animations, but the only curse applying weapon is Faust wich curses yourself as well, so there's a trade off.
Freeze is Excellent Crowd control for high density mob concentrations, It makes things slower but safer- but, freeze coming from anything but a bomb seems useless, as the target your attacking is unfrozen by your attack.The fact that they put it on a sword boggles my mind.
Shock is something I'm still experimenting with... so no opinions on that
The sword they put it on only gives the freeze status effect on a charge attack, which is pretty bomb-like. Charge, release, move on to the next target. The freeze bestowed by Iceburst Brandish is actually strong freeze rather than the minor freeze of the Freezing Atomizer.
Fire is great for use on dotting and lighting up a bunch of trapped prey. The pepperbox series is also good for mass hate when kiting a train of monsters while your party kills the train bit by bit from behind. Just do not use pepperboxes EVER when oilers are around.
Ice weapons are especially useful for keeping mobs in place while you do a weapon charge up.
Why not experiment which types of weapons fit your playing style? There is no one-size fits all method of gear and weapon choices. It's best to come prepared for all kinds of floor scenarios.
Faust and Gran Faust ONLY have a chance of cursing the user when using a charge attack, you will never be cursed by a faust on a regular attack. It's also only a chance of cursing you, and is offset by the charge attack having an extremely high chance to curse your target assuming you hit them with it.
Fire is the best except against fire enemies. Ignite something, run, ignite it a second time, it dies.
Frost is pretty cool for keeping mobs quiet, and the occasional damage.
Shock is nice for interrupting enemy attacks.
Poison is good for helping your party, useless while soloing unless there are healers around.
Curse sucks.
Sleep sucks.
Sleep is more or less supposed to suck: wonder why you never see it on a weapon?
Stun is pretty garbage outside of Iron Slug/Callahan.
Curse is fairly useful: Gran Faust is pretty rad, just don't use the charge attack.
Poison is the best.
Ice seems to have some pretty good damage and enemy locking going for it, but I can't see it being useful outside of Shivermist Buster
Fire is good, only problem being it really does nothing to hamper the enemy outside of pure damage.
Shock is also good, though unreliable. I've heard it lowers defenses or something similar, but I don't know how much. Shock-stun is fairly random, really depends on how lucky you are when using it.
Curse is by far the best status ailment, which is probably why the vials are somewhat rare and the weapon that can cause it is fairly hard to obtain [which also has a chance to curse the user on charge attack, which is fairly balanced in my opinion].
Best example I can think of is those Tier 3 curse vials
Use T3 Curse Vial on Alpha Wolver
It uses it's attack, where it bites three times
It dies
Curse sucks.
Sleep sucks.
Stun pretty much sucks too.
Sleep is more or less supposed to suck
Stun is pretty garbage
Poison is the best
Shock is also good, though unreliable
Wow. Just wow...
No wonder people die so easily in this game. :|
Mind explaining your thought process on the subject, Awesomest? Or are you just going to passive-aggressively insult our opinions on status effects while not explaining why you disagree?
Patiently waiting on a response~~~
Sucks in practice.
Change "sucks" to "is currently impossible to take consistent advantage of, in a meaningful way, in common fights given the current equipment in the game" if you wish.
Gee you guys, unless you're now going to tell me you clear tier 3 danger rooms by cursing every monster in a series of faust charges while wearing valkyrie set, and that is actually one of the better ways to clear the room.
I'm assuming that you've played with all weapons that induce status effects and know how to use vials properly in each depth, which is why your opinion is meant to be taken in such high regard.
However, I'd like to respectfully disagree as a T3 player that has used various status effects to great degree.
Stun not only slows an enemy's movement speed, but also their attack animation. I fail to see how this is not useful.
Curse causes enemies to hurt themselves in their confusion. No-risk damage that is equal to the damage you would otherwise take...of course, that is garbage.
While your post was worded in a very polite and objective manner, it would seem that it may require further thought in the future. I look forward to your sparkling intellect and remarkable insight in the future.
Good day.
What's there to explain? Just because YOU don't know what a status effect does or how it can be useful, that doesn't mean it sucks. If you're going to offer an opinion or advice, at least put a GOOD effort into learning about the subject.
Since I'm now obliged to share my "wisdom" (i.e regurgitating wiki information as if I'm studying for an exam), I'll list two pros and two cons for each status effect, as well as at least one situation in which it can be used.
Curse:
+ causes enemy healers to damage themselves
+ allows you to inflict mild damage when shielded
- doesn't make it easier to dodge/block attacks
- only extremely useful against monsters who don't pause/wait after attacking once.
situation: healers that are protected by mobs or anything else, e.g. Danger Rooms, Arenas and Royal Jelly.
Fire:
+ inflicts strong damage over time without you needing to attack
+ allows you to run away from a monster instead of shielding attacks
- like curse, it doesn't make it easier to dodge/block attack
- becomes a lot less useful in situations with two or more healers
- ingites Oilers
situation: damaging large mobs and monsters that are hard to deal with at close range, e.g. deconstruction zones and gun puppies. Also great for melting Ice Jellies.
Freeze:
+ immobilises monsters, limiting their attack range as well as giving you breathing space/time to charge an attack
+ if left alone, monsters will take damage from the ice breaking naturally.
- isn't an uninterrupted status effect, meaning an attack will free the monster out of it. it can also be cancelled out by Fire
- waiting for ice damage is time-consuming
situation: small areas with large mobs; dodging enemies
Poison:
+ stops monsters from being able to recover HP, making dealing with healers a lot easier.
+ lowers attack and defense of poisoned monsters, effectively shortening the time it takes to kill them
- like fire and curse, doesn't make attacks easier to dodge, block or run away from
- doesn't directly deal extra damage; you still have to attack normally for poison to make a huge difference to the fight
situation: areas where healers aren't easy to kill immediately, and where you are facing a large number of attacks at once or monsters that hit hard
Shock:
+ interrupts attacks and movement and deals weak damage over time; almost like fire and freeze combined into one status
+ can be passed from one enemy to another, potentially shocking a large bunch of enemies at the same time
- both fire and freeze do a MUCH better job than shock; a jack of all trades
- only lowers enemy defense while they are in shock, giving you a very small window of opportunity
- supercharges Quicksilvers
situation: small mob numbers tightly bunched together; useful in most normal rooms of normal levels (not Arenas/Danger Rooms etc)
Sleep:
+ completely pacifies enemies for a certain amount of time; and is uninterrupted making it even better than Freeze
+ gives you a wide window to deal damage without any evasive manoeuvres.
- monsters heal while asleep, lowering your DPS.
- more of a hindrance when fighting large mobs; the equivalent of giving the enemy another healer.
- currently no weapons exist that inflict Sleep, meaning you just have to be lucky to have a vial at the right time.
situation: individual monsters with large HP that are hard to approach normally, e.g. Lichen Colonies and Royal Jelly.
Stun:
+ significantly slows monsters' movement speed and attack speed, meaning you can attack more and shield less
+ uninterrupted, meaning stunned monsters will stay stunned for the whole duration.
- you can still be attacked by stunned monsters, and will take full damage
- can't be bothered thinking of a second negative because stun is awesome.
situation: places where enemies attack rapidly, or against enemies that move faster than your weapon can keep up with. Spookats, dodgers like Alpha Wolvers and Devilites, Gun Puppies.
tl;dr READ MY FIRST POST anyone that seriously thinks [insert status effect] sucks has obviously not played enough to offer an opinion, because they have obviously never read the wiki, or never used that status in-game.
@Dasparian
Thank you for your polite response, I suppose I was perhaps a little too quick to write off Stun. I too look forward to intelligent discourse in the future.
@Everyone else (read: Awesomest)
I suppose I probably should have clarified from the start that I feel this entire thread is purely subjective: what we all value in a status effect is probably different for most of us, and therefore there really is no 'best' stat-effect. I personally really like the debuff+heal-blocking poison does, I've seen people dominate completely with Freeze, some of us like Stun, etc. What I posted earlier is what I thought of all the status effects at the time, and I have somewhat revised my opinions on them since. I admit I was more than a little hasty with my judgements earlier.
[/rant]
Gotta disagree with Ice only being useful for bombs. I use a Cryo Driver and that gun has saved my ass many times.
there really is no 'best' stat-effect
And there's no effect that sucks either.
Fire is great, just whatever you do don't get a pepperbox. It pretty much has the range of a sword, damage is unimpressive, its aim is inaccurate (bullets are flying all over the place, not one might actually go in the direction you aimed at), it makes you stand still while shooting (you can't even turn) which makes you especially vulnerable when reloading - so basically shoot only once or you're in big trouble. It's absolutely not useful for kiting, no matter the number of monsters that follows you. Hitting each of them for 15-20 damage, then having to run to increase the distance again, is going to drag it into a long long fight. Not to mention the times when the group of monsters catches up with you because you're trying to balance the short range of the gun with the standing still part. Using a sword is safer and quicker.
Pepperbox was my worst buy ever. If you wanna kite monsters and do fire damage to them, you should absolutely consider using a Fiery Vaporizer (bomb).
I've used a Pepperbox to quite fantastic effect kiting, actually. It's nice for Mechanized Mile-type stages with long narrow passages where you can take out one or two things at a time via setting them on fire. Volcanic Pepperbox is also the highest pure DPS gun in the game, but that's a different thing altogether. You need to know the exact range on the pepperbox in order to kite successfully with it, but it is quite easy to do once you know. It really shines at killing Lumbers very, very quickly and with absolutely no risk(not that they're a big threat anyway, but still).
And, the charge attack on the Pepperbox series is fantastic for pulling things out of groups.
It's by no means an optimal gun, but it's not as bad as you made it out to be, either.
Disclaimer: this is my personal opinion. Everybody has a certain taste of weapons. I've seen Hazel shoot down the Spur series, which I've seen other people love. I'm very disappointed in the Pepperbox series, which obviously other people appreciate more.
The Volcanic Pepperbox only has nice damage if you land all your shots, which if you do means you're firing from point blank range. You're better off wielding a sword in this case, which is the exact suggestion I'd offer for defeating Lumbers. That gives you the option to quickly change to shield if the Lumber happens to turn around quicker than you expected, which happens sometimes.
Highest DPS gun in the game? If you're talking about the charge attack, did you take the charge time into account?
The charge attack is the only impressive thing on the pepperbox, with more bullets, more damage per bullet and far better aim. The drawbacks are big too though: after the combo you reload for quite a long time, all the while being completely frozen in place. Before the combo charging your gun slows you down considerably. And dragging monsters with pepperbox shots looks more like a bug than a feature to me, which is not something I'd depend on in future releases. All in all I personally find this gun very very situational.
Any situation a pepperbox really shines in, a sword is safer and does more damage. Except for the fire damage (slight change), but this you can cause in various other ways. The damage part I can get over (gun damage is never supposed to shine vs sword, that comparison would be unfair). But guns are supposed to create a safe distance. Pepperbox doesn't do that.
Yeah I guess it's all situational based. My first gun was the magnus line and I wanted a second (mainly to deal with stinkin' Gun Puppies when they're places u can't sword 'em). Did a fair bit of research and chose the volt driver line. The shock there I find pretty useful, slows down mobs but you don't have to worry about breaking it so can keep up the abuse ... reduces the fire rates of gun puppies (or maybe I imagine that) can stop some charge up stuff if the shock ticks right. So yeah, I read this thread and it made shock sound really bad, had I read it before I made my gun it mighta put me off - but I'm glad I didn't.
The Volcanic Pepperbox only has nice damage if you land all your shots, which if you do means you're firing from point blank range.
On a Lumber, all six shots will connect at maximum range, actually. Tested and confirmed at least two hundred times.
Highest DPS gun in the game? If you're talking about the charge attack, did you take the charge time into account?
Emptying a full clip of Volcanic Pepperbox will do more damage(especially with fire DoT taken into account), faster, than any other gun in the game. It will do more damage per second than any other gun. So, as long as you don't need to be running and you're using it in an appropriate situation, it will outdps everything else.
And dragging monsters with pepperbox shots looks more like a bug than a feature to me, which is not something I'd depend on in future releases.
It's been this way since just before official launch, more than a month of bugfixes. It's been reported as a bug a few times and ignored. Doubting it's a bug, very heavily. Regardless, the charge attack is only really useful in situations you shouldn't be using the pepperbox anyway.
Any situation a pepperbox really shines in, a sword is safer and does more damage.
Again, you really don't seem to know how to use the weapon. That's fine, though. Just don't speak like you do; it's not a fantastic weapon, but it's quite safe to use unless you're using it wrong. If you actually fire off both clips(unless kiting a lumber), you're stupid and deserve what's about to happen to you.
For Lumber kiting, there's a simple formula to it. Kite until at max range, fire one clip, wait for lumber to swing, fire off a full reload period, kite back to max range, fire one clip, etc. Absolutely no way it can hit you. Again, only really a valuable tactic in narrow corridors, but in those situations it's nice to have. The things I use this gun for, it performs flawlessly, regardless of what floor I'm on, and the situations are very distinctly things that I do not find safe(or at least AS safe) with a sword.
Another very good and extremely safe tactic with it is on fully-grouped Lichen colonies. When it dashes/teleports to you to charge the thorn attack, you shield bounce it away, which puts it exactly out of range of hitting you but just inside the max range of the Pepperbox, allowing all 6 shots to hit. Rinse and repeat. (This tactic is superfluous if you're good enough with a sword, but still pretty fun sometimes!)
A pepperbox is the only gun I carry on me. It's the only gun I've used since I started the game a day before official launch. So, I am considerably more familiar with it than might be expected. Its unique, and extremely situational, function has never once proven detrimental, never gotten me hit, or killed, and has excelled very well for the exact purpose I carry it for. It's also nice for destroying crystals quickly and mowing through long rows of blocks, but that's just a frill.
It's also worth mentioning that the only time I ever really resort to using the Pepperbox, aside from mass-obstacle-destruction(which no other gun can do as well, nor sword!) and the other situations outlined above, is when my shield is broken or I'm pulling a large group of things into a narrow spot. (Or, occasionally, I'll use it to melt ice cubes just because I can and jellies are harmless).
It's a gun with maybe one or two uses, but they're the only things I need a gun for. I don't run Firestorm Citadel, and I don't ever use or want to use a gun for anything but AP's functionality in Citadel and the situations outlined for the Pepperbox. An inferior weapon with a very specific niche is still an inferior weapon, but when that niche is well-served and all you use it for, it's perfectly fine.
I am kind of a noob and I am only doing Tier 2 runs, but in my experience the most useful status effects are curse, stun and poison in that order.
Curse because it is easy to make healers self destruct without ever needing to get close to them, this is the most important thing for surviving gremlin arenas and the 'hard' levels behind the energy gate.
Stun because it slows down the enemies' movement and attack allowing you to get plenty of free hits in. This is especially useful for taking down the big wolvers (with the 3-chain attack) solo. Without stun, there is no really safe way to engage them with a sword because they can teleport and their combo will easily break your shield.
Poison is good for its general all-around usefulness. Again it reduces the effectiveness of enemy healers (notice a common theme?) and protects you by lowering the damage output of a group of mobs.
I always carry Stun, Curse and Poison potions with me, mostly ignoring the other ones. Here is why I don't use the other potions:
- Freeze: Freeze potions are as good as useless unless you have absolutely no other way of inflicting the status. At best you can stop a couple of mobs from a distance, but what good is this because they weren't near you to begin with. If they're next to you they can still damage you. It's good to freeze over a huge region with the big freeze vaporizer though.
- Sleep: Never really messed with it too much, so I don't have an actual opinion. I've never seen it used to great effect.
- Fire: Just one fire potion isn't going to do much damage, and using it on some monsters isn't safe. Also getting the fire vaporizers is easy so why bother?
- Shock: It's just too unreliable. You can't tell when the shocks will take effect so at best it's unreliable, and at worst it will screw up the timing of the enemy attacks, staggering them and making it impossible to predict. Also unsafe to use on certain enemies. This is easily the most useless status, and also the most annoying to get hit with after curse. In fact, maybe it's even worse than curse, since you can't charge, and you can't rely on your shield while shocked. You just have to run away. At least curse doesn't disable your shield.
I'm pretty big on my curse. GF has done wonders for me, and I like 2 swing weapons. Curse vials are a great way to get through arenas and danger rooms. My second is definitely poison. Good for thinning out groups of enemies when there's a healer involved.
Strong curse does a LOT of damage. Especially to the right types of enemies.
And on a side note, hearing curse proc always brings me a smile. :)
Personal opinion based on game expirience:
Shock is most useful status - it slows down enemies but your next hit won't cancel this status like in case of Freeze. Schocked turret practically is unable to turn and rarely shoots. Plus it does DOT and can be transfered from one enemy to other passing nearby.
I've been playing with Cryotech Alchemer Mk II and Voltech Alchemer Mk II so my opinion is based on expirience. That's why I've upgraded Voltech Alchemer to Votech Driver and sold Cryotech Alchemer to vendor.
@methanol: 'It's just too unreliable. You can't tell when the shocks will take effect so at best it's unreliable'
What you mean "unreliable"? If you mean that not every Voltech projectile cause shock then Fire and Freeze are "unreliable" too because not every projectile from Firetech cause fire and not every projectile from Cryotech cause freeze. If you mean interrupting shock spasms are unreliable, then I assure you they are reliable because it's not random but rather occur every two seconds (or something like that) until status wears off.
Also your statement :'This is easily the most useless status, and also the most annoying' sounds like total rubbish. First you're saying that shock prevent charging and shielding and then you call it useless?! It's true that shock prevents charging and shielding, and also attacking, healing, turning and moving... but that's why it is usefull!
Stun is another useful status I use very often with my Mega Magnus.
But generally all statuses are useful. What I can't inflict with my weapons I try to inflict with vials (that why I usually pick up fire, freeze or curse, not shock and stun vials).
Sleep is the only status I don't find useful (but maybe it's because I can't use it yet).
Sleep might be interesting in combination with Poison, I'd have to try it out. If the poison cancels out the healing, then you'd be able to create a completely helpless mob. That would still make it circumstancial though, since then it would be mostly useful on already poisoned enemies that you find too difficult to fight while they're fighting back. Will try to remember to test this...
EDIT: ok, just tested it and perhaps non-surprisingly, a poisoned sleeping enemy will not regenerate health until the poison wears off. So you can render a monster completely helpless by combining these two statuses. Those bosses better be sleep resistant :P
^I didn't think status effects stacked.
Status effects totally stack.
Try it on jelly king; a couple people throwing poison, fire, and curse vials at him then wailing on him takes him down marvelously fast.
EDIT: Also! Most definitely revising my opinion on sleep. I was under the impression that them getting hit wakes them up, but i'm not sure that's the case. If not, sleep is much more useful, in that it's basically free total immobalization, with a slight cost of them regen-ing some.
I didn't think status effects stacked.
Only Fire and Freeze don't stack, but there's a way to take advantage of that too.
Hitting a monster sufficiently does wake it up. Tested that today. But at least you can safely charge your baddest combo, sneak behind it (if it has a behind) and unleash the pain before it knows what's happening.
sufficiently
Does that mean after getting hit once? or more than a few times?
'sufficient' doesn't really explain it well.
Well it's very hard to tell. I certainly don't have the answer, but I definitely don't think it's related to "number of hits". Perhaps it's about a certain amount of damage. And then what's the amount? Is it related to the monster's total health, or is it a set number? Or perhaps less and less damage will wake a monster up, as the sleep slowly wears off? And maybe it has nothing to do with damage but with the fact that I pushed the monster as I hit it? Very hard to test and I don't have the time for it right now.
Sleep doesn't last forever; it's only about 5 seconds max with a vial. Maybe it's because it wore off naturally?
Simple way to test:
Sleep something, don't hit it, time how long it takes it to wake up.
Sleep something, beat the crap out of it.
???
Results.
Question on Sleep: Does the heal tick count as a heal attack like Wings and Menders? I'm thinking of tossing Curse on Sleep, and having a bunch of enemies helpless and taking continual damage.
That's an interesting one to test Dasparian :) I like the way you think.
Fire damage is the MOST useless in the game especially in T3
Freeze eh it's good for mobs to keep them from moving-freeze bombs are pretty awesome
Poison is great for jellly king
Curse/shadow damage is the way to go.