How in blazing does one use a pulsar properly? I'm using one, and all I'm getting is that its knockback makes shot aiming tricky at best.
Maybe I should start pairing it with my Shivermist or a Vortex or Something. :-(
It's funny how I picked up alchemer ricochets in 2 days but I cant pulsar for [Retracted Word].
The knockback is controllable, the enemies will be knocked away from the center of the [expanded] bullet. You have to take into account enemy movement, and the size of the expanded bullet, so it touches your targets from the correct direction. To make aiming easier, either aim straight at the enemies (to knock them backwards), or shoot to their sides when they are near a wall (to knock them towards the wall and backwards).
Try to keep yourself between your teammates and the enemies when you do that.
For damage, you need to move forward as you shoot, so that the next bullet will reach the enemies as they are knocked back.
The main use is denial of entry though - shoot 2 or 3 bullets in a cone pattern, a blanket covering a small opening. Done properly, it doesn't matter if you need to unload. The knock back will stop all of them from ever reaching you.
Royal Jelly Palace level 2 is full of places (all except 1 room, which can be pulsar'ed anyway) where you can practice the above techniques. I've done that whole level solo with just a Gigawatt.
The Pulsar line is used for controlling your battlefield - its purpose is not a damage-dealing gun, but a crowd-controlling one, much like the Magnus with its auto-knockdown ability to shut up those pesky Devilites and Wolvers.
You can use it to keep monsters out of a certain area, true, but the primary attraction is the turret-sniping capability:
- Pulsar has an elemental line (Kilowatt, Gigawatt, Polaris). 2 out of 3 turret types are weak to Elemental damage (Undead and Construct). The third, Slime, is neutral to it.
- Pulsar does a great deal of knockback if the expanded bullets hit, enough to cancel the attack of a stationary turret completely if you hold up a steady stream of bullets.
- It's easy to hit a turret since it won't get shoved back by a Pulsar's knockback, unlike most other enemies.
- The elemental Pulsar also inflicts Shock, which can also be useful for interrupting turrets.
- The Pulsar bullets expand halfway, increasing the amount of damage they do.
The three things that aren't to like are a) the distracting screenflash, b) inexperienced players/trolls knocking lumbers/Trolljans/blast cubes into your face with the knockback, and c) people who use it against you in Lockdown.
To correctly use a Pulsar, you need to shoot slightly to one side, then slightly to the other side of the target in order to get it in position (roughly in a 'cone' shape). Keep doing this to herd your foes into the centre of the cone, and keep them that way.
By the way, corners help a great deal, if you're having trouble at first.
If you intend to block a certain passage (as in lockdown, but I believe this also works in getting someone out a point),
firing in 2-shot bursts with the first bullet a bit to the left and the second a bit to the right ensures that your enemy is going to have a tough time getting through.
I haven't used the pulsar enough to know how to control the knockback direction, or if it's even controllable. I don't really know how to use it for damage
since pulsars are usually used for their knockback. I sorta treat it like a catalyzer and keep a short range if I aiming for damage, but usually if I need damage as a gunner I bring an alchemer.
Firing the whole clip is usually not recommended for most guns, you get more of what looks kinda like a constant stream of bullets if you fire in 2-shot bursts, making it difficult for the enemy to close in.
But hey, I don't really have much experience with pulsar other than a lockdown gun to block a point or get someone out a point, so I might be wrong.