Blitz Needle Line questions

In general players use their knowledge of levels in order to spawncamp places where dangerous monsters will spawn, in fact the charge attack from a strike needle has enough power to take out nearly any monster that doesn't resist it.

You can use the regular attack but it is more of a ranged damage support, if you are going to use it in regular combat don't use the full clip (2 volleys is a full clip). Just fire one, move, and then fire again once you are in a good position.

Holy-Nightmare has it right. People tend to use the charge, which annihilates everything in front of the gun. It really helps to know the monsters' AIs and where they spawn. It helps if a party member has crowd-controlled the room using Stagger Storm, Shivermist Buster, Voltaic Tempest (somewhat), or a vortex bomb. It helps if other party members are drawing the monsters' fire, but not drawing them out of your shot.

On these forums I frequently mention the "infantry and artillery" tactic:

* As infantry, I run up to the monsters. I use my Final Flourish to interrupt them. I use my shield to bump them and to protect myself. I'm the defense.

* As artillery, you stand behind me, so that I am protecting you. You simply charge Blitz Needle (repeatedly if necessary) to kill everything in front of us. You're the offense.

Blitz is an OK weapon for this strategy but it is better to have status weapons that help out the front line.

This includes:
Plague needle (poison)
Storm Driver (shock)
Magma Driver (fire)
Hail Driver (freeze)
Callahan (stun)
Obsidian Carbine (poison)

Most "front lines" aren't as defensive as yours and would rather kill the monsters themselves, so if you are going to gun for them you need to keep them alive so they can aggro the monsters so that the front line doesn't die and then leave the monsters to aggro to you.

If they are defensive like yours then Blitz would be good (followed closely by poison weapons that help prolong your ally's shield)

Okay, but this thread is about Blitz Needle tactics. That's why I mentioned a tactic that is specifically about Blitz Needles.

True but I don't want him to end up believing that just because Blitz has great damage on the charge that it is the only gun worth crafting.

To quote a dead knight "why would I use anything but a Blitz?"

My response is "So you don't die to jellies and constructs"

Blitz is a great weapon and you can be a good knight if you use it, but it has shortcomings, you need a varied arsenal and the knowledge to use it to be a great knight

I certainly can't argue with that.

A technique that I didn't see listed here is charging the Blitz Needle without using the regular attack.

For me personally, without this the gun is significantly harder to use (since it would require you to stop and shoot the regular attack once before you can even begin charging).

The technique for charging a weapon without using the regular attack is as follows (works for all weapons, but primarily benefits weapons like Blitz Needle and Magnus lines which force you to stop and shoot):

• Activate your shield. Hold this button.
• While your shield is active, click and hold the Attack button (Left mouse button for most people). At this point, you should have both Attack and Shield buttons held at the same time (it is important to have activated Shield first). Your character should still be in shield animation.
• Let go of Shield button. Your character drops the shield and looks normal. However, you still have the Attack button held down.
• Tap the Shield button (activate shield and release, basically). Your character should activate the shield, drop the shield, and then immediately start charging the weapon.

In short, the sequence is:
Shield (Hold) > Attack (Hold) > Release Shield > Tap Shield > (Weapon starts to charge)

I find this to be an essential technique in staying mobile and putting myself in a good position to use the Blitz Needle without getting killed.

just hold the attack button for one second while shielding then release the shield, no need to tap the shield button after, it works for every wep

Tapping shield method gives you more freedom to run around, which gives more choices, like dodging instead of just tanking damage with shield on crowded places, or do it (up to 3rd step) as early as possible (especiallly weapons charge with walking speed penalty) then tap shield when you reach monsters to save few seconds.

Also, you could dash (or anything with modifier button, if you have assigned modifier + attack), instead of tapping shield on 4th step for faster monster approach or nullify projectiles.