Duality Equinox. In deeps review.

[Chatv71e]

15 hours ago, FreeWilliam said:

I see what you mean about the bursts.  The 'stop and think' bit is just a lot more obvious with fast weapons, but I also think that creates more 'cycles'...which I think is probably a disadvantage (I know I kill things more slowly when I take breaks if only because that's more time spent not killing)

I think gameplay-wise her melee is best for disruption anyway.  She really can make a mess of an area quickly, but is also sometimes prone to just staring at someone in the face, so things with big explosions/procs/etc seem to make the most sense.  Vulcan Blitz really makes sense there.  She also always hits her combos (unlike me...attack speed ramp makes it hard!) and triggers the underlying weapon specials.  I bet there are a few random weapons that she just shines with.  

I figure one of these days somebody will find out she can take out juggernauts with a stug or the ceramic dagger or something like that :)

Indeed, I mostly just using daggers with lethality most of the time. BUT. When I goup up with Limbo.... Now that's when it's time to pull out a good melee.

[FreeWilliam]

10 hours ago, Chatv71e said:

BUT. When I goup up with Limbo.... Now that's when it's time to pull out a good melee.

Ha!  Yeah, a lot of people give Limbo mains a hard time, but I LOVE me a good Limbo to duo with.  Get a Limbo and a good melee character in a Defense or Survival mission and the other two can explore how their frames work to their hearts content while the bad guys ramp up to crazy levels.  I spent like three hours the other day with one and my bubble-Nyx, we jumped into some Endless PUGs and would offer to the other guys to make a safe zone (on or off the target).  It was an absolute riot and I had so much fun watching these MR4 and under people run outside the bubble and slaughter things until they finally got overwhelmed (then I'd take a break from building my combo counter to silly levels and rez them.  Guardian Derision is pretty good for protecting people it turns out, but only until the ground is practically infested lava).

Totally different way to play the game, but boy did I grin a lot during that run, and a couple of the lowbies were borderline giddy.

and back on topic...

10 hours ago, Chatv71e said:

using daggers with lethality most of the time

Didyouseealltheslashprocsinthenewdaggerstance?????!!!!!!

I'm going to go completely against my 'in Melee the clone is really best for area/disruption' comment earlier because that stance may turn her into a single target monster. 

The reason why is part of our convo!  Remember me mentioning rapiers? They were overperforming in the simulator.  I now know why, you just need two mods to make it obvious!

1: Vulpine Mask

and

2: Lasting Sting

(It's extra obvious if you use the Destreza with only those two mods and note the difference as you remove each...I'm just going to imagine you have awesome expressions as it clicks)

If the dagger stance does what I hope it does, I think I'll call the build I invent for it 'The phlebotomist'...that's a LOT of bleeding. ;)

 

 

[Chatv71e]

UPDATE!

Too be honest I haven't found anything too crazy during this time of using this build

But here is what I can share for the time being.

First of all, I updated my build with some extra POE mods.

Now I'm using this two builds.

One for SOLO/ when I can't rely on having any sort of protection. Just a full HP/Shield build.

Spoiler

And one for when I have some protection. Just replaced HP with more range so I can accumulate damage of Maim faster when Specter doing long range kills.

Spoiler

Weapons I tested so far were:

Primaries

Attica - performed most unimpressive. I tried doing Thunderbolt build as well, and it looked like a really bad version of Explosive Hikou build.

Argonak - performed poorly as well. It just lacks damage and accuracy to use it.

 

Secondaries

Ballistica Prime - rigged again. Specter refuses to charge shots so can't make you an army of friends.

Spira Prime - didn't look too impressive for me, but I guess you can experiment with it. It's slow and has a big curve, on top of that has a weird triangular attack pattern. All that is not very good for Specter. The damage is okay-ish

 

Melee

Dual Kamas Prime - performed surprisingly well. While having very little range and most of the time dealing with just one enemy, the slash procs they cause on ground finishers and charged attacks of Specter are HUGE. Basically unmodded unranked version can take down level 120 bombard in seconds.

---

 

Now to something new!

Index!

Boy I'm happy I tried this build out in index. It slays. With so little enemies to target, Duality kills index dudes in a blink of an eye. Seriously, sometimes Duality goes on rampage and just snipes them from spawn over and over and over.

It's like you have Mesa with triple range on her Regulators and more damage!

On top of that, spawning Duality only costs 25 energy. You don't even need Trinity, you can just use energy dash, or pick up and orb and you are ready for a carnage.

Here is some results of medium index run. It's funny because game still doesn't track your damage while tracks your kills. So apparently I was so pacific that 41 enemy died out of boredom xD

Spoiler

Here is some tips, at least it something I used and it worked for me. You may come up with your own crazy ideas.

Spoiler

First of all Arca_Scisco keeps proving to be the best gun for Duality because it doesn't miss. It deals a lot of damage against starting enemies and like I said can kill full party of them in millisecond.

I was using gas build because it adds a bit AOE and if enemy hide behind the wall or run, the toxin proc will finish them off.

The build itself.

Spoiler

Then I was using Opticor with fast fire rate in case enemies will get a bit more fat. The thing about opticor.... While it deals huge damage it also may sometimes miss. That could be annoying. Might try out other weapons for primary slot.

Spoiler

 

Now about hot spots to place your Duality. Naturally you can just let it run around with you, it will still perform well. And sometimes you have to, because your team running around and drags your kill targets with them, but there are few spots where you can leave your Specter and it will snipe stuff effectively.

Indoor Index.   Clearly the favorable map for this build. There are two great spots to place your Specter, regardless of what your team doing most of the time.

First position would be any suitable for you ledge on the wall. You can use left or right wall, upper or lower edge, pick what you feel like give you the best view of area you want to cover.

Spoiler

Second spot - and I think the best spot - is the ledge over the mid passage. This gives a HUGE view for your Duality. You can use left or right one, usually pick one that gives better view of enemy base.

Spoiler

Now about Outdoor Index.

That one can be tricky because enemy spawns are placed awkwardly and they tend to sneak in tight corridors chasing your team. In this index you might be better off by just ruing around with your Specter, but if you are feeling lazy, here are few hot spots.

The flag over the Vault.It's a good place to camp if you have a team. Simply group up around it and make enemies run to you. Alternatively you can just leave Specter there and go kill elsewhere by yourself. Preferably use the enemy vault.

Spoiler

The flag to the side. No a bad spot either it covers a lot of spawning spots. 

Spoiler

The top of the column. Can be useful sometimes. But not the best spot.

Spoiler

Outdoor index is a bit harder because you only can cover 50% of the map at best. While at indoor you cover 75% 

 

Edited November 23, 2017 by Chatv71e

[Chatv71e]

Few important notes.

- Specter can't shot through obstacles. Obstacles like you. Don't stand in front of it after you spawn it. Take a step back. 

- Specter vision range is 150 m. Easy Opticor air ships snipes.

- Sometimes Duality.exe stops responding. You can see that by Specter lowering their weapons that they usually hold in aim like manner. It's better to resummon Specter in that case. The other phase of inactivity is when it faces you and spins around tracking your movements. In that case just point its face towards the enemy by moving around.

 

[(PSN)Radehx]

Derpy clone is suffering a bit in tight quarters and got the aim of my blind grandma there...but in PoE, he's insane. No ammo requirement and in some cases not even damage falloff. Hand him a Kohm and you got a ridiculously good sniper up to 200-300m. Also godly with the Sicarus Prime, especially if you have a riven. 

Sometimes if he "zones out" and does nothing, recasting the derp fixes it and he insta-kills stuff the second you recast. 

If aiming with Mesa seems like too much work, take Duality Equinox :D

[Azamagon]

Really awesome research dude! Hope a bunch of these issues you have found out gets fixed, one time or another.

As per some issues, I have a few suggestions:

• Having the augment installed, it would be cool if you could holdcast the ability to simply summon the Spectre without the need to swap form. In general, Equinox needs a whole bunch of fixing so that switching form is not punished, but I think this added functionality would be good to add regardless.
• Base duration really needs to improve, even if that comes at the cost of some of its power. Or how about this; The spectre lasts until it's killed, but during X seconds (whatever time that may be) after summoning it, it has its extreme damagebonus, which then fades over the duration. That way, it's still encouraged to resummon it occassionally for more damage output, but it's not "necessary".

[KemicolKid]

Wow... Someone who actually studied their Dualology. Lol. Honestly with those who have macro capability, and have 282% duration (Narrow, constitution, and prime continuity) just have a macro press 1 every 22000 ms. Wouldn't have to worry about manually recasting anymore. This will not work in some animations such as rolling though keep that in mind.

[Chatv71e]

Fellow Duality enthusiasts and followers!

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE

One of the latest patches somehow fixed Duality aim on lot of weapons.
It no longer misses sniper shots.

I REPEAT, DUALITY NOW CAPABLE OF LADING SNIPER SHOTS.

I just got Vulkar wraith from Baro and tested it on my Lanka as well. No more weird curving projectiles.

Even on Mara Detron!

Pull out your big guns and upgrade it with Aim Bot now before they break again :P

Edited January 12, 2018 by Chatv71e

[Chatv71e]

Alright, so it's been a while so lets have some update.

UPDATE

I haven't found anything particularly bizarre by this time, so lets just jump into some of new weapon reviews.

 

Primaries

Quartakk performed very poor in hands of specter as well as in my own hands. 51.02 damage per pellet is just not serious when half of those misses. And it's also rather slow on reload.

Corinth performed a bit better. Damage output felt nice, but what kills this weapon for me is a very slow reload speed. That subtracts a lot from specter lifetime. For now I keep it to maybe come out with a build specifically for Duality.

 

Secondaries

Lex Prime/Aklex Prime both performed terrible. Low accuracy, high reload time just killed both variations of Lex for me. Maybe Lex enthusiasts can find a way to make it work. I failed in that.

Stubba performed great. It shown to be very accurate and almost every single bullet finds the target. Almost like good old Arca Scisco. If you are into crit based weapons, by all means try it out on duality. Fast fire rate, fast reload, slash procs can melt through end game with relative ease. Tried it in index as well. From my experience Arca Scisco still wins because of status effects, but Stubba was powerful nonetheless. 

 

Now back to sniper rifles. As being said, it seems like accuracy improved a little bit, so I tried out few of those again.

Once again I have to remind that Specter will not use scope and thus will not get bonuses from "on aim" "dead aim" mods as well as crit bonuses from zoom levels or combo counter.

Vulkar Wraith performed relatively well. At such short time I never made a well optimized build as well as never got a riven for it. BUT the damage it causes is relatively high. The accuracy in hands of specter is satisfying. It staggers enemies, making easier for specter to land a following shot. Give it a good riven and it will be a beast.

Lanka still broken. Sorry for the excited message before, but bullets still curve out. BUT I figured out why, how to avoid it and even how to use it at own advantage maybe?...

Spoiler

Mechanic turned out very simple.

1) This bug will not occur if you don't fire your weapon yourself. Just don't use it, and your specter will snipe everything properly.

2) If you fire a shot the direction your bullets hit will be locked as permanent point. The shots of your Specter will curve out to hit that spot. The spot will be locked last forever till you leave the game lobby. Similar to Buzlok alt fire, but permanent. 

3) Firing more than one shot will make more locked points and bullets of your specter will curve out to the closest one.

4)You don't even need to hit anything. Firing  a bullet in the sky causes Specter shots fly into sky as well.

This is true for Hema Mutalist Quanta Supra Mara Detron and similar weapons.

But if there is some stationary target that require a constant fire on it, this can be used at your advantage, though I don't see any scenario in the game where it could be useful.

As for Lanka itself.... Well damage is insane. It hurts a lot. Its accurate. Reload is relatively fast. The charge mechanic can be iffy. Even with high fire rate, if target that Specter is locked on will hide or be blocked from sight even for a second, Duality will have to charge a shot again. This and the fact that you can't use gun yourself makes it very mediocre.

Snipetron. 3.5 seconds reload time. Low damage. Good accuracy. So just no.

Vectis Prime is still a king. Fast fire rate. Nearly instant reload. Insanely high damage. Can miss a shot but it doesn't even matter because Specter will fire more and more. 

 

In conclusion best sniper rifle is still Opticor 

 

[Redfeather75]

I bought Equinox this weekend just to play around with duality. So happy you posted all this information! I've bookmarked it!

I am glad Zarr works well as I started crafting that last night. Currently using Fusilai and concealed explosives. Not sure if it's working as it's hard to gauge!

One thing that really bugs me is the AI shooting at windows and walls. lol

It is much fun to play with nonetheless. I have a reason to get so many weapons now!

Edited January 14, 2018 by Redfeather75

[Chatv71e]

4 hours ago, Redfeather75 said:

I bought Equinox this weekend just to play around with duality. So happy you posted all this information! I've bookmarked it!

I am glad Zarr works well as I started crafting that last night. Currently using Fusilai and concealed explosives. Not sure if it's working as it's hard to gauge!

One thing that really bugs me is the AI shooting at windows and walls. lol

It is much fun to play with nonetheless. I have a reason to get so many weapons now!

I tried out Fusilai and it was bad, lol. I think I reviewed it in some comments. All throwing weapons are kinda meh except hikou since other weapons don't fly too far. Good luck trying new weapons, that what makes this build fun.

[Redfeather75]

The newest patch updated specter AI and increased Duality duration!

[PsiWarp]

Nice that the duration has been bumped, but the AI still leaves more to be desired.

Like some weapons flat out don’t work with Duality, what with projectiles flying into the ground way off course from the target, charge-based weapons like bows, launchers, gun spears not firing at all or often enough to matter, and melee against ranged enemies results in Channeled blocking most of the time.

Also, a forced reload animation on weapons that don’t even have one (Cycron). Probably used to stop the spectre from being an endless stream of firepower (like an auto-turret), but Duality reloads too often.

[Redfeather75]

9 minutes ago, PsiWarp said:

Nice that the duration has been bumped, but the AI still leaves more to be desired.

Like some weapons flat out don’t work with Duality, what with projectiles flying into the ground way off course from the target, charge-based weapons like bows, launchers, gun spears not firing at all or often enough to matter, and melee against ranged enemies results in Channeled blocking most of the time.

Also, a forced reload animation on weapons that don’t even have one (Cycron). Probably used to stop the spectre from being an endless stream of firepower (like an auto-turret), but Duality reloads too often.

I played around with it for a bit and found that the duality specter was missing every shot against moving targets with the staticor. It was leading the target by too much! That might be from a flight speed mod on it? I am not in game so can't double check. It's probably a pain in the butt to fix this type of stuff.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Redfeather75

[Hypernaut1]

5 hours ago, Redfeather75 said:

 

The newest patch updated specter AI and increased Duality duration!

the increased duration REALLY helps this mod. Its turned her 1 into a very powerful ability with the right weapon. I havent noticed a big change in A.I. though (but definitely for other specters!!!).

I was actually looking forward to the augment. it would've synergized well with duality and constant switching. 

[Chatv71e]

So I just finiahed playtesting it. Looks like Duality AI didn't change much. Broken weapons still broken. I'll try to report that in bugs they might in fact do something about it sine they started. 

4 hours ago, Redfeather75 said:

I played around with it for a bit and found that the duality specter was missing every shot against moving targets with the staticor. It was leading the target by too much! That might be from a flight speed mod on it? I am not in game so can't double check. It's probably a pain in the butt to fix this type of stuff.

Staticor projectiles are indeed a bit slow for Duality. But it kinda depoends how you position it. Always look for high ground to give it better area view and reduce the arc/travel time of projectiles with it.

 

The craftable specters are interesting tough. They are still dumb but now spam abilities. Pair Duality with a buffing specter and you got yourself a solo party. I'm also looking forward to see a high level Octavia specter. 

And extra duration is a good bonus, though it never was a problem, since ability doesn't cost too much and can be recasted as many times you want. Though it does help with accumulating some extra damage with Maim while your clone does the killing.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Chatv71e

[Redfeather75]

I really like the increased duration. I was using too many slots and capacity to boost duration and it made me feel like everything was being sacrificed for one gimmick.

 

I'm not in game now, but I had like primed continuity, augur something, constitution and maybe something else. Just for duration!

Edited January 26, 2018 by Redfeather75

[Chatv71e]

On 26.01.2018 at 6:41 PM, Redfeather75 said:

I really like the increased duration. I was using too many slots and capacity to boost duration and it made me feel like everything was being sacrificed for one gimmick.

 

I'm not in game now, but I had like primed continuity, augur something, constitution and maybe something else. Just for duration!

Hmm, you might be right, extra duration can free up some slots, but I played around with builds and haven't found anything to replace it with. In ters of, even if you put something else, the effect of it will be rather minor. I'm thinknig of using inensify to boost up the damage buff of my 1, but then again, I almost never attack myself.

[Chatv71e]

Small Update.

Here is few weapons that I revisited/tested so far.

Kohm - Kohm is great. Infinite ammo,  for some reason no spread (all bullets line up perfectly) , no fall off in damage with range (? I just don't know why, but it does same damage on high range). No double reload even if you mod it for max fire rate. This weapon is a beast. Too bad I JUST got it and didn't mod it properly but I see great potential in it. And looks like I'm not the only one. Now the thing about Kohm I can't confirm, is that if it's hidden passive of firing more bullets works on Duality. It certainly ramps up fire rate the longer it's fired, but I'm not sure about extra bullets. Still the damage is insane. The downsides are - Kohm is projectile weapon and on a VERY high range, projectiles will curve down. You also might not use this weapon yourself because of it downsided like ammo inificince and wide spread.

Lato performed poorly. The accuracy it has make specter miss a lot of shots.

Tysis was a very weird one.... While in hands of a player it has perfect accuracy both with aim and w/o it, in hands of specter it misses ALL the shots. This might be a bug, but the bullet spread on it is absurd.  Other than that, it would be a nice status weapon.

Edited February 1, 2018 by Chatv71e

[Redfeather75]

I gotta try that Kohm! Been looking for a long range weapon for my clone. So far sniper rifles and bows are pure bleck. I have up till now been using the Zarr as you liked it and I gave it a shot.

[OrochiFuror]

Zar is good, if you want more range use kulstar, just need teams to use corrosive projection or goodbye damage at higher levels. Duality aim is fairly bad, missed like 1/3 to half it's shots with pandero, so I don't trust it to hold my back with anything but explosives. Might try the dual kohm tonight see how that goes.

It's too bad duality doesn't use any abilities, that might be crazy good. Imagine running both 3's and 4's all the time. Waste a lot of energy though.

[Chatv71e]

7 hours ago, OrochiFuror said:

Zar is good, if you want more range use kulstar, just need teams to use corrosive projection or goodbye damage at higher levels. Duality aim is fairly bad, missed like 1/3 to half it's shots with pandero, so I don't trust it to hold my back with anything but explosives. Might try the dual kohm tonight see how that goes.

It's too bad duality doesn't use any abilities, that might be crazy good. Imagine running both 3's and 4's all the time. Waste a lot of energy though.

It indeed has troubles with aim, but some weapons work better than expected. Try Baza or Arca scico and you'll be surprised how good she is with aim. But I listed it already.

As for using 3 and 4, you can always make an Equinox specter. They use that :D But their weapon will not be modded. Still can make an army of 3 of yourself.

[Chatv71e]

A tinly QoL update. I united almost all info from comments posts and added it into main post so it would be easier for people to look for specific weapons I guess. Also updated build in main post to not confuse people with old stuff.

[Chatv71e]

Alright Tennos. Weapon update/buff patch has landed and you know what that means. Boosts to weapons is a direct boost to the Duality build. Times 3.

UPDATE!

First of all. Bow buff. Reduced charged time. 

Best bow for your clones is still....

Spoiler

Lioneye's Glare

Oh wait.... this is the wrong game.

So bow buff didn't do anything for us. At all. Specter will still hold charge forever on all bows. The only good thing, Daikyu is now usable unlike before when Specter would not even fire shots with it at all.

Daikyu in fact is probably the ONLY bow that can be used by Specter relatively well, because it can only fire shots at full charge. It suffers from all charge mechanic curses but works similar to Lanka (that has infinite more damage and still very annoying to use so why would you use a bow instead?). But it's a huge h*cking bow and you can make your own Mirror Arrow cosplay making army of archers. Which is legit reason to use this weapon.

Other bows are still poop.

 

Speaking of charge mechanics. Ogris received a major buff. Both fire and charge rate combined did it and now Specter will fire it relatively well. Its stil has the dumb range restriction though, but feels much better. In tight areas with Napalm it will perform very good.

Sobek. Now Sobek is interesting one. It was used before by Duality players for its weapon special mod -Acid Shells. I personally never thought that damage is relevant, but now with weapon buff, Specter can kill things even more effectively, causing scaling damage explosions. Certainly worth to look at.

Tonkor got some love as well. Faster detonation timer means Speter will no longer unload 10 bullets in 1 target waiting for it to explode. And while Tonkor is still nerfed, the 300% dmg boost make it do a significant damage even against end game content.

Torid improved as well. Now arc is not as heavy and fire rate  reload is always nice for Specter. It still feels a bit slow and damage a bit lacking though. But waaaay better than it was before.

Kulstar is now a crit weapon. It was borderline decent and it stays there. Yes it hurst more now, but its still very inconsistent. It still knocks down making Specter miss all following shots.

Prisma Angstrum is worse than Kulstar. That's all I'm gonna say.

Sicarus Prime. Now this was a primed disappointment. Damage, accuracy, reload, fire rate. All was perfect. But after some time I noticed that after 2-3 reloads gun just jams and Specter can't use it till you summon it again. Too bad I noticed that after I wasted formas on it.

Telos Akbolto. Misses almost all bullets on mid-long range. Has a very weird firing pattern that greatly reduces fire rate in hands of Specter. So just bad.

 

Edited February 10, 2018 by Chatv71e

[Chatv71e]

And while we wait for me to test new weapons here are some screenshots of Duality fun.

I should mention that since you are not the one who is dealing damage Extingushed Dragon Key(key that reduces damage) has no effect on your clone. So I carry it just for fun. As well as naming my melee after another drgon key.

And countless more people triggered but 0% damage done leeching.