Duality Equinox. In deeps review.

[Hypernaut1]

People also need to realize that some of us play for fun and don't always depend on utilizing the meta to its fullest to enjoy content.

So yes, while there may be other builds more suitable for Equinox, that's not the point. Sometimes it's just fun to switch up yet playstyle. This is a great guide from the op

[Chatv71e]

Update!

Added Ogris, Paracyst, Tenora, Soma, Vectis, Javlok, Ephonia and Marelok to weapon section. Spoiler alert - those are rather bad.

Also added interaction with Mag. That one is great!

[Chatv71e]

Yeeeeee boiiiiii

PoE is out and I was busy testing all this new stuff, and gee, I gotta tell you, it's quite something.

First of all I'm just gonna say that Duality with Arca Scisco DESTROYS planes as I expected. That pin point acurate gun removes enemies at 150m range before you can even track them yourself. 

But of course there are some downsides of Duality behaviour in plains:

- Duality prioritizes airships waisting lot of time killing them. And while at bounty 4 Duality kills them and grineer troops, at bounty 5 those have too much health and will just tank all your Spactre damage rendering it usless. Easily avoided with limited range wepons like Amprex. 

- Duality will not attack neutral units like birds critters or turrets.

- At night time Duality WILL aim at lesser eidola and will keep attacking them till they are dead. Which is never because they only take damage from operator.

- Duality has limited vision range of 150m, it's sometimes less than some new enemies attack range, yet thats rather rare.

Overal Duality performed REALLY well in plains, and if you were looking for a good time to try it out - thisis the time. It helps a lot dealing with annoying air units, snipes balistas and bombards across the map when you can't even see them and blows up low level air ships like it's nothing. It also can be a good guard for you when fishing. When fighting eidolon, equiped with amprex it can deal with adds, removing their physical form rather fast.

Now to the new focus system. It brings a lot of synergy to Duality. One of the biggest things perhaps is Naramon school with it's Executing Dash upgrade. As the upgrade states - dashing through enemies opens them to finishers. Spectres can't perform finishers, instead their poor AI forces them to use CHARGED ATTACKS. Oh yes. Suddenly your Duality can throw glaives, boomerangs and utilise other weapons with special effects on charge. Or just smash enemies away with charged hammer swings.

The other enticing school for Duality is Unairu with Magnetic Blast upgrade. This one alows you to give your Spectre weapons that had rather bad accuracy in AI's hands. So far I haven't played a lot with that school, but I tried Akstiletto with it. And it melted level 120 corrupted gunner eximus in seconds when all shots were landed. Might think of other weapons Like Soma or Tenora with it. It also adds a bit of armor to your spectre, but it's insignificant.

This two stand out over others, but I'll keep testing and add more info.

Now towards weapons. I haven't got myself to test all the new weapons of the expansion, only some of them.

Primaries.

Astilla - is pretty damn good. It's damage is probably one of the highest damages of my arsenal, it procs bleed, stuns enemies with impact, extremely accurate in hands of spectre on close and medium range as well as has some AOE attacks. But it also has some significant downsides. Double reload and limited range due to bullets trajectory.

Sybaris Prime - finally got my hands on that beauty. Can't say anything bad about it in hands of Spectre exept maybe slightly low accuracy at high range. Yes, it's not Arca Scisco pin point accuracy, but damage is fairly high, fire rate and reloads are fast and it generaly feels good even though I'm not a fan of single target weapons.

Secondaries.

Fusilai - was just bad... They are too slow, fall down to fast, poor AI just can't handle them. That's all to it. Even the high damage doesn't save this weapon.

Melee.

Halikar - this weapon is just plain funny to use. It bounces around, disarming enemies. And now with Naramon rework, your Spactre can throw and disarm enemies too. How effective is that? I don't know. Probably not very effective. You first have to dash through enemies as operator to enable that and then use this weapon. Might not be the best choice to deal with things, but it's fun and offers a lot to experiment with. Or maybe even find some bugs, like giving your spectre sentient weapon. Who knows? Need to play more with it.

Zenistar - idea was simple. Since now Spectre can use charged attacks, why can't it throw a 300% damage boosted disc? Idea failed just like idea with Pox. For some reason Spectre DETONATES the disc once its being thrown, causing explosion damage. It still deals with level 120 bombards in seconds, just performing ground fiishers after blast, but no disc, sadly. But I'm staying positive. Have Caustacyst and pretty sure Spectre will not be able to detonate the acid trail.

Little mention to weapons that were already listed

Mios and Lacera still can't pull enemies even with charged attacks

Jat Kusar works as intended, causing explosion when charged.

Atterax causes deadly slash procs with charged attacks

Redeemer and Sarpa still do no damage with bullets.

[Chatv71e]

Revisitetd Opticor since so many people using it in PoE lately. 

Before PoE I tossed this weapon away because Spectre takes a long time to aim and most of the time it's target is dead by the time it fires, so there was no point. On top of that Opticor is a single target removal, it AOE and punch though had very little impact on hands of Spetre.

In PoE however it shines. Bounty 5 ship dies in 3 shots, and I only have 2 formas in my opticor and no rivens. Pretty damn good considering Spectre prioritises ships. Your own zenith cannon. Ocasionaly Spectre will snipe bombards and balistas as well. 

Spectre does however adds negative accuracy to this weapon and sometimes can miss a shot, but it's very advised to use Heavy Caliber in your build to push it a it further. That way Spectre can actualy make headshots.

Caustacyst made me very sad. Spectre indeed uses charge attack and spawns a damaging projectile that pierces through enemies diealing damage, but it LEAVES NO POISON TRAIL. Why DE, whyyyy. Charge attack still do high damage and proc deadly slash.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Chatv71e

[Hypernaut1]

Duality Equinox is even better in the plains. In fact, I think may actually like it more than a standard Equinox build

Edited October 18, 2017 by Hypernaut1

[RedGoat989]

hey i been following this post and i finally got my mod set complete to be able to use this build and i must say I LOVE this, having your own bodyguard is amazing and here are a few weapon suggestions i tested.

the Acrid is surprisingly good, with a corrosive build and a few seconds it can not only strip away all the enemy armor but with enough time the amount of toxin procs stacked on one another just eat up the enemy hp and i havent tested this yet but i think a gas build could be better not sure. not the most efficient or fast killing weapon with the spectre but sure is good

the Sonicor its simple, works like the sonicor but the way i would use it is have a bodyguard lets say you want to mine, fish or hunt medalions on a syndicate mission and enemies pop up behind you to kill you having the sonicor spectre can help with that, it wont kill them most of the time but at least it will keep them away and if the map is big enough its gonna send them flying and the game will consider them out of bounds and kill them. also the "sending them to the sky" thing only works with a blast build on the sonicor

anyways sorry for bad english and  you sir are amazing without this my equinox would only be used for maim and rest builds and even then i would not use her that much but thanks to this she wont be collecting dust any more il keep testing and playing with it and if i can or discover something new il post them here

[FreeWilliam]

Sonicor is, indeed, hilarious when specced for explosive. :)

"OFF MAH MAP!"

The Plasmor is also quite good as a primary.  She can really make a mess with it.

Also: A couple of melee weapons are really impressive.  The Endura was better than expected and she's a monster with the Lesion and the Tipedo.  Lasting Sting really seems to pay off with her, especially with anything with a guaranteed proc...she's pretty good with those combat moves.

Pretty spastic with the whip and sword/whip though :(  Too bad, I have a Mios that felt like i twas made for her!

[Chatv71e]

2 hours ago, FreeWilliam said:

Also: A couple of melee weapons are really impressive.

The thing about melee weapons they look great in simulacrum, but in a fight when enemies move around spectre will waste lot of time chasing them

So I developed two strategies that make it more efficient. One being having weapons with huge range on basic combo. The second one having a great ground finishers. For example those that has 100% proc. Galatine Prime works very well with last strategy and blats as element. Spectre (unlike player) can use ground finisher multiple times stacking that slash proc. You can also use your Rest to drop enemies on the ground for Spectre to use finishers. I'm currently experimenting with Ripkas for that matter.

Also, if you wanna see something fun - try out Ack&Brunt with the maxed Final Harbinger. Experience having your own  Tyl Regor that will jump around and stagger enemies, causing slash procs.

Sonicor on other hand is something that I didn't like because of its limited range. Spectre WILL try to snipe with it and will just stuck in endless cycle of firing at long distance targets with no result. But I'll take more closer look, I havent experimented too much with it.

Edited October 23, 2017 by Chatv71e

[FreeWilliam]

2 minutes ago, Chatv71e said:

The thing about melee weapons they look great in simulacrum, but in a fight when enemies move around spectre will waste lot of time chasing them

Yeah, the Simulacrum is a bit too 'perfect'...but even there you can see how spastic she is with the whips and such. The stance I had on the Tipedo had a little ground slam and I had the attack speed and range on that thing ramped up to silly, so she just created a big zone of 'no'

Does she do ground finishers?  Just popped into my head and can't test at work...explosion procs tend to knock people down and I'm wondering if a 'fire plasmor, switch to dagger with covert lethality, set clone loose' approach might also be fun in action.

It seems like she's okay with melee if she doesn't have to 'find her range'..which makes me think that Ack&Brunt will be a riot :)

It sure is a fun change-of-pace playstyle.  Unlimited uber-specters!

[Chatv71e]

15 minutes ago, FreeWilliam said:

Yeah, the Simulacrum is a bit too 'perfect'...but even there you can see how spastic she is with the whips and such. The stance I had on the Tipedo had a little ground slam and I had the attack speed and range on that thing ramped up to silly, so she just created a big zone of 'no'

Does she do ground finishers?  Just popped into my head and can't test at work...explosion procs tend to knock people down and I'm wondering if a 'fire plasmor, switch to dagger with covert lethality, set clone loose' approach might also be fun in action.

It seems like she's okay with melee if she doesn't have to 'find her range'..which makes me think that Ack&Brunt will be a riot :)

It sure is a fun change-of-pace playstyle.  Unlimited uber-specters!

Spectre can perform ground finishers on knocked down targets. That includes blast, or any damage if you put enemies asleep. But ground finishers are not real finishers and will not bypass armor or trigger Covert Lethality. But even if you have enemies open to finishers Covert Lethality doesn't work in hands of Spectre anyway. I have it noted in the main post.

Ground finishers will however do the bonus damage and anything that tied to specific weapon.

The other thing you can make Spectre do is to make it use charged attacks. Read above. Jat Kusar might be a good pick then, since it has blast procs into ground finishers.

On other hand you can have Covert Lethality and let Spectre perform ground finishers with dager. This causes HEAVY slash proc.

Edited October 23, 2017 by Chatv71e

[FreeWilliam]

Ahh, that makes sense.  

Maybe the Jat Kusar would work better without the stance?  With the stance she kind of spazzes out...just kind of dives in, does a good bit of damage, and then stands around looking perplexed.

 

[Chatv71e]

4 minutes ago, FreeWilliam said:

Ahh, that makes sense.  

Maybe the Jat Kusar would work better without the stance?  With the stance she kind of spazzes out...just kind of dives in, does a good bit of damage, and then stands around looking perplexed.

 

Without a stance weapon will use default weapon stance. And blades and whips only has one stance anyway.

Thing to note about Spectre finishers is that they greatly benefit from attack speed. The more attack speed you have, the more finisher Spectre will make before target gets up. Fast Dual Kamas Prime I tried the other day were able to take out sleeped level 120 bombards with no mods.

[FreeWilliam]

1 minute ago, Chatv71e said:

The more attack speed you have, the more finisher Spectre will make before target gets up. Fast Dual Kamas Prime I tried the other day were able to take out sleeped level 120 bombards with no mods.

Oh yeah, I'm kind of an attack speed @#&*(, totally with you there!  

Plus the clone with a weapon on crazy high attack speed is FUNNY, and sometimes you do things for the lolz, right? :)

[Chatv71e]

1 minute ago, FreeWilliam said:

Oh yeah, I'm kind of an attack speed @#&*(, totally with you there!  

Plus the clone with a weapon on crazy high attack speed is FUNNY, and sometimes you do things for the lolz, right? :)

Oh I'd say there is more to it than just lols, I'm looking forward to try out max attack speed obex one day. After all AI doesn't have human button clicking limitations and can reach full potential of attack speed. 

For lols I just use simulor :P

[FreeWilliam]

15 minutes ago, Chatv71e said:

I'm looking forward to try out max attack speed obex one day

My baby!

Unfortunately doesn't work as well as I'd hoped.  She stops too much, but she's sure disruptive (and isn't that ground attack hilarious?)

 

 

[Chatv71e]

7 minutes ago, FreeWilliam said:

My baby!

Unfortunately doesn't work as well as I'd hoped.  She stops too much, but she's sure disruptive (and isn't that ground attack hilarious?)

 

 

Hah, try other stance, it will not push her so far forward. Also try out sleeping them first so Spectre only do ground finishers :D

Also hope you don't mind if I add that to the list of weapons since you kindly tested it yourself

Edited October 23, 2017 by Chatv71e

[FreeWilliam]

9 minutes ago, Chatv71e said:

Hah, try other stance, it will not push her so far forward.

This is why I love this game and these conversations.  I'm not an Equinox main, I barely play mine.  Instead I'm kind of a melee main (but I main with Nyx, Nekros, Ivara, and Atlas so I also melee kind of weird) so for me weapon stances are all about mobility and a stance without one is painful.  With Nyx attack moves are literally my primary form of movement (And Atlas basically punches himself from place to place by way of Grineer) 

So it never occurred to me to try to go the other way! Neat :)

13 minutes ago, Chatv71e said:

Also hope you don't mind if I add that to the list of weapons since you kindly tested it yourself

Of course!  Might want to record some of these yourself by the way!  It'd be a good video. :)

[Chatv71e]

8 minutes ago, FreeWilliam said:

Of course!  Might want to record some of these yourself by the way!  It'd be a good video. :)

I don't think my potato can handle capturing video. I tried gif capture the other day and could not break 10 fps. What are you using to capture btw? I might try it.

[FreeWilliam]

Just now, Chatv71e said:

I tried gif capture the other day and could not break 10 fps. What are you using to capture btw? I might try it.

Just the thing that comes with windows (windows key+G brings up the menu).  I'm playing on a laptop with no special video so my recording will be below average if anything!  

My in-game name is FreeWilliam (are ours always our screen names here?).  I've been avoiding the plains but could be talked into diving in to do some experiments.  I love playing Magic:The Gathering meets Halo meets Fashion Barbie. :)

[Chatv71e]

7 minutes ago, FreeWilliam said:

I've been avoiding the plains but could be talked into diving in to do some experiments.

Well Duality with Arca Scisco and Opticor performs well there, but I already described that in previous posts. If you got Twin Basolk with Rift Strike that's certainly worth trying on Duality. I would try it myself but building Twin Basolk again is pain.

[FreeWilliam]

Oh, I wasn't avoiding the plains because they were scary...I was just waiting for it to calm down and for DE to get their 'quality of life' improvements in.  I figure they put so much work into the game I could discipline myself to give them a good first impression (plus the rest of the game is still waiting to be played)

So it's more that I was avoiding the grind.  More than happy to murder things!

(And yes, last night when I was whipping a bunch of cats that my Ember friend had kindly lit on fire I did briefly wonder 'Are we the baddies?')

[Kalvorax]

3 hours ago, Chatv71e said:

hing to note about Spectre finishers is that they greatly benefit from attack speed.

so going to try her with the glass hammer now ahhahaha

[FreeWilliam]

3 hours ago, Chatv71e said:

Hah, try other stance,

That turned out to be more important than expected!  

Stance is VERY meaningful, they really do change the weapon.  I've been going through all kinds of them and seeing big changes in polearms, staves, swords, and really anything else I have stances on (and stanceless sometimes gives an interesting result too)

Speed is also a major factor, in both directions I think. She seems to take too many breaks when the speed is too high.  I wonder if Spoiled Strike is worth looking into?  

 

[Chatv71e]

4 hours ago, FreeWilliam said:

Speed is also a major factor, in both directions I think. She seems to take too many breaks when the speed is too high. 

That's because Spectre fire in bursts regardless of weapon. If you using slow weapon you will notice it less, but it will still stop to think and reaim. That's why I prefer slow hard hitting weapons that would finish things in one combo. Galatine P, Lesion and of course Vulcan Blitz are my top used.

[FreeWilliam]

10 hours ago, Chatv71e said:

That's because Spectre fire in bursts regardless of weapon. If you using slow weapon you will notice it less, but it will still stop to think and reaim. That's why I prefer slow hard hitting weapons that would finish things in one combo. Galatine P, Lesion and of course Vulcan Blitz are my top used.

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 :)