Pistol Spy questions

[sebastien]

Since I warned you guys, now my first real post:

I play a pistol spy. I'm kind of wondering what the advantage of the pistol spy is over rifle spy. Rifle has longer range, and spies die at close range. Rifle seems to do more damage, and I'm not sure if the fire rate on pistols compensates for this?

What do you guys think?

I'm also wondering about how to spec my Psi stat out. I've almost got it capped (wasn't hard thanks to Aggies and Launchers ;p).

1) I realize that if I drug or compromise on my implants, I can self cast shelter. Is it worth it? Or should I save the MST points and put it into PPW for stronger heals?

2) Does a higher PPU or PPW make buffs like Deflector more effective?

3) How do the Sanctum version of spells work? My friend was teamed with me, cast a Heal Sanctum, I was definitely inside the range of it, and I was not getting healed at all. What's the story? Is Deflector Sanctum going to stack with Deflector?

Thanks!

[MrChumble]

Since I warned you guys, now my first real post:

I play a pistol spy. I'm kind of wondering what the advantage of the pistol spy is over rifle spy. Rifle has longer range, and spies die at close range. Rifle seems to do more damage, and I'm not sure if the fire rate on pistols compensates for this?

What do you guys think?

I'm also wondering about how to spec my Psi stat out. I've almost got it capped (wasn't hard thanks to Aggies and Launchers ;p).

1) I realize that if I drug or compromise on my implants, I can self cast shelter. Is it worth it? Or should I save the MST points and put it into PPW for stronger heals?

2) Does a higher PPU or PPW make buffs like Deflector more effective?

3) How do the Sanctum version of spells work? My friend was teamed with me, cast a Heal Sanctum, I was definitely inside the range of it, and I was not getting healed at all. What's the story? Is Deflector Sanctum going to stack with Deflector?

Thanks!
You might be forgiven for thinking that rifles are longer range than pistols, but to be honest the difference if fairly small. The max range any gun can shoot in NC is limited to 'not far enough' so being a rifle spy has as many problems as pistol spy.

Pistol spies have the most powerful guns in the game, and when capped can fire very fast indeed. Access to an Executioner without drugging makes pistol spies fairly potent, and their resists aren't too bad if you spec for shelter.

Still I prefered droners (til the NC2 bugs).

I'd go for shelter. The heal isn't really worth jack as a spy, if you've taken enough damage to need healing you should be stealthing away already. Shelter should give you the extra seconds you need to get stealth working.

Higher PPU will increase the damage % on deflector/shelter/heal etc and so increase their effectiveness. Note also that as a pistol spy you can throw points into psi use, so saving points in psi power that can then be used for mst/ppu.

Heal sanctum and normal sanctum stack, but only if you're not LE'd (and same with caster if using someone elses sanctum). The def/shelt sanctums don't stack, they just give you def/shelt if you don't already have one. Self-cast buffs are a lot better than ones of the same level given by someone else or a sanctum. But...self cast noob buffs aren't as good as PPU cast foreign buffs. I hope that makes sense :D

[Killfly]

From what I've been told, pistols do more damage, but only at close-range, so if you're going that way I'd imagine you'd need a good CON/armour set-up. That's not really something I'm an expert on, so I'll leave it for someone else to explain...

As far as PSI goes, Shelter is mostly needed for PvP/Op use. If you're going that way, it's essential. Your points in PSI should look something like (when capped):

PSU: 50-60 (u need tons of points here as each point increases your psi-pool only a fraction of each point of PPW - anything here is likely to be coming out of your available WEP points, so it's somewhat of a trade off)
PPU: 56 (req. for Shelter)
MST: 31 (req. for Shelter)
PPW: 4 (all that's left :( )

Then use Nightspider (drug flash from that always happens at the worst time, tho :lol: )

[Dribble Joy]

Pistols need far far less WEP than rifles, a pistol spy can have a huge amount of psu (if going for pure combat) or have a minor tradeskill.

Drugging for shelter (don't use psi imps, just don't) is very much worth it.

PPW and PPU affect dmg and therefore the effectiveness of shelters and dmg.
Getting the right balance is the key.

Heal sancs stack with normal heals (which is sooo wrong personally) but the other spells don't.

[kurai]

For a spy to spec for TL-25 shelter requirements there's really only one config, as Killfly noted.

PPU: 56
MST: 31
PPW: 4
NightSpider drug.

PPU/PPW balance is irrelevant since you cap dmg% on all your regular Heal etc spells using the bare Req numbers from Shelter and with the remaining 4 skillpoints it makes no difference to Shelter dmg% whether you choose PPU or PPW to put them in.

You will, however, get a bit more PSI pool.

(Although PPU has double the effect of PPW on dmg%, skills over level 50 cost twice as many skillpoints. In all other spell stats PPU & PPW have equal effect. Since they are equal, might as well use the one that gives you PSI pool)


The amount of INT points you spend on PSU doesn't need to be madly high ... other than PSI Pool all PSU affects is Range & Frequency : neither are usually critical for self-cast stuff and nothing that you are capable of casting is very slow anyway. Therefore just spec enough PSU to get the pool size you want. The previous suggestions of 60 to 70-ish are reasonable.

Considering you don't have the huge WEP requirements of rifles you can still therefore have a pretty respectable other skill. You could *easily* achieve something like 100 HCK (native, not including imps) for example.

For a PvP pistol spy Shelter is a basic and essential component of the setup - without it you'll have to break off and Stealth too early all the time, or simply die. A lot.
Either way you wont be able to stick around long enough to deal out any significant amount of your excellent pistol damage potential.

[MkVenner]

see the problem with rifles is the shitty clipping range....you can go over 2000 range with a SH, but you can barely see 500

[sebastien]

Wow. Great info guys thanks a lot.

So just use Nightspider right before a PvP brawl, and don't fidget with psi implants then? Sounds good.

Shelter is basically going to fill in my missing Energy resist, right?

[kurai]

Shelter is basically going to fill in my missing Energy resist, right?Sort of.

Considering the sort of dmg% you will achieve on the Shelter spell it'll give you the equivalent of an additional 30 armour or 35 resist skill points in Energy, Fire & X-Ray simultaneously.

[Jesterthegreat]

the advantage or pistols over rifles is the slasher... reduce your enemies fps to nothing while using a fully automatic weapon :p

[jini]

This is also the second time I hear about the crahn heal in aspy in nc2. I dunno if it was you but this is a mistake. You need to get your hands in the best heal for your character. Meaning you have to reach its cap in both dmg% and speed. Then the heal is very usefull in every situation. And use shelter, at least for pvp. Pistols are at least equal tough as rifles are they are just another style of battle. pistols are suited for close combat fast shooting fast running games, while rifles are slower shooting slower running style. I would go for pistols :)