By now everybody is swimming in these new Artifacts, right? It's " BIS for everybody!! " is the talk.
Anybody tried actually using one in a build? Well, I did. And this is what I found.
First off, the Modified Assault Rifle is VASTLY better than the Badoon Soldier's Basic Weapon, so just forget using that piece of junk.
Using +3 to all Attributes, here are some changes-
- it adds 1080 HP
- Crit hits rate went from 53.8 to 54.3% ( 93 increase to CHR)
- Crit damage % went up by 4% from 308% to 312% ( 270 CDR )
- BSR increased by 189, from 44% to 44.7%
- BDR went from 584% to 594%
- Attack Speed went from 8% to 11%
Plain DR went up to 4318 from 3068 at full stacks, but it is physically hard to maintain the stacks from insta-decay.
I put the Snap Shot basic (SSB) on one mouse button, and tried Stinging Shot on the other, and was easily able to maintain the increased stack with weaving. This should work fine with Grenades, Drones, Kiss, or Coup, but I couldn't get Covert Sniper to reliably hit in the 3 second window, and then switch back to the basic.
Covert is our hardest hitting ranged skill.
The death rate went up in Cosmic Midtown, and I mean MY death rate. Standing still and watching the stack counter tick up is a sure way to get squashed because you're not moving in and out of stealth. Trying to get a melee attack to work was a failure because the time to roll in, hit and roll out exceeds the 3 seconds almost every time- and then you have to reacquire the target for SSB.
Overall, I have to ditch the Midtown Signet Ring ( not able to roll for bonus) and use a new Sling-whatzis ring instead, drop the
Skrull Avengers Medallion ( can't land any melee) for a War Skrull one ( Phys/Energy works instead of Ranged/melee) so that cuts down my Attack Speed, and costs me Sweepkick from the build. That's Ok because we have to swap in Snap Shot for something, right?
Overall, it isn't a particularly great piece of gear for ranged. But maybe with Deadly Blade/Agile Strike as a filler, you can fit in some extra stacks in a melee build.
What did you think?