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| Crossbow (rifle style) Powered by Demon Fang |
I have a lot of alts and when it comes time for a seasonal event, I need to get through the quests as fast as possible. While most of the seasonal tasks are fairly optimized today, the time still stacks up for altaholics. The outside can be sped up considerably if you know how some powers work as they award different stats as well as how attacks hit. For all seasonal open world quests except Homecoming and Anniversary (because they're newer and use more of an episode template), NPCs have 5 health,but all of your attacks are reduced to 1 damage. So it takes 5 strikes or something that gives bonus on top of the 1 damage. Here are some tips from moderate to best...
Rapid Fire
The most basic, common sense this is to choose weapons and powers that hit very fast. For weapons, dual pistol or handblasters are great. If this is not your character's weapon set, it doesn't matter. You don't need a good one because all damage is reduced to 1 anyway. A level 3 weapon at the first vendor will do the same damage as an end game one. Just put 1 skillpoint in and buy from any vendor. For powers, some of the low cost ones hit very fast, but not all powers have one... Flaming Cascade, Avalanche work well.
Close Range Spread
Some powers also have ranged attacks that spread into a wide cone of 5 or more projectiles. So if you fire this close up... it will be 5 damage or a 1 shot to seasonal. Sorcery's Soul Barrage is an example.
Time Bomb
Quantum Time Bomb is a unique one because it gives a rare bonus to damage based on a percentage of might and it's also factoring in the damage caused before casting. So if you fire the Time Bomb, then make 5 hits, the damage on explosion will be at least 5. This one is typically good for one shotting multiple seasonal adds standing together.
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| Quantum Time Bomb |
Demon's Fang
This is the best items to use for seasonals because it work universally for all character regardless or weapon set AND, yes.. regardless of power/role. Reading the description, this is immediately seen as a battle heal artifact because it says "based on Restoration." However, it is the only artifact that buffs DAMAGE... not PRECISION or MIGHT... the end product of DAMAGE. The damage buff is a percentage of Restoration + smaller percentage of Precision but added to the Damage stat. Our numbers are high in this game.. well over 100 regardless of role or stat. So the buff to damage is always well over the 5 needed to 1-shot a seasonal adds. I have this on every character except Quantum (since Time Bomb is almost as good) and it's a low effort investment to get them all to level 80, the lowest level that activates the artifact. The entry bonus is big enough to get the percent needed.
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| Level 80 Demon Fang |
Notes: The vast majority of items in the game give buffs to MIGHT and/or PRECISION, but all of these get adjusted to 1 for seasonals, so it doesn't matter how many buffs you use or how high. Bonuses to DAMAGE happen after things are scaled, but these are more rare. I sifted though all of the allies and none of them do that. As far as I know, Demon Fang, which is an unpopular artifact is the only one that buffs after final damage adjustment.
