Pistol or Blunderbuss for Ranged Rogue?

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As the topic title already show, I am not certain what would be better for a Ranged rogue. Both the Pistol and Blunderbuss have the same range ( according to what I was able to find out that is. ) But their damage is different.

The pistol has the higher damage, but that is only one bullet, and the blunderbuss seems to fire 6 bullets. Is the damage for the Blunderbuss per bullet or is it the total damage with all bullets together? ( Most likely a noob question, but I can live with that ... for now. )

Another reason why I ask is because I reached Defiance Bay and on the way there I picked Weapon Focus: Ruffian. The second weapon set are two stilleto's ( One I bought in Gilded Vale. ) just for those moments that a melee fight can not be avoided. Since both a simple Pistol and Blunderbuss cost 1500 on the market in Defiance Bay I would like to know which of the two is more effective in the hands of a Rogue.

In case some one wants to know, my Rogue is a male Hearh Orlan with these attributes.

Mig: 17
Con: 10
Dex: 19
Per: 13
Int: 10
Res: 9

 

From what I have seen, the blunderbuss does individual damage for each bullet, which is why it's the ideal weapon for Ciphers. In the case of the rogue - I would imagine it's a wash. That said - to maximize flanking damage, it seems that a bow would be best for a rogue with its (admittedly) lower damage but much faster rate of fire.

Take the above with a boulder of salt, though – I haven't played with rogues much this game since anyone can lockpick and trapfind. I'm sure a more rogue-lovin' player can chime in here.

 

It's per bullet.

However, note that each of them must overcome the enemy's damage reduction separately.

Since so many of the difficult enemies in the game have significant DR, it is often better to score a single big hit rather than multiple small ones.

(Blunderbuss is great though for characters like ciphers who have effects that activate for each hit they make.)

I haven't tried pistols at all yet TBH, so I can't comment on their effectiveness from experience. However, I did let my rogue use an Arquebus quite successfully. Once she got a decent enchanted one, she could often one-shot a single enemy at the start of combat.

Whatever firearm you choose, the Gunner talent will go well with it.

Looks like a good build.

With those stats and with the Hearh Orlan's extra hit-to-crit bonus, it could become a very effective 'critical hit' focused build if you're so inclined. Be sure to pick the Dirty Fighting ability and Vicious Fighting talent (both Rogue-specific) if you go that route.

I hired a similar Hearth Orlan Rogue companion for my party, and kept her all the way to the end (just finished the game yesterday ) because she was pretty powerful.

For weapons I ended up alternating between:

• dual-wielding Sabres
  (because they do the most damage out of all the average-speed weapons, which means there's more damage to be multiplied by crit multipliers)

• single-wielding a Spear, without shield
  (because spears have a +5 Accuracy bonus and single-wielding-without-shield gives an extra +12 Accuracy, thus allowing to strike crits even against bosses with high Deflection. Conveniently, piercing is also the damage type that enemies like Drakes/Dragons tend to be most vulnerable to.)

• Arquebus
  (as a first-strike weapon to open combat, or when she was already wounded and thus had to stay in the back)
  

 

Yeah Bows fire faster, but I picked Weapon Focus: Ruffian, so that would not benefit my Rogue. But thank you for the tip on Blunderbuss being better suited for a Cipher.

That is true, it is one of the good things about this game.

Thak you Ineth, I hat read about the weak armour penetration, but I hat hoped it might not be so bad. Still I think it will be a pistol then, better one hard hitting shot then a few weak ones that will get neglected mostly by DR.

I will certainly take Gunner, thanks.

Thank you ... and that is indeed my intention, I will definitely pick those two up as well.

Congrats on that, and yeah my Rogue also looks and was pretty darn dangerous so far as well. Using a pistol should make him even more dangerous.

 

As Ineth allready noted, because of DR it's better to score 1 big hit instead of a lot of small ones

So between blunderbus and pistol, pistol for sure, the pistol also gets +2 DR reduction more then a blunderbus.
If you really don't like the pistols, go with the Arquebus instead - which is more like a rifle (whereas a blunderbus is PoE's equivalent of a shotgun)
The arquebus does more damage then a pistol and has 2m more range, but as a tradeoff also fires a bit slower. (pistols are slow, arquebus very slow.)

 

This is a good thread. And eye opening.

So if I am reading this right:

– blunderbuss is still the ideal weapon for ciphers to build up their casting per encounter
– pistols and arquebus are ideal for rogues due to DR, high damage, maxing crits
– bows are useful more for disrupting action than for doing damage, despite high RoF
– crossbows pretty much eat it
– pistols and arquebus are best for damage, slight edge going to pistols for speed
– wands / scepters seem like a waste of time

Let me know if any of these are wrongheaded.

 

There's also the Arbalest - Slower, lower crit modifier, but every crit has a chance of knocking the enemy down(prone).
Other then that, you're mostly correct, though crossbows are much better than they seem at first.
The damage is fine, the reload time is not that horrible, only takes 100 frames vs the 190 frames of arquebus/blunderbus,
so it's right in the middle of the bows attack speed and the arbalest's damage - and, most importantly, it has a critical damage modifier of 1.5 compared to arbalests & guns which have only 1.2.
It's nice for the high accuracy builds as it has really strong criticals.

Also, wands are not as much of a waste as you'd think - wizards have several spells that act as if they are wand attacks (no matter what weapon you have equipped) and the kicker is they are all buffed by talents/abilities that increase wand damage.
One example being Kalakoth's Minor Blights, which is one of the best wizard spells. basically throwable bolts that do additional elemental damage (fire/freeze/shock/corrode)

Once you have a wizard that can use lvl 6 spells, try using Minor Blights + Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (pretty much PoE's version of Haste) and Citzal's Martial Power (+20 to Accuracy,Constitution,Dexterity,Might&Deflection!!! though you cant use spells for the duration of it, so you want to cast this last.)
Just for fun - you'll find he'll be able to tear through pretty much anything.

Another spell i know is buffed by wand talents is Rot skulls, and i *think* essential phantom as well (though technically its your clone using the wand, not you yourself)

 

Actually, crit modifiers are largely irrelevant because all damage multipliers are additive and only modify base weapon damage (which is itself modified by very few things in the game prior to damage calculations, such as some rare talents). If you've ever looked at an ability which gives you a bonus to your crit multiplier, it's probably much worse than you think it is.

So an arbalest's crit adds 4.4-6.4 to your damage roll but has an additional crit effect. A crossbow's crit adds 9-13 points of damage and nothing else, but since an arbalest's base minimum damage is 4 points higher and max damage is 6 points higher, the actual difference in damage dealt on a critical hit is only 0.6 points of damage. I'd say sacrificing 0.6 points of damage for an extra one or two crit effects (Aedrin's Wrecker can also stun on crits) is more than a fair deal, at least with the way the current mechanics work.

As for the pistol vs. blunderbuss argument, I favor the pistol ever so slightly, although a blunderbuss will potentially let you spread various effects to multiple targets and is a great opening weapon.

If you don't plan on using melee weapons, having both a blunderbuss to open with and a pistol for regular attacks is a good choice. Plus, I think you get most blunderbusses fairly late in the game, whereas a pistol is something you pick up right off the bat in the starting area.

(Edit: I'm actually not sure if a blunderbuss can affect more than one creature, that was just speculation since I've never used it. At the very least you probably get multiple chances of afflicting an enemy with whatever rider condition your shot has.)

 

Well I went for the Pistol for the ranged attacks, and if a melee fight is unavoidable then I switch to dual wielding Azureith's Stiletto in one hand and Dîal Ewn Dibita in the other.