Played our fifth mission last night. Lost, but still lots of fun of course. We were a bit off balance with killing vs mission objectives and made something of a rookie mistake not taking out enemies with activations left when a rebel is low on health. Lesson learned I hope,

Rapid Fire is beautiful. Wish I had waited on Shot to get it faster. Also concluding that, for the most part, Vinto needs to be trying to shoot his main weapon a least once per activation to leverage Boltslinger.

Now the question is still where to go from here. 1xp in the bank with 6 missions left. Minimum of 6xp, max of 8 possibly, before the last mission. Sharpshooter vs. Battlefield : I can already see the advantage to an extra range for those skills, plus a two red attack at auto range of 4 vs. the benefits of endurance and a more focused reroll potential. Next question is do I save up for Offhand, then one those two, finishing off with Pinpoint or the other of the two depending on how the xp go?

Given all the potential strain mitigation our group has, I'm leaning toward Sharpshooter, Offhand, Pinpoint. Haven't forgotten about Merciless and Dead On, just more curious to see what Offhand plays like I guess. Both of them could also be useful in their way.

Thoughts?

Just now, Alfhiggins said:

Played our fifth mission last night. Lost, but still lots of fun of course. We were a bit off balance with killing vs mission objectives and made something of a rookie mistake not taking out enemies with activations left when a rebel is low on health. Lesson learned I hope,

Rapid Fire is beautiful. Wish I had waited on Shot to get it faster. Also concluding that, for the most part, Vinto needs to be trying to shoot his main weapon a least once per activation to leverage Boltslinger.

Now the question is still where to go from here. 1xp in the bank with 6 missions left. Minimum of 6xp, max of 8 possibly, before the last mission. Sharpshooter vs. Battlefield : I can already see the advantage to an extra range for those skills, plus a two red attack at auto range of 4 vs. the benefits of endurance and a more focused reroll potential. Next question is do I save up for Offhand, then one those two, finishing off with Pinpoint or the other of the two depending on how the xp go?

Given all the potential strain mitigation our group has, I'm leaning toward Sharpshooter, Offhand, Pinpoint. Haven't forgotten about Merciless and Dead On, just more curious to see what Offhand plays like I guess. Both of them could also be useful in their way.

Thoughts?

Apparently I failed to submit this response way back when. Oops.

Went with Battlefield then Offhand. Both played well. That extra endurance pays off, the single reroll is a bit redundant with Rapid Fire but nice when needed and especially combined with Offhand. Offhand enhances his ability to spread significant amounts of damage around without actually taking an attack action.

Going into the last mission of the campaign in a few days. Picked up Sharpshooter and Pinpoint rather than Dead On. Icing on the cake basically. Just makes his core skills that much better. Looking forward to seeing how it all plays together.

Also picked up a new weapon. Green/Red attack with a surge +3D and the mod that gives an auto surge. Some how there's an auto range of 3 or 4 there as well. Been a while since we've played so I can't recall all the details at the moment.

Bottom line I've had a huge amount of fun playing Vinto. Combined with Gaarkhan, Murne, and MHD-19 this team has been beastly for the most part. Plus we got Lando first then Jedi Luke later as allies. Beastly.

G tanks in and smashes things, ally attacks or MHD moves up to heal G, followed by Murne ordering everyone around, with Vinto swooping in to clean up stragglers and/or set up for objectives. Good times.

The question now is who to play in the next campaign?

Has anyone tried using the Hand Cannon with Pinpoint Shot? The problem with the Hand Cannon by itself is that the Imperial player can often really reduce the damage with a good black die roll, but if you remove all blocks plus add a damage to the results, it seems like the HC would be really powerful. It does kind of turn Vinto into more of a melee fighter, which doesn't really seem like what he's cut out to be, but I'm interested in the potential here. What do you guys think?

32 minutes ago, Garkhaan Can said:

Has anyone tried using the Hand Cannon with Pinpoint Shot? The problem with the Hand Cannon by itself is that the Imperial player can often really reduce the damage with a good black die roll, but if you remove all blocks plus add a damage to the results, it seems like the HC would be really powerful. It does kind of turn Vinto into more of a melee fighter, which doesn't really seem like what he's cut out to be, but I'm interested in the potential here. What do you guys think?

I think you might have misread the Pinpoint Shot card a little bit . It removes all of the blocks, but it also removes all the damage, so it doesn't really matter that much which weapon you use it with.

It's basically a more rules-lawyery way of saying "no matter what the dice say, as long as you've got enough accuracy, this attack does 1 damage"

Wow, completely missed that damage symbol in the long list of things Pinpoint Shot removes. Clearly that would be a bit much for a 1xp card! Thanks for your reply, Manatee.

Yeah, I don't think Pinpoint Shot is the best card. It's alright early on, and it's okay with the Sidearm Blaster, but I think it's pretty situational. If you don't have a house rule that lets you respec it into something better later, then it's probably not worth it. Certainly not when Shot on the Run is the other 1XP option . That's one of the best abilities in the whole expansion.

1 hour ago, Stompburger said:

Yeah, I don't think Pinpoint Shot is the best card. It's alright early on, and it's okay with the Sidearm Blaster, but I think it's pretty situational. If you don't have a house rule that lets you respec it into something better later, then it's probably not worth it. Certainly not when Shot on the Run is the other 1XP option . That's one of the best abilities in the whole expansion.

It's mostly for when those Nexu and Officers keep rolling dodges...

4 minutes ago, neosmagus said:

It's mostly for when those Nexu and Officers keep rolling dodges...

True, although "Shot on the Run" would net the same effect (deal one unblockable damage) without having to "waste" the attack as long as you performed a move and pass the insight check (plus it as a passive +1 speed boost). Over the course of a whole campaign, that probably nets more bang out of 1xp.

pinpoint shot also triggers boltslinger, and also weakens.

1 hour ago, Rythbryt said:

True, although "Shot on the Run" would net the same effect (deal one unblockable damage) without having to "waste" the attack as long as you performed a move and pass the insight check (plus it as a passive +1 speed boost). Over the course of a whole campaign, that probably nets more bang out of 1xp.

Not taking it would waste the attack... Unless you plan on never attacking white die figured and depending entirely on 1 point damages? What I meant is that when you do attack and the figure rolls a dodge, then you can use this is a consolation prize to at least score a damage (more with other class upgrades). Bear in mind that shot on the run also requires a successful insight test on blue green green... Which could easily fail. In our game one player kept failing blue green yellow tests. Pinpoint is at least a guaranteed 1 damage and weaken, possibly 2 damage with dead on.

27 minutes ago, MadFuhrer said:

pinpoint shot also triggers boltslinger, and also weakens.

Good point!

40 minutes ago, neosmagus said:

Bear in mind that shot on the run also requires a successful insight test on blue green green... Which could easily fail. In our game one player kept failing blue green yellow tests.

Very true. I've mentioned before that my team had Jyn whiff on a focused tech test (BGGY). Failure is always possible.

1 hour ago, MadFuhrer said:

pinpoint shot also triggers boltslinger, and also weakens.

I think this is the key to Pinpoint Shot. It can have really severe effects on enemies that rely on evades and surges with it guaranteed Weaken (though we all know Stun or Bleed would be so much better).

Great conversation about Pinpoint! I imagine if for whatever reason you don't plan to buy him a weapon for a while Pinpoint might be a good way to enhance his starter weapon. It works well with Offhand, too. Thing is Rapid Fire is his bread and butter. You want it as quickly as possible regardless of anything else. By the time it comes around to getting something else, Pinpoint drops down the priority list quickly.

32 minutes ago, Alfhiggins said:

Great conversation about Pinpoint! I imagine if for whatever reason you don't plan to buy him a weapon for a while Pinpoint might be a good way to enhance his starter weapon. It works well with Offhand, too. Thing is Rapid Fire is his bread and butter. You want it as quickly as possible regardless of anything else. By the time it comes around to getting something else, Pinpoint drops down the priority list quickly.

I disagree - I think in some teams he doesn't need Rapid Fire at all. The Vinto in our group got Merciless and was very effective. And I would say Shot on the Run is worth delaying a 4XP for.

4 hours ago, neosmagus said:

Not taking it would waste the attack... Unless you plan on never attacking white die figured and depending entirely on 1 point damages? What I meant is that when you do attack and the figure rolls a dodge, then you can use this is a consolation prize to at least score a damage (more with other class upgrades). Bear in mind that shot on the run also requires a successful insight test on blue green green... Which could easily fail. In our game one player kept failing blue green yellow tests. Pinpoint is at least a guaranteed 1 damage and weaken, possibly 2 damage with dead on.

It's true that you can fail the insight test. But you need to consider the situations where Pinpoint Shot actually nets you an extra damage. You only get an extra damage out of it when you deal 0 damage on an attack. Shot on the Run gives you an extra damage when you pass an insight test. And your odds of dealing 0 damage on an attack are way lower than your odds of passing an insight test.

22 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

It's true that you can fail the insight test. But you need to consider the situations where Pinpoint Shot actually nets you an extra damage. You only get an extra damage out of it when you deal 0 damage on an attack. Shot on the Run gives you an extra damage when you pass an insight test. And your odds of dealing 0 damage on an attack are way lower than your odds of passing an insight test.

I think you need to consider 0 or 1 damage on an attack. If I were only dealing 1 damage I would use Pinpoint to add Weaken. This is usually more common early campaign, or at least prior to buying him a new weapon. In other words, it's most effective when you're trying to save for more important abilities, once you have the XP to spare you don't need it.

10 hours ago, Uninvited Guest said:

I think you need to consider 0 or 1 damage on an attack. If I were only dealing 1 damage I would use Pinpoint to add Weaken. This is usually more common early campaign, or at least prior to buying him a new weapon. In other words, it's most effective when you're trying to save for more important abilities, once you have the XP to spare you don't need it.

Right, you could use it to improve a 1 damage attack too. But then it's not adding 1 damage, it's just adding Weaken.

20 hours ago, Stompburger said:

I disagree - I think in some teams he doesn't need Rapid Fire at all. The Vinto in our group got Merciless and was very effective. And I would say Shot on the Run is worth delaying a 4XP for.

It's true that you can fail the insight test. But you need to consider the situations where Pinpoint Shot actually nets you an extra damage. You only get an extra damage out of it when you deal 0 damage on an attack. Shot on the Run gives you an extra damage when you pass an insight test. And your odds of dealing 0 damage on an attack are way lower than your odds of passing an insight test.

Point taken. Who else was on that team?

Have you seen Rapid Fire working in game as well? I have not seen Merciless and am curious to try next time Vinto is on the board. I did take Shot before Rapid. Worked fine. I'd rather have Rapid first. I will respectfully agree to disagree with you on Rapid vs Merciless generally speaking.

One of the beauties of this game is that there are always so many moving parts that change each time you play.

Skipping Rapid Fire makes no sense to me. Activating Merciless becomes much harder without it, you basically would be unable to use it on your first action unless the target had existing damage. By skipping Rapid Fire, you are taking away a major component of his dps identity (multi target dps). The cards you would replace it with are Battlefield Experience and Sharpshooter (Rapid Fire does the same thing only as offhand+pinpoint only better). Sharpshooter is significantly worse without Rapid Fire & Battlefield Experience is good, but the extra endurance is not so impactful since Rapid Fire is a major source of Vinto's strain.

If you want Merciless, then Shot on the run, Rapid Fire, Merciless, then DeadOn/Battlefield Experience/Sharpshooter is the only build that makes sense to me.

1 hour ago, Alfhiggins said:

Point taken. Who else was on that team?

Have you seen Rapid Fire working in game as well? I have not seen Merciless and am curious to try next time Vinto is on the board. I did take Shot before Rapid. Worked fine. I'd rather have Rapid first. I will respectfully agree to disagree with you on Rapid vs Merciless generally speaking.

One of the beauties of this game is that there are always so many moving parts that change each time you play.

The team was Shyla, Onar, Murne and Vinto.

But maybe more importantly, the Imperial player (me) was playing Nemeses, so Merciless got a lot of value taking down big targets.

But Merciless is also great against medium sized targets like Royal Guards, Trandoshans, and Dewbacks. So if you're not running into many of those, then Rapid Fire is almost certainly better. And I could definitely see going for Rapid Fire before Shot on the Run, but if you want to get Merciless, you should get Shot on the Run first to trigger it.

And generally I like to pick up at least one 1 or 2 XP ability first, just because I think it's more fun to have a couple abilities even in early missions

And one of the great things about Vinto is that he has so many amazing abilities! I think it would be hard to come up with a build that's actually bad for him.

39 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

The team was Shyla, Onar, Murne and Vinto.

But maybe more importantly, the Imperial player (me) was playing Nemeses, so Merciless got a lot of value taking down big targets.

But Merciless is also great against medium sized targets like Royal Guards, Trandoshans, and Dewbacks. So if you're not running into many of those, then Rapid Fire is almost certainly better. And I could definitely see going for Rapid Fire before Shot on the Run, but if you want to get Merciless, you should get Shot on the Run first to trigger it.

And generally I like to pick up at least one 1 or 2 XP ability first, just because I think it's more fun to have a couple abilities even in early missions

And one of the great things about Vinto is that he has so many amazing abilities! I think it would be hard to come up with a build that's actually bad for him.

I don't know enough about the imperial stuff to tell you which deck he was using.

Good point about the complimentarity of Shot and Merciless. I also like to have that 1 or 2xp at the beginning for a bit of extra leverage and fun. Totally agree about the versatility of his build options.

1 hour ago, Deadwolf said:

Skipping Rapid Fire makes no sense to me. Activating Merciless becomes much harder without it, you basically would be unable to use it on your first action unless the target had existing damage. By skipping Rapid Fire, you are taking away a major component of his dps identity (multi target dps). The cards you would replace it with are Battlefield Experience and Sharpshooter (Rapid Fire does the same thing only as offhand+pinpoint only better). Sharpshooter is significantly worse without Rapid Fire & Battlefield Experience is good, but the extra endurance is not so impactful since Rapid Fire is a major source of Vinto's strain.

If you want Merciless, then Shot on the run, Rapid Fire, Merciless, then DeadOn/Battlefield Experience/Sharpshooter is the only build that makes sense to me.

I was very curious to see how Offhand played out to push his multi target dps. Plus he is using two weapons on the model! ?

When I play him again I'll probably go something like Rapid, Shot, Merciless, Battlefield, Sharpshooter (allowing for 13xp). All depending on how the rest of the variables play out, of course.

I will share my Vinto Build. I haven't tried them, Just theory crafting for now.

Build 1: Single Target Dmg Dealer (12xp) : Shot on the Run, Merciless, Dead on, Rapid Fire. ( Pretty straight Forward )

Build 2: Multi-target Cleanup + Reroll (12xp) : Shot on the Run, Rapid Fire, Dead On, Sharp Shooter, Battlefield Endurance. ( Positioning and Knowing when to act is Key , Otherwise the build will seem very weak. This is very effective against the 3 to 5 hp imperial units in initial deployment)

Build 3: Flexibility of Attacks (11xp) : Shot on the Run, Merciless, Off-hand Blaster, Pin Point Shot, Battlefield Endurance. [This is the build I am most interested in trying. you will start out as a single target damage dealer build. But you will shine after you acquire Off-hand Blaster. The idea is, at two thirds of the campaign, you can be very flexible in your decisions. Either you can go Hard on a single target with merciless OR you can make 3 medium attacks with bolt slinger, 1) 1 normal attack with a proper gun that passes 5 dmg after block > trigger boltslinger ~ 1 dmg, 2) Off-Hand Blaster + Merciless ~4dmg > Trigger boltslinger 1dmg, 3) Normal attack action 5dmg > boltslinger ~1dmg]

Offhand Blaster+Pinpoint shot basically does the same thing as Rapid Fire, 1 dmg for 1 strain. Offhand blaster's main advantage is a 22% chance of doing 2 damage to a single target as well as triggering boltslinger compared to Rapid Fire's 1 dmg to all targets in range 3. Offhand blaster also only has a guaranteed range of 2, compared to the range 3 of rapid fire, tho it does also have the possibility of hitting at range 4 and 5.

So Rapid Fire is better when there are 3 or more targets. Offhand Blaster with boltslinger will hit 2 targets each or 1 and a 22% chance at 2 dmg. So offhand blaster isnt actually as terrible as I thought, tho i think rapid fire has the edge.

but attacks from offhand blaster can be defended, damage dealt by rapidfire can not be defended, right?

17 minutes ago, ITS_a_TRAP said:

but attacks from offhand blaster can be defended, damage dealt by rapidfire can not be defended, right?

Correct, because Rapid Fire isn't an attack.

25 minutes ago, ITS_a_TRAP said:

but attacks from offhand blaster can be defended, damage dealt by rapidfire can not be defended, right?

I was comparing Offhand Blaster w/ Pinpoint Shot to Rapid Fire. You will always do 1 dmg, with a 22% chance of doing 2 damage.