Guitar Weapon Fan Club

[WhymeLyu]

Recently I started to play more multiplayer. The guitar weapon, despite being new and cool, is not a common sight as far as I've seen. Hope this post, written in a review-like fashion, would give you the idea of trying them out.

Basic Attack: Power Chord

Guitar has an interesting basic attack: it shoots 3 pellets (5 with The Bard card[victorvran.gamepedia.com]) per attack which works like conventional shotgun in shooter games. The pellets has slow speed and short range, which made me unimpressed at the first glance. But the whole design makes the guitar more like a melee weapon with ranged attack capability. You are rewarded with 2X ~ 5X damage by getting close to your target. And yet you are still able to kite melee enemies and don't have to suffer from melee range debuffs (those pesky essences).

Split-time attack

Unlike scythe / shotgun, guitar's split-time attack just has a 100% chance of critical hit instead of inflicting vulnerable status. This means when perfectly executed, you can enjoy 100% crit chance one attack sooner. But the downside is there's no vulnerable status for other high-damage skills (especially skills of an off-hand weapon) to take advantage of. You'd better just keep spamming basic attacks which works totally fine as your primary damage output.

To practice split-time attack, grab yourself any non-legendary guitar and go find the 3 dummies in Zagore Castle. Attack the dummies by clicking mouse button to the rhythm of the chord (instead of holding mouse button). Or, if you don't care about the rhythm, click mouse button right after the attack cooldown is over. That's basically how to do split-time attack.

Each time you make a successful split-time attack, you'll see that your guitar shoots pellets with a deeper red color. This doesn't seem to work for legendary guitars as their pellets keep the same look. Also, there will be black / red circles flashing briefly around Victor for split-time attacks. You'll need these visual feedback to adjust clicking rhythm for continuously successful split-time attacks. The audible chords while doing any basic attacks (whether split-time or not) is NOT a viable feedback, contrary to what the developer said here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/345180/discussions/1/1354868867715643470/#c1354868867715910017

EDIT: It turns out that legendary guitars can actually shoot differently colored pellets with split-time attack. But they don't seem to be very distinctive to me.

On top of 100% crit chance, split-time attack also has a chance to make monsters around Victor to headbang.

Weapon Skill: Bang!

For a while this skill (or "special attack") looks promising to me: a chain lightning with a merely 4 seconds cooldown, capable of doing 4X weapon damage. It just feels too sluggish to become a frequent use and you can accidentally cancel it by dodge rolling too soon. For now I only use this skill for Might status (extra bonus: it works with multiplayer) or snipe an alone monster from afar.

Weapon Skill: Wicked Solo

More like wicked yolo. But seriously, this skill does way more damage than it shows in the in-game codex. It's both capable of doing high damage to a single target and AOE. Just throw yourself toward target(s) and music + lightnings will do the rest. The developers have to balance it with a very long cooldown.

I'm not totally sure how this skill works. It seems that the longer the time a monster stays close to Victor, the more damage it would take. Pushing a monster against a wall guarantees high damage. Just remember to scroll dodge at the end of each solo in order to get out of recovery state.

Aspects of Build

Having a solid understanding of all weapon attacks, the choice of items for your build should naturally falls in place.

• Defense: get a Brute's Charm. Everybody is using this. Wicked Solo is pretty good at filling up Brute's talisman energy.
  
• Raw damage: The Bard card is pretty much a must-have for close range shotgunning. And with the Phil's Outfit from Motorhead DLC & 1 more card slot enabled by The Fractured World DLC, both Wildcard & The Devil are indirectly buffed by the increased card number.
  
• Critical damage: with split-time attacks, you don't have to invest in +% crit chance attribute for basic attacks. But higher crit chance / inflicting Vulnerable debuff still works with weapon skills. Side note: guitars have a base crit chance of 22%, which is higher than the most common 17%. Guitars should easily fit your crit-based builds if not being better than most other weapons.
  
• Skill cooldowns: imagine that you can keep doing Wicked Solo, that would be so ... overpowered. But this gives you an idea of build: invest in shortening cooldowns. The Barbarian card, "- X seconds cooldown when overkill" attribute, etc. Fun fact: with a well upgraded weapon with -% cooldown attribute (max at -44%), the cooldown of Wicked Solo would be shorter than the invincibility duration of a fully upgraded Brute's Charm.
  
• Demon Power: with its side effects negated by Charm talisman, Berserk Aura is a really good choice. But I don't think you'll really need that much damage potential even for a 4-player CoC run. Non-overdrive-blocking demon powers are good for adding versatility to multiplayer games. Seriously, clicking mouse with Berserk Aura + invincibility all the time will soon make you bored.
  
• Crowd control: both basic attack and Wicked Solo can inflict Headbang (which isn't quite good to begin with). Guitar just falls short in this department. Consider complementing with demon powers. Also, a Wicked card with the "X% chance to inflict Cripple on critical hit" attribute could be helpful.
  
• Special attributes of legendary weapons: I still keep The Killmeister in inventory just for constant AOE damage when it's needed. Other legendary guitars doesn't really interest me. But I'll sure play around with them later.

Right now I'm settling on these equipments: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=966283052

It works well in multiplayer games. Without having to challenge high tiered The Fracture / Bottomless Pit, I can just stop worrying about min-maxing and start to enjoy the game more.

Conclusion

Guitars are efficient, versatile and fun to play. Be sure to give them a try. Meanwhile revolvers still feel like sh*t

[xylt]

Originally posted by WhymeLyu:

...Just remember to scroll dodge at the end of each solo in order to get out of recovery state.
...

I'ld honestly recommend to not interrupt the end of the solo with a dodge because you won't get the Enraged buff then. (only if you really HAVE to get out of the way of an attack)
100% more damage for the next attack can be really useful.

[WhymeLyu]

Originally posted by xylt:

Originally posted by WhymeLyu:

...Just remember to scroll dodge at the end of each solo in order to get out of recovery state.
...

I'ld honestly recommend to not interrupt the end of the solo with a dodge because you won't get the Enraged buff then. (only if you really HAVE to get out of the way of an attack)
100% more damage for the next attack can be really useful.

Good point. The Enraged buff is something I totally overlooked probably due to my play style requires me to get really close to enemies & just spam basic attack. Only 1 shot of +100% damage doesn't seem to be worth the time lost. But I can imagine that would work well with offhand weapon.

[xylt]

well... technically it's X shots with +100% more damage where X is the number of party-members since it "grants you and all allies the Enraged buff".

Just really difficult to time your attacks right if you're not playing local coop or online with voice-chat.