Found out how to make a Ranger Pawn actually shoot after hundreds of hours

[Alexksa]

Is the community aware of this?
No matter what inclination you give to a ranger pawn or what skills you equip it always seems to be way too passive compared to what it could be doing with the bow.
For some reason the developers have hidden an insanely important mechanic for pawn behavior, the hidden effects of augments!
Since other people's rangers rarely acted better I just couldn't pin down what I was doing wrong, then I saw an interesting claim somewhere: that the seemingly useless bow related augments completely change the way a pawn acts.

I equipped these two on my pawn:
-Damping: lowers recoil after firing your bow
-Trajectory: increases the range of your arrows
Seems useless, right? Well as soon as my pawn got these it started going Robin Hood on everything!

I can't believe I took my pawn's strider-like behavior for granted throughout the entire game, ranger is so cool when it actually works.
Things that happened for the first time after doing this:
-My pawn ran out of stamina, something that hasn't happened since it had the Bezel Crown in the early game
-It actually managed to stunlock an eliminator by constantly freezing it and knocking it back with the Dragon's Glaze
-It helped me stunlock Daimon's second form with aggressive shooting
-It actually acts like a ranger pawn, prioritizes the bow in almost every situation, you can feel the support with the increased volume of fire and frequent skill usage

There is a small possibility that I'm delusional and that all this happened because I accidentally stumbled on the right combination for inclinations and skills (daggers only have instant reset equipped, I think it's currently challenger/pioneer).
However, I only noticed this giant change after trying out the augments.

If you feel like trying this tell me how it worked out for you.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

That's something kinda well known about pawn. Give them augments related to a weapon and they will use that weapon more often.

Yeah ranger pawns only need instant reset as dagger skill, you dont want them to do anything else with their daggers.

Someting funny to do with a ranger pawn also is to give them a GDF rusted longbow and corkscrew arrow (spiral arrow + skill ring) as their only longbow skill.

[Alexksa]

Originally posted by Guh~hey~hey~♫:

That's something kinda well known about pawn. Give them augments related to a weapon and they will use that weapon more often.

Yeah ranger pawns only need instant reset as dagger skill, you dont want them to do anything else with their daggers.

Someting funny to do with a ranger pawn also is to give them a GDF rusted longbow and corkscrew arrow (spiral arrow + skill ring) as their only longbow skill.

Thanks for the info.
That rusted corkscrew combo sounds insane, would be funny to see some slow motion action. Usually handled that myself, but now that the pawn is shooting, well...

[zadymek]

I heard this claim few time, and briefly researched this, and along with few other ppl we came to conclusion that augments affecting Pawn behaviour claim is unsubstantiated.

[Alexksa]

Originally posted by zadymek:

I heard this claim few time, and briefly researched this, and along with few other ppl we came to conclusion that augments affecting Pawn behaviour claim is unsubstantiated.

Could you share the method you guys used?
I'd like to hear about it because, naturally, no one wants to waste 2 augment slots if they don't really have to.
I suppose that the pawn behaviour calculations do take augments into account in some way, but just how substantial or inconsequential is it?

[zadymek]

Originally posted by Alexksa:

Could you share the method you guys used?
I'd like to hear about it because, naturally, no one wants to waste 2 augment slots if they don't really have to.
I suppose that the pawn behaviour calculations do take augments into account in some way, but just how substantial or inconsequential is it?

Simple comparison of Pawn behavior with and without.
You put specific claim about Augments influence under scrutiny.
Give the Pawn no Augments, or other Augments and see how it performs against the control enemy group. You observe which skills the Pawn prefers, how often and so on.
Then give the Pawn few claimed augments and see if there's any change, eventually use elixirs to check this with different inclinations.

There used to be various claims about Augments, like they can encourage the skill use, "bravery" or jump attacks. Never saw any of that woking or anyone presenting a compelling evidence, like video evidence, that it does.

[Alexksa]

Originally posted by zadymek:

Originally posted by Alexksa:

Could you share the method you guys used?
I'd like to hear about it because, naturally, no one wants to waste 2 augment slots if they don't really have to.
I suppose that the pawn behaviour calculations do take augments into account in some way, but just how substantial or inconsequential is it?

Simple comparison of Pawn behavior with and without.
You put specific claim about Augments influence under scrutiny.
Give the Pawn no Augments, or other Augments and see how it performs against the control enemy group. You observe which skills the Pawn prefers, how often and so on.
Then give the Pawn few claimed augments and see if there's any change, eventually use elixirs to check this with different inclinations.

There used to be various claims about Augments, like they can encourage the skill use, "bravery" or jump attacks. Never saw any of that woking or anyone presenting a compelling evidence, like video evidence, that it does.

Damn, so even if there was a subtle difference, there would be no real way to know for sure?
Well, if the difference is that hard to spot it shouldn't matter anyway.
I might just do a similar experiment to yours sometime.
Hopefully in DD2 I won't be forced to make them chug elixirs, and they'll be better at imitating the player's gameplay style.
If not then I just hope they give us more control over the way a pawn acts other than elixirs/chairs and commands, it's too easy to train bad habits.

[zadymek]

Originally posted by Alexksa:

I might just do a similar experiment to yours sometime.

Preferably do it this way:
- at least few tests per each Augment setup
- vocation well established not suddenly changed
- always on the same enemies that Pawn knows well
- never at the Bitterblack Isle. Isle is "corrupting" Pawns.
- and don't stand still and watch as this affects Pawn behavior.

Those are conditions I used to neglect, but then, after I have made some bogus claims, I have sworn to use ;)

[Zeithri]

I'd recon it's more to do with a Pawns' Inclination as opposed to their augments.

But also their training. When my pawn were untrained, I had issues like this.
Now, I don't. If I make her a Ranger or Strider, she's constantly bullseyeing just about everything, if her Inclination is set to something aggressive i.e. Scather, Mitigator or Challenger.

[Vic]

Ranger pawns with tenfold and blast arrows have the fastest kill time in the game, second only to players with the same build. As long as you can supply them blast arrows they will put your enemies in the oven.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Originally posted by Vic:

Ranger pawns with tenfold and blast arrows have the fastest kill time in the game, second only to players with the same build. As long as you can supply them blast arrows they will put your enemies in the oven.

Pawns never use blast arrows with special skills and only use special arrows in specific conditions (once a week when you're lucky)....
So no... They dont "have the fastest kill time in the game" :o

[Vic]

Originally posted by Guh~hey~hey~♫:

Originally posted by Vic:

Ranger pawns with tenfold and blast arrows have the fastest kill time in the game, second only to players with the same build. As long as you can supply them blast arrows they will put your enemies in the oven.

Pawns never use blast arrows with special skills and only use special arrows in specific conditions (once a week when you're lucky)....
So no... They dont "have the fastest kill time in the game" :o

https://youtu.be/YNOJfcmvCRw

When they finally equip them the ranger solos hard mode daimon, he is basically stunlocked the entire fight and doesn't need any real help. If you give them a vim it might go even better as it only ran out of breathe once toward the end.

[gammav]

Originally posted by Vic:

Originally posted by Guh~hey~hey~♫:

Pawns never use blast arrows with special skills and only use special arrows in specific conditions (once a week when you're lucky)....
So no... They dont "have the fastest kill time in the game" :o

https://youtu.be/YNOJfcmvCRw

When they finally equip them the ranger solos hard mode daimon, he is basically stunlocked the entire fight and doesn't need any real help. If you give them a vim it might go even better as it only ran out of breathe once toward the end.

Strider dont need blast arrow + dont have to depend on RNG Daimon cast possession. And they excellent in both melee and range

[Vic]

Originally posted by gammav:

Originally posted by Vic:

https://youtu.be/YNOJfcmvCRw

When they finally equip them the ranger solos hard mode daimon, he is basically stunlocked the entire fight and doesn't need any real help. If you give them a vim it might go even better as it only ran out of breathe once toward the end.

Strider dont need blast arrow + dont have to depend on RNG Daimon cast possession. And they excellent in both melee and range

It's the player's fault if they can't do something as simple as getting 100% possession resistance.

[gammav]

Originally posted by Vic:

Originally posted by gammav:

Strider dont need blast arrow + dont have to depend on RNG Daimon cast possession. And they excellent in both melee and range

It's the player's fault if they can't do something as simple as getting 100% possession resistance.

No you misunderstood.
The possession spell is for triggering Ranger pawn to start using blast arrow. Literally on that nihil0.0 video

[zadymek]

Originally posted by gammav:

The possession spell is for triggering Ranger pawn to start using blast arrow. Literally on that nihil0.0 video

I think it's not the possession that does the job just the Threat level increase from party members becoming unconscious.
Generally, the premise of the video falls apart as the... whatever happens to hired pawns does the job, not all this meticulosly planned build ;)