marksman rifle

[Krinkle]

having a horrible time with this on nightmare. I can't find anything that works. Someone, a year ago, said it's incredible with chance based mods. But every time I go to the random portals it's like okay so chance to reload on kill, chance to get ammo on hit, chance to get prizes when breaking rocks. NONE OF THAT HELPS ME KILL THINGS

[Krinkle]

ahahahhahahaah one more try and i got it. idk what combo helped but purple random chance mods are good and blue are all terrible
chance to fire link shots maybe. something was spreading and clearing huge waves. it was all over when i got legendary poison storm on shot

[Casurin]

Originally posted by Krinkle:

so chance to reload on kill, chance to get ammo on hit, chance to get prizes when breaking rocks. NONE OF THAT HELPS ME KILL THINGS

Those are all good to GREAT in the long run.
Reload and ammo-back essientially let you fire indefinitely which again works good with perks like WindUp. And reloading takes time - which really hinders DPS once you get some good firerate going.
And getting items when breaking rocks: It got nerfed heavily now but still one of the better picks if you go for 2 loops, and great if you want to go longer. It is a chance for extra items. at later stages that can easily be +1 items per island and together with extra-rocks that increases to multiple.
none of them are all that good for short runs where you quit after the first Boss.

[Limdood]

the ammo perks are pretty garbage. efficiency and autoloader are borderline useless. The only ammo items that ever feel worth it at all are ring of reloading, the ring that reloads on dash, and "all you can eat"....anything else is generally sell or pick something else, except in the most dire of circumstances.

Driller, however, is arguably the strongest economy perk in the game. It has a few caveats, like you need to break rocks and cacti BEFORE the island is over, which can mean delaying killing enemies while you break rocks, but it generally provides more items than any other perk in the game, save maybe rare treasure (a legendary). Those extra items mean more random drops, some of which might be useful, and the ones that aren't are able to be sold to give a per-level income higher than economy perks. Driller is the ultimate "invest in the future" pick, because it gives you nothing when you get it, but it will pay for itself a dozen times over during the course of the run if you make it that long.

The "chance based mods that work great on the marksman rifle" are SPECIFICALLY the "chance to trigger on HIT" mods, which are all from damage chests. Things like bubble shot, spark shot, link/drill shot (beta only), and other similar mods....NOT "chance to trigger on firing" mods like thorn shot, pumpkin shot, firework shot. The reason is that marksman rifle is a multi-bullet gun, so chance on hit gets 3 separate rolls to trigger the effect.

As far as the "blue chance mods are bad and purple chance mods are good"....well, Driller is a blue and again is the most powerful blue OR purple economy item in the game - so you generally always have that as an option, and it's worth it. As for the purples, while many are amazing, like split, arc, and triple shot, the purple pool on luck chests is bloated by including both the shot pattern purples as well as the proc-based ability mods (triple, layered, bouncing) and bulletproof, so while getting a couple arc/split shots can make your entire run, it's ALWAYS a gamble opening those specifically to search for shot pattern mods. Luckily Driller fixes that gamble by giving a super useful fallback option.

[Krinkle]

Thanks for the tips. that's all a good point. I'll go driller from now on

[MangoEagle]

I think you have a misunderstanding on what people mean by "chance on hit mods". They are referring to bubble shot, drill shot, link shot etc. It's also good with split shot which is rarely available from luck chests and will more likely be acquired from epic or spiked chests.

[Dopey Shepard]

Originally posted by Krinkle:

having a horrible time with this on nightmare. I can't find anything that works. Someone, a year ago, said it's incredible with chance based mods. But every time I go to the random portals it's like okay so chance to reload on kill, chance to get ammo on hit, chance to get prizes when breaking rocks. NONE OF THAT HELPS ME KILL THINGS

I may have been the one to say its good with chance based mods as I usually post a separate thread reviewing every single new weapon in the game

It fires 3 projectiles at once, even at reduced fire rate, with the chance to proc chance-based elemental stuff, it's quite good, not as good as Crossbow though, but still there at the top

Just in case you are playing in beta version - fire is really strong here, so go for Fire Shot and you will be killing big boys quite fast with those

Other than that, go for bubble shot probably - the most consistent one of all

It's also good with split shot

to be fair, split shot usually splits ONE projectile into 3, so in case of Marksman's Rifle, you will be getting 5 projectiles instead of 3, as 1 gets split into 3. You may only pick it up if you have nothing better to choose from. Stuff like Arc Shot/Split Shot/Triple Shot is good but inaccurate, the pellets/projectiles are all over the place and they are NOT affected by Grip Tape iirc

[MangoEagle]

It's also good with split shot

to be fair, split shot usually splits ONE projectile into 3, so in case of Marksman's Rifle, you will be getting 5 projectiles instead of 3, as 1 gets split into 3. You may only pick it up if you have nothing better to choose from. Stuff like Arc Shot/Split Shot/Triple Shot is good but inaccurate, the pellets/projectiles are all over the place and they are NOT affected by Grip Tape iirc

Split shot can split all of your projectiles not just 1. This also combos with arc shot, triple shot, x shot, square shot, firepower. I believe it also does not split 1 into 3 but rather splits once then has a chance to split each of the children again going from 1 -> 4. Also arc shot, triple shot etc. is affected by gripe tape. Only split shot is not.

In short split shot actually can take a marksmen rifle from 3 bullets to 12. Which greatly increases On Hit procs as well.

[Dopey Shepard]

Huh?! I tested this thing a long time ago and I don't think anything changed regarding it. Split Shot and others split ONE projectile

You can easily check this with Auto Shotgun or Crossbow. If Split Shot actually split all of my 7 crossbow pellets there would be 21 but that is just never the case, even with 100% Split chance

It's 1 projectile split into 3 so Crossbow only ends up having 9 projectiles which, compared to 7 is rather insignificant. Crossbow is still at the top of my personal list, despite how good Split Shot etc. work on other weapons

I think you need to re-check your data because I'm pretty positive about mine.

Also, if you do build stuff like Grip Tape, you end up reducing the spread of your weapon's primary projectiles so Crossbow can actually fire in a straight line with all of its 7 primary projectiles but the auxiliary Split/Arc/Triple shots will not be lined up with 100% accuracy because Grip Tape doesn't affect them

Marksman's Rifle is alredy quite inaccurate especially in scoped mode to make up for its damage and great chances to proc chance-based mods so adding these "Shots" is probably not a good idea

[Limdood]

Split shot works like other per-pellet weapons....it can split none, one, two, all, etc. of your shots. It seems to apply it's % chance per pellet (so it would be beneficial on marksman rifle for consistency, but not for burst, and would have the same OVERALL damage as a single shot weapon.....3x10 vs 1x30, with a 15% per pellet to do triple damage will average out to the same total damage).

You can see it by getting 1 or more arc shot on the rocket launcher and 1 split shot....split shot on rocket launcher is both really really easy to SEE the effects of, and has a 50% proc chance, so firing an arc of 5, you'll often see 2 or 3 of the 5 projectiles split.

[Dopey Shepard]

Bro that's the point! On Rocket launcher it's a totally different thing because that thing fires ONE projectile. With 1 single Split Shot/Triple Shot you have like 70% chance of it activating either on RL, or Sniper Rifle too. You clearly see 3 projectiles. Arc Shot adds 4, for 5 in total

If you have 100% chance on Split Shot/Arc Shot/Triple Shot, you should have 1+2+2+4=9 projectiles and that's not taking into account Quad Shot/X shot/whatever other thing that also affects it. Not sure about Double Tap or the stuff that fires another projectile any time you fire one

I never saw myself doing 21 projectiles with my Crossbow even with 100% Split/Triple Shot. I mean, it should be 21 if all projectiles get split, right, considering Crossbow has 7 native projectiles? However, in my experience only one main middle projectile gets split/divided, and the rest work the same, not being affected. Otherwise I'd definitely be seeing hundreds of projectiles flying with 1 shot of crossbow if I were to have Split+Triple+Arc Shot at 100%. Maybe I'm being wrong here but from my tests that never was the case

[Casurin]

Originally posted by Dopey Shepard:

If you have 100% chance on Split Shot/Arc Shot/Triple Shot, you should have 1+2+2+4=9 projectiles

+2 from triple, +6 from arc => 9 projectiles right out the barrel. And then they ALL split.
Has been like that for a long time. maybe you just mixed up tripleshot and splitshot in your memories?

Originally posted by Limdood:

The only ammo items that ever feel worth it at all are ring of reloading, the ring that reloads on dash

Once your firerate is a bit higher that is completely useless. Not only that - you are wasting the highest value item-slots for that.

Originally posted by Limdood:

NOT "chance to trigger on firing" mods like thorn shot, pumpkin shot, firework shot. The reason is that marksman rifle is a multi-bullet gun, so chance on hit gets 3 separate rolls to trigger the effect.

Those all are still good as they still get the higher proc-chance and some of those are incredibly strong once you get them going. Like a LOT stronger than say bubbleshot.

Originally posted by Limdood:

is the most powerful blue OR purple economy item in the game

Aside from divident.

[Limdood]

"on firing" effects do not gain increased chances from multi-pellet weapons. Only "on hit" effects do

[MangoEagle]

Originally posted by Limdood:

"on firing" effects do not gain increased chances from multi-pellet weapons. Only "on hit" effects do

I think they are referring to the fact that the marksmen rifle has a decent base proc chance.

Also I just checked and split shot doesn't just split up to three but can split up to four. I believe that the First split makes children then each of those children can then split once more.

[Dopey Shepard]

I mean, no offence, I just tested this thing once again, and sorry, but I was right all along

Crossbow - Triple Shot lvl 3 - 100% chance proc
Tested on the Shop Skull
4 base damage
Aimed in - 7 projectiles do 28 damage naturally

With Triple Shot equipped varies from 36 to 48 because I had Ring of Wisdom giving me some Crit Chance

Basically only the middle projectile gets split into 3, NOT all of them

It would be utterly ridiculous on Crossbow if all 7 projectiles were to be split into 21

If you don't believe me, see for yourselves in your future runs, I'm not lying. It has been like this since Variety Update 1 when I first bought the game

Basically this applies to Marksman Rifle or Auto Shotgun or any other weapon with multiple projectiles, that it only affects one middle (primary one)

So its not that great on it

Better do it with Auto Rifle so all your projectiles will be affected

[Casurin]

Originally posted by Dopey Shepard:

I mean, no offence, I just tested this thing once again, and sorry, but I was right all along

Also just tested it - splitshot splits projectiles from tripleshot, arcshot any all thos - but not the other projectiles from multi-projectile weapons. kinda strange but ok.