Anyone have any luck with Torrent?

[KDR_11k]

I've never managed to get any useful build with Torrent as the weapon, the low range and slow projectiles man I basically have to rub my ship against the target to hit it. My first instinct for that would be to use Pulse instead. What am I missing?

[CHOO CHOO]

Torrent has a fairly high sustained damage output, but as you noticed you need to either make your projectiles go to where you need them, or you need to drive it right into your enemies.

Stacking velocity and targeting helps a lot. Alternatively or additionally, you could go with a Broadside or Courser body and do fly-by-shootings.

[KDR_11k]

I think if I'm going to do fly-bys I'd rather use Firefly and either have a weapon for a different role or go for Hidden Power. For sustained DPS it seems to me that Flak or Split Shot plus Barrage has roughly the same effect but much more range. Torrent just has been a risky gamble for me.

[CHOO CHOO]

Fair enough, yeah. I'd also rather use Flak in pretty much any situation.

[Draco18s]

I've found that I prefer the Split Shot weapon, but did try torrent and found the low range and weird pattern to be remarkably difficult to use effectively. Even the heavy-single-target power of Railgun (in a game that screams for the player to have massive AOE) was usable until a few upgrades came into play (namely I went with Broadside and even though it was annoying to aim, it hit like a truck and kept going, didn't matter if my first shot missed as I was able to realign and fire again without too much danger due to the long range).

The only build I've literally not tried is the "ram into stuff" build because I can't figure out how to even make it work with the upgrades that are available. Yes, there's a couple that would be very powerful, but in general I see one or two of those per run much less often enough to attempt it as a viable strategy.

[Feculator]

The secret of Torrent is that it has ultra-high firerate, so you can get Siege Weaponry+Rebuke, Shield discharge, and the shield retaliation thingy and constantly be firing out homing Rebuke orbs, lightning strikes, and a short-range laser. Corrosion also works very well with it.
Another option is instead of siege+rebuke, you go siege+channeling. Channeling makes your armor stacks (which build super fast thanks to Torrent) grant shield effect power - combined with Temporal, Halo, or Siphon shield, some pretty interesting stuff happens.

[JudgeTy]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1943900967

Halfshell made a guide for it.

[Thor]

Barrage + Viper Hull + Siege Weaponry will turn you into a space-flamethrower when using Torrent. You can melt the final boss before he begins his railgun phase through sheer DPS.

[Halfshell]

Originalmente postado por JudgeTy:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1943900967

Halfshell made a guide for it.

This reminds me that I need to update that guide with more Torrent builds but coming up with clever, water themed names is really holding me back. The TLDR is to use Firefly hull and build Calibrate so that you have decent range and build from there. Eventually you end up with a proper ranged weapon with the highest reasonable DPS possible.

I should note that picking up Turrets is really good as a backup weapon after the update for when you can't safely engage something, like the Reflect boss.

Originalmente postado por CHOO CHOO:

Torrent has a fairly high sustained damage output, but as you noticed you need to either make your projectiles go to where you need them, or you need to drive it right into your enemies.

Stacking velocity and targeting helps a lot. Alternatively or additionally, you could go with a Broadside or Courser body and do fly-by-shootings.

Would not recommend Battery hull because the -flat firerate delay kills your damage. Courser is pretty fun, wouldn't recommend it to new players though. Basically build Targeting into Convergence so projectiles can track across the screen when moving fast. From there I build Apotheosis and Celestial Lance so that I can have a pseudo crash playstyle. Afterwards I pick up Tempest Break and Emergency Systems, but this is a very technical playstyle that only works if you can reliably not get hit because Lance will break your shield constantly. Better to pick up Rapid Reconstruction so you can just fly around into stuff without a care. We don't really pick up much velocity because we are relying on moving really fast to fling projectiles around and they'll track far enough to hit what we need. Not a really great postgame build though.

[Treyell]

i think torrent is good for discharge and shield effect power things. you dont need to invest into weapon upgrades

[Stormlock]

I have tried using torrent quite a few times since I got the game ages ago and it's honestly just terrible. Early on a lot of enemies literally move faster than your shots, AWAY from your shots, so they're impossible to hit unless you're charging right at them. It means you miss out on a ton of kills entirely trying to ram into everything on screen with a fragile ship, and all the upgrades that make torrent good don't improve your survivability like a crash build does.

Yeah you can do some gimmicky things with it's fire rate and self damage, but honestly you'd be better off with a weapon that fired 10% faster and did 0 damage, because the projectiles themselves are just that bad. The weapon needs way better shot velocity or something. High DPS doesn't matter if only 5% of your shots ever hit anything.

[Stavbearer]

Originalmente postado por Stormlock:

I have tried using torrent quite a few times since I got the game ages ago and it's honestly just terrible. Early on a lot of enemies literally move faster than your shots, AWAY from your shots, so they're impossible to hit unless you're charging right at them. It means you miss out on a ton of kills entirely trying to ram into everything on screen with a fragile ship, and all the upgrades that make torrent good don't improve your survivability like a crash build does.

Yeah you can do some gimmicky things with it's fire rate and self damage, but honestly you'd be better off with a weapon that fired 10% faster and did 0 damage, because the projectiles themselves are just that bad. The weapon needs way better shot velocity or something. High DPS doesn't matter if only 5% of your shots ever hit anything.

Go towards them and you get about 2 or 3 times the range

[Stormlock]

Originalmente postado por Stavbearer:

Originalmente postado por Stormlock:

I have tried using torrent quite a few times since I got the game ages ago and it's honestly just terrible. Early on a lot of enemies literally move faster than your shots, AWAY from your shots, so they're impossible to hit unless you're charging right at them. It means you miss out on a ton of kills entirely trying to ram into everything on screen with a fragile ship, and all the upgrades that make torrent good don't improve your survivability like a crash build does.

Yeah you can do some gimmicky things with it's fire rate and self damage, but honestly you'd be better off with a weapon that fired 10% faster and did 0 damage, because the projectiles themselves are just that bad. The weapon needs way better shot velocity or something. High DPS doesn't matter if only 5% of your shots ever hit anything.

Go towards them and you get about 2 or 3 times the range

Great. Except when they're shooting at you. Or there's other shots or enemies in between you and your target. Or there's enemies in more than one place so moving towards one means moving away from the others.

The momentum thing works with grenades because at least those deal the damage in a burst, it includes AoE, and it's inherently accurate. Using it with torrent is just like a really awful version of celestial surge. Spending 90% of your time moving instead of firing so half yours shots can hit isn't any better than having 5% of your shots miss to begin with.

[itssirtou]

Originalmente postado por Feculator:

The secret of Torrent is that it has ultra-high firerate, so you can get Siege Weaponry+Rebuke, Shield discharge, and the shield retaliation thingy and constantly be firing out homing Rebuke orbs, lightning strikes, and a short-range laser. Corrosion also works very well with it.
Another option is instead of siege+rebuke, you go siege+channeling. Channeling makes your armor stacks (which build super fast thanks to Torrent) grant shield effect power - combined with Temporal, Halo, or Siphon shield, some pretty interesting stuff happens.

Can you not run Thermal Lance instead for a similar effect?

[KDR_11k]

Originalmente postado por itssirtou:

Originalmente postado por Feculator:

The secret of Torrent is that it has ultra-high firerate, so you can get Siege Weaponry+Rebuke, Shield discharge, and the shield retaliation thingy and constantly be firing out homing Rebuke orbs, lightning strikes, and a short-range laser. Corrosion also works very well with it.
Another option is instead of siege+rebuke, you go siege+channeling. Channeling makes your armor stacks (which build super fast thanks to Torrent) grant shield effect power - combined with Temporal, Halo, or Siphon shield, some pretty interesting stuff happens.

Can you not run Thermal Lance instead for a similar effect?

Probably. That wasn't added yet when that post was written.