Strategy:Sharpshooter

0.9.9.7

Sharpshooter is a build that blooms much later than other pistol builds and deals less overall DPS besides since you're blocked from taking Dualgunner, but on the plus side, you can make use of 10mm ammo chains all throughout the game, and any (pistol) uniques you find will make you a wrecking ball. More than anything, though, this build gives you the pinnacle of reliability, since you will always know whether or not you will knock an enemy back, and you will always know how many shots it will take to kill something. It also means modding just one of your pistols to a ridiculous level will pay off in spades.

Unfortunately, you are barred from taking Dualgunner, which is a really good trait, not just for DPS but for early-game survivability. Dualgunner allows you to fire two aimed shots in a single attack and reliably kill imps and formers that wander into vision before they can react, as well as kill Demons before they get close and before you have to reload--and if they get close anyway, you would no longer need to aim and would able to kill them with much faster normal shots. Without this excellent ability, your one pistol may be better than anybody else's one pistol, but your whole build is probably never going to be as good as Gun Kata.

So unlike all the other classes, you have to wait until at least level 7 to reliably one-shot formers with your starting pistol, and you can never one-shot imps without at least a P-modded pistol--and that's assuming you didn't grab any traits that don't lead to your capstone. Even worse, you have to rely on your one pistol's worth of ammo and constantly be reloading it even after your capstone. So sure, you can use ammo chains, but you also kinda need them.

So thanks to the Dualgunner lockout, you are utterly dependent on your capstone or good loot to start doing acceptable damage fast enough. Even afterwards, Sharpshooter's ability to actually win games is still highly loot-dependent. Still, Sharpshooter probably gains the most from finding the better pistols, though it probably gains less from finding two of them. Finding a single P mod or even a 10mm ammo chain early enough can completely change the build's viability, and finding a Combat pistol is basically one of your win conditions. With mods, the combat pistol is even better than finding one of the unique pistols, but if the game is stingy with P mods and you never find any better pistols, the latter of which is very likely, you might not even reach the capstone.

If you are fine with that and don't mind the challenge, go for it.

Getting off the ground

You are a Technician, so you start with a Technical mod, which you should immediately use on your starting pistol. It makes you fire your pistol as if you had a level in Finesse, an insanely good boost. It's almost as good as having SoG2 from level 1. Once you get SoG3, you're firing a shot every 0.32 seconds with your T-modded Pistol instead of every 0.4 seconds, and this T-mod is guaranteed from the moment you land in Entryway. This actually does quite a bit to catch up to the DPS of Dualgunner, so this build isn't without some upsides. It can even allow you to use your pistol as a reliable source of damage right from Son of a Gun 2 instead of having to wait one more level like the others tend to. Yes, once you get Son of a Gun 5, this T-mod won't do you any good, but you have to get there first, and this is free and helps you do that.

Alternatively, if you're not going Son of a Gun first, you could always save the T-mod for the first shotgun you find, which will help you get off the ground, although this will also make your pistol less effective, so it could leave you dependent on your shotguns for proper damage output unless you find a better pistol early. That T-mod is really important for your pistol DPS, so understand that not using it on your pistol could make your mid-game really suck, especially since that T-mod is part of all the good mid-game WK1 assemblies.

Depending on difficulty or challenges, you can go one of a few routes:

On lower difficulty, it is often best to max out Son of a Gun ASAP. The firing speed boost, combined with the T mod, combined with the damage boost, makes pistols get really good, really fast. The power jump from SoG2 to SoG3 is night and day. If you're doing Angel of Marksmanship, this is the best choice by far. If you don't go this route in AoMr, especially on UV, being locked into only pistols will mean you die incredibly quickly because you can't kill anything, so taking Hellrunner will just mean you can't reach level 3. If you go Son of a Gun first, be sure to smartly use Tactics in places where Hellrunner would otherwise save you. For this reason, it's important to know the "feel" for when Hellrunner is doing its job.

On higher difficulty (which I will assume from here on out) as long as you're not doing AoMr, it's better to take two levels of Hellrunner first and use a Shotgun until you have at least Son of a Gun 2 and Eagle Eye 1. Never reload in a spot where an enemy can see you or is about to melee you (except formers), you can outrun them all at base speed in green armor or no armor. Once you have Hellrunner 2, clear Hell's Arena for the Rocket Launcher and the goodies, then immediately switch focus to finishing your capstone at all costs. Get Son of a Gun to at least level 2 before you start to bother with Eagle Eye 1, but if you do get a level of Eagle Eye before Son of a Gun 3, finish Son of a Gun before going for the next two, since the DPS boost is massive.

Get a feel for when it would be safe to peek out again after reloading, and for when it would be better to play ring around the rosie while cornershooting. If you peek out and dodge a fireball that is aimed at your previous location, and you were deep around a corner last turn, the monster will usually hit the wall next to them and take splash damage without harming you, which helps push them back as well. If they're too close and would hit you too, play ring around the rosie and run around the next corner while you wait for them to catch up.

You don't need Dodgemaster and should probably not take it until after your capstone, as while it does offer complete consistency in your dodging, it would delay your capstone too much, and you can probably survive a failed dodge or two, especially if you start Running. You still have about an 80-90% to dodge fireball-throwing enemies just with Hellrunner 2, and the speed is really more important anyway. Being able to dodge fireballs and run away from Demons without needing tactics will can carry you really hard for the good majority of the early to midgame. Even Barons are not so threatening when you know you can always dodge your way to safety and run fast enough to LoS them even in a long hallway. However, getting either your capstone or an energy pistol in time for Revenants is imperative, so if you delay the capstone for any reason, only do so to finish an Energy Pistol.

If you successfully managed to survive without Hellrunner all the way to SoG 3 and Eagle Eye 1, you might actually be better off diving for your capstone or taking Whizkid than taking Hellrunner, but keep in mind Hellrunner is useful all game and can still save you in a Demon cave. A good thing to remember though is that with Eagle Eye 3, you pretty much have capped accuracy at all ranges even while Running, so you can start Running with no downside, although if you got that far without Hellrunner, you didn't need me to tell you that, and I should probably be taking advice from you.

If you find two power mods early, I would take Whizkid 1 before your capstone to construct an Energy pistol. You don't necessarily need WK2 before assembling it, and I wouldn't wait unless you managed to get this far while skipping Hellrunner. The ability to mod your gun later is less important than getting your Energy Pistol in time for Revenants.

If you don't find the power mods you need, don't bother with Whizkid yet and grab your capstone first, then build an Energy pistol with the first two P-mods you find. This will allow you to use any of the cells you find, as well as just having an overall better damage type against the most dangerous enemies in the midgame. You really don't need to keep a normal pistol anymore by now, especially if you got the Backpack. You're so ammo efficient that you could probably win the game with 4 stacks of cells and never run out. Arachnotrons and Former commandos will easily be enough to replenish your supply.

By now you've definitely hit Deimos, and on UV you've been up against VMR for a while now. The energy pistol is recommended to kill Revenants. If you don't have one yet, carry a Plasma Rifle to deal with them quickly. While Mancubi are by far the most dangerous if you get caught out in the open, and Arch-viles are the worst things on two legs if they're behind the things you have to kill, by far the most consistently dangerous enemy to you as a bullet-locked Pistol build will be Revenants. Before you have your capstone, you could unload an entire Combat pistol clip into one and it'll only be at half HP, and you can sort of corner-shoot the others, but Revenants are too fast to run from, can't be dodged, and take too many actions too quickly for you to gun them down with your pistol before they shoot you, so unless you can build yourself an Energy pistol, you'll often be at the mercy of your sub-weapons with them. They just barely don't go down in one clip from a base-power bullet-firing pistol with your capstone.

For sharpshooters in particular, you need a power mod on your pistol--and the Energy pistol has enough base damage to count--since a pistol that previously never knocks back under any circumstances suddenly becomes 100% guaranteed knockback to all enemies with your capstone. In an environment where you get to fire 3-4 times for every 1 tile a demon can move, having guaranteed knockback offers incredible safety, and a P mod additionally allows you to one-shot imps. If you find one of the unique pistols, you can either build the energy pistol anyway or save them for your armor.

Since Pistols don't need that much ammo, you can keep a decently flexible arsenal and feel confident in all your guns thanks to Eagle Eye 3. You don't need to keep more than two stacks of bullets, and if you have an Energy Pistol, ditch all bullets and the weapons that use them for cells. You can probably even drop your shotguns and their shells and just keep emergency items and a Rocket Launcher and/or a BFG. I would keep the rocket launcher no matter what so you can rocket jump. This is useful both when jumping to safety as well as when you need to travel fast to conserve power-up timers between levels. If you assemble the Rocket Launcher into something, I would make a Tactical Rocket Launcher, it's worth it for the invulnerable multi-rocket-jumps alone.

Before you get your capstone and energy pistol, though, if you aren't blocked by your challenge, it can be a good idea to carry at least one shotgun, a rocket launcher, and a plasma gun as backup weapons. Pistols have big problems with some enemies, and while the capstone can make this irrelevant, you have to get there first.

Shotguns are great for radar-shooting and dealing with Souls and Revenants. Rocket Launchers can destroy corpses to keep Arch-Viles from resurrecting them, as well as give you the ability to Rocket Jump, blow holes in walls, and deal knockback to keep a group of nasty enemies at bay. A Plasma Gun ignores half armor and deals enough damage to kill Revenants in 1-2 bursts. Of these weapons, your shotguns will be the most useful early-game, and the Plasma Gun can tide you over until you get a better pistol, but the Rocket Launcher is your most useful sub-weapon by far. It will save your bacon in the worst of situations, as well as allow you to rocket jump to carry power-ups from across the map to the stairs. If you spawn in a room surrounded by Demons or something even nastier, it's better to rocket jump away and lose a little bit of health than try to run and get ripped in half when you get cornered. If you rocket jump out of the demons' view, they eventually de-aggro, and you can take them on in more manageable numbers. Being able to crack walls can also give you safer routes into the rooms you need to enter, especially if you're blocked by a river of acid or lava.

Supporting Traits

Good traits to take alongside this build are:

Hellrunner - As stated, you should probably grab these first before anything else. The flexibility they offer you increases how far you can reliably go so much, which in turn increases the likelihood you'll make it far enough to find a rare pistol. If you take them first, though, don't use your pistol until after you get Son of a Gun 3/Son of a Gun 2 and Eagle Eye 1. Taking 2 levels of Hellrunner guarantees that you'll be able to easily beat the Cyberdemon, probably even damageless. If you skip Hellrunner, be sure you have enough medpacks, health, and armor with fire resist to facetank the Cyberdemon's rockets, or else he'll out-DPS you.

Whizkid - You are a Technician, so you can grab Whizkid at any time. In many cases, it can actually be a better idea to grab 1-2 levels in WK before finishing Sharpshooter, since modded gear can be a lifesaver, and carrying around a bunch of crap that you plan on using in the future does you no good if you get killed because your gear wasn't good enough (or you had to drop important items to carry it). In general, though, assembled pistols are inferior to heavily modded pistols, the Energy pistol being a notable exception. 3P2T Pistols are ridiculously good, but once you get SoG5, 3P2B is better, since you will be at the firing speed cap with all pistols at that point and the T-mods are useless.

Intuition - Incredibly useful, and unlocked by the EE levels you needed. Int2 lets you see enemies outside your FoV, but even just Int1 giving you the ability to sense powerups means you know where to retreat to if things go south. It also removes the guesswork from levers. One of the best supporting options to take.

Ironman - Your only source of bulk, and not a bad one either. Increases the power of healthkits. Maybe not as "fun" as some of the others, but you'll swear by it once you try it out a few times. More useful in Ao100 than a standard game or AoMr. Take it after you finish WK2 and MSs.

Juggler - Finesse itself is useless to your pistols once you get SoG5, but Juggler can be a lifesaver if you suddenly need to rocket jump away or blast a bunch of bad dudes with a Double Shotgun. Juggler also makes carrying a second pistol a very practical solution to the pistol's low capacity, but this second pistol trick by itself is probably not enough to justify taking finesse and juggler in an Angel of Marksmanship game, especially on UV/N!, because you need way more stopping power for Demons, and right after you'd be finishing Juggler, Hell knights can start appearing.

Reloader/Shottyman - Reloader is not that useful if you're finding Ammo Chains everywhere, but in a long game, it and Shottyman can make any shotguns and rocket launchers in your arsenal that much more effective. Overall, it is a much better investment if you find yourself using your whole arsenal more than your pistols, but a very situational one, because its benefits are eclipsed by relatively common items. Although if you're dipping into Shottyman/Hellrunner and rely mainly on shotguns and rocket launchers anyway, you might as well just go Fireangel and admit you're not really playing a Sharpshooter.

Despite everything, Sharpshooter is still a satisfying and effective build that can be great fun, but it requires a great deal of patience and planning, and of course, you might need to improvise based on your current circumstances. Now if only the rare pistols weren't so abysmally hard to find...

Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 07:48, 3 February 2017 (UTC) Updated: Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 02:46, 1 June 2023 (UTC)