Opinions on Mobility Duelling build

[Agility]

Hey everyone,
Fairly new to the-west, played it years ago and always loved duelling.
I've been looking around on the internet for a while and saw almost exclusively the Full strength or full dexterity (with sometimes some charisma) builds.
I'm not 100% sure how dodge works but I was thinking of a build like this for the new world Kansas:

Class: dueller (for movement speed)
AP: 100% Mobility (Reflex and HBR for speed but mainly for Dodge
SP: 33% dodge 33% aiming 33%shooting/vigor

So at level 60 for example the build will have this base without gear:
120 dodge
60 reflex
60 aiming
60 shooting/vigor
*60HBR for 66% bonus speed

Obviously the build is focused heavily on dodging, I could even go 66% dodge, 16.5%aim, 16.5% shooting/vigor

Will a build like this work? Hoping to dodge almost all hits in a duel, gear wise focusing on aim and dodge seems nice. Also I've noticed that a lot of people play ranged when duelling so the reflex is a nice addition that you get from mobility as well.

Very interested in what some of you more experience players think about a build like this!

-Agility

 

[DeletedUser15368]

tl;dr your build will do fine in the early game, but I'd pick up some HP and appearance too.

Welcome back to the game, it's changed a lot but sounds like you'll still have some fun. I haven't duelled for a couple of years so hopefully some more people like @Pankreas PorFavor will contribute, but these days it depends a lot on the gear you pick/can afford. Your base skills without gear are almost completely meaningless, as are saying "you should have this percent in x and this percent in y". Most of your skills will come from the gear and your Skill Points are used to patch gaps in your skills for the particular set you are using (this is also why I stopped duelling for what it's worth - a pure fort fighter in duel gear is almost as effective as a pure dueller in duel gear and there's too much RNG at play when it's that close for my liking). Best I can do is write you a general guide from my experience. You'll find your build evolving as you level up and come into range of new challenges.

Dodging builds often have to sacrifice HP and you're vulnerable to being KO'd on a counter attack. So I always gear up, then set my HP to an appropriate value regardless of my level, about 3k -4k for a Soldier and around 2k-3k for a dueller is fine early on. More HP is more good but you have to find a balance with your other skills, especially early on.

After that, dodging is your most important skill, but remember there's diminishing returns for massive values, It will always be my highest stat - I like around 800-1000 dodging at max level. (which might sound insane to a returning player, but that is the game now.) I also "duck" on the duel tactics screen, preferring to defend against Headshots and shoulder shots, as they increase the opponents damage compared to a hand hit - and there's still a chance to dodge the hand hit even if you "duck". Also worth noting you get a big boost to your aiming if you don't dodge at all, I use this tactic occasionally depending on the opponent.

Next you have to hit the opponent, and I actually value Appearance and Tactics over Aim for this, as most players focus on Aim. The player with the higher Appearance (for attacker) or Tactics (for defender) get a bonus to their Aim, so I always tried to win that mini-battle. I look at the tactics leaderboard and ensure my Appearance is competitive with the duellers on that leaderboard. You won't want any Tactics as you aren't a Soldier class and attacking is the best defence. You'll still want enough aim to be boosted to an effective value however, for relative context I like around 500-600 aim at max level.

Finally your damage output, whether you chose melee or ranged doesn't matter too much, but Shooting is in the same category as Aim, so I like to use that and dump my Attribute points into Dexterity. Alternatively Melee players can dump ATT into Strength and use the skill points from HP somewhere else. How hard you go for damage is up to you and should depend on your opponents that you're regularly duelling. Resistance kinda sucks, so you don't need too much damage output, but I've seen some players doing well with a "pure resistance" build, they just have to hit once to win the duel, but you can't KO dodgy players like this. I find more luck with mid-range damage skill (around 300-500 relatively), but usually aiming for heads for the extra damage with my winning Appearance vs Tactics stats, you might have to aim for hands against other dodgers.

Make sure you change your duelling tactics after every single duel against a dodger.

Good luck, I hope it helps, and don't be afraid to experiment - maybe you'll find a better way to tell me about.

 

[Agility]

tl;dr your build will do fine in the early game, but I'd pick up some HP and appearance too.

Welcome back to the game, it's changed a lot but sounds like you'll still have some fun. I haven't duelled for a couple of years so hopefully some more people like @Pankreas PorFavor will contribute, but these days it depends a lot on the gear you pick/can afford. Your base skills without gear are almost completely meaningless, as are saying "you should have this percent in x and this percent in y". Most of your skills will come from the gear and your Skill Points are used to patch gaps in your skills for the particular set you are using (this is also why I stopped duelling for what it's worth - a pure fort fighter in duel gear is almost as effective as a pure dueller in duel gear and there's too much RNG at play when it's that close for my liking). Best I can do is write you a general guide from my experience. You'll find your build evolving as you level up and come into range of new challenges.

Dodging builds often have to sacrifice HP and you're vulnerable to being KO'd on a counter attack. So I always gear up, then set my HP to an appropriate value regardless of my level, about 3k -4k for a Soldier and around 2k-3k for a dueller is fine early on. More HP is more good but you have to find a balance with your other skills, especially early on.

After that, dodging is your most important skill, but remember there's diminishing returns for massive values, It will always be my highest stat - I like around 800-1000 dodging at max level. (which might sound insane to a returning player, but that is the game now.) I also "duck" on the duel tactics screen, preferring to defend against Headshots and shoulder shots, as they increase the opponents damage compared to a hand hit - and there's still a chance to dodge the hand hit even if you "duck". Also worth noting you get a big boost to your aiming if you don't dodge at all, I use this tactic occasionally depending on the opponent.

Next you have to hit the opponent, and I actually value Appearance and Tactics over Aim for this, as most players focus on Aim. The player with the higher Appearance (for attacker) or Tactics (for defender) get a bonus to their Aim, so I always tried to win that mini-battle. I look at the tactics leaderboard and ensure my Appearance is competitive with the duellers on that leaderboard. You won't want any Tactics as you aren't a Soldier class and attacking is the best defence. You'll still want enough aim to be boosted to an effective value however, for relative context I like around 500-600 aim at max level.

Finally your damage output, whether you chose melee or ranged doesn't matter too much, but Shooting is in the same category as Aim, so I like to use that and dump my Attribute points into Dexterity. Alternatively Melee players can dump ATT into Strength and use the skill points from HP somewhere else. How hard you go for damage is up to you and should depend on your opponents that you're regularly duelling. Resistance kinda sucks, so you don't need too much damage output, but I've seen some players doing well with a "pure resistance" build, they just have to hit once to win the duel, but you can't KO dodgy players like this. I find more luck with mid-range damage skill (around 300-500 relatively), but usually aiming for heads for the extra damage with my winning Appearance vs Tactics stats, you might have to aim for hands against other dodgers.

Make sure you change your duelling tactics after every single duel against a dodger.

Good luck, I hope it helps, and don't be afraid to experiment - maybe you'll find a better way to tell me about.

Thank you so much for your reply!
The gear aspect that you addressed makes a lot of sense. Back in the day every item had a fixed amount of stats it gave rather than x.x stats per level.
I put my eyes on the bounty hunter set, gives a lot of aim/dodge so I think I could still base mobility but then just add a little vigor/shooting/hp/appereance.

I have zero experience in fort fighting so making a build for that might be rough, i know soldiers that base strength can tank up quite easily with toughness and hp (with the bonus). I'm however really looking for a dueller with high movement speed to play as active as possible. Perhaps later I can restat to a fort fighting build at the shaman if I want to learn more about that.

Thanks again for your detailed reply!
For other readers, I'd still like to hear your opinions on a mobility/dodge based build as well!

-Agility

 

[RaiderTr]

Perhaps later I can restat to a fort fighting build at the shaman

You might drop (or buy) Ap/Sp reset potions too

 

[Pankreas PorFavor]

I haven't duelled for a couple of years so hopefully some more people like @Pankreas PorFavor will contribute

to be honest, I don't feel competent to answer these questions. I'm not an active dueler, my build keeps me alive most of the time and helps me to win a duel when I need it for a quest or during an event like Harvest time. but I don't feel motivated to actually spend time on analysis what build works best, gear-skill combos etc.

 

[DeletedUser15368]

The gear is kind of mental, we've been overwhelmed with sets that all look the same, I have no idea what most of the tombola sets actually do...