Quote Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI View Post
Snip
You are absolutely correct, my advice only applies to Shatter.

You really underestimate the ice and your role as a physical DPS. Casters are gimped against ice for some reason so their focus should be on picking kills, while yours should be on ice whenever possible. Your advice was great and stands - if you can get picks, take advantage of it. You get points for the kill and you get the points for the damage they are no longer doing to the ice. But you have to be real careful about when you make that choice - if you start trying to get a pick and the target gets healing support, your time is literally wasted. You got no points for not getting a kill and you didn't do damage to the ice while they did.

But again, as a ranged physical DPS you are the safest and most reliable damage on ices. Dragoon is superior sustained overall DPS but is sooo dangerous being melee, and you are the target of getting picked (and rightfully so because if they don't kill you you're going to steal a lot of ice points).

As for the stun...different play styles. I respect your use of the ability. I always use it for DPS because I think I get more points for the ability when used for burst. I keep a sharp eye on my positioning to prevent getting holmganged or sucked in my a DRK, and I have heavy and a pushback for over-zealous melee. Sure I get caught sometimes, but that's my mistake on map awareness. With a knowledge of where my opponents are, where my allies are, and where the next ice will spawn, I can maximize my gauss barrel for points and wins instead of get-out-jail cards. But then again, it is only a 60s cooldown, so it's not like I never have it available for the stun.

Also, my experience is anecdotal. If there was a way to prove a "most efficient" way to use stun gun or precisely what gets more points - loading ammo before battle or not - then I concede to facts. But without facts and objective data, anecdotal is all I have. But with a 51% win rate queuing adders only against a Maelstrom dominated meta, I don't think my methods are too far off the optimal way to do things. Again, I respect your time and experience, but your advice on pre-loading bullets goes opposite to my experience. I'll take your advice and give it a try, and maybe I'll see things your way.