Talon Mercenary: First Impressions

Hello everyone, welcome to another installment of my Reckoning DLC character first impressions. Since he got a major buff today, let's talk about the Talon Mercenary Engineer. I tested him out today on Platinum and the damage wasn't bad, considering that your bow is essentially a melee attack. He passed on plat, so he gets my stamp of approval.

Quick rundown of his powers, which are all pooled into your grenade count. The Cain Trip Mine is a very good power. It deals massive damage, especially to armored targets. However, only three can be active at a time, and placement is key. This isn't Proximity Mine, you have to place it in a position such that an enemy will trip the laser.

Note that you can indirectly trigger your mines without the trip laser. If you have three mines already active, casting another mine will detonate and replace the first mine. The detonation of the first mine actually causes the same damage within the same radius as if it had been tripped. Think of it as a convoluted C4 trigger. This technique is great for nuking spawns, but not so great in other situations as it rapidly expends your grenade pool. For more efficient direct attacks, you have your omni-bow.

Your omni-bow replaces the traditional melee attack, and can be loaded with one of two special types of arrows. Concussive Arrows can knock down any unarmored targets, including Phantoms. However, arrows can be difficult to hit on target and they can be blocked. It used to be ridiculously slow to draw your bow all the way, basically restricting the potential as a panic-button. Drawing your bow is quicker now, but still not quite fast enough for a panic button. I recommend the light melee in close quarters encounters, though it is inaccurate.

Armor Piercing Arrows are most useful on a pure melee build, as the bow counts as your melee attack. Since the buff, it does respectable damage to armor. In other words, one direct hit can kill a Dragoon, 2 direct hits to kill a Ravager, 3 direct hits to kill a Brute (on Gold, with the appropriate gear). Not bad.

I prefer to take the power damage evolutions for the passive. The last evolution is up to you, and can be skipped for a pure melee build, though the regenerating charges are quite useful.

Fitness, of course, depends on what type of build you are using. For the most part, the melee damage is essential on this character. Unfortunately, he cannot do an over-cover grab.

To be continued...

-Grun7mas7er

For an in-depth look at how to make the most of your Omni-Bow, check out Eric Fagnan's Talon Engineer Omni-Bow Tips on BSN.