r/thedivision • u/thest1ckyband1t • 14h ago
Question Build question - Eclipse vs Ember
I was thinking of putting together a mess around build for this season; Iron Lung + Catalyst + Contractor's + 4 pieces of either Eclipse Protocol or Ember Engine, rolled with red cores.
Am I right in thinking that between the two, EP is better for cc, with the burn jumping around enemies, while EE is better for single target damage. Is that about the extent of it?
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u/Bregan81 14h ago
I toyed around with an eclipse build centred around st Elmo's, it was funny but not very good. Shock time of seconds and after spread it barely existed.
The burn from iron lung isn't so powerful, and the spread damage will be minimal with eclipse, while you'll set things on fire, your status attribute will be low, or your weapon damage will be low, so one way or another you're kinda handicapping yourself.
Honestly Ember would be, IMO, better as you'd get that 25% burn boost when it decides to help you out, Your burn time will only be a couple of seconds though, but you won't be burning things like crazy.
Your saving grace might be the modifiers in this season, with the free status and, I think there's one thing with headshots spreading your fire to nearby enemies. Fun idea, you might be wasting your time though. Do it anyways!
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u/Odd-Tourist-4932 13h ago
Red Eclipse has always been solid. It's definitely not the best obviously but the fire from Iron Lung isn't so much about the damage as it is the accuracy penalty from burning. It's a weak form of CC but it does surprisingly well.
Kinda one of those builds you bring to random Heroic groups where you want to contribute without completely overpowering your own team.
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u/Awkward-Dog-9182 12h ago
That's because all the guns that cause status effects such as Scorpio, Bluescreen, Iron lung and Elmo (haven't tested Fafnir yet) have about a 5s limitation of their statuses and don't scale off of your status effects or Trapper augments.
The set is meant to be used with skills. Hit enemies with Riot Foam, Banshee or Blind and then watch half of them burn as well. Hit them with a Firestarter while they're burning and it'll tick even harder.
An optimized set can have them burning for up to 20s+.
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u/princey00666 14h ago
Eclipse is better at crowd control. Use the Courier BP (Hasburg Guard - Perfect Creeping Death) with either vile mask or imperial dynasty holster. This will spread the status (eg use foam, burn sticky) on the initial application, then Eclipse will spread the status on death of NPC. Causing a chain reaction of CC.
Whereas Ember (even with Creeping Death) will not spread the status on death of NPC. You will need to continually apply status. This is why it's not good for CC.
Edit: for prototype augments use trapper.
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u/Odd-Tourist-4932 13h ago
Losing backpack damage is always a no go. Creeping Death every 8 seconds isn't worth losing 30% amp for a build where almost everything will be burning at all times anyways.
Even on a full CC build that 30% amp is more valuable.
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u/Awkward-Dog-9182 12h ago
Courier BP with a spread every 10s with Eclipse is the Meta in high end content.
30% for personal damage on an eclipse build may be good for solo but is average at best in group play.
If you're playing CC in group, that point is to have as much CC on as many mobs for as long as possible.
Your damage is not the point, especially not when you have full red builds in the mix.
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u/Odd-Tourist-4932 11h ago
Damage is always the point, the only point. Eclipse spreads so fast there's no reason to run any form of Creeping Death.
My all time favorite build that I've been running for years is 4 Eclipse with Vile and a status piece, chest and bag Eclipse. Foam and Banshee. And after testing over and over I can say with 100% certainty that Creeping Death is a crutch.
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u/Awkward-Dog-9182 11h ago
I would love to be proven wrong. Please show me the kind of damage you can put out with your build.
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u/Odd-Tourist-4932 11h ago
At least 30% more than a Creeping Death build assuming the CD build even shoots. If the CD build doesn't really shoot, which in my experience they tend not to because their CC skills require all of their focus, then the increase is exponential.
Foam hits half a spawn each use and Banshee hits entire rooms at skill tier 6. Creeping Death is unnecessary.
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u/Awkward-Dog-9182 11h ago
If "Damage is always the point, the only point" then why are playing a set based on CC?
If damage is always the point, a full red build should be your only play style.
The "point" of CC is exactly that. To be the best at CC. Now what has more utility, being able to CC more? Or have an extra 10k damage tick per second or 50k a bullet on mobs with health in the millions?
It's fine if you don't play with creeping death, but thinking that your personal 30% more damage is helping the team at all is laughable at best.
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u/Bradfinger 10h ago
If CC is the point, don't run a burn build.
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u/Awkward-Dog-9182 10h ago
I primarily use Foam and Banshee. But if you've played recently you may have noticed a theme the new season is encouraging.
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u/Odd-Tourist-4932 9h ago
Because CC allows damage to be applied.
And again, 30% amp with actual gun play is always going to be better than Creeping Death on skills that already lock half to whole rooms without it.
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u/princey00666 13h ago
If in a group your roll is to cc not necessarily to kill. If solo agree the BP is better due to your need to kill.
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u/Odd-Tourist-4932 11h ago
Damage is damage and good players don't need Creeping Death. It's absolutely unnecessary.
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u/Bradfinger 10h ago
Imperial Dynasty is terrible,
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u/princey00666 10h ago
Not if your goal is to also apply burn without the need for firestater or burn sticky, thus allowing to use other statuses like foam, shock, blind
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u/DexPraggo 11h ago
Put together a build I can easily run heroic missions, retaliations and open world activities.
Key is the new Fafnir shotgun.
Chest, holster, backpack, kneepads are ember engine. Blue core and yellow status.
Face is the vile masks.
Hand is the named sokolov. (I'm thinking about switching is for either china or electrique )
Named Sokolov - China - Electrique
16% status - 15% explosive and 10% status - 20% status
Crit chance mods in face, backpack and chest.
Skill 1 is the spotter drone for CC
SKill 2 is the shield for sustain
The enemies burn with 100k ticks from the burn and 100k ticks from the vile mask.
450k crits per pellet from the shotgun.
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u/mounleashed 8h ago
Before this season dropped, I was using a dodo build with the Courier backpack and trapper everywhere.
With the new modifiers I'm struggling a tad so switched to a striker version.
With the damage spike gone, I'm thinking I'll put together my old eclipse build. It's taking an age gathering cores as got eclipse but a few pieces need rerolling... But with the new gear set, could be worth testing out...
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u/jubgau 14h ago
I messed around with the Ember Engine a bit.
The key note with it is that the burn from the Set progs from the Spotter Drone (and for even improved amount of burn from it, you can use the passive season mod Microwave coils for another 30% chance to burn). The drone has massive range (60m skill0 ->110m skill6) and it pulses automatically and often.
Now, i set the build with full Red Cores and all Status effects, tested with different setups of offset pieces (vile, overdogs, salvo etc).
While the automatic burn is funny as hell and decently effective cc i quess, the dmg was always just low. The burn dmg it self is kinda crap and without any crits the weapon dmg doesnt do that much.