Yeah, I've literally never used that upgrade and I've been playing Hunter since day one. Bungie really needs to rework the upgrade tree for Gunslinger. I'll even quote what the official Destiny strategy guide has to say on the ability:
[quote]"This is one of the most specific and least useful upgrades for general utility, giving you slightly more Golden Gun duration if you score a knife kill while it is active. On the upshot, it gives you a static boost to armor, and that is always useful. As far as the Golden Gun duration bonus, in PvE, this can let you score a more important kill by eliminating a weakened nearby target with your knife. You can then use your final shots on more dangerous targets at full health."[/quote]
Makes me lol. Especially when you compare the melee perks to those of Titans and Warlocks. That is a whole other topic to itself though.
So, let's get this straight... For our Throwing Knife upgrades, they want us to choose between Circle of Life or these:
- Incendiary Blade, which only lasts 2.5 seconds and causes such minimal damage over time that it's barely a viable option in PvP/PvE. If the burn lasted longer and did more damage (or potentially increased solar damage when a target is burning) then it'd be more useful.
- Knife Juggler, which is pretty much only good for the weakest foes you encounter in PvE and a generally hopeless option in PvP when you consider the fact that throwing knife precision hits aren't one hit kills (unless your target has already been sufficiently weakened beforehand). Good luck getting those infinite throwing knives in PvP. Until Bungie makes them a one hit kill like the Titan shoulder charge, this upgrade is barely viable. And don't forget when you have Golden Gun active, your throwing knife is even more worthless as you can't damage the enemy beforehand to score that deadly precision throw. Unless you have Gambler's Dagger. But why would you even bother when you could just kill the target with Golden Gun? It's reasonable to assume you'd opt for the super kill over a potential throwing knife kill (that has a great chance of missing), especially if that target is attacking you in the process. Seriously Bungie, unless the enemy has an overshield protecting them, Throwing Knife headshots NEED to be one hit kills for full health players.
As it currently stands, there is no good reason for any Hunter to choose Circle of Life over Incendiary Blade or Knife Juggler. With so many people howling for the Hunter's Golden Gun duration to be decreased (aka nerfed), Circle of Life could potentially have a use in the future. But I'd rather see the skill replaced with something like a precision hit/kill increases the damage of your guns or melee for a short period of time (similar to Gunslinger's Trance and Chain of Woe). Then you'd have to choose between increased damage potential over infinite throwing knives potential. Since the whole sub-class is focused around precision, that would make the most sense in my opinion. I don't care if Bungie makes Golden Gun's duration shorter, just make the damn knife deadlier.
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The passive increase to armour seems like a good reason to equip it especially as the other two things don't help at all in many situations. Not that't I'd ever throw a knife while golden gun is active but an increase to armour is an increase to armour :)
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As the other person wrote, the increase to armor provided by Circle of Life is so minimal that it has no value. Recovery, Agility, and Armor already have pretty insignificant impacts on character performance as it is.
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The passive increase to armor is crap. It literally doesn't add anythign noticeable, even having your "armor" bar maxed vs minimum is only like 1 extra weak ass shot worth of damage. there is no reason to choose that ability, IMO hunters have by far the weakest perk chocies on the whole. I always use knife juggler out of those 3. Circle of life is a joke as already noted and the dot effect of your knife might as well not exist. At least in PVE the knives hit hard enough to 1hit KO dregs and vandals and other low to mid tier enemies, it also feels very cool to knife them in the face like that lol. Still not super useful overall though, mostly fun to use vs trash mobs.
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I have played little hunter, but enoough to know that the upgrade is pretty much useless