[Mercenary] High Velocity Rounds feel completely worthless in comparison to Fragmentation Rounds.

Hi. My /Played is 18h and im lvl 50. So, I've been looking forward to high velocity rounds snaposhotting for single target damage, especially with bleeding, but after long testing since act 2 (im in act "4" atm) I realized that High Velocity rounds are:

A. Bugged and deal way less damage than they should.
B. Extremely underpowered even with best support gems (brutality, hourglass, longshot/lacerate) in comparison to Fragmentation Rounds, which not only have comparable single target dps due to shotgunning, but also clearing capabilities against frozen enemies while not having an inconsistent condition (armour break) for decent damage.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, so fellow Mercenary goons, help me out.
If I'm not though...R.I.P. cool skill I guess...

One issue with high velocity rounds is that it removes the armour break from the enemy. Another post pointed out that the payoff rotation becomes horrible when the target has high armour, because you spend so much time breaking the targets armour again.

I find that just continuing to shoot with armour piercing rounds is better than swapping to high velocity rounds because it maintains the armour break.

Have you tried slotting "Scattershot" on high velocity rounds?

Hi there. Longtime gamer, newtime PoE2'er.

High Velocity Rounds is my best ability (Next to Frost Rounds with +freeze buildups and Fragmentation for the freeze payoff).

It has scatter shot and execute, but most importantly. I use Gas Grenades with armor shred to strip armor off bosses while I spam High Velocity Rounds. Usually gets the payoff every 2-4 hits, and it's maybe 20-30 rounds to kill the boss. I do agree that the payoff should be much higher than it is, but I can assure you, using gas grenades with armor shred is very satisfying with High Velocity Rounds instead of using the garbage Ammo Piercing Rounds.

I'm not sure how shock works, but I added 25% extra lightning damage in the hopes that the rounds are so powerful it would trigger shock, for another 20% damage increase, but it's not very consistent (yet).

Hope this helps.

Gas Grenade with Corrosion and Voltaic Grenades to shock and electrocute will debuff bosses quickly while you kite and wait for armour break.

Usually will get two armour breaks per electrocute which is nice.

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SamVenice#3095 wrote:

Have you tried slotting "Scattershot" on high velocity/AP rounds?

I did and it did not change the spread or number of bullets (bug?)

Hi,

I'm a lvl 91 mercenary, i also use high velocity rounds with gas grenade to break bosses armour.
I also use a couple of jewels with the "increased damage against ennemies with fully broken armour" modifier.
Knowing that HVR skill consume fully broken armour to deal more damage, i wonder if the fully broken armour is consumed before, or after the hit. If it is consumed before the hit (it would make sense to me), then the monster does not have fully broken armour when the hit occurs. So this jewel modifier i'm talking about would be useless.

Hope i'm clear, and that somebody have some valuable info on that case...

+1 found quite that in my playthrough towards endgame..

am keeping Frag rounds as main, with flame and frost as seccondaries, and using the gas granades with scattershot, corrosion and both area and duration buff to "smoke 'em out".. that eats armor quickly (and adding a flamewall it goes boom, nicely)


been using the sluggish plasma shot or the explosive shot sometimes, but I see no worth on the fast ones (as my style is more "oomph" per shot then "more dakka").. even against bosses they just not seem to do much.

HVR works best on Deadeye ranger with the +1 projectile.

with scattershot you shoot 4 shots per ammo and as said in the thread gas grenade with corrosion and armor break explosion will constantly break armor to maximize procs. Also, with wall chaining it actually has some usable clear.

That said, HVR on deadeye is beaten by explosive shot on deadeye, especially with blueflame unique gloves.