Allright, I'm now ready to start the game for real. For about level 20, the plan is rock solid. By that, I mean I know what I'm doing and why. But somehere around that part, a question that I was evading all this time really starts to burn on me. While still keeping our attention to boost critical damage, we have to make a decision between focusing on critical chance, or special attack damage. For unfortunately we CAN'T have both.
Crit chance with your Spearhead and your base amount will give you 18%. So that's a given. We can boost this for another 14% with Recklessness and Scrutinous. Could gain a significant increase with high quality (150) Seeker lens, for about 18%. Now we reached 50%. That's kinda decent. But is it enough? THAT is what I just can't really tell and surely hope that some of the nice people here can shed some light on this matter, or even just share some of their experience with what they had.
Because if it's not enough, we can still push forward in this direction but from now on, every increase would involve severe costs and this is when uncertainity comes in. So from now on, everything will come at a much higher price. I mean while crafting our rifle, instead of the Anatomically-Aware Scope for the huge boost in damage, you can put a High Resolution scope for +10% chance, we can wear an Infused Rathound Leather Armor for an additional 10-15%. That's now a very reassuring 70-75% and if you use a focus stim you'll be near 90%!!!
But this comes in exchange for not wearing some proper armor with significantly better defense. Tygrende here posted an armor that boasts really good damage resistance, boosts HP with around 130 and combining that with Pig or Bison Tabi with for who knows how much HP sounds great. That's a lot to live without, you can basically double your own HP if you're having 3 CON on Dominating. The price here is 2 feat slots and without exaggeration, fully letting go of having passive defense outside of shield emitters. Is going full-glass validate a Sniper build that have a crit chance bonus worth that much? I mean you have to understand that it's not about loosing 2 feat slots, a good portion of your crit damage and your full defense for that 35%, it's about possibly not having crits when you need it and having kinda random crits when you might not expect it, OR reaching a state where you'll score crits with somewhat less damage, but with a chance you can rely on. A chance you can actually COUNT on. It's worth to mention that Blindsiding can actually be a useful feat here, since it will boost the otherwise lower damage due to not having the AA scope.
High crit chance would certainly help replenish Aimed Shot easier, but then again would you even need that at this point? Would this approach render all your special attacks useless?
Now if you focus on special attacks though, you don't have any reason to waste 2 feat slots for a mere 14% chance, could take up Ambush to somewhat counter that - very VERY situational, but at least under proper conditions it works. Could get around 75% chance with Ambush, basically the same which the other build has constantly regardless of enemies being in the spotlight or not... Anycase, another feat slot opens up and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say I can name at least 2 that I would happily fit in it's place. So it sounds reasonable to abandon crit chance if one's not completely focused on it. Wearing Smart lensed goggles, you can add another 40% to your damage with special attacks, make both your special attacks all the more devastating. So with this approach, you're end up having Ambush and at least one free feat of your choosing ( for example the third Initiation raising feat, boosting you to 38-40), an armor with defense. However you'll only have 2 devastating attacks. Aimed Shot that you'll use once each turn if you're lucky and Snipe even less, with the stealth condition and the reuse time not being decreasable as with Aimed Shot, and the ability used mostly once each battle. However Snipe will deal 40% more damage and Aimed Shot will do even more with the AA scope. Blindsiding is unnecessary here.
But do you need all that damage at this point? Or is it overkill and with crappy normal damage, you'll actually be slower?