Talon Engineer Omni-Bow Tips

I thought I would write a quick post with some tips on the Talon Engineer. I think the team underestimated how much of a niche character this guy is, and it isn’t always obvious how to spec him to get a lot of damage out of his omni-bow. Below is a guide for a high-damage omni-bow build.

Overview

The Omni-Bow is considered a melee ability, so it is affected by all melee damage bonuses. If you activate Armor Piercing or Concussive Arrows, you are adding additional power damage to your arrows in addition to the regular melee damage. For a build that maximizes bow damage, the melee portion of your bow damage always exceeds the power portion of your bow damage, so you should maximize melee damage bonuses and then fill with power damage bonuses.

1) Maximize melee damage bonuses

To maximize bow damage, you need to stack as many melee damage bonuses as you can because all of them increase your bow damage.

- Take ranks 4a, 5a, and 6a in your Omni-Bow Mastery passive power.
- Use an Omni-Blade or any other melee mods on your weapon. Due to the way the math works on these mods (they add a multiplicative damage bonus after all other bonuses), they have a massive impact on your melee damage
- Use the Hydraulic Joints or other melee damage bonus gear if you can afford not taking grenade gear
- Use a Strength Enhancer consumable

2) After melee damage, stack power damage

- Take ranks 4b and 5a in your Elite Mercenary passive power to maximize power damage bonuses, which will affect the damage done from additional power damage of Armor Piercing and Concussive Arrows.
- Take a Power Amplifier consumable since there is no melee damage bonus in this category

3) Bow Powers

- The bow damage by itself isn’t huge, but when you activate Armor Piercing Arrows you get 2 shots of this enhanced bow damage, which drastically increases damage done to armor with good damage to all other resistances and health as well.
- Keep activating bow powers as you consume charges to ensure you always have power charges when you fire your bow. The number of charges is displayed as arrows attached to your character’s right shoulder.
- To maximize bow damage, use Armor Piercing Arrows and take all damage evolutions
- Take rank 6a, which adds an extra arrow to your shots. This will increase melee damage as well since you are firing an extra arrow that will have a melee portion and power portion to its damage.

4) Use heavy melee to get all arrows to hit the same target

The bow has 2 firing modes. If you tap the melee button, your arrows fly off in a cone but usually only 1 arrow will hit each target. If you hold the melee button, your arrows will focus in on the center. Once they are at the center you can release the bow to get all the arrows to shoot straight ahead.

5) Locking onto targets

The bow has a lock-on mechanic that uses the same targeting as powers to determine who it will hit. To hit targets, ensure that you have them highlighted (just like you would if you fired a power like Incinerate). Once you have a target highlighted and hold the melee button, your camera will lock on to that target and your arrows should seek to him when you release the bow. Enemies can dodge your arrows just like any other power.