Warning spoilers [details=Summary]I know it is ridiculous but his bottom right lore really game me the idea he can’t drag a fight by how badly injured he was taking that commander.[/details]
I actually am pretty selfish in that aspect and prioritize getting my gear on before building unless it’s a healing station I could use. I guess it’s just my playstyle. I’m not knocking what you are doing and it may be different on different systems with their respective community. I’m on Xbox.
I have been getting his personal legendary by lvl 2-3, then symbiotic gauntlet 3-4, then VoZF 4-5. I do have a slower start if I don’t get good pickings from team fights or inexperienced and alone players.
Unless it’s Capture, then I am a lot more lenient with my shards because my legendary is just a fun bonus.
He is terrible in a downright 1v1 (very pending skill of both players, but speaking generally)
I have been killed by Miko by being cocky. If they have an area of effect slow…you are 100 percent going to have a bad time.
The funny is if a character health is at half and cc is on cool down you will almost always win even if you have half health
I don’t have his lore legendary yet but I would prioritise it early as well if there was a dedicated healer on their team.
Otherwise levels are king early game and I’ll save the activations for later.
You get +4% on just about everything per level, + health, which is much more significant than any piece of gear.
Not knocking your style either, but gear will give a bigger relative boost late game anyway, and the sooner you get there the better.
As for capture I just run all free white gear, aimed at movement and sprint speed primarily. Then you can just zoom around the map from go to woe and buy a turret or two along the way.
I think I would agree with you if the gear wasn’t legendary. I would rather get the +210 health and +18.20 Attack damage from my Symbiotic Guantlet than try to level for +4% to damage and added health. I have collected many legendaries so I could be particular in my testing and theory crafting. I would say well over 75% of the legendaries I will never use, but some are just too good to pass up with how they synergize with a character.
I agree those buffs are awesome, but as I said they become exponentially more powerful the higher your base stats are.
If you can level substantially faster and get to say, level 7 before activating a legendary than level 4, you’re getting an additional 12% to your base attack damage that will make that Symbiotic Gauntlet even more devastating.
I have 60+ unique legendaries myself and use many of them extensively.
I am not saying legendaries are not worth it, only that a higher level character will make better use of them.
Ah, yes. That is true. Sorry for rustling your jimmies. I will try your way and see if it elevates my game. Thanks 
THANK YOU SO MUCH, I did really good these past 6 matches
Great! Now I can get back to playing instead of stalking around the forums for damsels in distress hahahaha 
No jimmies rustled mate!
Just having a back and forth! Everyone has their own way of playing, that’s what makes the game great!
I agree w/ EVERYTHING @nrennat said! I’ve been reading a lot of these Pendles post and there are very few people on the forum that truly understand his meta (he is less than a week old so that’s to be expected), but @nrennat clearly does so I’m going to add my 2 cents here because instead of telling people on the other threads that they are wrong it seems more productive to try to amplify the right.
Some general advice about how to play Pendles:
- Pendles is an uber specialist and you have approach him as such. If you play him like just another melee character you will be destroyed. I’ve made that mistake and got destroyed. I don’t make that mistake anymore.
- Be patient.
- Unless an enemy is pinned against the environment or their back is turned to you and they don’t notice that you are hitting them you should be strafing while attacking. This prevents them from quick meleeing you out of attack range and also confuses most players. They don’t understand why they can’t shoot or quick melee you.
- His uncloaked movement speed is soo bad that even if you stacked movement/sprint speed gear it won’t make a material difference in your ability to chase your victim while uncloaked so don’t waste any gear slots on trying to improve it.
My loadout for Pendles consists of the Symbiotic Gauntlet (for the 18% attack dmg buff and max health increase), Bola’s Target Finder (for the 9.6% skill dmg buff, attack speed, and its 10 second 5.6% dmg debuff), and a blue attack speed item whose secondary stat boosts attack speed for 60 seconds after killing a player or major enemy. Since his sole purpose is to kill players it’s the perfect piece of gear for him.
Flurry of Blows combined w/ the attack speed buffs that my loadout provides can melt tanks if their skills are on cool down and you avoid getting hit due to strafing. It’s absolutely nutty how fast he can attack when this mutation is selected.
Another thing is pendles can get someone to half health bomb away, then come back for the kill later
Also if you are in a Pendles vs Pendles situation, which will be highly likely in most matches in the next weeks:
- First ping him while he’s unstealthed or let your team know where he is via mic.
- Obviously pop Injection whenever it’s off cooldown to slow him.
- DO NOT POP YOUR SMOKE FIRST! …Unless your intent is to retreat. If he pops his smoke and immediately reengages you, then pop yours and he will have an awkward situation where he’s super slow and can’t run away for ~20 seconds and you can really invite the team for a snake skewer or finish him yourself if you think you can safely.
I just punished another Pendles and thought I’d share this.
Well I got to go, the hardest people are orendi and ambra for now though, and remember to always advertise executive executions
Real quick, you see a half health orendi alone, KILL HER YOU CAN DO IT
Sometimes when my team is doing just fine 4v5 without me… I’ll go destroy all the enemies turrets and then wave clear the bots on their own side of the map before they can get to the battle.
Its funny.
Nice Conversation here about Pendles. @studdugie @nrennat nice builds too. I helix my Pendles in with the same choices as well but I play him different and use different gear. Thats the beauty of the game though how you can play characters differently.
I really really tried a attack speed Pendles but it just doesn’t work with me when facing good people. Guess others have had better luck. Once you uncloak, you are vulnerable so you have to get in and get out. Versus a good team with awareness, once you uncloak or go 1v1 with someone… You won’t have time to melee especially if you go fury blows because it requires you to hit with the entire combo before it activates, If you miss, try again. Someone that is aware won’t miss with their quick melee unless you boost your movement speed and they will call their teammates, they will use reveal skill and you are done. You can occasionally get the kill but probably won’t make it out alive. However, melee- ing does work vs pug teams.
-Again, this is what I experienced using attack speed and fury blows vs good teams.
I switche up my play style and I use: Gear- shard gen + skill dmg, firmware update & codex fragment. Also I pick back stab for Lv 3 & bountiful bombs Lv 8.
In the beginning I build, tap on some minions and look for anyone that’s almost dead for experience. Be annoying with drive by smoke bombs or pushing people from ledges to see how they react. Depending On their health I’ll finish them off with an injector from the back, if their health is a bit higher… I melee first (get that back stab damage), they will quickly turn around and quick melee (if the don’t then it just makes things easier) then use injector to close the gap then immediately smoke bomb them for DOT damage. This should kill. If not just run away, live to fight another day. Doing that should take atleast 3-4 seconds tops.
After Lv 8-9 that’s when the gear and helix starts to shine. You will have extremely low cool downs with smoke bomb to have fun with. This works great on choke points and will help push. Smoke bomb the area, they will be blind and disperse, go Ult and pick someone you wanna kill, you can pull off atleast 4 or 5 injectors, your smoke bomb will be back up and smoke bomb away to safety. You killed 1 or 2 people, gave your team the push and just rinse and repeat. So I relied on my skills/abilities more than melee
Sorry for the long post.
Step 1 - Vote on map.
Step 2 - Hover over Pendles for a second and consider your options.
Step 3 - Select Benedict instead.
Step 4 - Wreck face.
The OPness, must resist