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Holistic Pendles Guide – Battleborn

Holistic Pendles Guide - Battleborn
Holistic Pendles Guide - Battleborn

Overview

Famous for being a “snekky snek” since before he was even released, Pendles has the most accurate descriptors in the game. He has the “Stealth” label and, unlike every other “Stealth” character, will actually spend a majority of his time cloaked (in fact, any time in which you are not actively attacking you should be cloaked). With his incredible stealth capabilities and strong single target melee damage, he’s able to selectively engage enemies just like an “Assassin” is supposed to and has the damage dealing capabilities to ensure kills in most cases. To cap it off, he’s got a lot of interaction between his skills and passive, which is just what “Complex” means.

In addition to his obvious incredible stealth advantages, Pendles is also the fastest character in the game, but only when he’s stealthed. When he’s cloaked/stealthed, he can outrun *anyone*, but his speed is normal when outside of stealth.

Of course, Pendles pays for these incredible advantages by being the squishiest melee character in the game (he’s tied with Ambra at a mere 920 hp w/ 300 shield, though Ambra gets an extra 300 overshield from her passive). He can offset this somewhat via some powerful lifesteal helices and he can escape more effectively than pretty much anyone else by using Smoke Bomb to stealth and gtfo when a fight goes wrong, but it is still his biggest concern. His crit spot (his head) is also pretty large which can be a concern but his stance makes it harder to hit than most others.

Pendles’ squishiness translates into a general inability to win when he engages other characters 1v1. As such, more than any other assassin, you do not want to engage healthy targets. Only pick a fight when your target is weak (such as someone who is running away) or if you have some other advantage (like you have a friend around).

While stealthed, all NPCs will completely ignore Pendles (if an ally is near you, you can still catch stray bullets aimed at your ally) but PCs will still see the telltale stealth shimmer (and will often take pot shots) and any debuff visual effects (like fire, debuff arrows, etc.). Because of this, as well as his obscene move speed while stealthed, he has 2 extremely useful tactics that every Pendles player needs to be aware of:

In PvP, because NPCs will completely ignore a stealthed character, Pendles is capable of incredible acts of sabotage. Pendles can run behind the enemy team, stealing their shards, destroying turrets, capturing thralls or nodes, etc. and, in general, taking the enemy team’s resources for his own. In Incursion and Meltdown, where it’s possible to win through economic domination (starve your opponents of shards and spend like crazy), this is absolutely devastating (and generally considered to be the best way to play Pendles). You should still attack your opponents opportunistically but capturing your opponents’ resources is absolutely devastating. In Capture, it allows you to take control of nodes without being scene (and, his high move speed allows him to move from node to node very quickly).

In PvE, sabotaging your enemies doesn’t really do much. While it’s possible to ignore your enemies and just loot everything, you still have to kill stuff to progress (and, if you’re running with friends, you’re basically making them play the match short a player, which, to me, is just incredibly rude and selfish). Rather than hanging out in stealth all the time, you need to actually kill things to be useful (and make sure you don’t run ahead and steal all of the shards, since sharing is caring and people that take shards that they don’t need when their allies still need them are the kind of people you don’t want to keep playing with). The main reason that Pendles is awesome in PvE, however, is that reviving an ally doesn’t take you out of stealth. As such, when an ally dies, Pendles can disengage (either breaking LoS or using Smoke Bomb to get stealth) and then run over to safely and easily revive his ally. Try to remind your allies not to help you because, if they do, they’re just drawing fire over to you rather than allowing you to revive without drawing any attention.

All in all, Pendles is weird. In PvP, he’s a thief, saboteur, and opportunistic killer. In PvE, he’s a melee combatant that can safely revive his friends (or be a mooching jackass). In both, he’s simply fun and provides an entirely unique playstyle among all of the Battleborn.

Index

Abilities

Dual Kamas:

Pendles’ basic attack.
A 5 attack combo comprised of a pair of attacks (left>right) going from the outside in (starting at the outside of your HUD and traveling in and just past your reticle), a second pair of attacks (right>left) going inside out (starting near your reticle and passing through it to the opposite side), and a slight delay before a finishing attack (swing with both kamas straight down from the top middle of your HUD) that deals 40% normal damage. Your DPS would be higher if you could avoid using the finishing attack but, to do that, you have to stop attacking for the entire period of the delay before the finishing attack, so you’re better served just following through with it.
This is Pendles’ primary source of damage.

Throwing Stars:

Pendles’ alt fire.
*Extremely* low damage, each star only deals 56% of the damage of your basic attack. The rate of fire is slow-ish so the base DPS is roughly 33% of what you’d get out of your melee attack. The only reason to use this is to damage someone that you can’t other damage: a nearly dead target that’s out of range when you’re unable to stealth (since Pendles runs so slowly he won’t be able to catch up) or a target that’s you simply can’t get access to. It takes and keeps you out of stealth and the damage is pathetic so I really don’t recommend using it. It’s just not that useful.

Corner Sneak:

Pendles’ passive.
Whenever no enemies can see him (breaking line of sight or be far enough from enemy NPCs that you’re not within their “visual range”), Pendles will become stealthed, and, while stealthed, he gets a 30% bonus to his movement speed. The description is somewhat inaccurate in that his movement speed while uncloaked is actually the same as every other character.

Snake-Born:

Pendles’ other passive.
-25% CC Duration reduces the duration of slows, stuns, blinds, and wounds. It has no effect on DoTs. It’s not particularly impressive or useful because none of those effects really last long enough for a small percentage based decrease to provide a noticeable difference, but it does make him harder to pin down.

Smoke Bomb:

Skill 1.
Quite simply, Pendles throws a bomb to the ground at his feet, which explodes immediately. The explosion deals a little bit of damage, creates a cloud of poison in melee range around him that deals a bit of damage to all enemies that stand in it, and instantly cloaks him. The default damage is pathetic but helices can make it much more effective as a damage tool; other helices will make it a much more effective escape tool as well. It’s pretty heavily customizable.
The CD on this is extremely long (24 seconds; this can be mitigated somewhat with helix choices) so you will *really* want to track your usage of this. Pendles is squishy so, if you need to escape and Smoke Bomb isn’t up, you’re pretty much dead.
In PvE, you’re liable to use this just as much as an escape tool as you are as an actual attack (since NPC AI doesn’t tell them to gtfo of the damage patch); in PvP, this is pretty much exclusively an escape tool.

Injection:

Skill 2.
A remarkably quick and heavy hitting attack that will damage and debuff everything in a nearly 180* horizontal arc in front of him. The damage is impressive, the area of effect is extremely good, the CD is moderate (14 seconds), and the slow debuff is significant (50-60%). It is both an excellent killing blow (due to the damage) and opening strike (due to the damage and the slow). Scoring crits with it is possible but difficult. Helices can customize it to make it extremely powerful.

Miasma:

Ultimate.
Pendles shrouds himself in a cloud of poison that travels with him for 10 seconds, dealing a little bit of damage to everything around him. Upon activation, it will put your into third person over-the-shoulder perspective for a couple seconds before reverting to the normal first person perspective (you can still attack and everything while in third person). Furthermore, it will *also* reduce the CD on Injection by 10 seconds, such that you can use it repeatedly for the duration of the effect. You can activate this while cloaked and it will *not* take you out of stealth. Because of this, it’s generally best to activate it right before you unleash it on a target: Miasma>Injection>melee>Injection>melee>Injection will be devastating to an unaware target (since the slow will keep them very close). Of course, if you’re going for the lore challenge (kill 20 players while Miasma is active), it generally works best to activate it right before a kill since you can’t always guarantee that someone will die right away (and Pendles screaming his ult phrase is just announcing your intent to your foes) but that’s a special case.

Helices

Level 1: Poison Cloud v. Cobra Strike

Recommendation: (PvP) Cobra Strike; (PvE) Poison Cloud
Poison Cloud is awesome in PvE because it really makes Smoke Bomb’s damage much more potent: it increases the duration from 2 seconds to 5 seconds, but the cloud still does the same damage per tick, increasing the DoT damage by 150% for a total increase to the skill’s damage of ~80%. Players will generally gtfo of dangerous patches quickly but NPCs are dumb and will often stand around and die rather than leave it (remember that it cloaks you when you use it, so, if you’re solo, NPCs will just stand around doing nothing).
Cobra Strike causes Pendles to lunge forward a couple meters before using Injection. In PvE, it’s not that useful because enemies don’t really run away from you; in PvP, enemy players *do* and because Injection is a heavy slow, being able to catch them as they’re running from you will allow you to keep engaging them and hopefully get a kill.

Level 2: Flash Bomb v. Ninjineering

Recommendation: (PvP) Flash Bomb; (PvE) Any
FB is awesome in PvP because it makes Smoke Bomb an absolutely amazing escape tool: 1 second of blind will make it extremely easy to get away and, since you should always be saving Smoke Bomb for fleeing or regaining stealth rather than for the damage, the ability to use it at range isn’t particularly impressive.
In PvE, however, the ability to use it as a ranged attack (he throws the bomb and it detonates on contact) is extremely useful: combined with Poison Cloud (and other helices focused around making Smoke Bomb a better attack rather than better utility) you can use Smoke Bomb like other characters use their ranged AoE skills: you can place it under the feet of some enemies and cause a lot of damage. Keep in mind, however, that Pendles cloaks when the bomb explodes; as such, with Ninjineering, there will be a delay in his gaining stealth if he uses it at long range (also, you’ll need to tap the button twice if you’re using the Standard Skill Activation Style). When used against a nearby target (which it is still perfectly serviceable for), it’s basically the same.

Level 3: Mamba’s Bite v. Flurry of Blows v. Backstab

Recommendation: Any
All of these are extremely powerful and extremely useful.
MB is one of the only 2 ways for Pendles to get any damage recovery on his own. If you’re having problems staying alive, this can be useful. In PvP, it will help him with his survivability to some extent (since he can heal a bit while fighting), though damage recovery isn’t as important otherwise because you can just teleport back to base. In PvE, it will help survive and keep yourself topped off when health orbs just aren’t appearing.
The choice between FoB and Bs depends largely upon how often you’ll be able to attack your target’s back. If you’re fighting solo, it pretty much never happens since whoever you engage will turn to face you almost immediately. If you’re in a team, you can get it quite often as long as you’re opportunistic about it. If you can’t get to your enemies’ backs, FoB will be better. It ramps up over a few attacks and will fade after a few seconds of not hitting anything so it encourages you to stay in combat, mowing down enemies. Don’t be afraid to lose it by disengaging because you can just build them back up again.

Level 4: Life Leech v. Potent Venom v. Savage Cut

Recommendation: (PvP) Any; (PvE) Life Leech or Savage Cut
PV increases the duration of Injection’s slow from 2 to 3 seconds. With Miasma and some CD gear, you can keep a target constantly slowed for the duration of your ult, which is extremely powerful. Of course, by that same token, LL gives you a lot of life steal (60% is a *lot*; keep in mind, only health damage counts) and SC increases the damage by nearly 50% (the DoT isn’t improved by any of the helices, so it’s a lot less impressive if you take those), so it all depends upon what you need to guarantee kills: if people keep getting away, use PV; if you’re worried about dying, use LL; if you just want to do more damage, use SC.
In PvE, the slow isn’t really useful (enemies don’t move around enough to be a major concern) so the choice is between either lifesteal or the DoT. My general recommendation is to take either Mamba’s Bite at level 3 *or* LL at level 4 (in my experience, doubling up is overkill on life steal). Of course, if you’re having problems staying alive and healthy, taking them both can be good and, if you have a friendly healer that is willing to keep you topped off, any amount of life steal is basically redundant.

Level 5: Cloak and Cover v. Snake Eyes v. Escape Plan

Recommendation: (PvP) Cloak and Cover or Escape Plan; (PvE) Escape Plan
Depending upon who you’re fighting, C&C can be extremely useful. Some players are extremely good at noticing the telltale stealth shimmer (or visual effects) and attacking it. If you are fighting people like this, C&C can very easily save your life; this is basically worthless in PvE because the only way you’re going to take damage while stealthed is if you stand in an AoE or an ally is right next to you drawing fire.
Snake Eyes seems like it might be useful (in PvP; there are no stealthed enemies in PvE and major enemies are extremely uncommon in the first place) but it is highly questionable in value because of the unmentioned limitations: the reveal (it outlines enemies) is applied at the insatnt that Pendles becomes stealthed (whether because no one is looking at him or via Smoke Bomb), only lasts ~5 seconds, is dim (so it’s hard to see), and only applies to enemies that are within short range (roughly 5 meters). To be even remotely useful, an enemy Battleborn (any NPC is going to be easy to see and on your minimap) needs to be stealthed and already near you when you enter stealth. It’s so limited that it’s basically worthless.
Escape Plan is awesome: every time you take damage while uncloaked, the CD on Smoke Bomb is reduced by ~1 second, up to a maximum of 14 seconds (by the time you get hit 14 times, Smoke Bomb has probably come off of CD). In effect, it speeds up the CD when you’re fighting, which means that you can use it as a damage tool much more effectively (or it helps you escape after being revealed in PvP).

Level 6: Feint v. Sweet Spot

Recommendation: Sweet Spot
Because of Pendles’ stealth, it’s pretty trivial to get behind a target for Injection and, when a target is running away, they’ll either backpeddle (and be very slow) or turn around (and take extra damage from SS). This makes Injection significantly more dangerous, especially as an opening attack.
Feint just isn’t that useful compared to the additional damage you can almost guarantee with Injection. It helps you escape and disengage, but Smoke Bomb is already excellent at that (and you probably already took Flash Bomb at level 2).

Level 7: Coiled Spring v. Poison Blood v. Deeper Pockets

Recommendation: Poison Blood
CS will double the height of Pendles’ jump, giving him a lot more vertical mobility as well as hang time. In certain PvE maps (i.e. Sentinel), it can be useful for reaching “platformer chests” earlier than you would without it; in PvP, it can help you shortcut and vault over obstacles though it’s not exactly a major advantage for a melee combatant (since jumping in melee makes it harder to hit enemies). It’s extremely conditional and of questionable value.
PB is absolutely great for getting a bit of extra damage against melee combatants and discouraging them from attacking you. Still, Pendles isn’t a particularly durable character so it’s not going to be contributing lots. It also only applies to melee attacks: ranged attack and skills used in melee don’t count. If you’re fighting an entire squad of ranged or skill damage character, PB is gonna be worthless.
Deeper Pockets lies. It simply states that Pendles throws 2 additional stars but, in reality, it also reduces the damage that your throwing stars deal by 60%. As such, instead of the 200% increase in ranged damage that you might have hoped for (which would put Pendle’s ranged damage equal to his melee damage), it ends up merely being a 20% increase (3 * .4 = 1.2), such that your ranged attack will end up being ~40% of your melee DPS (discounting conditional bonuses such as Backstab or Flurry of Blows). Your Throwing Stars will still be terrible, just slightly not as terrible.

Level 8: Bountiful Bombs v. From the Shadows v. Acidic Blast

Recommendation: (PvP) Bountiful bombs; (PvE) Bountiful Bombs or Acidic Blast
BB allows you to use more Smoke Bombs, which means more combat stealth, which neither of the others do.
FtS is only useful in PvP and *only* if you’re building around burst damage with Injection: it’s multiplicative with Sweet Spot (so the two of them together give you ~44% more damage) and the buff it provides is basically unlimited and doesn’t care if you’re stealthed or not. As long as you don’t die between using Smoke Bomb and using Injection, you’ll get 15% additional damage out of it. The extreme duration means that you can throw a Smoke Bomb, wait for Smoke Bomb to recharge, use Miasma>Injection>Smoke Bomb>Injection and get double value out of it (and that’s the *only* way you’ll get more damage out of FtS).
AB is explicitly better from a raw DPS standpoint: if you’ve not taken Sweet Spot, you’ll get more damage out of AB even if the target flees immediately (since they’ll still get hit by the first tick of the DoT); if you’ve taken Sweet Spot, you’ll get more damage as long as the target takes more than the initial tick. If you took Poison Cloud at level 1, the DPS increase is absolutely insane. I don’t recommend this in PvP, mainly because no one really sticks around long enough to take the damage; in PvE, however, it’s absolutely devastating.

Level 9: Relentless Strikes v. Slippery

Recommendation: Relentless Strikes
Slippery, when combined with Pendles’ passive, will allow him to laugh away CC effects. The duration is short, but, so you’re only really going to be seeing the buff when you’re ambushing someone or when you’re spamming Injection during Miasma. The primary value is in laughing off enemy slows, though if being able to take a 2 second stun down to less than a second can be pretty cruel. Only take this if you’re fighting against an incredibly heavy CC team, though, because it’s just not worth it otherwise (and, even then, it’s kind of questionable).
Relentless Strikes will give you access to Injection way more often. Since it slows (and, with a helix choice, heals you), being able to use it more often will be extremely useful for helping you get kills.

Level 10: Necrosis v. Venom Synergy

Recommendation: (PvP) Any; (PvE) Venom Synergy
Barring his rather lackluster lore legendary, Necrosis is the only way for Pendles to get access to the much valued wound condition. If the opposing team has some good healers (Alani or Miko definitely; potentially Kid Ultra; neither Ambra nor Reyna can really throw out enough heals to be a worry while you’re in Miasma), Necrosis can be amazing for guaranteeing kills (especially on Alani, who can self heal incredibly well).
Of course, if there isn’t a powerful healer on the other side, wound will do nothing. VS gives you more damage on Injection and, because you’re going to be able to spam it like crazy thanks to Miasma reducing the CD on Injection, this can do a *lot*, especially if you also took Sweet Spot and can get behind your target.

Gear Stats

Pendles is fast and deadly but he is in no way a durable character. If you take his lifesteal helices, offensive stats will make him somewhat more survivable but he’ll never really approach the same level as other melee characters. If you want to actually be able to survive an extended engagement, you’ll need defensive stats. I’ll go over all stats here, based on how I personally categorize them, and provide a priority list for each category.

Offensive

(Attack Damage>Attack Speed>Skill Damage=Critical Damage>Cooldown>Shield Pen>Recoil=Reload):
Attack Damage is the most important stat for Pendles since a majority of his damage is from his basic attacks. If you want to go for a Skill Damage build (e.g. Infection spam during Miasma) for PvP, you can ignore Attack Damage, but you won’t have particularly impressive damage before Miasma or outside of it.
Attack Speed is second to Attack Damage only because it has lower values. Of course, if you go for a Skill Damage build, you’ll be taking Relentless Strikes if/when you hit level 9, at which point Attack Speed is amazing, since it means that you’ll be able to get Injection back faster.
Skill Damage is good because Pendles does have decent damage skills (extremely good, in fact), especially while Miasma is active, but the CDs are so long that you’ll spend a vast majority of your time doing basic attacks so augmenting them won’t get you as far in general.
Critical Damage is low priority because Pendles isn’t stellar at scoring crits with his basic melee attack (because of the swings coming from different directions and the need to have precise distance to avoid hitting a target on the side) and only Injection is capable of scoring crits.
Cooldown means more skill uses, but the values are so low (and you it’s generally best to hold on to skills rather than using them right when they come back) so it’s not really a huge improvement to your damage.
Shield pen is utterly rubbish. It’s only useful in PvP because most enemies in PvE don’t have shields (and no bosses have them; Rendain’s shield doesn’t care about shield pen). Still, it actually does something unlike recoil and reload. Recoil and reload are only useful as penalties to take on gear since they do absolutely nothing to him.

Defensive

(Max Health>Max Shield>Health Regen>Damage Reduction>Healing Received>Shield Recharge=Shield Regen<CC Duration):
Max Health reigns over all other stats because it increases TTK by way more than anything else and Pendles is *squishy as hell*. Max Shield doesn’t improve TTK as well as Max Health does, but it’s still useful.
Barring his life steal helices, Health Regen is Pendles’ only way to recover his hp and, even if you take one or both of them, they require that he actually engage in combat. If you take Health Regen gear, he’ll be able to recover when he disengages with Smoke Bomb (which is very useful).
DR is only useful if you take at least one of Pendles’ life steal helices. If you don’t, DR is absolutely horrible because Pendles just doesn’t have the hp or shield to make it worth it.
Healing Received is only useful if you have a healer around and Pendles doesn’t really have enough hp to make stacking healing received necessary (unless he’s barely alive, he’ll be brought back to full pretty easily). Also, you’ll spend a lot of time running around on your own without a healer nearby so, even if there’s a healer on your team, you probably won’t have them nearby.
Shield Regen and Recharge won’t really do you much good: when Pendles disengages, it’s doubtful he’s not coming back before his shield would recharge naturally. Neither of these will really do you much good.
CC duration is functionally worthless. CCs don’t last that long so the minute values of CC duration on gear basically mean nothing, especially compared to the ridiculous amounts that Pendles can get for himself.

Mobility

(Move speed>Cooldown=Sprint speed>CC duration):
Move speed is useful in combat and out of combat and is increased by sprint speed. Cooldown means more Smoke Bomb, which allows you to gain stealth when enemies are watching you, which gives you the speed you need. Sprint speed is only really useful outside of combat (when you’re probably already stealthed and running crazy fast). CC duration reduces the duration of slows and stuns but is still absolutely terrible.

Economy

(Shards>Buildable):
Getting shards helps you buy gear as well as construct buildables. Buildable reduction makes them way cheaper, however. Something to consider is that I only find these stats remotely useful in PvP. PvE gives you shards like candy; unless you’ve got someone who bogarts all of the shards, every mission should provide a surplus of shards even if you have a triple legendary loadout (like I do for pretty much everyone). In PvP, however, these are absolutely amazing and can actually be the foundation of an effective strategy.

Legendaries

These are some specific legendaries to keep in mind for Pendles.

Gloves (attack damage):

Pacifier (algorithm), Symbiotic Gauntlet (sentinel), Vow of Vengeance (renegade)
Pacifier makes it harder to break your shield because it’s reducing damage dealt and increasing your shield. Symbiotic Gauntlet will make you way more durable, though you’ll want some Health Regen to keep you topped off. VoV is just pure face melting because it increases attack speed and, as a melee, you’re going to be generating those increased damage stacks like crazy.

Swords (attack speed):

Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr (sentinel), Vow of Zealous Fury (heliophage)
VoZF is the gold standard of attack speed legendaries: the stacks last an extremely long time and are easy to acquire, and it provides an excellent stat in addition to the attack speed. It’s kind of a ♥♥♥♥♥ to get, though, because Rendain drops it. And Rendain sucks (longest mission in the game and he’s the very last boss). SEoA is much easier to get and is almost as good: the stacks can be stacked faster if you’re in combat and quick about it; move speed is, in my book, worse than crit damage though, but that’s personal preference.
Orbital Tracking Spike is only mentioned because it’s got useful stats (attack speed and shield) though the additional attack speed is conditional upon you standing still… which can easily get you killed and you’re not liable to do often. This is more of a sniper legendary but I can see someone using it until they get one of the other 2.

Watches (cooldown):

Borrowed Timer (upr)
Borrowed Timer can be powerful in PvP. Being able to activate Smoke Bomb as soon as you drop to critical hp levels will save your ♥♥♥ plenty. Of course, the secondary stat is trash and Pendles doesn’t have a whole lot of hp so the 10% window is rather small. Still, being able to use Smoke Bomb aggressively and still know that you’ll be able to use it in an emergency is worth consideration.
I’ll mention a few others purely to caution people against using them since I can see the gears turning in some minds. Chrono Key was a popular option early on but, post nerf, I would never recommend it. Cooldown is useful, but the secondary stat is useless (heal power doesn’t affect life steal) and the legendary effect requires an obscene amount of damage dealt to see any returns. Even if you’re chewing through enemies, you’re not going to see enough to really make it worthwhile. Firmware Update has similar problems: low value secondary stat and Pendles’ abilities have CDs that are *way* too high to really make effective use out of the legendary effect (except when Miasma is active; with that, you can potentially get value out of it). Aria’s Encore is another trap, mainly because it’s only good in ops, where basic attacks are way better, since that’s the only time you’ve got Ops Points to fuel the legendary effect.

Goggles (critical damage):

Heliophagic Goggles (heliophage), Longarm Scope-Goat (rogue)
If you can manage to get crits reliably as Pendles, the HG can be worth it. Even if the end bonus to damage is terrible, you get attack speed to go with the critical damage and the special effect is quite nice. In PvE, a blind is basically a stun and, in PvP, it’s extremely disorienting to players. LSG gives the crappiest secondary stat but, if you can line up a good shot with stealth, the legendary effect can be extremely annoying. Of course, like all faction legendaries, it’s crippled by the fact that it only works in an extremely limited number of situations such that it does nothing in PvE and isn’t likely to be useful in PvP.

Pauldrons (damage reduction):

Blissbeast Skull Plate (void’s edge)
Damage reduction and a nice chunk of regeneration. Gotta love it. Pendle’s hp is low enough that you’ll get the benefit of the legendary effect extremely often.

Injectors (health regen):

Oath of the Sustained (renegade)
An excellent recovery legendary that also helps out your team. You get health regen, increased damage, and a portion of all damage dealt (which should be a lot) is given to your allies as life. As long as you don’t die, you should be able to provide a lot of healing to your allies.

Armor (max hp):

Vigilance Link (sentinel), Vampiric Vestment (jennerit), Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter (upr)
Vigilance Link gives you 2 excellent survivability stats and makes your team more durable as well. Excellent for team players and more support minded people. Vampiric vestments will give you hp, more hp when you kill things, and more attack damage so that it’s easier to kill things. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend VV for PvP, but Pendles can disengage with Smoke Bomb and is an assassin so it can be quite effective. Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter can reliably provide more hp than any other legendary and, if you take his life steal helices, he has good enough damage recovery that he can withstand a bit of “farming”. VV is probably better, but only if you’re getting kills on hard targets.

Batteries (max shield):

One-4-All Shield Array (experiment), Modernista (saboteur), Voxis Core (jennerit)
Modernista is a good anti-ranged shield with a decent secondary stat. A good way to discourage snipers in PvP since you can avoid the first crit and hurt them in the process. One-4-All Shield Array gives you more shield, your allies more shield, and can stack up some shield penetration if you want to push a shield pen build, not that it’s very good. Voxis Core is a requisite for a skill damage build, since the legendary effect is basically a 15% increase in damage if there’s more than 1 enemy nearby and does *amazing* things with all of Pendle’s skills.

Boots (move speed):

Boots of the Brute (saboteur), Wyrm-skin Kicks (lore)
I wouldn’t use either of these for PvE since neither debuff is remotely useful, but they’re useful in PvP since the BotB will let you keep up with enemy players exceptionally well without using Injection while Wyrm-skin Kicks give you a reliable and controllable way to throw some wound on enemy players (the stats are junk though).

Shard Generators (bonus shards):

Quartermasty Bin (saboteur)
While I normally don’t encourage legendary shard generators for *anyone* (compared to a free shard gen, the price is basically doubled: you have to wait until you can afford it by gathering shards and then you have to spend those shards before being able to actually generate more), Pendles is an exception. If you’re PvPing, stealing every shard on your opponent’s side of the base, you can use this to shower your allies with shards. It’s ridiculous. A Pendles with this can allow his entire team to spend like crazy without bothering with a single free shard gen.

Pins (skill damage):

Bola’s Target Finder (experiment)
The gold standard of skill damage legendaries. Attack speed (amazing) in addition to skill damage and a bonus effect that makes enemies take more damage after being damaged by your skills. This is the only skill damage item I would bother with for Pendles.

Non-Legendary Gear

Since legendaries generally require extensive PvE to acquire (even the loot pack legendaries are easier to get via PvE due to the ease at acquiring commander packs via the ops), most PvP players won’t have ready access to many of them. Of course, because they require so many shards to activate, many PvPers don’t bother using them in the first place (they’d rather activate cheaper gear and use spare shards on buildables). It should also be mentioned than many newbies won’t have ready access to a full spread of gear either so this provides them some stuff to look out for.

Keep in mind that all of these items can be acquired from Core loot packs; each item also has a relevant faction listed; if you’re looking for a specific item, your best bet is to open faction or commander packs of that type so that the loot table is smaller.

This list will not be comprehensive. I’m only mentioning those items that I feel are most relevant/important. I’ll also be labeling them based upon faction, rarity, and if you want the version with a penalty if possible (items with penalties are cheaper to activate; in general, only use gear with a penalty that doesn’t affect your character since it’s basically a free cost reduction).

Gloves (attack damage):

LLC (epic), Eldrid (all, penalized), Rogue (rare)
First and foremost, the Eldrid gloves are all awesome because max hp is absolutely amazing and the conditional effect on the rare and uncommon versions are extremely easy to activate. Alani doesn’t have a shield naturally so reducing her max shield means nothing to her.
The LLC epic glove is good because it provides shield (and with it a modicum of crit resistance) though the other LLC gloves aren’t worth it because of bad conditional requirements.
The Rogue rare glove is good because Alani is extremely accurate and can land crits effectively. Do *not* use the penalty because Alani doesn’t have the hp to sacrifice.

Swords (attack speed):

LLC (epic), Eldrid (all, penalized), Rogue (rare)
The exact same stuff here as with the gloves, with a different primary stat. Same rules apply, though these tend to be better because Alani likes attack speed more than attack damage.

Wrenches (buildable cost):

Jennerit (common, penalized)
Excellent for PvP building loadouts, this is the only free wrench that doesn’t penalize Alani at all. The higher rarity wrenches tend to not be worth it because you’re spending shards to save the same amount on later purchases.

Med Kits (heal power):

Eldrid (rare, penalized)
If you want heal power, this is what you want. You may be tempted to consider the LLC variant because Alani doesn’t have a shield but the conditional there doesn’t work with the Eldrid. You need to have a shield before it can be considered depleted so the LLC “while shield is depleted” triggers never function for Alani.

Armor (max hp):

Eldrid (rare, penalized)
The exact same stuff here as with the med kits, with a different primary stat. Same rules apply. This is probably the single most important item for Alani in PvP, since it is cheap and provides her with an absolutely huge increase to her survivability.

Shard Gen (free shards):

Jennerit (common, penalized)
Virtually required for most PvP loadouts, this is the only free shard gen that doesn’t penalize Alani at all. The higher rarity shard gens tend to not be worth it because you’re having to wait to activate it before starting to generate shards, effectively doubling the cost.

Pins (skill damage):

LLC (epic), Eldrid (all, penalized), Rogue (rare)
The exact same stuff here as with the gloves and swords, with a different primary stat. Same rules apply, though remember that skill damage improves both Alani’s healing and her skill damage so you’re getting a lot of mileage out of this.

Loadouts

General PvE:

Vow of Zealous Fury, Vow of Vengeance, Oath of the Sustained
The first 2 legendaries are all about damage; OotS is there to give you damage and keep you topped off since you shouldn’t have problems avoiding most health damage but enough will still get through for it to be a concern.

Pure Damage PvE:

Vow of Zealous Fury, Vow of Vengeance, Bola’s Target Finder
Also known as the “I’ll kill you before you break my shield” build, you’re going for pure damage and attack speed. It’s risky, but the payoff is worth it if you can avoid taking health damage too often (generally by using Smoke Bomb to escape).

Pure Survivability PvE:

Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter, Pacifier, Blissbeast Skull Plate
Pacifier increases damage dealt and gives you shield; the main advantage is the legendary effect which reduces the damage of enemies hit by 10%. Pain-2-Gain gives you a *lot* of hp and DR, as does Blissbeast Skull Plate. You probably won’t be topping the damage charts for the group, but you’ll be able to stick around in combat for extended periods.

Basic Attack PvP:

Sketchy “Easy Money” (-heal power) or Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Vow of Vengeance, Vow of Zealous Fury
Free shard gen (either of those penalties are good because neither affects him) to allow you to afford the other 2. VoV and VoZF are simply the best damage legendaries you can get. If you have problems keeping people around or healers are being annoying, Boots of the Brute or Wyrm-skin Kicks is the way to go instead of either of those (VoZF is better front end damage; VoV is better back end).
You can opt to replace the free shard generator for a Q-mastery Bin to go the “economic domination” route. You’ll want to spend a lot of your time just gathering shards (especially in the beginning, so that you can afford the thing in the first place), but your team will love your and your enemies will be wondering why they can’t afford anything by the end of the game.

Miasma Injection Spam PvP:

Sketchy “Easy Money” (-heal power) or Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Bola’s Target Finder, Firmware Update 1.51c
Free shard gen with a stat that doesn’t affect you, like always. Bola’s is simply amazing and FU combined with Miasma will let you spam Injection like crazy when you get Miasma.
You can opt to replace the free shard generator for a Q-mastery Bin to go the “economic domination” route. You’ll want to spend a lot of your time just gathering shards (especially in the beginning, so that you can afford the thing in the first place), but your team will love your and your enemies will be wondering why they can’t afford anything by the end of the game.

Fast Leveling PvP:

Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Erratic Tempestian Cred-Stick (-reload), 1 legendary
Build as much as possible to get easy xp and level up as quickly as possible. Make sure you stick around the fights as well so that you’re not sacrificing minion xp for build xp. The legendary is there for when you hit level 5 (or 10, whatever your goal level is) and don’t need to build for xp any more. I don’t mention any specific legendaries because there are a *crapton* that can fit in depending upon what you want and how you want to do it: VoV or VoZF for damage, Boots of the Brute for lockdown, etc.
You can opt to replace the free shard generator for a Q-mastery Bin to go the “economic domination” route. You’ll want to spend a lot of your time just gathering shards (especially in the beginning, so that you can afford the thing in the first place), but your team will love your and your enemies will be wondering why they can’t afford anything by the end of the game. After buying the QmB, you’ll probably be spending a lot of shards on buildables to get on par with everyone else since you’ll have likely spent a *lot* of time running around far from combat.

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