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Weapon Balance Recommendations (Over 50 percent feel good, but more work to do)

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11 days ago
Nov 27, 2024, 7:07:19 PM

​I have 395 hours in the game. I finished leveling every class and every weapon in the game. I regularly solo ruthless and play lethal very comfortably.

 

Here's where I am on the weapons right now: I feel very comfortable with all of the weapons on the heavy, assault, and bulwark. Each of those classes feel terrific no matter what build I bring (with the exception of recommendations for neo-volkite and assault ground slam, see below). I also enjoy the high ammo variant of the tac's plasma incinerator (for its sustainability and versatility), the melta rifle (on either class), and the las fusil. That's more than half of the weapons in the game that feel right to me as of now.

 

 

Of those remaining, here are the weapons/skills that are usable but feel under-powered and unsatisfying to me, as well as my recommended fixes:

 

Bolt Carbine (outside of 10m)- Feels great within 10m after the buff, but that range means that it competes too directly with the melta. Extend the damage buff from the last patch by another 10-20 meters and it'll have its own identity as a rapid fire, single target, solution just beyond the melta's range (juxtaposed against the melta's close range, aoe, solution).

 

Marksman Bolt Carbine-Just takes too many headshots to stun majoris considering its ammo pool. Overshadowed by the Stalker boltgun in every way (more ammo, more damage). It should take 5 headshots to stun a ranged majoris (6 for a melee) or it should have a much larger ammo pool and embrace its identity as a lighter battle rifle option. It also needs a scope like the one given to the occulus last patch (which would go a long way towards improving it).

 

Stalker Bolt Rifle-Takes just a few too many headshots to stun majoris. If this reliably stunned both ranged and melee majoris in four headshots, it'd be perfect.

 

Heavy Bolt Rifle-It's close to being right but it is still taking just a bit too long to kill majoris. I'd juice all its variants by 20% and I think that'd finish it.

 

Neo-Volkite Pistol: It just needs improved damage vs. zoans. It's already a distinctly anti-boss pistol, but it's not ammo efficient and the bolt pistols are more reliable across the spectrum of enemies. If it were buffed specifically against zoans, it'd have a more distinct and important niche to the largely melee classes that bring it.

 

Bolt Sniper Rifle: Has been losing its tug of war with the las fusil since launch. Either it's ammo needs to be increased or it needs to have some kind of interesting special quality to counterbalance it. My recommendation is to allow players to shoot it without leaving stealth. That eliminates the damage bonus you get from the breaking stealth talent, but greatly enables the smaller damage bonus for standing still, and distinguishes this less flashy sniper rifle from its louder laser cousin.

 

Occulus Bolt Carbine: Is very close to feeling good, but continues to lag behind its three round burst brother (the instigator). I'd do the same thing with this as I would do with the heavy bolt rifle and give it 20% more dmg.

 

Instigator Bolt Rifle: I'd match it to the occulus bolt carbine dps (after the 20% buff I recommend above). That would render the choice between these two weapons a choice between two styles, but at the same overall dps. Do you like a more accurate 3 round burst or a more responsive full auto?

 

Assault ground slam: He needs one more charge on the jump and the damage needs to be buffed just a smidge, so that an assault tricked out 100% for ground slam damage (including the talent that makes you hover in the air charging) can stun a ranged majoris on lethal in one slam.

 

 

Here are the weapons that feel genuinely terrible and need to be triaged badly:

 

Auto Bolt Rifle-Absolutely terrible to use. My impulse is to go for a more direct fix and make its dps identical to the bolt carbine with the 50% dmg bonus (slower RoF, more damage per round, same dps). Those two weapons occupy the same conceptual role and, frankly, they probably should have afforded the same solution to two different classes. In other words, the carbine should have been left for the sniper, with the option to get the marksman variant, while the tac got the equivalent of the full-auto variant in the form of the auto bolt rifle. 

 

Bolt Rifle (NO GL): The GL needs a nerf of some kind. As much as I love it, I acknowledge that it's overtuned. The first step in doing that, however, is to buff the underlying bolt rifle which is absolutely terrible feeling to use. It's on the same level as the auto bolt rifle in terms of how frustratingly bad it feels between low dps and low ammo. I recommend buffing the heck out of its ammo reserve to start. With enough ammo, it might become a satisfying sustainability weapon in the same vein as the plasma incinerator. Regardless, it needs help very badly.

 

 

Here is the one nerf I'd recommend:

 

Bolt Rifle Grenade Launcher: I love it but it's busted good. I'd either change it so that ammo increasing gun perks no longer effect the grenades and restore the ability to reload it at ammo caches OR I'd allow the grenades to damage the wielder (the same as regular grenades) in order to force more careful spacing.

 

 

 

 

. . .so. . .yeah. . .for what it's worth. . .that's what I think.

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9 days ago
Nov 28, 2024, 11:25:12 PM

I'd love to respond, but their dumb system keeps thinking if I type more than one paragraph I am spamming. So Instead I will have to actually spam, the mods can blame their own system for that, sorry in advance.

Updated 9 days ago.
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9 days ago
Nov 28, 2024, 11:30:59 PM

Carbine: 

I feel like the overlap with melta problem is actually solved by fixing the melta. Change melta to have a blast as hipfire and a beam with a bit more range and damage wit ha headshot modifier as aimed fire.


Volkite:

Just give it +20% faster heat-up and that will fix a lot of its problems.


Ground Slam and Charged attacks:

Charged attacks should all automatically make majoris vulnerable when fully charged. Ground slam should get +50% AoE radius when fully cahred and teh perk for higher damage when fully charged should instant-kill majoris and increase AoE by an additional 50%, this would fix the issue without giving more charges or reducing cooldown.

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9 days ago
Nov 28, 2024, 11:41:37 PM

Auto Bolt:

It needs more fire rate. But at the core we should play with versions more. So Version one is base with +1 to everything it currently does stat-wise. Version 2 is +4 to the fire rate stat with lower accuracy and higher recoil (probably 2 worse for each). Version 3 is the same idea but accuracy, give it a 10+ for accuracy and reduce fire rate by 2 and increase damage by what ever "+" indicates. Version 4 is the ammo version, give it yet another magazine and increase the fire rate by 1+ I think that should solve most of its problems and make it feel better.


Bolt Rifle:

I have my own post on what I think needs to happen to the Bolt Rifle but in shot: Play into that alternate fire mode the GL has. Give one version Metal Storm round that have much slower fire rate, a much less damage and penetration, but a 1m AoE with high knockback meant to just be a stagger/interrupt and gaunt-clear weapon. Give the ammo version +1 to 2 to all stats it currently has (it would then be the "default" version). Give the final version a secondary mode to mag-dump at a ridiculous fire rate (like one pull of the trigger dumps your mag in a less than a second) but with high recoil and low accuracy.

Updated 9 days ago.
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9 days ago
Nov 29, 2024, 2:03:13 PM
Honestly I couldn't agree more with the topic starter.

Basically all the bolter weapons still need that little bit of power to make them finally feel impactful. I really do hope that there will be further balancing regarding them.
Also since we basically already know that there will be PvE prestige ranks, I hope they will implement some additional progression systems which will also address the balancing issues.
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