Grenade Gauntlet is one of the most underrated weapons in the game, and I always liked it on Ogryn. Great for sniping specials across the map and great for crowd controlling Crushers and Bulwarks in close quarters with special attack explosion. I understand that the weapon having a melee moveset is part of its charm, but every new blessing just feeds into this weird hybrid role when the weapon is-- first and foremost-- the most accurate and long distance Ogryn weapon designed for sniping priority targets. Am I wrong?
I wish there were more variety blessings for sniping. Maybe a new blessing that scales its damage with the travel distance of the projectile. Or a blessing that gives a guaranteed crit on the last shot in the clip so you can combine it with the Reassuringly Accurate blessing which already saw barely any play in my matches between me and other Ogryns when I checked their loadouts. Special attacks are cool, but I’m not a fan of forcing them all the time just to get any value out of my blessings.
Pinpoint Target and Shattering Impact are still the best blessings on it. Blaze Away for more DPS on bosses maybe, but otherwise Shattering Impact gives way more juice against armored targets. You don’t need all 4 shots for anything other than Ogryn enemies and bosses anyway, so using Blaze Away for some extra damage on the final attack is absolutely not worth it. If you’re not killing most specials and armored enemies in two shots max, you don’t have the right perks and blessings on it.
Now, Rumbler.
One of the most fun weapons in the game, despite it being weaker than most of Ogryn ranged option. If you played game long enough, we all met those Ogryns that do nothing all game but spam Rumbler, even on the highest difficulty. Yes, it’s annoying, but I kinda get them and try not to get mad, especially when this playstyle is promoted by the weapons’ and blessings’ design.
Rumbler has had this “spam” problem, because it has very low damage against most targets in the game and doesn’t even kill some of the specials/gunners on direct headshot, even after the projectile explodes near them (so headshot damage + explosion = still no kill).
Lots of Ogryns pick Blaze Away as one of the staple blessings to increase its damage as much as possible for these sweet oneshots to happen at least somewhere down the line. The weapon is only good against Crushers, Bulwarks and bosses otherwise.
What did developers do last patch? They decided to play into this brainless ammo-wastey playstyle and added two other blessings that compliment spamming the weapon all the time, even when you don’t need to. Namely, Shrapnel and Blast Zone.
Shrapnel is so inconsistent without spamming the weapon and deals peanuts extra damage, so it’s not worth using at all if you’re one of those teamplayer Ogryns who tries to save resources for the little ones’. Not to mention IF the projectile bounces too far from you, EVEN WHEN YOU SHOOT IT AT YOUR FEET, you won’t get the bleed effect. And Blast Zone is just perfect fit for annoying Blaze Away spam.
Marksman Reflex is the only good new blessing that rewards skill, which will unfortunately won’t see much use, because Adhesive Charge (<- best blessing by far), Blaze Away and Shattering Impact are still hard to remove staples. My suggestion is to buff it. Make it so its effect remains indefinitely active as long as Ogryn keeps hitting the headshots, so you don’t get punished for TRYING TO AIM. And maybe rework other blessings, if you have the time.