This is my second post about this. I said it one day after Skitarii release and I knew that this gun just dominates everything. Now that the excitement over the galvanic rifle is over and many people have completed their penances, we see a lot of people abusing the hell out of the Arc Rifle. It’s worse than the flame staff at this point. Every time I see someone using it, everything just dies no matter what the game throws at you. It can just do it all, be it specials, horde, ranged shooters or wave of armoured elites. How can a weapon like this with barely any weakness exist in the game?
Things that could be done:
increase swap speed so it’s not as good against specials
reduce damage against maniac and unyielding so it can’t delete literally every enemy in the game (it’s one of the best guns to delete mutants)
reduce magazine capacity so you can’t just delete major waves of enemies
remove the +1 chain from “enhanced voltaic arcs” , as it is a must have S+ tier blessing
give it damage drop off at distance
Obviously not all of those things have to be done at once but something has to happen.
I swear 2 out of 3 lobbies with randoms, you see someone using this weapon and they are always way ahead on the scoreboard by just holding LMB no matter how good you play. I know it’s a coop game and it’s not about who does the most damage, but at the same time there shouldn’t be a weapon this strong that takes all the fun out of the game for people who want to experience an actual hard game that requires teamplay.
I called it right at the beginning and I was proven right.
Magazine yes, but the problem with reducing it’s reserve ammo is that the average arc rifle user already soaks up around 80% of the ammo on the map and there aren’t enough barrels to throw them all off the edge of the map.
Them being on top of the scoreboard is not the problem, it’s the symptom of the real problem. I don’t care who has the most damage dealt in the round as long as it is a good match. I don’t need the scoreboard to see the Arc Rifle ruining every round I play because I have a literal god in my team making any effort from me worthless because no matter what the game throws at us, Zeus himself will just smite them all. The scoreboard just confirms in numbers that this gun is indeed broken. Almost all developers use statistics to balance their game, so why is it a problem if I call out that almost every time someone using this particular weapon that isn’t completely incompetent is just skyrocketing the scoreboard?
Its just two builds. Taking any of those nerf ideas seriously, you’re gonna end up gutting the weapon entirely. You either use it for infinite ammo combat doctrine. Or chain lightning voltaic builds. Not everyone is using it, not everyone is playing Skitarii, its also the only weapon like it. As for lethality, it is relatively on par with Flame staff, Voidblast staff, and the Flamer.
If it is gonna get nerfed making it do reduce damge to bosses isnt awful I guess.
It honnesty doesn’t. The rest of the weapons need a buff. Not nerf an actually good weapon just because its fun to play and works well.
Or undo the obvious armour buffs that have been done, make penitration actually do penitration and thus have weapons that can compare to it and the Galvantic rifle.
Yep, I’ve added it to my black list, along with kraks and inferno staff. It’s no fun to play with even one of those on the team, just quit the lobby instead.
Oh, that famous “fun” - which is fun only to the person with that particular brainless crutch, mashing their button happily, removing all fun for the rest of the team. Always the same story, when lovers of a broken crutch defend it as if their lives depend on it
P.S.
There is a golden rule of balance:
Spammable (Arc Rifle is very spammable)
Powerful (It’s powerful too, against all kinds of targets)
Requires no skill to use (requires 0 skill to use, you don’t even really need to aim)
You can choose only two. Arc Rifle has all 3 points about it, it’s broken. It’s ammo efficiency needs to be severely reduced, to about what Spearhead Boltgun has.
You assume too much buddy and dont like fun or enjoyment. Let me correct you. I assume you have the DLC. You played it and noticed the new guns are good. One does what by all rights should, being an arc weapon of course. Just like soul blaze which easily feildwipes and entire hoard.
Your mad because you no longer are in constant danger and have a teammate that can hold the line against a hoard, someone is using an effective weapon or skill against armored enemies. To which you at the low difficulty you play at cant seem to get out of the other players behind and get some action yourself. This is an issue when you stick with them constantly or aren’t using a weapon or skill of equal effectiveness.
Your problem is you aren’t effective, play something that is with weapons that are.
If thats difficult… thats because the other weapons and skills arent on par with what they should be
No need to nerf, as games are supposed to be fun. Not a second job or a chore. Difficulty is good, but needs to be entertaining. How you do that is with AOE weapons and skills. Go ask for one of those instead of going after what is making this game good and enjoyable right now.
Yea, the same old rant of playing “effective” builds (or, in other words, broken meta crap, completely overtuned for base game difficulties, trivializing it completely) - in a game with extremely shallow content where one of the main attractions that save you from utter boredom is playing it with various builds and weapons. Good idea, pal, why anybody never thought about it? Oh, it’s probably because when you’ve played a few hundreds hours of it with the same builds, you get sick of it and you want to try something else, and you go to difficulty where this kind of build is supposed to work - and get your fun ruined by some yolo kiddo with 100 hrs and a broken crap “meta” build they just have seen in some YT video, screeming how fun it is to kill everything by mashing one button.
That’s why all MP games, even PvE ones, need balance. That’s why any broken crutch is bashed down with nerfs if it sticks out too much. Nobody is supposed to go play in Havoc (an unbearable experience on itself, the reason why it stays a half-dead mode) just so that they would have things to kill - simply because of a bunch of broken crutches which manage to trivialize even Auric, the highest difficulty of the base game. That’s overtuned weapons and classes that must be nerfed to give some space to everyone else.
Luckily, FS understands the issue and are already working on the powercreep problem, as it gets out of control. And they understand that the right approach is nerfs, so that argument is pointless. Unfortunately, it will take more time to balance the Skitarii, so for now I’m just quitting any lobby if I see Arc Rifle in it.
It’s fun for the same reason why people enjoy playing twin heavy stubber Ogryn. I’d highly doubt you call that strong.
This isn’t some skill based game like some people like to make it out to be. Not learning the basics of combat is gonna get you killed. Regardless of how strong a weapon is. When we would look at the hack and slash builds on Zelot, Hive Scum, and now Skitarii. Those can arguably be just as mindless. You dodge and shove occasionally. Just let people play the damn class. I’d rather not have the new class nerfed into the ground because people are playing with the new toys.
The Arc Rifle itself isn’t the big problem. It’s the combination with the Voltaic Emitter or ACD that ruins everything. Especially the ACD—even though it’s still buggy. As soon as the AR gets an attack speed boost, it becomes a lot more annoying than Purgatus. Because you can’t run away from the Arc Rifle.
My recommendation would be to make it consume more ammo per shot and overheat, similar to the Plasma Gun. And the bouncing arcs should deal less damage. Max ammo can stay as it is; otherwise, people will start fighting over ammo again, which is already a common enough issue with this weapon.
It’s probably might be more balanced if it doesn’t melt carapace, which is what it feel like initially when leveling but the damage become pretty bonker when you unlocked the System shock node. lol
That is literally the power creep problem that is currently Darktides biggest problem and caused them to spawn waves of 20 Crushers to be any challenge. You know, the wave of Crushers that Hive Scums deleted with one rocket while other classes couldn’t handle them if they tried to use non meta loadouts. Thats totally fun to play.
Also not to mention the Phosphor Revolver is already an easy S-tier weapon just on the brink of being too good and while the Galvanic Rifle takes a lot of skill, it can easily clear whole special waves in Hi-Shock Troop in mere seconds and you can’t get suppressed with it. What kind of buff do you want for these already badass weapons? The important difference from them to the Arc Rifle is they don’t delete freaking EVERYTHING.
