First time im calling for a nerf

I agree.

Agree

They’d be a lot slower to the point they wouldn’t be able to keep up with, say WS or BH anymore where right now all the classes who specialise in ranged damage + IB have a really tight balance (with flame weapons having a kinda unimportant numbers advantage if the director spawns more/larger hordes).

Yeah I originally used Hunter as I was trying to improve boss damage and blast output but found crits too unreliable than switched to Heat Sink, which was ok but still not reliable enough to make a real difference, then ultimately settled on Thermal Equalizer as it’s reliable, consistent, and you always get the full value. Used properly right now, even with 50% overheat reduction, you’re still venting your Pistols constantly taking a lot of vent damage that you’re offsetting with temp health and NB (you still have to be mindful though). It slows you down too much when hot to not vent (though I see a lot of IBs try to play that way). It takes very cowboy twitchy style shooting and there’s constant dodging, twitching, and positioning involved with both the shot and the blast in horde environments. Factor in that min:max demands a lot of weapon switching + melee on top of the management considerations and it results in a very busy and skill oriented playstyle on an otherwise very slow/bland character. Effort:output, it feels just about perfect to me.

On Sienna, when people talk of never having to vent it’s because they’re using “free vent on ult” instead of 30% Ult reduction. It may be a lil cheesy but, output wise, it’s pretty bad and wasteful. It’s kinda like using a shield, in its own way. Just kinda impotent. With just Heat Sink + maximum crit rate, your output is much better (especially where it counts since you need Head to address a lot of situations when using a Beam Staff) and you do still have to vent a great deal (especially considering her small health pool), so the management aspect is even more intensive than on IB. Can never trust RNG to keep you alive (read:not self-immolated) and Heat Sink ultimately just keeps things interesting by insuring your tempo is exciting and that you can keep up with other classes. Pyro just has a really low skill floor and allows for an above average skill ceiling with a lot of versatility.

If you haven’t, it’s worth trying Sienna out in VT1 to get a feel for what I mean. Even with Haste and HoD, for example, she’s just soooooooo slow compared to everything else in the game and the amount of heat management is a lil obnoxious bordering on unfun. W/o Heat Sink, we’d be worse off than that due to the lack of any other consistent mitigating elements and the class’d be a real slog, imo.

Right, but people don’t care, basically every IB is using it on single ambient mobs, or like a solo Chaos Warrior just because of how easily it clears hordes. All im saying is nothing should clear hordes that trivially on Legend in general, sure the weapon has its drawbacks and personally I think its terrible due its lack of effectiveness against specials but I would still like to see it changed. The whole set up for IB is basically one massive crutch.

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yeah basically

I feel the same way about the Drake Gun. Pistols at least you have to aim, dodge, know when to shoot and when to blast and when to weapon swap. Gun is just “oh a horde?” -> charge -> point in horde’s general direction -> blind everyone and melt everything. It’s just a bs tool to guarantee w/e is using it does high total damage without taking much skill to use. Same w flamewave staff.

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Problem is: if Drakecannon didn’t work exactly as it did, it’d become completely useless. There is room for balance tweaks imho.

I kinda just wish it shot a narrower blast of fire.

Now I’m a little confused about the problem here. I see these arguments:

  • That the drakegun is terrible but it still needs nerfed because hordes are trivialized.
  • That IB’s passive is bad for the game because it allows for bad play.
  • That players are playing poorly on legend with drakefire weapons and need carried.
  • That ammo generation on drakefire weapons is a problem because you can spam fire and don’t need to melee.
  • That RV needs to also have the drakefire weapons.

Each one of the above points is a decent discussion on it’s own.

What do you think about having no temp hp from ranged kills?

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That’d pretty much break the game and make it so once low on health or wounded, you had no way of generating a buffer to allow you to continue fighting that didn’t require you to be a fart from the grave. People would have to turtle hard. Would slow the game down a lot. Also, even with temp health you’re still gonna dig into your green reserve when things aren’t going perfect (which they rarely are).

I love the feeling of the drakegun. It’s as satisfying as meleeing vermins. To be honest I get it can be a bit annoying, but it allows to go with stuff like two handed axes. I understand the IB can be quite easy and give bad habits, but playing glasscanon careers can be quite exausting, especially if you don’t have a way to give yourself a good temp health buffer. Other careers offers a bit of security and let you be a bit more aggressive, a reason why I do like playing slayer a lot.

But yeah, currently the more powerful ranged classes still outshines stuff like this. It’s possible to win and do interesting legend runs with 3 melee classes, though.

First they came for the Elf, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Elf. Then they came for Kruber, and I did not speak out, because I was not an Umgi. Now they come for me, and there is no one left to hear my Grudge.

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While I don’t have so much an issue with the weapons I do have a big issue with the… the nicest way I can put it is, unhelpful players, that run around with their drakefires up all match hitting everything in their path be it friend or foe and then when a horde comes and the class that people expect to be competent in melee is just prancing around like a pony while firing at a horde taking stray hits in between.

I guess it’s the waiting game that has to happen for people to realize that they’re being bad teammates though. As much as I’d like to say on a whim ‘‘nerf this so I can get these terrible teammates out of my Legend games and back to Champion’’ I doubt it’ll work well for the game in the long run.


Perhaps instead increase the following so that it requires more timing and skill and less spamming, because as much as I see people say ‘‘a need to vent’’ I see people just spamming leftclick with it to the point where I cringe when I hear the sound of THUMF THUMF THUMF that the guns make, just waiting to eat a few ticks of FF from a stray shot meant to ‘‘help me’’ or give me ‘‘covering fire.’’ Covering me in fire is all you’re doing Bardin :frowning:

+time between shots
+damage on hit and DOT ticks
+heat usage
-friendlyfire, taking the hit is punishing enough, eating the dot as well is just mean. The splash on these guns is insane at times.

Note; SLIGHTLY not ‘‘we’ve increased the time between bardins shots by 3000% but they now oneshot everything including players.’’ You know I’m joking, and at the same time I’m not.


I had THE most competent bardin player earlier today, nigh carried the match if it weren’t for the rest of us doing their part as well; would tank waves and anytime he saw an opportunity would charge a drakefire shot and obliterate a chunk of the mobs before going back in with his melee weapons.

And he’d use the drakefires to interrupt or kill specials and stun elites TILL SOMEONE GOT THERE to deal with it, then he STOPPED and allowed them to kill it. (Note: without infinitely staggering it and in the process hitting anyone that wanted to deal with, causing a lot of time to be wasted in the process.) So hats off to this bloke, wish there were more ironbreakers like him. He even taunted an ogre and sent it flying scared off a cliff like the man he was. (Note: See beard for further details)

But yeah. I don’t think nerfing the drakefires or mechanics that play with the weapons usability will solve anything. It’ll probably only make the game more tedious if anything because it’ll only add a chore to everyone’s list. Bad players can only be fixed by educating them or giving them time to educate themselves, they’ll eventually be corrected by the community as I sort of saw happened in VT1.

So if you were to change them I’d make it a ‘‘buff-nerf’’ that slightly reworks the weapons use-cases but doesn’t affect its usability, just its spammability. In the core, rather than the fluff mechanics.


Note: I don’t play ironbreaker with drakeguns as I find them horribly clunky and find the damage UNDERWHELMING, actually.

People will surely dispute this but I think the weapon is useless without breakpoints and I’m not even sure if breakpoints will make it less spammy than it is currently, I see some bardins struggle to kill the simplest mobs with it and some people excel with it.

They usually actually use the charged attack as well though, and put thought into the weapon.

I prefer 2h mace and drakeTHROWER and at least 1 competent teammate to hold the line with me as I help direct the team to chokepoints etc. When I do play him that is. He makes a noticeable impact to the teams he’s in when he does his part.

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I feel like just toning down the sound effect on the shot would make a big difference. It gets annoying for the IB too.

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It is highly distracting and I’ve begun to only associate it with friendlyfire, and tedious moments. Maybe slightly reduce weapon’s projectile width and leave it’s impact-splash unaffected while you’re at it, or at least the initial part of it.

Sienna’s shotgun staff for example has excellent cone on it’s effective range that makes it surprisingly easy to weave in a few shots around your allies when you put your mind into it.

Same goes for drakethrower, you can swing the circle around your teammates if they happen to go in to kill an elite and then swing it right back when they pop out.

They could just tone down the ff too. Because the shot it so wide, it’s super easy to hit people who are behind you or well outside of what would seem reasonable.

Personally, I’d hate to see it changed other than to reduce the business of its ff and the sound effect. It keeps him on par with other characters in a meaningful way, whereas Drake Gun is just trash cheese w a lil ape stagger.

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True but the goal is to hit your enemies and not your allies, is it not? Simply toning the friendly-fire would reduce some frustration on the part of your allies but that’s it… and the main frustration stems from drakegun abuse by inexperienced players.

And I’ve seen you comment on the stagger of drake gun before but I’ve always reliably staggered almost anything either flamethrower (bar berserkers/monks) the crux being that if an attack animation is set into motion you will not be able to stagger anymore till it finishes, be it an overhead, push or charge attack.

Also not saying they have to change it, no - in fact I’d rather they didn’t and players just realize their faults, but the scoreboard green-circle hype is real and as long as they’re ‘‘doing damage’’ they often feel excused for their poor teamplay.

Yeah I just wish it staggered mid animation like everything else.

I think on Pistols if they fixed the “ff someone who’s behind/beside you be” it would probably be enough. That’s pretty much the only time I ff someone, but it’s hard to avoid.

Drake Gun has several big disadvantage compared to pistol - ambushes, open maps, specials. When there is no time to charge it, when enemies come from all sides, when they are spread out or just when your charge gets reset by damage - you can’t simply use Drake Fire gun in those situations. So I wouldn’t say it’s all that easy. In case of ideal horde wave - yes, but in general you need good positioning skills and good teamplay and you’re still going into melee 1/3 of waves.

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