So I’ve been having a blast with the Griffon-foot. Feels like a versatile shotgun that I can finally enjoy. It’s a very strong weapon. Pros:
8 shots in a clip.
Reloads 2 shots per reload.
Breaks wood shields (Marauders and Clanrats, this is beyond fantastic for a shotgun) Edit: Me big dumb and forget that other shotguns also do this.
Very wide spread (more useful than the squarer spreads Grudge and Blunder have)
26 shots! That’s a lot of ammo for the type of weapon it is.
100 dodges/good dodge range.
Neutral point – It doesn’t seem to have less damage than the other shotguns. Edit: It does do less.
Cons:
The wide pellet spread is easier to deal friendly fire with (this is mitigated a bit by Saltz being more mobile than Kruber and Bardin in general).
You have to get pretty close to high health infantry targets to 1 shot them (like Maulers), much closer than the other shotguns, because of the broad pellet spread.
They have less base stagger strength than the other shotguns.
All in all, very strong. I did a Cata true solo with them on Zealot and used Crusade to mitigate the low range, and it worked quite well. They have plenty of ammo, so I was able to run Hunter on Zealot which is funny, but it did feel like Hunter was a real choice and if I wanted to really spam it I could go for Scrounger instead. Take that as you will. Run can be found here: https://youtu.be/hH3fDw_8YjM
So what do we think so far? In need of a nerf? If so, by how much and where should the nerfs be targeted?
I feel like it’s a pretty well-balanced one. When compared to other shotguns it definitely beats them, but because Victor’s ranged weapons are all great(except for Repeater, sadly), Griffonfoot doesn’t stand out so much, which is a good thing IMO.
It works great especially on Zealot. I doubt it does on BH but WHC can kinda utilize it.
All in all, a good addition. These types of addition are the ones that I really appreciate; ones that aren’t flat out strong, but offers diversity.
I’ve really enjoyed it from my experiences so far. It’s great when you get rushed by berzerker type enemies and can quickly dispatch them with the Griffonfoot. It’s nice to have something with a little more oomph in its horde clearing/ space making ability, which no other ranged weapons really have for Saltz.
I feel it makes up part-way for the BH weakness of poor escapability if condensed upon by a horde of unarmoured enemies, but doesn’t have too much stagger to overtune it. It’s highly complimentary to the other classes as well as has been stated already.
I wouldn’t say it needs a nerf, but if it begins to make tougher hordes look like a joke, it may be worth having a look at the pellet count or cone of fire, perhaps.
Blunderbuss and grudge-raker deal 2x more damage per pellet.
18 pellets (GF) 12 pellets (Blunder) 9 pellets (Grudge)
I believe blunderbuss/grudge have more stagger power too, I had trouble staggering SV out of attacks with griffon-foot.
Blunderbuss and grudge have more consistent breakpoints and killing power, griffon-foot makes up for it with ammunition and spam.
Though a firing fury grudge-raker & bluntsman during ult has just as much spam.
As a whole package, I don’t think griffon-foot BH beats out bluntsman or doomranger but the increased ammunition does make it usable on non-ranged careers which is a huge quality of life the other shotguns lack.
WHC can reach a 2 ammo scrounger BP with Always Prepared and can do some pretty wonky stuff with Killing Shot + Riposte.
TL;DR: Bluntsman/doomranger is comparatively better than griffon-foot BH, it doesn’t need a nerf.
That’s fine on paper, but Saltz has a higher damage kit than Bardin and access to 100% Hunter uptime on BH, and good Hunter uptime on WHC (OE does as well, but OE doesn’t have a source of infinite ammo nor as much ammo as BH does with Griffon). RV has Firing Fury I suppose, but unlike BH can’t also kill monsters and Chaos Warriors with ranged weapons while having a shotgun. I don’t know how it compares to Huntsmen but I think the shield breaking should realistically lead to it coming out on top.
It staggers most things on BH with Hunter (not running Hunter with it on BH would make little sense with 39 shots) or on Zealot with Fiery Faith. I can’t recall how the stagger is on WHC though.
I mean you could also run Hunter on grudge, 7 ammo back per pouch is pretty nutty.
I wouldn’t want to give Scrounger up on BH, especially on a horde clearing weapon, it’s his main source of ammunition sustain.
True. Ranger’s Parting Gift alleviates it a little but from a true solo perspective it can be problematic.
Every shotgun can break shields and huntsman is
Hunter doesn’t increase stagger.
But yeah overall, it’s pretty balanced.
It’s a pick your poison deal with shotgun careers.
The ammo sustain is a huge quality of life for WHC/Zealot, I don’t see shotguns much on Merc, FK, IB and even OE.
You can and should imo, but at 15% crit chance if you have to melee at all you’re Hunter uptime isn’t as high, whereas Bounty Hunter can run 10% crit chance and have nearly 100% uptime with Hunter, while being able to dip into melee whenever, having 15% more power from Blessed Combat, regular ranged crits that deal 20% more damage & cause enemies to take 20% more damage from all damage (like Blunder on Huntsmen with Make 'Em Bleed, but constant crits). Salvaged Ammo is fine for ammo sustain and gives 8 shots, but probably won’t be needed as it was fine on Zealot with Hunter, who has less base ammo.
Griffon-foot also has 100 dodges. Not sure on the dodge range but it feels decent.
I forgot about that. My bad.
Are you sure? In a quick test it let the non-crits bodyshot stagger SV on BH, which it didn’t do otherwise. Afaik Hunter is like the power properties on weapons and Charms.
I agree. It’s very usable on the melee careers. Still not as good as the alternatives for special sniping but good its own way.
I stand corrected.
Hunter increases damage and stagger but not cleave.
Barrage increases everything.
Double checked,
20% is enough to stagger SV out of swipes.
Enhanced power, weight of Fire, 40% power vs + Hunter is enough to stagger out of overheads
Crits/headshots stagger SV out of overheads regardless
For a damage reference for the thread’s sake, it takes Zealot about 3 shots to kill a Ratling or Warpfire Thrower with the Griffon-foot pistols at this range: https://youtu.be/TcOmDgnIveM?t=132
That’s with 30% power from Fiery Faith, 10% vs Skaven and 10% vs Armour on the Griffon-foot pistols (I think some of the pellets from the first shot were headshots as well because of the hit-sound). From what I can tell, they aren’t very ammo-efficient for straight up clearing hordes outside of BH for the most part, though Zealot can probably be built for it. I haven’t checked, but if it’s possible to score lots of headshots with a single shot it could be deadly on WHC vs hordes because of Killing Shot.
I especially liked the way you switched melee into a rapid pistol shot before seamlessly going back to melee when enemies got dense, something i tried myself just earlier in the wastes. I didnt have any damage boons except attackspeed but noted i was able to brutalize hyperdense beastmen waves with just 1-2 shots.
Felt very amazing and almost overpowered but outside BH i do not think the downside of low ammo is insignificant enough to warrant immediate action. It may be fine for zealot and WHC purely based on that.
It’s possible.
Messed around with Riposte, Always Prepared, Unending Hunt + Scrounger Griffon-foot
It’s not exactly reliable though or that useful outside of the lucky headshots on packs of Stormvermin.
3 shots to kill a gunner at that distance is abysmal, especially with that much power.
I agree that they are not really that reliable outside of Bh. Definitely not op on Whc or Zealot.
It’s less of a weapon balance concern and more about how different classes push certain weapons I think.
On Bh, they create the same issue that doomranger, bluntsman and hagstalker and basically all the ranged class have.
A weapon that is strong but balanced by having limited ammo now has no downsides as ranged classes enable unlimited ammo.
(As well as Bh having ways to still deal with ranged threats, superarmor and bosses but I’ve said before that 80% cdr on Double-shotted needs to go).
That’s my personal opinion at least, I would like to see less extreme ammo regen in general (both on ranged classes and on builds such as conservative shooter melee classes).
Maybe it doesn’t need the Linesman cleave modifier? It’s half the damage but double the value in every other category to shotguns plus the same cleave.
After taking this baby for a lot of Cata runs on Bounty Hunter, I’ll summarize.
It is obviously not an amazing weapon on the other careers, which is the same issue all shotguns have on each character (only being viable on range-focused careers with lots of ammo sustain).
But on Bounty Hunter with ammo on crits and reload on kills? Strong and great fun.
Its immense power vs. unarmored targets is sufficiently limited in armor and boss damage without a strength potion, but that weakness is not as important when BH has access to a long range DELETE THIS ability.
As far as scoreboard damage goes, I don’t think any playstyle I’ve done before in this game has resulted in such a high average damage difference to the rest of the team and it’s almost effortless to get “all the green circles”. I mean I’m decent but I’m not THAT good.
Could that be the same overkill issue that deprives teammates of temp hp like some other horde clearer ranged weapons? Maybe. I haven’t seen any complaints, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Either way, I unexpectedly love the playstyle this opens up and I can now play multiple roles on Bounty Hunter (my favorite career).
I’d say it’s balanced on bh, it has crazy - no, absolutely insane - horde clear potential, but is abysmal vs ratlings and warpfire throwers. In general vs specials the spread is bad and it doesn’t seem to do much damage, you have to spam them to death quite hard depending on the distance, even up relatively close. I don’t know if it’s any better with breakpoints, if there are any. Other shotguns work significantly better vs specials but have less horde clear potential.
You can compensate the bad boss damage with your melee weapon but having a hard team dealing with the aforementioned ranged specials at range is a downside - even if you consistently land your headshots with your ult you have a downtime between ults as the last 20% CD does not get refunded instantly.
I found them alright but a little underwhelming on whc and Zealot - I’d sooner take Grudgeraker IB or blunderbuss FK than Griffonfoot whc/Zealot. They’re definitely not optimal on them. You can make it work on bh as his ult with double-shotted’s CD refund and ammo talents counteract the downsides some, although even so bh’s other ranged weapon choices have more versatility overall.
All in all they’re great for opening up a new playstyle on bh but any rebalancing would have to take into account the fact they’re amazing on bh (at their very specific niche) and not so good on whc/Zealot. They’re definitely better on an organised team too, if you get a PuG with Griffonfoot bh + GK Kruber + Slayer the fourth player would really have to pull their weight vs ranged specials.
