The Krak grenades are starting to feel the power creep from more robust balancing and the time they take to detonate makes them almost worthless in many scenarios. They are really only good for anti-monstrosity at this point, which they were nerfed against long ago and very rarely have any better use cases than Frags.
From experience anything Krak attaches to is usually killed by the time it reaches detonation. A significant reduction in detonation time should make them feel a lot better to use for their intended use case. Half or maybe even a 3/4 reduction of the current time would be nice.
As well, if it doesn’t detonate before death, it falls to the ground and its miserable little radius can’t hurt anything on the floor. I think if it exploded automatically when the enemy it’s attached to dies, it would have at least a chance of being impactful.
I know what he’s saying and if you want me to humor it, there’s literally no point in taking something that takes longer to detonate than bursting high priority threats that Kraks are supposed to take care of.
I only play in Auric Damnation and they never feel good to use. They don’t fill the niche efficiently because 3 seconds (not including air time and pin pull) is a long time in a horde to just let one thing explode for you. Getting 2-3 kills on a clown car is nice but it doesn’t ever happen enough to justify how they’re currently designed.
They don’t need more damage. They just need a faster fuse. And using the argument of “killing threats you can’t immediately deal with” falls flat when Crushers overhead faster than you can throw one to detonation. If you can’t immediately deal with a Crusher, then there are other issues with the team to contend with.
I can take literally anything else for anti-armor and immediately be more versatile with Frags. It’s no contest now with how good the Bolter feels and how much damage Bleed does now.
I like Kraks conceptually and other games treat them differently. Even pre-nerf I didn’t like using them because their effectiveness diminishes rapidly at higher difficulty. The only time Kraks are ever actually helpful is when I’m alone and playing alone is always a terrible use case for something.
Although I agree somewhat with that, it’s a bit slow to detonate, because pretty much every Crusher/Bulwark pack are decimated by players before it explodes at times. I do think it’s a good balance for a 1-shot-fire-and-forget-renewed-every-60-seconds-that-can-kill-multiple-super-heavy-armored-enemies-device.
I personally have terrible “luck” with getting multiple Crush/Bul kills with 1 Krak. It usually sticks to the wrong one, or they all decide to spread out as far as possible to ensure that I don’t get more than 1.
As an Auric Maelstrom enjoyer, I have to agree with your evaluation of the Krak Grenades.
They are substantially inferior to Frag Grenades in 9/10 situations, but since I recently switched to a ranged Kantrael build over my regular Melee + Plasma build, I have no choice but to bring Krak grenades or I will be unable to deal with Monstrosities, Crushers and Bulwarks efficiently.
Krak grenades’ biggest weakness is that in Auric Maelstrom, you have constant mixed hordes that consist of six Ragers spawning at the same time as Flamers, Gunners, Trappers, Mutants and Dogs, in addition to dealing with Crushers and lesser Monstrosities (often), and Frag grenades are so amazing at making all those annoying specials disappear and giving you breathing room.
Allowing you to focus on the Monstrosities.
Also, Frag grenades shine even brighter during gauntlets such as “Lower the Skybridge” since hurling two of them clears anything in your path.
I wish I could include Frags in my ranged loadout, but it is what it is in a game where everyone in the squad is required to be able to solo carry.
I use em almost exclusively on crushers and bulwarks… and in the time it takes for it to go off, I have killed two crushers with my braced autogun.
Considering that the magnetism makes them hook to the first enemy in a stack, that’s less than ideal. Maybe if they magnetized to the enemy in the middle of the group and the timer was halved, they’d be more useful, but as it stands, the enemies either die before it lands or it hooks to the first bulwark or crusher in the stack and maybe kills a couple poxers.
Or they could cut down on the crazy power creep the game has where you get people just holding down M1 with their basic guns to cut down every single type of enemy due to the player power level being way too high.
That and a pack of crushers… when they arrive like a football team, you can throw one. Even if someone kill a crusher, an other one will carry it until his death.
I wish that those types of enemies were just tougher.
Yes, I am able to kill a Crusher with 2 hits, but I really shouldn’t be.
That aside, the placement is sadly off.
I basically use Kraks on every build, because ranged precision builds can often use them, while everything else would prefer frag, but that’s an extra point to get back to the middle afterwards, and Veteran is short on points.
I would take Frags if I could.
