Getting brought in line is fine… getting destroyed beyond relevance not balancing things.
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You’ve just described an incredibly boring darktide
Oh wow everything is pretty much the same with slight differences, there’s no overtuned weapons because now everything is overtuned. Challenge what’s that. The 7 swing power sword allowing you to just ignore all the melee mechanics was incredibly healthy for the game right
Remember the revolver, mkv Columbus and plasma gun had a time where they weren’t increasing the game’s power scaling to a stupid degree and were more in line with everything else. What you’re asking for with a buff everything inline with each other is the moment there is a new weapon that for what ever reason is better than everything else or something sees more usage everything else now needs a buff. the sky isn’t limit when the only way is up
You talk about near perfect balance but are convinced the only way to achieve it is by only going in one direction.
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I’ve got to ask, how do you feel about plasma? I always thought that the risk of blowing up from charged shots was a way to rein in the power of the plasma gun and be the intended risk for using it. Great power but with great risks.
Now when was the last time you saw a veteran blow up from an overheated plasma gun? For me, it happens very very rarely the times I play with a plasma gun veteran, since they do not infact need to use the charged shots to bring out enough power from the plasma gun (in its intended niche) to warrent the use of charged shots.
Well, that’s your opinion, respectable but I have to disagree. In any case, being at (more or less) the same level power, doesn’t mean being similar with just “slight difference”. The style and niche can still be totally different
And about Power Sword: I never said that nerf are always wrong. Sometimes they are necessary. But, for now, imo they should give priority to buff and only then see what happens
I think that, without doubts, it’s one of the strongest weapons… and yep, for sure blowing up isn’t a real risk. Plus the charged attacks are useless, there is a problem
But, when I play others meta options like Zarona, IAG or the new, buffed (I’m super happy!) reclas VI… well, I do not feel to be just a weaker version of Plasma Veteran
I feel that all these weapons has pro and cons when compared to the quoted Plasma, it’s just a matter of preference and different niches
Then, if they nerf it in a reasonable way like they nerfed the Columnus (still disagree, Fatshark, but thanks, for once you didn’t overnerf 
), I would not cry much tears… but still I find there are others priorities (aka buffing the dull things)
Do you feel that there are changes that can be made to weapons, while on paper is a nerf, but is just a way to make sure that the weapons do not step on any other weapons niche? I’ll also point out that while damage is the obvious factor people think about when it comes to balance, there are other things to consider aswell.
If I had to use an example it would be the revolver, to me it always seemed to be a quick draw weapon with moderate penetration to handle the oncoming specials amidst a horde. In it current form, with the range given to it, it functions in combination with its penetration ability as a sniper rifle.
While removing a moderate amount of its long range damage, it would still be able to keep its intended niche as a quick draw weapon for those quick moments when you need a closeby trapper dead. But to be able to kill those further away targets you might actually have to close the gap to them, the actual distance and damage done is up for debate.
But suddenly having to shot twice to kill of a long range sniper should not be a deal breaker for the viability for the revolver while letting the more long range dedicated weapon have that one shot damage potential.
Plasma just needs it’s charged shot buffed (a lot), and maybe a very slight light shot nerf so body one-shots aren’t that easy to attain against flamers and gunners as it is now.
Currently it’s damage is basically hard capped around 350k without survivalist and that’s a pretty good indicator that the weapon is actually fine. The biggest strength of the weapon correctly is that everyone runs melee builds even on Vet, and it pair nicely with it while also being a more interesting weapon than a revolver.
The moment ranged enemies would pose even a little bit of threat so you aren’t just running them down with melee even with Psyker and Vet other weapons would instantly be more desirable. Now “power” for ranged weapons is only about how good it can deal with specials, and well plasma is really good at it, as it should be.
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I kinda miss the buff to ranged enemies, I do however understand why they reverted the change. Buffs to enemies also change what people are looking for in weapons in regards to strengths, running cleaver on Ogryn was a really good choice due to movement speed and having no real competition for second blessings being confident strike for extra toughness gain.
This pretty much, while we might disagree on actual numbers. I would be fine with seeing a group of heretics dying to a superheated ray going through all of them… if I get to pick up the veteran from the floor on the odd occasion they misjudged the overheating on the plasma gun.
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The improved accuracy was brutal, but it’s exactly the kind of thing I’d like to see on a higher difficulty.
I’d say for one
Slash the cleave on the standard shot of the plasma gun considerably(80-90% nerf because I think the penetration on the plasma is so strong right now it’s exceeding canon’s already insane power scaling) and make that high cleave purely for the over charge shot so it gains some sort of a role as a choke point horde clear
This i like higher difficulty that changes aren’t only
Enemies get a % bonus to health and damage
Hahaha, no. Point of plasma is penetration, no need to make it worse at it than a revolver. Light shots just need to not kill gunners and flamers on body shot with minimal investment.
BTW from experience, light shots with low pen is the absolute worse experience. Patch 13 plasma was an absolute nightmare. Keep in mind that plasma’s shot actually take time to get out.
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Even with a 80% nerf to cleave on it’s primary shot it still has 20cleave which is still considerably more than anything else in the game
They set its cleave to 100, it’s utterly insane.
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Nah, you don’t get it.
Plasma’s shot has an actual hitbox (which is considerably larger than revolver’s), it’s not like you can just snipe a special through enemies (like with revolver or lasgun), and unlike something like Brauto or recon you are in very big trouble if your shots suddenly get eaten by clipping body parts. Apart from trouble it also feel terrible.
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FWIW It’s not 100, it’s 52.5 for hip shot (50+ little charge I think), 100 for fully charged.
Even halving it would be probably fine.
edit:
P.S. There’s a little known explosion component to the plasma that grows with charge level.
Maybe the solution here (after a cleave halving) is to also further buff the explosion with charge levels, if not damage then radius to add more aoe and maybe some utility in the form of stagger in said aoe. IDK…
The other thing would be to maybe not consume mass on non-armor (flak, cara) after cleave nerf.
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I’m not against a buff to the charge shot but I don’t think there’s any sensible universe where that comes without a considerable cleave nerf to the light shots.
Reducing their damage will just make them annoying, it’s fine for them to kill squishy elites if it’s not doing it to 5 of them at once.
I’d halve the light shots cleave (at least), and increase damage of charged shots a bit. It really is exceptionally silly having access to that much cleave without charging.
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I maintain that nerfing light shot cleave considerably is the wrong direction for the reasons I outlined above.
Reducing cleave would make using the weapon incredibly annoying. One of my main complaint about plasma at patch 13 was that shooting specials in or behind horde was basically impossible even with charged shots, and enemy density just grown since then.
Apart from that I feel like plasma doesn’t over-perform to any considerable degree, and its high performance is very much tied to the current over-performance of melee in general and the overall meta around it (and that it’s way more enjoyable to use than the revolver).
From a different perspective, I haven’t once felt like someone using plasma taken away from my enjoyment even a little bit, unlike things like Knife Zealots, or the invincible hybrid Ogryns playing solo.
When I say shift power from light to heavy shot, I mainly come from a “make this more enjoyable to play” and not from a “let’s nerf this” perspective.
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I thought they fixed that
I definitely remember being and issue where if you hit the arm with the massive shot hitbox you’d lose most of your damage.
Oh, I’m not talking about that. Yes Plasma does full damage even on limbs.
What I’m talking about is trying to shoot “over” or between enemies, like you would do with lasgun or something. You just couldn’t do it when cleave was low because the hitbox would clip enemies and poxies (or whatever) would eat your shots (eg: Even aiming above head will clip the enemy’s head, that’s why you aim slightly above enemies with plasma to get headshots, because if you aim at the head it will sometimes clip the body and register as a bodyshot).
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Wasn’t old plasma hit mass 4.5 with double cleave attribute? It could cleave like 5 pozwalkers before they buffed their hitmass. Which was also when they buffed plasma.
Something like that.
Normal shot was stopped by 2nd poxie, charged shot by the fifth. It was hilariously awful. At least on patch 13.
Before that lights could cleave like 5 or something, I can’t remember exactly, but we had way less density, and fewer hordes.