My personal theory as to why this patch seems to be making us even stronger is to try and prep for some kind of new difficulty shortly after.
And that’s a bad move…
Cause
- we will be here soon after… next patch that boost again the players, we will again have to discuss to create an other difficulty level
- if they create a new difficulty that is, in fact and cause of the buffs, the same difficulty of auric damnation, then it doesn’t solve the problem of players that want something more difficult
- it won’t slow down the buffs demands, at contrary… and so, I guess, at the end, we will finish with an arcade difficulty in this game
They should really add a difficulty where teamplay is required and reliance on teammates is key.
With the current design intent for every class to be able to “clutch” leads to the current balance of 4 solo players since everyone can deal with any situation alone. I think introducing a new difficulty that isn’t just “more health and damage” would be key to solving the issue of experienced players finding little challenge in the current environment.
- Soft damage dealers (eg: Psyker, Non-VoC vet) need to fall over pretty quick if undefended by teammates.
- Tanks must not be able to keep up with damage alone, and should be either swarmed by trash or overpowered by elites requiring high damage allies.
- Engage type setups (eg: Charge/Stealth Zealot) shouldn’t as self reliant as currently. Due to balance this setup should be the strongest in “clutch” situations, but in general should rely on covering fire from others unlike now where it doesn’t need any team support.
With the current balance both mobility, general survivability and damage are all too high, and the general balance of everyone dealing with every situation is also a big detriment to difficulty.
Introducing a new difficulty that tones down the player power in targeted ways would be the way to go IMO, since the nerfs required to make current auric actually difficult (even to reach VT2 Cata level) would need to go far beyond toning down the best performing setups.
A new difficulty should introduce different enemy behavior, and even some modifiers to player power eg:
- Much more dangerous shooters and shotgunners to keep the group together.
- Halve all Cooldown Reduction coming from talents.
- Some reduction to player mobility so we can’t outrun/outslide everything.
If FS can manage to target the right things it can create a difficulty where even those who doesn’t like the absolute enemy spam can find challenge, in maps that have no shocktrooper modifier.
The new difficulty would also avoid the problem of “kick players off” auric or the backlash that happened last time they buffed shooters (which I welcomed as moving in the right direction) which was quickly reverted.
Are there actually a lot of weak weapons remaining in the game? With the buff to TH, Bolter and Bolter pistol there are only a handful remaining.
The things I can think about is Autopistol and HH autoguns being on the weaker side… and that’s it? Lasgun is useless and helbore aren’t great, but that’s because they are supposedly good against shooters, but in actuality they are worse than basically every melee weapon in that regard.
I guess some marks are performing way behind the “best” mark is a thing, but every weapon type at least has one version that is powerful.
autopistol
recon lasgun mk II
Achlys CA (even with the changes, it doesn’t cleave at all)
Tactical axes (I feel that they are really under other weapons)
Devil’s claw: I may be wrong but if heavy sword are available to all, I guess they will be a little… useless
Chainaxe (totally incoherent damage chart…)
But, and that’s even more important… there are too strong weapons, and nothing done for them… worse, several very strong weapons received buffs.
These weapons make balanced weapons looking just bad. As an example, zorona revolver make the bolt pistol bad (I don’t think the incoming changes will change this), but also the shotguns like the lawbringer or agripinaa.
That’s what I’m talking about. If you take out the single MKs from your list there isn’t much that’s left.
- Autopistol does work on Vet rending build and works fine on Zealot due to the high damage at close range, but gets overshadowed there by Brauto.
- Devil’s claw is good, and if the change to parry will allow you to properly fight rager double hits (I think the change is specifically targeted to that) it will be a great weapon although with a high skill floor.
- Can’t comment on TacAxe and Chainaxe, haven’t used either in a long time.
So basically most weapons are in a good place, with some MKs being a behind other variants.
Probably Zarona revolver has the most “overshadowing others” kinda problem. I agree with it making agripinaa redundant.
Bolt pistol will be way better with the added cleave tho, and if any change happens that makes engaging shooter in melee even a minimal challenge it will no longer be overshadowed by revolver. BP is really good at popping shooters, something that is currently a pretty useless feature.
So my point is that there are only a small number of “weak” weapon compared to good ones and and it is an even smaller group where some actual buffs/nerfs would balance them out. Other would require wide sweeping balance changed to make them strong (eg: Lasgun).
BTW, that’s why I advocate for an added difficulty level. You can pick up non-meta weapons and still dominate the game. If your build is well put together it won’t even lag behind meta setups in most cases.
Eg: I run HS/Old Evis with Bolter/Brauto and throwing knives on Zealot and it absolutely stomps. MKII Laspistol on my VoC Vet gets the job done incredibly well, I never feel like I should have run plasma at all. Infiltrate glass-cannon melee Vet is absolute beast and I never feel like I should have picked VoC instead.
Chaxe is insane (at least the old variant). You finding its damage table confusing does not mean it’s weak. Disgusting damage output on Martyr Zealot, still very strong on IJ too.
Bingo