It’s an idiom that means “it would be reasonable”. Please don’t take that literally or personally.
I understand that sentiment, I just don’t see how it’s practical or realistic without removing AOE/high cleave weapons entirely. They will inherently get better with higher density of enemies. What’s your counter suggestion here?
You’re getting “viable” confused with “competitive”. I’ve solo’d Legend numerous times with Blumtsman, it still performs very well on Legend, it just doesn’t shine to the extent it does on Cata and modded. Bluntsman as a build does not get less viable as you go down difficulties unless your definition of viable is actually to get the most green circles. It’s “mediocre” (AKA fine, just not exceptional) on Legend because you rarely get enough density for it to hit cleave limit, that is to say it’s overkill so you won’t see its maximum performance. Still a damn good build.
We did though. Stop_Hitting_Me ran Bluntsman on Enchanter’s Lair. The only reason Huntsman wasn’t a common pick is because RV is easier and safer, and because of Grail Knight and Merc being very strong competition in that mode. IB is often overkill as far as CC goes and stops being relevant at high enough levels of dps, which RV both provides and enables, while GK and Merc are still relevant at high levels of dps. That just highlights RV being quite op imo with the right setups.
I can’t speak for the others, but for me haha nope. I’ve tried back to basics true solos several times and I haven’t been successful yet.
To be frank, it’s a feedback forum. I can rely on the design experience of Fatshark to puzzle it out. I’m just here to say “hey, this doesn’t feel quite right, could you guys take a look” which I think is valuable and valid.
A relatively naive solution would be to balance weapons differently for different difficulties.
A more clever solution would be to improve an aspect of the blunderbuss that is independent of breakpoints, like reload speed, total ammo capacity, spread pattern, or choke size, in exchange for something that is disproportionately useful in cata+ (damage). The buff would improve the weapon on all difficulties while the nerf would hopefully keep it in line in cata+ without affecting legend-- too much.
But again, it’s not really my area of expertise so I’m happy to let fatshark et al decide what would be best.
Fair points. You did however kinda ignore my point that the blunderbuss is indeed good on lower difficulties, just overkill in a lot of situations.
To follow on from that thought, I’m not sure I’d want to see FS use their development time to try and find a way to further balance it across all difficulties. Once again, it’s still a very solid weapon on Legend, so what’s the issue here? I certainly wouldn’t want such rebalancing taking away from a potential deed/crafting rework, or from class balancing for that matter.
If a weapon is really good on Cata+, and just ok to good in Legend and below. Is that really an issue at all?
iirc the head of armored units also counts as armored, but less of it so to say. Packmasters share the same class with monsters like the rat ogre, so they will be pretty resistant to pellets. Again, in my opinion it’s quite enough that the weapon can deal with infantry, berserkers and that it can shatter wooden shields. Beyond that it would start to get a bit questionable imo.
Bluntsman is really good. However, team thp is basically invaluable. Now that RV ult gives hp, it’s definitely got a leg up over bluntsman. Bluntsman still does way more damage. Oh and also, no one brings grudge RV anymore. It’s almost always MWP. To say bluntsman needs buffed is misguided. The power creep has definitely surpassed it though in recent updates. Some of those need to be scaled back.
Blunderbuss is fine, it does scale better with horde density and it is a limited on Merc & FK.
Despite what people say, Huntsman’s “terrible headshot only talent tree” still works for Blunderbuss.
You could argue Blunderbuss has poor synergy with WNWN & level 20 talents but that could easily be fixed.
It still oneshots maulers right?
You only get one shot, but it packs a bigger punch than the grudgeraker, and IIRC its spead is smaller (or maybe not, and it’s just the sheer damage) but i’ve been able to one shot specials at a bigger distance.
I haven’t played it in a while, but I wouldn’t say it’s bad. If what you want out of it is headshotting armor then get a different weapon, it’s simply not its thing.
If you expect a blunderbuss to do the same as a handgun its bad. If you use it for its intended purpose its great.
Blunderbuss (or grudgeraker/griffonfoot) arent meant to be sniper weapons or anti armor weapons (outside of huntsman ult). So dont expect them to be that. Shotguns are great vs hordes to mow those down faster. They can also easily eliminate any infantry target at close to mid range. Have a horde of monks infront of you? Just shoot them with a blunderbuss to dispose quickly.
The only issue shotguns currently have is their crappy ammo sustain making them pretty meh if youre not ranger, huntsman or bounty hunter. (Or have an rv on your team.)
It’s the spread on the Griffonfoots, it’s much better for taking out several berserkers charging at you since it’s a double line rather than a cluster.
Conversely, I find Blunderbuss/Raker do much better vs specials at anything that isn’t close range (mid range to far-ish range mainly), the Griffonfoots absolutely suffer on maps like Against the Grain where long range specials (Blightstormer, ratling esp. thanks to armour, sometimes globadiers) can attack from way off - much worse than how the other two shotguns fare there.
Being fair, from what I can tell some weapons which are amazing on unmodded right up to Cata like BoP, never seem to see action in ons, it’s all crossbow for Saltz there. The breakpoints going from unmodded to modded can make or break weapons. I see way more BoP than crossbow in unmodded simply because the breakpoints are still okay in unmodded and you don’t have to reload between each shot vs massed specials etc.
Yeah, I dropped down to Champ to help a friend who hasn’t played much of the game recently and took the Griffonfoots, they sucked in Champ, total overkill for hordes and didn’t really offer much otherwise. Shotguns shine more the higher the horde density + the more berserkers and maulers you have to deal with, vs Cata waves with berserkers mixed in they’re really nice if your team otherwise lacks the unarmoured clear. In Legend they’re okay, Griffonfoot does a bit better again thanks to the spread pattern, still not good vs further out specials.
FK is really good with Power stacking and headshot=ammo. He does run out of ammo with it quite easily though, but it’s extremely strong for anything up to Cata.
Merc is probably the least good, because you need Paced Strikes and to be close to enemies for the Power stacking. Meaning you basically have no Power for killing Hordes with it. You can take more ammo though.
Merc is better at Melee clearing than the other two anyway.
The only problem I have with it is Packmaster and Boss damage.
Yeah this TBH. It’s very fair for it to have weaknesses, but currently even with HS Ult active it’s still a bit weaker against monsters than is reasonable. Probably the only thing about the weapon I’d consider to be somewhat “undertuned”.
To clarify how this works, the heads of enemies are armored. There is a just a finesse multiplier attached to your weapon. The multiplier is listed like <1.5 2.2 2.3 2.4> or whatever the case may be. You get an individual multiplier for each armor type (Infantry, Armor, Berserker, Monster, Super Armor).
The fact that people need to move the argument into modded proves that the shotguns are not really valuable in the game Fat Shark made. Seeing a bunch bunch of crazy range weapons added with no weakness or ammo requirement makes it even more obvious. They could at least update the shotguns to work like the Trollhammer and enable you to block and bash instead of just bashing since their alt fire function is beyond worthless. And the Packmaster should rightfully get shredded by a face full of buckshot since he’s an unarmored enemy, if weapons like the Moonfire bow exist with no ammo requirement and no ineffective uses. If the high cleaving short ranged only anti infantry weapon can’t even do that it’s pretty useless in the regular game. Yes it does get better if you hugely increase enemy health cleave and stagger resistance and enemy count, but it could also have a use in the actual game.
Is Cata not the actual game? It’s very good there. As said before it’s also very respectable in Legend.
Also moonbow is blatantly overpowered. It’s like comparing a class to Battle Wizard or pre nerf SotT. Says nothing about their actual power relative to the content itself.
I don’t think comparing anything to the broken toys we got in the last time (or even those we have in the game far longer already) will benefit anyone. MB, MWP, etc are all in dire need for adjustment.
The Blunderbuss is a very good weapon on Cataclysm and Legend. On Champion I would have to test it but it might even one-shot Stormvermins there.
As for shredding Packmasters: If Packmasters would be anything like they are in lore, they would laugh at you for shooting them with most stuff. Which is also the reason why I think they have the monster armor. It is a bad compromise between lore and gameplay though.
IMO, griffon-foot works because of the spread, making it handier to use overall. Sienna’s coruscation staff is the best shotgun, because it too pounds unarmored flesh, and in addition has a very useful RMB that helps control hordes in other ways.
IMO, shotguns and flamethrowers generally give up both a button and armor damage and justify their existence solely on one button that does close-range, spread damage. I’ve never played cata, but in legend it’s not enough - I can equip a kit that does it all better.