Is the blunderbuss garbage

[Saryk]

@alsozara

it was mostly just poking fun at the fact you keep insisting they’re bad as if it’s an undeniable fact despite the number of very good players here saying that it’s a good weapon.

Well I don’t mean to be nitpicking, but y’all saying they’re good on huntsman.

@alsozara

It’s definitely a weapon that shines vastly more with group coordination.

This is one definitive point.

The origin of this post is that I got salty after failing a QP Cata CW run in the arena because I got a red blunderbuss on Merc in the last level, and could not do squat against the two triple blightstormers that spawned, even at medium-ish range (approximately the diameter of the center room of the keep) ; and that rando’s special awareness is sometimes a bit lacking (which is not the case of bots, btw, in case “solo with bots” runs show up).

Overall, I won’t disagree that a blunderbuss on a Huntsman to delete zerkers in a premade group can be a decent tool ; but in my overall experience, which is QP and not huntsman, the blunderbuss is definitely suboptimal if not actively playing against you.

@Velsix

Griffon-foot doesn’t do this well either. It takes more shots with Griffon-foot to kill a Packmaster than it does for Grudge or Blunder, and it’s worse at killing specials at any range except point blank.

True, but it has fire rate to compensate somewhat. Again, I play them on zealot so might be biased with all the extra ranged power (which shouldn’t apply imho btw but other topic) and the dash behind a flamerat or ratling.

@alsozara

There are a lot of players here who agree shotguns are excellent on Cata, and still good on Legend.

Note that I’m not talking about shotguns in general. I love the grudge-raker, and I find the griffon-foot to be very effective ; and I use neither primarily against hordes.
But that’s the thing : grudge-raker has some precision going for it which means you can kill a blighstormer at mid-range (by double-tapping if you don’t crit) ; and griffon-foot has a width that makes it unbelievably stong against zerkers.
I find no redeeming quality to the bluinderbuss.

@Velsix

but one shotting Packs isn’t something they need.

I’d argue it is, but not the way you think. I think it should have absolutely massively increased damage at very short range, basically the range of a melee swipe, with a dropoff after that so that it stays as it is right now. The horde clear is unaffected (as it is good at clearing in a cone, so the close-range damage doesn’t affect most of it) ; but the monster damage goes up (provided you’re hugging them) and it would kill a packmaster with one shot to the face.
I’d argue a good balance point would be if it did one-shot anything but a CW from a full blast to the face (implying proximity and some aim).

---

@MarxistDictator

What is this a blog? I’ve given you more than ample opportunities to explain something good about these weapons, and the best you come back with is ‘I’m really good and I disagree sucks to suck’. Now apparently I’m the one being offensive when you couldn’t even touch this discussion respectfully one time. Then again you do think everyone on this forum should be hanging on your every word at ‘trust me bro’ alone so I guess it must feel like personal attacks to be challenged ever.

Username checks out.
@alsozara has given, albeit conditional, explanation on how this weapon can be good on huntsman in a premade group regardless of difficulty, and you’re being overly agressive in every single one of your posts :

@MarxistDictator

What a garbage comment.

@MarxistDictator

You can hop off your high horse and find something to actually sell me on this weapon now without getting high off your own farts and nothing more.

@MarxistDictator

What is this a blog?

@MarxistDictator

you couldn’t even touch this discussion respectfully one time.

That last one is demonstrably false, not one time has he (or she?) been disrespectful.

[dannylew8299]

@N8TH3GR8

This makes me want to give everything a tertiary function with special mouse button.

Everyone wants everything to have a weapon special function around these parts, lol.

Every buff thread for every item in game will eventually have someone ask for that.

Fatshark, let me use weapon special to friendly fire with health pots, c’mon.

[Philip]

@Saryk

overly agressive

Would love to buck this trend. If I wanted to read long chains of sarcasm, insults, bickering, and strawmen I’d go to a politics thread on reddit. It seems to happen on any thread that gets sufficiently long.

We all obviously love this game and want to see weapons reach a balance point that’s neither overpowered nor underpowered, but most importantly that’s fun.

It might be helpful to realize that all this feedback goes through a very professional team of designers and developers, and no suggestion in this thread is a mandate or a certainty. Lets have some faith in the process here, I doubt fatshark is going to hop into the forums and take things at face value.

[BongoSkaggs]

@Saryk

The origin of this post is that I got salty after failing a QP Cata CW run in the arena because I got a red blunderbuss on Merc in the last level, and could not do squat against the two triple blightstormers that spawned, even at medium-ish range (approximately the diameter of the center room of the keep) ; and that rando’s special awareness is sometimes a bit lacking (which is not the case of bots, btw, in case “solo with bots” runs show up).

@Saryk

Note that I’m not talking about shotguns in general. I love the grudge-raker, and I find the griffon-foot to be very effective ; and I use neither primarily against hordes.
But that’s the thing : grudge-raker has some precision going for it which means you can kill a blighstormer at mid-range (by double-tapping if you don’t crit) ; and griffon-foot has a width that makes it unbelievably stong against zerkers.
I find no redeeming quality to the bluinderbuss.

So because a weapon (currently) functions the least well of the shotguns in a role that shotguns are not supposed to be good at, you made a topic calling it garbage?

Yes, blunderbuss is currently the worst performing of the shotgun weapons. Has been ever since 2.0. Prior to that the blunderbuss’ significantly increased pellet count over the grudgeraker made it easier to one shot pretty much everything, including mid-range specials, but the HP inflation and nerfs has swung the pendulum the other way.

[Philip]

@BongoSkaggs

So because a weapon (currently) functions the least well of the shotguns in a role that shotguns are not supposed to be good at, you made a topic calling it garbage?

…

Yes, blunderbuss is currently the worst performing of the shotgun weapons.

I feel like you simultaneously agreed with and disagreed with OP and that’s confusing to me.

[BongoSkaggs]

‘Worst’ and ‘garbage’ are not synonyms, at least outside of internet forums.

[Philip]

Plagiarism! It’s not even my best quote. That is weird though.

But no, I haven’t made an alt account just to quote myself, haha.

[Rebel]

I absolute DO NOT GET bluntsman. Maybe legend isn’t high enough difficulty, but it’s the highest base difficulty which I think is worth at least a nod, and I just feel like huge burden to the team with blunderbuss.

[Saryk]

@BongoSkaggs

So because a weapon (currently) functions the least well of the shotguns in a role that shotguns are not supposed to be good at, you made a topic calling it garbage?

Yes, specifically because

@Saryk

I find no redeeming quality to the blunderbuss.

It’s just bad at everything. Its horde clear depends on the shape of said horde, which has to be coming at you in a straight line through a narrow passage bacause of the low spread of the shot ; its range is ludicrously low, it doesn’t even have a central accurate shot, it deals no damage to any kind of armour, it can’t deal with specials whatever their range ; and it is barely viable on only one of the three careers that can use it…
“It can shoot zerkers when they’re not too far apart or away and you’re playing huntsman” is the one single situation it might be decent at, and that doesn’t feel like enough for me to pull it out of the trash category.

At least make it decent at close range. The hordes spread out anyway, so horde-clearing is rarely its main use ; but when I have a shotgun in my hands, and I’m hugging something, and that something’s head is in that little box on my screen, I expect said thing to die when I left click, which never happens if that thing is not a trash mob.

[BongoSkaggs]

@Saryk

It’s just bad at everything. Its horde clear depends on the shape of said horde, which has to be coming at you in a straight line through a narrow passage bacause of the low spread of the shot ; its range is ludicrously low, it doesn’t even have a central accurate shot, it deals no damage to any kind of armour, it can’t deal with specials whatever their range ; and it is barely viable on only one of the three careers that can use it…

Who knew that just having a 2nd shot available made the grudgeraker solve every single one of those issues? Remarkable how nature works, innit?

[James]

I’m starting to think I’m playing a different game to other people.

[Philip]

@BongoSkaggs

Who knew that just having a 2nd shot available made the grudgeraker solve every single one of those issues? Remarkable how nature works, innit?

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm but yeah. Grudgeraker seems to be is a pretty good spot.

Look at it as grudge raker having double the fire rate and double the reload speed, and possibly a tighter choke at the cost of a bit of damage per shot.

@James

I’m starting to think I’m playing a different game to other people

Raid shadow legends?

This is why I suggested we get videos into this discussion so we can all be sure we’re talking about the same experiences.

[Saryk]

@Saryk

I shall try it.

And so I did.
The extra effective range and the extra ammo alone make this weapon decently usable on Huntsman.
I ran with Keep it Coming, Thrill of the Hunt and Shot Crafter in a Legend QP.
It was actually quite fun overall.

That being said, I still do think it is missing some point-blank damage.
I failed to kill hookrats twice, I think a full blast in the back of a stormvermin ought to kill it too, and the monster damage is lacking.
For comparison, a bow takes two lowest-charged shot, a handgun one shot, and a repeater 3 shots to kill a cata stormvermin in bodyshots from 20+ meters away.
The blunderbuss takes two point-blank shots, even in legend.

Note that I’m not saying it should have proper armour damage, I’m saying it should have proper point-blank damage.

[dannylew8299]

@Philip

Look at it as grudge raker having double the fire rate and double the reload speed, and possibly a tighter choke at the cost of a bit of damage per shot.

Well… I can’t find this explicitly written anywhere (because nothing is ever easy with Vtide) but the pellet count for blunderbuss is 12 and the pellet count for grudge-raker is 9. All other stats including ammo capacity is the same.

I’m not trying to needlessly correct you, just putting that info out there if it helps the how’s and why’s of everyone’s arguments.

That said, anything BB can one-shot, GR can one-shot, from reading guides. Food for thought.

in days of Christmas past I remember asking for BB to have 18 pellets, but didn’t seem like anyone was into that. Coincidentally pigeon pistols have 18 pellets and the same cleave+linesman, no wonder they’re the best horde clearing weapon in game

[James]

@dannylew8299

Coincidentally pigeon pistols have 18 pellets and the same cleave+linesman, no wonder they’re the best horde clearing weapon in game

They also deal 50% less damage per pellet and less AP damage to compensate.
Not to mention the stagger potential is much lower.

Anyway, just did a Bluntsman game and can comfortably say buffing it in a way that would improve its DPS would be absurd. Have to agree it feels lacking in Legend but that’s just down to density.

[dannylew8299]

@dannylew8299

Lots of talk about my favorite weapon, the gryphonfeets. I’ll just say this, they need less cleave. Stat wise, they’re roughly half in every value compared to their counterparts except in ammo capacity (makes sense), and cleave, which is the same. Would like to see them have a little less and see if they’re still “OP”.

Way ahead of you

Also, according to the armory mod, they actually have the same cleave and stagger

[James]

@dannylew8299

Also, according to the armory mod, they actually have the same cleave and stagger

Aye, same cleave and stagger mass limit but not the same damage or stagger power.

That stagger potential is pretty valuable tbh

[N8TH3GR8]

Anyway, just did a Bluntsman game and can comfortably say buffing it in a way that would improve its DPS would be absurd. Have to agree it feels lacking in Legend but that’s just down to density.

So just to clarify for my dumbass the BluderBuss is more effective the higher the difficulty/density you play since you’re hitting more targets?

[Sleezy]

@MarxistDictator

It’s totally valid to compare it to other weapons because it’s the same game.

It’s not “totally valid” because you are ignoring the likelihood of rampant power creep. Thats like saying every class needs to be buffed to be as strong as shade just because shade exists instead of saying shade should be nerfed back to the mean. Blunderbuss and grudge are still strong on ranged careers. Making them able to sustain ammo on melee careers just turns melee careers into ranged careers.

[hollerbach]

I only use it on Huntsman for meme purposes. I’d still prefer the other ranged weapons if playing seriously. Useless on Merc and FK, where the crowd control/kill role is already taken care of by melee weapons. All the other ranged weapons are better at elite/special killing. Needs some sort of damage boost IMO. It will mostly just tickle specials/elites (except Berserkers) and especially Packmasters (which can sometimes survive a near shot on Legend). If you use it on Huntsman, you will have very poor monster/boss damage.