If the game was “easy” then auric alt-f4ing wouldn’t be a thing but it is and it’s an absolute blight.
If the plasma gun was “press delete” then everyone would be using it, but they’re not.
Maybe the game is “easy” to a small group of players whom presumably play with known teamates and using muscle memory from hundreds of hours of play, but I assure you its not easy to the majority. I play with randoms and have more failed auric maelstrom than completed ones.
The game feels easy on non-auric mode but auric throws so much at you that it feels as much “luck of the draw with teamates and situations” is the true difficulty factor over all else imo.
Nerfing the accuracy would probably the worst way to nerf any gun that is not full auto with high firerate.
It always feels terrible to use a gun that does not shoot where you aim. Especially, when you only fire once every 0.7sec or so.
It would remove any skill aspect of using it, and it would make it incredibly unreliable.
It would be much more reasonable to lower the bodyshot damage and keep the current headshot damage as it is.
Increase the skill aspect instead of decreasing it.
Also, the carapace damage of the primary fire could be lowered, bringing more value to the charged shots, when fighting crushers.
Maybe reduce the cleave on primary attacks.
But nerfing the accuracy by a noticeable amount… you might as well nerf it’s damage by 50%+ instead.
It’s good, I’d consider it balanced in the current environment.
Apart from current environment it could use a powershift from normal shots to charged shots.
Outside Weapon Specialist it performs great, with Weapon Specialist’s auto crit (and to a lesser extant agile engagement) does make normal shots shine (too much imo). On the other hand with the ammo change, I think shooter builds get less out of it than melee builds, and it isn’t a great weapon for a shooting centric playstyle.
Charged shots do way too little for the triple ammo consumption and could use a buff.
Any modification should be done with care, because revolver (even on Zealot) already has the same (but different) output. In my experience the weapon walks a very narrow line ammo-wise on melee builds and charged shot ammo consumption is no joke.
Even a slightly overbearing nerf could easily get it hurling towards quasi uselessness.
Bolter got hit way too hard by the ammo changes in the last patch. It was already pretty questionable on a shooter build, and now it’s basically just for boss bursting build only on Vet. Vet’s shooter side could use a buff or a change to better utilize Bolter, and it has very little to do with plasma’s current balance.
On the other hand Zealot can utilize Bolter to a higher degree due to a huge close range damage boost, FtoF ranged interaction Throwing Knives and more. Still, Bolter could use boost, because currently it’s not bombastic enough for all the drawbacks.
with all the nerfs to specialists you’re running into scenarios where they literally thwart themselves without the player power spike when their numbers are high. the more specialists on field, the more chances for the turbo nerfed mutant(s) to run over most of the enemies in the room. a few updates back his dash became an ogryn charge, tossing everything but ogryns/bosses out of the way for you into heavy stagger knockdown state. a poxburster explosion does this too, and because of the giant 30x or whatever multiplier this explosion has to other ‘infested’ types it will clear poxwalkers and dogs for you as well. even the dog jumping will knock enemies out of the way, with the dog waiting before starting a jump because it was unfair of it to path through the map on a line and then attack? tox flame also damages enemies whereas they were immune to it like all green damage at one point. no more corruption from when it hits you directly with no toughness either.
they could definitely undo a lot of these, but a lot of other enemy buffs are also highlighting the disparity of the balance. perfect example being new bulwarks, for most overperforming weapons they still massacre him on a single opening of his shield. but for everything that was poor on unyielding, they can really suffer vs groups of bulwarks because they now gain a stagger resistance period if they recover from one before dying. in gameplay terms for all the people who were cheesing already, they’re just going to become even more entrenched in using their crutch. while underperforming side options become even more niche and unused. like my pure melee OG shovel loadout, its basically dead in the water without a bulwark option ATM. 2 or 3 of those guys in my face and I’m praying I run across an explosive barrel somewhere. before it at least had the advantage of the stagger reset special enabling you to constantly break up the group and chip without using ammo or grenades (I like smokes).
You have three grenade options, two of which are great against bulwarks.
Krak grenades can simply oneshot multiple bulwarks at once, if they stand close enough to each other.
Vet also can get ALL grenades for free.
You have three ult options, two of which i think are pretty good against bulwarks.
You also have multiple ranged options that are great or at least useful against bulwarks.
So it seems that you picked a combination of things across many slots, with none of them being good choices when dealing with bulwarks.
And you saying that it is a “pure melee” build, does not make it sound like a balance issue, but more of an issue with you choosing to bring or use none of the tools that would help.
yeah its part of the boredom, you can choose how you want to play and how powerful you are. this is what no content does to people.
like lawbringer smoke shovel, which was bizarrely not suffering for me before since uncanny + melee nodes let you deal with crushers and maulers eventually, while the shotgun + shovel stagger resets would let me also pick at bulwark walls easily. the stagger reset duration buff for bulwarks is a terrible change; the lawbringer can’t kill one without lucky crits and no respite before they recover. and poking one with the shovel in the face after he puts his shield back up will not stagger him again.
this is also affecting things like the club on the ogryn, which already had huge power creep from shovels.
Look the Plasma gun is fine, don’t touch it. It does its job well, it has the drawback of the heat meter, you can’t really use it on hordes and it massively loses efficiency if you spam it against lighter targets like gunners.
“Oh but it trivializes Crushers and Bulwarks” yeah it’s an anti heavy infantry weapon, that’s its job. The idea is you are giving up overall utility for a specialization. That’s how balance works.
Please for the love of god stop making nerf threads.
I haven’t really seen a problem with the Plasma Gun. It’s powerful, but really clunky. It’s got a huge magazine but you’re pausing to vent heat as often as other guns reload anyway and the actual reload takes forever. It’s got perfect accuracy but a small firing delay that often throws off targeting and a crosshair that’s so wide and open that something across a large room that appears to be in the dead center of your reticle can be missed entirely.
It’s a great weapon for bursting a bunch of damage quickly, but it’s really bad for a sustained firefight. You can put down a couple Crushers quickly but take surprisingly and painfully long to take down something like a Plague Ogryn.
Personally I think it does its job well and there’s nothing wrong with that, the problem is what the game throws at you that makes other options less viable.
Like with recent bulwark changes, kraks aren’t going to save you from the multilayered shield blob anymore.
For a point of comparison: until the recent patch, AT weapons were basically a requirement for every HD2 loadout, especially on the bug front, due to the sheer density of enemy types that only those weapons could kill.
bulwark has 4800 HP now, while kraks with no nodes enhancing their damage do 4000 to unyielding. this is since penance update. you need either tinkerer, bring em down or superiority complex to kill a bulwark with 1 krak.
yeah you’re right I forgot the left side is completely dead, that would be something redeeming about it. I’ll put it on my list of things where that 15% bonus is pointless.
TBH i mostly get tinkerer so that if a boss showed up i can more easily strip it’s hp down in bad situations.
It’s a good pick for only what is effectively 1 point and i tend to run Kraks just because sometimes i like sticking anti tank grenades to helpless gunners.
