I was desparate to like this weapon. I tried. Looking at it, the role it is supposed to fill, it should appeal to me - but I hated it. It has several key problems.
Role Suitability: This is a weapon clear designed to fill a DMR type role, but it has no optic. This means it is easily outperformed in this role by the Kantrael MG Infantry Lasgun, which has a decent optic for ranged work - and also performs far better in close quarters. A bad start.
Iron Sights: The irons are horrible. If the revolver is an example of iron sights done well, this is an example of how not to do them. Not only is visibility bad, but the bore seems to be aligned low against the iron sight, or in other words, the iron sight is elevated high above the barrel. meaning your point of impact is practically obscured by the sights themselves, which are also ludicrously wide. The fact you have to charge an attack while maintaining your sight picture on a weak spot using these sights makes it even worse.
Weapon Sway: Compounding with the above points about the iron sights and holding it on target for a charge time in a very negative way is the exaggerated weapon sway. Even when you crouch, it’s like trying to point a 10 foot plastic drainpipe in gale force winds. No other weapon I’ve tried has this bizarre characteristic.
The Bayonet: The bayonet is very underwhelming.
Reasons not to use it:
Melee switching is instant
It will not deal with multiple targets
You can not block with it, meaning even against a single armoured target it is a horrible choice
You will have upgraded your melee weapon in close parity with your ranged weapon, so your melee weapon would have almost certainly been more effective anyway.
Reasons to use it:
It lets you do a single quick melee and continue firing without doing the ~1 second requip anim for the rifle
…it’s cool?
You are shooting yourself in the foot if you use the bayonet, even though I wanted to because it would be cool. “STRAIGHT SILVER!”
Uncharged Shots: When using the very cumbersome charge-up shot is not practical (which is often, effective though it can be), you click to fire - but there is a noticeable and very horrible feeling delay between depressing the trigger and the weapon firing. I think it’s because the weapon charges up by a small minimum increment before firing. Whatever the logic is behind it, it feels terrible to use, it actually feels like input lag not a mechanic.
Please, by the Throne, get this weapon to a tech priest.
Good points. A lot of this speaks to why I went back to the Kantrael. The Helbore is a great tool for just ending specials but it’s really lacklustre everywhere else. The slight delay on uncharged shots makes it difficult to use, and the ironsights feel like they’re more of a hindrance than a help.
You can ‘charge’ the bayonet jab for more damage, but I think it’d be better to add a parry and riposte mechanic like the Catachan sword has. That would make it really good for dealing with single enemies that get close enough, and a way to block those enemies without having to switch to your melee.
Plus having bayonet duels with traitor guardsmen would just be *chef's kiss*
I agree with this, with the added issue that the charging visual effects occlude not only your iron sight’s front post (and thus your aim) but also your entire target. Throw in the fact that tagging enemies puts the big red skull DIRECTLY OVERLAID on their head (their weak spot) and you have a recipe for a thoroughly ineffective sniping weapon.
It’s also got weird random damage rolls and scatter on uncharged shots that I really, really hate.
Thank you for picking up on this - I completely forgot to mention the overpowering visual effect on the muzzle completely obscuring the sight picture behind the front post and blinding you just before you need to fire… That alone on a weapon with ironsights makes it unusable.
The bottom line is: It needs a mid-range optic, and for uncharged shots to fire without any delay.
I agree, it’s meant to be the sniper variant of the lasguns it feels like, with the charged shot and added damage making more hit more impactful. But it’s so hard to aim with due to bad iron sights and the obstruction when charging a shot.
• Lucius has better crit spot damage on heavy armored units like ogrins and maulers.
• Charging: I found it’s interesting if you charge one shot while aiming and cancel aim but keep holding “fire”, when you aim again it starts charging right away. The effect is like you use right mouse for aim and charge and “free” left to fire.
Hope you understood what I meant.
• Bayonet is good against few pathwalkers or with carapace armor it takes two hits on level two
Iron site is 100% horrible. I expected us te be able to adjust it
i tried it for a round , also it uses ridicules amount of ammo with…no bonus , i tried white lower level las gun ageinst it and while it deals more damage , there is pause between you hitting fire and relesing it and you actualy shoting
and miniscule more damage not compescates for 0.3-0.5 delay in shot , when i used it i found…that other classes were killing specials becouse of delay while with standard normal lasgun i could fire 2 even 3 times before charged one would charge first shot
so in short: terrible at long range , terrible at short range , medioker at medium , slow fire rate , terrible ammo efficiency , marginaly better damage but lower DPS
if it was sniper role it could be useful for 1 shoting elites , maybe even having small “pierce” cover and walls ability , but now it feels like worst gun in the game atm
You guys have the wrong idea about the gun. While the ADS and ironsight + sway absolutely suck and need to be changed, it’s actually more of a close/medium range option, since the charged shots penetrate armour, which the kantrael does not do. You can down a mauler as fast with charged chest shots from a helbore faster than any other lasgun that you have to hit the head to even hurt them with.
To clarify i use the MK 1.
I also feel the awkward delay when trying to spam fire.
The charge shot is really bad DPS wise and you often don’t have the time to aim and charge as you get overruned by melee focused enemy’s.
I found myself far to often getting out my melee weapon with this one as for example the Laser Pistol.
I don’t know if you can technically fix the issue with the awkward charge trigger but maybe have the Hipfire be non chargeable and the ADS charge able.
Or have Bayonet weapons double act as melee weapons and give them more power.
Or have the special attack switch from Shooting mode to Bayonet mode and give the weapons a full attack pattern of light and heavy attacks.
I agree with the OP that the gun needs some rework as it does not seem to fit well and is outperformed by the basic Las Rilfe. The niche use of charged shots pales in comparison of the fire rate and often i fail to down a Charging mutant with it where by a Kantreal does short work of them.
Another thing i noticed with the bayonet attack is that when you spam the specialattack button and hit enemies the screen starts to shake really bad. I think its a Zoom effect that should convey the thrust motion.
Also i noticed it does not make any difference if you sprint attack with a bayonet or not - always the same DMG.
I was really looking forward to the Lucius, but I too was very disappointed when I got the MK I. It chews through ammo, the ironsight in combination with the energy+smoke when charging make it hard to see the target, and worst yet it is very vulnerable to suppression (more than any other gun I’ve used).
Surprisingly, I did like the Lucius MK II better. It may not be as good as an MG XII, but it has better handling than the Lucius MK I in all areas. It has less damage per shot (and lower ammo cost), but it charges up very quickly so I felt like I could put out strong shots more consistently.
You guys have the wrong idea about the gun. While the ADS and ironsight + sway absolutely suck and need to be changed, it’s actually more of a close/medium range option, since the charged shots penetrate armour, which the kantrael does not do. You can down a mauler as fast with charged chest shots from a helbore faster than any other lasgun that you have to hit the head to even hurt them with.
I legit did not know this. I thought the charged shot was “big damage and more dps for more ammo burn”. The weapon properties really need to be explained better.
Honestly to fix the gun just remove charge completely, up the base damage to closer to what full charge would be and slow the rate of fire a tad more to balance that all out,otherwise there is zero reason to use this weapon, which makes me incredibly sad as it was the gun i was most looking forward too.
The charged shot should be a weapon special. But then you lose the bayonet.
So yeah, I agree. Make it a slow firing, high damage and penetration shot that can’t be charged. Unless they can fix the awkward ROF issue at a minimum.
I 100% agree with this post. Most of these have self evident solutions but I propose the following as resolutions to a few items as key fixes that will improve its utility:
Add an optic (assuming optics cannot be attached during the upcoming upgrades system).
Add a rear sight to the weapon. Currently we are looking through the channel on the attachment rail. This isn’t a real rear sight and it shows.
Bayonet: add a mousebutton 4 so we can block. Most mice have 4 buttons these days. Hell, nine has 18. If it can be rebound most players have a keyboard and can use that. This also sets up for what I dream of being pistol/sword gameplay.
Get rid of this lag time. Weapons with charge/nocharge firing are common in video games and there’s no reason this can’t be handled properly.
This is another huge gripe with the weapon, it feels so awful to have to wait for this lag time similar to the bolter when the damage and performance isnt even CLOSE to the level of power the bolter has
