Make "Scrounger" effect weapon specific

Since, as it would seem, the “nerf” to the interaction between the repeater pistol and scrouner is intentional (which accomplishes virtually NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING towards BH having virtually infinite ammo and only makes the weapon less attractive than it already is for anyone that isn’t BH), it got me to think that the problem is not, apparently, Scrouner and ammo regen per se, but that it performs so vastly different on weapons. There is hardly a weapon where you could argue that it has a solid middle ground (one actually was the repeater imho): It is eather completely bonkers in its ammo regeneration potential or so ineffective it might as well not even exist as an option to roll on.

So here is a revolutionary thought: Make the effect weapon-specific. As in: More or less ammo regenerated.

E.g.
All weapon’s that have a “volley” mode (which in essence is only volley xbow and repeater pistol, since repeater handgun on Kruber on volley xbow on Keri crit each shot individually) regenerate 1 ammo on crit.
I’d also put graker and blunderbuss on this list, not because I think their primary fire warrants a change (which it doesn’t since only the center pellet has the ability to proc traits), but because of their ammo regen on buttstroke.

All weapons that fire single, piercing projectiles can stay at 2 ammo. Again, BH and crossbow will still be able to sustain virtually infinite ammo, but this would still be the case with 1 ammo. BH is not the standard to go by, as long as you can regen ammo on crit, you cannot hurt his ammo regen in any feasable manner on most weapons. But human bow is kinda dependent on ammo regen on crit if you want to be able to do your huntsman thing (and again: Ranged carreers need to be able to use their ranged constantly. That’s their thing. Reduce their ability to use ranged as their main damage tool and they become really bad and squishy melee heroes that use their ranged weapon in the same way like anybody else does and none of the ranged carreers has ranged weapons that are that much stronger that would balance them only being able to use them occasionally), and RV has no means to boost his crits past 15%, which makes Scrounger already very unreliable as a means of ammo-sustain. Keri longbow is fine ammo wise, even right now with scrounger, you will need to rely on your passive ammo regen abilities, swift bow only works if it has plenty ammo available and hagbane doesn’t benefit from either ammo regen trait too much since it doesn’t pierce and the cloud doesn’t proc (anymore :stuck_out_tongue: ). Volley Xbow on Shade is fine since volley arrows crit individually.

Weapons that deal hefty single target damage and/or don’t pierce should regen 3 ammo on crit, which essentially means handguns and the BoP. Running crit builds on those is already questionable as it is, but it would allow for more varied setups.

Your whole idea only complicates things and does not address any of the real issues.

Any career with access to piercing projectile weapons can regain all/huge junk of ammo by shooting into a horde with Scrounger or Conservative Shooter. (Crossbows gain 10% crit change with alt fire)
Same with heatsinc especially on pyro.

Disagree, he does really well if you headshot.

Disagree, they are better at ranged but infinite ammo to shot everything you see should not be a thing.
Yes they should be able to use ranged far more casually using it to decimate hordes, deal with elites and bosses but it shouldn’t be fire and forget constantly. They also should have a way to regain ammo in melee in case they run out (at least one talent tier should be dedicated to ammo sustain/regain).

Now that’s something I agree on as well and if Scrounger is reduced to one proc per ammo consumed it would be fair for the crossbow as well.

I don’t understand the repeater pistol thing being locked to only proc Scrounger once per alt fire. I was sure before that it was a bug but well. Being able to regain a max of 16 ammo (proc locked to one/ammo consumed) would have done it.

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Ranged weapons have a far too easy time penetrating too many enemies.
I believe even a ranged focused class should occasionally be forced into melee, and if that happens due to ammo concerns, the better.
Even scrounger on a Huntsman or BH shouldn’t guarantee infinite shots.
After all, most melee classes are still occasionally in a position where it is very beneficial, rarely even required, to use a ranged weapon.
I find penetrating weapons to be far easier to recover ammo on. Far easier than shallow multishots, maybe excluding the BHs “use no ammo on the entire salvo” ability.
I could see the point in having a % ammo recovery, rounded up.
Even one shot per crit on a Longbow would probably still allow for ammo sustain if one actually aims.

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I’d hardly call that complicated. On itself, it doesn’t solve anything, but neither does reducing procs on scrounger. Again, changes like this hit non-ranged characters hard and have almost no impact on ammo-regen monsters like BH or WS.

Headshot ammo build works actually better if you stack it on HS. But reducing the procs on scrounger makes it almost pointless as even on crit heavy builds, it is pretty random and relies on stuff lining up rather smoothly. And since HS crits also rely on headshots, I’d feat it would result in reducing viability in certain builds. HS has the distinct honour of having a rather wide variety of viable builds both equipment and talent-wise, as almost all of his talents somehow form synergy with his headshot-shtick and his overall kit.

That’s your personal oppinion and I respect that. I think ranged should do most things ranged since apart from Keri, who just has amazing melee weapons all around, ranged carreers simply fall flat in melee.

While I am in favour of alternate ways to regen ammo, that is pretty much all I ever read as an argument. What defines “far more casually”? I don’t really think that there is a way to reasonably reduce ranged carreer’s access to ammo without completely gimping them. While I agree that HS is definitely more what I would have settled with all around with how to regenerate ammo conditionally, if you really use your ranged for anything, you will run out of ammo (of course not with Sienna, but that’s another story). Not wanting to turn this into yet another ranged meta discussion, but especially as of late with the melee buff (something that should be pursued even further), I see less and less ranged characters having all the precious green circles. My buddy and me almost exclusively play melee-heavy heroes (Merc Kruber and Zealot Salty to be precise) and we find more and more that if we really push it, ranged heroes have a really hard time keeping pace with our incredible slaughtering potential (and that includes boss damage). Never had so much fun with this game since the latest melee buff and I hardly even tough ranged characters anymore, since in comparison, they feel so slow in killing stuff when compared to the raw offensive power of, say, Zealot, Merc or Slayer.

I would actually be in favour of reducing it to one proc per unit of ammo it it was higher in general. It would be more consistent, less random and would probably reduce the evil ranged meta maybe a little.
Then again, I’d be in favour of increasing Conservative Shooter’s ammo regain to two.

While I do think some weapons could benefit from adjusting Scrounger amounts, I’m more with @Haxorzist here. Limiting Scrounger’s (and Conservative’s) procs to one per ammo would, I think, result in them mostly extending the ammo reserves for melee-focused or “balanced” Careers, while leaving the ranged specialists to rely on their own ammo regen on conservation methods to keep them up, even giving them the chance to run out if they shoot everything in sight.

As it is now, ranged is safer, about as strong (although more specialized usually) and somewhat easier to use effectively than melee. So, multiple advantages. This means that being able to rely on it constantly, without significant need for pacing or conserving ammo, means ranged combat is better. With Scrounger (and Conservative Shooter) as it is, even the melee-focused characters can sustain their ammo indefinitely on certain weapons. On Blunderbuss and Grudge-raker, it at least requires the inefficient and somewhat dangerous butt-slamming to do, but Crossbow and both Longbows, when specced for crit chance, can easily generate ammunition by shooting into hordes. Of course, Scrounger depending on crits makes it a bit of a luck issue, but in my experience if you start shooting into hordes when you have ~10 ammo left, you can most likely generate at least enough to keep you there, allowing to do the same on the next wave.

Ranged-focused characters all have their ways of preserving or even generating far more ammo. HS has his headshots, WS has two Talents to choose from (well, technically three), and Pyro and use their passives for better interaction with crits, plus a few Talents to smooth things out even more. This means that the ranged careers can easily keep up their ammo even while shooting up every Special, Elite and horde they come across. This being advertised as a melee-focused game (and the complexity of the mechanics actually supporting that), I figure that’s a bit wrong. So I think that even the ranged-focused Careers should at least need to pace their shooting to retain their ammo, no matter how fun it is to spam Swift bow everywhere on WS. Okay, I can give a bit more leeway to ammo generation if it needs to be built specifically for, leaving other areas (likely mostly raw power) a bit lacking. But that’s exactly it; it should need specialization.

Okay, sorry, this turned into a rant. Let’s call this a TL;DR: While the base idea is sound, I think there might be a simpler option to balance things out, and I consider the weapons needing balance different than @Licious-D. Ammo generation potential, both on ranged focus and not, is too great still, imo.

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This is what strikes me as inconsequential. BH doesn’t really care about ammo regen being limited, as long as he gets any, and WS is even worse as she has access to two ammo regen abilities. With her strongest weapon, the hagbane, I run barrage (as it puts the damage output even more through the roof) and don’t care about ammo regen traits that don’t work well with the hagbane to begin with. I am not sold on the idea that it would accomplish anything on the “worst offenders” and would only hit ranged heroes that don’t get that much mileage out of their ammo regen (HS is good, but he definitely needs to put in some work and RV has low crits and it is therefor every unreliable) and especially melee heroes for an even bigger discrepancy.

Other than that, I thank y’all for your input on this matter. My suggestions were, of course, just examples on the top of my head in what direction it could go. I am sure a middle ground could be worked out. What bothers me alot more, like I said, is that Scrounger is hit or miss: it either allows for very high ammo regen or almost non at all. I think smaller adjustments to this formula should be considered before reducing Scrounger to only one proc. I mean, if you do the math for a second: if you have an ammo pool of, say, 30 and a 20% crit chance, meaning that, statistically, you’ll get 6 arrows that regen 2 ammo. So your available shots increase to 42, more ore less to where ranged carreer ammo was at before the “nerf” (they used to have double the ammo of “melee” heroes for anyone that didn’t know that). Of course, that is in the clinical confines of no other crit boosts or anything. If you want a glimpse of that would be, play HS with repeater (since repeater doesn’t work well with neither ammo regen ability) or Zealot with BoP (since he gets to have 20% crit chance) and see how far that gets you. That is essentially what you are rooting for. So either, ranged weapons need ALOT more power or potential alternate ammo regen needs to be the bee’s knees.

No HS and RV are fine the rest needs nerfs not the other way around.

They are already waaaaaay more powerful (dmg & cleave) than any melee weapon almost period so NOPE.

I also would be in favor of removing the ammo traits and moving them to talents of the ranged classes (locked to one proc/ammo).

Sometimes I am not sure if we’re still playing the same game.
Also, I didn’t claim RS or HS were not fine right now. What I said was that it WOULD hit them harder than the worst offenders. So essentially you are proving my point: If they are, by your own definition, fine right now, they wouldn’t be after the change. A change that wouldn’t change squat for WS or BH.

Just to clear something up, WS ULT does indeed proc the Scrounger trait. So firing her ULT into a horde with your ranged weapon out can get you around 18 ammo if it crits.

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True. There are some very nice builds for making use of that. I use that for my longbow build where I run the CDR on active ability, dual swords with RC and longbow. I use the longbow only for elites and specials and anything else dies either by sword or by my plethora of trueshot volleys I can spam. Also tons of fun. That’s kinda my point, though: Right now, all I get from the scrounger debate is that it would reduce the number of builds and anything that is considered “OP” would remain almost completely unchanged.

Maybe buff up the weaker classes and weapons? You won’t believe how many people this week have asked me why I’m playing WHC, or bluntly told me to switch to another “useful” character. He is rather underwhelming, but he’s fun none the less. More of a challenge.

I think the elf is actually a good example, nearly all of her weapons preform well. Obviously, some are better than others. But it’s not like you can’t clear a run with a 2 handed sword. The same needs to be done for all the characters. So you don’t see every single kruber with a halberd, or every single mage with a beam/fireball staff.

I think if all the weapons were more balanced, people wouldn’t be so upset about “ranged meta”.

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Unarmored Bodyshots:
Average dmg of melee light attacks = 10.16 (max=18.5, min=5.75) (first attack only)
Average dmg of ranged light attacks = 45 (max=51, min=12.5) (one shot, no heat weapons, all pellets, +DoT)
This is how it goes in most of the other aspects as well.

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And one little difference between melee and ranged, almost all melee weapons have less damage to the next target up to min 2.83 damage, the only few weapons that have no damage drop have 2.55 cleave and can’t cleave anything exept 2 slaverats. On other hand we have ranged weapons, that deals full damage to all targets they pierce.

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And never forget they have range!
Drawback: being limited

Average damage means little on its own. Though I agree that cleave damage loss is a thing that needs to be looked into.

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It says nothing about the viability or the practicality of a weapon to just compare damage stats. That is a weak argument to just pick out light attack damage, compare the two and then claim one is inherently better than the other. You are now just starting to cherry pick. By the same logic, Ironbreaker is better than Pyromancer because he has more health.

So did you finally look at the god damn whole absolutely objective evidence of the sheet and you have come to the conclusion that ranged with unlimited ammo is in no way overpowered in any aspect what so ever? I don’t see any argument here.

So what has been asserted without evidence can be discarded without evidence.

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You simply don’t know how to read or make statistics and grasping for straws. The table in itself says very little about how the game actual plays. The raw data is meaningless in itself. Your evidence is simply none.

I still see no argument supported by anything here.
The game play would only support ranged as the easiest way in most cases there so you would need to be way more specific.

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