Plasma Buff (Still Underperforming)

[omar_uav]

Its welcoming action that FatShark buffed the Plasma after 5 months of constant community feedback, yet the community feedback is not even close to what have been chosen to be buffed.

Here are the Issues with Plasma Gun that has been not introduced in the buff.

1. Passive Venting is way to slow

Passive venting from 100% to 0 takes 25 Seconds, not reliable due to its speed, and whats worse , just the first 10% takes 5 seconds.

Holstering/ or keeping weapon on hand does not affect the speed of venting.

the new active venting mechanism is completely better than passive venting.

2. Blessings are not Adjusted to Weapon

Shattering Impact

It reduces armor by +3, yet its the same for the bolter, in which bolter do have 15 rounds per magazine, and Plasma can shot 8 normal shots/3 heavy shots as reaching Max Heat, blessing should allow for more Brittleness per direct hit.

Blaze Away

As in Shredder Autogun, you do reach max stack at nearly 50% of the magazine.
yet in plasma the gun is not meant to be shot in full auto, and you do reach full stack after firing your 5th round, which keeps you with either a single heavy shot or 3 normal shots more, while also impossible to reach high stacks with heavy shots, due to how you only gain 1 stack per heavy shot, yet doing anything as of sprinting, stop shooting for 1 second ,or anything instantly removes the stacks.

3. Skill Tree are not Adjusted to Weapon

Scavenger

Every weapon with limited ammo tends to give at least 1 round from Scavenger perk, both Revolver and Bolter do give 1 extra round per elite kill. Plasma tend to get 2 rounds per kill, but actually uses 3 rounds per normal shot.

Sustained Fire

Sustain fire is a really good feat, but unfortunately it just reloads the plasma gun, it should reset the heat to 0%, as the gun is barely needs reloading due to its high magazine capacity.

4. FatShark Obsession with Self-Damage & Venting

There is no reason to get self damage while venting, as venting is a core of the plasma gun, not an extra you can do or to push the weapon performance to an exceptional level, venting does self damage at 38% is quite low, venting already makes you vulnerable in speed, and open to attacks , while the animation also takes time to activate and deactivate, also a side note , if Toughness is depleted, it reduces your health.

4. Damage Compared to Ammo
   T4-T5 runs, tend to deplete Plasma ammo alot, a full ammo modifier standing at 80% , allows for 30 Heavy shots or 118 normal shots, every run am low on ammo the whole run, sometimes goes full melee vs armored targets to save ammo, as am not the only one in the team requires ammo.

The list goes on and on, but here are the most important ones I noticed.

[zaygr]

Shattering Impact doesn’t help the plasma gun itself either.

[Ralendil]

@omar_uav

the new active venting mechanism is completely better than passive venting.

New active seems great for me.

@omar_uav

Shattering Impact

Sorry but it doesn’t work like you think

Shattering Impact Blessing Has No Effect On Plasma Gun

Hi! The text for the blessing is wrong and should read: “Target receives X} Stacks of 5% Brittleness on Hit. Lasts 5s” Rending (attacking) and Brittleness (target) removes armor and does not boost base damage (as with a damage or power bonus) As previously stated in the thread it tears down the armor of an enemy. If attacks penetrate armor they can’t take the benefit of that armor not being there but all other attacks. For example this gives teammates better damage against it or giving you …

@omar_uav

Blaze Away

Agree here

@omar_uav

Scavenger

The amount of ammo you receive is based on the amount of ammo reserve.
So, if they were doing what you ask, this means that they have to change the ability itself.

@omar_uav

Sustained Fire

Totally agree about that

@omar_uav

FatShark Obsession with Self-Damage & Venting

I perfectly understand it. You get hurt by the heat of the weapon.

[omar_uav]

it does though.

here is a test vs Crusher

Plasma with no Shattering Impact

Plasma with shattering impact.

both plasma got nearly close damage

Plasma with Shattering Impact

notice i didnt shot fast to not activate the Blaze Away Blessing, so some rendering may get removed.

notice it takes 1 more round without shattering impact.

[omar_uav]

@Ralendil

Sorry but it doesn’t work like you think

it seems the buff is minimal when compared to bolter, i just noticed that

bolter nearly gets 100% damage with brittleness while plasma gets nearly 10%.

bugs bugs everywhere.

[Keln]

Regarding scavenger, I think that perk is the most impactful coherency out there.
It’s the only one that does something special and isn’t just a “+10% heavy attack damage”

That perk alone should NOT sustain a ranged weapon.

[zaygr]

Huh, they must have changed something from when this was reported:

Shattering Impact Blessing Has No Effect On Plasma Gun

PLEASE POST CRASHES AND ERRORS IN THE ‘TECHNICAL SUPPORT’ CATEGORY INSTEAD We kindly ask that you complete the questions below. With this information, we can add it to our database for investigation. Issue Description: The Blessing “Shattering Impact” has no effect on damage against any type of armored enemies when used on a Plasma Gun. Flak, Carapace, Maniac, Infested, Unyielding, are all entirely unaffected. This is most likely due to the damage of “Shattering Impact” now being calculated …

[omar_uav]

on T4+ only 3 specials that die from 1 normal shot from plasma, so no way it can be sustained with if they increased ammo gain by +1.

[alsozara]

@omar_uav

bugs bugs everywhere.

That’s not a bug. Plenty of weapons get access to brittle without it meaningfully increasing damage because brittle just pushes your armour multiplier to closer to 1x, and plasma is already at or close to 1x on Carapace by default. For another example see trauma staff that gets 0 extra damage on crushers from brittle because it already has a 1x multiplier on carapace.

That’s why brittle is a debuff, it allows your melee weapons or team mates to do more damage, it’s not there to make the weapon itself stronger.

Regarding blaze away I always just saw it as being there mainly for boss damage which I think is a fine enough use case.

Haven’t used the plasma extensively myself so will refrain from discussing where I think its power level is at.

[Nish]

@omar_uav

Every weapon with limited ammo tends to give at least 1 round from Scavenger perk, both Revolver and Bolter do give 1 extra round per elite kill. Plasma tend to get 2 rounds per kill, but actually uses 3 rounds per normal shot.

@omar_uav

Damage Compared to Ammo
T4-T5 runs, tend to deplete Plasma ammo alot, a full ammo modifier standing at 80% , allows for 30 Heavy shots or 118 normal shots, every run am low on ammo the whole run, sometimes goes full melee vs armored targets to save ammo, as am not the only one in the team requires ammo.

This is my main issue with running plasma on HiD+, you can’t get enough ammo, and you are ammo negative on all elite/special kills even with optimal use (not even a little ammo negative, heavily ammo negative). Pickups give 27 which is 9 normal or 3 charged shots which is also incredibly low.

You get around 300 ammo (depending on the ammo roll on the weapon) and that’s 100 normal or 33 charged shots while having worse ammo economy than a shotgun (which has a similar shot count but gets more from both pickups and passive).

It should be increased by 1 to make it at least less pickup dependent.

@omar_uav

Sustain fire is a really good feat, but unfortunately it just reloads the plasma gun, it should reset the heat to 0%, as the gun is barely needs reloading due to its high magazine capacity.

I think if the heat management is kept as it is, this feat is actually really, really good for a QoL build. You can give up the reload feats and just use ult for reload, no more 10-second reload animations. The vent changes actually made this feat not useless IMO. I don’t think everything has to be optimal.

@omar_uav

There is no reason to get self damage while venting, as venting is a core of the plasma gun, not an extra you can do or to push the weapon performance to an exceptional level, venting does self damage at 38% is quite low, venting already makes you vulnerable in speed, and open to attacks , while the animation also takes time to activate and deactivate,

Totally agree.

@omar_uav

Blaze Away

Blaze away should just give 2 stack/shot instead of 1. I don’t like this blessing on plasma personally, and even doubling the stack gain would just make it an option instead of a useless blessing.

I think currently even for boss damage it isn’t that impactful, although now that you can vent to 0 without a large cost it’s probably way better than before.

@omar_uav

Shattering Impact

It could be increased by 2 on all levels, but it’s already an okay blessing from the pretty underwhelming blessing pool. Your reasoning sounds logical.

@omar_uav

Passive venting from 100% to 0 takes 25 Seconds, not reliable due to its speed, and whats worse , just the first 10% takes 5 seconds.

That’s fine with me. If you stay around 40% venting is very fast and it gives you a varied playstyle of either pacing your shots or going all out.

[Reginald]

@omar_uav

1. Passive Venting is way to slow

Passive venting from 100% to 0 takes 25 Seconds, not reliable due to its speed, and whats worse , just the first 10% takes 5 seconds.

Holstering/ or keeping weapon on hand does not affect the speed of venting.

the new active venting mechanism is completely better than passive venting.

This strikes me as a good design choice on the plasma gun not a bad one. Why should it vent faster passively than actively? Manually venting the plasma gun or reloading (both player actions) makes sense mechanically, logically and thematically for the plasma gun to remain firing under pressure. My coffee is still too hot to drink and I made it like 20 minutes ago.

@omar_uav

Every weapon with limited ammo tends to give at least 1 round from Scavenger perk, both Revolver and Bolter do give 1 extra round per elite kill. Plasma tend to get 2 rounds per kill, but actually uses 3 rounds per normal shot.

I see this as an acceptable, even a great, way to balance the hypothetically fantastic power the Plasma Gun could give the Veteran.

On that note however from my gameplay numers with the weapon and my user experience with the weapon it does not compare all that favorably to a good bolter. It has its upsides in alpha strike but the downtime costs are often huge. The downtime is an acceptable tradeoff if the damage is there. But it kinda isn’t. Rather than giving the Plasma Gun a higher RoF I remain favorable to a moderate damage buff. The other day I hit a dreg gunner in the head with it and it didn’t even die.

@omar_uav

Skill Tree are not Adjusted to Weapon

Dead Shot also does not effect Plasma Gun RMB.

On the upside these changes have made the plasma gun viable and extremely fun to use. Its nice to see 40k weapons more often in my 40k game.

Update: My coffee is now too cold.

[omar_uav]

@Reginald

Why should it vent faster passively than actively?

I didn’t say I want it to vent passively faster than actively.

active venting is always 3 seconds , increasing passive venting by 15-20% wont make it “faster than active venting”.

@Reginald

I see this as an acceptable, even a great, way to balance the hypothetically fantastic power the Plasma Gun could give the Veteran.

the fantastic power don’t exist sadly right now , still a weak weapon to use, not in burst DPS or overall DPS, i do feel the weapon needs both damage buff and more resilience to heat , as 2 heavy shots are barely enough for a single crusher.

@Reginald

On the upside these changes have made the plasma gun viable and extremely fun to use. Its nice to see 40k weapons more often in my 40k game.

could be fun at Diff 1-3 , 4-5 is just ammo wasting of the team and slow reaction to dealing with multiple specials, nothing really special about plasma until now, even its AoE still weak.

your coffee vented passively faster than a plasma gun.

[Harridas]

@omar_uav

as 2 heavy shots are barely enough for a single crusher

You raise good points in the post but saying that Plasma gun underperforms is just wrong.
Rending/Brittleness are a detriment, blaze away is anti-synergy, sustained fire not reducing the heat and you get little ammo from most sources. These are good critiques and I’d like to see them fixed. Such as Scavenger and ammo pickups being changed to give ammo based on total ammo capacity instead of reserve capacity.

Though I don’t see the issue with Plasma gun’s venting as it currently is, the venting damage is pretty negligible and venting is strongly encouraged to continue shooting.

But Plasma is a good weapon and while weaker compared to boltgun (like every weapon), it surpasses Boltgun against elites & monsters. You can, in fact, one-shot all elites, Ogryn elites included by just using The Bigger they Are…. You can shoot through cover and walls while dealing full damage which is also a big deal.

[omar_uav]

@Harridas

Though I don’t see the issue with Plasma gun’s venting as it currently is, the venting damage is pretty negligible and venting is strongly encouraged to continue shooting.

yes, now its much better, except when fighting scab captain and keeps depleting your toughness. but why self harm? and at 38% ? i would ok agree at 80%-90%, cause maaaybe weapon is hot and the veteran dont like his skin gets heated up, but 38% thats not even half.

@Harridas

But Plasma is a good weapon and while weaker compared to boltgun (like every weapon), it surpasses Boltgun against elites & monsters. You can, in fact, one-shot all elites, Ogryn elites included by just using The Bigger they Are…. You can shoot through cover and walls while dealing full damage which is also a big deal.

yes you can take down Crusher & Reaper , but not bulwark, bulwark even with The Bigger they Are dont go down in a single shot, also mutant dont go down in a single shot (i have 20% extra damage vs maniac) , also hound dont go down with a single shot except headshot+ ulti.

Bolter can fire beyond walls and cover (but am not sure if its full damage).

as current state, the plasma dont fill any role , example Dawn of War Series, although a PvP/PvE Strategy, the plasma did fill roles while also did the bolter, as plasma can shot explosive rounds that heats the weapon but does AoE, Destroys cover, weaken armor and so on.

it does not flush units out of cover as bolter do, have a 20-30 damage AoE with heavy shot, cant mag dump as bolter and with Sustained Fire Feat, thats twice the mag dump, even vs bulwark 1 shot from bolter and bulwark is stunned.

[Reginald]

I think basically if it did more damage it’d be fine as it is on heat management.

Bolter does around 400 and plasma does like 500 on lights. Crank that to 600 and we’re in business IMO.

[Flawless]

@omar_uav

on T4+ only 3 specials that die from 1 normal shot from plasma, so no way it can be sustained with if they increased ammo gain by +1.

This is only relevant if you play true solo and never engage specials/elites with your melee weapon.
You are not required to kill the enemy with your gun.
You are not even required to kill the enemy at all.

You gain ammo for anyone on the team killing a special/elite with either of their weapons/abilities.

[MarxistDictator]

Plasma gun is great but feels wrong on Veteran since its so swap focused to make good on it and Veteran is still so trash at melee. Even with 3x T4 stamina regens I can’t deal with that 1.25s lockout, its like no you can’t dodge so you need something with giant control. There’s also so many amazing things you can do with Veteran ult which is infinite that makes the plasma’s really impressive performance outside vet ult kinda wasted. Like if it was avaliable for Zealot I would never run anything else.

But its still really fun and really satisfying to use without feeling ineffective, so automatically great content. The sound design alone with this weapon is worth putting hundreds of hours into. And since the current plasma gun skins change the model completely like the Tools of War update weapons I’m sure there’s more Plasma Guns they’ll add that scratch everyone’s itch.

[dannylew8299]

I actually kinda wish the plasma just cleaved more.

The ammo is so low, kind of surprise it’s not the game’s rail gun when there’s void staff.

[Nish]

@Flawless

This is only relevant if you play true solo and never engage specials/elites with your melee weapon.
You are not required to kill the enemy with your gun.
You are not even required to kill the enemy at all.

You gain ammo for anyone on the team killing a special/elite with either of their weapons/abilities.

Lets put it like this:

There isn’t any other weapon as ammo inefficient on elite kills as plasma. Most of the weapons are ammo positive while a handful is ammo neutral with optimal use and again a very very few are ammo negative.

[omar_uav]

with new power sword nerf, and require “power cycle” which even after 600 hours dont have, cant really engage specials/elite in melee, except for some.

also each weapon give atleast 1 shot and some are 3, except plasma gives you 0.66 of a round.