Plasma Gun Design Flaws IN-DEPTH [After 1.0.20 Update]

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

After using the Plasma Gun for more than 10 matches of Difficulty 3-5. It does suffer and mostly in higher difficulties. Due to specials spawn rate.

Plasma Gun: Weapon that uses both Ammo, and Heat mechanism, which a player would need to manage both Heat & Ammo, that is used to engage the heaviest targets.

  1. Venting Is Nearly Useless
    An option used to vent out heat after shooting. But if the heat is at 38% or higher, venting will inflict self damage to health. also venting slows down the player and disable sprinting.

Plasma Gun with 70% in Thermal Resistance & 70% in charge rate, would increase Heat up to 38-40% on a charged shot. that means venting is nearly never safe to use.

Its nearly Venting is never used during a mission

  1. Charged Shot Have NO Real Benefit
    Use of 3x the ammo for 2.9x the damage. While also generation of more heat.
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    Testing on a Crusher at Diff 4, requires 18 Ammo with Charged shots or Non-Charged shots. Charged shots did generate 9% more heat.

3.Weak Passive Venting
Passive Venting is very slight and is barely noticeable,sometimes its even forgotten , and can never be relied on.

  1. Inconsistent DPS (due to short Salvo)
    with a 78% Thermal Resistance (The modifier which affects the heat generated per shot), you can only do 3 charged shots , or 8 normal shots at max.

From the Flaws, as a sharpshooter you cant perform your role, you would counter 2-3 specials, then need to vent all the way to 0%, which takes about 3 seconds while also sacrificing your HP.
yet also countering Shooters consumes huge amount of ammo and time, which makes the plasma gun have nothing really to achieve.

6 Likes
2

Maybe they should make it an ammo-less weapon. It’s all just about heat management.

3 Likes
3

maybe you need to enter a quick heat release on an alternative mouse button? Or really remove the ammunition completely

2 Likes
4

i think increasing ammo by 2x more would be good, right now handling Ammo and Heat is way too much , also that Plasma Gun reload speed in base 9.6 Seconds, and cannot be improved.

1 Like
5

to 1. Venting
Agree. Venting does not feel very useful. I almost exclusively use reloads (with reload time buffs) to cool down or keep it venting passively. Only in a pinch I would accept the automatic cool down damage from a non-charged shot

to 2. Charged Shots
At first I was dissatisfied that i.e. the charged shot did about the same damage as the boltgun’s auto fire, while having spool up time and heat to manage with risk of self inflicted injury and death.
But I also learned to use it in a different ways where bolter and other guns would fail me:

  • shoot through cover and some walls
  • shoot high value targets through hordes
  • shoot multiple targets in a line

Still, I would not mind a damage buff or a tweak to the overheat mechanic or reload time.
I found it viable on Heresy, though its use dictated a lot of the pacing.

to 3. passive venting, venting
I found it somewhat acceptable when there was horde clearing with only few required shots in between (which has obvious limits). It would be nice, if there was an additional mechanic that could support cool down (i.e. provide reload and cool down combined as a lvl 30 ability or have cool down on elite or melee kills as a blessing… ). Also, the threshold for injury could be higher (>75%) and should align with the color coding of the % indicator.

6

Here’s the deal: In order for me to even think about using the Plasma gun, they have to increase the base damage by like. 50%. At least.
It’s just not worth taking and dealing with the heat mechanic and the small ammo pool AND the charge mechanic, while also NOT killing regular enemies with an uncharged shot, and requiring so much commitment to fire. The bolter fills the Plasma Gun’s role while also being effective at clearing everything else. So why should I use the plasma gun?
I’m not joking, I should be one-shotting Crushers consistently on Damnation with a full-charged shot from the plasma gun. It feels so damned feeble.

7

You are not wrong when it comes to the fact that the plasma gun is not the strongest on the Veteran. The way i see it, it is all about roles, because what the plasmagun does best is killing Ogryns of all kinds and armoured (flak or carapeace) elites. That is its strong point and when you use it you should not expect to kill all the ememy lassfire, that is someones else job when you used a plasma gun. When it comes to taking out the ogryns, this weapon can onshot Reapers, Bulwarks and Crushers on Heresy, i would not look opon that as weak, and it is a huge moral boost for the team. Maulers and Ragers (with armour) also die fast from it.

There is one thing i really wish they could implement and that is on the lvl 30 feat “Sustained fire” the Veteran relodes the gun instantly, that is good and all but the plasmagun heat stays the same making it terrible. So use the one which gives you Monster and Ogryn damage for peak performance :slight_smile: If “Sustained fire” worked with the plasmagun i could see other uses for in than heavy elites killing.

1 Like
8

I played alot with the PG for the last two days. Mostly Damnation. Some Heresy.

The ammo count and pickup rates are not the problem anymore. It is the damage, the venting, and the fire rate. WIth most weapons on Vet you can sustain Volley Fire for aslong as there are Elites on the screen. The PG has real trouble with that. You only got that many shots before you have to vent and your follow up projectile wont come for close to another second. In that time usually someone already sniped, or blew up the threat you were aiming for, which drops your Volley Fire buff.

Not having Volley Fire puts you into the situation of needing three projectiles for a single Rager. You only got eight in the best case and are usually facing far more than just two of them. So you Vent. Venting takes ALOT of damage when you do it from max heat. You will Vent ALOT on the higher difficulties if you want to shoot the stuff that might end your run and you will Vent at higher heat, because Venting at lower heat does absolutely jack.

Dealing with range camps is an absolute nightmare. Eight shots are not enough to clear them. You have to take huge breaks to Vent, while those boys rip your team apart. Ofcourse the PG doesnt have to deal with those gents properly, but if it doesnt, it has to at least deal with elites and specials like it’s nobody’s business.

Something else that needs looking at is, as OP already mentions, charged projectiles. They are a trap in every single case. The heat they cost is absolutely never worth it. You don’t need to delete that one, or two crushers. The Ragers, Specials, Gunners, Reapers, and Shotgunners need to be evaporated. You cant do that if the Crusher crushed your heat management.

Some people here are asking for ammo to be removed, but that would absolutely achieve nothing atm. I never ran out of ammo, nor had trouble reloading. All that would do is remove a leg that can get used to balance this weapon.

I don’t exactly where to put my thump for fixing this thing. Putting it in range of two hitting Ragers without Volley Fire would probably make it ridiculous. It might be enough to just remove the extra heat generation on charged shots. The charging itself is already penalty enough. Venting could get changed so it vents as much on low heat as it does on high heat.

(Oh look. Time to log in and check the shop.)

4 Likes
9

plasma gun need a dot in screen center, this gun is very hard to aim. pls

2 Likes
10

Totally agree on first point.

As for charged Shots, yes you can bypass some of poxwalkers, but i think max of 5, you can snipe specials that are infront or close to front as flamer , shotgunner or trapper. But as of Gunner or bomber, its really hard as many do exist on the firing lane, also that Mauler,Scab Rager, plasma dont over penetrate them, shots stops at the main target only.

i found charged shot very useful when teammate dont know whats a firing line is, as it penetrate your teammate without showing “blue” hitmarker.

normal venting really needs a buff, a shot 3 charged shots, reached 98% , removed some coward, new specials appeared was still at 50%.

1 Like
11

i agree, we are running out of ammo because we are trying to achieve what the plasma not achieving right now, as its damage is quite weak, nearly every target requires multiple hits.
with nearly a magazine of 117 Ammunition is translated to 39 normal shots or 13 charged shots, its not really enough to take down anything with this damage.

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even with a weapon with nearly full role of Damage and Stopping Power cant 1 tap Rager/Pox Hound on DIff 4 (Heresy).

12

I love it for what it is, but if they want to buff it some more I’m down.

13

I do not think there is a need to have 2 limiting factors (ammo and heat) on the same weapon, no other weapon in the game has 2.
The bolter is really powerful, more people can use it, it does not have heat, it has more ammo it seems like the bolter overperforms to me when I use it and from what I’ve seen/heard about the plasma for a class specific weapon it is outshined by other choices that have a similar job.

As much as it sucks using a flamer on a zealot because you lose all range options it is very powerful for what it does, there seems to be some balance disconnect with this game where other classes seem to get the best weapons for your job.

14

No reason not to have something different. There’s already charge rifles without heat management if people don’t want to deal with heat.

15

Those limitations, ammo and heat, will allow for the buffs the gun needs to excel in its niche.

With the heat and ammo constraints the Plasma Gun will hardly ever be able to clear range camps effectively, but with another touch up it might be able to deal with Elites better than other guns.

As I already mentioned that could either be achieved by removing the extra ammo and heat cost of charged shots, making the charge time itself the cost, or by generally buffing the normal shot damage and fire rate. I would probably prefer to try the charged shot route first.

1 Like