So I finally got chance to buy Plasma Gun but it’s horrible in every aspect except damage.
Why I think it’s BAD?
CONS:
Self damage after 45%. Just why would I carry something that hurts me everytime I shoot?
ADS = OK I get more aim control, heats up which means more dmg but means more hurting yourself. No ADS = AIM and PRAY to hit something on medium/long range
Horrendously bad heat control. Just so slow that it’s faster to reload
Reload takes years.
Hit 100% to see fireworks and die which is balance offset which I think it’s fine if you overheat it it goes boom but it’s cons because of overall heat self damage.
To play it properly it’s 1-3 shots without ADS or 1 shot with ADS charge up and then reload and back to heat management.
Ammo count is bad, very bad.
PROS:
Damage.
That’s it.
Doesn’t overheat in Focus Fire but looks more like a bug than feature…
BUGS:
If you have Hot gun and it damages you normally, it’s easier to reload for 0 damage taken from HEAT
Summary:
Why would anyone use this over Bolt Gun?
Bolt Gun PROS vs Plasma:
Good CC
Good Penetration
Good Damage
ADS is your friend, Hip fire is close range CC or Specials execution
Doesn’t kill you or hurt you in any way
Maybe it’s just me but this gun is just not doing it even if it’s Diff LV4 over Bolt Gun
What are your thoughts?
Its problem is total amount of shots it can make. The bolter, squishy specials die for one more shot, and tanky ones are compensated by going in close with full auto. At that point the plasmas weakness in heat generation feels excessively punishing when the bolter is much more applicable to more situations while being neglibly less effective at special killing. The plasma might be able to kill 2-3 specials before maxing heat while the bolter can kill like 5 lights, and a heavy on one mag and be alot better for fighting ranged squads and helping with hordes if necessary.
You are not wrong at all, IMO, the plasma gun needs to change to the following
-Right click should bring up ADS
-Left click shoots, Left click hold charges (Seriously, why is it not like this already we know they can do this with the Lucius las rifle)
-Holding Alt should vent the rifle, but there should be no damage to venting the rifle no matter the overheat level, but it should not cooldown passivly.
Each “Magazine” should hold 120 charge, and each shot should be equivalent to to void strike staffs charged up shot, and the cahrged up shot should be a biger version of that, each base shot should generate 5% heat, and each charged up shot should generate a total of 15% heat to full charge, and another 15% on fire, considering it would be even bigger then a charged up voide strike explosion this is fair.
Easy fix, make the plasma heavily ignore armor, which is very genre. Bolters are already flat out better than las-guns against armor so make the plasma powerful against heavily armored units that would otherwise reduce a bolter.
It already dose that though. The issue is not the damage on the plasma, becuase the plasma can one shot a armored ogryn on damnation. The problem is, it only exists to delete something very quickly, while the bolter can do that as well, all be it not as fast, but just as well, AND still be used for regular hordes/clearing.
The plasma, for being the classes unique end all be all weapon, blows.
It should be able to work like a DMR but with a lot more kick and power. It should basically work like a slow, heavier hitting bolter, but right now it does not at all it works more like an RPG with out the explosion to it.
If I were to change anything I’d maybe eliminate mags - sounds more logical.
Or maybe even remove ammo altogether - make it a heat-based weapon, but that might make it overpowered…
I had several missions where I was the only veteran using the plasma rifle and we would literally die because a sniper would be hiding behind something very far away and I literally couldn’t hit them, even if I wasn’t being constantly suppressed by guardsman, it just doesnt have the range or the accuracy.
The problem is that when 6+ ranged enemies appear you can’t kill all of them without getting to 100% heat and need 1 minute to reload or wait to cool down.
This weapon is just so incredibly unsatisfying to play. I agree with all the criticisms… You don’t even have to compare the Plasmagun with the Bolter, for me it’s the worst weapon I’ve played so far, even worse than any Autogun and that may mean something…
Hmm, lore wise and considering other 40k games, I would assume the plasma would completely ignore armor (heck thats literally the point of the gun compared to bolter, even for Astartes against anything armored). The self damage is accurate, plasma guns have the ability to boost damage almost by double, but risk a self damage (usually a chance, not guaranteed, but I wouldn’t really make it rng here honestly), but it should do considerably more dmg than it currently does it seems. Should also be quite slow, not spammable like bolter.
I think the gun just needs full armor pen and dmg boost on self damage special. Make it the specialized anti armor gun it’s supposed to be, able to deal with a few heavy enemies quickly, but unable to keep firing for long/killing more than a few in rapid succession
normal fire - 1 shot per 3 seconds no heat single target no pass-through. 1 ammo used. decent armor pen
special mode - switch to overcharge
normal fire in overcharge - 1 shot per 3 seconds 30 heat build up, pass-through hitting multiple enemies in a line until mass exceeds a set amount then AOE blast. 2 ammo used, double damage. all Armor ineffective
overcharge should go right though small cover and thin barriers, but immediately AOE blast when hitting a thick wall or floor/roof
at 0 heat - 0% chance of taking self damage (emergency venting)
at 100 heat - 100% chance of taking self damage
Chance of self damage is calculated from heat that will be built up, ie first overcharge has 30% to burn you
Emergency venting causes self damage of 40% total health mitigated by toughness and removes all heat
Heat disipates at 5 per second
Each plasma cannister has 10 shots before needing to be replaced
Basing this off lore + kill team rules and how it plays in a KT game
A lot of the guns in this game feel like they were just an afterthought. Like hey, we’re making a new Vermintide, and we want to put guns in it, but if they’re too strong then the game won’t be fun… right? Most of the focus is on melee, the game pushes you towards being melee and ranged play is so crippled with flinch and reduced accuracy, almost like they don’t even want it here and they want you to do melee instead.
Back for Blood was like 80% guns and 20% melee, and very few of the enemies actively shoot back at you, and yet it works just fine with gunplay and the difficulty is fair. Fatshark needs to take some notes. B4B has problems, but its fun for what it is and it works.
Plasma is workable in malice. In heresy and beyond sometimes it doesn’t even 1 shot a basic shooter. With the abysmal ammo count and horrendous reloading + overheating that is completely unacceptable.
Everything is very hard on top difficulties. Nerfing everything to bring stuff down is lamer IMO than bringing things up. You should feel powerful. Balance should be kept in check with class restrictions, cc amount, spawns, etc.
It has its strengths like highest damage per shot and 100% accuracy with no aiming sway or massive viewmodel blocking your aim(hi bolter sights), and fast switch speed.
I’d say 90% of its issues can be solved by reducing its heat generation or make venting faster. The other 10% would be improving damage because what might have been 1 shot worth of heat doing 100% damage on a lower difficulty, ends up being 2 shots of heat on a higher level with 80% overkill. Because of the inflexible nature of the plasma gun, losing breakpoints hurts it much worse.
