At the current moment, plasma is a point and click adventure for vet of point in a general direction of a mob of elites and spamming M1 (because charging is actually garbage and pointlessly more dangerous).
A competent plasma vet just nullifies the existence of any taggable enemy with very little risk. The downside of cooling is really a non-issue since it takes like no toughness damage, the toughness damage is replenished by confirmed kill, and it’s not too mechanically heavy, so it’s a incredibly small skill floor to get past.
The other main issue is ammo, but this issue can easily be solved with just feeding the competent plasma vet who would likely kill every taggable enemy within reach.
I do not think nullifying elite packs like it does now is healthy for the game. Penetrating 6 crushers makes a crusher mob an incredible joke, and it’s not healthy for the game for a single person to safely nullify an entire elite mob with M1 spam after pressing F to enter executioner’s stance.
The cleave needs to be tuned down imho. Plasma should stop at carapace, unstoppable, and get severely diminished on flak. It should maybe penetrate a couple of maulers, but it shouldn’t go past 2 or 3, and there should be damage loss for each mauler. There should be 0 penetration on carapace or unyielding full-stop. It should of course penetrate unarmoured, infested, and maniac with no issue because part of the power fantasy is to go through a horde of mobs to delete the thing you really didn’t like.
6 Crushers huh. Try not even one. Took me 2 seconds to confirm what I already knew, but I went out, and did it anyways. I hate people being so confidently wrong.
I have my own issues with plasma gun as I have issues with anything that doesn’t require aim being rewarding (I still think assail hasn’t been nerfed enough, but psyker is in a rough enough state), but if you’re going to level accusations at something get your facts right.
Its 100 MASS cleave. Not 100 cleave. God Emperor help me.
But yes. It needs nerfs. I want it’s uncharged attack to have the same hit box/raycast (its actually a hitscan weapon as far as I’ve tested) as a regular autogun bullet, and have it’s cleave nerfed to 25.
Charged can still act the same way with 100 cleave because charged sucks anyways, and this nerf probably won’t change that, but at least you’d have a reason to try charging.
I agree - a slight nerf to the Plasma Gun’s light spam wouldn’t hurt too much; I’ll probably just end up utilising my Mk VII Shovel more often to make up for those nerfs anyways!
I also agree that the charged attack should remain approximately the same - this’ll ensure that the Plasma Gun remains a useful tool for Damnation. I’d hate for my dear Plasma Gun to go back to being a slower, Helbore-esque version of the Bolter with comparatively taxing overheating function like it was on release.
Yeah, it’d actually make the contrast between the light and charged shots more noticeable! I’m a Plasma Vet main and I find that being able to get 8 Elite/Specialist kills in such a short time (with light spams alone) is a bit ridiculous.
As long as I remain quick on my feet with my beloved Mk VII Shovel, there’ll be no issue.
A slight nerf t ocleave might be fine, but any nerf to the primary fire damage would completely cripple the weapon.
There are a bunch of 1shot headshot breakpoints that the weapon can get when used in combination with multiple talents.
Without this ability, the ttk on those enemies goes up by more than 100%.
I’d like to see more blessings for plasma gun. In a current state there aren’t many impactful blessings. I wouldn’t mind moving its hip fire cleave to a new blessing that would allow you to specialize in piercing targets. Also blessing that would make charged shots more potent would be very welcomed. It’s kind of sad that perks are all that matters currently.
Anyway plasma gun already has so many drawbacks! Just because gun peforms great in a build supplementing it doesn’t mean that the gun itself is all that great. The main reason why PG is so popular is because it works great against all enemies. I also like its uniquness and the wall / crowd penetration aspect - that’s what makes it fun for me. It’s situational bonus that rewards good positioning.
However I also played in parties where everything was death before I charged the hip fire shot and honestly was actually questioning PG peformance.
In any case I think it’s obvious that plasma gun needs more work. Hip fire playstyle being the only way how to use the gun is not great. Playstyle imo should be dictated by the choice of blessings.
Honestly, if the plasma gun stays as ammo inefficient as it currently is, 100 cleave is perfectly fine.
I’d prefer better ammo economy for the plasma even if that comes at reduced cleave but this is truly a non issue.
How often to you get to line up 50+ zombies in a single line? How often are you actually killing more than 3 elites in one shot? And even if you do, you’re still being ammo inefficient in either case.
Does it seem strong? Sure. Is it actually a problem? No, I can’t really see it.
Someone that disagrees with this take: Please show me an in game example of this being a problem
I disagree. Plasma, when compared with IAG or revolvers, has pro but also big cons… wich keep it balanced. It has its niche and doesn’t overshadow the other meta weapons categories
If we nerf Plasma, someone else will ask nerf for the other ranged options, in an infinite vicious circle
It’s an issue of an elite pack coming in, and it just trivializes them.
For whatever reason, elite packs come in a conga line, and it’s incredibly easy to take out several high health targets at the same time because of the high cleave.
There’s also waterfalls where an elite pack can just drop all together in the same place and again, it’s trivial to take out.
Trivializing elite packs is bad for gameplay since it makes the game much easier and has an issue of really high reward for very little effort/cost. To take out an elite pack in this situation, it’d be like 2 or 3 shots and killing 5 enemies which refunds your ammo anyway.
Its more the gun elites and ragers, bizzarely low hit mass ‘elites’. Seeing like 20 shotgunners evaporate on the Mercantile map event at the start got pretty old. Plasma is crazy atm, but so is revolver for the same reason: the xbox sized projectile.
But crushers and maulers its fine because hey they’re fat and don’t all take first target damage and die x 10+.
Plasma guns aren’t killing half a dozen crushers or cleaving through entire groups of maulers with a single shot. A single M1 Plasma shot isn’t penetrating a single Crusher, much less half a dozen of them. Even a fully charged PG shot with Executioner’s Stance isn’t penetrating a Crusher on Damnation. Go try it yourself in the Psykhanium, I just did.
While an M1 shot will penetrate a Mauler’s chest, my current PG build needs 4 M1 shots to the chest to actually kill that Mauler on Damnation difficulty, or two fully charged blasts.
If someone is building for raw ranged damaged with a specialist anti-armor weapon, and is foregoing their resiliency-enhancing abilities like VoC, being able to kill heavily armored dudes quickly in conjunction with the Ult ability seems fine. Trying it myself, with a full 15 stacks of MF and popping ES in the Psykhanium, if I’m landing headshots with M1, I can two-shot a damnation Crusher, but I’m certainly not cleaving through half a dozen of them.
Unless they’re all lined up perfectly for a fully charged shot to the head, that’s literally not possible as far as I’m aware. You’re certainly not doing it with a single M1 attack or even charged shots to the body. Heck, unless you’re building out for Marksman’s focus and Executioner’s Stance, with both active, you’re not one shotting even just one armored ranger with a single M1 headshot shot, and most PG builds won’t run either ES or MF.
True. I was being hyperbolic, but tone does not translate to text basically at all. That’s my bad.
I’ve added an addendum to the post where I said that.
EDIT: I’ll test whats possible with quick charge when I get home. I know you can at least 2 shot for sure since it was able to pierce through so many maulers.
EDIT 2: Yeah. Possible 2 shot with a crit on all 4 (very close to a one shot on all 4) which isn’t too unlikely with the 40+ chance you can get from blessings. This is also just a Focus Target build MF is capable of more, but the scenario is so highly unlikely in terms of positioning so it is still hyperbole.
Like the Revolver, or Trauma, (or ManStopper Shotgun,) or Kickback. There is also a good reason why the inf Columnus is so popular. By the time the plasma charged its first left click the Columnus gunned down the Shotgunner cluster, or basically any elites that are not maulers. If those decide to appear in a spot the PG shines, tight spots, you block them in and toss a Krak or two.
When we start taking abilities, stims, and blitz into the conversation, trivializing elite clusters becomes even more commonly available.
Imho, the revolver, trauma, and kickback are all overperforming a bit right now and need to be toned down slightly especially the revolver.
The columnus also has an issue of a massive total damage for all of your ammo which is another thing that needs adjusting.
Is trivializing elite packs really a good thing for a game? Naming a ton of other things that do it doesn’t answer this question and the premise as to why I think plasma need tweaks.
If you tried to kill 4 Crushers in a short enough time to “trivialise” their pack with a Plasma Gun, you’d blow yourself up because the venting function damages your Toughness and takes enough time to keep you decently vulnerable (which is best fixed by using a Shovel as your melee weapon) against enemies on Damnation. Voice of Command is the only ability that you can really use to even come close to “trivialising” a pack of Crushers - but it WILL lead to you expending your Plasma Gun’s ammo supply like it’s cheaper than candy if you’re on Damnation - which is a SIGNIFICANT drawback, even while using Survivalist like I do.
As has been shown it already does lol. Not the strongest start to this post.
I think that’s pretty reasonable if you leave the charged fire cleave as is.
Do you mean maulers specifically here or for any elite? If the latter I really can’t agree, I think that’d destroy the whole gimmick of the weapon, which you DO pay for with bad ammo economy due to survivalist and ammo pickups working off reserve rather than total ammo. Plasma is pretty horribly inefficient for picking off shooters, doubly so when they’re spread out.
If they ever change how ammo gains work so they’re based off total ammo rather than just reserves I think I’d be more behind a harsher nerf but for now I think just like halving (or more) M1 cleave while leaving m2 cleave as is, and keeping no damage drop off for penetration would be the most appropriate.
