Patch 8 gave Plasma gun the ability to ignore hitzone multipliers and use toughness to vent heat.
First part of that is great; no more super armour hands and the added bonus of totally ignoring bulwarks (you could ignore the angle block before by aiming around the shield).
The toughness venting however, is far too lenient. It take 27 toughness to fully vent, or 12.5 toughness to vent one tick at 100% giving you another two shots. This on the career with the greatest toughness pool, very high generation and toughness damage reduction. There is no risk to being at high heat. Unless you use the charged shots which aren’t ammo efficient, you can never explode.
Honestly bumping up the toughness vent damage by 5-10x and making it ignore damage reduction (remember this problem from Vermintide) would make it a worthy tradeoff for a infamously risky weapon.
You spend 9 (8 on partial) for a charged shot while only gaining 2 for the kill. 3 ammo is used on the normal shot. Plasma is extremely ammo inefficient.
The interaction with charged is fine tho since you trade ammo for TTK, but I would increase the ammo regen to 3.
I heard that its a bug and its not actually doing the 3X final tally that would make it a thought
Or as I said a week ago…told ya it would come out twisted. Enjoy it while you can. I started punching mutants to death because I can matadore them without dodge or slide.
Love the change, but agree that the toughness cost for venting is in practice inconsequential for Vet (~20ish vs 200 base toughness). Make it 50 or 75, or better yet 20% of total pool (scaling with toughness mods). Nothing ridiculous, just make venting have some genuine cost.
I wasn’t really bothered by the health venting previously, but now getting a taste of the toughness vent mechanic (even in its state where it’s 2x and not 3x) it totally changed the way plasma is used. It’s similar to psyker in gameplay and feels pretty great.
With the other change, the ammo issues are lessened, although if you want to go for quick kills (or you play HiD or Specialist Gauntlet) it still needs a lot of ammo pickups.
I’d say currently it is in a pretty balanced state compared to other ranged options the Vet has.
I also love that now the reload ult is also very useful on it, due to the ability to just vent instead of reloading for high heat management. You give up both crusher one-shot potential, boss damage, and easy ult upkeep for it, but it’s a viable option that lets you also run full grenade build with it (although I’ve gotta say Sniper is extremely good with plasma so that’s another thing you have to give up for grenades).
Don’t do this. Please. Or at least buff the Plasma Gun first. I haven’t had the chance to use it yet but it’s a very mid weapon and I want it to be great, and taking toughness damage just for using it while a Lucius or Bolter are usually just better in general is already enough of a debuff.
I really like the switch to toughness damage first. It makes the mechanic similar to Sienna and Bardin’s heat mechanic from VT2 where Temporary Hit points would soak the damage as well. I do however feel the current “cost” is inconsequential like you said. I’d probably double or even triple it.
Yeah it doesn’t do that much damage and its ROF is slow with no AoE damage (linear only) i’m not convinced the current change is even a problem. I don’t play that much vet but i’m a good shot and i didn’t even exceed my typical zealot damage range.
The current PG is now able to hold its own against the new Shotguns. Thats it. If those are not OP, the PG certainly isn’t either.
Iam kind of impressed how FS manages to balance their weapons nowerdays. I still remember nerfs with the reasoning that the weapon gets played too much, or random number shifting on attacks none ever used.
The PG is fine right now. The Ammo hunger and firerate are the limitations. Being able to wallbang elites and specials its edge (Thats actually more handy than expected. Sniper hiding behind cover? Bomber running away? No they dont!). The heat mechanic is something nice to play around, but not oppressive anymore.
(I also enjoy that the Blessings are awful. No need to worry about those.)
I have to say I am not the best shot as I lack the experience of getting cracked at modern fps for the most part and while I agree that there is little chance of overheating as of now,
I also am not convinced, that the Plasma Gun is anywhere near overpowered in its current state. It imo gets held back a lot by its low ROF and bad ammo economy and I am therefore inclined to say it is fine balance-wise as of now, though that opinion might change upon further testing.
Yes, I have around 100 games on Plasma from before the changes. I’m very familiar with it.
Penetration depends on the enemy type and armor type. Light attacks cannot penetrate elites apart from shotgunners, while charged attacks can’t penetrate a bunch of enemies (apart from the obvious armored ragers and maulers are on the list).
A bit more clarification about penetration: normal attacks only penetrate 2 targets of Groaners/Poxwalkers otherwise it’s stopped by the second target. While based on my tests charged attack only penetrates 4 targets (and it is stopped by the 5th). So it’s a bit more accurate to say it penetrates 1 and 4 targets.
In the best case scenario, you can line up a triple kill on (unarmored) ragers and it is still ammo negative gaining only 6 for 9 spent (and it is super rare). For me charged being ammo inefficient is fine, but being (highly) ammo inefficient on all elite kills is pretty brutal.
After running around 10+ games with it after the changes it does feel a lot better, but it is nowhere near op.
PS: A little note, the best use for the charged shot is to penetrate normal enemies to hit the specials/elite, in many situations normal attack is not enough for that (or a very unsafe option). Situations include flamer/trapper in horde or bomber/sniper behind horde or in the middle of an enemy group.
Yeah, noticed that as well, venting heat is just a freebie for us veterans now using the plasma, it should be somewhat more of a tough choice if you want/dare venting or not
