A couple of suggestions on the most contentious build in the game.
The problem with the ult that I see is using it to clear out a dozen or more slaves at a time in a horde. The ult is great for elites, but ridiculous for hordes/ambients. Perhaps if the ability were only able to target bosses/specials/elites then it would remain top-tier whilst no longer being a crutch for cocky green circle chasers. It would also make it perfect for picking out an elite in a horde.
The beam in vt1 was great in that if you could keep the beam focused on a single enemy its damage output would grow. A moving ogre made this challenging. Currently the “meta” use of the beam staff is “the wiggle” which takes advantage of the instant tick with stagger. I think making the tick rate start much slower and increase in speed (opposite of current) would work rather well to make “the wiggle” unviable.
Top keks… people have been complaining that after a recent update, it only targets elites, instead of horde mobs XD
And it’s not great for elites. On Legend, it kills 1 Stormvermin, or 1 CW if it’s facing directly at you and you have the right power VS or crits. It is really good on monks/zerkers though.
It can 1 shot a CW if it’s facing directly at you, otherwise it bounces off it’s shoulder armour. A shade does not have to build for CW killing. A shade can use it’s ULT, and do a simple left click(light attack) and 1 shot a CW with daggers.
Compared to the other auto aim ULT in the game, the WS’s true flight volley. Burning head is complete garbage. It’s only redeeming factor, is it’s lower cool-down. True Flight can kill 5+ SV, Burning head kills 1… True flight can trigger traits on your ranged weapon as a WS, scrounger and so on. Not only that, TFV can hit 3x the damage of burning head and 3x the mobs if you are firing into hordes.
So I just played a game with the Waystalker as I was quite surprised at the suggestion that Trueflight could kill 5+ Stormvermin. Disappointingly there seemed to be no way to kill more than 2 + a couple of slaves. I would believe 3, but most often when targeting a Stormvermin all 3 arrows will hit the one Stormvermin and not jump to the next. This still makes it comparable to the Burning head, since Trueflight seems to be worse at killing Rothelms and Chaos Warriors.
As far as horde clear goes I am also not sure how you can claim that Trueflight can kill 3x the number of enemies in a horde. That would pretty much mean that you could easily clear an entire horde with one shot. Perhaps you are assuming that each individual arrow has the exact same capability as Burning Head?
Building shade for Chaos Warriors isn’t just about stacking property buffs, its also about maximizing concentration potions by reducing charge time, and using decanter. Also those builds often consider situations where their ult is unavailable, so stacking property buffs is still useful.
My point with the Chaos Warriors was just trying to suggest that Burning head is still very powerful without the horde clear. To compare to Shade, you can only really kill about 3 enemies with their ult, even in a horde. Both of their ults can be used as a one-off on a Chaos Warrior, but Pyro can do it from a distance, and is var more versatile anyway. Bounty Hunter is another that can use their ult to kill a single Chaos Warrior.
Oh another one of these threats.
Most people just simply misjudge the power of the beam pyro.
Dont get me wrong the cooldown reduction wigglemancer should get a balance change, when this cooldown thing gets fixt pyro is pretty much in line with the other ranged classes.
One of the things that makes the pyro look so strong is the fact that you see everything she does. Sienna can never stfu and of course the fireworks everywhere.
When a hunsman, waystalker or bountyhunter mow down a hord with 5-7 arrows/bolts there is no firewoks, you dont really notice what just happened. You will just kill the last 8 rats (or whatever) in melee and move on.
It’s not even the best way to use Beam Pyro let alone the Pyro overall. I would say that the issue is that it “feels” like it the most powerful build in the game. This is all somewhat perpetuated by the players who advise others to use this so called “most powerful build in the game” .
My main issue is with the Pyro ult itself. If it were to hit max 3 targets I think it would be all good.
The burning head is not overpowered.
The wigglemancer spam is. If you only can use it every 40 sec and kill some trash enemies that are one hits anyway, that’s totally fine.
But the spam of doing that every 7-11 sec is to much.
As i said a balance change should and probably will come.
I guess no one ever bothered playing with flamestorm staff. You hold your flamethrower into a horde and with RSS, your burning head is up in literally a second. It happens so fast that the graphics on the bar have trouble catching up.
Solely relying on the burning head is just ineffective and I agree with those who say it only “feels” like it is the best build. The best builds on Sienna rely on you dealing damage with your staffs, those are your main weapons, they are reliable and can deal a ton of damage almost without hesitation. Beam staff with barrage is an absolute monster of a weapon, since you pretty much have 25% more power vs. ANYTHING. You can hit ALL break points there are with that thing and barrage is up after seconds of hitting anything. The wiggle is a tool in your arsenal (and I wouldn’t mind it it was gone, just to make that sure) that you use even without RSS to make sure you can get your burning head back for priority targets.
But oh well, what am I writing for? Just gonna lay back, relax and enjoy the show of "“The Beam Staff Chronicles Part 5: Electric Wiggaloo”.
Delicious.
It amazes me with new players the population always follows the same patterns.
Pyro->WS->BH pls narf nao.
Im joining “enjoy the show” train.
Here’s my ticket:
I was surprised at first by it too, esp compared to first game, where you were rewarded for holding the beam, as dmg/tickaspeed increased.
However, it wouldnt have any sense with the way how this game is made. With increased enemy numbers and density holding beam on 1 target would completely doom the weapon.
BTW: Pyro is usually far less efficient than new players claim.
It’s almost rooted in place when shooting and either needs great situational awareness and/or team securing it’s shortcomings all the time. Because you go down on light pat on the back.
Please, notice how the game population changes.
Pyro was extremely popular just when it came out and everyone thought or complained how good it is.
I rarely (anecdotal, i know), but really RARELY find myself in group with a pyromancer.
If I may add :
BW horde Fireball/ SV conflag stagger or bolt unchained it’s now the main focus of Sienna players from my observations.
It really is overpowered. You don’t need to use the beam wiggle to get the ult ready every 7 seconds. I’m trying to say that the wiggle isn’t really the problem, although it is one.
I have been using flamestorm recently with Pyro and it is quite amusing, I would say that in situations where the flamestorm does well there is no need to use burning head at all - maybe to get rid of an elite that made it into the horde.
The solution to that problem would be to rename it to the “shotgun staff”. Really, the staff is already super powerful when used for its shotgun. When I use this staff I actually use it the same as I would in vt1, shotgun hordes, and remote beam snipe on single targets. Changing the staff to make the wiggle nonviable would actually not affect the overall power of the weapon, just remove the silly “meta strat”.
As far as how common this is: certainly less so than the first month after release. The game is a lot more balanced so we see a great variety of builds. I will still say that 90% of Pyromancers that I see are using the beam staff and attempt to use this strategy.
Because it’s a memestaff.
It’s absolutelly horrid on other careers, it only works good with extremely high crit chance, and mostly for ult recharge. Or “vent on crit” trait for longer horde staggering, but ti’s outclassed by Bolt staff there.
Beam is best as tracer rounds machinegun, because if you stick your beam for as long as 1-2s, probably a bolt or gunshot is going to follow from your mates.
About the shotgun there’s much larger issue here: Fixing the stuttering tha Bardin’s irondrakes altfire or Beam’s shotgun create for non-host or non-user. (Not framerate drop, just stutter)
WHY?
What qualities does it have to make it OP? It’s pretty low dmg as ults go. It pierces only few trashmobs.
It has casting time, doesnt work point blank, can behave very unreliably. It’s quite slow, esp compared to other room clearers such as “Volley” or “Sidearm”
Stop saying it’s OP just because you hate beam staffers, because ult is not at fault.
You dont rant about Handmaiden or Zealot or Footknight charging their ult every few sec on CDR.
So, on beam it’s overpowered, on Flamestorm it’s useless, but it’s still ult’s fault, not the staff?
This is advanced mental gymnastics.
Im extremely curious here.
Please, indulge me:
What shift to “the meta” do you suggest?
What is your main class?
Your solution to self created problem is to kill the weapon’s main function, rename it entirely, then claim it has not affected the staff in any way, and everything is fine?
The WS ULT can and does kill 5+ SV mate… not sure what you’re on about. And it does 3x the damage as it hits 12k damage x 3 hits when it crits.
These threads are a joke. There’s a new one every month, and it always ends up the same way. People claim something is OP based on their “feelings”. You give them raw data, screenshots, spreadsheets, etc showing that other weapons do more damage and do it faster. Then their responses normally change to, they simply don’t like the class or weapon and want it nerfed, changed, removed, whatever.
It used to for me. But since the last “optimization” to its targeting, all arrows just home into the same target and kill that. Don’t know the the last time was when I killed more than one SV with volley.
But she’s exactly as annoying and unfun to play with as everyone claims. She’s so obnoxious that it feels like she’s more powerful than she is. It’s not fun to be obsolete, and it’s not fun when you’re obsolete until somebody finally stabs your turret wizard in the back.
You don’t need to be a noob to recognize that something about this build is oh so very, very wrong. The only person having fun when you have a FLYFREEmancer on your team is the wizard player, until they go down once and leave. It’s almost as if something about the balancing is a little bittle wittle smittle bit wrong when situations like this arise, and it’s almost as if somebody should do something to prevent this from occurring as often as it does.
Cause those beammancers, they don’t learn. They won’t. They’ll keep going, and then they’ll eventually quit, without having evolved into a more valuable player. I mean, beam+ult SHOULD be incredibly OP, and it is, until I die because everyone else is so bad!
There are methods of increasing the ULT that need a long hard look at and this is a balance change that will be undoubtedly coming - considering the anecdotes here of people getting the Ult back up in 4 - 7 seconds.
The main issue I have with the ULT (apart from the balance required in my opening sentence) is that it is so completely zero skill for the return and that is what makes it so bloody annoying. I’ve played alongside a HS who was one-shotting things left right and centre, stunning CW for the IB to kill and generally killing most elites and specials long before they even become a threat. This had a high skill requirement to pull this off(a little higher skill required with the silly longbow zoom now?) so I don’t begrudge the HS his kills because he worked for them,earned and was bloody good.
Pyro can just face a tree, close her eyes, fire it off and pummel a patrol without any effort whatsoever.
So, my point being the Homing-Bolt wouldn’t be so irritating if it required actually aiming and firing because players would be able to see a higher skilled Pyro doing their thing and appreciate a bit of skill rather than an AI controlled fireball killing stuff.
If I am being at my most cynical I might suggest this was designed purely for consoles who couldn’t spin, target, aim and kill something as fast as keyboard/mouse.
This is very emotional response. And you’re much more focused on the tone of it than the facts.
Im sorry you feel this class harrasses you, but I can not agree with things you’ve said.
That is an extreme stretch. You do not get to claim for everyone. Especially when forums are polarized.
It’s not powerful then.
Class can’t be obnoxious, it’s inanimate and without free will.
Players can be obnoxious. You seem to have history of unfortunate events with this class, or players of this class generally outclass your performance.
There’s plenty to do, a single Pyro can’t kill entire map and cover all directions at once. This is an overstatement, and pretty solid one.
If you’re a noob (among players with hundreds of hours) you’re not recognizing enough of the game to speak about balance in the first place.
Again, almost a personal attack directed at class.
Your anger is mismanaged and misdirected.
This is emotional rant. Please, write after you’ve cooled.
NYPA.
Also, you don’t state even what’s OP, you just scream “NARF NAO!” and throw a tantrum.
You type opinion after opinion, rich with insults/accusations. When you speak about balance, we need facts/numbers/performance and not feelings.
Either the playerbase or Fatshark can’t respond to how you FEEL about some class.
What is this?
Seems like another personal rant about either some player or situation.