Repeater pistol nerf

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
1

So these were the changes to it in 1.0.6

Repeating Pistols
Added a separate damage profile for shotgun blast with lower damage to Chaos Warriors on crits, lower damage on headshots, but with more cleave.
Added chain window to weapon switch for shotgun blast as it was missing (0.3s by default) and increased wield chain window from 0.1 to 0.2 on normal shot.
Reduced max ammo to 40, down from 50.

I personally think every single of these changes is a step in the wrong direction (and the weapon switch thing still isn’t even working it seems), and I will explain in detail why.

First, let’s consider it as a weapon choice for bounty hunter. Before these changes you had the following choices: volley crossbow if you wanted anti horde and anti unarmored boss (although it was/is still ok against most elites and specials), repeater pistol for elites (particularly chaos warriors) and armored bosses (much worse against hordes and a bit worse against specials) and crossbow if you wanted to snipe far away specials (still ok against elites but much worse against CW than pistol).
So pistol’s main niche was super armor, particularly chaos warriors: it took 2 shots to down a CW with revolver and 3 with volley or xbow (that’s on body shots), and with vs chaos and/or crit power stacked you could leave them very weak to easily finish them off even with a rapier.
However, after the multiplier changes, even with 20 vs chaos it only 3 shots chaos warriors (maybe 2 shots with multiple lucky headshots, but with the spread it has it’s impossible to guarantee even 1 in 3 blasts). You can reach 2 if you stack a lot of crit power, but it is currently bugged and doesn’t work unless you are a host. Even after it is fixed, stacking every single property possible just to make the weapon useful in it’s only niche is simply not a good design.
This is a problem as it essentially renders the weapon useless: it lost it’s only niche, and is effectively strictly worse than both volley and regular crossbow. It is much worse at sniping specials and increased cleave doesn’t compensate for this, as it’s still worse anti-horde than volley crossbow.

Now to the ammo changes. Even before the reduction, pistol was already the least ammo efficient ranged option for Saltzpyre and was only used on bounty hunter, as other careers simply couldn’t sustain it. There was some arguments for it due to it being a bit of a panic button and being decent at killing specifically assassins, and cleave made the former a bit more relevant, but due to it’s weak anti-special it will always be the least popular option on the other 2 careers.

I’m guessing these changes were supposed to be a nerf to bounty hunter, but volley crossbow was already an overall more powerful choice, so they ultimately failed to achieve that and the only effect was reduction in weapon/build variety.

My proposed changes would be to revert both the ammo changes and the crit modifier changes, fix the supposedly implemented increased delay on weapon switch while keeping increased cleave (to incentivize it’s use on other careers, although I’d prefer something else) and nerf the only level 15 talent ever used on bounty hunter. Making your blessed shots consume no ammo while also alleviating any need to reload is way too strong of an effect, especially compared to other level 15 talents both on bh and other careers. This would give pistol it’s niche back while reducing the potential for chain blasting elite after elite without any reload.

3 Likes
2

BH with Pistol or Vollet was simply broken. Now RP is nerfed, now we wait for volley nerf and maybe he will finally be balanced.

3

Yes, nerf everything. Remove all the fun until we are clearing maps with one handed swords for all and 2 shots each on weps…

6 Likes
4

Nobody is saying about removing fun. But if fan= broken weapons for you that you are just not comfortable to play without your ez mode thngs. Volley is simply broken, needs to be balanced.

5

I agree that volley needs to be nerfed, and i agree that even with pistol BH was a bit too strong, I just don’t think reducing CW damage was a good idea. As I said, would make much more sense to make you reload your weapon

6

CW should be a challange. There should not be regular weapon able to just insta kill them without any skill used (or even ammo). I can understand Slayer 3-4 Shotting CW because you need to be in melee, dodge, block, avoid other enemies etc. But simple right click them from afar it’s just not good. Besdies that’s what his ult is for, no?

7

It was never oneshotting them since 1.0.5, it was a 2-shot even with properties stacked. I’d agree with you if his other weapons didn’t perform exactly the same against CW now
I think killing CW with 2 pistol blasts, while getting a reset in between and reloading twice for it would be quite balanced

8

I disagree. In melee the fastest CW kill is Slayer (no counting critics) with 20% Chaos bonus and 3 staks it take 3-4 Power Attacks with most damaging melee weapon in game. And that is melee oriented only class in risky position (melee range) that requires a lot of skill to kill CW among other mobs as you can only count on your movement and perfect execution.

No range weapon should take lower hits to kill CW than this because it simple yet again pushes difficulty towards ez mode range weapon spam where you can left/right click something without any skill required apart from aiming with center of your screen on huge-ass enemy with a hit scan weapon…

Currently even WS ult does not kill CW so being able to 2-shot with just some range weapon is just way to strong. Even dedicated anti-armor range weapon vs CW should take no less than 4 normal headshots.

They are suppose to be a real threat, not another “imma gonna 2-shot that from range”.

9

taking two shots, reloading twice and getting a reset in the middle is about as slow and risky as killing it as a slayer, depending on the situation.

10

3 shots is fine. I would only agree that it should 2 shot the boss if the lvl 15 talent to not use ammo on crit was removed. But a weapon that strong with unlimited ammo is just unreasonable and pushes the ranged meta even further.

11

problem is, both volley and regular are 3 shot, so there are 0 reasons to ever use pistol as bh (or as other careers, but that’s for different reasons)

12

Yes, that’s true currently. That’s why everybody agrees that volley is broken and needs a nerf. Perhaps a scrounge nerf for arrows to only proc once or blessed shot rework to make it as +% damage not crit like huntsman’s ult would fix this issue.

13

That is why we are waiting for Volley nerf/change to make it what it was suppose to be = anti boss weapon. That would give RP the anti-armor/special role and general all-around weapon (a middle ground), BoP as anti-horde and crossbow as pure anti-special snipe.

Same as it was in V1. And I have no idea why they messed it second time in row after balancing it in V1. This is beyond me.

14

you would have to nerf regular crossbow armor damage then as it would still be strictly better than pistol

15

Can be, that is what we have balance patches.

Right now its most important to nerf Volley and FS can work from there. You can’t balance anything with OP weapon in first place.

16

That’s not going to happen at this point… they changed the Weapon Damage completely around from V1… Repeater is the same as it was… but Brace of Pistols and Volley seriously changed places… here’s just the numbers on my stuff going with a Legend level gate open. (mind you I did with WHC)

Damage:

Brace of Pistols V2: (Ammo… Zealot: 25… WC Captain 33… Bounty Hunter 38).
Body 41.00
Head: 63.25
Head + Deathknell: 75.75

Volley V2: (Ammo… Zealot: 15/15 (30)… WH Captain 15/24 (39) … Bounty Hunter 15/30 (45))
Body: 22.75
Head: 44.25
Head + Deathknell: 53.25

As you can see here Brace does a LOT more damage per Shot… unlike in V1. It’s why its got lower ammo. Each shot is almost double the damage of a Volley. This was the fast take down weapon, that can one shot most unarmored targets in V2. It wasn’t intended as a Horde killing weapon. Most likely THIS was what the Devs wanted as the Boss Killer as its also short range and the dropoff in damage was pretty steep after 15 yards.

BoP… is WAY overkill for Horde Mobs that only have 7.5 to 18 health on Legend.

Heck even the Volley is overkill at 22.75 damage on a body shot. BUT the Volley also penetrates 4 or more targets in a line. Not sure what the max is, but its at LEAST that many on Legend. And on Rats its even more than that.

In V1…
Brace of Pistols (73 ammo with Extra ammo trait)
Damage: 6 per shot
x2 on headshot

Volley Crossbow (15/45 (60) ammo with extra ammo trait)
Damage 7 per shot
x2.5 on headshot

As you can see the Volley Crossbow individual shots are more damaging in a game where Slave Rats (horde mobs) have 5 health in Cata. Volley penetrates 4 targets only in V1. So it still technically could do it…

But its real job was Charged Shots (3 bolts) into a Rat Ogre (2000 Health) where it does 25 per bolt in the 3 shot pattern for 75 damage… where the Brace of Pistols only does 12 damage per shot.

So they COMPLETELY reversed the Volley Crossbow and Brace of Pistols. Now the Volley is a better Horde Weapon and the Brace of Pistols is a better Boss Mob Weapon.

All you can REALLY say about the Volley in V2 is that you can pump the Bolts into a boss mob faster. Brace of Pistols actually does more damage per shot… in V2.

So the base theory is wrong as V2 Changed the way the two weapons work.

17

Not sure about that, since it’s damage drops to half against bosses (presumably to not have it melt bosses when you have an ammo crate), while the volley gains ~50%.

BUT the Volley also penetrates 4 or more targets in a line. Not sure what the max is, but its at LEAST that many on Legend. And on Rats its even more than that.

Just wondering, how do you know? According to stat sheets, it’d seem it will penetrate 2 rats and hit the third, with a bit of power fanatics too, clanrats only one unless you invest more than 20%.
This totally goes against what i would have guessed too, but maybe it seems like it penetrates more than it really does?

18

I’m going by the number of “Thunks” you hear when you fire it into a crowd.

Each “thunk” is a hit on a target while its possible its an audio bug… it also corresponds to the number of targets dropping. .

That said I admit the “speadsheet 1.05” for the V2 information on damage/breeds/etc… does not seem to fit what actually happens in the game. So do grain of salt any information I used from that spreadsheet regarding mob or horde health.

19

Using the updated 1.06, it seems to generally match ingame, not sure if ranged weapon cleave is an exception.
HP/damage seem pretty spot on though.

20

Yeah I dunno, the only thing I know what 1 shots them is Kruber’s Hunstman ult + headshot. Without ult they take up to 5 non crit headshots. I don’t really understand the power math there. Shade ult can make short work of them too.