I think it used to be like this during the beta:
LMB click - close-quarters shotgun blast
HOLD RMB- beam attack
HOLD RMB then press LMB - ranged explosion.
The way it works now quite often instead of a shotgun blast you get a ranged explosion. And under certain circumstances, it might get you killed especially on legend.
The point of the new beam staff is to make the staves play more similarly to each other. The RMB of staves now all charge whilst holding, and launch a powerful attack with LMB.
I have played quite a lot of beam staff in VT1, as well as early beta VT2, and post-release VT2. In VT1, the beam was actually a very underrated, ridiculously powerful weapon. The speed of the LMB shotgun made it insanely safe. I usually refer to the beam staff as the “shotgun staff”, so changing the mechanics as they have, rightly changes the focus to the beam attack.
I would have to say that the mechanics of the new beam staff are very comfortable. I fully welcome the changes to what was my favorite weapon of VT1. Also, with the beam staff being so ridiculously powerful at the moment I’m not sure you can really justify asking for it to be made easier to use.
It really shouldn’t be a weapon that can be mastered after 2 games. LMB shotgun would make it an easy panic button and it’s already very versatile as it is.
I think he means that sometimes when you spam the shotgun blast, it does the beam explosion instead. Just try spamming the shotgun blast really fast and see what happens.
Thank you. This is exactly what I meant. You don’t even have to spam it really fast, fast is enough for it to occur sometimes.
If it’s so staffs play more similarly it makes no sense though.
On fireball staff, you hold rmb to charge the fireball, on conflagration you hold rmb to charge the conflagration and so on, except for beam where you hold lmb to charge your beam.
So on every staff except beam, the staff namesake ability is on rmb, why this inconsistency?
If it’s because staffs rmb charge a stronger attack, well the beam deals increasingly more dmg the longer you hold lmb, and the explosion damage increases as well, so the beam is already an attack that charges up, except it’s on lmb instead of rmb.
This should just be a bug report then. There isn’t really a need to revert the changes entirely, just make the beam consistently do the charged attack as long as you are holding RMB. I notice that all other staves let you spam LMB whilst holding RMB perfectly fine, so I would call this a bug.
The beam staff was already the odd one out, but the way it currently plays is much less so than it was previously. If you hold RMB (and nothing else) with all staves currently, you will do no damage - simply charge a strong attack. The beam attack does damage instantly, so regardless if how it does increasing damage the longer you attack it isn’t really a “charged” attack.
I’m trying to think of another ranged weapon that does damage with the RMB alone, I can’t really think of anything except the shotgun shove.
Another thing to keep in mind is that, as you said rmb on staffs is the one that has a charged attack when you left click. With beam on lmb the beam explosion isn’t as intuitive to find and use without first knowing about it, as it’s the only weapon in the game where pressing rmb while holding lmb does something different.
You are quite correct, example: http://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/beamstaff-bug/20538?u=3-leaf-clover
I don’t think swapping the beam staff functions is going to fix anything. The problem is the input buffering system ignoring certain commands depending on what you’re trying to do and how quickly. I have definitely had the problem of the game aiming to beam on me instead of doing the blast, or charging the blast instead of switching to melee to block. Both of those are down to input buffering though. And those problems are resulting in a significant portion of the damage I take.