i Usually play only Damnation.
I don’t have statistics, but veterans have the highest usage rate, and most people only use bolters.
Bolters do not require skill, just a left click and destroy hordes of crushers and reapers in an instant.
this is obviously a problem and not fun. I think the blessing “Pining Fire” is also problematic.
What do you all think?
3 Likes
Bolters are really annoying to use and you’ll find this out the hard way as a Zealot. Patience is key for optimal usage, which can put you out of a tough fight in order to snipe things. It’s also really inefficient for sweeping shooters.
What you’re pointing out with high Veteran usage is that Volley Fire makes them very trivial to hip-fire due to the career ability massively improving weapon stability. I have a really hard time with approaching the issue with Veteran because they’re a very broken operative. If you have a well-played Veteran, they can close out threats before you can even enter the next room.
…So why is the Bolter so good? Why do people use it so much?
Because so many other options are middling to inefficient at dealing with all kinds of threats, and frankly aren’t as fun to use.
10 Likes
The problem is the pinning blessing, which you could nerf which also adjusts the over performing SMG loadout that people use as an excuse to entitle themselves to all ammo packs despite SMG having lasgun level refreshes on Vet. Pinning is literally too much bang for the buck in both cases, up to double damage for using them normally since they stagger enemies like crazy. On boltgun with Bigger They Are you can start killing ogryns in 2-3 shots depending on how you slot it, and all specialist spawn waves get wiped out in the same burst.
If it was reeled in power wise on this blessing its burst damage would be much lower, which is very impactful with its current swap and reload times.
5 Likes
How about NO and you play your own game. This isn’t a competitive fps game.
There is no reason to nerf a weapon just because you personally don’t like it or think it’s" over used".
And no I don’t run with a bolter as a marksman. I use the Mk 12 workhorse.
15 Likes
I brought up the idea before that all blessings should be reworked into utilitarian/support perks that enhance your playstyle and playing with a team.
Currently utility/support blessings that make your life easier aren’t worth taking because more damage and meeting more breakpoints has way too much value.
Building around stagger is pointless and has no value compared to Vermintide 2, where you did more damage to staggered enemies and stagger conditions on enemies didn’t reset the moment they were staggered again (ie. enemies stayed lying on the ground if they hit their critical stagger breakpoint).
Swift Slaying in VT2 is directly an increase to your killing speed because attack speed is just another way of increasing your DPS. As a result, Swift Slaying is BiS on almost every weapon in VT2.
Anything that boosts your killing speed will always be the go-to. Killing things faster with breakpoints is just how the Tide games are designed and how you maximize stat value on your weapons.
Sadly the devs thought it was okay to mix defensive options with offensive options when the players will always take the offensive ones.
4 Likes
Bolters are fine, but pinning fire definitely needs to be looked at. But I’d rather they buff weapons and blessings that desperately need it before they start nerfing stuff again.
4 Likes
Pinning fire is not the problem. At least, it is not pinning fire that makes the bolter wonderful.
A bolter without it can do the same, it just uses more ammos.
I believe that the bolter needs to stay strong.
I also think that it needs a nerf. Maybe less ammo per clip?
The bolter is fine - it‘s Jack of all trades but every task is performed better by another ranged option.
Clearing shooters and specials? Lasguns
Clearing hordes? Braced auto/flamer
Killing elites and monstrosities? Plasma
And it‘s quite restricted in it’s ammo - if I play lasgun I can shoot all day only switching to melee when necessary. Playing bolter I have to be picky what I shoot.
I‘m honestly convinced that lasgun vet>bolter vet and I think I see more Lasguns then bolters. That said I also see surprisingly many vets with shotguns and disturbingly many with with the autopistol.
4 Likes
No nerfs until we have full free choice regarding both perks and both blessings.
10 Likes
Nerf pinning fire because it breaks the balance of the game, it’d still be BiS if they cut the power bonus in half because the competing blessings are so much worse. This doesn’t brick anyone’s weapons. Just accompany it with some buffs to autoguns for example, those have terrible blessings and ammo economy.
2 Likes
Absolutely no nerfs are needed on any weapon, until crafing and blessings get fixed.
13 Likes
Off topic…
Not everything is related to crafting… go to a locks removal thread…
Bolter is seriously strong. I think that this is normal… however, this weapon is not balanced regarding the others options:
Clearing shooters and specials? you can aim and snipe them
Clearing hordes? full auto and you give breath to your team. You aim and you can clear an horde if you play with the piercing ammos of this weapon
Killing elites and monstrosities? bolter is not bad as a kill monstruosities
Ammos? Bolter does better damages and can handle any role better than any shotgun / revolver… and you have more ammos
A bolter without pinning fire does insane damages. Maybe this blessing is little too strong… but this blessing is not the reason why bolter is so strong.
Sidenote: I use it… with my zealot I use it with an heavy sword, it can handle crushers / reapers and bulwarks. On my veteran, this is a true killer weapon.
2 Likes
Yeah personally I think on Zealot it’s decently well balanced by it’s usability issues. Personally never run it on Zealot, which isn’t to say I think it’s a bad choice there just very awkward if you’re playing Zealot pretty aggressively and often in the thick of things.
I’d agree with the take that if anything is nerfed it should be pinning fire. Though I genuinely think if pinning fire is nerfed (assuming values are halved which seems about right) auto pistol should have a slight bump in base damage and cleave. It’s not a good weapon at all without pinning fire, blaze away helps but it promotes a very ammo inefficient playstyle. 1 base cleave (AKA won’t penetrate a single poxwalker) just feels wrong for a weapon that feels like it’s geared towards close range group clear.
4 Likes
bolters are weapons with terrible tradeoffs at crowd clear that have issues with reloading and ammo depletion, so when the rest of their team is good, they feel really strong because they can rely on being covered but when their team is trash they end up dying stupidly fast because they can’t handle everything and the weapon swap takes several seconds.
6 Likes
Pinning fire, really every single +power blessing in the entire game, is OP and should be deleted instead of nerfed.
4 Likes
+1 on pinning fire, its too strong for both bolter and shredder, makes other weapons not having this blessing looks very weak (on vet at least)
This x1000. So many blessings in the game are considered trash because they don’t improve your ability to kill enemies (or do so in a minor way), in a game about killing hordes of enemies. Running faster for 3 seconds with Rev It Up is a fun gimmick… but it’s not really doing anything to help kill faster
I think this is a problem in general, not just with the Autopistol/Pinning Fire. I feel like many weapons have so much of their potential tied up in blessings that the base weapon itself is… ulnderwhelming.
1 Like
The fundamental unsolvable problem with +power blessings is the power is the god stat. It increases damage, stagger, and cleave. Nothing that you can give a weapon can compete with these direct power boosts. So we have a situation where “bad” weapons NEED the +Power boosts to fight on level footing, and already good weapons just get catapulted to OP faceroll status once the +power boosts come into play.
Hypothetically there is a balanced point where a minor +power boost is fair relative to alternative blessings, but let’s be frank: Fatshark’s history with balance passes doesn’t REMOTELY instill confidence that they’ll ever be able to find that magic balancing point.
Therefore I think a central pillar of any strategy for a big balance pass should involve the complete removal of every single +power blessing since I have zero faith whatsoever that fatshark will ever be able to get the weapons balanced across the board while such blessings continue to exist.
2 Likes
I really don’t care for a bolter nerf, but here goes
What 2 things do you really, really, really want the bolter to stop doing?
For me, I would like it to not delete enemy ogryns and bosses as fast as it does because I feel like other weapons are more deserving of that role (like thunder hammer, force sword, plasma gun, helbore).
4 Likes
That’s a very good point and does remind me. Removing its ability to knock away shields, or at least making it take significantly more shots to do so would be a great starting point and stop it eating quite so much into other weapons’ niche.
1 Like