Unfair. That would be straight buff in all categories.
I’d like to see it have more overcharge with more dmg/travel speed.
That you can fit 3-4 bolts in full meter but they actually mean something.
I dont want to be magic machinegunner all the time.
Give us some powerful, yet costly, spells/staves.
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I’d suggest giving it another try. It is one of the few (only?) weapons in the game that is quite literally great at everything (infantry, armored, boss, single, and aoe) – at least while using wiggle/RSS.
That being said, you have to weave the wiggle it into the normal mechanics of the staff and not just blindly wiggle all the time. For example, wiggling a horde in close range is stupid – just shotgun. Used correctly, however, I haven’t seen any other class/combo beat its kills/damage at 650 hours in. Hell, I’m at the point where I’m willing to volunteer to play a few rounds to prove my point since a LOT of people here don’t see a problem with the weapon.
Wiggle damage isn’t as low as these forums indicate, but it doesn’t really matter. Ult is up so often on packs you aren’t really relying on chip damage – although it will easily kill slave rats in 1-2 seconds since you wiggle so quickly and can easily hit the head. 150 damage done 10 times in a 1-2 second window is still 1500 damage – even without the crit window up.
You don’t stack for infantry dmg – no point with ult and shotgun. You stack for stormvermin – 30% skaven/armored. This allows you to two-shot body shot stormvermin with shotgun/snipe. Quickly. You take out armored and then wiggle/ult to clear ambient packs. You can just ult maulers since they have less density and the ult pierces.
Boss damage is higher than the other staves just using sustained beam. This has been proven quite a few times already.
It is the best special killing staff. Even without ult spam from wiggle/RSS, beam is just the best sniping staff at the moment.
With changes to headshot damage, ult always one-shots cw now. You just wiggle their head and can kill one every 3-5 seconds in my experience.
And this all ignores the other utility provided by the staff. You can instantly regen temp health. I’m not sure why no one focuses on this. There’s really no need to ever pick up healing… Hell, I willingly take hits sometimes since there is no downside. I’ll heal back to full on the next mob. If you are also decent at positioning and run dagger/parry for mobility/block, it has excellent survivability.
I would love it if they put an auto-zoom on full charge feature on it.
Kill two birds with one stone- zoom feature for the only real sniping part of the staff and a better indication of full charge.
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What I think the Bolt Staff needs is the ability to hit breakpoints with the charged attack, because there is hardly a point to do anything but infantry killing with it. You can’t get it to one bodyshot stormvermin with second charge, even with a potential +65% damage. It is an absolute horde-clearing machine and her only staff that can reliably kill CW (and CW-killing isn’t actually THAT bad).
Bolt needs some love, definitely. Zoom would be good and more damage on 3rd charge of charged attack.
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Also not necessary when you run barrage on it. The two shot bodyshow is literally free with barrage, you pretty much only need one armour or skaven bonus.
But it’s absolutely not.
It’s not the staff that’s great. It’s the ult recharge.
The staff is merely a prop to achieve maximum CDR.
Both flamethrowers in hands of their respective users.
There are entire threads about stealing the thunder/temp hp/kills/ revving up dmg ad nauseam.
What doesnt kill slaverats quickly?
Incorrect. Only >20% vs infantry allows you to efficiently shotgun hordes.
With lower %% rats require 2 blasts and mudmen require 2 blasts+their respective DoT’s to finish, leaving you too slow on advancing horde.
And Shotgun doesnt recharge Ult quickly, so you’re left on High overcharge with enemies around.
There are better classes to kill SV, since they can bodyshot them in 1 hit. You merely point them and hold them in place for clear shot.
Ult kills 1 (ONE) mauler. 2 if it crits on the head.
Maybe you mean marauders?
Waste of ult then, especially when they’re shielded.
Where?
Detonating beam at head of Troll beats sustained beam by a long shot.
Charged bolts to beat it by long shot.
Armored bosses can just stand and laugh at your beam, since it’ll only tick for pathetic 3-5 dmg.
Then it’s not One-shot.
Do not overuse this term.
Firing on it’s head for 5 seconds THEN using ult is far from oneshot.
On pyromancer? You’ll take 3 hits and you’re either down or dead man walking.
You can “instantly” regen temp health on many weapons.
Including high-cleave melee ones.
Also, instantly is another extreme overuse.
You need to KILL, which negates “instant” with beam or crit, and then you need to get lucky as it doesnt pierce.
Also, this is a BOLT STAFF THREAD.
Please, confine to this.
If you have issues with beam staff CREATE separate thread.
As people have hundreds of times, and, believe or not, beam HAS BEEN nerfed already.
Oh, is it Meme-Staff time already again?
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Crusaders gonna crusade
You lose a lot running barrage. Like any of the proc interactions with your high crit.
You also gain alot, basically a permanently increased damage of 25% against anything and an easy mehtod of hitting almost all relevant break points… Of all the crit traits, only res ss is really useful. But beam wiggle is so fast to charge up your skill, anyway, that I’d rather take 25% more damage. Your crits still come in handy alot when clearing hordes, killing CW and with my setup, instant beam explosion can crit kill SV on non-headshot.
There’s a lot wrong in this comment. I can tell you haven’t tested beam much or read through these forums over the last few months. I’m not going to spend an hour writing a response explaining what’s wrong with each of your points – which you probably won’t accept anyway. I’m happy to show you beam’s performance in-game.
We’re not adding anything new here re bolt. Pretty much everyone is basically in agreement. Charged needs a zoom. The charged attacks generally feel lackluster - slow charge, high overcharge to damage ratio, slow travel time. It generally performs worse compared to fireball and beam on pyro and conflag on BW. These points have all been made before in other posts. Was there something new you wanted to cover?
I guess. You only really need to be able to quickly delete armor since they block the ult. Shield marauders and rats still pierce. As do maulers.
After you hit that one SV break point and remove the blocker on your ult, you just need to be able to ult more – which doesn’t need to hit any break points. I’ve even played with dropping curse resistance and picking up 10% CDR on trinket just to have it up more.
I don’t miss the break points on shotgun at all. You can double shotgun and tap R (rinse/repeat) at high overheat anyway. You can keep up that rotation indefinitely unless there is armor in the pack. And it only takes on shot gun crit with RSS to bring your ult back up to deal with those random armored anyway.
Sorry a bit off topic but curious:
With Pyros high crit chance and beam staff how does Hunter work vs barrage?
Edit: Assuming barrage and hunter apply to Burning head?
It’s just more reliable to go barrage – since the damage bonus applies to all unit types and it’s easy to keep up.
Hunter is harder to keep up since it is only applied by unit type on crit. So in Licious-D’s build, he would shift from infantry to SV (or vice versa), and still have the 25% from barrage. Running hunter, you would have trouble shifting targets and maintaining the bonus.
Or you would have to wiggle with Hunter to keep up the bonus on multiple unit types – but with less benefit since the wiggle damage isn’t high enough to kill heavier targets quickly (even with a 25% boost) and you aren’t running RSS to get your ult back quickly.
You don’t care about the damage bonus on ult. It one shots everything anyway.
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Barrage has two advantages: it is more reliable and it is raw power instead of “vs. armour class”. That means it also increases cleave and it works ALOT better with your burning head.
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I happen to be here since the 1st beta.
Also, played the crap out of V1.
Im frequently rotating through staves / properties.
Then, point by point, specify.
BUT, in other thread. This isnt yet another complain about beam staff.
Im glad we all agree on this.
Maybe we’ll get this adressed in next patch(es).
Worth mentioning.
You can get multiple Hunter buffs at the same time, but firing barrage at other target reset stacks.
Personally, im more of a hunter fan, since it’s straight+25% at once. And you’re free to change focus.
Yes, they do apply.
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Thanks guys.
i don’t share that distinction. the mace is used as a solution for armoured targets (stormvermin, chaos warriors) and it excels at taking them out. sure, you can state that technically it isn’t AP, but that would be totally ignoring it’s role in actual play. why do you need AP weapons? to take out armor. if a non-ap weapon does that job equally well, what’s the difference?
anyhow in relation to the bolt staff, there was a VERY good reason why the charged attack in V1 was given the homing ability after a few patches. (cos it was meh otherwise)
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So far, it’s the only solution that works.
Because of attack patterns, no weapon can even come close is usefulness.
Flamesword is good on hordes because of push attack, and atrocious at armors/elites for the same reason.
Dagger is good for dealing with thrash/ unarmored on fast attack or as 2nd line pusher to ensure safety of 1st line melee. It’s ok for opening sSV’s
Normal sword is worse flamesword with headshot overhead as 3rd light.
What’s the point on AP weapons at all then?
Nonetheless, Saltz has Falchion, Axe and flail ( i know, falchion’s AP was reduced at some point)
Kruber has only one: halberd, aka best-weapon-in-the-game. Maybe 2h sword now, witch changed push-atk.
Bardin has 4 types of Axes, and Warpick.
Kerrilian has Glaive.
So, every other class has a pure AP weapon.
I dont think it’s unfair to ask for 1. Just for the sake of having that option.