Everything here is debatable and criticisable. Just don’t be a jerk.
QoL fixes:
After potion\bomb is used game switches to last melee or ranged weapon used, but not a crank gun. It gets in the way every time you want to drink a potion and start shooting a boss.
Reloading while in Crank-gun mode feels like you need to hold R longer than animation. This is causing the problem when you release R a little too early and stacks are not increacing.
2.1. On the other hand overheating is too lax to actually happen. It would feel more fair if you burn your hand when:
you start new reload cycle at MAX stacks with less than 25% of stack depleted,
and burn happens if you hold R up to 50% of animation.
Skill fixes (everything is debateable):
10 level skill: Scavenged Shot - make it also not generate heat for 1 shot (or 1~1,5 seconds) for Drakefire guns. It still won’t compete with other 10 lvl skills but at least it will work if you somehow mixed up equipment and skills.
25 level Skills: right now I think that " Ablative Armour" is the dominant “safe” choice. I think Bombardier and Piston Power need some buffs. Bombardier - either gives you a bomb at start of a level OR reduces the bomb throw animation in half. Piston Power - either 1st target’s armor counts as one tier lower (Super armor => armor => infantry) or each stack of “Steam” speed up its cooldown by 10~15% (150% => 10 second CD).
Masterwork Pistol (MP) Fixes (I don’t want to touch this stuff):
Easy way out: decrease base ammunition (to 6/12 & 6/24). Most hurt: Ironbreaker. On the bright side - MP won’t just “go down the tiers” and still will be LIMITED BURST weapon. (still I think that MP is FINE in terms of balance as is)
also little fix \ nerf \ balancing. MP’s RMB startup animation should be same duration as LMB (~2 seconds). And if you press LMB & RMB together, the RMB should have “priority of action”. Right now it starts LMB animation first, goes trough it, then detects that RMB was pressed, switches to RMB animation, goes trough it AND then starts to shoot in RMB mode.
It would make “high noon maneuver” harder but won’t make it unreliable.
Sorry, I’ve copypasted a draft from days ago and forgot to fix everything. I fixed it. Its about how potions and bombs switch Crank gun to a last used melee\ranged.
Now it looks like I’m nitpicking now but it is not the case.
That is, you propose to kill the gun. Because at the moment the only thing that saves from being in the trash - its ammunition and huge damage. Take one of these two, and we get an incredibly inconvenient weapon that can miss point-blank RMB at the Monster, cannot quickly kill a special with LMB, has a damage drop from 7 meters (which combines perfrectly with previous drawback) and now it will also have limited ammo.
Perfectly balanced.
As long as this weapon has such huge single-shot (both RMB and LMB) delays along with its huge spread, it will never be a good, reliable choice, even with its huge damage. On a cataclysm, of course.
I understand that it is a “hot topic” rn. I think that MP is fine as is. It has its ups and downs.
Also I was anticipating that someone just list the negatives and start over dramatizing and citing every negative quality of MP. Its not the point of my post.
MP is the powerful weapon with significant drawbacks. Some players say that being able to just obliterate SV patrol in 6 shots is too much. Others say that startup animations and damage fall off makes up for any positive quality. I don’t think thats honest discussion.
I thought that ammunition is a better way to balance the gun. Because RV and OE has ways to conserve the ammo. And I’ve heard from several dedicated cata players that IB is much better with MP right now (so some nerfs is ok).
Thanks.
You don’t think that 25 level talents need a fix? I’m interested in why. I usually hear that Ablative armor makes other picks unnecessary, and the fact that you potentially can even not benefit from Bombardier once in a game is just upsetting.
