The bolter is presently a very strong weapon against all enemy types. The bolter in relation to the weapon types we have represented in the game should be a midrange weapon that provides average performance against all groups and if its optimal it would be flak opponents.
Its tough in the tabletop they can in many cases just be the king of ranged weapons, they have tearing, they have 4 pen. they do almost as much damage as a plasma shot.
They should probably be 90-100% damage against flak and down, but Carapace should reduce thier damage a good bit, they presently are one of the top go to weapons for killing Carapace enemies between thier knockdown and damage most elites of this type take mere seconds to shred.
They do have a good balancing factor against hordes … in that if you hip fire them it is very ammo inneficient dispersing double the necessary killing power into 1-2 pox walkers. You should be picking your sighted single fire shots, and then engaging in melee with the remains when running the bolter.
In exchange because the sharpshooter needs an alternate choice to the plasma rifle, and a second “Pinnacle weapon”
I would advise giving the Sharpshooter a Stalker bolter which is single fire only, and a bit better penetration to heavier targets by 10-20% a Scope and less spread and recoil. maybe a weak spot damage bonus. the slower single fire making it less efficient against hordes than a regular bolter but can take up that other carapace damaging weapon role that the regular bolter will slightly slide out of.
The regular bolter should threaten average performance against light and carapace targets with its maximum efficiency being flak enemies.
Let the class specific stalker bolter handle carapace average +1 giving it a home between the regular bolter and the plasma rifle for carapace v Flak efficiency.
I love how they’ve brought the bolter to life, it feels exactly like I think a bolter should. But I agree its far too effective at the moment. I feel that they should keep its damage/stagger profile the same, but lower its maximum ammo, increase its hip fire spread, and make it a minimum three round burst when you hip fire (still fully auto if you hold the trigger). This would make it way less ammo-efficient, which I think is one of its biggest issues. If you avoid using it for hoards or melee grunts, which is sensible anyway given your infinite grenades and power sword, you almost never run dry. Being able to delete two crushers or a half-dozen berserkers with a single magazine should carry more of a resource cost.
Edit - This is my experience on damnation, I didn’t use it much on lower difficulties as I didn’t have one. It may be less efficient there due to overkill damage, but I doubt it.
You’re basically describing the MG XII lasgun, which is currently in game and in my opinion the best weapon. Added note, only Crushers wear full Carapace, every other enemy type has flack spots.
Long Las would be neat.
Dont think Humans use Stalker pattern.
Also it makes sense its good against Carapace no? Its a freaking Bolter. Yes, scaled down but still powerful. Ammo is low, reloads are crazy, animations are long, so its good balance iMO. Anything other than that would make it pathetic. Finally we have a Good Bolter in a Game and people wanna get rid of it. If you nerf it its useless and nobody will use it again.
If they brought in the Long Las id drop the bolter for it. My bolter + Powersword combo is very strong and i can handle just about anything with them. But id love a long las.
Bolter currently has too much ammo.
The lasguns just can’t compare to the sheer damage that ammo packs up.
Picking up ammo isn’t exactly rare either (which is a good thing)
I like the power level of the bolter (hate the random sway that doesn’t follow the crosshair though), but I’d defo be for a reduction in mag size.
I mean it deals MORE damage than the revolver and has 3 times the ammo…
Now if you add Sharpshooter 50%+25% range damage and extra 40% ammo… It becomes very much illegal.
Ammo Count against:
-crazy Sway (unless u use a Feat to compensate)
-Long Animation to switch
-Long Reload (unless u use a Feat to compensate)
-Huge Recoil singleshot (unless u use a Feat to compensate)
so “4” against one is more than fair for the Power it unleashes. The satisfaction is “Glorious”. Go harvest them heretic Souls ^^
Anything else would make Space Marine or Deathwing like which is not so good. FS try to be Lore accurate which is a good thing and we all wished for that for a long time, so i think their method is really nice for compensation.
Same is with Powersword, everyone complains, but are you looking right?
powersword has less active uptime with Powerfield the heavier the Enemy is. On Crushers u get only 2 Swings, then it deactivates automatically. But you never hear someoen talking about it. People have their picture in Mind slicing through a row of Pox. Same here, anything other would make it crap and we dont want that right. I like the balancing here aswell. Less Powerfield Strikes on Armor when fighting full Carapace. Also they probably took away the perk for longer activation.
So no, its good where it is. Theres no reason to nerf it. Yes theres Ammo in Maps, but there you need Compensation aswell.
People take the big Stash(Red one) and use it to fill up one Mag or less. Others are in the Yellow or Red… and dont get it cause peopz are u know
Ammo did scale in the Beta at least as i remember and still does?! Depending on how much you had left you got more or less from pickup.
And they use Ammo Crates to refill one Person also
Most of the Ammo Pickups are the small Black Cases with red Descriptions which give you 5 or so Bullets on Bolter.
Think like that. Whats more Common, Groups that play all the time or Random Parties?!
There you go, its an very important Factor.
I have like nearly 300hrs now and i can tell you that Bolter is not used that much on Vet. Las is by far the most used. Autoguns/Bolters around the same and then Plasma. Revovler is not used at all.
Also dont forget, Damnation is supposed to be Legend V2. Pretty sure well see a harder diff later on aswell.
You’ve mentionned a feat 3 times but remember Zealot uses it too and it’s currently the BiS.
Counting flaws doesn’t change the fact that it anihilates stuff without really needing to aim.
1/Recoil doesn’t matter when everything goes poof in 1/2 shots.
2/Long reloads don’t matter when 15(+15 with Feat) is enough to clear a screen.
3/You think this animation is long? Have you tried the flamer? This isn’t a bolter only thing.
4/Huge recoil? Fully manageable. Crosshairs not being accurate is the issue.
Powersword: wrong, it’s currently BiS. It allows Veteran to cleave through hordes (powerfield has a 2second activation window) and all armour types effortlessly.
Activation is swift and ties up nicely in the “hard” combo of H1-H2.
Powersword should have a charge capacity that you drain when using the powerfield, and that recharges when not used. Activation. Deactivation. No Carpal tunnel. Easier to balance.
Bolter is boring to use, which is why it isn’t used. Whenever it is, it’s night and day. Lasguns have more skill expression.
You mention harder diff, but that is just one more + for the bolter.
Last thing: you mention “lore accurate”, and I don’t think bolter ammo isn’t exactly lying around as commonly as standard ammunition types.
You also forgot to mention the sheer suppression effect of the bolter, which is very nice to have
An easy way to balance weapon, is to have a total damage amount, then divide it by an ammo counter, and then tweak it according to additional effects (such as AoE, range, ArPen,…) In that department, yes the revolver got absolutely memed on. And the bolter by far deals the most damage out of the lot.
Good observations, but I beleive you might be looking at it from Vet perspective. Of course I may be wrong on this assumption. Yet using bolter on Zealot shows its downsides quite clearly:
Low ammo
Long reload time
Very high recoil
You cannot rely on ADS under fire, not saying it is not possible to hit, bu trafter one shot with its recoil adn other shooters targetting you, it is difficult to go for 6 headshots in 3s.
It is still a very powerful weapon (as it should be imho), but has downsides that other weapons can circumvent.
I know that the post is regarding sharpshooter, yet to be fair any ranged weapon in on steroids on that class. It is just that Bolter disadvantages are mitigated to the highest degree.
I personally use the Deadshot trait almost exclusively when running bolter. I prefer the other two more, depending on difficulty and if we need more Horde clear or Elite/Specialist focus.
Bolter being the bis weapon for zealot (not so much IMO for sharpshooter, as I personally prefer the kantrael mg xii), just tells you most ranged weapons are just terrible.
Let me explain, I main veteran, very rarely use a bolter, although I’ve used it enough to know how it works, it’s a slow and uncomfortable weapon to draw, reload and aim with, but what options do you have if you don’t use it? The only other weapon being close to viable on harder difficulties is the flamer.
This applies to veteran too as I’ve done most testing with it.
Lasguns? I’d only use the kantrael, the same one I already mentioned, but I wouldn’t use it on zealot, as I believe where it shines is on veteran to pop heads.
Autoguns? A joke
Shotgun? It’s ok I guess, but you might as well stay melee being a zealot.
Laspistol? A joke
Revolver? Less of a joke than pistols, but still a mild joke.
The small autogun that looks like a full auto pistol (forgot the name): Another mild joke.
Personally I do not agree with Bolter being best in slot for Z.
I play all chars but my main is Preacher. I tend to play with flamer as it works for megahordes in T4 and T5, its pushback is also immensly valuable.
Also taking into consideration all drawbacks of the Bolter, I prefer to take XII as actual long range weapon. Followed by Braced Autogun and shotty.
Of course a weapon with a flashlight helps in power out and toxic fog modes.
It all depends on team comp of course, but if there is a Bolter Vet, I go for other firearms.
Revolver is fun and good anti elite/special but definitely needs more ammo.
As mentioned ealrier, impact of Bolter’s disadvantages is very much reduced on Veteran.
I also work with the flamer as a teamwork tool.
I have a maxed out yellow roll and anything beyond 23m is safe. Including that sniper. Including those gunners.
Ammo efficiency of the bolter is nuts. One round usually downs a gunner mob. 2-3 a special. With rend 7-9 for a Crusher. Zerks charging you? Burst fire spam.
It’s slow to take out, but still quicker than the flamer. Screw that rebolting animation every time you get it out though. It’s tiring.
But that’s on Zealot. Sharpshooter is so seriously overtuned atm that it isn’t even funny.
In terms of weapons AND perks. Essentially you can’t balance the weapons because he scales them out of the initial power scope
Not sure about the flamer being slow. Of course it is all about blessings and stat distribution at some point. Since you brought out Rending for Bolter, my Flamer has reload perk and Blessing that makes it a faster reaload when carnister is empty. I need a 1,5 s of peace to reload that… no way I can do that with Bolty.
Besides on Z you can mow 2 front lines with a mag with bolter while flaming entire horde with half carnister.
I really find them as totally different weapons for different purposes.
You can also stun lock 5 crushers with a flamer, while you kill 1 or 2 if lucky with Bolter mag and then pray
I get what you are saying and I know bolter is very powerful. Is it BiS? not for me.
Crushers are the one thing a flamer can’t kill or stagger.
Shields facing can’t be staggered by the flamer.
I’m talking Ogryn crushers, not Maulers.
And oh boy have I missed the bolter lately as I often run into clumps of Crushers.
Also not BiS for me, but I see a lot of Zs running it.
Playing on high-intensity heresy or any damnation map you actually have to preserve ammo. This goes double if you have a flamer on the team that also eats ammo like there is no tomorrow and is way more useful in those 6 zerks + 2-3 shields + Armored Ogryns + gunner team in horde situations.
Yeah, you can kill a mutant with like 10 rounds, but they spawn in pairs, so it is usually better to just dodge them and hack them up, even a flamer special takes 4 body hits, and a shield can take 8 in the back, etc. You mainly take it to nuke bosses and not to “clear the screen”, good luck with that.
Bolter is currently in a pretty good place balance-wise, it has 1 serious contender for the best weapon (Kantreal XII) that has some serious upsides over bolter even on lower dif. Lucious with some nice blessings (charge time reduction) and a good charge rate roll can also be very powerful in the right hands.
You know what might kinda nice in terms of ranged options for zealots?
Have bloodletting affect ranged attacks as well as melee, and combine it with the flechette shotgun bleed perk, even if the flechette bleed is pathetically weak you still get better crit chance.
Might open up some more ranged options, maybe add a bleed perk to autoguns.
Dude, you have no idea how I play hahaha.
I do not play bolter myself because flamer brings the very needed “oh snap” button you need for T5.
But I do feel a VERY notable difference when a bolter is around when it comes to things getting off my radar.
This isn’t a bolter only thing.
