I have always say (that’s a personal opinion) that shotgun are eclipsed by revolver / boltguns.
I don’t see the reason why I should pick a lawbringer over a boltgun or a revolver. Even a kantrael shotgun will never deal enough damage to justify to pick it over a boltgun (I would not compare kantrael with revolver, not same use obviously).
The only reason I picked by the past shotgun was cause I just wanted to play something different. But these weapons, that can deal a lot of damages, are really under boltgun.
That’s the problem of a terrible balance. You can have lot of weapons, players will pick only few. And as we’re not in a solo game (and that there is no solo), players try to pick something to be able to contribute. Nobody likes to play a walking simulator where you just watch others killing everything.
Okay so let me just elaborate a little on my bolter take. Full auto bolter is too strong on zealot but cant be used on veteran much if at all. The gunner and shooter spam even in auric maelstrom is too high for the bolter to keep up with never mind 40min+ havoc games. If you try using bolter on veteran you just run out of ammo before you run out of enemies to shoot even if you never use the auto mode on hoards. Veteran’s main job is to kill shooters and specialists and when you are using a gun with less ammo then ranged elites you just cant do it.
Now this isn’t a problem on zealot as firstly that isn’t their entire job, secondly they have much better mobility and toughness generation so they can just go stab those elites that veteran needs to shoot, plus blades of faith making the switch speed irrelevant. Current Bolter+Blades of faith completely invalidates the downside of bolter, while also ignoring the ammo issue of bolter making it objectively OP.
So zealot invalidates the weakness of bolter right? So lets give them a different bolter with different weaknesses that they don’t invalidate as hard: Shorter range, less ammo (both total and in clip), and lower single target damage. But to not make it feel worse we need to give it something unique hence: Frag rounds.
And veteran needs to be able to do veteran things. So buff ammo on their bolter. Now that will make full auto too strong and easy to use, so remove full auto.
Yeah idk like reload speed buff+damage buff. I just don’t really see them being used much outside of just for fun.
To be a lore nerd its because lasguns dont shoot “lasers” they shoot “a beam of highly-energetic, focused, coherent photons.” Meaning they shoot a energized form of photons that bind to each other and have mass, essentially like a photon plasma bolt. When they hit something they “explode” by the photons breaking apart and turning back into normal light. That’s why they have a travel time; they aren’t traveling at the speed of light due to having mass.
I run heavy bolter. But I only use for monstrosity or team pinned situations to push through out of trouble. But otherwise I wouldn’t use for general ranged, trash mobs etc. That’s where the knives come in, much faster than swap time of bolter.
But overall intention is to save ammo for bad situations only.
If I see no one in team has anything anti-monstrosity then I switch to build that gives up “sustained attack” and “swift certainty” to take instead “purge the unclean” and “ambuscade”, then keep red stim. 3 reloads and monstrosity is almost gone.
If I am in team with at least 2 single target builds - Then I switch to heavy sword and horde skill nodes and stick closer to team i.e. Chorus, sustained attack etc
I make my builds based on enemy types to cover gaps in the team.
But if reserving ammo this much then primary melee - Yea would only work for Zealot
Okay so the rate of fire buff I was thinking of mostly is relating to the MK IX. But I think a small buff to the others would be nice. Lore numbers are that lasguns are supposed to be semi/full auto and shoot 3.66/s. That would be the MK VII and yeah that one is fine though it lacks a full auto setting.
The MK IX having a lower fire rate just kind of sucks, it should instead just have less ammo and maybe take longer to reload, probably more recoil as well. Worse ammo economy but higher damage and the skill element of managing recoil, you know like would happen if you increased the power setting on a lasgun.
And the MK IIb could use a small buff to its fire rate since its supposed to be like a assault rifle type lasgun where as the other two are more like a battle rifle, and the recon las is like a carbine/PDW. So putting it a bit under the recon las at like 8/s would be nice.
Also the MK XIV recon las needs a rebalance, its just too close to the MK IIb infantry lasgun even now. It just has worse sights and no scope. Everyone uses the MK XII recon las due to the fire rate so the other variants just need a rebalance. Like if one variant of a gun (MK XII) is S+ tier ran along side the plasma, and the other (MK XIV) is barely ran in malice. There is a problem.
Problem is… oh… see there’s 5 crushers. oh… look there are dead. LMB ftw.
Why? you don’t check chests obviously… don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Just made a game with veteran and bolter… well at one time I was about to run out of ammos… let’s say 20 seconds…(sidenote: I never ran out of ammos in the entire mission - Auric Damnation - HiInt Hunting ground - Moebian) but was not a problem cause there I have found ammos
And personally, I would hate weapons variants locked to class. This does not make sense for me…
Ok… tbh, I never play with laser. Still I think the recoil is outrageous.
Yes that is the strength of the bolter. It should blow away those heavies, though maybe a small nerf is in order (hence removing full auto from veteran and lowering clip ammo and damage on zealot). But really the big problem is that there are no down sides at all to running bolter on zealot. Switch speed? Whatever you have blades of faith to deal with annoying specialists. Ammo? Again you have infinite ammo blades of faith that you can spam to kill off annoying targets.
I just dont see any way bolter can be balanced on both classes here. Zealot invalidates the weaknesses of bolter too much, and those same weaknesses that zealot ignores kneecap veteran’s use of the weapon really hard.
Yes bolter veteran is possible and fun in auric, but there is a reason you basically never see it in havoc “just loot chests” doesnt really cut it when a small ammo pack has literally 5 bullets in it.
Yes, no one does. But again, core issue with bolter veteran on havoc: You find a small ammo pack, you get to kill 5 enemies. Big ammo pack? Well that’s a whole 15 enemies. The average wave? 15 gunners + 30 riflemen + a clown cars worth of specialists. So you pick up a large ammo pack and you get to kill like 1/4 of a wave of shooters/specialists.
Just to kill the enemies in a wave that you would be able to kill with plasma or recon las you need to spend 2+ large ammo packs worth of ammo, where the other two do the same thing for like 2 small ammo packs worth of ammo.
You just literally cant do the main job of veteran with bolter in havoc unless you are taking all of the ammo. Yeah you can use it on veteran if you just don’t play veteran and focus on melee, but at that point why aren’t you just playing zealot?
If you only use bolter to blow away bosses and a few crushers/maulers/ragers then you just aren’t playing veteran. You could do the same thing with bolter on zealot but be way more effective.
Havoc is for a tiny part of the players. A big failure.
Nothing should be balanced around a broken game mode.
So this argument is TOTALLY non relevant.
From the point of view of the other parts of the games (so played by 95% of players) Boltgun is strong even with a veteran.
Sure, veteran does not have AiB. But it has so many other good talents for ranged than it isn’t a problem.
In other words, that’s not a zealot problem. That’s a boltgun problem.
I understand you want to talk with lore in mind. I will be honest, I don’t care of that. what I see is simple. A boltgun is so efficient that other weapons have difficulties to shine. Not all, but a lot of them.
So, my opinion is that it isn’t balanced…
But to add to it a little. If something is not the most powerful in auric damnation, you can still use it and do fine. I mean you could use a shredder auto pistol if you really wanted and still beat it. So whatever bolter is a bit powerful there, you can still use other weapons and do fine. If you tried using anything other then THE META in havoc you die.
That’s the main reason people find havoc boring. Not enough diversity.
Just to clarify, you mean high level Havoc? Under Havoc 20 you can still use most things, although you are right that its more difficult without meta and also depends on what modifiers you face.
One thing Id like to mention with bolter regarding gunners, sometimes I find all I need to do is stagger them and let others get close enough to tie them up.
That’s simply just denying there is a balance problem.
then they should not even try to balance Havoc… cause this game mode is just broken
lol… you can do totally fine with an autopistol… yeah. That’s why autopistol is the most common ranged weapon and that we see so few PG, Boltgun and revolvers… that’s cause autopistol is so OP.
Havoc is just boring…
Nothing related to the weapons… there are as fine as they are in havoc.
This is due to hidden havoc modifiers… and also conditions. This is these 2 points that are limiting the options (and make it just boring).
But, please change your title… If it is just for Havoc there is nothing to say. A lot of us have just lost time, like Fatshark with their stupid game mode.
Well yes up to havoc 30 the game is about the same if not easier then auric maelstrom.
Well not saying you cant, your just making things much harder and most people don’t want to do that. I would just rather more guns be viable in havoc and by proxy auric maelstrom.
I just mean that you could beat auric damnation with a shredder pistol and heavy sword and still carry the team. Doesnt mean those weapons are well balanced. They are obviously bad, those difficulties are just easy.
This isnt only regarding havoc. I still think the vigilant auto gun buff and really almost everything here is still valid. Really the only thing that is exclusive to havoc is the ammo buff and the bolter. That’s a tiny fraction of the overall suggestions.
And it would not make these weapons balanced…
And I still stay on my position. Nothing has to be balanced regaring havoc… and especially a ranged weapon (considering how havoc handle them)
(english is not my first language… and the word was the first that came in my mind)