I think it’s a more so an extender of BLO’s ranged damage increasing passive, rather than truly useful. Rock has an overkill override on anything smaller than melee elites (and specials; bar Dreg ragers which also get insta-killed by it), and it has a 30% weakspot/crit damage mod, so…
At best you will not have to hit a Scab rager three times with a rock in order to kill one; similar case for Mauler:
Scab rager can be reduced to 2 if at least one rock hits its head, as far as I can tell/if I’m calculating this correctly;
Mauler can never go below 3 unless crit, and can only be hit on the body,
Some more damage can be dealt to a Captain once their shield is down; or you can nail Reapers/Bulwarks a bit harder, but it’s nothing to write home about, really - super inefficient stuff still bar stagger values.
And then you can run some unreliable scenarios in which you’d have more buffs active, but by then it’s fair to assume that we are grasping at straws than really finding good use cases.
you lose a total of 19 rounds with a 66% ammo ripper, just a single magazine, but in return all those blessings you mentioned stack per shot instead of every 2 shots. its kinda worth the trade off imo.
also PBB makes every ogryn gun feel amazing, but thats just because of how strong an ability pbb is, also paradoxically its the reason ogryn guns are weak without pbb because if they were strong without the ability imagine how strong they would be during it, pbb being strong is why ogryn guns feel weak but thats another fatshark balancing discussion to be had
also i take ripper with steady grip, inspiring barrage is nice but since steady grip got buffed its hard to justify imo, i run can opener blaze away personally. but ogryns talent economy does still let you save a point by taking inspiring
the main application for me is that the rock is one of the only things that can make ranged kills without using up stacks of ‘back off’ (the only other attack that works like this is the grenade gauntlet’s special). between back off and rock, I can keep BLO going for some pretty great breakpoints (its pretty easy to keep another +15% ranged damage up nearly all game with bash n blast, 20% from 10 stack BLO and 15% from lucky bullet proccing). the rock is pretty much free special removal with practice (aim where they’re going, and at their head, free rocks) and also good for gunners, often pegging doubles because they stand on each other and scaring ones around one who got hit with a stone.
I did make this to prioritize ammo economy and killing specials/non ogryn elites in the game with no bugged survivalist, so I guess for another couple days we could ignore those and use a frag bomb…just go all in shoosting. if vets are there its impossible to go below 100 ammo with the Ripper going ham all game, but that’s leaving us in a couple days (thank kark)
It is an absurdly cracked blessing only limited by what weapons you can get it on. Anything fast firing with decent stagger power that got access to it would be cracked beyond belief.
That’s probably because none of the weapons it’s currently on take more than a handful of hits to kill something.
its gun skullcrusher with no team damage, but on more mystifying weapon choices than the devil’s claw. the lack of team damage, mediocre sustain stagger on ripper into targets that matter and bad spray make me inclined to say ‘it would improve the gun, but if you’d use it over anything on ogryn still you’d have to be kidding’. its easier to knock over elites with the heavier twink stubbers that have slowness than use the rippers. like seriously would no respite rippergun make you use it over any other ogryn ranged? like on a melee loadout over kickback rumbler gauntlet or heavy stubber? you funny, you a funny guy. though yeah things shouldn’t have to rely on blessings to be good
You’re probably right and I’m over rating how strong it would be. That blessing just scares me frankly so I’m very dubious of it being handed over to any other guns.
I’m a funny guy. I do lots of that haha funny stuff.
I’d rather not crutch a blessing either, but I think there’s build variety potential yet untapped because of how one-sided the current blessings are.
Mag dump your whole ammo for ~30ish% damage boost or knock some trash down for a more immediate 20ish% buff (talking about Pinning Fire now). I would hope on a HH build, that would give better consistent damage output.
I want to use it over those. I want a fair case where Ripper isn’t a cringe-inducing alternative to Kickback or GG that’s just worse and a waste of ammo. If adding blessings isn’t good than they need to be buffed again.
that brief period when ripper had can opener work by shooting could have been a hint as to add a balanced “slug” blessing thats not overboard but deals with carapace at a medium range while still be at risk of getting swarmed.
because if they were strong without the ability imagine how strong they would be during it, pbb being strong is why ogryn guns feel weak but thats another fatshark balancing discussion to be had
I’m a funny guy. I do lots of that haha funny stuff.