Let me start by saying, I understand the frustrations as people adapt to the new playing field.
I especially understand the complaints about sound cues and the absence of player voicelines pointing out the presence of plasma gunners, resulting in players often noticing plasma gunners too late, I am in full agreement on that part.
The following arguments are based on the assumption that more sound cues are introduced, as well as player voicelines/callouts.
I like that it restores some sense of need for situational awareness, instead of just rushing through knowing that everything will be fine because of bubble / voc spam.
Now you’ll actually want to use cover / use better positioning when there are plasma gunners on the field.
It reminds me of the early days where ranged was actually scary, because of ranged-damage-bleed-through, whereas before this patch people didn’t care about ranged as long as the voc/bubble/book/aquila spam could keep up.
The plasma gunners addition increases the value of many underused weapons, abilities and strategies, weapons such as the ogryn slab shield and arbites shield weapons value went up as these can block plasma shots (arbites can even return fire safely), smoke is now superior versus ranged in the particular case of plasma gunners, as force shields canonically don’t fare well against plasma weaponry, smoke makes them lose track and forces them closer, making for easy dispatching (smoke really needed this additional value, meanwhile bubble is still a great generalist ranged defense).
Meanwhile other stagger abilities such a psyker vent value also went up since it can stagger at range (no longer existing soley to dump peril or apply soulblaze), immediately putting a stop to plasma gunners shooting, giving the team a quick moment to reposition, throw a smoke or rush in to tie them up in melee to prevent them from shooting altogether.
Stealth which basically nobody used except loner rushing zealots is also very valuable against them, as it allows closing in and then immediately tying up in melee, even if they aren’t all instantly dead, they are no longer shooting and a good team would immediately move in after you to help dispatch them while they’re tied up.
TLDR;
While I think they are overall a great addition to the game, making ranged enemies a threat again, not just a “can your ult spam keep up with the ranged dps”-check, I do think they need to have better sound cues and player characters need to call them out when marking/spotting, so that players actually have a chance of approaching them / responding to them.
As such I think the main issue is the audio cues and recognize that some people would also like better visual cues, but I’m not sure if I agree with the latter part.
Other than that I think they’re fine.
They’re a great step in the right direction, all because of the points you’ve mentioned. The fact that they switch to melee when closing the distance is icing on the cake. Now if we could get some of that threat creativity to Crushers that’d be great.
I actually think they’re great too but they need better telegraphing for the risk they posses. They blend into crowds and are essentially rapid fire snipers.
I think their plasma gun fire audio should be different to the captain’s (maybe add beeping for distinct charge noise) and they should have something unique to pick them out visually.
Player characters should have VO for tagging them.
I really like the Scab Plasma Gunners. I do think they’re a little bit overtuned in the area of concurrent Spawns, but that’s more of an issue with powercrept Players FORCING them to be.
In my opinion, they should be more distinct both audibly and visually. You’ve probably seen the videos showcasing how they’re just that teensy bit too quiet. Players having no voice lines for Tagging them is something that compounds the issue, for sure.
Their Goggles and Plasma Coils could have a very distinctive glow, to make them easier to differentiate from Shotgunners at a glance. That glow should be especially apparent while they’re in Smoke, or during Missions with Modifiers that lower visibility. It’d also look cool!
The design of Plasma Cannons has little impact on various conventional or powerful build strategies, and even to some extent increases the team’s demand for Gold Resilience. However, for players like me who want to try the Volley Laser BD in the new version, this is nightmare. The fundamental logic of laser weapons is to achieve kills against high-threat long-range targets through precise headshots. But Plasma Cannons, with their extremely high damage output and numbers, coupled with their high health and head armor, render laser weapons, especially infantry lasers and scout lasers, completely worthless.
So I’ve been thinking, if the game really wants to emphasize melee combat, why would they design the veteran’s left-line talent and create weapons like infantry lasers and semi-automatic rifles, which highlight shooting weaknesses? This feels like the Empire is asking me to fight enemies on the front line while taking away my ammunition as tithes.
If it works for all but this one gunner type then that’s still good. It means a different tactic must be used for this particular enemy. Team needs to work together to get to them for melee which is their weakness.
The Crusher health increase and reduction in population outside of Havoc is a step up, but at the individual level they could still be improved on a bit.
A Flak rear weakspot would expand weapon variety against them while rewarding teamwork/dodges, bullcharge would allow them to close the gap faster, making them more dangerous/interesting for gameplay, and stronger stagger resistance to Smite/VoC/Shredders/Shock Mines would help solidify them as a more dangerous Elite.
I think they should explode sometimes. Regular plasma guns explode all the time, and chaos plasma guns are regular plasma guns but even worse maintained.
But yes, I love that they encourage people to take cover and actually care about positioning. It drives me crazy that almost everyone I’ve ever seen in a Mortis Trial hangs out in the very center where they can be shot from all directions. Meanwhile I can go off on my own and find an actually defensible spot and hold it all by myself, and nobody ever comes to join me despite how badly they’re all getting trashed. Well now there are plasma gunners. I’m doing just fine against them, because I’ve been using cover and careful positioning this whole time.
I’m not happy with them and the more I deal with plasma gunners, the more I’m convinced it needs to be a special instead of an elite.
They spawn in unannounced in groups and roam around. You don’t know they’re there until you get hit or are lucky enough to see them. The fact that they just fully strip toughness, no matter what is insane.
That’s not how you solve the gold toughness problem. You solve gold toughness by addressing gold toughness mechanics.
Have them carrying back-mounted banners or something could be cool.
Also I think the best way to telegraph could be simply to slow the plasma-charge sound down by half (so that it takes twice as long before they shoot and also makes it sound different to the captain’s…like he gets the top tier plasma weapons with rapid charge because he’s the bossman lol).
Could give the Plasma Gunners this backpack, even though it’s for the Plasma Incinerator. Shooting the Plasma backpack rear enough would explode the Gunner and knock nearby human enemies down similar to Flamer.
I think changing it to a special would make it too rare, but on the other side, we don’t really have an armored special, so it could kinda fill a gap.
The suggestions to make them have a backpack which could explode seems really interesting though and I hope that is something Fatshark will consider, although even reapers don’t have something like that, so I’m not sure they would.
So far I’m happy with the changes FS has made to them, but I still wish that they’d have more unique/iconic voicelines, so that they’d better stand out between the armies of trash and elites, like you hear so clearly when there’s gunners or reapers readying to unleash a barrage.
If anything, I’d say making them Specials would be perfect:
Plasma guns should be a rarer form of weapon as people have spoke about at length on the forum
With spawn rates at higher difficulties often dropping groups of identical Specials on the map in groups of 2-4+ near constantly at times (MutantToeStub.mp3, AnyoneCallforaBoom.mp3, Grabber.mp3 spam etc.) I think that’d possibly fit better with the last point than the giant squads of ~12 you can find parked round a corner, and wouldn’t make them too rare in a more fitting way, whilst also letting the AI drip-feed them through the map too as horde backup etc as an alternative to snipers for example.
Possibly making them Specials could theoretically also allow FS to more easily insert the event modifier (loads of em + a Captain) as a themed Maelstrom modifier in the vein of the Waves of X Special modifiers; Waves of Poxbursters, Waves of Snipers, Squads of PGs etc.
Having said that though, I wouldn’t mind if they made them a Special and let them keep their to-be-more-unique single or double ambient type spawns alongside a gunner patrol or armour squad etc.
Though yeah, they are in dire need of more voicelines, and we need proper PC callouts for them, in my opinion. Aside from that, they’re cool.
All valid points.
I think I’d prefer them being part of gunner patrols, like if it’s a patrol of 16 gunners, maybe replace 4 of them with plasma gunners.
I guess if it were a special though, it could work, I was originally thinking “specialists are all so light and rushy” but then I remembered snipers and both grenadiers, I guess the plasma could make for a decent special if it ditched the shotgunner ai (aggresive moving into your face to shoot you) and stayed more at range like a sniper/bomber.
But yes, the audio stuff is my main gripe with them still.
