the akarius - my thoughts.

[NovusKnight]

this gun baffles me. It is relatively potent in the damage it can deal to enemies. Flight speed is perfect. homing projectiles is rather cool, particularly if used on the move. I get the feeling the design philosophy here is "super speedy nuke gun intended to assist aiming for very fast users".

I have little complaints about damage or stats.

only two real issues.

one: Very very low ammo in the magazine and in stockpaired with burst fire.

two: Abysmaly longreload time.

 

it's like we're not even supposed to shoot this thing.

ive been thinking on ways to basicaly allow it to retain its supposed "don't spam this" limitation, and have a proposal.

 

CHANGE #1: scrap the reload speed sprint passive; now it reloads over time while holstered. 

it still consumes ammo, and still has very little ammo, but now, you are encouraged to pull it out, magdump into a crowd, and return to your primary. You lose the speedy sprint reload, and now are stuck with a 3+ second long reload. It's better to simply holster it and let it passively reload.

CHANGE #2: like some other weapons it has a new on-kill passive. Let's call it *Hit and Run.* (HR)

killing a target procs HR. HR's effect: The follow-up shot will accumulate (one of various forms of) damage multiplication over time. Allowing it to fully charge makes the next burst fired be particularly destructive. the idea is to encourage NOT spamming the gun, but REWARDING your diligence - instead of simply punishing you.

how HR would actualy increase damage is debatable. A lot of ways it could work.

-could be a 3-5x multiplier after mods, accessible after 15 or more seconds.

-could be something utterly hilarious, like 500% multishot for free. Marcos missile massacre. This being a status gun would make this actualy very nice for suddenly Cc / armorshred on a large group.

- could be armor ignore, or direct hp % 

- could be something utilitary, like "next clip duplicates munitions, and costs no ammo until holstered or reloaded"

 

the idea is making the akarius a hand-held explosive nuke gun, but one that takes a while to actualy charge in order to do so. Mind you, Staticor exists, and makes this gun almost pointless. With these changes implemented in a way that does work, staticor continues to be one of the best AoE secondaries, but for general use and sustained damage; but the Akarius would become the "support AoE panic button" nuke that only actualy blasts things apart once every x second, being relatively meh (as it currently is) if not allowed to charge.

 

tis would encourage you keep on the run and use other guns, only pulling out akarius to delete groups... Occasionally. In my opinion this would effectively synergize with Acceltra, which is an excelent sustain / primary weapon. further, encouraging you to not spam or rush shots out the barrel helps you not waste ammo; and the vastly increased effectiveness-per-ammo-spent further alleviates that main flaw.

 

personaly, I would implement it having incredibly huge multishot on the first burst. this being a status weapon could make that pretty crazy. let's see - every burst is 2 shots, so 150ish multishot brings that to about 5 missiles per click. 500% multishot bonus would add up to 650ish multishot. Over 12 missiles. It would be spectacular (and hilarious) to use, but actualy help the weapon, as this could be both a nuke (high damage base and gas procs) or a debufer (a ton of near instant corrosive procs taking away a large chunk of armor) . 

 

just an idea. It would still be limited, but actualy might be viable and enjoyable despite limits. What are your opinions?

Edited October 13, 2019 by NovusKnight

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

Both reload and ammo economy were made with your movement in mind. If you move while reloading it'll happen faster. And if you are moving you'll very easily get your spent ammo replenished. Same goes for Acceltra, and they weren't released as Gauss's signature weapons as a coincidence.

I personally have no such issues with these weapons, even though I did invest a slot for ammo conversion on Akarius since I had space left and wanted maximum cheese.

[000l000]

Just put a Synth set mod on your pet and you'll never have ammo issues, ever. You don't even need to reload anymore, just use some melee or switch to your primary and everything is fine.

[supernils]

On 2019-10-14 at 12:57 AM, NovusKnight said:

one: Very very low ammo in the magazine and in stockpaired with burst fire.

two: Abysmaly longreload time.

I don't think a secondary weapon should be made to be used exclusively throughout a mission out of the box. As the name suggests, it's a secondary.

As for loading time, you know there's a mod for that, right? You have two choices: use the freaking mod or if you for whatever reasons can't get yourself to sacrifice damage then live with it. Look at it like this: mods with usability issues are *balanced* around that. You're *supposed* to use corresponding mods. Not using them and having over the top damage is an *option*. It's really a psychological problem of the players, but since so many are having it DE is going to bring the Exilus slots to weapons.....thankfully not for reload time, or else freaking players would ONLY use reload time in the Exilus slot since it's dps.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2019-10-14 at 12:18 AM, (PS4)Hikuro-93 said:

Both reload and ammo economy were made with your movement in mind. If you move while reloading it'll happen faster. And if you are moving you'll very easily get your spent ammo replenished. Same goes for Acceltra, and they weren't released as Gauss's signature weapons as a coincidence

Quite the opposite, they do not work together at all (unless you like being out of ammo on both guns at once)

Ok, on to the original question...

On 2019-10-13 at 11:57 PM, NovusKnight said:

one: Very very low ammo in the magazine and in stockpaired with burst fire.

two: Abysmaly longreload time

Yeah, it's designed for burst damage, the problem is that burst damage just isn't anywhere near high enough to justify the pain of using it (mainly because blast is a really weak damage type and Impact sucks so much all the best rivens remove it).

On 2019-10-13 at 11:57 PM, NovusKnight said:

CHANGE #1: scrap the reload speed sprint passive; now it reloads over time while holstered

You can mod for this, but it doesn't help. Especially if the primary is an Acceltra and probably out of ammo too.

On 2019-10-13 at 11:57 PM, NovusKnight said:

CHANGE #2: like some other weapons it has a new on-kill passive. Let's call it *Hit and Run.* (HR)

I like this idea - it could work something like the Arca Sisco, which gains stacks of crit % and crit X as you get hits with it.

The problem would be that it needs to gain those stacks incredibly fast as you only have 10 shots.

It's hard MR fodder, but I'm not sure what you could do to fix that that wouldn't push up its MR past 8. If it did a bit of balanced IPS or any Slash (shrapnel in the explosion maybe) it would be as awesome, but also probably MR12 at least.

[(PSN)NemitheNem]

8 hours ago, (XB1)KayAitch said:

Yeah, it's designed for burst damage, the problem is that burst damage just isn't anywhere near high enough to justify the pain of using it (mainly because blast is a really weak damage type and Impact sucks so much all the best rivens remove it).

Honestly, if it was a blast puncture weapon it'd be more viable. 

My change to the akarius would be that, faster reload time, and a changed passive--increased movement speed while it is out, or else just being able to shoot it while running.