Suggestion - Sporothrix Headshot bonus should be +crit chance

[Narrrz]

(I posted this to reddit, as well, but i don't think it got very much attention there, so i thought i'd try somewhere where developers might actually see it)

This is a weird weapon, a sniper rifle with very high crit multiplier but basically an inability to crit. The changes to status have somewhat upset the crit meta, but not to the extent that non-critical hits outperform crits, under any real circumstance. This especially still holds true vs Grineer, with their additional, multiplicative x2 bonus on specifically critical headshots. So a rubico, even with its inferior damage and status chance, is always going to outperform the sporothrix, even before accounting for its combo bonus.

Now, sporothrix has a +50% damage bonus to headshots (is that multiplicative? or just additive to serration?) which is, well, it is nice, but that's a 1.5x bonus compared to a 3x unmodded bonus for a critical hit. It's just not enough to make this weapon actually useful.

What i'd suggest is that the weapon get a 50% crit chance bonus on scoring a headshot (or, if it's doable, any weakpoint, to make it useful (or just useable) in other circumstances than the most simplistic gameplay). Even better would be if this could be somehow made to apply to its base crit before point strike/rivens are taken into account, but even just giving it that bonus will make it at the very least a more interesting weapon to play with, instead of... well, to be blunt, more mastery fodder, and maybe a novelty to break out for sniper sorties.

Yes, i am aware there are ways to boost crit chance by a flat amount, but those all work for other snipers as well. even with Adarza Kavat & Arcane Avenger giving it +105% crit chance, it's still not going to outperform a rubico with 150% crit chance on top of those same bonuses. And perhaps it shouldn't displace existing top tier snipers, but it would be nice if it could at least get a niche where it's actually good, instead of just... new.

[IggySnow]

I think it would be cool if the sporothrix was a status spreading sniper. so give it a big AOE and make it so headshots increase the range and damage of the AOE.

[ssmagus]

I see what the point of the sporothrix was going for, a sort of mid ranged marksman rifle semi auto feeling that has some issues in practice. With what the current state of what this weapon is, making it have a battery reload instead of it's current small ammo pull and heavy miss punishment will help it feel much better as a weapon. (spamming bodyshots on this weapon as a status sniper with great base damage works well until your forever out of ammo, and keeping it as a small headshot damage increase rewards accuracy)

The other way you can take it is making the sniper combo increase the damage and AOE on headshots instead of just damage to make accurate headshots more worth it. (taking the time to line up headshots on this isn't all that rewarding and can be increased)