Consider buffing Thunderbolt and Concealed Explosives for the upcoming update.

[Sloth45]

The upcoming update is set to breathe new life into a lot of older weapons that have fallen out of favor for most of the player-base... Including a few different Bows and Throwing Knives. Considering a lot of people are going to be using those again- For the novelty of seeing what's new, at least, and maybe seeing they like the new buffs- It's worth touching up on Concealed Explosives and Thunderbolt.

 

CE and Thunderbolt are old mods, from update 7 and 17, respectively. They add 250 flat damage on proc for throwing weapons and bows respectively, and... Well, and that's it. 250 flat damage is, to be frank, not much in the current state of weapons and weapon modding, particularly with a base damage type as uninspiring as Blast is against most targets.

The fix, then, is obvious: Have that 250 damage be considered base damage, multiplied by base damage multipliers, and affected by mods, bringing it in line with the other damage the weapons do.  Maybe buff Thunderbolt to be at least 50% to proc, while you're at it- That brings it in line with the better bow's critical chance for symmetry, and means it's moderately more reliable (If not that reliable, due to most bow's slow fire rates)

 

That's it, that's the whole fix. It's still not a lot of potential damage, but it's at least worth considering for high starchart and maybe even low steel path.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

More aoe damage sh*t? No thanks. I think we already learned what happens when they buff the aoe.

[Numerounius]

Given how relevant AOE is. The minute you start touching  up the concealed explosives and thunderbolt mod means you just open it up to becoming a meta AOE weapon.

[(XBOX)TheWayOfWisdom]

Some tweaks could leave it and bows strong but not straight better than say a regular Tonkor, which is an MR 5 weapon for reference (All bows excepts MK1-Paris and Paris are effectively MR 5+ locked).

• -66-75%% reload speed (separate modifier from mod bonuses) i.e tripled or quadrupled reload time
• 10-20 ammo capacity
• 1-2 ammo pickup
• +4-5m radius (not affected by Firestorm)
• 40%-50% damage falloff
• Chance to explode removed; always detonates
• Requires full charge for explosion
• Explosion is Blast damage equal to the weapons base damage
• Not equipable on Kuva Bramma, Lenz, Mutalist Cernos, Nataruk, Proboscis Cernos, or Crossbows (the usual Non-AoE/Non-Auto clause)
• Cannot be equipped with Split Flights

This makes them comparable to Tonker (which again, is equal to or lower in MR than all but 2 bows)
If this is still too strong, you could add an absolute damage penalty, or a fire rate penalty.

[Skoomaseller]

On 2023-03-27 at 6:56 AM, CosoMalvadoNG said:

More aoe damage sh*t? No thanks. I think we already learned what happens when they buff the aoe.

 

On 2023-03-27 at 7:10 AM, XHADgaming said:

Given how relevant AOE is. The minute you start touching  up the concealed explosives and thunderbolt mod means you just open it up to becoming a meta AOE weapon.

the other option is to let the mod remain as useless as it is.

to OP: I agree. hopefully they buff thunderbolt & concealed explosives.

My take:

Max rank: 100% chance of 5m explosion, disables punch through and carry through completely. Can only be used on non-AOE bows and thrown secondaries (obviously). 

Thunderbolt Daikyu about to go crazy 👀

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2023-03-26 at 8:55 PM, Sloth45 said:

Have that 250 damage be considered base damage, multiplied by base damage multipliers, and affected by mods, bringing it in line with the other damage the weapons do

There's a clash here - it's a useless mod by the time you get it, flat unmodded damage should be fixed.

I'd probably just make the explosion have the same stats as the main hit, with 25% of the modded damage. That's simple to calculate and explain.

However, the problem would be any fix that makes this mod do worthwhile damage also makes it mandatory on all builds because AoE > single target.

That's a rubbish argument, "we can't fix a thing because this other thing is even more broken", but it would be a case of making the AoE meta worse.

I'd bring back self-damage, I'd just balance it so that explosions aren't always fatal - maybe cap it at all of your shield and 75% of your remaining health (rounding down, so if you had less than 4 health you'd die).