Damage Needs Balancing

[The_Holy_Tomato]

In most games, there's a damage multiplier for headshots. (For most, if not all, light-armored enemies, a headshot should be a one-hit-kill). But it seems that for the weapons I'm using, Latron and Viper, the damage that is listed in its base stats is headshot damage (another anomaly, I suppose). Either headshots should be buffed, or body-shots should be nerfed, in my opinion.

 

I might get a max of 12 damage on a body-shot on a level 1 Grineer Trooper (Note: Latron's base damage is 36) but 36 damage on a headshot (this translates to a two-shot kill with headshots or about a 5 or 6-shot kill for body-shots, with no regard to whether the Trooper has his helmet on or not) Of course, as you progress, the enemies magically gain extra armor without any change to outward appearance :P. Doesn't seem very logical to me; it looks to me like the Grineer are at least Human in appearance. Last I checked, most Humans can't survive a headshot to the unprotected skull.

 

On the other hand, melee is waaaay too overpowered. By this I mean, one could complete the entire planet of Mercury with nothing but a Skana; I haven't tried conquering Venus with just a Skana simply because Moas are annoying to deal with up close. Armor? Who cares. You do the same amount of damage with a charged hit to a Trooper as you would to a Sawman (about 75-ish, which is the base charge damage of a Skana). And you still split them in half.

 

It seems that armor values are kept constant throughout the body; if the chest has an armor value of 5, the head also seems to have an armor value of 5, even if the enemy has no protection whatsoever.

 

On another note, is it just me, or is the Latron a little underpowered? For a heavy rifle-type weapon, 36 damage seems a little underpowered (compared to the snipetron's 100 damage). I understand that I'm comparing a rifle to a sniper but... the damage seems to have too big of a gap (or maybe I'm just incorrectly classifying the latron as a semi-auto sniper rather than a normal "Braton-class" rifle). For a weapon worth 50,000 credits, its use:price ratio is a bit unbalanced. In terms of DPS, the viper (40,000 credits + materials) is far stronger simply because of its rate of fire and unnaturally high damage output. (Or maybe that's just headshot damage...)

 

Okay, if you did, thanks for reading through my unrelenting rambles... I tend to do that when I get passionate (:

[holdenagincourt]

The difference in damage in your example is just due to Grineer body armor mechanics. Headshot multipliers for any particular enemy only exist insofar as the area designated as the head has a different set of resistances to normal, armor or elemental damage.

Pistols also have a kind of underwhelming No Return mod, but even then you shouldn't be having trouble downing even high level Grineer mooks with a Viper equipped with that mod (body shots).

Melee is mainly overpowered when 60 mod slots are taken up on good weapons and sped-up charge attacks just become one hit kills on nearly every enemy. (Not talking about melee weapons that are crazy overpowered like Dual Heat Swords, that may be an authentic balance issue even without supercharging.) E.g. my potatoless level 17 Ceramic Dagger requires 3 (!) charged attacks to kill level 35 Crewman. Level 30 supercharged Dual Heat Swords on Loki reduce level 35-40 ancients to a sliver of health in one charged melee. The spread in effectiveness of melee is kind of large.

No experience with the Latron but I suspect it's less bad after today's patch, no?

[holdenagincourt]

Also, wth with the forums not supporting paragraph breaks anymore?

[Xevious]

There are already headshot multipliers. The damages being listed on weapons are accurate; they are not headshot damages.

 

When fighting Grineer, you have to account for their high armor values. If you're using the Latron (a weapon which is quite underpowered until higher levels), you definitely need to have an armor-piercing mod equipped on it. Otherwise, you will not be doing full damage against them (hence you damaging them for 36 for a headshot when the Latron's base damage is 36)

 

As for melee damage, I personally see no problem with how strong it is.

[The_Holy_Tomato]

The difference in damage in your example is just due to Grineer body armor mechanics. Headshot multipliers for any particular enemy only exist insofar as the area designated as the head has a different set of resistances to normal, armor or elemental damage. Pistols also have a kind of underwhelming No Return mod, but even then you shouldn't be having trouble downing even high level Grineer mooks with a Viper equipped with that mod (body shots). Melee is mainly overpowered when 60 mod slots are taken up on good weapons and sped-up charge attacks just become one hit kills on nearly every enemy. (Not talking about melee weapons that are crazy overpowered like Dual Heat Swords, that may be an authentic balance issue even without supercharging.) E.g. my potatoless level 17 Ceramic Dagger requires 3 (!) charged attacks to kill level 35 Crewman. Level 30 supercharged Dual Heat Swords on Loki reduce level 35-40 ancients to a sliver of health in one charged melee. The spread in effectiveness of melee is kind of large. No experience with the Latron but I suspect it's less bad after today's patch, no?

I actually haven't gotten to the point where I have any level 30 gear. But I felt that even with a weapon such as the Latron, (which is probably one of the higher tier weapons) kills at level one maps should be one-hits to the head at the very least. Or maybe I just havent progressed far enough into the game to really be a trustworthy source of over or underpowered weapons. Lack of mods (particularly a maxed armor piercing mod) is probably the biggest factor in my mediocre damage. But I'm grateful for the feedback and I'm glad to hear that it changes in later levels ^^

[neKroMancer]

I actually haven't gotten to the point where I have any level 30 gear. But I felt that even with a weapon such as the Latron, (which is probably one of the higher tier weapons) kills at level one maps should be one-hits to the head at the very least. Or maybe I just havent progressed far enough into the game to really be a trustworthy source of over or underpowered weapons. Lack of mods (particularly a maxed armor piercing mod) is probably the biggest factor in my mediocre damage. But I'm grateful for the feedback and I'm glad to hear that it changes in later levels ^^

 

Armor piercing mod for rifle is easy to find in Mercury. Damage from AP mod really help boost Latron's low damage per shot. It outshines Snipertron with appropriate mods equipped.

 

Latron's best feature is high ammo-efficiency. You shouldn't run out of ammo during any mission using this gun.