[Pvp] From The De's Standpoint, What's The Role Of Secondaries?

[AlphaSierraMike]

At the moment, the performance/usability of Secondaries is very shaky. There are currently 2 sides to the spectrum, ones that are comparable with Primaries and ones that can't even fulfill the role of finishing enemies off because it's either horrid or the mechanic just doesn't allow such usage, and others are somewhere in between.

 

Just as a clarification, the damage needed that I consider to be "needs finishing" is about 2-3 shots with a Braton P. That's around 60, i guess.

 

There are weapons that can't possibly work as finisher weapons, but is still treated as one in terms of damage. Spool up weapons are notoriously bad, because by the time the spool up reaches its maximum RoF, the aspect in which the damage is balanced, the target would've ran away because the pre-spool DPS is horrid. It's not a sudden burst of damage which, for me anyway, is something important about finisher weapons.

 

The same thing can be said for weapons with fixed range like Atomos, if the target is weak enough to need finishing, they're most likely running away, and with the fixed range, he's going to be out of range for the entirety of the chase.

 

Explosive launchers like the Angstrum are kind of in a weird space, because really, it's only a good finisher if the other person can't parkour. If you assume that every player in the game is adequate in parkour, launchers are horrid for finishing. It's pretty good at stealing kills from brawlers though.

 

And there are weapons that just don't work well overall, like Dex Furis, probably the Afuris as well, and Twin Viper. The damage is balanced according to its fire rate and the "standard" DPS, not accounting for its accuracy. Even in close quarter it takes most of a mag to down a player because of the spread and low damage. Imagine trying to land enough shots before the guy goes around the corner.

 

But there are other weapons that can give the Primaries a run of their money. Stuff like Lex P, AkVasto, AkMagnus, Vasto P, These can kill extremely quickly, in some cases faster than some Primaries. These weapons can carry themselves, if you ignore the less than ideal ammo consumption. You could argue the fact that AkVasto and AkMagnus only works well on full health target in close quarter, but it kills so fast that there's no risk of the guy running away if you get close enough, it's something that can kill quickly within a niche. That's a Primary characteristic.

 

And there's stuff in between, like the Lato, Lex, and Magnus. They're good for finishing, and alright as a standalone weapon, but not as good as the weapons above. The Lato, from memory, was quite hard hitting as long as you can get close to maxing the fire rate. The Magnus was also pretty beast, but it needs the recoil mod which lower mag size, making it less viable as a standalone.

 

I always ask myself this question when people say "Secondaries are meant for finishing players off". Why would players choose a weapon that can only finish players off when they can bring one that can both finish targets and kill them right off at full health? Like why would I choose a Magnus over a Lex P when Magnus might need 2 shots to connect and having to account for recoil, while Lex P only needs 1 which makes its recoil irrelevant, which is very likely when Magnus is Impact based and finishing off targets favour puncture based weapons.

 

Personally, I would prefer every Secondaries to be just as viable as a standalone as Primaries, but not as versatile, like with AkMagnus' slow reload. It all goes back the that same question, why would I use something that's weaker when a stronger weapon can do the same? And in most cases of me needing to finish off a target, I'm chasing, so I might as well reload my Primary while I'm at it to have a more powerful option.

 

Hopefully I can get one the devs to actually answer this question. It's impossible to call the game balanced when both finishing only secondaries and standalone secondaries exist at the same time.

[TaylorsContraction]

With the auto reload mods I swap between primary when my magazine empties to secondary. When secondary is empty I swap back. The purpose of secondary for me is to have offense in the heat of battle rather than having to reload.

[AdunSaveMe]

I think this is one of those things that are a byproduct of the game's base PvE design.

 

Secondaries in PvE are there as an option or a backup. But in a PvP game, where fights are decided in a few seconds, other games like CS or Battlefield have secondaries as a quick-draw backup. You can't really change that much in a primarily PvE game, so their only real purpose is to pick up the slack of weapons that might not perform well at range or might be a bit niche.

[AlphaSierraMike]

With the auto reload mods I swap between primary when my magazine empties to secondary. When secondary is empty I swap back. The purpose of secondary for me is to have offense in the heat of battle rather than having to reload.

But what's the point of having a below par weapon to act as a backup when there are other secondaries to choose from that can do a better job in every way? I'm not questioning whether secondaries can be used as a backup, but why there is an inconsistency in what the secondaries are capable of. Some weapons can indeed stand head to head against primaries, which is, I assume, what you're using, a primary-like secondary. But consider other weapons that perform below that, stuff like AkSomati, Dex Furis, Lex, these don't stand a chance against a primary or even weapons in their own category. This performance gap is clearly shown by how many people gravitate towards certain weapons.

 

Perhaps I accidentally used finisher as a short hand for horrid damage.

[Nlim]

I think your issue here is that some secondarys are just too weak or have too weird mechanics to fit a specific role which is true. To some degree it may be inevitable since Warframe has just too many weapons but considering the constant change chances are that there will be adjustments over time to help out the weaker weapons.

I would speculate from a balancing stand point making a weapon up is less risky since it won´t break the mode for people while they can easily adjust it as they find time to focus on it or have gained the nesscary information to balance it.

Also on a minor note I wouldn´t put too much weight on what people gravitate towards - when the normal lex was able to two shot (I am talking way back shortly after conclave 2.0 came out - not the recent lexP issues) it still wasn´t a widely used weapon despite being acknowledged as a great weapon.

[taiiat]

since in Capture the Cephalon, you are forced to only a Secondary, having only a Secondary available and not your Primary MUST be a disadvantage.

it just has to be. otherwise only having access to your Secondary doesn't matter at all.

so Secondaries must be somewhat weaker to use in Combat than Primaries. i guess.

idunno. i'd prefer if Secondaries and Primaries, like PvE, are technically just having two Guns on you, rather than one being better than another.

but being locked to one Gun is how it works now, so.

[cary2010haha1]

WF's secondary is always over run the main :P PVE nor PVP 

 

 

lex > brakk > syn weapons > lex P

Edited August 5, 2015 by cary2010haha1