Does Grinlok needs a buff?

[Artekkor]

For those who probably forgot: Grinlok is a Grineer bolt-action assault rifle that you can build form a blueprint in the dojo.

The legendary Marelok is basically a Grinlok with its barrel cut down.

However: when compared stat-wise Marelok is superior to Grinlok when fully moded thanks to mod-difference between primary and secondary weapons.
Not only that - for a semi-sniper rifle Grinlok has below good accuracy of 28.6 (standard assault rifle accuracy) which makes it terrible at hitting targets past mid-range. Not impossible, but misses happen.

I truly believe Grinlok either needs a buff or a new improved version like Grinlok Wraith or Prisma Grinlok with increased accuracy and maybe slightly improved damage potential (either raw one or crit one).

Or maybe just higher magazine capacity combined with higher firerate, much like Latron family.
Not a top 1 priority but it would be a nice addition.
As of now i think Vulkar Wraith is more efficient than Grinlok since it out-performs Grinlok in about everything except reload speed and status chance (which is pointless on weapons that have low fire rate or dont deal insane amounts of raw damage for efficient gas builds, like Daikyu)

[KirukaChan]

I think that first and foremost, Grinlok needs a damage buff to match the standard Marelok. They're essentially the same gun, but Marelok is firing pistol ammo and with a shorter barrel. There is no reason whatsoever for it to be out-damaging Grinlok aside from senseless power creep. Yes, the accuracy difference is there, but that's what happens when you saw off a barrel to make a gun smaller, accuracy goes to hell.

I'd be down with a Grinlok Wraith, too. If the standard gets a damage buff, the Wraith might not even need one. A bigger magazine would be nice, though, and maybe some boost to crit.

[Transformau5]

2 minutes ago, KirukaChan said:

Yes, the accuracy difference is there, but that's what happens when you saw off a barrel to make a gun smaller, accuracy goes to hell.

He was talking about Grinlok, the rifle, not Marelok, the pistol, though.

[ashrah]

grinlok lack on dmg

[KirukaChan]

22 minutes ago, Transformau5 said:

He was talking about Grinlok, the rifle, not Marelok, the pistol, though.

Yep. I was just putting that forward as a, "this will mess with the balance between Grinlok and Marelok, but I think that's fine and here's why" statement. If Grinlok got the damage buff, Marelok would only be beating it very slightly in both reload speed and fire rate (both of which are justified, the former by the Marelok's lighter weight and the latter by the manner in which it's fired).

[Transformau5]

1 minute ago, KirukaChan said:

Yep. I was just putting that forward as a, "this will mess with the balance between Grinlok and Marelok, but I think that's fine and here's why" statement. If Grinlok got the damage buff, Marelok would only be beating it very slightly in both reload speed and fire rate (both of which are justified, the former by the Marelok's lighter weight and the latter by the manner in which it's fired).

...Though OP does have a point, Grinlok's description says the gun boasts "pinpoint accuracy" while it's pretty mediocre.

Edited October 19, 2016 by Transformau5

[KirukaChan]

23 minutes ago, Transformau5 said:

...Though OP does have a point, Grinlok's description says the gun boasts "pinpoint accuracy" while it's pretty mediocre.

Yeah, that could do for a fixing. It handles like a dream in Conclave with the Grinloked mod.

[Transformau5]

Just now, KirukaChan said:

Yeah, that could do for a fixing. It handles like a dream in Conclave with the Grinloked mod.

Then either its PvE counterpart (maybe a SM augment/Kela mod?) or a stat buff would do.

[TrickshotMcGee]

I'm a fan of the Grinlok myself. It's not UP and doesn't strictly need a buff, but I think it should logically be as or more powerful than the standard Marelok, given that they are supposed to be extremely similar. It's weird for a gun's sidearm counterpart to be superior in every way.

However, it does not need to be a crit gun, as so many are recently. A damage buff would be wonderful, and that's about all it would need to be as good as Marelok besides maybe a tiny buff to reload or fire rate (probably not both because it's already a good gun). I can take it into sorties and it does pretty well. 

Overall, it's a fairly balanced weapon, but is falling a little behind compared to many of the more recent weapons. Again, not bad at all (I'm working on putting forma in mine, but getting them is so slow sometimes), but besides preference, we don't have a lot of reasons to use it over Marelok, since it's the lesser of the two. 

 

[TentownsRaid]

If the damage was buffed by say 50 and the crit was buffed by 5% it would be much closer in dps  to latron p/wraith .Sadly its lacking in all stats except for its high accuracy.

[SarcasticShepard]

Grinlok has always been a status weapon in my eyes, though Amperex has overtaken much or my arsenal.

[Artekkor]

4 minutes ago, SarcasticShepard said:

Grinlok has always been a status weapon in my eyes, though Amperex has overtaken much or my arsenal.

Unfortunately because of how status works - it's very inneficient on slow fire rate weapons.

Gas is the only status effect that could benefit from high damage per shot, but Grinlok does not hit hard enough for the proc to be effective.

[elele]

It desperately needs a buff. I'm in the process of forma-ing it and it's so clunky. 

By comparison, Vulkar Wraith has 2.5x zoom which is comparable or even less than Grinlok's right-click zoom. Vulkar Wraith has comparable magazine size, fire rate, crit chance and multiplier, slightly lower reload speed. 

But Vulkar Wraith has more than double Grinlok's damage (triple if you get the 1.5x combo which activates after two shots), and syndicate healing. 

Other than the syndicate radiation proc, Grinlok has nothing going for it as a marksman rifle. Even regular Vulkar would beat it by a mile. 

[Nazrethim]

I think we need a Grinlok Wraith with better accuracy and damage.

And DE needs to make Conclave mods usable in PvE so we can use Grinloked.

[RealPandemonium]

Grinlok is fine; overpowered weapons need a nerf with Damage 3.0.  

[Artekkor]

14 hours ago, RealPandemonium said:

Grinlok is fine; overpowered weapons need a nerf with Damage 3.0.  

Grinlok is far from fine. DPS is not very good. I can't even imagine how hard killing something in sortie 3 is going to be like.

[RealPandemonium]

5 hours ago, Artek94 said:

Grinlok is far from fine. DPS is not very good. I can't even imagine how hard killing something in sortie 3 is going to be like.

Level 100 Grineer are broken and should not be the standard we set for weapon damage output.  That said, Grinlok does a pretty good job of killing them with Slash procs.  It's also telling that you haven't even tried to make it work but are still trashing on the forum (though not surprising.)

[Bobtm]

6 hours ago, Artek94 said:

Grinlok is far from fine. DPS is not very good. I can't even imagine how hard killing something in sortie 3 is going to be like.

As a note, a 100% Status chance Rad/Viral build Grinlok (using Vital Sense and its Augment) without any help from any outside buffs such as frame powers or Kavat buffs, will average about 5 headshots needed to kill a fully armored level 125 Bombard.  That's not too shabby, and if their armor is lowered or even removed via Corrosive Projection, that number will decrease notably.

DPS is a horrible metric which really doesn't tell you much about a weapon's actual in-use capabilities.

Now then, that aside, I would like to see a few things tweaked a touch about the Grinlok.  Boost its accuracy a bit, lower its reload time a bit as well.  I'm thinking around 1.6 or 1.7 by default, to make it a bit snappier on that side of things.  If one wanted to go even further (I don't believe this is necessary, maybe a prospective buff for a Wraith variant), up its status chance more so that one would only need 3 of the 4 dual stat elemental mods in order to easily reach 100% Status chance.  Which would open up one more slot for use as the player would prefer.

[[DE]Momaw]

Grinlok has needed a buff since a week after it came out, when it was made completely obsolete by its secondary slot brother Marelok. Even with its augment's huge crit chance buff, it still only hits 67.5% chance to crit.  It's a weapon that only holds 6 shots, with a full 2 second reload, while doing less damage and less reliably than a sniper rifle. And none of the combo bonuses. This weapon is simply too slow and too clumsy to not RELIABLY reward marksmanship.

As such:  Increase base crit chance to 25%.  With both Point Strike and Deadly Sequence it will achieve 112.5% crit chance, meaning that its headshots will reliably do the damage they need to do.   That's all this weapon needs.

[ClaptoVaughn]

I got this weapon during my current sniper phase (rotating between the Lanka, Vectis Prime, and Vulkar), so maybe it's not a fair comparison but yeah the Grinlok felt pretty lacking. It's long reload doesn't justify its damage, and it feels like it will take a lot of work to kill reliably at mid level, and I don't feel like it's worth the investment of a potato and a couple of forma. 

[Othergrunty]

Bolt action assault rifle? Only 1 of these 4 words actualy fits the Grinlok.

Sorry, if i sound pedantic, but i'd like to clear this up quickly.

A bolt action rifle uses a movable bolt mechanism behind the barrel (upper side of the gun) to load the next shot. These appear frequently in WW1 and 2 movies. Hunting rifles and sniper rifles still often use this mechanism today. An assault rifle meanwhile is an automatic rifle, often with variable firing setting (semi-auto, burst or full auto). In video games assault rifles are almost always fixed on full auto or burst (think Braton and Burston).

Both of these terms therefor don't fit the Grinlok. It's like calling the Vasto a muzzle loaded crossbow revolver (why is that not a thing yet DE???).

The Grinlok meanwhile uses a lever on the bottom of the gun to reload the next shot. It's a lever action rifle (actualy semi-auto but DE simulates the lever action mechanism via a longer pause between shots). These are frequently used in western movies. The famous Winchester is such an example.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas feature these 3 types for reference.

As for the perfomance of the Grinlok itself. It's pretty much fixed in upper mid tier the way i see it. However it's perfomance difference to the Marelok is indeed weird. Seeing how they are basicly the same gun, only one has an added shoulder stock and longer barrel.

Therefor the Grinlok should logicaly have at least the same power as the Marelok, with the former getting the advantage of higher accurancy, while the later fires faster and is less accurate on mid to long range. Of course the secondary mods would still give the Marelok an advantage so the Grinlok should actualy have higher stats to balance that out.

Honestly, i think the Marelok would have been better as a primary. But as it is, i would agree that the Grinlok deserves a buff, even if it's unlikely to get that.

Edited October 23, 2016 by Othergrunty

[Artekkor]

5 hours ago, Othergrunty said:

Gun science

I never was much of a gun-nerd so my friend had to teach me to know the difference between a clip and a magazine.

Thanks for the clarification though. The more you know!

[Chipputer]

On 10/22/2016 at 6:36 AM, Artek94 said:

Grinlok is far from fine. DPS is not very good. I can't even imagine how hard killing something in sortie 3 is going to be like.

Proper aim and proper anti-faction modding and it kills quite reliably. It's rare that it takes a full 6 shots to kill something unless you're purposefully going for body shots. It's still not going to be as efficient as a (Dex) Sybaris, but it's certainly firmly in the, "fine," category.

The problem is that, "fine," in this game is the same as, "trash," to the majority of players.

[Artekkor]

4 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

Proper aim and proper anti-faction modding and it kills quite reliably. It's rare that it takes a full 6 shots to kill something unless you're purposefully going for body shots. It's still not going to be as efficient as a (Dex) Sybaris, but it's certainly firmly in the, "fine," category.

The problem is that, "fine," in this game is the same as, "trash," to the majority of players.

I do try to aim for heads if bosyshots prove to be ineffecient, unfortunately Grinlok's mediocre accuracy and mine general disability to aim for heads of moving targets (unless it stands still or moves slowly and predictably, like Heavy Gunner while shooting) pretty much deny constant headshoting.

Then again i might as well just go Vulkar Wraith which does everything Grinlok does but better: twice as much damage, better crit chance, a scope and zoom with higher accuracy and almost the same fire rate. The only major difference is +1 second to reload speed.

Grinlok got stuck in the same hell as Latron Prime - the middle ground between assault and sniper rifles, but taking the worst of two sides and combining it together with contradicting stats that do not worth investing due to neat details.

Like Latron Prime having x2.5 crit damage but only having 15% crit chance (37,5% with Point Strike (PS)) therefore you are more likely not to crit (also extremely low reload speed)

Or Grinlok Being implied to be a Status Weapon even though status builds are worthless on weapons that do not have decent fire rate / attack speed (grakata, karak wraith, braton and burston primes, knives) or at the very least NOT having all 3 primary physical damage types in the stats to reduce amount of different possible status effects to proc making the desired ones more constant (Twin Basolks).

[HunRii]

Let's face it, all sniper rifles need a buff.  The big sniper rifle changes helped, just nowhere near enough.  Until that family gets re-visited again, they are all just fun weapons or mastery fodder.

 

The grinlok has always been an underwhelming weapon.  I wanted it to be good, but it has always fallen short in the actual performance.