The Euphona Prime is alt fire done wrong.

[Senguash]

For those that havent investigated the stats for the new prime access yet, the Euphona Prime features an alt fire that has different stats from the main one. The differing stats are as follows:

MAIN 

 - PELLET COUNT: 1 PELLET PER ROUND
 - PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 325.00
 - IMPACT: 292.50
 - PUNCTURE: 16.25
 - SLASH: 16.25
 - CRITICAL CHANCE: 30.00%
 - CRITICAL MULTIPLIER: 2.50x
 - STATUS CHANCE: 2.00% 

ALT  

 - PELLET COUNT: 10 PELLETS PER ROUND
 - PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 880.00
 - IMPACT: 44.00
 - PUNCTURE: 176.00
 - SLASH: 660.00
 - CRITICAL CHANCE: 2.00%
 - CRITICAL MULTIPLIER: 2.00x
 - STATUS CHANCE: 30.00%  

So the gimmick is that it's either crit based or status based. The reason this bothers me is because I can't build for both. If I put on Pistol Gambit and Target Cracker along with pure damage mods the alt fire is gonna be a waste of ammo compared to the main fire. If I put on all 4 60%status/60%elemental mods and get all 10 pellets to allways proc status on the alt fire, like the Tigris Prime, the main fire is gonna be a waste of ammo compared to the alt fire.  

So why is this a bad?

An example of alt fire done right is the zarr. The main fire on the zarr is incredibly effective at long ranges but will straight up kill the user in close quarters, and the alt fire will vaporize anything thats right in front of you with no selfharm done, but has a large spread and will deal literally zero damage to enemies further than 15 meters away.  

This is great design because it forces the player to not just use one mode, but to switch depending on the situation, and it punishes you hard if you don't.  

The Euphona Prime on the other hand, might as well be two different weapons.
It essentially suffers from the same issue as the Dark Split-Sword. Two-form weapons, or weapons with more than one firing mode just fall flat if the only effective thing to do, is to use one mode exclusively.  

It just ends up as two weapons crammed into one. I see why that would make Prime Access easier to sell, but it certainly isn't good design.

[Trissila]

While I mostly agree, I think that it makes a little more sense in a game where there are a limited number of weapon slots. True, almost every player will have plenty of slots by the time they're MR14 and can actually use the thing, but the possibility exists that it might be a player's last slot, and in that particular edge case it's nice to have two weapons taking up one slot.

 

Though I do agree that it's silly to have the two modes be such polar opposites in a game where you have to build to a weapon's strengths for it to be viable, and thus one mode will always be useless.

[Seinerweisen]

19 minutes ago, Senguash said:

 

 

The Euphona Prime on the other hand, might as well be two different weapons.
It essentially suffers from the same issue as the Dark Split-Sword. Two-form weapons, or weapons with more than one firing mode just fall flat if the only effective thing to do, is to use one mode exclusively.  

ds

Bingo. Use one mode exclusively. Euphona is a secondary weapon..SECONDARY. Are you trying to turn it into a Primary weapon? Secondaries are usually used 1. When you are down. 2 when you are carrying Data mass. 3. Secondary Sorties. Like what do you want? DE gave us 2 weapons in 1. A shotgun and a pistol. Can you normally change modes with your other secondary weapons? No. Will the shotgun work just fine without 100% Status?...Yes..... It will be fine I promise. I personaly will build for the shotgun. 4x 60% elementals+Lethal Torrent+Barrel Diffusiont+Hornet Strike+ Primed Pistol Gambit. Base Crit multiplier of 2.5 aint nothin to sneeze at imo... better than a multiplier of 2x... or 1.5x. The choice is yours.  

[Azlen]

This is kind of how anything adaptable is.... want massive range? You won't have as much strength. Want max duration? Your range will hurt. It's why builds exist and why we have tradeoffs. You don't get everything you want 'just cuz i want eeet'

[Vox_Preliator]

Well of course you can't use both at 100% efficiency, that's basically the entire point of the modding system.  The Zarr can get away with it because the Cannon mode is a danger to yourself, so the trade-off is built in, be careless and become a smear on the floor, and the barrage mode has poor range.  'Cause you can't hurt yourself with the Euphona, instead specializing causes one mode to simply be less effective instead of an active hindrance.  Or spread yourself thin and end up with two decent but not ground-breaking weapons in one slot.

As an aside, while we're on the topic of altfire, I'd appreciate there being a per-weapon toggle to switch between the way Stradavar and Zarr do multiple firing modes and the way the Euphona does.

[TotallyLagging]

I'm just gonna build for crit/status when I get my hands on it.

 

Hornet Strike / Barrel Diffusion / Lethal Torrent / Primed Pistol Gambit

60/60 elemental / 60/60 elemental / 60/60 elemental / Primed Target Cracker

 

The shotgun blast won't proc on every pellet but it'll still proc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Alternatively don't be a scrub and get 2 of those Euphonas boi

Edited March 1, 2017 by TotallyLagging

[Rakosta_Kai]

...It's too bad we don't have different configuration tabs to allow players to mod Euphona in different ways to account for both pistol and scattergun builds.

Euphona  isn't weak in either mode regardless of how it's modded and is top tier if you mod for the specific fire mode in question.

To me, the description of a weapon like Zarr (which removes the alternative in alt-fire) is the epitome of alt fire done wrong. 

...to each their own.

In all, it's a really good hybrid weapon but the fact that it can't be entirely min-maxed is going to irk some folks "just 'cuz".

My only real gripe with it deals with the old complaint of not being able to assign different forma polarities based on the configuration itself

If a player puts the work into forma;ing the item, they should be able to pick what the polarities on each config looks like seperately

Config A might need to have a bunch of  and Config B might be making use of some heavy  and fewer . Stands to reason that the polarities should be able to be chosen for each config individually as opposed to being potentially forced to own two copies of the same weapon if the builds are tight. 

 

 

 

[(PSN)hahajake]

Or you could use both types of mods you mentioned. Not that hard.

[NightmareT12]

1 hour ago, Seinerweisen said:

Bingo. Use one mode exclusively. Euphona is a secondary weapon..SECONDARY. Are you trying to turn it into a Primary weapon? Secondaries are usually used 1. When you are down. 2 when you are carrying Data mass. 3. Secondary Sorties. Like what do you want? DE gave us 2 weapons in 1. A shotgun and a pistol. Can you normally change modes with your other secondary weapons? No. Will the shotgun work just fine without 100% Status?...Yes..... It will be fine I promise. I personaly will build for the shotgun. 4x 60% elementals+Lethal Torrent+Barrel Diffusiont+Hornet Strike+ Primed Pistol Gambit. Base Crit multiplier of 2.5 aint nothin to sneeze at imo... better than a multiplier of 2x... or 1.5x. The choice is yours.  

That's the worst argumenet I've ever seen in favor of not changing how the alt fire of a weapon is performed.

Like really. What's going to be so wrong from having both? You'll use one mode for some things, or one mode for the others. Kinda like Zarr. Like Stradavar.

I mean, you could use the same argument for the other weapons I emntioned had they released this way (because precedents) and it would have been the worst idea ever still.

[(XBOX)YoungGunn82]

Looks like shotgun mode is the way to go. Crit mode is meh

Serrartion, Lethal, barrel, x2 dual stat x2 elemental, embedded catylizer. = 3 shot a 100 heavy. 

 

Edited March 1, 2017 by (XB1)FCastle74

[Tesseract7777]

I simply disagree completely with the entire premise of this thread. I do not think there is anything wrong with a weapon with two fire modes where you need to mod between missions if you want either fire mode to be fully optimal. 

It's called making you make a choice. Weapon modding is supposed to be about making decisions and not just having your cake and eating it too. If you want to optimize one mode, either status or crit, you can mod for that. Or you can mod it more generically for straight damage and switch between the modes more during the mission. This gives you three distinct options. I do not see anything wrong with this or the design of the weapon. I think this is alt fire done right. 

[hukurokuju5]

alt fire has too many limitations for what it does.  you might as well bring almost any other shotgun if you are modding for it.  In the case where you modding for just crit, the altfire suffersbecause the crit mods are wasted on its incompatible stats.

It does have two different styles of shooting, but the modding conflict is definitely crushing its potential to be like the zarr

[Beggining]

Welp.

Zarr was a really good alt fire mode because it doesn't have a heavy (or any, at least I can't find any in the wiki) change in stats. It focuses on the playstyle (close range and log range) instead of stats.

And at the very least, it's better than the Stradavar, which outright boosted stats on one firing type and leaving the other only for PvP and popping bubbles.

Is it cool for Euphona Prime to have two types, thus having more diversity in its build? Yeah. Is it effective? Meh; it encourages you switch up your build, focus on one type, or create a build that can do both without being too effective.

Personally, I'd like it to be a pure crit gun because a crit shotgun just sounds enticing and because every other shotgun we have is status, but that's just me. Making both crit and status viable can be annoying :/

[Rolunde]

3 hours ago, Seinerweisen said:

. I personaly will build for the shotgun. 4x 60% elementals+Lethal Torrent+Barrel Diffusiont+Hornet Strike+ Primed Pistol Gambit.

This is what I plan to do too.

Nothing wrong with the 60/60 elemental mods. They're even pretty handy in that they're all "v's" as well as having a low capacity cost. 

EZPZ

~R~

[HolidayPi3]

TBH the only thing that irks me about it is that alt fire / primary fire aren't different "modes." Your primary fire is always a slug. So if you mod for status, you're gonna have to hit alt fire for every shot. Pretty uncomfortable.

[(PSN)Tactless_Ninja]

3 hours ago, Seinerweisen said:

Euphona is a secondary weapon..SECONDARY. Are you trying to turn it into a Primary weapon?

I think we went past the point of no return when we got a melee that shoots bullets and has infinite ammo. Oh and Hornet Strike has 220% damage compared to Serration's 165%.

2 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

I think this is alt fire done right. 

Alt fire is supposed to be complimentary. This seems invasive and punishing, especially going by how status/crit builds are either all or nothing. While this does go by the spirit of what modding is, it's not what alt fire is supposed to be.

[Tesseract7777]

11 minutes ago, (PS4)Tactless_Ninja said:

I think we went past the point of no return when we got a melee that shoots bullets and has infinite ammo. Oh and Hornet Strike has 220% damage compared to Serration's 165%.

Alt fire is supposed to be complimentary. This seems invasive and punishing, especially going by how status/crit builds are either all or nothing. While this does go by the spirit of what modding is, it's not what alt fire is supposed to be.

Again, I disagree -- although you are obviously entitled to disagree with me. I don't see alternate fire as being "supposed to be" anything. It can be whatever our or their imaginations can come up with. Alternate fire just means there is an alternate method of fire, I don't see how it is supposed to fit some particular mold... why?

[(PSN)Tactless_Ninja]

Just now, Tesseract7777 said:

Again, I disagree -- although you are obviously entitled to disagree with me. I don't see alternate fire as being "supposed to be" anything. It can be whatever our or their imaginations can come up with. Alternate fire just means there is an alternate method of fire, I don't see how it is supposed to fit some particular mold... why?

Popular gaming tropes? Even in realistic military shootans my rifle can shoot grenades. Design is design. It has intended purpose. They don't gloss over where the artist sneezed when there's an art exhibit....at least I don't think they do....

Anyways what was the intended purpose here? What it turned into was prioritizing loadout space which severely limits adaptability. Oh crap the enemy is really close now should I use the underbarrel shotty? Naw my regular fire is modded to be more powerful so I'll just keep using that.

[Rolunde]

What? So they made it an alt fire trigger like the Quanta rather than an alt-to-change-modes like the Strada/Zarr.

FML

I really thought it'd be swappable, sigh...

Well, I guess I'll see what I think of it whenever I finally get to use it, but my enthusiasm is dimmed somewhat now. =p

[Voltage]

+1, I agree the stats for the crits and status look nice, but I will need to always use 1 because it suffers from stradavar problems. Atleast this weapon has some good stats though and doesn't require a broken system called rivens to make it viable (stradavar)

[Morgana_Arcana]

I don't see why they didn't just make it 2 weapons. Since alt fire doesn't change how you can use it within one mission, because of mods, it only serves the purpose of accessing the "right" gun that's crammed into the slot.

So then why not just build 2?
Well, that doesn't change how I'd have to remember to fire using ONLY THE ALT FIRE BUTTON on one, but not the other.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Camisoul

[Lawmonark]

Maybe weapons like this need a second mod stick... just for their alt fire.

 

[Ragingwasabi]

alternate fire is toggle-able in mission. i.e. the alternate fire is meant to be used in mission. so the OP is right.

current situation of being able to mod for only one mode and screwing the other mode is not the way. why add a hotkey for alternate fire in the first place? could have just made a toggle button in the arsenal menu.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Ragingwasabi

[(PSN)obsidiancurse]

Have to agree with the op on this, simply because to my mind an alt fire should give flexibility in mission, not just the load out screen.

not sure why they did this, they have the data, zarr loved, split sword derided but which option do they go for?

the compromise builds touted here are fairly pointless as there are other weapons that do that much better and they aren't walled behind a ridiculous mastery lock. Honestly, how does this justify a mr14 requirement at present?

[(XBOX)Godlike13]

Not gonna lie, as a consol player, between the alt fire not being a toggled mode, its default fire being the non hit scan slug, and the lack of mod synergy between the two ways it fires, all my excitement for this weapon is pretty much gone.

I was looking forward to it too. Shame. Gun looks sweet, and I was looking forward to Banshees signature shotgun. But to seriously use this gun as a shotgun is just too unpractical on console.