Stug tweak suggestions

[Fractalisomega]

The Stug is a weird gun.... it deals corrosive... has delayed damage output and can do self damage.... all around it's quite interesting. However, it's not all that great to play with... the biggest issue that it faces is that your allies are likely to kill the enemy you've placed globs on before the globs themselves deal their full damage.

Back when I played a game called Spiral Knights I faced a similar problem when using a gun with similar mechanics called the Biohazard: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Biohazard

Much like the Stug this gun relied on stacking up damage and then detonating it yourself for a massive blast later and an almost guaranteed chance to poison your enemies (In SK this meant a debuff to their defense and offense, similar to corrosive melting armor)

In this respect the Stug is superior due to it's DoT that the globs do to near enemies and the fact that the globs self detonate which saves the player a lot of potential lost damage.

 

But that doesn't mean it couldn't be better. So I have a list of suggestions for your consideration:

Final blast: When the enemy dies all of the existing globs in them immediately detonate... this would make it an idea weapon to meting out damage and corrosion to crowds of enemies

Share the love: When the enemy dies all of the existing globs... fly out from the enemy in various directions, getting a small extension to their timer, and can stick onto nearby enemies... this makes it so all the globs have a chance to get direct damage on the enemy

Catalyst: When a globbed enemy is hit by a status (other than Corrosion or a status that has been modded onto the gun) all of the globs attacked would detonate dealing it's corrosion damage and a chance to deal the status that set them off... this would add in an element of teamwork for groups or synergy for your other weapons.

GET IT OFF!!: Basically have it so bodyshots slow down the enemy they are on and cause nearby enemies to also slow down.... if the glob is attached to the head the enemy would be completely blinded and would attack wildly (similar to radiation) dealing damage to other nearby enemies.

Web shot: Instead of charging up a single large glob the alt fire would now launch a net of globs that flies through the air and covers an area... after a set distance the net would reach a max size. All the area in between each glob would also deal light DoT (not as much as a direct hit glob) and would detonate along with the rest for slightly lower damage than an individual glob.

 

Edit (9 hours later)

UT Biorifle has another possible way to go about changing this weapon

It is very similar in terms of shot types (rapidfire and charge) but far more interesting

 

 

I'm not saying that ALL of these needs to be added.... I'd be happy with just ONE of these tossed in... something to help it compete with the immediate damage guns

 

______________________

I'm just throwing these out there, I find the Stug to be a fun and unorthodox weapon. I just believe it needs a little more love.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Fractalisomega
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[Archistopheles]

10 minutes ago, Fractalisomega said:

I find the Stug to be a fun and unorthodox weapon. I just believe it needs a little more love.

It used to be a hidden gem. They nerfed it's damage.

Hopefully it's still on the board to be reworked, but I'm afraid it will be just another acrid; a forgotten weapon.

[BrazilianJoe]

Stug and Acrid used to be great. 

The changes above all seem cool, but there are too many effects. It`s really a collection of effects that could be spread over a series of stug-like weapons. 

After a damage pass, immediately blowing up the balls and corroding on enemy death or shooting the blob is enough for Stug itself. 

Save the other effects for other weapons, but by all means make them.

[Urlan]

I also wonder if we will be able to get the bigger brother wielded by the Nox.

[Paradoxbomb]

I just recently got a Riven for the Stug that boosts both it's damage and projectile flight speed, and while it certainly makes it a lot more feasible it still feels very unwieldy and not that practical to use. Seeing as we'll likely get to use the Nox's primary counterpart in the near future, it would be nice to see the Stug receive some love in the form of a few mechanical tweaks.

Personally, my vote goes to making it a mine gun where the globs remain on the floor until an enemy wanders too close or they simply detonate on their own after a certain amount of time, and stacking globs increases their damage, AoE, and the amount of time they can lay dormant on the ground before detonating. This would add some value to stacking them laying them in choke-points across the map rather than just spraying them at the enemies directly. That said, maybe the Stug's projectiles could inherit the slow-down effect that the Nox's gun has when fired directly at enemies, just to add a bit more utility to them and make up for the explosion delay.

Additionally, give it's alt-fire the Zarr/Stratavar treatment, where the alt-fire button switches the trigger type between charge and full-auto mode. And let us tweak the color of the globs; I'm kinda concerned why DE insists on us spurting these ambiguous balls of white fluid at our adversaries.

[peterc3]

20 minutes ago, Paradoxbomb said:

I just recently got a Riven for the Stug that boosts both it's damage and projectile flight speed, and while it certainly makes it a lot more feasible it still feels very unwieldy and not that practical to use. Seeing as we'll likely get to use the Nox's primary counterpart in the near future, it would be nice to see the Stug receive some love in the form of a few mechanical tweaks.

Personally, my vote goes to making it a mine gun where the globs remain on the floor until an enemy wanders too close or they simply detonate on their own after a certain amount of time, and stacking globs increases their damage, AoE, and the amount of time they can lay dormant on the ground before detonating. This would add some value to stacking them laying them in choke-points across the map rather than just spraying them at the enemies directly. That said, maybe the Stug's projectiles could inherit the slow-down effect that the Nox's gun has when fired directly at enemies, just to add a bit more utility to them and make up for the explosion delay.

Additionally, give it's alt-fire the Zarr/Stratavar treatment, where the alt-fire button switches the trigger type between charge and full-auto mode. And let us tweak the color of the globs; I'm kinda concerned why DE insists on us spurting these ambiguous balls of white fluid at our adversaries.

This is an entirely different weapon. There would be no point in calling it the Stug.

[Gravitus123]

4 hours ago, Archistopheles said:

It used to be a hidden gem. They nerfed it's damage.

Hopefully it's still on the board to be reworked, but I'm afraid it will be just another acrid; a forgotten weapon.

Poor Acrid i even got a great riven for it but unfortunately its still not very good past lvl 40-50

[Paradoxbomb]

4 hours ago, peterc3 said:

This is an entirely different weapon. There would be no point in calling it the Stug.

Not really. It'd literally just be improving the Stug's projectiles by giving them an actually useful AoE (based on charge/stacks) and letting them detonate early if an enemy gets too close them rather than only after a set amount of time. It certainly improves the weapon's versatility by giving the charging/stacking mechanic an actual purpose and giving it an added niche, but the core mechanics of the weapon would still be intact and you'd still be able to use it exactly the same way it's used now if you're so inclined.

[NinjaZeku]

Bigger AoE (especially but not only on charged / stacked shots) and mild proximity sensor (or maybe a Tether Grenades-like Augment), gimme :D

[Doomclaaw]

I am pretty happy with stug as-is except one thing: can't add range mods to it to increase blast radius.... that alone has annoyed me for a very long time. I do agree having the blobs be like mini proximity mines would be cool if they were walked over but it's not really needed because they already have such a short fuse anyway.  At the very least bigger and better effect with fully charged shot is needed to polish the gun up to modern standards.