Dev Workshop: Weapons, Mastery Ranks, and Stats!

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

19 hours ago, FatalOath said:

Those aren't "missing," those are beam weapons. I hope when they come around to being changed, the Phage and Synapse see some improvement

 

18 hours ago, Trentiel said:

Convectrix: Continuous Beam weapon

Phage: Continuous Beam weapon

Lenz: New, well balanced. Nice power, with ample trade offs.

Miter: Has been buffed multiple times. Has an augment that easily dispatches nullifier bubbles.

The first two, is obvious. They're not included because they're beam weapons, and beam weapons are getting their own set of changes.

The next two are both balanced for their current MR. 8 and 6 respectively. Likely, this is why they were not changed.

Also add, Pyrana (MR12) is not getting changed either. Likely because it performs as intended.

...

Upon re-examination of the Mutalist Quanta. It's a MR2, Research lab gun... takes a forma and 5 mutagen mass. Has negligible crit and status. A secondary fire with mechanics that are spotty and broken when using elemental mods. This gun has low base stats, a hard to use secondary fire, a massive build cost in both resources and credits. I know a new player MR7, still doesn't know what Clans even are. There's something kind of weird about putting a MR2 requirement on lab tech.

I'm going to suggest that they passed over this weapon because it meets the DPS requirements of a MR2 rifle... without even considering that it has no place being a MR2 rifle. Quanta and Quanta Vandal are MR4 weapons. Although we don't know what changes are going to hit the Quanta yet.

It's a joke gun. It doesn't have to be. But it is.

I'm going to hold out hope that it simply got lumped in with the Beam weapons on accident. Please DE. Infested shield gun is neat idea.

So I made that comment last night b4 bed and figured out my mistake just b4 I left home so couldn't update my comment to take them out the list :/ In my mind at the time they registered as Shotguns and I forgot to take into account they also count as Beam Weapons. On a side note I remember reking things with a Viral/Corrosive/Blast Puncture Through Phage, that thing used to be grt, it's kinda meh at best now :( (I think it is still my most used Primary Weapon) so I'm looking forward to seeing what DE will do with beam weapons.

Lenz is in a fairly good spot atm (as long as you're not caught in the blast radius XD). Miter is a weird weapon, for me it still doesn't really feel that useful (Looking at the Riven Disposition of Miter, I believe I am not the only one that feels that way about it) unless it's in an Eviscerators hands, then the weapon is suddenly godlike... I know the weapon is based off of the Ripper from Unreal Tournament (Now that weapon was a lot of fun, you could legit 1 shot decapitate someone with a trick shot around a corner if you're aim was good enough. You could also fire at someone with a Shield Belt and decapitate yourself too), I think it would be kinda cool if the Miter worked more like UTs Ripper.

Mutalist Quanta is a cool gun, not necessarily a good one, but somewhat unique. I feel most infested weapons are kind of like this although some end up being very good because whatever makes them unique also happens to be very strong sometimes. I have one mostly because of it's uniqueness and the feint possibility it will be buffed. If DE truly did miss it and catch it on the beam update, that would be nice (It's possible that DE just categorized anything with Quanta in the name as a beam weapon, kinda like the mistake I made, but in reverse).

The reason I didn't mention Pyrana is because I wanted to just list some example Primaries that weren't in the list I could think of off the top of my head, it is worth mentioning in general though. I believe the Pyrana is in a decent spot power wise compared to other Secondary Weapons, it could use some tweaking though, it has low Crit and Status chance but it does fire relatively fast and has a good amount of slash DMG on it. I think Shotgun Secondaries in general need tweaking though, they are just so short range I hardly see the point in using them most of the time (I say as I have Formad my AkBronco Prime several times -.-) and the DMG falloff on them can be brutal, unlike Primary Shotguns, half damage isn't the hard cap for minimum DMG on Shotgun Secondaries.

 

Side note/tangent here, I have used many powerful secondaries and have Catalyst/Formad most of the top tier ones to make them almost as powerful as you can conceivably get them, This applies to Primaries, and Melees as well. The thing that I have learned is that both Primary and Melee weapons currently outclass secondaries handily, it isn't even close any more, it would be nice if secondaries get some sort of boost to at least make the gap smaller. Some could argue Secondaries are supposed to be less powerful, because they're secondary, but I feel the gap is far to large atm, especially with Melee weapons, some that even have quite good range, and don't care about ammo, are about on par with Primaries. That just seems weird to me, so I think closing the gap a bit would be nice.

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

22 minutes ago, schilds said:

Rivens are not there to balance weapons (and have fixed stats). Such rivens would be a redundant and overly complex system for balancing. Perhaps more importantly, as it's difficult (impossible?) not to have some kind of meta, having static rivens would just make that meta inaccessible for many players.

 

The intent of Rivens is to diversify weapon usage and so are based on weapon popularity, not weapon stats. (How well they do that is a different discussion :-P)

I don't feel this is exactly true, the original idea DE had for Riven Mods that they pitched to the community was that they would help bridge the gap between weaker weapons and more powerful ones (this doesn't mean fix or make on par, merely help bridge the gap). This is reflected by Riven Dispositions as weapons with a higher Disposition will have a more powerful Riven Mod. The reason I believe DE didn't go with Weapon Power for Riven Dispositions is because it can be hard to judge the power of a weapon when there are so many and some strange but powerful builds that some end up using (Such as Synoid Simulor not using Multishot as it actually weakened the weapon before it was changed). Basing it off of popularity means whatever weapons are widely used, and by extension are in the meta, will have weaker Riven mods, usually these weapons tend to be the most powerful, so the system works for the most part when it comes to that, it does however get thrown off by weapon variants that have vast power differences.

The reason Riven Mods are seen more as a power boost for already powerful weapons rather than helping to bridge the gap is because of the limit on how many you can have at any given time (something you can change by buying slots with platinum but most people feel this isn't worth it, for reasons that I hope are obvious). If this limitation wasn't there, people would be far less inclined to just get rid of the Riven mods they have for weaker weapons in favor of ones for better weapons.

Rivens being static honestly would be silly, there are already static mods for specific weapons out there, most of them being Syndicate mods, so yes it would totally be redundant. It is also basically impossible to make a game "Metaless" there is always a best way to build something in any game as far as I have experienced, if not on paper then because of a particularly effective strategy behind using something that is supposed to be just as powerful as everything else. Some games embrace this, some fight it, but I have never seen it disappear, only shift.

 

TLDR: I feel you're mostly correct but wanted to elaborate upon your points with the way I see the Riven System. Static Riven mod Stats = Bad Idea.

[FifthWrath]

No Rework for Bolto ?

[Jwanito]

DE can you please at least give the tonkor projectiles that explode on impact?

its not that much to ask, almost nobody uses that weapon and the proposed changes wont make even a little difference

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

Just now, Jwanito said:

DE can you please at least give the tonkor projectiles that explode on impact?

its not that much to ask, almost nobody uses that weapon and the proposed changes wont make even a little difference

I actually hate how Tonkor fires, and even when it was considered basically the best weapon in the game along with Synoid Simulor. I didn't use it mostly because I hate the way it fires. I personally thing this change does help it though because you can just skim it off the floor in front of a group on enemies to kill them (This is good mostly because explosive weapons don't headshot anymore). Also if you miss there is a higher chance the projectile will at least explode near some enemies provided the group is big enough. I'm not saying it's grt, but I think it will be better than what we currently have.

[Duffy1]

I know the chance of this being seen is low, but with Beam weapons and fire rate, why not have a reduction multiplier, similar to how bows have x2.0 buff with fire rate mods. Reduce the effect of fire rate mods on beam weapons by having a x0.5 multiplier. That stops beam weapons, of which have a naturally high fire rate, from getting to stupid.

 

[tojo01]

The grinlok, latron variants and burst rifles are viable again! Thanks so much DE for dusting off those beautifully crafted weapons.

Conversely, did the pandero really need those nerfs? Quite a few have voiced their opposition on this matter and I'm onboard with them. I too believe it's already in a good place. Also not a big fan of the nerf to the dual toxocysts's gimmick. Having the gimmick refresh after every headshot was a pleasant surprise, but having its duration shortened to two seconds feels too little for the effort. 

And as others have pointed out, it's interesting to see a trend in nerfing base damage with compensation via an increase in crit chance and damage. Hmmm....  

Lastly:

"Some weapon crafting costs will be revisited, and PoE resources will be used if it makes sense to better integrate a mix of resources into the game."

Hopefully this won't cause burnout by requiring unreasonable quantities of those resources.

[Gentrash]

Can you add base range and damage to synapse please.

[Landpaddle]

Yeah, the Pandero nerfs are pretty mystifying to me as well.

While I owned the weapon and put many forma in it, there are many weapons which outperformed it in practice. Pandero's theoretical damage output if all fan-fire shots connected with heads was stellar, but being pulled out of ADS and having massively reduced accuracy made aimed headshots just as viable in many situations while also being more ammo efficient.

If possible, it would make many users happy if the Pandero was instead bumped up in MR requirement instead of artificially hammered down to fit the new budgeting system at its current lock. I still believe there's many viable alternatives for strong semi-auto secondaries in the low MR range, and I don't think newer players will be struggling to gain higher MR with the amount of frames, companions, sentinels, achievements, and solid low-lock weapons choices readily available for quick ascension through the ranks.

[Sickle_Slayer]

I can't tell you how excited all of these changes are making me... Some of these weapons have been deserving buffs for a very long time (Latron prime, Stradavar, Grinlok, Karak wraith).

Snipetron Vandal: Please Consider this.....

If I may, there is only once change that I could ask for.... Could the Snipetron Vandal have less recoil? The Vectis prime out classes the Snipetron Vandal in every way, and has very little recoil. Could the Snipetron Vandal please have about 60% less recoil? That is all I ask.... It doesn't even have to be that much.

Still, absolutely wonderful work, thank you DE Weapon Designer!

[Sickle_Slayer]

Ok now to get semi critical. (This is just small nitpicking... so no need to really pay much heed to it)

 The Latron wraith changes hurt. That gun along with Latron Prime both rely on their headshot crits, and now if the Prime has the highest cc out of them, it still only has 22% cc. They both have a low riven disposition, and now the Prime needs a bare minimum of +205% cc to get to to 100% crit. Out of the 4 possible type of rivens a person can roll, now only 1 of them would ever bring the cc of the Latron Prime above 95%. A riven now needs to have 2 buffs and a curse, otherwise the other 3 possible types of rolls (With the highest possible cc rolls) leave the Latron with a cc of  84-94%.

I can't really complain... the Latron Prime is getting a wonderful buff. But it needs consistency, and one of the biggest things that kills the gun is not being able to consistently crit. And I feel like a riven should be able to complete a weapon, but with only 22% crit, the weapon is out of sync with its disposition. It would take an absolutely amazing roll with a very specific pretense to begin with (not including the other stats that roll on the riven), just so you can get a fully reliable Latron Prime at 100% crit. Besides the Latron Prime, now the wraith is even worse off, with only 20% crit it will never be able to even get up to 94% cc with the best possible roll from a riven. These are both weapons that rely on getting a cc and cd riven for them to be viable against enemies over lvl 60. Before it was hard enough just to get a riven with both those stats, and now even if RNGesus blesses you, you won't be able to bring out the weapons full potential.

Still, I love the overall changes that I'm seeing, some of the weapon names and buffs brought tears to my eyes when I read them!

[doomagent13]

Although it is hard to say without trying them out, most of those changes look pretty good.  The various improvements to lethality and/or usability will be nice.

 

However, there are a few that I would probably reject, if given a choice.  Specifically, I think I would prefer the current versions of (Prisma) Angstrum, (Sancti) Castanas, Kulstar, and Talons.  The reductions in their max ammo pools seem excessive, if not completely unnecessary.  They are already quite powerful and have rather small ammo pools, and the buffs don't seem like they would make up for the increased concern over managing ammo.  For (Sancti) Castanas and Talons, the multishot spread could hinder usability, at least if it doesn't respect accuracy.

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

With the Riven Mod I have, I can get just above 97% Crit with Latron Wraith and just above 103% Crit with Latron Prime. I like that my Prime will have >100% Crit but my 5 Forma are in my Wraith which currently has >100% Crit. It's possible it my Wraith could get >100% Crit from Critical Delay but that would be such a giant power decrease for the weapon I don't think it's worth it. Honestly, I prefer that 5% Crit more than the DMG boost.

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

4 minutes ago, doomagent13 said:

Specifically, I think I would prefer the current versions of (Prisma) Angstrum, (Sancti) Castanas, Kulstar, and Talons.  The reductions in their max ammo pools seem excessive, if not completely unnecessary.  They are already quite powerful and have rather small ammo pools, and the buffs don't seem like they would make up for the increased concern over managing ammo.

While I share your concern for ammo issues (it's the reason I nvr use Machine pistols). I believe that these weapons are far better on paper than in practice, they just seem to do far too little DMG. Honestly I use them for trash clearing more than anything else but feel my Tigris does a better job of that, and can kill big enemies too. It would be nice if DE just reverted the changes to max ammo but kept the buffs (I might actually use them if they did this). You can also use Carrier as it has that ammo mutation skill to help with the low ammo pool, unlike machine pistols, the amount of ammo you get per drop will probably actually be reasonable.

[Sickle_Slayer]

4 minutes ago, I-Am-MoMoJoJo said:

With the Riven Mod I have, I can get just above 97% Crit with Latron Wraith and just above 103% Crit with Latron Prime. I like that my Prime will have >100% Crit but my 5 Forma are in my Wraith which currently has >100% Crit. It's possible it my Wraith could get >100% Crit from Critical Delay but that would be such a giant power decrease for the weapon I don't think it's worth it. Honestly, I prefer that 5% Crit more than the DMG boost.

What are your stats? All of the riven calculators I can find say that the highest +cc on a Latron riven is +218.5%. If the Latron Wraith only has 20% crit, then the highest you could get is 93.6% crit. They might be wrong on the cap though, what are the stats of your riven? I guess thee is always critical delay, but a Latron build is already fairly cramped when you try to put a riven into it, and less fire rate can kind of hurt when you're going up against higher levels.

[JetstreamAlex]

Acrid, Stug, Embolist...?!?

[Duffy1]

On 2/6/2018 at 8:22 AM, [DE]Rebecca said:

Twin Gremlins

Mastery Rank increased from 0 to 5

Damage increased from 30 to 37

Status chance increased from 10% to 15%

Critical chance increased from 10% to 15%

Increased reload speed from 2 secs to 1.1 secs

Increased Projectile Speed

Improved Projectile trail FX

Please increase the magazine size, Real life, non weaponized nail guns hold more than 15 nails each... Its the biggest flaw with the weapon. That being said, I love the Twin Gremlins, My favored secondary by far, the weapon no one thought could, but does. I am happy to see it receive a buff.

Also, I have no idea why its not already, but please add the currently hidden stats weapons have, for example, Melee Range, like, why is that hidden?

[I-Am-MoMoJoJo]

12 minutes ago, Sickle_Slayer said:

What are your stats? All of the riven calculators I can find say that the highest +cc on a Latron riven is +218.5%. If the Latron Wraith only has 20% crit, then the highest you could get is 93.6% crit. They might be wrong on the cap though, what are the stats of your riven? I guess thee is always critical delay, but a Latron build is already fairly cramped when you try to put a riven into it, and less fire rate can kind of hurt when you're going up against higher levels.

Just to clarify, my Latron Wraith wont 100% crit if this change goes through, my Latron Prime will, but barely (This is with Point Strike included). I guess I basically got a god roll on the Riven Mod in about the region your saying (A friend bought the Riven Mod for me, had no idea how good it was compared to others, only that it made my Wraith Red Crit sometimes. Also I tried loging on WF to check, then my Display Driver crashed, yaaay), kinda funny that, even with a god roll, still cant 100% with a Latron Wraith of this change goes through :(

The other mod I just remembered exists is Argon Scope which can make the Wraith Red Crit with what I imagine would be a decent Crit Chance roll, it has the downside of needing headshots but it doesn't slow Fire Rate at least (The problem is I think this is a mod I still don't own, hmm, may have to fix that).

[Infi_Reborn]

So, we are going to ignore the fact that the Dread now rivals the draw speed of the Rakta Cernos.

[-Heizen]

I was really hoping to buff my Skana Prime this time... R.I.P. feelings.

[(XBOX)WildeSau98]

Happy to see my favorite Secondary not being nerfed or sth, rly love my Zakti, but I'm pretty sad about the fact that my fav primary, the Burston, doesn't get buffed a bit more, though I love the status Chance increase a lot! 

[(XBOX)BigLithuanian]

I'm MR 12 and now due to these changes have several weapons above my mastery(my Boltor Prime is now 2 MR above me). I can still use those weapons right?(I'm pretty sure you can)

[Xmodusterz]

@(Xbox One)BigLithuanian

Yea you can still use any weapon you already own prior to changes.

[RacerDelux]

With opticor's MR requirement increase, it needs higher crit. Not by a lot. 5% increase should do.

[cursedmoon13]

What, no Mutalist Quanta? Is it being lumped in with the Quanta as a variant, even though it isn't a beam weapon? I realize it's better than most people think it is, but it could still use some attention.