Change Phage from Shotgun to Rifle Ammo

[Stoner]

Title.

With the recent changes to beam weapons, Phage got an increased fire rate and ammo pool but it is still considered as a shotgun and still uses the rare shotgun ammo. Why? Can we make it use rifle ammo instead? This thing will run out of ammo in no time and good luck trying to get it back because shotgun ammo only gives you 10 per pickup. 

Edited February 22, 2018 by Stoner
Changed title and OP for clarification

[ObviousLee]

No. Hell no. Absolutely not. There's no need to change it to rifle, especially since its been a shotgun for four years. Plus you know, great shotgun mods. Increase your damage output, and your ammo economy won't suffer. Also carrier and mutation mods exist. 

[TVictorian]

The ability to use shotgun mods is amazing and is worth a little trouble in ammo economy. Having to rely on carrier sucks, but it's not a problem most of the time.

 

Also, Phage isn't the only beam shotgun. Convectrix also falls into that category.

[Zahnny]

Why? It's amazing as it is. Sure it's ammo can be scarce at times but depending on what you're doing with it, it's easy to get back.

Plus look into how Shotguns handle 100% status chance. Because it applies to the Phage making it amazing.

[Stoner]

9 minutes ago, ObviousLee said:

No. Hell no. Absolutely not. There's no need to change it to rifle, especially since its been a shotgun for four years. Plus you know, great shotgun mods. Increase your damage output, and your ammo economy won't suffer. Also carrier and mutation mods exist. 

Then change its ammo to rifle and keep it as shotgun. 

 

7 minutes ago, TVictorian said:

Also, Phage isn't the only beam shotgun. Convectrix also falls into that category.

Yea, convectrix has the same problem. 

 

2 minutes ago, Zahnny said:

Why? It's amazing as it is. Sure it's ammo can be scarce at times but depending on what you're doing with it, it's easy to get back.

Hmmm no? While its damage is much better now, play with it for 4-5 minutes and all your ammo is gone. It takes a very long time to get a decent amount of ammo back since it uses shotgun ammo. 

[Xirka]

What are you doing with it, running around holding the button down constantly? If you are even a little careful ammo is not an issue.

[Stoner]

3 minutes ago, Xirka said:

What are you doing with it, running around holding the button down constantly? If you are even a little careful ammo is not an issue.

It will always be an issue since it uses shotgun ammo pool. You will need 9 ammo drops to recover one mag. ONE. 

[Zahnny]

7 minutes ago, Stoner said:

Hmmm no? While its damage is much better now, play with it for 4-5 minutes and all your ammo is gone. It takes a very long time to get a decent amount of ammo back since it uses shotgun ammo. 

There are many ways around it. Weapons with poor ammo economy have always been a thing. You don't go to DE and complain about buffing Ember because you didn't bring or mod anything to help with her energ- Scratch that. People do.

Still, if the ammo economy is that bad and you have nothing to help. you always have a melee or secondary. Kill a decent amount of enemies and you should get enough ammo back to  have some more fun with it. Spraying and praying with a weapon will always drain its ammo. Poor ammo economy needs someone to have ways to deal with it.

[ObviousLee]

38 minutes ago, Stoner said:

Then change its ammo to rifle and keep it as shotgun. 

 

Yea, convectrix has the same problem. 

 

Hmmm no? While its damage is much better now, play with it for 4-5 minutes and all your ammo is gone. It takes a very long time to get a decent amount of ammo back since it uses shotgun ammo. 

I've done sorties, I've done an hour selkie sedna for an hour. A solid. Hour. With only slight ammo issues. You're doing something horribly wrong. What build are you using? I might be able to assist in fixing your ammo issue. 

[Stoner]

21 minutes ago, Zahnny said:

Still, if the ammo economy is that bad and you have nothing to help. you always have a melee or secondary. Kill a decent amount of enemies and you should get enough ammo back to  have some more fun with it. Spraying and praying with a weapon will always drain its ammo. Poor ammo economy needs someone to have ways to deal with it.

I'm suggesting a change that would make Phage less of a chore to use and bring it on par with Amprex and most beam weapons and you tell me to use a melee or secondary. Ok, I guess.

It's simply a thing DE has overlooked when changing beam weapons. A weapon with a 720 ammo pool and high fire rate that uses shotgun ammo is simply stupid. And why is it that Amprex, with similar fire rate, arcs between enemies and has arguably more DPS than Phage uses rifle ammo? Oh and don't forget Phage also uses more ammo since it has multiple beams. 

[BeardBlade]

Smh Stoner I expected better of you.  I thought you were complaining about the OP here, and then I see you yourself started it.

 

There's plenty of weapons with bad ammo economy.  You don't see people asking for Kohm or Boar prime to be switched to rifle ammo do you?

Just run Carrier prime with Ammo Case, or maybe even primed shotgun ammo mutation.

[ObviousLee]

3 minutes ago, Stoner said:

I'm suggesting a change that would make Phage less of a chore to use and bring it on par with Amprex and most beam weapons and you tell me to use a melee or secondary. Ok, I guess.

It's simply a thing DE has overlooked when changing beam weapons. A weapon with a 720 ammo pool and high fire rate that uses shotgun ammo is simply stupid. And why is it that Amprex, with similar fire rate, arcs between enemies and has arguably more DPS than Phage uses rifle ammo? Oh and don't forget Phage also uses more ammo since it has multiple beams. 

You understand that the amprex is slightly, emphasis on slightly here, less effective than the phage, right? The difference is marginal at best and barely noticeable but it's there.

phage using more beams uses extra ammo? what? how about no? That's not how it functions at all, even remotely. Phage has innate punch through, phage has a better base elemental, phage can hold down entire corridors for an extensive period of time. I'm starting to think you don't have a good idea how this weapon operates, and if that's the case I'm more than willing to lend what I know to help ya out.

So, tell me what build you're using and I;ll offer suggestions on what you can fix. Because you're very obviously doing something wrong if you're having issues and running outta ammo in 5 minutes.

[Stoner]

4 minutes ago, ObviousLee said:

phage using more beams uses extra ammo? what? how about no? That's not how it functions at all, even remotely. Phage has innate punch through, phage has a better base elemental, phage can hold down entire corridors for an extensive period of time. I'm starting to think you don't have a good idea how this weapon operates, and if that's the case I'm more than willing to lend what I know to help ya out.

 

Quote

Perfect accuracy and high fire rate is balanced by limited range and damage ramping up from 10% to 100% over 0.8 seconds when firing and decays back to 10% over 1 second after stopping. To help with ammo economy, Beam Weapons consume 0.5 ammo per trace - unless they are multi beam like the Quanta, Convectrix, Phage or Flamethrowers

I believe you should do some testing before making such statements. Phage has never had innate punch-through and from what Reb said in the dev workshop, it seems to use more "traces" if there's more beams. Also, yes it has a higher base damage, but Amprex has much much higher crit stats. 

I can't believe people would disagree with giving Phage a rifle ammo pool. I'm not asking for nerfs, I simply think it should be changed to be on par with other beam weapons. Why is this bad? 

PS: I'm using a 4 dual stats build with blunderbuss and seeking force.

[ObviousLee]

4 minutes ago, Stoner said:

1: I  believe you should do some testing before making such statements. Phage has never had innate punch-through and 2: from what Reb said in the dev workshop, it seems to use more "traces" if there's more beams.3: Also, yes it has a higher base damage, but Amprex has much much higher crit stats. 

I can't believe people would disagree with giving Phage a rifle ammo pool. I'm not asking for nerfs, I simply think it should be changed to be on par with other beam weapons. Why is this bad? 

4:PS: I'm using a 4 dual stats build with blunderbuss and seeking force.

1: Funny you mention that I need to do some testing, when clearly you're hilariously incorrect;

Advantages:

• Innate Viral damage – effective against Flesh and Cloned Flesh.
• High critical chance.
• Very high status chance.
  • Can reach 100% status chance with Scattering Inferno, Frigid Blast, Shell Shock, and Toxic Barrage.
  • Innate Viral damage halves current and max enemy health.
• Good ammo efficiency.
• Firing from hip shoots beams in a spread, while firing while aiming focuses the beams on the crosshairs.
• Innate 0.5 meter Punch Through.
• Consumes 0.5 ammo per tick of damage.

2: Seems does not equal is or factually does.

 

3: cit doesn't ignore armor. Corrosive destroys armor.

4: your mod selection is the problem. although phage is now capable of being modded for crit, that doesn't mean it should be.

https://imgur.com/a/xBKtP

give this a go and see if it doesn't help out a bit

[Stoner]

6 minutes ago, ObviousLee said:

1: Funny you mention that I need to do some testing, when clearly you're hilariously incorrect;

Advantages:

• Innate Viral damage – effective against Flesh and Cloned Flesh.
• High critical chance.
• Very high status chance.
  • Can reach 100% status chance with Scattering Inferno, Frigid Blast, Shell Shock, and Toxic Barrage.
  • Innate Viral damage halves current and max enemy health.
• Good ammo efficiency.
• Firing from hip shoots beams in a spread, while firing while aiming focuses the beams on the crosshairs.
• Innate 0.5 meter Punch Through.
• Consumes 0.5 ammo per tick of damage.

2: Seems does not equal is or factually does.

 

3: cit doesn't ignore armor. Corrosive destroys armor.

4: your mod selection is the problem. although phage is now capable of being modded for crit, that doesn't mean it should be.

https://imgur.com/a/xBKtP

give this a go and see if it doesn't help out a bit

1: Am I? You say I have no idea how this weapon operates yet you base your information on the wiki, which is outdated. The weapon clearly has zero punch-through. Go try it in the simulacrum just to be sure. 

2: True. Went back to check on the update thread, not the workshop and it seems they have changed it to just "flamethrowers" being affected. My mistake.

3: Except I have both corrosive and crit? 

4: I will mod my Phage how I want. Adding Shotgun Spazz is making the ammo problem 10x worse and my build is not the point of this feedback thread. 

All beams were mostly balanced the same way. Yet Phage and Convectrix both still have shotgun ammo pickups. This should be changed. 

[taiiat]

Shotgun Ammo isn't Rare perse, just less Common than Rifle/Pistol.

more importantly, why is your first conclusion to massively change a Weapon, instead of just suggesting increasing the Ammo Pickup scale to like 20? (assuming it's needed, i don't have an opinion on that currently)
this is present on quite a few Weapons already, it's not like it's suggesting something entirely new.

20 minutes ago, ObviousLee said:

although phage is now capable of being modded for crit, that doesn't mean it should be.

but like most Continuous Weapons, it should be now in many cases. since Crit and Status both got ~10x as effective as it was previously.
you already have the Mod Slots available to put on Crits, to Kill the same Enemies with less Ammunition on average.

that's just simply optimal.

Edited February 22, 2018 by taiiat

[ObviousLee]

5 minutes ago, Stoner said:

1: Am I? You say I have no idea how this weapon operates yet you base your information on the wiki, which is outdated. The weapon clearly has zero punch-through. Go try it in the simulacrum just to be sure. 

2: True. Went back to check on the update thread, not the workshop and it seems they have changed it to just "flamethrowers" being affected. My mistake.

3: Except I have both corrosive and crit? 

4: I will mod my Phage how I want. Adding Shotgun Spazz is making the ammo problem 10x worse and my build is not the point of this feedback thread. 

All beams were mostly balanced the same way. Yet Phage and Convectrix both still have shotgun ammo pickups. This should be changed. 

1: already did. Against shield lancers. You know those things you can't hurt unless you head shot them in the head or from behind when the shield is up? Yeaaaaaaa funny thing: still liked them with the shield raised. 

2. Saucy. 

3. Which is less effective if you have lower status than higher. 

4. Waaaahhh someone is willing to help me fix my problem but I dun wanna change things up to a build that doesn't require developers to change ammo use because #idowhatiwant 

Do I need to take you to the simulacrum and show you that you're simply doing it wrong? 

[Jim22]

geez this noob dosnt know what hes on about. cant believe this.

[Stoner]

9 minutes ago, ObviousLee said:

1: already did. Against shield lancers. You know those things you can't hurt unless you head shot them in the head or from behind when the shield is up? Yeaaaaaaa funny thing: still liked them with the shield raised.

So that's what you call testing. Ok man, sure. 

 

10 minutes ago, ObviousLee said:

4. Waaaahhh someone is willing to help me fix my problem but I dun wanna change things up to a build that doesn't require developers to change ammo use because #idowhatiwant

You're build literally is using 90% more ammo than mine. I'm not even sure why you keep posting here, I told you several times they should change the ammo pool to rifle because they are more common than shotguns. You're telling me using a fire rate mod is going to fix my issue? What... 

Done with you.

 

[ObviousLee]

3 minutes ago, Stoner said:

So that's what you call testing. Ok man, sure. 

 

You're build literally is using 90% more ammo than mine. I'm not even sure why you keep posting here, I told you several times they should change the ammo pool to rifle because they are more common than shotguns. You're telling me using a fire rate mod is going to fix my issue? What... 

Done with you.

 

And I've sent you at least two invites in game to the simulacrum to show you that you're wrong, and you've not responded. I've sent you messages, you've not responded. 

You want a change to compensate for your bad build, instead of changing the build. 

I'm posting because you're dead wrong and want the developers to fix something that isn't broken that will affect me personally. So, either put up, or delete the thread. I've extended my knowledge on the matter to you and your seem to only want others to fix a non issue instead of fixing the issue(your build) yourself. 

[YouHaveShamedYoFamory]

The phage fires multiple beams not 1 beam.

a shotgun fires multiple projectiles not 1.

 

therefore phage is a shotgun and should use shotgun ammo.

upvote me now cus i deserve it

[(XBOX)Skullstachio]

Maybe the Phage should be given the "Zarr Treatment". you know, make it so that the Phage can switch between fire modes like the zarr when changing between Cannon & Flak modes except for the phage, the phage would switch between seven beams of widespread destruction or a singular beam of long range devastation which could have a similar toggle to the Zarr, this could improve the phages versatility exponentially with a bit of testing.

[ObviousLee]

Just now, (Xbox One)Skullstachio said:

Maybe the Phage should be given the "Zarr Treatment". you know, make it so that the Phage can switch between fire modes like the zarr when changing between Cannon & Flak modes except for the phage, the phage would switch between seven beams of widespread destruction or a singular beam of long range devastation which could have a similar toggle to the Zarr, this could improve the phages versatility exponentially with a bit of testing.

It already does that. You hold RMB for all of a second to decrease the spread. Tap to tighten. 

[Guest]

Just saying, if the Phage could use rifle mods it would have been able to use Primed Shred which is way better than Shotgun Spazz...

The only thing that is given up is pretty much Hell's Chamber.

[OvisCaedo]

Rather than doing something as bizarre as changing the weapon's category, perhaps it would make more sense for them to just increase how much ammo it gets from a shotgun box. Changing that for a specific weapon isn't something new to the game, I'm pretty sure they've done that for things like extremely low ammo pistols.