Fellow Ex-Gunners Of Icarus Lend Me Your Ears!

[BlackenedPies]

The issue is that there's no reason to bring a gunner when you could have a spanner mallet buff engi on almost all guns. There are only two guns that are often better with gunners: lumberjack and mines. For every other gun a buff engi will significantly outperform a gunner. It's less efficient to have more ammo types when you could do 20% extra damage and have much higher repair power.

+20% damage is better than any single ammo type and it's the meta. More ammo types won't fix the gunner problem because a buff engi will almost always outperform them.

[DJ Logicalia]

Bottom line is, the top competitive teams regularly use gunners. That speaks volumes in its self

[BlackenedPies]

Bottom line is, the top competitive teams regularly use gunners. That speaks volumes in its self

Who what when? I've see gunners on fish and hades which is just silly. When paired against an equal ship with a spanner mallet buff the gunner will fail. The Ryders are just very good, I haven't seen many others risk it against a challenge.

The entire point of ammos is changing the effectiveness at a given range. +20% damage, +25% rebuild, and +200% repair is a big bonus at any range.

[Dementio]

Bottom line is, the top competitive teams regularly use gunners. That speaks volumes in its self

The entire point of ammos is changing the effectiveness at a given range.

I thought it was about changing gun behaviour to adapt to different situations? As well as make the gunner operate multiple guns with optimal ammo instead of having to fall back to the default one.

[Carn]

Bottom line is, the top competitive teams regularly use gunners. That speaks volumes in its self

The entire point of ammos is changing the effectiveness at a given range.

I thought it was about changing gun behaviour to adapt to different situations? As well as make the gunner operate multiple guns with optimal ammo instead of having to fall back to the default one.

incendiary rounds dont really effect range, but they can add fire damage to any weapon

[BlackenedPies]

The main point of ammos is changing effectiveness at a range. Besides heatsink I can't think of a situation where you'd bring two ammos for the same range (I don't count incendiary). There is generally one most effective ammo for your engagements.

As for gunners using multiple guns, some guns are particularly more effective with one ammo like burst for artemis. But +20% damage with extra repair power is generally better than a damage increasing ammo. Gunners are for utility and gungineers are for efficiency.

Incendiary reduces range by 30% making it most effective as an armtime reducing ammo. It doesn't add fire damage, it adds +20% fire chance to both primary and secondary damage. It can be effective on carronades, but it's main use is for armtime reduction because it greatly reduces dps. It's best on the mine.

[Carn]

this is what i get for sticking my nose in a big debate, i can never remember all the numbers, but it can put fire damage onto a gun, if not then i couldn't set fires on a ship with a gatling loaded with incendiary

[BlackenedPies]

It doesn't add fire  "damage", it increases ignition chance. So for example on the gat it causes each shot to have a 40% chance to start a fire. The big problem is that it decreases rate of fire by 30% and clip size by 25%. So while the gat is putting fires on components it's doing significantly less damage. Incendiary is the least used ammo I see and I'd only ever use it on mine or lumberfish. It can be used on heavy flak for reducing arm time and heavy carronade when aimed at components (not balloon).

[GeoRmr]

Imho incendiary rounds need a buff, they don't cause enough fire.

Oh also about the blenderfish gunner thing - what does more damage +20% from a buff hammer or +30% from charged rounds? If it still takes 2 shots to pop a balloon with heavy-clip when its buffed what's the point of buffing it?

yfw switching ammo to charged rounds close range is better than a buff engi


I'd also like to postulate that the additional repair power of an engineer is irrelevant in a blenderfish duel when you are counter-sniping each others gun, as the reality is more of a mind game about timing your shots/rebuilds/reloads against their shots/rebuilds/reloads also get ready for the bombshell - heat-sink gives you three shots and can still disable their front gun at a notimpressivebutreasonable distance - the enemy gunner thinks you've emptied your clip, rebuilds their gun and BOOM THIRD SHOT MOFO GGMLG 360 NOSCOPE DIDN'T NEED TO AIM BECAUSE NOT EVEN HEAVYCLIP.

and about the gunner hades thing - we usedtoalot/nowonlysometimes fly hades pyramidions - hades pyramidions are different from junkers in that you can't just turn the short range side because you don't have one - so having ammo for multiple ranges is pretty important - the hades would be pre-buffed by the balloon side engineer.

[Kamoba]

I personally (when not flying competitively) like having a gunner on my ship for a few reasons, like Geo mentioned, the various ammos in various guns can give the upper hand in different situation, you can perform different tasks with one gun, example heavy clip Gatling cab disable well and most importantly, because so many people preach that engineers are better than gunners having one gunner on my ship means I can help someone level up the class which many do not want. Making for happy crew.

Although today was funny, I met one chap who wanted to go gunner on my gat art pyra, I gave him a recommended loadout to give him more optimal ammo, and his response: "What's the point in using heavy if I'm only going to be using greased" me: "Very well of you're only going to be using greased, you may as well.go buff engineer then."

But I rarely take triple engineer outside of competitive, give people the chance to level up gunner in the hopes one day, I will be given the same opportunity.

[BlackenedPies]

In a blender fish duel the battle is usually won but not over by the time you get into charged ranged. Having a spanner mallet buff means you can have more buffs when you enter combat and more repair power especially for the armor and front gun. For rebuilding you need the front gun rebuilt or peached as fast as possible taking up as little main engi time as possible. The dps difference between charged and buffed is negligible- under 2%. The benefit of having heavy clip buffed is the extra armor damage. Charged and heatsink are good but the extra repair and buff is generally more useful.

The assumption with taking hades pyra is that you will be engaging outside of hades arm time and kill them before getting into arm time. Having spanner mallet buff means entering combat with more buffs and dealing more damage at optimal hades ranges. It also gives you the benefit of having an extra spanner mallet. The dps of buffed is a bit over 7% more than greased. Two buff hammers on a pyra means both top and bottom deck will be buffed before combat. Disables are a real threat so rebuilding a gun to full health as fast as possible is vital.

[Replaceable]

But that assumes the situation will always be at optimum.
What if you're not.

You'll lose.

#scouts #be prepared

[BlackenedPies]

I'm assuming you're discussing bringing a gunner on the hades pyra. If you don't think that every engagement will start in lesmok hades range, then hades pyra is not the best choice. Having a spanner mallet buff guarantees buffed engines, hull, balloon and guns before most engagements begin. Remember, we're only talking about a 30 meter difference with greased. That can be made up with the extra buffs and repairs, or don't bring a hades pyra.

I am saying that spanner mallet buff is more efficient on the hades pyra during the engagements it's best at.

[Replaceable]

I am saying that spanner mallet buff is more efficient on the hades pyra during the engagements it's best at.

This is true. But unless you can win that engagement fast enough then you will be out of the optimum engagement area. And you want be as good. Meaning a gunner is more versatile.

I'm in the train of thought that you cannot always force an engagement to be best for you. Especially as the best teams know where you ship is best and will try and avoid this at all costs. An obvious example would be not charging down a sniper mobula, or choosing to brawl in the canyons with a metamidion/blenderfish team. Therefore a gunner makes you more versatile even though at any split second a buff engineer can be more efficient. But for overall efficiency given how the tide of a battle can turn, a gunner is still, in my eyes- more efficient. But: there is nothing wrong with buffing yourself for one situation- just I'd rather be as well prepared as possible for all, than super prepared for one- and less so so for all.

[BlackenedPies]

Hades is optimal for engaging at long range. So I think that being significantly more efficient at 150+ is generally always better than the ability to engage at 120-150. Arguably the engine and hull buffs alone make up for the 30 meters. The argument is that the option of greased is safer, but I think that a fully buffed pyra is safer for what it's designed for. We're only talking about 30 meters at the loss of bottom deck buffs and the spanner mallet.