Carronades 1.3.2

[-Mad Maverick-]

spud is right.  look I'm not saying that it is OP to the point that it needs to be nerfed into oblivion,  I'm saying that it didn't need a range AND spread buff.   

[IvKir]

The reduction in spread combined with heavy clip ammo AND the increased range means that we have a very long range and accurate shot gun.

Yeap. With instant delivery.
I mean it's literally and shortranged version of UT sniper rifle with almost same efficency.

[Echoez]

I think the main reason no one complained was because no one (generally speaking) knew the potential of the Goldfish, everyone was using Gat-Mortar Pyras/Junkers. Ever since I started flying blenderfish, I knew something was too powerful about it, I recall telling you Echoez when you introduced me to the ammo combinations that I thought it was "evil" lol.

I understand you don't want it nerfed to oblivion because I agree that it's really the only kill/100% reliable heavy weapon for a brawling Goldfish. I like Zill's idea of spreading out the damage over a larger clip, so that the potential power of the Carronade is the same, but gives the enemy more of a fighting chance.

If the Heavy carronade is to be nerfed I'd realy like the Hwacha to receive a considerable boost as to be made way more reliable than it is right now, I swear to god, my gunner was taking perfect shots on a Galleon's broadside just to disable one gun. One. Gun. The explosion radius of that gun is simply too small right now without the spread of the old Heavy clip the gun is too much of PITA to use on long range unless you are in a stationary Spire or Galleon.

Of course I recommend that the Heavy Carronade should not be touched until an other viable Heavy gun for the Goldfish comes around. The Galting had that luxury, I don't see why the Heavy Carronade shouldn't. Right now it's the only true brawling weapon the Goldie has, if you take that away it's pretty much turned into a crappy semi-artillery piece that doesn't realy utilize it's manuverability and speed (or side guns other than flares for that reason.)

I don't consider the Hwacha a good alternative at the moment, it's too unreliable and underwhelming (let alone the long reload screws with my gunner's nerves all the time cause it takes so freaking long)

[Castus Crios]

The carronade has a downward weakness until you are at ceiling, get a buffed balloon or drop chute and phoenix kero away at a 90 degree angle (depending on ship), wait for allied assistance while you tank balloon and hull. The carronade should always kill balloons fast the hull armor strip from the heavy carronade (even dual light carronades) is what makes the goldfish and carronade in general a viable brawler (Echoez said this). We need strong carronades in the gat/mortar meta fight and even then as mentioned earlier a good disabling ship can put a heavy carronade out of the fight perpetually until allied support in the same way that a heavy carronade can keep you out of the fight until YOUR ally is there.

Perhaps a solely captainlike point of view, but nevertheless a red balloon will always expose you to double team if the enemy is coordinated, if your ally is metamidion you would want to be carronaded if your ally was a squid it would be a different story. If you can't shoot for any reason then your ship is an hp sink buying time for support.

My two cents

-CC

P.S. Drogue chute if you know a squid is carronading you.

[HamsterIV]

The Hwacha is my preferred brawling weapon on a Goldfish. Unlike the Carronade it doesn't cause the enemy ship to drop out of my ally's firing arc.  It can keep one ship out of the fight while keeping me at a good height to put a side gun on an enemy ship and help my ally with a kill. It works as a finisher (assuming your ally can bring down the hull). If you end up in a 2v1 you can trash your opponent's engines before booking it. If you are lucky the ship with the untrashed engines will get over confident and chase you as you run back to your ally's guns.

IMO the Hawcha is a more team friendly weapon where as the carronade is better lone wolf weapon.

[RearAdmiralZill]

There's already a hwacha thread up. Lets try to keep this on carronades.

[Echoez]

IMO the Hawcha is a more team friendly weapon where as the carronade is better lone wolf weapon.

I've worked in a competitive team with that gun and it's very team oriented, trust me, with a good teammate the Carronade had devastating results, as should be with any gun. Without a coordinated team.. yeah you will only need an eternity to kill a single enemy unless you get them grinding on the ground almost immidiently, which is not possible on most maps.

People seem to forget a very important thing about the carronades. Yes they are very self sufficient weapons, they can take down the balloon in one go and they can chew through armor in ~3 clips (Which is around ~16 seconds reload for both, not including the time it takes to actually dump a clip, so it's more than that.), but what they can't do is outright finish someone in a single armor drop like a proper finisher would do. Sure if you can get an enemy grinding on the floor the very moment their balloon goes down they will die quickly, but how many times does that happen in maps outside of Paritan Rumble? No matter what ammo types, no matter the map, it usually takes a long time to kill someone with them and you have a LOT of time to react and call for support.

An othet thing people seem to forget is that in order for a Blender to actually keep you down, it needs to commit. Which means it's focusing on you and you only, unless they do that, you should have sufficient time to rebuild your balloon and move out of range or launch a counter offensive.


If your troubles from facing carronades come from ships like the Galleon, Spire or Mobula:

1. The Galleon is supposed to be countered by carronades up close, that's how it is, end of story.

2. The Spire and the Mobula are both slow ships with massive balloons, but you know what, they have to worry about much more than a Carronade, I wanna see your Spires and Mobulas face off a Lumberjack and then tell me what's OP. Plus the Mobula is has an inheritent carronade weakness due to balloon positioning, so get over it. If these ships are your problem, then you should look at the ships, not the gun.

3. If this is not your case, then read above.

[IvKir]

Well, thing is, you CAN kill with heavy carronade quikly - with lochnagar rounds, or charged. Yap, it will take time on something like Galleon, but other ships are in the world of pain.

[Nidh]

I have an issue with engagement length right now, and I feel as though the amount of time that the Heavy Carronade takes to kill should be the STANDARD engagement time. It's not too long, and not too fast. I have a problem with how fast Gat-Mortar can kill and refuse to use it as the standard, and refuse to believe that the Carronades take as long a time to kill as most people suggest. That's all opinion though and probably a topic for another thread.

Err, Carronades with the use of a side gun compliment I should add, Carronades alone (except dual light carronades) do take a little longer.

[Captain Blueberry]

In short, I think the Carronades aren't OP.

Here is the long answer:
Many people say that the Carronades are OP, because they require generally a small amount of skills for a very successful strategy. But that is simply wrong in terms of game design, here is why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w.

We need strong carronades, I consider them pretty much to be a hard counter to Junker and Galleons. If we weaken them, we make those ships indirectly even more useful. Most of us will agree that those ships of all don't need a boost.

When you carefully read the comments you should notice that the disagreement is not in how powerful the carronades are, but how accessible, how easy counter strategies are. How much skill/knowledge you have to gain in order to counter the carronades.
The other point is, after the latest patch we gained a lot of different options for medium/long range, which was earlier just mercury and gat/mortar/flak combo. But for short range, the Carronades are pretty much the best choice there is. There is no OBVIOUS short range combo that can be used against the carronade.
On longer range though, we do have effective choices, but adapting to a long range strategy might be a bigger learning curve for newer players.

So maybe what we really need is a good, easier to find short range counter to the carronade. It should be harder to execute, that is fine. But it should be a very obvious counter, so that players can say: "I may not be able to right now, but I know how I can put an end to those pesky Blenderfishes!"

To summarize: in this thread, we already hit some solutions. But they are all worthless as long as we haven't nailed down the problem we are trying to solve. Some people are pissed off at the carronade and bring forward solution to a problem we haven't yet nailed, bad solutions in short. That doesn't mean their reasons to hate the carronade are wrong too.

To summarize the summary: Go flamewar lulz

[Echoez]

I have an issue with engagement length right now, and I feel as though the amount of time that the Heavy Carronade takes to kill should be the STANDARD engagement time. It's not too long, and not too fast. I have a problem with how fast Gat-Mortar can kill and refuse to use it as the standard, and refuse to believe that the Carronades take as long a time to kill as most people suggest. That's all opinion though and probably a topic for another thread.

Err, Carronades with the use of a side gun compliment I should add, Carronades alone (except dual light carronades) do take a little longer.

Well compared to what a real kill build can do, I'd say they take a bit long, that's the only other thing we can compare them to realy. Kill time with a kill build is one fell swoop, take down armor and finish it in one go unlike the multiple armor breaks and concetration the carronade and even most other weapons require. A sniper Galleon with a Lumberjack and a Flak can kill even faster if carried out properly.

[Echoez]

There is no OBVIOUS short range combo that can be used against the carronade.

Hence why I said that more weapons need to be introduced before sending the closest ranged gun in the game to oblivion, cause that's what most people seem to wanna do right now. The problem lies in that fire is still not that effective against guns and fire is the only other extreme close range option except the carronades and just like there is a counter to carronades, there is one for fire (Heatsink), but that would be acceptable as one s very easy to use (Droge chute) and the other takes some timing (Heatsink).

Should fire be more effective against guns? Probably for an other thread, but for now, since there is no other gun that is very good at close range, the most effective carronade counter is either sniping them out or use a carronade or a Gatling to disable it from close range. Fire could be effective if it disabled guns faster.. but that's for an other topic.

Also yes, carronades are one of the most effective close ranged gun and rightfully so since their range is very restricted, that's how is should be and have always been in any shooter. Shotguns dominate close range combat and should keep doing so.

[Nidh]

In short, I think the Carronades aren't OP.

Here is the long answer:
Many people say that the Carronades are OP, because they require generally a small amount of skills for a very successful strategy. But that is simply wrong in terms of game design, here is why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w.

We need strong carronades, I consider them pretty much to be a hard counter to Junker and Galleons. If we weaken them, we make those ships indirectly even more useful. Most of us will agree that those ships of all don't need a boost.

When you carefully read the comments you should notice that the disagreement is not in how powerful the carronades are, but how accessible, how easy counter strategies are. How much skill/knowledge you have to gain in order to counter the carronades.
The other point is, after the latest patch we gained a lot of different options for medium/long range, which was earlier just mercury and gat/mortar/flak combo. But for short range, the Carronades are pretty much the best choice there is. There is no OBVIOUS short range combo that can be used against the carronade.
On longer range though, we do have effective choices, but adapting to a long range strategy might be a bigger learning curve for newer players.

So maybe what we really need is a good, easier to find short range counter to the carronade. It should be harder to execute, that is fine. But it should be a very obvious counter, so that players can say: "I may not be able to right now, but I know how I can put an end to those pesky Blenderfishes!"

To summarize: in this thread, we already hit some solutions. But they are all worthless as long as we haven't nailed down the problem we are trying to solve. Some people are pissed off at the carronade and bring forward solution to a problem we haven't yet nailed, bad solutions in short. That doesn't mean their reasons to hate the carronade are wrong too.

To summarize the summary: Go flamewar lulz

Okay, you've convinced me Capt. Blueberry. But we need some of those alternate harder strategies the video talks about that doesn't include Gat-Mortar (not hard at all) or sniping.

[Gambrill]

how about a bit of defensive planning? drogue chute + impact bumpers. if you do eventually hit the floor the impact bumpers will reduce the ground damage that you are taking while your engies are tanking the baloon and hull, giving a major boost to the time you need for your ally to overpower them

[Nidh]

Those are not alternate, more powerful, and harder to execute strategies that the video Blueberry linked talks about.