1.3.3 GUNS AND GUNNER SKILL BALANCE

[awkm]

Balance changes here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14-1AnOLfaEKuPvbthlY1WfNvL8_0nijTRHZDCq8XAuA/pub

Guns and gunner skills balance only.  Refrain from speculation, theory crafting, etc... it is not helpful to me.  Instead please test and then discuss.

[Echoez]

Wait, I though the Heavy carronade's range would be 425, not 375. Is this for real?

[awkm]

No.  Old number.  Fixed.

[The Djinn]

I'm a little concerned about the Heavy Carronade having comparable range to both the Gatling and the Mortar, although I'll admit I haven't flown against Carronades much today.

All I know is that I'd use the threat of armor shred + mortar damage to discourage Carronade ships from getting to close, as they'd often realize that there was a decent chance I could really damage their ship before falling. The severe range nerf to both the gatling AND the mortar means that the Carronade now hits me before I can reliably get any real damage on their ship.

I guess I'll give it a while to settle, but the Carronade seems like it's simply winning the Brawling war vs Gat/Mortar by a good margin, as it can cripple a balloon and put you on the defensive before any Gat-based brawling set-up has really had time to do any actual damage.

[Echoez]

Quite honestly after taking a shot to try and beat a competent team with a Galleon/Junker combo (mind you it was a fully fitted out Gents lobby, so no randoms) using brawling guns, not only did it feel completely underwhelming to use any of them, but they weren't doing as well either.

Gatling takes forever to empty a clip even with Greased cause it has 80-92 bullets in the magazine, Mortar too slow and low ammo count plus less range, Carronade range is completely borked down and the reload timer is ruining it, in the meantime, sniper builds have more than TRIPLE the range of our guns and due to our guns' spreads, we can't even use something like Lesmok to get a slight edge.

Brawling is sucessfully locked within 450 meters range and very easily prone to weapon disablers.

But nobody listens to me when I say that Carronades are fine, or anything else right?

[Sammy B. T.]

Sniping buff. It was so underpowered before, yeah?

[N-Sunderland]

Let's look at the guns that got nerfed:

-Light carro
-Heavy carro
-Gat
-Mortar

And the ones that got buffed:

-Hades
-Flak
-Merc
-Artemis


I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.

[The Djinn]

I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.

I agree. I'm actually okay with the more auto-hit weapons (Gat, Carronade, etc) being limited to extremely close ranges (although I'm still not happy with the Carronade's ability to pop a balloon before a Gat/X combo can really do anything to threaten it), but I wish our options for dealing with long-range harass were a bit better. On maps like Dunes I know I struggle when forced to close against a well-captained sniper build, and I don't really feel like the pilot tools at my disposal are really enough to, say, get my Pyramidion across the map when the sniper Spire is constantly bombarding me. I think this may exacerbate the issue.

Of course, this is theory-crafting. I'll probably swing by this thread against after I've messed around with the new options a bit, and played against them a few dozen times.

[Salous]

I don't see a point to brawling anymore, especially against a sniper team. Don't know about you boys, but I don't like being forced to snipe to have a chance at winning a match.

[The Djinn]

I don't see a point to brawling anymore, especially against a sniper team. Don't know about you boys, but I don't like being forced to snipe to have a chance at winning a match.

I don't like being forced to snipe, but I do enjoy sniping. 

[-Mad Maverick-]

Let's look at the guns that got nerfed:

-Light carro
-Heavy carro
-Gat
-Mortar

And the ones that got buffed:

-Hades
-Flak
-Merc
-Artemis


I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.

sund hasnt this been the pattern since beta?  pattern is as follows: introduce new long range guns> buff said long range guns> nerf brawlers' boats> nerf brawlers' guns> add arming time on long range guns> repeat.

i just wish muse would come out and clearly say, "we dont want a dog fighting game, we like the idea of nautical combat in the air."  that way i cant stop being frustrated and just go and play different game like war thunder or something....

[-Mad Maverick-]

Balance changes here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14-1AnOLfaEKuPvbthlY1WfNvL8_0nijTRHZDCq8XAuA/pub

Guns and gunner skills balance only.  Refrain from speculation, theory crafting, etc... it is not helpful to me.  Instead please test and then discuss.

tested, worked as designed: gat has become less useful than merc. galleon takes almost 3 clips of gat to strip (through repair) but this is actually impossible because you have been disabled by hwacha over and over again since you have to be ridic close to do anything with a gat.  Spire is viable now which is awesome(no sarcasm).

sniper teams that have Sniper sides and brawler side boats have been buffed because shortening their brawler side has no effect and boats that can only choose one type of load out e.g. goldie pyra that prefer to try and fly close and dog fight have been nerfed again for the 2nd straight patch.

[Imagine]

Let's look at the guns that got nerfed:

-Light carro
-Heavy carro
-Gat
-Mortar

And the ones that got buffed:

-Hades
-Flak
-Merc
-Artemis


I don't want to pass judgement prematurely, but this all looks very concerning.

Let's get real here for a second, other than the light flak, a weapon which was vastly under utilized because mortar was just a better option, can you really call any of the rest of those buffs? I mean, I guess the Hades a minor amount, but really, will that actually make that huge of a difference?

I'm also getting kinda tired of people whining how carronades/gat+mort is sooooo super op and then bitching about them getting a nerf.

[N-Sunderland]

5 extra piercing is quite a bit, and 50m/s is enormous. You cannot underestimate what small buffs can do.

Anyways, enough talking. Let's get down to actually seeing what happens here.

[Subarco]

Speaking from a pug perspective, the changes are good, especially for the Spire. For example, the triple gat or hades +hwacha finish is pretty deadly if done right. Definitely living up to the title of glass cannon. Also, its good to see a bit more variety other than the usual mort+gat or carronnades that one sees in every game.