Here come the Banshees

[DJ Logicalia]

So this new update did a ton of stuff. Like. A ton

I think my favorite thing that happened was the Banshee buff. Objectively the  most underused not-joke gun is now totally viable. From my nonscientific testing (also take into account, I have no idea how well Banshees did before), it seems a Banshee with one clip of standard rounds will take out ~1/2 of balloon health, and do on average of 9 fire stacks. One standard clip can also take out ~1/3 of Galleon armour and permahull. Today I ran a dual Banshee Pyramidion and won. I also ran a triple Banshee Hwacha Spire and that did really well.

So, this raises a couple questions:
1) Is the Banshee overpowered and
2) How is this going to impact ship builds from here on out.

I'm glad that such a formerly terrible gun is now a thing, but I'm curious about the positive and negative impacts on the future

[Sprayer]

[...]
2) How is this going to impact ship builds from here on out.
[...]

Gonna see it a lot more on the side Pyramidions now.
Since it has great arcs, I can see it used on many Junker builds too.

[Mezhu]

It doesn't do that much balloon damage, at least versus unsprayed balloons. Anyway, it's a legit gun now, certainly far more powerful and versatile than it used to be. I still don't think it's reliable or specifically effective enough to be used as a primary gun in most bifectas, but it can be extremely dangerous as a 3rd (/4th) gun that shoots every once in a while (e.g. pyra side, junker tri, mobula pilot gun etc). Situationally, it could even be somewhat viable as a primary gun for disable based hybrid builds (e.g. carro banshee instead of carro flamer, for easier balloon pops and more perma damage potential at the cost of far less fires and engineer interruption, or hades banshee instead of art or flak, gaining more fire damage and harrassing power at the cost of explosive/raw disable).

[Byron Cavendish]

The banshee has been good for a very long time, and it's been baffling to me that the competitive community never uses it. I think I've heard Sammy say the same. This buff was just a lil icing on the cake.

[GeoRmr]

The banshee has been good for a very long time, and it's been baffling to me that the competitive community never uses it. I think I've heard Sammy say the same. This buff was just a lil icing on the cake.

But the competitive community did use it and do use it, frequently. Why does everyone keep saying that no one does?

[Byron Cavendish]

I've seen it used as a complimentary weapon, say on the side of a pyra, and once in a blue moon a heavy banshee mobula build, but not very much as a main explosive weapon. Maybe it's picked up use in the last few months I haven't been competing?

[RearAdmiralZill]

I'm with Byron that the Banshee was never a weak gun, so I was to surprised to see it of all things given a change (haven't determined if it was actually a buff or not.)

Im curious to see it spammed just to see how well it does with taking out hull armor since fire damage (as far as I remember) had a decent modifier against it.

[Richard LeMoon]

'Tommy is Cruel' will be seeing a return to combat.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I've used it on Munkers in competitive. But I use it on the mine side in lower gun slot. I do it to both annoy and to add kill shots. If they stay outside mine range, I force them to fight spot fires till they commit. If they are under heavy mine attack, the Shee helps add to the chaos and also to kill the ship. Could I have used flak or other? Sure, but the fire chance would have been lower or the arcs problematic. Also the Shee has the perfect range to hit inside and outside the field. Before that I used carronades and I'll sometimes still use them if I'm facing another junker. But the range got to be problematic against people who'd stay outside the field. Then I messed with the Shee and found it gave some flexibility along with adding to the chaos.

[Sammy B. T.]

Well lets finish up the oral arguments for a moment and lets move to the math section!


So the carousel right now.

8 shots. 25 explosive, 25 fire each, fires 2 per second.
This translates to

Damage per shot / Damage per clip / Damage per second (including reload)

67.5 / 540 / 60.3 ------ Hull
27.5 / 220 / 24.58 ---- Armor
43.75 / 350 / 39.11 --- Balloon
13.75 / 110 / 12.29 --- Component

None of this includes fire stacks

[Crafeksterty]

This definetly rivals the mortar. But the mortar still kills in one clip. So it now depends on the effects you want.
Im trying to intergrate it to an effective spire build.

What you tried, works. But with a hades instead of a third banshee can really create fires and kill ships.


Loving the banshee buff, a defenite rival to the current explosive weapons with an effect.

Cake clan! HAVE IT!

[Replaceable]

Cake clan! HAVE IT!

Sure thing.

I like it on my junker's right side.
It used to have little crosshairs.
Now it has big ones.

Clearly it's better.

[Richard LeMoon]

I used to run a Hades/ dual Banshee Spire. It was quite effective. I can only imagine that will benefit from this change. I'll have to dust that build off as well. Maybe even the return of the long absent M.O.B. Mob Mob Mob.... though that would require a little more Artemis love.

[Battle Toads]

[...]
2) How is this going to impact ship builds from here on out.
[...]

Gonna see it a lot more on the side Pyramidions now.
Since it has great arcs, I can see it used on many Junker builds too.

Hipster Battle Toads, used the banshee as a side gun on pyra before it was mainstream. Even though it is the side weapon on my main pyra build based entirely on its good arc, pre patch it never seemed very powerful. I haven't tried it much with 1.38, but it sounds like the banshee is no longer a support weapon and it might replace my flamer in a flamer/carro build. I haven't tested the banshee yet but I felt like it needed a buff, whether or not this buff works I don't know

[CitizenFry]

Not that I play competitive, but before the patch, I saw Banshees on ships approximately never. :/

First couple of days after the patch, Banshee-only builds were wrecking people like crazy, but it seems to have tapered off a bit. Maybe people didn't realize right away that they need to spray against it? I was very nervous at first that it had been overbuffed, but with a little more play I'm starting to think it might be in a good place.