Gunner Stamina (Gunner more valid now?)

[Richard LeMoon]

Gunner stamina thread
Engineer stamina thread
Pilot stamina thread

Now that stamina is out of devapp and in full test mode, we can discuss likes/dislikes and suggestions more broadly.

I have played as both pilot and gunner since the very first day stamina hit Devapp (a few months ago), and have made many comments on it. One was that it was a game changer for pilots... which it has been. Slow ships don't get much benefit, and fast ships get a lot. Engineers, negligible. Gunners... stamina is a novelty, much like gunners themselves for most builds.

As a pilot, I have not felt any real difference in having a gunner over an engineer. As a gunner with a good pilot, I rarely use stamina, and mostly for a faster reload. Otherwise, it just does not feel useful enough.

The suggestions I kept asking for were the ability to use stamina to get on a hot/damaged gun and use it at near full ability until stamina ran out (new achievement: 'Too hot to handle.' - Kill/break X something using an overheated gun) . Perhaps even get on a broken gun with severe impairment. The other suggestion was to give stamina recoil reduction (30% or so to make up for the loss in heavy). This would benefit all ammunition on about half the guns. Remove the arc changes and put them back on ammos (I like that) With these changes, double stamina time.

So, now that stamina has seen real combat over many matches, what are your thoughts on gunner stamina? What could be improved? What is not balanced? What additions/removals would you make?

[Arturo Sanchez]

I hate it. We never needed it. OMG please die.

This has got to be the worst stunt muse has ever pulled.

[Crafeksterty]

Gunners (good ones) no longer complain about arc when its at the edge of it, and strategies around faster reloads are now at play.
With the new reload mechanic, gunners are very good at their job. Good ones that know how to hit atleast.

On ships that allow for gunners to hold more guns easily (spire, galleon, junker) benefitt alot to the point of independancy.

[Dementio]

When I gunned I mostly used it to get the reload quicker.

When the gun is out of arc, I just tell my pilot and he will turn me back into arc before I can really make use of Stamina, if I even have to tell him and not too rarely does Stamina not give me enough arcs anyway when the enemy is really out of arc, at least that is what my gunner experience. One of these experienced includes shooting the Hades which the front of the Squid, while the pilot, who never even crewed on such a ship before, was constantly doing the bifecta with the side Artemis.

Hwachafish and Blenderfish were the two general Goldfish loadouts. The Heavy Carronade got nerfed, making Hwachafish more preferred already and it profits even more from that gunner stamina.

[FredTheFifth]

The gunner stamina gives some strange results, for example on a hwachafish you can basically only use burst now since hwacha jitter is less so you can fire burst from a longer distance and still be accurate, however having a gunner on a hwacha is really good because it reloads much faster (% increase) and the stamina refills fast, so you may be in a scenario where you want a gunner on a hwacha only using one ammo type.

That aside, I feel this is very much needed. I haven't done the math myself but I do think it is worth it having gunners on guns where a buff engi was interchangeable like on a metajunker for example, I've found the fast reload and increased arcs of a gat/hades very helpful and much more preferable over buff.

[BlackenedPies]

I think gunner stamina should affect damaged guns like making them act as if they are full health and I don't think current gunner stamina has really changed anything.

From my testing it appears that using full stamina on hwatcha reload reduces it by less than 2 seconds (even with good disables this can only be done every other reload if that). The reload reduction is nowhere near enough to compete with spanner mallet buff. Gunners are better now but not viable because there's still no way to compete with the large dps and repair bonus of a spanner mallet buff.

My hwatcha testing: timed reloading and stopped as soon as it could fire (around 12.5s). Fully disabling two test dummies fills up stamina to about 80%. It can't be argued that this is comparable to spanner mallet buff. I'd say the best bonus for stamina is the arcs because reload is inconsequential compared to +20%.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Faster reload is nice, becuase gunner is usually on a most important gun (gatling on metamidion, heavy gun on fish and spire etc.), it's certainly step in good direction.

Arcs are really meh. I thought about giving gunner also faster running ability from stamina so he's more useful in reloading many guns at once so gungie has better ammo. Except I wouldn't make it as powerful as engineer's, I'd give him sth like 50% (engineer has 85%).

Nullification of gun state (damage, overheating) also seems like a good idea.

The gunner stamina gives some strange results, for example on a hwachafish you can basically only use burst now since hwacha jitter is less so you can fire burst from a longer distance and still be accurate, however having a gunner on a hwacha is really good because it reloads much faster (% increase) and the stamina refills fast, so you may be in a scenario where you want a gunner on a hwacha only using one ammo type.

About the first part of this sentence: this is not because of stamina, this is because of heavy clip and hwacha changes. Yes, full stamina reload on hwacha is quite powerful.

[Crafeksterty]

I wish to emphasize that the new reload mechanic made gunners more usefull than the stamina.
You can safely assure that a gun will have X ammo because a gunner in a different part of the ship can simply attach that ammo on a gun he wont be using.
An engineer will use a completely different ammo for when THAT time comes, making engineers have 2 ammos to choose from whenever there is a gunner on a ship.

Lets say on my spire, i have a mine launcher. My engineers reserve greased for their guns. While the gunner has lesmok he can put on the mine launcher.
I have lochnagar for the most opportune time, so he instals lesmok in it. I change it to default for a shorter range mine, and then lochnagar for an even shorter one.
Resulting in having used 3 different ammos as pilot because a gunner had 1 second of free time to instal an ammo that which he had a free space to add with.

[Richard LeMoon]

Yes, the sticky reload shifts the role of the gunner a little more towards munitions expert.

[Carn]

I'm all for not having to babysit the reload, now I can actually fix a gun with a faster reload and still keep my ammo.

[BlackenedPies]

Full stamina allows for about 6.3 seconds of use for gunners. This means that you can have a max of 1.6s reload reduction. The sound of stamina reload sure makes it sound fast, but the numbers are insignificant especially when you factor in how temporary stamina is. We need to emphasize that yes gunners are better than before but are no more viable. Gunner stamina could be buffed but I really think the best option is to give gunners two tools.

Note that having the gunner preload ammo for an engi only gives you one clip of that ammo. After that it reverts to default ammo and displays tool ammo.

[Dementio]

Full stamina allows for about 6.3 seconds of use for gunners. This means that you can have a max of 1.6s reload reduction. The sound of stamina reload sure makes it sound fast, but the numbers are insignificant especially when you factor in how temporary stamina is. We need to emphasize that yes gunners are better than before but are no more viable. Gunner stamina could be buffed but I really think the best option is to give gunners two tools.

To me, the 3rd engineer with Mallet/Spanner/Buff makes as much "insignificant" difference as a maximum of 1.6s reload reduction. I already bring a gunner on pretty much every ship I take and now have an additional reason to do so. But I agree, 1.6s isn't much. I figure it is going to make a difference when it comes to more harass-like ships, in addition of the gunner's ability to bring multiple ammo types, but I haven't done any numbers to back it up. Without a doubt though, it closes the gap between the dps of a buff engineer and the gunner's ammo types a little bit more.

Gunners have always been viable, people just refuse to make use of their advantages, Stamina just gives them more advantages.

[sparklerfish]

I think in cases where a gunner is necessary, this is obviously a buff to gunners.  Does it make gunner more desirable in cases where you wouldn't have wanted a gunner pre-stamina?  Probably not.  A little bit of extra arc isn't really worth it to say, put a gunner on a metamidion, or in any circumstance where you wouldn't need 3 ammo types.  So yeah, this has made gunner BETTER, but not more versatile.  Still gonna need gunners and not need gunners in pretty much the same exact circumstances.  Though the extra arcs on a heavy carro might be worth it when you'd normally have buffgi with heavy clip....

[Richard LeMoon]

I agree with that. Change a large chunk of code and add features to make gunner more valid... leave the tool unchanged that makes them not. Time for the gun buff to go.

[BlackenedPies]

I love having a gunner on ranged mobula: charged merc, heatsink light flak, charged/heat/loch mine; but it's not viable. The only "viable" loadout is spanner mallet buff charged. Gunners simply aren't viable compared to the repair, rebuild, and buff bonus: it's math. I say the only significant stamina bonus is the arcs because the brief reload bonus is nothing compared to a real dps buff. Gunners need a fix and stamina didn't do it or even make any real progress.