After 20 Hours With RedEye...

(ShotgunRagtime) #1

Sup all,

I usually attempt to reserve judgement on how weak mercs are until I play them myself: in fact, many of my in-game hours have been spent with the “weaker” mercs (21 hours with Phantom, 13 with Arty). So, I just finished putting in 20 hours with RedEye, and now I feel it is time for me to speak my piece about him. I will try to keep this post concise.

RedEye’s biggest weakness is his lack of a solid primary weapon, besides the PDP. The Dreiss is honestly just a very poorly designed weapon. It’s a semiauto that does not reward the user at all for careful aim: it is as spammy as the M4/Timik, only with a lower mag size, higher recoil, and lower actual DPS.

I think the best way to remedy the Dreiss is to give it the Stark/BR16 treatment – slow it the f down, and crank up the damage. Then it can begin to function as a battle rifle, not a spammy SMG-lite.

But, then there’s the Grandeur… where do I even begin? I spent the majority of my hours with this weapon, practicing it, mastering it. My conclusion: it is simply not worth the effort required to use it effectively.

The ideal Grandeur situation is 1 to the head, 1 to the body for a 2-shot kill. It’s quick, clean, and rewards good aiming – alternatively you could go for a 3-bodyshot kill, also efficient.

I’ve learned from experience that there is ONE thing, and ONE thing alone that kills the Grandeur. It’s not the ironsights, nor the magsize, nor the recoil. It is simply the reduced limb damage.

Landing a single shot on a limb rather than the torso ruins your chances of winning the gunfight. I cannot tell you how often I landed an opening shot on the opponent’s head, only for my following round (due to recoil) to strike their arm. And then I lose the gunfight because now I need a third shot, which is nigh impossible because I’m waiting for the recoil to settle. It is simply far, far too punishing.

My suggestion is to simply remove the limb-damage reducer on this weapon, so it deals 80 to head and 40 anywhere else.

Since his primaries are quite awful, RedEye NEEDS to constantly smoke it like SnoopDogg just to win a gunfight. This is made awkward by the absolutely asinine mechanic that allows HITMARKERS TO APPEAR WHEN HITTING SOMEONE IN SMOKE.

HOW is this even REMOTELY reasonable? What is the fucking point of throwing smoke if anyone can just chuck rounds into it, get a ping, and then track you from there like a game of fucking Battleship? PLEASE devs, if you do NOTHING else to RedEye, just remove the cursed smoke hitmarkers!

One last thing: I think it would be great if RedEye got a “smoke cover” XP bonus. For example, if I throw smoke on an objective, and an engie plants/defuses/repairs with the protective cloud in their vicinity, I get a portion (or all) of the XP they earn in the same vein as Health Insurance bonuses. This would do wonders for teamplay and incentivize tactical smoke use!

(WaffleMonster) #2

Redeye with the pdp is ridiculous atm. The issue with the grandeur is its terrible iron sights. Dreiss needs a buff.

(GildedDark) #3

Well im glad someone else has but a GRANDEUR amout of time on my favorite merc
Im coming up with 40 hours on him and i flat out love him
The grandeur is what i use and the gun is just amazing i would like to see them lower the bloom just alittle bit but i rek with it as it is now and defaulting to smoking in a firefight is something i NEVER do
i would like to see the hit markers removed thru smoke tho BUT if the sound hit sound still played id like that more

(ShotgunRagtime) #4

I deliberately excluded PDP RedEye because I feel like that version is mostly fine.

[quote=“GildedDark;114380”]Well im glad someone else has but a GRANDEUR amout of time on my favorite merc
Im coming up with 40 hours on him and i flat out love him
The grandeur is what i use and the gun is just amazing i would like to see them lower the bloom just alittle bit but i rek with it as it is now and defaulting to smoking in a firefight is something i NEVER do
i would like to see the hit markers removed thru smoke tho BUT if the sound hit sound still played id like that more[/quote]

I like the Grandeur – it’s fine to use – but I just do not feel like it is an effective weapon for MOST people compared to others. I like the way Skzalot (believe that’s his name) put it: if you’re good enough to aim properly with the Grandeur, any other weapon will do a better job anyways.

As it is it just feels absolutely awful or absolutely great, depending on if shots randomly fly into limbs or body, which can be frustrating.

I use smoke preemptively around corners, watching chokepoints, baiting people as I run… all sorts of things, I definitely find it best to use one every time it’s available :stuck_out_tongue:

(bizarreRectangle) #5

I agree with a lot of your points, these are the grievances of a red eye player. I love this guy and his gun, I really do. But the limb damage. I FUCKING HATE IT. I go through all that trouble, “blood, sweat, toil and tears.” And then it turns out you have to shoot one more than you bargained for. Might sound stupid but in a high paced game like this and a gun like this, it’s just, ugh.

Maybe if they reduce the bloom it would be nice, but I can live with the recoil. It would be 100000x a better weapon or at least a much more enjoyable experience if the limb damage was consistent.

Smoke coverage would be nice, I don’t really know how it would work though. It would suck if you simply got points by putting a smoke in front of an ally’s face. If they added something like this it would be nice, but getting points without smoke isn’t too hard. It’s mostly the grandeur that stops me.

As for dreiss ar, it’s not a bad or horrible weapon. If you can get your shots on target you can pump in shots in a fast-ish fire rate. The spread on sustained fire is bad so that makes sure you stay accurate. Since it’s semi-auto you get some more freedom with your shots and how you can use it. I don’t know, they DID reduce it’s fire rate by so much a few months ago. They’re slowly morphing it into a more accurate weapon.

(ShotgunRagtime) #6

IMO the Dreiss isn’t a bad weapon, but there is no situation where I’d want it over an M4 (and there are situations where I’d want a Stark or BR over an M4…)

Right now the winning strategy is to just point and spam, not really acceptable for a semi.

(Szakalot) #7

grandeur is definitely fun, and if you can score heads its incredibly satisfying. the sub40 damage hits are annoying but imo crappy ironsights are the biggest problem

(Dawnlazy) #8

He is pretty solid with the PDP after the buffs to his abilities. But yeah Grandeur competes with Kukri for most awkward weapon to use (make sure to play G75 for the full experience of awful primary, awful secondary AND awful melee), having one single accurate hipfire shot is not really worth 5 less damage than PDP and godawful iron sights. And the Dreiss is pretty much the worst primary weapon available in the whole game. But the problems are not with the merc himself but rather with 2 of his primaries.

(ShotgunRagtime) #9

The problem is that satisfying =/= effective. It feels damn good one-shotting Auras and Sparks from the hip, but that feeling is trashed by all the Skyhammers soaking up 3 rounds before they go down, or killing you first. It just NEEDS to be more consistent IMO, the actuated DPS is so fucking low that it has to reward careful aiming 100%, no fights should be lost because of an RNG flip on bloom that sent my aimed shot to his arm.

Holy shit don’t even remind me about the Kukri. It is actually worthless.

It doesn’t work. I mean, it actually doesn’t work. Pretty baffling TBH, has a long blade but the range of…well…I don’t know because it doesn’t ever connect.

But yeah, I agree. RedEye needs an effective weapon besides the PDP and the M9. I just wish the Dreiss and Grandeur were acceptable :confused:

(bizarreRectangle) #10

The iron sights seem to be a bit inconsistent. I think maybe they could do with some tweaking.

Also, here’s a tip with the kukri. It’s not broken, it actually hits to the right. So if you compensate for this by aiming left you can actually hit people. It also comes in handy since you can kinda sweep your aim for a very deadly side to side swing. To really do this you kind of have to adjust your aim and movement as well. Since the kukri hits to the right you also want to make sure that people are at your right. So when they think that they’re out of range your kukri hits them out of no where! Takes some practice. For starters I’ll say aim for the left.

(Just_A_Waffle) #11

Personally, the Dreiss is my go to weapon on Redeye.
People seem to always play him like Vassili when he is supposed to be played aggressively, like Arty.

But yeah, the Grandeur sights are terrible…

(SaulWolfden) #12

I play him incredibly aggressively with the Dreiss usually. I also happen to like the Kukri the best of his melee weapons. I just find it so amusing to kill people with it, it’s just a funny weapon. Remember this about Red Eye, he’s a marksman, not a sniper.

Edit: But yeah, it’s just his weapons that need buffs if anything needs to be buffed on him, he himself is fine as he is.

(SgtCyndaquil) #13

So I’m hearing everyone talk about how amazing the PDP is, and how awful the grandeur and Kukri are. Yet for some reason I have the most success with the grandeur when Im playing redeye, I have tried to use the PDP but I’m just awful with it, and I don’t really know how to use it effectively. This Is what I’m working with and I know its not the best loadout for the PDP, but its the best that I have to work with, So idk, I know redeye has a learning curve because of his playstyle, but in all seriousness, How do I use this thingimgur.com/yAHBnLu

(Szakalot) #14

try standing still and going for heads. PDP was changed some time ago and recoil +sway is too much to get consistent heads.

(WaffleMonster) #15

Once you get used to the recoil on the pdp, it’s very easy to chain headshots even in close quarters and as a result he’s been getting alot of use in competitive (or what’s left of it).

(omegaskorpion) #16

While PDP is good, it still reduces Redeyes combat ability in closer ranges. Making him easy to kill in close range, unless the player has godlike scoping accuracy agaisnt bunny hopping, wall jumping mercs with better dps weapons in 10-5m range.

Grandeurs biggest downfall is that its so broken, inconsistant damage, recoil and broken sights.

Dreissar is bad because it does not have the damage and thanks to the fire rate nerf its terible in close range. Its okeyishhssss… in medium range, In long range its kinda pain to use.

(WaffleMonster) #17

[quote=“omegaskorpion;117798”]While PDP is good, it still reduces Redeyes combat ability in closer ranges. Making him easy to kill in close range, unless the player has godlike scoping accuracy agaisnt bunny hopping, wall jumping mercs with better dps weapons in 10-5m range.

[/quote]

If you are consistently unintentionally getting into fights at the 5-10m range with redeye with the pdp, you’ve got issues with positioning, movement and situation awareness (all the common traits of noob snipers). Also the pdp has crazy dps both at range and up close.

(omegaskorpion) #18

[quote=“WaffleMonster;117832”][quote=“omegaskorpion;117798”]While PDP is good, it still reduces Redeyes combat ability in closer ranges. Making him easy to kill in close range, unless the player has godlike scoping accuracy agaisnt bunny hopping, wall jumping mercs with better dps weapons in 10-5m range.

[/quote]

If you are consistently unintentionally getting into fights at the 5-10m range with redeye with the pdp, you’ve got issues with positioning, movement and situation awareness (all the common traits of noob snipers). Also the pdp has crazy dps both at range and up close.[/quote]

And you should also know that a good proxy or any other close range class will get close as possible in the shortest amouth of time as possible.

There is not much you can do when speed monster is coming from other side of the map while you are focusing on the main group.

Vassili still has his back up in this scenario. Redeye does not.

And yes, i dont play as traditional sniper. I play as Combat sniper. i Try to close the gap by killing everything from any range needed.

And as designated marksman the Redeye should be doing the same, trying to close the gap by any range needed, which is why his 2 weapons can be used on any range (but are too broken to be used in all ranges)

(WaffleMonster) #19

[quote=“omegaskorpion;117841”][quote=“WaffleMonster;117832”][quote=“omegaskorpion;117798”]While PDP is good, it still reduces Redeyes combat ability in closer ranges. Making him easy to kill in close range, unless the player has godlike scoping accuracy agaisnt bunny hopping, wall jumping mercs with better dps weapons in 10-5m range.

[/quote]

If you are consistently unintentionally getting into fights at the 5-10m range with redeye with the pdp, you’ve got issues with positioning, movement and situation awareness (all the common traits of noob snipers). Also the pdp has crazy dps both at range and up close.[/quote]

And you should also know that a good proxy or any other close range class will get close as possible in the shortest amouth of time as possible.

There is not much you can do when speed monster is coming from other side of the map while you are focusing on the main group.

[/quote]

Funny how this rarely happens to me when sniping even though i am ore aggressive than most snipers, also as i said the pdp is surprisingly strong close up. The dreiss needs buffing and the grandeur needs a better sight (SD said they are planning on giving it a red dot sight) to give better close up options.