Blishlock Discussion (OP, Balanced or UP?)

[deerCat]

Easy fix, decrease how fast the bullets spread on full auto.

[spicyHarp]

Tell me one role Phantom filled in comp teams.
After the nerf, he was less silent and more visible, AFAIK he was never used as a “silent assassin” due to the mechanics of the cloak and how easy it was to rambo people pre-patch. Though I have not tried Pugs, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a comp MM with less useless Skyhammers, cheaters, and slightly more mics.
“you could easily wreak total chaos in the enemy team and use it to your advantages getting a lot of kills, without even trying that much.” sounds exactly like a pub game, but with a filter that gets rid of the bad and the ugly.

Aura will never outshine sawbones in comp, but she is very strong in pubs.
And I’ve already compared Bush and Fletcher, Nader and Fragger doesn’t have engineer, they serve different roles than Fletcher.
Fletcher probably won’t be able to compete in comp unless he receives a buff that is just right, and doesn’t ruin pubs.

[Resine]

Pug’s teams and competitive teams are like day and night. You cannot create a balance for both of them at the same time. As far as i know DirtyBomb was stated to be the game based on the competitive aspect, so i still don’t have a single clue why are you keep trying to force that as long as something is viable in the Pug’s it’s fine.
Phantom was a different story, because everything about him was wrong. It’s not like he was any weaker in the competitive than he was in the Pug’s games. The main difference was that, that in the competitive game people stick their asses together and they do communicate with each other. Since this aspect doesn’t exist in the Pug’s game, Phantom could literally do whatever he wanted getting massive amounts of kills thus creating frustration among other players.
I wouldn’t call him that much of a op, but rather a class with a broken core mechanic, that could never be viable in the Comps at the same time would be too strong for Pug’s games and if nerfed even a little bit would be literally useless for the Merc itself.

Weapon balance, and abilities tweaks, should be done separately.
Let’s compare again Bushwhacker and the Fletcher,
Fletcher has the Sticky Bombs, useless primary weapon.
Bushwhacker has the Turret, most powerful SMG in the game.
Both are engineers.

And i ask you why? I plat both of them, i don’t see how Turret is inferior to Sticks Bombs, obviously they work differently but theirs abilities are balanced. They have their own strong sides and weaknesses then why one is given some piece of junk and the other shiny new gun? It’s the balance issue, i don’t mind if the weapons are different but make all of the reliable.

[spicyHarp]

Well first of all, I’m not “trying to force that as long as something is viable in the Pug’s it’s fine.” This is not what i am saying at all, buffing a merc so it starts to get used by minorities and break the balance for everything else? No thanks. If they can do it without unbalancing pubs too much, good on SD, i support that.

The biggest problem phantom had was he offered nothing to the team, usually comp teams consist 2 medics, 1 fragger, 1 engineer, and one situational merc. ie nader, skyhammer, vasilli etc. What does phantom do? Go for a flank and gib one guy? Every merc has a place in team compositions, except him. I cannot see how SD tried to design this merc around teamwork.

Fletcher also has empire 9, mind you. A good SMG has its uses, so does a worse SMG and a MP. He also has both engineer AND explosives, giving him a better SMG probably won’t go too well.

I feel like the main problem is that Fletcher doesn’t fit into a well coordinated team with Fraggers, as he does the job far better as an assault, and extra explosives aren’t needed as much compared to turrets. Maybe Fletcher will see some more play when thunder comes out, maybe.

[Grave_Knight]

While I say balanced the Blishlok is somewhere between being balanced and being underpowered. It does well enough, especially in CQC, but it’s lack luster in mid-range.

[deerCat]

Decease its spread, and make its red dot sight more precise… This would make it a viable gun.

[K1X455]

What ?! The Blishlok deals 18 damage per shot with a 400 RPM, for a DPS of 120. Twice the damage would raise it’s DPS to 240, while all weapons in DB have a DPS between 105 and 135. This is almost as much as Rhino’s Minigun DPS, but with much better range. Dude, this is insane.

You see, that’s the problem. I understand that distinguishing the Blishlok by way of tuning it’s stats means that you’ll need to consider the impact of change it will do to the game. However, I’m just saying that because of it’s ridiculously low RoF, low magazine size and slow reload, it has the potential of being outclassed by a secondary weapon called the Empire 9 or even the Tolen. And with the current combat load and ‘aimpunch’ mechanic in effect, the chances of make the Blishlok effective is very narrow.

I use Blishlok too, but I honestly prefer the Crotzni or Kek-10. In fact, if it wasn’t for the augment Drilled, I would trade the loadout with the Blishlok for something else.

[GottaBeGreg]

The Blishlok as a weapon is a weapon of possibility. In the correct hands it can be devastating, and in the untrained hands it is less than usable. When asking for balance fixes you must always consider the actual merc’ that the gun is on.

Consider this.
The Blishlok is on Aura. All of Auras other weapons are close to medium close range, with massive damage drop offs as the range start to stack up. However, when you equip her with a Blishlok, she moves onto a medium to medium long range damage outputter (<–Thats not a word… Shhhh). The reason I say this is because of the damage a head shot can do to someone, combined with the fact that it is automatic, this weapon can decimate on Aura, especially with her insane strafing speed and healing station. Considering further that this weapon has comparable head shot damage to a Dreiss AR and that it is effective at a closer range than said Dreiss, this weapon is more than formidable on someone who can lay down the consistent head shots, meaning that they can switch a vulnerable-to-oneshots, low health character with high healing abilities to a long range beast, far from shotgun one shot range, and I tell ya what, she hurts. I know a few people who can use her really effectively and they are nearly unstoppable with her.
Next up is Fletcher, and he is in the same boat. Despite the Ahnulds increased range, he is still going to experience a major drop off in damage as he gets past anything at medium range, unless he is using the Blishlok. Considering that he will in all likely-hood be using his stickies up close, he is barely losing any effectiveness at all. In fact, with Fletcher in particular, I completely prefer the Blishlok because of its RoF, as it is better than the RoF on the shotguns he has, and when fighting up close with stickies you are usually going to take most of their health with the stickies and then follow up with some quick finishing shots, sometimes one or two even, so as such you want to be able to take down this small amount of health without worrying about missing a shot with a shotgun and waiting for the feed of another bullet. This all means that Blishlok Flecther has a larger effective range and doesn’t really lose any of his close range effectiveness. That being said, Fletcher has some rubbish cards for the Blishlok. I mean, they are usable yeh, but the perk combinations that he is given are below the par set by some of the other cards he has, eg, Drilled, Double Time, Hollhounds. Like really guys? Not to mention that none of his Blishlok classes get even one of these reload boosting perks, which function as amazing survivability or DPs increases. That being said, when you pick up your newly traded up Blishlok Katana Phantom with Drilled, you can almost see why. Drilled Blishlok is power! But then you consider the other weapons that you could be using and you go… oh, wait… why is this a thing…?

So this is what I think the Blishlok is. From what you have been reading, writing and considering myself, I think I have come up with what the Developers are using the Blishlok as. This is because I was considering the Blishlok loadouts on Bushwhacker and Phantom and the perks that they get to go along with it compared to all the other cards they have. Considering that Bushwhackers only card with both Steady and Lock-On has the Blishlok, along with the only Try Hard on him, as well as the fact that the only 2 Phantom cards to have Drilled in their line ups have the Blishlok. I personally believe that they are being very careful and using the Blishlok, with its high skill requirement, in order to balance out some of the Perk combinations, as no one would ever touch a different card than a Steady, Lock-On Kek or even SMG-9 Bushwhacker, the same going for a Drilled and Katana Phantom card, going so far as to boast the undercover perk.

In summary, the Blishlok is in place as a balancing factor for all of the merc’s that have access to it. It is there to scare off the uninitiated from taking all of the good perks, and to welcome all of those who have taken time to get good with it to a whole new world of hurt. To be honest, the same is also true with the shotgun characters aforementioned, except the opposite. It is meant as a range buff and on Aura it also holds (Imo) the best perk combination for her on the BL41 Relief Operative card, while Fletcher is laughing it up as he gets the close range finishes and the medium to medium long range decimation’s.

All that being said, the Green dot still looks like butts.
Please, if we want to do anything to this gun, make it be changing the stupid Iron sights, which do more to obscure the view more than to enhance it.

If you have gotten this far, thank you for hearing me out, I shall take no more of your time in this sitting. =)

[Eox]

I can break down your arguments with the same arguments I gave to SpicyHarp. Blishlok is not rewarding, and will probably never be played like this in competitive if you have any other SMG available. The only case where using Blishlok over something is when you have a shotgun merc, because shotguns are the worst weapons you could use in competitive. It’s not a balancing factor and even less a good weapon. Once again, there’s a reason why you see so much Bushwacker and Sawbonez in competitive, even when their ability would be lore fitting the map or the side where you are. And Sawbonez/Bushwacker have no reason to use the Blishlok, especially when you can get the KEK -10. Making a hard to play weapon that is much less rewarding than any other weapons in the game makes no sense.

There’s no sense about your “scaring off new players” argument. The augments on Blishlok loadouts are not even that good, with some exceptions though. Sawbonez and Bushwhacker can find loadout cards with much better augments and weapons. Same goes for Phantom. The choice of your primary matters more than anything else. You can’t also bring up the fact that it would make Aura and Fletcher OP. Fletcher is hard to play, stickies are not especially reliable. And Aura has a lot of counters, is far too squishy and is not even that good anyway. Fragger’s dominance in comp makes short work of Aura, as well as any other merc around the station. And Bushwacker is far easier to use than Fletcher, and comes with better weapons, as well as the possibility to 2vs1 situations on command.

Shotguns are the worst weapons you could use in competitive. This is why Aura and Fletcher players would stick with the Blishlok. Buffing the Blishlok wouldn’t have the dramatic effect to push Fletcher and Aura as the most powerful mercs in any way. It would actually be a good thing : giving viability to all Blishlok loadouts that got Bushwhacker, Sawbonez and Phantom.

[spicyHarp]

Fletcher can single handedly carry a whole team in pubs, especially with a medic. Aura can avoid alot of things if you use it correctly, and stickies being “not especially reliable” is flat out wrong.
Stickies can be detonated mid air, does more damage compared to Naders GL, and doesn’t have the long cook time like Fraggers nades. Of course, this comes with a downside. Less spammable compared to Nader, and doesn’t have as much killing potential compared to Fragger. But stickies are arguably the most versatile explosive in DB.

Also, here’s a good Aura clip, and how she should be played: https://youtu.be/7hj1T1w-6h0?t=5m27s
(All credits goes to NuclearSharkhead and Adam.)

We shouldn’t focus solely on the weapon, good augments will make people use those loadouts, too. Especially in comp, as a medic loadout with get up is far more important than any other augment.
Some QoL changes like better sights, and slightly better accuracy would be okay, but imo It’s the augments that will make people use the loadouts, not the weapon.

[Eox]

Anyone can carry single handedly, with any merc. Especially with a medic on your back. You just have to be good enough. If you think that Fletcher is that efficient in fights, you definitely didn’t found a decent Skyhammer or a decent Fragger yet. Or a decent “anything” with a KEK-10. Stickies are not a miracle tool. There’s a delay between the trigger and the explosion, small but just enough to miss a fast merc. Also they are projectiles : you have to lead your targets, especially if you want the maximum damage output. This is FAR from being as easy as making the bullets rain on someone’s face with any automic weapon (Blishlok aside). Versatile does not mean reliable. I saw much more Sawbonez or Fraggers carrying the whole game than Fletchers. Actually I never saw one being that good on EU.

And Blishlok loadouts aren’t even those with the best augments. At best you’ll just find one with a nice augment set, but you’ll almost always find another loadout with an augment set as interesting but with a much better weapon than the Blishlok (ie : anything but shotguns). SM71 and CR73 for Sawbonez are just the best exemples.

Primary weapon > augments. This is how things work usually. Unless you play Fletcher (you really want the Empire-9 usually).

[spicyHarp]

Actually I never saw one being that good on EU.

Well there you go, good Fletchers are devastating. They don’t miss the stickies, nor do the “downsides” affect them in any way. He isn’t just someone you pick up and pub stomp with.

[quote=“Eox;82217”]
And Blishlok loadouts aren’t even those with the best augments. [/quote]

Then we can make it the best, make a new loadout, stack good augments on it. Do we REALLY need to directly buff the blishlok and not consider any other ways of buffing it?

[Eox]

Well there you go, good Fletchers are devastating. They don’t miss the stickies, nor do the “downsides” affect them in any way. He isn’t just someone you pick up and pub stomp with.

“Good Bushwhackers are devastating. They chain-headshot you from across the map whatever the distance and always set up the turret in some wicked spots.”

“Good Vassilis are devastating, they never miss your head and always see you coming with their heartbeat sensor.”

“Good Naders are devastating, they always direct hit you with the grenade launcher and the GL downside never affect them.”

Do you see the point ? Once again, all mercs can be devastating if you put enough time to work around it. Good Fletchers are powerful ? Whatever. You can get the same result with any other merc. You overestimate Fletcher way too much, and it’s probably the same for Aura.

Then we can make it the best, make a new loadout, stack good augments on it. Do we REALLY need to directly buff the blishlok and not consider any other ways of buffing it?

Why would we modify every Blishlok loadouts when you can just modify some variables in the source code and make the Blishlok as viable as SMG-9, Hochfir and Crotzni are ? This is far more simple than taking every cards and redesigning them.

Once again, it’s not a Blishlok buff that will make Aura and Fletcher suddenly climbing on the top of the kill scoreboard for every matches. Not only splash damage would not give it a massive buff, and this is not our goal. Blishlok deserves to have his own niche, and to be as deadly as others SMGs are. There’s no point about using a weapon that is both underpowered and not rewarding.

Blishlok is the only option Aura and Fletcher have at the moment because going Shotgun in a real competitive match is technically a death sentence for you and your team. Three stickies are not more powerful than a Sentry, a health station is not as powerful as three health packs and vice-versa : it’s different abilities for different purposes. Yet Bushwhacker and Sawbonez will reach a better killing potential in comp most of the time, because they won’t be stuck with the Blishlok : they can use far easier and far more rewarding weapons. Buffing the Blishlok would just restore the balance, and give make Sawbonez and Bushwhacker’s Blishlok loadouts more interesting. It’s for the good.

[spicyHarp]

Good Fletchers are powerful ? Whatever. You can get the same result with any other merc. You overestimate Fletcher way too much, and it’s probably the same for Aura.

Except you can’t. Fletcher has the most versatile explosive and engineer, nobody else has that. Being able to clear rooms/camps and not have to rely on your team for an engineer is a pretty big deal when you are in pubs.
And no, I’m not “overestimating” Fletcher. He is already very strong and definitely isn’t the weak lil’ guy that gets outgunned by Skyhammers and Fraggers.

Why would we modify every Blishlok loadouts when you can just modify some variables in the source code and make the Blishlok as viable as SMG-9, Hochfir and Crotzni are ? This is far more simple than taking every cards and redesigning them.

[quote=“spicyHarp;82283”]
Then we can make it the best, make a new loadout, stack good augments on it.[/quote]

Good augments, some QoL changes, and slight buff would be a lot better than a straight buff across the board. Not to mention nothing is going to change until you make Blishlok’s DPS high than every other SMG, purely because other loadouts has better augments most of the time.

[omegaskorpion]

[quote=“spicyHarp;82474”][quote=“Eox;82303”]
Good Fletchers are powerful ? Whatever. You can get the same result with any other merc. You overestimate Fletcher way too much, and it’s probably the same for Aura.
[/quote]

Except you can’t. Fletcher has the most versatile explosive and engineer, nobody else has that. Being able to clear rooms/camps and not have to rely on your team for an engineer is a pretty big deal when you are in pubs.
And no, I’m not “overestimating” Fletcher. He is already very strong and definitely isn’t the weak lil’ guy that gets outgunned by Skyhammers and Fraggers.

Why would we modify every Blishlok loadouts when you can just modify some variables in the source code and make the Blishlok as viable as SMG-9, Hochfir and Crotzni are ? This is far more simple than taking every cards and redesigning them.

Then we can make it the best, make a new loadout, stack good augments on it.[/quote]

Good augments, some QoL changes, and slight buff would be a lot better than a straight buff across the board. Not to mention nothing is going to change until you make Blishlok’s DPS high than every other SMG, purely because other loadouts has better augments most of the time.

Exepth that there is even more versatile explosives man that you already mentioned and he is Fragger.
Just cook grenade and you can blow up entire room while fletcher needs 2-3 stikkies to do that. Not to mention he has better weapons and the K-121 is very much comparable to bishlock, exepth the fact that the K-121 has much better dps (135), fire rate, 1 less damage, and better ammo economy.

Proxy can throw 1-2 mines in the room and either wait people to step on them or just shoot them, also killing everything in room. She shotgun with much better instakill capability and secondary smg, not to mention Hochfir which is pretty good.

Now Fletcher aint bad, i like his weapons, most of them atleast… ok i only like empire-9 and ahnuld and thats about it, everything els is weak.

There are simple ways to increase bishlock dps without making it overpowered.
Im just going to rip my own ideas from my own post to show you how it can be done:

Rof 395 (from 400)
Damage: 19 (from 18)

What do we get with these stats?
Same DPS as the M4 and Dreiss AR.
What els? well it has better dps than smg-9 but its noticably less accurate.
It has still lower dps than KEK.

With these stats it could be in the middle of the smg-9 and KEK. Viable, not over powered but powerfull.
And you are wrong if you say this changes nothing because it does. A lot.

Currently the whole augments system is flawed and balancing weapons with it is just shooting in the leg.
Too many bad loadouts and useless augments.
Most of them dont work.
Too many loadouts have cool which nobody wants.
Pineaple jugler is useless.
Quick Eye is useless in most of the weapons, snipers would benefit from this but they dont have it.
Springy is not even noticable.
Lock on is useless with Fletcher because it does not work.
Guardian Angel is mostly useless, since it warns player too late and the sound is mistakable.
Focus, why the hell smg:s have this augument???
Try hard is very powerfull after you die multible times but it is kinda freaking odd augment realy, giving bonus every time player dies? but useless if he lives all the time and kills.
Looter is good for health but useless when you want ammo.

[spicyHarp]

Proxy will never be able to use mines as aggressively compared to any other explosive. Short range, long arm time, needs to be shot after throwing it down, and obvious animation gives people more than enough time to avoid it.

Fragger nades needs cooking, that’s 1~2 second downtime depending on the range. It is also very predictable, since most of the time a Fragger taking cover means he’s cooking a nade. If we are comparing mercs themselves and not the abilities, well, one is an engineer and the other is an assault. Nuff’ said.

The changes you listed would make one loadout somewhat popular: BL81. Everything else will be left in the dust because the weapon just isn’t good enough for the terrible augments it offers.

But you do have a point, some of the augments are terrible, but what about the good ones? Drilled, Unshakeable, Explodydendron/Bigger Blast, Get Up, Potent Packs. The top tier loadouts always has the good ones. People are using the loadouts with weaker weapons and better augments everyday. No matter what you think, it is proven that augment balancing works.

[Eox]

If Fletcher is so good, then why is he so less played than Bushwacker ? Because he’s not. Bushwacker brings up what you can consider as on additionnal player on the battlefield, with an aimbot. He has a KEK-10. Fletcher does not bring anything that Fragger does not do better. Fragger is absolutely played in every competitive matches, so seems Bushwacker. Fletcher is far less played. Sticky bombs can’t clear you a choke as efficiently as a frag grenade, they have poor radius, needs leading to get the most of it and you have to detonate them manually, praying that you won’t be killed before by the full broad of weapons that are more ranged and more powerful than you. Your weapons are the weakest, and your sticky bombs takes much more time and skill to use than any automatic weapons, and can be dodged easly. And detonation is not instant.

We need a better Blishlok. And a Shotgun rework as well. And players around there don’t even pick the loadout fully based on the augments : the primary matters much more. Same for comp players.

[spicyHarp]

He isn’t played because Fragger (an assault) does the job better, and Turrets are ideal compared to more explosives. And for pubs, it’s because most people can’t master him, not because he is weak.

The Fragger nades aren’t that great either. You need to cook it, the cooking animation makes it very predicable, you will get killed before you can even finish cooking, and can be dodged easily due to travel time.

See what i did there? You are assuming the fletcher is out in the open and can’t play around the downsides. If Fragger can take cover and cook nades, then Fletcher can peak around corner and throw stickies. And technically the stickies are the hardest to dodge, purely because there is no indication of it before it’s too late. Fragger needs to cook it, Nader’s GL takes time to detonate. Fletcher can just throw it and detonate it mid air.

We do need a better Blishlok, but directly buffing it to the point it’s viable on most mercs? No. With the current augments, it’s gonna take a lot more than just a small buff to make it viable.

[Resine]

Fletcher is not used because he is not that effective as Bushwacker peroid. There are things that are hard to use and master, but stop lying to yourself Blishlok is just weak and using your ability alone to fight against organized teams is simply not good enough.

[spicyHarp]

I’ve seem plenty of good fletchers that doesn’t even use his primary, Empire 9 is good enough. And Fletcher isn’t used as much in comp is because Fragger is the most effective slayer in DB atm, far better and more versatile than anyone else. The release of Thunder could greatly affect the team compositions.

Fletcher can do so much more with explosives than Bush, it’s just that Fragger and Bushwhacker is more versatile than Fragger and Fletcher.