Burst Rifles


(rosully) #1

So after this recent balance patch, I personally have felt the big hit taken to burst rifles. Both the Stark and the BR seem really difficult to land the entire burst from distance, making automatics much more consistent. Now I understand that this was the overall thinking behind the balance batch.

“They are too reliable at landing consecutive headshots currently, meaning that they have a very low Time-To-Kill.”

“Increased recoil should also impact them at being overly effective and accurate at long range.”

These quotes show the intent, but it makes you question where they really thrive. They certainly can no longer compete and long range due to the recoil, mid range is ok but they again get outgunned by ARs and SMGs (at least from personal experience), and they shouldn’t even really be used up close. So where are they even viable. So many good loadouts such as Arty’s B81 and Fragger’s B61 are just no longer as effective as other cards. Arty and Kira both took a big hit with every single one of their available being nerfed, making Skyhammer much more viable due to his access to 2 ARs. I have not seen many burst rifles being used by other players, and I know myself that I have turned away from using them. However, I am not the most skilled player, so if anyone is still using them fine please let me know. Or if others are experiencing the same issues then please voice your opinions on how they should be changed. I personally believe these should be slightly buffed in the next balance patch, but what do I know? Any opinions are appreciated.


(Eox) #2

Moving to weapon discussions.


(znuund) #3

I personally don’t use BR’s because I suck more with them than with other weapons. I would probably prefer the selbstadt over any BR, lol.
I agree that the recoil should be less. In my opinion a BR should shoot accurately but with less rounds per minute compared to an AR. It should be in a spot where it beats AR’s on long range, mid range should be even and Ar should be favorable on close range. But as I said, I couldn’t balance these guns myself, I suck way too much with them.

I guess the right number to be tuned in the balancing update compared to the old OP BR’s should have been the dmg per bullet.


(binderr) #4

Burst rifles definitely took big hit, why they didnt just lower dmg output is beyond me. it rewarded players with good aim but now its meh!!! Now that these rifles rpm is even slower its just not fun using it. especially since a lot of eu servers lately have serious ping inconsistency and using burst rifle with bad ping is just terrible idea. i would like to see a slight buff in the near future!


(dusannfs) #5

Imo, BR-16 is just fine right now, very balanced, SD did a good job there. It feels more skilled to use and you are more vulnerable in between the shots, which is a good thing I think, it can still one shot squishies if all land on head. I can’t say anything about Stark though, as I don’t have a lot of time for games right now, so I didn’t get to play with it, but I’ve heard people saying it’s now bad. Fact is, bursts have always been better, just look how stupidly easy it is to play Br Fragger. Throw a nade here, a few bursts there and you’ve got yourself an ace. Though I don’t think Dreiss deserved to be nerfed as much, it was always an underperformer compared to the other to bursts.


(GatoCommodore) #6

@dusannfs said:
Imo, BR-16 is just fine right now, very balanced, SD did a good job there. It feels more skilled to use and you are more vulnerable in between the shots, which is a good thing I think, it can still one shot squishies if all land on head. I can’t say anything about Stark though, as I don’t have a lot of time for games right now, so I didn’t get to play with it, but I’ve heard people saying it’s now bad. Fact is, bursts have always been better, just look how stupidly easy it is to play Br Fragger. Throw a nade here, a few bursts there and you’ve got yourself an ace. Though I don’t think Dreiss deserved to be nerfed as much, it was always an underperformer compared to the other to bursts.

A precision rifle

with added horizontal recoil?

balance my arse, they just made the gun more RNG more than fixing it.


(doxjq) #7

I main Fragger/K-121 in competitions and pugs, but for casual play I have always been an Arty/Stark main just because I find him the most fun to play. My aim with the Stark was pretty high, which last time I played I think I was sitting at 49.2% with more than 100 hours of use. I think it’s my second most used gun and accuracy wise I think it felt pretty balanced. The problem with burst rifles was how much damage they did, not how accurate they were.

After the balance update the Stark is pretty much ruined at all ranges. Its fire rate is too slow up close to take on multiple enemies up close and it the introduction of an insane amount of horizontal recoil means it’s pretty much useless at all ranges, but most specifically long distance. This is kind of backwards imo, because long distance is probably where burst rifles should be strongest. It’s so bad now you can’t even triple dink someone who is standing completely still on a turret which should not be a hard task (and was never a hard task before the update)

Like I’ve said a million times already. I’m not against balance changes. The burst rifles were overpowered in pretty much every situation and they did need to change, but I don’t agree with adding horizontal recoil. Horizontal recoil just adds inconsistency and randomness to the gun, and makes it super frustrating to use. You can literally aim perfectly now and miss shots because you can never tell whether or not the gun is going to yank left or right. I’ll never agree with that kind of “balance change” to a weapon - using RNG to decide whether or not shots that used to hit should hit.

The nature of burst rifles should be high risk high reward. At the moment they are high risk no reward. I’ll pretty much pick the Hochfir over the Stark now even on long range maps like Chapel. That’s really not how it should work.

What would I have done if the balance changes were up to me?

  • Left the burst rifles as they were, but decreased their damage output significantly (by a good 25-30% at least, so it took an extra burst or two to kill people).
  • Reduce the spread on the M4 and Timik to make them a little more consistent.
  • Reduced recoil and spread on all SMG’s, just to match the M4 and Timik buff.
  • If weapon balance felt better after the above 3 changes, I would then consider nerfing every guns damage just to stop the TTK from being too fast.

I just don’t agree with randomness. Good aim deserves to be rewarded and I would rather buff weak guns leaving everything accurate than just nerf strong guns so much that it is literally RNG as to whether you land your shots or not.


(Sorotia) #8

@GatoCommodore said:

@dusannfs said:
Imo, BR-16 is just fine right now, very balanced, SD did a good job there. It feels more skilled to use and you are more vulnerable in between the shots, which is a good thing I think, it can still one shot squishies if all land on head. I can’t say anything about Stark though, as I don’t have a lot of time for games right now, so I didn’t get to play with it, but I’ve heard people saying it’s now bad. Fact is, bursts have always been better, just look how stupidly easy it is to play Br Fragger. Throw a nade here, a few bursts there and you’ve got yourself an ace. Though I don’t think Dreiss deserved to be nerfed as much, it was always an underperformer compared to the other to bursts.

A precision rifle

with added horizontal recoil?

balance my arse, they just made the gun more RNG more than fixing it.

Yup…happened with a lot of guns…except you know the ones newbs like to use like Shotguns and the PDP…those got buffs.

I will never get why they cater to newbs so hard in this game.


(bgyoshi) #9

@doxjq I think you’re confusing randomness with stability. Randomness would be random bullet spread, stability is recoil, and accuracy is recoil and bullet spread combined. The weapons aren’t having randomness added to them, they’re just losing stability.

Which is counterintuitive

BRs should have a high stability. Little vertical recoil, no horizontal recoil. The damage needs to be lower, the long time between bursts is perfect, and the damage falloff should be very low, identical to sniper rifles honestly. That way they perform well at range, but get outgunned by ARs at mid range (which they should) and every primary at close range (which they should).

The problem with that is DB is turning into a game of long hallways and sight lines. Long range weapons dominate in these kinds of maps, and sniper rifles are already frustrating enough.

Horizontal recoil is good for now in the sense that it’s pretty actively removed BRs from play. Players can get a break from the meta for now while SD figures out what combination of map edits and gun edits they can make to further balance BRs so they don’t overperform.

But in the end, BRs shouldn’t have horizontal recoil. Less damage, keep the long time between bursts, no horizontal recoil.


(GatoCommodore) #10

@bgyoshi said:
@doxjq I think you’re confusing randomness with stability. Randomness would be random bullet spread, stability is recoil, and accuracy is recoil and bullet spread combined. The weapons aren’t having randomness added to them, they’re just losing stability.

Which is counterintuitive

BRs should have a high stability. Little vertical recoil, no horizontal recoil. The damage needs to be lower, the long time between bursts is perfect, and the damage falloff should be very low, identical to sniper rifles honestly. That way they perform well at range, but get outgunned by ARs at mid range (which they should) and every primary at close range (which they should).

The problem with that is DB is turning into a game of long hallways and sight lines. Long range weapons dominate in these kinds of maps, and sniper rifles are already frustrating enough.

Horizontal recoil is good for now in the sense that it’s pretty actively removed BRs from play. Players can get a break from the meta for now while SD figures out what combination of map edits and gun edits they can make to further balance BRs so they don’t overperform.

But in the end, BRs shouldn’t have horizontal recoil. Less damage, keep the long time between bursts, no horizontal recoil.

i can tolerate automatic rifles because i can stop shooting anytime i want to and i can keep shooting until my ammo dries up

but when you cant stop shooting when the aim deviates, and you get delay after you stop shooting, its just not worth it.

i’d rather use 55rnds K121 that i can shoot indefinetly rather a gun that is too restrictive.
BR doesnt feel good anymore for me not because the delay or the horizontal recoil, but the combination of both making it feels too restrictive in a game where freedom of movement and walljumping gunplay is the core.


(dusannfs) #11

@GatoCommodore said:

@dusannfs said:
Imo, BR-16 is just fine right now, very balanced, SD did a good job there. It feels more skilled to use and you are more vulnerable in between the shots, which is a good thing I think, it can still one shot squishies if all land on head. I can’t say anything about Stark though, as I don’t have a lot of time for games right now, so I didn’t get to play with it, but I’ve heard people saying it’s now bad. Fact is, bursts have always been better, just look how stupidly easy it is to play Br Fragger. Throw a nade here, a few bursts there and you’ve got yourself an ace. Though I don’t think Dreiss deserved to be nerfed as much, it was always an underperformer compared to the other to bursts.

A precision rifle

with added horizontal recoil?

balance my arse, they just made the gun more RNG more than fixing it.

As i said, I didn’t have much time to test, but from what I played, I still rekt people with my Br arty, so idk. Yeah a bit more rng, but for me at least, not noticable enough to notice. And fact is, bursts were kind of op, I mean even shotties and smgs and other rifles have horisontal recoil a.k.a rng as you said, and they’re doing just fine. If it feels imprecise, maybe try ADS-ing? Idk, update made Br-16 feel more like high(er) risk high(er) reward kinda gun, at least for me.


(doxjq) #12

If you haven’t really noticed the changes to the BR-16 it leaves me wondering what kind of accuracy you’re putting out @dusannfs. For someone who is accurate and lands a good 40-50% you’re certainly going to notice it.

The changes are huge, ADS’ing doesn’t really help at all and the gun definitely isn’t higher reward. Both BR’s just fall into a stupid category now. They’ve taken the nerf too far. For me after the changes it was basically coming down to luck. The horizontal recoil is just too much, and it’s literally RNG as to whether or not you’re going to land more than 1 bullet inside the burst.

You also can’t compare horizontal recoil between bursts and full autos. Yeah full autos have always had a little bit but they have completely different mechanics. Far less punishing for a full auto gun than a full auto gun, mostly because the recoil in a single burst goes one way or the other where as the full autos change direction most of the time leaving them sitting rather central.


(watsyurdeal) #13

Tbh, TTK for Burst Rifles should be higher for headshots than the M4 and Timik, but bodyshots should be slower.

Maybe potentially changing it to 4 shot burst rifles instead.


(dusannfs) #14

@doxjq said:
If you haven’t really noticed the changes to the BR-16 it leaves me wondering what kind of accuracy you’re putting out @dusannfs. For someone who is accurate and lands a good 40-50% you’re certainly going to notice it.

The changes are huge, ADS’ing doesn’t really help at all and the gun definitely isn’t higher reward. Both BR’s just fall into a stupid category now. They’ve taken the nerf too far. For me after the changes it was basically coming down to luck. The horizontal recoil is just too much, and it’s literally RNG as to whether or not you’re going to land more than 1 bullet inside the burst.

You also can’t compare horizontal recoil between bursts and full autos. Yeah full autos have always had a little bit but they have completely different mechanics. Far less punishing for a full auto gun than a full auto gun, mostly because the recoil in a single burst goes one way or the other where as the full autos change direction most of the time leaving them sitting rather central.

Late response, but yeah, about the changes, I definitely did notice them, and as I said, the gun IS worse, perhaps it didn’t seem that bad, as before that I have intensively played CSGO with friends, while maining Deagle most of the time, just for fun. So coming from hours of having to deal with the RNG machine back to bursts wasn’t such a big deal for me. I don’t know and really cannot comment on that, if the majority of player say bursts are now weak, than that’s the truth and they should be buffed. I don’t know the accuracy, was probably horrible, due to inconsistent gaming, but at times I had kill streaks where it still felt like a laser (talking about headshots ofc) (Have used Famas on burst mode in CS too, that might have had an effect).

Lately I haven’t been able to play any game honestly, so if my comment created confusion, then I’m sorry, it was representing my opinion based on the few hours of my gametime, that’s the only chance I got to test.


(doxjq) #15

@dusannfs said:

@doxjq said:
If you haven’t really noticed the changes to the BR-16 it leaves me wondering what kind of accuracy you’re putting out @dusannfs. For someone who is accurate and lands a good 40-50% you’re certainly going to notice it.

The changes are huge, ADS’ing doesn’t really help at all and the gun definitely isn’t higher reward. Both BR’s just fall into a stupid category now. They’ve taken the nerf too far. For me after the changes it was basically coming down to luck. The horizontal recoil is just too much, and it’s literally RNG as to whether or not you’re going to land more than 1 bullet inside the burst.

You also can’t compare horizontal recoil between bursts and full autos. Yeah full autos have always had a little bit but they have completely different mechanics. Far less punishing for a full auto gun than a full auto gun, mostly because the recoil in a single burst goes one way or the other where as the full autos change direction most of the time leaving them sitting rather central.

Late response, but yeah, about the changes, I definitely did notice them, and as I said, the gun IS worse, perhaps it didn’t seem that bad, as before that I have intensively played CSGO with friends, while maining Deagle most of the time, just for fun. So coming from hours of having to deal with the RNG machine back to bursts wasn’t such a big deal for me. I don’t know and really cannot comment on that, if the majority of player say bursts are now weak, than that’s the truth and they should be buffed. I don’t know the accuracy, was probably horrible, due to inconsistent gaming, but at times I had kill streaks where it still felt like a laser (talking about headshots ofc) (Have used Famas on burst mode in CS too, that might have had an effect).

Lately I haven’t been able to play any game honestly, so if my comment created confusion, then I’m sorry, it was representing my opinion based on the few hours of my gametime, that’s the only chance I got to test.

Nah no confusion mate, my post was more of a question rather than a statement. Sorry if it sounded abrupt. I was just genuinely curious since you said you could barely notice the changes, because the difference is absolute day and night. I’ve heard a lot of low level guys who usually put out 20-25% accuracy (on a good day lol) say they can’t tell the difference, which is no surprise to me - If you couldn’t land shots before, you’re not going to notice them missing more now, so it probably feels the same.

At the end of the day like you say they are weak now and the whole meta has changed. Not saying that a changing meta is a bad thing, but it just concerns me because to me the update was supposed to bring balance when all it has done has left the game imbalanced with everything feeling worse and a lower skill ceiling.

I think the biggest problem is the PTS doesn’t have many veteran players (or so I am told) and the guys who do most of the testing are super casual players. The devs themselves are not top notch competitive players (that is not an insult if anyone takes it that way, it’s just plain fact) and honestly the only way I can see anyone achieving proper balance is in the hands of veteran players who have put in the time, and have the experience. A guy with 2000 hours is going to know a hell of a lot more about how and when guns perform well and where its strengths are compared to a level 10 guy with 50 hours who only has a matter of hours (or some times even just minutes) using a specific gun. I mean if if I was trying to set up a Ferrari F1 car I’d certainly rather listen to Michael Schumacher’s opinion over 100 casual track day guys who only drive Honda Civics.

I’m also not trying to say veteran opinions are the only ones that should matter, but I will hands down say that if you want to achieve proper balance then their opinion should certainly mean more. That’s why I get concerned when I think Eox was the one who said something along the lines of casual players opinions carry just as much weight - To me that sounds just absolutely ridiculous, but it also makes complete sense when I see how incredibly bad the last weapon balance update was because it actually feels like the whole weapon balance update was based around people who can’t aim and don’t know better.

Maybe I’m biased but to me experienced players are not only going to know which guns are overpowered but they’re also going to be able to tell you where they are overpowered and mostly importantly WHY they are overpowered. Burst rifles were overpowered, there’s no doubt about it, but every single veteran player I’ve ever played with said the same thing - They just do too much damage. So what do they do in the update? They literally almost don’t touch their damage, but instead slow it down and make it less accurate and give it more randomness. That isn’t balance at all, that’s just total retardery. No experienced player in their right mind would have asked for these changes, and if anyone did ask for those specific changes they are completely incompetent or just outright inexperienced. Whichever one it is, the balance changes were wrong, I’ll argue that one to my grave.


(dusannfs) #16

@doxjq said:

@dusannfs said:

@doxjq said:
If you haven’t really noticed the changes to the BR-16 it leaves me wondering what kind of accuracy you’re putting out @dusannfs. For someone who is accurate and lands a good 40-50% you’re certainly going to notice it.

The changes are huge, ADS’ing doesn’t really help at all and the gun definitely isn’t higher reward. Both BR’s just fall into a stupid category now. They’ve taken the nerf too far. For me after the changes it was basically coming down to luck. The horizontal recoil is just too much, and it’s literally RNG as to whether or not you’re going to land more than 1 bullet inside the burst.

You also can’t compare horizontal recoil between bursts and full autos. Yeah full autos have always had a little bit but they have completely different mechanics. Far less punishing for a full auto gun than a full auto gun, mostly because the recoil in a single burst goes one way or the other where as the full autos change direction most of the time leaving them sitting rather central.

Late response, but yeah, about the changes, I definitely did notice them, and as I said, the gun IS worse, perhaps it didn’t seem that bad, as before that I have intensively played CSGO with friends, while maining Deagle most of the time, just for fun. So coming from hours of having to deal with the RNG machine back to bursts wasn’t such a big deal for me. I don’t know and really cannot comment on that, if the majority of player say bursts are now weak, than that’s the truth and they should be buffed. I don’t know the accuracy, was probably horrible, due to inconsistent gaming, but at times I had kill streaks where it still felt like a laser (talking about headshots ofc) (Have used Famas on burst mode in CS too, that might have had an effect).

Lately I haven’t been able to play any game honestly, so if my comment created confusion, then I’m sorry, it was representing my opinion based on the few hours of my gametime, that’s the only chance I got to test.

Nah no confusion mate, my post was more of a question rather than a statement. Sorry if it sounded abrupt. I was just genuinely curious since you said you could barely notice the changes, because the difference is absolute day and night. I’ve heard a lot of low level guys who usually put out 20-25% accuracy (on a good day lol) say they can’t tell the difference, which is no surprise to me - If you couldn’t land shots before, you’re not going to notice them missing more now, so it probably feels the same.

At the end of the day like you say they are weak now and the whole meta has changed. Not saying that a changing meta is a bad thing, but it just concerns me because to me the update was supposed to bring balance when all it has done has left the game imbalanced with everything feeling worse and a lower skill ceiling.

I think the biggest problem is the PTS doesn’t have many veteran players (or so I am told) and the guys who do most of the testing are super casual players. The devs themselves are not top notch competitive players (that is not an insult if anyone takes it that way, it’s just plain fact) and honestly the only way I can see anyone achieving proper balance is in the hands of veteran players who have put in the time, and have the experience. A guy with 2000 hours is going to know a hell of a lot more about how and when guns perform well and where its strengths are compared to a level 10 guy with 50 hours who only has a matter of hours (or some times even just minutes) using a specific gun. I mean if if I was trying to set up a Ferrari F1 car I’d certainly rather listen to Michael Schumacher’s opinion over 100 casual track day guys who only drive Honda Civics.

I’m also not trying to say veteran opinions are the only ones that should matter, but I will hands down say that if you want to achieve proper balance then their opinion should certainly mean more. That’s why I get concerned when I think Eox was the one who said something along the lines of casual players opinions carry just as much weight - To me that sounds just absolutely ridiculous, but it also makes complete sense when I see how incredibly bad the last weapon balance update was because it actually feels like the whole weapon balance update was based around people who can’t aim and don’t know better.

Maybe I’m biased but to me experienced players are not only going to know which guns are overpowered but they’re also going to be able to tell you where they are overpowered and mostly importantly WHY they are overpowered. Burst rifles were overpowered, there’s no doubt about it, but every single veteran player I’ve ever played with said the same thing - They just do too much damage. So what do they do in the update? They literally almost don’t touch their damage, but instead slow it down and make it less accurate and give it more randomness. That isn’t balance at all, that’s just total retardery. No experienced player in their right mind would have asked for these changes, and if anyone did ask for those specific changes they are completely incompetent or just outright inexperienced. Whichever one it is, the balance changes were wrong, I’ll argue that one to my grave.

Well, wow what a reply! Yeah, everything you said is right; the “balance update” wasn’t so balanced after all.
About players who do the testing, I suspected something wasn’t quite right there, like how could someone not realize they’re making weapons bad, balance isn’t always just hit or miss nerf or buff, sometimes it’s needed to actually think it through, let someone skilled test it and approve it, and THEN let the update into the game.

This might be wrong, but it’s my impression: Before the update there was and order of how good bursts are (for me at least): Br-16>Stark>Dreiss. (Br and Stark were close but it felt like BR is easier to control, less recoil perhaps?).
Now it’s still kind of like that, except neither of them really are good (Again Br felt arlight, but let’s discard that as my impression isn’t supported by dozens of hours of serious competitive play, I’m not the right person to say whether something’s good or not, at lest not atm) Bursts are still very usable and useful but Dreiss still seems so hard to “tame”.

Kinda related, kinda not, but I really didn’t like the changes to the Grandeur. It was already weak after the last nerf, felt so inaccurate and hard to use, and now it’s even worse. I don’t understand the damage nerf, because the ONLY benefit it had over the Driess (look at Redeye for example) was that it could one shot headshot 80hp mercs, which isn’t really all that easy, considering they have the smallest heads and move the fastest. And now that’s gone too!

And the update completely destroyed Aimee. Sure snipers were strong, but you don’t just completely murder one weapon (Felix, which did get a slight buff later, still not nowhere close to MOA), while just slightly nerfing the other by adding a little bit of recoil, where there was almost none.
So is SD forcing us to the new meta, PDP Aimee? /s

All in all I don’t even know how to feel about the update anymore, nor about the whole game really. I understand the game is in beta, but I kinda liked the (smaller) community and mostly nothing changing, just good old DB, a skill and team oriented game, not RNG, CSGO alike game ever changing to the new (noob-ish) players. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows, we’ll see.


(GatoCommodore) #17

@dusannfs PDP aimee and Grandeur aimee is now probably better just because RPM>Slow Hard Hitter


(dusannfs) #18

@GatoCommodore said:
@dusannfs PDP aimee and Grandeur aimee is now probably better just because RPM>Slow Hard Hitter

Perhaps, but it shouldn’t be that way, right?
Why would no skill bodyshot spamming (PDP) be valued more than a single, precise, well aimed and timed headshot?
And Grandeur to me at least is just too inaccurate, ADS doesn’t help enough and just limits your FOV and it lost the point. Why would you use it? It acts more like a worse dreiss than like a scopeless sniper. It can’t 1 hs kill 80hp mercs, so you’d be better of using something else, as it’s just terrible at close distance, mid range and long range.


(StormSenpai) #19

Burst rifles… i wont say my opinion about dreiss AR cuz i sux hard with it before and after the nerf, Br 16 and Stark AR literally became useless, i dont understand why the “burst rifles” are less bursty than normal rifles,even though is harder to aim and easily punished when missing, as a kira main im saying literally u killed these 2 weps and gave a giant facepalm to kira more than any other merc doing that… give players one reason to play burst rifles now cuz i literally see no point in playing them… Reroll the changes, or put a rewarding +dmg for landing those hard shots with a nerfed weapon, normal rifles now are better than burst ones in all distances and situations, i would say as well that players number that are using burst rifles now are maximum 10-15% of the number before the so called “balance” update.


(HadronZodiac) #20

@znuund said:
I personally don’t use BR’s because I suck more with them than with other weapons. I would probably prefer the selbstadt over any BR, lol.
I agree that the recoil should be less. In my opinion a BR should shoot accurately but with less rounds per minute compared to an AR. It should be in a spot where it beats AR’s on long range, mid range should be even and Ar should be favorable on close range. But as I said, I couldn’t balance these guns myself, I suck way too much with them.

I guess the right number to be tuned in the balancing update compared to the old OP BR’s should have been the dmg per bullet.

I agree, i’m better with stream weapons (I imagine where bullets go, so autos are easier to aim for some reason)

The recoil is a bit much, its hard to land shots with it ;/