Fire Support - Weapon Diversity

(JJMAJR) #1

There’s a lack of variety among Fire Support classes. Most of them wield assault rifles and have 120 HP.
I’d like to see some FS classes use SMGs, shotguns, or sniper rifles, but obviously those weapons would be very unbalanced on FS classes. SMGs and shotguns would be weak. Sniper rifles would be broken.

Sniper Rifles
[spoiler]I thought of a sniper rifle idea for Fire Supports involving recharging abilities instead of infinite ammo, but I don’t want to talk more about it again.

But, some weapons could be used for Fire Support classes in spite of being considered sniper rifles. The Grandeur for example isn’t a sniping weapon, and acts more like a middle way between the Dreiss and the PDP. I don’t think it would be broken on a Fire Support due to its increased ammo capacity compared to the PDP. With that thing I never ran out of bullets, even without a lot of ammo packs all over the place. I ran out of ammo a lot faster with the Dreiss due to its higher RoF.[/spoiler]

Two Primaries
[spoiler]Anyways, what if some fire support classes use two primaries instead of just assault rifles like the others? Like, Stoker uses Hollunds 880, Remburg 7, or the Crotzni for primaries and the Blishlock, Kek-10, and the SMG-9 for
“secondaries”?
(Shotguns have higher DPS than assault rifles (Ahnuhld-12 being the exception, and I didn’t put it in) so at point blank they could deal more damage to an objective.)

I’d like to see at least one of the Fire Support classes be able to use two primaries per loadout card. Maybe not for other class types because that would ruin the whole point of a Fire Support in most teams: ammo. An Assault class with two primaries would certainly not need a Fire Support for most of its life.

That’s the reason why I don’t think that an Assault class would be the best fit for loadout cards using two primaries.[/spoiler]

(Occult) #2

i dont want anymore broken shit

(Dawnlazy) #3

I’d rather just have more rifles to choose from. Add Famas, Marlin 30-30, Galil, QBZ 95, Arisaka Type 99, SG 552…

(Occult) #4

made me drool a little

(inscrutableShow) #5

Sadly, the devs stated that they’re not going to change the weapons of existing mercs, so until new fire supports come out, it’s not happening.

Battle rifles that aren’t semi-auto would be AWESOME, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen, since bolt action/lever action weapons are more suited to slower paced games. (except in the case of sniper rifles, obviously)

(god1) #6

So you need more gimmick guns that you’d never use in a bit more serious match?

(Szakalot) #7

as long as you give me a medic with an assault rifle

(JJMAJR) #8

There’s 5 SMGs and 5 Assault Rifles.
Compare that to 2 LMGs, 4 Sniper Rifles, and 3 Shotguns.
There’s plenty of Assault Rifles in this game.

I made sure to give my ideas considerable thought before posting them. I know that sniper rifles shouldn’t have infinite ammo without that coming from another source.

[quote=“inscrutableShow;161653”]Sadly, the devs stated that they’re not going to change the weapons of existing mercs, so until new fire supports come out, it’s not happening.

Battle rifles that aren’t semi-auto would be AWESOME, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen, since bolt action/lever action weapons are more suited to slower paced games. (except in the case of sniper rifles, obviously)[/quote]
I like semi-auto weapons but I’m satisfied with the number of semiautomatic primaries there are in this game.

The devs said a few things that they eventually turned away from. It’s not absolute certainty that my ideas would be discredited so easily, but with the recent spammers it’s likely this would be put in the trash bin.

Sure, because Sawbonez really should have two of his primaries replaced with something else. The Blishlock and SMG-9 builds as a whole are extremely weak. With of course exceptions made towards any builds that amp up healing abilities, but the Crotzni does that, and so much better.

(BananaSlug) #9

in case you dont know crotzini received few nerfs and smg 9 is just stronger, even his loadouts are stronger with smg 9

idk man what you have against AR’s this should be the biggest group of weapons
as @Dawnrazor said add more weapons new mercs like javelin, turtle, falcon and that cda guy could give use completely new weapons and devs could add new weapons just for them
but we will just see old weapons… sigh
also fire supports are in my opinion best in terms of balance they are just good

and btw why would you want smg or shotgun on fire support while you can have ar ?!?

(JJMAJR) #10

First let’s compare the number of instances of ARs with SMGs. Each merc that has one AR gives one point, and a merc that has only ARs give three points.

[spoiler]Let’s start with the easiest to account for: ARs.
3 Skyhammer
3 Arty
3 Kira
3 Stoker
12
2 Fragger
2 Thunder
1 Redeye
5
17 instances x3 of ARs.

Now SMGs.
3 Bushwhacker
3 Sawbonez
3 Phoenix
3 Nader
3 Phantom
1 Aura
1 Fletcher
1 Proxy
18 instances x3 of SMGs, but over a wider spread. Not only that, but some weapons (Blishlock, Hochfir) served as placeholders for other weapon categories, mostly shotguns. And I don’t even consider Phantom to be significant enough in this equation to count.

I then want to count the number of instances between each individual weapon. This won’t take long.

3 M4A1
3 Timik
4 BR-16
4 Stark
3 Dreiss

5 Blishlock (Sawbonez really doesn’t need or use this weapon)
3 SMG-9 (Arty or Stoker using this as a secondary? Co- oh wait that’s just my imagination.)
3 Kek-10
4 Crotzni
3 Hochfir

Oh and I’ll just get a check on shotguns too, since I mentioned them in my original statement…
2 Ahnuhld-12 (damage dropoff–)
4 Hollunds 880 (tighter spread and higher damage)
3 Remburg 7 (breaks armoured walls and that’s it, might actually serve a purpose for breaking objectives because even the K-121 can’t compete with its 144 DPS.)

Okay, I guess there’s not a lot of mercs that use the Ahnuhld-12. Even though I listed it as a write-off for Fire Support.[/spoiler]

Crotzni still performed tremendously well for me compared to the Blishlock, and especially the Dreiss, one of my favorite weapons.

The SMG-9 only has one loadout with extra healing, and I would rather have the offensive power of the Crotzni (plus the healing ability) over that.

Also, the Blishlock has literally no reason to be played on Sawbonez, and I am an avid Blishlock fan, I know how to play with it, and it doesn’t fit Sawbonez abilities or augments paired with those abilities. It should be removed.

[quote=“BananaSlug;161981”]idk man what you have against AR’s this should be the biggest group of weapons
as @Dawnrazor said add more weapons new mercs like javelin, turtle, falcon and that cda guy could give use completely new weapons and devs could add new weapons just for them
but we will just see old weapons… sigh
also fire supports are in my opinion best in terms of balance they are just good[/quote]
Fire Supports are only balanced because they are flat, the only distinguishing factor between them is their abilities, with Skyhammer having the ability to take out everything but having a long cooldown, Arty being the Nader to Skyhammer’s Fragger, and Stoker just having a grenade instead of a “death from the sky” ability. Kira’s the only exception to all that, and even then she has the same firearms as Arty.

If assault rifles do go on other classes, great! Only fixes my problem with the FS classes.

Because it’s more interesting that way. ARs on top of ARs for one category of personnel is boring.

(Apofenas) #11

In my opinion only diversity that is needed is between Kira and Arty weapons. They have similiar abilities, liturally same weapons (exept Kira has more M9 and less Caulden load outs), but Kira has 30 less HP and 40 more speed. And she can’t really use that speed with weapon ready as it’s 82% speed for burst rifles.

Kira needs machine pistol to make up for 30 hp disadvantage. Not an smg or shotgun (even though Kira was shown with SMG-9 in Scrubs trailer) as it would break balance a lot.

(JJMAJR) #12

[quote=“Apofenas;162078”]In my opinion only diversity that is needed is between Kira and Arty weapons. They have similiar abilities, liturally same weapons (exept Kira has more M9 and less Caulden load outs), but Kira has 30 less HP and 40 more speed. And she can’t really use that speed with weapon ready as it’s 82% speed for burst rifles.

Kira needs machine pistol to make up for 30 hp disadvantage. Not an smg or shotgun (even though Kira was shown with SMG-9 in Scrubs trailer) as it would break balance a lot.[/quote]

Kira getting machine pistols would actually make her weaker. Light semiautomatics are actually much stronger than MPs now, and MPs would barely do anything that would compare to the power that pistols could provide.
If anything, the inverse should be true, with Arty getting MPs instead of Kira in order to nerf him to be on par with Kira.

Replacing Kira’s sidearms with (whatever SMGs I could find that are weak enough) the Hochfir (Selbstadt .40), SMG-9 (Caulden), and Blishlock (M9) would definitely be very strong and break balance. I don’t even want to touch Kira because that most of her balance comes from her abilities.

I just think that Stoker’s weapons being practically drawn from every fire support class out there is too much. I was hoping for an SMG fire support, or something besides another FS with an AR.

(Szakalot) #13

MPs weaker than pistols? dont think so

(Apofenas) #14

In his case please explain why Sparks use pistols in last place after REVIVR and MPs.

Even if pistols were better than MPs on paper (and they aren’t), they wouldn’t be better in real. To keep that theoretic 112.5 dps you need to click LMB on every shot and keep 450 rpm. Pistols also have about 20% less damage per magazine than MPs.

MPs are still better weapons than pistols even after nerf.

Kira has strong primaries with good DPS range…and 87.5% speed multiplier. I usually see Proxy, Sparks or Fletcher forget about 97.5% melee speed multiplier and run with 95% MP instead. For such fast merc as Kira it would be huge bonus to run fast with weapon ready.

Although i don’t think it could be a huge change since Kira is fire support merc. These have own ammo source, so use secondaries when they ran out of mag…I think Simeon on my Stoker shoots with dust instead of bullets every time i pull it out.

All mercs that have MPs as secondary, have magnums in some load outs too. Why can’t Kira be special here and have Machine Pistols in some load outs and Light semiautomatics in others?

(JJMAJR) #15

Meaningless Drivel…
[spoiler]I play with semiautomatics quite a bit and am capable of sustaining the theoretical DPS that those things have. How many times do I have to click in order to achieve that with the Caulden? 6 times a second? The only problems that I can feel are from the M9 and the 19m range sidearm, due to asking the player to click 7-8 times a second.

Maybe having a sidearm fire in two-shot bursts (namely the M9) would be nice, anyways…

I also can feel the effects of range on weapons in this game, with the Blishlock being one of my favorite guns in spite of the dismal DPS it has when close up. The MPs have dismal range compared to the semiautomatic pistols. The only exception being the M9 vs Tolen matchup, but even then that’s just one matchup; the M9 outperforms the other machine pistols in respect to range.

And then there’s recoil. With higher rounds per minute comes higher recoil, and higher chance to miss… in exchange of an 100% chance to reach theoretical DPS level if all those shots hit at point blank.

I consider MPs the shotguns among secondaries for this reason: only useful at medium range, all powerful compared to its peers at close range with a few exceptions, and for that reason subpar compared to the standard weapons that everyone else has.

Maybe though (in respect to Kira) the M9 and the .40 should see replacements. It’s way too difficult to achieve their theoretical DPS. The MP-400 and the Tolen should, respectively, replace the M9 and the .40 pistols on Kira’s builds if she doesn’t get SMG secondaries (very likely).[/spoiler]

I still would like to see some mercs use primary weapons as secondaries nonetheless. Fire Support classes would be negatively impacted by it however, unless they are the ones who receive that niche.

Those classes also have the least weapon diversity, with two classes having blatant copies of each others’ arsenals and the other two using only assault rifles.