Heavy Gunner Class Evolutions Suck

[tacit charm]

I've got 3 Prestige on Heavy gunner and I love the class but, half the class evolutions are straight up troll picks.

Popcorn box just straight up kills you (and your team mates) right as you spawn into the stage.
Metal Storm also feels useless combat wise, but god forbid you dodge back from a new swarm of enemies, also a team and self killer.

Most of the time I am praying I will get a option that won't troll me, Just let me not evolve instead of having to pick from two options that are both a detriment to my run.

Also it kinda sucks that Belt feeding requires an active reload, so it is mostly useless with the Twin Gattling.
Meaning you barely have decent options for evolutions.

Edit:
My conclusion on the thread is:
Popcorn box has to go - rework or just remove it;
The rest can probably stay if popcorn is gone.

[willow hinge]

yeah weve come to the same conclusion before
its not optimal design when more than one group of people have independently come to wish for there to be an option to skip evolution, because it kills you

it should be exciting, not "damn i sure do wish this one doesnt fuck up my run, is it even worth risking?"

like if you already got firepower (best evolution), then why would you risk having to pick between popcorn box and metal storm

[wary sorrel]

Fire-power I've never noticed does self damage, but everything else about it is actually so good it redefines how you play heavy gunner after that point in the run

[willow hinge]

popcorn box is just straight up a troll
metal storm sucks design wise, because you wouldnt start wasting your tacticals to spawn the turrets in, and the turrets are either unreliable, or they reliably kill your teammate

[wary sorrel]

it's a shame there's only 3 evolutions that are worth taking, without a doubt, and everything else is to be avoided at all costs

public use tierlist for it if anybody wants to fight the objectively correct one shown above

my credentials

[tacit slate]

Honestly i think heavy gunner needs a revision

regarding the evos, other classes at least in my eyes have much more interesting things going on

[pastel carbon]

Master of Weaponry being C tier is kinda nuts
same for ammo supply spider it's great

[willow hinge]

items are incredibly powerful and define runs
master of weaponry would be picked primarily to get more value out of money shots, only for that money to go towards debuffed items
heavy gunner gets more value out of fully online ambrosia, endless ammo belt, hyperfeed, twin link, etc etc than he gets from buffed attachments

the item debuff is final
no matter how much you upgrade those items, they will always be only a little over half their potential
its too harsh of a price

[pastel carbon]

depends on what items you get, some of them are pretty agnostic to power decrease

if you have defensive items it doesn't matter much

I personally don't care much for hyperfeed and twink link

heh twink link

[willow hinge]

i suppose so
if it was 25% reduction to items, itd be a consistent consideration for me personally
as of right now, i always just skip this one because ammo ambrosia could be literally right around the corner and id be super upset if my 400% power rando'd ambrosia gets turned into a 220% ambrosia

[pastel carbon]

I don't really play gambling that I'll get one specific item

[willow hinge]

we always plan our loadouts to be loop capable, MoW cripples that, unless we have something ridiculous like idk short spring, god chip, bass nipple, printing nailgun

i bitch and whine about this so much but ONCE AGAIN, the only gun were allowed to use, is the tec9 with money shots
tec9 does not benefit much from MoW, it has 2 attachments after money shots

[pastel carbon]

oh
yeah in the very specific way you play I get why it's underpowered then

[willow hinge]

i guess tec9 moneyshots is kindof a byproduct of wanting to go late game
the game doesnt end for us at the final boss, so theres no point at which we would want to stop stacking money, which the most optimal way to do so is with the tec9
and MoW is kindof weird, in the sense that its ultimately anti-synergy, by making your items worse, and thus your primary source of damage worse
it can work, it has benefitted us, but much of the time its just a scam

hey, rework idea
items that are excempt from the nerf; all items that directly buff the weapon
its in theme, it makes heavy gunner focus harder on the heavy gunning
itd nerf survivability items, summons, damage items, utility, etc
its only hyperfeed, ambrosia, twin link, ammo belt, 6 shot, etc in this household
or perhaps these items should only get half the current 40% power nerf?

@wary sorrel miss heavy gunner fact check:

[abstract harness]

Item power loss can be easily fixed with money (if you want to lower the penalty Im fine with that & lower the penalty the later you grab this evo would be good). Also would be cool if all current and future guns gain additional weapon perk (That starting 1st weapon perk you can get again once a loop).

Ammo supply spider is good. Would be nice if it gets to low heal then it acts like a spider bot and finds a nearby enemy and nukes them. Its a walking supply depot that goes boom.

I dont mind the mind metal storm, you setup temp firing lines but if you want it replaced with something cooler sure. Popcorn box is not good. I wish I could throw it out at enemies like a grenade and it detonates towrards enemies but that sound like demoman. So replace this one.

And why dont we allow heavy gunner to get +1 choices when selecting attachments.

[abstract harness]

Hell the first game still has rewarding you with jams prolonging onslaught and carrying extra weapon.

[tacit charm]

I feel like on heavy gunner having good attachments is more impactful than items,
Having played a lot of multiplayer, from what I see a well upgraded weapon, especially if you also have cursed receiver can still keep up if not outpower other classes with items. The way your abilities synergize to me makes items feel mostly unnecessary. ( On most classes you have a balance of abilities, some for movement, some for damage, some for healing. Heavy gunner every ability is first and foremost increased firepower.)
It is is convenient to have items for sure, But the amount of firepower you can achieve without them is astonishing.
May just be a manner of playstyle. But I prefer and like the tradeoff of item power for attachment power.

Side note: some Items have effects that do not get debuffed ( cooling effect from six shooter ( which I think is the most important part ) ), of course you can't buff them either.

My preference is to dump all my money to ability upgrades, or for buying a good weapon.

[tacit charm]

To add to that maybe it would feel more powerful if you had more control over your attachments? Get to choose from 4 options instead of 3 or reroll attachments. 5 upgrade kits isn't really that much value, since you get enough upgrade kits to upgrade two weapons plus your pistol naturally, having 5 extra mostly means they will end up sitting in your inventory with no way to use them

[static burrow]

master of weaponry is fine, especially since heavy gunner is, unsurprisingly, a gun-focused class
and it has the potential to be really good if you know what attachments to pick on which guns

picrel is master of weaponry taken to its logical extreme

[pastel carbon]

behold

nemesis damage at insane fire rates with decent no ammo cost chance

[fossil merlin]

belt feeding is very nice

[willow hinge]

Thats cool, anyways money shots

[static burrow]

who gives a shit
300% power high caliber mags g11

[willow hinge]

If you want to validate MoW, then youre going to have to convince me that if i can reasonably kill the enemies with the tec9 with the assistance of my items, why shouldnt i? Its more money, more scaling, its optimal, youre selling if you dont

[static burrow]

oh my god DO YOU EVER SHUT UP ABOUT MONEY SHOTS

there

ARE

OTHER

ATTACHMENTS

THAT DIRECTLY IMPROVE YOUR ABILITY TO KILL SHIT

THE MAIN POINT OF THE GAME

and the best part
all the great ones are available on weapons even better than the tec9

your entire argument against master of weaponry is "muh money shots"

[willow hinge]

Why directly improve it when you can improve your scaling by 30%?

[static burrow]

master of weaponry boosts attachment power by

100%

for 200% power (on its own; and it can stack with other boosts)

that is huge

not +30%

[willow hinge]

Completely ignores the part where it fucks your items

"do you even play the game"
Could ask you the same, do you not understand how influential items and money gain are? Items can be infinitely scaled, guns much less so

No i dont play the game, i play tec9 money shots.

[static burrow]

you don't need items as much when you have extremely buffed attachments

and the -40% power penalty is an acceptable sacrifice

[willow hinge]

Doesnt hold up in loop

[static burrow]

master of weaponry is only bad if you're bad at picking attachments to make use of it

[static burrow]

the entirety of loop is a bonus

and not what the game is primarily balanced around

[willow hinge]

This is a final
Have a 600% item? Nope, 360 it is

[willow hinge]

Well there you go, couldve just said that.
We play for loop, we play for the god builds

[static burrow]

oh no, the item with its power jacked up by the compositor is a bit less jacked up now

oh no

[static burrow]

all my builds that get far into loop (or at least don't die on arrival) do so primarily because of attachment setups on guns

[willow hinge]

You sound a bit heated, maybe its time to take a break?

[static burrow]

no

i won't

i am going to kill things

[tacit charm]

I feel like you are kinda missing the point of heavy gunner. If you want to scale cash, go demolisher or machine hunter.
On heavy gunner you press left click and melt hordes of enemies. Scaling? My firepower is so overwhelming I don't need to scale no more.

Of course that is just my humble personal opinion 🙂

[willow hinge]

items scale heavy gunner consistently and way harder, except for the edge cases such as god chip nailgun
it doesnt come from a position of opinion or preference, unless you consider it preference that i want the most optimal build that will take me as far as possible

i am begging for excuses not to go money shots, yet the only time anything except money shots gets used, its because someone makes a mistake and we get overwhelmed
even then, the takeaway isnt "damn we almost died", its "damn, we couldve made so much more money off of that if we were money shotting it"
please prove me wrong
if im gonna be killing enemies regardless, i should be doing so with a gun that scales the run harder (such as pioneer that upgrades with each kill)
but the pioneer scaling is capped, and can be scaled later so money shots it is

[static burrow]

the entire point of heavy gunner is using the fucking guns

its core ability empowers guns specifically

its mobility ability also empowers guns

[willow hinge]

money and items empower guns

money empowers abilities

items require money

[static burrow]

muh scaling
if you build guns for literally anything other than waiting for numbers to go up you'll outpace the difficulty curve for long enough before getting to the point where you have more problems to worry about from enemy scaling than not having enough DPS

[static burrow]

if you need to sacrifice your ability to kill shit to afford upgrades just to get by, you're doing something wrong

[willow hinge]

if youre not using money shots, you are actively losing money which you will need later on more than you need damage right now

[willow hinge]

i dont sacrifice anything
attachments are free and weapon upgrade shops are more than paid for by money shots
tec9 + items do the job more than well enough
if you stay alive and make more money doing so, there was no sacrifice
there is no opportunity cost to tec9 money shots, you make it to the teleporter just the same, you got the same loot from the level, and you ended up with a maximum of 30% more money (provided no body upgrade)

unless you count MoW, which again, is a grief for loop

[static burrow]

holy fuckin falsenuke

MOW sucks because of muh tec9

[willow hinge]

you cant just state the contrary without providing an argument
trust me, i wish you were right

[tacit slate]

i see what you mean and its incredibly funny

pre boss 1 solo almost 3.5k

i can buy whatever the fuck i want

[static burrow]

your entire argument is just "tec9 is good and there's a free money attachment for it"
with nothing to do with MoW itself

beyond trying to mention things that'd apply regardless of whether or not you're using master of weaponry

[willow hinge]

tec9's two attachments dont benefit much from MoW, and money shots gets griefed by MoW because despite being 200%, it now goes towards nerfed items, which are what largely enables damage with the tec9 and heavy gunner to do heavy gunner things
you cuck yourself out of scaling by picking MoW, you get an instant 200% to attachments, which may or may not suck, eitherway they will fall behind items by the time you enter loop
IF you are playing 100% optimally, picking MoW is valid only if you intend on killing yourself right after the final boss because you find loop boring OR you have willed this thing into existance (credit to samael)

just watched this person unsubscribe from the thread in real time
i get it

[tacit charm]

I guess our difference is because I'm not really a fan of looping.

Sure some items are good, but getting good items? That is not guaranteed.

I'd also like to note that the lovely C80 does not have capped scaling

The takeaway is the quality of MoW depends on whether you like to loop.

I am under the impression stuff is balanced for the base run and not for looping. As such I'd say it is a good option

[willow hinge]

c80's problem is that its scaling has a cooldown which is annoying
which then means the optimal way to play that gun is to wait a few seconds between kills

[tacit charm]

I'll have to try the tec9 way and see how it goes later today

[willow hinge]

weve tried it a few times but it never popped off, unlike pioneer

[tacit slate]

Considering you have item upgrades that give buffs to weapons

i usually default to projectile firing items as most of them are just free damage

but the amount of effects you can cram into them is insane

but yeah in high loop weapons tend to be a trigger condition for your items more than anything

[willow hinge]

yeah ill agree with that
it does instantly buff whatever youre running
but with how attachments are, they cannot be infinitely scaled (except i suppose for perfect fit)

but that does bring us full circle to: some of the heavy gunner evolutions are griefs, and we wish there was an option to skip them
should there be an option to skip the evolution selection, or should the evolutions be changed so you arent occassionally forced to choose between a bad and a worse evolution?

[tacit slate]

i do like silly guns more than items that do everything

[willow hinge]

please make money shots a global effect, or put a cap on it, or delete it 🙏
i want to use the other weapons

[wary sorrel]

if it was minus 40% flat, it'd be a valid trade, 400% -> 360%. Because it's never expressed anywhere how the math works, you pick it once, find out it's actually 240% as the max power rando, cry because your nano infuse just got gutted, and the runs dead

if you were planning for the run to end at the final boss, MoW would be optimal as you don't need to last much longer anyways, just kill faster with suboptimal items anyways

[wary sorrel]

this

heavy gunner's idea is they never want to stop firing bullets, but by default they must pause between times. Items enable them to never stop. Item power% enable them to never stop and never be stopped.

their preferred item pool is rather small due to "just more guns please" with some of the overlap being great on paper then instantly falling off, example hyperfeed

but due to ability upgrades doing basically nothing and scaling bad, attachments being rand/3 out of a massive pool, you'll get pretty shit end of the stick usually, and items can carry you thru till your next modular divine blessed whatever gun

[wary sorrel]

belf feeding isn't a grief, and can enable some toploading tech, it's not bad... it's just not the top 3 that enable heavy gunner to be online

[wary sorrel]

ammo supply spider uses the same pathfinding ai as Snappy (machine hunter dog), if it stayed behind you supplying you with ammo as it's completely defenseless, Actually S tier.

it's so bad because of it's pathing alone, on paper it'd be fantastic aid to the whole team

if popcorn box didn't do friendly fire I'd still feel scammed given that choice

it's worse than useless, it's harmful

it could kinda work like metal storm where it's casted on utility? infront of the hardwall kinda? but even then I'd just rather it not exist

gut that evo entirely

[static burrow]

you don't need to stop in combat if you kill everything because your gun has attachments on crack

[static burrow]

omg randomness in a roguelite
oh the horror

[fossil merlin]

yeah just i saw your tier list said it did "nothing"

it just has niche uses

[willow hinge]

heavy gunner already has ammo regen and a strong preference for the nailgun, in those scenarios it might aswell do nothing besides wasting backpack ammo so that manual reloading isnt possible
but yes it does enable tech, one such that we discovered is being able to spam the first round canister flak shot with boreas, very fun and quite effective

but yeah, unless theres specific synergy with perks like this, best case scenario, its sliiight non-scaling additional ammo regen at the cost of rapidly depleting backpack ammo which some weapons will suffer from

its not bad it just.... doesnt do much unless you change your loadout to accommodate it

i wish it had the added bonus of slightly increasing ammo gain across the board, not even much but just like 10%

[willow hinge]

You are so right! Which shows that not only are you a great thinker — but you're also prepared to show it! Now let's delve into why that's the case...

[static burrow]

my preferred item loadout is 4-5 projectile firing/otherwise damage dealing items and a healing item (preferably incubus)

works every time

[willow hinge]

no way you came to the heavy gunner convention, argued against items, and then tell on yourself by proclaiming that you dont even do heavy gunning

damage items? gee, if only heavy gunner would have some damage items to compensate for his greatest weakness, weak guns

[static burrow]

i do play heavy gunner often dipshit

and use items specifically to support the main point of heavy gunner (filling the air with various metals)

nice reading comprehension

[wary sorrel]

nano infuse is right there??

[static burrow]

isn't that just worse incubus

[wary sorrel]

isn't that just incubus that doesn't kill you and is way easier to obtain ususally?

you can give nano some power% if you really need more but usually you'll be doing enough damage that 1% of that or so is enough to instantly max out health

[static burrow]

i have never ever died or gotten close to dying because of incubus

[wary sorrel]

pluss the insane debuff% scaling nano has with any other debuffs

[static burrow]

stop going afk without pausing

[wary sorrel]

can't pause in multiplayer

[static burrow]

still it's not a problem because you can easily lifesteal back whatever health was lost due to waiting around for other players

[wary sorrel]

not saying your wrong there as it totally works on HG I just got side winded withe the preference

projectile shooting items also varry alot, sidewinder and mavrik make sense but not many other

[static burrow]

still not enough to matter over the course of a firefight compared to other healing options
with incubus you can easily heal back most of your missing HP quickly enough to save your life with just a few kills

[static burrow]

electric net gang

[wary sorrel]

oh right electric net is goated on stage 1

[static burrow]

also autocannon is really good

long range, high damage per activation, and pairs very well with cooldown/multicast/multiuse/charge/etc upgrades
and it inherits properties of ammo from your held gun

enjoy the missile barrages

or ion streams

[wary sorrel]

all of these items tho would get their uses gutted pretty hard due to MoW tho, unless you plan on stacking power rando hard

[static burrow]

if you're using MoW your playstyle is obviously centered around spraying tons of shots down range to make up for the difference anyways

and not all items have their effects equally impacted as negatively by substandard power

[wary sorrel]

There's not that many attatchments (in the current state of the game) I can justify that trade in power for. As most of the godly ones either scale% badly or are so good it really doesn't mater. It benefits the mid/better off picks that you're forced into because luck was not on your side which... means you probably wont take MoW due to such down luck with items carying you thus far or shear will of the tech9

[static burrow]

either via non-1x power scaling or simply having effects that'll still matter even at lower duration like stuns

[wary sorrel]

same for weapon attachments with such elevated power, with some doing not at al

[static burrow]

you choose what attachments you put on

[wary sorrel]

not really, sometimes you're given shit and you're never told how it scales until you've gotton a source of attach%

[static burrow]

even if RNG dislikes you, there'll usually be at least one not actively detrimental attachment option rolled

[wary sorrel]

being locked into the standard 3 (not what you're looking for) will usually make MoW, not what you're looking for

not being detrimental really sounds exciting

[static burrow]

though i do think holding control when hovering over an attachment option should expand its stats and show scaling

like with anything else that displays a statcard

[wary sorrel]

usually yeah there is a bland "it basically does nothing, not boon" attatchments, which you might as well skipped or just tossed the upgrade kits out the windo

[willow hinge]

speaking of dipshits, whats the point of blocking someone if youre gonna keep opening the messages? 🤭

your core argument is "heavy gunner doesnt need items to do heavy gunning, if heavy gunner was real, he would do this...."
but then it turns out, you dont even run items that synergise with heavy gunner
and then you claim that "erm actually, the lack of synergy is intented... it balances the downtime..."
how about no downtime instead? you could have uranium bullets for armor pen, cancer proc, and faster firerate at higher power level, and instead you go "nah id like some electric net, please"

this is so far detached from whats happening in the game, that i dont even know what to say.

[halcyon cargo]

If Heavy Gunner was real, he'd pick Master of Weapons because it sounds cool.

[willow hinge]

thats the other valid reason to pick it

[static burrow]

trvthnvke

[wary sorrel]

lore accurate, correct absolutely, thematically all the upgrades sound great. MoW especially is the whole reason the gunner is named so.

Shame the stats don't really back up the same coolness

[stable python]

I would like to say as a Hardlight enjoyer, the cube/and turret stuff has been really fun

its a bit odd they are attached to the first cube, but in general its been nice and frankly.....they did way more dps than my guns were........so......however without investment into cubes which I do for many reasons.....then I see it being weird.

[stable python]

Can confirm the ammo box on the ground was something ill never touch again

[still summit]

heavy gunner recovery while in onslaught system is ass right now

plus i can't bring an extra weapon slot like in s1 anymore

[slow kiln]

no extra weapon slot, no extra attachment options, onslaught lifesteal feels toned way down too

[static burrow]

master of weaponry should grant an extra weapon slot

after all its name implies that the heavy gunner would be skilled enough with weapons to have more of them

plus it's called the heavy gunner for a reason

[wary sorrel]

after u17 it feels like the lifesteal went from 1% to 0.1% as I could be doing 1000's of damage and I might heal 1 health as its also got a fixed health gate gain

it's pretty bad, either not have it at all or make it actually relevant. I'd love to see a class evolution that shifts that

"Overcharged Onslaught"
Onslaught System now LOOSES life steal properties but now gains a flat amount of shields per hit. As well as giving general buffs to shields to further boon this playstyle

[wary sorrel]

hardwall is actually so good it allows HG to have enough breathing room to stand ground, survive until they get items/guns to scale past the need. Maybe a bit too much? But really the other options are just no where as impactful as they could be.

Ion dome showing up is a fun twist, too bad it's cooldown is so long I might as well unbind the key. Grenade flavor text actually just not working. Shotgun being sat mastery on the wrong key. Kick is funny but does not keep you alive.

[molten nimbus]

Nigga put master of weaponry in (C) tier WTF

Proof that world peace can never be achieved

[fossil merlin]

Don't worry I think it's S tier

[willow hinge]

items look like this by the time youre presented with the option of killing items forever

also uranium next screen.

frankly id go one step further and sacrifice 30% of all my attachment slots just to spawn endless ammunition into existance

*was using nailgun on this run

[wary sorrel]

It's C tier because attachment power can be pretty cool... and that's where it ends because item power getting final power% multiplier penalty.

items just boost the weapons capabilities so hard that you can pretty comfortably ignore attachments all together if you have a decent base perk/varient combo on the gun, so you can carryover/reroll the attachments harder

-# (MoW Should just let you reroll attachments anyways normally but whatever)

[willow hinge]

if MoW allowed you to reroll attachments for doubling cost every time per slot, thatd be cool, thatd be utility

[wary sorrel]

if the mentality of MoW is leaning so hard into weapons that items are tanked, then being able to manipulate the weapons to such fine tunes as that would make sense

either scaling perk power in some way, using X(5?) amount of kits to gain a blue weapon upgrade bench perk, or gaining +1 final upgrade slot universally (only active in MoW-HG hands). Something that really sells the idea that this truely is the master of weapons

MoW is just Mastercrafted-Path of the weapon smith.

which makes sense given it's a step up, unique and all... but the fact that they are basically the same thing, and when taken together NUKE your items... for what some mildy stronger (most likely mid) attachments?

oooooo my waveform extender can reach 75 meters now

ooooooooooo my twinlink mk2 shoots more bullets sometimes (that's what it says it do mhm)

Give me Path of the Itemancer where I gut 50% of my attachment power, for 100% final mult item power, 4x item syncro, it'd be crack

[willow hinge]

items are just attachments to heavy gunner except they scale infinitely

get uranium, that now defines your gun, your gun now fires cancer, much faster, and pierces armor, not that it matters because infinitely stacking AoE DOT will melt literally anything in the game

get ammunition belt, that now defines your magazine, also you fire insanely fast whenever you press the button
get ambrosia, that single handedly powers your ammo regen

get both of the above, and you have literally infinite ammo because regen scales off max mag, never have to reload again (unless you got firepower to reset heat, an actually useful perk)

either of the lifesteal items, that keeps you alive

if you dont care about loop or cant survive it, items will be less relevant just based on availability, but availability argument also goes for attachments and you cant reroll them sooo....

having everything above, is the heavy gunner late game experience
literally any full auto weapon is infinitely firing and capable of taking anything down (preference for more spammy weapons like nailgun for even more cancer proc)
this is what every heavy gunner should strive for
and to gut item power, is to permanently neuter heavy gunners maximum potential

[static burrow]

after second area boss
everyone recognizes that map vro

[willow hinge]

Y... Yes? Are you telling me that surviving till second area boss is an unreasonable scenario? Just say youre desperate to pick arguments at this point

[static burrow]

You keep bringing up something entirely different every single time you're asked a question

[willow hinge]

Youre going to nitpick instead of addressing the core of my argument? Will you deny the usefulness of any of the items listed above?

[fossil merlin]

i disagree

you do not need high item power to beat high loop bosses

stacking attachment and perk power works well

just did a nice long 8? full loop session with 10% item power

275% attachment 220% perk

behold the stick of doom

for a bit i used ambrosia for ammo but ended up going path of weaponsmith twice

yesterday i had negative item power with triple weaponsmith lol

and class evo

[static burrow]

how specifically (besides spamming every weapon perk you can onto it)

[fossil merlin]

what are you asking?

[fossil merlin]

was a pretty sweet crit build too

[willow hinge]

Welp that is pretty convincing
Id still argue that items would be the more consistent path, especially since some items offer straight up invulnerability in high loop, and for this stuff you have to hope to encounter the right shops and upgrades

Nvm your coop buddy has double bluetooth shovel lmao
Nice rocket launcher tho
Curious, why is your coop partner carrying rations still? Whats it do that late into the game?

[willow hinge]

And how the hell did you manage to run the game for so long without crashes

[fossil merlin]

Coop was riot guard

Built for items vs not, different case

[static burrow]

what if he gets hungry

[fossil merlin]

He was

Very

[static burrow]

i think you'd want a snack mid-loop

[fossil merlin]

Hard to explain

[willow hinge]

Yeah but rations?

[fossil merlin]

But his movement speed was 2000/ms

He'd go at mach fuck kill everything on the ground and I'd get the air

[willow hinge]

I find that even stacking healing aura on any aura-based item like flaregun offers better/more consistent healing especially that late into the game, since those methods arent a finite resource

[static burrow]

incubus best healing item

[willow hinge]

He doesnt know the shovel is bluetooth?

[fossil merlin]

Lol

[willow hinge]

Oh ok

[static burrow]

free HP for just playing the game normally

[fossil merlin]

We are aware

I will clip later

I am sleeping

[willow hinge]

Yeah cause id expect the guy with the twin-instantly kill anything that direction regardless of LOS-items would do more than the... I mean its still a legendary rocket launcher, but its not like literally game breaking ya know?

Surely its gonna be patched sometime between tomorrow and the heat death of the universe

[willow hinge]

Oh you do have footage? Im interested

I wish i had clipped footage of our most recent run
Made it to loop with the items in my earlier screenshot, i was literally an A-10 warthog just doing strafing runs with the cancer-injector9000, 250% perk power divine mastercraft nailgun and-
Boom. Partner disconnected. Might aswell fly into a wall.

[fossil merlin]

I do have footage will send later

[fossil merlin]

https://streamable.com/tr4r11

i can get more footage

this is how most levels were cleared

teammate kills the ground i clean up a bit and revive him when they die. Also hit anything in the air, mostly bosses

since they are moving so fast they really cant be precise

[fossil merlin]

i had a funny i9000 nailgun with 380% attachment power it wasnt that good

also had a x1500 with 13000 base damage plus 275% nitro valve

[fossil merlin]

honestly if it were full auto it would certainly crash the game

the only saving grace was it got semi auto from 2nd variant

it was burst before and that was wild

but that was too early in the game to crash

mid run LD example

they couldnt hit LD since they just do insane melee damage

[tacit slate]

the inconspicuous 92 round rpg and 30 upg on ammo belt

[fossil merlin]

it got up to 105

but after i took second path it had about 10% power

[willow hinge]

yeah ive seen the game crash for less lmao

[willow hinge]

but yeah nah thats awesome
yeah, ill rephrase my prevous statement
you dont need items for the heavy gunner late game experience
but id still say theyre essential in... a realistic scenario
even in what you provided, i see the humble ambrosia, ammo belt, and cancer combo on your toolbelt
makes sense you didnt need those at that point anymore

[fossil merlin]

they did help to get there

but not required

just meant i had to use my core class ability less

[willow hinge]

but whats it mean for the MoW argument?
well id still argue that MoW... isnt in a good spot
its only good if you by some miracle manage to avoid any items the whole run but have godly attachments, or youre so far into loop that nothing matters anymore
im exaggerating of course, but the point being, in many realistic cases, it is a grief

do we think that it should be reworked to not have a downside (and then rework every other bad evolution like popcorn box) so that they are always a buff to the run, or should there be an option to skip an evolution when both presented options are just griefs?

cause its different from path of the weaponsmith in the sense that... you can just pass up on a shop upgrade if you dont like it
here, once you decide to open the class evolution box, youre forced to pick

[tacit charm]

Not sure about all classes but Chrono Inceptor has Fusion Mage which trades weapon damage for ability cooldown and crit, so there are other cases of something for something perks.
The issue stems from, you can get MoW and Popcorn box as your choices. Because you have a "situational vs just bad choice". If the choice was "situational vs good" or even "situational vs little impact but still positive", it would be fine since you can just take the other choice.

"Specalization evolutions" which offer both + and a - do have a place in the game, just make it one per class and make the rest of the evolutions decent.

Being able to pass up on evolutions would not fix them, everyone else getting one and you being forced to pass up would still be ass.

If you'd still argue that MoW is underpowered,
Since it's positive effect is basically, +cursed receiver on every weapon.
Instead make it +attachment slot, so it can be different attachments as well.

This in general make it weaker -> if you get a choice of mid or bad attachments.
Although it could make it stronger in some cases.

If it is too strong, make it so the negative effect is - attachment power.
So e.g. MoW -> can have +1 attachment on all weapons, -25% attachment power, 5 upgrade kits.
This way the tradeoff would be contained within the attachment system.

[static burrow]

extra weapon slot class evolution when

[willow hinge]

i like the idea of more attachment slots, attachments rerolls, etc any new unique attachments mechanic that isnt just... cursed receiver but bad

bc even if its a sacrifice, then HG in MP can also buff teammates guns, and thatd be pretty exciting

then itd TRULY BE, "Master of Weapons"

[static burrow]

If it is too strong, make it so the negative effect is - attachment power.
-25% attachment power
75 x 5 is 375
Unless you're using attachments with sub-1x scaling that's a net downside

Raise it to 80-85%

[wanton parcel]

Chief I'm going to be real, Metal Storm is the #2 pick behind Rapid Onslaught only for me.
Utilizing it effectively requires a basic understanding of the core principles of machine gun theory- it should be popped in enfilade (directed along their longest axis), and if you place it at an angle and distance, you can guarantee anything coming through a door is going to get absolutely shredded. i run ion shield most of the time, but it works great with barricade as well.

[tacit charm]

I can shred anything cometing through a door with my weapon I don't need, shitty little turrets for that. If I wanted to play around with turrets I'd go play engineer not heavy gunner

[wanton parcel]

This sounds a lot less like the perk is actually bad and more like the perk doesn't work for your playstyle my guy

Now Popcorn Box on the other hand, boy i love squadwiping the next spawn because of one upgrade

[tacit charm]

The issue is that you can be forced to pick it even though it doesn't fit your playstyle, and if I pick it and simply ignore it can kill me. If it was something I can choose not to pick or at least have be not detrimental to my run I would be fine.

[wanton parcel]

if your two picks are metal storm and popcorn i could see the issue

[tacit charm]

I think the main issue is that there are too many perks that require you to play a certain way, that is why 90% of this thread are arguments about MoW

[wanton parcel]

hmm do i want a cone of certaim death or a sphere of certain death

[tacit charm]

Ngl if popcorn would be removed it would fix most of the issue, but even with the rest I think you can get into combinations where there is no good choice if you prefer to play a certain way.

My main gripe with those turrets is I backed into them once while I was clearing the next horde and I was very unhappy with my death

[wanton parcel]

its a tough balancing act to make sure it still feels like a roguelite

bc with a limited # of upgrades every build ends up being very similar if you do the thing people with functioning brains do and don't pick the perks that kill you

limited range specifically

every evo has to be at least good, there's no real place in the game for complete miss perks like popcorn

ass is honestly low tier too but it at least isn't indiscriminately homicidal, just occasionally homicidal?

i slways leave it in the dust and by the time i need ammo im 3/4 the way through the map and have forgotten about it being stunlocked at the first room by a single rank 1 road patrol

its possible to save popcorn tho imo, just make the bonus nearly gamebreaking so it's actually worth the risk

[tacit charm]

I rarely suffer from ammo issues, especially on 325% you basically get a ammo drop or several of them for every horde you clear. Combine that with a free ammo refill mid stage from the twin gatlling

Tho it's crazy but I've only seen the spider like 3 times total in 5 prestiges an 70 levels

seems very rare

[wanton parcel]

HG ammo eco rn feels like HG is supposed to get -15% scavenge per loop curse

but he doesnt thats not how hg works

[wary sorrel]

vaulting popcorn entirely and coming back to that idea later (never) would make the evo pool so much better

HG only really has ammo econ issues on weapons that just don't have ammo econ in general. Mostly power or heavy weapons like the chopsaw or rex for some reason still.

Ammo regen fixed number +%added, HEAVILY still scales off of max ammo in the mag. Rapid reloading weapons can work but yeah having scav 1-2 with firepower is what makes those do well.

[wary sorrel]

engineer actually shares this exact evo. Which makes sense but it just feels extra and tact'd on to what heavy gunner is dealing with. Now they gotta do summoner ontop?? Nah more dakka main gun please

[static burrow]

i don't have trouble with the rex's economy

mostly since I treat it as a typical battle rifle instead of a bullethose

[slow kiln]

was wondering what drone engi got that has the same sound effect, literally the same one huh

thoughts on belt feeding? if I've got free ammo from magmag or 1st kit onslaught it feels a bit wasteful

[umbral ridge]

so amidst all the hilarious crashouts in the thread, what exactly makes MoW destroy item scaling? Was it not just a flat % hit to item strength?

[slow kiln]

it also seems like it subtracts that % any time it gets upgrades

had an item drop to 60%, it got a 40% power upgrade, and that put it at 78% or so

[static burrow]

what the fuck

unless it's just a multiplier to the final power number

[willow hinge]

that... explains
i did think it hit way harder than the description would lead to believe

[willow hinge]

no, thats the problem
its a final multiplier
the item will forever be just a bit more than half its total power
but apparently the added power from upgrades is also divided, before then added to the item, the final count which is also divided

i have no evidence for this beyond the anecdotal "sure does feel so"
math goes wrong in this game so frequently that i kinda just accepted the fact that numbers dont add up and i shouldnt wonder why because ill never get to know why

[umbral ridge]

weird, that's some jank ass maff

shame, it's what got me my first clear in the game

[pastel carbon]

don't worry about it is my opinion, MoW is good even if it has issues

[slow kiln]

why does a class evolution need a huge downside anyway

[static burrow]

i'm not familiar with every class but i don't think there's any besides HG that get evolutions with downsides that severe

[pastel carbon]

sniper gets two

Heavy Hitter reduces fire rate by 30% and Smart Ricochet reduces damage by 10%

[static burrow]

heavy hitter
you get significant bonuses to crit damage (great with powershot/charged targeting laser/stacking c-charged upgrades) and some extra damage too
smart ricochet
you're hitting twice with one shot most of the time, that downside only comes up when fighting bosses which sniper is naturally great at anyways due to its high damage output and ability to equip the heavy enemy nuker (guillotine)

[tacit charm]

I think I mentioned it somewhere above ,chrono inceptor has 15% reduced weapon damage for 35% reduce cooldowns and double effect/crit chance on all abilities

Which once again is a relatively minor debuff

[static burrow]

that and those ones aren't luck reliant for the tradeoff to be worth it

since you have pretty good control over how to take advantage of the upsides and compensate for/ignore the downsides

whereas with master of weaponry, you don't really have much control over the attachment options you get nor the items you get and their frequency

and not everything power scales equally

[wanton parcel]

honestly mow is a decent co-op perk

horrid singleplayer tho

[fossil merlin]

i agree more

[willow hinge]

These arent quite as bad but theres still scenarios where these are griefs, where the math just isnt worth it
Like if you already have very good crits, the additive bonus does less than the whole ass third less firerate
Again one of those things where its good if youre not planning on going late game
I cant speak much from personal experience, recon is one of my lesser played classes

Sorta related but i dont use the guillotine
Why? Because i managed to hit myself with my own guillotine, twice, the second time which being so fucking powerful that it vaporized my corpse from my own lobby so my coop partner couldnt even revive me lmao

[static burrow]

How the fuck do you hit yourself with your own guillotine

That has never happened to me even at high enough loops for my guy to become obscenely fast

[willow hinge]

I dont remember, but it was some sort of frame perfect input
It couldve been right after being revived? Uhhh idk, @wary sorrel?

[static burrow]

probably co-op being the perfectly refined and bug-free mess that it is

in singleplayer i have never had an issue with guillotine ever, technical or gameplay wise

[willow hinge]

uhhhh yeah i guess im continuing the legacy?
i wanted to do a quick solo just to test something but i got custom extended on the deathstick and now it looks like im obliged to continue
i guess this has turned into the MoW test run?
its already completely fucked my sidewinder missile control combo but im not planning on making it very far anyways

just an eerily similar looking rocket launcher

[willow hinge]

...
welp i never denied that MoW couldnt be funny when all of the stars align
whenever i fire the gun, i just go mach fuck because of 325% counter directional disperser actually increases movement speed while firing instead of what the description implies, "negates firing speed penalty"

[willow hinge]

welp
i stand by what i said
it was a very funny pioneer but it just didnt have enough printing
and the best way to get printing is via items
my items were so good too, it was just not worth it to put any upgrades on them
same story with rocket launcher, it was incredibly powerful but couldnt be manually reloaded (it took like an actual minute to reload manually) so i was not able to use it that much

ambrosia is just too good

[fossil merlin]

I dont know about eerily similar

you are missing the most important part

homing ammo

deathstick has 4 ammo types, 2 that it starts with

you 100% need the "super homing" ammo for it to be truly busted

[willow hinge]

oh ye didnt notice

i dont use launchers myself all that often so idk about the ammo

[fossil merlin]

also you need to triple that damage

[willow hinge]

will keep in mind tho

[fossil merlin]

Notice how many perks i stacked

each one was at 275%

[willow hinge]

yeah

i just dumped kits into it and noticed its like the exact setup

minus variants

[fossil merlin]

yeah

speaking of variant, you're missing both too

the semi auto is way better then burst

[willow hinge]

for a first boss type weapon.... it had the same vibe

didnt get the opportunity to build it past that, died to relays

shoutout relays

[fossil merlin]

its still a strong weapon

[static burrow]

btw kill shot at 100% power only gives ~15% more damage per mag without extra power, it's kind of a troll attachment and with ammo regen (sniper apoc kit included, kinda) your mag won't be under the boosted threshold for long
maybe that attachment could be even better if you weren't playing the ammo regen class

[willow hinge]

yeah the scaling is fucked but kill shot with regen is good if you can fire fast enough to bring the ammo count below the treshold, cause then you just have infinite damage boost without needing to reset it with a reload

i wouldve taken heavy vented if i knew the scaling was that bad, i was desperate for damage cause my ammo regen was not enough

[fossil merlin]

some future command gaming

honestly it wasnt that strong, as you see i gave up and just used my pretty much stock deathstick

this right here is just so strong

versus a built red weapon

[tender holly]

for the "first" (the actual first one it didn't work and never activated lol) time i tried popcorn box to see if it was as bad.
It is. It's arguably the worst evolution in the game.
In my case, no ammo regen. So i just got griefed for no reason at random.

honestly ammo spider is just far better

i never died to metal storm but sometimes if you have HL cover it can spawn behind you and one tap you.

[tender holly]

i know this is a stupid tweet but it's kinda valid here lol

[willow hinge]

well.. yes but no
theres actually 0 reason to use anything but money shots (atleast when you get good enough that everything dies regardless of what youre holding)
well theres a few other scaling weapons but... most of them dont scale infinitely and you also dont start with them
in other words, it actively costs you money and effort to not be money shotting it

do you
A. kill the enemy
B. kill the enemy and receive +30% cash for it
the "caviat" is that you just have to hold your starter weapon, you dont even have to use it to kill or even be the one doing the killing

i feel like i repeat myself alot when it comes to this, did i leave something out?
i personally dont find it fun to actively not use the most optimal method for progressing in a game
its incredibly repetitive and boring but if i dont money shot, then i get less money, and consequently miss out on upgrades

which... i mean i personally find that to be the main appeal of roguelites yea? spending money and growing stronger?

[tender holly]

Money shots is good because all options are bad, not because it has an inherent huge value. Sure, knowing you can swiss cheese some poor melee grunt only to finish it off with your pistol and reliably get a fat paycheck is great.
More ammo, magsize or damage/firerate are rarely as meaningful during runs.
Macroscopically though, once you have a sizeable amount of creds, its value drops rather quickly.
Simply because handguns are less valuable in the late game, since bullet sponges are everywhere.

I agree though, it's a very powerful upgrade. I also think it shouldn't get nerfed but instead the other options should be far more powerful. So it's either " you get to have more chances of killing enemies when you need to reload your other weapons" or "you get to have more money, more often."

[willow hinge]

i already whined in depth as to why i fckckckckkckcing hate money shots and why i genuinely think it and features like it are bad game design, and solutions for it, in #1485807063895507044 and #1483426297546932249 if youre curious
in mutual interest, i wont be repeating myself anymore

money shots could literally disable your gun from ever firing again and nothing would change, in an optimal run, itd still be the most held gun by far

oh but you did bring up something interesting, which is to instead use the pistol only to "finish off enemies"
and i think thats.... also suboptimal
why would you bother switching weapons if youre going to be dealing tickle damage so you dont accidentally kill the enemy without money shots (cause losing out on money would be cringe), to then switch back and finish them off?
like... whats the point of even having other weapons if you gotta use them so cautiously, undoing any damage adventage they would have over your pistol?

[static burrow]

yeah synthetik is a game about killing enemies asap before they can kill you
better to kill the enemy with one weapon than to waste valuable time in a firefight trying to fumble around with switching to your pistol for a few extra credits that won't matter if you die/waste valuable HP that you'd need to get through the next encounter

so either upgrade your pistol to also be good at killing enemies on its own (and get items that'll help compensate from any DPS lost from not using a non-pistol weapon) or don't bother with money shots

[fossil merlin]

god run wasted

440% perk power before MoW

didnt even get belt fed

ammo printer item and variant

2 perfect fits

also for some reason 3 of my items got 100% no cost/CD, including that torch item

meaning i could never overheat

but i was playing on 300% and me and my fren died

[willow hinge]

delicious

MoW wouldnt do much there unfortunately
itd greatly buff nitro valve, give a miniscule amount of ATP5, and a bit more perk power

but i dolove a good perk buffed boreas flak

[fossil merlin]

75% more boss/elite damage, 12% no ammo cost, 25% more perk power

plus whatever accel does

[willow hinge]

atp5 doesnt scale linearly, its only +5% more for 200% attachment power

iirc?

like its good but again lmao, id rather have ambrosia for faster regen so you can spam heavy anti air shot faster

[fossil merlin]

it is 0.5x scaling

25% base

=12

[willow hinge]

ah kk

[fossil merlin]

i had ambrosia

312%

after path of weapon

[wary sorrel]

MoW is not a bad case here with first 3, so I saw the reason, then 4th fumbled attach. Belt feeding helps but Ambrosia with giga power really does better universally. And not taking MoW will allow for just 2 power randos to get you heeps

if the other option was popcorn box, I'd dare say valid

[fossil merlin]

Are you saying that nitro valve is a fumbled attachment?

I strongly disagree if so

Id personally consider nitro valve to be the best attachment you can get

[wary sorrel]

In favor of MoW was my point, it's a fine +"do more damage" attach but it does that job either way, and doesn't scale too well with attach%

[fossil merlin]

MoW means you deal 75% more damage to elites and bosses, which is huge

Scaling on that attachment is 1x

Which is great, not all strong attachments get the full 1x

So by taking that attachment with mow almost triples your damage

Add a few perfect fits and most weapons become crazy

Death stick is what I've found to be most effective for taking advantage of this

It is a must have for proper mow usage

Especially when you play harder difficulties

[wary sorrel]

my whole bad, I thought it scaled 0.25, pretty valid use case... still gutting your item power is a tough price to pay but this is definitely one to consider that price

[fossil merlin]

Honestly mow alone doesn't ruin items

It's when you start stacking path of weaponsmith that it really hurts

[wary sorrel]

PoW is actually a scam imo, too much item% down for not enough attach%

[fossil merlin]

Hard to say

It's very nice being able to sell weapons

[wary sorrel]

true

[fossil merlin]

That extra cash goes into your core abilities which solves ammo

I run ion shield

[wary sorrel]

it has the same pulling arg that mow does
"is your items bad? then send it"

[fossil merlin]

So that also takes care of damage mitigation

[fossil merlin]

Yeah pretty much

You either fully commit or dont

[wary sorrel]

I run hardwall for similar reasons

[fossil merlin]

I loathe wall

Ion shield is the funny no damage panic button

[wary sorrel]

I wish the dome was worth my time, think I've just gotten too good with wall that it's just universally more applicable than ion

[fossil merlin]

Also helps with ammo too

[wary sorrel]

it also makes the rank5 dog also take no damage, during your panic, building rampup, and instakilling you

[fossil merlin]

Just don't use it with cqc

It's amazingly effective with no cd perks

[wary sorrel]

I feel like a class evolution to make HG's abilities synergize together, allowing more deployment of things like the dome, would be really nice. Something like "Combat initiator" from machine hunter, so you can validate using it more often

[fossil merlin]

Also, it's a guaranteed way to revive without taking damage

[wary sorrel]

we live in different worlds it sounds like

[fossil merlin]

Yeah

To each their own

I honestly think ion shield is really strong, perhaps too much with stacking no cd

Hit 80 no cd and it's gg until you get bored

[wary sorrel]

oh yeah it's got crazy endgame potential, as for some reason hardwall kill's my co-op's PC to the point where the item preference shifts to guarantee I don't need that ability anymore

[fossil merlin]

This is my end game

[wary sorrel]

divinely busted

GRENADE PACKED, Thanks for reminder, that was a perk I was hunting for a build idea

[fossil merlin]

This was easily the most insane weapon I've ever got

Too bad host had to leave

The super homing ammo is cracked

You cannot die with it

[fossil merlin]

There is some interaction between scrapyard variant and golden boy that is completely game crashing busted

I managed to hit 1100% attachment power

And have six attachments

Got a x4 splitter at 1100 for 32 extra shots

[willow hinge]

yeah
attachments created by golden boy dont exist, therefore scrapyard retains 300%
attachments created by golden boy inherit both the scrapyard buff and golden boy attachment power, multiplicatively
honestly, shrike should keep this.
if you get a scrapyard gun, then golden boy on first attachment, AND any worthy attachments, congrats you won the jackpot have fun

[static burrow]

the odds of that happening are so low that you'll probably be more likely to get any other combination of great rng necessary to beat the game without issue

[fossil merlin]

Happened to me on a f5000

Too bad it was unusable

Too much heat

[slow kiln]

ok yeah just had a choice between popcorn box and metal storm, and metal storm still killed me anyway because it insists on spawning behind the player and deleting your HP
both of those need to be removed, or at least make metal storm an engineer-exclusive since they're in no danger of being in front of their turrets anyway

[wary sorrel]

this was exactly my reasoning behind it all. Nifty they share the perk but HG really couldn't care about it, just wall or dome and that solves most problems

[static burrow]

plus heavy gunner's specializations tend to vary in usecase to the point where you're either wasting the metal storm or wasting the specialization ability
only the 'Dragon' Suppressive Fire System wants to be pointed directly at enemies

the others either deploy cover or are meant to be used from behind walls

[fossil merlin]

i dont agree, ion shield is best used to give yourself 1.5 seconds, more if you're stacking no cd, to unload into a bunch of enemies

metal storm actually could be useful

but the problem is the placement, it spawns right by your side, its too easy to accidently walk in front and die

[fossil merlin]

this is also not to say it cant be used defensively, it 100% can. Just I think the best usage is for offense

[willow hinge]

the problem i have with metal storm is that it honestly is a decently powerful tool in a vacuum
its just that since it doesnt turn, its most effective use case is to be used in tight corridors and luring enemies to it
which is kind of a pussy thing to do as heavy gunner and is frankly, cringe
it forces you to play heavy gunner like... not heavy gunner, and its still less effective than just mowing them down yourself
itd be alright to put between you and the enemy in a panic situation for immediate cover or eating a projectile, with the added bonus of it dealing damage (so kind of like hard wall except offensive)
but its bound to the same button as hard wall or any of the other inferior abilities, and it spawns besides you
so not only can it not be used effectively for that, its most likely going to be on cooldown because you need to be able to use your ability for... ability reasons? non- metal storm reasons?

i dont conceptually hate it as an evo, it just doesnt belong on heavy gunner
atleast its not the popcorn box?

idea: give popcorn box on the evo pick screen the divine golden borders so newbies think its extremely rare and good
itd be funny, and honestly, popcorn box isnt going to offer any value anywhere else.

[fossil merlin]

one of the problem is you are using hard wall

ion shield opens up a lot more opportunities to use metal storm

it gives you the ability to set it up anywhere without taking damage

unlike hard wall which doesnt fully negate damage and also potentially blocks shots

the downside is its short, and can also give enemies ion shield status

but honestly besides k9 and shotgunner units, which is 90% user error when it happens, not an issue

there is some arguement to be made on high loops when enemies start to become super fast that ion shield can be a bit worse for that reason

since they get into cqc more easily

but by then you should be at high enough no cd that its whatever

just use it again

[willow hinge]

the downside of using ion shield is that it doesnt come with cover, more firerate and reload, instantly filled shields, with two charges on short cooldown
ion shield could innately come with metal storm and id still prefer hard wall

like you dont need invulnerability if you have cover, and you dont need metal storm if you have just more firerate
its nice for the i-frames in cases such as the antichrist orbital artillery striking you out of nowhere, but its reliability is just... nothing compared to the hard wall

[fossil merlin]

you dont need cover if you're invulnerable

[willow hinge]

for a whole 1.5 seconds*

[fossil merlin]

just use it again

stack no cd

[willow hinge]

after 14 seconds*

[fossil merlin]

its usually about 6.5 seconds after first loop

with 2 or 3 cooldown upgrades

also you get 35% no ammo cost during

and 35? extra armor pen

[willow hinge]

i guess fair enough, but we usually get the uhhh, whats it called? item that buffs your abilities and gives you an ion shield?

[fossil merlin]

no item gives you the ability ion shield

titan shield is 50% damage reduction

nice to have

[willow hinge]

yeah but it stacks on itself

[fossil merlin]

you can

its designed for you to unload into your enemies without any risk

it can also save your life, its the nu uh button

big explody thing? ion shield. orbitial beams? ion shield. angry mob of a dozen units? ion shield and unload into them

peak heavy gunner

id argue that hard wall is more " kind of a pussy thing "

regarding cooldowns

this is prior to the first loop

so loop 0

also funny missile build

i got a second maverick

too bad it still kinda sucked

ALSO, there is huge synergy with bloodrite and ion shield

you can do with just the 0.6 second ion shield from dash for quicker usage and quicker stacking

but its harder since its not nearly as long a window

i had a ion shield / bloodrite run once it was amazing

press button to deal 30k damage to everything on my screen

also i learned that bloodrite has a max stack limit of 66

otherwise it would be insanely busted

[willow hinge]

hard wall is pussy in the sense that it does everything heavy gunner wants or needs, and does so reliably
theres not much to say about it beyond that really, sure is boring
much like theres not much to say about metal storm, just deploy and hope someone walks past it i guess, dont bother with fighting in corridors (esp not without hard wall), because its not even that good

i appreciate i-frame abilities but with ping, theyre not reliable

[fossil merlin]

there is a point to be made against ion shield when you factor in lag i agree

its certainly harder

but that is not always the case and nothing actually wrong with the ability itself

[willow hinge]

in the endgame its better and scales harder
hard wall is just excellent out of the box
but ion also scales for enemies in very late game

we always go hard wall, but ill agree that ion isnt entirely irrelevant (shoutout dragons breath and inferno package, please fix inferno packages damage resistance not working, it seems cool)

[fossil merlin]

oh yeah also cant forget ion shield makes it risk free with two uses to revive

plus revived mate gets a 1.5s grace

with the usual buffs

[willow hinge]

we tried it, you cannot use ion i-frames to block revive damage

[fossil merlin]

not saying that

besides that damage its free

like you cant be hurt if you use it twice

even once its pretty much the entire period

ive done countless epic revives to save a game made possible by ion shield

full shields is cool

but that is like 2 bullets

one cqc hit

reload is cool, but 35% no ammo cost is better

stack some power onto that and its fire at will

and honestly, ive never had a single game in a long time where i thought, damn, i need more fire rate

i usually use deathstick and g11

the only issue with fire rate is if i stack too much negative power on u235

like multiple path of weaponsmiths plus MoW

then I could see it, has happened rarely to me

[willow hinge]

we dont do ammo cost chance, we simply print harder

heavy gunner can always use more firerate, especially since more firerate.... corresponds to less heat generated? because synthetik logic lmao

[fossil merlin]

stock g11 is like 2000 firerate

[willow hinge]

heat is a bigger issue for us than ammo anyways

[fossil merlin]

or at least enough that its kills them dead

[fossil merlin]

no ammo cost is HUGE on big dakka

deathstick gaming relies on that

tho usually i do get it from attachments

but god its so fun when you get a good deathstick

[willow hinge]

we dont do deathstick because its gross

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/628237235577290773/1491993105199792198/IMG_20250429_011740_089.gif

[fossil merlin]

superhoming shots + 105 round clip + fire as fast as you can click + silly ammo printing + 325% nitrovalve (triple damage to elites and bosses) + 40% base no ammo cost

embrace the stick

[slow kiln]

even with ion dome (which I've been trying again since I use twin gat) metal storm was chewing me up while I was trying to shoot things as soon as the shield wore off
since, unless you're getting completely overrun, you wanna advance and mow things down before Onslaught wears off

[static burrow]

honestly just cut metal storm from heavy gunner, let engineer keep it

[slow kiln]

one evo that I have been enjoying is Belt Feeding
if I can get that and Belt Link on a gun at the same time, it prints a lot of free ammo

[static burrow]

to replace metal storm I propose we bring back the Hot-Swap attachment from s1 as a class evolution

Unlocks all normally available ammo types (obtainable via alt-ammo) on all weapons
Allows switching between them without having to eject, doing so generates a bit of heat if the magazine isn't empty/full (on weapons that require ejection)
+10% weapon damage because why not

[slow kiln]

that'd be nice

if you have to make it class-specific, HG makes the most sense

I'd run heavy laser cutter on it way more often because the lightning ammo options it gets are hilarious

[static burrow]

also to fix chest mounted gun

Actually provide details about it
Upgrade it to shoot a random elemental debuffing round (incendiary, acid, cryo, or shock) with power scaling based on your weapon's base damage (the multiplier used in the editor to determine initial base damage) to make it viable with higher damage but lower ROF weapons

You have to control inspect it to even tell what it does (it shoots weak incendiary AP projectiles with 2 digit damage)

[slow kiln]

is there a way to make Popcorn Box salvagable? (gets thrown at the enemy instead of placed, drops as an item like that one RG evo instead of automatic, or something)
or is it better off just gone completely?

[static burrow]

drops as an item
so just <insert grenade here> but reskinned and obtaining it takes up a class evolution, of which you only get two before loop

yeah just kill the popcorn box evolution completely

[slow kiln]

or trigger it on mobility/utility or something (preferably thrown far away from you)
but yeah I think we're better off without

[static burrow]

has anyone proposed any ideas to fix the ammo spider besides giving it a gun

[slow kiln]

I'd say make it move a lot faster (and maybe increase the buff radius) so it can actually help the team more often

[brazen belfry]

I'd be fine with the option to set certain key Evolution upgrades as "items," as with Riotguard's "Hot Shots," which is activated via item hotkey. Some other classes have Evolution summons/attacks where an item variant for manual activation could be useful.

I'd love MANUALLY triggering Popcorn Box and Metal Storm when I actually want/need it, and in places where placement makes sense. I could live with eating an item hotkey slot or two.

Otherwise, there's just no way item automated/triggered by some ability that you need to use constantly and can't just wait to trigger it for an Evolution is going to be precise, well timed and make players happy.

I don't know what S2 others are playing but every co-op game I've been in has probably hundreds of thousands of friendly fire HP triggering, and nobody I play with pays any attention to where other players are. Everyone's good about reviving fellow players, and with Party Chat basically not working 90% of the time, nobody has any way to communicate FF complaints anyway. I just don't worry about it. 🙂

My HG Evolution Peeves are:
-Chest-mounted Gun (I still see evidence visually of this ever shooting anything, and a 10% chance seems an awfully low % chance to trigger.
-Master of Weaponry (this never drops early enough to be useful; by the time it does, we usually have 10-15-20 Upgrade Kits and nothing to use them on, who needs 5 more and an attachment bonus at the cost of Item Power?

[fossil merlin]

I would propose instead of metal storm, a extra weapon slot

simple and would be nice

or also the ability to "tune weapons" like in S1 with extra kits

We are the master of weapons, are we not?

[fossil merlin]

I would make it stationary

half the time it aggros something i dont want or walks right in front of where i am firing

its pathing AI is very bad currently

I would also give it AoE

small circle of ammo and shield regen

Also i'd prefer no ammo cost over regen but that is just me

[fossil merlin]

I would love it if it was placed like a landmine

only could be triggered by enemies or by the player upon button press

still would have friendly explosion damage

but at least it wouldnt go off randomly

i am going to take a stab at modding

i have some basic skills, lets see how hard it is

[willow hinge]

replacing metal storm for something that does stuff with ammo would be really good yeh

[tender holly]

most summons in this game don't deal friendly fire in the first place, so why is metal storm the exception??

i'd say keep it and just remove the friendly fire

[static burrow]

if metal storm really needs to be kept

give it a 15-45 degree firing arc it can turn/shoot in

[slow kiln]

is there another example of 2 different classes sharing an evolution? if not, just remove it from Heavy Gunner and let Engineer keep it

[static burrow]

it definitely belongs more on engineer (a class focused on sentries/summons) than heavy gunner (a class focused on guns)

[slow kiln]

was forced to take Ammo Supply Spider again in my last run (didn't need it, despite running Devastator kit I had great ammo regen, but lol Popcorn Box)
really not enjoying it
sometimes it pops up right in front of my gun when I'm about to engage a horde of bots
the buff radius is tiny
it's too slow to keep up if you're clearing levels rapidly, but if you're having to hang back and lure enemies into choke points, it will charge in by itself despite having no guns
and it has zero durability so it can't even serve as a decent decoy
if you increased the speed and programmed the AI to have it hang back near you (preferably out of your line of fire) it would be better, but it feels like it could just be an item and not take up a whole evolution slot

[tender holly]

it's not amazing by itself but like 90% of summons in this game, it's a good bullet sponge.
If they shoot it, it means they aren't shooting you, which has great value on this alone.

[willow hinge]

ammo spider is a mutual nuisance, it gets in everyones way
would it be smart to have ammo spider also supply damage buffed ammo (similar to explosive shots but maybe slightly less powerful?)
like what if youre close to maximum reserve ammo, and it gave you increased damage for the bullets that it wouldve given you if you had space?

in addition to reworking its AI, that is
because even if its pathfinding was never problematic, the most its ever done for us (besides tanking shots which to my knowledge, isnt the intended use case) is providing ammo for everyone EXCEPT the class that prints its own ammo (lmao)

[tender holly]

is providing ammo for everyone EXCEPT the class that prints its own ammo (lmao)
kid named demolisher kit:

[static burrow]

le useful in coop only evolution

[willow hinge]

played with it again
apparently it gives shield regen in proximity now, didnt know that
its alright
doesnt thematically make sense but its not nothing anymore

[fossil merlin]

not even that late game but had to go

second boss kill

that is 80% no cd and 120% cd reduce

so 5.5 second recharge if fail 80% roll

2 power ups for 180%, 50% no ammo cost and 50 armor pen

[static burrow]

at that point it should just be focused on giving shield boosts to androids/summons
i really don't think heavy gunner needs ammo economy that much for it to be a class evolution since its core ability prints ammo

and for picking up spare ammo, most guns will be fine without anything extra unless you reduce their ammo pickup or miss ammo pickup boxes

[slow kiln]

there's the devastator kit, but I'd rather just grab ambrosia or belt feeding + belt link instead for ammo regen

[wary sorrel]

^^^ completely normal HG mindset

[wary sorrel]

oh yeah stacking upgrades makes the ion actually best in slot... just before then it's got so little uptime vs hardwall was my angle at it.

[slow kiln]

and that's if you actually get the ability upgrading shop instead of the item upgrade shop five times in a row

[fossil merlin]

its about 25k credits to get ion shield into a OP state

and if you get unlucky with no cd upgrades, power stacking is actually super strong

it scales 0.5x, so at 200% power thats well over 50% no ammo cost

which if you also have 80% no cd like i did there, its way stronger then your core ability at ammo eco

and it doesnt slow you down

super good synergy with MoW ammo TP

[slow kiln]

another round stuck with Ammo Spider
when it buffs you the ammo regen counts down from 10 seconds, but it vanishes at 5 seconds if you're out of the radius, and refreshes back to 10 if you are
is it supposed to be a 5 second buff with poor visuals, or a 10 second buff that's bugging out early?

[fossil merlin]

pretty good gun

triple endless mags for 40 cap lol

20% base item power

it seemed oddly resistant to low power uranium fire rate debuff for whatever reason

not complaining

[willow hinge]

this bitch need some full auto trigger

https://tenor.com/view/cat-cam-cat-camera-cat-wide-cat-wide-gif-16729570673879006163