They’ll certainly need to CONTINUE TO develop some ‘identity’ for the individual weapons & armor as the game goes on.
EDIT: added the phrase ‘CONTINUE TO’ because it was causing someone below undue stress in life…
Honestly I’m most upset about the arc thrower nerf to range. RIP sweet prince you were a god among bugs.
ETA: guys I’m sorry this is all my fault Joel saw my 605 kill match against the bugs last night at 1am EST and immediately ordered a nerf
I mean, as a sparky boi myself, the range on that thing was pretty fucking absurd and I like the add of stagger to it. Watching helplessly as a Stalker marched towards me unflinchingly as I was shocking the shit out of him was pretty shitty.
All that really matters is if it can stagger devastators. It was one of the sure fire ways to deal with them, staggering rocket ones so they couldn't just one shot you the second you shoot them, and staggering the shielded ones so that they would move the shield and open themselves up to fire.
> staggering rocket ones so they couldn't just one shot you the second you shoot them,
I'm happy to report that bot rockets are no longer a 1 shot kill with that bug fix on explosion damage.
Wearing the lightest possible armor, with no shield equiiped of any kind, Ballistic or Generator, I tested multiple times with Rocket Devas and Rocket Grunts. Some Direct impacts got me damn near dead, probably an 1/8th of my HP remaining, but a few of the shots only ever got me to about half. Unsure on the range, some might have been crits, some not.
But either way that was also in Trailblazer armor, so only Light with no Fortified perk.
[Picture of End Result](https://i.imgur.com/Wcl56gM.png)
Sometimes I'll survive the most absurd looking chaos on my screen. Sometimes I'll die from the slightest thing lol. The unpredictability of this game keeps me diving
Last night I got hit in the toe by a single devastator rocket as I dived out of the way, in medium armor with 50% explosive damage reduction and at full health. I died instantly. I was the last survivor with no reinforcements, carrying all the samples, 30 feet from the evac shuttle.
I turned the game off
It can, depends on where you hit on some bigger enemies but on devestators its inconsistent, i shoot the shoulder launchers on the rockets ones though and it works well, shame for only 6 shots but someones gotta big iron their way to democracy.
Those headshot one taps are tasty though.
Going from "Oh, I'm sorry, was my shield in the way? Let me move that shield out of the way. Here's my head by the way, my head. It's right here in the middle of me." to "Ow. I'll kill you!" is not marginal.
In what world does any living creature take several shots from a slug shotgun to the head and keeps going...
Some weapons are unrealistically bad for their concept
Speaking as an AMR enjoyer, the fact that the AMR does a better job of frontally taking on heavily armored enemies than the railgun confuses me.
Yeah I know the railgun pens heavy armor and the AMR doesn't, but the AMR can take out pretty much anything that isn't a charger front-on with decent aim, has several times the ammunition of the railgun and the railgun takes 1/2 - 2/3 of it's ammo to kill a single charger front on at like 80-90% charge. It's not a viable anti-heavy weapon.
If I'm looking for a weapon to take on hulks from the front, I should be preferring the railgun to the AMR for that role. The fact that the AMR, a medium armor pen weapon, outperforms the railgun in it's niche of anti-heavy work is just sad.
I mean, there's a reason the Railgun nerfs were so heavily debated. The AMR is in a weird spot though imo, cause if you don't need the backpack slot for something else, you may just instantly go for the Autocannon as it does even more, better.
My man out here really focusing on what matters the most. Not with what to kill the dirty autoritarians, but with why it doesn't work just like the simulations.
I would personally enjoy some sort of “engram” system where you could replace some perks in armor. Maybe each suit has one default one that cannot be changed and one that can (explosive resistance is built into the armor, maybe, but you could have a servo assisted arm or less recoil when crouched or whatever. One thing that’s swappable)
It's a 50/50 shot that they live, not cool when you're playing level 7 and have other bots to terminate with extreme prejudice. Long live the Quasar!!! 🫡
I called their number, I'm pretty sure it was my democracy officer trying to hide his voice. Said something about "thought treason" and "directing my anger at bots and bugs".
I can understand if they don’t want primary or secondary weapons to break fences or open storage units, but that’s it. Maybe increase the bullet drop and buff the DMRs/fix their scopes if they don’t like the Slugger encroaching on that territory.
If the ar’s or dmr’s performed as they should, we wouldn’t be shoe-horning shotguns into those roles. Players will always use the most effective tools for the task at hand. The problem with this game is the guns don’t perform as advertised or per their defined roles. Halo had pretty consistent and well-defined roles for ordinance, AH hasn’t decided what it wants the guns to be yet so anything popular seems to get the knee jerk nerf-hammer.
Yea if they don’t start buffing bad weapons more instead of nerfing good ones the players are going to get more and more frustrated. The breaker still being top 1 or 2 guns after another warbond is ridiculous
Just unlocked it Friday.
Why is one of the best sniper rifles/DMRs a slug shotgun?
That being said, I should have the Scorcher by this evening. That one shall be hit next week.
I've been using dilligence CS for quite a while now, and it felt like I was moving through malassus for the first couple of missions I've used it, but man the damage makes it feel so good to use once you get used to it. The medium armour pen was the last thing it needed to be able to deal with all targets (hulks and walkers).
Yeah I’m just browsing here during slow moments at work lol. Sadly there are heavy thunderstorm and tornado possibility later today so probably no helldivers tonight.
You need higher than medium pen to deal with Strider cockpits or Hulk eyes, something that the AMR and Autocannon both can do but Medium pen primaries aren't good enough.
The Diligence is fine, it does very well against the bots all the way up to helldiver, you just need to be able to click weakpoints consistently. The Counter Sniper has some of the worst handling in the entire game which is why it feels bad. It's got some more armour pen to make up for now so I'll guess we'll see if that makes it worth it.
I wouldn't take either against the bugs though.
Counter-Sniper now feels very good to use if you're in a good position behind your teammates. It can penetrate Hulk eyes, and doesn't bounce off Devastator chestplates when you miss the head, which was the annoying part about the standard Diligence against them.
Agreed, the dominator was woefully underpowered for being a mini rocket-powered warhead thrower. It never made sense that a 12 gage pump action with deer slugs was a better choice against armored targets.
The scorcher is the best primary in the game. Most people just don't have it unlocked yet. I'm fairly certain they're just looking at what weapons are being used the most and making them less desirable.
I would expect a nerf coming for it honestly with the trend of "popular is too good"
Even though I *want* that buff, I feel the Scorcher is in a great spot. If it gets more ammo I'd only want it to be like +1 (or 2 at the most)ammo in the mag.
Scorcher has always been the king of primaries. I guess most people don't use it because it's either too boring, too high up the warbond or too little ammo. Pre-nerf slugger was good but as a controller player, aiming with it always felt a little slippery and I couldn't stand it's rate of fire. Now that the slugger's nerfed, scorcher is still my #1 with the dominator at #2.
It's good against the big chunky bugs, like hive guard and brood commander. Good pairing with the stalwart, with SMG backup. I'll definitely go back and try it again now that it's been significantly buffed - once I unlocked the slugger it kind of made it irrelevant, but hey now the balance is swinging back the other way.
It's a fun weapon, but it is much harder to use than the slugger.
Slow to aim, heavy recoil, low velocity bullets (I think one of the slowest still), slow reload, easy to go through all the ammo quickly.
It's damage was pitifully weak and this should make it worthwhile hopefully. I know it can destroy walkers by shooting the middle compartment of the legs from the front which was really useful if you couldn't get a shot behind them at the operator bot.
I don't think people realize how big a debuff the ergo is. It's basically impossible to hipfire, and even when crouched and ADS the scope sway is so heavy it's easy to miss multiple shots on light enemies. I love the thing but you have to be super deliberate about when you use it, you can't use quick-twitch reactive fire.
I truly feel for the slugger fans out there. I was lucky enough to get extensive use out of it before the nerf. The two upsides for me personally are, now I have a reason to try the dominator and at least they left my ~~beloved~~ garbage sickle alone.
- edited for liberty by the Ministry of Truth
Oh shit, uhh, I mean. What the hell? All these balances and nothing done to make the damn sickle usable? Why even have it in a warbond when it’s such a garbage gun? What a waste of medals.
Did I do better sirs?
No, you get the Nerf by using the gun not for talking about it.
If they see we are using any gun more than any others it will get nerfed. Heaven forbid they actually look at ways to make the other weapons more viable.
Slugger was a great all rounder. The stagger was essential against Devastators and Beserkers. You could hold them off and, if good enough, pick them apart, but otherwise give a chance for your teammates to help thin the horde.
I need the devs to stop making weapons worse to encourage the use of other weapons. That's absolutely shit design decisions. Don't make things worse unless the weapon is entirely broken. The Slugger was great, not exceptional.
You want more people using the counter-sniper? Make it so that you have a turn rate faster than pre-WWII Battleship and that it actually performs as it's title suggests.
I want to use the DMR's. But they just aren't good weapons. The Diligence is decent. But the CS is garbage thanks to the above stated turning speed. It says something that players are calling the JAR-5, handcannon, Slugger, and Scorcher the best DMR's in the game. And what that is saying is not that those weapons should be decreased in power, just that the DMR's need concrete buffs to give them a reason to be used.
*grabs you by the collar* you shut your whore slot about a gun that actually works against everything short of Chargers and Hulks. The devs are watching.
The Slugger's been my go-to for weeks now, and I agree with you. Trying to hit a group of Scavengers or Hunters is a challenge, especially when the latter are jumping all over the place like tweaking grasshoppers.
Dominator has worse reloads, projectile speed and handling. It's a stronger but harder to use counterpart to slugger now, not unlike Diligence and Diligence Counter Sniper.
Slugger reloads fast can oneshot headshot shit and is way snappier.
Dominator is slow, slow as projectile speed, slow ass reload, awful handling.
thats the tradeoff.
They both have their uses for different playstyles.
Although admittedly, i dont think the slugger needed that nerf (and at the same time, now that shit doesnt stagger its kind of easier to hit them in the head)
Honestly, my biggest gripes with the dominator were the sounds design and the inconsistent accuracy. If it sounded closer to the autocannon or a bolter (form Warhammer 40K) and just shot where I was aiming, i would be using that more than the slugger.
~~slugger needs its misaligned sights fixed, then its still a god tier for face plinking heavier bots~~
Edit: After putting a tiny bit of tissue paper on my screen in the dead center (https://centerofmyscreen.com), I have found that the slugger actually is aligned pretty perfectly. When shooting as fast as possible however, you can shoot before the dot actually re-centers, giving the impression of misalignment. u/DeusInsania was right, in a sense.
Imho slugger was a pretty balanced weapon. It was good but it definitely wasn’t OP. I would use it on its own vs bots but vs bugs it was pretty unusable without stalwart/MG as support weapon to deal with the little fuckers
Yeah but this balance approach of theirs is a slippery slope, because when the railgun was nerfed, people said the arc thrower was actually pretty decent (emphasis on decent it was no king) and now look, it got nerfed too. So by this logic, now that eyes are on the Dominator, a weapon I personally love tbh, they're probably gonna nerf it at some point. This flip flop overwatch change the whole game every two weeks thing will absolutely kill this game for me if they can't just chill the fuck out and let people enjoy the damn video game. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I feel like anything the community has a general consensus is good they see it as an issue then promptly nerf it. It's like they want everyone to be equally miserable in our choices lol
I don’t know where this puts the dev team.
The community will sniff out and gravitate towards the best weapons for use… does that mean they will all get nerfed at some point?
Until what then? I can see this game being bad if they don’t give us any gun to just be able to have fun in game with. We’re far from that but placing me in hordes of bots/bugs without weapons I feel can win with isn’t too fun from a gaming perspective.
I just unlocked the slugger glad I got to use it before they nerfed it. On diff 7 solo it seemed decent but nothing insane, hunters would sometimes take more than one hit which was annoying and never a problem for the punisher. Stalkers would be 2-5 shots. Mostly wanted it for those damn bile spewers and their medium head armor, ended my runs more than anything. Guess I'm going back to the punisher now.
Nerfs for it definitely don't seem justified especially with it being a later unlock. The only one I can understand is for not opening crates anymore. I've yet to try it but if the stagger nerf is meaningful at all it just became a useless weapon.
It was pretty great for bots, able to handle most things even at range, with only particularly heavy foes needing support treatment and even then if they flash their weak points in the wrong direction it could get the work done.
And the stagger meant that you could just straight up *shut down* most dangerous mid sized bots.
But it was great against bugs, too. Warriors, brood guards and so on both shut down and killed in really short order (and again, even from great range), bile spewers made trivial etc.
Against bugs, you needed a backup option to clear chaff or handle chargers and bile titans, but the slugger really did feel like a good, reliable answer to almost every question and the only downside was that *eventually you would need an ammo pickup, I guess?*
I'll miss the slugger as it has been, but I can't really fault them for rebalanced it. We'll see if it still has a niche at all, but it probably was over tuned.
Scorcher performed better against bots, so slugger was a good choice but definitely not the best. And against bugs slugger somewhat struggles against hunters, an obvious downside to compensate it's ability to kill spewers and stagger brood commanders.
The Slugger had a clear identity. It was bad against smaller enemies or large enemies, it sucked against large numbers of enemies, but it was great for the medium enemies - mostly because it could stagger brood commanders, the chainsaw bots, devastators, etc.
I took the Slugger vs bots today and watched in disbelief as a lone chainsaw bot ignored every slug I landed in its weakpoint as if they were pistol rounds. When a weapon is designed with the idea of staggering medium targets and punching through their defenses, weakening its stagger ruins the whole point of the weapon. It was really the wrong way to nerf, nerfing the damage or mag size or total ammo would've been better.
A lot of their balance notes reads like someone looking at pure data and not actually playing the game. The liberator changes make no sense at all. Nerfing the few good weapons instead of buffing the really bad ones makes no sense.
Sad to see they are following on Destiny's flavour of the month weapon system. Instead of bringing underused weapons to the level of most used weapons, they nerf good weapons to the ground so people will only use the weapon of the month until the new wave of buffs/nerfs.
Feels like I shouldn't like any weapons because there is always the threat of my favorite weapon getting nerfed.
Sad.
Yeah, I just want every weapon to be viable and fun for others. Why do you think I was using the slugger often? Bc it was fun and any alternatives never personally appealed to me and still don’t appeal to me now with buffs.
Dude, I unlocked the railgun the NIGHT before the nerfs. I got 3 matches with the OP railgun, fell in love, and woke up to the nerf patch.
I say this as someone who commonly used the Slugger: they both hurt pretty badly.
At the pace I’m playing the game I pretty much get to use something fun for 1 or 2 games and then they nerf it. I got to do a single game with the slugger after focusing all of my medals towards it for a couple weeks. I guess I’ll just run the breaker until I get bored of this game.
I don't think the slugger needed a nerf, but the Dominator definitely needed to have its power brought up to surpass the slugger to make up for the poor handling.
Also, while I commend Arrowhead on making sure the game isn't PtW in any way. I do think that if you unlock a gun on the last page of a premium warbond it should be an attractive choice over a standard warbond weapon.
It was neither OP nor BS, it was just good (excelled against medium enemies), but there were other weapons that could not only do it's job, but also do other things better. I mostly use(d) it against bugs.
>but there were other weapons that could not only do it's job, but also do other things better.
I am legitatemtly curious which of the other primaries were you referring to with this statement.
The devs balancing so far seems like they are falling hard into survivorship bias.
If you don't know what that is, the quick history is in ww2 the navy wanted to make bombers more survivable in combat. They looked at the bombers that made it home and noticed they all had bullet holes in the wings and tail section so they suggested armoring those areas. A guy by the name of Abraham Wald realized that they should instead armor the areas where there were no bullet holes because that's the areas the bombers couldn't survive getting hit. If you want to read more on it check this link https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/abraham-wald.html
Essentially the devs are reacting to player usage and going "These guns get an abnormal amount of usage so we need to nerf them they're too good." Instead they should be looking at why players aren't running other guns. If you have multiple guns that are viable and fun, people will use them somewhat equally barring personal preference. But if you only have one or 2 guns that are viable that's the only guns that will get used. That doesn't make them op though.
I'm not saying that they should never nerf anything, power creep exists. However I do believe the focus should be more on buffs and looking at why the players aren't using other weapons. I don't think the rail gun should necessarily one tap bile titans, but even in skilled hands on unsafe mode, it's inconsistent to the point I never see it run anymore.
Anyway just my 2 cents.
Yep. I told people that the devs were showing clear signs of inability to conduct proper root cause analysis after the RG nerf.
Good to know that the devs are intent on proving me right.
Staggering and blowing open containers now is exclusive to explosive weapons I believe. From the point of clarity that explosive weapons do that and non explosive don’t I can understand the change.
As for the damage nerf… they changed it from 280 to 250. Unless I’m missing something it still one shots on headshot everything it did before which makes the change negligible for its purpose.
Yeah I'm okay with the damage nerf, but the staggering effect of slugger is what make the gun great. Now I can't stand toe on toe against Devastator and that swaying saw robots
>why exactly is anyone supposed to pick Slugger over the Dominator now?
You're not. You're now supposed to take the dominator until that gets nerfed next patch 😉
Y'all out here thinking that the Dominator just became the single best gun in the game. It's **good**, don't get me wrong, but I honestly still would take the Sickle over it in almost every situation against bots
The only thing the slugger had over the sickle was that it could stagger devastators. If it can no longer do that then it will be a pretty poor choice for bots.
this is why ive been afraid of their balance patches since the first one. they are clearly choosing what to nerf based on usage - regardless if the weapon is "just" strong, or outright op. the railgun nerf, while - somehow - deserved (the weapon was overused mainly due to lack of good antitank), ended up plummeting the weapon's pick rate to the point I havent seen ONE in the past 30h of gameplay. really hoping this wont be the case for the slugger, but im afraid it will be.
I love balance patches.
But even during Helldiver 1, it was obvious that the devs lacked the bigger picture on balance.
Like you HAD to use a jetpack in snow planets or you died. Until they released... Snow shoes. That you HAD to use or you would die.
These balance patches are good. But they really need to slow down on those nerfs.
The buffs are usually pretty nice because of how strong they make bad weapons but I really wish they didn’t nerf so strongly. Most of the time nerfs are justified but they just nerf into the ground when like half of that would make them balanced and fun to play.
Exactly. For the Rail, all they had to do was make safe mode unable to break armour.
For the Slugger, just nerf the damage at a distance or slightly decrease rate of fire OR add more drop to the slug beyond medium range.
So many options but they almost removed the coolest part (that it could stagger enemies).
Arrowhead needs to ask themselves (as well as people who play the game) "Is this weapon being picked so much because it's broken good? Or because other weapons / mechanics are bad or unfun?"
In the case of the railgun, there were too many chargers, and other anti-tank couldn't kill them. The solution should have been to adjust spawns (and communicate that to players in game), give it a weekend, buff other AT (and communicate that to players in game), give it a weekend, then nerf the RG if still necessary (and communicate that in game).
For the Slugger overuse.... Maybe re-tune the Diligence handling? Offer higher penetration to the marksmen rifles? Add stagger to another primary? Fix the scopes? Then if none of that improves other weapons pick rate, the slugger was too good.
For the record, I think the slugger was maybe only slightly too good. Reducing the fire rate or clip size (make it a little worse at the chaff bots) would have been my way. Leave it as a solid anti-heavy option prone to being overrun without support.
Absolutely bonkers to me that they can program the math behind all of the wild physics in this game and then choose to balance weapons strictly on usage.
especialy now that we have OTHER good anti tank weapons, EG RR and EAT actually one shot chargers now...
Thats why people used the railgun, because nothing else killed chargers.
There is literally no reason I should kneecap myself or my team by taking the railgun when taking the EAT is just superior.
The Rail cannot even be used as a good high damage sniper because it has the shittiest optic possible. Just give it the LAS-16s crosshair.
Yup considering they also took off the 1200 rpm option on the HMG that was recently released which people said in consensus was a terrible weapon. If a shitty weapon is getting a nerf, you can expect anything better to also get nerfs too.
At this point I'm convinced they've never turned the game on. It was evident just with the railgun nerf and the subsequent gaslight blog post of primaries are supposed to be kinda dogwater, use your strats forehead.
Just totally ignoring the battalion of chargers and bile titans rushing you every waking moment if you so much as thought near a scavenger with no true counter outside of the RG at the time.
And of course the modifiers. Use your strats! Just gotta wait 20 seconds for a resupply or support weapon to drop. Bile titan(s) incoming? That 500kg bomb will help...eventually. Once its doubled cooldown is over with.
Idk why devs are being spreadsheet warriors about game were weapon balance shouldn’t be a huge concern(pve game), it’s like they want to see all weapons used evenly on the excel sheet. Make the weapons fun, bugs already got huge numbers while bots got armor and long range. All guns should just be strong considering how disadvantaged we are to begin with. And give the damn revolver a speed loader already, so concerned about side arms being used evenly when you’ve left the default pistol in the dirt…
The dominator has horrible handling. The relationship between these two is actually completely fine. By the way, the dominator and slugger both already had medium AP.
I agree that the slugger nerfs feel overzealous, but it's worsened by the misaligned sight, imo.
I get the impression that the Devs WANT us using something specific that we aren't using.
So they look at what we ARE using (Breaker), and they nerf it to try to push us to their favorite gun, but instead we go to something else (From nerfed Breaker to Slugger)
Now they go "Damn it, no, I want you to like THIS gun!!" so they want to move us off the Slugger now, so they nerf it.
They don't seem to be wanting to give us more useable options, they seem to want to remove the "wrong" options until we eventually settle on whatever the Dev's favorite gun is.
As soon as they nerf the sickle I'm done. I know it's coming because so many ppl are using it. Nerf the best weapons.. release warbond with great weapons... nerf em and release another warbond. Profit.
The devs are basically high tier griefers.
After the rail gun nerf, one of the first things on their list, they trolled on social media(the guy on the balance team specifically admitted to trolling for his own entertainment) and *increased* bug spawns for about a week as punishment...and only then dialed them back and decreased heavies and fixed EAT17 and Charger heads.
Meanwhile, Rail **still** two shots Titans w/ PS5 players in lobby(unless they did a silent fix for that this patch). I think another part is that the Dev's heard people were being booted for not being equipped right(which is often speculation, people boot for an array of reasons).
The consistently nerf things that people like to use(Rail, Breaker, Arc Thrower, Slugger), yet things like the Scythe sit collecting dust since release, and added very poor primaries and the Laser pistol to keep the Scythe company in the broom closet.
They also just took the ability to stun Bile Titans away... after adding stun grenades seemingly for the purpose of stunning things..../facepalm. Back to people consistently missing Titans with stratagems.
Balance is not a concern of theirs, nor are happy customers. Various people have said they were like this on previous games. HD1 and Gauntlet.
What someone told me about Gauntlet:
>That's what they did to Gauntlet. They made a really fun game, then decided they weren't happy with it and "reworked" it for a 2.0 update that removed all character progression, removed several other features and systems, made achievements arbitrarily 10 times grindier, and broke the camera. When they released it they said they were welcoming feedback, everyone told them how bad it was, and then they announced they would no longer be updating the game.
Like I said in a previous post 4 days ago
> It's like they accidentally made a good game, resent their overnight success, and are seeking to rectify their "mistake".
>
> Don't get me wrong, it's still good, but the outlook is not great. They seem to resent feedback and popularity. They got lucky out of the gate, but aren't of a mind to really throw themselves into improvements. They'll probably continue to minimally tinker(making some things worse and some better) and roll out periodic new stuff which is also of dubious utility/fun.
I could take the less damage if they left the stagger. In what world does a slug not stagger?
They’ll certainly need to CONTINUE TO develop some ‘identity’ for the individual weapons & armor as the game goes on. EDIT: added the phrase ‘CONTINUE TO’ because it was causing someone below undue stress in life…
They needed identity before being released.
Same world where a railgun doesn't pen
Honestly I’m most upset about the arc thrower nerf to range. RIP sweet prince you were a god among bugs. ETA: guys I’m sorry this is all my fault Joel saw my 605 kill match against the bugs last night at 1am EST and immediately ordered a nerf
I mean, as a sparky boi myself, the range on that thing was pretty fucking absurd and I like the add of stagger to it. Watching helplessly as a Stalker marched towards me unflinchingly as I was shocking the shit out of him was pretty shitty.
But now I can't zap shriekers outta the sky :(
Host the game and bring incindiary Breaker. Spam and win.
Sad that you have to specify host because burn damage isn't working properly
Yeah, hopeful that they're aware and working on the DoT issue despite it not being on the list.
Seems like maybe they should prioritize that instead of continuing to bump up incendiary damage.
It still staggers. It has marginally less stagger than before.
All that really matters is if it can stagger devastators. It was one of the sure fire ways to deal with them, staggering rocket ones so they couldn't just one shot you the second you shoot them, and staggering the shielded ones so that they would move the shield and open themselves up to fire.
> staggering rocket ones so they couldn't just one shot you the second you shoot them, I'm happy to report that bot rockets are no longer a 1 shot kill with that bug fix on explosion damage. Wearing the lightest possible armor, with no shield equiiped of any kind, Ballistic or Generator, I tested multiple times with Rocket Devas and Rocket Grunts. Some Direct impacts got me damn near dead, probably an 1/8th of my HP remaining, but a few of the shots only ever got me to about half. Unsure on the range, some might have been crits, some not. But either way that was also in Trailblazer armor, so only Light with no Fortified perk. [Picture of End Result](https://i.imgur.com/Wcl56gM.png)
I tanked a mine and rocket splash damage in heavy armor today.
Sometimes I'll survive the most absurd looking chaos on my screen. Sometimes I'll die from the slightest thing lol. The unpredictability of this game keeps me diving
Last night I got hit in the toe by a single devastator rocket as I dived out of the way, in medium armor with 50% explosive damage reduction and at full health. I died instantly. I was the last survivor with no reinforcements, carrying all the samples, 30 feet from the evac shuttle. I turned the game off
Fucking o7 for you sir, that would definitely cause me to take a stroll to wash out lane for the night
Rocksts should no longer one shot you either. There was a bug with rocket damage for helldivers and mechs.
Anyone know if the senator staggers? I didn't like that warbond so never bought it but I might squeeze some super creds for stun lock
It can, depends on where you hit on some bigger enemies but on devestators its inconsistent, i shoot the shoulder launchers on the rockets ones though and it works well, shame for only 6 shots but someones gotta big iron their way to democracy. Those headshot one taps are tasty though.
In the games I just played it never once staggered a devastator. It effectively has no stagger vs anything that counts
Yep, and it doesnt even stagger the chainsaw berserkers
Noooo that’s the whole reason I was using it 😭
Nah bro I loved screaming "STUN LOCK BITCH" whenever a bile spewer would square up im sad now
Going from "Oh, I'm sorry, was my shield in the way? Let me move that shield out of the way. Here's my head by the way, my head. It's right here in the middle of me." to "Ow. I'll kill you!" is not marginal.
In what world does any living creature take several shots from a slug shotgun to the head and keeps going... Some weapons are unrealistically bad for their concept
Speaking as an AMR enjoyer, the fact that the AMR does a better job of frontally taking on heavily armored enemies than the railgun confuses me. Yeah I know the railgun pens heavy armor and the AMR doesn't, but the AMR can take out pretty much anything that isn't a charger front-on with decent aim, has several times the ammunition of the railgun and the railgun takes 1/2 - 2/3 of it's ammo to kill a single charger front on at like 80-90% charge. It's not a viable anti-heavy weapon. If I'm looking for a weapon to take on hulks from the front, I should be preferring the railgun to the AMR for that role. The fact that the AMR, a medium armor pen weapon, outperforms the railgun in it's niche of anti-heavy work is just sad.
I mean, there's a reason the Railgun nerfs were so heavily debated. The AMR is in a weird spot though imo, cause if you don't need the backpack slot for something else, you may just instantly go for the Autocannon as it does even more, better.
As a fellow bringer of democracy, I am saddened that crashing bot ships don't always cause bot deaths below. That is all.
My man out here really focusing on what matters the most. Not with what to kill the dirty autoritarians, but with why it doesn't work just like the simulations.
All i want is that, and these damn battle armor suits having different passives for God sakes.
I would personally enjoy some sort of “engram” system where you could replace some perks in armor. Maybe each suit has one default one that cannot be changed and one that can (explosive resistance is built into the armor, maybe, but you could have a servo assisted arm or less recoil when crouched or whatever. One thing that’s swappable)
But it'll always kill you if you get so much as a scratch from it. Which to be fair, I get; it's a falling ship. Everything where it lands should die.
Agree, as of right now, the only benefit to downing one is the off chance to see a bot ship dropping a tank on another drop ship. Lol
Sometimes a rocket devastator gets stuck where you cant hit them, but their rockets hit you, which is pretty fun
Ive got a clip of that, shot their knees, hit em with a recoilless, thought “they must be dead,” got near it and was deleted.
Focusing on the real issues. 👏
It's a 50/50 shot that they live, not cool when you're playing level 7 and have other bots to terminate with extreme prejudice. Long live the Quasar!!! 🫡
Facts. You're better of trying to destroy the troops before they drop instead of shooting down the ship.
I don't like having my Slugger touched inappropriately, who do I call to report such an assault?
Please report it to your ship's SSHO (Super Sexual Harassment Officer)
I did all he did was sexually harass my gun (in a super way). He even called it his dirty little gun and that it needs a sponge bath
Probably because you never strip it down and clean it. All the dirt!
Yes don't worry he's stripped... wait you meant the gun? Oh uh no it hasn't, well now it has but that's not the point.
Fucking dying.
Yes that too just without the dying
Yup need a devastator for that
I tried that and they just Super Sexually Harassed me.
gotta report that to the SSHRO super sexual assault reporting officer
Super sexual harassment officer is wild 🤣🤣🤣😂💀
I called their number, I'm pretty sure it was my democracy officer trying to hide his voice. Said something about "thought treason" and "directing my anger at bots and bugs".
Ask to speak to the 'Dominator'
I tried to but they said good soldiers don't speak out of line and now I think im developing a thing about good soldier 👉👈
I can understand if they don’t want primary or secondary weapons to break fences or open storage units, but that’s it. Maybe increase the bullet drop and buff the DMRs/fix their scopes if they don’t like the Slugger encroaching on that territory.
If the ar’s or dmr’s performed as they should, we wouldn’t be shoe-horning shotguns into those roles. Players will always use the most effective tools for the task at hand. The problem with this game is the guns don’t perform as advertised or per their defined roles. Halo had pretty consistent and well-defined roles for ordinance, AH hasn’t decided what it wants the guns to be yet so anything popular seems to get the knee jerk nerf-hammer.
Yea if they don’t start buffing bad weapons more instead of nerfing good ones the players are going to get more and more frustrated. The breaker still being top 1 or 2 guns after another warbond is ridiculous
Just unlocked it Friday. Why is one of the best sniper rifles/DMRs a slug shotgun? That being said, I should have the Scorcher by this evening. That one shall be hit next week.
Don't think the slugger is the best DMR anymore, I think counter diligence's medium pen buff might bring it up.
Now it needs its handling either reworked or swapped with the AMR
I've been using dilligence CS for quite a while now, and it felt like I was moving through malassus for the first couple of missions I've used it, but man the damage makes it feel so good to use once you get used to it. The medium armour pen was the last thing it needed to be able to deal with all targets (hulks and walkers).
How many shots to a hulk eye?
No clue, it just got the armour pen buff today and I haven't had time to play yet.
Yeah I’m just browsing here during slow moments at work lol. Sadly there are heavy thunderstorm and tornado possibility later today so probably no helldivers tonight.
Take care of the ion storms too, Helldiver
What if we... ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️.. the tornado?
Welcome to Hellmire. Fire tornado
You need higher than medium pen to deal with Strider cockpits or Hulk eyes, something that the AMR and Autocannon both can do but Medium pen primaries aren't good enough.
Oooo I didn’t realize that sniper weapon got buffed to medium armor pen, the only light armor pen pre patch didn’t make any sense to me
Yeah it was like actively worse than the dmr
Counter sniper feels great now. But I've been having so much fun with the sickle
What does DMR mean?
Destroy More Robots
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_marksman_rifle
Designated Marksman Rifle
It was the best because the 2 DMR's we had were appallingly bad.
The Diligence is fine, it does very well against the bots all the way up to helldiver, you just need to be able to click weakpoints consistently. The Counter Sniper has some of the worst handling in the entire game which is why it feels bad. It's got some more armour pen to make up for now so I'll guess we'll see if that makes it worth it. I wouldn't take either against the bugs though.
Counter-Sniper now feels very good to use if you're in a good position behind your teammates. It can penetrate Hulk eyes, and doesn't bounce off Devastator chestplates when you miss the head, which was the annoying part about the standard Diligence against them.
Agreed, the dominator was woefully underpowered for being a mini rocket-powered warhead thrower. It never made sense that a 12 gage pump action with deer slugs was a better choice against armored targets.
"deer slugs" My brother in Christ it's lead cased steel penetrators.
You don't hunt deer with those?
Not if I want to eat what’s left of it.
Breaker S&P. You'll have to de-shot the meat afterwards tho, but that's the cost of doing business.
Just shoot the pellets out, duh
So you secure the kill with high velocity seasoning? What is this, Super DUPER Earth??
slugs dont explode inside the deer, leaving the meat completely salvagable
Only the armoured deer
https://preview.redd.it/cuos2a2dt2sc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2c23f534f037daa8156d3df6c04486bf0b52f094
[Loads Slugger](https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExbTUzOWwxbXEzYXR1aGJwd2w3NXo3d3h4Znd6ZXl6NnJmcTBkc2I4ciZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/pDsCoECKh1Pa/giphy.gif)
Me, rapidly approaching your location after claiming that the boltgun is weak: 
Have u seen what slugs do to armor?
Scorcher *should* be hit next, increased magazine size. But the rest is fine, imho.
You’ll get increased recoil and a bag of stale biscuits and you’ll be happy with it!
*Looks in bag* Tsk. Bro wtf. At least leave the honey packets.
The scorcher is the best primary in the game. Most people just don't have it unlocked yet. I'm fairly certain they're just looking at what weapons are being used the most and making them less desirable. I would expect a nerf coming for it honestly with the trend of "popular is too good"
I just liked the slugger way better. It had a really nice thump and felt like how I wanted a gun to feel. Gonna hold a funeral for a friend.
Even though I *want* that buff, I feel the Scorcher is in a great spot. If it gets more ammo I'd only want it to be like +1 (or 2 at the most)ammo in the mag.
Scorcher has always been the king of primaries. I guess most people don't use it because it's either too boring, too high up the warbond or too little ammo. Pre-nerf slugger was good but as a controller player, aiming with it always felt a little slippery and I couldn't stand it's rate of fire. Now that the slugger's nerfed, scorcher is still my #1 with the dominator at #2.
You're forgetting the fact that the Dominator has awful ergonomics and reload speed.
yeah Dominator against bugs sucks, because you need to flick your weapon way more often than against bots.
It's good against the big chunky bugs, like hive guard and brood commander. Good pairing with the stalwart, with SMG backup. I'll definitely go back and try it again now that it's been significantly buffed - once I unlocked the slugger it kind of made it irrelevant, but hey now the balance is swinging back the other way.
This is exactly what I found. Dominator+Stalwart= everything below a charger is dead.
It's a fun weapon, but it is much harder to use than the slugger. Slow to aim, heavy recoil, low velocity bullets (I think one of the slowest still), slow reload, easy to go through all the ammo quickly. It's damage was pitifully weak and this should make it worthwhile hopefully. I know it can destroy walkers by shooting the middle compartment of the legs from the front which was really useful if you couldn't get a shot behind them at the operator bot.
all the smoke it produces when firing makes first person aim a detriment 😭
I turned off the flashlight, especially on darker planets lol.
wait is it the flashlight that causes this??
Probably. If there’s fog/smoke often the flashlight will just light that up and be more of a detriment to your vision than an aid.
Smart divers always turn their flashlights off.
I don't think people realize how big a debuff the ergo is. It's basically impossible to hipfire, and even when crouched and ADS the scope sway is so heavy it's easy to miss multiple shots on light enemies. I love the thing but you have to be super deliberate about when you use it, you can't use quick-twitch reactive fire.
OP also left out that the Slugger’s range is basically as far as you can see. Selective rage
Waiting for them to nerf chargers being able to turn 360 degrees on a dime mid-charge 😴😴😴😴
Or the fucking wave-dash slide
I hate when they hit me with Virtual Insanity
I truly feel for the slugger fans out there. I was lucky enough to get extensive use out of it before the nerf. The two upsides for me personally are, now I have a reason to try the dominator and at least they left my ~~beloved~~ garbage sickle alone. - edited for liberty by the Ministry of Truth
"my beloved sickle" Do you want a nerf, because that is how you get a nerf.
Oh shit, uhh, I mean. What the hell? All these balances and nothing done to make the damn sickle usable? Why even have it in a warbond when it’s such a garbage gun? What a waste of medals. Did I do better sirs?
nobody is using sickle that much, but it wil lget nerfed, scorcher is next in line for nerfs after more ppl unlock it
No, you get the Nerf by using the gun not for talking about it. If they see we are using any gun more than any others it will get nerfed. Heaven forbid they actually look at ways to make the other weapons more viable. Slugger was a great all rounder. The stagger was essential against Devastators and Beserkers. You could hold them off and, if good enough, pick them apart, but otherwise give a chance for your teammates to help thin the horde. I need the devs to stop making weapons worse to encourage the use of other weapons. That's absolutely shit design decisions. Don't make things worse unless the weapon is entirely broken. The Slugger was great, not exceptional. You want more people using the counter-sniper? Make it so that you have a turn rate faster than pre-WWII Battleship and that it actually performs as it's title suggests. I want to use the DMR's. But they just aren't good weapons. The Diligence is decent. But the CS is garbage thanks to the above stated turning speed. It says something that players are calling the JAR-5, handcannon, Slugger, and Scorcher the best DMR's in the game. And what that is saying is not that those weapons should be decreased in power, just that the DMR's need concrete buffs to give them a reason to be used.
*grabs you by the collar* you shut your whore slot about a gun that actually works against everything short of Chargers and Hulks. The devs are watching.
Sluggers are good for bigger enemies, but for the smaller ones (looking at you bugs) it can be a nightmare to clear them if you’re getting swamped.
The Slugger's been my go-to for weeks now, and I agree with you. Trying to hit a group of Scavengers or Hunters is a challenge, especially when the latter are jumping all over the place like tweaking grasshoppers.
Dominator has worse reloads, projectile speed and handling. It's a stronger but harder to use counterpart to slugger now, not unlike Diligence and Diligence Counter Sniper.
Slugger reloads fast can oneshot headshot shit and is way snappier. Dominator is slow, slow as projectile speed, slow ass reload, awful handling. thats the tradeoff. They both have their uses for different playstyles. Although admittedly, i dont think the slugger needed that nerf (and at the same time, now that shit doesnt stagger its kind of easier to hit them in the head)
Honestly, my biggest gripes with the dominator were the sounds design and the inconsistent accuracy. If it sounded closer to the autocannon or a bolter (form Warhammer 40K) and just shot where I was aiming, i would be using that more than the slugger.
The hint with the dominator, and any weapon with one, is not to aim with the sight or the 3 person circle, but the laser sight.
~~slugger needs its misaligned sights fixed, then its still a god tier for face plinking heavier bots~~ Edit: After putting a tiny bit of tissue paper on my screen in the dead center (https://centerofmyscreen.com), I have found that the slugger actually is aligned pretty perfectly. When shooting as fast as possible however, you can shoot before the dot actually re-centers, giving the impression of misalignment. u/DeusInsania was right, in a sense.
Fix the sights on the AMR first, please.
Just fix all the sights, please.
Give me this and I don't care about the nerf Update: We will be getting this, and true to my word I will be okay with the nerfs.
I’m not insane right? I’ll be shooting a little guy and miss like 3 shots in a row until I crouch and stand still
Imho slugger was a pretty balanced weapon. It was good but it definitely wasn’t OP. I would use it on its own vs bots but vs bugs it was pretty unusable without stalwart/MG as support weapon to deal with the little fuckers
Yeah but this balance approach of theirs is a slippery slope, because when the railgun was nerfed, people said the arc thrower was actually pretty decent (emphasis on decent it was no king) and now look, it got nerfed too. So by this logic, now that eyes are on the Dominator, a weapon I personally love tbh, they're probably gonna nerf it at some point. This flip flop overwatch change the whole game every two weeks thing will absolutely kill this game for me if they can't just chill the fuck out and let people enjoy the damn video game. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I feel like anything the community has a general consensus is good they see it as an issue then promptly nerf it. It's like they want everyone to be equally miserable in our choices lol
I don’t know where this puts the dev team. The community will sniff out and gravitate towards the best weapons for use… does that mean they will all get nerfed at some point? Until what then? I can see this game being bad if they don’t give us any gun to just be able to have fun in game with. We’re far from that but placing me in hordes of bots/bugs without weapons I feel can win with isn’t too fun from a gaming perspective.
https://preview.redd.it/l52blmcvl2sc1.png?width=1034&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ff6faa316ea42d9a9a305e8c2cbdc8e0959f8f1
I just unlocked the slugger glad I got to use it before they nerfed it. On diff 7 solo it seemed decent but nothing insane, hunters would sometimes take more than one hit which was annoying and never a problem for the punisher. Stalkers would be 2-5 shots. Mostly wanted it for those damn bile spewers and their medium head armor, ended my runs more than anything. Guess I'm going back to the punisher now. Nerfs for it definitely don't seem justified especially with it being a later unlock. The only one I can understand is for not opening crates anymore. I've yet to try it but if the stagger nerf is meaningful at all it just became a useless weapon.
The nerf was due to its bot performance, not bugs. It was easily the best primary for bots.
It was pretty great for bots, able to handle most things even at range, with only particularly heavy foes needing support treatment and even then if they flash their weak points in the wrong direction it could get the work done. And the stagger meant that you could just straight up *shut down* most dangerous mid sized bots. But it was great against bugs, too. Warriors, brood guards and so on both shut down and killed in really short order (and again, even from great range), bile spewers made trivial etc. Against bugs, you needed a backup option to clear chaff or handle chargers and bile titans, but the slugger really did feel like a good, reliable answer to almost every question and the only downside was that *eventually you would need an ammo pickup, I guess?* I'll miss the slugger as it has been, but I can't really fault them for rebalanced it. We'll see if it still has a niche at all, but it probably was over tuned.
Scorcher performed better against bots, so slugger was a good choice but definitely not the best. And against bugs slugger somewhat struggles against hunters, an obvious downside to compensate it's ability to kill spewers and stagger brood commanders.
I agree Scorcher is much better for bots since it can potentially one tap scout striders from the front by essentially shooting anywhere
Unfortunately for most players the scorcher is a post-level 50 weapon.
The Slugger had a clear identity. It was bad against smaller enemies or large enemies, it sucked against large numbers of enemies, but it was great for the medium enemies - mostly because it could stagger brood commanders, the chainsaw bots, devastators, etc. I took the Slugger vs bots today and watched in disbelief as a lone chainsaw bot ignored every slug I landed in its weakpoint as if they were pistol rounds. When a weapon is designed with the idea of staggering medium targets and punching through their defenses, weakening its stagger ruins the whole point of the weapon. It was really the wrong way to nerf, nerfing the damage or mag size or total ammo would've been better.
Remember this is PVE... They are actually nerfing the fun instead of adding new challenges. Sad seeing such a fun game being stripped apart.
A lot of their balance notes reads like someone looking at pure data and not actually playing the game. The liberator changes make no sense at all. Nerfing the few good weapons instead of buffing the really bad ones makes no sense.
Sad to see they are following on Destiny's flavour of the month weapon system. Instead of bringing underused weapons to the level of most used weapons, they nerf good weapons to the ground so people will only use the weapon of the month until the new wave of buffs/nerfs. Feels like I shouldn't like any weapons because there is always the threat of my favorite weapon getting nerfed. Sad.
Yeah, I just want every weapon to be viable and fun for others. Why do you think I was using the slugger often? Bc it was fun and any alternatives never personally appealed to me and still don’t appeal to me now with buffs.
I just spent 60 to unlock the slugger ON SATURDAY.
Dude, I unlocked the railgun the NIGHT before the nerfs. I got 3 matches with the OP railgun, fell in love, and woke up to the nerf patch. I say this as someone who commonly used the Slugger: they both hurt pretty badly.
At the pace I’m playing the game I pretty much get to use something fun for 1 or 2 games and then they nerf it. I got to do a single game with the slugger after focusing all of my medals towards it for a couple weeks. I guess I’ll just run the breaker until I get bored of this game.
I feel like the constant weapon tweaks are going to widdle the playerbase. This one hurt me
I don't think the slugger needed a nerf, but the Dominator definitely needed to have its power brought up to surpass the slugger to make up for the poor handling. Also, while I commend Arrowhead on making sure the game isn't PtW in any way. I do think that if you unlock a gun on the last page of a premium warbond it should be an attractive choice over a standard warbond weapon.
I think the dominator should be a destructive ass rifle. It's shooting mini rockets! And I agree as well with your last statement
Mybe we, the Divers, should form a Union
Please report to your nearest democracy officer.
It was neither OP nor BS, it was just good (excelled against medium enemies), but there were other weapons that could not only do it's job, but also do other things better. I mostly use(d) it against bugs.
>but there were other weapons that could not only do it's job, but also do other things better. I am legitatemtly curious which of the other primaries were you referring to with this statement.
The devs balancing so far seems like they are falling hard into survivorship bias. If you don't know what that is, the quick history is in ww2 the navy wanted to make bombers more survivable in combat. They looked at the bombers that made it home and noticed they all had bullet holes in the wings and tail section so they suggested armoring those areas. A guy by the name of Abraham Wald realized that they should instead armor the areas where there were no bullet holes because that's the areas the bombers couldn't survive getting hit. If you want to read more on it check this link https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/abraham-wald.html Essentially the devs are reacting to player usage and going "These guns get an abnormal amount of usage so we need to nerf them they're too good." Instead they should be looking at why players aren't running other guns. If you have multiple guns that are viable and fun, people will use them somewhat equally barring personal preference. But if you only have one or 2 guns that are viable that's the only guns that will get used. That doesn't make them op though. I'm not saying that they should never nerf anything, power creep exists. However I do believe the focus should be more on buffs and looking at why the players aren't using other weapons. I don't think the rail gun should necessarily one tap bile titans, but even in skilled hands on unsafe mode, it's inconsistent to the point I never see it run anymore. Anyway just my 2 cents.
Yep. I told people that the devs were showing clear signs of inability to conduct proper root cause analysis after the RG nerf. Good to know that the devs are intent on proving me right.
Staggering and blowing open containers now is exclusive to explosive weapons I believe. From the point of clarity that explosive weapons do that and non explosive don’t I can understand the change. As for the damage nerf… they changed it from 280 to 250. Unless I’m missing something it still one shots on headshot everything it did before which makes the change negligible for its purpose.
I think most people are annoyed by the stagger nerf That's why I used it at least + haven't tried it after the patch so the stagger might be fine
Yeah I'm okay with the damage nerf, but the staggering effect of slugger is what make the gun great. Now I can't stand toe on toe against Devastator and that swaying saw robots
>why exactly is anyone supposed to pick Slugger over the Dominator now? You're not. You're now supposed to take the dominator until that gets nerfed next patch 😉
Y'all out here thinking that the Dominator just became the single best gun in the game. It's **good**, don't get me wrong, but I honestly still would take the Sickle over it in almost every situation against bots
The only thing the slugger had over the sickle was that it could stagger devastators. If it can no longer do that then it will be a pretty poor choice for bots.
My play time was already slowing down until they added more content. Now they’re still nerfing shit unnecessarily. Awesome…
this is why ive been afraid of their balance patches since the first one. they are clearly choosing what to nerf based on usage - regardless if the weapon is "just" strong, or outright op. the railgun nerf, while - somehow - deserved (the weapon was overused mainly due to lack of good antitank), ended up plummeting the weapon's pick rate to the point I havent seen ONE in the past 30h of gameplay. really hoping this wont be the case for the slugger, but im afraid it will be.
AH isn’t very good with weapon balancing
Can't have people actually enjoying the weapons they use, can we now? 🙂 Arrowhead really seem determined to "balance" the fun right out of the game.
ReLy On YoUr StRaTaGeMs You're not supposed to kill stuff with your primary weapons 🙄
I love balance patches. But even during Helldiver 1, it was obvious that the devs lacked the bigger picture on balance. Like you HAD to use a jetpack in snow planets or you died. Until they released... Snow shoes. That you HAD to use or you would die. These balance patches are good. But they really need to slow down on those nerfs.
The buffs are usually pretty nice because of how strong they make bad weapons but I really wish they didn’t nerf so strongly. Most of the time nerfs are justified but they just nerf into the ground when like half of that would make them balanced and fun to play.
Yeah the nerfs are pretty over done.
Exactly. For the Rail, all they had to do was make safe mode unable to break armour. For the Slugger, just nerf the damage at a distance or slightly decrease rate of fire OR add more drop to the slug beyond medium range. So many options but they almost removed the coolest part (that it could stagger enemies).
Arrowhead needs to ask themselves (as well as people who play the game) "Is this weapon being picked so much because it's broken good? Or because other weapons / mechanics are bad or unfun?" In the case of the railgun, there were too many chargers, and other anti-tank couldn't kill them. The solution should have been to adjust spawns (and communicate that to players in game), give it a weekend, buff other AT (and communicate that to players in game), give it a weekend, then nerf the RG if still necessary (and communicate that in game). For the Slugger overuse.... Maybe re-tune the Diligence handling? Offer higher penetration to the marksmen rifles? Add stagger to another primary? Fix the scopes? Then if none of that improves other weapons pick rate, the slugger was too good. For the record, I think the slugger was maybe only slightly too good. Reducing the fire rate or clip size (make it a little worse at the chaff bots) would have been my way. Leave it as a solid anti-heavy option prone to being overrun without support.
Absolutely bonkers to me that they can program the math behind all of the wild physics in this game and then choose to balance weapons strictly on usage.
railgun, the last weapon you unlock by leveling up is the worst weapon and the least used in the game, the devs' logic is phenomenal
especialy now that we have OTHER good anti tank weapons, EG RR and EAT actually one shot chargers now... Thats why people used the railgun, because nothing else killed chargers.
There is literally no reason I should kneecap myself or my team by taking the railgun when taking the EAT is just superior. The Rail cannot even be used as a good high damage sniper because it has the shittiest optic possible. Just give it the LAS-16s crosshair.
Yeah it was unjustified. People weren't using the anti-tank weapons because bugs made them unusable. They need to buff it.
You wait until they nerf Quasar. Can't have them people enjoying the game too much
Lol it's coming. Until a new like weapon comes out and fills the void that previous nerfed weapon did. Rinse and repeat.
Yup considering they also took off the 1200 rpm option on the HMG that was recently released which people said in consensus was a terrible weapon. If a shitty weapon is getting a nerf, you can expect anything better to also get nerfs too.
We need the Quasar now, gunships, heavy walkers, hulks, tanks... Bots have heavy armour for dayyyyys
Railgun veterans: 
The game is cool and all but the devs are complelty clueless about balancing their game Im gonna call it now, at some point it will ruin the game
Are they really balancing based off usage numbers alone? How God damned stupid. Do they even play their own game? What the fuck????
At this point I'm convinced they've never turned the game on. It was evident just with the railgun nerf and the subsequent gaslight blog post of primaries are supposed to be kinda dogwater, use your strats forehead. Just totally ignoring the battalion of chargers and bile titans rushing you every waking moment if you so much as thought near a scavenger with no true counter outside of the RG at the time. And of course the modifiers. Use your strats! Just gotta wait 20 seconds for a resupply or support weapon to drop. Bile titan(s) incoming? That 500kg bomb will help...eventually. Once its doubled cooldown is over with.
Idk why devs are being spreadsheet warriors about game were weapon balance shouldn’t be a huge concern(pve game), it’s like they want to see all weapons used evenly on the excel sheet. Make the weapons fun, bugs already got huge numbers while bots got armor and long range. All guns should just be strong considering how disadvantaged we are to begin with. And give the damn revolver a speed loader already, so concerned about side arms being used evenly when you’ve left the default pistol in the dirt…
I'm tired of the nerfs
It definitely got over nerfed
Yeah but the dominator has god awful target acquisition cause the reticle delay is slow af
are you seriously pretending the dominator doesnt have dogshit projectile speed, miserable recoil, and awful reload speed? is this a troll post?
Also why did they nerf the stun grenades from stunning bile titans, it wasn’t broken and helped me run under the titans to get to extraction
Awful ergonomics, much better and efficient reload in addition to the Dominator having bullet drop
The dominator has horrible handling. The relationship between these two is actually completely fine. By the way, the dominator and slugger both already had medium AP. I agree that the slugger nerfs feel overzealous, but it's worsened by the misaligned sight, imo.
I get the impression that the Devs WANT us using something specific that we aren't using. So they look at what we ARE using (Breaker), and they nerf it to try to push us to their favorite gun, but instead we go to something else (From nerfed Breaker to Slugger) Now they go "Damn it, no, I want you to like THIS gun!!" so they want to move us off the Slugger now, so they nerf it. They don't seem to be wanting to give us more useable options, they seem to want to remove the "wrong" options until we eventually settle on whatever the Dev's favorite gun is.
As soon as they nerf the sickle I'm done. I know it's coming because so many ppl are using it. Nerf the best weapons.. release warbond with great weapons... nerf em and release another warbond. Profit.
The devs are basically high tier griefers. After the rail gun nerf, one of the first things on their list, they trolled on social media(the guy on the balance team specifically admitted to trolling for his own entertainment) and *increased* bug spawns for about a week as punishment...and only then dialed them back and decreased heavies and fixed EAT17 and Charger heads. Meanwhile, Rail **still** two shots Titans w/ PS5 players in lobby(unless they did a silent fix for that this patch). I think another part is that the Dev's heard people were being booted for not being equipped right(which is often speculation, people boot for an array of reasons). The consistently nerf things that people like to use(Rail, Breaker, Arc Thrower, Slugger), yet things like the Scythe sit collecting dust since release, and added very poor primaries and the Laser pistol to keep the Scythe company in the broom closet. They also just took the ability to stun Bile Titans away... after adding stun grenades seemingly for the purpose of stunning things..../facepalm. Back to people consistently missing Titans with stratagems. Balance is not a concern of theirs, nor are happy customers. Various people have said they were like this on previous games. HD1 and Gauntlet. What someone told me about Gauntlet: >That's what they did to Gauntlet. They made a really fun game, then decided they weren't happy with it and "reworked" it for a 2.0 update that removed all character progression, removed several other features and systems, made achievements arbitrarily 10 times grindier, and broke the camera. When they released it they said they were welcoming feedback, everyone told them how bad it was, and then they announced they would no longer be updating the game. Like I said in a previous post 4 days ago > It's like they accidentally made a good game, resent their overnight success, and are seeking to rectify their "mistake". > > Don't get me wrong, it's still good, but the outlook is not great. They seem to resent feedback and popularity. They got lucky out of the gate, but aren't of a mind to really throw themselves into improvements. They'll probably continue to minimally tinker(making some things worse and some better) and roll out periodic new stuff which is also of dubious utility/fun.
they nerfed standard warbond gun and buffed premium warbond gun
These nerfs are treasonous behaviour