Tweaks needed to fix ranged weapons, damage is supprisingly not one of them.

[jackmor]

I havnt moved far into range weapons. Mainly because the ammo is too expencive and the clips are too small. If they made the cilps bigger or easier to change I think I could get over the expence. but im glad you tried the weapons I got some good info here. THANKS.

[svayvti]

Good review.

Unfortunately it will probably go in the garbage pile like all the reams of stuff about patch 1. But again I'll say that your expereience of ranged weapons seems to be about the same as mine.

I would add that Auto-Launchers are very much in need of help. I use Launchers and the auto-launcher in comparison is an absolutely pathetic weapon.

[jesder]

Rifle ammo at 24 per slip ?


What race? I have not found anything I can make as a Zoria that has more than 12 rounds per clip.

[uncus]

the "assault weapons" are hardly uber enough in damage output to justify the burden and mat cost per shot that you so loudly cheer for. A level 70 nuke, the same level as my autolauncher ammo, hits for 240 base before factoring in the power/speed bonus from an amp that will easily let it cast at half the speed of an autolauncher shot and for 150-200% the damage. Those 30 shots were 60 mats and enough to kill 3 kipees with 7 shots left . To put it in another light however, 60 mats will create 375 rifle shots.. [edit: my rifle ammo hits for about 110-125ish on average and gets shot out of a 4QL lower gun...]

Ok point taken about shots/mat used - perhaps increasing to 12 shots per clip would be a better idea, leaving mats at 4/4/4. If rifle ammo is 2/1/1, then that should be corrected to say 2/2/2 since pistol is 2/1/1. I also see that 30 shots is too few to be able to carry, 120 would be more appropriate [10x12rd clips].

Since I don't know what you used for mats, I don't know if the 308 damage/hit is basic or better quality mats ammo - better quality SHOULD give an increase in damage. I don't see the 300/hit or hits/min as bad - you were almost as fast as the hard kipee in your example except where you were stunned [this is VERY comparible to melee attacks with a high quality melee weapon, with the launcher doing about 50pts more per hit]. I think "missing" with an AOE weapon is ridiculous, however - it should always hit at a minimum range, perhaps the half damage hit would be appropriate to a miss [and the misses non-existant!]

Another place where you will no doubt disagree with me is that EVERYTHING - including the shooter - within melee range of an AOE should take damage from the AOE [regardless of whether it was a spell or missile/grenade]. The true role of AOE weapons and spells should be invasions! [or shooting at packs of mobs - suicide at present, unless done on yubos] I DO think that AOEs should have a very high stun/slow [maybe both] effect, however.

In case you haven't noticed, the autolauncher/launcher and rifle split into different combat trees. There aren't many situations where AOE is usable, thus it is a virtually unlevelable tree as long as it always AOE's. Also pistols are already obsolete, rifles do about 30-50% the damage of autolaunchers and have roughly double the hitrate, do the math on what happens if attacks from them would actually invoke affliction like debuffs like suggested.

I don't really understand the "do the math" comment but, yes, I think that a rifle should be overall more effective in most situations than an autolauncher.
As for leveling with autolaunchers, it should be an option, not the uber weapon/only rational choice for ranged weapon users. All the types of weapons should be balanced against each other.
Your suggestions about burst fire [or limited bursts of 3 shots] are very good and should apply to both rifles and pistols - perhaps limited bursts to autolaunchers also. Heck, pistols should be able to fire off all 24 shots at once [with a horrible decrease in accuracy! Make "autofire" and "accuracy" mutually exclusive blocks as well]. This would allow each type of ranged weapon to have its own benefits and drawbacks:

• Autolauncher - Big Damage [2-3x rifle] per shot, 3 shot burst allowed, no "misses" misses are half damage BUT not practical in melee due to AOE; otherwise, AOE could work for or against depending on the situation
• Launcher - Changed to Massive damage [5-6x rifle], misses are half damage BUT single shot, 2/2/2 mats give a single shot, no clips, max loadout of 15 shots; still AOE
• Rifle/Bow Rifle - Best range, 3 shot burst, current damage BUT ammo weighs more than pistol ammo, takes more mats 2/2/2 per clip of 12,; no AOE
• Pistol/Bow pistol - Light, light ammo, 2/1/1 mats per clip of 24, Autofire BUT low damage, low range; no AOE

[tetra]

Jesder my zorai rifle slashing/smashing/pierce ammo has 24 shots per clip. You might be using bow rifle ammo maybe? I believe they are interchangable.

Thanks Svayvti, I have hope that it will get fixed eventually . I know at least one SGM has started to toy with range .

I really have to be honest uncus and say that from looking at your posts, it doesn't look like you have much if any experience with ranged weapons. That's not an attempt to belittle you, simply to point out that you have gone on and on about things you have no experience with... such as your original post about how amazingly powerful autolaunchers/launchers would be if they had reasonable mat/shot and burden/shot ratios.

Rifle ammo is already considered by many to still be too expensive to use. You can harvest the mats needed to make a few hours of ammo pretty quickly, but the mats you get from that hunt don't cover the cost of what the ammo would have sold to a vendor for. Ranged isn't some super powered uberskill where we are quadfearkiting for 3k a pop every 30 seconds, it's a downright crappy skill that needs the game mechanics to catch up to it (mounts) before it's even really viable... and even then only slightly.

I don't know how you can say that 2 attacks from the kipee for every 1 attack from my autolauncher was somehow "almost as fast", but you go one step further and say that this is comparable to melee when it clearly is not. Melee can easily match that damage with more speed and do so without the absolutely insane costs of autolauncher/launcher ammo. Even more ridiculous is the fact that autolauncher (and likely launcher) ammo actually weighs vastly more than the base mats used to construct it.

You go on and try to throw out some silly compromise where "maybe" autolaunchers could hold 120 or so shots like I was one-shotting that kipee while making melee and magery look obsolete. I'm almost surprised that you didn't bring up how the 240hp level 70 nuke I mentioned could be resisted and figure that this was only some oversight... ranged has resists as well, they just have a different name provided when they happen... in fact I had one during my fight with that kipee. You completely ignore the fact that 30 shots was enough to kill three kipees, go on to completely ignore the fact that it's very easy to go out with 40-60+ clips of 24 shot rifle ammo (960-1440 bullets) which does 30-50% or so the damage of an autolauncher, and veer your train wreck into suggesting that "maybe" autolauncher users could carry 120 or so shots... or enough to kill *gasp* 12 kipees before running back to town to make more ammo which they likely would need to go harvest to do because of the extreme mat cost compared to rifle/pistol's negligible mat cost. 4 stacks of mats, is very easy to store on a packer, and makes 99 clips or 2376 shots for rifles which allows you to simply harvest a stack/partial stack every so often and be done with it for a bit... 4 stacks of mats makes 24 clips of autolauncher ammo which is good for 144 shots, even if they had 12 shots per clip that works out to only 288 shots. Using the absolute low end of my average for rifle damage compared to autolauncher damage, that works out to about 8% of the damage for the same mat cost, using your "maybe" 120 or so shots verses an easy 1200 rifle shots for an evening of hunting... it works out to 10%... and even lower due to the need to constantly run back to town and constantly harvest more mats every couple trips. To be blunt, you don't appear to have thought about any of the numbers you spew out and seem to be happy with letting others try to defend a skill that most don't even consider viable... screw good or uber, ranged fighters are just working on getting considered as viable!

The only way that ammo gets much more, if any damage, than the ammo I'm using... is by going up to supreme mats. I almost have my doubts about that however since I max the damage bar with my stuff and am using mats that have lower damage values generates ammo within a couple points of damage. Please don't belittle my ammo and try to pretend that I'm making ammo with vendor trash and wondering why it doesn't work.

You complain about how if autolaunchers were able to hold an amount of ammo that gave them similar staying power as rifles that they would be useless; yet somehow when my do the math comment tries to point it out, you completely miss what having double the rate of fire would mean if ranged fighters could invoke short lived affliction like affects that you praised in your first post. I have news for you, when I stun a mob with my autolauncher from a head shot, the stun has gone away and the mob is attacking me again by the time I'm around halfway through the charge for my next shot. You try to say that autolaunchers should be impossible to remove the AOE spray damage and that it should even damage the shooter when attacking in melee as if the rounds were exploding... it's a burst fire gatling gun!. So I end my post, with a request that you not come back blasting the comments in this thread as overpowered and completely ridiculous, until you have at least used these weapons and have some actual experience with them that you can use to ground yourself in the reality of this game and it's mechanics.

[vanderpm]

• Burst without AOE. Empties 3 (or more) bullets from your clip and does a larger amount of damage to a single target. Example would be 3 rounds doing 150-200% damage. Stamina use should be a bit higher than enhanced damage to the point where it's probably not a good idea to use it lots unless you are in light or medium armor.
• Burst with AOE. Same as above with a slightly lower % damage boost and spray instead of single target.
• Single target. Removes the AOE component of launcher and autolauncher attacks. Since this actually lowers damage output by removing the AOE spray/bomb effects, stamina use should be low or very low.
• Wound. Similar to bleed only for stamina & sap, should require flechette/slashing ammo. Stamina cost similar to bleed.
• Disorient. Should require smashing ammo and have a high chance of invoking a short lived snare (i.e. 80-100%) as well as a decent chance of invoking a partial blind or slow attack effect. Stamina use should be similar to increased damage.
• Pierce Armor. Should require piercing ammo and work similar to ignore armor but have a high stamina use to simulate the effort used in aiming for weaker spots in armor.
• Mortar/Parabolic arc. Should require a launcher (not autolauncher) and raise the range by quite a bit (i.e. 150+ meters) but should raise the attack charge time by 30-60% at least in addition to whatever reasonable amount of stamina it uses. I can't think of any situation where you would want to be shooting AOE rounds off 150 meters off in the distance without a deathwish, but I'm sure that someone could and it seems simple enough to do .
• Distance shooting. Should require a rifle and double range on the weapon, or bump it up to 75m or so. Stamina use should be low but it should raise the attack time a good 20-50%.
• Increase attack speed. Should require an autolauncher or pistol, and have an effect the same as the brick by the same name from beta. Stamina use should be rather heavy and is possible, range should drop by 30-50% by using it.

The above extra bricks would implement virtually all of the changes needed to make ranged weapons quite viable, useful, and different from simply being melee with range and added costs.

I agree with the majority of the changed above except for one thing: I think that Launchers/Autolaunchers should maintian their AOE. The AOE attack of these weapons is part of what makes them what they are and not just a big rifle. They are artillery and I think they should act as such, with AOE and everything. I understand your concern with leveling with Launchers/Autolaunchers, but if one were determined to use only those weapons they should also train the tactics required to effectively and efficiently use their weapon of choice. I don't expect a handheld artillery to operate exactly the same as a rifle, no matter how large the rifle is.

That said: I plan on leveling both my rifle and autolauncher trees once it becomes a viable option for me, currently my ranged combat is lagging far behind my ranged combat and that is not how I had wanted this character to progress.

I also agree with the person who said to use Focus instead of Stamina, it just fits more with the actual use of ranged weapons.

[tetra]

Figured this was as good of a place as any to mention it .

Ranged ammo stacks don't seem to drop to 1 on relog anymore with the latest patch. There is still a bug when you log out with a ranged weapon equipped however. You can use the remainder of the ammo in your left hand, but until you unequip your ranged weapon and reequip it, you won't be able to load a new clip.

[vaquero1]

It takes to many mats but im not cryin.....

[tetra]

It takes to many mats but im not cryin.....

Just to put the information out there, I've blown at least 200 clips of rifle ammo over the last two days and had to stop hunting for a bit to harvest more mats... which was annoying since I had spent a a great deal of time after work this week just harvesting ammo mats. Sadly I already had to drop a group to go harvest more mats today. Tomorrow I'll need to spend a couple hours at least just harvesting ammo mats .

When i solo, most of the mats are unusable or worthless for ammocrafting. If i turn around and sell all the mats I get from hunting, then I get about 20-30% the dapper value I would have gotten just from selling the ammo directly to a vendor and accepting the default price.

When I group.... we either fight very easy mobs... or I spend most of my time doing the "You hit X but do no damage" resist dance on easily 80-90% of my attacks. Ammo use goes through the roof and I'm rather useless.

[vanderpm]

When I group.... we either fight very easy mobs... or I spend most of my time doing the "You hit X but do no damage" resist dance on easily 80-90% of my attacks. Ammo use goes through the roof and I'm rather useless.

You may notice it, but you only get the "You hit X but do no damage" message when they dodge your attack. I believe that message coming up is some sort of bug, because it *only* happens after the text that says "X has dodged your attack". So now ranged combatants effectively miss more often than melee combatants, and even with accuracy 3 I have not noticed any real change in my hit percentage.

Edit: Got accuracy 5 last night, still miss most of the time.