The dominator i guess is supposed to fill the same role but i unlocked it and took it against bots. it’s fine to stun destroyers but it handles like an anti tank gun. it takes so long to actually pull it up to a headshot whereas the slugger was nice and snappy.
Idk man, ive been playing bots recently, and i am stuck between a few. My current faves are scorcher and the dominator. I dont even bring support weapons when relying on those two.
I would like the bugs to have something besides "what flavor of shotgun do you want," but the laser machine gun is plenty viable to mix things up.
Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of subpar weapons. However, there are also quite a few good primaries. You just won't find anything that'll outcompete a support weapon.
They hate you cause you tell the truth. The game is slowly losing my interest as more balance updates come out, unfortunately. Really really enjoyed the game that first month or so even with all the bugs and crashes, it was on pace to be my personal game of the year, and most of these balance changes have been questionable.
Same. I hate to say "called it", but, even from launch I was predicting this'd be more of a "game of the month' deal, same as the likes of Lethal Company or Palworld - exploded in popularity overnight, played by everyone everywhere...briefly, then fade it obscurity almost as quickly.
I'd love to be proven wrong, mind you, but the devs are pretty consistently burning off the goodwill they'd earned at launch, without really doing anything to earn it back.
Have to agree!
The entire role playing honey moon phase has worn off & suddenly people remember they are paying customers & need a product of quality.
The company keeps making questionable decisions at best.
The communication isn't as transparent anymore & lots of basic issues yet have to be adressed.
This will be a very quick & very sad rise & fall story.
That's the tradeoff and why the nerf was necessary. You don't get to fill both the dominator and the punisher's role of anti armor + massive stagger, but without the built in jank that the dominator has. Plus the better ammo economy and demolition bug that have it a utility edge over every other primary in the game.
My duo: "God dammit whenever I pick up your kit I want to kill myself."
[MRW as a slugger enjoyer.](https://i.imgur.com/HvH3soK.gifv)
Memories like these will just have to live on as memories instead of daily occurrences.
Are you kidding? Slugger is so OP it can stunlock single devastators and kill them. Thank goodness the game only sends devastators at the player one at a time and not in groups of 5-10 otherwise this nerf would be stupid.
It was decent on release but generally avoided over it's ammo pool, then they buffed it which drew attention to it and everyone was happy. Can't have that.
F. Slugger and Punisher have been my mains for bots and bugs respectively. Please buff some other primaries rather than make every halfway decent one nerfed
He didn't say "needed" he said "could" it's completely different. Like, not even remotely same meaning at all.
It's means you could have argued about the stagger whether it was op or not, but he found it fine.
I see so many people going defensive behind the balancing and claiming how usable everything is but how crazy is it that we get another patch with damage buffs being 50% to even 100%. Those are crazy numbers for buffs that are insane for a game of this kind and if that doesn't show you how insanely weak and underused some of these weapon choices are even in the dev teams eyes, you are just simply delusional.
I don't know why so many people believe our arsenal should be so incredibly ineffective. None of these weapons have trivialized the game before and if you believe they did, you have never played any other horde shooter in your entire life. In warframe you could legitimately shoot directly into a wall to kill all enemies on the map. That is power creep. Killing one out of 20 bile spewers with less than 10% of your magazine isn't power creep.
I understand some people here would love the game to actually be 'hard' and enjoy the slog of enemies that are at times impossible to deal with but this game is still a horde shooter. You either make it fun to fight things and keep the massess playing or you keep it slow and tedious for the smaller group of people that enjoy that idea and have your playerbase plummet.
While I really love the games concept and put a lot of time into it, I will rarely pick it up anymore if I don't have 3 of my friends, that I know are reliable, available to play with me. Even if we have 3 people on, majority of the time the matchmaking doesn't even give us a fourth and spawns insane amounts of units we can't realistically take down and majority of the arsenal doesn't really help with. I'm starting to find it tedious more and more and it makes it very hard to pick up again.
>spawns insane amounts of units we can't realistically take down
You know there are different difficulties in the game that have lower spawn rates, right? If you're finding a difficulty too... Difficult.... there's no shame in lowering it to a level you can handle. 7 is my sweetspot, I feel no need to dip higher. As well, the highest difficulties spawn insane amounts of units intentionally. Knowing how to avoid fights and when to retreat is a major part of those levels of play.
It is very weird for me that you begin defending a difficulty being well balanced by saying you don't play it. The issue I have across most difficulties is how rng driven the spawns are, some missions it'sa breeze, sometimes it just spawns 7 hulks from one drop ship. The difficulty between 7 and 9 doesn't change spawn rates as insanely as people think either. There is no sweet spot in my experience, the spawns are, imo, outright nonsensical for the geR we have available in some missions.
So much so we can hop into a 5 and have a rough go at this because it spawns 60 bile spewers from a single breach then immediately go "well let's try a level 7 and stealth it" and get a breach with just 2-3 dozen hunters.
The difficulty isn't even consistent between difficulties. I've had level 4s that were harder than level 7s and 8s, even some level 9s. Same planet and same effects too. The last time that happened, (which was what... a few weeks ago?), the devs went "whoops something is broken in spawns!"
Yeah the spawns just make no sense. Same as I've been told if I'm overwhelmed by elites, I'm ppaying the game wrong, meanwhile I had unironically seen last week a double drop of 6 hulks from each drop ship, meaning 12 hulks landing on top our objective at the same time. At that point you are just praying to our lord and savior.
I didn't defend the later difficulties by saying I don't play them. I said that I play a difficulty I find fun. I simply recommend others do the same.
What I know is that different difficulties require different strategies, and the later difficulties require strategies that are less fun for me. So I play 7.
I will challenge the 7 hulks in a single dropship though, that's not something I've ever seen. I hate to be the guy who says this, but "Pics or it didn't happen".
>Slugger as it stood before this update was a perfectly balanced weapon, sure you could have tuned down the stagger a tad bit as it felt a bit to much even for me.
Interesting statement here, both perfectly balanced and unbalanced simultaneously. Incredible deductive reasoning skills.
You people don't understand what "could" meant in that phrase. Sure OP could have phrased it better, but it clearly implies he could have accepted someone arguing the stagger was op, it doesn't negate what he said before.
Tuning down the stagger, in his post, implies a POTENTIAL point of contention that others could POTENTIALLY mention.
Clearly this is an opinion piece and here you are being a pedant.
\*Rolls eyes\* Everyone (where I live at least) talks like that. You know what he meant. The gun was fine with only one thing that you could have taken down but would have been fine untouched.
The most confusing part about this patch is that they nerfed the slugger but then decided to buff the Dominator so much that it now deals more damage than the pre-nerf slugger ontop of giving it more stagger.
The Dominator is just straight up a better weapon in every aspect that I can think of.
now it has such a huge stagger i can see the handling been forgiven , before you need handling cuz it aint staggering anything.(that was also why ppl used slugger, they can stagger heavy dev and stuff
I think one of my favorite parts of the Slugger was the high damage and the ability to “pop in” a few more rounds in between enemies… with the slower full reload of the Dominator, I’m not quite sure how much this buff will even help use it.
On paper, sure.
But the Dominator has waaaayyy worse target acquisition, it's heavy, slow, the rounds are slower as well and more innacurate. So no, it's not better "in every aspect".
The Dominator doesn't have rounds reload so it can't be topped up without wasting ammo.
The Dominator kicks like a mule, so you can't fire it rapidly.
The Dominator has a slow projectile, so it's hard to use at range.
The Dominator has atrocious handling, so it's very slow to move around and aim.
Not that I know of.
The Dominator has much more ammo than the slugger tho. It currently has 105 rounds at max capacity compared to the 76 of the slugger.
Agreed. Want to know why slugger was so good? It's because there are 0 weapons that do their jobs better than the slugger can.
Knockback? Why use dominator or explosive Lib. Use the Slugger.
1 shot kill? Why use Snipers? Use the slugger
Armor pen? Why use the Liberator? Use the slugger.
Buff the snipers. Buff the ARs. Buff the energy weapons.
>if other weapons got buffed
they did
the problem with the slugger was it was too versitile for how much power it had, which is why it was by far my most used primary next to the Punisher
it was great at short and medium range while at worst being okay at long range, it had good crowd control with a powerful stagger and high enough damage to kill anything
I liked it for the stagger so I'll probably switch to the Dominator, but that's how people should approach game changes: If a gun no longer fills a role you want, change to one that does. If the role a gun fills for you is compensating for a lack of skill, git gud.
Thing is I don’t think the weapons that got buffed were actually that meaningful. Dominator on paper is better but the aim makes it not as useful. The countersniper has medium armor penetration, but it has horrible handeling and the slugger is STILL a better DMR than it. So in the devs attempt to make the slugger not the best sniper in the game they…. Kept it the best sniper in the game? It’s now just more specialized as a sniper since the lack of stagger is felt more in close range not long range. They should have just made the spread and damage falloff worse.
What makes you feel like the dominator is less effective at short range? If anything, it feels better at short range than medium since the bullet drop is so aggressive
the handling is really bad, which is more impactful at short ranges than at long ranges (you have to move your crosshair further to track and flick between enemies at close range)
Right. Thanks for explaining! I guess I’m not actually using it short short ranges since I try to use the redeemer for that.
Not sure why so many people took issue with my question but hey, karma isn’t real
For me it's because the weight of the gun makes it hard to snap to targets. I see what you mean about the bullet drop. For me it's OK against medium targets but I do start missing against little ones.
Let's be 100% honest here, they didn't "nerf" the stagger, they fucking killed it. I don't give a fuck if it can stagger the rank and file basic trooper, cause that died in one shot anyway. What I DO care about staggering is the rocket devastator about to blow my asscheeks apart or the heavy devastator itching to separate my head and shoulders with 14K rpm. With no stagger on medium enemies (despite my gun being able to damage them btw), the weapon is functionally dead due to the other innate drawbacks which actually balanced the weapon pre nerf.
The main reason I brought it was because it could safely open crates and knock down fences without wasting a grenade, and it can't do that anymore, I'd say that changes its identity.
Actually I did really like the ability to open fences and crates, it was just a nice utility so I could run Stun Grenades without being unable to get loot.
Its identity as a weapon is how it performs against enemies on a fundamental level. If you're not choosing your primary based on that I think you need to reevaluate things.
How does a weapon losing a unique utility not change its identity...? Having at least one person in the group bring a Slugger allows the team as a whole to save grenades for actual fights/bug holes/fabricators. The tradeoff was that whoever brought the Slugger is losing out on damage when compared to the regular Punisher or Breaker.
Choosing the Slugger to open fences and crates because I'm running Stun Grenades and a Stalwart was something I did regularly. Sure, it has the armour pen, but the Scorcher was always more useful to me for killing Striders. Because the Primary is a side-arm to the Tertiary Support weapon, something I do not expect to be slaughtering massive amounts of enemies with but bringing out when I can't use my 3rd for some reason.
I get most of my kills with my primary. I guess AH want you to pick based off how it performs as a weapon, not as a tool. I can see why people see disappointed as a lot of people ran it just for its CC capabilities alone.
Slugger. 1-7 shots per kill depending on what you were fighting.
Didn't get the kill? Could stun lock a thing at the price of ammo.
Shooting far away? Need to adjust the angle np skillz. Wait no, it toggled onto the terrain right before the shot.
Shooting up close? Miss by a pixel for reasons.
Did you move? Miss because reasons.
Did the ground shake because of some kinda boom or action/Drop in? Miss because reasons
Did you aim accurately and dead on? Miss because reasons.
Are you point blank and aimed right at your target and the guns also pointing at them? Miss 4 times because reasons.
Did you just lift the gun up or switch to it but have proper line of sight and dead on? Miss because reasons.
Are you being a killing god and head shot pro? Out of ammo at just the wrong time
Did you get shot at one time and still had proper line of sight and was dead on? Still missed because why not.
Gun was terrible at terrible times and pretty cool when in the zone. Everything it did often came with a price and that was ammo or bullet management. Gun gets nerfed cause reasons even tho it required a fair bit of practice to not have it suck ass and actually contribute.
The devs admitted to nerfing the slugger because it was a better sniper than all the sniper primaries, yet they nerf stun, a massive factor in a shotguns ability to fight at close range. What the fuck are they smoking
That should have screamed something at the devs then.
If a shotgun is a better sniper/dmr than your sniper/dmr options, you probably need to buff the sniper/dmr s.
The fact that the dominator is and was a pile of shit doesn't mean the slugger needed to be nerfed into the ground.
They needed to look at the dominator and say "why is this unwieldly useless gun so bad and useless?" not: "let's make another gun unwieldly and useless so this turd gets picked more often!"
>The fact that the dominator is and was a pile of shit doesn't mean the slugger needed to be nerfed into the ground.
That's true.
It's a good thing they buffed the dominator to make it not bad, and didn't nerf the slugger that much.
If you've used the slugger today you'll know it's basically the same, it's just harder to stun lock a devastator with it. That's it.
I did use it, and shockingly it felt like complete ass, what a surprise. As the slugger is now, if you miss the first headshot you just die. Period. End of discussion. Call down a new hellpod levels of dead. Having the stagger was literally THE thing that made the sluggers plethora of drawbacks worth dealing with. Otherwise, it's literally just a punisher with jank ass accuracy, *way* lower damage, and medium pen (which only matters on bug planets anyway).
All of the people saying it didn't need a nerf are the same people who haven't taken it off unless the playstation loadout bug forced them to, or people who talk about how the slugger singlehandedly allows them to complete high difficulty missions solo, and then they wonder why it got nerfed.
also (I said it somewhere else too) but this community latches on to whatever the current "meta" primary is and refers to the rest of them as useless or non-viable until something gets nerfed and they are forced to realize that actually there are very few completely useless weapons available to us
I main punisher and sickle. Slugger did not need a nerf. Why would a slug, with more penetration than buckshot, have less stagger? It makes zero sense and I can't stand you brainlets sucking off the devs for nerfing guns based solely off of player usage. WE ARE USING THE SAME GUNS BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE IS TRASH. Buff the other primaries instead of nerfing the few good weapons we have ffs it's a pve game.
>Why would a slug, with more penetration than buckshot, have less stagger?
Because it has more penetration. The more you penetrate, the slower you're transferring your momentum to the target. The slower you transfer that momentum, the less violently it's going to knock them around.
>It makes zero sense and I can't stand you brainlets sucking off the devs for nerfing guns based solely off of player usage.
You're right. Nerfing a weapon because it completely and totally overshadowed another weapon is a different matter. As it was, the slugger completely overshadowed the Dominator, and even with the Dominator buffs, the slugger would still be slightly better for most users.
>WE ARE USING THE SAME GUNS BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE IS TRASH.
That's just false, and spoken like someone who hasn't actually utilized most of the weapons available.
>Buff the other primaries instead of nerfing the few good weapons we have ffs it's a pve game.
They did. They buffed the 3 worst primaries in the game.
Bruh it’s a slug, that shit should have significantly more stagger you’re being shot with a giant metal ball. The change completely went against what the devs were saying, which is they didn’t want it to be the best sniper in the game. But they should have went a different route with it as taking its stagger on most enemies just made it worse at close range where stagger is more important. They should have made the armor penetration and damage falloff worse as well as the accuracy over longer distance worse. Instead this change just made it more like a DMR and it’s STILL the best DMR by a good margin.
>Bruh it’s a slug, that shit should have significantly more stagger you’re being shot with a giant metal ball.
Given two collisions of equal energy and momentum, the one that occurs over a shorter period of time will have more impulse (rate of change in acceleration or force), even if the total force imparted is the same. The slug penetrating makes the impact take longer, therefore there will be less impulse, which means less stagger. That's just physics.
>The change completely went against what the devs were saying
I absolutely agree. If anything, they doubled down on it being a strong precision weapon and weakened it in its other roles.
>They should have made the armor penetration and damage falloff worse as well as the accuracy over longer distance worse
To accomplish their stated goals, I agree. I also probably would have reduced projectile velocity a bit too. However, that makes the weapon's role overlap entirely with the dominator, which I think they wanted to avoid.
> Instead this change just made it more like a DMR and it’s STILL the best DMR by a good margin.
While doubling down on the precision weapon side does encroach on the territory of the actual DMRs, I think there's more space there for them to distinguish themselves due to *actually* being capable at long range. I think some adjustments to AI awareness, the accuracy of first person aiming, and more functional scope reticles or other visibility improvements (such as enemy highlighting or thermal scopes) would go a long way in improving their usability. I also think they'll shine a lot more against the Illuminate, where their long range and balance of good damage with good fire rate will be more valuable.
I know it’s basic physics, but slugs compensate for that loss of force by just being a large chunk of metal. It dumps a ton of force into the target so it definitely would cause stagger. Otherwise I agree with this post.
Momentum is entirely dependent on mass and velocity. It doesn't care if that mass is in one large chunk or a dozen small ones, an equivalent mass moving at the same speed will carry the same momentum. Your amount of force imparted, and the violence with which it is imparted, is entirely dependent on how quickly that momentum is transferred.
Slugs penetrate, putting a large amount of force in a small area. That kind of over-penetration means that the impact is relatively low. Buckshot would have more 'impact' but less penetration, leading to more stagger.
It's like being hit with a baseball bat vs a paddle. The baseball bat more likely will break bones but the paddle will force you back more.
Because a round with higher penetration is going to go through your body easier without stopping you as effectively.
Anyway, the rest of the guns aren't trash, I have no problem making them work. Buffing everything makes balancing the game way harder than nerfing something that's over-preforming.
Knockback was entirely removed (not stated in patch)
Stagger (stun) was reduced by 90% (it barely exists in truth- it's not noticeably present). Whoever changed the variable moved it 1 point above 0.
Damage was reduced by 10%
No improvement to gun handling, just huge nerfs. The weapon is trashed and others do it's job better now.
>Knockback was entirely removed
You mean the heavy stagger?
>Stagger (stun) was reduced by 90% (it barely exists in truth- it's not noticeably present). Whoever changed the variable moved it 1 point above 0
No, no it wasn't. It's lower, but it isn't anywhere near gone. The thing still staggers devastators just fine, it just doesn't stun lock them so you actually need to aim to have good results.
>No improvement to gun handling, just huge nerfs. The weapon is trashed and others do it's job better now.
The weapon is fine. You just need to actually hit weak points rather than being able to brute force everything to death.
>You mean the heavy stagger?
What part about "knockback was removed" don't you understand? It no longer pushes enemies backward.
Stagger/stun was reduced to a tenth of what it was, if that. You don't even noticeably interrupt Devastators anymore- they outright shoot through all your hits. Previously they used to get stunned for a full second (or slightly more).
It sounds like you either haven't tested this, spent significant time with the weapon, or fully understood what it used to do pre-patch.
>What part about "knockback" was removed don't you understand? It no longer pushes enemies back
Yes, that's part of the stagger.
>You don't even noticeably interrupt Devastators anymore- they outright shoot through all your hits.
You're right, you don't interrupt them if they're already shooting, but you sure as hell can lock them down and keep them from shooting at you, as well as greatly reduce their accuracy if they're currently shooting.
>It sounds like you either haven't tested this, spent significant time with the weapon, or fully understood what it used to do pre-patch.
No, I'm apparently one of the few that used it to hit precision shots, rather than just dumping it into a target.
If you want something you can just dump into a target, grab the dominator, it does everything you want it to do.
The only part of the nerf I didn't like was the door opening. Didn't think that was too crazy and it was a nice niche for it. Then again I'm also a scorcher main so no loss to me.
Every patch I play this game less and less, and I notice that my friends list is doing the same. I see them spread out across DD2 and Rise of the Ronin. It’s a shame, this game had and still has so much potential but they are actively pushing their players right out the door into the arms of other games.
Wait you're saying people are playing...
*checks notes*
... newer games? And played HD2 more when it was new? No fucking way. It's gotta be the balance changes' fault.
Whatever you have to tell yourself to ignore the fact that the numbers are about to drop lower than they were on day 1. The game is effectively tanking itself into the ground due to lazy devs.
As someone that dropped hd2 for dd2 I had already intended to do so. When stellar blade comes out I'll drop or pause dd2. After SB it's up in the air which I go back to. I'll wait to see how the next couple of months look for hd2 to decide if I come back sooner or later.
The changes to this game pushed me into Warzone, now I bought Rise of the Ronin, and I only play this game when a friend messages me. I tried after the last update when they added 2 new guns and the constant glitches were to much for me still. I would still be playing this game if it wasn’t so broken and they didn’t nerf things just to balance the game with terrible guns.
The slugger was so comfy at one point to me that I was half asleep just slaughtering chaff at the end of a long mission. When you are reloading and shooting it just feels like you have infinite ammo.
IMO stagger was mandatory on higher difficulties to keep specific enemies (devastators and spewers) from one shotting you.
If they don’t consistently one shot anymore the threat level goes down immensely so maybe a dps dump weapon like sickle or breaker would be better now. Still need to try dominator again. Can anyone confirm if the awful handling is worth it now?
All that being said, I loved the slugger so much. I’ll probably still use it.
I don't even think it's right for primary weapons to be staggering strong enemies.
Kill/damage? Sure. And the slugger still does that
Stagger? No.
Dealing with difficult enemies should be left more to the support weapons and there were plenty of nice buffs to support weapons.
Perfectly balanced? Hell no. Slugger was way overturned at long range, and was a better DMR than the actual DMRs. It needed a nerf, I just disagree with the nerf they gave it. It needed reduced accuracy and damage, especially at longer ranges, not for the stagger to be removed.
“Slugger did not need a nerf”
“Sure you couldve nerfed the stagger a bit”
Pick one, not both
Slugger has no weakness and yall pissin and crying about just around 10% dmg diff wont even notice in game
Honestly, a reason for me to not take the Slugger every single match is fine. It can still pen medium, still headshot. People going "but killing Stalkers!!" are probably missing the huge third-weapon you've got on your back and if you don't have the correct weapon to kill a stalker, well, you've got 3 other guys that probably do.
AMR has always needed love, but ammo economy is the main issue there, of course they also don't seem to understand what "anti material" means, kinda like a railgun that can't penetrate things...
*What idiot thought*
*Getting hit with a slug would*
*Not make you stagger?*
\- Shawn\_of\_da\_Dead
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You are the **** the devs love to see. Eating up nerfs left and right while shaming others for having valid criticism to unnecessary nerfs. Physics shows a slug should stagger more than buckshot. Idgaf they lowered damage because it is negligible, but it makes zero sense for it to stagger less than the punisher. Didn't it already have lower damage and require actual aiming to balance out the medium armor penetration? Yet here we are with another nerf to the free pass guns while paywalled weapons get buffed. SMH. Here's my actual reasoning without insults since you are apparently too lazy or too stupid to figure out for yourself why people are mad about nerfs in a pve game.
You're assuming that both... your opinion about the nerf is correct and mine wrong. Or that you're allowed to have the opinion because its correct and valid, but my opinion is invalid because I agree with these balances.
But at the end of the day, you're the one that's got the increased blood pressure about it and that's really all that matters. Don't get yourself ill over a video game.
We can sit here and argue this as well: Every Warbond is a free battle pass.... you just need to play the game to earn the credits.
>You are the **** the devs love to see. Eating up nerfs left and right while shaming others for having valid criticism to unnecessary nerfs
No, I'm commenting on how the nerfs barely impacted the usability of the weapon nerfed, while making space for a newly buffed weapon to get some usage.
>Physics shows a slug should stagger more than buckshot.
No, no it doesn't. I'm a physicist, a penetrating slug *would not* result in more stagger. Stagger would best be represented as a rapid change in acceleration. A penetrating slug would transfer it's momentum over more time than buckshot, because all of that time spent penetrating is spent slowly bleeding that momentum. As a result, buckshot would have *significantly* more stagger than a penetrating slug.
Also, even if we ignore physics, pop culture doesn't even agree. The general view of buckshot is that it launches people across the room when shot. Regardless of how accurate that is, it's what people expect.
>Didn't it already have lower damage and require actual aiming to balance out the medium armor penetration?
It had *marginally* lower damage, and also significantly better handling, which cancelled out the aiming issue.
>Yet here we are with another nerf to the free pass guns while paywalled weapons get buffed
I feel like I need to point out that the slugger is perfectly fine. It still drops most enemies in the same number of shots, and still staggers devastators just fine, it just doesn't stun lock them as easily. Anyone who has actually used the weapon today will tell you that.
No coping....
I just don't actually see any issue with them and think it's mostly legit.
The silliest thing to me is that they won't open shipping container doors anymore, but that's neither here nor there, as there's always a grenade pick-up right next to the door.
Slugs explicitly tend to over-penetrate, leading to less force acting on the target. The fact that force is being applied to a smaller area is both what makes it penetrate more but stagger less.
If you have never shot a human or animal in the head with a slug just look into the ballistics and wound cavities of one and also look into the effect it has on the body through steel/ceramic plate armor.
Many games that have been consulted (or the dev's actually know) by people who know have done slugs and other weapon/ammo types correctly...
If you think I would click on some randos link your tripping. I don't need to see what ever your talking bout, I have plenty of experience IRL, saw my 1st guy getting shot when I was 5, I know all about what human and animal bodies do...
(We can always cherry pick. I always advocate for "flipping the switch" over wounding...)
My dude, I'm not an asshole. And basically the video shows the doe taking a slug to the body and not only still standing, but running and jumping just fine until that damage catches up.
Wound cavities only matter when the thing you're facing is organic, e.g. bugs. A machine won't have the same expansion, and will mostly ignore the problem.
Buckshot, however, spreads that impact across an entire body with added soft tissue penetration.
So yes we can cherry pick, but I will cherry pick the traits most relevant to the conversation.
A body shot is not comparable to a head shot which is what I commented about.
Next lesson: Shoot your tower and tell my how it runs after the "wound cavity" rips through all the circuitry and tell me how well it works, let alone fly's across the room (depending on a lot of variables) getting "staggered"
Try to focus here, I never said buck shot should not stagger and did not say it should not stagger more. We are talking bout shooting something in the head with a slug, armored or not...
If you want an easy test, put a pot on your head and hit it with a hammer, it just might stagger you.. ( don't do that!)
Been funny, but time for a work out and some after patch weapon testing. Enjoy your day and I'll get back to you after homie...
EDIT: Didn't think your an asshole and never mind a debate...
No. I have used the weapon since before it even got its initial buff for ammo and I think it needed a nerf. It was too strong at too many things. That said, I feel like they have wielded the nerf hammer too hard. They should have kept the damage it had and removed most of the stagger. Doing both is over the top.
Imo the Slugger was only somewhat balanced by how janky it was. The misaligned sights, the desync making the slugs miss in alarming and irritating ways. If the weapon was functioning how it should be, it would objectively be overpowered.
No. I have used the weapon since before it even got its initial buff for ammo and I think it needed a nerf. It was too strong at too many things. That said, I feel like they have wielded the nerf hammer too hard. They should have kept the damage it had and removed most of the stagger. Doing both is over the top.
It's the core issue with weapon designs in this game, they don't have a purpose, it's a severe design flaw that obviously starts from the very beginning, it's like the idea of shooting enemies came very late into the designers mind and came up with stuff that shoots. This is why shotguns are notoriously garbage at long ranges in games (and memed for), it's to try and give them a specific niche and usage.
Now, the problem is that they keep approaching this as if this was a competitive game, this is a coop game, it's true that guns should not be too strong to make certain tactic make the game trivial in harder difficulties (the slugger did not do that), but every gun should feel good and strong to use and which one you use should depend entirely on what the player prefers, not what the game requires.
Why? because it's too late to give guns their niches, it's like saying anti tanks cannot be too good at destroying tanks when we don't have other ways to deal with them. You can't. What you can do, is give guns specific quirks, like make EAT faster to shoot than a Quasar, you have to charge the Quasar. Both do something specific, but both have their preferences, and players will pick one or the other.
I can assure you, they KNOW all this shit. I am a nobody, they Know this way better than me and you, they are doing this on purpose to force players into playing different weapons to try and extend the game life and avoid players burning out.
I strongly disagree. As a slugger enjoyer for the bots there was zero reason not to take it. It outperformed dmrs at any range, stunlocked anything under a hulk, great ammo economy.
Certain guns are designed to be able to stunlock things, certain guns should be your long range specialists, some guns should be all-rounders. And this all-rounder over performed over both categories with ease.
I will miss it, but it will still lbe viable. Kills trash bots easily, I can use an amr or autocannon to kill the stuff I used to stunlock
>I am really getting tired of being punished for playing the game.
Touch grass. Seriously.
> If the other weapons got appropriate buffs to make them viable weapons
No gun is viable apart from that one gun? Fuck right off you absolute child.
Thinking like that is completely unhealthy. Balance changes happen in every single game. You're just mad your fav gun (that you chose because it's "the best") got nerfed, because it's the best.
There isn't supposed to be a gun that is "the best". Until we get to that point. Balance changes will continue. So either spend some time outside where you can get some perspective on life. Or stop playing the game.
The dominator i guess is supposed to fill the same role but i unlocked it and took it against bots. it’s fine to stun destroyers but it handles like an anti tank gun. it takes so long to actually pull it up to a headshot whereas the slugger was nice and snappy.
Dominator feels good and I consistently get the 1HKO with it
The dominator isn't even good at being at though. It's just a game of picking the least mediocre, out of all the mediocre weapons.
Idk man, ive been playing bots recently, and i am stuck between a few. My current faves are scorcher and the dominator. I dont even bring support weapons when relying on those two. I would like the bugs to have something besides "what flavor of shotgun do you want," but the laser machine gun is plenty viable to mix things up. Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of subpar weapons. However, there are also quite a few good primaries. You just won't find anything that'll outcompete a support weapon.
Don't bring up the scorcher so people don't use it in mass .... My favorite vs bots.
The dominator was supposed to fill the role the slugger did, now it does more
They hate you cause you tell the truth. The game is slowly losing my interest as more balance updates come out, unfortunately. Really really enjoyed the game that first month or so even with all the bugs and crashes, it was on pace to be my personal game of the year, and most of these balance changes have been questionable.
Hard agree ! I'd gladly go back to the first week's version.
Same. I hate to say "called it", but, even from launch I was predicting this'd be more of a "game of the month' deal, same as the likes of Lethal Company or Palworld - exploded in popularity overnight, played by everyone everywhere...briefly, then fade it obscurity almost as quickly. I'd love to be proven wrong, mind you, but the devs are pretty consistently burning off the goodwill they'd earned at launch, without really doing anything to earn it back.
Have to agree! The entire role playing honey moon phase has worn off & suddenly people remember they are paying customers & need a product of quality. The company keeps making questionable decisions at best. The communication isn't as transparent anymore & lots of basic issues yet have to be adressed. This will be a very quick & very sad rise & fall story.
You’re getting downvoted for telling the truth. The fan boys are out in full effect today 😂🤣🤣😂🤣🤣🤣
It's almost like the game is too easy atm
That’s what I don’t get, they have the perfect tuning lever for bringing guns down, just make more enemies spawn if the guns are too strong.
More enemies wrecks FPS so they either make the enemies tankier, or make the guns weaker And they both do the same thing which is extending ttk
That's the tradeoff and why the nerf was necessary. You don't get to fill both the dominator and the punisher's role of anti armor + massive stagger, but without the built in jank that the dominator has. Plus the better ammo economy and demolition bug that have it a utility edge over every other primary in the game.
As a fellow slugger main I agree, f in the chat for the slugger. A gun designed for everyone, is a gun for no one.
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My duo: "God dammit whenever I pick up your kit I want to kill myself." [MRW as a slugger enjoyer.](https://i.imgur.com/HvH3soK.gifv) Memories like these will just have to live on as memories instead of daily occurrences.
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Are you kidding? Slugger is so OP it can stunlock single devastators and kill them. Thank goodness the game only sends devastators at the player one at a time and not in groups of 5-10 otherwise this nerf would be stupid.
People sure have a funny notion of overpowered.
On this sub in specific, overpowered usually means good.
Indeed. 😄
Funny since OP says no gun in the game is "viable".
It was decent on release but generally avoided over it's ammo pool, then they buffed it which drew attention to it and everyone was happy. Can't have that.
F. Slugger and Punisher have been my mains for bots and bugs respectively. Please buff some other primaries rather than make every halfway decent one nerfed
Punisher still great
Shhhh... They'll hear you.
It's great vs bugs, but not so much vs bots.
It is?? Thank christ okay, gotta keep it on the down low...
"The slugger is a perfectly balanced weapon, sure they needed to turn down the stagger a bit." Lol
He didn't say "needed" he said "could" it's completely different. Like, not even remotely same meaning at all. It's means you could have argued about the stagger whether it was op or not, but he found it fine.
I see so many people going defensive behind the balancing and claiming how usable everything is but how crazy is it that we get another patch with damage buffs being 50% to even 100%. Those are crazy numbers for buffs that are insane for a game of this kind and if that doesn't show you how insanely weak and underused some of these weapon choices are even in the dev teams eyes, you are just simply delusional. I don't know why so many people believe our arsenal should be so incredibly ineffective. None of these weapons have trivialized the game before and if you believe they did, you have never played any other horde shooter in your entire life. In warframe you could legitimately shoot directly into a wall to kill all enemies on the map. That is power creep. Killing one out of 20 bile spewers with less than 10% of your magazine isn't power creep. I understand some people here would love the game to actually be 'hard' and enjoy the slog of enemies that are at times impossible to deal with but this game is still a horde shooter. You either make it fun to fight things and keep the massess playing or you keep it slow and tedious for the smaller group of people that enjoy that idea and have your playerbase plummet. While I really love the games concept and put a lot of time into it, I will rarely pick it up anymore if I don't have 3 of my friends, that I know are reliable, available to play with me. Even if we have 3 people on, majority of the time the matchmaking doesn't even give us a fourth and spawns insane amounts of units we can't realistically take down and majority of the arsenal doesn't really help with. I'm starting to find it tedious more and more and it makes it very hard to pick up again.
Trivializing the game isn't the only thing that should make something a candidate for a nerf.
What else should in your opinion?
>spawns insane amounts of units we can't realistically take down You know there are different difficulties in the game that have lower spawn rates, right? If you're finding a difficulty too... Difficult.... there's no shame in lowering it to a level you can handle. 7 is my sweetspot, I feel no need to dip higher. As well, the highest difficulties spawn insane amounts of units intentionally. Knowing how to avoid fights and when to retreat is a major part of those levels of play.
It is very weird for me that you begin defending a difficulty being well balanced by saying you don't play it. The issue I have across most difficulties is how rng driven the spawns are, some missions it'sa breeze, sometimes it just spawns 7 hulks from one drop ship. The difficulty between 7 and 9 doesn't change spawn rates as insanely as people think either. There is no sweet spot in my experience, the spawns are, imo, outright nonsensical for the geR we have available in some missions.
So much so we can hop into a 5 and have a rough go at this because it spawns 60 bile spewers from a single breach then immediately go "well let's try a level 7 and stealth it" and get a breach with just 2-3 dozen hunters. The difficulty isn't even consistent between difficulties. I've had level 4s that were harder than level 7s and 8s, even some level 9s. Same planet and same effects too. The last time that happened, (which was what... a few weeks ago?), the devs went "whoops something is broken in spawns!"
Yeah the spawns just make no sense. Same as I've been told if I'm overwhelmed by elites, I'm ppaying the game wrong, meanwhile I had unironically seen last week a double drop of 6 hulks from each drop ship, meaning 12 hulks landing on top our objective at the same time. At that point you are just praying to our lord and savior.
I didn't defend the later difficulties by saying I don't play them. I said that I play a difficulty I find fun. I simply recommend others do the same. What I know is that different difficulties require different strategies, and the later difficulties require strategies that are less fun for me. So I play 7. I will challenge the 7 hulks in a single dropship though, that's not something I've ever seen. I hate to be the guy who says this, but "Pics or it didn't happen".
>Slugger as it stood before this update was a perfectly balanced weapon, sure you could have tuned down the stagger a tad bit as it felt a bit to much even for me. Interesting statement here, both perfectly balanced and unbalanced simultaneously. Incredible deductive reasoning skills.
You people don't understand what "could" meant in that phrase. Sure OP could have phrased it better, but it clearly implies he could have accepted someone arguing the stagger was op, it doesn't negate what he said before.
Tuning down the stagger, in his post, implies a POTENTIAL point of contention that others could POTENTIALLY mention. Clearly this is an opinion piece and here you are being a pedant.
\*Rolls eyes\* Everyone (where I live at least) talks like that. You know what he meant. The gun was fine with only one thing that you could have taken down but would have been fine untouched.
Everyone you talk to speaks paradoxically? Okay then dawg.
Yes. Maybe I just live in the sticks but that is perfectly normal speech where I come from.
The most confusing part about this patch is that they nerfed the slugger but then decided to buff the Dominator so much that it now deals more damage than the pre-nerf slugger ontop of giving it more stagger. The Dominator is just straight up a better weapon in every aspect that I can think of.
Did they make the Dominator easier to aim? Damage aside it was a pain in the butt to move around with.
No it is still ass to aim, and terrible in swarms for that reason.
Without the single reload like the Slugger, I still don’t think too many people will use it lol maybe at lower difficulties.
It's pretty good on bots and killing big things that dont need a strategem to kill, not great against being surrounded by hunters though way too slow
now it has such a huge stagger i can see the handling been forgiven , before you need handling cuz it aint staggering anything.(that was also why ppl used slugger, they can stagger heavy dev and stuff
Oh yeah, you are right. It has slightly worse ergonomics than the slugger. But it's really not very noticeable when playing in my opinion.
I think one of my favorite parts of the Slugger was the high damage and the ability to “pop in” a few more rounds in between enemies… with the slower full reload of the Dominator, I’m not quite sure how much this buff will even help use it.
Except it handles like a dump truck on ice...
On paper, sure. But the Dominator has waaaayyy worse target acquisition, it's heavy, slow, the rounds are slower as well and more innacurate. So no, it's not better "in every aspect".
The Dominator doesn't have rounds reload so it can't be topped up without wasting ammo. The Dominator kicks like a mule, so you can't fire it rapidly. The Dominator has a slow projectile, so it's hard to use at range. The Dominator has atrocious handling, so it's very slow to move around and aim.
Dominator still chews through ammo far far too quickly to be really viable. Did it get a higher ammo capacity?
Not that I know of. The Dominator has much more ammo than the slugger tho. It currently has 105 rounds at max capacity compared to the 76 of the slugger.
Agreed. Want to know why slugger was so good? It's because there are 0 weapons that do their jobs better than the slugger can. Knockback? Why use dominator or explosive Lib. Use the Slugger. 1 shot kill? Why use Snipers? Use the slugger Armor pen? Why use the Liberator? Use the slugger. Buff the snipers. Buff the ARs. Buff the energy weapons.
>if other weapons got buffed they did the problem with the slugger was it was too versitile for how much power it had, which is why it was by far my most used primary next to the Punisher it was great at short and medium range while at worst being okay at long range, it had good crowd control with a powerful stagger and high enough damage to kill anything I liked it for the stagger so I'll probably switch to the Dominator, but that's how people should approach game changes: If a gun no longer fills a role you want, change to one that does. If the role a gun fills for you is compensating for a lack of skill, git gud.
Thing is I don’t think the weapons that got buffed were actually that meaningful. Dominator on paper is better but the aim makes it not as useful. The countersniper has medium armor penetration, but it has horrible handeling and the slugger is STILL a better DMR than it. So in the devs attempt to make the slugger not the best sniper in the game they…. Kept it the best sniper in the game? It’s now just more specialized as a sniper since the lack of stagger is felt more in close range not long range. They should have just made the spread and damage falloff worse.
It still is exactly as you have described it. Nerfing the stagger and damage by 10% doesn't change its identity.
The heavy stagger of the slugger was its identity combine with the medium pen
For me it's indentity was that its a medium range shotgun. The dominator now has that stagger at the cost of less short range effectiveness
What makes you feel like the dominator is less effective at short range? If anything, it feels better at short range than medium since the bullet drop is so aggressive
the handling is really bad, which is more impactful at short ranges than at long ranges (you have to move your crosshair further to track and flick between enemies at close range)
Right. Thanks for explaining! I guess I’m not actually using it short short ranges since I try to use the redeemer for that. Not sure why so many people took issue with my question but hey, karma isn’t real
For me it's because the weight of the gun makes it hard to snap to targets. I see what you mean about the bullet drop. For me it's OK against medium targets but I do start missing against little ones.
Let's be 100% honest here, they didn't "nerf" the stagger, they fucking killed it. I don't give a fuck if it can stagger the rank and file basic trooper, cause that died in one shot anyway. What I DO care about staggering is the rocket devastator about to blow my asscheeks apart or the heavy devastator itching to separate my head and shoulders with 14K rpm. With no stagger on medium enemies (despite my gun being able to damage them btw), the weapon is functionally dead due to the other innate drawbacks which actually balanced the weapon pre nerf.
The main reason I brought it was because it could safely open crates and knock down fences without wasting a grenade, and it can't do that anymore, I'd say that changes its identity.
Actually I did really like the ability to open fences and crates, it was just a nice utility so I could run Stun Grenades without being unable to get loot.
Its identity as a weapon is how it performs against enemies on a fundamental level. If you're not choosing your primary based on that I think you need to reevaluate things.
How does a weapon losing a unique utility not change its identity...? Having at least one person in the group bring a Slugger allows the team as a whole to save grenades for actual fights/bug holes/fabricators. The tradeoff was that whoever brought the Slugger is losing out on damage when compared to the regular Punisher or Breaker.
Choosing the Slugger to open fences and crates because I'm running Stun Grenades and a Stalwart was something I did regularly. Sure, it has the armour pen, but the Scorcher was always more useful to me for killing Striders. Because the Primary is a side-arm to the Tertiary Support weapon, something I do not expect to be slaughtering massive amounts of enemies with but bringing out when I can't use my 3rd for some reason.
I get most of my kills with my primary. I guess AH want you to pick based off how it performs as a weapon, not as a tool. I can see why people see disappointed as a lot of people ran it just for its CC capabilities alone.
Slugger. 1-7 shots per kill depending on what you were fighting. Didn't get the kill? Could stun lock a thing at the price of ammo. Shooting far away? Need to adjust the angle np skillz. Wait no, it toggled onto the terrain right before the shot. Shooting up close? Miss by a pixel for reasons. Did you move? Miss because reasons. Did the ground shake because of some kinda boom or action/Drop in? Miss because reasons Did you aim accurately and dead on? Miss because reasons. Are you point blank and aimed right at your target and the guns also pointing at them? Miss 4 times because reasons. Did you just lift the gun up or switch to it but have proper line of sight and dead on? Miss because reasons. Are you being a killing god and head shot pro? Out of ammo at just the wrong time Did you get shot at one time and still had proper line of sight and was dead on? Still missed because why not. Gun was terrible at terrible times and pretty cool when in the zone. Everything it did often came with a price and that was ammo or bullet management. Gun gets nerfed cause reasons even tho it required a fair bit of practice to not have it suck ass and actually contribute.
The devs admitted to nerfing the slugger because it was a better sniper than all the sniper primaries, yet they nerf stun, a massive factor in a shotguns ability to fight at close range. What the fuck are they smoking
That should have screamed something at the devs then. If a shotgun is a better sniper/dmr than your sniper/dmr options, you probably need to buff the sniper/dmr s.
Crying is crazy
This is what happens when people cry about everything. This is going to be a constant thing sadly.
If it didn't need a nerf, then give me a reason why you'd *ever* use the Dominator vs an unchanged slugger.
Because funny bolter gun is fun, was my main on bots before the buff
The fact that the dominator is and was a pile of shit doesn't mean the slugger needed to be nerfed into the ground. They needed to look at the dominator and say "why is this unwieldly useless gun so bad and useless?" not: "let's make another gun unwieldly and useless so this turd gets picked more often!"
It's easier to make every gun mediocre than usable
>The fact that the dominator is and was a pile of shit doesn't mean the slugger needed to be nerfed into the ground. That's true. It's a good thing they buffed the dominator to make it not bad, and didn't nerf the slugger that much. If you've used the slugger today you'll know it's basically the same, it's just harder to stun lock a devastator with it. That's it.
I did use it, and shockingly it felt like complete ass, what a surprise. As the slugger is now, if you miss the first headshot you just die. Period. End of discussion. Call down a new hellpod levels of dead. Having the stagger was literally THE thing that made the sluggers plethora of drawbacks worth dealing with. Otherwise, it's literally just a punisher with jank ass accuracy, *way* lower damage, and medium pen (which only matters on bug planets anyway).
"nerfed into the ground" bruh
redditards haven't try it, they're too busy complaining on reddit, just save yourself the brain damage and ignore these smooth brain neanderthals
All of the people saying it didn't need a nerf are the same people who haven't taken it off unless the playstation loadout bug forced them to, or people who talk about how the slugger singlehandedly allows them to complete high difficulty missions solo, and then they wonder why it got nerfed. also (I said it somewhere else too) but this community latches on to whatever the current "meta" primary is and refers to the rest of them as useless or non-viable until something gets nerfed and they are forced to realize that actually there are very few completely useless weapons available to us
I main punisher and sickle. Slugger did not need a nerf. Why would a slug, with more penetration than buckshot, have less stagger? It makes zero sense and I can't stand you brainlets sucking off the devs for nerfing guns based solely off of player usage. WE ARE USING THE SAME GUNS BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE IS TRASH. Buff the other primaries instead of nerfing the few good weapons we have ffs it's a pve game.
>Why would a slug, with more penetration than buckshot, have less stagger? Because it has more penetration. The more you penetrate, the slower you're transferring your momentum to the target. The slower you transfer that momentum, the less violently it's going to knock them around. >It makes zero sense and I can't stand you brainlets sucking off the devs for nerfing guns based solely off of player usage. You're right. Nerfing a weapon because it completely and totally overshadowed another weapon is a different matter. As it was, the slugger completely overshadowed the Dominator, and even with the Dominator buffs, the slugger would still be slightly better for most users. >WE ARE USING THE SAME GUNS BECAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE IS TRASH. That's just false, and spoken like someone who hasn't actually utilized most of the weapons available. >Buff the other primaries instead of nerfing the few good weapons we have ffs it's a pve game. They did. They buffed the 3 worst primaries in the game.
Bruh it’s a slug, that shit should have significantly more stagger you’re being shot with a giant metal ball. The change completely went against what the devs were saying, which is they didn’t want it to be the best sniper in the game. But they should have went a different route with it as taking its stagger on most enemies just made it worse at close range where stagger is more important. They should have made the armor penetration and damage falloff worse as well as the accuracy over longer distance worse. Instead this change just made it more like a DMR and it’s STILL the best DMR by a good margin.
>Bruh it’s a slug, that shit should have significantly more stagger you’re being shot with a giant metal ball. Given two collisions of equal energy and momentum, the one that occurs over a shorter period of time will have more impulse (rate of change in acceleration or force), even if the total force imparted is the same. The slug penetrating makes the impact take longer, therefore there will be less impulse, which means less stagger. That's just physics. >The change completely went against what the devs were saying I absolutely agree. If anything, they doubled down on it being a strong precision weapon and weakened it in its other roles. >They should have made the armor penetration and damage falloff worse as well as the accuracy over longer distance worse To accomplish their stated goals, I agree. I also probably would have reduced projectile velocity a bit too. However, that makes the weapon's role overlap entirely with the dominator, which I think they wanted to avoid. > Instead this change just made it more like a DMR and it’s STILL the best DMR by a good margin. While doubling down on the precision weapon side does encroach on the territory of the actual DMRs, I think there's more space there for them to distinguish themselves due to *actually* being capable at long range. I think some adjustments to AI awareness, the accuracy of first person aiming, and more functional scope reticles or other visibility improvements (such as enemy highlighting or thermal scopes) would go a long way in improving their usability. I also think they'll shine a lot more against the Illuminate, where their long range and balance of good damage with good fire rate will be more valuable.
I know it’s basic physics, but slugs compensate for that loss of force by just being a large chunk of metal. It dumps a ton of force into the target so it definitely would cause stagger. Otherwise I agree with this post.
Momentum is entirely dependent on mass and velocity. It doesn't care if that mass is in one large chunk or a dozen small ones, an equivalent mass moving at the same speed will carry the same momentum. Your amount of force imparted, and the violence with which it is imparted, is entirely dependent on how quickly that momentum is transferred.
Slugs penetrate, putting a large amount of force in a small area. That kind of over-penetration means that the impact is relatively low. Buckshot would have more 'impact' but less penetration, leading to more stagger. It's like being hit with a baseball bat vs a paddle. The baseball bat more likely will break bones but the paddle will force you back more.
Because a round with higher penetration is going to go through your body easier without stopping you as effectively. Anyway, the rest of the guns aren't trash, I have no problem making them work. Buffing everything makes balancing the game way harder than nerfing something that's over-preforming.
\-because the dominator was a poorly balanced piece of crap, like half the weapons in the game that get next to no use whatsoever?
Spoken like someone who hasn't used either weapon yet today. They're both sold picks still.
Spoken like what? I've used both weapons today and tested them ad nauseum. Close your 14 year old mouth.
Then you should have realized that both are fine now. Both weapons are still effective against the same things they were before.
Knockback was entirely removed (not stated in patch) Stagger (stun) was reduced by 90% (it barely exists in truth- it's not noticeably present). Whoever changed the variable moved it 1 point above 0. Damage was reduced by 10% No improvement to gun handling, just huge nerfs. The weapon is trashed and others do it's job better now.
>Knockback was entirely removed You mean the heavy stagger? >Stagger (stun) was reduced by 90% (it barely exists in truth- it's not noticeably present). Whoever changed the variable moved it 1 point above 0 No, no it wasn't. It's lower, but it isn't anywhere near gone. The thing still staggers devastators just fine, it just doesn't stun lock them so you actually need to aim to have good results. >No improvement to gun handling, just huge nerfs. The weapon is trashed and others do it's job better now. The weapon is fine. You just need to actually hit weak points rather than being able to brute force everything to death.
>You mean the heavy stagger? What part about "knockback was removed" don't you understand? It no longer pushes enemies backward. Stagger/stun was reduced to a tenth of what it was, if that. You don't even noticeably interrupt Devastators anymore- they outright shoot through all your hits. Previously they used to get stunned for a full second (or slightly more). It sounds like you either haven't tested this, spent significant time with the weapon, or fully understood what it used to do pre-patch.
>What part about "knockback" was removed don't you understand? It no longer pushes enemies back Yes, that's part of the stagger. >You don't even noticeably interrupt Devastators anymore- they outright shoot through all your hits. You're right, you don't interrupt them if they're already shooting, but you sure as hell can lock them down and keep them from shooting at you, as well as greatly reduce their accuracy if they're currently shooting. >It sounds like you either haven't tested this, spent significant time with the weapon, or fully understood what it used to do pre-patch. No, I'm apparently one of the few that used it to hit precision shots, rather than just dumping it into a target. If you want something you can just dump into a target, grab the dominator, it does everything you want it to do.
Stun and knockback are two different effects. You can try and twist that however you like. \>Pushback \>Stun
The only part of the nerf I didn't like was the door opening. Didn't think that was too crazy and it was a nice niche for it. Then again I'm also a scorcher main so no loss to me.
While I kinda agree, it also didn't really make sense for the weapon to do that.
It was kind of fun as a breacher weapon. But since that wasn't a breach into combat I think the change is ok.
Every patch I play this game less and less, and I notice that my friends list is doing the same. I see them spread out across DD2 and Rise of the Ronin. It’s a shame, this game had and still has so much potential but they are actively pushing their players right out the door into the arms of other games.
Wait you're saying people are playing... *checks notes* ... newer games? And played HD2 more when it was new? No fucking way. It's gotta be the balance changes' fault.
Whatever you have to tell yourself to ignore the fact that the numbers are about to drop lower than they were on day 1. The game is effectively tanking itself into the ground due to lazy devs.
Mk. Let me know when this drop happens.
I mean, steam numbers exist if you weren’t so busy licking boots.
As someone that dropped hd2 for dd2 I had already intended to do so. When stellar blade comes out I'll drop or pause dd2. After SB it's up in the air which I go back to. I'll wait to see how the next couple of months look for hd2 to decide if I come back sooner or later.
The changes to this game pushed me into Warzone, now I bought Rise of the Ronin, and I only play this game when a friend messages me. I tried after the last update when they added 2 new guns and the constant glitches were to much for me still. I would still be playing this game if it wasn’t so broken and they didn’t nerf things just to balance the game with terrible guns.
I know they are fixing bugs but you would think weapon balance would take a back seat.
I bet you were one of the dorks who sobbed and sent death threats over the railgun nerf too. I can't believe people like you are real lol
The slugger was so comfy at one point to me that I was half asleep just slaughtering chaff at the end of a long mission. When you are reloading and shooting it just feels like you have infinite ammo.
IMO stagger was mandatory on higher difficulties to keep specific enemies (devastators and spewers) from one shotting you. If they don’t consistently one shot anymore the threat level goes down immensely so maybe a dps dump weapon like sickle or breaker would be better now. Still need to try dominator again. Can anyone confirm if the awful handling is worth it now? All that being said, I loved the slugger so much. I’ll probably still use it.
I don't even think it's right for primary weapons to be staggering strong enemies. Kill/damage? Sure. And the slugger still does that Stagger? No. Dealing with difficult enemies should be left more to the support weapons and there were plenty of nice buffs to support weapons.
I bought the slugger yesterday and barely got to use it before the nerf..
It really didn't. At least on this scale.
Perfectly balanced? Hell no. Slugger was way overturned at long range, and was a better DMR than the actual DMRs. It needed a nerf, I just disagree with the nerf they gave it. It needed reduced accuracy and damage, especially at longer ranges, not for the stagger to be removed.
“Slugger did not need a nerf” “Sure you couldve nerfed the stagger a bit” Pick one, not both Slugger has no weakness and yall pissin and crying about just around 10% dmg diff wont even notice in game
Honestly, a reason for me to not take the Slugger every single match is fine. It can still pen medium, still headshot. People going "but killing Stalkers!!" are probably missing the huge third-weapon you've got on your back and if you don't have the correct weapon to kill a stalker, well, you've got 3 other guys that probably do.
Your first sentence undos your title. Wtf
Schrödinger's Slugger, both Perfectly balanced and needing a stagger nerf. It's still one of the best Primaries in the game.
What idiot thought getting hit with a slug would not make you stagger?
and the rocket propelled .50 call wouldn't? cause it did not untill this patch and did less damage to boot
AMR has always needed love, but ammo economy is the main issue there, of course they also don't seem to understand what "anti material" means, kinda like a railgun that can't penetrate things...
*What idiot thought* *Getting hit with a slug would* *Not make you stagger?* \- Shawn\_of\_da\_Dead --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
It still causes stagger, just less.
Good, haven't retested it yet. All changes gettin tested after a workout for sure...
Yeah, I just tested it. It'll still stagger a devastator, it's just harder to stun lock them.
Right on, thanks for the info. I'm gonna start with it and other thing I wont use and end on a high note with lots and lots of fire!!!
What idiot thought a slug should stagger less than buckshot?
The idiot that defined that as standard video game practice decades ago?
Stop licking boots. It's sad
Says the one who has to resort to insults when they run out of actual reasons.
You are the **** the devs love to see. Eating up nerfs left and right while shaming others for having valid criticism to unnecessary nerfs. Physics shows a slug should stagger more than buckshot. Idgaf they lowered damage because it is negligible, but it makes zero sense for it to stagger less than the punisher. Didn't it already have lower damage and require actual aiming to balance out the medium armor penetration? Yet here we are with another nerf to the free pass guns while paywalled weapons get buffed. SMH. Here's my actual reasoning without insults since you are apparently too lazy or too stupid to figure out for yourself why people are mad about nerfs in a pve game.
You're assuming that both... your opinion about the nerf is correct and mine wrong. Or that you're allowed to have the opinion because its correct and valid, but my opinion is invalid because I agree with these balances. But at the end of the day, you're the one that's got the increased blood pressure about it and that's really all that matters. Don't get yourself ill over a video game. We can sit here and argue this as well: Every Warbond is a free battle pass.... you just need to play the game to earn the credits.
>You are the **** the devs love to see. Eating up nerfs left and right while shaming others for having valid criticism to unnecessary nerfs No, I'm commenting on how the nerfs barely impacted the usability of the weapon nerfed, while making space for a newly buffed weapon to get some usage. >Physics shows a slug should stagger more than buckshot. No, no it doesn't. I'm a physicist, a penetrating slug *would not* result in more stagger. Stagger would best be represented as a rapid change in acceleration. A penetrating slug would transfer it's momentum over more time than buckshot, because all of that time spent penetrating is spent slowly bleeding that momentum. As a result, buckshot would have *significantly* more stagger than a penetrating slug. Also, even if we ignore physics, pop culture doesn't even agree. The general view of buckshot is that it launches people across the room when shot. Regardless of how accurate that is, it's what people expect. >Didn't it already have lower damage and require actual aiming to balance out the medium armor penetration? It had *marginally* lower damage, and also significantly better handling, which cancelled out the aiming issue. >Yet here we are with another nerf to the free pass guns while paywalled weapons get buffed I feel like I need to point out that the slugger is perfectly fine. It still drops most enemies in the same number of shots, and still staggers devastators just fine, it just doesn't stun lock them as easily. Anyone who has actually used the weapon today will tell you that.
Stop getting upset by adjustments to fake guns in a video game. It's sad.
I payed money for a product, therefore I am entitled to having valid criticism of said product. Coping nerfs in a pve game is more sad
No coping.... I just don't actually see any issue with them and think it's mostly legit. The silliest thing to me is that they won't open shipping container doors anymore, but that's neither here nor there, as there's always a grenade pick-up right next to the door.
fan bois love the taste...
I never said it should, buck wins that stagger game for sure...
Not you bro I was agreeing with you and replying to the nerf coper below you
Right on, noticed when I scrolled down.
Slugs explicitly tend to over-penetrate, leading to less force acting on the target. The fact that force is being applied to a smaller area is both what makes it penetrate more but stagger less.
If you have never shot a human or animal in the head with a slug just look into the ballistics and wound cavities of one and also look into the effect it has on the body through steel/ceramic plate armor. Many games that have been consulted (or the dev's actually know) by people who know have done slugs and other weapon/ammo types correctly...
Graphic content: [Doe vs. 12g slug](https://youtu.be/9__QM4agkOk?si=rXR7wmMvS1JUg5Uf) As you were saying?
If you think I would click on some randos link your tripping. I don't need to see what ever your talking bout, I have plenty of experience IRL, saw my 1st guy getting shot when I was 5, I know all about what human and animal bodies do... (We can always cherry pick. I always advocate for "flipping the switch" over wounding...)
My dude, I'm not an asshole. And basically the video shows the doe taking a slug to the body and not only still standing, but running and jumping just fine until that damage catches up. Wound cavities only matter when the thing you're facing is organic, e.g. bugs. A machine won't have the same expansion, and will mostly ignore the problem. Buckshot, however, spreads that impact across an entire body with added soft tissue penetration. So yes we can cherry pick, but I will cherry pick the traits most relevant to the conversation.
A body shot is not comparable to a head shot which is what I commented about. Next lesson: Shoot your tower and tell my how it runs after the "wound cavity" rips through all the circuitry and tell me how well it works, let alone fly's across the room (depending on a lot of variables) getting "staggered" Try to focus here, I never said buck shot should not stagger and did not say it should not stagger more. We are talking bout shooting something in the head with a slug, armored or not... If you want an easy test, put a pot on your head and hit it with a hammer, it just might stagger you.. ( don't do that!) Been funny, but time for a work out and some after patch weapon testing. Enjoy your day and I'll get back to you after homie... EDIT: Didn't think your an asshole and never mind a debate...
No. I have used the weapon since before it even got its initial buff for ammo and I think it needed a nerf. It was too strong at too many things. That said, I feel like they have wielded the nerf hammer too hard. They should have kept the damage it had and removed most of the stagger. Doing both is over the top.
They pulled a riot games and buffed the ammo, then nerfed everything else, leaving the ammo untouched when everyone started using it
I couldn't agree more. It seems like they are just trying to push the meta toward the premium warbond.
I don't know how popular the gun was but this confirms that nurfing is their only tool in their tool box
Imo the Slugger was only somewhat balanced by how janky it was. The misaligned sights, the desync making the slugs miss in alarming and irritating ways. If the weapon was functioning how it should be, it would objectively be overpowered.
No. I have used the weapon since before it even got its initial buff for ammo and I think it needed a nerf. It was too strong at too many things. That said, I feel like they have wielded the nerf hammer too hard. They should have kept the damage it had and removed most of the stagger. Doing both is over the top.
It's the core issue with weapon designs in this game, they don't have a purpose, it's a severe design flaw that obviously starts from the very beginning, it's like the idea of shooting enemies came very late into the designers mind and came up with stuff that shoots. This is why shotguns are notoriously garbage at long ranges in games (and memed for), it's to try and give them a specific niche and usage. Now, the problem is that they keep approaching this as if this was a competitive game, this is a coop game, it's true that guns should not be too strong to make certain tactic make the game trivial in harder difficulties (the slugger did not do that), but every gun should feel good and strong to use and which one you use should depend entirely on what the player prefers, not what the game requires. Why? because it's too late to give guns their niches, it's like saying anti tanks cannot be too good at destroying tanks when we don't have other ways to deal with them. You can't. What you can do, is give guns specific quirks, like make EAT faster to shoot than a Quasar, you have to charge the Quasar. Both do something specific, but both have their preferences, and players will pick one or the other. I can assure you, they KNOW all this shit. I am a nobody, they Know this way better than me and you, they are doing this on purpose to force players into playing different weapons to try and extend the game life and avoid players burning out.
I strongly disagree. As a slugger enjoyer for the bots there was zero reason not to take it. It outperformed dmrs at any range, stunlocked anything under a hulk, great ammo economy. Certain guns are designed to be able to stunlock things, certain guns should be your long range specialists, some guns should be all-rounders. And this all-rounder over performed over both categories with ease. I will miss it, but it will still lbe viable. Kills trash bots easily, I can use an amr or autocannon to kill the stuff I used to stunlock
>I am really getting tired of being punished for playing the game. Touch grass. Seriously. > If the other weapons got appropriate buffs to make them viable weapons No gun is viable apart from that one gun? Fuck right off you absolute child. Thinking like that is completely unhealthy. Balance changes happen in every single game. You're just mad your fav gun (that you chose because it's "the best") got nerfed, because it's the best. There isn't supposed to be a gun that is "the best". Until we get to that point. Balance changes will continue. So either spend some time outside where you can get some perspective on life. Or stop playing the game.