Now that I have your attention, let's talk weapon balance. Here are a few reasonable balance changes to encourage more diverse weapon usage in both PvE and PvP
[b]CHANGES TO WEAPON TYPES[/b]:
[b]All heavies:[/b] Small damage buff for pve only. This will not apply to Ghorn's wolfpack rounds. This is to make other heavies compete better with Ghorn.
[b]Fusion rifles:[/b] Buff to pve damage only (~50%). Also reduce/remove previous nerf to FR spread.
[b]Auto rifles:[/b] Reverse changes made by most recent nerf, and buff the impact of the high rof low impact ones.They are totally useless right now, and weren't even that competitive before the most recent nerf.
[b]Handcannons (maybe):[/b] Reduce aim assist granted by sureshot IS, anyone not using that optic is doing it wrong. The auto aim is just ridiculous. This may cause pulse rifles to become too strong though, so perhaps not.
[b]Shotguns:[/b] While matador, found verdict, party crasher and felwinter's are pretty insane, Bungie has (significantly) nerfed shotguns in the past, and people still use them. It is a problem with PvP map design, not the weapons themselves. (ask yourself: would you use a shotgun on First Light?)
[b]Scout rifles:[/b] Same problem in PvP as shotguns, no changes needed.
[b]EXOTIC WEAPONS[/b]
[b]Hard Light:[/b] Affected by auto rifle buff. Rounds that ricochet will also deal bonus damage.
[b]Monte Carlo: [/b]Affected by auto rifle buff. All guardian kills will now instantly recharge melee energy.
[b]Suros Regime: [/b]Affected by auto rifle buff.
[b]Necrochasm:[/b] Every kill (regardless of precision hit) will grant thrall explosion. Ammo capacity 75 rounds.
[b]Vex Mythoclast:[/b] Top-tier weapon, but not in need of a nerf imo. high headshot multiplier, and no hitscan means that some skill is required, and performance at range will always be poor.
[b]Thorn:[/b] Arguably the strongest PvP weapon. Needs to have ammo capacity reduced to 7 rounds. This will not be too significant of a nerf, as this weapon will still compete with other top tier exotic primaries such as Red Death TLW, Vex, and Hawkmoon. It will also make you more likely to take advantage of its final round perk.
[b]The Last Word:[/b] Fix the glitch where the hipfire bonus damage applies while ADS.
[b]Hawkmoon (maybe):[/b] With the nerfs to Thorn and TLW, I fear that this weapon will become slightly overpowered. A possible nerf could be to reduce the weapon's stability. It hits like a truck, so it should handle like one too.
[b]Red Death:[/b] Top tier weapon. Worthy of it's exotic slot, and perfect the way it is.
[b]Bad Juju: [/b]Not a bad weapon, but the super recharging aspect of its exotic perk could use a slight buff.
[b]MIDA Multi-Tool:[/b] Good at what it does. No changes needed.
[b]Universal Remote:[/b] Needs a slight buff to impact, as nobody uses the thing in pvp. Also needs to have its total ammo capacity increased to make it more pve viable.
[b]Invective:[/b] Make it regenerate ammo faster.
[b]Fourth horseman:[/b] Needs a buff to range, making the flared magwell upgrade more viable (instead of the range upgrade). As it stands, the slow reload cripples the weapon.
[b]Ice Breaker:[/b] Useful and unique weapon in pve. Useless in pvp. Requires a choice of a lower ranged optic for close encounters.
[b]Patience and time:[/b] Make cloak apply instantly after zooming in. Also allow cloak to apply for 5 seconds after de-scoping (so long as the weapon is still equipped). The weapon also needs the choice of a lower range scope in order to better perform in close quarters for PvP. While I understand that people want the red dot to be removed, I fear that it would encourage camping and potentially break the game.
[b]No Land Beyond:[/b] Change The Master perk to significantly increase precision damage after a kill for a short time, and increase reserve ammo to make it viable in PvE (and discourage heavy ammo glitch). Possibly reduce zoom and remove lens glare to make it more viable in PvP, although Bungie has stated that they are happy with the way NLB currently performs in PvP.
[b]Plan C:[/b] Buff Plan C perk to be activated once every 5s upon weapon switch (instead of the current ~15s).
[b]Pocket Infinity:[/b] Change it so that follow up shots deal full damage. And fix all of the other glitches that still happen with it.
[b]Truth:[/b] Top-tier PvP weapon, worthy of the exotic slot. No change needed.
[b]Gjallahorn:[/b] Top-tier PvP and PvE weapon. Will be slightly less necessary with proposed heavy weapon buff in PvE, but still will be the best option against high health enemies (and everything else). Also, remove the damn proxy detonate.
[b]Super Good Advice:[/b] Give it more stability. All reserve ammo able to be held in single magazine (i.e. no reloading required).
[b]Thunderlord:[/b] Slight stability buff. All kills activate hidden firefly perk. Lightning Rounds activate sooner (after 10/20 rounds instead of 20/40).
[b]Dragon's Breath:[/b] Increase rate of fire. Significantly increase velocity (due to lack of tracking). Solar flare does more damage.
[b]OTHER CHANGES:[/b]
[b]Blink:[/b] Remove invincibility frames. Blink should not be able to survive a direct rocket from Truth.
[b]Maps: [/b]Bring large maps back into normal PvP rotation, but reduce heavy ammo spawn rate. This will also help make scout rifles more viable, and shotguns less viable.
[b]PoE weapons:[/b] Make Fallen-specific perks EXTRA instead of replacing a perk. As is, these weapons are all inferior because they replace a good potential perk with a very situational perk. These are end-game content weapons, and should perform as such.
[b]Primary Exotics:[/b] Give them all an upgrade to grant elemental damage (e.g. Thorn = void, Hardlight = arc, The Last Word = solar). This is because there is no reason to use exotic primaries in PvE when one can use elemental raid weapons such as VoC or Fatebringer. Make it expensive to do or require some sort of endgame currency to upgrade.
Please let me know what you think, or if you have any other good ideas!
Edit: Thanks for all the feedback! I hope Bungie takes notice of this.
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Edited by Mewing_Raven: 6/7/2015 1:28:20 AMI'm not sure how I feel about the proposed Blink Nerf. Yes, you can teleport out of the way of things, but it takes significant skill and timing. On top of that, Blink is the ONLY movement ability with a cool down. If the invulnerability frames were removed, but the cool down was ALSO removed, I could get behind this. It would focus more on the evasion and lateral movement aspects of blink, while increasing the risk factor. Thoughts?