Think we'll ever see the rifle get a rework to be a bit more defined of a weapon ?

[Dakiaris.2798]

I've been thinking more and more and really I don't mean just the rifle I feel like the pistols could use a little love as well for core.

The rifle could easily be reworked to be our close range weapon with these changes.

 

no.1  Change this into bluderbuss lower the damage scaling from 1.1 at max range to 1.0 and the short range from 1.76 to 1.5

no.2 make the net shot deal it's damage 6 times over the duration of the skill.

no.3 make hip shot go here and rename it to explosive round increase the base damage by 100% and add a 3 meter aoe explosive that does 50% of that on a 1.0 scaling of the initial hit and .65 scaling of the explosive.

no.4 mostly fine honestly works well as a break bar for the weapon.

no.5 I think would be fine if we had these changes as the weapon would be ment for close range I would like to see it counted as a explosive though so that we could get the explosives line to affect it.

 

For the pistol I find it lacking in a few areas.

 

no.1 honestly I could see this firing in a chain similar to how wands work without really changing the animation but instead just adding effects to the hits. Like first hit is 1 bleed, 2nd hit is 1 vuln/1 bleed and then the 3rd hit is 2 bleeds/1 vuln.

no.2 Honestly I've always felt the animation for this was very long for what it does I would simply lower the cast time from 1 3/4 seconds to 1.25 seconds

no.3 Static shot feels fine to me maybe a tiny bit more power scaling on it but besides that it's ok.

no.4 blowtorch honestly feels odd due to the range mechanic as if it's the blunderbuss. Honestly I would just remove the range mechanic and make it max stacks regardless of range.

no.5 honestly needs a little bit of a rework it's a very lackluster no.5 on a weapon. I would suggest calling it something like corrosive agent or something and keeping the current effect and add a pulsing effect that applies poison/vulnerability per tick with 5 ticks over the duration. Keep the short duration immobal and the pulsing cripple.

 

These changes would give both the rifle and pistols a very defined role. Rifle being short/mid range power and pistol being mid/long range power.

 

This post isn't about kits as I don't see these being addressed but our core weapons which honestly need a better defined role as we have the least number of weapons core than any other class in game with rifle, pistols and shield that's it. The kits were supposed to be our special weapons but instead of really giving us alternate weapons in them they are watered down similar to how elementalist elements function.... Honestly I think both ele and engie need to have their core mechanics redefined in the future for more ease of use. Having to play a grand piano due to kits having 1-2 skills each required in a rotation isn't really that fun to most which is why engineer is currently the least played class in the game.

 

I feel like in eod most of these issues with our core weapons are going to remind people why they never really played engineer as time goes on because a pet can only hold someones attention so long.

 

On a side note something I've said time and time again is when you fully master a elite spec you should gain access to use the weapon for the core class. This would solve the engineers utter lack of weapon selection since they have made it quiet clear they don't want kits to function as primary weapons and only be utilities. This would also give other classes just better selection of weapons over time. I hear the thing that the holosmith heat mechanic would make it so that core sword wouldn't be useable but really I don't see that as a issue as it promotes you to use holosmith still. You could use the sword core then but lack out on the heat mechanic I really see no big deal here.

 

Anyway that's my long rant.... Sorry it's so long just stuff that's been on my mind for years and years.