[Detailed Rework] What Rifle and Physical skills SHOULD look like

[Jzaku.9765]

VISUAL GUIDE: LINK

RIFLE

Warrior Rifle's function and flavour are both intrinsically tied to it's Burst Skill, with the rest of the weapon generally being boring filler. These changes aim to spice up the base weapon with some additional utility, reimplement the Adrenaline gain that used to be on it, and overall make it a strong option for Power builds.

1. Fierce Shot:
   Cast time reduced from 0.75s > 0.5s
   It's actually not a bad auto in terms of damage, but the cast time was ridiculous.
    
2. Volley:
   If all shots hit, reduce count recharge and cooldown by 4s. Gain increased adrenaline when striking a foe above 15 stacks of Vulnerability.
   The main Adrenaline generator for the weapon. You should be pressing this button constantly to fire it like a machine gun in between burst skills!
    
3. Explosive Shell:
   Now causes 3x blast finishers around the target.
   Adds some utility to the weapon. Warrior doesn't have a lot of fields right now, but check out my banner rework for that.
    
4. Brutal Shot:
   Now evades and shoots at the same time. Acts exactly like the various shortbow evades across the game.
   Yeah... How it used to behave is just baffling.
    
5. Rifle Butt:
   Largely unchanged, this is actually a great skill.

PHYSICALS

Bull's Charge and Mending are great skills that don't need changes. These changes aim to make the other physicals flexible, useful, and most importantly, fun to use. 
For Bolas and Kick, I reuse the Ammo skill functionality of Bladesworn Pistol 5 (Dragon's Roar) to make them skills that charge up to do stronger effects. You can still use them at their base 1 charge CDs to use them exactly the same way you do now (with significantly lower CDs without the "you can use this skill more than once!" tax).

1. Throw Bolas:
   Now fires out 2 additional bolas at different targets per charge. 3 ammo max, 10s CD per charge. Now doesn't get snagged on a random rock on the floor and doesn't fall off edges of platforms, it's a real projectile.
   Someone reading this is probably thinking "why didn't he make this a pull wtf". Because then it would literally be better than both Scorpion Wire and Spectral Grasp combined, that's why. I don't think a ranged immob is a bad skill regardless - it's just been so unreliable to use for 9 years that nobody even gives it a chance anymore.
    
2. Kick:
   Now increases it's knockback distance per charge. 3 ammo max, 15s CD per charge. Maxes out at a 900 range knockback at 3 stacks. 
   Punt enemies across a map! Kick at 30s CD was absolutely ridiculous, the prime example of ammo skill tax. Ironically, this still wouldn't do more breakbar damage than Sanctuary at max charges.
    
3. Stomp:
   No longer a movement skill. Now launches all enemies nearby towards the Warrior. 
   Stomp wasn't exactly a bad skill, but I felt like Core Warrior needed much more actual utility in it's Utility skills. The theme of the physical skills is CC - so this felt like a great place to implement an aoe Pull. 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Jzaku.9765

[Kalthea.4326]

Unsure about how I feel about gaining might on vuln stacked targets. In situations where this would apply, you'd already be capped on might anyway, so it would be useless other than minor healing from Might Makes Right. On the other hand, it would provide some decent uptime on might to a target shout you decide to bring "On My Mark!".

 

The Volley changes suggested aren't terrible, but something about them doesn't sit right with me, and I can't quite place it.  Maybe it's the condi juggling for the increased adrenaline. That wouldn't synchronize very well with a build set up for vuln stacking, which is what you would want to do in terms of might generation on the first ability.

 

I believe Explosive Shell needs to do damage around the target, and not behind the target. The cone functionality of it is extremely situational. On top of that, it performing a blast proc would be difficult to use, as the associated field would have to be on your target.

 

The reason people recommend Bolas to be a pull is because warrior has very few catch up mechanics, and that's the largest problem it has in terms of survivability. Without being able to keep up with people who can just knock back, knock back, knock back, you're left dead in the water with nothing to show for it because the other guy just kept shooting you.

 

The Kick changes are...okay? That would kind of reduce kick to a ranged build only in terms of PvP, and I doubt it would change much for PvE. The Cooldown changes I would change to 20s instead of 15, but otherwise eh.

 

Stomp is barely used as is, and removing the feature of it granting just a slight bit of mobility, which as stated earlier the warrior is lacking, would ultimately cause it to be just a touch worse I feel. The pull-in isn't a bad idea though.

[Jzaku.9765]

Just now, Kalthea.4326 said:

Unsure about how I feel about gaining might on vuln stacked targets. In situations where this would apply, you'd already be capped on might anyway, so it would be useless other than minor healing from Might Makes Right. On the other hand, it would provide some decent uptime on might to a target shout you decide to bring "On My Mark!".

The Volley changes suggested aren't terrible, but something about them doesn't sit right with me, and I can't quite place it.  Maybe it's the condi juggling for the increased adrenaline. That wouldn't synchronize very well with a build set up for vuln stacking, which is what you would want to do in terms of might generation on the first ability.
I believe Explosive Shell needs to do damage around the target, and not behind the target. The cone functionality of it is extremely situational. On top of that, it performing a blast proc would be difficult to use, as the associated field would have to be on your target.

The reason people recommend Bolas to be a pull is because warrior has very few catch up mechanics, and that's the largest problem it has in terms of survivability. Without being able to keep up with people who can just knock back, knock back, knock back, you're left dead in the water with nothing to show for it because the other guy just kept shooting you.

The Kick changes are...okay? That would kind of reduce kick to a ranged build only in terms of PvP, and I doubt it would change much for PvE. The Cooldown changes I would change to 20s instead of 15, but otherwise eh.

Stomp is barely used as is, and removing the feature of it granting just a slight bit of mobility, which as stated earlier the warrior is lacking, would ultimately cause it to be just a touch worse I feel. The pull-in isn't a bad idea though.

First of all I see that you are looking at this from a PvP perspective, when personally I tend to prioritize looking at things from a PvE perspective. 

Fierce Shot (Rifle 1) is completely unchanged from how it is now other than the cast time. It only requires 1 stack of Vuln to give you that Might, and since 3 & 4 both apply Vuln with low CDs this shouldn't be an issue. 

Volley's adrenaline gain is intentionally harder for PvP actually - while also intentionally trivial for PvE. This is so it's slightly harder to Gunflame off CD in PvP (this will get it nerfed really fast), while you'd be able to do it trivially in PvE for the purposes of a ranged DPS rotation. I could see lowering the stacks required to make it stronger in PvP.

Rifle is a weapon that pierces, one big AOE skill on it isn't going to make a big difference - and that's also Warrior Longbow's identity. 3x Blast Finisher is a pretty big deal, so it's intentional that you have to be at-risk to cash in on it. Warrior isn't a stranger to having surprisingly melee skills on their ranged weapons, and in fact I kind of like it that way. 

As for the Physicals feedback, my perspective is that I wanted all the Physicals to serve different purposes. If you want to gap close + cc, use Bull's Charge. If you want to bunch enemies up, use Stomp. If you want to hold enemies at bay, use Kick. Bolas can flexibly be used to close or make gaps, but it's not as strong of a cc in exchange. 

[Kalthea.4326]

13 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

First of all I see that you are looking at this from a PvP perspective, when personally I tend to prioritize looking at things from a PvE perspective. 

Fierce Shot (Rifle 1) is completely unchanged from how it is now other than the cast time. It only requires 1 stack of Vuln to give you that Might, and since 3 & 4 both apply Vuln with low CDs this shouldn't be an issue. 

Volley's adrenaline gain is intentionally harder for PvP actually - while also intentionally trivial for PvE. This is so it's slightly harder to Gunflame off CD in PvP (this will get it nerfed really fast), while you'd be able to do it trivially in PvE for the purposes of a ranged DPS rotation. I could see lowering the stacks required to make it stronger in PvP.

Rifle is a weapon that pierces, one big AOE skill on it isn't going to make a big difference - and that's also Warrior Longbow's identity. 3x Blast Finisher is a pretty big deal, so it's intentional that you have to be at-risk to cash in on it. Warrior isn't a stranger to having surprisingly melee skills on their ranged weapons, and in fact I kind of like it that way. 

As for the Physicals feedback, my perspective is that I wanted all the Physicals to serve different purposes. If you want to gap close + cc, use Bull's Charge. If you want to bunch enemies up, use Stomp. If you want to hold enemies at bay, use Kick. Bolas can flexibly be used to close or make gaps, but it's not as strong of a cc in exchange. 

I was trying to look at it from all perspectives, but yeah, a lot of the suggestions came out as PvP.

 

Didn't realize the changes on rifle 1, so my mistake, and I guess I never noticed the might gain because of what I stated above with the over-saturation of Might in PvE.

I misread one of the words initially, and thought that volley provided bonus adrenaline without the vuln, so apologies for the confusion there. Even so, On My Mark gives 15 vuln in one cast, so it would be actually pretty easy to set up the extra adrenaline gain from volley by just bringing that.

I understand the rifle piercing is its whole thing, but I would argue that the usability of a skill far outweighs the weapon's theme. Not to mention, I'd like to actually hit things with the second hit of that, yeah? And it doesn't need to be a huge AoE. Just like, 150 Radius, enough to hit things adjacent to the target, but not in a larger cluster. I would also argue that warrior's ranged weapons ALL being melee focused is terrible, as every other class in the game can easily out-damage a warrior from afar, so being able to have at least one option that lets us do damage from afar ourselves that is power based would give us the means of doing so. And with pistol being a now removed from the pool of wepaons for upcoming future changes (that I know of), we don't need literally all of warrior's ranged options to be melee-esque.

From that perspective, I can see why the changes to physicals are as they are I suppose, though we're in sore need of more gap-closers than just Bull's Charge.

[Jzaku.9765]

In light of the recent patch, this is more relevant than ever.

[Kurenai.6258]

Seeing all the suggestions all these years for banners and they take out the BaLaNcE patch 28 June

you dare to give them suggestions for the long dead Rifle rework what a chad lol

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Yup, I am in, anything is better than rn. 

[Jzaku.9765]

25 minutes ago, Kurenai.6258 said:

Seeing all the suggestions all these years for banners and they take out the BaLaNcE patch 28 June

you dare to give them suggestions for the long dead Rifle rework what a chad lol

Well, I do have a sister thread to this about banners too: 

 

 

And I'd say Rifle is relevant since they just buffed Engi Rifle to enable a build that is 33k DPS purely autoattacking. Their autoattack now shoots faster than Volley...

[Jzaku.9765]

Edit to OP: made suggested changes easier to read

[Jzaku.9765]

Another balance patch comes and goes with no changes to Warrior Rifle :<

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

58 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Another balance patch comes and goes with no changes to Warrior Rifle :<

And sword and mace and Arms and most of our utilities and...

 

On the bright side, hammer is good again! That's progress! Slowly but surely...

 

A truly good ranged option on warrior would be really nice tho...

[Shadowpeixera.2918]

A Crack Shot rework ( and some other traits ) for rifle and bow are also kinda in need to happen. Honestly, i would like Volley to be AoE, like a suppressive fire approach. The weapon is too single target oriented, similar to LB Ranger, but LB has a aoe, brings more than just damage.

[Arewn.2368]

Stomp fills a reasonable role as an AoE counterpart to Bulls Charge. The fact that it blows people away is just counter productive on warrior. If they change the launch to a knock-down I think it would be good.

A pull would be interesting... But I don't know how well it fits into the skill. And I think the mobility is actually reasonably valuable.

Kick is... I don't know where a skill whose only function is a small knock-back is supposed to fit. It's such an inconsequential effect for a utility skill in current balance. It has only ever been useful as a way to proc trait effects, which is a terrible and boring place for a skill. This is where I'd put the launch effect. Launch has been removed from Wild Blow. I'm suggestion they remove it from Stomp now too. So this is where it could fit back in as an option for warriors to blow people away. A bit niche, but it would have a use at least an be reasonably potent.

Throw Bolas,  it has been said a million times. Add a flip skill that pulls the target. I don't think an awkward 3 target immob is going to fix the skill. You still just end up with a utility skill whose only effect is a lack luster ranged immob. The delay from the flip skill would adequately balance it against Scorpion Wire and Spectral Grasp.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Arewn.2368

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

10 minutes ago, Arewn.2368 said:

Kick is... I don't know where a skill whose only function is a small knock-back is supposed to fit. 

Bullying. Necros.

 

[Shadowpeixera.2918]

14 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Bullying. Necros.

 

Turns out that kicking spellcasters in the throat helps wonders against them spellcasting.

[Arewn.2368]

43 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Bullying. Necros.

 

Can we atleast bully necros without the disservice of needing to walk the extra 3 feet they get pushed away?

Might as well be a daze.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

31 minutes ago, Arewn.2368 said:

Can we atleast bully necros without the disservice of needing to walk the extra 3 feet they get pushed away?

Might as well be a daze.

But now you get quickness from it and a stacking movement modifier, so you can keep kicking them for their waypoint money.

[oscuro.9720]

Just give kick a no-precast evade frame and it will be filthy in duels. 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

5 hours ago, Arewn.2368 said:

Can we atleast bully necros without the disservice of needing to walk the extra 3 feet they get pushed away?

Might as well be a daze.

Kick is sub optimal, for sure. But you can use it to land some of your leap attacks like eviscerate, breaching strike, skull grinder, etc.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

40 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Kick is sub optimal, for sure. But you can use it to land some of your leap attacks like eviscerate, breaching strike, skull grinder, etc.

quickened kill shot, gunflame, flaming flurry, headbutt, volley....