Warrior Rifle Skills... Need Modernization.

[FalsePromises.6398]

I want to take a long hard look at two specific rifle skills: Volley and Brutal Shot. These two skills are probably some of the most dated skills in the list, and despite reworks, have never really had a good comeuppance. They may be useful, but they're clunky and/or slow. If you don't like reading, just take a glance at the bolded parts. 

To start with, Volley. The skill's notoriously slow, and as a result hardly results in good damage output against well-reactive enemies and/or compared against other weapons that just cast faster. I think the very simple solution to making this awkwardly slow skill better is to treat it like just about ANY other channeled damage skill that has been looked at in the past decade and increase its cast speed. Ghastly Claws (necromancer axe 2), Siphon (necromancer dagger 2), and Rapid Fire (ranger longbow 2) all saw big cast speed increases as a result of their questionable performance. If the damage of Volley can just be rebalanced afterwards (if necessary), why can't we treat Volley like these other skills and increase its speed to make it easier to use? By the way, that's half a rhetorical question, half a genuine question: if I'm unaware of some vital balance reason there, please feel free to enlighten me. 

Next, Brutal Shot. This skill just... doesn't make sense. Is it a primer skill with a dodge-roll aftercast that wastes time where you could be shooting at an immobilized target? Or is it a defensive skill with a clunky windup? This skill seems suboptimal to me because it's both: it's two separate skills and animations in one button, and they functionally clash. If you immobilize someone, you want to immediately cast more skills, not waste time with a defensive move. If you cast a dodging skill, you want to be immediately evading, not winding up with a random shot. To make this skill better, try thinking of Brutal Shot as ranger shortbow 3, Quick Shot, or thief shortbow 3, Disabling Shot. Their attacks and their defensive animations are seamlessly integrated with each other, and both the dodge and the attack happen at the same time instead of in a sequential, crowded manner. The immobilizing shot and the roll backwards in Brutal Shot need to become one animation that evades backwards AND fires an immobilizing shot at the same time, like those two shortbow skills, instead of two animations that disrupt each others' purposes. 

I'd just like to see rifle on warrior be better. Not to say it's bad (if I do say it's bad I'll get hounded by diehard Gunflame fans), it just feels clunky in application. So many weapons saw reworks that bettered them for similar reasons, or they were just originally made well and then rifle tried to take after them unsuccessfully, and I think rifle deserves to stand on par with those skills. I encourage people to share their thoughts on warrior rifle, I'd enjoy discussion or new perspectives on the weapon skills in question. If you only read the bolded parts, I recommend reading the rest if you want to respond to something. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

While you are unhappy with that rate of fire of Volley there are some things to note about it that are important to consider.

• Since it is a 2.5s channel the whole thing cannot be dodged with a single dodge or evade skill.
• Each individual shot is decent damage, meaning taking even 2 hits from it will be felt by your foe.

Volley is very good for fishing out dodges or burning their defensive CDs. If volley took half the time, 1.25s (0.25s per shot), it could easily be negated by a single dodge/defensive CD if you have quickness up. This means that no damage and thus no pressure is applied to the foe, while with the 2.5s cast time they'd still get hit by a few of the shots while also burning a defensive CD or dodge thus getting pressured by it.

Volley also has ammo and can be used again after 5s and can be recharged with Rifle 5 making it very effective at burning through dodges and defensive CDs.

Brutal Shot however should dodge before the shot not after. Could they borrow the Quickshot animation for it? Sure that would work too.

[eXruina.4956]

Just the Rifle skills? That's downplaying it by a lot. 🤣

[felix.2386]

only rifle needs modernization?  That's downplaying it by a lot. 🤣

[prototypedragon.1406]

Can I attach the rifle to my dusty Hammer please and thank you along with making the trigger on it replaced with my mace?

[FalsePromises.6398]

4 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

Just the Rifle skills? That's downplaying it by a lot. 🤣

4 hours ago, felix.2386 said:

only rifle needs modernization?  That's downplaying it by a lot. 🤣

I try to avoid making posts that wrap too many topics into one post, because it's way easier to have discussion on one specific topic than juggle like five different topics in the same thread. That said, I also focused specifically on rifle because I felt I had some good ideas on it. I'd just be spitballing random thoughts if I tried to include hammer, maces, and offhand sword, I frankly don't have any specific, developed ideas for those ones. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 minutes ago, FalsePromises.6398 said:

I try to avoid making posts that wrap too many topics into one post, because it's way easier to have discussion on one specific topic than juggle like five different topics in the same thread. That said, I also focused specifically on rifle because I felt I had some good ideas on it. I'd just be spitballing random thoughts if I tried to include hammer, maces, and offhand sword, I frankly don't have any specific, developed ideas for those ones. 

Maces and hammer would benefit from Body Blow dealing strike damage instead of a bleed stack.

[Kalthea.4326]

I feel that there are many more things that could be changed on rifle, namely increased overall damage, changing the cone explosion to a radial explosion, moving the backward evasion to the knockback to give it even more distance between you and your target, and changing the trait to either give bleeding or bullet penetration. Those are just off the top of my head as well, as I'm viewing the weapon from the viewpoint of all game modes and feel that those changes would make the weapon far more competitive in all content, allowing the master of weapons to have a ranged option for power builds.

[FalsePromises.6398]

10 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

While you are unhappy with that rate of fire of Volley there are some things to note about it that are important to consider.

• Since it is a 2.5s channel the whole thing cannot be dodged with a single dodge or evade skill.
• Each individual shot is decent damage, meaning taking even 2 hits from it will be felt by your foe.

Volley is very good for fishing out dodges or burning their defensive CDs. If volley took half the time, 1.25s (0.25s per shot), it could easily be negated by a single dodge/defensive CD if you have quickness up. This means that no damage and thus no pressure is applied to the foe, while with the 2.5s cast time they'd still get hit by a few of the shots while also burning a defensive CD or dodge thus getting pressured by it.

Volley also has ammo and can be used again after 5s and can be recharged with Rifle 5 making it very effective at burning through dodges and defensive CDs.

Brutal Shot however should dodge before the shot not after. Could they borrow the Quickshot animation for it? Sure that would work too.

That's an interesting take on Volley, glad to learn something. I still think volley could stand a small cast speed increase. Maybe down to 1.5 or 2 seconds, still retain part of that "longer than a dodge" identity but still being somewhat faster while casting, more dangerous outside of 1v1 situations. 

As for Brutal Shot, I was thinking maybe an animation like deadeye's Death's Retreat (non-kneel rifle 4). Probably would look too thiefy though, so they could maybe give it a new animation kinda like how thief staff autos have unique animations from revenant staff autos and so forth. 

Edited September 9, 2022 by FalsePromises.6398

[FalsePromises.6398]

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Maces and hammer would benefit from Body Blow dealing strike damage instead of a bleed stack.

We talking Glacial Heart kinda bonus damage proc, or Pulmonary Impact kinda bonus damage proc? I could see adding traits to make cc skills deal bonus delayed damage, but bonus damage on cc immediate impact might clash with the existing competitive balance notions. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 minutes ago, FalsePromises.6398 said:

We talking Glacial Heart kinda bonus damage proc, or Pulmonary Impact kinda bonus damage proc? I could see adding traits to make cc skills deal bonus delayed damage, but bonus damage on cc immediate impact might clash with the existing competitive balance notions. 

Lightening Rod to be specific, which is weakness+damage that can crit.

As for balance, the way that Body Blow works is that if there is stability on the target the trait does not proc, thus even if the bleed were replaced with strike damage that can crit, if the target has stability on them they will not take the damage. Pretty balanced by the very nature of how the trait functions. As to the scaling, it should be something like 0.65 to 0.8 scaling depending on the mode, i.e. to the amount of an auto attack level of damage.

[Lonecap.4105]

Explosive Shell is the only skill on rifle that is truly garbage. The weapon basically has 4 skills

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

16 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

Just the Rifle skills? That's downplaying it by a lot. 🤣

My thoughts exactly.  From the PVE standpoint, warrior has the most useless weapons in the game, in spite of having the most of them.

[felix.2386]

13 hours ago, FalsePromises.6398 said:

That's an interesting take on Volley, glad to learn something. I still think volley could stand a small cast speed increase. Maybe down to 1.5 or 2 seconds, still retain part of that "longer than a dodge" identity but still being somewhat faster while casting, more dangerous outside of 1v1 situations. 

yea, the can't not dodge is actually not interesting at all, any actual benefit should be felt and not be thought to.

clearly it is not felt by any of us

 

and clearly that's why ranger try to combo rapid fire with quickness as much as possible.

shorter cast time always wins

Edited September 10, 2022 by felix.2386

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Just now, felix.2386 said:

yea, the can't not dodge is actually not interesting at all, any actual benefit should be felt and not be thought to.

clearly it is not felt by any of us

 

and clearly that's why ranger right to combo rapid fire with quickness as much as possible.

shorter cast time always wins

That's more because of how stacked they can make the skill. You don't even need the full thing to hit to down someone. That and the ranger mains will be quick to remind you that it gets dodged completely all the time. Besides that volley can be used more often than RF, and is a great skill for fishing out dodges while still pressuring the target.

[felix.2386]

6 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

That's more because of how stacked they can make the skill. You don't even need the full thing to hit to down someone. 

do you not know any actual good PvP ranger build outside of that meme one trick glass soulbeast build?.

if it gets dodged all the time, why they still try to combo it with quickness as much as possible? when at base volley and rapid fire are literally the same skill in pvp.

like you are not making sense.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 minutes ago, felix.2386 said:

do you not know any actual good PvP ranger build outside of that meme one trick glass soulbeast build?.

if it gets dodged all the time, why they still try to combo it with quickness as much as possible? when at base volley and rapid fire are literally the same skill in pvp.

like you are not making sense.

There are plenty of good ranger builds (Untamed, immob beast, immob druid to name a few) but the sicem sniper is the best at 1800 range instagibs and has maul -> hilt bash -> maul on swap if someone makes it into melee range.

 

They are not the same Felix, RF has twice the CD, twice the shots, vuln stacks, and more possible damage modifiers that can boost it.

[FalsePromises.6398]

On 9/10/2022 at 6:59 AM, felix.2386 said:

yea, the can't not dodge is actually not interesting at all, any actual benefit should be felt and not be thought to.

clearly it is not felt by any of us

 

and clearly that's why ranger try to combo rapid fire with quickness as much as possible.

shorter cast time always wins

I half agree, that's why I wanted to take a tempered approach and reduce the cast time enough to make the skill feel like a burst skill, but not enough to remove that strategic identity. While ranger longbow and warrior rifle are very similar, they deviate in many ways (like cooldowns, skill refreshes, burst tactics, pinning skills, general strategy, even the class you're using affects your gameplay believe it or not). Keep in mind rifle has heavy burst skills (Kill Shot or Gunflame) that you want to weed out dodges for, especially with suboptimal pinning capabilities. That's why it's reasonable for Volley to not be a uberspeed burst skill in my opinion. 

Optimally, I think 1.75s cast time would be best. That's the same cast time as necromancer's axe 2, Ghastly Claws, which is a nice long cast with good burst potential still. Volley sitting at 2.5 seconds cast time feels really awkward in my opinion, even if it's got good reason.