In spite of the whining, I must agree with the purpose: Polaris and Brandish are powerful. Not incredibly-wet-yourself-every-day powerful, more along the lines of sudden-urge-to-liquid-so-go-to-the-toilet powerful. This is mostly due to their damage. Pulsar lines easily need a damage nerf, but not necessarily a range or explosion reduction. It is a kiting weapon, not a grenade launcher. I could explain a rational reduction rate but no one would read it and assume all of it is wrong because they did not go through the process. Brandish lines, more specifically the element ones, also need a slight damage reduction; not Nightblade, it should do a little more than its counterparts to begin with for its lack of a status.

Otherwise Asukalan is correct.

Very slightly. Element Brandish lines could use about 4% damage reduction, though mathematically that is very little. Three Rings should have nerfed swords instead of buffing guns and bombs, then lower the damage of Pulsar lines overall by about 12%. I was going to do balance notes on these but decided against it seeing as no one seems to read them anyway. Lowering Pulsar clip size to two would also contribute to the pile.

...why are you generally nerfing damage for brandishes? I still don't get that. If the charge's EXPLOSIONS are the only thing causing statuses, why nerf the sword in general?

Often trollaris shots become so massively abundant that it is genuinely impossible to dodge. In such situations (they often arise in GvG) the only way to counter is more trollaris (or sometimes long range RSS). Nerfing damage a bit doesn't fix the mechanical issues with this gun; three (or more, they can team up) shots stacked still hurt like crazy, and the gun still floods the stage. This makes it a bit worse for PvE, but you're not fixing it in PvP. It's perfectly fine to allow players to hole up a pathway, it's not okay for polaris shots to hole up half the stage.

what happened to you? You were the one who used to make giant paragraphs in detail of why something shouldnt happen or werent feasible...Now you are a silly person saying some random things instead of pure analysis. I loved how profesional you were, I even looked up to you, I even thought you were a developer secretly getting onto the forums to give indirect feed back on why something couldnt happen. You say some logical things now and then but you just arent the same person who posted on these suggestion forums months ago.

OP:

I feel the weapons are fair in regards to damage. I also dont understand why people get hit by Polaris so much. If you get hit by it avoid it or go dodge the bullets, you can even go around and attack people in the back. I think people just charge into the polaris bullets straight on. I feel like these weapons dont need to be nerfed.

Apparently anyone who has near-flawless spelling and grammar is a developer in disguise. That's what I've heard around the ever-insightful Suggestions Forum, anyway.

By the way, I do actually read most of your large balancing posts, but I'm too lazy to do my own calculations. As such I feel as if I'm not qualified to agree with or contest what you write. Would you like me to write something like, "I read that post. Good job working it all out since no one else will, and maybe these items will receive some form of balance in the future," each time you make one of those posts just for the sake of making it known that I do in fact read them?

@This thread
I've always felt higher-level Brandish-line swords became too strong when the element of randomness was taken away from their charge attack. I don't know/care how effective they are in PvP, but in a PvE environment they make almost everything a breeze now.

 
Pulsar-line guns are not overpowered in my book. They have a variety of advantages and drawbacks in PvE, but I feel that's not where people's concerns lie, so I'll state my views on these guns in PvP:

The simple fact of the matter is that the community at large has found that its mechanics are very useful in the PvP environment. When used by a single player, these guns reach the peak of their usability when they are fired in a narrow passage - shots become nearly impossible to avoid. However, when multiple players on the same team happen to have them and end up staggering their shots just right, Pulsar-line guns effectively behave like a constant barrage of bombs that can be placed without the usual risk in placing bombs, and can even be used to control open areas. This goes for all Pulsar-line guns, not just Polaris.

Again, the guns do not seem overpowered to me. Their damage output, status infliction potential, and knockback capabilities are perfectly fine. It just so happens that their mechanics play right into the way Lockdown works and, more importantly, the way people work.

If you get hit by a Pulsar shot and end up being knocked back, your first reaction is probably going to be an attempt at compensating for lost distance, and you will get hit again when you attempt that. If that isn't your reaction and you end up getting hit again by the same Pulsar, you probably need to pay better attention to your surroundings. If that isn't your reaction, you were paying attention, and you still end up getting hit by the same Pulsar, I don't know what to tell you.

If you get shocked by a Pulsar shot and no one is around to cover you while your opponent goes in for the kill, you've probably just failed to coordinate proper strategy with your teammates, explicitly or implicitly. If your team collectively decided to tell everyone to capture points, that doesn't mean you should each try to capture different points individually. This happens all too often, and (in my experience) usually ends in failure. If your team told everyone to group up and capture points, that doesn't mean you should step on each other's feet and end up getting hit by the same weapon (which I've seen happen on occasion). If your team told everyone to split into squads and try to flank/capture points and everyone still ends up dead, I'd just call that bad luck. >_>

If you're alone and you get swarmed by enemy Pulsar shots while trying to defend or capture a point, you've probably decided that defending or capturing that point is more important than sticking with your team or trying to escape. That is, you decided to sit on the point while your team went off to capture others, and when you saw the enemy team shoot at you you decided to defend it with your life. Either that or you decided to rush alone to an enemy capture point without considering the fact that your team might be able to help you counter a potential Pulsar barrage.

The way I see it, the supposed problem with Pulsar-line guns is actually a problem with people. People flock to the oh-so-powerful Striker class and forgo defensive/supportive roles in the team. In my first experiences with Lockdown when it was released, I remember people trying out all three classes and matches being played out relatively evenly. At some point, people "figured out" that the way to win the game was to use the Striker class with a full Skolver set, Flourish-style swords, Pulsar-line guns, and maybe a few other weapons. At that point, Lockdown became a game of trinkets and Unique Variants, not of tactics. People started thinking that since they've got the right loadout, they can leave teammates and tactics behind and go headfirst into capturing points. When they do this, they can find themselves seemingly overwhelmed by the power of a Pulsar-line gun.

The reason Pulsar-line guns are apparently effective is because the Striker class is about trading away defense in return for speed and power. Having speed makes it easy for a Striker to run into Pulsar-line guns' large bullets, and a lack of defense makes these bullets hurt.

Well heck, Pulsar-line guns are also effective on Recons and Guardians, right? Recons have no shield either, and Pulsar-style bullets cover a large enough area that it makes it difficult to dodge all bullets all the time. Guardians are slow, so their shields will break in a pretty short amount of time anyway, and then they're left defenseless.
 

        Derp.

 
That's why there are three classes, and multiple players on a single team.

Guardians can tank a couple of Pulsar shots for Strikers and Recons. While the enemies are reloading, the Strikers and Recons can go out and chase the enemies down, hopefully distracting the enemy at least enough for the Guardians' shields to restore a bit. The Guardians can then go defend and heal their teammates as they take down the Pulsar-spamming enemies.

Sure, that's a pretty idealist scenario, but my point is that proper teamwork and a variety of equipment can outmatch Pulsar-style guns if executed well.

It's not even necessary to have multiple classes. I remember a few matches recently where some guy and I had a couple of different guns - Drivers and Antigua upgrades. When we each followed a different "Skolver clone" teammate to different points, more often than not our covering fire was usually able to back up the Skolver clone enough to capture and defend any given point. In the case when any of our small groups became overwhelmed at a point, the whole team would go in and knock everything out fairly easily. Naturally, "everything" includes enemies totting Pulsar-line guns.

TL;DR: I think that equipment variation and teamwork can easily counter Pulsar-line guns if you do it right. I also think that Pulsar-line guns are not overpowered. Note that these are my opinions, and they may or may not reflect your own views.

Go ahead and point out holes in my opinions. They are my opinions, and they are based on my experiences. Your experiences are undeniably different from mine, so your opinions based on your experiences will be different from my opinions based on my experiences. I've laid out my two cents, and that's what a forum is for. Deal with it.

Well if your concern is Pulsars' use in PvE, I guess the only thing I have to say is that I agree with you for the most part. I said their use, not their mechanics.

Back when I actually ran Clockworks in parties, I dealt with a fun load of inconsiderate knockback as a primary bomber. I'm not afraid to say that when I first got a Pulsar of my own, I contributed to some of the terrible knockback myself. I would "sweep" (going by your metaphor) enemies into a corner and out of teammates' lines of fire. In time I learned when/how to use my Pulsar for the benefit of the team - keeping enemies off of teammates' backs, pushing stray enemies into areas where teammates were going to deal damage next, or even pushing enemies into the radius of my Shivermist so my teammates would have easy targets later.

I'm considering myself a showcase of how Pulsars' strength is (again) defined by people, not by mechanics. Although the OP was concerned about the guns' power in PvP, I think it's not unreasonable to say a Pulsar can also seem overpowered in PvE when used selfishly. If someone decides to sweep all enemies into a corner with a Pulsar, then derp. Suddenly the Pulsar is sucking away from everyone else's potential and barfing it out slowly in the corner while people elsewhere flail around with their now-useless weapons.

I know you weren't saying Pulsars are overpowered in PvE, I just thought I'd build upon my previous argument using yours as scaffolding. Soon I will have built a skyscraper. I'll let you have your barbeque on the roof if you'd like.

@Metagenic One direction you say?

forgive me for posting that :P

you had to bring that up... I knew someone was eventually T.T

Brandish lines deserve a nerf on their charge.

Polaris is a bleh weapon to begin with; it does less damage than the alchemers, and is harder to hit stuff with. It can be used well, but isn't that amazing.

Or you can do the same thing with an alchemer, doing about 80 more damage per shot. Per shot, including easy to hit ricochets.

Brandish lines are no overpower -.-
The range is not to good...they only deal status on their charge attack.
You cant nerf something just because you dont like it =/

Alchemers don't need to push to deal more dps. No positioning required, besides actually shooting with a brain.

On topic: I feel like polaris could use a range nerf. The effective trolling area would be reduced quite a bit.