now tell me why brandishes shouldn't be removed too on those same arguments.

the solution to a slow game is and will always be to lower your settings.

About the weapons' properties, you can always improvise, adapt, overcome.

- puts catalyzer line in a bad perspektive
You could argue that Blaster out-competes Catalyzer. It is worth noting that when the Gunner Update was previewed a billion years ago, Pulsar was reduced in damage closer to Blaster levels.

[Brandish] - doesn't put any other line in a bad perspektive (maybe flourishes....but not really)
There was a time when the humble Calibur was the weapon of of choice for new players and rightfully so. That era ended the day Brandish got the death ray charge. Oh, and there's the small matter of higher base damage too.

Here we go againnnnnnn

I'll type more later and entertain this thread. At the moment I'm posting from my phone lol

HAHahahahahahahahaahhahahahaahaahaHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahahaa!

So it is unbalanced, then it should be removed... NEVER MIND THE GUNNER UPDATE, remove everything!

see threads like these get lots of comments but my thread about scarabs got only 2 :C what the fox ppl

PvP

I think that we need weapons like polaris and supernova to support newer players and give them something that they can use well against older generations of players. If polaris were removed and lockdown became much more oriented around the typical hand to hand combat battles we see often, then it would be much hard for newer players come in and get kills period, which makes the meta feel even more frustrating.

Experienced players do use it, but more often than not have better options like flourishes, valiance, things they can perform close combat with, and only use polaris to threaten points and block choke points. In this regard, it does actually add something to the game, and is still a skill based weapon-- even if the "skill" is as simple as knowing when to use it and when not to.

I am of course, not a heavy lockdown player, so this is just from casual observation. Moving on.

PvE

In PvE, Polaris and Supernova are actually very competent weapons when used correctly. The only problem is that they have a bad reputation for being completely detrimental (especially in the hands of a novice) to many of the established strategies found commonly in over played areas such as firestorm citadel and arenas. These types of situations make the unpredictable and extreme knockback of the weapons very detrimental, but where they really shine is against target mobs mixed in with fiends and beasts, as well as whenever the party is using knockback to it's advantage.

Two polaris friendly examples come to mind- the unknown passage, where bombs can be used to permanently knock away mobs while polaris/supernova aid them to knock away larger and more danger targets, and compounds, where mini enemies at a distance can be shot at using pulsar line weapons for good effect. Whenever grave scarabs fly past you? Polaris them. Mini slimes or bunnies attacking your friends? Supernova them into a corner at the right angle and spam them to death.

Another thing that you forget is that the charge and small bullets can be quite useful as well. The charge allows the knight to deal with close ranged enemies such as beasts using what would otherwise be a terrible weapon to use against them, and the smaller bullets allow you to deal decent close ranged damage that doesn't aggravate your party, enabling only one elemental type gun per loadout should you choose. Knowing when to use the charge and unexpanded shots as opposed to the massive knockback shots requires a bit of practice, and adds great depth to the weapon.

This sort of creative gameplay using the weapon can be extended to many areas, and is much less limited than you might think.

Spam

The concept of spam being terrible in all cases is quite simply incorrect. If spam is able to earn me kills on monsters or players, then there must be something more to it than it just being random attacks. I don't sit in the ready room spamming charges, because I know very well that monsters won't attack me there. Similarly, on heart of ice I often draw monsters to me by firing supernova at the wall nearby them, causing them to teleport towards me. If I strafe around devilites spamming my polaris, then I have a deliberate plan to kill them in that fashion, and while it may be a very spammy plan to kill them, it remains a very purposeful tactic that I am using. If spamming polaris near your base in lockdown kills you, then maybe you shouldn't charge blindly into a wall of polaris shots.

There are cases where you can just shoot the weapon to win, but in no major arena is this a viable tactic. In all cases, you have to at least have a plan and be practiced in executing that plan; i.e. some degree of skill.

Against Turrets

Polaris is a very strong counter to all turrets, but also a very slow counter. In order for you to get off enough shots to kill turrets, you have to slow your movement for several seconds out in the open, shooting your slowly expanding shots. Compare this to either the mixmaster at close range (which kills much faster), or the alchemer charges at a distance. The alchemers can, on a good day, out damage brandish charges if all of it hits. The difference is that polaris doesn't need a charge, and is better for strafing around, engaging in ranged combat. This implies a balance between the three flavors of shock+elemental handgun.

"polaris/supernove should be removed"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA



















no

You're not wrong about the careless spamming of the weapon... I very rarely see people that use it effectively like I said, or at all really. Most people either have mixmaster if they can afford it, or alchemers, which are really a bit better overall, but mostly just easier to use effectively.

PvP is kind of a joke and should hardly be taken into consideration fully when it comes to balance. I mean, lets look- most bombs are worthless in PvP, the mixmaster is legitimately allowed in play, variants are allowed in play, as are trinkets, the balance on heart trinkets in particular is severely broken, defense on armor is all just shot up to 100 and does very little outside of that.... no matchings, no creation of parties, you can't even choose the map you want to play on. Lockdown is just a minigame.

@Dreamless Reaper

I think that decreasing its power drastically effects the elemental+shock gun balance, and removes it from the equation altogether.

@Fehzor

Oh look, another post of easily counterable words (not even an argument!)
Lets get started:

"Most bombs are worthless in PvP"
-Stagger Storm, Voltaic Tempest, Dark Briar Barrage, Nitronome, Venom Veiler, Electron/Graviton Vortex, Shivermist Buster, Irontech Destroyer

"The mixmaster is legitimately allowed into play"
What about it is OP? The slow and hard to aim projectiles, or the damage?

"Variants are allowed into play"
The benefit of variants follows a horizontal asymptote, due to the existence of invinciframes and the true difference they make. Its not like VH makes a weapon twice as fast as med. Also, read zeddy's thread to discover how useless defence UVs are. Also, realize that vh asi isnt always the best. Try to figure out why.

"Heart trinkets balance"
Remember when you could two hit any striker as recon? Probably not. Heart trinkets are laughably easy to obtain. Its not like you have to grind for TLLs, when you can craft a penta with little effort. You really have no excuse for NOT having a penta, since its so easy to get.

"Defense on armor is shot up to 100"
With a little thought, one would realize that this implementation prevents triple max armors from dominating LD with defense UVs. It counters the UV point. Nice consistency...

"Creation of parties"
Be more specific.

"Cant choose map"
Since when was this a real, serious issue? Just you being an overly demanding you-know-what about it.

TL;DR
Pathetic

I agree with you that polaris should be nerfed so kindly shut up...YOU should be removed.

Also, you should be glad Three Rings made Spiral Knights the way they did. Sure there may be some absurd mechanics in a certain game YOU don't like, but that doesn't mean YOU have to POST about it. And no, I am NOT saying "I F-ING LOVE POLARIS", just saying YOU should APPRECIATE the effort that's put into the game.

In my opinion, I think that polaris can actually boost someone's stamina if they're able to endure it. It also helps the world spin and allows for development to happen.

Lockdown

Polaris: causes shock --> Makes people get shock immunities or suffer the consequences --> People make money from these sales --> Economy is good.

Polaris: causes knock back --> Try thinking outside of the box. Outsmart people. --> Learn new techniques --> Survive for longer --> Become a great team support

Polaris: spam (1) --> Makes people think '' Go into spam and kill spammer'' --> Rage
Polaris: spam (2) --> Makes people think '' Go to another point and don't waste time on this spammer '' --> More caps --> Carry team --> Win!

@OP Also, you might want to consider the consequences of banning polaris. Promise would be devastated if it was to be removed.

@Octaslash

I've never seen anyone that knows what they're doing in lockdown bring anything besides haze bombs or occasionally nitronome. Dark briar barrage might work as well. The trinkets are an issue because many players don't use them and allowing pentas in lockdown makes striker the super class that we see today. The mixmaster (and celestial sabre for that matter) aren't bad because they're unbeatable, they're bad because a large number of players cannot get them and being killed by one feels like you're getting cheated because of it.

As for the variants, I know exactly what they do, and hopefully you do to. Consider a striker wearing skolver with double stun max, shock max and fire max unique variants. If I am a bomber dropping haze bombs, this guy is going to be unstoppable unless I somehow figure out that he's weaker to poison. He can just zoom in and cut me to bits. The fact that having no defense is the same as having 100 defense undervalues defenses, reducing the penalty for not defending against that type. This is fine and dandy, but if I'm trying to use defensive armors then I'm basically wasting my time. It does invalidate all non-same type UVs which, while a net positive thing, is still lying to the player.

The reason why not having any control over party size, map, rules and regulations is an issue is because of how these are standard features in other PvP games that lockdown would have to compete with. Not having them makes organizing matches frustrating, and really just removes control from the player entirely. Consider a sport like basketball. Notice how whenever you play 1 v 1 in basketball, you don't have to find 10 other people to watch you, and then travel to a random basketball stadium. You can just play. Chess is the same way. League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, Dota, are the same way. The Binding Of Isaac, when raced using same seeds is the same way.

Regardless of how you spin them, fair play and control over rules, regulations, maps etc. are staples of competitive games. Lockdown just doesn't support these things, and it really shows- especially when you look at what other people think of the greater competitive games as being.

Control over maps and teams would make playing "games" easier. There isn't a point in dueling with recon on an ice map due to the fact that recons are made incredibly obvious due to footsteps. Letting players at least vote on maps would allow them to avoid maps that make camping easy or have builds that negatively affect your class.

Snow maps make recons easier to find
Spikes/traps on maps can punish unwary strikers
Large maps make it hard for Guardians to get anywhere fast

One thing that isn't in LD is team balancing. I seriously want this in LD, just because I'm tired of full teams of UVed BKC/Chaos/Skolver ending up pitted against teams of low ranked knights that just got their first 4star item.

your "counters" to fehzor's arguments are the ones that are pathetic, IMO, fehzor is 100% right in all the points he made, the things you said do not disprove anything.

Specially the one for heart trinkets, being able to get one doesn't make it any more balanced, if that were the case then theres no excuse to say that LD is unbalanced because we can simply be all clones and use the same weapon, armor, trinkets and uvs, and everything suddenly becomes balanced? no, no you clearly don't have the slightest idea what the concept of balance means.

I'd respond to more but really I barely think that anyone could take what you said seriously.

My Gigawatt Pulsar has been really helpful this past Punkin King event while hunting for grim scarabs. Run into an area, wake everything up, lure them to an entrance, and fire one shot per second. Its enough to knockback a charging scarab, and keep it pinned down while maintaining an even amount of damage, keeping a dangerous melee enemy away from me (a pure gunner).
Also works well once you get a solid enough mass of dust zombies, since the zombies behind the front ranks stop the front rank from being knocked back, and the shock spams help kill things faster.
Its not a offensive gun, like some people try to treat it as. Its a utility gun, it has its uses, and shines when used correctly in the correct setting. Probably works better in a solo scenario than a party.

And as a gunner, the most annoying thing to me? Someone using a brandish charge on an enemy I'm aiming a charged alchemer/blitz at and knocking them out of the way. I don't complain, other gunners I know don't complain. The reverse scenario: A gunner using a Pulsar to knock back/aside an enemy that a swordie is trying to attack. All of a sudden we get a verbal torrent of abuse for messing up their attack, despite the fact that they've done it to us at least 5 times in the last fight. Apparently is alright for a swordie to run around brandish charging stuff all over the place and messing up gunners attacks, but not in reverse.

The reason people hate pulsars is that they can't get close enough to unleash a brandish charge on them. Its designed as an area denial weapon, and it does that job perfectly. The shots are slow enough as is to dodge, and any nerfs would affect the PvE setting, making it more useless than the Iron Slug.
Spiral Knights is a 4 player online Co-Op game in its core mechanics, Lockdown is just a minigame mode attached to it.

Instead of nerfing the Pulsar line, OOO should fix the graphics issue that causes the freezing and stuttering (Pulsar shots cause lag while brandish charges and blast bombs don't? Somethings not right here) and the netcoding. Remove the graphics freezes and reducing ping would do far more to fixing the Pulsar than nerfing it. Also, fix the same freeze when detonating Catalyzer bullets as well.

Wow, just wow. You are telling OOO to remove one of the most useful guns out there? Very good, please continue.
And for the record,
- aren't used very much in PvE
- are used a bit more often in PvP
- is considered a 'spam' weapon
1. Considering my polaris has almost never left my inventory since the roar update... i call b.s on this
2. I dont play PvP and calling a weapon bad because people use it in PvP just makes you a laughing stock
3. What is this i dont even....

>remove weapons 2 op
>add weapons wher da gunner update
JUST.
CLASSIC.

I personally agree that Polaris and friends detract from the game experience as a whole. They are actually somewhat fun to fight against in PvP, but I can use a 3* pulsar in FSC without trouble. They are more easy mode than Brandish.

What I think is that the guns should do zero knockback, and only have a large AoE. Then you cannot corner enemies with the gun, and it still has the same mechanics, of getting stronger as they travel. (A brilliant idea, btw.)

I think the polaris should have some changes, but not that ones you think, and for completely different reasons.

As an Australian player (and I'm pretty sure al australian players would agree with me), polaris is a pain to play against. In Australia, 200ms ping is amazing, 300ms is good.

When the polaris shots go through the change from small to big, it creates lag. Now imagine in PvP, with 5 polaris spammers. Impossible to play. The internet connection can't keep up with the play.

My suggestion:
Don't nerf polaris, just change the shot size change. Now, you're thinking that this would make polaris redundant, because that was its major feature, but I'm suggesting keep the same attack speed, same total range, but make the shot size always the big size.

TL; DR: Change polaris shots so they are always the big shots.

Supernova is actually kinda underpowered in my opinion, so I guess it's fine in it's current state, Polaris in the other hand, needs a bit of a nerf.
Just make the bullets a little less huge and don't let it shock when bullet are tiny, reducing it's damage or speed would just kinda ruin it.

PvE: I've done runs with Polaris only, boring as heck and easy it doesn't even need skill, just keep spam pushing them from away GG
PvP: Creates amazing lag when there's 2 or more players using it, and it's possible to dodge it yes, but sometimes you can't dodge bullets from a lot of people spamming it at the same time.

But who cares, this thread has been done multiple times since years ago, there won't be a fix about this anytime soon so just deal with it.

It's been broken since 2011.

Make it a 2 clip gun or make the shock weaker or occurring more rarely.