Pierce alchemer
Tue, 07/09/2019 - 12:08
I am a gun enthusiast, and I love love my alchemers. I wanted to request a pierce style alchemer. or Pulsar. Both?
I think a pierce alchemer makes sense themewise, like it has shrapnel that splinters on contact. If permafroster and winter grave can be shadow, why not this.
Maybe make the Magma driver/ wildfire deal pierce damage, that seems like a super quick fix.
Currently the only pierce guns that you can move and fire are Riftlocker and Gilded griffin. These have elemental and shadow counterparts.
However there is no pierce alchemer or pierce pulsar though there are ele and shadow versions. I think pierce guns need some love.
Here's a number of guns per type, not counting exotic reskins like Nog blaster etc
Normal: 6 total, 6 unique (merging same gun with different statuses)
Ele: 12 total, 7 unique
Pierce: 6 total, 5 unique
Shadow: 9 total, 8 unique
I'm pretty sure it wouldnt hurt for Ele to share the Magma driver and Wildfire with the pierce family.
These guns currently see little to no use due to being outclassed by Nova driver/storm driver and polaris. I also think that people will be interested in getting the guns and farming will increase player activity. People will buy orbs from the supply depot. There we go, more revenue, more activity, better weapon coverage, world peace, and some seared brisket barbecue.
Tue, 07/09/2019 - 20:59
#2
Interesting
I think we can agree that we simply dont have as many pierce guns as we do elemental and shadow. For a switch gunner that likes to stay mobile our only option is the riftlocker and it is not nearly as good as an alchemer potentially would be. The griffin is worse. I can switch fire callahan and blitz bullets, but only while standing still. Not useful. Sure using the charge is very effective, but its boring and I don't wish to play that way. I just wish we could have one good shoot-while-moving pierce gun. I would enjoy shredding through fiends switching a pierce alchemer, and I guarantee a lot of people would want the same.
About the Magma driver, I think making it piercing would be be a easy way for them to create a pierce alchemer without designing a new weapon.
To your point though, I see Storms in pvp and Novas in pve. In Pve, enemies are often dead before the fire can tick twice, assuming it ignites the target on first shot anyhow. I'm not so sure that the gun's dps is actually that good, but regardless of its efficacy, I earnestly haven't seen any player use the magma driver. I'm fairly confident that it is underused. Making it pierce would certainly improve that, and fit theme-wise as well since the blistering heat of magma would pierce armor or something of the sort.
I hope that we can have more support so the devs consider it.
Tue, 07/09/2019 - 23:30
#3
Pierce-type alchemer would be
Pierce-type alchemer would be a nice addition (add stun status plz), but the magma driver isn't completely outclassed by nova driver. Magma driver can do better on pvp and vs huge groups of monsters, like magma Driver would be a better option than nova driver on FSC if the mission isn't fire-themed.
It's true that the current pierce weapons(except for blitz) doesn't do much well against pierce-weak monsters... That I would use a storm driver over a griffin/riftlocker against fiends. Callahan can still be useful for flinching and comboing with a sword though, but not worth as a main dpser... and beasts? Just use a DBB, toothpick, or acheron...
Switch-shooting magnuses and blitz can be useful though.
Wed, 07/10/2019 - 05:02
#4
I actually happen to own the suggestions forum. I inherited it from my great aunt. She gave me the keys and I keep them in a box. I don't want this thread there. We have many threads like this one and do not need another so you can keep it.
This is kind of misguided. We have a lot of guns. Our guns are the best weapons around. There is only one type of piercing sword. Sad. There are only two kinds of shadow swords. Sad. Most of swords are bad. The shard bombs have families to feed, big families and I think that we should pay them more so that they can eat.
There's also the idea that asymmetrical design is good. Imagine if there was a pure elemental blitz needle. Well everyone would use him and his line of blitz needles would be the only solution needed like why even have types if you're going to just make one of everything for everyone? The purpose is to force you to branch out. Go with the flow.
Lastly balance between weapons doesn't exist because nothing actually exists except you and me, alone together floating through space. Two souls lost. I'm actually crying right now because it's sort of beautiful. We all see our weapons as good and pure but they're not. They're just weapons that do things and they can be effective but we have preference. But like its a popularity contest and the gamers don't know. The gamers just don't know.
Wed, 07/10/2019 - 05:17
#5
right
There's also the idea that asymmetrical design is good.
This is what I always point out in these threads. To take the idea to the extreme, consider a new weapon system that is entirely customizable. You pick any style of gun you like: alchemer, Pulsar, Magnus, etc. Then you pick a damage type. Then you pick either a status or extra damage. So, for example, you could end up with alchemer-shadow-extra (Umbra Driver) or Antigua-normal-fire (which doesn't currently exist).
And my point is that such a system would be boring. Symmetry is beautiful, but the right amount of asymmetry spices it up.
Of course, this general argument leaves room for a lot of details. For example, Zenphyre's point that some piercing guns could be buffed, to balance piercing's other drawbacks, has some merit. But the other posters' point, that swords and bombs need attention first, is even better.
Wed, 07/10/2019 - 06:11
#6
Thank you Bopp please could we go for coffee some time I promise I will be good
But yea I don't even hate the symmetrical design I just think it makes things hard to balance and that it can't be perfectly symmetrical like look at gunner armors no one that isn't collecting them for sport is going to craft most of them they just pick the best of the best so it makes sense not to do that with armor, weapons etc. to force variety in a sense.
Also you could totally use scarcity to balance symmetrical design like if every weapon variant possible rotated one per month craftable but that isn't spiral knights !
Wed, 07/10/2019 - 12:00
#7
Uniform Asymetry
Promo as a matter of fact, I AM your great aunt back from retirement. I have returned to reclaim what's mine.
Jokes aside, I completely dig the idea of Asymetrical design. Variety keeps the game interesting. Having each weapon recopied with all 4 damage types is rather dull and not exciting.
However, I feel that there should be uniform variety. Ele has 12 guns, 7 unique, and pierce has 6 guns 5 unique. So pierce simply needs more. As Flying Fish pointed out both fire-on-moving pierce guns are pants, compared to the alchemers. If we had unlimited resources sure i'd love a new unique pierce gun that could shoot while moving and do some decent dps. Instead, a reskin of an existing common weapon would be cheaper and still fill the gap that currently exists.
Just a minor peeve if that's alright. But, lets really not belabor the point by bringing more tangents like swords & bombs & god forbid other games, because then we cant reach a conclusion we just create a bigger salad. Plus that reform would take a lot more steps to fix, this is much quicker.
Promo is very right about asymetrical design. But maybe we could afford a pierce alchemer just this once <3
Wed, 07/17/2019 - 14:20
#8
ehh
Suggestions forums is my lurk forum so I agree this should go there, but seeing as it hasn't already been moved we can just have the discussion out here anyways.
I do like the asymmetrical design we currently have, however it's worth noting that weapon's attack styles usually should line up with how effective they are VS a monster family. Flourish lines, for example, are excellent at taking down beast and fiends due to their jumpy nature and the range of its hits. A brandish can split to be either elemental or shadow and do well because the monsters weak to shadow or elemental either just stand still and take the hit, or dodge backwards, which leads the explosions of the charge to hit them anyways.
Then we take a look at what the gunner update added in. Fast moving projectiles allowed for an easier time fighting gremlins who would normally dodge out of the way of other shadow guns, and some mobile piercing guns with quick bullets filled a niche where gunners ultimately suffered.
However, alchemers have one of the slowest bullets in the game, with only catalyzer and pulsar being slower. As such, actually hitting pierce-weak enemies with these bullets can prove difficult. Pulsar bullets may be easier to land a few hits on fiends due to their large hitbox, but hitting wolvers can prove difficult.
Also I figured it was a bit unfair to compare the number of pierce guns straight up. I have an old spreadsheet I made to help define the different weapon types. Here's the rundown (this is pre-wand): https://i.imgur.com/d2etV3t.png
Of the listed types, there are 9 different styles of guns. Of these nine types there are:
- 6 normal variants
- 5 piercing variants
- 6 elemental variants
- 8 shadow variants
(this does not include multiple status types for the same damage type)
So while piercing does have the least amount in terms of gun variation, it's not too short in comparison to normal or even elemental. Heck, if you take the mixer off the table, piercing and elemental have the same total number of variations, and there's a shadow gun for every category.
So essentially, piercing guns are in a pretty nice spot where it stands, as they cover everything except mobile AoE, which is an attack style that is hard to make work with dodgy enemies anyways. I'd love to try such weapons out on a testing server to see if they're even viable, but I have a feeling that they wouldn't be.
Wed, 07/24/2019 - 08:47
#9
This should be on
This should be on suggestions. Move it to there, please.
Fri, 08/02/2019 - 22:11
#10
Topic Moved! +
Hello. I wasn't aware I have the ability to move the topic. It has been moved. Thanks for updates and more importantly your opinion.
Again, the request is to add more fire-while-moving pierce guns. The topic is not that pierce doesn't have enough guns (which is kinda also true, but more up to debate i suppose). Now look at our weapon options for pierce. I mentioned it in the first post and fangel did in the one just preceding this one, and here's my take. There's only two pierce guns that fire while moving, and six elemental ones that do so. It's not asymmetrical equality, it's inequality right now.
So, consider PVE encounters with pierce-weak wolvers, bats, devilites. To your point Fangel, they are able to dodge singleshot bullets of the riftlocker and griffin, making those weapons suboptimal to use. However, they are hit repeatedly and efficiently by the alchemer and its bounces. That's specifically why im asking for a pierce alchemer, because i'm having better results doing normal damage to them via shadow/ele alchemers compared to the pierce guns.
I've observed that their dodging has little to do with bullet speed since they do dodge the antigua class. So the fact that the alchemer bullet is medium speed is not the issue. I think its has more to do with their diminished ability to dodge the bouncing bullets and also the number of bullets you can quickly dish out. The bounces are invaluable firing into a group of them charging at you.
I think we have a similar but simpler discussion in PVP. You can't safely use the Blitz, callahan, and savage tortofist there, their rooting you is just fatal. That's why shoot&move is important to me. Again, Pierce has only two such guns that both are represented in ele and in shadow. However ele and shadow have 3+ others that don't have a pierce alternative. It's lopsided right now, and adding a pierce alchemer would bring it closer to asymmetrical as we want.
First off this should be in Suggestions and not in General Discussion.
Second, I like the idea of a pierce alchemer but it'll lean more towards a specialized role and not general utility. A pierce pulsar wouldn't make sense because the shots are energy-based plus the enemies that are weak to piercing are fast and dodgy that having that would only cause more chaos and latency issues than what the game's current pulsar line already has.
Also, Callahan. I saw that you referred Winter Grave and if you know Callahan is a pierce only gun that's also part of the magnus line shared by Winter Grave. It's just as fun and great to use as IS and WG but as mentioned, it isn't as great as the other two because most of the enemies are either resistant or neutral to piercing and the other two play a better role in dealing with enemies. The bullets are fast enough to hit those weak to it sure but you have to have either amazing aim or AT on just to land the hits, plus with ASI on it you can single/dual switch between so you have a consistent damage output with the gun which is a bit more difficult than other guns due to the slower output. Or you know... spam OP charge shot.
I'll take the "magma driver/wildfire is outclassed" as an insult because if you're a real gunner, then you should know that magma driver has the HIGHEST DPS in the alchemer lines due to consistent fire damage. Nova/umbra driver have the HIGHEST DIRECT DAMAGE output for each shot but they lack a status which balances it out. What you should be concerned more on is Hail Driver because the status on that gun can break if any of the other bullets hit the enemy that's frozen by it. There's several threads discussing this particular gun but the way I see it is that with this one you have to be more technical with it in order to get effective crowd control. It's the confusing one in the alchemer line but it shines in certain situations that the others don't. Same goes for Wildfire as it deals the HIGHEST DPS output in the pulsar line. I wouldn't consider these two outclassed by others and if you know most gunners then you will see that they have at least magma driver in one of their main loadouts; the only issue with these two guns is that you have to be careful that you don't light oilers on fire and same goes for storm driver that you don't charge up quicksilvers.
Finally, I'm not sure if this was part of the devs plan but the majority of SK gunners tend to have guns that are mostly elemental/shadow. Why? It's because most of the enemies in the Clockworks are either weak/neutral to them and elemental hits critically to two of the three enemy turrets, while the last one it hits neutral. Also some of the elemental/shadow guns have a status to them which makes them more preferable than the piercing guns, the only one having a status is Callahan. Pierce in clockworks is also more of a specialized damage than the other two because for those weak against it, shadow tends to produce either the same or higher damage output than the piercing ones; an unrelated example would be Acheron killing wolvers much faster than flourishes even though it's shadow and flourishes are piercing.
To have more players attracted to these guns (my own opinions and they don't have to be correct), either increase the damage output to the current pierce guns to outshine the ones that hit harder on pierce weak enemies or add a status to them. Even then they wouldn't be more popular because they don't have as much use as the other two damage lines and pierce leans more towards specific scenarios. Even normal guns like valiance or iron slug tend to outclass pierce guns. Adding two more pierce guns wouldn't increase player activity, it'll only remain the same because 1.) its only two guns and 2.) it's only specific towards one damage line that isn't used as much. For better weapon coverage, pierce really isn't viable since as mentioned shadow hits reasonably hard on enemies neutral to it and if they're resistant to it then switching to elemental is viable. If any case the majority (I may be wrong) of gunners normally go with two damage types and adding a third only adds more work. With two types it'll be easier for them to single/dual switch and when it comes to alchemers it gives them consistency in damage output and crowd control.
If there's anything that needs to be added to the game weapon-wise, I would only suggest giving bombs a buff because that's a priority since bombers aren't getting enough credit for being useful in clockwork runs besides being support. Guns are already OP from the gunner update and hit just as much as swords when used right. Look at the blaster line: Arcana hits very hard and covers for most the enemies and in LD is the preferred gun for almost all the strikers; heck it's also better in utility than Valiance which is normal damage. I'll go with you on the pierce alchemer but it's gonna take a lot more than that to have players interested since this damage line isn't all that popular, plus as mentioned it leans more towards a specialized role and/or are normally collected just to have in their arsenal. I may be right and wrong in some aspects of this whole thing but it's gotta take more than just adding two pierce guns to increase player activity. Til then! o^o/