Alchemers Make No Sense To Me

1 reply [Last post]
Biosaur

The Alchemer line to me is a little bit confusing, because of the way the bounce works. Generally speaking, you wont land the bounce very often, since it always bounces towards you, and to the right.
First of all, this makes it really hard to land a good bounce because you'd have to shoot an enemy behind and to the left of another, which, to me, seems awkwardly specific. I assume the reason why the shot always bounces right is because otherwise it would be too random, but even then the angle is still random, and its asymmetricality ticks me off.
The only consistent(ish) way of landing the bounce would be to shoot to the left side of the monster, so the bounce is created inside the monster, thus hitting it twice. However, even this is not that consistent, and you also can't use auto target with it, or else it just hits the middle of the monster. This, to me, seems like a very awkward and clunky mechanic.
Besides, (even though this has nothing to do with gameplay) the tooltip of these guns says that they shoot liquid bullets, and, unless all monsters are made of hydrophobic materials, this just makes things more confusing.

In general, these guns just seem somewhat awkward, confusing and unpolished.

A possible suggestion I have is to instead of making the bullets bounce, make them splash onto enemies behind the target, dealing a small amount of damage, and potentially inflicting status. This would make a lot more sense, gameplay wise and flavour wise. And for the charge attack, maybe a big bullet that creates a big splatter/puddle in circle or cone shape behind the first enemy hit, that would stay for a short period of time. Of course, the numbers involving damage and fire rate, etc. should be tweaked around with, for balance.
In the end, this is a 4* Cryo Driving Noob's two cents about their favourite line of guns, so feel free to agree or disagree, and put your opinion below. Thank you for having the patience to read this whole post, sorry for the dump. :D

Bopp's picture
Bopp
disagree

Here is my brief FAQ on landing alchemer ricochets:

http://wiki.spiralknights.com/User:Jdavis/FAQs#How_do_I_land_alchemer_ri...

Yes, the angle is somewhat randomized, but that does not prevent you from landing the ricochets. Yes, auto-target ruins alchemers, but you can play without auto-target. Yes, alchemers have a steep learning curve, but that makes the game more interesting.

Really I feel that alchemers (and Warmaster Rocket Hammer and a few other weapons) are some of the best-designed weapons in the game. They are weak in the hands of a novice and strong in the hands of an expert. That's good.