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[Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Proposals which did not pass the two week review, were rejected internally, or were not able to be implemented.
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Karast
Posts: 554

[Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#1 » Tue Dec 12, 2017 9:49 am

This is a very simple proposal regarding phosphorous shells and the changes to it last September as per Penril I waited to repost it until more time had past so people could get a little more play with it and I still feel the original proposal has merit.

A brief bit of background: Phosphorous shells is the current end tree rifleman ability at 13 points, until September that was snipe, and in the September patch they got swapped. Snipe is now the 9 point and Phosphorous shells is the 13 point.

The issue is that Phosphorous shells has very little to no value to a rifle engi where it is. It is a mess of an ability and despite recent buffs to it's damage, dot duration, and making it cast-able on the move, even the proposed armor debuff, still don't make it idea for a snipe build. Snipe is about building spike and phosphorous shells just doesn't work for that. It has reduced range compared to other rifle abilities, it is corp rather than physical so you need to use acid bomb to debuff for it, and even with the potential armor debuff it is going to become a sticky mess to get that armor debuff up before going into a snipe due to the difference in ranges. With snipe much lower in the tree there is no reason to really go deeper. It is much better to go spend those points in tinker to get keg, and tracer rounds (crit tactic).

So it's value as an end tree ability is rather limited, and most will happily do without it, or only take it as a limited mobile dps skills. It is rather lackluster for the end tree skill.

But as a 9 point ability it has a lot of synergy and usefulness to grenade and tinker specs.

Because of it being corp and being cast on move it has a lot of usefulness to a grenade engi that wants to go napalm and play a bit of mid range AoE. It makes for a tempting side spec choice away from tinker if you don't plan to get into the 40ft range, and it has the added bonus of boosting ST damage on signal flare, and incendiary rounds for roaming dot builds that don't rely on snipe and its long cast time for dps. With the proposed armor debuff it actually does a lot for grenade and boosting damage on key abilities like straffing run, and frag grenade which often feel the full brunt of armor reduction.

For tinker it does much the same as it gives you a choice of going up rifle and getting a bit stronger ST dots, while at the same time giving a mobile dps tool for magnet in warband play. This will become even more important if and when the armor debuff is added. It gets a lot of parity with a close of aoe build, adding a lot for blunderbuss, while it is simply not very useful deep tree.

In short having it at 9 points in rifle allows for:

1. Interesting solo / roaming dot builds.
2. Interesting mid range AoE grenade builds as a side spec option.
3. Interesting side spec choice for tinker builds out side of the normal grenade.

I get that the end goal may be to move phosphorous shells over to grenade. But that is not needed in my opinion. You have done enough, and with the addition of the armor debuff the ability will be in a very good position, and both tinker and rifle will become extremely solid trees with a lot of viability in both main spec and side spec options. End game you are always going to side spec into something, and phosphorous shells at the 9 point makes for a much better side spec option than snipe. Snipe and it's play style just doesn't mesh well with dot builds, magnet builds, and midrange AoE builds. So by swapping them back you are doing a lot to increase build diversity and helping to push engi's away from being snipe bots. This could really help more people to play around with builds outside of magnet / snipe with dominate Engi spec's at the moment.

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Penril
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Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#2 » Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:39 pm

Moving to Discussions.

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Revec
Posts: 109

Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#3 » Tue Dec 26, 2017 3:09 pm

i have never understood why this ability was even in rifletree in the first place, but it always have since live. if it at some point would be possible to move it into grenadier or something i would vote for that but as you already pointed out it wouldnt be necessary with your proposal here. i like these proposed changes for the same reasons OP stated. thumbs up
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Grunbag
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Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#4 » Tue Dec 26, 2017 6:33 pm

PS is in rifleman tree because it’s a mortar long range ability . I don’t see anything that link it to grenade tree except the type of damage it does . Maybe mortar could be a new deployable tool like keg or lightning rod , but it’s range is too high for a tinkerer spec . I think that due to the 80ft range , it’s obviously too high to be used easily with a close quarter spec where you’re supposed to have a range debuff (turret) maybe that’s why it’s back to 13 points ?

PS meant to be different , but of unknown reason they change it to a aoe Dot .

Phosphorous Shells
13 Action Points - 65 ft range - Instant cast - 16s cooldown
A barrage of mortar attacks which continuously fire at a spot on the ground that you select for up to 6 seconds, dealing 199 Corporeal damage each second to all enemies within 20 feet of that spot. This requires careful aim, and if hit you'll lose .5 seconds from the channel.


So it will was Tzeench’s Firestorm mirror
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Kallah
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Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#5 » Tue Dec 26, 2017 7:18 pm

Grunbag wrote:PS is in rifleman tree because it’s a mortar long range ability . I don’t see anything that link it to grenade tree except the type of damage it does . Maybe mortar could be a new deployable tool like keg or lightning rod , but it’s range is too high for a tinkerer spec . I think that due to the 80ft range , it’s obviously too high to be used easily with a close quarter spec where you’re supposed to have a range debuff (turret) maybe that’s why it’s back to 13 points ?

PS meant to be different , but of unknown reason they change it to a aoe Dot .

Phosphorous Shells
13 Action Points - 65 ft range - Instant cast - 16s cooldown
A barrage of mortar attacks which continuously fire at a spot on the ground that you select for up to 6 seconds, dealing 199 Corporeal damage each second to all enemies within 20 feet of that spot. This requires careful aim, and if hit you'll lose .5 seconds from the channel.
That would be really nice... but in grenadier tree... swapping places with strafing run, which is a "clumsy" skill not being as instant as it should be and would need some kind of rework (but this is not the topic I know...)

About the proposal, I agree that PS is a better skill at 9 points being more useful than Snipe in specs not focused on ST burst.
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Revec
Posts: 109

Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#6 » Tue Dec 26, 2017 7:59 pm

Grunbag wrote:PS is in rifleman tree because it’s a mortar long range ability . I don’t see anything that link it to grenade tree except the type of damage it does . Maybe mortar could be a new deployable tool like keg or lightning rod , but it’s range is too high for a tinkerer spec . I think that due to the 80ft range , it’s obviously too high to be used easily with a close quarter spec where you’re supposed to have a range debuff (turret) maybe that’s why it’s back to 13 points ?

PS meant to be different , but of unknown reason they change it to a aoe Dot .

Phosphorous Shells
13 Action Points - 65 ft range - Instant cast - 16s cooldown
A barrage of mortar attacks which continuously fire at a spot on the ground that you select for up to 6 seconds, dealing 199 Corporeal damage each second to all enemies within 20 feet of that spot. This requires careful aim, and if hit you'll lose .5 seconds from the channel.


So it will was Tzeench’s Firestorm mirror
this is also a good suggestion imo
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Darks63
Posts: 651

Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#7 » Wed Dec 27, 2017 8:03 pm

Grunbag wrote:PS is in rifleman tree because it’s a mortar long range ability . I don’t see anything that link it to grenade tree except the type of damage it does . Maybe mortar could be a new deployable tool like keg or lightning rod , but it’s range is too high for a tinkerer spec . I think that due to the 80ft range , it’s obviously too high to be used easily with a close quarter spec where you’re supposed to have a range debuff (turret) maybe that’s why it’s back to 13 points ?

PS meant to be different , but of unknown reason they change it to a aoe Dot .

Phosphorous Shells
13 Action Points - 65 ft range - Instant cast - 16s cooldown
A barrage of mortar attacks which continuously fire at a spot on the ground that you select for up to 6 seconds, dealing 199 Corporeal damage each second to all enemies within 20 feet of that spot. This requires careful aim, and if hit you'll lose .5 seconds from the channel.


So it will was Tzeench’s Firestorm mirror
If it is going to be a mirror then shouldn't it be 80 feet like firestorm? Really this is a great idea but it would be better suited to replacing SR which is a horrible ability.

OT: Since Ideas are being pitched for this ability i guess i will throw my bad idea from way back on live up here. Rather than try to make an aoe fit the ST tree how make it conform to the tree. Make PR change all rifleman abilities to elemental attacks with some sort of penalty like - 120 bal or it hurts you every(rifleman ability) cast like FP does with BWs. This change could open a world of possibilities for engies when it comes to target selection.
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Karast
Posts: 554

Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#8 » Thu Dec 28, 2017 3:04 am

Grunbag wrote:PS is in rifleman tree because it’s a mortar long range ability . I don’t see anything that link it to grenade tree except the type of damage it does . Maybe mortar could be a new deployable tool like keg or lightning rod , but it’s range is too high for a tinkerer spec . I think that due to the 80ft range , it’s obviously too high to be used easily with a close quarter spec where you’re supposed to have a range debuff (turret) maybe that’s why it’s back to 13 points ?

PS meant to be different , but of unknown reason they change it to a aoe Dot .

Phosphorous Shells
13 Action Points - 65 ft range - Instant cast - 16s cooldown
A barrage of mortar attacks which continuously fire at a spot on the ground that you select for up to 6 seconds, dealing 199 Corporeal damage each second to all enemies within 20 feet of that spot. This requires careful aim, and if hit you'll lose .5 seconds from the channel.


So it will was Tzeench’s Firestorm mirror
That is not a bad suggestion but Firestorm is actually in a very similar place functionality wise as PS.

The goal of this proposal and the main mindset behind it is moving things into positions where they get the most use. I have no issue with PS becoming Firestorm, but I still think they work much better at the the mid tree spot, so they can be more viable side spec options to a grenade or tinker build. Having them at end tree is really the key issue since they are very situation-ally used in the snipe / boc playstyle, and those that might want to use them in a tinker or grenade build where they are actually a bit more desirable can't afford to go end tree to get them.

Those that want them can't really have them, and those that have them don't really use them.

There may also be a certain logic to breaking the magnet / snipe builds which is basically putting all the good abilities into 1 build, which has the drawback of pushing people into that build and away from other setups.

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Osred
Posts: 412

Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#9 » Thu Dec 28, 2017 6:33 pm

Strafing run is actually a damn useful ability when paired with flame turret with its range and aoe cap increase. A damn fine warband morale dump canceller and melee rush denial, being able to punt entire war bands off cliffs is a delight. All calls about replacing it in the grenadier tree with PS or outright removing it is being silly. I think Torque mentioned he can't move skills to different trees without CC in Volga grudge proposal thread. The easiest option would be to just change it to mirror tzeenches firestorm.
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catholicism198
Posts: 1092

Re: [Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)

Post#10 » Thu Dec 28, 2017 9:31 pm

I don't think he was suggesting it be changed to mirror Firestorm, just pointing out that it was once similar to it.
The original Devs probably changed it to prevent exact mirroring...something people here have been vehemently against. I'd love a keg, and an ae instant cast panic knockback but- the Magus had one before- but that's unlikely. :'(
Back to the matter at hand.
Moving it back down makes sense for ae/leech builds- never made since having an ae ability in a st mastery- but not if it keeps the ae armor debuff. Keeping the armor debuff might make it too powerful of an ability for tier two.
As for the range argument, it might seem "too high" for a Tinker build, but it's not like it'll be used exclusively for Tinker builds and Grenadier abilities can hit 80ft range with an 8 point mastery tactic.

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