Assault Rifle Rework

[0th Power]

This was posted before the assault rifle rework of page 6.  Some things would change but most of the suggested still work.

 

I think everyone is on the same page in thinking Assault rifle needs work.  Part of it is animation times, and part of it is powers.  I'm not good with numbers so I'm going to stick with my wheelhouse of coming up with ideas (most are bad, but I have so many I end up with lots of good ones, quantity over quality).

 

Assault Rifle as it sits now

	Power	Level as Primary	Level as Secondary	Effect
	Burst	1	1	Ranged, Moderate DoT(Lethal), Foe -DEF
	Slug	1	2	Ranged, High DMG(Lethal), Foe Knockback
	Buckshot	2	4	Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Lethal), Foe Knockback
	M30 Grenade	6	10	Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG(Lethal/Smash), Foe Knockback
	Beanbag	8	16	Ranged, Minor DMG(Smash), Foe Disorient
	Sniper Rifle	12	20	Sniper, Extreme DMG(Lethal), Foe Knockback
	Flamethrower	18	28	Ranged (Cone), Extreme DoT(Fire)
	Ignite	26	35	Ranged (Location AoE), Moderate DoT(Fire)
	Full Auto	32	38	Ranged (Cone), Superior DoT(Lethal), +Special

 

 

Battle Rifle (because I don't like the term "assault rifle" but they can call it whatever if we get improvements)

-Would come with inherent power "Magazine" with 20 rounds

-Powers that use the same ammunition would draw from this magazine and would not need to recharge(reload) until the magazine was empty. (like burst of speed but a much longer timer than 10 seconds)

-rifle would be defaulted as modern military rifle with a quad rail on the fore end (for the shotgun, grenade launcher, and flamethrower)

-Cottage Rule be damned

	Power	Level as Primary	Level as Secondary	Effect
	Burst	1	1	Ranged, Moderate x3(Lethal), Foe -DEF  -3 rounds (there would be an accuracy penalty)
	Shot	1	2	Ranged, moderate DMG(Lethal), Foe -def -1 round
	Undermount Shotgun	2	4	Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Lethal), Foe Knockback (a rounds system would be cool for this too)
	M30 Grenade	6	10	Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG(Lethal/Smash), Foe Knockback (unchanged)
	Extended magazine	8	16	Increases Magazine capacity to 30
	Aimed shot	12	20	Sniper, Extreme DMG(Lethal), Foe Knockdown (name change and kd instead of kb)
	Flamethrower	18	28	Ranged (Cone), Extreme DoT(Fire) (unchanged)
	Additional Magazines	26	35	Reduces reload(recharge) time of all powers using "rounds"
	Full Auto	32	38	Ranged (Cone), Superior DoT(Lethal), +Special (same, but with a faster animation)

 

Hopefully (if implemented (pipe dream maybe)) this set would play more as a 1st person shooter set, which as you can probably see was my inspiration for suggesting this.  I only spent about 35 minutes think this up and posting it, so if you see any glaring weaknesses, please shoot holes in them.  If anyone else has any other suggestions to add on to this, please throw it out there.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by 0th Power
Pun added

[Greycat]

I should not read these after lunch. My brain insisted that you called it "battle waffle."

 

Need to chew on it a bit before serious comment.

[kelika2]

Add an extra tick to Burst

Beanbag to Moderate or High damage

Flamethrower to 16 targets and faster animation

Full Auto to hit 16 targets to bring it in line with other nukes

 

Still balanced by mostly lethal damage.

[Lines]

It took me a while searching, but I found the pun.

 

I like the ideas if we're throwing cottage rule to the wind. I think Assault Rifle only actually needs a balance pass, but I'd be really glad to see the back of the weird "every gun in one" situation it has going on right now. I don't need no stinkin' bean bag. Gimme bullets, it's a gun!

 

Not sure I'm getting the ammunition mechanic. Lemme see if I'm reading you right:

- Player has 20/30 rounds maximum.

- While player has rounds, Shot, Burst and maybe Shotgun have no recharge time? (only those powers?)

- Once out of rounds, there's a global (?) recharge while player reloads.

 

Having no recharge for 20 or 30 powers in a row is pretty wild.

We're talking either very low damage for those powers or a very long reload time. The latter won't be fun, especially early. If the damage isn't really low per round compared with other t1s and t2s, this set would come out way too far on top.

Maybe accuracy falls off if you use the powers too much too fast?

Wouldn't I just be able to fill that reload time with some of the other powers, like flamethrower, negating the balance it's trying to make?

 

I think there's a workable idea in there, just not sure what it is yet.

 

 

I do think it should be called Battle Waffle.

[0th Power]

18 minutes ago, Lines said:

Not sure I'm getting the ammunition mechanic. Lemme see if I'm reading you right:

- Player has 20/30 rounds maximum.

- While player has rounds, Shot, Burst and maybe Shotgun have no recharge time? (only those powers?)

- Once out of rounds, there's a global (?) recharge while player reloads.

-yes

-shot, burst & aimed shot (shotgun would be a separate magazine if possible). Aimed shot would probably need the long snipe animation at all times (maybe, I’m spitballing now)

-that was the idea. 

22 minutes ago, Lines said:

 

Having no recharge for 20 or 30 powers in a row is pretty wild.

We're talking either very low damage for those powers or a very long reload time. The latter won't be fun, especially early. If the damage isn't really low per round compared with other t1s and t2s, this set would come out way too far on top.

Maybe accuracy falls off if you use the powers too much too fast?

Wouldn't I just be able to fill that reload time with some of the other powers, like flamethrower, negating the balance it's trying to make?

I was thinking it could be balanced around damage, accuracy penalty and/or recharge for the 3 affected powers.  The number of rounds in the magazine could be easily adjusted too.  Just off the top of my head, I would think a big accuracy penalty may be the best bet. With 20 rounds and no recharge, you’d just click again. But I think there are plenty of options in there. 

 

27 minutes ago, Lines said:

I think there's a workable idea in there, just not sure what it is yet.

Story of my life

[Neogumbercules]

I think your ideas are awesome I'm just not sure they would fit as an update to assault rifle. It'd be better suited as a concept for a new powerset. 

 

Thread jacking a little bit here, these are my ideas for AR:

 

Burst: Make this a smallish cone. Keep everything else the same. 

 

Slug: KB2KD and add -res. 

 

Buckshot: Increase range and cone radius simultaneously (I know range makes more cone but I'm asking for both). KB2KD, add -fly for the lols.

 

Beanbag: replace with flash bang grenade. Pull an actual grenade. No damage, TAOE, 16 targets, chance for mag 2 stun, chance for mag 2 confuse, and 50% chance for knockdown. I feel like that would add interesting slotting possibilities.

 

M30: Change the lethal damage to fire damage and do a KB2KD. 

 

Sniper Rifle: super narrow pierce effect (essentially a tiny cone like Beam Rifle), deal more damage for each enemy pierced.

 

Ignite: change to incendiary grenade. Grenade throw animation, 1.5-ish animation time. instant high fire damage that leaves a patch of fire on the ground. Ignited enemies have a chance to ignite other nearby enemies. 

 

Flamethrower: decrease the animation time down to 1.5 or 2 seconds and deal 75% of its damage up front with dot procs to make up the rest.

 

Full Auto: Widen the cone, 16 target cap, increase defense when shooting to mitigate counter attacks during the long animation. Roll that chance for extra damage into the damage of the attack and remove the chance. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Neogumbercules

[MTeague]

It definitely requires telling the Cottage Rule to go take a walk. 

It would require awarding a free respec to every character with Assault Rifle, because it looks like which Sets can be slotted into which powers would be changing. 

 

Critiques: 

• I'm not sure Beanbag should just be gotten rid of. While I don't use it, I do use a few "Not Dealing With You Right Now" powers on most of my blasters.  Now, usually, those come from your secondary, but not always.  Dark Blast gets a Cone Immob and a Hold ion thier primary. Psi Blast gets a Foe Immob and a Disorient  and a Knockback in it's primary.  Dual Pistons gets a disorient option in Suppressive Fire.  I'd be more on board with Beanbag just havin increased damage but keepng the stun.  
• I would be extremely unhappy if you remove Ignite from my AR/MC Blaster.  It's wonderful in doorways and the Frozen Blast Immob proc can keep mobs in it to cook, and it can do quite a bit of damage that way.  Even more so if your secondary comes with an Immob, like Fire Manipulation/Ring or Fire, or Tactical Arrow/Glue Arrow (though admittedly, I suspect there are not many AR/TacArrows out there....)

Edited September 22, 2020 by MTeague

[Outrider_01]

Sentinel set, Ignite swapped for Incinerator and Full auto with Sentinel stats...

 

Full auto, 90 degree cone?  Half the range, but 4.5 times the width?

Buckshot?  Same range/cone, blaster is +4 targets and only 10% more damage?

Aim ???  How the hell did I miss that the first time I looked at it.

Sure, blaster might have better stats like damage cap but that lack of mez protection and armor/def with better working stats like the full auto cone...

 

You know what, nerf AR/.  Got to make the other sets look even better.

[Solarverse]

Sadly, very few, if any, of these ideas ever see the light of day and get overlooked and/or buried pretty damn fast....even the great ideas that majority agrees on. Having said that, I still +1 this idea. I would like to see Bean Bag removed though and replaced with a cone bullet spread of 10 tics of variable damage, details below.

 

Unload Clip: A Full Auto ability best if used when there are a few left standing, that does less damage the more targets are hit. Single targets take the full force of the damage, however each additional target shares their fair percentage of the damage taken.

For example, 1 target hit is 500 (50x10) Lethal Damage; 2 targets hit is 250 (25x10) Damage; 3 targets hit is 167 (16.7x10) Damage; 4 targets hit is 125 (12.5x10) Damage; 5 targets hit is 100 (10x10) Damage;  ...16 targets hit is 31.25 (3.1x10) Lethal Damage.

This would be a great mechanic to add to the Battle Waffle set.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Solarverse

[0th Power]

2 hours ago, Neogumbercules said:

 

I think your ideas are awesome I'm just not sure they would fit as an update to assault rifle. It'd be better suited as a concept for a new powerset. 

 

Battle waffle

1 hour ago, MTeague said:

I would be extremely unhappy if you remove Ignite from my AR/MC Blaster. 

I knew there would be people who would like powers as is. I think, if this were to be implemented it would have to be a new set, battle waffle

[Solarverse]

7 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

Battle waffle

I knew there would be people who would like powers as is. I think, if this were to be implemented it would have to be a new set, battle waffle

Or....

An optional power choice. They both come available at the same time, if you pick one, the other greys out and is unobtainable without a respec?

[0th Power]

14 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Or....

An optional power choice. They both come available at the same time, if you pick one, the other greys out and is unobtainable without a respec?

They said after master brawler, they wouldn't do that again.

[Solarverse]

Just now, 0th Power said:

They said after master brawler, they wouldn't do that again.

Damnit Jim!

[Solarverse]

9 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

They said after master brawler, they wouldn't do that again.

Okay...how about they do like Khelds then. Several powers open up at once but since they are similar, most people only pick on or the other...but can pick both if they chose to?

[Giovanni Valia]

I'd definitely play AR if it worked more like powers in Arachnos Soldier.

My suggestions, Increase AR dmg, reduce cool-down of powers or add a similar CD reducing mechanic as OP suggested.

Get rid of the bean-bag and replace it with another gun animation. Call it "Suppressive Fire" or something.

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, 0th Power said:

Battle waffle

I knew there would be people who would like powers as is. I think, if this were to be implemented it would have to be a new set, battle waffle

I can only give lukewarm endorsement to a new set of generic gun-related names.

But if you can get it named Battle Waffle?   /ENDORSED

[MTeague]

2 hours ago, 0th Power said:

They said after master brawler, they wouldn't do that again.

Bit of a pity.  it really would be nice to see more options like that.   it must play 17 kinds of hell with the code for them to rather vigorously shut the door on that.

[krj12]

I think AR just needs a few tweaks here and there, nothing major.

 

1.  Adjust the range up on some of the shorter range attacks. 

2.  Change full auto's animation sequence so I'm not stuck in place for so long.   Dont think the big nukes in the other power sets do that.

3.   Increase the number of targets hit as well as the arc of the cone for FA.

3.  Add something like aim or build up.  It needs it.    Wouldnt mind replacing bean bag.

 

[Lines]

Bit of pie in the sky, bird-tossed-to-cottage-rule idea:

 

I'd quite like to make the most of both the existing, hip-firing animations and the aimed animations from beam rifle.

 

What if AR got two stances? This would replace Bean Bag. Because screw you, Bean Bag.

- Iron Sights: +ToHit, +Dam, -Cone Width. Uses Beam Rifle style animations.

- Hip Firing: +Recharge, +Def, +Run Speed. Uses default AR animations.

 

I don't actually think AR needs anything like this, but chucking ideas around is fun.

 

 

Edit:

Edited September 23, 2020 by Lines

[0th Power]

3 hours ago, Lines said:

What if AR got two stances? This would replace Bean Bag. Because screw you, Bean Bag.

- Iron Sights: +ToHit, +Dam, -Cone Width. Uses Beam Rifle style animations.

- Hip Firing: +Recharge, +Def, +Run Speed. Uses default AR animations.

Emphasized the most important part in bold.  Overall, this would be very interesting.

 

3 hours ago, Lines said:

I don't actually think AR needs anything like this, but chucking ideas around is fun.

Yea it is!

[Galaxy Brain]

I actually really like the idea of a powerset with "ammo" granting essentially instant recharge. That said, I do feel like it should have a "reload!" Power somewhere in there that gives you an X second animation to restore ammo on demand, which also happens if you try to use a power while out of ammo.

 

The only thing that gets tricky here to me is when you have multiple powers sharing ammo. Let's take Burst and Slug for example. If both could have instant recharge on demand, you would simply take the better DPA one. Once you add in more powers, the attack chain sort of covers the need for instant recharge (Burst > Buckshot > Sniper > Burst is already recharged naturally... )

[0th Power]

2 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

If both could have instant recharge on demand, you would simply take the better DPA one.

I don't know why, but I didn't think of this at all.  What if DPA was the exact same across powers that would share the same ammo?  Damage/Animation=x for all 3.  I dunno if that would work or even be possible, I'm kinda spitballing here.

[Leogunner]

17 hours ago, 0th Power said:

 

-Powers that use the same ammunition would draw from this magazine and would not need to recharge(reload) until the magazine was empty. (like burst of speed but a much longer timer than 10 seconds)

 

Sort of running with this idea but keeping the cottage rule intact, let's give AR an ammo system like DP but not as toggles but instead as a system inherent to 3 core powers to the set.  So keeping all the powers as is (maybe shuffling them around, though), you get the 3 groups: Automatic Rifle, Shells and Fuel Mix.

 

The powers under Automatic Rifle are Burst, Sniper Rifle and Full Auto.

 

The powers under Shells are Slug, Buckshot and Beanbag.

 

The powers under Fuel Mix are Ignite and Flamethrower.

 

M30 Grenade is a neutral power although maybe it can also be a pivot power that changes effect depending on the currently loaded ammo.

 

For the ammo system, using one of the powers within a group, Slug for example, will load up that type of ammo (so Shells).  Doing so grants you 2 auto powers: Shells and Final Shell.  Final Shell automatically refreshes every 5 seconds if you remain in combat and its purpose is to stop the "refreshing" of Shells while it's already active and to put all Shell powers on a "global recharge" when it expires as well as force any other ammo type to auto-expire upon its activation.  Shells is there to alter the cooldown of all your Shell powers, giving them a much shorter cooldown (NOT 0!) so you can cycle back through them pretty fast but this power but the buff only lasts a variable amount of time (the different ammo types will last different durations).  Once Shells expires, your Shells powers all go on a shorter global recharge (Final Shell has a longer global recharge) that if you wait it out (i.e. use non AR powers for a bit) you can simply reactivate Shells and keep on blowing things away.

 

To walk you through how that would look on paper:

 

You engage a group and start with BU+Full Auto.  Auto-Rifle and Last Auto-Rifle powers activate on you.  Burst and Sniper can be used and their cooldown will be something in the ballpark of 1.5sec and 5sec respectfully while Full Auto is on cooldown (shifted down to 22sec from 60sec).  You can cycle through each of these attacks multiple times since Auto-Rifle lasts 30sec but you'll have to use non-primary attacks in the gaps.  Or you can use one of your Shell attacks which will activate Shells and Final Shells on you.  Final Shells will cause Last Auto-Rifle to expire and put all your Auto-Rifle attacks on cooldown...not really a global cooldown since that cooldown is going to be whatever their base cooldown is except Burst which will go on an 8sec cooldown...but technically it would only be the cooldown of the shortest attack (that 8sec) as soon as that comes up, you can shoot Auto-Rifle again and your other 3 powers will continue their cooldown or whatever their Auto-Rifle cooldown is, whichever is shortest.

 

Finally, there's M30 Grenade which isn't attached to any of the ammo types and won't shift you into any of those modes.  So you can utilize this to partially fill in some gaps.  Could also have it do different things depending on the ammo, with Auto-Rifle being the default (when no specific mode is active) of smash/lethal +KB AoE.  With Shells, it becomes full smash damage + stun.  With Fuel Mix, it becomes lethal + fire DoT.

 

Overall, the idea I was chasing here is a set that ignores (mostly) +rech buffs.  +Rech buffs wouldn't affect its global cooldown and it wouldn't affect the cooldown of the skills while in their designated ammo type.  The upside being you would need a lot of +rech to match the benefits you'd get from this effect (not sure how much it would take to get FA down from 60sec to 22sec but I'm sure it's possible) but that's kind of a positive and a negative.  But perhaps I'm biased since I feel certain metas and buffs are over represented, one of those being +rech and rather than nerf +rech, I'd just push for more things not to need/desire it.  

[Chance Jackson]

23 hours ago, Neogumbercules said:

I think your ideas are awesome I'm just not sure they would fit as an update to assault rifle. It'd be better suited as a concept for a new powerset. 

 

Thread jacking a little bit here, these are my ideas for AR:

 

Burst: Make this a smallish cone. Keep everything else the same. 

 

Slug: KB2KD and add -res. 

 

Buckshot: Increase range and cone radius simultaneously (I know range makes more cone but I'm asking for both). KB2KD, add -fly for the lols.

 

Beanbag: replace with flash bang grenade. Pull an actual grenade. No damage, TAOE, 16 targets, chance for mag 2 stun, chance for mag 2 confuse, and 50% chance for knockdown. I feel like that would add interesting slotting possibilities.

 

M30: Change the lethal damage to fire damage and do a KB2KD. 

 

Sniper Rifle: super narrow pierce effect (essentially a tiny cone like Beam Rifle), deal more damage for each enemy pierced.

 

Ignite: change to incendiary grenade. Grenade throw animation, 1.5-ish animation time. instant high fire damage that leaves a patch of fire on the ground. Ignited enemies have a chance to ignite other nearby enemies. 

 

Flamethrower: decrease the animation time down to 1.5 or 2 seconds and deal 75% of its damage up front with dot procs to make up the rest.

 

Full Auto: Widen the cone, 16 target cap, increase defense when shooting to mitigate counter attacks during the long animation. Roll that chance for extra damage into the damage of the attack and remove the chance. 

I'd prefer that beanbag stay or was an option 

[srmalloy]

On the whole, I believe that I'd much prefer a rework of Assault Rifle that didn't break builds the way that the Regen nerf rework did. Adjusting target limits, recharge, damage, range, etc. doesn't alter the basic functionality of the powerset. Adding mechanics that change the way every power works in addition to removing two powers entirely to make room for new powers that do not themselves do damage (unlike the powers being removed) but which are necessary as part of the new mechanics seems like something that should be implemented as a new powerset, rather than ripping up an existing one.