Perk discussion

[Arbit]

Here is a thread to discuss perks. Those you like, those you hate, those you have questions about. For reference, I'm lvl 19, play tac w/ stalker bolter about 80%+ of the time, and am usually upper middle of the pack in terms of score which probably means I'm cannon fodder for some of you guys.:D

Tactical Readout: I really like this perk. It lets you know if you can confidently stick a fight out or when to run. For instance, if an ASM shows up you can quickly identify that he is at 10% health/100% armor and can dispatch him even if he gets up close, or if you can win a stalker bolter duel, etc etc. The big health/armor bars also make enemies very visible. It almost always takes up my first perk slot. Give it a try.

Double shot perk for the stalker bolter: is this worth it? It eats up ammo frighteningly fast and seems to make long range headshots more difficult, the upside being it's much better when used at close range. But if I want a good close range weapon I take the extra weapon perk and grab a melta/stormbolter.

Discuss, and post your own findings.

[Shuma]

FINAL VENGEANCE AUGHUEHRUGHUHEURH.

I honestly like this perk even though i never use it anymore(those slots are better spent on other stuff than on kamikaze tactics) but i live the perk, it's funny, and like Konfeta(?) said, there's nothing like seeing one assault marine dying, then have his explosion kill another, which in turns kills another.

Anyway, the Twin link perk for the Storm bolter is pretty awesome, turns it into a death spewing machine and makes it much more accurate from hip fire, hell it barely has scatter anymore. I also pretty much always run around with the Master crafted perk, can't get enough of dem super grenades.

[konfeta]

Conga vengeance lines. The natural evolution of conga sync kill lines from AvP.

[Ragg]

I love true grit, its funny watching the tacticool roll back expecting an easy kill as you unleash the fury of the god empra on there face with a lot of bolt rounds.

I aint keen on final vengeance I find it totally cheap same as killing blow, I find you can practically 1 shot with hammer when you have death from above and hit them dead on with the ground pound then follow on with the hammer strike. Finally arbit I prefer the stalker without the burst fire as it just seems less effective and chomps up the ammo too quickly.

[Mirage Knight]

The natural evolution of conga sync kill lines from AvP.

God's teeth don't remind me of that, because then it gets me thinking about "E"spam...

[Saberdark]

I know pretty much everybody is going to mention Final Vengeance one way or the other but I don't like it. It's pretty much a free kill for dying. I think it could stand to have some reduced damage because right now it's pretty much instant death to anybody even slightly in the blast radius. Which when you are defending points happens quite often.

I find the two weapons perk for Tacticals to be very useful. Allows you to take a longer ranged weapon along with a Storm Bolter/Melta which can be very helpful depending on the map.

[mred]

I like Final Vengeance for two reasons: One, I'm not very good at the game, so it helps me get a couple of extra kills, and I don't take it that seriously, so I always get a good chuckle when either i nab them or they get me. The only issue I have is that if i make one more swing after killing a guy, the animation takes too long to finish before i can jump away, though i'm assuming that's lag.

the weapon versatility one i really like.

[Sturmhaubitze]

I don't see a benefit to Ammunition Stores. There's enough ammo lying on the ground that you shouldn't run out, and most guns have enough ammo to keep you going for quite some time.

[Arcinatus]

For Devastators I like Feel No Pain / Iron Halo. Feels pretty OP at times just how much damage I can soak up.

CAN'T KILL ME!!! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!!!

[hellic]

Repost from official forums: The Burst Fire for the Stalker is great. It makes you much more effective at long range since enemy doesn't get as much time to hide. Just as important, if not moreso, it actually does increase your DPS. Your RoF is about the same but you fire two bullets at a time as opposed to one. Furthermore, you'll notice that after you fire a single Stalker bullet, the reticle will expand. This indicates a loss of accuracy. If you want your next shot to be completely accurate, you'll have to wait a bit before shoting again.

The only downside is that you'll expend your clip in half the time, but that's a good trade-off to have when you can kill quickly in two bursts.

Arbit, the loss of accuracy after shooting once is well worth the perk if you're long-range sniping. Burst fire is even more incredible in mid-range since it's easy to get at least one headshot in a single burst.

You should also replace Tactical Readout with Weapon Versatility for close-range Melta defense or Master Crafted Grenades for extra BOOM. The color auras already tell you when someone has shield or only has health. Besides, the Stalker and Melta combo is versatile enough to take anything on 1v1.

[Vuther]

Is anyone feeling Favor of the Armory and Master-Crafted Wargear to be a wee bit too excessive with frag grenades? Just a little. You can roll for your life (likely taking heavy ranged fire) against two and survive, even when they're souped up by MCW, but with FotA!? You're kinda fucked, save for being an Assault Marine with jump jets fully fueled up.

[Thorno]

As I've said before.

Kraken rounds and accuracy added to my Bolter? Yes please.


Is anyone feeling Favor of the Armory and Master-Crafted Wargear to be a wee bit too excessive with frag grenades? Just a little. You can roll for your life (likely taking heavy ranged fire) against two and survive, even when they're souped up by MCW, but with FotA!? You're kinda fucked, save for being an Assault Marine with jump jets fully fueled up.

But then they're out of grenades...

[Vuther]

But then they're out of grenades...
This is true...but you can pick up some more off your enemies' corpses, and getting a few kills while proper grenade throwing is already pretty much a temporary "you are not going to cap this point" in Seize Ground...gets a little bit excessive.

[konfeta]

"A bit excessive" is an understatement. Everyone is still to enamored with Plasma Cannons and Final Vengeance. If/when those things will get nerfed, doubling up on the frag grenade perks will be the next flavor of the month. It's my current go to tactic when both teams go full retard towards the end of the game and rush in waves towards a single point. A smarter Tac will combine Master Crafted with fast spawn, which is quite possibly the most bullshit defensive tactic in the game..

[Skullcap]

Or you can take double perk bolter and hose everyone down with hipfire shooting with the same accuracy as zoomed in and pull off game wins aswell as 20 kills >.>

The amusing part is, if you know a assault/raptor is jumping in, roll to the side, they go into melee spam and end up going forward in a line, gun them down, or the best is they jump straight to you and you step backs hip firing them to the face.

Not to mention the fact you can dump half a clip zoomed in with no reticle shake into a devestator/havoc before they even can get aim from all the shaking off damage hits.

The biggest FU build for me atm is mastercrafted perk and melta gun charge to be honest, just run around melting faces quite litterally and every assault/raptor is no problem...as is most of the other team bar devs/havocs with iron halo/chaos icon

[konfeta]

Incorrect, Bolter Targeter still has recoil when firing without the zoom function. You need to fire full auto for it to be noticable, though.

[Arbit]

Arbit, the loss of accuracy after shooting once is well worth the perk if you're long-range sniping. Burst fire is even more incredible in mid-range since it's easy to get at least one headshot in a single burst.

You should also replace Tactical Readout with Weapon Versatility for close-range Melta defense or Master Crafted Grenades for extra BOOM. The color auras already tell you when someone has shield or only has health. Besides, the Stalker and Melta combo is versatile enough to take anything on 1v1.
welp
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/577808216979416069/C74A31751B98257D85D95D0FE123C8E4FC60C6BE/

So yeah, double shot perk is awesome. Not sure why I was having such a rough time hitting with it before. There are always plenty of corpses to loot so the extra ammo consumption is a non-issue. Makes a great combo with the melta/stormbolter.

[hellic]

You were close to heresy there, brother.

[Chad Ghostal]

I agree with skullcap, mastercrafted grenades with melta with faster recharge is just cake. 75% of the maps are close quarter battles, just too easy to thromp people with that build. My personal setup for my tact. A good second place is stormbolter with 4 mastercrafted grenades. I think, I'm noticing a trend.....

[dr.mario89]

I'm glad to see that no one has vouched for killing blow, which in my opinion seems like a crutch for ASMs. Weapon versatility is probably my favorite, and I do admit that final vengeance is a guilty pleasure, but I will probably stop using it now because it is pretty crazy. The 4 mega grenades on certain maps, especially on sieze ground, is super effective and super cheap, and I feel like it's kind of a no-skill loadout (in my experience). And melta faster recharge is the only way to go with the meltagun, probably because I somehow suck with it normally.

[Shuma]

Killing blow is a weird perk imo, because when it doesn't work(be it because of lag, or just missing) well it's a wasted slot, but when it does work then, well it's awesome.

[Kam!kazee]

Kraken bolts + master crafted is a pretty nasty combo IMO. I got used to the bolters accuracy without targeters barely missing anything even when going full auto on someone.

Also I love air cooled thrusters, they're in every ASM build I have. I fear that I can't play without them anymore. Combine them with death from above for some fun goomba stomping. With these 2 perks, the axe becomes really useful, as it kills everything in 2 hits after landing (bar devastators).


The *'s zeal perks belong to the useless side, they're far too situational imo. The axe swings too slow to have any benefit from the heals, and in general I found if I survived with them, I would've survived without them as well.

[Caeltos]

Killing blow is a weird perk imo, because when it doesn't work(be it because of lag, or just missing) well it's a wasted slot, but when it does work then, well it's awesome.
Time to end this debate once and for all :P. Killing Blow will register on SUCCESFUL hits, and this is directly from the update patch that's coming soon;

If you engage mano-el-mano in a straight up face to face confrontation, the killing blow should be succesful. However, should it not a direct hit, it will count as a glancing hit. iirc, even attacking from different angles than not up-front to the models will register it as a glancing.

Post deleted.

Y THEY REMOVE THEIR OWN POST ? (

[Zallis]

I've never actually found killing blow necessary. When you have death from above, landing on someone + hitting them once with the hammer generally kills them. Since you're generally going to be goomba stomping people before attacking them, the killing blow is made redundant.

[konfeta]

Killing Blow is necessary for Iron Halo, Reactive Armor, Feel No Pain, and Combat Stims.

And fuck Death from Above. I recently dedicated a few games and realized this perk will be forever absolute trash because it doesn't register full damage on moving targets even if you hit them dead on. Lag, design, bug, whatever.

[LoweGear]

Nothing to do with the performance of the Perks themselves... but I think I'm slow for only noticing recently that weapon-specific perks actually change your weapon's appearance when equipped.

Take this example for the Lascannon (the first one I noticed it on):

Space Marine Lascannon

Normal
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9594/2011091600001.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/2011091600001.jpg/)

w/ Lascannon Capacitors
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4889/2011091600005.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/215/2011091600005.jpg/)

w/ Lascannon Stabilizers
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/5843/2011091600006.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/207/2011091600006.jpg/)



Chaos Lascannon

Normal
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/504/2011091600002.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/2011091600002.jpg/)

w/ Lascannon Capacitors
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6827/2011091600004.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/155/2011091600004.jpg/)

w/ Lascannon Stabilizers
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/9472/2011091600007.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/33/2011091600007.jpg/)



Melee weapons don't show the same changes though.

[hellic]

Nice catch.

[DoomKnights]

If you want a challenge, Tact with Serated edge and master crafted wargear. Now only use your bolt pistol and CC through out the game. It's hard but if done right you can still make kills. So far my best is 10 kills in a game.

Dev with Iron Halo and Master Armour, use a bolt pistol and run around. Odd combo but works well.

[Arbit]

Hellic, what do you mean? Surely you're not begrudging an aging gamer a single pridepost?

[hellic]

No, I'm just glad you saw the Astronomican's Light.

[Jaimas]

Make Serrated Blade give the Tactical a Chainsword.

Really, is it too much to ask?

[KDR_11k]

I find Final Vengeance fairly anoying to deal with. Not hard, annoying. It's not fun to have the battlefield turn into a minefield when you kill ASMs.

Ammo stores are pretty much only for devs running PCs with quickcharge so they can spam those big-ass shots for longer. Everything else has so much spare ammo that you won't run out even without ammo pickups.

Iron Halo seems to at least double your armor, anyone using a weapon with a bad anti-armor rating is screwed then (but anyone using plasma doesn't care). More damage and health is always extremely popular with players in any game.

I like the improved cooling perk on the Plasma Cannon, that's 8 shots before overheating. More than enough to kill two dudes.

[Sturmhaubitze]

There's three problems with Final Vengeance:

1. Unlike Call of Duty's Martyrdom death-streak, this happens every time you kill an Assault/Raptor, not just when they're on a losing streak (Died 3+ times in a row without killing anyone).
2. Unlike Call of Duty's Martyrdom death-streak, you are almost always within the blast radius, since the enemy with it is attacking you in close-combat.
3. Defeating a close-combat class in close-combat should be recognized as an accomplishment, especially if you're playing a different class. Instead you're punished for beating them at their own game.

Reducing the damage or blast radius isn't going to fix it, it will just make it a useless perk. I'd rather see it removed and replaced with something else.

[Mirage Knight]

I find Final Vengeance fairly anoying to deal with. Not hard, annoying. It's not fun to have the battlefield turn into a minefield when you kill ASMs.


Unlike Call of Duty's Martyrdom death-streak, you are almost always within the blast radius, since the enemy with it is attacking you in close-combat.

Often times you can't get out of the way fast enough or not at all due to being held up by a fucking stone on the ground. Anyone come across a situation where you simply cannot move at all on a map? And God help any team mates that are nearby if the game has friendly fire turned on...


Defeating a close-combat class in close-combat should be recognized as an accomplishment, especially if you're playing a different class. Instead you're punished for beating them at their own game.

Yes, it really does need to be replaced. As Sturm mentioned, there's no way to tweak this perk without rendering it largely useless for its intended task.

[Sturmhaubitze]

The collision boxes for some of the environments are a little odd at times. For example there's the pipes around the church structure in Basilica, the ones near the ground entrance to the stairs. They look like you can walk over them, but sometimes you get stuck on them instead and have to go around.

[Pseudonymn]

Defeating a close-combat class in close-combat should be recognized as an accomplishment, especially if you're playing a different class. Instead you're punished for beating them at their own game.

Strongly agree. It's probably the most annoying, skilless perk in the game. Even for the one using it, there's really no sense of satisfaction by it. It's literally just a "+1 upon death" perk. This sort of thing doesn't encourage good gaming behaviors.

[Carl]

Seriously, if you can't deal with Final Vengance i've really got to wonder what your playstyle is like. I completed the No Surrendur. No Retreat achivement 2 days ago, I was 2/3 of the way through Fragged at the time, (not quite completed that yet). That adds up to less than 10% of my deaths to explosives. And of those the majority are self kills, the rest are allmost entierly enemy grenades. I don't think i've been killed more than 10 times by finial vengance. And most of those have been when i've walked/rolled round a corner into somones body, rather than becuase i killed somone and stood around for the next 5 seconds on his body till he killed me.

[hellic]

It's not hard to dodge Final Vengeance, it's just bloody annoying. People have given lots of reasons for why it shouldn't be in the game. Can you even think of one reason it should be?

[Shuma]

Does "It's funny" count?

[Thorno]

It gets me kills.

[Jaimas]

Can you even think of one reason it should be?

It teaches campers a harsh lesson in complacency.

[Demonic Spoon]

...Really? The mark of a camper is not moving an inch after killing an enemy?

[Mirage Knight]

Can you even think of one reason it should be?

It can get you a cheap kill that you didn't really earn that required absolutely no skill on your part?


Does "It's funny" count?

I kind of doubt that :p

[Ad Infinitum]

I've started to assume every assault uses final vengeance, because they almost always do. Kill and run is my go to tactic for handling this annoying turd of a perk. Sometimes (not always) I find I literally can't avoid the blast radius as I'll roll out of the way and sprint and just as I'm seeing the warning fade the very edge of the explosion manages to obliterate my stalwart marine with a puff of hot smoke.

Favor of the armory and MC wargear is pretty unnecessary and just promotes grenade spam. It's more annoying than it is troublesome since most people that use it tend to waste 3-4 grenades on one person.

Killing blow shouldn't even exist in it's current form, IMO. You have a hammer. You have grenades. You really don't need it, even if it's a devastator with a halo/icon and Feel No Pain they're still going to die really fast.

Some of the ammo reserve perks need an added bonus to be more appealing since ammo is already very abundant.

[Pseudonymn]

Carl, people's differences in playstyle notwithstanding, lag has as much a role in dying to a final vengence blast as anything else. It's just an annoying perk whose sole function is to grab a dubious +1 for the player upon their death.

[Mirage Knight]

It's more annoying than it is troublesome since most people that use it tend to waste 3-4 grenades on one person.

I tend to waste 3-4 Mastercrafted grenades / mini nukes on blobs protecting control points and then roll in and spray any survivors with mah trusty Stormbolter. For some reason people call that a bullshit tactic.


Some of the ammo reserve perks need an added bonus to be more appealing since ammo is already very abundant.

Ammo perks are so redundant due to the ammo drop mechanic it's almost a joke.

[konfeta]

Killing blow shouldn't even exist in it's current form, IMO. You have a hammer. You have grenades. You really don't need it, even if it's a devastator with a halo/icon and Feel No Pain they're still going to die really fast.

I agree. It should affect every target hit.

[BigSteve]

Replace it with a perk that lets you swing faster!

[Pseudonymn]

I would rather trade it in for a perk that extends the forward range of the groundpound targeting reticule to something a little closer to the way it was in SP. It's virtually straight up and down as it is now and makes the ASM flight path much to predictable.

[Carl]

@Pseudonymn: if you'd been paying attention to my posts in the dedicated server thread and elsewhere you'd know i've been stuck with persistant low grade lag all week. Unless your lag has everyone warping everywhere, (rare), Final Vengance is trivial to avoid if you know where the beepings coming from. Seriously. Leaving aside gunning down an ASM as a HB Dev at point blank range after suffering a fair bit of damage, the main way i die to it is rollign behind cover into the aftermath of a duel and getting cuaght in the blast of one i didn;t know was there. But the same can happen with grenades, so nothing wrong there.

@Hellic: I could go on about the several useful effects it has starting ith the one mentiond above. But at the end of the day there;s really only one reason it needs: because.

Fundamentally all perks are designed to help increase your kill to death ratio in a posotive way, eithier by increasin your damage to let you kill faster, increasing your health/armour, so you can outlast your opponent, or through more exotic secondary means. FInal Vengance defintly fall into the last category, and whilst it may be annoying to you, (just as i find the ability of air cooled thruster ASM to jump like bunnies on LSD annoying), it isn't exactly unbalanced in it's effects. So it's fine.

[Misiok]

Sorry, but
I could go on about the several useful effects it has starting ith the one mentiond above. But at the end of the day there;s really only one reason it needs: because. is a kindergarden-level explanation/excuse. It is not 'just' unbalanced, but downright annoying, fluff raping, out-of-place perk ever.

You fight a 1hit hammer ASM as any other class (For this argument lets take a hbolter devastator). He lands in your face. He glance hits you, leaving you with like 20% hp. You somehow manage to kill the bastard (alone with ridiculous amount of skill and luck and/or with teammates helping you). The bastard dies right under your legs, denied the kill. He explodes and kills you, even though you did that hilarious fatmans' sidestep. Now, 2 things happen, one of it varies depending on the fickle mood of the Lag Gods.

1 - you got killed by lag. Now, it was awful during the first week, where evading things like that was useless as you'd get killed no matter how far it looked like (on your screen) you were from it. Exploding from ground kamikaze while you're 20 meters up in the sky as an ASM? Oh fun. Now, since more people have the game, it's better with the lag, but that doesn't nullify the problem. People with lag/bad hosts still appear, and if I am to play a game that's marked as 'competetive' where I win/die by a random chance, I want to pay a random amount of money for it.

2 - it's retarded. You managed to defeat a 1-2 hit kill melee monster that landed right in your face, only to explode and still get the kill. It's as if just running away from him was safer than disposing of him. You should not be rewarded for dying. Period. If you want to have a newbie perk, make it so that after 3-5 deaths in a row without any kills you somehow, raping the fluff so bad it yelps for Dark Eldar touch, instead.

Also, about the fluff rape. Now I know we have a few fluff purists on these forums, and while it's understandable that fluff =/= gameplay, it still should make some coherent sense. If in the lore Raptors/Assault Marines were to explode on death, there would be a terrible low rate of gene-seed recovery. And people don't rant at that? You might as well strap a jetpack to a rocket, save some time, training and resources. Or hire an Ork.

It's out of place.

[hellic]

Amen to that, Misiok. All I'm hearing from the opposition is "I suck too much at playing Assault so I need Final Vengeance to get kills."

[Carl]

That was the polite vershion Misiok. Here;s the non-polite vershion.

It's balanced, so TOUGH LUCK, get over it and kindly shut up about it.

At the end of the day an ASM that takes final Vengance is giving up other perks to get it. If he'd taken and correctly used any of those other ones he'd have killed you outright, and possibbly got away to kill others. Final Vengance makes taking him out easier and unless your a setup Dev, Lagging like hell, or just unable to press space inside a several second window it won';t do anything to you. If your the former it's working as intended, if your the middile choice, see below, and if your the latter, well what are you doing in MP anyway.

Also, you playing a 1/100 ultra laggy game that makes getting out of the way of final vengance imposibble and thats what you choose to complain about? Thjere a lot more stuff that just plain broken in those games, (Starting with ASM in general and ending with any kind of explosive if you want my opinion).

EDIT:

If you want to start claiming somthing is unbalanced actually make an argument for how it helps your opponnent improve his kill/death ratio more than the possibble replacments are. You find it anoyying, fair enough, we got that several posts ago. But right now your whole argument is: It's cheap. To which all i can reply is: So what, i don't care so long as it's balanced.

[hellic]

So as long as something is "balanced", it stays in the game? Even if it's poorly designed, doesn't fit, and encourages contemptible gameplay?

Retreating units getting knocked down in DoW2 was arguably balanced (hey, all races could do it). Why'd Relic get rid of that, it was balanced! Why isn't Martyrdom in MW2!?!? It was balanced in CoD4!

Imagine if Relic introduced a new weapon skin. Like how power swords were implemented, we would get a new weapon model with the same stats as the power axe. And this epic weapon model would be...A LIGHTSABER!1!! How cool would that be!?

Just because something is "balanced", doesn't mean it should be in a game.

[Pseudonymn]

Vengance is trivial to avoid if you know where the beepings coming from. Seriously.

Exploding from ground kamikaze while you're 20 meters up in the sky as an ASM? Oh fun
This has happened to me more times than I care to count. Rage&DisgustQuits are building in number and frequency.


If in the lore Raptors/Assault Marines were to explode on death, there would be a terrible low rate of gene-seed recovery LOL!! That thought completely failed to enter into my mind but now that you mention it, it's so true! Fluff 1 : Final Vengence 0. We all know what happens to fluff arguments around here though.

[Mirage Knight]

You managed to defeat a 1-2 hit kill melee monster that landed right in your face, only to explode and still get the kill. It's as if just running away from him was safer than disposing of him. You should not be rewarded for dying. Period


So as long as something is "balanced", it stays in the game? Even if it's poorly designed, doesn't fit, and encourages contemptible gameplay?

Nice to see some common sense in this thread. And sadly enough of us DO know what happens to fluff arguments around here :(

[Jaimas]

I never use Final Vengeance. Impenetrable, however, is my baby.

And I've done 20+Kill Kill Streaks with the Power Sword.

[Trizzdog]

Oh, final vengeance. DAT FINAL VENGEANCE. Here I am being a burly serrated blade tactical with a storm bolter, and I just manly punched some sneaky assault git to death who tried to get the drop on me. But before I can celebrate my manliness, blam, I die too. It's like the game is punishing me for being a true space marine that engages in manly melee combat, and instead wants me to be a bitch and just keep holding S + M1, with some SPACEBAR spam to boot.

Like others have said, it's not so much of it being a balance issue (even though it is one), as it is something that goes against the design philosophy behind being a SPHESS MAREEN.

[Methuselath]

Final Vengeance are for wuss and Eldar cowards. Real Assaults go for Aircooled Jets, so you can act like a smart marine and ambush oblivious chaos hordes.

I echo the rest of the doods, its not imbalanced per se (don't remember the last time I died to that) but dammit its annoying. Especially if yer a planted down devastator.

[KDR_11k]

Also Final Vengeance is very effective area denial. In Seize Ground that's a very nasty attribute. In Waste Disposal it covers a large part of the platform of point B forcing enemies to roll away from the point (or accidentally roll into a wall which happens a lot and results in another cheap death).

Sometimes I die to FV because my enemy died faster than I expected (e.g. because an ally shot him dead). Back when I used FV my kills with that mostly happened when I wasn't alone in attacking a group of enemies and they had many more things to worry about besides my beeping corpse (or maybe there were even friendly ASMs who died at roughly the same time).

[Mirage Knight]

What's funny is shooting someone in mid air with FV and then watching them blow up coming down.

"Fireworks, Gandalf!"

[Arad]

What's funny is shooting someone in mid air with FV and then watching them blow up coming down.

"Fireworks, Gandalf!"

I personally prefer the kill just as they lift off, and the body collides with a wall/roof, akin to Tony Stark in the first Iron Man when he tests his suit thrusters for the first time.

[Arbit]

I automatically roll/dash away from ASM when I kill them in melee or with some close range gunfire. The explodey jetpack symbol will pop up on your HUD like a grenade so even if someone kills as ASM behind you you know which direction to roll.

It's a bitch if you accidentally initiate an extra swing with the thunderhammer and you can't escape though. :(

[Civik]

Final vengeance also goes against space marine fluff. To puposefully destroy his body is to destroy the geneseed implanted within and deny his chapter new recruits. It has no purpose in the game other than to be some form of lolololCoD perk. It shouldn't be part of the game.

[goosey_j]

There's nothing unbalanced about final vengeance. It's a completely useless perk. The only people it ever really kills with some degree of efficiency is HB Devs that are stuck in setup after killing an ASM and point blank range, and people new to the game. I'm actually HAPPY when I see an ASM taking Final Vengeance. It means they're missing out on Impenetrable (a goddamn nightmare perk to deal with as any kind of gun class), Air Cooled Thrusters, Death From Above or one of the Zeal traits, all of which make an ASM a much more dangerous combatant than "LOLEXPLODE".

I run my ASM with a Chainsword & Plasma Pistol, Blind Grenades, Aircooled Thrusters and Swordsman's Zeal. And I am a killing monster with that set up. The fight is completely in my favour, all the time. Final Vengeance is quite frankly a bit of joke.

[Pseudonymn]

It's a pointless perk and a wasted slot wether on or off the board in addition to being annoying as fuck because its use required no skill whatsoever. Change it into a perk that allows ASM greater mobilty/freedom by allowing their ground pound more forward range. Something closer to the SP would be superb.

[PKuono]

Are the zeal moves even of any use for assault marines? I've found by the time they get through my shields im dead anyway. As far as I know the zeal moves don't recover any shields so it feels like a wasted trait.

[konfeta]

They help when combined with impenetrable. Mostly allow you to survive stray shots as you hack away at a target and occasionally win you melee fights you otherwise would have lost.

[Gorb]

Final vengeance also goes against space marine fluff. To puposefully destroy his body is to destroy the geneseed implanted within and deny his chapter new recruits. It has no purpose in the game other than to be some form of lolololCoD perk. It shouldn't be part of the game.Chainswordsman's Zeal (or whatever the name is) also goes against Space Marine fluff. To magically regenerate his body while swinging a heavy motorised blade around is to be tainted by the powers of Chaos and/or defy biological reality (even considering a Space Marine's regenerative abilities, which function without holding a chainsword). It has no purpose in the game other than to be some form of lololol "easy mode healing ability" perk. It shouldn't be part of the game.

Honestly, I consider "this isn't fluffy" arguments to be rather silly, considering that gameplay always comes first.

[goosey_j]

The Zeal/Killing Blow + Impenetrable skills are a great combo for ASM. They give the class some more staying power, which is handy when you're learning the class, or playing with the Axe/Hammer (as those weapons are slow).

But I can't live without my Air-cooled Thrusters, so I only get to pick one. I choose Zeal because theoretically, Impenetrable requires you to start taking ranged damage in order to be effective. And I don't play the ASM with getting shot in mind. So I opt for the survival skill that requires you to be hitting things with the sword instead :) and it makes a noticeable difference.

In my opinion, once you've mastered moving with the ASM, speed is their greatest offensive weapon and their greatest survival tactic.

[konfeta]

See, I have a different opinion. I play under the assumption that the opposing team won't sit there, herpaderping it up as I slash away at their allies. An ASM can't exactly sneak up on someone and it costs nothing to shoot at one trying to kill off an ally withing line of sight.

Plus, with impenetrable, you can sucker meltagun users into walking into melee range.

[Gorb]

The thing is, konfeta, that Killing Blow and Air-cooled Thrusters is rather effective at being gittish. In that jumping in, mauling someone and jumping out becomes not only feasible, but relatively reliable.

[konfeta]

Well, to put is slightly differently - any team that allows you to repeat the strategy of jumping in and out is lemmings and will get its ass kicked no matter what perks you use. Personally, I got tired of going in tandem with few allies, prepping the enemy team with a flash, and getting one shot with a meltagun within a second of attacking someone.

The only time I think you can rely on "please don't shoot me guyz" grand strategy against a somewhat organized team is when you are hunting devastators. I rarely see those guys covered with more than one ally.

And, personally speaking, most of my ASM kills are easily on those who don't carry impenetrable. A good ASM with mobility perks is scary, but is very vulnerable when swinging. A good ASM with Impenetrable is a nightmare as it becomes significantly more difficult to gun it down in the alloted time space of it attacking.

[Arad]

My assault rolls with Air Cooled Thrusters and Death from Above with a powersword. DFA can knock shields off any class that isn't a non Icon/IH devastator and after that it's cut cut chop chop jet away. Regarding Impenetrable, I rarely find myself surviving long enough to enjoy it. I'm running into a lot of tacs that follow up a meltashot with melee or pistol shots, which kills me right quick even as I'm chopping them myself. Simply put, Impenetrable is the difference between one shot melta, or melta and boltshell to the face. : /

[goosey_j]

I'm with Arad here, konfeta I see your point but honestly when as an ASM do you ever jump into the middle of three guys and herpderp slash them up? That's a one way ticket to death town. With Flash grenades, plasma pistol and chainsword and air cooled thrusters you can essentially pick off members of your choosing quickly and effectively before rapidly jetting away from harm. Swordsman's Zeal just helps keep the health topped up between the encounters, but as Arad states DBA in place of Zeal makes for a highly damaging combo which is slightly more fragile then a Zeal build.

I like to think of my ASM tactics as a combination of shock and awe and hit and run :)

[konfeta]

I go for the guy in the back, but generally, I am also not deaf and I can hear it when an enemy Raptor lands on our guy in the back, turn around and put holes into him.

As for DFA, I repeat my total and utter hate of that perk. IT NEVER GOD DAMN WORKS. I can land directly on a Stalker Tactical who went AFK to get tea and crumpets and the game still pretends as if I landed 20 kilometers to the south.

[The Boz]

You can't dodge the Final Vengeance blast if you simply use a single melee attack after you have already killed the guy. Because of, say, lag, mistimed clicking, or being attacked by more than one kamikaze at the same time.
Try it. Lab it. Kill a FV user in one attack, then attack once more and try to roll out of the damage. So far I've only done it as an Assault/Raptor by jumping the fuck away, which only works half the time, if my jump pack is charged.
Anyone who says Final Vengeance is balanced and should stay in the game should be shot in the leg and left in the desert for the carrion birds to feast off. And by the way, I main Assault/Raptor above all other classes.

[Gorb]

I love how your attitude boils down to "anyone who disagrees with me deserves to die in a fire". Really, is that the way to put a point across?

[The Boz]

It worked for the Emperor, and Emperor be praised, it will work for ME!

[aziz_hafla]

Ive used thunder hammer and frag nades with impenetrable and final vengance since the start and it is seem to be a fine loadout, i got 26 kills in a match moments ago

[Arad]

I go for the guy in the back, but generally, I am also not deaf and I can hear it when an enemy Raptor lands on our guy in the back, turn around and put holes into him.

This actually led me to a very sneaky strategy...or when NOT to use the dive attack. The dive attack makes that very distinctive SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-BOOM sound affect that definitely attracts a lot of attention...but not the muted THUNK you make just by letting gravity do it's job. In one game, I killed a lasdev farm three separate times on the bridge because I simply dropped behind them, popped stims and invidually stabbed them to death with my powersword. This tactic gets REALLY lulzy when combined with the hammer and perk. If the dev doesn't know you're there he won't move out of your range, and he dies a painful death.

Walk softly, and carry a big hammer...

[Ap0k]

The thunder hammer actually works much much better when you let gravity do the work and then proceed to wreck face. The problem with divebombing is that by the time you recover from the landing animation, your opponent has recovered from the stun, and they can roll away from your first swing if they're on the ball. Which is pretty much certain doom for the assault marine, and you just wasted your window of surprise.

I'm pretty sure Final vengeance would be find if it weren't for the complete dogshit connection problems that are a permanent feature of the game. In a 60-80ms environment you'd have enough time to get far enough away from the blast to prevent a fatal explosion even if you were mid-melee swing (exception being if you're thunder hammering, and even at that, I very very rarely get caught in a vengeance explosion these days - Just learn not to spam your melee keys).

[KDR_11k]

I usually do a gravity landing and start softening my target up with my plasma pistol before going into melee. Most targets don't figure out what the PP fire means until they're already dead. Hell, sometimes they're dead (or near dead which means I can jet away and finish them in mid-flight) before I even need to go into melee. With air cooled thrusters and impenetrable I can fight effectively at range even as an ASM since I take less return fire and it doesn't hurt as much.

[konfeta]

Hmm, well, after playing some more with DFA + ACT, I must say that the jump cooldown is most noticeable on the Chainsword and is largely pointless on the Hammer.

DFA is still a roulette for me. It's nice when it works, but it registers roughly 1 on 5 direct hits for the damage it is supposed to do.

On the side note, +1 on using the "Jump + Shoulder Tackle." It has the least delay of all ASM moves.

[Gorb]

Annoyances with the Assault Class:


It's possible to kill a Thunderhammer/Daemon Maul-wielding ASM with definitely the Chainsword, and I think the Power Axe as well, prior to him even landing a blow. Combine this with Zeal and you don't even tend to lose any health even if the hammer-wielding ASM gets a partial hit. This is based on playing as, and playing against, said builds. To admit my bias, however, mainly against (the Chainsword in particular).

Disparity between Chainsword's Zeal, Power Axe's Zeal and the effectiveness of Killing Blow. The first Zeal is superior to the second, and both appear to be more useful, especially if you sacrifice Impenetrable, to Killing Blow.

[konfeta]

1. Only with lag. The hammer swings faster than it takes to land four direct hits. I never engage a Hammer wielding ASM face to face and I almost always win exchanges against a Chainsword ASM while using hammer.

2. Axe just sucks. It needs an advantage. Either higher total speed-damage combination or some secondary property. Unless there is some special skill you need to figure out with it, but I always do significantly worse with it than the other two weapons. Killing blow, I learned to with the glancing thing. Eventually you get used to locking onto the target before swinging.

[Gorb]

Problem is, you don't necessarily need the whole four hits. Three hits is often sufficient after a spray from the Plasma Pistol or Bolt Pistol. What am I supposed to do? Retreat whenever I get hit by their sidearm? I have a weapon that basically one-shots them; my pistol is mostly useless (unless they're running away).

I wouldn't say the Axe sucks, I would just say that the Chainsword is particularly good, especially with Zeal. I would advise Relic, if they were to look at how the game balance is evolving and if they plan to release balance tweaks, to balance around the Axe.

[konfeta]

Theoretically, something about interrupt attacks and a well placed dash should decide who wins an ASM duel. Practically, rely on lag yourself. Hammerines are the First Company of the Lagmarine Chapter for a reason.

As for balancing around the axe... I will have to disagree. That would actually make ASM genuinely suck.

[Gorb]

I enjoy moderate success with the Axe, so aye, will agree to disagree there. On the flipside, I've barely touched the Chainsword so maybe I'm missing out on the awesome?

And yes, I need to improve at landing those charge attacks.

[Zeroblizzard]

Am I the only one that thinks signum link is OP? I just look for the red text and lascannon the sucker.

[Ap0k]

On the flipside, I've barely touched the Chainsword so maybe I'm missing out on the awesome?
Yes.

As mentioned, the swords faster swings give a greater benefit when combo'd with Zeal, and the extra armour damage from the axe can be compensated for with the plasma pistol, leaving you with a slow swing speed, weak vs health weapon that doesn't give you a big zeal benefit, and has the additional negative of not 'locking' to targets quite as well as the sword. There's really no reason to use it right now.

What it should have been was a weapon designed to take on feel no pain/iron halo dev's. You can be pretty much guaranteed to get rinsed by a heavy bolter dev with fast setup 90% of the times you jump in on them, even if you land every swing. It's just too easy for them to setup and fill you with giant bullets before you can actually kill them, and forget about trying to soften them up with a pistol or grenade before you jump them, because you just told them you were coming and that they should have a look around and prepare a stomp for sometime in the next 5 seconds.

If they swapped Axemans Zeal with a perk that made it an actual power weapon (as in, cuts through armour like nothing), thereby reducing the benefit gained from Iron Halo, we'd have a legitimate Dev-hunting option. The gain would be outweighed by the fact that it's still a terrible weapon against anything else compared to the hammer or sword, meaning it would still be a real choice to make.

[Jaimas]

Actually, the Axe is quite good. It takes practice to get used to, but once you get dialed in, you're murder. Axeman's Zeal gives notably more health per hit than Swordsman's Zeal or Power Swordsman's Zeal, and when paired with Impenetrable, makes for the single most durable assault in the game. It's offset mostly by the fact that the Axe habitually loses to the Hammer (due to killing blow) and isn't quite as good at chasing, but trust me when I say it's a fine weapon for what it does.

Granted, Lag issues will get you killed with it far more than with the other weapons. Swords you can bugger out any time, and the Hammer you're going to comphrensively fuck whatever you hit irrespective of its stats, but the Axe's slower speed means it's more vulnerable to lag spikes than the others.

[konfeta]

Axeman's Zeal gives notably more health per hit than Swordsman's Zeal or Power Swordsman's Zeal, and when paired with Impenetrable, makes for the single most durable assault in the game.
Define notably? It feels like it heals 1/4th HP just like the sword does, but it lacks the magic magnet ability which generally translates into less hits against rolling tacs.


we'd have a legitimate Dev-hunting option.
But... that's what Killing Blow is for -_-

[Misiok]

Actually even if Axeman's Zeal gives more health per hit than Swordsman's Zeal, it's moot anyway, because by the time you get your second axe swipe, the chainsword gets 2-3 hits and you just die. I know because I died like that alot in 1v1 against Chainsword Assaults/Raptors.

That and it also lacks the magnet ability :/

[Jaimas]

Axeman's Zeal means you win the damage race vs. Sworders, and I know because I've done it and have the killcount to prove it.

So I'm doing something right there.

I don't know what this "Magnet" you guys keep speak of is, but the Axe is pretty boss if you use it right. Thus far my biggest issue with it is that it's the most vulnerable to lagspikes of the weapons - meaning that it's the most likely of all the melee weapons to miss a critical attack right at the worst possible moment.

Mark my words, if lag improves, this thing will be infinitely better than it is now.

[Zallis]

Apparently you lock onto targets easier when using the sword, and stay on target more if they roll to the side. Honestly, I've never really noticed a difference, but then again, I don't play assault terribly often.

[konfeta]

O.K., to take a break from ASMtalksey, Stalker perk discussion time. Did a quick lab to compare burst fire to regular fire:

Burst Fire takes about 3 seconds to shoot all 10 bullets.
Regular Fire takes about 4 seconds to shoot all 10 bullets.

Burst Fire second bullet very much goes wide. The second bullet will not land a headshot unless you are very close or very lucky.
Regular Fire, at maximum fire rate, actually has all shots hit dead on the reticle. The firing rate is actually synced up with how long it takes for the reticule to recenter. If there is recoil from not waiting a fraction of a second longer between shots, it will only be noticeable at extreme ranges.

What this tells me - the Stalker is superior for sniping and headshotting while unperked. This matches my experience in-game. The burst fire's primary use is potshots on the body and pure DPS on the body. Now, what that tells me, there the burst fire perk actually gimps you at Stalker's intended range/precision if you don't suck at aiming and changes its role from a light sniper into a regular bolter alternative. In fact, it makes it harder to try to go for headshots because you effectively get only 5 bullets per clip to land headshots with. This mostly matches my experience in-game, but I haven't used the gun seriously for a while now. Thoughts?

[Carl]

Thing is at extreme range it's pretty hard to get headshots anyway in my experiance, good aim or not. Doubly so against moving targets. The burst fire amply componsates for that as i'm petty sure 2 body shots is at least as good as 1 headshot. It's also a lot nastier up close. Though it's still outshot by so many of the popular weapons that it's a bad idea to use it at that range IMHO. Unless you can outdodge or out aim your opponnent or they're missing more health/armour than you you'll just get killed. But it does at least mean you can put up a noticably better fight, giving you more opportunity for assists.

[konfeta]

Hm. On Hab map, burst fire actually misses the second bullet even on body shots for me on those "cp to cp" ranges.

-_-

[BigSteve]

Would be better dropping its clip to 5 rounds (from 10) and giving it a 200% damage shot. Burst fire and extra ammo are both pretty meh perks.

[konfeta]

Heh, wouldn't that make it kill people in a headshot + bodyshot?

[BigSteve]

Maybe you would adjust the RoF to equal 1.5 x the normal shot for recoil and rechambering? But yeah, I know what you mean. You should have as much of a chance to dodge the second shot as you would a lascannon, so I guess it would have to be 2 headshot strength maybe?

[Carl]

@Konfeta: Habs a bit of a bind like that though, try a private game with just you in it and fire from D point to the "wall" that forms the front of the A point platform, you can see how it spreads really well there. Also for intrest, try a salvo of plasma gun shots at that, tell me what you make of it, i found it imformative.

[konfeta]

Roughly half the shots seem to land on target. And, yeah, plasma gun is surprisingly accurate. For some reason it doesn't feel like that in combat, though. It feels like there is a slight delay that is just enough to screw over your aim. Thankfully, you really only need to aim for the body with plasma weapons.

Oh, oh my. Who wants to hear something glorious?

First of all, bad news. Death From Above does NOT affect the Jump+Tackle combo. It leaves about 2/3rd of the HP bar from a direct hit on a fully shielded target. But Furious Charge does affect it, and it leaves 1/10th of the HP bar.

The Good News: You know the Stun-Stun combo for the hammer? With the big blue explosion? The thing is basically a souped up grenade explosion. Direct hit kills an Iron Halo devastator. With Sure Strike it nearly kills everything in the explosion itself and heavily damages things outside it.

[Steel*Faith]

Final Vengeance is a really cheap perk. It's blast radius needs to be smaller for sure, because right now I roll away from it and it can still kill you. In lots of situations, you're in a close quartered space, or your teamates are blocking you, and you can't get out of the way of the blast.

Ideally, I think this perk should be removed from the MP completely and replaced with something that actually needs skill to use.

[Jaimas]

Ideally, I think this perk should be removed from the MP completely and replaced with something that actually needs skill to use.

No legitimately good Assault player uses that perk.

[Pseudonymn]

Agreed. It punishes the more skilled player who had the misfortune of dispatching the suicide ASM with a bunch of TnT strapped to his back.

[Gorb]

If you're getting hit by Final Vengeance, either the opponent timed and aimed his divebomb pretty well, or you kinda suck at moving out of the blast radius.

If anything, this perk hurts other Assaults more than Tacs or Devastators. And even then, if you have Air-cooled Thrusters or are able to dispatch the guy at range (True Grit or pistol whipping), getting away is easy.

[konfeta]

If you're getting hit by Final Vengeance, either the opponent timed and aimed his divebomb pretty well, or you kinda suck at moving out of the blast radius.
Or you are staggered by unholy amount of grenade spam while stuck on a CP.

[Carl]

@Konfeta: strange i've had few issues there, but i tend to avoid getting too close with it, at medium ranges i find the slight spread takes care of 99% of my inaccurracy anyway. Sure it works better when i get a perfect aim, buit it isn't a fatal situation if i don't. Unlick anything else that can shoot out to that range effectivlly.

[Gorb]

If you're getting grenade spammed, konfeta, I'd argue that they'd probably kill you before Final Vengeance does :p

[konfeta]

Only if they are Masterbullshit Grenades. Incidentally, nerf them plox.

Just had a series of games with 5-7+ Devastators on both sides, yet every game was decided entirely by which team of assholes spammed more MCGs on the CP when the other team was capping.

[Gorb]

Hah, yes. However to get four mastered grenades of bullshit and hacks, you sacrifice both perks.

Still, an ungodly combination. I would imagine that Assaults have the easiest time dodging it to be fair. Zeal + Death From Above/Air-cooled Thrusters should make short work of the grenade attempts and their throwers. Assuming you manage to organise a gang of you to go ASM with that build.

[Jaimas]

The biggest problem I think people have with Final Vengeance is the game's unholy lag. I've lost count of the number of times I've been caught in the blast area of it only to take no damage, and at least 3 or 4 times that often I've bugged out after killing an Assault only for its exploding jump pack, some 200 feet behind/below me, to kill me because the game's lag decided I should die from the explosion of said jump pack.

The connectivity of this game is responsible for more issues in this game than the poor weapon balance is. I don't exactly know how to feel about that.

One thing that really needs addressing though as far as perks is concerned is how useful some of the perks are; Serrated Blade buffs your damage to the level of an Assault's Chainsword/Power Sword, but you don't gain the reach, chasing ability, or useful attacks thereof, so the perk kind of sucks, and you'll continue to get raped by Devastator mighty boots of doom and any competent Assault will still instagib you. Larraman's Blessing provides nowhere near the benefits of Impenetrable or Feel No Pain, to say nothing of Iron Halo.

None of the Tactical's weapon perks except for Kraken Bolts, Bolter Targetter, the Meltagun charge improvement, Improved Twin-Link, and Burst Fire are remotely useful, either providing extra ammo that isn't needed (Plasma Gun, Melta Gun, Vengeance Launcher), provide some kind of benefit that just isn't useful (Vengeance Launcher), or which have no real impact whatsoever on how the class plays out (Plasma Charge upgrade, Stormbolter reload improvement). Serious rebalancing on the weapon perks that aren't for the Bolter and Stalker/Daemon Eye Bolter needs to take place so that some of the other weapons actually can be considered useful (and the Vengeance Launcher in general needs a buff).

Simply put, a lot of the Tactical's perks just aren't that good. Weapon Versatility remains the most-taken perk, and with good reason; you're insane not to take advantage of the sheer utility it gives Tacticals. Unfortunately as things stand, the Tactical is the weakest class in close-combat by far (against all logic), has the lowest durability, and has the most trouble dealing with combat situations that turn against it. Changing a few of the perks it has up would seriously buff this class to the point of usefulness. Here's how I'd do it:

Larraman's Blessing: Provides boost to max health instead. It makes up for Devastators having FNP/Iron Halo and Assaults having Impenetrable.
Serrated Blade: Lets a Tactical use a Power Sword/Chainsword. It's already doing the same damage, so the main edge this grants the assault is an improved ability to chase foes and deal with Devastators in CQC.
Master-Crafted Wargear: Frags under this effect need to be slightly nerfed. Blind Grenades under it are fine. Combat Cocaine under this needs to last a bit longer (they need to last longer in general but I digress).
Favored of the Armory: +1 to Grenade count or Combat Drug count - not doubling. As it stands it grossly favors nadespammers and completely removes any purpose behind taking it for Combat Drugs.

Your thoughts?

[Pseudonymn]

Final Vengence is a one-shotting bullshit perk that rewards suicide rushing ASStards. It's impossible to avoid if you have even one swing animation in past the point of death even before the damned lag gets you. Jumping out of the blast radius results in an air kill (Death from below) and extra points to the dead ASStard. It's a broken, fucked up perk whose sole use is to troll other players who manged to show that it was they where were the more skilled combatant.

I stole some assets from Jaimas and made the following for your enjoyment and education:
http://i55.tinypic.com/2mmyfll.jpg

[Edit] Also, we can has hivemind, Jaimas.

[Carl]

Pseudonymn: if your getting cuaght you fucked up. Deal with it.

At the end of the day jumping out will save you 100% of the time assuming your not in a warping grade lag game. It isn;t close to an instant detonate. And frankly a god ASM learns to control ther swings. Failing to do so gets you gunned down by competent Tacs and Dev's. Generally even with impenetrable i'm jumping clear of any fight with just a sliver of health left. Eithier play your ASM to perfection or don;t play at all because there's several dozen diffrent thinsg that will destroy you for no effort if you don't. It's why i only jump on ASM anymore when i'm feeling in the mood for it. Their too much hassel otherwise. The effort to reward ratio isn;t fun.

@Jamias: Are you trying to sound like an idiot. A ta has a freking high power ranged weapon. No way they should have the ability to out melee an ASM serrated knife or not. A full health ASM vs a full Health Tac (With serrated knife), should STILL be a walkover for the ASM becuase at the end of the day he has none of the ranged firepower of the tac. Serrated knife is there to let you finish of an ASM or dev you badly damage with shooting. You use it while you reload or when you can't get away from melee range. You in no way use it to allow you to tackle enemies in melee as a primary attack method. Your a tac, that menas you shoot things. Melee is secondery.

[Pseudonymn]

Pseudonymn: if your getting cuaght you fucked up. Deal with it. Stopped reading here.

This from the guy who's PC is the shining beacon of perfect functioning and whose connection to the world-wide intertubes has never dropped even one single data packet. Get stuffed, Carl.

[Carl]

Well excuse me, i have had lag issues, but lag isn't an acceptable balance argument. It is not a permanant thing, (since the patch), nor is it severe enough to make dodging final venagance an issue in the majority of games it happpens in. In a low lag or no lag, (or rather impossibble to notice lag), game final vengance is trivial to avoid. Those games are the majority for anyoen with a vuagely decent connection, (When my own drops below 500bps download/100bps upload i get perma bad lag, but thats my fualt and i know better than to try playing anything online with that, weather it's dedicated servers or P2P).

[konfeta]

Hah, yes. However to get four mastered grenades of bullshit and hacks, you sacrifice both perks.

Still, an ungodly combination. I would imagine that Assaults have the easiest time dodging it to be fair. Zeal + Death From Above/Air-cooled Thrusters should make short work of the grenade attempts and their throwers. Assuming you manage to organise a gang of you to go ASM with that build.
"But to become a waking carpet bomber, you just need to sacrifice both perks." They have artillery grade range and can be thrown out stupidly fast. Oh, and let's not forget to mention Rabid Deployment + MCG combo - nothing short of an already shooting Devastator or Meltagun can kill *that* before it throws a grenade and cleans out the point. ASM can't do anything about it other than run away and throw inferior grenades back, which even when it works just means the game degenerated into even more grenade spam.

MCG is honestly the most disgusting perk in the game. It absolutely ruins CP games in a way that no other weapon does and, yes, that includes Plasma Cannon spam. The only map with spread out enough CPs and open enough CP points where their dominance isn't completely assured is Hab center.



or which have no real impact whatsoever on how the class plays out (Plasma Charge upgrade, Stormbolter reload improvement).
Disagree on those two. Stormbolter with reload is a significant improvement it because it eliminates almost all downtime from shooting the gun. Plasma Charge upgrade actually makes the Charged Shot usable for something that isn't pee-ka-boo. Their only problem is that, surprise, they are outclassed by MCGs.



Master-Crafted Wargear: Frags under this effect need to be slightly nerfed. Blind Grenades under it are fine. Combat Cocaine under this needs to last a bit longer (they need to last longer in general but I digress).
Favored of the Armory: +1 to Grenade count or Combat Drug count - not doubling. As it stands it grossly favors nadespammers and completely removes any purpose behind taking it for Combat Drugs.
They need to be altered so they do not contribute even a bloody drop more to the grenade spam than the game is naturally prone to. Which means, no AoE increase for frags; FotA completely redesigned. How about FotA becomes the anti-special equipment perk? Resistance to explosive damage, resistance to flash grenades.

As for a MCG Frag change... it's kind of annoying to come up with something that doesn't improve grenade spam because, let's face it, anything that improves the grenade improves its power in terms of spamming. The only thing I can think off that won't make it better at being spammed into groups of people is something that specifically targets the people who hang back - Devastators. Any ideas? Maybe faster fuse with lower AoE, lower bounce, and improved damage?

[Carl]

How about just moving off the point till the grenades have gone off. That allways works for me vs grenades. They cna spam to their hearts content but all they're doing is slowing me down. Unless they really catch me out they won't even damage me with them. I move off, let the exploshions die down, move back on, then proceede to use my grenades to corral them into weaons fire or flush them out of cover. Don;t work so well if i get left on my own by a team that thinks standing in the exploshions acomplishes anything, or if there's a lolcannon on the other side, but assuming i have some support it's pretty easy to shove them off.

[Jaimas]

Damn it Psuedonym, that totally Ninja'd a comic I was planning to do. Suffice to say I approve, good sir.


@Jamias: Are you trying to sound like an idiot. A ta has a freking high power ranged weapon. No way they should have the ability to out melee an ASM serrated knife or not. A full health ASM vs a full Health Tac (With serrated knife), should STILL be a walkover for the ASM becuase at the end of the day he has none of the ranged firepower of the tac. Serrated knife is there to let you finish of an ASM or dev you badly damage with shooting. You use it while you reload or when you can't get away from melee range. You in no way use it to allow you to tackle enemies in melee as a primary attack method. Your a tac, that menas you shoot things. Melee is secondery.

I'm going to ignore your rote insults and instead focus on the meat-and-potatoes of your post, because that's just how I roll.

Tac is designed to be the Swiss Army class. It gets out melee'd not just by ASMs, but EVERYONE. Even the dedicated "lol imma carryan a heavy weapon lasar" units that by all accounts should be weaker in close-combat. Their close-combat skills are a joke for a unit that is expressly intended to be versatile. As an aside, Serrated Blade already gives the Knife the same goddamned damage as the Chainsword/Power Sword. The only difference is that the Chainsword has a longer combo, has negligably longer range, and chases better. Oh, and the Chainsword/Power Sword don't religiously lose to Devastator mighty boots of doom (which will reliably beat ASMs if they get the initiative due to stunlocking; on what planet does that make sense). With no perk at all, the Tactical should, by its very nature, be able to beat the Devastator in CQC, but it flat-out can't barring lag-based shenannigans.

As a Tactical, you have three main options if a skilled Assault drops next to you - You either have a Meltagun, pull off a lucky dodge at just the right second, or you die. I know this because I play assault religiously; if an assault with an axe or sword lands next to a Tactical, that Tactical is comprehensively screwed unless he has some considerable moxie - or a Meltagun - and if the Assault's good enough, the latter might not even matter. You can match the damage an Assault Marine does with Serrated Blade, but with the short-as-hell range of the knife and extremely poor priority it has in a fight, you're still going to lose - and often. If a very minor tweak with Serrated Blade (having it give a better CQC weapon) fixes that perk, why the crap should it not be an option?


At the end of the day jumping out will save you 100% of the time assuming your not in a warping grade lag game.

Well excuse me, i have had lag issues, but lag isn't an acceptable balance argument.

So we're to ignore the fact that this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iOKuQUnL_w) and this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbiqNn6LxFM&feature=related) and this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1L-AdhUvRU&feature=related) are all common occurences then, and that the lag has been complained about on literally every community involved with Space Marine? Are we going to simply smile and pretend the obvious, that about a third of the complaints about FV would evaporate overnight if the game's horrific lag were dealt with, is not, in fact, accurate? Are we to simply pretend that the fact that if you're using a Hammer, you're multiple simultaneous (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCfod1XT7E) definitions of fucked if you pop an ASM with Final Vengeance, because there is no way in the Emperor's holy cornhole that you'll escape in time?

Seriously, if we're going to just live in denial on these, I'd like to know about it in advance, so I can prepare an appropriate response (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tL-i3IrKkg&feature=relmfu) beforehand. K?

[Gorb]

I think that the issues regarding Tactical melee prowess is that Devastators are simply too good. Especially with stompbuild of lols.

[konfeta]

How about just moving off the point till the grenades have gone off.
A. Sounds like a fantastic way to lose the point. "Slow down" is how CP games are won when its not a curb stomp match.
B. When the guy throwing grenades doesn't have leprosy, he won't just force you off your point, he will flat out kill you unless you can jetpack out. Given that most points have walls, your dodge direction becomes highly predictable. With FotA, it won't even matter if he guessed wrong because he can just toss it in the correct spot a fraction of a second later.

[Jaimas]

Very true, Gorbykins. Very true indeed, but you don't even need the Mighty Boot config to deal with one. Damage and priority alone give you an edge.

As an aside, Konfeta just adequately pointed out why it's bad, but it's more than that - Grenade blasts are fused, so they'll usually explode shortly after impact - unless you act like a dick and throw them from a huge distance away, in which case you give the enemy substantially less time to react because the 'Nade's already in the air. On Waste Management and Shattered Bridge, Nadepsam becomes a way of life for some players, since that point B needs to be capped, and you can throw a few nukes out there with MCW.

[Ap0k]

So we're to ignore the fact that this and this and this are all common occurences then, and that the lag has been complained about on literally every community involved with Space Marine? Are we going to simply smile and pretend the obvious, that about a third of the complaints about FV would evaporate overnight if the game's horrific lag were dealt with, is not, in fact, accurate? Are we to simply pretend that the fact that if you're using a Hammer, you're multiple simultaneous definitions of fucked if you pop an ASM with Final Vengeance, because there is no way in the Emperor's holy cornhole that you'll escape in time?
I think the point is that, and you apparently agree, the lag is why FV is so stupid right now. It's very little to do with the perk itself, and practically everything to do with the terrible terrible connection issues plaguing the game.

As someone who rarely gets hit by FV (unless I get stuck on terrain, or am in an area where my 'FUCK, JUMP AAAAAAAAAAAAAA' strategy is hindered by awkward things like ceilings) here's how I avoid it most of the time (and by most, I mean 95% of the time, as an assault marine, with a thunder hammer). In order of priority:

1) Don't play on a server where people are stuttering around. Ever. I drop from servers and look for another one as soon as I see people stuttering around on a regular basis. If I don't find a server where I don't have to deal with that crap within about 20-30 mins I just don't play at that time, and will try again in a few hours.

2) Don't swing wildly like a total loon. It takes like, 3-5 hits to kill someone with a sword or axe. It takes 1-2 to kill them with the hammer. If you're using your plasma pistol/death from above you should rarely be dropping in on someone with full health and shields (obviously it's a different story when you get jumped on, I know), so you take your shots, take a few swings and if they're dead at that point, great! Move on. If they're not, jump away and death from above them into another swing or two, or hop away and fill them up with plasma shots, and if they're not dead by that point, you've been swinging at air, and you're probably dead yourself because you can't hit a target.

3) Don't try and play with lag. No, seriously. If you have 1-3 bars showing for your ping, get out and find another server until you have 4-5. You're only asking for trouble with that kind of latency. You're playing an FPS (effectively, I know it's third person, but whatever). MS is everything.


In a virtually zero-lag environment FV wouldn't be anywhere near as big a problem as it is, and even right now, it's barely a problem for some people (whether that be due to their game-finding abilities, lucky connections, good reflexes, or the fact they play iron halo devs who don't care what you hit them with because it's all just a little pre-filling-you-full-of-bullets tickling). I mean really guys. You have 4-5 seconds from the point of kill until detonation. If you can't get away from it, with any class, in that period of time with no external inhibitors (like grenade knockback or that little pointy bit of terrain that your 6ton power armour can't crush over) then you actually, genuinely, are doing something wrong.

Does that mean the perk should be in the game? Meh. Probably not. It's silly to reward people for dying, and in the lag-environment the game is played it makes the problem a whole lot bigger than it really should be, but against good players, it's also a totally wasted perk slot (doubly so if you're not dying in melee range on a regular basis as well, or even dying regularly).

[konfeta]

On Waste Management and Shattered Bridge
And Manufactorum, don't forget Manufactorum! If you stay on the point B itself, you get sniped. If you move into cover for the boxes, you basically painted a gigantic grenade target on your face because it is physically impossible to avoid a MCG Frag when you only have 90 degrees of escape route direction. And Emprah help you if you try to cap points A and C - the nicest kill box in the game short of a 10 meter deep hole; I don't think even B of Waste Management compares.

#1 strategy of Manufactorum - run straight for the enemy side point and start throwing grenades like a madman. 3+ kills every time unless you get a lag delayed start (you need to run there perfectly and you basically have a 1-5 second time window to throw grenades depending on how many enemies are at the point).

[Jaimas]

Forgot about Manufactorum and the sniper alley of doom. Jesus. That made me nostalgic for Spawncamp Hell in the Gears 3 beta.


In a virtually zero-lag environment FV wouldn't be anywhere near as big a problem as it is, and even right now, it's barely a problem for some people (whether that be due to their game-finding abilities, lucky connections, good reflexes, or the fact they play iron halo devs who don't care what you hit them with because it's all just a little pre-filling-you-full-of-bullets tickling). I mean really guys. You have 4-5 seconds from the point of kill until detonation. If you can't get away from it, with any class, in that period of time with no external inhibitors (like grenade knockback or that little pointy bit of terrain that your 6ton power armour can't crush over) then you actually, genuinely, are doing something wrong.

Does that mean the perk should be in the game? Meh. Probably not. It's silly to reward people for dying, and in the lag-environment the game is played it makes the problem a whole lot bigger than it really should be, but against good players, it's also a totally wasted perk slot (doubly so if you're not dying in melee range on a regular basis as well, or even dying regularly).

I like the cut of your jib, good sir.

I actually agree with this, noble Ap0k, but the simple fact remains that Lag is a constant issue with this game, and the game is a lot worse for it. Additionally, it is extremely hard (not quite impossible for a Hammer Assault to get out of the blast due to simple latency issues. 5 seconds of det time rapidly becomes 1-3 seconds when latency is factored in, and when you throw in things like lag compensation, it gets that much worse.

See, the lag issues in this game exacerbate the problems that already exist. As has been discussed, FV would be infinitely less of a problem were the gamne not so laggy - but it is, and hence FV is a problem. I've lost count of the number of times I've killed an Assault, bugged out (or even killed it from afar with my pistol!), then gotten killed by the explosion of a Final Vengeance I am nowhere near, exactly as in the comic Pseudonym posted. Or seen a teammate nowhere near it fall over dead from it with no apparent cause.

A lot of players get lucky - good connections and lucky matchups that mean that they don't have to worry about Lag so much, but a lot of players suffer from hideous lag because the game will religiously decide to make someone who lives in the middle of Elbonia (http://tim.2wgroup.com/blog/images/elbonian_computer.gif) the host, as opposed to someone else in the room who actually has a connection that doesn't completely suck ass. Fixing the lag should be priority one, over many of the other problems, even as we discuss other balance issues and the like.