Wargear items that under perform and suggestions for improvements

[Ruzdreg]

When ever you play through The Last Stand, there are clearly some wargear items that you never see anyone use. Or if they do use them, then they quickly send you a message through the chat saying how they are very dissatisfied with that new piece of wargear they have just unlocked. It's clear that some items are just terrible or are massively outclassed by better options available.


I want this thread to be about wargear items that you think are under performing and your suggestions for improving them.
I'm going to start by listing the Mekboy's 2 never used weapons.


Rokkit Launcha.
Since I got ahold of Retribution 5 weeks ago and pretty much played The Last Stand non stop, I have never once seen a Mekboy with this weapon. Back when The Last Stand first came out, I was really looking forward to the Rokkit Launcha when I saw it listed as my next wargear choice BUT was greatly dissappointed when I actually got to use it.
Issue:
This weapon is all about knockback and anti-vehicle damage, but that is why no one uses it. The Blooded Collosseum lacks vehicles as there are only 4 waves which features them (including the Carnifexes) and you don't need a dedicated weapon to take them down. The Anvil of Khorne features more but I have yet to try this weapon on that arena, under fear that there will be a lot of times where I simply can't do anything to help anyone. This leaves you with just the knockback trait to realy play with, which doesn't help much when you could have just brought along a better weapon and killed those units instead.
Suggestion:
As the weapon is more of a support weapon, it therefore shouldn't be made into a damage dealer. But its current damage and accuracy is simply too terrible to harm even the most basic of infantry, units that shouldn't need team mate support to kill. I propose 2 suggestions. The first one is to raise its damage output a bit, actually making it capable of killing basic infantry at a reasonable pace. Currently it does 4 damage per missile (12 if they all hit, which only occurs against vehicles), so upping it to 7 damage per missile could be enough to harm infantry at a reasonable amount but yet not push the over all damage against vehicles too much as, in my oppinion, 21 damage against vehicles is not extreme. Especially considering that the Hive-Tyrant's Vennom cannon, which is effective against all targets, does 20 damage per second and ignores armour too.
My second suggestion for the Rokkit Launch is really for novalty purposes but will help further its use when the Mek isn't in a situation where pure knockback is enough. I suggest that the Rokkit Launcha adds a new ability: "Rokkit Barrage". Basically, it's the same ability that Tankbustas have but now costs something like 20 energy to use. However, it should be made more powerful to comphensate the fact that there is now only 1 man firing the barrage, instead of 3. This ability will further help the weapon cause damage, but as it's an ability, it therefore wont be in use all the time and not constantly causing hefty damage (by the Rokkit Launcha's standards).


Dakka Deffgun.
Amongst the most powerful and loudest weapons in an Ork horde are the Deffguns. So when you hear "Dakka" has been added to the gun's name, you have high expectations. Sadly, the Dakka Deffgun is the Mek's second under performing weapon.
Issue:
This weapon is designed for suppression and like all other suppression weapons in The Last Stand, they don't do much damage at all and in genereal aren't very useful. The main problem is that you will be attacked from all angles but you can only suppress targets in one direction. This means you'll need to be constantly on the move to get to a better possition, but the Deffgun requires a setup, limiting your mobility. As a result, this weapon pretty much requires the Teleport pack to work. Another problem is that you'll be threatend by units that are immune to suppression, rendering your weapon completely useless. You already require your team mates or abilities to actually kill the suppressed units, but the non suppressable ones require even more support.
Basically, this is a weapon that limits mobility in turn to just slow down most enemy units, and may kill a few if you keep on firing at the same unit for a while. Or you could equip yourself with the Big Shoota and throw around some Booby Traps to get a more useful result.
Suggestion:
I don't want to buff its damage else you'll end up with something simular to a Big Shoota + Booby Traps, so instead I propose a different method to handle the issues. As the Mek will require either team mates or abilities to kill the suppressed units, which can't be relyed on as your team mates could be dead or you have no energy to use your abilities, therefore some form of energy regeneration could be added to the Deffgun. Let's say 1.5. I'm sure with all the random technology mounted to the weapon, there's bound to be something in there which the Mek can squeeze energy from. This faster energy regeneration will allow the Mek to field his abilities more oftern, which will most likely be used against the suppressed units or at least be used to help power his teleport pack to get away, as you'll most certainly be using that armour with this weapon due to its setup.
The second suggestion is a new trait for it: "Git Finda". What ever unit the Mekboy has targeted, will suffer the same results as the Tau's Markalight - making the targeted unit more vulnerable to ranged fire. This will only be applied to what ever unit the Mekboy has initially targeted. Therefore only one unit at a time will ever be under the effects of the Git Finda. This trait could also have an additional effect, the targeted unit will take further more damage if it is not suppressed - representing the fact that these units are not trying to take cover on the approach and are being hit by the full force of the "focused" Deffgun.

[Mullertime]

[NOTE: I'm working off CR, so please excuse if my descriptions are inaccurate]

Continuing with the MekBoy - The first that springs to mind for me is the Mad Teleporta Pak

It's quirky and looks fun, but I really see little use for it. It's apparently a form of defence vs melee enemies. Only problem is that half the time they're teleported 2 feet from you and leap straight back into melee! The other problem is that it does squat vs ranged fire, and the MekBoy doesn't have too much that can compensate for the pathetic ranged defence (It's not like the teleporta pack which lets him evade it)

I'm not sure how to fix it to be honest. My only thought it perhaps adding an ability that does an AoE teleport on enemies. A Single-Click ability that will randomly port all enemies within the radius all over the map. Better yet, maybe allow the Mek to target and teleport selected enemy units? Teleporting them either randomly or even at your chosen spot. Something to make it more practical and strategic

It's the same with the electro-armour one (the one that passively damages enemies nearby) - it's cute but relies on you being close to the enemy. Problem is that you fall so quick to their fire that you can't stick around long enough to get any decent use from it. Other than HP Regen, I'm not overly sure on how to make this one useful

[Ruzdreg]

I was going to mention those 2 pieces of armour too in a later post.


Electric Armour
Issue:
I think the real issue with the Electric Armour is mostly down to enemy ranged attacks and not all attacks in general. Although the poor 32 armour wont save you from anything (32 is poor even by the Farseer's standards), the Mekboy can always pop up the Bouncy Shield to keep melee units off him and then walk all through them, causing the passive electric attack to strike all who bounce off him. This only leaves ranged attacks and the Mekboy has no way of getting around the arena other by walking, and it'll only take a few shots from even Shoota boys to fell him.
Suggestion:
As, in my oppinion, it's just ranged fire that the Mekboy struggles with when using this armour, I therefore suggest that this armour offers some form of range damage resistance - something like 50% reduction. The logic behind this is going back to the TT game. Before the 5th eddition came along, the Trygon was said to have a weak shield generated by its bio-electricity, waving from the creature. The Mekboy's Electric armour could follow the same theme.
This new ranged damage reduction should help the Mekboy when he's out in the open, when running around the arena to escape being trapped or when charging a foe. Of course, this change wont make the mekboy impervious to ranged fire, but help him out enough to run between cover or when making that charge to an enemy.


As for the Mad Teleport Pack, I must admit that I too haven't really thought of anything to improve this item without totally changing it or breaking it's design. However, I haven't used this item since the introduction of the Juiced up Tellyporta gear, nor do I actually believe this armour to be that bad. Although it of course still needs some kind of improvement but perhaps that Juiced up Tellyporta could have some really positive effects on the armour? Well, I'll have to try it out.
Issue:
To use this armour is to sacrifise a controllable teleporter or really tough armour. As the teleport from this armour could end you up in a far wosre situation then you were previously in, it therefore already has its own drawbacks to the possibility of teleporting your enemies away. This leaves you with a mild 80 something armour rating, which isn't good considering that you had to drop the 180 that the 'evy armour would have offered in order to use the Mad Teleport Pack. Because of where the teleporter could put you and because of the inability to help you around the arena (through both mild armour and no controlable teleporter), the true issue I see with this armour is the inability to escape danger (including evading ranged fire).
Suggestion:
I like the sound of targeting an enemy unit and teleporting them randomly around the map. This can be used to get rid of the most annoying unit chasing or sniping the Mekboy, allowing you to evade the most concerning threat without actually moving away.
My suggestion was to allow the Mekboy to sometimes and randomly teleport instantly to the location you have told him to move to. There would of course be a delay between attempted "rolls" for the chance so you can't just click repeatedly on the location and end up there quicker. This would tie in with the malfuntioning theme of this item but yet give the Mekboy the possibility of completly escaping danager when it triggers.

[CommissarRezail]

Lord general bolter. I don't. It does no real damage...

Suggestion: make it do real damage, or replace it with a melta gun so the guardsmen can use meltas.

[Ruzdreg]

I'm still playing through with the Lord General and have yet to try his Bolter out, but going by what I've seen people say about it in-game, I'm not likely to even give it a go. It appears that the only use of it is on the Guardsman squads through the Wargear Package trait.

[klaymen_sk]

Speaking of the LG, his plasma gun is next to worthless without Guardsmen - 7.3 DPS is laughable at best. And with them it is just mildly better. If no ally can taunt the enemies, they become a little more than energy sink. Even when I used Commissar and Sergeant.

[Schmapdi]

In my experience - I find the Mekboy/Lord General to be quite a bit weaker than the other heroes. Namely because they are the only ones lacking that big "oomph." Something that can stand up to ridiculous damage flying around while still being able to kill stuff. The SM has a dread, the CS has a doppleganger (which is crazy strong), the Farseer can mind control units, The Tyrant has a host of strong minions -

But from my experience with the Mekboy - he only has two really viable builds - the Teleporta/Deffgun "die in one hit to everything past round 14 because your teammates destroyed all the cover but still doesn't do that much damage" and the no ability/no damage melee tank build which is like watching paint dry.

I was excited to try the Lord General - and I'm only level 10 on him on so far - but the guardsmen die in droves, have AI problems big time, and struggle to damage anything in even the earliest of levels. Maybe they'll be better once I spend ALL my equipment slots to improve them (while adding very little to myself) :/

[guardsman lover]

All of the Lord General's ranged weapons except sniper rifle and the DLC shotgun are useless. Bolter, Plasma Rifle, Flamer, and Grenade Launcher do very little damage and the guardsmen are too stupid to stay in range. Heck, the grenade launcher's blind grenade volley doesn't even hit where you want it to, and enemies usually dodge it by the time the grenades hit.

A melee LG is also gimped in that the protective armors do not confer the ability to summon turrets, and Mekboy/Captain/Hive Tyrant makes for a better tanking character anyway.

As for summonables, the only really useful ones are Catachans and Stormtroopers. As I said before, guardsmen can't use your shotguns or sniper rifles so that's a no-no. Catachans at least have a powerful frag ability and can take out entire chunks of waves with good timing (which you can't control anyways) Ogryns usually wander off somewhere when they should be tanking for you, which makes them useless. Stormtroopers reduce energy cost of everything, which is a godsend when the minions and turrets tend to die a lot and you really need those high-powered shots/solid slug to get nobs/daemons/weapons platforms/wraithlords/wraith guards off your back. Plus, you get to use tactical Withdrawal, which is like a cheap, less useful version of jetpacking/teleporting around.

For the squad leaders, sergeant wins out over commissar any day. Sergeant adds +2 health regen and +100 armor for all minions. Commissar only boosts attack by a mere 30%. Your minions are just humies. They die very fast, if not too fast. If commissar doubled damage or gave some other bonus I'd think he can be usable, but Sergeant all the way for me.

[Ruzdreg]

After playing with all the heroes and their wargear, I must say that the Flamer with the lord General is an awesome weapon BUT only when you have Guardsmen for your troops, making use of that wargear package ability. Add in the Commissar for bonus damage and you can take out large groups of enemies in seconds. Other than that, I agree that the Sniper Rifle and Shotgun are the only other useful weapons with him.

So Lord General then.
Now, before we go any further, here's a large suggestion for the Lord General that I heard over on the official forums. Make him able to equip 2 weapons - a ranged and a melee weapon. After all, he DOES carry 2 weapons regardless of what you give him. Going by current wargear, this would mean that he would always be carrying either the sword of protection or the inspiring one, giving you an extra choice for better armour which is really needed when bringing along those heavy turrets, or better offense to fend off the many melee units in the game. It would be interesting to see where things went from there.


Boltgun
Issue:
The novalty of this weapon is the zeal feedback you gain from each shot and the fact that Guardsmen can use this weapon. (But we'll ignore that as that's more of something to do with the Guardsmen) However, this weapons does about1-2 damage and the HP gain is equal to 25% of the damage done. Basically, you'll be gaining somewhere between 0 and 1 HP per shot and of course, doing pretty much no damage to the enemy, especially when you consider their HP regn. Clearly this weapon just isn't at all practical or even remotely useful.
Suggestion:
The Boltgun appears to have been desgined for a pure defensive role and not just for the Lord General but the Guardsmen too. Without breaking that, I would say first off would be to increase the HP gain per shot but as the weapon's damage output is really poor, the HP gain should be equal to 100% of the damage done. That way the Lord General and his Guardsmen may actually be able to stand their ground against most ranged foes but would still need to use his equipment or rely on team mates to help turn the tide. But as this weapon is designed to be defensive, I have no problem with that. Although, if the Boltgun offered some kind of energy regeneration, then the Lord General would be able to pull off his own abilities more often to help break those stand offs.


Plasmagun
Issue:
This is meant to be a powerful weapon, but as it's one of the wargear package items, it was given a low damage output to compensate for the fact that you'll be having 4 of them. This means, like the Flamer, Grenade Launcher and the Boltgun, it's designed to be used with Guardsmen and as such, choosing to use different troops instantly render these weapons useless, leaving you with just the Rifle, Shotgun or a melee weapon. (Keep in mind that 1 of those ranged weapons is DLC). If anyone wanted to make use of the wargear package ability, then they most certainly would go for the Flamer. So, since it's too weak with just the Lord General and over shadowed by the Flamer for the wargear package, it therefore never gets used.
Suggestion:
It's meant to be a powerful weapon to be shared amongst the troops right? So increase its damage output. If it makes the Guardsmen really powerful, then fine - the Lord General has to sacrifise his weapon choice to achieve this, where as he could have gone with something like the Sniper rifle with the other, more powerful troops.


Grenade Launcher
Issue:
This is one of those typical "disruption" weapons and like the others, they don't get used. It's simple really, people would rather kill their enemies than just knocking them down for others to kill, especially when it's quicker to just kill them with the other weapons. The only way to make people (including myself) to even look twice at this weapon is to make the disruption effects fun and very effective at what it's meant to do.
The blind grenade barrage was a fun addition but as said by Guardsman Lover, it never seems to hit where you want it to land. In addition to that, it's pretty heavy on the energy use, if I remember correctly (25?)
Suggestion:
It has to be really fun and effective at disrupting for it to be worth using. As with the Bolter and Plasmagun, we shouldn't base the weapon around the wargear package ability. Otherwise it's another weapon that must be used with the Guardsmen, limiting the possibilities and stratergies with the weapon.
Firstly, I would say increase the knockback radius. Knocking over huge mobs of units is fun and should help compensate for the lack of damage if the radius is enough to catch all advancing units coming at you from the same direction.
Secondly, the blind grenade barrage should scatter near the target location and not miles off like it does now. After all, what's the point of choosing a location to affect if the attack goes else where? In addition to this, increase the radius of the blind grenades - same reason as with increasing the radius of the standard attack.


I don't propose any suggestions for the power swords because if the Lord General is made to carry one of them as well as a ranged weapon, then they would always be an added bonus to any weapon the General takes.

[Ruzdreg]

I feel like doing more and so I'll continue with the Lord General.


Reinforcements
Issue:
I have never, ever seen any one use this and I myself haven't even tried it out (And so I shouldn't really be complaining about it). Why? well because sacrifising a wargear slot just to replace somewhere between 1 and 2 models for 10 energy just isn't worth it, especially since when your unit starts taking losses, they useually end up dead very shortly after and need to be fully called in again. It's not worth wasting a wargear slot nor energy for what it does.
Suggestion:
I can't see "replenishing troops" to be very useful since you can just recall the whole squad in again, and useually have to do that anyway as they tend to get totally wiped out as soon as casualties start showing. Either make this free to use (requires no energy) or rework it altogether.
Here's my ideas for reworking it:
Make it so it instead allows you to call in a second unit? 2x Guardsmen squads with Flamers? Sounds nice when you remember that the General can call in a turret too.
Or have it increase the number of squad members? 2 more Ogryns / 3 more Catachans / 3 more Storm trooopers / 4 more Guardsmen.


Repair
Issue:
Because turrets have so little HP that when they start taking noticble damage, they end up trashed imediately after. And since the Space Marine's Drednaught regenerates HP, then the need to repair things is in such low demand.
Suggestion:
If somehow my map suggestion of having a fort or outpost themed map, armed with turrets, opperable gates and capturable but also destructable generators, gets made, then there will be need for a mechanic to repair things! Untill then, the repair item needs something more to it. I'm thinking that it could also add more HP to turrets, or / and allow you to call in a second turret. The wargear could then be totally renamed to something like Engineer so it's not focusing entirely on repairing.

[CommissarRezail]

You hit the nail on the head, hell i rather have lg drop bunkers down instead of that reinforcement crap. Well for the last stand at least. I found great use for it in regular multi player.

[Eagle 11]

Repair in Tls is basically an handicapped Heal ability (since you can Heal Dreadnought and Tau Drones too <- retarded). The way it should have been is like an single-buff version of Blessing of the Omnissiah that you can place on a mechanical (turrets etc.)

Reinforcements could been a bit useful with Ogryns if it would function like Call da Boyz instead demanding designation of drop-off point for container in midst of battle.

You should been allowed 2 bolter and missile turrets. Vanquisher turret could use an RoF buff.

Both bolters need an serious dmg buff. On captain the only reason for picking the bolter is its +0.3 mana regen and even that should function similar to LG bolters combat zeal but should gain energy per hit instead hp that way could been an real choice. On lord general reasons for picking the bolter is err.. being newb and assuming it can be great i suppose..

Captain's Thunderhammer is another broken gear. Its 2-handed supposed to be an slow swinged hard-hitter but dmg output is lowest than any weapon else,cant even surpass the 1-h power axe. Its 2. problem is having an knockback per swing passive attribute which causes you to lose aggro as Tank. The knockback attribute should become an active used ability. (can call it Ground slam,since special attack animation is there already)

[Ruzdreg]

Increased damage for the Bolter would probably be more fitting since the weapon struggles to kill even the most basic of units, and the Lord General doesn't really have any offensive abilities that would benefit from the extra energy regen I proposed.

So we should increase the damage and increase the feedback zeal to 50%. As the weapon should remain more of a defensive option (and Plasma gun the offensive version) then the damage increase shouldn't be too much.


As for the Captain's Thunder Hammer: I wouldn't mind the constant knockback if the struck units fell over on the spot - allowing the Captain to remain in combat with the unit and could then proceed striking the target without needing to move forwards, as it's this advancing towards the enemy after every strike which makes the weapon undesirable. The same thing should be applied to the knock back on the Hive-Tyrant's Behomoth Claws, especially considering the extreme pathing problems the Tyrant has.