Ground Pounders and Mass Cannons (Videos)

When I bring up the damage potential of the Mass Cannon I'm normally met with responses like "It has no ammo." "It does barely any damage." "It's completely inaccurate." "The travel time of rockets is horrible." "My SAW can wipe out a camp before you can even hit a mob." However, I find all of these points completely false. You just have to get use to the aiming and timing of the rockets. You can't hit mobs directly with the rocket you have to manually detonate it near them. To those of you who have yet to use these two weapons I proudly present to you the following two videos in 1080p glory:


Mass Cannon Carnage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFsXwzSxZsk

The Mass Cannon doesn't seem to get much love from gamers in Defiance. Out of all the coops, pvps, and Arkfalls I take part in I've never seen another player use one. Plenty of Swarm Cannon users though. This video showcases the destructive power of the Mass Cannon. I chose Verdant Ridge as my random playground. If you keep an eye on my Overcharge meter you'll notice it never runs out while I'm engaged in battle. This is because every time I fully reload my weapon my EGO power duration increases by 9% and every time I get an explosive kill my EGO duration increases by 9% (perks). Reloading is also 30% faster while Overcharge is active (perk). And the weapon itself has a lot of reloading bonuses / mods attached to it. I ran out of Rocket ammo near the end so I stopped the video (can't believe none of that loot was ammo!)


Ground Pounder Carnage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSlov7fUYn0

The Ground Pounder on the other hand is a very popular weapon. But I still don't see a huge number of people using them when a Monarch pops up. Like the Mass Cannon, the explosions from a Ground Pounder ignore hellbug armor. This is the "Number 1" anti-hellbug weapon in the game. In the above video you can see it shredding through Hellbug plating like butter. Dead Monarchs in 8 seconds. Dead Blacklung in 5 seconds. Dead everything. Against Hellbugs you can also fire a Mass Cannon into the air and let God sort them out.


Summary
I understand not liking the play style, hating the sound of constant explosions, or preferring less micro-managing. I personally used a SAW from EGO 200 to EGO 2500 and I still bust it out during boss fights. But when it comes to general humanoid slaying I simply haven't found anything stronger then a Mass Cannon detonated next to someone's face. And your maneuverability with this weapon is spectacular; mobs really have a hard time hitting you when you're not aiming down iron sights all the time (I don't have a single defensive perk equipped either.) And Ground Pounders? Well, they don't really need much more of an explanation.

Thanks for reading / watching (^_^)b

Rebounder/Swarm Cannon ftw.

My first loadout is a pounder and a SMG, Iv not found the delights of a mass cannon yet but ill certainly be checking it out.

Anyone close in when the bombs go off will be blinded a bit by all the explosions but its a great veiw from my standpoint :)

Oh, all by yourself. Shoulda said. Whip that out in the middle of a major arkfall's end fight with 30+ people around. Damn thing won't be worth shtako. And even solo, I could do that particular mission solo faster with SMG/Sniper. The raiders in the area just aren't that tough.

I did give the mass cannon a shot in the co-op maps, though (yes, balanced for four people). With hellbugs or scrappers around, it was handy for keeping the smallest mobs clear. Bloody useless for anything and everything bigger.

Zorlond is pretty much right, any weapon with a claim of lack of ammo suffers when you only add more people into it. In Arkfalls and such unless you're near an ammo crate, you'll wind up running back to the ammo crate often.
And in some arkfalls even if you camp the ammo crate, Mass Cannon suffers from distance travel and detonation.

Another reason people don't tend to use Mass Cannon too, is that you do need to manually detonate it. A skill that's player based sure, but compared to the Swarm Cannon you can just keep firing in the general direction, and its numbers are higher than Mass Cannon.
Though admittingly I am getting sick of Swarm Cannons myself since when I blast an enemy, the fun part is watching how every blue globe that bounces out doesn't even hit the target... lol.

A huge fan of ground pounders, personally... so much I find them to be over powered, especially when you add +Mag to 'em! The reload for them is also pretty short...

Though like what you did with my thread you've pretty much opened my eyes and I'll probably convert to Mass Cannon over time since I grow tired of swarm, but for Arkfalls it's not that handy.

I remember seeing you in my Angel Island Co-op, Galactimus.

I just did Island of the Lost. With a ground pounder.

We started out just fine until the first fence... then somehow the other 3 people fell behind, and I just kept running killing almost everything on my way until the very end of the instance. Including the monarch. I have no idea what the other people did in the instance but they didn't get to me before it was all over.

That weapon is just mass destruction. Try it, lol.

Great videos!
I am a fan of the ground pounder, gonna give the Mass Cannon a try as soon as I can find one.

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Originally Posted by Muffins

...but for Arkfalls it's not that handy.

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Agreed. If it's a Hellbug its far better to bust out a Ground Pounder then play around with a Mass Cannon. If its a large bullet sponge (ie. Bosses) you simply can't go wrong with a SAW. In major Hellbug Arkfalls even I only use a SAW and Ground Pounder.

But for all-purpose humanoid genocide Mass Cannons really tear it up. As long as your accuracy is good you'll be tagging and bagging enough mobs to keep your ammo full. Other advantages include: Killing enemies behind cover, killing enemies with frontal shields, killing enemies before you can even see them, and getting extremely high kill counts in coop while jumping around like a fool.

http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps7251eeb5.jpg

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Originally Posted by Wabbles

I remember seeing you in my Angel Island Co-op, Galactimus.

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My apologies if that was the time I fell off the bridge while shooting into the sky, hah. m(_ _)m

I never understood the appeal of the mass cannon and ground pounder, as the spread aoe damage has never been as effective as a variant that just did direct damage in my experience. But after reading your post it's apparently because the weapons ignore the armor on enemies. Is this supposed to be a feature, because it honestly sound more like a bug. I would rather not base my experience of the game around exploiting a bugged weapon.

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Originally Posted by Ryme

I would rather not base my experience of the game around exploiting a bugged weapon.

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I wouldn't assume that it is a bug. The fact that a very particular set of weapons is exceedingly good against a particular enemy type seems to make perfect sense to me. Not everyone carries around cluster explosives, so it makes sense to me that they are particularly well suited for this task.

Great post OP, these are truly under-appreciated weapons and can be absolutely devastating in the right environments.

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Originally Posted by kjacks05

I wouldn't assume that it is a bug. The fact that a very particular set of weapons is exceedingly good against a particular enemy type seems to make perfect sense to me. Not everyone carries around cluster explosives, so it makes sense to me that they are particularly well suited for this task.

Great post OP, these are truly under-appreciated weapons and can be absolutely devastating in the right environments.

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It would be one thing if all launchers ignored armor, but if only one variant does, then it seems more like a bug.

The spread aoe damage can hit the same target with every rocket if you detonate just above their head. Instead of doing (1500 x 1) with "direct damage" versions you are doing (1500 x 4). But its entirely dependent on your familiarity with the weapon. With its large area of effect you have less room for error as well. But you really need to use mods and gun bonuses that "increase full damage radius" to unleash the damage it can do.

Ignoring armor isn't really the selling point of the Mass Cannon (unlike the Ground Pounder which is pretty much its main function.) Its really the synergy with all of your explosive / reloading perks that make it shine. 30% more damage with infinite overcharge, 30% more damage when you hit multiple opponents, 30% faster reloading, extremely large blast radius, grenade refresh every 3 kills (when I have a perk slot available). Ignoring armor is more of a small bonus on this specific weapon as a Ground Pounder simply does it better.

From leveling weapons on pursuits, I've come to like a lot of weapons I thought were crap in the beginning. I have no favorite weapon. I like using certain weapons for different situations.

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Originally Posted by Galactimus

The spread aoe damage can hit the same target with every rocket if you detonate just above their head. Instead of doing (1500 x 1) with "direct damage" versions you are doing (1500 x 4). But its entirely dependent on your familiarity with the weapon. With its large area of effect you have less room for error as well. But you really need the mods and bonuses that "increase full damage radius +0.40 - +0.60" to make hitting enemies with all a simpler feat.

Ignoring armor isn't really the selling point of the Mass Cannon (unlike the Ground Pounder which is pretty much its main function.) Its really the synergy with all of your explosive / reloading perks that make it shine. 30% more damage with infinite overcharge, 30% more damage when you hit multiple opponents, reloading in 1 second, extremely large blast radius, grenade refresh every 3 kills (when I have a perk slot available). Ignoring armor is more of a small bonus on this specific weapon.

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My main issue with Mass Cannon is that hitting "reload" to detonate is a bit of a chore. If we could just hit the trigger again, that would make it much more enjoyable. I would imagine this weapon is easier to use with a gamepad. Honestly, I haven't found a real use for rocket launchers, given there are explosive variants of just about every other weapon that can match the damage output and have larger ammo pools.

The Ground Pounder is the one that just sounds fishy. I tried it on normal enemies and it was just a disappointment. But if it ignored enemy armor, I can see why it would be good against armored enemies. Of course unless every grenade launcher ignored armor, it seems like a bug that just that one variant of GL ignores armor.

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Originally Posted by Ryme

It would be one thing if all launchers ignored armor, but if only one variant does, then it seems more like a bug.

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I wouldn't consider it a bug either. Perhaps "ignoring hellbug armor" isn't fully accurate either as your damage is indeed reduced by almost 40%. Throwing a Frag Grenade at a Hellbug Warrior / Monarch does 900 damage. Hitting a Hellbug Warrior / Monarch with a Ground Pounder does 900x3 damage. Its dealing massive chunks of damage but its not dealing its full 1500x3 damage either.

Ground Pounders and Mass Cannons essentially rain multiple "frag grenades" upon your enemy. Frag grenades which normally ignore chunks of armor, blast through raider shields, and flinch trash mobs.

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Originally Posted by Ryme

Of course unless every grenade launcher ignored armor, it seems like a bug that just that one variant of GL ignores armor.

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My experience, though not very well tested, is that all cluster-type launchers ignore hellbug armor. Swarm cannon, ground pounder, and mass cannon certainly all do. I am uncertain with other launchers as I haven't really tried most out on hellbugs. Most don't do very well against enemies with shields(the recharging kind, not armor), which puts them at limited use against elite enemies.

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Originally Posted by Ryme

My main issue with Mass Cannon is that hitting "reload" to detonate is a bit of a chore. If we could just hit the trigger again, that would make it much more enjoyable. I would imagine this weapon is easier to use with a gamepad.

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^This X1000! Hitting reload to detonate is cumbersome. The weapons you need to manually detonate don't need a zoom mode, so it would be great if they switched the detonate to right click. Hitting left click again would be even better, but wouldn't work with ones that had more than one shot (ground pounder). So taking away zoom and putting there is the only option I can think of.

Love both those weapons, dont see too many using RL.

My preferred explosive perk selections

Ego Power: Overcharge
Deadly cascade
Shock Trooper
Mad Bomber
Blast Shield
Pinata

If ego is 1000+

Add Quick Charge or defensive perk of choice

Very fun.

Decoy can also be a pretty good ego power if you'd like more defense and crowd control at the cost of offense. Helps group up enemies fr big explosions.

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Originally Posted by Epox

^This X1000! Hitting reload to detonate is cumbersome. The weapons you need to manually detonate don't need a zoom mode, so it would be great if they switched the detonate to right click. Hitting left click again would be even better, but wouldn't work with ones that had more than one shot (ground pounder). So taking away zoom and putting there is the only option I can think of.

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Detonation "ease" is mainly an issue with Mass Cannon because it's a flying rocket and will disappear if you don't detonate. It applies less to detonator grenade launchers, since those explosives will stay there until they are blown.

For an explosives build using a Mass Cannon I personally prefer the following perks. While reading these perks keep in mind that you are fully reloading your Mass Cannon almost every second:

Pumped Up: Fully reloading a weapon recharges your EGO power by 15%. (Overcharge recharges in 10 seconds.)

Time Out: Fully reloading a weapon increases your EGO duration by 9%.

Explosive Onslaught: Getting an explosive kill increases your EGO duration by 9% (Infinite Overcharge with Time Out.)

Overload: While Overcharge is active you reload 30% faster.

Deadly Cascade: You deal 30% bonus damage for each enemy hit by the same explosion.

Killing Machine: Increase duration of Overcharge by 6 seconds.

Quick Charge: Reduce the recharge time of Overcharge by 9 seconds. (This is sort of overkill with Pumped Up.)


When I get my last two perk points I'll use:
Mad Bomber: On an explosive kill recharge your grenade by 30%. (I'll probably switch this with Quick Charge for the time being.)
Blast Shield: Reduce the range you are hit by explosions by 45%.

LOL and that is why "OMG! RAIN ROCKETS ARE CHEAP!" in PVP I was hearing about shortly beforge game went live (yet, this video demonstrates it isn't). But then it got drowned out by the "Shotty+Cloak IS SO NUBBIE!". It isn't the weapon that is broken, its how the person using it makes it seem over powered...its the strategy and tactics the human operator employs, not the weapon it self. A weapon is broken if it reads 50 damage with 10.0 crit while it spreads like a shotgun without falloff + decent range and its full auto with very little recoil...basicly spreads so far that you can easily peg the only crit head spot for 500 damage multiple times, killing someone in seconds....where as it stands now shotguns have short range and fall off but require cloak to get in range with a shotgun to hit the sweet spot in the head...logic states cloak+shotty is fine. I expect soon, someone is going to start running a PVP rocket type just like the first poster did and more whining will ensue followed by a debate about shotguns and cloaks or rockets and overcharge as to which is even more OP.

Oh, a mass cannon in Shadow War can be absolutely devastating when the opposing team all hug the capture point and you detonate right above them. Not a double kill, not a triple kill... FIVE..SIX... THE SKY IS THE LI..*Zap* shtako sniper on the ridge OMFG NERF DEM /ragequit or a groundpounder in observatory where you mine the area you know they're going to storm, and just wait in cloak to press "X" and laugh maniacally as you watch them burn, burn them all...! (Too much Game of Thrones, sorry!

Both weapons are a great way to annoy the crap out of everyone else in a co-op or death match. Can't see **** with the huge explosion fx all over the place, aiming with a more surgical weapon like a sniper rifle or scoped AR is almost impossible.

If there is an explosion spammer on my team I'm not even trying anymore, I'll just equip a ground pounder or clustershot and start spamming as well.

I agree. Sniping during Coops is hard enough with enemies strafing left and right instead of running towards you. Missing headshots when they are flinched by enemy fire and such. I've had one player ask me to put my launcher away in which case I had no problem doing so. But rarely do I find Sniper Rifles to be useful during coops even when someone isn't using a Launcher. Its all about head shots and trying to land them can be a waste of time with 3 other players rampaging through the area. Yeah, I eventually got my 5000 Bolt Action kills but I almost always had to switch to an LMG during coop.

Fun videos.

Since the first time they introduced the Mass Launchers they have become my favorite gun in the game.

PVP and PVE they are just so fun to use. I prefer the mass over the ground and pound because pounders take a bit to long for my taste vs's the mass.

I just hope someday soon they fix it so the weapons both level up and count towards your launcher or detonator skills. As of right now you get no credit in either areas.

Shotgun + Mass in pvp is epic fun.