Don't nerf Sawed Off Shotguns

[Wee_murray05]

I wonder how many players who have to deal with Team Fortress 2 (for example) I'll find in Defiance.

I mean spy and his cloak & backstab. Such is the nature of this class, and people still play TF2 with no problem.

There is no such thing as a perfect balance, and at the moment I can see that the biggest problem is CLOAK itself. In that case, I look forward to reasonable suggestions on how cloak skill should looks/work like?

Besides, there will always be someone who will say that there is no balance. Next will be sniper rifles. "OMG, OMG, I have the whole super-set of the legendary items and the bad sniper killed me with single shot" - I'm waiting for it ...

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory had a similar class which could disquise itself and run amok behind your lines. It wasn't in any way overpowered though.

The problem with cloak is the counter perk that comes with decoy is tied to the decoy power and has the same cooldown period. It would be more useful if it gave a directional warning when someone approached using cloak and was always active. This way people speced to counter clpak could acctually do it effectively instead of hitting decoy and hoping there is someone cloaked in range.

[Shismar]

I have no idea why an already useless weapon needs to be nerfed. Maybe because of PvP? Well, in PvE it already sucks. Not much of a change there.

[nateD]

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory had a similar class which could disquise itself and run amok behind your lines. It wasn't in any way overpowered though.

The problem with cloak is the counter perk that comes with decoy is tied to the decoy power and has the same cooldown period. It would be more useful if it gave a directional warning when someone approached using cloak and was always active. This way people speced to counter clpak could acctually do it effectively instead of hitting decoy and hoping there is someone cloaked in range.

So it's possible - to write something constructive about cloak. Thanks!
Imo good idea

[usrevenge2]

all shotguns should be nerfed, ironically the sawed off aren't the worst of them (though they are bad)

[Wee_murray05]

So it's possible - to write something constructive about cloak. Thanks!
Imo good idea

Well its a dam sight better than just shouting "fix it" and expectimg Trion to know how to do it.
The whole point of the forums is so Trion can see and listen to our ideas, at least in the suggestions section.
We're all just brainstorming here!

[Warkaiser]

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory had a similar class which could disquise itself and run amok behind your lines. It wasn't in any way overpowered though.

The problem with cloak is the counter perk that comes with decoy is tied to the decoy power and has the same cooldown period. It would be more useful if it gave a directional warning when someone approached using cloak and was always active. This way people speced to counter clpak could acctually do it effectively instead of hitting decoy and hoping there is someone cloaked in range.

Kind of disagree with this. A cloaker also has to wait for cooldown to use cloak, combined with any explosive damage instantly removing the cloak and forcing cooldown. Dont see why Decoy should be given a constantly running advantage allowing them to always detect cloakers. If its an issue of your team not having enough detectors vs a team full of cloakers, well they have multiple loadouts for a reason. People on your team could simply switch to a detector setup when needed vs a lot of cloakers.

[Dist0rt3d Hum0r]

Sawed Off + cloak combo is the only combo that 1 shots, regardless what perks the defender has.

This is false, and I can tell you from personal experience that it is false. I use the SO+Cloak combo religiously with a VOT Nano Fragger. Absolutely adore that weapon. Mods I use are a damage buff to hipfire, reload speek buff, and melee buff. I use shadow strike for an additional 30% damage out of cloak. I STILL run into instances where i cannot oneshot a target, and I run into them quite frequently. In that case I end up switching to either my VOT Auto Fragger with syphon or to my VOT Fragger, which also has horrible range and a 10 second reload time, which is slower than my SO. In all honestly, I maybe only get 1/3 of my kills with my SO while the rest comes from my other weapon.

So here's my take on the subject. IMO, the SO does not need a nerf. I know I said in the patch descussion thread that it did, but I retract that statement after thinking about how I play with this weapon. It is not the SO, nor even the cloak that needs the nerf. Why not cloak or the perks associated with it? Because those perks were created with sniping in mind, not cloak-shotguning. Nerfing said cloak, which already has a minute cooldown on top of associated perks would anger a lot of snipers, such as myself.

As others have said the SO's higher damage is balanced out by its ******edly long reload time. This is a good balance. Leave it alone. Instead why don't we look at the other shotguns that are also used with cloak, such as the pump shotguns.

Pump shotguns have two things going for them. They're both fast-firing and quick reloading (relatively). They do a decent amount of damage to players, even tank players, and can kill in 3-5 shots, provided that they all hit. Shotgun's large ammo pool (250) allows for quite a bit of use before running to ammo boxes for a refill. Say what you want but in my honest opinion its the pump shotguns that need the nerf. Why? I just explained that. They are too good, but don't nerf the damage. Instead nerf the RoF and possible the reload time. They need a balance for the power that they wield, and that power level currently makes sense, so don't touch it. The RoF and reload times however do not. The pump action shotguns should not be able to fire more than 1 round every 3/4 to 1 second to compensate for their power and have a reload time like that of the VOT Fragger/Grind Fragger, which as a 1 second reload, but per round. That can be 10-15 seconds depending on the size of the clip. Thats a long time in PvP.

What about the combat shotguns? They need a nerf too!

Simply, no, they do not.

Complicatedly they do not because they are more or less a hybrid between the shotgun types. They do a medium amount of damage but have a high RoF to compensate for that. I often find myself needing 6+ shots to kill with a VOT Fragger simply because the spread of the weapon is horrible. If you're not in practically slaping distance (lets not confuse this with the hugging distance for SOs) of your opponent then you will likely end up using an entire clip for one kill, and that can be deadly, especially with multiple people around. This is normally where I would use cloak; after both my SO and Fragger have been emptied.

One more thing before I start cleaning for closing (I'm at work): Don't confuse smart play for OP weapons or cloaking (or hacking for that matter). Take Observatory for instance. I play this map, and only this map. Why? Because I'm familiar with it and I like my cloak/shotty combo. Almost every game that I play everyone runs toward the center building and the hallway becomes a grenadier or rocketeer's wet dream. I instead employ the use of the ladder or the side window around the left and use that to either broadside or come up behind my enemies. Its not uncommon for me to recieve at least one, if not 2-4 kills in this fashion: 1 with the SO and the other 1-3 with my Auto Fragger or Grind Fragger.

So all in all, leave the SO and even cloak alone and instead look at the pump shotgun, which is what I believe is the real problem in PvP.

[Wee_murray05]

Kind of disagree with this. A cloaker also has to wait for cooldown to use cloak, combined with any explosive damage instantly removing the cloak and forcing cooldown. Dont see why Decoy should be given a constantly running advantage allowing them to always detect cloakers. If its an issue of your team not having enough detectors vs a team full of cloakers, well they have multiple loadouts for a reason. People on your team could simply switch to a detector setup when needed vs a lot of cloakers.

It's not a perfect soloution I'll grant you. The problem with the way the perk works just now is that it is a hit and hope tactic at best. As well as this it deprives the decoy user of his decoy for situations where it would be of more use to him. The decoy should be used as a way to confuse enemies. None of the other powers have this dual functioanlity and while some would argue that this give the decoy user an advantage I would say that having to use you decoy to look for cloakers instead of using it as a decoy is a big disadvantage.

The decoy itself may draw the cloaker away from the decoyer which is probably why the two were linked, in order to bring the cloaker down to the ground with a crash, no cloak and no idea which of the two targets is real, but not having the slightest idea if there is a cloaker nearby makes this tactic null and void.

[nateD]

(...)As others have said the SO's higher damage is balanced out by its ******edly long reload time. This is a good balance. Leave it alone. Instead why don't we look at the other shotguns that are also used with cloak, such as the pump shotguns.

Pump shotguns have two things going for them. They're both fast-firing and quick reloading (relatively). They do a decent amount of damage to players, even tank players, and can kill in 3-5 shots, provided that they all hit.

You told about instances but not too much about pvp. Are you 1-shotting ppl with your SO or not? I'm asking becasue it's not always possible to shoot 4-5 times at once (in addition accurately, the best with critical hits), even with pump-shotgun, especially when there are many enemies around.

How much time your SO need to reload, cuz my pump-shotgun (Grind fragger, without mods in this case) needs about 13 seconds for full reload. So i wonder, how much time needed to reload a pump-shotgun will be long (relatively) ?

Kind of disagree with this. A cloaker also has to wait for cooldown to use cloak, combined with any explosive damage instantly removing the cloak and forcing cooldown. Dont see why Decoy should be given a constantly running advantage allowing them to always detect cloakers. If its an issue of your team not having enough detectors vs a team full of cloakers, well they have multiple loadouts for a reason. People on your team could simply switch to a detector setup when needed vs a lot of cloakers.

Of course constant detection would ruin cloak ability, but...

How about... after using decoy (with sensor sweep equiped) for few seconds player got buff that inform him about nearby cloaked enemy (somewhere in close range, without revealing) ? or similar

[Sm3gfor]

PvP is currently about who has the best shotgun. its crap. pump, auto or double barrel, nerf em all. sick of making a proper attempt to use my AR i pvp just to be 1 shotted by some kid who thnks hes awesome because hes using an overpowered weapon.