Ground Pounders and Mass Cannons (Videos)

[Galactimus]

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


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:


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

[JMadFour]

Rebounder/Swarm Cannon ftw.

[Jackobite]

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

[Zorlond]

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.

[Muffins]

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.

[Wabbles]

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

[Lowlif3r]

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.

[TravelerX1]

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

[Galactimus]

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

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.

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

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

[Ryme]

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.