Gunner's Bulletstorm Nerf - How to nerf it in PvP without being a chore in PvE

[Kozuki]

Yeah, the long-waited nerf on Fire Gunner has come. I guess some people are happy with the changes, especially 6v6 people, since they believe it will make Fire Gunner less potential in PvP content. Some people even go extreme to even feel glad that the class' PvE burst get nerfed (???), as if they are worried about losing their top DPS position for a class with extremely lacking of utility and only have DPS as its strong point.

 

Damage nerf aside, I will talk about the nerf where it requires Crossfire's debuff "Concentrated Fire" to proc Bulletstorm on a target.

 

While I agree the ability to zoom in and 100-0 many players at once is OP, and the nerf helps minimize the number of potential victims from 5-6 to 1-3 (the debuff can spread from target to target if the Gunner is skilled), the nerf inevitably makes PvE become lacking of the former fluidity.

 

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Basically, PvE-wise, this results in a much less proactive gameplay which pre-nerf Gunner has:

 

-You add another thing for gunner to add to their burst rotation, which is already weaker due to the damage modifier nerf on various items that boosts Bulletstorm.

 

-When you use 4 to mark a target, you basically waste 1-3 bullets for Unload. Tombstone will instant regain 5 bullets.

 

 

-When it comes to PvE on multi targets, the restriction of "Concentrated Fire" makes Gunner become a lot less flexible. They can only mark up to 3 target at once, wasting time holding 4 and shift target doing so. When marked targets die, their burst ends. They cannot use Bulletstorm on any other target, thus wasting potential burst of the remaining duration of Tombstone. For example, I burst down Raven King's add in two Bulletstorms, then become less strong on other adds or the boss itself cause my 4 is in cooldown, thus wasting other 4-5 Bulletstorms that should have generated a lot more damage.

 

In short: more jobs, less reward and waste resources.

 

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Keeping in mind that Gunner should still receive a nerf on Bulletstorm pvp-wise, I suggest some ways to make the nerf not being a pain in PvE:

 

-Instead of using Crossfire as a debuff marker, let Gunner mark with Tombstone. Tombstone will now shoot a bullet with "Concentrated Fire" debuff on the target upon use. This will allow Gunner to at least come back to its former burst fluidity (no need to 4 first), as well as nerfing the causality that Bulletstorm can cause, because Gunner have to be in 16m range to active their Tombstone, thus give you have chance to counter. With the current marking, Gunner can still tombstone first from 30m range, whip in, 4 and immediately bulletstorm you to die.

 

Or:

 

-Let make "Concentrated Fire" behave differently. Instead of making it as a debuff to proc Bulletstorm, let have it other way: Bulletstorm will cause a "Concentrated Fire" debuff on the target, and this debuff can be stack up further. A twist here is that make Bulletstorm start weaker, but causes more damage on target with higher number of stack.

 

For example, if a Gunner deal 1,000,000 damage with 5 Bulletstorm, which means 20% damage per bulletstorm, we make it into a tier-up system, where first bullet storm deal 100,000 damage (10%), second deals 150,000 (15%), third deals 200k (20%), fourth deals 250k (25%), and five deals 300k (30%).

 

This change will make Tombstone Move 1 become more PvE-oriented and less prominent in PvP. Since the first Bulletstorm is weak, you will have time to counter Gunner before it grows troublesome.

 

If you cannot deal with it and let Gunner to reach 3rd or more Bulletstorm on you, it is either you have run out of escapes fighting other opponents,  meaning you're just unlucky; or your pvp skills are justly lousy, using tab right on the very first CC and you deserve it.

 

Assuming Gunner manage to kill someone with Bulletstorm, when he switches target, he has to build up his debuff tier from scratch, thus effectively limiting his ability to 1v6.

[Racingwind]

On 23/03/2018 at 8:58 PM, Kozuki said:

-You add another thing for gunner to add to their burst rotation, which is already weaker due to the damage modifier nerf on various items that boosts Bulletstorm.

-When you use 4 to mark a target, you basically waste 1-3 bullets for Unload. Tombstone will instant regain 5 bullets.

-When it comes to PvE on multi targets, the restriction of "Concentrated Fire" makes Gunner become a lot less flexible.

In short: more jobs, less reward and waste resources.

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-Instead of using Crossfire as a debuff marker, let Gunner mark with Tombstone. Tombstone will now shoot a bullet with "Concentrated Fire" debuff on the target upon use. This will allow Gunner to at least come back to its former burst fluidity (no need to 4 first).

-Let make "Concentrated Fire" behave differently. Instead of making it as a debuff to proc Bulletstorm, let have it other way: Bulletstorm will cause a "Concentrated Fire" debuff on the target, and this debuff can be stack up further. A twist here is that make Bulletstorm start weaker, but causes more damage on target with higher number of stack.

First of all, good on you for posting insightful post with actual suggestions instead of a whining fest that so many threads of this nature were.

 

- You press 4 one second before the soul CD cool down and followed by V. The burst rotation is the same, LMB > F > repeat. It's what you do to prepare for the burst is different.

- You can start using 4 three seconds before soul CD is off cool down and use F to use them up. This is the same as when you triple shot just before bullet storm is up, those rounds gets wasted. Unload is buffed to compensate.

- This is true, it makes it less flexible, but not unworkable. Just have to be smart about it now instead of mindlessly opening up into bullet storm.

Yes, it's more things you need to consider while having slightly reduced output. But that's what a nerf is.

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Some good brain storming you got there but I do see some problems with them.

- I like this suggestion, fire gunner has to track V, Tab, Soul CD, 4 and make them all line up together all the while having to deal with resets. It is alot of work, and not what most people believe gunner to be a "brain dead" class. However, you are still "marking", just that instead of 4, you are doing it with tab. It reduces the potential to wasted rounds and helps to reduce the amount of work tremendously by not having to track your 4 CD. But this doesn't fix the flexibility issue of unable to change targets. Unless you make it so that tab is still usable during the entirety of the lethal buff and you can tab again to apply the debuff. But then you need to take into consideration of the CD changes to it so that it can still line it up with the long CD soul. Also, what happens when you miss that first "marking" bullet? Things to take into consideration.

- I don't believe a tier damage system like this will work well. Mainly due to ping / frame rate issues, some players are unable to get the last set of rounds out. This isn't a skill issue, it's a ping / frame rate issue, so they shouldn't be punished even more for missing the last set. Also, what happens with the primal badge where you extend lethal by another 2 seconds, allowing you to add in a 6th set? Will that set now do 35% damage? This compounds the problem for high ping / low frame rate players. This would probably also throw off balance for badges and make unload build much weaker than bullet storm build. Currently unload is weaker by about 5k, but is much more reliable in fights where you can't line up your CDs properly.