Rifle needs a buff badly..

[Rodrigo]

it just sucks! its only saving grace is the AOE move debuff, even the 2 cost attacks + isolation doesnt make up for it, sure they -can- hit hard, but so does everyone else with some sort of aoe or multihit on top of it, rifles aoe does ♥♥♥♥ damage, and once used you can barely pick off 2-3 dudes if they're isolated/debuffed. I'm only supposing this class is meant to be the big damages and sometimes it does but only if a set amount of stuff is in place like isolation,opportunism,crit, not to mention that it doesnt pierce armor like the small crossbow. They really need some buff BADLY.

[Handbanana]

The rifle is niche and designed specifically for a crit build and killing bosses or elites. Its overall clear ability isn't great although its canister is good at CC in a large area. It is not a good weapon to start with and you generally shouldn't use it before your have a character built specifically for it.

Use the longbow instead it does everything the rifle does but better with the utility to also help clear waves.

[Rodrigo]

Originally posted by Handbanana:

The rifle is niche and designed specifically for a crit build and killing bosses or elites. Its overall clear ability isn't great although its canister is good at CC in a large area. It is not a good weapon to start with and you generally shouldn't use it before your have a character built specifically for it.

Use the longbow instead it does everything the rifle does but better with the utility to also help clear waves.

Well yeah, it should come with built in crit at least. The real boss killers are the dudes with the tiny crossbows, those ♥♥♥♥ pierce armor, get some +2 multihit trinkets and initiator and you can multihit like 6-7 times 5 times, they completely vanish any boss on a single round it's crazy. Rifle needs more power, range, crit for the big hit, aoe piercing attack to kill 3-4 on a line for the 2ap attack, and isolation and opportunism on everything just to be a little bit better

[Handbanana]

Originally posted by Rodrigo:

Originally posted by Handbanana:

The rifle is niche and designed specifically for a crit build and killing bosses or elites. Its overall clear ability isn't great although its canister is good at CC in a large area. It is not a good weapon to start with and you generally shouldn't use it before your have a character built specifically for it.

Use the longbow instead it does everything the rifle does but better with the utility to also help clear waves.

Well yeah, it should come with built in crit at least. The real boss killers are the dudes with the tiny crossbows, those ♥♥♥♥ pierce armor, get some +2 multihit trinkets and initiator and you can multihit like 6-7 times 5 times, they completely vanish any boss on a single round it's crazy. Rifle needs more power, range, crit for the big hit, aoe piercing attack to kill 3-4 on a line for the 2ap attack, and isolation and opportunism on everything just to be a little bit better

Rifles can crit for like 6k. They will 1 shot bosses and elites also with a single hit. Just like you said "get some multihit trinkets" go get some crit power trinkets and crit perks. Rifles have the highest base range in the game. With a few perks or items you can hit literally half the map with a single character.

There are different variants of each weapon. I think there is a version with base crit but no weapon comes with innate stat bonuses outside of that. As i said just like you have to build your multihit crossbow with the right stats and gear you have to do the same thing with the rifle. Crit power and crit chance and snipe kills everything. Rifle has the highest base dmg and the highest base range in the game.

[Aestrea]

It desperately needs minimum secondary effect like the ballista where it pierces an enemy behind on the primary attack. 2 AP for a non-dodgable hit on a single enemy is very bad for a horde game. The hip fire also requires the character to stat in accuracy because it can get very inaccurate at near maximum range without any benefits like the high damage proximity shot of short bow. The third skill is great but you can only use it once per turn and is overshadowed by the binding roots from druid rod. The snipe is OK but I rather use it on a scroll for the limited situational purposes and can possibly just go with the normal orb attack for half the damage for that isolation build.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Rodrigo:

Originally posted by Handbanana:

The rifle is niche and designed specifically for a crit build and killing bosses or elites. Its overall clear ability isn't great although its canister is good at CC in a large area. It is not a good weapon to start with and you generally shouldn't use it before your have a character built specifically for it.

Use the longbow instead it does everything the rifle does but better with the utility to also help clear waves.

Well yeah, it should come with built in crit at least. The real boss killers are the dudes with the tiny crossbows, those ♥♥♥♥ pierce armor, get some +2 multihit trinkets and initiator and you can multihit like 6-7 times 5 times, they completely vanish any boss on a single round it's crazy. Rifle needs more power, range, crit for the big hit, aoe piercing attack to kill 3-4 on a line for the 2ap attack, and isolation and opportunism on everything just to be a little bit better

Nah. Those are the wand dudes. A wand has a general damage range like 4 times over an x-bow and you can use a magic missile with multihit +5 to shoot 9 magic missiles vs the 1 handed xbows 7. That means it has a lot more potential in damage deal. Since the armour amount is usually only 1/4th or 1/3rd of the amount of the boss's hp...it can deal a lot more damage. Especially if you take into consideration that damage and critical can be upped to 400%.

[Polylog]

Imo the rifle is just a trash weapon. Sure, it has amazing single target damage, but you can do the same or more with other builds as well. Momentum weapons can crit nearly as high and multi-hit + crit builds deal even more damage per turn while also clearing hordes well.

2ap is just too expensive for a shot that only kills the tier 2 enemies if they are isolated when a momentum weapon can do it for 1 ap with a few steps windup or when a multi-hit can do it in 3-4 out of 6+ hits. (and maybe the one-hand xbow should lose armor piercing)

[Flavalicious]

Its definitely an all or nothing weapon. Feels incredible when you get a big boy super crit on a boss, but any other time its like a wet fart in the night lol.

[A5G_Reaper]

It's just not good as a primary weapon, people. Put it in the second slot of a handbow/shortbow/pistol user and it's much better, let them use the remaining AP once they run out of movement points. There are times when you really really want to have high-damage single shot as opposed to hitting the target multiple times.

[FAT WANZER]

Put it on you melee ppl as secondary to shoot the bomb ppl so they can melee next turn

[Super Cosmic Space Magnet]

Are y'all playing a different game? Put a rifleman on each corner of your base on a tower and use them to snipe dangerous elites/priority targets that won't just die to your ballistae. Also massacres bosses.

You'll still need a few intrepid sorts who can go outside for the northside Dryad or to do the flames in Map 4, but for the first three maps at least rifles are absolutely excellent.

[Aestrea]

Originally posted by Super Cosmic Space Magnet:

Are y'all playing a different game? Put a rifleman on each corner of your base on a tower and use them to snipe dangerous elites/priority targets that won't just die to your ballistae. Also massacres bosses.

You'll still need a few intrepid sorts who can go outside for the northside Dryad or to do the flames in Map 4, but for the first three maps at least rifles are absolutely excellent.

Yes we are playing a different game. It's a great weapon with apocalypse off but once you hit that 30% more enemies and then +50% movement apoc level especially near the later nights as that movement speed ramps up. There is no way in hell you can manage a side with only a single riflemen picking off the buff enemies. Assuming you have a line of ballistas on that side and maybe one fortress master.

[Super Cosmic Space Magnet]

That's fair. I've done maximum apoc for map 1, but I've only done up to Apocalypse 3 on the maps 2 and 3. I've not even cleared Map 4 on normal yet.