The OVE9000 SAW and what it's good for

[Malidictus]

With the Enforcer skill tree redesign seemingly trying to make the OVE9000 SAW even better in melee and people still arguing about single-tapping lockboxes vs. double-tapping them, I thought it's time to have a long, hard look at the good old Portable Saw and try to figure out what it's actually good for and which of its mods and skills actually help achieve those things. I've been using a Secondary SAW with both Portable Saw and Carbon Blade Aced for over 1000 hours now, so I like to think I know a thing or two about using the thing.

Near as I can tell, the SAW has three potential uses - as a melee weapon, to open lockboxes and "everything else." Let's look at those point for point.

1. The OVE9000 SAW as a melee weapon.

This is a common bone of contention because... Well, let's face it - the SAW sucks in melee. Its damage is crap, its ammo is far too limited and the game's actual melee weapons are generally better in melee without taking up a primary or a secondary weapon slot. Using the SAW in melee also suffers from significant slowdowns as you need to weapon-switch to it, then weapon-switch back to your primary weapon, as well as having to reload it from time to time. Melee weapons generally don't have that issue as they draw much faster and have infinite ammo.

So what can we do to make the SAW better in melee (assuming that we even want that)? Well, one option is to give it a lot more ammo, or else give it ammo pick-up. That, however, is problematic because all of the SAW's other uses - which is what it's actually useful for - are finite. There are only so many ATMs, doors and lockboxes per heist that you can even use your SAW on, meaning a lot of ammo basically means you never need to worry about SAW ammo. This is already the case with Portable Saw Ace + Fully Loaded + Durable Blade, in that I have about 4 and a half disks. That's enough for everything on every map that doesn't have lockboxes and enough for 3/4 of the lockboxes on maps which do have it. Giving the SAW ammo pick-up goes along the same lines - finite things you can use it on, infinite ammo pick-up.

A possible solution would be for the SAW to either not use up any ammo when used to saw open cops' heads, or else to use very very little ammo - say 1 unit per "click." That would allow us to saw with impunity without worrying about wasting its precious ammo or reloading constantly. With the new Enforcer skill to cut through shields and sew panic, it might JUST be worth switching to the SAW instead of just using my Katana, but just barely. Overall, I'm not convinced we need to focus on making the OVE9000 SAW an actual weapon, and would instead like to focus it on being a tool for map progression. Speaking of which...

2. The OVE9000 SAW for opening lockboxes.

This is by far the most common use for the SAW, and I'd argue its only real "role" in the game. Lockboxes are the one thing you can't realistically open without an OVE9000 SAW. I mean you can, but you'd be spending 45 minutes doing it and ain't nobody got time for that. Opening lockboxes takes rather a lot of ammo for the SAW and is very fickle about the SAW's exact damage breakpoints. Whether you can open a lockbox in a single click or whether you have to click it twice makes a massive difference in the amount of ammo you need as Lockboxes usually come in large numbers.

The major limiting facot for using the SAW to open Lockboxes is ammo, which is why I believe that the SAW should be allowed to one-click open lockboxes without needing special skills. You can always control its ammo supply by tweaking the SAW's actual ammo capacity up and down, and you can do this much more finely than than the "regular or double" binary state of the damage breakpoint. Back in the day it used to be that you could mount both the Sharp Blade and the Fast Motor and one-click open lockboxes, or you could use just one of those mods + Carbon Blade and get the same result. Returning to that balance point seems like a reasonable compromise.

Basically, though, lockboxes are where the majority of your SAW ammo is intended to go, and they are about the only reason I can think of to even need to reload your SAW from an ammo bag. Which just leaves us with...

3. The OVE9000 SAW for opening doors.

I'm grouping these in the same category because because they all come down to opening some variety of "door" - security door, regular door, cage door, train door, etc. For the most part this is handy, but it's never really necessary. Most of those doors can be shot open or picked open with a relatively slow delay, or at the very worst drilled open. Drilling Security doors does take a while, granted, but that's not the point. The common thread of "opening doors" with the SAW is that there are typically only a small number of doors per map that you need to open - generally one or two, rarely more than that. For the most part, there's enough ammo in even a completely unupgraded SAW to open all of the doors on a map, or at the very least all the ones that actually matter (and which the cops won't kick open themselves, given a few minutes).

Because of the small ammo investment, I consider opening doors to be at best a side use for the OVE9000 SAW and usually not really a use that one needs to "build" for. Granted, more SAW damage means you can open Security doors in 8 clicks vs. 12, but is that really going to matter on a map all of one of those? The dumbest part is that's really the only thing that the Carbon Blade skill affects - how many clicks it takes to open a door. We're always going to have enough ammo to open a door, and if we don't have enough and somehow completely ran out of ammo bags, then big whoop. We'll shoot it, pick it or drill it. Job done.

I should also point out that there exist plenty of other skills which can open doors in admittedly less optimal ways than the SAW can. ECM Override can open security doors and ATMs instantly, the Lockpicking skill can open regular doors pretty fast, C4 can open nearly any door and - worse come to worst - Drill skills can pick up the slack.

---

So what was the point of this whole exercise? Well, the point is highlight a specific problem with both SAW skills and mods - they don't help where it counts, but help a lot where it basically doesn't matter. What does the SAW need above anything else? To be able to open security lockboxes in a single tap. What helps you do that right now? Well, ALL of the SAW skills together with ALL of the SAW mods, but that's a considerable investment. What do the actual SAW skills help with? Opening doors (which the SAW doesn't need help with) and meleeing enemies (which the SAW will never be good at period).

I feel this calls for a rethink of how the OVE9000 SAW should work and what we should expect out of it in terms of baseline. I'd argue that the SAW's damage against inanimate objects should be a fixed, unaltered value. There's next to no benefit to be found in altering its damage against doors - all that does is potentially double the ammo you need for lockboxes. Fix the SAW at, for instance, 1 click against lockboxes, 2 clicks against vault cage doors, 2 clicks to open an ATM and 1 per "bolt" inside, 6 clicks per regular door or cage door, 8 clicks for a security door.

Any damage changes thereafter would only affect your ability to kill cops. It needs to use either no damage or next to no damage doing so and be very, VERY effective - much more so than a melee weapon. Cutting through shields and sewing panic is a good idea. By divorcing the SAW's damage against cops from its damage against the environment, we can alter its effectiveness in melee considerably without screwing up with its utility use. This means the damage mods can do a LOT more, as can damage-related skills.

This way, skills which improve the SAW's utility would would give it extra ammo in the form of discs to use while skills which improve its combat capability would give it extra damage. This removes the weird co-dependencies and awkward numbers entirely, and I personally feel it would make for a much more logical SAW.

[kiro the avenger!]

i think the saw is largely okay as is
granted worthless for melee, but that aint gonna change any time soon i dont think

if you want to one-hit boxes without a large points investment, get berserker>molotov yourself
thats only 8pts including the saw itself, aint noboby got time to ace both saw skills o.0

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by kiro the avenger!:

if you want to one-hit boxes without a large points investment, get berserker>molotov yourself
thats only 8pts including the saw itself, aint noboby got time to ace both saw skills o.0

Keep in mind that I speak from he perspective of someone who does Ace both Portable Saw and Carbon Blade. Yeah, it's a waste of points but it makes for a pretty powerful SAW. I also speak from the perspective of the new skill trees where Berserker will end up in its own separate tree different from the OVE9000 SAW.

You are right, though - the SAW is garbage for melee and skills which focus on improving its melee stats will likely not be very useful. That said, IF Overkill want to improve the Saw's melee skills (and they seem to, with the new SAW skills), then the only real way to do it is to segregate its stats as a tool and its stats as a weapon. Without that, messing with its damage becomes a pain in the ass with a lot of unfortunate side effects towards its use as a tool.

[kiro the avenger!]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by kiro the avenger!:

if you want to one-hit boxes without a large points investment, get berserker>molotov yourself
thats only 8pts including the saw itself, aint noboby got time to ace both saw skills o.0

Keep in mind that I speak from he perspective of someone who does Ace both Portable Saw and Carbon Blade. Yeah, it's a waste of points but it makes for a pretty powerful SAW. I also speak from the perspective of the new skill trees where Berserker will end up in its own separate tree different from the OVE9000 SAW.

You are right, though - the SAW is garbage for melee and skills which focus on improving its melee stats will likely not be very useful. That said, IF Overkill want to improve the Saw's melee skills (and they seem to, with the new SAW skills), then the only real way to do it is to segregate its stats as a tool and its stats as a weapon. Without that, messing with its damage becomes a pain in the ass with a lot of unfortunate side effects towards its use as a tool.

your maxed out saw may be good, but at 20% of your total skill points alone thats a mighty expensive tool simply to open a few boxes, which can be done for a third the points :P
and yeah, the new skills if they hit unchanged are really gonna flipturn the builds all upside down

i hope they dont hit though, not unchanged at least

[Noelle Suplex]

The saw is not a weapon in any sense of the word. It is a tool through and through... though that doesn't stop me from going Double Saws when playing Bank Heists every now and then. Doing stupid gimmick stuff is one of the beauties of Payday.

The Saw will not be a viable weapon unless they make it where you can pull it out and start it up with no delay whatsoever and make it where the ammo goes down very slightly when used on cops.

Not to mention the massive opening you're leaving for yourself when it comes to things like Tazers and Cloakers.

[Copy & Cat]

Don't forget the wonderful new shotgun tree that has saw skills at the very top, and damage resistance from armorer in the base of the same shotgun tree, they need to remake the skills fast

[kiro the avenger!]

Originally posted by Dead Paper:

Don't forget the wonderful new shotgun tree that has saw skills at the very top, and damage resistance from armorer in the base of the same shotgun tree, they need to remake the skills fast

they need to just change them totally, or rather dont change them
15 small trees just forces you to take skills whether you want them or not
for example combat doctor is actively detrimental to members of your team (at leat atm) yet if you want inspire, you gotta have it boy

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by kiro the avenger!:

your maxed out saw may be good, but at 20% of your total skill points alone thats a mighty expensive tool simply to open a few boxes, which can be done for a third the points :P

I'm well aware, yes. My build is very old by this point. I was thinking about updating it recently, but there doesn't seem to be any point in doing this now, with a new skill tree system on the way. The problem is that the Secondary Saw is central to my build, which is 12 extra points which do fairly little for me otherwise. This is why I'm so critical of the SAW being used for combat - the "SAW combat skill" is where the Secondary SAW is. That's less pronounced in the new system, of course, but we still HAVE SAW combat skills. Which is shame because...

Originally posted by ❤Prom💔:

The saw is not a weapon in any sense of the word. It is a tool through and through... though that doesn't stop me from going Double Saws when playing Bank Heists every now and then. Doing stupid gimmick stuff is one of the beauties of Payday.

The Saw will not be a viable weapon unless they make it where you can pull it out and start it up with no delay whatsoever and make it where the ammo goes down very slightly when used on cops.

Not to mention the massive opening you're leaving for yourself when it comes to things like Tazers and Cloakers.

Precisely. The SAW sucks as a combat weapon. It's slow to use, it doesn't do much damage, it wastes far too much ammo and regular melee weapons are simply better for no cost in skill points or weapon slots. There are ways to make the SAW less ♥♥♥♥ at combat, such as reducing disc ware DRAMATICALLY when used on cops and increasing damage significantly, but it's never going to be GOOD at doing that.

I'm sure a melee SAW made sense back at Launch when the only melee we had was the rifle butt. In the current game, though, using a primary or secondary weapon for melee is simply pointless when you can take an equally good melee weapon and still carry two guns. Ask yourself this - under what circumstances would you put away your gun, take out your SAW and start cutting people? That's slower than the reload all guns save for LMGs and some specials. When is it not going to be smarter to simply use your primary weapon and shoot the cops?

I don't feel that building the SAW for combat should even be a thing, let alone something which costs extra skills. Let it be used in combat, maybe even let it cut through shields at no extra cost - why not. Just don't ask me to spend 8 points in order to make non-combat-viable "weapon" slightly less useless. If combat should even be considered, then tie it to the weapon's mods like with every other gun and leave it at that. Under the old system that might have been a better replacement for Carbon Blade, but the new system doesn't seem to have room for that at all.

My whole reason for examining the SAW was to highlight that its primary use is opening Lockboxes where the bulk of its ammo should go and its secondary use is opening doors to speed things up a little which doesn't consume much ammo. Melee isn't a thing the SAW should need to be good at, and certainly not a thing that we should have to pay skill points for. Getting a SAW and building it for melee combat is a bit like buying a McLaren F1 to tow your mobile home with - you could, but it's really not a wise use of resources.

[eezstreet]

They should make the saw not use up ammo when you use it to saw cops. It should also saw through armor and do more damage.

[Sinclair]

OVE9000 SAW = kills times = kills/prevents enemies

[kiro the avenger!]

Originally posted by eezstreet:

They should make the saw not use up ammo when you use it to saw cops. It should also saw through armor and do more damage.

it already does penetrate armour
armour in payday refers solely to the tans chest piece
bulldozers do not wear 'armour' they have high health
same for every other cop in the game