My review on the Hurricane Guided Rocket System. Or maybe a rant?

[Varagonax]

I want to preface this by saying that its fun, and that other then a few of its most glaring flaws, it's not the worst weapon I have ever used in vidya gaems, and above all, this is just my opinion. So here goes.

This weapon is bad, at least without over clocks.

I do want to explain myself. Its not that its unusable, doesn't do damage or doesn't have its role amongst the other weapons... its just in how it performs in comparison to the other weapons available to the gunner. It does function just fine in solo matches, but when you play with a team it suffers, big time.

1: Its a primary weapon. Its intended to be your primary damage dealer, but in terms of how fast it can kill things, when you play with others and you are "competing for kills", its ability to redirect is overshadowed by your team mates being able to step in and kill those things you were shooting at. It partially makes up for it by allowing you to redirect your shots, but all this does is effectively improve your ammo efficiency. This is because of

2: Its slow projectile speed, even with the improved speed options. Because of its guided nature, of course it has to have a manageable projectile speed, but this overall works against it in a team setting. The skill ceiling this provides makes it fun to learn, but in the time it takes for you to shoot, THEN aim the shot, your team mates can often just deal with threat. I find myself to be finding priority targets only to, mid shot, realise another keen eyed player has identified the big threat and chosen to engage with it. This means that in practice, the weapon tends to fall apart in larger fights against all but the most inept teams. Of course, there is also

3: The fact that more then any other weapon, you need to be extremely aware of your team mates positions. I don't believe that I've ever KILLED a team mate before, but the amount of times I'm guiding a salvo of missiles into a swarm only to have another player wander in front of my to better guide their shots. This isn't something that you can always avoid, either. Sometimes the mission objectives require you to sit tight with each other, or the terrain forces the enemies and therefore the players to readjust positioning in unoptimal situations. Not only is it a problem when your team mates just wander in front of you, but unlike any other weapon

4: its primary quirk is a huge hindrance to its actual performance. Everything else about this game can be a huge detriment to its performance as, again, a primary weapon. Everything needs to be accounted for, from terrain generation, to whether or not your in a too-tight-space, to whether or not your team mate is just going to casually soak an entire stream of missiles because they needed to step closer to the enemies to get within THEIR optimal range.

See, it functions like a low burst, high dps version of the grenade launcher but UNLIKE the grenade launcher, which is a secondary and hugely benefits from treating it as such (such as using its limited ammo pool to deal with huge health targets or massive swarms), the Hurricane is a primary weapon, and as such benefits most from treating it as such.

Now I do not know how they can make this weapon better at base, without taking away what makes it unique. And I know there are overclocks that make it function better, but in my humble opinion, you shouldn't have to have an overclock to make the most of the weapon since I think that the best designed overclocks are the ones that ultimately impact its play style, not its function, and that a gun shouldn't only BECOME good BECAUSE of certain overclocks.

But it is hard to want to use the weapon when the Thunderhead can do the same thing, basically, without the gimmick that makes it harder to use, with arguably better dps and not having to worry about literally every rock and possible team mate that might get in the way.

Now, this is just my experience with the weapon so far. I DO think its fun to play with, but it just seems to be missing... something, and it does suck to use it as a gunner, which already has an identity crisis imo, because it feels like you're just nerfing yourself for a gimmick weapon.

Please do be polite, this is purely opinion, I could be very wrong or might have misplaced issues with the weapon. But I DO welcome discussion.

[Dwarfurious]

Disagree