the shard diffractor

[kestrel]

i criticise this game's balance a lot. nobody is more aware of that fact than me, and i'm going to keep doing it as long as the problems exist to be solved. but i wanted to do something differently for once and actually praise a weapon's balance for a change, that being the shard diffractor

with all weapons you can divide their overall performance into three categories; base stats, mod tree and overclocks. most weapons in DRG usually fail in at least one of these categories which is what leads to imbalances, like the boltshark having bad base stats, PGL having a crap mod tree or the likes of zhukovs and AC having hugely overtuned OCs which make all the other irrelevant
the shard is, in my opinion, the only weapon that truly succeeds in all three areas (barring a couple of minor blemishes which we'll get to later). i'll keep the first two areas brief because the overclocks are where the real discussion is to be had

for a start, base stats are excellent. the shard lacks the raw damage of PGL or BC, but it has a significant advantage over the two of them in the form of flexibility
PGL and BC both need huge crowds of enemies (or HVTs in BC's case) to justify spending their very limited ammo reserves. by contrast the shard's higher (by comparison) reserve ammo, large mag and quick recharge and hitscan beam make it feasible to quickly pick off lone targets or use small bursts to reach desired effects such as igniting enemies
it puts significantly less strain on your primaries or turrets to perform, allowing you to work with riskier or less conventional setups, compared to PGL or BC which need to be built around to facilitate their use

the shard's mod tree isn't anything exceptional, but it's a rare case where every option is equal to one another, even the T5 choices. the only edge case is that the armor break mod doesn't work with AoE damage but that's not the shard's fault, it's AB mods in general needing a remake
it's a very simple mod tree, perhaps a little boring, but the benefit there is that nothing is left behind and every choice is worth picking, even when overclocks are factored in

and speaking of overclocks - impressively, every single choice the shard has to use is viable in one way or another. some are better than others, but all OCs have at least some use.
efficiency tweaks, the gun's only clean OC, is a solid generalist pick that fits basically any role you give it. not much to say, it's just a very good clean
feedback loop and plascrete catalyst are excellent AoE choices and strong in most every situation. feedback gets to deal immense damage combined with a larger battery and is faster to activate, whilst plascrete needs more setup and forward thinking but will do much more damage overall
overdrive booster is almost a clean in disguise, since its downsides only come into play when you're actively using its effects. most people use this as a direct damage tool and that's fine, but it actually multiplies all damage by x2.5, including area damage. you can use overdrive as a hybrid OC for this purpose
automated beam controller is arguably the weakest OC of the bunch but it's far from bad. the forced beam takes time getting used to, but the faster firing speed and smaller mag size means you don't actually have to commit to it for that long. plus anything that gives you extra ammo on an engie secondary is always gonna be good

by contrast, volatile impact reactor is definitely the best OC for the gun. it essentially gives you CRSPR sticky flames, with increased damage, at any range you like, and the penalties are very easy to work around and don't even affect the damage of the beam itself. you can build this thing for single target DPS whilst still using the magma trail to deal damage to crowds to have a weapon that covers all bases
whilst this OC is very strong, and i wouldn't be against it being nerfed, it's not as bad as other overtuned OCs because the shard is a rare case where the best OCs actually have competition with (comparatively) weaker ones because they serve different roles. feedback is easier to use and often gets equal results to magma trail (barring spending more ammo) whilst plascrete and overdrive do significantly more burst damage and will delete crowds faster
the thing is, you can totally have crazy strong OCs that do insane damage so long as the other overclocks have a use case, and you're not just using different options for the sake of novelty. for example, NTP on the autocannon wouldn't be nearly as egregious if it faced valid competition from the other overclocks available to the gun, but the sheer difference in power between NTP and all the other choices is what creates the problem. this is the same issue faced by the GK2, the LOK1, the coilgun, the cryo cannon and any other number of weapons where one overclock completely stomps
part of the reason i'm so fervent about balancing this game is that build diversity is key for its long-term survival. GSG can pad the game with all the cosmetics and toys they like but what keeps people coming back to the game is the core combat, which relies on the weapons being balanced. and the shard diffractor proves it can be done

there are only two problems the gun has i'd like to see addressed. the first is that it naturally deals %25 heat damage without mods, which isn't usually a problem until freezing is involved. i understand engie secondaries aren't allowed to benefit from frozen status, but i have to consciously avoid targeting frozen enemies otherwise i risk cancelling frozen status early and reducing the team's damage output against a frozen HVT. temp shock barely counts as a consolation prize
best solution IMO would be to move the baseline %25 heat into the T4A heat mod, and simply prevent the beam from doing extra damage to frozen enemies, similar to the breach cutter

and finally: it's possible to skip the recharge sequence of the gun altogether by simply switching away after firing. you can tap your laser pointer key and the shard will be immediately ready to fire again, which doesn't feel very balanced
this is more of a bug than a balance issue, and i'm not sure how best to fix it, but i think a simple solution would just be to restart the recharging sequence if the user switches away before it is complete, forcing them to commit to the recharge before switching

[Chibbity]

Laser good!

[Waldherz]

Just keep it as it is.

Its a PVE game. Guns are allowed to be "too good".

[Frisky]

The shard diffractor to me has almost always been what I wish the rest of the guns in the game are: actually balanced properly

I can't really add on to what you've said about the diffractor because you covered just about everything, especially the moving of heat % into the upgrade so you're less disruptive to cryo

but yeah a lot of weapons in this game suffer greatly from the OC wheelchair syndrome (Hello coilgun) I wish we could just have good base weapons with OCs being actual addons instead of a solution to a problem that wouldn't exist if they just balanced the weapons around their default state/mod tree, the Autocannon in my opinion comes close but NTP being broken and big bertha being situation as hell and it still needs tweaking

please god let S4 having a good balance wave

Originally posted by Waldherz彡:

Just keep it as it is.

Its a PVE game. Guns are allowed to be "too good".

tell me you didn't actually read the post without telling me you didn't actually read the post

[Maximum stupidity]

Tbh I did not bother reading the post but you can't really argue with giant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ death laser, can you?

[RENGOKU]

Originally posted by Maximum stupidity:

Tbh I did not bother reading the post but you can't really argue with giant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ death laser, can you?

I mean you can, but normally you end up dead if you try.

[TyresTyco]

The only thing I don't like about it is that I run out of ammo with it.. waaaay to fast. But thats probably just a problem with me handling it wrong.

[Marmarmar34]

It's not the grenade launcher so L

[Lord Of War]

Pros:
1) Laser,
2) Can draw whatever my rival miner wants.

[GIRL]

I know you might've been exaggerating, but just to clarify something:

Volatile Impact Reactor isn't exactly better than Sticky Flames. Sticky Flames have a hidden, unique property where they slash the "temperature cooldown rate" of whatever is walking through them. This means that enemies that usually cool off really fast, like Oppressors, will be easier to keep on fire if they've walked through Sticky Flames recently.

It sounds tiny on paper but this actually makes Sticky Flames waaaay better at lighting stuff on fire than VIR. VIR struggles to light Grunts on fire unless they pass 2+ lines, or are following you on a trail of magma. Sticky Flames can easily light just about anything on fire that walks over it.

[kestrel]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

The only thing I don't like about it is that I run out of ammo with it.. waaaay to fast. But thats probably just a problem with me handling it wrong.

i mean i can't see how you'd struggle any more with managing ammo on shard, compared to PGL or BC which have far less overall ammo to work with
give efficiency tweaks or ABC a try

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

I know you might've been exaggerating, but just to clarify something:

Volatile Impact Reactor isn't exactly better than Sticky Flames. Sticky Flames have a hidden, unique property where they slash the "temperature cooldown rate" of whatever is walking through them. This means that enemies that usually cool off really fast, like Oppressors, will be easier to keep on fire if they've walked through Sticky Flames recently.

It sounds tiny on paper but this actually makes Sticky Flames waaaay better at lighting stuff on fire than VIR. VIR struggles to light Grunts on fire unless they pass 2+ lines, or are following you on a trail of magma. Sticky Flames can easily light just about anything on fire that walks over it.

yea im aware of this point, and it is notable. VIM also slows enemies less (%30) compared to sticky flame slowdown (%55) but VIM does much more damage and i think that justifies the loss in heat/slowdown
sticky flames average 15DPS (+5 with sticky fuel) whilst magma trail averages 40DPS. even with the burning status in play, VIM will do more damage. not to mention the shard fires significantly faster than the CRSPR. if you play at a high sens (or have a DPI) switch you can zig-zag your aim and make multiple magma trail passes the bugs have to run thru

driller also has more interest in keeping enemies ignited for heat spreading purposes or for proccing bonuses on the subata or CWC. engie doesnt really have to worry about that as much so igniting enemies doesn't matter for him

[Ender Zayne]

I like laser. Some call me Laser Face.