The Breaker Incendiary was fine, and should be the standard for primaries

[Slav Mcgopnik]

Let me explain what I mean.

The Breaker Incendiary was not overpowered, it was a solid option that did great at a few jobs, decent at others, and had big weaknesses.

Great at killing hordes of bug chaff, and shriekers. Decent at killing medium bugs, but weak against chargers and armored bugs (also totally useless against bots). It also burned ammo very quickly when being used actively, meaning you had to play smart with ammo sources and resupplies.

IMO, this is what primaries should do, they have strengths and weaknesses, and can be compensated for by other parts of your loadout, or teammates aiding you.

It saw so much use because it was a fun weapon that was also effective at its designated role, that is what primaries should be! If you don't want people clearing hordes of bug chaff, don't spawn massive hordes of bug chaff. It's not like the railgun or the old eruptor, it's not an everything weapon, you can't just blind fire it at a charger or even a brood commander and just win, you need to swap out weapons and use strategems still.

Instead of taking this as an inspiration for what to design primaries for though, devs nerfed it, great. Can't wait until people just use the Blitzer instead, and then that gets nerfed for also being good at its designated job.

[Explodium]

I-breaker could efforlessly wipe out entire patrols from 50m away by just blindly spraying in their general direction. How are other primaries supposed to compete with that? The nerf didn't even affect its killing power: now you just need to aim and check your shots.

[Slav Mcgopnik]

Escrito originalmente por Gnome Bandit:

Escrito originalmente por Hand's Hermit Permit:

You said decent at killing medium bugs. Decent means good.

This is goofy game design you're advocating for. Primaries should not be that strong, at least not consistently. It's still just as powerful as before, except now you can't use it all the time because of the ammo restriction.

I'm just glad the devs are in charge of balance and not forum dwellers.

We do this every single time here. Several changes roll out, everybody ignores the good ones and screams because their meta shotgun that got an illogical buff months ago got re-tweaked for its purpose and everybody screams. I basically have to set a timer before I come in here because overexposure will rot my brain.

The good changes like the useless explosive crossbow now being one handed (so I can use it with the wimpy shield, and carry a hard drive with it, yay), the slugger getting a partial nerf revert but then getting a massive nerf on top if it, and the useless gun rover getting more ammo to spray at armored enemies, yippee.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Escrito originalmente por Slav Mcgopnik:

But apparently primaries are meant to be peashooters that you shouldn't really ever use and instead have one guy kite the breaches around while everyone else does objectives, because that's so much more fun than actually fighting enemies.

Buddy I play 8's to chill and do fine on 9s and I almost never brought incendiary breaker. Regular liberator is great for small trash, and even adjudicator is not bad. If I want to buckle down and tryhard the sickle is great for the infinite ammo. And no, I don't primarily just run from bug breaches, you can absolutely hold your ground. The game isn't that hard.

You're supposed to emphasize support weapons and stratagems and this works great. I don't get what people think is so engaging about a game where your primary weapon can autopilot the game even if your brain is made of cheese. That's so boring and it demonstrates a skill issue.

Medium-clear supports like machinegun or autocannon are great for taking out spewers and medium threats. (Don't worry, primaries can clean up commanders and medium penetration works on spewer heads, so you're not defenseless) but crowd-clear stratagems really help round out a build. Cluster bombs I've always thought were insane, and they are. Regular airstrike I take almost every mission because it can deal with literally everything but shriekers/gunships.

You can take either a dedicated AT, or a general support gun, but working with your team you will be able to cover each other's weaknesses easily. And I don't run premades, I work with whatever randumbs I get. We just don't need primaries to be as strong as the IB, and I'm glad the devs know that and dont cave.

[Blame]

Escrito originalmente por Mk_C:

Escrito originalmente por Blame:

There is no real weakness to it on the bug-side. So I don't know what you've been smoking when you say that it has big weaknesses. It didn't and still doesn't. A bit more recoil and a couple of mags less didn't even dent its effectiveness.

You can use like 60% of all primaries to efficiently kill bugs from much greater ranges than IB. That is a factual, objective weakness.

You can, but not as effectively clearing hordes of them. Really don't need a marksman to shoot at bugs 1 by 1 at 200 meters, when I can instead use the BI to mow down bugs that are actually a threat.

Escrito originalmente por Slav Mcgopnik:

Escrito originalmente por Blame:

IB is great against everything Bug that's below Charger. And guess what, Chargers and Bile titans are meant to be dealt with support weapons (mainly AT) and stratagems, not with primary weapons.

There is no real weakness to it on the bug-side. So I don't know what you've been smoking when you say that it has big weaknesses. It didn't and still doesn't. A bit more recoil and a couple of mags less didn't even dent its effectiveness.

It's also weak against both kinds of spewer, and brood commanders, who are definitely not just support weapon material. That's a definite weak spot of the weapon, especially now that fire is basically worthless against any form of armor.

No, it is not weak against both kinds of spewers. Regular spewers die pretty easy when you know where to shoot them at, but even bile spewers aren't all that much of a threat unless there's a dozen of them charging at you, but hey, what primary weapon would you take in that scenario?

Brood commanders can be a bit tough if you're getting overwhelmed, but again, shoot the legs to slow it down.
Also incendiary rounds don't do anything against armor anyway, they only catch on fire when you hit something that your bullet can damage, but thankfully you're raining bullets on them so some will always hit the soft bits and set them ablaze. Armor doesn't negate the burning damage.

[vicbos]

We can keep arguing opinions on how good the IB actually was but at the end of the day why does it matter? So what if in some cases it killed more bugs than another primary -- it is a PVE game. If you like it great, if you don't like it great -- doesn't matter. It all boils down to personal preference and why does it matter if someone had more kills in a mission than another? As I mentioned in an earlier post I no longer even carry it in missions. This to me is the big concern I have -- why do the devs feel the need to nerf weapons that some players like if at the end of the day it is personal preference and this is a PVE game?

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Escrito originalmente por vicbos:

We can keep arguing opinions on how good the IB actually was but at the end of the day why does it matter? So what if in some cases it killed more bugs than another primary -- it is a PVE game. If you like it great, if you don't like it great -- doesn't matter. It all boils down to personal preference and why does it matter if someone had more kills in a mission than another? As I mentioned in an earlier post I no longer even carry it in missions. This to me is the big concern I have -- why do the devs feel the need to nerf weapons that some players like if at the end of the day it is personal preference and this is a PVE game?

You can use the same argument for a nuke pistol. Either you decide you're going to have a game with relative balance or you decide it doesn't matter. Obviously they've decided balance matters and they've stuck to that idea since the game released.

[vicbos]

Escrito originalmente por Hand's Hermit Permit:

Escrito originalmente por vicbos:

We can keep arguing opinions on how good the IB actually was but at the end of the day why does it matter? So what if in some cases it killed more bugs than another primary -- it is a PVE game. If you like it great, if you don't like it great -- doesn't matter. It all boils down to personal preference and why does it matter if someone had more kills in a mission than another? As I mentioned in an earlier post I no longer even carry it in missions. This to me is the big concern I have -- why do the devs feel the need to nerf weapons that some players like if at the end of the day it is personal preference and this is a PVE game?

You can use the same argument for a nuke pistol. Either you decide you're going to have a game with relative balance or you decide it doesn't matter. Obviously they've decided balance matters and they've stuck to that idea since the game released.

Nuke pistol? A bit extreme of a comparison. It is not like the IB was anywhere close to being that powerful. A nuke pistol would obviously be game breaking -- the IB was not..... As mentioned I've been using an Eruptor now and don't even use the IB anymore (pre-nerf). Also as mentioned it is not like everyone in a mission was even carrying the IB - I usually saw just one or two at a time.

Realizing that the IB was not game breaking then I go back to my original comment -- why does it matter especially when a sizeable amount of the player base did like it? And why were so many players salty about the IB? Were they for some odd reason upset that someone had a higher kill count than them in a mission in a PVE game?

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Escrito originalmente por vicbos:

Escrito originalmente por Hand's Hermit Permit:

You can use the same argument for a nuke pistol. Either you decide you're going to have a game with relative balance or you decide it doesn't matter. Obviously they've decided balance matters and they've stuck to that idea since the game released.

Nuke pistol? A bit extreme of a comparison. It is not like the IB was anywhere close to being that powerful. A nuke pistol would obviously be game breaking -- the IB was not..... As mentioned I've been using an Eruptor now and don't even use the IB anymore (pre-nerf). Also as mentioned it is not like everyone in a mission was even carrying the IB - I usually saw just one or two at a time.

Realizing that the IB was not game breaking then I go back to my original comment -- why does it matter especially when a sizeable amount of the player base did like it? And why were so many players salty about the IB? Were they for some odd reason upset that someone had a higher kill count than them in a mission in a PVE game?

They're still gonna use it because these gamers just have no imagination. Because it's literally not changed in strength at all, it's just got 2 less mags. I still see plenty using it. So nothing's really changed, just the number of people on forums crying about various things, which happens with every update anyway, even in updates where 0 nerfs happened, as we've seen with the last balance patch.

[vicbos]

Escrito originalmente por Hand's Hermit Permit:

Escrito originalmente por vicbos:

Nuke pistol? A bit extreme of a comparison. It is not like the IB was anywhere close to being that powerful. A nuke pistol would obviously be game breaking -- the IB was not..... As mentioned I've been using an Eruptor now and don't even use the IB anymore (pre-nerf). Also as mentioned it is not like everyone in a mission was even carrying the IB - I usually saw just one or two at a time.

Realizing that the IB was not game breaking then I go back to my original comment -- why does it matter especially when a sizeable amount of the player base did like it? And why were so many players salty about the IB? Were they for some odd reason upset that someone had a higher kill count than them in a mission in a PVE game?

They're still gonna use it because these gamers just have no imagination. Because it's literally not changed in strength at all, it's just got 2 less mags. I still see plenty using it. So nothing's really changed, just the number of people on forums crying about various things, which happens with every update anyway, even in updates where 0 nerfs happened, as we've seen with the last balance patch.

When I played it, it really did eat up mags quickly -- while it was good against the chaff bugs, for the larger/medium bugs you could easily use up an entire mag on just one or two of them. I was constantly having to manage my mags more with that gun than any other. Losing 2 mags gives me an incentive not to go back to it. For folks who like the IB, yeah this is a pretty bad nerf and not just folks "crying" for no reason.

[DeMasked]

I think the loss of 1 mag would've been justified because it is a weapon that really is great against bugs because a lot of bugs don't have medium / heavy armour and some that do can still be damaged with the shotgun fire damage over time effect.

Scorcher also lost some ammo as that gun is really good against bots or bugs.

I think that Arrowhead needs to make tweaks to balance and not massive changes like weapons losing a lot of ammo. Nerfs aren't appreciated so making big changes will result in a lot of anger.

[Jimmy MacReady]

Escrito originalmente por DeMasked:

I think the loss of 1 mag would've been justified because it is a weapon that really is great against bugs because a lot of bugs don't have medium / heavy armour and some that do can still be damaged with the shotgun fire damage over time effect.

Scorcher also lost some ammo as that gun is really good against bots or bugs.

I think that Arrowhead needs to make tweaks to balance and not massive changes like weapons losing a lot of ammo. Nerfs aren't appreciated so making big changes will result in a lot of anger.

Watch the new fire warbond weapons being able to break through charger armour lmao

[vicbos]

Escrito originalmente por DeMasked:

I think the loss of 1 mag would've been justified because it is a weapon that really is great against bugs because a lot of bugs don't have medium / heavy armour and some that do can still be damaged with the shotgun fire damage over time effect.

Scorcher also lost some ammo as that gun is really good against bots or bugs.

I think that Arrowhead needs to make tweaks to balance and not massive changes like weapons losing a lot of ammo. Nerfs aren't appreciated so making big changes will result in a lot of anger.

And thus my confusion on why they made the change. You can argue how good it was but in no way was it game breaking therefore why make a change that was guaranteed to anger such a large amount of the community.

[vicbos]

Escrito originalmente por Hydran Agent:

Escrito originalmente por DeMasked:

I think the loss of 1 mag would've been justified because it is a weapon that really is great against bugs because a lot of bugs don't have medium / heavy armour and some that do can still be damaged with the shotgun fire damage over time effect.

Scorcher also lost some ammo as that gun is really good against bots or bugs.

I think that Arrowhead needs to make tweaks to balance and not massive changes like weapons losing a lot of ammo. Nerfs aren't appreciated so making big changes will result in a lot of anger.

Watch the new fire warbond weapons being able to break through charger armour lmao

I've wondered that as well.... :)

[Celkat]

Escrito originalmente por Mk_C:

It's not even that good.

yea, it was my 2nd go to depending on what my mates would bring

[brownie689]

Escrito originalmente por joeredner:

I always thought IB was very overrated. I never used it on the high difficulties.

I used it exclusively in tier 9 before tier 10 existed. It annihilated the bugs. You only need to shoot the bugs 1-3 times, then you could forget they exist because they will burn to death while you run off to complete objectives.