If HBG is broken post your times!

[McMurphy]

I think it is perfectly balanced as all things should be.
Change my mind.

[Faust Wither]

it's broken man, the monster keep hitting me while i was aiming, the damage are low because i don't have the skill that increase the attack, and i don't know how to craft ammo in battle.

is this post caused by this? https://steamcommunity.com/app/582010/discussions/0/1744520287978913880

[HPedroso]

i have the perfect loyal thunder build, u can do tempered teostra in 5mins maybe even less if ur really good... i have guard 5, 3 shields mod one close range and one scope, i think rajang is the only monster who is a counter to this build, the other monster are totally rekt by it..

sticky is broken too, magda gemitus vulcan is the cc king, with really good damage, or u can use rajang hbg for even more damage, so yeah, hbg is the most broken weapon in the game right now, because of shield mods, u can literally tank anything with guard up, sometimes u need to chill and wait for the monster to stop moving, but ur always safe if u don't rush to do damage.

well this is my opinion, so...yeah, hbg is broken (but is badass at the same time)

p.s: i din't post times but just look at youtube, u find a lot of amazing times

[< blank >]

Originally posted by parent child bowl:

https://iceborne.seiken.io/weapon-tier-list/

As the compiler said, it's not super accurate, but if there is a rank difference of more than two between first and second, there is something off.

And that's not even considering the safety of HBG, but only damage.

The chart, https://i.redd.it/n881q1r3zff41.png
Still a lot safer than weapons without shield.

Originally posted by Pazuzu:

I think it is perfectly balanced as all things should be.
Change my mind.

Of course a HBG user will say it is perfectly balance.

[Vandals[UK]]

Originally posted by parent child bowl:

https://iceborne.seiken.io/weapon-tier-list/

As the compiler said, it's not super accurate, but if there is a rank difference of more than two between first and second, there is something off.

And that's not even considering the safety of HBG, but only damage.

Hit the nail on the head

[lexilogo]

First, a weapon can be "broken" without having the #1 speedrun times. DPS is not all that matters in a weapon moveset.

Regardless, Heavy Bowgun IS the overall best weapon for speedrun times in the game.

To summarise my own design issues with Heavy Bowgun:

• IMO HBG in general and arguably Bow/LBG too has too much of their strength locked behind build theorycrafting and not enough in the weapon itself, resulting in a situation where new players who pick up the weapon often struggle while endgame players are essentially sleepwalking through quests
  
  
• HBG being able to shield is fine but you shouldn't be rewarded with a shield just for aiming, shielding should be an active thing
  
  
• Actual interesting HBG play like having to play around the weapon's weaknesses, using rolls intelligently, constantly being on the backpedal from the monster and getting hits in where you can is the worst way to play HBG whereas mindless triple shield spreadshot spam to the face gets way better times and is easier
  
  
• Optimised HBG play also makes ammo management essentially irrelevant, aside from being something where you have to set up quick crafts for. Instead of having to plan around how much ammo you have per encounter lategame Bowgun builds don't have to think about it, when it's supposed to be the complexity element that makes up for Bowgun not needing to remember any combos
  
  
• Bowgun has a whole crapton of ammotypes that people don't use. Some features of a weapontype being niche isn't a big deal, but Spread and Sticky are the only truly competitive ammotypes. Pierce is okay but you are still shooting yourself in the foot, from my understanding Normal is just plain bad, and everything else except Clusters/ailment ammos if your bowgun happens to have them isn't remotely worth using
  
  
• The Special Scope

Heavy Bowgun is probably the weapontype in the overall worst design state IMO and that's kind of a seperate issue from simply "it gets really good times". Regardless of how fast Heavy Bowgun kills monsters I personally believe it needs a redesign in the next gen because IMO it's current iteration is fundamentally broken, and can't find its middle ground between a cumbersome burden and a glorified autopilot mode.

[McMurphy]

Originally posted by HPedroso:

i have the perfect loyal thunder build, u can do tempered teostra in 5mins maybe even less if ur really good... i have guard 5, 3 shields mod one close range and one scope, i think rajang is the only monster who is a counter to this build, the other monster are totally rekt by it..

sticky is broken too, magda gemitus vulcan is the cc king, with really good damage, or u can use rajang hbg for even more damage, so yeah, hbg is the most broken weapon in the game right now, because of shield mods, u can literally tank anything with guard up, sometimes u need to chill and wait for the monster to stop moving, but ur always safe if u don't rush to do damage.

well this is my opinion, so...yeah, hbg is broken (but is badass at the same time)

p.s: i din't post times but just look at youtube, u find a lot of amazing times

you still need to time your reloads, if you get hit it hurts alot and spread 3 is really bad for health augument.

i play the magda gemitus vulcan it's a great HBG but you need 2x reload 2x recoil to make it work. I play it without a shield anyway.
You cant fit any guard or guard up anyway if you play this gun.
Shure this HBG is strong but it also was the hiden gem in the basegame and nobody used it.

the rajang HBG is ♥♥♥♥ with that autoreload, you cant doge and it takes really long to get the shield up after you shoot.

[Run Ha]

dooor dooor dooooor,

aduh terkejut

[Narcoleptic Marshmallow]

It's balanced in the sense that it's mostly below average, 1 button spamming players that use it, so they manage to get similar or even higher clear times as the average melee user, even though their clear times should be half of that.

[McMurphy]

Originally posted by lexilogo:

• HBG being able to shield is fine but you shouldn't be rewarded with a shield just for aiming, shielding should be an active thing
  

i have no problem if the take the shield away if the give me evade reload, i dont use it anyway.

most say it's broken but no one has a prove.

i din't post times but just look at youtube, u find a lot of amazing times [/quote]
sure speedruners have a great time with any weapon.

i can kill a pukei pukei with a HH in 5 minutes....

[Oldspice Bodyshots]

The problem with the current Bowgun meta right now isn't just Loyal Thunder, it's that Capcom really doesn't know how to balance the mod slots on them, namely Close Range Up. Loyal Thunder is just a symptom of this problem. Shield is on paper balanced if not boring (1-4 slots, shield ranges from poop to godly depending how much you invest into your 5 slots with added safety being theoretically offsetting potential damage) but in practice a single Close Range or Long Range mod raises damage by 20% for the first, 10% for the second and 5% for the 3rd and 4th. What this means is that the first (after you've invested in your shield) is the most valuable one instead of the damage mods scaling linearly and requiring you to make meaningful tradeoffs for your damage or safety. Balance between ammo types is kinda wacky right now too, but it's largely because of this modslot problem. Elemental Ammo and Normal, however is still just terrible on HBG, Pierce is bad on LBG, and Slice+Dragon ammo is terrible on both for different reasons. So while you can run Normal or Pierce+Ballistics and have an okay time on HBG, you're really just better off taking the closer range higher DPS ammo anyway if you're trying to maximize uptime on Close Range Up's boost. Theoretically Long Range Up is just as powerful with Pierce ammo, but in practice it's not because it's unaffected by Ballistics giving it a huge deadzone and spacing monsters out to 2500 units is not a thing outside 4 man multiplayer. So really Loyal Thunder is the perfect gun for exploiting all of these traits of the game in a way that not even Glutton could (Bowguns had one less slot back then making shield stacking not really worth it). Capcom seems to really like the shotgun playstyle though given that next patch is giving us not just 1, but 2 more Glutton-clones so it's here to stay. I just hope they take a look at the bowgun mod slots at some point that remove all the interesting elements of risk and reward from customizing your gun.
Special Scope is also honestly really overpowered, but it's also the most mechanically interesting aspect of bowguns now imo and I guess it requires okay spatial awareness to not get smacked out of so it's way less offensive to me.

Reposting my thoughts that got buried in the other thread, but the tl;dr is there's no real give and take with the customization options. You don't get rewarded for sacrificing safety (less shields) with higher damage; the opposite, there's massively diminishing returns past the first Close Range mod (which provides absolutely ridiculous damage on its own) encouraging you to build these comfort-lawnmowers you see everywhere. I think the fix to this would be making the damage increasing mods scale at a flat 10% per mod added (totaling at 40% for 4 just like it currently does), but also requiring more investment in that for higher gains. Additionally, given the sheer potency of these mods, ammo types that can't use them effectively tend to just be worse off than those that can with Spread Loyal Thunder/Glutton being the perfect poster child for just having everything it needs to exploit this broken mod system. I don't think spread ammo is too out of line from Normal/Pierce ammo in a vacuum, but once you start added these multipliers on it gets out of hand really quickly. The most interesting way to play HBG is evade window 5, evade extend 2 and just slingshot yourself all over the place with Evasion Mantle, but with the 5 modslots encouraginng you to make the most out of the shield and first 1-2 levels of close range/scope, it's really just suboptimal.

[McMurphy]

Originally posted by Oldspice Bodyshots:

The most interesting way to play HBG is evade window 5, evade extend 2 and just slingshot yourself all over the place with Evasion Mantle, but with the 5 modslots encouraginng you to make the most out of the shield and first 1-2 levels of close range/scope, it's really just suboptimal.

thats what i play with the magda gemitus vulcan.

Sure the Spread 3 HBG need more recoil, or slower reload to use up more slots. Spread 3 only needs to craft after 80 shoots is a bit strange, i need to craft every 9 shoots.

i think capcom wants it this way to give players a comfy weapon to kill monsters.
spread 3 is bad in multiplayer most of the time anyway, because you use more time chasing the monster than doing damage.

[puzzlefox]

At least HBG users won’t launch you. And before anyone says “but clusters!!” I haven’t encountered a single clusternuke player in IB. Literally not a single one.

[Endarion]

Originally posted by puzzlefox:

At least HBG users won’t launch you. And before anyone says “but clusters!!” I haven’t encountered a single clusternuke player in IB. Literally not a single one.

only because capcom nerfed them lol is not because player got better

[Vasax]

Spread Ammo should only get 5% damage increase from special scope this should balance hbg.

[cruste]

I wonder why this should be any problem?
Isn't it ok to have some easy mode weapons for the player with less skills more focused on results?

There are many type of player attracted by the game.
I like the hbg, it gives you an easy way to grind materials for other weapon types.

The Hbgs went already through many nerfs, like slice nerf or multiple cluster nerfs.

you can't impress anyone with killing lowtier monster simply with loyal thunder, but there are still pretty impressive videos showing the full potential and all the required knowledge

like these crazy japanese always creating
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjM695WYlU
try to reproduce it and you know it isn't that easy

Isn't it simply the evolution of things. Range is superior to melee.