Teeny buffs to pistols... (pistol 2, dual pistols, burst shot)

Dusty

Movie Battles II Team Retired
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In my personal experience, I notice the above three weapons/skills are seldom used.

Dual pistols has declined in popularity a bit in favor of the EE3 and ARC rifle, which offer a bit more versatility and arguably bang for buck; with dual pistols you get better accuracy which is nice... but you can't keep the fire going.

Pistol 2's charge shots are seldom used except as kind of a joke, lucky shot, or for lulzy pressure, and as a use for extra points that is arguably better spent on armor or ammo. The charge shot is a bit hard to hit with in MB2 style gameplay, and you don't get much of a reward for doing so. Even a charge shot with Dual Westars as a Mando isn't that powerful, but it's more powerful and easier to hit with.

Burst shots... well, I've hardly seen them used much at all. What's the advantage exactly? They keep firing as you're being knocked down like the A280? That's interesting I suppose... but you really don't want to get knocked down at all (roughly synonymous with getting impaled by a lightsaber). They don't fire too quickly, shake your camera, and feel slightly less precise than single shots in my opinion.

Proposed buffages ---
  • Pistol 2 either: charges faster; or higher bolt velocity; or both to some degree
  • Dual Pistols: no reload time -OR- overheating instead of reloading (more work); wouldn't be much of a buff as the reload time is already very short, but removes the awkwardness of timing reloads
  • Burst shot: no or minimal camera shake, slightly less delay between bursts (other alternative: make the burst pistol truly it's own gun AKA the Enforcer Pistol to go along with a small buff)

Maybe I'm out of line here though, and just terrible with pistols. What are yall's thoughts?
 
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In my personal experience, I notice the above three weapons/skills are seldom used.
Main problem with p2 charge shot is that it drains a lot of ammo (which is probably unintended). Full charge p2 takes 28 ammo, in comparison p3 full charge takes 13 and godcaster 3 full charge takes 10.
Ammo 1 is 120 ammo. 4x28=112, 120-112=8 (quick maths) so you're left with 8 single shots if you use 4 full charge shots. That's my reason for not using it, but it's safe to assume that others aren't using it much for the same reason. Well practically you just can't use it much cause you run out of ammo XD. I mean 4 shots come on, with other weapons you're firing hundreds of bullets per round which are also more powerful than p2, godcaster 3 gets 30 full charge shots just with ammo 1 (ofc if they don't use normal shots).

I share the opinion that dual pistols aren't used cause ee3 and m5 are superior overall. And the other issue (what people often bring up in other threads) is that dual pistols are unreliable at close range.

Burst shot on p3 is inferior in damage to just using normal p3 shots in my opinion. Although just last week I noticed a player who keeps using p3 burst shots quite successfully, but well anything works in public open game if you have a high hit rate with it. Still I think consecutive normal p3 shots have better DPS than burst shot. This could be easily tested on afk wook/sbd/deka.

I'd like to mention that burst shot on p2 in v1.3 was really good, better than charge shot. Burst shot is "instant" extra damage, while charge shot takes time to use. I'll demonstrate the advantage of that with a few example (I'll go on a detailed rant probably, but hey you asked for the advantages of it).
Classic fight is going on dotf main, your jedi pushes down an ET/BH/Mando/sith w/e, with charge shot you have no other option but to shoot regular p1 shots, with burst shots, you can go for a burst shot which was higher damage than normal p1 shots. Depends on what kind of getup your opponent is capable of of course. The most advantageous it was against jedi/sith with quick getup, since the punishment time is the smallest on that getup. So getting in that 1 burst shot > getting in 1 p1 shot. Against the classic flip over getup which clone/ET etc does, the advantage wasn't that clear. Probably you'll be able to hit with only 1 burst shot, while you could get in 2, sometimes 3 normal p1 shots, but you have an option to mix it, you do 1 normal shot then burst shot. Another question was which damage is higher: 2 p1 shots or 1 burst shot. They seemed to be roughly equal and probably burst shot had the edge slightly.
Overall adding in burst shot was always advantageous. Not only because of damage, but also because of the time you needed to execute it. Let's say there's a knocked down soldier, you'd kill it with 2 normal p1 shots and you'd kill it with 1 normal burst shot too. At 1st glance you may think it doesn't matter which you use and if there's no other enemy around, then yea it's totally optional which to use. But if there are other opponents, you want to get out of cover, use burst shot, get back to cover. Firing 2 p1 shots increases the time you're exposed to the enemy, you can get in cover between the 2 shots but still getting out twice to enemy fire increases the risk of getting shot. Well this became more of a comparison of burst shot vs normal shots, but the main point is, using charge shot isn't even an option. It's only an option if you keep charging it behind cover in hope that someone gets knocked down, but this strategy can't be used at the moment cause you drain your ammo too quickly. Charge shot can only be used on knocked down opponents if you anticipate it getting knocked down, it can be done but with burst shot you didn't have to be this "smart", you just saw an opportunity and instantly fired it.
Main usage of charge shot is charging it up behind cover and shooting down someone with it who's coming nearby on the corridor. It's a nice initial surprise damage in a gun fight (and can be a finishing blow depending on enemy hp and where you hit), but after that you should be using normal shots. Trying to use charge shot in the middle of a fight is really risky. Since your opponent knows you're charging a powerful shot, he'll be moving in a crazy unpredictable pattern, making him harder to hit. You didn't have to worry about that with burst shots, your opponent was moving normally and you could always capitalize with a burst shot when you had a read on his movement or when he made a mistake like rolling. Burst shot was in fact so good on p2 that it was arguably better to only use burst shots in a gun fight, at least you could see that happen often. But have you ever seen someone using only charge shot in a gun fight? (godcaster doesn't count, I'm only talking about p2 charge shot)
Last advantage of burst shot is obviously that you don't have to be that precise to hit, cause you shoot more bullets, you have bigger chance to hit at least once than if you fire only 1 shot. Landing all of the burst shots requires good accuracy and prediction on a moving target, hence it's mainly good as a punishing tool when you can easily land all of its' shots, like when your target is knocked down or does a roll as I explained earlier.

Both charge shot and burst shot can be good, it mainly depends on the damage it deals. You should just compare p2 charge shot with godcaster charge shot to see this point.
Burst shot damage isn't good enough for p3, but for p2 it was really good, that's my opinion. Note: I assume that p2 and p3 burst shots dealt same damage, only difference is that p3 burst shot did/does 3 shots, while p2 burst shot only did 2.
P2 charge shot damage is good if you fully charge it, but midcharged shot damage is really bad. Now I don't know the damage values, I just have a feeling for what they are based on my fightnings, but I think if you charge p2 less than 1 second, you're actually firing a weaker bullet than a normal p1 shot, which sucks really and I believe that's not the case with godcaster charge shot. If you only tap godcaster charge shot, it's still as strong as a normal godcaster shot imo, devs can proove me wrong on this, cause I only feel this way, I don't really know. So I agree that p2 could have faster charging, and better damages while charging. I'd happily see burst shot back on p2, but I understand if it doesn't come back, cause it was slightly too strong.

Dual Pistols: no reload time (SPRAY BABY SPRAY, just slower than a rifle)
Nah thanks, it would be a broken feature, and also wouldn't make pistols gr8 cause it doesn't improve on it's weaknesses. Pistols already have low reload time which is a benefit for using pistols.
 

Dusty

Movie Battles II Team Retired
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Maybe I'm overly biased against the burst shot; just because I've never bothered to try and use it well doesn't mean it's bad I suppose. Still, I would like the camera shake diminished a bit.

That's a good point about Pistol 2's ammo usage... that makes it less useful for sure. Also a good point about the mid-charge damage. I guess that's why the charging seems a bit slow, as to really get the damage going, you need to really get up the charge. If the mid-charge had a bit more oomph to it that would still be a welcome change, but I guess the ammo usage is really more of an issue than anything else.
 

Lessen

pew pew
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Dual pistols are swanky business (translation: strong) and I'm a little surprised by your statement that they have a problem with "keeping the fire going", since between Dual Pistols and their alternatives (EE-3 and M5), Dual Pistols are the ones I pick if I want to just spam all day, since they have tons of ammo, an extremely quick reload time, and perfect accuracy all the time. They let me just be constantly spamming at head height. They keep the fire going, in my experience. I haven't found any "awkwardness of timing reloads."

.. but I also have a habit of reloading during every little tiny opportunity I might get. Enemy returns to cover for a moment? Reload. If I stop firing for any reason I'm probably gonna reload, at least with pistols since the reload time is so quick, especially if you haven't used that much ammo.

If I had my way tho, Dual Pistols still have some wackiness that could be fixed, starting with the crosshair that's just completely inaccurate at close ranges.

The absurd screen shake on P3 alt-mode alt-fire (Burst shot) is absurd, and aggravating, and makes an already probably-not-THAT-good option kind of repulsive. Screen shake should go. (A280 burst fire is nice because you can take better advantage of "good moments to fire" by firing a lot of shots in that small time frame. Pistol burst fire would be similarly useful. You could be pecking with P3 main fire and then if the enemy moves in a particularly predictable way you could switch to burst fire to hammer em. Assuming burst fire does that much more FP drain than P3 40-damage shots, which I assume it does.)

P2 charge shot is a bit silly since it takes 5 seconds to charge and you can't hold a full charge, and the full charge isn't even that much damage. But it also only costs 4 points so I'm hesitant to say it should be buffed.
 
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I much preferred P2 burst shot, I find that P2 charge shot is only worth using if you have happened to sneak up behind someone. A buff to the damage/ammo ratio would be really nice for P2 charge shot

Dual pistols definitely need a crosshair fix, and that would make them work perfectly well in my opinion. They hit hard, fast, and often. The overheating idea sounds cool and would fit with the mandalorian theme. It would be extremely powerful though to never have to hit the reload key, definitely being a buff for fighting Jedi. Maybe as an extra point cost addition, such as the M5 attachments.
 
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I agree with some of your points.
The other day i was playing P3 hero and had a full charged shot and hit a soldier straight in the chest and didnt kill it.
I mean, in the time that it takes me to charge a p3 and fire it, let alone HIT the target, i probably could've fired 6 times and done 4x the amount of damage. Charged shot is weird if you buff it, you will have 2 things, the aim gods who will just charge and 1 shot everyone, or no one will use charge.

I think pistols are fine but a p3 charged shot needs to one shot soldiers if it doesnt already.
My opinion is that charged shots should do damage equal to the time it takes for regular shots. If a regular shot does 10 damage, and I can fire 3 times before a charged shot is ready, a charge shot should do 45-60 damage aside from 30 damage from 3 regular shots.
 
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