@Marcus ...what did Thunder do to deserve this exactly? This had better be a setup for a later buff to Thunder - why did they nerf an already weak turret? Sledgehammer and SCCM both got hit hard - Sledgehammer lost its crits and its splash, and SCCM doesn't twoshot unprotected medium hulls with Booster anymore, not to mention the reload nerf. This would only really make sense if you have it higher max crit chance and the ability to build its crit rate more than once per hit if you hit multiple people, as I proposed - it seems like neither of these have happened. I think the turret might be misnamed - Thunder cracks, but this is more like a butt crack.

Giving another opportunity to mess things up* We already have them introducing literal class divisions with the changes to pro battles and you want them to do it again to MM? Why?

Don't give me a bull crap answer like Thunder is strong, and let's see where we get.

This also means the game dies faster and that seperation doesn't happen if you can choose the category you play in. You're idealizing this way too much - plus, do you really trust Alternativa to implement this in a fair way? I think avoiding messing things up is best.

The problem with this idea is that it seperates players and makes you more likely to get matched up against the same people. It effectively divides the playerbase, which accelerates deprecation of the remaining population.

Yeah, Smoky, Hammer, and Railgun are the ones with the insane impact force to mobile players. And then they went ahead and buffed Rail impact force.

Try it on mobile, the problems get even worse. You get launched by rail even as a juggernaut.

yeah i had the wrong person lol

Thanks to Quirky for taking the pics, technically these are from yesterday but I only got them all finished now

I think it's going to be Thunder, Vulcan, Freeze, or Isida, then Dictator, then the other turret from the same class as the first. As an example, if it was Thunder, it would then be Vulcan after Dictator, and vice versa, and the same for the melee turrets - Freeze then Dictator then Isida or Isida then Dictator then Freeze, just to round off the melee and midrange turret hds as well as the medium hulls.

Right now, Striker steamrolls Thunder in every category possible - it has a significantly faster reload unless Thunder equips one of its two reload decreasing augments which both push its damage down, and even in that case, Thunder's two reload decreasing augments are STILL slower than Missile Launcher "Hunter" spamming homing missiles mindlessly. Even as a Striker player - I have to say, this is abhorrent. The higher damage that Striker has can stay, but I think its reload needs a very heavy nerf so it no longer encroaches on Thunder. Striker reload should be pushed all the way back to how it was before the buffs - back up to 1.8 seconds, it can keep its double crit damage. Also, Missile Launcher "Hunter" should not be firing faster than Stock Striker firing arcades - it's easier to use, I don't see any reason it should be stronger. I would nerf the reload buff following the salvo all the way down to -10%, so that it would be firing missiles slower than simply firing arcades, but would keep the added benefit of being able to do a "quick shot" at the end by swapping to an arcade missile.

The annoying thing is that if we give Thunder more reload, its augments (Small Caliber Charging Machine and Sledgehammer) start encroaching on the role that Smoky has in the game. If we give Thunder more damage, then it becomes a flexing context between Striker and Thunder, and I feel like with how Striker is overpowered enough to carry people who, prior to its buffs, wouldn't have had the skill to play the turret, it's going to become very unpleasant to play the game if Thunder has the stats compete with Striker, given how much easier Thunder is to use.

Yeah Smoky after its buff is really good. After I got used to aiming with it, I haven't really had any problems with the turret. I like that they didn't just buff interactions for one type of shot and buffed the interactions for the shots combined instead (i.e. it takes two normals + one crit to kill a light hull on equal footing). Explosive Rounds finally has enough damage to actually sometimes use the splash, Rubberized Rounds with good aim can disorient and kill campers before they realise what's happened, and Sorted Rounds with the new crit interactions lets you melt people if you have the right roll lined up. Great turret.

dictator and drones have limited y too go try it

Should Thunder be weaker because it's more popular?

I would boost essentially what PirateSpider said is Thunder's strength - I have an I&S post waiting for approval RN, but it boils down to making use of splash in an interesting way. Also, overpowered status augments have only been for the last year and a half - before that, it was all just raw power augments, like Sledgehammer, RFM, Duplet, and Scout.

There are better ways to improve a turret than throwing bigger numbers on it until it kills things fast enough that people say it's strong.

RRE's main function is not for when you miss - RRE is best used to hit people who are hiding, or who are otherwise at angles where you couldn't hit them normally. For Thunder being underestimated - I would have agreed to you, before the recent patches. Back then, old Booster let Thunder punch through protections, and it still had a powerful, easy reload booster that kept you above 750 damage for a decent range - Sledgehammer. That's gone now though, and I still think that whatever Thunder is capable of when not hampered by protections falls far short of what other turrets can pull off when against unprotected enemies. I disagree that lower ranks are less susceptible to p2w players - in my experience, it's been the other way around. You have full squads of Lieutenant Colonels with 9999 GS fighting Colonel f2ps at 5k-6k GS, and I see that as a far bigger problem than the 2k and 3k GS Field Marshals fighting maxed out legends - the big problem is the exp gain which only widens the gap, but at some point you have to blame people for having ranked up too fast and not gotten their gear in place, i.e. said 2k-3k GS Field Marshals. As for Striker's buffs being justified - I think that for the most part, they've been unnecessary for a long time. The buff from 1.8 seconds down to 1.7 allowing it to pretty much completely destroy Sledgehammer's niche with MLH, the double damage crits, the damage buff up to 900 - Striker was perfectly fine before, I had no issues using it then and I find it simply feels overpowered nowadays. I think they got fed up of people sucking at using Striker and buffed it as a result - which I am NOT happy about. As for Thunder not having changed - that's exactly the problem. Other turrets have only gotten better over time for the most part, and I think that's part of why the skills of Thunder players have deteriorated in your eyes - everything else has just gotten better, enough that Thunder has been left behind in the dust.

I came up with this idea a while ago, hence the way that some of the numbers I had before don't quite work with the new Booster and the nerfed Thunder, but didn't have a strong enough reason to post it back then - after all, Thunder was already on the weak side, and I never thought that it would be nerfed again, but a recent discussion in the Thunder thread reminded me. Thanks to @PirateSpider for talking about Thunder's splash lol. So, the premise - allow Thunder, and only Thunder, to increase its critical chance step by the number of tanks hit rather than the number of shots fired. This change would be accompanied by others to make Thunder fit this new playstyle better. Critical damage would have been increased by 14% up to 980, but will now instead be increased by 21% given the current Thunder damage. Regular damage would have been decreased by 9% down to 800, but that is now an unnecessary change, as Thunder is only hitting for 810 damage currently. As for the actual critical rate, I would set the chance step to 15%, max chance step to 75%, and the initial chance to 15%. With the current stats, I don't really see a reason to boost the critical splash radius - I think 7 meters is plenty given how often Thunder will be landing its crits. I would also make some augment changes to fit the new Thunder. I would give Small Caliber Charging Machine critical damage penalty in addition to as a regular damage penalty just enough so that with Booster it wouldn't go above 1000 damage, but increase the range of all its splash parameters (3 meters max, 6 meters average, 15 meters minimum) so that it would essentially be more criticals in exchange for less damage as a whole. Sledgehammer wouldn't get any changes - in practice this would make it similar to Small Caliber Charging Machine, except it would have slightly faster reload, less reach for boosting its crit rate, and generally stronger normal hits than Small Caliber Charging Machine, as well as crits that would go over 1000 damage with Booster versus SCCM. I would give Subcaliber +5% to its chance step, a maximum chance of 60%, and an initial critical chance of 20%, as well as a critical damage buff in order for its criticals to break 1000, so it would be the "low skill" Thunder augment, which doesn't require multi-hits to build its critical rate and also always gets 1000 damage criticals, even with drones other than Booster. Adrenaline would be able to get criticals past 1000 with drones other than Booster similar to Subcaliber Rounds, except it would have splash to get its crits more often, and would need to take a little bit of damage in order to do so. This would result in a more interesting Thunder that would be as strong as simply throwing bigger numbers on it but would have it require a tiny bit more skill and would make it much more satisfying to play beyond "my turret has bigger numbers than yours." The numbers I'll let you judge on personal opinion and decide whether or not this new Thunder would be too busted, but thoughts on the idea to allow Thunder to build crits based on multihits as a way to improve it rather than simply throwing bigger numbers on?

Yes, but if you try to lock onto people above you, it's just going to slam into whatever they're sitting on. Hence, you use arcades in that scenario, and peek-a-boo is useful.

Yes, you mostly use arcades with RRE. Also, Hunter still fires arcades at people above it (which happens to be the same scenario in which you peek a lot of the time, funnily enough). As for Stun - you shouldn't be using that.

When you peek-fire, you're exposing less of your hull. It also lets you make tighter shots with RRE from different spots you otherwise wouldn't be able to firing from the center of your turret.

Striker's barrels are more of an advantage than a disadvantage - particularly with precise augments like RRE as you mentioned, they just take some getting used to. However, I don't think that Thunder having the easiest way to make use of splash is enough. Splash is not a unique mechanic, and neither is Thunder's ability to make use of it, you're severely underestimating the potential of Striker, Smoky, and Gauss' splash damages, (in my experience, at least). It's also not really a problem with legend battles, as I find that lower rank battles are more prone to severe mechanical (p2w) abuse, even if the slower battles means less of a frustrating "getting stomped" experience than occurs at high ranks. As for Thunder having all the tools it needs - I really don't think so. Again - even if you say that easy access to splash damage is why it's still good, it simply lacks power. Striker has the advantage of a second firing mode, but I can't help but notice that they also gave it double damage crits, ridiculously fast reload, and an unnecessary damage buff up to 900 damage. Thunder, which is inherently more reliant on its primary (and only) mode, hence deserving of the same if not more power, and has a mildly larger splash radius as its strength, has been stuck in 2019, and has even had its augments stripped bare recently thanks to statistical nerfs that tear open their downsides and make them unplayable next to stock Thunder. How is Thunder fine in 2021?

It's already weak as hell now and people STILL use a ton of grizzlies per battle. @TheCongoSpideris against a critical-related buff to Thunder for this very reason - the many thunders still around would now easily punch through protections. Also - Thunder doesn't need a slight buff - its' reload is a full half second longer than Striker's arcades, it has regular crit damage, half of its augments are downgrades (the closest to that would be Railgun, which has three out of its twelve augments acting as direct downgrades to stock) and unlike Striker or other turrets, it doesn't have any special mechanics, boosted crit damage, or a second firing mode to back it up. As it is, it relies on pure power, and in that department it's somehow one of the weakest turrets. Maybe you can do fine if you leave all the matches where conditions aren't ideal, but you've gotta recognize at some point how rarely conditions are ideal for Thunder to do well - and that in those conditions, other turrets wouldn't just do well, they would excel.

Granted. All Railguns can now oneshot a light hull with their non-critical hits.