Weren't they slower before? It's just that the speed curve goes the other way around compared to Striker missiles I thought

With regards to the group situation: @Opex-Rah, have you considered simply having players in groups not always be on the same team? There shouldn't even be a problem with players throwing matches so the other half of a group can win - you just have your battle mods prune them, it's literally against play rules to do so, so there won't be any change.

I don't think this is worth arguing. Abusers defend whatever they're using to abuse - we've seen it with EMP Gauss, Stun Striker, AP Freeze, and now pubstomping groups. p2w players can deny they are p2w all they want, but deep down they know it - the reason they are winning has nothing to do with investment or skill in the game, it's the size of their wallets. As a result, they feel ashamed, which is why they lash out like this and try to keep the image that they are winning through anything of their own doing because as soon as those p2w systems are gone, they will be gone from the game too.

It is simple. You take the statistical advantage that the status augments are given by the status, and you cut it off. I have posts about this.

status effect coverage nerfs ???? He can keep malding about it.

Players. Several of us got surveys.

Sledgehammer will (probably) still be beating things up though. It won't be as good as Missile Launcher Hunter, but I think a skilled Sledgehammer unironically might be able to make it work as well as a skilled Striker. Remember, flat 60% - this is even at the very edge of your splash damage - and also, you have a small window to be doing 1k+ damage. That's pretty big.

Nahhh not meta. It's not strong enough to beat out the ridiculous stat buffs inherent to having status effects, unfortunately. Now, what about those mass status augment nerfs, eh? When are those coming?

Presumably still no crits for Sledgehammer, though.

So... Sledgehammer. 2 second reload, 16 meters of 1000+ damage, 42 meters of 750+ damage. I am going to enjoy this patch.

Not necessarily defending people insulting the devs, but defending people who call out what's wrong with their policies by pretending there's nothing wrong. Nothing is wrong with a 2.5x statistical advantage that's locked behind either RNG or an expensive bundle right?

About that...

Wonder who would do such a thing and claim that there is no hope left for the game and the devs have killed it. "I think the devs should make x less overpowered so that more players can fight on equal footing" "There is no solution here" Truly a moderation team and not a team hired to keep the p2w going. Please read what you are saying before posting it. It does not reflect well when half the time you try to defend p2w systems, it actually comes off as such rather than as some misguided attempt to keep the forums helpful with their criticism. Case in point. Pathetic.

You do realize that if people bring up the same thoughtless "arguments" that are shut down by what has already been said, there is almost no difference between copy pasting a previous post and copy pasting it to rephrase it? Same thing goes for criticisms. If the behaviour has not changed, why change the criticism?

Since when was that ever brought up? I agree with what Congo said, @The_one_and_only - this is far more likely to be a ultra container exclusive augment, same with an isida augment that grants superconducting to its allies. Even more so now that they have released Pulsar and Helios - nontraditional forms of their typical "buy ultra containers to get the new overpowered nonsense" augments. It would be super cool if it was implemented for Support Nanobots though, yeah.

It applies AP on crits now.

Also for all the people complaining about some status augments getting nullified by repair kits - stop being babies. This is how people without status effect spam options play. Also, it's not even like it's free - you have to time the repair kit, and it's not like there isn't counterplay most augments can pull out against the repair kit. I'm very disappointed by how much this community wants to kill itself by making the game unplayable for the majority of its players.

Okay, but even after they are made available they don't show up in the patch notes. That's not justification.

Sizzling field wasn't in the patch note either. And before anyone comes along and says "watch the vlog" - the vlog didn't mention most of the changes in the patch notes.

Status effects will probably becoming to Thunder after it gets an augment like Turbo Plasma Accelerators, Blunderbuss, and the new Ricochet augment - which seem to hint that they're done slapping status effects on augments and calling it a day - instead they'll be slapping a mechanically nonsensical augment that's strong on a turret, and then moving to status spam. I agree with buffing Sledgehammer, but I don't think it needs crits - they really would not do anything. I would just amp its current gimmick up further like you said - I think the final stats I came up with it were something like -55% reload, 50 meter max damage range. That would sit it pretty comfortably in comparison to the other top tier augment in its damage category, Missile Launcher Hunter - faster reload in exchange for a severe range penalty, as opposed to current Sledgehammer - slower reload and a severe range penalty.

It is a generally abhorrent augment in its current state. It was the best for Thunder prior to the critical damage update, but unfortunately not much past it. As for "thunder is meant for splash damage" - that is unfortunately just no longer the case anymore. Statistically, its splash damage is significantly worse than Striker missiles and even Gauss arcade shots - which retain 90% damage at 5 meters and 4 meters from ground 0, respectively, compared to Thunder's 25% retainment at 5 meters. It also simply doesn't hit anywhere near as Striker and Gauss. Adding critical damage to Sledgehammer will not do anything. It will still have a rather pathetic 15 meters to feasibly do enough damage to kill a medium hull within four shots, and its reload, while once considered best-in-class (1.65 seconds when Thunder's reload was 2.2 seconds, with the class being the 750-999 damage dealers), is now rather pathetic - it has been increased to 1.72 seconds, and considering its pathetic range, there is little reason to use it over options which outclass it both in damage potential and range - Strikers, HPAS Smoky, SBE Shaft, and when paired with booster, Gausses, and other Shafts. I get that there is nostalgia value and plenty of satisfaction with being able to see the slow projectiles fly to your target, but the glory days of Sledgehammer are over.

Agreed. I'm on board with this solution, it was definitely more thoughout than mine - this prevents gameplay from getting stale for the juggernauts if they fail to keep the game rolling, like my solution would have happen.

Seeing as you've posted, I might as well ask - what was the point of reducing Railgun's damage and increasing its critical chance when Booster was reworked, only to bring its damage back up and decrease its critical chance? The past few railgun changes have taken the weapon almost nowhere, with the slight changes of higher normal damage and flat rather than variable crit chance, with the same average. What was the original intention when reworking Railgun to be dependent on booster, and was that intention successful, or not? I would assume it was not, as evidenced by the current change buffing the damage back up and crit rate back down. Contrarily, this is exactly why swapping is unhealthy for the game. Who wins, the guy who can pull out any cancer ray and can pull out any immunity, or the guy who doesn't even have a choice between cancer rays and immunities? Being able to guarantee your status will work/guarantee you have immunity is awful, and is compounded by the ability to play in groups/the lack of coordination between most random players. Not having swapping would hurt you maybe, but it certainly wouldn't hurt new legends who are coming up with crystal augments on their turrets and hulls as their only options. Unless you're saying you wouldn't like to close the gap between buyers and free players. Oh right. @Opex-Rah another question - what is the point of buffing the critical damage of Thunder? The only changes that have occurred are that critical hits with booster can oneshot unprotected light hulls, and that a normal hit and a critical hit with booster can kill a protected light hull. In what ways does this solve the fundamental problems with Thunder, being that its damage output is too low in all areas, leading it to be outclassed by striker? The argument that striker is more difficult to use does not hold up anymore - a mediocre striker player will typically beat a skilled thunder player. What are the reasons for the recent changes, and what is intended to be done about this problem?

Well, Diesel isn't wrong here, but I wouldn't say that the group abuse is a giant problem here. The reason he's right is that ultimately, there is very little reward for healing a juggernaut with Isida, most of the time. You will win, but your score will tank because of how score from healing is generated. This means that most solo players won't bother healing (I know you're the exception, but I rarely see competent isida healers in TJR) and that there is much more incentive for groups to do it - where they play to end matches as quickly and safely as possible, which can include a healer to support the juggernaut. This is compounded as well with the aspect of coordination - if the few solo players who want to heal realize there is a competent juggernaut, they have to risk swapping whereas a player in a group will know there is a high chance of a competent juggernaut and will not hesitate to begin a match as a healer. It's just a complicated issue, as there are several other pieces of equipment that have increased/decreased effectiveness in specific modes as well. I would rather not touch something that doesn't necessarily need to change right now, as any solutions to it will either be needlessly specific and complicated or have devastating impacts for the entire gamemode. With that being said, I'll propose one of said solutions in response to Deer: Would you want the potency of the Juggernaut to depend on active gameplay? Have their stats gradually go down in between overdrive activations, and have them go down faster in between each one. This would force them to continuously get kills to feed their overdrives to stay powerful, as well as add some strategy to the overdrive use. Alternatively, you could simply decrease their overall power over time and have it restore a small amount with each kill. Or have stats for juggernauts go down as long as the same two juggernauts are alive. For example, if Juggernaut A and B have both been alive for 5 minutes, their stats will be cut in half everywhere - max health, damage, speed, weight. But if Juggernaut B dies, the new Juggernaut B and Juggernaut A will both be at full power again.

"with Sorted Ammunition" about that actually