Let's Discuss Thunder!

[2shots2kills 2,364]

2 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

Sledgehammer's maximum damage range is the size of a Viking dude.  Meanwhile SCCM's maximum damage range is the size of 19 Vikings. 

Sledgehammer's damage starts dropping below 100% right in front of your face. 

Well what can I say, I need to do some testing on my own then. Just moments ago, I was in Parma and I was shooting from that position in the map:

Spoiler

I had Double Damage and I was doing around 1250 dmg per hit to a target without DA nor protection. 

12 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

Alright. But would you really say it's useless? Players throw around that word a lot on almost everything that doesn't do their dishes while getting penta-kills every 2 minutes.

Sadly, I'd say yes. A year ago or so I would have said it was situational, but in today's meta, anything that does not give you a big advantage is next to useless, to me.

Trust me I would love for each augment to be like SCCM. But when we have broken Augments, Drones, Hulls, ODs, you really do need the edge if you want to make a difference in the team.

When compared to the rest of the equipment, I even consider Sledgehammer to be subpar.

___

 

You see, sometimes players are just content to play the game, and to maybe finish in the middle of the scoreboard and call it a day.

But for me it is different, I always played to win and I tried my best in every battle. That's why I am so harsh towards some stuff and I say it's terrible. 

I may try my best, I might be winning a game 2-0 thanks to my positioning and awareness, and then a Hopper Crisis comes on the enemy team. I stop him once, I stop him twice.

But eventually he turns the game around. What am I supposed to do? Here, take the win, I surrender. There is nothing I can do, you win because you decided to spend money, while I did not. And for a player like me it's really sad, I keep telling myself that I only continue to play this game because I grew up with it, but there is hardly any reason to stick with it anymore.

Why all this rant you may ask? Because when we have such disgusting and over the top stuff that breaks the game, a simple change in parameters in a out-of-meta Turret, to me, is useless.

[Cyberspace 1]

Very popular weapon right now. 

 

Pros:

Good on almost every map

Splash damage is pretty cool on non-short battles

Thunder rules!

Every augument costs diamonds

Good at ruining my day

Counters hammer

 

Cons:

Only adrenaline is useful augument

Damage per second is lower than smoky deals

may deal self-damage

 

Man this is good

 

[Spy 14,687]

At the moment I feel like Thunder is really weak, I really want Thunder to get a buff.

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

9 minutes ago, Spy said:

At the moment I feel like Thunder is really weak, I really want Thunder to get a buff.

It's because armies of Grizzlies modules.

[Spy 14,687]

Just now, FrozenRailgun said:

It's because armies of Grizzlies modules.

True, but I feel like the turret itself is a bit weak regardless of the protection modules.

[thunderhunter123 741]

On 4/7/2021 at 2:31 AM, Cyberspace said:

Only adrenaline is useful augument

I like Sledgehammer because it allows faster reload.

But I would like to get the Adrenaline Augment, and see how it does.

But Thunder is the best weapon for me in the game. Not too strong, not too weak.

But Spy did say he wants a buff on it. That would be nice for me too!

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

1 minute ago, Spy said:

True, but I feel like the turret itself is a bit weak regardless of the protection modules.

I mean you can damage your opponent even when you are hiding behind a cover

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

1 minute ago, thunderhunter123 said:

I like Sledgehammer because it allows faster reload.

But I would like to get the Adrenaline Augment, and see how it does.

But Thunder is the best weapon for me in the game. Not too strong, not too weak.

But Spy did say he wants a buff on it. That would be nice for me too!

Adrenaline stacks additively with Boosted Power and Viking's OD.... W8ing for Alternativa to rework Adreny auggies.

 

[Master_Scope 164]

5 minutes ago, FrozenRailgun said:

It's because armies of Grizzlies modules.

Why i left thunder after getting to high ranks

50% against mk7 was impossible 

[Spy 14,687]

8 minutes ago, FrozenRailgun said:

I mean you can damage your opponent even when you are hiding behind a cover

The damage is too low, and right now there are many turrets with better alts. Thunder really need to get a buff.

 

7 minutes ago, MysticBlood said:

That's why I stopped using thunder, damage wise even without grizzlies against it is pretty weak.. I would rather use Gauss over thunder or even possibly smoky. For thunder to be really good you would need booster or crisis to compete even against a gauss user. 

True, there are better alternative as you said. That's a shame, Thunder used to be so good and fun to use back then.

[alkyng 3,080]

Thunder isn't weak, but it doesn't have a strong alts like the other turrets. So maybe a changing or a new pack of Augments for it

[Spy 14,687]

Just now, asem.harbi said:

Thunder isn't weak, but it doesn't have a strong alts like the other turrets. So maybe a changing or a new pack of Augments for it

It is weak (in my opinion), I barely if ever use it anymore.

[wolverine848 13,097]

6 minutes ago, asem.harbi said:

Thunder isn't weak, but it doesn't have a strong alts like the other turrets. So maybe a changing or a new pack of Augments for it

If players use strong augments for other turrets and Thunder does not have that, wouldn't that make it weak?

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

I feel like other turrets just got unnecessarily more powerful, rather than Thunder being weak. 

 

Striker, its closest relative mechanic-wise, received two reload speed buffs and now has the firing rate of Sledgehammer, a slight projectile speed buff, and has double critical damage. 

 

I think doubling Thunder's critical chance might be a good start. Additionally, giving Subcalibre Rounds an increased critical hit chance (maybe 40%?) I'm sure they have plans to balance it when Thunder HD comes.

[Frylock 1,617]

9 minutes ago, asem.harbi said:

Thunder isn't weak, but it doesn't have a strong alts like the other turrets. So maybe a changing or a new pack of Augments for it

In my opinion thunder is kinda on the weak end with damage wise parameters. Plus it doesn't even have good augments to compete with other turrets like Gauss...

[alkyng 3,080]

3 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

If players use strong augments for other turrets and Thunder does not have that, wouldn't that make it weak?

The rule of Augments is

If an Augment is a weak, you don't have to ask to buff it, just try the other. If a turret doesn't have any strong Augment, go to the other turret. EMP Gauss is stronger than any Augment of Freeze, you don't have to ask for a buff, just move to Gauss and use that Augment.

I believe Thunder don't have any strong Augment, without checking in wiki, because I rarely get annoyed by a Thunder.

[Frylock 1,617]

9 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

I feel like other turrets just got unnecessarily more powerful, rather than Thunder being weak. 

 

Striker, its closest relative mechanic-wise, received two reload speed buffs and now has the firing rate of Sledgehammer, a slight projectile speed buff, and has double critical damage. 

 

I think doubling Thunder's critical chance might be a good start. Additionally, giving Subcalibre Rounds an increased critical hit chance (maybe 40%?) I'm sure they have plans to balance it when Thunder HD comes.

This could work, another a good buff would be increasing its base damage to 900 and increasing the crit chance to 30-40%. Or another good buff would be reducing its reload time from 2.20 to 2.15  as well increasing the base damage from 880 to 890. 

Edited May 23, 2021 by MysticBlood

[LambSauce 1,884]

This is interesting, because at the low ranks Thunder is probably one of the most common turrets. But as someone above pointed out, at the higher ranks Thunder protections are all too common for the turret to be viable.

I also believe that eventually most of the turrets will receive changes to their critical damage and critical chance values - it seems the devs are slowly going through the list of turrets and updating them with respect to this. So far, we've only seen Railgun and Striker get updated with some of these new values (apart from Smoky which has its own unique crit system).

[Tanker-Arthur 2,971]

Just now, Spy said:

True, but I feel like the turret itself is a bit weak regardless of the protection modules.

It's only "weak" because Gauss, Railgun, Shaft, Magnum, Striker, and Isida are too strong.

Otherwise, I think Thunder is perfectly fine and it should be the aforementioned turrets getting nerfs instead.

[wolverine848 13,097]

6 hours ago, LambSauce said:

This is interesting, because at the low ranks Thunder is probably one of the most common turrets. But as someone above pointed out, at the higher ranks Thunder protections are all too common for the turret to be viable.

This argument is not really relevant anymore.

There's like 14 protections, so the odds of a target using Thunder protection is much lower than it used to be.  I haven't equipped that in 2 years.

Additionally, modules became a lot less potent with the introduction of critical hits and also status effects.

[alkyng 3,080]

50 minutes ago, At_Shin said:

I think Thunder with the sledgehammer augment and booster drone and viking hull is one of the most powerful combos in DM modes.

ACTUALLY, I think, put any any turret with this combo, and it will be more deadly than this. Isida Adrenaline - Firebird IB - Hammer Duplet, are way more OP and always in TOP 1

[FrozenRailgun 1,771]

13 hours ago, wolverine848 said:

There's like 14 protections, so the odds of a target using Thunder protection is much lower than it used to be.  I haven't equipped that in 2 years.

 

I barely touch my Mk5 Falcon/Grizzly now (got them couple years ago when I was in buyer-streak). Railgun/Thunders are annoying, but not strong enouf to make me use modules against them.

Edited May 24, 2021 by FrozenRailgun

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

I'm a Thunder main so please forgive me for jumping into this discussion a little later, but I just had to .

Sledgehammer>SCCM because for whatever reason the damage drop-off isn't calculated correctly. SCCM isn't really viable for super long range (think shooting across the map in Desert), and neither is Sledgehammer, but both of them can perform similarly at Mid range. Sledgehammer's extra 5% quicker reload speed also helps make it useful, and it doesn't tank your damage at closer and medium ranges as badly. On the whole, SCCM has a projectile speed advantage but frankly it's really not that useful in most situations anyways since Thunder is not built as a pocket sniper. Subcaliber rounds are absolute garbage because they take away splash which is immensely useful for a Thunder player. As for adrenaline, I haven't tested it extensively but I feel like the ROF is a bit slow, so I stick to Sledgehammer. SCCM is good, it's just that Sledgehammer is more enjoyable to use and more deadly, especially in close quarters.

Thunder isn't weak really, the thing is that as others have said, augments for turrets such as Gauss and Railgun outdo Thunder. I myself have gone into loads of matches where practically everyone has had Thunder protection, and I've still managed to come out on top with sledgehammer because often times kill stealing is something Thunder can do really well. If you see 2 tanks dueling each other when you have Railgun, you pick a target and attack said target, but with Thunder you can damage them both and try to kill both of them and typically this gets you at least a kill if not 2. This is of course in DM. As for team-based modes, you can always try and time your shots to steal kills. I think one of Thunder's biggest advantages with Sledgehammer is the ease in inflicting splash damage. I don't know if this is just a placebo, but it definitely feels like you have slightly more control over your shot. I, for one, typically manage to hit my shots exactly where I am aiming (by this I mean around 40-60 metres in front, as in shooting say a wall to damage an enemy who went down a certain route). Most often players don't even use this ability to it's fullest and that's such a shame. Off late I haven't been using Thunder much because I don't have EMP immunity for Viking and Viking Thunder is by far and away my favourite combo, but yeah it's definitely not weak. Players just see 50% protections and assume that means you cannot do anything, but this just isn't true. There are a lot more broken/powerful augments in the game if that is what you want, but Thunder is by no means weak in absolute terms. In relative terms, it is weak though because I mean EMP Salvo or stun augments are obviously going to be much more powerful.

[SporkZilla 1,775]

23 minutes ago, FrozenRailgun said:

I barely touch my Mk5 Falcon/Grizzly now (got them couple years ago when I was in buyer-streak). Railgun/Thunders are annoying, but not strong enouf to make me use modules against them.

I've stopped using my Falcon modules because of critical damage, but I still use my Grizzly modules a lot because of Sledgehammer Thunders

I'm tempted by Thunder Sledgehammer, even if it means buying the augment instead of getting it from a container

I've only used it on the test server, but it suits my run'and'gun playing style along with Smoky and arcade-shots-only Striker

(run'and'gun is probably why I still need to use Grizzly modules, lots of fights with other mid-range turrets)

[LOLKILLERTOTHEDEATH 1,921]

10 minutes ago, SporkZilla said:

I've stopped using my Falcon modules because of critical damage, but I still use my Grizzly modules a lot because of Sledgehammer Thunders

I'm tempted by Thunder Sledgehammer, even if it means buying the augment instead of getting it from a container

I've only used it on the test server, but it suits my run'and'gun playing style along with Smoky and arcade-shots-only Striker

(run'and'gun is probably why I still need to use Grizzly modules, lots of fights with other mid-range turrets)

It's easily the best, and quite a lot of fun to use. I'd say pick it up on a sale if possible, because containers may throw endless amounts of paints and other stuff at you. Unless you're in no rush to get it I suppose.