Nerfing the shaft (turret)

[lssimo 1,559]

There's a problem with your poll.

But this time mostly Shaft players have stayed in the game, most others have left.

So, what do you think the result of your poll wiil be?

Edited September 2, 2021 by lssimo

[frezeandvik 71]

On 9/1/2021 at 5:26 AM, wild001 said:

get double amor, use brutus drone maxed, get shaft protection, use heavy hulls, stay out of lazer, stay behind wall, leave and only join small map

You can't choose your maps in MM

On 9/1/2021 at 6:49 PM, GrayWolf8733 said:

That’s the whole point of Shaft though.

If that's the whole point of Shaft that doesn't mean it's not OP

On 9/1/2021 at 7:29 AM, Iron_Man said:

what money are they gonna make from something which is available for Crystals.

If they made its price like 1,000,000 Crystals, there are many players will pay $ to have it, and it's accessible for F2P at least whatever its price was. But making them UCs exclusive or with Tankoins is just semi-impossible access for F2P players.

Edited September 2, 2021 by frezeandvik

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

Average low rank turret diversity. 

 

 

[Frylock 1,617]

3 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

Average low rank turret diversity. 

 

 

Relatable....I go on my mini acc and I see so many shafts. 

[wild001 1,422]

Recent shaft nerf hurt low rank shaft, but they dont care.

I started using high capacitor shaft maxed recently, as i am too bored with other popular guns, shaft is my least used and last maxed gun.

it feel good to relax and camping and deal 1 shot 4125 damage on all hulls and 8250 if they have no protection, only lifeguard drone user can walk away from it,

camping w shaft saves supplies, use only 7 dd per battle, use w self healing mammoth or ares

 

[yellowghetto 3,206]

Nerf Shaft 

[Potdindy 866]

44 minutes ago, yellowghetto said:

Nerf Shaft 

Why? At higher ranks i see hammer, tesla, freeze, thunder and many other dominating games...not shaft

[Okami 3,041]

20 hours ago, yellowghetto said:

Nerf Shaft 

Nerf camping Shafts*
Heavy Capacitors is way too good right now. 

[artc 1,119]

It really depends on the augaments the shaft is using and the protections in play. If some1 has 50% protection its really hard to get a kill with shaft, without protections it is easy to get a kill.

[DestrotankAI9 1,513]

Personally I am having a lot more trouble against good players with Shaft than against any other turret right now, including Tesla.

Shaft was a very strong turret, and then it received a massive unnecessary buff a few patches ago bringing it up to a ridiculous level, and the recent nerfs haven't really changed much - it is still very OP at both low and high ranks. Especially after the nerfs to many other turrets last patch, it is the best long-range turret by far at this point.

I decided to see what it is like to use Shaft at Legend, and equipped my 7-7 shaft with Heavy Capacitors, 7-10 Ares and 13/20 Booster. This was the result:



Would have managed a lot more than 35 kills if we didn't finish early. Now my team was significantly better than the enemies, but there is no way that k/d and score would have been so easy to achieve with any other turret, especially given such a low gearscore - well below a lot of the enemy team too. Shaft IMO needs a significant nerf, far too strong right now. And this was my first game with Shaft in weeks, I have very little experience with Shaft in general at Legend.

 

3 hours ago, artc said:

It really depends on the augaments the shaft is using and the protections in play. If some1 has 50% protection its really hard to get a kill with shaft, without protections it is easy to get a kill.

Admittedly yes - Shaft is a hard turret to balance. If it can one-shot, it is OP - if it can't it is weak. The real problem for Shaft is Lifeguard drone - that drone can ruin a Shaft player's day. But Booster/Crisis and Heavy Capacitors (or maybe even just Heavy Capacitors) can overcome modules quite easily. At low ranks especially where modules are weaker, Shaft is still ridiculous even after the nerfs.

It has had its reload buffed far too much, there was no justification for it. The reload at Legend must be nerfed back to what it used to be some weeks ago.

Edited September 16, 2021 by DestrotankAI9

[Namir 340]

shaft definitely needs a nerf

[Spy 14,687]

11 hours ago, artc said:

It really depends on the augaments the shaft is using and the protections in play. If some1 has 50% protection its really hard to get a kill with shaft, without protections it is easy to get a kill.

In my opinion Shaft deals too much damage while it's very easy to hit targets, It would be better if they made aiming harder with shaft and then the damage it deals would be justified.

[NikmanGT 4,362]

2 minutes ago, Spy said:

In my opinion Shaft deals too much damage while it's very easy to hit targets, It would be better if they made aiming harder with shaft and then the damage it deals would be justified.

If there gonna be a problem with mechanics of a turret , then its a chance many players are gonna stop using it to a large extent. Making aiming harder will make 1v1 situations(if RFM not equipped ) or quick sniping shots (like im running on a map but i see someone and i immediately change to sniping mode , move my turret quickly , hit him and continue with the game ) a lot difficult . The best option which i've seen in my past MM experience  and updates is to nerf the damage and keep everythin else intact. 

[Akame 4,578]

On 9/16/2021 at 11:20 AM, Spy said:

In my opinion Shaft deals too much damage while it's very easy to hit targets, It would be better if they made aiming harder with shaft and then the damage it deals would be justified.

Currently it deals 3300; more than enough to 1 shot a medium on equal maxed grounds, this allows a player to fire off a bit earlier than needing the whole bar.

We could change it to 3000; to equally match a medium hull at max charging, but then again, it will make no difference for crisis/booster users in most cases since they can break most boundaries. The reduction could hurt players who don't have a well built drone set; booster is a natural dominator and crisis shaft can be used very effectively provided awareness of surroundings.

Sure, shaft can be easy in a camping state; mobile against a lot of impact and enemies, not as much. Aiming harder; reducing the rotation speed, sounds interesting, may make people want light caps, but will also promote camping in a sharper location, which would make players more frustrated.

But hey; shaft lost it's piercing ability long ago; and still requires line of sight, it's damage is increased by staying scoped for longer and only can hit 1 target. It is still limited in a sense of comparison as to railgun and magnum respectively.

And then there is it's counterpart; gauss, often dubbed a 'sniping turret'; only difference is, you ain't got a laser; and u just gotta lock on to an enemy and instant hit, or so.

To date; I still see no need to use shaft prot against any of my shaft enemies.

[Okami 3,041]

I brought up this point in a conversation about Shaft on Discord but I'll post it here too, where more people can see it and give their opinions.

I think that the problem with Shaft lies in Heavy Capacitors and not really for the other augments. Something needs to be done about it, probably with the charging time but I'm not sure.

The reason I think that it lies in that augment and not really for any others is because 90% of Shaft users use Heavy Capacitors.
Stock, Short-band Emitter, Light Capacitors, and Adrenaline are practically extinct in MM apart from the random outliers, but those are few and far between.
Rapid-fire Mode still gets used for some reason, including by campers even though that augment really discourages camping.
AP Shaft isn't that common either, and same with Healing Shaft although I've found that if people have it, they'll use it because it's a way to show off. Not many people have it though, and I think it'll suffer the same fate as most UC augments where it gets replaced by something new. ^{As a sidenote, people say that Healing Emitters is OP but I feel like it's balanced because arcades have kind of a weak firing rate. Shaft isn't a high-DPS melee turret like Isida so even if you scope to heal, a well-timed shot from a Gauss/Magnum/Shaft or a melee turret can easily out-DPS a Healing Emitters Shaft. There's also the strategic downfall where you're weakening your offensive firepower because any shot you make to heal is a shot that could have been made to kill.}

If I encounter any other Shaft augment in MM, they're generally rather manageable foes but Heavy Capacitors is so powerful that I feel obligated to put on my 50% Shaft protection.

[DaringDeer 656]

I play mostly in groups of 4 so almost exclusively long maps.  In CTF and RGB, I will always have shaft protection on to start battles.

IMO, it is much too strong.  It charges and reloads incredibly quickly for scoped shots, the aim when scoping moves very quickly, and it does too much damage.  

[Incorp 2,084]

Why did I do 292 damage once?! Scoped too!

[Akame 4,578]

3 hours ago, Incorp said:

Why did I do 292 damage once?! Scoped too!

sounds like you shot someone in a titan dome, don't do that

[Incorp 2,084]

2 minutes ago, Akame said:

sounds like you shot someone in a titan dome, don't do that

No I didn't.  It's a guy in plain sight with no titan domes!!

[Okami 3,041]

On 9/17/2021 at 9:56 PM, GrayWolf8733 said:

The reason I think that it lies in that augment and not really for any others is because 90% of Shaft users use Heavy Capacitors.

4 Shafts, 3 with Heavy Capacitors

 

I didn't get a screenshot but lol95_cool was using HC Shaft/Dictator

 

Spoiler

 

[Potdindy 866]

I dunno why hammer/viking can go 37-7 and easily dominate a game and no one suggests it might be a bit strong yet shaft folks get chased around the map and ppl yell "nerf"

[wolverine848 13,097]

23 minutes ago, Potdindy said:

I dunno why hammer/viking can go 37-7 and easily dominate a game and no one suggests it might be a bit strong yet shaft folks get chased around the map and ppl yell "nerf"

Probably Blunderbuss augment - does max damage at full range with every pellet on critical hits. And since the horizontal scatter is +200 - it can do max damage to a LOT of targets.

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

12 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Probably Blunderbuss augment - does max damage at full range with every pellet on critical hits. And since the horizontal scatter is +200 - it can do max damage to a LOT of targets.

Or it could also be its AP or EMP augment. Y'know, those that give a status that reduces the enemy's effective HP on the last shot, AND a 10% boost to the clip reload, because 2021 balancing. 

 

Or it could just be the Booster drone carrying it. A Hammer with Booster deals the damage damage as an HC Shaft without DD. I.e it will one-shot anything unprotected and one-shot light hulls with DA. And it gets two of those shots during the Booster activation. Great examples are videos like this. For the good half of 2021, I loathed this specific combo because it infested DM modes and made it unenjoyable for me (thank glorious drone balancing once again).

 

 

[Potdindy 866]

28 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Probably Blunderbuss augment - does max damage at full range with every pellet on critical hits. And since the horizontal scatter is +200 - it can do max damage to a LOT of targets.

Thank you! My point was that other turrets, hammer, gauss, freeze, magnum regularly dominate games and theres no "nerf hammer" but when someone get sniped by a shaft for his first kill, ppl yell nerf. I rarely/never see shafts dominate unlike the others

[TheCongoSpider 8,942]

48 minutes ago, Potdindy said:

I dunno why hammer/viking can go 37-7 and easily dominate a game and no one suggests it might be a bit strong yet shaft folks get chased around the map and ppl yell "nerf"

I don't know why as well. Hammer has been broken ever since its clip reload buff, and no one seemed to be complaining about it. Now come in Blunderbuss, a constant, disgusting reminder of why the clip reload was buffed in the first place. Bring in its AP augment, which became god tier after that buff due to it being self-sufficient and able to chain the AP (by that time the target is already dead). In the Patch Note they said they removed the clip reload speed bonus, but it was never removed, so you had a Hammer with practically infinite ammo, disabling your protections with every 3rd shot.

Then it became bugged into almost unplayability. That was a breath of relief for me and then it got fixed, and became even better than before. Now they pretty much don't miss me at all and have become even more obnoxious with Booster. Bring in its latest UC augments to further justify its clip reload changes and to solidify that this is the new Hammer that is here to stay. 

 

As for why people yell to nerf Shaft, that's probably in its mechanics. No one likes being one-shotted without having a chance to fight back. No one likes a Shaft Titan sitting in one part of the map for 7 minutes racking up free kills while putting in no effort. Shaft's buffs since June 2020 have been exacerbating this phenomenon; making the sniping shot everyone hates fighting against more potent and making the arcade shot pitifully weak to justify it. The crux came with the latest buff, allowing it to charge it's sniping shot to full even faster. This made HC, the prime camping tool, powerful, even powercreeping LC. That's bad design off the bat. Then they attempt to justify it with reducing the charging of lower modifications, but endgame modifications remain untouched. HC is the biggest problem currently. This needs to get nuked first and foremost.