Are some Ricochet augments OP?

[qwds 185]

I don't know the name of the augments but there seems to be one where three balls are fired in bursts and move extremely fast. Being hit by all three seem to kill a medium hull.

Another is like a machine gun and seem to do a huge amount of damage at long ranges for a medium range turret.

Both of these seem to me to be OP, even ridiculously so, so much that the game just isn't fun when players have these turrets...

Does anyone agree?

[King.David 371]

It's called Helios. Yea it's OP, but that's how the game makes most of the money from the Whales - introducing stupidly broken stuff. Eventually it will get nerfed, until the devs generated enough profits from it.

[TheCongoSpider 8,957]

Ricochet is overpowered currently, yes, but it's unfortunately being justified with other turrets having their power increased as well. What's overpowered with Ricochet is specifically its augments and the way the devs decided to balance its status effect ones. 

 

The main culprits are the burst damage ones: Plasma Torch, Beserk, Helios. Ricochet's energy parameters were reworked to deal with multiple fire fights during a lifespane. You get fewer shots than before with a full clip, but your critical damage is increased to partially offset a few of the missing shots, and your projectile speed has been noticeably increased to make sure you're accurate. WHen you're done, you only need to wait 4.3 seconds to be able to shoot another 15 in total. 

Plasma Torch went from annoying but balanced because it had no longevity, to overpowered because you get a 4.3-second reload on your burst damage.

Beserk's gimmick died when they gave Ricochet a fast energy regeneration, so they allowed it to have a purpose in another direction by increasing the firing rate to match the previous penalty. The thing is, increasing the firing rate and not decreasing the damage gives it a net damage boost. There is less of a downside to this than people might think. You have fewer shots, yes, but you expend them faster and catch people off guard. They have less time to react.

Helios is what you get when someone decides p2w players should have their own tier of Plasma Torch. You end up with a Ricochet that has a very fast proectile speed, long range, no direct damage penalty, and shoots 7 times in under a second. 

 

Two of them are somewhat manageable. The other is not. 

 

Ricochet's status effect augments are fortunate in that they have no relevant statistical downside. It's simply Stock Ricochet (which is already potent) + status. Sizzling Field gives your enemy afterburn damage to worry about which makes them use a repair kit earlier. You can still burn them after that. Cryo Field reduces enemy movement for you to hit them better and reduces their damage output against you. They tried to balance it by taking away all of its Ricochets which was fine. It had risk, but now it does not as they gave it one ricochet (that's all it needs with such a short range. 

 

AP Ricochet alongside getting AP on bounced shots will also get AP on critical hits. So now there is no wrong way to use the augment. 

EMP Ricochet is Stock Ricochet but if you so choos,e you canbounce a shot and your enemies' supplies are turned off. 

Stun Ricochet is a statistically better version of Destabilised Plasma.

Pulsar gives you all of that on a critical hit which allows you to follow it up with normal damage on the unprotected enemy. 

 

Ricochet is in a very good spot right now compared to Twins and Hammer. 

 

1 hour ago, qwds said:

I don't know the name of the augments but there seems to be one where three balls are fired in bursts and move extremely fast. Being hit by all three seem to kill a medium hull.

Another is like a machine gun and seem to do a huge amount of damage at long ranges for a medium range turret.

You are describing Helios in both of these examples. 

[Maf 32,306]

15 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

AP Ricochet alongside getting AP on bounced shots will also get AP on critical hits. So now there is no wrong way to use the augment. 

I feel like the range nerf basically killed this augment. I'd rather have it so that there's no AP on crits, but each bounce adds some amount to the range, so that you can actually use walls some distance away and still have successful hits. If an augment strongly encourages a user to bounce their shots, that actually makes it highly skill-dependent.

Unfortunately, at the moment rubberised Vulcan is a far better option if you want to focus on bouncing your shots.

[LambSauce 1,891]

17 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

Stock Ricochet (which is already potent)

Is it?

Stock Rico is easily outclassed by Stock Twins imo.

[qwds 185]

On 6/11/2022 at 6:59 PM, King.David said:

It's called Helios. Yea it's OP, but that's how the game makes most of the money from the Whales - introducing stupidly broken stuff. Eventually it will get nerfed, until the devs generated enough profits from it.

Would you say that all the OP augments are common or not so common? I find that at the ranks I've played in with my other accounts I just need to leave the match and the next one will usually be without any of these augments, so they seem somewhat rare.

 

On 6/11/2022 at 7:29 PM, TheCongoSpider said:

.

Thanks for the thorough reply! It answered a lot of my questions

Btw, would you like to reply in my thread here about the best combos? I'd really enjoy your thoughts.

https://en.tankiforum.com/topic/394986-what-are-the-most-successful-turrethull-combos/

 

 

On 6/11/2022 at 7:47 PM, LambSauce said:

Is it?

Stock Rico is easily outclassed by Stock Twins imo.

Hey, would you like to reply here about the best combos in the game? I'd really enjoy seeing your thoughts.

https://en.tankiforum.com/topic/394986-what-are-the-most-successful-turrethull-combos/

 

[TheCongoSpider 8,957]

28 minutes ago, Maf said:

I feel like the range nerf basically killed this augment. 

Well the point was that you get a tank-weakening status effect on crits without having to actually bounce it. You don't have any downside that encourages/forces you to bounce the shot in order to justify using the augment compared to before the rework where you only got AP on the bounce.

28 minutes ago, LambSauce said:

Is it?

Stock Rico is easily outclassed by Stock Twins imo.

It's much harder for me to use Stock Twins than to use Ricochet, and also much harder for me to dodge Ricochets than Twins. Most of Twins' augments all come with downsides to its DPS. Most of Ricochet's augments just add to that already good DPS. Biggest difference being Helios vs Plasma Turbo Accelerators, Beserk vs Heavy Plasmagun. In the latter example, a Heavy Plasmagun will win if the enemy is stationary but as soon as they start moving, the Beserk has a huge advantage. 

 

13 minutes ago, qwds said:

Thanks for the thorough reply! It answered a lot of my questions

Btw, would you like to reply in my thread here about the best combos? I'd really enjoy your thoughts.

https://en.tankiforum.com/topic/394986-what-are-the-most-successful-turrethull-combos/

 

That changes with each balance change and different combos function better at different ranks because they scale differently through modifications. Add augments and drones to the mix and it becomes even muddier. 

Edited June 11, 2022 by TheCongoSpider

[King.David 371]

1 hour ago, qwds said:

Would you say that all the OP augments are common or not so common? I find that at the ranks I've played in with my other accounts I just need to leave the match and the next one will usually be without any of these augments, so they seem somewhat rare.

It's obvious these augments would be more prevalent in the higher ranks. 2 out 5 mm matches, I encounter at least 1 helios user. It is to be expected knowing that there a people with maxed accounts and/or willing to dish out cash to get the latest equipment. 

[Maf 32,306]

4 hours ago, max6782 said:

What do you think about fast shooting rico? i see players not like scared but dont even want to fight it in close including myself because in other words, you will get get slaughtered, and its so dumb that "augment" its not even funny but sad in tanki today you dont need to use brain with such "augments".

It's perfectly balanced:

[LambSauce 1,891]

28 minutes ago, Maf said:

It's perfectly balanced

As all things should be?

[NikmanGT 4,376]

Helios is currently the best and most OP ricochet augment, it even might be the top augment tanki currently has to offer. Quick shooting speed, long range than usual. Perfect camping or offensive killing machine. You can't defend against it properly if you lack sufficient Rico protection.

[oh-no-not-the-frog 1]

Hey there, I got the helios augment from an ultra crate recently but I haven't spent a dime on the game. I would be kinda sad if it got nerfed because I feel that many other buyers will just move onto the next thing whilst I'll be stuck getting smashed by them again. On the other hand I realise how overpowered it is because with my 2000 tank score I can easily beat a 4000 tank score player and not only that but I can kill both wasp and hornet in one burst.

[Benefactor 6,888]

On 6/15/2022 at 4:25 AM, NikmanGT said:

Helios is currently the best and most OP ricochet augment, it even might be the top augment tanki currently has to offer. Quick shooting speed, long range than usual. Perfect camping or offensive killing machine. You can't defend against it properly if you lack sufficient Rico protection.

If you don't change the damage, then it needs to reload slower than a railgun because it has a higher chance of its shots being a one-shot kill.

[NikmanGT 4,376]

3 minutes ago, Benefactor said:

If you don't change the damage, then it needs to reload slower than a railgun because it has a higher chance of its shots being a one-shot kill.

Agreed, either avail a damage reduction, so that it doesn't have the potential of quickly wiping enemies without giving them chance to defend.

Either make reload longer, so they are less in advantage when competing 1v1 or even close range.

Because most helios users now stay a safe distance and keep 1-shotting enemies from behind.

[oh-no-not-the-frog 1]

20 hours ago, NikmanGT said:

Agreed, either avail a damage reduction, so that it doesn't have the potential of quickly wiping enemies without giving them chance to defend.

Either make reload longer, so they are less in advantage when competing 1v1 or even close range.

Because most helios users now stay a safe distance and keep 1-shotting enemies from behind.

when you're a safe distance away you don't do that much damage, at least in my experience. I think making reload longer would kinda deem it useless compared to other augments because it wouldn't be that great up close and it already isn't the best far away.

[NikmanGT 4,376]

50 minutes ago, oh-no-not-the-frog said:

when you're a safe distance away you don't do that much damage, at least in my experience. I think making reload longer would kinda deem it useless compared to other augments because it wouldn't be that great up close and it already isn't the best far away.

Now that's some new fact, I think the total opposite, seen many helios now in battles, the dominating team usually has one.

Helios works well with close and medium or even a bit of far ranges because of its high-projectile speed, you don't have much chance of dodging or survival. 

Only cases where players can survive would be equipping 50% Rico protection.

[TheCongoSpider 8,957]

4 hours ago, oh-no-not-the-frog said:

when you're a safe distance away you don't do that much damage, at least in my experience. I think making reload longer would kinda deem it useless compared to other augments because it wouldn't be that great up close and it already isn't the best far away.

If you want to front-load your damage so hard that people can't fight you back, you deserve to not have it as often. You don't see the other burst damage augments in the game having as much longevity and effectiveness as Helios. 

 

4 hours ago, oh-no-not-the-frog said:

would kinda deem it useless compared to other augments 

I'm really and truly sorry that I don't let them kill me in less than a second every time I encounter them unlike the other Ricochets that take upwards of 6 seconds to kill. God knows how torturous it would be for them to wait longer than 4 seconds to reload. 

[oh-no-not-the-frog 1]

14 hours ago, NikmanGT said:

Now that's some new fact, I think the total opposite, seen many helios now in battles, the dominating team usually has one.

Helios works well with close and medium or even a bit of far ranges because of its high-projectile speed, you don't have much chance of dodging or survival. 

Only cases where players can survive would be equipping 50% Rico protection.

the fast paced bullets are something that should be changed to something more like the speed of twins or something? It is basically impossible to dodge the bullets tbf

[NikmanGT 4,376]

2 minutes ago, oh-no-not-the-frog said:

It is basically impossible to dodge the bullets tbf

That and the other factors make Helios stand out in front of every other augment.