[Engi] Revert Phosphorous Shells to 9 point ability. (repost via Penril)
Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 9:49 am
This is a very simple proposal regarding phosphorous shells and the changes to it last September as per Penril I waited to repost it until more time had past so people could get a little more play with it and I still feel the original proposal has merit.
A brief bit of background: Phosphorous shells is the current end tree rifleman ability at 13 points, until September that was snipe, and in the September patch they got swapped. Snipe is now the 9 point and Phosphorous shells is the 13 point.
The issue is that Phosphorous shells has very little to no value to a rifle engi where it is. It is a mess of an ability and despite recent buffs to it's damage, dot duration, and making it cast-able on the move, even the proposed armor debuff, still don't make it idea for a snipe build. Snipe is about building spike and phosphorous shells just doesn't work for that. It has reduced range compared to other rifle abilities, it is corp rather than physical so you need to use acid bomb to debuff for it, and even with the potential armor debuff it is going to become a sticky mess to get that armor debuff up before going into a snipe due to the difference in ranges. With snipe much lower in the tree there is no reason to really go deeper. It is much better to go spend those points in tinker to get keg, and tracer rounds (crit tactic).
So it's value as an end tree ability is rather limited, and most will happily do without it, or only take it as a limited mobile dps skills. It is rather lackluster for the end tree skill.
But as a 9 point ability it has a lot of synergy and usefulness to grenade and tinker specs.
Because of it being corp and being cast on move it has a lot of usefulness to a grenade engi that wants to go napalm and play a bit of mid range AoE. It makes for a tempting side spec choice away from tinker if you don't plan to get into the 40ft range, and it has the added bonus of boosting ST damage on signal flare, and incendiary rounds for roaming dot builds that don't rely on snipe and its long cast time for dps. With the proposed armor debuff it actually does a lot for grenade and boosting damage on key abilities like straffing run, and frag grenade which often feel the full brunt of armor reduction.
For tinker it does much the same as it gives you a choice of going up rifle and getting a bit stronger ST dots, while at the same time giving a mobile dps tool for magnet in warband play. This will become even more important if and when the armor debuff is added. It gets a lot of parity with a close of aoe build, adding a lot for blunderbuss, while it is simply not very useful deep tree.
In short having it at 9 points in rifle allows for:
1. Interesting solo / roaming dot builds.
2. Interesting mid range AoE grenade builds as a side spec option.
3. Interesting side spec choice for tinker builds out side of the normal grenade.
I get that the end goal may be to move phosphorous shells over to grenade. But that is not needed in my opinion. You have done enough, and with the addition of the armor debuff the ability will be in a very good position, and both tinker and rifle will become extremely solid trees with a lot of viability in both main spec and side spec options. End game you are always going to side spec into something, and phosphorous shells at the 9 point makes for a much better side spec option than snipe. Snipe and it's play style just doesn't mesh well with dot builds, magnet builds, and midrange AoE builds. So by swapping them back you are doing a lot to increase build diversity and helping to push engi's away from being snipe bots. This could really help more people to play around with builds outside of magnet / snipe with dominate Engi spec's at the moment.
A brief bit of background: Phosphorous shells is the current end tree rifleman ability at 13 points, until September that was snipe, and in the September patch they got swapped. Snipe is now the 9 point and Phosphorous shells is the 13 point.
The issue is that Phosphorous shells has very little to no value to a rifle engi where it is. It is a mess of an ability and despite recent buffs to it's damage, dot duration, and making it cast-able on the move, even the proposed armor debuff, still don't make it idea for a snipe build. Snipe is about building spike and phosphorous shells just doesn't work for that. It has reduced range compared to other rifle abilities, it is corp rather than physical so you need to use acid bomb to debuff for it, and even with the potential armor debuff it is going to become a sticky mess to get that armor debuff up before going into a snipe due to the difference in ranges. With snipe much lower in the tree there is no reason to really go deeper. It is much better to go spend those points in tinker to get keg, and tracer rounds (crit tactic).
So it's value as an end tree ability is rather limited, and most will happily do without it, or only take it as a limited mobile dps skills. It is rather lackluster for the end tree skill.
But as a 9 point ability it has a lot of synergy and usefulness to grenade and tinker specs.
Because of it being corp and being cast on move it has a lot of usefulness to a grenade engi that wants to go napalm and play a bit of mid range AoE. It makes for a tempting side spec choice away from tinker if you don't plan to get into the 40ft range, and it has the added bonus of boosting ST damage on signal flare, and incendiary rounds for roaming dot builds that don't rely on snipe and its long cast time for dps. With the proposed armor debuff it actually does a lot for grenade and boosting damage on key abilities like straffing run, and frag grenade which often feel the full brunt of armor reduction.
For tinker it does much the same as it gives you a choice of going up rifle and getting a bit stronger ST dots, while at the same time giving a mobile dps tool for magnet in warband play. This will become even more important if and when the armor debuff is added. It gets a lot of parity with a close of aoe build, adding a lot for blunderbuss, while it is simply not very useful deep tree.
In short having it at 9 points in rifle allows for:
1. Interesting solo / roaming dot builds.
2. Interesting mid range AoE grenade builds as a side spec option.
3. Interesting side spec choice for tinker builds out side of the normal grenade.
I get that the end goal may be to move phosphorous shells over to grenade. But that is not needed in my opinion. You have done enough, and with the addition of the armor debuff the ability will be in a very good position, and both tinker and rifle will become extremely solid trees with a lot of viability in both main spec and side spec options. End game you are always going to side spec into something, and phosphorous shells at the 9 point makes for a much better side spec option than snipe. Snipe and it's play style just doesn't mesh well with dot builds, magnet builds, and midrange AoE builds. So by swapping them back you are doing a lot to increase build diversity and helping to push engi's away from being snipe bots. This could really help more people to play around with builds outside of magnet / snipe with dominate Engi spec's at the moment.