Devs confirmed C85 is getting buffed. Buff it to be not a shotgun.

Devs, there are so many reasons why the design should be changed from a shotgun. Here are a few off the top of my head:

• Shotguns will never be able to perform as well as the ranged AI aoe weapons like the PPH and Marauder. Just look at the stats. We all know the modified can one hit within 15m or so, but it still under performs literally everything but AA. The problem is inherit in the design. I have much more detailed information on stats, and on why shotguns under perform these kind of weapons in the thread in my signature.
• The TTK in this game for vehicle weapons VS infantry is basically instantaneous with an adequate gunner. Marauder, PPH, Fury, even the kobalt all have TTK's below a second or very close up to 75m. Trading half a second or so of TTK for complete ineffectiveness passed 20~30m is not worth it.
• If they plan to buff it by adding range, which would compensate for that huge disadvantage, why wont they just make it a ranged weapon as it is? It is forcing an unlike shotgun trait on a shotgun simply because the design didnt work. There are other balance issues to consider when adding range to shotguns that I've outlined in my thread.
• Shotguns on Vanguards are particularly horrid because of the EXTREMELY unforgiving anti infantry potential of the main cannon. Any Vanguard driver with more than 4+ hours knows and will stay FAR away from infantry. More than 80% of Vanny Vs Infantry combat is done far beyond effective range of a shotgun.
• Harasser's are about to get nerfed further in close range, in both damage fall off, and survivability up close. This is self explanatory.
• NC is very lore friendly towards railguns and guass rifles, unique bad *** weapons, that fit the high damage per shot trait of the NC, and are extremely flexible in terms of what exactly a railgun/gauss weapon can do. Plus it seems the community brings it up alot, I'd assume NC like the idea.
• Even if it's not a gauss/railgun type weapon, there are countless other ranged alternatives.
• There is no faction identity in shotguns, every faction can use them, it's just the NC got shafted with them forced onto every ES weapon vehicle weapon slot as our "trait".

If you support the C-85 getting changed, please check out my other big yellow thread in my sig, and support this thread.
Sawce of C-85 buff: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...st-1-vehicle-weapons-and-the-harasser.156160/

Keep it as a shotgun. Just make it fully automatic with a generous magazine and fire rate. Keeps it lethal up close, and threatening enough at mid range to still want infantry to break LOS with it. Still useless at long range.

The thing is Marauders/ furys/PPH's/Kobalts are all lethal up close already, TTK's are like half a second within 15m or so for all of those. It's just silly to want to somehow be MORE effective up close than the vehicle Anti Infantry weapons already available. There is simply no debate that those weapons up close will decimate any infantry essentially just as fast.
Seriously would you really want to shave off a quarter of a second TTK to be worthless passed 30 meters??

I propose that if we continue to be the "shotgun faction" that all other factions lose their shotguns.

I've posted about my opinions for altering this weapon before:

C85 will be Revamped to the ML45 Sentry: The ML45 will fire high explosive rockets that travel at 225m/s with lower direct impact damage, but a huge and deadly splash radius. Direct hit damage is 1000 and splash damage is 1000 with a 2m internal radius and falls to 1 damage at 6m. This rocket will have a refire time of 2.75s and with certs this could be lowered to 2.25s. This will be an anti-infantry specializing weapon obviously.



And I even have an idea to alter the rocket based Enforcer ML85 in order to make it perform its job in a not so boring non-NC way:

ML85 Enforcer: as I said before, this will be an extremely high damage single shot rocket that travels at 325m/s and does 2000 damage per impact but has AP splash (nonexistent in reality, only there to add more damage to direct hits to ensure death of infantry and add more damage to MAX direct hits). The refire time on this weapon will be 4.25 seconds and with certs you can lower this to 3.75s.

I think there is a place for the C85 as it currently stands if it had the properties of these two real world weapon systems:

Anti-Rocket/Grenade/HEAT/C4 Carrier - Trophy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)

http://2.bp.************/-Hd8S9DRujz8/UB0n9m3cP5I/AAAAAAAACIg/mUERfNEbzJg/s400/1618a0b74de220adfe5a7d1a5d593c51b64a5d33_big.jpg

Military-grade (Explosive) Shotgun rounds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun#Specialty_ammunition

Sadly, I don't think SoE will allow a weapon with anywhere near lethal splash ever again since infantry players cry about it, but are 100% fine with infantry antitank weapons being OP as balls.

In any case, I think their buff to the C85 will be to tighten its spread. I seriously think that will be the most straight forward, direct thing they can do.

I have to disagree with that one. One-hit-kill damage splash is far too OP for a harasser or MBT secondary for that matter, a one hit kill AI weapon at all also is essentially just a halberd without the vehicle damage otherwise.

It wouldn't be a one hit splash kill against anyone who is wearing level 1 Nano/Flak, and then the user is looking at an almost 3 second reload. It's borderline UP, but at least it has splash damage and isn't limited to 30m range. Will probably 2 shot most infantry, and can attack infantry clusters due to high splash radius.

In PS1 NC had the most shotguns. I seem to remember a pump action shot gun all factions could use.

I think SOE is just extremely against OHK splash, judging from the way of the lib and HE rounds of yore. Make it the same thing but you twice the ROF in exchange for half the damage, and you are getting somewhere where SOE could allow I think.

I want a thing that fires Bolt Driver shots semi-auto.

I'd say the best way to fix the Enforcer Modified is to rethink it as a sort of anti-infantry flak gun. But, instead of bursting in a sphere when in proximity to infantry like flak does for aircraft, have it fire a single projectile with a cone shaped detection area in front of it. When that detection arc is triggered by infantry, have it burst with the current shotgun spread.

That's right. Instead of tank mounted shotgun, it should be a tank mounted shotgun-launcher. Honestly, can you think of a Smurfier weapon?

I mean, hey, the traditional approach to using a shotgun on a distant shotgun is to bring the shotgun closer. This is just the logical extension of that philosophy!

Here's my rationale:

• The character of the weapon is retained but is now effective at any range, save for aiming challenges provided by drop and the canister velocity. At close range it behaves like the current shotgun, but at longer ranges it's like the shotgun was fired from right in front of you.
• This still feels like a Smurf weapon. It's brute force, messy and imprecise.
• It's unique. No other weapon would feel like that (unless you wanted to create MAX or infantry variants for the NC, which I think would be pretty awesome). It's also uniquely effective against targets on high ground or using jump jets that splash weapons are not effective against, but at the same time can't splash off walls like a fury can.
• The shotgun blast has interesting interactions with cover. Unlike a flak-style burst which would let you shoot AROUND cover at infantry (which is an interesting, if potentially insanely powerful idea on its own), the shotgun spread is partially mitigated by cover. Combine with the lenient aiming requirements, that makes it a very interesting suppression weapon for forcing enemy infantry to keep their heads down.

Splash damage in general is something we need to be moving away from, because it is unrewarding, has a low skill cap, and offers little in the way of counterplay other than "don't be in this area."

Planetside 2 has more than enough AOE weapons already. Add in more unique non-explosive weapons.

I'm thinking the Gauss Cannon from the PS1 Thunderer would be a good fit.
http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/index.php?title=Gauss_Cannon

rail gun? why yes, I'd love that.

Slightly better spammy, no skill shotgun? keep it

I was just about to make this exact same suggestion. I even drew a pretty graphic for it.

tighten the cone by a hell of a lot, make it automatic with quicker RoF and increase mag size to 10-12 by default

or keep the mechanics as they are now but make it fire explosive shotgun rounds (low splash damage per pellet)
allowing it to take out groups in a couple of shots like PPA and marauder can.

though i do like the ideas above about an AI flak gun with the pellets exploding when in proximity to enemies

The spread is already 1.33 (Jackhammer/Mattocks are 2.0), it's not going to improve anything to keep splitting that particular hair. Anyway a big problem is that the C85 can't do anything to infantry >15m so it's dangerous as hell to keep on a Vanguard (I've walked up to C85 Vanguards and C4'd them with ease. Odds are it wont take you down in one mag and then it's got a big reload to deal with) and that it's much, much, much worse than a Fury or Halberd on a Harasser. Harasser has the zoom, but the C85 doesn't have the boom.

It needs a complete overhaul. Personally, I'd like to see it changed to something like the Fracture - have two cannons launching grenades at a modest speed with a big mag so it's asymmetrically balanced with the PPA/Marauder. It'd be like a Marauder that you couldn't arc but was easier to aim at mid-long ranges.


Edit - or hell, just give us a Banshee minus ROF and vehicle damage and +splash damage/radius

C85 should be a dual Gauss SAW mount with AP rounds.