D-75 Duster Feedback Thread

Initial cone of fire is fine.

Cone of fire bloom per shot needs to be reduced slightly.

Maximum cone of fire should be reduced to about 1/2 what it is now.

Even at low altitudes, the maximum cone of fire it not at all useful, and it can't be reliably controlled.

If it's magazine size was 64 rounds and its rate of fire triple what it is now, then it would be useful with its current cone of fire. As it stands its a little useless.

You can pretty much just stand under a full Duster barrage and get hit maybe once. It looks kinda cool if you're on the receiving end, but I've yet to see anyone actually die to it.

I landed on a vanguard and let my gunner unload on him, he died, but I don't think every shot hit.

I can see this thing being really cheesy at close range. Its like a shotgun.

What I don't understand is how a large-bore cannon gets such a ridiculous cone of fire after four or five shots. Is it launching miniature stars? Did the nanites mess up and use floppy noodles instead of aerospace resources when building the Duster? It's as limp as a certain thief's leg in Mother 3...

Duster is OP. I managed to get a kill running it solo last night. Clearly, if you can get a kill in a 1/3 Lib with it, it's too good.

The thermal range is horrible too, but this is the most accurate statement about the duster.


I am glad for one the wasn't just a "TR" gun, maybe we have a chance of this getting fixed.

You did it while the libs were mating?

People complain way to early, the D-75 Duster isn't used like a Dalton, Zepher or a Shredder and people will need time to come up with new tactics on how to make good use of it.

In my opinion, the Duster would work good on a Liberator configured for speed and a Turbo booster, mix this with thermal vision scope and you have a decent low altitude infantry hunter. The terrain will play a big role, you need some form of cover where you can break line of sight with, else you will be torn apart by flak and lock-on weapons.

Could be good for carpet bombing too. Maybe ten or so liberators performing bombing runs could rely on the spread to cover an area filled with confirmed troops, without really aiming...or needing to stick around. Just a quick passover with full spread, hopefully emptying the mag before they return to cover behind one of the nearby mountains.

The problem is that you could easily do this strategy with fewer liberators equipped with the Zephyr and at the same time be more effective since the shots will actually land where they're aimed.

You see, no....that's not how it works. If you're using the Zephyr, you're aiming, which requires time. Given the time frame of seconds to pass over a dozen or so targets, you're reducing the potential damage by spending more time adjusting for certain targets.

If you really think the Zephyr is better, then go ahead and go with it, but understand, we don't need another Zephyr...this weapon fits in well enough for carpet bombing.

As it turns out, carpet bombing isn't all that effective.

My vote goes with zephyr. It's better at everything. The niche of the duster doesn't nearly match up to the strength of the zephyr.

If only the Duster could be fired straight down by the pilot without having to leave the pilot seat.

Come on stop calling it carpet bombing which is about dropping lots of bombs in a line. Duster is spam bombing inside a circle.

That`s why I pointed out people need to come up new tactics on how to use the Duster properly and don't stick to using the Duster like the other weapons that work well a higher altitudes.

The Dusters has a poor aim, you can only compensate that by flying at lower altitudes. You don't need multiple Libs for the Duster to be effective, only different tactics and low altitude flying works good enough

Tryed the lower altitudes yesterday, my gunner had problems hitting stuff even at 50m height. Sure i could fly 10m above the ground but thats not a valid tactic. Sure it is possbiel to make it work but every toher weapon will just work way better.

Right, and it is pointed out that the other weapons are better at what the Duster is supposed to be for.

Duster for suppression?
The Shredder is probably the best for this. It has high precision and velocity, letting you quickly engage targets on the ground as soon as they appear. Add in a large magazine (70 rounds fully upgraded), and fast reload (2 seconds, assuming using mag size), means you can keep engaging targets when they appear.

Duster for engaging groups of infantry?
The Zepher's blast damage is just better. Yes, the duster has more shots, but the inner blast damage, inner blast radius, and outer blast radius is massively better on the Zepher. Looking at the damage fall off http://i.imgur.com/bKiMZ9R.png you can see that although against non-flak infantry, a shot at the feet is a 2 shot kill for both weapons, the Duster's inaccuracy and small inner blast radius makes that unlikely. Duster splash is; 2 shot to 0.75 m, 3 shot to ~1.9m, 4 shot to ~2.4 m, 5 shot to ~2.7 m, 6 shot to ~2.9 m and 7 shots to kill at ~3.1 m (double shots against Flak Armour 5). On the other hand the Zepher is still a 2 shot kill out to 3.3 m, while being far more accurate. The total area of the Zepher blast is 154m2, the dusters is 50m2, but the area of the Zepher 2 shot kill is ~34.2 m2, while the Duster's is only ~1.8 m2, nearly 20 times smaller! That stat by itself says it all.

Duster for low altitude burst damage?
The Shredder has high burst damage at low altitudes before damage fall off, so while a Duster can empty its magazine faster, its large cone of fire and lower projectile velocity on a moving target tips things toward the Shredder IMO. The Zepher is probably better despite the duster having 25% higher direct damage per magazine, just because the Zepher's shots are more accurate and, faster moving. The Dalton has high alpha damage, a 5/5 reload speed Dalton can fire 2 devastating precision shots in 2.125 seconds. In certain situations against certain targets, the Duster may have a marginal advantage, but that in no way makes up for its vast disadvantages in nearly every other situation.

@Mongychops,
Not saying you (and others) are wrong and maybe the Duster simply needs some more tweaking before it fits well with in a certain play style, but as of it is now, I've hardly seen the Duster being used, I've not even been killed or damaged by one yet and the few I did see being used, were used at high altitude what I honestly believe isn't how this weapons should be used.

No, it was some random infantry on the ground. I meant, I was in a 1/3 Lib. I was being sarcastic, lol.

If you're not aiming, what are you doing? As mongychops points out above, the two-shot radius on a Zephyr is enormous. When you gun a Zephyr, you spot clumps of enemies, and try to guess the best spot to lay two shells to kill the group. You have to aim, and you can pick 3 spots and double tap each one in less than 3 seconds.

I spent like 4 hours flying a Duster Lib the day the update hit, trying to come up with tactics and identify a situation where I thought this weapon would be effective, or at least useful. For the record, I fly NOE when I do ground work, I can't get any lower, lol.

Here's what I found works:
Fly 1/3 AA loadout, and when everything is clear, you can spam a Sunderer to rack up some assist points. It seems to do decent damage to Sunderers, also, they are the only vehicle I find myself killing with it.
Spam tanks to disorient/confuse/frustrate them.
Spam spawn rooms to encourage infantry to stay inside. The one thing this weapon really has going for it are the effects. The sound is distinct and loud, and the tracers are extremely bright. Right now, people are terrified of it.

That's it. Nothing else I tried was effective enough to suggest to others.

What the others in here are trying to explain is, this isn't a matter of tactics. The best way to use the current Duster is to let it sit on the shelf while you use something else. Here is why:
1) The projectile speed is very low. This is not a problem by itself, IMO, I actually think it's kind of fun. The issue is, this compounds all the following issues.
2) The radius is small, and the fall-off is substantial.
3) The initial CoF is fine. The bloom mechanic is absurd. I spent about 30mins on Thursday picking up randoms in the warpgate and letting them spam magazines to try it. Firing full speed, from directly above the SE Indar Gate, you can't get all the shells into one of the canyons to the west without hitting the walls. That's insane. I'm guessing it's bugged, or they didn't learn anything from the Saron re-work and it has the same absurdly scaled CoF we used to have there.
4) Low reserve ammo. Same problem I have with the Ranger. These low-damage/high volume of fire weapons need more reserve ammo. If the shells weren't such limp noodles, this would be a non issue.
5) Thermal Optics are absolutely required. With how slow the shells are, and how big the effects of the explosion look, you have two options. Double or Triple tap, leading the shells before the first one hits, hope you get lucky. Fire extra slowly, making controlled, precision shots, and generating terrible DPS. The first option doesn't work, because of the extremely limited ammo. The second one takes so long that most people make it to cover before I can make a 2nd or third shot.

Sorry this got so long. I'm really pissed that the only functional/viable/useful weapon in this update are the damn tail rockets.

The design of this weapon is hopeless as a damage-dealing, cert-generating piece of equipment on a Liberator. However, as a UTILITY loadout, there is great, hidden potential for organized air squads to field this on the battlefield to assist ground troops or their fellow fliers. What the Duster needs is AMMO TYPES (and probably way more reserve ammo to support those types).


A. Existing HE rounds (whatever, they're terrible, but with all these ammo types it should be a downgrade from the Zephyr)
B. Smoke rounds (to create, *gasp*, a DUSTer cloud! - longer duration than infantry-generated smoke)
C. Scaled-up Concussion rounds (our air squad dreams about sending in one of these over an organized burster nest to prep for immediate follow-up strikes with ESF/Lib while the infantry and maxes are disoriented)
D. Anti-vehicle EMP rounds (similar to PS1's EMP grenade effect on vehicles, short-duration degradation of vehicular control or performance)
E,F,etc. Whatever else you game/weapon designers can come up with that sounds fun and useful, I'm not a professional.


The gunner would be able to switch to these various ammo types on the fly as the situation requires, and they would all use the same (expanded) ammo pool, because, well, nanites. The utility ammo types would need to generate some small amount of XP for hitting enemy targets, perhaps with bonus XP for deploying this around the mission objective or SL/PL designated target area.

Instead of trying to figure out a way to make this thing a better Zephyr, making one or the other redundant, why not introduce far more UTILITY to the air game? Right now it is completely one-dimensional, pilots provide only firepower, and compete with the guys on the ground for certifications. This isn't a healthy relationship, and needs a new dynamic to keep things fresh and interesting. As much flak (har har) as we pilots get from the ground guys, both friendly and enemy, a lot of us really do want to support our troops on the ground, in new and more interesting ways than just stealing all the kills certifications.

Sounds like what they really need then is a slight nerf to accuracy and an increase to the explosive radius and damage falloff. Make them unpredictable strafing run weapons so that they can provide a devastating ability to pepper larger groups of clustered enemies. I'm still convinced though that the tests have been done only with a single liberator, when the duster appears better when used in groups.

If anybody can provide me with footage of a group of duster liberators performing a bombing run, that would go an immense distance to evaluating whether or not it fits in the niche suggested or not...

...and remember, low altitudes.