[Suggestion] Duster changes?

While I haven't been super crazy about the semi-recent lib changes to belly guns, I still think soe went in the right direction. I mostly use the shredder on my sky manatee, and I was actually kind of happy that they took away the splash damage since it was so good at every role. The ammo for all weapons is fine if you cert into it. Zepher took some hits but is still okay, and Dalton is pure AP now. But what seems to have been left behind is the duster.

It pretty much has always been awful. But what I don't want to do by making it 'better' is to make it more like the zepher, because that would make it pointless.

Why not add a magazine size cert line for it instead of just reload speed? 10 + 1 or 2 bombs per upgrade, so 15-20 bombs total?

What about increasing (doubling?) the fire rate so it's something more like a carpet bomber? Weakening the bombs is fine if they increase fire rate.

These changes would make it better, keep it separate from the Zepher by keeping the poor accuracy, and would suit a different flying style rather than be the complete liability it is right now. Almost nobody uses it. I fly 80% of the time I play and the duster is on maybe 1% of the libs I see and that's being generous. It's a shame because I like the sound they make

Just needs to be a bit more accurate still.

The splash isn't so huge to warrant the crazy deviation the rounds have, and you can't fire and wait for CoF reset every shot or you're better off using a Zephyr at twice the RoF for that acc.

Maximum CoF needs to be brought in so that the edge of splash will hit target point. It can bloom around that all they want... but as it is it completely misses large packs of infantry aiming right at them with over half the rounds... it's just kinda silly.

the duster is great but that accuracy is crazy, its like... a NES, only you know the correct way to blow into it and get the cartridge to work. everyone has their own way of using it.

When I first saw the avatar I thought it was Luperza announcing changes to duster. :L

Yeah because if there's anything the Liberator needs, is to be buffed. It's not enough to be able to hover over a base with MBT levels of armor and spam everyone with thermals who dares poke their head out. EVERY weapon needs to be uber!

/sarcasm

No OP, just no.

Agree they went in the right direction making each of the weapons more specialized. It's less problematic that it's so hard to kill a lib if libs are only really good against a subset of targets (although with the shredder you end up being reasonably good against everything.)

Also like the idea that they should emphasize the faster firing trait of Dusters to keep them differentiated from Zephers.

I'd love for firing the Duster to be a bit closer to the recoil control of infantry weapons, where burst-firing is actually a way to get reliable accuracy out of it:

• Half damage.
• Double rate of fire.
• Half CoF increase per shot -- and then a slight reduction on top of that.
• Improve "resting" CoF by one shot's worth of bloom (so after one of these new half-damage shots your CoF blooms to the current default, then additional shots grow it past that value.)

Basically this gets it closer to a weapon where burst-firing 2-4 shots will be more viable. Currently it's spraying pretty wild by that 4th shot.

Honestly, other than trialing the duster to see whats up, I've only ever seen one in the field.

Its seems to be designed as a fly-by carpet bombing weapon, as anything past 200m is unhittable due to the wicked spread

I agree with lowering its damage in favour of ROF and/or Ammo.
Halfing the COF Bloom would go a long way. Currently it is only (Barely... ) accurate in single shot mode, Im thinking 2-3 auto bursts before losing accuracy combined with a range increase.

Liberators are pretty fragile now. If they are hovering, a dumbfire will do like half of its hit points in damage. It has nowhere near MBT effective armor (well, maybe prowler because prowler is awful)

One AA max or walker is enough to chase away a lib unless the lib is ready for it.

Just because a lib can kill an infantry unit 1v1 doesn't mean the lib is overpowered. Buffing the duster won't suddenly make the lib godly because the duster will still suck against vehicles

it needs a different way of piloting. Ask your pilot to fly low over infantry area's and do actual bombing runs. With Zepher, Dalton and Shredder the Liberator pilot does well when he flies relatively high and hangs still above the target, giving the gunner plenty of time to aim and kill the target.
With the Duster you can either bomb from high above, but that means you need to have a lot of trigger discipline and fire one at a time. Or you can have the pilot do a low run at full-speed, the Duster gunner simply fires as fast as he can. Since you are flying low firing large AOE bombs you will feel a lot less from the COF increase. I haven't done so myself but my outfit mates really love to surprise an enemy sunderer with an infantry Zerg around it. They fly low and instantly get a dozen kills in one bombing run. I think that's what the Duster was made for

Duster is a pos. Period.
In order for it to be viable the splash needs to be increased severely OR the weapons accuracy needs an improvement.
Stock zepher is outright superior to it in every situation.

I think they could balance a mag-size certification, by making it so that each rank of mag certification increases the reload time, to make it more of a bombing-run weapon. For example, 4 ranks available, going from 10->13/16/18/20, and each rank increases the reload time by 1.5 seconds, from 4->5.5/7/8.5/10.

This gives a choice between 10 shots with a 3.5 second reload or 20 shots with a 10 second reload. Trade off between burst damage and sustained damage.

Also some sort of accuracy increase is absolutely necessary. I agree some sort of bloom to prevent it gibbing an AMS may be necessary, but in its current form, it is total wank.

Libs? are thouse still in the game?! dont think i seen one since it got nerfed out of the game.

Landing a dumbfire on a hovering Liberator isn't something you can reliably do. Unless the pilot is really bad and flying really low. Also the Liberator has 5,000 BASE health before we even factor resists. So uhhh, I don't know any dumbfire that can take half of that in a single hit.

To put this in a comparison, the Vanguard has 4,000 base health before resists and specials. So when I say the Liberator has MBT class armor, that's not hyperbole. It's a flying freaking fortress and claiming a single player in a Max suit or a guy with a dumbfire is any kind of deterrent is just....come on.

Buffing the Duster wouldn't make the Liberator overpowered, no. Because the Liberator is already overpowered against Infantry, it's a ridiculous flying armored TANK that does nothing but spam groups of people for easy kills. I would rather see Liberators used to hunt other vehicles, but apparently NOBODY wants to do this as long as it's so easy to kill infantry with it.

they just nerf batted the Lib like hell, wtf are you talking about?

Do you even fly bro?

That's what Dalton and Tank Buster are for... and people do use them...

You're obviously just an enraged infantry peasent.

Not the way I use it....

I've recently taken up the duster...I love it. I pilot and fly over with a quick pass on Sundies...drill them with my TB then let my gunner clean up mess below. Usually we kill the sundy and a few more infantry with out stopping. We couldn't do that with the Zeph.

However the Duster 's weakness is the second round goes WAY off target if you don't feather it. Personaly it shouldn't bloom so bad till after the second or third shot.

FTFY

How does Duster improve your run on a Sunderer vs Zephyr?? Zephyr has much higher vehicle dmg IIRC

also, you can actually fire the rounds faster than one ever 2 seconds without blooming so crazy hitting your target is literally impossible.

I fly Libs alot...reliably....to hit targets with your belly gun *infantry targets* You need to be low enough for them to res...which is pretty low. Second you need to be low enough for your gunner to hit...again a little lower. I get hit with Dumbfires all the time. I can't tell you how many times I've been hit by Decimators and other Dumb fired rockets....they hurt. Two dumbfires will set a liberator on fire and I have composite armor.

Well moving your chance at kills is much lower unless your targets are vehicles. *dalton* At which point infantry need not worry.

It has higher splash damage and splash radius over Zephyr...SO your rounds actually kill infantry around the target. To be honest I can't really explain it...but my normal gunner always had a harder time with the Zephyr on vehicles well on the move.

Perhaps it is simply the firing mechanic that forces him to slow down the shots instead of holding the trigger? Or my acceptance that I need to nose gun things more then I did with the Zeph. Not sure...but in the last week I've noticed since using it we get a lot more experience over the Zephyr. The extra .5 meter splash radius on the duster helps on infantry *shrugs* Just some practical experience over pen and paper numbers.

*clears throat*








As someone with excessive experience with the Duster...

Lower COF so it can be fired and reliably hit a static target from more than 50m in the air. Right now I have to hump a target with my lib if i want to reliably kill anything more than undefended infantry targets that DON"T MOVE.

Keep the slow *** velocity per shot, that more than anything makes hitting moving targets really difficult.

Increase splash, lower damage equivalently - this'll make it a better choice against large masses of infantry than Zephyr (Zephyr can reliably 2 shot infantry, but with only 6 shots, it's very limited in that regard)

Oh and for those who commented - Dumbfires are the natural enemy of the Liberator. 1 standard ES launcher (Shrike, S1, ML-7) takes about 30-40% of my unarmored Lib health. Something like 20-25% of armoured lib. Decimators will take about 50% give or take, 30-40% on armour.

Learn to aim with Decis and stock launchers and Libs will RUN.

Liberator nerf made resistances MUCH worse on libs. So that 'factor in resists' part is important. A tank round is like half HP worth of damage from any angle, same with dumbfires. Compare that to even the weakest MBTs.

And as I said, I mostly use the shredder, which is quite bad against infantry if you haven't realized. I also mainly use the hyena paired with it, so my infantry hunting days are long over. So yeah, people do shoot vehicles with it. Why not try to hop in a liberator and see how easy it is to kill infantry when they actually shoot at you instead of spawning at a base that's surrounded by the enemy and wonder why you get shot by a liberator?

^^^this

Please stop digressing my thread with cries about how the lib is overpowered and address the actual content of the thread.