[Suggestion] Flail/Glaive needs more use

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by RblDiver, Jul 30, 2020.

  1. RblDiver

    I love the concept of player bases, but it seems like they've really fallen by the wayside. Everyone just sprints from one base to another, or a bastion comes through and destroys a strongly-built base.

    The flail and the glaive were built almost exclusively for player base-on-player base combat. They can't fire into no-deploy zones, and the shots take so long to come that the enemy can easily scatter before they land. As such, I very, VERY rarely see these being used.

    First, you have to go get enough cortium to build a silo, the device, an AI module, and probably a repair module and skyshield module as well. You have to build all of these within 650m of your target (which is completely "danger close," and with how much no-deploy zones there are plus the most popular base locations, basically means you have to build out in the open). You have to wait for them to finish. You have to collect the targetting weapon (which you can only have one of, so no flail+glaive combo), then you have to get extremely close to your target, fire, and only if you're lucky will a shot hit and kill someone. Oh, and if you were doing this to try to support an attack on the enemy base, likely by the time you make it there, your team has already destroyed the base, making yours now worthless.

    We need something to make these useful again. For starters, I would like to see more range on them, offering more positions to attack from. Second, the "no deploy" zone restriction should NOT be "no building deploy" zones, but rather "No sunderer deploy zones," such as right on top of capture points. I would love to support my team creeping up the TI Alloys-Crown rock bridge with artillery fire, but that whole spot is verboten.

    If you think this would be OP, maybe decrease the splash radius of the damage or something when it's in those areas.

    Other ideas would be allowing the manual firing of the shots, similar to the PS1 flail, or possibly giving them some sort of anti-bastion utility (like a stationary colossus that fires very slow-moving shots against a moving target, hardly imbalanced). Heck, I don't know, maybe you could make them shoot anywhere you want, but they'd do a large bubble of flak damage in the air at 50m, making them fantastic against aircraft who don't move, but almost useless against the ground. Just something to make them worth spending credits/certs on, because right now, I very much regret getting them.
    • Up x 8
  2. Crayv

    I think the no build zones need to be made smaller overall and the Flail/Glaive made to fire kinda like an outfit asset. The console brings up a map and you select where to shoot. Then you can have a friend/outfit play spotter for you.
  3. RabidIBM

    Please no, they are already on a path of dispersing construction into other aspects, don't encourage them. I like my flail. It's very situational, but very useful. The glaive is really only an anti base weapon, but the flail is useful in several places.

    I do support increasing the area they can fire into, as just in general this game needs more splash damage to break up the 96+ fights a bit. I would like to see a new engineer deployable weapon added, and give them a mortar. Rifle grenades need a redo as well.

    I also support giving the player bases some ability to fend off bastions, as they currently have no counter. I'd make whatever counter weapon show up on the map like orbital strikes (something else that got devalued by spammable outfit assets) and make it cortium hungry so players won't use it frivolously

    It would also be nice if cortium bombs required cortium...
    • Up x 3
  4. RblDiver


    Absolutely. When I used to see OS towers on the map, I tended to ignore the main fight in an attempt to destroy those before they wrecked my team. Now, I just ignore 'em until we're moving in that direction anyway.

    Fun note, just yesterday after doing this post, I actually did use the flail offensively. I built it, raced over to where the enemy armor column was, and got two shots off...before marauding harassers took out the AI module. Went back, built another, got back to the armor column, got one more shot off before the tanks destroyed the flail. It didn't do anything to slow them down, only ~20 kills from targeting a popular sunderer. By the time I was able to rebuild later, they were near the base, which has a ~300m no-build-zone, so I couldn't use it anymore.
    • Up x 1
  5. RabidIBM

    I'm not surprised that's how it ended given the scenario you are describing. I've been doing up some posts about construction lately, and the biggest thing I need to hammer home is that it is not a solo op. You want to be working with a team, and in the matter of armoured fights, supplying them with free lightnings while flailing. The flail is good, as you pointed out, for knocking out sunderers. It is also good at forcing tanks off their good firing positions, and forcing them back out of cover when they are trying to repair, which often results in them getting shot while they dive for new cover that doesn't have shells incoming.

    Construction is often not great for making certs yourself, but fantastic for setting your team up for success. It's really intended for the players who have the toys they want, and now are just playing the game for fun.

    Honestly, buy now I probably could have bought every certable upgrade in the game if not for all the certs I spend trying to loot box the minor cloak. I think that would be fantastic to have on a light assault for delivery of routers and orbital darts, nobody expects cloaked light assaults. But nooooooooo the loot box mechanics won't give it to me.
  6. Luicanus


    You're right of course any base worth a damn needs to have at least 2-3 people building so that their turrets can get reasonable coverage for defence. However, with the state of the PMBs at the moment, they're VERY squishy, how often are you going to find 2+ allies also insane enough to roll the dice on achieving something useful after a 10 minute set up investment.

    If they made the flail able to shoot into lattice bases (with apropriate nerfs to fire rate, accuracy and splash damage to make it not a farm-fest) I think you'd see an increase in base building, having something to do between waiting for the OS to charge up would be helpful.
    • Up x 2
  7. AuricStarSand

    Right now the flail / glaive is OP for destroying other people's silo's, plus cortium bomb infils are even more wack. The silo needs a turret that can shoot cloaked infils in your base. Yet it doesn't have 1 & pain spire isn't good enough.

    The flail shoots too fast right now, so I'd nerf it another 8 seconds per shot. It's shooting twice as fast as I can even purchase another module. Before it hits me.

    Most people won't go out of their way to destroy a enemy flail, so it gets free reign, which isn't good.

    Maybe I agree the flail needs more uses outside destroying other people's silo's, like destroying other vehicles between bases, sure, I guess.

    Still the flail should do less dmg to enemy silo's. When all it takes is 1 infil with a cort bomb to destroy your base. So far the time it takes to build a medium size silo base, far exceeds the time it takes to build a flail / glaive / cort bomb infil combo.

    So I agree, make red buildings zone less big, but make the flail do less dmg against enemy silo's or modules or garages. It's OP.

    I just wrote a long forum post about it titled yesterday, titled " Nerf Attacking Silo Tactics, Buff Silo Defenders " .
  8. Blue_Lion

    I would say decrease the rate of fire perhaps 30 second cool down between shots increase the range. Allowing to shoot in a no deploy zone would make them useful..

    The glaive could be a tool to bring down the outfit shield.

    The short range makes them to highly situational. You have to know where the battle will go and hope your base does not get blown up by some random unit.

    If it could cover a couple of bases away, it would be a useful strategic asset even with a longer cool down and be used more like long range artillery strikes. To help with pushes and clear a sunder. Counters like say a counter battery module to cause ready flails to shoot back. Or a module to mark the location of enemies flails when they use them.

    Also they should show range on the map for the builder/user. (as I recall the last time I built one it did not show the range.)
  9. RabidIBM

    I would also like to see the arty have more use, but the damage output and precision would need to be addressed. Artillery is not a surgical tool, therefore the flail should not have its pinpoint accuracy.

    I do enjoying the memes on the Berjess bridge, but if we open the flail up to wider use then it needs to be balanced.
  10. TR5L4Y3R

    no buildzones need to be smaller so PMBs can have more flexibility in supporting a Lattice base or a push on one, bases need to be able to be build more quickly and need their old resilience back ..

    also Cortiumnodes need to be permanent instead of taking ages to respawn they should regenerate cortium over time
    • Up x 1
  11. Nogrim313

    honestly the no deploy zones need to progress to areas that limit where exactly they dont want you to deploy things that matches the actual terrain. these brain dead radius checks are simply a half ***** solution that was thrown in as basic as it possibly could be at the start of construction.

    frankly if an Orbital can nuke inside of a no deploy zone, there is zero reason a flail, that shows its radius on the map, and can be targetted and destroyed should not be able to do exactly the same thing.
  12. Luicanus


    I broadly agree, however, I would cavate from prior discussions that the Flail would need some combination of nerfs to prevent it being an easy tool to wipe out sunderers around a base.
    The OS is presently balanced by it's exceedingly long charge up time. If the flail was able to fire every 15-20 seconds with perfect accuracy it'd be too dangerous.

    For a start it probably doesn't need a 20m minimum damage radius doing 500 damage out that far, that's a 20m radius that receives 2000+ damage inside of 2 seconds. If that was landing every 20 seconds or so it'd be no fun for anyone.

    A scaled system of nerfs depending on where the dart landed would work best in my opinion.

    Open Ground it works without any nerf, inside a No Build Zone it has slight nerfs, inside a No Deploy Zone (including those around a deployed sunderer) it receives a moderate nerf, and inside a Base Pain Field it receives a serious nerf.

    NBZ:1. Scale back the minimum damage radius to about 7.5m.
    2. Add a 5m RNG scatter for each shot so that they don't all land on top of each other.
    3. Increase time between shots by 0.15 seconds from normal.
    4. Increase cooldown between barrages to 30 seconds.

    NDZ (including deployed sunderers):
    1. Minimum damage radius is 7.5m.
    2. Make RNG scatter 10m for each shot so that they don't all land too close when targeting a sunderer.
    3. Increase time between shots by 0.25 seconds from normal.
    4. Increase cooldown between barrages to 45 seconds.

    BPF:
    1. Minimum damage radius is further reduced to 4m.
    2. Make RNG scatter increases to 20m for each shot.
    3. Increase time between shots by 0.35 seconds from normal.
    4. Increase cooldown between barrages to 75 seconds.

    These staggered nerfs would limit the flails ability to clear sunderers in a few barrages, prevent spawn rooms from being locked down by endless barrages and allow players to be hit by the shots and it no be a guaranteed death unless they get unlucky with the RNG on the following shots.

    With these nerfs in place a little buff to the range wouldn't go amiss. An increase from 100m-600m to 75m-700m would be a nice quality of life improvement.
  13. revers

    I also agree with the Glaive's "no-deploy zone" firing

    It has a fairly low accuracy and damage even as of now.
    And if you take cover in a building or underground
    You can completely evade the attack
    It gives a lower reward than the time and risk to prepare for the fire.

    If this is fixed, it will help in dismantling the long confrontational battlefield.
  14. Pandora's Lunchbox

    I was so confused when I first wondered about getting one of these for myself.
  15. RabidIBM

    Uh, no. I use this weapon fairly routinely. It is pinpoint accurate, and the damage splashes through objects. For example if a sunderer is parked on the bridge to Berjess, I can shell the roof deck and kill the sundy underneath.
  16. YellowJacketXV

    Honestly, all they need to do is improve the range on both of these utilities... This would help cement their role as anti-structure attacks.