NS Baron Shotgun: Everyone gets a Jackhammer!

Well since shotgun's don't have any real unique firing traits (ie recoil, a wide variety of damage/ROF tiers etc) there are only really 4 hings they can do to a shotgun (reload speed is not a unique trait): more damage, more ROF, larger mags and more accuracy/range.

Damage is taken by the 2 PAs, ROF is taken by auto shotties, accuracy/range is taken by the jackhammer/first gen semis, and mag size is taken by the 2nd gen semis.

If they were hell bent on introducing an NS shotgun (despite there being absolutely 0 niches remaining) it was inevitable that they were going to copy an already-existing one's trait. NS guns are generally more accurate, with moderate damage per shot, so Jackhammer/first-gen it was...

If copying weapon niches directly from other games is the closest SOE can aspire to get to 'innovative' then I have some bad news for the future of this game...

That aside you have a good point about the tendency to copy-paste weapons instead of coming up with something unique

The real problem is that the Jackhammer is suppose to be a heavy weapon and something faction unique for the Heavy Assault. The Lasher is completely unique among all weapons in the game in that it's a rifle that deals splash damage. The MCG puts out the DPS, especially with the BRRT. Both of them are great suppression weapons. The Jackhammer doesn't have any of those qualities, but it should be the end all and be all of shotguns in terms of effective kill range, sustained fire and overall DPS.

Go onto the PTS and find an area where you can test both the Jackhammer and Baron to compare. At 10, 15, 20, and 25 meters I tried out both the Baron and Jackhammer (both with extended mags) at hip fire and ADS. Hit detection not withstanding, both were 2-shot kills at 10m, 2-3 shot kills at 15m, 3-5 shot kills at 20m and 4-5 shot kills at 25m.

Sure, the Jackhammer has burst fire mode, but it doesn't matter if the NS Baron can match it in everything else but mag size.

Exactly. As a heavy jackie user who auraxiumed it looong time ago I alsmost never ever reload on empty magazine, unless I burst. On semi auto mod I reaload after 2-3 kills which mostly left me with 2-4 rounds left out of 12. Means that with Baron I will just have to reload longer after same amount of kills, but long reload speed is not something that I care about that much as a NC MAX and SAW player (I got use to long reloads).

So yea, Baron will be just Jackie without extended mag. Which is BS!

How long for AOE NS splash weapon and spin-up NS LMG? BS SOE, BS!

I want my Jackie and Mattock stay unique, just like T7 and Lasher.

Dont you dare put this Baron on live with Jackie spread.

I personally don't see a problem. The jackhammer still seem to be better even if they have the same effective range.

Tell that to ADS Baron with Slugs.... And LA with such shotgun range.

Jackie needs full auto mod and slugs, thats all.

The NS seems to go a bit backwards in their weapons, just look at the revolvers or the crossbow. LMG / AR / Carbine also seems pretty traditional.
What I'd love is NS double barreled shotty. Just something to wield and play with. The thing would obviously be an extreme cheese in CQC, so shouldn't really be added, of course.

Concerning Baron - I love the model, what a beauty. Not so pretty in first person view, though.

Give Jackhammer 21 rounds in the bin.

Done. Baron is not so tough anymore.

Why is everyone so uppity about the Baron getting slugs though? I'm pretty sure that it won't be any different from the high-accuracy, high-velocity faction shotguns, and those are free. Slugs with scattercannons don't quite seem to work the same way as infantry ones; they seem to have a tighter cone of fire than normal when using slugs so it isn't the best comparison. Any time you use slugs with an infantry shotgun you're going to rely mostly on ADS, so the hipfire cone is usually not a deal breaker or maker.

A double-barreled break action shotgun was what I originally wanted the new NC "sniper rifle" to be.

:C

The JH doesn't have slugs - that opens up a whole can of worms.

I agree that the JH will still be the more versitile shotgun of the two, but it may very well not be the best at medium (shotgun) range combat of the two, due to the Baron having slugs (and certainly not at long shotgun range).

This is so stupid. One of the biggest faction specific weapons and our most iconic weapon since planetside 1 is essentially going to the TR and VS. Fine, THEN I WANT A ******* CHAINGUN FOR MY MAX!!! NC is slowly becoming NS. Our faction specific things are either going common pool, or nerfed to uselessness. It was bad enough you gave every other faction better faction shotguns then us. I am mad enough to consider taking a break

The lasher is a fireworks weapon to be fired at the end of alerts the VS have won. That's about the best use for it.

Trust me man, I'm on your side here, I think this is dumb. But it's dumb conceptually, not so much in any in-game sense. The Baron will be Just Another Shotgun and will be entirely indistinguishable from the free shotgun. It's got slightly worse damage than the Jackhammer, but an extra pellet. It's somewhat differrent, at least.

The #1 thing that's going to rear up in-game is that now the Jackhammer not getting slugs makes NO sense, and it is going to put it at an even bigger disadvantage. Please SOE, #SLUGLYFE #SLUGHAMMER, please

You guys need to calm down Baron =/= Jackhammer.
Stats can (and very probably WILL) be changed before or after release.
The Baron is unique in one aspect and that is great: semi-automatic & tube magazine.

I'm not sure it will, they want to sell them after all, look at the Vandal.

A Jackhammer that fires MCGs instead of pellets, and those MCGs fire Lashers, and those Lashers fire Python HEAT rounds.

yeah!

...what was this topic about again? I'm getting an OP weapon for my LA!

Believe it or not, the game developers never publicly announced that they were crowd-sourcing this game's design.

It always makes me chuckle when someone writes something like, "We never ASKED for this to exist", "We never ASKED for this nerf", or "Listen to your customers [with regard to feature X/Y/Z]" (as though we all share the same commonly-held perspectives as one another).

As all shotguns are basically NS anyway (except the JH) it is a little strange (unless they are making NS MCGs and NS Lashers too, of course).

You get to buy it once and use it on all of your accounts, meaning that they're lowering the price of entry for people who want to play multiple factions. What's there to complain about?

Others before me have already pointed out that this shotgun isn't a Jackhammer clone, so we won't even bother touching that claim.

"It's not a Jackhammer because it reloads differently" is not a valid argument. In forward damage performance, it's a Jackhammer with 10% slower fire rate and less shots per mag. That's it. The NS shotgun should have 10 shots in a mag, 15 with extended mag, and similar spread and range stats to the gen 1 semis with an extra pellet like the Baron. That's enough of a strong niche for another shotgun and still doesn't step on the Jackhammer in performance. There's no reason why this weapon has to step on the Jackhammer and then struggle to niche it as a sidegrade. Even if the min damage range was 24m, it would STILL be a strong niche, it going to 30m like the Jack is just a big middle finger to the Jack and any niche it ever had.

It's bad design, it's not for this game. NC shouldn't have an MCG, VS shouldn't have a Jackhammer, and TR shouldn't have a Lasher. If this weapon releases, VS and TR will have Jackhammers. True it's not "technically" a stat copy of the Jackhammer, but in performance it's only about 5% away. It shouldn't exist.

Boo-hoo. The Jackhammer steps on the SMG's niche, and so does this new shotgun, but I'm not complaining. You just deal with it.