Hello, I was doing some VR testing to see how the Pounder stacks up against the Fracture in emergency anti-infantry situations. What I discovered is that the targeting reticle for the pounder doesn't correctly predict where the shots will land until the user is standing at least 30 meters away from the infantry target. At any range closer than 30m, the wide set of the weapons causes the grenades to pass to the left and right of the target without striking it even if the reticle is aimed at the center mass. The only way to offset this is to aim the reticle to the left and right of the target as you fire, which will place it in the path of the projectile even though the reticle will not touch any part of their body. Obviously, this isn't a viable tactic in fast paced combat because the target will be moving and the pounder user would need to alternate the placement of their reticle from one side of the screen to the other perfectly between each shot. As they are grenade launchers, I decided to test whether this weakness could be overcome by aiming at a target's feet, which would subject them to splash damage and is a tactic often used by tanks. After several tests firing both weapons directly at the feet of an engineer dummy from 10 meters, I found this was most definitely not a solution. Average TTK: 26 seconds Average rounds to kill: 16 Average reloads: 4 If both projectiles are allowed to strike their target in ideal conditions, which is only possible at 30m+: Average TTK: 2 seconds Average rounds to kill: 4 Average reloads: 0 Now I also realize that the pounders are not anti-infantry weapons and so shouldn't be expected to be top notch weapons in these testing conditions. But if the problems with the pounders can be explained away by the fact that they're anti-vehicle weapons, then the new Fracture weapons should fare just as poorly in similar testing. Fractures I immediately discovered these weapons, despite also being widely set, do not suffer the overshoot problems of the pounders. The fracture rockets both successfully struck the target with the reticle aimed at center mass when tested at 10 meters, 30 meters and 60 meters. As for their effectiveness against infantry: Average TTK: 2 seconds Average rounds to kill: 4 Average reloads: 0 It appears that both weapons are intended to be equally effective against infantry, but the overshoot problem on the pounder makes it significantly less effective against infantry at 30 meters or less, which is arguably when MAXes are most in danger from them. Compound this with the fact that the pounder only enjoys a 2 second TTK (tested on sunderer side hits) advantage over the fracture against enemy armor in a situation that is meant to be ideal to the pounder (close range.) On the flip side, the pounder's effectiveness drops off steeply at range because of its arcing mechanics (read: severe bullet drop) and a 50% lower projectile speed than the fractures. A realistic look at the trade-offs between the pounder and the fractures is this: Pounders: You gain: Two second better TTK You lose: Ability to effectively engage infantry closer than 30m; ability to effectively engage vehicles farther than 60m Fractures: You gain: Ability to effectively engage infantry closer than 30m; ability to effectively engage vehicles farther than 60m You lose: Two second better TTK This doesn't even touch on the fact that the fractures are significantly easier to use because they don't require the mastering of the arc mechanic + low projectile speed. They are essentially just point and click. My point in posting this is to highlight that the pounders as they are now are not sidegrades from the fractures, they are an obvious and significant downgrade. I don't believe the solution for this is to nerf the fractures, I think the solution is to fix the pounder's disadvantage against infantry by re-examining the arc mechanic. As it stands, someone aiming dead center on an infantryman's chest will cause no damage whatsoever until the engagement distance reaches 30 meters. If this were fixed, the two weapons might come more into balance with each other as sidegrades. TL; DR: The pounders do not currently strike infantry correctly at distances less than 30m because of the wide set of the weapons and the narrowness of the targets vs. vehicles.
Pretty much ya, I think before GU8 there was a hidden mechanic with the pounder that the further away you were from the target. The more splash damage you did. But this got fixed. So yep, my opinion; pounder broken (but kinda always was in a sense).
It's obsolete because it was always underpowered and the fracture is too similar in type and better in every way. They are both fast firing weapons with low damage. Fracture was a proper one, well a too good one, while the pounder was always crap. But at least you can be happy they didn't nerf it's velocity yet claimed their increased it, unlike what they did to falcon.
Pounder has always been so UP......ofc when they release a decent alternative to make $$$ its going to seem obsolete. It barely has a dmg advantage over the frac. All the original max AV need another balance pass to make them equal to their sister weapons.
I do agree. Despite hardly ever playing TR and never a Pounder-MAX, I would like to see the Pounded brought up to a reasonable threat-level. In its fairly limited optimal range at least it should be devastating, much like the Scattermax is in its respective niche. I've never died to it once, not as a vehicle, not as a MAX, not as infantry.
True that. But they have to completely rethink the fracture. They just took a slug scattercannon and merged it with a pounder, and made it better than both.
Pounders should have never existed on the first place. When I tested NC falcons and VS comets I just understood how much of a bad weapon had I tried to make it work on my TR character and what have I been missing all this time. Fracturers are the first real antivehicle weapon for TR maxes. That doesn't mean it's OP. Pounders were just too underwhelming and TR had no real antivehicle option all this time.
The pounder needs to be changed to an anti-infantry bombardment weapon. 1 shot kill on direct hit 2 shot kill in inner blast radius 4 shot kill on outer blast radius. It needs to have direct damage,larger blast radius and more damage,it could have it's ROF nerved and damage against vehicles decreased to counter the buffs.
The Pounder and the Fracture are too similar to each other in function and too limited in practicality. Fracture should be AP/no splash. Pounder should be, as per its name (HEG, High Explosive Grenade) do more splash damage and be more effective against light vehicles rather than tanks.
No, the issue is the Pounder which now is basically impractical given how effective the Fracture is in almost every category. Less drop, more velocity, more ammo per magazine, for a bit less damage.
So the solution is to nerf fracturers to oblivion to match the UP pounders? No, pounders should have been buffed to begin with to match other factions low drop effective ones.
Way to put words into my mouth. Splash damage nerf to a Fracture is the equivalent of a splash damage nerf for an AP Prowler.
As much as I'd like (and I wholeheartedly can get behind) making the pounder into a sort of anti infantry mortar. We can't do that. The simple reasoning being that the Fracture is the SIDEGRADE. The Pounder should be a viable weapon as it is a primary. Hell, I've been rolling Mercy/Pounder loadouts more often and depending on a situation I can severely deter or even destroy enemy armor. Even from very far away (I even hit a high flying lib a couple times, I was happy). Not to mention mortaring a smaller base into oblivion (or I'd like to think I'm bringing the rain). But it is by no means "good". It's challenging, and very rewarding when you do kill someone with it, but it is by no means "fine". An option that right now popped to my head (and is probably a bad idea) is to switch the ammo counts. Let the pounder practically carpet bomb an area like it's Apocalypse Now. And let the Fracture be the "precision" variant. Reasoning behind this is again, the idea that the Pounder is an indirect fire weapon, AKA a mortar. So let us bring the rain. Increase the fire rate a bit and let us become some sort of light artillery units. In that role, you don't even need the convergence fixed because you're not supposed to be in CQB anyway. But to call back to the AI option... why not a 500 cert ammo option? I mean practically every other MAX weapon has an unlock for mag-size. Why not an ammo unlock so you give up a good portion of your armor damaging capability for a larger and more damaging burst radius for infantry?
You realize that the pounder is the smallest of the max AV weapons right? If a puny pounder with a magazine of 4 can kill people in 1 hit, what would comets and falcons be capable of? Also maxes are getting a new weapon called the frag cannon along with the flamers, so this idea is pretty much the same as that new weapon. In general bombardment splash weapons are unattractive to have in player vs player games. Both fractures and pounders could be compared to battle rifles in how they work (damage, rate of fire mainly). They're like the AV equivalent of a battle rifle. NC and vanu actually have some meaningful difference between their AV weapons. The only solution I see is to turn the fracture into the equivalent of a basilisk, focus on ROF. Possibly with less accuracy. It would make it different from the pounder and all other max AV weapons and it would suit the idea of 2 rotary barrels. Then pounder would then changed to be more similar to what the fracture is now by buffing it's velocity and reduce it's drop. Pounders already have good damage per minute (higher than falcon but less than comet) so no need for buff there. It's just the ability to actually hit it's target that needs buff. Also remove the smoke trails from pounders.
just increase pounder damage slightly and fix the convergence at point blank range. They should make pounder dps superior on sunders and lightnings, and fracture dps superior on mbts with that new "anti tank" class of weaponry they added. also, you can't make pounders anti infantry cause then they would be superior to the new grenade launcher thats being added.
they should just make pounders in to some kinda of Falk for ground since they barely hit unless 10m away or tank afk.
you haven't learned it yet, right? 100% of all balance-changes work like this: 1. give A and make it op 2. nerf A 3. buff VS 4. give B and make it op 5. nerf B 6. buff VS 7. give C and make it op 8. nerf C 9. buff VS example 1: 1.the mercy and scatter cannon were pretty awesome and maybe a bit op 2. both guns were nerfed 3. VS got buffed 3 or 4 patches in a row example 2: 1. a few days ago we had a discount on the fury, which is pretty strong atm and so would be a best-seller for soe. 2. they wanted to nerf it (was already nerfed on the test server) but haven't so far cause people realized what is going on. 3. today VS max got another buff case closed.
The pounder has generally always suffered from 2 things. -Short range -High exposure (the fracture has more exposure but also longer effective range) And since both are dumbfire, the end result are like pikachu says two weapons which are too alike. The fracture does need a tweak here and there i guess but lets focus on the pounder. If we want to make it a proper short range av weapon, we'll properly need to make it similar to heavies decimator. What could be done is this: -Ramp up the RoF of pounders so it can deliver its pay load in 0.5-1 second. (testing would have to be done on what works best) -Increase reload speed to match so the overall dps remains the same, compared to existing pounders) -Change the reticule to actually give you a chance to gauge drop and more. The end result should be a beefy AV unit that can utilise cover, but is significantly less effective in open areas. Where the Fracture should be able to engage at longer distances, but with higher exposure to return fire.
