My gunner and I spent a lot of time getting the Auraxium medal for the Duster (look up Mystified if you want to verify). I pretty we are the only crew dumb enough to try it. But we also have spent more time with it than anyone else. Coincidentally, we were chatting about it tonight. Here's the problem with the Duster that isn't addressed in the proposed changes: The Duster is completely unskilled. Not unskilled as has been used to describe other EZ mode weapons that anyone can use to great effect (i.e. OP striker, OP ZOE, OP grenade lanucher). In fact, it's the polar opposite. It's unskilled in that no matter how good (or bad) you are, you can't get any better at it (nor can you get any worse). Give the best Dalton or Shredder gunners the Duster and they'll be tearing their hair out after 20 minutes because no matter what they do, they won't be able to control the weapon. The bloom is huge and the projectiles travel in such random directions once fired that it is impossible to guess where they are going to land. In order to get kills, I had to put the Lib 10m (no joke) above our target so that the projectiles did not have time to spread before hitting the ground. No amount of skill is usable with this gun. You literally just push the button and see what happens (usually disappointment and anger ensue). It's like playing the lotto every time you open fire... and like the lotto, you lose way more than you win (btw, a win is actually getting 1 kill per mag). Sure, the added AoE will help (although Libs will still have to fly very low due to the huge spread), but it still is a weapon that is completely uncontrolled by the gunner (minus the first shot). For those who may be thinking "Well, slow your shots down to let the bloom reset for more accurate shots", I dare you to take it out and see how well that works... because it doesn't. As soon as the shots start to spread, they do it to a huge degree and without rhyme or reason. All other guns in this game have a level of predictability in terms of how the projectiles will act during single, burst or sustained fire. The Duster is the exception. If you don't quite get what I mean, take go to the VR with a buddy, have him/her hover 30m in the air above an infantry unit and let'r rip. And then feel our pain. The Duster isn't terrible because it lacks oomph... in fact, the damage isn't too bad. It is terrible because it's uncontrollable and that damage can never be reliably put on target. It's fire patterns are too random and completely unpredictable and that aspect doesn't appear to be getting changed.
IMO, the best thing for the duster would be to reduce its COF a bit, and then add MASSIVE aoe effect (as in 25-35m). reduce the damage for sure, but essentially make the duster a backasswards version of carpet bombing. Everything in the area gets damaged, but not by a huge margin, and of course the inner blast radius should be very strong, and scale appropriately for distance. This, of course is far to complex for the dev team to consider, and brings this weapon dangerously close to being effective against infantry, which 2 years of this games development has shown, is a bad bad taboo thing.
Honestly, I think this will dramatically buff the weapon. When I flew solo I dropped most targets with 3 shots, 3 shot burst at low altitude before COF gets horrible. Only Heavies were a problem due to having overshield and me not staying around to unload another volley. Currently you do 1 dmg at 4m, but with this change, you would still do 450 dmg at 4m. I almost never completely missed a shot on infantry (no damage marker). No this change will make it very deadly to anything with or without flak armour if gunner does small burst or single shot. I use 3 shot burst with Duster all the time. Its good. Duster does good damage to vehicles (provided it actually hits) reducing COF would be a bad move as Duster would then start doing too much damage to Vehicles and turrets due to actually hitting them.
I think it could use a fundamental change in its function. For example, limit the gun's traverse more, lower its maximum COF some, increase projectile gravity and make it fire off the whole mag at once - much quicker than it does now. Voila, we have actual bombs in the game. The visual aspect is much less epic than B-52 emptying its belly, but still better than no bombs at all.
It needs a slower CoF gain and an overall CoF max reduction. It should reach its max CoF at around 6 shots instead of 3 and the deviation at max must be reduced down by 2°. It should be able to pepper targets, but with the amount of projectile deviation right now its nearly impossible to hit desired targets.
To me the buff were exactly what i had considered that it needed. They even buffed it more than i thoguht they would. 4x higher inner AOE is not a small thing.
Severe lack of accuracy is definitely an issue. The artificial skill cap is a serious issue. It's too low even for casual player
The bad accuracy and slow projectiles is the main problem, you literally have to be at 20-30 metres away from the target, and even then you might miss 8/10 shots due to the cone of fire going all over the place. I tried it yesterday with one of my best gunner friends, we managed to get 20 kills in 1 hour. With Zepher we usually would get at least 100+ in that time before the patch. The added blast radius "helped" to make it not completely useless, but it's still not good at what it's supposed to do, which is being effective against infantry targets. Also when you fly that low it's extremely easy to get dumbfire rockets hitting you, tank shells hitting you, etc etc. To make it good they need to tighten up the cone of fire like 40-50% better, and maybe increase the speed by 33%-50%.
Pretty much what OP said and i dint have a clue what the Devs think how this weapon should work. You dont need to Auraxium it, to see that its a weapon that just cant be aimed unless you go less then 50m over the ground which is ****** for a Lib.
Just after the buff I went online and our squad encountered a TR lib, we began to run( we we're in the open) and then noticed he was using a duster. We laughed our *** of as he couldn't kill us and the shells went everywhere except on our heads. Hilarious to see. So being the gentlemen we are we decided not to shoot back. After a while he buggered off without anyone kills. I agree with OP. It needs either a tighter COF or such a spread as sad before that you will AOE damage on such a large area that you will at least do a little damage to the enemy. (carpet bombing)
I loved it today got about 35 kills in 25 minutes (you had different opinions then me though Phobos ) , thing is it's not the best weapon by a long shot when compared to pre-patch systems. Sure the zephyr has the velocity and better CoF (unless throttling your shots) as well as more usefulness outside of infantry destruction, but this weapon feels, "right". Not right in the fact that it's highly effective, or that it can't kill anything, or that it can't damage air well, or does massive area damage, or that it is absolutely useless. It is right in the fact that there there is proper risk vs. reward, something liberator operators have not had for a long time now. If there were infantry on the ground before, liberators just had to look at them and they would die from even medium-high altitudes. Now that the primary "infantry farm" weapon is limited to more close quarter engagements, we have more chances at getting hit by dumbfires, tank shells, flak, and lock-ons. (and they now hurt pretty bad!) Loitering now is not a viable option. Sure you still can do it, but aforementioned threats are significant deterrents. Hovering liberators will not be effective in terms of survival vs, output when facing semi-competent enemy ground forces. Infantry will still die, but with greater cost for the gunner; he must choose his targets, and expend the mag to engage key targets, while threats may escape his previous all-seeing eye that lit you up with precision ASAP with rounds to spare on other threats at a safer altitude. A reload is not always an option now, and the second pass is more important then sustained fire. If you don't understand the nuisances of this weapon, it will be very difficult to land shots and secure kills. Tight clusters of infantry are not everywhere now days, and if they were, and when they are, this weapon will full auto erase a full platoon if they are tight enough, in a very fast time frame. Picking a few different small clusters and putting a burst pattern into them scoring a kill or two in the process for each cluster seems the most viable option for shot distribution for your pass/mag. The thinner groups get, the less effective this weapon is at utilizing the ratio of kills/per shot in full 10 round mag unless you have the time to single shot 3-5+ targets over a longer time frame. This weapon will not massacre with no regard to personal safety complete squads on one pass with extended hangtime; it will make successful passes with some hovering while taking a few targets down or attempting to do so while sustaining damage or avoiding dumbfires. Getting hit by a single dumbfire with some moderate flak is a big deal now, especially if there are ESFs in the area. The weapon bloom is controllable (single shot feathered for accuracy/control and high damage per salvo on multiple singular targets per pass, double tap feathered for concentrated single target DPS and reliability, triple tap feathered for high AOE DPS spread, and full auto for reliable/quick single target kills at the expense of magdump with low precision/control) (mix these together and you have multiple engagement fire types per pass when you manage a magdump) , a normal pass will expend all ammo with no reload unless there is no damage received or threats acquired by the time of the first magdump. This weapon is not a medium-high altitude AI platform, and requires the pilot to walk the line of medium-low engagement altitude to secure kills in an effective manner. This weapon does also have RNG when it comes to aim vs. results, and not all shots will give the same results, meaning some burst patterns will miss everything, while some will land all three in a tight spread, or something between those extremes. PS - This all goes out the window for A2G AI until the Bulldog is looked at, something needs to be tweaked here (if anything, start with the ammo count like we did with the belly gun, 260 on a slow firing AI weapon is too much if intentions were to lower operational times of libs without rearming, as a whole). And I still have to get use to the Duster's 10 rounds and not reloading early / expending all the ammo to the best of my targeting abilities / pass time frame. Other then those two issues, it feels really nice and in the right place for both air and ground (would love a bit more velocity tho , but it may throw this balance out of whack again) I know many individuals will disagree with me here, but I feel this weapon is in a great place (for the most part, minor tweaks may be warranted) when you look at it from a non-biased perspective.
Also today, I brought up working with multiple duster libs in tandemn, and having multiple syncronized bombing passes on hard to hit infantry sectors with quick succession after each strike/repair. This would be a great way to soften up spread units as ground units move up or to push back an advancing or dug in enemy wave. The spread seems viable to be a very indiscriminate tool for "thinning out" enemy forces when used in this manner. Food for thought.
Umm working as intended. The problem with having to aim at things is that it requires some level of skill. A veteran player with many hours practice will have achieved a level of skill that will never be matched by a new player. Therefore it is imperative to remove all skill from the equation. This way new players will be every bit as good as old players. That is the only way to have a fair game. Soon all weapons will be like the duster. And i heard that they were going to be adding Coyote machine guns for heavy assaults that will lock onto body heat.
We tried this with a pair before the buff. It works pretty well, but you need either strong friendly AA present, or air superiority. We just took one in, mag-dump, repair. While he runs, the other comes in, mag-dumps, heads to repair. It cycles pretty well, the first plane makes it back in time to keep up the heat. I gotta say, I've been a big proponent of Duster buffs, but it's definitely getting better. I took one out today and my gunner got 13 kills in 3 magazines: not too shabby. I think it just needs a bit less CoF (thinking 4 --> 3), and it will be good to go. I don't mind it being short range, but that range is currently just too damn short.
wasn't it supposed to be TR? Large mag with the ability to don't hit anything? NC was supposed to get a camera guided daton as far i remember.
Agree with you there. Took it out after the buff for the first time last night and was surprised. It's better. Not hell ya better, but better. Thermals are pretty worthless on it though, better off with zoom. I'd say our runs were inconclusive at worst, and marginally surprising at best, which I would call a success compared to the horrible Duster pre-buff. Myself and my crew will be putting it through its paces more, as its definitely something different and fresh.
It currently has ground vehicle optics (1.25-2x zoom, short range Thermals and IRNV). The CoF is still large enough that the extra range from air-grade Thermals wouldn't make much difference, lol.
