Pavonis Interactive Forums

So, I think we can all agree Hail of Bullets is pretty god damn strong.


But I disagree with the idea of making it eat up 5 ammo as a way to nerf it. In terms of a nerf, it's really minor. The cooldown on the ability is a far greater restriction than that. It also makes the perk REQUIRE an advanced extended magazine to use with a rifle, should you land it on an AWC slot. A minor gripe, but a notable one.

I think a better nerf to Hail of Bullets, especially given how strong gunners are right now... is to move it's location on the tree. I'd say swap it with Formidable at SSgt. Much more of a choice, at that tier. Chain Shot is excellent for volume-of-fire, Mayhem is *godly* for area suppression, especially if you match it with a flanker. Formidable.... eh. At that tier, it's doesn't really compete.

As a side note, making Hail of Bullets compete with Chain Shot is a good thing, in my opinion, because it weakens the standard "cycle cooldown shots" Gunner build overall, not a bad thing given Gunners currently are VERY strong.



A second idea is to make Hail of Bullets require both actions to use, so you can't use it after a reload, for example. Kinda like Deadshot.

On that note, was Danger Zone really that strong before? I hadn't got to use it.

Yeah Danger Zone is great. My Gunners Area Suppress entire pods at a time.

I've got to agree with Thriar. It's fairly common for the other trees to have 3 tasty options all in one tier, where as formidable is good, but nowhere near as good as Mayhem or Chainshot. Hail of Bullets feels like a higher tier perk anyway.

I honestly think the cool down is adequate as is, but I'd prefer it not competing with chain shot. I like to treat the gunner as a cooldown fighter, its why I bring Rangers instead of just 3+ gunners.

Thrair wrote:Kinda like Deadshot.

Deadeye is the perk you mean. Deadshot is the 10% crit chance passive.

Mavoc wrote:Deadeye is the perk you mean. Deadshot is the 10% crit chance passive.

Ah, you're right. Always mix those two up. Reminds me that I intended to see if Deadeye still had a vanilla bug regarding Run & Gun.

Thrair wrote:

Mavoc wrote:Deadeye is the perk you mean. Deadshot is the 10% crit chance passive.

Ah, you're right. Always mix those two up. Reminds me that I intended to see if Deadeye still had a vanilla bug regarding Run & Gun.

It requires you to have two actions in order to use it, but if you use one action and then activate run and gun, you can use it anyway(as long as you don't move).

The same is true for all abilities that require two actions, including standard fire for sniper rifle.

5 ammo for hail of bullets is really steep. And I mean really steep.

cmdrspyker92 wrote:5 ammo for hail of bullets is really steep. And I mean really steep.

As long as you can reload and hail, i don't see how it even matters. You don't really need to move to a better position when you auto-hit so unless you just got your cover blown away, all it does is prevent you from moving and suppressing the next turn. Not that big of a deal to me.

Probably having it compete with other good perks is the way to go and as was pointed, it would reduce the overall power of the gunner which is currently a bit on the OP side. It would at least make it less like an obvious choice for every situation (chain-shot+cyclic on big exposed targets, hail on hard to hit ones, suppress and saturation for crowd control, demolition to blow cover for others, the gunner does everything without need for any other class right now)

IMHO The reason hail is op is because it is a guaranteed damage. So the solution to fix hail is very simple: make it not guaranteed, but a shot with bonus to hit +30.

LordYanaek wrote:As long as you can reload and hail, i don't see how it even matters. You don't really need to move to a better position when you auto-hit so unless you just got your cover blown away, all it does is prevent you from moving and suppressing the next turn. Not that big of a deal to me.

Yeah. Back in Long War, when reloading ended your turn (sans Lock n' Load), it'd have been a much nastier nerf. As it is, Gunners are not really reliant on mobility.

mr.Manul wrote:IMHO The reason hail is op is because it is a guaranteed damage. So the solution to fix hail is very simple: make it not guaranteed, but a shot with bonus to hit +30.

That makes it very similar to Walk Fire. I don't think having powerful and unique abilities is a problem in and of itself. Rather, the problem is it's a high power perk that comes online very early and competing against much weaker perks at it's tier. And also that Gunners (especially cooldown Gunners) are overall too strong. It's not just Hail of Bullets.

I guess I'm in the minority here, but Hail of Bullets is one of the things that make me think gunners are worth having. It's only one guaranteed hit every few rounds. I'm a little surprised at the strong reaction to them as overpowered. Being able to click on Hail of Bullets is a relief when things get a little hot, but I still ration it because three turns is a long time to wait for another use.

Any kind of down mod might be to move it to a Sergeant rank perk. The easiest would be to swap it with Demolition, which is weaker, but that mixes the right and left sides of the tree, making it unappealing to someone that wants to preserve the structure of the tree.

Full Round Action seems about right to nerf Hail of Balance.

An increase in ammo count brings it down from "pretty darn good" to "this is still worth taking" but, I feel five ammo needlessly harms classes that roll it in the AWC.

In my opinion, I think incremental nerfs/buffs are favorable to over nerf/buffing. Therefore, I feel a four ammo count with a Full Round Action as requirements will knock HoB down a couple pegs without totally gimping the ability.

I don't know if this is possible coding wise or not but could you not have it empty your clip on your opponent (similar to the codex disarm thing), essentially requiring a full clip to use and forcing a reload after using it no matter how much ammo you have by default?

RapidFire wrote:t's only one guaranteed hit every few rounds. I'm a little surprised at the strong reaction to them as overpowered. Being able to click on Hail of Bullets is a relief when things get a little hot, but I still ration it because three turns is a long time to wait for another use.

I don't really think Hail of Bullets is that OP on itself, i was simply noting that 3 or 5 ammo doesn't make a real difference for gunners (but it does for other classes that get this perk at AWC of course). However it's a very good ability added to a a class that already have several very good abilities in addition to good aim, high base damage and the biggest clip size of all classes! In addition to all other great abilities, it adds to the gunner being somewhat OP compared to other classes. Making this ability compete with other good abilities rather than add to them would help nerf the gunner without hurting the ability itself.

Shibsified wrote:I don't know if this is possible coding wise or not but could you not have it empty your clip on your opponent (similar to the codex disarm thing), essentially requiring a full clip to use and forcing a reload after using it no matter how much ammo you have by default?

I don't think that would address the main problem of an ammo-nerf not being much of a nerf to Gunners (who neither need both actions, allowing a reload at the start of the turn, nor are reliant on re-positioning).

But it would at least make this ammo nerf not splash over into other classes that got it via the AWC.

LordYanaek wrote: However it's a very good ability added to a a class that already have several very good abilities in addition to good aim, high base damage and the biggest clip size of all classes!

...okay now I'm really confused. Where are your gunners getting their good aim from? I tend to dislike gunners because their aim is so absurdly bad for a shooting class, plus Suppression reaction fire is unreliable as hell. Going off the wiki gunners have 2 aim progression/level- the same as Assaults and Shinobis. My highest aim gunner is a Staff Sergeant with 75 aim- and gunners basically need autoloaders+expanded mags, so I can only give him a scope or hair trigger.

Gunners gain 20 aim at MSGT, the same as Rangers. They are second only to sharpshooters (28 aim). Assaults and Shinobis gain 16.
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Gunner_(LW2)
Unless UFOpedia is wrong.

75 at staff sergeant means you started with 62 aim. Less then the "default" 65 at rookie. I wouldn't build a base 62 soldier as a primary shooter. Going suppression (for the aim debuf rather then "overwatch" effect) seems like your best option with a sub-par aim gunner. Also i never put both a scope and a hair trigger on the same weapon. Hair trigger is only used on OW builds and those rarely take direct shots so i give them laser sight to rit with cool under pressure.

EDIT : my best MSGT gunner has 94 aim, so that would be 74+20. If they gained only 16 like assaults she would have started with 78 and the maximum is 75 so it's indeed +20.

LordYanaek wrote:Gunners gain 20 aim at MSGT

by MSGT, I think you mean.

A bit of a bump here, because I feel this is still relevant given 1.3 will be a balancing patch.

Hail of Bullets doesn't feel especially nerfed on Gunners. Just reload and use it, same as before, really. The "cycle cooldowns" build is largely untouched.


At the same time, while it might be my OCD, getting Hail of Bullets on another class via AWC is even MORE annoying than I thought it'd be. Sure, a lot of the time you'll put on an extended mag anyways, but it's still aggravating. All the more so since Hail of Bullets is already slightly weaker on non-gunners (due to the lower base damage of Assault Rifles).

This nerf doesn't feel like it addresses the problem, while creating a problem that didn't exist before in the AWC.

Thrair wrote:A bit of a bump here, because I feel this is still relevant given 1.3 will be a balancing patch.

Hail of Bullets doesn't feel especially nerfed on Gunners. Just reload and use it, same as before, really. The "cycle cooldowns" build is largely untouched.


At the same time, while it might be my OCD, getting Hail of Bullets on another class via AWC is even MORE annoying than I thought it'd be. Sure, a lot of the time you'll put on an extended mag anyways, but it's still aggravating. All the more so since Hail of Bullets is already slightly weaker on non-gunners (due to the lower base damage of Assault Rifles).

This nerf doesn't feel like it addresses the problem, while creating a problem that didn't exist before in the AWC.

They should just change it, so that hail requires a full clip and empties the clip on use, or change it back to 3 ammo, and increase cooldowns.

at any rate the gunners OP issues are due more to the number of good active perks, and the exceptional aim and damage scaling the class enjoys imo.

Agree with OP.

I think the ammo increase does have an effect, but not enough to stop it being autopick at that tier.

I don't like making it just + aim instead of guaranteed damage. That makes it into walk fire and loses uniqueness. Also it would be ideal if this was a perk that was appealing to low aim gunners at least as much if not more that to high aim shooty gunners.