So new armor changes have made explosive weapons, canons, missiles etc, feel even more weaker than before. While some structural parts now also resist bullet damage better than before, this only amplifies the already existing problem of weapon stripping that the usual weapons do, and some weapons (mainly missiles and cannons) do not.
Because out of these weapons, you usually try to blow off modules, generators and other juicy bits with cannons and missiles, and use machine guns etc to strip off weapons rather than trying to shoot at the general build itself.
Canons and so on were not really good at this and lost to the weapon strip gameplay already, but now they’re even worse with the overall increased resistances of parts while the strip meta has stayed the same. And I do not think that the freeze effect mechanic is going to be enough to change any of that, if the effectiveness of non-meta weapons rests solely on having a teammate with a very specific support mechanic gun so once again they’re taken steps backwards while trying to go forward.
At least so it feels trying out my usual guns currently, they were not that effective to begin with but now feel even less so
I think people are forgetting how cryo also takes away pass through resistance (assuming I am right that it does).
I’m already seeing how cryo makes spaced armour builds significantly less tanky, and it will also work against builds spamming heavy armour.
It’s going to take a little while for it to filter down into the new metas, but from what I’m can tell, it’s going to make degunning less dominant as a strategy.
And before people scream cash grab, let’s remember that you only need on cryo player on your team to take advantage of this new mechanic.
We don’t really know how the game balance will change until the majority of players have them. Not everyone is going to buy levels to get this stuff all at once. I certainly won’t.
There was a big change with this update. Heavy armour now has a lot more damage resistance, to compensate for the low mass/durability ratio.
Probably intended to make spaced armour less effective, and make heavy tank armour more effective.
Seems like a good thing to me.
Except when you think about it this way with this raw example
Waltzes against an armored cyclone gerrida foe before armor part buff → hope to bore enough into the enemy that you pop some juicy bit like a generator that might help you defeat the foe or cause enough damage so it’s hindered so another player can finish it off, before your guns are stripped
Waltzes against same situation after the armor changes now can’t bore into the enemy because of the armor tanking more damage → Waltzes get stripped off without you being able to deal any major inconvenience to the enemy or expose the juicy vulnerable parts let alone win the battle
In both scenarios stripping the cyclones with waltzes doesn’t work because of flight trajectory randomizing hitting and missing in worst case scenario and reload speeds/rate of fire not being able to outperform and live longer than the cyclones even if the player was not a top tier cyclone player
Another example would be a nimble 4 imp build that’s around the same PS as a reload-focused fat man build, trying to strip the imps by targeting the weapons specifically is not very realistic as it’s on Omni’s, but if you manage to just spam fire cannon shots eventually you end up possibly blowing off something important so you can finish off the enemy. But usually you do loose both guns even if you manage to kill the imp build. Now you won’t be able to reach the same state of destruction before your fat men are stripped off, rendering the already powerful imp build even more powerful against most builds like the fat man build that use a sluggish single shot gun
Remember that only heavy armour got the resistance buff.
For the most part, competitive builds have ignored heavy armour in favour of light armour, because of the mass/durability ratio.
So for the examples you are talking about, those spiders are going to have to rebuild to take advantage of the new resistance values, and to do that, they won’t be able to carry as much armour.
It’s hard to predict how this change will filter down into builds.
