So I hear people complain a lot on how Starfall is not very good and needs to be buffed, but honestly this thing is already pretty good. Not being as good as cyclone is not a proper argument, Cyclone is already way too strong.
Honestly these past few days I have ran into multiple gerrida backing up indefinitely meta with Starfalls and these things are devastating, keeping distance seems to go really well with the perk and these things blast off parts way faster than cyclones at similar range. Maybe they don’t do very well if you’re straight up ramming into people but honestly these things don’t need a buff at all.
Are people just playing these wrong, thinking they are to be used like Whirls and Cyclones, rather than how one would use Whirlwinds and Stillwinds? Honestly two of these feel way better at times than triple whirlwinds, on top of firing more rapidly if you miss slightly you get a damage bonus and explosion rather than just missing a shot, and even at closer range people seem very good at utilizing the perk and dealing massive damage and just annihilating weapons and movement parts.
Can someone enlighten me how these are supposed to suck again?
The suck comparatively. The starfall is actually fairly balanced, perhaps even slightly OP by some game’s standards, while everything else is straight up OP.
Simple. It’s same old story ever again. Like Thyrsus.
A noob make pile of PS costly parts, sticks wrong weapons on it, and expects it to go against CW-grade builds.
Starfall just don’t have that much damage. Again like Thyrsus devs probably stuck with this dillema - giving it more damage would make it OP at low PS builds (7-9k) and at the same time it can’t really go high-PS like some other legendaries capable to compete with relics and top tiers.
with this buff of 10%, it would put it about 7-8% behind current Cyclone dmg.
Probably about where it should be imho. Extra explosive damage, extra elevation and extra attachment points are part of the balance. Extra energy point though.
The entire autocannon line seems in a pretty good place for their respective PS. Maybe a small 5% nerf to Cyclones?
From what I can tell it’s the lower bullet dmg and normal blast dmg (defaults to less then the WW) that is causing the issue. i.e. if your not activating the perk it’s at a disadvantage currently. Even with attempting to keep the perk activated the spread tends to send shots outsize the perk activation zone. This tends to increase the missed shots further degrading dmg performance as you’re already aiming as a miss.
I’ve been enjoying them regardless of it though. They are one of the best sounding guns in the game IMHO. Which funny enough really does increase my enjoyment of them… I’ve mostly spending a lot of time in raids with them with a scope trying to see how often I can keep that perk up. I think some users might be trying to just land their shots which could be some of the issue too. I can’t really dissect what they’re doing though outside of seeing where their scores are falling in comparison to my own in the same raids.
I’m hoping I can jump on the test server today (missed it yesterday by a few hours) and see if the change helps when not attempting to use the perk.
Starfall is a pathetic weapon that I straight up ignore unless I’m in a heli. Even then, its only virtue is to allow mediocre shooters to turn no DPS into bad DPS.
So can someone remind me again why on earth starfall needed a buff?
On top of countering any missiles / drones / mines / flying drones / phoenix / TOW/ enlightenment though nobody uses one anyway, without even trying thanks to it’s perk and near miss explosion, it strips most guns with much more ease than directly firing at the guns weapons on ground builds, and movement parts / modules on spiders and hovers, on top of not needing much accuracy compared to a cyclone, ending up on a cyclone in steroids for people who are some amounts good with the gun. It’s as insane good as a cyclone is
It has serviceable damages right now thanks to the buff. And yup it is a pretty strong weapon in the cases you cited.
It is not considered a great weapon for a simple reason : While it boasts around the same damages as cyclones when used well (activating the perk as much as possible), the problem is that it lacks one option the cyclone has : Directly degunning the enemy. The fact that you need the perk to do high damages and that the damages are mostly done by it’s great radius mean that direct hits on weapons will be less effective. And in the current meta, in CW, victory is often obtained by stripping weapons. Outside of CW I can agree that they are very powerful weapons not to be underestimated.
There are a couple guys in my clan who play Starfalls well in Clan wars. When the perk is active, the splash is so big, (about 6 blocks in any direction) that they can strip entire weapon loadouts and do cabin damage at the same time.
I still think that with Odin, 3 Cyclones with 2 radiators on the Nova cabin is the best autocannon setup, but Starfalls are running a close second and putting in work. This is especially true with the incoming Hammerfall and Breaker meta as these guns are very hard to hit with ordinary weapons, but Starfalls can knock them all off just by shooting over the top of them.
For point of reference, the splash on Cyclones, Whirlwinds and Joules only extend 2.5 blocks in every direction and the splash on Stillwinds is 3 blocks in every direction.
That is, a Stillwind, the most explosive AC, has a 112 block area that is hit by its splash. A Starfall has a 902 block area hit by its splash when the perk is active. That is, using the formula 4/3 pi *r^3. Also, regular AC’s do less damage the further away they are from the center hit point. Starfalls keep damage through the whole blast zone.
If you can get good with them, Starfalls are a great and unique weapon. They have Mammoth level splash in an AC.
I have seen them do work vs top mounted weapons, where the perk is useful. I havent seem them used very effectively vs sandwich builds, where the perk cant be used as effectively vs important parts.
This is all true. Usually only Firebugs, Gravastars and Jormungandrs are sandwiched but those builds are all a handful. I have a friend with a monster triple Jorm dog. If you ignore him, he will kill the whole team.