Heavy Duty speculation

[haze1103]

Are grenade launchers going to be the new meta, or a useless gimmick for people who already invest in Throwing regardless?

Post your expected character builds for your November 1rst playthrough

[ciox]

With no cooldowns involved they should be very powerful... no idea how that is balanced except maybe scarcity of 40mm grenades.

I also suspect they might get moved to Heavy Guns, as it is the Guns skill has way too much stuff in it.

[Fins]

There are some other ways to balance it other than scarcity, for sure:

- changing enemies' Evasion skill. Even now, certain enemies have so high evasion that it's far too useless and way too expensive to try and kill them with grenades, e.g. the boss pig in Hunting Grounds which can absorb literally many dozens of even tier 3 HE / frag grenades, if not over a hundred;

- certain enemies having sufficiently high tresholds and / or resists to types of damage some or all grenade types do, while sufficiently low tresholds / resists to some other damage types;

- having sufficiently many situations where using any kind of AoE is unacceptable, like mixing enemies and friendlies / neutrals in a single melee fight;

- durability and repair cost of grenade launchers (which allows to after specifically grenade launcher's overall viability vs hand-thrown grenades);

- AP costs of using and/or reloading grenade launchers;

- possible character debuffs for having one equipped / in use. For example, the 12.7 unique sniper rifle we have in the game applies quite a debuff whenever using it, so we know this can be done for a weapon, if need be.

Etc.

[harperfan7]

It is a new skill.

I made this terminator AR build a long time ago but never actually played it.  I'll be adapting it on Nov 1st.

[Ramen_os]

I am wondering what build to create to have a grenade launcher specialist. Would it required strength? Or Dex + Per?

Excited to replay/restream the game with this DLC day one (hopefully, the content of the DLC will be quickly accessible from the beginning.

[Makfar]

in the announcement its said grenade launcher is in guns, so an easy assumption is per and it takes 7 strength to wield at least one type of them from what we can see in the trailer, plus there is several variants of grenade shells for different encounters presumably, one of which i've seen is a cluster bomb but also consider that the weapon is AP intensive.

[Lestat]

Every gun I thought was never-ever going to be in the game, all in one DLC. While that is the star of the show, I wonder what exactly the new feats will be.

[ciox]

Every gun I thought was never-ever going to be in the game, all in one DLC. While that is the star of the show, I wonder what exactly the new feats will be.

Well there's definitely one that procs with every shot of a minigun. I'm kind of hoping for one that lets you entrench in one spot and just let them come to you, firing up all morphines if that's what it takes.

I'm curious about the grenade launcher feats, it seems like it would be hard to crit with the GL, but a lot of crits were shown in the trailer.

[harperfan7]

Since grenade launchers are weapons and can crit, and most of them are just one big damage, it seems like flashbang + lgrenade is a great combo.

[Fins]

Will there be max level increase? New skill and all, i'd quite enjoy it.

[harperfan7]

I seriously doubt it.  Level 30 is already too much for the game.

[Vokial]

What I am most interested in are the new feats involving these guns. Feats were always the bread and butter for me when it comes to this game.
As for their actual use, I can suspect they will cost a lot of AP and ammo, have a huge weight and high STR requirement - potentially involving Armor Penalty too, reducing MP. So mostly for Metal Armor or Riot Gear users.
Minigun will be most effective in corridors as it sounds like a long range burst weapon with minimal spread. It will be devastating with Expertise (does that count with the burst of an SMG or AR?)
Grenade Launcher should definitely belong to Heavy Guns skill. They should only be compatible with HE or Frag Grenades to give them some edge at least as they are kinda mediocre in the game, especially compared to Plasma. Throwing is useful with just 80 effective points and the Gas, Incendiary and Flashbangs all seem to be vastly better.

I will probably begin a new playthrough just to see enemies using these, but like being a Sniper so much, that I will probably play with the same build again:)

[Fins]

It ain't nothing to "suspect" - they will cost a lot of AP and ammo, it's clearly visible in the trailer. Besides, how couldn't they, it'd be way too OP.

Expertise, i recently made a character with, 5mm SMG user - all the proper feats, and lemme tell ya, on Normal it'd be just fine, but on Dominating, it's not too fancy - lots of bullets each dealing couple dozens extra damage looks powerful on paper, but when you meet enemies with high mechanical resist or extra high treshold, it ain't. This won't change for miniguns any much, even with 12.7 caliber; and as usual, spraying W2C ammo on every corner always ends up way too expensive.

Why grenade launchers "heavy" guns though? Depending on model, they can be both heavy but also very lighweight, in real life. Mk47 Striker, full-auto, weighs ~18kg - but there's also the famous M79 (single-fire, same 40mm grenade) which was used in Terminator 2, which weighs ~2.7 kg empty. Ain't "heavy" by no means - some SMGs and most assault rifles are heavier that that.

P.S. And about enjoying playing a Sniper build - man, you and me both! I played quite a few variations, and i think i ended up figuring no less than the most powerful build the game can possibly have. I mean, more powerful than all the Psi, melee, AR, energy pistol and all kinds of hybrids i am aware of. I was thinking to post it - my sniper build - in the "builds" subforum, but so far i saw little welcome for longer posts i do, so now i'm in doubt if i should. What you think? Should i?

[ShoggothWhisperer]

I think grenade launchers and miniguns will be mediocre, while the LMG might be pretty good. From the trailer it looks like the grenade launcher deals about half as much damage as a shotgun split between mechanical damage and heat damage, so I imagine that it will generally be worse than just throwing a high tier grenade in most combat encounters and will be absolutely dogshit against robots. Minigun looks like it needs an extremely high strength requirement just to function as a worse assault rifle, getting more shots with every burst means you only reach full potential after 2-3 turns. LMG doesn't need a few bursts to be good, looks like it has a quite manageable strength requirement, and looks like it costs much less AP to burst while also having decent damage. The spread angle on both the minigun and LMG though leave me worried that they might just end up as worst auto-shotguns, we'll have to see if the feats make up for it. 

[Valor]

I hope LMG/Minigun will allow us to control burst somehow, to spread it in an angle across several enemies. If I shoot 15-20 bullets at a single person it will be 99% waste. Unless it does SMG numbers ...