Dissapointing firearms?

[Dr.Disaster]

Its not neccesarry to have both .... Missile rogue is a bit more imba, yeah... How did you trait that Mino ?

The Mino Barb started with "Head Hunter", "Aggressive", "Throwing" and "Armor".

Sounds like you took optimal traits for throwing damage, maybe dump a few pts in Accuracy ?

Already did that later on; going for Armor took it's toll: Throwing 5, Armor 5, Critical 4, Accuracy 2

[Luj1]

So one can expect to max 3 skills (around 15 pts ) by endgame ?

[Taem]

I was a bit confused on firearms; my first party - made last night - has an alchemist that uses the firearm skill. I found some ammo and a gun, but if I'm understanding correctly, there is no way to recoup your spent ammo, and currently no way to create new ammo? That seems a bit harsh to me... especially if I were planning on two firearm alchemists in the back-row, or even a group of four gun-slingers like how people will run four-man wizard groups or four-man rogue groups. If this is true, it's a disappointing twist on what could have been a great class.

[Eldur]

So one can expect to max 3 skills (around 15 pts ) by endgame ?

There's a steam achievement for this, so yes.

[Taem]

So far my firearm experience has been pretty disappointing: All toons level three so far and I can never find enough ammo and the damage is always below my front-line Minotaur Fighter using Heavy Weapons and Human Wizard in the back line using Fire magic no matter how many points I sink into Firearms. To add injury to insult, in addition to having a chance to miss with Accuracy, the chance of misfire just makes this skill worthless as it currently stands at low level. Not sure about higher levels yet, but I want to point out that the damage definitely does not scale proportionally to the rest of the weapons/skills in the game;

Take, for example, a Minotaur with maxed Strength and Heavy Weapons (or thrown weapons) using any weapon, an Insect spell-caster maximizing Wisdom and Fire spells, a Lizard Rogue maxing Dexterity and using bows... from my testing so far, any of these examples beats out Firearms damage at an equivalent skill and attribute level. The skill simply has not been balanced as well as the other skills most likely because the other skills got extensive play-testing in LoG1

So, to summarize, Firearm shortcomings are;

1. Damage significantly lower and not proportional to all other modes of damage at the same level
2. No way to replenish spent ammo, and no other means of getting ammo
3. Chance to misfire, in addition to chance of missing due to Accuracy

I've posted ideas like this and the devs usually overlook balance issues for whatever reason, however if I may offer my suggestion;

1. Tie damage to Accuracy - the better the aim, the more damage can be caused
2. Allow ammo boxes to automatically replenish over time, like magic regeneration, where putting points into firearms increase the regeneration%
3. Keep the chance to misfire, but to offset this, increase the chance of critical hit

[Dr.Disaster]

So far my firearm experience has been pretty disappointing: All toons level three so far ...

This means: the only firearm you have is the small Flinklock pistol. That's not really something to compare to.

.. the damage is always below my front-line Minotaur Fighter using Heavy Weapons and Human Wizard in the back line using Fire magic no matter how many points I sink into Firearms.

Re-read the skill description. Raising Firearms skill reduces missfires only. Damage does not change no matter what level your Firearm skill is.

Tie damage to Accuracy - the better the aim, the more damage can be caused

This is already the case: shooting with low accuracy means to miss and misses deal no damage.

Keep the chance to misfire, but to offset this, increase the chance of critical hit

Additional crit chance on Firearms skill could indeed beef up those weapons.

On ammo: during Beta i already suggested to add an Alchemy recipe to be able to create ammo when needed.
Depending on the number of reports about ammo shortages we might see this one coming.

[Taem]

So far my firearm experience has been pretty disappointing: All toons level three so far ...

This means: the only firearm you have is the small Flinklock pistol. That's not really something to compare to.

Indeed. But even so, compared to whats available thus far, the difference is quite noticeable right from the start and from what I've read in this thread, I don't see this changing much either, however I'll reserve final judgement until endgame.

.. the damage is always below my front-line Minotaur Fighter using Heavy Weapons and Human Wizard in the back line using Fire magic no matter how many points I sink into Firearms.

Re-read the skill description. Raising Firearms skill reduces missfires only. Damage does not change no matter what level your Firearm skill is.

That's actually part of my point - I just mis-worded it. It's because the damage does not improve via attributes or skills that this skill cannot possibly compete with others of similar caliber. Add that to the other shortcomings of this skill I pointed out and it's clear Firearms needs some balance tweaks to make it competitive with similar skills. Would just increasing its chance to critical solve the balance issues? I don't know, but I do know that I'd like to be able to try two riflemen in the back of the party someday, minus the ammo shortages .

[Ixnatifual]

Was also thinking it would be cool if you could manufacture ammo. My firearms alchemist is dead weight in regular fights as I don't want to be out of ammo in the fights that matter.

[Darklord]

My Alchemist does HUGE damage with Firearms, he has 5 in the skill so never jams, you just need to find a certain weapon.

SpoilerShow

Hand Cannon - 40-120 Damage

You need to defeat the enemy that wields it first though and it isn't easy.

SpoilerShow

Try the sewers, looks for a Very big Rat. :p

Edit :- It does run out though!

Daniel.

[Dr.Disaster]

Oh and it doesn't run out of ammo,
you just have to pick the cannon balls up again afterwards.

Huh?!? Since which game version can fired cannonballs be picked up again?