The Deceptor machine gun is awful

My thoughts exactly. One those big boys show up, there isn’t much assaults can do without a serious help.

Though even in early stages I find heavys useful. Jetpack makes them very mobile (valuable expecially now, when assoults aren’t able to cover quite as much ground as before), and short range surprise overwatch will usually kill enemies. For now I am usually using my heavy as “dare to come closer” guy. Hell, he even sniped worm in my first mission for Anu… that wasn’t expected though.

3 Likes

Deceptor is a pretty good weapon. It has awesome DPS, but you need a way to deliver that DPS to the enemy.

  • Put it in the hands of Sniper (+50% accuracy from sniper gear, +30% from passive +20% from heavy weapons spec) and instead of 11 effective range now you have 22 and can hit things.
  • Put it in the hands of Berserker/Assault and now you don’t have any problem with getting right into enemy’s face + you get even more damage thanks to Adrenaline Rush.
  • Put it in the hands of Technician and…no, not really, Technician does not want that crappy Deceptor. He has his own Deceptor on steroids: Scorcher AT turret, with 600 DMG and 29 range, which he can shoot multiple times per round via remote control skill.

Funny thing is heavy does not have those means of delivery, so he’s not suited to operate it (well…sure he can, but that’s not the point. Point is other classes are doing it better). He should have a skill that would let him setup a heavy direct fire weapon for increased accuracy / firing speed at a price of immobility. Though right now your best option is to cross class him with others that know how to use this gun.

BTW Ares is crap once you’re out of early game.

4 Likes

So with the best accuracy-boosting armour in the game, a special perk that the majority of snipers won’t have, and a level 5 skill, you can get ALMOST as much effective range as an Ares in the hands of a Level 1 Assault.

I mean, yeah, if you put that much work into the Deceptor you can make it sorta-kinda-able to hit things. But literally every other weapon type in the game will be more effective for the same investment.

2 Likes

Way in which I use my Deceptor heavy:

1: spot enemy.
2: Jump jet Heavy close by.
3: War cry.
4: Enemy stumbles about confused why they only have 2AP.
5: Heavy comes around the corner and fill something with holes.

So satisfying :heart_eyes:

2 Likes

That’s not what a Heavy Weapons specialist is, though. They’re fire support, tank/bunker busting specialists. They’re not viking berserkers with jetpacks.

1 Like

I agree that the Deceptor is really hard to get right – it takes a lot of accuracy bonuses to get it to a point where it can hit reliably, and by then your heavy soldier is barely recognizable as such. That said, one of my best Assaults was one with the Strongman perk who used a Deceptor MG. She was able to Dash up, and spit out 540 (45 x 12) damage; this was before Strongman was rebalanced to a +20% bonus, but even then it would still be 504 (42 x 12). That’s far more damage than an AR can do for an equivalent number of APs.

I use this beast to one-shot Hatching Sentinels and chew apart lesser enemies. Anything bigger with more armor may require shred first, but that’s okay.

This ^^ Assault with strongman can take down most targets in one burst, after dashing to get adjacent.

Heavies rarely fire them unless they have biochemist, or rage burst. It is quite the spectacle to fire 5 * 12 = 60 shots without interruption :slight_smile: Heavies are best with the flamethrower when not bashing. Apparently with this patch all heavies are melee weapon proficient now

I know what you mean and I kind of agree. When I first played this game and stumbled on the Deceptor, I thought “what a crap”. Because Deceptor + Heavy combination, which should be strong by default, is unfortunatelly bad. Something about it should be changed (and it was discussed already) to make it combination useful (aside from situational combinations like Jetpack + Warcry which can get you killed).

But then as you play more and gain knowledge about game mechanics, you try to build most efective builds. And it turns out Deceptor finds its way into those builds (while Ares not because it’s crap past early game).
When you know Berserker can shoot everything for 1AP you look for the weapon with highest damage output, which is … Deceptor. Aditionally you look for a character with Reckles + Strongman perks combos and if you find one, you end up with 588 damage per AP Berserker / Assault

You can also go other way and try to dish as much damage at range as possible. If you get a Sniper or Infiltrator with Strogman / Cautious / Thief perks you can combine them for a range build with 441 damage per AP (when Quick Shooting). It cannot compete with snipers in accuracy, but still has 2,5 times more damage output at decent range.

That being said if you’re lucky and instead of Strongman got Self Defence Specialist perk you’re much luckier, since small Gorgon Eye-A SMG not only out DPS’es big Deceptor machine gun but it has almost twice as much range.
And this is only because weapons design in this game is bad (so you end up with 1.5 tier MG, but at the same time can have 2.5 tier SMG or 3 tier Shotgun).

2 Likes

In my experience Deceptor MG turned into viral weapon(Biochemist perk) is panicking many enemies,

also with Rage Burst is powerful enough to bring it into the battle:

and just without viral and RB is fun, fighting new enemies:

Problem arises when people think in terms of realism in this game. On a side note: I would also prefer game to be more realistic, and would like to see some weapons re-balanced… But we need to remember about balancing of weapons and different roles they are here to fulfill.

Machine Guns with better accuracy would outperform other automatic weapons. Do you imagine enemy heavy using such weapon on you? To balance it we would need to have really different mechanics to slow them down and decrease their power. Just like mentioned 4 AP shot, or even some prepared stance. This could work of course, but would be quite cumbersome and would slow heavies even further (people hate that).

I think I still prefer using heavy where I can move a little bit and fire for 3 AP. But then weapon need to have some drawback like lower damage or accuracy. I suppose that accuracy can be this trade off.

What more heavy class was designed to be this:

  • brute being able to get into close range and chew up any small enemy
  • support providing way to defeat bigger enemies

And I suppose they fulfill this role quite nicely. They are not gunners to suppress enemies (btw I’m not sure how you see such ability in Phoenix Point :slight_smile: with simulated flight for each bullet and finite size of magazines).

So yes, heavy with Deceptor is to hit big targets on medium range to shred their armor and do some damage. Or wipe out small enemies if they will come too close. Of course in my opinion devs lost somewhere one thing about heavies. With current power of enemies, heavies barely can stand in front line while taking hits, which should be the case. But it is not a problem with Deceptor or even heavy class on its own. For me it is balancing power of aliens which should be performed.

6 Likes

Why would I try to use deceptor to kill enemy armor when I can do it with 2 bomb and 1 rocket at one turn from other side of the map?

The only place this weapon perform well is short range rage burst to nuke big targets, otherwise there are always much better options. Not better options, much better options.

Game needs an upg version of gauss mini gun with research with better effective range.

2 Likes

I kinda agree, but don’t you think that perhaps the problem is that you can hit a target from the other side of the map with 2 bombs and 1 rocket every turn, for as many turns as you want?

BTW, actually the Deceptor is the objectively optimal solution: try it with a Berserker/Assault on Bloodlust and Frenzy, with Strongman, Rapid Clearance and Adrenaline Rush. He can clear the whole map by himself in the first turn. Why use anything else?

3 Likes

Well “bombs and rockets” are expensive. If you can spare on them then feel free to use them. :slight_smile: Btw if enemy will come close to you feel free to use them too, but I doubt that you will like the effect. :smiley:

Of course this is also the case where you don’t have skills to increase performance of Deceptor. But there is Boom Blast which allows you to “bomb and rocket” in single turn on really long distance. This is case where one thing is overpowered, not the other thing underpowered. :slight_smile: Another note here, devs went with explosives to shred incredible amount of armor, so now Deceptor looks silly compared to them, but previously Machine Guns were one of the best ways to take out armor from enemy. I just hope that other weapons will be also balanced.

1 Like

Perhaps a better explanation of the role of troops in the game/tutorials would help as some peoples understanding of the names of the roles and their equipment is based on realism and not game mechanics? Perhaps two tutorials, one early game and one mid game showing the designers understanding of how the roles are designed to play? I come from the more realistic understanding, and I do find the Heavy class quite frustrating to use.

Rapid Clearance and Adrenaline Rush are just completely broken, though, so it’s not fair to use those in any kind of balance discussion because they make any attempt at reasonable difficulty a joke. I figure the devs HAVE to heavily nerf or delete those two skills eventually if they’re ever going to make the game at all balanced.

5 Likes

I agree.

My point is that the current situation with explosives, where you can shoot a devastating rocket across the whole map for 0 AP and follow it by 2 GLs (or 4 grenades, because with Quarterback and sufficient strength + Boom Blast you can throw a grenade the same distance as you can shoot a rocket but with 100% accuracy, literally allowing you to place explosive devices with different payloads at a location of your choosing) is not that different from RC+AR.

What can compete against that? Should other skills/combinations be buffed until they can compete with something like Boom Blast allowing mounted weapons to shoot for 0 AP or grenade placement accross the map, or does perhaps this combo merit a tone down?

3 Likes

Boom Blast is definitely overpowered, but it’s nowhere near as broken as RC/AR just because RC/AR can quite realistically clear an entire map on its own (without spending so much on grenades). I usually find that my Boom Blast/Grenade Launcher Heavies do a lot of damage, but not necessarily more than my Snipers do.

The bigger issue with the Boom Blast combo is that it’s just so disproportionately effective compared to all the other heavy weapons that it’s hard to justify your Heavy using anything else. Once I have the Goliath researched and built, I can’t see any reason to build or use the Hel Cannon, Deceptor, or Dante any more.

But that’s precisely my point - I’m not saying that Boom Blast is as bad as RC + AR, I’m saying that it is similar in that it is too good when compared to other options, or as you put it

So, should Cannon, Deceptor and Dante be made good enough to compete with the combinations that Boom Blast allows, or rather should something be done about these combinations?

BTW, it’s funny because right now Dante is bugged (has been at least since Danforth, the devs are trying to fix it) it does extreme amounts of damage, like almost destroying a Spawnery in a single shot, roasting Tritons, Arthons and sometimes Sirens with a single application, etc, and that is still not enough to make it preferable over the various Boom Blast combinations :slightly_smiling_face:

It seems to me that direct fire damage at all is somewhat bugged, maybe?
I’ve tried to paralyse a Siren in one of the new ancient site defending, the one where the Cyklops gives your weapons additionally fire damage. The result, I killed the Siren with the Hera before it was paralysed … (not F12 reported, sorry)

I’ve been thinking about making a longer post on skills, but re: Boom Blast, I’d probably suggest making it more like Quick Aim – it affects ONE explosive attack. Then make it 3 APs instead of 5, and make it only usable once per turn.

The Dante NEEDS to do pretty extreme damage given that its range is so short that it’s basically a melee weapon. The problem is that the Dante’s targeting is buggy as **** so that half the time that you fire it it does zero damage to targets supposedly in its cone.