Make Destruction stack, and each stack lasts for 3 seconds. Up to 5 stacks at a time. More stacks on a target, more energy needed for gunner to fire. Hard cap at 100%?

I've fully read this thread, and I recently came up with some ideas for Gunners.


However Shawn, the Seer Virus Lasers are not for debuffing enemies, they are for buffing your allies at a cost.


My personally ideas for Gunner would be quite a re-jiggling to the class. Currently the issues I see are:

Missile Launchers can be stacked
Ergo missiles can be spammed
Most DPS comes from missiles
Most Gunners use, or have a HF ship (probably most)
Missiles are limited to 4 damage types
The debuff is generally weak
It's the only class without capship locked auras
It's the class with the least amount of DPS now (I reckon)
It's the class with the least amount of class only gear, missions etc

My personal ideas for Gunner as I said would be quite the re-jiggle. But I think Gunner would sit nicely as an artillery enemy-debuffing class. Using some newly made capital ships which are more of a HF/Capship hybrid in design, but leaning more towards Capship, using torpedo class weapons.

Although, these are my ideas, however I shall bring this up some point soon... (Like when we aren't worrying about beta)

Is there a "bin" of deleted topics?

If so, you should find "Gunner Class Overhaul" and read it.

I've always imagined that gunner's hits are so powerful that they crush target's armor, therefore they slowly make it more and more fragile.
Stackable debuff that would depends on damage and target's shield bank would be the best imo.
Damage/Target's shield Bank % of the debuff would work well I think. Small targets would get large debuffs while bases and uber would get really small debuffs BUT it would stack and significantly rise group's dps over period of time.

A gradual debuff to the target's resists in conjunction with Sniper Analysis would destroy everything so quickly....

I love the way that dev thinks.

One thing that really should exist is + missile ops and + fighter ops stats on augs. It doesn't seem to make sense that both FC and gunner have major parts of there class be unaffected by augs.

I'm more or less with shawn that gunner is nice as is, just a bit under-powered. However, I definitely agree that stacking missile launchers needs to be removed. The existing launchers/missiles should then be re-balanced to reflect this. Capping the # of launchers per ship was always just a band-aid in my opinion. This would allow differing launchers to be introduced that perhaps give special stats to missiles such as missile speed, maneuverability, or extra damage. As you would only need one instead of 3 or 4, it would be practical to use these. It would also fix the problem of inbuilt launchers being out of line with stacked normal launchers.

^or just make missiles launch multiple missiles at a time, perhaps from different areas of the ship. Then, increase the launching time on launchers.

No more spamming hotkeys.

I cant say that I agree with making gunners use torpedo type weapons. Many classes already use torpedoes and thoraxes, I dont think it's a good idea to encourage them even more.

If, on the other hand, you were talking about some new type of missile, then i'm all for it. I strongly believe that in the end gunners should predominantly be the missile class.

Missiles suck at the moment. 5 Broadswords with large AP's or RP Plasma's does less damage than a Berserker, not to mention the fact that Gunners have to be within 100 distance but more than 50, their DPS goes up considerably when the target has a ship size that's 51 distance or more from its center, missiles can be shot down, and their slow and have low agility.

Then, couple the lower, conditional DPS with the fact that they have less tanking ability than a Berserker or FC because their 2 aug slots are usually devoted to offensive augs, rather than defensive as an FC has, and they are shield bank based, rather than resists, so they don't make as good ShM partners. They also are less efficient at supporting a squad than a Fleet Commander, seeing as how they give +20% damage to a SINGLE TARGET with a SINGLE DAMAGE TYPE.

So... Fix the class (including the missile system) before giving Gunners more missiles.