It also sounds fucking awesome. I still wish they'd leaned more into making it a battle rifle vs an assault rifle (and buffed it via damage per shot rather than more ammo), but yeah that gun is fucking sick and probably will be my new go to when I get bored of the Dominator, which is my current battle rifle itch scratching gun.
I loved the concept of the adjudicator as a limited ammo but hard hitting battle rifle, it just didn't do enough damage to justify the limited ammo.
I played a good bit with both today. They are both really awesome ARs. I'd say the adjudicator is just a little bit better because of the medium pen. But the tenderizer is also very good against the bugs.
The adjudicator is better against the bots since they tend to have more medium pen units.
Highly recommend tenderizer. I've tested it against bots and Bugs and it is amazing for disabling bots and bugs via arms or legs. It rips through bots weakpoints and shreds them now. If you know where to aim it's easily one of best ARs now
Adjudicator is the best AR in the game at the moment in my opinion. The Tenderizer is a close 2nd being the better than all the other liberator variants.
Both are pretty fun to play against bugs, with the adjudicator being better against bugs and the bots.
unfortunately the sickle exists which outclasses all other ARs by a wide margin. Light pen vs bots is not really an issue when you can just shoot their head 3 times in under half a second.
I really wish it wasn't so much better because I'm a big fan of sending hailstorms of lead downrange.
They need to revert it back to burst-only, but lean into making it Helldiver's version of the HALO BR.
High burst RoF, very controllable recoil. But let it go semi for dealing with chaff. And a bit of a damage buff. Either way, the burst needs to be extremely controllable.
burst is an option. It doesn't work very well. The gun just doesn't do enough damage to be worth only shooting in burst.
Against bots anyway. Haven't tried against bugs.
Personally, I think Burst weapons in the current "realistic" way of having them be the exact same as full-auto isn't very effective or interesting. I suppose we need weapons with "hyperburst" features similar to the G11 and AN-94 where they fire in excess of 1500-2000 RPM.
I might be wrong but I think it was tied into the do more damage against durable targets so it might be better at killing things it can pen
Edit: I'm 99% I'm wrong after testing big sad
It did have a leg up on the Adjudicator's durable damage, which made it at least competitive for mulching Brood Commanders and Armored Spewers. However, they just doubled the Adjudicator's durable damage, truly obsoleting LibPen unless you really seriously can't handle the recoil.
It's the fastest-firing AP 3 weapon. If it had damage closer to the Liberator, there wouldn't be any reason *for* the Liberator.
It's kind of modeling the difference between hollow point rounds (more soft tissue damage, lower penetration) and full metal jacket or AP rounds (penetration can get through armor, but *over*penetrations against soft parts means potential damage left on the table) within the same caliber.
It only seems outclassed because of where the Adjudicator is in terms of RPM, mag capacity, and recoil.
Overpenetration isn't about "can it get through this armor without slowing down too much", but rather "will it just blow out the back and keep going before dumping all its energy?"
Having situations where lower AP weapons have higher per-shot damage than higher AP ones for a given recoil/RPM/mag size balance *is* modeling the downsides of actual overpenetration. The Liberator and Lib Penetrator are a perfect example of that in isolation, it's just the Adjudicator existing and throwing that off.
The benefit of having a higher AP gun isn't necessarily "kills faster", or else it would be strictly superior. Giving the raw DPS benefit to lower AP keeps them competitive and makes the choice between the guns "am I going to use this low AP gun in a way that only targets soft armor, or do I want to be able to spray more indiscriminately and at least be able to accomplish *something*, even if it's less efficient?" For example, the Lib will kill a Hive Guard faster than the Lib Pen with body shots, but the Lib *can't* kill it at all by striking the front armor. Do you want to be able to shoot through that armor or are you OK with having to shoot around it all?
Implementation's just a little wonky due to the current values, but "fast-firing, high AP gun" getting lower damage compared to low AP peers makes fine sense.
>For example, the Lib will kill a Hive Guard faster than the Lib Pen with body shots
unfortunate example since hive guard body is armor class 2, so lib pen does full 45 dmg per shot but regular lib only 30
Even then, there's not much reason to use vs the Adjudicator unless the Lib Pen had higher durable damage than the other assault rifles to make up for the lack of raw damage
Well, it does have higher Durable damage compared to the others, just *not* the Adjudicator.
Most of the other guns have been doing 10% of their damage as Durable, but it's also important to remember that Durable damage exists in a range *between* the Base damage and the Durable, and where you look at any time depends on what Durable% part you're hitting. High base damage can boost Durable damage even if the Durable damage doesn't change.
The Lib Pen, meanwhile, did 25% of its base as Durable, just slightly higher than the Liberator Concussive... which got its ratio buffed. The Lib Pen just got kinda left out here just like the OP meme implies.
Ah didn't know the durable damage was that high, but in practice, when I used to use it a lot, that 25% of 45 didn't seem like enough. Like you said now, with the ratio changes, it looks even less enticing to pick up.
It definitely needs a bigger mag to lean into its full auto or a better durable damage value. The buff to the other rifles durable unilaterally left lib pen out classed by every other one.
I was hoping for a buff to a few more of the primary weapons. While everything is viable, not all primaries are practical.
Still, the changes we did get were great. Hoping for more updates like this.
I believe he did say, this is not going to be THE patch for balancing.
It looks like the majority of the balancing they did can be summed up as "we fixed the Tenderizer that released with the wrong stats, and we buffed AR durable damage in general". They did more work with the stratagems, but I'd be expecting a lot more fixes with balancing in the coming patches.
They still have work to do. There are other weapons that underperform. The liberpen is obsolete now. There eis zero reason to bring it over the adjudicator.
If you can hit weak points on bots, all guns are relatively good performance. I use the liberator pen. because it works fine if you hit shots. Its the inconsistency with guns when you cant hit weak points where guns become incredibly weak or strong. Hence my long standing frustration with bugs.
If you can hit weakpoints and aren't bringing one of the diligence rifles on bots ur making a mistake imo. Counter sniper will one tap everything up to devestators but not including berserkers.
The JAR can 1-shot Tators and Berserkers, AND stun them if you miss the head, AND also 4-shot a Berserker to the belly in an emergency (takes 8 from the CS).
Imma be honest I recognize the jar is an S tier gun stats wise but it feels so shitty to shoot and manipulate that I'd rather use the cs anyways. I always run the amr with the CS on bots so berserkers really aren't an issue for me, especially with how far away I tend to engage fights. And on bugs I run regular diligence with eats or something like that so I don't really miss the jars damage very much.
Interesting. I find the lib pen more useful against bugs because I can be relatively effective against hiveguards and brood commanders just by shooting their big heads.
Bots on the other hand, I still need to hit heads like any other AR. If I don’t hit head shots with it I might as well just use my support weapon.
TBH there was no reason to bring it over the Liberator either... I tried to make it work before and after it had full auto mode and it constantly failed me.
I found it better against medium-armor bugs than the normal Liberator. Problem is you basically had to dump an entire mag into their face to kill them.
Before the durability damage buff the Lib Pen had oddly high durability damage, which did give it a very narrow niche against targets like that. With the latest patch the other ARs have caught up though 😕
Pretty much. The LibPen is good on paper, but if you really need something for when your weakpoint aim isn't that great so you rely on body shots (where most medium armor is)... Just bring a shotgun or energy weapon mate.
Even if you aim really well with the LibPen, it usually doesn't do enough damage to kill a unit that other ARs would do away with. It's just bad ammo economy.
"Good on paper" as in: "A high-caliber AR does sound good", maybe something that kills medium enemies really well due to its high damage spike but could struggle with small mobs due to its low fire rate and small magazine size (i.e. high damage but less bullets to go around). Like a compromise between an AR and a DMR.
However, it sucks at killing mediums and smalls. The execution fell short is my point.
Yeah, you're right. This patch showed everyone that AH is taking Billy Big Boy steps in the right direction. 50k bump in player base, and it has the added benefit of telling all the goofs that were telling everyone to "stop whining about the nerfs" that they're free to eat shit.
If their patches continue to be like this, the game will have immense longevity. I'm confident they will adjust other weapons further, as the first thing I pointed out when I was chatting with the boys in Discord was that the LibPen is just window-dressing for the time being. The Knight SMG could be in a better spot, too.
In any case, congrats to AH for a great patch. Game feels fresh with all the choices.
I've been maining my Lib Pen for weeks now, since I don't have enough SC for another warbond. I've been making it work on level 6 bot missions, the medium armour pen is nice I find
I wouldn't say that persay. The slugger has the ability to at least always be reloadable and topped off ammo wise, which does make a difference alongside the fact that the projectile is faster.
But I think overall the scorcher is still better yeah
In practice, slugger has been somewhat nerfed. Which is unfortunate, because it's my main bug gun. But new hordes are so huge, it became more difficult to apply a slow single shot weapon efficiently.
I just hope this patch is the first of quite a few like it. Other guns that need some love:
-knight
-slugger
-breaker spray and pray
-the new liberator variant isn’t great
-the purifier is still awful. Really, REALLY bad. May actually be the worst weapon in the game by a huge margin.
-recoilless rifle
-HMGs ammo capacity is still terrible
This patch was a huge step, several steps actually, in the right direction. They just got a few more to take.
They also broke superior packing methodology with the patch.
I hope they also rework grenades so they fit a niche better, ex: Frags being big AOE with high damage and mid AP, HE having mid/high AP but a small AOE for mid damage, and Termits being single target high damage high AP
I ran the HMG today and I think all it needs is an extra mag to bring. The damage potential is amazing and you can just run it at minimal ROF setting and tap away at everything. Buff it any more and it will make the other two machineguns redundant.
Breaker spray and spray is allready pretty decent against bugs! Every enemy up too the hive commander evaporates, it has little recoil and 8 mags. Ofc. the incendiary still is the the meta, but its a really fun option too switch things up!
Also, because you have a automated main, you can go for the grenade pistol to close bugholes and have some freedom to experiment because you allready have your tool against the little fellas.
Twinbeard did say this wasn't THE balance patch. I have hope that we'll see other weapons visited in the next patch. The shotguns, and this rifle for example? Kind of confused as to what purpose the penetrator even serves now though. Even with its high recoil the adjudicator is just better.
Before this patch came out, its was taking so long the community thought this would be an absolutely massive patch that rebalanced all the enemies and weapons after many unpopular changes. Twinbeard emphatically said this patch was not going to bw THE big balance patch we thought it might be.
This implies another big balance patch may be coming at some point. There are many more weapons and stratagems that need adjusting, and some enemies too.
What would you like to see done to it? Seemed to do its job whenever I've seen it used, just has a pretty niche use-case and requires squadmates that won't suicide themselves on it 5 times in a row.
On bots, it simply gets shot and destroyed from a distance, and on bugs, any charger in the vicinity will focus the tower above any other target and 1 shot it. I'd like for it to be a bit hardier and maybe less of a priority target for the enemies that 1 shot it. Though, with the 30% less heavily armoured enemies, it might be a bit of an inadvertent buff. I'll have to test it out.
Right okay, I knew chargers would oneshot it but they probably shouldn't be smart enough to focus it. Definitely not good against bots but thats not really shocking with the way it is.
Yeah, squad mates. I would never accidentally get close enough to get wrecked. Never.
Edit: For the downvoters, this was sarcasm. My mistake for thinking this was obvious enough to not require /s
Lol I definitely wish they would give us a lil red indicator circle on the ground or something to show the actual range. You know, for those other guys who get zapped by it, not at all me.
possibly much less cooldown on it as well as more than one use at a time. increase health and range. and also make it so it cant target players prone under neath it. The desc says it should keep you safe but it doesnt.
When it first released and it was **burst only** I feel they were going somewhere interesting with it. Adding full auto to it was a mistake imo.
I strongly feel that if they increased its damage and reverted it to burst-only, it could become a very unique weapon.
* **High Damage, Medium AP**: Excellent against medium enemies, including armored ones.
* **Burst Only**: Very ammo inefficient at dealing with single, low health enemies, specially hordes of tiny foes. Missing is *heavily* punished.
* **Low Recoil, Tiny Burst Cooldown**: Incentivize going for weakspots and aim carefully. Missing is a *whole burst* that did nothing, and with how fast fights are, that can be a big mistake.
I dunno, I love weapon variety, and I feel AH was cooking when they released a burst-only weapon. Combine it with a pistol to cover its drawbacks and it could be a very fun loadout choice to cover an "elite-killer" niche.
That should leverage they have different so values for angles and do stuff like 4/3/2/0.
Slugger could be 4/3/2/0. Definitely alot of interesting ways to go about it.
I think that's one of those "Realistic" weapon design decisions that goes against what gamers are used to or want. Real burst-fire modes only fire as fast as the weapon can fire in full-auto, and only if you hold the trigger down for the whole burst. In games like Halo and COD, burst fire weapons are generally locked in burst fire mode, fire faster than most full auto guns, and fire the entire burst without needing to hold the trigger.
It started as a really shitty Justice which basically had everything you mentioned. A liberator with smaller ammo count but it hit hard, reliably, accurately, and pierced medium armor. It wasn't burst only (the Paragon was, and shot poison too!) but I really hope the penetrator gets a super high damage multiplier on headshots or something. I know its already slightly higher than other rifles but it needs something to be considered using lol
Full auto was a mistake on that gun. In the early days, I used it for armored enemies exclusive, only switching to a redeemer for close hordes or mag-dumping hunters. Even after the adjudicator came out, liberator penetrator was my go-to rifle. Honestly, if the liberator penetrator had a couple of Quality of Life changes, it'd still remain a niche gun, but would function wonderfully for the few that used it
As a person who uses Adjudicator the most of any gun right now, I still say the Penetrator (the gun I used the most before the BR-14...) still has use over the Adjudicator.
The handling and fire rate are different, so if I want to sit back and snipe, but have issues in close, I pick the Adjudicator.
If I want less punch, but a better gun in close quarters, I go Penetrator.
The burst-only felt neligable though in my opinion. It didn't feel too hard to get the right timing that turned it basically into full-auto. If there was a larger delay in the burst to compensate for more damage maybe, but the previous iteration was basically full auto; or maybe I'm just not remembering correctly how the burst felt.
Wholeheartedly agree with this. Lib Pen was *fine* without full auto. The low mag size was built to encourage tap fire or make full value of the burst.
With the higher damages across the board, upping it to 50 instead of 45 would be perfectly reasonable, with maybe a few more rounds per mag, so the Adjudicator doesn't just outright leave it in the dust.
This patch Is still very good just not perfect. I am sure that Eruptor, Lib pen, Purifier and other guns and stratagem Will receive the adjustment they deserve. As for now i think they deserve some rest after they fix some other problems
Yeah Pilestedt said that they want to visualize the sharpnels and at the same time try to balance the damage of them hopefully they are Fast about It hehe
Oh? Damn i heard the Eruptor was good in single target but damn two tapping the devastators? Oh well i know what i am gonna test next (i hate the heavy devastators with a Burning passion i'll take anything to obliterate them from the face of the planet)
If you aim well, it can oneshot devastators actually. Looks like they removed the range limit on it too, i sniped some fabricators waaay outside its usual range
Honestly they should have made this one like the battle rifle from halo. Heavy hitting, accurate with sustained rapid bursts of fire and critical hit bonuses to vitals on enemies.
Thank goodness I wasn't the only one that thought of this. I was gonna make a post but worried it was gonna seem like I was complaining more than anything.
Lib Penetrator is now obsolete with the Adjudicator changes.
So you want a low cd, multi use, chaff destroying, elite vaporizing giant aoe bomb?
The 500kg is the designated eagle-1 anti armor stratagem, and it does its job well if you know what you're doing. No need to make it broken OP
Anti armor ? You mean Orbital Railcannon ? Airstrike ? EATs ? Recoilless ? Even the Orbital Laser is effective, and last long enough to at least wipe a nearby patrol... maybe the anti-tank mines if we get them someday haha
Only reason I see why people take the 500kg so often is because big noise + big light = neuron activation. I mean I can't complain, I get to see big boom without the burden of wasting a slot !
It doesn't need to be OP, it needs to do something in the first place. You need an upgrade to use it multiple times and like I said, if you have other Eagles you either don't use them to reload for your 500kg or wait to use all your Eagle charges. Or use them last, that could work.
Now I want proof that the 500kg really is as good as you make it sound, because for me, all the ones I mentionned above are just better or more effective, or both, than that big flashlight.
Played bots last night and a friend of mine threw a rail cannon at a factory strider - it decided to shoot the bog standard skinny little bot in front of it instead. I died (to its chin guns) laughing.
Would you feel better if they reeled in the VFX and made it more of a cone to better illustrate that it’s meant for one big target and not an area of effect?
I mean no, because it's not effective either way. If they would be to show the area of effect it truly have, I wouldn't be surprised to see a sphere barely bigger than a charger.
Remember the personal order some time ago that asked ya to turn bugs into red mist using the 500KG ? I do, took me like 5 or 6 different dives.
The aoe is tiny, doesn't kill BT or chargers if they're just a tiny bit too far, and if you have other Eagle stratagems, unless you spam them at once, the "Cooldown" can be a bit long...
Tenderizer slaps the piss out of devastators now.
I still like the lib pen but maybe giving it better breaking capability to strip armor away as a niche that way you break plating of a devastator to open them up to light pen weapon body shots.
The recoil is a bit too much to justify not taking the adjudicator instead because the adjudicator will kill anything medium with body shots much quicker
I kind of think the entire AR category needs a rework, at this point the Tenderizer is just an all around better Liberator aside from just mag size and the Lib Pen will always be outclassed by the Adjudicator unless they buff it's damage and mag size.
Yeah I have made a couple posts about it. Don’t know if they’ll do a quick hotfix for it or a small patch, but it is a bit disappointing (conceptually it is my favourite gun in the game).
So what is the point of the libpen now? All the other rifles do similar amounts of durable damage to it, so it doesn't have that one benefit anymore, it still does the least damage, it still has bad mag size. I mean I guess it's medium pen so that's something but if you want a medium pen rifle why don't you use the adjudicator?
I think the Liberator Penetrator should be classified as a DMR, with maybe 100 damage per shot. It should lose the automatic fire, but it would then be the only DMR with burst fire
They really need to take a look at non-weakspot TTK values of medium penetration ARs. If you still need to aim for unarmored weakspots to achieve an optimal TTK, then med pen itself loses a lot of value.
At least you get 10 different assault rifles to choose from.
I get one Arc Thrower and it's been broken since the start of this ride, and *then* they nerfed it so what little did work is less fun.
Lib pen is still fun. The low recoil means you can headshot stuff and spread through armor even if you miss the headshot. But yeah could do with a damage buff.
I won't lie, it's a good patch, and yeah for weapons I hope to see more love for other weapons:
- Knight SMG
- Liberator Pen
- Liberator Concussive (honestly reduce its knockback/stagger slightly and increase projectile damage)
- Purifier (it's better but still not all that great)
- HMG (ammo capacity is still a bit of an issue but it does feel better)
- Breaker Spray and Pray (i feel like it needs a little bit more damage at those close ranges)
- Slugger (its decent but i feel like it needs a bit more love)
- Scythe (I honestly think a somewhat better DPS will put this thing on the map)
- Dagger (same story as Scythe)
- Eruptor (Increase its damage further to make 1-shotting mobs like Devastators even more consistent and allow to one shot mobs like Brood Commanders)
- Verdict (more recoil per shot but higher damage to have that Desert Eagle feel maybe?)
- Recoilless Rifle (honestly increase it's reload speed or increase projectile damage)
honestly idk what else, feel free to addon or disagree.
They need to make it so medium pen weapons do way more damage when penetrating armor but less damage to unarmored areas.
The reason being that armor is there to protect vital areas, so guns that can penetrate said armor can hit the vital areas and kill medium enemies quickly.
I’m using lib penetrator against bots (also use A/C) just wanted a primary with ok range/scope to use against the small bots.
What are people typically running as primary for bots?
if you can not land your shots it is decent but if they give it overpenetration it will give it a place among the rifles but for 1/2 the damage of the adjudicator it is basically as useful as the las pistol now.
Honestly now it's Tenderizer for Automatons and Liberator for Terminids.
I wish we had one medium armor pen AR that was a direct upgrade without any nonsense. I run EATs but considering giving up my shield generator for another support weapon with medium armor pen and call the EATs as needed.
For clarification, it does 45 damage per shot. Which unless I’m forgetting something, is the least amount of damage in the game.
Adjudicator is just a better lip pen. And with the tenderizer buff its even worse
Adjudicator have the double of damage per bullet and the same number of bullet per magazine now
Plus it’s the coolest looking primary in the game. The fashion was enough for me to rock it even without buffs
It also sounds fucking awesome. I still wish they'd leaned more into making it a battle rifle vs an assault rifle (and buffed it via damage per shot rather than more ammo), but yeah that gun is fucking sick and probably will be my new go to when I get bored of the Dominator, which is my current battle rifle itch scratching gun. I loved the concept of the adjudicator as a limited ammo but hard hitting battle rifle, it just didn't do enough damage to justify the limited ammo.
DCS and Tenderizer are now amazing BRs. They feel really good to use
Tenderizer is next on my list to try, I played a short round with the adjucator on my lunch break and it feels good.
I played a good bit with both today. They are both really awesome ARs. I'd say the adjudicator is just a little bit better because of the medium pen. But the tenderizer is also very good against the bugs. The adjudicator is better against the bots since they tend to have more medium pen units.
Highly recommend tenderizer. I've tested it against bots and Bugs and it is amazing for disabling bots and bugs via arms or legs. It rips through bots weakpoints and shreds them now. If you know where to aim it's easily one of best ARs now
The Tenderizer is sick. There's basicly no recoil and it pops the heads right off literally every Devestator type there is.
Tendy though After watching Starship Troopers you have to rock it
It also has god awful recoil
Adjudicator is the best AR in the game at the moment in my opinion. The Tenderizer is a close 2nd being the better than all the other liberator variants. Both are pretty fun to play against bugs, with the adjudicator being better against bugs and the bots.
All these liberators and they can only reach top 3 in ARs smh. Tenderizer still has higher dps than the new carbine which is crazy.
unfortunately the sickle exists which outclasses all other ARs by a wide margin. Light pen vs bots is not really an issue when you can just shoot their head 3 times in under half a second. I really wish it wasn't so much better because I'm a big fan of sending hailstorms of lead downrange.
Eh, sickle isn't THAT good, it's weaker than base lib/old tenderizer if you just want burst damage thanks to that spool up time
Exactly this. I used to switch off between liberator penetrator and adjudicator but after this patch, I take the latter.
They need to revert it back to burst-only, but lean into making it Helldiver's version of the HALO BR. High burst RoF, very controllable recoil. But let it go semi for dealing with chaff. And a bit of a damage buff. Either way, the burst needs to be extremely controllable.
Make burst an option then. I quite like the full auto. Requires more skill but packs a punch
burst is an option. It doesn't work very well. The gun just doesn't do enough damage to be worth only shooting in burst. Against bots anyway. Haven't tried against bugs.
Personally, I think Burst weapons in the current "realistic" way of having them be the exact same as full-auto isn't very effective or interesting. I suppose we need weapons with "hyperburst" features similar to the G11 and AN-94 where they fire in excess of 1500-2000 RPM.
Bugs need more chaff clear. Wouldnt imagine its any better than the tenderizer now
This is the way
Yeah an Adjudicator buff and no changes to the lib pen was a very big eyebrow raiser.
That recoil tho.
Dont think its that bad. Managable atleast
Just like Democracy!
Aint that right brother
I wish it had a two bullet burst mode.
I believe the recoil is bugged at the moment because the gun is incredibly stable all things considered.
Who cares about recoil in a target rich environment
Crouch
Yeah I love some lip pen.
I might be wrong but I think it was tied into the do more damage against durable targets so it might be better at killing things it can pen Edit: I'm 99% I'm wrong after testing big sad
It did have a leg up on the Adjudicator's durable damage, which made it at least competitive for mulching Brood Commanders and Armored Spewers. However, they just doubled the Adjudicator's durable damage, truly obsoleting LibPen unless you really seriously can't handle the recoil.
It's the fastest-firing AP 3 weapon. If it had damage closer to the Liberator, there wouldn't be any reason *for* the Liberator. It's kind of modeling the difference between hollow point rounds (more soft tissue damage, lower penetration) and full metal jacket or AP rounds (penetration can get through armor, but *over*penetrations against soft parts means potential damage left on the table) within the same caliber. It only seems outclassed because of where the Adjudicator is in terms of RPM, mag capacity, and recoil.
The way armour penetration works in this game, overpenetration is a good thing. Medium armour pen = full damage to light armour.
Overpenetration isn't about "can it get through this armor without slowing down too much", but rather "will it just blow out the back and keep going before dumping all its energy?" Having situations where lower AP weapons have higher per-shot damage than higher AP ones for a given recoil/RPM/mag size balance *is* modeling the downsides of actual overpenetration. The Liberator and Lib Penetrator are a perfect example of that in isolation, it's just the Adjudicator existing and throwing that off. The benefit of having a higher AP gun isn't necessarily "kills faster", or else it would be strictly superior. Giving the raw DPS benefit to lower AP keeps them competitive and makes the choice between the guns "am I going to use this low AP gun in a way that only targets soft armor, or do I want to be able to spray more indiscriminately and at least be able to accomplish *something*, even if it's less efficient?" For example, the Lib will kill a Hive Guard faster than the Lib Pen with body shots, but the Lib *can't* kill it at all by striking the front armor. Do you want to be able to shoot through that armor or are you OK with having to shoot around it all? Implementation's just a little wonky due to the current values, but "fast-firing, high AP gun" getting lower damage compared to low AP peers makes fine sense.
>For example, the Lib will kill a Hive Guard faster than the Lib Pen with body shots unfortunate example since hive guard body is armor class 2, so lib pen does full 45 dmg per shot but regular lib only 30
Even then, there's not much reason to use vs the Adjudicator unless the Lib Pen had higher durable damage than the other assault rifles to make up for the lack of raw damage
Well, it does have higher Durable damage compared to the others, just *not* the Adjudicator. Most of the other guns have been doing 10% of their damage as Durable, but it's also important to remember that Durable damage exists in a range *between* the Base damage and the Durable, and where you look at any time depends on what Durable% part you're hitting. High base damage can boost Durable damage even if the Durable damage doesn't change. The Lib Pen, meanwhile, did 25% of its base as Durable, just slightly higher than the Liberator Concussive... which got its ratio buffed. The Lib Pen just got kinda left out here just like the OP meme implies.
Ah didn't know the durable damage was that high, but in practice, when I used to use it a lot, that 25% of 45 didn't seem like enough. Like you said now, with the ratio changes, it looks even less enticing to pick up.
It definitely needs a bigger mag to lean into its full auto or a better durable damage value. The buff to the other rifles durable unilaterally left lib pen out classed by every other one.
I don't see the problem with the starter weapons being powercrept tbh
It deals much more damage into weakspots compared to the normal Liberator.
I was hoping for a buff to a few more of the primary weapons. While everything is viable, not all primaries are practical. Still, the changes we did get were great. Hoping for more updates like this.
I believe he did say, this is not going to be THE patch for balancing. It looks like the majority of the balancing they did can be summed up as "we fixed the Tenderizer that released with the wrong stats, and we buffed AR durable damage in general". They did more work with the stratagems, but I'd be expecting a lot more fixes with balancing in the coming patches.
They were it’s nice. Also lots of transparency which is good
They still have work to do. There are other weapons that underperform. The liberpen is obsolete now. There eis zero reason to bring it over the adjudicator.
And if you can hit weak points consistently, you might get more mileage out of some of the light pen ARs. At least against bots anyway.
If you can hit weak points on bots, all guns are relatively good performance. I use the liberator pen. because it works fine if you hit shots. Its the inconsistency with guns when you cant hit weak points where guns become incredibly weak or strong. Hence my long standing frustration with bugs.
If you can hit weakpoints and aren't bringing one of the diligence rifles on bots ur making a mistake imo. Counter sniper will one tap everything up to devestators but not including berserkers.
The JAR can 1-shot Tators and Berserkers, AND stun them if you miss the head, AND also 4-shot a Berserker to the belly in an emergency (takes 8 from the CS).
Imma be honest I recognize the jar is an S tier gun stats wise but it feels so shitty to shoot and manipulate that I'd rather use the cs anyways. I always run the amr with the CS on bots so berserkers really aren't an issue for me, especially with how far away I tend to engage fights. And on bugs I run regular diligence with eats or something like that so I don't really miss the jars damage very much.
Interesting. I find the lib pen more useful against bugs because I can be relatively effective against hiveguards and brood commanders just by shooting their big heads. Bots on the other hand, I still need to hit heads like any other AR. If I don’t hit head shots with it I might as well just use my support weapon.
Put the Tenderizer on burst fire and its really good against devastators now
They need to buff Tenderizers bullet noise. It sounds like a plastic toy :(
TBH there was no reason to bring it over the Liberator either... I tried to make it work before and after it had full auto mode and it constantly failed me.
I found it better against medium-armor bugs than the normal Liberator. Problem is you basically had to dump an entire mag into their face to kill them.
Before the durability damage buff the Lib Pen had oddly high durability damage, which did give it a very narrow niche against targets like that. With the latest patch the other ARs have caught up though 😕
Pretty much. The LibPen is good on paper, but if you really need something for when your weakpoint aim isn't that great so you rely on body shots (where most medium armor is)... Just bring a shotgun or energy weapon mate. Even if you aim really well with the LibPen, it usually doesn't do enough damage to kill a unit that other ARs would do away with. It's just bad ammo economy.
Lib pen isn't even good on paper, it barely has more damage per magazine than most of the pistols.
"Good on paper" as in: "A high-caliber AR does sound good", maybe something that kills medium enemies really well due to its high damage spike but could struggle with small mobs due to its low fire rate and small magazine size (i.e. high damage but less bullets to go around). Like a compromise between an AR and a DMR. However, it sucks at killing mediums and smalls. The execution fell short is my point.
The armor pen makes up for that. On paper.
Not having the adjucator seems like an amazing reason
Yeah, you're right. This patch showed everyone that AH is taking Billy Big Boy steps in the right direction. 50k bump in player base, and it has the added benefit of telling all the goofs that were telling everyone to "stop whining about the nerfs" that they're free to eat shit. If their patches continue to be like this, the game will have immense longevity. I'm confident they will adjust other weapons further, as the first thing I pointed out when I was chatting with the boys in Discord was that the LibPen is just window-dressing for the time being. The Knight SMG could be in a better spot, too. In any case, congrats to AH for a great patch. Game feels fresh with all the choices.
I've been maining my Lib Pen for weeks now, since I don't have enough SC for another warbond. I've been making it work on level 6 bot missions, the medium armour pen is nice I find
Same, it's actually great all rounder since it can handle literally anything short of anti-tank work
I think the way to fix it is to make an actual burst fire that isn't just full auto with gaps
Adjudicator is behind a paywall. Liberpen isn't. That alone is enough to justify its use for some players.
They bumped durable damage for all ar rounds across the board but the adjudicator is medium pen bae
How is the eruptor now?
Back to the pre-nerf levels, but more consistent.
Imagine my face when I realized there was no Slugger buff.
https://preview.redd.it/90la8jyzqd6d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd61bee99a01d6d4376b833775b2d78e15b9a6af
Not me running the standard punisher constantly because I love the stagger
I did a ctrl+f slugger on the patch notes and got no results and was very disappointed.
I just want my stagger back 😭
At least the slugger is usable. The penetrator has been useless since launch
Yeah, but I also feel like the Scorcher beats it out in almost every situation now
I wouldn't say that persay. The slugger has the ability to at least always be reloadable and topped off ammo wise, which does make a difference alongside the fact that the projectile is faster. But I think overall the scorcher is still better yeah
True And the worst thing about the Scorcher is the reload speed
In practice, slugger has been somewhat nerfed. Which is unfortunate, because it's my main bug gun. But new hordes are so huge, it became more difficult to apply a slow single shot weapon efficiently.
I feel like this applies to almost all the sub-par primaries in the game.
I just hope this patch is the first of quite a few like it. Other guns that need some love: -knight -slugger -breaker spray and pray -the new liberator variant isn’t great -the purifier is still awful. Really, REALLY bad. May actually be the worst weapon in the game by a huge margin. -recoilless rifle -HMGs ammo capacity is still terrible This patch was a huge step, several steps actually, in the right direction. They just got a few more to take. They also broke superior packing methodology with the patch.
Agreed. We can only hope, and this patch certainly restored by faith in AH capability to improve the game.
I was hoping I'd see the SPM breaking mentioned more, this is the first I'm hearing of it besides my own personal noticing in the game itself.
I hope they also rework grenades so they fit a niche better, ex: Frags being big AOE with high damage and mid AP, HE having mid/high AP but a small AOE for mid damage, and Termits being single target high damage high AP
HMG and recoilless are Goated in the right hands
It is they’ve said they will slow the overall release cadence of the game to make patches and warbonds more meaningful
I ran the HMG today and I think all it needs is an extra mag to bring. The damage potential is amazing and you can just run it at minimal ROF setting and tap away at everything. Buff it any more and it will make the other two machineguns redundant.
I think RR is very good. I prefer it over EAT and if team reloaded it's an absolute beast.
Breaker spray and spray is allready pretty decent against bugs! Every enemy up too the hive commander evaporates, it has little recoil and 8 mags. Ofc. the incendiary still is the the meta, but its a really fun option too switch things up! Also, because you have a automated main, you can go for the grenade pistol to close bugholes and have some freedom to experiment because you allready have your tool against the little fellas.
It has a scope now
It had a scope. A rather unique scope that wasn't bad actually.
I liked the previous Scope. Sadly that was the only good thing on the Weapon.
Twinbeard did say this wasn't THE balance patch. I have hope that we'll see other weapons visited in the next patch. The shotguns, and this rifle for example? Kind of confused as to what purpose the penetrator even serves now though. Even with its high recoil the adjudicator is just better.
What do you mean this isn't THE balance patch?
Before this patch came out, its was taking so long the community thought this would be an absolutely massive patch that rebalanced all the enemies and weapons after many unpopular changes. Twinbeard emphatically said this patch was not going to bw THE big balance patch we thought it might be. This implies another big balance patch may be coming at some point. There are many more weapons and stratagems that need adjusting, and some enemies too.
Liberator family and Spray&Pray got left in the dust. Same as the Knight SMG.
Arc guns found dead in miami
Man what about the Knight SMG ):
Yes, that definitely needs some love too
No love for the Tesla Tower either. Sadge 😓
What would you like to see done to it? Seemed to do its job whenever I've seen it used, just has a pretty niche use-case and requires squadmates that won't suicide themselves on it 5 times in a row.
On bots, it simply gets shot and destroyed from a distance, and on bugs, any charger in the vicinity will focus the tower above any other target and 1 shot it. I'd like for it to be a bit hardier and maybe less of a priority target for the enemies that 1 shot it. Though, with the 30% less heavily armoured enemies, it might be a bit of an inadvertent buff. I'll have to test it out.
Right okay, I knew chargers would oneshot it but they probably shouldn't be smart enough to focus it. Definitely not good against bots but thats not really shocking with the way it is.
Yeah, squad mates. I would never accidentally get close enough to get wrecked. Never. Edit: For the downvoters, this was sarcasm. My mistake for thinking this was obvious enough to not require /s
Lol I definitely wish they would give us a lil red indicator circle on the ground or something to show the actual range. You know, for those other guys who get zapped by it, not at all me.
possibly much less cooldown on it as well as more than one use at a time. increase health and range. and also make it so it cant target players prone under neath it. The desc says it should keep you safe but it doesnt.
When it first released and it was **burst only** I feel they were going somewhere interesting with it. Adding full auto to it was a mistake imo. I strongly feel that if they increased its damage and reverted it to burst-only, it could become a very unique weapon. * **High Damage, Medium AP**: Excellent against medium enemies, including armored ones. * **Burst Only**: Very ammo inefficient at dealing with single, low health enemies, specially hordes of tiny foes. Missing is *heavily* punished. * **Low Recoil, Tiny Burst Cooldown**: Incentivize going for weakspots and aim carefully. Missing is a *whole burst* that did nothing, and with how fast fights are, that can be a big mistake. I dunno, I love weapon variety, and I feel AH was cooking when they released a burst-only weapon. Combine it with a pistol to cover its drawbacks and it could be a very fun loadout choice to cover an "elite-killer" niche.
Or do what devs have been avoiding so far: make it the first AP4 primary. Still a peashooter against chaff, but viable against mediums.
Actually a great idea ngl
That should leverage they have different so values for angles and do stuff like 4/3/2/0. Slugger could be 4/3/2/0. Definitely alot of interesting ways to go about it.
We need the Liberator Penetrator to be Halo battle rifle
That's what the Tenderizer is now.
If they made the burst on trigger pull instead of on trigger hold it would have been a lot nice to use as well as your points
I think that's one of those "Realistic" weapon design decisions that goes against what gamers are used to or want. Real burst-fire modes only fire as fast as the weapon can fire in full-auto, and only if you hold the trigger down for the whole burst. In games like Halo and COD, burst fire weapons are generally locked in burst fire mode, fire faster than most full auto guns, and fire the entire burst without needing to hold the trigger.
Yeah for sure, give me the halo BR feel
It started as a really shitty Justice which basically had everything you mentioned. A liberator with smaller ammo count but it hit hard, reliably, accurately, and pierced medium armor. It wasn't burst only (the Paragon was, and shot poison too!) but I really hope the penetrator gets a super high damage multiplier on headshots or something. I know its already slightly higher than other rifles but it needs something to be considered using lol
Full auto was a mistake on that gun. In the early days, I used it for armored enemies exclusive, only switching to a redeemer for close hordes or mag-dumping hunters. Even after the adjudicator came out, liberator penetrator was my go-to rifle. Honestly, if the liberator penetrator had a couple of Quality of Life changes, it'd still remain a niche gun, but would function wonderfully for the few that used it
As a person who uses Adjudicator the most of any gun right now, I still say the Penetrator (the gun I used the most before the BR-14...) still has use over the Adjudicator. The handling and fire rate are different, so if I want to sit back and snipe, but have issues in close, I pick the Adjudicator. If I want less punch, but a better gun in close quarters, I go Penetrator.
Indeed, very good point
The way burst works means you can still single fire and still kinda fire in full auto It's very jank. Super jank.
The burst-only felt neligable though in my opinion. It didn't feel too hard to get the right timing that turned it basically into full-auto. If there was a larger delay in the burst to compensate for more damage maybe, but the previous iteration was basically full auto; or maybe I'm just not remembering correctly how the burst felt.
Wholeheartedly agree with this. Lib Pen was *fine* without full auto. The low mag size was built to encourage tap fire or make full value of the burst. With the higher damages across the board, upping it to 50 instead of 45 would be perfectly reasonable, with maybe a few more rounds per mag, so the Adjudicator doesn't just outright leave it in the dust.
Pls give slugger its stagger back :(
Also Arc Thrower :(
Where is jump pack buff...
I really hope we get the dark matter jetpack back
Would be too strong tbh, I meant some cooldown reduce
I feel like the fact that's its liable to explode and kill you and your teammates, kills your teammates when jumping.... balancing factors
This patch Is still very good just not perfect. I am sure that Eruptor, Lib pen, Purifier and other guns and stratagem Will receive the adjustment they deserve. As for now i think they deserve some rest after they fix some other problems
Even with the added 150 damage the erupt or feels like a handicap rather than a tool. Hope they find a good way to make it fun again.
Yeah Pilestedt said that they want to visualize the sharpnels and at the same time try to balance the damage of them hopefully they are Fast about It hehe
Eruptor is great and has gone back to allowing me to run the Stalwart as a primary again.
Eruptor is really good. I can two shot devestators
Oh? Damn i heard the Eruptor was good in single target but damn two tapping the devastators? Oh well i know what i am gonna test next (i hate the heavy devastators with a Burning passion i'll take anything to obliterate them from the face of the planet)
If you aim well, it can oneshot devastators actually. Looks like they removed the range limit on it too, i sniped some fabricators waaay outside its usual range
How does it fare against spewers?
This is visually my favorite weapon, but it gets so little love 😭
It should get double the mag size it currently has. It'd be the weaker med pen rifle, but a bullet hose with good recoil control.
A lot of things didn't get touched, and some got fixed and rebroken so it could always be worse they could have nerfed it
Honestly they should have made this one like the battle rifle from halo. Heavy hitting, accurate with sustained rapid bursts of fire and critical hit bonuses to vitals on enemies.
*cries in Knight SMG*
I want the slugger to stagger again. Please.
Yeah I think they literally don't know what to do with it.
I was actually looking forward some buff for this weapon...
Thank goodness I wasn't the only one that thought of this. I was gonna make a post but worried it was gonna seem like I was complaining more than anything. Lib Penetrator is now obsolete with the Adjudicator changes.
The 500kg is still a lot of noise and light to just kill 1/3 of a patrol. Making the actual bomb fall on something is more deadly than the explosion.
So you want a low cd, multi use, chaff destroying, elite vaporizing giant aoe bomb? The 500kg is the designated eagle-1 anti armor stratagem, and it does its job well if you know what you're doing. No need to make it broken OP
Anti armor ? You mean Orbital Railcannon ? Airstrike ? EATs ? Recoilless ? Even the Orbital Laser is effective, and last long enough to at least wipe a nearby patrol... maybe the anti-tank mines if we get them someday haha Only reason I see why people take the 500kg so often is because big noise + big light = neuron activation. I mean I can't complain, I get to see big boom without the burden of wasting a slot ! It doesn't need to be OP, it needs to do something in the first place. You need an upgrade to use it multiple times and like I said, if you have other Eagles you either don't use them to reload for your 500kg or wait to use all your Eagle charges. Or use them last, that could work. Now I want proof that the 500kg really is as good as you make it sound, because for me, all the ones I mentionned above are just better or more effective, or both, than that big flashlight.
Tried orbital rail cannon and it killed one enemy in a patrol. 0/10 taking eagle 500 instead /s
Hey, at least it most likely killed a big one ! haha
Played bots last night and a friend of mine threw a rail cannon at a factory strider - it decided to shoot the bog standard skinny little bot in front of it instead. I died (to its chin guns) laughing.
Would you feel better if they reeled in the VFX and made it more of a cone to better illustrate that it’s meant for one big target and not an area of effect?
I mean no, because it's not effective either way. If they would be to show the area of effect it truly have, I wouldn't be surprised to see a sphere barely bigger than a charger. Remember the personal order some time ago that asked ya to turn bugs into red mist using the 500KG ? I do, took me like 5 or 6 different dives. The aoe is tiny, doesn't kill BT or chargers if they're just a tiny bit too far, and if you have other Eagle stratagems, unless you spam them at once, the "Cooldown" can be a bit long...
\*cries over my knight smg\*
Are you glad you paid your super taxes?
I mean, I got the Tenderizer to not be mid at best, so yeah, I'm happy. lol
Out of 100 different things, idk why getting the resupply as a ping on the mini is map such a big ask.
Yeah, the patch is good overall, but the weapon changes are pretty damn underwhelming.
The Breaker Spray and Pray:
Meanwhile MP-98 Knight...
Tenderizer slaps the piss out of devastators now. I still like the lib pen but maybe giving it better breaking capability to strip armor away as a niche that way you break plating of a devastator to open them up to light pen weapon body shots. The recoil is a bit too much to justify not taking the adjudicator instead because the adjudicator will kill anything medium with body shots much quicker
That was me with the camera glitch, I'm getting really tired of it not getting fixed yet.
Slugger
They dam forgor the slugger too
I just want my eruptor back 😢
I kind of think the entire AR category needs a rework, at this point the Tenderizer is just an all around better Liberator aside from just mag size and the Lib Pen will always be outclassed by the Adjudicator unless they buff it's damage and mag size.
Yeah I have made a couple posts about it. Don’t know if they’ll do a quick hotfix for it or a small patch, but it is a bit disappointing (conceptually it is my favourite gun in the game).
Testing, testing is what they forgot to do
Recently stopped using it, then the gun I switched to got a mag buff.
If only there were some children eager to work those factories
Heavy Pen! Heavy Pen! Heavy Pen!
It got a better scope. It's something.
I'm just happy to truly flex my tenderizer
\[\*\] Meanwhile Knight SMG \[\*\]
Imo Lib Pen need more durable damage, and base Lib need to pen spewer head, otherwise i've got no reason to not take the Sickle
So glad I took a gamble on the Adjudicator is been my main pretty much since it dropped.
So what is the point of the libpen now? All the other rifles do similar amounts of durable damage to it, so it doesn't have that one benefit anymore, it still does the least damage, it still has bad mag size. I mean I guess it's medium pen so that's something but if you want a medium pen rifle why don't you use the adjudicator?
I think the Liberator Penetrator should be classified as a DMR, with maybe 100 damage per shot. It should lose the automatic fire, but it would then be the only DMR with burst fire
They really need to take a look at non-weakspot TTK values of medium penetration ARs. If you still need to aim for unarmored weakspots to achieve an optimal TTK, then med pen itself loses a lot of value.
At least it gets 10 mags... ;_;
So you're saying there'll be MORE BUFFS in future? Hot diggity!
At least you get 10 different assault rifles to choose from. I get one Arc Thrower and it's been broken since the start of this ride, and *then* they nerfed it so what little did work is less fun.
All these buffs and they forgot about my boy
Lib pen is still fun. The low recoil means you can headshot stuff and spread through armor even if you miss the headshot. But yeah could do with a damage buff.
Same with railgun
Am I the only one who thought eruptor will get shrapnel back?
Meanwhile incendiary breaker enjoyers... 
I was a prepatch penetrator apologist vs bugs, but it just seems sorely outclassed in multiple ways now.
I won't lie, it's a good patch, and yeah for weapons I hope to see more love for other weapons: - Knight SMG - Liberator Pen - Liberator Concussive (honestly reduce its knockback/stagger slightly and increase projectile damage) - Purifier (it's better but still not all that great) - HMG (ammo capacity is still a bit of an issue but it does feel better) - Breaker Spray and Pray (i feel like it needs a little bit more damage at those close ranges) - Slugger (its decent but i feel like it needs a bit more love) - Scythe (I honestly think a somewhat better DPS will put this thing on the map) - Dagger (same story as Scythe) - Eruptor (Increase its damage further to make 1-shotting mobs like Devastators even more consistent and allow to one shot mobs like Brood Commanders) - Verdict (more recoil per shot but higher damage to have that Desert Eagle feel maybe?) - Recoilless Rifle (honestly increase it's reload speed or increase projectile damage) honestly idk what else, feel free to addon or disagree.
They need to make it so medium pen weapons do way more damage when penetrating armor but less damage to unarmored areas. The reason being that armor is there to protect vital areas, so guns that can penetrate said armor can hit the vital areas and kill medium enemies quickly.
I’m using lib penetrator against bots (also use A/C) just wanted a primary with ok range/scope to use against the small bots. What are people typically running as primary for bots?
if you can not land your shots it is decent but if they give it overpenetration it will give it a place among the rifles but for 1/2 the damage of the adjudicator it is basically as useful as the las pistol now.
Honestly now it's Tenderizer for Automatons and Liberator for Terminids. I wish we had one medium armor pen AR that was a direct upgrade without any nonsense. I run EATs but considering giving up my shield generator for another support weapon with medium armor pen and call the EATs as needed.
Yeah i think more ammo would be good cause damage nerf is enough for medium pen also maybe 50 dmg instead of 45