Becketts Vs Mercers

The take aim shooting technique provides a 3x multiplier to the base damage that you can do without aiming. So, if you have the same ranks on shoot and take aim then a full take aim will deal 3x what a shoot attack would do for that gun given any ammo used. The take aim buff does not magically provide the multiplier when it is fully maxed out, but instead you get some benefits for partial aims along the way.

I have done some testing on this in the past and iirc it appeared that the range of multipliers you would get was linear with the amount of aiming done. I.e. doing a half aim gives you half of the boost so you only get a 2x, effectively giving you about +20% the base damage for every 1 of the 10 little aiming ticks.

I could post some gifs if that's helpful, but I think it's pretty explanatory
 
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That makes more sense than the theory that take aim maybe gives a flat amount or whatever point was intended. Also, in a members testing, they had two different skill points assigned? That would skew the numbers I would think. If I read that right.
So as the ticks get higher one gets to the full 3x multi benefit? Then this works almost like a nade and distance.
I agree it's not magic but if you max it, then you should or would get the max boost on that shot, logically assumed?
It's looking like each weapon that has this ramp up mechanism is unique to that weapon type.
I think this is off topic enough. If this tangent is that interesting then it probably should get it's own thread as I don't think the op was going this way.

I could be wrong.
 
squintz said:
So as the ticks get higher one gets to the full 3x multi benefit? Then this works almost like a nade and distance.
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Actually nades get the full long volley benefits immediately, further distance adds no bonus damage.

But to bring this back to the topic, regardless of the amount of aiming that you use for comparing mercer and beckett they will do the same damage as long as you use steel shot. And like people have said, you shouldn't really be using the shoot attack on pistols anyway. So mercer's has an equal or better damage in every typical scenario of using a pistol (i.e. aiming at least a lil bit) with any ammo type.

Honestly I think the reason they end up with these kinds of scenarios is because the devs figure that most people do not actually care to learn and understand exactly how damage is made. So those people that see 2 pistols with some bonuses and a +3 boost to some stat won't realize that one of those +3 boosts is either just better or at least situationally better. Maybe this is the case for the majority of players, but in the end it hurts balance because one of them will eventually be caught out as an obvious winner and overshadow the other. Kinda like the legendary sabres: Why would I farm for Onyx Curse when Sapphire Curse is just clearly superior from it's higher attack stat?
 
Ned_Reddavis said:
Why would I farm for Onyx Curse when Sapphire Curse is just clearly superior from it's higher attack stat?
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There's a bit of a difference here; at least Onyx offers different and arguably better alternatives than Sapphire does. For instance, I have one friend who has both but prefers Onyx's Hurricane Slash over Sapphire's Freeze Sweep because of its charge time. In addition, others may prefer Onyx because of its style, being a completely black sword with a black trail. However, things like this aren't the case with guns. The appearance of a gun doesn't make as much of a difference as a sword's appearance so we then move to damage count. In this scenario, we have one gun that hits hard and another gun that hits just as hard but can occasionally do double damage. There would never be a reason to prefer Beckett's Pistol over Mercer's Pistol if you had both or a reason to loot for Beckett's when Mercer's exists (unless you have the latter and just want to boost your legend count).
To this, I propose that Beckett's Pistol's not in the face should be replaced with point blank rank 4. The new point blank available on test server hits like a truck and would give Beckett's a real way to compete with Mercer's.It would also a different style to Mercer's where you volunteer yourself to take some heavy hits to charge the break attack before firing it at a close range for maximum damage.
 
squintz said:
"Take aim provides a flat and simple damage buff for whenever you decide to hold down your mouse button to aim your gun, regardless of how long you actually hold down the button. "

This doesn't make any sense since the game has a hold down effect to the max. Why even have that in the game if it means absolutely nothing. Any staff spell clearly fails and peters out if not held down for the entirety. This about staffs is indisputable.

Plus both side by sides have been extremely edited so as to lessen the credibility. Video evidence should not be edited, even if it was meant to shorten the viewing time.

I'll probably just check on my own. Sorry I pulled this off topic.
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yeah i was gonna mention that the skill at it's heart has a basic mechanic which boosts the damage to about 200 percent at half charge and 300 at full, according to the wiki, but i decided not to mention it since it's pretty common knowledge and explaining this simple feature in a way that wont confuse people without it is difficult enough. I should've clarified it but I tried to keep my post as condensed as possible. also staves and guns clearly work in different ways since you cant actually use staves until you charge them to full unlike pistols, which are more similar to nades. when im talking about a flat buff im only referring to the amount of points you actually have in take aim, which is applied over the damage multiplier of how long you charge your gun. Im sorry about "editing" the gifs but that was the only way I could have posted them
Regardless, this discussion arose from eric's analysis that beckett's is better in any instance where you shoot anything but a fully charged take aim since all the take aim points dont apply till you actually reach full, this is not the case and I wanted to explain that away, and I hope we can put this to rest even if we do not agree on the fate of beckett's
 
Roger-Daniel said:
yeah i was gonna mention that the skill at it's heart has a basic mechanic which boosts the damage to about 200 percent at half charge and 300 at full, according to the wiki, but i decided not to mention it since it's pretty common knowledge and explaining this simple feature in a way that wont confuse people without it is difficult enough. I should've clarified it but I tried to keep my post as condensed as possible. also staves and guns clearly work in different ways since you cant actually use staves until you charge them to full unlike pistols, which are more similar to nades. when im talking about a flat buff im only referring to the amount of points you actually have in take aim, which is applied over the damage multiplier of how long you charge your gun. Im sorry about "editing" the gifs but that was the only way I could have posted them
Regardless, this discussion arose from eric's analysis that beckett's is better in any instance where you shoot anything but a fully charged take aim since all the take aim points dont apply till you actually reach full, this is not the case and I wanted to explain that away, and I hope we can put this to rest even if we do not agree on the fate of beckett's
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It is still unclear to me whether the take aim buff is applied at the front end or averaged in over the duration of the take aim changing time. This would be the critical point of this discussion.
 
Eric Sailcutter said:
It is still unclear to me whether the take aim buff is applied at the front end or averaged in over the duration of the take aim changing time. This would be the critical point of this discussion.
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however many points you put into take aim is applied at the front end. the reason that take aim does more damage the longer you charge it is due to something different
 
Pistols, and specifically mercer's/beckett's damage are found like this:

Minimum Damage = 1.5*(rank 1 damage of shooting skill + rank 1 damage of ammo) * Factor from extra points in ammo/shooting skill * weapon attack value factor * take aim bonus (if using that kind of shooting skill)

Mercer's w/ steel shot and take aim:
Minimum Damage=1.5*(26.5+96)*2.5*2*(1+0.005*85) * take aim bonus

Beckett's w/ steel shot and take aim:
Minimum Damage = 1.5*(26.5+96)*2*2.5*(1+0.005*85) * take aim bonus

From this you can tell that the damage is the same, but with regards to take aim you see two things here.

  1. The increase in damage from extra points in a shooting skill like take aim are applied regardless of how much you aim. So with Mercer's it gets a 2.5 damage factor from rank 8 take aim (when using that shooting technique of course) and Beckett's get 2 from rank 5. That will apply if you do the full take aim, less than 1 tick, or anywhere in between. So that extra damage is given "at the front end".
  2. Take aim applies a general damage factor based on how long it's being held. It ranges from a value of 1 to a value of 3 representing an (unachievable) absolute minimum and maximum amount of take aim bar filled. And like I said before, it increases linearly from 1 to 3, so half of a take aim will provide a factor of 2, or if you do something like 10/13 of the bar filled then the factor is 1+2(10/13). And if you're an absolute nerd like me but still don't quite get this, then you can visualize it by graphing y=2x+1 where x is the proportion of the bar filled (0 to 1) and y is the resulting factor.

So... yeah what @Roger-Daniel said.
 
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Ned_Reddavis said:
Pistols, and specifically mercer's/beckett's damage are found like this:

Minimum Damage = 1.5*(rank 1 damage of shooting skill + rank 1 damage of ammo) * Factor from extra points in ammo/shooting skill * weapon attack value factor * take aim bonus (if using that kind of shooting skill)

Mercer's w/ steel shot and take aim:
Minimum Damage=1.5*(26.5+96)*2.5*2*(1+0.005*85) * take aim bonus

Beckett's w/ steel shot and take aim:
Minimum Damage = 1.5*(26.5+96)*2*2.5*(1+0.005*85) * take aim bonus

From this you can tell that the damage is the same, but with regards to take aim you see two things here.

  1. The increase in damage from extra points in a shooting skill like take aim are applied regardless of how much you aim. So with Mercer's it gets a 2.5 damage factor from rank 8 take aim (when using that shooting technique of course) and Beckett's get 2 from rank 5. That will apply if you do the full take aim, less than 1 tick, or anywhere in between. So that extra damage is given "at the front end".
  2. Take aim applies a general damage factor based on how long it's being held. It ranges from a value of 1 to a value of 3 representing an (unachievable) absolute minimum and maximum amount of take aim bar filled. And like I said before, it increases linearly from 1 to 3, so half of a take aim will provide a factor of 2, or if you do something like 10/13 of the bar filled then the factor is 1+2(10/13). And if you're an absolute nerd like me but still don't quite get this, then you can visualize it by graphing y=2x+1 where x is the proportion of the bar filled (0 to 1) and y is the resulting factor.

So... yeah what @Roger-Daniel said.
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Very interesting, so basically skill points spent on take aim have nothing to do with the take aim skill beyond just boosting damage at a fixed rate when using take aim, lol.
 
I've been thinking more and more about this issue. I think that it is not a huge issue and the fact that Mercer's is objectively better than Beckett's is ok with me if not ideal. I think it is true that more ideally Beckett's should have a buff of some sort to set it apart from Mercer's more. I suggest infinite steel shot, I realize that does nothing atm due to broken shot inventory but once that is restored it would be a great buff. One other possible buff to Beckett's that makes some sense is a rapid reload buff. I think any buff should make Becket's more powerful in steel shot particularly so as to make it more specialized.
 
Eric Sailcutter said:
I've been thinking more and more about this issue. I think that it is not a huge issue and the fact that Mercer's is objectively better than Beckett's is ok with me if not ideal. I think it is true that more ideally Beckett's should have a buff of some sort to set it apart from Mercer's more. I suggest infinite steel shot, I realize that does nothing atm due to broken shot inventory but once that is restored it would be a great buff. One other possible buff to Beckett's that makes some sense is a rapid reload buff. I think any buff should make Becket's more powerful in steel shot particularly so as to make it more specialized.
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Unfortunately, as neat of an idea as it would be to decrease the reload of Beckett's to a margin, that isn't possible due to how weapons are identified in-game. The only alternative to this would be adding the Quick Load skill in replacement of "Not in the Face!", which could work. Still a lot of thought behind this weapon, but nothing finite right now.
 
I think at the very least, beckett's and mercer's steel shot boost and take aim boost should be swapped. The way take aim +3 seems to operate (and maybe reddavis could confirm whether or not this is true) is that it's basically a +3 boost to all ammo types. So the fact that the gun that can crit has it doesnt make a lot of sense balance-wise. (I know it isn't tlopo's fault since they didnt design the weapons bc both guns are just unaltered unreleased weapons)

Beckett's should get take aim and Mercer's should get steel shot. It's not the most extravagant balance change but I think it get's the job done.

That being said, please ignore everything I just said and instead make Beckett's a double barrel repeater pistol like an EITC Grunt's pistol on steroids
 
Misha said:
Unfortunately, as neat of an idea as it would be to decrease the reload of Beckett's to a margin, that isn't possible due to how weapons are identified in-game. The only alternative to this would be adding the Quick Load skill in replacement of "Not in the Face!", which could work. Still a lot of thought behind this weapon, but nothing finite right now.
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I think just adding infinite Steel Shot would make it much more desirable, maybe that is enough?
 
Eric Sailcutter said:
I think just adding infinite Steel Shot would make it much more desirable, maybe that is enough?
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i think the desirability of infinite ammo skills diminishes if it's on something other than a repeater pistol. I don't really see myself shooting 175 shots killing however many enemies and not getting any steel shot within that amount of time. The skill is just naturally less useful on single shot pistols than it is on repeaters. If tlopo fixed the infinite ammo glitch and nerfed ammo drop rates, then maybe it'd be worth it.
 
Roger-Daniel said:
i think the desirability of infinite ammo skills diminishes if it's on something other than a repeater pistol. I don't really see myself shooting 175 shots killing however many enemies and not getting any steel shot within that amount of time. The skill is just naturally less useful on single shot pistols than it is on repeaters. If tlopo fixed the infinite ammo glitch and nerfed ammo drop rates, then maybe it'd be worth it.
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Of course infinite ammo is a bigger advantage with repeaters where you can use your ammo twice as fast but I still see it as highly desirable on my Frostedge Blunderbuss and so expect it would be the same with single shot pistols too. I’m not at all sure what the current ammo drop rates are like, I’d thought that they were set at a rate that would cause you to run out fairly quickly.
 
Eric Sailcutter said:
Of course infinite ammo is a bigger advantage with repeaters where you can use your ammo twice as fast but I still see it as highly desirable on my Frostedge Blunderbuss and so expect it would be the same with single shot pistols too. I’m not at all sure what the current ammo drop rates are like, I’d thought that they were set at a rate that would cause you to run out fairly quickly.
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i remember that even before ammo was glitched, i was not paying attention to my ammo count at all nor did I need to. I don't think I've ever hit 0 to be completely honest.
 
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