Proposal: Slight perk to Shoulder Cannon

[Astius]

Would anyone else agree that shoulder cannon would be way more useful if it hit multiple targets?

 

As a vanguard Tank, I get it's functionality, it's supposed to generate threat and do some damage. But I feel like there's still some opportunity there for it to be a more useful skill. Like 90% of the time I don't have any need to use it.

 

What if they changed the Combat Proficiency "Guard Cannon" to not only do the small healing bonus but also allow your missile's to hit all enemies within a 10m radius of your target?

 

I feel like this would help with threat generation across the board AND also be a bit more viable in terms of damage.

 

If not "Guard Cannon" then maybe just get rid of "Aim Extensions" (because who the **** uses this, right?) and make a new perk that allows shoulder cannon to hit multiple enemies.

 

Thanks Bioware.

[realleaftea]

Shoulder Cannon is simply a skill that allows the Vanguard do deal some extra damage. It ignores the global cooldown and can be used while stunned. That's it! If you use it to generate extra threat, that's fine, but it not the reason for this skill to exist. It's available to all three Vanguard specs.

 

Adding a 10m AoE is IMO totally unrealistic. That more than the radius of most other AoEs.

 

BTW: "Aim Extensions" exists solely as a compromise for all those players who got used to the (now obsolete) range advantages and haven't accepted that tanky classes aren't suppose to have 30m attacks (despite the weapon they use). With this utility, players at least have the opportunity to temporarily restore the previous state.

 

In regard of generating threat:

That's worth a separate discussion. IMO, the devs screwed things up a long time ago. Heals seem to create an invisible AoE that creates threat and is centered on the target. And that's the way how every attack should work. It's nonsense that an enemy runs straight to your healer, even if his friend or ally gets butchered 2m away. Taunt, Mass Taunt and the mysterious passive threat bonus are just bandaid fixes to a bad game design.

 

Another fundamental design flaw was the decision to force operation bosses to go enrage. It's a shoddy form of a gear check to begin with and causes players to precast skills, pushing the threat issues to a whole new level.

 

So yes, adding an AoE would be one option and should stay a gimmick; not another crappy fix to a lousy system. In regard of the threat issues, the devs ought to do thier job, sit down and take their time to discuss how they plan this to work properly.

[Astius]

I'm pretty sure Flak shell hits all enemies within 10m of it's impact...I don't think it's that unreasonable, but that's just me.

 

In regards to Aim Extensions... Battle focus lasts what, 15 seconds with a 2m cooldown? Again, speaking from a tank's perspective, the only time you ever need range as Vanguard Tank is right before the fight. I don't know WHO is going to want to pop Battle focus BEFORE a fight, it makes no sense.

 

Aim Extensions as a perk should just increase the range of the Vanguard to 30m... period. People would then actually use it.

[TheLadySeydlitz]

I agree some aoe on Shoulder Cannon might be useful, but I'd give it Pyro/Plasmatech instead, as they're the aoe-based spec, and they could do with a buff or 5 of some description, Doesn't need to be anything huge, just a small amount of splash damage in a 5m radius, maybe with a 6sec DoT attached to it, for example.

Would be nice, seeing as AP/Tactics have their own improvement to SC, with 3 extra missiles + a damage buff.

 

Having 30m range back again would be cool, though it's certainly not worth wasting a point on the current utility. Will we get it back, though? Probably not. (I feel our utilities as a whole are a bit lacklustre, actually)

Perhaps as a compromise, PTs/VGs could be made into a proper medium range class instead. At the moment, the game really only has short and long range classes, operating at either 4m & 10m, or 30m & 35m. Why not give our ranged attacks something like a flat 20m range, placing us squarely in the middle? Would give us some range back, without upsetting the true rdps.