Musket needs serious rework

Game Feedback Game Feedback
#1

Say what you want about what it does good, it does far more bad than good.

With the new bow buff you can get off almost 3 bow shots before you can reload and fire the musket one single time with almost the same range, 1v1 you can pretty much get off two shots then the reload cycle is So long you can’t do anything. The only way to run musket is 50 con as well otherwise your damage is completely insignificant meaning one pen shot is hitting you for almost 4K hp with full emeralds , it’s like putting an uzi or a tech9 (the bow) up against a single shot long rifle

Even the best competitive fps shooters in the world could make the musket look underwhelming compared to the bow or being a mage not to mention that this class is useless vs several other classes as a musket you will not be able to do anything but run from the ss/hammer/bb combo. They can just block all your musket shots run in and then one shot you off of one single stun , if there is a healer nearby all of your damage gets mitigated, focusing healers isn’t as useful as you would expect, most healers have 4-5 pieces of resil or the full sagacious set majority of the time when I’m focusing healers they will just hide behind a rock cast one spell and be full hp again so I’ve found that the best people to focus as a musket are bows/mages the occasional person in a clump fight whom all have way more firepower than you do if they’re in range . Bow people run more hp do just as much damage as a musket have more aoe And have similar range not to mention as a musket you have to stand still shoot reload for 20 seconds as a bow you just spazz out back and forth sidestepping launching as many arrows as you can in your opponent’s direction

I dare the new world devs to try running musket if you’re not insanely mechanically inclined you are borderline useless or just an annoyance .

Summary: every other weapon in the game surpasses the musket you have to be incredibly skilled to be good with it it’s too clunky the Reload time is Way too long to compete with other ranged classes and even running full glass cannon your damage is still underwhelming mostly because of the reload time there is nothing more annoying then trying to kite with a musket and your reload gets canceled 15 times

2 Likes
#2

I think they just need to stop trying to force it to be a rock sitting sniper because it’s not fun for the musket player or the person being shot.
They could probably extend the base damage drop off range to like 80 meters then change the perk that removes the drop off range to something else maybe something with armor pen. This would leave it as still the longest range weapon while putting it into a more reasonable range where other ranged weapons could quickly get close enough to fight back.
Then for the corresponding buff they could remove the CD from active reload. This sounds crazy at first but it would literally just mean that at the cost of stamina(and your potential escape/safety options) you could have a fire rate that competes with other ranged weapons.
Musket can have decent single shot damage compared to other ranged weapons but we have no abilities like pen/poison shot or fireball that we can use in a fight for burst and increased DPS, so this would simply even the playing field slightly while limiting us to 3 or 4 shots before going OOS.
Particularly with the new slower stamina regen I think this would be perfectly balanced.
This would also allow the musket to actually capitalize on its empowered buffs since they’re all so short the only way you can use them is in shooters stance which they heavily nerfed.
After that they would just need to work on the jank like making the trap and bomb throw much smoother and quicker, removing the post shot animation lock to let you actually shoot and roll to avoid shots like every other weapon, and remove the shot delay after aiming. I wouldn’t really consider these buffs so much as QOL and bug fixes.
Lastly, they could probably cut the power shot and powder burn load animations in half. They’d still make you stop in place and open you up to be punished, but they would also act as a slightly quicker reload compared to the normal reload while giving you a reasonable opportunity to use them during a fight. At least do this for power shot because as it stands that ability is much worse than powder burn.

2 Likes
#3

I don’t know what changed in recent patches, but the musket is pretty terrible now. I hit like ~70% of my shots, a lot of people accuse me of cheating (which I don’t) and I’m struggling to kill anyone. It’s borderline comical. Don’t get me wrong, though. You can kill people with the musket, it is just really hard and, sometimes, impossible depending on their build.

The musket seems okay in OPR, I guess.

But it is bad in arenas and solo Open world pvp (unless you camp a rock or something). With a 625 infamy, 300 dex/200 intel, in order to kill anyone you need to land a power burn followed by a few shooter stance shots. It typically takes at least like +7 hits to kill most players, some of which need to be crits/headshots, and they all need to land in a relatively short time frame, so the enemy cannot line of sight you or have their pots refresh. There are of course some exceptions, like a really low con dex player or a really undergeared player that die in 3 hits, but besides that it takes A LOT of shots to kill anyone.

The big issue is if you don’t nearly kill them with a powder burn/shooter stance combo before they get close it’s hard, if not impossible, to out DPS their pots/foods since the reload is so long on the musket and you cannot use your high damage abilities in close quarters because they force you to stand still.

I understand that the musket can be toxic, but right now that’s all that it is: annoying. It doesn’t win anything for the team.

So what does the musket need? Enough DPS that they can whittle down a bruisers/mage health if the musket player hits most of their shots in close range. I am not advocating for the musket to beat all weapons, but right now there are some melee builds that would require +20 shots to kill, which is impossible due to food/pots, whereas they can kill the musket player in 5 hits or so. It seems like a far cry from balanced.

Some people might say, “well, melee should hard counter muskets,” and that would be fine if the musket hard countered anything, but it doesn’t. Mages can run 300intel/200 con, hit as hard as a musket, have twice as much health, and kill a musket player in 4 or 5 shots. A musket typically cannot kill a healer if they run orb of protection. Moreover, light healers hit me for around 2k and I actually hit them for less, like 1800 body shots, when they have orb of protection up. Muskets might counter bows at extreme ranges, but a bow can kill me if they hit poision arrow + pen shot. So basically muskets are only strong against undergeared players or other muskets.

Solutions?

Maybe rework the trapper tree to be a better at dueling and arenas. You would have to rework a lot of the perks/abilites that would allow the musket to be strong within magic range.

Maybe adjust the attribute scaling of the musket, so instead of having to run 5 con to have a chance at kill anything, muskets can run 150 con like pretty much everyone else.

Perhaps increase “hustle” from 10% haste to 15-20% haste on dodge to help create more space in close quarters.

Maybe allow headshots in close range to penetrate a significant amount of armor.

Alternatively, you could reduce the cooldown of tactile reload (reload your gun after a roll from every 6 seconds to every 3 seconds) and/or get rid of the “overload” mechanic which slows your character down to a halt. This is important because you almost need to have powder burn on the target to be able to do any damage.

Instead, you could give the musket a distinct role, such as a healer assassinator. It wouldn’t be bad to play the musket if it truly countered something.

Or basically anything else to help the musket from being by far the worst weapon in the game.

TLDR: basically buff or rework the musket so it can fight back some in close range.

4 Likes
#4

well you can’t really compare the bow or magical weapons to the musket can you? i never saw a mage killing someone from 1km distance and hardly a bow can do that. Thing is you need to choose what you want, you can’t have it all. High damage, Long range, Hitscam this all needs to come with a tradeoff. Of course you can’t do anything against a bow in close-medium quarters, the same way they can’t kill you 1km away like you do them. Not trying to be a jerk here, but if you think playing other weapons is so easy try and pick them up.

#5

I’m under-geared at 570ish GS but with 5 resilient and a mix of onyx & diamond. Max geared bow builds can hit me for 6-7k while up on a rock. Muskets don’t hit anywhere near that hard.

I agree with Kippp that muskets are just in a bad place overall. Both blunderbuss (which is arguably broken) and bow are very much superior in damage and mobility. Muskets don’t really have a niche where they thrive except perhaps for farming hide.

#6

The problem is that it’s hard to kill anyone at range anymore. You can kill low con players, like other muskets, or undergeared players. That’s about it.

You can kill healers, mages, and archers if you catch them off guard and land most of your powder burn+ shooter stance shots (you can do this combo once every 20 seconds or so). If you fail at that combo you pretty much cannot kill a healer once they stabilize. You can kill an archer or mage, but they typically have like 40% more health, have a higher rate of fire, and hit the same, if not, harder in close range.

Some bruisers are kill able, but others not so much. I body shot some medium bruisers for like 1600 with 1900-2100 headshots/crits. They can simple eat food and, maybe regen pot, to outheal that. They don’t typically need to use their health pots. However, they will kill me in just a handful of hits.

I have a 625 infamy, 300 dex/200 intel with 7k health. There isn’t much more I can do.

The musket is okay in OPR, bad in open world pvp (unless you play like a rat), bad in arenas, and, probably, pointless in wars now. I feel like every other weapon is somewhat viable in arena, OPR, and war. They might not be meta, but they are useful. I feel like with the new bow, which probably does several million damage now in war, there is no reason to have any muskets.

1 Like
#7

Oh yeah, but thats not a musket problem, goes the same for other weapons depending on the gear of course, today i saw a screenshot of a guy hitting 700ish with the bow (had lazarus 625 with 350 dex) kinda sucks the way armor scales on this game i do think that the same way there’s an aversion perk there should be an armor penetration perk on HIT not headshots.

#8

I’ve played every class besides skitzo cheese builds ss blunderbus I’m looking at you

#9

My point being is that the musket is useless vs certain classes it’s extremely hard to do meaningful damage even if you’re skilled and even at long range you have to be extremely skilled and if you even bump into the wrong player you’re dead

Watch me kite turbobaggins in this video who is the better player ? How many shots does it take to kill a medium armor guy? Look at my reload time vs the blunderbus fire mage and his damage vs mine Yes I could go hide behind a rock and try to snipe but trust me that isn’t always effective like the above post said you need to hit a powder burn followed by almost everyone of your shooter stance shots to get a kill. I don’t think we need a damage buff maybe a reload speed change at least even timing my reloads perfect doesn’t give me the opportunity to do enough damage unless I am not taking any return fire whatsoever and before you even talk about the rapier that is quite literally the only thing keeping me alive

Also yes you can say hitscan but that doesn’t mean anything when you’re face to face with a bow or mage who is in range and bow range is extremely far it takes an hour to aim down sight with musket and these people don’t have any reload time so they just shoot dodge shoot dodge and you’re supposed to hit them while they immunity frame and if you miss it only takes one disease shot or 1 shot followed by a pen shot for you to lose half your hp and if the bow guy is in medium there is no chance of dueling vs him + if you’re in shooters stance you’re standing still and easy af to hit from any range with a bow

2 Likes
#10

well, first i believe you did play better than some of those guys. That being said i don’t believe thats the range to play musket and yes you did outplay them but if you watch the video you spent alot of the fight repositioning yourself instead of hiting your enemies.

That being said i play bow and yes, it takes alot of shots to kill a medium player but thats okay since if it weren’t like that light would always win agains full melee, and rapier/range weapon would only lose against another ranged class, which is not cool.

BUT i do think medium/heavy players should get a healling debuff on armour itself, from heals and pots, either that or buff plague perks. That way when you get them low you will actually kill them.

Whats so frustating to play light against heavy/medium most of the time is you can outplay then for ages yet one mistake and you’re dead, from my point of view we also need more armor penetration perks and medium/heavy armor should do WAY less damage,

1 Like
#11

That’s my only issue is that all these other people can shoot dodge shoot dodge and I have to wait 6 seconds or stand still and be a free target before I can fight back

A buff to that one perk (dodging grants a reload every 6 seconds) would be the world for musket players who wanna actually fight face to face with other ranged players all these fights are in arena range

1 Like
#12

Truthfully I don’t want anymore damage nerfs for anybody I want people to explode it makes the game more satisfying when you can kill people easier if that guy can catch me he deserves to be able to kill me but when I can shoot him like 8 times and he just face tanks it like his health pots heal him for more damage than I’m doing then what the f***

I guess it’s fair cuz technically an orichalcum cartridge is 1-2g per shot and a health pot is 6 gold :joy:

#13

people now say i am trolling going for 3v3 with a musket:) the only reason came back was for 3v3, and now my only weapon is a troll pick.

1 Like
#14

Don’t give up faith musket will be able to fight other ranges face to face if Amazon actually sees these valid points

#15

My preferred weapons are musket rapier, but i have been switching more and more to bow/spear.

Bow just does way more damage, shoots faster, is much more mobile, and aiming is way more forgivable. Hitting targets at medium to long range with bow is easier than with musket. You can literally pepper an area where there is a fight and your projectiles will hit something. With musket your target has to be rendered, you must see a nameplate, and you must actuslly hit the model (which often have tiny hitboxes that dont always align with the actual rendered model). Hitscan has some advantges but the hitboxes are so small you have to aim very carefully, and no way you can spam fire like you can with a bow or staff.

I would say the best changes for musket would be to remove hitscan, allow for target penetration (column damage), maybe an escape or control option like butt strike or bayonet. Replace sticky bomb with a grenade.

Please dont argue realism. We have firestaffs, void gauntlets, and bows that can fire faster than 1 arrow per second and do volley fire. If you want ‘realism’, then musket should ignore armor.

1 Like
#16

Musket need to stay trash go play a fps if you want to use a gun tf…

#17

Very constructive game quite literally has a blunderbuss and a musket and on almost every loading screen is a musket

#18

I’ve been telling the exact same things from week 1 to this day, from one post to another about musket glaring flaw that is so big that it’s hidden from plain sight because all of you keep unconsciously using/abuse it. From telling everyone that musket is an OP 100m 2 shot weapon, to defend musket as a “viable weapon” days after days.

It is a fact that Musket do exist because of Powder Burn skill, there is no reason not to use this skill because how good the the damage and debuff it provides (DoT + Slow w perk). 99,9999999% player use powder burn for any build that involve musket in it.

On the other hand, musket without Powder Burn is a complete trash weapon. Sure, musket got hitscan projectile but the overal damage per second is just plain bad thanks to mediocre damage + fire rate. The only skill on whole musket are that worth mentioning is sharpshooter stance with perk, but that skill is also on “meh” tier without powder burn attached to it.

at this point, im a bit jealous for bow atm. although the weapon still got crap talent on both last tree, bow damage is surprisingly stable across the board, it has good hitboxes, the fire rate can also be adjusted as well (not super slugish like pre-patch). The point is that bow are heading to the right direction, and i hope dev also got similar treatment to musket in the future as well.

I hope

1 Like
#19

IMO Musket has two main problem areas.

One is mechanical. The whole reload, dodge, stamina, stuck reloading, not reloading, stuck in aim mode, unable to enter aim mode thing, unable to swap weapons. These are mechanical issues that if sorted would vastly improve musket player experience.

The second area is versatility. Musket has areas where it shines, and areas where it absolutely sucks. While every weapon has game modes that are more, or less, suited to it, Musket is in a really bad place here. It shines in solo PVE, it shines in small scale PVP, and limited world PVP. However musket sucks big time in Wars, Expeditions, and large group content. It has no group utility, no AoE, and if you cant see the models you’re aiming at, or the models are subject to lag/latency issues (Wars) then you can not aim at anything, let lone hit anything.

While the mechanical issues are obvious and need to be sorted out, its the utility and versatility that really need to be addressed. The lack of group support, AoE, and inability to properly pressure an area, means muskets are generally not welcomed in expeditions.

I suspect part of the problem is Hitscan. It means you can only damage a single target, the one you’re aiming at. If musket was projectile based, you could add ground target effects, column damage, penetrating shots, splintering shots, ricochets, etc. In terms of damage, given that musket does not have a heavy attack, the damage should be higher than a standard bow shot, but probably slightly less than a bow long draw.

The only question to be addressed here is how to distinguish musket from bow in terms of role? Personally, I would be happy if bow had higher damage at short range, but sharper damage drop off with range. Musket projectiles should have higher velocity, higher armor penetration, flatter trajectory, and less damage drop off with range. It would probably be worthwhile to make the ‘Sniper zoom’ effect standard, and to replace the skill with a group support skill like ‘suppressing fire’ or ‘covering fire’ - say a 10% weaken on mobs for 5 seconds after being hit.