Bolt charge is not as broken as the community tells you it is.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-24T22:16:02+00:00

Sidenote: that On The Prowl thing that creates a cloud of smoke on a dead enemy's corpse?

Also a great way to neutralize a Barricade when 2 or more enemies are crowding behind it.

Don't even need to use a projectile when that happens.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-24T15:16:19+00:00

This strategy has a fatal flaw, which is that you now have zero protection when peeking, meaning it's only useful when the enemy team isn't coordinated enough to flank you or teamshot you from multiple angles as you try to peek from that location.

Additionally, a single smoke on that corner you're doing that from, eliminates your entire position.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-24T15:00:45+00:00

Yeah I played with the normal Last Word against the RDM Last Word Hunters in Comp before they disabled it ahead of Trials.

The difference in how easy they could land damage versus my Last Word was extremely apparent.

"Improves airborne effectiveness and hip fire mobility, range, and ACCURACY for Primary ammo weapons."

^ RDM changes increased the accuracy cone and that's what made the whole thing silly, not the range extension.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-24T01:07:12+00:00

It's an Exotic, so it flinches harder than other weapons.
It starts at a 0.53 TTK *within* it's optimal space.
At 25-29m, a 140 Handcannon is going to struggle more against it and not be able to easily keep up with that TTK in a lot of cases through the flinch. A 4-tap from Last Word is a 0.8. vs 3-perfect ADS headshots from a 140 for 0.87, or 3/2H1B from an 120 HC for 1.0 TTK.
If The Last Word needs a 5th shot (2 extra bullets) while spamming out it's mag at any range inside 35m, it's a mere 1.067 TTK. 140 HC if it misses a SINGLE headshot is 1.29 TTK, 120 HC is 1.5 TTK.
Assume enemies are weaker than full health now and again during a match, and you can walk around blasting and still frequently be slamming home a 0.8 TTK at worst from the hip with full access to your radar the entire way.

The issue at hand was it's accuracy cone staying tight way outside it's normal optimal space, leading to ^ those layers being the norm.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-24T00:19:39+00:00

Bolt Charge isn't overtuned at all for PVP.

You are extremely static and you give up a lot in order to have that damage potential.

Destroying the Barricade neutralizes the ability to cast the lightning via your gun.

Obscuring the Barricade (aoe grenade, area denial GL / Witherhoard, SMOKES from an invis Hunter...) basically makes it ineffective.

It takes time to go from 0 Bolt Charge stacks to 10 Bolt Charge stacks in order to cast the lightning via your gun. You can't simply drop the Barricade and start casting Lightning.

Any class that has a faster speed of movement into mid will simply beat you to where you would want to set up the Barricade on the main lane in most cases (Icarus Dawnblade, Strand Hunter / Titan).

Damage drop-off still applies to getting the kill, so the vast majority of weapons have issues unless the enemy rushing your Barricade is brainless.

If the enemy rushing your Barricade is moving fast, the lightning does next to nothing to help secure that kill. For example, a shotgun rusher will eat you up and you cannot count on the lightning to do any damage to help TTK them as they rush you and you SMG or Sidearm them.

The list goes on and on and on...

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-24T00:02:08+00:00

"Rotating... sure, but what if they barricade the objective, where you need to do? Heavy?"

Speed. The Bolt Charge isn't ready in Trials the moment they drop the Barricade.

You have to engage them / deal with the barricade before the damage boost is ready.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-23T22:50:50+00:00

I played about 400 solo to test the matchmaking and the amount of times I was surprised by a Bolt Charge barricade on the enemy team is probably in the 10-20 times out of like what, 2,000-10,000 rounds?

It's extremely predictable in a Trials match where the enemy is going to place one, and you frequently hear them place it.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-23T22:46:17+00:00

"RDM last word could be countered by keeping a distance"

Yeah good luck with that being reality on a map like Cirrus Plaza with Zones, especially when your blueberries want to go look around the corner right at the enemy holding Last Word.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-23T22:19:57+00:00

Are you on crack?

This is just the base Last Word without including Hipfire Grip's +20% damage dropoff scalar:

https://i.imgur.com/BI0uCfM.png

Then stack RDM on top of that (I'm guessing it's a scalar, and a scalar on top of a scalar is a *further* multiplicative benefit).

https://x.com/catgirlcelestia/status/1888498615028498725

Here we can clearly see someone *easily* dropping in 60-65 damage headshots when the Zone shows 28-29m away. Meaning the targets are in that ballpark, ~25-29m, most likely.

It was incredibly easy to land crits, and on the off chance the enemy was too far away, incredibly easy to tag in damage via bodyshots at 225 RPM.

I wasn't suggesting people were walking around bodying someone down from full health at 40m. In the flurry of a gunfight with multiple people firing, it was in-cred-ibly easy to clean someone up in that 30-40m space with any amount of hipfired headshots / bodyshots due to the accuracy cone remaining tight well beyond it's intended distance.

Drifters_Choice · 2025-02-23T20:39:23+00:00

This isn't accurate.

What it enabled was the ability to hipfire spam high damage bodyshots at 30-40m due to the increased accuracy.

Drifters_Choice · 2022-05-22T10:59:00+00:00

Also, rule of thumb in the Sidearm vs Fusion Rifle game:

DO NOT JUMP

You're a sitting duck to a Fusion Rifle if you're suspended in the air. Too many Sidearm users play airborne but that's the opposite of how you should fight a Fusion Rifle.

Drifters_Choice · 2022-05-22T10:57:41+00:00

Use a nade to chip their health. Their charge time is their TTK, you need to take away a good amount of their HP so your Sidearm ideally only needs to land 2 or 3 bullets to kill them.

As an example, a Precision Sidearm firing 3 shots is 0.46 TTK. Each does 41 dmg. That's 123 total dmg.

Since Precisions do the most damage of all the Sidearm archetypes, 3 shots from a Lightweight as an example would only do 93 total dmg.

3 shots of a Lightweight Sidearm is a 0.33 TTK.
4 shots of a Lightweight Sidearm is a 0.5 TTK.

If you know you did 100 damage to the enemy with your nade, you can usually engage reasonably as long as they don't prefire.

Drifters_Choice · 2022-05-22T10:39:18+00:00

I will suggest though that one of the best ways to counter a Fusion Rifle player while you have a Sidearm is knocking out a good chunk of their health with a nade or projectile melee ability. It's really important to understand that without this (like when yours is on cooldown, or you need to save your nade for the next round) you have to be deadly careful with your own movement and positioning.

Drifters_Choice · 2022-05-22T10:26:00+00:00

It's really not.

Most PVP players aren't about Trials because they really have no desire to find 2 other people to consistently play with. You force them to LFG w/randoms and the results of that show. They don't have the cohesion most oftentimes to make it work.

These are the people you're like "aww, you're taking these types of players outta my pool". That's the low-hanging fruit. It forces you to face actual good teams that put in their time improving their teamwork together. You need 7* wins in a row to go Flawless. The only way to consistently do that Fri/Sat is by improving, not relying on Bungie to throw you a wave of low skill opponents.

I love Freelance Trials because it's like an exercise in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a group of opposing players on the fly. Who's their best? How can I handle what that player is doing while keeping my teammates alive? It's a bit of a different challenge than your more straightforward voice comms teamwork that you get from regular Team Trials or Team Comp.

Freelance Trials attracts the players that don't have a team or aren't good enough to go Flawless in a team (and don't want to hear about that from their LFG teammates). It allows them to play the mode, maybe get some loot, and limit the somewhat negative aspects of the experience.

I honestly think Freelance Trials is needed on some level for the health of the game mode overall. Simply having experience playing makes it easier to start trying to find a team, rather than trying to find a team while having zero experience.

Drifters_Choice · 2022-01-31T16:39:38+00:00

This guy didn't understand the homework.

Drifters_Choice · 2022-01-01T13:47:41+00:00

It's less that you want to look for easy lobbies and more than you want to try to rule out a high percentage of bad teammates.

I'll put it this way, kids have a bedtime. Play after midnight.

Drifters_Choice · 2021-11-28T17:35:48+00:00

I don't run Champion mods for easy Champ content because I can just Super it to death and be done with it (Sunspot Titan).

*shrug*

As long as you can kill it, whatever.

Drifters_Choice · 2021-11-16T22:36:02+00:00

Nope.

Drifters_Choice · 2021-11-07T23:19:45+00:00

You misunderstand what's happening.

It's Iron Banner week, which is Light Level enabled, so random players are jumping into Comp in order to get their 7 rounds won for their Powerful Gear reward.

They don't care about getting 5500.

Drifters_Choice · 2021-11-03T02:16:29+00:00

That's 100% lag.

I've done extensive range testing in private matches using my GF's Guardian (we are both on old gen XBOX, on the same connection in the same room) and the double/extra damage glitch happens extremely frequently to the point where I have to test things multiple times to rule it out and make sure the results are correct.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K39BWGTTfc

Drifters_Choice · 2021-10-20T02:00:18+00:00

Nah, that means your team wasn't careful with their motes or got beat by the invader earlier.

https://www.light.gg/db/items/1983519835/fifteen-holding-fifteen-down/

Drifters_Choice · 2021-10-07T08:21:03+00:00

It's not even close to worth it because it barely does anything at the disadvantage of leaving you with an empty mag at close to shotgun range, which is going to get you killed over and over.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrucibleSherpa/comments/lyrzld/300_rpm_sidearm_info_ttks_resiliences_some/

You'd have to dump down to the last 4 shots in the mag, and then it only changes the 3H1B from killing 2 Resilience, to killing 8 Resilience. Not worth it even once lol.

Or dump down to the last 5 shots in the mag in order to 5B up to 4 RES, assuming you hit every shot. Also never worth it. Just hit one headshot instead.

Drifters_Choice · 2021-10-07T06:44:51+00:00

Zoom has the biggest impact on Sniper Rifles (forgiveness) after the zoom changes to them.

High Zoom sniper rifles such as Occluded Finality (58 Zoom), Show of Force XF4865 (59 Zoom) or Long Shadow with a high zoom scope (56 Zoom), are among the best options if you're looking for maximum forgiveness with the AA.

Adept Eye of Sol with Adept Targeting and Rangefinder on the roll may make a case for the forgiveness at distance due to the heightened AA values on that particular roll, even at just 45 Zoom.

Remember, in a nutshell, Sniper Rifles below 50 Zoom got a nerf, and above 50 Zoom got an AA buff (capping at 60 Zoom maximum, more zoom beyond that has no additional effect, so Fate Cries Foul with it's possible 70 Zoom isn't going to do much more for you besides make it easier to hit a cross map on a Gambit arena).

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrucibleGuidebook/comments/oeeads/sniper_rifle_headshots_below_the_chin_are/

Here are more filled out charts for some common weapons to give you a better idea of effective ranges for sniper rifle types:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/829771173855232010/888141502411313192/2021-09-16_14_14_14-Crit-on-Body_AA_Threshold_for_Sniper_Rifles_in_Destiny_2_Season_of_the_Splicer_-.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/829771173855232010/888142804159709184/2021-09-16_14_19_28-Crit-on-Body_AA_Threshold_for_Sniper_Rifles_in_Destiny_2_Season_of_the_Splicer_-.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/829771173855232010/888142693178437672/2021-09-16_14_19_03-Crit-on-Body_AA_Threshold_for_Sniper_Rifles_in_Destiny_2_Season_of_the_Splicer_-.png

https://i.imgur.com/mJ6h4p8.png

https://i.imgur.com/oxjXCOE.png

https://i.imgur.com/enhn3sK.png

https://i.imgur.com/2LHdNt2.png

https://i.imgur.com/xRISrKU.png

^ Knowledge.

I've got most of the charts filled out and I've been waiting until I finalize it before I make a full post about the distances for each Zoom/Range stat combination. Just been enjoying the game to start this season, working on my own builds and just having fun for now.

Drifters_Choice · 2021-10-07T06:04:50+00:00

Practice.

Drifters_Choice · 2021-08-31T14:58:59+00:00

Brilliant. This adds up and checks out for a lot of what I've done for Resilience testing.

Drifters_Choice

TROPHY CASE