The Bolter is fine on it's own as a weapon. The main problems with it are...

1.) You can't put down a melee enemy before they get to you, at least not reliably, even in situations where you should be able to. That's due to a few factors of course.

2.) Because it is geared more towards the "high damage per shot, low rate of fire" mindset, it requires more aiming than a faster firing weapon that you can "spray and pray", and thereby be somewhat "carried" by the weapon. Missing hurts a whole lot more.

3.) Also, because of its "high damage per shot, low rate of fire" mindset, when lag/latency/framerate drops/etc kick into play...it absolutely destroys how good the Bolter is. Unlike other weapons where you may be able to either shower them in lead, or do so much single target damage you only have to hit once, when technical issues start to fuck up your aim the Bolter suffers tremendously.

4.) The Bolter, without proper upgrades, is just straight up inferior to most weapon choices. To get said upgrades, it takes a bit of time and luck.


If they fix melee, and fix some of the technical issues, the Bolter would be perfectly fine. Currently it suffers from poor balance with melee classes, and errors in the game throwing off your aim. It's otherwise a high skill ceiling weapon that is really great.