I agree that the multimelta is roughly fine. It doesn't need more than minor tweaks. If someone is dominating infantry with it, they're likely ignoring vehicles (and thus not helping the team the best they can) or part of an organized spam group, which is expected to do well. One balancing factor to consider is pistols. Supposedly devs/havocs will get them eventually. The mm could be locked out of them. This would mean players using the weapon are locked into its short finite range, which i believe is only 30m.
So, only JPA should be able to touch a MM if both are aware at each other? (So not including suprise attacks from behind or whatever)? That would be quite a blunt game-balance to be honest. It should be situational. Dev goes into a capture point, sets up his multimelta and guards a door? He should obliterate whatever dares to come into that door. Tactical Pushes inside with a dev, keeps the targets busy until the Dev can set up his weapon and the Dev scorches the foes? Jeah, why not? Multimelter vs vehicle? I would increase the damage against vehicles to be honest if they get a set up requirement. But multimelta going rambo inside a capture point and killing everything? Thats wrong in my books. I never said MM should be nerfed otherwise, other than requiring setup time (As all heavy weapons should in my opinion, to unleash their full potential) So stay with the killy power, but not in every situation. But i agree on the Map-layout. We would not discuss this in the first place if there was more variety in capture-point design. But for now we talk about close combat encounters, as most of the game evolves around those capture points, and here multimelter is too dominant
Coming from someone that's been using it almost exclusively since it came out, there were never this many complaints about it until the last patch. They made a pretty major change last patch and that was removing the turn speed penalty of the weapon. Right now you can play the MM like a Tactical, just run around and destroy any and everything in your path. Prior to Patch 17 you had to be a little smarter with it, if someone was coming at your side while you were firing at something in front there was no way you could react to them fast enough. If someone was up in your face and was circling you while firing you wouldn't be able to turn with them. You were good to kill anything in range that was in front of you and nothing else until you respositioned. Now though...turn and react like a Tactical, that's too much for a heavy weapon. I wouldn't change the damage of the weapon, but I'd like three things from it. The turn speed reduction back, walking speed reduced while firing (Or an accuracy penalty that added a little wobble to the beam so you aren't taking a concentrated dose of death unless the Dev is sitting still), and for it to overheat faster. Since it came out you've been able to fire the thing for a good 100 charges or so (Hence people calling it a flamethrower) when I think 50 would be enough (Also making cooldowns a little faster). You kill someone in 15-20 charges unless they're a shield. Current state is too spammable for the amount of damage you put out. Edit: And to be fair you're still a devestator...the moment we get someone in melee we just hang it up and wait for the respawn because you ain't killing them unless they do something really stupid.
I've said it before, and i'll say it again. As a mm player, I wholly support reinstating the slower turn speeds.
^ This +1 Thank you Cyrillus for chiming in on this one! The MM aside, the Meltagun really does need some love. It isn't very effective at destroying tanks quickly, I find my krak grenades and power weapons often take off more health to the tank before the meltagun puts a dent in it. While it is possible to down players with the meltagun, you have to be really really close to be effective, and at that range I might as well be using my combat knife instead, as I will probably down the player quicker. I think a slight boost to its damage and range is really all it needs, but certainly not at the destructive level of the MM.
The big problem with melta weapons' perceived efficacy is that they do damage entirely via an ailment, rather than doing direct damage which scales up with the stacks of heat.
Multi-Melta is one of those weapons where if I run into it in most scenarios where I see them and they see me in firing rang I know I will either be killed or heavily damaged near the point of death no matter how I play it on all classes like MoN, JPA, Traitor, etc. More often than not I feel cheated when I die to them since I am unloading my weapon into them while attempting to juke, strafe, take cover etc. while they plant their feet and just pain the screen with the multi-melta doom beam. Even worse, there are alot of times when I do kill them and still die to their heat even when it only seems like I was barely tapped by it...so I feel as if it was a cheap death/kill. So I think that is also why alot of people dislike the weapon as it is against infantry, it is definitely skrong in the right hands, especially in these close quarter maps and considering how insanely amazing the weapon is against vehicles which is mostly fine. Normal melta is ok, seems to be solid at taking down vehicles but may be a bit soft on infantry.
That's part of why we want the slow turn speed back. Used to be you'd get caught by the initial shot, then we couldn't turn fast enough to keep up with the jukes depending on how close someone was. You'd have to catch them at a sweet spot range where you could turn with their movement or where they wouldn't be able to move away. Latency issue a lot of times, like with the melee problem of hitting someone, but not really hitting them because they were already moved on their side...or something similar. Also the unfortunate side effect of any DoT based mechanic (Damn you WoW Affliction Warlocks -_-). That's another major problem, map designs (Especially Torias Refinery, dear god) are really sweet on the MM. Only two that aren't are Harkus and the top 2 points on Blackbolt. I'm of the (probably unpopular) opinion that it should be strong against slower moving infantry with the limitation of being inaccurate and slow while moving and overheating quickly. It'd be fine if you could tag one (maybe two of they are weak) in a burst, but as it stands now you just hold down the button with little regard for your heat or ammo. Gonna have to disagree there, it's the worst weapon in the game at doing both.
The Meltagun could need some love, though I would be fine if they only made it better against vehicles. A designated tank-hunter squad can still make quick work of a vehicle with 3 Melta Guns though. The Multi-Melta is very strong against infantry and it feels somewhat alright against vehicles, since it would be quite tedious to play against if three of them arrived at once. Giving it just a slight charge-up time before it fires would make it less useful against infantry, as they would have a decent chance of winning a 1v1.
On any Melee class if I attack MM head on I'm dead in wtf seconds. Sometimes I'll get two attacks off first and still die having done zero damage to health. Even if I evade in front of them and was in their Melta beam for 0.5 seconds I'm dead. The only way to kill them is to sneak up on them.
