Let’s start this off with a nuclear grade hot take, the plasma pistol sucks in infinite.
Now that everyone who won’t read further is already angry and commenting on how dumb I am let me explain to the rest. The plasma pistol in infinite is sadly mainly good for the noob combo, sadly its standalone damage is to put it lightly garbage to health and is one of the few weapons that doesn’t do a headshot insta-kill on unshielded targets, the only other weapons like that are the assault rifle, machineguns on warthogs or stationary, spnkr (which just doesn’t have a headshot to begin with) and the bulldog, which will 1 hit kill unshielded people anyway.
so as we can see in this list (which may not be 100% complete) most if not all alternative options for no headshot insta-kill are also balanced for it, the AR would be broken levels of OP had it had insta-kill potential like that and all the others are simply put plenty powerful against targets without needing it.
so here are my two main ideas of fixing it, I separate them for ease of understanding
slow burn plasma pistol
this version of the plasma pistol is modified to help assist the team and not just double but triple down on its overcharge.
- slightly increased lock-on range
- bolts who stick the player do health damage over time (though not a lot like an at best 1/8 of their health is damaged that way over time)
- the bolt sticks on them and fizzles like in CE while also for its short duration putting the person who got sticked on everyone’s motion tracker in range of him
- the player is awarded a medal called shieldbreaker if the player who got stuck like that is killed while the DoT is still going
- the DoT has as its primary goal to keep the shield regen resetting until that is done + the standard reset time, giving it a defensive use as a player has to wait longer to get their shields back than those with a normal shield break
this version of the plasma pistol exploits its main feature of overcharging to the maximum while keeping it limited to just shields and not vehicle disabling (which shock weapons now do). The philosophy behind it is that if we can’t make the gun lethal in-game we can at least make it the best tool for its one job, the tagging part for your motion tracker is there to make it impossible to simply crouch in a corner while waiting out the DoT on an aggressive player, as this is currently just too easy, you get hit run for cover and crouch while you hear them sprinting for your last known position. it makes the plasma pistol a flat out worse choice than most other weapons that in the same situation could simply keep shooting and kill you before your realize your shields are down. on btb and arena games I see this only really being any metric of overpowered to campers who now got exposed from their little corners and can’t hide there to simply wait out the shield breaking.
zealot’s plasma pistol
as the name implies this one is more risk reward oriented and is overall worse than the previous suggestion but it is interesting.
- all bullets track similar to the puls carbine, though the exact aggression of which should be custom made for the plasma pistol and not simply copied and pasted
- overcharging it slows down spartans and disables HUD for 3s (this includes the crosshair and visor linked aim, but not actual scopes)
- overcharging it on vehicles reduces the fire-rate of said vehicle by X% though my personal choice would be 50%, enough to make most vehicles a way lower threat with a plasma pistol without disabling them like shock weapons now do
- we get the burning bolt from CE back as a visual sign of whether the de-buff has worn off (I just like the burning bolt so let me have it back ;-; )
I am personally less a fan of this version but I see it be more useful than the current one and as said this is without making the plasma pistol itself break the mold of where it’s put now. I simply impose some tweaks that would make both competitive players and casual players more inclined to use it when nessesary, because as it stands, spam firing the sidekick can drop shields as fast as charging the pistol and firing would take and that’s assuming it hits the target too.
I hope to see a lot of feedback on how it should be re-tooled to fit the game better, while my ideas are kind off basic and not the best ones I do feel we need to give some ideas even if half of them are dumb or simply impossible. because in the end I feel flat out damage boosting the plasma pistol is a waste of potential, we have the chance to give it another purpose than just the noob combo enabler it has been for so long (because let’s be honest most of us destroy a vehicle rather than disabling it)
I wish anyone who reads this a merry christmas and happy newyear and I sincerely want this thread to show some ideas we have on the matter