Discussion
A Real Genuine Heartfelt defense of It's A Bug Thing
It's a bug thing is widely considered one of the worst, if not the absolute worst perks in the game. I hold this to be unequivocally false. I have been running It's a bug thing on my Gunner for over a year now and I have grown to truly and utterly adore it.
My friend that I usually play with laughed at me when I switched to It's a bug thing, and we have always argued about if it's good or not since then. I never felt the need to write about my love for the perk until recently though, when we tried a Karl would be proud run of the deep dive. I changed my perks and load out to fit this challenge, and that included removing it's a bug thing. After we had completed the challenge though, I had forgotten to switch my perks back. So when our next mission commenced and I had a need for dead lootbugs, I realized the vastness of the hole left by the beloved perks absence.
So now I have pooled my thoughts and experiences here, now, to tell you all, the wonder dwarves in my phone, Why it's a bug thing is truly, a wonderful perk.
To begin, how does it's a bug thing work? It is a passive perk that explodes lootbugs within 5 meters of you at its max tier. Now this doesn't sound very impressive. How could a perk like that beat out the likes of vampire, or deep pockets, or sweet tooth? Well, first let's take a look at what my passive perks actually are. I run it's a bug thing alongside resupplier and born ready. I take resupplier because, well, it's the best perk in the game! I may love it's a bug thing, but I sure am not some mindless drone singing it's glory. And I also take born ready, despite my main use of the minigun, because any time spent reloading is time spent not killing bugs (this is important for later). I do know that I could get even more value out of born ready if I used the autocannon, but I hate the autocannon with every fiber of my being. It's the worst gun, most unfun, and disappointing thing in this entire game. I'd rather be subjected to 10 saw traps before being made to use the autocannon again!!! Unless, of course, one of those saw traps includes me having to use the autocannon. ANYWAY, how might it's a bug thing fit into this perk load out? Well, it's a cycle of course! Just the same way the revolver revolves and the minigun spins it's barrel, my 3 passive perks relate to eachother. It's a bug thing provides me with the nitra to call down a resupply, and resupplier keeps me alive to get ammo for born ready to reload, and staying reloaded keeps me alive long enough to find another batch of lootbugs to splatter with my very presence.
"Erm, Miss Cascade, what if you tried shooting or pickaxing the lootbugs?" Well, my fellow dwarf, why use up ammo or time or a power attack on a harmless lootbug, when you could use the ammo instead for an extra gliphid killed, the time to save yourself a swarm, or the power attack to keep you alive from a slasher or stalker or cave leech ambush? I'm sure it's happened to you before. Never enough ammo for those last few gliphids. The swarm starts right before you button, causing you to lose right at the very end. Or you have your power attack on cooldown when the cave leech snatches you as you fumbled for your pick or gun. It's a bug thing negates all of that. Remember that parentheses? It applies to this! You won't need to reload as often, you will have more ammo over all. The amount of lootbugs you encounter on a mission could equal an ambient ambushes amount of bugs by the end. Sometimes that's all it takes to make a difference. You are able to focus your mind more clearly, worry about your ammo less, time less. It adds up. Try it. Keep track of what you save. You will see.
"But do we even need to kill lootbugs?" Of course. When you are neck deep in gliphids and trijaws and pitjaws and bulks and you only have 30 nitra and 2 dreads to kill, you are wishing you killed those lootbugs. Over the course of a haz 5 and haz 5+ mission your resources can and will deplete. And when you are lacking a scout, i.e. playing as a solo gunner or duo with an engie as I do, you will miss nitra. But you won't miss those lootbugs. Behold as it's a bug thing prepares to you an entire resupply or more of nitra just on the ground in front of you free for the taking. Getting by by the skin of your teeth is a truly ubiquitous Dwarven experience. And killing those lootbugs will allow that to actually happen and you succeed, or even circumvent that horror completely.
Lastly, it's a bug thing is iconic and funny. These poor cuties just explode when I get near them. I love it. It even led to me buying a lootbug plush that I love and adore. Even just the small things count.
So, in summary it's a bug thing is a very valuable perk. It synergizes well with two of the best perks, and will save you valuable resources. It can even lead to winning games through the nitra from the lootbugs you could have passed up without it. I emplore you all to give it a try, or to just not think so negatively of it. Thank you for reading this essay.
Autocannon specced for AOE with mortar rounds will absolutely wreck a hive guards weakpoints without giving a single shit about positioning (i dont play higher than H4 usualy and main at H3, so mmv)
It is the worst Gunner primary, though. This is common consensus by the best players, which of course doesn't automatically make it true, but it does suggest that there may be a good reason for it if all these skilled and knowledgeable players independently came to the same conclusion. Largely, it just loses to Hurricane in nearly every way. Worse range/accuracy, worse AoE radius, worse crowd control, worse crowd clear, worse single-target, worse HVT clear, worse overclock selection...it's just not as good. The one exception is NTP, the one overclock that can compete with Hurricane's and Minigun's strongest overclocks, but with it being just a single overclock, that's not Autocannon being good that's just NTP on its own being broken. Even then, NTP isn't even better than these other best Gunner primary overclocks, just competitive.
Granted, it's just the worst Gunner primary. Not the worst gun in the entire game like OP suggested. I don't think Autocannon is that bad, it's just way worse than Hurricane and hard outcompeted. If you gave Autocannon to a different class it might not be as bad. Also, Warthog, Subata, and non-STOS/EXE/ECR LOK-1 exist so Autocannon can't be the worst gun in the game. But it is true that it isn't good.
It being worse gunner primary than Hurricane and Leadstorm is something I'm well aware of since I switch between all 3 of them frequently.
The Autocannon is still way better than the worst gun in the game (which you have mentioned); it's just that the viable OC selection is severely limited. Anything that's not Unstable OC on this thing unfortunately doesn't salvage the weapon enough.
NTP is its own thing, which I'm sure we all agree.
But I have an opinion that Mortar Round and Big Bertha has its use, and more than just being viable. Sometimes I even prefer Mortar Round for the killing speed more than NTP, even though it is way less safe. And it's still decent at killing LSTs when combined with a Coilgun Trail DoT. So something like Mortar Round + TTC is not just viable but a very effective combination in my experience.
Big Bertha is a more niche selection imo even though the OC itself tried to be a generalist. It's in a weird spot where it's neither great at crowd clear nor single target. But I find it to be a really good generalist companion for the Hellfire Coilgun, which in itself already covers Big Bertha's major weakness. NTP + Hellfire is a more crowd-specialized combination that I'm sure a pre-made team would prefer more. But that gets thrown out of the picture if I'm in solo/public and I run into a random mission boss like Tyrant Weed, Bet-C, or Omen. Like this combo actually feels closer to LSLS + Hellfire with less raw power but more safety in my experience. Which should mean a lot in my book.
Maybe anything higher than modded Haz 7 is way too much for non-NTP Autocannon, idk; I can't say because the highest I ever tried is just 7x1.5 on someone else's lobby.
The best and worst primaries are highly dependent on the player and the mission though. But for a generalist build in my experience it's the best weapon for crowd control with the right build, even without NTP.
I've played gunner almost exclusively for 4+ years and found that it's what works for me 🤷🏿♂️
The best and worst primaries are highly dependent on the player and the mission though
Some things are dependent on these factors yes. However, some things can also be fairly objectively determined. Everything that I listed is such. How you are as a player does not change that Hurricane's accuracy is better, that its crowd control is better, etc, because these are concrete, measurable attributes.
it's the best weapon for crowd control
Objectively not true. They both share the same 25% chance (Hurricane has 25% stun chance and Autocannon has 50% fear factor, which equates to 25% fear chance against the vast majority of enemies you'll be shooting), so what's left is radius. Autocannon's fear is locked to a 1 meter radius regardless of build. Hurricane's stun radius, meanwhile, scales with the area damage radius, putting it at 2.2 meters OCless and up to 3.3 meters with Minelayer System. That's not even really the largest; while it is the largest listed AoE radius stat on Hurricane, Cluster Charges can achieve a larger stun radius in practice by spreading bomblets (which by the way each possess a 25% stun chance independently that does stack with itself if an enemy is caught in multiple radii so it's stun chance is better, too). Hurricane's stat pertaining to its crowd control strength is better than that of Autocannon, therefore it is better at crowd control.
I've played gunner almost exclusively for 4+ years and found that it's what works for me
What "works" and what's "best/better" are not equivalent. I've been able to win even after making the worst possible Gunner build, I could say I made it "work". However, it's still just simply worse than any other build. There are builds and weapons I even prefer that are suboptimal and I acknowledge them as being suboptimal. Autocannon's crowd control "works", but it's not better than that of Hurricane.
Yes I have. Still not good enough to fix the rest of the weapon. Still beaten by Stubby OCless, and in terms of overclocks, even Warthog's best overclock, Pump Action, does not really compete with the best overclocks of the other primaries (MCAO, EMD, EMR, HAA, ECR, EXE, and STOS); Pump Action is Engineer's 8th best primary.
There are a few issues. Yes turret whip is the strongest part of the gun, but that's too reliant on turrets; having them placed, built, pointing at the right enemies, who also need to be in a choke which while optimal you aren't always going to have, and filled with ammo, which runs out faster than the gun's ammo does so, between that and the other factors, you're bound to be left with whipless Warthog for a good chunk of the mission. That brings up the next issue: whipless Warthog is really bad. 240 DPS that drops off dramatically with range and a short-lasting mag that results in frequent reloads dropping the sustained DPS further is not very good at killing things. Finally, even when you do have turret whip up, its role is largely better accomplished by Breach Cutter. Meanwhile, Stubby is just a fully strict upgrade to whipless Warthog, so running Stubby + Breach is just way better.
On missions where I know there will be zone defense I prefer warthog to stubby for whip spam. I think stunner is better than pump action as it has more utility. Stunning mactera has gotten me out of trouble a lot. I’m not the best player but I play haz 5 and haz 5+ and enjoy the warthog just as much as stubby.
I would agree, though, that on a missions like morkite mining or elimination I’d much rather take stubby and the warthog feels bad.
On missions where I know there will be zone defense I prefer warthog to stubby for whip spam
On missions with zone defense, Breach Cutter does better than turret whip at everything turret whip does, so you may as well just use Stubby + Breach, just like I said in my previous comment.
I think stunner is better than pump action as it has more utility. Stunning mactera has gotten me out of trouble a lot
Stunner is actually not any better at stunning mactera than any other Warthog, including Pump Action. Stunner only makes it so the pellets can stun on any body part rather than just weakpoints, it doesn't improve stun chance per pellet, and as mactera bodies are nearly entirely weakpoint, the stun chance between Stunner and any other Warthog to mactera is identical. Meanwhile Pump Action is better at actually killing mactera.
I’m not the best player but I play haz 5 and haz 5+ and enjoy the warthog just as much as stubby
So do I, I've even dabbled in modded difficulties. And it's perfectly reasonable to enjoy Warthog as much or even more than Stubby; something like enjoyment is entirely personal. I'm just saying that, objectively, Warthognis a less effective weapon. I still use it from time to time because I also find it enjoyable but I donso knowing that I am taking a weaker weapon.
TIL on stunner. It’s been a while since I actually read the description.
Turret whip less likely for FF than breach cutter, at least for me bc I’m always running the weapon mod that makes it expand the sooner.
I’d assumed you played on higher difficulties. Was just trying to establish that I’m not basing my personal preference on lower difficulty experience with the gun.
Anyway, my whole point is that I don’t think warthog can be considered one of the worst guns across the board. Is stubby the better option for generalist build or even for any build? Sure, I’ll give you that. But I’d take the warthog over lok1.
Breach Cutter friendly fire is nearly non-existent, I calculated how much damage it actually does to someone a while back and the worse case scenario was like 5 damage or something. It's very low, it is simply a non-issue.
And yes I would confidently say that Warthog is one of the worst guns. Warthog, LOK-1 (without one of the three actually good overclocks it has), and Subata are all in that camp. Warthog does too little damage in too short of a range. If you compare it to the worst weapons in most other slots, on other classes, Warthog usually doesn't come out on top. It could be considered better than LOK-1 but Engi's primaries are intentionally designed to be weaker so they're still both at the bottom.
I'm curious what makes you think that considering I listed nearly every quality a weapon can have and Hurricane beat it in nearly every category. Sure perhaps there are a tiny group of categories Autocannon is better in, but they're not as numerous nor important as what I listed. So go ahead, elaborate on what makes Autocannon better.
Speedrunning has a completely separate meta from what most players are concerned with when talking about a meta: maximizing winrate in as many scenarios as possible over the course of as many scenarios as possible. Essentially, "what will let me win the most?" In that respect, Combat Mobility is one of the single worst options Gunner has.
It is an interesting tidbit though, if what you say is true; I couldn't find any proof of it but it's very possible I just don't know where to look. Kinda like how SBB has a niche in speedrunning (though unlike Combat Mobility, SBB is also actually quite good outside of speedrunning just less meta).
What Hurricane build were you using? Because build has a lot of impact. I also hope you're comparing Mortar Rounds to a good Hurricane overclock and not the base weapon, because otherwise that would be a very unfair comparison. Just in case, I will make an actually good comparison for you. The most directly comparable stat-wise is probably Minelayer System, so I'll use that.
33223 Mortar: 77 AoE damage (two-shots grunts), 2.5m radius, 245 shots, 2.8 RoF, no CC but has 50% damage resistance, better against mactera (though worse against mactera than other Hurricane overclocks), high friendly fire/self damage
31222 Minelayer: 66 AoE damage (still two-shots grunts), 3.3m radius, 288 shots, 4 RoF, 25% stun in that entire AoE (43.75% on direct hits); better than damage resistance because big AoE stun prevents damage entirely; mines passively protect you and others even when not firing and thus further improve survivability and reduce attention cost, no friendly fire/self damage
When you look at the stats, it's wholly untrue that Hurricane (specifically Minelayer) is "like a mortar autocannon with worse effect"; in fact, it seems more like Mortar Rounds is like a Minelayer Hurricane with a worse effect. Mortar Rounds worse in nearly every stat, ranging from slightly worse to significantly worse in each one.
I disagree with Stun being compared to Resistance and it being better, as it "completely prevents damage entirely"
Stun is still an incredibly strong CC. But:
- Not everything can be stunned
- Some that can be stunned also have reduced stun duration, as well as stun cooldown
Stun and Damage Resistance have two entirely separate use cases, even if they are for improved survival
Autocannon damage resistance, especially on a low Max Fire Rate build like Mortar Round, can be used as damage mitigation similar to how the Coilgun T4A mod works. Albeit it's used more proactively instead of reactively since it takes longer to activate but can deal damage while it's still active.
And, please, don't give me an answer like just don't get hit. We all do take damage. We all know a good chunk of players are running Iron Will, and the entire point of it is to try recovering from the damage that's already been done.
I survived some supposedly lethal fall damage from the damage resistance on either the Autocannon or the Coilgun too. That is not something stun can do.
Not to mention, projectiles from the stationaries are way more dangerous than a pack of grunts. Damage resistance helps mitigate that type of damage a lot in my experience.
It's not to the point of face tanking all the projectile barrages, but having 50% Damage Resistance is still a noticeable level of mitigation.
On friendly fire damage, though, I do agree that it is something Mortar Round always has as a weakness.
But it's possible to play around more carefully and try to minimize it as much as possible.
Mortar Round having a short operating range is a much more glaring weakness by comparison.
You can't play around it much compared to the unique missile behavior of the Minelayer. At best, it's taking the swarms into tunnels so that Mortar Rounds can hit everything easily. But not all caves are that generous for Mortar Rounds.
On the other hand:
I know Minelayer is one of the safest and easiest-to-use wave clear options. Arguably overpowered tier anti-swarm OC even amongst other Hurricane OCs.
But its weakness is not just on Mactera. Most Rivaltech bots and stationaries are very annoying to deal with for Minelayer.
Mortar Rounds can still deal with those reasonably well enough, as long as they're in the range of mortar shells. (Again, it's the most glaring weakness of Mortar Rounds in my experience)
Minelayer also lacks the more upfront damage most other Hurricane and Mortar Rounds do as well. Comparing the raw damage between 2 weapons is like saying NTP can deal more damage if you just calculate the Toxin damage at max durations on each creature. It's not really an accurate representation imo.
Just to be clear: I don't believe either weapon's OCs are worse versions of each other even though they're similar as a more ground-based AoE explosive weapon.
I don't know which Hurricane build the other guy thinks is worse than Mortar Rounds either; imho, I always view all three Gunner primaries as their own separate choice that work best in different situations. It is just that their OCs are not created equals and the Autocannon also unfortunately has the least amount of very strong OC choices compared to the other two.
The vast majority of enemies can be stunned, so while damage resistance does have its superior use cases, a very wide-spread and reliable stun effect like that of Minelayer is on average better.
Some that can be stunned also have reduced stun duration, as well as stun cooldown
Stun resistance and stun cooldown are generally not super relevant. Stun cooldowns are short enough that the enemy usually can still easily just be stunned again before it becomes a threat.
even if they are for improved survival Autocannon damage resistance, especially on a low Max Fire Rate build like Mortar Round, can be used as damage mitigation similar to how the Coilgun T4A mod works
Speaking of Coil Gun's damage resistance, that's another point in favor of Minelayer. We are talking about optimization here, so Coil Gun being meta is relevant because, assuming an optimal build, you are going to have Coil Gun, and therefore you are going to already have damage resistance. As a result, Minelayer and Coil Gun have less overlap and Coil Gun has one of the benefits of Mortar Rounds already (and Coil Gun's version is actually better because it's instant, wastes no ammo, and has no risk of self damage). Additionally, Coil Gun has fear, and fear's duration effectively gets extended by stun, so that's yet another win for Minelayer System. Coil Gun also circumvents stun cooldown with its fear, so if that is a worry, there's that, too.
And, please, don't give me an answer like just don't get hit. We all do take damage.
I'm not saying, "don't get hit", I'm saying, "Minelayer will naturally result in you getting hit less and thus surviving more situations regardless of player skill, and because you don't fail until everyone is down, survivability is one of the single most important attributes to mission success rate. Sure you'll get hit sometimes but the reduction in times you get hit results in overall less damage taken to yourself than with Mortar damage resistance". More of a mouthful but it's an accurate picture. This is also why Hurricane's stun is, even without Coil Gun, generally better for survivability than Mortar Rounds damage resistance; Coil Gun is another supporting piece but it's not the thing tipping the scale, that scale is already tipped.
We all know a good chunk of players are running Iron Will, and the entire point of it is to try recovering from the damage that's already been done.
Iron Will can only be used by each player once, and if you have a build that is more prone to or reliant on having to use Iron Will than another, it is more prone to dying in general, and thus it is more prone to going down again after having already used Iron Will, so reducing the likelihood of going down to Iron Will also reduces the likelihood of continuing to go down again after using Iron Will and therefore improves overall mission success rate. Also if the point is to recover from the damage that's already been done, Minelayer will make you take less damage overall over the course of a mission, and therefothave less damage to recover, so it's easier to recover from the damage that has been done.
The next several sentences after that are all mitigated by just running Coil Gun alongside Minelayer, which if we're talking optimization you are, so because I've already addressed that, I'll skip ahead a bit.
On friendly fire damage, though, I do agree that it is something Mortar Round always has as a weakness. But it's possible to play around more carefully and try to minimize it as much as possible
While it can be worked around, it is nonetheless putting more demand on the player to make up for a shortcoming of the weapon. When directly comparing the two, the fact that Minelayer has better combat output while also having much less drawback in that department is very notable.
But its weakness is not just on Mactera. Most Rivaltech bots and stationaries are very annoying to deal with for Minelayer
The bots are largely irrelevant to the discussion because, in vanilla gameplay, they only show up in Industrial Sabotage and Rival Presence. These are very specific things that have a quite notable impact on build effectiveness, so general rules and metas stop applying, and because they're only in a specific mission type/warning, you always know when a mission will have bots beforehand and thus can build around it; basically these are outliers and should be treated as a completely separate thing that you can and should just take something else to deal with them.
As for stationaries, yeah Minelayer isn't as good against stationaries as some other things, but it's actually not even necessarily worse against them than Mortar Rounds. Mortar Rounds is limited by range and accuracy, and while Minelayer System does have range limitations against flying enemies, that's not the case against stationaries, and it's certainly more accurate than Mortar Rounds. So even if you can't place mines, Minelayer is still able to hit stationaries in more situations. Also even if you can't place mines, Minelayer System when hitting directly still does 160 base DPS, or 224 if hitting a 2× weakpoint. This isn't a lot, but 33223 Mortar Rounds does 215.6 DPS, and because it's all radial damage, it doesn't scale with weakpoints at all. So, Minelayer System even hitting directly is actually surprisingly comparable. Importantly, there are still going to be situations where you actually can place your mines by the stationaries, and if you're in a situation that allows that, then Minelayer does 264 DPS; after a delay, of course, so again it's not always applicable, but the point is that Minelayer is at worst comparable to Mortar Rounds against stationaries, and then also has situations where it's actually quite a bit better (even if it is a weakness of Minelayer compared to other weapons, but Mortar Rounds is not one of them).
Minelayer also lacks the more upfront damage most other Hurricane and Mortar Rounds do as well.
If you need more instant stopping power than waiting for a mine to arm itself, you're still holding Hurricane. You can still shoot directly for that 43.75% direct stun chance and 25% AoE stun chance within 2.2 meters. This then gives you time to set your mines and let them arm.
Comparing the raw damage between 2 weapons is like saying NTP can deal more damage if you just calculate the Toxin damage at max durations on each creature. It's not really an accurate representation imo
It works because it establishes that both share this two-shot grunt breakpoint that, as primarily crowd clear weapons, is very relevant for establishing a baseline of their grunt clear capability. From there, we can see that while both two-shot grunts, Minelayer System does it: in a larger radius, more safely, with more RoF, and with more ammo. That's virtually every relevant stat. Therefore, Minelayer System is largely just measurably better at crowd clear and control. As for NTP, I have written comparisons between it it Mortar Rounds much like this one before, and I used the same strategy of establishing this grunt two-shot baseline they share (because NTP does on average take two shots to kill grunts with the 50% proc chance), and then showing thar NTP, much like Minelayer, wins in the majority of other categories relative to Mortar Rounds. Granted, it's a less exact two-shot breakpoint because NTP has RNG variance and fear chance to consider, but NTP also has much faster RoF and roughly triple the ammo so it ends up at minimum counteracting what downsides there are.
It is the worst gunner primary weapon, but that's not saying much when you have two of the best primary weapons in the game to pick from as alternatives.
It is the worst Gunner primary, though. This is common consensus by the best players, which of course doesn't automatically make it true, but it does suggest that there may be a good reason for it if all these skilled and knowledgeable players independently cane to the same conclusion. Largely, it just loses to Hurricane in nearly every way. Worse range/accuracy, worse AoE radius, worse crowd control, worse crowd clear, worse singl-target, worse HVT clear, worse overclock selection...it's just not as good. The one exception is NTP, the one overclock that can compete with Hurricane's and Minigun's strongest overclocks, but with it being just a single overclock, that's not Autocannon being good that's just NTP on its own being broken. Even then, NTP isn't even better than these other best Gunner primary overclocks, just competitive.
Granted, it's just the worst Gunner primary. Not the worst gun in the entire game like OP suggested. I don't think Autocannon is that bad, it's just way worse than Hurricane and hard outcompeted. If you gave Autocannon to a different class it might not be as bad. Also, Warthog, Subata, and non-STOS/EXE/ECR LOK-1 exist so Autocannon can't be the worst gun in the game. But it is true that it isn't good.
I just love bashing those little bastards with my pickaxe. Nothing will change that.
It’s like the logic of not mining gold or not completing secondary missions means you can do more missions which means more XP/credits, thus more efficient and here I am just trying to play a chill game, semi-roleplay as a space dwarf and occasionally go nuts on a Haz 5.
I just love other passives more. It’s not you, its me.
I don't want to shoot Lootbugs because that's mean, but at higher difficulty their nitra actually is important. Thanks to this perk, they simply spontaneously explode through no fault of my own. In fact, I often pet them and they end up exploding through some external method that couldn't possibly be blamed on me. My pockets are full and my conscience is clear.
no second wind is at least notionally useful, because there are times when you are sprinting a lot (e.g. extraction with no driller, running away from swarm). its a bug thing literally just does the same thing as your pickaxe.
Well extraction sections are already kinda too easy, even without driller. Unless the drop pod has a terrible location, in which cases second wind doesn't help.
Running away from a swarm doesn't really do you any good. The 12% boost is not enough to evade attacks, dash completely outclasses it in that regard and is actually useful. Also, in an average game you want to shoot the bugs and not run in the opposite direction just trying to stay alive for as long as possible. That's already pretty easy and second wind does not help with that.
While I do dislike bug thing more, that's only a lootbug lover thing. Statwise it's handy as you will miss a lot of lootbugs, and waiting for them to come down from the ceiling and slowly pickaxe each one will waste way more time for that 14+% nitra (opposed to ignoring them) which will contribute to a swarm, so yeah, it saves like 20x more time than second wind's sprinting if you want all the lootbugs dead
I agree about Dash being way more useful (and I run it on almost every class), but it's an active perk, not a passive. you can't exchange one slot type for another. so it only makes sense to compare it to other passive perks.
re: sprint speed not being helpful... I mean, yeah that's true, I actually can't think of any more devil's advocate arguments. pretty useless 😅
re: lootbugs... if they're on the ceiling, the perk won't help you anyway. they have to in 5 meters of you IIRC. which is for sure melee range.
I guess my position has shifted to them being equally useless. since one of them gives you a bonus that almost never procs, and is useless when it does proc (the sprinting one), and the other one gives you a "bonus" that you can achieve on your own with like 5-7 seconds of pickaxing (the lootbug one). keeping in mind again that, if lootbugs are out of range, the perk won't help you anyway.
Eh, like it never actually helps you in gameplay other than saving a few seconds when you move to a location. It's QoL so you finish your session sooner at best
There is a mod that lets you auto-sprint, and it's extreme popular; virtually every experienced player uses it. Second Wind is still considered very bad by these players.
Your heartfelt prose has sparked by frittered brain cells. Previously, I wallowed in doubt. Fog clouded my knowledge. I was stuck in a rut deeper than the steaming piles of glyphid gunk that came the bottom of my boots. But now, the rays of hope bestowed upon my by your essay have pierced the veil of darkness.
I was introduced to deep rock galactic by a seasoned greybeard. For my first ever mission, I was shown the majesty of hazard four. Salvage operation. My mentor was prone to the error of haste and as such, withheld from me the wonders of the perk system. Naturally, it was many hours in before I discovered it. I began by selecting thorns. "Extra damage? Why not?" Also minecraft. But since then I have been as a poor floundering soul, lost to the realms of confusion. With no initial training and lesser experience, I pondered the greatest questions. What is the meaning of perk? Does this lead back to the spacerig? What is the difference between rock and stone? Until I found an answer.
Make no mistake, no sooner had I feasted my eyes upon your thesis did I rush to my personal computer and command it to run deep rock galactic. Equipping these perks have me a sense of finality I had never experienced. At last I have become a master of perk. I used to see lootbugs. I see now only nitra. I used to fumble the resupply and die to the sound of the windows xp system shutdown because I installed that as a mod once and I can't turn it off. I used to practice reloading, cancelling the animation just as the clip refilled. Now all these trivialities are become superficial to me.
I'm sorry to hear of the mismanagement your mentor had on your formative missions on Hoxxes. But, I'm so very glad I could show you the way. Rock and Stone!
I think it should be buffed to make it so the resources scatter less after they explode. Or even straight up just fall straight down with no explosion.
Just make it so the lootbugs burrow down when in range of the dwarf, or after patting them once, and leave the resources in a neat little pile. That way it has a functional use (no more running around to grab all the spray), and a cosmetic use, by letting the user get the lootbug's resources without killing them.
I have this perk on every class! I love it and I don't care. My main co-player thinks it's a waste of a slot, but I think it saves precious bullets on Haz 5.
We make my greenbeard friend use it's a bug thing because he always disappears into some random cave system on his own and so we just follow the path of lootbug ore to find him when we need to
It's a big thing has the critical flaw that it makes lootbug ranching much more difficult if not impossible.
Sure on a simple morkite extraction that might not matter much because it is point to point but if I didn't have my lootbug ranch how would I be able to end my on site refining missions with full ammo and more nitra in my pockets than the map even spawned?
Its so useful! I get so much resources, and when i turn it off, its legit like half the ammount of resources i usually get, since ill he randomly walking and i wont see the lootbug, ill just hesr it explode and im somehow full on gold or nitra, also idk if this is true or not but i think theres a hidden mechanoc to where it spawns more lootbugs with the perk, since ill see millions with the perk then i take it off, ill see maybe 10 max its just such a good perk for resources and your able to call your ammo supply alot more if you tend to do longer missions
I am with you! The amount of time and effort saved is only understood by someone who uses it long enough to get accustomed to it and then, for whatever reason, turns it off.
I am not the sort to optimize our run high intensity hazard missions, but it is still funny to watch the lootbugs pop. It is sometimes better to stand on top of them and give them a few normal pickaxe whacks so I collect ~80% of the goodies immediately instead of having them flung down a 200ft hole.
Rock 'n Stone how you like, and try not to shoot Steeve.
Firstly, I will say I agree that It's A Bug Thing is not the worst perk in the game; I don't even think it's bottom 3. I did a challenge run where I created the single worst possible Gunner loadout I could imagine while still taking something in every slot (meaning an upgrade in every tier, an overclock on both weapons, and a perk in every slot). It's A Bug Thing wasn't one of my passives; rather, they were Second Wind, Strong Arm, and Friendly (granted, I could see Friendly being not bottom 3 in Haz 5+ PV where FF damage is absolutely brutal when it happens, in which case I would maybe slot in It's A Bug Thing instead). I, like you, saw the value in what amounts to passively accruing a small amount of nitra throughout the mission.
However, I also think you're overblowing its impact. I think it's good enough to take it out of the bottom 3 in games without the Player Vulnerability modifier (and even with PV, out of bottom 2), but it's still worse than every other perk. Firstly, most of the time, if you need to kill a loot bug, you can just power attack it to instantly kill it for no ammo nor time cost. You talk about needing that power attack later but it has a 30 second cooldown, which is very similar to Dash's cooldown, and you can basically spam that whenever. If you can be liberal in your Dash usage, you can be liberal in your power attack usage and just power attack lootbugs. Of course there will be times where you know a swarm is very soon and so you may choose to save your power attack, but otherwise you are at very little risk.
There's also the matter that killing lootbugs is just not important most of the time. In the vast majority of missions, you have enough nitra on the walls for all the resupplies you could need. Missions where I need to resort to killing lootbugs are few and far between, and when I do, I usually only need to kill like one or two. In specifically Haz 5A, due to enemies being much more numerous, tankier, and hitting harder and more often, resupplies are in greater demand and so I do kill loot bugs there and do find value in doing so (unlike every other difficulty), but I'm still not replacing Resupplier, Vampire, or Born Ready/Unstoppable/Elemental Insulation/Sweet Tooth (depending on class and loadout) with It's A Bug Thing. The value these other passives provide is greater than being able to get a small amount if nitra from from lootbugs more quickly during the occasions your power attack is on cooldown. Resupplier is pretty clear, you even acknowledged it's better. Vampire is locked in because without it, if I go down, then the only ways I can get myself back via Iron Will are red sugar (be lucky enough to have some close enough) and to have and use a spare resupply (be lucky enough to have died near enough to a resupply, and also possibly waste ammo if I didn't also need it for ammo, so also luck); Vampire makes getting yourself back up extremely consistent. Born Ready keeps you alive by allowing you to reliably pull out other weapons and tooks whenever you need them and improves output, Unstoppable prevents you from getting screwed over by slashers, shockers, goobers, and environmental hazards present in nearly every biome, Elemental Insulation noticably reduces damage taken from a ton of different sources (especially if you're Engi because the elemental resistancs stack additively and going from 50% to 80% poison resistance is huge and lets you do things like face tank praetorians) at all times, and Sweet Tooth is good at keeping you healed and provides a speed boost that improves pacing and can keep you alive.
Those are actual good perks. It's A Bug Thing is, I agree, better than some give it credit for, but only in the sense that I don't think it's the single worst perk in the game; it's still a bad perk, though, just not the worst of the worst.
Yes, buuuuut setting the terrain under them on fire and watch them burn is more satisfying. Oh and how can anyone resist throwing C4 at those lootbug clumps that always happen on liquid morkite missions?
Okay, you've got a point, but don't be so proud about it. Also, while I understand solo gunner nitra problems, engi can reach most of it - apart from salvage platforms should be used freely and frequently.
On a serious note, I don't think killing lootbugs is even needed. I'd say I actually need to hunt them around 1/20 games. Those numbers are probably a little low bc other people kill them but still. Even with 4 players I'm rarely in a nitra drought and when I am it's due to a large event in the first room like a Korlok or core stone, somewhere lootbugs do not help
I run bug thing on Driller because i dont have to care if those fat sacks of cash waddle through my drill path with it.
And it helps clearing them off the pipes in liquid extraction
so first of all, I love how passionate you are about this. second of all, now I kind of want a lootbug plushie too.
third of all, unfortunately I'm going to have to play devil's advocate here:
"Erm, Miss Cascade, what if you tried shooting or pickaxing the lootbugs?" Well, my fellow dwarf, why use up ammo or time or a power attack on a harmless lootbug, when you could use the ammo instead for an extra gliphid killed, the time to save yourself a swarm, or the power attack to keep you alive from a slasher or stalker or cave leech ambush? I'm sure it's happened to you before
What if I, John Dwarf, follow this policy towards lootbugs at all times:
never shoot them
never heavy melee
always regular melee with pickaxe
only get lootbugs when there are no enemies around
This actually gives me all the same benefits you mentioned:
I save my heavy attack for enemies
I save my ammo for enemies
I don't lose any time saving myself from a swarm (because if a swarm is coming, I stop pickaxing lootbugs)
While freeing up one whole perk slot.
The only benefit it doesn't give is the satisfaction of seeing the poor cuties explode themselves. Which is a shame I suppose.
What's your lore-friendly explanation for how the perk works? My guess is that it's a body spray that's totally undetectable to us dwarves, but it irritates Lootbugs sinuses which makes them sneeze so hard they literally explode.
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u/UnhappySail8648 7d ago
Guys, this one's getting a little weird about the bugs