Whiskey Foxtrot Needs a buff

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#39

I think the funniest part is how everyone who thinks that WT performs alright instantly says “he’s just really hard to learn to use…” While his in-game description is “easy.”

Seriously, not a single person in this conversation anywhere has said WT is “easy” to use… dafuq.

I’d have to throw my hat into the “WT needs a buff” camp, but I’m not advocating for much. He’s far from “easy” to use and his damage (even on single targets) is quite low. Sticky nades do almost no damage (even stuck to people) the scrap cannon is next to useless in my experience, and his rifle is spotty. I’ve had good games on him, but those same games would have been blowouts on another assassin like Phoebe or Rath, or even most tanks. And to get those good games I had to constantly search for shards and XP sources just to keep up…

His ult is about the only good part about him, and it can definitely help you focus down someone… but it’s not even capable of 100-0 on the squishiest characters… comparing that to a Rath ult is just silly considering Rath can CC someone, silence them, and juggle them until they’re dead and STILL keep going onto another target or two, meanwhile Whiskey would still be in the middle of reloading after dumping his ult directly into someone’s face.

And I’m still laughing of the video showing how “good” WT can be… where the other team was completely clueless (lmfao @montana just jogging along while being shot to pieces from behind) So far the matchmaking hasn’t even begun to get me matches with comparable teams, and I’ll be sharing my judgement until then on if he can be salvaged at all, but right now, even against complete scrubs, he feels “meh”

#40

I agree that Whiskey Foxtrot needs some minor tweaks. Compare to Oscar Mike and you can really tell the difference in potential. The scrap cannon is kinda slow and clunky like others have said. Maybe give scrap cannon piercing abilities so that it can punch through multiple targets. The delay on his grenades really hurts him and I think it should be removed. Oscar Mikes grenades put whiskeys to shame.

#41

Faster reload speed, maybe 15 more dmg per shot, better/improved helix options, scrap cannon needs cc (bleed, stun, silence), and massively reduce his ult animation both before and after it’s used.

WF will always cop the comparison to OM because they’re both typical fps characters with similar weapons. OM’s ult animation takes barely a second to activate and he still has access to his nades and rifle while his ult is doing it’s thing. WF’s ult animation is closer to 3 seconds before and after usage, and you have no access to your basic attack and skills while it’s active. Scrap cannon is useless with the pushing enemies back helix. Any skill or weapon that requires a helix upgrade to be functional is just broken. You’re supposed to augment your skills, not make them usable. I don’t understand why they gave him such a long reload animation either. It’s like the devs thought “let’s put all the worst parts of a bl2 gun together”. Dahl AR with a jakobs reload.

His character page lists him as an assassin. I dunno what that means to anyone else, but I read that as him being capable of high burst damage. He does anything but high burst damage. He feels like you’ve brought a pea shooter to a gun fight lol

1 Like
#42

Ok so I went back and used WF today with a two different crit builds One was a crit, crit, fast reload fast reload, pierce build, and the other was crit fast reload, fast reload, attack speed build. I ended up finding out that crit, fast reload, and attack damage are his best abilities to use. After doing that, trying various buiilds, putting WF in multiple scenerios, and using different characters in said scenerios here is what I came up with…

…yep, it’s the same thing, and here’s why.

It’s true that attack damage, crit damage, and reload speed are very nice for WF, but with all three it only gives him enough damage to start competing with the other characters in the game. I tested this on miko’s a few times and while I killed faster, it was minimal compared to using thorn, OM, or a melee character in teh same scenerio. I had to go on a limb, and my accuracy had to be spot on otherwise I was screwed, and being that WF is squishy I couldn’t take many hits before I was forced to retreat. And boy does his retreat sucks. I tried flak cannon knockback ability vs stick bomb slow ability and true the sticky bomb is slow. But good look trying to stick a rath who is bobbing and weaving trying to dodge your bullets. But even with the effort of finally sticking them, the slow effect doesn’t kick in until after the bomb detonates, which is about 3 seconds. So you have to buy yourself time for three seconds before the slow goes off, and in a last resort effort (which you will get in quite often with WF cause of his defense) that is just horrible.

Flak cannon with this build fails in comparison to all the other abilities that I used with the characters. It still didn’t do enough damage. It still feels better to just shoot from the him. In close quarters the flak cannon can bounce off walls and do damage to enemies, but it happened to little to often and it was still minimal damage.

I used WF in all three PvP modes and out of all the games there was one game I used him to his full success, and it felt nice to actually do damage. But that was ONLY because the team was horrible, and if it was any other team I would’ve decimated with thorn, rath, shayne, etc.

I wanted to do more testing and put a melee (rath) anod another mid range/long range charater (thorn) in the same scenerio. With both the other characters I overall did better, and by great amounts. I then did a play test of characters I hardly use, Shayne, and Kelvin. Even with Kelvin I was a greater asset to the team and with Shayne my throwing daggers did enough damage to push enemies back without reloading or waisting skills.

tl:dr No matter what build you use WF will always lack compared to the other characters in any given situation. When played at his best he will still fall under every other character in the game,.

#43

It’s also safe to note that I played with a player today that used both WF and OM and when we pushed lanes his solo damage per hero was mid high. This, however, was do to everything being right (me tanking and pushing lanes or playing defense, healers and support getting up turrets, thrall support etc). So he was able to do higher than average damage on single targets. If we broke formation at any point he had to retreat cause he could fight solo do to haing to run and find a decent position without dying. This, at all, isn’t easy or an assassin, and you have to be really skilled to do it

He then switched to OM and did mid-high damage, being slightly less per single target, but a WHOLE lot more on multiple targets, turrets, and mobs. And if we broke formation he could do enough damage to either force the opponents to retreat or kill the finall damage to take the kill. He was hardly pushed back, and could go last resort with cloak if things got hectic He, overall, was just way more versitle and overall damage was extremely higher.

Another tl:dr if I could compare their stats to one another:

Single target damage

WF: ####
OM: ###

Mutliple target damage

WF: ##
OM: ###

Survivablity:

WF: #
OM: ###

Bot clear:

WF: ##
OM: ####

#44

That is me loosing.


I’m not saying he doesn’t need a little buff (his shotgun need to have more dmg and to be usable while ulting), but is for sure not as UP as many make it seem like.

And just to brag a bit about how much better than Mike I’m
roleplay

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/277346505171867864/77AF460EE8B9FA088BEA968A121F19489D8E0FE3/

#45

slow as a way to kill haha

#46

the delay is great when coupled with the slow and damage over time ability, combined with extra damage when shot by scrap = win. cant wait for him to be buffed, will make him op as haha

#47

The only thing WF needs is some polishing. I do this his Scrap Cannon needs to be instant cast by default and his ult is a bit too sluggish imo. That’s pretty much it, though. His DPS is absolutely in no way lacking and as I’ve said before, he needs absolutely no buffs.

COLD HARD STATS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18T8VNgX6iNLhPq30lj7dXppVjzoNcc6fTD6KTwXGDWo/edit#gid=1832219597

If you take WF’s scrap cannon damage vulnerability on Lv.2 (left side) he has the highest single-target DPS in the game at level two. (aside from Montana but he has high damage falloff and low accuracy so w/e)

With his passive enabled + the damage vulnerability on someone that is 40% extra damage for a DPS of 214.2 … again, at level two. When you start combining this with the rest of his skills like the sticky bomb with the shield sap + extra damage augments the DPS is through the roof. WF is a ranged assassin not a pusher like OM. If you think they have the same role you’re probably playing one of the two incorrectly.

3 Likes
What's the verdict on Whiskey Foxtrot?
My Overgrowth Tier list for this patch
Battleborn: (D) Tier Whiskey Foxtrot
#48

Ok I’m a believer in WF now. Did a story mode and witnessed a WF do some seriously good dmg. He had top dmg dealt on a 5 man team of Rath, Isic, Marquis, and Phoebe (me). Didn’t get the most kills, but he out dmg’ everyone including Isic. I know it shouldn’t be something to be amazed by but I have literally never seen a WF get even the 2nd best dps.

He was using the crit and ask dmg build people been talking about. Also had the augment for napalm stickys.

#49

Well the both play the mid to long range role

Ah, now I know why you think he needs a buff.
Burst Fire =/= Distance
Burst Fire reduces the need for persistent tracking which makes it better for characters who move around a bunch, which is what characters on the front-lines do. It’s also more ammo-conservative (since instead of keeping track of 30 rounds you just have to keep track of 10 bursts).
Get Red Dot Sight and play from the mid (sometimes mid-short) range. Use stickies to harass and keep melee off of you (just quick-melee then stick 'em before turning tail). Murder waves and big targets with triple napalm and damage amplification from Scrap.
There’s only four buffs I could really advocate for Whiskey (the first two of which are REALLY needed).

#50

I played him Mid/short, and almost every instance I found myself on the retreat, obviously on the retreat for melee. He’s just to squishy to play that mid short range but doesn’t have enough speed to dodge in and out of bullets or melee. His melee strike to sticky is really nice, I actually used that acouple of times, but his melee is SOOOOOOOO SLOW compared to alot of characters in that same field. The triple sticky slow is very nice, and helps when you are tagging in damage with another, but he is opted to have to run with someone to have to do above average damage when other characters can do both.

The buffs you mention really don’t sound like buffs but revamps, things he should’ve been having from the beginning. If I were to recommend anything it is to have a slight increase in bullet damage, sticky does more damage if a sticky is landed (like every other FPS and would have opponents second guess or be cautious of their approach) and scrap cannon more damage close range or a wider spread.

1 Like
#51

Those are really nice stats, but the thing about it is connecting your bullets in the heat of battle as chances are if you are close enough to connect scrap cannon you are usually in a debatable issue of trying to continue the fight or run away. I usually find myself doing the latter on none bot opponents.

#52

So I put some serious time into WT yesterday (4 hours actually) and I spent it all working on getting better with him.

Wound up putting up some really nice damage numbers (top of the leaderboards most games) but that’s not unusual for me… the unusual part, however, was watching my KD slump down… there were games where I barely broke even with him… by comparison, I’ve only ever played Galilea a few times and my KD is roughly 15.0

My WT stats are closer to 1.3.

He gets MUCH better with the right build (all atk speed, and reload)
His first few mutations make him much more effective in-game (napalm on the nades, and health regen on any kill) and he suddenly starts being able to drop minions and deal real damage to people in game, but it never gets to the point of feeling powerful, no matter how well you’re doing (even up 3 or 4 levels I still could easily get dropped by any 1v1 strong character on the other team.)

Sticky nades, with the 3 shot blast, and napalm after-effect are basically a requirement to get him wave-clearing, and to help him slow enemies enough to get off his damage.

I definitely see where his power is, and I can see where he does well, but he doesn’t excel. I think a small tweak in his damage is still needed, he really needs a slight kick to put him in line with characters with much more utility in their kit who deal more damage.

1 Like
#53

I think his skills and total shields could use a (very) slight buff, but he’s actually very powerful, and something about him seems to have changed since the beta.

#54

What gets me about it is they said he’s easy to use and by far he’s probably the second toughest ive had to use.

1 Like
#55

haha I mentioned that earlier! They’re like “versatile assassin, easy” and he’s not an assassin and he’s faaaar from easy. lmfao

#56

I think easy means 1 ability needed, don’t need/use combos of abilities. With Attikus, to boost your attack, you use your punch buff, and punch things. You really only punch things, nothing else. I think the difficulty rating should be replace with another character role, because the difficulty rating doesn’t really describe a character as well as a third role would be able to.

1 Like
#57

I think if Scoped Up had reduced recoil, that would make the skill MUCH more appealing, cuz at this point I usually go with Red Dot. I’m not saying make reduce recoil to zero, but maybe drop it by 5% as it is now and an addtional 3% with Scoped Up, also maybe extending his damage falloff a bit could make him more effective at longer ranges as well.

I wouldn’t bring up the damage of his Tactical Rifle, but instead up the damage of his critical a lil bit

Scrap Cannon might need some love, maybe not damage, but taking out shields, I could imagine if shield damage went up by maybe 10-15% that could combo with Shield Scrapper and Shield Pen, then you could troll other players ESPECIALLY in Capture Mode, he does really well in Capture Mode more so than in Incursion IMO.

I want more bullets for Overdrive… Because its fun to just use it lol, nah that’s just a personal thing, although low-key, it would be amazing to start with 100 bullets, and then extend it out at the end with 125

#58

That team was garbage, that proves nothing.

1 Like