I don't understand how to fully utilize the Ball weapon and the bazooka

[lakhnish]

As per the title, I don't fully understand how to fully utliize the striker and the bazooka to their full potential.

I have a good grasp on the hammer imo and I can get by with the spear, but with these two weapons, I feel like I don't nearly match the damage as the first two.

Anyone have any tips for these two weapons?

[Pittovo]

Regarding the ball as a weapon, my gameplay is more inclined to make a "pokey ball" with the skill of level recovery. In this way, we can attack enemies who are not in the same position as us on the Y-axis by recovering the thrown ball. Also don't forget to trigger the ball's focus hit and wear equipment that increases the damage of heavy hits and focus hit.

[Popian]

These are likely more geared for multiplayer where you can safely damage from a range while the monsters are distracted by someone else. They do offer unique ways to deal with things and take more skill to deal fast damage.

[ButterStuffed]

I don't understand the ball at all, but the Bazooka I've enjoyed very much.

It's a large deviation away from how the rest of the weapons play in that the typical dodge is removed and incorporated into it's heavy attack, dodge invincibility and the like, and any ability that triggers off of the dodge roll, such as the quick rise, triggers with it's heavy attack instead.

The Bazooka does the most burst damage with the mortar shot, so I typically use the first three non-focus shots to give myself some distance then perform a full focus mortar shot with the remaining 3 bullets.

In situations where it's difficult to make space, I sometimes use the heavy attack to intentionally dive into groups of enemies and use the double heavy shot combo, which creates a small AOE attack on the second shot. This works especially well with any abilities that trigger from high hit streaks or critical hits, since it shoots 4 or 5 bullets every shot. This is especially busted with the house of cards thing, of which the name escapes me, which increases critical chance for every basic attack hit and loses it when missed. Since the basic attack can be safely ignored you can stack it up to 100% and only do heavy attacks and mortar shots for the rest of the run.

[BOT Tuja]

The best I can say about the ball is play defensively (basically like a coward). It is a lot slower, but feels a lot safer. Also light hitting the ball is usually safe.

[RealPanda]

I can't say much about the striker as I have yet to have much experience with it and have only started experimenting with it in different arenas and combat situations. Still, I can tell you how to use the cannon weapon to its fullest, as I have a great experience with it, and I gotta say it's very fun and overpowered with the right skills and power-ups, but it comes with drawbacks at the same time.

 

The Cannon Weapon

With the new controls, the weapon is strange at first, especially when your dodge button is replaced by planting the cannon instead. Though with practice, you can become a formidable foe against your enemies. Hell, even be stronger than them. In this guide, I will explain the basics in case you need help to better understand them and are new to the weapon or for anyone else seeking help understanding each move and ability, as well as know specific tips. This is my first time posting here, so I'll try my best to explain this!

 

Shooting/Shotgun Blast

The cannon has 6 shots in one clip, with the last 3 being focus hits, as they deal significantly more damage than the first 3 shots. You can use your mouse's left button (light attack) to shoot bullets from the weapon, though you can only shoot horizontally. Using the shotgun blast using your mouse's right button (heavy attack) will fire 5 bullets in a fanned-out direction but will use a single shot of the clip, not to be confused with shotgun blast using all 6 shots at once. Only one at a time. Both abilities don't have timing, so you can spam these all at once at your enemy.

 

Reloading:

To reload properly and efficiently, you plant the cannon using space while simultaneously hitting the left button just as the cannon is about to hit the ground. Proper timing is crucial as this is all that the weapon is about in using its abilities. Reloading too fast or too slow will result in your character having to reload slower and potentially getting dangerously hit by attacks and not being able to reload and hit them back. I suggest practicing reloading to get the hang of the timing.

 

Mortar Valley:

To use this ability, you plant the cannon using space while, yet again, simultaneously holding the right button of your mouse just as the cannon is about to hit the ground. Doing this will pop up 1-6 circles (depending on how many bullets you have left in the cannon). While the circles pop up, they will move away from you as you hold the right mouse button. You cannot control or move where they are going nor move in the direction you are doing this. So better make those shots count! The range of the aim will continue until you release the right button, and currently, there is no limit on how far they go. Make sure to time this properly as well since too fast or too slow will take longer to set up the mortar valley and potentially let your enemy get the upper hand.

 

Additional Notes:

• Focus hits will work with normal shots, shotgun blasts, or mortar valley shots so long as they are the last 3 bullets/shots in the cannon.

 

• While shooting the Mortal Valley, you will be knocked down if you have 6 or 5 bullets in the cannon. Any less than that, and you won't be knocked down.

 

• Using the mortal valley on enemies, regardless of how many bullets there are, will knock down the enemy (except for the mini-boss Yammo in great rotwood forest/bosses/certain regular enemies like the Eyevee, I hope I'm wrong). This allows you to reload quickly or gain some distance from any danger. If you want to cancel the mortal valley, press left shift.

 

• There is a dodge for this weapon, which is the shotgun blast. This works by using the shotgun blast (twice to ensure you don't get hit) at the right time when the enemy is about to use their attack. This lets your character go midair and dodge any attack while using the heavy attack. You MUST time it correctly, or their attack will hit you. Either that, or you might get stun locked by multiple enemies at once. I'll explain later the pros and cons of using this weapon.

 

• You can't do a perfect dodge using the shotgun blast. I've tried.

 

• I found a bug in the power-up called "Conviction of Strength." "Your Light Attack deals an extra 33 damage but inflicts 33 damage to you when you miss." Strangely whenever I miss my light attacks, the power-up doesn't inflict any damage to my health with or without enemies on the map. This will probably be patched soon after I post this.

 

• There is also a cheese method for the mini-boss Mired Floracrane with the cannon weapon. Suppose you're lucky enough to spawn in the map with the middle edges cut off at the top or bottom. In that case, you first should make her come to you, then make her attack in that position of the map, next you need to dodge or move quickly to not get hit and go toward the opposite of the middle edge. Congratulations, you broke her. Now you can deal with the normal enemies first, and then the mini-boss, though make sure to not move out of the spot or else she will as well and probably end up killing you, in which case, good luck! This will probably be patched as well soon.

 

This explains the basics and tips for the cannon weapon as best to my knowledge and explanation. Now let's move on to the more fun stuff, combo moves.

 

These are combo moves you do with the weapon, and although there aren't any or as many compared to the spear or hammer, it gets the job done well enough. Either that or just completely spam normal and shotgun since cannon is used for that reason.

 

Combo Moves 

Combo 1: 3 normal shots + mortar valley

Combo 2: 3 normal shots + 3 shotgun blasts

Combo 3 (Made up): 3 normal + 2 shotgun blasts + mortar valley

 

I made combo 3 to deal massive damage and knock back enemies to the ground with my last shot if I needed to gain some distance or finish them off. This often works as enemies will continuously chase you down to no end. Since we're done with combos, let's move with what equipment I use and certain gems and food I use to increase my chances of victory.

 

Weapon Gems/Armor/Food

For the moment, I currently have max level health gem, max level critical chance gem, and max level health gem. Health gem for survivability, critical chance and damage for maximum damage output. I have treek Helm for even more damage and bulcoat coat (experimenting at the moment in blisterbane bog) for the armor. For food, I use cased sausage for more survivability. I've built a strong inventory of items, and these items certainly help in the long run to survive. But the real power comes from the skills/power-ups in the levels you get from. 

 

Skills/Power-ups

I usually go for building critical, speed, shield (Heavy Infantry), and or lightning (Static Shock) for power-ups if I get the chance to get both. I can't precisely say what power-ups I would get since I don't remember the names of certain power-ups, nor is there a wiki to name off the power-ups I most currently use.

 

How I play using the cannon

My playstyle would be aggressive, grouping up all the enemies in once place or even walk up to them with no fear and basically spam the hell out of the shotgun blast, and i gotta say its fun. But I can only be aggressive if the power-ups align with how I am able to play. Sometimes I can have speed but no power and critical. Or sometimes I can have power-ups that work with one another, like, for example, heal each time you deal with criticals + each time you kill an enemy, gain % amount of critical for 10 seconds, or also even every 10 hit streaks, you gain a shield + static shock, stuff like that. With the right power-ups, I would fiercely do massive damage bursts with little to no risk of being hit by enemies or effect, as I can either heal it off or use a shield up and form another one. But of course, you can play however you want. This isn't a "this is how you must play cannon." It all depends on the player and how they want to play. Feel free to customize your weapon/playstyle to your own desires that fit you; personally, this is how I play while having fun at the same time. Now let's get onto the pros/cons of the cannon.

 

Pros and Cons of the Cannon:

While I have a lot of experience playing the cannon, there are a few issues/benefits to playing this weapon. 

 

Con

1. Being stun locked

I've gotten myself into multiple situations (especially with trying to defeat bandikoot) where I'm swarmed by multiple enemies, all while having no chance to attack or dodge since my heavy attack is literally my dodge. Because of that, I can't reload the cannon and get myself out of danger. This is an issue for cannon only as far as I know since with playing with the spear or hammer, you can press space to dodge, but with the cannon, you have to reload to dodge, but you can't since you're stun locked in place. But, of course, you can avoid this by positioning yourself correctly on the map and not carelessly playing when first trying the cannon.

 

Con

2. Lack of usefulness in skills

I know there are a variety of skills for different weapons like, for example, the striker being able to bring back the ball or instead using the spear and being able to use a pole vault to create distance between you and the enemy, which is really useful and great for the weapon choice, but for the cannon, there isn't usefulness in using bananas, parrying an attack, or throwing rocks. Why use those skills when I can use the cannon instead that has those skills built in. Rather than using the banana, I can do a mortar valley that not only damages but also knocks down enemies, or instead of parrying I can do a heavy attack and dodge that way while dealing damage since parrying is harder to time than the shotgun blast. The same goes for the rock, as I can reload quickly and deal 4 times the damage that way. But I have a few suggestions that the developers of the game maybe test out and try the skills I have in mind for the cannon, more info on that later.

 

Pro + Con

1. Cannon is VERY overpowered.

Even with a small amount of critical power-ups combined with static energy is alone to take down the majority, if not all, of the mini-boss/bosses easily without any challenge. But I fear this will need serious balance changes as this will be too much for single-player and multiplayer, making this weapon a double-edged sword as the player can kill all the bosses quickly without any challenge or struggle, taking all the fun away from playing the game. Even in multiplayer, what if everyone picks the same weapon? Unless each player is forced to choose another weapon and not the same one the current player already has, which would fix that problem, but even then the one who has the cannon weapon will overpower their opponents, as mentioned earlier. I'm glad this is a playtest with no multiplayer, or else I wouldn't imagine things could go badly.

 

Pro

2. Use of weapon depends on the skill of the player

It's a pretty balanced weapon to learn to use. Yet, I like that it depends on the player's timing for the weapon to function properly while also knowing how to position oneself to avoid damage while reloading or attacking and prioritizing which enemy to take down first. I love the weapon of the design and how it works; overall, it's great! I hope to see more weapons introduced like this in future updates and possibly in the full game. It's a very fun weapon that I recommend learning and using.

 

For now, this is what I've had in mind while playing the game for about a week and learning this weapon to its fullest. Also, I have some suggestions for the cannon weapon that I think is needed to improve or balance for when the full game releases.

 

Suggestions

1. Nerfing the cannon.

This weapon really needs to be nerfed or balanced in a way that doesn't make the gameplay too easy but, at the same time, not too difficult. A few ideas that come to mind are adjusting the weapon's damage output by reducing the base damage of the cannon's regular shots, and the damage boosts it gets from critical hits. Another idea is to increase enemy health for normal, mini-bosses, and bosses. Also, implement resistance to certain weapon effects, such as being less damaged by focus hits/heavy attacks or being immune to being knocked down, as this will require different players to use other tactics rather than solely relying on the weapon's power. You could also take this a step forward by adding a cooldown to prevent players from consistently spamming their most potent abilities, like the cannon's shotgun blast.

 

2. Implement using different/switching weapons during levels mid-match.

How could you do this? When you get to the skill section of the map where you can choose a different skill or keep the same one you have, you could add another option within that same skill level of players being able to select a different weapon that fits in their current situation that can help them in defeating enemies in that specific piece of the map/biome.

 

3. Too many frenzy levels, at least for some people + map and konjur currency suggestion

Adding too many frenzy levels would be a problem for some people because they might find it repetitive to do the same map repeatedly with little changes to the enemies (little more health to mini-bosses/bosses, being more aggressive, etc.). Me personally, I love it since I like to learn how to beat and take down bosses and enemies, which I find fun, especially when you do it without anyone's help and defeat the boss yourself. I think adding more levels to the biomes/map and lowering down a bit on the frenzy levels a would make it less repetitive and make players more invested in one frenzy level at a time rather than having to beat the same boss over and over again with little changes would improve the game. Even better if you implement the previous suggestions of what I said before. But because I know there will be more levels which means more konjur to upgrade power-ups/buy potions, in that case, I suggest increasing the cost of the power-ups/potions to balance out the amount of konjur players will have. So that they will have just enough to have when upgrading/buying items they want.

 

3. New skills for the cannon weapon

Some idea for adding skills for the cannon weapon would be cannon jumping. Using the cannon's recoil, the player can perform a powerful jump, propelling themselves into the air. This allows the player to dodge incoming attacks while also damaging/knocking down the enemies below them, but to pull this skill off, they must charge the skill first to be able to launch themselves. The longer the charge, the longer the distance they will go toward their choice of destination. Although it will have a cooldown so that it also doesn't become a spammy ability. Another idea for skill would be precision shot. When activated, the player gains enhanced focus and precision, increasing the chance of accuracy for a limited time. During this time, each shot fired from the cannon has a higher chance of landing critical hits or dealing bonus damage focus hits to specific enemy vulnerabilities. The mortar valley heavy fits pretty great as it is, though an improvement would be making the aim speed a bit faster as it is too slow to set up against the enemies that are continuously charging at you.

 

This is the end of my guide! Please feel free to ask any questions about the guide or the game, and I'll try to answer them as best as possible to my knowledge. Remember, this is a guide for beginners to the cannon weapon, not advanced or anything fancy. I've also posted a video of the gameplay if you wish to see how the cannon performs.

[BadScra]

Keep practing and waiting for full game and co-op. Hammer and spear are good for solo, but cannon and balls aren't.

[JAndy]

I can't say for sure if the cannon is more suitable for coop or solo, but is such a fun weapon regardless, by far my favourite; Yes, not having a dodgeroll at first is super jarring, but when you get used to the heavy attack backflip and combine it with certain power ups, you suddenly find yourself flying across the map dealing crazy amounts of damage and electrifing every single enemy on sight.

At least for me, the basic key to success with this weapon is first of all mastering the recharge timing and second, knowing at all time how many bullets do you have left, so you can allways performs heavy dodges (usually 1 or 2 shots); but when we get to the power ups is the moment when things start to go off the rails, so I will go briefly on some of my favourite combos to constantly deal insane amounts of burst damage, including lots of crits:

-For rune powers, allways prioritise the electric one, beacuse Static Shock is MUST have is you want to break this weapon, granting you electric effects for every single heavy/shotgun round. In case SS doesn't apear Static Charge (the same but for light attacks) is nowere near as good but allways nice to have

-Surgical is close second, this one lets you get extra mana (purple thingy) with bigger hit combos that are so much easier to get with heavy electric, upgrading this one can grant you insane amounts of that purple goo

-For the shield run Heavy weaponry is my favourite cause is super easy to hit two or more enemies with heavy attacks

-Next up is all kinds of power that lets you increase crit change are super helpful, since chaining hits and accuracy are the main strengths of the cannon

-In this case one of my favourites is Confidence Building, combine this with Static Shock to mass profit

-Salted Wounds increases the crit change of focus hits, you know, something guaranteed for the cannon

-Piñata is more of the same, increasing the crit change even more

-Light precision lets you acumulate that chance by just landing shots without missing

There a few more of those crit chance that I can't remember, but the ones above are some of my go to options, and by this point I think you get the idea; and at first glance some of this power ups may seem weak or incosecuential, but once you combine Static Shock with Surgical, the amount of Konjur you can get can go up to 500, letting you UPGRADE a lot of these power ups to actually feel the real deal.

And for some final toughts, for the weapon choise I mostly gravitate towards the Treesooka, since that upgrade gives you extra damage for focus hits; regarding the heavy mortar attack, I don't really use it that much since you have to stand still for a long period of time and combined with the recoil stun just leaves little to none room for error, but you can use it as long a you only fire the last 3 shots of the charger to avoid the recoil.

And thats about it, as for now I dont have tons of hours of practice, but from what I know these powers and tips got me to actually beat the Bandikoot for the first time, and most importantly of all, it just really fun to blast around the room electrifing all the enemies for the eventual satisfaction of seeing them all chain the electric damage.

[BGB]

I'm actually having a lot fun with the ball. I kinda think I'm 2 modes when fighting with it and they are: 

Chaos mode: where I throw one ball when there's a lot of weaker enemies and just bounce it between them as much as I can just thinking about keeping the focus hit streak and not taking damage and 

Target mode: when I'm fighting a boss, less mobile, stronger, healthier enemy I juggle both of my balls and hit them repeatedly dashing and light attacking the balls into them, 

I started using the ball yesterday so there's still a lot of trial and error ahead of me but I had some success with both bosses on first 3 frenzy levels 

[Alfons100]

The ball is tricky to use. It suffers greatly against hordes of enemies if you want to take them out fast, but the ball bounce can hit multiple enemies, so what you can do is throw it against a wall and have it rebound back onto enemies. Mothball spawners in Bogs can be an absolute pain to deal with though.

Grabbing the electricity power is almost a must with the ball to stand a chance