[dicussion] v1009b Demo role and early/mid/late game

[q3.railgun]

I've seen a lot of discussions where the Demo in the current state is getting the same treatment as the v1008 BSK. There are a couple of issues with the current discussions due to horrible imbalance of other classes and the fact that not everyone has a high level Demo.

First let me start off by asking, what do you think the Demo's role is? I hear a lot of complaints about ammo and damage dealt but what is that against?

- For me Demo is about clearing FP and clearing bundled up trash either on a teammate or afar.
- The demo is not about being able to trash clear, deal with Zeds up close or be the ultimate SC killer.

Moving onto the early, mid and late games. By this I am not talking about in the waves in game but rather level. Let's consider 1-10 to be early game, 11-20 to be mid and 25 late game. As of right now early game is underwhelming. The skills don't really mean much but then again, looking back at the classic perks it was more of getting used to the game. If you need to assist your team with trash then dualies or just the single 9mm is your best bet. Grenade pistol can be used to clear sirens after a bash and it can clear trash off of you if you jump and aim at your feet.

The Early game

Skills (some intial values given thanks to Shima-Risu).
5 - Grenade Supplier or On contact.
Until more Nade related metas are introduced, on tacnt is probably the better choice for a hand grenade that explodes on contact.

10 - Explosive Resistance or Reactive Armor
With nothing having explosive damage other than FF from yourself, explosive resist may be good on HoE due to the faster moving ZEDs. Reactive Armor was tested to do around 400 dmg so if you die a lot then it might be worth getting. I would go with ER here as it helps with your team (somewhat...).

There's nothing really special in the early game to apply for the team or for yourself. However do note that on trash/medium ZEDs the Dynamite will stun (same animation as Sedate) ZEDs. This will be a key factor for Midgame.

The Midgame

Skills (Once again initial values from Shima-Risu).
15 - Door traps or Nade resistance to Sirens
Door traps reduce welding speed by 30% and changes the color from blue to red. The damage as reported seemed very minimal. Siren Resistance however is valued at 50% chance instead of 100% chance of explosives not being affected by siren scream. Making the lv 15 tier needing some serious reconsideration.

20 - On vs Off perk
Off will increase damage of off perk weapons by 15% not 10% and off perk will increase values of stumble/knockdown/stun power. On-perk is what will make the Demo quite a good Support player for FPs. Recall when I mentioned above how the Dynamite will cause a Sedate Stun effect, this will now apply to FP as well. Effectively this allows for a 3s stun then follow it up with a RPG to the head and you have a +2s knockdown for a 5s disablement of FPs. No matter what your team layout, 5s should be more than enough to take out an FP.

The Late Game

Skills (Thanks Shima-Risu).
25 - Nuke vs Concussive
Nuke has a very interesting property of increasing dmg and range by 1.25 but also adding a DoT effect for 8s dependent on the weapon. Tests seems to have shown that Dynamite does 250 per tick while RPG will do 500 per tick. That means that 1 shot of an RPG will do ~5300 with the DoT. I would say that is an amazing skill.
Concussive on the other hand will only increase knockdown power by 2x.

Judging by just the testing done by a lv25, the late game Demo is a massive game changer when combined in a team that doesn't consist of all Demo/FB. Their role is not meant to be trash clearers full time. Taking current BSK out of the picture for a second, late game Demo is a necessity for FPs.

As my Demo is only lv7 atm, I can't showcase these skills off but I do plan on making a weapons video on how they work. As of right now I will say that with the C4, do not spam. Wait 3s between each explosion to get maximum dmg again, otherwise you're just wasting them.

 

[Aleflippy]

To me ,the role of the demolitions is clearly the heavy-hitter as well as a "trapper" . His weapons are quite expensive for what they do and they don't have much ammo. They also take a while to reload. But they deal a very high amount of damage with each shot. They are the best at attaking fleshpounds (a single rocket or C4 can deal plenty of damage) but they can also destroy a large group of trash or simply priority targets. With his C4 ,he can also set up useful traps to block some routes the zeds might take or simply to cover himself and the team if they need to move during an assault. He might not be the most important perk out there (it was also the case in KF1) but he's still a powerful asset to any team.

As for his skills ,well I'm still at a low-level so I can only say what I'm assuming is true.

Skill 5 : No! Grenade Supplier is way more useful! Of course it's nice to be able to throw a dynamite right in the fact of a zed ,but having a free nade for every member of your team is certainly a powerful asset.

Skill 10: Explosive Resistance is better because while it might be great to inflict some more damage when you die , it only helps as a last resort... That's a perk almost always useless and even when you die , you might kill 4-5 zeds not more. Being able to take a few grenades near you without dying is way more useful (and this way you might survive with a grenade at your feet )

Skill 15: I'd say siren resistance. How many times already have I lost an explosive that could have saved myself or a teammate? It's just a must-have. Being able to trap doors is interesting,even more if you love to use C4 , but it's simply not worthy enough against the siren resistance.

Skill 20: The problem is that the off-perk bonus is quite low and that I'd rather take a RPG-7/M79 with C4 instead of anything else (the C4 clearly become my main side weapon,I use it with every perk) . Being able to stumble zeds is also quite useful in case your rocket/grenade doesn't kill them right away. Once again , off-perk is not a bad skill, it's just not good enough...

Skill 25:I'm not sure about how many damage is nuke able to do but I'd say I'd pick that one over Concussive,simply because I'll be able to stumble zeds already with the previous skill .

 

[q3.railgun]

I have no complaints with the stuff you brought up, especially when you consider what the DM has to work with as of right now.

The reason why I picked on Contact over Supplier is due to the fact that the dynamite does take some time to explode and with the current state of the game, no one really needs any nades. EMP tactic is dead, SUP overall is dead, COM just needs to clear trash etc, MED heals armor even at max health etc... there just isn't a need for nades at all right now. That said for early wave Demo, I'd rather have that explodes on contact vs needing to zone myself properly.

Lv 10 yea... as much as both kinda need rework, you'll find yourself hitting yourself with blast radius so go with explosive res.

lv 15 - Both feel kinda useless. Siren nade poof is a 50% chance not 100% as stated so it's RNG based and who welds doors in a serious match....

lv 20 - I initially was considering off perk for a Scar but with the increased KD/Stun/Stumble, that's actually better. Maybe if there's already enough FP killers on the team and not enough EMP+Rifle for SC I'll go off and take a Scar.

lv 25 - Same thoughts as yourself. If the lv 20 can already do what Concussion can why bother with it?

 

[weeman2412]

Level 25 nuke from my testing is deadly. I can drop a scrake on any difficulty with relative ease with one nuke and maybe 2 shots from the hunting shotgun. Bonus if there happens to be 2 scrakes in range of the nuke. I do not even need to actually hit the scrake with the rocket, as long as they are in the Nuke AOE, they will die. Obviously everything else but a fleshpound will die by just standing in nuke AOE in 1-2 seconds.

The nuke also somehow hits through walls. This means if you strategically aim the nuke in a small room, everything around that room will die.

Also if you want close range boom most of the time, jump and shoot at the ground.

 

[ComradeHX]

I feel that grenade supplier is rather underwhelming.

5 grenades can kill a bunch of trash(so can a magazine of each of teammate's weapons, that probably kills more) but it can't even kill one FP even if everyone toss them properly at same time.

Since ammo resupply gives a mag(or however much the nerfed amount is) to each weapon, grenade supplier needs to give 2 grenades to each teammate.

 

[DoctorDragon]

Playing Demo a bit more, I've discovered a few interesting things:

1. Despite being perhaps the most unconventional weapon in the game, C4 is actually pretty solid when used correctly and in some solo mode HoE runs, I've sold my grenade pistol after the first wave, kiting non-stop while laying down a single block of C4 and waiting to be out of its blast radius before detonating it on 10+ zeds. For single trash zeds, you can just melee-bash them in the head.

2. You can also restock your C4 at a discount of almost 80%: instead of buying more blocks, sell your current detonator and simply buy a brand new set again, the net cost is only 163 dosh instead of 800. However, you will lose the ability to detonate any C4 from the previous set(s) that you had laid down, but that means you can be a little liberal with your use of C4 and make sure you get your money's worth with each set.

3. Nuke is very tricky to trigger without the assistance of other players initiating ZED Time because your weapons are mostly ones with single-shot magazines, but using it IS your #1 tool to obliterate trash for a perk that isn't supposed to be that competent at it. In solo mode, ZED Time feels quite random actually with the Demo perk; most of the time it will not trigger when you want it to even though the way the mechanics function would imply it's far more likely to trigger the longer it has been since it was last initiated.

4. I've found that the two best ways of triggering Nuke by yourself (mostly in solo mode) is to kill a trash zed with a melee-bash to the head and then fire a grenade from your tier 1 at your feet, as you just have a tiny amount of time left after the melee-bash to set off a Nuke, or you can try and get a bundle of trash zeds together and throw dynamite at them (with the lvl 5 skill On Contact which will improve your chances), but dynamite unfortunately is quite random with ZED Time.

5. In one run I did, I had 88 hp remaining and I was about to be sandwiched by two hordes of zeds from either side, so I was pretty much dead anyway. I had laid down a block of C4 and triggered ZED Time with a melee bash to a Crawler's head, I thought "**** it, I'll blow myself up with all of them in style!". The C4 was only about 10-15 feet in front of me so I was expecting to die, but while the Nuke triggered, I was still alive and unharmed, still with 88 hp. Is this a one-off, or does Nuke make you exempt from self-damage?

6. One time in testing, I managed to both simultaneously kill a Husk AND detonate a Nuke with just a single rocket which kind of shattered my original notion that you need another explosive after ZED Time triggers in order to set off a Nuke. There was a clot some feet away which got caught in the initial rocket explosion so for a second I thought maybe the clot's death had something to do with it, but I could see that the Nuke originated from where the Husk was standing before he exploded.

I don't quite fully understand how this happened, not without further vigorous testing to dissect why it happened, but I can only theorise that maybe the impact damage from the RPG-7 rocket alone killed the Husk and the explosion that happened a fraction of a second later was just in time the moment ZED Time triggered.

Demo really is an oddball of a perk; I've reached Hans a few times in solo mode HoE runs while remaining completely on-perk but trying to play him consistently is a frustrating experience. But the ultimate absurdity that TWI completely neglected is that when you cannot carry enough explosives to kill Hans without running around the map as the squishiest perk in the game and looking for at least 5 or 6 more ammo crates to finish the job, you have to hope that you will get opportunities to set off a Nuke and that depends on whether trash zeds spawn at all. Demo is great in multiplayer, but he is asking to be ditched and left behind the moment Hans shows up, and TWI still need to resolve that.

 

[q3.railgun]

5. In one run I did, I had 88 hp remaining and I was about to be sandwiched by two hordes of zeds from either side, so I was pretty much dead anyway. I had laid down a block of C4 and triggered ZED Time with a melee bash to a Crawler's head, I thought "**** it, I'll blow myself up with all of them in style!". The C4 was only about 10-15 feet in front of me so I was expecting to die, but while the Nuke triggered, I was still alive and unharmed, still with 88 hp. Is this a one-off, or does Nuke make you exempt from self-damage?

6. One time in testing, I managed to both simultaneously kill a Husk AND detonate a Nuke with just a single rocket which kind of shattered my original notion that you need another explosive after ZED Time triggers in order to set off a Nuke. There was a clot some feet away which got caught in the initial rocket explosion so for a second I thought maybe the clot's death had something to do with it, but I could see that the Nuke originated from where the Husk was standing before he exploded.

I don't quite fully understand how this happened, not without further vigorous testing to dissect why it happened, but I can only theorise that maybe the impact damage from the RPG-7 rocket alone killed the Husk and the explosion that happened a fraction of a second later was just in time the moment ZED Time triggered.

Jeez, sorry I kinda neglected this thread as these forums don't give you some kind of notification.

5) When a Nuke goes off, the damage type gets immediately converted from Explosive to Toxic (used to be Ballistic until v1011 or 1012 at which point it was converted to Toxic). So even though it looks like a massive explosion that should kill you, it doesn't.

6) That is probably correct, I've seen instances where it happened and didn't but the only thing I can think of is the impact hit dealing damage and then the explosion converting to Nuke. I have no way to test that as I haven't seen it happen myself recently but potentially a latency issue?