I have close to 1000 kills, not a single grapple kill with the Gunner. I do have a good bunch of pancakes and ring outs after slam, but I hardly ever try to grapple anybody. It goes without saying that I don't get any upgrades for it. Am I doing it wrong or is it really as useless as I think? Note: I do grapple the occasional Bouncer, but never pros. My Gunner builds usually include Acc, RoF and armor, not necessarily in that order.
Early in the PC beta I found it useful in a game against a team with 5 of 6 players using Assassin. Sometimes I would be reloading AND my slam would be cooling down. In that case, it was useful once I got it to level 3 and I got a few kills with it. Otherwise, yeah I'm with you. Slam seems better in every way. If someone is trying to grab me as gunner I'm going to be floating away giving them a face full of both barrels, not trying to get of my *possibly* superior grab.
@Col_Jessep: I've a few kills with the gunner grabble. It is like WhiteHawke said: Slam > Grab. Grab works pretty well for slow bots but the minigun is to strong in close combat to risk a grab into the blank. It's almost the last way out of trouble, when your slam is on cool down and your minigun is out of ammo. When out of ammo a slam-grab combo can work pretty well. Another big problem with the grab: You stand still and so you are an easy target. I never skill deploy because of this. Only sometimes grab, but mostly only when the enemy is spamming Bouncer. And I'm not taunting. How many times I killed pros while taunting. In my opinion: Never stand still, never!
Was just looking through the balance files and I was surprised to see that the gunners grab isn't superior to the assaults charge-grab in any way that I can find. I was thinking that since a gunner has a much harder time grabbing a player than an assault does with his level 3 charge that the damage would be more, but they seem to be the same. They both do 450. If this really is the case, then I think this should be changed. I think gunner grab damage should do something like 200/400/600 (150/300/450 currently). You should not get up in a gunners grill and this should be another reason not to. Perhaps slam should be reduced in its awesome effectiveness a bit if this change were made? The AOE seems to be approximately the gunner's area code at level 3, so perhaps a reduction on the AOE with level would be a good start. The main reason I chose those numbers was because of the affect it will have on the game balance. This would mean a full health passive 3 support won't survive a gunner level 3 grab without endorsements, and full health bronze assassin/sniper won't survive a gunner grab level 2 without endorsements. It also means a bronze endorsement assault won't survive a level 3 grab. These sound right to me, but fans of these classes will almost certainly disagree. At this juncture I still dont see a reason to upgrade the grab when you have slam AND a minigun on the same character.
I have never seen a gunner grab, I mainly play sniper and I get to see a lot of gunners on the field from a distance and they have never once attempted to grab. They go ahead with the slam! I tried playing gunner and put some points into grapple, but it was just so tedious attempting to grab people, especially sins and that turned out to be a big failure... xD I suck as Gunner. But still I would like to see a skill that actually has some use, so I support this idea! Perhaps I'll get to see a gunner grapple! ^^
I think if the gunner grapple stays the way it is we'll see it used a few times when the game comes out by people that don't know they should have just slammed and shot you. Maybe then you'll get to see this elusive and endangered giant, but you'll have to watch carefully and be timely in your observation, lest they all die out before you get a glimpse.
The advantage I could find with gunner grapple (as with assault and sniper I guess) is that you can grapple people twice in a row. I find it a decent followup to when an assa facegrabs me, being my only option that doesn't get me knifed to death before I can get a shot or ground slam off.
Honestly I'm not sure why gunner gets a red skill grapple when you take these points into mind: 1) he's slow, VERY slow. Just about every OTHER class without speed endorsements outrun him. So the only time anyone is in grapple range is when they are trying to grapple YOU as well. 2) for as big as he is, trying to GRAB someone with his big bear arms is a hassle I wish not to go into. if someone's not RIGHT on top of you, and not RIGHT in front of you, your going to miss. Mind you as an assassin and a sniper, this isn't THAT bad as the cool down and animation for missing is extremly breef, including in assassin as it's a weapon grapple, and not a skill...as for Gunner? Oh lordy, if you miss, prepare for 2 second of him grunting, arms outwards, and then SLOWLY pulling them back, unable to shoot, attack, or much of anything else till that wears off. It's extremely suicidal of an attack compared to say slam. 3) honestly he could use something else then a grab. Maybe a small boost/charge like the tank/assault has? Or better yet higher jump with a jet booster. Something to help him move forward as a grab just feels like they couldn't think of anything BETTER to give him. ...That's just my take onto things thought, take it as they are.
I never plan to use the grapple but it has saved me multiple times, random assassin, charging assasult, tank who has not spotted me ect, especially on spunky arena because it's so close quaters. Gunner grapple is only good once it's level 2 or 3, before then expect the grappled opponent to kill you once the animation ends.
I am not the best Gunner but I can tell you his Grapple isn't one of his great skills. I see the grapple as more of a way to get a few bots out of your way. Bouncers have lots of health and the Gunner's grapple can kill them in one hit. Also early in the game when it's a Slimbots and Blackjacks the gunner can push bots, if needed. The Gunner has two grapples and both will OHK Blackjacks. This is, imo, the best use of the Gunner's grapple skill.
I saw a gunner grapple a teammate, I lol'd, killed him and saved teammate. Please replace this terrible skill. Maybe a smoke grenade to provide cover.
More then likely his grapple was a level 1, otherwise your team mate would have been hit across the map similar to the sniper's grapple level 2 skill. As said before, level 1 grapple is bad, 2 and 3 are good.
Well, for now I'll get: passive 2+3 slam 2+3 deploy 2 when I don't run an acc build $550 is too much for a skill that I can only use if my enemy decides to stand perfectly still
A little known tactic with grapples are, you can grapple people out of charges. Assassin, Assault, or Tank charging you? You can counter it with a well-timed grapple that will cancel their charge and trigger their cooldown without doing any damage to you. It's hard to pull off, but if you can master it you will really be in the upper level of gunners.
I am aware of this, but I don't think it makes up for the gunner's grapple being an assault charge without the charge. From my experience it is difficult to pull off with the vagaries of netcode as well.
There are only two changes the Gunner's grapple needs to be somewhat useful: 1. Priority 2. Range I personally believe skill based grapples should have priority over non-skill grapples, excluding the Assassin, of course. It may already be this way, and that's fine. Concerning the range, I think it should be long enough to grab an Assassin after a face-grapple that you survive. Too often they just start slashing while I'm trying to grapple them post-face grapple and I just get cut down. I also personally think ALL grapples should have priority over an Assassin face-grab, just because an Assassin that tries to hit you in the face is failing at their job. Backstabs for great justice!
I think someone once mentioned G. Grapple would be more interesting if it got throw ability at level 2. At least that's $150 to pay to punish an assassin face-stab. Most of the time when my face-stab, I jump over the obvious-slam-is-obvious and hold R trigger until I see $25 pop up. If both assassins and snipers have the luxury to counter-grapple face-stabs, I don't see why the gunner shouldn't join in.
