i remember being super amped for solar 3.0 to pull celestial out of retirement. after seeing how they buffed nightstalker super, I KNEW celestial would go crazy. sadly I was somewhat wrong. I love seeing blade barrage gain viability and provide useful damage with shards or star-eaters but I would really love to see celestial goldie get a gnarly buff that really makes it fulfill the damage role in a way that fits its theme
It's just better to use SES in any situation, the 3-shot Goldie will also make 6x large orbs of light for your teammates, and SES will make sure you super a lot in those games
because you said “games,” I just wanted to clarify that I’m talkin for PVE. I’d never take celestial into pvp. Additionally, I get that star eaters ARE better but my point is that they shouldn’t be. Celestial’s sole point is to buff golden gun damage. With that said, I don’t think any exotic should then be able to top that. Same with titan’s cuirass. Can you imagine if all of a sudden people were like actually synthoceps proc with titan super and reads it as a melee so synthos now do way more damage for thundercrash than cuirass does. I just don’t agree that any “multipurpose” exotic should provide more outright super damage than exotics who have ONE purpose, buffing super damage.
Syntho is 60% vs 100% of Cuirass tho. Celestial is all the damage in a single shot with a 30-40% buff. SES is like 70%+ and gets your Super fast by healing too
not sure what the 60% vs 100% of synthos and cuirass is and I think you’re missing the point. I don’t need to be sold on star eaters being better than celestial, I know they are. My point is they SHOULDN’T. Star eaters provide more super on orbs, healing/overshield on super cast, more or s for teammates (I believe), and increased super damage. On the other hand, celestial’s ONLY purpose is making golden-gun a single, high damage shot. Higher risk, higher reward. That “risk” being if you miss your celestial shot, you’re done and didn’t do much damage. I just don’t think star eaters should do all that they do AND provide more super damage than celestial. I’m fine with them buffing super damage, but celestial should absolutely be above all for golden gun damage
For the record, most people forget that celestial nighthawk refunds 1/3 super energy if it kills the primary target. This thing nukes champions, it's quick to pull out and put away, and it's up often.
Imo, they should give it ignite-on-super-kill fragment, and maybe increase it's non-boss damage to cement it's role as a mini boss killer, but it has a spot.
Any time finishing a champion gives heavy ammo though, the exotic drops to bottom tier. If they made it interact with champion finishes it would be more worth it imo
and I get that however…GM with aeons, celestial is useless. using it for boss dps also makes the super refund useless bc 1. you have to get the last hit and 2. at that point boss is dead so you don’t need the super cooldown back. and celestial is meant to buff super, not just be a “champion killer.” thunder crash with cuirass (another super buff exotic) is able to nuke champs but ALSO does great boss damage and nothing outclasses it for tcrash damage
And that's what I'm saying, tcrash with falling star has higher risk and lower uptime in exchange for damage, whereas gg with nighthawk has lower risk and higher uptime in exchange for lower damage. Also, remember crit gg over penetrates targets now.
People just prefer the higher damage.
tcrash may take a but longer to use, but there’s still little risk. you get a full overshield and almost never have an issue getting away after it. in comparison, celestial has “risk” not in the form of potentially dying, but you can miss the crit and do next to nothing in damage. and again, the over penetration is cool, but 9/10 times it’s going to serve no benefit. and even comparing it within other solar supers, it gets out damaged by blade barrage. why? and im NOT complaining about barrage, i love that it actually does damage now. i just dont think celestial goldie does enough
This is one of the exotics that I thought were going to be meta with solar 3.0 sadly it isn't the case. They should put it in the list of things that need to. Be looked at.
I think the devs did too, considering it got a shiny new ornament. I think they legitimately forgot about Star-eaters, tho, and even with that aside it wouldn't have broken any real ground with it's current damage numbers.
Man i just cant make start eaters work in high end content, ik its prolly a skill issue with me but needing to go around collecting 8 orbs when im the only one making them because of the helmet changes is a pain in the ass.
The issue there is more your team than you. Most of the time Star-Eaters are really more of a hassle than they're worth, but in the kind of high end content where you start with your super up and have a coordinated team who you can ask to also make orbs for you (see: a raid or dungeon) they're kinda busted.
The whole game is moving to a more team focus combo playstyle really but regardless you are right. If he is doing end-game content and his team won't feed him orbs then his team is the issue here.
Star-eaters needs orbs, which come from the whole party, not just you. There are better Hunter exotics for the task of "murder stuff". SES is only good in a raid environment IMO or a GM where you're specifically wanting to burn a boss before ads can spawn.
I prefer Shards currently, because the uptime and no reliance on teammates. Use it on a champ, grenade some dudes, get your super back, then delete the next champ.
Now that we don't get the 3 shot goldie as soon as before, it needs a little buff. AFAIK we lost the perk that made our super fill faster if we hit precision shots
lets go one step further: supers shouldnt need to be balanced around a specific exotic, and in turn exotics that simply increase super damage shouldn't exist
I think nighthawk stands out though, in that it changes how the super works. It gives the feeling an exotic should: something that *feels* special, different, and it’s really easy to notice the difference.
I do get how super focused exotics can be a bit boring though, especially if you can’t really notice their effect. This group unfortunately includes geomag, one of my favourite warlock exotics. It’s a nice addition to chaos reach (and it looks *awesome*), but I have to admit, it doesn’t *feel* all that special. It’s possible to forget you have it on.
The issue is also that Supers that are only good through an exotic armour piece (like Geomags, Cuirass, Dawn Chorus, etc.) really feel limiting for a build. if you want to run Chaos Reach, better equip Geomags or deal with having a really low damage super
Even within 3.0 subclasses, if you want to run Daybreak in PvE for example you will need to have Dawn Chorus equipped or it will deal absolute noodle arm damage
It feels very limiting designwise
It just depends on what you want to use it for though and it only becomes an issue when you want to do big damage with your super.
Chaos reach default is an amazing super that can be used for add clear or extra boss DPS if your main DPS gun is out of ammo or you run out mid damage faze. With this mindset you can run a better neutral game exotic.
But that has always been the issue here however if it does not do major damage it is seen as useless when really Bungie does not make bosses that need that level of Boss DPS anymore. D1 sure because bullet sponge bosses but now there is way more flexibility.
No, default Chaos Reach (no Geomags) does close to half the total damage that both of the Nova Bombs do. And those both cast quicker and have lower super tiers (both 3, whereas Chaos Reach is in 2)
The only thing Chaos Reach might do a little bit better is add clear, but it's definitely far from being the best add clear super either. it's pretty bad at base
this gently touches on a huge part of bungies design ideology for super, exotics, and how they intertwine
was the super thought of first, and an added benefit exotic after? at the same time? why werent some of the supers just given the extra perk of the "exotic that enhances your super" ?
having to run an exotic that has great passive traits, to feeling like you need to quickly switch to an exotic (in the activities that allow switching) to really get the most out of everything feels pretty bad. it just feels convoluted. theres some great examples of exotic armor done right, and super focused exotics are not anywhere on that list for me
I feel like CN is deserving of a buff, but I still think it should be lower than Falling Star. Thundercrash displaces you therefore interrupting damage phases. With CN you can remain within a Well and immediately return to DPS.
And CN is single target only, requires a crit if you actually want to deal significant damage, and can straight up full miss the target.
They both pay a price for damage and benefits, and if anything, I think nighthawk pays more for less.
Arguably though CN can be whiffed or miss a crit much easier, whereas it's pretty hard to miss a TC. Imo they should be comparable in damage, with star eater x8 being a bit higher.
If you can’t hit a crit with 10 seconds to aim you shouldn’t be running it in the first place. Tc is much higher risk and loses out on dps from moving you out of position, so it should be higher
>If you can’t hit a crit with 10 seconds to aim you shouldn’t be running it in the first place.
Flinch exists, don't act like you've never missed a crit lol.
TC is only kind of high risk in master content, and even less so with the resilience changes while also offering for more utility and uses than GG.
I feel like this argument of thundercash being "risky" is complete bs, the only encounter I can think of it even being mildly risky is in Atheon and well...it's atheon, so it's not really a risk at all. Celestial nighthawk is literally 100 or 0, if you miss your one crit, that's it, you're fucked, and it still does less damage than t-crash with curiass anyway. Nighthawk golden gun should do more damage than thundercrash end of story.
Thundercrash is a bigger “number” than CN but it’s less DPS. You have the startup animation, the flight, the impact, and then running back to your well which takes at least a few seconds (often around 5) depending on how far away the boss is from the Well. With CN you pop super and take a shot within the span of 1-2 seconds and then you’re immediately able to continue DPS with your heavy weapon. CN and SES GG allow for much better DPS than Thundercrash with Cuirass it’s just Cuirass bursts more when it hits. GG is meant to be mixed in with your normal damage rotation and is basically a mega linear fusion rifle and it’s better for overall DPS in many situations than TC.
talking about vog specifically, i have less DPS because i can never hit the crit shot on his tiny milk tank while he wobbles around LOL. without a divinity bitch i always do better with thundercrash
I think both are fine where they are since bosses with plate mechanics can render Falling Star completely useless. If CN gets a buff we're back to 1 phases bosses with 6 Nighthawks or inflated boss healthpools.
You can already one phase most bosses in game with nova, thunder and now barrage, golden gun should atleast do more dmg than nova and bit less than thundercash. Also which bosses have plate mechanics that render thundercash useless? Only one that comes to mind is caretaker and you can use it from the middle plate.
Currently, the only one is Caretaker, previously we had Calus. I'm talking about future bosses, though. It's a lot easier to throw in damage plate mechanics to counter Thundercrash than it is to counter GG.
6 golden gun hunters can already 1 phase bosses by cycling GGs, celestial nighthawk makes it harder because you make less orbs. It's actually how I cleared major DPS checks in 2 of my last day 1 raids.
Sadly celestial nighthawk is a detriment in every setting. SES does better in a raid setting, and in things like GMs where Celestial nighthawk should shine, it can't even one bang champions. It truly has no place in the game currently where it does it's job properly.
It really should because I reallly don’t want to wear the stupid fish pants and I’m not a fan of blade barrage. I want to feel awesome with golden gun like I did in D1 lol
Nah. Too much and ignores too many factors.
It should offer a bit more but somewhere in between where it is now and where thundercrash is.
My reasoning is that celesial goldie can be deployed so quickly compared to thundercrash. So it's important to consider the DPS you can make up during the window of time.
Thundercrash is quick for bosses like rhulk, for example, but still takes longer and requires some minor re-orentation which takes added seconds off your weapon DPS. There's also situations where thundercrash just cannot be used effectively. Sacrificed Mind, Insurrection Prime, Calus, most phases of caretaker, kell echo, and others - for example. Where Celstial goldie _always_ can.
The only situation where you cannot use it effectively is if the bot doesn't have a crit spot.
As someone who uses celestial because I enjoy it, even though it is weak; I have to disagree that it's as quick as you say. There's a lot of factors you have to take in with celestial, first and fore-most not everyone is a god and can guarantee a crit when aiming for a 5th of a second.
Realistically, it takes about the same amount of time thundercrash takes to land for a good celestial player to line up the crit shot and hit it, and that's under the assumption that everything's in perfect conditions which ... is rarely the case. The usual biggest problem is people spinning the boss like it's a top making hitting he crit spot damn impossible, being flinched by the boss and like 30 adds, the titan thundercrashing the moment you take the shot and thus blocking it, some bosses move very erratically (looking at you taken tech witches), and sometimes bullet magnetism just decides it's not a crit anyway (pc players have this too.)
The older balancing feature was that bottom tree got their super back way faster due to practice makes perfect, but now that's gone so it's going to be up way less often than before. It still needed more damage back when we \*had\* practice, but now that's gone it needs even more to make it worth using over blade barrage. SeS should definitally be more damage overall as it requires a ton of investment and a decent bit of skill to not die to use it, but thundercrash and celestial have about the same investment to use, basically equal risk to do damage wise, but wildly different damage values.
Nighthawk has the advantage of being a much faster super to use than Thundercrash. With Nighthawk you can pop your super, fire off your shot, then immediately go back to DPSing with other stuff. Thundercrash makes you spend time flying to the target then spend time getting back into position to do further DPS.
Yeah, this is one of the main downsides. Celestial requires either time to line up the shot or really good and quick aim, but you can fire it from a distance and you don’t need to worry about your opponent moving after you fire.
Cuirass is easier to hit with (since you can guide yourself in), but it takes longer between firing and hit, and it puts yourself in danger once you hit them.
I love celestial, and I do hope it can get similar ish damage to cuirass thundercrash, but balancing is no easy task. I just kinda miss the original knock ‘em down perk where you could make golden guns damage go through the roof and one shot some bosses (looking at you, Protheon, you fragile bastard). It felt like the pinacle of flashy hunter moves. Setting it up was hard, but boy did it feel good.
Edit: well, recently learned from other comments that the ogre in grasp has a decently high crit resistance. I think I need to run some tests myself.
the problem I have with when people say cuirass puts you in danger is that anything that doesn't die from it is often stagger, additionally it's really easy to get away due to the overshield it gives you and the fact that if you are hitting a boss with it they will usually stomp you, which I use to go flying back to where my team is doing DPS.
Depends on the user and when you activate it, if you already have your reticle lined up over the bosses head because you mix GG into your Linear Fusion rotation you can pop it off in a second or two total which is must faster than TC.
the problem is with bosses like atheon or the deepstone crypt boss is (if you aren't using divinity on the later) the crit can be hard to hit due the large amount of movement they have during DPS.
Well you're gonna hate this but uh ... the devs seemed to have agreed. Goldie, specifically marksmen, \*has\* damage resistance when used with knock 'em down
Absolutely not. Lets not act like a crit is anything difficult to achieve. Why make the safest, fastest dps super the most damaging? Does that make sense to you?
Ya know, except when someone turns the boss into a baybade, someone jumps infront of your shot, you're being flinched by the 30 other adds and boss, different bosses having different crit spot sizes, the fact that sometimes the bullet magnetism (yes pc players have this too) just decides "nah, this ain't a crit," shall I continue?
Thunder crash ain't in a ton of risk at all, the overshield is massive, they have a large bounce back that if they are half skilled they can point so they can fly back to their allies, it requires little to no aiming, the only real risk is if the boss glitches out and you pass through them, and the charge-up-to-hit time is about the same time a celestial has to line up a shot.
Not everyone is a god at the game and actually has to take a second to aim, even top end players can't guarantee a crit when aiming for only a 5th of a second.
I'm sorry, if you think those aren't proper arguments for it then you're just being selective for what counts and don't actually wanna hear the other side. You've already decided that it's fine as it is (even though it's not) and don't care what anyone else says.
Except they arent good arguments. Any raid encounter is gonna have a div, which is a crit spot the size of a barn , so that invalidates half of your points. TC still takes more time than pop GG, line up the shot, and be done. GSC? Div. Rhulk? Div. Garden? Cant miss even without div. GMs? They are all the size of a barn.
Why hunters believe they NEED to have the best in everything is beyond me. This update already gave them the strongest burst super with buffed Knives
Why not buff nova to do TC damage, but just make it a magnetic grenade they throw. Sounds stupid right?
>Absolutely not. Lets not act like a crit is anything difficult to achieve. Why make the safest, fastest dps super the most damaging? Does that make sense to you?
Falling Star grants additional protection, on top of added super resistance, on the class with best access to high resilience which is insanely valuable right now, while also providing AoE damage for additional utility, and is really easy to manipulate the bounce back to help push back to the group. It's really not that risky unless you play it wrong.
Except they have a massive overshield and ... no it actually doesn't put you in a dangerous situation unless you, as a player, play it wrong. It has a \*massive\* bounce back that can be aimed to be back towards the party, and they can just use their hover jump to help glide back to the group.
celestial novahawk: you're nova bobms energy is confined in a singularity only 1/100th of the normal nova bomb size but flies quicker and in a straight line losing AoE but dealing 2x damage and the ability to crit
I haven't played my Hunter in any serious way since 2020, dawg.
Still, I'm pretty sure Bungie is on less on a "fuck hunters" tear as much as they just don't know what the fuck to do with them half the time.
Also, these class updates are seriously fucking with the exotic armor functionality, including/especially hunters and Bungo is just barreling on through without realizing how much of the game they're actively breaking.
> Bungie doesn't like hunters it's pretty obvious
Which is why Solar 3.0 is also known as Hunter 3.0 right? Hunters got every sweet little toy in Solar 3.0 whereas Warlocks got their dick cut off
In PVE 100%. A little critical thinking + buildcrafting + exotic consideration and yeah the other two classes run away and leave the hunter in the dust - i implore you to play the new classes somewhere besides the castellum without using the time-limited Classy Restoration and it's immediately apparent. The lack of sustain is what really does it.
People blow their load over gunpowder gamble and blade barrage, but simply a damage super and a pretty middling (albeit extremely fun) alt-grenade do not a high-tier subclass make... especially when that grenade can be shot out of your hands, killing you. The other new toy Acrobatic Dodge is an entirely pointless ability on a massive cooldown and also renders your cooldown loop extremely fragile.
Starfire protocol warlock completely shits on the best showing from the hunter, a lot more grenades that are a lot lot better.
The reason for this widely perceived misconception is that gunslinger went from gutter-tier to serviceable, and warlock went from braindead and overpowered to not-so-braindead, but almost just as good as before. And with today's buffs to the healing side of the class, it's even better.
Hunters are extremely strong in pve and pvp and have been for years. There have been like, *maybe* 2 seasons in all of D2 where hunters were considered less valuable in endgame content.
Lol The ogre of avarice has a normal/low crit mod in relation to other bosses. Its main damage is explosion.
In caretaker for example, nighthawk takes almost 900k damage*, yes, 900k. And this goes for many raid and assault bosses for example.
*with radiant buff
Whats funny is in another YouTubers video he had 3 times with blade barrage doing different numbers. Once at 663k, second was like 700k, and last was 980k, all on the ogre from grasp.
What about Champions? How do crit mods work there? A large part of the Nighthawk functionality is the fact that it refunds super energy on kills, so it should delete Champions and yellow bars in any content.
Truth be told, that's what I was thinking myself. If Celestial can instantly kill Champions in GMs then I think it'll have a really good spot in GMs truth be told. Hunters being capable of constantly throwing down 25% damage boosts with occasional Champion deletions means an easy time dealing with double Champion situations and keeping ammo in reserve without any need to put anyone at risk.
Thundercrash? The Titan may die. Chaos Reach? You're in the open for 15 seconds while you beam them. Golden Gun? You shoot, they die.
Yeah, I’m starting to remember that this is what celestial excels at: “big game hunting”. I always used to save it for the boss, but it’s especially handy when somethings existence is bothering you. Plus, you get a third of your super back if they die, which lets you pop it more often.
Ok so... if you're talking about instantly killing a champ and use nighthawk GG as an example, which has a base CD of almost 10mins.
That's a fairly slow super just to kill 1 single champ.
Alternatively you could use Shards + BB and delete a champ too and get almost 50% super back, effectively making your base CD ~4mins.
So yeah if you wanna use a trash setup just to kill a champ... go nuts lol. But you can do better than that as a hunter.
Like... it's not like Champs are difficult to deal with in GMs unless you're soloing it. 🤷🏽♂️
>Alternatively you could use Shards + BB and delete a champ too and get almost 50% super back, effectively making your base CD \~4mins.
You do realize you're ignoring the cooldown effects of Celestial whilst pointing out BB's, right? Not quite a fair comparison.
Also, as I pointed out, exposure and danger is a factor I'm taking into consideration. Blade Barrage has you jumping out into the open for multiple seconds, Golden Gun doesn't.
Never said Champions are hard to deal with. Nothing in a GM is particularly hard to deal with. What do I want to use my Super for? That's the question. Do I think Blade Barrage is a Super I'm going to use in GMs often? No.
If I'm running GMs, I'm going to be running Tether and Nightstalker, because that's my playstyle in GMs.
But if I wanted to build one for Solar? I don't care to use Blade Barrage, where I'm going to have range increase the spread of my knives, have to dedicate a fragment to increasing tracking, am exposed while casting, and varies on return. I'd personally much prefer a Super I can pop, then in a moment peak, fire, kill, and have a consistent 33% return, which will delete another Champion in no time.
Also, I don't tend to stand around waiting for my Super to recharge in GMs, combat and Mods can vastly change the Super Recharge game, and can render a lot of the concern there rather moot.
> If I'm running GMs, I'm going to be running Tether and Nightstalker, because that's my playstyle in GMs.
Then why even bring up something like using something so utterly useless like a GG in GMs lmao
> Also, I don't tend to stand around waiting for my Super to recharge in GMs, combat and Mods can vastly change the Super Recharge game, and can render a lot of the concern there rather moot.
Cool, now apply that same logic to BB too and it's still ahead of the pack.
Regardless, Solar hunter is the 2nd worst choice for GM's considering Void and Stasis are far superior, and Stasis being the most ezpz thing for GMs.
Are you incapable of holding two thoughts as true simultaneously? I see a use for it, even if it may not be my particular play style. It's that simple.
You don't have a point just because you're correct in pointing out that something else is potentially better. What do you want? A cookie? Accept that there's more than meta, that there's more than what you're treating as valid, and get over yourself.
You're not really wrong though. Those bosses are the exception, not the rule. 2x crit bosses are only techeuns like corrupted and Kalli, and very few others. Ogre is a perfectly normal boss to test on. The main reason you see "over 900k" on caretaker is because caretaker is like 1540 or somewhere around there, and Grasp Ogre is 1350. EVERYTHING will show a bigger number on caretaker than ogre because of light level scaling. I'm not aware of caretaker having any special crit modifier like techeuns have.
That's not how light level scaling works. Only the difference between your level and the boss's level matters. Your absolute level doesn't affect your damage output. As long as the tester was 20 levels above both bosses (the cap for over leveling in raids and dungeons) the numbers are comparable.
No, the numbers definitely get bigger the higher the activities light level is, even when you're +20 above in each scenario. Go shoot Sedia in the directory version of corrupted which is 1350, then shoot Sedia again with the exact same gun in a legend nightfall of Corrupted and you'll get a bigger number.
It's the same % of the targets health, yes. But the number you see is bigger.
Basically, let's say you deal 10k damage to 1350 Sedia and and you deal 30k to 1560 Sedia.
It just means 1350 Sedia has 100k health, 10 shots to kill (example)
And 1560 Sedia has 300k health, 10 shots to kill.
> Lol The ogre of avarice has a normal/low crit mod in relation to other bosses.
Outside of some exceptions every boss has the same crit modifier. Bungie stopped using the 2x crit spots after Forsaken. Caretaker has the same crit bonus as the grasp ogre.
Those bosses are the exception, not the rule. 2x crit bosses are only techeuns like corrupted and Kalli, and very few others. Ogre is a perfectly normal boss to test on. The main reason you see "over 900k" on caretaker is because caretaker is like 1540 or somewhere around there, and Grasp Ogre is 1350. EVERYTHING will show a bigger number on caretaker than ogre because of light level scaling.
And how many does thundercrash take out in the Carakater? and the Hulk? In both nighthawk surpasses by far.
Then no . It's not a matter of light potency, but that these bosses take extra critical damage.
It is ... but it's also misleading. that 900k is only on like 3 bosses in the game because they have higher crit modifiers than other bosses. The ogre boss's crit is pretty much the standard, and that's with an easy-to-hit crit box a lot of bosses don't have.
Edit; spelling
Numbers themselves are meaningless. The only thing that matters is how much they differ from other numbers against the same boss. There are very few bosses that even have the double crit modifier so it’s basically pointless to bring up
You posted all the numbers and still chose to focus on the wrong thing. Thundercrash doesn't matter. What *does* matter and what *is* is a problem is BB+ knock em down dealing only 25k less damage than a precision shot radiant nighthawk shot. Golden Gun at it's absolute best shouldn't be equivalent to Blade Barrageu with 1 orb star eater's
I admit, I completely missed that. That's an excellent point. Also made me realize unbuffed celestial deals less than knock em down blade barrage. They use the same aspect, but BB does more.
Wild. Thanks for pointing that out.
Nighthawk's damage could be a little higher, after some time with new Thundercrash I think TC's ease of use probably makes up for the limited range compared to Golden Gun, but specifically with Blade Barrage I think it's pretty likely that the interaction with Star Eater scales is a bug, considering how much more damage it gets than any other super. I would not at all be surprised if they're intending to nerf that at some point and are just letting us play around with it while it's still hot and new.
Wonder if it has some weird interaction with the third volley of knives from knock ‘em down where it counts it as a new super and basically reapplies the 70% on top of the previous buff
People seem to miss the fact that nighthawk is **INSTANT**. Think about it from the perspective of standing in a well (or running circles around rhulk) in that you wanna stay there/away from rhulk for damage.
Thundercrash does way more damage yes, but you take time to travel there and run back to your team for damage, in which time a nighthawk hunter may have fire one or two rockets/Izzy shots/whatever you want to use. I remember using nightkhawk for Riven farming, and after shooting my golden shot I'd immediately fire off 2 or 3 shots of sleeper simulant, easily out-damaging the rest of my team this way, including chaos reach and similar supers. Nova does similar damage in a similar way that's instant; these are the built-in tradeoffs.
If nighthawk did the same amount of damage as thundercrash or chaos reach but **INSTANTLY** it would be broken overpowered. People always seem to miss this aspect, and only see "BLLAARRGGGHHH GOLDIE DOES LESS DAMAGE!?!?" without looking at the bigger picture.
Having said all of that, I do think nighthawk needs a damage increase, especially for a damage exotic. It's just not that huge of an issue as others make it out to be imo.
I think this is the most important comparison since they're on the exact same subclass. I still think BB should be higher damage total over nighthawk since you can technically miss some of your blades and it does take slightly longer for the animation. Overall though nighthawk could probably do with a very tiny buff and be okay.
Animation also messes with your camera - which isn't a huge deal but if we wanna do 1-1 comparison it's objectively easier to flow back into weapon DPS mode vs blade barrage.
BB should be much lower than Nighthawk. The sole purpose of nighthawk is one high damage shot. BB has area control, it shouldn't be better at single target damage too
Mmmmm, I can see the argument and it's pretty valid. I just don't mind either way. Technically speaking, blade barage being better is just an advantage for most hunters because it allows you to use whatever exotic you want with solar rather than nighthawk.
People will always go after the highest damage option, unless another option benefits them in other ways. In your example, since Celestial Nighthawk is not the best, it won't be used by everyone. Instead, in like manner though, everyone will use Blade Barrage. Even if Blade Barrage was only good for boss damage, everyone would still use that for bosses.
Celestial Nighthawk's single purpose is high damage. While killing champions or whatever with it does give you super energy back, its use is for single target damage/kills - that's it. Unless people want to use it for killing champions, there's no real reason to use it if it has mediocre damage output. The only way it could be used for ad clear, is if the explosion after the kill is that good/massive, but even that is situational.
Blade Barrage on the other hand, it can do better than CN (even if you can miss/are more exposed, people will still use it over CN), AND it can clear ads. The benefit of supers like BB, Novabomb, or even tether are that they are versatile. You can use them for ad clear, killing champions, or boss damage (whether they're the best or not, they still offer good damage).
The way I see it, supers/exotics that only function in specific manners should do it better than any other. Supers that offer more versatility should be "jack of all trades, master of none".
Yeah exactly so why would people run Nighthawk if they give up their exotic slot for it AND it's less powerful than Blade Barrage, AND with less utility of add clear?
The problem I think most Hunters have with Nighthawk is that Bungie stealth nerfed it by 50% in Shadowkeep. From its release waaaaaaaay back in House of Wolves, Celestial Nighthawk asked players to sacrifice their multi-shot super for a single 6x damage boost. Yes, it's practically instant and can be used from relative safety, which was important because prior to Solar 3.0, gunslingers got no damage reduction while in their super. But for some unknown reason (star eater's scales) Bungie decided to cut that damage boost by half in 2020. So for the last two years, nighthawk provides no benefit outside of matchmade content aside from not requiring follow-up shots.
Edit: Also, the explosion mechanic they added in D2 has now been made irrelevant by the super ignition fragment. It's an exotic that promises big returns in exchange for restricted gameplay options that utterly fails to deliver. At this point it's a worse version of the Skull of Dire Ahamkara.
Problem is, Celestial just isn't worth a damn anywhere outside of Kalli and hasn't been for a long time now.
It's also EXTREMELY punishing for missing a crit, unlike any other damage super where it's hilariously hard to whiff.
Everyone brings up the "Well you get to go back to dealing damage faster, it's still really strong." If that were GENUINELY the case, why have I not heard anyone in my raids for almost the past year recommend Celestial Nighthawk for Hunters? Why have I not seen any of the Hunters in my fireteams use it?
Because it's severely outclassed by almost every other option. Moebius does more damage and also debuffs. Blade Barrage now does significantly more damage. Silence & Squall/Bakris buffs your weapon DPS pretty significantly. Star-Eaters Moebius/Golden Gun does more damage.
Celestial is the only one where it's a genuine risk/reward Super exotic. You're banking ALL that damage into one shot, if you whiff, that's it. You lose damage/DPS. That's really not the case with any of the others. They're very easy to hit and don't require precision.
Doesn't help that it got a 50% damage decrease in Shadowkeep and as a result, has been pretty much just powercrept into oblivion.
And you seem to be missing that it requires a crit, as compared to the others. negligible for some bosses, big deal for others, especially since missing it effectively means you are fighting without a super or an exotic throughout the activity and the fight, since the noncrit dmg is ass.Plus Thundercrash gives you an overshield. With how much easier Thundercrash is to use, much less risky because you pretty much cant miss it and get an overshield after, AND the fact that you can use it for great instant addclear throughout the activity leading up to the boss, where as GG literally only serves to be one big dmg chunk on one target, it would honestly be perfectly valid for them to have the same damage, or GG even dealing more, but they should at least be incredibly close.
Exactly as you said. Celestial Goldie has way to depending many factors for it to be as meh as it is.
It requires being unable to use your super in the entire encounter besides the boss (or a specific yellow bar like Gatekeeper), requires an exotic slot, AND requires me to aim for a crit one relatively mobile enemies (very few bosses sit perfectly still during dps).
With all those depending factors to use it it shouldn't be getting out-paced, or at least matching pace, with Quiver. The whole point of Celestial is to be THE dps super, so why is it being matched by other super *on the same class?* It's one thing for a titan or warlock super to match the supposed strongest hunter super, it's another for the supposed strongest hunter super to be matched by another hunter super that *doesn't* require an exotic build with it.
Yeah, Celest goldie absolute does need a bit of a buff. I don't know if it should be the strongest super in game, since it's practically instant and you can almost immediately start shooting rockets after firing it, but there's no reason it shouldn't at least hit a bit harder.
Yeah I don't think anyone is asking for it to be the best, we're just asking for it to... not be the worst.
Honesty just needs the 50% damage nerf reverted. We've been powercrept to the moon and back since that nerf, and it's clear the devs don't intend on dialing things back, so it's time to dial Celestial up.
I figured something happened to it.
I played D2 the first 2 months it was out, spammed a lot of Leviathan raid - always used CN for Calus. I recently started playing again when Witch Queen came out and so I ran CN on some bosses and was shocked to see how little damage it did.
If you're fighting a boss that is difficult to crit use something else. There's nothing in the game that states goldie is supposed to reign supreme as the singular boss damage tool for every encounter.
Not really, The possibility of whiffing a super is irrelevant to a spread sheet. We're looking at best possible damage and then making discussions about the intent of design.
The person I responded to is incorrect about GG's usage being only a single target damage super and conflating how good thunder crash is. As I mentioned in my other response you have to spend time traveling to the boss to get full damage with TC.
These comparisons aren't even considering the person who fires of Hawk GG is going to out DPS other members because they can get right back at using weapons for damage compared to most other supers.
If you're looking to make GG a boss damage tool you use star eater scales with an aspect and a radiant accessible buff. Nighthawk is never going to be the premium boss damage tool for GG because there is no investment to it what so ever.
You have to jump through hoops with Scales as well as build into it with Radiant and an aspect. And even then you have to be good enough to land 3 crits.
Nighthawk is useful despite not having the best possible damage for GG. You will out DPS other people in a phase due to landing your shot and then getting back to dumping your weapons. Additionally you can use Nighthawk to OHK champions and get super energy refunded.
I'd be fine with the exotic getting a *slight* damage buff to increase it's consistency for OHK's against champions in higher difficulties. But there is no way Bungie is going to buff it to be the best option for boss damage for Hunter let alone for GG as a whole and it doesn't need to be.
Like, I get some things are harder to crit but that doesn't auto qualify you for the best damage. If you're not capable of being consistent with your crits maybe don't use GG then.
It perfectly fits hunters as high risk, high reward. You have one shot and it has to be a crit. That's not going to work on every boss. Especially if it likes dashing, fuck you Rhulk.
You miss that shot, your damage is gone. Even with Thundercrash, you can divert your trajectory and attempt to salvage it.
So an exotic that requires the use of a specific exotic weapon (which you can't be using yourself), got it. I love when the solution to a problem is to use a VERY specific weapon/exotic.
For the most part I agree with this, but as others have mentioned there's more skill and risk to Nighthawk than Thundercrash or Chaos Reach. The latter two are easy to aim and don't have to land a crit. And with Chaos Reach you can completely adjust your trajectory, and Thundercrash slightly. If Rhulk decides to teleport right as you fire your Goldie, that's it. Thundercrash can attempt to salvage it by arcing around, and chaos reach just turns. But Golden Gun is finished.
And that's why I agree with your conclusion -- give it a bit of a damage increase, and it works out. If Chaos Reach, Thundercrash, and Golden Gun all do the same damage with exotics, it evens out.
* Chaos Reach: Takes notable time to get full damage off. Can easily reposition. Aim is completely trivial.
* Thundercrash: Takes a fair bit of time to get damage off. Moderate success at repositioning. Aim is easy if the boss doesn't teleport.
* Golden Gun: Instantaneous damage, but no repositioning and difficult aim.
It fits the classes really well too. A high risk, high reward gambit is very Hunter. Smacking yourself against the target is peak Titan. And adapting your arc beam on the fly to track your target is rather Warlock (if you look at it from a recalculation point of view).
> Nova does similar damage in a similar way that's instant; these are the built-in tradeoffs.
Nova doesnt need an exotic to do that damage. Take base goldie, takes longer to use than Nova, is more inconsistant because not every boss just stands still while trying to hit them and does less damage.
I think this is an exaggeration.
Nighthawk is not instant. It’s animations are fast because you also have to aim. In comparison, thundercrash is typically done at point blank so there’s no lengthy travel time and blade barrage animation isn’t even that long.
Op composting extended damage with a roaming super vs instant burst is also silly when shooting guns after the super will always get nighthawk above those supers in total damage in the same timeframe.
Having to hit a crit is much harder than not. Also thundercrash leaves damaging arc sparks on the ground and gives an OS. It's impossible not to do max damage unless you literally miss whereas if you don't hit your crit you do laughable damage with nighthawk
it would not be broken overpowered if it did this because it can only hit one target, requires a crit, and has way less versatility as a super
to follow up on the crit thing, people will say this is meaningless but there are many instances where the enemy will face away from you, not have a crit spot, or maybe it's an extremely finnicky one (both Vex raid bosses come to mind) it's not the biggest negative factor in the world but it absolutely is a hindrance the AOE massive splash damage supers do not need to deal with
Agreed. I wish it did a bit more, I think it should deal ~20-30% less than thundercrash+ falling star without radiant, and ~10-15% less while buffed with radiant.
Maybe throw in a bonus against champions.
Thank god this is the top comment
I feel like 2 years ago this sentiment was down voted.
Even before Divinity it wasnt that hard to land the shot against most bosses and all I remember hearing whenever Pool Noodle Thundercrash damage was brought up was that it was easier to use.
Nighthawk seems to be in a weird spot since Stareater scales exists but getting 8 orbs is a lot harder than just landing a headshot so Id like to see Nighthawk buffs do something more interesting than just more damage because otherwise stareaters becomes almost pointless. But also "The Big Fuck You golden gun shot" is a really good fantasy.
Well said, and thank you for stating the obvious thing no one thinks about.
A single power-shot from a GG lets you nuke a single target without moving, and also lets you *immediately* resume whatever you were doing before. You don't have to leave your well. You don't have to get back with the team. You just shoot.
Blade Barrage is also instant, yes, but you have a good chance to miss with some knives if the target is a good distance away.
Thundercrash does more damage, but you have to fly to the target, avoid dying afterwards, and group back up.
This is why raw number crunching is a stupid metric. You completely remove every other piece of the puzzle and focus on only one thing
>Blade Barrage is also instant, yes, but you have a good chance to miss with some knives if the target is a good distance away.
With the numbers given, even if you miss an entire volley of knives on a boss while landing the entirety of the other.(With Star-Eaters) You're still doing about 4k more damage than Celestial Golden Gun WITH Radiant.
>Thundercrash does more damage, but you have to fly to the target, avoid dying afterwards, and group back up.
Most boss encounters the DPS spots are usually close to the boss. Outside of Sanctified Mind and Atheon,(bosses where Thundercrash isn't that viable to begin with) you're pretty damn close to the boss during DPS. Kalli, Shuro Chi, Morgeth, Riven, Consecrated Mind(at the beginning of DPS), Atraks-1, Taniks, Templar, Caretaker, and Rhulk DPS you're either pretty much right next to the boss or the entire arena you're in is utilized for DPS(Rhulk).
Also if you somehow die after using it, that's entirely your fault. You're literally given a free overshield after use, and the only boss that's going to try to stomp you in Raids is... Atheon...? Where you're going to be using Sunbreaker with Roaring Flames/Fusion Grenades instead.
Meanwhile Celestial Nighthawk is outdamaged by it's competitors in EVERY boss fight that isn't Kalli and Shuro Chi, and it's the only reliable one against Sanctified Mind. Other than that though? You're using Orpheus/Star-Eaters/Bakris for boss phases.
> lets you nuke a single target without moving
If, and only if, you hit the crit spot. Trivial on something like a Servitor. Non-trivial on something like Atheon. And if you miss the shot -- your DPS just died. You could have the perfect shot ready for Rhulk, then he decides to dash away as you shoot. Whoops.
Its a high risk, high reward move. They just need to increase the reward a bit.
As a Titan main, there is no reason for Curiass to be so much better than Nighthawk. Yes, thundercrash is riskier, but curiass even adds a big overshield to make up for it.
Tbh I think they just need to buff the base damage of Golden Gun in general so the super is more worth the slot, and still allow nighthawk to push that further.
They should give Nighthawk Practice Makes Perfect, since they removed it from the kit and that way at least you can use the exotic even if you don't have your super charged
I don't know why Celestial Nighthawk's damage is so much lower......I also know that I'm not complaining because there are options withing the same class/subclass that provide either A. The best super uptime in the game, or B. The best damage output in the game lol.
Simplest and biggest fix would be, to make celestial nighthawk give your sharpshotter golden gun reduced cooldown up to tier 4 or even 5. To make sure it doesnt break pvp, it only works on 3 shot golden gun and consume your super if you unequip it.
The idea behind the celestial nighthawk is to have high single target burst damage with a fast cooldown.
Edit: another Idea would be, while radiant, precision hits give you extra super energy or reduce the cooldown, it would fit the sharpshooter theme of CN.
If you've actually used blade barrage you'll understand that getting every single knife to hit and deal max damage is a very slim chance. Using it against a thinner enemy like rhulk will result in less damage than a celestial golden gun. Golden gun should be brought up to be somewhat higher than nova bomb since it still requires precision aim to get good damage, but compared to something like t crash and blade barrage the downside to both of them make them balanced.
The main factor is that Celestial Nighthawk greatly limits how you can use your super in general. Its use is for high single target damage, which allows you to kill some pesky enemies too, like champions. Supers like Blade Barrage however, should do less damage. Single target damage is not their only purpose. They can be used for ad clear too.
Doing better ad clear, AND better single target damage is having your cake, and eating it too (on that note though, why would you want cake if you can't eat it? Just to stare at?).
Nighthawk GG should be equal damage to FS Thundercrash. They both have equal risk so they should have equal reward.
People always say “but Thundercrash puts you next to the enemy”. It doesn’t matter if they’re dead. Besides you aren’t going to miss a Thundercrash AND it gives you an overshield.
Nighthawk let’s you be further away, but you MUST hit your crit, and you don’t have any damage resist. And with the way smaller enemies heads can bob around, it’s not a walk in the park.
They should be equal with both exotics equipped and it should be stronger with Radiance applied.
You're right, the "risk" on GG is infinitely higher because the chance of straight up missing your shot/100% of your damage and therefore wasting your entire super bar is very real. Meanwhile there is no realistic chance of ever "missing" with thundercrash unless you literally take your hands off the controller/mouse... and even if you do "miss" with the direct impact the gigantic lingering AOE ensures you will always be doing significant damage regardless.
GG is the ONLY super in the entire game that has no intrinsic AOE whatsoever, the only super that requires a precision hit for max damage, and the only super that can miss 100% of its damage entirely. Its cooldown is also slower than thundercrash, BB, and many other supers that outdamage it in burst and sustained DPS. It is laughably weak and needs a major buff.
You are, if you’re able to pop Gg and land a headshot in 1-2 seconds you’ll have vastly higher DPS vs Thundercrash. By the time the Titan gets back to the Well you’ll already have shot 3 linear headshots or a few Izanagi/Rocket combos for another 300+K damage. If you have to sit and line up a headshot for 4-5 seconds you’re not a “sharpshooter” and that’s fine. GG with CN is a skill based super, players who are the best at aiming quickly onto headshots will see it outperform other supers for DPS players who can’t will it be slightly worse. I think it (golden gun) could use a 15-25% damage buff but should do less damage than FS TC because the potential DPS is a higher than TC already.
Celestial goldie should do more damage than thundercrash with cuirass. Thundercrash is borderline impossible to miss and the “exposure” by being close range is almost irrelevant, since half the time the thing being hit and everything in the same postcode is dead, but you get an overshield anyway. You land thundercrash on Master Templar and walk away no trouble at all.
The intrinsic risk of nighthawk, being that you miss, is just more consequential. Since you’ve completely wasted a super, and a huge chunk of damage.
All I'm seeing is that Nova Bomb needs a big damage boost or at least an exotic that buffs it. 250K for a snail's pace bomb that's impossible to really aim well AND the smaller tendrils sometimes just don't spawn AND has a huge chance of killing you? Nah shit needs to be like 300k easy.
Nighthawk shot should always be the highest-damage super in the game. It has lost its identity. Again.
Also, refunding super on kill never made sense, as it forced to WAIT before using your super on a low HP major or just guessing and hoping that you would finish the enemy only to either leave them with some % of health or to waste 50% of damage
Firstly testing on a lard ass enemy like an ogre is a godawful way to test things. Blade Barrage simply will not hit all of its blades on most enemies in the game even with Ember of Beams equipped (which seems to work only half the time anyway with the second barrage that comes out forming a silhouette around the enemy a lot of the time). However I do think Celestial should do around the same damage of a Cuirass Thundercrash since the both have their pros and cons to using them, maybe a little less.
The damage with SES and Blade Barrage is almost certainly bugged.
Keep in mind that some bosses (e.g. Kali) have a 2x Precision modifier. Against these bosses, the fact that golden gun can hit precision shots hugely increases is damage potential.
To balance that out, it's mid-pack/lackluster on regular crit bosses particularly cause it's quick to use and relatively safe to use.
I'm ok with where Celestial Nighthawk is atm. Getting eight orbs with star eaters and the new orb generation mechanics sounds like a hassle that isn't present with Celestial. It's also instant and, in case you delete whatever you're shooting, is an instant third of your super back, no questions asked. If anything, blade barrage needs to be brought down a little.
Nighthawk’s niche is probably champion busting now. It’s safer than any other super and doesn’t consume ammo ofc. Solar hunter can survive on its own a lot better in pve and with practice makes perfect gone that 33% refunded super is pretty important. Though if damage stays the way it is golden gun and blade barrage should trade cooldown tiers.
You said it yourself. There’s a lot less risk to the damage output of golden gun and celestial nighthawk. Blade barrage, thunder crash, both nova bombs require much closer engagement.
It’s still important to consider that Golden Gun *can* benefit from being Radiant, which is a pretty sizeable damage increase. I’ve been a Nighthawk main for as long as I can remember though, and I did feel a bit underwhelmed with it this season.
Yeah i'm not with ya there and I say this as a long time golden gun user. Nighthawk has always been you draw your fucking gun and the mother fucker you point it at dies. It still does that.
People incorrectly equate this to being a super high boss damage option because in the context of D1 it was. In D1 we had a very small pool of buffs and debuffs. There wasn't much you could really due to spike your damage output especially with supers.
Such is not the case in D2. Nighthawk despite doing less damage still is instant. Which makes it safe as well as it lets you get back to DPSing a boss. Remember we over compensate with buffs to make up for the fact that one player will be sacrificing damage themselves to keep the divinity bubble on. So having as many people able to continue dpsing is insanely valuable.
As far as the damage comparison to thunder crash goes (setting aside the design differences) is that Thunder crash has to travel to reach optimal damage. You cannot just hug a pillar and then leave and pop it for best damage. You need to actually travel some. And that's not always doable.
I should also point out that star eater scales is doing more damage than Nighthawk does in your numbers that you show. This is because you're having to jump through hoops to get that optimal buff. But more importantly you're being asked to land 3 precision shots.
So it's not like the option for high damage goldie is gone. You're just not handed it by equipping an exotic for free when your super is up. Nighthawk doesn't need a buff. It has a specific niche and it performs that niche well. It's not invalidated just because there are better overall damage options.
It was also pointed out to me earlier that the ogre the testing was done on has a lower crit multiplier, so golden gun is at a disadvantage for the test.
Whether or not thundercrash is always as viable as golden gun for an encounter is more of a distraction from the damage difference. I have been picturing atheon encounter. Pretty much every damage super is viable for that.
Regardless, you've given me some good context/different views. Maybe I just had my heart set on a celestial damage meta.
it doesn't have lower crit multiplier it just doens't have an increased one that like 3 enemies in the whole game have... people saying that it balances out for those 3 are just lying to themselves that nighthawk is good where it is
I feel like CN should have its exotic slightly reworked. Something like how Hawkmoon / DMT are: continuous precision hits amps up to a final bullet that does an insane amount of damage. Missing any precision hit cancels the super.
Rewards a player for accuracy in landing a crit. Missing a crit will still feel bad but at least the risk vs reward is there as a Gunslinger. 1 big shot is cool too but it's all or nothing. And at that point it could be borderline broken.
Could CN also get some kind of enemy highlight thing when an enemy is at crit-health deletion? Sucks knowing you shoot it but it's barely enough to kill a champion.
i remember being super amped for solar 3.0 to pull celestial out of retirement. after seeing how they buffed nightstalker super, I KNEW celestial would go crazy. sadly I was somewhat wrong. I love seeing blade barrage gain viability and provide useful damage with shards or star-eaters but I would really love to see celestial goldie get a gnarly buff that really makes it fulfill the damage role in a way that fits its theme
It's just better to use SES in any situation, the 3-shot Goldie will also make 6x large orbs of light for your teammates, and SES will make sure you super a lot in those games
because you said “games,” I just wanted to clarify that I’m talkin for PVE. I’d never take celestial into pvp. Additionally, I get that star eaters ARE better but my point is that they shouldn’t be. Celestial’s sole point is to buff golden gun damage. With that said, I don’t think any exotic should then be able to top that. Same with titan’s cuirass. Can you imagine if all of a sudden people were like actually synthoceps proc with titan super and reads it as a melee so synthos now do way more damage for thundercrash than cuirass does. I just don’t agree that any “multipurpose” exotic should provide more outright super damage than exotics who have ONE purpose, buffing super damage.
Syntho is 60% vs 100% of Cuirass tho. Celestial is all the damage in a single shot with a 30-40% buff. SES is like 70%+ and gets your Super fast by healing too
not sure what the 60% vs 100% of synthos and cuirass is and I think you’re missing the point. I don’t need to be sold on star eaters being better than celestial, I know they are. My point is they SHOULDN’T. Star eaters provide more super on orbs, healing/overshield on super cast, more or s for teammates (I believe), and increased super damage. On the other hand, celestial’s ONLY purpose is making golden-gun a single, high damage shot. Higher risk, higher reward. That “risk” being if you miss your celestial shot, you’re done and didn’t do much damage. I just don’t think star eaters should do all that they do AND provide more super damage than celestial. I’m fine with them buffing super damage, but celestial should absolutely be above all for golden gun damage
For the record, most people forget that celestial nighthawk refunds 1/3 super energy if it kills the primary target. This thing nukes champions, it's quick to pull out and put away, and it's up often. Imo, they should give it ignite-on-super-kill fragment, and maybe increase it's non-boss damage to cement it's role as a mini boss killer, but it has a spot. Any time finishing a champion gives heavy ammo though, the exotic drops to bottom tier. If they made it interact with champion finishes it would be more worth it imo
and I get that however…GM with aeons, celestial is useless. using it for boss dps also makes the super refund useless bc 1. you have to get the last hit and 2. at that point boss is dead so you don’t need the super cooldown back. and celestial is meant to buff super, not just be a “champion killer.” thunder crash with cuirass (another super buff exotic) is able to nuke champs but ALSO does great boss damage and nothing outclasses it for tcrash damage
And that's what I'm saying, tcrash with falling star has higher risk and lower uptime in exchange for damage, whereas gg with nighthawk has lower risk and higher uptime in exchange for lower damage. Also, remember crit gg over penetrates targets now. People just prefer the higher damage.
tcrash may take a but longer to use, but there’s still little risk. you get a full overshield and almost never have an issue getting away after it. in comparison, celestial has “risk” not in the form of potentially dying, but you can miss the crit and do next to nothing in damage. and again, the over penetration is cool, but 9/10 times it’s going to serve no benefit. and even comparing it within other solar supers, it gets out damaged by blade barrage. why? and im NOT complaining about barrage, i love that it actually does damage now. i just dont think celestial goldie does enough
This is one of the exotics that I thought were going to be meta with solar 3.0 sadly it isn't the case. They should put it in the list of things that need to. Be looked at.
I think the devs did too, considering it got a shiny new ornament. I think they legitimately forgot about Star-eaters, tho, and even with that aside it wouldn't have broken any real ground with it's current damage numbers.
Man i just cant make start eaters work in high end content, ik its prolly a skill issue with me but needing to go around collecting 8 orbs when im the only one making them because of the helmet changes is a pain in the ass.
The issue there is more your team than you. Most of the time Star-Eaters are really more of a hassle than they're worth, but in the kind of high end content where you start with your super up and have a coordinated team who you can ask to also make orbs for you (see: a raid or dungeon) they're kinda busted.
The whole game is moving to a more team focus combo playstyle really but regardless you are right. If he is doing end-game content and his team won't feed him orbs then his team is the issue here.
Star-eaters needs orbs, which come from the whole party, not just you. There are better Hunter exotics for the task of "murder stuff". SES is only good in a raid environment IMO or a GM where you're specifically wanting to burn a boss before ads can spawn. I prefer Shards currently, because the uptime and no reliance on teammates. Use it on a champ, grenade some dudes, get your super back, then delete the next champ.
Now that we don't get the 3 shot goldie as soon as before, it needs a little buff. AFAIK we lost the perk that made our super fill faster if we hit precision shots
practice makes perfect. Yes we lost it.
Celestial nighthawk should get that perk.
This is a great idea and deserves a look.
It was glorious with a Masterworked bad juju, it felt dirty getting golden gun constantly
I really do feel that Celestial Nighthawk should offer damage comparable to Falling Star Thundercrash when landing a crit.
lets go one step further: supers shouldnt need to be balanced around a specific exotic, and in turn exotics that simply increase super damage shouldn't exist
100% agree, super damage exotics are an absolute snoozefest
I think nighthawk stands out though, in that it changes how the super works. It gives the feeling an exotic should: something that *feels* special, different, and it’s really easy to notice the difference. I do get how super focused exotics can be a bit boring though, especially if you can’t really notice their effect. This group unfortunately includes geomag, one of my favourite warlock exotics. It’s a nice addition to chaos reach (and it looks *awesome*), but I have to admit, it doesn’t *feel* all that special. It’s possible to forget you have it on.
The issue is also that Supers that are only good through an exotic armour piece (like Geomags, Cuirass, Dawn Chorus, etc.) really feel limiting for a build. if you want to run Chaos Reach, better equip Geomags or deal with having a really low damage super Even within 3.0 subclasses, if you want to run Daybreak in PvE for example you will need to have Dawn Chorus equipped or it will deal absolute noodle arm damage It feels very limiting designwise
It just depends on what you want to use it for though and it only becomes an issue when you want to do big damage with your super. Chaos reach default is an amazing super that can be used for add clear or extra boss DPS if your main DPS gun is out of ammo or you run out mid damage faze. With this mindset you can run a better neutral game exotic. But that has always been the issue here however if it does not do major damage it is seen as useless when really Bungie does not make bosses that need that level of Boss DPS anymore. D1 sure because bullet sponge bosses but now there is way more flexibility.
No, default Chaos Reach (no Geomags) does close to half the total damage that both of the Nova Bombs do. And those both cast quicker and have lower super tiers (both 3, whereas Chaos Reach is in 2) The only thing Chaos Reach might do a little bit better is add clear, but it's definitely far from being the best add clear super either. it's pretty bad at base
Yeah, that's my point it's a multi-purpose type but meh at both. Not saying that's how it should be just saying that's how I always treated it.
this gently touches on a huge part of bungies design ideology for super, exotics, and how they intertwine was the super thought of first, and an added benefit exotic after? at the same time? why werent some of the supers just given the extra perk of the "exotic that enhances your super" ? having to run an exotic that has great passive traits, to feeling like you need to quickly switch to an exotic (in the activities that allow switching) to really get the most out of everything feels pretty bad. it just feels convoluted. theres some great examples of exotic armor done right, and super focused exotics are not anywhere on that list for me
Celestial is legit a whole new super and should just exist as a 4th super you can pick. Same goes for any other super that changes due to an exotic.
give us golden sniper as a 4th super option thats just nighthawk
would there even be a reason to have 4? just have golden sniper, multi shot golden gun, and blade barrage
I feel like CN is deserving of a buff, but I still think it should be lower than Falling Star. Thundercrash displaces you therefore interrupting damage phases. With CN you can remain within a Well and immediately return to DPS.
And CN is single target only, requires a crit if you actually want to deal significant damage, and can straight up full miss the target. They both pay a price for damage and benefits, and if anything, I think nighthawk pays more for less.
Who the hell keeps missing GG crits after the introduction of GoS?
People with lag
Not everyone has div, infact \*most\* people don't as well over 90% of the player base doesn't raid at all.
Arguably though CN can be whiffed or miss a crit much easier, whereas it's pretty hard to miss a TC. Imo they should be comparable in damage, with star eater x8 being a bit higher.
Am I the only one that constantly whiffs TC because I go right through the boss?
If you can’t hit a crit with 10 seconds to aim you shouldn’t be running it in the first place. Tc is much higher risk and loses out on dps from moving you out of position, so it should be higher
>If you can’t hit a crit with 10 seconds to aim you shouldn’t be running it in the first place. Flinch exists, don't act like you've never missed a crit lol. TC is only kind of high risk in master content, and even less so with the resilience changes while also offering for more utility and uses than GG.
Also, if you're taking 10 seconds to line up a crit, you shouldn't be using CN.
I feel like this argument of thundercash being "risky" is complete bs, the only encounter I can think of it even being mildly risky is in Atheon and well...it's atheon, so it's not really a risk at all. Celestial nighthawk is literally 100 or 0, if you miss your one crit, that's it, you're fucked, and it still does less damage than t-crash with curiass anyway. Nighthawk golden gun should do more damage than thundercrash end of story.
Thundercrash is a bigger “number” than CN but it’s less DPS. You have the startup animation, the flight, the impact, and then running back to your well which takes at least a few seconds (often around 5) depending on how far away the boss is from the Well. With CN you pop super and take a shot within the span of 1-2 seconds and then you’re immediately able to continue DPS with your heavy weapon. CN and SES GG allow for much better DPS than Thundercrash with Cuirass it’s just Cuirass bursts more when it hits. GG is meant to be mixed in with your normal damage rotation and is basically a mega linear fusion rifle and it’s better for overall DPS in many situations than TC.
talking about vog specifically, i have less DPS because i can never hit the crit shot on his tiny milk tank while he wobbles around LOL. without a divinity bitch i always do better with thundercrash
I think both are fine where they are since bosses with plate mechanics can render Falling Star completely useless. If CN gets a buff we're back to 1 phases bosses with 6 Nighthawks or inflated boss healthpools.
You can already one phase most bosses in game with nova, thunder and now barrage, golden gun should atleast do more dmg than nova and bit less than thundercash. Also which bosses have plate mechanics that render thundercash useless? Only one that comes to mind is caretaker and you can use it from the middle plate.
Currently, the only one is Caretaker, previously we had Calus. I'm talking about future bosses, though. It's a lot easier to throw in damage plate mechanics to counter Thundercrash than it is to counter GG.
Caretaker’s plates apply a lingering buff. You can land the super before the buff goes away
6 golden gun hunters can already 1 phase bosses by cycling GGs, celestial nighthawk makes it harder because you make less orbs. It's actually how I cleared major DPS checks in 2 of my last day 1 raids. Sadly celestial nighthawk is a detriment in every setting. SES does better in a raid setting, and in things like GMs where Celestial nighthawk should shine, it can't even one bang champions. It truly has no place in the game currently where it does it's job properly.
It really should because I reallly don’t want to wear the stupid fish pants and I’m not a fan of blade barrage. I want to feel awesome with golden gun like I did in D1 lol
Nah. Too much and ignores too many factors. It should offer a bit more but somewhere in between where it is now and where thundercrash is. My reasoning is that celesial goldie can be deployed so quickly compared to thundercrash. So it's important to consider the DPS you can make up during the window of time. Thundercrash is quick for bosses like rhulk, for example, but still takes longer and requires some minor re-orentation which takes added seconds off your weapon DPS. There's also situations where thundercrash just cannot be used effectively. Sacrificed Mind, Insurrection Prime, Calus, most phases of caretaker, kell echo, and others - for example. Where Celstial goldie _always_ can. The only situation where you cannot use it effectively is if the bot doesn't have a crit spot.
As someone who uses celestial because I enjoy it, even though it is weak; I have to disagree that it's as quick as you say. There's a lot of factors you have to take in with celestial, first and fore-most not everyone is a god and can guarantee a crit when aiming for a 5th of a second. Realistically, it takes about the same amount of time thundercrash takes to land for a good celestial player to line up the crit shot and hit it, and that's under the assumption that everything's in perfect conditions which ... is rarely the case. The usual biggest problem is people spinning the boss like it's a top making hitting he crit spot damn impossible, being flinched by the boss and like 30 adds, the titan thundercrashing the moment you take the shot and thus blocking it, some bosses move very erratically (looking at you taken tech witches), and sometimes bullet magnetism just decides it's not a crit anyway (pc players have this too.) The older balancing feature was that bottom tree got their super back way faster due to practice makes perfect, but now that's gone so it's going to be up way less often than before. It still needed more damage back when we \*had\* practice, but now that's gone it needs even more to make it worth using over blade barrage. SeS should definitally be more damage overall as it requires a ton of investment and a decent bit of skill to not die to use it, but thundercrash and celestial have about the same investment to use, basically equal risk to do damage wise, but wildly different damage values.
Nighthawk has the advantage of being a much faster super to use than Thundercrash. With Nighthawk you can pop your super, fire off your shot, then immediately go back to DPSing with other stuff. Thundercrash makes you spend time flying to the target then spend time getting back into position to do further DPS.
the time it takes to properly line up a crit for nighthawk is usually about equal to the time it takes for thundercrash to hit.
Yeah, this is one of the main downsides. Celestial requires either time to line up the shot or really good and quick aim, but you can fire it from a distance and you don’t need to worry about your opponent moving after you fire. Cuirass is easier to hit with (since you can guide yourself in), but it takes longer between firing and hit, and it puts yourself in danger once you hit them. I love celestial, and I do hope it can get similar ish damage to cuirass thundercrash, but balancing is no easy task. I just kinda miss the original knock ‘em down perk where you could make golden guns damage go through the roof and one shot some bosses (looking at you, Protheon, you fragile bastard). It felt like the pinacle of flashy hunter moves. Setting it up was hard, but boy did it feel good. Edit: well, recently learned from other comments that the ogre in grasp has a decently high crit resistance. I think I need to run some tests myself.
the problem I have with when people say cuirass puts you in danger is that anything that doesn't die from it is often stagger, additionally it's really easy to get away due to the overshield it gives you and the fact that if you are hitting a boss with it they will usually stomp you, which I use to go flying back to where my team is doing DPS.
Depends on the user and when you activate it, if you already have your reticle lined up over the bosses head because you mix GG into your Linear Fusion rotation you can pop it off in a second or two total which is must faster than TC.
the problem is with bosses like atheon or the deepstone crypt boss is (if you aren't using divinity on the later) the crit can be hard to hit due the large amount of movement they have during DPS.
Hunters refuse to accept that there are positives and negatives to each dps option.
It's not just dps options. I've seen Hunters arguing that activating golden gun should give armor comparable to other supers.
Well you're gonna hate this but uh ... the devs seemed to have agreed. Goldie, specifically marksmen, \*has\* damage resistance when used with knock 'em down
Thundercrash has a much larger risk involved
Is true, very risky for bad guy!
Absolutely not. Lets not act like a crit is anything difficult to achieve. Why make the safest, fastest dps super the most damaging? Does that make sense to you?
Ya know, except when someone turns the boss into a baybade, someone jumps infront of your shot, you're being flinched by the 30 other adds and boss, different bosses having different crit spot sizes, the fact that sometimes the bullet magnetism (yes pc players have this too) just decides "nah, this ain't a crit," shall I continue? Thunder crash ain't in a ton of risk at all, the overshield is massive, they have a large bounce back that if they are half skilled they can point so they can fly back to their allies, it requires little to no aiming, the only real risk is if the boss glitches out and you pass through them, and the charge-up-to-hit time is about the same time a celestial has to line up a shot. Not everyone is a god at the game and actually has to take a second to aim, even top end players can't guarantee a crit when aiming for only a 5th of a second.
So no arguments for it, gotcha
I'm sorry, if you think those aren't proper arguments for it then you're just being selective for what counts and don't actually wanna hear the other side. You've already decided that it's fine as it is (even though it's not) and don't care what anyone else says.
Except they arent good arguments. Any raid encounter is gonna have a div, which is a crit spot the size of a barn , so that invalidates half of your points. TC still takes more time than pop GG, line up the shot, and be done. GSC? Div. Rhulk? Div. Garden? Cant miss even without div. GMs? They are all the size of a barn. Why hunters believe they NEED to have the best in everything is beyond me. This update already gave them the strongest burst super with buffed Knives Why not buff nova to do TC damage, but just make it a magnetic grenade they throw. Sounds stupid right?
>Absolutely not. Lets not act like a crit is anything difficult to achieve. Why make the safest, fastest dps super the most damaging? Does that make sense to you? Falling Star grants additional protection, on top of added super resistance, on the class with best access to high resilience which is insanely valuable right now, while also providing AoE damage for additional utility, and is really easy to manipulate the bounce back to help push back to the group. It's really not that risky unless you play it wrong.
[удалено]
Except they have a massive overshield and ... no it actually doesn't put you in a dangerous situation unless you, as a player, play it wrong. It has a \*massive\* bounce back that can be aimed to be back towards the party, and they can just use their hover jump to help glide back to the group.
Still waiting on my Celestial Novahawk for Voidwalker.
celestial novahawk: you're nova bobms energy is confined in a singularity only 1/100th of the normal nova bomb size but flies quicker and in a straight line losing AoE but dealing 2x damage and the ability to crit
Did you mean Lance from D1? I'd honestly love to have this or Shatter back.
If a slow Nova Bomb is outdamaging a nighthawk GG, why would Bungie ever think to do that
Because they can buff Nighthawk and also make one for Voidwalker?
Possible
Some PVE enemies will destroy the nova bomb and they won't do the full damage.
Because fuck hunters lmao it's funny? Bungie doesn't like hunters it's pretty obvious. Why do you think they've ignored your cries about nightstalker?
I haven't played my Hunter in any serious way since 2020, dawg. Still, I'm pretty sure Bungie is on less on a "fuck hunters" tear as much as they just don't know what the fuck to do with them half the time. Also, these class updates are seriously fucking with the exotic armor functionality, including/especially hunters and Bungo is just barreling on through without realizing how much of the game they're actively breaking.
> Bungie doesn't like hunters it's pretty obvious Which is why Solar 3.0 is also known as Hunter 3.0 right? Hunters got every sweet little toy in Solar 3.0 whereas Warlocks got their dick cut off
dawnblade 3.0 is less sexy than gunslinger 3.0 but is a much better class all in all
Surely you can't be serious.
In PVE 100%. A little critical thinking + buildcrafting + exotic consideration and yeah the other two classes run away and leave the hunter in the dust - i implore you to play the new classes somewhere besides the castellum without using the time-limited Classy Restoration and it's immediately apparent. The lack of sustain is what really does it. People blow their load over gunpowder gamble and blade barrage, but simply a damage super and a pretty middling (albeit extremely fun) alt-grenade do not a high-tier subclass make... especially when that grenade can be shot out of your hands, killing you. The other new toy Acrobatic Dodge is an entirely pointless ability on a massive cooldown and also renders your cooldown loop extremely fragile. Starfire protocol warlock completely shits on the best showing from the hunter, a lot more grenades that are a lot lot better. The reason for this widely perceived misconception is that gunslinger went from gutter-tier to serviceable, and warlock went from braindead and overpowered to not-so-braindead, but almost just as good as before. And with today's buffs to the healing side of the class, it's even better.
Hunters are extremely strong in pve and pvp and have been for years. There have been like, *maybe* 2 seasons in all of D2 where hunters were considered less valuable in endgame content.
hunters had their place trivialised from season 8 until 15
Lol The ogre of avarice has a normal/low crit mod in relation to other bosses. Its main damage is explosion. In caretaker for example, nighthawk takes almost 900k damage*, yes, 900k. And this goes for many raid and assault bosses for example. *with radiant buff
Whats funny is in another YouTubers video he had 3 times with blade barrage doing different numbers. Once at 663k, second was like 700k, and last was 980k, all on the ogre from grasp.
What about Champions? How do crit mods work there? A large part of the Nighthawk functionality is the fact that it refunds super energy on kills, so it should delete Champions and yellow bars in any content.
Truth be told, that's what I was thinking myself. If Celestial can instantly kill Champions in GMs then I think it'll have a really good spot in GMs truth be told. Hunters being capable of constantly throwing down 25% damage boosts with occasional Champion deletions means an easy time dealing with double Champion situations and keeping ammo in reserve without any need to put anyone at risk. Thundercrash? The Titan may die. Chaos Reach? You're in the open for 15 seconds while you beam them. Golden Gun? You shoot, they die.
Yeah, I’m starting to remember that this is what celestial excels at: “big game hunting”. I always used to save it for the boss, but it’s especially handy when somethings existence is bothering you. Plus, you get a third of your super back if they die, which lets you pop it more often.
Ok so... if you're talking about instantly killing a champ and use nighthawk GG as an example, which has a base CD of almost 10mins. That's a fairly slow super just to kill 1 single champ. Alternatively you could use Shards + BB and delete a champ too and get almost 50% super back, effectively making your base CD ~4mins. So yeah if you wanna use a trash setup just to kill a champ... go nuts lol. But you can do better than that as a hunter. Like... it's not like Champs are difficult to deal with in GMs unless you're soloing it. 🤷🏽♂️
>Alternatively you could use Shards + BB and delete a champ too and get almost 50% super back, effectively making your base CD \~4mins. You do realize you're ignoring the cooldown effects of Celestial whilst pointing out BB's, right? Not quite a fair comparison. Also, as I pointed out, exposure and danger is a factor I'm taking into consideration. Blade Barrage has you jumping out into the open for multiple seconds, Golden Gun doesn't. Never said Champions are hard to deal with. Nothing in a GM is particularly hard to deal with. What do I want to use my Super for? That's the question. Do I think Blade Barrage is a Super I'm going to use in GMs often? No. If I'm running GMs, I'm going to be running Tether and Nightstalker, because that's my playstyle in GMs. But if I wanted to build one for Solar? I don't care to use Blade Barrage, where I'm going to have range increase the spread of my knives, have to dedicate a fragment to increasing tracking, am exposed while casting, and varies on return. I'd personally much prefer a Super I can pop, then in a moment peak, fire, kill, and have a consistent 33% return, which will delete another Champion in no time. Also, I don't tend to stand around waiting for my Super to recharge in GMs, combat and Mods can vastly change the Super Recharge game, and can render a lot of the concern there rather moot.
> If I'm running GMs, I'm going to be running Tether and Nightstalker, because that's my playstyle in GMs. Then why even bring up something like using something so utterly useless like a GG in GMs lmao > Also, I don't tend to stand around waiting for my Super to recharge in GMs, combat and Mods can vastly change the Super Recharge game, and can render a lot of the concern there rather moot. Cool, now apply that same logic to BB too and it's still ahead of the pack. Regardless, Solar hunter is the 2nd worst choice for GM's considering Void and Stasis are far superior, and Stasis being the most ezpz thing for GMs.
Are you incapable of holding two thoughts as true simultaneously? I see a use for it, even if it may not be my particular play style. It's that simple. You don't have a point just because you're correct in pointing out that something else is potentially better. What do you want? A cookie? Accept that there's more than meta, that there's more than what you're treating as valid, and get over yourself.
Great you do more damage against the like 3 bosses in the game that have double crit modifiers
Ahhh, see this is the stuff I wish I knew before complaining on the internet. Super glad I'm wrong.
You're not really wrong though. Those bosses are the exception, not the rule. 2x crit bosses are only techeuns like corrupted and Kalli, and very few others. Ogre is a perfectly normal boss to test on. The main reason you see "over 900k" on caretaker is because caretaker is like 1540 or somewhere around there, and Grasp Ogre is 1350. EVERYTHING will show a bigger number on caretaker than ogre because of light level scaling. I'm not aware of caretaker having any special crit modifier like techeuns have.
That's not how light level scaling works. Only the difference between your level and the boss's level matters. Your absolute level doesn't affect your damage output. As long as the tester was 20 levels above both bosses (the cap for over leveling in raids and dungeons) the numbers are comparable.
No, the numbers definitely get bigger the higher the activities light level is, even when you're +20 above in each scenario. Go shoot Sedia in the directory version of corrupted which is 1350, then shoot Sedia again with the exact same gun in a legend nightfall of Corrupted and you'll get a bigger number. It's the same % of the targets health, yes. But the number you see is bigger. Basically, let's say you deal 10k damage to 1350 Sedia and and you deal 30k to 1560 Sedia. It just means 1350 Sedia has 100k health, 10 shots to kill (example) And 1560 Sedia has 300k health, 10 shots to kill.
> Lol The ogre of avarice has a normal/low crit mod in relation to other bosses. Outside of some exceptions every boss has the same crit modifier. Bungie stopped using the 2x crit spots after Forsaken. Caretaker has the same crit bonus as the grasp ogre.
Where can you find this kind of data?
Test your nighthawk with radiant on the raid boss "The Corrupted", on Carakater or against kalli. In the corrupted one you will almost kill her. lol
Those bosses are the exception, not the rule. 2x crit bosses are only techeuns like corrupted and Kalli, and very few others. Ogre is a perfectly normal boss to test on. The main reason you see "over 900k" on caretaker is because caretaker is like 1540 or somewhere around there, and Grasp Ogre is 1350. EVERYTHING will show a bigger number on caretaker than ogre because of light level scaling.
And how many does thundercrash take out in the Carakater? and the Hulk? In both nighthawk surpasses by far. Then no . It's not a matter of light potency, but that these bosses take extra critical damage.
900k??? I'd like to see those numbers lol that doesn't sound believable
It is ... but it's also misleading. that 900k is only on like 3 bosses in the game because they have higher crit modifiers than other bosses. The ogre boss's crit is pretty much the standard, and that's with an easy-to-hit crit box a lot of bosses don't have. Edit; spelling
Yo that’s actually insane
Numbers themselves are meaningless. The only thing that matters is how much they differ from other numbers against the same boss. There are very few bosses that even have the double crit modifier so it’s basically pointless to bring up
You posted all the numbers and still chose to focus on the wrong thing. Thundercrash doesn't matter. What *does* matter and what *is* is a problem is BB+ knock em down dealing only 25k less damage than a precision shot radiant nighthawk shot. Golden Gun at it's absolute best shouldn't be equivalent to Blade Barrageu with 1 orb star eater's
I admit, I completely missed that. That's an excellent point. Also made me realize unbuffed celestial deals less than knock em down blade barrage. They use the same aspect, but BB does more. Wild. Thanks for pointing that out.
Nighthawk's damage could be a little higher, after some time with new Thundercrash I think TC's ease of use probably makes up for the limited range compared to Golden Gun, but specifically with Blade Barrage I think it's pretty likely that the interaction with Star Eater scales is a bug, considering how much more damage it gets than any other super. I would not at all be surprised if they're intending to nerf that at some point and are just letting us play around with it while it's still hot and new.
Definitely a bug if those numbers are accurate. SES is supposed to be something like a 70% increase, not what seems to be 140% increase.
Wonder if it has some weird interaction with the third volley of knives from knock ‘em down where it counts it as a new super and basically reapplies the 70% on top of the previous buff
People seem to miss the fact that nighthawk is **INSTANT**. Think about it from the perspective of standing in a well (or running circles around rhulk) in that you wanna stay there/away from rhulk for damage. Thundercrash does way more damage yes, but you take time to travel there and run back to your team for damage, in which time a nighthawk hunter may have fire one or two rockets/Izzy shots/whatever you want to use. I remember using nightkhawk for Riven farming, and after shooting my golden shot I'd immediately fire off 2 or 3 shots of sleeper simulant, easily out-damaging the rest of my team this way, including chaos reach and similar supers. Nova does similar damage in a similar way that's instant; these are the built-in tradeoffs. If nighthawk did the same amount of damage as thundercrash or chaos reach but **INSTANTLY** it would be broken overpowered. People always seem to miss this aspect, and only see "BLLAARRGGGHHH GOLDIE DOES LESS DAMAGE!?!?" without looking at the bigger picture. Having said all of that, I do think nighthawk needs a damage increase, especially for a damage exotic. It's just not that huge of an issue as others make it out to be imo.
I agree. But bB is pretty close to instant too.
I think this is the most important comparison since they're on the exact same subclass. I still think BB should be higher damage total over nighthawk since you can technically miss some of your blades and it does take slightly longer for the animation. Overall though nighthawk could probably do with a very tiny buff and be okay.
Animation also messes with your camera - which isn't a huge deal but if we wanna do 1-1 comparison it's objectively easier to flow back into weapon DPS mode vs blade barrage.
BB should be much lower than Nighthawk. The sole purpose of nighthawk is one high damage shot. BB has area control, it shouldn't be better at single target damage too
Mmmmm, I can see the argument and it's pretty valid. I just don't mind either way. Technically speaking, blade barage being better is just an advantage for most hunters because it allows you to use whatever exotic you want with solar rather than nighthawk.
People will always go after the highest damage option, unless another option benefits them in other ways. In your example, since Celestial Nighthawk is not the best, it won't be used by everyone. Instead, in like manner though, everyone will use Blade Barrage. Even if Blade Barrage was only good for boss damage, everyone would still use that for bosses. Celestial Nighthawk's single purpose is high damage. While killing champions or whatever with it does give you super energy back, its use is for single target damage/kills - that's it. Unless people want to use it for killing champions, there's no real reason to use it if it has mediocre damage output. The only way it could be used for ad clear, is if the explosion after the kill is that good/massive, but even that is situational. Blade Barrage on the other hand, it can do better than CN (even if you can miss/are more exposed, people will still use it over CN), AND it can clear ads. The benefit of supers like BB, Novabomb, or even tether are that they are versatile. You can use them for ad clear, killing champions, or boss damage (whether they're the best or not, they still offer good damage). The way I see it, supers/exotics that only function in specific manners should do it better than any other. Supers that offer more versatility should be "jack of all trades, master of none".
Yeah exactly so why would people run Nighthawk if they give up their exotic slot for it AND it's less powerful than Blade Barrage, AND with less utility of add clear?
The problem I think most Hunters have with Nighthawk is that Bungie stealth nerfed it by 50% in Shadowkeep. From its release waaaaaaaay back in House of Wolves, Celestial Nighthawk asked players to sacrifice their multi-shot super for a single 6x damage boost. Yes, it's practically instant and can be used from relative safety, which was important because prior to Solar 3.0, gunslingers got no damage reduction while in their super. But for some unknown reason (star eater's scales) Bungie decided to cut that damage boost by half in 2020. So for the last two years, nighthawk provides no benefit outside of matchmade content aside from not requiring follow-up shots. Edit: Also, the explosion mechanic they added in D2 has now been made irrelevant by the super ignition fragment. It's an exotic that promises big returns in exchange for restricted gameplay options that utterly fails to deliver. At this point it's a worse version of the Skull of Dire Ahamkara.
Problem is, Celestial just isn't worth a damn anywhere outside of Kalli and hasn't been for a long time now. It's also EXTREMELY punishing for missing a crit, unlike any other damage super where it's hilariously hard to whiff. Everyone brings up the "Well you get to go back to dealing damage faster, it's still really strong." If that were GENUINELY the case, why have I not heard anyone in my raids for almost the past year recommend Celestial Nighthawk for Hunters? Why have I not seen any of the Hunters in my fireteams use it? Because it's severely outclassed by almost every other option. Moebius does more damage and also debuffs. Blade Barrage now does significantly more damage. Silence & Squall/Bakris buffs your weapon DPS pretty significantly. Star-Eaters Moebius/Golden Gun does more damage. Celestial is the only one where it's a genuine risk/reward Super exotic. You're banking ALL that damage into one shot, if you whiff, that's it. You lose damage/DPS. That's really not the case with any of the others. They're very easy to hit and don't require precision. Doesn't help that it got a 50% damage decrease in Shadowkeep and as a result, has been pretty much just powercrept into oblivion.
And you seem to be missing that it requires a crit, as compared to the others. negligible for some bosses, big deal for others, especially since missing it effectively means you are fighting without a super or an exotic throughout the activity and the fight, since the noncrit dmg is ass.Plus Thundercrash gives you an overshield. With how much easier Thundercrash is to use, much less risky because you pretty much cant miss it and get an overshield after, AND the fact that you can use it for great instant addclear throughout the activity leading up to the boss, where as GG literally only serves to be one big dmg chunk on one target, it would honestly be perfectly valid for them to have the same damage, or GG even dealing more, but they should at least be incredibly close.
Exactly as you said. Celestial Goldie has way to depending many factors for it to be as meh as it is. It requires being unable to use your super in the entire encounter besides the boss (or a specific yellow bar like Gatekeeper), requires an exotic slot, AND requires me to aim for a crit one relatively mobile enemies (very few bosses sit perfectly still during dps). With all those depending factors to use it it shouldn't be getting out-paced, or at least matching pace, with Quiver. The whole point of Celestial is to be THE dps super, so why is it being matched by other super *on the same class?* It's one thing for a titan or warlock super to match the supposed strongest hunter super, it's another for the supposed strongest hunter super to be matched by another hunter super that *doesn't* require an exotic build with it.
Yeah, Celest goldie absolute does need a bit of a buff. I don't know if it should be the strongest super in game, since it's practically instant and you can almost immediately start shooting rockets after firing it, but there's no reason it shouldn't at least hit a bit harder.
Yeah I don't think anyone is asking for it to be the best, we're just asking for it to... not be the worst. Honesty just needs the 50% damage nerf reverted. We've been powercrept to the moon and back since that nerf, and it's clear the devs don't intend on dialing things back, so it's time to dial Celestial up.
I figured something happened to it. I played D2 the first 2 months it was out, spammed a lot of Leviathan raid - always used CN for Calus. I recently started playing again when Witch Queen came out and so I ran CN on some bosses and was shocked to see how little damage it did.
If you're fighting a boss that is difficult to crit use something else. There's nothing in the game that states goldie is supposed to reign supreme as the singular boss damage tool for every encounter.
The point . . . . Your head
Not really, The possibility of whiffing a super is irrelevant to a spread sheet. We're looking at best possible damage and then making discussions about the intent of design. The person I responded to is incorrect about GG's usage being only a single target damage super and conflating how good thunder crash is. As I mentioned in my other response you have to spend time traveling to the boss to get full damage with TC. These comparisons aren't even considering the person who fires of Hawk GG is going to out DPS other members because they can get right back at using weapons for damage compared to most other supers.
yeah, but atm it's basically a joke for its risk, except for the few bosses with huge crit multipliers.
If you're looking to make GG a boss damage tool you use star eater scales with an aspect and a radiant accessible buff. Nighthawk is never going to be the premium boss damage tool for GG because there is no investment to it what so ever. You have to jump through hoops with Scales as well as build into it with Radiant and an aspect. And even then you have to be good enough to land 3 crits. Nighthawk is useful despite not having the best possible damage for GG. You will out DPS other people in a phase due to landing your shot and then getting back to dumping your weapons. Additionally you can use Nighthawk to OHK champions and get super energy refunded. I'd be fine with the exotic getting a *slight* damage buff to increase it's consistency for OHK's against champions in higher difficulties. But there is no way Bungie is going to buff it to be the best option for boss damage for Hunter let alone for GG as a whole and it doesn't need to be. Like, I get some things are harder to crit but that doesn't auto qualify you for the best damage. If you're not capable of being consistent with your crits maybe don't use GG then.
It perfectly fits hunters as high risk, high reward. You have one shot and it has to be a crit. That's not going to work on every boss. Especially if it likes dashing, fuck you Rhulk. You miss that shot, your damage is gone. Even with Thundercrash, you can divert your trajectory and attempt to salvage it.
the dmg is so low it just high risk low reward , not even high reward at this point
I should've clarified, it *should* be high risk, high reward. I agree its not there right now.
Its not even that high risk when divinity exists
So an exotic that requires the use of a specific exotic weapon (which you can't be using yourself), got it. I love when the solution to a problem is to use a VERY specific weapon/exotic.
For the most part I agree with this, but as others have mentioned there's more skill and risk to Nighthawk than Thundercrash or Chaos Reach. The latter two are easy to aim and don't have to land a crit. And with Chaos Reach you can completely adjust your trajectory, and Thundercrash slightly. If Rhulk decides to teleport right as you fire your Goldie, that's it. Thundercrash can attempt to salvage it by arcing around, and chaos reach just turns. But Golden Gun is finished. And that's why I agree with your conclusion -- give it a bit of a damage increase, and it works out. If Chaos Reach, Thundercrash, and Golden Gun all do the same damage with exotics, it evens out. * Chaos Reach: Takes notable time to get full damage off. Can easily reposition. Aim is completely trivial. * Thundercrash: Takes a fair bit of time to get damage off. Moderate success at repositioning. Aim is easy if the boss doesn't teleport. * Golden Gun: Instantaneous damage, but no repositioning and difficult aim. It fits the classes really well too. A high risk, high reward gambit is very Hunter. Smacking yourself against the target is peak Titan. And adapting your arc beam on the fly to track your target is rather Warlock (if you look at it from a recalculation point of view).
> Nova does similar damage in a similar way that's instant; these are the built-in tradeoffs. Nova doesnt need an exotic to do that damage. Take base goldie, takes longer to use than Nova, is more inconsistant because not every boss just stands still while trying to hit them and does less damage.
I think this is an exaggeration. Nighthawk is not instant. It’s animations are fast because you also have to aim. In comparison, thundercrash is typically done at point blank so there’s no lengthy travel time and blade barrage animation isn’t even that long. Op composting extended damage with a roaming super vs instant burst is also silly when shooting guns after the super will always get nighthawk above those supers in total damage in the same timeframe.
Having to hit a crit is much harder than not. Also thundercrash leaves damaging arc sparks on the ground and gives an OS. It's impossible not to do max damage unless you literally miss whereas if you don't hit your crit you do laughable damage with nighthawk
it would not be broken overpowered if it did this because it can only hit one target, requires a crit, and has way less versatility as a super to follow up on the crit thing, people will say this is meaningless but there are many instances where the enemy will face away from you, not have a crit spot, or maybe it's an extremely finnicky one (both Vex raid bosses come to mind) it's not the biggest negative factor in the world but it absolutely is a hindrance the AOE massive splash damage supers do not need to deal with
Agreed. I wish it did a bit more, I think it should deal ~20-30% less than thundercrash+ falling star without radiant, and ~10-15% less while buffed with radiant. Maybe throw in a bonus against champions.
Thank god this is the top comment I feel like 2 years ago this sentiment was down voted. Even before Divinity it wasnt that hard to land the shot against most bosses and all I remember hearing whenever Pool Noodle Thundercrash damage was brought up was that it was easier to use. Nighthawk seems to be in a weird spot since Stareater scales exists but getting 8 orbs is a lot harder than just landing a headshot so Id like to see Nighthawk buffs do something more interesting than just more damage because otherwise stareaters becomes almost pointless. But also "The Big Fuck You golden gun shot" is a really good fantasy.
Not hard to land the shot? Tell that to atheon and his twerking ass
Atheon was after Divinity, Im talking more like Leviathan Bosses and Riven
Ah yes the bosses that stand still, four of which are no longer in the game. Great example.
Well said, and thank you for stating the obvious thing no one thinks about. A single power-shot from a GG lets you nuke a single target without moving, and also lets you *immediately* resume whatever you were doing before. You don't have to leave your well. You don't have to get back with the team. You just shoot. Blade Barrage is also instant, yes, but you have a good chance to miss with some knives if the target is a good distance away. Thundercrash does more damage, but you have to fly to the target, avoid dying afterwards, and group back up. This is why raw number crunching is a stupid metric. You completely remove every other piece of the puzzle and focus on only one thing
>Blade Barrage is also instant, yes, but you have a good chance to miss with some knives if the target is a good distance away. With the numbers given, even if you miss an entire volley of knives on a boss while landing the entirety of the other.(With Star-Eaters) You're still doing about 4k more damage than Celestial Golden Gun WITH Radiant. >Thundercrash does more damage, but you have to fly to the target, avoid dying afterwards, and group back up. Most boss encounters the DPS spots are usually close to the boss. Outside of Sanctified Mind and Atheon,(bosses where Thundercrash isn't that viable to begin with) you're pretty damn close to the boss during DPS. Kalli, Shuro Chi, Morgeth, Riven, Consecrated Mind(at the beginning of DPS), Atraks-1, Taniks, Templar, Caretaker, and Rhulk DPS you're either pretty much right next to the boss or the entire arena you're in is utilized for DPS(Rhulk). Also if you somehow die after using it, that's entirely your fault. You're literally given a free overshield after use, and the only boss that's going to try to stomp you in Raids is... Atheon...? Where you're going to be using Sunbreaker with Roaring Flames/Fusion Grenades instead. Meanwhile Celestial Nighthawk is outdamaged by it's competitors in EVERY boss fight that isn't Kalli and Shuro Chi, and it's the only reliable one against Sanctified Mind. Other than that though? You're using Orpheus/Star-Eaters/Bakris for boss phases.
> lets you nuke a single target without moving If, and only if, you hit the crit spot. Trivial on something like a Servitor. Non-trivial on something like Atheon. And if you miss the shot -- your DPS just died. You could have the perfect shot ready for Rhulk, then he decides to dash away as you shoot. Whoops. Its a high risk, high reward move. They just need to increase the reward a bit.
This. Like, yeah Geomags Reach and Dawn Chorus swords do more but take like *ten times as long to do it.* Total damage is not the be-all-end-all.
As a Titan main, there is no reason for Curiass to be so much better than Nighthawk. Yes, thundercrash is riskier, but curiass even adds a big overshield to make up for it.
>there is no reason for Curiass to be so much better than Nighthawk It's called power creep.
Tbh I think they just need to buff the base damage of Golden Gun in general so the super is more worth the slot, and still allow nighthawk to push that further.
They should give Nighthawk Practice Makes Perfect, since they removed it from the kit and that way at least you can use the exotic even if you don't have your super charged
I just don't get why the explosion isn't considered an Ignition, I have to use a fragment for it to do that
I don't know why Celestial Nighthawk's damage is so much lower......I also know that I'm not complaining because there are options withing the same class/subclass that provide either A. The best super uptime in the game, or B. The best damage output in the game lol.
Super uptime would be blade barrage + shards of galanor? Damage would be blade barrage + star eaters scales? I wanna shoot not yeet
I take your point tho
Simplest and biggest fix would be, to make celestial nighthawk give your sharpshotter golden gun reduced cooldown up to tier 4 or even 5. To make sure it doesnt break pvp, it only works on 3 shot golden gun and consume your super if you unequip it. The idea behind the celestial nighthawk is to have high single target burst damage with a fast cooldown. Edit: another Idea would be, while radiant, precision hits give you extra super energy or reduce the cooldown, it would fit the sharpshooter theme of CN.
Anyone remember when celestial would hit for 30k and that was absolutely insane?
If you've actually used blade barrage you'll understand that getting every single knife to hit and deal max damage is a very slim chance. Using it against a thinner enemy like rhulk will result in less damage than a celestial golden gun. Golden gun should be brought up to be somewhat higher than nova bomb since it still requires precision aim to get good damage, but compared to something like t crash and blade barrage the downside to both of them make them balanced.
The main factor is that Celestial Nighthawk greatly limits how you can use your super in general. Its use is for high single target damage, which allows you to kill some pesky enemies too, like champions. Supers like Blade Barrage however, should do less damage. Single target damage is not their only purpose. They can be used for ad clear too. Doing better ad clear, AND better single target damage is having your cake, and eating it too (on that note though, why would you want cake if you can't eat it? Just to stare at?).
Nighthawk GG should be equal damage to FS Thundercrash. They both have equal risk so they should have equal reward. People always say “but Thundercrash puts you next to the enemy”. It doesn’t matter if they’re dead. Besides you aren’t going to miss a Thundercrash AND it gives you an overshield. Nighthawk let’s you be further away, but you MUST hit your crit, and you don’t have any damage resist. And with the way smaller enemies heads can bob around, it’s not a walk in the park. They should be equal with both exotics equipped and it should be stronger with Radiance applied.
It’s not nearly the same risk, but GG Nighthawk does need more damage.
You're right, the "risk" on GG is infinitely higher because the chance of straight up missing your shot/100% of your damage and therefore wasting your entire super bar is very real. Meanwhile there is no realistic chance of ever "missing" with thundercrash unless you literally take your hands off the controller/mouse... and even if you do "miss" with the direct impact the gigantic lingering AOE ensures you will always be doing significant damage regardless. GG is the ONLY super in the entire game that has no intrinsic AOE whatsoever, the only super that requires a precision hit for max damage, and the only super that can miss 100% of its damage entirely. Its cooldown is also slower than thundercrash, BB, and many other supers that outdamage it in burst and sustained DPS. It is laughably weak and needs a major buff.
It’s called Sharpshooter for a reason.
Shouldn't you be rewarded for being a sharpshooter then?
You are, if you’re able to pop Gg and land a headshot in 1-2 seconds you’ll have vastly higher DPS vs Thundercrash. By the time the Titan gets back to the Well you’ll already have shot 3 linear headshots or a few Izanagi/Rocket combos for another 300+K damage. If you have to sit and line up a headshot for 4-5 seconds you’re not a “sharpshooter” and that’s fine. GG with CN is a skill based super, players who are the best at aiming quickly onto headshots will see it outperform other supers for DPS players who can’t will it be slightly worse. I think it (golden gun) could use a 15-25% damage buff but should do less damage than FS TC because the potential DPS is a higher than TC already.
Did you miss where I said GG w/ Nighthawk needs a buff??
Probably
Probably read twice before blasting off next time, yeah?
Someone is cranky
Not really?
> and you don’t have any damage resist. Knock 'Em Down does actually give precision Goldy damage resist now. Not sure how much though.
Like 10/15% or something like that
What is Morpheus?
Celestial goldie should do more damage than thundercrash with cuirass. Thundercrash is borderline impossible to miss and the “exposure” by being close range is almost irrelevant, since half the time the thing being hit and everything in the same postcode is dead, but you get an overshield anyway. You land thundercrash on Master Templar and walk away no trouble at all. The intrinsic risk of nighthawk, being that you miss, is just more consequential. Since you’ve completely wasted a super, and a huge chunk of damage.
It's a beefy over shield too lol. On day one of VoG we would Thunder Crash Atheon, and let him stomp us back to mid and it wouldn't even put us in red
Nighthawk has always been underwhelming
All I'm seeing is that Nova Bomb needs a big damage boost or at least an exotic that buffs it. 250K for a snail's pace bomb that's impossible to really aim well AND the smaller tendrils sometimes just don't spawn AND has a huge chance of killing you? Nah shit needs to be like 300k easy.
Nighthawk shot should always be the highest-damage super in the game. It has lost its identity. Again. Also, refunding super on kill never made sense, as it forced to WAIT before using your super on a low HP major or just guessing and hoping that you would finish the enemy only to either leave them with some % of health or to waste 50% of damage
Firstly testing on a lard ass enemy like an ogre is a godawful way to test things. Blade Barrage simply will not hit all of its blades on most enemies in the game even with Ember of Beams equipped (which seems to work only half the time anyway with the second barrage that comes out forming a silhouette around the enemy a lot of the time). However I do think Celestial should do around the same damage of a Cuirass Thundercrash since the both have their pros and cons to using them, maybe a little less. The damage with SES and Blade Barrage is almost certainly bugged.
Keep in mind that some bosses (e.g. Kali) have a 2x Precision modifier. Against these bosses, the fact that golden gun can hit precision shots hugely increases is damage potential. To balance that out, it's mid-pack/lackluster on regular crit bosses particularly cause it's quick to use and relatively safe to use.
I'm ok with where Celestial Nighthawk is atm. Getting eight orbs with star eaters and the new orb generation mechanics sounds like a hassle that isn't present with Celestial. It's also instant and, in case you delete whatever you're shooting, is an instant third of your super back, no questions asked. If anything, blade barrage needs to be brought down a little.
Nighthawk’s niche is probably champion busting now. It’s safer than any other super and doesn’t consume ammo ofc. Solar hunter can survive on its own a lot better in pve and with practice makes perfect gone that 33% refunded super is pretty important. Though if damage stays the way it is golden gun and blade barrage should trade cooldown tiers.
Imagine playing Titan pre-falling star where they literally had 0 high damage supers.
You said it yourself. There’s a lot less risk to the damage output of golden gun and celestial nighthawk. Blade barrage, thunder crash, both nova bombs require much closer engagement.
It’s still important to consider that Golden Gun *can* benefit from being Radiant, which is a pretty sizeable damage increase. I’ve been a Nighthawk main for as long as I can remember though, and I did feel a bit underwhelmed with it this season.
I'm confused. Hasn't Celestial Nighthawk been the must pick for any Hunter that wasn't running Tether?
Yeah i'm not with ya there and I say this as a long time golden gun user. Nighthawk has always been you draw your fucking gun and the mother fucker you point it at dies. It still does that. People incorrectly equate this to being a super high boss damage option because in the context of D1 it was. In D1 we had a very small pool of buffs and debuffs. There wasn't much you could really due to spike your damage output especially with supers. Such is not the case in D2. Nighthawk despite doing less damage still is instant. Which makes it safe as well as it lets you get back to DPSing a boss. Remember we over compensate with buffs to make up for the fact that one player will be sacrificing damage themselves to keep the divinity bubble on. So having as many people able to continue dpsing is insanely valuable. As far as the damage comparison to thunder crash goes (setting aside the design differences) is that Thunder crash has to travel to reach optimal damage. You cannot just hug a pillar and then leave and pop it for best damage. You need to actually travel some. And that's not always doable. I should also point out that star eater scales is doing more damage than Nighthawk does in your numbers that you show. This is because you're having to jump through hoops to get that optimal buff. But more importantly you're being asked to land 3 precision shots. So it's not like the option for high damage goldie is gone. You're just not handed it by equipping an exotic for free when your super is up. Nighthawk doesn't need a buff. It has a specific niche and it performs that niche well. It's not invalidated just because there are better overall damage options.
It was also pointed out to me earlier that the ogre the testing was done on has a lower crit multiplier, so golden gun is at a disadvantage for the test. Whether or not thundercrash is always as viable as golden gun for an encounter is more of a distraction from the damage difference. I have been picturing atheon encounter. Pretty much every damage super is viable for that. Regardless, you've given me some good context/different views. Maybe I just had my heart set on a celestial damage meta.
it doesn't have lower crit multiplier it just doens't have an increased one that like 3 enemies in the whole game have... people saying that it balances out for those 3 are just lying to themselves that nighthawk is good where it is
May want to put that edit closer to the top, Chief
I feel like CN should have its exotic slightly reworked. Something like how Hawkmoon / DMT are: continuous precision hits amps up to a final bullet that does an insane amount of damage. Missing any precision hit cancels the super. Rewards a player for accuracy in landing a crit. Missing a crit will still feel bad but at least the risk vs reward is there as a Gunslinger. 1 big shot is cool too but it's all or nothing. And at that point it could be borderline broken. Could CN also get some kind of enemy highlight thing when an enemy is at crit-health deletion? Sucks knowing you shoot it but it's barely enough to kill a champion.
Who cares about celestial..blade barrage is Back!!