Someone somewhere is making Youtube videos or Reddit tutorials or whatever creating influence about JD and teaching people to not use a GL. To focus on Boom and Death From Above. The result of this are players taking on terrible advice on how to play JD, worse than before OP5.
People need to be aware of content creators who don’t actually play horde, let alone on masters, let alone a true horde on 50 waves and be a responsible damage dealer of the team.
The result is terrible JD/Demo players that can’t even finish a Matriarch or take out a Guardian.
The skill drop is even now even lower with players listening to this awful advice of not using a GL - to get skill with aiming and shoot, taking out a nice bundle of baddies.
Spotter Support/Death From Above is good as an “oh ■■■■” moment or as part of a good plan with Scions, DR1’s and other problem enemies. But it is not the main. Boomshot is a good solid main but you need a GL to still do the work when the time is right. But instead they are using their no-damage-chainsaw-default-lancer. smh.
I play JD/Demolitions alot and I can honestly say that I have fired the Lancer GL about 3 times since Operation 5 went live and I pretty much only play on Master difficulty. The GL is still very strong, but it’s not a necessity. I don’t even equip the Custom Lancer GL card anymore.
Bad players are bad players, irrespectively of whether they have a GL or not. A GL may be a band-aid at best which compensates for some of the bad player’s lack of ability.
I expect the content creators are simply trying to encourage people to not rely on the GL so much as they do not consider it a necessity - basically to work on their ability using other viable weapons. The Boomshot is still very strong, and other explosive weapons are good as well.
What you need to remember is that TC have shifted the way ultimate ability cooldown works so that for all classes, it’s tied to damage output (as well as time; and for certain classes it’s also tied to the damage the player takes - e.g.: Lizzie/Pilot). JD/Demolitions can pour tons of damage on enemies, so they will get their Artillery ultimate back faster than previously, so the Artillery is actually a very viable playstyle. I personally use the following cards:
Custom Boomshot
Razor Hail
Spotter Support
Officer’s Perogative
Confirmed Kill
Also it works especially well if you have a Tactician on the team who has Interrogation on as they can grab a meatshield and mark all enemies across over half the map, which sets the Demolitions up nicely for an Artillery Strike. Sometimes it kills so many enemies that the Confirmed Kill card causes the ultimate cooldown metre to go all the way round and glitch out (it fixes itself once it goes round again).
That’s not to say that people should rely on the Artillery, but it’s a viable build and the Lancer GL is not a necessity.
I’ve found that I don’t even need a locker with demo anymore. Rather than just spamming GL’s and booms, I perk ammo regen and use both GL cards to shoot enemies rather than blow them up while my explosives reload. I believe it takes a minute per rocket/boom shot.
I’ve found it’s most certainly a viable playstyle.
Only downside is that if the base is overrun before say a boss wave, and you have to take them out with your explosives, you have essentially nothing for the boss wave.
The Custom GL had a noticeable drop difference when I removed it. I immediately put it back on as it is essential
Concussive Strike to me is more essential than Spotter Support as that 11-12 second delay buys the team time and allows a good Kait/Infiltrator (for any PVE player not CHICKEN to play that class) ez kills.
No love for the grenade cards? They really do help out during the early waves in terms of doing damage, I run a similar build to what Pepper uses but I substitute Confirmed Kill with Grenade Satchel, often times I swap out Spotter Support for Gambit when I play with lame brain randoms, because no one seems capable of marking targets anymore.
I doubt there is much love to be found because grenades become very useless after wave 10/4 for whichever of the modes it is you’re playing. Enemies sponge too much and also won’t blled out with execution rules if you use frags.
I mainly do so for the bleed damage, once you get the Ult Cooldown perk at 10, the bleed you do with grenades really speeds up the cooldown for the Artillery.
Maybe. I haven’t really played Demo much since… Op 1 basically. I tired out of playing it quickly back then opposed to then-Kait and only played it in Op 5 to reach level 20, during which I didn’t find it to be any more interesting to play.
I honestly really only ever used the GL as a last resort and when the Matriarch shows up. Demo has got to be the easiest class to play anyway lol. Just put cards together that make things go boom and recreate a scene from a Michael Bay movie lol.
If you can’t manage the Demolitions class, formerly know as JD lol, then its time to put this game away.
Close quarters maps are perfect for such a thing, best feeling ever when you hear multiple 'nades go off and you see the kill feed littered with several targets.
Reminds me when I took the the time to research and figure out where enemies spawned on every single map on Gears 4 with Radar Ping and screenshotting overhead map with red enemy markers. I can’t do the same in this game unless Interrogaction could be used? Idk. The idea was to see where they spawn from. Then once you know where they come from, you could plant Frags in those spots, like 7-8 spawn points, then you know… littering kill feed with grenade and bleed kills. Although in Gears 5, depending on tap locations, we move around a lot, where we set up base. So the spawning points would change, depending where Fab is. Still a lot of work, figuring out.
Since Foundation, Harbour, Clocktower and Dam were from Gears 4 too, the spawning points might actually be the same but never tested…
That’s exactly my setup and seems to work swimmingly. As long as you figure out exactly what you need to do to recharge your ultimate quickly and reliably, then there is no need for a GL on Matriarch.
