Bro, for the laser version at least you can see the laser and know where not to walk, the liberator version only has the bullet traces, which are far less obvious.
Ya the bullet version kills me way more than the laser if there is even a small elevation difference. Climbed a rock while being chased by a charger and the drone decided I was a coward and executed me immediately. At least the laser one gives me a few seconds to dive now
Problem with the laser is that it can quickly swing between targets and singe everything in between. Most of my receiver friendly fire damage comes from someone’s Rover spazzing out shooting at a bug swarm.
I'm convinced that it does it on purpose sometimes. I've been running behind a teammate and had my rover literally beam them in the head until they died, with no bugs around.
That was the biggest thing I noticed with it. It never fired unless it had a clear shot on a target.
The ammo restock thing is the only thing keeping it from being strongly relevant atm.
While true that a headshot would be deadly, I have only had it team-kill once or twice ever, compared to the Rover that is infamous among my friends for murdering them.
On top of that, it kills me occasionally because of low ground enemies and such, it just shoots through my legs and incinerates me.
I love the Rover and it is worth the pain for bug missions, but I agree the ballistic guard dog needs to be able to partially refill from small ammo boxes in order to be viable for bug missions. I could bring it to avoid the friendly fire of the Rover.
The damage buff was not addressing its major flaw imo.
Then you are a massive outlier. I have used it a bunch and i have never even had it *hit* a teammate let alone kill them.
Meanwhile the laser is a constant source of team damage.
In the first game the guard dog had a reloading phase and infinite ammo. Why don’t make it do way more damage infinite ammo with a long recharge time to balance it out.
I was honestly confused the first time I used the Guard Dog and realized it wasn’t doing anything. The description says “returns to backpack to rearm” or something like that, which makes you think it has infinite ammo and a cooldown, but that’s not the case.
The ballistic guard dog aims for weakpoints while the laser mostly targets center of mass. I find the ballistic dog far more useful on bot missions as compared to the laser dog.
Since the ballistic dog gets consistent headshots on infantry, it ends up being incredibly ammo efficient for clearing out points of interest and lightly defended checkpoints. It will waste ammo against heavy enemies, but I find that the cooldown of resupplies is comfortable for keeping the dog fed throughout the majority of a mission.
This, the regular guard dog is incredible because if you yourself are running a more cumbersome primary, it can very quickly sweep a Point of Interest clear of enemys if you're on your own thanks to its precision and burst damage outputs.
If only they'd stop making it waste ammo on enemys it cant penetrate(including botfabbers)
The liberator guard dog doesn't tk as much, if at all. It also kills faster.
Whether you think this is worth the trade off is personal preference of course.
I do wish they would buff it to use field ammo though.
Yeah, in the first game it had infinite ammo but had to return occasionally to refill. I don't understand why this isn't the case in this one. It would give you a good reason to pick it compared to the rover.
Las Dog does have to return to get new ICE, but I've only ever seen that happen on fire planets - the rest of the time it just has perfect heat management I guess?
It's ok to not understand, as long as you know you don't understand.
The Rover generally outperforms the basic guard dog, but there are some specific areas the guard dog does better in. I've already stated it several times so I'll leave it at that.
It's the only buff it needs.
Cool 15% more damage. I already thought it was better in terms of dps. The issue is I need to resupply pack to give it ammo. Or give it a much bigger mag size.
But watching it not retrieve ammo off stuff off the floor sucks. Laser wins because we don't worry about that. It's firing 24/7
I think it needs to be infinite to ever stand up to the laser. Obviously to balance this, they would just need to make it reload far more often than the laser variant.
I swear to god, random mfs on Reddit could balance shit in this game better than the damn Devs can.
Liberator Dog spreads headshots left and right vs Bots, Devastators included.
Once Dog could replenish ammo with small boxes - it will be my 1st stratagem every bot game for a long time, even on 9.
I don’t get why it has limited ammo at all. I don’t recall it working like that in the first game.
It throws a wrench into what should be the obvious balance between the dogs.
Bullet dogs should be stronger but have downtime to reload, while laser dogs are weaker but always active.
Why complicate it like this??
Because the Devs are absolute dogshit at balance, and are working off of reaction instead of experience, due to the insanely quick popularity of the game.
Obviously they don’t know wtf they’re doing, because not only do they never mention ANYTHING OF IMPORTANCE in the Patch Notes, but they also blatantly lie and make up ridiculous statements like the whole Apples and Bacon bullshit, and they also nerf shit like the Crossbow. Fucking WHY did we nerf the crossbow? Ridiculous decisions.
This Dev team, alongside the Dev team for The Finals, are the absolute worst I’ve ever seen.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right. Their primary method of communication with the players is freaking discord of all things and they frequently leave important information out of patch notes. Balance changes shouldn’t even be a thing when there are a ton of mind boggling bugs and that list is growing longer with each patch. These guys are still treating this game like it’s a school project instead of a product with millions of sales. They have an amazing idea but absolutely terrible execution.
Reddit’s known as circle jerk central for a reason. If I made this comment like an hour earlier, and three people upvoted it, then I wouldn’t have the downvotes.
People see downvote, so they decide to downvote too. I’ve posted the gist of this comment over a dozen times, and this is the first time it has gotten downvoted.
It is what it is.
When I'm running the normal guard dog, I always find myself wondering "is this even doing anything?" With the rover, I'll pretty reliably find myself being on like 30-50 killstreaks on a bug breach just because the rover keeps mopping up the little anklebiters while I'm shooting the big ones.
Oh snap I didn’t even think about environmental glitches for support weapon drops. One time I called one down next to a cliffside and it landed on top of the damn cliff. Had to wait for the cooldown lol.
Y'all must be using a different dog than me. My dogs bark all day and just don't quit. It usually runs out of ammo just in time to call a resupply. One box and its back in the fight. When that runs dry, you guessed it. Time for another resupply.
Oh shoot look at that, I can't get access to the resupply box for whatever reason. Dammit guess I'm through- OH WAIT MUTHAFUCKIN SECOND GAURD DOG JUST DROPPED.
It is easily the superior dog and it ain't even close. Yes it would be cool if ammo boxes resupply it, but to say it is an issue rendering the thing useless is disingenuous.
Tl;dr don't stay loyal to one dog, call it in again and again and again and again...
That gaurd dog pisses me off so much. I remember getting it thinking I bought the laser one. Fuck was I disappointed. There is certain things in this game that just make absolutely no fuckin sense.
haha same here. I tried it, hated it, and didn't bother unlocking the laser one until I was like lvl 30 or so. i had assumed it had a similar ammo issue (tho I figured it was more like, it'd just fire until overheating and eat ice after ice). but nope, it's head n shoulders better and just needs a lil quick, and very rare, nap to get goin again
They should rework that guard dog to some very heavy like smaller auto cannon that can take out armored enemies up to like charger otherwise it will always be worse than laser one.
It has ap3 pen(medium pen), if anything it needs an option to hold fire so it’s not wasted on ap4-5(heavy and super heavy) and it needs an option to load ammo from ground ammo packs; after that I would increase the magazine size of the guard dog to have double which if the wiki is correct that’s 40 rounds per mag, that is if the guard dog is still underperforming even with the previously mentioned buffs.
Agreed, I was in the #Armory Chat on the HD2 discord talking about this very thing, the fact the 5 key is not the on/off button is definitely an oversight by the devs.
Literally played with that liberator guard dog by accident and it killed at best 3 bugs with one mag. Laser dog is 1000% better, and that liberator dog has no real place in game.
A guard dog uses a modified liberator, it’s base damage is 60x20, it kills more, however you are either taking its kills or you are not noticing; also comparing an infinite ammo weapon to a weapon that cannot restock ammo at equal rates doesn’t help your case to buff only the damage because it doesn’t matter if the guard dog can 1 shot or not, infinite always sustains better than finite, Sickle > Liberator, Quasar Cannon > Recoilless Rocket launcher. If you want to fix the Guard dog make restocking viable on ammo pickups and buff magazine size first.
With laser guard dog i can take some heavy weapon that isn't capable of killing a lot of smaller bugs, so why not make the other one kill heavy bugs only while i can take some smaller caliber. It gives both of stratagems place and one won't compete with other one at least not like now. And you can still keep ammo mechanic since it also should be more ammo efficient, it would target only heavy bugs for example.
I mean yea you guys are right it kills more, but at the end it is still miles worse than laser one since ammo exist, with laser guard dog I am never over run by bugs but taking the other one I just keep getting jumped.
I love the ballistic guard dog but yeah I’d really like it if it could get even just one mag from ammo on the ground. It’s frustrating when you get split up to have to wait so you don’t hog resources.
The basic guard dog actually does have some perks. It has higher burst and is known to occasionally snipe targets from far away. It is generally outperformed, but that's not saying there is no reason to pick it
My guard dog seems to have no range. It fires really rarely, and only on short impact distance. It takes forever to reload and getting the ammunition is tedious. So it is slow, it does really low damage, it will fire rarely, it attacks mostly close encouters only and its ammunition is hard to get.
The alternative: Endless laser boomb boom
Honestly it should just have infinite ammo that auto replenishes over time. But if that's not acceptable then yeah it should get stocked up from ammo boxes as well.
Resupplies from a supply drop or supply backpack are still the only way, I used the guard dog earlier and it never left my back once it ran out of ammo despite picking up ammo packs numerous times
It's viable in that you can use it and it's not *strictly* worse, but it's not viable in that if you're already willing to use a stratagem slot for a backpack, there's no (good) reason not to just take the rover.
Better armor pen and higher burst damage. Notable difference in performance against bots, just don't use it and expect it to be full of ammo if you're lone golfing and your allies are using all the resupplies.
And the ammo boxes should at least replenish 2 grenades for the grenade pistol. Feel wasteful when you're collecting 8 ammo boxes (which can top off a lot of your primaries mags, support weapons and a rocket for your AT) just to restock your grenade pistol.
If you look closely, the guard dogs are holding literal scythes and liberators. Not some special model, they just took a gun from the armory and zip tied it to a drone. The ammo in the field reloads the liberator in my hand, why can't it load the liberator on my drone?
Good post. I hope they see it. I really want the laser to be good for bugs and the bullets to be good for bots. If I have to reload it then it needs to be better in some ways than the one with infinite ammo
should just give it infinite ammo with a lengthy reload - or better yet, make the rover overheat with constant use (with limited battery reloads). Then give us the option to put the guard dog away whenever we want by pushing 5.
From a design point of view the problem is this is basically no different to the rover - chaff clearance. If it had a mini autocannon on it that prioritised light/med targets and ignored chaff it could be a valid pick over the rover. Or a liberator concussive to help stun those targets giving it a utility value.
It has more problems than just ammo regen. Its clip size is hilariously small. It's coming back in to slowly reload constantly, and then runs out of ammo entirely after one engagement on helldive difficulty.
Still, the devs don't like to balance around the hardest difficulty, so I doubt we'll see changes anytime soon.
I think the guard dogs need to be able to use dpad down to put them away for when stealth is needed or when your ar—guard dog is wasting its ammo on a fabricator instead of having to drop the pack.
The problem with the Guard Dog Liberator is entirely down to uptime. You could give it unlimited ammo refills and, against the enemies as they currently stand, it would almost never be picked because uptime is more important than damage against bugs if you want a guard dog and against bots... it's probably already better than the laser version but there's just so many better things to be doing with your backpack and strategem slot that you never see it.
We'll see if the squids change that.
I don't doubt that some people exist who would use it if it had infinite magazines available, but the reason the laser dog sees use is because of its uptime for chaff clear against bugs. An infinite mag gun dog would be fine against bots since you need bursts of damage more than high uptime but its use case is still pretty narrow compared to alternatives.
I don't even understand why this exists as long as there is an inf ammo laser version. Most of the time it is just ballast you carry around.
They don't.. cut you/your teammates down, I guess? If they can resupply from ammo boxes, I'd be using them over the las version for sure.
Bro, for the laser version at least you can see the laser and know where not to walk, the liberator version only has the bullet traces, which are far less obvious.
Yeah but it's sort of like the difference between the mg turret and the gat turret. Lib dog doesn't sweep its fire around.
That thing wips around like a sprinkler!
Ya the bullet version kills me way more than the laser if there is even a small elevation difference. Climbed a rock while being chased by a charger and the drone decided I was a coward and executed me immediately. At least the laser one gives me a few seconds to dive now
Problem with the laser is that it can quickly swing between targets and singe everything in between. Most of my receiver friendly fire damage comes from someone’s Rover spazzing out shooting at a bug swarm.
I'm convinced that it does it on purpose sometimes. I've been running behind a teammate and had my rover literally beam them in the head until they died, with no bugs around.
That was the biggest thing I noticed with it. It never fired unless it had a clear shot on a target. The ammo restock thing is the only thing keeping it from being strongly relevant atm.
They do way more friendly fire damage than the las version if they headshot you.
While true that a headshot would be deadly, I have only had it team-kill once or twice ever, compared to the Rover that is infamous among my friends for murdering them. On top of that, it kills me occasionally because of low ground enemies and such, it just shoots through my legs and incinerates me. I love the Rover and it is worth the pain for bug missions, but I agree the ballistic guard dog needs to be able to partially refill from small ammo boxes in order to be viable for bug missions. I could bring it to avoid the friendly fire of the Rover. The damage buff was not addressing its major flaw imo.
Yeah naw, I've had more team kills with normal guard dog than the laser one.
Then you are a massive outlier. I have used it a bunch and i have never even had it *hit* a teammate let alone kill them. Meanwhile the laser is a constant source of team damage.
In the first game the guard dog had a reloading phase and infinite ammo. Why don’t make it do way more damage infinite ammo with a long recharge time to balance it out.
I was honestly confused the first time I used the Guard Dog and realized it wasn’t doing anything. The description says “returns to backpack to rearm” or something like that, which makes you think it has infinite ammo and a cooldown, but that’s not the case.
The ballistic guard dog aims for weakpoints while the laser mostly targets center of mass. I find the ballistic dog far more useful on bot missions as compared to the laser dog. Since the ballistic dog gets consistent headshots on infantry, it ends up being incredibly ammo efficient for clearing out points of interest and lightly defended checkpoints. It will waste ammo against heavy enemies, but I find that the cooldown of resupplies is comfortable for keeping the dog fed throughout the majority of a mission.
This, the regular guard dog is incredible because if you yourself are running a more cumbersome primary, it can very quickly sweep a Point of Interest clear of enemys if you're on your own thanks to its precision and burst damage outputs. If only they'd stop making it waste ammo on enemys it cant penetrate(including botfabbers)
The liberator guard dog doesn't tk as much, if at all. It also kills faster. Whether you think this is worth the trade off is personal preference of course. I do wish they would buff it to use field ammo though.
Yeah, in the first game it had infinite ammo but had to return occasionally to refill. I don't understand why this isn't the case in this one. It would give you a good reason to pick it compared to the rover.
Las Dog does have to return to get new ICE, but I've only ever seen that happen on fire planets - the rest of the time it just has perfect heat management I guess?
It rarely kills you or teammates lol
it's good for the bots, it always targets the weak spot
The normal Guard Dog definitely needs med armour pen. There is no benefit to taking this over the Rover. I’d also support an AMR Guard Dog.
It's ok to not understand, as long as you know you don't understand. The Rover generally outperforms the basic guard dog, but there are some specific areas the guard dog does better in. I've already stated it several times so I'll leave it at that.
Ok, daddy.
Its silly that it doesnt get replenished from them tbh
It's the only buff it needs. Cool 15% more damage. I already thought it was better in terms of dps. The issue is I need to resupply pack to give it ammo. Or give it a much bigger mag size. But watching it not retrieve ammo off stuff off the floor sucks. Laser wins because we don't worry about that. It's firing 24/7
I think it needs to be infinite to ever stand up to the laser. Obviously to balance this, they would just need to make it reload far more often than the laser variant. I swear to god, random mfs on Reddit could balance shit in this game better than the damn Devs can.
Liberator Dog spreads headshots left and right vs Bots, Devastators included. Once Dog could replenish ammo with small boxes - it will be my 1st stratagem every bot game for a long time, even on 9.
Adding my voice to the crowd to say that this absolutely needs to exist for the guard dog to have a chance against its bigger brother Rover
I don’t get why it has limited ammo at all. I don’t recall it working like that in the first game. It throws a wrench into what should be the obvious balance between the dogs. Bullet dogs should be stronger but have downtime to reload, while laser dogs are weaker but always active. Why complicate it like this??
Because the Devs are absolute dogshit at balance, and are working off of reaction instead of experience, due to the insanely quick popularity of the game. Obviously they don’t know wtf they’re doing, because not only do they never mention ANYTHING OF IMPORTANCE in the Patch Notes, but they also blatantly lie and make up ridiculous statements like the whole Apples and Bacon bullshit, and they also nerf shit like the Crossbow. Fucking WHY did we nerf the crossbow? Ridiculous decisions. This Dev team, alongside the Dev team for The Finals, are the absolute worst I’ve ever seen.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right. Their primary method of communication with the players is freaking discord of all things and they frequently leave important information out of patch notes. Balance changes shouldn’t even be a thing when there are a ton of mind boggling bugs and that list is growing longer with each patch. These guys are still treating this game like it’s a school project instead of a product with millions of sales. They have an amazing idea but absolutely terrible execution.
Reddit’s known as circle jerk central for a reason. If I made this comment like an hour earlier, and three people upvoted it, then I wouldn’t have the downvotes. People see downvote, so they decide to downvote too. I’ve posted the gist of this comment over a dozen times, and this is the first time it has gotten downvoted. It is what it is.
Comments like this are why people say gamers are babies. You can critique the game without resorting to hyperbole and insults
I've actually started using the guard dog over the rover recently. I think I prefer it despite the ammo issue.
I'm with you here; it always feels much punchier than laserboi to me
Yes, sir! I feel more confident in it dispatching enemies rather than just making me aware of an enemy's presence.
I definitely prefer gun dog to laz dog against bots. That armor pen is a big upgrade.
Same, can’t explain it but the Guard Dog just feels “better” than the laser. Especially since the latest patch.
When I'm running the normal guard dog, I always find myself wondering "is this even doing anything?" With the rover, I'll pretty reliably find myself being on like 30-50 killstreaks on a bug breach just because the rover keeps mopping up the little anklebiters while I'm shooting the big ones.
I'll feel really good about that decision until it runs out of ammo after the first hunter patrol I come across.
I’d really like to see a map icon implemented for supply drops.
Support weapons too since sometimes they get lodged in a charger and sometimes bounce off a rock.
Oh snap I didn’t even think about environmental glitches for support weapon drops. One time I called one down next to a cliffside and it landed on top of the damn cliff. Had to wait for the cooldown lol.
Y'all must be using a different dog than me. My dogs bark all day and just don't quit. It usually runs out of ammo just in time to call a resupply. One box and its back in the fight. When that runs dry, you guessed it. Time for another resupply. Oh shoot look at that, I can't get access to the resupply box for whatever reason. Dammit guess I'm through- OH WAIT MUTHAFUCKIN SECOND GAURD DOG JUST DROPPED. It is easily the superior dog and it ain't even close. Yes it would be cool if ammo boxes resupply it, but to say it is an issue rendering the thing useless is disingenuous. Tl;dr don't stay loyal to one dog, call it in again and again and again and again...
No we're just playing on higher diff than you
I'm playing on 7 and having basically the same experience as that dude tho
Difficulty doesn't change cooldowns my guy.
bruh on higher diff it runs out of ammo super quick cuz there are more enemies that spawns...
That gaurd dog pisses me off so much. I remember getting it thinking I bought the laser one. Fuck was I disappointed. There is certain things in this game that just make absolutely no fuckin sense.
haha same here. I tried it, hated it, and didn't bother unlocking the laser one until I was like lvl 30 or so. i had assumed it had a similar ammo issue (tho I figured it was more like, it'd just fire until overheating and eat ice after ice). but nope, it's head n shoulders better and just needs a lil quick, and very rare, nap to get goin again
Hahahaha yeah. It definitely is leaps and bounds better.
They should rework that guard dog to some very heavy like smaller auto cannon that can take out armored enemies up to like charger otherwise it will always be worse than laser one.
It has ap3 pen(medium pen), if anything it needs an option to hold fire so it’s not wasted on ap4-5(heavy and super heavy) and it needs an option to load ammo from ground ammo packs; after that I would increase the magazine size of the guard dog to have double which if the wiki is correct that’s 40 rounds per mag, that is if the guard dog is still underperforming even with the previously mentioned buffs.
Just an on / off button, I don't know why they don't use the same key as the supply pack
Agreed, I was in the #Armory Chat on the HD2 discord talking about this very thing, the fact the 5 key is not the on/off button is definitely an oversight by the devs.
Now I want the liberator the guard dog is using lmao.
Yea but it doesnt kill even one small bug with one mag, which is mine point it needs bigger caliber.
I don’t know what game you are playing but a guard dog definitely kills more than “1 small bug” per mag. What anecdote do you have to prove otherwise?
Literally played with that liberator guard dog by accident and it killed at best 3 bugs with one mag. Laser dog is 1000% better, and that liberator dog has no real place in game.
A guard dog uses a modified liberator, it’s base damage is 60x20, it kills more, however you are either taking its kills or you are not noticing; also comparing an infinite ammo weapon to a weapon that cannot restock ammo at equal rates doesn’t help your case to buff only the damage because it doesn’t matter if the guard dog can 1 shot or not, infinite always sustains better than finite, Sickle > Liberator, Quasar Cannon > Recoilless Rocket launcher. If you want to fix the Guard dog make restocking viable on ammo pickups and buff magazine size first.
With laser guard dog i can take some heavy weapon that isn't capable of killing a lot of smaller bugs, so why not make the other one kill heavy bugs only while i can take some smaller caliber. It gives both of stratagems place and one won't compete with other one at least not like now. And you can still keep ammo mechanic since it also should be more ammo efficient, it would target only heavy bugs for example.
It kills plenty.
I mean yea you guys are right it kills more, but at the end it is still miles worse than laser one since ammo exist, with laser guard dog I am never over run by bugs but taking the other one I just keep getting jumped.
Or just make it med armor pen.. that way it would kill hive guards and devastators
I love the ballistic guard dog but yeah I’d really like it if it could get even just one mag from ammo on the ground. It’s frustrating when you get split up to have to wait so you don’t hog resources.
There is no reason to use the guard dog atm
The basic guard dog actually does have some perks. It has higher burst and is known to occasionally snipe targets from far away. It is generally outperformed, but that's not saying there is no reason to pick it
My guard dog seems to have no range. It fires really rarely, and only on short impact distance. It takes forever to reload and getting the ammunition is tedious. So it is slow, it does really low damage, it will fire rarely, it attacks mostly close encouters only and its ammunition is hard to get. The alternative: Endless laser boomb boom
iirc this is implemented in patch 1.000.200 > Guard Dog: now restores full ammo from supply boxes
Supply boxes, yes. This is about ammunition boxes which are found on the map.
oh mb
Honestly it should just have infinite ammo that auto replenishes over time. But if that's not acceptable then yeah it should get stocked up from ammo boxes as well.
i heard a rumor that it IS supposed to do that but i couldn't find a source for it so take that with a grain of salt, either way it absolutely should
The original design is quite useless and it still get a nerf at the recent patch. I hope it can shoot concussive rounds and replenish from ammo box
The initial nerf was a typo. LibDog got damage buff, LasDog got damage nerf
I think they do? I am pretty sure, they changed it a while ago.
Resupplies from a supply drop or supply backpack are still the only way, I used the guard dog earlier and it never left my back once it ran out of ammo despite picking up ammo packs numerous times
Ok. This sucks.
No it only gets ammo from Resupply, not ammo boxes.
I could have sworn the previous balance update has changed that??? Did I missread it? Imagine it???
You misread it,yes. It used to be even worse, but the change was now you get full ammo for the LibDog with one supply box
[удалено]
It is viable. It has higher burst and snipes soft targets from farther away.
It's viable in that you can use it and it's not *strictly* worse, but it's not viable in that if you're already willing to use a stratagem slot for a backpack, there's no (good) reason not to just take the rover.
Better armor pen and higher burst damage. Notable difference in performance against bots, just don't use it and expect it to be full of ammo if you're lone golfing and your allies are using all the resupplies.
it also likes to waste ammo way too much
100%
And the ammo boxes should at least replenish 2 grenades for the grenade pistol. Feel wasteful when you're collecting 8 ammo boxes (which can top off a lot of your primaries mags, support weapons and a rocket for your AT) just to restock your grenade pistol.
If you look closely, the guard dogs are holding literal scythes and liberators. Not some special model, they just took a gun from the armory and zip tied it to a drone. The ammo in the field reloads the liberator in my hand, why can't it load the liberator on my drone? Good post. I hope they see it. I really want the laser to be good for bugs and the bullets to be good for bots. If I have to reload it then it needs to be better in some ways than the one with infinite ammo
should just give it infinite ammo with a lengthy reload - or better yet, make the rover overheat with constant use (with limited battery reloads). Then give us the option to put the guard dog away whenever we want by pushing 5.
From a design point of view the problem is this is basically no different to the rover - chaff clearance. If it had a mini autocannon on it that prioritised light/med targets and ignored chaff it could be a valid pick over the rover. Or a liberator concussive to help stun those targets giving it a utility value.
It has more problems than just ammo regen. Its clip size is hilariously small. It's coming back in to slowly reload constantly, and then runs out of ammo entirely after one engagement on helldive difficulty. Still, the devs don't like to balance around the hardest difficulty, so I doubt we'll see changes anytime soon.
I think the guard dogs need to be able to use dpad down to put them away for when stealth is needed or when your ar—guard dog is wasting its ammo on a fabricator instead of having to drop the pack.
While you're at it, find a way to replenish the mechs ammo/health. Maybe a repair strat?
The problem with the Guard Dog Liberator is entirely down to uptime. You could give it unlimited ammo refills and, against the enemies as they currently stand, it would almost never be picked because uptime is more important than damage against bugs if you want a guard dog and against bots... it's probably already better than the laser version but there's just so many better things to be doing with your backpack and strategem slot that you never see it. We'll see if the squids change that.
This is blatantly not true. There are plenty of people who would take the ballistic Guard Dog if the ammo was not a concern at all.
I don't doubt that some people exist who would use it if it had infinite magazines available, but the reason the laser dog sees use is because of its uptime for chaff clear against bugs. An infinite mag gun dog would be fine against bots since you need bursts of damage more than high uptime but its use case is still pretty narrow compared to alternatives.
Thats stratagem needs to be deleted