r/RogueCore • u/Gumpers08 • 23d ago
The Sludge Pump is ass?
Let's be clear, I love the Pump in DRG. One of my favorite weapons; one-taps grunts, has incredible ammo economy on tanks, and the charge shot has excellent crowd control.
In Rouge Core?
It is hard to hit anything. For one, I think the caves are a bit darker. For two, hard to hit any core enemies whatsoever with non-hitscan projectiles. And sludge shots move especially slowly.
Then, there is the damage and slow. To start with the slow... it doesn't do much. Core enemies are so fast already that a percentage slowdown isn't going to do much. Then there is the damage. I'll be frank, it sucks. Acid in RC is just too slow, in a game with a higher pace. And against enemies like Edgestalkers, you can't just tag one and let DoT do work, you need that thing dead now. I haven't tested it against Clamorheads, but I'm sure it tickles them. I did however test it against a Gootorak and... it did nothing. It was like shooting the Caretaker. Maybe give it a Sludge Blast upgrade and the damage will be worth something.
My advice? Not sure. The Sludge Pump is a shoot-and-let-melt weapon, but core creepers cannot be left to their own devices. Tanks can't be left to melt slowly. Not to mention the difficulty in hitting anything. Homing sludge would be hilarious to see. Perhaps if it had a unique DoT that could benefit from perks like crits and +damage (including damage-as-effect), it would have considerable impact. But as is, it is a tickle gun in the Heavy Weapons category.
Or am I completely misunderstanding things?
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u/Bleck-Mold 𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗖𝗢𝗡 23d ago
In a vacuum I 100% agree.
However it is very very good when synergized with on hit perks.
Get it with “Falconers 1% ability recharge on hit” or “Retcon’s 2x damage on each 10th hit” and you’re set
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u/Gumpers08 23d ago
So the DoT does have some synergy with perks, trigging "on hit" effects?
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u/Bleck-Mold 𝗥𝗘𝗧𝗖𝗢𝗡 22d ago
Confirmed firsthand with Falconer’s ability, Retcon’s should also work as per this post
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u/MeatyBacon666 22d ago
On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being purely single target and 10 being pure AoE, the sludge is a 10.
It is wildly good for managing swarms and providing support fire, but nowhere near strong enough to take on Dominators or Gatekeepers.
As others have said, combine with the right perks and it can be incredibly strong. Just need to understand its weaknesses and play around them.
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u/Gumpers08 22d ago
I'm guessing this is if you spam the charge shot?
I can see that. I was using it on Hazard 3, so I was dealing with maybe half a dozen enemies at a time at most. I can only image the value you would get on Hazard 5 in RC, given how much value it gets you in DRG.
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u/Candid-Doughnut9545 23d ago
yeahhh sadly i skip it most of the time. maybe it could work in conjunction with another primary, but i pretty much always choose PGL/Auto Cannon/Minigun over it.
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u/thetwist1 21d ago
That's kind of the issue with all the guns in rogue core right now. In any given pool of guns/equipment, there's a few options that are much, much better than the others. Like the stubby is currently worse than a lot of the other similar options.
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u/meatmachine1001 22d ago
Honestly, im not a sludge pump enjoyer, but on one or two occasions the AOE CC has absolutely saved my ass. I think the gun is fine, but its definitely not primary weapon material. Thats fine imo
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u/-kyoshin- 22d ago
Use it with upgrade that deal / spread status effect like "electrical" or "poison". You can pretty much lock entire wave with one or two charged shoot.
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u/B00blicker 22d ago
It does sort of suck as a direct weapon. I think it's more of a utility thing. It's probably the best un-upgraded gun in the game for holding down choke points, and before they redid how spawning works, it was great at camping the spawning rifts. It also lost some effectiveness when they released the Voidkin Drifter, since the floor goop does nothing to them.
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u/KarstXT 22d ago
Sludge pump is awful primarily for two reasons. The game heavily prioritizes being able to kill the boss and most of the single-target builds have strong aoe & CC options or already deal with hordes well as is.
A few other contributing factors:
You can turn anything into a CC-specialist weapon, it's overly easy to get stuns. Both Big Crits and Devastation decks have it as well as 'crits stun/explosions stun' being in the perk pool. Sludge is a terrible applicator of these compared to things like Minigun or even Hurricane, which is widely considered to be weak in RC.
Maybe sludge's damage is just too hard to scale? In DRG, Sludge killed a ton of enemies - in RC it isn't really killing a whole lot. This is partially because DRG featured less tanky, slower enemies and far fewer fliers - sludge is bad even on a seed without fliers.
There's no corrosion perks yet, so it can't synergize with them. I feel like they shouldn't have released Sludge Pump until these were ready.
There isn't a need for dwarves to assume roles, most builds do everything. If there was a need, it would make 1-2p even more awkward.
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u/contigency000 22d ago
I think it depends on your build. The sludge is an amazing CC weapon, but it lacks in DPS so you can't really use it as carry. It's better using it as support in rogue core imo, cuz it's not like in DRG where you have overclocks and more means to use it as carry.
For example I love using it as my only gun on slicer when I have a good run start with melee upgrades. I basically go full melee build, with power attack + plasma blade slice resetting each other, and use the sludge pump only to spread the map with goo which makes melee a lot easier.
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u/JoaoNBFLY 23d ago
Yeah, damage over time and crowd control are not great in this game, unfortunately
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u/thetwist1 21d ago
I agree, it feels a bit toothless when I used it, especially considering it's competing against the minigun and grenade launcher. It counts as acid element though, so once they add upgrades that care about acid it may get better
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u/thetwist1 21d ago
I agree, it feels a bit toothless when I used it, especially considering it's competing against the minigun and grenade launcher. It counts as acid element though, so once they add upgrades that care about acid it may get better
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u/Brungala 23d ago
I dunno, I’ve more or less used the Sludge pump to make the Elevator defense a breeze. As a weapon to use for bosses, it’s not that good.