It's no small secret that the sprint cancel exploit allowing quick double shots with two guns has returned, almost certainly unintentionally at the hands of the devs. As unpopular as this will be with the majority of the player base, I'll attempt to explain here why I believe this change should be left as it is, assuming all other factors in the meta are left unchanged. Yes, this is quite a wordy summary of the issue, but I believe it has to be to touch upon all the relevant issues. Anyone that is truly passionate on the topic/the game should be able to digest this and any following discussion that may emerge. Keep in mind this all comes from someone that has almost always mained sniper/sword, but has played both with and against a number of skilled double gunners consistently for some time. Since the update I've been giving double gun more of a shot, and have reached my conclusion on the matter. Here are my thoughts:
The Skill Factor:
First and foremost, despite what some may say, this maneuver is at least somewhat skilled and very situational. Executing the cancel and landing both of your shots against a skilled moving opponent is by no means a free kill. This is especially true since you have to be on the ground sprinting forward, even if only briefly, to pull the cancel off. This is usually the opposite of what you want to be doing—it's far safer to maintain distance from a player charging you with a sword or blunderbuss. The cancel promotes a more skilled and aggressive high-risk, high-reward play style that is otherwise absent when double gunning without the cancel. At the same time the skill ceiling is not so high that an average player cannot learn the technique with enough practice and time. Skill-wise this seems to be a perfect balance to me.
The Sword/Animation Canceling In General:
The second main reason I see is the state of the current sword meta. Before some of you immediately disregard this, no, I'm not siding with Summit here (not entirely at least). The lock of a good swordsman is extremely difficult to escape when using two guns. Anyone that knows how to move well with a sword and utilize the X cancel can easily chop up even a skilled double gunner in tight spaces where it's hard to maintain distance. Some suggest adding knockback to the EoR and flintlock again, which would help alleviate this issue. Even then though, I believe the sprint cancel should remain. The very fact that you can cancel the sword animation to achieve deadlier results, which hasn't even been acknowledged as an issue by the devs, makes me think canceling reload animations and swap animations should be fine as well. In all cases these "exploits" encourage more skilled and diverse play styles. Removing animation canceling lowers the skill gap, pandering to less skilled players, and cuts down on the versatility of weapons and the variety of combat.
Oppressive Capacity Compared to Other Weapon Combos:
Another reason I see for the cancel staying is the fact that other weapon setups are just as oppressive, if not more. The blunderbuss one tap is of course even faster than the sprint cancel pistol snipe combo, being instantaneous. Again, in even moderately skilled hands the blunderbuss is often then just as oppressive as double guns. There is no faster way to clear a ship than to board and quickly one tap all unaware players, aside perhaps lunge spam which is an entirely different issue unto itself. This is made worse by the fact that neither of these fighting styles takes much skill to master—blunderbuss just requires you to stand in their hitbox and pull the trigger, lunge spam is basically just lunging back and forth until everyone is dead, making sure to hit a player or the deck to avoid exhaustion and keeping distance before initiating a lunge. Of course the blunderbuss only has instant kill potential at point blank range, but much of the combat in the game takes place on ships where point blank range isn't uncommon at all. On top of that the weapon still maintains quite a bit of knockback, which serves a utility in itself for maintaining distance from other players. Given the close quarter nature of most ship combat, the damage potential of the gun and this knockback quickly make the gun fairly formidable even in the hands of relatively low skilled players.
Counters To Double Gun:
All things considered, even with the sprint cancel double gun is not difficult to counter in most situations. This is especially true of the pistol snipe combo (which seems to be the most vilified combination) since neither weapon has knockback to assist with spacing in the current meta. All players have to do is rush the double gunner and lock them in place with the sword. This is especially true with team strategies considered. Multiple swordsmen locking down a double gunner will quickly dispatch them, even if they are low in skill, so long as they manage to hold them in place initially. The only time double gun is remotely oppressive in ship combat is when you have multiple skilled double gunners backing each other up with coordinated shots and reloads. At that point something has already gone wrong, and having multiple skilled enemy swordsmen on boat would be no less oppressive. There is no reason a high skilled approach to combat (double gunning with sprint cancel) should be nerfed to be on par with a low skill approach (the typical combo being blunder sword) just because it is oppressive in one specific situation.
Server Side Issues:
Finally, with the way the servers have been acting lately double gunning puts players at even more of a disadvantage. Hit registration has gotten even worse with the last update, to the point where I find more backtracked shots without hit markers landing kills than shots that clearly hit my target. Ping spikes are now commonplace, making it a toss-up whether or not shots land during the spike. These issues are not nearly as much of an issue to primary sword users—sometimes they even buff the sword in a sense, reverting it back to the dreaded 10ft mess it was for the last two months. Often times a player chasing someone down with a sword can still land hits from unusually far away because they are essentially backtracking them with the sword—a situation any double gunner is more than familiar with, and that is particularly noticeable on the laggy servers we're all dealing with. To be fair, these issues regarding server lag are unacceptable in general, and will hopefully be fixed at some point. However, as long as the servers are as laggy as they currently are they do influence the feasibility of weapon combinations in the current meta.
Final Thoughts:
To those of you that vehemently oppose the sprint cancel without ever having tried it (or even having tried double gunning in general), I encourage you to equip two guns yourself, attack an enemy ship, and see how well you do. You might very well find that it takes more skill to pull off than you realize. Even if it is very powerful in the hands of a good player, that doesn't mean it should be removed, especially with the movement sacrifice and overall risk involved with having two guns. Double gunners are essentially glass cannons, even with the cancel, and nerfing such a play style into oblivion in favor of a smaller skill gap is quite frankly ridiculous. If that's really the goal here then they should remove all animation canceling, buff sword and blunder further, increase base movement speed, etc. At that point they may as well add those ridiculous PvE servers a vocal minority are clamoring for, since the PvP combat will be simplified to death. Such changes would certainly spell out the end of the game for the majority of the skilled players I know in the very least. It's no wonder so many skilled players have left already given the state of things.
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