It's no secret that the Blunderbuss is the most used and most powerful weapon of choice on the Sea of Thieves, especially in PvP combat. No other weapon can instant kill a player and with little to no skill involved in the process. However, it can be inconsistent in its damage at times as well.
Pretty much every other weapon in the game relies on pairing it with another or getting a second hit off to secure a kill, but the Blunderbuss seems to spit in the face of this parity.
So I propose a slight damage nerf to the max damage the Blunderbuss can do, and a slight buff to the minimum damage it can do.
There are not many ways to do this though.
The main way is to drop the amount of pellets from 10 to 8, and have each pellet do 11.25 damage. This puts more damage value behind each individual pellet, but also reduces max possible damage to 90, meaning you can't 1 tap anyone anymore. This forces the blunderbuss into a similar state that most other weapons are in, and that is to be paired with another weapon, or simply deal with having to reload before getting a second volley off to kill your opponent.
It feels very cheap to die to someone that just face-hugs you and taps a single button.
If a Blunderbuss nerf seems to egregious, then the alternative is to give all other weapons a similar fighting chance outside of techs. The simple solution is to add a headshot mechanic. Eye of reach = 1 Tap headshot. Maybe even a pistol = 1 Tap headshot. Throwing Knife = 1 Tap headshot.
1 Tap insta kill weapons are generally not favored in most games, and personally, I'm not a fan of it in the Sea of Thieves. It just feels too easy to me. Unless you are against a competent, high skill player, Blunderbuss is going to win just about every engagement, because again, you can just sprint at your target and bop em in 1 tap. If other weapons don't get ways to instant kill, I don't see why Blunderbuss really should either. (Especially since it completely invalidates Cutlass and Throwing Knife melee) And given the close quarters of ship combat, its just the best option you have overall given its instant kill potential.
