Play Smarter *updated Feb 08th 2017*

acethunder

In the interest of keeping the response as brief as possible, I will omit that of your assessment I concur with. As such, this should be a reasonably short response!

My apologies on the lack of explanation, my use of CEP was for Circular Error Probable. The simplification would be that if you take the detonation radius of the Trident at a range (say 500m, assuming a 10m blast raidus), the center of the blast would occur with in the sphere created by the intended blast center plus the radius of the error. This would involve a random angular error of around 1.2 degrees from boresight, and then a plus/minus 10 meter accuracy on the detonation compared to target distance at the time of munitions release. As such, the slash damage would always be guaranteed to hit the target it was intended for within 500m, but the location of the rest of the splash damage would be less predictable.

To me, the greatest threat of the Trident is as much the predictability and size of the splash as the range. Skilled users are extremely adept at reliably using the Fury to put three of the Trident munitions next to a target in short order, meaning that cover becomes irrelevant at <600m. My "fix' would mean that the weapon behavior remains unchanged when attacking a target in view, however, due to the angular error of the projectile, it becomes more of a game of chance to do damage around a corner at range. For every round that air bursts where intended (in the case where one is aiming to the left of a target behind hard cover), one blast could then be to the left leaving the target out of splash damage range, and one would impact the cover the target is hiding behind to no effect.

Such a change means that no other factors need adjusting other than optimal range. It would be easiest to implement, more transparent, and hardest to claim as a direct nerf as core statistics would stay the same. For Trident users unwilling to get closer, it would limit their effective damage output, giving a chance for skilled players to use cover and speed to close the gap. For Trident users willing to get closer to maximize the chance of effective damage, it would require them to also be in closing distance of knife fighters forcing them to play skillfully or coordinate effectively with teammates.