if its a lot more situational and has less reward in that situation, it is UP. and don't confuse skill with weapon capabilities

That's the thing, it has more rewards in those situations. Just today I killed seven guys in a row because they were crowded around the objective and I flanked around and killed them, they were all using rifles, two of them with rifles on heavy frames, oh yeah and I was in a standard suit with a standard shotgun too.

cool story bro-you would've done better with a rifle. heavy frames require 2 head shots or 3 body shots to kill, so I'm assuming you had to reload at least twice

also, playing against competent players generally makes it slightly more difficult, though i admit i have killed several big corp (team players, AE) with shotguns before and not died to their proto rifles. However, i would encourage a comparison between the combat rifle and shotgun-you may find what I'm saying to be true

whatever--we disagree about the shotgun. the real question is the flay lock. what do you think a good buff would be? (trying to keep this thread on topic)

Oh man, now that thing is underpowered! at least we can both agree on that. I think what you initially suggested would be nice, maybe a 10% bonus to damage instead of 5 though.

That is literally reversing the nerf and more this would make them OP again probably more OP than before. What it needs is damage fall off from the center of the splash radius to very small damage on the edges then a slower traveling speed for the projectile. From here splash radius and damage can be increased heavily.

Maybe making the flaylock like a roket pistol, the biggest problem I always had with the Flay was it behaves too much like a mass driver. This leads to the following:

it is as hated as the MD
its hard to balance against MD (if its too close there is no reason to use the MD if **** to way apart it's nearly useless)
there is nothing unique...
It was meant as a rocketpistol but behaves like grenade launcher

My suggestion: buff direct damage give it a small splash radius remove the firing arc (makes no sense on a rocket pistol) and increase projectile speed.
Add a special variant that can lock on infantry (lock on time should be based on scan profil)

The description had said that it locks on. And even the CPM at the time before it was released thought it could lock on. If it had solely the damage direct/splash as it does now and locks on at a reasonable distance maybe 10 or 15 meters, it wouldn't be that bad of a weapon...unfortunately the lock on mechanics are a little cruddy right now.

i don't want lock on---that makes it OP. however, returning it to 4 clip size, pre-nerf blast radius, and an average of prenerf damage and current damage would make it perfect, i think.

I just think it needs a bigger splash area.

No, than it competes with the MD. Nothing separates the weapon from the MD and giving it more damage, radius, clip size does not help that.

other than the fact that it would still be worse in every wayGǪ.currently, it still "competes with the mass driver" as one of the most unused weapons in the game. next patch, MD's are getting a massive buff, so flay locks should as well. It only makes sense. The only people who would dislike that are gallente spammers

There are 2 scenarios for making the flaylock viable. I have used the FP and its a fun weapon to kill but not very consistent to be a reliable sidearm. The initial stats when its was OP competed with light firearms (HUGE MISTAKE CCP)
here are my 2 ideas

1) Skill-shot with high direct damage ,rewarding but risky
-buff direct damage (like 250hp std , 262hp adv, 275hp proto)
-faster projectile speed with no drop, after 40m travel it will auto-detonate (can't spam like MD @ limited range)
-keep current splash dmg and radius

This form will make it a hand held rocket launcher (as what i get from in-game description), very tricky to hit moving targets but if you are skilled, you'd do high damage, but you only get 3-4 shots. Also good to take down sentinels or commandos that are bigger targets so an anti-heavy weapon of sorts but you only get so much total ammo and clip and still a very risky weapon but rewarding if you find good technique.

2) Keep current form but return splash radius number to pre-nerf levels
Now that is isn't doing darn near 200hp+ splash, this would make it useful but a very situational weapon like super close where you'd have to aim at the ankles to get results.However this would make it some sort of mini MD weapon......obviously many people are against that but that is the only alternative to what we have right now.

What you guys think? To be honest I am all for the number 1.
This would make the breach version really cool it would do almost 400 per shot but only 2 in the clip....DO YOU FEEL LUCKY!
option 1 seems good, kinda like a mini rocket shotgun :)

So, make it OP again?

I don't see why nova knives aren't a minmatar weapon and flaylock isn't a caldari...