Sudden Slump

I've just been off my game lately.

At work, I've been staying overtime until past 9pm every night, but that's just business as usual, so it's fine.

The auction winning prices have been declining, likely due to increased competition from rivals. I'm still profiting for now, but considering the effort involved, it's becoming less worthwhile. Well, maybe trying to earn money so easily was misguided from the start.

What's really getting me down is that I can't seem to win at "Guardian Troopers" anymore.

In CPU battles, I can't defeat the Sagittarius on Stage 5, and I'm racking up losses in player matches too. 

The losses in player matches are probably because other players are getting better at controlling their units. There are more opponents who can skillfully handle both shooting and close combat now.

Among the player match crowd, Scutum users are still very common. And almost everyone seems to be equipping the Scutum-exclusive Kite Shield and BAR44 beam gun like it's mandatory.

The Kite Shield, Scutum's exclusive shield, can deploy a beam over its surface just like my Xcalibur, nullifying pretty much all beam and solid ammunition attacks. It's an all-purpose barrier. 

On top of that, it has an Acute pike on the tip for melee thrusting attacks - cheating gear to match Xcalibur. I guess that's what exclusive equipment is supposed to be.

Apparently this exclusive shield comes up a lot in the gacha tickets, with the trade price stabilizing around 200k. Somehow every Scutum user casually has one now, but players with bad luck had to spend a decent amount of real money to obtain it.

By the way, there are already several other owners of Xcalibur too. From what I've seen discussed on forums, my lame naming sense seems to be the biggest topic. I'm grateful the namer isn't publicly disclosed. 

Meanwhile, the BAR44 beam gun isn't Scutum-exclusive gear, but it has become the standard armament. Its performance eclipses other beam guns by a mile - long range, high power, and low energy consumption make it a legendary weapon. 

Players call it the Yong-Yong or Beam Rifle. Its performance is so overwhelmingly high that hardly any players use other beam guns anymore. There are rumors of an incoming nerf, but personally I hope they avoid retroactively messing with game balance as much as possible.

The Yong-Yong's single shots leave almost no openings, so getting targeted by a skilled opponent means it's pretty much over.

Opponents who get cocky and go for triple bursts are more manageable. The decently long cooldown after burst fire is a chance to quickly close distance.

But it's meaningless if I struggle to close distance only to lose in melee combat.

Get poked by the shield, blasted at point-blank by the beam gun, slashed by the built-in beam sword.

Scutum has a fixed beam sword in the right arm and a pulse beam gun in the left. In melee, they'll suddenly ditch the beam gun mid-cooldown and come slashing with the beam sword.

The pulse beam in the left arm has low power but great rapid-fire ability - getting hit with a spray at close range is quite annoying. If you falter without taking melee dominance, damage racks up before you know it leading to a game over.

Scutum is just too well-made a unit, so it's understandable that a number of players are calling for it to be nerfed. 

Using just the Buster Sword, I can hardly win player matches anymore. Even bringing out Xcalibur, I'm still losing more than winning. Is this a slump? A skill gap? Constantly losing is just not fun.

I know melee combat alone has its limits, but I don't think practicing shooting at this point will easily turn it around.

What am I supposed to do?