Free-to-play online space ninja MMO-lite video game developer Digital Extremes just announced a massive weapon rework for the game that affects almost all the game’s projectile weapons.

Reading through the rework is an arduous task and almost everything affected has received a boost to its outgoing damage and other stats. Overall, this does not make anything that was considered a poor performing weapon altogether that much better, but it does mean that newer players will be able to stand up better to content.

One particular weapon worth mentioning that got an upgrade is the interesting Dual Toxocyst.

This weapon is a secondary sidearm based on the Infested enemy in the game that fires extremely slowly but with a high effectiveness against amour. As a gun, it can hit hard, but not quite as hard as others in the game in a similar role.

Where the toxocysts really get interesting is that they have a special effect. Upon landing a headshot, the guns make a biological shlurp sound and pop open to reveal its jagged, gooey viscera – it also starts to fire extremely quickly, with reduced recoil and unlimited ammo.

The biggest problem: although the rapid-fire no-ammo period lasts six seconds, it also cannot be refreshed while it’s going on.

It is also difficult to land an initial headshot with these guns due to the extremely low fire rate. It’s even worse after running and gunning to go back to the plodding, slow fire again, making the next-up headshot a challenge.

With the rework, additional headshots once the guns are excited will extend the duration of the excitation – with the drawback that the excitation duration has been reduced to two seconds.

This part of the rework brings the toxocysts into line with the newer headshot-based sidearm Knell. The knell only has one shot in its magazine, but upon headshot goes into a similar mode for three seconds.

Before the rework, the toxocysts were interesting but extremely flawed. The very low fire rate and high recoil meant that they needed to be modded to provide heavy-hit outgoing damage and increased accuracy to get that initial headshot. Then on that headshot the wielder had to hope for a group of enemies to pepper with shots before the six seconds ran out.

The toxocsysts also benefit from two other mechanics in their design.

First, the guns come with high base damage and high puncture damage – this makes these guns excellent against armored enemies, many that tend to spawn in higher level content – and, once excited, gain additional innate toxin damage. Second, the toxocysts can be modded to yield 100 percent status chance, meaning that they are great for triggering multiple status effects.

Although the headshot excitation can be refreshed now, the two seconds seems too low given Knell’s three second length. Getting that first headshot to get the whole thing rolling can be a little difficult, although with enough care and precision it can be done and subsequent headshots could be pulled from a group.

In conclusion, this makes the toxocysts much more of a viable weapon and less of a gimmick.

Clearly, Digital Extremes chose the two second period to balance what they feel about the potential outgoing damage but further testing may be needed to see if they still need yet another boost to put them into competition with more standard carry sidearms.