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Firstly, a relatively large portion of the forum community have expressed their reasoning's and musings over the heat scale and how several weapons in the game are quite unbalanced with respect to having their fire rates increased and no comparable reduction in heat and/or damage, although this seems to be being slowly addressed.
Secondly, DHS, even in their full 0.2 HPS implementation would be unlikely to be the be all, end all cure for several of these weapons due to their considerably higher heat generation (Large Pulse Laser, PPC, ERPPC, AC20)
Now, granted that some of these high heat weapons are seeing more use now with DHS, the increased dissipation has caused us to see exceptional and excessive use of the smaller lower heat weapons due to their efficiency allowing them to be fired more often, yet they retain quite high alpha strike potential when used in large numbers.
One weapon that is definitely seeing a lot more screen time, is the Medium Pulse Laser.
It occurred to me that you can fit a Jenner with 6 of these (albeit with a 250XL Engine) and although you can only alpha two or three times before you overheat, your first alpha could remove all the armour from the centre rear torso, with 8 points of damage (excluding crits) being dealt to the internals.
As there is around 54 points of internal remaining, your second Alpha won't quite core it, unless you start taking crits into account and suddenly 6 hits on internals, each potentially dealing up to 18 damage, could very quickly polish off that Assault that was too slow to turn after the first volley.
(PLEASE NOTE: IT IS CURRENTLY UNCONFIRMED WHETHER CRITICAL DAMAGE IS DEALT TO THE ENGINE)
Garth's Jenner doesn't seem so implausible now does it?
So, one Atlas cored in 4.5 seconds means nerf Double Heat Sinks or Medium Pulse Lasers right?
Well.... not quite.
DHS being nerfed still hurts heavies and assaults more than it does lights and mediums, so it's best to leave them at full capacity to level the playing field.
Small Lasers, Small Pulse Lasers, Medium Lasers and Medium Pulse Lasers have already been nerfed once as PGI increased their heat values by one point each as they were deemed too powerful early on in beta.
But, was this due to the heat generation equations for the Small Laser and all Pulse lasers being incorrect causing them to run cooler than intended?
So, now with these lasers back to their correct heat levels, was the original nerf in early beta warranted?
Yes and no.
At Table Top Values, these smaller laser weapons had incredible damage to ton and good damage to heat ratio's, and although they do have limited range, distance to target is not as punishing as in tabletop, so a nerf was not unwarranted to make these weapons balanced.
However I still think that the balancing was done incorrectly.
My Proposal
What (I believe) should have happened instead, was for their damage values to be reduced by one point each.
Currently, they are this:
Weapon......Heat.......Damage
Sml Las...........2..............3
Smlpls Las......3..............3
Med Las..........4..............5
Medpls Las......5..............6
Tabletop Values are this:
Weapon........Heat........Damage
Sml Las............1..............3
Smlpls Las........2..............3
Med Las............3.............5
Medpls Las.......4..............6
My proposal would make them as follows:
Weapon.........Heat.....Damage
Sml Las...............1............2
Smlpls Las...........2............2 (possibly 2.25 to stop it being so useless)
Med Las...............3............4
Medpls Las..........4............5
Balancing them in this way has several effects.
1. Reduces the "laserboat" alpha strike capability to a more manageable and balanced level.
2. Reduces DPS, but increases efficiency, meaning they will retain a high damage output due to the lower heat which allows prolonged firing.
3. Makes these weapons easier to heat manage.
Point 1 helps to address Garth's Jenner and other energy alpha builds where the damage was just too high from one alpha strike, such as the HBK-4P although, in the case of the Medium Pulse Laser, it doesn't solve it completely.
Point 2 also has the hidden benefit of rewarding the skilful. Being able to get more shots off before overheating still equals a higher damage output if you have a steady aim.
Point 3 is probably the most important, as a large number (if not all) of the stock variants are now cooler and less punishing for new players who are learning the game and are having to use Trial Mechs.
TL:DR
The Small, Small Pulse, Medium, and Medium Pulse lasers do too much damage for their weight and they are also too hot for new players to manage well.
Reduce heat AND damage by one point each to balance them out and make them easier to manage.
And so we reach the most important part.... What are your opinions and thoughts?
Edited by Sadato, 19 November 2012 - 09:39 AM.
