Ilithi Dragon

Honestly, I really do not think that there needs to be anything done to PPCs. It's just that all the builds that would directly counter the PPC/Gauss snipers are underpowered because missiles, and SRMs in particular, are underpowered right now.

Also, an SRM splash range decrease would not be necessary if PGI had their splash damage coded properly. As I understand it, the reason they ran into the LOL MISSILES OF DOOM problem is because when a missile hits, it does its full damage to the section it hits, and then does ADDITIONAL damage to any section within its blast radius. What it should do is check the blast radius first, and then split the full damage damage across each section based on the percentage of that section in the blast radius. That way you could have high-damage SRMs with a respectable blast radius without having them murder lights, because the blast radius would not act as a damage multiplier.

No, hill-humpers care about LRMs more than poptarts, because they have a longer window of exposure out of cover, since they can't just pop up and down from behind a hill.

There is still only so much deterrent that LRMs will provide to conventional snipers, though, you're right.

Chavette, on 11 May 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

Um... I'm pretty sure that missiles actually are getting buffed in the next patch. Last I heard, they were, anyway.

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 11 May 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

As a long-time poptart, in MWO and in MW4 Mercs. I can say that LRMs are NOT a real counter to poptarts. Any half-decent poptart will be in cover far too much for a LRM mech to get any kind of reliable lock, and dumb-fire LRMs won't be much of a deterrent against poptarts most of the time.

LRMs will be an effective counter to non-popping snipers, who can't jump in and out of cover, but not poptarts.

Oh, range is definitely a huge factor, but the AC/5 is still underpowered in the DPS it does, compared to the other AC weapons and the tonnage you spend on it.

The AC/5 has good range, yes, but the AC/2 has better range and higher DPS, and weighs less. The AC/5 also does not have a high single-shot damage value, and the DPS on it is pretty low, in general. Reduce the AC/5's cycle time to bring it to at least 3.5 DPS, if not closer to 4 DPS, and that should be fine. That, or reduce its weight cost.

Umm... I have almost never been one-shot-killed by a sniper mech. If you can cockpit a mech, sure, you can get a one-shot-kill, but do you know how hard that is? Since I started playing back in July, I think I have been cockpitted by a sniper at range maybe three times.

The few times that I have been one-shotted by any mech, sniper or no, have either been the rare cockpit shot, or a solid hit to my weaker rear armor, and you don't need a 6-PPC stalker to do that.

Yes, a heavy sniper or poptart will rip apart a big, slow, heavy mech unless that mech manages to walk around a corner on them, but that's because long-range fire support mechs are THE counter to the big, slow, heavy mechs. A mech build doing well against the type of mech it is supposed to be countering does not make it OP.

The problem is that the mechs that are supposed to be countering the long-range fire support mechs are underpowered. How often do you see Medium mechs being fielded in matches? How often do you see brawling Lights? These mechs are seen very infrequently, because the main weapon that gives them serious punch in a brawl, the SRM, is underpowered. If you increase the power of SRMs (while taking care to not make them OP), you will see many more fast Medium brawlers running in close to the snipers and ruining their day, and that will result in fewer snipers and more builds to counter the fast Medium brawlers, and thus more mech diversity.

Snipers are not OP, the counter to snipers (fast Mediums with lots of SRM firepower) are underpowered.