71 replies to this topic

[El Bandito]

Take a look at Large Laser. I am not even talking about is lesser range--the thing takes 1 full second to finish shooting (you have to face the enemy to do that and risk retaliation), and then it has 3.25 second cooldown. That is effectively 4.25 second recharge time.

Don't believe me? Look at this vid --
The LLaser discharges at 1:30 and it finished recharging about 1:35. Almost 5 seconds.

PPC/ERPPC on the other hand fires almost instantly (you can just fire and twist to defend yourself) and has 3 second cool down. It also hits one spot for maximum damage.

It MW2, 3 and 4, Regular Lasers shot with quick burst instead of stream so they had good rate of fire, but that changed in MWO.


Note: This is not a QQ thread. I have more wins than losses and more kills than deaths in this game. I just feel the PPC is now little too good.

Also--Stop mentioning stupid 6 PPC Stalkers in this thread. You don't see me talking about it this opening post so shush.


Now I heard a lot of people saying PPCs are fine cause:

1. Ballistics have better travel speed--which is false. PPC has 2000 speed, as fast as the fastest ballistics and I have seen plenty of people who had mastered the lead time.

2. PPCs cause more heat--Regular PPCs has almost the same damage to heat ratio as LLasers. ERPPC causes substantially more heat but it has much further range to engage the enemy thus have more time to cool off.

3. Regular PPC has dead zone of 90 meters--Oh cmon now. No one worries about that. If people truly worried, they wouldn't have stacked PPC like it is the new fad.

4. PPCs have more weight and are bulkier than LLasers--unfortunately, that is not a valid excuse as there are plenty of mechs such as K2, 3D, Awesomes, Stalkers, Atlas-RS can stack PPCs and dish out major damage in short amount of time.


It is the short amount of time, I am concerned with. Sniping weapons such as PPC, and especially ERPPC, should not have mere 3 second cooldown. (no ammo to waste even if you miss, yay!) I think bumping it up to 4 seconds--same as Gauss Rifle--will make it less hurting while giving snipers better group firing timing coupled with Gauss.

Even then, LLasers will still have longer recharge time.

Opinions are welcome.

Edited by El Bandito, 12 April 2013 - 07:11 AM.

[MrPenguin]

El Bandito, on 11 April 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

2. PPCs cause more heat--Regular PPCs has almost the same damage to heat ratio as LLasers. ERPPC causes substantially more heat but it has much further range to engage the enemy thus have more time to cool off.

Except they travel so fast that this is pretty much a moot point. And Gauss is actually superior if we're talking about range + Damage + heat ratio.

ER PPC's and PPC's run hot, especially if you boat them. Theirs no arguing this.

El Bandito, on 11 April 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

3. Regular PPC has dead zone of 90 meters--Oh cmon now. No one worries about that. If people truly worried, they wouldn't have stacked PPC like it is the new fad.

Not worrying about it doesn't suddenly make the PPC viable at below 90 meters. It just means you're ignoring the problem.

El Bandito, on 11 April 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

4. PPCs have more weight and are bulkier than LLasers--unfortunately, that is not a valid excuse as there are plenty of mechs such as K2, 3D, Awesomes, Stalkers, Atlas-RS can stack PPCs and dish out major damage in short amount of time.

Yes, yes it is a valid "excuse". Weight is an incredibly important factor when it comes to builds in mechwarrior online. To the point where being off by a ton can potentially ruin your build.

[Willie Sauerland]

El Bandito, on 11 April 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

3. Regular PPC has dead zone of 90 meters--Oh cmon now. No one worries about that. If people truly worried, they wouldn't have stacked PPC like it is the new fad.

MrPenguin is dead on,

but I would like to add

one more point to this.

A 6 PPC stalker

MUST

have a team

to cover his ***

because

ANYTHING

which gets within

90 meters of it

will eat its lunch.

In this sense,

boating isn't overpowered,

it is team-work.

[Roland]

Quote

3. Regular PPC has dead zone of 90 meters--Oh cmon now. No one worries about that. If people truly worried, they wouldn't have stacked PPC like it is the new fad.

The 6 PPC stalker I murdered last night while standing right in front of him was certainly worried about the 90m min range, since he was totally incapable of doing any damage to me.

[NinetyProof]

Ahh ... no?

Somebody else pointed out a bunch of flaws in your logic, but there are others.

PPC is *much* MUCH harder to aim then Lasers. If your off a *little* with lasers, you have time to correct and still get most of your damage in, with PPC's a miss is a miss.

Also, you can't compare Large Lasers to PPC's. LL's have no minimum range, where are PPC's do ... and as somebody mentioned that's HUGE.

You have to compare LL's to ER PPC's ... because ER's are the only ones you can use up close and they run a TON hotter. And that is the trade off. It's one thing to chain alpha straight PPC's ... it's quite another to chain fire ER's ... you will simply melt down.

Nothing to see here ... move along.

The issue right now is really that only energy weapons are working correctly. Host State Rewind is not implemented for either ballistics or missiles, and missiles are double borked cause they are nerfed. That is why you see a ton of PPC's .. cause they are working as intended. Don't need to break them just cause other weapons are broken.

[Znail]

El Bandito, on 11 April 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

Take a look at Large Laser. I am not even talking about is lesser range--the thing takes 1 full second to finish shooting (you have to face the enemy to do that and risk retaliation), and then it has 3.25 second cooldown. That is effectively 4.25 second recharge time.

Nope, the cooldown is between the beginning of shots so the effective recharge is 3.25 seconds.

[BoPop]

i don't sweat PPC boats that much. if ya see one, avoid it, skirt around boulders and what not.

i don't know.. maybe i'm just a noob but, i don't really feel overpowered by any given weapon or mech. usually i die from being outnumbered, or just outpiloted, or outmeched. there is some scissor/paper/rock component to the game.

if you run up to an X with 6 PPC's and you are in a Y with 4 ML2SSRM's, did X beat you because it had 6 PPC's? or could there have been other reasons? maybe Y vs X would always loose, whether he uses 6ppc's or not. perhaps X would have killed you even quicker with a different load out.

i think the weapons in this game need some stability for awhile. i'd kinda like NOTHING to get nerfed for awhile. let us simmer on it. too much uncertainty in the weaphon market

[Chaos7]

Lets nerf everything and fight with wooden sticks.

[MrPenguin]

VOHRIMENKO, on 11 April 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

Lets nerf everything and fight with wooden sticks.

Since people love nerfs so much, then they should just replace all weapons and modules with these bad boys.

[Deathlike]

Comparing LLs to PPCs or ERPPCs is a bad idea. You sound dumb for doing it.

There are some legit reasons to increase PPC recharge (maybe a .5 sec increase), but in the context of your argument, this is a L2P issue.

AC2 has the same speed as the PPC/ERPPC. PONDER THAT.

Edited by Deathlike, 11 April 2013 - 08:50 AM.

[Jonathan Paine]

Two simple fixes that would not change the PPC itself: no more pinpoint accuracy for alpha strikes (chain fire if you want precision), actual damage to mechs that violate heat restrictions. The more you pass the threshold, the more damage (even if you have no ammo stored, or did not override!!!)

Problem solved.

[Volt Corsair]

Well, making them fire slower really only increases cooling efficiency, now doesn't it. One could simply chain fire them to keep their dps afloat. Nice try, but it wouldn't balance anything. Besides, the meta constantly changes, and I have a feeling it'll happen again this coming Tuesday. It's hard not to notice that almost all of the trials are snipers in some fashion, as well as the increase in poptarting, which I do NOT like.

[Culler]

Some day PPC stalkers will start taking a single ERPPC so they aren't up poop creek without a paddle when the enemy gets close. It's not like the extra heat is significant considering the massive heat they work with anyway. I don't understand why people are so afraid to mix PPCs and ERPPCs. You want to be able to have the range and flexibility of an ERPPC but there's little point in having many ERPPCs because it's too damn hot.

[Sug]

Correct me if i'm wrong (need I ask?) but i'm pretty sure that ppcs DID have a longer cooldown, like 2 months ago.

No one was using them so the dev's decreased the cd time.

Edited by Sug, 11 April 2013 - 11:00 AM.

[Grayseven]

Culler, on 11 April 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

Some day PPC stalkers will start taking a single ERPPC so they aren't up poop creek without a paddle when the enemy gets close. It's not like the extra heat is significant considering the massive heat they work with anyway. I don't understand why people are so afraid to mix PPCs and ERPPCs. You want to be able to have the range and flexibility of an ERPPC but there's little point in having many ERPPCs because it's too damn hot.

One of the best Stalker boat builds I saw had a pair of ERPPC's to go with its regular PPC's...much to the chagrin of the Jenner that pulled up to 20 meters and stopped to shoot at it...

[Mister Blastman]

Let's just hold off on this PPC hysteria until we see what the developers have in store for SRMs/LRMs and perhaps medium mechs like the Hunchback (speed cap increase anyone?). Until the, enjoy PPCs finally being useful. They've been mostly useless since June, remember?

[Willie Sauerland]

Grayseven, on 11 April 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

One of the best Stalker boat builds I saw had a pair of ERPPC's to go with its regular PPC's...much to the chagrin of the Jenner that pulled up to 20 meters and stopped to shoot at it...

My 6 PPC stalker

has 4 regular and 2 ER

just for this reason.

I can only do 1 Alpha

and get off

a max of 3 chain fired shots

on a very cold map

before I shut down.

This is not as overpowered

as people seem to

want to believe it is.

To use this build effectively,

you have got to have time

which means the enemy

must not prioritize you

as a target.

[Yokaiko]

Sug, on 11 April 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

Correct me if i'm wrong (need I ask?) but i'm pretty sure that DID have a longer cooldown, like 2 months ago.

No one was using them so the dev's decreased the cd time.

It was longer than that. Back in closed beta...I'm thinking August or September they reduced the PPC cycle time from 4 to 3.

Back when they were ten heat and single heatsinks only everyone giggled and continued ignoring them.

[Roadbeer]

Not going to pile on here, but as was mentioned in another thread, last year they took the cycle time of PPC from 4 to 3(ish) and everyone joked about making a hot weapon even hotter, I think in the last couple months they dialed heat down a little and gave it the EMP feature.

All other points have been made above.

Another factor (at least for their proclivity) is that convergence has been removed, so targeting at 100m and switching to 1km has a time factor of 0s. so you can hide behind your rock, move out, pull the trigger and you're dead on.

Willie Sauerland, on 11 April 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

{K Town speech}

We're not there Willie Our ways are foreign to GD posters who have not been shown the light of K Town

[Gideon Grey]

VOHRIMENKO, on 11 April 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

Lets nerf everything and fight with wooden sticks.

I know, let's have a spelling contest!