60 replies to this topic

[TexAce]

Viktor Drake, on 04 September 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Totally removed them from all my mechs and I ONLY ran mixed use builds, not sniper cheese. The heat totally ruined them in my opinion. I much perfer being able to switch out LL and PPC and have them do the same overall job just with different mechanics than to be forced to use LLs for every mixed build that needs a heavy energy weapon. Now instead of a few mechs with PPCs, a Few with ER PPCs and a few with LLs, all I got is the same old boring build on every mech. YeeHaw thank you PGI.

why? There is still the LPL and PPCs and especially ERPPCs shoot much further than LLs and are pinpoint. I think PPCs are still viable. Plus they are the only sniping weapon now that do high pinpoint damage and don't need a charge, like the gauss does. They have their place.

[Almond Brown]

D1al T0ne, on 04 September 2013 - 09:11 PM, said:

That's exactly where I would like to see this game end up "To each their own". There's nothing worse than a game where something is absolutely definitely the best setup and anyone not using it is terrible.

I spectate other people playing their Jager's (My fav mech in the game) with setups I would never feel comfortable using in a million years, but they're doing really well and killing lots of things, and that's just... awesome.

I'm not saying no one should ever use PPC's, I'm just saying that from where I stand, they don't have any redeeming qualities. I prefer a weapon that will hit at any range I fire it, but that's just my playstyle.

Juan gave you one. Fire and forget. Lasers have to be tracked or held. Another one. How is your Jump Sniping with them LL's? Not near as good as PPC's I'd bet.

If you want to narrow your choices down to simply Lasers, then as you say, "To each their own" indeed.

You said so yourself ffs. You have watched players drive Mechs with certain builds and think wtf? Then they do very well. Do you think that was just a one time lucky ride along? I can assure you, it is not. Good players always do well with what they like to tote.

This whole, "If you use X weapon, you must suck!" is total BS. It just shows how narrow a view some folks have and then assume that they are right and everyone else is just Noob... LOL

[Grifthin]

Awesome 8Q with 2 PPC + 2 Large laser + 3 Medium lasers. Works pretty well - dakka people at mid range with LL + PPC, dakka them close with LL + medium. Seems like PPC's are in pretty sweet spot at the moment providing it's not the only thing on your mech.

[Vodrin Thales]

Grifthin, on 05 September 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

Awesome 8Q with 2 PPC + 2 Large laser + 3 Medium lasers. Works pretty well - dakka people at mid range with LL + PPC, dakka them close with LL + medium. Seems like PPC's are in pretty sweet spot at the moment providing it's not the only thing on your mech.

How exactly are lasers dakka? Only problem I had with this paragraph.

[Black Ivan]

The PPC nerf wasn't enough.They are still the premium sniper weapon I encounter most.

[Trauglodyte]

I run both PPCs still. Have PPCs on my Cicadas, an ER on my Blackjack, and a mix of reg and ER on my AWS-9M. The changes didn't do anything to the weapons. What it has done is forced the player to manage their heat. You either have the capability to pilot, fire, and manage your resources or you don't and then you come to the boards and complain. It isn't really hard but yet I see people that just bemoan any sort of adjustement that prevents them from running one button monkey builds. We have things like a heat bar, coolant flush, and chain fire to help deal with the issues of heat. Jump on board or become smoldering slag. Either way suits me fine.

[SilentWolff]

Ngamok, on 05 September 2013 - 06:09 AM, said:

Not true. I use them on two of my Dragon builds, the 1N and 1C that have the left torso cockpit height mounts. They are great for peaking around left corners and shooting people 1300 meters out.

Edit: I used LLs more than I did PPCs on most of my mechs so this change doesn't affect me as much. Though I have not played my HM or 732 since those carry the Gauss + PPC/LL mox combos.

Trust me, its not viable unless you enjoy being shut down on a constant basis and you can forget using them on Terra Therma.
Just reduce the heat by one and that should help making them viable again.

[SkyCake]

Black Ivan, on 05 September 2013 - 09:21 AM, said:

The PPC nerf wasn't enough.They are still the premium sniper weapon I encounter most.

regular PPC's, NOT ER!, are perfectly balanced yes... ER is totally buggered

[Lootee]

The ER seems too hot.

I only run 1 ERPPC on my medium mech builds (CN9 and TBT) and even just one with 12-14 DHS is unsustainable. With the latest patch It seems they've thrown out the balanced builds along with the cheese. I only use the ERPPC for long range, and switch to medium lasers and SRMs up close. Just a single ERPPC at long range (which no one can argue is overpowered) shuts you down after a few shots.

Haven't even tried the AWS-9M yet, because if 1 ERPPC is that bad on my mediums the poor AWS must be an oven.

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 05 September 2013 - 05:01 PM.

[Drollzy]

Wow my post got deleted...didnt think PGI did that... Anyway it went along the lines of... Bad Patch PPC nerfed way too much... No more money for MWO all going to my star citizen profile.

I have close to 50 mechs and only use 4 of them lol and happy that I can finally roll my brawlers more effectively.

typical PGi over kill on nerfs and buffs...dial it back a little and you might get it right... one day.

[Training Instructor]

Wait a minute, are you crazy people saying that you can load up one or two ppcs, and then use the other energy slots for lasers? What's next, telling me that you can put something besides a gauss rifle in a ballistic slot?

Pfft, kids these days with their new-fangled mixed loadouts.

[MyszTrap]

Well PPCs are still viable, back to back games of 720+ damage in my blackjack running 2 ppcs and 4 medium lasers. ERPPCs are still viable as a single weapon, but it is no longer close to the king of weapons that it was before this patch, which is refreshing. I am actually enjoying playing my mediums again, since I am not nearly dead 6 seconds after the fighting starts by 2x ERPPC + gauss that was ruining the battlefield.

[Ngamok]

cdrolly, on 05 September 2013 - 08:21 PM, said:

Wow my post got deleted...didnt think PGI did that... Anyway it went along the lines of... Bad Patch PPC nerfed way too much... No more money for MWO all going to my star citizen profile.

I have close to 50 mechs and only use 4 of them lol and happy that I can finally roll my brawlers more effectively.

typical PGi over kill on nerfs and buffs...dial it back a little and you might get it right... one day.

OMG, threaten with Star Citizen more please.

[Corvus Antaka]

yeah the ERPPC and PPC heat is perfect now. Great and powerful gun, but either it is hot or it has short range limitations.

PPC has been until now due to meta since closed beta when they dropped heat been my primary gun across all my mechs. I've racked almost 250,000 damage with the PPC.

It is really nice to run lasers and other guns now and feel viable finally.

The gauss adjustment has worked great too.

[Lootee]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 06 September 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

yeah the ERPPC and PPC heat is perfect now. Great and powerful gun, but either it is hot or it has short range limitations.

PPC has been until now due to meta since closed beta when they dropped heat been my primary gun across all my mechs. I've racked almost 250,000 damage with the PPC.

It is really nice to run lasers and other guns now and feel viable finally.

The gauss adjustment has worked great too.

I have to disagree. The PPC is in a good spot now but the ERPPC is useless. Even just a single one produces way too much heat when fired by itself. I find myself overheating from just using my 1 long range weapon on my balanced CN9 (1 ERPPC, 2 ML, 2 SRM6) and TBT (1 ERPPC, 4 ML, 1 SRM6) builds. God help you if you have more than 1 ERPPC. I'll probably be stripping them out in exchange for ERLLs.

A single ERPPC is hardly what most people would consider OP or 'cheese' but they've been rendered mostly unusable with the excessive heat nerf.

I'd rather they set max ERPPC alpha limit to 1 and reduce heat back to 12 or 13 than what they've done which is basically removed it from the game. It's not worth using a single one at long range right now. You'll quickly overheat with just a single ERPPC in anything smaller than an AWS with 20+ DHS (which is barely enough to handle the heat from *1* of them, much less 3)

Edited by PanchoTortilla, 06 September 2013 - 08:59 AM.

[Wolfways]

Pity my K2 is screwed now.
I can try to stay at long range and fire at mechs that dart from cover to cover (i.e. rarely fire.) or i can get closer and fire a couple of times before overheating.
PPC's useless for short range because of 0 damage.
ERPPC's useless for short range because of heat.
So i'm left with 2xMLs and 2xMG's, and if someone is shooting at you when you're in a K2 you want to be facing them as little as possible, so MG's are mostly useless. So i have 2xML's to fight with (i.e. I'm dead)

[Trauglodyte]

The great thing about the PPC changes is that it forces you to make a choice. Granted, this is all based on the mech you're driving, but if you're in a lighter mech (like my Cicadas), do I take the PPC for a long range punch and then feel good about only having 4 Md Lasers for close in or do I forego the long range and stick with just short range? If you're in a bigger mech, do you go with the regular PPC and supplement with a lot of shorter weapons or do you go with the ER PPC, add in more heat sinks, and then feel ok with having either lighter short ranged weapons or less of the heavier hitting short ranged weapons?

Its a give and take. And that is good for everyone.

[N a p e s]

I've yet to really test the ERPPC in a combat setting since my heat efficiency always drops way below comfortable levels (for me) when I equip one in the mechlab. However, could this be justified if they increased the travel speed of the ER PPC? Wouldn't that promote long range play where heat is less of an issue? It should still be mismatched with the gauss' travel speed so that we don't go right back to that combo.

The PPC on the other hand feels good as a medium-long range pin point damage weapon.

[Corvus Antaka]

PanchoTortilla, on 06 September 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

I have to disagree. The PPC is in a good spot now but the ERPPC is useless. Even just a single one produces way too much heat when fired by itself. I find myself overheating from just using my 1 long range weapon on my balanced CN9 (1 ERPPC, 2 ML, 2 SRM6) and TBT (1 ERPPC, 4 ML, 1 SRM6) builds. God help you if you have more than 1 ERPPC. I'll probably be stripping them out in exchange for ERLLs.

A single ERPPC is hardly what most people would consider OP or 'cheese' but they've been rendered mostly unusable with the excessive heat nerf.

I'd rather they set max ERPPC alpha limit to 1 and reduce heat back to 12 or 13 than what they've done which is basically removed it from the game. It's not worth using a single one at long range right now. You'll quickly overheat with just a single ERPPC in anything smaller than an AWS with 20+ DHS (which is barely enough to handle the heat from *1* of them, much less 3)

Actually if you consider the current dynamic the ERPPC is now the only long range gun that can do what the gauss does with 5 less damage but needing no ammo, less tonnage, and without a charge timer.

I've used both 1 and dual erppc to solid effect. however I do hear you on the solo erppc maybe being a touch hot. imho the only other viable solution is to put the ERPPC back down to 13 heat but link it at 1 instead of 2 so 2 fired still gives thecurrent 30 heat.

overall though I still think 15 heat is just fine. it's not the end all be all of all guns anymore.

[Magna Canus]

The ERPPC is now the only "point-and-click / fire-and-forget" weapon available that can do 10 full points of damage at up to 810 meters range (10 meters farther out than the "standard sensor range").

Comparing the ERPPC to other weapons or weapon systems that do roughly 10 damage you see that for full damage with a laser and even a pulse laser you need to track your target or possibly spread your damage over multiple components. AC's need their aim adjusted due to gravitational influence and the drop increases with distance. ERPPC does have these issue.

Also, for full damage you need to expose yourself for the full durration, thus you are at a higher risk for counter attacks. The ERPPC limits that risk significantly.

Compare the ERPPC to other weapons in terms of slots/tons and you see that for those 10 points of damage at comparable ranges you save both slots and tons. AC's either need to be grouped to do 10+ damage at around 810 meters, the Gaus costs you twice the slots and tons, etc.

The ERLL is the one weapon that comes close with range and damage, but does 1 less damage and needs 1 second tracking for full damage.

What I want to say with all of this is that the ERPPC has a distince SET of advantages over other weapons and weapon systems and NEEDS some form of balancing factor which is in this case is heat.

There is nothing more frustrating than to be torn appart at extreme long range without the chance to return fire. Extreme long range weapons are fine for softening up a target, but it is more of a fight and more fun when your target can fight back. Fortunately I have been seeing less of those games where you have both teams peeking around corners or jumping around constantly taking little pot shots at eachother. Fights like that are very boring and encourage threads like one I have been reading recently "Timidity is a great tactic".

The higher heat on the ERPPC makes you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the weapon as well as encourage people to use mixed load-outs which is great. It makes a those that relied on a "point & click" strategy to evolve in their game-play or accept that the "I win button" (i.e. high damage pinpoint alpha) does not always work.