28 replies to this topic

[The pessimistic optimist]

Pulse laser are too heavy too hot and short ranage. There are very few reasons to take pulse lasers except for a few niche builds. What can be done to make pulse lasers better?

[FupDup]

FupDup's pulse laser buffs of great truth and justice:

Small Pulse:
Range --> 120m (normal Small Laser would be about 150-170)
Damage --> Maybe up to 4 if necessary

Medium Pulse:
Range: --> ~235m
Damage --> 6.5

Large Pulse:
Range --> 390m
Damage --> ~11
Heat --> 8

Edited by FupDup, 15 September 2013 - 08:16 AM.

[Cuddlytron]

FupDup, on 15 September 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

FupDup's pulse laser buffs of great truth and justice:

Small Pulse:
Range --> 120m (normal Small Laser would be about 150-170)
Damage --> Maybe up to 4 if necessary

Medium Pulse:
Range: --> ~235m
Damage --> 6.5

Large Pulse:
Range --> 390m
Damage --> ~11
Heat --> 8

I second this motion. Even now, being somewhat suboptimal, pulse lasers still find their way onto my mechs because they're fun. A small amount of tweaking would make them fun and competitive.

[Devils Advocate]

I'm fine with them being heavier brawling weapons myself. I say give them the machinegun treatment and buff their criticals and I'll be happy with them.

[The pessimistic optimist]

FupDup, on 15 September 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

FupDup's pulse laser buffs of great truth and justice:

Small Pulse:
Range --> 120m (normal Small Laser would be about 150-170)
Damage --> Maybe up to 4 if necessary

Medium Pulse:
Range: --> ~235m
Damage --> 6.5

Large Pulse:
Range --> 390m
Damage --> ~11
Heat --> 8

Yea I like those numbers I would also add to that beam time down to 0.5 from .0.6.

Edited by SirSmokes, 15 September 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[Sug]

All they need to do is reduce the cooldown and the beam duration, making pulse lasers short ranged high dps weapons. Give the meds and large pulse lasers the same cd and duration as the small ones.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Sug, on 15 September 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

All they need to do is reduce the cooldown and the beam duration, making pulse lasers short ranged high dps weapons. Give the meds and large pulse lasers the same cd and duration as the small ones.

This - would show my hunchies some love (run just for the noise but not too bad);
If you want "some" range;-
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f2979532261f5a2
Or close up and capable of zombieing. the Microwave.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...fe08020f11170f8
Needs careful trigger control, especially on the hotter maps.

[Appogee]

I agree.. the triple whammy of 'weighs more, less range, more heat' means they are rarely the best choice.

If they could at least have better range, or lower heat, then they'd be viable.

[aniviron]

Ideally, I would really like to see them overhauled into a system that makes them unique. If they're going to be the same as normal lasers but with a shorter burn time, the disadvantages of heat, weight, and range will mean good players always prefer normal lasers, as they aren't that difficult to hold on-target. There have been a lot of good suggestions; my personal favourite is the one where they act as laser machine guns, you can hold for continuous fire at good dps but bad burst damage, but there have been a lot of propositions for how to change them if you use the search function.

That said, Fup's numbers would be an excellent way to balance them if the dev team decides that they just aren't going to look at the base mechanics.

edit: this reminds me, remember when all the pulse lasers got their heat bumped up to "bring them in line" and give them all the same damage/heat ratio, which wound up giving the LPL a nerf that every single forumer agreed was unneeded? Paul said they did that so they could tweak the pulse lasers more later. Well, it's been a few months, where have the tweaks been?

Edited by aniviron, 15 September 2013 - 10:54 AM.

[Astrolux]

Buff pulse lasers?? Are you crazy? They've clearly been competitive for the last year and a half since the devs have seen fit not to touch them even once during open beta.

[Tor6]

If the devs cared AT ALL about pulse lasers they would have looked at them sometime during the last year and buffed them instead of 'normalizing' them as if that's something that actually was wanted/needed. Actually this could be said of countless things that they've said they were going to change/fix 'soon' and then completely ignored forever.

Remember Raven engine buffs? Remember the cat head hitbox they promised would be normalized? Remember the dozens if not hundreds of other things that were broken that they said they'd look into fixing?

[Scrawny Cowboy]

Make em like MechWarrior 2 pulse lasers, or increase the speed so it is almost on par.

[Corvus Antaka]

3 medium pulses currently give 18 damage in 3.6 seconds

3 MLaser gives 15 damage in 4 seconds

3 more damage and almost half a second less time to cycle.

fairly close to correct.

adding some slight range might be ok. Spulse doesnt need a range buff, it already has the same range as a small laser with significantly more DPS.

Mpulse could maybe take a 50-100m long range buff.

Lpulse could stand a touch more damage like 12 dmg perhaps.

[zagibu]

I don't use pulse lasers besides the small one, because I feel that the shorter range, higher tonnage AND increased heat production of the medium and large versions just aren't worth the damage increase.

The medium just doesn't have enough range, half damage at 270m is terrible, even for a brawler.

[Escef]

I would avoid buffing damage to pulse lasers at this point, but a range increase would do wonders for their viability.

[Angel of Annihilation]

SirSmokes, on 15 September 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

Pulse laser are too heavy too hot and short ranage. There are very few reasons to take pulse lasers except for a few niche builds. What can be done to make pulse lasers better?

Yeah I have some problem with them myself though not exactly the same problems as you.

SPL - The issue here is that there is just not enough advantage to taking the SPL or the SL mostly due to range issues. Heat, weight, damage and lets face it pulse duration are very similar between the two so why take the one that inhibits your range severely.

MPL - This one comes dow to heat, weight and range, it is twice as heavy as the ML and almost half the range. Damage difference is minimal and 0.4 seconds on the beam duration doesn't make up for these fact. They are also hotter and when you consider that you theoretically lose 1 heat sink for every MPL you choose over a ML due to the weight difference, it is hard to justify the MPL.

LPL - This one is mostly about heat and weight. I personally don't have an issue with the 300m range but with weight and heat similar to a PPC it can't really compete with the LL, especially since it has most of the disadvantages of a LLs plus being significantly shorter ranged.

The problem with these weapons is that thier balancing mechanic in TT was a greatly enhanced chance to hit with them. This is not simulated currently in MWO and I am now sure they can be simulated without a major change in the game play mechanics.

Now when you think about it, accuracy in TT equated to a weapon that was able to hit more often thus do more damage. This would make the obvious fix for pluse lasers be about a 20% increase across the board in damage to simulate the accuracy bonus they are suppose to have. At this point they would become a viable option dispite the issues I mentioned above.

[Applejack]

Make Pulse Lasers fire one bug pulse that delivers all of their damage. That'd be a nice phat buff.

[Yosharian]

Low range + heat = useless in this meta

Accuracy bonus from TT not represented in this game = useless

Frankly I find it easier to hit fast moving targets with normal lasers because I can 'hose' the target, while pulses just generally miss miss miss, or miss hit miss, etc, resulting in a lower damage output.

Essentially pulse lasers are unfixable unless they receive DRASTIC buffs. If their heat was the _same_ as normal lasers they 'might' be picked up on some builds. That tells you how useless they are in this game.

[Bront]

Shorten the beam duration a bit, and drop the weight/size of the LPL to 6 tons/2 crits, and the MPL to 1.5 tons. I think those changes would help as much as anything else.

Then again, I think the stock laser beam duration is too long.

[BATTLECRUISER OPERATIONAL]

7ton = too much

Heat = too much

Edited by gemzd, 15 September 2013 - 01:46 PM.