26 replies to this topic

[Sowaka]

As a new player I've noticed a LOT of medium lasers going off around the battlefield but nearly no large/small lasers and absolutely no pulse lasers. Could anyone fill me in on why the other lasers are so rarely used?

Also, as someone who loves giant purple/blue lasers I was hoping someone could point me towards a few builds that use three or four LLs or LPLs.

On another note... I'm quite hungrily eyeing the humpback with eight medium lasers all overs it's body... Is there any reason why I shouldn't use this guy over the typical one equipped with an AC20?

[Jin Ma]

pulse lasers and regular lasers have mechanic sthat are too similar. they onlly differ in numbers like duration, damage, cooldown, range, heat etc..

so basically when two weapon sets differ only in that way, then one set will clearly have a better set of stats than the other one, and be used more often.

only way to really balance pulse lasers is to give it a unique mechanic

Sowaka, on 18 September 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

On another note... I'm quite hungrily eyeing the humpback with eight medium lasers all overs it's body... Is there any reason why I shouldn't use this guy over the typical one equipped with an AC20?

only problem with that hunchback is you will have almost all of your weapons in 1 location. so if people take that out you hav enothing to go bacck on. and people do aim for it. and that hump has a very big hitbox.( you can even ihit it from the back)

i'd reccomend the blackjack if you want to run 8 medium lasers. (though its a lot more rare, with the recent ghost heat changes. )

Edited by Jin Ma, 18 September 2013 - 02:56 PM.

[scJazz]

Sowaka, on 18 September 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

As a new player I've noticed a LOT of medium lasers going off around the battlefield but nearly no large/small lasers and absolutely no pulse lasers. Could anyone fill me in on why the other lasers are so rarely used?

Also, as someone who loves giant purple/blue lasers I was hoping someone could point me towards a few builds that use three or four LLs or LPLs.

On another note... I'm quite hungrily eyeing the humpback with eight medium lasers all overs it's body... Is there any reason why I shouldn't use this guy over the typical one equipped with an AC20?

Medium Lasers weigh 1 ton... so many mechs which otherwise have Autocannons, or LRMs, or PPCs for instance will frequently carry a couple medium lasers as backup weapons. They are without doubt the best backup weapon available. That is why you see so many of them.

The entire Hunchback line is useful, cheap, newb friendly, and cheap. You could make a worse choice for First Mech.

Smurfy
http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

Smurfy Mechlab
http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab

[Kanajashi]

Hello! welcome to the game

Yes the normal lasers are much more popular then the pulse laser counterparts. Comparing normal lasers to pulse lasers; While the pulse laser has a greater damage per second (DPS) they also are hotter, the normal lasers are more efficient in terms of damage per heat. This same comparison is made for their weights as well, a medium laser weighs 1 ton and deals 5 damage while a medium pulse weighs 2 tons and deals 6 damage. 200% increase in weight for 120% of the damage.

The positive that pulse lasers have for them is that they do their damage over a shorter period of time. Instead of having to hold on target for a full second to deal max damage, the pulse laser only has to be on target for 0.6 seconds. This can make tracking lights easier, but is fairly situational.

The hunchback 4-P with the 9 energy slots is a damn good mech, I own one myself and it is capable of dealing some good damage. It does have the hunchback weakness of having the majority of its weapons in a fairy exposed side torso. The saving grace is that the hitbox for this section is actually almost all front side torso. Take a look at this image taken from the hitbox guide on the forums. (http://mwomercs.com/...x-localisation/)

As you can see the right rear torso of the hunchback is only a side panel under the butt of the hunch. Because of this you can allocate the armor greatly towards the front and increase the durability of your hunch. I run my hunchbacks with 4 rear armor and 44 front armor in that section. This will give you more armor in that section then the blackjack has in it center torso.

Check my build here: HBK-4P

For my build I run only 8 medium lasers, well because I cannot keep firing 9 all the time anyway due to heat so why even bother bringing the 9th laser? I have instead but more weight towards my engine maxing it out at a 275 rating giving me 98.0 kph top speed and the inclusion of an AMS allows for much more durability.

edits: spelling mistakes

Edited by Kanajashi, 19 September 2013 - 12:31 PM.

[Krivvan]

Mediums are just the least specialized laser and useful in most circumstances. Quite light, mediocre range, average damage, and only takes one slot.

Edited by Krivvan, 18 September 2013 - 03:28 PM.

[ohtochooseaname]

Lights will frequently take pulse lasers: their reduced duration is useful for both hit-and-run as well as taking out other lights (reduced duration makes it easier for the sweep to do the damage that you want, since you are always moving.). Arguably, they aren't as useful for slower mechs because they don't have as difficult a time getting the sweep to stay on target.

For example, when I compare MPL's vs ML's (I use them on my spiders), I find that I do around 30% more damage per shot with MPL's than with ML's, even though the MPL's have a reduced range, and I presume this is due to both the increased damage (6 vs 5) as well as the increased ability to keep the shot on target.~62% vs 55%. This makes MPL's much more efficient in both a DPS sense (they also fire 10% faster) and a damage per heat sense, however, they weigh twice as much as an ML.

So, mostly you see pulse lasers on lights or some fast mediums, but most beginning players will find that ML's will serve them much better simply because they are useful in far more cases than any other weapon (low weight, good range, medium damage/heat, good damage.)

Edited by ohtochooseaname, 18 September 2013 - 04:13 PM.

[Void Angel]

Sowaka, on 18 September 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

As a new player I've noticed a LOT of medium lasers going off around the battlefield but nearly no large/small lasers and absolutely no pulse lasers. Could anyone fill me in on why the other lasers are so rarely used?

Also, as someone who loves giant purple/blue lasers I was hoping someone could point me towards a few builds that use three or four LLs or LPLs.

On another note... I'm quite hungrily eyeing the humpback with eight medium lasers all overs it's body... Is there any reason why I shouldn't use this guy over the typical one equipped with an AC20?

Well, pulse lasers are bugged at this time - my rough testing found that the large pulse laser is generating somewhere around 18% more heat than it's supposed to. It's a known issue they hope to have resolved soon, but it makes Large pulses difficult to include in an optimal build. I assume other pulse lasers are similar, but I have not tested them.

The functional differences in the way lasers work is also important - it is not true that pulse lasers and normal lasers are so similar that it all comes down to superior stats. Lasers are hitscan weapons, with damage being dealt over the duration of the beam in discrete "ticks." Excluding small lasers, beam duration for normal lasers is a full second, while pulse duration is .60 seconds. This means that while a medium laser does actually have a higher raw dps than the small pulse laser (for the same tonnage,) the pulse laser will be much better at putting damage on the desired location of a moving target. Furthermore, pulse lasers have a dramatically shorter range than their normal counterparts (small lasers are again an exception.) Put these factors together, and which laser is right for you depends on what you expect to be doing with the laser. For a general-purpose weapon intended for combat at flexible ranges, use a normal laser; for knife-range combat, use a pulse - as long as you can justify the heat. With the current heat bug, this means pulses are usually a bad idea -but even so, many light pilots use pulse lasers as a low-tonnage damage source.

As far as the Hunchback goes, I enjoyed the 4P immensely in the past, although I recommend the SP over it for the time being. In order to master the chassis (which you should always do with any 'mech you want to keep.) I recommend the 4H, the 4SP, and the 4P.

[Enialis]

You'll see a whole lot more ML's than any other laser because they're basically the perfect size/weight/heat to throw a couple as secondary weapons in almost every build, as well as being a viable main weapon in a lot of smaller energy boats (ex: JR7-F, HBK-4P, BJ-1X). It's rare to not throw at 2-4 ML's on your build regardless of the primary weapon system.

The extra weight an heat for MPL's make them hard to justify over 2 ML's. You'll see them on mechs with limited hardpoints that have trouble using the weight (ex: CPLT-C4), or on very fast mechs where the shorter burn duration is very helpful to focusing damage on a single component.

SL's/SPL's are again mainly gonna be found on light mechs as hit-and-run weapons because their speed allows them to move into the short optimal range, shoot, and get out again without dying.

LPL's main problem is they are the same weight as PPC's, which don't suffer the same range penalties.

LL's are solid. Keep in mind they have a ghost heat limit of 2, so if you run 3-4 of them you'll need to stagger fire or eat a lot of extra heat.

[VIPER2207]

Sowaka, on 18 September 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

Also, as someone who loves giant purple/blue lasers I was hoping someone could point me towards a few builds that use three or four LLs or LPLs.

STK-3F 'X-Wing'
There you go... make 2 groups of 2LL each, third group the PPCs on group-fire, fourth group PPCs on chain-fire (for better heat management)... watch your heat, and you will be able to do huge amounts of damage

[Bront]

Large Lasers are getting more common, but they aren't in a lot of stock builds, so you see them more on custom builds. However, at 5 tons, you rarely see more than 2 even without the boating ghost heat penalty.

Small lasers you generally won't see even if they're on the battle field, because they're such a short range weapon, you don't see them fire at range much.

Pulses have limited range, higher heat, and are heavier, so you don't see them a lot either.

[Sowaka]

Bront, on 19 September 2013 - 07:24 AM, said:

Large Lasers are getting more common, but they aren't in a lot of stock builds, so you see them more on custom builds. However, at 5 tons, you rarely see more than 2 even without the boating ghost heat penalty.

Small lasers you generally won't see even if they're on the battle field, because they're such a short range weapon, you don't see them fire at range much.

Pulses have limited range, higher heat, and are heavier, so you don't see them a lot either.

I keep reading "ghost heat" but have yet to come across the term in any of the PDF guides, what exactly is ghost heat?

I've recently purchased the laser humpback but due to constantly be in close range engagements and having overheat issues I've been tempted to pull out six MLs and replace them with SLs. Would this be a bad idea, and would it hurt my damage output? I absolutely love my lasers, but I'd definitely like to be more efficient.

Also, thank you to everyone for the help, this has been absolutely wonderful and amazingly helpful.

[Bront]

Sowaka, on 19 September 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

I keep reading "ghost heat" but have yet to come across the term in any of the PDF guides, what exactly is ghost heat?

It's also known as Heat Scale. Basically, if you have more than X number of a particular weapon type, you get extra heat for firing more of them. For LLs (and all variants) and PPCs, it's 2. For MLs, it's 6. Since it's not documented anywhere in the game, and it appears out of nowhere, it's become known as ghost heat.

[chevy42083]

So, can you get around ghost heat by mixing in pulse lasers with the regulars? Say, 2 of each, large variety... then mediums if you'd like? (Or 2 ML, 2 MPL, etc)


Sounds better than dropping 6 ML in favor of 6 Small.

[Sowaka]

chevy42083, on 19 September 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

So, can you get around ghost heat by mixing in pulse lasers with the regulars? Say, 2 of each, large variety... then mediums if you'd like? (Or 2 ML, 2 MPL, etc)


Sounds better than dropping 6 ML in favor of 6 Small.

That's what I was thinking.... Could mix in 2ML, 2MPL, and 2SL for a strong alpha that doesn't generate a massive load of ghost heat, couldn't you? I'm aware it'd only be strong in close combat, but that's where I do a lot of fighting anyhow and I could create a firing group that only shoots the ML/MPLs at medium range.

[Void Angel]

Sowaka, on 19 September 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

I keep reading "ghost heat" but have yet to come across the term in any of the PDF guides, what exactly is ghost heat?

I've recently purchased the laser humpback but due to constantly be in close range engagements and having overheat issues I've been tempted to pull out six MLs and replace them with SLs. Would this be a bad idea, and would it hurt my damage output? I absolutely love my lasers, but I'd definitely like to be more efficient.

Also, thank you to everyone for the help, this has been absolutely wonderful and amazingly helpful.

Bront, on 19 September 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

It's also known as Heat Scale. Basically, if you have more than X number of a particular weapon type, you get extra heat for firing more of them. For LLs (and all variants) and PPCs, it's 2. For MLs, it's 6. Since it's not documented anywhere in the game, and it appears out of nowhere, it's become known as ghost heat.

The term "Ghost Heat" is usually used to refer to the Heat Scale penalty system, but some people will also use it to refer to bugs that generate additional heat - so you should always use the actual name of the system to refer to it. =) I also expect to see the information included in UI 2.0.

As for using different weapons to get around the penalty - yes, that will absolutely work (though I should point out that the max alpha limit is 6 for Medium Lasers.) Note that all kinds of LRMs, all kinds of SRMs, both kinds of PPC, and the big lasers (Large/LPulse/ERLarge) all count as the same for the purposes of your max alpha - and they generate additional heat based on the hottest weapon fired, so there's no point in mixing cooler weapons to try and game the penalty itself.

As far as swapping 6 mediums for small lasers on the hunch, I strongly recommend against doing it. There is a huge range difference between the two, and you need that range. Many times in a battle you'll find that small lasers force you out into the open where people will all turn and focus fire the hunch - it's ingrained into them, precisely because hunchbacks typically have such a large alpha strike.

The build I recommend for the 4P is this one. It's emphatically not an endurance brawler; mediums are too fragile for that anyway. You want to use it to weave in and out of cover, targeting weak points on the enemy for that 6-laser alpha. Use your team to run interference while you cool down, and avoid getting locked into combat - you'll overheat faster than you expect. Of course, people used to recommend the 6 Small Laser build - but with the current state of the battlefield, I think you have to get way too close to the enemy to use it effectively.

Edited by Void Angel, 19 September 2013 - 01:43 PM.

[Bront]

chevy42083, on 19 September 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

So, can you get around ghost heat by mixing in pulse lasers with the regulars? Say, 2 of each, large variety... then mediums if you'd like? (Or 2 ML, 2 MPL, etc)


Sounds better than dropping 6 ML in favor of 6 Small.

Mixing laser types means you can't get around the LL max by using an LL, LPL, and ERLL (that's still 3 Larges).

You can drop from 7 MLs to 6 MLs and 2 SLs though without a problem.

Also, there's no extra heat till you excede the limit.

Edited by Bront, 19 September 2013 - 12:14 PM.

[Koniving]

Sowaka, on 18 September 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

As a new player I've noticed a LOT of medium lasers going off around the battlefield but nearly no large/small lasers and absolutely no pulse lasers. Could anyone fill me in on why the other lasers are so rarely used?

Also, as someone who loves giant purple/blue lasers I was hoping someone could point me towards a few builds that use three or four LLs or LPLs.

On another note... I'm quite hungrily eyeing the humpback with eight medium lasers all overs it's body... Is there any reason why I shouldn't use this guy over the typical one equipped with an AC20?

There's a few reasons.

One, medium (green) lasers are only 1 ton and are often an after thought.

Two. Large lasers take a full 0.25 seconds longer to fire than ANY other direct fire weapon in the game (except Gauss now). That's pretty significant when a PPC for only 2 tons and 3 measily points of heat more can reach almost twice as far and deal its damage instantly.

Three, pulse lasers suffer a range reduction, which when you consider how much more effective they are that's perfectly fine, but most people don't know they're super effective. And those that do, can't risk getting close enough for it to matter.

I don't use large lasers or much in the way of large pulse lasers because of this (though LPL does fire once every 3.85 seconds which is faster than ML). However I use the living {Scrap} out of small lasers, SPL, and sometimes MPL. That said.. Here's some of the others getting used for your enjoyment.

Spoiler

Misery. Uses small pulse lasers.


Atlas RS. The second match is pretty epic. SPL.


Triple PPC Hunchback. (Note: it's slightly hotter but it's barely even noticeable. I still run this. More footage coming today).


Death's Knell with small lasers.


And this channel list leads not to my channel but to Lordred's, who has begun a series of chase cams where he follows me around as my much more dynamic third person camera.

He is famous for awesome screenshots such as this one.

[Koniving]

Because of the way ghost heat targets weapons, it's relatively easy to get around it by using a completely different weapon system instead. For example you could have two large lasers and back them with 4 to 6 medium lasers. That'd run awfully hot, but it's devastating.

LL = 9 damage. ML = 5 damage. 2*LL + 6*ML = 48 damage per alpha.
Personally I favor as potential ideas: twin LL + twin PPC (18 + 20 = 38), or twin LPL + 4 ML (21.2 + 20 = 41.2) or 1 LPL + 5 ML (10.6 + 25 = 35.6 and cool running).

[Arnold J Rimmer]

Gotta call you out there, Koniving - LL beam duration is 1.00 second, same as the ML. The rest is spot on though, as always.

[Ronan]

As someone else noted, its hard to see SPL or SL in battle because they're such short range weapons. MLs have always been the go-to weapon, so they are in almost every stock build and get used in many many custom builds. Pulse weapons aren't _that_ bad, but they are shorter range than the same std lasers, but can put out more damage.

Also as others noted, if you can't aim so good, regular lasers are good because you can sweep the beam all over. If your aim is excellent and steady, regular lasers are good because they are lighter and you can hold the beam on one spot on your target. If your aim is "meh", pulse lasers may help because they do their damage quickly.

I ran the BJ-1x (I think that's the variant?) with 6 x mpl. It literally melted face. I wound up not liking the mech tho, because of the limited range and the fact that it had just that one type of weapon. (completely personal preference, other folks may really enjoy it)

I also ran an Awesome for a while with 2 x LPL and 2 x LRM15. I don't remember if I had artemis or not. On paper the build should have sucked. In practice I had great damage output and a high KDR. And _I_ found it entertaining because I had two different types of weapons to shoot.

I like HBKs in general, but the "swayback" with all the lasers is vulnerable. The Jenner (7-F?) can run with 6 x lasers -- lots of pew pew, less loss of all weapons when a torso goes.

Hope you find some mechs/builds you like!