Aresye, on 14 November 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:
Because half of what makes a "competitive light" seems to revolve around BS hit detection and the ability to tank an entire team.
You can't ignore them, because they'll chew through your back in no time.
You can't kill them, because hit detection (especially with lasers) is horrendous.
Any time you spend trying to fight them, is time the rest of their team has clear shots at you.
Jenners are fast and nimble, but there's one big difference. If I hit a Jenner in the face, it's either going to die, or it's going to hurt enough that it will try and escape from the area. I hit a Firestarter in the face with the same build, I "might" be lucky if I get a single component to orange.
It isn't just Firestarters though. Spiders, Commandos, and even the Ice Ferret have all shown to have very poor hit detection and incredibly high tanking abilities.
This is very true (I notice it far more with the Spider though). Firestarters don't seem to cause me that much grief. The hit detection seems to wax and wane for me. Some days, I have real trouble landing hits on lights moving laterally, especially at medium and close range, and especially with lasers. Other days I can burn off a limb just fine.
Most of the time, though, I can reliably land enough damage in a short amount of time to make the light scarper off, If I manage to anticipate where the light is going to be and save my big hits for those glorious moments where the light is moving towards or away from me.
Part of the issue (at least in my eyes) is that if a light has selected a target for some jovial harrasification, and is dancing around and generally making life miserable for it's larger target, it leads to a situation where the light tends to be moving at warp factor 5 whilst it's unfortunate punching bag is
effectively stationary while trying to defend itself. The light is pretty much keeping it's crosshairs in the same place, and doesn't have to move it's torso a great deal.
The larger target, however, needs to twist like an old style typewriter. It has to move it's torso from one extreme lock to another, in a short period of time, and try to line up it's target, and it is here is where i'm noticing the biggest issues with hit detection. It seems to me that even though I have my crosshairs in the right place, things don't always seem to have lined up properly.
I've been experimenting with this, and i'm finding that I'm reliably able to hit lights at the same ranges
if they are attacking someone else, and I don't have to make snap shots.
My theory is that HSR seems to struggle lining things up shortly after larger or quicker torso movements, which might explain how a light can traipse between the legs of a whole group.
That's with lasers though. With ballistics, i'm finding hit detection better than ever - which is kind of odd.
Anyhoo, even with hit detection the way it is, I still feel lights are an endangered species, because of PPFLD. They may seem to have HSR damage resistance for lasers, but SRM's and ballistics are still their kryptonite. All it takes is once decent wallop. I still love piloting my lights, but the payoff isn't anywhere near what I can achieve with far less effort in my heavies and assaults.