316 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

I've been arguing this for as long as I've been playing. I've got videos demonstrating it going back to early 2013.


In that time, I've had LOTS of people make arguments like those above.

In that time, not one single person has ever made a video showing counter evidence. Not once. I've tried to make them myself. I'm not crusading against the LBX because I hate it - I love LBX autocannons.

I want them to not be worse choices, I want them to be a legitimate alternative that doesn't gimp you (and thus, your team) using them. And not in one particular highly specific mech/build, but at least in a reasonable amount of cases.

Edited by Wintersdark, 15 May 2016 - 09:20 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

LBX20 vs. Stock (not max armored) commando at 100m: 5 rounds.
LBX20 vs. Stock commando at 200m: 11 rounds (fired 12, but it took 11 to kill.)
CUAC20 vs. Stock Commando at 314m: 3 rounds. Would be the same at 360m.

You did some math, good for you? In practice things are different, the UAC20 is nice, but lacks the ability to snapshot and suffers from stupidly slow ballistic velocity, which ironically the LBX20 does not suffer from. Don't get me wrong, the LBX20 is still rough on the spread department, but the ease of use definitely helps it out a lot compared to the UAC20 and is the reason you should take these "tests" with a grain of salt.

Now could the LBX20 be better so it isn't a support weapon for actual brawling weapons like SRMs and SPLs? Definitely, but it isn't as bad compared to UAC20s as some people like to play it off as.

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

Even when you can land 100% of every single shot on a single target section, the LBX is still killing at the same speed as the AC, and that's at 150m.

Except it should be getting slightly higher DPS when the mech's armor is stripped. Look, you take the LBX to get both a ton (bumping you from a 280 to 295) and because your main firepower is 4 SRM4s, LBX just supplements that because they work in a similar fashion and can help finished off mechs and has a slightly lower heat profile (not that the heat difference is huge).

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

Giving up the ability to do full AC10 damage from 250-450m? Not worthwhile.

The reality is poking with a single AC10 is never worth it if the enemy has any solid range mechs, in the end you only take unnecessary damage, which is why the LB10 isn't a bad choice. It can be useful (like getting some range damage on a push against other brawlers) but has fairly niche applications, and you sacrifice some things to do it.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 15 May 2016 - 09:57 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

The bottom line is that, while there is room for improvement, there are situations where the LB-X is a decent choice. I can't say the same of IS Small Lasers or LRM15/20. Furthermore, having every 'Mech be independently flexible is not a major component of organized play like it is in a PUG, and it's the flexibility that makes the AC/10 seem so superior when, if you can use the weapons properly, the difference is not as great.

[Wintersdark]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 May 2016 - 10:03 AM, said:

The bottom line is that, while there is room for improvement, there are situations where the LB-X is a decent choice. I can't say the same of IS Small Lasers or LRM15/20. Furthermore, having every 'Mech be independently flexible is not a major component of organized play like it is in a PUG, and it's the flexibility that makes the AC/10 seem so superior when, if you can use the weapons properly, the difference is not as great.

Oh, certainly, the gap isn't as bad as other weapons. I never said otherwise. But that's totally irrelevant. Those all need to be fixed too; you could even argue they need to be fixed more. I'm fine with that. But we're just talking about the LBX here. Small lasers and machine guns and LRM20's aren't involved.

The LBX can definitely still kill things. It's still throwing 10 damage downrange, after all. It's just worse than the AC10, and substantially worse in most cases. Taking twice the damage to kill something at 350 meters that you kill in the same damage up close? That's a miserable tradeoff.

As to flexibility; given that the LBX isn't superior pretty much ever, and at BEST is equal in very specific circumstances, that's a pretty hard sell.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 10:08 AM, said:

Taking twice the damage to kill something at 350 meters that you kill in the same damage up close? That's a miserable tradeoff.

That only matters for builds designed to shoot past 350 meters, for brawler builds relying on SPLs or SRMs, that tradeoff is moot because you shouldn't be trying to engage outside of 270.

[Y E O N N E]

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 10:08 AM, said:

As to flexibility; given that the LBX isn't superior pretty much ever, and at BEST is equal in very specific circumstances, that's a pretty hard sell.

One less heat, one less ton, one less slot allows either better heat profile or one more gun (or a bigger engine), making it actually superior in its own bracket. It's not about the gun on its own, its about what it enables.

There's also something to be said for the LB-X being "self correcting." A component miss with the standard 10 is a complete miss, but the LB will probably still land something. While the solution is to git gud, the probability that you will miss remains non-zero. That little spread can save you. A square hit on the component at brawl range will remain a full 10 or 20, but a near miss won't be zero.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 15 May 2016 - 09:56 AM, said:

You did some math, good for you? In practice things are different, the UAC20 is nice, but lacks the ability to snapshot and suffers from stupidly slow ballistic velocity, which ironically the LBX20 does not suffer from. Don't get me wrong, the LBX20 is still rough on the spread department, but the ease of use definitely helps it out a lot compared to the UAC20 and is the reason you should take these "tests" with a grain of salt.

Again, show me. Science!

Ease of use? I suppose for ridiculously poor players, the LBX20 may be a viable option, but at 20-class autocannons, if you can't hit your target at ~250-300m with a UAC20, you're just bad. It's the "burn duration" of a small pulse laser, firing 5 damage shells. If your aim is bad, and you hit partially, you're no worse off than the 20.

On the other hand, the UAC20 throws 40 damage out, vs. 20 that spreads so horrifically badly. The LBX20 ALWAYS spreads that bad - look at those shots-to-kill counts; that's atrocious. And that's not math, that's gameplay.

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Now could the LBX20 be better so it isn't a support weapon for actual brawling weapons like SRMs and SPLs? Definitely, but it isn't as bad compared to UAC20s as some people like to play it off as.

"how bad off" is pretty subjective, but it's absolutely flatly worse.

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Except it should be getting slightly higher DPS when the mech's armor is stripped. Look, you take the LBX to get both a ton (bumping you from a 280 to 295) and because your main firepower is 4 SRM4s, LBX just supplements that because they work in a similar fashion and can help finished off mechs and has a slightly lower heat profile (not that the heat difference is huge).

Except that doesn't, in practice, actually result in things dieing faster. I've done these tests countless times, because I'm actively looking for situations where LBX's are idea. In theory they get slightly higher dps after armor is stripped, but the lower effective dps before and realities of spread mean they get equal or less dps even after armor is stripped.

I say this because I've tested it. I've tested it well over a hundred times. Over, and over, and over.

And in practice, I've never seen LBX's reliably kill faster.

You're even doing it here - they "should" get higher dps after armor is stripped. Sure. They "should".

But show me. Show me the LBX reliably killing faster. Maybe they're bugged, maybe it's just spread, maybe, maybe, maybe.
Is my testing methodology flawed? I certainly don't think so, but I'm willing to try anything, and would never say it's perfect.

But every single test I've done shows the LBX to be, in it's very best reasonable circumstances, roughly equal in performance.

At that point, you're saving a ton and a slot. A ton of ammo, maybe a slightly larger engine. That may be good in a very particular situation, but it's coming alongside substantial limitations and is a pretty minor advantage.

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The reality is poking with a single AC10 is never worth it if the enemy has any solid range mechs, in the end you only take unnecessary damage, which is why the LB10 isn't a bad choice. It can be useful (like getting some range damage on a push against other brawlers) but has fairly niche applications, and you sacrifice some things to do it.

You're pushing into VERY specific circumstances here.

A single variant, on a specific loadout, in a very specific sort of match, only within 150m? That's a long line of very specific things. I don't deny that there are EXTREMELY specific circumstances where the LBX may even be better, but those circumstances are so rare (even when you're planning for them team wide) that it's a hell of a stretch.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 15 May 2016 - 10:14 AM, said:

That only matters for builds designed to shoot past 350 meters, for brawler builds relying on SPLs or SRMs, that tradeoff is moot because you shouldn't be trying to engage outside of 270.

At 250m, you're still taking a lot more damage to kill your target.

At 150m, you're finally killing in the same damage.

That is the hard truth.

[Neput Z34]

So LBX is useful when:

♦ You are less then 150 meters away from your target. (The -10% LBX Spread quirk doesn't seem to function on testing ground or makes negligible impact on number of shot required destroy a fully armored* mech.)
♦ When the enemy is missing armor.
♦ When you are on extremely hot map in a prolonged brawl.
♦ When you and your opponent both have equally poor accuracy.
♦ When the RNG Deity and Blake both bless your ammo, which doesn't happen often.
♦ When you were hiding for the 1st half of the match waiting for your team to open up the enemy so you can "mop up" later.
♦ Pellet spread is only useful when trying to tag light mechs with missing armor on the legs or torsos while hoping the RNG Deity and Blake both have blessed your ammo.

For everything else IS ACs and Clan / IS UAC are far better suited.

"But... but the extra crits...." As some may argue here. All I have to say to that is: "So are Machine Guns, so are most* Clan weapons with a Targeting Computer".

The extra crit chance of an LBX, doesn't sufficiently outweigh the weapons inability to get through armor.

So is to much to ask that next round of testing on a PTS will also include either one the two proposed changes:
1: Makes LBX function like an CERPPC or
2: Increases damage per pellet to 1.5 and reduce optimal range by 33%.

[Metus regem]

Neput Z34, on 15 May 2016 - 11:36 AM, said:

So is to much to ask that next round of testing on a PTS will also include either one the two proposed changes:
1: Makes LBX function like an CERPPC or
2: Increases damage per pellet to 1.5 and reduce optimal range by 33%.

3: give the LB series a proper canister shot system with lock on.


I think any of those three would be acceptable.

[wanderer]

LB-X rounds suffer from being straight up shotguns vs. the flak rounds they should behave as.

That is, they should be spraying a target when they hit, not when they're fired like some kind of giant blunderbuss. Spread damage is the weakest form of damage, and that's why IS AC > Clan UAC > any LB-X. A weapon that actually has a max "effective" range measured in a few dozen meters that loses damage inside it's normal range band this badly is screwed up.

You should be seeing an LB-X firing a single shell that proceeds to spray the area it impacts with submunitions, not a pellet spray that starts at the barrel and goes wide from there.

[Wintersdark]

Neput Z34, on 15 May 2016 - 11:36 AM, said:

So LBX is useful when:

♦ You are less then 150 meters away from your target. (The -10% LBX Spread quirk doesn't seem to function on testing ground or makes negligible impact on number of shot required destroy a fully armored* mech.)
♦ When the enemy is missing armor.
♦ When you are on extremely hot map in a prolonged brawl.
♦ When you and your opponent both have equally poor accuracy.
♦ When the RNG Deity and Blake both bless your ammo, which doesn't happen often.
♦ When you were hiding for the 1st half of the match waiting for your team to open up the enemy so you can "mop up" later.
♦ Pellet spread is only useful when trying to tag light mechs with missing armor on the legs or torsos while hoping the RNG Deity and Blake both have blessed your ammo.

And these are all "AND" conditionals, not "OR".

People argue, but nobody has yet, in any thread, in many years, posted any evidence of sufficiently common (or any, actually) situations in which the LBX is actually superior.

Giving up superiority in a wide range of situations to be roughly equal in a few situations is a terrible, terrible bargain.

[wanderer]

Alternatively, LB-X's need a pellet spread pattern that clusters INWARDS to midrange and then spreads outwards from there to be at the same pattern it was at the beginning at it's max effective range.

Take the Clan LB-5X. When fired, it's pellets should cluster decently at point blank, get closer to 360m, begin to spread again and be at it's 0m cluster pattern at 720, and continue to spread outwards from there as it goes through damage falloff/drop towards maximum range. Instead, it just spreads wider from 0m onwards, making it's long range mostly meaningless.

[Y E O N N E]

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 12:17 PM, said:

Giving up superiority in a wide range of situations to be roughly equal in a few situations is a terrible, terrible bargain.

Only if you have to be superior across a wide range of situations, which you don't if you are coordinating your play. Which is something you don't seem to want to acknowledge. Build flexiblity is something you only really need in a PUG. That's it.

Also, you are not accounting for flight time. cUAC/20 has flight time, a small laser does not.

Finally, testing grounds is not game-play.

[Wintersdark]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 May 2016 - 12:40 PM, said:

Only if you have to be superior across a wide range of situations, which you don't if you are coordinating your play. Which is something you don't seem to want to acknowledge. Build flexiblity is something you only really need in a PUG. That's it.

If the LBX was noteably superior in some situations, then that would be great. But it's not. It's roughly equal in some VERY specific situations (and no, not "brawling" - it's worse in a great deal of brawling, the situation has to be way, way more specific than just "brawling").

It's not that "I don't want to acknowledge" coordinated play. The point is that even if you're playing a specifically brawler build, in a brawler team, the LBX is still inferior for roughly half the engagement range of brawling(re: SRM's), and only equal inside around 150m. Equal, not better. Whereas the AC10 can destroy weapons through anything less than 10 armor, performs as well as the LBX <150m and much better >150m, for the cost of 1s/1t. And yes, 1pt of heat per 2.5s.

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Also, you are not accounting for flight time. cUAC/20 has flight time, a small laser does not.

And is, at the involved ranges, not particularly important. Who misses with a UAC20 inside 300m? The burst time (hence comparison to small pulse lasers) is relevant not for accuracy but for face time - that is, it's trivially low, a fraction of a second.

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Finally, testing grounds is not game-play.

No, but testing grounds allows us to get consistent results. Surely the LBX is able to outperform it's regular cousin in SOME way then? And yet... It never does.

All we have is a few people steadfastly insisting that it's better in particular situations and yet never able to actually prove it.

Edited by Wintersdark, 15 May 2016 - 12:53 PM.

[J0anna]

Really good idea, I would love they to give an increased chance of knockdown ala the old MW4 days, but definitely a step in the right direction...

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

And is, at the involved ranges, not particularly important. Who misses with a UAC20 inside 300m?

Considering people miss with other weapons that are faster in brawls, quite a few.....

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

No, but testing grounds allows us to get consistent results. Surely the LBX is able to outperform it's regular cousin in SOME way then?

Actual combat scenarios maybe? The thing me and Yeonne keep trying to point out but you hand wave away?
Testing grounds is great for testing out max potential DPS and your heat efficiency, but it is far from telling of the whole situation.

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

It's not that "I don't want to acknowledge" coordinated play. The point is that even if you're playing a specifically brawler build, in a brawler team, the LBX is still inferior for roughly half the engagement range of brawling(re: SRM's), and only equal inside around 150m.

So typical brawl range? Most people aren't hovering around beyond 150m, if anything the approach is the only time that range even means anything.

[Strum Wealh]

Bishop Steiner, on 15 May 2016 - 09:10 AM, said:

But it's not exactly brain work to put together "Luballin Ballistics series Ten" and get LB-X. And when introduced there were no series 2, 5 or 20.

Still Strum Wealh argues with me tooth and nail about this.

It's worth noting that my response was actually a more specific version of what Bishop was proposing...

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Though, I'd argue that the format is slightly different than what you're proposing: "Lubalin Ballistics (AC damage class)-(series ten) autocannon".

That is, the LB 10-X AC would be the "class 10, series 10" model, while the LB 5-X AC would be the "class 5, series 10" model, and the LB 20-X AC would be the "class 20, series 10" model.
Presumably, series I through IX would have been either outright developmental failures or iterations that, while technically functional, were unfit for production without undergoing major revisions.

Edited by Strum Wealh, 15 May 2016 - 02:06 PM.

[Trauglodyte]

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 09:00 AM, said:

LBX20? Really?



Seems I have to do this every so often.

Short form results:

LBX20 vs. Stock (not max armored) commando at 100m: 5 rounds.
LBX20 vs. Stock commando at 200m: 11 rounds (fired 12, but it took 11 to kill.)
CUAC20 vs. Stock Commando at 314m: 3 rounds. Would be the same at 360m.

LBX20 vs. Atlas at 100m: 11 shots.
LBX20 vs. Atlas at 200m: Failed to kill with 21 shots - three tons of ammo.
CUAC20 vs Atlas at 340m: 10 shots. Less than the LBX20 at 100m.

This is why the LBX20 is such an embarassment.


As to the 2D2; using an LBX for an extra ton of ammo still doesn't get around needing massively more shots to kill. That's a build made by someone who doesn't understand the realities of the LBX vs. AC10 - when you're looking at 2.5t for the AC10 or 3.5t for the LBX, but the AC10 kills faster, further, the AC10 is a superior choice.

Even when you can land 100% of every single shot on a single target section, the LBX is still killing at the same speed as the AC, and that's at 150m.

Giving up the ability to do full AC10 damage from 250-450m? Not worthwhile.

You're misunderstanding because Quicksilver didn't finish out the sentence. The Brawler Shadowhawk runs the LB 10-X for two reasons and only in one situation:

1- Weight and heat considerations
2- Crit seeking power in comp play

The truth is, there isn't any point to running the LB series of ACs in any situation other than the above. You could argue that it is ok for pilots that aren't very good at using ACs on Light mechs. But, even then, that is a practice issue or, if you'd prefer, a "git gud" problem.

The LB needs to actually be an air-burst canister round or it will never be a viable weapon. I don't know why it can't simply be like the clan ER PPC and it has been something that I suggested, actually, before the Clan ER PPC was introduced. In fact, it is so logical and simplistic that it boggles my mind why it doesn't get applied:

LB 2: 1 point to target location, 1 point to an adjacent location with a small percentage chance to miss
LB 5: See LB 2
LB 10: See LB 2/5 but put damage in clusters of 2
LB 20: See the LB 10 but make a two shot burst

Another way to make the LB better would be to increase the damage to 2x what it currently is, cap the range at what it is in TT (i.e., LB 10-X would be capped at 450m), and apply a linear drop off from 0 to max range. That makes the LB series of weapons superior to SRMs at close range (LB series dependent and range dependent, of course), gives them a niche, and takes away the "regular ACs/UACs are better 100% of the time" issue.

The FINAL way to do it, which PGI won't do, is to make it so that when you equip and LB weapon, you also end up equipping a standard AC on the weapon selection menu. That way, you can equip both or only one type of ammo and still be able to use the thing. But, if they couldn't have figured out how to do that by now, either because they lack the coding, desire, and/or the engine won't allow for it to happen, it isn't going to happen period.

[Y E O N N E]

Wintersdark, on 15 May 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

If the LBX was noteably superior in some situations, then that would be great. But it's not. It's roughly equal in some VERY specific situations (and no, not "brawling" - it's worse in a great deal of brawling, the situation has to be way, way more specific than just "brawling").

Is your stance supported by experience or by your interpretation of your flawed data?

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And is, at the involved ranges, not particularly important. Who misses with a UAC20 inside 300m? The burst time (hence comparison to small pulse lasers) is relevant not for accuracy but for face time - that is, it's trivially low, a fraction of a second.

That's incorrect. It adds leading and increases the amount of spread the target can pull off between each specific "tick" of damage, and it's very significant in a brawl...which is why nobody I know brings cUAC/20 in their competitive brawl builds. If you think that's because players aren't able to shoot straight...well...lol.

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No, but testing grounds allows us to get consistent results. Surely the LBX is able to outperform it's regular cousin in SOME way then? And yet... It never does.

Consistent results outside the pressure of combat. In other words, useless data.

Alternatively, in a QP or FW drop with less than a full 12-man going up against another 12-man: lack of coordinated decks and strategy: more useless data.

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All we have is a few people steadfastly insisting that it's better in particular situations and yet never able to actually prove it.

And what are your credentials? Have you done high level coordinated play or are you speaking entirely from QP experience? It really does matter. You've got some TG numbers which don't actually tell us anything we couldn't tell by looking at the numbers on paper, but everybody knows the paper numbers don't tell the whole story. How do we know this? Because even the AC/10 is not a good weapon. I use it a lot because it's solid and all you need is solid for QP. But...I do not equip it on a single one of my comp builds. It sucks up too much tonnage for the brackets where it is strong, it doesn't really synergize well with anything outside of PPC at those brackets, and through experience we have discovered that we are much better off going with just about anything else. That's cSPL, SRMs, MPL, ML, LPL, AC/20, UAC/5, and even PPC on the upper ranges. And believe me, we are always trying things out, swapping stuff around to find the Next Big Thing ™.

The LB-X is a niche weapon. Is it a great weapon? Nope, not at all, it's a support gun. We'd all love for ammo-switching and tighter clusters or more damage per pellet and nobody is going to say no to making them better, but you are misrepresenting the scope of it. Next to the AC/10 or cUAC/20, it is a superior enough option in the brawl to be worth taking there, where as the AC/10 is not superior enough at any bracket to be worth taking at all.

[Mavairo]

The LBX 10 Suckith, vs the AC10 in every scenario.
Unless it's received a truly massive buff since Beta, it's largely left in the dumpster for a reason. Anything it does an AC10 does better. Crit seeking? Why Crit seek, when an AC10 can out right destroy exposed components?

Anything over 250 meters away? You can use the AC10 to full effect up to 450 meters... an LBX10... it'll scatter it's pellets all over the place.
"But brawling!"

Ok.. lets say you get under 250 meters, where all the LBX 10s dmg is ALMOST concentrated in one spot... the AC10 does the job JUST as well, 95% of the time you pull the trigger, even in the "ideal range" of the LBX10..and far surpass it at any distance beyond it.
And the AC10 is largely regarded as a mediocre weapon system. Not great, not bad..just average. Not exactly selling your case for the LBX being fine "as is" when an Average Weapon blows it away over 95% of the time its fired.