211 replies to this topic

[Johnny Z]

Sounds good I hope its accurate. This is to the topic.

I got one question are the high alphas limited now?

[Wintersdark]

Gas Guzzler, on 24 August 2016 - 10:15 AM, said:

The Atlas has to stare for 1.2 seconds in between his SRMs and AC20.

....or he can twist in that time. 1.2s is a pretty long time in a brawl, and an AS7 twists quite fast.

At least, I had no trouble twisting between autocannon and SRM volley's in my AS7-DDC or KDK-SB.

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Having ran an LB20 plus SRMs ON1-IIC I can say that it will steamroll people at brawling range... the mechs other issues are the problem, hence why the LB20 + Srms build is a top tier brawler on the Spirit Bear.

The LB20 is a monster in a brawl, no doubt. Particularly LBX+SRM builds. Front loaded damage, fast, cool, low draw.

[Navid A1]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 24 August 2016 - 12:27 PM, said:

That hurts mechs that don't boat PPCs more than mechs that do boat PPCs. Why would you do that?

Boaters will benefit more from short cooldowns, as they can spam them non stop from long range.

Longer cooldown and less draw, allows mechs with only 1 PPC to use their other weapons using the available energy during the PPC cooling down process. Like 2-3 Mpls for example.

[Wintersdark]

Johnny Z, on 24 August 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

Sounds good I hope its accurate. This is to the topic.

I got one question are the high alphas limited now?

MUCH more than PTS1.

You can still safely break energy draw limits (I find 4 cMPL, which is 32 draw, to be easily managed) but not by a lot. At 1:1 overdraw:heat, you generate twice the penalty heat.

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:39 PM, said:

Boaters will benefit more from short cooldowns, as they can spam them non stop from long range.

Longer cooldown and less draw, allows mechs with only 1 PPC to use their other weapons using the available energy during the PPC cooling down process. Like 2-3 Mpls for example.

If you're firing during the cooldown, the draw of a single PPC isn't relevant, it regenerates in literally half a second. Less draw is better when you're firing more of them.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:39 PM, said:

Boaters will benefit more from short cooldowns, as they can spam them non stop from long range.

No they will not, a boater's strength is in their ability to successfully snapshot targets with 30+ damage into the same component. That was the reason they were too powerful and too prevalent in PTS1.

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:39 PM, said:

Longer cooldown and less draw, allows mechs with only 1 PPC to use their other weapons using the available energy during the PPC cooling down process. Like 2-3 Mpls for example.

In both situations a 1 PPC mech can fire their other weapons while the PPC is cooling down, it doesn't matter if the PPC has a larger draw or a larger cooldown.

Mechs with 1 PPC can wait literally less than half a second, and then use their full available energy to fire their backup weapons. A lower draw hardly makes any difference at all for single PPC mechs. A higher cooldown, on the other hand, robs single PPC mechs of their ranged DPS. That's hardly a fair arrangement.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 24 August 2016 - 12:53 PM.

[Navid A1]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 12:43 PM, said:

If you're firing during the cooldown, the draw of a single PPC isn't relevant, it regenerates in literally half a second. Less draw is better when you're firing more of them.

It is very much so relevant, specially because the draw is subtracted instantly, and the last thing you want in a close fight is overheating from penalties.
It takes away from your ability to fight with anything else to an extent that you would have been better off going without the PPC.

A boat benefits more from shorter cooldowns... because as you said, energy pool fills up pretty quickly in a second which has no effect even with a 3 second recycle time. However shorter cooldown allows the boat to fire his 2x2 PPCs more often.

12 draw for PPCs across the board is reasonable.



You know...
At this point I don't even care. Energy draw will be another mess like ghost heat was.
We had people defending ghost heat back when it was introduced. This is no different.

I don't care what sauce PGI will use for seasoning... because the main course is a steaming pile of sh*t.
Let it all go to hell... I'd say increase all draw to 50 for all weapons... and triple the armour values... and decrease energy generation to 2 per second.

Edited by Navid A1, 24 August 2016 - 01:02 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

It is very much so relevant, specially because the draw is subtracted instantly, and the last thing you want in a close fight is overheating from penalties.

It doesn't matter if it's subtracted instantly, it's replenished near-instantly. If you aren't alpha striking you should not notice it.

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

It takes away from your ability to fight with anything else to an extent that you would have been better off going without the PPC.

Correction, it makes it so where you would've been better off not firing the PPC when your opponent has gotten that close. And even then, power draw is only a small part of what's causing that problem - a little trigger discipline can mitigate that. The real issue is that PPCs are hot, and unless you've come prepared to cool that sucker, it's not a weapon you should be firing for up close DPS

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

A boat benefits more from shorter cooldowns... because as you said, energy pool fills up pretty quickly in a second which has no effect even with a 3 second recycle time. However shorter cooldown allows the boat to fire his 2x2 PPCs more often.

Again no. A boat does not benefit more from cooldown than a single PPC mech. That's not to say that PPC boat doesn't benefit AT ALL from a lower cooldown, but a single PPC mechs benefits from it more. The lower cooldown is crucial for a single PPC mech to achieve decent ranged DPS.

A PPC boat faces heat as its limiting factor, much more so than a single PPC mech does. This heat is what keeps a PPC boat in line. This extra heat is offset however, by the boats ability to snapshot when he wants to, dealing exorbitant damage to a single component at range. Their ability to do this snapshotting was not penalized enough on PTS1; that was their issue.

Firing 2 PPCs, waiting and then firing 2 more is not an issue. At that point your talking about assault mechs (probably a warhawk), trying to get some ranged DPS, which is fine.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 24 August 2016 - 01:15 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

I don't think AC5's are dead. They've worked well enough for me. Dakka builds are solid, but still require lots of facetime. Totally possible, though, no doubt. However, running a 5UAC5 Direwolf for example? It's nerfed from live. It's still a good dakka boat, but it's not unstoppable by any means. You've got to have fire control, as you can easily spike ED if you doubletap fast and often, and a lack of jams can take you from low heat to overheat fast.

I didn't run a Dakka Direwolf in a live match, mind you, just the the PTS. I have been almost incapable of getting matches this afternoon, so trialling in the testing grounds - these mechs I'm not posting about in the OP, as those are only mechs that have seen multiple live combat matches.

Edit: I *DID* fight against a Dakka Mauler and a couple Dakka Direwolves, though.

Have *YOU* tried a Dakka Direwolf in the PTS?

Not since PTS1 because I have practice for the tourney still going on during the weeknights, then it really wasn't that bad. Now you just have to be careful when you double tap but considering they have a slower RoF, that shouldn't be as difficult since you don't have to double tap (or you could just do 6 LBX5 and try that).

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

Same with a dakka mauler - still a very strong build, but not OMGOP.

The problem is, their counter was massed burst damage, if you can't pull off the massed burst damage, then what counter does it have? It can beat those that think they can do the one two punch better than it because it can do the one two punch and not have any heat issues.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 24 August 2016 - 01:17 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 August 2016 - 12:33 PM, said:

This isn't quite true, all firepower is limited to a certain measure including DPS, thanks to the energy recharge rate. It should be around 17 DPS for any combination of weapons that recently got nerfed.

Well yes, eventually ED caps DPS as well, but that's more theory than practice. The KDK, DWF and (I suspect?) Dakka mauler can fully cap DPS, but only in extreme cases. I think an upper limit on firepower isn't that bad of a thing though.

Realistically, the lion's share of mechs, rather almost all of them except a couple variants, cannot reach a point where ED caps their DPS in a way they can't avoid.

Some mechs burst harder than others, burst is much more open, and you can push it quite high with spread weapons.

I haven't worked out maximum DPS output, but using your numbers, that isn't a problem to me. My Lurmdog brawler can sustain around 22 DPS, but only in a narrow range band.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

12 draw for PPCs across the board is reasonable.

I think issue really is that Ghost Heat -fan of it or not- was better at dealing with PPC boats than Energy Draw.

I think its great that penalties are a little more reasonable for high PPC alphas under energy draw, but it comes at the cost of making PPCs a little less wieldy in ALL alpha strikes, not just pure PPC alphas.

Still, reducing the cooldown back to 4.5, that's kind of necessary no matter what else you do. It's crucial for keeping single PPC mechs viable.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 24 August 2016 - 01:29 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 August 2016 - 01:16 PM, said:

Not since PTS1 because I have practice for the tourney still going on during the weeknights, then it really wasn't that bad. Now you just have to be careful when you double tap but considering they have a slower RoF, that shouldn't be as difficult since you don't have to double tap (or you could just do 6 LBX5 and try that).

it's much harder on PTS2. 5xCUAC5 is 30 draw. Double tap at 0.5s and you're at 10+30=40 heat, 10pt overdraw= 10 bonus heat. This can snowball if you keep pushing, I was able to overheat my 5uac5 dwf in a VERY short time if I was "lucky" and didn't jam. You can avoid it with care, but then you're still just a 5uac5 dakkaboat. That's strong, but not unassailable.

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The problem is, their counter was massed burst damage, if you can't pull off the massed burst damage, then what counter does it have? It can beat those that think they can do the one two punch better than it because it can do the one two punch and not have any heat issues.

Up close, you can steamroll through it with lbx/SRM hits, which can do tremendous damage. Or you can use short peeks with fast burn lasers and Gauss.

I had no trouble dealing with dakka boats on the PTS.

[Wintersdark]

6 lbx5 DWF's work fine, but that's still LBX spread DPS, not pinpoint. It hurts, and is WAY easier to run than 5UAC5 builds, but in no way is it a game-changer. Heat capped, not energy, but only barely even heatcapped.

But yeah, I can't say I've ever trembled in fear at anyone in a 6lbx5 DWF, I don't think I'll start soon.

Edited by Wintersdark, 24 August 2016 - 01:39 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

Up close, you can steamroll through it with lbx/SRM hits, which can do tremendous damage.

Which is the problem, your choices are limited to dakka or lbx/srms. That isn't a really deep meta.

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

Or you can use short peeks with fast burn lasers and Gauss.

This isn't really an option considering it wasn't even an option before when Gauss vomit was still decent.

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

I had no trouble dealing with dakka boats on the PTS.

4v4 changes a lot, it's very different when you can no longer get angles on massed dakka boats, and especially if they are smart and putting pressure.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 August 2016 - 01:52 PM, said:

Which is the problem, your choices are limited to dakka or lbx/srms. That isn't a really deep meta.

Nah, Dakka is weaker than live too, by a large margin.

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This isn't really an option considering it wasn't even an option before when Gauss vomit was still decent.

4v4 changes a lot, it's very different when you can no longer get angles on massed dakka boats, and especially if they are smart and putting pressure.

I respect the difference in 4v4, but if you're saying you think energy is unusably bad, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. LBX/SRM builds are very potent up close, but relatively harmless at range. Dakka is potent at range, but much less so than on live. Lasers are fine. I don't think they are best boated (heat capping) but many disagree with me; they combine very well with missiles, heavy or light AC's, though DPS AC builds tend to rule out lasers due to their constant energy draw.... That's where you choose between DPS and burst though. Also only relevant on big mechs, lasers and say twin AC5 is fine.

I like that LBX/SRM brawlers are so strong specifically because they're so weak at range. That's how it should be.

[Cy Mitchell]

Navid A1, on 24 August 2016 - 12:39 PM, said:

Boaters will benefit more from short cooldowns, as they can spam them non stop from long range.

Longer cooldown and less draw, allows mechs with only 1 PPC to use their other weapons using the available energy during the PPC cooling down process. Like 2-3 Mpls for example.

The energy bar refills so fast that firing another weapon or groupp of weapons has not been a problem for me.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 02:23 PM, said:

Nah, Dakka is weaker than live too, by a large margin.

Not really as much as people think considering power draw cuts into Gauss vomit more than it ever will with dakka meaning that it still got hit with double nerfs. If I'm just going to be firing a set of weapons every 1.5 seconds, I'm not going to deal with anything other than what does the best effective and sustained damage and dakka easily fits that better than some mixture of Gauss and lasers.

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 02:23 PM, said:

they combine very well with missiles, heavy or light AC's

No, they really don't, because either more missiles or LBX combine well with other missiles, and lasers don't combine well with ACs due to velocity differences, why wouldn't I just take more dakka? This energy draw system cuts out energy weapons because heat has always been their draw back, they have always had nice upfront damage for the tonnage but suffered when it came to sustained fire, now you are taking away their ability to do that nice upfront damage without anything in return.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 24 August 2016 - 02:31 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 August 2016 - 02:29 PM, said:

Not really as much as people think considering power draw cuts into Gauss vomit more than it ever will with dakka meaning that it still got hit with double nerfs. If I'm just going to be firing a set of weapons every 1.5 seconds, I'm not going to deal with anything other than what does the best effective and sustained damage and dakka easily fits that better than some mixture of Gauss and lasers.


No, they really don't, because either more missiles or LBX combine well with other missiles, and lasers don't combine well with ACs due to velocity differences, why wouldn't I just take more dakka? This energy draw system cuts out energy weapons because heat has always been their draw back, they have always had nice upfront damage for the tonnage but suffered when it came to sustained fire, now you are taking away their ability to do that nice upfront damage without anything in return.

More Missiles is basically never an option (energy caps; hardpoint caps;launcher sizes), likewise with autocannons. Outside the largest assaults, nobody CAN run more autocannons. But everyone can run more lasers alongside the rest.

There are basically three mechs able to really dakka, and that dakka is way less impressive than you imagine it to be - the Kodiak, the Mauler, the direwolf. Maybe the Cyclops, but the King Crabs hardpoint locations are too poor for it to really make it work.

And even in the strongest case, the Kodiak, you're doing less than live DPS both because of cooldown nerfs and, more importantly, because of the ED caps on the strongest dakka weapons. I don't think you really realise just how much dakka DPS is limited at the high end.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 03:01 PM, said:

More Missiles is basically never an option (energy caps; hardpoint caps;launcher sizes), likewise with autocannons. Outside the largest assaults, nobody CAN run more autocannons.

Hunchback IIC with 4 UAC2s or 3 UAC5 or the SHD-5M with 2 UAC5 (only viable because of quirks mind you).
JM6-DD with 3 UAC5s or the WHM-BW with 4 AC5 or 2 AC5/2 UAC5 or the soon to be Night Gyr with 4 UAC5
Cyclops with 4 UAC5s, Mauler with 5 AC5, Whale with 5 UAC5 (don't have to double tap) and a large TComp.

Missiles can be split fire just like they are and still come out ahead, Timby could easily run an LBX10 or something along side the 4 ASRM6 battery or just run the LBX20 + 4 ASRM4s since they nerfed spread. The new Cyclops shows promise with 6 ASRM6 and either a 400 XL or large STD, sure it isn't perfect since you can't alpha, but you can at least maximize damage per volley. Splat mediums remain unaffected by this.

Wintersdark, on 24 August 2016 - 03:01 PM, said:

But everyone can run more lasers alongside the rest.

At the cost of heat efficiency, you are better off just trying to stack flamers over stacking lasers on brawlers, ED doesn't really change that. The special exception was always the 6 cSPL/4 ASRM6 Splat Timby but you can't get that burst damage anyway which really limits its usefulness.

[Wintersdark]

Also, velocity differences are irrelevant in pts2 for AC+lasers. You're firing the AC's then the lasers, not alpha striking. Lead+fire AC+adjust+fire lasers. You're splitting them either way, so it's not an issue.

Off, that's not an option with big hits, like 2CUAC10,which tends to monopolize your energy for 2s per volley (fire for 20, Regen 10 in 0.5, fire 20=30, 1.5s to get back to zero, fire uac20's again).

The above is what hinders 2uac10+other UAC's as well, though admittedly more does keep DPS up over jams I guess.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 August 2016 - 02:29 PM, said:

Lasers don't combine well with ACs due to velocity differences, why wouldn't I just take more dakka?

On live? I beg to differ. UAC/10 + 6x cERSL is the bomb. On PTS I'm inclined to agree. There used to be incentive for combining clan dakka with lasers, but that incentive was repeatable high alpha strikes, which ED set out to destroy in the first place - whether I like it or not.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 24 August 2016 - 03:12 PM.