16 replies to this topic

[Doctor Dinosaur]

Comparing the clan large pulse laser against the clan heavy laser shows that the latter one is completely superfluous:
LPL has...:
- Less cooldown
- Better heat efficiency (DMG/Heat)
- Better Slot/Damage ratio
- Almost equal Tonnage/DPS ratio
- Better range
- Better duration (and better DMG/Duration)

Heavy large laser is neither better at poking, bursting nor DPSing.

Suggestion: Remove the heavy laser and replace it with a snub PPC, pretty please.

Best regards
Doc

EDIT: Fixed "Better Tonnage/Damage ratio" to "Almost equal Tonnage/DPS ratio" which is quite a difference. Kudos to FupDup.

Edited by Doctor Dinosaur, 02 July 2017 - 11:47 AM.

[MechaBattler]

Liao would be willing trade Snubs for C-ERPPCs, the better to kill Davions. >:3

[Damnedtroll]

C-LPL do more damage than supposed... that's the problem, it make the heavy large useless.

Edited by Damnedtroll, 02 July 2017 - 11:35 AM.

[FupDup]

Doctor Dinosaur, on 02 July 2017 - 11:27 AM, said:

LPL has...
- Better Tonnage/Damage ratio

Actually, the Heavy LL wins that statistic. The CLPL is 2 damage per ton, while the HLL is 4 damage per ton.

Also consider that the minimum investment for the CLPL is 6 tons, while the minimum weight you need for the HLL is just 4 tons (50% difference). On mechs with extremely low pod space like the Scat, Ferret, Lynx, etc. (the ones that Heavy Lasers should be designed around), those 2 tons make a huge difference.

However, the long burn time and pretty high heat certainly hold it back.

Edited by FupDup, 02 July 2017 - 11:36 AM.

[Antares102]

FupDup, on 02 July 2017 - 11:35 AM, said:

Actually, the Heavy LL wins that statistic. The CLPL is 2 damage per ton, while the HLL is 4 damage per ton.

Also consider that the minimum investment for the CLPL is 6 tons, while the minimum weight you need for the HLL is just 4 tons (50% difference). On mechs with extremely low pod space like the Scat, Ferret, Lynx, etc. (the ones that Heavy Lasers should be designed around), those 2 tons make a huge difference.

However, the long burn time and pretty high heat certainly hold it back.

Its not just about tons. For Clans the Tons/Slots ratio is very important to fit more heat sinks.
When one just adds up tons/slots on an equal basis then the heavy large laser is just 1 better than the large pulse.

[Osulf]

TBH I have never played the tabletop/paper game, I understand they are trying to please the fans by keeping the weapons close to the original game. I think though most people just want to enjoy the game and having a range of useful weapons options to select from helps to do this.

It presents that most people are asking why they should take the LHL so is it really adding to the game? It has the drawbacks that you have mentioned. I would take the long duration and cool down, but I do think the heat needs to be reduced to below the damage so that it can compete with other weapons in an ongoing brawl, rather than being beaten by other mechs just because they have more heat efficient weapons.

[FupDup]

Antares102, on 02 July 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

Its not just about tons. For Clans the Tons/Slots ratio is very important to fit more heat sinks.
When one just adds up tons/slots on an equal basis then the heavy large laser is just 1 better than the large pulse.

Heatsinks are pretty easy to fit when they're 2 slots each and most other Clan stuff is smaller. If you're using Heavy Beamers on mechs with low pod space, the chances of you running out of slots are pretty slim.

If you're running out of slots I would assume you're trying to boat Heavy Lasers on mechs with plentiful pod space. You're not supposed to do that. Heavy Lasers are supposed to be strong in low quantities (by virtue of extremely high damage per tonnage ratio) so that low-hardpoint low-tonnage mechs can pack viable payloads, but become exponentially inefficient as you try to stack on large quantities of them.

I'm not saying they're perfect as-is, but they're certainly not as far off the mark as word on the street says.

Edited by FupDup, 02 July 2017 - 11:53 AM.

[Damnedtroll]

Osulf, on 02 July 2017 - 11:41 AM, said:

TBH I have never played the tabletop/paper game, I understand they are trying to please the fans by keeping the weapons close to the original game. I think though most people just want to enjoy the game and having a range of useful weapons options to select from helps to do this.

It presents that most people are asking why they should take the LHL so is it really adding to the game? It has the drawbacks that you have mentioned. I would take the long duration and cool down, but I do think the heat needs to be reduced to below the damage so that it can compete with other weapons in an ongoing brawl, rather than being beaten by other mechs just because they have more heat efficient weapons.

The problem is if you take something from the table top and do modification, it's sure that if you take something after that and put it in the game, you have balance problems... Right now the LHL need some fine tuning, i would say adding 1 or 2 points of damage would make it useful and can eliminate some drawback.

Edited by Damnedtroll, 02 July 2017 - 11:47 AM.

[Doctor Dinosaur]

Comparing LPL/HLL to their small counterparts, I would suggest that the HLL should be slightly superior in every field, witht the main difference in the longer burn duration.
Comparing it even further with the ER large laser, I'd say the Heavy large laser needs EVEN MORE damage...which feels wrong to me. No one should wield this much power.

[davoodoo]

Damnedtroll, on 02 July 2017 - 11:35 AM, said:

C-LPL do more damage than supposed... that's the problem, it make the heavy large useless.

Same with is.

But is also got 30% less heat than in tt...

tt lpl
heat 10
clan dmg 10
is dmg 9

mwo lpl
clan heat 10
clan dmg 12
is dmg 10
is heat 7

Edited by davoodoo, 02 July 2017 - 11:53 AM.

[Damnedtroll]

davoodoo, on 02 July 2017 - 11:53 AM, said:

Same with is.

But is also got 30% less heat than in tt...

tt lpl
heat 10
clan dmg 10
is dmg 9

mwo lpl
clan heat 10
clan dmg 12
is dmg 10
is heat 7

its hard to fit other laser if the case already taken...

[davoodoo]

Damnedtroll, on 02 July 2017 - 11:59 AM, said:

its hard to fit other laser if the case already taken...

Its hard to sell high heat lasers when dhs work at 1/3rd efficiency
24external dhs to cool off 14.5heat weapon...

But then they just wont ever compete if you add even more drawbacks to this already heat inefficient weapon.

They were meant as weapon for light and medium mechs which were starved on tonnage more than crits.
You have 32 dmg weapons at 36 heat(18 dhs to cool it off) and 8 tons instead of packing 18 tons of lpl for 30 dmg and 30 heat.
I mean normally you would throw 2 of those at shadowcat, fit some extra dhs and make them nearly heat neutral.
But not only you have horrible dhs, but also long duration and high cooldown. On a weapon designed for fast mechs which need brawling lasers.

Edited by davoodoo, 02 July 2017 - 12:21 PM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Antares102, on 02 July 2017 - 11:40 AM, said:

Its not just about tons. For Clans the Tons/Slots ratio is very important to fit more heat sinks.
When one just adds up tons/slots on an equal basis then the heavy large laser is just 1 better than the large pulse.

I swear so many people forget about this. Clan weapons generally are smaller but each one requires many more DHS to keep cool and in the case of heavy lasers, often your having to remove DHS to actually make room for them because they use so many more crits than other laser types. I mean 3 crits for a Heavy Large Laser and 2 Crits for a Heavy Medium laser vs 1 crit for ER LL, 2 crits for a LPL and 1 crit for a ER ML. Hell just switching from a ER LL to a Heavy Large Laser means you lose 1 DHS.

Honestly this is one of the reasons why I can't seem to make Heavy Lasers work in most cases.

My challenges with Heavy Lasers have been this:

1) Heat - used in any kind of boating situation and you can't really build a mech to be able to run them and still have decent heat efficiency. Hell even mounting a few of them on a mixed build tends to spike your heat to unusable levels often as not.

2) Beam duration and cooldown - Above and beyond the obvious issues with a long beam duration and long cooldown, I find that Heavy lasers are very awkward to use when trying to combine with any of the existing laser tech. They are just so out of sync with each other that they don't work well together. I mean you would think that pairing a couple Heavy Large Lasers up with some ER MLs would work out well due to them having similar max ranges but because the beam duration is so much longer and the cool down is so much slower, they don't mix at all.

3) Bulk - They just us a ton of critical slots. When I mount Heavy Lasers, I generally have to ditch DHS and other equipment or even reduce the amount of weapons I am carrying just to make room for their bulk. This tends to reduce my heat efficiency ever further as well as, quite frankly, reduce the overall efficiency of my mech and the extra damage they do isn't enough to make up for all I lost in having to mount them.

Overall I have found a few builds that work with them and in some cases I have manage to design a few builds specifically around them but those are few and far between. If they go live like this, I can't see mounting more than a handful on a very select few mech and they definitely aren't an optional replacement for the LPL or even the ER LL especially since they reduced the beam duration of the ER LL on PTS.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 02 July 2017 - 02:56 PM.

[Bespoke Cheese Cake]

Large pulse any day. Heavy burn time and range are bad.

[Rusharn]

Honestly what the heavy lasers need to justify their size, heat, and short range is a low burn duration. They should have the same burn duration as the IS lasers of the same size. This will create a weapon that has high precision damage weapon. something the Clan's do not have as far as lasers go.

[Durnaxe]

To be fair, even in tabletop Heavy Large lasers kinda suck. Clan Large Pulse lasers are OP in all games

[davoodoo]

Durnaxe, on 02 July 2017 - 05:19 PM, said:

To be fair, even in tabletop Heavy Large lasers kinda suck. Clan Large Pulse lasers are OP in all games

Because they werent meant to replace pulses for heavy mechs.

They were meant to provide additional firepower to lighter mechs, for mere 2 tons 20 tonner could get 20 dmg alpha for 14 heat which was covered by his 10 engine dhs.

or everyones favorite ach 30 tonner, it can put 4 heavy mediums and 4 dhs + ecm and extra half ton of armor after stock values for staggering 40 dmg at merely 28 heat which is completely negated by 14 dhs. You cant get anywhere close with pulses.

Edited by davoodoo, 02 July 2017 - 05:28 PM.