81 replies to this topic

[Nymh]

They have no niche. ERMLs have similar DPS/DPH with more range, MPLs have better DPS/DPH with similar range, and both have shorter burns. If they had durations on par with the ER class then you might see them on some builds, but as is they're unusable.

Edited by Nymh, 15 July 2017 - 05:52 AM.

[Escef]

Nymh, on 15 July 2017 - 05:52 AM, said:

They have no niche. ERMLs have similar DPS/DPH with more range, MPLs have better DPS/DPH with similar range, and both have shorter burns. If they had durations on par with the ER class then you might see them on some builds, but as is they're unusable.

What about damage/hardpoint? Granted, very few clan mechs are starved for energy points.

[Khobai]

Quote

They have no niche

Yep. Even on clan mechs that only have 1-2 energy hardpoints, which SHOULD be their niche, x2 LPL still outperforms x2 HLL

Quote

What about damage/hardpoint? Granted, very few clan mechs are starved for energy points.

LPL is still better. Because of the absurdly high heat and long cooldown on the HLL.

The perfect balancing point for the HLL should be x2 HLL vs x2 LPL. The x2 HLL should just barely outperform x2 LPL. That would give HLL a niche on mechs with only 1-2 energy hardpoints.

Because the LPL still has other applications where its good like in laser vomit builds.


HLL needs its heat reduced to 15 or 15.5 at the most. And it needs its cooldown reduced by .25 if not .5

The beam duration is good though. It does more damage per tick than the LPL. So id leave that alone.

Edited by Khobai, 15 July 2017 - 06:09 AM.

[davoodoo]

Khobai, on 15 July 2017 - 06:00 AM, said:

The x2 HLL should just barely outperform x2 LPL.

Imo other way around, lpl just barely outperforming hll
After all lpl weigh 50% more than hll.

It is weapon for lights and some mediums which wish to save up on tonnage. It wont by design ever be viable on vomit.

[Khobai]

Quote

Imo other way around, lpl just barely outperforming hll
After all lpl weigh 50% more than hll.

im saying HLL should be buffed so it just barely outperforms LPL

HLL is inferior to LPL currently

im agreeing with you

Quote

It is weapon for lights and some mediums which wish to save up on tonnage. It wont by design ever be viable on vomit.

the HLL needs to individually outperform the LPL or theres no reason to use it even on mechs that lack energy hardpoints.

while LPL will always have a use in laser vomit builds. LPL doesnt need to be a niche weapon for mechs with limited energy hardpoints. HLL needs that niche though, its the only thing it can potentially be good at.

Edited by Khobai, 15 July 2017 - 06:47 AM.

[ScreamingSkull]

davoodoo, on 15 July 2017 - 02:26 AM, said:

nope, heavy lasers still trash, with 1.55s duration you can go **** yourself...

at least atms got spread decrease, but 200 velocity and minimal range doesnt change the fact that its gonna be poking stick at best and not main weapon system.

hgauss still 180m range...why?
mrms 4.6 spread... oh ffs, itll miss frontal profile of atlas at 400m...

i hope that dmg on hppc isnt spread, that would actually make it decent.

also why the **** does cmpl deal same dmg cermed... havent we already had this with lpl and ll in the past.
I wont pay with double tonnage for 0.35s duration and 1.1s overall cd...

also uac20/ac20 still at ghost heat 1...im changing my kgc000 into ac2 boat...

Lore. The Heavy Gauss Rifle had 6 range for optimum damage (180 meters), and dropped off beyond that. If they followed Battletechs damage drop off it should still hit for 15 to 10 damage at max range.

[davoodoo]

ScreamingSkull, on 15 July 2017 - 06:44 AM, said:

Lore. The Heavy Gauss Rifle had 6 range for optimum damage (180 meters), and dropped off beyond that. If they followed Battletechs damage drop off it should still hit for 15 to 10 damage at max range.

Lore. medium laser had 3 hexes for optimum range or 90m.

You understand why this excuse is ******** in this case? Everything got their long range for optimal and doubled that for maximum during which they dropoff.

But only snub and hgauss got their short range for optimal and 1.5times long for maximum(actually snub is 1 hex short even if we round down).
I can understand that pgi might want to show that these weapons have special falloff, but then use medium range at the very least and at 390m optimal hgauss would actually be viable if niche weapon.

Oh and heavy gauss still got 5 shots per ton(25% increase over tt), light gauss got 20 shots per ton(25% increase over tt) while gauss got 10(50% rounded down increase over tt)

Edited by davoodoo, 15 July 2017 - 06:54 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

Its meh, for example some mechs will have a use for them but they necessarily will not be boat-able. Example on some of the mediums as mentioned above like the shadow cat will use them to great effect. Two or three heavy large lasers and just manage your heat with them should be better than using clan large pulse lasers.

Combine the heavy large laser with all range and heat mitigation nodes will make mediums very usable.

As for the heavy medium laser and heavy small laser I think will have a better use on the bigger mechs. So gargoyle running around with heavy mediums sounds very fun, just grab all the laser duration nodes. Or putting a bunch of heavy small lasers, small er lasers, and small pulse lasers on a gargoyle would might bring that mech back to more use, like before the Kodiak.

So to break it down in my opinion; the Heavy Large Laser will be great for mechs only using 2 or 3 energy hard points, but the Heavy Medium and Small Lasers should see some use in boating though. But one thing, do not mix Heavy Large and other lasers it does not end well for heat.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Yeonne Greene, on 15 July 2017 - 01:30 AM, said:

HLL got 18 damage?

*looks*

Oh snap it did. I hadn't even noticed. My Shadowcat is going to be quite pleased with this development.

Could throw on 2 for 36 damage alpha....

or take 3 at once, nearly die of overheating, but push out a 54 damage alpha. More likely just pair it with an ERML or HML for either 43 or 46 damage.

Though the ATMs look like they might be a nice option for the cats.

Edited by Dakota1000, 15 July 2017 - 07:49 AM.

[Requiemking]

I played around with HLLs on the Adder Prime on pts(I was mimicking the ADR-H config). The heat wasn't so bad with maxed weapon heat nodes and ops tree, the cooldown was a major issue though.

Edited by Requiemking, 15 July 2017 - 08:01 AM.

[SuperFunkTron]

After reading a lot of the complaints about the Heavy Lasers here, I'm curious how many people actually tried them in the PTS. Not just boating them, but trying the actual lore load outs like the Warhawk with 2 LHL and 2LPL for example, which worked to devastating effect. Hell, the Nova with 10 HMLs was brutal even though you could only use 4 lasers at a time before ghost heat kicked in (kind of like playing a 6 LL Supernova, but brawly) but had vicious damage potential. We can all sit and complain about how "bad" these lasers are, but the reality is that these are excellent weapons when used what they are designed for; a brutal amount of damage in a relatively short amount of time and only in rare cases should even have the consideration of being boated weapons.

I really recommend looking at the Civil War era mech variants that use the new weapons as a starting point for considering how to mix them in rather than claiming they are not viable because they can't be boated.

[Burke IV]

Sorry if this is a little off topic, but do any of you guys run pure laser builds with 0 nodes in the weapons tree? Not tryed it in game so maybe very wrong but i cant really see any reason for a laser boat add any, especially if they plan to peek and poke.

[davoodoo]

SuperFunkTron, on 15 July 2017 - 08:20 AM, said:

After reading a lot of the complaints about the Heavy Lasers here, I'm curious how many people actually tried them in the PTS. Not just boating them, but trying the actual lore load outs like the Warhawk with 2 LHL and 2LPL for example, which worked to devastating effect. Hell, the Nova with 10 HMLs was brutal even though you could only use 4 lasers at a time before ghost heat kicked in (kind of like playing a 6 LL Supernova, but brawly) but had vicious damage potential. We can all sit and complain about how "bad" these lasers are, but the reality is that these are excellent weapons when used what they are designed for; a brutal amount of damage in a relatively short amount of time and only in rare cases should even have the consideration of being boated weapons.

I really recommend looking at the Civil War era mech variants that use the new weapons as a starting point for considering how to mix them in rather than claiming they are not viable because they can't be boated.

pts was 4v4.

Sure if i can go 1v1 then superior damage will usually win.

Now throw 4-6 mechs following that mech in normal 12v12. This is where long duration and cooldown become problem.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Burke IV, on 15 July 2017 - 08:37 AM, said:

Sorry if this is a little off topic, but do any of you guys run pure laser builds with 0 nodes in the weapons tree? Not tryed it in game so maybe very wrong but i cant really see any reason for a laser boat add any, especially if they plan to peek and poke.

I'd definitely go for duration and range boosts on a peek and poke build. Heat nodes also help quite a bit at being able to keep up your peeking and poking long enough to be relevant. Would definitely recommend a solid investment in the weapons tree for laser boating. Would also recommend survival so you can tank a bit since you do have some face time on the lasers so return fire is likely to happen.

[Reno Blade]

When I tried dual HLL it was always too hot. At least if there were any other weapons also building heat.

Then I tried a Nova with 4x HML and 6x HSL and it worked quite well. Maybe I was used to the ERML / ERSL builds that are also hot on the Nova...

I will take 2x HML and 1 HLL with combination of missiles/ballistics, so I can save on the laser side and add cooler weapons on top for more total damage without boating lasers.

Maybe having a stroll with a Summoner again. HLL, ATM6 and a UAC10/Gauss maybe? sounds quite nice for a change.

[JadePanther]

HLL's are just not very viable.. the damage increase will help but i only see a few mechs capable of making HLL usage viable.. in PTS running more than 2 was just not worth it for the most part unless u were in 90-100T. The sinks needed to dissipate that heat really need the biggest mechs possible..

The cooldown is just huge and changing it doesnt solve anything with the heat they put off.. Though raising the damage did increase the efficiency of the weapon, There is still not much to make it very attractive..

IMO this thing should have a very low duration.. Firing a huge damage in a very short burst would explain the short distance and huge heat output..

[Tordin]

Compared to the first stats in the PTS, they got alot more useful. Glad PGI listened to the feedback/ saw it themself that what the Heavy lasers had in stats was just horrendus. Cooldown should be high with HL but the duration, well preferrably should be lower than the Clan ER lasers.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Luminis, on 15 July 2017 - 02:26 AM, said:

Meh. There might be some niche applications, but:

• Range is bad
  
• Heat is bad
  
• Duration is bad
  
• Crit slot requirement is bad

The obvious advantage is the damage per ton and hardpoint but with the cERML now having its 800m max range, I'd always run three cERMLs over a singular HLL if I got the hard points and if tonnage allows, I'd rather run an ERPPC. So, said niche application seems to be 'Mechs that are starved for both hardpoints and tonnage. Otherwise, meh.

Yeah this is how I feel.

I did pretty extensive testing on the PTS, about 30 hours worth and the best I could come up with was a few niche builds that worked well. I was hopping that PGI would take our feedback and improve them a bit more, but nope.

The problems I ran into with the heavy lasers were this:

1 - Did not pair well with existing Energy Weapons. Basically the cooldown and beam duration was so drastically different then existing energy weapons that even if you weren't playing Alpha Warrior Online, your timings were tremendously thrown off. That being the case, I really had a hard time pairing say a HLL with an CER ML.

2 - They were too hot overall for use on already hot running Clan mechs. The blunt truth is that Clan mechs generally struggle with heat management because all their existing weapons are so hot. If Clan mechs didn't have the 2 crit DHS, they wouldn't be able to function at all. Now add even hotter weapons to the mix and you just can't boat enough DHS to deal with it very well.

3 - They are too bulky. Seriously they just use too much critical space and this compounds the heat issues I mentioned above. Because of their bulk, I generally found I had to remove DHS to fit them. This is counter-intuitive since if your running hotter weapons you obviously need better ability to counter that heat. Also due to all the locked structure, armor and other pieces of equipment on clan Omni-Mechs, often you can't even fit them where you need to fit them. I tried going for quad HML's in my Purfiers torsos for example but you can't fit two HMLs in the left torso because there are only 3 critical slots available in the entire torso section. <pulls out hair>.

The result was that on 90% of my Clan mechs, existing energy weapons produced superior sustainable firepower. Sure I could get higher Alpha's with the Heavy Lasers, but that came at the expense of much more time hiding and cooling down, not to mention much more accidental OH situations. They also compromised my ability to be effective when the the battle came down to the short range in fights most matches eventually turn into. This does not even take into the account things like the increased face time requirement or the range disadvantage you have to accept if you mount heavy lasers.

So yeah, overall they kind of suck though I will admit I did find a few builds that could really take advantage of them and use them to their fullest potential but those builds were few and far between.

[Battlemaster56]

Tordin, on 15 July 2017 - 08:52 AM, said:

Compared to the first stats in the PTS, they got alot more useful. Glad PGI listened to the feedback/ saw it themself that what the Heavy lasers had in stats was just horrendus. Cooldown should be high with HL but the duration, well preferrably should be lower than the Clan ER lasers.

I suggest the duration should be between Std and ER lasers before the PTS. They be generally balanced between their heat and cooldown, and range limitation. seeing that it have way too many negatives that damage and weight alone not to offset them.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I don't understand how a 6 ton, 60damag alpha is "worthless" or "non-viable"