BoldricKent, on 29 June 2018 - 12:14 AM, said:
10 crits slots on IS LBX20 would be huge, since it would be available on many more chassis on arm, which increases it
accuracy and agility, Jaggermech, Dragons, Victors, Centurions (Lbx has double speed of ac), so it preforms better in brawl.
Limitation of torso mounted it rather big.
For me the big question here is...let's say the crit slots were reduced to 10. At that point, why even take a vanilla AC/20? You're looking at better heat, no ghost heat with 2ea, better range, crit damage...people can say "but AC/20 pinpoint damage", but if you're close at all, you're probably capable of moderately comparable pinpoint anyways. Suddenly dual LB20X builds are far better than dual AC/20s due to ghost heat (and people might argue that they're ALREADY better on mechs like the Sleipner and BW) and regarding single LB20X builds...I mean, I dunno, but I think I might go with a single LB20X over a single AC/20 much of the time if the slots were reduced to 10.
Which, frankly, really points to issues with the IS AC/20 in the first place, but that's another argument entirely.
I would totally trade a greatly increased spread on the LB20X for a 1 slot reduction. Hell, add in a reduction to hitpoints too. The thing is just ridiculously hard to fit, and we don't get anything like splitting weapon crit slots between locations like we could in TT, nor do we get ammo-swapping, so PGIs insistence on sticking to canon crit slots seems...weird. I could get the argument that they don't want to completely replace the AC/20, and they don't want to go down the path where reducing the LB20X crit slots leads to them buffing the AC/20, and those buffs then tipping the balance scales tip too far in the other direction...but still.