171 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

So, the Light Gauss.

Current stats:
Damage: 8
Heat: 1
Range: 750 m
Velocity: 2000 m/s
Cooldown: 3.25 s
Charge-up: 0.5s
DPS: 2.13

This gun is still irredeemably bad. Why? Well, let me enlighten you using a brief example which you can replicate or very nearly replicate with almost any extreme range weapon you want:

Three ERLL have a max DPS of 6.00. With 20x DHS, which you can get easy if all you have is 3x ERLL, you have a maximum sustained DPS of 3.90. Two Light Gauss have a maximum DPS of 4.26. But that's better, you say. Well, no. That's the maximum DPS, period: total and sustained. Its burst is a piddly 16. The ERLL have a burst DPS of 24.5. The ERLL, therefore, have a comparable sustained DPS, a superior maximum DPS, and 50% more burst DPS compared to a pair of Light Gauss. A pair of Light Gauss which weigh 24 tons all by themselves, while a trio of ERLL and 10 DHS are 25. I still need to invest in another 4-5 tons to get enough ammo to give the guns enough potential damage to be at all worthwhile. We haven't even begun talking about how having to calculate deflection at those long ranges increases exposure time, while the laser just rips out the round immediately and gets to have your torso while you make that calculation.

And that's just using IS weapons. It gets even more fun when we compare it to cERLL, because then we get to remove the range advantage out of the equation entirely instead of just ignoring it because most engagements won't take place outside of 800 meters anyway. And then there's the ERPPC, which has inferior sustain but who cares? It has superior burst at 20 and doesn't even use ammo. And the Clan one deals bonus damage.

And no, you can't really combine it with lasers. There is no point. If you are adding lasers, you are going for a burst build over sustain. You need a fourth ERLL added to a build that would otherwise to 3x ERLL + Gauss, and in exchange you spend 32 tons on weapons instead of 30, you get level 1 ghost heat, and you get worse sustained DPS when you fall back on just the Gauss than you would had you taken normal Gauss. There's no synergy there.

The only 'Mechs which can really get away with Light Gauss are those with at least a 10% cooldown to ballistics and full investment into cool-down. Then, your cool-down goes to 2.535 seconds and your DPS goes up to 2.6. And even then, you still need a very long game to have an impact if you are actually using it at-range.

TL;DR: cool-down needs to be at most 2.5 seconds with zero counterbalance anywhere else on the gun or the damage needs to go up to 10 with the current cool-down and also zero additional counterbalance.

Anybody else spent a lot of time with this weapon?

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 20 September 2017 - 07:25 PM.

[vettie]

While I agree you (for the most part), I feel the Light Gauss Rifle is just....under weaponized.

My Explanation is more or less the same as yours, not enough damage, too heavy (especially if you add ammo - what good is it without ammo?) and the new charge time while better, is not fast enough for this weapon.

Problem I see is that we already have multiple ballistics that offer 10 damage. The only advantage LGR has is range. At 12 tons, 8 damage is NOT enough.. I would prefer to see this weapon offer 12 damage. PGI could lower the ammo load from 20 to (random) say 15 shots.

At 12 damage, the target would at least notice that it was hit with something. I want to like this weapon, but I cant. Lost a duel with a Grasshopper, I was in Jager with dual LGR and dual ERMEDLzr. Both of us fresh when we ran in to each other. Hopper had 2 ERLrgLzr and 4 MedLzr.. When he killed me, a teammate with 1 small lazer killed. Yes close, but I lost the battle. Other ballistics on my end and I feel I would have killed him.

Just my opinion.

[Wintersdark]

Indeed. Ultimately, 14+ tons per LGR with ammo is just way too hefty an investment for 8 damage.

The standard answer of course is that while the LGR needs ammo, lasers/whatever need DHS... But those DHS are needed by basically all your other weaponry anyways. And if you go ammo light, with ballistic cooldown quirks and hope to play a sustained DPs game, it's pretty hard to fire enough to warrant that without running out of ammo.

The LGR could be good - or at least better - if you could actually utilize that range advantage vs other ballistics, but most maps? You're not doing any damage of note outside 600m unless your opponent lets you.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Yeonne Greene, on 20 September 2017 - 07:25 PM, said:

Anybody else spent a lot of time with this weapon?

I haven't bothered. For the weight and low damage, I'd rather use an AC/10 or two AC/5s.

[kapusta11]

Next patch:

"We're nerfing ERLLs, U/AC2s, and regular Gauss rifles because now that we've added a bunch of useless weapons to the pool global aggregate says they're overperforming ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

[kesmai]

It weighs at least 1t too much.
You're better off with an ac/uac 10.
But i have the feeling that even a 10t light gauss will be subpar.

[The6thMessenger]

Yeonne Greene, on 20 September 2017 - 07:25 PM, said:

TL;DR: cool-down needs to be at most 2.5 seconds with zero counterbalance anywhere else on the gun or the damage needs to go up to 10 with the current cool-down and also zero additional counterbalance.

Anybody else spent a lot of time with this weapon?

To be fair, ERLLs do their full damage at 0.93s when skilled, compare that to 8 that does so instantly no questions asked. Likewise you also need to stare for the same duration, when you can just hide immediately as soon as the projectile is on it's way.

Don't take this the wrong way, i get that LGR is bad. But i would shy away from 10 damage. Consider that ERPPCs while at 7 tons, and noticeable heat. Sure the LGR is far heavier individually, but when you are capable of boating it, realize that unlike the ERPPC that's held back by heat. The LGR can just constantly chew at you from a distance needing not much time to cooldown, with a not-as noticeable shell, with better velocity. Sure, ammo requirement is something, but when the guy already exhausted ammo, it did much of it's potential damage anyways. And when i say distance, i mean DISTANCE -- 750m already prevents most retaliation.

I do want it to excel at extremely long range, but why ERLLs are balanced at such a range is their inherent spread, we're talking about 10 PPFLD here.

I would argue something like this:

Damage: 9
Heat: 1
Range: 810 m
Velocity: 2400 m/s
Cooldown: 2.5s
Charge-up: 0.75s
DPS: 2.769230769230769
Ammo/Ton: 22

For me, that's perfect. Sure 2.5 cooldown is fast, but 0.75s charge time not only prevents it from being reactive, it still make it so that it's not as forgiving -- to just shoot when you miss. It also has 2.7692 DPS, that's not exactly THAT pitiful. 9 PPFLD is not too high, but still higher than we have.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 21 September 2017 - 03:18 AM.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

All gauss rifles produce very little heat. You can't just throw away one of their good features, examine the rest and then claim it's too weak.

[The6thMessenger]

Teer Kerensky, on 20 September 2017 - 11:17 PM, said:

All gauss rifles produce very little heat. You can't just throw away one of their good features, examine the rest and then claim it's too weak.

Consider how much "little heat" really contributes. High heat dissipation is i would say the norm, everybody generally uses DHS saved for people needing the slot and tonnage and could compensate -- say a Gauss Urbanmech needs FFA and Endo, but because it has little slots left it could only use one-slot SHS versus the 3-Slot DHS to complete the required 10 heatsinks, and it's not like the gauss is that hot right?

I understand that it's an important mix on Gauss-Vomits or Gauss-PPCs, cause you can still fire a weapon when the energy-weapons already heated you. But then what we're saying is that, low-heat/shot is not enough to justify it's use, cause it doesn't offer much advantage that we might as well go for the GR.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 20 September 2017 - 11:25 PM.

[El Bandito]

Just remove the charge from LGauss.

[Luminis]

Simply put, Gausses are no DPS weapons. Buffing the cooldown doesn't do the weapon much good. Gausses pair well with light, high heat weapons - which are't suitable for DPS builds. And for long range sniping, getting more damage onto the target whenever it exposes itself is more important than having slightly better DPS.

It needs ten damage and no charge-up. Make the AC10 beat it in terms of DPS so that still has a place.

[The6thMessenger]

Luminis, on 20 September 2017 - 11:42 PM, said:

And for long range sniping, getting more damage onto the target whenever it exposes itself is more important than having slightly better DPS.

It needs ten damage and no charge-up. Make the AC10 beat it in terms of DPS so that still has a place.

Here's the thing. It's gonna do 10 damage/shot that unlike ERPPC, it's not shut down by heat. It's going to be an annoying ***** if it could shoot constantly without heat limiting it's shots.

[Luminis]

The6thMessenger, on 21 September 2017 - 03:12 AM, said:

Here's the thing. It's gonna do 10 damage/shot that unlike ERPPC, it's not shut down by heat. It's going to be an annoying ***** if it could shoot constantly without heat limiting it's shots.

Like the regular Gauss Rifle, that does fifteen damage per shot for just three tons more than the LGR?

[The6thMessenger]

Luminis, on 21 September 2017 - 04:10 AM, said:

Like the regular Gauss Rifle, that does fifteen damage per shot for just three tons more than the LGR?

And you know what else? The LGR's 3.25 + 0.5s cooldown, while the GR have 5.00 + 0.75s cooldown. 10 PPFLD damage from 750m every 3.75s would be too powerful -- and that's with a charge mechanic, now remove the charge. and unlike the ER-PPC that actually have a considerable heat/shot, the LGR is heat neutral that could be fired with little heat-related consequence.

I would argue that having a decent shot would tread so much on the GR territory that we fail to make it relevant even when worth it's tonnage, if it was approached with per-shot-emphasis. Following the trend of the HGR trading even more of the range and cooldown, for that powerful per shot damage -- the opposite of the spectrum could be trading the damage for that extremely long range and low cooldown. It could approach the DPS route instead for relevance.

[Y E O N N E]

Teer Kerensky, on 20 September 2017 - 11:17 PM, said:

All gauss rifles produce very little heat. You can't just throw away one of their good features, examine the rest and then claim it's too weak.

I can when the three ERLL I compared to are so cold that they also generate next to no heat.

Heat means absolutely nothing if you don't get heat limited within the expected engagement window. You would either be dead or I would be forced out of position by pressure before heat became a concern with just 3x ERLL and 20x DHS.

Luminis, on 20 September 2017 - 11:42 PM, said:

Simply put, Gausses are no DPS weapons. Buffing the cooldown doesn't do the weapon much good. Gausses pair well with light, high heat weapons - which are't suitable for DPS builds. And for long range sniping, getting more damage onto the target whenever it exposes itself is more important than having slightly better DPS.

It needs ten damage and no charge-up. Make the AC10 beat it in terms of DPS so that still has a place.

AC/10 does 4 DPS as-is. It already does stomp all over it and will continue to do so even if LGauss had the change I mentioned.

And yes it is a DPS weapon, just not short-term DPS.

The6thMessenger, on 20 September 2017 - 11:14 PM, said:

To be fair, ERLLs do their full damage at 0.93s when skilled, compare that to 8 that does so instantly no questions asked. Likewise you also need to stare for the same duration, when you can just hide immediately as soon as the projectile is on it's way.

Don't take this the wrong way, i get that LGR is bad. But i would shy away from 10 damage. Consider that ERPPCs while at 7 tons, and noticeable heat. Sure the LGR is far heavier individually, but when you are capable of boating it, realize that unlike the ERPPC that's held back by heat. The LGR can just constantly chew at you from a distance needing not much time to cooldown, with a not-as noticeable shell, with better velocity. Sure, ammo requirement is something, but when the guy already exhausted ammo, it did much of it's potential damage anyways. And when i say distance, i mean DISTANCE -- 750m already prevents most retaliation.

I do want it to excel at extremely long range, but why ERLLs are balanced at such a range is their inherent spread, we're talking about 10 PPFLD here.

I mean, if I land 60% of my burn with skilled-up ERLL, I've already exceeded the burst potential of twin 8-damage LGauss. It is very easy to get just 0.558 seconds of damage onto one location for all but the fastest of targets. So, yeah, it's a duration weapon, but no it's not that long. There is a reason why Heavy Larges are meta and it's because the burst damage for the whole package is so high that even scrapes savage sections. Same applies here.

Quote

I would argue something like this:

Damage: 9
Heat: 1
Range: 810 m
Velocity: 2400 m/s
Cooldown: 2.5s
Charge-up: 0.75s
DPS: 2.769230769230769
Ammo/Ton: 22

For me, that's perfect. Sure 2.5 cooldown is fast, but 0.75s charge time not only prevents it from being reactive, it still make it so that it's not as forgiving -- to just shoot when you miss. It also has 2.7692 DPS, that's not exactly THAT pitiful. 9 PPFLD is not too high, but still higher than we have.

It will have 3.05 DPS when skilled, 3.33 if there's a 10% quirk involved. That...is even stronger than 10 over 3.25+0.5. I won't complain, but I think the shorter charge on LGauss is worth something all by itself. After playing last night, it's not that good in a reactive situation, but since LGauss are all you have it does give it slightly better reactive capability, which it needs since LGauss are the bulk of whatever firepower you have and not every map you drop in lets you actually play the ranged game appropriately.

2.66 DPS is, from experience, the magic number. Any combination of damage (8+) and cool-down that gets it there is fine by me.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 21 September 2017 - 05:20 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Yeonne Greene, on 21 September 2017 - 05:19 AM, said:

It will have 3.05 DPS when skilled, 3.33 if there's a 10% quirk involved. That...is even stronger than 10 over 3.25+0.5.

But the difference would be that it's not putting a powerful PPFLD from a considerable range with little heat. It's less being something you could just use to whack a component a couple of times and open it, but to actually do it a couple of times, even if just extra one or two volleys.

Yeonne Greene, on 21 September 2017 - 05:19 AM, said:

I won't complain, but I think the shorter charge on LGauss is worth something all by itself. After playing last night, it's not that good in a reactive situation, but since LGauss are all you have it does give it slightly better reactive capability, which it needs since LGauss are the bulk of whatever firepower you have and not every map you drop in lets you actually play the ranged game appropriately.

The charge is there for consistency in being a "Gauss", likewise retarding reactive shots, and close-range effectiveness -- essentially the drawback that allows it to have a good advantage such as low cooldown. It's supposed to emphasize and anchor it to the long-range role, by making it ergonomically horrible at closer ranges and not as reactive.

That's to give AC10 such a job and by extension, the relevance. At least until they finally buffed it and made it more relevant.

Yeonne Greene, on 21 September 2017 - 05:19 AM, said:

2.66 DPS is, from experience, the magic number. Any combination of damage (8+) and cool-down that gets it there is fine by me.

It could always have a cooldown of 2.63s + 0.75s and have a shot every 3.38 seconds. The LGR best undertake the DPS role to be relevant, cause the Gauss Rifle is already doing the per-shot role, and 3 tons isn't really that a lot to compensate for.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 21 September 2017 - 05:37 AM.

[Roadbuster]

Make it lighter and reduce crit slots.
There's a number of medium or even light mechs which could use a light gauss without being subpar, if it wasn't so heavy and big. For the damage it does, it's just too heavy and too big.

AC5 is in the same boat. Cooldown is too high to be effective. DPS is just slightly better than AC2. Velocity is almost half of AC2 and not much more than AC10.
It needs a bit lower cooldown and higher velocity.

[Paigan]

Yeonne Greene, on 20 September 2017 - 07:25 PM, said:

So, the Light Gauss.

[elongate selective facts presentation]

You miss some things:

1.)
Dual Light Gauss have 16 PPFLD, while 3 ERLL have an alpha of 27 beam damage.
The latter CAN be better, but in 90% of all cases, the prior is better.

Btw: Why do you normalize the alpha damage to exactely one second?
You could as well normalize it to 0.001 seconds.
Then the 2 Gauss would still have 16, while the 3 ERLLs would have whooping 0.025 damage.
Moral of the story:
You just bent the numbers to fit your whining, but not to objectively fit the real situation.
If you want to talk about "burst" damage, you can only do it properly by differentiating between PPFLD and beam/salvo damage. 10 PPFLD is generally worth MUCH more than 10 beam damage.
And 16 PPFLD is worth MUCH more than 27 damage distributed over 1.1 seconds.

2.)
Looking at 2 Gauss Rifles alone means to totally ignore the 10 built-in heat sinks.
It's like wasting 10 tons of equipment.
Non-heat weapons in a heavily heat-dependant system can always only be supplemental weapons to other high-heat weapons if you want your Mech to be competable.

3.)
Gauss are extremely sneaky. The longer their range is, the more useful they get. MUCH more useful than lasers of the same range.
Normal Gauss with 600 meters range is not that far a distance to be effectively used for sneaky long range sniping (I always love when ignorant people think Gauss Rifles are sniper weapons and pound me at >1200 meters with them. They deal next to 0 damage and I mock them in chat while getting hit).
750 meters is still not uber long, but it definitely gets interesting. I (normaly only playing clans) even bought the ECM-Cataphract rustbucket just to do exactely that. And it was awesome. Even before the recent buff.

Conclusion:
I would suggest to get the facts straight before crying for a ridiculous powerful buff that would make the weapon outright overpowered (if used by people who understand it fully).

TL;DR: L2P

Edited by Paigan, 21 September 2017 - 06:37 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

The6thMessenger, on 21 September 2017 - 05:33 AM, said:

But the difference would be that it's not putting a powerful PPFLD from a considerable range with little heat. It's less being something you could just use to whack a component a couple of times and open it, but to actually do it a couple of times, even if just extra one or two volleys.

Durations below 0.8 seconds are short enough that they become de facto PPFLD. The ERLL is pretty close to 0.8 for what it is. That LGauss is "for realsies" PPFLD is entirely irrelevant; it is even irrelevant for full isGauss. You don't see isGauss tearing it up, and it deals 15 damage and 2.6 DPS, usually with 726 meters of range. A Light Gauss doing nearly the same DPS for 33% less damage and 25% less tonnage is not at all at-risk of being too powerful.

You keep using the term "powerful", but your context for calling it so is simply ill-informed.

Quote

The charge is there for consistency in being a "Gauss", likewise retarding reactive shots, and close-range effectiveness -- essentially the drawback that allows it to have a good advantage such as low cooldown. It's supposed to emphasize and anchor it to the long-range role, by making it ergonomically horrible at closer ranges and not as reactive.

That's to give AC10 such a job and by extension, the relevance. At least until they finally buffed it and made it more relevant.

It is already and would continue to be both ergonomically and empirically horrible at close range.

Remember, the AC/10 fires immediately and with more punch and DPS. At 500 meters and below, it is not at-risk of becoming irrelevant, and a modest bump to velocity would be enough to bring it back even if it were. And it could use that bump regardless of what happens with LGauss.

I care not one single bit about being consistent with the standard Gauss.

Quote

It could always have a cooldown of 2.63s + 0.75s and have a shot every 3.38 seconds. The LGR best undertake the DPS role to be relevant, cause the Gauss Rifle is already doing the per-shot role, and 3 tons isn't really that a lot to compensate for.

As above, my point to you is that the Gauss is already superior both in DPS and up-front damage. My reason for pointing out that your proposal was more potent than mine was because you keep flirting with the idea that the LGauss is at-risk for being OP and I wanted to drive home to you how misguided that was. Because standard Gauss is already better in all the ways and LGauss combines so poorly with other weapons, it isn't enough for the two to simply match in DPS.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 21 September 2017 - 06:32 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Paigan, on 21 September 2017 - 06:28 AM, said:

You miss some things:

I miss nothing, those points have very lottle bearing on the potency of tge weapon in application.

Quote

Conclusion:
I would suggest to get the facts straight before crying for a ridiculous powerful buff that would make the weapon outright overpowered (if used by people understand it fully).

Are you not the same individual wondering why the new WHK-C quirks buffed cLPL while, in the very same paragraph, stating that cERLL are better?

Conclusion:
Apply additional common sense.