209 replies to this topic

[Gorgo7]

Are you using a Heavy PPC or three? Have you tried them? If you've tried them and are not using them, why not?

I was using them, with some effect too. The cooldown was slightly higher then a std PPC...I believe it was 4.5 sec. Not ideal but usable given the big hitting power of a pair fired together.
I was aware that very few were using them...perhaps in line with the original PPC usage. This latest update nerfed them into a 5 sec cooldown.

WHY?

There was no outrage from the community over the Heavy PPC meta...
The competitive scene wasn't reeling from the body blows landed by the awesome Awesome. Were they?

Please PGI, revert the Heavy PPC to a 4.5 sec cooldown or even better 4 sec as ALL the other PPC family has.

Thank you

G7

[Jay Leon Hart]

Did you really need another thread?

[Texan Scrub Lord]

I have tried triple HPPCs and they are legitimately pretty strong, comparing them to the ballistic variant of IS Gauss rifles they are better every practical use in their roles also on top of the fact you can still alpha 3 of them on a awesome. The fact they also outclassed the cooldown of a ballistic weapon that weighs 5 tons more on top of the charge time seemed a little bit ridiculous at least in balance of IS weapons.

[Jun Watarase]

Massive laser alphas are better for long range (no need to lead, just point and click for massive hitscan damage). At mid-close range, pulse lasers dominate because their burn durations goes down to 0.5s or lower with quirks/skill nodes and are much more efficient.

The ability to fire 3 LL/LPL without ghost heat doomed normal PPCs to obscurity because the former does roughly 50% more damage per alpha. While heavy PPCs can match that damage, they weigh much more and are less heat efficient.

[Lightfoot]

HPPC were probably alright at 4.5 seconds. 10 tons, 14.5 heat, 4 crits means two put your mech into overheat quickly unless you can also fit 8-10 DHS to keep it all cool. Meaning the 5 second recycle is redundant since you are already likely at 6 second recycles without a lot of DHS and if you have the 8 tons of DHS to keep them cool then you paid too much for the faster recycle.

The Awesome is a PPC specialized mech that gets compensated for it's ultra-fat-wide geometry so don't measure HPPCs against it. Whatever the Awesome does PPC-wise is just to make the Awesome balanced with other 80 ton mechs.

[Shifty McSwift]

What's that? You are enjoying HPPCs? OK time to make their bonus damage splash and increase their ghost heat (firing one causes ghost heat).

[Gorgo7]

Again, I must ask.

Are you using a Heavy PPC in any capacity other than as a novelty?

[Lightfoot]

Gorgo7, on 30 September 2017 - 08:21 AM, said:

Again, I must ask.

Are you using a Heavy PPC in any capacity other than as a novelty?

Yes. On certain mechs they are a perfect fit.

[stealthraccoon]

Gorgo7, on 30 September 2017 - 08:21 AM, said:

Again, I must ask.
Are you using a Heavy PPC in any capacity other than as a novelty?

My HPPC Commando does just fine, thank you for asking. Also, my Panther 10K looks right with one.

[Gorgo7]

Lightfoot, on 30 September 2017 - 08:25 AM, said:

Yes. On certain mechs they are a perfect fit.

stealthraccoon, on 30 September 2017 - 08:26 AM, said:

My HPPC Commando does just fine, thank you for asking. Also, my Panther 10K looks right with one.

Thank you for your reply's!

Lightfoot, may i ask you which builds in particular you are running the Heavy PPC on?

[El Bandito]

Gorgo7, on 30 September 2017 - 08:21 AM, said:

Again, I must ask.

Are you using a Heavy PPC in any capacity other than as a novelty?

2xHPPC on the Shawk-2K is awesome expereince.

[kapusta11]

El Bandito, on 30 September 2017 - 08:32 AM, said:

2xHPPC on the Shawk-2K is awesome expereince.

Sparky is better.

[panzer1b]

Gorgo7, on 30 September 2017 - 07:48 AM, said:

Are you using a Heavy PPC or three? Have you tried them? If you've tried them and are not using them, why not?

I occasionally mount 2 of them on my marauders, but its mostly a for-fun build since i dont have any IS mechs that are heavily quirked for PPCs or have the ability to poptart to truly use the advantages. On a serious level, i dont use them though, since they (and the entire PPC family minus ERPPCs which have enough downsides for me to not even consider using) are almost completely obsoleted by LPLs. 3 LPLs and 2 HPPCs are same weight/alfa, but LPLs fire faster, run way cooler, and might as well be PPFLD with their burn time being as short as it is, not to mention the whole advantage of being hitscan and less prone to hit reg derpage (dont even wanna know how often i have PPCs hit someone square in the face and do nothing).

The HPPC is in my opinion is a good spot right now. Also, im prolly one of few that really doesnt care about a minor nerf to its cooldown, especially since the limiting factor on the things is heat and not cooldown. The nerf doesnt affect poptarts or pokers, and 90% of people (including me when i occasionally mess with them) use them in a manner where the cooldown doesnt mean squat. The only exception to this is burst DPS mechs (only mech i can think of that can fire enough HPPCs in a row to do that is the awesome, but again, aside from maybee 1-2 exceptions, no mech is going to sit there, facetank enemy fire, and poop out HPPCs in a manner where the cooldown actually makes a big difference (you are going to melt pretty quickly).

That said, i dont really see much reason why it was nerfed. It just gives IS a energy equivalent of dual gauss without the insane weight and ballistic hardpoint requirements (pretty much every IS chassis that is even worth running competitively has at least 1 variant with 2 energy hardpoints). It also gives clan dual gauss some competition, and lets face it, there were/are very few IS mechs that can do dual gauss vomit and do it anywhere near as well as clanners (not that i consider this bad, i like the fact that clan and IS each get their own unque playstyle, clan dominating mid range with their gauss/laser vomit builds, and IS dominating brawl and having arguably superior ERLLs which get overtaken by clan at extreme range with their ERPPC boats). Even then, unless you are very close to the target, HPPCs have difficulty hitting exactly what you want consistently since they have lowish velocity (you can counter this with TCs and or quirks, but few mechs can do it), while dual gauss can nail desired components at 500m with almost guaranteed precision.

I wouldnt be opposed to removing this nerf though. Its already sorta outclassed by clan dual gauss (gets better burst DPS but atrocious sustain even with 20 DHS), and 30 PPFLD isnt as scary as many people make it out to be if you consider that every laser vomit mech thats even worth running has between 50 and 80 alfa strike, and being hitscan, cant be avoided easily post engine desync and the general death of fast torso twisting. Everything is a sidegrade at this point, PPFLD can still work if you poptart, but laser vomit is in my opinion still superior to both gauss and HPPC boats in most situations so nerfing either gauss rifles or HPPCs is absolutely pointless.

[Davegt27]

Quote

Are You Using A Heavy Ppc?

I was
I had one on my ASN and a snub nose PPC

but after the change to 5 sec I took it off
it was pretty fun
but 5 sec cool down on a light fast Mech is a long time

[Gorgo7]

panzer1b, on 30 September 2017 - 09:52 AM, said:

I occasionally mount 2 of them on my marauders, but its mostly a for-fun build since i dont have any IS mechs that are heavily quirked for PPCs or have the ability to poptart to truly use the advantages. On a serious level, i dont use them though, since they (and the entire PPC family minus ERPPCs which have enough downsides for me to not even consider using) are almost completely obsoleted by LPLs. 3 LPLs and 2 HPPCs are same weight/alfa, but LPLs fire faster, run way cooler, and might as well be PPFLD with their burn time being as short as it is, not to mention the whole advantage of being hitscan and less prone to hit reg derpage (dont even wanna know how often i have PPCs hit someone square in the face and do nothing).

The HPPC is in my opinion is a good spot right now. Also, im prolly one of few that really doesnt care about a minor nerf to its cooldown, especially since the limiting factor on the things is heat and not cooldown. The nerf doesnt affect poptarts or pokers, and 90% of people (including me when i occasionally mess with them) use them in a manner where the cooldown doesnt mean squat. The only exception to this is burst DPS mechs (only mech i can think of that can fire enough HPPCs in a row to do that is the awesome, but again, aside from maybee 1-2 exceptions, no mech is going to sit there, facetank enemy fire, and poop out HPPCs in a manner where the cooldown actually makes a big difference (you are going to melt pretty quickly).

That said, i dont really see much reason why it was nerfed. It just gives IS a energy equivalent of dual gauss without the insane weight and ballistic hardpoint requirements (pretty much every IS chassis that is even worth running competitively has at least 1 variant with 2 energy hardpoints). It also gives clan dual gauss some competition, and lets face it, there were/are very few IS mechs that can do dual gauss vomit and do it anywhere near as well as clanners (not that i consider this bad, i like the fact that clan and IS each get their own unque playstyle, clan dominating mid range with their gauss/laser vomit builds, and IS dominating brawl and having arguably superior ERLLs which get overtaken by clan at extreme range with their ERPPC boats). Even then, unless you are very close to the target, HPPCs have difficulty hitting exactly what you want consistently since they have lowish velocity (you can counter this with TCs and or quirks, but few mechs can do it), while dual gauss can nail desired components at 500m with almost guaranteed precision.

I wouldnt be opposed to removing this nerf though. Its already sorta outclassed by clan dual gauss (gets better burst DPS but atrocious sustain even with 20 DHS), and 30 PPFLD isnt as scary as many people make it out to be if you consider that every laser vomit mech thats even worth running has between 50 and 80 alfa strike, and being hitscan, cant be avoided easily post engine desync and the general death of fast torso twisting. Everything is a sidegrade at this point, PPFLD can still work if you poptart, but laser vomit is in my opinion still superior to both gauss and HPPC boats in most situations so nerfing either gauss rifles or HPPCs is absolutely pointless.

Davegt27, on 30 September 2017 - 09:58 AM, said:

I was
I had one on my ASN and a snub nose PPC

but after the change to 5 sec I took it off
it was pretty fun
but 5 sec cool down on a light fast Mech is a long time

panzer, thank you for the very thoughtful reply.

Dave, agreed. The last thing a light/Medium needs is a weapon system that is slow and cumbersome. Even the big 55's suffer from the slow rate of fire especially if they are boating a pair because they can't have any heatsinks worth a damn if they want ANY mobility to speak of. Forget about Secondaries as well.
I am very quickly moving to the conclusion that the Heavy PPC is a poptart weapon.
Which is a shame.

[Sjorpha]

They're ok in pairs for poptarting on sparky and shawk 2k, otherwise not very good and def no reason for.the cooldown nerf.

[Bud Crue]

Gorgo7, on 30 September 2017 - 08:21 AM, said:

Again, I must ask.

Are you using a Heavy PPC in any capacity other than as a novelty?

Grinner. HPPC in the arm and 4ERS in the chest.
Top Dog, 6 ML in the torsos and 1 HPPC in the arm.
K2: 2HPPCs, 2HMG 2SPL.
Fire Brand: same as the K2 but with 2 more SPL.
BK ( I forget which variant) for lack of any character in these mechs, and given than I have too many laser spam.... 6ERSL in the torso and 2HPPC in the RA
Have not built out ANY of my Assaults, but I guarantee there will be at least 1 Awesome with HPPCs and likely more than that. Also likely have them on 1 or more Warhammers as soon as I get around to building those with new tech. Only mechs I tried them on and then removed them were Cataphract 3D, because I just cant leave that UAC bonus on the table. Keep meaning to try em on a Vindi and a BJ3, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Appogee]

I had a ton of fun with them in the Go Ballistic Challenge, in a BJ that had 2HPPC and 6MGs.

Edited by Appogee, 30 September 2017 - 12:09 PM.

[FupDup]

I tried it on a Panther and Vindicator, but people ALWAYS seem to gravitate into my minimum range when I use them so I had to switch back to ERPPCs.

#MinRangeSucks

[Bombast]

I use them on my MAD-3R.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f27354848b7575f

They work pretty well, and the nerf didn't hurt that much. Kept overheating anyway.

Unrelated note, got my first headshot in that mech. With the LB-10X. At 700 meters.