31 replies to this topic

[theta123]

Gauss rifle. Once upon a time, this was the absolute meta. But (rightfully) they got nerfed with reduced health and a charge up mechanic. But what has really changed since them? Well laser boating on both sides. Gausses are okay. But not all that really great when you think about it.

I am not sure how i actually feel about them. So i am making this topic to see how the other mechwarriors think about them. Here is my personal opinion regarding helping them a bit out=

INNER SPHERE

-Gauss rifle= decrease cooldown to 4.5 instead of 5. Increase health.
Despite fast velocity and no shell drop, DPM for gauss rifles is quite low. This is made further worse with the charge mechanic. Under heavy battlestress, you can quickly mess up. But i kinda like the charge mechanic. It was introduced for a reason. Furthermore its health should be increased. The IS gauss weights 3 tonnes more then the clan gauss. And clan gauss is superior in every way

-Light gauss rifle= Charge mechanic removed. Cooldown to 3 instead of 3.25
The least used of all gauss rifles. And for a reason. An AC/10 performs better in every way. Its shell drop and lower velocity mean little to the LGR wich, while it has more range/velocity/no drop, also has less damage, weapon explosion, less ammo/t/damage and lower DPM. And i have seen alot of people claiming the ac/10 to be the worst autocannon at the moment. Add one ton more and you get the great UAC/10. Furthermore under battlestress, a LGR with charge becomes even more difficult to use then a regular gauss rifle.

-Heavy gauss rifle= ammo increase to 6 instead of 5. 10 crit slots instead of 11. Reduce recoil with improved gyro skill nodes
Dual heavy gauss rifle. Its fun as hell... if you can get your slow as hell, limited viability mech into range. The 180m 50 point alpha means little if you cant get into range. Now dual HGR is still pretty powerfull at 320 meters. But with half the ammo and the same cooldown as regular gauss rifle, you run out of ammo fast. Your backup weapons are also limited. CP-S can hold 3 medium lasers. A mauler without to much drawbacks 4. I also got myself an annihalator and managed to squeeze 7 of them in... but with no spare heatsinks means 2 salvos gets you overheated..quickly.
Increasing the ammo allow you to be more usefull on medium ranges.
Also the HGR should be 10 crit slots instead of 11. A good reason for this= battletech lore allows IS HGR, LBX 20,UAC and AC 20 to be crit splitted. With one crit slot in the CT and the rest in a side torso, this allows mechs like the MADII-4S to mount a HGR and a LFE. Thus freeing weight.

However.. this also means no CASE. Thus balancing the fact you have more firepower, with less survivability.

CLAN
-C-Gauss rifle cooldown reduced to 4.5
Imo the clan gauss rifle is fine. Its health should remain, while IS gauss gets more health. Its 3 tonnes heavier and larger. This should allow it to sustain more damage.

Toughts? Suggestions? Feel free to post them

[El Bandito]

Gauss is the IS meta in FP right now. Cyclopses, Warhammers, Maulers, and Annihilators are carrying dual gauss or dual Heavy Gauss in combination with medium lasers, to deadly effect. And it is also popular in QP as well.

I personally agree on significantly buffing only the Light Gauss cause it is crap. IS regular Gauss should get smaller type of buff to make it even with CGauss. CGauss doesn't need any sort of buffs.

Edited by El Bandito, 26 December 2017 - 03:25 AM.

[theta123]

Well tbh i would be satisfied if the LGR got buffed and IS Gauss a health increase.

[Hit the Deck]

I'd like if HGR's optimum damage range is extended to 270m (the falloff profile follows) and keep everything else the same.

[SmokeGuar]

Clan gauss health in FW may not be a problem, but on QP it is so fragile its not funny at all. Most have removed torso mounted gauss rifles because they kill your mech instantly. Once familiar sight of KDK3 with PPC + gauss has totally vanished. PGI went overboard again to appease forum whiners and refuses to walk back this obviously erred nerf.

[El Bandito]

SmokeGuar, on 26 December 2017 - 05:22 AM, said:

Clan gauss health in FW may not be a problem, but on QP it is so fragile its not funny at all. Most have removed torso mounted gauss rifles because they kill your mech instantly. Once familiar sight of KDK3 with PPC + gauss has totally vanished. PGI went overboard again to appease forum whiners and refuses to walk back this obviously erred nerf.

Clan Gauss explosion in one side torso doesn't kill you instantly, thanks to OP Clan XL engine + Imba Clan CASE. Inner Sphere XL mech will die instantly, on the other hand, sometimes even if the Gauss was mounted on the arms.

Edited by El Bandito, 26 December 2017 - 05:29 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

SmokeGuar, on 26 December 2017 - 05:22 AM, said:

Clan gauss health in FW may not be a problem, but on QP it is so fragile its not funny at all. Most have removed torso mounted gauss rifles because they kill your mech instantly. Once familiar sight of KDK3 with PPC + gauss has totally vanished. PGI went overboard again to appease forum whiners and refuses to walk back this obviously erred nerf.

Gauss fragility has nothing to do with that since it was just as fragile while it reigned supreme. Rather, the linking of ghost heat for PPCs and Gauss is to blame.

[SmokeGuar]

Clan gauss health was dropped from 10 to 5, chance of explosion increased from 90% to 100%. On QP matches couple CERPPC hits to back, (or arms actually, since splash dmg),will end your match real quick. Anybody who has driven gauss KDK knows this.

[Jackal Noble]

C-gauss is already at 50% health of IS gauss. A lot of IS weapons are double the health of Clan weapons. It's part of the game and balance now. That's why the Heavy Large laser that get's so much flak, is also concurrently the 1st weapon to be destroyed at 6 hp and 3 slots. It's just the way it is. I suppose in the push/pull dynamics of the game and trying to create different yet similar weapons platforms in the never ending strive for teh balance, you start pulling other strings that would not seem ideal. We see ourselves in the current dilemma, the git gud crowd crowing about how OP clan dps is, but always discounting any of the inherent drawbacks. I'm all for whatever and try to look at stuff from an unbiased lense, and yet get flak for playing devil's advocate. Clan mechs, weaponry as a whole are quite a bit more fragile than IS brethren, and to deny that is to be belligerent.

Increase C-DHS hitpoints, Increase IS DHS dissipation by 5%, Increase IS SHS heat cap (don't know why I added this part)
Increase Hgauss range and cooldown, decrease crit chance recieving.
Increase Lgauss damage or remove charge, decrease crit chance receiving by 50%.
Further, I'd say decrease the chance of crit receiving on all Gauss across the board.

Edited by JackalBeast, 26 December 2017 - 07:48 AM.

[Bombast]

The regular GR, Clan and IS, is still alive and kicking. I'm not convinced it needs a buff.

LGRs definitely need some love though - The only reason to bring them is sheer bullheadedness, or because you saw a dumb Maruader build on youtube and decided it was a good idea for reasons that escape me.

HGR are... weird. I'm not sure they need a buff either. Their definately more niche than GRs, and they have pretty severe penalties, but dual HGRs are scary in the right hands and on the right mech.

Edited by Bombast, 26 December 2017 - 07:41 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

SmokeGuar, on 26 December 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

Clan gauss health was dropped from 10 to 5, chance of explosion increased from 90% to 100%. On QP matches couple CERPPC hits to back, (or arms actually, since splash dmg),will end your match real quick. Anybody who has driven gauss KDK knows this.

I do know this. But I also know that this didn't kill the Poke Bear. Nothing until the linking of PPC and Gauss did.

Whether or not it needs a hitpoint buff is up for debate, but this nerf was not responsible for the death of the Poke Bear.

[Jackal Noble]

The linking and desyncing is what killed the poke bear lol.

[El Bandito]

JackalBeast, on 26 December 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

Increase C-DHS hitpoints, Increase IS DHS dissipation by 5%

You do realize that 5% increased dissipation is basically nothing, compared to 1/3 less slot, right? Especially since you are advocating health buff for CDHS at the same time. I'd call that Clan bias.

JackalBeast, on 26 December 2017 - 07:36 AM, said:

We see ourselves in the current dilemma, the git gud crowd crowing about how OP clan dps is, but always discounting any of the inherent drawbacks.

Maybe that's cause the best tryhards in comp matches spam Clan mechs more than IS mechs thanks to clearly superior Clan tech. Drawbacks of Clan weapons can be overcome by skill and teamwork. IS tech can't reach as high of a ceiling as Clan tech.

Edited by El Bandito, 26 December 2017 - 08:05 AM.

[Jackal Noble]

So a increased 5% base dissipation rate over Clan coupled with Skills that wouldn't be any good? Weird.
It was just an idea, not meant to be a trigger.
Well, let's see, since the version of MWO has seen multiple changes since the tourney first started.
How many OP heavy large laser builds were there? 12 damage EXE comes to mind, that's about it.
How many C-ERLL "comp skill" builds were there? Think that's going to change? Bet that l33t 5% erll duration will still keep the SNV-1 afloat. After all, it's a whopping 5%, right?
It's also almost like some comp level decisions are susceptible to bandwagoning for one thing. To say it's all based on "expert" analysis by the greatest and most efficient players is laughable.
Forgot how high the skill level was to run the med pulse Wolfhound.

[Jackal Noble]

But whaddabout gauss, like the title implies.

[humpday alt]

Only Light Gauss needs a small buff.
Possibly keep the charge, but unlink ghost heat such that you can run dual Lgauss + snub/hppc/er/ppc.
But not dual Lguass, duel PPC(anything).

[Jackal Noble]

Lol it's hilarious that your alt has just that in it. Screw the subtleties.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

cGR is fine.

GR is bigger and heavier, but still mostly fine. I'm not sure it really needs anything other than its higher health compared to cGR.

LGR is anemic. It could stand to have its extreme-range sniper niche emphasized by increasing its base range increment, but I think the best immediate boost would be to allow it to count as only half a GR for linked charging (so you can simultaneously charge a pair alongside a GR or HGR, or run quad LGRs). Other than that, reduce its chance to explode by a significant margin compared to the GR.

HGR is pretty much fine as-is. I would not say no to a base range increase, nor to keeping the same range and increasing base damage to 30. Since it's meant to be the brawler Gauss, it could perhaps stand to have a shorter cooldown timer. In general, sniper weapons should have high cooldowns, to allow (generally inferior) brawling weapons to be better in their more specialized niche. A while back, things like (c)ERPPCs and (c)GRs were better than AC20s and other specialist brawling weapons. The cooldown increase for those sniper weapon systems went a long way toward giving brawler builds a real purpose. I would like to retain that role differentiation, and in some ways that means the HGR would be a strong candidate for a bit of a cooldown reduction.

[Grus]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 26 December 2017 - 10:22 AM, said:

cGR is fine.

GR is bigger and heavier, but still mostly fine. I'm not sure it really needs anything other than its higher health compared to cGR.

LGR is anemic. It could stand to have its extreme-range sniper niche emphasized by increasing its base range increment, but I think the best immediate boost would be to allow it to count as only half a GR for linked charging (so you can simultaneously charge a pair alongside a GR or HGR, or run quad LGRs). Other than that, reduce its chance to explode by a significant margin compared to the GR.

HGR is pretty much fine as-is. I would not say no to a base range increase, nor to keeping the same range and increasing base damage to 30. Since it's meant to be the brawler Gauss, it could perhaps stand to have a shorter cooldown timer. In general, sniper weapons should have high cooldowns, to allow (generally inferior) brawling weapons to be better in their more specialized niche. A while back, things like (c)ERPPCs and (c)GRs were better than AC20s and other specialist brawling weapons. The cooldown increase for those sniper weapon systems went a long way toward giving brawler builds a real purpose. I would like to retain that role differentiation, and in some ways that means the HGR would be a strong candidate for a bit of a cooldown reduction.

I don't know about a shorter cool down, it's already fast fireing and hard hitting. The Sliphner is nasty as it is... if hate it to be even more deadlier.

[Hit the Deck]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 26 December 2017 - 10:22 AM, said:

...
HGR is pretty much fine as-is. I would not say no to a base range increase, nor to keeping the same range and increasing base damage to 30. Since it's meant to be the brawler Gauss, it could perhaps stand to have a shorter cooldown timer.

You need to use STD though which means that your brawler is a slow brawler with not so great burst damage.

270m for 25pts of damage (50pts for dual mounted) is too much?