Angel of Annihilation, on 17 February 2019 - 04:05 PM, said:
Got to Mechdb, input your favorite OP build and you will soon see that your sustain on most Assaults is about 8-10 DPS. Keep in mind that DPS is a running total, DPS doesn't stop just because you stopped firing in order to cool down your mech. Mechdb'd DPS calculations taking cooling into account. Assaults may be able to burst 20+ DPS but they aren't sustaining that. The PIR-1 on the other hand sustains that DPS and is only limited by the amount of ammo it is carrying.
You said nothing about sustained DPS. Besides, sustained DPS is a contrived stat and often misleading without context. oftentimes simply pulling energy weapons out of a mixed build (energy ballistic, energy missile) and adding nothing will increase your sustained DPS. Or another way to put it, not alpha striking your hot guns when you find yourself in an extended brawl will increase your sustained DPS.
Secondly, what it doesn't tell you up front is context of your heat profile. How long does it take you to overheat, how long does it take you to cool down. If it takes a while to overheat or you're cooling down crazy fast then it hardly matters.
My firestarter build for example has an 11.67 DPS but only a 6.84 sustained DPS. I don't run any heat skills on it and yet it takes 22 seconds of non-stop alphastriking for me to overheat. Sustained dps is practically irrelevant even though it's over 40% lower.
The final issue is that mechdb can't show the effect of heat skills. In total for IS, there is 10.5% heat reduction, 10% heat dissipation, and 15% heat capacity. Plus you can strap on 2 coolshots if you like. In real games, this makes a big difference in your actual sustained DPS in any realistic engagement. It's worth pointing this out because there are no machine gun ROF skills so what you see is what you get. meanwhile something with a bunch of heat skills will be better than what you see on mechdb.
Angel of Annihilation, on 17 February 2019 - 04:13 PM, said:
So your saying you should have to invest heavily in the the skill trees in order to tone down one weapon type of weapon, the MG, something fairly rarely mounted on anything aside from light mechs, and that is the solution? Not hardly.
Again the PIR doesn't need a nerf, MGs do and this is across all mechs that can mount more than 4 MGs. Will that indirectly nerf the MG-centric PIR, unfortunately yes but it is what is needed to be done to fix what has to be the most broken weapon in the game, the MG. Make it so MGs only do straight damage to internal structure, ie 1 point of damage is one point of damage, instead of crits triggering 2-3 points of damage, then make it so the critical hit chance has diminishing returns so that 12 MGs doesn't result in a scenario where at least 1 of those 12 MGs is critting 100% of the time it has it MGs trained on an enemy mech and the problem is solved. Then if a mech that reliant on MGs like the PIR-1 is under performing, buff the individual mech.
I never said you had to do anything. I said the opposite right in the paragraph you quoted:
Quote
You don't need a mech with crit chance reduction to beat up a dopey Piranha.
I said playing a mech with crit chance reduction quirks and/or skills will improve your performance against machine guns. This is a factual statement. You do not have to do this any more than you have to use your mech's tonnage. But it does help if you use the tools you are given. Also, every weapon has critical hit chance so reducing crit chance will help you against everything. The fact that it works especially well against Machine guns is just a bonus in my mind.
Anyway, Clan Machine guns already had their crit nerfed at least twice (lower crit chance, lower crit damage). If you took away their crit bonus damage they would terrible for their weight and range. If you made it diminishing returns on crit chance what we would likely end up with is everyone gravitating toward the piranha or light with the optimum mix of energy and ballistics. Or they would just ditch ballistic versions entirely and stick to the energy Piranha or srm lights.
One final point, I just want to add. The simple fact is that depending on what you're playing the game is full of stuff that feels unfair because they can work especially well against your build. You want to complain about your torso-mounted assault (?) getting its guns critted out from behind by machine guns. I want to complain about the dual heavy gauss builds or quad LBX that make my light go from healthy to dead in one alpha because I turned the wrong corner at the wrong time. Or suddenly running straight into a streak boat medium that tears me to pieces in mere moments. You're not going to find a shortage of inequities when it comes to light mechs. It's very easy to just throw your hands up and say it's hopeless, but when you think about these problems a little bit, solutions emerge. Instead of throwing your hands up, try to think about ways to deal with this problem you're having with machine guns.
Edited by Jman5, 17 February 2019 - 08:02 PM.