518 replies to this topic

[Daurock]

SFC174, on 09 July 2018 - 03:43 PM, said:

I would suggest a better comparison would be my favorite IS lasvomit mech, the WHM-6D vs. HBR. Both running 3 ERLL and 5 ERML

WHM is 5 tons heavier (which is about right with the FW tonnage disparity), gets a 10% range quirk and some nice structure quirks. Runs both torso and arm mounts. 300 LFE means it only runs 70 kph. 20 heatsinks vs. 22 heatsinks for the HBR.

The WHM trades some speed for an extra 25% structural durability vs. the HBR so I think those offset. The 10% range quirk compensates for the Clan longer range weapons. The HBR gets the 2 heatsinks and ECM.

So the question really comes down to, are the weapon differences fair given how close they are?

The WHM will do an alpha of 52. Post nerf the HBR will do an alpha of 56.25 However, the post nerf ERLL will have a cycle time 20% longer with 33% more heat. The ERML will have 7% longer cycle time with 25% more heat.

Feel free to check my numbers but I don't think this is balanced and that's before even considering the superior IS skill tree structure (much better laser duration and heat gen reductions when you skill up). The IS mech will put more damage on target per tick (meaning easier to focus a component), will have a far better heat dissipation ratio, and its a far more durable machine. Even trading at 800m in a peek battle I think the WHM will win out (meaning both mechs only reveal when ready to fire which takes away the cycle time advantage) due to superior durability. In a more open battle where you can't find cover between alphas, the WHM advantages would be bigger. If you completely removed the WHM quirks and the IS skill tree advantages, maybe it would be close. Trading 12% speed, 10% range, ECM and 10% heat dissipation for 30% less heat and 10%+ cycle time reduction might work.

But I really don't see PGI releasing massive lasvom nerfs on the clan side and completely removing quirks on the IS side at the same time. Especially when other clan weapons aren't being nerfed at this time. Releasing these kind of nerfs will kill Clan participation for months and I believe will permanently damage it regardless of what comes next.

I do enjoy a good numbers game! I'm running more or less those same numbers too, and from what I'm seeing, (correct me if I'm wrong) It looks like that WHM build runs at roughly 52 alpha for 49.5 (9x3, +4.5*5) heat, vs 56.3 alpha for 60.9 (10.8*3+5.7*5) Heat for the (nerfed) HBR.

I agree that that looks really bad on the surface. However, when you take into account those Extra Sinks, suddenly you have that effective WHM alpha of 52 for (clan equivalent) 54.45 heat. (49.5 * 22/20) Effective heat for effective heat, that's within a couple of percentage points of the 56.25 damage for 60.9 Heat that that HBR already has. (.955 dmg/effective heat vs. .923 dmg/effective heat) Those two mechs, when attempting to sustain fire, should actually be pretty similar in terms of overall damage output. I will agree that they probably need to bring cooldowns down to bring them in line with the IS stuff. (Along with the Burn time for clan lasers, as I previously mentioned) I honestly think though, that the heat and damage aren't too far off.

As to which would win in a straight up trading battle, I'd probably also agree with you if the pilots are bad and don't move around from time to time. The WHM's Extra armor, should carry the day. However, if they do move around a bit, the HBR's ECM and superior mobility should give the HBR an advantage in getting in extra shots, some extra starting burn, or at the very least, getting in the first shot. That initiative advantage is one of the reasons the HBR right now is so strong, and that shouldn't be overlooked.

A side-note to keep in mind though - The Ebon jag is going to slam both of these builds in sustainable fire, as it can fit 3 ERLL, 5 ERML, and a whopping 25 heatsinks. It's one of the reasons I generally attempt to stick with heavy larges on the HBR, as the Jag does ERLL better. This also highlights why I suspect some clan mechs will be needing a little quirk love post-nerf. (The hellbringer possibly being one of them) I am not Naive enough to think that such a widespread change isn't going to shuffle some previously good mechs to the back burner. A significant number clan Mechs are decent ONLY because Clan lasers are so amazing. I only hope that any fixes to those Chassis are not also shoved to the back burner of developer time.

[justcallme A S H]

Daurock, on 09 July 2018 - 05:08 PM, said:

However, if they do move around a bit, the HBR's ECM and superior mobility should give the HBR an advantage in getting in extra shots, some extra starting burn, or at the very least, getting in the first shot. That initiative advantage is one of the reasons the HBR right now is so strong, and that shouldn't be overlooked.

ECM is not an enhancement. It's more of a crutch in the hands of the majority of the community. Why do you think there is very little ECM used in comp? Because to good players ECM means nothing really.

ECM only works in terms of making you 'invisible' because average players or below don't see a red square and thus don't realise an enemy. Even if it's 500m away surrounded by other red squares...
It also makes it easier to avoid LRM spamming, which right now, is more prevalent than ever - but then Clans don't have much weaponry left to use - so that makes sense.

And superiour mobilty is questionable at best because you're only talking about 5-6km/h. The difference is not as great as it was prior when the HBR was 87km/h to the WHM 74-75km/h (when IS LPL / XL was actually useable). Back then mobilty was far more in favour of the Clan side of things - remember mobilty and de-sync? That killed many mobility of many a mech.

IS right now is far, far more diverse and interesting to play and has been for nearly 12 months as Clan basically has LaserVom / GaussVom or full boating of dakka. Brawling and much else is dead. Even poptarting right now is lacklustre.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 09 July 2018 - 11:38 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Cadoazreal, on 06 July 2018 - 06:51 PM, said:

Theres not enough whale pitchforks left, the only pitchforks pgi worry about.

Reporting for duty! I've been trying to take up writing as a hobby. If PGI pulls this one off, I might be just free enough of distractions to get somewhere on that! I won't be there to spend $1500 more dollars on this game though . Now maybe I've threatened to leave before, but Chris you about to step on my Gold Nova with 2.3 Million XP like a bug and that's your lifeline to my wallet, believe me.

But I see what you did there. You're haggling and you think if you just roll the changes halfway back we'll all just happy and dandy. Be a swell chap Chris and drop this nonsense, follow the community patch's guidelines. I swear nobody is going to sue you for taking our ideas

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 09 July 2018 - 05:50 PM.

[Jack Shayu Walker]

Tarl Cabot, on 09 July 2018 - 04:32 PM, said:

Just replying to my own post. Do many of you believe that if PGI reduced the damage by a smaller amount for the PTS that this thread and other threads be any different than what we are seeing now, seriously? imho, only a few posts would be different, siding with PGI while the rest would still be moaning and griping about it..

I think you'd see a major reduction in the amount of likes the critical comments are getting. 35 people smashing the like button on calling this ******** is a pretty (reassuringly) clear sign.

Edited by Jack Shayu Walker, 09 July 2018 - 05:54 PM.

[Vesper11]

Daurock, on 09 July 2018 - 01:13 PM, said:

Spoiler

When I look at clan mechs in general, (Ignoring for the moment IS mechs) I find very few mechs at the top level in any tonnage range that don't have some combination of c-ERLL, c-ERML, c-HLL, and Gauss. (Honestly, I can probably count them on one hand, and half of those are MG-Lights) That's Pigeon-Holing a third the mechs currently on the field to using a very small weapon set. The developers have made it VERY clear that they DON'T want to buff 3/4 of the clan weapons to get them to the level of the 4 weapons mentioned above. Therefore, if we want more clan mech diversity, (And in my opinion, we do.) the only option left available is to apply the nerf stick to the over-performing weapons, so that others become more viable in comparison. I agree though, that a lot of mechs that previously relied on that damage could easily get left behind. Things like the Nova, Viper, and even the Hellbringer itself could get left in the dust due to those mechs having otherwise mediocre at best capabilities. Maybe my faith is misplaced, but i for one believe that those mechs that do fall behind have a chance to actually receive quirks, especially in the durability department.

With respect to the Clan's Lack of RACs and MRMs - I'm not gonna dispute that clan could use a "Heavy" Direct fire Missile system. (Something like a Dumb-Fire ATM copy like they did with CACs with more velocity than a standard ATM would be welcomed IMO.) The thing is though, clans have 40 or so weapons, most of which are pretty decent if one actually cares to use them. The chassis that hold those weapons, however, are still bad, when compared to similar builds on the IS side, and that's why they are avoided. This leaves the situation where Half of the clan player base floats to the half a dozen or so weapons that make up Vomit Builds, because they stand above the other 30 some weapons, and things get stale. Once we get more clanners actually using their entire tech base, we might actually see "which clan mechs are overall good and bad," and not "which clan mechs make a good Laser/Gauss Vomit", and apply the quirk stick accordingly.

At the end of the day though, if you honestly believe that clan mechs SHOULD gravitate towards a select few laser and gauss weapons, I guess you and I will just have to simply disagree there.

disclaimer: I'm IS armor quirk advocate as I enjoy how extra armor (among other things) makes factions diverse.

It's a peek meta, what else there to use? Everything that is not cERLL/cHLL/cERML/cGR is worse for peeking, that's it.
Clan lasers in general are very good for peeking due to their nature (high alpha, superior range, same with cGR actually, plus its projectile is fast and it's cold) and as clan has neither agility nor armor to brawl that's all you ever see. Non-cGR ballistics are better for sustained DPS but worse for peeking thus they are far less popular. Peeking is also "safe" thus popular with QP grunts which is one of main reasons for laser boating too.

If you look at weapons IS weapons are not THAT different, except clan is more hardpoint-efficient: cMPL is simply a heavier ML with better optimal range, cHLL is a double ML with some disadvantages, cSPL is quite close to SL, those weapons aren't popular though. cERML is 20% stronger than ERML but then come IS armor quirks, unsurprising this weapon sees a lot more use. Large clan lasers are superior but the problem here is not clan but IS whose large lasers have same DPS per ton as ballistics this is why not many boat those. Also despite what some people say ability to boat more DHS doesn't help much as in the end DHS is quite inefficient at countering high heat buildup of lasers and with clan lasers being hotter extra DHS is actually balanced when it comes to laser boating. The only problem (other than ****** large lasers and pulses on IS side) I see there is that IS lasers lack range (coz large sux) and hardpoint efficiency, everything else is more or less equal, this is actually the reason why IS uses different weapons, because large lasers are worse than ballistics and because they have no crits/hardpoints to mount more **** like clan can due to their superior endo/ferro crap and DHS size.

Clan laser boats die the moment they get pushed as their inferior DPH, poor agility and armor doesn't let them live, people playing FP confirm it. It's not like laz0rs are so OP that clans abuse them, it's just that clans don't really have other good options in the current meta, thus you don't see much SRMs and pulses on clan side.
What I want to say is that if brawling is brought back then those "OP clan laser vomits" would not be a problem anymore. If anything clan needs buffs (obviously not to cERLL, cERML, cHLL and cGR) that will contribute to brawling but won't contribute to peeking, nerfing cMPL, cLPL, cHML and cERSL is the opposite of it.

TL;DR: Clan needs brawling back! If half the QP is clan that avoids brawling then obviously those "peek pro" mechs aren't going to get hard countered anytime soon. This nerf will just make clans less popular and in no way diverse.

Edited by Vesper11, 09 July 2018 - 10:12 PM.

[ADI84000]

we will look at the steam charts to see how the population goes down after you implement the nerfs... and thats gonna say it all ....

[Dee Eight]

PGI's whole "balance" on clan energy weapons reminds me of this speech from the tuskegee airmen...

[Arkhangel]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 09 July 2018 - 05:53 PM, said:

I think you'd see a major reduction in the amount of likes the critical comments are getting. 35 people smashing the like button on calling this ******** is a pretty (reassuringly) clear sign.

Pretty brave (and possibly stupid) of you to mention you own a Khan Mech. lot of people I know shoot those on principal, regardless of side, as they're a reminder of when PGI was actually far WORSE than now.

[Quandoo]

Dunno what the point of laser vomit is. The counter is already there: flamers and hot maps.

Instead of nerfing weapons they need to add counter measures. In this case, buff (IS) flamers, double their range. This should be enough. People need to learn that preventing the enemy from firing is worth more than 2 more lasers.

A good idea would be to buff buff PPCs to generate heat on the target you hit, would make that useless weapon a bit more usefull. Currently all PPC weapons are broken and only usable in quick and fast jump jet mechs, or mechs with very high mounting points. Every other chassis will hit the ground or invisible walls at a 50% rate.

Heavy PPC is the worst, only assaults can fit it but are to slow to use it properly, or can't use it at all due to min range. What's the point anyway if you can use chassis with quad AC10, which goes for less heat and more damage. To compensate the min range and still do comparable damage, it needs to hit for 25 points per PPC - else there is no way not to prefer hvy gauss. Oh and the projectile speed...way to slow. It simply doesn't work out the way it is.

Edited by Quandoo, 10 July 2018 - 01:14 AM.

[ZortPointNarf]

I really hope that a few additional players will be playing support mechs and hard point starved mechs to showcase that boating is the problem not the weapons. You know why my Nova has the best KD ratio of all my mechs, coz it boats small lazers and uses them like a can opener, within 1.5s I can core out most mechs if i manage to sneak up on them, and lets not even get into legging those poor lights. Now do you think I could get the same results if I could only run 6cersmalllasers and no machine guns, I very much doubt it (and yes I have builds that are not the 12ersmall 4 lmg build, and none of them perform as well). Boating all the weapons without penalty is the problem, the only skill I need is to know that I should wait 0.5s before firing the second half of my lasers and doing that I can get about 6 volleys out, and you will be hard pressed to find anything that still stands after that.

Edited by ZortPointNarf, 10 July 2018 - 02:04 AM.

[biomechanist]

12 mg pirahna is new meta in the game. 500-1000 dmg and 5 kills every match.
PGI: "we will fix clan lazzas, because we are special"

[SmokedJag]

Nightnova, on 09 July 2018 - 04:16 PM, said:

soooo all this is coming down the line because a direwolf can boat a 95 alpha...
I'm sorry but wth/wtf about the MRM 120 boats?! meanbaby what? mauler what?!

why the hell do you have to nerf ALL clan lasers? just nerf the fricking mech then! you could have done that to the KD3 but no let's screw over all clan builds that use uacs instead of just putting nerfs to the KD3.

It's not even the Dire Whale. It's the Deathstrike, which was a PGI creation in the first place. The Dire Whale has enough vulnerabilities (locked to 48KPH, low arms where most of the guns are and big square profile) to keep it in line. The Deathstrike can stuff on comparable firepower, is much faster, has less obvious hitboxes and has all weapons in line with the cockpit. So it's more survivable despite being lighter in armor.

The DWF benefits from the current patch arrangement because it has both so many hardpoints and so much tonnage that it can work around reducing laser damage. 2xGauss + 4xERLL works on it, as does taking stupid numbers of medium lasers to counter a per-laser nerf.

Edited by SmokedJag, 10 July 2018 - 05:25 AM.

[Ery]

Hm ... no mech announcement so far this month. Rumors say it should be a Clan mech ... .

[RB55]

A clan mech sale right before you nerf all clan lasers. LOL! Like we are foolish enough to spend our money on clan mechs right before you destroy their playability. But I guess there are those who don't have the intelegence to see what you are doing. My personal opinion is Paul needs to go. You need a player running things not some desk jockey who dosen't play the game.

[Lexandro Wolf]

Dear PGI, its a joke, right?

IS Mechs has lot of quirks; clan Mechs has a lot of penalties. (the heat managment...example)

And now, you reduced clan laser's DMG??? Why???

Please fix the bugs and problems, and don't kill this game...

[Haazheel IIC]

RB55, on 10 July 2018 - 05:28 AM, said:

A clan mech sale right before you nerf all clan lasers. LOL! Like we are foolish enough to spend our money on clan mechs right before you destroy their playability. But I guess there are those who don't have the intelegence to see what you are doing. My personal opinion is Paul needs to go. You need a player running things not some desk jockey who dosen't play the game.

i preordered the hellfire pack but now i canceled the order, will no more buy any clan mechs after the laser nerf...what will you do with them? They are no more usable in a competiv way, like others described this earlier. PGI should make new mech packs, new maps and focus on mw5, let the nerfing be, its not the way to make this game more popular.

[Kinski Orlawisch]

Lucky ...I have enough IS Mechs.

CW will bee dead...For the rest..no change.
Solaris? All IS Mechs..and the Kodiak is not affected..due to the fact that he is Dakka.
Quickplay? Already play IS Mechs mostly...

So what.

[SmokedJag]

Kinski Orlawisch, on 10 July 2018 - 07:18 AM, said:

Lucky ...I have enough IS Mechs.

CW will bee dead...For the rest..no change.
Solaris? All IS Mechs..and the Kodiak is not affected..due to the fact that he is Dakka.
Quickplay? Already play IS Mechs mostly...

So what.

Deathstrike can't beat Dakka Dire Whale or the various Clan assault "Scorch" builds in Solaris anyway.

[Archivar]

Nice topic, i bet no one of PGI will ever read this as usual.

[Valer]

Rest.In.Pieces Nova-Prime

I am one of those who like the Nova-Prime Stock build and I LOVE C-ERMLs :
That build will go from 84 firepower to 63 with those changes. Total heat will go from 75.6 to 68.4.

I have put a lot of training into this mech, I could certainly still compete with it with those changes but somehow I am not sold on it.

Meh.

Edited by Valer, 10 July 2018 - 09:40 AM.