1 reply to this topic

[Mister Maf]

Hello all,

With all the controversy over the IS mech survival nerfs, I thought of what I think is a fair compromise: instead of straight up removing armor, convert a portion to structure.

Assuming the following:

• The targeted mechs are vaguely balanced or at most slightly overpowered in general 12v12 quickplay.
  
• Annihilator and company are overperforming in faction play, especially the asymmetrical siege modes.
  
• The targeted assault mechs are the popular ones for mounting double heavy gauss, which is a major and perhaps not unwarranted point of contention for clan players protesting pending laser nerfs.
  
• The Annihilator is overpowered in Solaris.
  
• The Bushwacker honestly probably had it coming and isn't the focus of this thread.

I think the easiest middle ground here is to convert some or all of the armor that was removed from IS assaults in PTS 1.1 into structure points.

Why do I think this is an ideal solution?

• It preserves the overall high HP pool for these mechs, which need them as priority-1 targets for focus fire in quickplay. Conventional builds not centered around gauss rifles are slightly weakened but for the most part unaffected.
  
• It brings opportunity for counterplay in faction warfare by using crit-based builds.
  
• It nerfs them specifically as heavy gauss platforms, because the gauss family is more vulnerable to critical hits. By opening up the armor sooner, you are able to destroy the gauss weapons sooner. When they explode, they take most of the systems on that side of the mech with them, rendering the extra structure points moot for this specific overperforming build.
  
• It nerfs the Annihilator as the undisputed Solaris D1 juggernaut, because once a mech's component is open in Solaris it's as good as destroyed against the massive DPS D1 mechs carry.

As far as I see it, this addresses most if not all of the major issues for both sides. The fine details can be tuned with testing; if the mechs prove to be too weak after the change, then they can get an incoming crit modifier like the Atlas. If they are instead still too strong, then the amount of structure bonus can be reduced. The fundamental idea, though, I think gives both sides what they want while addressing the core issues.

What do you all think?

Edited by Mister Maf, 31 July 2018 - 06:47 AM.

[Dee Eight]

The only compromise for armor nerfs would be giving mechs BACK their agility. Fix the damn desync nonsense that turned all heavy and assault mechs into cold molasses machines, clan mechs especially as for any given weight they're typically less agile than an IS mech would be. Give them back torso pitch that was taken away as well. The Kodiak 3 is SUPPOSED to be, an anti-aircraft assault mech in the lore... well... its hard to shoot down aircraft with LB20s that can only pitch up 16 degrees. There's also no valid explanation for why the Executioner is 50% more agile with 140% better acceleration than a kodiak when its only 5 tons less.