32 replies to this topic

[Mole]

Hey guys. So I've been away for a while whilst being occupied by other game titles and I've made my return today. I'm a bit rusty, but I'm still doing alright. I'm going through all my 'mechs to make sure that all my builds are still viable since I've been away for several patches. I've run into a problem with my Arctic Cheetah. I'm running 2 HMLs on it and 6 LMGs and frankly, it feels impotent. Did they nerf MGs because of the Piranha or something? Or can I just chalk this up to being rusty? On a completely unrelated note, I still have no trouble holding locks with missile weapons. I can only conclude that people complaining about it have the aiming capacity of a fungus.

[FupDup]

MGs did get some nerfs because of the Fishbot, yes. They still crit-out equipment like nobody's business though even in just small numbers.

[MechaBattler]

I think they lowered the crit chance or something like that. But I don't think changed damage. So you could just be rusty.

[Jackal Noble]

Clan Mgs suffered a spread nerf many moons ago (sometime early this year, or late last year).
I find Lmgs to be near useless, and C-mgs are about the only machine gun worth it's weight.

[Mole]

Jackal Noble, on 26 September 2018 - 09:18 AM, said:

Clan Mgs suffered a spread nerf many moons ago (sometime early this year, or late last year).
I find Lmgs to be near useless, and C-mgs are about the only machine gun worth it's weight.

I was around for that. Didn't seem to bother me much. The feeling I'm getting is they no longer eat internal structure like they used to. Any truth to that? I had an Awesome with an open CT last game and while I did kill him it took a whole lot of bullets to put down his CT combined with repeated hits from my lasers.

[Variant1]

mg piranah isint even op, its the laser fish thats op. pgi shoulda nerfed laser fish instead of the mg fish

[Mole]

Variant1, on 26 September 2018 - 10:24 AM, said:

mg piranah isint even op, its the laser fish thats op. pgi shoulda nerfed laser fish instead of the mg fish

How so? When the Piranha first came out I tried and tried to make the laser piranha work and it just did not have the tonnage to do anything but boat micro lasers which, even with 12 of them, I found them to be ineffective because of the inane ghost heat limit placed on them.

[Shifty McSwift]

Mole, on 26 September 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

the inane ghost heat limit

Which has now changed.

[Jman5]

MechaBattler, on 26 September 2018 - 09:18 AM, said:

I think they lowered the crit chance or something like that. But I don't think changed damage. So you could just be rusty.

Lowered crit chance translates to lower damage because the machine gun's damage output is heavily reliant on critical hits.

[MechaBattler]

I suppose. If you're just looking to target people with already exposed sections.

[Variant1]

Mole, on 26 September 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

How so? When the Piranha first came out I tried and tried to make the laser piranha work and it just did not have the tonnage to do anything but boat micro lasers which, even with 12 of them, I found them to be ineffective because of the inane ghost heat limit placed on them.

10 micro pulse, max cooldown nodes and max heat gen nodes gives you a fast firing cool 27 alpha every .97 seconds. that extra tonnage can be spent on engine/heatsinks

Edited by Variant1, 26 September 2018 - 11:09 AM.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Variant1, on 26 September 2018 - 11:08 AM, said:

10 micro pulse, max cooldown nodes and max heat gen nodes gives you a fast firing cool 27 alpha every .97 seconds. that extra tonnage can be spent on engine/heatsinks

Micro pulse has a base cooldown of 1.6 seconds. There is no way to get 0.97 second cooldowns on a laser piranha.

At max cooldown (-9.6%) and laser duration (-10%) nodes, you can fire 10 micro pulses ever 1.8964 seconds with a piranha (1.4464 cooldown + 0.45 duration).

[Y E O N N E]

LMGs are trash-tier; damage is too low, spread makes what little damage they do token at best, and the Clan LMG specifically had its crit functionality nerfed. I wouldn't recommend using either one, but the Clan one is even worse than the already-bad IS one. 2x HML and 6x LMG on an ACH is just not going to cut it in today's high-DPS Quickplay meta.

HMGs are ammo starved and too close-range. The risk is rarely worth the reward. Only 'Mechs I would actually suggest using them on are the Ember and UrbanMech, and only then because there are quirks in play (25% MG RoF on the Ember, gigantic armor on the Urbie).

MGs are still your best bet for both sides if you want to MG boat. They have the best damage potential per ton of ammo and the most effective balance between damage and range.

[El Bandito]

Mole, on 26 September 2018 - 10:06 AM, said:

I was around for that. Didn't seem to bother me much. The feeling I'm getting is they no longer eat internal structure like they used to. Any truth to that? I had an Awesome with an open CT last game and while I did kill him it took a whole lot of bullets to put down his CT combined with repeated hits from my lasers.

Awesome does have huge CT structure quirk.

[Khobai]

FupDup, on 26 September 2018 - 09:18 AM, said:

MGs did get some nerfs because of the Fishbot, yes. They still crit-out equipment like nobody's business though even in just small numbers.

MGs should crit out equipment

they just shouldnt do bonus damage to structure

they need to get rid of crits doing bonus damage to structure

[LordNothing]

Mole, on 26 September 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

How so? When the Piranha first came out I tried and tried to make the laser piranha work and it just did not have the tonnage to do anything but boat micro lasers which, even with 12 of them, I found them to be ineffective because of the inane ghost heat limit placed on them.

i found if you split the lasers into 2 groups you can alternate them as fast as they will fire and avoid ghost heat at the same time. you can alternate like that for a long time before you have to worry about heat. also micros got a buff recently. increase to max lasers before gh and you can now synergize with smalls because they are now in different gh groups.

i also think the best fish are the mg+laser builds.

Edited by LordNothing, 26 September 2018 - 11:01 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 26 September 2018 - 10:56 PM, said:

MGs should crit out equipment

they just shouldnt do bonus damage to structure

they need to get rid of crits doing bonus damage to structure

No. It's the equipment getting crit in a flash that people hate the most.

[Viking Yelling]

I did some testing on this with my Shadowcat.
I set up the test with 3 MGs of each and 1 ton of ammo in optimal range
I have some screencaps, but uploading is complicated.

anyway, what i found the most surprising is that the spread for HMG is considerable. after 1 ton of ammo each into the sholders and arm of the atlas on Crimson, the HMGs actually did less damage than LGM and MG. HMG didnt even break the armor but did take less time to get through the ammo, while the other two needed longer. This is mostly due to ammo per ton?

not sure. Seeing the optimal ranges was probably the most revealing.

The thing is, in another test, it only took a piranha with 12 MGs and 3.5 tons of ammo can CT the same atlas in ~15 seconds. and it's about the same ammo per MG.

[Mole]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 September 2018 - 09:22 AM, said:

No. It's the equipment getting crit in a flash that people hate the most.

Pretty much this. I don't mind MG wrecking my internal structure but I sure as shot do mind some MG ****** getting behind me and opening up my rear with a quick laser blast and then firing off three rounds from his MGs and then all my equipment is just bloody gone.


EDIT: So when I left LMGs were hands-down the best MG in the game because they still shredded internal structure extremely fast and they also had range that heavier MGs couldn't touch. Is it no longer the case that LMGs are the superior MG?

Edited by Mole, 27 September 2018 - 10:03 AM.

[FupDup]

Mole, on 27 September 2018 - 10:01 AM, said:

Is it no longer the case that LMGs are the superior MG?

Yup, PGI nerfed them quite hard.