"... which weapons currently need the most attention."
I could mention many more tweaks, but this will cover that which I think is most important.
Heatsinks.
In October of 2018, DHS were buffed from 0.15 to 0.22 dissipation.
Ever since then, the meta shifted to more and more DPS builds and faster and more predictable Nascar behaviour, which has made the game considerably less interesting. You will not see this beaviour if you're playing at PSR Tier 4 or Tier 5, but for a Tier 1 player the experience is essentially ruined as it stands now - the game isn't being played in a fun way, and I believe the massive DHS buff is one of the biggest changes that contributed to the current environment.
Consider that in 2016, DHS had a dissipation as low as 0.14. Ask many comp players and they'll tell you the most fun and most balanced time period was 2016 and early 2017, before Skill Tree was introduced. This is based on many factors, but it shows you don't need heat dissipation through the roof for players to find the game fun.
Mech Agility.
Part of the reason why cERPPC and UAC dakka is current meta is because the mobility in the game is less than it used to be. These weapons are good at punishing poor mobility. Laservomit mechs can't twist fast enough to shield damage, they can't accelerate fast enough to get behind cover after firing. SRM brawlers can't twist enough to spread damage adequately, and they just feel like piloting in a pool of molasses. These deficiencies can be alleviated by investing maximally into Mobility in the Skill Tree, but the cost-benefit ratio is so ridiculously poor that nobody chooses to do this. Increase the value of Mobility in the Skill Tree (fewer nodes to get the same net benefit) to the point that players begin choosing to take it again, and you will see a resultant shift in weapon balance because these two things are strongly interlinked.
I might recommend, while you're at it, remove the jumpjet tree entirely. Add a few jumpjet nodes to the newly shrunk mobility tree instead.
Small lasers.
In June 2017, we all mourned the removal of Small Pulse, Clan Small Pulse, and Clan ER Small Lasers from the game.
Yes, they were removed. SPL was reduced from 4.0 to 3.5 damage, cSPL was reduced from 6.0 to 4.0 damage. cERSL was nerfed from 2.25 to 2.75 cooldown and duration nerfed from 1.0 to 1.1. All of these changes essentially removed these weapons from being viable choices - they ceased being competitive options. We now BRAWL with MEDIUM PULSE LASERS. That is the current meta, because SPL are so shіt at doing their job and DHS dissipation is so crazy high that MPL can actually work in that role, and everything else in the game that is brawlier has been nerfed so hard that MPL is one of the only things left still standing.
The small lasers family NEEDS alpha damage to be viable. It was a fun experiment to reduce their damage and give them a faster rate of fire instead, but we told you it wouldn't work ... and ... it didn't work. So please dial back the changes to these weapons by like... 50% at least.
IS Small and ER Small were never nerfed, but they have perpetually been in a state of needing a damage buff and have never gotten it. They still need it.
IS PPCs.
These weapons have never been viable on their own. There are a few mechs with considerably large quirks that make them playable, but that doesn't mean the weapon itself is okay.
In my opinion, absolutely
DO NOT listen to the people who propose an increase to MinHeatPenalty on these weapons.
Allowing more of these weapons to fire without ghost heat (say 3x PPC, or 4x LPPC) only helps mech builds which can afford to mount the maximum amount of these weapons. If the limit is 3PPC, then all mechs which cannot mount 3PPC will be shіt out of luck. That means only mechs 60 or 65 tons and higher will be able to make use of such a buff, and all it does is give them a completely redundant alternative to Heavy PPC.
2x HPPC = 30 dmg = 3x PPC.
2x PPC = 20 dmg = 4x LPPC
These are redundant, please be smart about this: don't change the ghost heat.
Look at mechs like the PNT-10K, the CPLT-K2, the BJ-3, for examples of quirks that are strong enough for players to choose to play them, and roll these quirks into the base stats of those weapons so they can be enjoyed on all mechs. It maybe actually be necessary to increase the damage on these weapons to make them worth playing. PPC and ERPPC with 11 damage and LPPC with 6.0 or 6.5 damage would be a nice start. Consider that a large reason why Clan ERPPC is considered good is because it has 50% additional splash damage that the IS lacks, in addition to Clan's ability to boat considerably more heatsinks.
Snubnose PPC is in a similar place. The damage feels a little low, but the bigger problem right now is heat. If you were to change ghost heat to allow 3x SNPPC (very widely requested by the community), you might just see a bunch of boring higher tonnage Snubboats but it won't really help the Snub as a weapon. Don't do that. Concentrate on reducing its heat, and consider looking at DPS output, whether it be a cooldown buff or a straight damage buff.
Gauss.
Clan Gauss has largely fallen out of favour - people don't use it much anymore. It just explodes too much, it's too fragile. I don't enjoy playing it anymore because there's plenty of alternatives I can mount that won't literally blow up in my face. Clan Gauss needs an increase to its Item HP or a reduction to its ExplodeChance (current value is 1.0 and old value was 0.9).
IS Gauss is still an inferior alternative to lasers and PPCs. It needs a damage buff, or a cooldown buff ... it needs something, I'm not quite sure what to be honest, but it is largely a weak weapon that is best avoided in the current game.
Heavy Gauss is fine.
Light Gauss simply does not deal enough damage. It's a joke of a weapon only used by people who aren't good enough at the game to realise how terrible it is. Consider somewhere between 9 and 10 damage.
Laser AMS.
It's a joke. Reduce heat to make viable.
RACs.
RAC2's are okay. They could use a reduction to spread or increase to velocity, but they're not completely terrible as is.
RAC5's need a significant reduction in heat foremost. They could also use a significant buff to spread and/or velocity.
Heck, I would personally remove spread from these weapons altogether. These weapons have enough spread for it to have a significant impact on how they perform, but they do not exhibit enough spread for the player to perceive that they even have spread.
This is counter-intuitive. The weapon already spreads naturally because it spews out a chain of bullets at relatively low velocity, adding artificial spread on top of that is overkill. If the weapon becomes too strong with spread removed, then its raw damage can be reduced to bring it back to where it needs to be.
LBX.
LB10 and LB20 are fine. The IS LB20 should have its size reduced to 10 crits, but the weapon is otherwise fine.
LB2 currently does not have a niche, because DHS are too buffed. LB2 niche is lower heat and added crit. But AC2 is already so cold due to the current state of heatsinks that LB2 is rendered redundant and inferior. Fix heatsinks and LB2 may find its niche again. In addition to this, it could use a significant reduction to spread.
LB5 is terrible. Always has been. It has way way way too much spread. Like LB2, it also lacks a niche because AC5 are already so cold.
UAC2.
Clan UAC2 is 100% useless and needs a rework.
Because UAC2 has such a fast fire rate and the jams are so short in duration, the jams act effectively as a pure DPS stat. The jams never last long enough to be an inconvenience to the player - the mechanic is simply ignored and the player accepts the jams as a part of the weapons natural DPS.
Note that with jams accounted for, Clan UAC2 currently less effective DPS than standard Clan AC2, so there is zero reason to even mount a cUAC2, ever.
- Give UAC2 a longer
jammedTime
- Reduce
jammingChance until the average DPS exceeds a standard AC2 by 10% or greater.
Thus the UAC2 will output more DPS than a standard AC2 until it jams, at which point the DPS interruption will become a significant inconvenience to the player and require action (such as moving to cover until the jam is over). This is a risk-reward weapon, as opposed to the current state of UAC2 which has effectively no risk and little reward (or in the case of the Clan version no reward at all.)
All UACs in the game could be given this adjustment - lower jam chance, but significantly longer jammed time. I think it would be a good change, but I think that would be asking too much - it would be a big change and many players would take a long time to learn to accommodate it, complaining all the while.
UAC20.
Particularly the Clan UAC20, could use a lower jammingChance or lower jammedTime. This is a brawl weapon where the jams currently are not just an inconvenience, they are a death sentence, because such a close-range weapons puts you into situations where you must be able to shoot yourself out, only to have the weapon jam for such a long period of time that you die before it comes back online. Extremely frustrating.
Clan Standard ACs.
Give these weapons
something. Significantly higher velocity would help. A reduction in shell count (numFiring) would also significantly help. With the exception of the cAC2 which is currently just a superior cUAC2, all of these weapons are presently useless.
Warning: following section is not important:
Okay, I lied, there is a KDK-3 build that runs 4x cAC10 which is somewhat okay. But that is only because the cAC10 ghost heat is bugged. A bit of history: when Clans were first introduced, the cAC10 and cUAC10 both had a heatpenalty value of 1, possibly a placeholder value that made it to production. This went largely unnoticed until the Kodiak was introduced and could run high-mounted 4x cUAC10 with virtually no heat penalty. So the heatpenalty was raised to 15, which is a reasonable value. However, the standard cAC10 was never deemed an issue, and still retains its heatpenalty of 1. This is counter-intuitive because the mechlab warns the player that there is a heatspike for 4x cAC10, but it doesn't tell the player how much, and in this case the heatspike is essentially non-existent.
I would recommend removing ghost heat entirely from all AC2, AC5, and AC10, IS and Clan.
Or I would recommend copying over the current IS AC10 heatpenalty and minheatpenaltylevel over to the Clan AC10 to make them consistent.
Machine Guns
All machine guns feel a little weak right now.
This is mostly because DHS are so buffed, that energy weapons like IS MPL and Clan Micros are just ... better.
Revert heatsinks back to their former values and the balance between lasers and MGs will be restored.
Additionally, LMG could use a small damage buff, and/or reduction in spread value.
LRMs.
Indirect fire LRMs have too high of an arc. They come down on the target with a near vertical trajectory, making it nigh-impossible to seek cover from them at times.
Please do something so that LRMs don't mostly hit legs on moving targets. It's EXTREMELY infuriating, especially for light mechs which have the speed to get to cover, but lose half their legs to do it, while suffering minimal torso damage, so everybody knows to shoot your legs for an easy kill.
All LRMs are also too cold. They are boated in crazy large numbers per mech and yet still have exceptionally good DPS, allowing organised teams using them to make the game tremendously unfun for the opposing team. Reverting the heatsink buff would in part help with this.
MRMs.
MRMs are currently bad SRMs.
That is to say, they are useless at medium range, and decent at short range, making them a strong choice for farming high damage numbers and giving the impression that they are good when they really aren't.
They need to find their medium range niche so that they aren't redundant with SRMs. In order to make MRMs good at medium range, they need higher velocity and lower spread. This will also make them better at short range which is what we don't want, so I would propose a minrange profile similar to that of Clan LRMs: an exponential (^2) dropoff from 0 to 90m should be a good start.
Flamers.
Flamers are mostly useless because heatsinks are too buffed. Why bring a weapon to heat mechs up when they just cool back down the instant you stop flaming them? Revert heatsinks and Flamers will have a use again.
Edited by Tarogato, 21 February 2021 - 04:10 PM.
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FupDup, on 21 February 2021 - 11:20 AM, said:
