27 replies to this topic

[kalashnikity]

Haven't seen an actual breakdown yet. (using Forest Colony Classic, my standard testing ground for all heat tuning)

***Trigger warning: Math!***

For SPL vs SXPL I am using an unskilled Fle-17 XL170

6*SPL got a heat shutdown at 31 seconds and they do 1.54 DPS each.

6*SXPL got a heat shutdown at 24 seconds and they do 1.7 DPS each.

SXPL have 10% more DPS but had 23% less burn time before shutdown.

Next--->

5*MPL vs 5*MXPL in a CRB-27SL with an LT295 5 double heat sinks, 4JJ, and L-AMS

*This mech has a -10% heat buff

5*MPL got a heat shutdown at 24 seconds and they do 1.76 DPS each.

5*MXPL got a heat shutdown at 16 seconds and they do 2.4 DPS each.

MXPL have 36% more DPS but had 33.33% (repeating of course) less burn time before shutdown.

Finally, for LPL vs LXPL I tried one of my favorite builds for 3 LPL... a BJ-1, unskilled, with LT195 3DHS and 4JJ, unfortunately the margin of error for shutdown was too large, so I only fired 2 LPL so I could get a better measurement.

*This mech has a -10% cooldown quirk, which is included in the math.

2*LPL got a heat shutdown at 28 seconds and they do 3.19 DPS each.

2*LXPL got a heat shutdown at 22 seconds and they do 3.89 DPS each.

LXPL have 22% more DPS but had 21% less burn time before shutdown.

*These are mechs and builds I actually use, but their buffs had an effect on the results, doing full skills would have an even greater effect, but I felt this would serve as a baseline of sorts (despite the chassis buffs).

More research is needed (give me more grant money) Doing another test run with mechs that do not have chassis buffs, and another set with mech that have chassis buffs and full skills would yeild additional useful data.

Edited by kalashnikity, 23 August 2023 - 08:05 PM.

[kalashnikity]

My initial concern after playing with a PXH-1, using 3*MXPL, 1*BLC, and 2*LMG (I got over 1000dmg, which is not normal for me!) was that the MXPL were overpowered, however after seeing the nearly equal trade off in heat vs dps I feel they are in a good place and any further tuning should be minimal.

Noting the near equal trade off in heat vs dps for LXPL was also reassuring, indeed they are DPS monsters, but they require facetime, which is similar to RAC.

Speaking of pairing weapon types, LXPL or MXPL may be a good combo with RAC, but further research is needed.

On a side note, LPPC and RAC2 share velocity profiles (and thus targeting lead), and pair nicely, one of my most brutal builds is a Fafnir with 2*LRM20, 2*RAC2 and 2*LPPC and it consistently churns out big damage numbers, despite the oddness of the build.

Edited by kalashnikity, 23 August 2023 - 08:07 PM.

[Curccu]

kalashnikity, on 23 August 2023 - 08:02 PM, said:

Noting the near equal trade off in heat vs dps for LXPL was also reassuring, indeed they are DPS monsters, but they require facetime, which is similar to RAC.

Speaking of pairing weapon types, LXPL or MXPL may be a good combo with RAC, but further research is needed.

DPS? fnr-6r

edit: other fine dps monster anh-1x

Edited by Curccu, 23 August 2023 - 09:45 PM.

[Meep Meep]

As they currently stand xpulse only makes sense for group play in a lance where everyone is going to push the same target and you want to melt it down as fast as possible then retreat to cool or pop some boosted cool shots and move to the next target. Of the new weapons these are the most team dependent to get the most out of them. Binary are just better large lasers and hag are moar dakka.

I spectated a few annie builds like this and as long as they were pushing with the group and not the focus of return fire it was melting mechs fast. Cool shots are a must though.

anh-sclgd

Edited by Meep Meep, 23 August 2023 - 11:26 PM.

[Weeny Machine]

Meep Meep, on 23 August 2023 - 11:01 PM, said:

As they currently stand xpulse only makes sense for group play in a lance where everyone is going to push the same target and you want to melt it down as fast as possible then retreat to cool or pop some boosted cool shots and move to the next target. Of the new weapons these are the most team dependent to get the most out of them. Binary are just better large lasers and hag are moar dakka.

I spectated a few annie builds like this and as long as they were pushing with the group and not the focus of return fire it was melting mechs fast. Cool shots are a must though.

anh-sclgd

I concur. I tried them in QP and they are reaaaaly difficult to use. Mostly I had matches (as usual) where Team A camps one spot, Team B the other spot. Then it is long range whack-a-mole. In this kind of scenario you can either try to engage and get blown up in no time because you need facetime, wait with your team till a poor souls tries what was described before and blow it up or just sit around and do nothing till hopefully your side decides to push. If your team lost too many mechs and the others push, well then you get rolled as well.

Summa summarum: a team weapon, not a QP weapon.


In general gameplay:

I also doubt anyone will use it. Math is math but let's have a look at the real gameplay. I think we can all agree that uptime on a target is something precious - especially without getting yourself targeted.

The X-Pulse lasers have a reltively high weight, the range isn't too sexy either. Let's assume heavies and assaults boat them - and you need to boat them to get an effect. Then they sacrifice range, alpha strike capability, and whack-a-moling for a mediocre range high uptime laser boat. I can't see that happening

Let's have a look at lights...they could get away with getting into range but because of the weight they can field less of those weapons which makes the required uptime on a target even longer. I can't see that happening either.

It boils down that the uptime is simply too long in a game environment which is dominated by poking, alpha striking, moving into cover.

Actually, this weapon system shows how narrow the gamestyle corridor was made by the Cauldron. Poking rules surpreme and this is actually Trenchwarrior Online: Whack-a-mole edition because uptime on a target, which is required for DPS weapons, is something too precious and hard to get - at least for the required lenght it would make it worth to field a 7t 1.2 dmg weapon with a 0.25sec cd
My guesstimation is: a dead weapon system

Edited by Weeny Machine, 24 August 2023 - 12:58 AM.

[Curccu]

Weeny Machine, on 24 August 2023 - 12:00 AM, said:

Actually, this weapon system shows how narrow the gamestyle corridor was made by the Cauldron. Poking rules surpreme and this is actually Trenchwarrior Online: Whack-a-mole edition because uptime on a target, which is required for DPS weapons, is something too precious and hard to get - at least for the required lenght it would make it worth to field a 7t 1.2 dmg weapon with a 0.25sec cd
My guesstimation is: a dead weapon system

Poking, poptarting etc has been name of the game pretty much since beta... sure sustained dps styles like dakka has been good and still is but it requires coordination and team to work well.

ps. Pretty sure I saw Navid to say somewhere in forums he wants xpulses to be buffed a bit.

Edited by Curccu, 24 August 2023 - 01:44 AM.

[MechMaster059]

kalashnikity, on 23 August 2023 - 08:02 PM, said:

... was that the MXPL were overpowered, however after seeing the nearly equal trade off in heat vs dps I feel they are in a good place and any further tuning should be minimal.

Noting the near equal trade off in heat vs dps for LXPL was also reassuring, ...

Yeah um... you don't need to worry about X-Pulse Lasers being OP. I'm surprised you even considered the possibility they could be OP considering that, unlike most people on this board, you actually took the time to crunch the numbers.

The problem sticks out like a sore thumb right in the numbers you posted:

SXPL +10% DPS
MXPL +36% DPS
LXPL +22% DPS

Only the Medium X-Pulse DPS boost is remotely sufficient to compensate for the loss of alpha. LXPL are underpowered and SXPL are worthless garbage that should never be used.

The heat "trade off" you speak of isn't the negative for XPLs you imply it to be. What matters is how much heat is generated to destroy a target, in other words damage / heat and in that regard XPLs are nearly identical to their standard versions except for, you guessed it, the SXPL which has worse damage / heat than a SPL. (Yet another indicator that SXPLs need to be buffed)

SXPLs need to do 1 dmg per pulse and LXPLs need to do 2. I also believe they should be given small heat buffs (-10/15%?) to make them MORE damage / heat efficient rather than equal because losing alpha is THAT bad, thus it takes a lot to compensate for it.

Weeny Machine, on 24 August 2023 - 12:00 AM, said:

I concur. I tried them in QP and they are reaaaaly difficult to use. ...

It boils down that the uptime is simply too long in a game environment which is dominated by poking, alpha striking, moving into cover.

...

My guesstimation is: a dead weapon system

Excellent, well thought out post Weeny. I almost entirely agree.

My only difference is I do think MXPLs are viable on some builds. I was killed by a Firestarter boating MXPLs which put out tremendous damage.

[Weeny Machine]

Curccu, on 24 August 2023 - 01:42 AM, said:

Poking, poptarting etc has been name of the game pretty much since beta... sure sustained dps styles like dakka has been good and still is but it requires coordination and team to work well.

ps. Pretty sure I saw Navid to say somewhere in forums he wants xpulses to be buffed a bit.

There was a phase where dakka was pretty much ok and then there were a couple of "tiny" changes which added up. like a 1 point of damage there, a bit heat less, more velocity there and this broke straw broke the camels back.

Anyway, I hope x-pulse laser get a buff because I cannot see them being played by any mech class, especially not outside a team

[pbiggz]

I found large X pulse lasers to be rather lacklustre. The smaller ones have a smaller footprint so easier to build them into existing DPS builds, but the larges are just big enough that they need to perform as a primary weapon themselves and they dont seem to punch quite hard enough to make that happen yet.

Perhaps i just need to find the right builds? My views here are anecdotal of course.

Edited by pbiggz, 24 August 2023 - 05:51 AM.

[kalashnikity]

I agree with all of the above ^^^, my own testing has shown XPL builds are only useful when pushing with a group, since peak and poke only gives lackluster damage scores and you get too much return fire. If your group won't push you are basically useless and when the whole team dies, your own Tier suffers since you could not get out enough damage.

But as part of a coordinated push they work great.

SXPL are garbage as is, almost like Kaldron Boiz are afraid of "making lights OP"... almost as much as they are afraid of occasionally getting killed by a "T4 Newb" with lock on missiles. Might interfere with the sniper elite play style they have carefully molded the game into.

I ran a FLE-17 with 7 SXPL last night and the damage output was unimpressive. I was able to get some kills by backstabbing distracted heavies, but against other fles/locusts it was extremely hard to get consistent hits, I mean worse that regular pulses, because you couldn't set up shots where you can dump all your DPS in one hit, you have to maintain the targeting the whole time.

I could see SXPL being useful paired with machine guns (which they NEVER should have decritted, all for one variant of one chassis, the Crael, they should have just removed crit from Crael MG if they were that worried about it, which makes me wonder if the MG decrit was more of a stealth attack on light DPS)

Edited by kalashnikity, 24 August 2023 - 08:56 AM.

[kalashnikity]

MechMaster059, on 24 August 2023 - 02:09 AM, said:

Yeah um... you don't need to worry about X-Pulse Lasers being OP. I'm surprised you even considered the possibility they could be OP considering that, unlike most people on this board, you actually took the time to crunch the numbers.

The problem sticks out like a sore thumb right in the numbers you posted:

SXPL +10% DPS
MXPL +36% DPS
LXPL +22% DPS

Only the Medium X-Pulse DPS boost is remotely sufficient to compensate for the loss of alpha. LXPL are underpowered and SXPL are worthless garbage that should never be used.

The heat "trade off" you speak of isn't the negative for XPLs you imply it to be. What matters is how much heat is generated to destroy a target, in other words damage / heat and in that regard XPLs are nearly identical to their standard versions except for, you guessed it, the SXPL which has worse damage / heat than a SPL. (Yet another indicator that SXPLs need to be buffed)

SXPLs need to do 1 dmg per pulse and LXPLs need to do 2. I also believe they should be given small heat buffs (-10/15%?) to make them MORE damage / heat efficient rather than equal because losing alpha is THAT bad, thus it takes a lot to compensate for it.


Excellent, well thought out post Weeny. I almost entirely agree.

My only difference is I do think MXPLs are viable on some builds. I was killed by a Firestarter boating MXPLs which put out tremendous damage.

There is another important aspect, and that is DPS/ton, which is why MPL are so good

Looking at MXPL they have an even higher DPS/ton, so they will be extremely efficient for building high output builds, especially in the medium weight class.

Just like the above mentioned Firestarter build.

[Weeny Machine]

MechMaster059, on 24 August 2023 - 02:09 AM, said:

Yeah um... you don't need to worry about X-Pulse Lasers being OP. I'm surprised you even considered the possibility they could be OP considering that, unlike most people on this board, you actually took the time to crunch the numbers.

The problem sticks out like a sore thumb right in the numbers you posted:

SXPL +10% DPS
MXPL +36% DPS
LXPL +22% DPS

Only the Medium X-Pulse DPS boost is remotely sufficient to compensate for the loss of alpha. LXPL are underpowered and SXPL are worthless garbage that should never be used.

The heat "trade off" you speak of isn't the negative for XPLs you imply it to be. What matters is how much heat is generated to destroy a target, in other words damage / heat and in that regard XPLs are nearly identical to their standard versions except for, you guessed it, the SXPL which has worse damage / heat than a SPL. (Yet another indicator that SXPLs need to be buffed)

SXPLs need to do 1 dmg per pulse and LXPLs need to do 2. I also believe they should be given small heat buffs (-10/15%?) to make them MORE damage / heat efficient rather than equal because losing alpha is THAT bad, thus it takes a lot to compensate for it.


Excellent, well thought out post Weeny. I almost entirely agree.

My only difference is I do think MXPLs are viable on some builds. I was killed by a Firestarter boating MXPLs which put out tremendous damage.

Thank you.

The problem is, too many things must add up for x-pulse lasers being effective.

There is even another problem which became clear to me when I played. Let's assume for a second an ideal case: you have upthat if you need uptime and shoot a mech. When you dps he can move or twist. So your shots spray or if you go for the legs some will miss. So the required uptime gets even higher and it is even hard to get your shots in over a long period of time.

You will see, these things will require a damage buff of 30% (I know that sounds crazy) or even higher or they won't be played because they have so many nasty drawbacks maths doesn't account for

The only build I had some kind of success with, was the aforementioned firestarter. But quite frankly, I have much better light mechs and also some which would shred this FS

Edited by Weeny Machine, 24 August 2023 - 09:33 AM.

[nitra]

My little run through with them has put me off.

in the dragon 2 LXPL and 2 MXPL
first match was like holy hell these things are great 4 Kills that match. seems like i was eating through mechs or destroying sections quickly . the team was also pushing thus reinforcing the idea that the team needs to push to make these things effective.

Next match was canyon, emboldened by the previous match i took on a KC and had high hopes i was going to eat his CT for din din . while i almost finished the course the KC survived and i was ended by the usual side torso death that plaques the dragon .
so no more effective that the LPL ERML build in this regard ...

last match which told the story to me, was me chasing some medium high speed harasser mech that i can usually either end or put him back with his team due to damage done with the typical LPL and ERML build i run . However not so, this game. Seems like all the damage was spread all over the target. the LXP and MXPs where not as effective as the LPL and ERML in this scenario of chasing the target around . he was able to get away with less damage than usual .

final tale, was engaging a myst lynx, same thing the damage is just all over the mech . where is if i was using the LPLs there would have been more focused damage and usually component loss and destruction in the same amount of time. .

my take away is, as long as you have large sections you can keep the xpls on then they are great . but as soon as your in situation where aim consistency is less than perfect xpls fall way short of their traditional counter part.

[Weeny Machine]

nitra, on 24 August 2023 - 11:12 AM, said:

My little run through with them has put me off.

in the dragon 2 LXPL and 2 MXPL
first match was like holy hell these things are great 4 Kills that match. seems like i was eating through mechs or destroying sections quickly . the team was also pushing thus reinforcing the idea that the team needs to push to make these things effective.

Next match was canyon, emboldened by the previous match i took on a KC and had high hopes i was going to eat his CT for din din . while i almost finished the course the KC survived and i was ended by the usual side torso death that plaques the dragon .
so no more effective that the LPL ERML build in this regard ...

last match which told the story to me, was me chasing some medium high speed harasser mech that i can usually either end or put him back with his team due to damage done with the typical LPL and ERML build i run . However not so, this game. Seems like all the damage was spread all over the target. the LXP and MXPs where not as effective as the LPL and ERML in this scenario of chasing the target around . he was able to get away with less damage than usual .

final tale, was engaging a myst lynx, same thing the damage is just all over the mech . where is if i was using the LPLs there would have been more focused damage and usually component loss and destruction in the same amount of time. .

my take away is, as long as you have large sections you can keep the xpls on then they are great . but as soon as your in situation where aim consistency is less than perfect xpls fall way short of their traditional counter part.

Exactly my kind of experience. The problem is that if you need a team that pushes with you, it doesn't make the weapon worthwhile. Why? Simply because it is predicatable. Either you push or you get eaten by range. You simply do not have an option.

Again, a dead weapon system.

Well, HGs are good, Binaries are good...both weapons which fit the long range peek-a-boo and mid/long range laser vomit - which is another kind of peek-a-boo. The weapon which could have shaken up this old and stale meta, the X-Pulse laser, sucks donkey balls...what a coincidence with the amount of avid peek-a-boo fans sitting in the Cauldron. I hadn't seen that coming...nah, not at all...

Whatever...back to Diablo 4 after just one day. New weapons but somehow nothing has changed. In a way sad...see you in a couple of months and hopefully there will be weapons which will shake the tents of our little camper fans here. I don't hold my breath, though

Edited by Weeny Machine, 24 August 2023 - 11:22 AM.

[LordNothing]

i was having trouble getting my charger hero to do work with with medium xpulse. i got maybe 1 or 2 kills, brawlers all, but i upgraded to 3 lxps and 3 ermls, and that really made it start to perform.

i think this is more short range weapon tax than anything. short range weapons in general are trash now unless the team decides out the gate that its going to be aggressive. you will either find yourself pinned down by longer range weapons or on a team that refuses to budge.

had one team hold up at standoff range, i was leveling my scale shot, despite its ability to project srms out to almost 400m i had trouble getting close enough to the enemy. so i got aggressive hoping to inspire others. died early and spectated the team. i was curious whether or not we were holding back because we had a lot of snipers or if the team was just chicken. so i wanted to see what weapons we were packing. other than an ac2 ultraviolet and a single erll scat, everyone was running srms, medium xpulse and other short range weapons. it was a wipe of course.

i suppose its natural to get anchored to the fattest mech in the match, even if that puts you out of range. when i run a snipe build i tend to move up if im surrounded by players that look bored, because its a bad use of those players keeping them in the rear out of range. they certainly didnt have the gumption to probe the enemy lines (i did and look where that got me).

Edited by LordNothing, 24 August 2023 - 11:59 AM.

[kalashnikity]

I haven't seen anyone test mixing XPL with RAC yet, especially a MXPL/RAC5 combo, which should have the best dps/ton/range in the game

Yes, I know I just did 3 variables, but mid range brawl has always been a sweet spot. The longest range weapons suffer from low dps, and the shortest range suffer from the inability to get close enough to hit.

[MechMaster059]

kalashnikity, on 24 August 2023 - 09:00 AM, said:

There is another important aspect, and that is DPS/ton, which is why MPL are so good...

MPLs have lousy DPS/ton, it's their one weakness.

This is one of the most exciting aspects of MXPLs to me, they have DPS/ton parity with regular medium lasers!

This is a major bonus for light and medium mechs where every ton is precious. The tonnage of MPLs quickly constrain other aspects of a build like number of heat sinks/armor/reducing the weight of other weapons if you try to boat them on lights or mediums. The high DPS/slot of a MPL suddenly doesn't look so good when you have to shrink everything else. MXPLs parity with regular medium lasers means even if you have to shrink other weapons there's no DPS loss!

Weeny Machine, on 24 August 2023 - 09:31 AM, said:

... When you dps he can move or twist. So your shots spray or if you go for the legs some will miss. So the required uptime gets even higher and it is even hard to get your shots in over a long period of time.

Yup, basically a laser RAC. Same issue with 2 caliber ballistics (AC2/LBX2/UAC2) which is why their ammo damage / ton needs a drastic buff.

Weeny Machine, on 24 August 2023 - 09:31 AM, said:

You will see, these things will require a damage buff of 30% (I know that sounds crazy) ...

XPLs have the potential to quickly become OP if not buffed carefully. I think the 36% DPS boost of the MXPL is just right. SXPLs and LXPLs need to be brought up to parity with that but even then, you're right, they would still be under-powered overall.

Buffing one aspect of a weapon can make that particular aspect too 'sharp', if you will, resulting in a weapon that's too strong in certain situations. This is where a hybrid approach to buffing comes in handy.

XPLs don't need to be the main armament of a mech to be useful. There could be a major role for them as secondary weapons. Giving them a significant heat buff could help in this regard because it would allow comboing them with high damage/high heat weapons such as PPCs and UACs to provide additional self-defense brawling DPS. PPCs have excellent alpha but they suck against close in opponents and run very hot. UACs have great alpha and brawling DPS until they jam and they too run hot.

XPLs could be a great secondary weapon to complement and fill in these gaps if they had at a minimum a -10% heat buff. (Perhaps -15% would really make them shine)

[kalashnikity]

MechMaster059, on 24 August 2023 - 12:44 PM, said:

MPLs have lousy DPS/ton, it's their one weakness.

MPL dps currently at 1.76, ML at 1.22dps

It's been a while since I looked at smurfies (RIP). For a 2 ton weapon that's a lot of DPS when you start comparing it to 3 ton LPPC and 7 ton LPL which only gain marginally more DPS for a large increase in weight.

MechMaster059, on 24 August 2023 - 12:44 PM, said:

XPLs could be a great secondary weapon to complement and fill in these gaps if they had at a minimum a -10% heat buff. (Perhaps -15% would really make them shine)

Indeed SXPL need a buff, they perform poorly at the moment, much worse than SPL. They should get close to the same DPS/Heat mod ratio as MPL vs MXPL, ~30% more heat than SPL and 30% more dps. They should be set up to do well with machine guns, if PGI is going to keep the same firing pattern, which I think they will. They obviously want a unique firing pattern, to bring more variety. Which is not a bad thing.

Edited by kalashnikity, 24 August 2023 - 05:47 PM.

[Curccu]

kalashnikity, on 24 August 2023 - 05:34 PM, said:

MPL dps currently at 1.76, ML at 1.22dps
It's been a while since I looked at smurfies (RIP). For a 2 ton weapon that's a lot of DPS when you start comparing it to 3 ton LPPC and 7 ton LPL which only gain marginally more DPS for a large increase in weight.

Standard ML is real garbage, it loses so much range to ERML and gain very little.

Something better than smurfies https://mwo.nav-alph...uipment/weapons

kalashnikity, on 24 August 2023 - 05:34 PM, said:

Indeed SXPL need a buff, they perform poorly at the moment, much worse than SPL. They should get close to the same DPS/Heat mod ratio as MPL vs MXPL, ~30% more heat than SPL and 30% more dps.

If you want same dps heat ratio as MXPL it would be less heat not more.
MXPL has better DPH than MPL , SXPL has worse DPH than SPL.

Edited by Curccu, 24 August 2023 - 09:12 PM.

[MechMaster059]

kalashnikity, on 24 August 2023 - 05:34 PM, said:

MPL dps currently at 1.76, ML at 1.22dps

You said DPS PER TON. A MPL weighs 2 tons so cut that 1.76 DPS in 1/2 down to 0.88 DPS PER TON. I can assure you 2 MLs have more overall DPS than a single MPL for the same weight. The MPL beats a ML for DPS PER SLOT so if you can spare the weight to boat them they out-perform ML. Light and medium mechs often don't have the spare weight capacity so equipping MPLs imposes other design trade-offs.

kalashnikity, on 24 August 2023 - 05:34 PM, said:

It's been a while since I looked at smurfies (RIP). For a 2 ton weapon that's a lot of DPS when you start comparing it to 3 ton LPPC and 7 ton LPL which only gain marginally more DPS for a large increase in weight.

The LPPC and LPL both have a massive range advantage over the MPL making them much safer to use. The biggest disadvantage of the LPPC is it's poor damage / heat ratio which causes heat problems in a brawl.