54 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

This DPS laser is simply just conceptually bad as RACs, needing face-time to do damage, because the game is about minimizing incoming damage while maximizing outgoing damage, why the peekaboo combat works.

Now if they +1 HSL limit and reduced heat, that might make it something different -- where you can mass a lot of it, with less regard for heat dissipation, might make it worth using. Likewise be added as something on top of an AC/UAC build with low commitment, it might be a different story.

[LordNothing]

then keep the range and damage and return heat to original release level. and take the spinup off the racs while youre at it. we all know running dps is a liability, so why keep the numbers bad?

Edited by LordNothing, 23 September 2023 - 02:31 AM.

[CFC Conky]

Nine-Ball said:

1695453684[/url]' post='6513565']
Number crunching with a Marauder II 4A (8 laser points) you can mount 3 LXPL and 5 MXPL for 14.1 alpha strike. 350 light and the rest DHS.

You can with max heat skill pump out 12 alpha strikes before needing to cooldown (hitting 98% on your heat scale), which is 169.2 damage over 6 seconds (according to mechDB anyways.. 28.2 max DPS for 6 seconds is pretty neat). The vast majority of other mechs that can match or exceed that max DPS does so with missiles, racs or something not as pinpoint accurate as a laser volley.

TTB is running a couple of videos comparing the performance of the X-pulse vs regular pulse lasers and the regular PLs are demonstrably more effective at reducing ttk despite the increased heat alpha heat.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited by CFC Conky, 23 September 2023 - 06:25 AM.

[Ignatius Audene]

Curccu, on 21 September 2023 - 12:32 PM, said:

you use BOTH! DPS!
anh-2a
kgc-000b
anh-1x

And heat wasn't really nerfed they have as good or better damage per heat than before patch.

Sady circumventing Rac HSL is their only niche.

[Curccu]

Ignatius Audene, on 23 September 2023 - 12:23 PM, said:

Sady circumventing Rac HSL is their only niche.

Might work well with some MG ligts/light mediums

[MOPCKOE]

TRASH

[LordNothing]

Nine-Ball, on 23 September 2023 - 11:06 PM, said:

So with no buffs it takes 5 seconds to puke out 10 alpha strikes -- one way to look at it is at between 10-15 damage your essentially firing a PPC/AC10/two-LPPCs/heavy PPC every 0.5 seconds.

Now with quirks and skills is where it really gets interesting -- with my Battlemaster-3M and its base quirks and 15 cooldown and 4 duration reduction skills I am able to reduce cooldown by 0.053 and duration by 0.062 for a total of 0.115 total time reduction in firing and cooldown -- saving a whole 1.15 seconds of face time over 10 alpha strikes.

With the 8 energy slots that means 12 damage with 8 medium x-pulse -- 120 damage every 10 shots every 5 seconds at base, now 3.85 seconds with quirks and skills -- 24 max dps vs 31.16 max dps.

Slap on a Light390 and 9 DHS and now I have an agile and relatively fast (85.5kph) brawler that should in theory eat lights, mediums, heavies and the legs of 100t assault mechs.

i might try that. but it sounds hot.

you can drop down to a 375 and get 12+10 sinks. also did full cool shot skills. also using 2 banks of lasers in alternating groups so damage is constant rather than pulsed. bagged a light first drop. second match team split and couldnt do anything. third another teamsplit, but got another light and 500 damage. forth match got 1037 damage and a marauder. so id call it an ok light hunter, ok dps brawler. it can break a light before it overheats. still very hot and very situational and require zen like heat management.

though i did see a spider 5v with mxpls which looked promising. gonna try that in eq. you can go rangey or you can go brawly and they both sound scary as hell.

Edited by LordNothing, 24 September 2023 - 02:35 AM.

[SafeScanner]

Nine-Ball, on 23 September 2023 - 11:06 PM, said:

So with no buffs it takes 5 seconds to puke out 10 alpha strikes -- one way to look at it is at between 10-15 damage your essentially firing a PPC/AC10/two-LPPCs/heavy PPC every 0.5 seconds.

Now with quirks and skills is where it really gets interesting -- with my Battlemaster-3M and its base quirks and 15 cooldown and 4 duration reduction skills I am able to reduce cooldown by 0.053 and duration by 0.062 for a total of 0.115 total time reduction in firing and cooldown -- saving a whole 1.15 seconds of face time over 10 alpha strikes.

With the 8 energy slots that means 12 damage with 8 medium x-pulse -- 120 damage every 10 shots every 5 seconds at base, now 3.85 seconds with quirks and skills -- 24 max dps vs 31.16 max dps.

Slap on a Light390 and 9 DHS and now I have an agile and relatively fast (85.5kph) brawler that should in theory eat lights, mediums, heavies and the legs of 100t assault mechs.

i would argue what stops you from getting eaten getting to range/position(or poke a corner) to pull it off, that said if you can great but i am finding it hard because the window is so short where you risk getting blapped/crippled

[RockmachinE]

Nine-Ball, on 23 September 2023 - 11:06 PM, said:

So with no buffs it takes 5 seconds to puke out 10 alpha strikes -- one way to look at it is at between 10-15 damage your essentially firing a PPC/AC10/two-LPPCs/heavy PPC every 0.5 seconds.

Now with quirks and skills is where it really gets interesting -- with my Battlemaster-3M and its base quirks and 15 cooldown and 4 duration reduction skills I am able to reduce cooldown by 0.053 and duration by 0.062 for a total of 0.115 total time reduction in firing and cooldown -- saving a whole 1.15 seconds of face time over 10 alpha strikes.

With the 8 energy slots that means 12 damage with 8 medium x-pulse -- 120 damage every 10 shots every 5 seconds at base, now 3.85 seconds with quirks and skills -- 24 max dps vs 31.16 max dps.

Slap on a Light390 and 9 DHS and now I have an agile and relatively fast (85.5kph) brawler that should in theory eat lights, mediums, heavies and the legs of 100t assault mechs.

Which build are you referring to. I'm quite intrigued?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

X-Pulse share more in common with RACs in that they are burst damage oriented weapons disguised as DPS oriented weapons. You play them like longer duration laser vomit. Step out of cover, burst some damage; if the target is too far out of cover then you burst until heat gets to high or you jam, which ever comes first. Typically the more sustained DPS oriented your weapons are, the more heat efficient your weapons are for the damage and this is somewhat true now for X-Pulse (except they are energy weapons which makes it hard), except the smalls which are the least heat efficient of the small lasers for the IS (outside ERs). The problem is how long it takes to break even. Probably the best comparison would be 3 XLPL vs 4 LL

It takes over 2.5s to just break even which is a fairly long time. It also has a lower damage per tick than the LL which makes fighting against a more traditional laser vomit build rough. I'd rather see the cooldown increased to 0.75 but damage and heat at least doubled and that way the pulse means more. Now it also depends on what they are going for, if they wanted it to just be a weapon that couldn't semi-poke and more like RACs, honestly just make it a continuous beam. Remove the cooldown and just make it like flamers/machine guns.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 24 September 2023 - 09:08 PM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

I think the simplfication of....

HOT GARBAGE!

Is quite fitting.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 September 2023 - 09:07 PM, said:

X-Pulse share more in common with RACs in that they are burst damage oriented weapons disguised as DPS oriented weapons.

What they share is only with the face-time. RACs requires -- or at least mechanically incentivizes commitment, due to the spool-up mechanism that eats up your jam-bar, causing redline. The XPLs at least have short bursts, for poking, it's low-commitment and easy to break away, kind of like machine-guns. This upfront damage though makes it better, in comparison (to machine guns).

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 24 September 2023 - 09:07 PM, said:

Remove the cooldown and just make it like flamers/machine guns.

IDK about this part though this sounds like it has to nerf the damage/tick to balance it out. I happen to like the short burst nature of XPLs as has some semblance of front-loading of damage in a single click, but see the main problem is that it has low front-loaded damage to begin with:

LL does 9 damage over 1s, LPL does 11 damage over 0.75s, but the LXP does 2.2 damage over 0.25s. Essentially, for the LL's duration, the LXP only does 8.8 damage, and 6.6 damage for the LPL. Now sure for the duration and cooldown, the LXP would have dealt 19.8 damage against LL, and 17.6 damage against LPL.

For the current setup, with no rework, I'd rather they took out the Ghost heat out of all XPL, and have a radical reduction in heat. Just ******* look at it, 2.2 damage per LXP? If it were built on the same Battlemaster, with 5 of them, that's still just 11 damage, what is there to be afraid of, that it can fire again after 0.5s?

But if I were to rework it:

L-XPL:
> Damage: 5.5 (50% of LPL)
> Duration: 0.375 (50% of LPL)
> Cooldown: 1.2s (40% of LPL)
> Heat: 2.8 (40% of LPL)
> +1 HSL (Can fire 4, or 22 before GH. Note that LPLs do 33 on max GH)

M-XPL:
> Damage: 3 (50% of MPL)
> Duration: 0.30 (50% of MPL)
> Cooldown: 1.12s (40% of MPL)
> Heat: 1.52 (40% of MPL)
> +2 HSL (Can fire 8, or 24 before GH. Note that MPLs do 36 on max GH)

S-XPL:
> Damage: 2 (50% of SPL)
> Duration: 0.25 (50% of SPL)
> Cooldown: 0.84s (40% of SPL)
> Heat: 0.62 (40% of SPL)

XPLs essentially would be Pulse Lasers, but 50% in damage output, but slightly faster, colder and have normal laser range, with the bonus of +HSL. With this setup, it still has competitive front-loaded damage per trigger pull, but still has the face-time, without being utter ****.

I think it can be more complementary to AC builds, such as LXPLs with AC5s, but won't tax so much heat. Or if it were to be more front-loaded, with the +HSL. It won't supplant Standard PLs by virtue of simply having twice the burst in a single click.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 25 September 2023 - 01:17 AM.

[Eider]

A stick maybe a better option.. theyre just terrible with no benefit except new colors.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 24 September 2023 - 10:37 PM, said:

What they share is only with the face-time. RACs requires -- or at least mechanically incentivizes commitment, due to the spool-up mechanism that eats up your jam-bar, causing redline. The XPLs at least have short bursts, for poking, it's low-commitment and easy to break away, kind of like machine-guns. This upfront damage though makes it better, in comparison (to machine guns).

It might be a little better than machine guns in the upfront damage, but IDK that the current iteration is any sort of beneficial currently because it doesn't really synergize with any weapons outside HAGs ironically which is a different tech base.

The6thMessenger, on 24 September 2023 - 10:37 PM, said:

IDK about this part though this sounds like it has to nerf the damage/tick to balance it out. I happen to like the short burst nature of XPLs as has some semblance of front-loading of damage in a single click, but see the main problem is that it has low front-loaded damage to begin with:

LL does 9 damage over 1s, LPL does 11 damage over 0.75s, but the LXP does 2.2 damage over 0.25s. Essentially, for the LL's duration, the LXP only does 8.8 damage, and 6.6 damage for the LPL. Now sure for the duration and cooldown, the LXP would have dealt 19.8 damage against LL, and 17.6 damage against LPL.

For the current setup, with no rework, I'd rather they took out the Ghost heat out of all XPL, and have a radical reduction in heat. Just ******* look at it, 2.2 damage per LXP? If it were built on the same Battlemaster, with 5 of them, that's still just 11 damage, what is there to be afraid of, that it can fire again after 0.5s?


But if I were to rework it:

L-XPL:

> Damage: 5.5 (50% of LPL)
> Duration: 0.375 (50% of LPL)
> Cooldown: 1.2s (40% of LPL)
> Heat: 2.8 (40% of LPL)
> +1 HSL (Can fire 4, or 22 before GH. Note that LPLs do 33 on max GH)

M-XPL:

> Damage: 3 (50% of MPL)
> Duration: 0.30 (50% of MPL)
> Cooldown: 1.12s (40% of MPL)
> Heat: 1.52 (40% of MPL)
> +2 HSL (Can fire 8, or 24 before GH. Note that MPLs do 36 on max GH)

S-XPL:

> Damage: 2 (50% of SPL)
> Duration: 0.25 (50% of SPL)
> Cooldown: 0.84s (40% of SPL)
> Heat: 0.62 (40% of SPL)

XPLs essentially would be Pulse Lasers, but 50% in damage output, but slightly faster, colder and have normal laser range, with the bonus of +HSL. With this setup, it still has competitive front-loaded damage per trigger pull, but still has the face-time, without being utter ****.

I like these numbers a little better but after looking at the current numbers, there are two big problems:

• It takes way too long for the burst DPS of the XLPLs to overtake the LPLs in burst damage. Taking 3 full cycles of the LPLs to do more than break even (so 8.25s of continuous fire), and that's just too long. Your numbers unfortunately have a similar issue except they are actually slower (due to lower DPS) than the current iteration.
  
• It's not even more heat efficient for the damage. So not only are you starting someone in the fact to try to do more damage, you are just as heat capped as normal laser vomit. The heat efficiency doesn't have to increase significant margins but it shouldn't be a complete wash like it currently is.

I would argue that maybe that they need probably a more aggressive cooldown. You could either implement an overheating mechanic like jamming for ballistics to hard cap it, but the burst DPS needs to be potentially higher than 50% of LPLs to actually surpass LPL spam in a reasonable time frame. for example to do 33% more damage by the time you've alpha'd LPLs for the 3rd time (the 8.25s mark is the end of the third burn) you have to have a burst DPS of 5.333 per XLPL. For comparison the LPLs have a DPS of 2.9333.

The6thMessenger, on 24 September 2023 - 10:37 PM, said:

I think it can be more complementary to AC builds, such as LXPLs with AC5s, but won't tax so much heat. Or if it were to be more front-loaded, with the +HSL. It won't supplant Standard PLs by virtue of simply having twice the burst in a single click.

It won't, the only reason other lasers work well with Gauss is because Gauss has good enough velocity that you can typically compensate for it. AC5s aren't close enough without significant quirks.



Just for funsies I did some digging trying to find the numbers of cERLL vs cERLPL from the MW4:Mercs days because of how dominant cERLLs were in that game (more so in Vengeance because of bad math but still).

cERLLs did 7.5 damage for 9 heat with a cooldown of 5s (however I'm not sure if animation time was part of this, I'm pretty sure it wasn't, it was 0.5s iirc).
cERLPLs did 4.5 damage for 5.6 heat with a cooldown of 0.75s (the animation time for pulse was 0.25s).

DPS and HPS comparison:
cERLLs did 1.3636 damage per second, while generating 1.6363 HPS with 0.8333 damage per heat.
cERLPLs did 4.5 damage per second, while generating 5.6 HPS with 0.804 damage per heat.

Take these numbers with a grain of salt given MWO isn't quite the same beast as MW4 but still, point is DPS for burst-esque weapons needs to be pretty high, and the damage per heat should probably be at least equivalent if not better.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 25 September 2023 - 10:03 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 September 2023 - 09:43 PM, said:

It won't, the only reason other lasers work well with Gauss is because Gauss has good enough velocity that you can typically compensate for it. AC5s aren't close enough without significant quirks.

But see, the thing is that you're looking at this on the application of a gauss-vomit trying to focus a component, not a laser-assisted DPS build maximizing the window of time.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 25 September 2023 - 09:43 PM, said:

I like these numbers a little better but after looking at the current numbers, there are two big problems:

• It takes way too long for the burst DPS of the XLPLs to overtake the LPLs in burst damage. Taking 3 full cycles of the LPLs to do more than break even (so 8.25s of continuous fire), and that's just too long. Your numbers unfortunately have a similar issue except they are actually slower (due to lower DPS) than the current iteration.
  
• It's not even more heat efficient for the damage. So not only are you starting someone in the fact to try to do more damage, you are just as heat capped as normal laser vomit. The heat efficiency doesn't have to increase significant margins but it shouldn't be a complete wash like it currently is.

I would argue that maybe that they need probably a more aggressive cooldown. You could either implement an overheating mechanic like jamming for ballistics to hard cap it, but the burst DPS needs to be potentially higher than 50% of LPLs to actually surpass LPL spam in a reasonable time frame. for example to do 33% more damage by the time you've alpha'd LPLs for the 3rd time (the 8.25s mark is the end of the third burn) you have to have a burst DPS of 5.333 per XLPL. For comparison the LPLs have a DPS of 2.9333.

I took them rather conservatively, on the virtue that by their starting point, they would be balance and isn't as overpowered. My mistake. Though I'd be wary in making more mechanics like that, since PGI already wouldn't/can't/whichever code in the game like before, XML is all we got, so XML is where we should go.

L-XPL:

> Damage: 5.5 (50% of LPL)
> Duration: 0.375 (50% of LPL)
> Cooldown: 0.75s (25% of LPL)
> Heat: 2.1 (30% of LPL)
> +1 HSL (Can fire 4, or 22 before GH. Note that LPLs do 33 on max GH)
> DPS: 4.888 (+66.85% of LPL)
> HPS: 1.8667

M-XPL:

> Damage: 3 (50% of MPL)
> Duration: 0.30 (50% of MPL)
> Cooldown: 0.7s (25% of MPL)
> Heat: 1.14 (30% of MPL)
> +2 HSL (Can fire 8, or 24 before GH. Note that MPLs do 36 on max GH)
> DPS: 3 (+70.45% of MPL)
> HPS: 1.14 (+1.785% of MPL)

S-XPL:

> Damage: 2 (50% of SPL)
> Duration: 0.25 (50% of SPL)
> Cooldown: 0.525s (25% of SPL)
> Heat: 0.465 (30% of SPL)
> DPS: 2.58 (+67.574 of SPL)
> HPS: 0.6

I still took them rather conservatively, but per your requirement, I instead based it on 50% the damage burst, but 1/4th of the CD. At 30% heat, it has near equal HPS to the standard Pulse Lasers. TBF, this is the most "broken", I'd be comfortable the XPLs can be.

I still prefer the last batch of the one I pitched in, because I don't see why the XPLs should be wedged in to the purposes of standard PLs, to be compared with them.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 25 September 2023 - 11:54 PM.

[Curccu]

The6thMessenger, on 25 September 2023 - 11:40 PM, said:

But see, the thing is that you're looking at this on the application of a gauss-vomit trying to focus a component, not a laser-assisted DPS build maximizing the window of time.

Even DPS builds should try to focus on component instead of spraying it all over...
AC5+ Lazors is bit hard if enemy is moving side ways, with xpulses and ACs you could just not shoot lasors when shooting that ac...0,25second window to lead with acs and shoot adjust aim back to hitscan no lead... bit demanding to do well.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 25 September 2023 - 11:40 PM, said:

But see, the thing is that you're looking at this on the application of a gauss-vomit trying to focus a component, not a laser-assisted DPS build maximizing the window of time.

Curccu, on 26 September 2023 - 12:50 AM, said:

Even DPS builds should try to focus on component instead of spraying it all over...
AC5+ Lazors is bit hard if enemy is moving side ways, with xpulses and ACs you could just not shoot lasors when shooting that ac...0,25second window to lead with acs and shoot adjust aim back to hitscan no lead... bit demanding to do well.

This. DPS builds offer quicker TTK for those with good aim or against targets that are caught in a bad position (such as being caught flat-footed, in the wide open, etc) at the expense of more exposure for responses in kind. That or high enough damage saturation to put an opponent in a pressured situation (ie ~100%+ DPS over standard builds).

I think your second batch of numbers would be a decent starting point, though thinking about it a bit more, the heat can probably come up a bit (DPH is probably the more important metric here than HPS as HPS is what limits the ability to sustain the burst). so you can probably return the numbers to 40% of the LPL or 50% if you want to err on the side of caution.

To be clear though, this doesn't compete with LPLs. Regardless of what PGI or the Cauldron thinks LPLs are more to offer more heat efficient complements to ERMLs and supplement laser vomit than be for DPS (though the DPS is handy when combating pushes). LPLs are more competition for LLs than XPLs are for either.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 26 September 2023 - 07:37 AM.

[Haipyng]

The6thMessenger, on 22 September 2023 - 11:57 PM, said:

This DPS laser is simply just conceptually bad as RACs, needing face-time to do damage, because the game is about minimizing incoming damage while maximizing outgoing damage, why the peekaboo combat works.

Now if they +1 HSL limit and reduced heat, that might make it something different -- where you can mass a lot of it, with less regard for heat dissipation, might make it worth using. Likewise be added as something on top of an AC/UAC build with low commitment, it might be a different story.

Just that. Too much facetime is required vs the Long Range meta. At least with RACs you might blind them.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Haipyng, on 26 September 2023 - 08:11 AM, said:

Just that. Too much facetime is required vs the Long Range meta. At least with RACs you might blind them.

Has nothing to do with long range meta, if anything you can get away with MORE face time in long range fights than you can in short range ones.

[Haipyng]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 26 September 2023 - 08:25 AM, said:

Has nothing to do with long range meta, if anything you can get away with MORE face time in long range fights than you can in short range ones.

Have to disagree. Shooting 4 ER LL at you in peek-and-shoot while readjusting means that for each trade the XPulse is coming out on the botton. Straight face staring and shooting like a newbie...maybe. But that is not how the meta is played.