127 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

Teckly, on 22 August 2025 - 12:08 PM, said:

they both deal 10 not 15 so right of the bat you're wrong.

Presuming you mean the Snub and ERPPC, no they don't. The Clan ER PPC deals 10 pinpoint damage, and then 2.5 in splash to either adjacent component. It was the first weapon with splash, because the tabletop canon cERPPC at 15 damage was too broken to be allowed to continue to exist. This was PGI's solution to allowing it to be a "15 damage" weapon, back when they had engineering capacity.

The Snub-Nose PPC has the same damage profile. The plasma cannon also splashes; I believe it's 5.5+1+1, but I could be wrong. I will admit to forgetting if the LPPC splashes or if it gets concentrated damage, and I don't know if I ever knew that HAGs splashed.

Nevertheless. All of these weapons (save the LPPC, maybe) splash, and most of them have done so since their introduction.

Teckly, on 22 August 2025 - 12:08 PM, said:

erpcc generate a lot of heat

They do. A borderline unusable amount of heat. 13.5 heat per blast. If paired, which the weapon usually is, that's 27 heat when most 'Mechs average 60 or so heat capacity. Nearly half of your total heat cap in a single shot, if admittedly before quirks. cERPPC 'Mechs are extremely specialized snipers that are effectively completely helpless in a brawl because their damage-to-heat ratios are so horrible they may as well not bother in any sort of even vaguely even fight.

Teckly, on 22 August 2025 - 12:08 PM, said:

and subnose has a very short range.

Not as short as all that. You can get semi-decent pokes with it out to 'bout 400 or so. But it is indeed a brawling weapon.

Teckly, on 22 August 2025 - 12:08 PM, said:

There's no weakness with the railgun except a slightly longer reload time.

"Slightly?" A 7.5s reload time is soul-crushing in a close-range fight. Miss a shot one single time and you more-or-less lose, because such an enormous chunk of your damage is now denied to you. This is not a "minor" weakness. To say nothing of the weapon weighing thirty tons and occupying twelve critical slots.

Teckly, on 22 August 2025 - 12:08 PM, said:

Enormous pin point damages, big splash damages, extra long range, barely any heat.

I get that you're salty and pissed off. But 20 base heat is NOT "barely any heat". That's a third of the 'Mech's heat capacity in a single shot. Actively fibbing doesn't help things.

Teckly, on 22 August 2025 - 12:08 PM, said:

I've seen a guy running this with two heavy ppc. he just blew off a battle master st in one hit.

War Ghoul with two Heavy PPCs hits for 70 pinpoint damage and 12 splash to CT and arm. It's slow, XL-checkable, pretty severely undercooled, and 100% helpless in most close-range battles. That 70 pinpoint is quite scary indeed...as it should be, considering it requires fifty tons to carry onto the battlefield, before ammo. War Ghoul w/2xHPPC alongside the railcannon is bringing more weapons and ammunition to the battlefield than a Dire Wolf. It had better be sphincter-puckering to take a shot from over fifty tons of weapons and ammo all at once, or the game has gone wacky.

Even still. A Battlemaster with default MechDB armor allocation has 115 points of ST durability, prior to skills.

Nah. War Ghoul is not taking off a Battlemaster shoulder in "one hit". it might finish a Battlemaster shoulder that has taken damage, but an undamaged Battlemaster is keeping its shoulder even in the face of over fifty tons of weapons and ammunition.

Try again.

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

Plasma is 5+1+1 apparently. LPPC is 5.5 pinpoint and I am concrete on this because I use the bloody things on so many mechs.

[Moadebe]

1453 R, on 22 August 2025 - 11:54 AM, said:

You...don't realize how ridiculous it sounds to claim that damage which does not hit the component you aimed at is "cheap, skill-less, unfair damage"?

Your case is "Someone has a cherry-red ST, shields with their arm, takes splash damage, loses the ST behind the arm even though they Played Correctly" Okay. Except they didn't play correctly - they took a massive hit that left their shoulder wide open with a more-or-less intact arm hanging off of it. They can try and cover that, but they shouldn't be guaranteed that misplay - and in this theoretical, all these instant pinpoint damage sources you want would've simply taken the shoulder clean off in the first hit instead, rather than leaving it hanging by a thread.

So we are supposed to now just ignore twisting and playing properly while spreading damage. Devil be damned if you take an errant shot from somewhere as you are covering distance to assaults sitting in backline. You do realize you have to go cover to cover....right? Sniping covers those gaps between cover....right...you are going to get hit.....right...

so your logic is to "just not get hit" ... k....

The logic you are saying is MUCH more absurd than what im sayin...

Twisting and spreading damage is proper play...period. If you can protect an open component with your other not as beat up components then its good play. With splash it eliminates that factor ..... so.... again...you are absolutely being absurd your own self.

You and I are not gonna get close to discussing this properly. I mean you already considered me asking a question as me trying to nettle you or pull a "gotcha" on ya when a question was just a question. Like I dont know WHEN asking a question just turns into an argument or causes someone to be defensive but hey...here we are. Heck all I was trying to do was understand where you are coming from. Cause the logic you are spewing makes ZERO sense.

So....have fun defending this weapon system that is the equivalent of an entire mech in and of itself.

Quote

and in this theoretical, all these instant pinpoint damage sources you want would've simply taken the shoulder clean off in the first hit instead, rather than leaving it hanging by a thread.

And no...i dont want MORE pinpoint..I think the damage is WAY too high and time to kill is too low right now by a large magnitude. But again...powers that be only give a **** about dps or damage...not actual game play. They care more about optimization. Not how that translates to the battlefield. For both people in said exchange.

[1453 R]

Moadebe, on 22 August 2025 - 01:37 PM, said:

...
And no...i dont want MORE pinpoint..I think the damage is WAY too high and time to kill is too low right now by a large magnitude. But again...powers that be only give a **** about dps or damage...not actual game play. They care more about optimization. Not how that translates to the battlefield. For both people in said exchange.

Higher time to kill makes having better DPS more important, not less. If 'Mech A has 10 DPS, but 'Mech B has 12 DPS? Then the longer it takes for a 'Mech to wind up dead, the more time 'Mech B has to leverage that improved DPS and overcome any "smart play" like twisting damage around, ambushing the target, or the like.

You may hate the term 'DPS', but understanding how the game works is still important. Battlefield conditions apply, for sure - but a 20 damage weapon that fires once every 2.5 seconds is usually better in a close-quarters scrap than a 40-damage weapon that fires once. Twice as many chances to hit and land some damage in a wildly twisting, high-intensity fracas - or, put another way, only half the penalty for missing. There's a reason higher cycle rates are such a killer, build-defining quirk in the game. You WILL get blasted in a close-quarters scrum, and there is only so much twisting you can do. if you're facing multiple opponents your twisting can be useless, and if you don't have allies the other pilot can just hold their fire and stare at you, wait for you to show your wounds again because they know you can't fight back until you do.

Is the Supah Magnum Railgonne overtuned? Possibly! But it's not the cataclysmic Destroyer of Everything people keep proclaiming it to be, either.

[KursedVixen]

Void Angel, on 22 August 2025 - 10:40 AM, said:

People forget about that (I did, actually,) because the HAGs also spread their damage around via burst-fire. Laser and Moadebe were arguing over pinpoint damage, and so were only talking about standard Gauss Rifles.

i stil think it's stupid that hyper guass has both burst fire AND splash..

[Quicksilver Aberration]

For the Clan Bullshark, the railgun is definitely overtuned. You get effectively 4 cERPPCs for much less heat at the cost of a slow recycle rate and less tonnage than you would probably have invested for cERPPCs with DHS. It also synergizes with HLL which has long cooldowns as well and is light for what it provides translating to a much effective platform combined with Clan space magic XL/ES/FF and cERMLs. The IS one struggles to have anything of the sort, largely being relegated to longer range which is more meh in QP.

I don't necessarily like the design of the railgun because it incentivizes a playstyle that they had already deemed problematic (dumb alpha, redline, and then repeat once cooled), especially since Gauss/PPC for some reason isn't allowed yet is actively worse than the current Clan Bullshark (due to Gauss/PPC builds dealing with different velocities, heavier tonnage, more heat, all for more DPS which railgun builds can get through mixing with lasers).

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 22 August 2025 - 03:44 PM.

[1453 R]

Does seem strange that both the Clan and IS versions of the Railgun were identical when the War Ghoul was clearly and obviously dramatically inferior to the Void Killer.

I get that this is kinda as close as PGI can get to putting the Thumper cannon from the original HBS Bullshark on the thing given that indirect-fire artillery proved completely implausible, but the HBS Bullshark was technically all IS tech. A full Clan internals overhaul is kinda strictly superior, which does feel like an oversight.

[KursedVixen]

1453 R, on 22 August 2025 - 04:04 PM, said:

Does seem strange that both the Clan and IS versions of the Railgun were identical when the War Ghoul was clearly and obviously dramatically inferior to the Void Killer.

I get that this is kinda as close as PGI can get to putting the Thumper cannon from the original HBS Bullshark on the thing given that indirect-fire artillery proved completely implausible, but the HBS Bullshark was technically all IS tech. A full Clan internals overhaul is kinda strictly superior, which does feel like an oversight.

doesn't the clan bullshark pay for that in less armor and structure? or lesser quirks?

[Battlemaster56]

Doesn't really matter when it vastly superior to the IS one, and smaller xl endo and ferro make it easier to put weapons and dhs in.

[Void Angel]

KursedVixen, on 22 August 2025 - 02:04 PM, said:

i stil think it's stupid that hyper guass has both burst fire AND splash..

Well, your preferences here are well-known - but consider that the HAG's overall DPS is much higher than standard Gauss. If they moved the splash back onto the main barrage, they'd have to reduce its cooldown, or lower the damage, etc. But, given how HAGs generally spread their burst over multiple components, the splash actually helps put a little more damage on what you were aiming at.

[1453 R]

KursedVixen, on 22 August 2025 - 04:41 PM, said:

doesn't the clan bullshark pay for that in less armor and structure? or lesser quirks?

Both Void Killer and War Ghoul have identical quirks. Which ain't right and shouldn't stand.

[Void Angel]

KursedVixen, on 22 August 2025 - 04:41 PM, said:

doesn't the clan bullshark pay for that in less armor and structure? or lesser quirks?

No. The quirks are identical, as is the added structure and armor from skills. ST total durability for either variant is exactly 170 points

1453 R, on 22 August 2025 - 04:04 PM, said:

Does seem strange that both the Clan and IS versions of the Railgun were identical when the War Ghoul was clearly and obviously dramatically inferior to the Void Killer.

You'd have to ask the Cauldron about that to be sure - but I suspect they're anticipating that some adjustment for the Railgun will be needed, and making both variants identical gives them a control for evaluating how it interacts with the two tech bases.

For example, the Clans have no direct equivalent for the Heavy PPC (they get more laser options instead,) but the IS can mount two of them on their RailShark. I don't know if this is their intent, but it will be good for the Cauldron to be able to directly compare Clan and IS Railshark performance from the standpoint of an identical chassis.

Edited by Void Angel, 22 August 2025 - 06:28 PM.

[Lollerisms]

Afaik there was an assumption that IS would have a niche with lower duration heat efficient lasers and that did not really pan out.

[nanashi0110]

VOID KILLER and WAR GHOUL were released in exactly the same state, which is not ideal. However, if each had its own unique characteristics, I think they would be quite appealing.

I believe it would be quite interesting if VOID KILLER was specialized for long-range combat and WAR GHOUL was specialized for close-range combat.

[Teckly]

1453 R, on 22 August 2025 - 01:00 PM, said:

Presuming you mean the Snub and ERPPC, no they don't. The Clan ER PPC deals 10 pinpoint damage, and then 2.5 in splash to either adjacent component. It was the first weapon with splash, because the tabletop canon cERPPC at 15 damage was too broken to be allowed to continue to exist. This was PGI's solution to allowing it to be a "15 damage" weapon, back when they had engineering capacity.

The Snub-Nose PPC has the same damage profile. The plasma cannon also splashes; I believe it's 5.5+1+1, but I could be wrong. I will admit to forgetting if the LPPC splashes or if it gets concentrated damage, and I don't know if I ever knew that HAGs splashed.

Nevertheless. All of these weapons (save the LPPC, maybe) splash, and most of them have done so since their introduction.


They do. A borderline unusable amount of heat. 13.5 heat per blast. If paired, which the weapon usually is, that's 27 heat when most 'Mechs average 60 or so heat capacity. Nearly half of your total heat cap in a single shot, if admittedly before quirks. cERPPC 'Mechs are extremely specialized snipers that are effectively completely helpless in a brawl because their damage-to-heat ratios are so horrible they may as well not bother in any sort of even vaguely even fight.


Not as short as all that. You can get semi-decent pokes with it out to 'bout 400 or so. But it is indeed a brawling weapon.

"Slightly?" A 7.5s reload time is soul-crushing in a close-range fight. Miss a shot one single time and you more-or-less lose, because such an enormous chunk of your damage is now denied to you. This is not a "minor" weakness. To say nothing of the weapon weighing thirty tons and occupying twelve critical slots.


I get that you're salty and pissed off. But 20 base heat is NOT "barely any heat". That's a third of the 'Mech's heat capacity in a single shot. Actively fibbing doesn't help things.


War Ghoul with two Heavy PPCs hits for 70 pinpoint damage and 12 splash to CT and arm. It's slow, XL-checkable, pretty severely undercooled, and 100% helpless in most close-range battles. That 70 pinpoint is quite scary indeed...as it should be, considering it requires fifty tons to carry onto the battlefield, before ammo. War Ghoul w/2xHPPC alongside the railcannon is bringing more weapons and ammunition to the battlefield than a Dire Wolf. It had better be sphincter-puckering to take a shot from over fifty tons of weapons and ammo all at once, or the game has gone wacky.

Even still. A Battlemaster with default MechDB armor allocation has 115 points of ST durability, prior to skills.

Nah. War Ghoul is not taking off a Battlemaster shoulder in "one hit". it might finish a Battlemaster shoulder that has taken damage, but an undamaged Battlemaster is keeping its shoulder even in the face of over fifty tons of weapons and ammunition.

Try again.

we get it, you play these **** and don't want to lose the only thing allowing you to have kills.

anyway if they want to go that route I'm done with this ****. They do all these events to bring people back to the game but this is a deal breaker. Block an overpowered weapon behind a paywall for 6 month and make it exclusive. And without any possible counter like armor slots.

[Void Angel]

"You disagree with me, so you must have ulterior motives."

Hey, I can play this game too! "You just don't know how to avoid bad peeks, so you want the thing that punishes you for it nerfed!"

Accurate? No? Maybe get over yourself.

[LordNothing]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 22 August 2025 - 03:40 PM, said:

For the Clan Bullshark, the railgun is definitely overtuned. You get effectively 4 cERPPCs for much less heat at the cost of a slow recycle rate and less tonnage than you would probably have invested for cERPPCs with DHS. It also synergizes with HLL which has long cooldowns as well and is light for what it provides translating to a much effective platform combined with Clan space magic XL/ES/FF and cERMLs. The IS one struggles to have anything of the sort, largely being relegated to longer range which is more meh in QP.

I don't necessarily like the design of the railgun because it incentivizes a playstyle that they had already deemed problematic (dumb alpha, redline, and then repeat once cooled), especially since Gauss/PPC for some reason isn't allowed yet is actively worse than the current Clan Bullshark (due to Gauss/PPC builds dealing with different velocities, heavier tonnage, more heat, all for more DPS which railgun builds can get through mixing with lasers).

im brawling with mine.

[Teckly]

Void Angel, on 23 August 2025 - 06:53 AM, said:

"You disagree with me, so you must have ulterior motives."

Hey, I can play this game too! "You just don't know how to avoid bad peeks, so you want the thing that punishes you for it nerfed!"

Accurate? No? Maybe get over yourself.

You know what, I wanted to answer something snappy but you're not even worth the trouble nor you'd ever get it seeing how low your iq is.
I mean you can't even understand the play pgi did with this.

And I'm done here also. Not worth wasting time with fanboys morons of this caliber.

[Void Angel]

I know his brother, Who.

In any case, please keep your word. Your immaturity, arrogance, and inane desire to straw-man every objection raised to your abusive diatribes is offensive to the grownups in the thread.

[misachii]

would also say my impressions, the IS shark is sadly so much worse then clan.
but simply giving it more quirks would be boring imho, i would rather have IS shark to have 4 more energy hard points one on each side torso/arm this way it could be 10 small lasers or 4 large 6 er med so that IS bullshark only has railgun for sniping but otherwise is a brawler/midrange.