August 8th - Weapon Balance update

Insta-thoughts:

PPCs got hitted hard with over 40% speed reduction to blasts, so with the same cooldown and heat cost, now its probably the worst energy weapon. Gauss got nothing. They basically erased the role of energy-sniper. Pretty much what i said: ppl use a combo and they penalize only one of the weapons, and the only in-game debuff. Also the only weapon which IS model was comparable to clan one, so its an indirect punch, again, to make ppl buy clan mechs.

Lets see the changes to cERLLas 1st, but seems its not in the range of the changes needed for the clan weapons. They need a harder nerf. I dont see fine the multiplier to 2+ cLLas, its better to simply increase the base heat by way more than a 5-8%, to compensate for the inceased range, that place them in the range of IS PPCs, they should worth as much heat as them, so a 50-80% (YES, im saying a cLLas should worth 13-14 heat per beam, but with a normal 2+ penalty, not the 1+ they got now).

cMLas should have got a duration increase also, and cSLas a harder penalty for multiple, just to avoid the chances that ppl simply reswitch to them from cLLas, having the long range they have, basically building an IS ERLLas/LLas using cMLas at 1/5 of the weight.

 

Going to run completely counter because that just seems odd.

The PPC changes I'm entirely fine with as it just makes them harder to use whereas currently they're trivially easy.

The ER LL change is another matter. They've increased the difficulty to use them and savagely nerfed their capability at the same time. Thats not a good combination.

- C-ERLL beam duration increased from 1.5 -> 2.0 seconds.
- C-ERLL base heat value increased from 8.5 -> 9.0.
- C-ERLL minimum heat penalty (number of weapons fired simultaneously that will trigger Heat Scale) decreased from 3 -> 2. This means you can fire 1 for free, but firing 2 or more will incur the Heat Scale penalty.
- C-ERLL heat penalty (Heat Scale multiplier) increased from 3.0 -> 12.0.

Read those last two again and think of the ramifications for effective use of the weapon ... particularly bearing in mind it now takes 33% more time to inflict the same damage presuming you can even hold the beam on target for that long.

It all just seems a desperate attempt to try to persuade people to play Inner Sphere ballistic mechs during the "faction events".

 

cERLL getting BONED.... HARD.

fire two and you incur a heat penalty that is now FOUR times as much as it used to be firing 3. R.I.P Ghost Wolf and any build that ran more than ONE cERLL. I'll be on to give it a test.

 

Hahaha, cERLL got wrecked. Enjoy

 

Any one nerf to cERLL might've been ok...but 4 separate nerfs in one patch? Jesus...

 

BTW am fitting my trio of summoners to level when home and I might have had a lot of ERLL on the builds I worked out... feel free to suggest alternatives if you use them.

The ERPPC/Gauss selection probably also needs remedial work.

 

I wonder what will happen to my Supernovashi (8CERL Daishi)... will it go Boom in 2 instead of 3 seconds?

Well, I can see why the CERL got nerfed. I Pilot ClanMechs myself, and the CERL is by far one of my faved weaponssystem, even better than PPCs. Still, it's power on the battlefield was overwhelming.

And yeah, I hate the PPC/Gauss-combo... I don't use it, I don't want it. I don't drive metas anyway...
so what gives? Gauss got nerfed back in the day, now PPC's got their share and are (on first sight) almost useless. I guess this means back to the drawing board for many of us. We'll get used to it and adapt as we usually do.

But.... where is this going? If PGI continues to nerf every meta that seems to be very powerful due to balance, I'm afraid we will have to throw stones at each other. Because sooner or later that's the only weapon that will be left wothout beeing rendered useless.. Or we could fight Monkey Island 3 style... using our foul mouth. Jokes aside.... I just hope that we don't lose more weapon efficiency to the god of balance. Because every nerf they make results in a new meta.

We'll see....

 

What this likely means is dual-gauss + ERML builds are going to become meta.

Furthermore, MOAR LURMING!

 

Slight drama there. The nerf to PPC's just means they'll be less effective against small fast moving targets. Hopefully more incentive and use for lights and smaller profile mediums.

It was farcical how many lights I'd kill with my dual gauss/pp direwolf due to the speed of the projectiles on weapons that really should be better employed against heavies and assaults. Nothing has changed on the gauss you'll just find it harder to land a 50 pinpoint+10 scatter insta kill. Guess you'll just have to make use of that 30pt essentially no heat panel damage that hasn't been nerfed.... such hardship.

 

Don't get me wrong. I've been on the receiving side of the Gauss/PPC-Meta tons of times lately. I really do hate 'em. So... I don't really care if it's harder to hit fast movin' targets. (Because actually I am one of 'em.)

I'm just a bit afraid, that PGI coul nerf the game itself beyond playability.... my post was meant to birng some comic relief to it.

The community will adapt and create new (probably overpowered) metas... and everything will repeat itself. It's a neverending story.

 

I think the max number of lasers should still be 3 but the other changes should be put in place. If you're going to fire 3, you're going to pay for it, but 2 is just ridiculous and takes the legs out of smaller mechs. The range, and specifically the damage drop off, was more the concern in my opinion.

 

That surely is the only major advantage of the CERLL though...... range.

 

i dont know why they just cant decrease the range of it instead of doing 4 different is a mistery...

my motivation to play mwo fades from day to day

cERLL
11.25 dmg, 9 heat, 890 range, 2sec duration, 3.25 sec cd --- 2.14 dps, 1.71 hps

is-ERLL
9 dmg, 8.5 heat, 675 range, 1sec duration, 3.25 sec cd --- 2.11 dps, 2 hps


while the dps is pretty much the same, the rest seems pretty much screwed up
the 2+ penalty rule could make sense keeping the range (with the lower hps) i would rather complettely align it to the IS laser

there is a lot of balance missing, we all know clan lasers are a bit over the top, but i think a solution would be a range nerf, which is imho the biggest advantage the clan mechs have over the IS mechs

 

As said before and I note you loathe the clans.... range is their only advantage.

Big question ... are pulse and er large lasers now uncoupled or how does the heat limitation now effect them? *confused suddenly*

 

Soooo now the PPC is more like a WM4 PPC.. instead of MW3 PPC. so much for man made lighting. Cutting speed by over 30% i think is too much. But at the same time they might be doing the reverse of what they did with the speed up of the LRMS. They will increase the speed of the PPC to 1200-1250 or so later on, when enough people complain about it being useless.

C-ERLL beam duration increased from 1.5 -> 2.0 seconds. ok
C-ERLL base heat value increased from 8.5 -> 9.0. ok
C-ERLL minimum heat penalty (number of weapons fired simultaneously that will trigger Heat Scale) decreased from 3 -> 2. This means you can fire 1 for free, but firing 2 or more will incur the Heat Scale penalty. WHAT? you can't fire two at the same time? That's too much.
C-ERLL heat penalty (Heat Scale multiplier) increased from 3.0 -> 12.0. ok, but would have preferred to wait and see how the first two worked out.

 

Yeah, have to admit I'm fine with nerf 1 and 2 and I suspect most people would have grudgingly accepted but grumbled a bit about them as it would still be usable.

However, 3 and 4 just seem designed to kill the weapon. I doubt anyone is going to stand there for 2 seconds with a line drawn between them and their target if its just doing that amount of damage over 2 seconds.... presuming you can hold your aim on target or the target doesn't get into cover. Lets be honest it was a weapon that gained its value by boating and was perfect for lighter mechs because you could use 2-3 at once and still have a chance to escape as you were so much slower than the inner sphere mechs.

Realistically who would want to pilot an adder or firefox if given the choice ... the only advantage a clan light now has is that they're the only ECM carrier. Poor adder.

 

I'd prefer the other weapons to be buffed rather than the powerful ones nerfed, but this time i think it's good. There is far too much DPS flying around anyway. PPC is still perfectly playable and CERLL was OP, though it got hit with the nerf bat a bit too hard imo. Good that i won't see these stupid 8CERLL DWF retards dropping people from a kilometer away.