Rygharr Sturmeister
DUST University
Ivy League
11
   |
Posted - 2014.04.13 17:33:00 -
[1] - Quote
iliel wrote:Megaman Trigger wrote:HP wise, the Sentinel is just fine. They are, by design, supposed to be able to survive massive amounts of damage while dishing it out. The description for the suit even says they're the only Drop Suit that can reliably go head-to-head with a tank. No one but another Sentinel should be able to take a Sentinel head-on inside HMG range and be able to win. They don't need a nerf, they just need to be approached with different tactics in a firefight. Engage at range, outside of the HMG's effective range, or in groups, 2v1 or better if you can manage it. I bolded the belief that is essentially ruining this game. Sorry, but no one who specs into any suit is ENTITLED to win a fight. The HMG, like every other weapon, should require SKILL to win a fight. A scout, assault, or even logi,should be able to have a fighting chance dancing around a Heavy.
Perhaps we should be more specific and take the underlined and italicized part into consideration:
Megaman Trigger wrote:No one but another Sentinel should be able to take a Sentinel head-on inside HMG range and be able to win.
Megaman does not say that the a Sentinel must necessarily win a fight against any non-Sentinel, full stop. He mentions two conditions:
A. The fight is head on
B. The combatants are within HMG range
If you get yourself beyond the range of the HMG OR start the engagement from his rear/flank (or both), you will have negated most of his advantages.
Now, I agree with you in that even if the conditions listed above are met, the HMG heavy shouldn't automatically win. If the non-heavy is a good strafer and the heavy is lousy at tracking the heavy should lose. I do believe however that it should be more difficult for the non-heavy to come out victorious. This is the essence of a rock-paper-scissors type game.
But rock-paper-scissors doesn't work if rocks beats all, right? What is the paper to the HMG heavy's rock?
The answer is: anything that see it, maneuver around it, and get itself outside the heavy's ideal range of engagement . This may be a scout, but it may easily be a medium suit as well. Both are faster than the heavy and can passive scan him whilst being invisible to his scans. They can also jump to places a heavy cannot access and generally maintain distance from a heavy who has no chance of keeping up (especially without being flanked or RE'd).
I agree with you, skill should be required to win a fight. The HMG heavy should not be an "I WIN" button, and it is not, for this reason: In a fight, skill is not limited to the gunfight itself; it also includes finding the most favorable conditions for your type of role/fit. In an objective game, this is significantly more difficult for the slow and blind heavy than it would be for a medium or a scout. A heavy running down a long corridor or out in the open is just food for everybody else. Often without the assistance of the TACNET, he has to assess where the potential threats between him and where he needs to be are and how to get there with the minimum amount of damage (in a more open area, he will have no opportunity to shoot back).
iliel wrote:But ONE burst at 40 or less meters kills anything in this game instantly - - and I mean instantly. Both my scout and logi go down in seconds. While 1.8 was supposed to be a TTK buff, any conflict with a Heavy means death in less than a second. How is this not OP (i.e., over-powered)?
I am a full time HMG user, and i can tell you that even scouts and starter fits do not die instantly to an MH-82 at 40 meters. Anything past 30, and you see an exponential increase in TTK for the HMG. Even at 30 it takes me around 2 seconds to take out most medium suits, which is sometimes more time than it takes some rifles to kill me in my STD Caldari Sentinel. We can test this on video if you wish.
iliel wrote:For the Heavies, though, the fix is simple: lower the Heavy's turn speed and remove the snaring effect of bullets landed (for this effect basically buffs the hmgs, crs, and smgs). This would fix both the HMG and fix the Heavy-with-light-weapon situation. Lore wise, it would make sense, because they're bricked out, so should move slowly in all respects. Simple fix. Ought to be a hotfix.
I agree with you that the slowdown effect should be removed; if a player is fast enough to react to being shot he should have the opportunity to get to cover.
However, I don't believe the heavy's turn speed should be reduced, this would hurt his CQC role too much. If a nerf really is necessary for the heavy, reduce its sprint speed. This will narrow the useful envelope of the suit and prevent it from being abused without harming what it's supposed to be good at.
I really do believe that the HMG heavy has a proper niche without being overpowered. Non-commando heavies with light weapons however, are a completely different issue that I believe unbalances the role of the suit. There's a reason commandos have lower HP than other heavies. |
Rygharr Sturmeister
DUST University
Ivy League
12
|
Posted - 2014.04.14 04:11:00 -
[3] - Quote
Monkey,
First, a disclaimer. My only experience with a non-Caldari Sentinel is the of pre-1.8 Amarr, and at that time I was too new a player so SP it into proto. Even my plates were only skilled up to enhanced.
That being said, even with just two enhanced plates, the Amarr fit I was using was SLOW. I fell many times from being shot while trying to waddle from cover to cover. Many times I would die from not being able to get out of a well thrown grenade/RE in time (I have no complaint about RE's, by the way).
A complex armor plate carries with it a 5% penalty to both movement and sprint speed. An Amarr or Gallente Sentinel would have to stack 3-4 of these plates to get the eHP figure you mentioned. What we end up with is a semi-ambulatory HMG installation that cannot strafe, cannot run get anywhere without being shot to pieces without an LAV, and has no repair (beyond the 3hp/sec the Gallente gets). So while you can get a fit that has the ability of soak a ridiculous amount of damage, that fit will also force you to do nothing but.
Despite the resistances, having armor as his primary tank would cause a Sentinel fit like that would be very vulnerable to grenades and RE's. At his speed, he wouldn't be able to get a shotgun or knife scout off his back (because you would need to backpedal as well as turn to do so).
I don't agree that the Sentinels need an HP nerf, but if they do, I hope it's done on a per-race basis instead of across the board. |