I played a PC match yesterday. And wow, I got destroyed the second match. I'm willing to be that the majority of you, who think the Mass driver is in a good place right now, probably play Instant battle 99% of the time, like me. The problem here is that the random players (and also thanks to 400wp debacle) are pretty terrible and the mass driver is easy to ignore. I'm an Amarr Assault and specced into amarr ****, so to me, the mass driver was no more different than the Assault rifle. Just like some people are terrible with ARs, some people are terrible with Mass Drivers. Some people are really good with ARs, some people are good with Mass Drivers.

That's what I USED to think. Until **** hit the fan.

I played my first couple of competitive matches yesterday. The first game, I hardly died to mass drivers, died a few times to them but I felt all my deaths during the first match was fair. I think I went 14 kills and 7 or 9 deaths or something against Teamplayers.

Then the second match started and WTF.... Nearly every person I personally ran into had Mass Drivers and I must have died 10 or 12 times to Mass Drivers alone. This DEFINITELY put Mass Drivers on my radar. These things were inescapable. So I began thinking....


Casual vs Competitive (READ: kids who can't aim vs talented shooters)

The Mass driver cannot exist as it currently. No matter how you balance the weapon, it will either ruin competitive matches, or it will cease to become relevant at all even in casual matches. You see, when a competitive player uses non-Area of effect weapons (ARS, SMG, Semi AUTO rifles) against another, there are two competitions going on in the duel

1) Who can deal the most damage, the fastest
2) Who can avoid the most damage

When you give one of these very skilled players a Mass Driver, guess what happens? He can't miss. His helpless opponent cannot dodge, strafe, run for cover at all. He has essentially denied the helpless man the "2) Who can avoid the most damage" rule of this game. ALSO, he has crippled the helpless man's ability to just "stand his ground" and out DPS the Mass Driver because the MD jerks his screen around and clouds his vision with smoke. There is no reason to use any other weapon in a competitive match, (actually I take that back there needs to be a Forge gun sniping objectives). I try and go the High DPS route with my proficiency lvl 5, 2 cmplx dmg mods, charge shot imperial scrambler rifle, but all the DPS is meaningless in a duel with Mass Drivers. I could kill other suits/guns just fine if I got a bead on my opponent fast enough. But those MDs were impossible.

B-B-But Mass Drivers Takes Skill!

If you think the Mass Driver takes a lot of skill to master, then you are probably really bad at aiming and shooting. Play instant battle and you will see how terrible Mass Driver users are. Play PC and see how devastating Mass Drivers are.

The difference is that the MDs allow bad players (who would have terrible aiming) to, thanks to splash damage, have "decent" aiming. These bad players can now complete with ARs and other weapons in casual public matches.

on the other hand...

MDs allow skilled players (who can aim well consistently) to have flawless aiming. Because of the splash, the damage per splash, the smoke, and the screen displacement... the MD will out DPS anything mid/close-mid-mid/long (AKA AR territory) range.

So you still think the MD takes skill? Because of the projectile and time of flight? That's okay. Not trying to offend you or anything, but if you think an "easy-mode-splash-damage-black-hole-for-armor-instakiller" takes skill, if it took you weeks to master the MDs trajectory....

Conclusion

...then you are a bad player.

It doesn't matter if it's hip fire or not. The AR is a Gallente Plasma Rifle that's supposed to be a close range weapon. It's not supposed to be any more than that, not even a short-to-mid range weapon. The Minmatar Combat Rifle is the short-to-mid range rifle.

The problem is that if you make weapons for the not so skilled players so that they can do almost as good as the skilled players, then the skilled players will just use the weapon and completely dominate with it.

Since when was the AR made for the less skilled ones?

Last I checked it had a 40m optimal range, not infinite range.

Last I checked you had to hit your enemy to damage him.

GEK's literally do 2 dmg per bullet at 70m. And at 70m, your accuracy rating is going to be low as ****.

Are you even for real?