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 Assault Rifle 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 Assault Rifle is easy to ignore. I'm an Amarr Assault and specced into amarr ****, so to me, the Assauilt Rifle was no more different than the Laser rifle. Just like some people are terrible with Sniper Rifles, some people are terrible with Assault Rifles. Some people are really good with Sniper Rifles, some people are good with Assault Rifles.

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 assault rifles, 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 Assault Rifles and I must have died 10 or 12 times to Assault rifles alone. This DEFINITELY put Assault Rifles on my radar. These things were inescapable. So I began thinking....


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

The Assault Rifle 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 an Area of effect weapons (MD, PLC, Grenades) 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 Assault Rifle, 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 Assault Rifle because the Assault Rifle jerks his screen around and skew his aim. 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 cmplex dmg mods, charge shot imperial scrambler rifle, but all the DPS is meaningless in a duel with Assault Rifles. I could kill other suits/guns just fine if I got a bead on my opponent fast enough. But those ARs were impossible.

B-B-But Assault Rifle Takes Skill!

If you think the Assault Rifle 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 Assault Rifle users are. Play PC and see how devastating Assault Rifles are.

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

on the other hand...

ARs allow skilled players (who can aim well consistently) to have flawless aiming. Because of the spray and pray, the damage per ssecond, the screen shake, and the aim displacement... the AR will out DPS anything mid/close-mid-mid/long (AKA Laser territory) range.

So you still think the AR 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-spray and pray-black hole-for-armor-instakiller" takes skill, if it took you weeks to master the ARs dispersion ....

Conclusion

...then you are a bad player.