I posted this in another thread, but want to make sure that people see this. Forgive me my double posting ways
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Mass drivers do 80% damage to shields but only do 120% damage to armor (see this
link)
Now, let's apply this to a real world application. I have a Gallente Logi alt I like to use. With the alt's mediocre skills, I run an advanced suit that has 134 HP in shields, and 300 HP in armor. Let's pretend I've fit a standard Mass Driver on my suit, and I run into the exact same suit, worn by a merc with the exact same skill points I have, but he has a standard Assault Rifle. With no SP spend on extra damage for either weapon, each weapon is at it's base:
1) Standard Mass Driver: 242 damage (direct), 116 (splash), 60 rounds/minute, clip size is 6, and reload is 4 seconds
2) Standard Assault Rifle: 34 damage (direct), no splash, 750 rounds/minute, clip size is 60, and relaad is 3 seconds
Now, assuming both me and my mirror are complete morons, and we are standing completely still, and we are landing our shots perfectly, what will happen?
Here is our damage per second factoring in reload times:
1) MD (36 shots per minute @ 242 damage per shot divided by 60 seconds): 145.2 DPS
2) AR: (461 shots per minute @ 34 damage per shot divided by 60 seconds): 261.5 DPS
First thing we notice, is that the DPS of the MD is significantly lower than the AR (but keep in mind that the % of damage applied is different for each weapon.
So how this actually apply in the above scenario?
MD shot 1: 134 damage to shields - accounting for 20% reduction in damage, this takes the first 167.6 HP of damage from the first round, and the rest is applied to the armor. The remaining 74.4 is applied to the armor with a 20% bonus, making this shot effectively 89.2 HP of damage to armor. This leaves my enemy at 210.7 HP or armor
At the same time, my enemy is firing his AR at me. In the 1 second it took me to do the above damage, he places 7.68 bullets on me (let's round this down to 7 given you can't hit with a partial bullet). It will take 121 points of damage to knock out my shields of 134 due to the 10% bonus to shield damage he gets, leaving him 117 points of damage to apply to my armor at a 10% penalty. Effectively, he just did another 105 points of damage to my armor reducing me to 195 HP of armor left.
After 1 second of direct fire, my enemy is in a better position than I am with my Mass Driver. At this rate, the Mass Driver and Assault Rifle are pretty much a draw. We can't calculate further because I don't know the flight times of the round from the MD and the AR, so you can't gauge how many more rounds from the AR will hit me before my next round hits my enemy.
I am not a Mass Driver user, and do prefer the AR (I'm not too proud to admit it). To me, though, the mass driver is not OP vs armor in this scenario, and people that say otherwise are probably forgetting other factors (like flux grenades, that guy over there that you didn't notice that is hitting you outside his AR optimal scratching you for more damage, etc). Both weapons are pretty close to the same effectiveness, and given that the mass driver is meant to be an area denial tool, the lower DPS is expected.
If you factor in flux grenades, you will need to remember a couple of things - 1) the grenade takes time to throw, and if both mercs have nerves of steel, the AR using is getting shots off while the flux is in the air, and while the the MD user attempts to bring the MD to bear after throwing the flux (you all have played enough to know that there is a delay after throwing a grenade before you can use a weapon again). Since again I don't know the time it takes to throw a grenade and then bring a weapon to bear, I can't calculate this. Also this will vary widely with the enemy and their amount of shields.
I am happy to work up the numbers for other weapons if you all like using this same scenario, but I think I have effectively shown that the MD is not OP (at least in this situation), and is in fact in line slightly less effective than the AR given its role of area denial.