We'll be taking a look at the plasma cannon along with all AV weapons as part of the vehicle work we are doing in 1.5.

Nearly fine

My main problem is more damage than a vehicle mounted large railgun turret

I'm down with losing splash radius, **** I'm ok with losing all of it.

I also wish it were harder to score a direct hit, not much harder, but something, cuz I rarely miss :/

I hate you guys. I see thread after thread of saying, "Let's talk over how to balance vehicles," but what they really are is, "How can we balance AV against HAVs?" Yeah, let's make forge guns balanced to a vehicle that is able to utilize cover and has 2-3x the health of a dropship. Let's just forget about those poor bastards in the sky, because they don't matter.

How about leave the blast radius but make the effect of the radius only effect shielding aka flux type effect, thus only a direct hit can kill infantry but it can still do damage to shielding.

Is it 100% perfect accurate. i kind of agree, because it really doesent require much skill to use. Would you say a slight travel speed reduction would do the weapon well? The accuracy almost seems required imo because of its ammo count. Or we could give more ammo for a noticeable accuracy decrease? whatchya think?

I'm only OK with nerfing the forge gun once more heavy weapons are released.......right now its a choice between close range or long range.....there is no medium range heavy weapon........and even if it does get nerfed people will just use mass drivers or grenades to camp objectives.....they might even use plasma cannons......you won't stop people from camping objectives just by nerfing one weapon.....in fact IMHO the only useful heavy weapon

I'm perfectly fine with how the forgegun works. I'm not fine with how HAVs and Dropships work.

Personally, I've never been mad at getting killed by a forgegun.

I am in for a reduced accuracy
I would keep the Splash and radius.

I would most probably give AV weapon a different damage output to vehicle than to infantry. So a forge doing 2000dmg to a vehicle, would do 10%-20% of that to infantry, 200-400. AV nades do zero damage to infantry, it would be logical AV guns don't do full dmg against them.

Against dropship and tanks I would prefer they release proto vehicles and modules, then we can talk balance of that forge gun against them...

I would like the forge gun to remain exactly as it is. Good, high sp tankers are very difficult to kill. Nerf llav's, buff drop ships.

I think travel speed is fine, it can already be tough tracking quick vehicles with the Assault at least. I've always felt the FG needs damage decay outside of its optimal to help dropships out a bit. If they get close, they're vulnerable to full damage, but put some distance between you and you can tank another shot or two.

Maybe adding the tiniest bit of shake to the crosshairs while charging / holding a charge could help make it difficult to use vs infantry, but it would have to be minor to avoid making it too difficult to use vs moving vehicles.

I dont think the FG should be able to hold a charge like a couple of them do, they should all have to time and lead there shots a little like the rail turrets

I know people are probably gonna flame me for saying this but I think AV needs to have damage degradation over travel time.

Something like: (just for example)

100% of damage until optimal
smooth dropoff from optimal until effective at around 40% of damage at max effective.
smooth dropoff from effective to around 5% at the edge of max range.

Railgun turrets should do the exact same damage as std forge guns but have ~40% more range.

In this way, yes you can camp on a high tower and forge snipe all day, but you pay for it in less damage.

This creates a dynamic where if AV can get in closer they can deal massive damage to tanks. Also, dropships can fly out of effective range as well, but if they get close and they arent careful they get pwned hard.

What this does is make it so tanks can get in close with their infantry team mates and AV will need to get into the fray as well to effectively take down a tank. It also gives tankers a chance to retreat if things get dicey.

In terms of variants, I think we need to normalize it a little. (these are just examples, tear me apart if you like, just tossing out an example/idea... its not like these are final numbers)

Breach should have lower range and slightly higher damage.

+40% damage vs std variant
4s charge time
4 round clip - max ammo 16
Splash radius 0.5m
Optimal Range: 80m
Effective Range: 140m
Maximum Range: 280m


Std should remain fairly similar to how it is but slightly faster and more rounds due to range nerf
3s base charge
6 round clip, max ammo 24
Splash radius 1.5m
Optimal Range: 120m
Effective Range: 180m
Maximum Range: 320m

Assault should be a lower DD high splash anti personelle variant. I know we all hate it but it makes sense, esp given that heavies only have two weapons.

It should do something like (at proto)
800 Direct Damage
350 Splash Damage
2s base charge
3.5m blast radius.
8 round clip, max ammo 32
Optimal Range: 100m
Effective Range: 160m
Maximum Range: 300m

Now the range nerf would give a place for a 'Tactical' variant.

Tactical Forge Gun:
Similar damage to std
4s base charge
4 round clip, max ammo 16
Splash radius 0.5m
Optimal Range: 180m
Effective Range: 240m
Maximum Range: 360m

I don't know, just my thoughts from being on both ends. the forge gun is mostly okay, its just that you can sit there and snipe tanks from places even your fellow infantry can't get to. I think there should be a penalty for forge sniping, and the ability to snipe a dropship from 100s of meters away makes them practically worthless.

Decreasing the effective range on AV while making their up close damage very high would create a risk vs reward scenario. Yes you can whittle a tank from a place he can never touch you but you shouldn't be able to sit up there like a god and be untouchable.

On the other hand, if you can get up close and the tanker doesn't see you or can't kill you in time, you should be able to deal a massive amount of damage to a tank.

Most people will probably hate this idea im sure, this is just what i've thought of after being on both ends of AV.

for the life of me i cant understand why any changes would need to be made to this weapon. IMHO, if a player can snipe you with this gun, then they are a superior player and deserve the kill. Just remember this:
1) there is no ADS with this weapon, so sniping MUST be done from hip-fire (which is definitely not easy with the size of the crosshairs)
2) you have to be a Heavy to wield the weapon, hence forcing the user to deal with permanent, unavoidable shortcomings of the suit (slow speed, large hit box, no equipment, etc)
3) the weapon take at least 5 seconds to charge up. not so much a problem when you are fighting at a distance, but in CQC that is 5 seconds you cant afford to waste, thus forcing the player to try and get a direct hit with the first shot or suffer the consequences (usually a volley of AR fire which depending on the weapon, can kill you before you get off the second shot)

i'm sure there are other compelling reasons, but i just chose the 3 that came to me off the top. if i want to kill a Forge gunner, i don't run up to his face and say 'Hi', i attack him from the side/back and make sure he doesn't get the time to shoot me first.i know a lot of guys that use the forums are good players, hence i dont understand why a simple tactic cant be applied to overcome any advantage that this play style has over your fitting builds.

I agree with the OP, Advance/Proto forge should be able to easily take out a standard Hav/dropship, but I don't agree that the weapon is strictly AV, it is 'anti material' as stated in the weapon description (the same description that stated it can be used against infantry) the fact that is is being used so effectively by a small percentage of the already small percentage of players that play Heavy should not lead to a 're balancing' of the weapon. it should lead other players to be cautious if you see one, and have a game plan for how to take it out.

Splash damage should only be reduced on the assault variant. It has a low charge up time, so it's pretty OP compared to the other FGs IMO.

I'm for damage reduction and longer charge times, but what I really want is some crazy recoil. Like looking up 20 degrees and being pushed back +5m. I mean, come one, this weapon is the equilivent of a rail tank turret and can be handled like a leafblower.

FG's are not solely AV or A-HAV they are ment to be a powerful anti infantry as well and if a user is skilled enough to hold down abjective then kudos to him and dont cry ... improvise / adapt/ overcome and the FG's dificulty to aim is the only balance needed and if you were going to decrease the power i ask that we gain a small zoom capability with it ...cus curently there is no zoom period and that would copensate for the damage increase

Sorry for my brash reply and late response.. I'm at work and haven't really had time to type anything up.

Dropships currently have the health of an LAV (although not an LLAV) and the mobility, however they lack the cover. If dropships are intended to be a medium vehicle, they need the shields or armor of a medium vehicle. As stands, they are the LAVs of the sky. As mentioned a second ago, the sky provides no cover, leaving dropships hanging out free to be shot at by forge guns and railguns (I fly a Python, so swarm launchers aren't really a problem for me).

What would be most useful is larger maps, allowing dropships to avoid a hot portion (a railgun can cover over half the map), but that takes a lot more than simple rebalancing. For a simple numbers tweak, allowing dropships to take an extra shot would be a great start. Well geared dropships are two shotted when hit by well geared opponents. I'd love to see that increase to 3, as this would increase the time I have to get away, as that's about my only defense.

So, I'd like either a resistance boost with skills that is effective or I'd like health to increase from 1075 to 1700, which would then call for the Eryx to be boosted up as well to compensate.

Lastly, I'd like to note that I find myself having ZERO powergrid issues with the Python. PG does not need a buff, it does not need a nerf. Leave it be.

Well reasoned commentary. I say, remove the splash entirely- it's just a big railgun, basically a huge sniper rifle, with no real reason to have splash damage. This would make it much harder to use vs infantry, while not gimping the gun for AV use. Additionally, I would be in favor of making all FGs have the assault's drawback- no stored charge, but instead requiring sufficiently excellent aim to time the charged shot. While we're at it, add a high-magnification ADS, because not having it makes working at the high end of the FG's optimal range (300M) impossible. Now you've got a proper long-range heavy AV weapon, devastating against tanks, but very hard to use against infantry. No stored shot will make life easier for dropships (as unpredictable flying will become much more valuable) and generally make the current FG's absurd accuracy/range less easy to abuse.

There's that sentence again.

Most of the weapons are simple. Hell, really all of the weapons are pretty simple.

You point, you shoot. This one shoots fast, this one shoots slow. Oh, real skill weapon! Watch that over heat bar. SO MUCH SKILL.

That one just uses the "point and click" mechanic of a first person shooter in a different way. I don't disagree that its a little too good at all things (and I absolutely hate 1 hit kill anything ever, but that's just me), but its not a matter of "if you use it, you have no skill." If its that easy to use, then you use it.

Forge gun should be a close range weapon with a big powerful blast that can take a tank down in one shot at point blank. The trade off will be that you still have to charge it up so you are vulnerable. Make it so that it only targets vehicles. We have anti infantry weapons already.

For what the forge gun can do it is too versatile as is and is becoming a FOTM. Make it a one trick pony and make it damn good for that one trick.

Excellent post maple, I would agree with you 100%. I could easily live without the splash damage, as most of my kills are direct hits. Iv recently started tanking myself and can now see the huge disadvantage of going up against proto AV in my advanced tank.

I could also live without the proto AV cause its too easy to blow up stuff anymore, where's the challenge gone? In the older build's it used to take some effort to take out a tank or dropship. It required a team effort and was more fun.

This topic just needs to die. There is nothing wrong with the forge gun. It hardly changed since Codex and now all of you are complaining about it. Before someone brings up forge sniping calm down it's no big deal. Someone found a good way to kill/ protect a point with a gun that was used for mainly AV, how is that op? It has its drawbacks (can't do solo, no ads, heavy suit) It has its counters ( snipers, dropship full of heavies, railgun, counter forge gunner, orbitals). I think for something to be OP it needs to have little to no counters and forge guns DO have counters. For a well coordinated team I don't see how a forge gunner is a problem, if you or your team can't kill him then you deserve to be killed by it.

Forge guns v.s tanks can seem a bit unbalanced IF someone does something wrong. If your tank sucks yeah it's going to die to a proto forge, if the tank gets stuck he will die, If there is multiple AV player targeting you odds are you will die. On the forge gun side of things you are this big ass heavy with a big ass gun, you can be seen and hit from a mile away. You have to be accurate, conserve your little amount of ammo, watch out for infantry support, watch out for that tank you are tying to kill and allot of other things I don't feel like listing. The forge gun is not the one in need of a nerf, the tanks/dropships need a buff. I do have an alt who is speced into nothing but vehicles and I can say that they are too weak and not worth the isk. Tanks need to come back to where they where, not the POS glass cannons we have now. If you nerf the forge gun now later on down the line when tanks are good again forges will be under powerd.

As a dropship pilot and tanker, I will agree to leave forge guns alone, if I get my advanced/proto vehicles, and get my powergrid skill to give +% pg again. Until then, it's too OP.

I say leave the damage and splash how it is. Make it have a 10 sec charge up time. That much power coming out of so small a weapon should take a long time to generate.

I want it to be effective as anti-materiel, which it should be good at. But not at such a fast firing rate.

What would you have done?

I don't see how removing the splash would do anything. Compared to the plasma cannon the forges splash is **** but do you see anyone using the plasma, no. The splash is not the problem. Removing the splash will do nothing but hurt any forge gunners chance of living a fight against anything. Even if you do remove splash people would still ***** about it if you manage to get a direct hit. If you say remove the splash on the forge because it can blow up a tank then take the splash off ANYTHING that can kill a vehicle just to make it even. So that's Mass drivers, railguns, missiles, orbitals, flaylocks, and locus grenades.

The Forge Gun is fine just the way it is! Don't believe me just ask CCP.

Better yet go try it for yourself!

If you really think using the FG in any way, shape, or form is easy go do it! I'm gonna tell you right now you are in for a big surprise!

Kill the assault variant. Just delete it from the game. The other FGs are fine, breach is the most balanced imo.

-XOXO

So from your point of you the splash of an exploding ball of charged plasma should be removed? Yea buddy real logical right there