Nah dude, it was only ever over-powered because of the low TTK. Before the 10% increase to weapon damage back in like, Uprising 1.2, TTK seemed to take forever and that mostly due to shoddy hit detection and capped weapon ranges.

The Plasma Rifle shouldn't be able to trump the Combat Rifle at range, the Combat Rifle was designed to have more range anyway. The Plasma Rifle SHOULD, however, be the absolute best there is in automatic fire at close range but it's comparable at best. No-one wants it to be OP or UP and saying "Nyeeeh the AR is OP!" is ignorant; I mean for christ's sake what you're basically saying is the the AR is no longer "OP" because they replaced it with a bunch of rifles that were MORE POWERFUL than it!

All we want is for it to have it's niche, to be better than the emulators what it's supposed to be doing: Rapid dispatch of the enemy in close quarters. Doesn't make much sense if they all have the same DPS.

http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/dust/news.control/65468/1/rangeprofiles.jpg

I'd argue that the Assault Rifle and the Assault Scrambler Rifle have the same range difference between optimal and effective, if that's what you mean't. The Assault Combat Rifle -does- have a slightly longer range (6m) and it's honestly the most well balanced as an Assault Variant; having slightly longer range and very slightly less damage BUT it does have reduced resource costs that make it a very good contender. Sacrificing less to get comparable damage and slightly more range.

But this argument falls apart when you compare the Burst Assault Rifle to the Combat Rifle in which the Combat Rifle is better overall. The Burst Assault isn't even a good copy-cat by it's own right, it's just worse off in every way.

So, the question remains: Do we make the Assault Rifle the best 'assault' variant or do we buff the other Plasma Rifle variants to be comparable to what they're trying to emulate?

Hail AR 514

So could you explain why its not UP? The duvolle has basicly the same DPS than all the other rifles while having less range and at least the CR,ACR,RR and ARR as accurate (or more accurate) as well. So where is the glorious advantage of the Gallente Ar compared to those weapons that should be halfway decent copies of the gallente design?

It's funny, I've gotten to like the CR and thought back to when I first tried the burst AR months ago, which as you noted, is a pretty crappy weapon. CR feels like a proper tactical assault weapon with short controlled bursts.

I think the following is probably one of the easier ways to balance the rifles and give each a niche, as opposed to say, reworking all the Gallente rifles that have been around for a while:

- CR stays the same, more or less. ScR as well. There may be a need for some balance passes but nothing major.

- RR should be less effective close up; there are multiple ways to do that but getting rid of it's absurd hipfire accuracy is a good start. How a rail weapon that generates enough force to fire a projectile that far is able to be fired essentially as accurately as a laser weapon like the SCR without steadying it (i.e., ADS) defies even sci-fi logic.

- AR gets a reduction in effective and perhaps even absolute range, with the optimal starting at very close range. Dispersion/kick gets increased, as does the DPS. It now becomes a murder machine in CQC but is no longer able to pick people off from a distance like the duvolle does now (silly for a blaster weapon).

You now have your rock/paper/scissors + 1. AR is great in CQC. ScR (compared to RR) is the mid-range weapon, and the RR is obviously a killer at long range. Your +1 is the CR, which now becomes the versatile generalist weapon, as I guess maybe a Minmatar rifle should be.

Your copycat weapons should be viewed as pseudo-inferior versions of the original with some tradeoffs to make it do something else than the original:

- Assault ScR is the copycat of the AR, with longer range but lower DPS and the overheat mechanic.
- Tac AR is the copycat of the ScR, shorter range, no charge, but better against armor. Maybe needs another buff somewhere like hipfire or DPS, not sure.
- Burst AR, well, I'm not totally sure what to do about that one, haven't used it like I have the others.

What do you mean it wasn't you? You said it!

Anyway, now that I know what we're talking about...

I'm against reducing the Rail Rifle's hipfire accuracy as I'm largely under the impression that it won't solve anything but make it worse. If you increase hipfire dispersion than you're making a -better- CQC weapon as there's more room for error; part of the reason the HMG is imbalanced at the moment is because of it's laser-like accuracy but I'm under the impression this will get better after tonight's downtime.

As said before, the only thing the Assault Rifle needs is to have it's range reduced by 5-10m (both optimal and effective), no more, and it's DPS increased. If it still isn't working out as the best CQC choice after that we can **** with the dispersion and what not.

"- Assault ScR is the copycat of the AR, with longer range but lower DPS and the overheat mechanic. "

Overheat isn't a factor because it takes almost two entire magazines to overheat it and that's without skills/being on the amarr assault suit. It's DPS is lower but it's so marginal that it doesn't even matter, so that needs to be changed either on the ASCR or the AR's DPS; either will work, I feel.

"- Tac AR is the copycat of the ScR, shorter range, no charge, but better against armor. Maybe needs another buff somewhere like hipfire or DPS, not sure."

DPS. 'better against armor' isn't a good factor because, as said previously, the difference in efficiency is so minute it can't be considered a good variable with TTK being low. SCR does have overheat but considering someone can fire 20-25 rounds before overheating (more so than the TAR's entire magazine) and the fact that it can charge a shot to do three times the normal damage, it usurps the TAR completely. This would be fine, if the Assault Rifle usurped the rest of the Assault variants; but it's comparable at best.

"- Burst AR, well, I'm not totally sure what to do about that one, haven't used it like I have the others."

Eh, no comment. At least until I find my notes concerning the differences.

Edit: Honest to god, I hate talking specifics because in the end I'm the not the guy who has to balance everything out. That's CCP's job. Just saying that I feel the Assault Rifle should be the best automatic-fire CQC weapon is all my job entails. So take all of this at face value.