1.8 (subject to change) bonuses for those who have not seen


This is what I think assault bnuses should be like:

Role bonus: 5% reduction of PG/CPU for handheld weapons per level.

You said you liked this idea, and I think its a good one. PG/CPU reductions help you fit better weapons, or helps you save PG/CPU to fit other good stuff.

The rate of fire as a role bonus you guys are considering definitely needs to go. I would love a bonus that directly improves weapon performance to enforce the role of assaults as offense, but this idea would basically screw over weapons like the scrambler rifle whose fire rate would remain unaffected (semi-auto is based on your own trigger speed), and would disincintevize their use since the bonus would be wasted on them; assault bonuses should never disincentivize the use of one of the 4 main "assault rifles" (scrambler rifle).

I have suggested a role bonus to damage, and then nerfing the 4 racial rifles, this way a maxed out assault suit would keep the current strength of the rifles, but as you explained, there would be unintended consequences. I still think those consequences could be dealt with though some balancing though.

That damage mod bonus you guys are considering for the Minmatar assault would make a nice role bonus.
Anyway, I support the PG/CPU reduction thing if you decide to go with that.


For racial bonuses, I strongly disagree with bonuses to HP and repair because I feel that it does not enforce the assault's role as being about offense (HP stuff belongs on sentinels in my opinion). It could be argued that the PG/CPU and assault would save with a weapon fitting role bonus would be enough to make the assault a superior offensive force by letting them fit better stuff, but that also applies to logis and their equipment PG/CPU bonus; assaults still would not be special. While I do want assaults to have the fitting bonus, but the racial bonuses need to be about enhancing weapons to keep the assault better at assaulting than a logi or some other specialization. Just like logis will be the best with their respective equipment (like Cadari logi being best with nanohive), assaults should be the best with their respective race's weapons.

Amarr: 5% reduction of laser weaponry heat buildup per level.

Helps you keep shooting longer before overheating, basically the equivalent of a bigger magazine in a way. If you think this bonus create balance problems, I would be fine with 4% per level.

Caldari: 10% reload speed of hybrid-railgun weapons per level.

The Caldari light weapons we have so far (rail rifle, sniper rifle) tend to have small magazine sizes. This bonus would help with that. The exact percent is up to you guys, but I think 5% per level would be to load. A reload bonus allows you to spend less time reloading and more time shooting, and thus increase your damage per second.

Gallente: 2% increase of rate of fire of hybrid-blaster weapons per level.

The AR pales in comparison to the new rifles, this ROF bonus would help fix that. Furthermore it would be good for the shotgun, which has also felt neglected.

Minmatar: 5% magazine size increase of projectile and explosive weapons per level.

MOAR DAKKA! , keeps you shooting longer. Kind of equivalent to the Amarr bonus.


Interesting alternatives could be to have new weapon mods besides damage, like for magazine size, heat (my thread on the module), reload speed, accuracy, and more (Cat Merc's thread) could be added, and assaults could have a role bonus to weapon mods (including damage mods). Whether assaults get bonuses to weapon mods, I still want more weapon mods, just damage is boring.

This is still taking a DPS based class and giving it options to brick tank it while fitting proto weapons, and then further unbalancing the SCR with the heat build up bonus. If it is for the Laser? well, that gun in general will need a look at with range efficacy.

DPS class has to be DPS based.. so they aren't crazy tanked. That's for the heavies and possibly the logi's to have the high survivability rates under fire while having moderate to low DPS output.

There needs to be good Synergy between the DPS builds and classes and the Survivability/Support builds and classes but not at the expense of the Base concept of the classes ergo to be DPS based.

Oh and the reload speed bonus? ... we have been through that a couple times now it was removed for a reason lol.... meh..

I don't understand how that isn't clear.

Less heat buildup = can fire more shots, and thus kill more people than a logi with the same weapon before overheating.
Faster reload = Get back to killing faster than a logi with the same weapon.
Faster ROF = Fire more shots, do more damage, and kill faster than a logi with the same weapon.
Bigger magazine = Keep shooting and killing when a logi with the same weapon would have to stop and reload.

The other rifles are a free Balac themselves...
The AR is hurting right now, it's a bad rifle in comparison to the other three.

Oh and a Balac has increased clip size and damage, so no, it isn't really a Balac.