We canGÇÖt see any way to easily improve the Plasma Cannon against vehicles (its intended role) without making it OP against infantry

- CCP logibro

The Amarr Heavy weapon should be the Sheild-based Heavy AV weapon.

Wow. I admire your bravery.
I have to disagree however. The Plasma Cannon doesn't belong in the Heavy Class. The position of Gallente Heavy weapon should go to some sort of Flame(Plasma)thrower. The Amarr Heavy weapon should be the Sheild-based Heavy AV weapon.

What does this mean?

The needed code and animation assets to make uch a weapon would be heavy on the hands of CCP. They need to get the game balanced, as they see it, before making any new mechanics as the one you have mentioned. Remember that there will always be room for two sets of Light and heavy weapon which are categorized in Anti-infantry (your idea) and Anti-vehicle (my idea with the PLC) I like your idea but, like I said, this post is intended for AV in which case they still have room to make the weapon that you visualize.

I don't think it will be anytime soon that Heavies will get 8 Weapons. 2-3 years at best. I would rather see them get their proper weapons rather than shoehorn the Plasma Cannon into their suits.
The Plasma Cannon doesn't even look like a heavy weapon. No more like a heavy weapon than Swarm Launchers do, at least.

I don't understand why they can't just buff the direct damage while keeping everything else the same (most noticeably splash damage and RoF). That way the PLC would become more powerful against vehicles while not becoming overpowered against infantry. Does anyone have an idea why this wouldn't work?

Okay. Back to the topic at hand then. Sorry for derailing

How do we balance the Plasma Cannon?
The way I see it, so long as it always has a long reload, is single fire, and the projectile flies in an arc; it won't be OP against infantry. It honestly doesn't need any more drawbacks, it already has more than any other weapon in the game(this is another reason I think putting it on heavy frames wouldn't be right).
We could however, just tweak some of its stats to make it more favorable against vehicles, and less favorable against Infantry. Lowering its Splash, and increasing it's Direct Damage would work, and is probably the best option if we put any faith into Occam's Razor . Another solution would be to increase its projectile speed, decrease it's direct damage, and give it a strong damage bonus against vehicles. I think this would be a bit more reinforcing of its roles than the other option, but is also a bit harder to balance.

Personally, I Think that either the PLC needs some kind of Vehicle Lockon(like swarms) or extend the splash damage to a decent Flux Nade. It won't be OP against infantry because of its 1 shot clip and massive reload time (and then a charge up). Plasma is supposed to be moderately better against shields (an anti-shield AV is something we're missing).

I suppose the changes I'm suggesting would make the PLC more of a mortar system than a shoulder mounted RPG (as it is apparently designed to be). Changing it to a mortar system would also benefit from some kind of range finding UI.

Personally, I Think that either the PLC needs some kind of Vehicle Lockon(like swarms) or extend the splash damage to a decent Flux Nade. It won't be OP against infantry because of its 1 shot clip and massive reload time (and then a charge up). Plasma is supposed to be moderately better against shields (an anti-shield AV is something we're missing).

I suppose the changes I'm suggesting would make the PLC more of a mortar system than a shoulder mounted RPG (as it is apparently designed to be). Changing it to a mortar system would also benefit from some kind of range finding UI.

I understand what you mean but, I think that simply buffing direct damage a bit won't do the trick since it will just slightly make it better which would still have it at the lowest part of the spectrum on power vs difficulty of use. Since the weapon is so difficult to use and it's rate of fire is already the same as the breach forge gun, it leaves just one viable or worthwhile option. Making it have the same damage as the breach forge gun. Since that implies almost doubling the damage, but still maintaining mobility, it is then prudent to change it to the heavy category to further impede it's mobility and warrant such an increase in power.

I agree in a sense that increasing direct damage would benefit the PLC greatly. On the other hand increasing the damage to the levels necessary to make the power vs difficulty of use viable leave a big chunk of balance issues unattended. Having that much power on a scout suit that can move very quickly around the match will have the vehicle community crying for a nerf and the cycle of nerf buff, nerf buff will start.

As a PLC user, making the weapon easier to use is never an option. Dumbing it down so it can become the next FOTM is not the answer and the complexity and difficulty of use should remain the same.

You have to remember that after a certain point, increasing its direct damage has no affect on infantry, because it will always be a OHK(which isn't unbalanced, considering the difficulty of direct hits). Giving it comparable DPS to prenerf Swarms(perhaps a bit more,to compensate for skill requirements) would allow it to successfully be used as an AV weapon, but its AP uses would remain unaffected.

You are completely correct but he was talking about added splash radius. I think everyne agrees that direct damage needs to be buffed and splash should stay the same but it's to what extent should direct damage be buffed. Due to difficulty of use and rate of fire the plasma cannon deserves a damage increase to the same levels of the breach for gun since its very difficult to get more than one shot in a row on a vehicle that is running away. But as I said before, with the mobility of scouts, if kept in the light weaponry section, the weapon would be too powerful if not overpowered.

I'm thinking 300 dps against vehicles would be in order. With my math a normal forgegun with operation 5 runs at about 350 DPS including the reload after 4 shots. From the top of my head it deals something like 1350 damage, takes 4 seconds to charge before skills, at operation 5 gets a 25% reduction to charge-up time and takes 4 seconds to reload if I'm not mistaken. So DPS is 4*1350/(4*4*0.75+4) = 337.5 DPS.

Thus a consistent 300 dps for the PLC sounds very useful. This results in a direct damage of 1500, if the RoF is actually 5 seconds per shot as was argued above. If I remember correctly it's direct damage currently sits at about 1000 damage, so a 50% buff seems like it'd actually do something.

(300 DPS for a light weapon may sound like a lot, but then the PLC is very difficult to actually use as an AV weapon when blaster-tanks do drive-bys at over 50 km/h.)

Again, I have no idea why CCP thinks this isn't an option. At least fix it temporarily until you have better designers that can come up with a better weapon-design or something. The PLC could be made useful within 24 hours, or it could be left unattended for the next 6 months. Which shall it be?

I personally think is should do more damage than a breach FG, considering the at the FG can reach out further, and its projectile flies in a much more... favorable path. The Plasma Cannon practically requires the user to be up close and personal with HAVs if it is to be used as an AV weapon, this requires you to output a massive amount of damage, during a short period of time. Due to this, I believe the Plasma Cannon should only take 2-3 shots to dispatch an HAV. This put its TTK somewhere between 6-12 seconds, not unreasonable, considering the risk and/or skill required to get a kill.

Armor HAVs have at least 100 repairs per second. This puts the TTK at a staggering ~25 seconds, even without their hardeners.

I've suggested this several times but I haven't gotten much reply to it, how would you feel about removing the reload function altogether, putting all of the ammo in 1 clip, and just putting a cooldown on it so you can't fire it more than once every 3.5 seconds or however long the reload time is. Not much of a change but it just prevents the interruption that you would get from doing anything other than reloading, you can switch your gun, sprint, jump off a building, and the gun will passively cooldown in the background.

The forge gun was intended to be anti vehicle but I've used it way more for infantry, I don't see why they don't find a way to make it just a better all around gun and let people decide how to use it.

Hello,

First off I want to start by saying that I am truely confused about this next quote:




Now this leaves me at a bit of a loss. During my time using the plasma cannon and making videos for it, I advocated and, quite frankly ignorantly, kept repeating that the plasma cannon was not, for all intended purposes, an AV weapon. After months of saying it my greatest fears come true. Till now I had not found a single post by CCP saying that the Plasma cannon was for AV. I stayed in my little bubble believing that it was supposed to be a hybrid weapon intended not dominate any purpose but do decently in both.

As of aim assist the PLC has gone further and further into the anals of the dust usable weapons vault. In fact, it has decayed so much over time that even the good people of the cannon fever channel rarely use it anymore. My heart was burdened in many matches thinking of how I could make the gun work for anti infantry since no part of my mind could comprehend how this weapon was intended to be mainly for anti-vehicle use. I failed and, to add insult to injury, CCP has made my fear come true; they intended all along for the PLC to be an AV weapon. As of now, CCP will have no problem making it an AV weapon without making it OP against infantry if they take into consideration the steps below that I have thought thoroughly about and, it would truly lighten my heart see implemented to make this weapon as glorious as I first deemed it when it was passable against infantry but now against vehicles.



Since the plasma Cannon is intended to be an AV weapon, the fix is simple. Hopefully the foregoing list will help the Dev's fully understand how the weapon is used and how it will be affected by each and every suggested change; helping in the transition from ineffective to powerfully balanced.

1. Change it from light to heavy: While I know, or again ignorantly think, ccp wants to make a racial variant for all av weaponry in the light section, the plasma cannon does not fit that description. Light AV should be easy to use and somewhat lacking in power like the swarm launcher. The plasma cannon is extremely difficult to use and no extra power is given to it because of it. Making it a heavy weapon will add the drawback of being extremely difficult to use as well as being in a mobility impaired suit. This will add extra drawbacks so that we can now add the needed buff to it.


2. Change the direct damage: The direct damage of the plasma cannon is too low for a weapon requiring immense amount of skill and patience. A total of 5 seconds in between shots (3.5s for reload, 1s post fire pause and .45 second charge time) makes the weapons rate of fire more akin to the breach forge gun than it does any other weapon in the game. Hence this suggestion. Make the direct damage of the plasma cannon the same as a breach forge gun. The skill needed to use, the RoF, the range of 199 meters, being in a heavy suit and being mediocre against infantry makes it be balanced enough to warrant such increase in direct damage. There are few suits that would withstand a direct shot from a plasma cannon and direct hits are few and far between making this change not affect the current power of the weapon against infantry.

Making it a heavy weapon further increases the drawback of using it as well as making it not able to pursue vehicles without further use of assets. By buffing the direct damage to that of the breach forge gun we add usefulness to the weapons hard to use slow projectile nature. By not buffing splash damage, we maintain it's slight usefulness against infantry without making it overpowered against them. Simply put, by changing two of its values the weapon suddenly becomes as balanced as possible without the need for unnecessary coding and waste of time.



I have used the plasma cannon extensively and have advocated it's use via the creation of videos on how to use it. I have used it in every way possible including heavy suits. I have, to my knowledge mastered it in all three sizes of suits and have proficiency 5 and all supporting skills in the tree to 3 minimum including level 4 Rapid reload. I know this weapon like the back of my hand and do not give this feedback without thorough understanding of it.



Please do not troll this post. This weapon is one of my biggest loves in DUST 514. It has pained me to see it wither but am trying to get the weapon up to it's full potential; always abiding by CCPs intended design. Hence the Feedback oriented towards AV and not general use. Touch my PLC with crazy insults and I will bite you

Would having 2 shots in your clip really make things bad? maybe 3 shots? Boost direct damage, keep splash radius and damage the same.