I ran Duvolle for a long time. Assault CR beats it hands down. I drop people faster without Prof. with the ADV ACR then I ever did with the Duvolle. Fact.

Only because everyone heavily armor tanks. Try to take down a caldari with a acr. Duvolle drops them very quickly. I do agree however that the regular combat rifle needs the ROF dropped to about 1000 because it does the duvolles job too good.

looking at things a little closer im starting to notice why that duvolle feels underpowered.

it seems to be balanced to be even relative to the other assault varients once you take into concideration their efficiany against shield/armor as well as range differences

so the problem with the plasma rifle apears to be that its balanced against other assault varients, but its breach/burst/tac varients are vastly underwhelming when compaired to the other rifles.


this creates a situation where the duvolle has no real advantage over any of the other rifles.


so the plasma rifle apears to have the problems of

-no advantage over the other "assault" weapons
-variants are underwhelming when compared to the other races weapons

so theres no real point in using or skilling into the plasma rifle right now as every other assault rifle comes with an "assault" variant that will perform the same as the plasma rifle, but also comes with the main rifle which outperforms the assaults in their own niche

I would say a good change to the Plasma Rifle would be shortening its optimal, keep its current effective, and in exchange for a RPM boost and a slight increase to hipfire accuracy. Nothing too drastic we don't want it over tweaked in one direction or the other.

so it seems that people keep compairing the plasma rifle to the regular varients of the scrambler/combat/rail rifles and it shows very little understanding of how the weapons are all designed to mesh together.

the gallante plasma rifle is meant to be the king of the "assault" varients.


so with THAT in mind how does the duvolle stack up against the assault varients of the other rifles?

from my experiance it does feel like it holds this place, but the assault combat rifle feels like its nipping at its heals.


i personally have always hated the gallante rifle and so im not the best persont o be compairing it so i was looking for input fromt he community specifically comapiring it to the other assault varients to get a feel of weather its really living up to being king of the assault varients like it is designed to be.

to me on the recieving end it certainly feels like the gallante rifle holds the advantage against the other assault varients but im not the best person to judge.


on a secondary note it seems the assault combat and scrambler rifles are massivly outclassed by their regular variants due to the ROF being the same but both having higher damage then their assault varients, perhaps this is the imbalance people are noticing?

The AR is easily the best AR (semantics nightmare, this subject). The real problem is not other assault variants, but the respective defaults of the other rifles. I haven't seen any intelligent argument in favour of keeping those weapons as effective in CQC as they are now.

Since the AR is meant to be the short-mid range rifle, it just doesn't compete.

It would be nice if CCP went ahead and changed the name of the Assault Rifle to Plasma Rifle now that that area of weapons has filled out (same for other weapons if/when that happens).

A big issue for me is effective range. Since 90% of all maps are wide open areas it makes a big difference if you can shoot farther than your opponent.

I think the Plasma Rifle is still a good weapon but only if you can stay in and around installations or around an objective. I feel even more vulnerable running from one objective to another with an AR these days because more often than not I'll encounter a red(s) with RRs or CRs and be out ranged.

I find it hard to comment on the different rifles separately, the only one I notice much of a difference being shot at with is the CR purely because you can guess when the next burst comes.

I personally think ALL the rjfles are a little too powerful at the moment and require a chamge to damage, as positive it will make the differences between the rifles more obvious

with proficiancy being changed to only effect the efficiancy against shields or armor i think this will make things alot more evident, i hear talks about changes to damage mods as well but that will only effect those who use them.

with TTK being toned down and fights becoming a little longer it will make their strengths and weaknesses really stick out and become more obvious alowing people to make use of those strengths and weaknesses more effectivly.

I think you're spot on.

Honestly I think all 4 rifles are optimal in their niche roles. The plasma rifle was the only game in town for a long time and the SCR still absolutely hammers (I shield tank so I REALLY feel the SCR). With the CR and RR things even out.

I think if anything they might need to increase the RoF slightly and extend the optimal range for the Plasma rifle a slight bit. Other than that I think all the rifles are dead on for their intended purpose.

Admittedly, it's very hard for me to judge the "OP" factor on all these weapons since you have have to factor in player skill, amount of SP into the specific weapon, and situation of the engagement. I've seen plenty of BPO ARs take down Proto and ADV guys.

My point on the rifles is and will remain that player skill is the over riding factor. I struggle with single shot or burst weapons on the DS3 since i have an average gun game, therefore, I used to use the ASCR pretty heavily before the RR was introduced. The RR is right up my ally with staying mid to long range, flanking, and shield tanking. I can tell you that in a one on one with a Duvolle my Rail is at a real disadvantage.

I think the biggest overlap in the base rifles is the CR and SCR at mid-range. The AR outclasses the ARR and ASCR but I do think the ACR might be pretty even based on the uber-level ROF.

Optimal at their niche role ?

AR niche role : Under 60 meters and have anyhting else than rifle..
CR niche role : Everything that is not a Tank.
SCR : Everything that is under 500 ehp.
RR : everything that is under 100 meters.

That's maybe the problem.
Rifles are balanced each others.
But not with dropsuits and with ALL the others weapon.

A Damn plasma cannon or swarms lauchers which is to destroy tanks have less DPS than a rifle.......

Missiles : 220hp. => Need to lock.
Loaded SCR : 200hp. => 4 sec to shot. => But overheat and others drawbakcs.
2 burst of CR : 192ehp => Less than 0.5 sec.

Yeah Cr is TOTAAAAAAALLY balanced

alright im going to stop you there... did you just try to balance assault rifles against AV weaponry?

they dont even have the same targets... cant literally cant compaire them to each other.

also dropsuits arnt weapons... and so you cant balance them against weapons outside of time to kill wich is activly being worked on and improving across the board.

specialist wepaons are specialist weapons LR/MD/SG/SR are amazing at what they do but arnt the all rounders that the rifles are and thats by design and working as intended.

sidearms are sidearms... so dont even try that one

I have to ask: how do you know what the Plasma Assault is meant to be?

As far as I know its the high damage, low range rifle, how is that the king?

Im not trying to troll its a genuine question.

I would have said specalist weapons need a buff, especially the shotgun.
Laser Rifle pales in comparison to the Racial Rifles, needs a much longer range say optimal of 130-140m make more a Sniper Rifle
Mass Driver is good, but need more spare ammo capacity
Sniper Rifle is weak, needs a lower ROF high Damage per shot.

The Assault Rifle in general is a decent weapon (and one I think the other weapons should use a benchmark), but its just out classed by the Rail who can deliver greater DPS and accuracy over range than its cousin.

Okay so the ARR and the AR, the assault variant RR just delivers more damage per second on top of its range (unless my math is incorrect).

Normal AR's still get me as quick as anything.. the Six Kin CR + AA will beat AR + AA everytime however...

Would rather the AR attention be payed tot he Breach, Burst, Tactical.... make those guns competitive instead of the normal AR and keeping the balance will be easier.