I think looking at the damage profiles would be a good start as well. Right now they're a little out of whack with Projectile being too good and Laser and Explosive being too far gone in either direction.

The projectile damage profile needs to be changed to 95% / 105%, and I think Laser and Explosive weaponry should be brought 5% closer to the middle. Meaning the Laser profile would be 115 % / 85% and Explosive 85% / 115%.

Prof skills currently favor anti armor weapons.

I think proficiency should just be changed across the board.

Could give ScR's a bonus to charge time, and scrambler pistols could get a ROF bonus. Shotguns could get a marginal range bonus. Just a slight one as too big of a range buff would break the weapon. ARs could get a buff to mag size. Rail weaponry could get a bonus to charge times.

There are so many cool things that can be done that would also not tilt the game to heavily favor any particular weapon.

And really broken when stacked with the Amarr Assault's heat sink.

There's a difference between being viable, and being broken.

No, it doesn't. In fact, that's a Continuum Fallacy.

How is increasing the heat sink not a buff again? There already is an incentive to use to SCR over the CR. It's the high alpha-damage and charge shot.

I'm not really sure how an item gets balanced for one mode and imbalanced for another, but I'm not basing my arguments on seeing a few people do well with them, I'm basing it from personal experience. The only reason why SCRs aren't as viable as the other rifles is because of the popularity in Armor tanking, which is a problem due to the Shield/Armor imbalance, not the SCR.

The Scrambler Rifle already excels at what it's designed to do (annihilating Shield Tankers). When it becomes ineffective against Shield Tankers, then it will need adjustment. If you cannot handle the fact that you aren't able to kill Armor tankers before overheating, use the Assault Scrambler Rifle.

Also, what your asking for will break the SCR. Allow me to echo Lynn Beck's thoughts here:

Maybe we're looking at this from the wrong angle?

Instead of tweaking each specific prof skill we could just wipe them all and have new skills to replace them. (branching off of the handheld weapon upgrades skill) -

Energy weapon prof. - +5% per level to headshot multiplier. 1.875x instead of 1.5x for most weapons, 4.6x instead of 3.75x for ScP. This would help all energy weapons with their biggest weakness: finishing off people in armor. But only if your aim is good enough. This would also make up for the ROF nerf for the ScP.

Plasma weapon prof - +3% to ROF and +5% to mag capacity. Plasma weapons should be THE CQC weapons. Upping ROF and mag cap would ensure that gallente tech can go harder AND longer than any other weapons in CQC. The range on them will still be **** so I doubt it would break them.

Kinetic weapon prof - -3x per level to dispersion.

Rail weapon prof - -2x per level to charge times.

Launcher prof- (since they don't fit neatly in with any other category) -3x per level to reload speed. And yes, this would stack with the individual weapon's reload skill. Launchers include the PLC, Swarm, and MD.

Changing prof skills to being for all weapons of the same type would help with the crazy SP sink that the prof skills are now which would help newbies become competitive with vets by reducing that insane grind to prof V, as well as upgrading both their sidearm and main weapon if they are willing to stick with racial tech.