DeathwindRising wrote:Lower the damage per shot a bit and increase rof for the AR stats you propose. Your dps should be the same. I'll do the math in a bit but, AR damage per shouldn't be that close to a RR.
A 10% increase in damage (36.3) plus increasing rof to 850 would yield a dps of 514.25 which is a reasonable start. Keep in mind that it's getting weapon profile and prof bonuses which increase shield damage by an additional 25% making anti shield dps 642.8125 which is more than enough to chew through even a caldari sentinel at record pace
Basically, the current ballacs AR is what we should aim for. The issue however is CCP wants weapons that aren't full auto to do more damage because they feel they a harder to use. That's why the AR has always had the lowest dps with the RR above it, followed by the CR and SCR.
to make CCP's point, imagine if all weapons had the same dps, regardless of weapon profiles or skills. everyone would use the AR or RR for either close combat or long range combat. why? because both of those weapons require nothing more than for you to aim and hold the trigger down til you run out of ammo. the combat rifle requires multiple trigger pulls and its scope hinders close combat. the scrambler rifle requires the most manual operation with the added hindrance of a heat mechanic. no one would use them over AR's and RR's. CCP balanced the rifles to promote variety as well on performance.
I have proposed similar balance methods before using ROF instead of base damage to boost the GAR's DPS. I actually like this response better because it is self limiting (higher DPS because of ROF = lower sustained fire) but you need to make sure you're only accounting for the base stats. If you start including the bonuses to shield damage for the GAR and the bonuses to armor for the CR you get into some much messier calculations (especially since the CR's bonuses and penalties are the best in the game right now) which make ballancing more accurate but much more confusing. Also don't forget, the GAR has the lowest range of the rifles which makes the ability to apply its DPS more limited, thus its need to have a higher DPS than the other rifles.
As to the skill involved in burst weapons like the CR I have never found it a more difficult weapon to use than the full auto weapons. People can mash the fire button quickly enough to make the CR essentially becomes full auto anyway.
CCP has also never responded to my requests to balance the GAR using increased ROF paired with slightly increased damage. I thought that simply increasing a single stat would be more appealing to them.