Hey guys

So with Hotfix Charlie, we made some substantial changes to the Burst HMG. The changes made the weapon perform much better than in the past, becoming an effective option against single targets. However, it became just a bit too effective overall, squeezing out the regular HMG and many other weapons. So it's time to bring them back a bit (but not so much that they go back into obscurity).

First off we're reducing the damage per round by 10%.

Next is the more complex bit. We're decreasing the fire interval from 0.01 to 0.005. However, at the same time we're increasing the burst interval from 0.225 to 0.45. This change means that the effective rate of fire (that is, the rate of fire including the burst delay) does not increase. {(45*0.01 + 0.225)/45 =0.015 and (45*0.005 + 0.45)/45 = 0.015}. What this just means is that when you pull the trigger, you have less chance to spray and partially hit a target. It also means any opponents have a longer window between bursts to attack back (though it's still pretty short).

I am open to going the other direction and making the burst delay shorter and the fire interval higher, and would like to hear your experience in the matter. But keep in mind that the effective fire rate should still remain higher than the standard HMG, and any decrease in effective fire rate means that damage per round would be increasing to keep with the new DPS level.

Heat per second is also increasing to 96/91.2/86.4. Now while this might seem completely excessive, remember that heat is only generated while firing, and not during the burst delay window. The actual result of this change means that you now overheat about 40 rounds (or just under a single burst) earlier. Note that heat per second will also change if the fire interval changes, so as to make sure that the firing time before overheating now sits at about 3.5 seconds for the Six Kin Burst HMG (down from 4.1)

As always, I am looking for your feedback, especially in this instance. Many of you have had a fairly decent amount of hands on experience with this weapon since Charlie, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

As always, everything is up for changing, so if you have other thoughts on how to balance the Burst HMG feel free to share them.

except that its only a 10% nerf to dps until you hit the lower heat capacity and its also a ~20% buff to TTK to soft targets

thats not 30-50%

Its a fairly noticeable nerf to fighting heavies and hp stackers, but i wouldn't say thats really a bad thing considering they instakill those who arnt

After some testing last night and feedback from you guys, we're going to drop the Fire Interval/Burst Interval change for now (this means that the heat per second will also drop by about half, but it will still be the same number of rounds to overheat).

We've also been playing with the dispersion a bit, mostly around increasing the max dispersion and min dispersion, and decreasing the accuracy gain per shot. I know several people have called for the range to be decreased, but I would prefer to try and make it work via dispersion or possibly kick instead rather than just straight nerfing range. Swapping from inverse to normal dispersion is on the table for the burst, but it does mean that it doesn't behave consistently with one of the defining traits of the HMG which makes me a little apprehensive about it.