Imp Smash
Molon Labe.
General Tso's Alliance
434
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Posted - 2014.11.26 23:50:00 -
[2] - Quote
Actually no to a lot of you. Braedic, Fox, Breakin, lots of intellegent points to be sure. But y'all are completely forgetting the experience we have already had with the HMG.
For starters take Dispersion. The HMG is horrible with no dispersion. Why do we know this? Because for years it HAD no dispersion. It fired like a laser rifle (even though the reticule and the bullet animations showed a cone) and it was complete crap. It's from this that the rooftop camping forge gunner camper was born -- simply because there was pretty much nothing else to do. Then RR heavies when the RR first came out. It wasn't until dispersion was added to the HMG (this was all post RR/CR release) that we saw HMGs again. Until then it was Light Weapon heavy and assault suits all day.
Ironically the above dispersion fix lowered the skill ceiling of the gun. A heavy who was SUPER skilled in aiming, AND not lagging, AND not having damage frames dropped on fast suits due to hit detection could literally instagib anything.
It was so hard though few did it. And lag and hit detection made this unreliable regardless of skill.
Dispersion is what makes the HMG good in close range because it creates a "field" of damage so it's significantly easier to hit. It's skill ceiling is lowered but its accesibility was raised. I make no argument on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Because until hit detection and netcode are improved we can't make any 'good' changes. It's all bandaid work.
All that being said, it lowers the practical DPS. HMGs are not 800 dps blackstar, simply because due to dispersion (although I think we are using dispersion incorrectly when talking about the HMG but lets go with that for simplicity's sake) those bullets won't and in fact CAN'T all hit. The DPS of the HMG fluctuates a fair bit as (by the sheer chance built into the bullet spread mechanics) some bullets go where you are aiming and some don't.
The reason I said an assault can go toe to toe with a heavy is because they can. Dispersion prevents the HMG from reliably headshotting (although it happens, again due to chance, sometimes and of course skill affects this) while any of the rifles can (again with with skill) place EVERY bullet on the heavy's head.
So looking at the Assault HMG, it isn't that good up close, or even that good far away (it's not terribad of course) due to DPS and dispersion.
If you tighten dispersion so that it fires like it used to fire you have a short range laser rifle (in effect). Super close to the heavy will make him either instagib you or do no damage. At range it may become too powerful because the heavy will be able to put ALL the bullets on YOUR head at range. Only at that time could you say it's an 800DPS (before headshot modifier) weapon. So you would need to lower DPS -- but then when you have lag or dropped frames of damage it would again become pointless.
That's basically what ya'll are proposing. Shall the Assault HMG be a short ranged laser rifle? |