DUST Search - The ASCR Conundrum (I have no idea whats wrong with it)

Alena Ventrallis wrote:

Aeon Amadi wrote:

Tesfa Alem wrote:

Aeon Amadi wrote:

Alena Ventrallis wrote:

Give it and the ScR a +15/-15 profile. Keep the LR at +20/-20.

This is two fold; not only does it align with the CR of -15/+15, but it also buffs the ASCR/SCR against armor. Now while people are sure to complain about the ScR getting more armor damage, this is a problem with the ScR itself, not a problem with the damage profile.

Laser weaponry wasn't meant to be the polar opposite of projectiles, but rather explosive, which is +20/-20. Again, let's focus on the core issues before decided to touch on damage profile, which will cause problems later on if we need to do anything else to the weapon.

The damage profile is the core issue.

Right now vs shields the ASCR can give at good as it gets. But when it runs into armor the ADV ASCR and the Proto ASCR are are the worst rifles of all the rifles. Every ADV rifle vs its damage penalty (such as combat rifle vs shields) out performs the Proto ASCR.

Compare the current Proto ASCR vs Armor the other rifles do:

ADV Assault Rail + 6 more damage vs shields
PRO Assault Rail + 47.76 more damage vs shields
ADV Assault CBR +20.5 more damage vs Shields
PRO Assault CBR + 39.84 more damage vs shields
ADV Gek 38 + 60.8 more damage vs Armor
PRO Duvolle AR + 82.12 more damage vs Armor

A direct buff to armor via ROF or damage would make it very OP vs shields. Tweak the damage profile a bit and up the ROF by 4% and the Proto ASCR will do better than every ADV assault variant rifle penalty except the GEK (still the short rnge hybrid king) but it has range to make up for it.

The ASCR will fall right in line. Compared to the Proto ASCR vs Armor the other rifles now do

Pro Assault RR - 15.96 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields
Proto Assault CBR - 0.75 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields
Proto Duvolle AR +45 vs more damage than Pro ASCR vs armor

ADV Assault Rail - 32.9 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields
ADV Assault CBR - 20.2 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields
ADV Gek 38 AR +20. 1 more damage than Pro ASCR vs armor

Kay, seriously, the damage profile argument is really grasping at straws, especially when there's this much effort going into it. You're saying that because the damage profile is +20/-20 that the weapon is somehow flawed or impractical, yet we have an entire line-up of explosive weapons that have the exact opposite damage profile that no-one complains about. Mass Drivers, Flaylock Pistols, Grenades. More-over, the Laser Rifle, Scrambler Rifle, and Scrambler Pistol all do very well even despite this +20/-20 setup. The fact that it's being described as 'it has to be OP for it to be viable because #heat' is really... I can't even begin to wrap my head around it.

I'd sooner say just remove the heat factor all together than change the damage profile on just the one weapon to accommodate for the fact that there's this warped scape-goat around it.

Lasers don't have splash. Mass driver, flaylock and vrenades do. In addition, there is far less shield health for them to chew through than there is armor health that the AScR needs to chew through. As well, flux grenades remove all infantry ahields, regardless of fitting, rendering the argument moot.

Lore-wise, +15/-15 makes sense because short range crystals increase thermal damage alongside EM damage, mea ing its a little easier to chew through armor. Not as much as blasters, but enough for the profile to be adjusted. The LR is fitted with a long range EM only crystal, so the LR having a +20/-20 makes sense.

As far as my personal opinion, Galle the and Caldari are mirrors of each other (Gallente are +10/-10 and Caldari are -10/+10) so the scr should mirror the Minmatar. The Amarr should mirror the CR with +15/-15 and the LR mirrors the MD with +20/-20


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Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7441	Posted - 2014.12.14 02:13:00 - [1] - Quote Okay, so, started playing around with this after my Burst Rifle Conundrum thread thinking maybe I could math my way through to a solution while I was at work. Maaaaan, I dunno what's wrong with this thing. Mathematically, it's an astounding weapon. I seriously have no idea what's wrong with it or why it would be underperforming. After a few matches with it, I actually kind of like it - packs quite a bit of a punch and seems to perform as well or better than my Assault Rifle (heresy, I know). CCP Rattati said not to compare it with the Scrambler Rifle, and to only compare it against other Assault Variants. While I will mostly honor that in this thread, I do want to point out some obvious things when you compare the two. SCR (theoretical): 650 DPS 2,925 damage per magazine 14,625 damage per max ammo 6 second cooldown 2.5 second reload ASCR: 388.234 DPS 2,376 damage per magazine 11,880 damage per max ammo 9 second cooldown 2.5 second reload Okay, so obviously it's not just the charge-shot factor that makes the SCR outweigh the ASCR by miles. It's pure performance. If you have a good enough trigger finger you can spam that thing to high heaven and trust me when I say it's entirely possible. Admittedly, that video is a little old (Pre 1.8), but that fire rate is a little crazy powerful when look at that above DPS value and consider the ability to charge up. NOTE: That was with a Templar Sentinel. No heat bonuses there! Anyway, moving on to the important bits. When compared to other Assault variants, this thing is just... WOW. Just take a look at the numbers: ASCR: 388.234 DPS 2,376 damage per magazine 11,880 damage per max ammo 9 second cooldown 2.5 second reload 72 mag size AR: 412 DPS 1,854 damage per magazine 9,270 damage per max ammo 3 second reload 60 mag size ACR: 397 DPS 1,350 damage per magazine 8,099 damage per max ammo 2.6 second reload 68 mag size ARR: 296.4 DPS 1,719 damage per magazine 10,315 damage per max ammo 3.2 second reload 58 mag size So, right out of the gate it already has the fastest reload speed out of the bunch. It has the largest magazine size (though this is weighed by it's heat build up, even though that's not really a factor for Amarr Assaults), the highest damage per magazine, and the highest damage per maximum ammo count. The only thing it falls short on is DPS (bested by the AR and ACR) and Range (bested by the ARR, even though it's not listed). Funny thing is, this spreadsheet doesn't even take into account the ARR's charge-up time. Okay, so maybe it's the damage profile? That seems to be a common complaint. Except... Well, the results might surprise you. Here's how it stands up against a few 'in the wild' fits I either saw or just happen to use myself. Small Spreadsheet Stuff I would have gone further and compared it against some more fits but just from a quick glance I can already recognize a pattern forming. The fact that, even though it's got a hefty +20/-20 damage profile in favor of shields... It actually doesn't perform that badly on paper. In fact, the worst contender out of the group was the ARR which had trouble punching through targets it was actually designed to kill. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't have the most -amazing- performance, being second worst in two categories and second best in the last... But it certainly isn't that bad. The differences in TTK are marginal at best, with 0.54 seconds of TTK difference even in the worst play out of the three. Which, to put that into perspective, that's just 0.09 seconds longer than it takes to charge up a Rail Rifle. That's 0.06 seconds faster than it takes to cool down a vanilla Scrambler Rifle. That's about twice the time it takes you -blink your eyes-. So the damage profile isn't -terrible-. What about kick? Well, okay, so the kick might be a little worse for the wear... But not many people know that the weapon has -ZERO- muzzle climb. It'll bounce around a lot while you fire but it will never leave it's firing position, where-as all the other rifles will slowly stagger upward the longer you fire it. Don't believe me? Try it out for yourself! Jump into a domination match and stand next to a supply depot. Find something to aim at and fire away with a few different weapons. That being said... Based purely on paper and what little experience I decided to throw into it... I have no idea what's wrong with this weapon or why it is underperforming other than the myth that it is terrible. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7441	Posted - 2014.12.14 02:29:00 - [2] - Quote Atiim wrote: Well one issue, is that IIRC the Carthum ASCR does the exact same damage as the CRD-9. Hah! Wow, yeah, that'd be a glaring reason wouldn't it? CRD-9 34.10 damage Carthum 34.10 damage Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7455	Posted - 2014.12.15 04:27:00 - [3] - Quote Tesfa Alem wrote: I solved it here Basically, although its supposed to be a shield killer specialist, the ADV ASCR does only 4 more damage per second as the GEK 38, and only 2 better than the ADV Breach. The penalty difference vs armor is a whopping 78.6 damage less than the GEK and 83.9 damage less than the Breach. To summerize the ASCR is an average rifle at best in its shield killing role, and has the largest penalty not only vs armor, but of all the rifles in dust. I got a spreadsheet thrown together, will post it later. But yeah, the ASCR needs some help. Kinda skewed don't you think? Why not show results for shield damage comparisons between the ASCR and the AR while you're mentioning armor =P But as others commented in your thread, range is also a factor, as well as the fact that you never have to worry about upward muzzle climb. I'd imagine if people could see through the sepia tone filter on the screen when firing (referring to the muzzle flash) they'd be deadly accurate. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7455	Posted - 2014.12.15 04:30:00 - [4] - Quote What about if we reduced the muzzle flash and jitter, but made the jitter gradually build up in ADS like muzzle climb with all the other rifles? That way there is incentive to firing in a controlled manner and take a moment to let the (negligible) heat cooldown for a second as you let the weapon stabilize itself? Also, fixing ADV and Proto damage values is a great place to start as well. I'm wary about changing the damage profile, personally, because then we're slighting the weapon's chosen target field by comparison of Explosives. But, yanno, I can understand a +15/-15 argument because then it'd just be the opposite of a Projectile weapon... Dunno, really. Could also look into reducing PG/CPU values for the ASCR specifically so that it's not just an automatic SCR with worse everything. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7456	Posted - 2014.12.15 18:49:00 - [5] - Quote John Demonsbane wrote: Fizzer XCIV wrote: MINA Longstrike wrote: I believe that a large part of the issue with amarr weapons is a lot of the 'headspace' focus on heat mechanics (66% of their weapons not counting variants have heat mechanics. In theory to compensate for extremely punishing heat mechanics the laser and scr have to be 'overpowered' in some regard. Unfortunately the AScR lacks anything that makes it 'overpowered' enough in one area to compensate for being tied to heat mechanics. Also when you combine the fact that assault weapons are meant to be 'easy' to use you're left with two real options, buff the AScR and risk it being incredibly dominant over other weapons or separate it from potentially crippling heat mechanics opening up a niche for non amarr assaults that want to use a SCR variant. This is very much a possibility for why the AScR is unused. In fact, it might be the main reason. You can get just about the same weapon, minus the worry of overheating, by just using an AR. Its just much simpler to lay into a trigger on a weapon that let's you focus completely on aiming and tracking, than it is to to have to take concentration away from the task at hand in order to manage your heat gauge. I think that most players have decided in their minds that an extra 12 rounds in a magazine just isn't worth all that trouble. I gotta agree with this. The LR and ScR are so OP it's ridiculous... if they didn't overheat. The simple fact that the AScR is good but not great compared to other assault variants but nonetheless has the same punishing overheat mechanic is all the excuse the average player needs to stay the hell away from it. Other than the fact that even without an Amarr Assault you can still dish out a whole 57 rounds (just three less than the AR has in it's mag since we're using that as some crazy baseline example in this thread) before it overheats. I don't think many players are going to "stay the hell away from it" when their target is either dead or in cover long before they overheat the weapon and if you manage to get to that point you're probably missing every single shot anyway. IMO, the best solution right now - without going crazy and changing a bunch of mechanics at once because of whack job theories that the weapon is under performing because it "isn't OP" (??!?!!) - is to simply increase the damage on the Proto tier so that it's higher than the ADV tier, and MAYBE reduce some of the jitter/muzzle flash since it seems to be this huge problem. Even though, personally, I think the jitter is the only thing causing any sort of drawback to long-range fire since it has zero (or negligible, in the words of KAGEHOSHI) muzzle climb. I don't think for a second that we need to immediately shoot for Laser-Rifle like damage increasing heat mechanics or changing what little heat mechanics it already has when there is an obvious, simple, glaring issue staring us right in the face. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7456	Posted - 2014.12.15 20:37:00 - [6] - Quote Spectral Clone wrote: Perhaps it is not working as intended because it is not working as intended? Proto AScR has the same stats as the advanced AScR. Agree with this, honestly. I think we should change that up before we start delving into changing the mechanics of the weapon itself in any way. I think, as soon as people hear about an ASCR Proto Damage Buff, there would be an increase in it's use on release day and that might just change up the meta a little bit. Current meta seems to be swaying in favor of the Minmatar Assault who has a nice slot balance, decent EHP, and good speed. That and it's bonus toward Projectile Weapons makes it a really nice combatant in PC. So, a buff to the damage of the Proto ASCR to differentiate it from the ADV version might go a long way to combating that early meta change and make things -REALLY- interesting, at least in PC. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7459	Posted - 2014.12.15 23:34:00 - [7] - Quote Alena Ventrallis wrote: Give it and the ScR a +15/-15 profile. Keep the LR at +20/-20. This is two fold; not only does it align with the CR of -15/+15, but it also buffs the ASCR/SCR against armor. Now while people are sure to complain about the ScR getting more armor damage, this is a problem with the ScR itself, not a problem with the damage profile. Laser weaponry wasn't meant to be the polar opposite of projectiles, but rather explosive, which is +20/-20. Again, let's focus on the core issues before decided to touch on damage profile, which will cause problems later on if we need to do anything else to the weapon. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7462	Posted - 2014.12.16 01:35:00 - [8] - Quote Tesfa Alem wrote: Aeon Amadi wrote: Alena Ventrallis wrote: Give it and the ScR a +15/-15 profile. Keep the LR at +20/-20. This is two fold; not only does it align with the CR of -15/+15, but it also buffs the ASCR/SCR against armor. Now while people are sure to complain about the ScR getting more armor damage, this is a problem with the ScR itself, not a problem with the damage profile. Laser weaponry wasn't meant to be the polar opposite of projectiles, but rather explosive, which is +20/-20. Again, let's focus on the core issues before decided to touch on damage profile, which will cause problems later on if we need to do anything else to the weapon. The damage profile is the core issue. Right now vs shields the ASCR can give at good as it gets. But when it runs into armor the ADV ASCR and the Proto ASCR are are the worst rifles of all the rifles. Every ADV rifle vs its damage penalty (such as combat rifle vs shields) out performs the Proto ASCR. Compare the current Proto ASCR vs Armor the other rifles do: ADV Assault Rail + 6 more damage vs shields PRO Assault Rail + 47.76 more damage vs shields ADV Assault CBR +20.5 more damage vs Shields PRO Assault CBR + 39.84 more damage vs shields ADV Gek 38 + 60.8 more damage vs Armor PRO Duvolle AR + 82.12 more damage vs Armor A direct buff to armor via ROF or damage would make it very OP vs shields. Tweak the damage profile a bit and up the ROF by 4% and the Proto ASCR will do better than every ADV assault variant rifle penalty except the GEK (still the short rnge hybrid king) but it has range to make up for it. The ASCR will fall right in line. Compared to the Proto ASCR vs Armor the other rifles now do Pro Assault RR - 15.96 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields Proto Assault CBR - 0.75 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields Proto Duvolle AR +45 vs more damage than Pro ASCR vs armor ADV Assault Rail - 32.9 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields ADV Assault CBR - 20.2 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields ADV Gek 38 AR +20. 1 more damage than Pro ASCR vs armor Kay, seriously, the damage profile argument is really grasping at straws, especially when there's this much effort going into it. You're saying that because the damage profile is +20/-20 that the weapon is somehow flawed or impractical, yet we have an entire line-up of explosive weapons that have the exact opposite damage profile that no-one complains about. Mass Drivers, Flaylock Pistols, Grenades. More-over, the Laser Rifle, Scrambler Rifle, and Scrambler Pistol all do very well even despite this +20/-20 setup. The fact that it's being described as 'it has to be OP for it to be viable because #heat' is really... I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. I'd sooner say just remove the heat factor all together than change the damage profile on just the one weapon to accommodate for the fact that there's this warped scape-goat around it. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7462	Posted - 2014.12.16 02:47:00 - [9] - Quote Alena Ventrallis wrote: Aeon Amadi wrote: Tesfa Alem wrote: Aeon Amadi wrote: Alena Ventrallis wrote: Give it and the ScR a +15/-15 profile. Keep the LR at +20/-20. This is two fold; not only does it align with the CR of -15/+15, but it also buffs the ASCR/SCR against armor. Now while people are sure to complain about the ScR getting more armor damage, this is a problem with the ScR itself, not a problem with the damage profile. Laser weaponry wasn't meant to be the polar opposite of projectiles, but rather explosive, which is +20/-20. Again, let's focus on the core issues before decided to touch on damage profile, which will cause problems later on if we need to do anything else to the weapon. The damage profile is the core issue. Right now vs shields the ASCR can give at good as it gets. But when it runs into armor the ADV ASCR and the Proto ASCR are are the worst rifles of all the rifles. Every ADV rifle vs its damage penalty (such as combat rifle vs shields) out performs the Proto ASCR. Compare the current Proto ASCR vs Armor the other rifles do: ADV Assault Rail + 6 more damage vs shields PRO Assault Rail + 47.76 more damage vs shields ADV Assault CBR +20.5 more damage vs Shields PRO Assault CBR + 39.84 more damage vs shields ADV Gek 38 + 60.8 more damage vs Armor PRO Duvolle AR + 82.12 more damage vs Armor A direct buff to armor via ROF or damage would make it very OP vs shields. Tweak the damage profile a bit and up the ROF by 4% and the Proto ASCR will do better than every ADV assault variant rifle penalty except the GEK (still the short rnge hybrid king) but it has range to make up for it. The ASCR will fall right in line. Compared to the Proto ASCR vs Armor the other rifles now do Pro Assault RR - 15.96 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields Proto Assault CBR - 0.75 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields Proto Duvolle AR +45 vs more damage than Pro ASCR vs armor ADV Assault Rail - 32.9 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields ADV Assault CBR - 20.2 less damage than Pro ASCR vs shields ADV Gek 38 AR +20. 1 more damage than Pro ASCR vs armor Kay, seriously, the damage profile argument is really grasping at straws, especially when there's this much effort going into it. You're saying that because the damage profile is +20/-20 that the weapon is somehow flawed or impractical, yet we have an entire line-up of explosive weapons that have the exact opposite damage profile that no-one complains about. Mass Drivers, Flaylock Pistols, Grenades. More-over, the Laser Rifle, Scrambler Rifle, and Scrambler Pistol all do very well even despite this +20/-20 setup. The fact that it's being described as 'it has to be OP for it to be viable because #heat' is really... I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. I'd sooner say just remove the heat factor all together than change the damage profile on just the one weapon to accommodate for the fact that there's this warped scape-goat around it. Lasers don't have splash. Mass driver, flaylock and vrenades do. In addition, there is far less shield health for them to chew through than there is armor health that the AScR needs to chew through. As well, flux grenades remove all infantry ahields, regardless of fitting, rendering the argument moot. Lore-wise, +15/-15 makes sense because short range crystals increase thermal damage alongside EM damage, mea ing its a little easier to chew through armor. Not as much as blasters, but enough for the profile to be adjusted. The LR is fitted with a long range EM only crystal, so the LR having a +20/-20 makes sense. As far as my personal opinion, Galle the and Caldari are mirrors of each other (Gallente are +10/-10 and Caldari are -10/+10) so the scr should mirror the Minmatar. The Amarr should mirror the CR with +15/-15 and the LR mirrors the MD with +20/-20 Because I don't feel like typing: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2520279#post2520279 Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions
Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7466	Posted - 2014.12.16 10:37:00 - [10] - Quote Tesfa Alem wrote: Aeon Amadi wrote: Kay, seriously, the damage profile argument is really grasping at straws, especially when there's this much effort going into it. You're saying that because the damage profile is +20/-20 that the weapon is somehow flawed or impractical, yet we have an entire line-up of explosive weapons that have the exact opposite damage profile that no-one complains about. Mass Drivers, Flaylock Pistols, Grenades. More-over, the Laser Rifle, Scrambler Rifle, and Scrambler Pistol all do very well even despite this +20/-20 setup. The fact that it's being described as 'it has to be OP for it to be viable because #heat' is really... I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. I'd sooner say just remove the heat factor all together than change the damage profile on just the one weapon to accommodate for the fact that there's this warped scape-goat around it. I don't think so. The puzzle for the Devs is why is a weapon that put out as much damage as the other rifles so unpopular? Its because mathematically its Damage penalty is far out of proportion to the other rifles of the same class. Put two mercs facing each other, with identical EHP and armor to shield ratio, the Proto ASCR will lose to every ADV rifle every single time, by quite a large margin. Muzzle flash, heat and recoil was never an issue with the Geks or Duvolles, yet they were extremely unpopular as well when their damage application was seen as inferior. Heat doesn't really play a factor in in this. Bring the damage penalty in line with the other rifles is the first step. It would still suck vs armor, but not as bad as before. Better a hotfix than endless animation tweaks, heat build up, heat cooldown, etc. Or just give it splash damage. That seems like a logical alternative to justify a +20/-20 damage profile. Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions

Aeon Amadi Fatal Absolution General Tso's Alliance 7466	Posted - 2014.12.16 11:04:00 - [11] - Quote Fizzer XCIV wrote: Aeon Amadi wrote: Or just give it splash damage. That seems like a logical alternative to justify a +20/-20 damage profile. You do realize how silly it sounds for a laser to have splash damage, right? You do realize how silly it was to consider that post for anything other than sarcasm O.o? Long-Term Roadmap More Hard Questions