Fox Gaden
Immortal Guides
Learning Alliance
5477
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Posted - 2014.12.18 14:28:00 -
[1] - Quote
Burst HMG Mechanics:
If you hold down the trigger on a Burst HMG it will fire a burst, then pause for a set time before firing another burst, and will repeat this pattern until it overheats. Unlike other Burst weapons in DUST, pulling the trigger again will not cause it to fire the next burst early. Once the Burst HMG pauses after a burst the next burst has already been queued up and will go off regardless of whether your finger is still on the trigger, and regardless of whether you are still alive. (Zombie kills are best kills!)
To prevent the next burst from going off, to avoid overheat, you have to let your finger off the trigger before the end of the previous burst. However, due to lag, sometimes the fact you took your finger off the trigger will not register until a fraction of a second later which might cause the next burst to queue up. Therefore it is best to take your finger off the trigger during the pause before the last burst that you want to fire.
History of the Burst HMG:
The Burst HMG was always a powerful weapon, but it was very difficult to use due to the very long pause between bursts, so it probably only accounted for around 1% of the HMGGÇÖs used in the field.
In Hotfix Charlie the Burst HMG was completely reworked. So many variables were changed that it was impossible to accurately predict the outcome. As it turned out, the new Burst HMG was slightly overturned and after about 3 weeks it was accounting for somewhere around 70% to 80% of the HMGGÇÖs on the field, making it the new Flavour of the Month (FOTM) weapon. At that point the Advanced Burst HMG could fire from a cold start nearly all of its 6th burst before overheating, and the Proto Burst HMG could get well into its 7th burst before overheat.
In Hotfix Delta the Burst HMG was nerfed by increasing heat buildup, so that from a cold start the Advanced Burst HMG would overheat on the first round of the 6th burst, and the Proto Burst HMG would overheat a little ways into the 6th burst. Although for the Advanced Burst HMG this did not reduce the number of Bursts that could be fired from a cold start without overheating, it made the weapon dramatically more difficult to use effectively, which will be explained in the analysis below, so the Burst HMG quickly dropped to less than 10% of the HMGGÇÖs used in the field.
In Hotfix 1.10.2 the Burst HMG was buffed again so that from a cold start the Advanced Burst HMG would overheat a little over half way through the 6th burst, and the Proto overheats near the end of the 6th burst.
The Effect of Heat Buildup in a Combat Situation:
The Hotfix Charly nerf to heat essentially did not affect the Advanced Burst HMGGÇÖs initial engagement, when it had no heat prior to the engagement, as the operator would still take their finger off the trigger after the 4th burst which would allow the 5th burst to fire and the weapon to stop firing before the 6th burst which would have overheated it. However, on all subsequent engagements the heat for the previous engagement would cause the Advanced Burst HMG to overheat on the 5th burst, meaning the operator had to take their finger off the trigger after the 3rd Burst to insure the weapon would stop firing after the 4th burst. If the enemy was pressing and not enough time was given for cool-down, the operator would quickly get to the point of only being able to let off two bursts at a time. It became very difficult to avoid overheating the Burst HMG, particularly when facing multiple opponents.
The 1.10.2 buff to heat again does not substantially change the initial engagement, but doe mean that the weapon starts the second engagement with less initial heat, and builds heat more slowly. So with a reasonable pause for cool-down the Burst HMG can fire as many bursts in its second engagement as in its first engagement. Then on its third engagement it will run out of ammo in the clip before overheating.
With the extra rounds in the 6th burst in 1.10.2 before the Advanced Burst HMG overheats it once again becomes king of the Sentinel vs Sentinel duels, although if you donGÇÖt get a head shot you may need to suffer the overheat jamming of the 6th burst in order to win such an encounter.
The Effect of the 1.10.2 Heat Buff:
The heat buildup on the Burst HMG is now somewhere between what it was in Charlie when it was Overpowered, and where it was in Delta when it was very difficult to use effectively. From the perspective of someone who continued to use the Burst HMG through Delta the buff seems pretty sweat! But hopefully this buff does not make it easy enough to use that the FOTM chasers that used it in Charlie pick it up again.
Ideally the Burst HMG would be a weapon used by hard core HMG specialists that are experienced enough to manage the heat and make the weapon effective, while being too challenging to use effectively without putting in the time to learn its ways. I think the usage stats we should be aiming for is in the 10% to 20% range of total HMGGÇÖs used in the field.
If the HMGGÇÖs are all balanced correctly, the base model HMG should still account for over 50% of the HMGGÇÖs used in the field, as it is the versatile base model, while the Burst and Assault variants are for more specific applications.
* All usage stats presented in this document are rough estimates based on observation only.
Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
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