DUST Search - In regards to Minnmandos and Swarms

Pokey Dravon wrote:

One Eyed King wrote:

I guess I get where you are going with it, but there are other problems as well.

I agree that it is rather easy at times to take down something like an ADS with Swarms, however, ADS are not the only vehicle.

I vividly remember one occasion where I had my Minmando out with Pro Swarms while a solo player sat in his LAV gunner seat and let me hit him. It took a full clip of volleys in order to do it, and had the guy actually been trying I would not have been able to.

Then there are the HAVs. They also pretty much have to not be trying and allow me to kill them, or get too confident in thinking they can kill me first. Swarms are next to nothing in AV effectiveness with HAVs, particularly with any sort of hardeners.

While adjusting swarms may make them a little more balanced with regards to ADS, it will very much hurt them against everything else.

And don't forget that while manning swarms you are very much at the mercy of any infantry, and if using anything other than a Commando have no real recourse.

There is a lot going on here, and I don't think we can discuss this as if this were in a vacuum. With major Vehicle changes around the corner we are just getting ahead of ourselves.

The way I see it is.... no one really complains about the Commando + Plasma Cannon combo, even though the numbers clearly show that it adds a substantial amount of sustained DPS. From my personal experience the primary reason people don't have an issue with it, is because the PLC is often challenging to use. Conversely, I think a huge reason why people have an issue with the Minmatar Commando + Swarms, is because Swarms are more or less noob-proof. It's pretty hard to screw up using them.

So even though the Minmatar Commando offers a very similar advantage to the Gallente Commando, the primary difference in sentiment seems to be more about how reliable the weapon is and its ease of use. That being said, in my opinion the most obvious answer is to make the Swarms more difficult to use, and add more element of skill to properly hitting targets with them. I think if we move further away from the 'Fire and Forget" model, you can afford swarms to be powerful, as it actually takes some effort and ability to land hits with them.


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Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 345	Posted - 2015.02.20 00:35:00 - [1] - Quote Atiim wrote: Your DPS is misleading, as it takes longer than 1.05s to launch a volley, aside from that I'll wait until you're finished before commenting on the rest of your assertion. Though the thought of consuming a Pilot is, interesting to say the least. Here is the problem - the initial swarm lock-on time means nothing. Most swarmers are smart enough not to stand directly in front of a tank turret to try and lock on.. They lock on beside, behind or above a tank, fire, then lock on again.... usually, depending on range, this is the point that the first volleys hit the tank, causing him to hit hardeners right before the second volley hits, by the time the second volley hits the third volley has already locked on and been fired. So unless you are a minmando bunny hopping in front of the turret firing swarms and miraculously get killed, you are garanteed 2 volleys to hit as pilots have 2 seconds to react to the first volley, and if they don't find cover the third hits around 4 seconds after the first impact. The perception to the pilot is 3 volleys hitting in 4 seconds as they have no idea when the first lock on is starting.. An assault suit with three damage mods is not very viable as you only have a sidearm vs infantry, although I have been having a lot of luck as a cloaked scout with swarms and damage mods. Play as a vehicle chaser far away from infantry. That also adds to the minmando problem, soon everyone will have the added 5% warbarges bonus, which affects both of their weapons, as does complex light damage mods--- enough EHP to hold their own against infantry and 2 garanteed swarm hits on every vehicle that gets within swarm range. Swarms also turn corners, go through rocks and hills and sometimes don't give a direction indicator when the pilot takes damage. Dropships have the benefit if afte- burning if the first volley does enough damage, second volley will still hit but with good flying you can out rep the last volley killing you if the swarmer locked on in time. With tanks- Minmando = Madrugar useless. Minmando = One shield hardener Gunlogi useless. That's one minmando, that also has a secondary damage modded light weapon and a fairly high EHP and strafe speed
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 345	Posted - 2015.02.20 01:14:00 - [2] - Quote Exactly, 2 Swarmers = 4 garanteed hits If using minmandos, which are viable vs infantry, rounding down to 1800 damage per volley sets the vehicle being hit with 7200 damage in 2 seconds ( start from first swarm impact ). 10000 EHP down to 2800 in 2 seconds. 15000 EHP down to 7800 in 2 seconds. Going to be rough with one hardener unless only one player specs into AV on the other team.
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 347	Posted - 2015.02.20 01:37:00 - [3] - Quote Pokey Dravon wrote: Doc DDD wrote: gibberish Good job, you completely missed the point of the thread. This thread is not here to discuss "OMG SWARMS ARE OP AGAINST TANKS!" It's to discuss the relative differences between non-commandos using AV, and Commandos using AV. Not how they perform against vehicles because all of those values will be changing anyways so right now its irrelevant. So please remain on-topic and hold your grievances above how AV balances against HAVs, because we're not talking about that right now. Anyways. So crunching the numbers for the Gallente Commando....its comical in that a Caldari Commando can actually do more DPS...not much, but a little more. As for how the Gallmando compares to say an Assault, the Alpha is again....nearly identical. Where it really shines is in the sustained DPS, primarily due to its reload speed. As for the Minmatar Commando, it's really not that much different. The difference in alpha is really pretty close, around 5%, but the real gem is the sustained DPS...again because the reload shaves off quite a bit of lost time. The reason the Minmatar Commando can muster more alpha than the triple modded Nonmmando is because it can fit 2 damage mods, whereas the Gallente cannot. So in short, the Commandos are not capable of putting out much more DPS than a Nonmmando until the reload comes, at which point the DPS increases by a good margin. For a PLC this is after 1 shot, and a Swarm after 3, obviously. So that begs the question of....where do you want things to land? I don't think innately changing the Commando bonuses is what needs to happen....their bonuses have good use in non-AV situations and nerfing the bonuses are simply going to cause collateral nerfs in areas where it is not needed. That being said, it really comes down to How do you change the weapon so that the Commando bonus is not overbearing in its effectiveness. We've established that the differences in alpha are not too significant, so what it really comes down to is "How do we modify the Reload and Lock-On/Charge time of the Swarm/PLC so that the Reload bonus of the Commando is useful, but not overbearing." Sorry you can't understand anything I wrote. Commandos are viable against infantry, triple modded assault's are not viable against infantry as they only have a sidearm and lower EHP. Following? Scouts can use stealth to avoid infantry and focus on AV. Following? Currently 2 Minmandos with swarms will pop every tank configuration under the new proposed hull numbers less than 4 seconds after the first swarms hit. Following? The minmando bonus is a problem as it only compares to an non-viable assault fit. Now add in warbarge bonus, and unless you are using dual plasma canons on a galmando, speccing one suit trumps all points put into vehicles. Following? Pokey, I know this isn't Eve, but if you start a thread about minmandos and swarms, people that actually play the game and use things that are affected by minmandos and swarms are going to publicize the problems.
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 347	Posted - 2015.02.20 01:55:00 - [4] - Quote Mina longstrike; Careful, you are confusing Pokey. The minmando bonus affects swarms, comparing only to a completely unviable fit. Calmandos sniping have the added rail benefit. ( sorry to confuse you more Pokey ) Galmandos are great against shield vehicles BUT THEY ARE NOT GARANTEED 2 HIT, THERE IS A CHANCE ONE OR BOTH SHOTS WILL MISS. ( confusing I know ) So Pokey do go on about the problem with the minmando bonus via math.
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 347	Posted - 2015.02.20 02:08:00 - [5] - Quote He is doing a poor job at fostering productive conversation if his response to input is to simply label it jiberish. You reap what you sow, I read what he writes and actually play the game. He unrest and numbers but notso much tthe application of said numbers in game.
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 347	Posted - 2015.02.20 02:14:00 - [6] - Quote MINA Longstrike wrote: Pokey is incredibly reasonable, I don't really appreciate you trying to belittle him when he's trying to foster healthy discussion on something perceived by a reasonably large portion of the community to be a contentious issue. If you can't act like an adult **** off. Acting like an adult I see, Swarms on any commando are deadly, on the minmando it's a whole new level.
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 348	Posted - 2015.02.20 02:28:00 - [7] - Quote Thaddeus Reynolds wrote: Spkr4theDead wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: gibberish Of course you completely ignore his point, which is exactly what you do with people you don't agree with, most especially me. The reason Pokey ignored his point, was because that was not the intended purpose of the thread. This isn't an examination of the platforms the swarm launchers can be deployed on The purpose of this thread is to discuss how much (If at all) the commandos alter the vehicle TTK, and how much they should (if at all) compared to a non-commando (Assuming spherical mercs in a vacuum) @Doc DDD, I understand and agree that the on-paper DPS and sustained DPS of swarm launchers alone stand out as an anomaly compared to the other AV weapon options available, and I'm reasonably sure that Pokey is aware of that. Please understand that in this thread Pokey wants to examine the Minmatar Commando (and all commando platforms in general) and how they theoretically affect the TTK. Please, by all means start a thread for the reasonably discussion of swarm launchers themselves, and improvements that could be made to them as a weapon system to fit more in balance (Note: that improvements to fit in balance may mean the weapon damage needs to be nerfed) Assuming spherical mercs in a vacuum, any suit with 3 high slots or more will do similar damage as a commando with the a damage bonus to the same weapon, so long as that commando suit has at least two high slots. This comes from running countless, logi, assault, scout, commando av fits as well as doing basic math. Now if that is the point of this thread, do we really need a thread to know that a 10% native damage bonus roughly equates to about 50% more than a complex damage mod in a high slot? No offense intended, but I think most people picked that point up already, and the actual problem is the weapon that the bonus applies to.... You want a new thread to tackle this? Or maybe glance at my jiberish. .
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 348	Posted - 2015.02.20 02:43:00 - [8] - Quote Now that we all understand that the Commando bonus adds roughly a complex light damage mod plus 50% with no stacking penalty, meaning the next damage mod is a full 7%, giving 17% with one damage mod.. that decreases the TTK of all vehicles by 17%. Now add another mod and you are looking decreasing TTK by somewhere around 22%. On a suit that also decreases the TTK of all infantry it shoots at with its secondary light weapon by 22%... This is the bonus that no other suit gets which is why if you are speccing swarms you are more than likely spec minmitar commando. And this is without factoring in reload speed bonus.
Doc DDD TeamPlayers Negative-Feedback 354	Posted - 2015.02.20 16:37:00 - [9] - Quote Pokey Dravon wrote: One Eyed King wrote: I guess I get where you are going with it, but there are other problems as well. I agree that it is rather easy at times to take down something like an ADS with Swarms, however, ADS are not the only vehicle. I vividly remember one occasion where I had my Minmando out with Pro Swarms while a solo player sat in his LAV gunner seat and let me hit him. It took a full clip of volleys in order to do it, and had the guy actually been trying I would not have been able to. Then there are the HAVs. They also pretty much have to not be trying and allow me to kill them, or get too confident in thinking they can kill me first. Swarms are next to nothing in AV effectiveness with HAVs, particularly with any sort of hardeners. While adjusting swarms may make them a little more balanced with regards to ADS, it will very much hurt them against everything else. And don't forget that while manning swarms you are very much at the mercy of any infantry, and if using anything other than a Commando have no real recourse. There is a lot going on here, and I don't think we can discuss this as if this were in a vacuum. With major Vehicle changes around the corner we are just getting ahead of ourselves. The way I see it is.... no one really complains about the Commando + Plasma Cannon combo, even though the numbers clearly show that it adds a substantial amount of sustained DPS. From my personal experience the primary reason people don't have an issue with it, is because the PLC is often challenging to use. Conversely, I think a huge reason why people have an issue with the Minmatar Commando + Swarms, is because Swarms are more or less noob-proof. It's pretty hard to screw up using them. So even though the Minmatar Commando offers a very similar advantage to the Gallente Commando, the primary difference in sentiment seems to be more about how reliable the weapon is and its ease of use. That being said, in my opinion the most obvious answer is to make the Swarms more difficult to use, and add more element of skill to properly hitting targets with them. I think if we move further away from the 'Fire and Forget" model, you can afford swarms to be powerful, as it actually takes some effort and ability to land hits with them. SURPRISE! It's the weapon the bonus applies to that is the issue.. are you sure you are posting this in the right thread? Or should it be labeled jiberish? The swarm launcher is the issue.