The one in need of a buff?

I'm asking because the gal ass was fine even before the last hotfix, what wasn't fine was the AR and its variants.
So, why has the gal bonus been buffed instead of buffing the AR?

I think it's a good thing that assault have a bonus to make weapons perform better with them, but this change has not fixed the AR with all the other suits.

IMO it would be better to have a slight ROF increase for AR (and variants) and then nerf a little gal ass ROF bonus, in this way the combo AR + gal ass would work like it's now, but AR would be more viable for other suits too.

I would also apply gal ass bonus to all gal tech weapons and not only to AR.

But the Gal Ass wasnt fine, it was inferior to the minmatar for mobility fits and inferior to the amarr assaults in almost every way except for a very small advantage in rep speed and move speed.

In fact nobody was using gal ass + ARR

Sure they were, but people use crappy suits all the time. It doesnt matter, the amarr was objectively better unless you honestly think ~.3 speed and a few reps is better than 40 health or so, a ton more stamina and stamina regen, and a massive heat bonus to the best rifle in the game.

Edit to add: this does not include the Rattati's Officer suit, which is beast mode, but at proto level the Amarr assault is clearly better.

You forgot that amarr assaults look better than gal assaults

Sure they were, but people use crappy suits all the time. It doesnt matter, the amarr was objectively better unless you honestly think ~.3 speed and a few reps is better than 40 health or so, a ton more stamina and stamina regen, and a massive heat bonus to the best rifle in the game.

Edit to add: this does not include the Rattati's Officer suit, which is beast mode, but at proto level the Amarr assault is clearly better.

People had only 0.3 bonus speed over amarr because they tank gal suits, tanking high HP on gal suit is like armor tanking caldari suits or tanking heavily a min suit, you are going out of your role.

Whatever the Gallente can do the Amarr can do better.

the thing is the AR isnt under performing as it does its job quite well the problem is that the stats show that it is underused and the people that do use it arent that skilled with it so the available pool of data shows what looks like a weapon that needs a buff while in reality it works just fine and is just underused making it seem UP with untrained eyes

while the gal ass was used often but not with its racial weapon so some incentive had to be added for them to want to use it over other weapons

the thing is the AR isnt under performing as it does its job quite well the problem is that the stats show that it is underused and the people that do use it arent that skilled with it so the available pool of data shows what looks like a weapon that needs a buff while in reality it works just fine and is just underused making it seem UP with untrained eyes

while the gal ass was used often but not with its racial weapon so some incentive had to be added for them to want to use it over other weapons

the thing is the AR isnt under performing as it does its job quite well the problem is that the stats show that it is underused and the people that do use it arent that skilled with it so the available pool of data shows what looks like a weapon that needs a buff while in reality it works just fine and is just underused making it seem UP with untrained eyes

while the gal ass was used often but not with its racial weapon so some incentive had to be added for them to want to use it over other weapons

Another interesting experiment might involve knocking armor down a notch (or two) then seeing what shakes out in the meta.

Both.

Gallente assault bonus was lackluster and did not distinguish it from any other suit. Its light weapon bonus was indistguishable from other suits.

All AR variants are decent, but it also did not matter what suit you put it on, it behaved the same.

So ratatti elevated it the AR from decent to good but only in the hands of a gallente assault via bonus.


The result: Spec in to gallente assault and you have a formidable racial weapon to go along with it.

What I think will happen is a mass respec to cal and min suits with mostly laser weaponry being used

Yeah, you might be right. Did bump into quite a few dual-tanked CalAssaults last night. Not sure how they'd address dual tanking without over-penalizing one side or the other.

Maybe CCP could get off their asses and add global diminishing returns on all HP modules

Cant even stack 3 damage mods before it starts getting worthless, why should people be able to stack 8 HP modules with full effect?

Makes sense. Might have to tone down damage output if maintaining current (or near current) TTK levels is a priority. Maybe a flat % reduction across the board? Alternatively, Cat Merc proposed decreasing HP module yield and increasing base HP levels for each frame. This would effectively decrease the relative benefit of HP modules ... seems like that could work as well.

Agreed, Vesta. Any ideas on the specific "how to" ?

First blush I would just set stacking penalties to start light on your fourth HP module and ramp up to make the 6th module never worth fitting (So starting out around 10% on your fourth module ramping up rapidly to up to ~50% maybe on the sixth module).

I dont have a problem with someone sticking a shield extender on top of their 3 armor modules (or even 4 armor modules), etc. Its just the 100% brick tanking that should die in a fire. This kind of change wouldnt affect commandos/sentinels that much since they only have 5 module slots, which is great because stacking health is a perfectly legitimate thing for them to do: but it would place some disincentives on scouts, logis and assaults who might do this kind of ****, which I think is exactly what we should be aiming this at.

Honestly this is kind of a fringe concern though, since you rarely see brick tanked suits these days, its just annoying that HP modules have no diminishing return, and bricked suits are basically someone saying "**** effectiveness and usefulness, Im going to win the first firefight with you unless you spend 30 seconds to a minute picking me apart". Frankly I'd rather see CCP put the effort this would take into fixing framerate issues or something.

To encourage proper racial fittings most likely

which is cancer

My suggestion? Split the bonus; give half of it as an inherent buff to the AR family so that they're just...better...and then give the rest to the assault so that, <30m, it is supreme.

That is exactly my point.

I don't think that'd hurt. Assuming, of course, that neither the AR family or GalAssaults are presently OP. Would advise against doing the same with Rail Rifles and CalAssaults (the RR family is plenty strong as is).

Try AR on a suit other than gal ass and test if it's OP in your opinion.
I would use other rifles even at short range.

On gal ass i still have to evaluate AR OPness, i can see with my eyes it's very good at DPS, but you also have to manage the fire because the rifle tend to shake more.

Even without being totatly OP, gal ass now is slightly better than other assaults if we look only the use of racial weapons.
From the useless bonus to the better ass bonus in a single patch

Yeah, you might be right. Did bump into quite a few dual-tanked CalAssaults last night. Not sure how they'd address dual tanking without over-penalizing one side or the other.