hehe, your accent sounds like mine (from Oklahoma, here)

One tip bandied about by laser users is firing it just before engaging the target to heat it up and ramp up the damage output via continuous fire even before you lase the victim.

i love the 'flashlight of death'

Also, Tribes... +1 to you sir, what Tribe were you in, if any?

CTF!

I played with The Insane Asylum |TIA|

haha, yeah. that's why i played heavy and turret *****.

you picked the best spot in any map (WTE of maybe D in line harvest) to use a laser rifle and kicked ass, yes LR is amaizing when your enemies have little to no cover. Other wise meh its a good deterrent and for killing scrub berries and kill stealling but crap for all else and more then likely to get you killed cuase guys like meh will flank or out gun you as soon as we see a laser in play.

Before the LR can even be considered for a balance pass, the whole issue surrounding LR operation skills supposedly not applying to it needs to be solved. IGÇÖm talking about the 5% heat build up and 3% cool down bonuses.

AFAIK the first bonus either doesn't apply, or is always applied at full effect; IGÇÖm more inclined to believe the latter because it takes a jaw dropping 80% of your battery to actually overheat when applying sustained fire. It is, to me, much more believable that the Stock LR is intended to overheat at 64% sustained fire at level 0 (if it starts at 80%, the skill would increase it to 100% and so youGÇÖd never overheat!).

Note: I havenGÇÖt personally looked at the cool down bonus much, but it might also be the same case.

So yes, the LR takes some degree of skill* to use and is only situational at best; but I think the calls for nerfing it is rooted in some skills** not applying as they should. That and the psychological impacts of the Laser are much greater than that of an AR or Sniper; it herds targets into cover better than any other infantry weapon, and the user is ideally far enough away for regular return fire to be ineffective (f.x: Snipers counter Lasers very effectively I've found).

IGÇÖm only a newberry however, so this is only what I've managed to scrape together from various forum posts and limited testing. I could be completely incorrect for all I know, but the 80% to overheat at level 0 thing seems wrong to me.

edit:
* Player skill, not SP!
** SP, not player skill!

Yes they do. Until you hit advanced, you have to work to manage heat (something that should be fixed, if anything is changed about LRs). You also have to make sure nobody gets into CQC range, and that you aren't going to get hit by every sniper.

Over heated my laser for the first time yesterday. Mowed down 4 guys packed together. the 5th bolted into cover and I would have got him if I didn't overheat.

Lesson learned: Need more laser rifle skill to prevent overheating.

Overheating causes you damage!

Don't over heat unless its really really worth it.