Seriously when a guy with a gek does 1000dmg in 1 secon, weapons OP

ANOTHER Edit: The only counter to an Assault Rifle is another Assault Rifle as it can be used by any dropsuit, is incredibly versatile (as previously stated) and it doesn't take hardly anything to kill the opposition. With ranges that can hit the same distance as Laser Rifles (who's skills are broken, btw - so you can't say it's over-powered if the damned skills don't even work on it) with the second highest DPS in the game, with the fourth highest magazine count in the game.

I previously had a thread stating that the range needed to be nerfed and like this thread it was met with stiff opposition with retorts like, "well, in real life assault rifles can hit out to 300-400 yards" but they never could clarify if those ranges were made on full-auto or not; or even with a rifle that doesn't have recoil once you get to level five Operation.

Right, but that's what we're seeing currently. It's not uncommon for Assault Rifle users to take out Heavies before they themselves get killed and that's mostly due to the sheer damage output of the weapon. The HMG might have a higher RoF but what we're seeing is more damage landing on target from the Assault Rifle (direct stream versus cone of fire).

At low levels the HMG is king, but towards the higher tiers it's very common that the Assault Rifle will outright defeat the HMG at those ranges or even more.

I understand what you're saying, I do - the Assault Rifle is supposed to be a jack of all trades but at the moment it's more a King of all Trades in that it excels in every aspect.

If you want to get even more technical, the Assault Rifle has a headshot efficiency of 165% compared to the HMG's 140%. Even then, the HMG's efficiency (center mass) starts at 95%, so you're not even getting the full damage that you could be. By stark contrast, the Assault Rifle starts at 110% so you're already getting a bonus just for firing at the target in your effective range.

To make matters worse the HMG doesn't ever go above 95% from 0m - 40/50m, and only goes lower from there.

There are a LOT of factors that make the Assault Rifle King in this game and they're being blindly defended. People just say "stop the QQ" or simply state that it doesn't need to be fixed. Unfortunately, they are very very wrong. Recoil, as I've previously said, is non-existent. Cross that with damage mods (potentially) not taking stacking penalties and it's the obvious choice of weaponry for high tier games.

There can't be much specialization in a game where one weapon can essentially dominate 60% of the playing field. Sniper Rifles and Laser Rifles excel at long range, Shotguns excel at short range, the Assault Rifle on the other hand suffers no drawbacks from ranges except at extremely long range.

Some food for thought: http://symthic.com/bf3-weapon-charts

You'll notice that many of those weapons all have the same damage ratios and ranges, but suffer from varying degrees of recoil. Based on my usage of the Assault Rifle in Dust 514, I've honestly come to the determination that (at least when using ADS) the Recoil is purely animation based as most if not all of my shots will land on target if I have the sights lined up.

I can't say more than that. I've decided not to use them because it offers me more of a challenge not to, but I have looked into them in order to relay the information I'm providing.

I welcome real world examples to an extent.

A big big factor that a lot of people forget when using them in the defense of Assault Rifle is, as I previously stated, recoil. It's one thing to have reduced recoil per level but when you get to a certain point the bullets are all going to hit on target and the only thing that I've personally seen at the 80m+ range is that the weapon's efficiency goes down, not the accuracy.

Each bullet will hit near center mass of where the user is aiming and the only thing stopping those rounds from doing their full damage is due to the efficiency dropping at those ranges. I don't really feel this should be the case. It's one thing if it's a Tactical Assault Rifle, which is semi-automatic, but a gun firing nearly -13 rounds per second- is going to have some hellacious recoil.

There's a reason they teach you to fire in short, controlled bursts in the military. This game seems to have completely missed that logic. Just hold down the trigger and you're good to go.

Honestly, I don't care what happens but something has to happen to drop the Assault Rifle down a notch in order to inspire more specialization. It's pointless otherwise. Why use a weapon that only works from 40m+ (laser rifle) when I just use the weapon that can work at maximum efficiency and still cover the range? I like the shotgun but there's not much room for error and sometimes the gun will derp out and not register damage at all (ask some other users about this).

Recoil, Range, Damage, Bullet Spread... Dunno. It's just annoying seeing a stream of bullets flying out of the gun and knowing they're going exactly where they're being aimed at.

Also, it doesn't make any sense lore-wise being as it's Gallentean and almost certainly a blaster, which is supposed to have the shortest range when compared with similar weapons. Makes me think that if we have get a Heavy Blaster similar to an HMG that it's going to have shotgun range, while projectile assault rifles are going to be acing headshots at 150m+......

Rather than nerf the AR as was originally suggested I would prefer to see other weapons buffed in their specialised area, HMG's could get a higher ROF (which should increase heat buildup accordingly and muzzle climb as well) thus returning them to the close medium range red berry juicer that they should be IMO (you can even pull it's range back to 50m for all I care) and LRs could get a higher damage at near max range with a reduced close range damage maybe. And that would give you something more than hopes and dreams to try and spec into something other than ARs.

My greatest concern about this topic was realised last night actually where I ran in a match and I was the ONLY player using something other than an AR (call bs if you want but thats what I saw), there where players in different suits, heavy type 2s and scout B series but they were all using advanced to proto AR's, why because in most of the maps we currently play on it is the best weapon for a quickly changing battle as it can offer almost HMG dps (20% less for a standard level weapon) in a package that can fire almost as far as and LR that can be used well in CQC. I don't blame the AR it does what it says on the tin, but I would just like to see more incentive to use the specialised weapons heck I'm thinking about using the AR just so I can stay in the game.

ARs dont have a sight that can really be used......maybe that will change with weapon customization but who knows when that will be implemented. And the issue stating that there is no recoil.............well I dont know what game your playing but if I continuously shoot then at about 25-30 rounds the AR has some pretty extreme recoil. Considering that and the SMG are the only guns that seemingly have recoil I dont consider this an issue.