The Mass Driver is balanced. Mostly. In the right hands it is murderous.

Maybe an accuracy nerf at excessively long ranges, but that's it.

The Mass Driver is balanced. Mostly. In the right hands it is murderous.

Maybe an accuracy nerf at excessively long ranges, but that's it.

So, the long projectile travel time, the arcing projectile drop, and the slow ass rate of fire isn't enough? I think the MD is fine. If anything it needs a slight buff in some areas compared to much easier to use weapons.

The problem, if there is one, with the MD, is that some people are getting good at it. This means that the AR clowns feel threatened, and therefore must have ALL dust players using the AR, so they can have their brainless run and gun arena shooter.

FYI, that game isn't Dust. Hopefully it never will be.

The mass driver is one of the most difficult weapons to use in the game. Go try it for a while.

That is completely wrong. It's one of the easiest to use in the game. You don't even have to ADS and it has splash damage. You at least need to aim an AR.

> MD is easy
> MD is balanced
> If anything, give the STD lvl a small buff and make a MLT version

Before some n00b QQs, yes I have used it, yes it is easy, and yes it uses the same mechanic as a number of other weapons in other games that have a slow projectile that travels in an arc. Noticeably, the flak cannon in unreal. Also the m203 from other games can be more or less the same. There are many, many, many weapons that have a slow moving projectile which travels in an arc. Get good.

You just have played a FPS game over the past ten years to be familiar with it.

First off you don't have to ADS because the sights are useless

half the AR users usually hip fire while strafing in open ground with mod stacked weapons.

I've died to hitting myself with a MD

When's the last time you've seen a MD user in the top of the leaderboards that wasn't a logistics?

The stupidity of this thread makes my brain hurt.

agree 1000% .

Step #1 is losing the silly firing arc and making it a weapon that fires in a straight line. This will reward accuracy, allow it to work in medium range (right now it can't) but will also have the effect of making the sight useful. Note to CCP: A SIGHT MUST WORK AND SHOW US WHERE THE ROUNDS GO. It can't be a "guide" or offer "hints"...lol.

Step #2 is making it reload after each firing or slowing down the fire rate a great deal. There's a reason shooters don't have grenade launchers as auto-fire weapons. It could have something to do with the fact that ITS POOR BALANCE TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO SPAM GRENADES! But who knows...maybe that's just me being silly.

Step #3 is making the reload longer. I'm sorry but a weapon with 6m of splash damage and suppression cant also reload almost as fast as the AR. 5 to 5.5 seconds i'm thinking.

Step #4 is making the users take full damage when they use it in close range. Tyjus and I tested it in ambush the other day and he walked up behind a guy and one-shotted him at less than 1m. The guy took full damage (i'm assuming) Tyjus lost 80 shields. He basically got hit by the splash and took reduced shield damage--CAN"T HAPPEN.

Step #5 is enabling the mortar firing mode so it can be useful at attacking entrenched locations from distance. This would be a nice addition but again, lets reward accuracy here. No "guessing" or "extrapolating" with spent rounds. If this means picking a point within range from the start map a la the orbital strike so be it.

My 2 ISK.

If anything, the range on the MD should be increased not decreased. It's progressively harder to hit people at range due to the projectile travel time. If someone runs in a straight line for 5 seconds just to kiss my MD round, who's fault is that? Also, currently, light weapon sharp shooter doesn't even improve range on the MD.

I use all the weapons. I regularly use the MD, AR, and LR. While all dust weapons are, perhaps, comparatively easy to use relative to some other games, the MD is one of the more difficult to use relative to other dust weapons.

I've hashed out the reasons why in many other threads already. I'm not going to it here. Frankly I don't care what people here think about it much.

Try it out if you think it's op, but it doesn't need nerfed. I expect to see more op threads about the MD and forge guns as time goes on though, and the reason why is that both of these weapons have a high skill ceiling, and thus, even the experts still have significant room to improve.

QQ on folks.

Actually sharpshooter does affect MD range, but it's barely noticeable. MD rounds will fire for a set range before outright disappearing. I have sharpshooter maxed and can hit a sniper on top of the structure behind B on skim junction all the way from point A. It was a lucky shot, but I could never do that until I maxed the skill.

I think this isn't true. I should have a 20% increase in range (my other weapons do) based on my sharpshooter skill, and there's no way I have such a bonus over the base range/flight time. I'd like to see this confirmed or denied though.

Ask any MD user how many times they killed themselves in CQ..........

Half the fun of blowing yourself up is denying some deserving red dot a kill for his KDR.

If anything blowing up oneself with MD, grenade, or a jumping LAV flying into a wall should give the deserving player a death and kill!

Have a squad mate stand across the map to track your round. It actually does disappear after a set distance if it doesn't hit anything. But like I said, it goes unnoticed because with 0 levels in sharpshooter, rounds already fly well past your field of vision before the range cutoff.

Too much ammo?
No arming delay?
Too quick reload?
Too small a penalty for pointblank users? ( e.g. progressive visor damage )

This thing needs balancing !
It's a great long-range weapon (i.e. artillery) but still a good choice at 3-5M? come on!

agree 1000% .

Step #1 is losing the silly firing arc and making it a weapon that fires in a straight line. This will reward accuracy, allow it to work in medium range (right now it can't) but will also have the effect of making the sight useful. Note to CCP: A SIGHT MUST WORK AND SHOW US WHERE THE ROUNDS GO. It can't be a "guide" or offer "hints"...lol.

Step #2 is making it reload after each firing or slowing down the fire rate a great deal. There's a reason shooters don't have grenade launchers as auto-fire weapons. It could have something to do with the fact that ITS POOR BALANCE TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO SPAM GRENADES! But who knows...maybe that's just me being silly.

Step #3 is making the reload longer. I'm sorry but a weapon with 6m of splash damage and suppression cant also reload almost as fast as the AR. 5 to 5.5 seconds i'm thinking.

Step #4 is making the users take full damage when they use it in close range. Tyjus and I tested it in ambush the other day and he walked up behind a guy and one-shotted him at less than 1m. The guy took full damage (i'm assuming) Tyjus lost 80 shields. He basically got hit by the splash and took reduced shield damage--CAN"T HAPPEN.

Step #5 is enabling the mortar firing mode so it can be useful at attacking entrenched locations from distance. This would be a nice addition but again, lets reward accuracy here. No "guessing" or "extrapolating" with spent rounds. If this means picking a point within range from the start map a la the orbital strike so be it.

My 2 ISK.

I'm not going to wade through the whole thread but here's the quick and dirty.

I started this build by stating the the MD was overpowered and bugged (to it's advantage).
I had a whole list of citations describing why and then someone rational challenged me to test some of my theories from the inside rather than just respond to what I was seeing when it was used against me.

This became a whole project in which I tested all the light weapons in the game against each other with equal skills and normalizing as many factors as possible. The results were pretty simple, the only OP'ed light weapon in the game was the AR. Note I said was CCP has changed some things since then and those changes erased key aspects regarding why it was concluded the AR was over performing its role.

The Mass Driver isn't overpowered, I used to think it was then I did actual testing in many contexts and compared results with other testers.

Cross

Thank you very much for being rational and scientific and testing.

I have also used all of the weapons, save the nova knives. I also think the AR is too good simply because it's, say the #2 weapon in far too many roles. In other words, it isn't the best at anything, but it's the second best way too often.