Breakin Stuff
Immobile Infantry
769
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Posted - 2013.05.04 18:22:00 -
[1] - Quote
People think heavies are being unreasonable about the outrage of nerfing both the range and damage of the HMG class weapons but are failing to take into account a few important things heavies are acutely aware of.
We shall completely ignore the removal of damage bonuses from skills. Everyone else lost them too. Net gain/loss of zero.
the nerfing of the range is problematic because without sharpshooter to make up the difference, any significant reduction in range will remove a heavy's ability to shoot across a street successfully. A slow-moving monster with a big weapon isn't really a threat when he can't hit you. The loss of sharpshooter combined with a range nerf is a bit much.
We can forgive the above (grudgingly)
But then the nerf is combined with a base damage reduction of the HMG with no developer input as to why this was done. Is there a skill synergy that magically keeps the HMG as capable of maintaining parity with other weapons? If not the reduction of both range and damage makes no sense.
Further, with the base reduction of range and damage heavies lose two high slots. we lose the ability to mount more than one damage mod, which has historically over this last build been one of the few ways that a heavy could increase his odds of a kill instead of getting shot down. this is three nerfs of the HMG in one shot. arguably it's a serious nerfing of Forge guns because we depended on damage mods in the highs to be able to overcome the insanely high EHP and resists of even gunnlogi and madrugars over the course of a single magazine at the proto level, and even that is iffy.
Assaults and logistics retain the ability to stack damage mods in their high slots at a ridiculous rate, thusly putting us not back to square one, but sharply increasing their DPS while the "whingeing heavies are stuck with something that was barely usable and notoriously ineffective due to the proliferation of GEK and Duvolle ARs combined with the stupidly large heavy headshot hitbox. This tends to result in heavies dying to GEKs and Duvolles more often than not in close quarters battle inside the heavy's optimal. The HMG is not nearly as effective as people think it is.
As it stands, without some form of clarification as to the state of why the heavy machinegun was nerfed and what the balance point here is we find ourselves flailing about wondering what the hell are we supposed to do with a dropsuit that now seems to only have one viable weapon?
If heavies are going to lose a lot of range as well as lose the ability to enhance on-board damage capacity then the weapons should have both been given an uptick of base damage, not a nerf. |