I am somewhat of a new player (only a couple million carefully placed SP) with grand plans of logibro'ness. I was drawn to Dust 514 by the claims of many different weapons to choose from, all of which grow with your character over time. I was sitting there like OK that's fantastic...I'll adopt a truly supportive logi role and wield the MD to aid in area denial to further compliment said role. Upon reading this thread in its entirety...boy oh boy...how my strategy was forced to change.
It's completely ridiculous that a FREE AR would emerge the victor in a stand-off against a PROTO MD...complete and utter madness... The weapons and their proficiencies on the battlefield have resulted in gameplay that is nothing short of Call of Duty in space (please don't spam me...I am a huge fan of Dust and am behind it 100%...or at least I thought I was). The only viable weapon on the battlefield seems to be the AR, which pretty much "chops down" the entire concept of a progressive skill tree (<-----see what i did there?). If a player invests millions of SP and months of his or her time skilling a weapon, be it a MD, an AR, Laser, HMG, or the flipping Nova Knives (we won't go there), logic would dictate that skilled, advanced variants of these weapons would be superior to say, a Militia AR at their effective ranges. I'm not saying an SMG should outgun an AR at 80 meters just because you maxed the SMG skill tree. What I am saying is the Mass Driver SHOULD...if not scare the pants of the rifleman and prevent him from charging you. It should simply perform the way it is intended to perform, and, given the nerf, it doesn't...which brings me to my next topic...
Why'd it nerfed in the first place? I frequent the forums and the youtube channels, and, before the nerf, I hardly saw more than the noob complaining about getting blown to bits by the MD. (That wasn't me, I swear). If you got stomped because your squad charged into an open field and a MD lit you up, it's because your squad charged into an open field and a MD lit you up. It wasn't OP to begin with...in fact, in my opinion, it performed the way the MD SHOULD. Area denial...instill "MASS" amounts of fear in a rushing squad..."MASS" amounts of splash damage, and damn sure be close to a 1 hit kill if hit direct. The MD simply doesn't do what it was designed to do. OK the HMG blasting away at 60 meters...the ridiculously OP laser rifle...the TAR fiasco...all nerfs that were not only appreciated by the general masses, but were accepted by users of those weapons because, lets face it, we knew they were OP. Show me one heavy who complained about not being able to "snipe" with their HMG. It's plain confusing, CCP. You get it right, for the most part, and then you fall flat on your face with this MD nerf. When the TAR was being spammed, the issue was addressed relatively quickly, and a fix was imposed. What's the big deal with simply reverting what you did, and going back to the way things were with the MD. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Oh, and now that they changed the sound of the AR, and probably 90% of the community run them, the battlefield sounds like a paintball field...hardly epic.
So now if I want to continue with my logibro build, I am pretty much forced to use the AR. Honestly, I'll probably just wait for the MD to get fixed and do something else till then. I am disappointed, because I want to play Dust 514, not CoD in space. With new titles on the horizon, you'd think they'd address something as relatively simple as this so they could move onto more important things like...everything else...