I've never been quiet on my dislike of the Tac AR, but it fills a niche that many people love - the marksman. It's no sniper rifle, but it's able to take out reds at a great distance. The problem with the Tac AR is that it is still freaking amazing at CQC, and any failings that it might have are easily covered by making another fit with the same tier of the AR as it is governed by the exact same skill.

There is no trade off to skilling up the AR. You'll have a guaranteed great weapon at all ranges for the price of one skill. No other weapon is able to do that, and makes choices in what you want to do that much more limited.

This problem is then compounded by the Gallente Assault suit, which lets you fit high tier weapons without sacrificing any tank or damage output. This suit also is an armor tanker which is strong against lasers, the only weapon that can compete with the Tac AR for dealing damage at that range.

This puts all those small little advantages in the hands of the Tac AR, coming together to form the new OP (I hate that term too. please keep reading) weapon.

There does need to be a weapon to fill that role, It just shouldn't be in that skill tree.

My recommended course of action would be just to take the Tac AR out of the game. No nerfs to the point of being unplayable, just freaking nuke it and replace it with a new sniper rifle variant with a 25 round magazine and a decent rate of fire while extending the range slightly on the Gallente AR, ideally it's optimal should end where the LR starts. (possibly meaning bringing the LR's optimal in a little bit. but that's another thread)

This would accomplish a few things, namely it would give sniper rifle users the role of the designated marksman again. I can count on one hand how many times I've been shot by a sniper, let alone killed this build. Throw them a bone FFS. Less weapon diversity is the last thing this game needs.

secondly, it would balance out the roles of the various suits a little better. a low capacity weapon would put the Caldari assault in the running for owning the mid-long range game again with the suit specialty (reload bonus, for the uninformed), while letting the laser keep up with that role as it would be able to burn through Caldari shields (though the new variant would outrange the LR by a 10-20 meters), letting the designated marksman decide whether or not to close in and have a weapon that is still formidable in cqc though it doesn't fill that role as well as the AR or HMG.

As far as skill bonuses go, the new variant would still get helped by the sniper rifle op bonus of reduced sway as the rail rifle would have have to get settled in for a moment to balance having a longer range.

Just so we're all clear:

Damage Modifiers have a stacking penalty, and have had a stacking penalty for some time. It's been proven experimentally on the forums multiple times, I just don't have the thread links at hand.

The fitting screen remains inaccurate for some reason. I don't know why CCP hasn't bothered to fix it since it's a perpetual source of confusion.

Because then damage mods would be completely useless compared to shield extenders.

Honestly, shield extender fits on anything but Heavy were already better than damage mod fits in Chromosome. (I've posted the math at length to prove this before.) For Uprising, shield extenders got a skill that makes them up to 10% more effective.

Damage Mods are just fine by comparison, and the only thing keeping this from being Shield Extender 514 is Flux Grenades.

(With recent changes, it seems CCP is listening again. In that case, I will participate again.)

Not much needs to be done with the Tactical.
It's been my weapon of choice since I've dropped the sniper rifle.

Here are points on refining the Tactical:

- I can confirm that modded controllers are NOT an issue for the Tactical AR.
Tested using a "Steel Series 3GC PC Gaming Controller" which, as of Uprising, is fully compatible with Dust514. Turbo function enabled on R1. There was no significant increase to RoF when in ADS, and recoil was severe enough to totally discourage automatic use. However, there was a noticeable increase in RoF when hip-firing. The same applies for modded mouse inputs using a CronusX device... recoil is too high for the mouse to mitigate.

- Clip size and ammo capacity is disproportionately higher than other weapons. Therefore I recommend keeping the clip size for both Tactical assault rifles at 24 rounds, and cutting maximum ammo down to 120 rounds.
24 rounds in a clip with 4 clips on standby. 30 rounds in a clip and 300 rounds(10 clips!) on standby for the Duvolle Tactical AR is TOO high. (The weapons range and dps is too high to maintain such sustained fire.)

- Recommend increasing hipfire spread by 50% to discourage using the Tactical in CQC.
I can simply sidestep, and hipfire a heavy or shotgun user without consequence.

Range and damage on the Tactical are fine. Recoil is well mitigated. Simply cut the number of rounds available to Tactical users, to reduce them running around the field with wreckless abandon. As a Tactical user, if I ran out of ammo as quickly on a Tac, as I do using a full-auto, I'd pick my engagements way more carefully.
Furthermore, not everyone can use a Tactical. It's not the use-to-win weapon that the Chromosome AR was. Many people would get killed by a Tactical, but not have the skill to use it as well. This is a sign of a well balanced weapon.

I think the TAR should be left alone for now so we can see how it fairs against the single shot scrambler rifle.
If it's still dominant and "OP" , I believe lowering its CQC effectiveness is the best course of action. Either push back its optimal range, or decrease its hipfire accuracy. Be careful not to nerf it too much and make it garbage.

Ok, to me, this weapon shouln't exist. At least not as an AR but as an SR (Scramble rifle).
Get those cheating guys should be easy.

1.- Just seeing at ther fire pattern (Banning people with auto fire)
2.- Decreasing RoF
3.- Making it heat. If it heats more the shorter the weapon is fire, the auto fire is worth for nothing.
4.- This weapon could ble like a laser as well. Not being able to hit with 100% damage at close.
There are many options to fix tacticals or just make a new weapon, but with some restrictions

I also used the weapon and is way OP. Simply cuz no weapons can match its range nor damage.
Laser Rifle (LR) should outrange those short/mid weapons, since LR should be be mid-long weapon.

L8er!

I feel like Tac-rifles should be a different rifle altogether, apart from the assault rifle family tree.