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.