Mass driver is getting a little ridiculous too in fairness, given that a lot of people have started just throwing explosions everywhere it's f'ing ridiculous. I think CCP are trolling armour hard, especially given the recent discount on advanced contact grenades.

MD needs a tiny damage reduction and maybe one less round in the chamber. The other thing the MD needs above anything is to be lethal to the user. I have been toe to toe with MD users, SMG'ing their face off for them to point blank shoot the floor underneath me (and themselves) for the damage to outright kill me and not even scratch them.

I do know that, yes. I'm not asking to nerf it back onto the moons of Luminaire (if it even has any moons) but it does need a tiiiiny nerf now and it'll be perfect. It should be area denial because it softens targets for others, not outright kills them.

Explosives will always be more powerful than any weapon.....what you just requested makes no sense....

but.....but there explosives

Despite what you say I laugh at the fact that you call any AR/scrambler user spray and pray when your using a weapon that can hit for alot of dmg in a 7.5 meter radius...no doubt you dont pray...you dont freakin have to when your weapon had a radius that big. You can miss them by a mile and still do decent damage to them.

same
I've even killed myself on occasion
Once I took out a tank but in all fairness it was kinda wrecked. But still it wasn't on fire so a dam flux shouldn't have had an effect on it at all.... was still kinda cool to see though.

Mass Driver user here. Mass Drivers are OP in my opinion, but to be fair, I don't exactly have Proficiency levels in other weapons. Feels like base damage is enough to make even shield tankers cringe and don't get me started on how easy it is to make Armor tankers disappear.

All the weapons in the game have situations in which they are at great disadvantage and the Mass Driver is no exception. The Mass Driver rounds do not fly as fast as a Flaylock Pistol's, so its only a little bit harder to direct hit moving targets and further targets. Really close targets and obstructions have made me kill myself or come pretty close on many an occasion. Ultimately, the Mass Driver is deadliest when the user is on a greater elevation than his opponent and his opponent is not on a slope, but on flat ground. Walls and objects to shoot near the Mass Driver victim is also pretty sweet. Mass Drivers are best engaged at extreme close range, long range, on tricky slopes where the Mass Driver is higher on the slope you both are on, on elevations in your favor, or in shield based vehicles.

I've discovered the joy of cooked Flux Grenades and a couple shots from my EXO-5 Mass Driver (the regular variant of Advanced level) could take anybody out regardless of what they ran. Heavies go down pretty easily with that combination especially by direct hits. Light dropsuits barely exist before the might of explosive weaponry in general. Needless to say, most enemies hate me.

My suggestion is to lower the base direct damage by 5%, the splash damage by 15%, and give it much less damage to anything below the blast but greater damage to anything above the blast. If you get to cover at a lower elevation, crouch, or prone (please let us go prone), then explosive weaponry in general should be less of a threat. If you jump away from an explosive round, you should be ragdolled. I've jumped away and eluded a bit of damage from grenades and other Mass Driver users much to their dismay, and the opposite has been true.

TL;DR version: slight nerf, new splash damage mechanics

Like I said before, I don't have proficiency in any other weapons. It is just my opinion.

At the rate those whinner make everything get nerf ...........


I'm starting to wonder if someday instead of bullet we are gonna get flower and rainbow getting out of our Weapon so we can all dance together in this Carebear Paradise.

So after spending the entire weekend on one of my alts (Minmatar Assault) with dual flaylocks, Flaylock/AR, Flaylock/SMG, I have some thoughts to share. The idea of an alpha strike sidearm is interesting and creative, making the flaylock a fun to use weapon. If balanced properly, the flaylock should be at least powerful enough to be considered as a main weapon but with enough drawbacks to add some risk to the rewards of getting a kill with it. As of right now, we have a highly damaging weapon that's easy to fit, has plenty of ammo, and can be spammed for ungodly amounts of DPS. Personally, the damage and blast radius are fine, but it's the lenient fitting, high ammo capacity, and how easy you can spam shots that make the flaylock a problem:



Overall, the CPU/PG requirements have to be raised so everyone and the mother can't equip it and go buck wild. I'm thinking we make the costs significantly higher while taking a page from the specialist shotgun sub variant with more lenient requirements for the specialist pistols at the cost of ammunition capacity. (9~12 rounds) This way, you get a variant that's easier to equip, but doesn't have enough ammo to go around spamming while the standard ones have a decent ammo supply but require more CPU/PG so they have to give something up to fit it. This would be a good way to diminish a dual flaylock user's ammo capacity since they wouldn't be able to fit dual prototypes as well. The breach could probably benifit from a revamp as well, with a CPU/PG requirement similar to the specialists, but a splash or damage buff to make it more viable at the cost of the smaller clip.

Splash radius scaling is another issue that might need to be addressed since explosive weapons are more consistent in the the latest patch and the desynch issues are completely gone. But keep in mind that if the splash damage is reduced, damage might need to be increased across the board to compensate to keep the reward side of risk vs reward consistent while keeping the flaylock viable.



As I've already mentioned, it's not the damage that makes the flaylock imbalanced- it's the spam. So one good option would be to simply reduce the weapons RoF. (somewhere in the neighborhood of 60~70 rpm) This would cut down the rocket spam significantly, allowing someone on the opposing end to have a chance to fight back while forcing the user to aim. The flaylock already has a slower moving projectile compared to DoT based weapons, so this would force the user to make those shots matter more in an encounter instead of lobbing missiles in someone's general direction, hoping for a kill. Reload speed and ammunition capacity can remain untouched, but the damage might need a slight increase to keep with the weapons spike damage theme, keeping it more viable in CQC/Close engagements while requiring skill at mid range and beyond. Making this change would also significantly affect people using dual flaylocks as well since the advantage of having two of them is significantly reduced.

Another option to prevent spamming would be to reduce the ammunition capacity. One of things that keeps the MD balanced is that it has terrible field longevity. With 18 rounds (24 for the assault) you have to really choose your engagements with the MD while either staying in proximity of a supply depot or keeping a steady supply of nanohives. With 21 shots in reserve, the flaylock doesn't have this problem and has field longevity comparable to a riskier spike damage weapons like the shotgun. Reducing the reserve ammo down to maybe 12~9 rounds (9~6 for the specialist) would force a flaylock user to carefully choose when to engage and make nanohives a requirement when using it as a main weapon. Damage and splash could stay relatively same with this option because the weapon would be significantly starved, cutting down its field longevity. This wouldn't affect dual users as much at a glance, but with my idea of increasing the CPU/PG requirements as mentioned above, they would most likely be restricted to dual specialists anyway.

Reducing the reload speed could be another route. As of right now, the flaylock has a 0.5 sec faster reload speed than an AR. For as much damage as it does, there's no real risk in spamming rockets since you can simply pop in another clip in 2.5 seconds. By increasing how fast you need to reload would be a good way to give someone on the opposing end a chance to fight back and force the weapons' user have to make sure those 3-4 rockets connect. Now with this idea, we have to consider how it would affect players using dual flaylocks. So making significant changes to rate of fire or ammo capacity would still need to be considered as well. This is still a viable option, but would require the most work in the long run compared to the others.

These are only a few options I have in regards to spamming. I have some more in regards to splash damage and falloff. I'll probably get around to it after some more testing. But whatever changes CCP makes, I hope they keep it as a highly damaging weapon, but make it riskier to use outside of its niche situation because it really is a fun to use weapon.

Subjected to periodical edits for grammar.

Buff Armor? eh.. I suppose that could work.

um... yea you have a point actually. Plasmas are so rare to see. I think I seen like 3 maybe 4 players using them this month. About 6 since I've been playing. Those things must be seriously UP.

I suppose if you compare the two (plasma and swarm) the plasma would be something players would be more familiar with. And this would also mean that you would have to spec into av(for the swarm) in order to really be effective.

So you just admitted you dont even aim at the enemy and go for the gaylock splash attack and are running two of them? You sir are bad and should feel bad.

Ok troll over:)

CCP should have given a miltia fit of most if not all of the fits for eve1 to try out, that would have resulted in moreppltrying new guns rather then just the AR. I have tried MD, dont like them much tbh, not my kind of weapon. My thoughts on the guns that eve1 is whining about to some degree:-

MD - the issue is not for me the splash damage or the direct hit damage, but when you see entire squads/teams running them just spamming the f*ck out of the enemy team (Maphia clan for example seem to run ALOT of MD in game but they are not the only ones). It is hard to use tactics to counter 6 ppl camping by a supply depot spraying grenades in a circle constantly.

FLaylocks, my issue is the guys that run 2 of them and spam the ground relying on the splash damage while thinking they are gods and eve1 should kiss their proverbial digital pucker-ports.

Potential fixes?

MD: LIMIT the NUMBER of MD used by a team, its an area dispersal/crowd control weapon, its not crowd control if there are 6 or more of them in the same space! Has no one playing this game heard of the combined arms strategy? Use them to wear ppl down while a fire team of Scrambler/AR/SMG/ whatever attacks from another direction. Leave the damage as is, they have to be usefull or they are a waste of time coding them and SP into them.

FL: It is a SIDEARM, LOCK THE DAMN THING TO SIDEARM ONLY SLOT! It is not a Light weapon and should be going into the light weapons lot, just the sidearm one. It needs a slight nerf to fire rate, one more in the clip, and half the splash damage. UP the CPU or PG rateing for them and considering how effective they are increase the cost of the damn things for ISK variants.

For what its worth I run AR or Scrambler rifles (both kinds) and the occasional sniper setup trying a few dif guns out is fun:) Once I have these SP maxed out and am happy with my dropsuit builds, I will spec into other weapons to see what they are like.

Try to adapt to these guns too, not easy sometimes (I stopped playing in beta for a while Kind of wish I had the patience to carry on now, as I am still learning the maps myself.

Also bear in mind this game is still not finished, I am mad a bout a few things (the bugs the asshats that use the invisiblity glitch the game costing me 35k ISK for a dropsuit cos I spawn under the flking map in a endless freefall.)
But I believe if ppl stick with the game and give them time to get there they will get there, I hope so at least cos after the bugged up mess of BF3 I am doubtful about buying BF4 for PS3 or PS4. I cam back to DUST because I wanted something different to COD or BF.

I should have been clearer there: the Light/heavy weapon slots on suits should be locked to those weapons while the sidearms should be locked to sidearm slots. The only exception shouldbe those classes/suits that dont run 2 weapon slots for example.

I am not trying to be a douche to other players,I just am trying to suggest away to fix the current "I cannot aim so I am going to splash ppl to death" crap that the game has become, its not AR514 tome its become SPLASH DAMAGE514

Ty for the feedback there, that does make sense, I know this is a touchy issue, the ppl that abuse the splash damage are going to defend it to the death while others will say its massivley OP. I just want to play the game, being killed by a well aimed shot is one thing, but being concussed to death by a scrub firing at the ground is more annoying then the scrubs in the murder jeep that dont seem to know they have a gun