As a gunship player the plasma cannon seems a bit... strong....

[Hanonar]

Exactly the title.

 

I have figeted around with most of the available cannons by now (ion, slug and plasma) and out of the three they all do have their uses and niche but the plasma seems to be a bit strong..

 

Compared to the Ion cannon (which pretty much ends up stunning the enemy) and Slug (which wrecks ships who have had their shield weakened or downed) the Plasma cannon I have one shot people with multiple times (and i only have 2 ranks into the upgrades so far)

 

The plasma cannon has a decent amount of initial damage (approx. half of the slug's) but the DoT is super strong. The damage to the hull seems a little too strong, not saying I don't want it to deal damage or be nerfed into oblivion but only two upgrades in and only one damage upgrade one shotting people seems a bit obnoxious...

 

What do you guys think? Is the Plasma cannon's hull damage a little too strong? And what if this was combined with the Co-pilot burn ability?

 

(also ive seen people try to use hydrospanner ability to try to keep them alive but the DoT usually outdamages the minor healing.)

(also yes, I am aware the bomber is the 'missing link' right now so that could solve it but I am talking about this very moment)

Edited December 13, 2013 by Hanonar

[Laurreth]

So you already mentioned the bomber, which may change the overall balance quite a bit.

 

But yes, the plasma rail is pretty damn ugly. I'd like to see a tradeoff on it, like reduced range or reduced hull damage from the DoT; keeping shield damage up might be interesting though.

[sentawan]

It is strong, and the dot needs to be reduced a bit. However, it may have more to do with scouts using Light Armor as the FOM in order to reduce the damage from blasters. I run damage reduction on my IL-5 and while I come close to death with a plasma blast's dot, I don't die. Edited December 13, 2013 by sentawan

[Hanonar]

It is strong, and the dot needs to be reduced a bit. However, it may have more to do with scouts using Light Armor as the FOM in order to reduce the damage from blasters. I run damage reduction on my IL-5 and while I come close to death with a plasma blast's dot, I don't die.

 

From what it sounds like its just people not 'specing' into damage against it.

 

From what it sounds like is its a mix of a little too much damage (my assumption is from the crits) mixed with no protection against DoTs means you do get one shot... So its from both sides...

 

Well from how damage reduction seems to work so far its sounds like protection against Ions/DoTs or protection against Blasters so one of them is going to turn you to shreds..

[ToMyMa]

It is strong, and the dot needs to be reduced a bit. However, it may have more to do with scouts using Light Armor as the FOM in order to reduce the damage from blasters. I run damage reduction on my IL-5 and while I come close to death with a plasma blast's dot, I don't die.

 

Yeah... On my strikers I usually use the 8% extra hp armor as I like being able to take an actual beating, not just avoid a beating that the light weight encourages, but oh well. Scouts are in a pretty good spot, so too bad for them

[Laurreth]

Would be fun if that gun did stuff like take its power from the shield or engine pools, so you'd still have a really powerful gun, but you'd end up hovering in your sniper position with your pants down

[Hanonar]

Would be fun if that gun did stuff like take its power from the shield or engine pools, so you'd still have a really powerful gun, but you'd end up hovering in your sniper position with your pants down

 

You can already do that with the F1, F2, F3 and F4 keys (power to weapons, shields, engines, default. respectively of course)

[Necriol]

The plasma railgun seems weak to me. I actually don't even use it anymore now that I have fully upgraded my slug railgun (the slug is simply more effective as it always damages the enemy hull without having to burn through shields first).. If anything, it could use a slight buff since I don't really see any other experienced gunship pilots using it over the ion/slug..

 

The plasma railgun is meant to be the high-damage output railgun, with the trade-off that it doesn't pierce shields. Unfortunately, in my experience, this leads to a lot of 'wasted' damage that doesn't directly contribute to a kill.

[Luneward]

Would be fun if that gun did stuff like take its power from the shield or engine pools, so you'd still have a really powerful gun, but you'd end up hovering in your sniper position with your pants down

 

At which point nobody uses it anymore and it is wasted space. Sort of like charged armor, the negatives really don't make it worth the inventory slot when you could use something almost as good.

[Hanonar]

The plasma railgun seems weak to me. I actually don't even use it anymore now that I have fully upgraded my slug railgun (the slug is simply more effective as it always damages the enemy hull without having to burn through shields first).. If anything, it could use a slight buff since I don't really see any other experienced gunship pilots using it over the ion/slug..

 

The plasma railgun is meant to be the high-damage output railgun, with the trade-off that it doesn't pierce shields. Unfortunately, in my experience, this leads to a lot of 'wasted' damage that doesn't directly contribute to a kill.

 

The initial hit doesn't pierce shields but the DoT does.. like 80% of the damage (if not more) is the DoT..

 

if you wanna see big instant numbers then the slug IS better but while it can take me at least 1-2 shots to kill a scout i can usually one shot it with my plasma cannon because the DoT is really strong and the DoT damage the hull and shields at the same time.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Hanonar

[Necriol]

The initial hit doesn't pierce shields but the DoT does.. like 80% of the damage (if not more) is the DoT..

 

if you wanna see big instant numbers then the slug IS better but while it can take me at least 1-2 shots to kill a scout i can usually one shot it with my plasma cannon because the DoT is really strong and the DoT damage the hull and shields at the same time.

 

The DoT is 50% of the damage, it tells you right on the tooltip that the plasma railgun does 1800 damage. A fully charged plasma shot will initially do 900 damage, leaving 900 additional damage to be dealt by the DoT.

 

The slug railgun can also one shot, and get's a much bigger burst from its crit mechanic than the plasma railgun does from its own (i.e. the plasma railgun crit is calculated on both the initial hit and each DoT tick, so while you might see increased damage more consistently, you're not very likely to see the big numbers the slug does).

 

If you don't believe me, just look at what the best gunship pilots are using, I'll bet that unless they're bored, they're using slug/ion.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Necriol

[Hanonar]

The DoT is 50% of the damage, it tells you right on the tooltip that the plasma railgun does 1800 damage. A fully charged plasma shot will initially do 900 damage, leaving 900 additional damage to be dealt by the DoT.

 

The slug railgun can also one shot, and get's a much bigger burst from its crit mechanic than the plasma railgun does from its own (i.e. the plasma railgun crit is calculated on both the initial hit and each DoT tick, so while you might see increased damage more consistently, you're not very likely to see the big numbers the slug does).

 

If you don't believe me, just look at what the best gunship pilots are using, I'll bet that unless they're bored, they're using slug/ion.

 

Well eitherway, I don't like the idea of the Ion forcing someone to lose all their shields and power and leaves them sitting there because that makes it too easy imho, but the Ion cannon is fine.

 

But you do bring up a good point, though if you use the 35% shield pen active ability it make the plasma cannon just that much stronger.

[Deathen_Shada]

Agreed the plasma is way to strong on my scout I can take 1 direct hit from slug and maybe a half charge from a second slug before I kick the bucket. Same thing with Ion, but plasma is a freaking one shot. It burns through my shields in milliseconds and then I'm a ball of fire the next. It's pretty damn ridiculous.

[Tentou]

Plasma is terrible where is this coming from lol. The only way plasma will one shot is with bypass or a crit, which low and behold a slug would have done as well - with a greater chance to crit. On top of that because it is a DoT it gives them time to use cooldowns, the upfront burst of slug is better 100% of the time. I have all three upgraded fully.

[ToMyMa]

Plasma is terrible where is this coming from lol. The only way plasma will one shot is with bypass or a crit, which low and behold a slug would have done as well - with a greater chance to crit. On top of that because it is a DoT it gives them time to use cooldowns, the upfront burst of slug is better 100% of the time. I have all three upgraded fully.

 

 

Play a little more, please...