Lets buff ion railgun damage versus hulls!

[Verain]

Ion railgun currently is chosen because of the two end tier talents:

 

"Hits do Area Damage" -> This gives it the 18 power drain (despite that not being in the name), plus the arc to 3 other targets at half damage.

 

"Reactor Disruption" -> Engines stop regenerating for 6 seconds. Alternatively, a 40% snare for 6 seconds.

 

 

These talents are mostly fine at max charge. The issues with love tap have been beaten to death, of course, and the minimum charge might help with that. Even with all that, the effects are why ion is chosen...

 

 

 

Ion does 1850 shield damage at max charge. Slug does 1600 (or 1760). Plasma does 1800. Ships rarely to never have that much shield! This means that if you can get off a max charge stuff at full upgrade, the only reason to mess with the ion is the damage. While I think you could take the damage down a bit on the slug, you could also make the ion not QUITE as bad against hulls. Ex: A fully charged ion hit against a strike fighter should probably do more than 1600 damage that the slug would deal, not less.

 

Slug could probably come down a bit too, tbh, but honestly the fully charged ion feels underwhelming- only the debuffs make it a solid choice. It is totally reasonable that ion railgun be the best damage option versus a fully shielded opponent- that is the intend of ion, right?

Edited February 2, 2014 by Verain

[Verain]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXUPO1cXD max dps

 

You go right to hell you stupid scammer. Reported you. What a paste eater, trying to abuse your fellow players for cartel coins with your fake links.

 

Get out of my threads you worthless scamming scumbag.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Verain

[dancezwithnubz]

back on topic: personally, I feel Ion weapons of all sorts should do exactly 1 hull damage.

[Verain]

The problem is that they do insignificant amount of damage- upping the damage conversion a bit would keep them incorrect against a bare hull, without making them suboptimal against a fully shielded target!

[Bleeters]

The problem is that they do insignificant amount of damage

You and I have different ideas as to what constitutes a problem, then. Literally crippling a ship in every other concievable way is more than enough purpose. Why they even do hull damage at all is a mystery to me.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Bleeters

[Ramalina]

The entire purpose of ion cannons in Starwars is to temporarily disable ships. Think of them as starship tazers, or maybe tranquilizer guns.

 

Other than that specific specialized purpose they are underwhelming weapons in all respects.

 

The got included in GSF because of lore.

 

If the developers had been thinking in terms of game function, "gee, how much gameplay are we going to make where disabling an enemy ship without seriously damaging it is really important for team success?" they either would have included some different PvE objectives other than turrets, or they wouldn't have bothered to put ion cannons in at all.

 

Basically, I think that all of the ion weapons as they stand are a mistake. Poorly thought out mechanics, and they don't match SW lore all that well.

 

Still, from a traditional perspective, an a heavy duty ion blast that hits a starfighter with no shields should completely disable it for anywhere from about 30 seconds to several hours. The ejection seat is the only thing that ought to function.

 

They had to substantially buff Ion weapons' shield damage, because GSF play places no value on disabling ships and keeping them intact, so if there wasn't a shield damage increase and various debuffs ion weapons would have been greatly devalued compared to other weapons. Indeed in past games starfighters with ion weapons would primarily use laser cannons and proton torpedoes or heavy class concussion missiles. You'd use ion cannons on a ship after you'd shot away most of its shields with something else. They were short ranged and often set up to be hard to aim, so capturing a ship was a high pilot skill task. They were required for capture missions, but hardly used for anything else.

 

An ion weapon that destroys a ship though, well, that would be a malfunctioning ion weapon.

 

If you want to ignore all lore and just have them as a 'not laser' type generic gun, then hull damage becomes ok. The thing is, to keep it balanced then you're going to have to reduce the shield damage, and reduce or remove the debuffs. So at that point, I'd have to ask what the difference between Ion and slug or ion and plasma was.

 

As it stands the ion cannon is a very strong pure support weapon. It doesn't kill, but it sets up the kill. Either for you when you switch to slug, or for an allied pilot. They offer something different from the slug and plasma. If you want them to have more hull damage, to get the devs to listen you might have to figure out what a revised ion railgun would offer that's different than slug and plasma versions, while still being balanced in gameplay.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Ramalina

[dancezwithnubz]

The problem is that they do insignificant amount of damage- upping the damage conversion a bit would keep them incorrect against a bare hull, without making them suboptimal against a fully shielded target!

 

damage isn't why I use an Ion Railgun.

 

I mostly use it for the horrific debuffs it applies to an area.

[helloder]

back on topic: personally, I feel Ion weapons of all sorts should do exactly 1 hull damage.

 

I feel the same

[Sindariel]

Ion weapons only purpose is to disable enemy systems and shields. They are not destructive weapons.

 

Ion missiles are a different topic. They damn hurt when you get one at your head.

[Bleeters]

Ion weapons only purpose is to disable enemy systems and shields. They are not destructive weapons.

 

Ion missiles are a different topic. They damn hurt when you get one at your head.

Ion missiles do 198 hull damage. That's less than rapid fire lasers do per hit.

[Verain]

We are all aware that the ion railgun serves for debuffing. It does that very well with the last two upgrades.

 

My point is more... maybe it could be less about that. Maybe those debuffs could be a bit less crippling. But that would have to go along with the gun actually being worth using without those crippling debuffs.

 

Do you guys really not feel that a fully charged ion shot should be the best, damage wise, versus a target at full shield?

Edited February 2, 2014 by Verain

[Armonddd]

My point is more... maybe it could be less about that. Maybe those debuffs could be a bit less crippling. But that would have to go along with the gun actually being worth using without those crippling debuffs.

 

Do you guys really not feel that a fully charged ion shot should be the best, damage wise, versus a target at full shield?

 

While I don't disagree that ion railguns are too strong when it comes to controlling the enemy team, I also don't think they should have particularly amazing damage. Not because they should have less damage with their current debuffing power, or because they should have current damage with less debuffing power, but because they should have less damage given how easy it is to land a hit.

 

Compare to sabotage probe, which I honestly think is fairly well balanced. Both apply a horrendous debuff that makes the target dead. One applies it from 5 km range, the other from 15 km range. One requires a long lock-on with no interruption (which can be countered by breaking LoS or with direct lock breaks, which have their own advantages and disadvantages), the other requires a few shots that don't even need to lead the target. One affects an area, the other does not. Even if you reduce the intensity of the railgun debuff, why should it get massive shield damage when the beastie boys only give us a tiny hull dot?

Edited February 2, 2014 by Armonddd

[Bleeters]

 

Do you guys really not feel that a fully charged ion shot should be the best, damage wise, versus a target at full shield?

Against shields, perhaps. Against the hull, no.

[Verain]

Against shields, perhaps. Against the hull, no.

 

And that's the problem. With shield values so low, the only reason to ever use ions is the debuff. Minimum charge will fix some issues, but really, the debuff magnitude should scale with the charge- a half charge should be either half or three quarters the effect.

 

So right now, a full charge of slug will take the shield away and deal damage. If, for instance, I hit a Blackbolt with a fully charged Slug, I will hit for 1600 (assume I have the crit talent and it did not crit). The shield will absorb 1040 of this, leaving 560 for the hull. If instead I shoot an ion, the base to shield damage is 1850, of which the shield absorbs 1040, leaving 810 base damage for the hull. The conversion factor is 4, so this is 203 to the hull.

 

Ok, maybe that's fine- that's a novadive. It's probably fine that the slug hits for 1600 and the ion for 1243.

 

On the flashfire, he might have large shield reactor- 1352 shield. That leaves 498 for hull, which becomes 125, for a total of 1477. Still less than the slug.

 

In fact, we have to move to Strike Fighters with directional shield to actually get more damage out of the ion railgun than the slug- assuming they are at full shield.

 

The original targets here for the shield damage, by the way, were assuredly bombers, who had monster big shields that the ion would clearly be aces against. But those shields got nerfed on the PTR- they won't go live like that.

 

So, if you want to take the debuff down a bit, you would want to either up the base damage and keep the 4 divisor, or reduce the divisor (say to 3, 2.5, or even 2).

[Bleeters]

Is there any particular reason why railgun damage should be scaled according to the lowest shielded targets available, or why ion damage should be comparable to slug, when the latter is all about damage and the former has a variety of other effects?

[Zoom_VI]

Is there any particular reason why railgun damage should be scaled according to the lowest shielded targets available, or why ion damage should be comparable to slug, when the latter is all about damage and the former has a variety of other effects?

 

Because if ion does more hull damage then gunships can just spam ion all day and not have to worry about this whole picking between stunning or kill business, they could do both at the same time.

[-Streven-]

Because if ion does more hull damage then gunships can just spam ion all day and not have to worry about this whole picking between stunning or kill business, they could do both at the same time.

 

The OPs suggestion is so off base why even respond.

[DEATHICIDE]

I would like to see ION do Zero hull damage and drain less engine power, in exchange for a longer delay on the target's engine regeneration,+ a delay on shield regen applied , making it purely CC, but allowing a window for the subject to possibly make it to near by cover.

 

In my mind, an EMP style blast messes with computer systems only and otherwise does not harm it's targets, pretty much the prelude to a tractor beam.

 

On another note I would also like to see Plasma hits apply a DoT to the target's engine power pool as well, making plasma a viable option, and giving us a support build for the gunship.

 

I think that would be a pro for GS and scout pilots alike.

[Delta_V]

Maybe Slug just needs a penalty to its shield damage. If Slugs only did 50% or 75% (or whatever it takes to be balanced) damage to shields, then Ion's extra shield damage would actually be relevant. This would also create the situation where one railgun is specialized for dealing with shields, another for hull, and a third (Plasma) that is balanced for both. Throw in some sort of utility for Plasma, like ignoring a percent of the target's evasion, and suddenly Plasma isn't completely irrelevant anymore.

[Verain]

I doubt slug needs to be bad against shields. If anything, slug's base damage needs to come down slightly. Slug is meant to be the generic, no fuss railgun, so a debuff wouldn't be appropriate, though a bit less damage could well be.

 

Plasma ignoring evasion is a cool idea for sure, but it would need to be part of a bigger push where some generally weaker weapons gain this ability. That should create a more interesting meta at least!

 

Another possibility would simply be to up Ion's shield damage. And at no point did I state it should be balanced around the least shielded ship- you have to actually go to the MOST shielded ship before it's better than a slug railgun against a full shield.

[DroidDreamer]

Gunship ion shots should not do more damage vs hull. They should have their debuff reduced by how incomplete the charge was. Not a full ion charged shot? Then it's not a full debuff.

 

It's trivial to de-shield and debuff someone and then shift to the slug gun on the gunship and finish them off. The ion gun doesn't ALSO need to do more hull damage.