Ion Railgun change, EMP change

[Armonddd]

You're playing semantic games with scary/terrifying/crippling/etc.

 

Oh, my bad, I didn't realize I was playing semantics with things I wasn't playing semantics with.

 

Getting hit by a slug on a strike is about as bad as getting hit by a slug on a scout because the strike has fewer options to avoid the incidental hull damage that will contribute to his death.

 

No **** a strike fighter doesn't want to get hit by a fully charged slug. No one should be happy to be hit by a fully-charged railgun shot. That's the entire design behind railguns! That's the fundamental idea behind a weapon that requires multiple seconds to charge!

 

So please explain to me why some charge weapons warn the target that they're going to be hit by a chunk of burst damage and others don't. It seems to me like the one design allows a skilled pilot to defend himself in various ways and the other doesn't if you plan to do things other than tabbing around for approaching gunships.

[Kuciwalker]

So please explain to me why some charge weapons warn the target that they're going to be hit by a chunk of burst damage and others don't. It seems to me like the one design allows a skilled pilot to defend himself in various ways and the other doesn't if you plan to do things other than tabbing around for approaching gunships.

 

For the very obvious reason that a railgun doesn't have a specific target until it actually shoots someone. It gives a very good general warning that there is a charging railgun - a GIANT GLOWY OBVIOUS CLOUD which I use all the damn time to notice gunships.

 

Your cries of "waaaaah I'm forced to use situational awareness how awful" fall on unsympathetic ears.

[Armonddd]

Don't be rude when I'm refuting something YOU stated. You opened that door. Sorry YOU have to be condescending when I was asking for the name of something that I can do less maneuvers to avoid than a slug (such as LOS, moving quickly, flying behind some / rapidly changing directions, or being aware of where the GS is).

 

If you want to reply to something specific in my post, you should probably quote that portion of the post instead of my entire textwall. Just saying. The reason I was dismissive of your post was because it didn't address my thesis and I therefore had no idea what you were talking about.

 

Further, I specifically said "nearly anything else" for a reason. If you disagree that clusters are easier to dodge than railguns, that's fine, it's covered under that "nearly". But I don't, and here's why:

 

Clusters have a significantly shorter range than railguns, trigger a blaring lock-on warning where railguns do not, and (for the most part) actually respect shields. If someone is getting a cluster lock on you, you can break the lock with distortion field, barrel roll, or less than a tenth of second of line of sight (say, around a pylon or something). None of these tactics prevent a railgun hit -- it's very hard to use an engine ability to draw a railgun shot, distortion field only has a chance to make the shot miss, and a temporary loss of line of sight doesn't bother a gunship at all (I've held shots against targets until they've come back to the other side of the satellite -- essentially I'm punishing them for not breaking line of sight until I run out of power).

 

Rapid movement and stopping (which, conveniently, gunships are best at thanks to sniper mechanics) can easily throw off a cluster lock by tricking the pilot into overshooting -- it happens to me all the time, that's why you see me retroing on approach. Being aware of where the dogfighter is (which, again, is easier than being aware of where a gunship is) also gives you a huge advantage in that you can shoot him. If I'm aware of a gunship, I can't usually shoot him. If a gunship is aware of me, he can usually shoot me. Even if you choose not to shoot him (say, because there's a more important target you're looking at), you can choose to start running towards your allies. Because clusters have such short range, this is generally an effective tactic, unless the other guy switches to protons or something.

 

Gunship defenses aren't anywhere near perfect, and these tactics aren't going to work every time, but that's not what I'm arguing; I'm simply arguing that it's easier to hit someone with a railgun than it is a cluster (and, incidentally, you're rewarded a lot more for it).

 

Yes, it does, I showed the math earlier in the thread.

 

You said:

 

If you actually tried building your scout to use a more balanced mitigation strategy (+hull and +shields) you would find that successful slug hit to be a fair bit less scary.

 

I don't see where you did the math to support this, so I did the math myself. I showed that slugs take out between a third and half the hull of a scout regardless of its upgrades, and over 80% of the scout's shields regardless of its upgrades.

 

Therefore, I said "The fact remains that reinforced armor does not significantly help manage fully charged slug shots."

 

For the very obvious reason that a railgun doesn't have a specific target until it actually shoots someone. It gives a very good general warning that there is a charging railgun - a GIANT GLOWY OBVIOUS CLOUD which I use all the damn time to notice gunships.

 

So if I'm trying to target anyone from a position that doesn't allow me to face both the gunship and the target, or if I don't have line of sight to that swirly cloud, or if I'm under the impression that my allies are locking down the gunship, I deserve to be blown up?

 

Yeah, I don't buy that. If railguns charged in 1.8 seconds instead of 2.7 seconds, and did 1200 damage instead of 1600, and didn't have enormous native shield piercing, I'd be ok with that. As it is, railguns don't reward situational awareness (or punish its lack); they simply punish anyone doing anything but paying attention to the gunship. And, at that point, "paying attention to" becomes "killing", and we get back into the problem of gunships having way too little defense against anything that looks at them funny.

 

I also don't get why it's ok that you don't have to say "you're going to be blown up" to the guy that's going to be blown up because you get to blow up anyone. Just one more strength to add to the pile that railguns have over missiles.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Armonddd

[Altheran]

1. Not really, given that concussion has substantial debuffs attached.
   
2. Railguns are supposed to be more powerful than missiles, for a bunch of really obvious reasons such as the fact that you can use missiles at the same time as lasers and while moving.
   
3. Against any ship but a scout, slug just plain isn't "crippling". It is a solid but tolerable chunk of damage.
   

 

Concussion can have ONE debuff, and it has to be specialized... but it can be said that rail can crit. But screw that, debating upgrades will get us nowhere.

 

Still remains that they're both a big chunk of damage that partly bypass shields that need 3s to prepare.

 

Concussion Missile has :

- homing (+)

- can be cancelled in progress (-)

(result -> "=")

 

Slug Railgun has :

- longer range (+)

- can be maintained waiting for an opportunity (+)

- can miss (-)

(result -> "+")

 

Ah but you can fire primaries while locking a missile. True. But when the missile range is long, and you use that range, you can't fire either.

So maybe we can add to Conc "can be paired with a primary with roughly matching range" (+) although it's not a given "+"

 

So... both end being a 3s-preparation big chunck of damage which a part of its damage by-passing shields, with equal amount of pros and cons...

I don't see any valid reason for why slug Rail ended being stronger.

 

And I did not consider the opportunity to fire half-charged rails because the damage is proportionnal to the charge although it could have been counted as much as a "+" as the potential ability to fire primaries with the missile. (No over-damage means not wasted time and energy, and more DPS/damage on the length)

Nor I did consider the Rail's ability to fire more consistantly. But let's say it's in exchange of only be doing only rail shots.

So I've been generous toward the Rail to not make it look OP before even considering the damage.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Altheran

[Kuciwalker]

I don't see where you did the math to support this, so I did the math myself. I showed that slugs take out between a third and half the hull of a scout regardless of its upgrades, and over 80% of the scout's shields regardless of its upgrades.

 

Apologies, it was in another thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7389074#post7389074

 

So if I'm trying to target anyone from a position that doesn't allow me to face both the gunship and the target, or if I don't have line of sight to that swirly cloud, or if I'm under the impression that my allies are locking down the gunship, I deserve to be blown up?

 

Yeah, I don't buy that. If railguns charged in 1.8 seconds instead of 2.7 seconds, and did 1200 damage instead of 1600, and didn't have enormous native shield piercing, I'd be ok with that. As it is, railguns don't reward situational awareness (or punish its lack); they simply punish anyone doing anything but paying attention to the gunship. And, at that point, "paying attention to" becomes "killing", and we get back into the problem of gunships having way too little defense against anything that looks at them funny.

 

I also don't get why it's ok that you don't have to say "you're going to be blown up" to the guy that's going to be blown up because you get to blow up anyone. Just one more strength to add to the pile that railguns have over missiles.

 

This is wrong, and I know this is wrong, because I've dealt with multiple competent gunships (that were specifically focusing me) before in a single scout, which necessarily implies under your reasoning that I should just have been screwed. And yet somehow through actual situational awareness (rather than just "oh I can use the target window") I was able to consistently evade the shots of both while pressuring one and ultimately killing it. And this was before the barrel roll nerf.

 

Flying in ways that make it hard for gunships to hit you is just... not that hard, if you are in a scout. Yes, it does mean you will be less effective offensively. As it should!

[Kuciwalker]

a bunch of irrelevant analysis

 

Concussions are a secondary weapon. Slugs are, despite the moniker, a primary weapon. It is appropriate for a primary weapon to be more powerful than a secondary weapon.

[SammyGStatus]

Slug Railgun has :

- longer range (+)

- can be maintained waiting for an opportunity (+)

- can miss (-)

(result -> "+")

[/size]

 

The slug still has to charge for ~3 seconds to get a max hit. In that time, if you draw more power than you have, you lose the shot. If you shoot twice and miss both times, you're not going to have the energy for a third, and all the while you remain immobile. Also, the "Can be maintained" aspect here assumes you have an enourmous power pool, because you can't hold the shot infinitely (nor should you be able to). Finally, when you charge a shot but don't have 25% yet, you lose all of your blaster power anyways. With most enemies taking two full shots and still need an additional half charge, the odds that your target won't get hit on at least one of them increases.

 

I'm reitterating the "must-stand-still" dynamic because that's also a much bigger detriment than I think people are giving credit to. Yes, slugs are powerful. They come from a turret-ship. Much like the turrets on the last boss in Mando Raiders, you need to take the high damage turrets out. The fact that I can't even cause a risk to another player while moving (unless they're really bad and just fly straight in front of me) signifies that importance of keeping GSs locked down / on the run. Scouts / strikes are constantly on the run anyways, but can do so while damaging others. This is why I feel the nerf to ion is not needed - there's only so much we can do (and granted we can be tide changers) but if we're moving, we can't do anything. Taking away our one ability to immobilize seems very silly. T3 GS may help that, but it remains to be seen.

 

The BR nerf reduced overall engine energy usage too, making missiles essentially the kings now (hence my earlier point about the clusters). Individually, one missile shouldn't out damage a slug, especially as a secondary weapon.

Edited May 2, 2014 by SammyGStatus

[Altheran]

Concussions are a secondary weapon. Slugs are, despite the moniker, a primary weapon. It is appropriate for a primary weapon to be more powerful than a secondary weapon.

 

Good way to skim through a post.

 

They're your primary ? Yes. So is a Torpedo for any ship standing further than 7000m.

Do 7000+m missiles get excessive damage in exchange compared to more "regular" missiles ? No. Range itself is a good enough counterpart.

 

Do you need practical adjustments to offset the fact that won't charge in the melee ? Yes.

 

Now, Slug may be slightly better than Concussion Missile. Having base damage ranging from 1100 to 1200 wouldn't be bad. But simply doing 50% more damage @1600 is simply overkill.

Do you have it ? Yes. 1s Reload time for you instead of 6s CD.

 

Everything else is slight differences in "how to use it", and do not really matter.

 

The fact that Rails are your primaries is covered before even considering the additional damage. This extra damage is not needed.

 

Now if you compared Slug to other Rails, the value of the hit, the damage being immediate, by-passing shields... all this make that none of them is really desirable. The damage difference is never worth the pain of switching rails. (Until Ion gets some odd AoE with extra crippling).

You should consider this fact as an extra evidence of the excess of damage that Slug bear.

 

Now Slug can do slightly better damage than Concussion Missile, ranging from 1100 to 1200 if it still need a lillte push, that it wouldn't be a problem. But doing 50% more damage @ 1600 is simply overkill.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Altheran

[Kuciwalker]

They're your primary ? Yes. So is a Torpedo for any ship standing further than 7000m.

 

Nope. If you are spending most of your time-on-target over 7km out, you are doing it wrong.

[Altheran]

Nope. If you are spending most of your time-on-target over 7km out, you are doing it wrong.

 

That's why we have CD. So that we don't do that.

 

The point was to say that even if temporary, these torpedoes become our primaries during that short time... and "torpedoes launchers" aren't allowed to land Slug-class hits although the range is shorter.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Altheran

[Zoom_VI]

If you actually tried building your scout to use a more balanced mitigation strategy (+hull and +shields) you would find that successful slug hit to be a fair bit less scary.

balanced mitigation != good

 

Every scout takes a evasion build for the same reason every bomber takes either HP or DR and never takes evasion.

Scouts have pitiful HP values, a percent increase to a pitiful number only leaves you with a marginally less pitiful number. It doesn't yield me with enough HP to actually give a practical benefit, unlike evasion which since I already have base 10% I can get a good return on a increase of it.

If HP armor actually gave enough HP for me to actually survive for any meaningful amount of time it might be worth taking, but right now HP armor doesn't give a scout any gain in a practical situation.

[Kuciwalker]

balanced mitigation != good

 

Every scout takes a evasion build for the same reason every bomber takes either HP or DR and never takes evasion.

 

I know that an evasion build is optimal for a scout. I am not saying that you actually would be best off, objectively, running a high-HP build. But the fact that the all-evasion build is so good that it is objectively the best build actually makes it more susceptible to my argument, not less.

 

My argument is essentially syllogistic in nature:

 

1. There is an efficient frontier of mitigation strategies, that runs from "dodge-based" to "health-based" (I am ignoring DR for now). These comprise the optimized (NOT necessarily optimal) builds and are the only ones we are concerned with.
   
2. While not all points on the efficient frontier are actually optimal, there should be a real in-game consequence of moving along it. If you move from the health-based end to the dodge-based end there should be something that you lose and something that you gain, so that from a pure statistical POV one is not strictly superior to the other. (This is in fact the definition of an efficient frontier and so follows from point (1) deductively.)
   
3. The thing that you gain when moving to a dodge-based mitigation strategy is this: there is now a large chance that an enemy attack does nothing at all to you.
   
4. From (2) and (3), there must be some cost. The cost is that when the attack does affect you, it is more dangerous.
   

 

Taking that as given, we can observe that the evasion-maximizing scout is the most extreme dodge-based defender in the game. As such, it has to be the ship that is also the most vulnerable when shots actually land. Multiply that by being attacking by the most high-variance weapon in the game - a fully charged railgun - and the outcome is exactly as game balance would demand.

 

And this is balance, because in return for this vulnerability you gain a truly enormous effective health pool in the average case.

[-Streven-]

Giving us back our BR ability would be the one way to ensure that we're not going to be constant fodder - when I'm getting focused, I'm ineffective, and given the normal state of my allies' abilities, destined to die quickly.

 

Gunships should be useless when focused on to make up for their complete dominance when at range. Even with all the current changes a decent gunship can easily lead the match in both stats and effectiveness. Don't know why all the crying. You guys aren't being "deleted" as Verain likes to argue. It's just your god-mode is being deactivated.

 

Next on the chopping block should be BLCs closely followed by seismic/interdiction shield penetration. Then a few buffs to the really weak components/skills and all will be right with the world.

[FridgeLM]

As for strikes, sure they can stack tons of shields like most do, but any railgun hit guarantees a sizable chunk of hull damage. And strikes while possessing a strong HP, don't have so much HP as to be able to strug off hull damage.

 

Disastrously wrong.

 

My quell doesn't care about single railgun hits. The single attack I'm most concerned about in that ship is a TT or BO BLC crit, or if I'm somehow afk for long enough to get hit with a proton torpedo.

Edited May 4, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Verain]

I had missed a part of the change, and have edited the OP.

 

The snare is going from 6 seconds of 40% snare to 12 seconds of 55% snare. I had missed the duration doubling. This makes this weapon a very powerful snaring tool if that is selected.

[Kuciwalker]

Well, that gives gunships their escape option back. Edited May 4, 2014 by Kuciwalker

[Verain]

Well, that gives gunships their escape option back.

 

I don't know exactly. It's not like you can just wail out an ion against a scout in melee. I think it changes your capabilities for sure, of course.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't know exactly. It's not like you can just wail out an ion against a scout in melee. I think it changes your capabilities for sure, of course.

 

You just need to get a quarter charge. A barrel roll should let you get that at least some of the time.

[Ramalina]

Looks more like a support/make it easier to hit with the next shot change in terms of the slow.

 

From a strike perspective that actually looks potentially worse than the current 6 sec of 0 regen. With proportional drain it's not too hard to handle that by keeping energy reserves high if you think gunships are around (and if you choose not to, that's the tradeoff for using your energy at a higher rate).

 

This reduces even boost speed to 1.44 times normal.

 

In general the response to getting a hit from a gunship is to either run for cover to LOS, or try to close distance enough to make aiming the railgun a real pain. That much slow for that long (and following a drain no less) is a powerful impediment to a strike's primary means of countering a gunship's attack. A scout can pop evasion cooldowns and try to weather the storm, a gunship can do the same and return fire, strikes don't have really good options for shield based defensive cooldowns.

 

Gonna have to disagree with Verain's opinion of this change being a mild buff to strikes, switch to the movement debuff option and it's potentially a fairly strong offensive buff against strikes.

[Zharik]

From a strike perspective that actually looks potentially worse than the current 6 sec of 0 regen. With proportional drain it's not too hard to handle that by keeping energy reserves high if you think gunships are around (and if you choose not to, that's the tradeoff for using your energy at a higher rate).

 

This reduces even boost speed to 1.44 times normal.

 

Ok but in live, zero engines and zero regen means you move at 1.00 normal speed for 6 seconds. The zero regen was over the top, though it would not be unreasonable to make it 50% regen loss for 8 seconds which only applies with a full charge shot that hits.

 

Oh and for the record, I prefer the left option for Tier 5 ion railguns now, this is going to make it a no-brainer.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Looks more like a support/make it easier to hit with the next shot change in terms of the slow.

 

From a strike perspective that actually looks potentially worse than the current 6 sec of 0 regen. With proportional drain it's not too hard to handle that by keeping energy reserves high if you think gunships are around (and if you choose not to, that's the tradeoff for using your energy at a higher rate).

 

This reduces even boost speed to 1.44 times normal.

 

In general the response to getting a hit from a gunship is to either run for cover to LOS, or try to close distance enough to make aiming the railgun a real pain. That much slow for that long (and following a drain no less) is a powerful impediment to a strike's primary means of countering a gunship's attack. A scout can pop evasion cooldowns and try to weather the storm, a gunship can do the same and return fire, strikes don't have really good options for shield based defensive cooldowns.

 

Gonna have to disagree with Verain's opinion of this change being a mild buff to strikes, switch to the movement debuff option and it's potentially a fairly strong offensive buff against strikes.

 

Agreed, it'll hit strikes especially hard since it will make them very vulnerable to any enemy in the area. Especially since striker engine efficiency isn't great already. I'd be curious to see the math as to how far a striker could get boosting with 50% or less power and no regen versus 50% or less power plus the new slow. I suspect that they'd be able to go further with the current block to regen than with the new slow.

[Ramalina]

Ok but in live, zero engines and zero regen means you move at 1.00 normal speed for 6 seconds. The zero regen was over the top, though it would not be unreasonable to make it 50% regen loss for 8 seconds which only applies with a full charge shot that hits.

 

Oh and for the record, I prefer the left option for Tier 5 ion railguns now, this is going to make it a no-brainer.

 

Actually, it's, 1.0 normal speed for 6 seconds IFF(if and only if) you were foolish and didn't keep a relatively full engine pool while a gunship was in range. If you do keep a healthy cushion in your engine pool, then it's not a problem because you have enough energy to boost even without regen. In other words, there's a flying strategy that is a reasonable counter to the ion rail's drain and debuff.

 

I don't currently see a strategy that would offer similar ability to respond to the proposed slow, at least not for strikes. Aside from making your absolute first priority when flying to never be at ranges of 5-15km from a hostile type 1 gunship without a really big LOS obstacle to shield you. It changes your position from, "you can afford to get hit once by an ion railgun if you fly carefully to account for that hazard," to, " if you get hit by an ion railgun you're as good as dead, and there's nothing you can do about it." Outside of strikes, it might not be all that bad, as there are components that are not so unreasonably bad that no one ever takes them that can potentially either prevent the ion shot from hitting in the first place or increase survivability enough so that you might actually make it to cover despite the series of slug shots that should follow the ion shot.

 

Ion railguns went from excessive CC power to strong CC power in the last patch, looks like they're reversing that now. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

[Pilgrim_Grey]

I'm glad to see the regen change for the ion railgun, I've been advocating for that once I found out it zeroed out power regen. Way too strong.

 

Now I'm getting worried about the slow, though. I think right now it's a red-headed stepchild because the zero regen is stupidly powerful. With the adjustment, I don't know that this is the case. I'd say a 55% slow for six seconds is plenty for a boost. 12 seconds is an eternity in GSF. I'd rather they just made that change and see how it looks first before adding a duration boost as well. Not even sure they need it, either. If a six second slow of that magnitude isn't enough and I get away (or close to the gunship), they should have to reapply or try for other tactics.

 

The aoe drain being reduced seems fair overall, since it's still a pretty nice boost to be able to drain a whole area of some energy. It's still a good team assist ability.a

 

I like the EMP field change for the moment. I think that radius is fair because it was pitifully small before and has the added danger of needing to be close to mines and ships to do its job.

[Verain]

Well, I think it's intended that the debuff be very powerful- ion railgun is really only about the debuff. I agree that the slow sounds powerful- but I think that it is supposed to be?

 

 

We don't really have dev statements on the intention of the weapon, but I don't think the intention has ever been "it's ok to get hit with ion railgun".

[Pilgrim_Grey]

Well, I think it's intended that the debuff be very powerful- ion railgun is really only about the debuff. I agree that the slow sounds powerful- but I think that it is supposed to be?

 

 

We don't really have dev statements on the intention of the weapon, but I don't think the intention has ever been "it's ok to get hit with ion railgun".

 

I wasn't arguing that it "should be okay to be hit with the railgun." I'm arguing against a weapon with a huge range on it being able to completely neuter whatever it hits. I'm good with the halving of power regen... that is a pretty huge debuff in itself and will still make it (when combined to what else ion does) worth looking out for gunships in the area. But 12 seconds is forever... I think that the gunship could probably close the range to their target and get off many many BLC shots before it ever wore off.

 

Not saying that's the best strategy for the gunship (the better would probably be getting off the 2-3 full charged railgun shots that opens up, or escaping a few people targeting them), just pointing out that a LOT can happen in 12 seconds with just one person targeting the debuffed ship. They'll be a pretty easy target for any other ship in the area, too. 6-8 seconds would still make this pretty strong, to my mind.

 

I don't like getting hit by interdiction drones or mines for their slow... how do they compare again? Can't quite remember.