Plasma rail....

[Ryuku-sama]

I was writing up something (those following Stasie Compendium already saw the Nova and Rempart part of it) when i thought about this.

 

Plasma railgun is bad. DoTs is bad. It lacks accuracy upgrade. Its damage isn't that amazing (10% more than slug once you factored accuracy and armor pen). Plasma sucks even more than a double torpedoes build or a slug + torpedoes build.

Ion damage is as bad as Plasma's is. If it wasn't for its AoE and amazing control, Ion wouldn't hold a candle to Slug.

So would it be interresting to se Plasma becoming more like Ion. I mean, making plasma DoTs in T5 either reduces its target accuracy by 30% or anything affecting the offensive power of the opponent. It would give Plasma a purpose it currently lacks and make the Slug + Plasma or Ion + Plasma actual options...

[Fractalsponge]

Agreed. But the main thing that invalidates it as a choice is the lack of accuracy upgrade. The debuff effect or damage would have to be massively buffed to account for that.

[Ryuku-sama]

Agreed. But the main thing that invalidates it as a choice is the lack of accuracy upgrade. The debuff effect or damage would have to be massively buffed to account for that.

 

The lack of accuracy isn,t as bad as it seems.. at least if plasma was performing well when it hits.

[Fractalsponge]

Yeah but the railgun meta doesn't support target-dummy calculations. The number of off-bore shots you need to take makes the lack of accuracy worse than a straight deduction from damage. I think

[Verain]

The lack of accuracy isn,t as bad as it seems.. at least if plasma was performing well when it hits.

 

No, this is the main reason it IS bad.

 

 

 

So, ion does nice shield damage, and does it instantly, but the big reason you bring it is for the control. That's fine.

 

 

Slug you bring for damage. It pierces some shielding, ignores all armor. In exchange, it's the lowest damage railgun by quite a bit... until you factor in that accuracy.

 

 

A full charged slug is 1760 and can never crit (the crit talent numbers work out similarly but are a bit lower, so we'll use the higher numbers from 10% damage, though both talents are good). This damage pierces some shields and ignores all armor. It has about +8% accuracy compared to plasma.

A full charged plasma sometimes crits, so I'll normalize that here. On average, it does 2028 when mastered.

 

That's 15% more damage, not 10% (you can't "factor in accuracy and armor pen" for a generic target).

 

 

Fifteen percent is totally worth something being a dot, IMO, and if this was the end of the compare plasma would have a role as a scout killing machine. The plasma debuff, after all, can subtract 10% accuracy for seven seconds on the target, which is pretty great.

 

The lack of armor ignore isn't trivial- the 2028 to a base strike hull is only 1927, and only 1825 to a bomber. These values are not very good, especially when you consider that there's a lot of armor upgrades available- take the 9% damage reduction crew member and the bomber is taking 1643, and that's not counting hull. All of these could be ignored very easily by taking the -20% damage reduction while active, but that would definitely not make the gun good against ships with armor.

 

 

So, why don't we use this massive blast of damage versus scouts?

 

 

 

The accuracy. Being 8% less likely to hit a scout, who has more than 32% evasion at all ranges, tends to reduce your damage against that target by 11% or more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to buff this? Really, you could up the damage, up the accuracy, double down on the cost reduction that it has, increase the debuff magnitude on evasion and damage reduction, increase the range, decrease the charge time, whatever.

 

I have my own opinions on what would be the COOLEST set of plasma buffs, but honestly, it doesn't need a massive boost to be viable, just a bit of a tap.

 

 

And it could be anything. I think the reason we normally bring up the accuracy is because both the other railguns have it, it is a MASSIVE disadvantage to miss it (by numbers it's the best talent in the tree, because GSF prices +accuracy very low, a game wide decision), and firing at important targets without it and missing is absolutely devastating- a gun that inaccurate would need real compensation, such as higher effective damage on average, and it doesn't have it.

[Ryuku-sama]

It has about +8% accuracy compared to plasma.

 

In fact it is +3% and -5% on the total tracking. so considering completely dead center it's only 3% under. Add 1° and you get your 8% though.

 

And yes.. Replacing the power draw for the accuracy would be another good buff. But even with this, I doubt Plasma would be useful without some additionnal control. Cause dead now >>>> dead in 10 sec.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Maybe buff the 10% evasion effect to 15-20%? That would effectively kill any evasion a striker might have (Pike and Clarion in particular) and would be a critical loss to a scout. If they also buffed the weapon's accuracy (either base or through a talent) that could be pretty good overall.

 

Honestly I think it'd be really neat to see a T1 GS running Ions and Plasma as an ultimate control variant and be totally viable with that load out.

[Verain]

In fact it is +3% and -5% on the total tracking.

 

Which is why I said "about", but in practice it is almost ALWAYS 8%. 1% deflection isn't very much on a railscope (or anything, really), and that's all you need for a 5% accuracy penalty.

 

And in practice, things that aren't dead center are often already giving you some deflection penalty. Often your choice is take a shot and run, or just run, so you take the shot. If that shot is at 8 degrees off, would you rather have a -40% to your hit chance, or -32%? Again, that's much more than an 8% penalty to damage- if you have a 40% chance of hitting someone with a mouse release, upping that to 48% is a 20% boost to damage, etc.

[MiaowZedong]

A full charged slug is 1760 and can never crit (the crit talent numbers work out similarly but are a bit lower, so we'll use the higher numbers from 10% damage, though both talents are good). This damage pierces some shields and ignores all armor. It has about +8% accuracy compared to plasma.

A full charged plasma sometimes crits, so I'll normalize that here. On average, it does 2028 when mastered.

The big problem here is that railguns are not DPS weapons. Far more than any other weapon in GSF, they relly on a very few, very big hits. Because of this, what matters is not the total damage but the chance of reducing by one shot the effort needed to kill someone. In the case of scouts, which are highly prevalent and extremely dangerous, this reduces it from two shots to one shot—a huge difference. Being able to use less charge on the final shot just doesn't cut in comparison.

 

In this case, the slug railgun has a 16% chance of critting all its damage, which is likely to reduce by one the number of shots needed. The plasma railgun has an 8% chance the initial damage or any tick will crit; this is significantly less likely to have a tangible effect on the game. Simply normalising the crit damage does not accurately reflect its effect upon the game.

 

Fifteen percent is totally worth something being a dot, IMO, and if this was the end of the compare plasma would have a role as a scout killing machine. The plasma debuff, after all, can subtract 10% accuracy for seven seconds on the target, which is pretty great.

No, just no. This is what made me reply to the post.

 

A scout is really fast and can kill in far less than seven seconds. Moreover, the plasma DoT can be distributed over both shield arcs. You won't kill someone who knows how to deal with it without eating through the totality of both shields and their hull. This means that not only does the DoT take a problematically long time to kill people, but it needs to do more damage in order to do so. Unless the DoT mechanics themselves are changed or the damage is made ridiculously big, it will always be a subpar weapon for killing anyone. In any case, killing with DoT is more attractive against slower-paced ships like bombers; with scouts there would always be the problem of them getting in a last kill, or finishing flipping a sat, or even breaking LoS and getting repairs in time.

 

So, that leaves the debuffs. They're nice, in that the entire team benefits from them; the plasma DoT also prevents shields from regenerating. However, the duration is fairly short, the effect is mild (compare Melt Armour to the Thermite debuff, which doesn't even require a talent) and putting an evasion debuff on a weapon that has unimpressive accuracy makes me scratch my head in wonder.

 

One thing I'd like to see Plasma Railgun able to do is shut down blaster power regeneration. Besides being cool, it would also help address the problem of blaster power efficiency being way overpriced in GSF balance.

Edited October 6, 2014 by MiaowZedong

[Anysao]

I actually always use it on my mastered Mangler. I don't bother with Ion- but I'm told I should- Because my combo of a slug+plasma obliterates the target before they know what's going on.

 

The slug is the opener, which usually leads to the target running away after they notice half their hull is gone. I then hit them with a plasma to degrade at what's left. If they are dashing away, an ally will usually catch them to throw in a shot or two. A single hit can change the battle. Thanks to a little team work, the enemy focuses on flying and dodging while disregarding their burning hull. The explosion happens seconds later.

 

If, for some reason, an ally is not nearby to throw in another weakening shot, I simply throw up Feedback shield. The dying fighter usually tries to hit me, and assuming I am at high enough hull, the shield deals enough damage to finish them off without me actually having to fire.

 

Now in comparison to immobilizing Ion, Plasma gives me a HUGE advantage. If I freeze them with Ion, I then need to switch to slug to give them some big hits with their shield down... leaving me as a sitting duck. So with plasma I can ignore the target as they fly away, and switch to the next enemy. The cycle repeats...

 

My build is far from perfect, but when well executed can easily take down a full pack of two-three enemy fighters.

 

Hope to see some comments.

[Ryuku-sama]

I actually always use it on my mastered Mangler. I don't bother with Ion- but I'm told I should- Because my combo of a slug+plasma obliterates the target before they know what's going on.

 

The slug is the opener, which usually leads to the target running away after they notice half their hull is gone. I then hit them with a plasma to degrade at what's left. If they are dashing away, an ally will usually catch them to throw in a shot or two. A single hit can change the battle. Thanks to a little team work, the enemy focuses on flying and dodging while disregarding their burning hull. The explosion happens seconds later.

 

If, for some reason, an ally is not nearby to throw in another weakening shot, I simply throw up Feedback shield. The dying fighter usually tries to hit me, and assuming I am at high enough hull, the shield deals enough damage to finish them off without me actually having to fire.

 

Now in comparison to immobilizing Ion, Plasma gives me a HUGE advantage. If I freeze them with Ion, I then need to switch to slug to give them some big hits with their shield down... leaving me as a sitting duck. So with plasma I can ignore the target as they fly away, and switch to the next enemy. The cycle repeats...

 

My build is far from perfect, but when well executed can easily take down a full pack of two-three enemy fighters.

 

Hope to see some comments.

 

Then I kill you on a) my slowed and burning bomber b) my own gunship which just shutted down your railguns due to its power drain c) my scout which won't die from the DoT before you die (and my nova have over 1700 shield) d) about any ship which isn't a Charged Plating strike or an evasion scout.

 

Ion keeps your opponenet from going after you. Plasma doesn't.

 

EDIT.. And this is if your plasma hits.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Ryuku-sama

[Anysao]

Then I kill you on a) my slowed and burning bomber b) my own gunship which just shutted down your railguns due to its power drain c) my scout which won't die from the DoT before you die (and my nova have over 1700 shield) d) about any ship which isn't a Charged Plating strike or an evasion scout.

 

Ion keeps your opponenet from going after you. Plasma doesn't.

 

EDIT.. And this is if your plasma hits.

 

Well don't forget: Slug is my opener, not my plasma. If I deem it unnecessary to use plasma (low health already, maybe), I won't use it.

 

I probably also should have mentioned I play like a Lethality Sniper; that is, I'm quite mobile for a turret. I don't just stand still and shoot. So if I'm chasing a target (or whatever the gunship version of chasing is... Turning, accelerating, and sniping, I guess), I will definitely lob a plasma on to tick some damage as they run

[Kuciwalker]

The lack of accuracy isn,t as bad as it seems.. at least if plasma was performing well when it hits.

 

False, the lack of accuracy is crippling. I agree with numbers above, except I think Verain is a little too generous in his tolerance of dots vs instant damage.

[MiaowZedong]

False, the lack of accuracy is crippling. I agree with numbers above, except I think Verain is a little too generous in his tolerance of dots vs instant damage.

It really depends on the context. In general, he's right, but for GSF railguns— with the trick to distribute damage over both arcs, the very short TTK, the fact that we're specifically comparing plasma railgun to a weapon that can litterally one-shot, or finish in one shot after ion—not so much, IMO.

Edited October 6, 2014 by MiaowZedong

[Bolo_Yeung]

The fun part of plasma rail - the DOT is always the same, regardless of charge. Even with lowest charge possible you will still take 1200 damage, also it practically prevents shield regeneration for 15 seconds (unless you have turbo reactor + directional shield that is)

[Nevarr]

I won't argue that Plasma is better than any of the other options, but I will say that it is quite fun to use sometimes. I might not use it in critical matches, but if things seem well in hand I might switch to the gunship I have plasma on. I like to use it to hit ships that are tangled in a furball with my squadron and watch the DOT get the kill as someone dodges behind an asteroid to escape the gunship hits. Or if I'm trying to take out a satellite defender who is doing a good job of weaving around the sat and only giving the occasional shot, the DOT can be a nice aggravation tactic. I've even had a few people panic at the DOT and crash. Won't happen with the truly experienced pilots, but it can be useful in situations.

[zvbm]

Here's an idea.

 

Nerf the armor penetration on slug to 50% and buff the armor debuff of plasma from 20% to 50%. This would make all possible combinations of railguns have a place in the game. Plasma + slug would be superior against armored targets, ion + slug will still do what it does best but not be as strong against DR builds and ion + plasma would offer the best of both worlds.

 

~Zen