10 replies to this topic

[Conquistador]

Having mained infiltrator in CB1 and berserker in CB2, I'm suggesting that the current options for the berserker's alternate primary(submachine gun and point-d Vulcan) be replaced with the flak cannon (Or some other shotgun style weapon).

For clarity, assume every time I mention "heat" in the quote below, I'm referring to the HEAT cannon used by the infiltrator.

Conquistador, on November 13 2012 - 10:56 AM, said:

So let's talk about balance for a moment: the TOW is a swiss-army-knife of a weapon. I'm sure that was the intent behind it. Does decent damage, travels in a relatively straight line, decent  long range with accuracy falloff over time, predictable projectile velocity. And that's fine, but it pales in comparison to the infiltrator grenade at medium to close range, because the grenade has optimum performance exceeding that of the Tow in those engagements due to more DPS, faster projectile travel, and more utilitarian choices (no line of sight, arched fire and rebounds). Infiltrators with heat also nullify what should be the berserker's only advantage, which is ranged combat. The heat acts like a faster travelling tow in many respects with faster reload time. The damage increasing special ability does very little to supplement this incredibly skewed matchup: a heat infiltrator simply has MORE options to do damage than a berserker with the assault rifle. This is one extremely outclassed pairing.

Now, back to the Vulcan: I hate having to refer to a broken primary weapon to even the score, but playing with the assault rifle against a competent infiltrator player is a one way ticket to horrible death. The balance of available weapons is just so broken that fighting fire with more fire seems the only option. The Vulcan is a terrible, terrible solution to this problem, however. I am all for removing it, with the express suggestion that it should be replaced with the flak cannon. Flak Berserker vs heat grenadier would be a fairly balanced matchup, I think, with tow countering heat and flak countering grenade at the long and close combat scenarios, respectively.

In short: the flak cannon would neatly match the grenade launcher's effectiveness at close quarters, analogous to how the HEAT cannon currently matches the TOW at long range. A more balanced combat pairing between the A class Mechs would result from this proposed change, leading to more balanced firefights and greater utilitarian choice for the berserker.

Edited by Conquistador, November 14 2012 - 07:25 AM.

[Celros]

I think heat is indeed berserker problems, I played few times with it but couldnt figure how approach problem with skill tree and internals. If I went too deep in offence skill tree get offence skills berserker would be paper. If I went full defence with heat reduction skill I wouldnt get berserker needed ability to down enemies. And berserker felt its ability to stand damage has lowered alot from last beta. I think berserker needs truly some work. I truly like of it, but if youre unable run around enemies like berserker whats the point _ maybe give ability stand more dmg _

[Spawny]

Celros, on November 14 2012 - 02:37 AM, said:

I think heat is indeed berserker problems, I played few times with it but couldnt figure how approach problem with skill tree and internals. If I went too deep in offence skill tree get offence skills berserker would be paper. If I went full defence with heat reduction skill I wouldnt get berserker needed ability to down enemies. And berserker felt its ability to stand damage has lowered alot from last beta. I think berserker needs truly some work. I truly like of it, but if youre unable run around enemies like berserker whats the point _ maybe give ability stand more dmg _

The OP was refering to the Heat canon, a weapon available to the infiltrator.
If you truly want some heat reduction, get both heat reduction skills in the offensive and defensive trees, paired with the heat reduction internal. Adds up to -19,5% heat. Nice pair with the Vulcan.

Back on topic:

HELL YEAH! Gimme a flak canon and I'll be a happy camper!

[AsianJoyKiller]

I would have enjoyed it if the Beserker had a short range burst option.

[Conquistador]

Spawny, on November 14 2012 - 03:26 AM, said:

Celros, on November 14 2012 - 02:37 AM, said:

I think heat is indeed berserker problems, I played few times with it but couldnt figure how approach problem with skill tree and internals. If I went too deep in offence skill tree get offence skills berserker would be paper. If I went full defence with heat reduction skill I wouldnt get berserker needed ability to down enemies. And berserker felt its ability to stand damage has lowered alot from last beta. I think berserker needs truly some work. I truly like of it, but if youre unable run around enemies like berserker whats the point _ maybe give ability stand more dmg _

The OP was refering to the Heat canon, a weapon available to the infiltrator.
If you truly want some heat reduction, get both heat reduction skills in the offensive and defensive trees, paired with the heat reduction internal. Adds up to -19,5% heat. Nice pair with the Vulcan.

Back on topic:

HELL YEAH! Gimme a flak canon and I'll be a happy camper!

Spawny is correct: Heat reduction was never the primary purpose of this post. I added a disclaimer of sorts to the original suggestion clarifying I was referring to how the submachine cannon alternate primary of the berserker currently compares to the Infiltrator's HEAT cannon. Weapons heat management is a topic for another day.

This being said, the Berserker truly lacks an effective close-range weapon at this stage of comparable power and utilitarian choice when compared against the Infiltrator, which has (by far) the best close combat SECONDARY in the game (possibly slightly better than the sabot rifle, which can be used as a shotgun). And I'm not just talking about damage output and how fast the nades travel, I'm talking about how players can fire over obstacles unchecked, and predict grenade trajectory by bouncing off walls. It's probably the only close combat secondary that does almost 100% damage without line of sight.

Giving the berserker a flak cannon should mitigate this somewhat, making Close quarters Berserker vs Infiltrator matchups much more even.

Edited by Conquistador, November 14 2012 - 07:50 AM.

[Frenotx]

Perhaps the mini-flak would be an appropriate choice_ It has reasonable burst, but would still be fair in such a mobile chassis.

[Beefsweat]

Frenotx, on November 14 2012 - 11:21 AM, said:

Perhaps the mini-flak would be an appropriate choice_ It has reasonable burst, but would still be fair in such a mobile chassis.

+1, mini-flak seems more appropriate for the berserker to me.

[Ace4225]

+1 also. Brawler and Zerker are my favorite classes, and I love the flak cannon. It would be perfect on the zerker instead of the same weapon combo as the assault, and it would also satisfy snipers who may be fed up with the little dance pro-zerkers are always playing by forcing the zerkers to move in close for a kill.

Edited by Ace4225, November 14 2012 - 10:34 PM.

[DER3Z]

i deff agree, i want my flak canon. It's not very good on maps like saraha but close-quarter maps is where it shines the most. The only class i play (Alpha-beta) is class A  mechs. If you want to play "class A" you need to know right off the bat that you mostly need to put your points in the movement tree. I would suggest to not put all the points in one tree but rather do a hybrid class of movement/defense or movement/offense. They're Some skills in your movement tree that you dont really need since your class A is prett damn fast. The A mech health is low but if you stack it with +50 internal, +15 every tick you put a point in, then your mech will have a decent amount of health. Heat is deff not a issue for me you just need to learn when to dodge boost and wait a good 2 sec before firing, if your a good shot and dodger then you'll stay alive longer and kill them quicker.

[Akrium]

I seemed to have no issues with close quarter combat vs infiltrators. Then again typically I went vulcan-d vs a good infiltrator. They would always end up too close to me and it would rip them to shreds. The flak cannon would be an interesting option though. As a beserker I can choose what range to fight ppl at, even to some degree vs another A-Class mech.

The effective range on the vulcan is less than the smg and the flak cannon is even less than the vulcan. I guess I could understand the balancing of the flak gun as an option but I probably would never use it as it would be putting myself into harms way far too much for the pay off. The beserker doesn't have much in the way of health after all and we are just as much of a hit and run type build that the infiltrator is. Granted the flak gun wouldn't give our position away across the map like the sound from the vulcan... it's like a beacon saying "Over here guys!".

Ultimately if I had to choose of the 3 (smg/vulcan/flak), flak would be last on my list. It doesn't promote me staying alive as long as the other weapons do. I wouldn't mind having all 3 options at some point though.

[Conquistador]

Frenotx, on November 14 2012 - 11:21 AM, said:

Perhaps the mini-flak would be an appropriate choice_ It has reasonable burst, but would still be fair in such a mobile chassis.

Beefsweat, on November 14 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

Frenotx, on November 14 2012 - 11:21 AM, said:

Perhaps the mini-flak would be an appropriate choice_ It has reasonable burst, but would still be fair in such a mobile chassis.

+1, mini-flak seems more appropriate for the berserker to me.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Mini-flak seems like a suitable compromise to the lack of instant close quarters damage problem without imbalancing the berserker. I would love to see the flak cannon on it, but if I can't have it a mini-flak would be an excellent tradeoff.

DER3Z, on November 14 2012 - 10:51 PM, said:

i deff agree, i want my flak canon. It's not very good on maps like saraha but close-quarter maps is where it shines the most.

Actually, the flak cannon would be extremely useful underneath the AA, where enemies tend to cluster in tight enclosed spaces. Plus it would be useful any time you managed to ambush an opponent, making it a utilitarian choice as well.

Akrium, on November 15 2012 - 02:27 AM, said:

I seemed to have no issues with close quarter combat vs infiltrators. Then again typically I went vulcan-d vs a good infiltrator.They would always end up too close to me and it would rip them to shreds.

No wonder you think there are no issues with the infiltrator vs berserker pairing. We have a dedicated thread in the discussion form discussing how powerful the Vulcan really is. For the sake of balance, I think it's a little too good of a weapon on the berserker. Please refer to http://community.pla...oh-that-vulcan/ for more details.

Quote

The effective range on the vulcan is less than the smg and the flak cannon is even less than the vulcan. I guess I could understand the balancing of the flak gun as an option but I probably would never use it as it would be putting myself into harms way far too much for the pay off...
Ultimately if I had to choose of the 3 (smg/vulcan/flak), flak would be last on my list. It doesn't promote me staying alive as long as the other weapons do. I wouldn't mind having all 3 options at some point though.

You do realise the Infiltrator has the second-best secondary weapon in the game for long-range engagements, yes_ It's currently only outclassed by the sabot rifle. You can practically use the TOW to snipe people at long-range, and they don't get a nifty heads up display warning like they do when you lock on hellfires. I've had a friend in an assault class using the TOW in Sahara and Titan as an overwatch weapon, covering me with long-range TOW missile artillery. The last thing the berserker needs is even more long-range weaponry.

The flak is intended to give the Berserker a reasonable alternate primary choice that isn't imbalanced (i.e. Vulcan) in the situations where it most needs it. The whole idea is to outlast your opponents in close quarters at close range with the flak cannon by out-damaging your opponent and bringing your superior mobility to bear, not to stand still and tank the damage.

(Plus I wouldn't get too attached to the vulcan. Word on the street is that the devs are keen to remove it from the berserker. Hence the purpose of this thread, which proposes a happy compromise for an alternate primary weapon that will fill the only hole the berserker seems to have in terms of balance).

Edited by Conquistador, November 15 2012 - 09:18 PM.