The Deceptor machine gun is awful

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161

Really? Never realized that … as you wrote :rofl:

Every piece of the HA has -10% accuracy, so I think reducing this penalty to accuracy at a rate of -1% for every single armor part above 15 strength could do it. At 25 strength then there would be no penalty at all and base soldiers on Veteran difficulty, that start with 18 strength, have ‘only’ -7% penalty on every armor part, together -21% and also a shorter path to get it completely away.
:thinking:
Edit:
If we go this path further up to 30 strength he could then get +5% for every heavy armor part.
I like this idea, to be honest. But as you wrote, probably hard to explain it to the player.

3 Likes
162

I don’t mean to shoot down @sectoid_br 's suggestion, but I think it’s just an unnecessarily roundabout way of removing the accuracy penalty from HA in the understanding that it is unfair :slightly_smiling_face:

And perhaps it should be removed, I don’t know.

First, let’s assume that the current base range of the Heavy Weapons is alright where it is, somewhere between the range at which one would use the ARs and the SGs. So when using Deceptor in assault armor with accuracy bonus/malus of 0 and we can expect the vast majority of projectiles will hit a target somewhere, that’s where we want it to be (which is somewhere between 5-10 tiles).

Second, let’s consider what kind of disadvantages HA merits for its advantages. For example, comparing NJ HA with NJ Assault Armor

http://phoenix.server317.com/Body_Armor

So…

Armor: 40 vs 24, +16. This translates to immunity vs Shotguns (except Harrower), fire, Redeemer, poison worms, and very high survivability against explosives.

Speed: - 2 vs 0. This is just 2 tiles less per turn. When we look at NJ AA vs Anu AA, or Anu AA vs Synedrion AA it looks like the devs don’t put a lot of value in that: 4 armor is worth 2 speed and 10% stealth, and 1 speed is worth just 2% accuracy. Tbh, on first sight this seems off, as one would expect Speed to be more valuable than that.

Stealth: - 20% vs - 10%. This means that full kit HA can be spotted across the map in daytime. This is a significant disadvantage, but one I think everyone can accept as very reasonable.

Accuracy: - 10% vs 0%…

If we go by the SPD to armor to Accuracy trade offs we see in other armors, it would be that of the 16 extra points in armor, 4 are covered by the - 2 SPD penalty, but the remaining 12 would be covered by the accuracy and stealth penalties.

Now, this just doesn’t look right even by the metrics of 2% accuracy = 1 Speed = 2 armor. It should be - 6% accuracy, even without taking into account the - 10% stealth.

And you can see the same pattern with Helmet and Leg Armor - the numbers are kinda off. For example, HA helmet gets vs AA helmet - 10% accuracy - 5% Stealth and - 7 Perception for just + 10 pts of armor. And so is legs too (a difference of - 2 speed, - 10% Stealth and -10% accuracy for 13 pts of armor).

My conclusion? The penalty to accuracy with full kit can be safely reduced from 30% to 10%. With something like -3/-4/-3, instead of the current -10/-10/-10

4 Likes
163

Breaking down the numbers like that reminds me of something I’ve been feeling for a while - the devs overvalue armour values and undervalue accuracy. (Possibly Speed as well, though that’s more mixed.)

I think part of this is an issue with how the game’s damage/armour system works. The per-hit damage reduction means that heavy armour is AMAZING against weapons with very high numbers of attacks (like shotguns and ARs) but almost useless against single powerful hits.

I get the feeling that when they were coming up with the stats for heavy armour, they balanced it on the assumption that the player would mostly be going up against Arthrons with machine guns and pincers.

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After mid game, every enemy ranged weapon is making a good amount of damage to any soldier. There is nearly no difference between assault and sniper armor.
A soldier can survive from 3-4 AR bullets same for pistols. My only nemesis is big melee damages and sniper rifles, aaand fire/burning. To be honest burning is most devastating thing for me.

So if enemy is at short range to fire those shotgun even AR (half hit chance at least) and he is able to shoot at next turn, you already endangered yourself badly. For that reason I am ranged weapon player. I somehow stop that enemy to shot something that effective range. Enies with AR could have chance but shotgun or melee range? Nooo… If you let someone survive at that range, I think there is a big problem there.

BUT as Voland and other people are probably more better players then me at some degree as they play legend. You probably got some different game play. At this point, we can understand why we do argue about heavy class and items at first place.

You are probably fight more short range so you like to have more armor. You can get hit by short range enemies. I don’t know how you play at short range because it’s not my style. So as we play different, we expect different things from the game.

For those reasons, I don’t count the armor. NY heavy armor is even not enough as it will get damage easily from AP AR and sniper rifles. So if i have heavy maybe i get 10 less damage from ARs and most damage from sniper rifles. As I play long range, short range enemies cannot harm me and I disable long range enemies as I see them before killing. Again, ANU soldiers can never hurt me. I never used shotguns of melee weapons. I used bash with heavy as I want to use my heavy weapons and for that reason I break my rule and I go near enemies with cover fire.

Again for that reason, Heavy class with it’s armor and weapons are useless at long range, without heavy armor mediocre at mid range and against few big enemies good until lvl 7 and very good after lvl 7.

I want to able to use my cannon and deceptor at mid range more effectively and somehow useful at long range. This is what the turrets do. So give me a big gun with acc like a laser gattling… I am ready to lose time to get a acc buf. I can use my heavy like a turret but then I need a good heavy armor because as i said heavy armor is useless against tough melee and sniper attacks. You can discuss how more armor it needs…

165

TBH, I feel like my maths are inadequate to venture how accuracy should trade for mobility. Or for armor pts, for that matter.

But just looking at HA and other armors the penalty to accuracy seems too high.

Yes, of course. Here is the thing: the utility of armor is related to the enemies you encounter and the weapons they wield, and as players we overweigh the cases when we encounter enemies that can bypass HA. Also, because enemies tend to ignore targets that they can’t hurt, you always remember the Triton with SR disabling a Heavy’s head before you can even spot it, and less the Triton with SG that didn’t even attack it because it couldn’t scratch it.

There is one instance where I’m certain of an imbalance - and that is the Elite Arthon MG, because that thing chews through any armor (3 x 6, so a HA part is reduced to the same value as an Assault Armor after a single burst), is super accurate for an MG (ER of 16, vs Deceptor’s 11), packs a punch (50 x 6) and only costs 2 AP to fire.

3 Likes
166

Yeah we usually don’t get swarmed in PP, however I still can see it as useful. Specially at lower buildings, you could put the heavy up top and lure the enemies closer to the building or out of it if inside. More tactical choices.

Yes only for weapons that are “unwieldy”, if I’m not mistaken HW are the only ones that can be treated as such if you assume that every soldier is capable of handling rifle-size weapons.

Ok for MG then the bonus would be greater, and it still wouldn’t be an OP range. Sniper gear would still be better and that’s good, it would still be an option for those that are willing to trade the higher armor for it. You just worried me that sniper gear + this bonus could be too much, idk.

A combined solution with the heavy armor is a great choice also, I’m just exploring this idea as it would probably be an easy one to implement.

167

I like your idea even better than mine! It would scale equally with each weapon.

The game has so much things that are not easy to explain… I don’t think of this one as one of the worst, by far. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about this too much.

Bash scaling if I’m not mistaken is explained fine somewhere. I do know how it works since the backer builds or launch and I got the explanation from the game. I also knew about hand grenades but as I rarely use them, I never remember to take this into consideration. And I also don’t know how does it scale, I just know that it goes further too. HPis fairly obvious, and paralysis is explained in a loading screen, isn’t it? I like loading screen tips, it’s a great way to remember the player of these things.

However I don’t think there isn’t space for more incentives to strength. It’s still the last stat that I go to. I can’t stand my soldiers not being able to move enough, and willpower is obviously very valuable.

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Well, simply reducing the penalty works too :slight_smile:. I thought that there was some argument against it, though, it’s becoming difficult to track everything we’ve discussed about it.

169

Why isn’t helcannon taken into consideration? The usefulness of deceptor should be perhaps directly weighted against the usefulness of helcannon, a battle where it loses every time. Helcannon has better time against armor, better accuracy (lol), similar targeting (from the hips).

The usefulness of deceptor should be weighted against the usefulness of helcannon where it loses very badly due to armor calculations especially. The only real use you could ever have for deceptor is a biochemical heavy: get close to a dangerous enemy that you intend to capture and flare it up with viral stacks to the point where they will be practically permanently disabled. Pulling this off is next to impossible, but technically possible with onslaught & instill frenzy.

AR’s in current armor meta are anyway so bad (and losing against them of course isn’t a good look for the deceptor), but things get only so much worse when comparing deceptors to their direct competitors that take same amount of action points: helcannon is more accurate (17 vs 11) and does so much damage that armor isn’t really a significant factor.

For example, flaring up a Pure Heavy with a deceptor will at most do little chip damage from a distance of 11 whereas a single helcannon shot from a distance of 17 will basically take more than half of its health.

The conversation of this whole matter is convoluted by two different topics: the armor metagame that makes burst-based weapons really bad eventually and the accuracy metagame that leaves weapons like Deceptor losing to rifles in practical terms. Getting to necessary range with deceptor is such a gamble that it is just never really worth it and even if you did have a better range with it, it would still lose to the helcannon due to armor.

170

The trade-off between MG and Hel is that if you’re VERY close, MG has higher damage output. If you’re just a bit far away, it decays rapidly as you start missing most shots. Hel on the other hand is all or nothing - a miss is a 3AP miss with no damage. Other differences include armor piercing on the MG, daze on the cannon, and now only the MG being useful for the lvl 7 skill, rage burst.

Not that I find them equivalent nor that they need to be, but both are very situational/lucky strike weapons if your heavy is in full HA.

There was the argument here of one usable tactic of jet jumping + screaming, then firing on the next turn. That still relies on:

  • Enemies ending up their turn close enough
  • The weapons even hitting (cannon) / hitting enough (MG), even when somewhat close
  • Arthron shields
  • Enemy attacks not killing your heavy because of distance (there may be enemies not affected by the scream nearby enough)

All in all, I could instead do one of these:

  • Just kill the enemies with the rest of the squad more efficiently, as the heavy will output only one single shot in 2 turns
  • Use the heavy to nuke the enemies with the GL
  • Use him to bash the strongest enemy to death and mop the rest with the squad

In general, we’re leaning on the understanding that the best solution is to just remove/reduce the HA penalties to accuracy, be it directly or through a mechanic like strength reducing it.

171

Honestly, assault/sniper with heavy weapons spec can make that cannon very accurate and actually reliable thing to use mid-range. Center of mass shots most of the time hit very reliably againt smaller targets, and bigger targets you can even make them hit easily the desired part. I often do this with the assault/sniper that has hwy weapon spec: one sniper, one helcannon and an optional third weapon that might depend on the spec (for instance, neural sniper). With quick aim, you can shoot the helcannon twice. As for additional ammo, just have extra clip for the helcannon or your optional weapon if it is effective, nothing else. Funnily enough, lot of people don’t consider that including a loaded weapon effectively is like including the weapon + a single magazine, so 2 loaded weapons has as much ammunition as one weapon with two magazines and takes as much inventory space (but perhaps heavier weight).

This is kind of the problem really: heavy is currently the worst class to use any other heavy weapons beside the GL. Rage burst is kind of ehh, to use it effectively you have to position yourself dangerously close with these other weapons.

Even if you increase the accuracy of the heavy weapons with str, you still run into the issue that you sacrifice dash or quick aim (and accuracy is something you can get from sniper). Their only real synergy lies in grenade launchers. Overall, you’re better off using heavy weapons with assault/sniper ironically.

And while I agree that heavy armor is penalizing accuracy a lot, the bionic heavy armor isn’t actually that bad. Clarity head gives +5, armadillo legs gives +5. Clarity helmet has slightly less armor value (5 less) than Anvil-2 helmet, but also the armadillo legs have +5 compared to Anvil-2 legs. Both of these offset the -10 accuracy penalty that you get with Anvil-2 torso, you get your jetpack and your mount.

Which leaves us with a HA spec that has no penalty to accuracy. Juggie torso also has +2 boost to accuracy, but overall you’ll get -3 penalty with other Anvil parts.

All of this is to say that the class balance isn’t stellar as it stands. Due to how important both, movement (positioning) and accuracy are, sniper and assault tend to be mandatory classes in this game for any dualclass. And if you happen to have a role that can be done with Assault/Sniper, that is always superior option versus other alternatives.

Things would be so different if dash and quick aim were both part of standard toolkit for everyone. But as long as they aren’t, these weapons (heavy weapons) are kind of most effective in Assault/Sniper setup. Even with increased accuracy that would be locked to heavy only, you get 30% accuracy from sniper. The only thing you lose out on is rage burst, which is useful only in very limited situations due to the way it works right now.

172

Both weapons got missing elements and heavy armor is not helping for sure.
Hel Cannon should be an AOE weapon. So even you shot ground or the wall or the cover, it should do it’s job. Deceptor ER is totally wrong and bad idea.

Hel Cannon is a huge miss. As a sniper, if you miss, you can probably one more with quick shot or go for overwatch. As you are already far away as sniper, you are mostly safe too so not a big deal. But with heavy, you should be in front line to hit with hel cannon. There is a siren you want to hit. You need to hit with the cannon but same time the stun should be land too. If you used your will points before, probably you won’t have more for WC too.

So your chances:

  • Hel Cannon hits the siren and stun it! You win!
  • Hel Cannon hits but stun resisted. You die or MCed or worse…
  • Hel Cannon miss and bye bye…

You need to go near to that Siren and wait for one turn to able to shoot too without dying.

But people don’t care this because they are using their heavy weapons for melee damage with much more sure way to kill or stun.

  • Move a bit more and bash 2 times that Siren and you win! Whaaatt?

As I open this discusson sadly many good players try to use heavy weapons with heavy armor and they suffer just to try to show that it’s still usable.

For deceptor, people calculate the damage like every bullet hits with every attack… Even you are close range and acc gear, you miss at least 1/3 of them… this makes them a good shot of an AR, nothing more. There is no point to shoot it just to land few bullets as they are very weak already.

I am tired of telling same thing over and over.

Solution:

  • Erase Acc debuf for heavy when wear heavy gear, even make mods to make it with more acc.
  • Rise ER of heavy weapons half more.
  • Make the Deceptor or another one as powerful as a AP turret. As turrets can also fire 1 time per turn but as much as you want with mechanic skill, I don’t see anything wrong to have that in heavies hand. You can tell me that they are stationary objects, but when your mechanic got throwing turret skill, I just throw 3-4 turret in the middle zone of battle and then they massacre everyone… Balance those and heavy weapons same time… one is the best thing in the game and the other is the worst.

With a heavy weapon like a turret, I can just run middle of the fight at a low cover and at least can punch some shoots which is useful at least.

I start to use the mounted laser, I think Destiny 3 named. That gun hits better then sniper with sniper rifle level. For just 1 AP… yeah one time er turn but still if I got that, there is no point of the other heavy weapons again… Just make your heavy as sniper, give it 2 cloth and then use as sniper… this is a solution too…

BUT BORING!!! NOT COOL!! IT’S NOT HEAVY!!!

Every possible way, everything… is better then heavy weapons even with cloths… don’t try to justify it… it sucks…

173

You should probably read what I actually wrote past the first paragraph because you clearly didn’t, as witnessed by these things:

  • Heavy gear setup with bionics in net has little to no accuracy penalty. I mean, you can remove the penalty from the heavy gear, I don’t mind that, it’s just that you can already play with heavy gear that doesn’t have much penalty. Deceptor still sucks and so much more than helcannon. 11 ER vs. 17 ER.

  • Your complaint is better directed at heavy as a class in general. You say “run in & bash two times and run out”, I say: run in and use deceptor at point blank range and run away. How, you ask? It’s simple my friend: assault/sniper with heavy weapons specialization.

Your propositions don’t really do anything to make heavy more useful than it is now. You can use heavy gear with any class, so buffing it makes it just more viable for any other class (and heavy as a class has no particular benefit in getting up close besides meleeing which is not really as good as a deceptor or helcannon hit).

If you raise the ER, you’re still better off using assault/sniper with heavy weapon spec for deceptor.

The only thing a heavy is good for is lobbing nades with GL. Also extremely situational uses for rage burst, which sadly often leaves the heavy exposed with helcannon or deceptor, unless you use another guy to onslaught the heavy.

So really, your complaints should be directed at the fact that heavy has no good identity. Sniper/Heavy can be kinda decent but mostly sucks vs. assault/heavy with the heavy weapon spec, I mostly use them as a substitute until I find assault or sniper with that perk because the hel cannon is always reliable solution against armor creep + you can ignore cover.

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My main problem is heavy being very bad as alone class.

I am ranged player, so I use sniper/heavy to have more acc and faster shots. But with every attempt heavy weapons suck and heavy class, gear and skills are not helping about them.

1 Like
175

I agree that heavy class kind of sucks because it has nothing that compliments any other heavy weapon specifically besides the boom blast and rage burst, both being mostly useful for grenade launcher.

I also don’t recommend sniper/heavy at all, at least if you use heavy weapons. Only benefit from doing that is the willpower recovery whenever you kill something, which isn’t super useful. Assault/Sniper with heavy weapons perk is always better. Get +20 accuracy for heavy weapons from the perk, get +30 accuracy from sniper. Get dash + quick shot, which allows you to fire a heavy weapon and dash 2 times in a single turn for the cost of 9 willpower.

Only thing heavy synergizes with that well is the berserker class. Melee damage and armor shredding grenades. Sadly anything else is mostly a waste with the heavy.

176

We both try to find out how to use that mess because we love heavy things.

But we fail… :(…

177

Dude do not be rude, please. Using your way of talk, you should probably read the entire topic and the other existent topics about this matter before stating things as fact and talking through your as*.

We’re already way past what can be done with heavies when dual classing or using other gear or using augmentations which most consider OP right now. The focus of the conversation currently is on what can be done for heavies with HW and full HA.

If you can maintain a healthy debate then please by all means, come join us and forgive my rant because I’ve not slept well.

178

Silence…

1 Like
179

It wasn’t you @drages, you didn’t do anything wrong! If you look at my message I was replying to @synapse. I thought he was very rude when replying to you!

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Maaaann… I am realy not use to this forum replying system. heh sorry… :wink: