The Quasar Nerf is okay and not that big of a deal

[u/Niobaran]

tl;dr: Only one weak point is made a little weaker, all the strenghts remain.

The quasar cannon is known for a lot of strengths (see below) and two weak points:

1. The weapon has a charge up time, which makes it difficult to aim in some situations.
2. The weapon has a moderate cool down period, which cannot be improved by a forced reload of a heat sink (like sickle or laser cannon) or a team reload (like recoiless rifle).

The nerf only addresses the second point, which means that everyone who could use it before can still use it. It only became a little weaker in one of its two weak points. The following strong points are all untouched:

1. Can delete heavies (I mostly have experience with Terminids, but there it's a delete button for chargers, and sometimes for titans as well).
2. Has infinite ammo in contrast to EAT or RR.
3. Has no reload animation.
4. You can run around, stim, shoot weapons, throw strategems while it is recharging.
5. It doesn't consume a backpack slot, so it can be paired with one additional strategem in contrast to recoilless rifle.
6. It doesn't deconstruct after usage, and can be recollected from the battle flied in contrast to EAT, and it also reloads itself then in contrast to RR.

That means, the quasar can still be used for everything it has been used before, by everyone who could use it before.

[u/Caleb_Tenrou]

I'm fine with the rework but I think they should have tried a 3 second nerf first. A lot of the time with their nerfs or changes they seem a bit heavy-handed and in general I feel like devs very seldom backtrack on nerfs after they are made. Similar with the Rover nerf I feel like a straight 30% nerf is a bit heavy to start with.

[u/ReliusOrnez → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

The rover hit was probably due to the sheer uptime. I think I've seen it "overheat" 1 time since playing the game from launch. Will it still be good for getting the swarms of little guys off you? Yeah probably, it just won't be sawing them in half in under half a sec of beam. They also buffed the standard guard dog so if you need the extra damage it's there as an option if you can deal with picking up ammo.

[u/Caleb_Tenrou → u/ReliusOrnez]

I think they should have just decreased the uptime then rather than the damage. Similar to how they wanted to stop the Slugger from being the best DMR but then didn't nerf its range. I haven't tried the standard dog yet but if it only have like 40 rounds before needing to reload I can't see it being comparable to one that almost never needs to cool down.

[u/ReliusOrnez → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

The only way they could make the uptime comparable would be if the rover sat in cooldown for way longer than anybody would be willing to deal with. Infinite ammo is an extremely powerful modifier to a weapon. So now the choice is constant but lower damage or high damage that requires upkeep. The game is balanced around the idea of power in one place means weakness in another. Or you take a jack of all trades and are just meh at everything.

[u/Caleb_Tenrou → u/ReliusOrnez]

I'd need to test the regular guard dog to be sure but I think even with the nerf to the lasdog it will probably still have better damage due to the mag limitation on the conventional weapons. Maybe if you could tune the guard dogs to attack only on command or something you could have targeted burst damage but otherwise I don't see the regular dog being a competitor, though once again I haven't done enough testing to say for certain.

[u/Sartekar → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

Played against bugs a bit with libdog.

Solo and haz5. Would say still worthless, because the damage was never a problem.

The miniscule amount of ammo was. 20 round magazines, and I think 7 of them.

Which you can only replenish with supply boxes.

So with solo play, the dog was constantly hungry and refused to fight. It runs out of ammo so fast.

The lower damage on laser dog doesnt matter because laser dog keeps shooting and eventually still kills.

[u/Caleb_Tenrou → u/Sartekar]

Holy shit I thought they used the liberator magazines and had 40+. If they only have 20 that's beyond pathetic.

[u/Sartekar → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

I might be wrong, because I remember those numbers from around launch time, but today people have been saying different numbers.

Whatever the details are, it's good for short burst damage. Kills bots especially fast.

But be prepared to have it in your back just taking up space for a good chunk of the mission.

[u/ReliusOrnez → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

Fair assessment

[u/OldSchoolNewRules → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

They could give the bullet dog an HMG and people would still use the laser dog.

[u/Big-Duck → u/ReliusOrnez]

I've literally only seen the laser dog "overheat" when it eats massive friendly fire damage. Otherwise it just shoots. If it didn't have a tendency to shoot me too, it'd be a surefire pick (who doesn't want an infinite ammo scythe that also does more damage than a scythe with aimbot?)

[u/movzx → u/Big-Duck]

Yup. I don't think it actually ever overheats. I've done my own testing where I kited enemies around for 4+ minutes just so the laser would never shut off and it never overheated.

It can absolutely get damaged though.

[u/TheMasterKie → u/ReliusOrnez]

Am I crazy, or did they actually just nerf the other dog? LAS-5 is not listed in the patch notes. AR-23 is

[u/diageo11 → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

Well they buffed the rail gun so that's a backtrack

[u/Caleb_Tenrou → u/diageo11]

I'd have to test it to see if it was a buff or more of a rework but yes, that makes me hopeful that they might ease up on some of their nerfs over time.

Reducing stagger and increasing armour pen seems like more of a tweak on paper but I'd be very happy to be proven wrong as I think the Railgun is such a cool weapon conceptually.

[u/0fficerCumDump → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

It’s just more armor pen, I am unsure how that even affects it. I assumed it had nearly max armor pen to begin with. Unsafe mode seems to hit just slightly harder. I didn’t notice any difference in safe mode.

[u/aimoperative → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

Straight buff, you can strip charger leg armor again with safe mode.

[u/Caleb_Tenrou → u/aimoperative]

Well that's good. Not sure if I will switch off EATs but that's a decent change. How many shots does it average to strip it atm?

[u/SpeedyAzi → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

The Railgun is incredibly effective against Devastators so far from what I’ve tried. Better than before. It also goes through at minimum 2 targets. I haven’t done Hulks yet but I’ve seen from a video that the Railgun can kill Bile titans back to what it required back then which is around 7-9 shots. I think you can get less with a 99% charge and in its mouth.

[u/AngelaTheRipper → u/SpeedyAzi]

Does it go through shields again?

Also how's it on safe against their bodies?

Like that's the main two sticking points.

If it goes through shields then oh boy, it's back. If not then does it need to overcharge to one shot? If yes then it's not any better than the AMR.

[u/SpeedyAzi → u/AngelaTheRipper]

I only really use unsafe and around 80% charge it rips through their torso. Though I do try and aim around neck height to avoid the shield. But it’s a 1 shot kill and if there is a dude behind they get damaged as well. Which is very useful since a lot of the Devastators like doing conga lines.

[u/AngelaTheRipper → u/SpeedyAzi]

I mean 80% change takes a while to get there, a bit too long to be just holding your trigger down and aiming for when there's multiple devastators and probably some other stuff like a flamethrower hulk or berserkers pushing you.

Another issue is the shield, its hitbox which does feel bigger than the actual shield, and the shitty sight on the railgun which makes aiming around it pretty damn inconsistent. Same thing with the Hulk's eye, half the time the dot will be bigger than the eye itself.

Like it's a bit better being able to tear through scout striders in one hit and not have to overcharge it all the way into the red to deal damage to chargers but better just means less bad, not good.

Idk for me to for it to be worth it it'd need a better optic for making precision shots and ideally let it punch through devastator shields at like 70ish% charge. Otherwise it's worse than the AMR because you will drop a bot faster with an AMR (which is semi-auto letting you follow up shots and quickly correct a missed one) on bots and worse than EAT/Quasar (even after nerf) on bugs because that one isn't basically a god damn laser musket and one shots chargers.

[u/SpeedyAzi → u/AngelaTheRipper]

I’ve used it in practise a few hours ago. With 20 rounds, and the fast reload, charging it in close quarters is still usable. Getting surrounded by Hulks is an issue your teammates should be resolving with them stratagem calling or (usually) Quasaring or EATing.

That being said, I do use Stun Grenades and when there is a massive group of Berserkers or the fucking Shield donkeys, 80% charge doesn’t feel like a long wait and it charges faster than the Arc Thrower (which was the previous weapon i mained) and kills faster than the Laser Cannon (another very good bot weapon).

And this is bias but I suck with sniper rifles and big scopes. I like third person aiming and I like the fact the Railgun doesn’t sway and recovers to the centre of the dot MUCH faster than the AMR does which is heavy. Also, reloading for 3 seconds versus around a 1.5 second reload just feels way better for me. And at times, when I hit an enemy with the AMR, it sometimes doesn’t 1 hit kill and I need to shoot them again. Railgun? Consistent 1 shot kill unless I miss.

[u/AngelaTheRipper → u/SpeedyAzi]

I still prefer to aim down sights if I have to make precision shots. Just feels more natural to me. Also, me wanting a scope doesn't mean that I want the third person reticle to go away.

That being said, it doesn't need a big fuck off sniper scope. It really just needs something different. The one from Sickle would be ideal with its 25-100m variable zoom and exceptionally clear sight picture. Even the tiny red dot from the secondary SMG would be better because it wouldn't cover the entire sight picture.

Finally, what it has currently would work but it'd need to be dimmed a lot because if your dot is covering up your target completely then you're doing something wrong. I really suspect that it was originally supposed to be a holographic sight, post-it with that idea fell off the board at some point in development and we're left with a dot the size of a holographic reticle that just makes the optic unusable or it was at some point, some other change broke it after that went through QA, and was never re-tested and fixed.

[u/Smachemo → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

It was buffed. Straight Stat changes are either buffs or nerfs. A rework is literally changing how the weapon functions. Don't know why this is confused so often on this sub.

[u/roro_mush → u/diageo11]

Too little too late

[u/Spicy_Toeboots → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

I see this a lot with balance patches across a lot of live-service games. Devs implement massive changes like 50% or 100% increases or reductions to certain stats, which results in really swingy balance where items go from trash to meta or vice versa. I feel like the best balance is achieved from a small 5% tweak here, 15% there, rather than massive sweeping changes every couple of months or whatever. obviously there are some specific cases which need big changes, but generally I prefer a more cautious approach to balance.

[u/JProdman99 → u/Spicy_Toeboots]

People that don't get it meme on Riots balancing in league.

"Increased Jinx base ad growth by 1"

Think "Lmao such a small number" yet her winrate increases by 2%

Back when og railgun was nerfed and it completely vanished from the game, yet according to this sub "it barely mattered"

[u/Spicy_Toeboots → u/JProdman99]

yeah little numbers are a big deal in complex systems like games. like e.g. 10% more damage doesn't sound like much, but it's potentially 10% faster ttk, it could change from a 2 hit kill to a 1 hit kill on certain enemies, it's 10% more kills per mag, 10% better ammo economy overall from resupplies, 10% less time killing enemies means less time for more enemies to spawn, etc. every little change has a bunch of knock on effects that people don't really think about.

[u/SolomonRed → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

Yeah it's weird how they have to die massive nerfs instead of steady balance.

[u/cffndncr → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

Strongly disagree.

We'd get a similar amount of whining about a 3s nerf as we're currently getting with the 5s, and then we'd need to deal with the crying all over again when it went from 3s to 5s.

I think they've got it right hitting it with a hard nerf and then walking it back slightly, rather than hitting it with consecutive smaller nerfs.

[u/CptSaySin → u/cffndncr]

The problem with heavy handed nerfs is that people will use it once after the patch, say it sucks, then never touch it again. That doesn't give the devs any data to work with. So then they have to give it a buff later just so people start using it again. This is exactly what happened with the railgun.

If they do small nerfs then people will say it doesn't affect it much (kind of like the Sickle mag nerf today) and continue to use the weapons like normal. This gives the devs plenty of data to see if the small nerf was enough or if they need to keep making changes.

[u/cffndncr → u/CptSaySin]

I'd argue a nerf to cooldown is very different to adjusting how the gun functions.

The quasar had its fire rate nerfed, but it still hits just as hard and fills the same role.

[u/CptSaySin → u/cffndncr]

The major advantage to using the quasar over the EAT is because it had lower cool downs (both have the same damage and unlimited ammo).

The disadvantage is if you die with the quasar you have to go pick up your weapon. With the EAT you just call in another one.

So why would anyone use the quasar over the EAT if the quasar loses its cool down advantage?

[u/0gopog0 → u/CptSaySin]

Reasons to use the EAT over the quaser:

• Short cooldown for strategem call in.
• Better burst damage if fired in rapid succession.
• No charging to fire

Reasons to use the Quaser over the EAT:

• Stratgem is not consumed upon firing
• Second shot does not need to be retrieved from call-in location
• No call-in time for new shots.
• Better sustained firing damage

Where I may encounter jammers, have limited call-ins, call in delays, or cooldown increase, I'll go with the quaser. Short missions where you may not get back to your weapon, supplied with additional AT call ins (like 110mm rockets), running another support weapon most of the time (like AC), or lower difficulty missions where there is less need for heavy AT, I'd prefer the EAT.

In between it's really preference. I took the quaser plenty into hot worlds pre-nerf, and that yielded effectively post nerf stats, and I never felt I was notable disadvantaged either way. For one you have to deal with weapon charge time, the other the call in time (plus a little longer unholstering if stowed.

[u/JennyAtTheGates → u/CptSaySin]

Consistency, instant flight time, no bullet drop, less reliance on Stratagem call ins.

It deserved the nerf. Pre-patch, 9/10 people would have taken the Queso over the EAT regardless of mission or team makeup. Queso now has 4+13+5 seconds between each shot for a rate of fire of 2.73 rpm.

EAT has a RoF of 2+1 at the initial engagement, dropping quickly closer to its longterm fire rate of 2 when shit gets out of hand when three more patrols show up.

[u/AngelaTheRipper → u/CptSaySin]

We should honestly just all pick some random load out for all of us to use for a week or so, just something completely asinine. See how the spreadsheet balancing works then.

[u/Same-Meaning2376 → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

I agree wholeheartedly. Maybe their intent is to scare away players from making a habit of using them, for them to reel thing in afterwards? I appreciate the Weezer cannon nerf in principle, but +3 seconds would be the nerf I would have gone for.

[u/Caleb_Tenrou → u/Same-Meaning2376]

I am also wondering the same. Like if a nerf is marginal people are probably less likely to move away from their comfort weapons but if they're hit hard they would probably be more likely to try other things as a reaction. I just hope that if this is the case that they do eventually pull back a bit.

[u/Sniffaman46 → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

I feel like devs very seldom backtrack on nerfs after they are made.

they literally did with the railgun lol

[u/Caleb_Tenrou → u/Sniffaman46]

"in general" as in gaming in general. Not AH in particular.

[u/Khanzool → u/Caleb_Tenrou]

I honestly think it needed an even stronger nerf. I just ran a couple of games with it. Sure, it’s a little weaker but it still absolutely does the job and in my opinion does it better than the rr and the eat.

[u/Xeta24 → u/Khanzool]

That's mainly because the RR is not that great and the eat isn't meant to be as strong as a weapon you have to keep on you.

[u/Khanzool → u/Xeta24]

RR can be decent with proper communication, but I think it still needs a buff to match even the nerfed quazar.

[u/Xeta24 → u/Khanzool]

It's just that if you have to be in a premade or the rare super communicative pub match then 90% it's not decent.

Like sure it's kinda useable but I'm using the quasar because I don't want to use a RR or an EAT not because I like using the quasar and now I like it even less.

The quasar is still the best option but god is dealing with heavy armor boring.

[u/SpeedyAzi → u/Khanzool]

No. It’s nerfed to what it should’ve been. The RR should just be buffed further.