It will basically turn it into a better lascannon instead of a overwhelmingly better one. The issue is it's really the only good weapon reapers have atm.
Imo the balancing is pretty ok if look at the bigger picture. There is no faction clearly stronger than the others. If you look at weapons & items the story is completely different. Some weapons / trinkets simply got no reason to exist, while others are so freaking good they become the mandatory choice. Sometimes is a matter of LP-cost efficiency because one doesn't want to spend so much for something that is so bad... or exactly the opposite. Some examples of bad-performing stuff for Orks (the faction I know at most): Six Shoota, One Shot Shoota, Clubba, Skip Launcher. But the list is of course much much longer. The too-good items I don't even want to mention because I'm too old for another forum fight, but I guess we all know what is about.
That's what me and @Khornatian mentioned; reach. It's not just an inferior D-bash, it's an inferior attack reach as well. You know that sound when you're running away from a ground assault, and he just starts spamming fast attack and magically catches up to you? Yeah, they can do that. Everyone can. Except Orks. Orks travel about half the distance, so everyone can run away from an ork but orks can't run away from anyone. No, I assumed so because the theme of your criticism, which was to defend the LSM section of my post while minimizing or dejecting the other sections as largely irrelevant. That's bias. 1.) It's extremely good. Many shooting duels end up with one survivor, barely clinging on to life. That winner is almost always the VSB user, if a VSB user was present. 3.) It does have less range. Although, in most situations it's irrelevant because they're both long range. Try this exercise next you're on Harkus. There is a building right at their spawning zone, where people love to go up on and shoot from. From that position, you can reach the walls with a lascannon and vice versa. The starshot won't reach the walls, nor that location from the walls. The shot ceases to exist a bit before that. They're both very long-range weapons though. Ah, nice video. It seems I was off a little bit there, my apologies. Still, the reason against a nerf, as some people have said already, is that it's killing the class even more. As far as asymmetrical balance is concerned, I think it's alright as it is. They seem to follow suit on the nerfs, yes. I wasn't aware that it had suppression at all, I have not noticed that when fighting it, and it's not mentioned anywhere. You're not mistaken? One notice suppression quite well against for example heavy bolters or even big shootas, especially if you play as an orc which seem to recieve twice as much suppression. But the Ace Dakka? Dakka Deffgun has suppression, but it's also the worst bullet weapon for the heavies out there.
While this has devolved into yet ANOTHER weapon comparison thread, let me remind people that "balance" contains more than sheer weapon statistics. Heavies vs. Melee Want to know where the lack of balance lies? It lies in the terrain itself. Put a Heavy and Jump Assault on opposite sides of an empty map. Guess who wins? The Heavy. Easy to kill at range with no obstruction. Place them both on the current maps, filled with cover, and the Jump Assault wins. Using terrain to completely negate the only weapon the Heavy has makes for an easy win. Throw in the ability to magically teleport to a parked Rhino and circumvent large areas of the map near instantaneously. Unless we start getting empty maps, a basic gameplay imbalance exists. In the "shooter". Vehicles With transports being the lifeline of any operation, there are serious balance issues across the entirety of the vehicles. This one has more armor, but travels slower. This one is fast as hell and handles like farm machinery. This one over here has omnidirectional movement. With so many variables between them, how can anyone say that they are balanced? Matchmaking The lack of players (caused by other issues that refuse to be addressed) has created many lopsided matches. Entering into a battle where you are outnumbered 2:1 allows the enemy to get a head start toward victory. Couple that with the most popular faction attracting the least skilled players, and you have a waste of time for both sides. Factional abilities This faction has speed, this one has armor. Over here, we will give this one an unreliable mechanic that might trigger, and will work against them in certain battle types. How do these factor into balance? How much WAAGH! is calculated into those weapon comparisons people are so fond of? (Seriously, don't you people have jobs? Stop with the stupid ass videos and contribute to your nation's GNP.) Weapon mods/types/reliability Where are the Heavy weapon mods? Why do certain factions have fewer uniques? Why does this weapon fire a ton of missiles, but all of them hit nothing but terrain? Why can certain weapons not be braced? Balance (or the lack thereof) is more than recording and comparing damage output of weapons. So when you are asked "Is the game balanced", think of the entirety of the game- Not what weapon you dislike dying to and feel the need for change. Because when you nerf one weapon, the next on the list becomes the "OP" one.
I think map design, game modes and lag are making the game seem more imbalanced than it is. Lag: When I play as Eldar the RPS system seems to work as intended because my character is fast enough to overcome the lag. When I play all other factions I'm losing RPS moves I should've won according to the rules and deaths come out of nowhere. Result = Eldar melee seems OP because it's the only one that actually works with the lag. Map design: The reuse of assets means that if a particular faction has weapons and abilities that make defending that particular asset easy for them then that will translate to almost every single map in the game. Likewise a faction that has a class that is excellent at breaching these structures will be able to translate that to every map. Result = some weapons and classes have a disproportionate effect on the game because they are very good at a particular job that is needed on every map because the assets are all the same. For every weapon/loadout there should be a map where it exceeds and a map where it sucks, that isn't the case for all weapons yet. Game modes: All game modes are the same. There is an attacker and a defender. If a faction excels at one of those then they will dominate thanks to the aforementioned asset reuse. A faction that sucks at defending has no way to seize the initiative at the start of a game and as a result won't be able to use their strength at attacking and vice-Verda. Result = until we get more varied game modes a faction/class that excels at defence or attack will naturally be spammed by the attackers or defenders making it seem that it is possibly OP. I don't mean to suggest that all factions/classes are totally balanced, they aren't. Some are simply too good (powerfist) and some are too weak and if a class or weapon is spammed then that should always ring alarm bells but the problems I have outlined are why it might appear more imbalanced than it actually is.
But you also need to be a bit less dismissive of weapons in general and look at how and why they are used. Lets take for instance the Dark Reapers weapons. Reaper launcher is good for knocking out vehicles and that's it. The SC is kinda crappy but when facing infantry you use it or the Tempest launcher if you don't mind taking tons of team kills and can get used to how it fires. So in and just isolated to DR weapons you can see roles and uses, Launcher for tanks, TL for area denial but pretty dangerous, SC for general killing of the peoples and easier to use. Than you get to stuff like the autocannon. Unless your trying to bust a tank with a Multimelta or the Lascannon why aren't you using the Autocannon? Why use the PC or the HB? Is it super OP? no but it's not balanced well. Powerfist? Why aren't you ALWAYS using a powerfist? it beats every other melee weapon, it swings just as fast as anything above powersword. it busts tanks (and stuns them so they can't get away), it one shots from behind and 2 shots anything else. It has an absurd travel distance and unlike EVERYTHING else it lets you hold that power attack till you need it. Oh! and don't wanna power attack? just let the button go and you get a light attack instead! It's OP AF For these you don't even need to get into balance vs other races, in it's own faction they are out of whack.
I've said this elsewhere: GA spamming fast attack can be faster than an Eldar sprinting. But wasn't this supposed to changed on UAT? I thought this was part of the big balancing patch that should be behind the corner. Guess why in fact when you fight guilds they all spam PF. I don't like to point my finger against this or that guild because I don't want to cause the topic to derail but when you see one faction clearly converging to the same item it is obvious something is wrong. And you have to fight it PF is clearly superior to any other melee weapon.
Couple nitpicks but mostly balanced. Eldar presets are pretty damn good and varied next to other factions but that can't particularly be helped, though the lack of AV preset sucks for newbs. Ork Dok sucks. Ork Db seems to be the slowest. Powerfist/Klaw is simply too good at everything and breaks melee quite handily. Auto-cannons are OP, got Ace Dakka and the difference is night and day. Just tap fire and watch things die. Nothing comparable for LSm or eldar if I recall.
