PPA changes vs. other AI secondaries

This bit has already been confirmed to be toned down considerably.

Also the CoF is not manageable in the way you think it is. I bet everyone will single shot fire PPA once it is implemented, auto fire is pretty much useless, unless somebody is literally touching your Magrider.
(Wish we were given an option to set the weapon in single fire mode, like we can with infantry weapons).

Have you ever used a Lasher? I'm imagining the new PPA is basically that, of course until implemented properly that's just speculation on my part. You can single fire in a pretty much straight line with it in single fire by tapping the fire button or you can hold the button down to spray the area in it. 12 shots is actually going to be a lot if a bunch of mags are using it all at the same time like we currently see them being used. You might get less straight up kills and more assists with it, but the important part is that suppression weapons are all about tying the enemy up in avoidance while friendlies move in to kill the pinned / distracted enemies.

Why do you need to imagine how it will be like, when there is a perfectly good video in the first page of this thread. The guy shoots it at full auto at some point and the projectiles coming out would have trouble hitting infantry the size of a Galaxy.

this is why i say the marauder needs more drop now because the marauder is much better than the PPA in long range fire......and i actually wouldnt mind a bit of CoF on the marauder.....it would make it eaiser to hit targets ironcially

On the bright side. I'll just start running the Kobalt which will make dealing with Phoenix's far easier.

That's pretty much how the Lasher works at those ranges... actually it's more accurate than the Lasher is at those ranges, and does significantly more damage on hit.

It does more damage, but it's nowhere like Lasher in terms of CoF.

CoF bloom for Lasher is 0.1. CoF bloom for PPA will be 0.75, aka 7+ times bigger.

Shooting at stationary targets with a single Mag is a very rare circumstance to be in during normal play, especially in the kind of zergs that are where most of the complaints originate from.

You were the one mentioning that it is more accurate than the Lasher, when in reality the bloom grows 7 times stronger in the upcoming PPA.

I was envisioning it as if it's a nerf, as many people see it as a nerf. And they are partially right. The larger COF, while it can be seen as an advantage, is mainly a nerf since Magriders/Harassers can't sit still at 200m+ firing accurate shots into doorways, and even shooting at large biolab entrances will be less effective.
Another nerf is the total damage per clip you can deal to single targets. The direct damage has been removed and you are solely reliant on AOE damage. The AOE damage is a little bit less than the direct damage, so basically the total damage per clip has been halved. Your DPS is slightly less, since along with the reduction in direct damage you do get twice the fire rate.

The PPA is still a powerful AI weapon, but with the updates I hope it won't outclass the Canister and Maurauder simultaneously.

It's definitely a nerf in terms of what the PPA was originally designed as, a long range precision weapon to fit in with the original concept of Vanu of accuracy, but this also came with effectiveness at close range due to a combination of rate of fire and area of effect damage which was quite likely unintended.

Now it's somewhat more in line with other empire anti-infantry options without losing it's unique flavour. We'll see how it plays out in practice, and people worrying about it are jumping the gun a little. Either way, I still probably won't use a PPA since I never pull Mags in the first place, much prefer Lightnings if I'm going to be in a tank at all.

Visual graphs don't seem to match up with current numbers
According to graphs, Maurader is outperforming. The raw numbered stats show PPA to be outperforming.
Certainly depends on which source seems more viable. This image was pulled October 16, 2014 from ps2orcalestats.com

EDIT: and I just realized that the picture is too low resolution to be reasonably seen. Once I figure out how to properly configure the damn picture I'll post a better quality screenshot.

As you can see, Harasser AI is practically identical for VS and TR, while the NC is lagging behind.

Balance it, Please.

The reason for this is probably it's usage time.

PPA is (or used to be) a farming tool. You sit at great range and fire stuff at a busy entrance. This can score you kills, but you have long intermission times when people do not dare show their face.
This is why the PPA is used much longer: 89,6 average play time.
The Canister and Marauder are used in very specific scenario's, when people can be certain they get a bunch of kills. This is why they are used 38,1 and 46,9 average play time respectively. They are only gunned when they can be certain they get kills, in other situation people don't man them, and their play time doesn't go up. While PPA can still be manned for the occasional kill from range, so people stay in it to get more kills, even though the average play time and average KPH will go down that way.

The average KPU is very similar too, so it's not that. I think it has more to do with the platform they are on, than the weapon itself.

^this the spam will be 10x worse and the damage will be splattered around randomly, its just punishing people who learned to aim with the old slow projectiles at range.

ffs like the lasher if you were looking at them you could strafe to the side and dodge them

now the same spammy noobs will just be mag burning in to the base trying to get inside to spam the same thing, they will be closer and you will have even less time to dodge them. this is only going to make the whining louder and end up with an even bigger nerf the same way it did with the ******* saron.

theres probably an easy $50 -$100 worth of cosmetics and guns bought for my Magrider and i am pretty damn sure when they are done with the PPA i won't ever pull it again the tank as a whole is a completely disjointed platform. the long range mobile tank that has ****** range and crap for mobility

The marauder used to be good. It's garbage now. You might as well just use the fury.

as if it's hard to hit anyone with PPA.

What the graph is showing is that the Marauder has the same skill ceiling as the PPA in Q4 while the PPA has a much lower skill floor then the Marauder, not only that but the time used is much much higher and harder to achieve especially at a constant rate, the longer the playtime the harder it is to achieve and the more likely your going to have to compete against another PPA as there's more PPA users but same amount of enemies. The more playtime accumulated the more likely the stats are going to be dragged down, take burst fire variants for example verses the standards, and the harder it is to keep those stats up that high, like running 1 kilometer vs 2 kilometer.

Just because the Q4 stats say they are the same/similar while Q1-3 is lagging behind and while the playtime is much much much higher, the current PPA is not fine even if things like KPH/KPU are the same but Playtime differentiate greatly.

TL; DR Just looking at pure stats are meaningless if the weapons are mounted on different platforms and have 1 or 2 major major differences.