Why is the lasher getting nerfed?

The lasher in PS2 is, and will always be the definition of dumb for the following reason:



It didn't splash friendlies in PS1, and sure as hell didn't splash the user RESULTING IN GRIEF.

Dumb dumb dumb.

well... it used to be less accurate in ADS than it was in Hip Fire...

Is the one on PTS more accurate in ADS than it used to be? That would be a buff. If it's less accurate than both... then oh god.

The PTS version is less accurate during ADS than the live version has when hipfiring. This is a huge nerf, because in order to fire accurately you now have to go ADS and incur the movement penalty, and you're still not as accurate as you used to be while hipfiring.

To be fair, the buff is more than just 5 damage. WIth the extra 33 ROF it amounts to roughly 10% increase in DPS, but that still amounts to a TTK of around 0.9s. Which is still double the TTK of a decent LMG or SMG. That also assumes you're landing direct hits, which is unlikely as the projectiles are so slow and your accuracy is now crap.

The devs seemed to be confused about what they want the Lasher to be. Is it supposed to be a direct damage weapon comparable to LMGs and SMGs? If so a mere 10% damage buff isn't going to do it, they have to up the projectile speed and drastically increase the ROF. Is it supposed to be an area suppression weapon that focuses on splash damage? If so, they just nerfed the **** out of its ability to do that, as you're now not very accurate so your orbs aren't going to land where you want them to. They've now put it into a no man's land where it's not that useful for either of those things, where the current live version was still useful for area suppression.

The sad thing is that I really like the current Lasher, and thought that it was pretty good as it was. These "buffs" will probably make me use it less. I don't really understand how SOE can say that the Lasher is "significantly more competitive" by a 10% damage buff on direct hits or near misses when it's combined with a massive accuracy nerf. The only way I'd think these were an actual buff is if the Lasher started lashing properly a la PS1.

The MCG is getting hosed too though, so it's clear that the Lasher isn't the only weapon that is confusing the devs.

Did they not reduce the charge up on MCG?

increased magazine from 6 to 9 sin't fixing the weapon.. it just sux for 3 more rounds.. still a shotty.. still sux at area denial, witch both the tr and the vs weapons can do decently..
still no point in going JH over the other shotty's, as they just preform better still

That sad thing is it's pretty simple to fix the Lasher and make it competitive. I'm one of the very few people who have Auraxium for it, and have used it enough to understand what's wrong with it. I could fix the Lasher tonight without making it so OP it'd be a must have. I already know what it needs, based on the current LIVE stats. The problem is the Lasher rewards no skill and a LOT of skill at the same time. It's the only weapon where you have to be really bad or really good to be useful with. If you're okay with it, you're not going to kill anything and you're going to be frustrated. If you're bad, at least you're getting assists.

So here it goes:

1.) TTK similar to mid-tier DPS LMGs on all direct hits. Add about 35-50 damage to direct shots so it rewards skill and landing orbs.
2.) More COF bloom per shot, but faster recovery from recoil. Make it like .06 or .07 COF bloom with higher recoil recovery rate.
3.) No self-lash
4.) Lastly a slight moving, both crouching and standing, COF decrease. This would be the trickiest part to balance correctly as accuracy is both the Lashers strength and weakness (along with it's abysmal TTK on direct orb shots). It's amazingly accurate until the 5th or so shot and then you're playing the "hope I get lucky orb trajectory" lottery.

Basically this; the Lasher should take the same about of time to kill someone as a mid-tier DPS LMG if they land all their shots perfectly. They should lose strait up to CQC weapons. However, It should be practical to land orbs, but not so easy that you can just spam in the general direction and get kills. That's the point of increasing the COF bloom but also increasing the recovery rate.

There, I figured out how to make the Lasher much more competitive in ~20 minutes. SOE where's my check?

i honestly dont know if i have ever been killed by the lasher.. ever.. is it possible to find this out on the players site stats?

Using the weapon in ADS mode is largely a death sentence. If you get in a straight up gunfight, the only thing it had going for it was that you barely had to aim to get some damage. However, you never wanted to use it in a straight up gunfight. The Lasher was a good weapon in a small handful of situations that usually involved A) choke points and B) firing from high ground. For example the lasher was a good weapon at the old Crown because you could fire down on advancing troops and do a decent amount of damage before they got up to the defenders, or you could use it to splash damage people behind cover and force them out before they were ready. The lasher was also good firing either up or down the stairs next to the SCU generator in most Biolabs. Splash fire the doorway frame and force some of the defenders to freak out, allowing others to run in.

The caveat to both of these uses was fast movement. At the crown, for example, firing it was like shooting a "shoot me" flare into the sky. Drew the attention of very tank and sniper in the area. In Biolabs, you had to be relatively accurate while dodging back and forth to spray into the hallway. In either case, moving slower means you're probably going to be popped before you can really make a difference.

I have been killed twice by lasher in over 300 hours on NC, but I have seen it like 5 times. I have been killed more times by anti tank mines as infantry, rammed by ESF as infantry, I have even sticked a sticky grenade to myself somehow more often than I get killed by lasher. But the stats are not much better for MCG (tree times more max) and I don't really know about jackhammer but nobody in my outfit uses it.

The main reason people don't use it is the self damage plus the friendly damage. Also, going after another HA with a lasher is a guaranteed loss, with other classes the hipfire movement speed and the shield compensates for the weapon's weakness.

The Jack is about to become better than the Piston in every desirable respect, so im not sure what youre complaining about.

We had some fun with it last night. I don't think our outfit will be using it anymore after GU11. The lasher was the weapon of choice for us when it came to suppressing the enemy and creeping forward. I personally suspect that Sony nerfed it because with the new vehicle resource costs going up it could have caused problems down the line in infantry battles.



VDRS on Waterson saying farewell to our beloved lasher.

Official nerf to lasher, they may have increased the aim accuracy, but they also increased recoil, they drastically decreased hipfire accuracy, and increased the bloom 20x.

Vanu are so spoiled they don't count it as a buff unless its mega buff across the board....ironic how the "intelligent" faction sucks with math. Case in point the lasher. Calling it a nerf when its getting buffed up the wazzoo, not to mentioned the DECREASE in FF splash damage, pretty much screams "I AM A NOOB GUN, SHOOT ME AT EVERYTHING DON'T WORRY I WILL KILL BAD STUFF"

Compared to the mini gun its a buff...the TR heavy weapon got nerfed in all the small categories (reload, equip time, etc) but we didn't get anything like a ROF or damage buff which are pretty much the big things.

P.S your reload time was BUFFED for lasher sooo ya its an overall buff.

hehe.. i'd never be cought using an auto-shotty.. it's a cruch for bad ppl.. and if i'm gonna use JH it'll be semi mode for sure, so that i can preserve ammo better.. so i'll have to compare it to my shotty of choise when playing LA, the Mauler S6, due to the reload speed..
but beside that i still say that NC do not have an aoe type weapon to do some area denial, like VS have(had), and TR can do but not as long range with the minigun-looking thing, can't remember the name..

Your post is irrelevant.

The stats are pointless when you're trying to compare a Lasher to an MCG, buddy. They're for completely different scenarios.

The Lasher is, and always was, a support weapon to keep enemies pinned the hell down. If you want to kill a target in straight up firefights, get an LMG. Lasher is *only* for proper support, as it keeps peoples' heads down for fear of getting hit by an extra bullet or not being able to survive a real encounter. Real world styled example: Many modern militaries don't aim to kill, but rather to injure - because an injured soldier requires more care than a dead one. Injuring a squad distracts them and stops the medic from shooting people with the big gun that hurts more than the LMG does.


I'd be cheering my *** off if they completely removed direct fire damage and made the splash damage radius much larger.

http://ps2-stats.com/weapon/infantrytype/chain_gun/all/per-hour

Can understand why you would want to nerf the lasher.

RIP Lasher.

no delay before the first bullet i'd also call a buff, but perhaps a small one.. tho i think it's better design to have it fire right away instead of the delay..