What About Battle Rifles?

I'd say finish up with the LMGs and other things you started first before making new projects.

It appears the Devs are moving towards fixing things, rather then balancing semi-working things.

To me, the scopes for the AMR-66 just feel "Eh".
I say allow a big variety of scopes (minus sniper optics) for battle rifles to fit all likes.

I would like to see a 3 round burst selector added to Battle Rifles. But the caverat is the recoil is slightly higher when you do that, and the first shot multiplier will take effect after the first three round burst.

This way you get a high damage burst, but its really inaccurate to do that in terms of DPS. So if you want higher DPS (and if the target is moving) you'll want to use semi-auto. But if you find a target relatively stationary, you can seriously punish them for doing so.

Other than that, I really like the Battle Rifle. I just wish it had more uses in bases. Once its time to get on point, the battle rifle has no place. With the exception of some of the bases in Hossin with the wide open control point rooms. Maybe have more of that.

Just give them slightly more damage (275 or something) and let infiltrator class have access to them. They're not so different from scout rifles so it would hardly make diffference.

Also it would make sense since 3/4 of the weapons that you need to grind the scout rifle directive are only usable by infiltrator class, and yet the directive weapon awarded for completing the directive is not.

Infantry Damage should only be their secondary effect (to a degree, it already is... since their actual DPS is LESS than an Underboss`). ...So now all your DBG designer needs to do, is tack on some other cool effect to wielding or tagging a target with a Battle-Rifle.

...maybe borrow something cool from your EQ-NEXT team since they're obviously not using those combat Buffs/Debuffs anymore. (eg: most of them were apparently fired)

I still believe that Battle Rifles and Scout Rifles should be merged into a single "Battle Rifle" Class weapon available to certain classes but aside from that I believe a few of these things should be done to the current Battle Rifles:

• Increase RoF to 400RPM; this slightly buffs the weapons output for those with a fast clicker finger and slightly increases close range viability.
• Increase Maximum Damage Range to 20m; Further increase viability at medium-close ranges while making the weapon more accurate to life as a higher caliber long range weapon.

Things I'm 'iffy' about

• Possibly:Increase Damage by 25 points; so from (min) 225 to 250 and (max) 250 to 275; this is not so much as to make it a faster TTK but to make it more effective on bodyshots

BRs are kinda bad, its not clear what they are supposed to be. if they are meant to be mid range support, then the accuracy is too low, if you increase the accuracy you better tone down the damage, or else due to the high precision control method on pcs (mouses), and the typical engagement range on pc PS, the br will be come the ONLY gun worth using.

rebalancing them is kinda dangerous... i predict another screw up on your part, so just stick with the current rebalance plan. or better yet, rebalance the mid range semi-auto scout rifles like the impetus, which are complete and utter garbage now.

buffing BRs will only push infantry engagements apart past the 100m, and so long as vehicle alternatives are so frail facing infantry AP, then the game will just grind to a standstill.

nerf infantry AP, buff burst rifles, buff anti infantry dispersion tools like HE cannons (do note i said disspersion, not killing. so buff the splash by a LOT, nerf the damage even more) and you'll end up with more fluid fronts, where vehicles wont get instagibbed when facing high alpha infantry clusters. and infantry deathballs will meet a soft counter on HE cannons.

all the while infantry engagements at the 50 - 100m mark will get more fun thanks to the addition of burst rifles with a proper low recoil first shoot.

my point is, BRs should be at the bottom of the priority list ATM.

They are amazing, but they need one simple tweak to make them viable across the board.

Give Battle Rifles the unique ability to IGNORE the Heavy Shield with a headshot. That's it.

I think that Battle Rifles need more variants. If the AF-9 Shadow and it's Scout Rifle bretheren to the Battle Rifle Classification and allow Medics, Engis, HA's and Infils use them. Along with the fully auto Scout Rifle. A slight (5%) damage increase at all ranges could also help too.

This would result in a 0% improvement in TTK against everything that isn't using nanoweave level one.

they need a faster firering speed.
Just a bit more domage (very little).

And thats about it beside that i really love them, they are good counter mesure to sniper and great at med/long range shoot out

1 Word, Headshots.

And going from 500 to 525 damage will never cross you over a TTK threshold with headshots, as nanoweave is ignored by headshots.

At max range, it would be 450-472, still not able to cross a damage threshold that would result in a TTK difference.

They are a lot better since their last set of buffs, they are ok now.



However, if you look at it from the point of view of why would you use them, it's not so good:

Engineer - If you take the Archer and Razor as an NC Engi there's not really any reason to use a Warden. Similar for TR with Archer and T5 AMC & Cougar. VS maybe get a bit more milage out of theirs because of no bullet drop, which is actually a decent trait on BRs.
HA - the longer range higher velocity LMGs are just a better option than BRs.
Medics - very similar to LMGs.



I'd say that BR could probably stand a further velocity buff, maybe some Recoil/CoF buffs and probably a bullets to kill buff at longer range (don't think it needs it at short range tbh).

Due to their much tighter accuracy while stationary, access to 6x scope and semi-auto fire you'd assume their intended role is medium-long range between long range LMG's and sniper rifles... but they perform poorly at these ranges due to low bullet velocity and 0.1 Standing ADS CoF.

Also, the directive variant is an absolute joke without a forward grip.

Or, to put it from a different perspective. Why would I ever choose the BRs over the:

Medic:
Reaper DMR, SABR-13, Corvus (all have better accuracy and better DPS and the SABR-13 has higher velocity)

Engineer:
ACX-11 (better accuracy and higher DPS)

Heavy:
Gauss Saw, TMG-50, Flare (better accuracy, higher DPS and TMG-50 has higher velocity)

This makes them only useful for TR and VS engineers. But, at those ranges, engineers should be supporting other classes with MANA turrets, ammo packs and repairs and not shooting their primary weapon anyway.

IMO the BRs should have base ~650 velocity and 0 - 0.03 still ADS CoF. But, they should also have worse moving ADS CoF, standing ~0.45 and crouching ~0.25. This would make them better at longer ranges but worse at close ranges.

Ironically, I have used the BR quite a lot this weekend in static long range firefights (my earlier post I said these were rare and the only time I used the BR). The Eidolon is insanely accurate at range where the target is a tiny black dot even through a 4x scope. But. With a lot of misses, I was also able to down 12 enemies with the AMR66 at somewhat closer range but only after I swapped to it from the Blackhand due to a four round mag not being enough. My issue was that due to the number of misses I was heavily exposed to sniper fire. I find the Warden sits somehere between the other two in terms of accuracy. So, More accuracy and more "punch" would definitely still be my choices, though by punch I mean something maybe differeent from just increased damage e.g. ability to ignore a proportion of certain types of armour.

That Or alternatively give infiltrator access to battle rifles. I would prefer to see an auraxium scout rifle though.

It's difficult to learn to use battle rifles well. Specifically, the recoil / CoF bloom is high enough that using them at 60+ meters means that your target will start moving after the first shot or so. It does fairly good damage at all ranges, but the issue is that targets can either easily escape (high range), or that full-auto weapons are simply more effective when close enough to land subsequent shots. In short, it's difficult to find a 'sweet spot' in which to use them, as there are better options for every range.

Some players can learn to work around the weapon's shortcomings, after which they typically do fairly well - the learning curve is just rather high, when compared to most other weapon types. I would personally recommend reducing the recoil or increasing projectile velocity to start out with. Another option would be to add a burst fire mode, making them more viable in close quarters.

The biggest issue with battle rifles, in my opinion, is the fact that Light Assaults cannot use them - they seem like an excellent fit for the class, especially now that the NS pistols have scopes. The Blackhand feels like it's more effective then a Battle rifle would be at sniping, in terms of pure potency - Being able to bring a CQB pistol / battle rifle loadout would be quite fun.