Lasher could use a slight rebalance

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Fennel, Mar 10, 2017.

  1. Fennel

    While I don't think it needs a major overhaul of any sort, I do think that the Lasher heavy weapon for the VS could use a little touch up. The reason is pretty simple: there's not much incentive for a solo Heavy to be toting one around into battle.

    En masse it's a fantastic suppression weapon, don't get me wrong --- it can have a decent splash that does 75 damage per hit. That's not very much, but whenever three or four of them are firing at a time, it can quickly create a death zone that dissuades anyone from standing near the choke point at which they're aimed.

    One the opposite side, however, there's little incentive to be carrying one whenever there's no guarantee that there will be others doing the same. The gun fires fairly slowly and has slow-moving projectiles that don't do very much damage on direct hits. For the most part, if a single Heavy carrying one turns a corner and runs into another soldier, they're at a striking disadvantage.

    I don't really have much insight on what could be done to rectify this problem -- perhaps make the direct damage max out much higher and decrease much fast to make sure it doesn't become the ultimate weapon -- but as it stands, there's not much one can really do with it in a one-on-one situation, unlike the other two factions' heavy weapons.
    • Up x 1
  2. Liewec123

    the corner is your ally!

    also i do think that lasher can work quite well as a solo player,
    abuse the fact that you can ADAD like a madman and shoot at their feet, when done right you can avoid quite a few of their shots and even if you miss your shots you'll still be damaging them, its a really good weapon to use when you're drunk :D

    suggestions?
    perhaps simply give it a slightly higher RoF :)
  3. Rydenan

    The game already has plenty of weapons suited for a 'solo heavy'.

    Must we make every last one cater to this singular playstyle?
    • Up x 1
  4. FieldMarshall

    In my opinion the Lasher projectiles should "lash" at enemies as they pass close to them at reduced damage, the way it worked in Planetside 1.
    Thats why it worked as a balanced 1v1 weapon in PS1 and why the weapon was called a "Lasher" in the first place.

    In PS1 the Lasher had a 25 round mag, which makes sense since it was balanced as a 1v1 weapon on par with NC/TR equivalents.
    I propose a Lasher attachment that reduces mag size to 25 but gives it the ability to lash.

    I would love to see more Lashers (or just ES weapons in general) on the field.
    Give people more incentive to use more faction flavor and less NS/NSX stuff.
  5. Fennel

    Theoretically you could do this, yes, but if you're both at full hitpoints, that still means that you're going to be doing 75 splash damage to someone who has 1k hp. That would mean you'd have to hit them with a total of 14 splashes to kill a single person. That's a /long/ time with the Lasher.

    It's not really about a solo playstyle, it's about the way that when one runs about by oneself, there are times where you come upon another player and it turns into a 1v1 contest. It's not so much about 'I want to only be by myself, period' and more of 'can I use a weapon that won't leave me at a disadvantage in a personal fight'. Right now, generally speaking, every gun in the game is the latter. Sure, there are times when a certain weapon won't be good in certain situations -- you can't really duel a sniper with a smg at very long ranges, after all -- but generally every gun has a situation where they're put at an advantage at a certain range.

    Given the the Lasher shoots slowly, has slow projectiles, and has a rather sizeable spread, there really isn't any incentive for a Heavy to run around with one unless they're hoping to run into a few more Heavies with the same weapon.

    Compare this to, say, the Jackhammer or the Chaingun. In both of those cases, the Heavy armed with those weapons is something of a terror at close-medium range, and if multiple Heavies are running those weapons, they can quickly turn into a close quarters nightmare. They're weapons that are both powerful individually and have a strong scalable potential.

    The Lasher, by contrast, has a very poor individual performance and, arguably, an even stronger scalable potential. Still, because running around with one puts the Heavy at a disadvantage at more or less every range, it's not really something you see many people lugging about for that reason.
    • Up x 1
  6. BrbImAFK

    The only problem with this one - speaking from a LOT of experience - is that the Lasher (unless you have several firing at the same point) simply doesn't have the DPS to stop somebody (especially *^%&*&%&$$%&*&%$$^*&()(&% CQC snipers) stepping out, tanking the damage, one-shotting you, and stepping back in to get healed up. Unless you've got 4-5+ dudes shooting the same point, that same sniper can step out and one-shot you all one by one getting healz in between.

    Even as a suppression weapon, it fails unless applied in large groups. Not to mention the fact that it turns you into a huge gorram target with a bright glowy arrow pointing right at you, just in case anybody missed you.....
  7. Liewec123

    thats entirely from splash though, shooting at their legs you should be able to land atleast a few shots :p
    a direct hit is 230 damage (155 direct and 75 splash) which cuts the TTK down by a lot :)
    you're still correct though that it is far slower than most other infantry weapons.


    i still think a RoF buff would be lovely for lasher :D
  8. doomedking517

    I personally think a small RoF increase would be good or a muzzle velocity increase. now i say this based on 2 perspectives, around where the lasher should be used. this post is about CQC soloing, thus the idea of an increased ROF works, but because i dont personally think the lasher is meant for CQC, if it had its muzzle velocity increase a little (enough to stop people figuratively speaking dance around the rounds) maybe double their speed (if the planetside wiki is correct it only has a 100m/s muzzle velocity - increase it by 50% or even simply double it, its still far below most other weapons (AFAIK)) yet would promote a more medium-long range combat approach which i personally think is where it is supposed to shine.

    That said, i personally do not play heavy all that much, and have little experience with the lasher (outside of some squad play) like about a week of messing around with it after purchase (and some dabbling here and there when i need to use heavy for survivability), thus I am willing to defer to other members on what they consider to be better.
  9. Rydenan

    You're carrying a weapon that deals splash damage (i.e. shoots around corners), melts MAXes, and can sustain fire for extremely long periods of time. You should be at a disadvantage versus someone carrying a dedicated-AI gun.

    I suppose you think the Archer should be buffed to make it a fair 1v1 weapon as well?
    • Up x 4
  10. Fennel

    75 splash damage is a pitiful amount of splash damage, and even with uninterrupted fire it takes 3-4 seconds at maximum damage to kill a MAX by oneself, especially if the MAX has flak armor equipped.

    Also, the Archer's a pretty fantastic 1v1 weapon -- it does 400 damage with pretty good accuracy and can do 600 damage on a headshot against infantry. There's been plenty of times where I've popped someone in the head at close range and finished them off with my pistol with a quick double-tap.
  11. BrbImAFK


    No. I think it should be a alternate choice to the turrets. They're all situational, damage-specific type weapons. The Engy should be able to choose between an AI turret, an AV turret, a WTFisthis**** turret and the Archer. Makes perfect sense to me! :p
  12. WatchingU

    Nah. Been that way forever. Just deal. It's the VS way.
  13. TR5L4Y3R


    no .. simply because its niche as a antiarmorweapon ... its 3 bodyshots and 2 headshots aren´t too shaby from range but you simply have to deal with the rechambertime ...

    would give the engineer way too much flexibility .. ... that basicaly makes him .. how shall i say kinda a medium assault class with endless ammo and repaircapablities ...
  14. Colinljx

    Here goes:
    1. Double the velocity from 100m/s to 200m/s (still slower than all the other bullets, but since it's VS, slow bullet velocity for no reason is OK)
    2. Double the RPM from 333 to 666 (devil's lash, from hell...)
    3. Nerf direct damage at range to 0 at 50m mark (like real plasma)
    The result is a gun that is on par with LMGs in DPS up-close, but garbage in 1v1 starting from around 20m.

    Before: a gun that is trash at suppression (compared to rocket/grenade launcher) or direct combat
    After: a gun that is OK at suppression, and possible for 1v1, but still trash at shooting people 20m away. (similar to the other two chain-guns)
  15. pnkdth

    Lasher isn't a 1v1 weapon. Much like many ES weapon it becomes exponentially more powerful the more people use it. 2-3 HAs Lashing a door is extremely painful and it is unlikely they'll be on their own.

    The only complaint I have is its low "bullet" velocity which could do with a bit of a boost.
  16. WeRelic

    For credibility:
    I've auraxed the base lasher and almost have the AE auraxed.

    The Lasher is in a weird spot balance wise. In context with the scale of the game, it's perfectly balanced. To the point that I feel more guns need to be designed with the philosophy behind the Lasher. One is fairly powerful, but on scales of half a squad or more, they are utterly devastating. It's designed to have a kind of synergy with other weapons, especially other Lashers.

    I feel like it's weakest point is it's extremely low ROF of only 333. Raising this to 350/375 would be the only thing that could be done to improve it's 1v1 performance without breaking it out of it's team oriented design.
  17. lesowski

    the lasher doesn't need a buff. I don't know how many times I've been killed while behind cover or in a building with nowhere to run, by some VS shooting in the door/window or on the ground beside me as long as they see a hit marker. and if you do get shot and duck for cover that splash damage can finish you off pretty quick
  18. Colinljx

    A lot of you don't seem to know the grenade launcher attachment/rail add-on available on a variant of the carbine, probably because people don't use them very often nowadays. Those things can one-hit-kill with a direct hit, can splash damage half the hp of a standard infantry, and can be used indefinitely by an engineer, and this is after it was nerfed from being able to splash kill tons of people in a large radius with just one shot. Anyone saying a suppression weapon should not be good at 1v1 should take a look at what else is on the table, because a grenade launcher carbine can 1v1 and suppress much better than any alternative.
  19. Rydenan

    Fine, we'll get rid of the 'pitiful' splash damage, and then we can make the Lasher as good at 1v1s as normal infantry weapons.
  20. Rydenan

    Ignoring the fact that the UGBL is super bad, the UBGL's ammo pack resupply rate is so slow that it usually bugs out and doesn't work at all. So you definitely cannot spam it indefinitely.
    Hate to break it to you, but the Underbarrel-variant weapons actually have reduced RoF to compensate for their versatility, making them worse-off in straight-up 1v1s than their non-UB counterparts.
    Not to mention that you also have to perform a costly switch back to primary-fire mode before you can engage infantry. A good player will kill you before you can even fire at them.
    So if you somehow think that using the UB attachments comes with no disadvantages to infantry 1v1s, you're insane.