MASSIVE NERF IN SARON:time of refund cert and sc

you are right i did include the .5 bloom cool down on the last shot. its only an extra .3 seconds because you still have the .2 second refire ont he last shot, and refire must complete before reload can begin even on an empty magazine (prowler experience has proven this again and again), so that woul be 447dps stock and 472 upgraded.

as for burst, well I calculate that as non reload adjusted, (simply damage/refire) so it never includes the t=0 advantage.

For long-range combat, if you wait 0.5s for the CoF to return to its base state between shots, you still have the same level of accuracy, minus the 0.25s delay, plus 50m/s projectile velocity, and DPS is either decreased by ~3% or increased by ~0.5%. Granted, you have to fire 6 shots instead of one, but that means you lose less DPS from a missed shot, plus the removal of the delay and the extra projectile speed act as a counter balance to that.

For close range, you can deal 2550 damage in your first salvo, which only takes 1 second to unload, instead of 1500 damage. Your Sustained DPS is ~30% higher than the old Saron, 607 DPS vs 461 DPS on the old Saron.

For mid range you can find a middle ground by letting the CoF shrink some after each shot, but not all the way.

This is a straight buff numerically, not to long range capability, but to overall flexibility of the weapon because it is a huge buff for mid-short range engagements. For long range, you can make the argument that having 6 shots instead of one is a detriment, but it's hard to argue that the 20% improved projectile speed and lack of delay don't make up for that.

Don't forget the added recoil after each shot.

To be honest, the Saron is crap at close range when it comes to close engagement. The delay in waiting for the next shot and also when trying to be evasive, the Vulcan comes in handy in those situations because then you can readjust your aim and get most of the damage in versus spawling a shot at close range and waiting for the reload for your next shot. Also, precision for range with a slower projectile speed wasn't exactly a 'great' weapon for long range combat versus moving targets. The Harasser, for instance, is a good example of trying to use massive anti-vehicle weapons on an agile target won't necessarily mean a win, but a medium anti-vehicle weapon would be more suited for that situation.

Is it just me or does this change make it basically useless against ESFs?

Keep in mind that the majority of the VS think the Lancer and Vortex are bad, don't use Lashers, and run defense modules that aren't auto-repair. What I am saying is people are stupid and their stupidity helps ensure the best gear used by elite #1 outfits is unlikely to get nerfed. Stop trying to correct them.

It always was. Shoot AP, small arms, lock-ons, Lancer/Vortex, or flak, or don't waste ammo spooking pilots away from actually effective shots please. If a pilot actually hovered to be hit while at the half-health needed for that shot to be lethal, or kept hovering while you reloaded and shot twice, then even the HE primary could kill them.

It's arguably more useful now since you can at least follow up and deal more damage before the fighter is out of range.

I love when people complain about a weapon before ever even using it.

Wow did that OP hurt to read.

Ok, let me explain my understanding of it, and you tell me if I'm wrong in my understanding:

1/3rd of the damage per shot.
6x the number of shots in the magazine.

The reload time of the Saron HRB was about 1.5 - 2 seconds, I don't recall exactly.

So if you hit with all 6 shots, you do 2x the damage from before. If you are full auto, you can empty the clip in less than the time it took to reload once on the original Saron. Now, at range, you can't fire that fast. The average time I took between shots was 1/2 second. So to get the damage you originally did, you would pause a total of 1.5 seconds for all 3 shots, putting you at just a hair under the previous damage (like 1450 versus 1500).

It would actually look more like 2-4 seconds for the average gamer due to reaiming unless you're shooting at an immobile Lockdown Prowler.

The Saron relied on its high damage per shot. It is harder to hit with 3 shots than it is with 1, and usually the enemy tank driver begins to react after the first one hit(which usually makes him harder to hit).

It's important to consider the practical application of the weapon on the battlefield as well.

Direct hit damage per shot decreased from 1500 to 425
So you now need to land 4 out of 6 shots to do 1500+ damage.
You have to wait .5secs between shots or COF makes it unusable.
So that is 1.5secs of wait time, plus recoil adjustment and fire time to get what you had originally in 0 sec. (.25secs after nerf #1)

That make it more clear?

And just to nerf it a little more they did this:
Inner blast damage decreased from 750 to 350
Inner blast radius decreased from 1 meter to 0.5 meters
Outer blast radius decreased from 3 meters to 2 meters

So many of us are not happy with the drastic change..
We bought a high alpha damage weapon that was accurate every shot, and this update they changed it into a vulcan that shoots lasers.

Bottom line, this is a harasser gun and they stuck it on our sniper tank...
At the same time they increased the cost of halberd the NS equivalent option to old saron, by 3x cert cost up to 750c.

So yeah, we are really ticked off.

It is ****.

It's absolutely a nerf. Went from 1 shotting infantry to 2 shots. That's HUGE nerf.

Also went from skill sniping a hovering aircraft to alerting them that it's time to move. Does less dps against tanks at long range (assuming they are smart enough not to just sit there).

Will it do more dps in close, probably, but if you're in a mag & up close, you're doing it wrong.

So wait, the Saron is now *MUCH* better up close, it gets an insanely small buff to DPS at range while remaining 100% accurate (0.5%) and loses its .25 second charge up time which adds a small bit of difficulty to leading targets.

And people are... whining? Because an AV weapon is no longer a 1 shot infantry sniper rifle.

Oh you guys.... /snicker

The only thing the Saron could truly alpha strike was infantry units. 1500 damage to a tank is merely a warning shot.

Realistically you can get at least 2 shots off before the target reacts unless they were already moving, which would have been harder for the original Saron due to the fire delay. 3 shots against the average reaction target (1 full second of fire delay) would be reasonable as well.

On the other side of the coin, the old Saron was abysmal at hitting airborne moving targets, especially with its low ammo count. Now with faster travel, no prefire time, and greater ammo capacity, you can take more shots at targets that previously my sane gunners wouldn't have even bothered with except at the utmost of necessity / opportunity.

Was that front-loaded damage nice? Sure! It came with so many other caveats that I don't mind it so much.

Yeah, I know, right? And the PPA got a decent buff to make it viable as more than just an area spamming annoyance weapon.

And 425 damage is still enough to make any infantry get the hell away, and 2 shots will probably kill most people. 3 shots will certainly do so, and now you have 6 shots to do it with.

This thread has about run it's course so we are going to go ahead and close it up. We absolutely appreciate everyone's feedback.