Trying Micro Pulse Lasers after the nerf - nah - Viper VPR-F | MechWarrior Online

Описание: This match shows why i ultimately decided against Micro Pulse Lasers in favor of Heavy Small Lasers. The logic and explanations are below, but really it came down the the fight @2m27s to @2m59s against the Urbie. I feel like if i didn't have any lasers at all, the fight wouldn't really have changed; whereas if i'd had Heavy Small Lasers, i could have burned the Urbie's legs off a LOT faster. Weapons should complement each other or be interesting, and in this build, McPL just ... aren't.

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Another thing i want to note: we had played against "sUAc" in his Viper VPR-B the previous game, and he had been the last one alive. I'm familiar with the build because buddy "Kasperl" runs it, calls it the "Noisy Cricket" (i believe it's from a Sean Lang vid). So that's why i knew that "sUAc" didn't have armor without seeing his paper doll.

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The Viper VPR-F was nerfed in June 2022 to remove the double ammo quirk for Heavy Machine Guns. Previous to this nerf, the 1.5 tons of HMG ammo were essentially 3 tons of HMG ammo. Due to this, i had to decide whether or not i wanted to switch to Regular or Light Machine Guns, or if neither, how to get the ammo back.

Switching to regular MGs wasn't an option, since i already have regular MGs on my Mist Lynx MLX-G and i don't want duplicate mech builds. LMGs were a possibility, but i really liked this mech being a close-range brawling swarmer and didn't want to lose that feel. I had 3xSPL on the mech, each weighing 1 ton, so if i stepped down the lasers then i could exactly make up the 1.5 tons needed.

I experimented and theorycrafted with Micro Pulse Lasers, ER Small Lasers, and Heavy Small Lasers, and i think HSL is the best option of the three. HMG have range 120/240.
SPL: 5 dmg each 2.4s over 0.6s duration at 160/320 range. 1.7 dps, 2.3 dph, 0.7 hps
McPL: 2.8 dmg each 1.6s over 0.5s duration at 130/260 range. 1.3 dps, 2.3 dph, 0.6 hps
ERSL: 5 dmg each 3.2s over 0.9s duration at 200/400 range. 1.2 dps, 1.7 dph, 0.7 hps
HSL: 6.5 dmg each 3.75s over 1.1s duration at 130/260 range. 1.3 dps, 1.7 dph, 0.8 hps

McPL are sorta like laser machine guns: they fire fast and frequently but don't do much damage each burst. ERSL and HSL are very similar: slow firing, long burn time, similar damage to the SPL.

If we think about what we want the lasers to do, then the choice actually becomes pretty easy. We already have 8xHMG for sustained damage, so McPL would just add a worse, burstier version of what we're already doing without anything new or interesting. What we need is a way to burn through armor so the HMGs can do their work, and the best laser for burning through armor is the HSL. ERSL have more range, but we can't do much damage beyond the HMG range anyway, so the extra ERSL range only gives the enemy more time to react to us, unless we don't make use of it, in which case it's the HSL but worse. The longer cooldown on the HSL doesn't matter as much, because we need to get in and out of cover anyway, and we need to make sure we line up the lasers when firing them.

Viper VPR-F - 3xHSL 8xHMG
https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/mechlab?b=f...

00:00 Moving to cap Gamma
00:23 "Shank That Bear" is pulling some enemies towards us, so i turn around to assist him
00:47 Surprise! There's another Catapult!
00:57 Killing a Catapult
01:17 Killing the second Catapult
01:29 Moving to help the Assault in G6
01:39 He doesn't need help at all
02:00 Trying to decide where to dive in
02:27 Killing an Urbie
02:59 Killing a Trebuchet (XL Engine!)
03:10 Killing a Viper piloted by "sUAc"
03:21 Fighting a Stalker
03:31 Cleanup
04:09 Stats