Weapon viability in PvP

[Imrin]

I'll start by stating an absolute: Avengers are the only viable weapon in PvP currently.
EDIT: Avengers and rocket launchers. My most insincere apologies to the single guy who absolutely had to whine about this to me even though that's not the point of this thread.

Expanding, viability of weapons is a matter of weighing usefulness to availability. Avengers are commonplace and perhaps one of the easiest Big Guns to get. They are currently the highest damaging weapon in the game all things considered, ergo they are the most prevalent in PvP. Balancing these is not necessarily an issue of their damage or immediate usefulness in PvP but also their availability. Consider how easy they are to find as loot from various sources and to craft, consider their range, damage, and how commonplace the ammunition is with even better conditions. Now it becomes obvious that all other weapons are discouraged from use in PvP, which leads to the act of fighting other players being incredibly uninteresting and devoid of diversity.

Specifically, the issue of weapon viability in PvP is also an issue of economy, where gross weapon availability nets the constant use of the best possible weapons: avenger miniguns. Fixing the economy will make great strides in increasing weapon diversity in PvP. Actually balancing all of the weapons is another way to go about it, which I'm definitely a supporter of. Currently weapons in general do far too much damage for any semblance of tactics to be viable. It's currently a matter of standing in a firing line and waiting in the case of defense, and in the case of offense locating said firing line and attacking it from the side. Everyone uses an Avenger and a rocket launcher or they aren't viable.

How these weapons are actually balanced appears to be entirely up to the developers, being aware that most the community is heavily biased. Although not the purpose of this thread, I'd like to recommend all BGs force walking. Big Gun users would become far more stationary and their role in PvP would be different, rather than making Small Gun users redundant, or Energy Weapon users worthless. It would encourage the use and effectiveness of ambushes, and even a wealth of availability of big guns would not cause them to overshadow all other weapons.

[jacky]

Pvp tc: sniper rifles, gauss rifles, gauss pistols, Gatlings, avengers, rl, laster rifles, xl, and in future bozar, turbo plasma, vindi, pulse rifle.

Play more than 3tc and stop crying

[Smalltime]

http://youtu.be/rOrhY95SQ2I
You're right, you can see the wealth of variety as the BGs stand in front shooting rockets and avengers, and the snipers stand behind them. Look at all of the gauss rifles, vindicators, XLs, turbo plasma, and pulse rifles! Wow!
Stop being so goddamn anecdotal and pay attention.

Edit: I take it back, there were a few XLs. You got me, there.

[187umkillass]

Energy suck's ball's right now!! What noticed is avenger do 100+ dmg, xl same. Gatling do 80-90 what is mean compring to ave is pretty much bollock's. Laser do 60 crit max in eyes if somebody wearing caII, dont even mention bout metal and tesla!
Make resistance lil bit less against  laser maybe?

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R]

Has someone even TRIED to PvP with a pancor jackhammer with 3x BRD?

I wanna see someone test out some build like that

(that's why I want a PvP event to happen so I can test it)

[Imrin]

Has someone even TRIED to PvP with a pancor jackhammer with 3x BRD?

I wanna see someone test out some build like that

(that's why I want a PvP event to happen so I can test it)

The pancor is actually a very good weapon. It's main advantage is the knockback ability, which sets it apart from other weapons. The damage mod on shotgun shells is also very good, and the (lack of) hit percentage on bursts means that it does good damage within its entire range. Unfortunately, the pancor is rarer than the Avenger due to no NPCs using it (to my knowledge) and the need for Blueprints. It's shorter range is the main drawback, though.

I've used the pancor extensively within Hinkley and it does top avengers. Unfortunately, it's worthless in any open environment, which is so common that it's nearly never brought to TC. On the flip side, where a player using it is not in an open environment, it makes rocket launchers a complete joke in that it outdamages them and gives a much more dramatic knockback effect. Ultimately, because it's far more situational than big guns, it's less viable.

There's not much that I could think of to improve the pancor reasonably. It's still very good, as I said, but only a bit more viable in PvP than melee is. At the core, this is a problem with big guns being applicable to all situations and vastly outdamaging everything else.