Multi Range Hybrid SMG's - read-

[Raik]

Heya Peeps,

I did it.
Yep, thats right - my lvl 68 Atrox Fixer is dual wielding SMG's of the OT Viper Type since yesterday, and doing so fulltime now.
It took me over 260K IP (read twohundred sixtythousand) right down the virtual black hole which seems to be the required skills -
And a full deck of QL 70 implants (only thing left empty on my Implant-tab is the left hand right now - im talking a total of 24 Clusters and close to 1.5 million credits investment)

The _insane_ Multi Wield requirement along with the _crazy_ prices on OT Vipers will keep me on my toes for some time now;
a new challenge in playing my Fixer for sure.

Over equipping is virtually impossible - maybe if you started your Fixer on a different template (completely ignoring Pistol and SMG/MG skills, leaving those to wrangles; maxing out Full auto and Multi Ranged for every level)
I am using a QL 81 in my Main, and a QL 56 in my offhand.
Next level i will 'upgrade' my main hand to a QL 109 Kobra (which has about the requirements of a QL 86 OT Viper) - the added speed might add some punch in terms of higher critical chance, but the Specials will be a bit less effective..

Comparison?
Before I deserted the Mausser road I was wrangled into a QL 103 Mausser - my Damage was pretty mid-leveled, still getting alot of love on the MOB end... average hits between 12 and 280 damage, crits in the 500's range and _very rarely_ a Burst for up to 790.

Now with the OT Vipers, I know one thing for sure:
I will NEVER EVER be able to solo a mission again. Unless FunCom decides to tone down on MOB AC and HP that is.

Average damage: 44 on main hand, 32 on offhand.
Criticals: i crit more often now, due to increased ROF of course. average crit being 120+

Specials:
-Fling Shot
I can fling for Average Damage, rarely i crit for 120+, but i blame my neglected Fling Shot skill for that, and am looking forward to pumping another 80K IP straight into that one.
-Burst
I burst for exactly 3 Rounds on my main hand - Damage between 128 and 174
-Full Auto
My highest FA attack was a 470+ with 8 bullets hitting.
lowest one so far was 120+ with 3 bullets hitting.
Here again, i blame my weak FA skill, and know for a fact that upping this will grant me higher damage, since I will hit with more bullets.


Bottom line?
The price I payed for being Unique is to never ever do something on my own again. I wont be taking a walk to the outhouse without a group backing me up.
PvP ? "heh." nuff said.
QL? - I wont be using the _best_ I can use unless I max all the required skills - and beleive me, you WILL WANT TO max all of them;
~FA, burst and fling - the higher the better... MAX THIS
~Pistol, SMG - Directly related to your damage output and your crit chance/damage. MAX THIS
~Multi Ranged (MR) - obviously you need high high HIGH MR skill in order to be using semi comparable QL's together as a pair
and beleive me - you want that.

Suggestions:
- I would like to see lower FA req's on Hybrid SMG's.
These guns NEED that special - or else the damage is just not worth it - but on some QL's the FA requirement is exactly one point higher than the main Weapon skill SMG (Damage modifier: SMG 67%, Pistol 33%) - and for Fixers thats a Dark Blue.

- lower Multiwield req's... there are no buffs for Multi-Wield at all, leaving me with Akimbo Implants as the only way to up my MR right now, thus the huge QL difference in the Guns I am able to use together - this will get better over time, since MR is not maxed for me yet.

- Poison Damage. enuff said. Fixers get Damage enhancers related to Poison damage (and Melee which is a leftover from Beta, when Fixers were still semi-efficient 1-hand-edged users; it has been taken out of the game before Beta 4 i beleive)

Personal Impression:
I will never go back.

http://community.anarchy-online.com/.../d/1/name/raik

[telanon]

Just like to add something to the effect of lowering the FA req for SMG's...

If you have every fired a SMG in real life, you will know that its not hard to empty a clip, very easy in fact, however you aren't gonna hit jack, SMG's are for pumpin out lead and hoping to hit something, there not sniper rifles.

So just like real life...make the FA requirment low for SMG's, with a low skill you arent gonna hit with many bullets, so its not gonna do massive damage, and you might give Fixer's a little more varity and options to the Mausser.

After all FA is dark blue, and Fixers have enough dark blue skills to raise as it is (ie Nano Skills)

-Ballpin

[_____________biggfoo]

Sigh, you can't look cool and be "fully" functional. This creats a cookie cutter society which is boring. I salute you for being diffrent.

But yes the reqs on the smg hybrids should be lower IMO, or atlest on avg meet the dammage of a mausser (or pass it with FA). For the future hopefully.

[Raik]

Hello again,

Well... I am still using my Dual Hybrid SMGs - and to be perfectly honest - I still suck with them.
Hitting a MOB with a gazillion of HP and AC for a mere 47 damage each time (forget what i said about average damage - my Vipers hit for 47 damage each hit. period. no more no less - exactly 47 damage each hit. unless I crit for 200 now - rarely.

Let me ask you a Question here Mr. "Jim Salabim" (the guy who wrote an article about Weapon Stats - its in the news archive and can be found here)
http://community.anarchy-online.com/...articles/1156L

"Minimum Damage

In general you will find that melee weapons have a higher minimum damage than ranged weapons. This is by design  as one of the factors that balance melee weapons with the obvious benefits of ranged weapons (more shots before the monster gets to you  root tactics etc).

The benefit of a high minimum damage should be noticeable when you rise in level. You can never hit for less damage than the listed Minimum Damage. A free Rubi-Ka Kod to the first person to tell me why high Min Damage is good against high AC..."

-=-
My OT Vipers have a minimum damage of 22 (mainhand) and 19 (offhand) respectively now... im using a QL 87 and a QL 56.
And sorry, Jim - im fresh out of luck on them "Rubi-Ka Kods" - for I have no clue what makes my 47 damage every 2 seconds good against high AC if the MOB im fighting has close to 6000 HP (Orange)
-=-

So to sum it up - at level 69 im using a QL 87 Viper, which for my Level and needs is an absolute Joke, I invested a Grand total of 280K IP up to this point - in skills other than SMG and Burst mind you - just so i could equip a Pair of SMG's "with higher minimum Damage"
280K - as a comparison - would have been more than enough to raise my Ranged skills high enough for efficiently using a Nova Flow MK IV.

FunCom:
People dont want to use Nova Flow's and Mausser's.
People want diversity.

As a last note:
Alot of Fixers complain that the Damage output should "be comparable to a Mausser"...
Ill tell ya what - I want to be outdamaging a Mausser. Give me Mausser Damage at the speed of the OT Viper. And yes, i want that damage on _each_ of my Vipers.
Ill do the maths for you:
Thats 3,5 times the damage of a Mausser
For five times the IP investment.

Its a great Game people - and although im pretty fed up with Bugs and Class-Balance, you have my subscription.
Im supporting what _can become_ an awesome game.

But before you start adding content and Story-line;
Why not take the time to go over your Rule-Set and do some recalculations on how a High level player should perform at any given level?

I completely slacked out on Nano-Skills - a specialized Fixer at my Level has been casting Team-Grid-Phreak for at least 15 levels now....
I cant even Reckless.

A choice i made - but a choice based on Options you gave me:
-Do higher minimum Damage against high AC Mobs.
-Maussers are not the only SMG's out there.

Another Idea:
I would happily go ahead and invest another couple 100K's in trade skills; if in turn i was actually able to modify my Amunition.
Poison Coated, Filed, Armor Piercing, Metal Jacket, Acid Impact - other RPGs have it - why dont you?

Cheers people
-Raik

[Raik]

... id like to have some kind of official response on Hybrid SMGs - seeing how im still willing to invest a MAJOR share of my IP into one day being able to efficiently use Dual-SMG's i need to know a few things:

Are there any changes planned to the damage type/amount a single-handed SMG can/will deal?

Are there any changes planned in regards of the insane requirements you need to fulfill in order to equip those?
(no Full-auto, or Multi Ranged Buffs at this time - Multi Ranged somewhere out there on the horizon... but you get my idea)

In case any of the 'new weapons' i heard rumor about will actually do with only SMG and BURST along with Multi Ranged requirement; - is there any way of restoring IP planned at this time?

(Its not like I spent 300K IP on i.e. tutoring - I didn'n hose my character on some 'class-unrelated-skills'... instead i took a look at the requirements i needed for a given item in-game and had/have troubles meeting them)

Now before anybody gives me the "everybody knew Vipers are crap" speech - i'd like you to consider one thing:
many a weapon sucks at low QLs. So equipping a pair of QL 5 Vipers and testing them in the newbie grounds before investing the IP to use a high QL one (Pistol, SMG, Burst, Fling, FA, MultiR) is never going to give you a good reflection of an item's potential.

consider that the damage is 67% SMG and 33% Pistol - a fixer with their maxed SMG and their minimal Pistol _will_ do 33% less damage than they could - same goes for weapon specials...

It also seems like the Damage calculation for the OT Viper class is somewhat out of whack - i do maximum damage on lower level mobs, and minimum damage on higher level mobs...
never i get those 'in between, odd numbers' like im used to from my mausser. my min damage is 47 (lvl 90 Shade mutants), my max damage is 76 (lvl 1 Leets). seems like the damage range never comes into play at all.

Dual SMGs is a nice, cool feature - and im not the only one who tried their luck with those... alas i think nobody went as far out of their way as i did, to really test things out..

Some kind of feedback on the matter is greatly appreciated!

[________________cman]

you raised full-auto and allready had smg & burst high?

switch to a supressor, beats the heck out of vipers...it will still look like a mausser, but when you unleash a nice fat FullAuto you will know it aint no stinkin mausser.

ql 200 suppressor can full-auto for about 10k dmg...a ql 100 probably does quite a bit, give it a try man and see what ya think

[Raik]

Thank you for replying cman,

The point behind this post tho, is that I always wanted to go Dual wield SMG (something that just fits 'my playingstyle' and the character i try to embody within the AO Universe).

The Point is tho; at this time in the game, a QL 91 Atleas Bern Vanilla Dream _by far_ surpasses a QL 92 Viper... _all_ the requirements are lower (and theres only 3 besides Multi Ranged an a Atlas Bern) and the damage of the Bern is something like 17-88(200) compared to 19-54(88) on the Vipers...

I know that Vipers are broken, but rather that being a reason to _not_ use them, id recon it to be a good reason to fix them as in yesterday, *before* bringing in _new_ content...

The Vipers are a fine choice i find, with the high requirements not being 'the uber item' that everybody will use... but still they are a rather good weapon (not just because of the killer looks and the VERY cool sound of the gun as is)...

I want to be able to utilize the SIX skills i raised, and i think i should be able to ;c)

[telanon]

Have you tried the Kao Tang Spitting Cobras? Those are dual wieldable...

You still gonna suck in Combat tho. Low Delay/ Low Damage Weapons suck in AO - thats not gonna change.

[________Transcendent]

I see all this talk about raising flingshot and full auto in order to do more damage. But these are not attack skills. So I don't think it makes a difference how high they are, they only matter when it comes to equipping the weapon.

Could be I'm wrong, but I don't see how a non attack skill should figure into any damage calculation.