That would be a good idea if you wanted a small nerf. However, that is unnecessary coding work considering that it should more realistically receive a bigger nerf that would be more effectively applied through the stats, since it would take less time for people to adapt if the augment is mechanically identical, but just weakened to match said mechanics.

Actually, it sounds like you mostly play at low rank battles, because EMP is stronger the more upgraded your opponents' drones are. I don't think you have any actual experience since you have not provided any combat examples with augments, just that "I think x".

LMFAO this feels like a huge bait. AP is much, much stronger than Round Destabilization - generally higher damage output, as well as a status. Saying Magnetic Pellets is crap is just wrong, I don't think I even need to explain beyond EMP is busted and Magnetic Pellets is statistically superior to stock even without the status. Duplet is actually hilariously one of the worst Hammer augments currently. You're not presenting any actual facts and somehow even though you're arguing through anecdote, you're still wrong. Impressive. Have you actually played any of these augments?

Now - are the strongest legendary augments stronger than the strongest crystal augments? And if you say they should be, then:

Adrenaline doesn't have a permanent buff, only takes one immunity to fully counter, and doesn't provide any extra utilities. AP is effectively an infinite 10% buff, takes two immunities (which is impossible, in case you didn't know) to fully counter, allows you to deal regular damage against Defender and Crisis players, allows your teammates to deal double damage to whoever you're attacking, and allows you to deal regular damage against people in titan domes. Mhm yes I'd like to say that Autocannon is the strongest Smoky augment and that EMP sucks (can't wait for someone to come into this thread and say "but autocannon is strong").

Balance means to have all pieces of equipment as equal as possible. So with regards to Tanki: The most balanced legendary augments are the weakest ones (Stun Smoky, AP Magnum) and the most balanced garage augments are the strongest ones (Missile Launcher "Hunter", Adrenaline Firebird/Freeze/Tesla/Vulcan/Smoky, Cryo Smoky). This should be the default standpoint for everyone who is chasing balance, considering that if you want to get everything as balanced as possible, the first thing you need to do is close gaps between legendary/status augments and garage augments. You can have your own aggregate goals that this is a part of, i.e. reducing general power levels in the game/increasing TTK, where the goal is to bring legendary augment ttk down to the level of garage augment ttk and then lower the average from there, but this should ultimately always be the first step for anyone who genuinely wants to see balance brought to the game. There is no reason Legendary augments should be "special" or stronger than garage augments, from a balance standpoint. The only reasons anyone could have to support that are ulterior motives, such as wanting to preserve the brokenness of the legendary augments they own.

Define it, then. If you know what it means, you know that they haven't nerfed it too much.

Tell me, do you understand what it means for a piece of equipment to be balanced? There is no problem with AP Freeze, it's still a double status piece of equipment. It literally cannot be bad unless it has a full dependency on said statuses - which it can't because it has two of them.

I myself use Railgun a lot and my most used turret. I can say that incendiary rounds can perform slightly better than EMP gauss. The fact that I can peek corners and shoot is a lot more effective for one since it can instant hit. Secondly, it honestly depends on how the player uses the augment. Also a gauss player would have to reset its lock on every time a player hides behind the wall. Thus why I put incendiary rail a little higher than EMP gauss because of the easy peek and shoot tactic. I find the peak and shoot tactic more annoying than a status gauss trying to lock onto me. No you would be surprised how much better cryo twins is. I have noticed a recent freeze status buff that now instantly freezes the target for all cryo augments. Despite cryo twins having limited range, the fire rate along with the instant freezing makes it more potent. Hell even I can say Freezing tesla is better than status gauss. You should really see how I play my Jamming hammer. Jamming hammer is my personal favorite augment. The fact that I can disable drones for a short amount of time especially rendering lifeguard and blaster useless and canceling out Boosted damage, Armor, and speed bonuses and preventing others to use their OD makes makes this thing so deadly. Also this thing is a nightmare to go against especially if you jam lock them. Hence why I think jamming hammer is more threatening than status gauss. Also when I use this augment I don't use the 4 drones, I use the Engineer drone with jamming hammer especially if I'm the type of player to raid into bases. Engineer is really handy for recovery well charging in. Personally why I think Jamming hammer ranks higher than status gauss. I don't think Incendiary Rail ranks above status Gausses. Even with the peeking, you've gotta deal with the fact heating is simply a weaker status than EMP is. Also, EMP Gauss can much more easily punish players who attempt to peek against it with arcade shots, whereas Incendiary Railgun basically has to wait. In practice, Incendiary Railgun is just a stronger version of Round Destabilization that has DoT rather than an instant high damage hit - while it's strong, it just versatility in its application of power and its utility. Pretty much the same as what I said about EMP Rail, just with a weaker status - rather than needing luck to punish its crit like EMP, it doesn't get to at all, it just forces your target to either use their repair kit or eat extra damage. As for Cryo Twins - I don't think there really was a freezing buff. Cryo Twins always had -50% per crit, as far as I'm aware, and all the other single shot cryo augments have always been -100% per crit (except for Cryo Rail in the tiny amount of time it existed before the critical update, but...whatever.) Again though, this doesn't solve that Cryo Twins is simply not as efficient as EMP Gauss is, with a weaker status, range limitation and less effective group application of said status. It might be better in a 1v1 sense, but as far as general matchmaking utility, I'm certain EMP Gauss is going to be more useful. As for Jamming Hammer - it's great in groups because it has ridiculous status uptime and the ability to distribute it to groups, but the problem is that Jamming simply doesn't do anything in a lot of scenarios - against say, an Assault player without their overdrive up, all you're doing is stopping them from getting a faster reset on their supplies - which isn't a whole lot, they still get infinite double damage. I really wouldn't rank Jamming Hammer higher than status Gauss as a solo augment, and I'd say they're pretty equal depending on opponent and map in a group. Again, though: Status Gausses, statistically speaking, are still comparable to stock and Adrenaline Gauss when all counters are in play for both of them, and they are stronger than Stock and Adrenaline Gauss when both are in optimal conditions. Shouldn't this mean they need a nerf?

LMFAO

Also because it'd completely destroy the sanctity of the modes :P

@wolverine848 Unrelated, but I now recognize that claiming status rails as a good target to balance augments towards was pretty stupid if you want to go back to that post and tear that argument apart.

Well, hilariously, I don't think it is - Mystic is clearly putting thought into his arguments beyond anecdotes, (evidenced by Jamming Hammer, as even though it can be seen as an objectively middling status augment solo, it becomes top tier when utilized in a group, which he mentions), even if they aren't necessarily effective as a result of where they're targeted and contextualized. If I was making the argument to nerf status Gausses to be mid-tier within the lineup of legendary augments, I likely would have compromised on the smaller nerf that Mystic proposed (criticals removed). However, seeing as my argument is that the target for legendary augments to be close to where the worst ones currently are, there is not really a feasible argument to be made for status Gausses not needing a nerf. I will always insult an ill founded argument. I will not always insult an incorrect player. As for being too stubborn to quit - why would you ever quit when you know you're correct? I am fully confident in my current belief that status Gausses are stronger than where the "worst legendary augments" (to most people, anyways) sit and my ability to argue that point, as well as that I will be able to provide a logical counterargument to anyone who claims to chase balance and simultaneously does not want to close the gap between garage and legendary augments.

Oh also - arguing on anecdotes alone is no argument at all. I'm not going to elaborate on that beyond presenting you with the example of a certain forum member arguing Thunder to not be in need of a dire buff because of his beliefs that it was fine, despite only ever playing matches with it in optimum conditions. C'mon, Mystic, don't be that guy...

Dear god you are basically just posting things for me to tear apart. Stun Striker – Stronger than EMP Gauss, debatable for much more effective Incendiary Railgun – Incendiary Railgun has a double dependency as a result of the critical + heating, but it is, like all railguns, weakened as a result. I think Incendiary Railgun is potent, yes, but it falls short in terms of utility – it doesn’t compare to the 10 meter bogus radius of EMP Gauss, which isn’t even taking into account that EMP and AP are much stronger status than heating as they do not have real counterplay besides waiting them out, while heating has counterplay through waiting before you repair kit and the onus is on the heating player to continuously apply pressure – which Incendiary Railgun cannot do. I would place Incendiary Railgun just below EMP Gauss – on one of my alts which has both, they play comparatively at a mid-rank level, but Heating as a status just doesn’t scale as well going into the high ranks, as a result of the urgency to use a repair kit for heating damage decreasing to hull health going up. Cryo Twins – it has a range limit, it applies its status cumulatively rather than instant capping out and then degradation like EMP/AP and so cannot apply its status effectively to groups. Also, it straightup kills slower than EMP Gauss does, and Cryo is barely an advantage over EMP when it comes to blocking enemy damage output – maybe you meant stun twins? Trying to call cryo twins stronger than status gausses is… comical, to say the least. Jamming Hammer – It can debatably get comparable utility, it depends on who you’re fighting, but it has no chance in hell of comparing to status Gausses. It gives you constant mediocre utility against most players, and constant relevant utility against some players. However, it doesn’t significantly boost kill power against most players, compared to stock, and given that its effectiveness depends on your enemies using one of four drones (which can still be countered by augments with other status effects, except they work on the rest of the drones)…yeah no. This doesn’t beat a status Gauss. EMP Railgun and Freeze – didn’t I literally call all EMP augments top tier somewhere in one of my recent posts? Either way, they aren't as effective status appliers or solo killers as EMP Gauss - Railgun doesn't apply EMP to groups as well, and because it doesn't have guaranteed 100% status uptime nor arcade shots to supplement its already strong status, it suffers in a solo scenario compared to EMP Gauss. All it has is a second dependency on criticals. They're close, but EMP Railgun is best used to force out a massive swap at the start of a match rather than being genuinely effective. EMP Freeze has a range limitation, I won't delve deeper than that. Jamming Freeze – debatable, it needs a nerf as a result of its doubled dependency with no weakening, but it is currently only problematic because it effectively has no counters, not because it is obscenely strong. Honestly? None of them do a better job than EMP Gauss, except for maybe Stun Striker - which is far more of a threat in a 1v1 and is much more effective at baiting out swaps, but lacks as much utility against a group, especially with its reduced stun radius. Pointing fingers at a few legendary augments than you think are stronger than status Gausses doesn't mean that it is at the target balance level. You have to point fingers at literally all of them, and explain how they are less effective than status Gausses. Without that, at best it comes off as trying to defend a cancer ray and at worst it comes off as complaining that your cancer ray isn't the strongest. (Thankfully the former for you.) Now, some food for thought for you: even if status Gausses are b tier, why don't they need a nerf? There are "d tier" legendary augments that compete with the garage options or only just beat them, and that is what we should be aiming to nerf them to - comparable to the garage options, with extra steps needed to counters them, and harder counters available as a result. Think about this before you post again.

Yes, you increase dependency on said status effects. Which is what I'm trying to do but people think broken augments are balanced somehow.

Confirmation bias moment Come on. Do you really think people will post screenshots where the full row of 15 is uncommons, rares, and epics?

If you want to take down my argument, you start here. Start with either why this isn't the case for balance (would you really want to claim that there is no gap, or that there is justa negligible one between the average garage and average legendary augment?), or start with why status Gausses are mediocre or weak relative to other status augments, and we should balance other augments down (but frankly, mostly up) to them. If you want to start anywhere else, be my guest, but don't be surprised if I don't take it seriously, because it is almost certainly not in the interest of balance, or refuse to acknowledge it entirely. For example: This does not explain how status Gausses are close to the target balance - mediocre and/or weak status augments, and thus only need a small nerf. Also, it refuses to acknowledge the statistical superiority status Gausses have with the reduced reload being less than the damage decrease, on top of the Status. I already deconstructed @yellowghetto's middle "point" in another post, so onto the next example: Another example: There is no arguable "meant to" if you do not have a target for balance in mind. Refer to the first post I quoted for what that target is for myself. For the other contents of this post, refer to my most recent previous post for why balancing against the worst case scenario is blitheringly ignorant. oh right also "yeah just kill the player" "just pop NEs against them so you always have overdrive up" "just use a drone (this one makes the least sense to me)" "just take immunity (explained)" yeah okay

Ah yes I sure do love it when something is only balanced when it's against its respective module and immunity. Stun Striker is just Missile Launcher "Hunter" against Stun Immunity, and MIssile Launcher "Hunter" is balanced therefore Stun Striker is balanced. Please think before you post. "Status augments have mechanical counters" and all that jazz - if you don't have the counter in your garage, you have no choice but to suffer. Hence, those counters should be counters, not mandatory to fight the augment. Please think before you post.

The most balanced legendary augments are the weakest ones (Stun Smoky, AP Magnum) and the most balanced garage augments are the strongest ones (Missile Launcher "Hunter", Adrenaline Firebird/Freeze/Tesla/Vulcan/Smoky, Cryo Smoky). This should be the default standpoint for everyone who is chasing balance, considering that if you want to get everything as balanced as possible, the first thing you need to do is close gaps between legendary/status augments and garage augments. You can have your own aggregate goals that this is a part of, i.e. reducing general power levels in the game/increasing TTK, where the goal is to bring legendary augment ttk down to the level of garage augment ttk and then lower the average from there, but this should ultimately always be the first step for anyone who genuinely wants to see balance brought to the game.

Now let's think about critical as a status effect similar to burning (potential extra damage and protection ignore) that every turret deals a small amount of and some turrets deal a lot of. Your argument falls apart. Now let's think about critical legendary augments versus all the others. Your argument in this case is saying that Blunderbuss singlehandedly causes more problems than all the other status augments combined, which...is not a particularly easily defensible point, to put it simply. Oh, and before you even think about complaining about status augments that have increased crit damage - the base turrets also have double crit damage and they aren't problematic now, are they? I get that you're attached to EMP Gauss. Seriously, I get it, I like taking away my opponents rights to exist with Stun Striker, too. No matter how much you love the augment though, you won't convince anyone with common sense to keep it overpowered if your logic boils down to "it's balanced as it is because it gets to ream people" and you throw all the other problems in the way trying to protect it. If you want to argue that EMP Gauss should stay overpowered, then you don't touch on it at all - you argue that other weaker status augments should be buffed to its level - which is almost as ridiculous as trying to argue it doesn't need a nerf. Almost.

Sorry, what? The only problem with modules currently is the crits and by association Armadillo - also, from the perspective of a farmer, I'd rather fight teams with full protections who are vulnerable to my cancer ray of choice than fight teams that just have immunities and no protections. Maybe if EMP still reset repair kits you could make this argument just for EMP Gauss and only in a 1v1 scenario, but otherwise - this is nonsense. Hot garbage. A load of dung. A dumpster fire, if you will. Status effects are a much bigger problem than modules.

Currently that cannot happen if you are using a status augment. They have mechanical advantages, and as such have mechanical counters, not gameplay ones. The counter to an EMP augment is to take EMP Immunity, and the way to balance it with that is to make it worse than stock when the EMP doesn't work. Coincidentally, what my change does. If you're chasing skill based gameplay, you do not play status augments. That is not how that works.

Yeah, EMP Gauss is "competitive" alright. Now, why is it banned from esports?

Then why complain about a nerf to begin with?