can't wait until someone complains that ap freeze only just got nerfed and it's trash now

The purpose of EMP and AP Gauss is to get group status application. There is no reason it should get group kills alongside it if you're trying to balance it to be a mid tier status augment - and if you want to go the route of it keeping group kills, then you have to remove the splash status application entirely. I get that you people like your cancer rays - don't worry, they'll still be potent. I'm just trying to equalize cancer rays amongst each other. Now some food for thought: why would there people defending the top tier status augments if they weren't the ones who abused them themselves? edit: just realized the other person who left a shrug emoji was yellowghetto, way to prove my point

This is why I just killed the distribution of its damage instead of removing splash damage completely. It can still be counterplayed if enemies enter the max damage radius, as you will take the 100% recoil that you are in the radius of.

Yeah, but Gauss has double damage crits, so losing crits against an armadillo player isn't actually losing the Gauss anything.

Man that match sucked for me, I didn't enter with a status combo so I got outswapped pretty badly, also your team had a lot of status diversity vs us having like 1 emp and 1 stun for most of the match.

Ah yes, EMP Gauss, the oldest status augment in the game, and its little brother, AP Gauss – the most effective multi-status appliers and the most effective status augments for group kills. In addition to that, it’s still as efficient as most status augments if not more, at fighting a single target. So, to fix these problems for the pair of them: Electromagnetic Salvo and Armor-Piercing Salvo: Average and weak splash damage in salvo mode = 10% Critical hit removed I think it can keep its status application since that’s kind of what it was known for on release, a ridiculous reach of EMP, but it shouldn’t be allowed to group kill, and to discourage Gauss players from picking one target and bursting them down, it should lose its crits. Thoughts? Note that this post was written prior to the announcement of the "EMP no longer resets repairs and mines" update, patch #677. In addition to the changes I already proposed, I would like to add, for Electromagnetic Salvo: Sniping reload reduction removed This stops Electromagnetic Salvo from doing salvo, arcade, salvo on people within its EMP duration, and stops it from outputting strong damage if it wants to constantly deal EMP shots. Frankly, there is no justifiable reason for any EMP augment to be statistically superior to any AP augments with the recent change.

Haha, what a huge nerf. Okay. Being serious for a second - when will you remove the reduced reload and replace it with the INCREASED one that was announced in both patch #675 and was claimed to be added instead of the -40% it got in patch #676? EMP augments now outclass their AP counterparts. All of them. Will there be tweaks to the augments to make them more balanced? Their durations no longer need to be longer or equal to AP, as they remove speed and damage supplies in addition to armour. would be hilarious if they're all as unplayable as hopper These change seems geared to make stun more powerful. You could have just not touched the retention system and had it work properly for stun instead of removing 100% charge on stun, but NoOOoOoooO. Pointless changes, especially for overdrives that can be activated in advance thanks to their healing, their full status immunity, their jamming, their armour piercing, and their 20 second long duration. Ever think about touching that for overdrives instead of adding a flat, arbitrary delay time to all overdrives? >increase striker and vulcan vertical autoaim height >increase hopper jump height >repeat as necessary until hopper reaches the moon

Because Smoky EMP was not overpowered until recently. It was just "strong" all the way up until the 580/850 damage buff and the 1.2 second reload buffs happened and then it got to becoming a top tier status augment, but by then the first EMP Smoky battle pass was nearly a year ago. However, they reran it to get more Smoky players.

Nah, see they didn't wait for the BP - they only realized it was strong because lots of people had it, and they now use because it's strong and it was accessible. Basically this:

You play too much siege if you think EMP Hammer, Rail, EMP Gauss are better than EMP Smoky because the main advantages they have are group application of status. Also, you don't play the game enough if you don't see tons of EMP Smoky after battle pass ?

Status Gausses are one of the topics I have written up, but I would disagree with them being any more broken than EMP Smoky - they allow group status application and group killing, but their line of sight time requirement makes them less reliable in most modes outside siege, and thus less potent. A similar argument can be made with status Hammers, which are limited by range - don't worry, there's still a topic for them coming. Hard disagree on the point about no buyers using Smoky - there are lots of them roaming around with all five EMP augs, more with EMP Smoky as a result of the recent battle pass. That also made its impact on the game (note, its impact on the game, NOT its balance within the game) much more pronounced than the other EMP augs. The problem is that they're just hard to touch. I considered a topic suggesting they become variants of Round Stabilization (trading crits away entirely for status), but I couldn't find a way to keep their place within Railgun's current balance without risking the creation of the exact same issues that LCR, RDS, and Scout faced prior to the critical update. If you have ideas along those lines, I'd like to hear them.

Not really, I presented the numbers and chances for its kill times compared to EMP Railgun, and it comes out pretty similarly but as a result of Smoky's nature as a medium range turret it has generally higher dps and pressure to stop repair kits. This is a slight buff, it won't have any less kill power than it does now thanks to the increased duration, and it'll also have more teamplay capability. Kill time and chance says otherwise, according to the numbers and chances that I provided. EMP Smoky is not the only good augment. EMP Smoky is the only top tier status augment, though, and that is the purpose of this series of posts - to bring the top tiers down to the level of mid tier status augments, so as to close the power gaps in the game. Similar I didn't say anything about balancing them next to current AP and EMP Freeze, just that they'd be mechanically similar in their penalties. I actually have a different topic on status freezes, if you want to talk about those. edit: nvm topic not approved yet

I'm hesitant to post this, since Freeze is still in the process of "content generationᵀᴹ", but I'll give it a shot. So, AP Freeze, Jamming Freeze, and now EMP Freeze are three of the four most busted augments in the game with the change to cooling disabling damage enhancers, giving them two strong statuses. So, I have a simple solution - AP and EMP Freeze prevent you from doing damage to enemy tanks as well as preventing your protections from stopping incoming damage, so why not prevent them from doing the same amount of damage as stock and turn them into pure support augments? AP and EMP Freeze: Normal damage reduction increased from -45% and -50% to -60% Critical damage reduction increased from -45% to -60% for AP Freeze and introduced at -60% for EMP Freeze Status time = 1 second Freezing rate -50% for EMP Freeze Essentially - they'll still be crippling to whoever they're fighting, but they will not be able to finish them off themselves, and their statuses will only apply when they are still attacking the enemy tank. (Whoever thought that EMP needed a longer duration than AP because it has a penalty if you let it wear off... it's a melee turret. You should get punished if you waste ammo, and other EMP augments get punished harder for doing so compared to their AP counterparts... What kind of logic was that?) Now, Jamming Freeze is a different story. The problem is that it trades away being able to disable drones for… nothing. I think it should have a trade-off – the best case scenario is that it disables a Defender player, shutting off both their boosted damage and taking away their extra armour from their drone, and the worst case scenario is that it does almost nothing, against a Brutus or droneless player. To balance this: Normal damage reduction added, -20% Critical damage reduction added, -20% At -20% normal and critical damage, it will remain advantaged versus opponents with a supply boosting drone, but will be generally slightly weakened in comparison to stock freeze when fighting all the other types of drones in exchange for the utility of blocking overdrives. Thoughts? Note that this post was written prior to the announcement of the "EMP no longer resets repairs and mines" update, patch #677. Following that patch, the reasoning for EMP Freeze having a 3 second duration has become even more unjustified - the point about melee turrets being capable of stopping the over time healing is no longer relevant because the enemy no longer even gets their repair kit. In addition to the EMP Freeze changes above, I would like to append the following: Freezing removed for EMP Freeze Come on. AP and Freezing in conjunction are equal to EMP in power now, at least in this case. The AP+Freezing combo gets to disable protection modules, the EMP Freeze gets to prevent repair kits happening at all. There's no justifiable reason for EMP Freeze to still have the slowdown benefits from from cooling ON TOP OF THE EMP. There is no more risk of the enemy getting away and using a repair kit - not that there ever was, with the nonsensical three second duration.

What? All it gets is a full heal upon overdrive activation, and then for the full duration it gets status immunity, invulnerability to mines, an overdrive disabling field, and a speed boost. There's nothing that's only active for the first couple seconds.

Ah, alright. I have quite a few posts lined up regarding nerfing all the outlier augments. With regards to promoting dependency on status: If a status augment is not dependent on status and functions just the same as one of the crystal augments without it, closing the gap between legendary augments and garage augments will never be feasible. This goes especially for augments with a second mechanic to grant them advantages, such as status Freezes and Railguns.

So, EMP Smoky needs a nerf. I'm pretty sure most of us can agree to that, so here's my proposal to bring it down to the same level as the weaker status augments (AP Rico, AP Magnum, Cryo Rail, etc) and equalize it with AP Smoky: For both EMP Smoky and AP Smoky: Normal damage -30% = 406 damage at mk8 Critical damage reduction increased from -15% to -30% = 595 damage at mk8 Status duration = 5 seconds This doesn't even kill the augment - this puts it on roughly the same level as EMP Rail. EMP Rail, following a crit, has a guaranteed kill on a light hull, a 50% chance to kill a medium hull, and a 25% chance to kill a heavy hull, as far as raw power in a 1v1 scenario goes. The new EMP Smoky, following a crit (595), can land 3 shots. It can always kill a light hull (595 + 812 + 812 = 2219), can always kill a medium hull (595 + 812 + 812 + 812 = 3031) and has a 30% chance to kill a heavy hull (needs to crit on the third shot after crit, so 30% chance). This template puts both AP and EMP Smoky much closer to AP and EMP Freeze in that they will become heavily reliant on its status to deal damage. Thoughts? Note that this post was written prior to the announcement of the "EMP no longer resets repairs and mines" update, patch #677. In correction to these changes, I would like EMP Smoky to have an additional nerf: Step chance -37.5% (-37% if not feasible, assuming numbers round down. Otherwise, -38%, whatever necessary to facilitate a 25% or as close to 25% as possible chance step at mk8, to reduce its chances to chain EMPs.) EMP Railgun is no longer a relevant comparison point as a result of the buff and I have changed my stance on status Rails. Neither augments have any "risk factor" of reset in case they fail to chain their status, thus, they should have additional harsher penalties than their Armor-Piercing counterparts.

The problem I'm referring to isn't that hovering hulls are actually faster in practice because of their ability to change direction more quickly, the problem I'm referring to is people thinking paladin has the speed of paladin with crisis because of how many of them there are roaming around.

Crusader doesn't have this problem.

Yeah but all the crisis players are using paladin, artificially boosting it's perceived speed. I wish I was kidding.

Yes, so what makes you people think a net nerf to status augments will happen?

AP has the same critical hit chance, and remember - AP disables an overdrive, Titan's dome, and it doesn't have a punishment if you fail to chain your EMP. EMP Smoky is definitely one of the outliers as far as legendary augments (all of them, not just smoky) go, I will agree, but I don't think it's fair to say the other Smoky augments are undertuned - EMP Smoky is just ridiculously overtuned.

Who uses Rail protection? Plenty of people - people still think it helps, it's actually kind of depressing seeing falcons come out against Crisis AP Rail Paladins. As for balancing a turret to account for possible protections being a huge mistake - I always have a large comment to make on how idiotic this change was, so I typically try to avoid addressing it - it really seems like common sense. Before the critical system was implemented, Railgun was statistically overpowered. On the other hand, nowadays Railgun and its crystal augments are actually statistically disadvantaged compared to the crystal augments of other augments - the status ones and booster are meant to supplement it, and do so enough to push it into competing with other status augments rather than garage augments, making it overpowered compared to the average player, although comically now average amongst status augments. Now, the logic behind the change looked something like "Railgun is broken and we can't fix it because people take too many protections against it, it'll be really weak in practice if we nerf it down to the level of other turrets." The PROBLEM with this logic is that what was "broken" then (Sledgehammer/Scout, Rapid Fire Mode/Duplet, Incendiary Mix) has been completely superseded by "equivalents" - Stun Striker/EMP Smoky, Blunderbuss, AP and EMP Tesla/AP Freeze - that are much more broken compared to what we had back then - and even the crystal augment equivalents are more broken(Missile Launcher Hunter replacing Sledgehammer, Scout, and Duplet, and Adrenaline Freeze replacing Incendiary Mix). Essentially, yes, the change was stupid - the powercreep of other turrets and augments got up to where Railgun augments were back then. I think realistically? They should have just nerfed Railgun damage down to the level of other turrets and let protections fade over time. Instead, we have a Railgun that's still oppressive in the hands of those with meta drones and/or status augments, so everyone still protects against it, but it ignores protections. As for what happens to all the players who don't have those modules equipped? You see what current status Railguns are doing to all the players without Armadillo and the right status immunity? That. Exactly that. I'd rather make immunities and armadillo more available and then work forwards from there.

EMP Rounds is still the best augment, yes, but I don't think it makes the other augments obsolete, just more niche. Adrenaline offers more raw power, Cryo offers the damage boost reduction that EMP does without the risk of them escaping and using a repair kit as well as offering the full effects of the Smoky buff with combining normal + critical hits, AP offers the defense reduction, Explosive Rounds offers splash damage for all modes (although others apparently have difficulty getting value out of it outside of siege), and Rubberized Rounds allows you to land hits from indirect angles and it enables mobile autoaim cheese. Other smokies are also great, Adrenaline Smoky in particular contends with Missile Launcher "Hunter".

Wow it's almost like you shouldn't be comparing augments that can counter overdrives and drones to augments that can't

Compared to garage augments? Sure. Compared to other legendary augments, though? Read the rest of my post.