Topic Title

One last thing I would love to add is the following thing: Please consider nerfing every DoT weapon in the game.

Why I suggest that? I have said and stated that multiple times, but DoT has slowly become the game. Very rarely I see people running around with pure direct damage weapons because DoT is the prime status effect. Have DoT, have the upper hand against people with direct damage weapons. You can Q their attacks perfectly fine while they can take the damage from you even if you are kilometers away. DoT makes so many battles in PvE easy. Killing renegade tanker as a level 5 guy? No problem. Acid blaster, all you need is time.

No, but seriously, I have ranted about this so often but people fail to understand that "damage over time" has become the leading status effect for a good reason. DoT bypasses Q indirectly. DoT has infinite range in a way. Stacking DoT weapons can have infinite damage in a way. I made the test myself. I used pure direct damage against a DoT-guy: I lost 5 times. I used DoT weapons against the DoT guy: I won 4 times and lost once. DoT should be a side effect, not the main-to-go status effect for ultimate destruction.

Seriously, think about it for a while. I'm open for a discussion about this.

[Myorum]

Well, first of all, nerfing all DoT weapons is a bit unspecific.
The differences in strength vary a lot.
Second, several DoT and Burn weapons will get a nerf already.

Regarding the use in PvE:
Yes, for some things its OP, but in other situations its currently the most reasonable weapon.
And a huge diversity in weapons is good in my opinion. So tweaking to balance them, yes.
Nerf to the point where they vanish, no.

Use in PvP:
I know several people who do very well without DoT.
Also, its a matter of tactic to beat someone using a lot of DoT.

Summation:
Yes, I get that its problematic sometimes. And you arent the first person complaining about DoT.
(Though the most complaints were about specific weapons, such as CL)

But in the end, I believe that balancing them should be enough.
But thats my opinion. Like always in this thread, I'll support the majority's decision here.

I don't doubt the existence of people who can counter DoT-Users. But like I said in the past 4 years, we can't always go after the people who are already the elite of the game. We are balancing the game around them, not in the perspective of all the players. And it's not just me who is having problems with people who use DoT weapons, there are many more. And I really despise it to see that people can stand infront of you with Q active, firing a barrage of corrosive lightning at you and then run away. And all what happens after that is either you survive with little shield/health left or you die. Or maybe you are lucky enough to kill the person. Which is rarely the case by the way.

It's just a pain to see the game slowly becoming based around DoT. I want to have an equal chance to kill someone with direct damage only. If they just Q all the time and block my direct damage while they can do their job of stacking up their damage on me - Where is the fair fight? To be honest all I can see in this moment is that I'm trying to hold a huge bowl of water which gets more and more filled up until I break under this weight. My strength however stays the same, it doesn't increase during this time.

I agree there are DoT weapons like Acid Spore or Acid Spray which are completely fine. But I'm mostly focusing on the DoT weapons which have a stacking effect or a burn effect. And a LOT of the weapons I see around have Burn tech on them. But why is burn tech so popular on so many weapons? Is it the massive advantage you get from it? Well, yes, it is. Let's take a look at weapons like Vindicator Projector - High direct damage. You can easily avoid damage by pressing Q. With Burn tech however you will suffer from a considerably high damage over time. Let's not deny it, the damage is not all that low. Or Cruise missiles - They are also avoidable by nova or Q... No problem. But with DoT they become lethal even with a timed Q.

I feel like we should change the way DoT works. Like that it doesn't stack while Q is active. And that stacking DoT and burn is generally weaker. Maybe a stacking limit to encounter the ridiculous damage numbers. Yes, I know that enemies like Zhersis are preferred to be killed with stacking DoT weapons. Which is why it is so easy to kill him. But well, that's just my opinion. And my opinion has been clear for many months and years now: DoT needs a nerf - At least the stacking type and the burn type. It should be a side effect and not a main part of a weapon.

[Myorum]

Well, currently Corrosive Lightning will get nerfed quite a bit.
Same goes for Hellflames, though that maybe needs a bit more discussion.
Teeth and Photons will have less Burn damage too.

Also, Teleporter cooldown will be increased, so running away gets harder.
And 360° autoaim weapons will get a decent nerf either.

So that should already cover quite some of your points.
As from what I read out of your text (correct my if im wrong), it wont be as much as ud probably like.
But a lot of people discussed about this already, and as far as I can tell, a lot seem fine so far, regarding DoT.
About changing the mechanics of DoT or Burn, thats sadly illusory at the activity level of our devs currently.

I for my part will be happy that some things get balanced, and that afterwards (hopefully) Argon will be released.

I'm not going to lie, I do feel like those two mentioned DoT types should be nerfed considerably. But to go a lot deeper into my thoughts, here is what is going through my head in detail:

I personally see DoT as a helping hand or as a minor status effect. A weapon like the acid blaster should be allowed to have a decent DoT since it mostly consists out of it, but the duration should be capped to prevent players from running far away and stacking up more after a long time when they return to avoid a major amount of damage you could potentially deal. As example Acid blaster should have a DoT duration of 3 seconds. Sounds like a harsh nerf but in the end it's just the duration that suffers, means you need to stay nearby if you really want to stack up a lot of damage. Same would count for corrosive lightning, moth queen spit gland, Astro lance and more weapons of the stacking type. The duration is what makes several weapons so lethal. In my opinion at least, I'm not sure how others see it. But you know, this is why I consider direct damage weapons as a minor part of the game. There are some good ones like LWG, Shadow Flames, Shadow blaster, Photonic blaster... I could count up more and more. There are a lot of good direct damage weapons. However, the current DoT system allows you to stack up damage, run away (potentially with vindicator) - deal a considerable amount of damage - then return to refresh/stack up more and continue this procedure. But if the DoT duration of weapons would be around 2 - 4 seconds it could look different. You would be forced to stay close and have the permanent danger of being attacked. Go too far and the DoT would reset.

Speaking of stacking up, the stacking should be slower. Right now you can stack up 50k - 100k DoT/s within 1 to 2 seconds. This is very insane. Of course it becomes frustrating for people without DoT weapons if they can get disintegrated in a very short time without having a chance to defend themselves. I don't know how you see it, but

1.: There should be a cap - you shouldn't be able to stack up more damage than a certain amount.
2.: The stacking should be slower - You shouldn't be able to stack up 100k+ of damage/s within a very short time. You should take a certain amount of risk to stack up such a high amount of damage. Your dodging skills and your combat skills should reward you with an equally high amount of damage. You shouldn't be rewarded for just using that weapon, you should be rewarded for actually surviving for a long time. Of course tank builds will excel here.

Thirdly I think burn DoT should really be a helping hand, not the main part of a weapon. I wouldn't mind a direct damage buff of hell flames if the burn gets nerfed by a good amount. I wouldn't mind a damage buff of photonic blaster if the burn would be much less. You see, Burn should be more of a side effect.

tl:dr

Normal DoT:
Main part of a weapon, it should remain unchanged.

Stacking DoT:
Slowly in damage increasing damage type that rewards skill with damage, shortened duration to prevent too big distances

Burn DoT:
Helping hand - Should deal low damage while the direct damage deals the main damage.

I read all the new posts about dot, stacking dot and burn.
Making it so Q would prevent dot and burn from stacking would kill 90% of the current hit and run tactics.
Capping how dot and burn can stack would be a really great feature. Maybe 50x at the max stack, 100x is the point we got armor debuff but letting it reach that would be too much. Of course that would affect the high rof weapons far more than the high dot ones.
Or set the max stack as how much the weapon can hit, at level 6, with no elite tech or rof increase, over 5 seconds.

As a blade user I share the distaste for hit and run tactics, though I had to add photonic blaster to it with the burn tech in order to stay competitive, it made short work of every ship less durable than my own when they were using Q.

And the more I think about it, the more I believe that just making it so dot applied when the ship was using Q would count as 1 damage dot would completely throw a wrench in the current meta. That change alone would require another balance analysis on the months following it.
Mostly because that'd wreck both PvE and PvP. Sure, the enemies that don't shield would stay the same to fight, but things like dreadnaughts would be considerably safer to fight while Vorsan would become a slog for dot users.

best lol ever is "Remove aim assistance" with BFG..it s already firing left when you're aiming right..hope this new balance will help^

[Myorum]

@Sky/Hugo
Well, imo its fine, when DoT and DD weapons result in equal fast killing of enemies.
Sure, I wont deny that some weapons are too strong at the moment.
But I think, the current changes will help a lot there.
And for the Hit and Run tactic too.

So since an adjustment of the DoT/Burn mechanics would require an entire new Balance thread, not to mention the question, if the Devs would even do it, I would say lets see, how things turn out with the current Update.

And as a sidenote: I can kill people pretty fast with DD too.
I mean hey, Acid Spore gets nerfed because it kills people TOO fast^^
And look at EF, it can insta kill almost everyone with a stomp, if u can aim.
Stickybombs combined with gatling gun or Flak Shell do a great job too.
And there are several more weapons I could list.

@Peter
The reason that it shoots so strange is the auto aim.
As soon as an enemy other than the aimed for is there, it can auto aim on the wrong.
So removing it makes actually a lot of sense.

A thing I would love to pick up because it kinda bothers me. The following two weapons fell into my eye:

Golden Ram Missiles Se-24:
Remove armor debuff
Fix bugged damage
Increase reloadTime 50%

So, compared to it's counter part (as shown on the start post) it's becoming weaker for being only obtainable by spending 11900 flux for it's ship. Let me ask this question: Is this really how you want to reward people for spending so much money on a ship? Let's put aside the fact that this ship has pretty good stats and it's intended to be cosmetic but why does it have to be weaker than it's free counter part?

Here is my idea for a change:

Golden Ram Missiles Se-24:
Remove the armor debuff
Keep the damage the same as it's counter part
Increase the reload time by 50%
Add a 30% Kinetic resistance debuff for 4 seconds

And of course the Golden Flak Cannon... Also here it's basically receiving a nerf compared to it's counter part. It's counter part is receiving a 15% health/shield leech tech. Just to ask but: why? This is a stacking DoT weapon. stacking DoT weapon. Well, I'll go with it, however, I demand some changes on the Golden Flak Cannon

Golden Flak Cannon:
Keep the power use
Remove the DoT
Increase the base damage by 15%
Add a conditional 50% Damage when the target is afflicted by Golden Ram Missiles Se-24
Or:
Keep the power use
Change to burn DoT
Still add the conditional 50% damage when the target is afflicted by Golden Ram Missiles Se-24

I feel like those two should synergize with eachother a little bit. IMO

Vanquisher: The only ship that remains undestroyed on my list of "ships that I have destroyed so far" - Regardless of the user. Is it just me or is the vanquisher a tiny bit too tank-like? I feel like this ship requires a nerf. Maybe less health/shield. Reason: It feels a bit out of balance. It's not really hard to use, it's weapons deal an insane amount of damage. Not fair IMO. And as I said, this one is literally the only ship type I have not destroyed so far.

[bolbi]

I think Scythe either told me earlier ib this thread or in-game, that the Eldorado weapons already do slightly more damage than their regular counterparts.

However gold rams had something wrong like the last patch changed made them much stronger than intended (IIRC) so the PvP damage reduction that's there, was just to put it where it should be. So that it is just slightly stronger or equal to the regular rams

Golden Flak cannon - I believe it was said that there shouldn't be 2 of the same weapon, essentially. So changing the gold one to a burn was the suggestion, and I believe Scythe said if it was changed to a burn there would need to be some major tweaking via testing it in game, cause it would be to hard to know for sure how it would behave.
However I do agree we could add in conditional damage with rams, maybe only the gold ones have it, or they have a stronger bonus? Like regular flak get's a 25% damage increase when effected by regular Rams, but the gold variant get's a 50% bonus, with gold rams. However I do have to say that they both will still get fairly good DPS (recently was using regular flak and achieved around about 1.5 million dps in a regular PvP setup, with both % and flat IIRC) so they may need to lose some RoF and/or base damage if the bonus is added in.

Vanquisher
I can't really tell much cause I don't have it but it does have fairly decent stats for how much extra bonuses it gets, though I can't really say if it is in need of a nerf. Possibly if you can find some numbers to back up why it'd need a health/shield nerf, it'd be a little easier to see what you mean.

Vanquisher: The only ship that remains undestroyed on my list of "ships that I have destroyed so far" - Regardless of the user. Is it just me or is the vanquisher a tiny bit too tank-like? I feel like this ship requires a nerf. Maybe less health/shield. Reason: It feels a bit out of balance. It's not really hard to use, it's weapons deal an insane amount of damage. Not fair IMO. And as I said, this one is literally the only ship type I have not destroyed so far.

Carefull not to take a general feeling as ground truth: vanquisher is a decent ship, and correspond well to its cost. It has a little more health than vindi, much less armor, and less shield regen. It also has much less manoeuvrability (no vindi-port), and has a small nerf in max power, making tp + high dps/high power-usage weapon (like scatter shell) more complicated to use. I have no real problem to kill this ship, but, as it's not popular, maybe you fight only good pilots in it ? The only thing I will agree on is the main weapon, which is quite good in a 1v1, but in dm for instance, flak shell would be better as you can kill multiple target at once.

All in all, I feel this is a ballanced ship (and -as you probably know- I am saying this as a guy who mainly fight against this ship, I am not using it at the moment).

Yes there is nothing special about vaquisher ship. Ship is just like any other ship. Only these 01010101 players make it look stronger as expected. Othervise even tanker is slightly stronger.

[Myorum]

Ok, I checked the first post again to avoid telling something wrong:

Rams:
Golden and normal ones should be as intended after the nerf, with the Golden doing slightly more damage.
BUT. the removal of the armor debuff makes it weaker. So either keep the debuff or add something else.

Flak Cannons:
Yes, the Golden one seems to get weaker compared to the normal ones.
Id suggest adding the higher firerate to it too.
And a damage bonus from Rams on the Golden ones could be interesting.
BUT so far are weapons that receive a damage bonus from another one all ship exclusive iirc.
So maybe we should just remove the leech from the normal one and then its fine?
Then both would have a higher firerate, and Golden would have Burn instead of DoT.

Vanquisher:
U could argue, that it has compared to other ships with such bonuses, slightly higher base stats.
But in general, it seems fine to me.

Edit: Just saw while scrolling up, that the Burn techs on Nuke/Horror Nuke, arent changed the same way.
Either u mean the same, written in different ways, or u should adjust them.

I mean for some reason I want to keep the golden Ram missiles unique. So maybe adding a unique debuff would make it better? I mean the silver Ram missiles could keep the armor debuff. Maybe the golden Ram missiles could deal some kind of kinetic DoT? Giving it lower base damage, but giving it a long lasting kinetic DoT? Or making it reducing the kinetic resistance for a longer duration than infested missiles?

For the golden Flak cannon - In my opinion the conditional damage bonus could be proven interesting. It does have some pretty good DPS on it, and it's generally lethal. Just like Hell Flames it could receive this conditional bonus but also be useful without with the burn damage then - But then again... On the other hand the golden Flak cannon is good at taking out stronger enemies with it's DoT. So the DoT could be kept. Or it could be replaced. It's shurikens, so they could pierce or something. With a wider spread and range maybe. Something to make this weapon unique.

And one more thing I feel like mentioning: Nuke Launcher

Now I feel like the Nuke Launcher has lost it's actual purpose a long time ago. Back then it used to be the only explosive weapon with a huge radius. Now it's surpassed by the Nexar bomb and the Algae nova gland. We should give it back it's true purpose of being the biggest explosive weapon in the game. Or go even further and make it a DoT based weapon. It already has this nasty 16 second DoT - As base stat. You get my point. A mere damage buff wouldn't make it popular. The purpose of a corrosive debuffer would remain.