Since the last patch, my time playing Legions has led me to find, what is in my opinion, a glaring problem with the balance of the game.  I am referring to the chaingun, it's uses, and it's detrimental effect on overall gameplay.
   In this post, I will attempt to make four points:
     1. The "niche" of the chaingun
     2. The damage of the chaingun in comparison to other weapons.
     3. The effects of this imbalance.
     4. What can be done to fix it.

   I've always assumed that the game was based on porjectile combat at the forefront, with rockets and grenades as the baseline by which other weapons would be balanced.  If this assumption is wrong, let me know.  If correct, though, this would put the chaingun as a more secondary weapon.  It's main uses, as a secondary weapon, should be to do small ticks of damage to stop healing and finish off those at critical health.  This is not currently the case.

   Currently, the chaingun is vastly stronger than any of other other weapons.  It has a fast, accurate stream of fire.  It is also relatively easy to learn and use.  Finally, it's often effective at a far greater range then the projectile weapons.  Even with inaccurate fire, some bullets will hit the target and eat away at their health.  It is, by far, the easiest weapon to use against flying opponents.  Because of this, even if the weapon isn't to be considered simply a secondary weapon, it's still too powerful.

   The effects of the imbalances in the chaingun are observable at every level of play.  Because of it's power as an anti-air weapon, there is no need to learn how to MA.  It is used almost exclusively while chasing, and has become almost the only weapon used in "pro"-level duels.  Think to the last time you dueled another good player.  When they pulled out their chaingun, what did you do?  Chances are, you pulled out your own chaingun.  It has become instinct, reaction, and that's because if you don't switch to it, you are at a distinct disadvantage.  They will be doing constant, assured daamage, and in a second of fire will do more damage then a rocket MA.  This cycle feeds off itself, and causes more and more relieance on the chaingun and continues to marginalize the value of skill with projectile weapons.

    As one of only four weapons, the chaingun has far too much impact on individual combat and pacing of the game. I propose a nerf that would lower either the rate of fire or the damage of the bullets.  In addition, the weapon would "Reload" after outputting between 30-40 damage to raider-class armor, and perhaps lowering the reload time by 2 esconds below the current overheat-cooldown would be necessary.  This would preserver the weapon as a powerful tool in duels, chasing, and finishing damaged targets without making it the sole weapon-choice for those jobs.

    I love text-walls.  Comments, criticisms, etc are all welcome.  Thank you for taking the time to read my arguments and proposal.

100% agree with this wall of text. I feel it needs to be dropped down in power to the point of being a "secondary weapon", a sidearm of sorts.

I must say I disagree to your points on dueling. If your capabale of getting an early ma you can often disorientate your chaining opponent enough to get following shots in. Although advanced chaingunners tend to move more than those that are less experience, they still tend to "line" and this often leaves them vunerable to rocket fire. Learning to MA is a valuable skill and should not be discounted. It is harder to learn but upon being instinctive it is very powerfull.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, I am by no means an expert but rather a passionate lover of the rl.

  I agree with the OP, the chaingun is overdue for a nerfing.  I wouldn't mind seeing the weapon transition to a 'clip-based' weapon, where it'll fire 24-30 shots, then a reload needs to occur.
  Of course, for that to occur, we'd need a 'reload' key.

Trainmuncher has a good point. If you choose to learn CG and only CG it's your own problem, because people who can use the CG proficiently and have the aim to MA often will win. I don't see why you think the CG being an exclusive weapon in chasing is a bad thing. Have you actually tried chasing a skilled capper on a map like zenith with only a RL or GL? The weapon was obviously intended to be a chasing weapon (see: overheat reduction at high speeds) and for good reasons. Chasers (and defense in general) are at a disadvantage in the game. Sure, someone playing LD can chain you to half HP before you hit the stand (assuming whoever "you" is spams front routes) but that can easily be countered with LO. Sure, someone can chain you out relatively fast in a straight up duel but you can utilize your jet packs (crazy idea) to move in another direction and throw off their stream. Being good with MA shots will also cripple a CGers aim, especially when you're changing direction often.

In "pro"-level duels, you'll find that MAs are very popular as well. Instead of immediately pulling the nerf card, I would suggest thinking "<insert chaingun scenario here>, what can I do to prevent this from happening to me again?".

I'm not trying to discredit any of your points, I enjoy discussions/debates and I thought I would put my 2 cents in.

That's called an Assault Rifle. And that's a totally different weapon.

    You need to think outside of the box, my special friend.  We're talking about possible nerfs/changes being made to the chaingun to balance things out. 


   The only thing about using the jetpack to throw off their stream, is that unlike a missed RL shot, the chaingun is near instantaneous, and it's easier to correct said stream when the opponent attempts to dodge. 
   Poor Seymour's defense against a good chaingunner is hiding behind a pillar until the CGer is either bored with Seymour or is being attacked by someone else.  Of course, Seymour's a bit of a wuss, tho.

Yes I agree, and was actually going to make the same topic. I think the problem is the rate of fire. The rounds fire so fast that it eats at the players health to the point where in any given situation your best bet is to use the chaingun. There are some players that use the chaingun exclusively, even for ground opponents. Not naming any names, but there are some players that will be ripping me up with the cg so I will ground myself and ski in hopes to stop getting cg...and they STILL use the cg. Yeah it may just be playing styles, but when higher level players use the cg 90% of the time there has to be an imbalance somewhere.

Also there is a huge difference between mid airs and cg fire. With midairs even if you are good with them, you still have the delay of the weapon wear no damage is being done and the enemy can reposition himself accordingly. The cg is a constant stream of damage...so why would you switch weapons? All weapons should be situational and the cg is the best bet in most situations rather than the other weapons.

Tribes' cg has a fire rate of about half that of legions and works a lot better imo. Of course you couldn't just replicate its attributes because of the difference in physics, rather its usability should be similar.

While the rate of fire was lowered in the last update, I feel the damage should have been lowered too. Using the previous chaingun's DPS as a benchmark was a mistake in trying to balance it out.

Unfortunately, testing of any changes to the CG will have to be made many months from now. This upcoming radical update to legions will turn everything upside down, so private testers and developers have no way of accurately predicting future gameplay using existing game mechanics.

If things are still on course of what they were a few weeks back, then I think replicating tribes CG for the most part wouldn't be a bad place to start. High jitter and lowered RoF. Damage simply needs to be lower than what it is right now by atleast 3 or 4 points.

Things i like to hear.
I don't like the idea of copying things from tribes, well i do personally but i think legions needs to stay away from that type of cross-title breeding. If not they should fully commit and add a disc launcher, thank you and good day.

I'll post in-depth when I've some time, but for now I'll comment on the above section.  At the risk of sounding insulting, I've noticed little-to-no improvement in the community's cg'ing since the patch.  I've seen people posting about how their cg has vastly improved, about how it's all down to the weapon's changes, and about how it's unfair since they now massacre people, but I've seen none of that. The same people who've always dominated with the cg (and that, at least NA-side, is a very small number of people) continue to do so. 

To be perfectly frank (and without malice), most of these nerf-the-cg posts come off as nerf-something-I'm-not-good-at posts.

I like the new CG, and I haven't been regularly to playing enough to notice any discernible difference in other players skill levels, but I've noticed personally that I now stand a chance on the east coast pings (120+) with chainsaw, and on west coast(sub 80) it's bread and butter.


With that said I disagree, I think making the chain easier to use really helped shorten the skill gap, which imo was much needed. Clearly the downside is those who were already good with it, got exponentially better, while those who weren't any good with it are now able to 'play'. In dueling or TDM I might see how this would trouble some, in the big picture of CTF I don't think it poses as big an issue as the result is still very much team driven.

I agree with most of what keke said, but 2 things.

A chaingun can never replace a good MA in a duel like people have said. The best duelers aren't 100% chaingunners they're the people who effectively use both or all 3 weapons in their loadout.

Then chasing, I think the chaingun ends up working out well for chasing. Good chasers are the hardest thing to find in the game for a reason, because it's hard to do. Just before all competition fell apart I was stuck in the position of chase for a few months or so. And to be honest 90% of my chasing was done with rockets. So it's not a requirement for chasing, I did fairly good at it with rockets for the amount of time I spent doing it. But I think if you nerfed it to much it would just make that position even harder which is most definitely not something we need to happen. If anything you should make capping harder before you make chasing harder.

In the end I think a nerf would be good, but it would need to be a very well thought out and probably small nerf rather than something rash like “lets just make this an assault rifle and be done with it”. Also the only real problem I have with it is how ping dependent it can be. If you took that away somehow I wouldn't really have a problem with it at all.

To be quite frank, I prefer the old Chaingun, It shot faster but with less damage.

I agree the CG can be used to kill someone in like what 2 FREAKIN SECONDS * cough* *cough* noobs... and its like the flagship for the legions logos (unfair) and if your using a bomber ( YEAH) you are soooooooooo at a disadvantage