Topic: The Kain needs some love.

So I've been driving, and losing, the Kain for a while now, but I've recently started shifting EP into another race because the Kain is fundamentally the weakest of the three available tier 1 mechs. It desperately needs some love to balance it.

Here are my main issues:

1) the Kain's bonuses suggest that it should be a back-of-the-pack bot, sniping from distance and retreating to cover to repair any damage. With a falloff bonus and med EM guns, it should be able to outrange same-skill med HCLs, albeit with the reduced damage you'll get in falloff. At my current skill level, falloff on a T1 medium EM gun is 107m. With only Improved Falloff skill affecting it, med HCL, falloff is 112m, and in fact the HCL has higher base optimal and falloff than the equivalent magnetic weapon.

2) The armour repair bonus is useless in both PvE and PvP. The Kain has the lowest base HP of the three mechs and isn't able to run a shield effectively, nor does it have the Artemis' resistence bonuses. In any fight, it's going to have the lowest effective HP of any mech on the field, and the medium armour repairer is so woefully inefficient in terms of accu used to HP repaired (1.83:1 base on a T1 repper and my current skills, 1.35:1 when fitted on a Kain, whereas a small repper has a 1.083:1 base). Even fitting  two med plates and two universal hardeners, which does bring EHP up considerably wont give the Kain anywhere near the EHP levels of a single-plated Artemis with 1 universal hardener. This would also negates the Kain's nominal speed advantage over the other two mechs. - coupled with its shorter range, it'd be useless for anything other than static battles where no one moves.

The Kain doesn't have a defined role. The Tyrannos is effective because it has a dual layer tank, can shoot over the scenery you're hiding behind, and because it can be used as an energy warfare platform. The Artemis has the best overall tank of the three, has a longer range than the Kain and does more damage than the Tyr. The Kain turns up and dies, because everyone else is driving Artemis' and are hitting it hard in the resistance hole.

What I would like to see is something like this:

1) Swap the damage characteristics of the Gauss and EM guns, giving the gauss guns the higher damage bonus. As gauss guns are the lighter of the two, this will increase overall speed and allow Kain pilots to close range more quickly, somewhat negating the lower overall range

2) Change the armour repairer amount bonus to an armour repairer accumulator bonus, and increase base HP by 500-750. The Tyrannos can run a dual tank, and the Artemis has higher resists, so the Kain should have most base armour HP.

3) ????

4) Happier Kain pilots

OR

1) Change the increased falloff bonus to increased optimal, without changing damage, and increase the base range of magnetic weapons to give the Kain the ability to snipe at distance and retreat out of enemy lock range to repair.

Obviously all of the above is affected by my relatively low overall EP (~130K on this character) - I've dumped what I hope is the relevant info below for anyone who is interested - but even with increased EP, the differences between the mechs would only become greater.

Ready for this to be shot down in flames now smile

(improved falloff 4/sharpshooting 5/advanced robotics 6/nuimquol robot control 5/thelodica robot control 5)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Perhaps this should be in the Balancing subforum?

But i also agree, i just got into my first mech, only to be informed i was basically cannon fodder because i'm a blue pilot -.-

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Blue pilots aren't cannon fodder, they're really bad at that.
In the current metagame kains suck.

Re: The Kain needs some love.

As a person who has a max skilled kain pilot, i agree they need some love.

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Kanogi brought this up not to long ago and requested the fall off bonus be swapped to anything that would help the kain.

I can only speak as a vet who has played with people who pilot kains, I have never piloted one in to pvp but was very disapointed with it for pve (my indy alt with poor skills but was still disapointed).

Kains have the DPS to kill both artemis and tyrannos if they prepare for their fight or have good back up.

Possible solutions:
1.Start throwing a supressor on your kain to decrease the enemys locking range I know that its not the weapon range but if every one in your fleet had 1-2 you could easly out manuever and out range your enemy.
2.Have a friend RSA(remote sensor amp) you while you run more range extenders. I have seen this set up wreck an enemy fleet. 2 kains RSA'd with crit, assault, and speed nexus and a cammy running a l-demob and 2 ecms.
3.Use the environment more to your advantage. Make the enemy push well in to your optimal before locking and shooting, hide behind hill crests so the enemy must push in to your optimal, duck back in to cover when primary.
4. Use ECMs and break their locks as you push in closer and closer... < good solo tactic not so sound against a fleet.
5. If your are in a fleet try to hide your kain pilots in an ambush location and engage the enemy when they either have to push through the kains or the main element of your attack to run away.
6. The old speed fit kain was 2 small reppers and a frame and a resist. I've even run that on an artimis with success.

Participate, Congratulate cause everything else will be seen as HATE.
Max yellow max all skills lvl 10 min max for the win

Re: The Kain needs some love.

A slight HP increase would fix the kain imo.

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Im a Kain pilot and been driving it from launch. If u change the repair bonus to a acc bonus u are making the kain even worse. The biggest problem with blue bots is the completely useless falloff bonus that gives u 60 extra meters to where u never realy want to shoot anyway.

change that bonus and maybe a hp buff and the kain will be fine again.

[05:36:51] <Lemon> i hate you... just so you know

[15:05:49] <Ville> I have to admit, that was pretty fu**ing pimp ^^
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Re: The Kain needs some love.

If you change the Kain then the Mesmer also will need adjusted as well.  It faces the same problems, however, more people use Kain's so the Mesmer's problems will remain hidden until then.

Kain's as they stand right now are extremely situational, and you best hope they decide to shoot something other then the Kain your driving, as it has always been paper thin, at least in comparison to any Artemis.

Does it need a buff, that I'm not so sure on, does it need the Optimal range Bonus instead?  A long long time ago it had that bonus, it was changed as it was deemed too overpowered.  Is that still the case, time will tell if it changed.

The Gifter
Top  Killer 2013  - 01: 334 -- 17 -- 317  : Merkle
Top  Killer 2012  - 01: 027 -- 472 -- 445 : Merkle

Scarab Kill Count - 13

9 (edited by Sundial 2012-03-18 19:03:19)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

I think OP has some misconceptions about the Tyranos: It is also highly situational also and does almost no DPS when not RSA fit in a typical fleet. Its ability to do any DPS is also highly EP intensive. The only way to get good range out of it is with faction ammo and T4 launchers. Add this to the fact it slows down squads its in and thats why you rarely see them roaming in vet gangs besides a couple very stubborn pilots who have taken an odd liking to them smile. Alot of people look at the tournaments and say the Tyranos is overpowered but this is highly contextual. Its only a strong contestant in that specific format where speed is irrelevant and DPS irrelevant by its strong tank.

Tyranos is more than a one trick pony due to its ability to run a nasty tank, neut/draining fits, autocannons/machine guns etc. It also have 1 more head slot than the kain, but 1 less leg slot. All of its bonus are useful all the time (you always fit missile launchers, energy regen bonus can be useful in so many ways, enhanced lock time is always great to have). Blues falloff bonus is pretty much only really useful with autocannons and its repair bonus is only really useful when running an active armor tank which recently was nerfed pretty hard. Tho I disagree about it being useless for PvE. If you are running with no remote reps the bonus is great.

Some history/perpsective: Back when we had the reset system, you saw alot of pilots reset from green to yellow/blue cause they hated the Tyranos. Kain even after the speed nerfs is still the only bot type that can run with an assault gang speed wise. You used to see alot more of them out roaming with small gangs as opposed to just the fleets you see roaming around now. You also had certain alliances fielding full kain fleets.

So yeah, I think the kain needs some love. But it can't be overdone just because another bot does something better.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: The Kain needs some love.

1) the Kain's bonuses suggest that it should be a back-of-the-pack bot, sniping from distance and retreating to cover to repair any damage.

i've stopped reading after this, since its totally wrong. The kain is the fastest mech ingame, with the highest burst damage and obviously the fastest at recovering from taken damage.
Kain is a hit and run mech.

If you think that 50% resist bonus of the artemis makes it to a tank, your missleaded. The Artemis pilot has to fit universal armor hardener to gain any profit from this bonus, and without fitting all headslots with repair tunings, he is also not able to repair the damage he recieves without using his full accu recharge rate just for repair. The

The Kain pilot on the other side, can repair a good bunch of his hitpoints with a single repair cycle, from just using a medium repair module + a repair tuning....

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: The Kain needs some love.

The artemis is the single best armour tank in the game.

12 (edited by Annihilator 2012-03-18 22:35:24)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Shaedys wrote:

The artemis is the single best armour tank in the game.

with or without propper equip and extensions?

and i would say Riv+Symbiont MK2 are the best armor tanks in game wink

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

13 (edited by Burial 2012-03-19 07:12:01)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

1. Falloff bonus could be changed to Optimal: 1% Turrent Optimal Range per Advanced Robotics. Should give about 40 extra meters with maxed skills and T4 afaik.

2. One missile slot could be changed to Missile, Misc for extra versatility.

Re: The Kain needs some love.

we already had optimal bonus on blues, and it was overpowered. basicly a EMgun fit mesmer could outrange and damage a seth.

if anything on the kain would make sense as replacement then it would be a masking or hitsize bonus.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

15 (edited by Hunter 2012-03-19 04:38:37)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

M Piquet wrote:

TLDR: My mk1 kain in t1 equip has been pwned and i think that need to do something to been more easy win...

About weapons: Nuimqols has most powerful weapons on the server.

weapon		Race								
		Nuimqol			Pelistal			Telodica		
type	lvl	dmg	cycle	dps	dmg	cycle	dps	dmg	cycle	dps
light	1	267%	3,25	19,76	198%	5,00	15,84	198%	2,60	18,30
	2	267%	3,25	19,76	198%	5,00	15,84	198%	2,60	18,30
	3	297%	3,25	21,95	198%	4,67	16,97	178%	1,95	21,95
	4	396%	3,90	24,39	198%	4,33	18,28	218%	2,27	23,00
Medium	1	396%	6,49	29,27	198%	9,33	16,97	198%	3,90	24,39
long	2	396%	6,49	29,27	198%	9,33	16,97	198%	3,90	24,39
range	3	495%	6,49	36,59	198%	8,00	19,80	248%	3,90	30,49
	4	535%	6,49	39,52	198%	7,00	22,63	257%	3,90	31,71
medium	1	337%	3,90	41,47	198%	9,33	25,46	253%	3,25	37,47
short	2	337%	3,90	41,47	198%	9,33	25,46	253%	3,25	37,47
range	3	396%	3,90	48,79	198%	8,00	29,70	273%	2,92	44,88
	4	594%	5,19	54,89	198%	7,00	33,94	317%	3,25	46,84

(here are figures on high skills, without weapon tunings and without sparks)

About armor repair:
On Kain you can raise repair amount to 391HP per 330AP with t4 armor repair module (276 HP for Artemis).

Resists? ok, there is the formula: Resist % = (100 * resist points) / (100 + resist points)
Artemis bonus gives +50% (with high skills) to resist points - not to resist %. It means that there are really small difference (4-5%).

About speed - Kain most faster battle mech on server.

About weapon range - skills can give you 106 meters of falloff and 403 meters effective range on t4 weapons - not enough?..

Spoiler: > Actually fallow bonus not only for EM's. It's good for firearms aswell <

+we have remote sensor amplifiers; range extendors; repair tunings and a lot of everything.

So... What we have? We have a noob, who want to kill everything around without expensive investments.

What can i advise?.. Please don't post topics about balancing here while you not raised skills to high lvl. Please.

The theory of mutual interests
Why the crybabies wins?
Где Ханя - там победа (с)
DEV Zoom: No need to speculate...

16 (edited by Lemon 2012-03-19 04:34:35)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Hunter wrote:
M Piquet wrote:

TLDR: My mk1 kain in t1 equip has been pwned and i think that need to do something to been more easy win...

About weapons: Nuimqols has most powerful weapons on the server.

weapon		Race								
		Nuimqol			Pelistal			Telodica		
type	lvl	dmg	cycle	dps	dmg	cycle	dps	dmg	cycle	dps
light	1	267%	3,25	19,76	198%	5,00	15,84	198%	2,60	18,30
	2	267%	3,25	19,76	198%	5,00	15,84	198%	2,60	18,30
	3	297%	3,25	21,95	198%	4,67	16,97	178%	1,95	21,95
	4	396%	3,90	24,39	198%	4,33	18,28	218%	2,27	23,00
Medium	1	396%	6,49	29,27	198%	9,33	16,97	198%	3,90	24,39
long	2	396%	6,49	29,27	198%	9,33	16,97	198%	3,90	24,39
range	3	495%	6,49	36,59	198%	8,00	19,80	248%	3,90	30,49
	4	535%	6,49	39,52	198%	7,00	22,63	257%	3,90	31,71
medium	1	337%	3,90	41,47	198%	9,33	25,46	253%	3,25	37,47
short	2	337%	3,90	41,47	198%	9,33	25,46	253%	3,25	37,47
range	3	396%	3,90	48,79	198%	8,00	29,70	273%	2,92	44,88
	4	594%	5,19	54,89	198%	7,00	33,94	317%	3,25	46,84

(here are figures on high skills, without weapon tunings and without sparks)

About armor repair:
On Kain you can raise repair amount to 391HP per 330AP with t4 armor repair module (276 HP for Artemis).

Resists? ok, there is the formula: Resist % = (100 * resist points) / (100 + resist points)
Artemis bonus gives +50% (with high skills) to resist points - not to resist %. It means that there are really small difference (4-5%).

About speed - Kain most fast battle mech on server.

About weapon range - skills can give you 106 meters of falloff and 403 meters effective range on t4 weapons - not enough?..

+we have remote sensor amplifiers; range extendors; repair tunings and a lot of everything.

So... What we have? We have a noob, who want to kill everything around without expensive investments.

What can i advise?.. Please don't post topics about balancing here while you not raised skills to high lvl. Please.

I was going to post but then i saw hunter WTFBBQed the thread and felt content.

P.S.- 1 shotting Tyrannos and Kains with my kain=trololol i invite a buff

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

17 (edited by Burial 2012-03-19 07:19:05)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

I partly agree with Hunter on this one. Kain is a good mech and its damage with gauss guns is nothing short of spectacular. Just needs the right situation and the right setup. It does not shine in mass PVP much tho. wink

I am not sure if you were talking about PVE or PVP with the 2 plate+2 uni setup but any respectful Kain should fit one thermal hardener for PVP and kite while doing PVE.

Annihilator wrote:

we already had optimal bonus on blues, and it was overpowered. basicly a EMgun fit mesmer could outrange and damage a seth.

if anything on the kain would make sense as replacement then it would be a masking or hitsize bonus.

It can do one and can do the other but not both at the same time and even then, Seth will usually outdamage Mesmer because of one extra head slot.

18 (edited by Lemon 2012-03-19 07:33:00)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Burial wrote:

I partly agree with Hunter on this one. Kain is a good mech and its damage with gauss guns is nothing short of spectacular. Just needs the right situation and the right setup. It does not shine in mass PVP much tho. wink

I am not sure if you were talking about PVE or PVP with the 2 plate+2 uni setup but any respectful Kain should fit one thermal hardener for PVP and kite while doing PVE.

Annihilator wrote:

we already had optimal bonus on blues, and it was overpowered. basicly a EMgun fit mesmer could outrange and damage a seth.

if anything on the kain would make sense as replacement then it would be a masking or hitsize bonus.

It can do one and can do the other but not both at the same time and even then, Seth will usually outdamage Mesmer because of one extra head slot.

@M piq Mechs are not balanced around T1 fits so only make judgments based off T4.

@Burial 2 Plates and 2 uni's is a deathwish in any situation, 99/100 times it is a fitting problem and not a bot problem for effectiveness.  Your edited out statement about EP by 2 months a player can run a very deadly and effective Kain.

As far as a seth out damaging a mesmer... only in your wildest dream's

I my self am very well versed in all the mechs and each excel in different situation's and the key to being effective is knowing what situations favor you and avoiding those that dont. i.e. Dont get in to a snipe out with a artemis as a kain in a open field.

I have very successful fits for a Kain and kain mk 2  that range from Speed->Damage->Tank and everything in-between.

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

19 (edited by Burial 2012-03-19 08:57:01)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

I am not sure what I edited because I edited the whole post like 5 times to eliminate most of the typos while being under constant agro of my kid. big_smile

Someone in my corp did calculations and he got that Seth will do sightly better damage, I am not sure of all the variables he used but only thing that caught my eye was that Seth did more damage because of the extra head slot. I have never used a Seth in my life and can't be bothered to calculate everything myself so Il drop it.

I hope eHarm shows up in MASS1.

// I think Kain should have alteast 1 of its Missile slots changed to Missile+Misc. It is pretty fair to compare it to Tyrannos since one has 4/3 head/leg slots and the other has 3/4. Tyrannos's 5-6 chassis slots are Turrent+Misc+Indy so why does Kain lack it? Artemis does indeed lack it too but it has one extra head slot over Kain and one extra leg slot over Tyrannos.

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Burial wrote:

I am not sure what I edited because I edited the whole post like 5 times to eliminate most of the typos while being under constant agro of my kid. big_smile

Someone in my corp did calculations and he got that Seth will do sightly better damage, I am not sure of all the variables he used but only thing that caught my eye was that Seth did more damage because of the extra head slot. I have never used a Seth in my life and can't be bothered to calculate everything myself so Il drop it.

I hope eHarm shows up in MASS1.

// I think Kain should have alteast 1 of its Missile slots changed to Missile+Misc. It is pretty fair to compare it to Tyrannos since one has 4/3 head/leg slots and the other has 3/4. Tyrannos's 5-6 chassis slots are Turrent+Misc+Indy so why does Kain lack it? Artemis does indeed lack it too but it has one extra head slot over Kain and one extra leg slot over Tyrannos.

kinda

The theory of mutual interests
Why the crybabies wins?
Где Ханя - там победа (с)
DEV Zoom: No need to speculate...

Re: The Kain needs some love.

At the beginning, mech you're driving is ALWAYS worser than others. smile

Have a productive day, runner!
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22 (edited by Inda 2012-03-19 10:47:13)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

to M Piquet:

You need to know when use a mech what for is exactly the best or good it, so you need to figure out: Kain has  high dps / low range / quick speed / have bonus for fallof /and repairer amount. Then you need to see what need to use for that mission (I mean fittings you have 3 head and 4 leg slot and + 2 missile !), and use, if you see you would like better for use other mech because of you can train other but this is have consequences because you had trained for Kain (btw will also useful for future).

I saw in old times, everybody who can did train to Kain because they started in Artemis, now I see who start in Kain train Artemis nowadays, so this is very complicated and such.

I start Nuimqol because I had a base idea what they can, and now I also cant use any other fraction because I like I cant do everything in my faction I need to figure out what is the good for my coosen one.
But there is an other choice you can easily train both Nuimqol and Thelodica parallel, or after because any reach "good" and I know peoples who choose all of faction to use that is also possible and sometimse can be more effective than I can use 1. But Perpetuum is a teamplay game so you have advantages for the team and disadvantages you just need to use it in the correct time.

As Annihilator said, Kain is best dps, run in run out mech, as Lemon said you can fit you Kain for many mission, but as we had some balancing can be a problem here again.

Hunter I dont like your style: "i know everthyng better than you and i know it and tell it". I prefer "I know better than you and I will explain that thing" what is better?

Kain had 2-3 times nerf after relasase some base speed nerf and some weapon nerf
now short range is the lighter guns and the long range is hevier that is good, I was also said Kain was needed in the past a bit speed nerf, because that was a bit too quick. And I am on with improved nerfs, as I said about sensor amplifiers, and then how surprise was implemented not beacuse I said because Alf see this will be good. So need to ask you Hunter you think that changes that was bad? I can understand you dont need many balancing but sometimes can be good.

TLDR: After all, can be a problem and sometimes need a bit balance, but now I think Kain is good as it is maybe fallof bonus dont so useful for Em but for machine guns its more better. Maybe Kanogi idea about demob resist can improve a bit the Kain

(Hunter: Can I ask how you computed the dps column? for me is not clear and can be confusing)

Energy to Earth!

18.01.2014. [12:57:58] <BeastmodeGuNs> after that i remembered all those warning about 1v1 you lol, and i found out why xD

23 (edited by Burial 2012-03-19 11:01:39)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Kain is: Run in like Usain Bolt with AK47, get demobed, die. wink

24 (edited by Angelwing 2012-03-19 12:56:10)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

weapon		Race								
		Nuimqol						Pelistal					Telodica		
type	lvl	dmg	cycle	dps	AP/s	Dmg/AP		dmg	cycle	dps	AP/s	Dmg/AP		dmg	cycle	dps	AP/s	Dmg/AP
light	1	267%	3,25	21.19	0.98	21.53		198%	4.87	17,48	0.21	85.14		198%	2,60	21.02	1.92	10.93
	2	267%	3,25	21.19	0.92	22.96		198%	4.87	17,48	0.21	85.14		198%	2,60	21.02	1.54	13.66
	3	297%	3,25	23.57	0.98	23.95		198%	4.54	18,75	0.22	85.14		178%	1,95	25,19	2.05	12.28
	4	396%	3,90	26,19	1.28	20.12		198%	4.22	20.18	0.24	85.14		218%	2,27	26,50	2.64	10.03

Medium	1	396%	6,49	31.48	4.16	7.57		198%	9.09	18,73	0.22	85.14		198%	3,90	28,02	6.41	4.37
long	2	396%	6,49	31.48	3.85	8.17		198%	9.09	18,73	0.22	85.14		198%	3,90	28,02	5.64	4.97
range	3	495%	6,49	39.36	4.93	7.98		198%	7.79	21.85	0.26	85.14		248%	3,90	35.10	6.92	5.07
	4	535%	6,49	42.54	5.55	7.67		198%	6.82	24.97	0.29	85.14		257%	3,90	36.37	7.69	4.73

medium	1	337%	3,90	44.59	3.85	11.59		198%	9.09	28,10	0.22	127.71		253%	3,25	42.97	6.46	6.65
short	2	337%	3,90	44.59	3.08	14.49		198%	9.09	28,10	0.22	127.71		253%	3,25	42.97	5.23	8.21
range	3	396%	3,90	52.39	4.36	12.02		198%	7.79	32.79	0.26	127.71		273%	2,92	51.61	7.53	6.85
	4	594%	5,19	59.06	3.85	15.32		198%	6.82	37.45	0.29	127.71		317%	3,25	53.84	7.38	7.29

(here are figures on high skills, without weapon tunings and without sparks)

Someone in my corp did calculations and he got that Seth will do sightly better damage

No, Mesmer MKII (full tuning & compositcore) = better damage/gun but Seth MKII(full tuning &  thermic) = better DPS/gun

(Hunter: Can I ask how you computed the dps column? for me is not clear and can be confusing)

I suppose : ammo damage *  X%  /  cycle time = DPS
ex: 120 * 1.98  / 7 = 33.94 DPS   


For me, i added Critical Hit :

ammo *  X% / cycle time * ( % critical hit * 1.75 + % normal hit)
ex: 120 * 1.98 / 6.82 * ( 0.1 * 1.75 + 0.9 ) = 37.45 DPS

25 (edited by Burial 2012-03-19 11:49:29)

Re: The Kain needs some love.

Thanks for clearing it up, Angelwing! Looks like I was not clear enough. What I meant by "outdamage" was DPS all the time.