The issue I think the X-Pulses have is a psychological one. They *feel* weak as they do such little damage per cycle, but it does stack up if you can get into a good position to exploit mistakes.
In my mind the x pulse has the same sort of problem that Rac2 weapons have. They aren't "bad" in terms of DPS, but they face situational challenges involving peeking or where enemies are highly mobile or poptarting. So they are good dps overall, but can't trade against pin-point-front-loaded-damage, they can't deal with poptarting enemies or those who are torso twisting. Their range is also fairly low, so it can be difficult to trade early on. An interesting weapon system, for sure.
@@Nodjia high mobile targets is actually where they shine since they are hitscan weapons. Its peaking targets with high alpha damage that they are bad against.
@@jeroen92 you make a good point, it's the spin up time and travel time of rac weapons that make them a bit unwieldy against poptarts, and I suppose it is a misstep on my part to attribute the same problems to x pulse as a whole. I suppose to refine my comment I would say they can hit poptarts but usually they won't trade well against front loaded damage that poptarts tend to use, and those enemy types tend to only be in direct line of sight for a burst or two from the x pulses. So in that regard you can hit but you maybe don't do as much as the ppcs, srms or mrms that are likely coming your way. But any hit is still better than scratching their paint with the other "face time" weapons.
The issue with X-Pulse is exposure. With Small and Medium X-Pulse, you have to stare at people at fairly close range, while your lasers point both ways. This obviously makes you very vulnerable to return fire, and everyone knows that X-Pulse is going to put out lots of damage, so you're generally a target. If you can position to avoid being targeted, they're great, but that can be very hard to do.
I like the medium x-pulse, I think it's the best of the family for range, damage and heat. I run seven on a Thunderbolt 5S, the quirks for pulse lasers also include x-pulse so no ghost heat, plus the T-bolt has a good mix of armour, speed and cooling. X-pulses are kinda like RAC's, you have to learn when and were to face time someone but with seven of them you're doing 10.5 damage, twice a second, that adds up quickly.
X-Pulses seem really good at killing lights and fast mediums, being able to maintain the pressure with hitscan weapons that have a short burst speed works exceptionally well, since it is impossible to dodge all those attacks. But when this build tries to take on a heavy or assault, you can't maintain pressure because you overheat and have to reduce your rate of fire. They become pretty bad in that matchup imo.
However, you have to trace the lights and mediums really well to get the damage on them and you can trace a component on a big mech easily, allowing you to do what you're best at which is applying your burst DPS
I do have a WLF-1B with four MXPLs, with 16DHS, which I find to have great heat management for staying engaged and spitting x-pulsations for a good amount of time. For some heavies and assaults I think I may go back to regular pulsers for the alpha punch, but LRM-throwers definitely benefit from carrying defensive x-pulsers for charge repulsion, and in light mechs small x-pulsers are great companions for machine guns. One other really fun use is also in lights like the LCT-1V and SDR-5V, whose energy cooldown and laser duration quirks make x-pulsers absolutely scream: the LCT-1V with a single LXPL does the DPS of six HMGs with no ammo bins!
Don't forget the Locust mechs are getting a quirk buff across the board next patch. 1V is getting a 50% laser duration quirk so LXP duration will be even shorter.
@@ghoulbuster1 They are all getting buffed across the board. Pirate's Bane from what i remember is also getting a built-in seismic detector of 100 or 150m that stacks with skills.
X Pulse are super underrated IMO especially on lights and any build that can take advantage of stacking laser hard points. Baradul is right you don't want to do any trading with it so knowing when and when you shouldn't engage is critical. But if you manage to get some sustained fire from a volley of X pulses, you can absolutely shred most medium or smaller mechs before you need to even cooldown.
Any weapon is good when no one is firing back, you say that like it's some sort of advantage. Actual measure of how good weapons are how they perform when somebody's not tanking for you.
I've been experimenting with X pulse builds on my black knight, the one with 8 energy hards iirc, best results were using 3 medium X as a secondary weapon and dual binary as primary. Using multiple X pulse larges along with mediums wasn't very effective since you dont have the mobility of a light. First build gets decent damage from the 3 mediums for close fights to augment the binary
Couldnt agree more, virtually by any measure regular PL's peform better. XMPL is the least crap among the XPL family. It has more uses bc the mechs that used to boat MPLs can now boat mXPL and extend there effective range.@@manty5
I run a Vulcan with a pair of large X-pulse. I'm hitting targets for about 13 ish DPS at the same spot at large laser range and am near heat neutral. 124kph with maxed out acceleration and deceleration skills I can dodge shots at longish range, reposition, or I have the speed and armour to hunt down lights as well as seismic help with stealth armour. I do extremely good for me in it getting g 4 to 800 damage which I'm admittedly not amazing at this game so being able to do it consistently in an unfamiliar mech is actually really good. It suits my preference for long range fighting and the X-pulses work for me. And they spread less than regular lasers as the individual bursts are extremely short. Actually I have an Osiris Sekmet I think (the hero) with 4 medium pulse and a pair of LMGs I do good with. The thing with the X-pulse I find is that the mediums are the worst, the large are the best, and you absolutely need to build around them as they work terribly as secondary weapons in most cases. Though a large will work with RACs. Most importantly, the large X-pulse are purple and make an extremely satisfying pew pew sound 😂
The Steam overlay thing happens when you alt tab out of the game and back in. It "stores" the tab input so the Steam overlay will open the next time you press the other button you have assigned to open it.
Yes this is the case. So anyone with this problem you can either disable overlay if you find yourself alt tab often, or be sure to trigger it at the start of the match to clear it early.
Hi Baradul! you can turn off the steam overlay in the steam library! right click on the game and click properties. Then click disable steam overlay in the general tab!
You know whats fun to do, get the Locust IV with the large Xpulse laser and its quirks, it becomes a locust with alight saber because it shoots so fast it looks like a never ending beam.
10:54 "where is the honor in that?" - As the loading messages in the Harebrained Battletech taught us: "guns off the field - if you can reduce the enemy firepower, do that".
X-Pulse are an odd duck. IF* you have machine guns, then the SmXP, or LXP with LMG, then you can have a 'good' day, but as you said, "The investment is high." The heat cost of these weapons is just so much. Ideal situations to use X-Pulse, meaning a time to stare at the enemy targets, are just are not plentiful enough. RACs/lock on missiles may also suffer from the 'born to stare' weapon category ,but that is a whole other conversation. Good vid man!
glad i'm not the only one who gets the steam overlay issue, it's to the point that i always toggle armlock on and off as soon as i'm out of the dropship.
IMO the MXPL are in a good place damage and heat wise, so mechs that can effectively run a lot of them can do pretty well (eg: Thunderbolt 5SS, Hunchback 4P etc). Heat, range, and HSL quirks specifically make a big difference. It becomes way to hot when you add LXPL into the mix though IMO. They don't do enough damage to warrant using them over LPL except on heavily quirked mechs.
Good video Bara. Seems the X-Pulse lasers are only really good with skirmishing light 'mechs. Outflanking heavier 'mechs and being able to skirmish enemy light 'mechs seems to be what it's good at.
@@timgooding9464 A good Annihilator build and accurate aim does a lot of damage regardless of of the weapon. Damage dealing is kind of the whole purpose of the Annihilator, the downside is that they're big, slow targets and in MWO, from what I've seen they either survive or are one of the first 'mechs to be destroyed. 😄
@diomedes7971 With an Annihilator, I like to go with a full Autocannon build. X-Pulses seem like they'd be a waste on a slow 'mech like the Annihilator. Wolfhounds are one of the more survivable IS light 'mechs and can be made to go very fast, so X-Pulse medium lasers on Wolfhounds would be a logical choice.
Good to see you back! You inspired me to start playing MWO but where already pretty much absent when I finally joined last year. I was happy and excited to see you on an opposing team this week. :-)
They've been out for months now, and still, what I saw as obvious, people still arent getting? X-pulse was designed to be used in those one or two laser hardpoints on MG lights. That's what they are, laser machine guns, and that's what they work perfectly with. Alone, they are the complete opposite of the meta, and the meta is the meta because the meta is what works. Big alpha poking. These dont do that, like at all. Now on your MG lights, you are meant to go in and steal- I mean secure kills on heavily damaged mechs. Get in, finish em off, and run away. In your flea with 8 MGs, using a small pulse in that single slot just doesnt feel right, it's a quick burst and a long pause, where all the dodging and turning as you hold down your trigger makes it real easy to completely miss that pulse burn. Now with a small x-pulse, you get constant burn just like your MGs, basically adding another 2 machine guns worth of DPS to your little ankle biter. And the heat from that single small x-pulse is negligible. Stop trying to boat x-pulse. That is not what they are for, they are stupidly hot in numbers, since you cant cool off while firing a heat weapon, and require you to stare at that mech with it's 100 pt alpha. Never a good idea.
x pulse has good damage per heat, you probably get more value from the cool run over the heat contain. consider mixing with mgs for better heat sustain. Also its great to see mwo vids from you again :)
Vitric is my new favorite map since they ruined all my old favorites, but it is a hot map. X-pulse lasers are good in large numbers. Like 9 mediums on the party back, or 14 Smalls on the crusader 6t
Yeah the 6T with 14 sxpl was pretty filthy even before the xpl buff. Very range limited obviously, but if you can get close without getting shredded, the enemy is in trouble.
A good combo with Xpulse is the racs. sustained fire with racs coupled with sustained fire from xpulse. try annihilator or battlemaster with this combo.
Hello, glad you are back playing MWO. Just want to mention, though: COOL RUN You say there is a case to be made for it, and that case is actually the strongest in the game You can fire more times and Cool Run is the best way to increase your DPS over a match and gets you ready to engage sooner And this build NEEDS it because it is super hot, and only costs 5 nodes which can be taken from taking away the 2nd Arty or 40% Radar Dep Heat Gen = 11.7% sDPS increase, Cool Run + Heat Gen = 23% sDPS increase. And it's just 5 nodes. It will definitely help, you will notice the difference greatly
Medium x-pulse I'd say are the weakest. 1 or 2 large x-pulse are nice with LMGs (Spider 5K FTW!) and boating small x-pulse is glorious with or without MGs. 8 on the FS9-A is brutal. Heat is a little OTT. I've tried running 8 medium x-pulse on a Blackjack and it's just too much unless you can guarantee you get to skirmish. YMMV, you're a much better player than me! Vitric? Hold the high ground, don't, *EVER*, rotate. You can use the bridges as cover to force mid range on top snipers but the guys up top can always drop down, not the same for those down low. So nice seeing you back in MWO though, you're part of the reason I got in to the game and why I love my Crabs so much :)
I've had the opposite experience. 😄 Lxpl are simply not worth the weight for what they do. I do also think the Smalls are the best, though. The only limit to boating those is your hard points. Mediums being the middle ground. Play styles, of course, make all the difference.
@@Artificer1911 Fair, I've only been sticking them on light mechs with ridiculous cooldown quirks and other weapons that need the face time. Well, back time if you're doing it right :) Anything bigger that doesn't skirmish? Nah, stick with the regulars. Looking forward to ISC though as the FS9-A is going to wreck face. OK, mostly legs but I can work with that :D
Looks like the sort of build that can stack up some great numbers when things are going well but isn't going to change the fight much if it's going poorly. Which to be fair is probably how most light mechs go.
There is a kintaro that I enjoy using with medium x-pulses. KTO-20 has a 40% duration bonus. I run 4 medium x-pulses and 2 lrm 5's and a lrm 10. Basic idea is to be supportive and keep enemy heads down with the LRMs and then when things heat up with a brawl (or a light 'mech gets cheeky with your back line) the x-pulses start shredding. Also has BAP and a L-AMS and 4 tons of LRM ammo. I typically stick with the rear line assaults until it's time to brawl. Just keeping my head down since getting smacked with HAGs isn't very fun. Since weapon cooldown happens as soon as the weapon's duration is over, the duration bonus is very similar to having an extreme cooldown bonus, only it actually helps with pinpoint damage as well.
It's as you've said, the face time is dangerous(esp. with the new BiLCs and HAGs) despite the XPL's rock solid DPS. I haven't had many great builds but I've had decent luck with the CTF-3L(w/ masc) alternating between an AC20 and RAC5 for the ballistic and quad mXPLs as well as a stalker with 3 lXPLs and MRMs.
To fix your steam overlay issue, I would suggest to rebind the shortcut for it to something more unlikely to hit on accident (like, ctrl+alt+F1 or something to that effect) steam > settings > in game > overlay shortcut keys
The single best thing about the MXP lasers are that medium and large lasers have the same cooldown. This weapon would be good if enemies had 1 healthbar for the whole mech like in traditional MMOS.
IMHO these things are like hot light "laser machine guns". Like any really hot weapon they do best on heavy/assault 'mechs that can carry enough heatsinks to keep them running longer before cooking you. I prefer high-alpha on lighter quicker 'mechs & snipers, & high DPS on the brawlers. X-Pulse would do really well on a big brawler in combination with LMGs or LB-X ACs. This Black Knight is a pretty good setup: e7b9c7cf_BL-6B-KNT
Xpulses in the current version only make sense as a skirmisher mech's weapon, or a support weapon on a mech with much more high powered weapons. They're simply too hot to be on a larger or slower Mech that can't disengage to dissipate heat. one of the pitfalls of having a flat cooldown rate of .25 seconds is that you only have .25 seconds in between bursts to dissipate the toasty heat your Mech accumulates.
Stalker and Annihilator with XPLs slap hard. You don't need to run away for cooling because you just peek a wall, core another assault or kill a heavy, then step behind wall
Bara do you have armlock on SHIFT? Steam overlay usually pops up just with SHIFT pressed. That was the reason for me to turn it off, as it was bothering me while playing War Thunder.
Yeah... when I was looking at them it was really hard to get excited for a weapon that is all about sustained damage when I'd be facing down enemies that can abuse their peek advantage.
It's interesting that there's a theory out there saying that XPulse would be ok with a -15 to -20% heat buff applied. The Wolfhound with it's quirk is a good test platform. Tbh it seems to be correct. The heat was still a problem and the weapon didn't seem overpowered.
Boating x-pulse will never be optimal due to how heat works in this game. It either goes up, or down. You are NOT cooling when you generate heat. You can see this easily by having "more cooling" that the heat you generate and see that the heat scale still rises when firing. Boat like 10 double heat sinks, and a couple small x-pulse, take it into a test drive, and hold the trigger, you still gain heat. Normal pulse works because you have a long-ish cool down to cool after a shot. x-pulse gives you .25 seconds to cool off, which pretty much gets lost in server lag. the purpose of x-pulse is to fill those one or two energy slots in your machine gun ankle biters like the flea or locust... there, they are excelent as they basically give you two more MGs worth of dps, and a single x-pulse would take a while to actually make you overheat.
@@ghoulbuster1 No, they should just be used as intended, supplements to Machine gun dps. Supplements, not replacements. Otherwise they become too good. they are already twice the dps of a comparable MG, for double the weight of the gun only. MG's limiting factor is of course ammo. They produce no heat and have no cooldown. But x-pulse dont have the ammo issue, so you could theoretically just tape your trigger down and shoot forever, except heat is a thing. Heat must remain a thing or you have infinite damage potential. Neither fair nor balanced. Which is why, as a supplement to machine guns to fill that single laser hardpoint they become good, because the heat on that single x-pulse is negligable. For boating lasers, pulse will always outperform x-pulse, because they allow you to hide in between shots, instead of face tanking for 3 seconds to do the same damage with x-pulse instead. The dps of pulse and x-pulse is almost identical. It was mathematically identical at launch but the change the next month boosted x-pulse slightly, at the cost of more heat, which as previously stated, was already in the pulse's favor due to how heat works. Pulse is just better for boating. No ifs and/or buts.
heat and damage comparison between x and regular will see regular come out on top. xpulse does have a little more range and you pay for it with additional heat and face time.
I think you need something with a bit more room for heat sinks and that can actually take more trades with higher internals/armor. ANH-1P with 6 medium x-pulse and 2 RAC-5 if a way to get good use out of them.
I do a similar build on my Battlemaster, but with 2 RAC-2's instead...that has a 100% jam quirk. They never jam and I always feel a bit guilty when the enemy assault expects them to, and they don't. Unlimited Brrrrrt
they seem to lack the punch that they need relative to heat, I feel the 5xMPL Grinner is a superior build although the X pulse might be nice for chasing down lights since the additional facetime wont matter.
I like them now. They do superior damage per heat and damage per second and the penalty of more face time. The small ones are great. Their biggest issue is that they're unforgiving if you miss because of how much heat they create.
@baradul if you ever alt tab during a match, the steam interrupt will consider "tab' to still be pressed, so the moment you touch the shift key it will overlay you. Give it a try, it's very annoying.
you missed them when they first dropped, you would have been hard pressed to get over 300 damage. since they dont have the public test server anymore they just went live and fixed them in the next patch
No sense unless you are pairing them with light machine guns or something like that. The only thing they have over pulse lasers is a little more range.
1 LXPL on a Locust-1V is hilarious. It's like a rotary pink laser cannon. Xpulse are also really, really good at keeping people distracted or hiding behind cover since they are always up to poke when people peek and everyone is conditioned to dodge behind cover the moment they take any amount damage, no matter how small.
Dude, MXPLs do deceptively high damage. I got destroyed by them in a laservomit build once. Took me from fresh to internals on all torso locations. I only managed to open up in his CT. Btw, that is despite me getting inside cover while waiting for CD. I dont know what was up with that.
you can change the hotkey for steam overlay, when you alt tab, the game remembers the TAB key press and when you press shift for arm lock, it opens the overlay, it's kinda dumb i know
