I think this thread has gotten a little off topic...

Probably the first thing I'll do is fix diffusers so each one has a maximum amount of damage it can absorb.

Yay, more help for snipers And seers on the other hand, but they're a lost case anyways ;D

great, now you guys have done it he's gonna nerf vollies

Remember that vollies are t6 and not t4 like you said earlier in the thread.

And PLEASE make higher tech vollies if you nerf the ones we have now. Please DON'T make them cost an arm and a leg (remember that they are often bought in bulk).

Thank you. That is all.

we should all buy a trillion vollies right now before they get nerfed...

Good Idea!

you ruined the joke, I bet some people would have done it

I wonder if the whole notion of damage-specific diffusers is kind of broken anyway? "In the beginning", there was basically just energy and laser weapons, and one or two very hard to find weapons of other types, so laser and energy diffusers made a lot of sense, but now, anything past the lower-mid levels, and you see damage of all types almost equally.

Perhaps the low level diffusers should have their ability to soak damage capped, and high-level diffusers should be added in which are more like generic armor and will diffuse all types?

Compressed Radiation, Surgical and Heat damps please

I dislike that idea, jeff, because it makes it too easy. "Do you have diffusers?"
"Yep" "Ah, okay, guess you're as good as you'll ever get, then."

Rather than "Do you have diffusers?" "I use kalis..." "Oooh, nice! they're too rare for me to use very often XD"

Y'know?

However, there is something you should think about...people survive just fine without any diffusers for anything but energy and laser damage. But send them in without laser or energy vollies and a run is at least 50% more likely to fail.

Think about that before you go nerfing anything, because its true

As Cygnus says, content is currently balanced around ubiquitous use of volatile diffusers and much more sporadic use of diffusers for the other damage types. As SD, I use surgical diffusers for Anaconda and physical diffusers for Ares and UZ Prince, but that's as far as it goes. I agree that volatile diffusers are badly out of place in the current system, but a lot of stuff is going to have to be rebalanced if you change them as drastically as you make it sound. For one thing, solo DGing as SD will become an enormous pain if I can't shield myself adequately from the first few laser shots in Platty, MF Reaver, and BIgger Green levels. So rebalance away if you insist but please don't throw everything out of whack.

While I'm brainstorming, I should mention that any change to the diffuser system may potentially disadvantage classes with less free hull space.

I would argue that content is currently not balanced given the current diffusers, seeing as no one will use a laser weapon. We certainly haven't been giving AI's stronger lasers because we assume every player has volatile diffusers against it.

Don't beef MF Reavers, if that's what you're saying. I just started leveling on them...

But this could be good if vollies were removed, and lasers near the higher end given better stats. Nothing radical, just DPS/DPH boosts?

Make teh lazor diffusers either more expensive or have only a select few diffusers have laser +resistances.

No, no, the way diffs are atm is broken, but the lasers are balanced around them at the same time. In other words, some of the most damaging laser and energy weapons need to be nerfed to some extent, if vollies are going to be nerfed.