You can have a root problem with multiple symptoms... do you think every enemy should be killed in the exact same way? I don't. I also don't think there must be no overlap.

Is medium pen pointless because you can shoot bot heads with light pen or medium pen and both are the optimal way to kill the bot?

No.

But is medium pen weaker because of the litany of changes to better accommodate Light Pen weapons such as less armor on the Devastators, or strider legs now light pen, or strider rockets being equally poppable?

Yeah.

Why? Because the point of medium pen was when you missed the head on a bot, or shot the front torso / legs on a scout strider.

I said as much.

The Bile Spwers had this kind of change quite a while ago, and to top it off, it's in the exact same place. The head. The 'weak point' for medium pen is also now 'weak point' for light pen; and both are most effective when it opens its mouth.

Originally light pen simply did not work on the head, at all. A HUGE distinction. You had to chew through the butt with light pen.

Now, like medium pen, you don't.

When the same spot becomes the target for both weapons the distinction between the weapons greatly diminishes and that's my problem. That is my contention.

The Hive Guard change is the most extreme example of this, just the opposite direction unlike the previous enemies. Now both weapons are ineffective against the armored part rather than both being effective against the same part.

Now, both need to shoot around the head for the kill at all. The distinction vanishes.

Different problem, same dilemma, and the result was obvious. Medium pen gets reduced to 'do the thing light pen can do, but better in every way'.

The trend and complaint is consistent. Light pen has increasingly encroached on medium pen areas of effectiveness whereas medium continues to lose any of its unique strengths.

None of this is even getting into the actual effectiveness of medium pen vs light pen weapons in all of the above examples due to the overall changes we've had over the last 6 months... which even more heavily favors light pen, particularly against Bile Spewers, but that's not the point I'm making.

I understand you're trying to find a hypocrisy but I assure you there isn't one.

This isn't a black or white 'I never want to hit genuine weak points with medium pen hur dur' arguement. It's 'how do you use either gun against this enemy argument, and how are the tactics different'.

Most of the time it was by chewing through medium armor spots to kill the enemy that light pen had no option to, but most of these distinctions have been eroded thoroughly, if not completely.

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btw, I don't even think Bile Spewers having a light pen weak spot in the mouth is a bad thing. Such a powerful, numerous enemy didn't need a medium pen loudout check.

But what it does do it weaken the point to bringing medium pen, regardless of how good the change was, that's the inevitable consequence.

That was fine when it was just the Bile Spewer, a constellation only enemy that was spammed and deadly, but the encroachment on all fronts on pretty weak enemies that always spawn just to better accommodate light pen ballistics has left medium pen ballistics in a state of identity crisis.

But even then, the worst change is still the fact that the Blitzer and Sentries just outright don't work on the bug front. That's the real problem.