I remember when the game was in the state after the Mine Launcher and Mobula patch, where the Hwacha still used to hit literally everything at seemingly every range. Today it still has the same weaknesses and destroys actually even less components.
The Hwacha on the Goldfish makes it hard to outmanouver, but the Goldfish has to rely on the Hwacha and a possible side Gatling/Carronade (or even Flamer) to get any kill at all. This makes it rather predictable when rebuilding armor and guns, just time it and you barely die.
On a Spire every heavy gun has made that ship superior in strength, since they are also supported by 3 light guns aiming at the same direction.
Galleon can barely make use of any heavy gun with its limited manouverbility when up against a pilot that konws how to abuse that, but when it gets arc nearly every heavy gun enables the Galleon to give one a bad day, as long as it is a somewhat correct range but that is the risk you take when taking specific guns on any ship.
Heavy guns are also easier disabled than light guns, since they are bigger and probably harder to turn especially once they are damaged.
I actually think the Hwacha has become a little bit weaker since the patch. When taking a Spire or Goldfish with a Hwacha I could dictate the range on a greater level, making it even harder for the enemy to fight back. Since the patch Hwacha jitter has been decreased, but hitting with heavy clip or burst rounds at that distance is majorly unreliable, forcing me to go in a range where Gatlings and Carronades have an easier time beating me up instead.
But it actually still isn't as good as the Heavy Carronade, even after the nerf. It can still destroy the balloon in two shots and a dropping enemy cannot shoot back at all, Hades and Lumberjack being the only exception, but once the ship hits the ground the arcs are screwed. Balloons take longer to be rebuild than one or two engines or guns and when it is rebuild the ship might not even have arc still. Against a Pyramidion it is hard to use, but considering the current nerf of the Pyramidion and its general inability to do anything against all other ships and guns than it is probably good this way, although a Pyramidion facing a double Heavy Carronade side from a Galleon will still be demolished. What the nerf did was so the Heavy Carronade cannot solo all the ships that easily anymore, but dpending on the skill between ships it still could, and that is balance.
Now this thread is about nerfs, but Stamina is a pure buff to a lot of stuff in the game. I am personally against Stamina still, but it is not unbeatable. Gunner stamina does not increase range or dps or anything, just arcs, so escaping a ship by outrangint it is still a viable tactic. Also, when a ship with a clear advantage like the Squid fights against a Galleon, the Galleon actually has a chance to win. And here is where pilot skill still matters: Because the Galleon has a higher chance to wreck the Squid with all its heavy guns, also knowsn as Hwacha, the Squid pilot can use his own skill to make up for it, but he has to be so much more reactive and quick. A Spire which is circled by a Squid, a Junker or a Goldfish also has an easier time disabling/killing them. On that last example gunner stamina matters more, but that is ok, because a pilot can only do so much when a ship has clear disadvantages. But man, the devs really were not creative when it came to pilot and engineer stamina.
"Noobs" can win. I, a probably skilled pilot, am playing with a crew of people consisting only of my clanmembers and friends that have as much experience in being crewmembers as I have in the field of piloting and I get beaten up by that one level 8 pilot. Because he knew attacking from the side of my Pyramidion/Goldfish/Mobula is a good idea and because his crew knew that shooting is now the right decision. Of course they make some silly mistakes more often, but I see that some of these new players just understand the game and play correctly. You don't need a microphone to communicate, use voice commands, chat and for captains use captain mark (default key "B") to mark a specific target.
There are tutorials and guides online and in steam, many are outdated but the concept will always apply: When enemy armor down shoot explosive stuff. There are a wiki, which is actually up to date, and tutorials which has been worked on by Muse for a while know which actually explains a decent amount of stuff. There is a practise mode where one can figure out how guns behave and clearly find out what some ammo types do when they load them into the guns. And even then, the wilson notesm which are now open for everybody without having to shoot that one gun 10 times, are also available.
If players don't care about the game, then they will stop playing the game, no matter what. When I joined the game, I cared, so I looked it up and boom, won a majority of matches even with suboptimal loadouts and random people I never met, which have a similar amount of matches as me, while piloting without actual knowledge of guns arcs. If you know about The Sky Wolf, the community announced best pilot in the game, who apparantly figured out how to win every game, reached that stage of caring. He (probably) looked up the game or just played the tutorials and applied common sense, it is as easy as that.
Heavy hwacha is now rather ineffective (a perfect shot with all rockets landing at effective range doesn't necessarily cause any disables), that might be intentional though...
They wanted to decrease the viability of heavy clip on the Heavy Carronade, but did not know how to fix heavy clip for other guns, so I say it is not intentional. A way to "fix" the other guns was to decrease the jitter on where it matters, Hwacha in long range with its previous jitter was impossible to hit with, with the new/current heavy clip.
