HE mine needs a buff

[destroyor]

Been testing various traps against Naga Protectors and EMP MKIII traps consistently out damage HE mine MKIV, so I think HE mine needs a buff.

I think HE grenades should be buff too as the Ignores 40% of damage resistance and threshold part is just not enough compare to their Frag and plasma equivalent. The HE grenades and mines just seems to under-perform in almost all situations compare to their alternatives.

[harperfan7]

It's no secret at this point that plasma outperform HEs at the same role, but plasmas are available much later in the game (unless you get very lucky) and require high electronics instead of chemistry, also they have a smaller radius and more expensive components.  MkV frags are still worth it since they can outdamage plasmas against squishier targets.  In my experience, aside from the early game, HEs are often a waste of AP given the low damage they do.  Sure, they do *some* damage against burrower warriors, dreadnoughts, etc but its so little that I may as well have used that 15 AP on something else.  These days, many people don't bother getting to 112 chemistry, just 69 for mk4s then switching to plasmas for the lategame.  Maybe if HEs had progressively higher armor ignoring percentage?  Like, 40%/45%/50%/55%/60%?  Or 40/50/60/70/80

[destroyor]

The problem with HE is that even against high mech resist target it's usually better to use frag than HE due to the heat damage. You can see this when you use frag vs HE against metal armored targets - npc don't have high grade metal armor = low to moderate heat resist = frag is better. Plasma > HE against robots such as Industrial bot. Naga Protector is a special case in that it's immune to Plasma grenades + mines. However if you consider quick tinkering you can only choose one mine - HE is suppose to be anti armor but EMP mine outperform HE in this special case.
While it's true plasma need high electronic and only available mid ~ late game most char will spec for high electronic anyway due to the need to craft high grade energy shield.
HE is suppose to be like W2C for grenade/mine but right now it's simply under performing in almost all situations - hence a buff is needed.

[harperfan7]

Well, I think HEs are still fine for mines, especially if you're massing them up; emps cant set each other off.  You use your plasma components for grenades and use hexogen for mines.  I guess you could maybe mass EMPs and set them all off with a grenade; never tried it.  Still, unless you're been buying and saving them up, theres only so many of each component each refresh.

[HulkOSaurus]

While I wouldn't mind a buff to them, HE's advantage is that their damage is consistent in their entire AOE. If you want more damage to a particular target it's true that Frags would outperform. But when the enemy is spread out HE still has some uses. They are also quite good versus humans in heavy.