100% agree, and it is one of the best parts of this game, many different ways and almost any of them viable
On its own without cross class to anything they are not bad at all and I wouldn’t call them OP even with the current double damage from Sneak Attack, because the Crossbows have also their downsides (for instance only 3 shots per ‘magazine’). The main advantage is that they are sneaky and so probably the best Scouts in the game with the possibility to spot enemies without activating them. They have fancy Spider Drones and some points more.
But it becomes to get really OP when they get cross classed especially with the base classes (or when they get a weapon proficiency as personal trait). I mean double damage for any attack (except bashing) for almost no cost except SP for the skills and sometimes 4 WP for Vanish combined with the other skills of the base classes like Boom Blast, RC, Quick Aim … simply too much.
@MadSkunky my teams are pretty similar to @walan’s and I also have no problem at all in the tactical part. My 8-man squads usually are:
2x sniper/infiltrator
2x grenadiers (2nd class varies with perks)
usually one something/grenadier (someone with the HW perk)
usually one something/“bombardier” (someone with mounted weapons perk)
2x assaults/something, or something else with the speed perk and high mobility gear
2 of those "something"s are engineers, but not the heavies, of course
one of those somethings is a priest with frenzy
In my current playthrough I got an assault with reckless and close quarters. OP as hell.
In my current playthrough I have a fun “weapon’s master” that all 3 perks are different proficiencies.
If there’s open space… not much human-sized enemies survive 3 grenadiers with frenzy + 2 double damage snipers. If not… shotgun to the face, bash, melee, spider drones, crossbows, MG or cannon if possible, even pistol shots. I also create holes in ceilings with grenades or shoot walls/glass so I can bombard or snipe enemies.
And about this:
From 10 tiles you’re pushing your luck very much when trying to disable a limb, unless you’re using the SYN AR. From 5 tiles… it’s just more common, at least in my playstyle, to be able to come a little 2-3 tiles closer and just use the shotgun. All my assaults carry a shotgun.
Really… against armored targets I never see a case where an AR is a good choice if there’s any other choice. I use them when there’s no other option or for a bit of shred. They’re VIABLE, sure, but they are not as good as any other weapon against more armored targets. And I’ll ALWAYS take an enemy from afar if possible, instead of going near an enemy with other attack methods just to disable ONE of its attack methods.
@drages never said that, although it’s clear that you were exaggerating to make your point. His mods were about making AR’s 1AP, half the shots (very good one, fits the class nicely) and bumping their damage just a bit. No changes to accuracy.
@MadSkunky also talked about inverting the AR’s numbers: higher damage per bullet, less bullets (like 60x3 instead of 30x6). Would also do.
Well, I also not, when I use anything that the game gives to me and then I even don’t need 8 man for one squad. I always have one high levelled 5 man squad in a Helios with all the toys that the game provides. 2 Assaults, 1 Heavy, 1 Sniper, 1 Frenzy Priest, the first 4 dual classed to Infiltrator and the Priest as a supporter goes with Technician for healing and also the fancy turrets.
With this team I can do any mission of the game including the final missions without any problems, but all 5 are also more than OP.
@walan don’t use cross classing and many other of the OP things in the game and that is also almost the setting of my other teams (pure single class, no Frenzy Priests etc) and with them the whole thing is mostly a completely other game. More challenging but also often more fun.
To be clear: WITH the self restrictions I have a moderate challenge (could be a bit more) even with the bombard method. I don’t see any reason to play a tactical game if it is a cakewalk.
You mentioned your Sniper / Infiltrators in your list of your squads. Have you ever had one with the trooper perk and gave him a Daimos? Try it and I think you will use the Daimos more often than the sniper rifle. This is one case and there are more, for instance the already mentioned hatching sentinels in Nests
Edit: OK, the sentinels are not well armored, maybe not a real case
Oh I know how you play, I was not suggesting that you had problems at all, I was trying to enter the “different ways to play” discussion. I use less restrictions than you guys because I didn’t even reach the real endgame yet so I don’t even have experience with the end-game weapons (mounted, virophage, missile launchers, etc). I’m also still experimenting with a lot of things, trying a lot of combinations for the first time. Even then, I don’t use RC nor the infiltrator double damage unless on snipers (which I think is a good fit towards mid-end game when snipers start losing usefulness, although could be less). My main restrictions are in the strategy layer, which I like more. This already makes the tactical layer much more difficult because with less resources I cannot create better/different gear for my soldiers for a long time. So I’m stuck with PP AR’s and a few bulldogs that are more easily found than the deimos.
The most clearly OP thing that I use is frenzy. I LOVE, really love, mobility, so playing with frenzy is just more fun to me. It’s still OP as hell though and it should give half the current mobility bonus or even less. The turn count is good, most of my battles finish in 2 turns anyway, 3-5 or sometimes more if I have to go to crates or leave the battlefield manually. These missions would be a real drag without frenzy though. Also, if the frenzy mobility was kept high but for only one turn, I would just find a way to keep pumping it the best I could at any cost.
I do have one, but I couldn’t spare resources/time to build the deimos when the perk became available. Now that I can, it’s in a huge manufacturing backlog . Well, the perk changes AR’s completely, as well as any other weapon proficiency perk with bonuses… that’s exactly what an upgraded deimos could be damage-wise, for example. It does not need more accuracy. It could also keep on having no armor penetration but having higher damage per shot. Lower damage against heavy armor, but still some damage. Great damage against low armor and a REAL limb breaker (good accuracy, good damage).
Depends on the limb and depends on the AR, of course. I wouldn’t try something like this against a Tyrant, because you either have to kill it, or go for the arm with the MG, and it makes for too small a target (or go for the MG, but then you end up exposed to the spit). No, there it makes more sense to switch to a shotgun from 1-2 tiles away, or do something else entirely.
Well, it’s the same story as always - it depends. Shotgun, unless it’s the Harrower, doesn’t shred and does 35 damage per pellet. If you look at a target with 20 armor min, you have to get at 1-2 tiles distance to deal 120 or 150 damage (depending on the SG), so chances are you are not going to kill it, just disable a limb. If I can disable that limb from a bit more distance with an AR, even if dealing somewhat less damage it might be worth it.
Also, the ARs - and the underappreciated Bulldog in particular - shred quite a bit of armor, enough that a second burst from a different soldier can do more damage.
And that’s not taking into account some nice synergies with snipers, where you can first use a burst to chip off some armor and HPs from a body part, then use a sniper with Weakspot to disable it (and all the remaining armor), and use Marked for Death to maximize the damage output of a second burst from the AR.
In this case the proficiency perk is not the reason what changes the AR completely, here it is Sneak Atack that gives you the big boost. 66 damage to 60 damage per bullet is not really so much on top.
You can also compare a Sniper / Infiltrator with SR to an Assault / Infiltrator with Daimos without any weapons perk but with the same sniper armor. The Assault is the more flexible one that deals almost more damage as the Sniper with not that much lower accuracy.
Exactly, and that’s why I say that it seems wrong of devs to look at AR’s with this as its main purpose. There are sidegrades for the AR’s exactly to have them have different main purposes. In my opinion their general main purpose should be to do fair damage at 10-20 tiles (not a killer weapon). The deimos is well suited for the task of limb removal, the bulldog is not. The bulldog is well suited for the task of more damage against lightly armored targets, the deimos is not. The PP AR is not well suited for much, but it’s a middle ground.
The problem lies in having an upgrade for the bulldog but not for the deimos or the PP one. The player loses options unless he relies on perks, “broken” skills or situational skills. In practice everyone seems to rely on perks and broken skills. Proficiency perks with bonuses seem to me the worst offender for the game’s balance. For the sake of impeding an RNG dependent perk of being OP, the base weapons/skills/classes sometimes become bad and/or unfun. Just flat out removing those proficiency perk bonuses and big skill bonuses would allow much better balancing for the game overall.
The main word here is might. It almost never is. If I would only disable a limb with a shotgun, I would probably need to hit all of the AR’s bullets to disable too. So if I miss enough bullets to not do it… it’s probably not worth it, because that means a shot in the enemy turn or even a reaction shot before that too. With a close SG at least I would probably be SURE to disable that limb…
Synergies can be had and are great. However, the weapon must make sense first by itself. The synergy comes from the shred, not from the AR. Other weapons have (better!) shred and lead to this same synergy…
He has to be closer though, a sniper can shoot from all across the map and hit reliably, also doing good damage even on 60 armor. I don’t have real experience with this build though, I may be wrong. I’ll try it with my sniper that has the trooper perk which may be similar. I’m not playing on 1.7.2 though, because of the bugs.
All in all my main point here is not “improve AR’s please” - the main point is what @VOLAND said about the devs refusing to change AR’s (they may change without damage or accuracy improvements) because they find that their main purpose is limb disablement. I still want to see you guys (or the devs!) really explain why this would make sense. It does not, at all. Only the deimos, and this one does not get an upgrade. Also, I don’t want to hear about double damage or perk possibility - these are OP or RNG reliant.
I think no one has claimed that the main purpose of ARs is to take off limbs from a Tyrant that has RF
I mean, if you really have to you can reliably destroy its MG, but if you can do something better, why not do it.
There are many different enemies though and different situations.
It’s the same as with all the other weapons, including SRs. You have to get far closer than their effective range to reliably hit a small target. The difference between SGs and ARs may be 3 - 7 tiles, basically something around an AP worth of movement. Sure it can be worth it, depending on the situation.
No, the synergy comes from burst (to take advantage of the MfD) and being able to reliably deal some damage from some distance away to facilitate Weakspot.
You said that AR’s were discussed as the council at least sees a problem with them. The counter point to said argument was that the main purpose of AR’s is to act like a limb destroyer as they have accuracy enough for that.
Alright, I may have taken that a little too literally. Let’s roll back.
Even if I got the message wrong, I still don’t understand the problem with changing AR’s mechanics (MadSkunky’s suggestion is an example) since they really lose utility after enemies get armored. At the least, by “lose utility” I mean that before you could kill enemies with it from a distance. Suddenly you can only kill them up close, and then from that it goes to “you can take off an specific limb from up close”. Then we can also include arthron’s shields, triton’s vanish and other enemies big health bars to show that it’s simply not much against them if you shoot from like 10 tiles, which is close, and also that most other weapons simply do better. Couple that with the class having an upgrade for only one of the 3 variants and it AT THE VERY LEAST shall become clear that this weapon class loses more utility and variety in comparison to any other weapon class in the game, as the game progresses.
Now, let me try making it clear… to me it’s more of a problem of understanding the reason than to wanting a fix. I don’t love AR’s or need them, to me they simply get less and less used until it comes a time when a soldier that can only use an AR is relegated to mop up work. It loses fun factor, becomes lame, that’s all. But that counter argument caught me off-guard, as I really don’t see good reasoning behind it.
Edit: I’m getting a feeling that most players that keep using AR’s use them in 2 scenarios:
Deimos with some type of buff to damage
Piranha with some type of buff to accuracy
I’ve even seen this in user-posted videos here. You said that the bulldog is less used than it should, so you probably use it late game, but not much others. In my valuation of AR’s for my team, I really chose to equip only deimoses and piranhas. Those that have better accuracy get the piranha, those that have damage bonuses get the deimos. I considered the bulldog’s shred, but since I cannot know which enemies I’ll face and I have other (and better) shred options, the piranha seemed a better fit: if I get into an encounter where I don’t have the means to shred, at least I’ll be able to do damage. I’m always better safe than sorry.
Even then, I only did this because I want to have a 2AP shooting/overwatching option from a distance. My soldiers are all dual-classed, so every one of them has another weapon. My use of AR’s mid/late game is purely situational, only if I have no other option.
Since some of you play without dual classing, I guess I see why you find it “okay”. You work with what you have. Since I always have another option, it becomes blatant to me how bad they are in comparison to others, as I never find them to be sexy enough in almost any situation.
Daimos and/or Piranha, even Ares and Bulldogs with no buff at all on all of my ‘non optimized’ squads.
So you use also ‘optimized’ squads by selecting some possibilities that are ‘OK’ for you but excluding some other that you consider as ‘OP’. I would call this already not longer really comparable. If anyone in my squad has a better alternative for mid ranges than I’m already on the road to ‘abuse’ some of the possibilities the game gives me.
But even for this case I have at least one option that is really sexy with ARs on mid ranges, especially with the Daimos:
Assault / Berserker with Armor Break
Edit: No buff needed for this build, also adrenaline rush is not necessary. The biggy of this build is to shred even the most armored enemies pretty easily plus dealing a good amount of damage. Sure, shotgun is overall better for this but you have to go A LOT closer.
But you can also go just one little step ahead and don’t exclude Infiltrator for your squads and you will see, that ARs are a very sexy option in almost any case.
Since I play single class, it’s a bit RNG for me, but if I have a Berserk with Assault Perk then he definitely makes it into the A-Team. Armor Break + AR is incredibly effective at weakening all kinds of danger threads. But I would call this “advanced tactic”.
The point is, I can give even more choices that are viable and almost a sexy option when it comes to dual classing (Edit: without RNG to get the AR proficiency perk):
Assault / Sniper with Quick Aim, Master Marksman and Mark for Death, so more build as a Sniper with corresponding armor. The Daimos can deal way more Damage as the Pythagoras with this setting for only 1 AP.
Assault / Heavy with Rageburst, ARs are not so devastating as Deceptors but costs only 2 AP so you are more flexible.
Assault / Priest, the ARs are often a good alternative to the viral weapons when it comes to deal damage instead injecting virus.
Alright, is that from choice or because you didn’t have / didn’t want to spend resources on changes? I too have this situation but only because I don’t have a deimos or piranha for them yet.
Good one, but that’s one build, and it can work with a lot of other weapons besides AR’s (I use it with any multi-shot weapon really). I’m trying to focus on AR’s by themselves, in comparison to other weapons by themselves. As I said before, you’ll always have at least one option of viability when pairing with a skill (but that usually costs WP that you may not have, etc etc etc).
I know you love these hahaha but this one is OP because it’s a huge passive bonus!! Let’s not count on it being there forever…
All of these examples rely on skills or an OP passive, and assault/priest doesn’t even count because priests really need to dual class (or perk) to have any damage dealing option.
But again, the point is not finding specific builds / skills that may turn it into a sexy option. It is:
Understanding that dev counter point, because I still don’t see it as reasonable and I may be missing something else
Having a main weapon for the arguably most used class that BY ITSELF is at least a bit attractive (if not sexy) after enemies get armored. The only AR that can claim this is the piranha because it’s made for armored targets. The MG suffers a bit from the same problem, but I can’t remember much other weapons that do. Some are not very sexy like the virus AR, but then they have a very specific role that’s not damage and I also think the virus AR sucks anyway.
Maybe (self-analysis time!) I’m trying to think of a situation where the game didn’t have OP skills, heck not even super great skills, that compensated for some weapons flaws. In a raw comparison between them, should a weapon class be (almost) entirely inferior? And why should some sidegrades get an upgrade and others not? Why lose the different tactical options at endgame, when you had them so clear at the beginning of the game? I’m talking about Ares/Deimos/Bulldog differences.
In the end, I find it to be a case of… there was an intended balance at the beginning, things began changing, and there were effects to that, that didn’t get taken into account yet.
These soldiers are not going to dual class, simply because they have not that much SP. I spend them mostly for their own skills and attributes. So what for choices are there? Of course I gave them Daimos mostly if I have the resources to build them because I like its accuracy. But we talked already about Daimos and here is the case where I use them without any personal skill buff and compared to their squad buddy’s of almost any class but mostly Heavies and Snipers, also not dualclassed, they are pretty comparable with their ARs. Of course I gave them also Shotguns for close quarter, but that is another case and for me not usable on mid range.
You mentioned before:
Maybe I misunderstood this, but I always tried to compare them by themself and my answer was only a reply to what you wrote there.
These all are valid opinions and I’m also a bit with you, as I also gave a suggestion.
But I’m also able to use ARs without much problems and for good use till the endgame without any buffing skills or combos. And my favourite is still the Daimos because of its accuracy and I use it more than the Piranha even against high evolved Pandorans with more armor. I almost find a spot where I can do many useful things on midrange with my Daimos Assaults. In short, I find it attractive (if not sexy)
That is the reason why I build all my ‘secondary’ squads with single classes and mostly without personal perks, also because they simply don’t get that much SP. They are very weak compared to my main squad(s), but they are not useless and with them I have a nice base to compare all the things without any of the mentioned super duper combo OP thingies. I really like to do some missions with them,
but I have also to admit that I take my OP main squads to simply overrun the enemies when I haven’t any longer the fun to make HDs, Nest, Lairs what ever because it is simply too much, boring, tedious.
Edit to come to something more useful:
With these teams I have to play as with my starting soldiers in the beginning, tactical choices matters, they can build synergies, none of them is able to simply kick the enemies mostly alone etc pp
And with them I have for myself the best base to look at all the weapons without any side effects and my conclusion is that they are all pretty good balanced (with the exception of the ancient weapons) and only the PP ‘base’ ARs, SGs and SRs (not the Hel II and Goliath) are coming to be useless. But for them I get viable upgrades combined with optional sidegrades (Daimos - Piranha, Pythagoras - Raven etc).
. Well, the perk changes AR’s completely, as well as any other weapon proficiency perk with bonuses… that’s exactly what an upgraded deimos could be damage-wise, for example. It does not need more accuracy. It could also keep on having no armor penetration but having higher damage per shot. Lower damage against heavy armor, but still some damage. Great damage against low armor and a REAL limb breaker (good accuracy, good damage).