Analysis of Secondary Weapons

Another topic that was suggested via Facebook was analysis of sniper rifles and machine guns, so I thought I'd do a comprehensive analysis of secondary weapons to talk about what their strengths are and when to use them both for PvE and PvP. If you really don't want to read any further, I'll break it down for you real quick. Machine Guns are almost always the way to go for any PvE play, Sniper Rifles are the way to go for PvP (but you should pick a Sniper Rifle with good enough damage to kill a 165 HP enemy in 2 bodyshots or 1 headshot), and Rocket Launchers should only ever be used for fun.

First off, let's start with what each weapon type is intended for. Rocket Launchers are designed to do a large amount of damage to multiple enemies at one time (i.e., enemies that are packed together). Machine Guns are basically stronger primary weapons that are intended to kill a higher number of enemies (or a smaller number of strong enemies) quickly, but one at a time. Sniper Rifles are similar to rocket launchers in that they do a high amount of damage per hit, but are designed to focus on a single target at a time. Alternative to Machine Guns, Sniper Rifles are designed around the concept of burst damage rather than a continuous stream of damage like machine guns.

Now let's move into the different styles of each weapon type that are available.

Rocket Launchers

PvE:

Rocket Launchers are divided into Multi-Launchers (3 rockets per shot) and single shot Rocket Launchers. Because both Multi-Launchers and single shot launchers do not differ in fire rate or magazine size, there is basically only one style of launcher and that is high damage. Slade's Shitstorm and Bestie are the strongest single shot launchers while Blisster is the strongest Multi-Launcher. I do not generally like Multi-Launchers because like shotguns, the damage is spread over the 3 rockets that are fired, which is intended to widen the blast radius of the explosives, but this can lead to inconsistent results if you do not aim them properly. That being said, the Blisster does have the highest overall damage of any Rocket Launcher if it is aimed properly, but this higher damage is often wasted because rocket launchers are best used for packs of trash mobs (enemies with low health and no/low damage resistance, such as Dreads, Thorns, Spiders, and Grunts). Trash mobs typically have between 500-1,000 HP, so the high damage of a rocket launcher is really only intended to compensate for not hitting an enemy directly so that damage doesn't fall off to the point where damage to enemies on the edge of the blast radius is so low as to not kill them. Also, because rocket launchers have to reload after every shot, they can be tricky to use since enemies often spread out pretty quickly after spawning. All of this is to say that rocket launchers serve a very specific purpose in PvE, and that is to clear packs of trash mobs, end of story. Because you cannot hit a critical shot with a rocket, its damage is capped and is an extremely ineffective way to take down elite enemies that require multiple shots to kill. It is an especially inefficient way to handle Regis the Voltaic Fist since he only takes damage to his back, so this is why you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever bring a rocket launcher to the Voltaic Fist dungeon. EVER! The final point I'll make about rocket launchers is looking at how much damage they can do when you have a maximum number of rockets that you can carry, which I believe is about 14 or 15 (assuming no support ammo capacity perk on legs). This means that a rocket launcher like Bestie, even with great damage perks, will be able to dish out a maximum of around 26-27K of damage after you've picked up enough ammo to max out the capacity (which is another sticking point, since you have to pick up significantly more ammo drops than a sniper or a machine gun to max it out). As a point of comparison, machine guns easily push above 32K of total damage when you have max ammo capacity, which further illustrates why rocket launchers are only efficient to use when you can be assured that you can use them on packs of enemies grouped together. The TLDR version of all of this is to say that I basically hate rocket launchers and never use them.

Recommended Launcher: Slade's Shitstorm or Bestie

Recommended Places to use: Brothers of Fire, Arena Bronze, Arena Silver

PvP:

When it comes to PvP, I really do not recommend the use of Rocket Launchers because it is highly unlikely that you will get a one shot kill with it for a few reasons. (1) Bestie and Slade's Shitstorm have a base damage of 140 in PvP, so even if you have great perks on the launcher, you would need to be specced for 12 points in combat and be aiming down sight and hit close enough to your target to ensure that one hit will kill them. (Take note: that was a lot of "and"s). (2) Most people run an 8 point Survival build in PvP, which carries explosion resistance with it to reduce the damage of these weapons. (3) You get very limited ammo in PvP for rocket launchers (only 1 rocket per ammo pickup in duels and 2 for team PvP), and with it not being a guaranteed one hit kill, you'll likely have to use two rockets to kill someone. (4) It is not typical to encounter tightly packed groups of enemies in PvP to make the rocket launcher an efficient method of doing a lot of damage to the enemy team. (5) You typically are firing rockets from a closer range than Sniper Rifles, so even if you are firing one rocket and then switching to a pistol or primary to finish a kill, the enemy has probably been firing at you this whole time, and you will most likely be dead before you can finish them off. What's even worse, is that you've most likely activated their fight for your life skill, which increases the damage they are doing by 30%, which further puts you in serious danger. TLDR version: I hate rocket launchers and never use them.

Sniper Rifles

PvE:

And now we get to the weapon of choice for the pros. Sniper Rifles must be analyzed in a completely different lens than any other weapon in the game because they are burst damage weapons, so a statistic like DPS is not the most relevant for Sniper Rifles primarily because it is not very often that you can just hold down the fire button and dispatch a whole bunch of enemies very easily without missing a ton of shots. The health of the target and the amount of time that is available to hit the target are the most important factors in determining when it is appropriate to use a sniper rifle. Sniper rifles excel in situations where they can either completely eliminate an enemy in a single shot or do a very high amount of damage in a very short period of time where your target is vulnerable (i.e., the Regis fight in Voltaic Fist). When you think about DPS, it automatically requires that the time window for doing that damage be something that is non-zero because DPS states the average rate of damage output over time. The Time to Kill statistic on the other hand factors in the health of the enemy, so if you have a weapon that can kill an enemy in one shot, the Time to Kill is virtually zero, thus making DPS irrelevant. With that being said, there are three styles of sniper rifles in this game: High damage, slow fire rate; Medium damage, medium fire rate; Low damage, high fire rate. The three stereotypical examples of each style are the True Patriot, O.G. Money Maker, and Turbo Gauss Rifle, respectively. Let's look at where each of these rifles excels.

The True Patriot is a fantastic rifle for being able to do a maximum amount of damage in a single shot. An iron sight headshot with supercharger to an elite with 15% resistance (e.g., Blade Dancer) can do an incredible amount of damage (6,300+ on my main account not even considering buffs and not even using an 11 point Combat build). This is enough damage to take down a wide array of Torment enemy types in a single shot, so while it is generally more difficult to use sniper rifles, their potential for eliminating enemies quickly is incredible because their time to kill can be zero in most cases with proper aim. The True Patriot and other similar rifles like Black Ice, Lacroix, and Meltdown are great for employing a strategy where you can reliably get headshots and backshots on the tough enemies to dispatch them very quickly. I'll mention quickly that the Black Ice is an extremely good sniper in PvE because of its 14% damage to elites perk. Because everyone got the same perks on Black Ice, the math on it works out to be the virtual equivalent of a god roll True Patriot when it comes to fighting elite enemies, though the True Patriot would outshine Black Ice when it comes to non-elite enemies (e.g., trash mobs and Regis).

The O.G. Money Maker is in a spot all unto itself for the most part (the Hawksmoor II Neo is kind of in this category, too, but it is definitely an inferior rifle to the Money Maker in a lot of ways). What makes this rifle special is that its damage is perched right at this inflection point where it does just enough damage per shot to take down a decent number of enemies (particularly trash mobs) with a single shot but also has a higher fire rate so that if you don't kill the enemy in one shot, you can quickly fire a second shot to likely take it down. This is where DPS starts to become a factor. An experiment that you can run that highlights why the O.G. Money Maker is such a good rifle is to use it for the Regis fight in Voltaic Fist. With a rifle like True Patriot, you will most likely only be able to land one hit on Regis's back before he turns towards you, whereas with the O.G., you will almost always be hitting two or more shots. To put some numbers to this, let's say your True Patriot shot to Regis does 4,500 damage, while your O.G. shot only does 3,000. If you get two shots off with the O.G., you've dealt 6,000 damage, while you were only able to do 4,500 with the True Patriot. This is why I say that the time window that you have to deal damage to your target is such an important thing to consider when it comes to sniper rifles. When it comes to PvE, the O.G. Money Maker is hands down my favorite sniper rifle. It strikes the perfect balance of one-shotting enough enemies and having a high enough fire rate to pound off follow up shots that you actually dispatch more enemies/do more damage than the high damage/low fire rate snipers in most cases.

The Turbo Gauss Rifle is one that I overlooked for the longest time because when you start getting into this territory of low damage per shot and high fire rate, you make DPS more relevant, and DPS is where Machine Guns just take a steaming dump over every other weapon in the game. I still struggle with whether I love the Turbo Gauss because it is just overall less versatile than the O.G. Money Maker. Its damage per shot dips to the point where it can't reliably one shot as many enemy types as the O.G. Money Maker, and its DPS is only 1.6% higher than the Money Maker's before you start to factor in perks. The one situation I have found for where I love using the Turbo Gauss is fighting Regis. I have been able to completely skip the last wave of the boss fight in Voltaic Fist just because of how much damage this rifle can put out in a short period of time. People tend to fall in love with it because of its large magazine and high fire rate, but don't let that be the factors that lure you into a false sense of security. Sure it has more bullets to fire and it can fire faster, but if you look at how much damage it can dish out with a full magazine, it's not incredibly high. Other rifles that fall into this category are the Shokei II Neo and Meitoku II Neo, but they suffer from the same inherent problems as the Turbo Gauss. The lower the damage per shot goes, the closer the comparison to how damage is done with these weapons becomes to machine guns, and machine guns will just do a better job at dishing out damage over time than fast fire rate snipers. That is mathematical fact.

Recommended Rifles: O.G. Money Maker, True Patriot, Black Ice

Recommended Places to use: Brothers of Fire, Voltaic Fist, Arena Bronze, Arena Silver

PvP:

Now when it comes to PvP, this game mode favors snipers that have a very specific capability. Because it is highly predictable what the health of your opponent will be (or at least be capped at), only those snipers that do enough damage to kill an opponent with two bodyshots or one headshot should be used. This automatically rules out the use of such rifles like the Turbo Gauss, which in most cases requires 4 body shots and 2 headshots to kill an enemy. I don't care how good you are with a sniper rifle, it is just ludicrous to use a sniper that would require you to hit the enemy in the head twice or hit them in the body 4 freaking times. Take into account the fact that you only get 12 bullets in the magazine, and this means that your god-like aim with a sniper rifle would only be rewarded with a maximum of 6 headshot kills or 3 body shot kills, which is the EXACT same as if you used a True Patriot. There is just zero benefit to using these snipers in PvP, ok? Ok, so doing some back of the envelope math, assuming 20% projectile resistance on your opponent and 165 HP, the absolute minimum damage that a sniper rifle should carry at 270 power to kill an enemy in PvP with two body shots and one headshot is 1,080 (without Lord of War) and 880 (with Lord of War). This narrows the pool of sniper rifles that can be used effectively in PvP. Without Lord of War, your options are basically limited to Meltdown, True Patriot, Lacroix, Cryonic Scream, Eyrie Special, Besson's Killer, Vampire's Kiss, Black Ice, Vespertine, AT Mendel II, and AT Zizka II. The Eyrie, Besson's, Cryonic, Vespertine, and Zizka however will need a base damage perk on them to ensure consistency in the 2 body shot, 1 headshot kill category though (1% for Cryonic, 9% for Vespertine, and 5% for the others). When it comes to Lord of War builds, that list expands to include snipers like Brusell, O.G. Money Maker, and the Hawksmoor II Neo, of which the Brusell is the clear favorite because of its 12 bullet count magazine size. The Brusell would, however, need at least a 5% base damage perk for it to perform consistently. When narrowing down the choices of which sniper rifle is best to use, fire rate, accuracy, and magazine size all come into play. You want to strike the right balance of high enough accuracy to hit your shots consistently with a high enough magazine size to give you the ability to rack up as many kills as possible, as well as being able to have a high enough fire rate to squeeze off follow-up shots quickly if you miss or just need to finish an opponent off. I've found that Snipers with a fire rate below 50 and an accuracy below 30 just don't cut it in competitive PvP for me, so say bye bye to the True Patriot and Meltdown. There are basically three snipers you will see in competitive PvP: Black Ice, Lacroix, and Cryonic Scream. Cryonic Scream is really the premier sniper for PvP because it's got the highest accuracy of the bunch and a healthy magazine size. I have, however, used the Lacroix a lot, and I really, really love that rifle even though its small magazine capacity is somewhat unforgiving, but I find that it just makes me choosier with my shots.

Recommended Rifles (non-Lord of War Build): Cryonic Scream (with at least 1% base damage perk), Lacroix, Black Ice, Eyrie Special (with at least 5% damage perk)

Recommended Rifles (Lord of War Build): Brusell (with at least a 5% base damage perk)

Machine Guns

PvE:

Ahhh machine guns, the bread and butter secondary weapon for PvE. While I could categorize these weapons similar to sniper rifles as high damage, low fire rate; medium damage, medium fire rate; and high damage, low fire rate, I like to instead look at machine guns by two primary statistics: DPS and DPM (Damage per Magazine). In other words, there are machine guns that prioritize high DPS, but have lower DPM, meaning that they can take out fewer total enemies, but the enemies that you do use them on die faster, or conversely, you can have lower DPS, but higher DPM machine guns, which are useful for throwing out a maximum amount of damage overall, but not necessarily as quickly as some other machine guns. As if I'm not being long-winded enough with this post, I will of course delve more deeply into the mechanics of machine guns; however, the TLDR version is that the best machine guns in the game are the Heretic ZX-1 (High DPS, lower DPM) and Revenant (High DPM, lower DPS). I utilize the Heretic in Brothers of Fire, Voltaic Fist, Arena Bronze, and Arena Silver, and I use the Revenant in Hive Mind and Arena Gold. I will expand on why.

To start, let's go back to what machine guns are designed to do. They kill enemies one at a time very quickly and are designed to either take out large packs of enemies one at a time or a smaller number of tougher enemies more quickly than with a primary weapon. Because machine guns don't kill enemies in a single shot like sniper rifles, the two statistics that should be used to measure the strength of any given machine gun are its DPS and DPM. DPS states how quickly it can deal damage to a target while DPM states the maximum amount of damage that can be done with a single magazine. The other reason why DPM is particularly important is because ammo is inherently scarce for secondary weapons, while it is virtually unlimited for primary weapons, so stretching the usefulness of a single magazine's worth of machine gun ammo is hugely important.

To illustrate my point further, I want to talk briefly about a machine gun that I was initially obsessed with when I only looked at DPS: the AT Vosa II. At 2,204 DPS (not factoring in perks), it dishes out 11% more raw DPS than the next highest DPS machine gun in the game (AT Fock II). However, even with a good set of perks, its DPM can only push above 7,000 total damage per magazine, so if you use this weapon against a very strong enemy like a Razor Blade or Hellstorm, you're looking at basically killing it in one magazine and not really getting any further use out of that magazine. In other words, the ammo doesn't stretch very far at all with the Vosa, but you can look good killing one or two strong enemies very quickly. Not very much bang for your buck at all. Plus, you add on top of this that no one achieves 100% accuracy with a machine gun and the case for using the Vosa gets thinner and thinner.

On the other hand, you have what is arguably the best overall machine gun in the game: Revenant. The Revenant I have in my inventory has a DPM of a little over 16,000, which is more than twice that of the Vosa and is 16% higher than the next best machine gun I have in my inventory from a DPM perspective, the AT Kosa II. Combine that 16,000 DPM with a healthy DPS of over 1,800, and you've got an absolute killing machine that can just mow through packs of enemies like butter without stopping for breath. Just to put it in perspective, a single Revenant clip can eliminate a maximum of 32 Dreads, while a single Vosa clip could only go through 14. To further put numbers to this, I like to frame things from the standpoint of tradeoffs. Let's take the Vosa and Revenant and compare them. By choosing the Revenant, I am sacrificing 38% in DPS to gain 55% in DPM. It's a worthy tradeoff when you consider that the whole point of the machine gun is to get through a larger number of enemies or get through the tougher enemies more quickly than if you were to use your primary weapon. All of this is to say that Revenant is the king of high DPM machine guns because it doesn't sacrifice all that much in DPS to be able to throw out a lot of damage and get you quicker clear times.

From here, we can evaluate other machine guns that have higher DPS than Revenant but don't sacrifice as much DPM as choosing the AT Vosa II. Enter the Heretic ZX-1. The one that I have in my inventory does 9% higher DPS than the Revenant while sacrificing 36% in DPM. Still doesn't seem like the best of tradeoffs, which is why I say that Revenant is the overall best machine gun in the game, but there are situations where you want a little extra oomph in your machine gun based on the dungeon/arena you're playing and the role that you're serving on your team. If you want to prioritize killing bosses as quickly as possible above purely doing a lot of damage overall with your machine gun, the Heretic is where it's at. Another great use for the Heretic is spawn killing where you can ensure that you can land a lot of backshots (it absolutely shines in the Decimator spawn area of Arena Silver). It's virtually sniper like times where enemies go down with backshots because the DPS is so damn high (virtually double that of sniper rifles). You simply have to be careful when a gun has a high fire rate like this not to frantically hold down that fire button. You can run through its magazine in a short amount of time, so make it last.

To be fair, there are actually quite a few options to choose from when you're looking at alternatives to the Revenant if you want to push your DPS a bit higher, but from in-game experience, I've found that the Heretic strikes the right balance in tradeoff. Some other good machine guns include the Eidolon, Pile Driver, Cerberus, Xingyun, Cobra, and Rascal Big Boy. It will however come down to the perks you have on these particular machine guns when it comes to making a decision on which one to use.

To sum up why I recommend the Heretic for Brothers of Fire, Voltaic Fist, Arena Bronze, and Arena Silver, it is because these wargames are not as frantic when it comes to the number of enemies that are coming at you, and since you can employ some good spawn killing tactics in the arenas, the higher DPS is really worth it to get faster clear times. Hive Mind and Arena Gold just have a lot of enemies as well as bosses with high health pools, so having lots of damage that you can throw out readily available makes Revenant the optimal choice here.

Recommended Weapons: Revenant, Heretic ZX-1

Honorable Mention Weapons (very perk dependent): Eidolon, Pile Driver, Cerberus, Xingyun, Cobra, Rascal Big Boy, AT Kosa II, AT Fock II

Recommended Places to use: All dungeons and arenas, with Revenant being a fantastic choice in all of them, but Heretic being a fine choice particularly for all but Hive Mind and Arena Gold.

PvP:

Now when it comes to PvP, I really don't use Machine Guns all that much. Sniper Rifles are the meta for a reason even if they are more difficult to use well. The chance to kill someone in a single shot is what makes sniper rifles so valuable, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that machine guns have no place in PvP. The main issue with them is the matter of their accuracy. Because they carry lower accuracies than primary weapons, you will need to be in close range to utilize the machine gun effectively. Sniper Rifles are so worth using because you can deal damage to your opponent when you are most likely out of their range and then finish them off with a primary or pistol very quickly. The ability to stretch a sniper rifle magazine is also much easier than a machine gun's where you'll have a lot of missed shots because of how much more enemies move around in PvP than PvE. That being said, you want to strike the right balance with a low time to Kill and large enough magazine to where you can get 2-3 kills from a single magazine. The machine gun that I have had the most success with in PvP is the Xingyun, although the Heretic ZX-1 is another fine choice even though its fire rate is a little high for my taste in PvP (thus making me end up missing a lot of shots). Revenant is also a decent choice here because you will still have a lower time to kill than using a primary weapon and have the added bonus of having a large magazine that you can stretch to rack up 3-4 kills before running out of ammo. The only other machine gun I find scary when I see it in PvP is the Cerberus because its DPS is ridiculously high. As for modes of PvP to use a machine gun in, I would say that Duels is the most preferable, with Elimination being second because you can pack up targets at the grave sites. I do not recommend Machine Gun usage in CTF due to the long sight lines.

Recommended Weapons: Xingyun, Heretic ZX-1, Cerberus, Revenant

Conclusion:

Well after writing all this out, I probably should have broken this into three different articles to make it easier to consume, but I decided that it might be better to have all of this in one place rather than three separate pieces. I hope this helps to provide a little more perspective when choosing what secondary weapon to bring to each dungeon/arena as well as to PvP. As always, happy hunting!

--InsulinMaze