@zevvion: Me... into the nitty gritty of weapons and staring at Mercules904 spreadsheets... never, ha. Though I do agree with you that Auto's are extremely strong right now. And a lot of that has to do with both the increased Flinch and lack of Initial Shot Accuracy on Precision Weapons like Scouts and Hand Cannons, both of which are extremely strong when they hit players correctly. If you will, I'm going to get real gun nerdy and look at those Short Range Primaries since you mentioned them. So lets take a look at Hard Light (because in all honesty, they are a ton of great Autos and they all do just about the same thing), an Auto I've used quite a bit, and is a great representation of other weapons out there. It takes 12 bullets to kill in "optimal" situations, but requires 11/12 Crits for its 1.1 sec TTK. The thing is, absolutely nobody can hit 11/12 Crits with an Auto on a consistent basis. So with Auto's a big number is their body shot TTK. That takes 4 extra bullets and brings that TTK up to 1.5 sec. Auto's will generally kill somewhere between those numbers with a mix of Crits and body shots, so lets say it takes you 14 bullets which leaves you with an average TTK of 1.3 sec. So lets compare that to say Hand Cannons. If you don't know there are 3 varieties of HC's. HI, MI, and LI. HI has the highest ceiling in D2, meaning it can kill in 3 Crits in only 1.07 sec, but by comparisson it's Body Shot TTK is a whopping 2.13 sec (even though if you can't hit 2/4 Crits you shouldn't be using an HC, which comes in at 1.6 sec). This makes these extremely High Risk High Reward, so I personally won't touch them with a 10ft pole. IMO, the best two Hand Cannons for PvP to look out for are Better Devils (Kinetic) and Shattered Peace (Energy). Better Devils has a slower TTK of 1.3 sec (2/4 Crits), but boosts a higher range, better range falloff, and more flinch due to Explosive Payload. Shattered Peace on the other hand has slightly less range than BD, but boost a few key selling points like a faster TTK of 1.2 sec (2/4 Crits), higher AA by 9 (very noticeable), great recoil direction (the verticality of the kick between shots), and built in Lightweight (makes a great pairing with Mida to move super quick around the map, IMO better than using the Mini Tool for reasons I will discuss in a bit). Another key is to look at the other two close range primaries, Sidearms and SMG's. SMG's come in at around 0.9 TTK (600 RPM, I like Adjudicator Kinetic) and Sidearms at down to 0.73 (burst, I recommend Etana S14). The biggest problem with both of these types of guns though is range, and them having very little of it at all. Only extremely skilled players can currently make up the ground to effectively utilize sidearms, and a 1/10th of a second faster TTK isn't worth using an SMG over an Auto Rifle when you lose 15m of effective range. I think you can get away with using an SMG on smaller maps where a Pulse doesn't see damage dropoff at range, but Auto's excel when paired with a Scout. Along those same lines Autos tend to have better range than all Hand Cannons besides Better Devils. Auto Rifles, SMG's, Sidearms, and Pulses all suffer a big drawback compared to Scouts and Hand Cannons. I call it the game of peak-a-boo. Since HC's and Scouts do High Impact damage per shot, fire slowly and have to hit precision shots, they are frequently subject to dipping in and out of cover, fire a shot or two, dip to cover and then re-engage from another angle quickly to surprise an opponent. All other weapons leave the user exposed while sustaining fire. This gives both extreme tactical advantages if used properly. Hand Cannons also tend to have higher base In Air Accuracy than any other weapon. This allows them to be used from mid air which surprises many opponents.
All of this is to say I highly recommend Pulses and Auto's for anyone not extremely skilled and planning to miss more than 50% of their Crits. I also highly recommend Hand Cannons and Scouts for extremely skilled players than plan to never miss more than 50% of their Crits. If you are somewhere in between, like the vast majority of players, just use what you are comfortable with, knowing both the pros and cons of each. Both SMG's and Sidearms are extremely situational, and I wouldn't touch them unless you are in that extremely skilled category and really understand map engagement ranges. Just for reference I put Mercules904's TTK breakdowns below. They are a great resource to check out what guns are good, which ones are bad. If you want to get really detailed, take these numbers into consideration and look up the perks, AA, Range stats, Recoil Direction, and other stats on each individual weapon somewhere like Destiny Tracker.
Mercules904's Massive Breakdown of Weapons
Note: I didn't start out very good at PvP (I think I had around a 0.65 K/D in the first Trials, poor Dot RU carrying my rear) in Destiny. I had to work at it, and understand the weapons I was using was my first step. My second was learning from talented players around me, whether that was watching TrueVanguard or playing with @ll_exile_ll, @pyrodactyl, @veggiesbro, or @acidbrandon18.
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