Are 1k Cert Weapons Worth It?

Subjectively yes. Objectively no. You won't get a lot of kills or even XP with it, but it serves a unique role in the game (suppression) so I find it fun to play sometimes.

The one way it does get pretty good for kills/assists is if you play with a squad and have 3-4 people working together with lashers. Pretty much a death ray at that point.

So according to most posts weapons are NOT worth certs. So let me rephrase my question: What is the best upgrade to buy? Dont want to upgrade medic/engi tools and ammo pack.

It's utterly awesome, might be a little OP even. It only sucks at long ranges and if the target is at high ground. Also it requires you to constantly jump left and right to evade enemy shots, otherwise other weapons outdamage it.

I spent my certs on weapons that act distinctly different from the stock ones I had. Hence I grabbed rocketpods, a Lightning HEAT, Halberd, TRV (+100 RoF felt different enough to warrant the purchase), a rotary cannon, and the Trac-5S for the fun underbarrel attachments. (Going to get a shottie soon.) If you buy a gun that's too similar to the ones you have, you're going to get bored if it quick.

A game is supposed to be fun. Paying for a gun is basically paying to skip the 10 hours of playing required to get the certs.

If I'm paying to NOT play the game, am I really having fun with it? Or am I just a victim of a cleverly disguised skinner box?

Regardless, last I checked the local businesses valued my time at 1.44 euro per hour, amounting to basically 5 hours of work, not counting time lost in transit and currency exchange fees. So it's 5-6 hours of demanding physical labor in snowy weather vs 10 hours of comfortably enjoying the game.

SOE rigged the cert gain so that grinding is virtually impossible to be competitive, time-wise, with smedbuck purchases. The places where a manhour approaches the 1$ mark are generally unlikely places to find a high-end gaming rig, a decent internet connection or running water. There are few countries with low wages and enough infrastructure for this to work - countries like Georgia or Libya.

If you crunch the numbers you realize SOE played it extremely cautiously with the cert gain, which is brutally slow. By making the normal cert gain painfully slow they gave themselves lots of room for XP boosts, double XP weekends, boosters and whatnot.

Don't be deceived, that's just a psychological trick.