Facing New Infil Guns: Trap, Phaseshift, Railjack, Vandal, MKV

Discussion in 'Infiltrator' started by zaspacer, May 8, 2014.

  1. zaspacer

    New Guns: Trap, Phaseshift, Railjack, Vandal, MKV

    I don't own any of the new guns. This post is about how often I (and hopefully other posters) am seeing them on my death screen in-game, and what that seems to be saying about their usage/appeal/effectiveness.

    For the record, I'm currently playing mostly NC and TR. And playing mostly Infiltrator (CQC, Sniping, and Dart Duty), Engineer (AV Mana, Sunderer duty, and in ESF), and HA (Shock Troop, AV Rockets).

    See Them A Lot:
    Railjack, Vandal

    Seen them once or a few times:
    MKV

    Have yet to see them or maybe once but might have forgotten:
    Trap, Phaseshift

    The Good
    It seems the Railjack and Vandal have found homes in the player community. I have been killed a decent number of time by both, and have been killed by them both within the past couple days. This is especially impressive for the Railjack, since it's a single faction only gun, and I've spent about 1/2 my time playing as NC.

    The Bad
    I only recall getting killed by the MKV once. Though perhaps I have been killed a few more times but thought it was the NS-7. I don't know if the gun is weak, if it just has a very limited niche of when to use it, if players just can't justify buying it when they own the NS-7 already, or if players are just confused about how good it is. Regardless, I am not seeing it on the battlefield. (and that's especially sad because it's an NS weapon so open to all factions.

    The Ugly
    I don't recall having died to either of the Trap or Phaseshift. Maybe the Trap confuses people in when/how to use it, maybe the Phaseshift is too clunky. I don't know. But I do know that I am not seeing these guns on the battlefield.

    What are you experiences? Which of these guns are seeing and using?
  2. sfPanzer

    I can confirm your observations (and funny, i play exactly the same classes but as VS ^^).
    If i am ever able to save 1k i will buy the Phaseshift just for the lulz but i don't expect much of it. It happens way to often that you are in the focus of an experienced sniper and while you 'load' it you'll get sniped easily.
    • Up x 4
  3. OldMaster80

    I use the Trap and honestly it's a bad weapon. An auto scout rifle (SOAS) does the job much better. Biggest issue is the TRAP is classified as a sniper rifle but it's not, it's a scout rifle. And it's a poor one because in order to deal a decent damage you must always go for the triple shot fire mode otherwise you will be outgunned.
    • Up x 3
  4. salembeats


    The TRAP is a great support weapon -- good at getting damage in on multiple targets, but not as effective at terminating individual ones.
  5. OldMaster80

    I don't know why every time a weapon deals poor damage someone says it's a support weapon? What the hell is a support weapon? Weapons do not support, they must kill people effective, and that's what the TRAP does not. Only in "triple shot" mode and only without compensator / silencer it deals a decent (not amazing) damage, while the single shot has no reason to exist.
    At long range it's outperformed by real sniper rifles, at close quarter it's outgunned by everything, in general scout rifles provide more accuracy more damage and more flexibility (in particular the semi-auto since you can effectively fire from the hip).

    The only reason why one should get the trap imho is to try something "exotic", and this is also confirmed by what zaspacer says: "I don't recall having died to either of the Trap "
    • Up x 1
  6. salembeats


    A support weapon is great at restricting enemy movement or heavily wounding opponents, perhaps at the cost of finishing power.

    For example, the high ammo capacity of LMGs allows you to lay down suppressive fire for an extended period in order to restrict the number of places where enemies can safely move, preventing your opponents from flanking and assisting your own teammates in moving up.

    A Queen in Chess doesn't need to actively capture any pieces to be a menacing threat who affects the metagame.
    Similarly, a gun doesn't need to directly kill people to affect the outcome of a battle.

    The combination of the TRAP's high velocity (highest velocity for a scout rifle) and burst mode make it easier to at least put some damage into a moving distant target whom you might otherwise miss when firing a semi-auto rifle.
    It also makes it easier to finish heavily wounded targets before they reach cover.
    It's a weapon with a lot of squad-play synergy -- it's not tuned to perform optimally in Wild-West 1v1 head-to-head dueling.


    I feel that triple-shot mode is overrated, but I suppose it depends on your accuracy.
    If the only way you're landing 2 shots on target consistently is by using the 3x burst, then I guess I see how you could come to that assessment.
    I use 2x burst unless I'm in a (temporary) situation where i know I'll be needing to use it in CQC while I reposition myself.
    When I go on a nice streak, single shot mode works fine for when my ammo pool starts to run low. Friendly engis don't generally roam the grounds where Infils should be playing.
    • Up x 2
  7. Peasnriz

    The Trap really is not very good, the horizontal recoil in the bursts makes it very hard to hit more than one bullet outside 20 meters, the bullet spread I suppose can help if your aim is bad but that is an odd way of looking at things 'I choose the Trap because my aim is crap'. Case in point I was in the VR testing out the weapons and I aimed centre of the target just below the neck 20 meters away, it took between 2-4 pulls of the trigger to take the target out each time, the random recoil is too much making it incredibly unreliable. I have heard people say aim for the right shoulder and the recoil naturally takes it to the head the problem being that in a combat situation the enemy may be side faced so what do you do then? Toggle between firemodes? please like I have time to do that. If the random horizontal recoil was toned down so that it was comparable to the sabre it might start to be okay and fun to use.

    A support weapon? if your in my squad I would much prefer you were supporting me by using a weapon that can drop someone in a reliable and timely manner, hell you could spray and pray with the SOAS or NS7-pdw and get better results. I do take with a pinch of salt the opinions of elites of this game who can land headshots at a whim where as us mere mortals struggle. Out of all the weapons I have the TRAP is the one I like the least because it does nothing well.

    I do see a lot of Railjacks and their tracers are hard to miss, been killed by them a few times and counter sniped a few.
    I have been killed by the Phaseshift once I believe (much to my embarrassment)
    Been killed by the MKV a few times.
    NS Vandal I do see a few of these and probably died to it the most out of the new weapons, however in a game so geared to automatic weapons and quick times to kill it is something of an acquired taste to use a semi-auto so still see more smg infils running about.
  8. Hoki

    For the trap they should have just removed the horizontal recoil.

    It seems to take 2 years before the 1 person at SOE that cares about making money evaluates why nobody is buying a particular weapon.
  9. Get2dachoppa

    Of those weapons, I suppose I've been killed by the Railjack the most. Next would probably be the MKV, I've been seeing it in use more often these days. After that, the Vandal. Got killed by it a few times after it was released but it seems to be getting less use lately.

    Last, the TRAP and Phaseshift. I think I've been killed by these weapons a grand total of 2 or 3 times across all my characters.
  10. salembeats


    That's your problem.
  11. salembeats


    The Vandal is really good in the SMG's niche CQC domain.
    It's so geared for hipfiring that it basically matches the SMG's CQC ability, with some added effectiveness at range as a bonus.
    The high alpha damage is critical for getting a quick TTK as an Infil. Don't be confused be an SMG's "theoretical ideal" DPS/TTK. Even the best of us aren't landing every single bullet all of the time, even when we keep the crosshairs on-target. Adjusted for handling, the Vandal with Laser Sight matches any SMG in real-world TTK for CQC scenarios.
  12. MrMurdok

    With over 3,400 TRAP kills. Yeah, it needs a buff.

    I've been seeing a lot of Railjacks and Vandals, and someone TRIED killing me with a Phaseshift once.
  13. Jawarisin

    eg support weapon: Lasher (god of them all)


    The trap IS terrible. You can get a billion time better results with the TSAR-4 / Ghost / SAS-R.
    A snipe rifle should eliminate the targets. Not only wound them. Wounding is a failed shot, which usually has a follow up to finish it up.

    Well anyways, that's my opinion.


    Let's be honest here, buff wise, Phaseshift needs it way more than TRAP.
  14. Jawarisin

  15. Plunutsud pls

    The Phaseshift is totally underrated.

    It is truly a bush wookie's dream: infinite ammo; the ability to quickly follow up a charged shot with a couple weaker shots for those extreme range kills; no bullet drop even when suppressed.

    I use it with a 12x scope, suppressor and grip. Jump into my cloaked Flash, flank the enemy and gun them down from up to 300 metres away. It only takes a fraction of a second to charge up the first shot, so I really don't get the whining about this feature.

    After a few hours with the gun, I found it pretty easy to land charged shots on moving targets.

    The Railjack loses to the Phaseshift in everything except bullet velocity. The Raijack is huge (making you a higher profile target), suffers from bullet drop when suppressed, needs to reload after every shot and only has a 4 round magazine + limited ammo supply. The charged shot time on the Phaseshift is pretty much the same as the bullet delay on the Railjack.

    The TRAP and Vandal aren't even sniper rifles, so they don't fall into comparison here.
    • Up x 1
  16. Iridar51

    Why suppress if you're 300m away? :confused:
  17. Plunutsud pls

    I work alone as a sniper, always flanking and trying to stay as far away from allies as possible, basically aiming to hit enemies from where they least expect. That means I want to stay as discreet as possible, so I always suppress my weapons and dump my Flash behind cover at least a few dozen metres from my snipimg position. The death screen makes things bad enough. Plus being 300 m away from one enemy doesn't mean another isn't much closer and watching for radar pings. I've detected and countersniped a few Railjackers just because they were firing unsuppressed. Made me feel sorry for their bullet drop.
  18. Astraka

    The biggest problem I see with the TRAP is that it is too similar to the oft maligned Scout Rifles. That is the niche the weapon tries to fill. No one wants to play with a mid ranged Scout Rifle - they either prefer the fast paced 'easymode' playstyle of the CQC SMG, or they want to snipe and fish for OHKs. I can count on one hand how many times I've died to the HSR-1 & Nyx for example, and those play remarkably similar to the TRAP.

    The Phaseshift's problem is that it is just another Sniper Rifle, and an overall poorly preforming one at that. I would say a vast majority of Snipers don't run out of ammunition to begin with, and thus aren't willing to take a complete downgrade from the Parallax simply for infinite ammo.

    The Railjack suffers in the same way that the Phaseshift does, except that it is better. It looks cooler, sounds cooler, and even has cooler lore. I hesitate to say that it does anything better than the Longshot, but when the majority of snipers can only hit stationary targets anyway a bit of delay isn't going to negatively impact them very much.

    I'd say back to the drawing board with all three, but I'll bet that's wishful thinking.
  19. zaspacer

    I am with Plunutsud in (typically) using a Suppressor on a no-drop Sniper Rifle. The downside isn't much, and the upside is the ability to both roam between many more encounter and engagement types, as well as stay off the mini-map to any enemies that wander inside your range. I use a Suppressor stock on my Spectre in those occasions I want to use it, typically where I want to stay off the map and want to be able to cover a lot of ground and try to find and hit the enemy from different distances and setups. Such as big battles moving from Briggs Laboratories to Mao Southwest Gate.

    Though if I am just gonna be using the Spectre from inside a large group of allies on a stalled front with plenty of terminals close by, I will skip the Suppressor.

    What does the Phaseshift offer over the Spectre? Which has a more visible tracer shot?
    Spectre:
    1) can aim, uncloak, firex2, recloak
    2) doesn't make a warm up sound so it's noise window is smaller
    3) won't overheat, so is better at follow-up shots on a target
    4) don't need to charge gun up after target acquired before firing
    Phaseshift:
    1) infinite bullets
    2) only needs one shot

    Also, I can't figure out at what point the Phaseshift charge is enough for a 1-hit-kill headshot. What is the visual cue? The Lancer HA chareup is so easy to visually Track when the damage tiers kick in, just like HA lock-on launchers are so easy to tell when the lock is acquired. Why does Infil stuff require juggling so many hard to read meters (cloak, milots on scopes, charge on phaseshift, magazine load) and invisibles meter (hold breath, scope sway), and all in narrow and different overlapping windows of time (cloak, hold breath, phaseshift charge). It's like a class designed for the positive reinforcement of performing compulsive rituals for OCD people.
    • Up x 1
  20. Jawarisin





    You realise the red dot only shows 40 meters away? If you "counter-sniped" railjack snipers because of that red dot, it meant they were 40 meters away or less... (fun fact: your recon dart covers more ground!)

    Also, how often do you try to find a sniper with a red dot? Very rarely, except if you're an SMG infil or something roaming around. But then, there's plenty of other ways, like the cloak sound for example (that cloaking can be heard up to 200m). Peoples find you with (death screen) TRACERS, which the silencer DOES NOT remove.


    The drop (or no drop) is only a consequence. The actual problem is the lower velocity. It makes it way worst. Targets have more time to react. Also, makes it incredibly hard to snipe moving targets.


    As a side note, I have no clue how you guys can stand to use the phaseshift or the Specter, both make me want to puke. Sooooo bad