Thoughts on the Blackhand?

Discussion in 'Light Assault' started by _itg, Apr 10, 2015.

  1. _itg

    I know there's a similar thread in the infiltrator forum, but it makes sense to have one here for the LA perspective. I picked it up today and went on a quick 22-kill streak by climbing a tree on Hossin and popping heads until I ran out of ammo. As far as I'm concerned, it's the long-range perching weapon LAs have wanted for ages, and it's a nice compliment to a shotgun primary, for those times when you can't close the distance.

    Anyway, that's my day-1 impression of the gun. What do you think?
  2. Rhumald

    I think you already know mine, but I feel like it's a gimped commissioner. throw a 2* site on that baby and you can pump out headshots faster than you can with the blackhand, and kill people faster in general.

    The gun feels gimmicky, and needs to have some part of it changed up, it's supposed to fill a niche role for side arms but wasn't really made to fill it, just sorta leaves you wanting something a little bit better at killing people before they realize something is hurting them.
  3. Iridar51

    That's what I thought as well, though with a correction. Blackhand is indeed a perfect perching weapon for LA, and it's true that some LAs really wanted an effective perching weapon.

    But perching weapons isn't something we needed, nor it's something the majority wanted. We want and need Assault Rifles to compete with medics and HAs at range. Obviously, Blackhand doesn't fill this role.


    I'm not really sure Blackhand can be used outside of perching, and perching isn't something I like or approve, so I'm kinda having mixed feelings about it.

    Fear of perching LAs is exactly what kept the developers from giving us effective ranged weapons. And now they give a perching weapon to us. Mixed signals?

    I'll need some playtime with Blackhand before I can say how effective it really is, but from what I've seen in VR and my (however little) experience with sniping in general, I predict it's going to perform well against stationary targets. I wish I had detailed recoil stats on the Blackhand, then I could compare it with a real semi-automatic sniper rifle.

    Why? They have same rate of fire. And Blackhand does more damage than Commissioner at 10m already. Commissioner keeps its 2 headshot kill only up to 38m, which is not that low, but Blackhand will get those headshots easier due to better scope and velocity, and keeps 2 headshot for ALL ranges.
  4. Rhumald

    Recoil reduction, and kick, you simply cannot shoot it as quickly, and preserve the same accuracy level, as you can with the commissioner, you essentially double your re-fire time when scoped, more if the target has moved, which makes it ineffective, and the range you'd expect it to be effective at, it can't even two shot an infil to the head.

    If you're not trying to snipe people with it, you're probably within the commissioner's effective hip fire range, and then, again, the commissioner has it clearly beat, for the simple fact that they are practically the same weapons that close, except one has less bullets, and feels like it may have worse hip fire.
  5. _itg

    It's still early, but I've had some success using it from the rooftops, which isn't exactly perching. In any case, it's always nice to have the pocket sniper option available, and since I don't use my sidearm much in practice, it's not a big sacrifice to carry the Blackhand.

    Could be a result of different people making balance decisions or of the designers' collective opinions evolving over time. The devs will never give LAs assault rifles at this point, simply because it's a big change to the status quo.


    It definitely works well on stationary targets. It feels a lot like using a scout rifle with a tiny magazine. If you can't open with a headshot, it's hard to get the kill before you run out of ammo. A couple times I've landed all 4 body shots on a moving target and they got away due to nanoweave.
  6. Iridar51

    Proof?

    Wut? It two shots all classes in the head at all ranges, except for shielded HAs.

    Yes, it has much worse hip fire. It's not really meant to be effective at close range, hence the downside.
  7. Rhumald

    Grab the gun, ADS, and shoot. the maximum re-fire rate listed on the gun's profile does not accout for recoil recovery, or the fact that the kick (the gun flies straight up in your face after every shot) makes it impossible to see your bullet tracers, or target, within it's range, and so you need to guess at where it may have landed and your target may have moved to if you want to max out it's re-fire potential, even after recovery. If they got rid of the kick animation, and just left it with the recoil, it'd make the weapon a whole lot more desirable.

    Sorry, I'd gotten it in my head that it did 100 damage out at 125m, I stand corrected, it's 250, which puts it right on the 1k mark. It does have a battle rifle's stats though, don't expect this to be possible out past 50 meters every time, even if your aim is dead on target (~100m seems to feel like a comfortable engagement distance for this weapon).
  8. Iridar51

    Question: have you by any chance been using it with a default crosshair scope? Because it's terrible, and indeed cuts down on double speed a lot. Get a reflex dot sight, works much better.
  9. AnuErebus

    When I run LA it's certainly been a nice addition. It does what it's supposed to fairly well, allowing for a quick 2 shot on stationary targets outside the range of carbines. At the same time it's still very similar to the commissioner and makes a useful finisher for fights where you suddenly run out of bullets. The catch is of course that if you're relying solely on it in a fight it's do or die. There's little to no wiggle room when you miss a shot, so if you rely on your sidearms to at times substitute as your primary it's not going to work terribly well.

    What really sold me was taking it into a biolab. It provides you with a lot of extra reach letting you snag easy kills on people that would otherwise be outside your effective range. Running around the central tower let me stop and hit people busying trying to defend the pads and kept me from having to move to more exposed locations when there weren't enemies in easy reach of my carbine. Since I was killing people with relatively quick 2 shots I also seemed to draw less attention from the ground that if I had been trying to use my carbine, so that's an added benefit as well. It's very refreshing to have a useful long range sidearm after the unfortunate mess that is the crossbow.
    • Up x 1
  10. Rhumald

    I got rid of that thing before I even used it, knew from using it on test that the thing was horrible lol. I need to auraxium my last scout rifle on my infil, so right now I'm using a 2* on that and this pistol for longer range shots. There's still some frustrating times, mostly when aiming up, where the round clearly travels above the crosshairs by a significant amount. I've taken to aiming at people's necks, seems to work for all ranges fairly consistently.

    Umm, pretty sure it's not intentional, but you can climb a lot of **** now, I mean, a lot of **** (it almost seems intentional, like some objects were assigned a climbable surface), so I've had quite a bit of luck shooting people from places they don't expect infils.

    It's grown on me a little, I now believe the only change it needs is to get rid of the kick (not the recoil, that's fine, just need to be able to see the bullets travel), ranged pistols have a built in compensator for that very reason.
  11. Eternaloptimist

    A medium range semi-auto sniper rifle for the kids...I am looking forward to getting one when I have the certs or the SC.
  12. Iridar51

    To follow up on that thought. I've been running SMG / shotgun + Blackhand loadout past few days, and the more I use Blackhand, the more I like it. In fact, I noticed I'm using it more than my primary weapon in that situation.

    Not only Blackhand does well as a perching long range weapon at virtually any distance you can land a headshot, it also helps in a situation where the enemy is out of reach of your primary weapon. Something like Commissioner would fall short in that situation.

    I was worried that low damage per magazine is gonna hold me back, but 4 shots is plenty if you make every shot count. Reloading it is a chore, though, as you have to reload every kill attempt. Keep in mind that within 60m it's a 1 headshot + 1 bodyshot kill, so you can get some quick kills, and 75% ADS can make you a hard target as you sidestep between the shots.

    It's so good I'm not sure it was a good idea to give everyone a pocket semi-auto sniper rifle. Sniping from high up above people who think they're in cover is too easy.


    Blackhand does have a serious weakness - it's total crap as an emergency backup weapon, the only thing worse than that is Crossbow. The fault lies with notably worse hip fire accuracy, even with laser sight. ADSing in super close quarters with a 4x scope is bad, but even that's better than relying on this hip fire.

    It's not a huge deal for a Light Assault, I always said that we're the class who can run away and reload the easiest, but it is better to carry the Blackhand with a weapon that doesn't rely on sidearm finishers.
  13. Khallixtus

    I find the Blackhand really fun to use, and I use it with all my loadouts. I especially like it when I come across that guy that's got his head poking out form a bunch of rocks, thinking he's safe. The Blackhand can pump out incredible DPS at range if you aren't under any pressure, and you have the time to crouch and stay still for two seconds and get those two headshots in very rapid succession. I find that in CQC situations it works as well, seeing as the hipfire crosshairs are no larger than their head is, and you can also just shoot them and very quickly follow up with a melee. Obviously the Commissioner is the better option at this range, but I find the Blackhand works just fine, but more importantly, it also works very well at range, being a pocket battle rifle with less ammo.
  14. TheMatulaakLives

    If the hunter QCX is the equivalent of a weak bolt action sniper rifle then the blackhand is a weak semi auto sniper rifle
  15. Stormsinger

    Perhaps, but it's an excellent counter to unaware infiltrators sniping from cover atop spawn. I've been having quite a bit of fun sniping people from atop towers on Amerish, recently. A double tap to the head removes them before they can blink, and most don't seem to react in the ~half second it takes for crosshair recovery. I'm considering getting the last rank of ammo pouch on my LA, I typically run out of ammo before being spotted.

    I'd still rather have my Eidolon, but i'll take the blackhand :p
  16. IronMouse

    BH is fun. Crazy fun. And extremely effective. Took it over Commie and never regretted.
  17. Certs-For-Days

    Personally, I would love to see a magazine increase from 4 to 6 rounds, like the commissioner or Underboss. It would increase the amount of damage you could deal out per magazine and help players with poor accuracy to get off a kill before needing to reload.

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