Interesting choice of upgrades for the Flare. Suppressor and soft point to slow down the projectile speed of a slow rate of fire weapon. I have used the Flare for most of the time I have played planetside 2. I have over 3100 kills so far with the weapon. It falls a little short in CQC compared to the Orion but can still hold it's own. Chasing down mid ranged targets, the Flare is much better. About 10m or more, the Flare starts to pull away from the Orion. I us:- Reflex x2 Compensator High Velocity Ammo Forward Grip
I dont know if i'm doing it wrong but : VX29 Polaris + Adv.Laser + Suppressor + SPA + IR/NV is a total beast up to medium range." Sure it have higher reload times because of 100round mag. And Lowest COF makes it kinda better for me than 40rpm more Pulsar lsw I dont know why people dont use it ... cuz of price ?
Gave my "Orion" setup a try last night, after an hour i switched to suppressor, forward grip and 2x reflec scope Been thinking about certing the high velocity ammo. Will give it a try. And i agree that the Orion beats all vanu LMG's at zero-20 meters, for me it feels like the flare and Orion is about the same from 20-50 meters - with a slightly edge to the flare because of the higher dmg pr bullet.
I ended up buying the Pulsar LSW. Watched and read the reviews. I was thinking the Polaris for the 100 rounds but what swayed me was the Pulsar LSW's ok at everything capability. The cheap 250 SC and that for an additional 450 SC I couldn't see the value in the other 700 SC guns. <Edit> Certed for 1x Reflex and Foregrip.
The Polaris doesn't really have anything to recommend itself except for the 100 round mag and being the only LMG to take an adv. laser. Its base stats are solidly generic; if it weren't for the adv. laser, it wouldn't actually be -good- at anything.
I have used several weapons. Flare, Pulsar LSW, Polaris, Lasher. Personally I like a weapon that i can pull out and make it do anything I want. The Pulsar LSW is a great gun and I still love it. However, my Flare does a great job in all areas I ask of it. My Flare set up is 2x reflux scope, compensator, soft point ammo and laser sights. I am eventually going to get the forward grip just because i hate hipfire. If you hipfire Pulsar LSW is great, but ADS with the soft point ammo is sweet. I did a trial of my guns on a friend in game and every time the Flare won.
I finished my auraxium with the Flare and I'm currently finishing auraxium with the Ursa and Pulsar LSW. My friend recommended the Polaris to me since he's got auraxis with every LMG save Pulsar LSW (300 kills off auraxium) and I can honestly say for my playstyle, the Polaris is an absolute beast for CQC and I prefer it over the LSW.
Closest thing to the Orion is the SVA-88 and my favorite VS LMG. It has the same rate of fire as the LSW, less first shot recoil, but more sustained recoil. It has the same recoil as the flare, but with only a 1.5 multiplier for the first shot, meaning that it's VERY accurate at mid-range. Unlike the flare, however, it trades off the smaller CoF (.1 vs .03) and weapon damage for ADS movement speed. It is used just like an Orion in CQC, strafing while ADSing since it has the same multiplier. It also has the advantage of a larger mag, but with roughly a second more of reloading for both short and long.
You just wasted a ton of certs. The Flare is really only useful at longer ranges. From what I could gather from your original post, the SVA-88 is what you were looking for.
So until they really do some rethinking on their damage-per-bullet numbers, right now RoF is the singular determining factor in DPS. Add to that the fact that high RoF also still creates more disruption for returning fire (and protection against lagstrafing) and the Orion is still hands down the best CQ LMG for the VS. Right now my all-purpose CQ setup is the orion with an advanced laser dot, flash suppressor, and the INRV scope. Hip fire everything under 15 meters and watch it melt. General tip: The stats on soft point ammunition are horrible, and are never worth it. It only provides a 10% dps increase at roughly 7 meters. Beyond that, OR inside of that range, the DPS is inferior to default rounds.
I hate the Flare, in practice my kill rate went right down compared to the Orion. I gave it a whirl to get Auraxium but it ended up being a pain. Nowhere near the kill capability (at any range) of the Orion and slow as **** to reload to.
Specialist Close Range: Orion Specialist Long Range: Ursa Ready for Anything: Pulsar or SVA-88 The Pulsar is the best price/performance LMG VS has by a long, long way. However, the SVA-88 beats it on projectile speed, attachment options and ADS movement (which it shares with the Orion), although it does have very slightly higher recoil. There's not a whole lot to choose between the Pulsar and SVA-88, either is an effective weapon in most situations. I usually run with the SVA-88, but it all comes down to what feels best for you.
Dont buy the ursa, the difference between this and flare are so minimal you will never notice it. They are almost identical in every way and not worth 1k certs vs flares 500.
Either the LSW/SVA-88 or the Flare. Eventually it depends on your taste. LSW and SVA are pretty much identical in CQC and both are a tad weaker than the Orion. The LSW sports a predictable recoil pattern and a faster reload time. Cheap, easy to use, good results. The SVA doesn't lose ADS movement speed and is accurate enough to burst-snipe decent Gauss SAW players at long range. Not as cheap, not as easy to use, but with a higher "skill" ceiling than the LSW and in my book "the best" (for those who are into superlatives) all-round weapon for the VS. The Flare is obviously for those who got bored of all the high rate of fire weapons (which is, due to the elimination of flinch, not necessarily the primary attribute of a good weapon anymore) and want to try the "less pew, moar oomph" alternatives.
VX29 Polaris with compensator and grip for mid/long. This is as close to a laser beam you're going to get. Pulsar LSW with flash supp and grip for close/mid. Not as accurate as the Polaris but higher RoF and the same managable recoil makes this a great choice for encounters at mid range and closer. I neglected this LMG solely because I saw the other 1k LMGs and though "shiiiiny..." Orion, SVA-88, and Flare are just used to work towards the auraxium medals. 0.75x movement modifier is good but its awesomeness, atleast for me, feels exaggerated to say the least. I know some players swear by these, and will get quite vocal about it, I just do so much better using the Polaris/LSW.
Same here, though I didn't use it enough to get the Auraxium medal, the moment I switched back to the Orion my daily K/D average went up by something like 0.5.
The only place their differences are 'minimal' are in CQC and maybe out to 40m, beyond that the Ursa is superior in every way. Looking at only the stats sheets would make you correct, but once you use them for killing, you'll find that they handle very differently at medium to long range with the Ursa being amazingly more accurate than the Flare. The Flare gets Soft Point for what's assumed to be better CQC work, but honestly it just doesn't have a place that isn't already done better by another Vanu LMG. I bought the Flare, fully certed it out and tried to love it, but it will always fail you at anything over 40m. Then I bought and certed the Ursa and fell in love. Even the stock Ursa is better than the Flare past 40m. They're totally different weapons in how they handle and probably more importantly, bullet velocity. For Medium to Long Range the Ursa is the hands-down best Vanu LMG. Period.
I don't know why people keep discounting the Polaris. It's the most accurate LMG at range. Not just the most accurate Vanu LMG, but the most accurate of _any_ LMG in the game, in terms of recoil over time (the 15m actually does slightly better because of its lower RoF, but its recoil angle is more random). The lowest vertical recoil you will find on a LMG is 0.3, which the Polaris has. It also has close to best-in-class horizontal recoil at 0.2. The only LMG's with lower horizontal recoil are 0.175, and they have noticeably higher vert (0.4 or higher). Of the 4 LMG's which have the stats above, only two can mount a compensator, foregrip, and long-range scopes like 2x Reflex. Of those two, only one is a VS weapon with no bullet drop, and that's the Polaris. It also has a solid projectile speed at 620 (640 is the most of any LMG), and its starting bloom for standing, moving ADS is 0.35, again the lowest for LMG's. Yes, it does have angled recoil, but the arc (17-20) is so narrow that it adds very little extra randomness to it. Add the 100 round magazine to it, and you have a weapon with enormous capability to dispatch multiple targets at range. Its TTK isn't great, yeah. It's a pretty standard 652/143 weapon, in that regard. But it is the most accurate LMG. If you can use that to your advantage to put every round on target, it will win most medium or long-range engagements for you.
