Silencers, are they worth it?

I've played with silencers for a long time as I regularily play infiltrator and prefer stealth, but are they really worth it? They decrease a weapon's projectile velocity so much that you have to compensate for movement at ranges as close as 20 meters, they increase the damage dropoff so that your weapon will reach its minimum damage faster, and above all they don't reduce the range at which the sound of your weapon can be heard, and if you're using any faction specific weapon you can be identified by sound regardless. Is not appearing on the minimap worth all these downsides? Especially when motion spotters and sensor darts are so prevalent on the battlefield, as well as the difficulty of playing stealthily in any decent sized battle, simply due to the likeliness that someone will just happen to spot you. Are they worth it, in your opinion? Why?

Potentially, but I'd only use them for an smg, or pistol. Also, crouch walking lets you stay off the minimap from any motion sensors.

I say use them in very small battles so that you can pretty much dominate a small group of people.

Use then on:- LAs and Infils only when you need to do some sneaking.

Its worth the certs however.

As I mainly fight CQC, I almost always use a silencer. I even find it quite useful on the ghost when you get a better hand on the bullet drop and the slower velocity.

Some NC weapons are insanely quiet when a silencer is used. The Blitz is about as loud as fly farts, so people don't tend to notice when I open fire. That's saved me several times, though the velocity drop seems to mess up my aim. The MagShot and Rebel aren't much louder but I hardly use pistols.

Unless you're sniping or are with a very large group of allies to mask your presence I find silencers to be a must. Having a giant "ENEMY HERE" beacon on the minimap is frequently a death sentence and bullet velocity isn't a big factor in most scenarios.

It's not about the actual audio as much as it's about staying off the minimap.

Medics also benefit from the use of a silencer (if you're not just running with a shotgun). That extra bit of sneakiness keeps you off most player's mental RADAR and lets you get the rezzes done (or pick off those who would prevent you from rezzing).

I need to go look and see if there's a silenced side-arm that my infiltrator can use... the silenced SMG is a must-have.

Cloak beats spot.

They're a must if you're trying to be sneaky or working alone. Tracers, sound, and showing up on the map are a guaranteed death sentence.

I'd say only on SMGs / auto scout rifles.

The removal of the flash is also very useful, I always use silencers except on sniper rifles.

It's useful, especially if you're in a smaller fight where there's less clutter on the minimap to get lost into.

I wouldn't recommend it for infiltrators though, except maybe Stalker cloak using pistols. Sniper rifles are tuned around very specific damages to get kills, and silencers are way too punishing for them. Scout rifles and SMGs can have a benefit, but it's a pretty big trade-off considering that your dot goes off the minimap whenever you re-cloak anyway. I still will use silencers occasionally as an infiltrator, but it's situational enough that it's not the best 100 cert choice until you've gotten most of your goodies already.

On other classes, definitely a solid choice. Removes your muzzle flash (you'd be surprised how much that slows other folks' reaction time when they don't have a bright muzzle flash to return fire at), less noise, and most importantly gets you off the mini-map in a smaller skirmish. Infiltrators already have the minimap benefit, so for them it's probably a pass.

I use silencers on anything/everything that isn't a long range sniper rifle and doesn't have the option for a compensator. A silencer will allow you to perpetuate a killstreak and save your life a lot, the drawbacks of using one are negligible.

SMG infils and LA's absolutely!

BASR sniper? naaaaah

Most weapons that someone would put a silencer on also generally have access to softpoint. So the damage range drop off isn't really an issue, as it can be countered by that. So this leaves the velocity debuff as the biggest down side. Now how important that debuff is all depends on the original velocity of the weapon. And also the play style of the individual player. There is no right or wrong answer to this question. But with the introduction of implants now, the benefits of a silencer have been increased in some respects.

i use it for guns whose firing sound i cant stand. also silencers make the gun look smexy. like my black NS-11A with silencer. yes i love tacticool gear

I was taught by my Infiltrator Guru, ItzMurda, in his instructional videos that it is not worth using and I believe he is 100% correct.

His argument is that players are not aware of what is happening around them enough for it to matter. Players don't pay close enough to their mini-map and have in game or their own music playing while they game.

That being said, I always use a silencer on my Infil's SMG. The reason I use it is not to silence my weapon, but because I like its sound. If I am in a duel of 30m or more, I deserve to lose because I did something wrong to put myself in that bad position. I try and win, of course, but rarely will.

SPA does counter the pull-in of the maximum damage range, but it doesn't counter the Suppressor's not-insignificant pull-in of the minimum damage range. Now arguably for most SMGs this is irrelevant as their damage drops off to pretty bad values pretty quickly regardless, and some weapons that only drop a single damage tier don't care as much, but it's a pretty huge deal for sniper rifles and carbines.

I tend to hold with the crowd that says it isn't worth it, but at least there are occasional situations where one is useful.

I never use them

Not worth it if all you are doing is being a lone wolf infiltrator I guess. I find so many infiltrators and snipers by watching my mini map and seeing that small red dot flash for half a second. Sometimes I swear I am the only player within 300m wearing headphones as well, hear a shot, check map, sneak up and kill sniper.

on my VS main suppressors are a must (on my TR and NC alts they are still very usefull) its one of the few benefits of no bullet drop and I run one pretty much all the time on my medic and engineer in CQC to medium range.not showing up on the mini map when you fire is pretty huge IMO, since many players dont Q spot you while being shot at, you can effectively sneak around most bases and pick people off in smaller fights. in larger fights they are less useful for front line fighting, but awesome if you can get a flanking position and not shoot at everything that moves.