[Vehicle] Saron or Halberd as a second Gun for my Magrider

Hey guys,

According to the title of this thread i just would like to hear some of your experiences with both of these weapons and a concluding comparison why you prefer one of them over the other one. So far i broke the numbers down for myself and im unsure about which one would fit best. So as i said, share and discuss your opinions and im pretty sure a lot of newer players benefit from this as well.

Greetings
Max

The choice is completely up to you and your gunner and whether or not you want more general support from him, or pure AV.

The halberd has good AI potential and does strong burst damage meaning infantry appearing suddenly to attack you (like say, a heavy peeking around a corner to shoot a rocket) get gibbed instantly on a direct hit. The OHK potential on soldiers is the strongest benefit on the halberd and its AV is decent too. Despite having inferior range to the Saron, its range is more than adequate for most fights.

The Saron has more AV dps and has no bullet drop. This is one of the rare times when the no bullet drop feature is helpful and allows to you put down AV damage from insane ranges. However, quickly shooting it is not beneficial at distance and its not good against infantry.

TLDR: Halberd for general purpose, Saron for pure AV

Personally though? I'd say just stick a PPA on there and use the AV main cannon. With magburner, you can choose your fights well and with the PPA you can troll NC and TR infantry from considerable distance (another weapon where no bullet drop is a huge benefit) while also being able to fend off vehicles adequately with your AV main cannon.

I personally prefer the Halberd of the two, theoretically.
In practice, however, no bullet drop is darn powerful on a tank that can potentially hang sideways in a 40° incline; It's just easier to fire if you don't have to turn the picture in your head to calculate drop.

Whichever one you like the aesthetics of.

On a more serious note, the Saron beats the Halberd in close-up AV by a small amount, and the Halberd has consistency over range and 1-shots most infantry (not sure if it will kill flak5 infantry).

It comes down to range. If you' plan on going short - mid, grab halberd, mid - long, grab saron. Just pick the regime you want and try to stay there.

Halberd actually has more dps than saron, but it's pretty close.

You got the two mixed up, on both accounts.
Saron has more DPS than the halberd, but loses out over range thanks to CoF.

Don't listen to these guys.

The Saron is for short range. While it doesn't have drop, the bloom forces you to shoot slowly (so the CoF will stay manageable) which lowers how much damage you can get out. So it really performs well up close where you can mag dump into a target. However, after it was nerfed to 3 shots for infantry, it because useless at AI work.

Since the Halberd is still a OHK with infantry, and it performs better at range once you have the skill to compensate for drop.

I believe the Halberd starts doing higher overall damage after like 40m. It's essentially outside of point blank range because you can't mag dump.

Yea, I just compared it to http://www.ps2calc.com, and then did the math myself using the numbers from the wiki.

Halberd has a non trivial amount more dps.

Saron wins out over range because of no drop, hits exactly what you aim at. All you need is the tiniest sliver of target. Halberd is okay, but drop makes it a touch more complicated to aim, not that it's that much. Utility trumps dps.

Under no regime does saron out dps a halberd.

Don't use anything but Halberd unless you're bad.

PS2 calc isn't correct. Not even close.
To put it this way, the Saron has very good up-front damage if you can spam it at full RoF/not care about the Cone of Fire. At a certain range, I think it's .. 80-100 meters or so for other tank targets the CoF grows too big, forcing you to either miss shots or slow down the RoF and the Halberd pulls ahead.

Also, the more HP a target has (up close) the more the damage advantage of the Saron will come into effect.
Against a Prowler (ofc assuming the mag main gun is AP and in use) there's no difference. But only by the increase in effective HP of the Vanguard and the Saron pulls ahead.

It is a playstyle choice.

Do you want high alpha-strike damage for ambushing vehicles up close? (Saron)

Do you want to be able to use your strafing and hill climbing to safely take targets out from a distance? (Halberd)

Why would anyone in their right mind want to be "close" with a Magrider?

Which is why I did the math by hand, and verified it.

Feel free to post your math.

Because there are more ways to play the game than to sit on a hill 600m away and mindlessly plink distant targets with your limp dick of a main cannon? I'm not saying that this isn't a valid strategy, I'm just saying there are other, far more interesting and far more rapid methods of eliminating targets - and for those methods you want a Saron.

It is a viable playstyle. By getting close I don't mean intentionally facing a Prowler/Vanguard head-on in the open at close range and trying to win a DPS race. I mean abusing the hell out of your mobility to flank from behind and escape when you need to.

Sorry, failed to quote.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QzAgVph9WhzBA6AeYYlEWealNQeYCF0ZralwvDBLvPM/edit?usp=sharing

Greater risk.
Greater reward... By which I mean a HELL of an adrenaline kick!
Well on occasion anyway.

No mention to resistance modifiers.
I think your math is incomplete.
+ Halberd is 1 shot, then reload. Not 2. Try this:
http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Vehicle_armor_and_damage_resistance


I compared those resistance values to the ones that was datamined some time back (and the date stamp on the page seems to put them as current). Use those to find the actual AV damage of these weapons.

I think Saron is more fun to use.