What is the general attitude towards the Hailstorm SMG?

Aptly nicknamed the "Failstorm", the PDW-16 is the worst SMG in the game bar none. It takes forever to drop a target and even with the element of surprise on your side the opponent can still pull off a 180' and gun you down (this is especially true for HA).

This gun needs a 143 dmg model. Seriously.

Ah thanks for that, didn't remember reading those patch notes. I did notice the ADS accuracy on it wasn't too bad for an SMG. That being said, it's an SMG - with some of the tightest hipfire accuracy around, you're not going to be ADS-ing much.

Like you say... odd

If they did that the whole weapon would have to be reworked for the sake of balance. That's not to say I'm against the idea - I'd quite like it in fact.

I auraxiumed it a few days ago, it took me alot longer than the armistice but i like it alot more than the MKV for sure.

The sixty round magazine is useful, I usually run around with Supp, Adv laser & soft point.
The best tactic to use is to throw an emp grenade at a group and then just spray n pray.

I think I have 6000+ kills with the Hailstorm.

So many so, I decided to start using the Armistice instead.

The Hailstorm I find to be poor. I've played all the empires enough to have a good familiarity with most weapons, especially those that apply to the infil and without resorting to hyperbole about how bad it is I think I can safely say that it ranks the lowest out of the SMGs for me.

The main problem with it is that it just doesn't have the damage output it needs. SMGs generally get outgunned to begin with by most other automatic weapons in the game even within those first 20 meters that are optimal for them, so its really critical to have one that can lower that TTK - especially considering infiltrators can't take as much damage as other infantry. Its not like you can't kill people with the hailstorm - but once you face an opponent who is about your own level and isn't caught by surprise it will start to fail you. Especially on shielded heavies it just takes too long for you to expect to survive.

The NS7-PWD does have slightly lower DPS, but it is so much more accurate and effective at longer ranges that it more than makes up for the difference - even with the low magazine size. The hailstorm might be a little less jittery than the armistice, but not enough to really reliably go for headshots. The NS7-PWD can do that at least. The thing is that 60 bullets just doesn't end up mattering much when you don't have a low enough TTK to be likely to survive to use them. Besides, competing SMGs (the second gens) have 50 bullets of the same caliber which is more than enough. Once you have more than 40 you generally have plenty for an SMG. More than 40 tends to just be "multikill potential" gravy for those rare occations when you have complete and absolute surprise on multiple enemies who are both looking the wrong way and are busy shooting at stuff. That doesn't tend to happen that often.

The NC really got the cream of the crop when it comes to SMGs. The blitz is very good, and the cyclone is the best first-gen by a mile.

EDIT: I'm excluding the MKV from the comparison because it has a forced supressor, so that's not really a fair comparison to make versus other unsupressed SMGs.

-Stigma

Affectionatly dubbed the "Failstorm" by the community.
Take what you will from that.

General attittude is that it sucks and is the worst SMG ever.

I like it for some reason. Very jittery when ADS, even with grip/comp, but what i like is the very fast reload and 60 sound mag.
Best used when fighting with other people so you can steal their kills.

I myself own the Hailstorm SMG, and I can honestly say that it is not what I fully expected. I thought it would be a fairly fast-firing low damage SMG that could clear out 2 or 3 enemies per magazine. This however is not the case. The reason why you are given those extra 30 bullets is because you darn well need then when trying to combat enemies. The hailstorm with a compensator and adv. laser sight makes for a pretty nifty close quarters weapon, but this of course leaves you at the mercy of the shotgun and the MAX, where I often found myself outmatched. All in all the hailstorm is an ok weapon, as in: it can do everything at an average level. It lacks that massive rate of fire increase that the armistice has (making it a far more viable close quarters weapon in general) and it lacks that ability to have a reflex sight put on it and still remain an accurate weapon. You have already auraxiumed the two best (situational) SMGs in the game: the armistice (for close quarters) and the NS7-PDW (for medium to medium-long ranges).

it's the first weapon i played to auraxium, today it still haves the most kills on it for all my weapons and i did not use it for over one year
i loved this weapon (still do) so if somebody calls it the failstorm I'm thinking failplayer

do not equip the suppressor and foregrip
use the laser and flashsuppressor only go for hipfire and flanking
it's the best smg in the game

Loved the Hailstorm, PDW is a pain...

Very in-depth response Stigma. I'd tend to agree with your train of thought, though haven't had a proper go on the MKV, Blitz or Cyclone yet. The Blitz seems to be NC's Sirius, with high capacity and high fire rate making it quite "easy" to use. I trialled the Cyclone and even without attachments thought it was great.

I go for just that setup [ALS, no suppressor]. What makes it surpass all the other SMGs in your book? I'm not saying you're wrong in any way - we all play the game differently and get on with some weapons better than others. I'm getting the strong impression the community is generally dissatisfied with the Hailstorm though, so I'm curious to hear the flipside.

On it's own, as a stand-alone, the Hailstorm is not bad at all. It's decent ROF and good handling (COF bloom is weak with ALS, especially if you stop shooting for a moment every 20 rounds or so) makes it accurate to fire even when hip-firing. It's magazine makes it do one thing very well - sustained fire. This gun will out-last most other CQB weapons in the game.

My single most memorable moment in auraxing this gun was tossing a conc into the long-section of an L building (think left-hand generator room in a tech-plant) and WALKING INSIDE with my trigger down aiming for the chest/throat areas of NC troops inside. Killed 5 in one mag, knifed the 6th who was wounded by my last bullets. Granted though, this was conced enemies in thick smoke and I'm pretty sure one or more of them was already wounded, it was a hectic battle. It demonstrates the sustained fire ability of the Hailstorm though, it's the one thing it does very well.

Sadly, the Hailstorm is not alone in this game. There are better weapons than it for sustained fire in CQB, (for instance if I had my extended mag Chaingun under those same special conditions I would have killed a lot more than just 5 guys) and as a SMG it completely fails, simply because another SMG exists for TR that does the SMG job considerably better - the Armistice.

The Armistice and Hailstorm try to cover the ROF and mag-size traits of the TR, and while ROF works very, very well in a CQB weapon (this is why the Armistice is such a popular gun, it's the only TR SMG that works) mag-size does not when it's paired with such low damage per bullet and low ROF. The Hailstorm's TTK is quite simply terrible, and it's not a reliable weapon. I found myself playing HA with it for almost the whole time I auraxed the Hailstorm in an attempt to cover for it's lack of reliable TTK, and I still died a lot more than I usually do in CQB. If I had the Armistice or any other CQB weapon under the same conditions, I would have fared a lot better.

Luckily for you at 800 kills you are already over the half-way mark. If you wish to aurax the Hailstorm, keep at it, finish it, then put it away. Otherwise just put it down and use the Armistice instead.

The Hailstorm is refereed to as the "Failstorm" for a reason, it's not a good SMG, it's frankly the least reliable and thus the worst SMG in this game. IMHO it could use some loving and have it's ROF and/or damage boosted a little bit. I'm sure by the time the Hailstorm's lack of use becomes critical it will see some changes. Until then there are more reliable weapons out there.

Your personal opinion has been noted.

Stats disagree with you however, but thanks for naming almost all players who has ever used this gun a "fail player" because their fact-based opinions ruffled your feathers a little.

For the record, I should state that the reason I've Auraxed the Hailstorm by now and not the Armistice yet is because the HAilstorm had hundreds of kills more than the Armistice when I decided to Aurax the SMG's. This is due to me buying it early because I liked the implied performance it had - high magazine cap and reliable performance. This turned out to not be the case though.

I will finish by saying this again - on it's own the Hailstorm is a decent weapon. But being decent is not good enough when you are compared to the competition, and the competition is not just decent, but good.

Indeed! For the situations you mentioned, a hallway of conc'ed and possibly wounded troops, I'm sure the sustained fire is great for clearing out.

A previous poster pointed out it's okay as long as you're facing opponents of a slightly to drastically lower skill/aim level to your own. After you start going up against guys that really know what they're doing, even if you get the element of surprise, it has a tough time pulling through, for reasons a number of us have already pointed out!

For now I've switched back to my Lynx for close-mid range light assault loadout, man can that thing wreck.

The only SMG i never used on my infiltrator: the infiltrator lower shield + Failstor bad TTK/accuracy is a terrible combo.

I used it mainly on my LA.

I don't plan to touch it again, others weapons do it's intended job just better.

It is my favorite SMG, its lower RoF means I can outplay other faster SMG users from farther range, this is the trick to this gun, you need to be 15-20m meters away being a strafing scoundrel while others struggle to hit you under ADS. The terrible thing about the armistice is killing one infantry in one clip then needing to reload constantly, the hailstorm alleviates that allowing you to get two to three kills in succession, its saved me my life lot of times. Perfect for LA and HA. Disregard this "failstorm" meme.

Hailstorm is easily the best SMG, only issue people have is it's not as spray and pray as they want it to be.

With its damage per mag and EMP grenades you can kill many targets with no reload, especially if you actually aim and go for headshots.

No it's not as "easy-mode" as just emptying an armistice clip into people at shotgun ranges like some bad TR do, but it's a very underrated gun easily on par with the Cyclone in an asymmetric way.

Take your pick:

FARMstice or FAILstorm.

The Hailstorm is a weapon that needs you to play on its strengths and is in my opinion designed towards LA and HA play. For the HA it has the amount of damage per magazine that you need as a front line soldier while allowing you to use Advanced Laser Sight for maximum hip-fire efficiency. For the LA it is a run and gun weapon that emphasizes mobility and bullets over accuracy. It is probably my favorite weapon when using drifters.

I personally don't see much reason to use it as an infiltrator.

http://ps2oraclestats.com/?stat=kph&weapon1=28001&weapon2=28000&weapon3=301303

I am not really seeing the inferiority of the Hailstorm.

I would agree that LA and HA are about the only classes to get any good use out of the Hailstorm. That makes it a failure of a CQB weapon given how the Armistice would serve you better in almost all cases and across all classes.

You look at the Kills Per Hour for a weapon these days when there is always a group of people Auraxing everything available to them. Have a look at the unique user tabs for the Trac-5 and Trac-5B and you will see that the Trac-5's user-base beats the 5B with ease, but the KPH is still not to bad - that's because the 5B is being Auraxed by players who want the Aurax and know what they are doing, it don't mean that the 5B is a terribly good weapon.

Same is true for the Hailstorm. It beats out the NS PDW in KPH, but in unique users it is dead-last out of the Armistice who is on top and the NS PDW that beats it. Matter of fact, the NS PDW beats both in unique users, thanks to the number of alts made by NC and VS players who bought the NS PDW with SC and thus has a weapon for all classes across all factions.

Now, look at average Battle Rank. Again, Hailstorm is usually on top, confirming that it's being Auraxed by more experienced players or used by that smaller group of players that prefer it's magazine cap over the Armistice's ROF.

And finally, yes, it's more usable for LA and HA. So what? Both of those classes have more reliable CQB weapons available to them that has better range and stability.

I am seeing the inferiority of the Hailstorm. I see how a 125 damage 800RPM weapon suffers where a 125damage 845RPM weapon like the NC's Blitz does considerably better. Or the GD-7F's 143 damage at 800RPM. Only 800RPM combined with 125damage is not enough to kill reliably at the ranges the Hailstorm was made for, meaning that only the agility and ambush-tactics of the LA or the higher survivability of the HA can hope to effectively mitigate the weapon's shortcomings.

The Hailstorm needs a small damage (125->143?) OR a ROF (800->845?) boost, until it does the Armistice is simply a more reliable weapon.