Battle Rifle Review, long range powerhouse [post PU2]

Discussion in 'Engineer' started by Wrel, Jan 4, 2014.

  1. Wrel Developer



    How are Battle Rifles performing for you after the patch?
    Let me know what you think.
    • Up x 15
  2. Plague Rat

    Nice review. I love this weapon, so it's great to see more favorable opinions on it, especially from one of the bigger Youtubers, and even more so that you actually recognize the weapon's strengths. I think a lot of the people that insist it's still crap cling to this mentality on the semi-auto's, where if you weren't firing as fast as you possibly could and maximizing damage output you weren't using the weapon right, butting heads with and citing the accuracy issues due to recoil as making it useless. But one of the biggest perks I see in the semi-auto's (and burst fires to an extent) is that you have near complete control over the fire-rate to maximize accuracy. It's all about placing those shots, not spraying them. In a head to head exchange misses from trying to spray will cost you more than pacing your shots every time. So thanks for being one of the few BR reviews to actually stress that point!

    Also what was the quirk of the weapon for not taking the grip? The left to right lead or was it something else?
  3. eldarfalcongravtank

    to be honest, they could have finally bumped close/midrange damage of the battlerifles to a 3-shot-kill OR could have gotten rid of the horrid horizontal recoil at ranges. but they unfortunately missed that opportunity again. i'm sure the battlerifles perform better than ever after this patch. but for instance, the reason i went back to try my (trusty old) eidolon was because the pandora+slugs recently lost the no-bulletdrop trait which is really helpful at longer-range fights, only because of that reason! if i played TR/NC i wouldnt even touch the warden/amr66. a 4-shot-kill at closerange (and 5-shot-kill at any other range) is still laughable for a high-caliber slow-firing BATTLErifle

    i would love to hear your opinion on this, Wrel! (that said, i havent seen you around here very often...)
    • Up x 1
  4. xOcOx

    I just swapped my Eidolon loadout about half an hour ago from 4x, comp, foregrip & HVA to 4x, laser, supp & HVA.

    I'll have to consider changing the supp to a flash supp. Can anyone tell me the net change in velocity with both HVA & supp equipped? I really like the idea of not showing up on the minimap at all, and with a supp this weapon is whisper quiet. Combined with the laser sight it isn't horrible at cqc.
  5. Xebov

    As allways an interesting video from you. But i cannot completely agree with you.

    Battle Rifles only recieved 2 Patches in nearly 13 months of the game being released. The first one turned them from complete garbage to slightly useable. The second only solved the Nanoweave issue (needing + 1 bullet for Nanoweave 5 compared to Nanoweave 1-4). So you now stay at a maximum of 6 bullets instead of 7.

    The 6x Scope is not advised to use since they added sway to all 6x scopes. You simply cannot maintain to hold your breath for so long that you can go with a gun that needs so much hits to kill.

    If i look at your video i notice that you where more in bigger battles where you could flank and pick some targets that where bussy fighting someone else so you wherent directly noticed. But the game doesnt offer this kind of fights all the time, there are alot battles where enemys close the gap quickly or you getting forced into closer range.

    I dont think that Battle Rifles are very useable at all (and i have Auraxium with my Eidolon). The Balance Patch offered a great opportunity to make these guns finaly usefull and competeable with other guns, but only the Nanoweave issue was solved (finaly after 8 months of waiting). The biggest issue for the Battle Rifle is the bad recoil pattern. This gun is the -only- Semi Auto that has no straight up Recoil wich hurts the accuracy alot. An other issue is simply the TTK, its higher then other guns so your enemy can kill you with missing you while you need to be fully accurate wich leads to the point where players with fully automatic guns simply spray you away. After they changed the VS Shotguns i thought about using the Battle Rifles again, but after some hours i switched back to my Slug Pandora. While my Pandora is less easy to use at Range it still has 2/3th of the TTK of a Battle Rifle, making it solid in closer situations. And if you get used to the drop you can still sue them at range and perform better then with a Battle Rifle.

    Personaly i hope they will change the recoil pattern to be in line with all other Semi Autos. I also hope that they will improve the TTK so the gun gets competeable with other guns on the Battlefield, and that would need to be better then pistols (wich is the current TTK). I dont see any point of using this gun if all i can do is staying inside cover on the side of the Battlefield and pick up some targets because it cannot realy compete.
    • Up x 5
  6. Psykmoe

    Xebov raises some good points. Another I'd like to add is that battle rifles simply aren't very accurate on their first shot.

    Let's look at how much deviation/cone of fire we have on various guns.

    Sniper rifles: 0 deviation on first shot other than bullet drop.

    SAW/Reaper/AC-X11: 0 deviation.

    Any 167 damage gun except the Cyclone: 0.03

    Both scout rifles, the battle rifle and any 143 damage gun except the Eridani: 0.1

    That means that the Scout rifle and battle rifle have 3 times the first shot deviation of any given 167dmg gun, assuming you're stationary. And the bigger the scope you use, the greater the problem is.

    With a 6x scope you're not only fighting sway, you're also no longer guaranteed that your bullet even goes where you want it, especially when you aim at heads.

    You'd think an alleged precision instrument would at least be more accurate on the first shot than a Flare or TMG-50. Or you know, the SABR-13, which fills the same role but basically better.

    Offering the gun to HAs is basically a joke, I guess an engineer could be interested because carbines get shafted by damage loss over range pretty hard
    • Up x 2
  7. Cromell

    @Wrel

    Your review made me clean the dust off my AMR66. A weapon I used a bit in my early days of PS2 (it was cheap and unlocked for two classes, seemed like a good idea :p) but eventually was discarded by me for several reasons. Mostly because there were better guns for the job.

    Following your recommendations, I unlocked a laser sight and flash supressor. I also equipped it with 1x reflex scope, since recently I find myself doing good with low zoom on long range weapons.

    I am happy to say that the BR is more viable now than before, though it does have a pretty high skill ceiling. It does underperform but is a unique weapon that rewards aiming for the head even more so than full-auto weapons. It also gets bonus points for style. ;P

    Overall, I am looking forward to using it a bit more, though it is sort of situational weapon and sometimes, there are simply no favourable circumstances to use it.
  8. MaxDamage

    I think I am in love. It's actually good. It is actually GOOD.
  9. Doc Jim

    BRs are better than they were, but they are still not good enough to be considered a good choice of weapon. The simple fact remains that they have a horribly low damage output and therefore a slow TTK. AND the description of them firing "powerful rounds" is misleading to new players. I use them a lot because I love semi automatic weapons and like playing engineer but I would NEVER recommend the BR to anyone in its current incarnation.
  10. cruczi

    I just started using AMR-66 on my Engineer after realizing it was unlocked when I bought it for my HA. It's actually extremely nice for longer ranges, it's so reliable and controllable as long as you know what you're doing. When the target is far enough, using any automatic weapon will be less reliable, no matter how good your aim. It seems to fit with a Lightning driver build - both anti-air and anti-tank Lightnings thrive in open areas, and similarly the AMR-66 thrives at longer ranges than carbines. Sometimes you have no choice but to exit your vehicle before it blows up, so being able to do damage at range on foot is nice.
  11. Xebov

    The point you missing here is the TTK. You need to score a good amount of hits (3-6) and its most likely that targets will jump into cover after the 1st or 2nd hit. If they use there Automatic weapons to shoot back they can still spray you away, they dont need to hit with every shot since they have a lower TTK, resulting in some misses for free and every hit they will score will add flinching on your side wich will hurt you alot. In addition to that they can simply use cover to advance to your position and if they get close enought you simply loose the gunfight due to higher TTK. I used the Eidolon months ago for 2 weeks and for a day after PU2 and so far i remember it i rarely killed anyone at range, you mostly get kills on allready wounded players and get killed as soon as you draw to much attention and players start to shoot back. No matter how accurate you are you cannot compensate for missing dmg. And befor PU2 most VS used a Slug Shotgun instead of a Battle Rifles since they feeled much more like Battle Rifles actually should be. And im still sticking to my Slug Shotgun, its no longer that good on longer ranges but in the ranges most fights happen i can still kill other players.


    I hope Wrel will read the posts, i realy would like to hear his opinion.
  12. cruczi

    Nope, not missing the point at all. I know this weapon requires good aim to be effective (any rifle does, but this one in particular because it is unforgiving). That's why Wrel emphasized this point, and that's why I said "as long as you know what you're doing".


    I find the differences between aiming skills are much wider than the differences between the weapons themselves. I may lose the fight in CQC, or I may not, nothing is certain. Versus lower skill players, I can even win pistol vs SMG fights.

    And if you know he's advancing to your position, just catch him off guard when he's sprinting and get free starting damage. Nothing is better than starting fights on your terms, that way you always have the advantage.

    That's completely opposite from what I saw Wrel do. Plenty of kills at medium-long range on full health players. All it needs is good aim.
  13. Jaedrik

    Agreed, critics of above, CoF is significant enough to warrant the Battle Rifles a place on a much lower tier.
  14. Doc Jim

    @ cruczi: you're right that aiming skills make a huge difference, but in a "fair" 1v1, where you and your opponent have a similar level of aiming skill and neither has the element of surprise, using a BR will most likely get you killed. Damage output and flinch simply favour automatics.
    • Up x 3
  15. Xebov

    Its not only unforgiving. It adds free shots to your enemy even if you hit with all shots.

    You should try against players with equal aim, skill and experience. Sure you cant tell if you win or not for certain, but the odds that you loose are very high compared to other guns.


    I saw the Video too. Half of the Video was footage from crowded areas where he took shots from superior positions to targets that where mostly clearly fighting other players and where you cant tell how much other players assisted him. The few Scenes in the open also had other players around that may have assisted him and the enemys where not smart and probably new players since they run around in the open without taking cover. And the scene around the tower he stands outside, also has friendly players around him, he doesnt go in because he knows that his gun will not stand against the guns getting used inside.
  16. cruczi

    Provided long enough range, a BR will beat a Carbine assuming both are good at aiming. There's just no substitute for pinpoint controllable 250 damage shots - no matter the TTK of a Carbine at closer range, longer ranges automatically require a similar control of shots as with a BR, which drops the damage output significantly.




    Well, it just so happens that the range at which this weapon excels is also the range where people aren't normally shooting back at you, they're shooting at someone who is closer to them. Using a Carbine at that range would either (a) make you more easily detectable as well as inconsistent in damage output (both due to the higher fire rate) or (b) and you wouldn't do as much damage due to having to pace shots at slow rate (or do bursts or 3-4 rounds of which 1-2 are going to miss most of the time anyway).
  17. Xebov

    Thats still no point for using BRs at all. If i take the situation ill be better off with my Full Auto Slug Shotgun. Compared to the BRs i get signifivcant better TTK (2/3 of BR TTK), i get a straight up recoil pattern wich allows me to line up shots quickly (Shotguns have an interesting pattern for recoil). I also have a Full Auto mode for close range and can easily fire it Semi Auto since the RoF is low compared to a BR. The only thing needed to compensate is the drop wich is huge at range but still compensateable in ranges 50-100m. You can compensate for drop, but you cant compensate for missing DPS. As long as BRs have a much higher TTK and a crappy recoil pattern they will not get used as there are simply way better options available to do the Job.
    • Up x 2
  18. Chancellor Gowron

    If you want a long range weapon you should just use infiltrator. It's a good choice when you need engineer kit AND a long range weapon though.
  19. cruczi

    Obviously Infiltrator is not a weapon, it's a class. :p
  20. Erendil

    He's got a good point though. With PU02's Nanoweave and BASR changes, playing infil and grabbing a CQC BASR or semi-auto Scout Rifle is an much better choice if you want to play a designated marksman in a battle of any decent size. As a infil you have several long range weapons to choose from, all of which are superior to a Battle Rifle. And with your cloak you can get the initiative when you fire and aren't a sitting duck for other infils since you can be cloaked while you scan the area for likely targets.

    It's something I noticed in Wrel's video. I didn't see a single long range sniper out there gunning for him. All it would take is one good sniper and he'd have been severely hampered if not completely shutdown. His video is quite good and I agree with most of what he says about how to use it (although i disagree with him on some of the attachments - namely the suppressor, HV ammo, and the foregrip). But he overlooks the very basic fact that since PU02, if there's a sniper out there you're in serious trouble.

    And since PU02, snipers are everywhere.

    I've actually pretty much stopped using Battle Rifles as an Engie because of this. You're outgunned by bullet hoses at close/medium range, and outclassed by infils with Sniper Rifles or semi-auto Scouts at long range. You can still get by with one as HA since the NMG/Adren Shield will let you tank one BASR shot, but you're still at a disadvantage in both situations. Despite the (extremely minor) buffs, Battle Rifles have become less useful on the battlefield, not more.

    I've pretty much switched to a infil/Nyx loadout now if I want to play w/ a DMR. And given that DA's site lists my main as #2 for Battle Rifle kills across all servers, and that playing Engie w/ a BR used to be my favorite role pre-PU02, that should tell you something about the current state of this weapon.
    • Up x 3