Correct. The idiots who created the TTK charts everyone references were horribly mistaken in showing the Gauss SAW as being somehow inferior to the CARV/Orion in TTK. All three weapons kill with the exact same speed, the SAW simply has a slower rate of fire so there's less twitching involved. But unless you think you can compensate for 0.12 second aim distortions, whether you're receiving a 500rpm volley or a 750rpm one doesn't make a difference in anything but graphical effects. Your screen shakes more violently with the faster guns, but your aim is still being irreparably disrupted either way. Note: I did not say the SAW and CARV were worse than the Orion. Easy and Best are two entirely different things. Anyone who has played Dota knows that a Hard to play hero can end up being better than an Easy to play one in the right hands. What you are attesting is false, a myth, a misconception. It's merely an easy weapon to use given its effective range, speed advantage, accuracy, and the fact that you shouldn't be missing anyway in CQC. I would prefer the SAW over the Orion a thousand times over. If you can control the difficult recoil of the SAW, it has superior accuracy, superior bullet damage, superior attachments, and equal TTK to the other default LMGs. So even in CQC if you can aim properly and not miss your shots, the SAW is an even match for the CARV or Orion. Yet look at how many advantages it has over them. Were the SAW not so difficult to wield for inexperienced players, it is what would be overpowered. The other guns have their own advantages, but it's mainly in making the gun easier to handle, not statistically SUPERIOR like the SAW is to all other LMGs.
Almost. Point-blank TTKs are identical if you happen to make every shot without the flinch mechanic screwing you over, but the CARV and Orion have a slight advantage at moderate ranges past 10m where each gun adds 1 shot to the shot to kill (same situation as Nanoweave). This advantage is more than fair, because it only persists until the CARV and Orion's inferior CoF put the SAW back in the lead at further ranges. It's also much easier to hipfire and also disrupt the enemy's aim with the CARV/Orion because of the faster RPM (I'm a solidly average FPS player, so I have difficulty nailing every shot on people who are hopping around in my face). As a SAW player your best option is to avoid this by using good cover even in point defense and pushing on enemy positions very carefully, or even letting someone with a GD-7F, shotgun, etc. push ahead of you to clear a building. The ranges that you gave in your previous post seem pretty spot-on.
Yeah, I mostly play engineer and have just started dabbling with HA...I have a fully tricked-out SAW except for HVA (2x foregrip, compensator, and either IR/NV, 2x, or 3.4x LACO depending) and have fitted an EM6 the same way except one level of foregrip of course. I'm looking forward to seeing how the EM6 does. The SAW is a really situational weapon for me, I'd like to have something that I can at least fake it with regardless of the type of fight and use as a "default" weapon if I don't know what I'll be getting into. (I do have an Anchor fitted out for CQC as well.)
Best HA weapon straight out of the box? Hmm, Id prolly vote Orion, its very, very easy to use, has good RoF, dmg seems to be ok. However, after your first 30 certs, and you slap a scope an any of them, the Gauss SAW takes over due to optics helping with target tracking. The absurd dmg of the Gauss SAW starts to shred people. The CARV, its aight...
It would immediately be replaced by another wave of QQ complaining about the CARV and Orion having point blank TTKs of 0.48 while the EM6 has a 0.50 TTK. Factional imbalance! NC is underpowered! The screams would be heard long and our waking dreams would turn to nightmares. The people asking for EM6 to be the default want to trade the existing super weapon for something that does less damage, while stripping it of all attachments at that for "balance", all to get a marginal rate of fire increase which should ultimately not even bloody matter to anyone good at math. If having the most accurate weapons isn't enough for people, the TR faction already exists. No sense cloning their armory. I blame the Orion for being a CQC weapon with equal rate of fire to the CARV. Had it been faster than the CARV, people would have come to accept that different guns had different roles. The other classes already have to deal with ROF differences on their default weapons, heavies just want to be special.
We disagree what the definition of "best" is here then. You will win more engagements with an Orion then with a CARV, which is why I consider it the best. You can also still magdump an Orion at medium range, the CARV's CoF requires one to burst fire at those ranges, meaning less DPS. Finally and probably most significantly is the beast mode hip fire accuracy of the Orion combined with it's RoF, because in this game at close range you often try to jump through opponents and spin your gun in their face, and the Orion flat out owns the CARV and SAW in this regard. In what scenario is the CARV superior? I have both a TR and VS dude, and it's patently obvious which is the better weapon. Keep in mind both the Orion and CARV were very equal in my eyes at release.
The CARV nor the Orion surpass eachother in Time to kill or Recoil. They're basically the same gun, only mag size and reload time is different.
I'm not theory crafting, I'm talking my experience from using both, alot really since HA is where I've spent most of my time playing (though in recent weeks it's moved onto ESF flying for the most part). Again, like I said above the CARV simply can't magdump at medium range, it must be burst fired due to CoF bloom - something the Orion just isn't aflicted by at nearly the same levels. In real engagements this has a huge implication on DPS. Also in extreme CQC the Orion seems to be more accurate while moving and bunny hopping, making it much, much better in those situations.
The whole message of my original post was that the best gun was determined by your engagement range. Your engagement range is markedly CQC, therefore you like the Orion the best. It's not difficult to understand, but I prefer looking at things objectively. The CARV has a firmer mid-long game not due to accuracy, but due to bullet damage that the Orion loses being a VS weapon. The larger clip is also nothing to sneer at for midrange, when the Orion runs out of ammo, the CARV is still going. In CQC, it can cut down multiple enemies as its name suggests. Since it profits at all ranges and can bullet hose at midrange for longer than an Orion can, it's a stronger midrange option than the Orion. It also carries a default extra 100 bullets which helps it spray more at medium distances where the Orion would tend to conserve ammo.
This used to be true, but not since the nerf. At medium range you now must burst fire at the same ranges you can just keep the Orion at full auto. This has a significant impact on dps. I'm sorry but the Orion is just more effective at both medium and CQ ranges. Only once you get to long ranges, where the Orion must also be burst fired and VS damage drop starts being significant does the CARV outperform the Orion, but really how many engagements are decided at long range as HA anyway? The 100 rounds is a big bonus to the CARV, and noteworthy, but if I had the choice I would always run with the Orion on my TR heavy, and wouldn't even look back at the CARV.
Now that we're all done proving to one another that we're good at math, I have to admit that the rate of fire increase makes a difference for those of us who are good at math but not so good at first person shooters -- way more so than the comparatively small differences in TTK. Unless we're all aimbotting, there has to be SOME tradeoff between a weapon's raw stats and its ease of use. The Orion/CARV may be statistically equal at close range and worse off at long range, but in practice the LMGs are pretty well balanced and in practice I'd be money that SAW users DO perform worse in CQC. It certainly fits my own experience and anecdotes from my NC-playing friends. Again, I wouldn't trade my SAW for anything. But the fact is that it's a more difficult weapon to use, EVEN more difficult to use in close quarters, and it should go without controversy that it needs more certs spent on attachments to reach its potential. Poor OP doesn't know what he started.
At short ranges, the Orion obviously has a killing advantage, but the CARV maintains its utility advantage with the greater ammo supply. The Orion is balanced by basically being an assault rifle. Medic rifles are even more accurate and more deadly than the Orion, the Gauss Rifle puts the Orion to shame. But they all have even smaller clips to compensate. Clip size is the determining factor here in midrange worthiness, and midrange weapons will occassionally find long range targets to fire at over a CQC performer. At shorter ranges, it's not better than the Orion in kill time, it's better in ability to kill. Death per clip is higher. DPS isn't the only thing a weapon can be judged by. As an avid user of the Gauss SAW, long range engagements are not as uncommon as one would think. Even in a biolab, I routinely engage in long range combat. It doesn't need to be sniper rifle distance to be considered long range in terms of weapon effectiveness.
i will say this while i have no hard facts to prove this, i would not be surprised that 75-85% of my infantry deaths have come from the CARV and this is my perspective as a mainly VS player (about 5% have come from orion users as well)
Gauss SAW in CQC? I do aight with it. If only I was better at countering bunny hoppers and people who are rushing around me at point blank range. The Gun serves me just fine. It does just about as well for me as the CARV did.
Its because the CARV is primarily the only TR HA weapon that fires fast enough to actually kill people. All the others you out do in DPS or accuracy or something, and so you dont die to T16, TMG50, and the others. Most of my vs TR deaths come from CARVs and TRAC5S. Sometimes a TMG50 when the guy gets behind me or something, but if I fire at the same time as he does, I will win or die at the same time, but never does he walk away from it.
You have to play like it's DOOM or Goldeneye at close range. Forget ADS even exists within 15 meters.
yeah, I do, its why the Laser is one of my favorite attachments. As for ADS, it seems like I need to do it more often in close. I have died by just a touch because I didnt.
Yeah if your going to use the SAW try not to engage at less than 50m because its a gun you just cannot hip fire and expect to live if you get caught out of position you just have to ads and hope they don't zig instead of zag. I finally wised up and got the hv ammo compensator 3x scope grip etc and started hanging with the snipers.. my k/d went from 1:2 to 5+:1 immediately. Just tonight I ran up on a friendly sniper nest that was being pinned down by enemies at around 100m so I popped out, sprayed across the ridge to make them all duck and just picked them off one by one when they popped their heads up.. was like playing whack a mole. Sniper next to me said "daaayum son save some for the rest of us". Someone spots a sundy downhill on the other side of the base so I go over there and sure enough about 150m out there's a conga line of enemies coming up the hill one in front of the other so I stand on an ammo pack a beautiful engineer kindly placed for me (love you guys) and dumped about 2k rounds right down their throats.. see the enemies in the back didn't know what was going on because the guy in front of them blocked their view of me until he dropped then they had about half a second to think "well crap" and frantically try to pick me out among the rocks in the distance before they went down too. Got like 50 kills.
I have taken out whole squads with my gauss saw. Dont let anyone tell you the gauss saw is bad at cqc just hipfire into the chest and win.
