Best sidearm for use with Archer?

Discussion in 'Engineer' started by Armor9D, Jul 13, 2015.

  1. Armor9D

    I'm close to being able to purchase another 1000 cert sidearm, and I need something I can use when I'm carrying around my Archer. I already have an Underboss, but it seems a bit lackluster. My current candidates for a replacement are:

    -NS Commissioner
    -NS Blackhand
    -NC Mag-Scatter
    -NC Desperado

    Any recommendations?
  2. OldMaster80

    The underboss should already be ok. Don't expect to do much more with other side weapons: they are not lmgs.
  3. Iridar51

    You will be dealing with full health targets, so your priorities are:
    1) Damage per magazine - it should have enough to kill a full HP player, and then some - for safety margin.
    2) Power, either in raw DPS, or damage per shot.
    3) Effective range. It has to be as versatile as possible, because you can't always guarantee to be close enough or far away enough.

    Blackhand fails at 1) and 3).
    Mag Scatter fails at 1) and 3). While technically Mag Scatter has good DPM of 2400, in reality, it's just 4 shots, and if you miss 2 of them, you're unlikely to kill the enemy, unless you stuff the weapon in his mouth.

    We're left with Desperado, Underboss and Commissioner.
    All of them are good in their own way. Personally, I'd trade Underboss in favor of Commissioner - it's more versatile, and doesn't depend on snap headshots as much. But if Underboss didn't work for you, it's unlikely the Commissioner will.

    Desperado is nice for some close range spam. I don't have much experience with it, but I have a suspicion it's not so bad at range as people claim, it just requires aiming down sights and pacing shots a little. Doesn't have reflex sights (yet?), so ADSing is a bit less convenient.

    Perhaps if you would explain what went wrong with Underboss, I could help? Remember not to expect miracles from your sidearm, it's merely a pistol, and it's always gonna be weaker than a primary, and you shouldn't expect to win a face to face fight unless you play much better than the enemy.
  4. Problem Officer

    Desperado, Laser Sight, ~3 clicks/second at 10-15 meters, spray if closer.
    ADS can be reasonable up to 20 meters with same pacing. Suppressor doesn't seem to add any reasonable penalty, I'd always keep it on.
  5. Armor9D

    I've been getting better with the Underboss, my main issues are that I often die while the enemy has only a sliver of health, miss hipfire shots, and have trouble hitting targets at longer ranges.
  6. Iridar51

    Well, the commissioner helps with the first one, others are a matter of practice.
  7. placeholder22

    Vanu here. I have more kills on my archer than on my phase shift (but then I suck at sniping)

    There's few things more satisfying with the archer than running around a corner, seeing a scat max, and immediately plant a hipfired headshot on his face, levelling the guy. Needs to have been damaged for that of course.

    The Underboss is a good, no, excellent sidearm to any standard full auto rifle(out of ammo with primary? Pull it and place a quick finisher or two in your enemy) but not so good as a "primary" because of its low DPM. Comissioner only fares slightly better. I use the Commi as a Sidearm on shotgun builds because it's slightly better suited for aimed long-range (head) shots when the shotguns may just as well shoot cotton balls, but don't really like using the Commi as a primary because anything past 20 m takes 4+ hits to kill anyways, and even more with Nanoweave, due to the tremendous damage falloff. So you quickly have the same problem as with the Underboss: You run out of ammo before your enemy is dead. If you have a real primary, use it whenever you can. Then again as "Support" you will encounter more infiltrators than usual, and at point blank, the Commi can OHK them with a head shot.

    The most important stat of a Pistol used as a primary is DPM, or rather, kills per magazine. That is the great weakness of all sidearms, you barely have enough ammo to kill even one dude with the revolvers in most situations. Things go wrong and you miss shots and then you're stuck in a 2-4 second reload while your enemy still has a sliver of health left.

    Mag-Shot is a decent "Primary", reasonably accurate and slightly better DPM. (I've used its clone, the Manticore, for quite a bit) As an Archer engineer, your job is support though, not frontal assault. So you need a gun to work for self-defense. Let your heavy buddies tank the hits and do the shooting. If push comes to shove you won't survive a close quarters 1o1 with an alert enemy that has a real primary. Infiltrators come up as targets a lot when you're in the back rows of battle, and if you catch them off guard, you want to be able to kill them before they uncloak and fill your face with lead. But using the Archer against infantry on the long range, I have no need for my Archer secondary-primary to be good for the long range. Therefore, I'm going with the Spiker. Your equivalent would be the Desperado. It's got enough DPS and DPM to kill Infiltrators and the occasional LA.
  8. DeadlyPeanutt

    commissioner is my go to sidearm. watch the bullet drop from the heavy rounds if you're shooting at anything more than a meter away tho.

    I get a ton of kills with the commissioner. it hits like a BFH.

    btw, i like the underbarrel grenade launcher for close max encounters better than the archer. It works better and kills infantry just as quickly as maxes
  9. Erendil


    I'd go with the Commish equipped w/ a Laser Sight to help w/ hipfire and 2x Reflex Sight to help w/ range.

    The Commissioner is alos slightly better than the UnderBoss during hipfire. They both have the same hipfire COF and bloom per shot, but the bloom over time is lower on the Commish due to the lower ROF.

    The Underboss does kill slightly faster. But the Commish:
    • OHKs infils w/ a headshot.
    • Defeats Nanoweave up close - it takes 3 shots whether or not they have Nano. Underboss reqs 1 more shot vs Nano 4 & 5.
    • Can miss twice (STK = 4) and still kill a Shielded HA without having to reload. Underboss only allows 1 miss (STK = 5).
    • Has Higher Alpha damage which makes it a better finisher due to the increased change of OHK'ing an injured opponent.
  10. Plastikfrosch

    NC/Vanu: desperado/spiker (both are the fastet killing sidearms for these factions and you really want those if someone gets the drop on you (also the spitfire is a good motionspotter that will help you to avoid getting surprised)
    TR: the lovely repeater

    for all: the underboss
  11. DeadlyPeanutt

    commissioner will kill close up and at range. but be accurate.
    head shots up close are way too much fun, just dance around as they try to shoot you with their carbine and shoot them in the back of the head