[Discussion] Gladius

There seems to be a lot of contention surrounding the Gladius and its effectiveness. Personally I rather hate it and I find it to be exceptionally terrible. I base this opinion on 1280 kills with it and ~27 hours of use (though how much of that time was spent firing it I cannot say).

Now, before I delve into the numbers let me preface this by saying this: If you like the Gladius, great. I'm not saying one would be wrong for liking the Gladius, just that I don't agree.

The Gladius was designed as a long-range accuracy-demanding weapon with zero range and awful accuracy.

The Gladius has a long-range damage profile of 200DMG/522RPM with a magazine size of only 26 with a long and short reload of 3s/2s respectively. But with a maximum damage range of a mere 6m, dropping down four damage tiers to a minimum damage of 112 at a range of 50m, and an atrocious projectile velocity of 400m/s the weapon’s effective range is very short, contrary to all other 200/~500RPM weapons. Before any modifiers, the bullets to kill assuming perfect accuracy ranges from 5-9 with bodyshots.

The Gladius is also the most inaccurate infantry primary weapon in the game, featuring an initial CoF of 0.35 in all stances with the loathsome bloom per shot value of 0.07. With its craptastic recoil, it is the most inaccurate infantry weapon of any type, second only to the T4 AMP automatic sidearm with its 0.1 initial CoF and monstrous bloom of 0.08 per shot. It does not reward accuracy.

It is significantly worse than all other 200/~500RPM primaries and is worse than both of the other two NC SMGs --Cyclone & Blitz-- in almost all respects. In terms of TTK:


[Assuming 100% accuracy within each weapon's maximum damage range.]

At first glance the differences may be small, but the importance of the numbers is in the fact that the Gladius requires the same or longer amounts of time to kill in an ideal scenario. Add in the inferior ADS and hipfire accuracy of the Gladius and the difference rapidly grows.

While the Gladius does have fairly OK recoil due to a vertical recoil value fairly lower than the average for 200/~500 weapons, its horizontal recoil is actually the worse of all 200/~500 primaries having the highest min and max values of all 200/~500 weapons at 0.22/0.35 respectively with a very average tolerance of 0.5 comparatively.

The Gladius' FSM is also slightly above average for 200/~500s at 1.6x. The values come from the Tross' 1.33x, the AC-X11 & Reaper's 1.5x,and the SAWs' 1.65x. Compared to the Cyclone and Blitz, the Gladius' recoil is on the low end of average.

All the Gladius has going for it is 0.75x ADS and a very slightly higher maximum theoretical DPS compared to other 200/500 guns. There is really little reason to ever choose this weapon over another, in my opinion.

And yet some say the Gladius is great and that they enjoy it. Legit question, why? Couldn't be for its stats surely.

Part of it is likely attached to its current status of being the best SMG for stealth. I mean, the hybrid suppressor doesn't have a range penalty attached to it like a normal suppressor, this things got the best velocity of any SMG in game ( tied for base, but can get up to 600m/s last I checked), and it can completely negate the hybrid suppressors velocity penalty.

Originally, it was the NS-7 that held that title, before the mk5 replaced it in that role. Now, there is a strong argument in favour of the gladius holding that title.

I am a little surprised though that it does not align with the standard 0.3 base and 0.05 bloom of most SMG's though.

Thats because a 0.3 cof would make it the most accurate 200dmg weapon in the game on the move.
and the 0.05 bloom is only for 143 damage weapons and for 125 damage ones. 167 damage guns bloom 0.06 and 200 damage guns bloom 0.07

Looking again, the bloom part does make sense, and I guess with the 0.35 as well. Just kinda seems odd since most other SMG's adhere to the same cof, regardless of damage model.

many 143 and 167 carbines and assault rifles have a 0.3 or even a 0.25 stand move CoF, so the SMGs do not gain anything over them from having a static 0.3 CoF. for example both the Trac 5 and the Merc have a stand move CoF of 0.3, but the merc has much better crouched, crouched move and stand CoFs. same is true for the "light carbines" which have a 0.75x ADS movespeed.
meanwhile the 200 damage guns all have a stand move cof of 0.32, so the 0.35 of the gladius is a bit worse. however: there was no 0.75x ADS movespeed 200 damage weapon before and i assume the slight reduction in accuracy is to counteract the better ADAD- ability of the gladius.

*puts hand up* Gladius user here.

Sometimes the way the gun feels gets lost in all the stats.

For me it just seems familiar. Like I've used this gun through out my fps gaming life in other games. Yes it's unforgiving. It kicks like a mule, but it also hits like a mule.

Infil, ps4, DS controller.

I use my Gladius with a 2x red dot, NO suppressor, vertical grip and SPRW ammo.

The low rate of fire makes the recoil feel very manageable compared to other weapon types and the high muzzle velocity makes hitting moving targets much easier. While I can see that the ADS cone of fire is larger than with other weapons, the fact that I use the Gladius at close ranges and generally aim for the torso instead of the head makes this disadvantage trivial for me.

It just feels nice all around and hits like a train.

I don't really agree. In my opinion, the very short maximum damage range and dreadful ADS accuracy with a 400m/s muzzle velocity at best seems counter-intuitive. A suppressed Cyclone would likely have a greater effective range while still being universally more accurate and an MKV would be more accurate still. The MKV also has the benefit of not being a faction-specific gun, giving off NS sounds and white tracers.

I guess if the user got really close it'd be dangerous, but never moreso than a Cyclone in the same situations.

No, it wouldn't.

Nothing that hasn't been said before.

Except cyclone loses significant damage range while suppressed, because its a normal suppressor. That's the main draw of the hybrid suppressor. It doesn't drop your minimum or maximum damage ranges at all ( normal suppressor drops max damage range by 10m and minimum by 25m). So a cyclone would deal minimum damage at about 21 meters, instead of 46 while suppressed, and would never do max damage, while the gladius would retain its normal range numbers. Those ranges also beat out the mk5 by a huge margin, with the mk5 dealing minimum damage at 30 meters, compared to the 50 meters of the gladius. So range and velocity wise ( thanks to SPWR), it is by far the best stealth SMG.

As for 200 damage accuracy... saying it would be the most accurate is not entirely false. 0.3 base cof would beat the moving crouched ADS spread of every other weapon with a 200dmg profile.

All this time I thought suppressors only affected min damage range. Screw these in-game descriptions. It shouldn't take a dev who knows the game more than a week to fix every description in the game. That would be the best patch ever. Where did you find this info?

The official wiki. I have also found from practical experience that it is consistent with gameplay.
https://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Suppressor

Completely agreed on it being the best patch ever.

Hard to say really. If we make the assumption that at roughly 10 meters the damage will drop to 143 (don't know how accurate that is) it could still be a more practical weapon just due to the RoF and accuracy differences alone. It'd just be one more shot than normal. Soft point ammo could also be used with a bit more practicality than on a suppressed Gladius without the huge 50% penalty of a hybrid, but it'd still be about 25% lower velocity.

I'd also argue it's range would still be better than the Gladius because it would have a much lower likelihood of missing the headshots it'd get out of a stealth kill. --Anecdotal, but I sure missed a lot of headshots shooting down from the grassy rooftops in biolabs with the Gladius.-- MKV would be more "background noise" than an NC SMG would be though, is what I mean. Yeah, it's pretty weak damage wise.

Whoops, misread that sentence! Sorry Prud, you're technically right.

Thought he said "in the game" again. Regardless though, it's a meaningless statement. If the CoF was lower yeah. But it isn't, the Gladius still has a 0.35 initial CoF.

SMG suppresors behave slightly different. they reduce max damage range by 4 meters and min damage range by 10.

it's still more accurate than the gauss saw and has 0.75x ADSmov

I spent in the past some time in VR comparing side by side Gladius/Blitz/Cyclone/NS-7 PDW firing at "distance" (30m) and surprisingly the Gladius -to me- seemed more precise compared to Blitz and Cyclone. Blitz being the most annoying weapon due to its left-right shaking that cannot be controlled. Cyclone is better, but Gladius is better than Cyclone.

NS-7 PWD -IMHO- it still king in terms of precision (of course, not in terms of DPS). So at the end I decided to purchase the Gladius as the go-to weapon for Infiltrators. Time will tell.

I feel the same way. All the numbers being thrown around about its handling and accuracy just don't seem to represent how the gun feels when I use it. According to its awful damage numbers it should especially suck at range, but it does surprisingly well for me. It definitely sucks up close though, especially if you go for body shots.

I like the Gladius. The problem is that stats only tell half the story. The stats only tell you how the weapon should be handled for the best results. Every player has its own handling which fits the optimal handling more or less good. The result are discussions like this where some ppl realy like it because it fits their way of handling, while others dislike it because it doesnt fit their way of handling.

Why are you standing still in CQC?

In extreme CQC ADS accuracy can get away with being a little bit ****. Regardless, both the SAW and Gladius are laughably inaccurate on the move. The difference is that the SAW can burst and stutter-step while the Gladius.

Or, you know, we could be realistic and assume not every single fight with a long range gun occurs in point-blank encounters.

ah right i forgot. the Anchor is a terrible gun because it's too inaccurate to hit anything if you don't stand still.