I can't understand this weapon. Its got a much lower RoF than most other 143 damage LMG's, but only 652 RPM. You would think that this would mean it would be easy to control and extremely stable, but alas, its not. This weapon either needs its horizontal recoil reduced significantly, or it needs a faster RPM. Why does every 143 damage NC weapon need to be horrible?
143/652 often sucks in general bad by horizontal recoil, bad damages degradation (weak at mid-long range) low DPS (weak at close-mid range), whatever the faction. They're mostly there for ppl that are bad to compensate vertical recoil. (low ROF and Low vert recoil per shot) NS weapons non-included by getting better recoils, great COFs and 0.75 ADS move mult. Fortunately the game give others choices for skilled players.
It's not horrible, imo. I very much like the EM-1. It's not tops in DPS or rate of fire, and it's not accurate enough to be used effectively at long range. These are its major drawbacks. This means that the EM-1 is not ideal to use at long or very short ranges. For everything in between these though, the weapon works very well. So essentially we have a weapon that excels at close-mid to midrange, but there are a ton of LMG's in the NC arsenal that excel at the same range, so in reality the question is what would make someone pick the EM-1 over something like the EM-6, GD-22S, Anchor, or Gauss SAW S? Simply, it's the EM-1's combination of a huge magazine and an obscenely fast reload speed for a magazine of that size. This is the EM-1's specialty. This is what it can do that no other LMG can. When it comes to spamming bullets at the enemy with very little downtime, no LMG can beat the EM-1. On the offense, this lets you play very aggressively. You can keep on pushing forward without having to worry about your mag running dry during back to back firefights or ducking back to manage a lengthy reload once you start running low. On the defense, it allows for very effective overwatch of chokepoints and bottlenecks. You have plenty of ammo to hose down anyone who comes through, and your reload time is so short that there is little risk of someone slipping past while your weapon is down. In the end, the EM-1's only real flaw is that most players don't value the area that it excels in. People get so caught up on DPS, RoF, recoil, CoF, and bloom that they don't take into consideration extremely useful (imo) stat synergies like are found on the EM-1. Even if they're a little lackluster overall, the weapon's "important" stats are good enough to make it viable, and from that point on, how well you do with it is entirely dependent on how capable you are of playing to the weapon's strength.
Wrel made a video with lots of tips for good usage of the EM1, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?=1&v=wJXDJjqYl9o
Why anyone would use the EM1 over the EM6/Anchor is beyond me. It's a horrible weapon compared to the Gauss SAW/Anchor/EM6.
I've just aurax'd my em6 and i'm looking for another weapon. Generally i buy just the one gun and use that to death before moving on. I've already got aurx on the gauss saw, gd-22s as well so all the ones held at high regard have been taken. I'm slightly miffed at what to get next. I could go Gauss saw s but i've got the stock one and i can fall to gd-22s or the em6 for other things as they have the same damage output. The EM1 i'm getting cold feet on as it has weak damage and bad rep its getting. The anchor is a close quarter specialist weapon that i find surprisingly effective when i use a 3.4 scope alone as the recoil felt predictable. There is the ns weapon which feels wonderful and is as tight as a drum when comes to shooting at all ranges. But the problem with that is its damage output (but i suppose if every bullet hits, it doesn't really matter). Of course, all opinions made thus far have been via training room rather then say, in real combat where the story could change very quickly. The advantage of buying the EM1 is at least its cheap, i could afford gauss saw s as well. But frankly i rather get it right the first time. The anchor and ns weapons are 1000 certs which at the pace i play could take months to obtain. Granted, i have 7000+ unspent certs but damn it, i'm not blowing certs just because i need to (the choice paradox springs to mind...). I've already invested enough in the engineer class and the medic class and i barely use them. I could outfit my HA with more stuff but lvl 5 stuff is frankly a waste of certs and diminishing returns. I'll just have to trial them all and see what happens. or aurx all the other classes which i don't use or play often. Too many people play HA so i rarely play as the other classes as i get gunned down by them.
I quite like it. There are couple cases where its viable. I use extended mags and soft point only and only use it when I'm camping rooms or outnumbered. The kills to reload ratio is pretty awesome, you can sometimes stack up 15 odd kills without reloading just from suppressing doorways. Its still a piece of **** though.
You hit it on the head. The EM1 is good with Ex. Mags, but don't expect to kill anything reliably. The EM1 is a medium-range bullet hose and It works well in support roles, but in solo play, it is somewhat underwhelming. It doesn't have very low TTK, so I have found it works best on unwary enemies. This means a suppressor, and a much more sneaky playstyle. Getting flanking positions and moving around will help you get kills and thin out enemy positions, allowing your teammates to push in past you an crush any resistance. However, in a 1-on-1 skirmish, you will not stand a chance agains CARVs, TMGs, Orions, or SVAs. I get the feeling the EM1 was meant to be a gun for relatively new players, or players who cannot aim very well, or can't keep bullets on the tanget. This does make sense, because lets face it, the SAW, out off all the starter weapons, probably takes the most aim skill to be most effective, and the EM1 is very very easy to use, helping new players get the certs they need to do anything.
I just aux'd it and have had a good time playing with it. Fun in CQ with the adv laser. Run like h3ll and spray from the hip. In a tower or the like I prefer to hip fire, walk into my enemy, and finish with a knife.
I have aurax with EM6 and SAW as well, almost there on GD-22S. I'm probably going Anchor with adv. laser next - seems like it's a straight up superior GD-22S. The EM1 is garbage compared to the EM6 and there's next to no reason to use the SAW S over the SAW, so to me there's really no other viable choices IMO.
THE Best Suppresive weapon in the game is the SAW, due to it's high damage, mag size and Low RoF which allows you a longer a time of fire. The best weapon to control firing lanes is an Ex.Mags EM6. The best weapon for tower fights is the Anchor. All perform well at direct fire, dropping targets with effiency, but with diffrent Optimal ranges, with the Anchor at CQC, the EM6 performs well at All ranges but will outperformed by the SAW at long range. 75m+ and the Anchor at CQC Any NC worth his salt won't go near a 143 damage or god forbid 125 damage weapons. True NC pack the 167 or 200 damage guns, only the wimps and girly men who can't handle recoil use the EM1, NS 15 or the Blitz. Same with the other clasees. Go play Space **** or Sceintologist for 143 damage guns.
weird, I do find it easy to control and very stable and I don't use the grip either. Surprisingly doable at longer ranges like 100m if you have to, but not it's optimal range of course. This weapon keeps coming up and the usually hate keeps appearing along with it. Personally, I like it a lot. EM1 is my favorite along with the Anchor. Strangely I don't like the EM6 that much although it's a decent weapon.
TTK differences between the Anchor and EM1 range are never greater than .07 seconds. For non-Infiltrators, the TTK difference for NW0 is .04 seconds and for NW5 is .03 seconds. In the worst case scenario, Heavies with NW5 running Resist Shield, the difference is .07 seconds. So, the damage between the two weapons is basically the same. Lag, positioning, and so on are way more important than the imperceptibly minor differences in TTK. The important differences between the guns, then, are hipfire accuracy, magazine size, and reload speed. I use the EM1 because I'm willing to trade a slightly better hipfire accuracy for double the bullets in each mag and faster reloads. With ALS I don't have any complaints about the EM1's accuracy. I mean, sure - it's no SMG, but neither is the Anchor. With the EM1 I have a gun that supports my aggressive style with fewer and shorter reloads. With this gun, you will rarely get caught in the middle of a reload. I'm sure my faster reloads and 100-round mags have saved me far more times than my 30-nanosecond longer TTK has killed me. Also, the EM1 is great at suppressive fire, and the Anchor is not, so that defensive option is another reason I love my EM1.
I think a lot of the EM1 hate is simply group-think. People often fall in with what seems like the prevalent opinion without thinking the matter through themselves. Also, people may have not updated their opinions since the major gun re-balancing a few months ago.
The difference is actually .05 seconds for NW 0 and .08 seconds for NW 5+resist shield. But the lower your hit % goes, the larger the TTK difference will be. With 50% accuracy, you will be looking at .06 seconds for NW 5, .1 seconds for NW 0 and .15 seconds for NW5+resist shield. And with the more realistic but still relatively high accuracy of 33%, you will be at .09 seconds for NW 5, .14 seconds for NW 0 and .23 seconds for NW 5 + resist shield. These differences will also be noticeably widened by the superior bullet spread of the Anchor in every department. You can't compensate for bullet spread without lowering your ROF, which makes your TTK lower anyway. All this for a 70% increase in damage per magazine, which the Anchor has enough of to potentially kill 8 enemies. I'd say that if you are going to kill a great number of people within such a short period of time that you can't spend 3 seconds reloading, you're going to have to be very accurate or they will kill you first. If you're up against 3-4 guys, the Anchor will have enough ammo and DPS to kill them all. If you run out of ammo before you get the last kill, you likely aren't accurate enough to dish out enough damage with the EM1 to survive such a fight anyway. If you're up against 5-6 or more, well, unless they're scrubs you will probably die before you run out of ammo with the Anchor, and you'll probably die even sooner with the EM1 The EM1 actually reloads slightly slower.
