the firing delay is literally the only balancing factor of Slicer, it shouldn't be removed. its already a straight upgrade to Masthead in pretty much every way. higher DPS, higher velocity, higher RoF (even including the charge up.), no bullet drop, more ammo per mag, less damage drop off, no range limit.
Yes but how can the most skilled players on the VS flock to the weapon if it has downsides? It needs to have its downsides removed or else it wont be picked up and soar in performance as the bestest and skillest players are attracted and use such a bad meme weapon to show everyone else how its done!
That hasn't been my experience with it. The only AMR changes we need are a revert to the masthead unwarranted nerf, And DAGR should become automatic and have less damage drop off. Slicer needs no changes, if you remove the firing delay then you would need to nerf it's stats across-the board.
Masthead has higher damage per shot at all ranges. Yes the Slicer might have a higher DPS, but DPS depends on landing shots and as such only really comes into effect for stationary targets. Masthead has a slightly lower velocity - but is much easier to hit with due to the lack of a firing delay - as such in real world use, Masthead is likely to be more effective. Masthead also has indirect damage which the Slicer doesn't get. If you slightly miss with Slicer, you get no damage at all. Slightly miss with Masthead and you still deal some damage (and possibly get a kill on a low health target).
This is simply false. Slicer deals more damage per shot by around 300m (which isn't too far in the grand scheme of things) And by around 500m masthead projectiles will simply despawn, for context from the cliffs at Crown you cannot hit vehicles at Ceres Hydroponics, because that is around 600m) away. You only get the flak against air, and only within 2m of it, 2m is nothing in this game, a literal step. I have used both masthead and slicer for AA, and Slicer is far easier, no drop compared to heavy drop, much higher velocity, and higher DPS to boot. With the nerf to flak range from to 4m to 2m the flak is actually a detriment. I'd rather the tiny 2m flak not exist since it doesn't really help with hitting the target and simply lowers the damage.
Not it doesn't - I plotted out the damage models. The closest they get in terms of damage per shot is at 250m, but even here, the Masthead still deals 7 more damage per shot. At 300m, the Masthead does 25 more damage per shot. Actually, you get flak damage up to 3m, it's only below 2m that you get maximum damage - however it still represents a hit (and possible kill) where the slicer would miss altogether. It represents probably a doubling or more of the hit box for something like a Scythe, especially from the front or side
Slicer does 325 Anti-Materiel damage after 300m, against ESF and Valkyrie that is 406 damage per shot while a Liberator only takes the basic 325 damage. Masthead does 175 Flak damage at all ranges(though times out a bit past 500m) which against ESF is 490 damage, 350 damage against Valkyrie and 306 damage against a Liberator. So the damage thing is a bit "up in the air". Masthead is definitely better against ESFs in most situations though. Flak detonation is still an area around the target which makes it much easier to hit them since you only need to almost hit. The drop on the Masthead isnt that bad either, max range with the stock scope you use like the 3rd pip to aim. It has drop but its not really an issue. Masthead velocity = 450m/s Slicer velocity = 480m/s "much higher velocity" Not really, the charge up time when you fire is more likely to make you miss than the extra 30m/s will make you hit the target both against close and long range. Again the damage/DPS of the Slicer kinda depends, it does have a 0.6 faster rechambering but it also has that 0.3 charge up time so its really only a 0.3 seconds difference. I cant be arsed to do the math on different ranges and targets but the answer would basically be: "It depends". Flak being a detriment is similarly "It depends", ESF you would do less damage to(438 vs 490) but a bit more against Valkyrie(438 vs 350) and Liberator(350 vs 306). Losing the larger hitbox with flak detonation would likely not be worth it for the slightly higher damage against Valks and Liberators, especially considering how much harder it would be to hit ESFs + losing damage against them. The thing I dont like with the Slicer is that its 'thing' is supposed to be a bonus against infantry but with it only doing 425 damage with a 2.4x headshot multiplier = 1020 damage with headshots. It also loses ~0.35 damage per meter past 15m so already around the 72m range it will not kill with headshots anymore, sure 72m is quite decent range still but its an insult on top of the real issue which is that it NEVER kills on headshots if someone is using Aux Shield. This is a big issue since as with most of the AM-Rifles the main way of using it against infantry is the 1 hit headshot kills so having people 'randomly' surviving them is very much not great(Linecutter has the same problem but its gimmick is at least great against MAXes). I do not really want to take a side on this discussion though, Slicer having the charge up is a big drawback but I dont think it would be wise to remove it as a buff either but I think it should get a slight headshot multiplier buff to deal with Aux shield. The charge up could be removed with a attachment instead, one that brings other drawbacks like perhaps removing the piercing, lowering velocity a bit etc to make it more snappy without giving it any real advantage over the others. Similarly the Masthead should get a attachment/ammo choice of Flak or not to extend the range and reducing drop and such. DAGR just needs a lot of love, wont even try to fix that one up but auto might be the thing.[/quote]
except you're not factoring in the no-brainer Slicer attachment which boosts its velocity to 576. so its 450 v 576, no small difference. you're correct about the damage per shot, my math was off there, but on literally everything else, Slicer wins. its far easier to land shots with due to far superior velocity and lack of drop (compared to masthead's massive drop) it has much greater range since masthead's shots simply vanish at around 500m and it deals higher DPS at all ranges, coupled with higher RoF, and more ammo per mag this thing doesn't need a buff, VS just need attitude adjustments to not think everything they have is junk when they've been handed gold.
Yeah thats true for the velocity, honestly completely forgot about the ammo on the Slicer being a thing. Even more of a reason to put the "remove charge up" as a secondary ammo type just like the Mastheads Flak/no Flak ammo.
Just felt I needed to correct myself, for whatever reason I said earlier that the Slicer could 1 hit kill up to 72m which is just completely wrong. It wont even 1 hit kill at 40m, need to be 36-37m or less to 1 hit kill with the Slicer. Masthead on the other hand 1 hit kills up to 142-143m. So.. whoops, knew it seemed odd when I wrote it because it didnt feel like the Slicer had that much range when I tested it and turns out that yeah, it definitely doesnt.
but lets be real, with the heavy drop and *** velocity you won't be sniping people with masthead much further than 40m anyway. i've had this talk on reddit before and someone was saying as you are now that masthead can snipe people at 130m+ well there is can and then there is "can". ReaperDMR "can" kill in 3 shots at 150m, you just won't ever do it in actual gameplay. i've played quite a bit with both slicer and masthead, and easily prefer slicer, for AV, for AI and even AA now. before the masthead flak nerf I preferred masthead for AA, 4m flak range wasn't much, but atleast it was a little bit of wiggle room. but now i prefer slicer for literally everything. imho slicer is fine as is, masthead needs its flak nerfs reverting and DAGR needs to be made automatic, have its ROF increased a little and have its drop off reduced so it can atleast beat Slicer for DPS, since it currently has nothing going for it besides max TTK.
Depending on your resolution and such, Masthead hits heads around the 140m range with the first pip on the stock sight and mostly level ground, that is not heavy drop but yes you wouldnt typically be trying for kills that far away but that only means there is even less drop at the closer ranges that you would use it at, for example 40-80m while you can still counter snipe with it or pick off Engineers on turrets, people stationary repairing/reviving etc at really long ranges. Slicer not being effective at +40m is garbage for a weapon with forced minimum 6x scope and a 0.3 second delay, 0-40m is still well within Carbine/Assault/LMG range and most people wont stand there while you chamber and fire again at them which takes 1.5 seconds if you try to use the one advantage you are supposed to have which is "range". Really curious what infantry situations you are using it to prefer it over a 1 hit kill weapon without a delay when you fire. Seems kinda like taking the Railjack into close range combat which should be fairly universally agreed to be a terrible idea.. and it only has a 0.2 delay too. Tbh with such a short range I think it might be best to just embrace the drawback and go full shotgun with it instead, slap on a Laser and not use the high velocity ammo. Aim high and hope the slightly larger bullet and penetration can get you some fun multi headshot kills up close. Perhaps the devs knew what they were doing when they named it the Slicer, it was not a rifle but a knife all along!
Fun fact, the slicer will have to travel 406 meters to ovetake a masthead, even with the improved velocity ammo. The delay makes it so it's always playing catch up in the only areas that resonably matter. This is also why the railjack is just worse than the normal BASR. The extra velocity don't matter when it's playing catchup.
Nerfing the Empire Specific AMR on VS, keeping them buffed on TR/NC, and buffing TR tanks with Dual and Quad Cannons to make them win alerts did really nothing. There should be absolute zero firing delay like the rest.
the only faction specific AMR which has been nerfed is Masthead. its hipfire accuracy was nerfed, its flak damage was nerfed, its flak aoe range was nerfed, its velocity was nerfed, its range was nerfed. slicer has never been nerfed. and no it should not have its firing delay removed, as mentioned it already stomps masthead for DPS, velocity, lack of drop, more ammo per mag, and now you want to give it .3s faster RoF? hell no. what are you talking about? slicer outDPSes masthead at every range. you aren't playing catchup when you have a faster RoF. if masthead and slicer both press the fire button at the same time, slicer fires its second shot sooner than masthead. by the time masthead has fired all 4 of the shots in its tiny mag slicer is beginning to fire its 5th, with still another shot left before reload.
Why are you using DPS as some major metric when AMRs have either been anti max weapons or if you play the over-powered faction a flak gun. The only AMR that existed for a long time was only really a Anti max gun, the recent headshot buff made people use them as a bootleg snipers, which the masthead is also better at than the slicer.
I doubt many VS would object to having the refire delay increased by 0.6 seconds to make it the same as the Masthead even if only the charge delay was removed and it gained like 30-40m on its 1 hit kill range. I think the point was more for use against infantry, where 1 hit kill is a thing so the delay on the Slicer makes it higher velocity fairly pointless unless the target is ~400m away and anything closer it would just be better to have a Masthead since its shots will arrive faster/earlier than the Slicers. Put that into the more likely use of a Slicer in infantry combat and the range is actually less than 40m, 10/10 people would rather have the Masthead since you might be dead before the Slicer even fires. Anyway, its partially due to this that I have and will maintain my stance on it being a big mistake of buffing the AM-rifles to 1 hit kill potential. They should not be 'good' against infantry and as seen here it even becomes a balancing issue making some of them less viable than others even though its good against vehicles.
