In any situation you can think of are they worth it? For me I am debating about it these days, I am currently mostly running stalker cloak, I am abit rusty I admit but I still know most of the tricks, where is best to hide etc. Sneaking behind people is not an issue its when I decloak and take someone out I have issues. Most people these days know EXACTLY how to counter a cloaker, people seem to have much better situational awareness than say 2 years ago, ofc people get better over time. The decloak sound is huge and obnoxious everyone knows and silenced weapons simply are not silent.. Today I have been trying different weapon mixes, the desperado, xbow and the backhand. The desperado is the most silent weapon especially if you turn off burst fire, with burst fire i was detected many times by its spammy sound alone without cloak. The xbow has such a unique sound i found if i ever used it behind enemy lines in medium range id have a search party after me as its a typical stalker weapon. Now the backhand is the most powerful weapon in my three here yet its the supposed to be the most loud. Its the most accurate and most damaging without the slow projectile speed of the xbow, its basically a poormans sniper rifle while also being a 4 clip commissioner. I was finding i was being detected with it in similar situations as the silenced weapons however i was evading detection in similar situations as well.... Surprisingly.. I am thinking the meta has shifted less from map detection and more to sound awareness. With such a current meta and having almoat everything i do make some sort of stupid noise (equiping knife lol) why should i ever use a less powerful, less dynamic weapon for the silencer bonus??
i never have any trouble with the X-bow, using it everywhere with no problem it's the decloak sound that turns heads the desperado is the only gun i don't have so i can't help you there and for the blackhand i only use it for long range so no problem for me the biggest problem for the stalker is it's decloak sound my solution to it is decloak, quick kill and run behind a corner, throw a mine and move again sometimes i use the sound to call enemy's in my trap but most of the time i am moving from kill to kill i don't play my stalker like most players, sneaking and kill one hoping nobody sees me i play it like a smg infil, go in for a kill if nobody sees me i kill the next one and the next one if they see me i run away to safety to do it again a moment later always running using the element of surprise while using my cloak as a camo not trying to be invisible and the X-bow knife combo works the best for my play stile
I agree the xbow is a powerful weapon but I am finding that the sound of it is that distinct other good players know its a stalker and start coming for you. I have had times where in the heat of a big battle people don't turn their heads to the blackhands sound because its more widely used as a secondary (commi same sound). And at ranges where the xbow sound would be hardly noticable you are already in range where the blackhand is vastly superior. So if at close range against decent players, both weapons will probably cause a reaction of decent players why limit my self to an xbow which does less damage? Against nano weave at range its not two shot kill, I've even had it where I head shot and body shot some one and they are still standing. Don't know I used to swear by ''silenced'' weapons and I think since the game has moved on maybe they are not as good as they used to be. I would say in a situation where you are one of the only players around a base of course using a blackhand will probably get you caught quicker but in that situation you can always swap to your knife.
We are looking at an apples to oranges situation where both weapons permit you to work either ranged or close quarters with some degree of overlap. However in both cases these weapons are inferior to each other where they do not excel. Silencers really only come to play in CQC or in rare situations at range where you are trying to play off someones assumptions. TLDR: People should pick the crossbow for synergy with EMP, Mines, and (classic) knife kills. Basically for indoor work. Crossbow is great because no other weapon we stalkers have access to can clear buildings so easily. Just because the crossbow can be used at range doesn't mean it excels at doing this. The amount of mental energy and hair pulling to get it to land shots at moving targets at a distance is unrealistic for newbies to pick up and enjoy. 2weeks-2months worth of use at minimum to "know" the weapon enough to do passingly well with it at range. Really the crossbow excels closer up when paired with other combat aids. The closer you are the less mental guesswork it takes to hit moving enemies. Within 35 meters you can even naturally lead targets with it. Hipfire on the crossbow is more accurate then the blackhand for CQC. The crossbow does 650 (up to 35 meters away) even with nanoweave resistance factored in still equals = 520 damage which still means 100% assured body shot + knife combos. The silenced thing is kinda weird but it helps add just a touch of ambiguity when it comes to melee combat. The silencer only works for enemies outside 10 meters. Usually those enemies close enough to detect it are looking at their death-screen shortly after anyway. However where it pays off is regarding their allies nearby won't know your exact position. Did their friends die from being shot through the window? Since they are too far away to detect the crossbow on the mini map they have no idea exactly where you are. Which allows you to re-position and take advantage of their assumptions. <--- (huge advantage btw) So as they go to check the window or obvious entry point you counter and open on them too. TLDR: People should pick the Blackhand for ranged work. (Especially when the battle is moving quickly and front lines fluctuate) The Blackhand is the polar opposite. It excels at range and everything about it is meant for ranged work. We as stalkers can offset its longer reload timer and tiny mag with the ability to cloak and hide. Who cares if the weapon isn't silenced! <3 By the time the enemy makes up the distance to your position you could be anywhere. Especially with the changes to cloaked crouch walking.Leading targets, no problem Headshot multiplier x2 damage. The fire rate is much better.... Also consider that a stalker using a crossbow will generally flash cloak twice as much (at range) as someone using a Blackhand. Blackhand you headshot open + bodyshot kill... then recloak to hide. Crossbow user will typically fire, cloak, fire cloak again. GIVEN how loud and obvious cloak is .... even without a silencer Blackhand is seriously going to come out on top in terms of how obvious you are making yourself. Id also like to mention the Blackhand has better accuracy while you are moving left and right (strafing) then the crossbow. So your rewarded with the blackhand for being more evasive while making an ambush from a ranged position. The crossbow requires you to almost be crouched and completely motionless to make accurate shots at distant targets. Saying this I would never want to take a Blackhand into a building and or try and clear a point without say ... maybe... a power knife handy? Just the same as I would never take a power knife on a crossbow pairing because that swing delay is completely unnecessary and would nerf my ambushes. I have observed one infil pushing the limits with his blackhand for indoor work. He wasn't trying to knife with it but maintained headshot openers + body shot follow ups from cover. The only issue he was having was enemies would often seek cover screwing up his finisher. (Flanking potential diminished) Once they had swarmed us he wasn't able to respond accurate on the fly because x4 scope which zoomed him in all the time. He tried hipfiring but the blackands hipfire was worse then the crossbow... You see where this is going... He died... over and over again. The power knife suggestion was made so at least when people get up in your business its possible to defend yourself and be evasive w/o being punished for it. Not to mention he could deal with enemies closer up w/o wasting a ton of ammo. Sadly his reponse to me was he didn't have the certs for it yet. I'm sure most of the people reading this board are to the point skill wise where ammo conservation is on your mind. Anyway I am rambling I dont think a silencer is nessary when your working from range and you have time and distance to fake someone out. I do like having one CQC because its easier to take advantage of someones assumptions especially if that person is aware and hunting you already. Silencers don't matter on the first unaware target you gib, but they tend to matter later on when you are killing a group of people one by one.
I use suppressor on ES pistols when playing stalker - I'm either getting better at escaping after a kill in a crowded fight or it is helping me to evade retaliation due to lack of noise and not showing on the minimap. The effective range of a pistol is not likely to be badly affected by the lower bullet velocity so I'm thinking where's the downside? A silenced burst pistol in particular is seriously good fun and deadly if you don't mind getting up quite close.
Thanks for everones insight, it has given me stuff to think about. Yes beaver I am using power knife for cqc, i am still abit **** with the knife but i hope to improve in the future, the blackhand though i am falling in love with. I don't get why but i can stay behind enemy lines embedded in thr zerg for a long time without being detected with it. I used to be an avid user of the gauss spr and last i had a chance to check i was rank 2 in kills with it. The blackhand has a very similar playstyle to it and its range is only hampered by its short scope though i can kill out to 200m with ease. I find it easy to cqc with it too so for me it seems perfect.
I guess suppressors are situational. I tend to avoid using them on weapons if it trashes their performance too heavily (as an example, I never used one on the Eridani because I really enjoyed having a 15m max damage range on the thing). For sidearms I guess it doesn't matter too much, as you need to get pretty darn close with most of them kill quickly anyway. The crossbow might have a pretty distinct sound profile but it is rather quiet nonetheless. Probably quieter than most suppressed empire-specific weapons. I'm a big advocate of it as a Stalker weapon. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it have a higher per-shot damage than the Blackhand?
As I sneak see it, all boils down to your personal playstyle preference. Whether you'd like to play more aggresively or conservatively. At some point you can just brute force yourself into not being noticed by simply doing something so absurd enemies won't even think you're hostile in given scenario, silencer is more or less pointless there. However since I'm exhausted due to circumstances of New Year, I'll shamelessly post you two excepts from my playsessions illustratin' when I use silencer and when I don't, instead of explaining in detail. Here you got one when I got annoyed enough with my bad aim at given evening to go up close and personal, most kills are knife which doesn't really show on minimap afaik. Although targets got few times primed with SAS-R and .357 which didn't have suppressor also EMP in order to boost sensory overload of hostiles. At the end I died since I made a mistake of gettin' too greedy since FINALLY there was someone not blind. Also props for good guy LA there attempting to breach that room, instead of all pumpkin head fwont whine soldiers in this vid. Aand then there is me GFA[general fockin' foolin' around] as stalker in completely lazy mode for my standards. Nothing impressive, just some sideline of battle painting snow with purple blood. Mainly got the footage due to kinda funny moment with magrider "you're not getting in way of my kill you floating pancake" of shooting from underneath it. Long story short, it depends whether ye want to bait people with your minimap blip/don't give them enough chance to register it or whether you want to be risky but in kinda relaxed way with more space left for mistakes. Hope this helps kinda-ish.
From a numbers standpoint, pistols are very affected. While the velocity doesn't matter much, the max damage range is usually rather short, and takes a -5m penalty from the suppressor. A suppressor will reduce max damage to 3m in quite a few cases. This is not such a big issue if your gun has a high rate of fire (Repeater/Amp), because the TTK doesn't increase all that much with those; but the hard-hitting, slow RoF ones? It hurts them a lot. The Cerberus in particular takes a very heavy hit from the suppressor. Stats-wise, the pistols which would imply suppressor use the most would be the Rebel and Emperor on one hand (15m default max damage range), and the Repeater/Amp on the other (high RoF).
As far as I know, the xbow has i think 1.5x head shot multiplier and the pistol 2x for the head???? Don't quote me I've been super casual for the past year on PS2. I usualy always aim for the head even in cqc, I 'normally' hit it but if I don't I am dead anyway and would have probably missed a body shot too. Hehehe your first video reminds me of how I used to play before stalker was introduced, I'd sometimes just go into ''frak it'' mode and rush in CQC with my Gauss SPR and knife haha... I can't do that now yet, out of practice.
Ah, interesting information, thanks. I guess I just haven't noticed because I tend to stalk up to within point blank range and hammer away with burst pistols (lotsa bullets.)
Putting a suppressor on any gun is a trade off between effective range and not showing up on the minimap. If you are working with others in your faction, you may want to go unsuppressed. If you are flanking from behind, independent of friendlies, a muzzle might be the way to go. It won't help you kill; it will help you survive.
I pretty much use Blackhand for everything. It does more dmg then a commissioner per shot out to like a 100 yards. Most importantly with either pistol if you don't kill a enemy with your first 3 shots you are most likely dead anyway. It does the shot shot knife combo just as well. Only real downside is the slightly larger hipfire cone. Of course I stay at range where possible but I don't hesitate to sit on points with it. As for silencers, ironically those are best for classes that don't have stealth. Pair a silencer with Radar shield and you are almost as stealthy as a infil.
Yeah I believe that's right. However even counting the lower headshot multiplier, if you can land a headshot with the crosbow it will deal 75 more points of damage than a Blackhand headshot, due to the considerably higher per-shot damage (650*1.5, compared to the Blackhand's 450*2). Still, crossbow certainly isn't without its drawbacks. I've not used the Blackhand myself but I can imagine it being far easier to land ranged shots with. Hat off to you for doing so well with the Gauss SPR, not a weapon many seem to get on well with (myself included)!
I used to LOVE the gauss spr ha, great little weapon, I was a beast with it before though now im out of practice I'll admit. Now I have re-rolled to vanu since its great to be purple, i got to br 91 on my NC but felt like a change. Vanu also have the lightsaber knife which is ******* amazing. Still using the blackhand and my main roll is stalker, was messing around with the ghost as its pretty cool but yeah Blackhand stalker for the ******* win. Agree with you on silencers seems like there really is no point to them for infiltrators unless you are not a stalker and camping in an enemy's tower or something.
Fighting as Infiltrator without silenced weapon is like making love without condom... It is unsave but makes more fun unless you have a problem and you wish you had better used one.
