Personal observations: Have been using the flare for a few weeks now, have a couple of sights, fwd grip, comp, soft and HV ammo. After using it to great effect with a number of combos, while discovering my personal weaknesses with different configs, my current set ups are: loadout1 NV sight, fwd grp, HV ammo... loadout2 x2 reflex, fwd grp, HV ammo.... loadout3 Lasher. The compensator works well, but the reduction in hip fire accuracy and prolonged enemy detection had killed me once too many times. I've found the best compensator in the long run is skill. Soft ammo works wonders in the right window, tears distracted maxes to shreds, but the slow speed of the rounds and reduced damage at range just didn't feel right to me. If you only stay at medium range eat it up, if you assault or hate seeing the enemy duck before your round hits... HV. I used to throw on a better sight for long range shots, but if I want to play sniper I found it is better to just change into an Infiltrator kit. A heavy getting tunnel vision usually results in a light assault making a deposit of lead to the back of your head; still a risk with the nv scope, but I only use at night or for infiltrator hunts.
Have to agree here. I use the Flare with a compensator, extended mag, sp ammo, and reflex sight and I mop up with it.
Why did you go ex mag and not forward grip? Seems to be a lot of discussion on soft point also. How do you find yourself fairing in close range?
I have demo`d the flare and decided to cert it. Just using iron sights on it for close range. Seems to work okay for me, will put on attachments later on when I get more certs. I like being in CQC and able to kill someone and see I still have 3/4 of a magazine left. Not having to reload as often is great over the orion. I have the 4x scope for the orion for mid range battle but swap out when in a base.
I've never really understood the forward grip tbh. The horizontal recoil is so minimal imo that it might as well not exist. I'm sure someone has a graph or a spreadsheet that proves me wrong, but when I sit and fire at a wall I see ~98% of the recoil going up and maybe 2% going to the side. The extended mag, on the other hand, is money to me. It means I rarely ever have to reload and I do it only when I know I'm safe. The real trick is breaking the habit of reloading automatically whenever you're not firing. With resist 4 or 5 and smart use of resto kits, you can stay alive well past 75 shots and into that extended mag I find. As far as close range goes, it's hard to say. I mean, I feel like I do very well in close range but when I really analyze that I find that it's due to play style, not so much the gun. In my mind (from PS1) the VS has always had mad accuracy. So to take advantage of that I try to avoid face to face (like 3m or closer) encounters - especially with NC. For example, if I'm on a point and I know someone is coming up the stairs, I will retreat to another room to get range on them instead of crashing head first down the stairs. I have found that between 5-20m the flare is just money. I also always go for headshots so that might be part of it too. Harder hitting bullets mean headshots are even more devastating. I've always used SP ammo and never had any issue killing targets at range. It did take getting used to with the flare and the compensator helps. I would also stick to the 2x reflex and/or NV scopes. HV may work better, I can't speak to that, but I can say that SP has worked very well for me so I haven't messed with it.
Forward grip was explained to me like this.... Your cone of fire is like a circle, and the forward grip makes it into an oval. SO you have less bullets flying off to the right and left. I asked the same question once because what I thought was recoil, didn't seem to exist horizontally. SO basically the forward grip puts more of your shots to the center of your target (still above and below it, just less to the right or left of it) Thank you for your reply! After a very successful trial, I really want to buy the flare. But I have the pulsar certed out and I do very well with it, and now that dbl XP is gone, I am being a mizer with my cert points. Basically I'm sitting on 400 right now.. and I'm debating on certing out the flare, or should I reduce my magburner timer to 35 seconds when I get 500. haha. Oh decisions decisions! I really enjoyed my flare trial though, I think I will be a much better marksman with it.. Thanks again AlphaMiC!
They're going by some old reddit post where the guy tested the SPA ammo without knowing the actual effect of it. The slower velocity of the bullets is what caused a 5% decrease in TTK, which people took to mean it reduced CQC damage. It does not. The same post claimed it showed a 15% increase to damage at medium range, which would only make sense if the poster considered medium range to be 15m away. Obviously the tests were bollocks. Soft Point Ammunition - SPA decreases bullet velocity by an unknown value, as well as extending the initial damage dropoff range for the weapon to 15m instead of 10m and reducing minimum damage by 1 tier (167 → 143, 143 → 125, 125 → 112, 112 → 100, 100 → 91) This is the correct definition of Soft Point Ammo. This video will display its effect on the game. You do not need to take the author's opinion as your own, his opinion that Soft Point Ammo sucks is purely an opinion. It is in fact better than regular ammo up to 20m distance and slowly begins to get worse after that, but not by much. At long range, you will require one extra bullet to kill someone, that's all. It's ideal for CQC setups and hipfire guns. http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/weapon-recoil-plots.74987/ You can see recoil plots here, they're for hipfire but they illustrate the effect horizontal recoil has and they are fairly accurate relationships between the weapons. Since a human is smaller horizontally than vertically, horizontal recoil has a much greater impact on accuracy than vertical recoil, especially at long range which weapons like the Flare are intended for. Having as little as possible, even if you think it's a miniscule difference up close shooting at a wall, will still improve your killing power at ranges beyond point blank.
my fully certed Flare is terrible at range even with a 6X scope the recoil is too much to fire more than 2 shots and by that time they are already looking for cover (im not sure how the sva 88 does i wish someone would post a video *wink*)
That's kind of the point of a long range oriented weapon that has great single shot accuracy. You're not supposed to fire it continuously, it's going to be bad at that. The Gauss SAW and TMG-50 operate the same way, a couple of shots here and there to snipe the target. If you want to hold down the firing button, use a different gun.
I used the SVA-88 on my Heavy till i got the 1000 Kill Medal, then picked up the Flare for which i now have a few hundred kills already aswell so here is my comparison: SVA-88 is great at Medium-long Range with Grip, HVA, Compensator and a Scope of your Choice. It has low Recoil and a small Cone of Fire even when firing at full auto. It does lack a bit of damage in Close Quarters and with the high rate of Fire i died quite a few times because i had to reload after killing a few guys. The Flare is a killer in Close Quarters. It does more damage per Bullet and you can kill more guys with a full Magazine. It is my choice of weapon in Bases and generally Indoor Fights. I use Grip, HVA and Compensator for it aswell. The HVA is really optional. I just use it for the higher Bullet Velocity. It does have more Recoil and a much higher Cone of fire than the SVA-88 which makes it not as good in Medium-Long ranges. At longer Ranges you really have to fire in bursts to Control your bullets unlike with the SVA-88 where you can go full auto and still hit the enemy. Summary: if you are looking for a good gun for all ranges that is "fun" and easy to use, get the SVA-88. If you are more a Close-and-personal Guy that can control his Trigger Finger and compensate the Recoil get the Flare. They are both good guns. You can't really go wrong with either of them.
Really? I thought the slower rate of fire would be asking for death with the flare in cqc..My HA sees cqc more than anything, I'm still using the Orion for its fast rof.was planning on buying the sva-88 to spec out and experiment with though.especially with the spa..
Thanks! Good to know - might swap from the extended mag to fwd grip and see what happens. +1 for helpful posts!
The bad thing about the lasher is it screams KILL ME to any infil thats looking for a easy target to spot. They follow the balls of light and BAM headshot. At least thats my luck with it. I suck with teh Flare but live longer than with the Lasher.
Nah the TTKs of the SVA and Flare are actually quite close since the Flare requires one less hit to get a kill than the othe LMGs (save the Ursa) at all ranges. I seem to recall the Flare having basically the same TTK as the Polaris. What really helps the SVA over the Flare in close-medium range is movement. The SVA has a tighter moving CoF both during ADS and hipfire, and shares the Orion's unique .75x footspeed multiplier during ADS so you keep 3/4 of your footspeed. All other LMGs in the game cut your footspeed in half. That said, the SVA doesn't have SPA available to it (I presume u meant Soft Point Ammo?). Another thing to keep in mind is that you're using a reflex scope. IMO you really don't notice the benefits of the foregrip until you move to at least a 3.4x, preferrably 4x. That's not to say it won't help you with a reflex. You just won't notice it very easily.
I just certed and brought the flare horrible recoil, i'm going to try the SV, against other heavy esp TR im constantly losing 1v1
Just a heads up that the Flare (and pretty much any new gun you try) does take time getting used to. I get that it's not for everyone, but I generally force myself to use a new weapon for 1-2 weeks before I can really know if it suits my playstyle or not. I also found the recoil harsh on the Flare but a combination of the compensator and just getting used to it so I could compensate with my mouse and land those headshots consistently, lead me to using the Flare as my go-to HA weapon.
who has certed Flare and SVA to max, im wondering if its worth it for me to get SVA as i already have Flare maxed out
