What is your favourite assault rifle, and why? (All factions!)

HV-45.

Terminus when I need more range.

Corvus. Heaaadddshotttssss.

AR should be available to more class on my opinion.

Torq9 - high RoF and almost no CoF

They would make HA and LA overpowered. Imagine a heavy with the TRV or a LA with a sabr or torq9? ouch.

Gauss RIfle Burst. After the recent boost it's realy fun and effective gun, couldn't believe at first how fast heavies go down after several accurate bursts. And tap firing works even in QCQ.

But when things get really ******, I still switch to my Reaper.

And NC9 A-Tross gets all my hate. I don't know exactly why, but it was a pain to auraxium this thing.

My top picks* are:
(* Please note: This list is assuming the player using the weapons in question are of top 20% player aim and skill! If you're a newbie, or just don't have your head shots or reaction time down, this list won't help you much til you're more proficient with PS2's weapons.)


1) The Darkstar.
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The Darkstar's infinite ammo is a MASSIVE boon, as one of the things that gets me killed most is simply running out of ammo for my main weapon. There are so many HA's these days that (accounting for real combat conditions and missed shots) it takes nearly a full mag to actually take one down (1.5 to 2 mags, if you're not landing mostly head shots. These numbers are assuming your target is decent at utilizing cover and/or strafing).

But the biggest advantage this gun has is that it cools down (which is the heat-mechanic weapon's equivalent to reloading) while not equipped.
So if you're having to take on multiple targets, you drop a guy or two, swap to your pistol to blast a 3rd guy, and swap right back to your primary weapon all set to drop another person or two!
That's something that only an LMG could get away with, and it's all rolled up into the higher accuracy of an AR!

This weapon in the hands of a skilled player is unquestionably the best AR in the game simply because you can sustain quickburst fire for 32 rounds, swap to a pistol to suppress or finish some people, and swap back ready to fire another 32 rounds for a total of 64 rounds before you actually have to worry about getting caught reloading!
If you're confident in your ability to put rounds on the target, this is the best AR in the game, as it doesn't sacrifice it's rail attachment for additional ammo, and doesn't sacrifice any reload speed either.
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2) Reaper DMR (kicks the utter sh*t out of the Tross any day! The tross' only redeeming feature is the extra rounds per mag, which make it a bit more sustainable for CQC, but the direct loss in TTK partially counteracts that even still.)

3) All three burst variants. (They used to be hands-down the worst AR's in the game. With the Gauss variant being the absolute worst, even of the three.)

4) Starter weapons (A 3-way tie. All the starters are very good!)

5) And finally, a tie between the Carnage, GR-22, Terminus, SABR, and TORQ (all for different reasons).



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As for my least favorite AR's:

1) Pre-buff Gauss Rifle Burst. (Which is no longer a bad weapon. Now if only they'd fix the broken HVA that doesn't add any benefit thanks to it's 0 m/s increase, yet still adds all the downsides!)

2) A-Tross.
This weapon's accuracy is about 80% that of the Reaper DMR in the hands of a high skill player, and it's only viable role that the DMR doesn't outright beat the Tross at is close range hipfire encounters.
But even then, the Tross doesn't exactly do better here, because the Reaper's higher fire rate means it kills significantly faster even still.

There are a few who swear the weapon is as good (if not better) than the Reaper, but these people are the same people that regularly go around using a foregrip on a bolt action sniper rifle...

The heat mechanic sure seems appealing, especially as it cools down whilst you have another weapon equipped. I've not got a massive amount of time or experience with VS assault rifles (I was a complete newbie for most of the time I played VS), but I went back to the Pulsar recently and didn't really like it. It's the horizontal deviations that turn me off the most - unless I'm much mistaken its variation in min/max horizontal values is greater than that of both the T1 Cycler and the NC1 Gauss, and also has a higher tolerance value to boot.

Not a bad weapon by any means, but I much preferred the feel of the other empires' starting ARs.

TAR for inside facilities uber dakka

Cycler TRV for larger facilities like biolabs and tech plants.

T1 Cycler for open fields because of its good accuracy and manageable recoil.

Terminus. Hands down. It's basically a pre nerf H-V45. The only difference is a slightly lower rate of fire, but it's easier to control, and more accurate.

NC1 Gauss
Trac-5

When I first started it was the T1 Cycler for ages and it's really good, except when you're trying to reach out a bit and you get clobbered into next week by anybody.

Then you you have the NC Medic with the NC1 Gauss and you're doing the clobbering back and to everybody else. It can do fairly close and it can do fairly far and it rounds off to "what the f-uck are certs worth exactly for 1000 variety choices".

Rupees?

Been going back and forth between the Reaper DMR, A-Tross, Carnage AR, and the Gauss S. I still do the best just using the baron, lol.

The A-tross seems to be the easiest to consistently do well with. The carnage feels like I'm rolling the dice in any CQC engagement. The Reaper DMR I'm becoming less fond of as time goes on, as I feel a battlerifle would do its job just as well if not better.

Oddly, the carnage performs surprisingly well outdoors. I've found it to be pretty exceptional at decent ranges, it just feels like it falls flat on its face in CQC.

The gauss rifle S is such a pain. It can't be fired while moving with any reasonable accuracy, but if someone decides to stand still and not shoot at you, it will put them down pretty fast.

If I could only walk away with 1 it would be a toss up between the Tross and the Carnage. I'd have a hard time deciding.

What d'you feel the Tross does that the Reaper doesn't? Not that I'm questioning your opinion at all, I've just heard more people praising the Reaper than I have the Tross. I haven't used the latter myself, but freakin' love the Reaper. I'd take it over any battle rifle any day of the week!

Carnage is pretty nice too, agreed. 750RPM with .75ADS is a pretty sweet spot to be in.

The Tross' extra 6 rounds per magazine is the reason for praise. Yeah the reaper is a pretty nasty dueling weapon for sure, but when it comes to needing to kill a bunch of people as fast as possible, the Tross is vastly superior. It's a gun you pull when you hold the advantage and you want to farm kills. The Reaper is what you take when you're assaulting a position and need to make sure you out damage everyone on your way in.

Just be aware the Tross has non-biased recoil and is not nearly as precise after the 2nd round. If you're indoors it won't matter, the controllability makes it easy to chain headshots. At long range you'll probably want to tap off 1 or 2 shots at a time to maintain your accuracy. Same could be said of the reaper really.

The best AR is the SABR-13! I can't not headshot with this thing.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I'm planning to save up my newbie certs on my NC alt (I keep making them then deleting them for various reasons, so still not very high BR) for a new toy in the form of an assault rifle, I'll have to have a play around with the Tross as well as the Reaper.

Maybe you don't have to headshot enemy with SABR-13

I'm a big fan of the Gauss and the Cycler where base rifles are concerned. I also like the Carnage and the NS-11A. I don't really like any of the Vanu rifles, which is sad because in terms of aesthetic/music/voices/lore Vanu is by far my favorite faction.

Totally agree on Vanu assault rifles. H-V45 and Terminus are the only two I really enjoy using. The rest just feel like they'e lacking something. The other two factions get some really niche bits of gear like the Reaper, Tross, SABR-13, TORQ-9, Cycler TRV... to me, most of the purple ARs just feel "meh" by comparison.

Been getting into NS-11 recently, I can certainly see why most of the guys in my outfit swear by it. Virtually non-existent recoil and .75 ADS... smoooth.

The T1 Cycler is so nice and adaptable to so many different situations; it's incredibly useful and if I had to use AR for the rest of my time as a combat medic it would certainly be that one.

However, most of the time when I'm running ops with my outfit, I find that 80-90% of engagements are in buildings. As a result, the TAR is my most used gun with almost 3500 kills on it. The strafing speed is invaluable in combination with the amount of damage it puts out; I wouldn't take any other AR over it for close quarters engagements save for maybe one of its faction equivalents (those being the GR-22 and H-V45).