Which is the best Vanu HA weapon for fighting at point-blank range?

Title.

shotgun

It depends on what you can and want to play. Shotgun or the orion with laser attachment. I apreachieate the orion, because Im not a shotgun user.

Shotgun, or Sirius SMG if you don't like using shotguns.

If you're looking for an LMG for CQC then it's hard to do better than the Orion, after that your choices come down to a shotgun or SMG, as the others have said.

Shotgun, nothing comes close to OHK.

If you use the Orion, you can kill them before they get into that range, but also still kill them at that range.

Since you can't force them into CQB like a LA can, I prefer versatility to sheer point-blank DPS. Remember, the shield exists to provide a margin for error, and it's more than enough to beat almost anybody with the Orion. Plus, it only takes 130 certs to slap a Grip/Laser and a scope on the Orion and you're good to go. Hard to beat that.

If you put a foregrip on the Orion you're doing it wrong.

The Orion is a 0.75x ADS weapon. If you're not taking advantage of the ADS behavior, then you're missing one of the Orion's greatest strengths. A single Laser isn't quite enough on the Orion (compared to the MSW-R, which I do run with an Advanced Laser), but the Forward Grip gives it remarkable accuracy out to surprising ranges. Since GU11 fixed the hitboxes and detection I've found the Orion nearly obsoletes other midrange vanu LMGs in ADS, while having acceptable hipfire and enough RPM to be competitive against things like shotguns and SMGs (subject to use of a HA shield, of course).

I hipfire far less using the Orion than I would with a gun like the MSW-R. That's just playing to strengths. The latter has slower ADS but better hipfire (with the Advanced Laser), so you hipfire it more often; the Orion can't have quite as good a hipfire spread, but it moves faster in ADS, so ADS with it more often.

Orion or SMG.

If you pull a shotgun as a HA people will scoff at you and wonder where the handicapped parking registry is on your vehicle of choice.

Shotgun HA is a crutch HA.

Why on earth would you replace Orion with the Sirius? Its worse on pretty much every category except for hipfire thanks to adv. laser. I have the Sirius and I really cant recommend it on any other class than infiltrator.

I think LMG's, carbines and assault rifles are far more superior.

The thing is, at point blank range you don't want to be wasting time switching to your sights, you want a high RoF and good hip-fire accuracy; and the Sirius out shines all the LMGs in those two categories. That's why they have such good hip-fire and RoF, they're designed for close quarters. Just look at the shotguns (and Godhammer) they only get a small CoF improvement when ADS, because (again) they are designed for point blank range. Likewise, all of the CQB variants or the LMGs, assault rifles and carbines have a higher rate of fire and better hip-fire accuracy.

SMGs are for point blank and I've seen plenty of engineers, heavies, medics and LAs use them for exactly that purpose.

Then why is the NC heavy weapon a burst fire shotgun? I love my Godhammer, and on my equivalent VS build I have the Nova equipped with HS/NV scope and extended magazine.

My equivalent TR build has the MCG instead of a shotgun, because moar dakka!

I would never purchase nor use the Jackhammer. It's a sad crutch that screams baddie when I see someone using it.

If you have to use something that kills with the click of a mouse.. you're a crutch user.

At close range you want a weapon with high DPS. Thats why shotguns are the king of CQC, but lets focus on the SMG here. Orion beats Sirius in DPS dispite having slightly slower fire rate. So all that Sirius higher rate of fire achieves here is that you run out of bullets faster without doing any more damage.

If we are really talking about point blank range (0-5 meters) Orion is accurate enough to hip fire even without the laser sight. When range goes beyond that you need to ADS with Orion, but thanks to the 0,75x movement multiplier you dont lose much speed and when you ADS at fairly close range you can easily go for the headshots.

So at 10-15 meters you can hit to the body quite well while hip firing with Sirius, but at the same range you can hit to the head with Orion while ADS = Orion still has faster TTK. Actually the TTK is faster even without headshots, but my point is that those just makes the gap even bigger. Also since we are talking about HA you are using your shield which makes you slow anyway so you are hardly going to dodge any bullets and the thing that matters here is the DPS.

When the range goes beyond that and you need to ADS with Sirius... thats the moment when you want to throw the thing into a wall. It shakes left and right which makes it hard to hit the target no matter how good you are at aiming and really it isn't even a competition which one is far superior after this point in range.

I see lots of people using SMG's as well. For infiltrator that is obvious, since its the best CQC weapon you can get to this class. And that why I got it.

Replacing carbines.. well I can understand that especially if you are VS since our CQC carbines has fast rate of fire, but very small clip. Sirius loses on DPS to those even more than to the Orion, but because the 50 bullet clip I can understand why someone wants to use SMG instead. I still wouldn't.

But when someone takes SMG over assault rifle or LMG... Now that I do not understand.

People don't seem to be aware of the actual CqC king of the LMG's, the Polaris. Small starting CoF, as well as access to the Adv. Laser attachment. It also has a 75 round magazine, though a slightly slower RoF. What obviously screams CqC, other than the Adv. Laser, is the Side-to-Side recoil, which makes it massive ******** to use at long range.

Mag size is 100. And besides the somewhat low RoF it is really good in cqc, especially combined with concussion grenades. Had an easy time getting auraxium with the Polaris in Biolabs. Adv. Laser + Suppressor was my loadout.

I would never use an SMG or shotgun with my HA. It cripples the class in my opinion.

Polaris + adv. Laser + Softpoint is amazing CQ and surprisingly effective at medium range.

only thing i missed was the flash supressor

Shotgun can get a 1 shot kill.. but let's be honest, the best weapons for HA Point Blank combat are gonna be your underboss/commissioner, or your knife (and maybe c-4). This is because you're gonna have those weapons on you anyway, so you're not sacrificing medium/long range effectiveness in order to gain short/null range effectiveness. There's nothing worse than getting attacked by someone that you can't effectively attack back, and fights don't often stay in one place, so you always have to be ready to fight at any range. There are no long range secondary weapons, so you should carry a long/medium range primary and a short range secondary. It may be good to change loadout based on situation, but a situation like range just changes too often to be running back and forth to your infantry terminals in order to change loadouts. You need to be able to adapt to range on the fly.

Rocket launcher!! Duh.