I’m still new to this game (only just reached tier 3) so i may be mistaken, but it seem to me lasers are way better than other class of weapons in this game. They do pretty good damage, they are instant hit (you don’t need to lead targets), they can fire continuously and have generally rather good range. In PVE they are kings and do pretty good in PVP as well. Is there anything i’m missing?
I’m still new to this game (only just reached tier 3) so i may be mistaken, but it seem to me lasers are way better than other class of weapons in this game. They do pretty good damage, they are instant hit (you don’t need to lead targets), they can fire continuously and have generally rather good range. In PVE they are kings and do pretty good in PVP as well. Is there anything i’m missing?
Yes, you are listing their pros, but you are forgetting about their cons:
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Thermal damage is the most tanked of all damages, because most AoE weapons do thermal damage, and also neither hull or shield have thermal weaknesses.
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Lasers (beams and ions) need to hit the target continously to do damage. While hitting a fat guard or imperial engineer is easy, fast fighters and all interceptors will have easy time getting under your guns.
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Pulse lasers have weird hit pattern and very small hitscan.
On the other hand:
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Positron - rails - plasma gun are all about alpha damage and range. They only need to hit you twice to kill you, and they can be charged.
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Assault railguns are good at all ranges, and have good rof, which can be improved with heatsinks for a real hail of bullets. Also, kinetic is great since most people forget to tank the kinetic hole.
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Singularities are epic good at dogfights. You don’t need to hit the target, the bubble is ginormous.
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Heavy Blasters are the kings of DPS and barrage fire. They are thermal weapons, but they are not lasers.
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Coil mortars have proximity fuses and area of effect. Also they don’t have optimal range. Well they have, all their range is optimal range.
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RF blasters have a very good alpha strike before they spread out, and very good heating times. Get a guard out of phase and you will eat their shields in seconds.
All in all, the weapons are balanced, but there are some classes which do better with certain weapons.
You must be right. I guess some weapons are just more common/popular than others, not that they are that much better.
Yes what Evis said. Gunship lasers (ions) seem like the best gunship weapon, because they also reduce resists, but they are one of the hardest weapons to master versus interceptors. If you don’t have a very consistent aim with them, you do close to no damage. With railguns on the other hand, for example, if you land 1 shot every 3-4, you still do good damage.
Or, yanno, bubbles, because it just melts everything by scraping ships.
If you’re using weapons against the Tormentor-series, don’t bother, though. Just aim for the wing tips and you don’t even have to kill the shields. Blood Tormentors suffer from it, it’s quite the exploit.
It boils down to lasers you need to hit the actualy object of the ship or shield.
I have noticed that with projectile weapons they will hit even if the projectile is of by a number of meters, shields or ship. As if every projectile weapon had a burst radious of 20 meters…
Also to confirm, bubble ships are badass.