550 réponses à ce sujet

[Jazharah]

CapnCruuunch wrote...

Jazharah wrote...
I'm a little surprised to seeing the Indra and Raptor being preferred for an infiltrator. Seeing they do much less damage per shot, you're wasting the damage bonus you get from tactical cloak. They seem great SR's for an engineer or adept if you're so inclined, but as an infiltrator I think it's wasting your potential.

Raptor is always going to be a bit controversial in a thread like this. I love the weapon, but can't argue that it is the best when it turns the traditional sniper playstyle on it's head. People I think of as "pure snipers" aren't going to favor it. If you are a badass crack shot, or have a great stun->headshot system going, you are most likely going to be able to use the traditional sniper rifles more effectively.

As a fan of the Raptor (and a less-than-avid sniper), I love the flexibility the it brings to the table. As has been said many times, it's basically a Mattock assault rifle with built-in scope. I have a fast trigger finger and can keep the reticle trained on the top half of an enemy reasonably well. When everything is riding on that single, brilliantly placed shot, I'm not as effective. Practice would make me better, but the Raptor fits right into a comfort zone. Being able to unload a ton of shots into your enemy means that you may get more use out of your disruptor ammo, which I enjoy quite a bit. Seamlessly transitioning from long range to short range fighting without changing weapons was something I also enjoyed. I would often just bring my Raptor and keep my cooldowns a little lower.

So, again, I would never argue that it is the best sniper rifle. But it is an extremely effective weapon, and I'm way better holding that than a traditional sniper (so far).

Oh, I agree the Raptor can be a great weapon in the right hands, just not in combination with a 'traditional' sniper playstyle favoring tactical cloak. I can definitely see its potential when using disruptor ammo as well, and it's much more forgiving than the single-shot rifles like Widow and Mantis.

In fact I've used it a lot in MP on my support infiltrator, mostly because I can't deal with the one-shot risk, I miss regularly. The beauty of the N7 Valiant is that it has a quick RoF, 3 shots, so it's still forgiving, and a blisteringly fast reload time, and if you upgrade it to X, you can carry the Valiant and a Paladin X pistol with 195% cooldown.

Try it if you haven't yet, is all I can say. Be sure to upgrade it though - before VIII it's a bit heavy.

[idspisp0pd]

I honestly don't see a downside to the BW aside from the weight (on that score, the Mantis seems like a viable alternative, or the Javelin if the clip size isn't important to you. I don't have the Valiant, so I can't speak to that.).

On my insanity infiltrator I roll with the BW and nothing else and it's the easiest playthrough I've had yet. I don't consider myself a great shot (I was never anything more than an average sniper in the Halo games, for example), but I almost never miss headshots if I have the concentration mod slapped on there. Combined with the infiltrator's native time dilation, you'd have to have no thumbs to miss more than sporadically.

And I've never come close to running out of ammo, despite using the BW as my primary means of dispatching everything but human husks and those things that pop out when you kill ravagers. There's enough ammo laying around on this game that I can't think of a time when I've ever been worried about it with any of the classes I've played, except for a brief period on Mars with the Mantis. I chose one of the Armax armor pieces for the ammo bonus but I haven't felt like it's been necessary.

[termokanden]

The downside to the BW is the recoil. The Valiant does not have any recoil worth mentioning and also reloads very quickly.

[Leon Zweihander]

The only mods needed for BW are the barrel and concentration mods, and both increases damage. Recoil is a non-issue for an Infiltrator when time slows down and its refire time is slow as it is. Hold the fire button and you have more than enough time between shots to move it back in place. I'm horrible at aiming and even I can consistently land headshots with BW so I don't see where the issue of recoil comes from.

[All-a-Mort]

So BW doesn't benefit from armour piercing mod?

I'm trying to decide if BW is worth it on my Infiltrator run, when Valiant is doing the job ok. Only reason would be if BW can OSOK guys more, such that the lesser recoil and less shot time for Valiant is rendered unimportant as it takes less shots to kill more heavily defended enemies. Otherwise I may was well drop the cash on Wraith or Paladin for a sideline in CQC.

[capn233]

All-a-Mort wrote...

So BW doesn't benefit from armour piercing mod?

I'm trying to decide if BW is worth it on my Infiltrator run, when Valiant is doing the job ok. Only reason would be if BW can OSOK guys more, such that the lesser recoil and less shot time for Valiant is rendered unimportant as it takes less shots to kill more heavily defended enemies. Otherwise I may was well drop the cash on Wraith or Paladin for a sideline in CQC.

Yes it does.  Widow, Black Widow, and Javelin all have passive cover penetration.  This is not the same mechanic as AP Ammo and the Piercing mods have against Armor (the yellow bar type health), which is to reduce armor's damage reduction.  Armor plates (on Cannibals, husks, or Brutes) behave like cover.

AP Ammo or the Piercing mod will stack cover penetration with what those rifles have stock (something like 60cm for Black Widow, 70cm for Widow, and 1m for Javelin) as well as give them a "bonus" against armor.  Note that each instance of cover has a flat damage reduction that isn't modified, so although you could shoot through  thicker cover, you aren't getting more damage output on the enemies afterwards (except of course if they have Armor for health).

Now whether or not you really need the extra penetration or "bonus" against armor is debatable.  However, on Infiltrator I couldn't stand stacking the concentration mod with the passive scope slow down.  It was just too much.  So I went with SR Piercing and Extended Barrel.  On a class without any slow motion abilities the Concentration Mod may be worthwhile.

Modifié par capn233, 09 avril 2012 - 07:51 .

[Leon Zweihander]

BW is well worth it, Valiant may do the job on low targets, but on high targets such as Brutes/Banshees/Atlas the BW outclasses Valiant. I prefer BW since the enemies more likely to kill you during the game are the high difficulty, not the low ones.

Modifié par Leon Zweihander, 09 avril 2012 - 11:19 .

[CapnCruuunch]

Jazharah wrote...

Oh, I agree the Raptor can be a great weapon in the right hands, just not in combination with a 'traditional' sniper playstyle favoring tactical cloak. I can definitely see its potential when using disruptor ammo as well, and it's much more forgiving than the single-shot rifles like Widow and Mantis.

In fact I've used it a lot in MP on my support infiltrator, mostly because I can't deal with the one-shot risk, I miss regularly. The beauty of the N7 Valiant is that it has a quick RoF, 3 shots, so it's still forgiving, and a blisteringly fast reload time, and if you upgrade it to X, you can carry the Valiant and a Paladin X pistol with 195% cooldown.

Try it if you haven't yet, is all I can say. Be sure to upgrade it though - before VIII it's a bit heavy.

I'm rolling Kronner's biotic bomber sentinal atm and enjoying the liberating feeling of bringing whatever weapons I please. I'm carrying the Valient and a shotty and enjoying it pretty well. Still very early in the playthough so I have yet to decide if it's going to be a permanent part of my arsenal. I know this is off-topic considering that it's not an infiltrator. I may go back and do an NG+ infiltrator run and really take advantage of the sniper passives and bonuses. Break out of my comfort zone and see what all the fuss is about. Playing multi with a good sniper is crazy. They are some deadly SOBs.

[JaegerBane]

Leon Zweihander wrote...

BW is well worth it, Valiant may do the job on low targets, but on high targets such as Brutes/Banshees/Atlas the BW outclasses Valiant. I prefer BW since the enemies more likely to kill you during the gime are the high difficulty, not the low ones.

This is a fine sentiment but it doesn't gel with reality. You'll be able to land all three rounds from a Valiant clip directly on target as fast as the rifle will fire, reload and do it all again in the time it takes for you to fire off your whole BW clip, resetting from recoil to make sure you hit each time and complete a single reload.

So, in essence, if your concern is taking down hard targets faster, the Valiant is the better choice as it will spit out more damage in the same amount of time. Where the BW is a better choice than the Valiant is actually in the reverse of what you've just described, on 'low targets', as there's less importance on getting headshots with the BW and you can get away with body shots.... though that's only true for targets that can be taken out in one BW round.

So by your logic, you should be using the Valiant, not the BW.

[All-a-Mort]

Makes me think the Valiant is the equivalent of the ME2 Viper. Not as strong as Mantis or Widow, but better due to higher firing rate and easier to land consecutive headshots.

[jrus018]

Soldier + Infiltrator = N7 Valiant [Concentration Mod + Piercing Mod /or/ Extended Barrel]
-very low or no recoil at all
-low weight
-high damage
-very quick reload
-synergy well with Adrenaline Rush and Tactical Cloak

with all the AR or TC and Concentration Mod dilation plus a very very low recoil... you can mostly land 3 perfectly headshots or even kill 3 enemies with this weapon before AR or TC ends, add it with a Piercing Mod, power ammo, bonus damage passives... you can kill an unshielded Banshee with 2-3 headshots!

[JaegerBane]

All-a-Mort wrote...

Makes me think the Valiant is the equivalent of the ME2 Viper. Not as strong as Mantis or Widow, but better due to higher firing rate and easier to land consecutive headshots.

Sort of. The Widow (and, by extension, the BW) have had both their recoil and reload time substantially increased, while the Valiant has fire rate and reload rate almost equivalent to the ME2 Viper, and a recoil almost equivalent to the ME1 Spectre HMWSR X... a devastating combo. There's literally no weapon in the game better suited for getting multiple headshots.

[All-a-Mort]

Ah yes the old Spectre sniper rifle...paired with HE rounds...much fun, greatly missed. I shall indulge in BW for my Infilitrator though I think, otherwise not sufficiently different in feel to my Sniper Soldier build that uses Valiant only.

[Byronic-Knight]

Viper for me.

Yeah, it kind of sucks that its rate of fire dropped significantly from the last game. . . but I play as an Infiltrator, so I pop up, aim---slowed---fire, drop behind cover, pop up, aim, fire, so the pause of me dropping behind cover is just enough for the next shot to be ready.

The only real problem I can run into is areas like that last room on Thessia, or the last area on Earth, basically where there are more than one or two heavy hitters---brutes, banshees, etc.

Those sorts of situations call for more damage from each shot.

[JaegerBane]

Byronic-Knight wrote...

Viper for me.

Yeah, it kind of sucks that its rate of fire dropped significantly from the last game. . . but I play as an Infiltrator, so I pop up, aim---slowed---fire, drop behind cover, pop up, aim, fire, so the pause of me dropping behind cover is just enough for the next shot to be ready.

The only real problem I can run into is areas like that last room on Thessia, or the last area on Earth, basically where there are more than one or two heavy hitters---brutes, banshees, etc.

Those sorts of situations call for more damage from each shot.

Or rather, less time required to inflict that needed damage. I don't actually think its a bad sniper rifle... its just that its lower rate of fire hasn't really brought with it an equivalent increase of damage per shot.

Really, the only issue I have with the Sniper Rifles in this game is that the majority of them are window dressing - the only ones that are honestly worth carrying are the Raptor, Valiant or Black Widow... these three cover every possible purpose of carrying an SR.

[Br0th3rGr1mm]

Either the Raptor or the poor man's SR....Scoped Mattock. Light, plenty of ammo and I can easily, quickly and accurately put the proper damage needed on each target.

[CapnCruuunch]

Br0th3rGr1mm wrote...

Either the Raptor or the poor man's SR....Scoped Mattock. Light, plenty of ammo and I can easily, quickly and accurately put the proper damage needed on each target.

'

This is what I have been using in multi because I can't unlock the Raptor

It works though. 

[idspisp0pd]

capn233 wrote...

All-a-Mort wrote...

So BW doesn't benefit from armour piercing mod?

I'm trying to decide if BW is worth it on my Infiltrator run, when Valiant is doing the job ok. Only reason would be if BW can OSOK guys more, such that the lesser recoil and less shot time for Valiant is rendered unimportant as it takes less shots to kill more heavily defended enemies. Otherwise I may was well drop the cash on Wraith or Paladin for a sideline in CQC.

Yes it does.  Widow, Black Widow, and Javelin all have passive cover penetration.  This is not the same mechanic as AP Ammo and the Piercing mods have against Armor (the yellow bar type health), which is to reduce armor's damage reduction.  Armor plates (on Cannibals, husks, or Brutes) behave like cover.

AP Ammo or the Piercing mod will stack cover penetration with what those rifles have stock (something like 60cm for Black Widow, 70cm for Widow, and 1m for Javelin) as well as give them a "bonus" against armor.  Note that each instance of cover has a flat damage reduction that isn't modified, so although you could shoot through  thicker cover, you aren't getting more damage output on the enemies afterwards (except of course if they have Armor for health).

Now whether or not you really need the extra penetration or "bonus" against armor is debatable.  However, on Infiltrator I couldn't stand stacking the concentration mod with the passive scope slow down.  It was just too much.  So I went with SR Piercing and Extended Barrel.  On a class without any slow motion abilities the Concentration Mod may be worthwhile.

It's worth pointing out that the whole "ignore target damage resistance" mechanic with the piercing mod has almost no benefit whatsoever when you apply it to sniper rifles. (I'm not talking here about the cover penetration effect or the direct damage bonuses from AP ammo, which are indeed quite useful.)

If you want to increase your effectiveness against armored targets with damage resistance like Brutes, you'd be better served going with the extended barrel mod rather than the piercing mod, which is only useful for cover penetration.

[Byronic-Knight]

JaegerBane wrote...

Or rather, less time required to inflict that needed damage. I don't actually think its a bad sniper rifle... its just that its lower rate of fire hasn't really brought with it an equivalent increase of damage per shot.

Yeah, a slight damge increase would have been welcomed.

[JaegerBane]

idspisp0pd wrote...
It's worth pointing out that the whole "ignore target damage resistance" mechanic with the piercing mod has almost no benefit whatsoever when you apply it to sniper rifles. (I'm not talking here about the cover penetration effect or the direct damage bonuses from AP ammo, which are indeed quite useful.)

If you want to increase your effectiveness against armored targets with damage resistance like Brutes, you'd be better served going with the extended barrel mod rather than the piercing mod, which is only useful for cover penetration.

Whats your reasoning for this? I generally prefer the barrel extension mod for SRs but I don't get why the piercing mod would be useless. Do they have some kind of implicit defence reduction or soemthing?

[Ravenmyste]

for me on my infiltrator is was the javelin x on sp i just couldnt get to like the bw no mater what i had it on x and it just seemed a really worse off the compared to the javelin

[Rudy Lis]

1. Valiant, hands down. Quick follow-up shots, minimal muzzle climb, very fast reload, decent damage. Basically ME2 Viper, only with smaller mag size and less carried ammo (and bugged ammo count, if I got that right). Mods - concentrator (always), AP, barrel, spare ammo. In that order.
2. Black or normal Widow - used rarely, mostly as AMR. Black is good, but I played + game only once and tend to buy Paladin first, not Black Widow. Mods - concentrator (always), clip, barrel, AP. In that order.
Ammo power - mostly AP, with squad/30% ammo cap/penetration, or incendiary, with same path, only explosive at the end of branch.
class soldier, relied on guns mostly, not on Adrenaline Rush.

[idspisp0pd]

JaegerBane wrote...

idspisp0pd wrote...
It's worth pointing out that the whole "ignore target damage resistance" mechanic with the piercing mod has almost no benefit whatsoever when you apply it to sniper rifles. (I'm not talking here about the cover penetration effect or the direct damage bonuses from AP ammo, which are indeed quite useful.)

If you want to increase your effectiveness against armored targets with damage resistance like Brutes, you'd be better served going with the extended barrel mod rather than the piercing mod, which is only useful for cover penetration.

Whats your reasoning for this? I generally prefer the barrel extension mod for SRs but I don't get why the piercing mod would be useless. Do they have some kind of implicit defence reduction or soemthing?

I want to be clear that the piercing mod isn't useless per se; the cover penetration is indeed useful, and it even appears to stack with weapons with native cover-piercing ability like the Black Widow.

What is useless, at least in practice, is the "ignore target defenses" mechanic (the in-game phrasing might be somewhat off, but it's something like that). Armor Piercing Ammo has the same mechanic, although I believe it's phrased differently in-game as "armor effectiveness reduced by x%" or something similar (like the piercing mod, AP ammo has other properties that ARE in fact useful with sniper rifles, like a damage bonus, just not this one).

I was curious about exactly what this mechanic was, and specifically whether I'd be better off with the piercing mod or the extended barrel (assuming I could only choose one) vs. larger enemies like Brutes and Banshees, which I had heard had some damage resistant properties. If you want to crunch the numbers and get into the details, check out any of peddroelmz's brilliant threads on reverse-engineering the weapon damage formulas, like this one: social.bioware.com/unity.freeforumshosting.org/forum/1/topic/347/index/10639449

In plain English, here's what I found using his data. Some enemies in the game (maybe all enemies with armor, I'm not sure) have a damage resistance modifier. This reduces the damage that they take. The thing is, it reduces it by a flat amount per shot. The fact that it is a flat amount and that it is applied per shot is crucial here, since that means that low damage, high ROF weapons are more negatively affected than low ROF, high damage weapons like snipers.

As an example, for Brutes, the damage resistance modifier is 50, meaning essentially that the damage for every shot is, by default, reduced by the value of 50. If you apply the damage resistance modifier of the level I Sniper Rifle Piercing Mod, this reduction is reduced by 25% (this is the 25% "defenses ignored" stat listed in-game), resulting in a reduction of 37.5 points instead.

The thing is, with a single Black Widow shot, you are dealing upwards of 1000 base damage per shot, plus a bunch of other damage multipliers such as Tactical Cloak, upgrades from Liara's terminal, etc. (I'm simplifiying a bit here; ammo power bonuses, upgrades, and cloak bonuses are not calculated in precisely the same way, but you get the idea) so this reduction of 50 points from that total is utterly insignificant in the first place, and reducing that 50 points by any percentage won't have a noticeable effect either, at least not with a decent sniper rifle.

Modifié par idspisp0pd, 11 avril 2012 - 08:17 .

[JaegerBane]

idspisp0pd wrote...
The thing is, with a single Black Widow shot, you are dealing upwards of 1000 base damage per shot, plus a bunch of other damage multipliers such as Tactical Cloak, upgrades from Liara's terminal, etc. (I'm simplifiying a bit here; ammo power bonuses, upgrades, and cloak bonuses are not calculated in precisely the same way, but you get the idea) so this reduction of 50 points from that total is utterly insignificant in the first place, and reducing that 50 points by any percentage won't have a noticeable effect either, at least not with a decent sniper rifle.

Thanks for the explanation you Noclip (SEE WHAT I DID THERE ).

In that case, what is your view on penetration mods for other weapon types? I had, for instance, intended to fit penetration mods to my Particle Rifle and Paladin, largely for the cover penetration but the defence-piercing had some bearing on my decision too. Are they worth going with, or should I just stick with barrel extensions?

[idspisp0pd]

JaegerBane wrote...

idspisp0pd wrote...
The thing is, with a single Black Widow shot, you are dealing upwards of 1000 base damage per shot, plus a bunch of other damage multipliers such as Tactical Cloak, upgrades from Liara's terminal, etc. (I'm simplifiying a bit here; ammo power bonuses, upgrades, and cloak bonuses are not calculated in precisely the same way, but you get the idea) so this reduction of 50 points from that total is utterly insignificant in the first place, and reducing that 50 points by any percentage won't have a noticeable effect either, at least not with a decent sniper rifle.

Thanks for the explanation you Noclip (SEE WHAT I DID THERE ).

In that case, what is your view on penetration mods for other weapon types? I had, for instance, intended to fit penetration mods to my Particle Rifle and Paladin, largely for the cover penetration but the defence-piercing had some bearing on my decision too. Are they worth going with, or should I just stick with barrel extensions?

I'm sure for the Paladin that it would be similar to the effect with a sniper rifle (i.e. completely negligible), since the Paladin also does lots of damage per shot. I would guess that it would only be noticeable in-game with something like an SMG or the Geth Pulse Rifle or something, where all those little damage reductions on each shot would really start to add up after you empty a clip or two. I'm sure that was the intended effect, since they wanted those kinds of weapons to be less effective against armor. I have no idea about the particle rifle since (a) I don't have the DLC and ( I gather that it uses a beam, rather than firing "bullets," so I have no idea how a per-shot damage reduction would work with it.

P.S. Props on getting the Doom reference! Glad I'm not the only person who remembers that game.