172 réponses à ce sujet

[ZeroDivision]

BioWareAlistair wrote...

I like the discussion in this thread. It's always interesting to see why people enjoying using one weapon over another and what their reasons are.

'Best' is entirely subjective of course and raw DPS numbers don't tell the whole story. Weight, recoil, reload speed, magazine size and ammo capacity and a whole bunch of other variables all up add up to different results for different people.

My personal favorite is the Javelin, it's a difficult rifle to master but is extremely satisfying to use.

I agree, Javelin FTW. 

[eldrjth]

I want to point out a few things.

- with the valiant im able to get 6 rounds off per cloak cycle not 3. I do this consistently. but only 3 have the cloak dmg bonus.

- when reload canceling the BW takes a fair bit longer still, maybe 1s more than the valiant which has a very insane reload cancel speed, I think its around 0.2-0.3s.

- both rifles take the same number of shots to kill: troop, rocket trooper, pyro, hunter because of shield gates and overkill. a BW X will not improve the rate you kill because of this, granted you must head shot. the valiant will clear out grunts quicker than the BW. but as a consequence of firing quicker you have to reload more often.

- the combination of faster RoF and reload makes it easier to stagger lock enemies in CQC so youre not at risk of taking dmg from grunts in close range. its also easier to make follow up head shots when there less time between shots.

- I always use AP mod with the valiant while I dont think its beneficial on the BW. its also more ammo limited I think. from experience I find both take out elites in roughly the same amount of time (just a BW I though).

- the BW instantaneously hits its target on fire while the valiant has bullet travel time. so its easier to get a headshot with the BW on targets moving laterally.

Modifié par eldrjth, 19 avril 2012 - 06:11 .

[fixit6]

I don't have valiant...sigh.

But I will be honest about my weapon choices....

It has nothing to do with effectiveness and what's best. That is merely an after thought or bonus. My criteria for weapon use usually runs along this line:

Does it look/sound awsome and matches my armor? y/n

Fashion first!

[MissMinaethiel]

I'm just not as big of a fan of the multi-shot clips. I much prefer my Widow and Javelin reliable for ripping apart heavy units and still lethal to the basic ground troops. I do enjoy the BW on my SI though. Cloak + ED + BW = carnage. Granted the BW can take down heavies just as quickly as the single shot it seems, but I have a problem of whipping my scope around to find the next unit to shoot so I don't use it that often.

The Javelin is nice and used only with my GI. I went for pure damage on this guy and adding a Javelin for the bonus damage for Geth weapons makes this gun ridiculous. The weight may be monstrous, but that doesn't matter for my Geth class and what it lacks in lightness it makes up for in sheer damage. Only downside I have is having to regularly hit an ammo box even with a thermal clip attachment. I much prefer an AP mod and extended barrel (if you play Dagger, you will know why >D)

My Widow has been my go-to sniper since I got it pretty much. Single shot, massive damage, weighs less than my BW, and I can effectively aim with it and quick scope if need be. The reload canceling is also a help to make up for the reload time.

I, unfortunately, do not have the Valiant =( It looks awesome though. I'm curious as to how it will compare with my BW. If it works better for me my BW might become an unused rifle in my armory =o

[Shock n Awe]

Highlord Heian wrote...

Shock n Awe wrote...

Title Question: No.

Answer: Black Widow.

Valiant X might be better than the BW I, but if they're at the same level I'm going with my BW. Also, if you do reload cancelling, they have near the same reload time. Even if you shoot the BW as fast as possible, the reticle always comes to a rest (even if barely) at the point where you last shot (or very, very close to it), so everyone who complains about recoil on the BW has an invalid point.

It's not the reticule not "returning" to the same point, but the amount of time it takes for this, as well as the screen vibration from each shot making it hard to track moving targets, the incredibly long reload time, the incredibly high weight, and the fact that you can't fire all three shots with the damage bonus from Tac Cloak.

So...the only one with an invalid point here is your strawman argument.

How did I ever miss this?

As an extensive black widow user, let me tackle each of your points:

1) "It's not the reticule not "returning" to the same point, but the amount of time it takes for this"
Maybe I'm used to the BW's recoil and help the reticle return, but it's always extremely close to where my last shot was at just about the time I'm taking the next.

2)"as well as the screen vibration from each shot making it hard to track moving targets "
I can easily put all 3 rounds into 3 moving targets a large amount of the time, and it doesn't bother me much with tracking; it sounds like you're just bad at using the weapon.  Practice makes perfect.

3) "the incredibly long reload time"
If you aren't reload cancelling, you aren't using the weapon right.  If you are reload cancelling, the reload speed is negligible as it is ready to fire as soon as cloaking is done cooling down.

4) "the incredibly high weight "
Doesn't affect tactical cloak cooldown time so long as you aren't cloaked for an excessive amount of time.

5) "and the fact that you can't fire all three shots with the damage bonus from Tac Cloak "
Except you can.  My own (VERY extensive) tests and the previous user's post about timing confirms this.  All three BW shots can be fired in two seconds, and apparently TC's damage bonus is provided for 2.15 seconds.

Conclusion: You're bad with the weapon and bad at reload cancelling, or you have not used the weapon enough to be familiar with its intricacies and/or do not reload cancel.  Practice these more and most of your points are invalid.  I do suppose different peoples' eyesight could affect how the screen vibration affects their tracking however.

Slakky wrote...

From a pure score standpoint, the Valiant is way better. It kills common and lieutenants with as many shots as the BW, and it does it a lot faster.

In terms of team play the BW can be a much more effective big game hunter, which may matter more depending on the team. It's not gonna be pills for your eBoner though.

 

Unfortunately it generally doesn't sync with cloak cooldown though, so as said it does determine what you're hunting.  This can get thrown off with the lack of sync if you're a Salarian Infiltrator though, as on Gold I rely on my Energy Drain to remove shields from shielded enemies to allow me to take them with one clean shot to any part of the body (the only human-sized enemy this doesn't work on is Phantoms, but generally they're easy by using a scoped in ED, followed by a shot to take out the rest of the barrier which also usually makes them stand still, opening them up for an easy headshot).

tzabaothg wrote...
On larger maps like dagger/hydra/etc it becomes apparent that Valiant is not a true hitscan weapon. On several occasions (even as host) I have fired at the head and watched the mob walk away while the bullet missed. Yes this can be compensated for via leading or stuns but it is worth taking into consideration when comparing Valiant to BW.

My understanding is that BW does not function like this. Nor does Widow.

 

Never took into account map size; I'm usually playing on larger maps on Gold (because I'm tired of FBW:G).  I really enjoy playing on FB Giant, and I'll generally cover the lower half of the building many people use.  Three teammates will be on the upper area, and I will cover the lower "alley" as I like to think of it.  Keeps the enemies from spawning on the lower section of the fire control room and it has them all in a nice, relatively narrow area for me to pick them off as they come.

Modifié par Shock n Awe, 19 avril 2012 - 06:43 .

[Twisted Mind]

I would say that multishot snipers are better than single shot ones. Playing with geth infiltretorr, multi shot is actually a must because of a shield gate.
As for valiant vs others, i would say that it is betwwen black widow or valiant. which one depends on you. Cooldown or damage. i would go for BW.

[Terraflare]

The BW 3 shots all will go straight center even if firing at max fire rate. I posted this just a while ago. If you dont believe, create an empty map, aim at a wall a short distance away, scope in and hold the mouse button. You will see one bullet hole mark.

Do this with valiant (cant hold, must keep clicking), and dont move your mouse. Now notice the shots are in a vertical line.

[Shock n Awe]

Terraflare wrote...

The BW 3 shots all will go straight center even if firing at max fire rate. I posted this just a while ago. If you dont believe, create an empty map, aim at a wall a short distance away, scope in and hold the mouse button. You will see one bullet hole mark.

Do this with valiant (cant hold, must keep clicking), and dont move your mouse. Now notice the shots are in a vertical line.

Exactly.  The recoil of the BW should be a non-issue if you have practice with it, because even though it has recoil the crosshairs will always be back at the starting point by the time you are ready to fire again.  Combine this with a little bit of pre-emptive maneuvering and you can be ready to fire on another target as soon as possible.

[Drummernate]

BioWareAlistair wrote...

My personal favorite is the Javelin, it's a difficult rifle to master but is extremely satisfying to use.

Ahhhh and this is going in my sig.

Just kidding. Good to see someone else actually likes the Javelin... especially a Bioware employee! 

[Clearly Balkan]

I still don't have it.

[tzabaothg]

Twisted Mind wrote...

I would say that multishot snipers are better than single shot ones. Playing with geth infiltretorr, multi shot is actually a must because of a shield gate.
As for valiant vs others, i would say that it is betwwen black widow or valiant. which one depends on you. Cooldown or damage. i would go for BW.

As GI I would recommend Claymore or Kishok to get around shield gating.

Spec for full damage.

The problem with GI is lower defense pools and the lack of ED for shield recharge. With a multishot weapon you leave your neck out more and once shields are down you have to stop cloaking in order to regenerate or risk getting dropped.

Kishok is SICK on GI if you can get a relatively lag-free game (or host one yourself). One shot will drop a primes shields completely as well as some armor...without using any consumables. You should be able to 2-shot a prime with Kishok specced full damage without using prox mine.

[Twisted Mind]

tzabaothg wrote...

Twisted Mind wrote...

I would say that multishot snipers are better than single shot ones. Playing with geth infiltretorr, multi shot is actually a must because of a shield gate.
As for valiant vs others, i would say that it is betwwen black widow or valiant. which one depends on you. Cooldown or damage. i would go for BW.

As GI I would recommend Claymore or Kishok to get around shield gating.

Spec for full damage.

The problem with GI is lower defense pools and the lack of ED for shield recharge. With a multishot weapon you leave your neck out more and once shields are down you have to stop cloaking in order to regenerate or risk getting dropped.

Kishok is SICK on GI if you can get a relatively lag-free game (or host one yourself). One shot will drop a primes shields completely as well as some armor...without using any consumables. You should be able to 2-shot a prime with Kishok specced full damage without using prox mine.

what? i have been reading about kishock, but i have been avoiding it. If i can really drop primes with just 2 shots, i will definately try it. hope i will get used to it.

[Elecbender]

Twisted Mind wrote...

tzabaothg wrote...

Twisted Mind wrote...

I would say that multishot snipers are better than single shot ones. Playing with geth infiltretorr, multi shot is actually a must because of a shield gate.
As for valiant vs others, i would say that it is betwwen black widow or valiant. which one depends on you. Cooldown or damage. i would go for BW.

As GI I would recommend Claymore or Kishok to get around shield gating.

Spec for full damage.

The problem with GI is lower defense pools and the lack of ED for shield recharge. With a multishot weapon you leave your neck out more and once shields are down you have to stop cloaking in order to regenerate or risk getting dropped.

Kishok is SICK on GI if you can get a relatively lag-free game (or host one yourself). One shot will drop a primes shields completely as well as some armor...without using any consumables. You should be able to 2-shot a prime with Kishok specced full damage without using prox mine.

what? i have been reading about kishock, but i have been avoiding it. If i can really drop primes with just 2 shots, i will definately try it. hope i will get used to it.

It can, if you're lucky.

[transcendent12]

I have both valiant 1 and black widow 1. I had the valiant quite a while before the BW so have much more practise with the valiant.
I find valiant to be far more efficient under a wider range of situations. Especially with power recharge mod + disruptor/AP ammo. The valiant in conjunction with energy drain one shots all standard and is still very very effective against elite types.

The most valuable point I find with the valiant is the very small amount of recoil, this makes aim correction very much more reliable than the black widow. Suffering a bit from RSI i use a vertical mouse (fast precision aiming from my counterstrike days with this mouse is a no no). Shooting targets far away is fine with BW. But valiant destroys it with close range multiple targets when you're rolling and strafe aiming while shooting at max speed at several close proximity geth hunters / pyros.

As I've said, haven't practised much with BW but for any particular skill level, it's easier to get 140 thousand points on a gold run with a valiant than a black widow. In my experience anyway. I'd have to go back about 3 years in my mouse aiming abilities to be able to get 3 headshots on a moving geth prime ( if it's moving sideways so you can't fully see the front flashlight properly) with a BW; meanwhile, it's doable with a valiant. Geth prime shields are done in one ED cloak 3 shot cycle. Armor after that, i estimate maybe 3 or 4 cloaked cycles without AP ammo, otherwise probably about 2 and depending on quality of headshot.

Modifié par transcendent12, 19 avril 2012 - 07:37 .

[Shock n Awe]

transcendent12 wrote...
it's easier to get 140 thousand points on a gold run with a valiant than a black widow.

Disregarding the sniper conversation for a moment, do the PC games have more enemies than XBox?  Because, granted I'm usually covering the team's back in low-traffic areas for most of the game with a few shots on the enemies getting close to the rest of my teammates, I generally get 80-100k score in a gold game (which is also usually 20-40k points over the person in second, at least on Firebase Giant.  I can get a significant amount of kills on the enemies that begin amassing around the bottom of the ramp into the upper area of the control room in the later waves).  In total I would say the scores rarely add up to be over 200-250k points for the whole team in an XBox Gold Game (or at least the ones I've participated in)...

Modifié par Shock n Awe, 19 avril 2012 - 08:07 .

[X2-Elijah]

Hmm. I've been able to get 140k points only if the rest of the team are utterly doing nothing at all and each getting in the low 20s..

[transcendent12]

I wouldn't have thought there are more enemies. 100k points on gold is already very good. I'd be very happy to get 100k if there's another decent person on the team. But if the rest of the team isn't as good and I'm playing firebase dagger vs geth I will get the majority of all kills from the sniper nest. (4 out of 5 primes and clearing everything else very quickly). 250k collective seems reasonable. 140k for me then some engineers and what not who get 30k-50k a piece. So pretty team dependant (though to get as low as 30k is mindnumbingly poor, I just tried to freeload a geth gold, had 10k points by wave 6 by firing like 15 rounds each wave, pitched in more in the harder waves and still ended up with 50k points). (I've seen some beastly engineers out there as well btw^^. Amazing what kind of scores people with just a carnifex can break out if they try hard)

[Slakky]

Drummernate wrote...

BioWareAlistair wrote...

My personal favorite is the Javelin, it's a difficult rifle to master but is extremely satisfying to use.

Ahhhh and this is going in my sig.

Just kidding. Good to see someone else actually likes the Javelin... especially a Bioware employee! 

The Javelin is pretty much the only reason I play SI ever.  There's something inherently awesome about the skinny little guy noscoping dudes with it...like *RAWR*

But then I feel like a tool for dragging the team down and go back to playing human for the frost debuff.

[Kristofer1]

wait. you can charge the kishock!? oh man. i feel so noob. ive used that rifle a bunch and never knew haha

[Sabbatine]

   

AdmLancel wrote...

For me I prefer the Black Widow because of the more impressive one-shot potential, and you can sling out more damage while lining up fewer shots, which overall means a bit less time spent exposed to enemy fire. The reload isn't as big a deal for an Infiltrator because of the minimum cooldown on Tactical Cloak anyway. You can take the time to reload the Black Widow while you wait for the cloak's CD to finish. It also has some built in armor penetration so you don't have to feel like you need the armor penetration mod if you want something else.

Also the Black Widow looks and sounds much more awesome.

I won't argue with you about the look and sound, but I do disagree with your comment about one-shot potential.  As far as I can tell the valiant 1 and black widow 1 one hit kill all the same stuff, which is to say the basic enemies of each race (with a head shot) and most of the unshielded middle troops.

The only possible exception I can think of (and this may not be the case at all) is firing the black widow without the benefit of tactical cloak.

As for the reload time, that is true.  You don't lose a whole lot while waiting for the reload (even if you aren't exploiting with reload cancelling) but the valiant wins out in a pinch because you can actually fire three shots with the benefit of tactical cloak, reload, fire three more shots without the benefit of tactical cloak, reload, and basically be ready to fire again as your tactical cloak timer refreshes.  This is useful when you're needing to thin out the ranks of enemy weaklings or just need to add a little more damage to finish something off.

As for the armor penetration mod, that is true, but the valiant comes with twice as much ammo which in effect gives it a free spare ammo mod.  The black widow wins out because its bonus is actually better than what the actual mod provides, but it's not as one sided as a lot of people seem to portray it as.

Falcyn wrote...

When people compare the Valiant to BW, they tend to ignore the fact that the BW has built-in armor penetration, so you effectively get to use three mods with it. That's a tremendous advantage.

When people compare the BW to valiant, they tend to ignore the fact that the Valiant has a built in spare ammo mod, so you effectively get to use three mods with it.  That's a tremendous advantage.

MissMinaethiel wrote...

I'm just not as big of a fan of the multi-shot clips. I much prefer my Widow and Javelin reliable for ripping apart heavy units and still lethal to the basic ground troops. I do enjoy the BW on my SI though. Cloak + ED + BW = carnage. Granted the BW can take down heavies just as quickly as the single shot it seems, but I have a problem of whipping my scope around to find the next unit to shoot so I don't use it that often.

I think it's a matter of difficulty level to a degree.  I love my widow 10 on silver but I can't stand the damage lost to shield gating on gold and after using my Valiant 1 haven't even thought about switching back for even a second.

Shock n Awe wrote...

3) "the incredibly long reload time"
If you aren't exploiting, you aren't using the weapon right.  If you are exploiting, the reload speed is negligible as it is ready to fire as soon as cloaking is done cooling down.

Fixed that for you.

Modifié par Sabbatine, 20 avril 2012 - 01:14 .

[Tangster]

Who care? Who?

Pick up gun
Kill mooks
...
profit?

[DevilDoc8404]

I'm a fan of the Raptor personally. Always thought it would underperform in gold, tbh. Then, once I got used to going for constant headshots anyhow, it just lays enemies out if you can steady your aim.

Nice mag size.
Reasonable damage.
Excellent Proc damage with ammo powers.
Plenty of "Oh Crap" ability when those hunters sneak up on you. Mainly due to increased view.

Try it with a geth Infiltrator using Cryo ammo and tell me it's not more fun than the Widow.

PS. I don't have a valiant in MP, so I can't really compare it.

[HolyAvenger]

Huge fan of the Valiant. Super-quick reload time is fantastic. Haven't got a Black Widow to compare it too. Javelin's OK, especially for my gethfiltrator.

[Totally_Mad_Rat]

I still don't have BW. Almost every rare weapon at X and only 2 ultra-rares (Paladin I and Wraith I). What a bad luck.

[Sabbatine]

DevilDoc8404 wrote...

I'm a fan of the Raptor personally. Always thought it would underperform in gold, tbh. Then, once I got used to going for constant headshots anyhow, it just lays enemies out if you can steady your aim.

...

Try it with a geth Infiltrator using Cryo ammo and tell me it's not more fun than the Widow.

PS. I don't have a valiant in MP, so I can't really compare it.

I and many others do think the raptor underperforms in gold, but to be honest if you're good with a weapon and know how to use it you can perform just fine even if your weapon is "sub-optimal".

That said though, I think you'd like the valiant.  The comparison I use often is that the black widow is what happens when you merge a widow with a viper.  A valiant is what happens when you merge a mantis with a raptor.  The valiant feels a lot like the raptor in that it has a faster rate of fire (not as fast as a raptor's though) and a lighter feel.  You do give up the larger clip but retain the very fast reload and virtually no recoil letting you place multiple head shots on target in a very brief period of time.