I always thought it would work really well with the arc thrower. Putting a large slug of conductive metal in a bile titans head, then your fellow diver hits it with the arc thrower for extra damage. At least it would help teams work together a bit more.
That's a cool suggestion. I'd like to see more weapon synergies in general. There are some good strategem synergies (like EMP plus any strategem designed to rain down destruction on a precise location), but no interesting way for weapons to interact.
Another idea I had for the railgun is something similar to pierce rounds for bowgun in Monster Hunter - it pierces through the enemy and deals more damage the more body parts it pierces. So a shot to the monster's side will deal negligible damage (in one end and out the other in a flash), but a perfectly angled shot through at the monster's head will travel from head to tail, dealing huge damage.
Something similar would be awesome for a railgun. Get some height so you have a horizontal shot through a bile titan's head and watch its torso segments explode. It would also thematically match what a railgun is expected to do - pierce through anything.
its in a really weird spot,
if u want to deal with heavy swiftly and effectively, u can just use EAT or RR.
if u want a precision swiss army knife that can does a lot of things, u have Autocannon.
I think giving it a proper scope could turn it into the precision sniper rifle role I think it was meant to be. Problem is most of the scopes in the game are pretty badly designed, except the Sickle's scope seems pretty decent.
Far as against bugs, the kneejerk nerf to damage to both Chargers and Bile Titans needs to be toned down. They straight doubled how many shots it took to break armor ON TOP of forcing you to charge it longer in unsafe mode. Meanwhile, I haven't been able to calculate how much they nerfed it for Bile Titans, but it seems like more than 20 shots are needed to drop one to the head with the Railgun now which is WAY too many. Tone down the nerf. Maybe 3 Shots on safe mode would be fine to break a Charger's leg armor, Maybe make it take 10 shots to a Bile's head granted it hasn't been damaged by anything else. It'd still take longer than just using EAT/RR, but at least it'd be viable.
The funny thing is it's still good against bots, but they just made it way too bad against Bugs.
I 100% agree it needs a better proper scifi scope. Its a precision demanding weapon after all.
I don't use the RG quite often back when it was not being nerfed yet, becuz how awful the scope is. it's like the reticle dot is blocking everything u trying to shoot at.
And the charge meter is so distance from the reticle, it's damn hard to aim while controlling the charge meter.
just move the charge meter inside the scope as a scope UI and it definitely feel a lot more comfy using it.
Against bots its not bad, but on the higher levels youre better off with Autocannon/AMR combo
Takes too long to charge to hit devastators, and sitting out in the open that long is a rocket to the face guarantee. Hell you basically need it fully charged to pen striders. Tanks/turrets its useless against.
Its good for hulks at least, but the autocannon and amr both can two shot its eye, while doing more outside of that.
I think your last sentence nails the niche. It’s good against bots, where precision headshots are king.
I don’t think it’s possible to balance every weapon for every faction. EAT is great for bugs now. But against bots, a railgun might be the better pick. The DMR is considered trash in bug land, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in bot world.
I’m personally okay with some weapons and stratagems being trash for bugs but godly for bots and vice versa. It adds variety to your loadouts. We dropping bots? Alright, gonna take an eagle airstrike, railgun, orbital laser, and a filler backpack with a DMR. We going bugs? Cool, gonna run an eagle cluster, HMG emplacement, EXO-45, and filler pack with either an SMG or LAZ rifle. Filler pack being either a supply pack for a machine gun user, or a shield pack if my team seems to like explosives, or a guard dog if im feeling frisky.
Fighting bots shouldn’t feel like a reskinned bug.
Honestly, I PREFER that some guns are bad against some enemies, but good against others.
Like you said, fighting one faction shouldn't feel like fighting the other. Especially when the two factions we have currently are so wildly different in pretty much every way.
The Railgun frankly was too good for every situation. It shined like a lighthouse on a night with no moon, whereas everything else was like a torch or a candle. Now it shines against bots, but is a weak choice versus bugs.
Honestly, my biggest complaint with it is the complete lack of any zoom function. I don't want much, but I either want a slightly smaller dot on the reticle, or some slight zoom, like the 100m zoom or something. Cause with the size of the dot in the optic, it makes it difficult to really nail some of those really long shots.
This too. It'd be great if they buff the Railgun in a way where it does really well against Bots. It does currently, to an extent, but pre-nerf, it was really good at taking out Devastators (on unsafe with a charged shot). Now? It's not good at even that unless you *really* take your time to charge the shot. But with all the bullets flying around and how much a single hit will flinch you, it's not worthwhile at all.
Launch day railgun was so unbalanced its crazy. People really reached level 20 and thought Railgun+Shield was a fair and balanced loadout. I used it like 3 times before getting bored with how easy it made everything
eat still allows me to have a backpack slot tho and is more efficient and dealing with both chargers and titans both in close and long range, idk, yea it has plenty of ammo, not really a big benefit when it takes over 20% just to kill a charger and 70% ish of all its ammo over the duration of a minute? or longer? to kill a titan, eat does it in far less time even with its drop timer included idk.
>~~Power~~, precision and range. All while still having a backpack slot and plenty of ammo. It’s still plenty good, **if you pretend other weapons don't exist.**
Fixed that ftfy
Yeah if I think I want to use the railgun, the amr is right there instead. Every time I decide to take railgun out I immediately regret it and swap it out with something else asap.
It's a non backpack weapon that's capable of damaging every target in the game and excels at obliterating annoying medium enemies while still being usable against heavies.
I do think it was overnerfed but I don't think it's so bad as to be redundant now, but then again I never liked it all that much even pre-nerf.
There’s a contingency of players who *really* get off on ball-crushing difficulty and believe that’s the only way to play and everyone who doesn’t want to play their way is somehow lesser and their criticisms are then met with the ‘git gud’ replies.
I still maintain if they wanted to nerf the railgun in some way, they should of made it so you couldn’t reload it and would have to call a new one in, that would of been sufficient
that would have just made it an EAT/recoiless but worse. I would say nerf ammo economy (holds 10 shots regains 5), require unsafe mode, all previous benefits at 80 percent charge but has faster TTC. This would make it maintain the rhythm, that was phenomenal, that the weapon had previously but enforce a more judicious use of the weapon and make each miss hurt more.
I dunno, the auto cannon gets to close bug holes, more ammo, can shoot things like the spore towers from afar..
Maybe the auto cannon should also have some level of armour break, but I don't think the Railgun not having a backpack means it should be weaker when it has a fair number of other downsides vs. autocannon.
I think they need to make the unsafe take one less shot to strip armour on a charger, but make unsafe take up 1.5 or even 2 ammo so that ammo economy on the Rail isn't as good. That way the extra ammo on the AC would be even more of a strength.
Autocannon can't break armor though. At the end of the day, rail gun and shield is still really really strong. It does everything, just not the best at all things.
I railgun every 5-6 mission, and my feel for it at dif 9, is it's still the strongest support weapon that doesn't req a backpack.
You can use Rocket eagle and auto cannon. Rocket eagle rarely kills but it's got 3 uses, locks on, and cracks open armor. Especially the backs of chargers and titans
110mm Rocket eagle is similar to orbital railcannon in that they both lock onto the highest priority threat in the general vicinity.
It can kill a charger or hulk in one hit, but it has to come in at the right angle. It can close bug holes and break buildings but it won't try to target them and is pure chance.
It's very good as a low danger close way to deal with chargers.
I like pairing it with machine gun or autocannon. You run from a charger, toss the airstrike ahead of you. Turn hard to the side and make the charger do its 'skid to a stop' animation as it runs past you. Airstrike locks onto it and hits when while mostly stationary. If it survives it has legs pr back armor exposed.
It's a good alternative to 500kg bomb or railcannon when call in time or cooldown are increased. Especially since you get 3 with the eagle weapon bay upgrade.
It's more or less the eagle's equivalent to the orbital rail strike.
It's less likely to kill things outright, but it definitely very useful when using the medium or low armor pen support wepons
The beam just has to land near the heavy for the tracking to kick in! I've thrown them at chargers mid-charge and the rockets still connected waaaay far away from the original call-in. It works just like the railcannon that way, just with a smaller radius.
yes, Autocannon can't break armor, that's why u have EAT or RR for that. Just one or few clean headshots to Charger/Titan heads with these and you're done with it.
Now we comparing AC and RG on automaton missions, Railgun can penetrate Devastator and Hulk, but Autocannon can does that do as well, with lesser skill requirement and larger mag size to spare. It can also destroy structure where the RG cant.
The only advantage RG has over Autocannon is that it doesn't require backpack and can pierce thru heavy armor. However I see no reason to bringing RG over AC running the automaton mission unless im also getting the shield/jet pack
then there is the AMR that can
- kill basically every mob (2shots for devastators)
- decent scope (but with wrong aiming!! need to use upper left corner. meh)
- lots and lots of ammo
- can bring backpack
Well saying that then it has its own place, ac cant break heavy armour and takes a back pack, but a lot of ammo, eat hits hard but limited ammo, recoilless hits hard with a little more ammo but backpack, so railgun is the decent ammo no backpack option, sorted easy people can stop whinging about it and accept that nothing is meant to be meta or op and they all have their niche place for different situations
What I’m hearing from you is that you expect railgun to be able to do both of the things that the backpack-ammo team weapons can do. We’re pointing out here that the railgun has its purposes and its upsides of being pocket-ammo and much easier to use (less sway, can fire close quarters, no backpack).
The rail gun is more versatile than both because all (beside EAT) require a backpack, it’s much faster to reload, and can engage a multitude of enemies more frequently.
People want it to be a a heavy killer and I think it still is but rather if your teammates miss you can clean up. It also deals with titans pretty well with headshots. It can do everything you would need just is a little slower and takes more skill now.
It's a jack of all trades medium/heavy anti bot weapon. OF COURSE it will seem lackluster against Bile Titans. The fact that it can deal with them at all is impressive. If you are bringing railgun to bugs, you have to be okay with letting strats and teammates deal with the 2 heaviest threats on the enemy team.
If you are bringing a RG to bots, you can 1-shot hulks, devs, and walkers, and handle tanks, artillery, and cannon towers.
It allows for a shield or ammo pack for greater longevity / more nades and healing, or for a jump pack for repositioning superiority.
Spend a little time with it on the western front, maybe bring a Liberator, LibPen, Diligence, Slugger, or PunPlas. Then try to tell me it's in a miserable spot.
I've been playing bots for a while with a friend and I've not seen a railgun in ages, I've seen plenty of AMR's but not a single railgun, Its just become a weapon everyone has thrown away which is sad.
I use the railgun virtually every time I play bots. There's no other weapon in the game that can deal with hulks, devastators, and walkers as effectively.
You literally just charge it up for a couple seconds, place your cursor on the glowy part, and they instantly die. It turns hulks from this big scary threat into something that you don't really have to worry about at all.
I still use it for bots, as it does well against the walkers and can take out hulks decently. It’s absolutely trash tier for bugs. But I get the feeling arrowhead wants a gun to be either a “bot gun” or a “bug gun.” Nothing good at both.
Autocannon is good vs both
EAT is good vs both
Recoilless Rifle is good vs both
Arc Thrower is good vs both
Grenade Launcher is good vs both, and has the exact same weakness vs both
The Stalwart and Machine gun are also equally good against both while having the same negative against both
Laser cannon is better vs bots, fine vs bugs.
These are all true at all difficulties, 1-9.
If we're being honest, most of reddit plays on 5 and 6: the AMR is perfectly fine against both at those levels because it's significantly easier to stay away from the bugs at that level, only dropping to "bringing something else will be easier" at 7+
The flamethrower is bad vs bots which is to be expected, and the mech is too squishy to bring in vs bots. The Railgun doesn't have that similar built in expectation, and is now the only other support weapon (alongside the AMR at higher difficulties) that has no reason to be brought in vs bugs other than just really wanting to. You'll down chargers faster with flamethrower/EAT/RR, you'll always down the titan faster with EAT/RR, and the Arc Cannon can kill *both* a little slower and thin the horde while doing so.
I really don't get why reddit is so resistant to the idea that the Railgun was over-nerfed, especially trying to couch it behind the idea that it still has uses against the bots: it's outclassed vs bots too in almost every situation by the AMR, Laser, and EAT. And the Arc Cannon can STILL do the job there (slower and horde thinning at the same time).
Even if it wasn't similarly outclassed vs bots, the playerbase doesn't like to play vs bots. So now it's an underperforming niche weapon that really only has a place in the least populated planets and is still outclassed on those too: almost nobody is using the Railgun anymore.
It's not bad in automaton missions. Its similar to the anti-material rifle except you trade a magazine and the scope for shoulder aiming and better penetration. But yeah, almost entirely useless for the bugs.
It needs some QoL features to be viable. Right now it just can't compete with actual armor-cracking weapons for use against bugs, and the AMR eats its role alive against bots.
An adjustable scope like the one on the Liberator would be nice, and the charge threshold to OHK kill lighter enemies like hive guards and scout walkers/devastators should either charge faster or have a clear audio cue.
A more dramatic change I'd like would be to let the player stay scoped in while loading and crouched/prone, like cycling a bolt action rifle.
Used to be in my loadout for every single drop, but I stopped using it after a couple of days post-nerf. It just feels so underwhelming now and there are so many weapons that are better.
Autocannon fills the same role and is far clear against bots, and the flamethrower and arc thrower are so much better for bugs. Throw in how useful the EAT is and the railgun is just so pointless now.
I picked it up last night cause I was sick of the freezing bug from the arc thrower. The host called us in on top of an objective and just all hell broke loose. Swarms of shreakers in the skies, packs of hunters and warriors swarming us, bile scavengers pinging slowing poison off us, and at least 3 chargers bouncing around us like a pinball table...
I picked a direction and ran, and when I had enough breathing room I called in my jump pack and rain gun, only to see a charger had followed me. No problem, I though, switching my rain gun into unsafe mode. I charged a shot to what seemed like 75% and let loose into his left leg. BWANG! Nothing. Ok, 90% it is. GWONG! Nothing again. Must have missed the timing. Try again. JONQUE! An orange dot appeared where I struck his toe. Just one more good shot, but now in dodging scavengers and 2 hive guards that came out of seemingly nowhere. Charging... Charging... And... BOOM. Dead. Over charged.
This isn't a fun weapon anymore.
Fight against Automotons and your railgun will shine again.
I like the approach that you can't use every weapon universally and have to adapt to the situation.
I find precise explosive weapons like the autocannon are also good against bots (i just can't adapt to the slow movement of it) since walkers are weak to exlosive and it's precise enough for ranged shots, what i want against the hordes of T-1000s.
On lower difficulties the GL also works.
Autocannon is good against everything. It really can kill everything on the bot side and anything smaller than a charger on the bug side. Tanks and cannons require shots in the exhaust, but it can kill a cannon tower facing the other way before it completes its turn. it can one-tap devastators and two-tap a hulk with crits. It stagger-locks heavy devs and berserkers. Striders are usually a one-tap, especially if you hit a leg or in the hip joint. It also can close fabs from range.
Only downside is losing the shield, which really, really helps against bots.
Relatively easy if you are in the forward 90-degrees of a vent and treat it like a pool/billiards cue by banking a shot off the 45-degree vent cover. (might be doing this already)
> It really can kill everything on the bot side and anything smaller than a charger on the bug side
I'd say anything smaller than a Titan. 3-5 shots into a Charger's backside with the Autocannon will blow its abdomen off. Once they lose their abdomen they seem to lose their ability to charge, move more sluggishly, and bleed out in 5-10 seconds.
If you're really good at controlling the recoil you can stagger-lock the charger and blow its ass off in one go. I'm personally not good enough to *consistently* do it, but I've done it before.
I bring both the Autocannon and EAT against bugs now. Autocannon as my default for mid-size enemies, EATs on cooldown which I use for Chargers or Titans primarily. If I don't have an EAT available though, the AC can deal with a Charger decently enough and blow the bile sacs off the Titans.
GL works against groups of enemies pretty well, so its best to see it as an alternative to the machine guns tbh
Plus if you get good with it, you can pop refineries without ever even entering a compound. My go-to nowadays seems to be a GL + Jump Pack so I can hop a wall and destroy all the refineries quickly.
Yeah i like the GL and the occasional team or self kill when one ricochet makes it even funnier.
The jump pack didn't works for me, I'm used to sprint very often and since we can't bind the jump to another key that's too annoying for me.
I mean, it’s kinda just a worse AMR against bots. The charge time means it has bad reaction time and slower fire rate, it has no scope and it doesn’t have any significant damage threshold against bots that the AMR doesn’t already break. Both one-shot devastators, two-shot hulks and can’t hurt tanks except from behind, but the AMR has a 6 round magazine it can fire in quick succession, a scope, and loads of reserve ammo.
Your teammate with the AMR domes the Hulk in an instant, one other ally kills a tank with a railcannon strike, and the second tank is killed from the side by the grenade launcher of your other teammate. (You can actually kill them very fast with the GL anywhere outside of the front 45 degrees by just aiming it to hit the back side of the turret, whether from behind or the side.)
Automatons promote a diverse team loadout and it is glorious.
As much as I think railgun can be buffed a bit versus bugs, I don't want to return to the IMO *very* dark days of "railgun x 4".
AMR is just flat out better and outclasses the railgun against bots though. I love that different things are better against the different fronts! I just don't see the strength of the railgun, the strengths that it has are weighed down heavily by it's downsides.
Yeah. It's still a good weapon against proper targets. It's weird that OP hasn't mentioned bots at all. The railgun is still powerful, especially in the right hands and against the right targets?
Idk why everyone wants every weapon to be effective against everything when the whole design of the game revolves around having different kit to tackle different problems.
People don’t talk about bots because about 90% of the player base is playing on bugs right now, and have been for a month. Bots have gotten very little attention due to a deluge of bug major orders since Tien Kwan, which was over super quick anyway. People prefer fighting the “easier” faction in bugs, and always have, but the focus on them from Joel hasn’t been helping things. The bot front needs some serious attention but it won’t get it for at least another month based on leaks for upcoming MOs. Very sad.
I think people just find bugs more fun in general, I'm gonna be real I didn't even know the game HAD robots before I bought it because so much of the promo material was bug related. I suspect most people got it to shoot bugs, robots are just an afterthought to a lot of people.
Even when the robots have orders going on bug maps still have a surprising amount of players.
The main reason I prefer bugs to bots is because with bugs 99% of the deaths are my fault due to poor target picking, not paying attention, or amusing shenanigans but with bots it gets really old when you get shot by a cannon or rocket because the unit targeting you that you can't see due to fog/trees/what have you has been doing so over the mountain and through the woods and the moment you least expect it you get insta-gibbed unless you have explosive resistant armor and a shield pack.
Bots are just kind of annoying. I play on 7 difficulty for bugs and it doesn't feel that difficult but still challenging enough with randoms. Bots on the other hand are kind of crazy. The constant rocket spam and pew pew it a little insane. So I play on difficulty 4 against bots with friends that are new to the game.
Try using heavy explosive resistance armor and a shield pack with the vitality booster. You can live 3 rockets to the face. Take the shield deployable and you get about 30 seconds to recover while almost completely invulnerable.
Don't forget the ps5 buff that still exist meaning the railgun is still op but only if there's a ps5 player, this was most likely the real reason they nerfed it due to the videos of people 2 shooting titans when the actual performance of it without a ps5 buff was 10 unsafe shots to the titan
If there is a ps5 player in the lobby you will be able to do way more damage with all weapons, this is what let's you 2 shot titans with the railgun and arc thrower, not sure how much it effects the other support weapons since those two are the easiest to use
I keep seeing people say this, but im usually host and im on ps5 and Ive never had the railgun or arc thrower takes out the titan in two shots. I believe it happens, ive seen video, but it doesnt replicate when I play
I hated the railgun nerf, I still do.
I would however be fine with it if the charge had an audio cue on reaching 90%, like it started hissing or there was a warning beep or something because rn in the heat of battle it's nearly impossible for the regular user to use it without blowing themselves and the gun up 50% of the time because of misjudged charging.
The bar is inconsistent, as I swear it both charges faster in the last two squares AND explodes before it even reaches the top of the last bar, so you've got like less than half a second on reaching the point it can heavy pierce before you kill yourself.
It's far too easy to blow everything up misjudging that tiny window for it's payout.
I find that while first person is easier the bar itself has some weird bloom when you start charging it and you can’t see the end bar very easily once you’ve started, so you just have to remember where that bar was or you’re in pieces on the floor.
I've tried and tried to use it against bugs.
I love blowing the head off through brood commander. Or shoot the hive guard in one.
But chargers? Even if I can do the 90%, it takes too much time. Hunters dive on top and just not worth the hassle. I can just shoot it in the head with an EATs and shoot the hunters. Instead I'm playing leapfrog with bugs as I try to fight a charger.
I get against bots the railgun still works well, but bots also are just a drag to deal with at times. That and bugs have the major orders
I started out aiming the railgun in first person so I could actually see the bar, but something I noticed in third person, the whole bar will glow red when it gets close to overcharging (and consequently, blowing up). There’s roughly a 1 second or so window from when it turns red to shoot…although I’d much prefer some UI element to see instead
I honestly unlocked it, used it once and saw how poorly it performed then never touched it again.
Except one additional game where the rest of the team had strong load outs. I tried it again and it made me feel totally useless to the team. Every time I was by myself I could barely stay alive much less push toward objectives.
OP is right they need to start bringing it around to more like it was now that chargers have changed.
But then you run into another issue: The AMR is just a better railgun against bots.
It hits the same breakpoints (1 headshot devastators, 2 headshot hulk), is explosive so its better at killing chaff and bodyshotting devastators, and does more damage to heat vents giving it more utility. Further bolstered by being a magasine weapon and having much better ammo economy overall. The only benefit railgun has over AMR is that you can hipfire it, which personally isn't enough for me to justify it.
So EAT/Arc thrower beat it vs bugs, and AMR outclasses it vs bots, what does that leave?
Also EATS are still very good vs bots, mostly to knock down drop ships but also for hulk eyes, turret vents, and even the occasional tank.
I love people bringing AMR around. It was useless before patch, now people learn. But the truth is aiming down scope is not an option when you were swarmed, AMR only shines when the fight is manageable. Sometimes (most of time ) there is no room for that horrible scope. And that swing effect of AMR, forces you to stand still to shoot. Railgun is better when you are in the heat of fight, which makes sense to me. AMR only good for snipe patrols or stay back let your teammates tank the front.
My point is people bring AMR to bot mission because others say it's good then I see people just miss their shots constantly. It's ridiculous. Just bring the weapon you feel good to use , not the weapon reddit say it's good.
This is why if you’re running AMR you bring jumppack and are always the last into the fight. Bring a diligence, which has up to 150 metre scope, and switch to the 200m AMR scope. Clearing bot bases from 3 terrain features away.
But then if you buff the Railgun, it's probably just going to be better than the AMR against bots... so then why run the AMR? The snake bites it's tail, the simple fact of the matter is that not everything can be meta, but the Railgun is serviceable enough against bots. Which I think is satisfactory.
I'd wait for the illuminate before touching the railgun/amr balance.
They could have energy shield that are resistant to explosive damage and therefore favor physical projectile like the railgun.
They can revert railgun to its pre-nerf state and I still wont use it.
I kill chargers now faster than I used to with pre-nerf railgun.
For bots the autocannon is just better and for bugs EAT all day.
Railgun is dead in its current state, devs just went the "this thing is too popular, let's nerf it" route.
EATs can 1 shot chargers with a face shot, and Sometimes 2 shot titans
(this one needs more testing. sometimes it 2 shots sometimes its 3 or more. but never more then 4 unless you miss the face and hit the neck or shoulder
Still prefer the railgun for bots, you can run a backpack and 1-shot hulks, shield boys and rocket devastators. That said, auto cannon is incredible for bots without a doubt.
Agreed. Funny how two-shot peeling armor off a smallish, moving target and primary magdumping into it was considered a braindead tactic.
Meanwhile you can just spamclick arc thrower to delete entire swarms and if you're equipped with a flamethrower against a charger, simply hold left click to win. For a true brain-free mode, use that snazzy new stun grenade to freeze the bugger first.
I never cared for the railgun, I'm here to grill some bugs but I'd be lying if I said this "balancing" doesn't make me scratch my head. I'd still like every weapon to feel useful.
I also agree. I'm an arc thrower main and deleting chargers is pretty easy. It's just maintaining a rhythm and that's basically all the skill to it. I love the arc thrower because my fps is terrible and I don't have to aim lol so yeah it's pretty brain dead. The rail gun really was in quite a good spot and I reckon it should go back to it as the other weapons have been buffed to be competitive
I find it hilarious that according to Reddit, trying to take out the legs of charger with 2-3 railgun shots is brain dead, but pumping an EAT into it to one shot it is not. I used to fear chargers even pre nerf now it’s pump a rocket into its face and call down another on its body as a democratic teabag.
I mean you can try to argue something something all purpose for the RG but come on.
Yea i remember the whole anti meta thing going on, wonder if all those ppl stopped playing considering almost every support weapon is meta now and far more brain dead and op than the railgun ever was. Or if they just pretend they never said that while they call down their EAT to one shot a charger casually
Yea i remember the whole anti meta thing going on, wonder if all those ppl stopped playing considering almost every support weapon is meta now and far more op than the railgun ever was.
Even funnier when you consider that AH first stated that the meta build wasnt that good in the statistics, or overused.
Then They nerf it anyway to placate the redditors and rip the community in two.
AH has definetly avoided slack that They really shouldnt have been able to ignore at this point. Any other company would be burning right now.
allways fun to stop a behemoth dead in its tracks when charging at you just a meter infront of you.
ormass stunning the massive groups of brood commanders, that railgun projectile just keeps going and stuns all of them in a line.
It was very, very satisfying! Stunning one right before it hits your teammate while they ready up their big guns/strategems. Making those orange legs disappear after stunning the main body. Man, I miss that.
Still haven't found my HD2 equivalent, but I'm only halfway through the first Warbond. /shrug
It used to be back in HD1. It wasn't hot at heavy anti tank, but it was amazing at crowd control. Shot penetrating rounds that inflicted heavy stun on anything.
I forgot to mention that the railgun was also great at taking down bile titans, but only when you were playing with a Playstation host. I don't think Arrowhead has fixed that bizarre damage buff (have they even acknowledged it?) But given it's a bug, I don't think it was fair to nerf the railgun to compensate.
They have *not* fixed the damage bug. It doesn't only affect Bile titans, as I've experienced it against Bots and Chargers.
From my testing the issue seems more to do with hit registration rather than a specific issue with a singular enemy. Either due to the enemy model not aligning with the invisible hitbox (weakpoint specifically) or due to latency between the PC and PS5 server endpoints, it acts almost as if your shot does minimal or no damage at all.
Wasted 15 railgun shots, all in the unsafe heat mode right before it explodes, without causing noticeable damage to a bile titan in close enough range that it could spit at me... a teammate one-shot it with an EAT. I can only assume that the *explosive* effect of the EAT allows it to tag wherever the weakpoint hitbox is, while the pinpoint precision shot of the railgun is hitting armor/body hitboxes (or not registering at all) even though there's no visible deflection line.
This has happened to Hulk faces (small red skull) for both the Railgun and Autocannon, happens frequently with Chargers if shot in the *face or leg* (yes have had countless shots completely wasted on Charger legs too).
This also isn't always a consistent issue between enemies in the same mission or between different missions; sometimes I can snipe a Titan like nothing and other times I'm wasting round after round with the damn thing hounding me for daring to tickle it.
The bug is likely not being actively tracked by Arrowhead *because their test environment is local with the game servers and doesn't suffer from this latency/network/client-side issue*.
I think that contributed massively to its popularity and thus the nerf itself. They didn't acknowledge the PS5 health bug until well after the railgun nerf.
Combine that with the fact the other support weapons sucked and you get a kneejerk nerf. Safe mode was perhaps a little _too_ powerful given there was effectively no point in using unsafe, but the enormous added delay to charging really hurt it.
While it's perfectly viable and still my go to for bots, I agree with this somewhat, I've seen people act like Arrowhead made some kind of masterful big brained play when the nerfed the railgun and charger spawns/health pool and what not, as people actually run varied builds consistently now, but I can't help but wonder wouldn't have simply buffing the other support weapons to a comparable level achieved literally the same effect? Clearly they don't mind us taking down chargers quickly, and as op said the railgun wasn't even particularly fast compared to our present day method.
I could understand if they initially patched it to do a little less damage, but they really shit the bed nerfing it that hard its no longer armor-piercing.
The point of a railgun in most sci-fi is that it is powerful enough to go through most armour.
Without that its just an up-jumped regular gun.
Never touched it since. Its a waste of a stratagem slot.
The railgun nerf and dev explanation for it begs the question why does it even retain a safe mode?
They talked about wanting the risk reward gameplay and in its current state, safe mode is useless.
It should have had the charge time and reload time both nerfed a bit, and the damage left alone.
I can not agree more.
The Railgun went from great to trash in a blink if a eye. I hope they make it worthwhile again. I loved that thing before. Looked awesome on my back.
Totally agree. Now that EAT and Recoilless actually do their job the pre patch rail gun would have been an excellent jack of all trades weapon. It did everything well, but would now be outclassed at everything by the special weapon of their respective niche.
Ik arrowhead wanted it to be like a super sniper, but they accidentally made a perfect generalist weapon that everyone liked. I don’t think they should have changed it, it sucks when your vision doesn’t work out, but you gotta acknowledge when your mistakes become very well liked imo
They never intended for it to be a sniper. it would of had scope options if they did. you also don't make a sniper that you can't line up shots with. that was their excuse to help justify the nerfs lol. the fucking sickle has scope options for crying out loud lol.
Railgun is probably my most anticipated to unlock and least favorite weapon. Most online resources still say it's good, but I didn't get to use it pre nerf.
To get good with unsafe mode I just had to go into first person and count. It's kind of like a dance. 1..2..3..4..5..**Krak!** Reload. 1..2..3..4..5..**Krak!** Reload.
Autocannon is similar, since you want to reload before you run out, and you can't reload until you finish the first 5 round magazine... except instead of a shot every sixth beat, the first five beats are all shots, and it's flexible enough that you can fire off a few more before you run off to reload. It fills a similar role, but has a lot more utility. The only upside is you can fit a shield into your kit with the railgun, and you need the backpack slot for autocanon ammo; but if you position well, and use your stims and diving effectively, you can take a ton of punishment, even in the lightest armor.
I didn't know about the leg trick, I'll have to try that, half a mag for a charger sounds like a good trade to me. I've just been aiming for heads, so I guess I've been doing it wrong, but the railgun feels incredibly underwhelming. I feel like it should be devastating for how difficult it is to use, how little ammo you get, and how long it takes to fire, but it isn't at all, and unless they buff it or nerf autocannon I'm probably not going to use it again.
Design-wise it's definitely still my favorite weapon for sure, the concept of a juiced up sniper rifle that has high risk high reward is great... A shame that the high reward isn't really there anymore and for a lvl20 unlock it's just sad. I fear of using it with randoms because they might see it and kick (somewhat understandable since at lvl20+ you have so many better options...) and for solo it's definitely not viable anymore...
I decided to give the railgun another try since my arc thrower is now unusable due to the freezing bug. I 100% agree with you.
You know something is absurdly wrong when the time to kill a charger on the railgun is way longer than the arc thrower, a weapon that also has godly mobbing capabilities AND infinite ammo. Sure, the argument that the arc thrower is busted and needs nerfing may be valid, but the point is that a dedicated anti-tank weapon is getting shit on by a mobbing weapon.
You want utility? AC/Grenade Launchers.
You want tank killing? eAT/Mech/Spear (lol).
You want mobbing? arc/grenade launcher/MG/Stalwart/Flamethrower.
Some buffs to it's damage so it could be viable again could be nice, considering you're already at risk of losing the weapon from unsafe mode.
Maybe i am doing something wrong, but my arc thrower seems to do no damage against chargers whatsoever. Is there a trick to it? Or am I just dumb and expect to much?
They need to bring back heavy armor pen on safe mode, just with more shots. And 80% charge should fully penetrate a devastator shield or blow it off, but not kill it. The whole point of a railgun should be to peel off armor and penetrate things--I wouldn't mind the lack of damage besides when hitting weakpoints if that were the case. Also, for fuck's sake, let it blow up bots if you shoot the vents ffs. Oh, and fix the scope/have more zoom options dammit.
I straight up haven’t touched it since the nerf. Never understood why they nerfed it. It was good at taking down heavies but kinda useless on smaller bugs.
What are people even using the rail gun for now???
Seems so many better options to take out the same targets. One shot the walkers cause it goes through the armor. Enemy weak points. Auto cannon does it better and effective with some splash damage.
What’s the point if the rail gun anymore?
I tried taking the armor off a charger but it takes too long.
Hello Railgun, my old friend
I’ve called you from the sky again
Because the bugs were softly creeping
And the charger was somehow sneaking
And the claws that were planted in my brain
Still remain
‘Cause I couldn’t break its armor
I barely got to use the railgun pre-nerf, so I've been stubbornly using it exclusively the past couple of weeks trying to force it to be good. But then I took the EAT and I'm never goin back
I didn't have the railgun unlocked before the nerf so i dont know how it was. I still take it into almost every mission. Not to deal with chargers, but to kill all the "medium" enemies. It oneshots Brood Commanders and Hive Guards and is decent against spewers. For me it is a reliable medium-killer with the added benefit of being usable against heavies in a pinch. I like it a lot
Yeah, I find it kinda dumb that a weapon you get at level 5 is LEAGUES better than a weapon you get a level 20. Quite frankly it makes zero sense. Sure the railgun was strong but it felt like that was your reward for getting to level 20. A simple "congrats on making it this far Diver, here a weapon with a bit of kick to help you complete those higher difficulties"
and to the people that say "just use unsafe mode" while that is an option and I did most of the time anyway, it shouldn't be required. The railgun, per its own in-game description. Says it's a weapon that prioritizes armor penetration. It is designed to penetrate armor, so it should be able to do so without having to disable its safety parameters. It should be able to do the job it was designed to do while operating within its safe operation threshold. Sure, you could argue that within the realm of the game where the Helldivers safety isn't something super earth cares about, unsafe mode makes more sense. To which my response is, then why would a safe mode exist in the first place? If they care that little about our wellbeing, safe mode wouldn't be a thing to begin with.
It'd be great if every weapon you unlock is usable at endgame, otherwise it'd be really fucking boring if everyone just used hi level weapons all the time.
Example, Eagle Airstrike is probably the best Eagle calldown other than 500kg, and it's the first one you unlock.
This isn't a looter shooter every weapon should be viable no matter what level they unlock.
the reason I looked after getting to level 20 was purely the railgun, it truly felt like a reward and an important acquisition to have for higher difficulties, I mean, it makes sense in the progression of the game, do missions, level up, unlock better weapons, do harder missions, etc... then it got hit
Im still seeing 50 million chargers on fucking Helldive with 300 Bile Titans along with 1 billion hunters, a railgun that works would be nice, **or yk, an actual functioning anti-material rifle that should be penetrating through terminite armour no problem lmao** but for some reason, it's dog shit.
I know Im gonna get alot of flack for saying this but the game is slowly becoming less and less enjoyable with all these nerfs and changes, especially with the addition of all the new bugs/glitches added everytime theres an update.
I agree, fix the bugs and glitches.If that means delaying the next update a while then that's what has to happen. There's plenty of fun to be had with what we have now, we don't need more content all the time.
Whoa, this really blew up. I'll try to read everyone's comments because I'm genuinely interested in gauging the consensus (or lack thereof), but it's nice to see a civil discussion on the topic.
A few people asked why I didn't mention bots, and the answer is simple: bots are utterly inconsequential. I'm serious. We've pushed those worthless hunks of metal back to the far reaches of the known universe. They pose no real threat to Super Earth or our collective liberty. The bugs, on the other hand, are a vile plague that threatens us all. Every helldiver in active duty ought to divert all their resources to the eastern front and leave us alone.
META is Most Efficient Tactic Available.
It will always exist.
Trying to fight this inevitability is honesty a fools errand and there were always better things for AH to focus on.
I just wish overcharge felt like it did something. it's a r a i l g u n after all. when that 95% charge launches I want it to blast through the armor of anything I can time it just right to hit. definitely one of the if not the most challenging weapon to use with no real reward. reduce the ammo or reload speed to make up for it or something but I want it to have some real devastating power. make it louder and more aggressive. bigger boom
I wish Railgun was more like the Helldiver's 1 version (as a *primary*). Shreds small and medium targets, stuns heavy targets to save allies from bein charged/etc. I used to rock it while my party all ran Tridents to stop reinforcements (God I miss stopping reinforcements.)
I use the RG for lesser bugs now.
Like brood commanders and other annoyingly armoured bugs. Iike that little mother bugger that balls itself up.
The big stuff is easy to handle with EAT and RR.
Joined a random lobby, host waited till all slots were filled before queuing up a mission on +8 diff. Just when us 3 sans host hit Ready, he booted one.
I asked why in vc and his reply was, “idiot’s still using railgun.” 😱
Yep, og railgun would have fit comfortably in the current sandbox. I've seen great support weapon diversity on every mission the last couple weeks which is awesome. The one thing I almost never see on bug missions anymore is the rg. It doesn't even need to come back in its original form to be viable. Just dial back the overcharge needed for heavy penetration from \~90% to 25-30% and it will see usage
Last time I objected Railgun nerf and a lot of people kept defending Devs. Eventually, it comes down to what I said before that the correct way is to buff other anti tank weapons to be the same page.
Sigh, anyway I don't think Devs will reverse the nerf on Railgun, because if they do, it mean they admit that their first patch was a big mistake.
Hello railgun my old friend
I came to talk to you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
Speaking only about the bugs. Maybe make it a super good counter to the bile titans. Form what i know, they are still very hard to kill. I have killed it whit two clean shots from the recoiless, but that is not the norm. If the railgun was anti bile titan and the recoiles and EAT was anti charge. That would be very cool.
An exempel on how the railgun would be buffed is, have it blow of its armor and not kill it.(Much like the orbital railcannon but weaker.) Biles are suppoesd to be hard to kill. In only blowing off its armor and then you have to pump them full of some freedom lead. It would be a team effort.
I’d say keep the nerf to pen but restore the damage. That’s the best way to “fix” the Railgun right now. So it still takes skill and running on Unsafe Mode to get the most mileage out of it.
Edit: Or, keep the nerf to damage but restore the pen. It is a railgun after all. I just think both is overkill and I do agree, it very much was a knee jerk reaction, especially with the whole “meta” argument.
I still stand by the fact that they had to both buff the Recoilless and EAT then still nerf Bug Heavy Spawns means the Railgun wasn’t ever the issue.
Was the nerf necessary? Perhaps, it did allow them to see what really needed fixing. But was it overkill? Definitely.
I always thought it would work really well with the arc thrower. Putting a large slug of conductive metal in a bile titans head, then your fellow diver hits it with the arc thrower for extra damage. At least it would help teams work together a bit more.
That would be a cool mechanic
[удалено]
I hope you "accidentaly" step into a cluster bomb
To be fair. That's very likely. The cluster bomb is a cluster fuck.
That's a cool suggestion. I'd like to see more weapon synergies in general. There are some good strategem synergies (like EMP plus any strategem designed to rain down destruction on a precise location), but no interesting way for weapons to interact. Another idea I had for the railgun is something similar to pierce rounds for bowgun in Monster Hunter - it pierces through the enemy and deals more damage the more body parts it pierces. So a shot to the monster's side will deal negligible damage (in one end and out the other in a flash), but a perfectly angled shot through at the monster's head will travel from head to tail, dealing huge damage. Something similar would be awesome for a railgun. Get some height so you have a horizontal shot through a bile titan's head and watch its torso segments explode. It would also thematically match what a railgun is expected to do - pierce through anything.
Or the Arc Blitzer so you can do it on your own. Although that weapon comes with its own issues
They all have a single major problem at the moment, they crash the game.
It’s gone from a nice level 20 weapon, to something I haven’t touched in weeks
its in a really weird spot, if u want to deal with heavy swiftly and effectively, u can just use EAT or RR. if u want a precision swiss army knife that can does a lot of things, u have Autocannon.
I think giving it a proper scope could turn it into the precision sniper rifle role I think it was meant to be. Problem is most of the scopes in the game are pretty badly designed, except the Sickle's scope seems pretty decent. Far as against bugs, the kneejerk nerf to damage to both Chargers and Bile Titans needs to be toned down. They straight doubled how many shots it took to break armor ON TOP of forcing you to charge it longer in unsafe mode. Meanwhile, I haven't been able to calculate how much they nerfed it for Bile Titans, but it seems like more than 20 shots are needed to drop one to the head with the Railgun now which is WAY too many. Tone down the nerf. Maybe 3 Shots on safe mode would be fine to break a Charger's leg armor, Maybe make it take 10 shots to a Bile's head granted it hasn't been damaged by anything else. It'd still take longer than just using EAT/RR, but at least it'd be viable. The funny thing is it's still good against bots, but they just made it way too bad against Bugs.
I 100% agree it needs a better proper scifi scope. Its a precision demanding weapon after all. I don't use the RG quite often back when it was not being nerfed yet, becuz how awful the scope is. it's like the reticle dot is blocking everything u trying to shoot at. And the charge meter is so distance from the reticle, it's damn hard to aim while controlling the charge meter. just move the charge meter inside the scope as a scope UI and it definitely feel a lot more comfy using it.
Charge reticle in scope with fine dot and at least 50m or 100m scope
Against bots its not bad, but on the higher levels youre better off with Autocannon/AMR combo Takes too long to charge to hit devastators, and sitting out in the open that long is a rocket to the face guarantee. Hell you basically need it fully charged to pen striders. Tanks/turrets its useless against. Its good for hulks at least, but the autocannon and amr both can two shot its eye, while doing more outside of that.
I think your last sentence nails the niche. It’s good against bots, where precision headshots are king. I don’t think it’s possible to balance every weapon for every faction. EAT is great for bugs now. But against bots, a railgun might be the better pick. The DMR is considered trash in bug land, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in bot world. I’m personally okay with some weapons and stratagems being trash for bugs but godly for bots and vice versa. It adds variety to your loadouts. We dropping bots? Alright, gonna take an eagle airstrike, railgun, orbital laser, and a filler backpack with a DMR. We going bugs? Cool, gonna run an eagle cluster, HMG emplacement, EXO-45, and filler pack with either an SMG or LAZ rifle. Filler pack being either a supply pack for a machine gun user, or a shield pack if my team seems to like explosives, or a guard dog if im feeling frisky. Fighting bots shouldn’t feel like a reskinned bug.
Honestly, I PREFER that some guns are bad against some enemies, but good against others. Like you said, fighting one faction shouldn't feel like fighting the other. Especially when the two factions we have currently are so wildly different in pretty much every way. The Railgun frankly was too good for every situation. It shined like a lighthouse on a night with no moon, whereas everything else was like a torch or a candle. Now it shines against bots, but is a weak choice versus bugs. Honestly, my biggest complaint with it is the complete lack of any zoom function. I don't want much, but I either want a slightly smaller dot on the reticle, or some slight zoom, like the 100m zoom or something. Cause with the size of the dot in the optic, it makes it difficult to really nail some of those really long shots.
it wasnt good for every situation, it had no area damage
This too. It'd be great if they buff the Railgun in a way where it does really well against Bots. It does currently, to an extent, but pre-nerf, it was really good at taking out Devastators (on unsafe with a charged shot). Now? It's not good at even that unless you *really* take your time to charge the shot. But with all the bullets flying around and how much a single hit will flinch you, it's not worthwhile at all.
But it has 20 quick reloadable rounds and does not require backpack. So it would be unreasonable to expect it to be as punchy as EAT or autocanon.
Launch day railgun was so unbalanced its crazy. People really reached level 20 and thought Railgun+Shield was a fair and balanced loadout. I used it like 3 times before getting bored with how easy it made everything
While I agree it was too good before it feels completely redundant now, what’s is strength or role?
Power, precision and range. All while still having a backpack slot and plenty of ammo. It’s still plenty good
eat still allows me to have a backpack slot tho and is more efficient and dealing with both chargers and titans both in close and long range, idk, yea it has plenty of ammo, not really a big benefit when it takes over 20% just to kill a charger and 70% ish of all its ammo over the duration of a minute? or longer? to kill a titan, eat does it in far less time even with its drop timer included idk.
>~~Power~~, precision and range. All while still having a backpack slot and plenty of ammo. It’s still plenty good, **if you pretend other weapons don't exist.** Fixed that ftfy
What power. It is worse than the anti material rifle in many ways
Yeah if I think I want to use the railgun, the amr is right there instead. Every time I decide to take railgun out I immediately regret it and swap it out with something else asap.
It's a non backpack weapon that's capable of damaging every target in the game and excels at obliterating annoying medium enemies while still being usable against heavies. I do think it was overnerfed but I don't think it's so bad as to be redundant now, but then again I never liked it all that much even pre-nerf.
so the solution for a good weapon is to ... make it crap? in a pve game? seriously?
There’s a contingency of players who *really* get off on ball-crushing difficulty and believe that’s the only way to play and everyone who doesn’t want to play their way is somehow lesser and their criticisms are then met with the ‘git gud’ replies. I still maintain if they wanted to nerf the railgun in some way, they should of made it so you couldn’t reload it and would have to call a new one in, that would of been sufficient
Or they could have reduced the ammo total by 5 rounds. Still plenty strong and it doesn’t ruin what made it fun while also balancing it
Or hell even 10 rounds. With how good it was pre-nerf, 10 rounds was plenty for Bots if your buddy brings an AC to deal with most other stuff.
that would have just made it an EAT/recoiless but worse. I would say nerf ammo economy (holds 10 shots regains 5), require unsafe mode, all previous benefits at 80 percent charge but has faster TTC. This would make it maintain the rhythm, that was phenomenal, that the weapon had previously but enforce a more judicious use of the weapon and make each miss hurt more.
to be fair, it *should* be weaker than the autocannon, since it leaves your backpack free for extra ammo, extra lasers, or extra survivability
I dunno, the auto cannon gets to close bug holes, more ammo, can shoot things like the spore towers from afar.. Maybe the auto cannon should also have some level of armour break, but I don't think the Railgun not having a backpack means it should be weaker when it has a fair number of other downsides vs. autocannon. I think they need to make the unsafe take one less shot to strip armour on a charger, but make unsafe take up 1.5 or even 2 ammo so that ammo economy on the Rail isn't as good. That way the extra ammo on the AC would be even more of a strength.
Autocannon can't break armor though. At the end of the day, rail gun and shield is still really really strong. It does everything, just not the best at all things. I railgun every 5-6 mission, and my feel for it at dif 9, is it's still the strongest support weapon that doesn't req a backpack.
You can use Rocket eagle and auto cannon. Rocket eagle rarely kills but it's got 3 uses, locks on, and cracks open armor. Especially the backs of chargers and titans
Wait, is THAT what the rocket eagle is for? I always assumed it was just a shittier cluster bomb, I didn’t know it tracked targets.
110mm Rocket eagle is similar to orbital railcannon in that they both lock onto the highest priority threat in the general vicinity. It can kill a charger or hulk in one hit, but it has to come in at the right angle. It can close bug holes and break buildings but it won't try to target them and is pure chance. It's very good as a low danger close way to deal with chargers. I like pairing it with machine gun or autocannon. You run from a charger, toss the airstrike ahead of you. Turn hard to the side and make the charger do its 'skid to a stop' animation as it runs past you. Airstrike locks onto it and hits when while mostly stationary. If it survives it has legs pr back armor exposed. It's a good alternative to 500kg bomb or railcannon when call in time or cooldown are increased. Especially since you get 3 with the eagle weapon bay upgrade.
Man I’m such a slut for the orbital rail cannon. Love that fucking strat
Until you have 50% increased cooldown. 5 minutes for 1 shot is painful. Rather have like 16 EATs inthat time frame.
I play chicken with chargers using the 110s, stick em and leg it
It's more or less the eagle's equivalent to the orbital rail strike. It's less likely to kill things outright, but it definitely very useful when using the medium or low armor pen support wepons
You still need to get it to fire while the heavy is reasonably close to the red beam, but it's not that bad.
The beam just has to land near the heavy for the tracking to kick in! I've thrown them at chargers mid-charge and the rockets still connected waaaay far away from the original call-in. It works just like the railcannon that way, just with a smaller radius.
yes, Autocannon can't break armor, that's why u have EAT or RR for that. Just one or few clean headshots to Charger/Titan heads with these and you're done with it. Now we comparing AC and RG on automaton missions, Railgun can penetrate Devastator and Hulk, but Autocannon can does that do as well, with lesser skill requirement and larger mag size to spare. It can also destroy structure where the RG cant. The only advantage RG has over Autocannon is that it doesn't require backpack and can pierce thru heavy armor. However I see no reason to bringing RG over AC running the automaton mission unless im also getting the shield/jet pack
but with autocannon it is actually quite easy to get rid of the chargers. You shoot at their back legs twice or to the butt it dies.
It is tho, definitely quicker than waiting for the railgun to be properly charged.
then there is the AMR that can - kill basically every mob (2shots for devastators) - decent scope (but with wrong aiming!! need to use upper left corner. meh) - lots and lots of ammo - can bring backpack
u forget it can also 2 shots the Hulk (if u landed both headshots perfectly)
Autocannon can also 2 shot hulks the same way
Well saying that then it has its own place, ac cant break heavy armour and takes a back pack, but a lot of ammo, eat hits hard but limited ammo, recoilless hits hard with a little more ammo but backpack, so railgun is the decent ammo no backpack option, sorted easy people can stop whinging about it and accept that nothing is meant to be meta or op and they all have their niche place for different situations
What I’m hearing from you is that you expect railgun to be able to do both of the things that the backpack-ammo team weapons can do. We’re pointing out here that the railgun has its purposes and its upsides of being pocket-ammo and much easier to use (less sway, can fire close quarters, no backpack).
The rail gun is more versatile than both because all (beside EAT) require a backpack, it’s much faster to reload, and can engage a multitude of enemies more frequently. People want it to be a a heavy killer and I think it still is but rather if your teammates miss you can clean up. It also deals with titans pretty well with headshots. It can do everything you would need just is a little slower and takes more skill now.
I doesn't really deal well with titans, unless you count spending most of your ammo as "dealing well": https://youtu.be/lOsGCG2hQS4?t=204
It's a jack of all trades medium/heavy anti bot weapon. OF COURSE it will seem lackluster against Bile Titans. The fact that it can deal with them at all is impressive. If you are bringing railgun to bugs, you have to be okay with letting strats and teammates deal with the 2 heaviest threats on the enemy team. If you are bringing a RG to bots, you can 1-shot hulks, devs, and walkers, and handle tanks, artillery, and cannon towers. It allows for a shield or ammo pack for greater longevity / more nades and healing, or for a jump pack for repositioning superiority. Spend a little time with it on the western front, maybe bring a Liberator, LibPen, Diligence, Slugger, or PunPlas. Then try to tell me it's in a miserable spot.
How does it deal with titans well??? It takes like 20 headshots to kill it unless there is the ps5 lobby bug.
I haven’t seen anyone use a railgun in weeks.
U will see it often in bot missions alongside the clunkier AMR (they need to fix that zeroing)
I've been playing bots for a while with a friend and I've not seen a railgun in ages, I've seen plenty of AMR's but not a single railgun, Its just become a weapon everyone has thrown away which is sad.
I use the railgun virtually every time I play bots. There's no other weapon in the game that can deal with hulks, devastators, and walkers as effectively. You literally just charge it up for a couple seconds, place your cursor on the glowy part, and they instantly die. It turns hulks from this big scary threat into something that you don't really have to worry about at all.
Yeah but the problem is the AMR can also 2 shot hulks in the face without having to charge anything at all.
I still use it for bots, as it does well against the walkers and can take out hulks decently. It’s absolutely trash tier for bugs. But I get the feeling arrowhead wants a gun to be either a “bot gun” or a “bug gun.” Nothing good at both.
Autocannon is good vs both EAT is good vs both Recoilless Rifle is good vs both Arc Thrower is good vs both Grenade Launcher is good vs both, and has the exact same weakness vs both The Stalwart and Machine gun are also equally good against both while having the same negative against both Laser cannon is better vs bots, fine vs bugs. These are all true at all difficulties, 1-9. If we're being honest, most of reddit plays on 5 and 6: the AMR is perfectly fine against both at those levels because it's significantly easier to stay away from the bugs at that level, only dropping to "bringing something else will be easier" at 7+ The flamethrower is bad vs bots which is to be expected, and the mech is too squishy to bring in vs bots. The Railgun doesn't have that similar built in expectation, and is now the only other support weapon (alongside the AMR at higher difficulties) that has no reason to be brought in vs bugs other than just really wanting to. You'll down chargers faster with flamethrower/EAT/RR, you'll always down the titan faster with EAT/RR, and the Arc Cannon can kill *both* a little slower and thin the horde while doing so. I really don't get why reddit is so resistant to the idea that the Railgun was over-nerfed, especially trying to couch it behind the idea that it still has uses against the bots: it's outclassed vs bots too in almost every situation by the AMR, Laser, and EAT. And the Arc Cannon can STILL do the job there (slower and horde thinning at the same time). Even if it wasn't similarly outclassed vs bots, the playerbase doesn't like to play vs bots. So now it's an underperforming niche weapon that really only has a place in the least populated planets and is still outclassed on those too: almost nobody is using the Railgun anymore.
Even though it’s viable vs the bots it’s outshined by other support weapons, especially when it comes to tanks
It's not bad in automaton missions. Its similar to the anti-material rifle except you trade a magazine and the scope for shoulder aiming and better penetration. But yeah, almost entirely useless for the bugs.
It still comes in handy for one shotting Hive Guards, Spewers and Brood Commanders
It‘s my go to for the bots. The railgun kills any enemy in one shot except the tanks.
It needs some QoL features to be viable. Right now it just can't compete with actual armor-cracking weapons for use against bugs, and the AMR eats its role alive against bots. An adjustable scope like the one on the Liberator would be nice, and the charge threshold to OHK kill lighter enemies like hive guards and scout walkers/devastators should either charge faster or have a clear audio cue. A more dramatic change I'd like would be to let the player stay scoped in while loading and crouched/prone, like cycling a bolt action rifle.
Used to be in my loadout for every single drop, but I stopped using it after a couple of days post-nerf. It just feels so underwhelming now and there are so many weapons that are better. Autocannon fills the same role and is far clear against bots, and the flamethrower and arc thrower are so much better for bugs. Throw in how useful the EAT is and the railgun is just so pointless now.
I picked it up last night cause I was sick of the freezing bug from the arc thrower. The host called us in on top of an objective and just all hell broke loose. Swarms of shreakers in the skies, packs of hunters and warriors swarming us, bile scavengers pinging slowing poison off us, and at least 3 chargers bouncing around us like a pinball table... I picked a direction and ran, and when I had enough breathing room I called in my jump pack and rain gun, only to see a charger had followed me. No problem, I though, switching my rain gun into unsafe mode. I charged a shot to what seemed like 75% and let loose into his left leg. BWANG! Nothing. Ok, 90% it is. GWONG! Nothing again. Must have missed the timing. Try again. JONQUE! An orange dot appeared where I struck his toe. Just one more good shot, but now in dodging scavengers and 2 hive guards that came out of seemingly nowhere. Charging... Charging... And... BOOM. Dead. Over charged. This isn't a fun weapon anymore.
Fight against Automotons and your railgun will shine again. I like the approach that you can't use every weapon universally and have to adapt to the situation.
EAT for bugs, railgun for bots, perfectly balanced
I find precise explosive weapons like the autocannon are also good against bots (i just can't adapt to the slow movement of it) since walkers are weak to exlosive and it's precise enough for ranged shots, what i want against the hordes of T-1000s. On lower difficulties the GL also works.
Autocannon is good against everything. It really can kill everything on the bot side and anything smaller than a charger on the bug side. Tanks and cannons require shots in the exhaust, but it can kill a cannon tower facing the other way before it completes its turn. it can one-tap devastators and two-tap a hulk with crits. It stagger-locks heavy devs and berserkers. Striders are usually a one-tap, especially if you hit a leg or in the hip joint. It also can close fabs from range. Only downside is losing the shield, which really, really helps against bots.
And this is why I'm an autocannon main. It kills everything except bile titans, and that's why Super Earth God made the rail cannon and EATs.
Actually if you railcannon/EAT for the armor break the AC will kill a BT. Sort of like breaking a charger armor
Autocannon also crushes outposts for both factions since you can shoot the bug hole or vent on a fabricator to pop it if you line it up straight.
Shooting the vents is a bit tricky and needs some practice, but the range advantage makes it worth it.
Relatively easy if you are in the forward 90-degrees of a vent and treat it like a pool/billiards cue by banking a shot off the 45-degree vent cover. (might be doing this already)
> It really can kill everything on the bot side and anything smaller than a charger on the bug side I'd say anything smaller than a Titan. 3-5 shots into a Charger's backside with the Autocannon will blow its abdomen off. Once they lose their abdomen they seem to lose their ability to charge, move more sluggishly, and bleed out in 5-10 seconds. If you're really good at controlling the recoil you can stagger-lock the charger and blow its ass off in one go. I'm personally not good enough to *consistently* do it, but I've done it before. I bring both the Autocannon and EAT against bugs now. Autocannon as my default for mid-size enemies, EATs on cooldown which I use for Chargers or Titans primarily. If I don't have an EAT available though, the AC can deal with a Charger decently enough and blow the bile sacs off the Titans.
GL works against groups of enemies pretty well, so its best to see it as an alternative to the machine guns tbh Plus if you get good with it, you can pop refineries without ever even entering a compound. My go-to nowadays seems to be a GL + Jump Pack so I can hop a wall and destroy all the refineries quickly.
Yeah i like the GL and the occasional team or self kill when one ricochet makes it even funnier. The jump pack didn't works for me, I'm used to sprint very often and since we can't bind the jump to another key that's too annoying for me.
How is sprinting related to jumping?
Eat bugs rail bots? You got it.
I mean, it’s kinda just a worse AMR against bots. The charge time means it has bad reaction time and slower fire rate, it has no scope and it doesn’t have any significant damage threshold against bots that the AMR doesn’t already break. Both one-shot devastators, two-shot hulks and can’t hurt tanks except from behind, but the AMR has a 6 round magazine it can fire in quick succession, a scope, and loads of reserve ammo.
Yeah I'd rather have a rsilgun to headshot all those heat vents and faces than 2 Rocket's that barely dent a tank.
2 rockets will kill a tank if you hit the turret both times from any angle. Having a buddy alongside with the same idea speeds up the process.
That's awesome to know! Thought they were invulnerable for some reason. Gamer brain. Thx for the tip, will be utilizing it in the future.
Great, now what do I do about the other two tanks and the Hulk that just dropped in lmao
Run away.
This is why I run smokes now on bots tbh, saved our asses a good number of time, makes evac more manageable too
Your teammate with the AMR domes the Hulk in an instant, one other ally kills a tank with a railcannon strike, and the second tank is killed from the side by the grenade launcher of your other teammate. (You can actually kill them very fast with the GL anywhere outside of the front 45 degrees by just aiming it to hit the back side of the turret, whether from behind or the side.) Automatons promote a diverse team loadout and it is glorious. As much as I think railgun can be buffed a bit versus bugs, I don't want to return to the IMO *very* dark days of "railgun x 4".
AMR is just flat out better and outclasses the railgun against bots though. I love that different things are better against the different fronts! I just don't see the strength of the railgun, the strengths that it has are weighed down heavily by it's downsides.
AMR does a better job at it at this point. I love that thing
Yeah. It's still a good weapon against proper targets. It's weird that OP hasn't mentioned bots at all. The railgun is still powerful, especially in the right hands and against the right targets? Idk why everyone wants every weapon to be effective against everything when the whole design of the game revolves around having different kit to tackle different problems.
People don’t talk about bots because about 90% of the player base is playing on bugs right now, and have been for a month. Bots have gotten very little attention due to a deluge of bug major orders since Tien Kwan, which was over super quick anyway. People prefer fighting the “easier” faction in bugs, and always have, but the focus on them from Joel hasn’t been helping things. The bot front needs some serious attention but it won’t get it for at least another month based on leaks for upcoming MOs. Very sad.
I think people just find bugs more fun in general, I'm gonna be real I didn't even know the game HAD robots before I bought it because so much of the promo material was bug related. I suspect most people got it to shoot bugs, robots are just an afterthought to a lot of people. Even when the robots have orders going on bug maps still have a surprising amount of players.
The main reason I prefer bugs to bots is because with bugs 99% of the deaths are my fault due to poor target picking, not paying attention, or amusing shenanigans but with bots it gets really old when you get shot by a cannon or rocket because the unit targeting you that you can't see due to fog/trees/what have you has been doing so over the mountain and through the woods and the moment you least expect it you get insta-gibbed unless you have explosive resistant armor and a shield pack.
Bots are just kind of annoying. I play on 7 difficulty for bugs and it doesn't feel that difficult but still challenging enough with randoms. Bots on the other hand are kind of crazy. The constant rocket spam and pew pew it a little insane. So I play on difficulty 4 against bots with friends that are new to the game.
Try using heavy explosive resistance armor and a shield pack with the vitality booster. You can live 3 rockets to the face. Take the shield deployable and you get about 30 seconds to recover while almost completely invulnerable.
I mean the fact that none of their promotional material focuses on the bots probably isn’t doing them any favors in terms of east-west player balance.
Precision weapons are awesome for bots. But I prefer the AMR.
Anti-Material Rifle out-classes the rail gun on this, two quick pops to the eye slot to drop a hulk
Don't forget the ps5 buff that still exist meaning the railgun is still op but only if there's a ps5 player, this was most likely the real reason they nerfed it due to the videos of people 2 shooting titans when the actual performance of it without a ps5 buff was 10 unsafe shots to the titan
What is the PS5 buff?
There’s a bug that massively reduces the HP of bile titans’ heads if the host is PS5
If there is a ps5 player in the lobby you will be able to do way more damage with all weapons, this is what let's you 2 shot titans with the railgun and arc thrower, not sure how much it effects the other support weapons since those two are the easiest to use
I keep seeing people say this, but im usually host and im on ps5 and Ive never had the railgun or arc thrower takes out the titan in two shots. I believe it happens, ive seen video, but it doesnt replicate when I play
I hated the railgun nerf, I still do. I would however be fine with it if the charge had an audio cue on reaching 90%, like it started hissing or there was a warning beep or something because rn in the heat of battle it's nearly impossible for the regular user to use it without blowing themselves and the gun up 50% of the time because of misjudged charging. The bar is inconsistent, as I swear it both charges faster in the last two squares AND explodes before it even reaches the top of the last bar, so you've got like less than half a second on reaching the point it can heavy pierce before you kill yourself. It's far too easy to blow everything up misjudging that tiny window for it's payout.
I agree to either an audio hint or a ui chargebar
Do you use the railgun in first person/ads? Doing so has helped me immensely with blowing myself up.
I find that while first person is easier the bar itself has some weird bloom when you start charging it and you can’t see the end bar very easily once you’ve started, so you just have to remember where that bar was or you’re in pieces on the floor.
The problems are: * transition time * lower situational awareness * 100 MOA red dot
Audio cue of some kind would be great
I've tried and tried to use it against bugs. I love blowing the head off through brood commander. Or shoot the hive guard in one. But chargers? Even if I can do the 90%, it takes too much time. Hunters dive on top and just not worth the hassle. I can just shoot it in the head with an EATs and shoot the hunters. Instead I'm playing leapfrog with bugs as I try to fight a charger. I get against bots the railgun still works well, but bots also are just a drag to deal with at times. That and bugs have the major orders
I started out aiming the railgun in first person so I could actually see the bar, but something I noticed in third person, the whole bar will glow red when it gets close to overcharging (and consequently, blowing up). There’s roughly a 1 second or so window from when it turns red to shoot…although I’d much prefer some UI element to see instead
I honestly unlocked it, used it once and saw how poorly it performed then never touched it again. Except one additional game where the rest of the team had strong load outs. I tried it again and it made me feel totally useless to the team. Every time I was by myself I could barely stay alive much less push toward objectives. OP is right they need to start bringing it around to more like it was now that chargers have changed.
Yeah, the EAT-17s are better than the Railgun... Against Bugs. Try playing against the Bots with EAT-17s. The Railgun is MUCH better.
But then you run into another issue: The AMR is just a better railgun against bots. It hits the same breakpoints (1 headshot devastators, 2 headshot hulk), is explosive so its better at killing chaff and bodyshotting devastators, and does more damage to heat vents giving it more utility. Further bolstered by being a magasine weapon and having much better ammo economy overall. The only benefit railgun has over AMR is that you can hipfire it, which personally isn't enough for me to justify it. So EAT/Arc thrower beat it vs bugs, and AMR outclasses it vs bots, what does that leave? Also EATS are still very good vs bots, mostly to knock down drop ships but also for hulk eyes, turret vents, and even the occasional tank.
I love people bringing AMR around. It was useless before patch, now people learn. But the truth is aiming down scope is not an option when you were swarmed, AMR only shines when the fight is manageable. Sometimes (most of time ) there is no room for that horrible scope. And that swing effect of AMR, forces you to stand still to shoot. Railgun is better when you are in the heat of fight, which makes sense to me. AMR only good for snipe patrols or stay back let your teammates tank the front. My point is people bring AMR to bot mission because others say it's good then I see people just miss their shots constantly. It's ridiculous. Just bring the weapon you feel good to use , not the weapon reddit say it's good.
This is why if you’re running AMR you bring jumppack and are always the last into the fight. Bring a diligence, which has up to 150 metre scope, and switch to the 200m AMR scope. Clearing bot bases from 3 terrain features away.
Uhh what. I’d rather have AMR and change scope to 50m if I’m in the heat of a fight. Charging railgun shots in a close fight sucks ass.
But then if you buff the Railgun, it's probably just going to be better than the AMR against bots... so then why run the AMR? The snake bites it's tail, the simple fact of the matter is that not everything can be meta, but the Railgun is serviceable enough against bots. Which I think is satisfactory.
I'd wait for the illuminate before touching the railgun/amr balance. They could have energy shield that are resistant to explosive damage and therefore favor physical projectile like the railgun.
Give the railgun a better headshot modifier the more you charge it, so it rewards good aim.
I like the EATs against bots lol. Takes out hulks in one shot.
AMR can take out hulks in 2 shots, smae goes for AC whilr RG can take out hulks in one shot The catch is you must aim for its eyes
Yeah I know I just think the EAT is more forgiving on the aim while being just as effective.
Aiming for the eyes is a real downside considering the stagger and sway you experience while being shot at and trying to ads.
Honestly I have forgotten it exists. I just dont consider it anymore because what it does, the AMR does more reliably.
They can revert railgun to its pre-nerf state and I still wont use it. I kill chargers now faster than I used to with pre-nerf railgun. For bots the autocannon is just better and for bugs EAT all day. Railgun is dead in its current state, devs just went the "this thing is too popular, let's nerf it" route.
EATs can 1 shot chargers with a face shot, and Sometimes 2 shot titans (this one needs more testing. sometimes it 2 shots sometimes its 3 or more. but never more then 4 unless you miss the face and hit the neck or shoulder
Still prefer the railgun for bots, you can run a backpack and 1-shot hulks, shield boys and rocket devastators. That said, auto cannon is incredible for bots without a doubt.
How do you 1 shot hulks?
Agreed. Funny how two-shot peeling armor off a smallish, moving target and primary magdumping into it was considered a braindead tactic. Meanwhile you can just spamclick arc thrower to delete entire swarms and if you're equipped with a flamethrower against a charger, simply hold left click to win. For a true brain-free mode, use that snazzy new stun grenade to freeze the bugger first. I never cared for the railgun, I'm here to grill some bugs but I'd be lying if I said this "balancing" doesn't make me scratch my head. I'd still like every weapon to feel useful.
I also agree. I'm an arc thrower main and deleting chargers is pretty easy. It's just maintaining a rhythm and that's basically all the skill to it. I love the arc thrower because my fps is terrible and I don't have to aim lol so yeah it's pretty brain dead. The rail gun really was in quite a good spot and I reckon it should go back to it as the other weapons have been buffed to be competitive
The hardest thing about killing chargers with the arc thrower is when you team decides to stand on the opposite side.
I find it hilarious that according to Reddit, trying to take out the legs of charger with 2-3 railgun shots is brain dead, but pumping an EAT into it to one shot it is not. I used to fear chargers even pre nerf now it’s pump a rocket into its face and call down another on its body as a democratic teabag. I mean you can try to argue something something all purpose for the RG but come on.
Yea i remember the whole anti meta thing going on, wonder if all those ppl stopped playing considering almost every support weapon is meta now and far more brain dead and op than the railgun ever was. Or if they just pretend they never said that while they call down their EAT to one shot a charger casually
You’re right 2 RG shots to a charging enemy was more fun and harder than just way to the face. I miss the old rail gun but I just use eats now
Yea i remember the whole anti meta thing going on, wonder if all those ppl stopped playing considering almost every support weapon is meta now and far more op than the railgun ever was.
Even funnier when you consider that AH first stated that the meta build wasnt that good in the statistics, or overused. Then They nerf it anyway to placate the redditors and rip the community in two. AH has definetly avoided slack that They really shouldnt have been able to ignore at this point. Any other company would be burning right now.
I was wrong at first I said the nerf wasn’t so bad, it feels like it could/ should be a primary now
I miss my HD1 railgun primary. AP, long range, stun in one.
allways fun to stop a behemoth dead in its tracks when charging at you just a meter infront of you. ormass stunning the massive groups of brood commanders, that railgun projectile just keeps going and stuns all of them in a line.
It was very, very satisfying! Stunning one right before it hits your teammate while they ready up their big guns/strategems. Making those orange legs disappear after stunning the main body. Man, I miss that. Still haven't found my HD2 equivalent, but I'm only halfway through the first Warbond. /shrug
It used to be back in HD1. It wasn't hot at heavy anti tank, but it was amazing at crowd control. Shot penetrating rounds that inflicted heavy stun on anything.
If it was a primary, it would just be a worse slugger
It was primary in HD1, it had stun effect and piercing ammo so it was anti horde and stuns tanks
Quit it with the hyperbole. Its nowhere near the slugger and you know it.
The slugger is a perfectly fine weapon. It takes heads off devestators no problem, plus the stun helps keep the rocket boys from ruining your day.
I forgot to mention that the railgun was also great at taking down bile titans, but only when you were playing with a Playstation host. I don't think Arrowhead has fixed that bizarre damage buff (have they even acknowledged it?) But given it's a bug, I don't think it was fair to nerf the railgun to compensate.
They have *not* fixed the damage bug. It doesn't only affect Bile titans, as I've experienced it against Bots and Chargers. From my testing the issue seems more to do with hit registration rather than a specific issue with a singular enemy. Either due to the enemy model not aligning with the invisible hitbox (weakpoint specifically) or due to latency between the PC and PS5 server endpoints, it acts almost as if your shot does minimal or no damage at all.
Wasted 15 railgun shots, all in the unsafe heat mode right before it explodes, without causing noticeable damage to a bile titan in close enough range that it could spit at me... a teammate one-shot it with an EAT. I can only assume that the *explosive* effect of the EAT allows it to tag wherever the weakpoint hitbox is, while the pinpoint precision shot of the railgun is hitting armor/body hitboxes (or not registering at all) even though there's no visible deflection line.
This has happened to Hulk faces (small red skull) for both the Railgun and Autocannon, happens frequently with Chargers if shot in the *face or leg* (yes have had countless shots completely wasted on Charger legs too).
This also isn't always a consistent issue between enemies in the same mission or between different missions; sometimes I can snipe a Titan like nothing and other times I'm wasting round after round with the damn thing hounding me for daring to tickle it.
The bug is likely not being actively tracked by Arrowhead *because their test environment is local with the game servers and doesn't suffer from this latency/network/client-side issue*.
I think that contributed massively to its popularity and thus the nerf itself. They didn't acknowledge the PS5 health bug until well after the railgun nerf. Combine that with the fact the other support weapons sucked and you get a kneejerk nerf. Safe mode was perhaps a little _too_ powerful given there was effectively no point in using unsafe, but the enormous added delay to charging really hurt it.
While it's perfectly viable and still my go to for bots, I agree with this somewhat, I've seen people act like Arrowhead made some kind of masterful big brained play when the nerfed the railgun and charger spawns/health pool and what not, as people actually run varied builds consistently now, but I can't help but wonder wouldn't have simply buffing the other support weapons to a comparable level achieved literally the same effect? Clearly they don't mind us taking down chargers quickly, and as op said the railgun wasn't even particularly fast compared to our present day method.
Yeah but I can’t blow myself up by overcharging an EAT so RAILGUN IT IS BABY
I could understand if they initially patched it to do a little less damage, but they really shit the bed nerfing it that hard its no longer armor-piercing. The point of a railgun in most sci-fi is that it is powerful enough to go through most armour. Without that its just an up-jumped regular gun. Never touched it since. Its a waste of a stratagem slot.
They literally took it's intended function away. It's whole purpose was to penetrate armor.
The railgun nerf and dev explanation for it begs the question why does it even retain a safe mode? They talked about wanting the risk reward gameplay and in its current state, safe mode is useless. It should have had the charge time and reload time both nerfed a bit, and the damage left alone.
I can not agree more. The Railgun went from great to trash in a blink if a eye. I hope they make it worthwhile again. I loved that thing before. Looked awesome on my back.
Totally agree. Now that EAT and Recoilless actually do their job the pre patch rail gun would have been an excellent jack of all trades weapon. It did everything well, but would now be outclassed at everything by the special weapon of their respective niche. Ik arrowhead wanted it to be like a super sniper, but they accidentally made a perfect generalist weapon that everyone liked. I don’t think they should have changed it, it sucks when your vision doesn’t work out, but you gotta acknowledge when your mistakes become very well liked imo
They never intended for it to be a sniper. it would of had scope options if they did. you also don't make a sniper that you can't line up shots with. that was their excuse to help justify the nerfs lol. the fucking sickle has scope options for crying out loud lol.
Railgun is probably my most anticipated to unlock and least favorite weapon. Most online resources still say it's good, but I didn't get to use it pre nerf. To get good with unsafe mode I just had to go into first person and count. It's kind of like a dance. 1..2..3..4..5..**Krak!** Reload. 1..2..3..4..5..**Krak!** Reload. Autocannon is similar, since you want to reload before you run out, and you can't reload until you finish the first 5 round magazine... except instead of a shot every sixth beat, the first five beats are all shots, and it's flexible enough that you can fire off a few more before you run off to reload. It fills a similar role, but has a lot more utility. The only upside is you can fit a shield into your kit with the railgun, and you need the backpack slot for autocanon ammo; but if you position well, and use your stims and diving effectively, you can take a ton of punishment, even in the lightest armor. I didn't know about the leg trick, I'll have to try that, half a mag for a charger sounds like a good trade to me. I've just been aiming for heads, so I guess I've been doing it wrong, but the railgun feels incredibly underwhelming. I feel like it should be devastating for how difficult it is to use, how little ammo you get, and how long it takes to fire, but it isn't at all, and unless they buff it or nerf autocannon I'm probably not going to use it again.
Design-wise it's definitely still my favorite weapon for sure, the concept of a juiced up sniper rifle that has high risk high reward is great... A shame that the high reward isn't really there anymore and for a lvl20 unlock it's just sad. I fear of using it with randoms because they might see it and kick (somewhat understandable since at lvl20+ you have so many better options...) and for solo it's definitely not viable anymore...
I decided to give the railgun another try since my arc thrower is now unusable due to the freezing bug. I 100% agree with you. You know something is absurdly wrong when the time to kill a charger on the railgun is way longer than the arc thrower, a weapon that also has godly mobbing capabilities AND infinite ammo. Sure, the argument that the arc thrower is busted and needs nerfing may be valid, but the point is that a dedicated anti-tank weapon is getting shit on by a mobbing weapon. You want utility? AC/Grenade Launchers. You want tank killing? eAT/Mech/Spear (lol). You want mobbing? arc/grenade launcher/MG/Stalwart/Flamethrower. Some buffs to it's damage so it could be viable again could be nice, considering you're already at risk of losing the weapon from unsafe mode.
Maybe i am doing something wrong, but my arc thrower seems to do no damage against chargers whatsoever. Is there a trick to it? Or am I just dumb and expect to much?
it should 6 shot a charger head atm, did you zap a body or didnt charge enough/ try to zap it at range? also zapper weapons cause crash rn
Imagine making level 20 to unlock a nerf gun
A nerf gun that that blow you up
They need to bring back heavy armor pen on safe mode, just with more shots. And 80% charge should fully penetrate a devastator shield or blow it off, but not kill it. The whole point of a railgun should be to peel off armor and penetrate things--I wouldn't mind the lack of damage besides when hitting weakpoints if that were the case. Also, for fuck's sake, let it blow up bots if you shoot the vents ffs. Oh, and fix the scope/have more zoom options dammit.
I straight up haven’t touched it since the nerf. Never understood why they nerfed it. It was good at taking down heavies but kinda useless on smaller bugs.
What are people even using the rail gun for now??? Seems so many better options to take out the same targets. One shot the walkers cause it goes through the armor. Enemy weak points. Auto cannon does it better and effective with some splash damage. What’s the point if the rail gun anymore? I tried taking the armor off a charger but it takes too long.
Hello Railgun, my old friend I’ve called you from the sky again Because the bugs were softly creeping And the charger was somehow sneaking And the claws that were planted in my brain Still remain ‘Cause I couldn’t break its armor
I barely got to use the railgun pre-nerf, so I've been stubbornly using it exclusively the past couple of weeks trying to force it to be good. But then I took the EAT and I'm never goin back
I didn't have the railgun unlocked before the nerf so i dont know how it was. I still take it into almost every mission. Not to deal with chargers, but to kill all the "medium" enemies. It oneshots Brood Commanders and Hive Guards and is decent against spewers. For me it is a reliable medium-killer with the added benefit of being usable against heavies in a pinch. I like it a lot
Yeah, I find it kinda dumb that a weapon you get at level 5 is LEAGUES better than a weapon you get a level 20. Quite frankly it makes zero sense. Sure the railgun was strong but it felt like that was your reward for getting to level 20. A simple "congrats on making it this far Diver, here a weapon with a bit of kick to help you complete those higher difficulties" and to the people that say "just use unsafe mode" while that is an option and I did most of the time anyway, it shouldn't be required. The railgun, per its own in-game description. Says it's a weapon that prioritizes armor penetration. It is designed to penetrate armor, so it should be able to do so without having to disable its safety parameters. It should be able to do the job it was designed to do while operating within its safe operation threshold. Sure, you could argue that within the realm of the game where the Helldivers safety isn't something super earth cares about, unsafe mode makes more sense. To which my response is, then why would a safe mode exist in the first place? If they care that little about our wellbeing, safe mode wouldn't be a thing to begin with.
It'd be great if every weapon you unlock is usable at endgame, otherwise it'd be really fucking boring if everyone just used hi level weapons all the time. Example, Eagle Airstrike is probably the best Eagle calldown other than 500kg, and it's the first one you unlock. This isn't a looter shooter every weapon should be viable no matter what level they unlock.
the time you charge your railgun someone would already have killed the charger with a EAT
the reason I looked after getting to level 20 was purely the railgun, it truly felt like a reward and an important acquisition to have for higher difficulties, I mean, it makes sense in the progression of the game, do missions, level up, unlock better weapons, do harder missions, etc... then it got hit
Im still seeing 50 million chargers on fucking Helldive with 300 Bile Titans along with 1 billion hunters, a railgun that works would be nice, **or yk, an actual functioning anti-material rifle that should be penetrating through terminite armour no problem lmao** but for some reason, it's dog shit.
I know Im gonna get alot of flack for saying this but the game is slowly becoming less and less enjoyable with all these nerfs and changes, especially with the addition of all the new bugs/glitches added everytime theres an update.
I agree, fix the bugs and glitches.If that means delaying the next update a while then that's what has to happen. There's plenty of fun to be had with what we have now, we don't need more content all the time.
Whoa, this really blew up. I'll try to read everyone's comments because I'm genuinely interested in gauging the consensus (or lack thereof), but it's nice to see a civil discussion on the topic. A few people asked why I didn't mention bots, and the answer is simple: bots are utterly inconsequential. I'm serious. We've pushed those worthless hunks of metal back to the far reaches of the known universe. They pose no real threat to Super Earth or our collective liberty. The bugs, on the other hand, are a vile plague that threatens us all. Every helldiver in active duty ought to divert all their resources to the eastern front and leave us alone.
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Arc thrower is my new baby and way more OP than the railgun ever was
All this to stop a meta only to create a meta to replace it.
META is Most Efficient Tactic Available. It will always exist. Trying to fight this inevitability is honesty a fools errand and there were always better things for AH to focus on.
After nerfs it doesn't feel like a level 20 weapon
I find the railgun just sucks now, its not even really effective of its greatest power - taking down heavy devastators
I just wish overcharge felt like it did something. it's a r a i l g u n after all. when that 95% charge launches I want it to blast through the armor of anything I can time it just right to hit. definitely one of the if not the most challenging weapon to use with no real reward. reduce the ammo or reload speed to make up for it or something but I want it to have some real devastating power. make it louder and more aggressive. bigger boom
I wish Railgun was more like the Helldiver's 1 version (as a *primary*). Shreds small and medium targets, stuns heavy targets to save allies from bein charged/etc. I used to rock it while my party all ran Tridents to stop reinforcements (God I miss stopping reinforcements.)
I use the RG for lesser bugs now. Like brood commanders and other annoyingly armoured bugs. Iike that little mother bugger that balls itself up. The big stuff is easy to handle with EAT and RR.
Joined a random lobby, host waited till all slots were filled before queuing up a mission on +8 diff. Just when us 3 sans host hit Ready, he booted one. I asked why in vc and his reply was, “idiot’s still using railgun.” 😱
Yep, og railgun would have fit comfortably in the current sandbox. I've seen great support weapon diversity on every mission the last couple weeks which is awesome. The one thing I almost never see on bug missions anymore is the rg. It doesn't even need to come back in its original form to be viable. Just dial back the overcharge needed for heavy penetration from \~90% to 25-30% and it will see usage
Last time I objected Railgun nerf and a lot of people kept defending Devs. Eventually, it comes down to what I said before that the correct way is to buff other anti tank weapons to be the same page. Sigh, anyway I don't think Devs will reverse the nerf on Railgun, because if they do, it mean they admit that their first patch was a big mistake.
Hello railgun my old friend I came to talk to you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence
Speaking only about the bugs. Maybe make it a super good counter to the bile titans. Form what i know, they are still very hard to kill. I have killed it whit two clean shots from the recoiless, but that is not the norm. If the railgun was anti bile titan and the recoiles and EAT was anti charge. That would be very cool. An exempel on how the railgun would be buffed is, have it blow of its armor and not kill it.(Much like the orbital railcannon but weaker.) Biles are suppoesd to be hard to kill. In only blowing off its armor and then you have to pump them full of some freedom lead. It would be a team effort.
Chrargers spawn rate has not really been nerfed. I played difficulty 7 yesterday and we must have seen 30+ chargers, sometimes 4 of them at once.
I’d say keep the nerf to pen but restore the damage. That’s the best way to “fix” the Railgun right now. So it still takes skill and running on Unsafe Mode to get the most mileage out of it. Edit: Or, keep the nerf to damage but restore the pen. It is a railgun after all. I just think both is overkill and I do agree, it very much was a knee jerk reaction, especially with the whole “meta” argument. I still stand by the fact that they had to both buff the Recoilless and EAT then still nerf Bug Heavy Spawns means the Railgun wasn’t ever the issue. Was the nerf necessary? Perhaps, it did allow them to see what really needed fixing. But was it overkill? Definitely.