Are ARs and SMGs bad or is it just me playing on Very Hard?

[A]

I'm playing on Very Hard, and I like the challenge, although at times, I don't feel THAT powerful using an AR.

I like the combat in this difficulty don't get me wrong. It's because I zip around and switch between an AR and shotgun or pull out an SMG for backup, but at the same time, i feel like I'm lucky enough to kill 2 Barghest enemies with 1 mag on my AR. I have 20 on reflex.

I just finished the main quest of PL with an AR, SMG, and shotgun loadout, and the spaceport fight was challenging but fair--yet I can't shake off the feeling that the enemies can feel like they're just soaking up my AR damage.

I'm asking because I saw on reddit a claim that ARs are underpowered in 2.0 and that while they magdump with an AR, using a tech revolver means they two shot the enemy. Thoughts?

[valium]

They were significantly nerfed. I think it was an overreaction, the problem with them before was both the tier 5 short circuit and cold blood crit stacking, and not the weapon themselves.

[Deo]

ARs are bad, and I never used one. Damage is just too low. I've yet to test explosive shots unique AR you get from a gig.

SMGs are OK. I am using Fenrir unique SMG through the whole game on Very Hard. It has INSANE damage, absolutely crazy. Even skulls melting, and I am not even specced into SMG/AR skill branch.

[Rabidnid]

ARs are fine but you use a lot of ammo. With the way stamina works now it's very much "short controlled bursts".

I just finished an AR playthrough and Psalm 11:6 is amazing.

[Larco]

Finding them pretty good so far - I think I'm level 35? - but those skull guys on vh seem to take a ridiculous number of rounds. Reg enemies ok though.

I'm also using psalm; I picked up both that and fenrir early on, but psalm seemed noticeably stronger so went with that.

I don't know what you're running, but if you've got a cyberdeck - I just find sandis are a bit I win - you can combine Psalm with epic corruption. It takes out whole groups of low level enemies, and really helps knock down the skull guys.

[Mei]

Found them to get worse and worse the higher level I got.

[Drahknon]

They aren't... great, that's for sure. Even the iconic smg you get in PL, which is fun to use, just doesn't out-damage other choices. A pistol build is more flexible because of silencers, typically uses much less ammo, and does more DPS in many cases.

[Dehumanizer]

CDPR revamped the combat of the game compared to release. It seems every change they made to the shooting is to remove as much of the standard shooter style of "stay behind cover, peek out, shoot a burst or two, target dead, repeat" as they could. That's why they added all the sprinting, sliding, jumping, hovering in the air and all of that in slowmo. The vast majority of the combat focused perks, in all trees, are very much about movement and melee styles.

So if you played the release game with a stealth sniper/AR build and loved it, you have to accept the fact that CDPR hates your playstyle and, more or less, removed it from the game.

[Deklend]

Originally posted by Dehumanizer:

CDPR revamped the combat of the game compared to release. It seems every change they made to the shooting is to remove as much of the standard shooter style of "stay behind cover, peek out, shoot a burst or two, target dead, repeat" as they could. That's why they added all the sprinting, sliding, jumping, hovering in the air and all of that in slowmo. The vast majority of the combat focused perks, in all trees, are very much about movement and melee styles.

So if you played the release game with a stealth sniper/AR build and loved it, you have to accept the fact that CDPR hates your playstyle and, more or less, removed it from the game.

Eh, not all of CDPR, just Gabe Amantangelo. But yeah pretty much, they want you to play melee or netrunner. Pawel Sasko wanted the game to be more like Deus Ex, while Gabe obviously wants the game to be a Doom Boomer Shooter kind of affair.

[Callirgos]

Very Hard doesn't matter. The only real difficulty change is turning off aim assist. Turn off aim assist or every "difficulty" is easy.

[Mei]

Originally posted by Callirgos:

Very Hard doesn't matter. The only real difficulty change is turning off aim assist. Turn off aim assist or every "difficulty" is easy.

Why would aim assist cause my smart SMG to do less damage from a full mag than my sniper does in 1 headshot?

[A]

Originally posted by Callirgos:

Very Hard doesn't matter. The only real difficulty change is turning off aim assist. Turn off aim assist or every "difficulty" is easy.

I don't have it on lol.

[Illuminary]

Originally posted by A:

I'm playing on Very Hard, and I like the challenge, although at times, I don't feel THAT powerful using an AR.

I like the combat in this difficulty don't get me wrong. It's because I zip around and switch between an AR and shotgun or pull out an SMG for backup, but at the same time, i feel like I'm lucky enough to kill 2 Barghest enemies with 1 mag on my AR. I have 20 on reflex.

I just finished the main quest of PL with an AR, SMG, and shotgun loadout, and the spaceport fight was challenging but fair--yet I can't shake off the feeling that the enemies can feel like they're just soaking up my AR damage.

I'm asking because I saw on reddit a claim that ARs are underpowered in 2.0 and that while they magdump with an AR, using a tech revolver means they two shot the enemy. Thoughts?

I'd say they're pretty bad. I'm using Divide We Stand because the AI smart weapons are cheesy as shlitz so I figure let me be cheesy back, but it takes a lot of perks to get the weapon (AR) to be good. The one good perk is the aoe explosion when you reload an empty magazine which seems to definitely finish off enemies if they have hacks on them or are at half life.

I also went with the reduction in traceability perks but it doesn't work, you still get traced by dead people and when no one is in the area. Something is broken. I'll test more when I'm not wasting time killing barghests at the front gate, but might get rid of those perks. But, I like the netrunning/smart weapon perks that regen ram faster so at least that's a plus. The overclock damage buff to smart weapons might be good too but I haven't really "restarted", just saved the pres again.

My first DLC completion I ran 20 body shotgun build with Ba Xing Chong but it gets old only being able to shoot two shots then reload. CDPR really ruined smart weapons but I guess they were OP before with almost auto head shots.

Not to mention the DLC is more spy stealth bull shlitz than anything which is pretty abysmal.

[A]

Originally posted by Illuminary:

I'd say they're pretty bad. I'm using Divide We Stand because the AI smart weapons are cheesy as shlitz so I figure let me be cheesy back, but it takes a lot of perks to get the weapon (AR) to be good. The one good perk is the aoe explosion when you reload an empty magazine which seems to definitely finish off enemies if they have hacks on them or are at half life.

I also went with the reduction in traceability perks but it doesn't work, you still get traced by dead people and when no one is in the area. Something is broken. I'll test more when I'm not wasting time killing barghests at the front gate, but might get rid of those perks. But, I like the netrunning/smart weapon perks that regen ram faster so at least that's a plus. The overclock damage buff to smart weapons might be good too but I haven't really "restarted", just saved the pres again.

My first DLC completion I ran 20 body shotgun build with Ba Xing Chong but it gets old only being able to shoot two shots then reload. CDPR really ruined smart weapons but I guess they were OP before with almost auto head shots.

Not to mention the DLC is more spy stealth bull shlitz than anything which is pretty abysmal.

I was using the Iconic Satara in the DLC but dropped it in favor of a tier 5 crusher or carnage because unlike the default satara, it only fires one shot for two rounds and I couldn't maximize the sandy. After finishing the DLC and switching to the base game's main story, it was kinda weird that despite scaling existing in the game, the enemies weren't as lethal or tanky as the barghest/NUSA troops that ARs seemed to work well, but I just went with the iconic arasaka SMG and Rebecca's carnage by the end of it.

[Chaosolous]

I play on hard and my Net Runner uses Smart Weapons. Primarily the Divided We Stand AR[cyberpunk.fandom.com] and the Pizdets SMG[cyberpunk2077.wiki.fextralife.com] along with Blue Fang[cyberpunk.fandom.com] the throwing knife for stealth kills.

The AR seems to clean up the cannon fodder fairly nicely, but that poison damage from the Iconic seems to help. Along with the fact that it's a smart weapon utilizing the level 20 AR perk so it does DoT and a massive spike damage simultaneously. The spike being frequent because my bullets are locked on.

With the right cyberware and perks from the intelligence tree the increased "loss of tracking" from the Iconic AR is mitigated to be trivial.

And I don't think I need to explain how over powered having a silenced smart weapon is, SMG or otherwise. Although I do wish it had been a single shot pistol instead of a burst fire SMG.

[Larco]

Originally posted by Larco:

Finding them pretty good so far - I think I'm level 35? - but those skull guys on vh seem to take a ridiculous number of rounds. Reg enemies ok though.

I'm also using psalm; I picked up both that and fenrir early on, but psalm seemed noticeably stronger so went with that.

I don't know what you're running, but if you've got a cyberdeck - I just find sandis are a bit I win - you can combine Psalm with epic corruption. It takes out whole groups of low level enemies, and really helps knock down the skull guys.

So, quoting myself, yeah. But hit 50 with 2.0 now.

- I'm not sure why, but it really feels like ARs drop off the higher you go. The last few levels, I was really crutching on the psalm + epic corruption combo. Great trash clearer but it was really feeling like they were lacking against stronger enemies. Salt in the wound (the capstone) adds a bit but definitely wasn't doubling dps for me, or making up lost ground.

- I switched over to SMGs and they're maybe a bit better - slightly oddly problem solver not only only has 2x the ROF of psalm but each round hits for more, while fenrir's got 1.5x its rof and staggers. They were still slightly bouncing off the elite enemies though; you're just mag dumping and reliant on the capstone to reload automatically.

- Having used my respec to try a couple of other builds, I'm like ****. Cool into Pistols is definitely stronger but Body into shotguns? Holy cow. There's literally no comparison in the dps you can put out. It's like night and day, like switching difficulty down to normal again. Didn't try lmgs. See snipers as a bit different.

TLDR - I don't know if shotguns are just OP, or ARs (and to alesser degree SMGs) are underpowered, but they need to do some balancing here. Right now it's shotties >>>>> pistols >> SMGs > ARs. You can definitely play the game with them, but it feels like playing a very different game.