The Pulse Rifle is the Second best Primary gun in the game USE IT

[Proxy]

The only gun better is the Plasma Rifle

Reasons:

<The Smart Gun> we all know and love
- Does NOT give an AIM BUFF which it should
- Takes ages to reload
- Has no special ability
- More ammo

<Heavy Rifle> meh side upgrade
- Is Basically Identical stat wise
- Does not have a special ability
- Does the same damage but a long burst, when it should do more damage shorter burst [long Burst lengths in all honesty is not great considering you want short bursts and high damage (aka Plasma Rifle)]
- More ammo

<Plasma Rifle> Reasons why it is the best
- More damage
- Short Burst
- Useful Special ability

In Dark Descent the most optional Play style and the one you use if you just wanna fight and not sneak is Maxing out command points because command abilities are just so good. Up to the end of the game there is nothing that beats the Grenade launching from the base pulse rifle as a means of instant area damage(which can also knock back/down enemies). The rocket launcher does do more damage sure but its fire time is a second ore more after ordered. The shotgun is close range only and the Flamer is more crowd control and still takes longer to deploy. But you gotta remember Pulsy is a Primary not a Special.

How I would fix the primary weapons

<Smart Gun>
+15% aim buff
+50 ammo
Make the turret perk a non-command ability instead of a buy-able perk since people will trash smart gun once they get plasma and wont waste a slot on a Smart gun turret ability

<Heavy Rifle> The worst offender
+1 damage
reduce burst length to be same as Pulse Rifles
New ability - [Cracked] 1 command point, use case: shoot a non boss enemy to instantly dismember a leg. When used on a boss slows them for by 50% for 10 seconds (instantly kills facehuggers)

<Plasma Rifle> because everything else is getting an upgrade
+1 damage
+5% to fire rate
change reload to 1 second

[Evil Nox]

I feel like I can afford to have a smart gun in the squad and not worry about them not having a grenade launcher because the other guys will have them still.

[Proxy]

Originally posted by Evil Nox:

I feel like I can afford to have a smart gun in the squad and not worry about them not having a grenade launcher because the other guys will have them still.

you could also just get the ammo buff/perk on 3 guys for the price of the smart gun then each one is just 25 rounds shy of the ammo load of the smarty (or you have 25 more rounds total squad ammo) without the 5 second reload.

[Evil Nox]

Doesn't the smart gun do a lot more damage?

[Proxy]

Originally posted by Evil Nox:

Doesn't the smart gun do a lot more damage?

1-2 damage in a 1 second burst using 4 ammo vs pulsy that does 1-2 damage in a .75 second burst using 2 rounds so yes smarty does win in dps it dps is 33% more then pulsy i think (heavy does 1-2 1 sec 3 round so its also weaker then smarty and almost equal to pulsy dps wise)

[Jeffrey Dahmer]

Everybody praises the grenade launcher, but the cone of a shotgun is absolutely devastating when you funnel a horde...

[Proxy]

Originally posted by LimeyPolo:

Everybody praises the grenade launcher, but the cone of a shotgun is absolutely devastating when you funnel a horde...

or just have both since nade is a primary weapon ability so you can still have whatever other thing. which is why its so good.

[FArheinFisch]

Mixing your weapons is best.
But since the other guns are better damagewise one pulserifle is enough.
Even if you run two upgraded sergeants and 8+ cmd-points you will sometimes run out and depend on pure weapon fire.
You want to use the shotgun, the rpg (which is great vs queens and everything behind cover b/c it kills even on nightmare) the incinerator, mines etc. all too and all cost cmd-points.

[Proxy]

Originally posted by FArheinFisch:

Mixing your weapons is best.
But since the other guns are better damagewise one pulserifle is enough.
Even if you run two upgraded sergeants and 8+ cmd-points you will sometimes run out and depend on pure weapon fire.
You want to use the shotgun, the rpg (which is great vs queens and everything behind cover b/c it kills even on nightmare) the incinerator, mines etc. all too and all cost cmd-points.

just hope your squad isn't a bunch of low accuracy hacks :P

[Larry]

I run 3x heavy, 1x smart gun and 1x pulse and kit each marine with a unique ability(Sniper, grenade, RPG, shotgun, flamethrower). The heavy has been a noticeable upgrade over the pulse rifle. Xenos seem to just pop as soon as they're in LOS with 3x Heavies.

[Proxy]

Originally posted by Larry:

I run 3x heavy, 1x smart gun and 1x pulse and kit each marine with a unique ability(Sniper, grenade, RPG, shotgun, flamethrower). The heavy has been a noticeable upgrade over the pulse rifle. Xenos seem to just pop as soon as they're in LOS with 3x Heavies.

you might also just have troops with higher accuracy

[WALL3T]

Plasma guns are top tier cant change my mind about them not being better and smart guns can also be retrofitted to have additional ammo if you know how to properly max your soldiers feats so he'll end up with at least something close to 300+ ammo for that Smart Gun. i chose that for my winning end game material.

everyone has different strats and they seem to work fine in different shades.

[44sunsets]

Late-game, the pulse rifle grenade launcher is mainly useful for me in conjunction with the stasis grenade upgrade to slow down queens and other tougher xenos. However, I think the RPG would probably do the trick as well, albeit through pure damage dealing rather than slowing things down.

I'm going to try bringing the Plasma rifle + RPG combo next, instead of the pulse rifle.