Hellbore Lasgun, which MK do you prefer?

[T0AD]

Looking for opinions here, is there a generally well accepted better gun variation? I think I prefer the mk3 atm, but I haven't rolled a good hellbore lasgun of any mk yet.

Note: You're not witty by saying Kantrael, I already know someone is thinking of making the comment.

[ASadMango]

Idk I play Pyker. I like the void staff cause it goes pew pew.

[ChisaiiNeko]

Mk2. That one is a great balance between Damage and fire rate. Properly applied, can clear out rooms efficiently. Has trouble with large enemies.

Mk1. Does as great as Mk3 but with higher fire rate and lower damage. Has the better special action. Decent against big targets and ranged chaff.

Mk3. High damage but massive recoil and slow fire rate. Great against big targets but terrible against mess shooters.

Most seem to love the Mk 2 on Reddit. Some swear by the Mk3. Few seem interested in the Mk1.

[T0AD]

Originally posted by Nekonya (^w^):

Mk2. That one is a great balance between Damage and fire rate. Properly applied, can clear out rooms efficiently. Has trouble with large enemies.

Mk1. Does as great as Mk3 but with higher fire rate and lower damage. Has the better special action. Decent against big targets and ranged chaff.

Mk3. High damage but massive recoil and slow fire rate. Great against big targets but terrible against mess shooters.

Most seem to love the Mk 2 on Reddit. Some swear by the Mk3. Few seem interested in the Mk1.

Interesting to see there's a bit more of a divide on the Hellbore variations as opposed to other weapons. Should be fun to experiment with while we await future content.

[tools guy-kun]

I find the helbore to be the type of gun that should be used on the bigger guys, so any elite and specialist.

because the mk III does the most damage out of the three, I prefer that over the others.

people say the main draw back is the ammo consumption, but ammo is rarely an issue if you know who to use it on and how to use it sparingly.

[Gooogle01]

I guess I'm one of the few that like the Mk I. Mk II has too much sway for my preference, and the sights aren't as good. Mk III just uses too much ammo for my taste.

Even with an 80% Stability I think the Mk II helbore is worse than both other variants at 0%. And for some reason it feels like the sights are set too low and I in essence have to cover the weak spot of an enemy to hit it. Love how fast it fires off charged shots, but I think I get better DPS out of the Mk I solely because of sights and sway.

[FreezeZ]

MKII all the way. With Onslaught it is perfect gun to deal with everything. You can easily clear ranged mobs, special and elites. Even ogryns are not a problem.

[Cylixx]

Originally posted by FreezeZ:

MKII all the way. With Onslaught it is perfect gun to deal with everything. You can easily clear ranged mobs, special and elites. Even ogryns are not a problem.

Onslaught seems to be the main factor determining a good/bad hellbore.

[Doctor Hazmat]

I like kantrael

[Arani]

Originally posted by T0AD:

Looking for opinions here, is there a generally well accepted better gun variation? I think I prefer the mk3 atm, but I haven't rolled a good hellbore lasgun of any mk yet.

Note: You're not witty by saying Kantrael, I already know someone is thinking of making the comment.

Really not trying to be witty but Helbore as it is, is just not worth using. But you asked so, I'm going to go with Mk 1. Faster charge for almost exactly the same dmg as Mk 3, and higher noncharged dmg. Besides something like a crusher, the Mk 3 doesn't seem to hit any breakpoints that are beyond Mk 1. They both take the same amount of shots to kill stuff, except Mk 1 with noncharged actually kills some stuff instantly. One is just faster and consumes less ammo to do it. Mk 2 however is too weak.

Also I really hate the.. nomenclature? Like, why is 3 the strongest and slowest, 1 second strongest & slowest, and 2 the weakest & fastest. It should be like, 1 > 2 > 3, not 1 > 3 > 2. That's just way too "American measurements" for me.

[grazr]

I know you pre-emptively shot down Kantrael answers, but there's a reason people would do that; and that you saw that coming. There is no reason to use the hellbore over a kantrael outside of bayonet memes.

[Blaze Shadowflame]

Mk 3 works best for me. If I'm using a charge weapon, it may as well be the strongest available version. Efficient with elites, and even without onslaught I've been able to clear out shooters on Heresy in a timely manner.

[Arani]

Originally posted by grazr:

I know you pre-emptively shot down Kantrael answers, but there's a reason people would do that; and that you saw that coming. There is no reason to use the hellbore over a kantrael outside of bayonet memes.

This essentially. It's not about being witty, it's just true. The Kantrael XII will 1-shot 90% of the same things Helbore does, while being much faster to wield, requires no charging so much faster rate of fire and better usability, has a far *far* better aim/scope, and is a lot more ammo efficient. Of the remaining 10%, most of it Kantrael will kill in 2-4 shots instead of Helbore's 1-3.

Barring a few tiny and mostly meaningless exceptions, really there's only one thing Helbore does better and that's anti-carapace. Given that the only carapace thing in the game is the Crusher (because the rest still have flak chests or unarmored body parts), the choice between Kantrael XII vs. Helbore essentially comes down to Crushers vs. everything else. And "everything else" will always be the better option given how rare Crushers are.

At the end of the day, Kantrael will let you more easily kill the shooters, specials and elites around 50% faster and with 50%+ less ammo consumption. And that's what you're supposed to do as a vet. Crushers can be naded and left to the rest of the team just fine.

Helbore needs around 30% more dmg imo. After that they can adjust the charge rate / ammo consumption to balance it better. The weapon is supposed to be a hybrid between a Kantrael XII and a bolter/plasma. But instead it really only manages to be a worse, slower Kantrael.

[Sunderbraze]

Originally posted by Arani:

Helbore needs around 30% more dmg imo. After that they can adjust the charge rate / ammo consumption to balance it better. The weapon is supposed to be a hybrid between a Kantrael XII and a bolter/plasma. But instead it really only manages to be a worse, slower Kantrael.

Special action should be improved too. It should enable a full melee stance until Special Action is clicked again; light attacks are a mixture of horizontal rifle butt swings and bayonet slashes, while heavy attacks are charged bayonet stabs, and you can block/pushback with a quick stab counter. Makes it slightly more than a meme as it objectively reduces the time spent switching back and forth between full melee weapon (that god-awfully slow Helbore equip animation... ugh)

[Panzershrek]

If we're talking about peak roll Helbore, I think it's a right tool, right job situation and a dose of preference. What are you trying to bring to the table for the team? I don't have a great deal of experience with Mk I and Mk III other than brief comparisons and tests while I was choosing for myself which to use, so I can only give you my thought process for why I rolled with the Mk II.

I base all of my enemy assessments on Damnation difficulty which is what I prefer to play. I use the Mk II running a Counterfire Vet. I focus on the ability to drop shooters and specials quickly and efficiently, and a Mk II with good rolls has been what I've found most suitable for that - even more than a Kantrael. At Damnation, a Kantrael requires 2-3 shots to drop a scab/dreg shooters depending on its rolls. While a Kantrael can one shot shooters on headshots, I don't have the ability to rapidly line up headshots. For my personal ability, I find the greatest returns aiming for center mass. On paper, a Kantrael in the hands of someone who can just consistently and rapidly headshot would be better for anti-shooter purposes... I just can't do that. What I can do is line up center mass shots rapidly, and the Mk II does the best from what I've tested.

At 80/80 damage/stopping power and with a 25% damage perk, a Mk II helbore will drop scab and dreg shooters in one hit without the t2 damage feat or any particular blessing. At 80/80 it's exactly 300 damage vs flak so you don't even need Volleyfire to one shot. I don't recall what damage roll you need to break 450 on unarmoured off the top of my head, but I believe it's the same situation where you can one shot so long as you have a 25% damage vs unarmoured perk at a high enough damage roll.

For my specific Helbore I believe at 70% the charge time is 0.37s, so hypothetically I can drop one shooter every 0.4-0.5s or so. (I don't have onslaught lamentably) If I remember correctly, at 80% you're at 0.35s charge time or something like that, and I want to say that onslaught will bring you to about 0.3s. I'm not 100% on how onslaught's charge time calculation works, it might be even lower than 0.3s. I'd have to get an 80 charge Helbore with onslaught and analyze a recording to know for sure the boundaries there, which I just don't have.

I lucked out and got a 25% flak armour bonus, so I rerolled the other to 25% vs maniac to allow me to one shot most specials. (Primarily worrying about trappers and bombers. I don't think I can one shot flamers, though I don't recall if they're maniac or a different armour type off hand)

I value the Mk II Helbore because while I find the Kantrael more usable vs regular shooters, the Mk II Helbore lets me deal with specials more efficiently. The Mk III can drop Ogryns much more efficiently, but is much slower to charge so it didn't deal with shooters as well as I wanted to so I abstained from using it. The Mk I in my opinion is better until you get a god roll Mk II. The Mk I requires lower rolls to meet the same breakpoints, and its charge rate is close enough (especially with onslaught) that it works just about as well.

I need to investigate if the Mk I's sights are actually better (because I observed the same thing that Gooogle01 did about the Mk II's sights being set too low, but thought that it applied to all the Helbores), but honestly I've learned the sight picture on the Mk II by now so it's a minor point for me. I don't find the sway to be so different to the Mk I that it improves my accuracy, so that wasn't a factor in my decision. I do run Deadshot so that's a consideration. I haven't found a good Mk I with Onslaught so that's another part of the decision making process for me. The Mk Is I have are slower than the Mk II I use with regards to how quickly I can acquire and line up shots, so based on my personal abilities the Mk II suits my needs better. Even if I had a god roll Mk I, I would stick with a Mk II since I don't believe it's possible to meet any meaningful breakpoints given current limitations. I'd have to reassess if we ever get 100 rolls as an option. I think at the moment Mk I vs Mk II is a preference thing and they're both close enough in performance that you just have to decide what feels better to you.

Ultimately I value the speed and ammo efficiency of the Mk II more. In terms of efficiency, with the Mk II if I don't one shot if I hit the arm, I can usually just immediately follow up with an uncharged shot and confirm it. Iirc the Mk I's charge shot is 6 ammo so it's at best meeting parity with an inefficient Mk II kill, and I don't believe it's capable of one shotting on an arm hit either so the same problem can be encountered by the Mk I. Even if the Mk I is more efficient vs Ogryn, I think the sheer volume of shooters and gunners makes efficiencies there the most valuable.

The difference in speed is also important to me because sometimes those milliseconds count. Particularly if you're in melee whilst trying to drop a special whilst under attack. I will focus specials (particular snipers, bombers and flamers) over defending myself in melee, (I just dodge whilst shooting) and the ability to get the shot out sooner has been noticeable at times when I realized if I was a fraction of a second slower X would have prevented my shot (either another enemy closing a narrow shot, or something like a hound I have no shot on pouncing), or I would have been unable to dodge an incoming strike without wasting the opportunity to drop another target.

So there's my general thoughts on the Mk II and why I use it over the other variants. I don't think that makes the Mk II necessarily the best, but it's the best tool for the job I'm trying to do.

[Zyme]

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