Are energy weapons kinda bad?

[Gatling_gull]

After beating the game with a build based on cannons and pile bunker (I know everybody says about changing up your build but that thing carried me from balteus to credits no problem) and decided that am gonna try doing ng+ with a build mostly based on energy weapons and before heading into ng+ missions decided to try it out through replaying a few missions across the campaing.

And ngl it kinda felt mediocre, across having to use a generator that has overall worse stats but bigger energy weapon bonus, mediocre impact values, charge times it really felt worse in most regards.

Anyone who tried enery builds, what weapon you were bringing?

[Neverr]

Originally posted by Gatling_gull:

After beating the game with a build based on cannons and pile bunker (I know everybody says about changing up your build but that thing carried me from balteus to credits no problem) and decided that am gonna try doing ng+ with a build mostly based on energy weapons and before heading into ng+ missions decided to try it out through replaying a few missions across the campaing.

And ngl it kinda felt mediocre, across having to use a generator that has overall worse stats but bigger energy weapon bonus, mediocre impact values, charge times it really felt worse in most regards.

Anyone who tried enery builds, what weapon you were bringing?

Hmm, laser shotguns are just worse than regular shotguns. Laser Handguns are based, though. And there's a few plasma rifles that feel good. There's one when charged and fired it leaves an aoe damage/impact field, most of the plasma rifles suck though.

Overall I'd say kinetic is better only due to a few outliers like zimmerman shotguns and big shoulder cannons. My take would be rather that there's only a couple of standout weapons from each category and the rest are lagging behind.

[Pandas_of_doom]

From my experience energy weapon types do decent damage and no reloading downtime minus the overheating if that happens but they do horrible stagger damage if any.

I mostly use them for money farming or to clear out groups of enemies faster as its usually 1-2 shots to kill 90% of trash mobs

[DarkFenix]

I think so personally, I tried to like them early on but they just feel completely inferior to kinetics and explosives, in view of stagger being very much the game's meta. That is one of the issues with this game, weapon balance is absolutely atrocious, even for FromSoft.

[Gatling_gull]

Oh and another thing I found with the laser shoulder cannons, I tried using 2 diffuse laser cannons for the shoulders and firing them at the same time and most of the time when you charge them both at the same time one of them straight up doesn't shoot.
Doing it in the ac test drive works fine but it seems maybe moving or dodging or taking damage or something related to actual combat prevents them going off at the same time

[NathanD7]

I saw tank builds with full laser weapons. Shoulder laser cannons, and laser guns L and R. You can overwhelm enemies so fast and destroy them within couple seconds because they have almost no down time. Bosses can be murdered in 1-2min.

[Blaedin]

I am a avid user of energy weapons and I like the look and feel, but they do leave much to be desired in terms of boss fights. Most energy weapons allow for speed based AC to maintain high movement while also giving them a way to cover areas both with anti ground and anti air projectiles, mostly referring to their missile counter parts.

The part I draw issue with though, when you compare their abilities to bosses. you'd sooner run out of ammo before you get close to killing the late game bosses. While energy is great for weeding out hoards of weak grunts or mini bosses, even with building an AC that draws out as much power as it can from their weapons, its just not hitting hard enough to break the enemy's guard or leave meaningful damage.

However, if you want to avoid getting stuck in the charge animation, I will recommend getting tank treads. They allow you to continue moving despite firing heavy or charged weapons.

[moulala2]

Laser weapons do little impact because unlike a lot of kinetic weapons they do pretty good damage without stagger. I beat most of my first playthrough with laser rifle, laser pistol and two plasma missiles and chewed through basically everything except balteus 2. I think you might have gotten baited into the charge attacks, they have their uses but rapid fire is more often the way to go.

[Gatling_gull]

Originally posted by Neverr:

Originally posted by Gatling_gull:

After beating the game with a build based on cannons and pile bunker (I know everybody says about changing up your build but that thing carried me from balteus to credits no problem) and decided that am gonna try doing ng+ with a build mostly based on energy weapons and before heading into ng+ missions decided to try it out through replaying a few missions across the campaing.

And ngl it kinda felt mediocre, across having to use a generator that has overall worse stats but bigger energy weapon bonus, mediocre impact values, charge times it really felt worse in most regards.

Anyone who tried enery builds, what weapon you were bringing?

Hmm, laser shotguns are just worse than regular shotguns. Laser Handguns are based, though. And there's a few plasma rifles that feel good. There's one when charged and fired it leaves an aoe damage/impact field, most of the plasma rifles suck though.

Overall I'd say kinetic is better only due to a few outliers like zimmerman shotguns and big shoulder cannons. My take would be rather that there's only a couple of standout weapons from each category and the rest are lagging behind.

Thanks for mentioning the laser handgun, it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ redeemed energy weapons in my eyes and allowed to me to make quite a great build

And also was using the shotgun like shoulder cannons cuz stat card wise they seem better, turns out, nope the normal cannons ended up being way better

[AlliedZero]

Originally posted by Gatling_gull:

After beating the game with a build based on cannons and pile bunker (I know everybody says about changing up your build but that thing carried me from balteus to credits no problem) and decided that am gonna try doing ng+ with a build mostly based on energy weapons and before heading into ng+ missions decided to try it out through replaying a few missions across the campaing.

And ngl it kinda felt mediocre, across having to use a generator that has overall worse stats but bigger energy weapon bonus, mediocre impact values, charge times it really felt worse in most regards.

Anyone who tried enery builds, what weapon you were bringing?

I beat all of the chapter bosses running energy weapons. Lasers to be exact. They're OP as heck. Don't use charge but they're pretty pinpoint accurate so damage is much more consistent than not.

[Hammer Of Evil]

i've used nearly all of the energy weapons and been able to make them work vs the bosses, some actually resulted in faster takedown.

i think the only place you don't use plasma missiles is when the target doesn't remain stationary/on the ground for longer time, at that point its more effective to choose a different weapon.

occilator gun and stun baton should be used as part of a higher dps set though, i dont really recommend running in with them as they're more of a support weapon imo

energy weapon in general : they're versatile as they can be charged to change the effect or shape/power of the projectile.

[Funpire]

I don't know about hand weapons. However, the stun needler cannons or the laser shoulder cannons make explosive shoulder items obsolete in terms of flexibility, speed of engagement, and impact dmg combined.

Stun needers with Zimmerman will generally, outright kill any mech boss on first or second engagement.

I prioritized direct/kinetic/energy dmg before the others.

[Malungo]

Originally posted by NathanD7:

I saw tank builds with full laser weapons. Shoulder laser cannons, and laser guns L and R. You can overwhelm enemies so fast and destroy them within couple seconds because they have almost no down time. Bosses can be murdered in 1-2min.

and gatling/zimmerman builds murder bosses in seconds

[Xaelon]

As others have mentioned the problem with them is that they do very little stagger damage compared to explosive and kinetic options.

I REALLY wanted to use the Laser Cannons because they look and sound amazing but by the time you get a decent, balanced generator with enough EN capacity you've already unlocked the Songbird grenade cannon which is just better. Songbirds do more(?) damage, are easier to use and harder for the enemy to get away from because they explode in a large AoE.

I dunno how you improve them tbh. I want to say laser weapons should be hitscan but a weapon that could just ignore the enemy's ability to dodge sounds too powerful on paper. They definitely need help. Hopefully Fromsoft will tweak them somehow.

[Funpire]

Originally posted by Xaelon:

As others have mentioned the problem with them is that they do very little stagger damage compared to explosive and kinetic options.

I REALLY wanted to use the Laser Cannons because they look and sound amazing but by the time you get a decent, balanced generator with enough EN capacity you've already unlocked the Songbird grenade cannon which is just better. Songbirds do more(?) damage, are easier to use and harder for the enemy to get away from because they explode in a large AoE.

I dunno how you improve them tbh. I want to say laser weapons should be hitscan but a weapon that could just ignore the enemy's ability to dodge sounds too powerful on paper. They definitely need help. Hopefully Fromsoft will tweak them somehow.

Problem with songbirds is they are slow to fire, slow to connect, and they also require bipedal mechs to pause twice.

During that time, you can get more impact damage and stun lock alternating between charged laser weapons.

On the shoulders at least.

[RANCE]

nebula and plasma launcher shoulders are the only good ones lol