What early game weapons are worth upgrading?

[Hollow]

So I'm playing on hardcore and just got to the merchant checkpoint where you can buy the TMP. Was never too sure which weapons were the best in the original game and not much has changed now. Which weapons should I be focusing on upgrading right now? The rifle? Should I buy the TMP? I've really just been sticking with the Sentinel Nine and it's done me justice even though I haven't upgrade any weapons yet.

[Buzzkill]

The knife

[Xengre]

The Sentinel 9 if you have the DLC pistol, otherwise the Handgun. A lot of online sources and players cite the Red 9 but not only was it bad in the original it was nerfed in the remake while the few pistols it beat were buffed so now its indisputably the worst pistol in the game despite being gotten later, expensive, and taking up a lot of space with its stock.

The Sentinel is almost identical to the Handgun so both work but the Sentinel has a bit of a fire rate boost, a bigger overall clip, while only having very very little less dmg (like 0.1 iirc) at max upgrade. Meanwhile, it has simply flat out superior stats at low upgrade further making it preferably over Handgun.

These are both some of the cheapest weapons to upgrade in the game, too. In fact, you can max all 3 levels of all categories before the end of chapter 3 on either of the two pistols if you loot enough its that affordable.

The main reason you want it though is the special after fully upgrading grants it a critical chance boost of 5x which means it has a significantly higher chance of instantly killing a target (if it spawns a las plagas it works on that just like heads, too). This scales with harder difficulties even further while dmg goes down in value as enemy hp goes up in harder difficulties... further biasing towards the two pistols.

Afterwards you can either go the knife, or if you like the bolt action sniper over the semi-auto sniper rifle you can upgrade that next as you will have spare money... or you can simply save the money for later weapons after you finish the handgun.

The Semi-Auto rifle and Riot shotgun are going to be arguably their best options for those weapon classes.

[Hollow]

Originally posted by Xengre:

The Sentinel 9 if you have the DLC pistol, otherwise the Handgun. A lot of online sources and players cite the Red 9 but not only was it bad in the original it was nerfed in the remake while the few pistols it beat were buffed so now its indisputably the worst pistol in the game despite being gotten later, expensive, and taking up a lot of space with its stock.

The Sentinel is almost identical to the Handgun so both work but the Sentinel has a bit of a fire rate boost, a bigger overall clip, while only having very very little less dmg (like 0.1 iirc) at max upgrade. Meanwhile, it has simply flat out superior stats at low upgrade further making it preferably over Handgun.

These are both some of the cheapest weapons to upgrade in the game, too. In fact, you can max all 3 levels of all categories before the end of chapter 3 on either of the two pistols if you loot enough its that affordable.

The main reason you want it though is the special after fully upgrading grants it a critical chance boost of 5x which means it has a significantly higher chance of instantly killing a target (if it spawns a las plagas it works on that just like heads, too). This scales with harder difficulties even further while dmg goes down in value as enemy hp goes up in harder difficulties... further biasing towards the two pistols.

Afterwards you can either go the knife, or if you like the bolt action sniper over the semi-auto sniper rifle you can upgrade that next as you will have spare money... or you can simply save the money for later weapons after you finish the handgun.

The Semi-Auto rifle and Riot shotgun are going to be arguably their best options for those weapon classes.

Hey thanks so much for this. The Sentinel Nine has been carrying me so hard so far already so it's nice to know I can invest in it without worrying. I like the handgun more than anything else anyway.

[ryu600RR]

knife everything
shotgun power
pistol
everything else

[Ataraxia ♥]

Knife and Red9

[GeassV]

for me upgrade knife first
for weapon get punisher for 5 spinels until you get red9 ( free in chapter 4 )
if you want buy weapon i recommend get rifle first ( you can get free scope ) for faster kill chainsaw guy

[Homuya]

Knife and the rest of the weapons firepower.

Then use pistol for normal enemies.
Shotgun/Rifle for strong enemies.

I also went with the crossbow thing but it feels weird cause it fills out the same role as the handgun and was stuck with 100 handgun ammo after a while lol.

You find a better pistol pretty fast at the lake so dunno if upgrading handgun is worth it but the game even tells you that you get almost everything back you invested in a note before you go to the lake so you are not meant to hold back.

[Homuya]

Originally posted by GeassV:

for me upgrade knife first
for weapon get punisher for 5 spinels until you get red9 ( free in chapter 4 )
if you want buy weapon i recommend get rifle first ( you can get free scope ) for faster kill chainsaw guy

Why wasting precious spinels on a bad gun that hardly deals more damage? You dont need the penetration either as enemies have no defense so if they are clustered up just shotgun it.

[ggAkatsukiP]

I play on hardcore, and I notice the same problem Red9 has, and it become the more apparent the higher difficulty you go.
Red9 is probably bottom tier in professional. Top tier in standard and assisted difficulty.

[Homuya]

Originally posted by Xengre:

The Sentinel 9 if you have the DLC pistol, otherwise the Handgun. A lot of online sources and players cite the Red 9 but not only was it bad in the original it was nerfed in the remake while the few pistols it beat were buffed so now its indisputably the worst pistol in the game despite being gotten later, expensive, and taking up a lot of space with its stock.

The Sentinel is almost identical to the Handgun so both work but the Sentinel has a bit of a fire rate boost, a bigger overall clip, while only having very very little less dmg (like 0.1 iirc) at max upgrade. Meanwhile, it has simply flat out superior stats at low upgrade further making it preferably over Handgun.

These are both some of the cheapest weapons to upgrade in the game, too. In fact, you can max all 3 levels of all categories before the end of chapter 3 on either of the two pistols if you loot enough its that affordable.

The main reason you want it though is the special after fully upgrading grants it a critical chance boost of 5x which means it has a significantly higher chance of instantly killing a target (if it spawns a las plagas it works on that just like heads, too). This scales with harder difficulties even further while dmg goes down in value as enemy hp goes up in harder difficulties... further biasing towards the two pistols.

Afterwards you can either go the knife, or if you like the bolt action sniper over the semi-auto sniper rifle you can upgrade that next as you will have spare money... or you can simply save the money for later weapons after you finish the handgun.

The Semi-Auto rifle and Riot shotgun are going to be arguably their best options for those weapon classes.

"The main reason you want it though is the special after fully upgrading grants it a critical chance boost of 5x which means it has a significantly higher chance of instantly killing a target"

In the original even with the crit you did not dealt enough damage on the hardest difficulty, I wonder if this is still the case here thats why everyone said Red9 back then unless you play on normal.

[Toshio]

Originally posted by HomuyaGER:

Why wasting precious spinels on a bad gun that hardly deals more damage? You dont need the penetration either as enemies have no defense so if they are clustered up just shotgun it.

It will be helping a lot with it's penetration. Being able to shoot 2 guys for 1 bullet is very handy, even if it does less dmg.

To the main question - Knife, S9 dmg if dlc owned, any shotgun all, c9, after you get stock. And BUY RIFLE. It helps a LOT. Crossbow on hard is total ♥♥♥♥. Full dmg up 6 arrows in head to kill a regular enemy. Just in what world this is stealth weapon?

[Toshio]

Originally posted by HomuyaGER:

"The main reason you want it though is the special after fully upgrading grants it a critical chance boost of 5x which means it has a significantly higher chance of instantly killing a target"

In the original even with the crit you did not dealt enough damage on the hardest difficulty, I wonder if this is still the case here thats why everyone said Red9 back then unless you play on normal.

I have a strong feeling that higher dmg now comes with better stugger.

[Judgment_Kazzy]

Knife resistance and damage of the sniper rifle to kill the parasites in one shot, it does x3 damage in weak spots.

[GeassV]

Originally posted by HomuyaGER:

Originally posted by GeassV:

for me upgrade knife first
for weapon get punisher for 5 spinels until you get red9 ( free in chapter 4 )
if you want buy weapon i recommend get rifle first ( you can get free scope ) for faster kill chainsaw guy

Why wasting precious spinels on a bad gun that hardly deals more damage? You dont need the penetration either as enemies have no defense so if they are clustered up just shotgun it.

you can get a lot spinels if you always completed sidequest, i only use handgun for stun and melee and punisher have better stats then SG-09 R so you can save a lot money until get and upgrade red9

[Xengre]

Originally posted by HomuyaGER:

Originally posted by Xengre:

The Sentinel 9 if you have the DLC pistol, otherwise the Handgun. A lot of online sources and players cite the Red 9 but not only was it bad in the original it was nerfed in the remake while the few pistols it beat were buffed so now its indisputably the worst pistol in the game despite being gotten later, expensive, and taking up a lot of space with its stock.

The Sentinel is almost identical to the Handgun so both work but the Sentinel has a bit of a fire rate boost, a bigger overall clip, while only having very very little less dmg (like 0.1 iirc) at max upgrade. Meanwhile, it has simply flat out superior stats at low upgrade further making it preferably over Handgun.

These are both some of the cheapest weapons to upgrade in the game, too. In fact, you can max all 3 levels of all categories before the end of chapter 3 on either of the two pistols if you loot enough its that affordable.

The main reason you want it though is the special after fully upgrading grants it a critical chance boost of 5x which means it has a significantly higher chance of instantly killing a target (if it spawns a las plagas it works on that just like heads, too). This scales with harder difficulties even further while dmg goes down in value as enemy hp goes up in harder difficulties... further biasing towards the two pistols.

Afterwards you can either go the knife, or if you like the bolt action sniper over the semi-auto sniper rifle you can upgrade that next as you will have spare money... or you can simply save the money for later weapons after you finish the handgun.

The Semi-Auto rifle and Riot shotgun are going to be arguably their best options for those weapon classes.

"The main reason you want it though is the special after fully upgrading grants it a critical chance boost of 5x which means it has a significantly higher chance of instantly killing a target"

In the original even with the crit you did not dealt enough damage on the hardest difficulty, I wonder if this is still the case here thats why everyone said Red9 back then unless you play on normal.

For the pistol its mainly used for headshots where it will instant kill so the dmg isn't very important and at worst the dmg is only half the red 9. Usually for enemies that aren't being instant killed via crit such as chainsaw, bosses, etc. you're going to use shotgun/sniper (and much later for some magnum). Thus the dmg figure is usually not relevant by the time you reach the point where the red 9 is finally acquired and then starts to get more dmg. Its basically like 25~50% crit chance so you instant kill in around 1~4 bullets on avg.

The Red 9 is actually strongest on lower difficulties where dmg is more valuable as enemy health scales down where at higher difficulties enemy health scaling goes up but weapons don't do more dmg so the value of instant kills via crit increases even though crit chance isn't changing further.

For the oddball enemy with armor you can usually just swap to a sniper and headshot them, and even line them up for multiple headshots if you want.

As an example lets say the Red 9 does 5 dmg at max while the Handgun/Sentinel 9 (I'll just call handgun here) does 2 at max. Red 9 has 5~10% crit rate while Handgun has 25~50% and crits = instant kill.

If normal enemy has 20 HP on standard then...
Red 9 will kill it in 4 hits and almost never crit it.
Handgun will also kill it in 4 hits or LESS (as low as 1).

The winner is quite clear.

Now lets assume they got 35 HP on a harder difficulty later in the game...
Red 9 kills it in 7 shots...
Handgun kills it still in 4 or LESS shots on average.

Winner is even more clear here.