My FTL Weapons Tiers (better late than never :D )

[Gremlin Jack]

Yes, I know I’m years late, but I only really got into FTL a year ago, and I finally feel I’ve played it enough to create my own weapon tiers.

Now, this list is split into two – Starting Weapons and Store Weapons. Starting weapons can only be found aboard the ship that has them (I include Crystal weapons because getting to the Crystal Sector to buy them is an extremely rare and difficult event) and Store Weapons can be found or purchased in regular gameplay. I’m rating them separately because you don’t really have an option with the Starting Weapons, you have them, the only question is to keep them or not.

Starting Weapons tiers:

Keep – These are weapons that should see you all the way to the boss.
1. Adv. Flak I (Lanius B)
   3 flak shots for 1 power and 8 seconds, the most efficient weapon in the game bar none.
   
2. Laser Charger + (Stealth C)
   2 lasers at 11 seconds or 1 every 5.5 at 1 power. Efficient AND flexible.
   
3. Dual Lasers (Slug A, Stealth A, Federation B, Kestrel C, Engi C)
   2 lasers at 10 seconds for 1 power, another very efficient weapon.
   
   Upgrade – These are solid weapons, and should only be replaced if you need to make room for a high-ranked Store Weapon (see below list)
   
4. Heavy Pierce I (Rock B)
   One second extra for a heavy laser that penetrates 1 shield. Nice.
   
5. Artemis Missile (Kestrel A, Rock A, Slug B)
   One power for a 2-damage missile every 11 seconds. IMO, tied in 2nd place with Pegasus for missile weapons.
   
6. Artillery Beam (Federation A, Federation B)
   Costs 160 scrap to fully upgrade, at which point you get a guaranteed 3-6 unaimed damage every 20 seconds. The only question is if there might be better things to buy.
   
7. Mini-Beam (Stealth A, Stealth C)
   At only 1 power, makes a very cheap supporting weapon.
   
   Jettison – These are weapons that need to be replaced as soon as you find something from Tier 0, 1 or 2 on the store weapon list. Even a Tier 3 might be a better choice depending on circumstance.
   
8. Crystal Burst Mk I (Crystal A)
   2 shots with 1-shield pierce, but long cooldown and can be stopped by defense drones.
   
9. Leto Missile (Zoltan A, Federation B)
   2 seconds faster than Artemis, 1 less damage, not worth it.
   
10. Basic Laser (Mantis A, Kestrel B)
    1 shot every 10 seconds… there are better weapons for 1 power.
    
11. Heavy Crystal Mk 1 (Crystal A, Rock C)
    It’s a crappy missile. Ugh.
    
12. Lockdown Crystal Bomb (Mantis C)
    A bomb that does no system damage, does not breach, ionize, or set on fire. Why?
    
13. Flak Artillery (Federation C)
    After 160 scrap to fully upgrade, you get 7 unaimed flak at 20 seconds for 4 power. The Flak II gives you 7 aimed shots at 21 seconds (17 seconds with a fully trained crew) for 3 power and costs 80. Do you see the problem?! This weapon is literally not worth the reactor power, and it can’t even be sold! In fact, if it ever gets damaged, don’t repair it. A system which is destroyed by boarders or fire deals hull damage, so better remove the vulnerability by keeping it pre-damaged!

And now we come to the Store Weapons. These are weapons that (depending on luck) may be purchased or found in regular gameplay.

Tier 0 -- Prioritize these weapons, they help no matter what type of strategy you follow.
1. Burst Laser II
   3 shots, 12 seconds, 2 power. The go-to for rapid-fire precision damage.
   
2. Flak I
   3 shots, 10 seconds, 2 power. Sacrifices accuracy for rate of fire.
   
   Tier 1 -- These are solid and should be acquired by anyone looking to improve weapons
   
3. Halberd Beam
   65 scrap, 3 power and 17 seconds is cheap for this kind of damage potential.
   
4. Swarm Missile
   Charges 1 shot every 7 seconds for upto 3 1-damage shots. The go-to missile for beating defense drones and/or locking down a room with rapid fire.
   
5. Small Bomb
   Fast unstoppable little weapon for hammering enemy systems and crew.
   
6. Ion Blast Mk 1
   I put this in Tier 1 just for how cheap it is. 30 scrap, 1 power and 8 sec cooldown is dirt cheap for a great supporting weapon.
   
   Tier 2 -- Good weapons for the dedicated gunship
   
7. Chain Vulcan
   Unloading a shot a second at maximum charge, This weapon can single-handedly tear apart all but the most heavily defended ships, but the charge period, 4 power requirement, and extreme vulnerability to disruption (particularly ion or hacking) keeps it out of the top tiers.
   
8. Flak II
   Shields? What shields? Would be higher if not for the cooldown.
   
9. Ion Stunner
   Cheap and stuns, but has 2 second longer cooldown than Ion Blast I, and with ion weapons rate of fire is everything.
   
10. Chain Burst
    Not as extreme as the Vulcan, but less vulnerable to disruption and cheaper to support.
    
11. Breach Bomb I
    Like the Small Bomb, a cheap and efficient way of disrupting systems and crew
    
12. Pegasus Missile
    Absolutely lethal 2x 2-damage missiles per shot, but has an extremely long cooldown.
    
13. Laser Charger (L)
    1 shot every 5 seconds, charges upto 4, poor man’s Vulcan.
    
14. Ion Blast Mk II
    1 ion every 4 seconds means it can rapidly lock down enemy shields, but 3 power and 70 scrap make it an expensive choice.
    
15. Heavy laser II
    2x2 shots for 3 power and 13 seconds. Deadly if you have support that can take out shields.
    
16. Hull Beam
    Long beam, good damage, can’t touch shields.
    
17. Laser Charger (S)
    1 shot every 6 seconds or 2 shots every twelve, the flexibility makes it a decent weapon.
    
18. Burst Laser I
    2 shots at 11 seconds for 2 power. What you use when you can't find the good stuff.
    
19. Ion Charger
    1 ion every 6 seconds, charges upto 3. Not bad for 2 power.
    
20. Breach Bomb II
    Decent weapon, but has long cooldown
    
21. Heavy Laser I
    2 damage every 9 seconds. Great if you have 1 slot going spare.
    
    Tier 3 -- These weapons are either average, or very situational.
    
22. Glaive Beam
    Slow and powerful, you need to build a ship around this weapon instead of the other way around.
    
23. Pike Beam
    Whatever it can do, other beams do better. Still a useful weapon.
    
24. Burst Laser III
    High power requirements and long cooldown keep it out of the higher tiers.
    
25. Ion Bomb
    Only takes 1 power for 4 ion damage, but extremely long cooldown.
    
26. Hermes Missile
    When you can't get a better missile/bomb and have 3 weapons slots to spare. Completely stalled by Defense Drones.
    
27. Fire Beam
    Useless against robots, long cooldown, excellent for Rock boarders.
    
28. Fire bomb
    Sea above
    
29. Healing Burst
    Good for boarding parties and not much else.
    
30. Crystal Burst II
    Only use if you have 3 weapon slots and your current weapons are crap. All I can say is, it’s cheap at 20 scrap.
    
    Tier 4 – Also known as free scrap if you find/start with them, ‘cos you ain’t buying.
    
31. Anti-bio Beam
    You need to actually hit enemy crew to damage them, where every other weapon damages crew automatically when they hit the room.
    
32. Heavy Ion
    Shares the same power slot as tons of better weapons.
    
33. Repair Burst
    Because you don’t need that weapon slot for actual weapons.
    
34. Breach Missile
    Bigger and slower than Hermes, same weaknesses. Bleh.
    
35. Chain Ion
    By the time this finishes charging, the fight should be over.
    
36. Stun Bomb
    In the situations where this is useful, you’re already winning.
    
37. Hull Laser I
    This weapon assumes I want to waste time shooting at empty rooms.
    
38. Hull Laser II
    Second verse same as the first.
    
39. Hull Missile
    This is becoming a very bad habit.
    
40. Heavy Crystal II
    All the weaknesses of a missile, almost none of the benefits.

So, there you have it. My weapon tiers. Comment?

[mkzzz12]

Originally posted by Gremlin Jack:

1. Flak Artillery (Federation C)
   After 160 scrap to fully upgrade, you get 7 unaimed flak at 20 seconds for 4 power. The Flak II gives you 7 aimed shots at 21 seconds (17 seconds with a fully trained crew) for 3 power and costs 80. Do you see the problem?! This weapon is literally not worth the reactor power, and it can’t even be sold! In fact, if it ever gets damaged, don’t repair it. A system which is destroyed by boarders or fire deals hull damage, so better remove the vulnerability by keeping it pre-damaged!

Yeah, it's not like you need, say, weapon bars to run a flak II or anything. If you run flak II with 7 total power (which gives you 4 power of other weapons and flak is late game so that's certainly a common use for it), it costs more than upgrading and extra power for the flak arty costs (bars 5, 6, and 7 cost 215, arty costs 160 and one more power so ~195).
And then you can go even higher.

Meanwhile, pike can do the arty beams job for even less scrap, and if your ship doesn't have shield breaking for that it sucks anyway. A guaranteed way to do damage is sort of nice on the very few runs where you can't get decent weapons (but you start with a BL II/DL+missile, so you could run a pike beam for most of the game off of just that instead)

Fun fact, flak arty is better at targeting rooms than flak II. You get 7 'separate' shots at a smaller radius at each room, whereas flak II will nearly always have a sizeable chance to miss any rooms, sometimes huge chance.

Less fun fact, it doesn't really even matter if we compare flak II to flak arty, or flak arty to beam arty, because they'd all go terribly with a ship that has no other offense and would really just benefit from a small bomb to support the boarding far more. Flak arty is a victim of Fed C.


Other than that, underestimating normal lasers like BL I or hull lasers will get you killed. Hull lasers are expensive and not really worth it but a good BL I at the right time wins games, cause it's cheap, very common, and works great in most starting loadouts. A kestrel with an extra BL I goes into the late game like that. Totally a good buy if you don't see anything exceptional instead.

Most other things are reasonable enough. Ion bomb and pike too low. Small ion blast and the swarm missile of all things too high. But meh, close enough.

[Gremlin Jack]

Originally posted by mekloz:

Flak arty is a victim of Fed C.

Fed C has a terrible setup, but Flak Arty would still suck on its own.

Originally posted by mekloz:

a good BL I at the right time wins games, cause it's cheap, very common, and works great in most starting loadouts. A kestrel with an extra BL I goes into the late game like that. Totally a good buy if you don't see anything exceptional instead.

Most other things are reasonable enough. Ion bomb and pike too low. Small ion blast and the swarm missile of all things too high. But meh, close enough.

So, you're saying you'd buy a BL I if you can't find anything else, and because it's dirt cheap. Fair enough. I'll bump it to Tier 2. After all, I'm rating the Ion Blast I so high for similar reasons. Only the IB I costs less, and takes only 1 slot, I rate it so high because you can never go wrong tossing it into the mix.

Originally posted by Fusion:

I don't understand why you would put Hermes so low. It's a 3 damage missile that charges in 14 seconds. Theres a reason players ♥♥♥♥ their pants every time they see an enemy has one of these things. Same goes for breach missile.

The Hermes consumes 3 power and has a 14 second cooldown, but fires only a single shot. This means max chance of missing with a weapon with limited ammo, and a Defense Drone shuts it down completely. Breach has same issue, even longer cooldown.

You can't use them early because 3 power weapons are tricky to support, and you can't use them late because enemies will have higher evasion and missile defenses.

The Artemis on the other hand takes only 1 power slot, so it doesn't cost you much to hold onto it. But I don't like missiles in general, the only ones I rate well are the multi-shot systems like Swarm and Pegasus.

[Gremlin Jack]

Originally posted by Fusion:

I don't really think any of that matters when I have 50 missiles in stock.

It's the 3 power requirement I have issue with. There's so many better weapons for those slots. But, to be fair, the Hermes is not entirely terrible. I've bumped to Tier 3, average and situational weapons. But Breach missile still sucks. Just way too slow.

[Meneluma]

Stun Bomb is much better than Lock Bomb on Mantis C.
It charges faster, it desyncs paired weapons, can possibly drain charge from a nasty big missile and with good timing you can rush the mantis and engi out of the room leaving enemies to choke with the lanius.
I have no idea why you list it as free scrap, it is the only starting item on that ship you shouldn't sell until like sector 3.
Lockdown bombs are finicky though, slow charge and most likely not going to trap anyone/prevent entering due to the long animation, but I guess you have to learn to time them.

And repair burst is worthwhile to keep if you have an extra slot, because if something goes wrong badly you can just undo it.
So it should be situational.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Gremlin Jack:

Yes, I know I’m years late, but I only really got into FTL a year ago, and I finally feel I’ve played it enough to create my own weapon tiers.

• Heavy Crystal Mk 1 (Crystal A, Rock C)
  It’s a crappy missile. Ugh.

You can think of this as a slightly slower Artemis (that doesn't cost you any missiles), or a slightly slower Heavy Pierce that can be shot down by defense drones. It's still a reasonably good weapon, and I generally keep it.

Agreed that the other two are absolute junk, though.

Considering how ridiculously rare and difficult to get the Heavy Crystal II is (you can buy it or get it in a drop or get it in a quest that wastes two jumps and it's not worth using no matter how you get it), it is outrageously, shockingly bad.

I'll also note that some weapons become usable with some buildouts, the most obvious being that Pre-Igniter makes a lot of otherwise horrible weapons (like the Breach Missile) suddenly awesome. It makes even the otherwise completely useless Lock Bomb marginally useful.

[Delthea]

A largely helpful list for newer players that don't know how to make their own assertations on weapons.

I strongly disagree with your stance on the glaive beam, however. If the Glaive is your only weapon all game, it will get the job done in (nearly) any fight. It shreds ships, it disables multiple rooms, it eats super shields, it makes julienne fries, it does your homework, it makes an island for you, then it transforms into a jet and TAKES YOU TO THAT ISLAND.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Ami Futami:

A largely helpful list for newer players that don't know how to make their own assertations on weapons.

I strongly disagree with your stance on the glaive beam, however. If the Glaive is your only weapon all game, it will get the job done in (nearly) any fight. It shreds ships, it disables multiple rooms, it eats super shields, it makes julienne fries, it does your homework, it makes an island for you, then it transforms into a jet and TAKES YOU TO THAT ISLAND.

I agree with the actual text, if not the numerical placement of the Glaive Beam. It really does require you to craft your whole buildout around that beam. It is easily the most "awesome" weapon in the game in terms of, well, sheer awesomeness. But this is a game where quite often, "awesome" is a trap for the unwary.

So while I will sometimes buy this, and nearly always at least try to think of something to do with it if I get one free, it isn't rare that I get one of these and sell it, because it just isn't going to work, although I shed a tear when I do.

I would rank the Vulcan much lower, and the Glaive a few slots higher.

Also, I don't know why the Swarm Missiles are so popular. IMO these things are ♥♥♥♥.

[mehrad hiddan]

I must have over 1300 hr on FTL and I found that list insightful. I kick ass at will on easy no matter what I happen to get. Now normal is a biznat {but the learning curve aside} I am having the time of my life again... can't wait to try hard (get ready for rage quit again)

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

Also, I don't know why the Swarm Missiles are so popular. IMO these things are ♥♥♥♥.

It's the fact that evasion isn't much of a problem and nor are Def drones. Take your average Hermes or Breach - you want to smash the helm down before you send that missile going anywhere or else that was 15s for nothing.

Meanwhile you can just point the Swarm at shields and say "Something's gonna hit."


Chain Laser is not great unless you get a second one. And if you get a third one you can now pulverize most enemies.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Meanwhile you can just point the Swarm at shields and say "Something's gonna hit."

Unless it's an automated ship, then you can miss even when the enemy doesn't have any evasion. It's reasonably okay against 4 square rooms. There is also the benefit of generally getting first shot if you choose to shoot just one missile, but this squanders missiles at a ridiculous rate. So using it that way is just a faster Leto.

I'll use it for a while if I get it as a pickup or start with it, but I'd rarely actually buy it.

[VIGILO CONFIDO]

Swarm missiles are ♥♥♥♥. I would never use them over the artemis. The artemis is the only decent missile weapon. Breach missile is ok with a pre igniter.

[Delthea]

Originally posted by VIGILO CONFIDO:

Swarm missiles are ♥♥♥♥. I would never use them over the artemis. The artemis is the only decent missile weapon. Breach missile is ok with a pre igniter.

pre-igniter makes a lot of things much better.

[Wasted]

swarm missle sucks, hull lasers can be ok until faster charge time lasers can be found they certainly aren't lowest tier weapons. I often still buy a BL 1 if i see it for sale.

[mkzzz12]

Originally posted by Gremlin Jack:

Originally posted by mekloz:

Flak arty is a victim of Fed C.

Fed C has a terrible setup, but Flak Arty would still suck on its own.

I've modded it into Fed A and B a couple times. It was far better (than in Fed C and than the arty beam which really is a waste of scrap until late-game). Your math just skips over a huge amount of relevant factors, likely because you start off hating it after Fed C. It's basically like starting with a slightly different flak II you can't quite power yet.

Originally posted by Gremlin Jack:

Originally posted by mekloz:

a good BL I at the right time wins games, cause it's cheap, very common, and works great in most starting loadouts. A kestrel with an extra BL I goes into the late game like that. Totally a good buy if you don't see anything exceptional instead.

Most other things are reasonable enough. Ion bomb and pike too low. Small ion blast and the swarm missile of all things too high. But meh, close enough.

So, you're saying you'd buy a BL I if you can't find anything else, and because it's dirt cheap. Fair enough. I'll bump it to Tier 2. After all, I'm rating the Ion Blast I so high for similar reasons. Only the IB I costs less, and takes only 1 slot, I rate it so high because you can never go wrong tossing it into the mix.

IB I is very slot inefficient if you don't get other ions. They break the same amount of shield bubbles per power, BL I makes for cheaper firepower if you realize that. Lasers tend to work better in all the different kinds of loadouts, too.

You can indeed go wrong with a weapon you'll just get rid of later, it's wasted scrap. One of the biggest differences in difficulty levels is that you can't afford to keep reselling stuff you got because it was cheap at the time, you need to think about the late game. It is still an ok enough purchase occasionally, BL I is better.


Btw I notice you have the unique breach bomb mk I in the second list, while I think none of the crystal weapons from the first one are unique at all, just crystal sector specific. Lockdown bomb can even be found in rock sectors.

[mkzzz12]

Slug A, 9s, 1 system damage with increased crew damage, I think 30.