Ion bomb is the best weapon and other weapon thoughts.

[shareofhonor]

Ion bomb is hands down the best weapon in the game and it only uses one power. It does 4 ion damage which takes down shields, hacks anything it hits, goes offline for awhile. The Swarm missile is second best it fires a missile every 7 seconds. It also only takes 2 power. I have used a vulcan but a vulcan does not do more damage than 2 flak 1 do for the same power. Only advantage the vulcan has is it only uses one weapon slot.

[K. the Land-Surveyor]

Ion Bomb is a good weapon, though it's a far cry from "best". It does 4 ion damage and can lock out a system for 20 seconds, but it also takes 20 (22?) seconds to fire and uses a consumable. That's a huge consideration in the later sectors when enemy ships can have significant dodge chance. If your strategy absolutely depends on that ion bomb landing, you might be in a fight for awhile. Depending on what you use it for, you might be better off using Hacking.

And dual Flak Is are pretty good, but they don't out-DPS a Vulcan once its fully spun up. We're talking 6 damage every 10 seconds as opposed to 1 every 1.1 second. It's also worth considering that flak has an inherent miss chance and doesn't always land where it can do hull damage.

For my money, Halberd Beam is my favorite weapon. I think Heavy Ion is probably the one I like the least.

[PB Livin]

I had an ion bomb and two halberds and was just ripping people to shreds i never once had to fix my hull untill i landed on a repair station but i went into the final fight with only 6 or so missles and i swear to you no one hit its mark. i was stuck there not able to do anything i could dodge and cloak my team took out all of his weapons so we were just there cloaking back and forth. was laughing and crying at the same time.

But i agree with Twitchblade, Halberds are the way to go. two halbreds and a burst laser and you feel like god

[shareofhonor]

If you have a preigniter the 2 flak 1's will get 12 shots in ten seconds. The Vulcan will get 2.

[K. the Land-Surveyor]

Originally posted by shareofhonor:

If you have a preigniter the 2 flak 1's will get 12 shots in ten seconds. The Vulcan will get 2.

If you have Pre-igniter the Vulcan becomes even better, because it only takes 24 seconds to get spun up fully, as opposed to the usual 35. But Flak I still doesn't out-DPS a Vulcan once it's spun up.

[zverozvero]

Glaive+flak2 will crush everything with preigniter with no need of any other systems.

Ion bomb has 18 sec CD. With 20% from weapon crew and, may be, charger, it'll nulify most shields (non-5-ones) in matter of 30 sec. and'll likely hold them in that state for quite some time. I-bomb is awesome. Better than most missiles 4-damage weapons CD-wise, and grand addition for most weapon compositions cause of only 1(!!) energy consumption.

Breach 2 would be better if not for 2 energy bars needed. While 2 additional bars (even if they are occupied for only first 17 sec) is a desicion for L4 weaponry to upgrade, and a tough call for L6, while 1 bar is 'fine to get' even on L7->L8 grade.
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Vulcan is 3 (2.5?) drones, stuck in weapon slot. Without supportive weapon (even single heavy-1), its not reliable against 3 shielded ship with good evasion. Preigniter is greate, but for cost its kinda meh to cut only 9 sec (11, but gold weapon master is expected for vulcan esp). Its price of cloak if nothing else, and cloak will bring at least 11 sec to wind up if timed right.
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Feels strange, but before AE i saw preigniter often. I thought that improved shops of AE would bring PI more often, but nope - oposite. I saw it 2 times only and had 1 single time when making stealth-B on hard with flak-2 and swarm additions to my glaive.

[eeKay]

Originally posted by zverozvero:

Ion bomb has 18 sec CD. With 20% from weapon crew and, may be, charger, it'll nulify most shields (non-5-ones) in matter of 30 sec. and'll likely hold them in that state for quite some time. I-bomb is awesome.

To be fair, landing two ion bombs in a row is not a reliable strategy at all. On late game ships you can count on one of them missing. It also won't work if they have a cloak.

The ion bomb is definitely a good weapon, but it's not the best in the game. The long charge time is a huge disadvantage on some setups.

[Yanamonie]

I beat a Hard difficulty flagship with pre igniter, Flak Mk2, breach bomb Mk2 and a halberd

[Wasted]

i still love bl2 and in general prefer weapons with quick charge times

a quick charge time can help mitigate some of the pain of a miss

long charge weapons can be awesome with a pre ignitor

one time i had preigniter +BL3 + glaive.. was a very fun run tearing most ships in half on my very 1st volley.

[DarkTwinge]

Ion Bomb was the best weapon pre-AE. Now there are other strong alternatives like Hacking and the cooldown was nerfed - so it remains a good weapon, but it can't really compete with Burst II for that #1 slot now (Flak I being #2.)

(This of course ignores ship-specific options; Adv. Flak is the strongest weapon in the game easily.)

[zverozvero]

Originally posted by TeeKay:

To be fair, landing two ion bombs in a row is not a reliable strategy at all. On late game ships you can count on one of them missing. It also won't work if they have a cloak.

The ion bomb is definitely a good weapon, but it's not the best in the game. The long charge time is a huge disadvantage on some setups.

It's not so long after all ;) Not every run allows to pack on 4 flak-1/burst-2 (or even 3 double-shot chains), and to reduce ships defences 4-5 sectors back you need single i-bomb in their shields.
If paired with MC, or low(est)-end hack, landing 1 bomb is usually not a problem.
Sure, l3 hack will do same in shields on its own, but if you hack piloting, you'll land bomb and other shots wit full acuracy in its duration.

[shareofhonor]

You cannot compare a spun up vulcan to other weapons. The fact it has to spin up is it's biggest weakness. I bought a vulcan and I didn't equip it until I could also use the burst laser I already had. Alot of bad stuff can happen in 30 seconds. You have to have something that shoots faster than that.

[shareofhonor]

Of course an ion bomb doesn't do any damage so you need other weapons to be the damage dealers. But if you take the enemy shields completely down a combat 1 drone will do alot of damage.

[h21 #kick]

I'd say Flak is the best because it has a shorter firing delay, and it fires all projectiles at once, which sort of bypasses the shield recharge in comparison to lasers which fire one at a time; if you miss with lasers, and the enemy has a crew member with high shield recharge skill, it sucks.

I had an Ion Bomb + Advanced Flak + 2 Flak II's with the Weapon Pre-Ignitor augmentation on my Kruos B ship before, and it took down the Rebel Flagship in three weapon volleys. With the added benefit of obtaining a Hacking System to reduce the enemy's evasion to zero, it made the last boss way too easy. Then again, Kruos B ship is way to easy to win with.

[zverozvero]

Flak-1 is kinda best - most ships have either big room, or 2-3 connected small-is. Its 3 shield stripped with 10 sec cd (sure, evade factors, but this counts for all others equally, exept beams). Burst 2 is acurate but 20% longer cd kinda twists it.
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When you have 2-3 shields, 6 engine bars, cloak (or zoltan shield), 6 weapon bars with some 2-3 shot minor weaponry to compensate for evasion/cloak/def-2 drones and fine men on systems, Vulcan will spin up and do job. Same time glaive is more dependant on supportive weaponry/means of shield lowering, and flak-2 while most independant, is far from as powerfull dps-wise. Vulcan is single-time acquirement that can supplement most basic loadouts to be consistent in sectors 7-8 (6 may be, but that needs good luck in scrap to empower systems), but getting through 4-6 with it is painfull even with cloak.
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Lanius-B is easiest to start with - suffocative boarders, MC, best light weapon ever, clonebay for events and suicide boarding of auto-ships. Crystal-B is stronger for boarding, but Lanius-B... its ----g set for half of game from very begining with like no drawbacks. Only hack in boarding can really ---- it i guess.