Second Best Weapon for the Tactical

[[TSC] TheHolyDarkness]

Alright! Leveled the Bolter (with Grenade Launcher) to relic!

...

Now what? Seems like there are too many choices.

[w10-20-2000]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3342567260

Info is a bit outdated but not much changed with 4.5

[zmanbuilder]

Stalker bolt rifle is great if you like a dmr type playstyle.

[BoodlyBoost]

Plasma Incinerator and Melta Rifle

[zmanbuilder]

Originally posted by BoodlyBoost:

Plasma Incinerator and Melta Rifle

Melta is better on vanguard, but plasma is a great choice.

[Gamefever]

Melta Rifle is great for room clearing, clearing hallways, and narrow corridors.
Unlike its tabletop, Melta is basically your flame thrower and will be your go too for clearing minor enemies. Well placed shots with this will clear 5 to 10 minor enemies in one shot.
Short Comings are,
Slow Rate of Fire
Short Range
Low Ammo
Does not really kill major enemies quickly, there are a lot of better options
BUT
Great for clearing hordes of minor adds, and if those adds are left unchecked well that is how a lot of total party wipes happen....When no one can clear the smalls off the table fast.

Plasma Incinerator
Works sort of like a grenade lobber but without a drop arc indicator.
Can be effective at clearing minors, takes some skill with understanding its arc, you get no indicator of that arc though.
Charge Up, not sure most of my experience is on Plasma Pistol with charged shots which is an easy go to for me to use on Space Marines or Call Home for More Friends guys.

All Bolt weapons got a damage buff with the recent patch,
5-20% damage buff across the board.
Lowest buff was the Heavy Bolter at 5%.
Carbine got 20% and an additional 10% for being really close range.

Heavy Bolt Rifle,
Is the go too I wanna play Heavy but someone else is weapon for the Tactical.
15% damage buff with the patch.

[Chili Dogs]

Melta. use it for groups, use your Pistol and melee for big boys, get up close and have fun.
Salamanders forever, The Emperor protects.

[zmanbuilder]

I suggest using the stalker bolt rifle, heavy bolt rifle, and the plasma incinerator. Those weapons help give you distinctive ways to play.

Melta is good but vanguard uses it to a much greater effect.

[Gamefever]

Originally posted by zmanbuilder:

I suggest using the stalker bolt rifle, heavy bolt rifle, and the plasma incinerator. Those weapons help give you distinctive ways to play.

Melta is good but vanguard uses it to a much greater effect.

Although the Vanguard is a good choice for Melta, he is not always in the party.

Also I have played a Tactical with Melta,
Tactical is a great gun striker and with the right perk that is an instant melta reload.
Heck once Tactical is in melee, I find he is just as able to hang there in the thick of it and just pour out constant melta shots if need be as well.

[AonGreyFox]

You can try Melta, Plasma and Stalker and find which one suit your liking. I myself prefer Stalker as it's most versatile and simple to use in all 3. Put full mag on Terminus scan is Tac's dopamine.

[Shining_Darkness]

I would suggest heavy bolt rifle next if you don't want too much of a departure from the bolt rife. (it is basically just the thing you have been using but rather than grenades it gets more ammo and shoots a bit faster) or the Plasma Incinerator if you would like more of a departure from the bolt weapons. It is kinda like if you had to actually care about your grenade launcher ammo consumption. It doesn't require headshots (like all plasma weapons) so you can shoot floor and walls with the charged shot to get off call-interrupts if you don't have clear line of sight. It favors a more melee-focused playstyle due to the charge shots taking 10 ammo until you get the -2 perk... oh and tactical has a perk that makes it deal more damage when it is over 50% heat which is generally 1-2 charge shots to hit that threshold.

So yeah, either of those. There is of course the stalker bolt or bolt carbine if you don't have sniper leveled yet that you could use on the tactical to level so you have a relic when you start playing sniper but other than that reason I don't see much value in using those on tactical over his other options. Melta is... well you don't really have perks that make it better and as funny as 2 or 3 melta can be since you don't have a pistol option to cover your ranged call-interrupts if you get paired with a vangaurd and heavy running melta your squad will be strapped for longer range damage but hey if you like the "totally not actually a melta" melta in this game that is certainly an option as well. (you can tell I am super biased against it, it just isn't anywhere close to lore-accurate, not even in its functionality. Why they didn't give us the pyrblaster I don't know, it would serve the same function and one of those exists in the campaign... probably because it doesn't have a "light" and heavy version)

[Ziel]

It all depends how confident you are with your melee.
If you're pretty solid at parrying any threat but still getting damage against a minoris wave when hitting.
The heavy bolt rifle is the gun to use. Consistent damage, high volume of fire, pretty accurate it's the jake of all trade from your arsenal.

Now if you're confortable with parry and dodge and know how to combine quick combo, dodge and gunstrike to manage your armor in melee, it will open new option as a tactical.
I dont see it mentionned a lot, since last patch, bolt carbine get buffed like massively. SMG tactical is the best ttk in game.
Its very melee oriented, you're as close as possible and use parry to highlitght your targets, once done, a burst will shred apart majoris and extremis.

Overall bolter stalker is also a very solid option, very impactfull in melee and deadly at range, probably the best option overall after bolter with GL.

Last, plasma, i dont recommend it, it lacks of ammo iand it s very elite oriented while you have very solid option already with more consistent ammunition.

[Shining_Darkness]

Originally posted by Ziel:

It all depends how confident you are with your melee.
If you're pretty solid at parrying any threat but still getting damage against a minoris wave when hitting.
The heavy bolt rifle is the gun to use. Consistent damage, high volume of fire, pretty accurate it's the jake of all trade from your arsenal.

Now if you're confortable with parry and dodge and know how to combine quick combo, dodge and gunstrike to manage your armor in melee, it will open new option as a tactical.
I dont see it mentionned a lot, since last patch, bolt carbine get buffed like massively. SMG tactical is the best ttk in game.
Its very melee oriented, you're as close as possible and use parry to highlitght your targets, once done, a burst will shred apart majoris and extremis.

Overall bolter stalker is also a very solid option, very impactfull in melee and deadly at range, probably the best option overall after bolter with GL.

Last, plasma, i dont recommend it, it lacks of ammo iand it s very elite oriented while you have very solid option already with more consistent ammunition.

My largest issue with recommending the carbine is it absolutely sucks at interrupting calls if they are outside that 10m buffed range. The marksman variant is better but obviously that isn't the version with the fast ttk. The carbine IS a fun weapon, and I like it but honestly it is more of a hindrance if you don't have at least one other person who actually has the ranged interrupts covered.

[Chaos]

Second best is melta to me.

WIth the scan on parry, reload on execute/gunstrike and ammo refill, make you dominate CQC better than every other melee class, but you will be kinda screw when the flying bugs come around however.

[Ziel]

My largest issue with recommending the carbine is it absolutely sucks at interrupting calls if they are outside that 10m buffed range.

To be honnest, I dont consider it as a default, i use it pretty consistently in letahl these last days and alarm wasnt a concern ( with dipersion perk the aimed shots are pretty accurate in burst). My concern will be more about enraged ranged majoris you can't interrupt and coming at very close range of a couple of zao. Both situation you can spare a good portion of health.

[[TSC] TheHolyDarkness]

I'm very greatful for all the replies!

For context however, I would like to disclose that the Vanguard was my first character (Bulwark second, so I'm pretty proficient at melee). Melta is the first primary I leveled up to Relic, so that progression track is already covered.

I've been torn between the Plasma and Stalker, but commentary on the Carbine and Heavy Bolt Rifle has me rethinking things again.

When I'm not playing a tactical, I've been leveling up as the Heavy. I love myself the Heavy Bolter (specc'd with perks that improve accuracy) when I'm not using the Multi-Melta. How close does the Heavy Bolt Rifle come to matching its gameplay feel? Can it also be turned into a non-stop bolt-laser?

Thanks for all the feedback. This game is hard to judge given that all weapons equally suck at level 1.