What is your favourite/most effective weapon class.

[alation13]

I am having trouble with picking what weapons I want to specialise in for my party.

I have my two tanks with 2h power weapons (more damage and aoe attack) and all the rest pretty much get either the long las or sniper rifles. So far my two melee guys are getting buffed to hell and back and doing most of the damage. My MC is just supporting them, the sister of battle is doing OK but nothing special and Cassia is making everyone walk themselves to death.

What I want to know is, what are the good ranged options as sometimes the guns work, other times they do next to no damage. I have read that plasma are great and also the xeno weapons are great, but the in game stats son't seem to indicate that. The "guides" are still talking about beta builds and when you look up the weapons themselves it is hard to know if the information is for the CRPG or the TT version of the game.

So, what do you guys use and why?

[Zyllen]

At the beginning of the game i prefer to use sniper rifles as the ballistics score is simply too low to hit reliably, midgame i equip my soldiers with bolters as they benefit a lot from the high damage and ROF (equip Argenta with the precise bolter and the blessed bolter casing). Operatives and officers get Aeldari sniper rifles.

[F-Man]

WHile some say they are underwhelming, I run with bolters and they just work.
But, at the start of Ch2 I respecced my soldier mc and argenta for it.
While he was doing a good job, a certain encounter showed me some flaws.
Now they dish your real good damage. And personally I really like the look and feel from that in this game. Overpenetration with a high ROF weapon is just hilarious to watch.
SInce the game system is new to me, that some talents are really good, but kind of ok on paper. While I have played both PK and WotR some hundred hours, the DnD/Pf rules are relatively well known.
Since the respec, I came to the conclusion that the weapons raw damage is nice to have but not the most important. Most damage comes from talents synergies and team buff support.
That being said, depending on your difficulty, buffs are everthing, which you seem to already know.

[Werdna]

Las Snipers and then Las Riffles that can burst fire. Everything else is bad in act1 therefore bad forever because game is too demanding on damage and accuracy in act 1.
You can try having second damage dealer that will be deadweight in act1 but useful later like Pasqal and Plasma.

[Xerkics]

I have plasma gun on the tech priest and flamer and bolter on argenta and myself as pyromancer I use thunder hammer plasma gun seems a bit underwhelming honestly by not firing burst . Party mostly use two handed weapons so not tried plasma pistols

[F-Man]

Originally posted by Zyllen:

At the beginning of the game i prefer to use sniper rifles as the ballistics score is simply too low to hit reliably, midgame i equip my soldiers with bolters as they benefit a lot from the high damage and ROF (equip Argenta with the precise bolter and the blessed bolter casing). Operatives and officers get Aeldari sniper rifles.

Yes, at the start with low ballistic stats, recoil can be a real pain when you use burst fire. Las weapons shine here, especially for the anti dodge bonus.
But overall all ranged weapons I found so far were all good to use.
The xeno ones have mostly better stats. Lower recoil, toxin, more ROF, more range.
The talent for them is definetly not wasted.

[Severs]

I've been getting really liking to using Flame Weapons on soldiers since both stream and spray count as area attacks and thus can get Concentrated Fire buffs. Plasma is good for aoe bursts not only for it's reliable pattern (a square as opposed to a cone like meltas and flamers have) but also because you can somewhat indirect fire them, in that it seems to be a lot more lenient on what it considers "line of sight" for the plasma aoe compared to everything else- including grenades.

[Xerkics]

It’s ironic Jae starts with badass eldar pistols but as officer is better of spending all turn buffing as not really suited for combat much

[x_equals_speed]

I'm enjoying arch-militant and its ability to get a bonus every time it changes attack type. It leads to more dynamic fights to be trying to move between positions that suit flamers and positions that suit bursts.

[DarkFenix]

Two words. Heavy. Bolter. It does take a good while for Argenta to spec into them well enough for them to get silly, but once she does... whoa. Basically you need to get into arch-militant and grab everything that gives flat damage boosts and anything that can help her shoot more times per turn.

Then you get to live the true heavy bolter fantasy, watching her spray into a pack of enemies and kill them all... and still be able to burst twice more that turn.

[Schlumpsha]

I like melta's and plasma ones. But some of the exotic guns were pretty close to be my favourites. The tesla coil one was especially cute.

[glenn3e]

Heavy Bolter Argenta all the way

[zpc]

I'm a huge bolter fan (all variations) - but I start to like the heavy stubbers. I switched both my MC and Argenta to heavy stubbers and gave the heavy bolter to Ulfar (don't have access to a second non-heretic heavy bolter yet )

Also - pretty awful that the storm bolter can't be equipped by Ulfar.

[Kunic]

Full speced pyro once you get inflame takes care about everything you can survive 2-3 rounds... Sniper rifles are also quite good as well as every melee option - I don't use burst weapons too much due to all the friendly fire and having at least one almost unkillable tank in front is kinda usefull (they also cause quite some damage)

Imho the game is mostly about synergy of the group, pyro would probably work a bit more fun with a couple of flamers - I like my tank in front 2 snipers taking care of enemy snipers and 2 psykers and navigator run amok but it feels like you can get about every variant you want to work if you skill your team in that direction

[Nox]

psyker origin vanguard using bio and sanctic passives. (there are some greats in there)
deathworld origin soldier/archmil using heavy bolter / revel in slaughter / wildfire
psyker captain/tactician pure support. bio/sanc takedown and buffing <-player

I go for the high int player so that I don't dumb my way through dialogues

that's my home run hero trio

[alation13]

So most of you guys like bolters, I will have to look into that. I have Argenta using a long las and a 2 handed bolter (whatever it is called), but maybe I need to buff her ballistics because the chance to hit with the bolter compared to the long las scares me away. I was enjoying the techpriest guy using the plasma gun but I am not sure if it was because of his specific "race" buffs. I asked about xeno weapons because the xeno sniper you pick up seemed to outperform Argenta as a sniper. My MC is a psyker/officer/master tactician, so an insane buff bot, I wouldn't mind him able to do a little damage though.