Are suppressors useless?

[Arya]

Now that I have Weapon Customisation unlocked, I find myself fitting supressors less and less frequently. It's not that I've abandoned stealth, more than I've come to find loud gunfire more useful to accomplishing objectives. Loud gunfire draws the enemy to where you want them, and with that you can pull enemies away from your intended target and fixate their attention.

Even in circumstances where I need stealth, I'm rarely using a supressed weapon. In those situations I typically use distraction and slip straight pas - afterall even a supressed weapon makes a noise and attracts guards.

I dunno, they just seem kinda useless to me. At least through most PVE scenarios. Ande specially when most guns perform better without them.

[OddJob]

Suppressor is absolutely not useless. lol.

It offers you the ability to silently kill people without any punishment to your weapon's performance. As for your fire bullets in one place and sneak around to the other approach.. to each their own I guess xD Seems retarded to me, but go for it.

[killall -q]

Different people play the game differently. Most people do not play like you, and prefer stay in perfect stealth as long as possible. There is a large difference in guard behavior between unalerted and alerted.

Besides, you can keep the suppressor equipped and just toggle it on/off.

[shoopy]

If I want a loud distraction I usually use a grenade or C4. They don't always get a clue right away from gunfire alone, plus when they do you're diverting them to where you are which isn't always the best idea.

[Arya]

At night, Guards react to muzzle flashes rather than your own movement. Fire a volley of shots and they'll go to Alert Status, and then attempt to converge on where the shots came from. I prefer this to firing supressed because it gives me more control over the situation.

Fire your initial shots, drop the key enemies and the rest will move predictably on your sniping position. Quickly move from the position to a flanking position and switch to an automatic weapon. As the enemy moves they'll form up into at least a fireteam sized group, usually with a couple of metre spread. And move right past your position, giving you a perfect chance to fire on them from the side. Fix, flank, finish.

It's infinitely messier than supressed gunplay, but fight aggressively enough and you'll never go past Alert Status. I get S rankings quite easily with this playstyle, and if something does go wrong I'm perfectly equiped to blast my way to safety. Another side-effect is that enemy assets are usually trashed almost permanently - comms are almost always down across the entire AO.

[No gf]

Shooting an unsuppressed gun might get the job done, but more people prefer to throw a magazine or a decoy - it's basically the same, without the entire base going on alert.
But of course, there're pros for going loud. Like what you've said, it's more convenient to have the entire base coming to you instead of you having to sneak around taking out guards one by one. Some people like to play hardcore by extracting a hostage without touching or distracting a single guard. Some people liked to call-in his fully upgraded helicopter and watch Pequod unleash hell in a base. Whichever play style is up to you.
And later on you can't afford to go loud on missions with tanks or a gunship - these things can "spot" you from the other side of the map if you fire a bullet.

[Arya]

Tanks can be a problem, but so far I've found Gunships to be disappointingly weak and a total nonthreat. They're very vulnerable to anything from 7.62MM on up, to the point that .50 BMG can blow one out of the sky in two solid hits. Or you can just pick off the pilot.

[[ACPL] Jon]

Well, you can always unscrew the silencer whenever you need \ want to and then you can't fix one you don't have with you on your gun's barrel. Thus said Jonthrustra.

Silencers 1:0 No Silencer

[!RJ_Truth]

If you like a style that is loud and proud, go for it. That is what is great about this game. There are literally thousands of ways to complete any objective. It's up to you on how you wish to accomplish it.

That being said, I'm not fond of loud myself. I like them never knowing where I'm coming from. Silencers are an integral part of that and once you get so far with a tier 3 silencer on the right weapon, you can complete any objective without running out, so there is never a need to go loud. A want I can understand, but loud is never needed.

[Quincy Jones]

You can remove suppressor, in battle, from just about any weapon. Suppressors are one of the most useful things in the game. Use the FOM decoy if you want to move the enemy somewhere.