Assault Rifles...

[Mezazine]

Is there any decent assault rifle out there. I am playing a commando, but I keep throwing assault rifles away, because they feel awful (slow reload, bad accuracy, high recoil,....). I keep using pistoles, SMGs, snipers... I'd really like to use an assault rifle, but I cannot find anything decent... Thoughts?

[ShinkuTear]

Messaggio originale di Perfice:

I don't look at the dates before I post.

Maybe you should. Would be nice, and you won't look foolish for it.

[Christian Gay Porn Salesman]

Well since you have accuracy issues with assualts, you should try the seeker since that gun is literally an aimbot, accuracy aside, I would reccomend the Kitten, Kerblaster, and Vladdof Etechs

[Perfice]

Messaggio originale di ShinkuTear:

Messaggio originale di Perfice:

I don't look at the dates before I post.

Maybe you should. Would be nice, and you won't look foolish for it.

Sorry for looking foolish. Next time I'll check the date.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

503 UCP buffs them a little, but ARs are still kinda meh. THier accuracy is just hot garbage. Even with 20% acc from bad ass ranks, 30-40 something % from Axton skills and topped off with hand crafted gibbed ARs using Dahl parts+stability mod, AR accuracy is still trash. They play more like really slow firing SMGs, rather than being any kind of a mid range AR....

LMGs are even worse.

[Perfice]

I've gotten back into playing again with my friend. We're gonna play through all the Borderlands. I forgot I even mentioned stuff about AR's before, and I just went looking for the utility of AR's because they seemed to suck, at least early game. It's funny my mentality 6 years ago is the same as it is now. Went through the same process of; AR's really seem to suck; no, they don't seem to be slightly worse than their competition, they seem to be horrendously inferior to literally every other gun; only people saying they're good are mentioning Legendary weapons or really specific builds, and even then it only makes them "decent"; I might stop playing Commando because of this...; eh, I'll just stick with it.

[PatchAdams]

Since it was bumped anyway...

I run an AR-only Axton build, usually with

1. a Hail or Kitten for combined healing/damage, preferably slag
2. a Bekah, M2828 Thumpson, or Gatling Gun for crit/general damage, which Axton is otherwise weak on
3. a Toothpick or Lead Storm or Veruc with elemental damage to fit enemy type most encountered on map
4. a Kerblaster or Peak Opener for FFYL and to benefit his explosive damage boost

and

- Hard Carry relic or AR ammo/Heart relic
- Rifleman, Grenadier, or Leg. Soldier COM
- grenade and shield depend on situation; usually I would go with something like a Bonus Package or slag MIRV and a Turtle shield, Big Boom Blaster, Bee, or Antagonist

Middle tree heavily filled at least as far as Do or Die, lots of points in kill skills in all trees, and going down at least far enough to put points into Resourceful on the right.

Other builds can and will work; that's just what I use.

Though I haven't done it, you could also make a rifle-only Sal work. The closest I have is a Vladof loyalty Sal, who often uses a Blaster and Kitten with an Electric Chair or Fire Bee, Sham, Leg. Hoarder, and Vladof relic.

You could probably make a rifle-only work too, but I already ran him pistol-only and sniper-only already, so... If you wanted another nice challenge you could try running a hybrid elemental/melee Krieg with ARs only. Slag Kitten, Sawbar, Kerblaster, and Rapier might be a pretty sweet combo for that.

[Innocent]

I suppose if we're resurrecting this thread...

Yeah ARs are inexplicably weak in this game. On top of having equal or inferior stats to a same level SMG, they also have a crit damage penalty (except Jakobs) for no reason.

They can still be effective and are very fun to use, it's just that in terms of DPS they are generally worse than other guns. There are some exceptions:

Jakobs: they don't have the crit penalty and actually hit pretty hard. The most viable 'AR', except they don't feel like ARs at all, more like shotguns or snipers.

Torgue: EXPLOSIONS?! Seriously, they suffer from the usual Torgue shortcoming (projectile speed, accuracy) but do a lot of damage, especially if you get a minigun barrel. I haven't used them too much, but when I did, they put in work. They still don't really 'feel' like an AR to me, due to the slow projectile speed.

The middle ground:

Vladof: with skills that boost rate of fires, those are super fun to use and reasonably effective against regular mobs.

The duds:
Bandit: I once did a Zero build designed to patch up the Bandit AR shortcomings: Velocity for increased bullet speed and Precision with a Shot class mod for accuracy, plus a Bandit allegiance relic. While it was super fun and extremely satisfying to fire (you'll feel like a WW1 gunner!), the damage was still sub par. Use these for themed or fun builds. Exception: the pearlescent Sawbar. It's good, but feels more like a flamethrower than an AR.

Dahl: I really tried. These guns look super cool, the closest thing to a kickass AR, rather than something that looks like a Nerf Gun that shoots lightning... The problem is that their gimmick suggest you should aim for crit spots with those (they have very accurate burst fire), but the crit penalty really really hurts. They just don't do much damage. The legendary Veruc is OK at best (actually quite ammo inefficient: it fires 3 shots for 2 bullets, but you'll rarely hit with all 3 bullets).

Final word: Hyperion shotguns actually feel more like ARs than ARs in this game: high RoF and high damage. Try one if you're disappointed with ARs.

TLDR: they don't do a lot of DPS (except for some uniques), but are fun to use and can be effective while mobbing.

[lavalobster93]

boo assault rifles, pistols are where its at

[Shedding my mortal skin]

The thread was bumped anyways, so since the topic is alive again, I'll add that I started an assault rifle-only Axton playthrough last month. Getting ammo was more of a problem than with any other solo-type playthrough since AR ammo drops are bugged, but aside from that, it wasn't too bad. I'd rate AR's as following:
Torgue = Jakobs (on par with each other, but Jakobs recoil makes me prefer Torgue) > Vladof (solid AR's) > Dahl (burst fire's a pain to deal with in my opinion) > Bandit (just use Vladof instead)
Gatling Guns and Spitters are the most powerful AR's in my opinion. Spinigun-barreled Dahls are the best Dahl AR's (despite me not using them), and I personally prefer the consistent fire rate from non-spinigun Vladof AR's. As for Bandit AR's, seriously, just use Vladof. Bandit AR's function just like slow Vladofs with a lot more recoil.

I only took it to the mid-50s before taking a break, mainly due to Magic Slaughter killing my will to play it, but I plan on picking back up eventually and taking it to 80.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Messaggio originale di PatchAdams:

Since it was bumped anyway...

I run an AR-only Axton build, usually with

1. a Hail or Kitten for combined healing/damage, preferably slag
t.

Hail, is that the blue gun you get out of the arena thing in the Fridge?

[PatchAdams]

Messaggio originale di Lord-Knight Fandragon:

Hail, is that the blue gun you get out of the arena thing in the Fridge?

That's the one. Has a bit of a learning curve because of the projectile arc, as does the Lead Storm.

[Innocent]

Messaggio originale di Lord-Knight Fandragon:

Hail, is that the blue gun you get out of the arena thing in the Fridge?

yes it is. It's a phenomenal weapon that's regularly in the top 10 best ARs in BL2.

The only issue with it is its firing arc that you have to adjust for at short range, and get used to at long range. But if you take the time to master it, it's well worth it. I'm using it on a Trickster Maya and it just melts everything on sight. Axton is also a super strong Hail user: grenade damage boosts apply to the gun, and Axton has some good RoF skills that help a lot with this gun.

If you're on PC, make sure to adjust your FoV as well if using this weapon, put it to max. It'll make aiming a lot easier. Unfortunately I don't think console versions can do this.

[Perfice]

I think something that hasn't gotten mentioned, is that all the builds for Axton will in turn improve your assault rifle skills. The way people were explaining it, was that you had to focus your whole build around just making the assault rifle viable. As in, you have to sacrifice other better skills in order to even make them decent. Or that you have to force yourself to use assault rifles, even though other weapons will be better almost always. Or that you have to grind legendary weapons to get any assault rifle which is anywhere close to being as good as an SMG or Pistol of comparable quality.

I was looking through his top builds, and most of them seem to use assault rifles. Not because they really had to force themselves just to use them, but because the skills they got essentially negated most or all the issues assault rifles have compared to other weapons. Skills that you're going to want to get regardless, such as skills utilizing reload speed and recoil reduction, just so happen to have the side effect of also making assault rifles much better.

That's what it's seemed to me anyways, from watching Axton builds.

[Innocent]

Messaggio originale di Perfice:

I think something that hasn't gotten mentioned, is that all the builds for Axton will in turn improve your assault rifle skills. The way people were explaining it, was that you had to focus your whole build around just making the assault rifle viable. As in, you have to sacrifice other better skills in order to even make them decent. Or that you have to force yourself to use assault rifles, even though other weapons will be better almost always. Or that you have to grind legendary weapons to get any assault rifle which is anywhere close to being as good as an SMG or Pistol of comparable quality.

I was looking through his top builds, and most of them seem to use assault rifles. Not because they really had to force themselves just to use them, but because the skills they got essentially negated most or all the issues assault rifles have compared to other weapons. Skills that you're going to want to get regardless, such as skills utilizing reload speed and recoil reduction, just so happen to have the side effect of also making assault rifles much better.

That's what it's seemed to me anyways, from watching Axton builds.

Axton has exactly one AR skill, and it's rubbish (increases magazine size).

The only advantage Axton has over other classes is a class mod that boosts AR damage. Nice, but hardly meaning you have to tailor your build for ARs.

Along with the things you listed, ARs benefits massively from rate of fire skills, of which Axton has a few. Metal Storm in particular is a great skill. But all those skills work just as fine with an SMG than with an AR. The one thing Axton does head-and-shoulder better than other characters is boosting grenade damage, and some ARs are classified as doing grenade damage: the Hail, Torgue ARs (including spiniguns and the legendary versions), ETech I believe, and a few more.

Don't get me wrong, I love my AR Axton, but objectively he doesn't do ARs that much better than other classes, except if you use a gun that benefits from grenade damage as well.

[CrescentMouse]

Messaggio originale di Atermi:

You do realise that AR is an extra ammo pool right? If your main gun is SMG, it will run out of ammo soon, that's where you get your AR. Shotguns are mainly for the same thing but in close range.
ARs are better in the beginning of the game, and shotguns are better in the endgame where they deliver unholy damage to crystalices, ants and other guys.

sadly i don't think this is very true. my SMG rarely runs out of ammo, neither does my shotgun. ARs however take so many dang bullets to kill things it runs out of ammo frequently. however i do agree with ARs being good at the start