Are Cutting Edge weapons are trash?

[12InchParadise]

I'm trying to figure out if Cutting Edge weapons are all trash?
I've collected all of them and feel that I've wasted my super credits.
Am i missing something?

[Xaelon]

The Sickle and the stun grenade are 100% worth grabbing.

The sickle is an AR with unlimited ammo that never needs to reload if you're a little careful. Carry something to deal with armored stuff and the sickle will deal with everything else. It's a very comfy gun to use because you'll almost never run out of heatsinks.

The stun grenade can be a life saver. Get ambushed by a big patrol? Stun 'em and gun 'em down. Hulk or charger breathing down your neck? Stun 'em and get some distance. You trade the ability to blow up fabs to better be able to deal with heavies and swarms of enemies. VERY handy.

I tried the arc shotgun and that thing is currently a huge letdown. The range is SUPER short and it definitely doesn't have the stopping power to make up for it.

It went back on the shelf when I tried to kill a hunter at point blank range and it took two shots.

I dunno about the plasma shotgun or the laser pistol. I haven't used either of those very much yet.

[KellyR]

Sickle is amazing if you aren't expecting it to do everything on its own.

Plasma "Shotgun" is OK, is quite good at a lot of niche uses, but nearly requires you bring something like a Stalwart or Laser Cannon as your Support Weapon.

That said... If it was heat based instead of ammo based I'd immediately call it god tier and build an altar to sacrifice babies to it.

[Cryptic]

Dagger is somewhat decent and sickle is good but the shotguns suck and the stun grenade are useless despite what others say. Why would I stun the enemies when I can simply frag them?

[Valkynaz]

Originally posted by Cryptic:

Dagger is somewhat decent and sickle is good but the shotguns suck and the stun grenade are useless despite what others say. Why would I stun the enemies when I can simply frag them?

Considering the frag will fail to kill anything that's an actual threat? You can stun everything but a tank and maybe the Bile Titan? Being able to stun Berserkers who are on your ass, or a flamer hulk to keep it still to let someone dome the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ is 100% worth it, arguable if it would be worth solo however, but if there are 2 people at least one person can use them comfortably, and they can certainly come in clutch more then any other grenade (Especially the Frag one, but I assume you're talking about HE/Impact)

Main advantage however is having 4 small stuns on tap vs the EMS Orbital's short (70s?) CD, it's just more flexible though the EMS Orbital also has a good role, especially for bugs

[Meerkats]

Sickle is way overpowered. Far outclasses the Liberator. More deeps, no recoil, double the damage per mag. Needs a nerf because it's essentially the Stalwart ( thereby completely obsolescing the Stalwart ) with negligible spin-up time, but better handling and is a primary so you can still equip a railgun, autocannon, Quasar, etc.

Blitzer is clunky but requires no effort to rack up kills. Can't seem to get it to reliably multi-hit, but when it's not multi-hitting, it reliably one-shots hunters. If you have decent aim, other primaries are more flexible. If you have not decent aim or are drunk or something, then the Blitzer is good.

[Valkynaz]

Originally posted by Meerkats:

Sickle is way overpowered. Far outclasses the Liberator. Needs a nerf because it's essentially the Stalwart with negligible spin-up time, but better handling and is a primary so you can still equip a railgun, autocannon, Quasar, etc.

No it doesn't, it has plenty of draw backs, it can't shoot through brush that every other projectile weapons can, the spool up time can make it tricky to use when ambushed and having poor reaction times, and makes firing short bursts slow, the shot bloom is marginally worse then the Liberator and Defender, and while it has infinite ammo, during massive hordes you'll often find yourself having to willingly expend heat sinks to prevent being overrun and how generally easy it is the restock ammo, not even sure if infinite ammo is all that great being honest, there's also the fact that hot planets tank your total shot economy while amping up your DPS to a worse degree then the other non-energy weapons.

So no, it really doesn't need to be nerfed, is it better in an environment that's perfect for it? Yes, but in an environment that's not perfect for it (Planets with a lot of brush, Hot planets because the gun doesn't need the extra DPS, ect) then the Liberator is more reliable then the Sickle.

[Meerkats]

Originally posted by Valkynaz:

No it doesn't, it has plenty of draw backs.

So no, it really doesn't need to be nerfed, is it better in an environment that's perfect for it? Yes, but in an environment that's not perfect for it (Planets with a lot of brush, Hot planets because the gun doesn't need the extra DPS, ect) then the Liberator is more reliable then the Sickle.

Yeah, plenty of negligible drawbacks. Spin-up time is negligible. Don't fight in brush. Not sure why you'd want to fight at disadvantage anyway.

Iirc, Sickle comes w/ one less heatsink than Liberator mags. And you get 5,000+ damage per heatsink compared to < 2,500 damage per mag. And you get seven heatsinks. So expend the heatsink, who cares. You're still getting two liberator mags out of one heatsink.

The biggest problem w/ the Sickle is that it essentially is 80% of the way to a support weapon ( Stalwart ), simultaneously obsolescing said support weapon and powercreeping the game. I regularly solo wipe hunter patrols w/o expending a heatsink cause the Sickle is that busted.

[Valkynaz]

Originally posted by Meerkats:

Originally posted by Valkynaz:

Yeah, plenty of negligible drawbacks. Spin-up time is negligible. Avoid brush. Not sure why you'd want to fight at disadvantage anyway.

Iirc, Sickle comes w/ one less heatsink than Liberator mags. And you get 5,000+ damage per heatsink compared to < 2,500 damage per mag. So expend the heatsink, who cares. You're still getting two liberator mags out of one heatsink.

The biggest problem w/ the Sickle is that it essentially is 80% of the way to a support weapon ( Stalwart ), simultaneously obsolescing said support weapon while significantly powercreeping the game. I regularly solo wipe hunter patrols w/o expending a heatsink cause the Sickle is that busted.

The Brush is 100% not always avoidable, forest/Jungle planets are the worse offenders but almost any planet can spawn with irritating brush to screw you over.

And no, the Stalwart has the potential of having MASSIVELY higher DPS then the Sickel can, we don't know the damage per shot (But it appears to hit similar breakpoints to the Liberator and Sickle) but it can have nearly double the RoF, plus what was it, 250 or 300 rounds per mag, compared to the Sickles 80-90, calling the Sickle better then the Stalwart is disingenuous at best.

[GrinningRabbit]

Originally posted by 12InchParadise:

I'm trying to figure out if Cutting Edge weapons are all trash?
I've collected all of them and feel that I've wasted my super credits.
Am i missing something?

honestly id say the sickle and the stun nades make it well worth it. oh and the support buff

[BaconX]

Sickle is pretty good.

Stun grenade is worth the price of admission alone.

[黒人]

Plasma slugger is good with stalwart. You can deal with both the chaff and medium armor.

[Meerkats]

Originally posted by Valkynaz:

And no, the Stalwart has the potential of having MASSIVELY higher DPS then the Sickel can, we don't know the damage per shot (But it appears to hit similar breakpoints to the Liberator and Sickle) but it can have nearly double the RoF, plus what was it, 250 or 300 rounds per mag, compared to the Sickles 80-90, calling the Sickle better then the Stalwart is disingenuous at best.

You make it out as if you regularly lose 30 rounds per mag to brush. You aren't. Reposition and resume shooting. You're massively overstating the issue.

You use the word "potential," while glazing the Stalwart and not listing any of the reasons why nobody uses the Stalwart.

First, the Stalwart is a support weapon. When you take the Stalwart, you can't take anti-medium, anti-heavy support weapons. The Sickle is most of the way to a Stalwart but as a primary weapon. You even get seven heatsinks worth ~700 rds. compared to the Stalwart's three mags worth 750 rds. That's nuts. The Stalwart already is barely used... this just buries the poor thing.

Second, the Stalwart, being a support weapon, handles like a pig. Any time spent slowly panning between targets not shooting means you are outputting zero DPS. And time those pesky hunters are getting closer to carving your buttocks like Christmas ham. The Sickle does not have that problem.

But hey, you explain to me why the SIckle has like 70% pickrate compared to the Stalwart's 0% pickrate. Put it this way. If the Sickle were a support weapon while keeping primary weapon handling, and I had to pick between the Stalwart and the Sickle, I would still pick the Sickle. The primary weapon handling characteristic makes that big of a difference.

Look, I get it. You're going to defend overpowered kit because you don't want it to get nerfed because that would nerf your effectiveness. It's a story as old as time. I remember these same discussions in the first months of WoW. But powercreep isn't good for the game so let's try to keep it reigned in.

[Valkynaz]

Originally posted by Meerkats:

Originally posted by Valkynaz:

First of all, you're not losing most of your shots to the brush you are correct, but you can lose really important shots (Like killing a Commissar before launching their flare, preventing a bug breach, stopping a Rocket unit from killing an ally) when there's suddenly some brush in the way that doesn't even have a good hitbox, it can happen, some maps it can happen a lot.

Yes, the Stalwart is a support weapon, congratulations for noticing, the Stalwart is not sluggish to aim, slower then the Liberator for sure but it's not as bad as the normal MG and 100% nowhere near as bad as a lot of other weapons.

And as a Support weapon it compliments your loadout, there are multiple weapons that can deal with medium enemies (Liberator Penetrator, Plasma Punisher, Slugger, ect) so you take one of them, and what's pretty much all of those weapons weakness? Light enemy spam, and what's the best support weapon for dealing with said enemies? The Stalwart.

Just like the MG-43, the Stalwart is horribly underrated, and BS comments like this only make that worse, the weapon 100% has a use, it's a team coop game not everyone needs to be able to deal with heavy enemies, having a teammate to deal with medium and/or even just specifically light enemies can make life so much easier on everyone else.

And finally, I'm defending it because it's not OP, I don't even use it that much anymore since I honestly prefer the Liberator and Defenders precision (Something I see you just completely ignored, the Stalwart also feels like it has better precision then the Sickle, even if it has more recoil) or the stopping power of the Punisher, Slugger, Breaker, or Breaker SnP.

I'll take the Sickle every now and then for a change, like I'll unironically take the Scythe out to Bot missions every now and then (Granted, very rarely).

Also, total ammo counts are pretty much a meme, outside of a few weapons who have horrible ammo economies, as long as you don't go mag dumping enemies for no reason you'll rarely if ever run out of ammo, the important part (Especially for horde clear weapons) is their mag size... the Stalwarts 250 vs the Sickles 80-90, also if we're going to be specific the Sickle has 530 + 90 vs the Stalwarts 750 + 250 (Since you have the spare mags + the one you drop with)

And finally, why is everyone taking it? Well everyone WAS taking it before people started to feel it's balancing features, then some dropped it for other weapons again, while others still preferred it over others, some may even be ignorant of the potential issues (Not noticing shots being absorbed by plants, being less precise then some of the other auto primaries, ect) because they don't pay full attention.

But of course, people who don't pay attention to all of a weapons attributes will call for nerfs constantly, ignore that the previous nerfs we had were:
-The Railgun, which despite the safe-mode nerf being needed, let's not fool ourselves into thinking it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to a crossplay glitch weakening the Bile Titans.
-The Shield Backpack, which everyone used because our armour didn't function properly making us more squishy then we were supposed to be, but then people complained about it and it got nerfed as well.
-The Breaker, which people liked because it was fun (But let's face it, not as effective as the meta slaves made it out to be) so it also had to receive a nerf for no reason.

The developers have already proven that they're willing to knee-jerk nerf things (Wouldn't be surprised if the Sickle and Quasar being nerfed, even if they don't need it) so can you really blame anyone wanting to give reasons why it shouldn't be nerfed? It's main advantage over the Liberator is the double sized magazine, 10% higher DPS through the 10% higher RoF but also costs you precision past 25-40m (Compared to the Liberator and Defender), Brush becomes a potential issue, has a spool-up time making burst firing to keep said precision under control slow, and will have inconsistent performance due to the weather.

[Nobody]

Sickle is great, stuns too, the rest are trash.

[Meowser has not]

the plasma shotgun AOE can kill the pilot of the walkers, pretty neat