Do the chemical weapons suck?

[Danoid]

Or am i just using them wrong? Like i definitely get kills but it seems like its very slow. The chem thrower strategem weapon takes like a whole mag just to kill anything bigger than the smallest enemies. The gas bomb eagle strike is cool but it mostly just slows a few guys down so you can shoot them with other guns. Im not sure ive killed a single enemy with the gas grenade.

I was thinking it could be because i play a lot at 9 and 10 difficulty and maybe the enemies are just more resistant but its like even if these weapons do some work, there are tons of other weapons id use over these. Weapons with more range, faster TTK, more ammo, more versatile on different enemy types. It just seems like maybe theres a single time and place where the gas weapons work and i dont know where that is.

[EotB]

They actually don't if you've got a great team with you. See, this warbond offers you a possibility to be a full support unit. But unless you've got a great team on your back, this warbond is bad

[Danoid]

Originally posted by EotB:

They actually don't if you've got a great team with you. See, this warbond offers you a possibility to be a fully support unit. But unless you've got a great team on your back, this warbond is bad

This does make sense as its seems the gas works much better as a slowing/weakening weapon than a killing one.

[full stamina gaming]

Chemical weapons are for CC primarily, the damage is just a bonus.

Gas orbital strike is a great all-around stratagem for chaff and mediums. It can soften them up while you or teammates finish them off, it can keep them confused for a decent bit while you gun them down or run away, it lingers so it offers some area denial and can tag enemies you didn't directly hit at first. If you catch a big enemy in it, it'll peel the smaller ones away as the big one will continue chasing while the rest won't. It works well on its own or as a combo with other stratagems. If alone it allows you to escape, if in a group it makes killing mobs much easier, and it always buys you a bit of time, like when you're waiting for extracts or terminals or raising flags. Since it's not too damaging to teammates, you can even play risky with them, like dropping them on reinforcements or closer to objectives than you would an explosive orbital barrage for example. Hugely versatile and with a short cooldown, I take it on every mission. 9/10 stinky, would huff again.

Chem thrower is similar to flamethrower only it trades direct damage for CC. You don't use it to focus fire enemies until they die, you spray entire groups to keep them confused and slowed, ideally while your teammates deal with them. It doesn't leave lingering flames so it's much safer.

Gas orbital strike is great against bugs and good against robots, but the chem thrower often struggles against robots due to its range. I'm not a fan of gas grenades in general. If you wear the gas resistant armor you can mostly safely throw them at your feet to escape bugs when you get overwhelmed, but that's a gimmick at best. You can use them to help thin out crowds I guess

[darkblade]

dont use chem weapons as damage weapons, what they is is confuse the enemy, means if you hit a bot with gas, he will shoot in a random direction, if you gas a chager he charges in a random direction

the dot damage is weak, but it still does damage.

gas is now like EMS, they can still move but they will get damage and wont attack you

[Botji]

Other than the gas grenade and orbital gas you do not want to use any of them and even the gas grenade that is honestly great is a tough sell considering how absurdly good thermite is atm.

Gas thrower needs slightly more range + lingering gas cloud to be actually useful, as it is now having to be so close to enemies and constantly apply more gas on them for it to do anything is simply too risky, a randomly flailing Warrior or Commander is almost as deadly as a non-randomly flailing bug when you are so close to them.

Its not even that good as a crowd control weapon since again, no lingering cloud so you are only really spraying the front line with the ones behind being unaffected and anything affected quickly loses the debuff if you do not spray them again.


They are good in concept but needs that lingering cloud, another solution would be that gas does not "hit" enemies and passes through so if you spray into a crowd everything within reach gets gassed.

Until then gas grenades and orbital gas is good, because they leave a lingering cloud that lets you do other stuff while enemies are occupied with that.

[Dylan The Villain]

Gas grenades+Sterilizer+Dog Breath Rover+Gas Strike+Torcher primary.

I am gassing everything around me and then burning them all with the Torcher and that deletes all but Behemoths and bigger.

[Frost Spectre]

Dog Breath is rather nice with Flamer, support or primary, but primarily against bugs. The dog is able to go after enemies on it's own, then returning.

And the Gas Grenades are great starter against enemy reinforcements, bots and bugs. Bugs is easier as you have a spot where all the bugs come out of, bots abit harder as dropships don't always clump up.

[Tahla]

Sterilizer damage is way too low and has no lingering effect on the field, it confuses enemies for about 5 - 6 seconds on direct hit but because you're so close to them (bugs) they're likely to already queue an attack and hit you.

Gas grenade and gas orbital are OK but enemies tend to wander outside of it, resulting in the confusion and dot to wear off early, a gas grenade can somewhat lock down enemies for up to 15 seconds (9 second cloud duration + until the dot runs out), up to about 20 seconds for the orbital. If you take the heavy gas resist armor with vitality booster you receive no damage from gas, standing in the middle of your gas clouds can be pretty fun but overall it's a worse stun grenade (enemies don't stand still for lining up your shots) that does a little extra damage.

[pyrophile]

Don't rely on the gas effect alone. Best used to control crowds while you pick off remaining targets with other forms of damage.

Dog Breath will focus on one enemy, same as the others, although it has some overspray. Sucks when it chases after a melee bug when you need it to distract a spewer. Would be interesting if you could designate targets with the Backpack button (5 on PC).

Sterilizer would benefit from a range increase, coming out as a stream and misting only after hitting a surface. At its current range, you're usually better off using firearms.

Gas strike is useful as a backup fabricator/hole destroyer. Good clear potential for light/medium enemies. Gas may be difficult to see on certain planets or lighting conditions.

[Nitro Toxico]

The gas will confuse and damage enemies when they get hit by it. Makes it usefull in mostly to keep them at bay when they are in crowds.

People tends to not use them much because they dont kill things fast enough.
Its like fire but with confusion.

[Drakmoor]

Originally posted by pyrophile:

Would be interesting if you could designate targets with the Backpack button (5 on PC).

I'd love to be able to set a target priority list for the Rovers.

[Roy]

Chem thrower is NOT for killing things, also it has 2~3 times the range of a flamer (try shooting targets that seem way too far, it'll hit them).
Whip it out and tap-fire it at a fairly aafe range to keep bugs wandering around like Biden.

I had a guy on my team use it and he singlehandedly gave me the oppurtunity to reload my recoilless 3 times in a row during a D10 chaos bug breach with 4 titans.
I was able to head-tap all 4 titans and this was 100% because of my teammate, because i was able to carefully aim and reload.
When used right it is extremely useful, just arguably less fun than shooting, stabbing, burning and blowing up your target though.

[MagikarpMagi]

I've been combining the gas support weapon with the laser dog to great effect. CC, and double DOT, while your team is safe from an entire swarm of bugs. It's pretty cool. I'm getting killstreaks of 50+ somewhat consistently on diffs 6/7.
Even chargers stumble around until they're burned/poisoned to death.

Just make sure to use it in bursts. It doesn't really help to just keep hosing down the same targets, better to pull out your primary and alternate.

[jrf773]

The fart grenades are awesome. The fart sprayers, not so much. Interesting concept, but since it takes up a strat slot that can be used for a weapon that kills things dead a lot quicker than the fartsprayers, it is a wash. If they left a fart cloud like the grenade does, then they might be useful, but other than that, nah they kinda suck.

[Chaos]

Grenade is pretty great.
Anything else? not so much.

Like people were expecting Toxin gun from HD 1 but instead we got... this?