Anti-Material Rifle? How viable on 4+ difficulty?

[Artimise Flare]

I've not tried playing beyond medium difficulty just yet, and I really enjoy the AM rifle, however, I am curious how it fairs on harder content?

As far as I can tell, it looks like the saturation of enemies, it may be better to ditch the AM rifle in favor of something like the SPEAR or rail gun.

[Zodiac]

If you can land your shots it's rock solid all the way up against the automatons. The only thing you can't kill in 1-2 shots by shooting in the face is the Tanks and Turrets. It's just highly skill demanding to shoot their small faces. Hard pass against the bugs though, you're practically mandated the railgun to deal with their heavy armor units or the Autocannon if someone else is going to railgun the armor off for you.

[Zheppon]

honestly the fact you need to scope that thing is kinda already a minus but I will say if you fight automaton, AMR still viable againts bugs ? you gonna get swarmed quickly you not gonna get time to scope that thing

[Jebus]

Its rare i see it used.
Compared to the alternatives, in the heat of the moment and when you're surrounded by large waves of enemies, its just frankly unreliable.
You're gonna be relying on your primary in situations where any other support gun would be beneficial.
Kudos if you hit the armored targets in their eye socket everytime, but uh, my autocannon does it better, faster and has AOE.

They need to do something more with it.
Penetration to hit collaterals maybe?
A better scope to work on LONG range so you can support from safety?
Idk.

[Artimise Flare]

Originally posted by Zteckzilla:

honestly the fact you need to scope that thing is kinda already a minus but I will say if you fight automaton, AMR still viable againts bugs ? you gonna get swarmed quickly you not gonna get time to scope that thing

I play exclusively ADS for the most part, so that doesn't really bother me, usually pairing it with the machine pistol.

[Artimise Flare]

Originally posted by Jebus™:

Its rare i see it used.
Compared to the alternatives, in the heat of the moment and when you're surrounded by large waves of enemies, its just frankly unreliable.
You're gonna be relying on your primary in situations where any other support gun would be beneficial.
Kudos if you hit the armored targets in their eye socket everytime, but uh, my autocannon does it better, faster and has AOE.

They need to do something more with it.
Penetration to hit collaterals maybe?
A better scope to work on LONG range so you can support from safety?
Idk.

Maybe make it Medium armor pen instead of light? That would make it viable against more enemies I think. As for long range, you can adjust the zoom out to 200m which seems to work out fine on open maps perhaps?

[Botji]

Originally posted by Zodiac:

If you can land your shots it's rock solid all the way up against the automatons. The only thing you can't kill in 1-2 shots by shooting in the face is the Tanks and Turrets. It's just highly skill demanding to shoot their small faces. Hard pass against the bugs though, you're practically mandated the railgun to deal with their heavy armor units or the Autocannon if someone else is going to railgun the armor off for you.

Idk about that advice for machines, it does not even penetrate the walker enemies and they are not exactly rare but will still force you to use explosives, flank around or have a height advantage to hit the 'driver' which any non-AT weapon can do.

The starter LMG call-in has quite amazing first person accuracy as long as you dont go wild with it, has a much better "scope" than the AMR, clear view of what you are aiming at and unlike the AMR that seems to not even be lined up correctly(bullet hits slightly to the upper left of the aim?) the LMG will hit what you put the dot on.. and if you click heads/faces with it its basically a AMR with half the damage or something but 50x more bullets.. and a full auto mode if anything gets too close.


TL;DR the AMR will not let you penetrate any armor on a robot enemy that your trusty Breaker shotgun, assault rifle, SMG, LMG or marksman rifle wont already shred on their own.

[Jebus]

Originally posted by Artimise Flare:

Originally posted by Jebus™:

Its rare i see it used.
Compared to the alternatives, in the heat of the moment and when you're surrounded by large waves of enemies, its just frankly unreliable.
You're gonna be relying on your primary in situations where any other support gun would be beneficial.
Kudos if you hit the armored targets in their eye socket everytime, but uh, my autocannon does it better, faster and has AOE.

They need to do something more with it.
Penetration to hit collaterals maybe?
A better scope to work on LONG range so you can support from safety?
Idk.

Maybe make it Medium armor pen instead of light? That would make it viable against more enemies I think. As for long range, you can adjust the zoom out to 200m which seems to work out fine on open maps perhaps?

Im not opposed, but they'd have to make it bolt action or it'd be OP.

[Jebus]

Trying a mission with it now and honestly the more i use it the more im convinced its just a weaker autocannon with a slightly better scope.

[suejak]

First of all, something people might not know is you can adjust the scope distance by holding R. There's a really long scope on it that enables you to be accurate from really far away.

However, it's very much a skill-based weapon and you can only change scope magnitudes by holding R, which is clunky and difficult.

I think it's totally a skill issue thing. There are multiple ways to approach these missions and it's entirely possible to snipe bases from far away. It has unique utility so in that sense it's not competing against mid-close range weapons, which serve a different purpose for a different playstyle.

The autocannon and rail gun are both great! But they don't have the same viability at long range against these tiny weak spots. Again, these are fantastic anti-automaton weapons, but you don't have to play mid-close range against automatons like that. Long-mid range stealth and sniping -- using the jetpack to go up to high ground and shoot from there -- are also viable styles.

So it comes down to personal style and skill.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Jebus™:

Originally posted by Artimise Flare:

Maybe make it Medium armor pen instead of light? That would make it viable against more enemies I think. As for long range, you can adjust the zoom out to 200m which seems to work out fine on open maps perhaps?

Im not opposed, but they'd have to make it bolt action or it'd be OP.

Why do so many people seem terrified of actually fixing underperforming things?

"Why yes, I agree it sucks... what? Improve it? But we would have to nerf it to make sure it still sucks or it would improve!"

Originally posted by Jebus™:

Trying a mission with it now and honestly the more i use it the more im convinced its just a weaker autocannon with a slightly better scope.

My used to be a joke. but proven too often correct view is the """benefit""" is... you can't accidentally kill yourself with it. Therefore, it must be kinda ♥♥♥♥ compared to "Allowed to combo kill walkers but also yourself if an enemy no-clips through a wall to jump in front of the barrel"

See also: The same people crying the railgun is overpowered, are usually the same people who get screaming mad "You forgot to set it to literally kill yourself with one mistake mode, idiot!" when people ask why seems shockingly weak when they shoot it.

On a lighter note. Unlike most underperforming sniper rifles in games full of explosions and orbital strikes people still try to blame "Skill issues" for the real problems?

You can actually no-crosshair allowed hipfire kill things in front of you, instead of it magically sending the bullet off in a 75 degree angle or banning you from firing at all unscoped like most games.

I mean, damned with faint praise. But still something better than usual!

[Gergin]

Originally posted by Botji:

TL;DR the AMR will not let you penetrate any armor on a robot enemy that your trusty Breaker shotgun, assault rifle, SMG, LMG or marksman rifle wont already shred on their own.

This is blatantly false. The AMR has Medium Armor Penetration while those other weapons are Light Armor Penetration.

With good accuracy, the AMR can serve with distinction against the Automatons. 2 Headshots will kill a hulk and if you can flank a tank and magdump its glowing part, you can kill them faster than just about anything else available.

With no backpack required for ammunition, it is more versatile but requires more precision than the Autocannon.

[Lithuex]

Obselete once you get autocannon

[Tamaster]

I used it several times on difficulty 7 vs. robots but it becomes useless once you get Railgun. Because railgun is the apex one size fits all solution to all problems in this game.

About anti material rifle:

It's very good to snipe heavy robots in the head as it mostly 1-shots them except for Hulk which bounces instead. Also good to snipe anti air cannons as it can actually destroy them without hitting weakspot. Enough shots may also destroy the spore fungus on bug worlds even from 200+ metres.

Until you have railgun it's a viable option as it also does not require a backpack slot which you can use for something else, as Jetpack for instance, so you can get high positioning and become a sniper instantly.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Tamaster:

I used it several times on difficulty 7 vs. robots but it becomes useless once you get Railgun. Because railgun is the apex one size fits all solution to all problems in this game.

About anti material rifle:

It's very good to snipe heavy robots in the head as it mostly 1-shots them except for Hulk which bounces instead. Also good to snipe anti air cannons as it can actually destroy them without hitting weakspot.

Until you have railgun it's a viable option as it also does not require a backpack slot which you can use for something else, as Jetpack for instance, so you can get high positioning and become a sniper instantly.

Yeah this is why people don't like it even if they can aim. It is an anti material rifle, banned from putting a hole through armor even when you aim when it would matter

People pick it up because people shout at them "Excuse me, it works great if you aim at weakpoints you idiot!" then throw it away when it turns out they were basically lied to once it starts bouncing off too many things.

I expect more people would be using it more often if they were more honest about it being more flawed than good, instead of the usual suspect crying "skill issues" one second, then whining "Yeah well you deserve to be useless if you didn't bring an MMO grind high level gun instead!" the next. (then even more backwalking to calling that next weapon overpowered).

[Billy]

Originally posted by Zodiac:

If you can land your shots it's rock solid all the way up against the automatons. The only thing you can't kill in 1-2 shots by shooting in the face is the Tanks and Turrets. It's just highly skill demanding to shoot their small faces. Hard pass against the bugs though, you're practically mandated the railgun to deal with their heavy armor units or the Autocannon if someone else is going to railgun the armor off for you.

I found if you bring impact grenades you can take down the cannons and tanks in 2-3 hits. It's not a huge boon but if you're in the middle of a frantic firefight but it makes a huge difference. The only thing you're really sacrificing is busting the outposts easily.